Level design of Murom Suburbs is finished. Now we have to implement the map into the game: place objects like garages, bus stops, gas stations, routes, traffic and pedestrians. It should take approximately one more month of work.
Meanwhile, take a look at the new screenshots of the city. We'll tell you more about this map (its size, routes and points of interest) within the next month.

Hi Pioneers!

The weekend is here so we have a few more of your favourites... crash fixes!

If you have any more crashes, bugs or suggestions you would like us to take a look at, feel free to post them at https://questions.satisfactorygame.com/ we’ll read all of them.

Have a great weekend everybody, thank you for playing <3

BUG FIXES

• Fixed one more conveyor replication crash
  
• Added more debugging and a potential fix for another conveyor replication crash

We read your opinions, and we know what you most expect ("where is The Heist?!") and you tell us what needs to be improved and what else to work on to make life in the Zone better. As always, your insights were valuable to us, as evidenced by the following corrections that we are preparing for you.
By the way, we have found quite an interesting bug ourselves that turned out to be… somewhat spooky. Although Halloween is long behind us, we think you will like what we’ve found.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUwMsc7zhpM
Let's start with the changes that will include Shadow - the monster with huge paws that lurks in buildings in the Zone. There will be quite a few of these changes, but thanks to them fighting him will be… maybe not so much a "pleasure" (let's be honest, meeting Shadow who pops out of nowhere was never pleasant), but definitely more balanced.

This includes faster reaction to the attack and its involvement in the fight (Shadow will not wait for your move, but will attack right away), a significant change in range and angle of view (thanks to this, he doesn’t pass a meter from the soldiers without noticing them). Plus, we make him react to sounds and damage and get rid of a few annoying bugs (e.g. blur effect, which sometimes stayed with the Shadow permanently).


Another big and quite important change concerns the spawning of soldiers on the map.
To put things simply, we wanted to generate enemy squads randomly, but for them to have similar “strength”. The spawning process had a difficult time choosing which enemy to spawn in the squads. And that changed the balance we wanted to achieve - having e.g. 3 regular soldiers + 1 stronger in a group instead of 2 regulars + 2 stronger ones.

* spawner - a spot on the map where enemies are, well, spawning* distribution - a word used to describe the process of spawning the enemies* perfect distribution - spawning the enemies in the best way possible* weight (of the soldiers) - “value” of a particular enemy type, which is necessary for the spawning process to decide which to spawn

Overall, we're working to drastically change the soldier spawning system to be more honest and random, rather than rigid, mathematical. Thanks to this, we want to avoid some weirdness related to seeing too many"crafting" on the map of soldiers of the same, weak type.

Let’s start the tech-talk now! There are spawners placed on the levels, which tell what and how many soldiers should appear in this particular place. Depending on certain variables, we choose one of the predefined levels of "difficulty" that describes the distributions of the types of soldiers. For example: when the NAR squad spawn, we want half (0.5) to be regular soldiers, one-fourth (0.25) sergeants and one-fourth (0.25) elite.

The perfect distribution is that the same group of soldiers will be spotted every time. The problem was that it did not always work as it should, so it happened that in subsequent draws, spawners "produced" only regular soldiers. Simply put, we want to improve this system to allow better, non-biased randomness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZQeSlF3AAQ
Here’s a broader description of the problem:

Perfect distribution on the example of a spawner who "produces" four soldiers: two regular soldier (4 * 0.5 = 2), one sergeant (4 * 0.25 = 1) and one elite (4 * 0.25 = 1). From a mathematical point of view, everything is fine.

The problem arises when we cannot make a perfect distribution. Example: we have a spawner who has to "produce" three soldiers each time: regular soldier (3 * 0.5 = 1.5 = 1), sergeant (3 * 0.25 = 0.75 = 0), elite (3 * 0.25 = 0.75 = 0). This is a rather poor solution.

Therefore, we are ultimately working on a solution where we make a distribution based on a value that describes the probability of a given type of opponent in relation to other opponents. On the other hand, for the remaining soldiers, whom we could not replace, we use the principles of perfect distribution (i.e. a draw takes place: 50% chance for a soldier to appear, 25% for a sergeant and an elite).
In other words: every time there will be the same distribution of soldiers depending on the difficulty level. In case this is not possible, instead of spawning the weakest, we spawn them randomly by chance.


We introduce you changes not only visible to the eye but also audible to the ear. We plan to add to the game footsteps heard when walking on very wet surfaces, such as puddles, as well as the sounds of browsing and crafting weapon upgrades. We especially care about the implementation of that second element, because that's what you deal with most often. The sounds of walking on puddles can be considered a modest addition, but it increases the realism in the game.

