Now that foundation of the game is closer to were we wanted it to be at launch we can focus on bringing new content and design adjustments. One of the areas we are most excited to develop is aggressive (and later, alien) creatures that bring new challenges to players. With new challenges, we'll be providing a good basis to develop more purpose around tier 4 technologies (and beyond).
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner
Beware: Scorpions
Your newest foe on Icarus is the scorpion, a territorial creature who protects their lair viciously, with a poisonous barbed tail and sharp pincers that will challenge even the most prepared players.
Scorpions drop more unique consumables to craft with, along with new food consumables with their own buffs (using the expanded meat system introduced last week). The Concealment: Recovery mission will introduce you to these creative creatures, so be careful of your step.
This week we have added some slightly enlarged and morphed arachnids, it's a step towards some more interesting bespoke animal behavior and actions. The mission this week is a nod to how they might have accidentally ended up on the surface
- Shawn Elliott, Game Designer
Concealment: Recovery
Collect and Destroy the Results of a Failed Experiment
//OPERATOR: Sinotai // BIOME: Desert // BACKGROUND: Sinotai has been conducting a closely guarded experiment regarding potential exotic mutation that may be deemed unethical if made public. // MISSION: Locate biological containment units and then destroy the evidence. //TERMS: Flat fee. All safety and survival concerns are the responsibility of the Contractor.
A new mission, Concealment: Recovery will introduce scorpions to our prospectors, requiring you to recover a crashed bio container that has been inhabited by these arachnids. This new risk comes with a fairly balanced reward in return, so it’s up to you to decide whether the risk matches the potential spoils.
Temperature System
For the Scorched and Frozen update we set out to make a bunch of improvements to the temperature system which is now much more dynamic and responsive to choices the player makes.
The armor you wear and the items you consume will now have a direct impact on your internal body temperature, rather than just simply affecting your resistance to external temperatures. You may notice new things like getting out of water bodies will keep your character wet for a while, and general QOL improvements to temperature related consumables, including a new recipe to craft Ice Water on your character by simply combining Ice and your trusty Thermos.
To keep you on your toes we adjusted the temperature curves of the biomes and also brought the heat afflictions up to parity with the cold afflictions, by introducing Heat Exhaustion and Heat Stroke. Now, more than ever, the choices you make in these more extreme areas of Icarus can mean the difference between thriving or perishing.
User Interface updates
We’ve taken on board a bunch of Feature Upvote submissions and other suggestions to better explain how Icarus works for new players, but they’ll be useful for seasoned prospectors too.
We’ve made made it clearer whether the Solo Talent Tree is active or not (it is deactivated whenever you play in a group but you can still spend your points and interact with it), and added labels so that you know who owns each Dropship. We’ve better explained respawning, using beds as respawn points, recovering gear and death penalties, plus added a handy link to the most recent patch notes on the title screen.
These may be small improvements (and there are more to come) but they can really help new players, so we’d like to thank you for your feedback here.
Coming Soon: Changes to Drop Timers
Drop timers are an important mechanism for providing pressure to enhance the survival experience, but it's clear we need to make some changes to how these work. We've been investigating how we can make these changes to better support the gameWe have been working on changes to how drop timers work to better balance the game for all players. We need to have a real world time when we can delete the data from our servers, as it would progressively make the system unmanageable if we keep that data forever. However, we could store your data for quite some time and it doesn't need to be directly linked to the drop timer length. The change we are investigating is to separate these two needs out - having an overall real-time limit that is quite generous (say 90 days) after which drop progress may be deleted, and a separate in-game timer that still meets our design objectives and could varying per drop to add pressure.
- Dean Hall, Gamerunner
In addition we are also investigating how to bring in "insurance" as a gameplay element, as there have been excellent suggestions from the community how to implement this in a fun and interesting way.
We don't have a fixed timeframe for both these additions yet, as they will require careful testing, but we will have more to either say or show for next weeks update.
Detailed Change Log:
- Added new Mission ‘Concealment: Recovery’
- Added new Scorpion Creature
- Added new Heatstroke and Heat Exhaustion Modifiers
- Temperature Changes Balance:
- Modified Biome Temperature Curves
- Modified how Temperature Resistances Work
- Reworking & Rebalancing Player Cold/Heat Resistances
- Added concept of Armor Insulation
- Updated UI to reflect Temperature Changes
- Rebalanced Resistance Values on Armor
- Modified Speed at which the players internal temperature can change
- Updated 'Warm and Cosy' Buff to reflect new resistance values
- Wet Modifier now persists upon leaving water, last for 30 extra seconds as the player dries
- Player can no longer become fully resistance to temperature or ever have a non safe region
- Modified Player Starting Stats so the Temperature bar internal values are symmetrical
- Added new Cooling Bandage to counter Heatstroke and Heat Exhaustion
- Added Ice Water Thermos recipe (Crafted on Character) to give a much longer cooldown buff
- Increased grown and harvested rewards of Coffee/Tea/Cocoa/Gorse and decreased recipe ingredient requirements for related drinks based on their scarcity in the world
- Added the ability to equip Flashlights to the light slot
- Added Patch notes link to Title Screen
- Added information to the Dropship tooltip to show who it belongs to
- Fixed bases in caves getting destroyed when the player leaves the area
- Fixed radar scans not appearing on map for clients
- Fixed several dialog subtitles
- Fixed Caveworm Bow requiring Sandworm Scale to repair. Now requires Caveworm Scale
- Fixed Sandworm Spear, Titanium Hammer and Platinum Hammer having incorrect repair items selected
- Added new materials and textures to the Extractor
- Improved smoke effects from mission containers to be more visible from further away, giving players a tactical advantage to scouting up high to find and complete objectives
- Fixed a gap in the terrain in the Mission ‘Waterfall: Expedition’ in the Riverlands
- Improved the texture on the Bedroll
- Improved the rendering in the rocks surrounding the Exotic Deposits
- Improved the floor collision in the cave used in Mission ‘Dry Run’
- Fixed an issue where the Water pipe tool would be placed into the inventory rather than the hotbar when retrieving it from a supply crate
- Improved Flashlight lighting visuals
- Updated the Solo Talent Tree description to better describe the state its in
- Updated the description on all Beds to better communicate their use and features
- Updated the text for respawn options to be more specific
- Crispy Bacon can now be cooked on the Pot Belly Stove
- Fixed an issue where the Inaris Aruda Arrow did not line up with bows correctly
- Fixed an issue where text would overlap on the mission timer when it is critically low
- Changed the description for Spirit Level missions to reference the correct objectives
- Made the Delete Prospect/Outpost button clearer
- Tethered AI will now regenerate health when returning to their tether point
- Fixed 'Warm and cozy' modifier becoming permanent after the player turns off the source
- Hydroponic plots now only consume 15 water (instead of the 100 they were at).
- Composite pastes have a new icon (they look like thermal paste now).
- The "invisible walls" near the desert entrances of The Big Cave are gone.
