ICARUS Week 33 Update: New Time Pressure Mission, Future Equipment Alteration and Dedicated Servers

This week, while RocketWerkz delivers another mission with time pressure and a unique hunting requirement, they also hyped a new equipment alteration system and testing on dedicated servers. However, some enthusiastic bug testers might find the modifications to the IcarusUpvote system are a mixed bag.

New Mission FLATLINE: Research

The time pressure theme continues in the new FLATLINE mission on the Styx map with a 5 hour time limit. Your task is to recover technology and fuel for a biological containment unit in critical condition.

Critics of the running simulator that is sometimes ICARUS might find some relief as the search for fuel–a new Digested Enzyme obtained by hunting the wildlife–gives new purpose to each outing. It’s not smooth sailing, however, as a new scorpion boss has such high projectile resistance that the developers claim “melee will be the way to take him down”.

Equipment Alteration System in Development

An interesting feature in some survival crafting games is the ability to change the function or performance of you equipment through mods. (The Forest and 7 Days to Die, for example.) ICARUS is set to join this club in a future update with a new equipment modification system.

This will be implemented by two new workstations: one for mod making and another for mod attaching. (RocketWerkz has decided to call them alterations, but “alts” already has a meaning in the gaming community, so we’ll still call them “mods”.)

RocketWerkz is still in the experimentation stages, testing out a variety of mod possibilities. The effects mentioned are varied, like improving melee damage, adding bleed effects to axes, or increasing storage capacity, which suggests a wide variety of equipment can be altered. Another good sign is work done on the UI feedback showing users the effect that these mods are having on their equipment.

Dedicated Servers Updates

Progress is continuing on the implementation of dedicated servers, which should be good news to players who have experienced an increase in disconnection issues during prospects in the last couple weeks.

A new private test branch has been created where both the servers and the data migration process is being tested. It seems like the focus is on “providing access to various dedicated server host providers”, but hopefully private servers will be an option, as well.

Feature Upvote Changes

After last week’s update where assurances were given regarding the developers’ attention to feedback systems–especially FeatureUpvote–it is no surprise that we now see specific bug and feature requests from the site linked in the patch notes.

RocketWerkz also says they are going to be working on improving the system so that new posts do not immediately get overshadowed by older popular posts that frequently get reposted. However, this news comes with a disappointing revelation that the developer will now be labeling upvotes “Done” when they are done considering the issue, regardless of the outcome.

Now, when bug hunters and feature recommenders get that exciting e-mail that the status of their post has changed, it could mean anything. They won’t know whether to look out for a fix in a future update or that the proposed change lies on the developers’ cutting-room floor–just that they are “done” thinking about it.

Other Interesting Changes

A number of systems got updates that many players might find helpful. Here are the highlights:

• The cooking station can break down prime meats into raw meat, allowing it to be added to the biofuel composter which has now been rebalanced for these inputs. (Hopefully the biofuel value has been increased, so that raw meat can be useful for more than just animal fat or weak healing, especially the tall stacks of it that come from crocodiles.)
• If you have a GPU that technically meets the requirements to run ICARUS but your driver is out of date, you may find a new notification pop up on the title screen. This could be helpful feedback to eek out a little more performance from your GPU for this already visually-demanding game.
• The Electric Furnace will more consistently connect to the power network. Hopefully this finally means a material processer and electric furnace can be powered by the same biofuel generator without unnecessary rewiring.
• The Alpha Wolf gets its pack back! This fight has been bugged for quite some time, so it is exciting that this apex predator will once again be assisted by pack wolves that spawn from the den during battle.