Massive update incoming, prospectors! Though, if you checked in with us a couple of days ago, you knew exactly what was coming: we shared a full list of updates tested on the Experimental Branch of ICARUS, and pretty much all of them made their way into the Week Eleven update.
If you are one of the folks who followed the top User Suggestions for ICARUS, you will be excited to hear that among the updates is the separate backpack and light slots, as well as inventory sorting (for now just by weight) — two of the top-five most-requested features. Gone are the days of dropping your Torch near every node and inevitably losing it in the cave waters: hook that Lantern up to your belt, use the L key to turn it on and off, and keep on mining without any interruptions!
The team’s designer kindly provided this picture of their posterior to demonstrate the new technology in action. Wonder if it gets a little warm with the torch…
Among the featured updates is the new T4 Repair Hammer (along with an expansion and redesign of the entire tier being in the works) and leaving footprints and impressions in sand and snow — that feature is turned off by default because it is still being developed, but you can enable it via the “Terrain Deformation” setting.
Aside from a satisfying feel, the footprints serve an interesting secondary purpose: if you drop and lose an item in the sand or snow, try walking around the surface to see if you can reveal it. (This might not help with very small items, and devs are still figuring out how to address that particular issue.)
As for the Talent Respec: it’s in the works! Since it requires significant changes to the base design of the game it will take a bit more time for testing and tinkering, but they made it clear that they are not ignoring the community’s most popular request.
So… I don’t know how to tell you this, but… there are about 100 or so change log entries! Everything from performance improvements to less Fur drops, larger Squash in Crop Plots, and louder Buffaloes with a less awkward death flop. So, just in case you don’t want to read through the entire list — we did it for you and picked our top favorites.
Of course, we still included the full change log below for you to peruse as you wish!
Notable Updates
Titanium Hammer added to Tech Tier 4.
New light and backpack slots: carrying other items in the hand and on the back no longer interferes with having these items equipped.
Switch the light on and off by pressing L (the keybind can be changed in the Settings).
Added terrain deformation, which allows for leaving footprints and impressions in sand and snow.
This feature could help locate lost quest and/or dropped items by making depressions in the snow.
This feature is turned off by default and can be enabled in the settings, under “Terrain Deformation.”
Added inventory sorting by weight, with more options coming up in the future.
Balance: added caves to the canyon biome, decreased Fur rewards for Chamois, Wolf, and Rabbit.
Animals: added distant polar bear idle sound, improved cave worm death audio, fixed animals poking their heads through walls when attacking players or running away, added 2-second health regen delay, improvements to the spawning.
More for Buffaloes: updated skeleton to be “meatier,” better dead ragdoll behavior, added buffalo footsteps and light movement sounds.
Other landscape features: added new terrain features (for use in future missions), fixed the cave in F4 being underwater.
Misc: added larger squash plant to fill the crop plot better, fixed Pumpkin Bread and Pickled Carrot decay, fixed Wine and Beer bottles not being given back on consumption, fixed Wine giving “Beer” buff, fixed Material Processor not needing fuel to function, improved underwater to not be so bright at night, added ability to delete Outposts in the menu, polishing character selection, character creation UI, prospect select screen.
More sounds: added new repair hammer audio, “add Oxite” sound for Oxite Dissolver, metal pickaxe strike sound, rain sounds to concrete and stone roofs, sound for animals being placed on the Skinning Bench, sound for creatures when they fall, food-specific consume sounds, tweaked delays to Sol’s audio when they were too short.
Performance: improved render of creatures and characters at distance, performance of rock material on higher settings, performance when opening the map, torch causing frame drops, overall memory usage.
Added new Titanium Hammer to Tier 4.
Added a new light slot. You can store your lantern there and still use your equipped item (pickaxe, etc).
Added a new backpack slot. Using a backpack no longer bars you from carrying something else on your back, like an animal carcass.
Added terrain deformation which, besides being awesome, makes it easier to find quest items dropped in snow. This feature is experimental, is off by default, but can be turned on via options.
Added the ability to sort your inventory by weight.
Added new terrain feature pieces for use in future missions.
Added animations to the small and medium interior crates.
Added repair hammer audio.
Added an “add Oxite” sound for Oxite Dissolver.
Metal Pickaxes have a new strike sound, a ‘ringing’ effect.
Added Caves to Canyon Biome to standardize voxel distribution.
Improved render performance of creatures and characters at distance.
Improved some particle emitters where they were not correctly being deactivated at range.
