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May Update: New Armor, Weapons, and Status of UE 5.1 Upgrade

Aloha Thrivers,

If you caught our last update you already know we’re upgrading to Unreal Engine 5.1. We’ve been working on this since the beginning of the year but only spilled the beans back in April.

We’ve got some more beauty shots included when you scroll down that are our ‘proof of UE5 life’ since we’re still barreling ahead, fixing bugs, and adjusting systems. The biggest thing holding us back from pushing the new build to our production server is performance.

With the upgrade, we took big leaps on the foliage since we feel like the jungle itself is a character in our game. It grows and provides cover for attacks, a safe place to rest and recover, and also is just gorgeous to look at while you’re exploring paradise.

Another issue we’re tackling is persistence since we know no one wants to lose their loot overnight for no reason. If it’s because your base wasn’t protected properly (i.e. windows without glass aka an open invitation) that’s one thing. But if it’s because the persistence system is not working properly – that’s a totally different story.

As an indie developer with a small team (relative to what we’ve set out to accomplish), we get one shot at introducing the game to new players with as smooth of an experience as possible. We know there will be some hiccups and people who have lower specs on their machines may struggle with higher settings but we’re striving to cut at least stutters and problems that really impact gameplay.

In a Sea of Survival games, We Made the List!

Hearing Asmongold talk about our game was a ‘pinch me’ moment.

A HUGE thanks to Guns, Nerds, and Steel for including us in their Top 10 Upcoming Survival Base Building Games video.

Also big thanks to ENFANT TERRIBLE for their New SURVIVAL BASE BUILDING Games in UNREAL ENGINE 5 mention.

We know there are hundreds of new survival games hitting Steam every day and we’re honored to have been included before we’ve even released our new trailer with footage from UE5!

New Armor, Weapons and More!

We’ve been hard at work on new items and features including fishing, more resources, and many new craftable items. Here’s a look at just a few of the biggest new items that will soon be available at a crafting bench near you!

Post Apocalyptic Armor Ready to Add Buffs

We’re really proud of our metal armor design with a helmet inspired by ancient Hawaiian dress. This suit will keep out all but the most determined mutant fangs and focuses on materials readily available to most survivors. Now players have a use for every part of the SSHAM can!

Guns

Whether you’re looking to reach out and say Aloha to a gang of mutants at a distance or just blast a hole in one that’s gotten a little too close, we have a new craftable gun for you built with coconut shells and palm leaves.

UE5.1 Eye Candy – Best shots

We couldn’t ship this update without sharing some eye candy to keep you hyped about how beautiful paradise will be in UE5.1.

Steam Playtest and Pledges?

We get a lot of questions about when the Steam playtests are happening and essentially, until we can push the update to our production server, Steam wants us to wait for a playtest. It’s going to happen but not by the end of May as we’d hoped. It comes down to bugs and performance stutters that would make your play experience frustrating. The last thing we want is players shouting to the game gods, “WHYYY?” So we thought we’d take more time to get it right.

We’ll be announcing the new playtest schedule soon, and we’ll be reloading keys on our pledge page at the same time, so you and your friends can keep playing after the playtest ends.

We know nobody likes delays, but being stuck trying to play a buggy game is even worse. We try to be as transparent as possible with our development and really appreciate the support and understanding of the community. We can’t thank you all enough!

See you in Maui soon, Thrivers!

DEV

Version 0.1.1923 Patch [Major] – 4.27 Engine Upgrade and Content Update

Aloha, Thrivers!

The Kickstarter campaign was an amazing experience for us and we can’t thank our backers enough! Your support allows us to speed up development time and take on a number of big projects that we’ve been eager to build all at once.

Since the campaign ended we’ve been mostly heads-down working on our first major update of 2022 and it’s a big one! We’re hitting the ground running with an engine upgrade, a complete overhaul of the landscape and foliage, weather and world updates, and tons of backend improvements that increase performance and lay the groundwork for players to travel between servers.

