Icarus Week 174 Update | New ‘opt-in’ mechanics and tools for seed harvesting

This week, we’re introducing a big change to how seeds are collected for farming. This includes four new items and a new ‘opt-in’ mechanic for harvesting seeds.

We’ve also got an update on our internal playtesting of the upcoming Great Hunts expansion.

Notable Improvements:

• Allowing more items to be placed on other deployables, including the tackle box, many vases and the workshop cooker and heater
  
• Reduced Fire Capsule size on MXC Campfire so that you can no longer catch on fire by simply standing next to it
  
• Added camera shake to horse mount kick montage for added zest
  
• Changed fluid ammo weapons to have a progress bar display rather than shot numbers

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This Week: Seed Collection Changes
Since the introduction of seeds, one common piece of feedback we've received is that collecting crops in the wild often clogs up players' inventories. While these crops can be useful, many feel that the game provides an excessive amount that isn't necessary unless they actively participate in cooking and farming activities. The introduction of the Seed Pouch aimed to address this but was more of a ‘bandaid’ fix rather than anything permanent.

We decided to tackle this problem by making seed collection an ‘opt-in’ mechanic. That is, when farming or collecting wild crops, you will no longer automatically collect seeds, resulting in less inventory clutter.

To get seeds, you will now need to follow one of the methods below:

T1 - The Seed Extractor

• This device automatically turns crops into seeds when you place them inside. It takes about a minute to generate one seed, which can then be planted in crop plots or dirt mounds like normal.

T2 - Progenitive Fertilizer

• This fertilizer will enable seeds to be collected when harvesting from dirt mounds or crop plots.

T3 - Sickles Threshing Attachment

• At T3, we have added a sickle attachment that will allow sickles to collect seeds from wild plants or crop plots, as you currently do.

Workshop - The Reaper Sickle

• We have also added a workshop sickle called ‘The Reaper’, which acts just like the threshing attachment mentioned above with some added bonuses for seed yield.

In addition, we have added 2 new talents to the ‘Cooking / Farming’ player talent tree, which increases seed yield when harvesting in one of the ways mentioned above.

Seed Master

• Increases the Yield of Harvesting Seeds from Wild or Farmed Crops

Prolific Crop

• Increases the number of Seeds that Farmed Crops can produce

This has wider effects as well, especially in the early game, with the collection of seeds for recipes and the creation of vegetable oil. Both of these recipes may become more relevant outside of cooking in the future.

Originally posted by author: What is next for farming? And why not just drop the concept of seeds entirely and go back to how the game was at launch?

On one hand, seeds provide a nice way to pace and balance farming, something that wasn’t present in the game on release. On the other hand, an issue we are aware of is the abundance of food in Icarus. People don’t really struggle to keep their food meter full, as it is very easy to find, grow and cook decent meals, which really goes against the survival nature of the game.

We feel this patch moves the game in the the right direction, as it will help players now make more meaningful choices when it comes to finding and growing their own crops for food rather than every crop being easily accessible on planet.

In addition, a feature we would really like to add in future is the ability to genetically modify your crops, and even carry inherited 'traits' from one generation of plants to the next. This would open up the posibility of providing buffs to crops when they are used in food, manipulation to be able to grow crops outside their natural biomes or even allowing cross-pollination or the creation of entirely new plants.

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Coming Soon: Great Hunts
While playing through some of the Great Hunt Campaigns internally, we have decided to invest more time into raising these to a higher standard in line with our vision for the Expansion.

To give everyone context, there are over 40 new missions across three campaigns in this new expansion. We’ve designed this to be engaging and immersive, so our efforts are to keep refining these with this in mind. We want to make sure we get this right and deliver a quality that we can be proud of.

This may mean delaying the Expansion a bit as we continue to work and iterate, something we’ve done before, such as on ‘Null Sector’ when we deemed it needed more polish.

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Next Week: Envirosuit QoL
Next week, we’re making some changes to allow envirosuits to be swapped out on the planet without leaving the prospect.

More details to come.

