Sons of the Forest Patch 08 - Electric Fences, Balance Changes

Once again, Endnight has dropped a patch well worth the wait. Today’s update adds a number of new features, including electric fences and the ability to carry radios. There are also the usual bug fixes, changes to enemy balance, and optimization improvements that should reduce instances of the game crashing. We’ve created a summary of the most notable changes below, and you can also see the complete patch notes further down in the post.

SotF Patch 08 TL;DR:

Golf carts have headlights, seat 4 players
New found footage tape
Enemy from The Forest added
New traps added
Electric Fences added
Can now carry and play radios
Virginia and Kelvin can now swim
Defensive Walls 4x as strong
Optimization improvements, memory usage reduced
Killing lots of enemies will now lower the amount of raids

Sons of the Forest Patch 08 Notes

Hey Everyone,

For this patch we have added electric fences, improved the golf cart adding headlights and the ability to drive with up to 4 players in the cart, a new found footage tape, added a (returning) enemy to the end game, a new large trap and lots more.

We’ve also done a pass on optimization and brought down memory usage which should help cases of the game crashing.

Finally, we made a change to enemy balance, now killing lots of enemies will lower the amount of raids you see, let us know how these changes feel in the comments

As always, please continue to post your bug reports and feedback in the Discussions area of the Community Hub.

Features

New found footage video added
Hokey Pokey trap added
Electric fences
Freeform electric wire placement added
You can now carry and play radios
GPS Locators can now be 3d printed and crafted in the inventory
Golf cart lights added
Golf cart can now seat up to 4 players in multiplayer
Added reduced ammo difficulty level option
Added returning creepy enemy, will appear after endgame
Added new vocal announcements to some bunkers
Virginia and Kelvin can now swim if they end up in deep enough water

Balance

There will now be less frequent enemy raids depending on how many regulars or creepies you have killed, this amount will increase over the days unless you kill more enemies
Defensive walls can now take 4 times as much damage
Reduced health on the special glowing puffies

Improvements

Animal heads can now be shaken when held
Angry moose now sometimes kick a nearby player
Fixed some bugs that could cause too many or too few enemy search parties on loading or restarting a game
Fixed various save/load and syncing issues for endgame boss cutscenes and battles
Fixed issue where Ai actors couldn’t see a player sitting in a golf cart
Improved getting in and out of golf cart animations
Kelvin will visually refuse an order that requires trees if none are nearby
Turtles can now be electrocuted
Fixed turtle eggs not spawning for multiplayer clients
Rabbit footsteps sound different in snow now
Improved putter hitting golf ball
Various asset memory optimizations
Various UI, pickup and audio optimizations
Blueberry bush berries now deform with bush
Ocean patch optimization
Various environment layout fixes
Basalt rocks added to caves merged collision meshes
Moss LOD ranges optimized
Optimized LOD2 for cliffs
LOD groups optimized
Starfish LODs added and group assignment changed
Stream LOD ranges optimized
Bunker and Cave entrances optimized
Small rock pickup optimized
Added missing LODs to some legacy rocks
LODs setup for KnightV, hang glider, and golf cart
LODs setup for Lakes
Lake audio emitters optimized
Spruce tree meshes optimized
Seaweed Dry Cluster LOD2 optimized
Optimized Berry meshes
Fix for some waterfall particles that were always on
World collisions optimized, reduced number of active colliders
Rocks and stones now have collision in the log sled
Added play visual for action camera
Fixed faked GI slipping over surfaces when rotating the camera
Improved mask maps for snow and wetness
Optimized fallen log LODs
Optimized lily pads
Moved dead tacti with action camera in bunker entertainment to easier to see position
Dead stumps and rock billboards now draw further
Added LODs to stick and log storage, log windows, fences
Energy drink item now uses a low level of detail when on shelves or a pickup
Optimized the in world stick pickup
Increased delay before boss cutscene
Added countdown timer to back of gold room
Setup streaming versions of the beached yachts to optimize memory usage
Removed texture streaming on golf cart logo
Window shutters are now animated when closing or opening
It is now possible to place a beam on the forward end between 2 beams supported by struts
Added Idle motion to Golf Cart driver and passenger so they aren’t static
Rifle and other weapons no longer behave strangely during player hit react animation
New idles for holding trophy heads
Knight V now leans with player correctly when viewed in third person multiplayer
Improved server browser filtering user experience
Added server browser support for search by IP address in the server name search bar
Added server browser filters: “not empty”, “public”
Added ping to the server browser entries
Added filters reset button to server browser
Dedicated servers played recently will be refreshed first to improve responsiveness
Dedicated servers on which you have a save will now be sorted first in list
Improved server browser performance
Improved server browser refreshing in bad networking conditions
Server browser gamepad navigation fixes
Dedicated servers won’t be detected as “game running” anymore by steam launcher, and game can now be started from steam launcher on the same machine as the dedicated server
Added non verbose logging mode, which is now the default mode. Verbose logging mode can be forced by using the -verboseLogging command line argument (see dedicated server guide)
Dedicated servers will now immediately save before shutdown to avoid data loss
Updated dedicated server guide: Dedicated Server Guide

Fixes

Fix for player drinking from a pot when they are holding a valid container to fill up
Fixed issue where some items in the grab bag were hard to select due to the raycast blocker overlapping some items
Set deer head in the grab bag to not be convex so that it does not overlap the duck head collision
Fixed being able to add items to the cooking pot while its cooking clean water
Fix for cooking pot lid popping off for clients every time someone drinks or refills from the pot
Fixed issue with storage LODs not activating until the player is near them and then moves away
If a GPS locator is trying to be added but does not have icon data, initialize default data
Turtle shells are now properly dropped when skinned if the players inventory already has a shell
Fixed pause menu being accessible during boss cutscene
Prevented escape prompt from showing up early during get to the chopper cutscene
Fix for Screen Space reflection not turning back on after turning it off/on
Fixed sled hit react animation
Fixed bug with Crossbow reload and idle animation
Fixed some cases of cannibals prematurely dying while burning, and they now won’t catch fire from blocked torch hit
Fixed player climbing cannibal lookout tower rope not being aligned with rope on some towers
Fixed hanging skeletons on large destroyed huts reappearing in air
Fixed multiple players being able to pickup the same dead body at same time, which could lead to several issues
Fixed some visual issues on Puffies carried by other players
Fixed wall not accounted for as a valid support when counting unsupported beams, it now provides the same benefit as having pillars supporting each end of the beam
Fixed case where destroying struts was not properly propagating the collapse to its supported beam
Fixed cutting pillar into a defensive wall spike not checking if it is supporting a SCREW structure, which would destroy it when applied
Fixed selecting terrain conforming outlines breaking placement alignment for non conforming outlines selected afterwards
Fixed missing snap point to place full log or stone pillars underneath second story beams
Fixed dirt of planter furniture not affected by snow and wetness occlusion
Fixed several issues with dismantling beams that could cause issues
Moved up last line of Barb note to not overlap thumb
Fixed an issue where dedicated server couldn’t be joined after the computer returned from sleep mode
Fixed alpha on crosses burn demons note
Fixed spreading phlox rendering 2 times