The Heads of the Horseman Fall Event is back, along with some spooky new content! Fend off horrific produce and legendary ghosts, and earn new special cosmetics for the month of October!

• 8 Special Cosmetics!
  
• Horrific Pumpkin foes!
  
• Face The Horseman himself!

As the leaves descend from the trees, so too does the vengeful Headless Horseman rise from his resting place, donning atop his head twisted mutations of the season's harvest! Legends say The Horseman's accursed Produce began spreading their own evil seed among the populace, spawning devilish plantlife throughout the world - including the very depths themselves! The Living Infinite is the latest to be infested with this bountiful harvest of hallowed fruit - and The Horseman will hunt down anyone who dares get in his way of reclaiming these lost heads!



The Horseman will return to his grave on November 8th.



Along with the fall event, we have also added some spooky new content in the form of Visual Afflictions and a brand NEW Affliction to go with it!

Now, when you become afflicted with one of the Living Infinite's many horrid diseases, your face will reflect your newfound blight for all to see! Now your crewmates will know to avoid you should they not wish to catch your bug!



...and last but not least, a brand NEW Affliction has been introduced, a horrible life-sapping blight known as Blood Sickness! Courtesy of our own community's brainstorming among the forums!



Blood Sickness will take its toll on your max health, sapping away 25% of its total until it can be cured. It's a disease contracted by venomous sources such as the bite of a lamprey, the sting of a bee, or poison syringes.

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Finally, we've also taken the opportunity to add a few workarounds and fixes to some small things:

• Mechanical relics have been added to mechanical waters, and now properly display in the relic museum once unlocked.
  
• Added ESC button workaround to main menu, allowing users to bring up the Options panel by pushing ESC should they be stuck in an unusable resolution.

And that's all she wrote! Let us know as always what you think of the new content, and happy harvesting!

Get tumblin' with October's official content update! This month, a strange new submarine and medical doctors enter the mix!




NEW Submarine:The Poubelle! - What's this hunk of junk? Oh, it's a new submarine! Introducing The Poubelle, a rather large new submersible for 3-4 players that starts out as garbage in almost every way, but is equipped with a strange device that allows it to double the effect of any upgrade applied to it, allowing The Poubelle to swiftly become more powerful than any other ship before it!



The Poubelle also comes fully equipped, making it a versatile ship as well! Shields, two beds, and an upstairs cannon round this fixer-upper out.



You can find The Poubelle in your Catalog once you reach the Sailor rank or above, available to purchase for 10,000 Gold!



NEW Civilization NPCs: Doctors! - No longer can you merely sleep off Afflictions; instead should you find yourself bearing a terrible curse or illness, you must seek professional help in the form of Doctors! Now available at every Civilization! Simply speak to these beings, and they will cure your ails, and even heal your wounds in an instant.





NEW Steam Avatars! - By the community's request, we have recently added a whopping 23 new avatars to the Steam community based on WNTGD's various characters with which to showcase your "deep" love!


::: Player of the Month :::

October's Player of the Month goes to The Tinkerer!

The Tinkerer, in addition to their regular friendly presence among our Discord community, and contributor of WNTGD memery among the Art and Media channel, has also helped compile many output logs that were sent our way in service of bug-fixing and troubleshooting! The Tinkerer ticks all the boxes for a great example of a helpful and friendly member of our community, and for that we thank you!

Image Credit: The Tinkerer


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Let us know as always what y'all think of the new submarine and features! And keep an eye out for our Fall Event starting soon! Happy Diving!

This week we're dropping a much-requested update to the Chemistry Kit item, to make it friendly to color-blind players! Now you'll find that each potion type comes with its own unique flask shape, so that even when color cannot be discerned, you can still know what you are tossing!

This update also comes with an additional use for the Purple potion for those of you with scientific deducting skills. We'll give you a hint - it still cures all types of disease and infection, though now that "cure" may apply to foes as well as friends.




This isn't so much a sneak peak as it is practically a full-fledged announcement, but nonetheless, here's a first look at what October's content update will be bringing to the table...

The machines are awake for Part 2 of the Oily Update! A brand new fourth layer biome is here, but you'll wish you never came across it. Read about Part 1 here.




NEW Biome: The Mechanical Waters - This new fourth layer biome is a dark, mysterious place where every surface is made from a strange biomechanical product. Flesh and technology interwoven in a watery grave where a black oily substance flows.





NEW Foes & Hazards - The Mechanical Waters are protected by a diverse range of strange security tech. Among them are ever-watchful "Eyes" that will attempt to dismantle any intruders that cross its sight using a variety of deadly methods, oil-spewing monstrosities that will hinder your vision, and roaming waste-incinerators looking for fresh fuel.



NEW Civilization - A strange but oddly familiar new species inhabits this zone, stationed in an ever-churning undersea factory. Seemingly human but transformed to otherworldy beings, The Reborn Ones are here to welcome you to their horrible society.



NEW Boss Encounter: The Ambassador - Mechanical beings are nothing if not diplomatic, this fact being best exemplified by The Ambassador; a 100% well-meaning figure who will come aboard your vessel to greet your crew and convince you to stay. You do want to stay, don't you?

