Hello Players!

The AI update is live with new deer models, new AI behaviors, sound effects and fixes.

The focus for this update has been to improve the way that the AI works. As mentioned in the previous devlog (#4), the system was well due for a rework and through the process I have learned a lot to help with the next step of the game.


Instead of generic spawning, the animals are now properly attached to their own nests. Destroying these will not only decrease your reputation, but also prevent the animals from roaming around.

The players that take the friendly route can expect different bonding experiences with the animals:


Rabbits now approach you on their own, allowing you to create your own bunny army. All you have to do is interact with them and they will forever be loyal.


Foxes, as skiddish as they are, will no longer ignore the player if they approach, even if the player is friendly. They will also no longer approach if you wait patiently with food.


Place down the new baits and watch from a distance. When they are ready, they will approach you on their own terms, and if you wish to befriend them you better hold something they like.


Deers now pivot around their pack leader. If the leader flees, the rest of the deers will flee. If the leader is tamed, so are the rest.

The players that take the other route can expect a visit in the night as a consequence for their behaviors.


And if you find yourself surrounded, a spear can come in handy to block the incoming attacks.

Below is the full overview of changes:

New

• Added a new crafting category.
  
• Added new foliage.
  
• Added fox nests.
  
• Added rabbit nests.
  
• Added boar nests.
  
• Added animal reactions to seeing the player.
  
• Added new volume sliders.
  
• Added ambient audio to occupied animal areas.
  
• Added additional SFX to all animals.
  
• Added a hit VFX when dealing damage to blueprints.
  
• Added nighttime activity for wolves and players in the red reputation zone.
  
• Added baiting.
  
• Added a new tutorial for the headlamp.
  
• Added a new tutorial for the spear.
  
• Added a new tutorial for the baits.
  
• Added an exhausted character state.
  
• Added exhausted character SFX.
  
• Added more bones to the map.
  
• Added more cheats.
  
• Added a way to pick up decorations that consist of an item by holding the interact key.
  
• Added new camera shake effect for when player is sprinting while exhausted.
  
• Added a way to block incoming damage with the spear by holding right-click.
  
• Added a way to bait animals by dropping food on the ground. Bait can also be used for taming/bonding progression.
  
• Added a deer leader.
  
• Added two new deer models.
  
• Added new bonding VFX.
  

General Changes

• Made adjustments to the landscape.
  
• Made adjustments to the wolf nest camp.
  
• Made adjustments to the entrances to the wolf nest.
  
• Made adjustments to the waterfall cave.
  
• Adjusted the max travel distance for the different arrow types.
  
• Adjusted medkit healing over time trigger from 10 seconds to 4.
  
• Removed destroy key (Default Key: Q). Melee weapons will now be used to destroy buildings.
  
• The large campfire is now used as a safe-zone building.
  
• The player can now always sprint, but sprinting without stamina will greatly decrease hunger, oxygen and thirst.
  
• Breaking tree trunks will no longer automatically add bark to the inventory. Bark now spawns similar to the logs.
  
• Hitting trees with the modern hatchet will now break more pieces of the tree than with the crafted hatchet.
  
• The cart tutorial now appears when first interacting with the cart and not when walking near it for the first time.
  
• Lowered the shader opacity for unfinished structures from 0.8 to 0.4.
  

Animal Changes

• Foxes will now only accept bait as a peace-offering from the player before it tries to approach.
  
• Foxes will flee if the player does not carry a peace-offering when it tries to approach.
  
• Foxes will flee if the player gets too close, even if the player has a green-zone reputation.
  
• Deers will flee if the player gets too close, even if the player has a green-zone reputation.
  
• Taming the leader of a pack of deers will now make all the other deers in the area tamed as well.
  
• Rabbits no longer need to be bonded with to befriend. If the player's reputation is high enough, the rabbit will approach the player on its own terms.
  
• Animals now react to arrows even if not hit.
  
• Boars and wolves now flee when damaged and the attacker is out of view.
  
• If the player's reputation is high enough, freeing rabbits will immediately befriend them.
  
• Tamed animals set to “Stay” will now wander in a radius near the first placed large campfire.
  
• Hitting tamed animals with weapons will now cause all of them to run off.
  
• Improved AI pathing.
  

Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the bows had more inaccurate firing directions than normal.
  
• Fixed a bug where the arrow UI would move when hovering one of the icons.
  
