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Week Sixty Six introduces a new mission to Icarus, Ironclad. Tasked with deploying protective plating to three different locations in preparation for a research station deployment, your task will be fraught with risk and challenges.

We also give an update on our ‘Galileo’ project, and our progress so far on the fishing and bestiary features.

Jump in and have a read.



Mission: Ironclad
This week brings a new mission to Icarus, Ironclad. Your task is to deploy large metal plates in three different locations on the map in preparation for a research station deployment. Your briefing is as follows:

//OPERATOR: Sinotai
// MAP: Styx
// BIOME: The Great River
// BACKGROUND: Schematics for plating construction in space or on the surface have been developed
// MI... Read more

This week we’re sharing some of our plans for the future of Icarus plus adding several Quality of Life features that you, our player community, have suggested.

By sharing our development Roadmap for Icarus, you can see what features and new systems to expect over the next year and more in addition to our regular weekly updates.

This week we’ve also added several helpful tools such as a Search Bar for the Tech Tree, Pinnable Compass Marks and a Add to Stacks button.



This Week’s QoL Improvements
In this week’s update we have added several popular Quality of Life suggestions that you have submitted via our Feature Upvote tool.

• ...

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Week Sixty Four introduces our newest mineable mineral - Salt. Found around the map on the sides of cliffs and mountains, Salt can be used to preserve food items twice as long.

This comes with a new bench, the Salt Station, where you can place any food item along with salt to give it a ‘Preserved’ buff.

We’re also introducing a Tier 4 ‘Deep Freeze', which preserves food while it is powered, and have kept improving dropship landing zones and dynamic quest locations.




Salt & Food Preservation
There is a new mineral to discover and mine on Icarus - Salt. Salt can be found in the wilderness in similar areas to Sulfur, Oxite and Silica.

Salt can be used in preservation, doubling the time it takes food items to spoil. This can be done on the new Salt Station crafted in Tier 2, and providing alternat... Read more

Week Sixty Three brings improvements to last week's new deployable, the Thumper, and some small QoL fixes to crop plots, dropships and more.

A hotfix addressing a mission blocker caused by changes to our voxels was pushed Monday, and we’ve followed that up with changes to map icons, audio, exploits and more.

We’re also seeking more feedback and examples of dropship respawning occurring in voxels, trees and other locations that prevent you from being able to move.

Jump in and have a read.



Thumper Fixes and Tweaks
We’ve focused this week on making some tweaks and changes to the new ore-regenerating Thumper device.

The first of these fixes was included in the hotfix we pushed Monday, which addressed the mission ‘Deep Vein: Extraction’ being blocked. Because of the change to how we ‘dest... Read more

Week Sixty Two introduces our largest deployable yet, the ore-regenerating Thumper.

The Thumper allows you to regenerate harvestable Ore deposits in its vicinity. Standing at 16 feet tall, the Thumper is a large and powerful item, and provides a lucrative payoff for those seeking more Ore for their endeavours.

Jump in and have a read.



Thumper
The ‘Thumper’ is a new deployable device we’re introducing to tackle the problem of resource scarcity, especially in Open World mode. This is the first of two items we’re adding, with this one focusing on Ore resources (but not Stone or Deep Ore Veins). In future, ways to regenerate trees are planned.

This is one of the largest deployables in the game so far, standing at over 16 feet tall, so it’s a sight to behold and truly earns its name. You can craft the Th... Read more

Week Sixty One focuses on correcting issues that arose from our Week Sixty update, something our community was vocal about and helped us to act on quickly.

Weather events and the system that operates them have been scaled back and improved. We haven’t scrapped the changes altogether, allowing us to keep the positive elements and strip out the ugly parts.

The irony isn’t lost on us that only hours after releasing this update, our home city of Auckland was hit by the worst storm in its history and promptly flooded.

Thankfully our team is OK and this week's update also includes a large performance optimization focusing on ‘ticking’ (described below). We expect this improvement to be more noticeable on lower-end PCs and large Open World bases.

Have a read, and stay dry team!



