I was hoping to have a full update ready, but I encountered a game crashing bug after making the changes, and I could not test this version as thoroughly as I'd have liked to. I believe the bug is fixed, so that's the good news. I will test over the weekend and update the full game before Monday.

Antialias mode has been added. Don't get too excited! You will find this option in the preferences menu, and you'll need to restart the game for it to take effect. It does indeed smooth out all the vector lines, but unfortunately, it also prevents my shaders from working properly. The result is that it is not as bright as the standard game.

Still, it has a nice, crisp look, and it improves the detail and clarity with which you can see objects. Here's a sneak preview:



As you can see it's pretty dark, however, when viewed in the full game window, it is still quite playable. Also, someone who was getting a bit of motion sickness from the game has said that this mode makes it much more playable than the brighter, default mode.

I was able to address a few issues with the crawling vents. There were a couple places where you could get stuck in a vent entrance, and occasionally you could see "outside" of the level geometry from certain areas in the vents. This has been addressed, and should no longer cause issues.

I added a small invisible ramp to those purple/green barriers, so when you step through them, the camera should not jump up and down abruptly.

As I mentioned, I will be testing this update over the weekend. However, if you want to try these new features, go to "Paradox Vector > Properties > Betas" and select "testing" from the drop down.

During the Limited Preview of Volta-X held on Steam earlier this month, we promised anyone that picked up the full game after participating in either of the two early play sessions would get an exclusive skin for our beloved elephant, Sheldon. Some of you have asked just how you get your hands on that skin. All you have to do is keep reading to find out just what we need from you to make that happen.

If you played Volta-X’s Beta or Limited Preview on Steam and then purchased the game on that very same Steam account, you don’t have to do anything. We’ll send your exclusive skin through the in-game messaging system. If by chance you didn’t get it yet though, please reach out to us through direct message on our Twitter at @voltaxgame.
If you played the Beta or Limited Preview on Steam, but decided to purchase Volta-X on the Nintendo Switch, we’ll need you to provide some information. Direct message us on Twitter at @voltaxgame with your Steam ID from the pre-release session, [additional information may be needed], along with your in-game Account ID (which can be found in the Settings menu, as explained below).
If you played the Beta or Limited Preview on Steam under one account, but then bought the game on a different account, we’ll need a little information. You’ll have to direct message us on Twitter at @voltaxgame the Steam ID you originally played under, [additional info might be needed too], and then provide the Steam ID and in-game Account number in order for us to send you the skin. Your Volta-X in-game Account can be found in the Settings menu, as explained below.

1. Log into Steam.
   
2. Once logged in, click on your username in the top right corner, and then click "View Profile". Your Steam ID should be at the very top, shown in a link like this: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/XXXXXXXXXXXX
   
3. Copy your link, you can provide us with the unique number at the end of the URL.

1. Open up Steam and log in.
   
2. In the top left corner, click on "Steam", then under that menu, click on "Settings".
   
3. Once in Settings, a box with options will show up. Look up and click "Interface".
   
4. Find the option "Display Steam URL address bar when available" and check the box.
   
5. Hit OK to save these changes, and your Steam Profile link will now be visible at the top of the Steam window. Then follow the steps listed above.

1. Log in to your Steam account.
   
2. Click on your username in the top right corner, and then click "View Profile".
   
3. On your profile page, select "Edit Profile".
   
4. Scroll down to "Custom URL" and delete the profile URL you've set.
   
5. Scroll down, hit "Save Changes".
   
6. Return to your profile page, and your profile URL will have your assigned Steam ID.

1. Open Volta-X in Steam or on your Switch.
   
2. Open the "Settings" on the main menu.
   
3. Your Volta-X User ID will be right at the top, and is a nine-digit code.

If you’ve done any or all of that, we will be able to verify your account standing, and get you that sweet Sheldon skin within a few days of submitting all that information. We hope you’re enjoying Volta-X in the meantime, and wish you success on your quest to climb the ranks of the World Volta Association.

