Keeping Tanager Lane a Spectacular Place

Hello fellow homeowners. The past 6 months have been a trying time for all of us. With all of my daily duties as president of the HOA you can imagine how hard it’s been for me in particular. I think we can all agree that my leadership has been one of the few bright spots in these dark days. Most of you have done an adequate job of keeping up your standards, and celebrating the Tanager Lane way of life. Unfortunately, there are a few items that need some improvement, and a couple of individuals that need to start doing a better job at modeling acceptable behavior to their children. Remember, they’re like little sponges. If they get exposed to the mess created by people not fulfilling their obligations, they’ll just soak it all up. Nobody should want that.

Let’s start out by addressing a few issues that everyone can work on. I instituted the mandatory hibiscus program for a reason, not because I just felt like it one day, and not on a whim. The hibiscus flower is one of the most recognized blossoms and a symbol of the island to many. We want visitors to the neighborhood to see the flowers, and imagine peace and a carefree way of life. That’s why I made it mandatory! You’ve entrusted me, and my vision to lead this association so I’m having a hard time figuring out why some of you have not properly pruned your plants.

I’m not unreasonable. I understand that the world has become a drastically different place. I think that’s all the more reason to hold onto our high standards and strive to live up to them. Without standards and specifications, we are no better than the creatures running around out there. That brings me to the next item on my list, cleaning up after combat.

Evidently, the world is full of horrors now. I looked into it as best as I could, but nobody seems to have any kind of answer that makes sense to me. What I do understand, is that from time to time some of us will have to defend our lives until this whole mess gets sorted out. I understand that defense will sometimes involve weapons and the mess associated with shooting a creature who is trying to eat your children in the driveway. What I don’t understand, Shelby, is why there would still be blood marks on your patio days after saving your kid’s lives. You did it. The hard part is over. Is it really too much to ask to take a few minutes and scrub away the stains?

I’m sorry to be so blunt but I’m beginning to feel like I’m the only one who is serious about living up to the criteria clearly laid out in the agreements we all signed. Unless I’m mistaken, you elected me as president, many times I might add, because you knew I wouldn’t take a day off or let expectations slip. Just because the world has descended into chaos doesn’t mean we have to as well.

I’m told that family can be very helpful in dealing with stress, and many of us consider our pets to be part of the family. I personally love to watch my cats chase little things through the shrubs, and toy with them. It makes me feel so happy to see them embrace their nature. Like many of you, one of my cats has begun to glow quite brightly at night. Because I’m responsible and believe strongly in respecting the association’s lighting rules, I now keep Elvira inside. Imagine my surprise when many of you did not follow my example. I assumed you would get the hint when I began to pin blankets around your unattended glowing pets, but I was wrong. Consider this a written warning about keeping your bright and bushy-tailed loved ones inside at night. Some of you should also watch what you say in front of them.

Lastly, we have had quite a lot of trouble with unruly kids. They’re running across lawns, making noise during quiet hours, and attracting quite a bit of attention from the things lurking in the woods. I’m sympathetic that school has been canceled for quite some time now, but I encourage you to keep better track of them and ensure that they start to follow the rules. I know a number of you have lost a spouse and find it difficult to manage your day-to-day lives, let alone a rowdy child. If that is the case may I suggest that you consider letting someone else take your children until you’re able to be a responsible parent again? It’s not fair to your children and our home values to allow gangs of them to run amok. Please don’t take this as some sort of invitation from me to take on your obligations. Believe me, I have enough on my plate making sure everyone lives up to Tanager Lane expectations.

We’ve made it a long time now thanks to my focus and the rules we’ve all agreed on. If we want to keep Tanager Lane beautiful we need to do better. I’m doing my part and trying really hard to help you do yours.

Glimpsea Expands “Lahaina View” Project

The Hawaiian Department of Land and Natural Resources announced today that they would be joining the County of Maui and Glimpsea in their Lahaina View Project. Started last year, the program’s goal is to provide a live view of all of Lahaina through a network of cameras 24/7.

For the past year, Glimpsea has deployed its Comprehensive Aloha Security Helper Camera System (CASH) across large portions of Lahaina under the supervision of Mayor Cravalho’s office. Using a number of security cameras, the project currently covers most of Front Street and portions of the beach. The inclusion of the DLNR and their preservation zone drones will expand the program to a much larger area, but Vice President Simon Ike says that’s just the beginning.

