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Version 0.1.2265: Wave 3, Updates, and Improvements

Aloha Thrivers!

We have huge news: We have sent out Keys to Wave 3 of our Kickstarter Backers! This is the biggest wave yet, and we can’t wait to show Lahaina’s freshest faces everything we’ve added to the game!

We’ll host some “Welcome To Maui” and other special sessions to go over the basics and answer any questions new players might have. Waves 1 and 2 were a huge help with finding bugs and improving the game. With the help of this next wave, we plan on having the servers ready for even more players to explore and survive in our version of Maui.

Here’s everything we’ve improved.

Quest Improvements

We’ve fixed a bunch of bugs keeping players from finishing or turning in quests, improved the UI, and made the text descriptions of each quest easier to read and understand.

Veil Travel Updates

We updated how Veil Travel Works, making it smoother and fixed a nasty bug that could make the travel button get stuck in a disabled state, leaving you stranded in an alternate world.

Siege Improvements

We fixed some totem bugs related to sieges, improved how mutant ranged attacks work, and resolved bugs that would cause mutants to get stuck or spawn on top of players. We improved some siege mechanics and vastly improved AI pathing around bases under siege.

Misc Fixes and Improvements

  • Performance and lighting improvements inside the Thorcon.
  • Improve sewer dungeon lighting.
  • Adjusted the minimum fall height required to damage players.
  • Fixed crash when a player finishes a craft with an item that was moved or no longer exists.
  • Increased stamina regeneration while proning or crouching.
  • Fixed issues with various actions while sprinting.
  • Fixed dungeon container spawning/population issues.
  • Fixed a bug where players would fail to interact with ladders.
  • Various Thorcon performance improvements.
  • Fixed Totem permissions bug.

More About Fractured Veil

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Version 0.1.2147: Talents, Siege Updates, and Renovations

Aloha Thrivers!

We’ve made some huge changes to the game with the help of our first 2 waves of Kickstarter backers and testers.

FRV’s starting area, the Thorcon Power Plant, got a huge facelift and content update. The main room is filled with vendors buying and selling everything a player needs to survive, and the respawn area is almost unrecognizable compared to just a few weeks ago.

We’ve added a fresh coat of grime to the sewer dungeon, made big improvements to the siege system, and updated the mutant’s movements, and battle tactics to make them more dangerous. However, The most exciting new feature for this update is probably the introduction of the talent system.

Designed from the ground up with the direct input of the community, the first iteration in the game right now allows players to explore four categories of specialization for their characters. This is a huge step forward allowing you to tailor your gameplay into what role you like best or explore other options you normally wouldn’t.

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

Thorcon Power Plant Update

Every part of the game’s starting area has had a major facelift.

What was a fairly empty respawn room is now filled with everything a freshly restored player needs to start surviving.

The locker room next door has changed quite a bit from our early concepts.

It’s now almost as vibrant as the jungle outside.

The work we’ve done in the main room however is probably the most striking.

This huge open space is now a multi-level area filled with vendors, shops, shrines, and places for players to group up. Here’s a before and after video that highlights the huge changes inside and the starting area’s incredible transformation.

Sewer Dungeon Renovation

The Thorcon wasn’t the only renovation we took on, the sewer dungeon got a lot of love recently and some expansions.

We take a lot of pride in making our jungles lush and vibrant and wanted to put the same effort into making one of our favorite dungeons a foreboding place to explore.

In addition to the twisting wet corridors, we’ve added defensible positions for players who need some cover from the mutants lurking around inside.

We’re still working on building out some of the lowest levels, but there are already plenty of places for players to explore, loot, and fight.

Talent System

All of these renovations make a huge visual difference but our new talent system has a huge impact on gameplay.

We built the talent system hand-in-hand with our amazing community. We asked for ideas about builds and ways they’d like to specialize their characters while keeping in mind that we wanted to avoid anything that would give an unfair advantage in PVP.

Here’s what we came up with after listening to your input. Right now we have 4 basic roles you can explore: Builder, Hunter, Stealth, and Support. We still have some UI and balancing to do but this is another huge step in allowing players to customize their characters and work better in groups.

Siege and Totem Improvements

Building a base that is big enough to attract a horde of angry mutants (or starting a siege yourself) is a lot of fun, and we’ve made a ton of improvements to the siege system.