A new faction has arrived. The elves have taken up residence on the southern part of the main island.
The bed now shows on the compass.
Compass orientation fixed.
Amount is now bigger on inventory icons so it should be easier to see how many you have.
Forges and campfires now will turn off without wood.
Gold bars are now harder to craft and worth a little bit less.
Couple UI fixes to prevent windows from overlapping.
2 new quests. One begins in the HalfBlood village and the other in the Elven village.

Patch day is here once again, this one can probably be considered a bigger one. Before we get too far into it, I have one thing I want to address. It’s come to my attention that there is a bug where when you launch the game, you’ll (rarely) get a window, which will simply be a black screen. The game will never load, and if you try closing the window and relaunching the same thing will happen.

This is something I’ve personally witnessed once. Relaunching the game on my PC caused it to launch normally. It always struck me as some sort of jank with the Construct 3 engine which the game is made in, which further research suggests it may be. My concern is with how frequent it is. While I’d prefer for it to never happen, the core of the issue is related to the game creation program and not my code. Meaning I am somewhat at the mercy of the developers who make Construct 3 and NWjs.
I’ve been looking into this in my spare time this past week, checking forums, making posts, etc, and may have stumbled upon a solution. This patch is basically a test. I’d ask that if you are playing Verdant Village, and you experience this black screen launch issue to let me know. From what I understand, it’s a pretty rare occurrence, but if it is still happening with the changes that have been made it will let me move on to trying other solutions.

So, boring tech stuff aside, this patch has both a lot and a little honestly. The main attraction is hunting. A system I was supposed to have in the game by V0.3, oops. Better late than never I suppose. So, in order to hunt you’ll have to speak with Caleb who is a new NPC also added this patch. He’ll set you on a quest to unlock hunting. Speaking of, a quick note on Caleb. Due to how patching works he will likely idle in place for a day before he starts moving normally. If you just patched and don’t see him moving don’t fret, he should kick into gear the following day. In the future I’ll try to look into a way to fix this, but I didn’t have time this week.

I won’t go into the particulars for hunting, but what was added this patch is still only part of the system. You can now physically hunt animals, however there isn’t much to do with what you get from hunting them. You can sell the raw meat for some money, but in the future, there is a more extensive system surrounding all this that I’ll implement. In short, by the time things are done you will be able to hunt and then refine the meat via smoking, marinating, and stuff of that nature. I have most of the art for this I just didn’t have time to work it all into this patch. Sometime in the future I’ll get back to it though.
While hunting is the main part of this patch there are a couple of other smaller things. First, a new zone was added, you have to have some place to hunt after all. It is west of the Beryl Woods. Aside from hunting in that zone there are also some artifacts to find, and new foraging plants.

You’ll find that your fowl now drop feathers. At the moment, chicken feathers are the only ones with a purpose, to make arrows. But in the future duck and geese feathers will also play a role.

Aside from all that there were a couple bug fixes that I’ll list below. Also, Mel now sells some farm products along with animals. The prices are a bit high, but if you’re short an egg or some milk you can buy it from her now.

Last thing, this is just a bug fix but it has implications that may confuse people. There was a bug pointed out in the last patch where extra irrigation pipes would appear on your farm after the patch. This was due to a small oversight in how they were created. I have fixed this issue in the code. The thing is, I can’t do anything about the pipes you may have already laid down. In short, any pipes that you placed and later pulled up are going to reappear when you patch. Once you pick them up this time they should stay gone for good. Basically, you are going to get some extra pipes this patch assuming you placed down, and then removed any in the past.

Other than that, the changelog is below. As for what’s coming next it will likely be some smaller systems. I’m also going to slowly begin work on combat. That will be the next major addition, but there will be plenty to tide things over until then.

