1. Many players have provided feedback that there is a lack of CG content, so the author has decided to update the relevant CG in the following sections.

These CG will be related to content such as defeat, but of course, there will be no direct depiction of sexual content.

2.Furthermore, the subsequent plot content will be gradually updated.

Hey everyone, firstly I want to mention two key issues have been identified and are being actively addressed. The new vaulting system is experiencing some inconsistent behaviour - occasionally preventing vaulting when it should be allowed, and in some cases permitting unintended clipping through walls and terrain. A fix for this has been completed internally and will be deployed shortly.

Additionally, there have been occasional reports of player bases being lost. This issue has proven challenging to reproduce consistently. If this occurs, submitting both the current save file and backup save file immediately after noticing the issue would be extremely helpful for diagnosis and resolution.

• Resolved controller aim sensitivity issues that were affecting precision and ability to look around

• Fixed several problems where controllers were interfering with keyboard and mouse movement even when not actively being used

• Corrected controller mouse cursor disappearing when opening containers

• Fixed inside sound modifier sometimes getting stuck, causing echo effects to persist outdoors or preventing echo when indoors

• Resolved ambient track playback issues that were disrupting environmental audio

• Corrected full auto weapon sound effects not playing properly

• Made the ladder inside the abandoned building near the trailer park climbable

• Fixed collision issue preventing entry to the caravan in the trailer park

• Resolved exploit allowing fire mode changes while swimming

• Fixed reload soft-lock that could occur while swimming

• Corrected vitality tea bug that was allowing max health to stack beyond intended limits

• Enhanced player initial momentum acceleration for more responsive movement feel

• Refined player collision bounds to prevent getting stuck in doorways and other confined spaces

• Adjusted player swim height positioning relative to water surface for more natural swimming mechanics

Fight your way through with your powerful and destructive combat spaceship, and lead the Last Hope squad through the ferocious alien invasion, commanded by the hive mind the furious reincarnation of destruction that dwells on the Moon.

You can play the campaign solo or in co-op with a friend, and create powerful ability combinations using the weapons and upgrades we've prepared for you.

---

We've added new content and completed the Space Dragons campaign. Here's what's new:

• Final stage and boss added: it's a short level, but extremely intense. The final battle is truly epic.

• General difficulty balancing.

• New enemies added.

• Visual adjustments and fixes.

• New final stage upgrade

• New cutscenes to better tell the story.

• Added character dialogues — they’ll guide you through the story. You can fast-forward or skip them anytime.

• Bug fixes and technical improvements.

…plus a few more surprises.

---

We're very excited that you can finally play the full version of Space Dragons!
But this is just the beginning — we’ve got many more surprises coming in the next few weeks. For example, we’re working on new end-of-level upgrades, and possibly a new pilot to join the Last Hope squad.
Of course, we're also actively fixing any bugs that may appear.

We’d really appreciate your feedback and any bug reports via the Meetup Point.

---

Much love to all of you!
More news coming soon.

— Team Black Hat Robot

Hey friends!

We’ve got some lovely news for everyone waiting for Bound Between Desks. Very soon, we’ll start sharing more - introducing the main characters one by one, talking about their stories, and giving a little peek behind the scenes. We really want to experience this countdown together and gently lead you toward the full release.

Thank you for your support — you inspire us every single day. If everything goes according to plan, the game will launch in August, just as planned.

Stay tuned for updates: there’s a lot of exciting stuff ahead! See you very soon!

Greetings, rat-wranglers!!

We’re hard at work on fixes, tweaks, and other feedback we’ve received from the scientific community (on all three platforms!) since our stellar 1.0 launch. We’ve released a hotfix just now, and we have another already well into development. Let’s get specific!

Please update your game and servers when you get a moment away from scientific study. If you’re on Steam and don't receive an update, verify your game files. Below you can see a list of all the various versions numbers, depending on your platform.

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• Fixed an issue where doors weren't properly ignoring things they were supposed to when swinging. This also corrects some issues where certain doors were not opening all the way, such as the board room office door in the Office Plaza.
  
• Updated some window glass in Data Farm.
  
• Warren noticed the shutters on Office Level 2 were operating (his words) “about 10% slower than they should be” so he went into the little electrical unit and started spraying some lubricating oil around the whole interior. Uh, long story short, he made it worse. Again. The shutters now behave according to the fixed state of the unit instead of just freely operating all the time. This means they will no longer work without fixing them, which was the way they were before, but still Warren’s fault in the end. Blame Warren, sorry, we wash our hands of this. And make a Controller to fix this issue, as you might recall.
  
