Jan 28, 2019

Caverns: Lost Sky - Tetravoxel

With Caverns releasing later this week, we thought it would be a good idea to go over our road map. This post will provide everyone with a clearer picture of the current features in Caverns: Lost Sky, and our development strategy moving forward.

Current State

Currently, creating a new save will spawn Strato within the luminous depths of the Tellurian Sector. We have the following list of features ready to occupy you until the first dungeon update (see Phase One).

Endless Subterranean Labyrinth
We use a unique combination of procedural generation and manual hand-tuning to produce the world of Caverns. This provides us a consistent backdrop for our story while still allowing for an infinite, destructible world. As there are geographic similarities between individual machines, we encourage the community to share any cool locations they find!
Over 120 Unique Items and Recipes
There are literally hours of items to find in the Tellurian Sector, all of which can be found either as recipes or prebuilt items in treasure chests. These include Armor, Shields, Weapons, Materials, Potions and Tools such as Torches, Mining Picks, Grappling hooks and more!
Lock-On Targeting
Our targeting system is inspired by the targeting system found in combat RPGs such as the Zelda or Kingdom Hearts series. Players can click any mob within range, and the camera will keep both Strato and the active target in view.
Powerful Weapons
Every weapon has multiple stats, like damage and range, and also a unique weapon skill. Each of these powerful skills has its own custom effects, some of which can be quite devastating.
Deadly Enemies
On release three enemies will be encountered immediately - the Acari, Poneroids, and outgrowths of Cavern Weed. Each of these creatures have their own preferred habitats and personalities. Additionally - some can walk on walls, so watch out!

Launch Plan

Starting on Launch Day, we will be active on our Discord, Steam Community Boards, and our Subreddit. Note that this is an Early Access release and will also be the first time Caverns: Lost Sky is played by a larger audience. Thus there is a high probability of unforeseen issues occurring on the many different PC builds out there.

For this reason, it would help us out tremendously if everyone could report their issues on our Bug Report Forum. Centralizing the bug reports in one place allows us to address them in a prompt manner, and improve everyone's overall gaming experience.

Phase Zero

Our first update will be dedicated to addressing any issues that were reported during launch. It is very important to us that all our players have a smooth gaming experience, and are able to use any existing features before adding anything new.

Phase One

This phase will consist of completing the remaining unimplemented game mechanics in the Tellurian Sector, in the following order:

Dungeons:
Dungeons will have an entrance via the sector's Overworld (the place you currently spawn in). Unlike the Overworld the dungeon's structure cannot be modified or destroyed. These areas will be composed of multiple rooms connected in a procedurally generated jigsaw, with a final boss room to find and conquer. Upon success the player will teleport back to the Overworld near the entrance of the dungeon.
Skill System:
Currently, every weapon Strato find has two skills that appear to be eternally attached to the weapon. But this is not meant to be so! The skill updates will add an additional In-Game menu and accompanying level up mechanic to allow you to learn new skills that can be assigned to your weapons, overriding their default skills. Each skill will have it's own weapon class such as One-Handed-Blade, Blunt, etc. Leveling up will give you additional points to spend on the new screen.
Telluria - The Main Village:
Each sector will have it's own village where player will arrive when entering a sector for the first time, or starting a new game. Each village will be completely hand generated, with minor procedural differences. Villages will contain NPCs to talk to, Shops to buy things from and sell things to, and at least one Inn for the player to heal themselves in.
Questing System and Cut-Scenes
Some NPCs in the town will give quests for the player to complete and receive experience, key items, weapons or other rewards. These updates will also add our first glimpses at the plot-line for Caverns: Lost Sky.

Phase Two

Once the Tellurian sector is complete with all major game mechanics implemented, we will move on to implementing the next world sectors. Starting in Phase Two we will be focusing on completing the remaining content and story aspects of Caverns: Lost Sky rather than adding additional mechanics. Bug-fixes and tweaks to existing mechanics will still occur in this phase, however. Unlike the previous phase, updates in phase two will have at least one story component (at least one new quest).

Phase Three

The final phase of development will begin when all Sectors of the world are complete, and the game is "winnable" (you can reach the end cut-scene). This phase will consist of optimization, polishing, and fixing any remaining bugs. Caverns will exit Early Access once this phase is complete.

If you have any ideas for improvement, or suggestions for a cool feature, please submit it on the Suggestions Fourm! We believe that collaboration with the community is key to allowing Caverns: Lost Sky to reach its true potential. Please note that depending on the community's feedback, the above road map may be modified.

- Team Tetravoxel ( :

Jan 28, 2019

XENOGROVE Update Released

XENOGROVE - YOU CLUCKED UP MY FACE (salmon)

An update for XENOGROVE has been released.

