ICARUS Week 54 Update: Dropship Beacon, Dynamic Landing Zone, and No Player Limit

Game: ICARUS
Content Type: Gaming News
Date: December 16, 2022

This update may change the way you play ICARUS. The player limit has been relaxed (though the details are important), and Dropships have more variety in where they can land within the landing zone. Most importantly, you can now call your Dropship to a specific location on demand–and as many times as you want!

New Dropship Beacon

A major pain-point has been removed for those who likened some ICARUS missions to running simulators. The new Dropship Beacon is a grenade you throw to the ground and allows you to call your dropship to that location.

The Beacon is both a Tier 4 and Workshop item. Multiple beacons can be used per prospect, so you can move your Dropship as many times as you want. Finally, a grenade you might actually use! And what a creative way to recycle your base when you are done with it.

Number of Players Cap Removed

Say you want your entire friends list to see your awesome build, or maybe you want to offer your 1000+ exotics haul to everyone you know. Now you can!

icarus week 54 update dropship engine firing

The “Prospect Limit” is the maximum number of players that can visit your prospect while it is active. This used to be limited to 8 prospectors for the life of the prospect. Now, after data decentralization, this cap no longer exists. Your prospect can now be the revolving door of free exotics and mission rewards that everyone else always wanted.

The “Session Limit” is the maximum number of players that can be active on your prospect at the same time. This limit remains 8 prospectors total for P2P sessions (which is when the prospect is hosted on a single player’s computer). However, for dedicated servers, this limit can be removed. Keep in mind, your server’s performance and internet connection bandwidth still have their limitations. Performance may degrade with too many simultaneous players.

Full Patch Notes

There were many other changes and fixes in this update, including patches for the dedicated servers beta test, and the list of verified partners offering those services in game. Check the #dedicated-server-beta Discord channel for details.

You can also view the full patch notes below:

Adding beeping sound for tech device thrown
Adding dead player small beep sound for location awareness
Dropship landing locations are now generated dynamically using EQS
Added Dropship_Beacon_T4 item static mesh, materials, and textures to project
Added skeletal mesh for the T4 dropship beacon device. Skinned to the frag grenade
Workshop items now display who their owning character is on their tooltip. Names in red indicate that the character has left the drop
Added SK + materials/textures for Meta dropship beacon device. Skinned to Frag Grenade skeleton
Added a version 2 of the T4 Dropship Beacon asset. Textures have been improved and tri count greatly reduced
Added four verified server providers to the dedicated servers screen. Clicking the server providers logo opens their website
Setting up 2 new Throwable Grenades, recipes and workshop enteries which summon dropships
Added functionality to dropship beacon grenades. Fixed potential crash in DamageFunctionLibrary::PrepareProjectileDamage
Updated character list on ‘Load’ screen to support more than 8 players
Adding correct tag to Workshop Dropship Grenade so it can be taken down in a loadout

Fix up filenames for DC Palm assets
Removed duplicate textures and repathed. Fixed filenames
Delete duplicate texture and repath
Update Cave Lights to work properly with revised default settings
Optimized some caves by removing lights where there was no hole in the roof for it
Fixed stone master not having niagara support enabled after assets were added to scorpion effects
Update many mission steps using a previous search area setup to use the same search area setup for consistency, including clearing search areas when objectives are complete in some missions. This will resolve visibility issues on some missions
Fixup redirectors in main assets folder
Additional update to some quest step search areas for additional visibility and cleanup handling
Ensure that player stays DBNO if they return to character select when DNMO and rejoin
Exotics can no longer be placed in the Dropship (Workshop items can still be)
Updated the Dropship UI text to let people know extoic extraction now takes place via the Orbital Exchange Interface
HEADSTONE: Fixed Survey Radars being able to block the final mission objective, these are now returned to your inventory if placed in the objective location
Updated PAYDAY and DEEP VEIN missions to use Orbital Delivery Interface. – Added common use steps for exotics extraction
Shovelling snow now grants a variable, increased, amount of ice
Changed method on HEADSTONE item return to players
Fix inappropriate player water movement sounds playing when wading in lava lakes. Now setting a surface FMOD parameter representing water type to differentiate these. Apply the condition to world movement event in FMOD
Filter user reports with no description from sentry
Ensure dedicated server prospects created on the command line save without requiring a player to join
Ensure lobby privacy type is set to friends only for dedicated server prospects
Fix an ensure that is firing on clients for new dediserver integer timer
Fixed issue where player history entries weren’t being reloaded correctly
Meta resources and mission completion rewards that are paid when rejoining a prospect now show their notifications after the load screen has disappeared
The total meta resources that are collected by players on a prospect is now correctly reloaded. This would cause absent players to not receive meta resources if prospect was closed and reloaded while they were gone

