[2023] Prehistoric Kingdom - Update 6 (EA 1.1.3)

Welcome, Park Managers!

Update 6 is here! The highlights for this patch include the reworked donation system, rock styling and a brand new animal! You can find a rundown of everything that's new in the full patch notes below.

As mentioned in our previous dev diary, the team has been working on a number of updates concurrently in an effort to better space out our release schedule. We've worked very hard to get this update out in a timely fashion, so we hope that everyone enjoys all the new content available in Update 6.

If you’re yet to play the game or think it’d make a great gift, we'd like to mention that Prehistoric Kingdom is currently 20% off on Steam!

Please provide your feedback and bug reports through the in-game tool or our official Discord server[discord.com].

Update 6 Features

Animals Possibly the largest mammal to ever walk the Earth, Paraceratherium is our latest arrival! This animal features two alternate species (transouralicum, bugtiense) and the small, alternate genus, Juxia. We're incredibly proud to finally include this classic animal in Prehistoric Kingdom!


Donation Boxes Donation boxes are a module that allow guests to donate directly to the park. Strategically placing them in high traffic areas near good scoring exhibits will help net a greater number of donations.

However, donation boxes have a limited monthly capacity! This means that once they’re filled up, guests can no longer use that box. At the end of each month, their earnings will be automatically collected and the boxes will be emptied.

Players can research bigger donation boxes to help raise the potential of their monthly donation income.



New Rocks & Styling The art team have remade all our rocks to better compliment our other assets, utilizing a different art direction with new visual features like detail normals to preserve their fidelity.

Moss, sand and snow styles are also now available for rocks! These three substrates will always appear on the top side of a rock no matter how you rotate or scale them.



Please note that while we've tried to keep the general shapes fairly close to our current rocks, some build adjustments may be required depending on how you’ve used them in the past.

Mangroves Three variants of mangroves are now available for the Wetland biome, the perfect companions for your swamp-dwelling animals!



Automatic Grass Masking Placing select items such as feeders, modules, walls, floors and roof pieces will automatically mask-out grass from the surrounding area. This functionality extends to water, too!



Known Issues & Additional Notes

• Some users may experience an extreme drop in framerate when terrain painting. This is is currently under investigation.
  
• Many digsites are unintentionally available to unlock during the early game. We are working to resolve this as soon as possible.
  
• After placement, some Paraceratherium may temporarily contort their bodies to a disturbing degree. This behaviour was previously observed with Dilophosaurus and Scelidosaurus.
  
• Donation boxes are still being balanced, we'd appreciate community feedback to get them working nicely!
  
• Donation boxes are currently not recolorable. This is a system issue that will need to be addressed in the future
  
• We will be working to improve the economy over the coming weeks

Full Patch Notes
Features

• NEW: New Animals
  • Introducing 2 new species of Paraceratherium and an older, alternate genus, Juxia!
    
  • New dig sites: Chitarwata Formation, Hsanda Gol Formation and the Sharamuran Formation
• NEW: Donation Boxes
  • Added donation boxes
    
  • Added medium and large donation boxes to the Research Tree in Challenge Mode

Additions

• Animals
  • Added new animal dung type: Avian Dung
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added 3 types of rock substrate styles: moss, sand and snow
    
  • Automatic Grass Masking - Placing down modular structures will now automatically remove the grass underneath
• Foliage
  • Added Mangrove 1, 2 and 3 to the Wetland biome selection
• Water
  • Grass is now automatically removed by water

Changes

• Balance
  • Balanced tree coverage values across all biomes, with exhibit foliage density now being more forgiving
    
  • After repeated user feedback, the duration of day length relative to night length has been increased
• Animals
  • Animal dung size has been balanced, now smaller animals generate dung mounds more appropriate to their size
    
  • Added support for rating differences among unique animal alt. species
    
  • Changed Tarbosaurus’ rating from 5 to 4 stars
    
  • Changed Edmontosaurus kuukpikensis rating from 4 to 3 stars
• Guests
  • Facilities rating now starts at 5 stars, with stars being lost depending on the stage (red/yellow/green) of each guest need category
    
  • Guest need satisfaction is much more accurate now, with every individual affecting the score. The guest facility rating should be easier and more consistent to maintain in the green, with clearer indication of when things are going wrong
    
  • Guest need visuals have been adjusted, staying green when things are ok, only deteriorating when struggling to satisfy a need
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Foliage masking is now cleared by default when starting foliage removal
    
  • Players can now click through a habitat marker to select modular items on the other side. This should resolve a selection edge case that made it harder to select modular items on the marker’s edge
• Music
  • Character dialogue now reduces mid-frequencies of music
    
  • Less volume reduction on music when character dialogue is present
    
  • Opening full screen management menus will no longer end currently playing music
• Graphics
  • Improved environmental reflection fidelity
• GUI
  • Max. incubation capacity displayed in the Nursery Holder now accurately represents the park-wide max. capacity
    
  • Re-integrated terraform action tooltips after they had been disabled for some time, giving more contextual cues as to what the current input is
• Tutorial Improvements
  • Introduced an additional 4 minutes of music cues to the tutorial
    
  • Fixed cinematic camera frame skips
    
  • Notification audio is muted during loading
    
  • Introduced a dynamic animal tracking camera mode to better complement the Mammoth Outro section of the tutorial and various other dynamic elements
    
  • Improved responsiveness of Dryosaurus running away from the player camera during the ‘Let there be light!’ objective
    
  • All placement objectives are now properly constrained to their respective areas of effect
    
  • Improved placement action feedback when user input is constrained by specific ranges
    
  • The kiosk shell structure is now automatically selected for placement during the ‘Bread and Circuses’ objective
    
  • Statue placement is more accurately curated during the ‘Bread and Circuses’ objectivet
    
  • Disabled Animal Movement functionality after the ‘Accommodating a Predator’ objective
    
  • Fixed potential soft-lock occurrences that would allow users to wildly terraform the landscape during the early sections of the scenario

Bug Fixes

• Critical
  • Fixed Error Dialogue not showing up on screen when a park’s save file failed to generate
    
  • Fixed a critical issue related to certain keybind input not registering after having played the tutorial
    
  • Improved multiple guest navigation problems, guests should have a relatively easier time properly navigating the park, though this is an on-going process that we’ll keep working on in the future
• Music
  • Fixed Management Dashboard music stopping abruptly when still inside the menu
    
  • Fixed an issue causing in-game music to stop when opening the Options Menu
• Audio
  • Fixed the research unlocking audio playing when holding click over a locked research element
• GUI
  • Fixed a bug related to the displayed incubation number in incubation notifications
    
  • Fixed the Nursery Menu creation button not updating properly when switching nurseries
    
  • Fixed the Excavations Menu skin unlock toggle and tooltip not refreshing properly during balance or rating increase - the game’s feedback for unlocking a new skin should be much better now in this regard

Performance

• Resolved a memory leak related to the waste management system

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.