We’re really excited to share everything we’ve been building over the past month and welcoming wave 2 of our Kickstarter backers to the game very soon. We take a lot of pride in being a community-driven game and are thankful beyond words for your help and ideas. We couldn’t do it without you and look forward to making Fractured Veil even better with your continued support.

Here’s a look at everything we’ve done since the last update.

UE 4.27 Upgrade

Fractured Veil has been running on Unreal 4.22.3 for the past three years so this upgrade is huge!
Running 4.27 opens up all the improvements and features of five engine updates. Along with integrating Epic Online Services and Easy Anti Cheat to ensure that everyone is playing on an even field, these engine improvements will make the play experience even better.

We’ve just begun unlocking the huge optimization benefits and new systems that will allow giant leaps forward to our sky, weather, water, terrain, foliage, and VFX. Along with the performance benefits, players will notice the world and terrain improvements right away while we continue to optimize and integrate the new features 4.27 offers us.

Foliage Refactor

The foliage improvements are probably the most immediately noticeable update to the game. Trees are fully interactable with the wind, look more realistic, and are more performant. We’ve added foliage that can be harvested for resources (just fiber for now), and we are working on changing up the density of the jungle.

Following the roads and trails may be the quickest way to move across the map but they don’t offer much cover and open players up to ambushes with long clear shooting lanes. We want the jungle to be an option for those willing to take a little longer and encounter an occasional natural danger without running a gauntlet of opportunistic players.

Level Streaming and Management System

We’ve created a level management system that gives us much quicker iteration times when it comes to world-building and streaming. This allows us to split up maps, group them together, manage LODs, and add custom streaming rules for different sub-levels and dungeons.

Basically, this gives us the ability to create custom worlds for players to travel to and unique dungeons to explore much more quickly than before. Many of you have told us how much you enjoy exploring and this system allows us to create forgotten and foreboding places for players to explore and loot in half the time.

Construction Improvements

Forget laying another floor over your head to enclose your base, we’ve added roofs to the construction system. Players will find flat, triangular, and round roof pieces in their build menus now. Not only does this open up a whole new level of creativity to your builds but it allows new options when it comes to the wear and tear the weather can do to a base if you haven’t added a proper roof.

We’ve also added better construction piece snapping to make building faster and easier. In addition, placing construction pieces (just foundations for now) will destroy any foliage that overlaps it. This should put an end to plants and trees poking up through your base and open up some areas that were harder to build on.

New Weapons

Players will find a couple of new ways to fight off the hungry hordes. The first is a totem speargun. What it lacks in speed it more than makes up for in damage.

The second is a DIY post-apocalyptic rifle. It may not be the most beautiful firearm available but it definitely packs a punch.

World Improvements

Lighting Update

We’ve made some big improvements to the environmental lighting making a day, or night, of survival in Lahaina look a lot more realistic.

We also adjusted the light level of nights and the brightness of the moonlight to make it a little easier to operate under the cover of darkness.

Landscape Update

We’ve made some improvements to the depth of field system and like the foliage, we’ve reworked the landscape materials, puddles, and grass types to make the world look more realistic and improve performance.

Water Update

We’ve removed the old water system and taken advantage of the improvements available to us with the engine upgrade. This has improved the swimming mechanic, increased performance and along with the depth of field and lighting updates makes for a beautiful dive underwater.

Sky and Weather

It’s not just the land and sea that got an overhaul. We made some big improvements to the sky as well.

We’ve made the sky that famous Hawaiian blue, improved clouds and rain, and implemented new heavy fog perfect for covering escapes or hiding to ambush other players.

Altogether these improvements should increase performance, make the game run more smoothly, and provide a much more immersive experience.

Behind The Scenes

New Server Setup/Backend Changes

We have refactored our backend service and database layers, optimizing and decentralizing things and building a global deferred updater. Put simply this will allow for more players to be in-game playing at the same time, getting us closer to our goal of 500 players per world.