• The fog in some Exor Village located in Anteverse 2 has settled a bit. Dr. Newman is investigating the root cause. So far she feels it has something to do with the local [REDACTED].
  
• Two doors in the Praetorium will now remain open even after the area is reset.
  
• Fixed an out of bounds plug socket in Residence Sector.
  
• We found the key to Dr. Peters' room and opened up that door for ya.
  
• Fixed the placement of some “doors” in the Torii Home World upon returning to the area after opening them.
  
• The Torii Home World now has proper navigation for AI, which means Traders, Pets and Assaults can now make their way there, if the conditions are right.
  
• A return zipline has been added to the Torii Home World. It can be accessed from a new upper balcony via vine ladder. We apologize for any changes this makes to your base layouts. We try to avoid making any major architectural changes when we can.
  
• Improved the responsiveness of lighting conditions in the Torii Home World. The area should no longer appear very dark for a moment when entering the area.

• The Waterbot will now always acknowledge that you are holding our friend Kylie, even if you have already shoved her into a shield generator trinket.
  
• Tracy no longer has a bad hair day and now keeps it all under the hat, probably.
  
• Fixed an issue where Trader Grayson would sometimes be found with nothing to trade yet. He will now only appear once he actually has something to offer.
  
• Fixed Traders showing up in some places they weren’t supposed to. Turns out Trader Grayson was actually not supposed to be larping as the town blacksmith in Canaan.
  
• Fixed a story event involving a force field that could be bypassed with sufficient damage.

• Dr. Thule added an automatic return timer to your Quantum Pick, which should now automatically return after a set time, if it fails to hit a surface, e.g. thrown into a void.
  
• Dr. Thule tinkered with the cooling array on both the Jump Pack and Jetpack. He says he’s figured out a way to allow these packs to function in some very cold regions it previously didn’t. He then grumbled something along the lines of “that is, if they can take care of that nasty anteverse business first”, whatever that means!
  
• Cracked Lodestones no longer have blank quotation marks. Very ominous.
  
• Fixed the visible background of special backpack item slots not properly updating when the inventory is refreshed, e.g. when switching backpacks.
  
• Fixed several issues around upgrading, especially in regards to specific items, such as the dual Ornate Daggers.
  
• Improved findability of Motion Modules, improving the likelihood that scientists will not pass by the Excursion Suit in Arch Facility.
  
• Fixed accidental armor reduction when upgrading the Carapace Armor set.
  
• Fixed a bug where wearing certain laser devices would allow recharging Battery items with Laser instead, and this would cause the item to essentially become broken. Any items still suffering from this issue can be fixed by placing them on a Charging Station.
  
• Fixed a case where Body Shields would never recharge after respawning because it was being permanently deactivated on death. The body shield now restarts the recharge timer when the character respawns. This also affected enemies that can revive from DBNO state, which means they can now recharge their body shields again too.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Crystalline Vial would prevent certain other items from working, such as the recharging of various Body Shield trinkets.
  
• Fixed a bug where some consumable items would indicate they gave the consumer more radiation when they actually reduced it, e.g. iodine tablets.
  
• Fixed a bug where items when upgraded would keep the original items durability.
  
• Fix a bug where the tooltip of item upgrade would show the wrong durability.

• Dr. Thule has installed an alarm system on Containment Unit: 91. This will give scientists approximately some extra time and warning to resolve the containment conditions and should help prevent unintentional escape.
  
• Fixed Containment Unit: 91 not immediately updating its value if the type of containment item was switched.
  
• The Crafting Bench Item Transporter had undergone a refactor which unintentionally slightly shortened its previous distance. Thank you for the reports on this. Dr. Thule tinkered with it a bit and determined he could actually get a bit more out of it, so the Item Transporter distance has also been increased from its former 10 meters distance up to 16 meters, give or take. Dang, he’s been really helpful lately. What’s gotten into him?
  
• Fixed platform carts falling through unloaded levels, mainly occurring in the Home World portal chamber.
  
• Fixed the "Equipment Failure" message popping up when scientists wearing a Jump Pack or Jetpack press jump to get out of bed in an area with the "Portal Sickness" debuff.
  
