Icarus Week 223 Update | Dangerous Horizons & Kepler fixes

Welcome to Week 223.

Last week we released Dangerous Horizons, and we've seen and heard everyone having fun exploring this new world. We're acting on feedback from you with an update that focuses on mechanic clarity, fixes, and improvements across several systems. We’ve updated the Orbital Exchange Interface messaging on Elysium to better explain your options, improved Hoverframe placement and stability, fixed mount audio issues in caves, and corrected power usage problems with Lithium tools.

We’ve also made Lithium Ore available on all maps via the workshop. However, it requires Uranium Rods to purchase, meaning you’ll need to explore Elysium first to unlock access.

We also give you a sneak peak into next week's update and expansion to the Icarus breeding system.

Notable Improvements:

• Fixed various issues when riding a mount inside caves, this could cause all of the sound in the game to mute and combat music to play incorrectly.

• Fixed issue where you could not snap diagonal railings to the industrial stairs

• Fixed Stone Spikes Recipe as it was not crafting the correct item

• Limestone now can be mined with lower level pickaxes (Stone/Iron)

• Packed Fuel Bricks now have 1.5x the amount of Transmutable fuel of coal and stack to a total of 25, making them a far more efficient and viable option

This Week: Lithium Workshop Pack

While players have enjoyed exploring Elysium, the new map included with Dangerous Horizons, many have also asked for the ability to craft more of the new Tier 5 equipment on other maps where resources like Lithium can’t be found in the wild. We'll continue to think about and consider other suggestions and changes to resource availability on other prospects and outposts.

This is now possible through the Orbital Workshop. However, the items require Uranium Rods to purchase, meaning you’ll still need to explore Elysium first before unlocking them for use on Olympus, Styx, Prometheus, or Outpost drops.

In addition we have reduced the price of the Limestone workshop bundle to fit better in line with other resources of the same category.

This Week: Lithium Tool Fixes

Lithium tools have received fixes and improvements this week. Most Lithium tools can be toggled on and off, but previously this did not correctly disable the per-action power cost. This has now been fixed, so turning the tools off will no longer drain your power, helping you preserve your energy when you don’t want the effect active.

Additionally, the Lithium Axe was incorrectly calculating its power cost based on the total amount of wood generated rather than the additional resources it produces (Tree Sap and Organic Resin). This has now been corrected, resulting in a significant reduction in power usage and allowing the axe to run much longer before its battery is depleted.

This Week: Orbital Exchange Update

We wanted to shake things up a bit with Elysium to challenge players in new ways and this introduced some confusion regarding the Orbital Exchange Interface (OEI) and its role on Elysium that we didn't communicate well to players. Due to this we have revised text on Orbital Exchange Interface on Elysium for clarity.

The standard OEI you've come to know and love won't work on Elysium (explained in the Mission Story) but this is only a temporary setback. You have two options on Elysium to get OEI functionality: 1) You can proceed through the mission, make your way to Eden and use the OEI there, or 2) You can tech up and unlock the Advanced Orbital Exchange Interface (literally, a landing pad) and deploy that where you like.

We love this feature because it addresses something players have wanted for quite some time now: the ability to decide where the Supply Dropship lands and takes off from.

This Week: Hoverframe Improvements

We hope those of you who have unlocked the Hoverframe have been enjoying it! We've added some fixes and improvements to it this week. Notably around ease of placement, and issues dismounting under the ground and some glitchy particle effects.

Deploying it on the ground should be a lot easier now. Previously it's length and distance to the ground meant you needed to have a very flat surface to place. Rules around this have now been relaxed, and as an added bonus, placing the Hoverframe will automatically claim it meaning one less window to close before jumping on and flying off into the distance.

Some users reported being teleported under the ground when attempting to get off the Hoverframe in tight spaces. The logic around how we pick seated exit points, as well as what makes a point valid has been improved for this week.

Some of you may have noticed some shadowy graphical artifacts when driving the Hoverframe. These were an issue with one of the particle systems' interaction with Terrain Deformation and has been sorted out for this week.

This Week: Custom World Setting for Unclaiming Mounts

We've received a lot of feedback from the community over the past few weeks about the desired to prevent other players from unclaiming mounts that aren't theirs.

Consequently, we've added a new Custom World Setting that can be enabled to prevent exactly this. Turning on the new "Mount Unclaim Requires Ownership" setting will ensure that only a Tame/Mount's owner is able to unclaim it.

This setting, like other Custom World Settings, can be toggled by the host player if hosting locally, or by anyone logged in as admin on a dedicated server.

This option is disabled by default to ensure existing creatures and multiplayer games remain unaffected.