We updated how totems work for singular and combined bases ensuring that endless waves don’t appear for larger complexes and made sure a siege ends once all of the base’s totems are reduced to 20% or less health. The siege manager now keeps proper track of contributing players and we fixed bugs that would cause massive server lag when a siege was started manually.

We added animals and beasts to the cast of characters that can show up to tear down everything you’ve built, made improvements to AI pathing so the horrors of the jungle don’t get stuck, and made sure the siege manager prioritizes ranged AI if a base is hard to reach.

More Content, Improvements, and Features

We’ve been hard at work making a huge number of performance improvements and fixing a bunch of persistence issues that popped up with all the work we’ve been doing, particularly inside the now bustling Thorcon Power Plant. We’ve even reduced the game’s build size by over half. There’s a ton of new content in the game and we want to make sure it is running as smoothly as possible by the time we bring in Wave 3 of our Kickstarter backers. Here’s a look at everything else we finished or fixed since the last update.

VOIP Improvements

  • The VOIP system now keeps a weak pointer to the active world to reduce redundant looping when mapping players to their VOIP Talker
  • Increased the VOIP attenuation distance
  • The “VOICE Enabled” option in the settings menu is now functional. This currently defaults to off
  • Increased the VOIP sample rate
  • Fixed the VOIP system failing to apply its voice settings during initialization
  • Fixed the spatialized VOIP Talker failing to initialize correctly
  • Fixed a bug where respawning could cause the VOIP Talker to get stuck on the previous pawn
  • Fixed a bug where VOIP Talkers were muffled when speaking

AI Updates

  • Improved the tracing functionality of the poison clouds to more reliably hit nearby players
  • Adjusted the AI threat values to have AI more reliably attack players that are attempting to interrupt their sieging
  • Disabled trophy collector damage to sleeping players
  • Fixed Ranged AI occasionally getting stuck in place when pathing towards a forcibly added enemy
  • Fixed Ranged AI throwing their projectiles at the ground if their current enemy had never been in their line of sight
  • Fixed ranged and melee AI not properly attacking movement blocking actors such as players during a siege
  • Fixed a bug where the Trophy Collector’s poison cloud could occasionally get stuck inside walls and other objects
  • Fixed AI getting stuck on certain construction actors
  • Fixed AI not attacking placed crafting machines that were set to block movement
  • Fixed players not taking damage from AI
  • Fixed crash when killing AI
  • Fixed a bug where AI would fail to deal damage to actors when the actor was blocking their line of sight but not their movement

Gameplay Content, Improvements, and Fixes

  • Updated the coconut grenade model and increased the damage
  • Thrown weapon improvements
  • Added hints to the exploration menu
  • Stamina will last 2.5 times longer while sprinting and regen starts at 3.5 seconds instead of 5
  • Fixed an issue with sleeping players not using the proper animations
  • Added buff stat information to the talent screen
  • Added bonus fall damage height of 200m per level to the parkour talent
  • Altered the construction integrity checks to more easily allow placing walls on overhangs
  • Set third walls to be allowed to be placed anywhere, regardless of the integrity
  • Updated code for traits, attributes, wounds, and broken bones
  • Fixed Big Bob’s rock projectile not being visible to clients
  • Item recycle amounts have been updated to take item durability into consideration
  • Added tech level adjustments to crafting various weapon and tool types
  • Players can no longer shoot or aim down sights while sprinting
  • Fixed logging out while dead making the player unable to spawn properly on next login
  • Fixed containers spawning floating off the ground
  • Added Autorun, Pressing “Q” will toggle auto-running
  • Plants are now harvestable by pressing the use key rather than holding it

Community

As usual, we’ve fixed a mountain of bugs with the help of our amazing testers since our last update. The team has squashed over 150 in a couple of months getting things ready for Wave 3.  Join our discord server and check out the patch-notes channel for a complete list of fixes.

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Version 0.1.1636 Patch [Major] – Siege Improvements and Player Shots and Fixes

Aloha Thrivers!

With your amazing help and support our Kickstarter campaign has already reached 78% of our goal but we need to keep the momentum going all the way to the finish line.

