Hi guys. It’s been a while since any new base construction options were added. Today’s update introduces an assortment of new glass building pieces, which are now crafted from the default player crafting menu. These pieces will snap onto other wood and metal building pieces.

The glass is fairly tough and will withstand a fair amount of damage. However, just as with all structures, will require repairs to maintain. I’ve added damage skins (cracks) to indicate the health of any piece. The strength sits between that of wood and armor-plated.

I’ve added a subtle distortion to the glass material and a very slight tint. This is to give the sense of enclosure when inside your base looking out. Let me know if you think the effect is too much.

My hope is these new building pieces will open up a ton of possibilities for creative base designs, as well as adding further depth to later-game building. Looking forward to seeing some creations.

The game is configured to understand light passing through the new panels, meaning that glass rooms can be constructed to act as protective greenhouses for plantbeds.


It’s now possible to find sandstone ore nodes beneath the water in the various lakes. They can be harvested with the pickaxe (or axe for less yield) and refined down into glass fragments in the refinery.


The glass fragments can then be crafted down in the workbench to glass panels, which in turn can be used to craft building pieces. Note: Raw glass fragments are required for repairing glass structures.


It’s always bothered me that windows were just empty holes. This lead to otherwise cosy and secure bases to feel cold and exposed.

Players can now craft glass windows for both the flat and curved windowed-wall variants. The new windows are fully animated, allowing for player to quickly open/close them while defending against attacks.


While working on the window animations, I also finally added a animation for the door (which was long overdue).


I’ve never been overly happy with the underwater visuals. The water surface would become opaque once submerged (meaning players were unable to spot potential dangers when surfacing) and the image was fairly static.

I’ve added a ripple/distortion post-process effect and updated the water surface material to handle translucency when submerged. I think it looks way better and more immersive when swimming, but let me know what you think.

New players starting out are offered little guidance on how to make progress, often leading to frustration and repeated deaths. I’ve added some basic ‘getting-started’ tasks to better inform new players during the early game.

For experienced players (or those that want to figure things out on their own), these task lists can be disabled in the options under gameplay.

While building this feature, I implemented a substantial system to track detailed stats on player activities (stats are only stored locally in profile saves). I plan to expose these stats for players to view in a future update.

Having to always right-click on an item to open it’s actions, and then click on the use action can be annoying (especially when in combat or in a hurry). I’ve added a quick-use function that allows players to simply hover the mouse over an item and click their ‘use’ key.

It will attempt to perform the primary ‘use’ action for said item (if the item has one). This will improve and quicken player inventory management.

I’ve updated the hunter bases to incorporate the new glass buildables. I’ve also updated the loot drops in their bases to include many of the new items that were added in the last few updates.

Hunter loot drops, and locked crates have also been updated to include the new items (including a chance of fish oil on hunters).


Finally potassium can be used as a rich fertilizer for plantbeds. This should ease the fertilizer demands for players that choose to refine the ore down.

• Fixed exploit that allowed empty canteens to be pre-heated and then sterilize water when filled.
  
  
• Fixed exploit that allowed players to build in hunter bases.
  
• Fixed delay on items disappearing from inventory when dropped for clients of co-op games.
  
• Added sound and blood-spurts effect for hitting dead animals/humans with melee weapons.

As many of you know, Subsistence has always been a passion project I work on by myself in my spare time, alongside my full-time job. I’ve finally made the decision to leave my employment to focus on the game full-time. I’ve never worked on such a challenging, creative and enjoyable project, and i’m so excited to dedicate myself to its continued development.

It’s been a tough journey to reach this point, and I wouldn’t have got this far without the support and encouragement from such an awesome community, of which I’m deeply grateful. There’s still a long road ahead and tons of work needed, and I’m looking forward to it!

Have a great weekend, and please let me know about any issues with the update.
CG

Hi guys. It’s been a while since any new base construction options were added. Today’s update introduces an assortment of new glass building pieces, which are now crafted from the default player crafting menu. These pieces will snap onto other wood and metal building pieces.

The glass is fairly tough and will withstand a fair amount of damage. However, just as with all structures, will require repairs to maintain. I’ve added damage skins (cracks) to indicate the health of any piece. The strength sits between that of wood and armor-plated.

