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Hi Pioneers!
Update 6 has arrived on Experimental. I’d like to preface this event with the fact that some of the new content released isn’t as far along in development as our previous Update releases, so consider this our most experimental Experimental yet! Nonetheless, we think you can have fun with everything here already and we need more of you playing with the incoming changes to help us see how far along they are and inform further development. As always, you can leave your feedback and any issues you encounter on our Questions Site: https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/
Overall, this Experimental period is going to be a little different. We will be pushing updates to finalise content that is released, and we might add some additional content along the line that did not make the initial release. With that in mind we are planning to have a longer Experimental period than usual, so don’t expect Update 6 to hit Early Access before the end of summer.
With that said, what is the content that is coming now? Update 6 shines with some major world updates, impactful changes to Equipment and the MAM progression, several great quality of life updates on the UI side of all things Satisfactory, a full overhaul of our creature AI system, and some under-the-hood changes of major systems. Let’s break that all down a bit more.
You might have already heard about this, but for the avoidance of doubt: There are no overclocking changes coming in Update 6. Also, be safe and back up your saves.
World
Spire Coast
This is probably the most significant single biome change that we still had in the pipeline, and now it is here: The island paradise that is the Spire Coast. We’re very excited to see what you will build in this area, constricted (and hopefully inspired) by the verticality of the spires. There are still oil nodes in the area, but their locations have changed. Other than that, we haven’t done a gameplay pass on the area yet, so you’ll have to wait for new slugs and creature placements, etc. until a later time.
We also managed to do a full visual update of the cliff wall separating the Spire Coast from the Dune Desert, so that large empty plateau is finally ready to be built on as well.
Swamp
The Swamp has received a full vegetation and atmosphere overhaul to better represent the icky vision we have for it. A place for daring pioneers to test their mettle in the future. Right now, we are happy with the vibe of the area but it will also receive a gameplay pass in the future to match the mechanics of the exploration experience with the new atmosphere.
Sky, Atmosphere & Weather
We haven’t been idle on these high impact world topics either, with a generally improved day and night sky, clouds, and the addition of rainy weather. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the new variety as a myriad of days pass on Massage-2(AB)b.
The overall changes to our atmosphere system have also been put to use with more specific tweaks of the updated areas mentioned above, as well as some of our starting areas: Dune Desert, Northern Forest and Grass Fields. We’ve adjusted the specific lighting, fog, and feel for all those places.
Equipment & MAM Progression
Hand Equipment & Ammunition
The most obvious content you might have already seen in our videos is the addition of different ammunition types for all the Pioneers ranged weaponry. It’s quite a wide range of new useful and dangerous tools, from utility options like the Pulse Nobelisk to advanced homing ammunition for the rifle. And there is a mini nuke, which honestly is a terrible idea in the best way.
We’ve also improved the UI feedback for switching through your hand slots, making it easier to identify quickly which gadget or weapon you are switching to, and we finally implement a Holster interaction to put away your current hand equipment.
MAM Progression
We integrated the new ammunition types throughout different research trees in the MAM and did some rebalancing and reshuffling in the process! On revisiting them you’ll find that costs and placement might have changed.
A major change in terms of general progression is that we’ve moved some of the most popular energy related alternate recipes to standard MAM unlocks. Now you can find both Turbo Fuel and Compacted Coal there, as they are a great addition to the general power progression of the game.
Multiple Body Equipment Slots
Update 6 introduces the ability to equip almost all existing Body Equipment at the same time. Instead of a single slot, we now have a slot each for: Head, body, back, and legs. The main progression for Body Equipment is now that you can combine them as they get unlocked and you’ll only have to switch your back Equipment between the Jetpack, Hoverpack, and Parachute depending on your preference and the situation.
Creatures
Mostly visual updates
The most major change you will be able to find here is that the Crab Hatcher got a completely new look and no longer destroys itself when spawning the Flying Crabs. While we made the Flying Crabs themselves far less annoying to deal with, you will now have to destroy the Hatcher to stop them from coming after you.
The Spitters also received a visual change, with several awesome distinct variants! There is a total of three that have adapted quite differently to their environments, as well as a minor variant of the new Forest Spitters to better camouflage in the red forests of Massage-2(AB)b. While they all currently share the same behaviour, we have plans to introduce differences in the future.
