Icarus Week 225 Update | Bull Carts

Welcome to Week 225.

This week, we're expanding the cart system to work with another pack animal - the Bull. Additionally, a few Limestone Deep Mining Ore Deposits have been added to each map, to allow players access to bulk limestone recipes, and shortcuts towards mass concrete creation while playing on other maps.

Notable Improvements:

• Limestone deep ore veins should now spawn near select water bodies on all maps. This includes existing saves

• All carts can now be used on Bull

• Fixed numerous XP value inconsistencies against either Kill XP vs Skin XP or XP vs creature difficulty.

• Fixed issues with the prop water container so that they retain their water quality when filling / drawing / drinking water from.

• Updated collision on Brick Curved Buildables

• Updating 'Gone Fission' Achievement to be more specific in its unlock condition

• Made quality improvements, as well as performance improvements, to the gFur groom of multiple creatures

• Added Quick Tamer saddle support to Slinker and Bull mounts

• Reaver - Dive attack now does damage as intended

• Fixed bug with harvest cart's seed harvesting attachment where it wouldn't function on reload until you unequipped/reequipped the attachment

This Week: Bulls & Carts

In addition to being a strong, yet gracious leader and protector for all of your pets, the recently added Bull mount is joining the Tusker and Buffalo's efforts and can now assist you in your resource gathering and farming adventures across Icarus by pulling various carts. One of our Senior 3D Artists, Joe Cook had this to say on the update:

"I recently joined one of our Friday afternoon Icarus Twitch streams, where viewers requested giving the bull the ability to use carts. It was on our to-do list, and luckily the person responsible for doing it (me) was on the stream. Revisiting the cart system for the first time since its implementation gave us a chance to find some improvements. You may notice the saddle bags have been removed when the cart is placed on the bull. Originally, for the buffalo, we decided to add the saddle after the cart had already been made using a workaround that referenced an existing saddle asset. This time, I integrated the saddle directly into the cart’s skeletal mesh, giving us better control over its appearance, placement, and movement. The great thing about supporting a game like Icarus for so long is getting the opportunity to revisit and revise features like this. It lets us continually learn and improve on quality, efficiency, and the player experience. If there’s something you’d like to see added to Icarus, join our Friday afternoon Twitch streams (NZ time) and share your ideas—you might be surprised how effective it is"

This Week: Limestone Deposits

In a continued effort to make sure that our newer content does not leave the older maps behind, this week, we're also expanding our Limestone resources by adding Limestone Deep Mining Ore Deposits to not only all of our larger maps (Olympus, Styx, Prometheus and Elysium), but to all of the Outpost maps as well. This ensures players get to enjoy lots of new content in older, yet familiar settings.

Next Week: Unlocking New Dangerous Horizons Workshop Modules

Next week we are unlocking 13 new workshop modules for those players who own the Dangerous Horizons Expansion. These include increased tame melee damage, increased stamina regeneration, and exposure resistance, making the difficult life on Elysium just a little easier.

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/

Version 3.0.3.150621-rel-DangerousHorizons

New Content

• Updated bull wood cart to remove the unused bones

• Updated bull cart skeletal meshes to use the correct skeleton

• Added Limestone Deep Ore Veins, Prometheus

• Added Limestone Deep Ore Veins, Styx

• Added Limestone Deep Ore Veins, Olympus

• Fixed transform of seat components on bull that were making pseudo saddle attach incorrectly

• Added Limestone Deep Ore Veins, Outposts

• Updated bull carts to new meshes in the saddle DT, adjusted player attach socket for each of the carts and adjusted pseudosaddle location in the Bull mount BP

• Updated the bull carts to have the saddle incorporated into the skeletal mesh rather than using the pseudo saddle. Removed the pseudo saddle from the data table entries

• Updated bull plough and harvesting carts with correct ground contact

Fixed

• Added DT validation for Experience. Fixed naming schemes for Experience data. Added many new unique data entries to pass validation. Removed Corpse/Skinning setups on creatures that can't be skinned. Fixed numerous XP value inconsistencies against either Kill XP vs Skin XP or XP vs creature difficulty. Add generic bool for Increased Verbosity Checks so that less frequent checks can be made more easily

• Field guide - Fixed 'consuming' section only using generation rate and not taking into account the ratio. (e.g. pump jack uses 200 crude oil at 20% ratio so should show 1000.)