I’ve added a subtle distortion to the glass material and a very slight tint. This is to give the sense of enclosure when inside your base looking out. Let me know if you think the effect is too much.

My hope is these new building pieces will open up a ton of possibilities for creative base designs, as well as adding further depth to later-game building. Looking forward to seeing some creations.

The game is configured to understand light passing through the new panels, meaning that glass rooms can be constructed to act as protective greenhouses for plantbeds.


It’s now possible to find sandstone ore nodes beneath the water in the various lakes. They can be harvested with the pickaxe (or axe for less yield) and refined down into glass fragments in the refinery.


The glass fragments can then be crafted down in the workbench to glass panels, which in turn can be used to craft building pieces. Note: Raw glass fragments are required for repairing glass structures.


It’s always bothered me that windows were just empty holes. This lead to otherwise cosy and secure bases to feel cold and exposed.

Players can now craft glass windows for both the flat and curved windowed-wall variants. The new windows are fully animated, allowing for player to quickly open/close them while defending against attacks.


While working on the window animations, I also finally added a animation for the door (which was long overdue).


I’ve never been overly happy with the underwater visuals. The water surface would become opaque once submerged (meaning players were unable to spot potential dangers when surfacing) and the image was fairly static.

I’ve added a ripple/distortion post-process effect and updated the water surface material to handle translucency when submerged. I think it looks way better and more immersive when swimming, but let me know what you think.

New players starting out are offered little guidance on how to make progress, often leading to frustration and repeated deaths. I’ve added some basic ‘getting-started’ tasks to better inform new players during the early game.

For experienced players (or those that want to figure things out on their own), these task lists can be disabled in the options under gameplay.

While building this feature, I implemented a substantial system to track detailed stats on player activities (stats are only stored locally in profile saves). I plan to expose these stats for players to view in a future update.

Having to always right-click on an item to open it’s actions, and then click on the use action can be annoying (especially when in combat or in a hurry). I’ve added a quick-use function that allows players to simply hover the mouse over an item and click their ‘use’ key.

It will attempt to perform the primary ‘use’ action for said item (if the item has one). This will improve and quicken player inventory management.

I’ve updated the hunter bases to incorporate the new glass buildables. I’ve also updated the loot drops in their bases to include many of the new items that were added in the last few updates.

Hunter loot drops, and locked crates have also been updated to include the new items (including a chance of fish oil on hunters).


Finally potassium can be used as a rich fertilizer for plantbeds. This should ease the fertilizer demands for players that choose to refine the ore down.

• Fixed exploit that allowed empty canteens to be pre-heated and then sterilize water when filled.
  
  
• Fixed exploit that allowed players to build in hunter bases.
  
• Fixed delay on items disappearing from inventory when dropped for clients of co-op games.
  
• Added sound and blood-spurts effect for hitting dead animals/humans with melee weapons.

As many of you know, Subsistence has always been a passion project I work on by myself in my spare time, alongside my full-time job. I’ve finally made the decision to leave my employment to focus on the game full-time. I’ve never worked on such a challenging, creative and enjoyable project, and i’m so excited to dedicate myself to its continued development.

It’s been a tough journey to reach this point, and I wouldn’t have got this far without the support and encouragement from such an awesome community, of which I’m deeply grateful. There’s still a long road ahead and tons of work needed, and I’m looking forward to it!

Have a great weekend, and please let me know about any issues with the update.
CG

Hi guys. Today's update introduces a new fishing mechanic into the game. A highly requested feature since the introduction of water into the world, players are now able to craft fishing rods and float-fish in the ponds and lakes (it is not currently possible to fish in running rivers). The rod can be crafted from the default player crafting menu.



Once the fishing rod is crafted, players must craft fishing tackle. Fishing tackle requires a tree grub (a new item), which can be harvested from the large fat-trunked trees dotted around the map. Tree grubs can be eaten by themselves in desperate situations, but provide very little nutrition.



There are currently two types of fish that can be caught in the lakes and ponds; Salmon and (a generically named) small fish. Salmon can be eaten raw, or can be filleted to produce fillets of meat, and fish-oil (which can be used in medicinal crafting).

Small fish can also be eaten raw, or cooked whole (providing better nutritional value). Being small, they take much less time to cook than other proteins. Instead of being used for meat, players can choose to instead harvest them for oil.

