As I have been promising for a long time, I've finally implemented full controller support for Subsistence. The support should cover all Xbox, PlayStation, Steam Deck, and generic controllers.

You will find the in-game controls section now broken down into two sections for mouse and keyboard and controller.

If a recognized controller is connected, you will see a diagram of the button mappings for your controller type.


To account for the finite buttons available on controllers, the control scheme is divided into three sets:

• In-Game
  
• Menu
  
• Driving

These sets will automatically switch based on what the player is doing in the game. You can view the various sets and their bindings by using the button in the bindings menu.

The button on the left allows you to flick through the various controllers you have connected.

While I recommend using the default bindings I have configured for each controller type, I understand it's important for players to have the freedom to configure their controllers as they please.

A button at the bottom-left of the controller screen will open up a bindings window, allowing the player to change any aspect of their control scheme.

I decided to use Steam Input as the basis for the controller support. This was due to Valve's broad support for different controller types, and for ongoing support leading into the future as new controller types enter the market. When rebinding controls in-game, the Steam overlay will popup to show the Steam Input binding menu.

These bindings will only apply to Subsistence, so will not affect your bindings for any other game in your library. This can also be done by clicking on the controller button in the Steam UI while viewing the Subsistence page in your games library.

Some players may have already setup a custom control scheme using Steam Input. In this case your custom layout may be selected by default. I strongly suggest switching to the official layout (even if you plan to change it). As the official layout provides many actions supported by the game that were previously not available.

To switch to the official layout (see above), click on the controller box on your Subsistence Steam page. Then click "Browse Community Layouts". Then under "Recommended" select the official layout and apply it.
Note: Most players will not have to do this and the official layout will be selected by default.

Previously many of the in-game prompts provided very small text explaining which key to press. Now I am using images (glyphs) for the specific key or button that is required with less text and at a larger font. This should help with accessibility and provide a cleaner UI.

Also when looking at dropped items, it now shows an image of the item with a count rather than lots of small text.

These glyphs have been implemented all over the UI when text was previously used.

Something I've been meaning to add for a long time; most buildables will now play out a build animation when they are placed or moved. I think this makes building more satisfying and immersive to see each piece placed individually.

The sound design will play different placement sounds depending on the material type. Each individual piece will shake independently as it fits into place.

I've implemented these animations purely through the vertex shader of the mesh materials. This means they are entirely animated through the GPU and put no extra load on the CPU, so are very efficient in terms of performance.

All wood, roofing and glass structures have had these animations added.

Previously, weapon ADS (aim down sights) sensitivity was exactly the same as normal look sensitivity. This meant as the player zoomed in with a weapon, the sensitivity would become very high and difficult to aim. This was particularly awkward with weapons with a higher zoom (such as the rifle and LAR).

Now weapons have a lowered sensitivity while aiming, making it much easier to target enemies. In addition, players can customize each weapon's ADS sensitivity to their own personal preference. In the controls menu there is an "advanced" section, with ADS sensitivity sliders for each weapon.

There is a red marker on each slider to indicate the default (recommended) setting.

• When the slider is at full, this means the ADS sensitivity will be the same are normal look sensitivity.
  
• When the slider is at the lowest, the ADS will be 10% of the normal look sensitivity.

These settings can be separately configured for mouse & keyboard and controller (by using the advanced section in each of the respective control menus).


I've completely rewritten the in-game controls menu UI. The code was old and becoming problematic. The new menu is cleaner, features glyphs for keys/button (rather than text), and has some nice smooth animations when navigating between sections.


Inventory items will now react as the player interacts with them, or as their state changes.

Clicking on, using or moving an item will play a subtle shake (as well as stacking an item). Also items will tilt as they are mouse-overed. The hope is to make the UI feel a little more responsive to the player.

This also means that as a player "Takes All" from a loot crate, it is a lot more obvious what was taken and where the items have been placed/stacked in their inventory, due to those items briefly animating.

There is now a button in the controls menu for resetting all keybinds back to their default values (including sensitivity sliders).

I've added some contextual action prompts (which show top right) while viewing the inventory.

As players mouse-over inventory items the prompts will hint at quick actions available for this item. This includes actions like shift-clicking to move item stacks or singles between inventories (which many players are not aware of).

Same as the with the inventory input prompts, I have also added in-game prompts, which show bottom right during gameplay.

These prompts will hint at things like switching ammo types (if you have more than one ammo type for the held weapon). Or toggling a weapon flashlight if the held weapon has one attached. Hopefully this helps makes playing the game a little more intuitive without referencing the controls menu or googling how something is done.

Now when scrolling through your toolbelt (using "next/prev toolbelt item" keys), all slots can now be selected. This mean buildables, medical, edible items, etc can be selected without needing to hit a number key. It always felt inconsistent to me that only weapons would select, and the selection would jump around.

When flicking through slots, a small blue marker will show above the slot briefly before selecting the item. This eliminates the glitchy, rapid weapon-equipping animations playing when scrolling through weapons.

Weapons and buildables will equip automatically. For other items (such as med-kits), players can press the "fire" key to use the item (or perform their primary action). An input prompt will show indicating the action that can be performed.

The new menu has a larger font, and is closer in-line with the game's UI design language.


Now when the player depletes their stamina, you will hear a breath sound. I also fixed the bug whereby the arms sprinting animation would continue after stamina depletion.


Now whenever the craft preview panel is open the player can hit a hotkey to craft the item without needing to mouse over and click on the craft button.

A small convenience, but useful if you can train yourself to use it (much like the "Take All" hotkey).

Many players have asked about Subsistence being supported on GeForce Now. GeForce Now is Nvidia's cloud gaming service that allows users to stream PC games on various devices without needing powerful local hardware.

I have always stated that once I have native controller support implemented I would explore this option. So just letting you know that I am actively looking into it, and I will keep you updated as progress continues.

• Claymores, Breaching Charges and BCU Crackers are now stackable.
  
• Fixed vehicle falling through the vehicle bay when recalling vehicle.
  
• Prevented canteens filled with dirty water being drank from when using the quick action hotkey (shift+left-click). This should prevent accidental infection.
  
• Fixed Garage Door not colliding with vehicle (missed bug in Alpha 63).
  
• Subtle camera animations will now play during the process of butchering animals.

Thanks so much to everyone that continues to support the game and its continued development. I truly appreciate all the discussions, gameplay, bug-reports and general support. It helps so much to continue to shape the game.

I know much of the community solely use mouse and keyboard, so are probably not interested in the controller support that comprised a bulk of this update. However it's important to broaden the accessibility of the game for players that either prefer or rely on using a controller. Being able to play on a big-screen TV from the comfort of a couch makes the game a more complete package for players.

Have a great weekend!
CG

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

X/Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas, MusicMan)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
Portuguese European (João C. H. Jorge)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

Based on many suggestions from the community I've added a selection of home furniture. These are primarily cosmetic enhancements for builders wanting to customize and decorate their bases.

Several new chair types have been added (the older sofa and armchair can still be crafted). I've also updated the build system to allow base items to be placed on top of rugs.

Like the previous bed, the new beds also serve as respawn points for players (respawns need to be purchased when accessing the beds).

Many of the furniture items come with storage space, although they do not offer as much capacity as the dedicated storage chests.


All of the trees in the game (other than those in the most recent map expansion) have been completely replaced. The world will look quite visually different from how it did before the update.

I created the old trees using an old version of SpeedTree. This was presenting issues for future plans I have for the game, as well as performance problems. There is now not a single SpeedTree in the game.