Improved the performance of the fire system – less emitted embers, texture resolution adjustments, updated material.
Improved memory usage across the board.
Improved performance of Rock material on High and Epic settings.
Improved performance when opening the map.
Optimized level of detail of rocks and added better collisions to some cliffs.
Optimized torch causing frame drops.
Updated Flare Arrow appearance and Icon.
Animal Bait can now be deployed via right-click menu.
Updated Buffalo skeleton to a ‘meatier’ variant.
Improved skybox overall (skylight, moon, sun).
Lowered volume of critical hit audio at close range.
Fine tuning internal ambience during storms.
Added more ice in the arctic outpost.
Added distant polar bear idle audio for better awareness.
Added rain sounds to concrete and stone roofs.
Improved cave worm death audio.
Improved hunter armor in first person perspective.
Improved radar deploy and animation sound.
Added larger squash plant to better fill the crop plot.
Added fix for animals poking their heads though walls and doors when attacking players or running away.
Improved underwater at night to not be so bright.
Added ability to Delete Outposts in UI instead of needing to the Delete file manually.
Improved clarity on selected outposts in UI.
Decrease Fur Rewards for Chamois, Wolf and Rabbit.
Added 2 second health regen delay to NPCs.
Added sound when animals are placed on the skinning bench.
Improved sound of creatures when they fall.
Improved ability of creatures in the Waterfall: Expedition Mission to navigate around obstacles.
Improved Audio of when a tree falls onto your house.
Polished the look of the Chemistry bench.
Improved Trophy Bench visuals by adding fur.
Improved texture on the Single Shot Pistol.
Improved smoke puff effects when striking mineral deposits.
Added additional Food specific consume sounds.
Polishing Character Selection/Creation UI.
Polishing Prospect Select Screen.
Improving the UX of menus in the station. Escape key now backs you out of all menus.
Improvements to the AI spawning code.
Added claim reward sound for notification screen and notification pop-ups.
Added gameplay setting to toggle tooltip delays, now off by default.
Improved the dead Buffalo ragdoll behaviour.
Improvements to the repair sound feedback to structures, impacts & metal variants.
Improved syncing of morning and night music to correct time of day.
Improved the look and texture (and performance) of the Sandworm Boss scales.
Improved animal pathing in narrow passes in the Arctic.
Improved Sol’s vocal delay so he doesn’t talk too soon.
Improved bear and buffalo sounds depending on how far away you are.
Added missing buffalo footsteps and light movement sounds.
Fixed some cave entrances having an invisible blocker.
Fixed issue preventing some players in Korea from connecting to the Icarus content servers.
Fixed Flare Arrows being permanently ignited if shot into a creature or character.
Fixed several issues relating to characters animating oddly when interacting with arrows or dead and ragdolled’.
Fixed case where crafting queue would incorrectly calculate required resources.
Fixed issue where trying to fire while sprinting could leave arrow reloading in a bad state.
Fixed backpack-mounted extractor being oriented incorrectly.
Fixed mismatched armor appearance between first and third-person models.
Fixed item crafting sounds when crafting from player inventory.
Fixed occasional crash when exiting the dropship.
Fixed player still running on clients if they activate photo mode while running.
Fixed player entering photo mode while typing in the chat box.
Fixed an issue where Pumpkin Bread and Pickled Carrot weren’t decaying.
Fixed an issue where carnivores wouldn’t target deer corpses in the same way that they would target rabbit or baby deer corpses held on the hip.
Fixed an issue where the Black Cougar Boss was walking through the walls of its den.
Fixed an issue where the Taxidermy knife wasn’t yielding trophies in some instances.
Fixed hunting rifle being able to load and shoot flint arrows.
Fixed the ability for Elephants to stand on top of the radar and rotate with it.
Fixed creatures sometimes not reacting when taking damage from players.
Fixed animals being able to deal damage after they die if mid-attack animation.
Fixed 3rd person whoosh audio being out of sync.
Fixed crash when client would join the prospect and appear in the sky.
Fixed issue where animals would try to walk through Sandworm corpses.
Fixed issue where players could get trapped in an infinite loading screen in certain circumstances.
Fixed break chance of Poison Arrow to be 100% instead of 10,000%.
Fixed Pill Modifier Icons.
Fixed bug with bushes blocking melee hits.
Fixed desert animals spawning at the entrance of the cave in M9.
Fixed issue in Mission ‘Voyager: Recovery’ where a quest step would not be able to be completed on reload.