I intend for the variety of fish (and their purpose) to expand over time as things continue to progress.


Medical items now require Medicinal Tonic to craft. The tonic can be crafted using fish oil and medicinal herbs.


Meats have always used up way too much inventory space. I had kept them as single items due to complications with handling the various cooked states and perish timers.

Here are the new rules:

• Meats can be stacked providing they are at the same cooked state.
  
• Only single pieces can be cooked at a time (per cooking slot).
  
• Perish timers are maintained for each individual piece even when stacked.

I’ve also removed the individual rotten states for each food type, and have simplified it into a single (stackable) “rotten meat” item. This should lead to cleaner inventory management. A greater purpose for this item will be added at a later date (currently you can only recycle it).


For a long time, players have been able to store small dead animals without risk of them perishing. This exploit devalued efforts to keep food fresh and presented issues with storage space. This has now been patched. Rotted animals can still be butchered but yield less resources (and no meat).


Various models for base items had some fairly janky UV mapping, so I spent a bit of time cleaning these up. It’s a subtle change, but one that has been bugging me for a while, and i feel looks much cleaner now. Examples:


Many players reported frustration of accidentally clicking “eat all” when extracting tomato seeds etc. I’ve now put limits on all consumable items to avoid this:


Many players have reported that it takes too much wood to make repairs after hunter attacks. I’ve increased the amount of hit-points per repair. However each standard repair now takes 1 nail. This should help balance the dwindling need for nails during the later game.


Thanks to the help of a few community members, I was able to trace down certain conditions that would prevent specific hunter teams from attacking player bases. It was based on the combined locations of the bases, and intersecting bodies of water. The issue is now patched, so if you weren’t experiencing attacks before this patch then you may want to keep and eye out for incoming attacks. This issue was affecting normal and revenge attacks.

• A splint now takes two sticks to craft.
  
• Fixed bug that was allowing small dead animals held in player inventories to become alive again after reloading a save.
  
• Increased hit-points of floodlights and and solar panels. This will make them more resilient to base attacks.
  
  
• Fixed bug that was preventing the bleeding icon from showing for hosts of co-op games.
  
• Fixed bullet/water impact fx to play correctly in deep water:
  
  
• Fixed issue whereby transparent buildable mesh would become invisible when viewed in front of water.
  
• Updated bow so that you can now hold down “aim” while the player is equipping the weapon, then it will transition into the aim state without having to re-click key.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented the profiles launching if there were special characters in the profile name or password.
  
• It now takes less time to cook rabbit and chicken.
  
• Added rocks and other visual tweaks to rivers/waterfall.

Please note that the new fishing system is intended to be iterated and improved on, so I welcome feedback once players have given it a try. I’m excited about the new possibilities this opens up for future updates. Thanks for everyone’s support and patience as the game continues to evolve. I’ll be on the forums as always, so please let me know your thoughts on the new changes.

Have a great week!
ColdGames

Hi guys. Today's update introduces a new fishing mechanic into the game. A highly requested feature since the introduction of water into the world, players are now able to craft fishing rods and float-fish in the ponds and lakes (it is not currently possible to fish in running rivers). The rod can be crafted from the default player crafting menu.



Once the fishing rod is crafted, players must craft fishing tackle. Fishing tackle requires a tree grub (a new item), which can be harvested from the large fat-trunked trees dotted around the map. Tree grubs can be eaten by themselves in desperate situations, but provide very little nutrition.



There are currently two types of fish that can be caught in the lakes and ponds; Salmon and (a generically named) small fish. Salmon can be eaten raw, or can be filleted to produce fillets of meat, and fish-oil (which can be used in medicinal crafting).

Small fish can also be eaten raw, or cooked whole (providing better nutritional value). Being small, they take much less time to cook than other proteins. Instead of being used for meat, players can choose to instead harvest them for oil.

I intend for the variety of fish (and their purpose) to expand over time as things continue to progress.


Medical items now require Medicinal Tonic to craft. The tonic can be crafted using fish oil and medicinal herbs.


Meats have always used up way too much inventory space. I had kept them as single items due to complications with handling the various cooked states and perish timers.

Here are the new rules:

• Meats can be stacked providing they are at the same cooked state.
  
• Only single pieces can be cooked at a time (per cooking slot).
  
