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Weapon Updates and Bug Fixes

Our persistence work continued this week making sure that all your stuff sticks around where you left it after you log out to play in the real world again. In addition to inventory and containers we focused on making improvements to weapons and totems. 

We’ve received a lot of feedback about a handful of totem and construction issues and focused there first. We updated the placement rules for totems so they can only be placed on foundation pieces now, and made sure that resources for building, upgrading, repairing and placing attachments will now come from the totem before taking them from a player’s inventory. 

We also fixed a bug with totem claims not persisting as they should. Nothing is more frustrating than logging in to find that the neighborhood property lines have been redrawn while you were gone.

The team made some crafting improvements and fixed bugs involving duplicate inventory slots and the server crashing after a player made certain items. Since spear and axe production has never been easier, we thought we’d take another run at balancing thrown weapon damage. 

We adjusted damage to eliminate one shot kills after it became an issue in a previous play test, but there was still room for improvement. Hopefully, we hit the sweet spot between spears being the most powerful weapons in the game and wearing a headful of axes like a crown.

We fixed an issue with research benches not working for all items and recipes before moving on to making a few improvements to weapons you don’t throw to round out the week. 

We took care of a bug that resulted in weapons that wouldn’t reload and canteens that would never empty, and made a number of updates to weapon attachments to ensure that they are working properly, including the ability to add multiple attachments to guns. Players should  find it a breeze to play dress-up with their guns and load them on the fly once again.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

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Crafting Improvements, Bug Fixes, and Persistence Updates

From the very beginning, we’ve tried to add little touches to the world that remind players of the thriving Lahaina that existed before the Fracture. There’s no doubt that the forests and beaches frame the setting in the game, but the buildings and dilapidated neighborhoods help tell the story of the people who didn’t make it through the apocalypse. 

Followers of our discord will know that one of the projects we’ve been working on is adding pictures and posters to the ruins and abandoned homes around the map. Community members have submitted photos of their fur babies and we’ve set out to make them Lahaina famous. 

We’re happy to share that we’ve finally fixed a few bugs that saw posters stacked on top of each other and rooms having too few or too many pictures to reach just the right amount of wall hangings. 

Right now it’s mostly pictures of the team and some friends but if you head over to the #pets channel on our discord and submit a photo, you might just see their picture hanging in a house in the future.

We continued making persistence and inventory improvements this week and squashed a long list of bugs with the help of our testers. That includes some updates to the research bench and fixes an issue with boot and hat recipes not producing boots or hats. 

We made it impossible to place sleeping bags under benches and we fixed an interesting bug where players could steal items from other players’ inventories. There are plenty of reasons for you to kill other players but stolen arrows won’t be one of them anymore.

One of our testers discovered that the meat spoilage timer was being applied to other crafted items like iron and charcoal. Nothing smells worse than putrid ingots so we fixed the problem. We also fixed an issue where dragging a stack from a player-built smelter into a stack in a player inventory wasn’t working correctly.

AI should be lootable again so players can feel free to go through the mutant’s disgusting pockets after they’ve been put down, and we fixed a bug with weapon reloading animations. As you can see loading your rifle after shooting one of the neighbors looks as good as it feels.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Bug Fixes and Weapon Updates

They say the best defense is a good offense but sometimes a strategic retreat is the only option if you want to survive the deadly wilds of Lahaina. With some feedback from players in our test sessions, we made a few improvements to movement and medical gear in the game.

Items now apply a speed modifier while they are being used by players whether they are walking or running. Contrary to what you might have heard you don’t run faster with a construction tool in your hand.

We also made bandages usable while a player is moving, although their sprint speed will be reduced 25% while they’re making sure they don’t bleed out.

While we were fixing running away, we addressed a few issues with combat. First, we fixed a bug that would allow a player to shoot behind them when in 3rd person.

Next, we fixed a long-standing issue with thrown weapon damage. One shot one kill might be exactly what you want as a sniper but it makes for a pretty lousy game experience. We adjusted thrown weapon damage removing one-hit-kill shots on the animals and mutants as well.

Some of you reported a crazy bug that would cause someone interacting with a bed to find themselves auto running. This doesn’t exactly lead to a restful sleep so we fixed the sleep runners and we also added proper collision to the rear doors of trucks.

