I got sucked into a couple of rabbit holes these last few weeks. First I spent some time trying to fix glitches in the terrain generation that would often result in some weird bits of terrain around houses that characters tend to get stuck on. Then I fixed a longstanding bug with stealth, where if you choke-hold someone without them detecting you, they would still somehow remember that you did it. In the process of testing that I kept uncovering and fixing more and more bugs with stealth and choke-holds, assassinations, etc. It should be much improved now, I think!

The behavior I've settled on when you choke-hold or assassinate someone, or attack them in some other way without being seen, is:

• They investigate the body, or go into the alert state (generally running around looking for you with ? above their heads). If they find someone (either you, or pretty much anyone from a different community) while in this state, they'll attack them.
  
• Once out of the alert state, if they see someone they don't like (including sometimes their own community members) they will get suspicious of them.
  
• If they're very suspicious they might attack (this is influenced by their overall approval of you)
  
• After about 10 minutes, they will no longer be suspicious of the next person they see, and you can go about your business as before.

It hasn't changed massively from before, but it should be more consistent and less buggy now.

Other major additions in this patch are the Lithuanian translation (thanks Audrius Vaidalauskis!), and all the sounds have been remastered (thanks to Gevin Campos!). And I've changed the click sounds to be less annoying... hopefully! ːsteamhappyː

Besides that there's also a bunch of other miscellaneous fixes.

• Added Lithuanian, updated Chinese and Japanese
  
• Remastered Sounds
  
• New button click sounds
  
• Options in debug menu (under Utils), and World tab when starting a game, to save/load world gen settings (this includes the seed, which means you can regenerate the same map you are on, if you lost your initial save)
  
• Added an indicator of how much resources are needed to repair or capture something
  
• Fix for not being able to repair or take over tents and wells
  
• Fix for NPCs magically remembering you knocked them out even if they never saw you
  
• Fix for not being able to choke hold/assassinate NPCs who are cooking or crafting
  
• Lots of stealth fixes - if you attack/choke-hold someone without being detected, they will search for you and attack whoever they find. If they finish searching without finding anyone, they will be suspicious of the next stranger they see (but won't necessarily attack), for a while.
  
• Stopped wandering hordes having white strain if it's turned off in the world settings
  
• Fixes for various world generation issues that caused terrain glitches
  
• Made loading screen backgrounds black as apparently the brightness gave some people migraine
  
• Fix for limping zombies moving at run speed in some situations
  
• Fix for crafters sometimes building up empty containers in their inventories
  
• Crash fixes

This patch is in publicbeta and I'm not moving v101 the main branch, because I felt that the terrain glitches were exacerbated by the new buildings and sliders, so I needed to fix that before going mainstream with those features. Next time!

I know you might be wondering, "what's the long term plan, am I ever going to get to such-and-such?" My first aim right now is to make the editor usable to modders (enough so people who want to create content for the game aren't blocked on me). After that a couple of other big things that need to happen are optimization and fixes for out-of-sync bugs in online co-op. And then there's... everything else. I've just updated the very rough roadmap in the FAQ so take a look. That said, this patch is a pretty good example of how things may not always go according to plan, as I didn't expect to spend the last couple of weeks looking at terrain and stealth issues.

v101 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

Ever since the dawn of time mankind has yearned for sliders to control the map generation settings on Survivalist: Invisible Strain - and now, here they are!



So if you want to generate a map with no rivers, or with only white strain, or where all the zombies start off with leg injuries, just go to the World tab and (if you're in publicbeta) you can do it ːsteamhappyː

I've also changed the difficulty dialog you get shown when you click Start:



Difficulty levels can now be thought of as presets for all the sliders on the World tab. So you get "Slightly Easier", "Normal" and "Hard" as presets, but if you play with the sliders on the World tab yourself then your difficulty level is considered to be "Custom" and the above difficulty dialog is just skipped.

Previously, "Save Tokens Required" and "Invisible Strain" were extra checkboxes on the difficulty dialog, but now I've folded them into the difficulty levels, so on "Slightly Easier" you can save whenever you like and there's no invisible strain, whereas "Normal" and "Hard" require save tokens and have invisible strain (with more of them on "Hard"). I also reduced the loot on "Hard". I may play with these more as time goes by.