• Perish timers are maintained for each individual piece even when stacked.

I’ve also removed the individual rotten states for each food type, and have simplified it into a single (stackable) “rotten meat” item. This should lead to cleaner inventory management. A greater purpose for this item will be added at a later date (currently you can only recycle it).


For a long time, players have been able to store small dead animals without risk of them perishing. This exploit devalued efforts to keep food fresh and presented issues with storage space. This has now been patched. Rotted animals can still be butchered but yield less resources (and no meat).


Various models for base items had some fairly janky UV mapping, so I spent a bit of time cleaning these up. It’s a subtle change, but one that has been bugging me for a while, and i feel looks much cleaner now. Examples:


Many players reported frustration of accidentally clicking “eat all” when extracting tomato seeds etc. I’ve now put limits on all consumable items to avoid this:


Many players have reported that it takes too much wood to make repairs after hunter attacks. I’ve increased the amount of hit-points per repair. However each standard repair now takes 1 nail. This should help balance the dwindling need for nails during the later game.


Thanks to the help of a few community members, I was able to trace down certain conditions that would prevent specific hunter teams from attacking player bases. It was based on the combined locations of the bases, and intersecting bodies of water. The issue is now patched, so if you weren’t experiencing attacks before this patch then you may want to keep and eye out for incoming attacks. This issue was affecting normal and revenge attacks.

• A splint now takes two sticks to craft.
  
• Fixed bug that was allowing small dead animals held in player inventories to become alive again after reloading a save.
  
• Increased hit-points of floodlights and and solar panels. This will make them more resilient to base attacks.
  
  
• Fixed bug that was preventing the bleeding icon from showing for hosts of co-op games.
  
• Fixed bullet/water impact fx to play correctly in deep water:
  
  
• Fixed issue whereby transparent buildable mesh would become invisible when viewed in front of water.
  
• Updated bow so that you can now hold down “aim” while the player is equipping the weapon, then it will transition into the aim state without having to re-click key.
  
• Fixed bug that prevented the profiles launching if there were special characters in the profile name or password.
  
• It now takes less time to cook rabbit and chicken.
  
• Added rocks and other visual tweaks to rivers/waterfall.

Please note that the new fishing system is intended to be iterated and improved on, so I welcome feedback once players have given it a try. I’m excited about the new possibilities this opens up for future updates. Thanks for everyone’s support and patience as the game continues to evolve. I’ll be on the forums as always, so please let me know your thoughts on the new changes.

Have a great week!
ColdGames

Hi guys. Today’s update introduces a large expansion to the world and offers a much greater space for players to explore, build, hunt, fight and survive. I’ve been meaning to expand the world boundaries for a long time and decided to spend some dedicated time and focus on doing so.

My hope is this expansion and new varied terrain will offer greater immersion and freedom for players. More varied build locations and base design potential, and present a more interesting challenge to orientate and navigate the world.


You’ll find a new river winding down the slopes of the expanded area, running down into a new big lake. Rivers and waterfalls will open up new possibilities for gathering and game-play mechanics for future updates. Many players have requested fishing, and I totally agree this would be awesome. I have some ideas of how the mechanic could work and will be putting more thought into it.

There are also new stretches of open beach and small inlets for players to explore:


The addition of the new lake area has also opened up some areas of deep water. I’m keen to expand on this, and give players meaningful incentives to dive and explore the depths. I personally love when games allow you to explore deep underwater. Please stay tuned for more on this.


New trees (increased performance)
I’ve gone ahead and replaced many of the old pine trees throughout the entire map. The old trees were very high-poly and put a lot of demand on hardware with their high alpha calculations for shadows and light shafts. They were also fairly small, making it hard to create a sense of density to forest areas. They were also somewhat dull with a very muted color palette.

The new trees are much lower poly-count (1/3 of the previous trees). They have a more dense foliage spread, meaning certain familiar areas may feel very different. I’m also using a fairly high saturation pallet for the materials, meaning the greens are way more vibrant. This should make the world feel more colorful.

The increased foliage density from the new trees may have an impact on resource gathering and predator/hunter encounters. It will be less easy to spot items and enemies in the world. I’ll be keeping an eye on how this affects balance (may need some tweaks). I welcome your thoughts and opinions on this.