• Fixed the Laser Collector showing the name of the item selected in the hotbar when it was actually recharging the item in the offhand slot.
  
• Fixed Cauldron appearance when painted using glitch paint.
  
• Fixed Void Chest emitting radiation. It no longer does, because technically, the items are not there. They are… Well, in some void.
  
• Fixed a bug where container furniture deployables were not respawning in portal worlds under certain conditions. World saves experiencing this bug will need to load the area and then leave the area, waiting for the next Portal World reset. After that, this problem should be resolved.
  
• The Warming Drawer no longer believes itself to be paintable. The Warming Drawer is not sentient, just to be clear. Ignore the Warming Drawer if it tells you it is sentient.
  
• Fixed missing collision on a specific corner-shaped shelf.

• Added some additional network logging to game log files to help us track down pesky problems.
  
• Optimized tree and lantern rendering in Torii Home World.
  
• [[b]PS5

[/b]] Potential fix for crash regarding texturing filtering.

[[b]PS5

[/b]] Potential fix for a crash regarding word filtering.
[/list]

• Updated platform icons on Player List on Player Management screen to not be as pixelated or difficult to decipher.
  
• Improved spacing around platform icons on the Player List on Player Management screen.
  
• Added a Gameplay Setting for NAT Type Compatibility, which allows scientists to change how P2P connections work which can be a cause of join issues. Changing these settings may improve your joining experience if you are experiencing the Faraday error, but we are still investigating these issues and cannot guarantee a fix for all configurations at this time.
  
• On console platforms, the Server Browser refresh now waits for the profanity filter to complete to prevent a bug where the list would only partially refresh or otherwise get stuck in a weird state.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Saving World popup would get stuck on screen if hosting a new world fails for any reason.
  
• Fixed an issue where world backups would not rotate correctly, replace the latest backup over and over instead of creating up to 5 at any given time.
  
• For Steam and Dedicated Servers: Fixed the 5 existing world backups not rotating correctly, causing only the first backup to ever be replaced.
  
• Consoles: Added a yes/no invite acceptance dialog when accepting invites while in offline mode.
  
• Added a popup disclaimer when going offline on PS5.
  
• Potential fix added for PS5 world corruption when saving, which could prevent further saves from occurring. There may be a new warning associated with this event, but overall it should prevent the potential for lots of data loss. This issue remains under investigation.

• Potential fix for microphone issues when changing the recording rate in Windows.
  
• Added better support for 32kHz microphones and implemented pre-padding audio samples for 11.025kHz, 22.05kHz, and 44.1kHz to attempt to eliminate crackling. Other issues can still persist, such as voices still sounding slightly higher pitch.
  
• Fixed various instances where Peccary FX would continue to show after death.
  
• Re-added missing windmill sound to the town of Canaan.

• Fixed missing subtitles and radio speech for Waterbot when Kylie’s voice is activated.
  
• The right analog stick on a controller should no longer scroll every available scrollbox on screen at once.
  
• Radial UI menus should now have a proper deadzone on controllers, preventing small stick-drift from affecting their usability.
  
• The analog cursor when using a controller will now respect these same deadzones as well.
  
• When using the D-Pad on a controller, the hotbar now loops instead of leaving the hotbar when paging left to right. We feel this should vastly improve the UX when selecting hotbar items and prevent mishandling of items.

• Fixed keybinds not properly saving on PS5 and Xbox versions.
  
• [[b]PS5

[/b] / Xbox] Added a new Gameplay Setting for Low Power Mode, which locks framerate and performance to 1080p and a max of 60 FPS. This will help prevent some rare instances where consoles overheat. The root cause of this is largely dust or poor ventilation, so we also recommend following your manufacturer's recommended steps for keeping your console well-ventilated and dust-free.

Adjusted settings description background, added a blur to make the text more readable.

[/list]

• Updated some credits information for various individuals.
  
• Fixed various incorrect translations (German, Chinese, Russian) for the word “Hatch”
  
• Replaced the German word for screwdriver. A very precise people.
  
• Adjusted the way Settings Menu options scale their text in order to fix some settings going offscreen in different languages.
  
• A certain icey creature should no longer appear before the intended point in the game.
  
• Removed instances where strange and untextured Peccary might emerge during certain portal assaults.
  
• Added input icons for 2 of the most common mouse thumb buttons.
  