• Fixed a bug where arrow type could not be changed if the bow was not already loaded with an arrow.
  
• Fixed a bug where shooting an arrow would automatically choose the simple arrow instead of the type selected.
  
• Fixed an issue where dropping items with the hotkey would sometimes leave the item underneath the landscape.
  
• Fixed a bug where decorative objects like lanterns and fur could not be placed on staircases.
  
• Fixed a bug where save thumbnails would save the thumbnail to multiple slots when pressing pause game.
  
• Fixed a bug where the vegetable crops had disappeared.
  
• Fixed a landscape shader bug.
  
• Fixed a bug where tutorial tips would not show in alphabetic order in the main menu.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could earn a good reputation once in the red zone.
  
• Fixed a bug where the start inventory tip would not disappear by pressing TAB/I (default inventory buttons).
  
• Fixed a bug where animals would push the player when roaming nearby.
  
• Fixed a bug where if the player was falling before entering Godmode, the player would be instantly killed when entering player-mode again.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player could not hold items after attacking while entering swimming mode.
  
• Fixed a bug where weather would not save.
  
• Fixed a bug where hovering over the animal beds would display wrong building requirements.
  
• Fixed a bug where it would randomly become daylight in the middle of the night.
  
• Fixed a bug where the rain effect didn’t show.
  
• Fixed a bug where it would start raining with a clear sky.
  
• Fixed a bug where the change arrow UI would appear when not holding the bow and pressing R.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could not collect certain items from the small campfire due to collision.
  
• Fixed a bug where corn could stack to 30 and burnt corn could only stack to 20.
  
• Fixed a bug where some stats would save when killed.
  
• Fixed a bug where setting sliders in the settings menu to their default value would not display the reset button as disabled.
  
• Fixed a bug where vines would collide with the cart.
  
• Fixed a bug where bark would collide with the cart.
  
• Fixed a bug where there would be no water SFX when walking in shallow water in some rivers.
  
• Fixed a bug where the inventory tip would appear even if the inventory was open.
  
• Fixed a bug where there were no breakable locks on the cages beneath the treehouses.
  
• Fixed a bug where a warning to “place wood” into the campfire would appear even if the campfire was lit.
  
• Fixed a bug where when teleporting to certain locations with the cheat window, the player would get stuck in the ground or fall under the map.
  
• Fixed a bug where rabbit traps would be invisible, but the traps would still make sound of a trapped animal.
  
• Fixed a bug where weather was not affected by the volume slider.
  
• Fixed a bug where the interact UI would stay visible while sleeping.
  
• Fixed a bug where bed blankets would have player and cart collision.
  
• Fixed a bug where rabbits would be stuck in the floor when in rabbit traps.
  
• Fixed a bug where using medkits would give players more health than the player’s max health.
  
• Fixed a bug where tamed animals would push the player around.
  
• Fixed a bug where follow stop radius for tamed animals set to follow would be ignored.
  
• Fixed a bug where if a player moved their mouse during the intro, the start rotation of the camera when the intro was over would change too.
  
• Fixed a bug where the stick and hand animation when lighting a campfire did not line up.
  
• Fixed a bug where the logs would spawn with the wrong rotation when a tree was cut.
  
• Fixed a bug where crafting items would make the mouse disappear.
  
• Fixed a bug where destroying buildings with Q would not properly remove the building and in turn not let the player build in that area again.
  
• Fixed a bug where dropping items with the key G, would not clear the player's hands which resulted in infinite spawning.
  
• Fixed a bug where dropping items with the key G, would not always display the item on the floor as it would if the item was right-clicked and dropped via the inventory UI.
  
• Fixed a bug where cages with blood would not spawn in with blood after reloading the game for the first time.
  
• Fixed a bug where tamed animals would use the beds even if it was occupied.
  
• Fixed a bug where when using the settings sliders it would change the slider placement if the number had more than two decimals.
  
• Fixed a bug where the player would sometimes not be allowed to craft more than one count of an item without relogging.
  
• Fixed a bug where both the inventory and crafting buttons would be highlighted when opening the inventory after having interacted with a chest.
  
• Fixed a bug where some tamed animals would load in frozen.
  
• Fixed a bug where blood VFX would appear when hitting a rabbit trap after freeing the trapped animal.
  
• Fixed a bug where animals would freeze when hit by a player weapon.