I’ve decreased the fog density at higher altitudes, giving players better visibility. I’ve also decreased the depth of field over distance to account for the larger vistas.


Few other minor tweaks:

• Reduced hunter movement speed while sprinting.
  
• Added distance-based low-pass filtering for all footsteps.
  
• I replaced the (annoyingly) loud Unreal logo when booting the game for a quiet one (many players had mentioned this was hard on the ears).
  
• Added correct weapon impact sounds for many base items (campfire, lights, beds, switches, etc).
  
• Fixed issue where hosts of co-op games could not see water-based bullet impacts.

World expansion is something that will continue as the project continues to progress. However with this new expansion now merged to the main build, I’m excited to start focusing on new gameplay features and mechanics for the next update. I have a long list of ideas I’ve been eager to work on.

I hope everyone has an awesome holiday with their families and friends. Thanks so much for all the continued support for the project. I’m really looking forward to continue evolving the game into 2018. See you on the forums!

CG

Hi guys. Today’s update introduces a large expansion to the world and offers a much greater space for players to explore, build, hunt, fight and survive. I’ve been meaning to expand the world boundaries for a long time and decided to spend some dedicated time and focus on doing so.

My hope is this expansion and new varied terrain will offer greater immersion and freedom for players. More varied build locations and base design potential, and present a more interesting challenge to orientate and navigate the world.


You’ll find a new river winding down the slopes of the expanded area, running down into a new big lake. Rivers and waterfalls will open up new possibilities for gathering and game-play mechanics for future updates. Many players have requested fishing, and I totally agree this would be awesome. I have some ideas of how the mechanic could work and will be putting more thought into it.

There are also new stretches of open beach and small inlets for players to explore:


The addition of the new lake area has also opened up some areas of deep water. I’m keen to expand on this, and give players meaningful incentives to dive and explore the depths. I personally love when games allow you to explore deep underwater. Please stay tuned for more on this.


New trees (increased performance)
I’ve gone ahead and replaced many of the old pine trees throughout the entire map. The old trees were very high-poly and put a lot of demand on hardware with their high alpha calculations for shadows and light shafts. They were also fairly small, making it hard to create a sense of density to forest areas. They were also somewhat dull with a very muted color palette.

The new trees are much lower poly-count (1/3 of the previous trees). They have a more dense foliage spread, meaning certain familiar areas may feel very different. I’m also using a fairly high saturation pallet for the materials, meaning the greens are way more vibrant. This should make the world feel more colorful.

The increased foliage density from the new trees may have an impact on resource gathering and predator/hunter encounters. It will be less easy to spot items and enemies in the world. I’ll be keeping an eye on how this affects balance (may need some tweaks). I welcome your thoughts and opinions on this.

I’ve decreased the fog density at higher altitudes, giving players better visibility. I’ve also decreased the depth of field over distance to account for the larger vistas.


Few other minor tweaks:

• Reduced hunter movement speed while sprinting.
  
• Added distance-based low-pass filtering for all footsteps.
  
• I replaced the (annoyingly) loud Unreal logo when booting the game for a quiet one (many players had mentioned this was hard on the ears).
  
• Added correct weapon impact sounds for many base items (campfire, lights, beds, switches, etc).
  
• Fixed issue where hosts of co-op games could not see water-based bullet impacts.

World expansion is something that will continue as the project continues to progress. However with this new expansion now merged to the main build, I’m excited to start focusing on new gameplay features and mechanics for the next update. I have a long list of ideas I’ve been eager to work on.

I hope everyone has an awesome holiday with their families and friends. Thanks so much for all the continued support for the project. I’m really looking forward to continue evolving the game into 2018. See you on the forums!

CG

Up until now, hunter bases would remain statically placed once they set-up camp. This could lead to some frustrating scenarios of players not being able to push the hunters out of their area.

Today’s update allows player to completely destroy hunter bases, forcing them to abandon their post and start building from scratch at another location in the world.

This change will hopefully allow players to truly influence the world and the situations they find themselves in.

To destroy a hunter base, players can now craft the BCU Cracker at the workbench.

This device can be placed on any BCU. Once placed it will auto-activate and result in huge damage to the base (and ultimately destroy the BCU). Once hunter BCU’s are destroyed, they will abandon the base and need to find a new building location to start from scratch.