New Area Polish:
-The lava river leading to lava town now has correct collision
-It is no longer necessary to take the lava river to reach the town
-The expanded Savannah area now has foliage

Weapon Balance:
Recoil and drift are now calculated differently:
-If you rapidly fire a weapon while it is still recoiling, the weapon will now start to drift more aggressively out of control. This also applies to automatic weapons, so stability and recoil control balanced against fire rate is now an important consideration.
-Weapons drift less at lower stability ratings, but lower stability ratings incur a much greater penalty to control when rapid-firing.
This rebalance should allow for weapons to feel more controllable while still keeping recoil control and stability into consideration while choosing your weapon parts.

Weapon Switching:
-You can now carry a second weapon, which you can switch to with the scroll wheel
-Workbenches will operate on whatever weapon you currently have equipped.
After careful consideration, we have decided to allow the user to carry a second weapon, since only carrying one encouraged players to create a weapon that was a moderate all-around weapon instead of creating weapons that played to specific strengths. This way, the player should have more interesting choices about how they design their weapons. For instance, a player could carry a long-range weapon in their first weapon slot and a short-range rapid firing weapon in their second slot, giving them more control in combat and allowing them to be better prepared while still requiring thought about what they carry.
This should all contribute to increasing player agency and making combat feel more dynamic.

UX Improvements:
-You can scroll scroll boxes up and down with the right stick if you're using a gamepad. This should make it much easier to play in exclusively gamepad mode.
-The HUD now lists what AltFire part you are using below the AltFire cooldown indicator
-Foliage now gets pushed out of the way and rustled when you get close.

As always, let us know how you feel in the comments.
See you out there!

-Jon Sayer
Systems Developer

Jan 28, 2019

Rend Early Access Patch 8: Patch Notes

Rend - Scapes

Patch 8 introduces a major update to Bow combat, rebalanced and amended Ammunition and other crafting recipes, and dozens of important bug fixes to issues reported by you, our dedicated Early Access community. This patch will deploy at 8:00 AM PST (GMT-8) on Tuesday, January 29.

Bow Combat Rework

We’ve made a comprehensive update to how Bow combat works. As of this patch, you draw your Bow by clicking and holding the left mouse button and fire the arrow by releasing the button. This means you can take as much or as little time as you want to fire your arrow. Additionally, the damage, velocity, range, and accuracy are all scaled by how far you have drawn your Bow before firing. Zoom (ADS) is still controlled by right clicking but is no longer required to draw or fire a Bow.
Bows have also been converted from hitscan to projectile weapons and have had their attack speed (draw speed), accuracy, range, projectile speed, and gravity adjusted to match. The damage values remain the same but relative damage-per-second has slightly increased to compensate for the weapon no longer being hitscan.
We’ve added several feedback indicators to give you a good sense of Bow draw progress and when your Bow is fully drawn: the main visual change is a new Bow draw indicator as part of your crosshair while drawing a Bow. In addition, you’ll notice an arrow nock sound, a small visual effect near the head of the arrow, and a very minor camera shake have been introduced, all of which indicate when your Bow is fully drawn and ready to fire at full power.
Now that projectile Bows have been introduced to Rend’s combat, we’ve made a bunch of projectile-related improvements:
- Projectile weapons can now deal critical damage.
- Projectile weapons are now affected by distance-based damage falloff.
- Projectile weapons logic has been reworked to more reliably send the projectile to where the player is aiming.
We hope you enjoy our new Bow combat and are eagerly awaiting your feedback!

General

Players stuck behind enemy faction shields will gain a debuff causing them to rapidly perish. This debuff does not apply during Reckoning events.
Increased the volume of the sound effect and the noise generated when you land from jumping.
Player scaling now affects harvest distance.
Cleaned up the position adjustment due to character scaling.

Items

Arbalests can no longer use siege Ammunition.
Removed Shademoss from the game.
Removed Ichorpod from the game.
Taming Crystals should no longer affect players.
- In addition, Taming Crystals should no longer be consumed when attempting to apply them to an invalid target.
Increased Chitin stacks to 200.
Arrow Breaker Shoulders now grant the correct increase to Maximum Health (24 up from 0.24).
Hearthfur Pants now grant the correct amount of Armor (284 up from 130).
Changed Armory Upgrade Costs
- After initial construction, the Armory requires a deposit of Weapons and Armor similar to the equipment it grants for free. This should prevent Armory rewards from trivializing crafting progression for many players.
Significantly decreased Armory Bow power.
- They are now approximately equal power to the first Hunting Bow in a given crafting tier instead of advanced Bows from that tier's progression.
Individual plugs can no longer be destroyed on the Armory.
Each Armory upgrade increases the Health and Armor of the building.
Reduced Divinity Seed Armor to 200 to be more in line with Lesser/Greater Divinity Seed progression.
Renamed Spiked Steel Barricade to Spiked Iron Barricade to better reflect its metallurgic source material.
Clarified Crystalline Edge description text.
Cleaned up Dain's Odd Boots tooltip description.
Projectiles will now properly play fire sound and VFX.