We’ve found and fixed over 260 bugs so far with all the new updates. As usual, our amazing testers have helped us track down some of the biggest and we couldn’t be more grateful. 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! Here’s a list of the fixed bugs that our players found.

  • Gaming News Hub – Minimap does not show the player position sometimes
  • Jester429 – 127 detector showing at feet when equipped
  • MJMPlays – Recycled materials can’t be used to craft
  • Logoes/Kitski – Continuous sieges
  • ClockBlockerX – Flipping an offset doorway wall via middle mouse button does not permit you to walk through it, even though it shows an opening.
  • MostlyEvil – Wall not connected to totem after replacing
  • 1ceprime – After server crash, was unable to reload SKAR. Had ammo in inventory, would play reload anim, but wouldn’t reload the ammo
  • MJMPlays – Can’t repair base
  • ClockBlockerX – Cannot walk up a section of stairs. Can remove stairs, and walk through, but cannot walk upstairs when I replace the item.
  • Ferdinandus – Rain coming through the bridge
  • AUSelite86 – Rain showing up on floors inside buildings
  • liliumsouldem, TSStechAngel – Fixed DOF settings not staying as selected
  • Logoes – Fixed weapon reload animations
  • ClockBlockerX – Shotgun shows holo sight even after it has been removed, does not show old reticle even after removing it.
  • Jerel Phoenix – Mutants moving through barb wire
  • KerryAnneKay – Disappearing campfires and smelters
  • ClockBlockerX – You can walk through glass in the Thorcon
  • Colt – Unable to access totem
  • DRWCFR – Totem won’t recycle
  • LazurusRising – Ability to drink soda on pickup does not work
  • Cr4zy4ce – The craft bench does not properly show required craft items to craft an object.
  • Kitski – Invisible door in base that can’t be interacted with
  • ClockBlockerX – Random door appeared in my build after patch attached halfway up a solid wall.
  • blazemonger – Chest disappears after character deletion
  • KerryAnneKay – My foundation was upgraded to full health when I logged out last night. When I logged in they were back to default installation values.
  • wisty-beth/blazemonger – Logged out inside house, logged in outside. Missing shirt, axe, rye, antibiotics, ssham, and totem is empty. Totem is still basic and has not been upgraded
  • MJMPlays/Kyttaen/Logoes – Totems and upkeep not working correctly
  • Logoes – Can’t complete crafting bench purchase at vendor
  • Najo – Arrows disappearing after logout
  • MJMPlays – Missing items from inventory and bank
  • LazurusRising – Loaded in to an encumbered character with nothing in inventory
  • Turt Renolds – Clothes changing design after logout

More About Fractured Veil

 

 

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Version 0.1.1674 Patch [Major] – Updates, Fixes, and Improvements

Aloha Thrivers!

We can’t thank our community enough for helping us reach our Kickstarter goal! We’re overwhelmed by the love and support you’ve shown us over the past 3 weeks but there’s still 5 days before the end of the campaign.

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.

This week made a number of weapon and combat improvements, included a bunch of crafting and construction updates, and fixed a mountain of bugs that our testers reported to us. We’re also including some shots of the amazing bases our community built since our last update. Read below to see everything we’ve worked on.

Updates, Fixes, and Improvements

Weapon/combat Improvements and Fixes

  • Increased max uses on most ranged weapons

  • Increased Damage on Ukupoon by 25%

  • Increased Damage on Compound bow by 10%

  • Upped recoil on Ukupoon

  • Fixed issue where firing flares at a sleeping player in a PVE zone caused the player to disappear