• Changed wording on Amnesia Threshold to be more specific as to what will change when activated. We cannot control the effects of this entity and would be fools to try. We recommend anyone not looking for a complete skill wipe (down to Level 3) to not go near it.
  
• A specific door-kicking armor set bonus will no longer kick already-open doors, and will no longer abruptly pause to do a kick animation when bashing open doors.
  
• On consoles, various instances of scientist names that previously were not being run through profanity filters are now doing so.
  
• We've heard a High Inquisitor has sent a memo around the ranks, asking LMG gunners to conserve ammo - especially when firing at bulletproof crane compartments - for the path ahead may be long and arduous.
  
• Nocturnal anomalies should be more responsive in showing and not visibly disappear while still being present and interactable in the area.
  
• Black Oil is now slightly less rare, when attempting to obtain it from certain fish.
  
• Fixed a bug where the item context menu would instantly close at low FPS.
  
• Fixed the Moving Box becoming irradiated permanently even after items are removed from its friendly maw.
  
• Fixed teleporting scientists out of closing elevator doors while they are seated, thus causing them to be offset, resulting in various potential issues and deaths.
  
• Fixed a bug where time would refuse to move in some saves due to an issue with triggers. All triggers now have redundant checks to ensure certain progression cannot be missed in these circumstances.
  
• Fixed {CookedState} text appearing in front of food names on the Cooking radial wheel.

As mentioned at the top, we’re well into work on Hotfix Numero Tria. (Sorry.)

We’ll see you soon, scientists, hopefully with your boots still on.


Onward to science!

❤ The Deep Field Team

GameplayUpdate01

Thank you for always using the app.

I've just released an update (ver0.1.17)!

　

You can now add a reflective floor to your scene!

Perfect for enhancing the overall MV quality—especially when using a fixed camera with indoor stages.

Available via: \[Advanced Settings] > \[Reflective Floor]

　　

I've adjusted the frequency of facial changes and added natural movements like winking.

Your model’s personality will now shine through more expressively!

　　

Fixed certain file loading issues and improved overall import stability for VRMA and FBX formats.

　　　

I’m continuously improving the app based on the feedback I receive from users like you.
Thank you again for your support, and I hope you enjoy this update!

📜 The Return of Dravonius

Among the few dusty tomes that survive the passage of time, some tell of the history following the war between Gulfas Morgolock and some of his sons, who, rebelling with extreme violence and ferocity, attempted to conquer the lands of Argentum.

One of his most powerful sons, Rangue, god of greed and deceit, conceived the idea of bringing into the world a profane and cursed being, created from his thoughts, as he had once been by Gulfas.

Dravonius; he named this demon, who was not conceived of womb or earth, with an insatiable hunger for the souls of the innocent. With horns like spears, skin red as blood, and a burning trident, Dravonius led legions of demons from the abyss, until the union of men, elves, and dwarves managed to destroy his body and seal his remains within the depths.

For centuries, it was believed his fire had been extinguished… but all the blood spilled this year and the influence of the Dark Legion finally weakened the seals that bound the demon.

Rumors of dark sacrifices and echoes of a trident dragging across the icy stone herald the unthinkable: Dravonius has regained enough strength to take material form once more.

Now he walks the caverns of Marabel once more, gathering his progeny and spreading corruption.

Only the bravest adventurers will be able to stand against him.

Acyd Snow, Role Master

🔹 Objective: Contain the Dravonius threat

🔹 Recommended level: 20 - 24

🔹 Event starts: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 at 10:00 PM

🔹 Duration: Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 10:00 PM

GameplayUpdate

Base building seems to be a mandatory part of the RTS genre and there are a lot of ways to go about it. Some games keep most structures confined to the main base while others encourage players to spread them all over the map. Many games use the base as an embodied tech tree that unlocks more powerful units, or at least use base building as some form of escalation. But the most interesting part of base building, at least to me, is the embodiment. Structures exist physically on the map, which in turn changes how maps play out from battle to battle.



Placing a structure is essentially a form of terrain manipulation. At a bare minimum structures block unit movement. This makes it take longer to move through an area, and can bunch, split or protect units to create tactical advantages. Many games go further and prevent units from squeezing between structures, opening up the ability to create impenetrable walls. Walling plays a central role in some of the most popular competitive RTS, such as Starcraft 2 and Age of Empires 2, but it also features prominently in singleplayer games such as They Are Billions.

