Patch Notes 16.5.4 May 20th 2016

16.5.4 sees us returning to a more normalized patch schedule with a weekly build. We will still issue smaller point patches for emergency issues, but in general will be shifting to larger patches giving us a little more QA time.

This build sees several major additions. Many of these additions are to the construction and housing system. This includes the addition of a new abandonment system for homes whose owners or guild masters have not logged in for some time. In order to clear out older structures this is currently set to 14 days from today. After clearing out some of the older structures we’ll increase the time frame in a future patch. Abandoned homes will not be destroyed, but will be accessible and demolishable by other players if they reach that point. Speaking of demolishment of structures, you will now receive back a portion of the resources when demolishing one of you or your guild’s structures. For the time being we are offering 100% of resources, but this will change to a percentage in the future. Gravity has been added to structures, so if a base platform or building is destroyed the props or structures on top of them will now fall. We’ve also made some tweaks to the camera system when placing structures, blocked resources from respawning on top of structures, and introduced several new structure types including First Aid Kits, Water Towers, and Refrigerators.

Repop fans will welcome the addition of Engagements in this build. Engagements are similar to public quests and were an important part of The Repopulation. They make their first appearance in this build, with several new combat oriented engagements being added. These currently give chances for new boss and loot types, and in the future will also reward unique achievements and PvE content for guilds.

A new registration system for third party servers has also been introduced. This allows players to easily browse and select player hosted servers. Along with these we have also introduced several new servers located in Singapore. This is not the only improvement for Asian players however, the game now features a Japanese localization option, along with improvements to existing (Spanish and Simplified Chinese) localizations.

Other changes include a slew of pet improvements, animation work and graphical improvements, a new high end armor, balance tweaks, and a good number of bug fixes. You can read the complete build notes below:

Animations

* Added Animation Blends to the setlang animations.
* Characters now breathe when in the third person pistol idle animation.
* Added new animations to Lurkers.
* Improved the Setlang animations.
* Updated third person idle/melee animation.

Audio

* Introduced new environmental and engagement oriented sound effects.

Engagements

* We’ve introduced Engagements, which are similar to public quests. The first round of engagements are more simple combat oriented engagements. We’ll continue to extend this system in the future.
* Introduced a new Setlang Infestation engagement in the hills near the Lonely Lagoon. This event will spawn setlang in waves, culminating in a boss encounter if you can clear through the first couple waves.
* Introduced a new Helltyr Patrol engagement. This is a very simple engagement that spawns a group of Helltyr which will patrol the area for a short time and then despawn. They can be killed for a chance at loot.
* Introduced a new Mubark Herd engagement in the icy regions.

Graphics

* Improved Flame Thrower particle effects.
* Introduced new particle effects for engagements.
* Rocharus Armor has new graphics.
* Added new icons for some items.

Housing

* Turrets can now be demolished, similar to standard housing items.
* Resources will no longer respawn if blocked by a housing structure. This only applies to resources that attempt to respawn after a structure has been placed, whether harvested before or after that placement. This will allow you to leave that big tree in the middle of your base, if you desire, but once removed, it will remain removed.
* Tweaked structure placement to make it slightly easier to find a valid location.
* Added new improved 3rd person camera view while in structure placement mode. Can zoom much further out, and the crosshairs will move further above your head. Placing large platforms should be easier now.
* Introduced new Refrigerators. These devices can store up to 9 items, and specialize in preserving food and drinks for longer durations. They currently preserve food and drink more than 6x longer than a small crate, but are more difficult to create.
* For rotating a structure while placing it, the angle rotation increment has been reduced form 30 degrees to 5.
* Implemented a gravity system for housing items, that is activated when the structure they were on is demolished or destroyed. The items should no longer remain hanging in the air, but instead will fall to the ground. Note, there are a few stubborn items refusing to fall properly. For now they will slowly descend to the ground, until they are taught their place in the world of physics.
* When attempting to demolish a housing item, if the item possibly has other items, inside or on top, a warning message will be included with the demolish verification, but it will no longer prevent you from completing the demolition. Note, this only applies if the other items are modifiable by you. If not, then the demolition will not be allowed. Warning, demolishing an item without removing other supported items first, will result in those items falling to the ground.
* For non platform structures, improved the routine that will automatically raise the structure until its floor is properly above ground (if possible). (Platforms are allowed to go partially underground, so does not apply, but you can use Shift+MouseWheel to manually raise the platforms higher. ).
* Demolishing a housing item now has a chance to recover ingredients used to craft it. For this release the recover chance is 100%, to help offset possible structure damage caused by new item gravity feature. In the future it will be reduced to a lower amount, that can be increased by better construction skills.
* When attempting to place a structure, the ghost structure will no longer move out beyond the valid radius from the character.
* Introduced new Water Towers. These structures will automatically fill themselves with water when it rains. Players can use Waterskins while standing next to a water tower to fill their waterskin with water from the tower.
* Introduced a housing abandonment system. Structures now track how long it's been since their owner or a guild leader has been online. After 14 days of neither appearing, the structure will become abandoned, displaying "(Abandoned)" after the name of the structure, and will be available for anyone to enter (for buildings and gates), and for anyone to demolish, recovering resources in the process. Note, 14 days is the default value for the new server configuration option, "DaysTillStructureAbandoned" .

Containers can now also be abandoned.

* Introduced new First Aid Kits. These items can be set in bases like props. Other players can walk up to them and press the E key to consume the item while healing themselves. This is a useful item for siege defense.