• Fixing build error with unrefreshed bp nodes on the item container display

• Fixing issues with the prop water container so that they retain their water quality when filling / drawing / drinking water from

• Notes / Seeds are now displayed correctly in the item tooltips when placed inside pouches or bags

• Updated collision on Brick Curved Buildables

• Updating 'Gone Fission' Achievement to be more specific in its unlock condition

• Made quality improvements, as well as performance improvements, to the gFur groom of the Garganutan Ape Boss

• Improved Landshark collision accuracy

• Chef backpack - not working on several items

• Added Quick Tamer saddle support to Slinker

• Added cart and quick tamer saddle support to Bull mount

• Updated item descriptions for various carts to include Bull

• Remove Flying Tank wing bones from Flightless Tank meshes

• Slight tweak on the Skulk carry physics asset bodies to stop the head from vibrating in 3rd person view

• Fixed Gribbler base skin being same weight as rare skins, added DT validation. Fixed incorrect GFurCarcass material

• Fixed missing Beehive destructible mesh define. Add DamageDeployables cheat (for testing DMs)

• Fixed material setups for Stone Brick diagonal pieces. Fixed numerous buildable icon issues. Fixed Scoria Brick FieldGuide set, added Stone Brick set. Updated FieldGuide Sets DT Validation. Added source icons

• Added a modifier list onto juvenile creature taming tooltip

• Fixed ClayBrick Diagonal Inverted Ramp referencing incorrect destructible meshes

• Updated skinning and fit of the slinker quick tamer saddle

• Made quality improvements, as well as performance improvements, to the Black Snow Leopard Alpha creature

• Made quality improvements, as well as performance improvements, to the gFur groom of the Lion, Jaguar and Leopard creatures

• Updated mange wolf and mange wolf alpha skeletal meshes with improved skinning around the ears to stop them from caving into the head

• Queen - Egg enables AI Target after the egg begins to rise, to prevent creatures attacking it while under the ground

• Replaced first and third person pig carry animation poses so the player's hands are holding the legs correctly

• Fixed bone DT setup for Abomination

• Fixed bone DT setup for LavaHunter

• Added proper mesh to the Dragonfly placement mesh in the Deployable Setup data table

• Made quality improvements, as well as performance improvements, to the Pronghorn

• Fixed formatting of IndustrialToolActions stat description

• Fixed a number of typos and text errors

• Adjusted the resolutions and texture group settings of the fur card textures for the Gribbler

• Adjustments to the speed at which the speeder bike param can slow down. Reducing it to allow the sound to play through its correct tremolo effect speed variation more accurately

• Small reduction in bass build up on wood floors which was cluttering up the mix especially on headphones

• Added static mesh and destructible mesh for the carrier drone

• Slight reduction in mounts vocal idles to reduce constant audio clutter when the player has many mounts. Also tamed some of the distancing and volume of various creatures that were balanced too high

• Fixed missing alpha channel for the fur card texture of the Gribbler

• Updated drone carrier SM to correct orientation and added a damaged version of the static mesh

• Reaver - Added curve to 'submerged' montage so we can properly get whether its submerged or not

• Updated Carrier drone DM to match the updated position of the static mesh

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Deer, as well as all Deer variants, including desert

• Added BP, mesh and material variants for moss version of cave entrance LC_SML_02

• Updated drone bestiary image to contain all four types of drone

• Further gfur optimizations for the Wooly Zebra

• Ely Ach - Added validation to deployable check for when deployable is pending kill

• Mission device - Fixed client collision on unupgraded mission device

• Fixed Draven, Stomper, Stomper Matriarch, WyrmQueen, Scuttler, Mange Wolf, Mange Wolf Alpha trophy preview meshes. Add DT validation to detect mismatched mesh entries and cleaned up numerous less obvious entries. GFur optimization on Draven trophy, LOD and GFur optimization on Stompers. Update WyrmQueen trophy BP

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Normie Horsie, including juvie

• Fixed Manufacturer bench not being able to craft all Fabricator recipes, including Rope, Cupboards, Wall Torch, Leather Curtains (Window also now on Textiles), Steel Barred trim. Added some tooling to check for hierarchy inheritance

• Fixed up redirectors

• Update Carrier Drone LODs for smoother transitions. Add supporting lighting effects

• Tweaked the setting on the snow wolf, snow wolf juvie, conifer wolf juvie, and wolf juvie trophies' Gfur to have better LODs and relaxed the groom splines around the face to remove artifacts

• Adding missing forest wolf juvie idle animation montage to BP

• Updated Apex destructible for BLD_Ramp_Half_Brick

• Updated Sandwyrm Queen Trophies x direction

• Updated SM_BLD_Wall_Diagonal_Angle_Brick_L

• Made shader and minor groom adjustments to the gfur of the Polar Bear

• CreatureModifiers should now correctly update if owning player leaves then rejoins a dedicated server without restart. This should fix issues with workshop Pheromone Module and a number of other player talents that affect owned mounts/tames

