Update Prometheus

This update was released on March 1, 2017. Read the official news post.

The changes are as follows:

## New Content

* Initial Animal System implementation
* Birds now have the ability to form flocks
* Rewritten Prometheus - planet generation engine. Faster planet generation, better optimization. This allows us to make planets bigger and render more objects in less time. Preparations made for road and save/load systems. After this release, save/load will be on our highest priority feature list.
* New AI: The entire AI System was scrapped and re-implemented from scratch. Every single Nugget action was reevaluated and redesigned in order to make them feel more natural. Our goal in the future is to continue working on Nugget AI behaviors, improve their education, and give them better tools with which to evaluate their situation and make proper decisions. The latest AI implementation is far more dynamic and flexible for future needs.
* Evolution tower building has been placed instead of the Epicenter (This is the foundation for the new Research System which is already in development and will be released within the next few patches)
* Epicenter expansion system reworked
* Completely new pathfinding system. Smarter, faster!
* Clicking and dragging building/construction sites don’t open the building panel anymore. Additionally, when placing building, clicking and holding will cancel the placement.
* Windowed mode added to settings screen
* Camera controls improved
* Localization for planet objects
* New Weather System including clouds, such as rain clouds with new thunder effects and rain and snow particles
* Buildings have a new transparent ghost effect when being placed under blueprint mode
* Building tilt force: buildings lean when the mouse cursor moves in any direction
* New construction scaffold mechanics. Scaffolds will begin being built when Nuggets deliver resources to the construction zone. Scaffolds will be fully constructed once all resources are in place and the construction is ready to be started.
* Nugget Thoughts: You can now read a Nugget’s thoughts by clicking on their idea card. These thoughts vary depending on what they’re doing and how they feel.
* New 2x and 4x time speed up functionality
* New News System implemented. Now news can be shown using only icons or with full text All messages are also color-coded now. Slider for changing that option has been added next to the news archive button. News will also now scroll if the text size exceeds the window. Links in news stories now work as well.
* Renaming capability added to buildings: Constructors hut, Cemetery, Eatery, Farm, Fishing hut, Forecast tower, Residential hut, Pump, Reservoir, Well and Witch doctor hut.
* New planet physics system: allows us to have Nuggets ragdoll in the future
* New optimized camera: it now conforms to the geometry of the planet’s surface. No more clipping through the ground or flying through objects. Also optimized for tall buildings such as Skyscrapers and Towers.
* All game settings were reviewed and rewired. Let us know if you have any issues with some of them on our forums.

### New Nugget Animations

* Dying
* Gathering from bush
* Chopping
* Mining
* Grabbing
* Walking with backpack
* Drinking while sitting
* Drinking from Water Well
* Drinking from Lake
* Eating while sitting
* Eating while standing
* Idle
* Patient Idle
* Walking
* Walking with plate
* Walking while injured
* Talking
* Listening
* Running
* Hugging each other
* Repairing
* Farm planting
* Farm harvesting
* Witch Doctor healing
* Forecaster climbing stairs, blowing horn, observing
* Eatery cooking
* Fishing Hut sailing, fishing, gutting
* Cemetery crying, walking with stretcher

### Farming Redesigned

Farming has been redesigned from the ground up. Now every crop has a preferred biome. They grow faster and use less water if within the correct biome. Crops are now planted during spring only and each has a different growth time.

* Farm water usage now based on the selected crop and the biome it’s growing in. For example, if you plant Panda Brains in the desert biome instead of the grasslands (preferred biome for this crop), it will use 50 water instead of the usual 25.
* Crops now also need regular care. They have a new condition bar that depletes over time. Farmer Nuggets will care for and help crops recover over time if needed. If the Farmers can’t keep up, some crops may die (like if there’s only one Farmer Nugget tending the crops).
* Overall, farming has been adjusted based on your feedback. Our goal was to lower micromanagement while making it more interesting to utilize.
* Please keep in mind that farming is still a work in progress and we need your feedback and suggestions to get it just right.

### Structures

* Shader and mesh update on cloth components to emulate wind blowing on structures
* Some structures now light up after dark. Currently only residential buildings. Rest of them will be updated soon.
* Fixed issue causing black spots on some buildings due to normal direction being out of range

### Structure Placement

* Construction menu ghost update. Shader provides you with a glossy shape of the building.
* Highlight ghost. When placing a building, all objects that are affected within the construction zone will be highlighted.