First pass on LC terraces – 4x meshes + material/textures
Replaced old template caves in TU/AC Areas on Blue/Green/Yellow Quad, DLC Map
Placement of Cliffs in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Placement of Cliffs and cave templates in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Adding first batch of dialogue for DLC
Delete and repathed copies of Var2 textures in Var3 and Var4 Aspen folders
Adjustments to Lava Gravel footstep layer and reduced verly long rock layer
Delete duplicate AC Fir snow clumps textures and repathed
Adding all current striker events and anim notifiers for footsteps, whoosh, vocals, slams etc
Adding unique striker footstep event. Balance pass of new creatures audio volumes and added missing notifiers and other small adjustments to striker
Various improvements and volume adjustments to striker footsteps lava footstep, vocal adjustments for volumes etc
Updating tonality of R.Dog aggro breaths
Created a New Small Tundra Template Cave, Updated AC_MED_005 To have less rocks blocking path and Have Begun Work on a Medium Tundra Template Cave, Prometheus
Placed Cliffs & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Optimized Geyser erruption niagara effect
Placement of Cliffs and cave templates and landscape scuplting in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Reimporting the needler roar to be a shorter version to move it away from the Croc
Adding needler new roar vocals, adding new spot events for all new creatures and adding to data table AI setup
Added datatable rows for story mission dialogue
Lots of adjustments and fine tunes to DLC creatures, footsteps, vocals, spacializing, reverb level adjustment to lava biome and other small improvements
Setup LC_Terraces BPs, VFX, Collision and Water System
Move mega tree template levels out of Cave folder and into Trees folder
Placed Cliffs & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Added Mesh Normals/CAC fuctionality to MA_IceCool, Tweaked materials on SM_Node_SuperCool and Added DryIce VFX
Prettied up Cave Template widget advanced mode layout. Added support for newly added Light Exponent Falloff variable in convert function
Placement of Cliffs and cave templates and landscape scuplting in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Adjustments to snow striker footstep levels, fixed spot sounds in wrong data table entry, adjusted grasslands tree creak and other small DLC audio improvements and updates
Added destructible meshes for various Swamp folage assets
Added New Large Template Cave For Tundra Biome And Added The New Cave Into Blue Quad, Prometheus
Added LavaFalls mesh to replace waterfall mesh in lava rivers
Adding all unique attack sounds for striker. Whoosh, slam, heavy slam, claws out etc
added obsidian armor materials, textures and ml
Adding Striker climb rock sounds and animation notifiers
Fixed TestPlayerId not working with cooked builds
Icon and display name updates for Brick buildables
Placed Cliffs & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Placement of Cliffs and cave templates and landscape scuplting in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Adding foot layers to striker climb anims
Small scatter adjustments to tundra biome to make wind play slightly more and other small details
Fixed rocket spawn points not being released when their owning player leaves by dropship
Players on dedicated servers who aren’t logged in as admin are now limited to a whitelist of RCON commands
Added localisation support for /help RCON command
Local copies of player lists from previously joined prospects are now updated when the server browser gets its sessions
Added Mangrove Mega Tree separated parts to create more optimized assets, and added them to Tree Template Level called SW_Mangrove_001_V2
Biome general audio balancing and finessing
Tidy up of Fishing BP logic. Tweaks to cable component to make it less bouncy
Balance adjustments to striker attack and death and spot sounds
Added New Large Template Cave For Tundra Biome And Added The New Cave Into Blue Quad, Prometheus
Placement of Cliffs and cave templates and landscape scuplting in the Phase 2 Area of Purple Quad, DLC
Submitting Wooly Zebra, carcass, respective textures and fur
Add a new integer timer for tracking dedicated servers
Dedi server time can be dilated (Slowmo)
Dedi server time can be paused
Wire Weather Event music to pausable dedi server timer
Wire Weather Blueprint Components to pausable dedi server timer
Replacing heavy slam sound on rockdog for something stronger feeling. Small other adjustments to lava biome and rockdog scream etc
Added new player data helper functions for adding, removing, and updating items
UI usage of currency now routes through player data instead of older backend path
Adding character lava footstep event and sounds
Added New Large Template Cave For Tundra Biome, AC_MED_008, Prometheus
Placed Cliffs around lave lakes/river & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Placed Cliffs around lave lakes/river & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Add new Stalking AIAudioState and apply to Hunting GOAP action. Will enable different creature vocalisations for stalking vs. full aggro for BatDog and similar
Updtaed BLD_DBL_Doorframe_Brick_Left
Adding beeping and static comms for dead prospectors
Adding in nested event with static end for dead prospector. Also added unique event for taking the tag. Added to blueprint
Spacializer adjustments and fine tunes to dead prospector beeping event
Delete Spider SMs with SK filenames and unused duplicate PhysicsAsset. Assign Fur material to Fur SK mesh. Add LODs to Spider SKs
Setting cave ambiences to play for the new biomes
Add LODs to SMs that don’t have any
Added New Large Template Cave For Tundra Biome, AC_MED_009, and Begun Work On New Medium Ice Cave, Prometheus
Adding in 3rd Person shield block animation and relevant montage setups, added equip animation too as it was missing, added wooden shield icon
Placed Cliffs around lave lakes/river & Caves Templates in Phase 2 Area on Purple Quad, DLC Map
Adding in wood cart mesh and skeleton and base anim BP for full implementation
Adding missing Socket on the skeletal mesh that was breaking validation
Added initial data table configuration for new dropship throwable
Stopped looping audio on Dead Prospector for the Dynamic Collect mission once the ID has been collected
Swapping out shield skeletal mesh with static mesh to unbreak audio hookup
Updates to the spacializer for the dead prospector beeping sound. Clearer and easier to find at close / medium distances (without increasing the max distance)