Verdant Village Patch 0.3.2 Changelog

• Fixed an odd bug that would occur occasionally when scrolling the mouse wheel when charging a tool
  
• Fixed a bug that could occasionally give specific items the wrong sprite in your inventory
  
• Added hunting
  
• Added Blackthistle Forest (southwest of the Beryl Woods, or south of Shimmerdew Lake)
  
• Added feathers from fowl, chickens, ducks, and geese have a chance to drop feathers each day, ducks and geese do not have a 100% drop chance
  
• Added two more artifact keystones to the world
  
• Added Caleb to the game, currently he only has one schedule but more will be added next week
  
• Added a quest for Caleb
  
• Sven's quest (that has been in the game since the first alpha for some reason) can now be completed due to hunting being in the game
  
• Increased stamina gain on milk and goat milk to 35 and 50 respectively
  
• Added the following items to Mel's store for purchase
  
• Chicken Egg
  
• Cow Milk
  
• Goat Milk
  
• Chicken Feather
  
• Duck Feather
  
• Goose Feather
  
  
• Fixed a bug regarding having tilled ground near an irrigation pipe, which if you dug with the shovel to make a hole, then filled said hole in, the tile would not be watered
  
• Made clay a consistent drop when digging in the mines for now, also slightly increased drop rate. A new system will replace this one altogether in the near future
  
• Fixed a bug where irrigation pipes would not properly assign a variable causing ones that had been placed and removed to reappear when the game was patched. NOTE, this will happen once more during this patch, once they are removed this time, they should stay gone. Sorry for the inconvenience, enjoy the free pipes
  
• Changed the "It's locked" dialogue to "It's locked, looks like no one is home" to hopefully avoid confusion as to where an NPC is
  
• Made an alteration to exports to hopefully prevent random low probability on launch crashing.

Hey everyone!

Time for the weekly patch notes!

• Added 17 new daily and weekly challenges!

• None this patch!

• Fixed a bug Pulse Blasts were not actually dealing intended damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where challenges would overwrite every time the game started up.

Thanks guys and see you all next Friday!

Josh
Static City Games

Update #222 arrives with a major upgrade to ship component shopping that matches the new ship preview capability of Update #220 in size and scope. Finding and considering components to install on your ship has never been easier or faster with the new browse by category feature. With this update, we've also added 4 Pulse Booster components and improved the entire Reactor Spike Module set to round out the new set of 54 categories. Plus, new Explorer cards, better timing rules for the Jyeeta Era and some critical bug fixes!

If you like the pace of updates, new content and new features be sure to leave a review!


The major ship component shopping upgrade in #222 allows you to quickly browse categories of ship components before drilling down into their specific progression. As you browse the categories offered, you can see a useful summary of what the component type has to offer, what Skills it will boost in your ship and for weapons what Reactor Point range it fires in, how it stacks up against small craft and what types of special damage (Void, Radiation) it causes. This boils the 586 components in the game down to 58 categories and makes searching faster and more efficient. It will also help many players who may have previously overlooked a component type to see the value and goal of the component type and how it might fit into a ship build.

Once you drill into a category, you'll see only the components in its progress and be able to consider what you can afford. If you've finished browsing a category, use the ALL button to hop up to the main list.

Category browsing works with all the other filter types, so you can quickly narrow your categories to Weapons or Weapons that fire at range 4 and still see the summaries.

Of course, if you're just bonkers about the old way of shopping the entire list, you can click the "Expand All" filter to jump back to the old setup.

In addition to adding this new browsing feature, we've increased the consistency of sorting across the board between the different sort types.


With Update #222 we've added 4 new components to extend the Radi-Pulse and Void-Pulse Boosters beyond a single component to a full progression. You can now invest in Radi-Pulse and Void-Pulse Boosters 1 to 3. The first grade of these have had their bonuses to void and radiation increased and the 2nd and 3rd grade have more powerful Radiation and Void resistances as well as +Defense % bonuses. These new levels help push alternative options to other defensive components and open up new build paths for ships of all sizes.


We've expanded the use case for Reactor Spike Modules which are still excellent smaller sources of additional fuel but these high-pressure fuel injection system increases both your Range Change bonus as well as your Escape bonus. In trade for their new bonuses which help them be more relevant in the mid to end game component design, RSM 2 thru 4 have gained in price.

To better even out the component set, we've increased the prices of Defense Pattern Matrixes 2-4 as well.

We've added two new positive cards to Explorer mini-game which can help a crew keep going a bit longer in the wildlands. The first card -- an extreme Experience bonus -- is rare but can help increase the XP efficiency of an exploration crew that is working on zones with high reward percentages. The second card is also very rare -- the discovery of a Zendu ruin -- and restores the Morale of the entire crew as well as possibly causing a positive Trait mutations.