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Your support makes these updates possible.
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

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Changelog v2.2.49.135257
New Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Added Threshing alteration icon and attachment icon and added to Itemable and Alteration Datatables
  
• Adding Workshop Inaris 'Reaper' Sickle which allows for seed collection when harvesting and increases seed yield from harvesting
  
• Lowered the Cost of the Larkwell Martinez Sickle as it was massively overpriced
  
• Enabling Seed Extractor, Sickle Attachment for Collecting Seeds & Seed Fertilizer
  
• Enable Talents for collecting Additional seeds
  
• Adjusting all D_ItemRewards for Crops / Wild Plants / Sickle Rewards so that Seeds Require a stat to drop, adjust seed drop chance to 100%
  
• Adjusting Crop / Wild Plant / Sickle Harvesting so they all run through the same function and use the same scaling
  
• Added More Seeds and Progenetive Fertilizer Modifier Icon, Added Seed Fertilizer Itemable icon, Added Prolific Crop and Seed Master Talent Icons
  
• Added art assets for the T1 Seed Extractor Device
  
• Adding Count to the Recipe Element Images so that on Auto Processors (like the campfire or seed extractor) can view numbers of inputs
  
• Fixing Preview Mesh on Seed Extractor
  
• Fixing T1 Blueprint Layout of Seed Extractor
  
• Adding Seed Extractor Icon
  
• Added seed extractor particles and hooked up animation
  
• Split seed extractor mesh into seperate SK and SM for moving and non moving parts
  
• Updated seed extractor meshs, updated seed extractor BP and deployable setup DT with the new meshs
  
• Adding seed extractor loop for animation and extracted seed audio and data table setups
  
• Added revised proegenitive fertiliser modifier icon
  
• Seed Outputs and Crafting Outputs now display the proper seed item image

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Fixed [expand type=details expanded=false]

• FireArms now actually care about the Fire Shake Scale param. Set all entries and Default value to 1.0x so no behavior changes yet
  
• Fixed inverted normals on BLD_BeamDiagonal_Brick_SHA and BLD_Wall_Door_DBL_Brick_R_SHA
  
• Fixed translation of BLD_Wall_Door_DBL_Brick_L_SHA to align properly with the main mesh
  
• Fixed a typo and updated bestiary text for icy mammoth
  
• Fixed DMs for DCO_Dresser_MetalGlass and DCO_Wardrobe_MetalGlass
  
• Update LOD and collision on Biofuel Composter
  
• Cave lights now turn off at 7pm instead of 9pm
  
• Update LODs on Interior Wood crates
  
• Increase weight of White/Soft meat from 50g to 200g each, bringing them closer in line with the other meat weights
  
• Disable collision on Carpentry Bench proxies causing highlight/interact issues
  
• Fixed normal map and mesh vertex normals for DEP_Bench_Masonry_T3
  
• Disable DF shadows on campfire meat proxy, blocking the main light
  
• Add DoorBase to blacklisted actors for Deployable placement, preventing floating deployables when doors are opened/closed
  
• Optimized Gfur settings on all Trophies and standardized LOD settings. Add tooling for finding incorrect settings
  
• Decrease drop chance for Coconut Seeds from Palm Tree ItemRewards from 100% to 25% as this is rolled per-leaf, and Palm Trees have a lot of leaves, resulting in nearly 100 Seeds per tree unintendedly
  
• Allow more items to be placed on other deployables including the tackle box, many vases, homestead DLC items, and the workshop cooker and heater
  
• Decrease drop chance for Coconut seeds from Coco Palm trees significantly further
  
• Removed darkened bottom on Small Water Trough
  
• Update MXC Crate description to show how many slots it comes with (by default)
  
• Update Resource Network connection points on Electric Furnace
  
• Increased Windmill weight from 5kg to 20kg to better represent its size
  
• Make Binoculars overlay black instead of grey
  
• Add camera shake to horse mount kick montage for added zest
  
• Reduced Fire Capsule size on MXC Campfire so that you can no longer catch on fire by simply standing next to it

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Future Content [expand type=details expanded=false]

• Elysium - alien rock placement and decal painting in Tundra, green quad
  
• Added new UMG to the great hunts UI to better show off the outcomes of the great hunt
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Knitting Decor: Remove ColorTintMask param referencing white texture (no change with it disabled). Adjusted LOD screensizes to make swaps more subtle. Removed some unnecessary LODs
  
• Moved and replaced old achievements in source art folder
  
• Updated text for sewing machine bench
  
• Rimetusk Sledgehammer: Reduced hold time of repair upgrade
  
• Fixed shadow geo for BLD_Wall_Window_Brick
  
• Revised material and textures for crystals on rock golem trophy 1 and 3
  
• Tidying up the Achievements UI Art Folder and Image Imports to Unreal
  
• Updated DEP_Trophy_Golem_1,2 and 3 as well as DM's and updated in BPs
  
• Adding new Rig and animation for DEP_Bench_GreatHunt_Comms
  
• Disable shadow casting on Windmill blocker mesh. Setup Custom Highlightable. Remove DF on related meshes that don't need it so save memory
  