Players hiding inside should be able to count on the doors acting as a barrier between them and the arrows being shot at them again.

We’ve spent countless hours building and adjusting our construction system and we recently fixed a batch of bugs found by our community. We started with fixing a bug where players could place items on support beams on thatch foundations.

We addressed an issue with some construction pieces that resisted being upgraded and a bug with building regeneration making floors that weren’t solid. We appreciate your help in making sure our building system stays up to code (even if you’re still not totally ‘safe’).

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Crafting Updates and Bug Fixes

Everyone likes crafting gear in a survival game and our players are no different. After listening to some suggestions about item quality and the speed it takes to make some gear by hand we decided to introduce a valuable tool in the crafting system, a crafting bench. 

The bench will unlock higher tiered items like guns and ammo and makes general crafting faster. We’re also planning for it to improve the quality of the items you make with it compared to items made by hand in the future.

While our heads were focused on gear we made a few improvements to weapon attachments. We fixed a bug with inventory attachments not freeing their slot when removed from the inventory, and some issues with persistence. It’s never been easier to add a silencer to your favorite gun and shoot at the neighbors from behind a tree.

We worked out a few kinks in everyone’s favorite way to quickly travel across the map too. Taking the zipline can not only save you time but it can help avoid some of the most dangerous areas on the way to the safe zone. We made sure equipped items are now unequipped when you get on to avoid getting stuck in the air and removed a few trees that would literally leave you hanging.

As always our testers kept us on our toes with bug reports and suggestions. This week we fixed a problem with totems “stealing” items and putting them in a hidden energy slot, an issue with players getting stuck if they died while loading into the game, and a bug with canteens not assigning water slots properly when filling up from water containers. 

We also made some changes to the Trophy Collector’s poison clouds damaging buildings, and a bug with bed health not displaying properly. A good night’s sleep is important especially after an apocalypse, and now players don’t have to worry about getting an accurate read on the quality of their mattress.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Bug Fixes and Persistence Updates

With almost as many ways to pick up, interact with, and store items as there are mutants on the island, nailing down inventory and item persistence has been one of our biggest tasks and our main focus. We know how important it is to be able to return to your bases and access inventory so we’ve been devoting all our attention to ensuring everything is where you left it. 

This week, with the help of our testers, we hopefully nabbed the last of the bugs and worked out the final edge cases making sure that your stuff stays where you put it after you log out. 

We also fixed a crash that would occur when moving attachments around in your inventory.  While we were at it, we fixed double clicking on equippable items in a bank, worked out issues with items that were put into containers from the ground, and a whole host of inventory storage bugs. 

Gathering loot isn’t much fun if some of it disappears when you log out. You can now stroll down the beach, finding loot along the way and then cramming your base full of goodies. It will (at least it should) still be there waiting for you whenever you travel to Lahaina.

With container and inventory persistence worked out there’s never been a better time to stuff your warchests with building materials. Unfortunately, our testers ran into some trouble harvesting wood using certain tools. We fixed those bugs and players should find the sawtoothed axe and shark-toothed pan to be good options for chopping down trees and gathering wood again.

Some of you have reported problems with totems and we fixed many of those bugs. We adjusted the energy requirements for totems, fixed a bug where they would disappear after a server restart and made it impossible to build a totem underwater. 

Lastly this week we fixed a bug with rotting head throwing Trophy Collectors. Avoiding the clouds of poison gas the putrid heads make when they land is already hard enough. 

With some help from the community, we learned that a few overzealous Collectors were tossing them two at a time. We fixed the problem so our missile throwing mutants are playing by their disgusting rules once again.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Bug Fixes, Crafting and AI Updates

We made several adjustments to a wide variety of systems to kick off the new year. After gathering your feedback and crunching the numbers we changed the amount of time it takes to research items and craft them without the use of a crafting bench. Converted items (127->energy, ore->iron…) take a bit longer to process as well. All loose items will now be cleaned up after 30 secs to help keep Lahaina clean, and we changed clip sizes across the board. You can still blast away at anything that moves, especially stuff that’s moving towards you, but the new clip size is a more realistic reflection of what each gun can hold.

Timers and ammo counts aren’t the only things that got some attention this week. We made some improvements to AI movements to make them run players down more efficiently, and we fixed a bug that would cause the mutants to float or get stuck if a construction piece was destroyed beneath them.