The new trees use a custom system which primarily relies on static meshes, and handles movement/wind/seasons purely through the material vertex and pixel shaders. This takes pressure off the CPU.

Most of the new trees are significantly more detailed than the old, and I've worked hard to keep the poly-count low, and the LOD and instancing system robust enough to handle rendering large open vistas.


The mining drill has been updated with the capability to target region-specific ore/minerals where it was placed.

Some of less common ore/minerals will take longer to extract (50% speed). The UI has been updated to display the new resources, and a label will highlight those that take longer to extract.

This change will reward players that invest in building mining outposts across the map. However they will need to consider power production and self-sufficiency at these outposts (as only the primary base with auto-generate power).
When switching resource types in the mining drill, the individual progress of each resource type will be stored so it can be resumed from the same progress point later. Moving a mining drill will reset it's mining progress for each ore type.

I've reduced the cost of all wooden building pieces, reducing the number of wood planks and nails required for each recipe.

This will reduce the grind for players focusing on building, and relieve some pressure on wood gathering to focus on further progression in the game.

I've implemented an all-new wind system to the games weather dynamics. Previously as wind speeds would pick up, foliage and trees movement would remain unchanged, with only audio and rain/snow particles simulating the wind effects.

With the new system trees, grass and all other foliage (including harvestable foliage) will respond accordingly. Seeing trees and foliage blow violently during a storm should greatly help immersion during gameplay.

Crafted from the BCU, the Furniture Workbench is now where players can craft all base furniture (including the old sofa and armchair) and decorative items (more will come in the future).

It must be placed within range of a BCU or range extender and has 12 slots of storage.

Coal now has a second use (other than being used for fuel for fires). It can now be refined in the Refinery to extract Coal Tar.

Many of the new furniture items require Wood Varnish to craft. Wood Varnish can be crafted at the Furniture Workbench using Coal Tar and Alcohol.


Health Kits are no longer an instant-effect item. Now, when using a health kit, the health gain will show as a gray bar on the health meter. It will then apply the health at a rate of 5 hit points per second until the bar is consumed.

Although the health will be applied very quickly, this change will prevent spamming/exploiting health-kits to overcome a combat situation and reward more considered strategies. It should also offer more fair balance on PVP servers.


Crafting base items now has an unlock tier system. As certain base items are crafted and placed in a base, it will unlock other crafting recipes.

This was intended since the very first release as a way to streamline the crafting progression. For seasoned players this will mostly be only cosmetic and not restrictive (other than some considerations when setting up outpost bases). For new players, base progression should be a little more clear.

Servers now have the option to protect bases of offline players. This option is enabled by default (unless disabled by the server host).

• Base items within range of a BCU or Range Extender will not take any damage when all of it's members are offline from the server.
  
• There is a 10 minute cooldown after the last base member logs off before the base protection takes effect.
  
• BCU Crackers and Breaching Charges cannot be used on a base while offline-protection is in effect for that base.

This means players do not have to worry about their bases being damaged/destroyed while they are offline. However they have to be mindful of the 10 minute cooldown, as logging off while your base is under attack does not give immediate protection (so this can't be exploited).

You can view whether this setting is enabled for any server via the in-game server browser:

Note: This will not protect abandoned bases from base decay (if the server has a base decay setting). Base decay allows for abandoned bases to decay and be cleaned up after a long period of it's base members not logging on to the server. This allows servers to maintain performance and run indefinitely without manual cleanup by admins (and is recommended for all server hosts).

Previously when animals or humans would die and ragdoll, their corpses would not react to any further projectile or melee impacts.

Now the corpses will react as they should, and can lead to some interesting ragdoll moments during gunfights.

As requested by many players, the cost of Solar and Windmills has been reduced (one less circuit board).


The number of planks, alloy sheets and crystal have all been reduced for this recipe.


I've smoothed out the geometry of the roof tiles while also reducing the poly-count for higher performance.


For players that had built huge structures in their profiles (or on servers with lots of large bases) players may have noticed ragdoll corpses that would fall through the world geometry. More concerningly this would also happen to vehicles, as they also use the same physics engine as ragdolls.

This was being caused by the physics-enabled world collision becoming too complex and overloading the physics engine. I've now updated the game to only "wake-up" the world collision in a radius around things that need it (only when they need it). This should have totally fixed the previously mentioned clipping issue, as well as drastically reduced pressure on the games physics engine for better performance.

To further increase performance at scale, I've gone through all of the building pieces and optimized (or completely replaced) the LOD's for each. This allows bases to render at much lower geometry when viewed from a far, without any noticeable decrease in detail.

Previously when standing up from sitting on a chair, the player would simply transition to standing in the same position. This resulted in the player being partially clipped into the chair and needing to jump out to free themselves. Now the game will look for an appropriate open space around the chair to unseat the player smoothly.

Just a small decorative item that can be crafted at the Furniture Workbench.

It will glow in the dark but does not require any base power. I hope to add more decorative items in the future.

All of the old bushes have been replaced with new ones. These all have collision so will make sounds as the humans/animals move through them.

Can be found in the Steam Item Store, which completes the Predator collection for the existing weapons. Thanks for the continued support! 🙏

• Windmill turning animation is now rendered using only the material renderer (rather than ticking a mesh). This leads to greater CPU performance when many windmills are rendered on screen.
  
• Fixed dropped kit beacon not showing if killed while driving a vehicle.
  
  
• Improved snow rendering on distant trees.
  
• Fixed bug where potato plants would render as white at a certain distance.
  
• Fixed health bars or plane debris not showing for clients of multiplayer games.
  
• Hunters will engage/fire at longer range when using rifles and the revolver.
  
• Hunters better trained at using the lever-action rifle.
  
• Fixed crash that would occur if an animal was killed by the resulting explosion of attacking a vehicle.
  
• Hunter AI updated to prevent/reduce them losing sights on the player when the player enters water.
  
• Fixed bug where it was not possible to open plane cargo crates if they were under a river surface. (Released in previous hotfix).
  
• Increased max health to garage door. You may notice existing garage doors (prior to Alpha 63) are below full health because of this change.
  
• Reduced cost of old sofa and arm-chair.

Note: Graphics settings will be reset to default after downloading the update, so please adjust as necessary when you first enter the game.

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

X/Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas, MusicMan)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
Portuguese European (João C. H. Jorge)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

Players will now experience random plane flybys during gameplay. On occasion these flights will crash-down somewhere in the world, providing players with incentive to venture out to discover the wreck and loot its cargo.

The intention with these events is to incentivize players to travel/explore further from their bases, and add more unpredictability to the moment-to-moment gameplay. This also adds more value and utility to vehicles.

The pilots will dynamically toggle the plane lights during day/night transitions, and the drone of the engines will alert players to incoming aircraft.

Starting a new game will now begin with a drop-off plane leaving the player location (hoping to give a sense of isolation and the situation at hand).

Flight paths are procedurally handled and unique for every flight. Planes will enter the play space and attempt extensive flybys of the playable area before exiting and flying out into the wilderness.

During their flights they are coded to dynamically traverse the landscape geometry, so will fly over mountains, down into valleys, avoid peaks, etc.


On occasion flights will go down and crash, creating a huge fiery explosion and sending vibrations and echoes of the impact across the map.

Players will be able to observe crash sites by their burning debris fields and a column of smoke from the burning fuel. If enough shroud on the map has been uncovered, the flames from the crash will be visible from the map view.

Crash sites (and its cargo) will be defended by it's pilots. These guys are packing lever-action rifles and .44 revolvers, so they can deal a lot of damage and will not be friendly to players trying to scavenge their wreck site.