Items and Fittings

* Introduced a new weapon type: Sharp Setlang Claw. These are very rare drops from Setlang bosses, and a common drop of the new Setlang Mutant boss. This weapon can also be used to carve away animal fat or meat.
* Introduced new Setlang Jerky food items. These crafted items are only heal a marginal amount more than Cooked Setlang Meat, but will decay significantly slower.
* Introduced new Studded Mubark Armor. This armor is created by using an item dropped from the new Mubark Bulls and will strengthen Mubark Armor, though it does make it slightly more vulnerable to electrical damage when it does so.
* Increased the effectiveness of Structure Repair Kits.

Miscellaneous

* We've added a Japanese Localization to the game. Please let us know if you run into any strange or incomplete translations as this is a work in progress.
* Improved the Spanish localization to include some bug fixes, additional translations, and fixes to small widgets.

Reduced food decay rate.

* You can now register 3rd party servers. There is a dropdown called "Player Servers" in the online list that will pull the list of 3rd party servers.
* The ping code between the client/server has been updated as well as the pulling of registered servers. If everything is working properly shouldn't notice much of a difference than before.
* If you select a server that has a different version than your client you will no longer be able to connect to it.

NPCs

* Increased NPC patrol and pursue distances.
* Mubark, Rhinoc, Drosera Achillea, and Phosphori had their damage absorption values armor values increased by a larger degree than other NPC types.
* Increased the hit points and in some cases armor class of some types of NPCs
* NPC armor values should now scale upwards by a larger degree as an NPC levels.

Pets

* When respawning your pet will now join you.
* Crawler Bot Pet should now follow you around like a pet instead of roaming around like a creature.
* MedBot now has a proper display name when hovering over it.
* Pets are now saved with the character and will be loaded and removed when the player logs.
* Pets should now do a much better job of following their masters. There is still a bit of an issue if they get to far away from their owner that should be addressed in the next patch (run back to the pet to get it going).
* Adjusted pets movement/chase speed. They should move similar to the player's running speed now.
* You can only have 1 pet up now at a time. Trying to summon another one with a whistle will give you a message now if you try to do so.
* Pets will now run after a target they see if they are close enough and look like they are attacking it now. Still a lot of AI work to do.
* Pets health and level are now properly saved and loaded upon return.

Resources

* Limestone now has a chance to drop from medium or large sized rocks in the Snowy regions which previously did not have any.

Trade Skills

* Painkillers now require 3 Ngooberries instead of 2.
* Industrial Stations can now be created with 4 Electronics skill, rather than 5.
* Players with 5+ Electronics skill can now create Refrigerators. They require an Industrial Station to create.
* You can now create Water Towers with a Construction skill of 10.
* You can now create Setlang Jerky with a Subsistence skill of 6 or higher. This recipe requires a Stove.
* Cement now requires a Stone as an additional ingredient. This is meant to help offset the one less Limestone now required for Quicklime. Stone is much more common.
* Quicklime now requires only 3 Limestone, down from 4.
* Studded Mubark Armor can now be created by players with a Textiles skill of 10.
* You can now create First Aid Kits with a survival skill of 9 or higher.

User Interface

* The health bar for structures now updates instantly from repairs.
* When mousing over Water Towers it will display the amount of water stored in the tower next to the structure name.
* Red crosshairs will no longer show when targeting a turret that you or your guild owns.

Bug Fixes

* Fixed an issue where it would require 2 double clicks to open a bag for the first time (should open on the 1st try now).
* Players should no longer be able to damage themselves when using a Flamethrower or Shockgun.
* Dropping an item on an uninitialized bag will now initialize the bag. It will return back to its previous spot, but the bag should now at least work properly after.
* Fixed an issue with first person recoil animation.

Fixed an issue with show/hide of resources, where it was possible to see resources showing, right after a login, that should be hidden.

* Structure placement now always shows as invalid if the crosshairs point to an area too far away.
* Fixed some localization conflict status within code.
* Removed reload animation from first person aim down sights view.
* Fixed yet another bug with detection of other structures, when attempting to demolish one. May it be the last.
* Fixed a bug which was preventing pistol recoil animations from displaying in first person.
* Improved the day and night cycle transitions.
* Weapon procs should no longer affect PvP immune players.
* Fixed a bug in the text when skinning Adrenal Glands.
* You should now only receive a healing message from Medbots if they actually healed damage. They were previously spamming with 0 damage heals.
* Fixed a bug which was causing newly created Waterskins to self destruct on use.
* Repaired an issue which was causing pets to swing at other friendly pets even though they could not damage them.
* Corrected an issue which was preventing structure repair kits from working properly.
* Corrected some following and facing related pet bugs.
* Fixed the locks on wood and stone gates.
* Structure Repair Kits will now properly consume a charge if any damage is repaired on nearby structures.
* Fixed skin color tune not working ni Char Creation.
* Removed a mysterious cube which was erroneously on display in the Kaavo region.
* Corrected a problem which allowed you to damage yourself from your own AoE procs.
* An animation now plays after looting a mob, at least in 3rd person view.
* Filled in a pit that players could fall into and have a hard time escaping from near the Lonely Lagoon.
* Fixed an issue with the stone base that could cause a player to have their their head stuck in the floor, when the base is placed overhead.
* Fixed an issue with /wipeme charactercreation where it was clearing the guildID from the playerdata.
* Fixed a localization issue with recipe timings.
* Farming Plots should now properly retain some moisture when it rains.
* Fixed an issue where player names weren't updating in the guild list if they had changed.
* Made the Rocharus helmet material double sided so the front was no longer see through.
* Fixed the size and the positioning of the pistol model. The pistol no longer clips hands in first person.
* Improved the 3rd person pistol animations.
* Filled in parts of a pit which was previously inescapable without /suiciding.
* Dropping an inventory item on the map will no longer cause the item to disappear.
* Made some adjustments to collision capsules of various NPCs.