One thing we’ve heard from the community is that you want options focused on Steam keys and quick access. We heard you loud and clear and have introduced 3 simpler backer tiers, focused less on in-game items and more on keys.

We’ve always counted on you to help us create the survival game of our dreams and with your backing we’re one step closer to making that goal a reality. With the new options available we hope to see many more of you having fun surviving the horrors of the jungle and sharing your great ideas soon!

This was a busy week full of streams, and fixing bugs and implementing suggestions from our testers but we did include some updates to the PVE area and our AI. Check out what we’ve been working on below and some more beautiful shots submitted by our players since our last update.

New Content

PVE Area and Totem Updates

About a week ago we expanded the safe zone around the Thorcon power plant into a larger PVE zone to help provide an area for freshly restored clones to get the lei of the land and learn basic game mechanics.

It’s a temporary fix for a complex conversation about PvPvE we’re having with everyone we get the chance to have it with. There’s no silver bullet to solving it and the more voices we’ve got in the mix, the better. We hope you’ll add your thoughts to our discord chats and keep on asking the tough questions.

This week we continued to make improvements and made sure to fix a few small problems that popped up. Players in the PVE zone won’t have to worry about coconut grenades anymore since we’ve defused them.

Players don’t have to worry about others shooting out their walls while standing just on the other side of the PVE border now and surprise cannibals showing up in your base won’t be an issue anymore.

We also added a few adjustments to how totems work. Totem permissions are now greyed out unless the totem has energy. Players can only place one new totem in PVE zones and bases there can only consist of 4 totems total as well.

Like we’ve said before, we get that balancing mechanics both PVE and PVP players enjoy is one of the biggest challenges facing us ahead and we’re nowhere near done experimenting and testing things out.

We’re trying out a few ideas but with your help, we’ll arrive somewhere in Hawaii where everyone survives and thrives in a way they find the most fun.

AI and Seige Improvements

The mutants were unusually rowdy this week and we made a lot of improvements to how they move, spawn, and work together.

One of the big ones was AI navigation updates so the bunching issues that we were experiencing when large groups of mutants are charging towards you looking for a meal are a thing of the past. 

With any luck, you won’t see mutants getting stuck on corners or failing to attack doors anymore. We’ve fixed a problem with AI not activating when a player is near and while it may seem obvious to you and me, we taught the mutants not to attack the stairs they are standing on now.    

The AI spawning system got a little love this week too. We made some fixes to how the spawning system works so the mutants will stop spawning inside trees, walls, and rocks or on top of things. We tried asking nicely to get off the roof, but they just wouldn’t listen!

We also fixed how many mutants will show up for a siege since it seemed like many of them weren’t getting the invitation before, and we squashed a bug with AI spawning (or not spawning) in our dungeons. The dark and forgotten places on the map are a lot more fun to explore if there are actually things to fight there. 

Here’s everything else new and improved and fixed this week.

Weapon and Loot Updates
  • Jumping will now cancel reloading
  • Players can no longer reload while in the air
  • Added loot drop area to the container screen
  • Sprinting is disabled while shooting guns
  • Increased loot volume counts on all Lahaina tile maps
Payer and inventory Improvements
  • Added nameplates for teammates
  • Added nameplates for non teammates when looking at them for 1.5 seconds
  • Changed incapacitated widget to continue to show the timer after a player presses N
  • Added brightness and sharpness variables to the icon generator
  • Updated arrow icon
  • Added new stamina and health images
  • Added tooltips to all inventory widgets
New Content and Improvements
  • Improved distant DoF
  • Updated Veil VFX
  • Lowered the amount of time a tree stump is alive for to help with cleanup
  • The drone’s fuel now lasts twice as long and fills up twice as fast
  • Enemies will no longer show up on the radar or map as red triangles
  • Added replication to minimap markers
  • Increased interaction distance for vendors
  • Increased water fill rate of containers
  • Added the ability to recycle any placed item (chests, doors, totems, etc) for the player that placed them