Next Week: Wolf Taming and Juveniles

Next week, we’re expanding the creature breeding system with the addition of wolf breeding. Tamed wolves will be able to produce pups, letting you grow your own pack and raise the next generation on the surface.

Like other bred creatures, pups inherit traits from their parents, giving you the opportunity to selectively breed wolves that better suit your playstyle. With some care and planning, you’ll be able to raise stronger companions over time and build a pack tailored to how you survive on Icarus.

Your support makes these updates possible.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1648533/Icarus_Dangerous_Horizons_Expansion/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/35727/Icarus_Complete_the_Set/

Changelog 3.0.1.150228-rel-DangerousHorizons

New Content

• Adding Raw Lithium Resource Pack to the workshop

• Added missing Advanced Limestone building pieces. Setup material swaps, added icons, recipes, unlocks. Moved Limestone unlock tree next to Concrete as they're crafted on the Cement Mixer not the Masonry Bench. Add DT validation for Buildable rows that are unused (for cleanup)

• Added a new custom game setting that can be enabled to block non-owning players from unclaiming mounts/tames

• Added oil geysers and decals to Outpost 004 and 007

• Add new biome 'Stronghold' for mission 6 area. Rename Ely_Eden to Ely_NoWeather in WeatherBiomeGroups and add Stronghold biome to it. Add Biome entry for Mushroom swamp 'Caproot Terraces'. Update satellite image in PSD

Fixed

• Fixed Concrete spikes causing damage from back side. Tighten up Gate physics asset accuracy. D1 Gate SKs now share same physics asset.

• Update Elysium minimap images to include the narrow arctic pass in G14

• Advanced Deep Ore Scanner blacklist Exotics, Lithium, Ruby and Cobalt

• Speeder Bike is now automatically claimed by player that deploys it

• Adjusted Speeder Bike's deployable collision to make it easier to place

• Adjusted exit locations on Speeder Bike to prevent player from being put under terrain when getting off

• Added additional checks in SeatBase to prevent exit locations that don't have solid ground 15m underneath them

• Adding higher pitch audio event for deep oil drill. Event and BP addition. Also slight increase in wind in GEO crevasse

• Fixing issue where you could not snap diagonal railings to the industrial stairs

• Fixing Stone Spikes Recipe as it was not crafting the correct item

• Limestone now can be mined with lower level pickaxes (Stone/Iron)

• Packed Fuel Bricks now have 1.5x the amount of Transmutable fuel of coal and stack to a total of 25

• Remove obsolete Building Barn Door implementation (now Deployables)

• Remove deprecated/duplicate Buildable rows

• Remove Building tags from Doors/Windows which are Deployables. FG Blacklist items that can't be crafted (Building decoration set pieces)

• Added DT validation to pick up on incomplete FieldGuide sets (based on tags) and update them to be complete. Fixed Limestone buildables being classed as Concrete

• Fixed Blocked Caves in NW Volcanic on Red/Purple/Yellow Quad, Elysium

• Speeder Bike - Fixed bug where saddle would drop from sending speeder to space

• Removing unused slinker audio states from AI audio table. Lowering pitch slightly to more accurately match increase in size

• Adding missing tundra monkey footstep notifies. Also updating geo music track 2 to remove random glitch and fix small timing inconsistency

• Added Curved Corner Cone snow mesh for the corner dirt buildable piece

• Added noxious crust recipes on cleaner for Lithium and Ruby

• Fixed Hole in Cave to the Arctic in Blue Quad, Elysium

• Removed erroneous material on Diagonal Concrete Roof piece

• Unobtainable building pieces can no longer be upgraded

• Removed light emitter on NS_SpeederBike_Thruster and added point light in BP SpeederBike to fix FX glitch with terrain deformation

• Doubled default number of inventory slots on large food troughs (Large, Rustic, Metal, Glass)

• Fixed cave Volume/Hole Bugs on Yellow/Orange Quad, Elysium

• ELY Ach - Fixed 'go to mushroom swamp' ach by changing the checked biome to the new mushroom swamp row

• Added new variable to Deployable Spawn Blockers that forces effective radius to update on begin play. Should fix recent issue where T4 creature deterrents would need to be re-deployed to get the increased radius of 150m

• Queen - Fixed eggs dust particles not playing for clients

• Fixed title and description of Draven's talent tree root icon

• Made quality improvements to the gFur groom of the Blueback

• Updated desired temperature range of slinker mount to better match Tundra biome

• Fixed Bugs on Yellow/Green/Orange Quad, Elysium

• Removed/repositioned respawn points in desert just outside I10 cave exit allowing players to unstuck and bypass the transition cave blocker