They are armored and can be identified by their white pilot helmets. It is possible for players to find a pilot helmet, however it is extremely rare (similar to the deep-cave miner gas masks).


During crashes, aircraft cargo crates will spill out among the wreck. These cargo crates are sealed with metal straps, so will need to be broken open to access their loot.

The debris from the wreck is also of value to players. Almost all parts of the wreck can be broken down to yield scrap metal. This will cause usage damage to your tools over time.


This is a fairly large change, and is another move to encourage travel and exploration during gameplay. The world is now broken down into separate regions, which can be viewed from the map view.

Each region has a different weighting for the ores/minerals that are available within them. Some regions may have an abundance of one type of ore, yet little to none of another.

Vehicles now become more valuable, as a means of travel to regions with a required resource within daylight hours. Or more careful planning of routes while on-foot is required to secure needed resources.

While in the map view, scrolling over a region will show the weights of the resources available within it.

Regions Toggle: If the region boundary lines are distracting, they can be toggled on/off using the checkbox on the right-side of the map view.

Currently regions only control distribution of ore/minerals, although I see potential to expand this in the future to wildlife and vegetation. It's a tricky balance, so I appreciate feedback on the current balance and suggestions for the future.

The old individual fiber and medicinal plants have been completely replaced by large modular bushes. They are now way more abundant and easier to spot.

The purpose of this is to make the natural environment more dense with interactable foliage (rather than just static bushes).

Fiber: Increase of around 700%.
Medicinal: Increase of around 400%.

Due to the large increase, recipes that use these materials have been increased for balance, but overall players should have a more abundant supply.

The new bushes all use destruction physics, so players can see bushes snap and break down as they harvest. I'm hoping this will make for a more satisfying experience while gathering.


Found in the BCU crafting menu, the electrical bench can now be crafted.

This bench now handles the various crafting options for electrical items.


Some of the existing electrical items have been moved from the workbench crafting menu, as well as new added items that can now be crafted.


Crafted at the electrical bench using refined lithium and pearls, capacitors are used to craft circuit boards (and will likely be used for more in the future).


Also crafted at the electrical bench using refined silicon and obsidian, semiconductors are required to craft circuit boards (with more uses likely coming in the future).


3 new ore/mineral types have been introduced. These resources use the new regions system for their location in the world and typically will not be found together or adjacent to one another.



The distribution and balance for the new resource types may need some tweaking, so I welcome feedback regarding this.

I've made a significant change to the graphics color grading of the game. Color saturation and contrast depth have all been boosted. The result is a much more colorful presentation, with sharper outlines and deeper blacks.


Picking up all items now plays a first person hand-grabbing animation. This is to increase immersion while playing.

The animations have been blended in for all weapons and tools, so you do not need to unequip your weapon.

I noticed that hunters were often crowding a single piece of cover, leading to some predictable patterns during combat. They are now aware of the positions of their squad-mates and will seek independent cover.

This means they are better able to flank a player's position and create more dynamic encounters.

Also fixed the bug where hunters would get stuck on buildables while swimming and not move or react to the player.

Also fixed hunters not responding to their squad-mate being killed by a single headshot.

Both the pump action and double barrel have had their spread tightened. This makes them more powerful at midrange. It's now not as necessary to wait for enemies to get to point blank range to deal max damage.

This does mean that the hunters also benefit from this change, so be careful when you hear that pump or double barrel cocking while in combat.

Note: The double barrel still has a slightly tighter spread than the pump action (making it more effective at mid range to the pump action).

Previously the game did not remember harvested plants/scrap between saves. So reloading a save would result in 100% respawn of foliage and scrap. Now the game remembers.

In addition to this, the regrowth/respawn rate has been slowed (and can take around 3 in-game days to replenish an area of resources). This means players will be rewarded with denser resources if they travel further afield. Staying in one location all the time will mean fewer/slower resources. This is another move to encourage and reward travel and exploration.

Fixed the garage fob (vehicle upgrade) so that it will now open/close the closest garage door to the vehicle when the button is pressed. Previously it would engage a random door within a radius of the vehicle.


Almost all boost packs have had a significant increase to their effect duration, making them a lot more useful.

• Strength Boost (Increases physical strength for a period of time. Allows resources to be harvested at a faster rate and increases damage dealt by melee weapons). Increased from 3 mins to 6 mins.
  
• Adrenaline Boost (provides unlimited stamina for a period of time). Increased from 3 mins to 6 mins.
  
• Heat Pack (Provides a short period of warmth). Increased from 2 mins to 3 mins.

New skins are available on the Subsistence Steam Item Store. Thank you for further supporting the continued development. 🙏

Pump Action Shotgun Predator Skin: Item Store Page

Rifle Predator Skin: Item Store Page

Pistol Predator Skin: Item Store Page

Combat Helmet Snow Camo Skin: Item Store Page

Skins on the Steam Store can also be accessed from within the game by clicking on the weapon in your inventory.

• Optimized save game logic. Save files now are faster and use around half the file size.
  
• Fiber stack count increased to 1000.
  
• Medicinal stack count increased to 500.
  
• Added shadow casting for destroyed buildable fracture pieces and destroyed ore nodes.
  
• Prevented bushes and foliage from blocking AI navigation calculations and pathing.
  
• Fixed rare bug where players would get stuck on "Initializing World..." screen when loading a profile.
  
• Added better handling to ensure loot, hunters and hunter bases can not spawn outside of the fence-line.
  
• Fix bug where the player camera would still move while in the menu if entering the menu while transitioning out of the map view.
  
• Reduced the requirement count for circuit board for several craft and upgrade recipes.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas and New Year holiday! 🙏
CG

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas, MusicMan)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
Portuguese European (João C. H. Jorge)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

Players can now craft Water Tanks to store and distribute water within their bases. Water tanks are crafted from the BCU and must be placed within a BCU radius in order to provide power for the pumps.



The Water Tank has two connections located at the bottom of the unit. One for water inflow and one for outflow. Your water pipe networks must connect to these in order to move water in and out of the tank.

The Water Tank hud will show indicators for whether pipes are connected to it's inflow and outflow, and whether the connected inflow pipes reach a water source.

Once the inflow connector is connected to a water source, the inflow pump can be toggled within the Water Tank hud. The pump will draw water in and fill the tank, while consuming a small amount of power while it is operational.

While connected base items are consuming water from the tank, the tank outflow pump will be activated, which consumes power. The more items that are consuming water from the tank, the more power the pump will use.

The Water Tank has it's own crafting menu where players can craft the various parts required to install irrigation systems.

Crafted from the Water Tank crafting menu, Intake Pipes need to be placed within a water source (river or lake) so that water can be pumped from the source.

Pipes can then be attached and eventually connected to the inflow connection of a Water Tank.


Water Pipes can be crafting within the Water Tank crafting menu. They can only be placed connecting to an intake, a water tank connection or other water pipes.

Pipes have a maximum length which is enforced while placing the pipe. When connecting pipes, you need to connect to the valve handle on either end of the connecting pipe.

When moving a pipe in the network, you can either move the head or tail of the pipe. The connected pipes will move with the moving pipe, allowing you to neatly adjust pipe networks with your base.

You can visibly see when a pipe is connected to a water source based on the color of the valve handle on the head and tail of the pipe (blue/red). Pipes will also glow blue/red when looking closely at them to indicate water flow. So it will be obvious when a disconnection has occurred in your pipe networks.


Each tank comes with a faucet to directly access the water without the need for pumps.

Within the Water Tank hud, there is a tab for accessing the faucet. There are options for filling one or all canteens, as well as washing hands.