But again, "Slightly Easier", "Normal" and "Hard" are just presets - you can mix and match whatever settings you want on the World tab.

I've also added a concept called "Loadouts" on the Equipment and Skills tabs. This sets the player up with a standard preset set of equipment and skills, i.e. select "Archer" to get a bow and arrows and high Archery skill, or select "Trapper" to get the equipment and Construction skill necessary to dig traps right from the start:



The idea here is to benefit new players who don't know the game well by always starting them off with a set of equipment that makes sense, for a particular strategy. So they don't get dumped into a hostile world with arrows but no bow, advanced Farming skill and some flint. These are also just presets, similar to the difficulty settings. You can override them by selecting any starting equipment or skills that you want.

Both the Difficulty levels, and the Loadouts, are completely customizable by mod makers - in the Edit Story Settings section of the Editor.

Finally, I've added another music track, this one by a new author called Richard Camo. You'll hear it sometimes when you are managing your base.

Here's the full changelist:

• Difficulty/World Generation Sliders
  
• Loadouts
  
• Added a new music track for base management
  
• Fix for bug where characters would try to walk to the centre of the map when giving eulogies
  
• Crash fixes

As with the previous patch, all this stuff is still going to stay in publicbeta, until I feel sure all the bugs from the big change to props have been ironed out (I fixed some more crashes from that in this patch, hopefully they're the last but we'll see).

v101 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I don't know that anyone was crying out for this but it always bothered me that there are no markings on the roads! Well, I've started to rectify that with the latest patch in publicbeta, behold its double yellow liney glory:



This patch also introduces the Path Editor, for people who are making their own maps ːsteamhappyː This means you can finally lay down rivers, and of course roads with double yellow lines down the middle. (It's in F8 / Terrain Editor / Path Editor).

Here's the full changelist:

• Path Editor
  
• Road center markings
  
• Fix for flint not being pickupable
  
• Fix for resuming buildings under construction sometimes resulting in the building disappearing
  
• Updated some translations
  
• Crash fixes

All this stuff is going to stay in publicbeta for a while longer, until I feel sure all the bugs from the big change to props have been ironed out.

v100 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I've released a quick patch to fix a bug with pit traps in the recent big publicbeta update. I've also added a warning when you use the Editor on BaseStory or Sandbox mod folders, letting you know that if you edit that stuff you won't be able to play online with other people as your files won't match, as that seemed to be catching a lot of people out. Here's the full changelist:

• Fixed pit traps
  
• Fix for character going into an infinite loop collecting urine for saltpeter, if you set the policy on it to Don't Drink
  
• When using Editor to make changes to BaseStory and mod folders, show a warning to let people know it will stop them from playing the mod online
  
• Ignore translations when calculating if BaseStory etc folders are the same for online play
  
• Added Max Spawnable setting to equipment, so e.g. a particular item type can be set to only spawn once

Oh and by the way I've also written a guide for modders on how to import props from Unity ːsteamhappyː

v99 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

There's a new patch in publicbeta! Over the last month I've been refactoring how the game defines props, so now they're editable by mod authors similar to how you can edit equipment. And I've made it possible to add new models for your props using Unity Asset Bundles - I'll be writing a guide for that shortly (EDIT - here it is).

I should mention that you still can't add your own equipment models, which I think is the thing most mod authors actually want to do - so, sorry no new gun models yet! I will make that possible in a future update :)

In order to test out my new prop editor I've added a bunch of new props to the game myself! The idea behind most of these was to try and add some more points of interest to the bare countryside areas between the towns, and maybe provide you with somewhere interesting to hide or loot, or build a base around. (In future I'll be adding more variation to the towns themselves as well.)






Besides that we've got some new music tracks from Alexandre, and the Italian translation is almost done, thanks to Team Lagorn. Here's the full changelist:

• Made it possible to import new models for props using Asset Bundles, refactored props to be data driven and set up via the Editor
  
• Added a bunch of new props including trailer park, crashed aircraft, windfarm, fire lookout tower and tank
  
• Added some new music tracks for exploring, and game over and game complete screens
  
• Added Italian, mostly
  
• Fix for being able to switch control to dead characters via the Equipment Totals section of the Community menu
  
• Crash fixes

It is quite a big overhaul so there might be some bugs, let me know if you notice something I broke. EDIT: released a couple of quick patches to fix crashes.

v98 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I've released a new patch, v94, which means all the stuff I've been putting in publicbeta for the last few weeks is now in the main branch for everyone. This fixes a crash people were seeing in the Join Game menu, among other things.

The biggest change is just that I've updated to the latest version of Unity, which I hadn't done since before I started the beta test over a year ago, in the hopes of fixing an unexplained crash from deep in the Unity dll that a few people were seeing. A side effect of that is that the dialog you used to get at the start asking you to select a screen resolution and quality level is now gone, because they no longer support that. Those options are now in the Graphics Settings menu in-game.

Note that if you have multiple monitors and you want to change which screen the game displays on, you can use the Windows shortcut of Windows Key + Shift + Left Arrow or Right Arrow.

Here's the full change list again:

• Added Quality Level to Graphics Settings

• Crash fix from previous patch

• Fix for pathfinding not working when finding resources in a building where one door is accessible but the other isn't
  
• Fix for bug where you couldn't take a pot from a campfire of a dead community where cooking was still in progress
  
• Fix for bug where, if you tried to climb over a rock and a zombie bit you at the same time, you would get stuck in a grappling state you couldn't escape from
  
• Fix for enemies sometimes flying a long distance from you when you hit them in multiplayer
  
• Renamed Portuguese translation to Brazilian Portuguese, because that's what it is
  
• Crash fixes

• Fix for game time in multiplayer running faster than it's supposed to
  
• Added Fullscreen option to Graphics Settings menu
  
• Fix for two people being able to pick up a body at the same time
  
• Fix for kiln sound volume not being affected by volume slider, and fire sound volume not fading off correctly
  
• Another fix for cooks getting stuck in a loop depositing stuff in buildings
  
• Fix for sometimes not being able to spar with people you like
  
• Crash fixes
  
• Fix for crops rendering glitch
  
• Made tree falling sound quieter

• Upgraded to Unity 2020.1.2f1
  
• Fixes for characters not eating food in some situations, such as while they are assigned to cook something
  
• Fix for Memory Editor not showing the types of the memories
  
• Made tree falling sound less loud
  
• Updated Japanese
  
• Crash fix

It's.. another stability patch in publicbeta! I've realised that for v90 I introduced a bug in multiplayer which meant when you hit someone with a melee weapon they would sometimes go flying a really long way. So this patch fixes that, but because of that bug I can't move the previous patch to the main branch. However, I'll move this one to the main branch within in a day or two though (instead of waiting a week like I normally do) because it turns out there's another bug (in main right now) which causes the game to crash when you're browsing online multiplayer games, if any of those games are using a mod you haven't downloaded. ːsteamfacepalmː This patch will fix that so hopefully all should be well soon.

On the positive side it looks like a few people have now submitted mods to the workshop, which is how that bug came to light!

Anyway here's the full changelist for v92:

• Fix for pathfinding not working when finding resources in a building where one door is accessible but the other isn't
  
• Fix for bug where you couldn't take a pot from a campfire of a dead community where cooking was still in progress
  
• Fix for bug where, if you tried to climb over a rock and a zombie bit you at the same time, you would get stuck in a grappling state you couldn't escape from
  
• Fix for enemies sometimes flying a long distance from you when you hit them in multiplayer
  
• Renamed Portuguese translation to Brazilian Portuguese, because that's what it is
  
• Crash fixes

EDIT - Just released another patch to fix a new crash, so it's v93 now. (This is why I have publicbeta!)

v93 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a few days, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using that branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I've put a new patch in the publicbeta branch. This fixes a few issues from the Unity upgrade in v90, such as the crops that seem to dance all over the place in the wind. Also Unity removed the display resolution dialog in their update, so I needed to make the fullscreen option available in the graphics settings menu. Because of those issues I won't move v90 to the main branch.