Crafting

Cleaned up the Ammunition crafting tree.
- Fixed several Ammunition recipes to make them more consistent in reagent cost and item count returns.
All Ammunition craft quantities are now consistent (15/30crit for Darts, 5/10crit for all other Ammunition types).
Removed Shademoss from recipes.
Removed Ichorpod from recipes.
Recipes for Toxic Cloud Mine and Death Fog Mine now result in the correct appropriate item.
Moved Clan Divinity Shard into the Divinity Seeds crafting tree.
Moved Pioneer's Tent (Pathfinder) into the Divinity Seeds crafting tree. It will now only display for Pathfinders.
Architect's Divinity Seed will now only display for players with the requisite perk.

Interface

Creatures with no Pet Rating, such as the Lost, no longer display Pet Rating 0 on their nameplate.
Added Favor value to the item tooltip while in the faction stronghold.
Added Deposit All button to Warehouse interface.
Added a sort button to the inventory which sorts all of your items by highest weight first.
Corrected the position of the edit faction memo UI.
Added the ability to drop an item from an unowned inventory if the player can take items from the inventory.
Added /group chat channel for groups.

Art

Brightened the Order symbol on female light skin mesh.
Adjusted the flamethrower VFX locations on Smoldervine plants to prevent them from floating.
Adjusted Armory crate sizes.
Polished Blaster material appearance.
Added new Building Frame art for Forge, Warehouse, Armory, and Spirit Stable.
Reduced the intensity of the refracted light from the crystal on top of mines when viewed at certain angles.
Updated visual effect for swapping Spirit Tools.
Removed floating rocks from under the floating rock bridges.
Updated the model and textures for Stags.
Miscellaneous cleanup and polish of terrain.
Corrected an area of bad navmesh in Stagswood.

Creatures

Rebalanced Siege damage from creatures by level.
Hitbox and ability timing improvements for Wargs, Arachnix, Hammerskulls, and Draaks.
Frabbit pets should no longer run away while harvesting.
Creature dodge abilities now share a cooldown.
Adjusted creature dodge cooldowns to account for shared cooldowns.
Creatures should no longer start to fly when they hit a rock or stump.

Optimizations

Implemented optimizations for sending numerous server/client events.
- You may notice brief aggregation delays of events like Loot Ticker, Experience Ticker, or Crafting Progress.
Optimized network traffic when crafting recipes with very short craft times.
Implemented an optimization related to resource spawning.

Bug Fixes

Added some checks so that the game doesn't “freak out” when restarting.
Fixed an issue causing Granite and Cragrock Frames to leave small gaps in between structure pieces.
Fixed various floating resources around the world.
Fixed some texture issues causing the appearance of holes in the terrain.
Fixed a texture issue with the logs in the Stonefire Oven.
Fixed a bug that prevented properly saving the state of a named pet.
Fixed collision for Dreadveil rock arches.
Fixed an issue with lighting volumes causing abrupt lighting changes.
Fixed a typo in Antidote flavor text.
Fixed a typo in the Shaman Archetype description text.
Fixed Gold Bar display name.
Fixed an issue where depositing item into Armory storage didn’t affect Favor correctly.
Fixed an issue with Mjolnir's Hammer return logic that should make the return path server-authoritative.
Fixed the experience required to master Dark Hide Armor recipes.
Fixed an issue that was causing some weapon and armor crafting recipes to gain incorrect amounts of experience in Classic and Exploration modes.
Fixed an issue that was causing some weapon and armor crafting recipes to be uncraftable in Classic and Exploration modes.
Fixed Tarberries to once again require a Tier 2 Scythe to harvest.
Fixed mismatched recipe and item result naming in many recipes.
Fixed several typos in item and recipe display names.
Fixed swapped icons for Standard-Issue Hide Treads and Handwraps.
Fixed an issue that was preventing players from seeing tracers for their own hitscan and projectile spells.
Fixed an edge case that could allow some interaction through walls.
Fixed an edge case that could cause dropped items to spawn in the air.
Fixed Learned Survivor Ascension Perk scaling incorrectly.
Fixed Weight of the World Ascension Perk scaling incorrectly.
Fixed an issue with Divine Resistance causing damage conversion problems.
Fixed Odin T3 Pants Red Mesh.
Fixed Female Fiber Pants
Fixed a bug where the character select screen widget stopped updating.
Fixed an issue that caused the client to be unaware of the type of a displayed inventory. This should fix several inventory UI related bugs.
Fixed client crash related to nearby builders.
Fixed various crashes.