• Weekly Contest Won! A cute doggo has been added to the Time Traveler's possible drop offs.
  
• Female and Male civ variants added to Prehistoric and Aurelian civs.

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Let us know as always what y'all think of the new content! Happy diving!

This week we're dropping 3 more fabulous ladies to the civilizations of WNTGD, with the Volcanic, Infected, and Dark Depths civilizations all getting new female inhabitants! Be warned, for some of these species variants may be even deadlier than their male counterparts.

This week we're dropping in a much-requested aesthetic touch to all of our first layer civilizations in the form of female NPCs! While this brings with it no real mechanical changes, we hope this helps flesh out the individual civilizations a little better. More civilizations will get this treatment in future, as well.



Let us know what you think!

Grease your motor for this month's two-part content update! For Part 1, we have a wide variety of game-wide improvements and changes, along with a taste of this month's new biome coming in full for Part 2! Here's the full details:




Improved AI! - Friendly NPCs and Civilizations alike are all getting an intelligence boost! Here are some of their newfound capabilities:

• Door-busters: All Civilizations now have the ability to break down your vessel's doors during their attack when you try to steal from them. Thieves beware!
  
  
  
  
• NPCs don't swing in Civilization hubs unless you're being attacked or if you've upset the Civilization.
  
• NPCs are more responsive to commands.
  
• NPCs can attack enemies while reviving.

Damage Overhaul! - Introducing variable sized breaks and a new shielding system for our big Damage Overhaul!

• Variable Sized Leaks: Leaks now scale with damage dealt, meaning big biters can chomp big, fast-flooding holes into your ship, and a little bump may only cause smaller breaches.
  
• Shield Damage Absorbtion: Shields now absorb variable damage rather than an all-or-nothing solution, meaning you can tank damage more effectivly, with only the difference in damage affecting your ship when it does cut through!

New Relics! - Three new mysterious but telling relics have appeared in the Prehistoric Waters - they seem to be from a different timeline, however, from a yet unseen biome...



New Enemy: Trash Compactor! - Another taste of the new upcoming biome. Brought by The Time Traveler, this strange machine cares little about your presence, but get in its way and you'll be sorry.



Optimizations and Improvements! - Last but not least, this update is packed to the brim with a host of new fixes, optimizations, and improvements in just about every area! Every machine needs to be well-oiled, after all!

• Greatly optimized bandwidth usage across the board.
  
• Flooding/Water system optimized to be less processor-intensive.
  
• Lairs now receive item drops.
  
• Fixed hosting and lobby issues for Mac OSX users.
  
• Caught and fixed many, many, game-slowing null reference bugs.
  
• Ceiling walkers' orientation is now networked.
  
• Revolver fixed to deal the correct amount of damage when shooting rapidly.
  
• Bots no longer shoot at barnacle mines or puffers.
  
• Fixed the lock cursor toggle when pressing caps lock.
  
• Aggroed Tiki Civ stops spawning boulders when dead.

Balance:
-Bots will continue to swing at enemies even when reviving a dead player
-Bots spend more time repairing if it is a directly commanded task
-Water flooding rate is now proportional to the size of the hull breach
-All enemies increase their health and damage upon looping the game.
-Batteries now provide 5 minutes of charge rather than their previous 3.
-The Tiki civilization no longer spawns boulders after all the Tikis are dead.
-Submarine shields now charge linearly rather than step-wise, and change color/scale to signify charge.
-Reduced wall flower projectile hull damage ~25%
-Increased lion-mane jellyfish hull damage ~250%
-Reduced hull damage from individual maggots 60%
-Decreased hull damage from lamprey invaders 60%
-Decreased hull damage from Aurelian worm 40%
-Increased angler fish hull damage 20%
-Reduced angler fish and sick angler fish biting rate
-Increased angler fish swim speed 5%
-Time devourer children do less damage based on their size
-Per-breach damage from ghost pirate invaders reduced 40%
-Per-breach damage from barnacle grabbers decreased 20%
-Increased hull damage from Dunkleosteus bites 300%
-Reduced Dunkleosteus health 25% and reduced bite rate 50%
-Reduced damage from cursed oyster clusters 20-66% depending on size
-Increased volcanic turtle and shark damage 25%
-Reduced volcanic vent eruption rate 50%
-Zoomed in lair guardian fight camera slightly.
-Doubled the XP value of killing exterior enemies.
-Hull damage due to crashinig the submarine increased

