CryoFall - Patch notes v0.29.x (Factions Update)

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=== CryoFall v0.29.11.5 (Factions Update) ===

These patch notes are including all the changes that were made during the experimental version testing.

Factions
   - Faction system added into the game
   - Players can create private and public factions, configure roles, and access permissions
   - Each faction has an emblem (created by combining several preset layers and colors)
   - Private factions participate in Leaderboard. The server gathers and calculates various metrics to determine the total score for each private faction
   - Players can join a private faction through invitation or by submitting an application. Public factions could be joined freely.
   - Land claims can now be transferred into faction ownership. It's the intended way of providing ownership over land claim to more than 5 players (owner lists proved impossible to manage for a larger number of players)
   - On PvP servers, faction officers can declare wars and propose peace treaties
   - An event log keeps track of faction activity and notifications (such as when the faction base is raided).
   - Leaving a faction causes 24 hours cooldown when you cannot join other factions.
   - In PvP, the public faction keeps track of each member's standing and will automatically remove members that have low standing (due to killing faction members or allies).

Creatures
   - Psi grove
   - Spitter
   - Thumper
   - Sand Tyrant (boss)

Items
   - Plaster cast
   - Revenge vest (equipment)
   - Cigarettes (off-world brand)
   - Coin purse
   - Stun baton (shocks opponents upon hit)
   - Vehicle repair kit (to be used on the go)
   - Fuel sack (will be extracted from a killed monster), can be turned into gasoline by crafting
   - Tyrant heart (new boss drop)
   - Teleport location data (usable item to reveal a new teleport location)

Events
   - Sand Tyrant boss event
   - Blue glider fishing event
   - Psi grove infestation event
   - Thumper migration
   - Space drop event now includes more unique items which cannot be crafted in the game (such as stun baton, off-world brand cigarettes, etc)

Quests
   - New quest related to alien teleports
   - New hunting quest (for all new monster types)
   - Changes to existing quests (some quests have been expanded and improved)

Weapons, armor & combat
   - New Fence wall (blocks movement, but can be shot through)
   - Medical cooldown (after medicine application) no longer prevents you from running
   - Changed ready time and reload made faster for a single grenade launcher
   - New world projectile for artillery cannon (previously it used grenade art)
   - Night vision helmet stats have been updated to be more in line with their counterparts in the same tier. They can now be used as a proper alternative to regular helmets
   
PvP-related changes
   - Introduced automated sentry turrets. There are 3 types of turrets: light (uses 10mm ammo), heavy (.300 ammo), and energy that uses electricity from the power grid. Players can now build automated turrets to protect their base. Turrets will automatically attack hostile players and trespassers (if configured to do so by the turret owner).   
   - Reduced damage by 20% to extend combat duration and provide more tactical opportunities to retreat, find cover, and heal
   - Added visualization for bomb planting by other players
   - Restricted simultaneous placement of bombs at the same location
   - Bombs damage to characters is greatly increased (except the mining bomb)
   - Reduced vehicle and drone explosion damage range
   - World events rate and area number per event adjusted to ensure more PvP encounters
   - Players under Newbie Protection no longer receive the "Weakened" status effect (even when killed by an NPC)

World
   - Alien biome
   - Alien teleport points all around the map (an ancient alien structure that allows players to teleport around the map)
   - New loot piles to find all around the map (wood, minerals, and stone)
   - Significant changes to topology all around the map
   - Most radtowns are now directly connected to the roads
   - Most of the existing radtowns have been significantly reworked to make them more interesting (including new areas and new props)
   - New large area in the center of the map as well as a new area in the desert northeast
   - You can now find coal in tropical mountains (so you don't have to venture north into the boreal forest), but rubber trees will now be available only in temperate biome. This way tropics are a bit more balanced in terms of resources while still giving you enough reasons to explore the map a bit more, even if you decide to settle in the tropics
   - New secret island which can only be accessed in a certain way

Status effects
   - Overeating (applied if you exceed 150% of your normal stomach capacity)
   - Added detailed information to many of the status effects to make their effects clearer

Mining & resources balance
   - Significantly increased mining charges radius/area to make their use a more viable mining strategy now. Especially considering there are also mining drones now. Mining charges are now also cheaper to craft
   - Mineral processing plant now gives twice as much sand from any ore or stone processed

Food, farming and cooking
   - New items: Potato (raw), Potato seeds, Yellow flower, Yellow flower seeds
   - New food: Cooking oil, French fries, Baked potato with meat
   - Coffee beans are now roasted in batches of 5 instead of 10, so you don't have to collect as much at one time
   - Food nutrition data (i.e. how much food/water/energy it gives) is added to the food item tooltip
   - Moved Sprinkler from T4 into T3 to make it more accessible early on
   - Seeds crafting is twice as fast now. So you don't have to spend as much time crafting them if you have a large farm
   - Pickled cucumbers now remove the Drunk status effect. Though, only a little bit
   - Seeds are more plentiful now and can be found from grass more often
   - Cooking oil is now used in some of the older recipes. Those recipes (such as grilled carrots) received a boost to their food values and special effects

