ICARUS Week Nineteen: Armor Durability, Scorpion Boss, and New Mission to Unlock Scorpion Items!

Inconspicuous at first, but quick and packing a serious punch — this week’s content update itself resembles the tricky arachnid it puts on the spotlight! It released just a little early, and appears to be a little modest in its features at a first glance. However, there is quite a bit to unpack, with a little something both in the featured updates and the change log notes that we all can appreciate!

Let’s jump right in.

Armor Durability System

Perhaps you have wondered — with all this wear and tear on tools and building pieces, how come your armor is doing just fine? Well, let this unequal treatment persist no longer: now your armor pieces will deteriorate from taking hits, environmental impacts, and the extended use. Once a piece breaks, you will need to repair it before you can make use of its stats and bonuses again.

In order to do so, you will need to interact with the bench (or other deployable) where you crafted the armor — the repair will cost a portion of the initial construction cost.

One question we are yet to test out is what happens when a piece of armor breaks. The patch notes state that it is “removed from the player model.” It’s unclear whether the effect is merely visual, or whether the piece is literally removed and placed into the player inventory (then, what happens if the inventory is full?). If you have tested that — let us know in the comments below!

New Extermination Mission: The Scorpion Boss

How about another Extermination mission? Sounds like the Scorpion infestation has spread despite the clean up you had to undertake with the CONCEALMENT. Now, a new and highly aggressive mutation has emerged and is scouring the region, terrorizing prospectors trying to do their work.

In LOOSE ENDS: Extermination Sinotai needs you to finish the job — drop back to the planet, make use of the traces of bio-research to locate the creatures, and deal with the threat.

Scorpion Items Unlocked by CARAPACE: Research

You know what we need…? More Scorpion missions! That’s right, there is one more mission added by this week’s update, and that’s CARAPACE: Research. With how much Sinotai had to deal with these little venomous creatures, it was only a matter of time until they realized that they can make use of all the “biological materials” they have been amassing from the cleanup efforts.

Sounds like CARAPACE: Research will be a quick mission, following the familiar format, asking you to fill and activate a sample analyzer to finalize some new recipes. (Which will most likely involve dispatching quite a few Scorpions in the process.) If you had some fun with UNEARTHED, then you will probably will enjoy this little mission as well.

This mission unlocks two new craftable items: the Scorpion Trap and the Scorpion Hedgehog.

• The Scorpion Trap made from the Scorpion Pincers will be able to trap animals like Bears. Once deployed, it can be interacted with to activate it, and it will snap shut on anything that triggers it (even prospectors), immobilizing them for a few seconds. Could be nifty for catching particularly quick prey, defense of your base, and for setting up right before starting a more dangerous fight.
• The Scorpion Hedgehog is an upgrade to the Wooden Hedgehog, crafted by combining the latter with a Scorpion Tail. It deals more base damage in addition to some poison damage from the attached stinger, and can now harm prospectors as well. If you had fun using barricades to confront bears or fight multiple animals at once, this little upgrade might just become your favorite.

Honorable Mentions

Introduced this week is something a lot of us have certainly been waiting for: manual control over the processing order! Now, the processing deployables like campfires and furnaces will prioritize recipes based on the position of the materials in the device’s inventory.

Also, Coal and Aluminium have been added to Deep Ore Deposits. Note that devs have also implemented “phase one” of general visual improvements, along with “mountain and cliff optimization.” See if you can note the difference during your next walkabout?

And, as always, we will leave you with the full change log to peruse.
Let us know if you spot something else that is interesting in this week’s update in the comments below!

Full Week Nineteen Change Log

• Added new mission – CARAPACE: Research
• Added new mission – LOOSE ENDS: Extermination
• Added Scorpion Pincer Trap, a new deployable made on the Crafting Bench using the Pincers obtained from a Scorpion corpse. Once deployed, the trap can be interacted with to activate it and it will be ready to snap shut on anything (creatures or humans) that triggers it, and they will be immobilized for a few seconds.
• Added Scorpion Hedgehog, an updated version of the basic Wood Hedgehog defensive deployable, now with Scorpion Stingers attached for additional poison damage. Unlike the much safer Wood Hedgehog (which has been moved to the Crafting Bench), the Scorpion Hedgehog will also damage humans, so, handle with care. To make a Scorpion Hedgehog, you’ll need a Wood Hedgehog and combine it with a Scorpion Tail obtained from a Scorpion corpse.
• Armor now takes damage when players resist damage
• When armor breaks it is removed from the player model and the stats are no longer applied.
• Armor is now repairable.
• Added Coal and Aluminum ore types to Deep Mining system and Scanners.
• Fixed issue with some Deep Ore Deposit textures in some caves.
• Auto-crafting devices (e.g. campfires, furnaces) now prioritize recipes based on the position of items in the devices inventory. This means you can now position the items you want to be processed first in order.
• Updated textures on pills medical items variants for a more refined look.
• Updated the material shader for the tonics bottles and updated the liquid textures within the bottles.
• Fixed an issue where there was a delay with the storm effects appearing for Clients.
• Reduced the resolution of some larger gradient textures in UI to save memory.
• Updated the mission Stockpile Dropship to use a new mesh which fixes some minor collision issues and also allows for highlighting when looked at.
• Fixed some minor dialog errors in subtitles.
• Updated the mesh and textures for the Cooling Bandage to improve look.
• Updated the mesh and textures for the Heat Bandage to improve look.
• Updated broken item icon overlay.
• Fixed issue causing visual distortion on decals on Envirosuit, which would occur in first person.
• Phase one of mountain and cliff optimization and visual improvements.