Weather Fixes
... Read more

This week we’re re-working our weather systems, adding a forecasting system that gives you up to two hours of insight into approaching weather patterns.

This also adds more storm sequencing, creating up to seven different levels of severity to face and making this severity consistent across the entire map.

This also gives us the ability to customize sequences for specific missions, making more unique challenges applicable to the task at hand.

Finally, we’ve improved our backup system to create a backup save file every 30 minutes and provide more safeguards against accidental data loss.



Weather Forecasting
Our weather systems are getting an overhaul.

Weather Forecasting changes players' relationships with storms. Previously, storms were randomized with the only unique element being the... Read more

Week Fifty Nine is here, and we’ve focused this update on multiple dedicated server and core game bugs and improvements that have been reported and ticketed over the New Year period.

The Dedicated Server search functionality has received an overhaul, with new ways to tag and sort your favourite servers, and faster load times with more details to make scanning results simpler and more efficient.

A large number of core game bugs were reported to us by our player base, and we’ve addressed the majority of them this week. Check out the long list below, with more in the patch notes.

Finally, we’ve gone into depth about our strategy for dealing with ongoing performance issues and the five key areas that build our approach.



Dedicated Server Fixes
We’re improving the Dedicated Server search results funct... Read more

This week we’re introducing a new mission to Styx, similar to DEEP VEIN and PAYDAY which guides players to explore the many exotic deposits across the map. REMNANT will provide multiple outcomes in a dynamic environment, perfect for new players or exotic farmers.

We’re also making a change to exotic extraction, providing a more balanced extraction experience across our three biomes, as requested by our community in Feature Upvote.

Enjoy!



New Mission - REMNANT: Extraction
This week, we’re bringing you a new mission, REMNANT: Extraction. Similar to the introductory missions DEEP VEIN and PAYDAY, REMNANT guides players to place a number of radars in various locations to find, extract and launch exotics into orbit.

REMNANT takes place on Styx however, which has a much higher saturation of exotic deposi... Read more

Week Fifty Seven is here, and it brings our newest equipable item, shields. The first iteration released this week is the wooden shield, a Tier 2 item that blocks up to 75% of damage when used to defend against enemy attacks.

The shield can be equipped in your off-hand and used with a melee weapon or tool, but be aware it will suffer durability decline when used, at the benefit of your health bar.



Shields
Shields have been added as an equipable off-hand item.

The first version, the Wooden Shield, is crafted at the Crafting Bench and costs 14 wood, 12 fibre, 4 leather and 2 iron ingot. These can either be held on their own or with any one-handed melee weapon such as a hunting knife.

You can block up to a 90° angle in front of you, reducing damage by up to 75% using the right click on your mouse. The... Read more

Week Fifty Six is here, bringing with it our newest accessory - Carts. Attach them to your buffalo mounts and take advantage of the 1000kg, 60-slot capacity for those long-haul expeditions.

Crafted at the Carpentry Bench, you can take advantage of them from Tier 3 and avoid the dreaded slow slog back home when over-encumbered with ore.



Carts
Carts are here. For all our cross-country explorers and busy gatherers, miners and hunters, you can now attach a wooden cart to your Buffalo Mount.

Carts can be crafted at the Carpentry Bench for 80 wood, 15 iron nails, 20 rope, 10 epoxy and 50 refined wood. They go into the Mounts ‘saddle’ slot and when used, render that mount unable to be ridden and will reduce the buffalo's speed slightly.

The carry improvement is immense, however, with a massive 1000kg ... Read more

Happy Week Fifty Five! This week we’re adding highly-requested inventory sorting, just in time for Christmas. You’ll be able to sort your inventories four different ways, with preset categories and orders to make it as easy as one click and go.

Happy organization everyone!



Inventory Sorting
Inventory sorting has been a popular request from our community, and while we’ve had some for many months we are expanding it, adding to the functionality and packaging it up for Christmas. You’ll be able to sort your inventory in four ways to organize your gear however best suits you.

Weight, Stack Amount and Name (Alphabetical) are pretty self-explanatory, and the fourth option Type uses the following categories in this order:

• Non-Food Consumables
  
• Weapons
  
• Armor...