With Update #222, we're dusting off the Jyeeta BROOD era and making some improvements base on player feedback. We're prepping for some bigger changes and the first tweak here is the better improve the era's timer's reactivity. You will now consistently extend the era's timeline as you are battle the Jyeeta, the extensions were previously limited to doing missions but now you can gain through any victorious encounter with the Jyeeta (ship or ground).

We're cooking up a mighty mix of turn-base tactics, cyberpunk and grimy, gritty, nano-radioative story from New Boston 2231 in our next game, Cyber Knights: Flashpoint. Check it out and wishlist today --
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1021210/Cyber_Knights_Flashpoint/

In addition to CK's Facebook page and the @TreseBrothers twitter, we now have a twitter account you can plug into to keep updated *and* get your regular cyberpunk fix. Sharing concept art, gameplay previews, news & interviews, highlights from the forums & discord, shout-outs to other awesome cyberpunk creators, and more. Follow us here: https://twitter.com/CyberKnightsRPG

- New "Extra Large Experience" Explorer Card
- New "Full Morale Recovery" Explorer Card
- Major upgrade to ship component shopping - browse categories first and then drill down to specific components
- Read quick summaries of 58 component types to find what you need
- Use "Expand All" filter within ship component shopping to access the old setup
- Improved consistency of sorting in all cases for ship component shopping
- Added 4 new components, Radi-Pulse and Void-Pulse Boosters 2 and 3, opens up new defensive build paths
- Improved Radi-Pulse and Void-Pulse Boosters rank 1 with more void/radiation resistance
- Improved Reactor Spike Modules to add +Move and +Escape bonuses, reduced to 100 Mass, increased prices significantly
- Increased prices of Defense Pattern Matrix 2-4
- Improved reactivity of Jyeeta Brood Era timer to your actions -- better extending timeline as you keep fighting
- Fixed issues clicking through the filter UI on some screens
- Fixed combat keyboard selection issue with Talents like Steadfast Aim not being able to target first slot

Pawn of the Dead is getting closer to full release.

We have a new environment, Gothic Ruins, and a new music for that environment. It's the second music composed by Uğurcan Orçun (who is also working for TaleWorlds) for Pawn of the Dead.

The International 10 Collector's Cache is back with a second helping of items from the Dota 2 workshop, featuring full sets for a wide variety of favorite heroes—including a Rare set for Templar Assassin, a Very Rare set for Faceless Void, and an Ultra Rare set for Legion Commander.

Available now for $2.49, unboxing 14 of these treasures will automatically grant you 34 Battle Levels, and the odds of receiving a bonus rare item increase with each one you open. You can also recycle any unwanted sets for two Battle Levels.

Volume II of the Collector’s Cache will only be available for the next thirty days and is the only way to receive these exclusive item sets, apart from the Ultra Rare Legion Commander set which will be marketable sometime after The International 11 concludes. As before, 25% of each sale contributes directly to The International 10 prize pool.

Once again, we’d like to thank all of the community artists who tendered submissions to the Dota 2 Workshop, as well as the entire Battle Pass community for your support.

A new castle grounds area is added to the map in time for our group game session today at 5PM PT. Join us to explore it together before we head up to the Zero-G arena for ranked battle. If you arrive late and already see us fighting above the tower, you can hit Z on the keyboard to teleport there.
A video preview of what to expect below:
https://youtu.be/_XtO3Cicsfs

Note: Castle area is still being optimized and might have bugs as well (please report them). If you are sensitive to framerate below 90, avoid going towards it for now and either fly over or around it.

Two teams remain in the exciting finale of The Sims™ Spark’d, and one last Elimination Challenge will decide it all. For the Play With Life Challenge, each contestant’s personal story takes center stage as the competition draws to a close. They’ll have to dig deep into their relationship with The Sims—and their relationship with their teammates—if they want to pull out the creativity and innovation the judges are looking for. Will Team Llama claim the prize, or will Team Cowplant take the title of the first Spark’d Champions?