Hint: Destroying a hunter base does produce some additional loot, but it can also attract rogues so keep your guard!

Note: Remains of abandoned hunter bases will slowly decay over-time.

Up until now, there was little incentive to hunt down rogue hunters. However the BCU Cracker requires Gears (a new item type), that is primarily found on dead rogues.

The hope is this will provide more interesting and varied later-game goals. Rather than avoiding rogue squads, players will have meaningful reasons to engage in combat (when they choose to do so).


Players can now craft grenade-tipped arrows at the workbench. They can be extremely handy for base defence when dealing with groups of hunters, and also do significant damage to base structures.


Hunters are also now trained to use grenade-tipped arrows. They will favour using them when they feel they are unable to get well placed shots with standard grenades. Please let me know if this feels off-balance!

Due to the heavy power/mass requirements of the BCU cracker, there are now some additional means to generate power.

Reared animals now produce higher quantities of fat, which can be rendered down into biofuel to power the base.


Another new means of generating supplemental power, medicinal plant seeds can now be grown and harvested. Once harvested they can be crafted-down into biofuel.



I’ve added an option to join co-op games via IP. I know that port forwarding has been an issue for many players, so I hope this offers more options for those wishing to host (LAN or VPN).

I know a lot of work is needed to make the hosting/joining process easier. This is high on my list and will continue to be worked on. Thanks for your patience while I continue to work on this.

I’ve added a basic chat client for co-op games. This can be opened by hitting ‘return’ while in game (which can be rebound in the controls menu).


During co-op games (and singleplayer), it can be frustrating (and unfair) when an animal levels-up after killing a player when on low health, leading to it becoming more powerful and having fully replenished health. Now when an animal levels-up, it only regains 30% of its health.


Previously it was difficult to identify when base items were damaged. This often led to critical items being destroyed during attacks (sometimes entire storage chests full of gear). I’ve added damage skins for nearly all base items so players are more aware of when items need repair.

• The bow now costs slightly less cordage to craft.
  
  
• Bed spawns now only cost 350 power (rather than 400).
  
  
• Slightly reduced power usage of fridge (from 0.25 per sec to 0.20).
  
• Power generator now uses ⅔ the fuel, but generates power at ⅔ the rate (so needs to be run for longer durations).
  
  
• Ash stack count increased from 200 to 250.
  
  
• Nails stack count doubled from 100 to 200.
  
  
• Fixed bug where premium arrows would show as normal arrows for hosts of co-op games.
  
• Added models for premium and grenade-tipped arrows to third-person perspective.
  
• Slightly reduced the volume of the generator running.
  
• Increased detail of Wellhead texturing.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing single-player profile day-counts to be reset.

As always, thanks so much to everyone that has been supporting the project, and welcoming and helping out new players. I excited to continue moving forward with new features. I know there is a ton of work needed, and the road ahead is long, so thank you for your continued patience moving forward!

I’ll be on the forums so please do share and issues and feedback on the new changes. Have an awesome weekend!

CG

Up until now, hunter bases would remain statically placed once they set-up camp. This could lead to some frustrating scenarios of players not being able to push the hunters out of their area.

Today’s update allows player to completely destroy hunter bases, forcing them to abandon their post and start building from scratch at another location in the world.

This change will hopefully allow players to truly influence the world and the situations they find themselves in.

To destroy a hunter base, players can now craft the BCU Cracker at the workbench.

This device can be placed on any BCU. Once placed it will auto-activate and result in huge damage to the base (and ultimately destroy the BCU). Once hunter BCU’s are destroyed, they will abandon the base and need to find a new building location to start from scratch.

Hint: Destroying a hunter base does produce some additional loot, but it can also attract rogues so keep your guard!

Note: Remains of abandoned hunter bases will slowly decay over-time.

Up until now, there was little incentive to hunt down rogue hunters. However the BCU Cracker requires Gears (a new item type), that is primarily found on dead rogues.

The hope is this will provide more interesting and varied later-game goals. Rather than avoiding rogue squads, players will have meaningful reasons to engage in combat (when they choose to do so).


Players can now craft grenade-tipped arrows at the workbench. They can be extremely handy for base defence when dealing with groups of hunters, and also do significant damage to base structures.