You might remember that we fixed a bug that caused arrows to bounce off the walls then get stuck which was not helpful in a pinch. Our way of staying “on brand” with those fixes meant we also took a closer look at overall weapon damage and updated a few things. 

Homemade bows and some of the traditional Hawaiian weapons in particular were a little overpowered. We dialed back the damage so players can no longer blast through the walls of a wooden base after a few hits. Wood isn’t the most resilient building material but it should be able withstand more than a few well placed arrows or swings of an axe.

We made a sizable dent in our bug list recently. Some of the biggest issues that our testers help us find and fix this week include: A problem with items doubling or tripling in weight after being put into a chest, some players finding themselves spawned under the map, and torches that would somehow burn underwater. We fixed the infamous disappearing door/door lock bug and we fixed a problem with players physically colliding with pings. Marking an item to make it easier to see for your party members will no longer act as a barrier to your teammates.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Inventory and AI Improvements

We say it all the time but player feedback is hugely important to our development process. Many of our decisions and designs are guided with the help of our testers telling us what’s working and what needs some of our attention. This week was no different as we started to work on a few AI improvements. 

While we plan out new dungeons and out-of-the-way places to explore, your feedback about our AI is always on our mind. We’ve had a few tests now where the respawn rate became a problem. It seemed like the mutants were popping up almost faster than you could cut them down, depleting ammo and summoning an army of cannibals attracted to the piles of bodies. 

We’ve adjusted the default spawn rate of AI in dungeons to a more manageable number that still forces players to move along while exploring but didn’t leave them trapped in the middle of an area with no resources. We fixed a bug too that would interrupt an AI chasing a target if someone was in their path. The mutants will now push you out of the way if you come between them and their meal.

We made a number of inventory improvements as well. We’ve added a message to the HUD when a player’s inventory is filled to the brim. We fixed bugs with the hotbar not updating properly and inventory UI not updating when the menu is closed. Adding an attachment to a weapon got a little easier. Players will find dropping an attachment anywhere on the weapon details panel will now work easily.

With our testers’ help we nabbed quite a few bugs this week. Players loading in can no longer suffer fall or bleed damage. This should address any problems for players who are loading into a base that has been destroyed. We also fixed a bug where a player could shoot or throw projectiles and reload weapons while using an item. We’re all for multitasking but drinking from your canteen while taking a 100 yard shot with your bow and loading your shotgun at once seemed a bit excessive.

Water catchers should be refilling properly once again across the map much to the relief of the thirsty. We added the proper damage resistance to totems so they should be able to take a little more smashing now and we fixed some problems with doors many of you reported. We fixed the invisible door issues some of you discovered and worked out a bug with the door lock UI popping up for players with permissions when opening a door.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Siege and Inventory Improvements

The feedback we gather during our test sessions is invaluable to us and vital to our development process. It helps us uncover bugs and figure out what systems need tweaking. After listening to what you had to say this week we made some improvements to the siege system. 

We set up small, medium, and large mutant wave spawners to send the proper amount of mutants charging at your buildings. After running a few tests we decided to increase the difficulty of medium and large sieges in order to strike that right balance to the battle for your bases. It can’t be too easy but it also can’t be impossibly difficult or players will keep dying and losing all their hard earned loot. 

Our goal is to hit that sweet spot where it seems like combat won’t go your way, but players manage to just pull out the victory in the end if they work well together. Nothing feels as good as hobbling back into your base to start repairs after barely repelling a mutant horde.

We resolved a couple of issues around drinking this week since staying properly hydrated is a big part of surviving post apocalyptic Maui. First, we reduced the time it took to drink from water collectors and other sources, making it easier to drink on the run. We also fixed a bug making the canteen only usable once before becoming dead weight in your inventory. 

After working out the water bugs we turned our attention to some fire problems. Many of you mentioned having trouble burning up bodies. Cleaning up after yourself is important if you want to avoid attracting cannibals and keep Lahaina clean and beautiful. We made some adjustments to make impromptu cremations a bit easier including halving the ignition time for burning dead bodies.

We made a lot of improvements and fixed bugs you found with the inventory too. We increased the amount of empty space in the inventory screen where items can be dropped on the ground, made equippable and usable items go to your interact bar by default if there is room, and set the lifespan of items dropped in the safe zone to 15 minutes. 