Read more

This week, we’re changing the limits on the number of players who can join and play a session as a follow on from our decentralization update, allowing you to share your Icarus journey with more friends.

We’re also introducing our newest Tier 4 and Workshop item, the Dropship Beacon Grenade, which allows you to call your Dropship to wherever you are on the map at any time.

Finally, we’re making a range of fixes that were required since our Decentralisation update and introducing our ‘preferred partners' for our Dedicated Servers.



Dynamic Dropship Landing Zones
Since the launch of Icarus, prospects have been limited to eight unique players who could join across the whole existence of the session. With decentralization, this limitation is gone and we are introducing some new changes that expand not only the n... Read more

Happy One Year Anniversary! Today marks a year since the launch of Icarus and the 52 updates we’ve made to the game every single week since. We’re excited to celebrate it by giving power back to the players with our player data decentralization patch.

This week, all data will be migrated to players' local computers, shifting away from a reliance on cloud providers, allowing some new features and ensuring the player community can own their game data permanently. This opens the door for many more features and changes, including characters now being able to be used across multiple sessions simultaneously, the new Orbital Exchange Interface for Exotic extraction, and our Dedicated Servers Beta.

This is a big update and will require a full data migration upon launch of the patch, so have a read through all the details below.

Once you’re briefed on the changes, we’ve included a reflection on 52 weekly updates to Icarus, including... Read more

This week we’re introducing two new Open World Mission types, new Fortifications to deploy and a new mission.

BUILD and DRONE Open World Mission types have been added, and a range of bugs have been fixed to improve the other available missions.

Wooden Fortifications now give you a true defence system to protect your base or assets in missions or Open World, removing the need for makeshift solutions that players have used before.

And finally, a mission to tasking you to perform research on enhancing tonics and their effectiveness has been added, with your briefing below.

Next week, we’ll be celebrating Icarus' one year anniversary and 52 straight weeks of updates. This is something we’re incredibly proud of and can’t wait to celebrate with you.

Open World Q... Read more

Week Fifty One's update brings an end to one of the longest-standing bugs, disappearing items on reload. With the help of our new bug-reporting tool and the community, we’ve managed to identify and remedy this bug and expect the results to be immediate after updating with the patch.

We’ve also added a range of items that previously have been ‘coming soon’ in the tech tree, along with the highly requested ‘auto-run’ feature and new meshes for an updated aesthetic on a few items.

Pastes have also received a re-work, making them a viable consumable amongst the craftables pool once again.

Finally, a new Repair Bench at Tier 3 has been added for repairing all items, regardless of their original crafting location and for repairing workshop items, when paired with a power source.



Reloading Fixes
A lon... Read more

Our initial implementation of Open World has been well received and we are excited to follow this up with the addition of dynamic missions to Open World sessions together with some performance improvements.

These Open World Missions allow us to bring a richer experience directly into our persistent world experience. Inside an Open World session, you can now launch special Missions from a Short Range Radio in your base. Eight mission types and variations depending on your biome and difficulty give you over 50 different versions to play.

Performance improvements to reduce the impact of Unreal Engine RVT tech have been implemented that can improve performance significantly for many players.

We’ve also introduced a new bug reporting feature, which will help provide more detailed debug info to help us solve more challenging bugs such as disappearing deployables and voxels upon reload.

Finally, we talk a bit more about our upcoming Decentralization, and ... Read more

This week brings our fourth community feedback update, focusing on player-driven improvements and changes shared with us on Feature Upvote.

Alongside these changes, we also spent some time this week speaking about some of our ongoing work and upcoming features we’re excited to be debuting.

A large Performance Improvement is planned, and we go into depth about what the changes we’re making are, and our expectations for how this will impact performance overall. We also speak about our upcoming Dynamic Quests in Open World, and finally the P2P (player-to-player) benefits and changes as a result of our upcoming Data Decentralization.



Update On Performance Optimization
Performance is always something at the front of our mind in our work on Icarus and while this has been a long-standing issue, addressing it has r... Read more