STORYLINE

Trapped Children Credit Quick thinking and Doughnuts for Survival

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The saga of 4 Lahaina children trapped inside a barrier wall came to an end today, when rescuers were able to safely remove them from the cavity that they had been huddled in for almost a week. Officials say that the construction drones that were building the wall failed to recognize that the children were inside the foundation trench when they began to pour concrete. Miraculously, none of the children were seriously injured, and all are expected to make a full recovery. The kids credit their survival with the quick thinking of one and freshly made doughnuts every night for keeping their spirits up.

June 10th was like any other typical summer day in Lahaina. In every neighborhood kids were outside playing ball or trying to beat the heat by walking down to the beach or jumping through a sprinkler. Tanager Lane was no different. 4 long-time friends, 10-year-old Brandon Stonegate, 11-year-old Landon Morrow, 10-year-old Greg Pio, and 9-year-old Tammy Laiwi, were playing in Brandon’s backyard, when the ball they were kicking around found it’s way into the trench dug for the barrier wall. The kids knew that construction on the controversial wall was supposed to continue that day, but assumed it would be safe for them to quickly retrieve the ball. They were wrong.

The wall around Tanager Lane had been a hot button topic for months. Opponents argued that it sent the wrong message to tourists and would become an eyesore. However, Preservation Zone Compliance Liaison to the Mayor’s Office Elizabeth Stonegate had been pushing the project, claiming that it was needed to help protect both the neighborhood and the surrounding protected areas. Stonegate said that the wall would “enshrine” the neighborhood and highlight Tanager Lane as an example of an area that had “reached 100% compliance with all preservation zone regulations”.
Stonegate’s plan included using the neighborhood’s maintenance drones to construct the wall in order to save money and keep heavy construction equipment from driving through the area. Many had concerns about turning over such a large project to the automated building-bots including their creator, Ano Lee. “I told Elizabeth that they still had some trouble recognizing objects that should be avoided and people when engaged in large projects, but she wanted to push ahead with the wall anyway,” he says. It now appears that Lee’s concerns were right.

Tammy and Greg were the first to jump in the trench to navigate the maze of rebar to get their ball. According to the friends, the drones showed up almost immediately, and they knew that they were in trouble. “They started to install big panels of wood. I had watched my uncle pour concrete before and knew that they were molds. They didn’t stop when they got by Tammy so Landon and I jumped in to pull them out, but the drones were working so fast that it was too late,” said Brandon. According to the children it was Brandon’s quick thinking and another drone malfunction that saved their lives.
One of the wooden panels was installed at an angle and broken. This left just enough space between the mold and the earthen wall for the children to take shelter as the concrete began to fill the trench. Brandon sealed the space as well as he could with a piece of the broken mold. It would be almost a week before any of them would be reunited with their families.

At first, nobody knew where the children were. Officials had been searching the surrounding forests for over a day before someone finally heard the children’s shouts for help. Worried about the structural integrity of the wall, first responders called in engineers to assess the situation. The tiny air hole the children had relied on was widened and people from around the island gathered to provide what help they could, including Hula Noodle owner Ralph Umeke with his “Mobile Malasada” truck. Along with some bottles of Manimal, some of “Uncle” Ralph’s malasadas were the first food to be lowered down to the children and they credit the deep fried treats with keeping their spirits up. The children remained trapped for another 3 days before engineers could safely pull them free this morning.

Brandon’s mother Elizabeth says she’s thrilled and relieved that the children are safe and healthy and says she and her family just wants to move forward and “let things get back to normal.” She adds, “Having something happen like this makes you think about what’s really important. You are only given one chance and one body to get through life, so it’s important to treat yourself with respect. When I see what these kids eat every day…well it’s no wonder they couldn’t climb out of that trench in time and my son had to risk his life to save them. Hopefully, these families will start taking nutrition a little more seriously. They won’t always have a Stonegate around to help them.”

For his part, Brandon says that he has no regrets about risking his life to protect his friends and says they have never been closer. He says he learned a lot through the ordeal, and his love of Portuguese confections is at the top of the list.

“We’re not allowed to eat that kind of stuff at home. I had no idea that something could be so delicious. Towards the end we were all getting pretty scared and worried that they wouldn’t be able to get us out before something bad happened. Just making it to the evening when the malasada truck got there helped us all. No matter how bad it got down there we knew we’d get warm doughnuts in the evening. I had to get trapped for 5 days in a cramped, hot, dirty hole with my friends to discover those malasadas. I think it was worth it.”