Similarly, we approach the issue of adding an alert to opponents when the body hits the ground. A body hitting the ground produces an appropriately loud noise that will alert enemies that something disturbing is happening around the corner.

Taking this opportunity to discuss the in-game sounds issue, we have a curiosity for you. This has to do with an interesting, yet very terrifying bug we came across. On the Red Forest map near Olga's Village, you can find wild pigs. If you shoot any of them, it will squeal before it dies ... and that squeal will still be heard even after it dies. We're correcting this bug so that pigs don't bite your conscience from the underworld. ;)


We are also working on slight improvements to the level design. Mostly these are minor bugs that have been spotted by you (e.g. on several levels the meshes appeared too late). However, we are also working on major fixes that will improve the gameplay.
First, there will be plates with the names of the rooms in the prison for better orientation. This is a large spot where it's easy to get lost.

Secondly, in Pripyat Central, Pripyat Port and Kopachi events have been tweaked so that they don't get blocked. As you know, some places are now blocked by Chernobylite walls or locked doors which require you to use a lockpick. We had to move one of these rooms in Kopachi because there was another event in the same room that we shouldn't block in this way.
Take care, stalkers!

Hello there!

Let’s step away from the craziness of big reveals, big changelogs and prolonged radio silence of the past month. Today we are back with a small, regular update, that you can now expect to see every week. Today we’re going to meet a new creature that inhabits the world of Galatea 37. However, this one does not try to eat us on sight, which is a nice change after all the nasties that we showed you until now. Let’s take a look at the Vesaurus.



The Vesaurus is the first aerial unit that we implemented in The Riftbreaker. It is a neutral creature that doesn’t mind the presence of Ashley and Mr. Riggs. Seeing it for the first time, you could easily make the mistake of thinking it is one of the birds that can be found on Earth. Their bodies are exactly the shape you would expect from a flying creature of this size. Their wingspan can be up to a couple of meters and they are decorated with beautiful, colored feathers. While there are certain similarities, this colorful creature is not just an oversized pigeon or a mutated parrot.



Like many creatures found on Galatea 37, the Vesaurus shows an affinity for mineral formations. They will often hover around the crystal formations, so often seen around the surface of the planet, and gather nutrients. In that regard, they are similar to hummingbirds but somehow the Vesauruses are able to remain airborne and stationary with only a couple of flaps of their massive wings, revealing massive differences in their body composition compared to their Earthly counterparts.

Our flying friends are yet another kind of neutral, ambient creatures that inhabit the world of Galatea 37. They make the world much more busy and full of life. Over time you will get used to their presence. In fact, the sight of Vesaurus gliding gracefully across the sky will become so familiar to you that you will start feeling uneasy when you haven’t seen one for a while, and for a good reason.



The Vesaurus are not predators. They do not have any defensive mechanisms, apart from the ability to fly, so you will never see them fighting with other species. You also won’t encounter them during attack waves. Much like birds before the storm, the Vesaurus sense the vibrations of the ground caused by the stampede of an alien horde, prompting them to hide among trees or in rock formations. Since only such places offer protection to them, you won’t encounter these creatures in areas lacking trees or high boulders.



Implementing the first flying creature into the game required the addition of many functions to our navigation system, but now that the groundwork is there, we have the opportunity to add more airborne units into the game. Perhaps next time they will be more hostile? Or maybe they are going to explode on sight, EXOR style? Only time will tell. In the meantime join www.discord.gg/exorstudios to share your ideas and to keep an eye on our daily changelog - it holds the keys to many secrets.

Our socials:

www.facebook.com/exorstudios
www.twitter.com/exorstudios
www.twitch.tv/exorstudios
www.youtube.com/exorstudios

Hi all!

This update features a lot of big improvements. New sky options, weather, better performance, a new save/load system and lots of fixes.

Instead of having a blank void overhead, there are now several sky textures to choose between ranging from distant clouds to a vivid sunset. Backdrops also change the lighting in your world for quick fitting results, though if you want to do something different you can tweak it with the Sky Colour option, which now lets you change the colour of the sky and lighting separately.



The Snow button in the Scenery menu has been replaced with a new Weather option to cycle through Sunny, Snow, Light Rain or Heavy Rain effects. The new Rain options give everything a slick and shiny look with the choice between a gentle drizzle or a downpour.



The fog density slider has been upgraded to give better control, especially at lower values. If you made changes to fog density in a save file you may need to adjust it for the new system.