Water from the tank is not treated, so still requires boiling prior to drinking (water treatment is a possibility for future upgrades).

Plant Bed Sprinklers can now be crafted within the Water Tank crafting menu. They can be attached to plant beds via the plant bed upgrade menu. Once upgraded, a "sprinkler" tab will appear in the plant bed hud.

Once attached (upgraded), the sprinkler has a water intake connection, which water pipes can be attached to. The pipes need to be connected to the outflow of a water tank.

So long as the connected tank has water available, the sprinklers can be activated and will slowly hydrate the plantbed. While sprinkling, the connected water tank outflow pump will be running, consuming a small amount of power. The sprinklers will automatically shut-off once the bed is full.


Players can setup their sprinkler systems to run automatically. By enabling the "automation" checkbox within the plant bed sprinkler hud, the sprinklers will automatically turn on once the plant bed water level drops below 40%. However, having automation enabled will consume 10% more power for that plant bed at the water tank pump.

The sprinkler hud also shows an indicator for whether the plant bed is currently connected to a pipe network that has water available.

I've finally implemented Steam achievements after many requests from players. Achievements are independent of any particular profile, so you can work to complete them across multiple profiles. They are also independent from the profile stats currently tracking and viewable in-game while playing any profile.

The current (46) achievements are a starting point, and I certainly plan to add more in the future. I'd love to hear suggestions from players on interesting ideas for new achievements.

Kill 10/25/60 wolf by any means.

Kill 10/25/60 bear by any means.

Kill 5/15/30 cougar by any means.

Kill 5/15/30 deer by any means.

Kill 5/15/30 moose by any means.

Harvest 100 logs.

Harvest 100 fiber.

Build a BCU (Base Command Unit).

Kill a deer with a headshot using the bow (recurve or standard bow with any arrow type).

Achieve 100 large-game or human kills with each main weapon (individual achievement for each weapon).

Unlock 10 locked crates with a lockpick.

Cure an infection with an antidote.

Consume 5 high-end roast meals.

Reach maximum health and stamina stats (health and stamina achieved separately).

Scuba dive to discover the underground cave system.

Find and harvest a beehive (found during the summer months).

Kill two hunters with a single hand grenade blast.

Rock climb down into the deep lava caves.

Catch 10 of each large fish type (Pike, Catfish, Salmon, Bass). Achievements are separate for each fish type.

Catch 10 fish or any type while ice fishing.

Steal some pristine eagle feathers from an eagle nest.

Fly 500 meters using the hang glider.

Use a breaching charge to break into a hunter fortress.

Use a BCU Cracker to destroy a hunter BCU.

Craft an ATV at the vehicle construction bay.


As promised for a long time, players can now monitor the real-time resource usage within their base. This is useful for isolating what may be causing a power outage, viewing total solar/wind production, etc.

Within the BCU hud, there is a new "Base Resource Stats" tab. This lists all base items and their power/mass usage. The list can be sorted in ascending/descending order based on power or mass usage.

A pretty big change to how players can now craft. While accessing any storage item (storage chests/loot crates/player kits/base items, etc) the crafting menu will now use items from the storage (in addition to the player inventory) to craft items.

This means players are less required to keep moving items back and forth in order to craft.

Weapons always felt a bit flat due to just a simple head-bob while firing. I've implemented new recoil and subtle camera animations for weapon firing, based on their power and kick. I think it feels way better.

I think in the future I also want to add weapon hover while aiming. With stocks and upgrades to stabilize the aim, as well as crouching impacting weapon stability. Stay tuned.

Requested countless times from players. By holding the "R" key (or whatever you have bound for "Reload Weapon"), you can now "Take All" from a loot crate rather than having to mouseover to the button in the hud. The action takes half a second while holding the button. You will see a bar charge-up over the button.

Releasing the key after the quick action will automatically close the inventory.


As per player requests, I've added a distance reading to the hud markers for BCUs and dropped-kits, which should make it easier to identify/differentiate between them, and judge travel-time. The distance is measured in meters.

I've also added a countdown timer for dropped-kits, so players will know exactly how long they have to reach it. The reading will show as blue, then as orange once the timer slips below 5 minutes, then red as it dips below 1 minute.

It is now possible to fill all canteens within your inventory through the quick-menu on any one canteen.

This should be a nice QOL improvement when trying to manage lots of canteens at a time.

Finally, building-piece buildables can now stack! This has been requested for a long time and should make life a lot easier managing inventory space while building.


The Revolver now has a new ammo type found within the default player crafting menu. The incendiary rounds are the same price as the default, just with the addition of phosphorous. They will deal the same initial damage, but will set their target on fire dealing extra damage over time.


Metals pipes are a new item that can be crafted at the work bench and used for various crafting recipes.


*Please skip if not interested in technicals.
Easily the largest task I worked on this sprint, although difficult to hype-up due to being a backend feature.

The Subsistence codebase has countless (game related) micro-systems running code during gameplay. Usually performing jobs based on timers, events, or every frame. Some tasks are small and lightweight, and others can be much larger.

As the game has grown in size and complexity over the years, smoothly handling job execution has become challenging from a development standpoint. Systems perform tasks (run code) whenever needed, sometimes running larger tasks at the same time as others, causing "spiky" execution. I'd always mitigated this by staggering larger jobs over several frames, but this needed a proper solution.

The new system calculating water-flow through water pipe networks was the final straw to convince me to implement a scalable fix. This is because each time a water pipe is added/moved/removed, the flow of water through the pipes needs recalculating. And as there is no limit to the scale of pipe networks players can build, this job was yet another (potentially) large job that could trigger.. whenever.

Solution:
I've implemented a job queue manager for organizing and handling various jobs (code execution) during gameplay. Systems can now asynchronously request to run a job, the manager will add the request to a queue, order them based on various priorities, and then process the queue one by one (or in batches), telling the requestor/s when it is their time.

This has dramatically simplified development, brought order to chaos, and will allow me to continue scaling the game while maintaining performance.

There has always been a lot of world initialization code running in the early stage of the game. This is doing things like initializing custom LOD handling, collision, world-decorations, foliage culling, AI spawns, etc. Previously I would allows this to run after entering the game world, which would take around 20 seconds. Players may have noticed awkward popping-in and poor performance during this time as the world configured itself. It always bothered me.

Since I now have a stable job queue, I am throwing all this work to be processed immediately, before the player is dropped in the world. It runs way faster and as I don't have to run it while rendering and means the world is fully initialized the moment the player is given control. You will just see a very brief "Initializing World" screen before entering the world.

While viewing your inventory, a button will now show on the far right, showing the current progress of the in-game Steam achievements.

Clicking on the button will open the Steam overlay to show all achievements and the current progress against each one.

Previously the selected ammo type for weapons would only briefly show when switching types, or while the inventory was open, making it confusing to tell which ammo type you were using. Now the equipped weapon will always show it's current ammo type (all other toolbelt weapons will still show their ammo type while viewing the inventory).


Some new skins are available in the Steam item store. The new double shotgun predator skin be viewed here. Thank you to everyone for supporting the game through the cosmetic store. 🙏



Can be viewed in the item store.



Can be viewed in the item store.



Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
Portuguese European (João C. H. Jorge)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

The Vehicle Construction Bay (VCB) can now be crafted in the BCU. This placeable unit is used to construct, maintain, upgrade and manage vehicles. It must be placed within range of a BCU or Range Extender to provide power.


There is currently one vehicle type that can be constructed (the ATV). Players must construct the vehicle in stages, with each stage requiring the previous stage be complete before continuing to the next.

Unlike many other powered crafting items, vehicle stages require no upfront power cost, but instead will consume power throughout each construction stage.