  • Reduced accuracy when jumping/running with 1911

  • Reduced Extended mag ammo boost from 200% to 125%

  • Reduced max range of uzi and optimal range from 30 to 20 meters

  • Increased hipfire spread of M1A by 100% and damage by 50%

  • Added ADSAdjustSpread variable to guns

  • Jumping will now take 100 stamina

Crafting and Construction Updates

  • Minor increase to decay on pickaxes from 30 to 31

  • Bow craft time reduced to 45 seconds

  • Fixed duplicate attachment slot issue when upgrading construction attachments

  • Updated Coconut Shell text to explain it’s a crafting resource

  • Fixed crafting machines allowing fuel to be used in non fuel slots

  • Fixed not being able to recycle containers and totems after they have been upgraded

  • Fixed research benches not working

  • Fixed area of 4×4 where players couldn’t build construction pieces

  • Fixed players not being able to place a new totem in zone 1 after destroying their previous claim

  • Fixed crashes dropping/moving an item being recycled

Game Updates and Improvements

  • Enlarged Bananas

  • Repositioned consumables to fit into hand better

  • Decreased jeans cost to 10

  • Increase quest reward for buying jeans to 15

  • Implemented 30 second pause in draining food/water when you reach max value

  • Created separate vendors for various item types and placed in Thorcon

  • Smoothing out terrain in places to prevent players from falling through holes in procgen houses Merged all wooden wall pieces in thorcon into single mesh

  • Lighting update to Caves and Thorcon

  • Changed inventory context menu to right mouse button

  • The drone will now restart if it’s pawn is destroyed for any reason

Fixes

  • Fixed issue with properly reporting death for inactive pawns

  • Fixed character customizer screen becoming squished after hiding the background

  • Fixed elevator music not stopping for some players

  • Fixed bug with disappearing items

  • Fixed handling of IsClientLoggingIn variable during client login, which caused the client to erroneously show the timeout message if the player successfully logged in but didn’t join a server for 30 seconds

  • Fixed player-to-bank swapping persistence issue

  • Fixed players dying from dying of starvation or thirst while offline

Player Fixes and Suggestions

  • spitfire – Adjust crafting recipe for arrows

  • MoneyBagg – lower npc hp or raise up weapon damage

  • The1rishOne – adjust the head damage from Trophy Collectors

  • Logoes – Let us burn fiber, maybe a faster burn on it.

  • Kitski – Reduce the charcoal and sulfur cost of making ammo or increase the amount of ammo you get when you make it

  • 1ceprime – M1A:Way too accurate from hipfire, More Damage in general, maybe higher headshot multiplayer on this gun too

  • 1ceprime – Uzi: Extended Mag down to 30, 25 Meters optimal range and drop off from there, ADS cof way too tight

  • 1ceprime – 1911: Jumping should reduce accuracy

  • IcyCaress – Character customizer screen becomes squished after hiding the background

  • blazemonger – Buying jeans are part of early tutorial but the price was raised to 90 RAI?

  • Ayka – Tutorial says to Build a Canteen, but what it means is build a Coconut Canteen.

  • Logoes – Sometimes, maybe every 8-9 hits when attacking a player wall the tool doesn’t take damage from hitting the wall but still damages it

  • Omikron – Pressing “N” by mistake while just standing around will show your downed number, only way to get rid of it is by relogging

  • Ferdinandus – Animals not moving

  • Logoes – Objects farther away have some pretty rough blur to them

  • Kyttaen – Mutant spawned/is stuck inside my foundation

  • Logoes – Game crash

  • Cr4zy4ce – Recycle gives materials back for non existent items

  • Mediocregamer67 – Animals spawning on top of cars

  • Ferdinandus – I chopped a big tree and the cuts remained there after it went down and couldn’t move freely on the spot the tree was

  • Jerel Phoenix/Reddthorn – Stuck in dying state

  • zzeinith – Stuck fox

  • Ferdinandus – Ground materials showing up on column on toll booth

  • gunnbr – Bodies floating after base was destroyed

  • Logoes – Mutants not attacking during siege

  • Logoes – Cannibals spawning in base

  • TSStechAngel – Can’t revive your party members who are knocked out

  • Reddthorn/Kitski – Hair stretching out strangely

  • MJMPlays – Items disappearing after picking them off my body using hold F

  • Kitski – Trunks opening strangely

  • spitfire – the global quest to kill mutants, timer ended and the server crashed