Complex save files will now be much smaller and load a lot faster.
For a real world comparison, one file I use for testing (~50,000 decorations) was 19mb and took 50 seconds to load, now it is 0.3mb and loads in 7 seconds. Old saves will still work just fine for now, but I recommend updating any saves you care about to the new system by loading them and then saving them again. The new system also includes an animated progress screen and will save your current position so you start right back where you left off.

The Options menu now lets you adjust look sensitivity, this will affect both the mouse and gamepads.

• Vehicle light settings are now saved/loaded
  
• Idle passengers can now be highlighted and removed like decorations
  
• Improved passenger behaviour when walking to platforms and stations
  
• Made passengers bigger to improve their size compared to decorations
  
• Physics decorations now have a base to make them easier to remove after they are hit
  
• Improved how the Clear Track button works
  
• More decorations are now paintable
  
• Improved readability on various menus
  
• Improved tooltips on various menus
  
• Improved train/build transitions
  
• Improved the train menu's chase camera
  
• Alternate mode now toggles off after placing 1 piece
  
• Improved gamepad menu navigation
  
• Gamepads can now access the alternate train cameras (Y on Xbox controllers)

• Tweaked the lowest graphics options to increase performance gains
  
• Greatly improved CPU performance for worlds with many trains
  
• Optimised the Toy box and fixed a hitch when opening/closing it on low end machines
  
• Optimised train headlights
  
• Improved performance on Modern Apartment (Night)
  
• Reduced install size
  
• Added new and tweaked existing LoD models on several decorations to improve performance

• Additional trains no longer start with 0% paint strength when you first customise them
  
• Fixed issues with saving/loading train customisation
  
• Fixed train wheels becoming rotated off axis
  
• Fixed the Barber shop having the wrong thumbnail
  
• Fixed fog density not updating the first time you open the Scenery menu after loading a file
  
• Fixed falling snow not being visible from all trains
  
• Fixed Track Supports extending infinitely down if placed beyond the world's floor
  
• Fixed certain Track Supports not being removed properly
  
• Fixed certain recently highlighted objects being removed when trying to clear your current piece
  
• Fixed track sockets not appearing properly on crossings
  
• Removed some developer tools left in by accident
  
• Long save game names now wrap instead of overflowing off the edge
  
• Fixed an object recolouring bug when using a gamepad

Hey guys,

You asked for it... the frying pan is now a melee weapon! What is more we have evaluated your answers on the community polls and changed the grip system accordingly. We hope the game will feel more comfortable this new way.

- Added the Pan Hammer as a selectable weapon for multiplayer. It deals less damage than the other two melee weapons and also have a different shape for collision. You can even use it as a small shield if you want to. Furthermore it deals damage for 0.5 seconds after throwing. Let's hope it does not break the game balance.
- Added a new cowboy hat

- Grip button is now the default for picking up and dropping stuff (weapons, bottles etc.)
- Grip button is now the default for climbing
- Added an extra option to enable the trigger for grabbing items ("use trigger as alternative grip")
- Default off for Valve Index, Oculus Touch, Oculus Quest controllers
- Default on for Vive and WMR controllers (for now)
- The arrow of the bow is still summoned by the trigger button on all platforms
- Halloween decorations removed, but don't worry winter decorations are coming soon to replace them!
- Railgun fire rate and damage slightly nerfed, recoil became a bit larger
- Optimized graphics on all levels
- Optimized player memory size
- Optimized Tunneling Vignette and Death effect
- Game install size got smaller

- Collider and visibility fixes on all maps
- Fixed spectator screen weapon icons for all weapons
- Fixed a bug which allowed dead players to be healed and killed twice

As always, please send us your feedback and help us shape the game on Steam Discussions or on our official Discord server.

Best wishes,
Grapple Tournament dev team

Official website: https://www.grappletournament.com
Discord: https://discord.gg/A4fUKDC
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grapple_vr
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/GrappleTournament
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GrappleTournament
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/GrappleTournament/
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/GrappleTournament

Hey Survivalists!

Another patch to the experimental branch has just washed ashore!

Here's all of todays changes based on all of your amazing feedback!


Balancing and Quality of Life Changes

A change has been made to some default key bindings which may have an effect on the player's
custom keybings. We urge players to check their custom keybindings after updating.

Players can now also move to cancel crafting when using a Multi-tool. A long with last weeks bush collision removal, this is another largely requested anti-frustration feature a lot of the community has requested!