Fixes

  • Fixed issue with guns sliding in player’s hands when switching to and from ADS
  • Fixed female first-person hands having texturing artifacts
  • Fixed bug where multiple actions could be bound to the same key in the menu
  • Fixed bug where grenades could do damage in PvE zones
  • Fixed bug where bases in zone 1 could be damaged by players outside of zone 1
  • Fixes to container persistence
  • Fixed a bug where AI were returning the wrong navmesh trace response for movement tests. This also fixes an instance of AI getting stuck on corners
  • Fixed a severe AI activation bug where AI pending activation were not requesting a Nav Invoker even though AI activation required the navmesh to be present
  • Fixed a bug where the navmesh was not prioritizing generating tiles around AI pending activation
  • Fixed issue where containers were being added to inventory mgr too early
  • Fixed crash if a player loaded in with no totem permissions but they were on the totem
  • Fixed bug with AI summoned through siege system
  • Fixed bug with female character faces being distorted
  • Fixed bug where some stumps weren’t sinking into the ground properly
  • Fixed bug where destroyed trees could eventually overflow replication channels
  • Fixed a typo that was causing AI activation to not be prioritized correctly
  • Fixed the ‘AI pending activation’ tag being applied to the wrong AI actor
  • Fixed a bug where the AI activation system could get stuck trying to activate the same AI over and over again
  • Fixed nameplates showing your name instead of the target
  • Fixed the torch being lowered in first person
  • Fixed the machete having inconsistent left-hand animations in first person
  • Fixed bug with trees respawning with 1 hp
  • Fixed bug where ADS was canceling reloads
  • Fixed crash when viewing pawns without a valid playerstate
  • Fixed spawning with invisible overflow item slots in the player inventory UI
  • Fixed bug where some items could be invisible in a player’s inventory
  • Fixed AI being unable to attack constructed doors
  • Fixed our constructed doors not making use of the siege system’s nav modifiers
  • Fixed additional issues with dying from bleeding rather than entering unconscious state
  • Fixed non-player-built water container initial spawns and filling when raining
  • Fixed conflict between yes/no keystrokes when quest dialogs and respawn dialogs are active at the same time
  • Fixed left control not being bindable to actions
  • Fixed AI occasionally attacking constructed staircases that they were standing on
  • Finished fixes for weapon attachments not loading correctly on corpses
  • Fixed another crash related to navmesh multi-threading in the editor
  • Fixed the Trophy Collector’s head projectile occasionally causing log spam when the owning Trophy Collector died
Watch Fractured Veil Gameplay Footage

We had another really busy week full of streams including some new international friends.
We made our Brazilian debut (In Portuguese) with Ultimo Sobrevivente.

Our friend and longtime supporter Sajón Arco returned to explore Hawaii (In Spanish)

Big thanks to our Community leader Fernando Fernandes for taking the lead in both Spanish and Portuguese with both of these two. We could never do this without the help of our amazing mods!

And for French speakers, @Dr_Horse played for the first time!

We also spent some time with TangoTek and Br0dyman.

We had a blast building with The Late Shift featuring BurkeBlack and CrReaM

And a run through the jungle with AllFunNGamez

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. We implemented a ton of great player suggestions and fixes recently.

Player Suggestions and fixes
  • [CRSD] Bloody Bob – players with permissions on Totems should have the ability to pick up and move furniture even the Totem
  • Ferdinandus – broken fence in Thorcon area
  • Kitski – thrown spears are instakilling
  • Ferdinandus – mutants never hit if you keep moving while shooting bow
  • Logoes – body never disappearing after death
  • _Adam – Mutants getting stuck together during seige
  • Logoes – Cannibals spawning into base
  • Baigs – random door placement after logging out
  • blazemonger – NPCs not lootable after you die
  • Kyttaen – game crashed after chopping down tree
  • Logoes – construction tool bugged
  • KerryAnneKay – persistence problems after crashing
  • MostlyEvil/Logoes – can’t loot body after death
  • Jake Arver/Shadowflame – cannibals in the Thorcon
  • MJMPlays – loot screen not showing loot
  • GrAmPa-UtoPiAn™❤(De enige échte) – deer stuck in bridge
  • Kyttaen – stack of stone bugged
  • MostlyEvil – bugged beach
  • Logoes – Items disappearing from boxes
  • MostlyEvil – HUD not showing up after respawn
  • MJMPlays – logged in dead
  • Logoes – Mutants spawning on top of base
  • Twerlinger – logging into safezone wall trapping you
  • Najo/Logoes/colt – disappearing doors and missing items in chests
  • Turt Renolds/KerryAnneKay – using a sleeping bag or bed puts you in god mode
  • MJMPlays – can’t recover arrows
  • Logoes – door only has 1hp after login
  • MJMPlays – recycled metal not showing up in inventory
  • The1rishOne/OneGunSalute – can’t repair base
  • MJMPlays – recycled items getting “stuck” in inventory
  • Mrbathsalts – Car doors opening in the wrong direction
  • TheLefty2319 – not getting coconut shells after I consume them
  • Gagtech – Bows are crafting with a visual ammo count of 1000/1000
  • Cr4zy4ce – Flare gun doesn’t reload or shoot
  • MJMPlays – player body not in “dead state” after death
  • Kyttaen – when in a party, the other person/leader, shows your own name
  • Shadowflame – Mutants unable to cross the bridge
  • Ferdinandus – Can’t always see what’s in a sleeping players inventory
  • PCTrojan – I am only able to buy from the vendor on the second level or the clothing vendors
  • Shadowflame – Doors are stronger than the door frames
  • 𝓣𝓮𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓫𝔂𝓽𝓮 – when using the pistol and aiming down sights, the ironsights are not aligned with the center of the crosshairs