Fishing
   - New fish types: Crappie, Koi, Black Goby, Yellowfin Tuna, Blue glider (pragmium based fish, only found during special events)
   - Changed fishing bait balance. Now it's much easier to make basic bait (insects), but more difficult to make advanced bait (cut bait and boilies)

Interactive world objects
   - Ruin gates
   - Ruin gates button

Decorations
   - Faction banner with individual faction emblem (can be build if you are part of any faction)
   - Checkers (pawns + queen, both orange and black). For people to play checkers
   - Door bells (2 types, interactive!)
   - Bedside table
   - Hat and coat hanger
   - TV (interactive, you can turn it on!)
   - Barbell bench
   - Presents
   
Technology groups
   - Decorations 3

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Misc
   - New character creation screen (so you can customize your character when joining the game!)
   - New customization options for your character including new faces and face elements
   - New player character knockout/death falling sounds
   - Charcoal now stacks to 250 (it was 100 before). So it's more convenient in case you use it as fuel in your steam generators and furnaces
   - All loot piles (e.g. near roads) now cannot be damaged (since there really is no need to). You can still collect it in the same manner as before
   - Updated drop tables for things you can find in radtowns
   - You can now enable an option to display healthbar and status effects over your own character (same as it is displayed for other characters)
   - Removed collision boxes from lava fissures found in volcano areas
   - Increased floor durability (e.g. bricks, concrete, and metal), now it can withstand even a few direct grenade launcher shots.   
   - Changed the power generators shutdown mechanic when 100% shutdown threshold setting used—all generators will shutdown when reaching 100% charge
   - Improved boss minion spawn algorithm to ensure no physical collisions for spawned minions
   - Improved world event queue algorithm
   - Bosses cannot be dazed anymore
   - Increased durability of vehicle autocannons
   - Laser sight's beam will penetrate through some obstacles such as low workbenches and new fence wall
   - Space debris event: reduced drop rate of grenade launchers and grenades
   - Multitude of other small improvements and changes   

UI, presentation, options & accessibility
   - Reworked visual presentations of many UI elements (especially HUD widgets and buttons) to make them more clear and visually appealing, with shadows and improved color scheme. The usability and accessibility of several menus were also improved
   - New icons for buttons inside of the inventory menu. And reworked menu in general
   - Many new UI icons and other assets for all new content
   - Reworked status effect icon appearance
   - Added padding to the top menu buttons to make it easier to use
   - Added hint system to status effect tooltips to make their effects clearer   
   - Added hints about switching ammo types in your current weapons into all ammo types
   - Implant tooltips are now expanded with info about the stats modifications—such as the ability to eat spoiled food and overeat provided by Artificial stomach, or health regeneration +400% by Healing gland, etc
   - After pressing the Random button in the character customization menu, you can revert to the previous face style by pressing the undo button
   - Changed default control scheme to be more in line with modern times
   - Diagram for how to use Mulchbox (inside the interaction menu)
   - Diagram for how an energy turret uses energy (inside the turret UI)
   - Added "Hide quests panel" option to the options menu
   - Red broken shield indicator over non-claimed structures is displayed only when the mouse cursor over or Alt/L key is held
   - Inventory character's doll is always ready to render now (no lag when opening the inventory after the first time)
   
Map menu
   - Map menu now includes a coordinates grid with coordinate labels on the sides. The coordinate format changed to include sector coordinate prefix
   - Map menu rendering speed improved by roughly 100X       
   - Improved current character's pin appearance and draw order in the map menu
   - Improved active event area map marks   

Fixes
   - Game incorrectly highlighted tiles along the roads as restricted for construction when placing a land claim
   - Fixed an issue when some Steam achievements (such as equip golden armor set) were not granted
   - Relocating the bed didn't update the map mark position for it
   - The pain status effect was added to a player with the broken leg status effect when attempting to "run" while driving a vehicle
   - PvP: S.H.I.E.L.D. activation cooldown was reset when upgrading the land claim   
   - Other miscellaneous fixes

Editor
   - World objects copy-paste
   - Terrain copy-paste
   - Added a shortcut to go to the next object of the currently selected type (select an object of the desired type in the objects palette and press Tab key, use Shift+Tab to jump to the previous object)