STORYLINE

Lahaina Sanctuary Lets Over 700 Cats Live A Pampered Life

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Offering: clean water, good food, 6 miles of cat “highways”, automated toys, a drone cleaning system, and limitless petting, the Lahaina Cat Sanctuary has been called a feline paradise. Founded in March 2028 by owner and Executive Director Felix Popoki, and dubbed “Whisker Island” by its fans, the sanctuary is currently home to over 700 cats of all shapes, breeds, and sizes. One of the largest nonprofit sanctuaries in the world, Whisker Island has saved thousands of cats over the years through its adoption programs, and provides unadoptable animals a place to live out their remaining years. However, running such a large rescue takes a lot of time, hard work, and sacrifice. “My job is literally herding cats,” says Popoki. “It gets so busy around here that sometimes I wish I had nine lives to devote to the operation, but I’m proud of what we’ve done. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

15-years-ago Felix saw a need to do something about the growing feral cat population in Western Maui. A danger to much of the island’s wildlife, in particular many endangered native bird species, most solutions involved trapping and euthanizing the wild cats. “That was just unacceptable to me,” says Felix. So he took out a loan, bought the plots of land on either side of his home, and began construction of what was to become Whisker Island.

“Things were much different then,” Felix says. “I did most everything myself. I relied on volunteers for construction and veterinary services. I spent most of my money on cat food and litter. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t nights that I doubted myself while repairing a scratching post for the 5th time, but slowly word spread about what I was trying to do. Donations started rolling in, and when Veilcorp got behind the project – well, it was the cat’s meow. I thought all of our problems were solved. We were riding high, and then Maui expanded the preservation zone, and I was worried we’d have to shutdown.”

Many Lahaina businesses and families found themselves living within the boundaries of protected lands after, the expansion of the West Maui Forest reserve in 2031. For most, the stricter regulations didn’t change their day to day lives much, but for the owner of a large cat sanctuary, it meant hundreds of hours of structural improvements, and tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs. “We had to install animal friendly netting to keep all the birds out, and the fur in. We had to store the cat food and medicines in securely sealed containers. We had to ship the used litter off-island to be incinerated, and we had to install environmental cleansers to ensure that any disease or parasite didn’t make it off the property. If it wasn’t for Veilcorp’s donation, and all the volunteers who came to help, we wouldn’t have made it.”

Despite meeting all the new requirements, Popoki says he still has a contentious relationship with preservation zone officials. Elizabeth Stonegate, Compliance Liaison to the Mayor’s Office, in particular remains an ardent opponent of the sanctuary. “Dander Island as I like to call it, is only open because of Veilcorp money,” she says. “They have been cited on numerous occasions for improperly stored food. Anytime there’s a strong wind the adjacent land is covered in rogue feathers, and bits of yarn. I know that they have some sort of hi-tech litter system, but let’s just say you don’t want stand downwind of 700 cats, no matter how expertly their litter boxes are changed. However, for me, the worst part is the volunteers. They’re just what you think of when you think of animal hoarders. Old, disheveled, covered in hair, and I hate to say it, but weird. If I see one of them in a store downtown, I leave. I don’t have time to wait behind them at the checkout while they mumble, shed hair, pick through their loose change and coupons. I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

Despite the criticisms, the ten acre refuge has become a popular tourist attraction on the island. Last year, over 20,000 visitors walked amongst the animals, and the sanctuary hosted 18 weddings for cat lovers who wanted share their special occasion with hundreds of feline witnesses. Not all visitors come to play with the cats however. Just as many come to marvel at the technology. “Ano Lee was one of our first and biggest supporters,” says Felix. A fixture in Lahaina, the well known inventor has transformed Whisker Island into the most advanced animal sanctuary around.

“Every litter box sits on a scale that determines when it needs to be emptied,” says Lee. “I’ve repurposed my maintenance drone design to handle emptying and filling the litter, and distributing food evenly throughout the facility. I’ve reinforced the 6 miles of cat walkways connecting the various buildings, and attached tracking that an automated toy pod travels along all day. Every 3 minutes a toy is deployed somewhere along the line for the cat’s amusement, and we also have a number of laser emitters that randomly shine a laser, following a preset pattern, to help stimulate the residents. We have automated cameras that can identify any fights, or potentially sick animals within seconds. If I wasn’t so busy, I’d move into Whisker Island myself. The place is a paradise.”