Our testers also put together some amazing builds while exploring the map, here’s a look at some of our favorite shots they shared this week.

Calling All Streamers!

If you’re a Content Creator and want to stream Fractured Veil, say Aloha!

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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.

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The Bridges of Maui County

A new sprint has started and for the next month we’ll be focusing on performance, usability, and playtest integrations. We’ll also spend some time finishing up the player construction system, AI sieging, the diorama system and integrating steam friends and player surveys to help us gather feedback.

Things got started with some AI fixes. We discovered an issue with AI being unable to hit a totem if it was covered in foliage and a problem with melee AI getting stuck in place if they had a constructed wall blocking their path. Both are fixed now, making the mutants properly dangerous to your base. We also tweaked the amount of resources players get from trees slightly and the cost of a few basic items.

Most of our work this week, however, went into the doors in the construction system. We fixed some air gap issues and a bug with doors not playing the closing sound when auto-closing. We discovered that construction doors were not taking damage from bullets, and players could go straight through them by walking backward. Both aren’t physical qualities that you’d normally expect from a door, and since the fractured world we built is filled with enough of the unexpected already we fixed the bugs.

After fixing the door madness we needed to get out in the jungle and focus on structures with a bit more of an open feel. Below you can see a beautiful stone bridge we built across a stream. As you can see our stone material is looking great.
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Stone Walls and Siege Improvements

With sprint 44 coming to an end this week, we’ve been focusing on nabbing bugs and adding a bit of polish to existing systems. The team has added new upgrade and repair tools so players can fix their damaged buildings in style. We also created new loot tables, groups, and container assets so the loot can flow across Lahaina.

Many AI improvements were made this week as well. We fixed bugs that would cause AI to ignore open paths when sieging a base, ignore a base’s totem if they were standing too close to it, and a bunching problem that would cause Trophy Collectors to pile up in doorways and get stuck. We adjusted the maximum AI counts that could occupy a base and a system for despawning AI after a totem is destroyed and there are no players nearby. Everyone knows that company, fish, and mutants begin to smell after a few days.

Of course, the player construction system remains a major focus and we made a number of upgrades and material improvements since the last update. We fixed bugs with glass not scaling properly in thatch windows, full walls snapping to half-wall only slots, and stairs not properly persisting which made building a second floor a dangerous endeavor. We made rounded walls easier to place, added placed torches to the system giving your base warm lighting, and added missing sounds to all construction pieces. Lastly, we added stone meshes to the system so players have a third construction material option now including thatch and wood. Below you can see what the stone building materials looks like currently.

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Building Better Explosions

We started the week off by fixing some bugs with the player construction system. We corrected a problem where building foundations could be placed overlapping other existing building objects and fixed a bug with half and third wall icons being inverted. The team also improved how the Siege Manager tracks how long a base has gone without a siege. We want to make sure defending your base is fun and something players have to take into account when building with friends.