AI System Overhaul
We’ve been working on a new AI system that will allow us to introduce more variety to creature behaviour in the future. For this update we tried to largely recreate the feeling of the existing wildlife with some tweaks here and there using this new system. We are not quite there yet with all of them and, this being a full system overhaul, we are aware of some issues and expect to see more as this update goes live. This means that we are planning to still push a few updates to the creatures throughout the experimental period.
Map and more UI changes
Map & Radar Tower
The Map feature now no longer unlocks in the MAM, but during Tier 1 instead. On top of that it has received some significant upgrades with Markers that replace the Beacons, Stamps that can be used to highlight points of interest both on the Map and in world, and an updated interaction menu. It now also takes up almost the entire screen to give a better overview.
Radar Towers are still unlocked in the MAM, but they come with additional functionality. If powered they now immediately reveal a set radius on the map around them, highlight all resource nodes in said radius, and give information on exploration rewards and wildlife that can be found there. All this makes them much more useful than they have been before!
To-do List updates
This planning feature has received a major boost. The To-do List can now be accessed from any menu by clicking on the right side of the screen. It also received some visual polish, is height adjustable, and can be customised with written notes, which makes it a much more versatile tool than before. You can take personal notes only visible to yourself, as well as global notes that can be seen and edited by anyone in a multiplayer session. It’s even possible to do some light formatting! We’re very excited to see how you use this to your advantage.
Codex recipe improvements
The recipe section of the codex has significantly more information available than before. All recipes can now be expanded to show the per-minute stats of all ingredients and products. You can also simulate overclocking in there now and see how that affects the recipes requirements and output.
Technical improvements
Sublevel Saving
We’ve made a change to the save system that you hopefully won’t notice, but that is quite significant on our end. Basically, this allows us to migrate world elements that need to be saved onto streaming tiles, where previously they were always loaded. While this won’t significantly affect load or save times, it paves the way for us to add more interactable/saved game features to the world in the future without performance drawbacks.
This does mean that saves from Update 6 onwards are in no way backwards compatible, since the old save system is unable to read the new save files.
Patch Notes
EQUIPMENT
- Added additional equipment slots for the Pioneer: Head, Back, and Legs
- Added support for several ammunition types per weapon
- Hold R with the weapon equipped to open the selection wheel
- New Nobelisks
- Gas Nobelisk: Releases a cloud of toxic gas that deals damage over time
- Cluster Nobelisk: Detonates into multiple explosions over a larger area
- Pulse Nobelisk: Generates a powerful shockwave. Double jump!
- Nuke Nobelisk: Creates a massive explosion
- New Rifle Ammunitions
- Homing Rifle Ammo: Corrects projectile trajectory to hit targets more easily
- Turbo Rifle Ammo: Shoots a massive amount of bullets at an accelerating pace
- New Rebars
- Stun Rebar: Can Stun creatures for a short moment
- Shatter Rebar: Highly effective at shorter range
- Explosive Rebar: Yes, even more explosions
- Added holster functionality for the currently equipped Hand Slot
- Default keybinding is H
- Overhauled equipment HUD to fit all those additional equipment
- Added HUD feedback for scrolling through Hand Slots
- Equipment tool tips have additional information such as slot type, compatible ammunition, and a damage indicator
- Consumables now prioritise stacking with Hand Slots when picked up
- Double clicking equipment in the inventory now equips it to the first empty slot if available and otherwise replaces the currently active equipment
- Updated all weapon crosshairs
- Reworked Chainsaw audio
- Reworked Rifle audio
- Equipment will now be coloured to the default factory colour selected in the Customiser
WORLD
- Spire Coast
- Full overhaul of landscapes and cliffs
- Complete foliage overhaul
- New lighting and fog setup
- Dune Desert cliff wall and plateau
- Cleaned up all cliffs on the Spire Coast side
- Landscape and foliage overhaul on the plateau
- Swamp
- Major overhaul of foliage
- Reworks to lighting and fog
- Minor landscape changes
- Added new music
- Added dynamic clouds and rainy weather
- Updated night sky visuals
- Updated lighting and fog in:
- Northern Forest
- Dune Desert
- Grass Fields
- Tweaked Western Dune Forest ambient sounds
CREATURES
- The AI system, navigation, and spawning have been overhauled
- Creatures now have separate visual and audio perception (and they won’t hear you crouch)
- Creatures can now panic and run when certain conditions are met
- New Spitter looks
- Desert Spitters
- Aquatic Spitters
- Green and Red Forest Spitters
- Crab Hatcher changes
- Full visual overhaul
- Now persists and spawns new Baby Crabs until destroyed
- Baby Crabs have more predictable behaviour
- Hog changes
- Both Hogs no longer circle around the player
- Hogs now have a rear up animation before their standard charge
- Stinger changes
- The Stinger leap attack now hits more reliably
- Small Stinger attacks are much harder to dodge but deal significantly less damage
- Added unique loot for all aggressive wildlife
- Added optional HUD indicators for aggressive wildlife (can be turned on in the options menu)
MAP
- Increased the Map window size significantly
- The Map is now unlocked in the Tier 1 – Field Research milestone
- Added new Marker system
- Added new Stamp system
- Stamps can be placed in the world by pressing ALT + RMB
- Added support for Markers & Stamps to be highlighted in world
- Added support for viewing, copying, and inputting map coordinates
- Removed Beacon map functionality
- Beacons currently disappear when used and are automatically converted to a Map Marker
- All previously placed Beacons will automatically be converted to Map Markers
BALANCING
- Minor changes to the cost of multiple MAM researches
- Changed all MAM research to complete within 3 seconds
- This change does not include the Hard Drive scanning timer
- Most research visibility in the MAM has been expanded, causing research to be visible earlier in the research progression
- Removed Beacons from Building costs and unlock requirements
- Beacons are currently still used for the Alternative Uranium Fuel Unit recipe
- New parts
- Alien Protein: Produced from the bodies of your enemies
- Organic Data Capsule: Produced from Alien Protein
- Smokeless Powder: Produced by combining Black Powder and Heavy Oil Residue
- The Polyester Fabric alternative recipes is now available in the MAM Mycelia research tree
- The Compacted Coal and Turbo Fuel alternative recipes are now available in the MAM Sulfur research tree
- Compacted Coal and Turbo Fuel can still be unlocked in Hard Drives
- The other alternative Turbo Fuel recipes are still only available in the Hard Drives
- Moved the Blade Runner research from the Caterium to the Quartz research tree
- Moved Expanded Pocket Dimension research from the Caterium to the Quartz research tree
- Added an additional Hand Slot +1 unlock in the Mycelia research tree
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Players can now hold E to collect foliage
- Content, content, content.
- AWESOME Shop unlocks with unlock prerequisites are now always visible and display their prerequisites
- Added feedback to MAM research and HUB Milestones that unlock AWESOME Shop unlocks prerequisites
- MAM research trees now show when they are completed
- Added sound effect when collecting Power Slugs
- Markers for inactive Pioneers are now hidden
- Recipes in the Codex can now be expanded to show the same information that is available in buildings
- Tobias attempted improving the accuracy of building guidelines
UI
- Sign settings now have a revert button instead of a save button, and save automatically on closing the settings
- Added a welcome animation for the Awesome Shop when opened for the first time in a play session
- Optimised the Save and Load UI
- Polished Awesome Shop visuals and feedback
- Updated the Lock icon in the Milestone Menu
- Added a new icon used in character related unlocks such as additional Hand/Equipment Slots
- Resource node icons on the compass now distinguish between occupied and unoccupied nodes
- Updated the Health Bar visuals
- Reorganised Workshop recipe order and categories
FACTORY
- Changed Radar Tower functionality
- Shows resource node locations in radius on the map and if they are in use or not
- Indicated which exploration rewards and wildlife can be found in the radius of the tower
- Reveals the area in its radius immediately now
- Radius has been decreased
- Added new Pipe buildables without Fluid Indicators
- Updated Conveyor Multi Pole visuals
- Updated Portable Miner visuals
OPTIMISATION
- Added scalability settings in the options menu
- Overhauled the Foliage System
- Implemented Sublevel Saving
- Optimised Splitter & Merger visuals
- Optimised Conveyor rendering
- Optimised Signs rendering
- Optimised Freight Station loading
- Parallelized fluid system
PLAYER
- Pioneer health now regenerates to full over time
BUG FIXES
- Stingers can no longer get stuck on the Pioneers head
- Golf Cart and Portable Miner now show when there is no room in the inventory to pick them up
KNOWN ISSUES
- The client building two truck stations will crash the game for said client and the session needs to be restarted before they can join again
- The game will sometimes crash because of surrounding creatures
- Creatures sometimes freeze and get stuck
- SSR scalability doesn’t fully work
- Auto detect graphic setting response settings aren’t tweaked yet
- Clients don’t see revealed resource nodes on existing Radar Towers
- Creatures in caves have mysteriously disappeared
- Spore Flowers can’t be destroyed by explosives
- There is a visual issue during the Rifle reload animation