Greetings Pioneers!

We massively appreciate the feedback we’ve been receiving for the experimental branch we released to you last week, so we’ve launched another update! Please refer to our previous blog post for instructions on how to access the Experimental Branch.

We’ve been working hard to resolve some of the more pressing issues such as restoring saving and loading functionality and giving a use for the tents that you build. The good news is, we have fixed saving! And a whole bunch of other things..

Additions

• Tents now have working respawn point functionality. You can place many tents in the world and have one set as default at any given instant.
• Added new crosshairs for Guns, Modules, Melee and Build modes.
• Added the “Boot sequence”, which should help tutorialise the HUD elements.
• Added brief UI explaining your broken Build Module.

Changes

• Improved visuals for Suit Integrity UI.
• Updated icons for Gold, Quartz and Silver.
• Removed button prompts for empty loadout slots.
• Replaced placeholder satellites with destructible crates within the Dam.

Bug fixes

• Fixed the issue where saving and/or loading your game wouldn’t work
• Fixed not being able to build on the Tower.
• Fixed icons for Circuit Board, Metal Pole, Super Capacitor and Unstable Power Source
• Fixed an issue where selling a structure with a build module that’s out of energy would stop the module from working again
• Fixed an issue where terrain decals would show up on your character’s armour if you stood over them
• Fixed an issue where saving and loading the game would respawn most items in the world
• Fixed an issue where the large pipes on the Dam surface would have LOD issues
• The Silo doors are now correctly locked
• The radiation zone in the drop pod will now give you a notification that there is radiation
• Removed the Rogue pioneer from outside the drop pod.
• Fixed the issue where you are unable to enter tents you build.
• Fixed an issue where you could walk through doors before they have fully opened
• Fixed an issue where your arms would look blurry when you enter a radiation zone
• Fixed an issue where pickup markers would appear at the end of a scrap metal
• Fixed an issue where you couldn’t reload your gun when using a controller
• Fixed an issue where the Emergency Workbench would display the incorrect name when you approach it
• Fixed some collision issues to do with support beams on top of the Dam.
• Fixed an issue where destructible crates would clip into each other.
• Fixed some level design bugs where there would be random dips in the terrain.
• Fixed some collision issues to do with rocks around the icy river.
• Fixed an issue where certain floor assets would look too shiny.
• Fixed an issue where the player would get stuck on invisible collisions by the road towards the Dam.
• Fixed interactions with open doors, when you shouldn’t be able to use them

Also! Here’s what is still to come/what we’ve been doing:

John – Lead Designer

So our experimental branch is now live on steam – I’ve been keeping priorities in check for this across the team. But we will be updating it as frequently as we can with fixes and improvements, of which will mainly be driven by you guys!

As a pre-warning to anyone seeing this for the first time, the game in the experimental branch is very different to the current game in the main branch, purely due to it missing some integral features, and being broken in places. More information on further updates will be coming soon!

Matt – Art Director

Lots of art fix ups, with the large majority of placeholder assets being swapped out for their finished assets at this stage. Good example of this is the new pipes and tall remote lights that line the older road structures that you’ll find throughout the world.

We’ve been adding in missing drop items so that when you drop a single item of value that you’ve crafted.. That actual item visual appears in the world at your feet, in the form of a three dimensional object! magic.

Lee – Technical Director

I have continued debugging AI this week specifically around navigation and working on a few issues with the turrets now they use fuel. I’ve also been looking into setting up our build machine to push builds to Steam to make the process a lot more automated.

Joe – Lead Artist

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been fixing lots of UI bugs in prep for our experimental update! As far as new additions go, I have implemented the first version of the HUD Boot sequence and a new UI element to add a bit of context to the player’s current predicament. I’ve also reworked the Suit Integrity element so it looks a little nicer and is more efficient. A load of icons that were bugged in our release have also been fixed up and improved.

OG Tom W – Lead Designer

The last couple weeks have been super busy as we got the experimental branch out alongside continuing development on the game. Mainly I have been fixing up bugs and other error that some of you in the experimental branch may have come across some. One major problem was our doors were a little broken and that allowed you to get places you shouldn’t bet, yet, but those doors are now locked and guarded.

