PTB: Patch (1.8.24)

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

Welcome, Park Testers!

This latest patch for the PTB introduces staff, random excavation events, and two species of Plateosaurus! We've written some basic guides below to help players find their way around the new mechanics while we renovate the help menu, notifications and park issues. For a detailed look at staff and their new buildings, check out the latest Dev Diary.[www.prehistorickingdom.com]

Over the next few weeks, you'll be able to see Update 11 take on its final form as we continue to round out issues, improve gameplay clarity and reintegrate features.

Help: Hiring Staff

1. Build a Staff Center found in the Infrastructure category.
   
2. Open the Staff Management menu by selecting your new group or by pressing the Park Services button (hexagon icon) in the bottom left of the main HUD.
   
3. When inside the Staff Management menu, players can see a hiring list for all roles or specific roles.
   
4. Hired Keepers and Laborers will emerge from the Staff Center.
   
5. At this stage in development, staff are very hands off. As long as you have enough people and the correct facilities, they will do their best to restock the park and clean habitats.

Help: Logistics


All buildings/modules below are found in the Infrastructure > Logistics category!

1. To get resources into the park, build a Loading Bay.
   
2. Resource distribution can be improved by building Goods Storage or Produce Storage modules in key areas. Laborers will take resources to kiosks and storage modules while Keepers will take resources to animal feeders.
   
3. To clean habitats, build a Compost Heap for Keepers to deliver poop. Any poop stored inside will be converted into compost.
   
4. To create your own animal feed, build Produce Stations. These must be fueled by compost (transferred by Laborers) to efficiently create food.

How to Access the Public Testing Branch (Experimental!)
The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library
   
2. Go to Properties
   
3. Betas
   
4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's[discord.com] appropriate channel.


Known Issues & Additional Notes

• We are in the midst of overhauling notifications and park issues. Once complete, this will have a massive impact on game feel and clarity for both staff and excavations!
  
• Cashiers are not implemented as a staff type yet. This will not impact the functionality of your kiosks as they will continue to work without staff for now.
  
• The 'Call Staff' button on various UI panels are not yet functional.
  
• Many of the old UI elements have not been updated.
  
• Visitor clothing color variation has not been developed yet.
  
• Donation boxes are currently not recolorable, we are working on a quick fix. The shop signs rendering is also glitched, which we are addressing in the same hotfix patch.

Full Patch Notes
Features

• NEW ANIMAL: Plateosaurus trossingensis
  
• NEW ANIMAL: Plateosaurus gracilis
  
• NEW FEATURE: Logistics Loop
  Place the Loading Bay and hire staff to get started. Spread the park inventory with storage facilities and grow your own food with Produce Stations using the compost from Compost Heaps!
  
• NEW FEATURE: Staff
  Hire staff to manage the needs of guests and animals.
  • NEW STAFF TYPE: Laborers
    Laborers refill guest facilities and transfer both goods and produce to storage facilities around the park.
    
  • NEW STAFF TYPE: Keepers
    Keepers refill animal feeders and clean habitats, transporting dung to Compost Heaps.

Additions

• Gameplay
  • Added the Trossingen Formation
    
  • Added the Löwenstein Formation
    
  • Added monthly RNG excavation events! These events will affect each excavation’s cycle time, cost, and even fossil yield rate
    
  • Added negative land value influence to bathroom modules
• Animals
  • Added detail maps to most animals, offering subtle surface detail upon close inspection
• Guests
  • Added appropriate clothing for each map climate
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Added empty states for the enrichment feeders, Blood Pumpkin, Fruit Block, and Termite Mound
    
  • Added black fades to the bathroom modules, Fossil Depot, Visitor Spawner & Staff Structure entry points
    
  • Added Silhouette Signs for Plateosaurus & Leaellynasaura
    
  • Binocular modules are now useable by guests
• UI/UX
  • Added guest and staff selection, with a dedicated selection panel showing relevant information for each
    
  • Added interaction point visualization on any and all modules that sport animal/human interaction points. These helpful arrows are available during construction actions
    
  • Lighting within modular groups can now be turned on during the day by switching on the ‘Always Keep Lights On’ in the lighting tab of each group’s selection menu
    
  • Added a dedicated Excavations section to the Paleopedia
    
  • Added paleopedia pages for Microraptor and Archaeopteryx
    
  • Added paleopedia page descriptions for Edmontosaurus regalis, Edmontosaurus annectens, Ugrunaluuk, Triceratops prorsus, Triceratops horridus
    
  • Shops now display a ‘missing stock’ state icon when low on stock
    
  • Added a ‘Remove Vegetation’ toggle to the modular building toolbox. If disabled, players will be able to place modular items without automatically removing vegetation
• Audio
  • Added a “woosh” when the camera is moved or rotated at high speeds

Changes

• Balance
  • Rebalanced animal ratings across the board
• Gameplay
  • Rebalanced fence strengths across the board, with more fence types being available in the early game
    
  • Halved occlusion multiplier for Park Beauty, making it a bit trickier to completely negate negative land value
    
  • The research system now shares the excavation system’s science teams, employing said teams to unlock research projects
• Animals
  • Sinotherium is now correctly assigned to the Neogene period
    
  • Adjusted social and exhibit space needs displayed in the paleopedia for all animals
    
  • Adjusted animation speed on the unique Protoceratops idle animation
    
  • Improved nasal seam on Pachyrhinosaurus species
    
  • Adjusted Leaellynasaura skin color variation
• Construction
  • Can no longer place fences shorter than 2 meters. Does not limit snapping or intersection behavior
    
  • Fence placement snapping now scales with distance to the camera, will make building large enclosures much easier
    
  • Enclosures are now selected after they are completed for the first time
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Adjusted organic prop coloring on Flat Fruit Feeder and Produce Stations
    
  • Minor piece texture changes/improvements across the board, including adjustments to reflectivity of many metal pieces and props to be less blinding/wet looking.
    