  • spitfire – Rabbit running is louder than deer running

  • Logoes/MJMPlays – Dying when I log in

  • Shadowflame – Stacked items and recycling are a little over-productive at times

  • MJMPlays – Unable to die after being knocked out by poison

  • Matt.j (moogobbler1) – Very slow load time when starting

  • MJMPlays – Part of foundation invisible and unusable

  • Kitski – Spawning in stuck in god mode

  • Logoes – Can’t repair or upgrade base

  • MostlyEvil – Safezone isn’t safe u can fire at someone from outside the zone and kill them

  • LazurusRising – Floor issue prevents you from talking to vendor

  • Ferdinandus – When i log in, my hair color is not attached to the hair itself

  • blazemonger – The amount of resources needed for a stack of 100 shells is quite excessive.

  • Logoes – Respawned trees can’t be harvested

  • Shadowflame/MJMPlays – Tree and electrical pole coincide just outside of thorcon

  • Kitski/LazurusRising – Some trees appear to be going down in 1 single hit

  • Logoes – When I get to the ‘craft a canteen’ quest, the quest system stops

  • Najo- Rain barrels staying empty

  • ClockBlockerX – Dying when logging out

  • Logoes – Game freezing

  • Baigs – Floating items around map

  • Logoes – Bob can’t be killed with arrows. Burned through a compound bow and 2 other normal bows and 200 arrows just on Bob and he won’t die

  • Baigs – Near the bridge to Thorcon (ocean side) sometimes you can walk/run across the water instead of swimming

  • liliumsouldem/DRWCFR – Once a totem has been recycled, it cannot be placed again

  • 𝓣𝓮𝓽𝓻𝓪𝓫𝔂𝓽𝓮 – Pressing ‘n’ causes a variant of the “bleeding out” screen to pop up

  • MJMPlays – Game crashed when I upgraded a thatch floor to a wood floor

Watch Fractured Veil Gameplay Footage

We fought mutants with 1cePrime

Spent some survival time with Mitauchi

Explored the island with Ayka

And looked at some amazing builds with the one and only StandardDamage

Don’t forget to check out these videos from

BigfryTV talking about survival

running around the island with eNtaK

And some laughs with Anarchy HD.

Community Spotlight

From day one we’ve been driven by the community and your feedback is vital to our development 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 for the game. Our testers came up with some truly amazing builds this week. Here’s a look at some of the awesome new bases that sprung up on the island recently.

Calling All Streamers!

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

DEV

Version 0.1.1612 Patch [Major] – Veil Updates, Mutant Improvements, and Player Shots

Aloha Thrivers! 

Our Kickstarter Campaign began this week and we couldn’t be more excited and humbled by all the love and support the community has shown us. 

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. But we’re not quite there yet. We’re counting on you to help spread the word to your friends and family, far and wide. Let’s keep the momentum going and ride this wave all the way to the Lahaina of our dreams…or nightmares depending on which mutant you encounter along the way!  

To help celebrate Kickstarter week we thought we’d share some of the work we’ve done improving the horrors of the jungle, some veil travel concepts, and some beautiful shots of the incredible bases that were built by our players since our last update.

Mutant Updates

The mutants are always ready to feast, just don’t forget to light their bodies on fire or else you’ll be on the menu.  We made a number of improvements and fixes to ensure that players have something to fear from the local monster population but also don’t just have a mutant spawn right next to them out of nowhere. Everyone loves a good sneak attack, but it wasn’t a fair fight for some players so we squashed that bug. 

We also went ahead and fixed some issues with AI navigation, updated how and where they can spawn in, improved ranged AI, and reduced the length of the Kasha’s ringing noise after a scream to avoid stunning players in real-life. You will notice we fixed an issue with Green Snatchers getting caught in burrow-unburrow loops that must have been awful for their claws, and made some updates to the island’s cannibals (aka neck-brace Annabelles as we like to call them).