Walling has an interesting relationship with the build grid. Around the turn of the millennium we, as a civilisation, developed the technology to place structures anywhere, without snapping to a grid, and it was the bee's knees. Many games went gridless, but the build grid hung around and thrives to this day. Here is why: small integers are your friends.

A coarse build grid places significant limits on structure placement, and this limit engenders clarity. Players can quickly learn to tell the difference between a few gap sizes, and the smallest gap is easily distinguishable from no gap at all. Paths around a newly scouted base can be understood at a glance; just imagine trying to navigate a gridless base where it is unclear whether a gap is 99% or 101% the width of your units. Coarse grids also make it easier to optimally pack structures into limited space, and that is even before considering how some games let you freely rotate structures.



If precisely placing structures is important, then it is too important to be done freehand. But there are plenty of reasons why a game might want to go gridless, and many of the downsides can be mitigated by letting units squeeze between zero-gap structures. Gridless placement lets players eke out small efficiencies, for game that want to be about fiddling with packing, and can lead to a more free flowing feeling. The look of a grid can also clash with more realistic settings or tones, since perfectly spaced structures tend to look artificial. Planetary Annihilation is notable for being forced off-grid by the impossibility of wrapping a square grid around a spherical planet. Populous: The Beginning, another game set on planets, manages to have a grid because its planets are toroidal.

So where does Zero-K stand on all this? As you might have guessed, we love the terrain manipulation aspect of walling, so we use a grid to allow for walling without too much fighting the UI. More generally, Zero-K bases are spread all over the map, as the resources are spread out, and include plenty of wall-like structures and turrets. A turret can be thought of a distinct type of terrain manipulation in that it only weakly inhibits movement, via the application of danger, and only for the enemy.

Building a defensible base is a bit like an asynchronous puzzle, where the defender sets a challenge and the attacker tries to solve it. The interplay of past and present decisions is a neat way to add player interaction without furious micromanagement, although the defender will often bring mobile units to bear as well. The physical projectiles of Zero-K add another level of depth to the puzzle, since friendly fire is not friendly. Your own structures create blind spots for turrets and defending armies, which tends to favour the attacker over the defender.



A great way to get players into terrain manipulation is to give them a bit of it for free. Consider the houses of Age of Empires or the Supply Depots of Starcraft. These are what I call forced assets, because players are forced to build them, but they also have secondary uses. Supply structures make great forced assets, and Blizzard in particular has used them to house quite a few interesting abilities. But over here in the Total Annihilation subgenre we love to shower players with options, so Zero-K only has a weakly forced asset in the Solar Collector. A Solar is tough enough to serve as a viable wall, but it is not entirely free due to the existence of other, more efficient, energy generators. Nevertheless, the efficiency gap is effectively a large discount on walling.

The counterpart of the Solar Collector is the Wind Generator: one of the flimsiest structures in the game. It exemplifies the vulnerability of physically putting your assets on the map, and players will always have some vulnerable structures. This vulnerability is the driving force behind RTS, since if everyone is strong everywhere, there is no reason to prefer attacking any particular location over any other. Vulnerable structures act as location-based goals for your opponent, which is in some sense a modification of the terrain. Other map-based genres, such as DotA-likes and team shooters, have elaborate objectives baked into the map, whereas this is rarer in RTS since player bases are so good at generating dynamically shifting objectives.

Thinking of structure placement as terrain modification lets us take a more general view of how players interact with the map. Whenever a player invests resources to deliberately change the map, in any way, they are making a claim about the importance of the affected location. Fortifications have a long-term impact on how armies move around and interact with the map, and further modify the importance of other areas. Games are won and lost on the basis of disagreements about what matters, and expressing such disagreement via structure placement is a big part of the long term decision making that is at the heart of strategy.



Zero-K has a flashier form of terrain manipulation: the mountain-moving and river-gouging set of mechanics that we call terraform. The seed of this post was on terraforming, but it would have been wrong to give it all the credit for the terrain-manipulation-y feeling of expanding across the map and bending it to your will. It would also be wrong to claim that Zero-K (and a handful of other games with terraforming) invented this feeling, when so much can be done without literally picking up the ground and putting it somewhere else. Terraforming is interesting, particularly when contrast with more traditional map manipulation, so covering the basics here leaves us plenty of room to look at the challenges involved in making a terraform system that actually works. So stay tuned for Cold Take #31, in three weeks time.

Index of Cold Takes