PTB: Update 15.1 (1.15.100)

Welcome, Park Testers!

This PTB release resolves a number of issues in addition to adding basic threaten/fleeing behaviors, look targets and grazing fidgets for when herbivores idle.

Update 15.1 Features

Basic Threaten/Fleeing

Depending on the animal group, species will try to flee, chase off or threaten animals. Some highlights include looking at courtships, herbivores becoming more defensive if they have a family, animals fleeing from predators or large theropods threatening each other if they get too close.

These behaviors have been brought over from the nest defense previously included in Update 15 so keep in mind that it'll be massively improved once combat releases next year in Update 17!

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Look Targets

Animals will now look at other creatures around them! Adults will prioritize immediate relatives and their own species, while babies will look at their parents and other species more commonly.

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Graze Fidgets

We've also added new idle grazing fidgets for when herbivores are standing around. As this isn't a dedicated grazing behavior, the animation can still play regardless of an animal's underlying terrain. This might be something we look at in a future update.

How to Access the Public Testing Branch (Experimental!)

The Public Testing Branch (PTB) is a version of Prehistoric Kingdom that can be opted-into on Steam, containing experimental and potentially breaking changes. With the help of the community, we're able to hunt down various issues and gather feedback before pushing a an update to the public version of Prehistoric Kingdom.

1. Right click Prehistoric Kingdom in your Steam Library

2. Go to Properties

3. Betas

4. Select 'ptb_public_testing'

Please note that it is not recommended to play Public Testing Branch parks on earlier versions of the game. Please send feedback and bug reports to our Discord server's appropriate channel.

Known Issues & Additional Notes

• THIS IS A DEVELOPMENT BUILD WHICH MAY RUN WORSE FOR SOME USERS! THIS ALLOWS US TO GATHER MORE DATA FROM BUG REPORTS!

• Look targets and threatens are relatively experimental additions to the game that will be evolved through updates

• Head IK can be a bit jittery, especially when transitioning out into an extreme animation (e.g. Gallimimus preen) - we'll be looking to improve this as much as we can in the future

• The camera can be jittery when tracking an animal due to head IKs

• The head IK is currently enabled when animals are spawned, making them look up

• Defensive animals may get stuck in a threaten loop for a while but one should eventually emerge victorious

• When fleeing, animals can sometimes walk away instead of running, making them seem very chill!

Full Patch Notes

Features

• NEW FEATURE: Animal Look Targets Animals will now look at other creatures around them! Adults will prioritize immediate relatives and their own species, while babies will look at their parents and other species more commonly.

• NEW FEATURE: Basic Threats & Fleeing Animals will be able to threaten and run away from threats if they get too close. Highlights include some species becoming more defensive if they have a family, while others will run away from predators as much as possible. This is an area we will be overhauling for Update 17 in the future!

Additions

• Animals

  • Added idle grazing animations:

    • Ankylosaurus

    • Coelodonta

    • Dryosaurus

    • Elasmotherium

    • Gallimimus

    • Leaellynasaura

    • Mammoth

    • Muttaburrasaurus

    • Nasutoceratops

    • Ouranosaurus

    • Oviraptor

    • Pachyrhinosaurus

    • Paraceratherium

    • Protoceratops

    • Psittacosaurus

    • Scelidosaurus

    • Styracosaurus

    • Triceratops

  • Added courtship to Ouranosaurus

Changes

• Animals

  • Animals have been given new awareness parameters, like vision range and hearing distance

  • Awareness now scales with animal maturity

  • Animals “Sexual Maturity” is now based on being a certain size as well as being in the last third of their maturity

  • In Family Groups, Eat/Drink priority is now driven by the infants rather than the adults

• Buildings & Scenery

  • Color-corrected topiary pieces so they’re less neon green

• Foliage

  • Redwood bark is now darker in the shade

Bug Fixes

• Crashes

  • Fixed some crashing related to animal nav updating

• Critical

  • Fixed staff skill and training research loading

  • Fixed animal excavation progress doubling up when loading games

  • Fixed user actions not deactivating completely when opening the management menu while an action was active

• Animals

  • Fixed animals slowly speeding up to normal speed when first placed in the world

  • Fixed animals using IK and grounding effects when they shouldn’t

  • Fixed animals being able to leave their navmesh if another navmesh was available above or below the point of exit

  • Fixed Mating Display state being too picky about a minimum initiation distance

  • Fixed Play Chase state to ensure line-of-sight between path nodes, which should prevent animals from getting stuck on geometry while chasing

  • “Sexual Maturity” feature fixes animals trying to mate and find nests when they are still too small to occupy the size of navmesh their preferred nest is accessible from

  • Flee State should be a bit more varied in where it chooses to end at

• UI/UX

  • Fix for the 'Open Research' button in the Staff Training menu linking to the Security tree instead of the Management tree within the Research Menu

  • Fixed staff menu summary refresh when opening the Staff Menu

• Audio

  • Fixed a spatialization issue for dromaeosaur threaten sounds