A minimum of 500 power is required for constructing. If power levels drop below 500, it will pause. Construction can be resumed by clicking on the current stage and a resume button will show. In addition; construction can be manually paused at any time using the same process.

The dimentions of the VCB is 2x foundation widths by 1.5x, and can be snapped to existing building pieces.

The ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) provides players with a fast means of transport to traverse the world. As well as providing a 20-slot onboard storage capacity.

It runs on "vehicle fuel" (a new item, see below), and has onboard battery power which is required for engine ignition and headlights. When mounting the vehicle, a driving hud will show top right, giving stats on speed, fuel, battery etc.

There are 3 interactable areas: The engine (at the front), where the player can refuel and jump-start the battery. The driving section (center). And the trunk, where players can access the onboard storage.

The vehicle is designed for travel, rather than combat. So while it is possible to ram players/hunters/animals, this will ultimately build-up damage on the vehicle. As too will impacts with world geometry, so be mindful of your speed and routes.
Players are given the option for driving in 3rd and first person.

You can toggle between the two using the existing "Cycle Camera" key which driving (which is rebindable). The game will remember your choice, so you don't have to keep resetting it.
I opted against an automatic transmission as I feel having it manual creates a more satisfying control mechanic, as well as a higher skill ceiling for traversing terrain effectively and efficiently.

The gears can be shifted using the mouse wheel (or whatever you have bound to next/previous weapon).
The battery will slowly charge over-time based on the speed of the wheels spinning, so sitting idle with the engine running will not produce a charge. If the battery runs dead, you will not be able to fire-up the engine.

The headlights can be operated using the "L" key while driving (or whatever you have bound to your "Toggle Flashlight" key).

I added some subtle lens flares and ambient illumination on the hood and bumpers, which I think looks pretty nice.
Having a high-speed impact will cause the player to be thrown from the vehicle in ragdoll. They will stand back up after a moment and regain control, but this could result in a dangerous situation, so drive carefully.
Only applicable for co-op and dedicated servers, here is how vehicle access is handled: The core ownership of a vehicle is traced back to the player who placed the BCU, which powered the VCB which constructed the vehicle. Thus, any player who shares a base membership with that player will have access to drive the vehicle and access it's inventory and engine.

A new ore is required to build key items for vehicle construction. However players will need to venture into the lava caves to find these new nodes.

Mined with the pickaxe (or axe), the nodes will yield Black Crystal Ore. The ore must be refined in the refinery to produce pure Black Crystal, ready for crafting.

Climbing axes are required to descend down into (and return from) the lava caves.


These new parts are required for vehicle construction and can be crafted at the lathe.

They are also required for vehicle repairs. They can take some time to craft, so best to queue them up and let the lathe do its thing.


Another new item required for vehicle construction. These allow me to balance the yields of standard crystal with late game crafting. Some recipe reshuffling is little overdue at this point.


The VCB will automatically "dock" a vehicle if a player exits the vehicle while it is on the VCB. It will rotate the vehicle to face forward and raise it on the bay feet. Once docked, menus will open up in the VCB terminal to be able to repair/rename/upgrade the vehicle. When you start to drive the vehicle, it will automatically undock.

There may be times when your vehicle becomes disabled out in the field. Either due to taking too much damage, getting plunged into a lake, etc. Within the VCB terminal, under the "All Vehicles" tab, you can view a list of all vehicles you have access to, showing their name, health, skin, distance. Players have the option to recall (teleport back to base) any vehicle, at the cost of power.

The further the vehicle from the VCB, the higher the power cost (although there is a floor and ceiling to this cost). Recalling a vehicle will dock it at the VCB that recalled it.

This mechanical door is intended for use with the VCB (it is 1.5x foundation width), although it can be snapped to any foundation or ceiling. It does not require power to operate and can be crafted at the lathe.


Similar in dimensions to foundation stairs, although is measured to fit the VCB (1.5x foundation width).

Allows for smoothly entering and exiting your base garage.

While a vehicle is docked, in the VCB terminal, under the "Docked Vehicle" tab, there is a sub tab for "Upgrades". Currently there is only one; the Garage Door Fob.

This upgrade can be crafted/attached to an ATV. Once attached, an additional icon will show in the driving hud, and players can use this to remotely open/close the nearest garage door while driving.


I worked hard to add visual detail to the damage stages of the vehicle. The paint and components will take visual dents and burn marks.

I'm using morphing to bend and misshape the geometry of parts of the vehicle as it takes continued damage.

When damage is becoming excessive, the engine will start to hiss and smoke, and eventually catch fire, and ultimately explode once health reaches zero. Once exploded, the tires will also be blown off.

To repair a vehicle it must be docked at a VCB. Either by driving it on, or recalling it (if fully disabled). Within the VCB terminal, under the "Docked Vehicle" tab, there is sub tab for "Vehicle Condition". This will show the vehicle state and the items required to make repairs.

The repair process will consume power throughout the process. If tires are missing, they will automatically be reattached. The vehicle becomes drivable again so long as at least one tire is attached (although missing tires greatly affect handling).

Please note that vehicles are never actually destroyed, simply burnt-out and disabled, and recoverable with repair.

Crafted at the workbench, this new item is required for both vehicle construction and to craft a vehicle jump kit.


If a vehicle runs out of power, the engine will not start. It is required that the player uses a vehicle jump kit, by accessing the vehicle engine hud, and placing the jump kit in the slot provided.

It will provide a minimum charge to start the engine, and the vehicle can charge the remaining % through use. The jump kit will be returned to player, and will need to be recharged using batteries.

In the VCB terminal, under the "Docked Vehicle" tab, there is a sub tab for "Vehicle Paint".

This allows players to switch between the various cosmetics they may own on their Steam account.

Crafted at the workbench. Players can add fuel by accessing the vehicle engine hud, and placing the fuel in the slot provided.

Any excess fuel after the engine it full will be returned to the player (so no need to split).

You may notice there is a section for vehicle attachments under the "Docked Vehicle" tab in the VCB terminal. This is for future features. These are not promises, but would be things such as a passenger seat, mower, trailer.

Providing that you (or one of your teammates) owns a vehicle, you will always be able to see an icon for it on the map, so no need to worry about forgetting where you parked.


I've heavily nerfed the decay rate of bait in traps, so trapping is far less penalized.


Eggs laid by chickens in the animal housing will now last much longer when left in the housing.


So players who have built over loud waterfalls or rivers will now have a more immersive and peaceful experience while inside their base.


As the map has grown a lot, hunters will now build their bases further from player bases. When starting playing the update on existing profiles, they will be reset and start building again from scratch.

I've implemented new UI dropdown menus. These have a larger font, will resize to the textual content, have clearer selections, and have a subtle animation. Much nicer imo.


Some players may have noticed a very annoying subtle shaking of the weapon when raised up to up to aim-down-sights. This was due to the independent FOV scaling between the weapon/arms mesh and world view fighting each other. It is now fixed, so the weapon holds smoothly once raised.

If your server has PVP damage disabled, then players will not be able to inflict damage to vehicles (unless for driving collisions).

Vehicles can be very costly on server performance if left unchecked. Because of this I've implemented a system to temporarily remove vehicles from the world if it's owners are all offline, and then lazy-load and restore them when it's owners log back in. This will prevent servers from degrading over time as abandoned vehicles build up over months/years. It's important to me that servers should be able to run indefinitely without a forced wipe.

The store size for dormant vehicles is currently set to 150. With the longest-dormant vehicle being removed if the cap is reached (likely at that point that the owned stopped playing on that server a long time ago).

