Major update: Survival and stealth adjusted + bugfixes and optimization.
Important note: to make the whole game working smoother, updating faster and requiring less space on your hard drive, we've strongly altered and optimized the general structure of the game build. This means that with current patch you'll need to re-download the whole game content which is about 28 Gigabytes of data after compression. But from now you'll have more free space on your hard drive and the next patches will be smaller and more effectively downloaded and installed.
General fixes:
For everybody willing to make perfect screenshot or virtual photography without the game interface: we've added the option to disable UI using the CTRL + ALT + [ combination of keys. This shortcut disables the UI completely and permanently, to invert it you need to reload the game. We are working on a more elegant solution.
Compression and Steam packages optimization made game build much smaller. Instead of 45 GB right now it should occupy about 30 GB on the disk.
Not all gameplay mechanics were clear to you, especially those in Base and after death. We've added some new tutorials to explain them.
Items and containers now have a small overlay that appears before we pick them up. This should facilitate scavenging and looting soldiers when several items are close by.
Compass UI is a little more subtle.
AI and combat:
Soldiers should now behave more naturally when they find the body.
Takedown produces sound. Killing a few soldiers next to each other should no longer be possible.
Black Stalker uses the laser and no longer shoots using debug tracing lines.
Fixes:
Beating dolls should no longer cause a crash...
Equipment size can no longer be expanded indefinitely.
Tarakan should now appear correctly in the database when using retrospective branching.
Exiting the game at transition levels should no longer cause damage to save if you do so after the indicator disappears.
We've fixed a whole bunch of smaller bugs you have reported. Thanks!
Survival:
The flow of survival is one of the most important elements of our game. Unfortunately, not all of our design decisions were presented clear to you. Many of you asked, "why if the meaning of the game is to survive in Chernobyl, then the game lasts only 10 days?". Well, the game was not limited to 10 days, we rather wanted you to replay the story missions with branching and retrospections, which is best seen at repeated transitions. Today, we are not sure if this decision was correct. Therefore, as part of the experiment, we raise the limit to 100 days, additionally introducing several changes that should emphasize on survival aspect:
Over time, Chernobylite storms are becoming more frequent. Build a Q-wave generator to defend against them.
As a result of chernobylite substance activity, the zone is becoming more and more radioactive every day. Moving around it will be more and more difficult.
Raw materials for crafting are slowly diminishing in the following days, which will result in fewer and fewer of them with time progress.
There will be fewer and fewer animals over time. Hunting for food will be more difficult.
Stealth improvements:
We often hear from you that unfinished AI is one of the biggest problems of the game. However, the problem is much more complex. To make AI better, we also need to improve patrol roads, level design and many game balance parameters. So far we’ve chosen 3 places for testing. If you like it, we will improve the rest of the game in a similar way:
In addition, we have introduced the following changes in combat:
When we hide in the bushes, they become slightly transparent. It's easier to move around and watch soldiers.
New takedown animation. Only one at the moment, but it shows the direction in which we want to go. It is slower, more emotional and emphasizes more on the fact that Igor is not a killing machine.
Psyche system:
We have finally started to work on this mechanics. Treat these solutions as prototypical, it's just a base for the future, which will ultimately hinder survival:
Igor's lack of food allocation results in a decrease in Psyche
When Psyche is at 0 the player starts to drop health points, down to 1 point.
We've added the ability to craft alcohol in a laboratory that raises psyche.
Remember about our virtual photography contest that ends soon:
https://steamcommunity.com/gid/10358...44077006171888
Many stalkers already provided their great artwork, you can still contribute and win the trip to the real Chernobyl Zone with us!