Greetings Pioneers!

Last week many of you replied to the release with worry about the PvP and griefing aspect of the game, we have listened and want you to know that we have a simple solution that will be out in the next update!

In the NEXT release, if you set your server up so that it is PvE, then you can configure your server to the following;

Your body cannot be damaged by other Players when inside your Eden Kit Shield – so as long as you log off within the safety of your Eden Kit, no one can steal your stuff! Any buildings within your Eden Kit Shield can be set to take no damage from other Players – AI will still be allowed to damage your buildings but none will attack whilst no-one is nearby. If you die you can configure it so that only you and/or your Colony can see your Inventory drop.

PLEASE let us know your feedback as this should completely stop griefing as we start to push towards the story driven components of the game.

Thank you for all the feedback from the latest release, we have some fixes and optimisations for you today in a hotfix update. We have fixed a memory leak to do with flying AI navigation that was causing servers to run out of memory and shut down after a while. The optimisations should also help out single player performance too. See the full changelist here:

Added extra idle animations to the Swamp Walker

Fixed trees changing colour upon taking damage.

Fixed an issue where sometimes AI would ignore the player.

Made optimisations to the way AI request paths from the nav system.

Made optimisations with our navigation Octree which were causing problems with server performance.

Fixed a memory leak with a flying path navigation and increased its performance.

Fixed not being able to mine some mineral shards.

Fixed an issue with not being able to place wall panels on a foundation in certain scenarios.

Fixed a crash caused by our destructible rocks.

Fixed mining was applying massive force.

Fixed crash when damaging trees.

Fixed UUIDs in RCON queries were incorrect, meaning Admin could not use them to Message/Kick a player.

Fixed issue with AI falling through the world or being thrown or blasted through the world.

Fixed issue where another players ragdoll would remain in world on the client after the other player died.

This week in addition to the fixes, the new map, new survival mechanics and modular weapons system have come on leaps and bounds. You can now check out a fly through preview of the larger island..

This is what we’ve been upto this week:

John – Lead Designer

I have been working a load of stuff this week. Firstly I have made a load of progress on the on the next level of the survival mechanics to include a buff and debuff mechanics (increase/decrease status effects over time), also I finalised the weapon/tool/defenses cooldown system designs ready for the new Gauss gun and Mining mechanics for faster resource gathering.

Additional to this, Matt and I have been working hard to get the final aesthetics right for the modular weapon system (which we will show you more of over the coming weeks) and I have been reviewing the next steps for Juggernaut interactions as the current version is nowhere near what I want the gameplay to be.

The level design for the new map is now ready for profiling next week and so I am organising the order in which the new creatures will be going into production. We have code names for all of the creatures at the moment and so I can say that the “Elephant”, “Wolf”, “Deer” and “Hog” are the first we will be looking to get into the Grasslands biome.

Lauren – Animator

This week I’ve been working on the modular weapon system with Marcin, setting up the 3rd person animation blueprint so you can see other pioneers with their various modular weapon combinations and making sure all the animations are playing correctly.

Please note this is still very much work in progress, not the finalised weapon meshes and not all combinations shown here will be made available.

I’ve also been re-exporting the Juggernaut and Swamp Walker animations with some extra bones at the feet for use as a reference with IK. This will mean we can properly plant the feet of these creatures to the ground, stopping them looking so floaty, woot! I’ve also been working on some idle animation variants for the Swamp Walker to give him a bit more creepy alien life.

Matt – Art Director

Working on in engine setup and finishing up of the new build fortification types. AS well as looking at tweaks and additions to the weapon components with John I’ve been working with Joe and Simone on some final touches to the Biomes in our new level before we start the exciting part of populating Fauna around the environment.

Marcin – Designer

While most of the team were dedicated to bug fixes, I was working on future systems, namely the Modular Weapon System and the Creature Legs IK. The former was mostly back end and infrastructure improvements, such as implementing the ability for each weapon part to override default animations, or making sure that animation replicate properly between 1st and 3rd person meshes on all clients.

The latter however is something more of a visual fidelity improvement, which we realised we needed with the introduction of the bigger enemies. As you probably noticed with the Juggernaut and the Swamp Walker by now, their animation (as animations tend to do) do not not take into consideration the ground, the creature walking on, making it look floaty. This week I started working on fixing that. Have a little early preview of the side-by-side of the old (right) and the new (left).

Lee – Technical Director

This week I’ve been trying to track down AI bugs. Some are very hard to find though, so it’s a relief when they do show up. I’ve also spent some time trying to optimise the AI to increase server performance. This will likely be an ongoing task though for some months yet.

Joe – Environment Artist

At the start of the week I finished my work on the new Marsh biome, finalising placement before polishing and optimising atmospherics and adding effects for the destruction of flora. I also created a few new shaders and textures so the water/terrain looks suitably marshy. After that, I went over a bunch of settings with collision, culling and level placement to head off any potential issues in testing. I created new effects for waterfalls and developed new post process effects to further differentiate between different biomes.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been mostly profiling to find out where memory leaks and cpu costs were being tied up on the server. It’s a slow going process but it’s pointed out a good few things so far which have been optimised or are scheduled for optimisation at a later date.

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been focused on hotfixes for our update this week. Managed to remove a few unwanted crashes to do with spawning and an odd one that would occur when trees took damage.

Tom – Character Artist

This week I’ve been plowing forward with a proxy model for one of our wolf like creatures!

Simone – Concept Artist

This week we’ve been doing lots of work on establishing some moody environments for each biome with the goal to make each one feel unique, as you will soon see 🙂 I’ve also been working with the art team in particular to develop the visuals with regards to the in-game capabilities that we can replicate in the engine for each biome such as the fog and lighting, and also some early work on creatures that are yet to be finalised.

Andy – Lead QA

Since our late night release last week I have been pouring over the steam forums and trello boards making notes and finding replications steps for all the weird and wonderful bugs you guys found. I am happy to say that I think we pretty much nailed them all. I also tried some of Johns Nacho Pringles…I wish I hadn’t.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix