Hello everyone! Today we bring to you an update so numerous in changes and fixes, if each entry were nutracubes, it would feed an entire Eden. (Bad jokes continuing) And for desert, we’ve finally had time to add the long requested Non-Permadeath game mode! Permadeath isn’t quite for everyone and now you’ll have the option to choose between both modes when you start a New Game. For those who like to live dangerously, if you play the classic Permadeath mode, you will be rewarded with an XP bonus when compared to the non-hardcore variant to balance out the increased risk.

A ton of fixes, updates and improvements have been made towards weapons and all equipment. You’ll have to read the entire list below, there’s so many I don’t know which ones to highlight up here. On top of all that, a few changes have been made to Stalkers so they are less punishing for new spawns. For instance they no longer spawn on the first night so you’ll get a lot more game time in before you meet them. You will also find that they deal less damage as well, they had a 2x damage multiplier when they attacked you while cloaked, but that ended up being almost every attack so that’s been removed.

We had mixed feedback on the new fixed aiming, some people like it, others wanted the old aiming style back. Why not both? You will now find a new option under the ‘Controls’ options menu for Aiming Type where you will be able to switch between the old ‘Free’ aiming and the new ‘Fixed’ mode.

Now to touch on what’s coming in the immediate future! We have some super exciting things in the works right now and we’re excited to get these into your hands. The first is level streaming which will drastically improve loading times. Instead of loading the entire world all at once, we’re breaking it up into small chunks are streaming that off of your hard drive as you move throughout the world. This should also bring with it some extra performance gains across the board, but it’s still in the initial phases of development so we don’t know for sure what we can promise yet. The next large feature that is getting lots of attention right now is Crafting and Harvesting. We’ll be posting all of the specifics about this within the next week or two, but you can expect a seriously simplified system that will be a lot less tedious and faster to use! The last large feature that will be getting a second pass shortly will be the Stalkers. This update does have a few adjustments to make them less punishing, especially at the beginning, but we plan on making their AI smarter so they don’t constantly teleport close to the player as harshly as they do now.

As always, here’s the entire list of changes, enjoy!

Features

• Non-Permadeath Mode has been added! When you start a new game, you will be asked what mode you want to play. Players who decide to take the extra challenge of the permadeath game will earn XP compared to the non-permadeath mode.
• Added option to switch between new and old aiming modes (Fixed vs. Free-Aim).
• Upgraded the game project from Unity 5.6 to 2017.1, this could potentially fix some instances of crashing and the dreaded Black Screen bug that some users were facing. Since these are Unity engine fixes and we are unable to reproduce a lot of these random issues, please comment to let us know if it sounds like this has fixed things for you!

Balance/Improvements

• Made it easier to nap (Removed the fatigue limits for sleeping).
• Shield Bash balance: Now reduces stamina, no longer does damage, increased cooldown and also now becomes less effective if you spam it.
• Improved the way Stalkers and Seekers are being spawned in. This will be most noticeable when Seekers are being called on you (eg. Failing a hack), before they would commonly never show up. More work will be put into the Stalkers and how they spawn in so close to the player in the near future.
• SEC-RTs now call security if you damage them.
• Improvements were made to the character’s head-bob when jumping around and moving over uneven terrain. You should notice a lot less ‘jitter’ and a more polished experience when moving around.
• Lowered font size in recycler menu (was too large).
• Genome point ‘Engineering’ now makes logic hacking easier.
• Various improvements to upgrade menu (some fixes, added sounds, etc.)
• Butcher’s Blade and Warden’s Fist primary attack no longer consumes energy when attack misses.
• Warden’s Fist alternate attack now deals more damage (before did almost nothing).
• Arc Welder now deals 2X times damage to robots.
• Added proper support to 16:10 monitors, menus should no longer get cut off anymore.
• Removed 2X damage multiplier if Stalkers sneak attacked you (this was pretty much every attack).

Fixes

• Disruptor was showing incorrect item icon in upgrade menu.
• Disruptor now returns elements when salvaged.
• Several bugs with Enhancing Disruptors have been fixed.
• Fixed some rare instances of players dying while loading into the game.
• Dodging while in a moving elevator would make you fall to your death.
• Jumping while in certain elevators that were moving could end up with you glitching on to the roof and getting stuck.
• Stalkers now no longer come during the first night of the game, but instead wait until the 2nd night.
• The number of Stalkers that come each night was not saving so every time you loaded your game it would reset to one.
• SEC-RTs would talk over themselves sometimes (saying multiple things at the same time).
• Starting a new game through the death menu wouldn’t reset the container’s hacking settings.
• If you equipped a ranged weapon from the radial menu and try to shoot the primary fire, it will ignore the first click.
• Subverser – Berserk dart did not affect AI.
• Subverser – Sleep Dart not functional at all (still needs a proper animation, but it at least does something now).
• Subverser - Sleep and Rage dart FX would not work well when added on top of each other.
• Reservoirs – Description did not match the capacity, now is dynamic when upgraded.
• Loadout Menu – Didn’t update what it was displaying if you swapped out the equipment while looking at it.
• Massive Reservoir was using the wrong item icon (CyanoReprocessor's icon).
• Special Abilities had no description.
• Weapon headshots weren’t working properly.
• Subverser effects didn’t work on some characters.
• All specials were being shown in the description boxes before being unlocked.
• Subverser – Special 1 and 2 descriptions were mixed up.
• Subverser – Damage wasn’t being applied quite correctly, should now do more damage.
• Subverser – Fixed a visual issue with one of the textures of the rage FX.
• Warden’s Fist Special 2 should now prevent NPCs from blocking.
• Warden’s Fist Special 2 should now ignore 50% of the target armor.
• Warden’s Fist Special 1 should now have a 50% chance to knockout people hit by alternate fire.
• Weapon upgrade schematic weren’t working properly.
• Javelin – Default color of the equipment doesn’t match the color of the inventory icon.
• Javelin – Wasn’t changing its damage values based on charge time.
• Javelin projectile should now be faster when fully charged.
• Javelin Special 1 should now deal 2X damage to unaware enemies.
• Javelin primary attack dealt 35 damage no matter your charge and it also didn’t respect upgrades.
• Fixed a small hole near Nacent Robotics that you could crawl through and exit the world.
• Arc Welder Special 1 now adds +1 to the charge ability.
• Arc Welder Special 2 now arcs electricity to one close enemy.