The other main thing in this patch is a fix (I think) for a bug people often reported as "enemies rapid-firing the bow like a machine gun". It appears that since sometime back in the beta testing days there's been a bug that often made time run faster than it should in multiplayer, and this was most noticeable when enemies shot at you with a bow. (It didn't make the animations run faster though, just the underlying time, which is why I didn't notice).

Here's the full change list:

• Fix for game time in multiplayer running faster than it's supposed to
  
• Added Fullscreen option to Graphics Settings menu
  
• Fix for two people being able to pick up a body at the same time
  
• Fix for kiln sound volume not being affected by volume slider, and fire sound volume not fading off correctly
  
• Another fix for cooks getting stuck in a loop depositing stuff in buildings
  
• Fix for sometimes not being able to spar with people you like
  
• Crash fixes
  
• Fix for crops rendering glitch
  
• Made tree falling sound quieter

v91 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using that branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I've made Steam Workshop support available for everyone, so go and subscribe to the Example Story! It's kind of like a mini Story Mode ːsteamhappyː



Here's the full changelist for that patch (v88/89) again:

• Added Portuguese!
  
• Added button in Editor menu to create a new story, and a bunch of small editor features and fixes
  
• Added the ability to upload stories, created in the editor, to the Steam Workshop
  
• Fixes for characters getting stuck if they are unable to reach a well or a river when trying to get water
  
• Fix for people's mouths not moving when talking in CJK languages
  
• Translation fixes
  
• Crash fix

Meanwhile in the publicbeta branch I've uploaded v90, which is basically just a stability patch. A couple of people have reported sporadic crashes in Unity.dll, so I've upgraded the latest version of Unity in the hopes that will fix it. It shouldn't result in any noticeable changes but every time I upgrade Unity something seems to go wrong so let me know if you see anything weird.

v90 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while first, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using that branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".

I've enabled Steam Workshop support! I meant to release it last weekend but got a bit carried away making an example story to demonstrate how it works. Anyway, in v88 (in the publicbeta branch) you can now download a mod from the workshop (which I'm referring to as a Story), and you can create your own stories in the editor and upload them to the workshop! ːsteamhappyː


There are still a lot of editor features that need adding, such as the ability to create rivers, and making this small map also drove home the need for much more variation in building types. Also please note: you can use the editor to create new stories with their own maps, quests, dialog and so on. You can't really create new weapons (unless they use the same model as an existing weapon) or new houses, props etc. I know a lot of people want to be able to do that! So this is just a start with hopefully a bunch more features to come in future.

Here's the full change list for v88:

• Added button in Editor menu to create a new story, and a bunch of small editor features and fixes
  
• Added the ability to upload stories, created in the editor, to the Steam Workshop
  
• Fixes for characters getting stuck if they are unable to reach a well or a river when trying to get water
  
• Fix for people's mouths not moving when talking in CJK languages
  
• Translation fixes
  
• Crash fix

These features will be available in the "publicbeta" branch for a while first, before pushing them to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using that branch. But keep in mind:

• Because it's the bleeding edge it'll be less stable
  
• If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
  
• If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".

I'm also moving v87 into the main branch! Here's the changelist from v87 again:

• Added Korean and Japanese translations, and partial French (UI only)
  
• Added outlines and fixed some bugs with the Asian fonts
  
• Added fonts that support Polish characters
  
• Added a bunch of small features to improve translations
  
• Added Pause/Resume options for movement zones
  
• Added a box next to the progress indicator that shows how much of each material you have used when building something
  
• Fixes for gate and equipment policy dialogs not working with gamepads
  
• Various fixes for equipment policy
  
• Fix for icons getting mixed up if you have a large number of clothes in one building
  
• Fix for maps sometimes being generated with no zombie or rabbit spawnpoints on them
  
• Fixed various bugs regarding height of overhead icons
  
• Crash fixes

Let me know how it goes. I will be updating my editor guide shortly to explain the new features, let me know if you have questions.

EDIT - there was a bug in v88 where roving hordes and raiders etc weren't spawning in Sandbox mode, so I've released v89 to fix that. v89 also includes Portuguese! Many thanks to Carlos 'Reaction' Vicenzi for translating it ːsteamhappyː