“We’re really excited about the DLNR’s decision. Including their drones is a win-win situation for everyone. In addition to expanding our coverage in Lahaina, the drones can zero in on specific areas or tourists. It’s like having a professional camera crew following you around while you’re on vacation. As part of the agreement, we’ve provided the DLNR with a number of our mite-cams to be used in their tagging programs. We are hopeful that the shots provided by these banded birds will help conservation efforts and allow those interested an intimate view of the day to day affairs of Lahaina’s wildlife.”

While the new agreement will offer some exciting new areas of coverage, Lahaina is large. A handful of drones and birds won’t cover a significant range of the island. Ike says he is hopeful that the public can help the project reach its goal by downloading Glimpsea’s new app.

“The reality is that this new partnership will offer some interesting shots but we’re going to need the public’s help if we’re going to get a complete view of Lahaina. We encourage everyone who is interested to get our app and join the program. If you own any of our products currently: security cams, drones, 360 cams, or mite-cams, the app will be included in your next update. For those not using our products, our app is compatible with most drones, phones, and dash cams. If it has a lens and you bought it in the last 10 years, you can be part of the team. All you have to do is provide the make and model number and hit “Accept”. I’m confident that we will reach our goal of total Lahaina coverage by the end of the year. Soon, people from all over the world will be able to see, and in many cases hear, just how beautiful this place is in real time.”

The Lahaina View project is not without its detractors of course. Many worry about privacy issues and the network being hacked. Some feel that the program goes against the sense of freedom and peace that many visit the island to experience. “How are you supposed to relax on the beach if you know some creep could be sitting in his basement somewhere in the world staring at you?” asks Lauryn Krie, a tourist visiting from Detroit. Local activist Kevin Morrow has different concerns.

I cautioned everyone about the radio tower but nobody would listen. Now we have ziplines attached all over the place and you can’t walk near one without hearing someone drop an F-bomb. I’ve been trying to track the increase in profanity since the swear tower went up, but it’s been hard because there wasn’t a lot of airborne obscenity before the ziplines. I think it’s safe to say you are 100% more likely to hear cursing from above since my warnings went unheeded. I hope it’s not too late for this video thing. Tourists routinely swear on the beach and Front Street. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine children who are now hooked on profanity flipping through the audio enabled views looking for a fix. Words aren’t just noises that we make with air through the holes in our faces, they are ideas and some ideas are bad. The Lahaina View project is a very bad idea.”

Maui Councilman Embroiled in Trash Scandal

To say that I was stunned by the news this morning is an understatement. Hearing that for the past few months our trash has been traveling to parts unknown because you’ve made a deal with a company that hasn’t been properly vetted is unacceptable. I’m trying very hard to believe that you were ignorant of the details, but that pill is getting harder to swallow by the minute. You’re just lucky that Veilcorp hasn’t weighed in yet. I can promise you that they will not be happy if you drag them into this mess. If my office is going to stay ahead of this thing I need you to start coming up with answers, because I have a lot of questions and the people need to believe that they can trust their mayor.

When you became chairman of The Solid Waste Resource Advisory Committee I had heard that you had a reputation of cutting corners. I had no idea how deep you were willing to cut. You’ve single-handedly thrown away all the goodwill we gained in the past 6 months. We are rebuilding Lahaina and the trust of its people. We survived hurricane Neki but I’m not sure we’ll make it through this unnatural disaster.

What were you thinking? I understand that there was a lot of refuse that needed to be disposed of after the storm, but you can’t possibly have thought that veiling tons of trash to war-torn areas was going to receive massive public support. Please don’t try and convince me that you weren’t even a little concerned about where the garbage was going. I’m having a hard time believing you didn’t know that you were selling it to one of those recycling cartels after seeing their bid was a third of the next highest. To be honest, the fact that you did it under my nose tells me almost everything I need to know.

I’m sure you know what these cartels do. They force people with no other options to sort through mountains of muck to find the more valuable pieces of filth. These people are involved in some really dark stuff. At some point you must have watched or read a report about the kinds of things these groups are bankrolling. Almost as bad, many of these groups end up dumping the trash they can’t use offshore or just leave it and move on to another area. It’s a human rights and ecological disaster. I had no plans to run a reelection commercial featuring war orphans shouting with joy because they found a bit of copper in a barrel of garbage, or a dolphin wearing a plastic “Lahaina Zipline Tours” bag like a vest.

You couldn’t have chosen a worse time. The people have been voting down waste to power plant proposals for over 40 years because they are very sensitive to environmental issues. Add to that all the recent concerns about Veilcorp’s Icarus project irradiating wildlife and causing sickness, and you a have a recipe for not just losing your job, but going to jail. I do not plan on going down with this ship because you found it convenient to punch garbage chutes into the hull. The political climate on these issues is very chilly and it seems like your plan was to wait until winter before forcing my office to march into a war.

I keep waiting for the Glimpsea guy to burst through the doors, point out the cameras, and tell me this is all some sort of sick joke. I need answers! I need to know what you knew and when you knew it. I want to know how these people contacted you and how long you’ve been talking. I’m sure law enforcement will be going through your financials. I don’t want to get anymore involved in this by asking about those specifics. Please, If anyone in my office worked with you on this catastrophe I want to hear about it now.

I’m going to keep this short and to the point. You just fed your political career a poison cookie, threw it off the top of a building and shot it multiple times on the way down. You better hope none of your mess splatters on me or my office. To be perfectly clear, you are fired immediately! I have appointed a local business man, Bob Abramo, as an emergency replacement. You have until noon to clean out your office, get your affairs in order, and turn over any relevant paperwork. I suggest that you leave the building before big Bob arrives.

Turbine Manufacturer Takes On Veilcorp with Energy Plan

To say that Veilcorp has been booming the past 5 years is an understatement. The company is now the biggest player in domestic commercial transportation. It is estimated that almost 70% of products shipped in the U.S. spend at least some time passing through a Veilcorp facility. New Veilstations are popping up all over the country as well. Since the company’s technology got the green light to transport people domestically, some are predicting the end of the airline industry. Many businesses in these markets are spinning off into other areas or closing their doors. One company however says they have no plans on making changes or folding, In fact they’re doubling down.

For the past 10 years Creek Propulsion’s Senior Vice President of Supply, Distribution, and Planning Chris Treadwell has been travelling across the islands mapping geothermal power sources. Back in the early 2000’s the U.S. government did a limited amount of mapping itself for a number of renewable energy projects. Between their findings and his work, Treadwell says he has a plan for a better, more efficient and cleaner Hawaii that doesn’t involve Veilcorp.

“Our mapping shows that the big island and Maui could be sustained with geothermal energy. Our revolutionary turbine compressors and pipeline technology can feed all the other island’s power needs. This morning we submitted a comprehensive plan to the legislature detailing how we can help the people of Hawaii and the environment,” says Treadwell.

He says that Creek Propulsion’s turbines have changed the speed in which products can be transported and that their pipelines are able to transport multiple products at once, making the company a better choice than Veilcorp for the islands.

“When you consider the locations of our terminals in the proposal, we are actually better for the environment than Veilcorp. Zapping heavy materials across country might make sense. After all, nobody has created a network of pneumatic tubes that you can send bricks and gravel through, but petroleum products are different. There was a good way to transport them already and we made it great. We believe a lot of Veilcorp business is due to the “Wow Factor”. Having a sticker on your product, or a line in your commercial about how this thing has been sent using gateway technology is in fashion now, but it doesn’t make it better. In fact, we argue that nobody can really say what long-term effect veil technology has on oil or any other product. We also believe that some underpricing issues may be at play here. I think you can draw a lot of parallels between what’s going on now and what Rockefeller and the railroads did in the 1900’s. Look, human beings are always seeking novelty but spoons have been relatively unchanged for thousands of years for a reason. They’re the best tool for the job. I think our technology has reached that spoon-like pinnacle.”

It isn’t just energy and oil transportation that’s on Treadwell’s mind. He has plenty to say about Veilcorp’s reach into the airline industry. Creek Propulsion began as a jet engine manufacturer and engine production is still a large part of the company. Last year, the engine division was responsible for 55% of the company’s profits. That percentage was the lowest in company history and in line with the general downturn others in the industry have seen. Still, the VP says that he is doubtful that veiling will have a major long-term impact on the travel industry. While he concedes that air freight has taken a huge hit, he is optimistic about the future of personal airline travel.