World props
   - Bridge/Road between different height levels (ramp) to connect roads on different height levels. Two versions
   - New bunker-style wall (thick) for massive radtowns
   - New house type. More cozy than the old concrete style It is used for some radtowns now to give more variety
   - Futuristic cars, several versions in different colors (style ala Syndicate)
   - Wooden wall (similar to our radtown wall, but made from wood)
   - Alien structures remnants (can be found near teleport locations)
   - Broken bridge
   - Helipad
   - Broken/ruined vending machines (several types)
   - City street trash can
   - Green bush in a concrete box
   - Broken solar array
   - Public use benches

Steam Achievements
   - Try all food (completionist tab "food")
   - Catch all fish (completionist tab "fish")
   - Find all loot (completionist tab "loot")
   - Kill all creatures (completionist tab "creatures")
   - Build oil cracking plant
   - Find all teleport locations
   - Use drones for mining
   - Mint coins
   - Event: Blue Glider (fish)
   - Event: Meteorite drop
   - Event: Psi grove
   - Event: Space debris
   - Event: Floater migration
   - Event: Thumper migration
   - Two hidden achievements (Pragmium Queen and Sand Tyrant)
   
Server configuration (ServerRates.config file)
   - Added setting to configure the faction creation cost ("Faction.CreateCostLearningPoi nts")
   - Added setting to set public faction size ("Faction.MembersMax.PublicFact ion")—250 members by default
   - Added setting to set private faction size ("Faction.MembersMax.PrivateFac tion")—25 members by default
   - It's possible to restrict the creation of public factions by setting "Faction.MembersMax.PublicFact ion" to 0
   - Added setting to restrict alliances feature ("Faction.PvP.AlliancesEnabled"). This and previous settings are useful for CryoSmall, CryoFive, and other similar community servers
   - There are several other new server rate settings that these patch notes do not cover. They have a complete description right in the ServerRates.config file.   
   
Modding
   - Modding: introduced [RemoteEnum] attribute. All enums that may be passed over the network must be explicitly marked with this attribute

Technical changes
   - Updated to .NET 5.0 (for both server and client)
   - Updated to MonoGame 3.8
   - Updated to NoesisGUI 3.0.9
   - Replaced Lidgren Network with LiteNetLib (reliable UDP network library) as Lidgren library is no longer maintained. LiteNetLib is a great replacement with very high performance and low overhead. We're also actively contributing to it with pull-requests and suggestions
   - Replaced from Steamworks.NET to Facepunch.Steamworks
   - Added network packet loss metric to network performance indicator
   - Server: Increased check rate/accuracy and optimized performance for land claim decay reset system
   - Server: Added a proper error message when the game server cannot load a savegame from the old version of the game
   - Improved auto-selection of the game language when launching from Steam Client from the first time (the game will still ask for confirmation)
   - Added RenderingEffect system and API to add effects to rendering components (e. g. teleportation visual effect is applied to the actual character's skeleton or vehicle).
   - Cleaned up the code to use C# 9.0 target-typed new() expression for Core.cpk scripts—to make code more concise
   - Added support for new quest tasks   

Important
   - With this update, all the official servers were wiped as the savegame from the previous version is not compatible with this update due to breaking changes as we've announced earlier in Steam News.
   - Community server owners can choose whether to update (server update guide) or not (we're providing legacy A28 client version in Steam Client -> CryoFall Game properties -> BETAS tab)
   - Some mods are not updated by their authors for this version. You could contact mod authors to ask them to update their mods

And finally, please consider leaving an honest review for the game on Steam if you haven't done so yet. Thank you for playing CryoFall and always supporting us!

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=== CryoFall v0.29.11.7 (A29 Patch #1) ===

Changes:
    - Added Sand Tyrant boss sounds
    - Added a confirmation checkbox to the "Remove faction member" dialog   
    - Added a dialog window to confirm faction upgrade
    - Tooltip for Faction level upgrade now includes information on how many claims the upgrade will provide   
    - Land claim now can be transferred to faction ownership by any faction member with "Land claim management" permission and access to that land claim (previously only its founder was able to do this)   
    - Online players (private faction and party members) now have green names on the map
    - "Hide helmet" will apply to the faction members on PvP servers (other players will not see a helmet of the faction member that has this option enabled in the Equipment menu)
    - Improved factions list menu with better rank display and smoother scrolling (with smaller steps)   
    - Increased attack sound distance for bosses and Spitter

Fixes:
    - Fixed an issue when changing the language or connecting to a no-mods server while having any mods active resulted in an incorrect UI state (as the UI library didn't properly reconstruct its types and properties)
    - Fixed a rare random issue with the network library when the server drops connections and players cannot reconnect until the server restart (Hopefully fixed; we're monitoring the servers to ensure the fix is reliable)
    - Fixed an issue when deconstructing a middle land claim of a faction-owned land resulted in losing access to some of the split land claim areas
    - Fixed a random issue when with the active option "Show healthbar above my character" the offline indicator sometimes appeared over the current player character after login

If you're hosting a community server, it's highly recommended to install this patch even though this patch as it's not mandatory (it doesn't break client-server compatibility).