Boars Changes - We felt boars were a little too frustrating to fight against so we've tuned them in several areas:

• Increased the delay between their attacks.
  
• More warning is given for their pre-charge.
  
• Slightly reduced their movement speed.
  
• Damage radius and knockback decreased

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with one of the Labyrinth rooms being broken.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Quest privilege option was incorrectly labelled.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Mysterious Stranger's store where players were unable to sell a stack of items.
  
• Fixed various issues with the behaviour of Mysterious Chests in online sessions.
  
• Fixed an issue where Torches and Braziers were no longer animating.
  
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to rotate wooden chairs found in the wild.
  
• Fixed an issue where wolves were not putting distance between themselves and the player after attacking.
  
• Fixed an issue where the bloodmoon effect would appear a day before the world was replenished.

We hope you like these changes and look forward to hearing what you think about them!

If you don't have access to the Experimental Branch yet for The Survivalists and would like to try upcoming changes to the game you can do some by following the information below...


Warning on save data

If you access the Experimental Branch you risk your save data. We highly recommend backing up your save data before accessing it. Your save data default should be here:



You can just copy this to another folder for safe keeping.

Your current save will be compatible with the new Experimental Branch but likely you will not be able to go back to default with that save. The Experimental Branch will be kept up to date, so you could in theory just play the new branch going forwards. Also you will only be able to play online with other experimental branch players as the default will be incompatible.

Steps to enable Experimental Branch

First right click the game in your Steam Library and select Properties.



Then select the ‘Betas’ tab.



From here select Experimental from the dropdown list.



Once you next try to open The Survivalists on Steam you should automatically download the experimental branch!


Let us know all your thoughts and feedback in the ‘Experimental Branch Feedback’ section on the Steam forums and feel free to report any issues in the ‘Report Experimental Branch Problems’ area.

Thanks again for all your support and feedback so far, we can’t wait for everyone to try out all of the tweaks and new changes!

We'll keep everyone up to date here on Steam when all of the new changes roll onto the new branch and live.

For all the latest news check out these links:

The Survivalists Discord
The Survivalists Twitter
The Survivalists Facebook
Team 17 Twitter
Team 17 Facebook
Team 17 Discord

May your loot be plentiful and your monkeys well fed!

Hi there!

Today we’ve got some big news for you — we’ll be shortly releasing a free sandbox version of SuchArt named SuchArt: Creative Space!

Why does it deserve your attention? It has 3 rooms compared to the one in the demo (a studio itself, a delivery room and an empty room), a trash can, a new in-game shop with lots of tools, decorative items and furniture, new commissions, gifts and other great new stuff.

Moreover, there’ll be a surprise awaiting players in the game — we can’t tell you more about it yet, but trust us, it’s something you’ll like. And yeah, it’s a limited-time one, so you’d better not miss the first days after the release :3



Wishlist Creative Space in order not to miss the release (which is coming in the nearest future)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1469280/SuchArt_Creative_Space/

Stay tuned, and we’ll see you soon!

It has been almost a year since I published the Fireworks Mania Demo to Steam - and what a year!

Thousands of you downloaded the demo and I sense that a few of you enjoyed it too. Hundreds of videos have been published to YouTube already, so can't wait to see what you guys (and girls) will do when the game comes out.

All your videos and feedback, either here on Steam or in the Discord, have already shaped the game a lot - and I plan to be able to continue with that after the release.

Thank you for that - it's amazing seeing so many people having so much fun!



As you might know, if you have followed me for a while - I'm a solo developer, developing this game in my spare time, while having a wife, two kids, a full time day job and a dog.

That means that my time on the game is limited and I have to be as focused as possible with the time I have for the game.
Therefore I have decided to remove the Fireworks Mania Demo from Steam - as preparation for the release.

Yes, I know, some of you might get a little sad about this, but fear not, the real game will soon be out so you can get back to even more fireworks.

Fireworks Mania Demo will be removed from Steam on 1st of December 2020.



There you have it the official release date. As we have players from all over the world, it might be worth it putting a time on too.

17th of December 2020 at 17:00 GMT - Fireworks Mania will be released on Steam.

So, if you feel sad about the demo - it's only about 2 weeks - and then the fun can begin!

The price will be the Steam price point 9.99€ / 11.99$.

I really look forward to hear what you think about the game and see what you will do in it - keep sharing videos on YouTube and stream on Twitch - it's awesome!

That's all for now, I'm busy, got a game to do you know ;)

- Enjoy!

Hello everyone

I just finished translating to English. It may take a long time.
I hope you can enjoy this game in English too.

Enjoy.