While he’s proud of his 15 years, Felix admits that there is sometimes trouble in cat paradise. “Feral Heights has never been one of the better neighborhoods in Whisker Island, and we warn visitors to not loiter too long when passing through. Nonetheless, this year scratching incidents have gone up over 60%.” Despite the occasional setbacks, and the never ending list of tasks to complete, Popoki says he loves his work and hopes to eventually house 2,000 cats in the sanctuary. “I feel like I’m sitting in the catbird seat every day, and I want to do all that I can for my tenants. I just wish I wasn’t so allergic to my angels.”

STORYLINE

Automated Maintenance Drones Keep Neighborhood In Good Repair

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Home repairs and maintenance just got a whole lot easier in one Lahaina neighborhood with the unveiling of a group of automated maintenance drones. Created and conceived by local inventor Ano Lee, the drones can take care of most external home repairs as well as handle basic construction. Under the watchful eye of Tanager Lane Homeowners’ Association President and Preservation Zone Compliance Liaison to the Mayor’s Office Elizabeth Stonegate, the drones will work as part of a Maui funded pilot program for the next 90 days. If successful, they could be deployed to handle maintenance of government buildings all over the island.

Unlike most of his creations, Lee says that the inspiration for the automated drone system came from necessity. He was facing multiple fines for preservation zone infractions and was offered a chance to do community service in lieu of paying the accumulated fines.

“The pineapple bots I designed a couple years back have been a great success and have really changed the business of pineapple farming, however the strobe lights are a problem. It turns out that they are illegal to use within 100 yards of the preservation zone because they attract insects and endanger the native hoary bat. The fine was up to $500 per incident, and they had been documenting the lights for over a year. The final tally was insane, but Elizabeth said that she might be able to work out a deal. I had been toying with the idea of repurposing the drones for other tasks, and we worked out this maintenance agreement. I just wish they had informed me of the infractions earlier so I wouldn’t have to spend the next year building maintenance drones for the County.”

“Maintenance is one of the hardest parts of being a responsible home owner,” says Stonegate. “In my experience, it’s one that many people aren’t ready to take on. In my reign as Tanager Lane President, I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to point out chipped paint, crooked fencing, or a loose shingle. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the initiative to keep their things nice or are just too neglectful to do proper maintenance. Making sure residents live up to basic standards and prodding the lazy, so we can all enjoy a beautiful neighborhood, has taken up countless hours over the past 12 years. Finally, I’ll have a little help and I couldn’t be more excited. I just hope that the drones can keep up with me, and adhere to my standards better than some of our residents.”

3 drones started patrolling Tanager Lane this week. They do preventative maintenance according to a pre-programmed schedule, fix any problems they come across, and help enforce preservation zone rules. The drones keep track of a materials inventory necessary to complete most repairs and are capable of ordering supplies when they run low or need to take on a special task. Lee says that he hopes to include 3D printing technology in future models.

Technology and convenience does not come cheap however. Those living inside Tanager Lane will see a substantial increase in their HOA dues this year. However, Stonegate says, “When you consider how many fines the average Tanager Lane resident pays for infractions every year and the cost of multiple repairs, the price is actually a bargain.”

The drone roll-out has been well received for the most part. Many residents welcome the system and see the automated repair drones as a convenience, but there have been a few incidents that have raised concerns.

Shelby Pio says the drones ruined her son’s 10th birthday party.

“Eric missed out on a good portion of his summer vacation with a broken leg. He’s a very active boy and it was really hard for him to stay cooped up while watching his friends play. We decided to get him a bounce house for his birthday so he could jump around all day with his friends and maybe work out some of his frustration from the past month. The kids loved it and everyone was having a good time when I went inside to make some lemonade. A minute later I heard shouting and ran out to see what the trouble was. It was the drones. They were trying to drag the bounce house away and had pierced it in the process. I had a dozen crying kids in my front yard watching their afternoon of fun fly away. I called Elizabeth and she said that structures, even non-permanent ones, weren’t allowed without a permit. I felt more deflated than the bounce house.”