Type "help" in console to list available commands.


Some new cosmetics added for clothing items: Combat Helmet Woodland Camo, Shirt Blue Plaid, Heavy Duty Pants Woodland and Snow Camo. Thanks again to anyone supporting the game through the cosmetics system 🙏

Skins can be found on the Subsistence Steam Store.


Lever Action Rifle Nickel Plated & Black Stripes, Recurve Bow Black Camo, ATV Woodland and Snow Camo.

• Fixed craft queue sometimes not showing for clients when accessing an external crafting station (like BCU, workbench, lathe, etc).
  
• Fixed bleeding icon sometimes not disappearing for clients of network games, after bleeding had stopped (finally..).
  
• Using jarred food to feed animals in the animal housing will now return the empty jar.
  
• Weapon/clothing/vehicle cosmetics (skins) can now be accessed in the Steam Store from within the game. Mousing over the skin icon will show a button to open the skin in the Steam Store. If purchased, the game will update your ownership (without having to close and reopen the game).
  
  
• Rotating buildables now allows for 8 points of rotation (rather than 4).
  
• Fixed exploit that allowed players on servers to name their base to be an empty string to hide the hud icon from other players when they were in range.
  
• Fixed bug where weapons and clothing would repair if save was made and loaded while on less than 1% health.
  
• Fixed hunter base placements sometimes building partially through the ground, causing outside ground clipping through the ground floor.
  
• Fixed lakes still having collision for ragdolling animals and humans after the lake had thawed from frozen.
  
• Fixed BCU not showing as being accessed when another player is using it for clients of network games.
  
• Fixed small animals not showing injured animation and sounds when injured (previously they always showed as dead).
  
• Allowed max health and stamina progress bars to fill an extra bar after reaching the max of 125. This prevents the hud notice showing too frequently each time we eat after dropping slightly from max.
  
  
• Fixed freecam sometimes not teleporting to desired/correct location for server admins.

4k image of Alpha 60 title art (for creators): LINK

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

A quick sneak peak at the upcoming Alpha 60 update 👀

https://youtu.be/bHem8wwcglo

Alpha 59 brings a large expansion to the western side of the map, opening up access to a large new lake, streams, ponds, waterfalls, forested regions and beachfront.

It is important the world continues to scale in size, as I want long-haul travel and exploration to play a role leading into future features and development.





Here's a link for a full 4k image of the world map.
I've implemented a new system for trees, moving away from the native SpeedTree libraries available in the engine.

They support wind simulation via vertex animation (with no skeletal meshes), seasonal changes, large-scale instance meshing, etc. They are still a work in progress, but are performant and give me much more control over the code rather than working around a black-box feature set.

The new area is mostly populated with new tree species using the new code. Eventually I hope to transition the old trees on the rest of the map as I introduce more species.










As with the prior South-East expansion, the new area adds a lot more underwater space (including deep water). However there is currently no cave access from the Western lake (yet). This will certainly come in the future.


In the new area I'm using some new techniques to blend rocky ground detail into the landscape geometry.

This does increase the polygonal complexity to the scene rendering, but I'm using some aggressive LOD and lighting transitions to maintain high performance.

The new geometry caused problems with the AI pathing systems, so needed to be updated to accommodate.
There are now triangle variants of foundations and ceilings. They are equilateral in dimension (with each side being the width of a full wall). So 60° at each corner, meaning 6 would complete a circle.

I think these new pieces will open up a lot of new creativity for base designs, so I'm curious to see what players will create!



As hinted at previously, fruit and veg will now perish overtime. This may be controversial, but was necessary and well overdue.

How the system works:

• Items will perish one at a time from a stack.
  
• Splitting the stack would result in both stacks continuing from the same perish state.
  
• Adding an item (or stack) to a stack will result in the stack acquiring whichever had the lower perish state.

In addition, when a stack is at a low count, it will take longer to perish (an example shown above). I think this is an appropriate way to balance/decrease the penalty of food perishing while looting, while still maintaining the necessity for preservation methods when at larger scales of production.

Meats and cooked meals still don't show meters. This is because they still maintain independent perish times for every item in a stack. So I would have to either think of a way to present up to 10 perish times for a single item in the inventory, or switch them over to use the same logic as fruit/veg.

To assist in food preservation, players can now prepare Vegetable Chutney in the oven. The recipe requires a boiling pan. Chutney does not require refrigeration and can be kept indefinitely.


The glass jar is returned when eating the Chutney, so each jar only needs to be crafted once.

Due to expanded world space, player dropped kits will now last for 14 minutes on normal (previously 10 mins) and 20 minutes on easy (previously 15 minutes). On hardcore there are no dropped kits (unless on dedicated servers whereby there is a 2 minute timer).


I've increased the dynamic shadow casting by around 3x. This gives much greater depth to the scene presentation, especially in densely forested areas:


For players that wish to further support the game, some new skins have been added to game's Steam Store Page.




Thanks so much to Pewtsku and J4ntteri for providing the translation :)

• Increased FOV to 100 (previously 95). I will add ability to customize this in the future.
  
• Added culling for distant landscape, reducing a lot of draw calls (better FPS performance).
  
• Increased number of beehives during the summer months.
  
• Greatly reduced noticeable texture seams for snowy terrain on the landscape.
  
• Attempted to resolve reported bug of river sounds cutting out audio.
  
• Changed campfire repair recipe to only require sticks.
  
• Fixed compass showing during loading screen.

If you missed the previous minor-update post, please checkout the new game trailer:
https://youtu.be/-Dx5qabDXdI

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)
Finnish (Pewtsku and J4ntteri)

I just posted an updated trailer for the game. Please check it out 👀



The old trailer was showing it's age and didn't represent the game in it's current state, so this was overdue.

Cheers!
CG

A new animal now flies the skies in the world. Eagles will nest in the high mountainous rocky areas. They will regularly leave their nest to scout the landscape to catch prey. They will fish in the lakes (for all fish types) and also hunt small game (rabbits and chickens).

While they don't generally pose a threat to players, they are opportunistic predators and will snatch a hooked fish or small game kill from players. So keep an eye on the skies while hunting/fishing.

Shooting an Eagle while it is clutching prey will cause it to drop it, allowing the player to trace it down and steal the catch for themselves.

Eagle nests can be found high up on rock formations in mountainous regions.

Usually too high and out of reach, players should use their climbing axes to scale the rockface to gain access to nests.

Looting an nest will yield Pristine Eagle Feathers. You can loot the nest while still attached to the rockface, just get close enough, look an the feather and press the use key.

Eagles will become aggressive if they spot you tampering with their nests, so be careful. Note: Killing an eagle will damage it's feathers, so looting from its nest it the only way to acquire the pristine features. Eagle kills are also now tracked in player stats.


Players can now craft Hang Gliders from the workbench. To use the Hang Glider, it must be placed on the toolbelt and equipt like any tool or weapon. When the player begins to fall, the glider will auto-deploy.

The glider will take slow usage damage over time, so keep your eye on it's health so it doesn't break during a flight. It requires Pristine Eagle Feathers to craft (and maintain), so players will need to loot some nests.

Fliers need to careful! Gliding is a dangerous sport, and the glider will not auto-correct to protect the pilot from a perilous crash. I've tried my best to simulate piloting physics, so pitching down hard will cause rapid acceleration while pitching up will trade velocity for upward lift.

While gliding, players can freely move their head around to enjoy the views, while using the keyboard movement keys to control the glider.

Be mindful of your speed while coming in for a landing. Use careful pitching to control a slow enough speed to ensure a soft touchdown.