One of our most beloved remnants of civilization got some attention recently too. For quite a while the explosive barrels/cans that dot the landscape have been a favorite. When we discovered that they weren’t dealing damage we put in a fix right away, and we added a few new features. We doubled their damage radius and multiplied the amount of damage they do to AI. Best of all we’re creating a force applier in a radius around them that will send items flying when they explode. Soon you’ll be able to watch all sorts of things surf the pressure waves after you blow up fuel containers.

The party indicator will show the health of a player in a percentage now, and medical issues will display next to their names. We made a new crafting timer and fixed a couple of audio bugs. Shotgun reloads can be heard again, and we fixed a problem where torch sounds will continue to play for others after a player was killed. Lastly, we have a preview of one of the unique weapons we’ve been working on, the totem speargun. As you can see below it’s one of the best-looking ways to shoot a bolt into your enemy.

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Stone Walls and Clothing Improvements

Sprint 44 started this week and for the next month we will be updating the map, finishing up a few art issues, and fixing bugs in preparation for our first set of players. The major goals of this sprint are completing our player construction and AI sieging systems, updating player animations and the diorama system, steam friends, player surveys, and buttoning up the crash logging system.

We started by giving our female character model some attention. We finished work on an opacity masking subsystem and updated her gear to keep her from busting out of her pants and boots like she has been. Surviving the apocalypse is hard enough without splitting your pants every time you move. We added render targets for blood to her skin material so she will bleed when damaged now instead of looking like some sort of undead thing. We also completed a party permissions screen for the player construction system.

Our ranged AI got a lot of love this week too. The team improved how AI trace enemies allowing them to more consistently hit players using partial cover. We fixed a really fun bug where AI projectiles would multiply the amount of damage they dealt by the number of players that were hit. Ranged AI will no longer stutter-step when behind other AI (and neither will their projectiles), and we allowed them to deal damage to constructed walls and totems.

Lastly, we continued work on materials for the player construction system. Below you can see the latest iteration on wooden materials and some designs for players who’ve learned from The Three Little Pigs and want to build their base using stone.
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DEV

The Right Tool For The Job

Sprint 43 comes to an end this week and we’re busy adding some polish to a few items, finishing up some design work on our player construction system, and nabbing bugs as they arise. The team made some party improvements to start things off. We added player kicking support to parties so you aren’t stuck dragging around dead weight and the annoying, and we added party leader switching so your group doesn’t have to disband if the leader has to go do homework or take care of the kids.

Work continues on our siege system and this week we fixed several bugs that have popped up with the mutants. We worked out a problem where sieging AI would despawn when reinforcements showed up after the first wave of an attack. The team fixed a bug where mutants were not able to deal damage to constructed walls and found a bug where opened doors were blocking AI navigation. We also fixed an issue with totem permissions not respecting party members properly.

In addition to all the bug fixes this week, the team also added a few features and items to the game. We reworked the harvesting system. Better quality tools now harvest more resources per swing and hitting weak points doubles the amount a player gets as well as the damage to the item being harvested. We looked at many new sign concepts and designs, polished some of the door options we created last week, and imported a new construction tool. It may not come with a lifetime warranty but it’s just what the Kahuna ordered when it comes to putting together a shelter. Below you can see what the new construction tool looks like and the latest wooden door design for your base.
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Wood, Walls, and Weapons

We added lots of new player animations this week covering all the busy work you might find yourself doing after the collapse of civilization. Crafting, starting a fire, setting a broken arm, and even wrapping a sucking chest wound all have a unique look and action now. While we were making things look more realistic we spent some time smoothing out a few issues with the female character model. Right now one of her feet keeps busting out of her boot and she has the eyes of a tiger shark, which is fine for instilling fear in your enemies, but not the look we’re going for overall.

We cleaned up some of the weapon reloading predictions and removed the hack that temporarily fixed weapons getting stuck in an empty state when the auto-reload failed. We made some good progress on a crash reporter and should have it up and running after some testing over the next couple of days. The team also made some AI improvements to help mutants keep track of their targets during a siege, reduced the wolf and mutant population across the map, and fixed a bug where respawning players would hear coughing as they were brought back into the realm of the living

Most of the week, however, was focused on player construction and building material designs. We went over some possible wood designs, how the pieces might fit together, and some possible engraving/decoration options to make any apocalypse house look like a home. Below you can see that work as it progressed.

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