Stonegate says none of the children were hurt in the bounce house incident and adds that residents better get used to having the drones enforce the rules. In fact, she says she would like to expand their duties to yard care and driveway repair as well. Ano Lee says that early tests with lawn care have not been particularly successful. “In the few tests I’ve done so far the drones haven’t been able avoid large objects. The last thing I want is for a kid to get hurt while a drone is mowing the yard.” Stonegate counters, “I’m sure most children are smart enough to move when the flying lawnmowers show up, but I understand Mr. Lee’s concern. I look forward to seeing what progress he makes in the hot asphalt and concrete department in the upcoming weeks.”

STORYLINE

Inventor Develops Pineapple Picking Drones

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Hawaii was once responsible for 80% of the world’s pineapple production, but times have changed. Economic realities and a decrease in available farmland have pushed most production to Central and South America. The fruit that is so synonymous with the islands is only grown commercially by a handful of farms on Maui today. One such operation, Ananas Farms, is trying to reverse the trend with the help of a local inventor. The farm hopes that their pineapple picking drones will make the fruit a major crop in Hawaii again.

Well known by Lahaina residents, Ano Lee might not be what you expect when you imagine a brilliant inventor. The 43-year-old has lived in a maker commune just outside of town since he was a teenager. “My mom and dad built this place as a refuge for artists and craftsmen, and I’m just trying to honor their vision,” says Lee. Dressed in his usual board shorts and rubber slippahs, he admits that he only owns one pair of dress pants. “I think we can all agree that suits and ties are not the wellspring of creativity,” he quips. If his past projects are any indication, he may be right.

2 years ago Lee created a shark mitigation system that put him into the national spotlight. The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) entered into a development partnership with Lee and is currently using a version of the system now. While his latest invention may not save as many lives, it has huge implications for the future of Hawaiian agriculture. According to Lee, it all started with a bet.

“I hear people say that they love pineapple all the time, but I REALLY love them. If nature has made anything better, I haven’t found it. Ananas Farm is close so I would usually pick up a couple there every day. There’s nothing like a pineapple fresh off the plant. Walking over there got to be a hassle so I asked if I could just pay ahead of time and send a drone over to pick a couple. Roy told me that he wouldn’t have a problem with it, but it was impossible to automate pineapple picking. He told me that if I could come up with a way to do it, he’d let me have free pineapple for life; so I started to tinker around with a solution.”

What Ano came up with is a drone picking and planting system that promises to change the business. Before his invention, it was commonly thought that the processes involved in pineapple production were too complex for automation. However, Lee’s pineapple-bots have overcome every obstacle. A skilled worker can plant 5-6 thousand pineapples a day. The drone can plant around 10 thousand. They are capable of breaking down mother plants for re-planting and can carry up to 6 fruits at a time. Even though their main power source is solar, a battery system allows the bots to work through the night. Lee adds, “The lights allow you to track their work at night and avoid getting smacked in the head by a drone dropping off a load. Best of all I added a really cool strobe feature. You have no idea how awesome a pineapple field looks with 20 high-powered strobe lights going off!”

Roy Ananas says that the farm’s production costs have decreased greatly, while production is up almost 30% since using the drones. “We’re getting calls from all over the place. Companies have been trying to automate pineapple farming since the early 1900’s. It was accepted that it was impossible. What Ano has come up with is amazing! We’re excited about the future here and for the industry as a whole. I just wish I had offered him free fruit in exchange for groundbreaking innovation before. We joke around about how he could revolutionize the world if we could figure out what else he likes to eat.”

Ano says he’d like to refine the pineapple-bots a bit more before he takes on another project,

“There’s still a few issues to work out but I can see these drones being used for a number of other purposes. Cleaning up ocean trash, and a wide variety of construction projects are on the short list right now. We’re working on a way to combine one with a printer in order to make tools and supplies on the fly so-to-speak. The last few years have been really good to me. I want to make sure that I give the drones all the attention they deserve before I move on to something else. I have some ideas about a self-cleaning plate system, and an inflatable pant design that should have the belt industry quaking in their boots. I’m not overly concerned about what’s next. I know I’ll always have a big bowl of pineapple whatever the future holds.”

DEV

Version 0.1.2219: Server Travel, Map Improvements, and the Return of the Drone

Aloha Thrivers!

We’ve made many gameplay improvements with the help of the first two waves of Kickstarter backers and testers.

We’ve finished Veil travel! With the system in place, players will eventually be able to travel to other servers and alternate versions of Maui soon. It opens the door for us to create different biomes to explore, like deserts or even frigid versions of Lahaina, as well as other customized worlds down the road.