Note: It's currently not possible to exploit flying onto exposed hunter bases. The way I've implemented this may seem crude, but eventually I hope to add more natural means of defense from flying raids.

I've added several new hunter base designs of all size varieties.

The new designs take advantage of several new building pieces and base items previously unavailable.

I've also added a system that tracks which bases get destroyed by players, so replacement hunter squads can alternate through the different designs to keep things changing-up.



*This was the largest piece I worked on this sprint*. I've always been aware that when the game world was very densely populated, the CPU would bottleneck performance. This was particularly noticeable for dedicated servers with 10's of thousands of buildables placed, and multiple concurrent players connected.

This would sometimes push the server tick rate down into single digits, and result in extremely delayed response times for clients, high pings (due to the server getting backup-up) and AI teleporting erratically with their movement.

The cause of this was the sheer volume of actors (things in the world) trying to tick (run code) every frame, when the vast majority (over 95%) very rarely needed to update, if ever. I've made some sweeping changes to put almost all actors to "sleep", and wake them only on certain events, rather than each frame.

The impact is huge, as can be seen in these comparison stats, which shows CPU load on a server (at ~75% build capacity) with 4 concurrent players on each. What was previously pinned and constantly running below target tick rate, now sits comfortable with plenty of headroom.

Performance and scaling has always been a top priority. This type of work is hard to express in player-facing patch notes as it doesn't relate to specific features, but I think it's important to mention details when it is such a huge part of the development process.

The mountain rock formations have had their geometric complexity increased greatly, while preserving a the performant low poly collision meshes.


With the new CPU performance boosts, I've greatly increased the build cap for co-op and dedicated servers.

I'm implemented a web server into the dedicated server build. This allows for your server to receive remote calls via HTTP, allowing admins to query and trigger events on their server remotely (not needing to be logged in as a player).

An example use of the API would be to post an in-game alert notifying that the server will shortly be resetting, so players aren't caught off-guard during a reset.

Currently the API only has a couple of endpoints, but now it is implemented, provides me a platform to expand it's functionality moving forward.
Documentation on how to configure and use the API (with examples) is outlined in this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2601952438

Animal bodies will now physically react to the butchering process, jolting and pulling with the movement of the axe.


A highly requested fix from players for a long time. Thanks for your patience.

Also fixed the the animal models blurring for a period of time after they would ragdoll on death.

Domesticated animals will no longer die when all base members log off from a dedicated server. They will cease to feed and level up (and will continue when a base member rejoins).

In addition, bases will cease to consume or produce power, mining drills, generators, fabricators will cease to operate. Plants will also not grow. Fridges will remain active but use no power (so your food will be safe).

Once one of the base members logs back on, all items will function again.

This new piece should add some more variety to base designs.


Tossing a fish from your inventory will now render the proper fish model flapping on the ground.


It's now possible to craft a Christmas tree from the workbench.

The trees must be placed within your base build sphere as they have functioning lights that run off base power.

The option to craft these festive trees runs between Nov 1st and Dec 31st each year (based on your system clock).

I've added various cosmetics for weapons, clothing and items, and integrated with the Steam inventory service. These skins are purely cosmetic and do not affect any actual content or in-game stats. They are intended for players who wish to further support the game's development.


The skins can be found on the game's Item Store on Steam.


To apply a skin in-game, left click on the inventory item and the available skins will show as icons in the item's details box. They can be switched back and forth at any time.


It was not obvious to new players that this mechanic existed.


I think this helps awareness for new players who may otherwise not seek to explore the depths of the lakes.

• Firearm handling sounds have been increased in volume and expanded. Now as the player breaks into a sprint and draws the weapon in/out, sounds will play accordingly. I think makes the weapons feel more weighty and immersive.
  
• Passwords will now save when joining servers, and be auto-populated when rejoining from the server list.
  
• Fixed incorrect curved window snapping location.
  
  
• Fixed scrollbars in all menus not scaling correctly to the length of the content within the scrollable window.
  
• The full alpha version will now show top left while in the menu (previous the decimals were omitted).
  
  
• If trying to join a server running a different version, the error message will now detail the exact version differences (rather than a generic error).
  
  
• Fixed bug where flashlight would continue to drain its battery if removed from a weapon while turned on.
  
• Passwords for previously joined servers will now save (so you don't have to re-enter each time you join). Unfortunately still not for co-op games.
  
• Fixed bug where movement controls could still remain active while in map view.
  
• Replaced unfocalized loading screen with simple loading icon instead.
  
• Fixed audio bug where fire/generator/cooking/etc sounds would not play in heavily populated worlds.
  
• Fixed bug where elevator switch would not call the elevator if the elevator was over 100 floors away.
  
  
• Fixed bug where hunter woodburners would not decay with the rest of their base after being destroyed by a BCU Cracker.
  
• Fixed animals sometimes playing their idle animations while walking for clients.
  
• Fixed mining drill progress meter not updating in real-time for clients.
  
• Fixed sandstone ore nodes not aligning correctly to the surface that are spawned on.
  
• Attempted to fix the random crash while accessing solar panels or wind turbines. I believe this is resolved, but haven't 100% confirmed yet.
  
• Fixed server name not showing in the server stats hud for clients.
  
• Fixed certain sounds not playing while in freecam mode (such as gunshots). Some sounds are still not working, but I will get to those in the future (freecam is lower priority as only affects admins).
  
• Fixed smoke from breaching charge not rendering for clients.
  
• Added many low poly LOD meshes for player models and clothing (performance benefit).
  
• Rugs, floodlights and switches have now been added to existing hunter bases.
  
• Fixed bug where rugs would protect the floor below from explosive damage.
  
• Fixed river sounds still playing after having frozen for the most southern river.

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)

I have finally invested the time to migrate the game over to 64 bit. This is work I've been delaying for some time, however as the game has continued to grow, I was starting to hit the limitations of 32 bit (causing crashes for players with "Out of Memory" errors) and making development much more problematic.

Essentially the 64 bit version removes memory limitations imposed under 32 bit, allowing the game to scale in size far beyond what was previously possible, while offering more stable and improved performance. This may sound less than exciting, but please know how essential this was to the growth and future of the game.

Launching the game from Steam will now launch the 64 bit version. I am still shipping the 32 bit version as part of the game installation. The 32 bit executable can be found in ../Subsistence/Binaries/Win32/UDK.exe.

Profile saves will remain intact. The first time you run the game on Alpha 57 a script will migrate existing saves into a new directory structure: ../Subsistence/UDKGame/SaveData/. So if you make backups, please use this folder moving forward.

A brand new cave system now lies deep beneath the world.

Far deeper than the existing cave system, the new caverns reach veins of volcanically active lava pools and streams. Temperatures in the caves soar and will deplete player hydration levels, so ample water supplies are essential for explorers.

The new cave system connects the two existing caves systems. So it's now possible to travel from the SE Lake all the way to the NW lake entirely underground. However be aware of the risks when attempting this distance. Dying in the caves could make retrieval of your kit difficult and hazardous.

The caves now all being connected makes the entire underground system pretty mammoth. There will certainly be future expansions, linking mountainous ice-caves down into the system.


Players can now craft Climbing Axes at the workbench. These will allow players to ascend/descend any rock face in the world (including frozen waterfalls).

To ascend, with the axes equipped, simply approach and face any vertical rock face and a prompt will popup to begin climbing. To descend, simply approach the edge of a cliff and the same prompt will show, allowing you to climb down and mount the rock face from above.

Once mounted, the player can freely climb the face using the movement keys, while moving their head independently to view their path. You can jump from the face at any time (but be very careful).