Fixes:
-All enemies, pickups, cave decorations, projectiles, ragdolls, hazards, and treasure now use a distance-based method to dynamically spawn and unspawn over the network only when in near-sight radius. This drastically reduces the amount of information sent to mid-game joining players and reduced moment-to-moment traffic on the client side 50-75%.
-Bots have improved response to commands when in an expedition segment
-Baby crabs are back! Where did they even go?
-Interior enemies now correctly respond to multiple sources of damage simultaneously or in short succession by using per-damage-source invincibility times, rather than per-damage invincibility times. This means that a full crew can attack cave/civ enemies and have each hit registered successfully. Very handy!
-Exterior enemies send 50% less traffic when mildly distant from the sub, and send no traffic to clients at all when far out of range (as part of the distance-based networking overhaul)
-Fixed bot loadout items sometimes appearing incorrectly for players joining mid-game
-Exterior hazards are now generated only once per level chunk, fixing the problems where waiting a while could cause the next level chunk to be packed full of barnacle mines or volcanic vents. Also fixes hazards popping into view.
-Quadrupled the size of the acknowledgement packet buffer (reduces packet loss)
-Increased the max sent message queue size from 128 to 150, allowing slightly more messages to be buffered and thus reducing packet loss due to network backup.
-Increased the max reliable message fragment size and max small reliable message count per-packet to help condense traffic and reduce bandwidth usage due to repeated packet headers.
-Decreased the ping timeout for disconnection from 8 seconds to 5 seconds, thus reducing ~35% of the packet backup caused by trying to resend reliable messages to an unresponsive client
-Fixed a bug in the broken container behavior causing networking backup.
-Wrote a failsafe to help prevent players from getting duplicate XP from a run quickly leaving and re-joining a game.
-Fixed a problem where the revolver could not deal damage for each shot if used at its max shooting speed - now each shot registers and deals damage
-Bots operating weapons will actively try to avoid barnacle mines and gaseous fish
-Nearly all objects related to the water flooding system no longer perform per-frame physics overlap casting, and instead do a single raycast at their start or highly stagged physics overlap casting. This dramatically improves flood performance.
-Fixed a bug in the cursor locking logic when pressing caps lock
-Built a series of workarounds for hosting online games on OSX when Unity fails to get any information about network adapters on the local machine
-Fixed the stage II barnacle crab not being properly hooked up to the network manager, causing networking backups
-Interior enemies now correctly sync their scale, miniboss status, and ceiling walker status for mid-game joining players
-Fixed pirate ship debris particles not properly being destroyed, causing slowdowns over time
-Fixed Discord Rich Presence showing incorrect biome names for players in-game
-Fixed an issue in the position syncing configuration of barnacle mines and gaseous fish, causing position information to come in out of order.
-Fixed a few typos in Atlantean, Egyptian, and Lamprey dialogue.
-Added a sound effect for grounded dodge rolls.
-Fixed a null reference in the appearance setting code for bots and civilization recruits.
-Fixed an animator rigging problem in the time devourer/children
-Ghost clams and eldritch spawnlings are now properly cleaned up after exiting a cave
-Fixed the lair guardian sounds ignoring SFX volume settings
-Fixed a bug where weapons power always displayed as zero in the tactical view

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::: Player of the Month :::

The Player of the Month for September is..... GiantButtFace!
GiantButtFace, despite their name, has been a giant HELPFUL face in helping us find some important Mac OSX Networking bugs that we were able to solve in this very update! Through some good old fashioned back and forth emailing, questioning, and prompt info gathering. Thanks GiantButtFace!

::: Community Highlights :::

Person Personmans just sent us our first fan-made music piece this month, and we had to listen to it right away, and share it with y'all as well! Evoking the feeling when you are filled to the brim with leaks, this is "Breach" -

https://onlinesequencer.net/918623

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Let us know what you think of Part 1, and we'll see you soon when Part 2 comes around!

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Patch 1 notes:
-Fixed a null reference causing caves to be non-exitable if preceded by certain cave types.
-Fixed a networking error in broken doors.
-Fixed ranged weapons being able to damage submarine doors

Hey everyone! Content drops are back now that I'm (relatively) healed, starting off with an oft-requested NPC for the Infected Waters - The Barnacle Assistant, and some new lore-filled relics to go with it!




We also have a few new asset previews to show y'all for our next content update! As always, let the speculation run wild.

It's time for our community challenge! This one is for all of you skilled players out there. If at least ONE team can get through all four layers with each player only starting with the rose, the rose will do as much damage as the Tesla gun for one week! Each team that can do this successfully, will additionally be awarded official bragging rights.

Contest Rules:
1. You may not use any bots however, civilization recruits are fair game.
2. Record the entire run, so that we may verify that the goal was achieved.
3. You may swap items in caves or shops.
4. As always, we expect everyone to be respectful and kind to one another, so no offensive player names, name calling, or mistreatment of others.

You may email your entry to interactivedeli@gmail.com, send us a link through Messenger or Steam. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to The Dev Wife, who is available via Steam or Discord. Happy diving!

This week you'll notice that we have a brand new cover art for We Need To Go Deeper, courtesy of the ever-talented Niko Geyer! It's a piece Niko has been brewing with us over the past while, meant to encompass what it feels like to play a typical round of Deeper in all its frantic, chaotic glory. We were blown away by the finished piece..



With that, we're throwing a download link in here so y'all can use it for wallpapers, phone backgrounds, murals, whatever it is you like to do with big digital paintings! Let us know what you think of the new art, and be sure to check out Niko Geyer's other amazing works!

Also, as a side note - our artist Nick (also the guy writing this), is currently suffering from a bad case of carpal tunnel syndrome and may be out of commission for a bit while he heals, which is why today's content drop is not an in-game one this time, and if it persists, may change what we can accomplish for next month's update. We'll have to see!