There are significant improvements to the map, making it more useful for players with the urge to explore and anyone looking for their body or bed. We’ve added an autorun button, completely reworked how jumping works, and revamped the “knocked down” state, so players on the brink of death get one last chance to be revived.

There have been many UI improvements, including all new key bindings making crafting and turning in quests easier. Talents have brand new icons, and we’ve added tooltips to vendors and the party screen.

Playing Fractured Veil has never been more player-friendly, and everyone’s favorite eye-in-the-sky is back patrolling Maui for anything that catches its lens. After some time in the shop, the Drone is back patrolling the skies of Lahaina!

Here’s a look at everything we’ve added to the game.

Veil Travel

We implemented our Veil travel system, so players will be able to use the technology that destroyed civilization soon. It will eventually allow players to travel to different servers to explore other versions of Maui with different biomes, creatures, buildings, or virtually anything else you can imagine. This is a huge step forward for getting the next wave of Kickstarter backers in the game.

Map Update

Recently, the map got a lot of love: It looks better, and we updated the radar and compass features. We added a bed filter that can be toggled on or off, perfect for every weary thriver looking for a place to lay their head, and made improvements to make it easier to use.

UI Update

There have been a ton of UI improvements to make gameplay easier. We want our players fighting to survive the deadly wilds, not wrestling with a screen.

Double-clicking an item in the crafting menu will now queue it up for being crafted. There are new keybindings for auto-run “=” and turning in quests “K.” We made sure that the item wheel and Hotbar now show the correct keybindings, and you can unbind keys by right-clicking on them.

We added new icons to all the talent trees that help explain what each Talent does. Choosing abilities from Builder, Survivor, Hunter, or Support roles has never been easier. We also fixed bugs that were keeping skills from leveling up properly.

Gameplay Improvements

We adjusted how the “bleeding” condition works. If you are already bleeding when you get hit with a piercing or slashing attack, your bleed rate will increase depending on your current blood stat. So watch out for a group of Butchers! To help balance things out, bandages now restore 750 to your blood stat.

We improved how jumping works, including new jumping animations and adjustments to landing speeds. Players also can no longer break their legs from falling in safe zones. Limping animations were fixed, and players’ death messages should correspond to their actual cause of death.

We changed what happens to players when they are also on the brink of death. Players on that familiar red-tinted screen now have a better chance of getting back up. If you receive a fatal hit that does not deal more than 25% of your total health, you will enter the “knocked-down” state. Entering this state gives a small bonus to health and a 30-second window to be revived. Just enough time if you’re traveling with someone quick with a medkit.

Misc Improvements

  • Adjusted the totem spear’s reload animation
  • Improve Banyan tree procedural foliage positioning angle
  • Setup vendors and teammate icons with updated data for tooltips
  • RPG Quest Tasks no longer automatically turn themselves in when they are complete
  • Added subtle lighting to the Thorcon Bank to help it stand out
  • Disabled crouching/proning while wearing a leg splint

Return of the Drone

The Drone is back by popular demand and a lot of hard work from the team! Lahaina’s eye-in-the-sky is patrolling the island 24/7 again and will soon begin live streaming everything that catches its attention.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed the barter skill tracking the number of things bought instead of the amount of rai spent
  • Fixed stamina drain modifiers not working
  • Fixed attachment loading for player-spawned containers
  • Fixed construction upgrade and repair skills not applying properly
  • Fixed AI health and thrown weapon damages not being set to their desired values
  • Fixed the recycling skill being inverted
  • Fixed the player limping animation no longer playing
  • Fixed scrap pick icon
  • Fixed auto-run not working if the client wasn’t the active window
  • Fixed reconnecting players not receiving replication of their previously existing dead body if it was in a safe zone
  • Fixed death messages not being displayed in the editor
  • Fixed the drowning death message not being displayed correctly
  • Fixed the AI’s ranged projectiles not causing the correct death message to be displayed
  • Fixed the HUD not always displaying the correct item count of acquired resources
  • Fixed double-clicking a craftable item on the crafting bench not placing the item in the bench’s inventory
  • Fixed items not being able to be picked up in certain locations if they were dropped from a container’s inventory
  • Fixed escape and backspace not functioning in the map UI
  • Fixed the stamina efficiency stat getting truncated and ignored at higher levels
  • Fixed the bleed status effect not being displayed on the UI
  • Fixed a bug where players could directly interact with the invisible containers that were spawned by the smelter and other instanced storage items
  • Fixed spamming the jump key occasionally causing the player to stop sprinting even if they continued to hold their sprint key bind
  • Fixed the Scrap Pick sticking into objects with its handle when thrown
  • Fixed the Scrap Pick not being visible in the air after being thrown
  • Fixed players not being able to make a totem in a PvE zone after recycling an old one
  • Fixed elevators not working
  • Fixed the bed filter not showing up on the filter UI
  • Fixed spawned containers respawning at server startup
  • Fixed the hud’s knockdown timer not relating to the player’s remaining lifespan
  • Fixed players temporarily disappearing while playing the knockdown animation
  • Fixed being able to turn in incomplete quests
  • Fixed the crouching functionality, checking if the player was able to prone
  • Fixed rebinding keys not causing the player’s item slots to update their keybind text
  • Fixed encumbered players moving faster than expected
  • Fixed veil machine taking all the money and rai in the slot
  • Fixed being able to veil travel while crafting is in progress
  • Fixed foliage not being fully replicated after leaving and returning to an area
  • Fixed pressing “Y” while knocked down not causing the player to be placed into the respawn screen
  • Fixed knocked down players not taking damage from other players