• Queen - Reduced delay after landing on ground so its not frozen for 5 seconds

• Queen - Added extra checks for flying animations to make sure it doesn't switch states in flying transitions. Added invuln but damageable to non grounded states to prevent dying in air

• Added 'MeleeDamageAgainstBuildings -100' stat to Shovels so that they don't damage building pieces when clearing snow

• Fixed limestone fertilizer recipe (speed) pointing to incorrect (yield) itemable row for talent unlock. Moved next to existing Growth unlock

• Added skeletal mesh for the quick tamer saddle fitted to the slinker mount

• Fixed issue where bleeding DoT modifier applied to NPCs wasn't visible to players

• Queen - Fixed a bug where when flying if the queen dropped below 10% it would force it to go into its grounded state and fall from sky (not taking damage). instead now does an air to ground transition

• Fixed Lava Lakes not getting the correct plane mesh in order for the vertex displacement material effects to work correctly. Now perform a Traits.Lava tag lookup and swap the main mesh in BP_InteractableLake on Construction. Add LODs to SM_Plane100 (20k tris)

• Queen - Queen no longer destroys all eggs/landsharks when losing aggro, instead the landshark will remove itself but only after receding. Changed the eggs AI target to be EnemyPlayerOnly. Added a bool to prevent a change in state when playing an animation to prevent being stuck in the ground

• Ely - moved super cooled ice node in blue quad as it was floating for some reason

• Flushed grass on Outpost 004 and 007

• Output previous XY rotations on Ely caves that have been zeroed out

• Ely - fixed tiny X rotations on a couple cave prefabs in blue quad, fixed cave volume in TU_SML_001_DLC2 prefab

• Forcing step height of soldier on begin play to hopefully fix issues with them walking over fences

• Add alteration icons for new attachments. Add DT validation to detect missing icons

• Fix Adv Wood Yield attachment only giving Basic attachment

• Fix row handles for Elysium EnzymeGeysers. Update function to support newer atmospheres (WIP)

• Separate Mushroom area in Mosswood Biome into its own Biome (name TBD). General refinement to biome map to better encapsulate caves on the border of biome transitions

• Small mix balance adjustment

• Actionable Scanner - Added bool to D_OreTypes to blacklist them from being used in the scanner. Scanner now takes from the DT rather than a bespoke array in the actionable

• Update icons for Fortification Platforms

• Fix Concrete Gate D1 material. Fix Spikes switching back to default mesh after taking too much damage.

• Fix Fortification gates not having correct pos/neg bounds applied to SK meshes.

• Fix projection widget locations on Stone and Concrete gates

• Fixed collision on Stone spikes and missing collision from Ramp D1 mesh

• Ely - mesh and landscape fix in blue quad

• ELY Ach - Added case for handling faction mission names so it displays mission name in accolades

• Ely - removed rogue stalagmite in geothermal that had got out of the pool and climbed uphill

• Chefs Backpack - Fixed cakes losing their stats when picking up pieces

• General audio mixing touch up. Reducing overly long files that were not necessary. Slight reduction to master make up gain to better match reduction

• Resaving DMs to fix engine folder material ref

• Added cooked tag to food items missing it

• Fixed DM define missing from Uranium Collector

• Fixed failed to load texture on M_CRE_Slinker_Fur_Cull

• Ely - landscape fixes in green and red quads

• Fixed a couple of typos

• Ely - Fixed lava plane intersecting with prefab cave, red quad

• Modifiers - Fixed issue where some modifiers were keeping their animation offset after anim completed thus making it appear over another modifier

• Ely - landscape fixes in orange quad

• Fixed New Frontiers feature level icon being 1024px instead of 128px

• Fixed greyscale compression on Wyrm queen textures reducing texture size by 32MB

• Fixed Small Hole in Cave on Yellow Quad, Elysium

• Adding Diorama scene for DH screenshots/renders to my dev folder

Future Content

• Added Limestone to Scanner Blacklist while Ore deposit is being implemented

• Sandwyrm Lantern - Fixed initial offset being incorrect and stopped lantern floating in mid air when riding on mount

• Setting up Wolf Fertility Serum and Adding Wolf Husbandry behaviour idle override (devlocked for now)

• Forest Wolves can now breed and produce offspring

• Adding Dev Locked Organic Resin Recipe with Honeycomb and water for testing

• Adding new workshop items category 'refined vs raw resources'

• Small fix the the uranium exchange button in the workshop - was displayed as red by default and not yellow

• Added wolf juvie art assets and updated creature BP

• Added Radiation Barrier Paperdoll Texture

• Fixed up some of the WIP Sandwyrm Chainsaw data so that Icons can be taken

• Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11

• Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11