Greetings Pioneers!

We had really hoped to get an update out today but we were foiled at the last hurdle. We have found an engine bug with the navigation system in 4.12 that we need a fix for from Epic before we can release (they should get back to us soon).

This bug is related to the recasting of the navigation mesh, which stops it from updating after a while. Ground AI use the navigation mesh to pick valid spawn locations and move around. As it’s broken currently it could cause a number of symptoms including ground enemies not attacking your base at night and not spawning from hives when you get close or damage them. We want to put out a hotfix that is better than the current release but we feel it’s not yet at that stage.

We have been working on some fairly large changes which address some of the balancing concerns plus a huge number of other much needed bug fixes. We’ve also added some variants for fortification visuals that will change depending on the material you construct them from. New release coming ASAP!

Here’s the latest news from the core areas of the game we’ve been focusing on:

Modular weapons

The new weapon parts from Matt are in and animations from Lauren are coming along nicely. We have some new Ironsights and re-vamped scopes and are in the process of designing the stats of each weapon part along with recoil, firing mechanisms and other effects in preparation for the next stage of development.

Check out some of the progress on the weapons and animations below:

(work in progress)

Abandoned colony bases

Matt is working on constructing the huge lost colony bases that we hope to populate for the new map release. Rather than feeling empty we want them to feel lived in so have been working on some decorator items and proxy models for utilities that you will be able to build in the future!

Creatures

Joe, Tom and Simone have been making steady progress on our biome creature types. This week has seen the development of several crustaceans come to life. All of which will be lesser creatures found roaming the windy outreaches of the world. We’ve also been focusing on the development of a bird of prey creature which will be one of the most common flying aggressive-neutral fauna types.

Survival Stats System

We’ve been putting in the ground work for the Stat system, making sure it has the flexibility to be able to cover any changes we may need. It’s cover everything from Health to Thirst to Progress, every character will have it’s own stat table, giving the potential for more complex AI behaviour in the future.

Thank you all for the continued support. You can keep track of our progress as always on our Trello Boards.

See you in the fray

– Team Flix