• Refactor Ice Mammoth Sledge Hammer behaviours to make repairing stat behaviour identical to the repair tool
  
• Replaced old Ape Attractor icon to new one
  
• Hammerhead slugs now have an icon attached to them
  
• Added border and title for outcomes box and did a bit of spacing and resizing for it
  
• Split Machining Bench into separate elements to help with DF shadows
  
• Hooked up Great Hunt Communicator animation
  
• Adjusted Great Hunt Crafting animation, finished the animation after crafting finishes, turn light on and off when crafting
  
• Add icons for Homestead Hanging Meats. Decrease durability to 100. Move BPs out of Trophies folder and into Decorations folder
  
• Setup proxy mesh function in BP_Deployable base, fixed bug and implemented proxy mesh function for some deployable benches
  
• Cliff and Landscape Pass in Swamp, Orange Quad, Elysium. (Godspeed Soldiers o7)
  
• Tweaks to new Machining Bench meshes LODs and collision. Add additional supporting invisible cubes for enhanced DF shadows
  
• Converting quests that where using old inventory functions to use the new ones
  
• Inventory Function Cleanup, new functions have been added in preperation for the tag based crafting implementation and other functions renamed and cleaned up, gameplay will not have changed at all. The Functions are now FindItemByX {Type / Query / Data} - Finds first item in the inventory that matches and returns its location, FindItemCountByX {Type / Query / Data} - Finds and returns the to total count of all items that match that query within the inventory, FindItemsByX {Type / Query} finds and returns references to all items & locations to all items in that inventory
  
• Updated PhysicsAsset and BP for DEP_GreatHunt_Comms
  
• Legendary Ice Mammoth SledgeHammer:
  
• Rename the repair stat for clarity
  
• Hide reload options as ranged slot can't be reloaded (pulls direct from inventory)
  
• Show no ammo available and play no ammo trigger click sound when tther is no ammo
  
• Show number of shots availalbe for the Legendary Slug Launcher (water fillable ammo)
  
• Ice mammoth arena - Removed passive cave bats spawning on the outskirts of map
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Replaced Great Hunt Device icons
  
• Ice Mammoth Arena - Removed collisions on objects mammoth needed to walk through. Widened waterfall enterances to prevent mammoth from sometimes getting temporarily stuck behind it
  
• Adding Base parent class for dead prospectors so that the audio behavior for the loop plays for all of them
  
• Genericize Fillable rows for Oxygen to prevent duplication
  
• Fix IM_D event triggering immediately
  
• Fix lighting and mesh LODs on Great Hunts device
  
• Elysium - rock placement, foliage, decal painting in Tundra, green+yellow quads
  
• Tweaks to alien rock materials, added tundra material variant for LC ledges
  
• Ice Arena - Regenerated paths to prevent mammoth getting stuck
  
• Fix Great Hunt Crafting Bench not requiring shelter
  
• Update legendary stat descriptions to better communicate upgrades
  
• Converting UI that where using old inventory functions to use the new ones
  
• Ice Mammoth - Increased the frost vfx on frost pillars to make standing in it more obvious.
  
• Reduced the amount of ice pillars.
  
• Reduced the max amount of birds while keeping the spawn rate the same.
  
• Removed collision on the ice spike on top of the waterfall to prevent collision with the boss
  
• Adding adjusted GL fog and sky colours layers for potential use to project
  
• Add Active FX for Forge
  
• Expose GFur Data to Blueprint for tooling purposes
  
• Elysium - rock placement, decal painting, polish pass in Tundra, green+yellow quads
  
• Add some stubs for procurement of Legendary Weapons in the FieldGuide
  
• Elysium - added unique biomes with temp naming to D_Biomes, updated heatmap to match
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Add ammo (biofuel) number display for the Flame Thrower and Legendary Flame Thrower
  
• Change UI alignment to stop the ammo numbers from bouncing around when they change rapidly (flamethrower)
  
• Elysium - cliff placement, decal painting, polish pass in Tundra, green+yellow quads
  
• Show fuel type for Legendary Flame Thrower on FieldGuide
  
• Adding all of Mos lines for DH. first pass editing. No events setup yet
  
• Ice mammoth - Mammoth now melee attacks the player if the first movement call fails to get it out of the waterfall
  
• Added the art assets for the flying tank creature to the project including animations
  
• Update LODs on Great Hunts Crafting bench
  
• Separated slug SMs from their tanks on the MED and SML slug trophies. Updated BPs and tweaked the glass shader to obsecure them more
  
• Updated DCO_Butter_Churn to new version and also added larger DEP_Butter_Churn_LRG with animation
  
• Increased cull distance for SML aspen trees from 10k min/12k max to 15k/20k
  
• Updated SHA meshes for BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Lower_Iron_L and BLD_Wall_HalfPitch_Lower_Iron_R to the correct ones. They are now the correct size
  
• Adding In World Widgets on Screens to show Boss information on the Great Hunt Communication Device
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Added other rows for legendary field guide pages
  
• Elysium - rock placement, decal painting, polish pass in Tundra, green+yellow quads
  
• Show which ammo is required for Legendary Ice Mammoth Sledgehammer and Legendary Slug Launcher on no ammo prompts
  
• Adding spacializers and updating BP to play audio of radios at owning players location instead of 2d
  
• Update LODs on Repair Bench. Add hidden geo to assist with DF shadows
  
• Flame Thrower statify biofuel consumption
  
• Legendary Flame Thrower now consumes statified biofuel for alt fire slottables
  
• Added material and textures for the flightless tank
  
• Increasing volume of background handler voice when hes muttering to himself to better cut through ambience
  
• Added DCO_Sign_Iron_A,B,C,D and DCO_Sign_Concrete_A,B,C,D and DCO_Sign_Brick_A,B,C,D and DCO_Sign_Composite_A,B,C,D
  
• Fixed spawn rate of rock golem juvi idle audio being set to high for testing purposes
  
• Fixed broken vertex normals on mesh, as well as filled in holes on bottom of frame pieces
  
• Adjusting Turret base so that targets can be adjusted in child BP's and additional stats can be granted in child BP's
  
• Adding new Enemy Turret Blueprint and configured to fire at players
  
• Adjusting IM_A mission structure to add a power tower, turrets, landmines
  
• Adjusting IM_A mission so that you now have to search for the base and a specific map marker will appear when you are nearby
  
• Adjusting IM_A mission by adding new quest markers to the Prometheus Map
  
• Adjusting IM_A mission adding new warning text for players as rushing straight in will get them killed
  
• Fix race condition (and BP pin) for respawn in instanced levels
  
• Added in missing juvi rock golem armor break audio. Also adding the aggro state vocalisation that was missing
  
• Add some attempts and comments on IM_D explosion reloading issues
  
• Adding last of GH crafting bench crafted audio
  
• Adjustments to GH crafting bench timing and also adding recipes for GH bench to have more appropriate crafted audio
  
• Adding Gh comm bench audio
  
• Adding audio for the great hunts communicator bench and also the crafting bench
  
• Ice mammoth - Lowered alpha on pillar vfx to increase visibility when many pillars fill the arena.
  
• Fixed a bug where bats would spawn past the cap.
  
• Increased the bat cap back to 60. Bats now spawn less when the armor is off the boss to make more of a calm period
  
• Elysium - cliff placement, decal painting, polish pass in Tundra, green+yellow quads
  
• Added BP_Firefly_FX as child of BP_WaterfallBase, changed inclusion layer settings on aspen trees, added FT for CaveIn_02
  
• Added Map Arrow Icon for Great Hunt Mission
  
• Fix animation loop on Great Hunt Crafting bench
  
• Reduced materials for DEP_CaveLight_Floor and DEP_CaveLight_Wall from 6 to 2, and added a V2 of each with better collision and scaled up 1.5x
  
• Edited the text for the GH benches and radio
  
• Great Ape: Fix players cannot be revived inside gas fungi cloud (collision channel of overlap sphere)
  
• Adjustment of IM_B so that the 3 locations can be visited in any order
  
• Adjustment of IM_B, Location Alpha now has an outpost with a dead researcher, with notes on creature experiments
  
• Adjustment of IM_B, Location Beta now has an empty corpse, all swamp creatures will drop digested enzymes which need to be collected
  