 

More About Fractured Veil

DEV

Version 0.1.1655 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements

Aloha Thrivers!

A huge thanks to our amazing community – our Kickstarter campaign is 100% funded! You’ve blown us away with the love and support you’ve shown in these last 2 weeks. Thanks to all of you, we are one giant step closer to making Fractured Veil the survival game that we’ve ALL dreamt of!

We can’t wait to implement more of your great ideas and show you what we have planned for the future of the game. We took a poll about what you’d like to see next and that’s how we decided on our first few stretch goals, so keep your ideas flowing and let us know how we’re doing.

A large majority of you said that you’d like more options for personalizing your base and making your post-apocalyptic shelter stand out. When we hit this first goal players will have access to items that will transform your Hawaiian home away from home and feel more cozy.

We have some incredible momentum going here, so let’s ride that wave all the way to the end and unlock even more amazing content by pumping up these Stretch Goals!!

Huge thanks once again to everyone who helped us get this far. We are so humbled and honored by the support you have shown us.

We’ve made a lot of updates to loot drops, improved the construction and crafting systems, worked out some more AI navigation issues, and fixed a ton of bugs this week. Keep reading below to see everything we fixed and updated.

Updates and Fixes

Loot Improvements and Fixes
  • Added loot to ships and subs in the ocean
  • Replaced non loot corpses with corpse pinatas
  • Added loot spawners and water to cave boss room
  • Changed ammo and attachment drops to prefer less powerful ammo and attachments
  • Reduced spawn rates of SSHAM, canned food, clothing, and canteens
  • Rebalanced medical spawn rates to favor bandages syringes over medkits
  • Rebalanced ranged weapon spawn group to favor less powerful guns
  • Rebalanced tool spawn rates to favor stone
  • Adjusted big bob’s weapon, 127, and rai spawn rates and quantities
  • Implemented dripping blood for hanging bodies
  • Fixed issue with corpses not being lootable
  • Fixed item skins not being loaded into items in containers
  • Fixed bank not being interactable

Drone Improvements
  • The drone will no longer leave its high zoom state early
  • Increased the amount of time between the drone’s high zoom states
  • Fixed bug where the drone wasn’t picking up AI

Construction Improvements and Fixes
  • Reduced Trophy collector head damage to construction pieces during sieges
  • Eliminated damage from non-siege trophy collectors to construction pieces
  • Increased decay to Hawaiian melee weapons from construction
  • Reduced damage from Hawaiian melee, bows, and pickaxe to construction
  • Fixed ‘Hold F’ message showing up for wall torches and lanterns
  • Fixed not being able to recycle totems properly
  • Fixed interacting with barricades opening loot menu

Crafting Fixes and Updates
  • Increased research and purchase costs for guns
  • Increased research, purchase and construction costs for hawaiian melee
  • Added support for multiple fuel types to campfires and smelters
  • Fixed players not being able to interact with the 127 converter and Thorcon smelter
  • Fixed repair bench and crafting bench being invisible in the Thorcon
  • Fixed bug where recipe events could cause the wrong research bench animations to play
  • Fixed broken Leiomano club recipe
  • Fixed holding F on crafting machines not starting them properly
  • Fixed research and crafting benches being ignored for persistence
  • Fixed recycle persistence issue