Hunters are also now trained to use grenade-tipped arrows. They will favour using them when they feel they are unable to get well placed shots with standard grenades. Please let me know if this feels off-balance!

Due to the heavy power/mass requirements of the BCU cracker, there are now some additional means to generate power.

Reared animals now produce higher quantities of fat, which can be rendered down into biofuel to power the base.


Another new means of generating supplemental power, medicinal plant seeds can now be grown and harvested. Once harvested they can be crafted-down into biofuel.



I’ve added an option to join co-op games via IP. I know that port forwarding has been an issue for many players, so I hope this offers more options for those wishing to host (LAN or VPN).

I know a lot of work is needed to make the hosting/joining process easier. This is high on my list and will continue to be worked on. Thanks for your patience while I continue to work on this.

I’ve added a basic chat client for co-op games. This can be opened by hitting ‘return’ while in game (which can be rebound in the controls menu).


During co-op games (and singleplayer), it can be frustrating (and unfair) when an animal levels-up after killing a player when on low health, leading to it becoming more powerful and having fully replenished health. Now when an animal levels-up, it only regains 30% of its health.


Previously it was difficult to identify when base items were damaged. This often led to critical items being destroyed during attacks (sometimes entire storage chests full of gear). I’ve added damage skins for nearly all base items so players are more aware of when items need repair.

• The bow now costs slightly less cordage to craft.
  
  
• Bed spawns now only cost 350 power (rather than 400).
  
  
• Slightly reduced power usage of fridge (from 0.25 per sec to 0.20).
  
• Power generator now uses ⅔ the fuel, but generates power at ⅔ the rate (so needs to be run for longer durations).
  
  
• Ash stack count increased from 200 to 250.
  
  
• Nails stack count doubled from 100 to 200.
  
  
• Fixed bug where premium arrows would show as normal arrows for hosts of co-op games.
  
• Added models for premium and grenade-tipped arrows to third-person perspective.
  
• Slightly reduced the volume of the generator running.
  
• Increased detail of Wellhead texturing.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing single-player profile day-counts to be reset.

As always, thanks so much to everyone that has been supporting the project, and welcoming and helping out new players. I excited to continue moving forward with new features. I know there is a ton of work needed, and the road ahead is long, so thank you for your continued patience moving forward!

I’ll be on the forums so please do share and issues and feedback on the new changes. Have an awesome weekend!

CG

Hi guys. Today’s update finally brings co-op multiplayer to the public build. Thanks for everyone’s patience while I worked through this one. MP has easily been the most requested feature since EA launch, so I’m excited to start getting some feedback and moving forward with the project.

For this first step, players are able to host their own games to play with friends (dedicated servers will eventually follow). Any host has 5 multiplayer profile slots (similar to singleplayer), allowing groups to shut down their server and resume any profile at a later date.

Note: In order for hosts to be seen in the game list, they may need to forward their Steam port (27015). For assistance with troubleshooting, please refer to the community forums, where many community members have been helping other players (thanks for all the help!).

Also, please be sure to set a password if you intend to play with only friends.

Currently the game design is focused around co-op. Building and upgrading a base together, while surviving, fending off hunter attacks, and attacking hunter bases. While it is possible to kill other players, PvP is not a focus at this point.

When a player establishes a base, they can add/remove players as base-members from the ‘Players’ tab in the BCU. A base-member is able to open doors, build, move items etc, whereas non base-members are limited.


Just as in singleplayer, players can choose to enable/disable hunters at any point. If disabled then re-enabled, they will need to build up from scratch.

In co-op the hunter presence and aggression is greater than that of singleplayer. This is an attempt to balance the difficulty, as players will be able to better defend themselves in groups. Please note that this balance is something I’ll be continuing to iterate on. I’ll be listening to feedback and making changes accordingly.

Focus on fortifying your base walls with armor plating, upgrading your weapons and wearable armor to better resist the pressure from hunter attacks.

• Higher resolution skies and sunsets/rises. I’ve reworked the day/night cycle to have higher detail, as well as draw-out the length of transitions during mornings and evenings.
  
  
• Grenades now only require 1 sinew to craft (3 was way too much).
  
  
• Fixed audio glitch causing heavy splashing sound when entering/exiting lakes.
  
• There are now 5 single player save profiles. So if you’ve been meaning to try out a new build, you have 2 new slots.
  