We fixed bugs that would allow players to swap their equipped weapon into a container and still have the weapon equipped, items being deleted when being drug around in large stack sizes, and we fixed a crash when firing weapons near other players. Players can once again spontaneously attack others and break alliances without worrying about breaking the game.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Bug Fixes, Gun and Inventory Improvements

Our playtest sessions are the best way for us to hear directly from our community, but not the only way (see #suggestions in our discord). However, since players have our attention and our ears once a week, we make sure to take note of things that keep coming up. Guns and ammo in the game are a regular topic of conversation, so we focused on some fixes to those this week. 

Players have limited inventory slots so we decided to make all ammo stack to 100 now and updated its dimensions and weight. We fixed a bug that wouldn’t allow you to reload a gun that had been dropped on the ground and picked up and made it so projectile-based weapons would receive durability damage when they are fired. 

These improvements should make it easier to carry around enough ammo to blast every mutant and other player you come across (if that’s what you’re into) and add a bit of realism to the act of firing hundreds of rounds through a firearm without a proper cleaning kit. We’re still big fans of our Hawaiian-inspired melee weapons, but if you’re in need of hardware we’ve got you covered.

We found and fixed a number of issues that were crashing the game thanks to our players. We resolved issues with: loading containers, adding water to containers, projectiles hitting foliage, and updating partial stacks of ammo causing the server to crash. 

Even though we recommend that you look for goodies before setting someone or something on fire, we squashed a bug preventing you from properly looting a burning corpse. We also fixed a handful of drinking bugs including one that made it impossible to drink from rivers at certain angles. Players should now be able to quench their thirst no matter how they approach the water, even from 90 degrees. Drinks are on us from now on!

We fixed a bug where corpses would randomly show up in the inventory UI, and a fun one that would cause a player to look like they were phasing between veils of reality by getting stuck crouching or proning near the edges of water.

We made some improvements to drone performance and fixed a problem where a player would start bleeding if they were hit with a piece of meat. Bleeding to death from a bloody steak is no way to go. Lastly, we fixed a bug that would cause player spawned items to go to the very center of the map. It was a great feature for anyone who happened to be there looking for free loot, but not so ideal for whoever made it.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.

DEV

Melee, Looting, and Totem Improvements

This week we’re continuing to make improvements based on player feedback and finished work on a handful of systems to make gameplay more fun. First thing on our list was looting. 

We know how important it can be to grab the goods quickly off a body when you’re in the middle of a fight. However, being able to instantly loot an opponent creates problems as well. After a few iterations, some persistence work, and listening to your feedback we made a couple of updates that should make the “getting stuff” process better (at least for now). 

First, we made improvements to our quick looting system. If you just want to grab everything and sort it out later, you can hold “F” and scoop up every last bit of backpack filler on a body.

Best of all we put a little preview window in the game so you can check out what’s inside a container without actually opening it. Just hover your mouse over a box or crate and you’ll get a quick peek inside.

We added fiber this week, a new resource for many of your crafting needs. Instead of trees producing twine and wood, chopping away will now yield fiber and wood.

Thanks to your feedback and a few of our playtests ironing things out, we increased the number of resources a totem can hold, giving players a longer amount of time before their structures begin to degrade.

We fixed the 127 converter in the Thorcon Power Plant so it is correctly converting 127 into energy and that energy is persisting properly. That’s good news for anyone looking to operate the advanced smelter or craft some of the top tier items!

We fixed the party system so if the leader of a party leaves or disconnects the next player in line will now be promoted to leader. As much as it pained us, we also fixed a bug that would allow players to harvest meat from corpses by shooting them. Being a cannibal was never so easy. After some spectacular player falls we updated fall damage and added an impact noise when a player receives any damage from falling

Mr. Mixer Head (nickname pending) is offering a new weapon for purchase inside his booth. Players will be able to buy a compound bow now, perfect for those who aren’t fans of close combat or the price of bullets.

Since players have a new ranged option we decided to take a look at the closer side of combat too. We made a number of improvements to how melee combat works including changing the way we calculate swinging weapon distance, making it easier to drive your shark-toothed club through mutant flesh.

You can learn more about the game and get all the latest updates by going to our Discord server or checking out our Steam page.