The player will automatically unmount the wall when reaching flat ground. When reaching the top of a cliff, a prompt will show to vault up onto flat ground.

This new mechanic required significant development effort, and it will seem underutilized at this point (as for now it's only used to access the new caves). However it is part of a larger (iterative) plan and will take on a more prominent role in the future. High-mountain terrain (as a unique and fully realized biome) has always been on the roadmap, and is still absent from the game. Stay tuned.

As mentioned, climbing axes will be required to access the new caves. Large vertical drops separate the new cave system from the existing caverns.


As mentioned on previous updates, the server build limit is in place due to the number of network channels available during a client connection to the server (rather than as some arbitrary performance measure). If I exceed the limit, then network requests get completely lost and the game essentially breaks.

As done previously, to increase the cap I group/cluster many buildables of the same type to all share a single channel. This time I've switched a lot of buildable types over, and the result is effectively double the cap size of Alpha 56! There is also room for further increases in the future.

A new type of hunter occupie the new deep-cave system. They are identified by their gas masks and grimy bodies from the fumes in the caves.

They typically form in smaller squads than the other mining hunters, and are slightly less armored.

They required a bit of an AI overhaul to avoid suicidal runs into lava pools...
The gas mask is not a craftable item, and is currently only used by the deep-cave hunters. *However* it is possible to find it in the world, although is extremely rare.


I've updated the health system for when a player is too hot (indicated by the HOT hud icon). The increased depletion on hydration levels is the same as before, however now when hydration levels hit zero (and the player is too hot), the player will start taking actual damage. So staying hydrated during hot temperatures is now more important.

Taking a dip in a lake is one way to cool-off, choosing more appropriate clothing, or fitting your base with an AC unit.


While exploring the new cave system, you'll find mining supply crates left around. These crates require players to break them open before accessing (which causes tool usage damage).

I'm using some minor destruction physics on the crate mesh to make it a little more satisfying to smash open.

These crates can contain higher tier items, however they have a high cool-down times on respawns.

Players can now craft jam jars from the workbench. These aren't too cheap, but are permanent and reusable items (for now).

Collecting berries throughout the various seasons now allows players to prepare mixed berry jam at the oven (requires the boiling pan).

The jam provides a boost to max health/stamina, otherwise not provided by eating the berries by themselves.

You may notice the total fruit/veg benefit is less than the total individual berries. This may seem like an oversight now, but will make more sense once perish times are added to fruits/veg (as jams will preserve fruits without the need for refrigeration).

Ore nodes now animate when they take hits whiles mining.

In addition, crates will play a subtle jolt as players interact with them. I think this makes the world feel a little more dynamic and interactive while out looting.

When joining a server, the client now tracks the progress of the initial streaming of world-data, so there's now a handy loading bar!


There was previously a small amount of time when joining a server, where the player would spawn into the world before taking control of their player (sometimes leading to being killed). This is now fixed!

When clicking on a player in the in-game player list, a small button will show over their avatar, allowing players to open their Steam profile in the Steam overlay.

This will help players send friend requests or open chat on Steam if they team up in-game.

I've updated the death screen hud to now slide in the options available to the player.

Previously this was just a paragraph of text, so it was not obvious that easy mode offers the option to reload the previous save. The new design should be much cleaner and more intuitive.

While I continue to add preventative measures to hacking, some players continue to try to use 3rd party hacking software on servers. Because of this I've added a global ban list. This service allows me to ban a player and have that propagate to all servers globally. I sincerely hope to never need to use it, but it is now there as a tool to protect players trying to play fairly.

Previously plants would still grow (although very slowly) with no water. Now growth is halted if the plantbed has zero water.


While entering the underwater cave system at the NW lake, previously I was actually using a portal and projecting an fake image to hide the transition of passing through the landscape layer into the cave environment. The new system handles the collision and physics correctly without the need for the previous hack and smoothly interpolates between the two environments.



Should make them easier to see in snowy terrain or in a blizzard.


Rogues now use green glow sticks, miners use orange and deep-miners use red.


I'm now utilizing the Steam cloud save service to sync all profile save data. So if you switch systems or format and re-install your OS, your profiles will persist. If you currently use multiple computers on the same Steam account and want to maintain separate save data, you can disable cloud saves for the game in the settings in your Steam client.

There were several states where hunters were switching weapons while still in the process of aiming/reloading/etc, so I've cleaned some of that up.

• Added ability to teleport directly to a base via console command:
  
  TeleportToBase [BASE_ID]
• Dedicated server admins can now inspect buildables to check how long until the buildable will start to decay. This will also list how long the player who placed it (or a member of their base) was last online. Simply look at the buildable and enter the console command (also works in freecam mode):
  
  InspectBuildable
• Dedicated server admins can now open the Steam profile of the player that placed any buildable. Simply look at the buildable and use the following console command (also works in freecam mode):
  
  ViewSteamProfileOfPlayerWhoPlacedBuildable
  
  
• Added ability to disable clipping while in freecam mode (console command while already in freecam mode):
  
  NoClipFreeCam
• Base names (that show at bottom right in the hud) will now update while in freecam mode.
  
• The ListBases admin command will now also report on the time since a base member was last online (playing on the server).
  
  ListBases
• Fixed bug where admins couldn't see ore nodes in the caves while in freecam mode.

Reminder that you can type "help" to view available admin commands.
I know some players expected me to enable this feature in the update. I worked a lot on this during the Alpha 56 update and simply needed a bit of break from that code, as there were several additional features needed to accompany it (such as structural support buildables). The feature is all still there and ready for me to finish. I'll pick this back up for a future update.

Two new languages have had support added:

• Ukrainian
  
• Latvian

• Added ultra-high-rez rock materials to cave rock, which blends in at close proximity.
  
• Added localized messages for connection errors while attempting to join servers.
  
• Fixed player shadow casting bug introduced in Alpha 56 (causing overly black shadows on players while in base lighting).
  
• Fixed "Rent a Server" button not opening the Steam overlay on some computers.
  
• Updated silver birch trees bark texture (credit to Gael Romanet for donating these textures, project Dismal).
  
• Fixed bug where stack of perishable food item stacks would disappear when using shift-rightClick to split individual items (while in the default inventory).
  
• Fixed bug where phantom fish could persist in the water with no fishing player or hunter.
  
• Fixed clients hearing the fishing float "plop" sound a second time when starting to reel in a fish.

Discord invite: https://discord.gg/zyy4jQs

Twitter: @playSubsistence
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playsubsistence/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkQZ7vkTiqetTC0_8umY2Pg
Steam Forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/418030/discussions/

If you would like to host your own dedicated server, I would recommend Nitrado (as I work closely with their team to support the game). You are also free to host on your own hardware, and the server files are freely available on SteamCMD.

You can view a detailed guide to hosting here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2201638184

Continued Translation Support Credits (in no particular order): Thank you so much for the support.
Spanish (David Lascasas)
Hungarian (Erb Ármin)
Portuguese BR (Thiago Schumacke)
German (Philipp J. Rackl (LPCaiser))
Italian (Marcello Brancaccio, Federico D. Ravagli)
French (Anthony Charrault)
Czech (Dílna U mnicha)
Dutch (Damster_NL)
Danish (Jesper Vestergaard Bæk)
Russian (FRAME)
Turkish (Soulkast, Çagla Gurbet)
Swedish (Mattias Gustavsson)
Norwegian (Christer Djuvik, Svein Tore Stegemoen)
Romanian (VaeVictis)
Estonian (Streamerize)
Polish (Robertus Lubin)
Ukrainian (RoW-Team)
Latvian (Martins Plucis)