  
• Eating most foods now depletes hydration. There wasn’t enough emphasis on collecting water, as too many foods gave a supplement of water. This change is subtle, but should improve the overall balance (let me know).
  
  
• Reworked the woodburner model and particle fx. The woodburner model was previously extremely high poly and suffered material artifacting (and flames that clipped through the model). The new model addresses these issues and has 20% of the poly count (so much better performance).
  
  
• Fixed bug where a phantom glowstick lights would appear in the world.
  
• Hunters now move at a greater speed when closing in on a target player base.
  
• Increased despawn time on fired arrows.
  

Thanks so much for everyone’s patience and support since the last update. The multiplayer netcode has required much greater work than typical feature updates. As this is the first step into multiplayer, please expect some technical issues while I iron-out the kinks. I’ll be working hard to resolve player issues. Also, a big thanks to everyone who have been helping with connection troubleshooting on the forums.

With this milestone passing, I’m hugely excited to start moving forward with new features and expanding on the gameplay and mechanics. There are many things I’ve been eagerly waiting to start on.

As always, keep me informed with issues or feedback on the new changes (I’ll be on the forums), and have a great week!

CG

Hi guys. Today’s update finally brings co-op multiplayer to the public build. Thanks for everyone’s patience while I worked through this one. MP has easily been the most requested feature since EA launch, so I’m excited to start getting some feedback and moving forward with the project.

For this first step, players are able to host their own games to play with friends (dedicated servers will eventually follow). Any host has 5 multiplayer profile slots (similar to singleplayer), allowing groups to shut down their server and resume any profile at a later date.

Note: In order for hosts to be seen in the game list, they may need to forward their Steam port (27015). For assistance with troubleshooting, please refer to the community forums, where many community members have been helping other players (thanks for all the help!).

Also, please be sure to set a password if you intend to play with only friends.

Currently the game design is focused around co-op. Building and upgrading a base together, while surviving, fending off hunter attacks, and attacking hunter bases. While it is possible to kill other players, PvP is not a focus at this point.

When a player establishes a base, they can add/remove players as base-members from the ‘Players’ tab in the BCU. A base-member is able to open doors, build, move items etc, whereas non base-members are limited.


Just as in singleplayer, players can choose to enable/disable hunters at any point. If disabled then re-enabled, they will need to build up from scratch.

In co-op the hunter presence and aggression is greater than that of singleplayer. This is an attempt to balance the difficulty, as players will be able to better defend themselves in groups. Please note that this balance is something I’ll be continuing to iterate on. I’ll be listening to feedback and making changes accordingly.

Focus on fortifying your base walls with armor plating, upgrading your weapons and wearable armor to better resist the pressure from hunter attacks.

• Higher resolution skies and sunsets/rises. I’ve reworked the day/night cycle to have higher detail, as well as draw-out the length of transitions during mornings and evenings.
  
  
• Grenades now only require 1 sinew to craft (3 was way too much).
  
  
• Fixed audio glitch causing heavy splashing sound when entering/exiting lakes.
  
• There are now 5 single player save profiles. So if you’ve been meaning to try out a new build, you have 2 new slots.
  
  
• Eating most foods now depletes hydration. There wasn’t enough emphasis on collecting water, as too many foods gave a supplement of water. This change is subtle, but should improve the overall balance (let me know).
  
  
• Reworked the woodburner model and particle fx. The woodburner model was previously extremely high poly and suffered material artifacting (and flames that clipped through the model). The new model addresses these issues and has 20% of the poly count (so much better performance).
  
  
• Fixed bug where a phantom glowstick lights would appear in the world.
  
• Hunters now move at a greater speed when closing in on a target player base.
  
• Increased despawn time on fired arrows.
  

Thanks so much for everyone’s patience and support since the last update. The multiplayer netcode has required much greater work than typical feature updates. As this is the first step into multiplayer, please expect some technical issues while I iron-out the kinks. I’ll be working hard to resolve player issues. Also, a big thanks to everyone who have been helping with connection troubleshooting on the forums.

With this milestone passing, I’m hugely excited to start moving forward with new features and expanding on the gameplay and mechanics. There are many things I’ve been eagerly waiting to start on.

As always, keep me informed with issues or feedback on the new changes (I’ll be on the forums), and have a great week!

CG