AI Navigation Updates
  • Improved how manually placed AI pawns activate
  • Adjusted the initial angle of the AI on AI pushing to reduce instances of the blocker being dragged along with the AI being blocked
  • AI that are blocked by other AI can now attempt to push the blocker in multiple directions to free themselves
  • Increased the velocity that AI push other AI with when being blocked
  • Sieging AI that fail to activate will now be automatically cleaned up and replaced
  • Reduced how quickly AI blend in their lower-body movement animations to prevent AI excessively shuffling their feet around when being pushed by other AI
  • Fixed AI being blocked by overlapping components
  • Fixed AI attempting to use navigation requests that were canceled
  • Fixed AI stutter-stepping when receiving partial navigation paths
  • Fixed AI becoming permanently stuck if they failed to generate a valid path twice in a row
  • Fixed melee AI not returning their correct focal point in all movement scenarios
  • Fixed a bug where AI were accumulating velocity while attacking movement blocking actors
  • Fixed a bug where ranged AI would occasionally spin in circles while standing still

Game Updates
  • Updated rivers across the map
  • Added lights around bank
  • Increased light intensity and range for cave tikis
  • Stackable items on the ground will now auto-merge with items nearby
  • Improved replication and client performance after many trees have been cut down
  • Improved distant scene fog, saturation, and color balance
  • Improved foliage distance field settings
  • Increased clothing costs

Fixes
  • Fixed interacting with the sleeping bag bringing up the container menu
  • Fixed interact progress bar being too small for the canteen
  • Fixed material on glasses
  • Fixed foliage not respawning
  • Fixed respawned foliage not taking damage properly
  • Fixed inactive players taking damage in PvE zones
  • Fixed Thorcon Stall Props texture issues
  • Fixed radar icons not working after actor deaths
  • Fixed players being able to damage each other with flares in PvE zones
  • Fixed auto-sort button breaking persistence
  • Fixed the Siege Manager’s ‘random siege chance’ properties getting overridden on start-up
  • Fixed a bug where sieges could be forcibly started on bases that did not have a valid totem
  • Fixed bug where hitting Alt-F4 before next condition update fires caused the server to skip the update
  • Fixed bug where pressing N while not knocked down caused the ‘dismissed knockdown’ dialog to appear

Watch Fractured Veil Gameplay Footage

We spent some time thriving with MarkeeDragon
Went into the darkness with Omnikevfka
Went on a morning run with Ettnix
And of course some survival time with KangGaming

Don’t forget to check out these videos from

BigfryTV talking about survival
exploring the island with eNtaK
And some laughs with Anarchy HD.

Community Spotlight

From the early days, we’ve been driven by the community and your feedback is very important to us so keep it coming! If you’re interested in helping out, head over to our discord and let us know! We love hearing your ideas and talking about what’s coming up next. Our testers also put together some amazing builds (including a Hawaiian hot tub) while exploring the map, here’s a look at some of our favorite shots they shared this week.

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DEV

Drone Music and Player Fixes

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We are currently focusing on UI improvements, persistence, and stability while we rebuild game systems in order to provide the best experience possible for all of our new players. While we focus on this refactoring, we won’t be giving out new beta keys for the next few weeks. We understand that many of you are excited to jump in the game, but this work is vital to providing you a more stable Fractured Veil that can grow with the community and will allow us to respond more quickly to your input. A big mahalo goes out to our testers for helping us find the things that need fixing and pointing out where our systems need upgrading. Here are your ideas that we incorporated and the bugs you found that we fixed this week.

  • Espaion, zaccsi, and World’sOkayestDM – Proper collission added to Fishing Huts
  • Aazlor – Bow arc adjusted
  • nsomnia – Applied Orchid Weakspot to all trees and rocks to fix visibility issues
  • Espaion – Some things are disappearing with the logouts, like iron, twine, cloth. Others are reappearing like raw meat
  • Steelcrusher – Keyboard shortcuts for bug reporter and stats widget

    • 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.