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Moa and Arctic Moa, including juvie

• Updated the snow wolf gfur grow mesh to reference the base skeletal mesh instead of an additional skeletal mesh

• Reaver - Dive attack now does damage as intended

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Rabbit and Snow Rabbit

• Fixed some carts on bulls visually disappearing at certain angles when riding

• Fixed typo in platinum plow modifier

• Added unique Durable row for the Chainsaw which reduces its Durability from 500k to 180k, which is still 1.5x a Titanium Axe. Roughly equates to 15pct Durability loss for 1 tank of fuel and 2500 Wood

• Fixed Orbital Exchange Interface messaging showing Elysium related messaging in Nullsec

• Adding a much more natural ramp up of player falling whoosh sounds. Reducing volume and intensity at low speeds so you don't get over the top whoosh sounds from standard jumps

• Carrier drone - Added destructible mesh

• Only hide Reaver nameplate/alert symbol when they're burrowed

• Fixed Nailgun having 13x the durability of a Titanium Hammer, now 1.5x

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Pygmy Lop, including the snow version

• Resaved Roat Loco_WalkSlow animation to fix audio loading issue

• Fixed Lithium Sledgehammer being unable to turn off like other Lithium Tools

• Fixed Panini shader function attempting to run material mesh logic on Particles

• Fixed several nullptr checks on Lithium Tools for Clients due to references being created on server but clients attempting to also run them

• Fixed Throwing Lithium Knife and Spear not having unique Ballistic PAs

• Fixed Lithium Tool set not having unique Durability rows which threw their balance out (eg: 6x Durability of a Titanium Knife, or 20x Durability of a Composite Shield). All Lithium tools are now 2x increase over highest tier equivalents (this means Axe, Pickaxe and Sledgehammer get an increase, others are decreased to suit)

• Moving chainsaw attack montage WQ to correct folder

• Hoverframe can no longer be fed, or healed with health potions, bandages etc

• Fixed error spam when using HEAL device on non-NPC characters

• Resaving actions table to fix problem

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Desert Wolf, including the Alpha version

• Made quality and performance improvements to gfur of the Yeti

• Fixed bug with harvest cart's seed harvesting attachment where it wouldn't function on reload until you unequipped/reequipped the attachment

• Fixed bug that caused stuttery movement for clients when holding the Hoverframe in your utility slot

• Stat afflictions can now be granted via a boolean stat if required

• Adjusted scaling of dedicated server password entry widget, currency exchange widget

• Ely - fixed crevasse leading to the underworld, blue quad

• Piglet - Equipping on back can be unfocused and becomes invisible

• Updated Curved Brick collisions

Future Content

• Made some improvements to the right click -> teleport map cheat. Should be more reliable for clients now

• Rad boss arena - cliff placement and set dressing

• Adding new Feature Level for Great Hunts - Elysium

• Adding new Talent Tree and Great Hunt Mission Layout / Missions / Talents / Flags / Stats for the Radiation Boss Great Hunt

• Removed and Renamed Duplicated Item Interaction Row

• Radiation storm VFX wip

• Rad Boss Arena - added new tiling textures and materials for radioactive webbing

• Updated Wyrm Chainsaw skeleton for sockets update

• Added placeholder entries for Wyrm Chainsaw setup. Add Sockets to SK mesh. Add required stats to be functional and fixed error message

• Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11

• Waterfall polish pass wip

• Getting audio setup for chainsaw SWQ. Adding appropriate duplicate data rows and additions so unique audio can be added to duplicate animations. Adding new start audio for it. Adding start loop and stop audio event

• RadBoss arena - added new meshes for webbing along cliffs etc

• Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11

• Made adjustments to several of the Boar Variant textures

• RadBoss arena - mesh placement and set dressing experiments

• Removed DNT from Fire Needler Carcass

• Devlocked a handful of workshop resource packs that were visible in the field guide

• Added first pass of the blueback saddle SK and AnimBP. Updated Blueback mount BP with correct positions of hand and pseudo saddle

• Cliff Placement Pass and Manual Cave Pass, Outpost 11

• Fixed PIE client nullptr error from BP_PlayerEffectsComponent

• Updated snow wolf tame gfur settings to match the wild one

• Adjustments to timing of start and end of chainsaw idle

• Adjusting SWQ chainsaw start pull chords width to sound appropriate

• Adding SWQ chainsaw idle loop audio and event to be used

• Update Wyrm Chainsaw socketed meshes. Remove mesh defines in SKItem BP