“Again, I think you’re looking at a novelty issue here. I’ve actually tried veiling to another state so I’m not worried. First, it’s too expensive for your typical family. Frankly, it’s not that great. There is a kind of nobility to flying. When you’re skipping over the clouds with the sun shining on your face and you’re brought drinks and snacks it’s like…it makes you feel regal. There is a certain togetherness you feel when you and a bunch of strangers are off to a far away destination. It’s like an adventure. Veiling on the other hand is like waiting in line at the DMV. You have people getting impatient, or scared about what might happen to them. Some people don’t even have luggage because they plan on coming back later in the day. If you’re traveling across the country you should feel like you’re on an expedition not waiting for a bus. No snacks, no drinks, no sense of “we’re in this together”, just long lines waiting to be thrown through the fabric of reality. All of this for an exorbitant amount of money, and questionable effects on your health. Am I worried? No, I think people won’t be giving up the nobility of flight anytime soon.”

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

Safe Zone Updates and Fixes

If you’d like to travel to Lahaina in the year 2120 and test your survival skills while helping us make the game more fun to play we’d love to have you. Click the link to join our discord and go to the #assign-roles channel. We’ll give you a key and get you set up in the game. You can also check out our Steam page for the latest screenshots, trailers, and news about the game.

This week the team made several improvements to the Safe Zone that surrounds the Thorcon Power Plant. We added a new “In Safe Zone” icon to the player’s status bar so you can tell when you’re in a protected area. Toxicity no longer decays or affects the player while in the zone and items can no longer be thrown while you are in the safe zone. Bandages, syringes, medkits, and all food items are now usable there too.

We fixed a bug where foliage destruction was getting desynced when a level was streamed in a second time during a single play session. We Adjusted the holster rate of all weapons to improve the overall smoothness of weapon switching, and the holstering animation no longer blocks subsequent requests to equip a new item. We added some improvements to the mutants too. Cannibals can now return to a dead body they were previously consuming if they were interrupted during their dinner. Additionally, the cannibal will now only receive their cannibalization buff if they completely finish eating a body.

Lastly, we made updates to our procedural road and diorama tools to fill out the world with more variety and content without needing to hand place everything. We added corpses, barrier areas, and torches to dirt and gravel paths. Below you can see a few screenshots of the tools in work.
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DEV

Map Updates and UI Improvements

Many of us have been traveling over the holidays visiting friends and family but between unwrapping presents and ushering in the New Year we’ve still managed to get some work done. We optimized bear and wolf replication and set up AI fading for virtually all the creatures and beasts you may run across in the wilds of Lahaina, even the seagulls. We worked on damage modifiers for specific subclasses and continued building a new siege system, working out the rules and actions the mutants will abide by while overrunning a player’s house.

We added some UI/UX improvements to the party system so grouping up with others will look and feel smoother. We updated the player map so you can hit M and see where you’re going and worked on some problems we had with players getting stuck trying to turn while near a wall. We cleared up a construction persistence bug involving claim updates as well.

Lastly, work on what we’re calling the diorama system continued this week. The system adds cars, street lights, containers, and other items you’d expect to find while exploring the roads, rivers, and beaches across the island. Besides adding another layer of reality to the world, it gives players cover when investigating new areas and maybe a few useful items for your struggle. Here’s a look at some of the things you can find along the paths most traveled.
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DEV

Opening Doors and Shooting Buildings

Work continued this week on our player construction system. We cleaned up some collision issues so the panels of your dream apocalypse bungalow can go in smoothly, without any gaps that an industrious mutant could squeeze through. We also fixed a bug with repair prices not being correct for construction pieces. The team started adding interactable doors so players can go in or out of their constructions, arguably one of the most important parts of any shelter. We ran into a couple of issues with our construction materials this week when we discovered that axes and pickaxes suddenly became unusable after hitting a building surface and some of our materials were mixed up. Below you can see a GIF of what happens when your thatch material gets marked as metal by accident.

