DevBlog #28

FTessaro - Lead Programmer

Hey everyone, some of this month was spent working on the night vision update, which included a few bug-fixes and some necessary improvements to our anti-cheat capabilities. We're also evaluating feedback & investigating a number of reports regarding issues with the current night vision system, you'll find more information on that further down the blog in KissenKitten's post.

Regarding Update 6 the progress is going really well and I will split into categories below:

Gore/Organs: The base code is finished which allows organs to spawn when needed and be fully interactive with physics, soon we’ll be starting tests using animals bigger than the Utahraptor, but I don't foresee needing to make big changes in the code, besides possible enhancements and bug fixes. Still in regards to organs a new mechanic is being created for all carnivores, it is a gore specific mechanic that can be used for things like role-playing and improving diets, more details about it soon. New gore and rotten textures are going to be added to the corpses, and bone meshes as well. The bone assets are the last stage of a corpse, they will be interactable.

Diets/Nutrients/Slots: The enhanced system for diets was set up to grant more control to the players for what dietary buffs or “advantages” they can receive in our survival environment. With this new system, slots are not locked to specific nutrients anymore, they are now fed with the latest consumed nutrient and can be combined as desired by the players, for better understanding, you could fill two slots with carbs and one slot with lipid, which would provide the player with a specific buff, or a different combination of all slots fed with protein, providing another completely different buff. Players can use this to better customize their character to their playstyle.

Migration System: Since the new diet slot combinations system was finished some time ago, we now can start testing migration with the herbivores and slowly start integrating the carnivores into it. Several meetings are scheduled for the design team to decide all the details for the migration system, as well as the effects from different slot combinations. This system will motivate players to move around the map to get the benefits from their diets. You’ll get more details on this system in a future DevBlog.

Vocals: I also spent some time improving the entire vocal system, which now is more reliable, performant and fixed an issue related to reverb the sound when traveling great distances.

Skin System: By popular request, we’ve added Eye customization, so players now can choose the color of Iris to customize the character even further, integrated to the “random” button and import/export functions. I also fixed a couple bugs in the slot saves.

Physics Doors/Gates: Those systems were finished and provided to the Map Design team to start adding them to the maps. Those doors/gates are interactive physics based actors, the bigger the animal the easier it is to push them and open/close. Some doors will be “locked” by default, needing a human player to first unlock it before it becomes usable by animals. While the basic physics functionality is done, more work and adjustments may be necessary in the future.

Automatic Lights: Map Design now also has access to special actors that are automated in the island based on time of day, those lights turn on or off depending the time of day. This is a basic system that may be expanded in the future with other automatic systems added to it. This