• Adjustment of IM_B, Location Gamma now has a mammoth corpse which Vespers have created a home in, you need to now kill the vespers and loot the corpse
  
• Cleanup of UMG_InteractableNote Display so it is larger
  
• BP_Nest parent class now has a function to inject extra loot if required
  
• Adding new Enzyme smoke particle effect
  
• Removing NavObstacles from Quest Sphere Triggers in IM_B
  
• Adding new Blue / Enzyme Effects for the Enzyme Infected Slug
  
• Added DCO_Sign_Stone_A, B and C
  
• added separate materials slot fior Emissive on DEP_Bencch_GreatHunt_Crafting
  
• Adding audio for the great hunt crating bench to play when the bench is activated. Adjustments and fine tune to the servo parts for better audible experience
  
• Adding more unique GH device loop with low level distorted voice
  
• Fix washing machine LODs
  
• Fix PhysicsAsset for GreatHunts Crafting SK. Fix material naming scheme. Moved Active Effects logic for BP into existing override function and simplify animation logic. Adjusted water visuals to better suit new active FX. Improve lighting setup and DF shadows support
  
• Great Ape: Fix localized area gas fungi modifiers are lasting longer than visual effects (and reduce duration of modifier when applied to players)
  
• Fix gas fungi is making Juvenile Apes attack the Great Ape
  
• Great Ape: Reduce AOE radius (was scalling with server player count). Great Ape: Slightly reduce the health ramp (scales with server player count)
  
• Fix Legendary Flame Thrower Alt (slottable) actions consume ammo, but don't require ammo for use. Add a cooldown to Legendary Flame Thrower Alt actions
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Elysium - decal painting, FT rocks, polish in Tundra, yellow+green quads
  
• New ScreeSnow decal, AC and TU variants added for Slope Rocks
  
• Give Legendary weapons with fillable full tanks on creation. Remove duplicate StoredUnits entry for Scorpion Rifle. Fixed incorrect spelling of Scorpion in numerous locations
  
• Fixed NS_SmokeDrop to lessen bad overdraw and obvious planes when looking up
  
• Added Homestead Bellows and Fireplace Decor SM, SK, DM, ANI materials and textures
  
• Fix stamina consumption with the Legendary Ice Mammoth Sledge Hammer for very specific hold focus behaviour
  
• Adding a few more adjustments and fine tunes for the rock golem Juvi.
  
• Added a stomp for the idle anim which better represents its intensity and some improvements to the roll velocity.
  
• Also reducing ambience and SFX slightly when the player is dead to better inform the player when alive / respawned
  
• Fixing issue introduced in refactor where turrets would not target enemies correctly, only enemy turrets would. This has now been corrected
  
• Fixed organic analyzer tracking in RG_OP1 mission, correctly indicating power. Reworked power requirement and mission pacing to have a longer analyze time but use increasing power over time
  
• Fix drop pod socket on player craftable landing pads
  
• Fixed Hole in CAVE_DC_SML_002_DLC2, Elysium
  
• Drop pads now relocate when player landing pad foundations are destroyed
  
• Added variant cave entrances and cave levels for DLC2 MED and SML AC caves
  
• Added distance-based culling and spawn rate scaling to Fireflies niagara FX
  
• Replicate visibility of Rimetusk den when made visible but not yet accessible via mission
  
• Updating great hunt communicator to have a version with handler in the background distorted
  
• Added DEP_Armor_Stand_T2
  
• Update numerous deployables to use correct Preview static mesh. Update tooling
  
• Remove obsolete GH Crafting Bench materials referencing deleted textures. Update new material to use albedo so lights aren't grey when off
  
• Adjust rage modifier to give melee and range damage bonus, instead of physical damage
  
• Change fluid ammo weapons to have a progress bar display rather than shot numbers
  
• Rimetusk Sledgehammer Utility head upgrade now provides frozen ore instead of repairing
  
• Ape_O1, ensure ai spawner is checked for after initial load
  
• Create new variation of Mangrove tree for use in GH Ape Lab, with adjusted screensize values to suit 0.06x scaling of mesh
  
• Fix explosive weakness on creature spawners and fix Ape_O1 mission progress related to spawners
  
• Elysium - decal painting, FT rocks, polish in Tundra, yellow+green quads
  
• Blockout cliff pass in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
  
• Hook up fuel gauge on Lava Hunter Flamethrower. Removed duplicate flamethrower portion of BP filename

[/expand]