    When we weren’t busy rebuilding systems this week we found some time to add a few things and fix some bugs in the game. We fixed a bug that would cause a crash when a player tried to use an inventory item that didn’t load properly and cleared up a number of quickbar persistence issues. We improved the visibility of weakspots on trees and rocks and adjusted their positions to make them easier to hit. The team added props to the comm tower and added a music emitter to the drone. Players can now enjoy a little music while they are being spied on by the autonomous drones that patrol the sky. We also added a number of signs and traffic lights along the roads and trails throughout the map. Below you can see a few examples of our road work and another new addition to the jungle that was just added.
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DEV

Posters, Rivers, and Trick Shots

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A new sprint started this week and for the next 30 days we’ll be focusing on updating the map, creating bots for testing, AI sieging, and fixing persistence. We also plan on adding some polish to the player construction system, updating older features, and of course plugging away at the bug list.

We tackled a few bugs already. We fixed an issue where players couldn’t hit weak points if they were standing too close and some issues with our procedural river system flagging shoreline as a river. We added audio for crafting/recycling failures so players will know if their shop projects are getting a failing grade and a flashing alert when stats get to 10% or less. The team added posters and pictures to houses as well to give them a more authentic lived-in feel. All the images so far come from individuals on the team. To be honest, some of them could stand toe-to-toe with anything you’d find on Awkward Family Photos but they do make the ruins more realistic.

Speaking of embarrassing moments we discovered a few more issues with the way the mutants were acting in combat. We found a bug where any AI who started to throw a projectile would throw it backwards if their target quickly ran behind them and we found that Big Bob would sometimes run in place. We’re all fans of trick shots and getting healthier but Bob has to stay big, it’s in his name, so we fixed the issues.

Lastly, we added navigating controls to the drone a while ago to help film trailers and video. Let’s just say flying the eyes in the sky around Lahaina isn’t as easy as you think. Below you can see what the drone can capture with a rookie at the controls.

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DEV

Bring on the Bots

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The team continued the bug hunt this week focusing on fixing several combat-related issues. We nabbed a problem with hit indicators only showing up when hitting a headshot and fixed a bug with compound bow arrows bouncing strangely off the terrain. There’s no doubt that it looked cool but we want players focused on survival not seeing how many times they can skip an arrow. In addition, we added support for shooting at prone, unconscious and crouched targets, made a fix so players can interact with things while reloading, and made it so you can no longer load and fire a weapon at the same time.

We added some movement/UI improvements for players too. We improved toggling for sprinting and crouching. Sneaking and dashing your way through your new life has never been easier. Players can no longer crouch with a broken leg, because ouch, and they can no longer zoom in or lean while climbing. The apocalypse is dangerous enough without you trying to do tricks on a ladder.

The team also started work on testing bots to help us find bugs and improve performance. We implemented equipping weapons for pawn bots, firing guns and bows, melee weapon attacks, and throwing melee weapons. Shortly after we found that they liked throwing weapons so much they would sometimes attempt to throw their resource harvesting shark-toothed pans. Considering the lack of housewares left on the island we fixed the bug right away so players won’t lose their “killets” in the brush.

Our work on improving AI steering and pathing continued as well as drone improvements. Below you can see a video one of our drones captured of a player hunting and harvesting deer.

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DEV

Drone Flying Lessons

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This week marks the beginning of sprint 39 and we have a lot planned. Our goals for the next 30 days include finishing the game trailer, adding posters and other unique touches to buildings, improving performance, and updating the drone. We’ll also be working on adding more new audio, improving older features, implementing a crash logging system, and updating the map in preparation for our first set of players. The main focus of this sprint, however, will be completing our player construction system and closing out gameplay features.

The team did a lot of work already this week on the building system. We’ve added health and damage values to construction attachments so players can huff and puff and shoot other player’s building projects down. We’ve added a destruction feature and are working on recycling so players aren’t stuck with design decisions that they come to regret. We also added a door feature that will automatically close a door after 5 seconds. A great feature for those worried about flies or mutants getting in the house when you’re going in and out frequently.

We also update the number of AI in the game by a factor of 10 to test performance. It was a great, and ultimately short-lived experience. Spawning into a pack of wolves with a couple of bears hanging around the edges provided valuable data on a player’s ability to escape a dozen sets of teeth and game performance numbers while you’re being mauled by a crowd. It’s a little too bitey for our tastes right now, but it’s going to be fun to figure out how many animals and other AI work best with X number of players.

We have many improvements planned this month. We added controls to our normally autonomous drones a while back to help get shots we needed for the game trailer. While useful, these controls took a while to get the hang of as you can see from this video of unnecessary zooms, tree bumps, and ground crashes below.

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Our XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS giveaway is still going but time is almost up. The contest ends this Sunday at midnight (EST). Head over to our contest page and enter to win before time runs out.