Fixed High Tech Asset in Mission Snowcrash: Recovery from bouncing and falling through the ground when dropped.
Fixed Talent ‘Tis but a Scratch’ which was not preventing as much damage as was intended.
Fixed Pistol and Bolt Action Rifle not costing any resources to repair.
Fixed texture on the buffalo carcass.
Fixed an issue in Mission Broken Arrow: Recovery where Epic animals would not spawn.
Fixed Mission timer being visible on Outposts in the escape menu.
Fixed XP notification showing mining coal instead of mining exotics.
Fixed Polar Bear Armour covering guns in certain poses.
Fixed Prospect Text overlapping with the duration in the Prospect select screen.
Fixed all angle wall piece icons to show correct direction.
Fixed animal spawning issue in Mission Incursion: Scan.
Fixed female head from clipping through head cap.
Fixed the Conifer Wolf turning into a Snow Wolf on death.
Fixed animals attacking the player slowly for the ‘Live Wire: Terrain Scan’ mission.
Fixed desert wolf’s front foot looking broken.
Fixed starting text box scroll position for workshop and prospect select screen.
Fixed destruction sound on the glass door.
Fixed ballistics not causing animals to flee when fired.
Fixed fur armor dynamics, or how parts of the armor respond to character movement/wind etc.
Fixed issue where clients weren’t seeing the noise bar increase when they are far away from the host.
Fixed issue where the player sometimes didn’t take fall damage.
Fixed issue where the extractor would stop playing audio if a player changed fuel quickly.
Fixed issue where the material processor did not require fuel to function.
Fixed issue where the biofuel generator would not always reactivate attached devices when powered on.
Fixed issue where multiplayer chat texts were being replaced by a white square characters.
Fixed issue where there was incorrect subtitles to dialogue in the Broken Arrow, Recovery mission.
Fixed issue where objectives have the “not charging” text displayed even when it is charging.
Fixed some instances where scan mission did not complete correctly.
Fixed issue where players appeared as level 0 in Steam Rich Presence (friends list).
Fixed various mission and item typos.Fixed an issue where the incorrect placement blueprint/ghost was showing for the MXC Furnace.
Fixed an issue where MXC Crate & Seeds were unable to be returned to the Station.
Fixed an issue where Mission names were overflowing from their UI boxes if over a certain length.
Fixed an issue where the game would crash after attempting to place trophy benches in some circumstances.
Fixed an issue with character and animal corpse ragdolls colliding with the camera in third-person.
Fixed an issue where shotgun shells would float after being fired in third person.
Fixed issue where you could see the radar on your back and in your hand in 3rd person.
Fixed some instances of kill target quests not being flagged as complete upon death of the target.
Fixed issue where you could toggle UI while photo mode was active.
Fixed issue where the feminine base character head was visible through their space suit.
Fixed UI issue where claimed prospect warning would be displayed where players could not see it.
Fixed issue where you couldn’t see character names displayed on the Mission report lobby info.
Fixed issue where wine and beer bottles weren’t given back on consumption.
Fixed issue where wine was giving beer buff when consumed.
Fixed issue where a cave in F4 was unintentionally underwater.
Fixed issue where the ghillie and carbon arms armor stretched while walking.
Fixed bug where frag grenades would disappear from players’ hands if another grenade exploded nearby.
We hope our little summary in this news post was helpful! What are your thoughts on the changes? Is Pumpkin Bread and Pickled Carrot nerf a bit disappointing? What about the Fur drops? Are you happy for a higher chance to hear murder machi-… uh, polar bears from a distance?
And, of course, what are your thoughts on the dedicated lantern and backpack slots? I don’t know about you, but I put out my torch in the caves way-y too often. Very happy about this one!
Let us know in the comments below!
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Mila Grish
Dedicated contributor at EIP Gaming and a part-time collector of books she will never have time to actually read. Jumps on the newest releases just as quickly as on the uncovered dusty collections from the basement. For her, shiny graphics can never be an excuse to not have a polished player experience or an immersive story.
I’m shocked to read the devs are testing what they are doing. I doesn’t look like it. They are already correcting corrections and new stuff (the “underwater” cave was an addition), proof they didn’t even test them before releasing their package. Luckily, they are losing customers and this will end badly for them.
I’m shocked to read the devs are testing what they are doing. I doesn’t look like it. They are already correcting corrections and new stuff (the “underwater” cave was an addition), proof they didn’t even test them before releasing their package. Luckily, they are losing customers and this will end badly for them.