  • Replaced Brick visuals in the Basic theme with a higher fidelity texture.
    
  • Rotated Arid Benches 180 degrees for parity with the rest of the benches (May affect some prefabs, apologies in advance!)
    
  • Converted most light sources into spotlights to reduce light leak and potentially improve performance. Those that use spotlights now feature a cookie (makes it look like light is emitting from a bulb!). This will impact how lighting appears in your prefabs!
    
  • Reduced light emitted from halloween candles
    
  • Simplified collision on a number of lighting props
    
  • Adjusted collision on staff and logistics modules
    
  • Added shop visual fill effects
• Environment
  • Adjusted Boreal map lighting
    
  • Adjusted Desert map lighting
    
  • Adjusted Tropical map lighting
    
  • Adjusted scattering atmospherics to further reduce overblown sunrise/sunset
    
  • Shortened Grassland biome grass rendering distances
• UI/UX
  • Completely overhauled the modular group and piece selection menus, with a heavy focus on widget access and modularity. The main function of each relevant module can now be accessed at every level of the modular selection
    
  • To provide an improved user experience, the paleopedia picture now switches off whenever a user action is running, switching back on afterwards, provided the ‘Show Picture’ option is enabled
    
  • Side quick access menus (Weather & Time, Paleopedia, etc) now show up in front of the Management Menu
    
  • Changed the shape of state icons and changed the inaccessible module icon to show blocked guests
    
  • Updated the voice line panel, and gave Nigel different outfits based on the map that’s currently being played on!
    
  • Temporarily disabled the Help Menu while we work on brand new help articles
• Rendering
  • Improved frustum and occlusion culling for wall/roof pieces
    
  • Addressed culling issues for a variety of pieces
• Audio
  • Extended or reduced audible distance on various animal sounds
    
  • Adjusted surface interaction sounds to randomize volume and lowpass for additional variation
    
  • Adjusted small herbivorous dinosaur eating sounds
    
  • Adjusted field reverb, distance attenuation and distance model to better serve tycoon gameplay and allow for easier game mixing. This may result in overall louder animals!
    
  • Feathered and furred bodies will emit rain impact sounds during a storm, but not as much as scaled or leathery animals
    
  • Changed placement material sounds for new logistics/infrastructure buildings, donation boxes, blood pumpkin and moss roof style

Bug Fixes

• Critical
  • Fixed a crash that occurred when closing the Time & Weather Menu
    
  • Further fortified the research system’s initialization, adding extra safeties and checks
    
  • Fixed a crash when terraforming near the edge of the map
    
  • Fixed two crashes in nav queries
    
  • Fixed a few cases of new features breaking loading
• Animals
  • Fixed Coelophysis, Leaellynasaura, Protoceratops, Psittacosaurus and Velociraptor getting stuck while eating or drinking
    
  • Fixed Camarasaurus species using flat plants feeder
    
  • Fixed Argentinosaurus and Brachiosaurus social call animation
    
  • Fixed Tyrannosaurus eating exit animation
    
  • Fixed Paraceratherium broadcast not playing
    
  • Fixed animals placed outside an enclosure not registering as an escaped animal
    
  • Fixed a seam on the Muttaburrasaurus belly
• Guests
  • Will now choose nearby interaction points more intelligently
    
  • Fixed exploration behavior, previously could generate giant crowds at particular locations.
    
  • Fixed guest needs flickering
• Buildings & Scenery
  • Fence shadows fixed
    
  • Fence demolition red highlight has been restored
    
  • Fixed normals on plant and fruit feeders
    
  • Fixed feeders not having their visuals set when first placed and infinite food is turned off
    
  • Fixed enrichment feeders not being loaded as feeders, having no fill amount
    
  • Binocular modules have their visibility cones turned back on
    
  • Fixed various bugs related to Animal Information Signs not detecting nearby enclosures
    
  • Fixed LOD rendering for Bathroom Sign Square
    
  • Fixed a rare error causing the selection outline to not work on certain modules, if their style was changed
• Construction
  • Fixed animal containment bugs when updating enclosure layouts
    
  • Intersecting fence placements can no longer override the max fence length limit
    
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to create fences with the same start and end point
    
  • Improved enclosure detection, will now correctly handle situations where the main fence posts form a polygon outside the enclosed area
    
  • Fixed a potential issue that could have been causing animals to be lost when enclosures were modified
    
  • Fixed fences not costing any money
    
  • Fences loaded from legacy saves are now put through a more sophisticated version upgrade algorithm, addresses issues with enclosure detection
    
  • Visitor entrance collision now correctly updates when loading legacy saves
• UI/UX
  • Fixed several GUI initialization errors
    
  • Fixed one issue causing the camera to accidentally restrict zoom behaviour
• Audio
  • Fixed brick walls using wood placement sounds
    
  • Fixed offset audio on Protoceratops unique idle animation
    
  • Fixed alt species specific sounds for Juxia
• Misc.
  • Fixed fly particle rendering

Performance

• CPU Optimizations
  
• Numerous Memory optimizations
  
• Visitor rendering performance improvements