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Several bugs and play improvements were addressed this week as well. We fixed some issues with reviving other players so you can help your friends get up after they’ve been knocked or shot unconscious. We made mutants unlootable if they are on fire, fixed a bug with combat knife animations not working properly in first person, and worked out a bug with the drone not detecting any pawns or AI with its overlap checks. The team also fixed missing strike decals on trees and made it so bullets could no longer be blocked by bushes or foliage. Hiding behind a tree while someone shoots at you is still a valid way to avoid bullets, ducking behind a clump of tall grass isn’t.

We completed the last 3 grid areas on the map before we start another round of adding custom areas, buildings, and features. We’re going over the map now addressing any audio issues, bug fixes, and making sure our automated road, building, river, and beach systems are working properly. For example, here’s a look at that moment when you realize your shadow casting might be too detailed.

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Lastly, we’re giving away two XFX AMD Radeon RX 570 RS’s to some lucky contestants. There’s 8 ways to enter including telling us about the craziest thing you’ve ever done with a group in an open world survival game. The contest ends next Sunday at midnight (EST).

DEV

Power Plant Makeover

The team is making some improvements to the various ruins across the entire map. We’re regenerating every structure made with our procedural building tool to add a new automated furniture feature. Instead of the barren husks that have dotted the map in the past, players can expect now to find the finest furnishings inside houses from our “Apocalypse Sunrise” and “Lahaina Legacy” lines. The new furniture tool allows us to fill every automated structure with set dressing appropriate for searching for useful items or taking a break from the struggle to survive.

We worked out a few AI issues too. We had a number of problems with mutant movement and spacing. Occasionally they were getting stuck, or caught in a loop when trying to move to specific locations. The whole thing looked a little like musical chairs, with the terrors of the jungle vying for the same attack location when spotting an enemy. We added a slight delay to their overlap resolving, and improved the AI on AI collision performance. Mutants should now murder players in an orderly, well organized fashion.

Much of our work recently has been to The Thorcon Power Plant, the game’s social hub. We’ve put a ton of painting, decorating, lighting, and materials work to make the inside and out look like it had survived a cataclysm. We discussed what players will eventually be able to find inside, and planned out where some of our NPCs will be located.

A crafting/banking spot is already set up inside, including our newest crafting tool, the smelter. Players will be able to build tools and weapons as well as transform ore into usable metal in the area. We talked about a few crafting mechanics and made plans for some future improvements. In addition, we’ve begun working out our tiered items system. In the near future, players will be able to enhance certain item abilities. Things like: damage, recoil, spread, and accuracy will be able to be improved in the crafting area with the right resources.

Below are a couple fly-through videos showing all the hard work we’ve put into making the interior of the Thorcon look great.

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DEV

Building Better Roads

As the week and sprint 30 come to an end, we looked at a number of decals and concept art for the Thorcon Power Plant and the surrounding areas. As the social hub of the game, we discussed at length what survivors of The Great Fracture would have done to the area, and how they would have taken advantage of existing features like parking lots, onsite apartments, and the building itself. We looked at a number of possible living quarters, defensive measures, and quality of life improvements that survivors could have made in the years after the cataclysm. With all those things in mind, the Thorcon will get a lot of attention in the near future. We’ve also completed the planned zipline from the Communications Tower to the Thorcon, making travel a little quicker and safer.

We’ve made a number of player improvements as well. We did some work on inventory persistence including: Inventory ordering, loading in with persistent items equipped, and automatically setting items to equipped in persistence at pickup time when applicable. We made a few campfire improvements ensuring that you can enjoy your post apocalyptic smores, and we completed the game’s starting harvesting tool/weapon, a shark toothed pan. A tongue-in-cheek homage to the shark toothed (leiomano) weapons in the game, the pan isn’t the best weapon or tool, but is better than nothing in a pinch and is properly seasoned and non-stick.

One of our goals while working on the game is to use the actual geographic features of Lahaina as a guide, including the roads. We take a few liberties in some areas where we’ve changed the land, and to keep players flowing across the map, but for the most part, the trails and paths in the game are where roads really are on the island. They say “getting there is half the fun”, but creating a transportation network for players can be daunting task. So, we’ve been working on a tool to help quickly build these roads, and easily show the toll of time and weather. Below you can see a few examples of that work, making main roads that still hint to what existed before, and those that have disintegrated into nothing but dirt paths.
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