Patch 0.9.0

by MaverickMatryoshka

0.9.0 is now out, with sarcosuchus, new biomes, and temperature gameplay!

Sarcosuchus

Sarcosuchus has been added as a playable, the game's first venture into semi-aquatics!

Movement is work in progress, feedback welcome. One point of concern is still the IK which screws up a bit at certain angles.

Temperature gameplay

The game now has temperatures in the world that are important to keep in mind.

Some pointers:

  • The status menu shows body temperature and environmental temperature.
  • Simulation ticks ambient air and water temperatures independently, with the water retaining and losing heat more slowly.
  • Weather and time of day influence the temperature as well.
  • Find hotspots to warm up! The swamp is heated, as well as the lagoon around the volcano. VFX to properly show the water is hot isn't in yet, but on the todo list.
  • Shade provides cooler spots.
  • Getting close to other animals adds some heat (simple addition of 2 degrees per neighbour currently).
  • Dense foliage also provides cover during cold weather.
  • Endotherms are able to stay warm by burning food, whereas ectotherms like Sarcosuchus need to shift around their environment more. Endotherms generally don't need to worry about their body heat during most circumstances, except when the temperature drops hard (such as during a snowstorm, or a winter night).
  • Your movement speed will decrease if you're hypothermic.

The system is designed to be forgiving enough not to be bothersome, but still something to keep in mind as you play in order to add some extra depth to the gameplay. Feedback welcome.

One thing to watch out for is that we haven't added enough helpful hints on the UI so you know what actually influences the temperature easily, we still want to add this.

Full changelog:

Features:

  • Temperature gameplay has been added! See above for details.
  • New ambient ai, snapping turtles have arrived.

Map:

  • New biome! A salt marsh has been added to the beach, and the rainforest beach area  has been reworked. The salt marsh has fish as feeding opportunities.
  • Iterated on volcano with hot lagoon, hotspring, and extra areas of land with a geyser (non-drinkable, will be made toxic in a future patch). This latter area is still very much so a work in progress.

Seasons:

  • Each season now lasts 3 days (listed on the F7 debug screen at the moment), cycling through the year faster than before. This allows us to make seasons more impactful, but also shorter and more manageable.
  • Snow now remains on the map after the weather clears up, if temperature is low.

Bugfixes:

  • Fixed server crash.
  • Resolved an issue preventing pack invites.
  • Fixed Dilo not having any oxygen timer.
  • Fixed Dilo floating too high above water while swimming.
  • Fixed Dilo not triggering swimming in rivers.
  • Fixed various rendering bugs underwater, we want to improve the rendering further still, especially the movement of the surface water and the underwater surface, which isn't fully proper yet.
  • Fixed a couple places where nest placing was erroneously prohibited.
  • Fixed aim lock ("L") for Dilo.
  • Further stabilisation of the new movement system, reduced rubberbanding.
  • Resolved various issues with ocean surface rendering during some weather types
  • Fixed water interaction

Tweaks:

  • Adjusted lighting on water particles to be less bright
  • Going to and from the spawn selection is now a fade-to-black transition instead of the camera blending to the spawn location. Previous implementation was too choppy, simplified for the time being.
  • Small animals like trilobites and fish are now immediately picked up when killed.
  • Improved hit detection of combat with ambientai.