### Nuggets

* Multiple Nuggets are combined into a single skinned mesh to allow for more at less of a performance cost
* Shader completely rewritten to allow for the combined Nuggets to keep their individuality in colors, clothing, decorations, and other various elements.
* New way of managing colors allows for many variations of Nuggets under a single draw call
* When Nuggets die, a ghost-like spirit will leave their bodies

### Water

* Frozen water now depicts a better normal map
* Samples cube map to break up environment reflections a bit
* Calibrated freezing so water won't distort during biome temp changes

### Trees

* Implemented higher-quality shader on trees to improve visual appearance
* Adjusted mesh normals to scatter light correctly
* Added a pass to the shader to smooth trees a bit more with needing to rely on post-processing
* Trees now pull texture information from a 2D texture array that is built during planet generation. This prevents redundant texture information from unused trees not on your current planet from filling up memory on the gpu.
* Tree color is now sampled using a newer method allowing more color variations on all the trees on a single planet

### Planet Shader Revision

* Added support for normal maps
* Near and far distance texture blending to remove tile pattern from far distance
* Reduced snow brightness on day side preventing some items from being visible
* Added HSL adjustments that could be used down the road for various things such as planet editor, etc

### Environment

* Lighting on a lot of planet objects have been resolved to prevent various things such as trees glowing at night and objects changing color dramatically as you rotate from day and night

## Art Assets

* Two types of Birds added: new models, animations, and mechanics.
* New Stones
* New Mountains
* New Nugget Haircuts and Clothing
* New Fruit bushes

### Updated Models

* 11 New Residential Huts with Night Illuminations
* Eatery
* Witch Doctor Hut
* Constructors Hut
* Forecast Tower
* Cemetery
* Water Pump
* Water Well
* Reservoir
* Farm
* Fishing Hut
* Updated foliage for buildings
* New mountains and stones models
* New scaffold models and mechanics
* Clouds new visuals and mechanics
* New model: Evolution tower
* Updated Nugget animations
* New Nugget animations
* Nugget death and soul flying animation

## UI Changes

* Removed patch notes info from MainUI (available only in settings screen and main menu)
* Updated main menu, settings menu, loading screen, and esc menu. Font changed to Proxima, added some new elements, rearranged others ;). Added localization.
* New simplified tutorial with new visuals
* News panel have now fixed height scroll bar, so it won’t shrink anymore if there is a ton of messages
* Empty worker slots now have glowing assignment animation in all panels
* Main Interface: Removed mating slot, because it is no longer relevant. Added play/pause and speed up (x2, x4) buttons in seasons panel clock.
* Worker ID card: minor visual modifications. Updated font.
* New farm panel is implemented
* Well and Reservoir panels have a new font as well
* MainUI: updated button animations
* God light will be automatically turned off when entering day zone
* Modal alert implemented. All alerts are now localized.
* Construction info panel has now updated font
* Cemetery panel: updated font, made a few major visual updates to support the font. Fixed Gravedigger assignment slot.
* Construction menu has a new font
* Fishing hut panel has new font as well
* Nugget list panel has updated font. Also added Last Name column and changed background.
* Redesign of Constructor’s Hut panel
* Constructor’s Hut: added new extended tooltips
* Worker ID card has Nugget renaming capabilities. Added Last Name input.
* Cemetery: added new extended tooltips
* Farm and Forecast tower: added extended tooltips
* Residential Hut: additional tooltips
* Pump panel has new font
* Construction menu categories are displayed on Hover instead of on Click
* New button added to mainUI - GoHome: clicking on Epicenter window no longer works
* New shader for Nugget model in Nugget ID card
* Updated status icons

## Performance Changes

* Mountain LOD groups implemented
* Rock formations culling
* Planet terrain optimization
* Planet objects now grouped in chunks, this allows us to have better performance with higher object density
* Loading time optimization: 2x faster
* Added LOD groups to all buildings
* Planet atmosphere effect, optimization
* New Star System implemented (preparation for Planet Discovery started)
* Nugget bone structure simplified and optimized: better performance with better visuals

## Known Issues

* Missing water FX from pump when pumping water
* Planet generation bug: sometimes planet can’t be generated (loading bar will stop and game won’t start). Game restart is required.
* Creator power menu and functionality are temporary disabled
* Buildings don’t have decals
* Buildings may be placed skew/above the ground - this is due to the missing fit to surface system
* Nuggets are not visually removing resources when a new building is placed. Instead, resources are disappearing.
* Sometimes AI might not be able to find the correct path to a destination
* Sometimes the game freezes while loading
* Entering ESC menu during the game might introduce some issues with the UI
* Nugget animation can be jittery at times
* Nuggets stand too far from objects they interact with
* Most of the Nuggets are missing accessories/tools