Patch time!

Hey folks, this is a large patch that moves the game over to a new map (work in progress) and completely overhauls a lot of the game's systems.

It includes more world persistence (weather and ai now persist across restarts), and the AI has also been completely rewritten with added functionality such as moving in groups and participating in daycycle specific activities.

There's a lot more to be done to further polish and make their behaviour more realistic, but it should present a good first step towards a more interactive experience.

The new map initially launches with a desert biome, which we want to expand further with subsequent patches. As a result, a number of AI are currently missing, and the first patch will have Allosaurus, Deinonychus, Coelophysis, Parasaurolophus, Inostrancevia, and Sarcosuchus as the AI you can encounter.

🚧 PSA: Please reset your graphics options, changes were made to the settings.

Changes:

Map:

  • All new map! Work in progress, desert biome available initially.
  • Removed the wooden shelters on the new map, instead there are small hot pools and cave rock overhangs/minicaves across the map. We intend to expand this with more caves and deeper cavern systems in the future.
  • Note that some areas on the new map still need further performance optimisation done, feedback welcome.

Simulation and general persistence:

  • Weather is now persistent and continues after server restart (limitation: will skip through a transition that might have already started)
  • Locked server-setting control of the date and lat/long, as well as locked time progression to a single day and season (summer) for the moment. This was done to simplify the effect the simulation has on gameplay while new features are coming in, intending to bring this back later.
  • Large improvements to temperature simulation, for both air and water. Now also responds to weather effects (cooling less fast during cloudy weather and faster during storms and high winds).

Graphics

  • Tweaked lighting at dawn that was shining through the mountain. Sadly the current way rendering pipeline imposes a tradeoff here, and it's prohibitive to fix for some far-sights (which is more apparent at dusk).
  • Added experimental option for Lumen as GI (this is an expensive option).
  • Added DLAA as an anti-aliasing option.
  • Smoothed sun/moon rotation, fixed light snap at sunrise/sundown
  • Overhauled character material shading to be more realistic

AI:

  • AI can now drink.
  • AI will now respect a daily schedule and attempt to hunt and sleep during their waking and resting hours.
  • AI is now persistent and respawns after server restarts.
  • Relationships formed between AI are now persistent for the lifespan of the AI.
  • Server preset control over AI spawning reduced for the moment, as we're moving to a more persisted set-up that conflicts with a lot of the initial configuration we had.
  • Fixed an issue where AI wouldn't get hungry.
  • AI now tries to thermoregulate based on the environmental temperature.

Gameplay:

  • Increased stamina recovery, both while sitting and while still moving.
  • New experimental playable and AI: Inostrancevia.
  • Experimental: The character now tries to avoid collisions while moving (deviating direction a little), this allows for easier navigation through areas with a lot of collisions.
  • Added claw attack for Dilo.
  • Bumped sprint speed Para.

Misc:

  • Added a join button on the server preview as an alternative to double clicking.
  • Updated to Unreal 5.5.
  • Updated to DLSS 4.
  • Bumped server restart interval upwards to 6h.

Bugfixes:

  • Fixed crash on game exit.
  • Fixed various server crashes.
  • Fixed some ambient AI spawning a meat chunk instead of their appropriate corpse.
  • Fixed various animation transition issues, there's work in progress to refactor the animation system further.
  • Fixed flickering of the preview pawn during character customisation.

Performance:

  • Resolved issue where cloud shadows were always rendered even if disabled in graphics options.
  • Added a cinematic quality option for very high performance GPUs
  • Default tick rate for the server has been raised to 30FPS, still dips however due to the increased scope in this patch and needs more polish to stabilise further. Work in progress.