The crafting is an element that is always changing and we’ll be continuing to add items, shift things around and balance the progression throughout the development. This week I have added more key materials to the start of the game and added name tags to those items that don’t have models yet so you can tell what you’re picking up. Also this week I have different versions of our breakable crates so that you have the chance to loot material, components, weapons and other items from various crates in the world.

Tom – Designer

Re-balancing the difficulty of the AI so it’s not just as simple as walking off at the beginning of the game and being able to easily tackle certain enemy types. Helping to encouraging the curve of upgrading and getting better stuff first.

Katrine – 3D Artist

Hi everyone. This week I have been finishing up the health packs models. I have also started a fancy new protein squishy bag. It is really exciting to see it all coming together!

Tom H – Designer

After I was on holiday last week I have hit the ground running this week, making tweaks and fixing issues all over the map. I have fixed collisions on the surface of the Dam as well as inside, allowing players to build in these areas. The Transmitter has also been tweaked to allow players to build primitives from the Tower outwards into the world. I have also been using the build system to create outposts and buildings that will already be spawned throughout the map.

John S – Developer

Been adding fuel to turrets so that they now start with a set amount of fuel. They’ll eventually use fuel at a slow rate by default, and increased consumption will happen when they fire.

Charlotte – Concept Artist

This week I have been focusing on creating some UI pre-visualisation for when you will need to repair the MATA-Tool, which will pop up with a visual on the right side of the screen. In addition to that I’ve been taking some very pretty in-game screenshots which is all super exciting!

Yves – Senior Developer

The save system was totally broken, it neither saved or loaded, so I fixed it. We had an issue which turned out that environmental effects on the player were not being carried out, while fixing this I improved the stat system.

John T – Environment Artist

For the past week I have been mainly focused on producing and assigning the dev built structures around the map. These structure will function similar to any pre-existing structure in terms of loot but will also allow the player to destroy elements of the building, claim the building and even modify with new building components.

Ricky – Lead Developer

Looked into handling some of the coop bugs with recent updates and getting the upgrade trees for utilities functioning once more. And sorted a few crashes along the way as I continued working down our fix lists and the bugs found by the community.

Ryan – Developer

This week I have been trying to smash out more bugs and crashes, around the modules, building and fuel. I have also finished work on passive energy regeneration that will burn through fuel to refill any lost energy, this burn rate will also vary depending on the current energy stored.

Mike – Developer

Continuing on from last week, I finished working on the tents and finally added them into the game so you can now respawn at different locations around the world, not just the start point. After that I started working to fix the game freezing issue for the quit to main menu button, the issue was with an outdated piece of middleware that has now been updated. The game no longer locks but we’ve now lost the loading screen itself. This will hopefully be resolved shortly.

Will H – 3D Artist

This week has been spent continuing to replace placeholder assets, starting with a tall floodlight for various areas in the game. This needed to be destructible, so keeping mesh pieces separate was needed to get a breakable feel to the model. I then moved on to replacing the support beams seen mostly in the dam area and stairs. Then onto refining the visuals for the radiation boundary. Particle effects were causing too many performance problems, so a previously experimental mesh version was implemented.

Marcin – Designer

Recently I was focused mainly on bug fixes and supporting other team members with solving problems with the features they’re working on. I was helping the programmers and artists with the logic and user interface for such mechanics as: the new respawn shelter building, the objectives updating when they should, the items remembering whether they have been picked up or not, and making changes so that new buildings can be built on top of the non-destructible structures that make up the world.

Lauren – Lead Animator

These past two weeks I have been helping out with various bugs, cleaning up more animations and playing about with some funky post process materials. It was also my task to write the mother of all changelists, It is surprising how much of the game can change in a year!

Andy – QA

This week I have been signing off various bug fixes. Have been helping Jamie look at some of the AI spawners in the world to check which ones are working or not. Also I have been testing where you can build and how much you can build using the in-game build modules.

Jamie – QA

This week I’ve been testing out the new tweaks to the AI behaviour which has made them more aggressive and fun to fight. I’ve also been testing out the fuel system some more to compare how much fuel each fuel source gives and how fast fuel drains from utilities. Lastly I’ve been testing out building structures on the tower to see that it works as intended.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix