Greetings Pioneers!

Firstly, a huge thank you to all of the feedback on the last build we have received through the forum and comments. This week we have been working hard on exciting future features as well as a hotfix to resolve some of the issues raised. Today we have a juicy development update on what the team have been working on…

John – Hive and game systems design refinement. Game progression balancing plans for multiplayer, and all things business.

Matt – This week I’ve been working on a new generator utility to be included with the future updates to the energy network of the Eden Kit, these units are substantially smaller than the Eden Kit itself and allow for increased capacity in energy for building new defences and other structures that require extra power.

All images are a work in progress images may be subject to change
I’ve also been putting together some more of our exotic interactive plant life.

Tristan – I am still working on mastering POWER (for the updated Eden Kit energy network)

Lee – After the recent release I was finally able to start putting the new Juggernaut into game and begin testing it’s AI. I’ve also been working on some alterations to the way Hives spawn creatures in the world with the view to adding more defences to the Hives to make them more of a challenge.

Joe – Over the last few days I’ve been putting together a swamp water shader for our new biome area.

 

Chris – This past week I have been finishing off the swamp area. Helping improve some of the freezes between areas and the culling values. I have begun designing a new area of the world working with our concept artist to visualise the aesthetic feel of the world.

Ricky – Working on converting the UI and HUD to UMG for crisper visuals. Changing FOV and all work associated with that like re-embiggening the menus, moving the weapons etc. Also been implementing localisation work for the UI’s.

Tom – I’ve been working on finishing up the swamp snake model!

 

Andy – I’ve been all over the Steam boards logging the issues you guys had been having with v0.0.9 and working all the hours under the sun to get as many fixed as physically possible. I also got the chance to help the Devs responsible for the massively addictive Mean Greens make some video footage which was a blast.

Lauren – This week I have been working on Pioneer swimming movement in preparation for areas of deeper water in the future swamp biome environments. I have also started animation on the swamp snake, a creepy critter to lurk in the dark waters.

Gavin – We’ve been working on everything from conceptualising creepy creature features to establishing new build set materials and even building on the planet to make it KILLER. Busy busy busy – back to work!

Patch Notes Version 0.0.10 Update

Changes and Balancing

• Improved all culling values in the game
• Tweaked the view distance values in the options menu
• Increased damage caused by Vortex implosion by 50%

Bug fixes

• Fixed the Anti-Aliasing not being properly applied
• Fixed the flickering of apex while being fractured
• Fixed some clipping issues that were occurring during crouched movement.
• Stopped various player attachments from casting shadows.
• Fixed one tree having floating branches when the core was destroyed.
• Fixed not being able to sprint from standing when holding shift (sprint key)
• Fixed wall run jumping onto the same wall which was allowing infinite wall run
• Fixed respawning with starting items on death
• Fixed Splintermite legs separating from body during smash
• Fixed Kinetic Laser doing incorrect amount of damage
• Fixed issue with Nahmar trying to fly through rocks
• Fixed an issue where a turret would stay focused on a target it couldn’t attack
• Improvements to freezes in certain areas (please note: this is an ongoing process)

You can view the latest known issues here on our Trello boards.

Happy Hunting!

– Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers,

It’s that time again..

Yes indeed, time for a super shiny and indeed super new, super shiny new build. We’ve added some new features that we hope will really start to make the world seem that little bit more alive.

We are also working hard behind the scenes on some amazing new features, that we are looking to get to you guys as soon as possible. For now though here is a list of what’s in store for this current update!

Additions

• Added the Nahmar – a new passive flying creature which will sometimes fly down and steal dropped Materials if you’re not careful!

• Added our first Interactive Flora – the Exploding Sac plant! These bulbs can be thrown around or destroyed, dealing AoE (Area of Effect) damage and pushing objects on impact.
• Added new Perception Component – allowing enemies to detect noise caused by player movements and actions. This of course means you can sneak up on enemies.
• Apex destructible rocks now affect the Navmesh – this allows the AI to detect rocks as obstacles. When a rock gets destroyed the Navmesh is updated indicating the path is now clear.
• Added Graphical Settings in the Options Menu.
  • Anti-Aliasing
  • View Distance
  • Shadow Quality
  • Post-Processing
  • Texture Quality
  • Effects Quality
• Gamepad Invert X/Y now changes via the Options Menu.
• New ability for Ikas: Unstable Vortex. Ikas are now as unstable as they were always meant to be and release a dangerous displacing charge upon death.
• Introduced fall damage to the Pioneer.
• Added map file to assist in catching future game crashes

Changes and Balancing

• Lots of Optimisations and future proofing to Enemy Targetting System.
• Improved grass visuals.
• Refactor of the Kinetic Laser in preparation for multiplayer.
• Removed in-game pop up tutorials and replaced them with a hyperlink to our guide on Steam.
• Implemented streaming of the Navmesh to help performance.
• Added additional support for streaming Apex
• Propulsion Blast Upgrade has been updated with new tooltip and revised functionality.

Bug fixes

• Fixed crash with Reclaiming the Missile Turret with the Absorb to Inventory Upgrade Active
• Fixed a very rare threading crash when calculating a path for flying creatures
• Fixed a rare crash when mining
• Fixed some trees having invisible branches
• Fixed Material on the UI of the Missile Turret
• Options Menu Scrollbar fixes when switching Categories
• Fixed Volume and Gamma sometimes were not being set or taking effect correctly on startup.
• Fixed an issue where sometimes after loading a game a new Hive would spawn inside your base.
• Fixed an issue where sometime Splintermites would start exploding when they were not near your base.
• Fixed a bug where The cost of Kinetic Laser was incorrect, and the upgrade to Pushback Kinetic Laser didn’t affect it
• Improved Missile Turret priority targeting
• Fix issue where turrets were sometimes targeting AI beyond their firing range
• Fixed issue where sometimes Vogels were spawning underneath the world
• Fixed issue where Splintermite addon hives will sometimes spawned on players base after a load
• Improved the ability for Vogel’s to avoid getting stuck on terrain
• Fixed an issue where the IKA would stop moving and remain floating in mid air until interacted with
• Fixed another issue where the IKA would stop moving above a player’s base high in the sky
• Improved spawning of the IKA to avoid them spawning inside mountain/cliff rocks
• Fixed issue where Gauss Gun ammo always read zero
• Fixed issue where in some cases enemies would not attack a player’s Eden Kit
• Fixed issue where Missile turret would sometimes not engage the IKA
• Fixed issue where Master Volume set to zero yet audio would continue to play
• Fixed issue where the flashlight would cast players body shadows incorrectly
• Fixed issue where no impact PFX would play when the Vogel takes damage from any weapon
• Fixed issue where no Dematerialise effect would play for the Vogel upon death
• Fixed issue where splintermites were able to climb on top of Missile Turrets causing the turrets to endlessly spin
• Fixed issue with some settings such as Gamma not being applied immediately upon loading the game, despite the numerical values being correct
• Fixed issue with IKA hive defenders not attacking when spawned

You can view the latest changelist and known issues here on our Trello boards.

Happy hunting!

– Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

Today we’re bringing you another update on what the team have been working on this past week as we push for our next release version. The glorious battle to get an updated and stable build out to you continues!

Incase you’re wondering where all the pretty stuff went from other posts, we’ve unfortunately had technical issues with our service provider (sad face). So our previous updates might be temporarily imageless for a little while.

Luckily however (happy face) we have a super secret backup place for linking our images! So we’ll be fixing previous news announcements very soon 😀

Take it away Lee.

Lee – Technical Director

Most of my time this week has been dealing with issues caused by the recent engine upgrade. I think we have fixed most of the bugs related to this now, but it was something we couldn’t avoid.

Matt – Art Director

It’s the week of the Triffids… I’ve been developing one of our new weird and wonderful Flora over the last few days, with multiple heads. Behold.

Tristan – Senior Developer

After my recent success in the grasslands of Mongolia I have decided to make POWER my next goal… Ok so what I really mean is I am working on the new power system to keep up with all those turrets people keep building because everyone knows the best offence is a good defence. Please note I often tell people the best defence is a good offence it pretty much depends on if I am working on offence or defence.

Ricky – Developer

I’ve got all the Power System UI, Build Menu, FOV Scaling, Converting to UMG, and debugging up to reasonable levels this week so they can be used and tested soon. Multi-tasking like a boss.

Gav – Concept Artist

We’ve got lots of orthographics in the works while we also develop concepts for utility structures. We’re also looking to stream some of my day-to-day work flow for any budding concept designers out there and I’ll be on hand to answer any questions you might have or give some feedback on your concept art portfolio. I’m also excited to break some interesting developments for all you savvy artists but I won’t promise anything just yet, except that I will promise not to make any promises apart from this one I’m making right now. PEACE!

Carlos – Developer

For the most part I’ve been focusing on converting our current HUD into UMG, which allows us to turn post-process effects in the world without affecting the HUD. I’ve also been working on the FOV change implementation and fixing bugs that have been caused by the engine update.

Marcin – Designer

This week, besides ironing out a few bugs with Hives and Holograms, I have been mainly working on the navigation system and physics. Those 2 systems by themselves are usually enough to give you a headache, but combined… believe me, they make for a hell of a week. In any case I have something rather flashy to show you this time. The implementation of the area of effect physics allowed me to work on an IKA feature that we had been planning for a while now, the Unstable Vortex.

Chris – Designer

Over the past week I have been helping debug the our next update release focusing AI and our new interactive foliage. I also performed tests to validity of increasing the amount of apex structures we can have across the whole game. lastly towards the end of the week I have been concentrating on getting the new swamp area up to a high standard before passing it over to the artists.

Joe – Environment Artist

Over the past week I’ve mainly been refactoring the assets for the new Swamp biome which will be compatible with our Multiplayer tree and Foliage instancing systems. I have also finished new prototype visuals for forests/jungles.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I’ve been mostly testing the new AI perception component. New engine update means new bugs which keeps me busy. We also had a birthday in the office, our wonderful level designer Chris turned 21 again so we celebrated with cake. 😉

Yves – Senior Developer

Do you enjoy hitting things with objects made of advanced materials? yes you say? Well good, because this week I’ve been improving and refactoring a new melee system for Multiplayer, squashing bugs together with a friend has never been so satisfying.

Lastly, you can keep an eye on our more immediate progress with our Public Trello Board

– Team Flix