Veil travel

The Fracture wiped out civilization and devastated life on the planet but we’ve always planned on letting players rebuild the system in the game and travel between worlds to experience slightly different environments and loot.  

Since launching the Kickstarter, we’re working hard to further develop and show off how players will be able to travel between unique worlds. Like we also say, actions in Fractured Veil have consequences, so it’s important for us to demonstrate that what players do in the game wouldn’t just affect themselves, their surroundings, and their server anymore, but a whole multiverse of interconnected servers. We’re not nearly there yet, but it’s an exciting time and the early stages of how and what that multiverse travel will be.

Our idea is that each world can have its own culture, ecology, and history eventually. Players will be able to trade between worlds, not just communities, and find realities perfect for playing with their friends and play styles, assuming of course that the whole thing doesn’t come crashing down again. Here’s a exclusive peek at concept art of what it might look like when the veils open up.

Veilcorp is not responsible for any deviations from early concepts or injuries resulting from Veil travel. Void where prohibited.

Updates and Improvements

  • Added visibility checks to the loot menu
  • Tool quest and twine quest added and updated
  • Removed ladder sphere overlap checks and updated code to support traces
  • Improved the AI’s navigation

Weapon/Combat Improvements

  • Cleaned up third-person bow animations for the homemade bow and compound bow
  • Adjusted all melee weapon hand positions in third person
  • Added flare gun firing sound
  • Projectiles that get stuck in enemies will no longer show the pickup particle effect
  • Improved aim offset smoothness

Fixes

  • Potentially fixed AI spawning on top of cars and other areas by further improving the navmesh check used to determine if an AI is ready for activation
  • Fixed AI occasionally being activated right next to a player which would cause them to be unexpectedly attacked
  • Fixed vendor bounds issue preventing proper interaction traces
  • Fixed floating hair on dead bodies
  • Fixed not being able to loot corpses
  • Fixed not being able to open the 127 converter UI
  • Fixed clothing vendors not being interactable
  • Fixed eating a coconut not granting a coconut shell
  • Fixed totem UI not updating upkeep cost or time
  • Potentially fixed a bug where Green Snatchers were unburrowing in a location that got them stuck
  • Fixed a bug where Green Snatchers would unburrow and then immediately burrow again without attacking or being alerted by a fire
  • Fixed performance issue in the Throcon due to lights casting dynamic shadows
  • Fixed bug where players couldn’t use the jump key while on ladders to get off
  • Fixed a bug where ranged AI were unable to properly predict movement velocity if the velocity had negative values in it
  • Fixed the 127 Detector floating between the player’s legs
  • Fixed coconut canteen alignment in third person.
  • Fixed skar weapon animations having the mag visible on the floor in third person
  • Fixed crash when clients would receive quest information before being fully loaded
  • Fixed bug where multiple key bindings were set to LeftAlt
  • Fixed arms bending into the torso for multiple animations in third person
  • Fixed ukupoon not playing sounds
  • Fixed jumping animations canceling attack or reload animations
  • Disabled actor pushing from large fallen trees to fix a severe performance issue that could occur when performing overlap checks

Watch Fractured Veil Gameplay Footage 

If you missed the action live this week, watch us have some fun with these fine folks: 

Playing with 1cePrime

Our time with skinnedteen

Celebrating our Kickstarter launch with StandardDamage 

Building with SajonArco

Surviving with j0hnbane

And check out these videos from  

BigfryTV talking about survival  and

exploring the island with eNtaK

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

DEV

Weapon Updates and Bug Fixes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEV

Bug Fixes and Weapon Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DEV

Crafting Updates and Bug Fixes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Bug Fixes, Crafting and AI Updates

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Inventory and AI Improvements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Bug Fixes, Gun and Inventory Improvements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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