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=== CryoFall v0.29.11.8 (A29 Patch #2) ===

Changes:
- Chat messages from faction members will appear in green color (same as for party members)
- Laser sight for faction members now has a green color (same as for party members)

=== CryoFall v0.29.11.10 (A29 Patch #3) ===

Changes:
- Improved Turret and Spitter AI. It will choose its target more smartly instead of focusing on the closest player (that may be behind a wall or other obstacle)
- PvP: as a temporarily measure to improve the balance, we've increased amount of green herbs received per gathering from 1-2 to 2-3 and increased their spawn rate (from 20 minutes interval to 15 minutes)
- Improved random selection of boss spawn location (the previous algorithm resulted in one location being used much more often than the other two)
- Space debris and meteorites will not fall near alien teleports
- Increased hunting skill experience for killing a bear, honey badger, and hyena
- Construction quest tasks completion is shared with faction members (previously it was shared only with party members)
- Server will open a new log file each day

Fixes:
- It was possible to place turret blueprints close to each other

If you're hosting a community server, it's highly recommended to install this patch but not mandatory (new clients are compatible with old servers).


PSA: if you're using Norton Antivirus, some of the game files may be detected as malicious. They're not—we've verified this 100%. It's just a false-positive detection due to heuristics analysis (signature matching is not a perfect way to determine a virus or malware and Norton is notorious with this issue). You can see the analysis by Virus Total—every other major antivirus doesn't detect anything with the game executable. We've reached Norton to submit false positive detection to them and, if you're their user, we encourage you to do the same by following this link https://submit.norton.com/?type=FP
As a workaround, please disable the antivirus temporarily, install the game, whitelist the game executables, then enable the antivirus back. There are two executable files that you need to whitelist:

Code: [Select]

<game installation folder>\Binaries\Client\CryoFall_Client.dll
<game installation folder>\Binaries\Shared\Compiler\CryoFall_Compiler.dll

Enjoy the game!

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=== CryoFall v0.29.11.13 (A29 Patch #4) ===

Changes:
- Improved visuals for brick wall (including its broken variant), tobacco plant, and pragmium suit (female version)
- Improved fallback route selection for master server connection

Fixes:
- PvP: bomb placement visual remained after another player finished planting a bomb
- PvP: "Cannot unlock" error when attempting to unlock a tech group right after its time gate expired
- PvE: sometimes the object lock was not displayed properly (e.g. when moving away and quickly returning to the locked object)

This is a client-only patch.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.1 (A29 Patch #5) ===

Changes:
    - Now you can transfer a vehicle to faction ownership. Faction officers can assign access rights to faction-owned vehicles (currently it requires the faction permission "Land claim management", a new permission is expected with A30 Update)
    - Added red outline effect for deconstruction. This way it's easier to determine which structure you will deconstruct when pressing the left mouse button. (It doesn't work with floor and farm plot currently but it should not be an inconvenience in these cases)
    - Sound cues for out-of-screen sounds now have green color when produced by party members, faction members, and ally faction members (previously it was working this way only for party members)
    - Boss event: Reduced Sand Tyrant boss HP on -15% so it has a difficulty similar to Pragmium Queen boss.   
    - Events scheduler: Only a single event can run at a time (except a boss)
    - Events scheduler: Boss spawn will happen at least 3 hours since the previous boss spawn
    - Salt flats area on the secret island will contain up to two scorpions
    - PvE: Removed the deposit capacity display for oil and Li extractors in PvE as there are only infinite deposits in this game mode
    - Improved detection of the object under mouse cursor when there are several objects (e.g. a vehicle over a teleport platform or vehicle assembly bay, several mechs one close to another, items placed on teleport platform, fridges built close to each other, etc)

Fixes:
    - It was possible to loot a creature multiple times when the inventory is almost full and there is no free space around the creature's corpse to drop the loot on the ground
    - PvP: Resonance bomb (aka pragmium bomb) damaged turrets (it should damage only walls and doors as explained in its description)
    - PvP: Turrets received an incorrect amount of explosive damage. They will receive proper damage now. To keep the previous balance, their HP is reduced accordingly and their damage resistance to firearms was increased
    - It was not possible to drop items on the road, bridge, and inside the teleport. On PvP servers, the player's loot also didn't drop there (it was placed on the closest free tile)
    - Grenade launcher cannot shot through the fence but the laser sight displayed that it can
    - ServerRates.config bug: When DamageFriendlyFireMultiplier is set to 0, no PvP damage allowed even to non-friendly players
   
Community servers: This patch should be installed on the server in order to play the game with the latest CryoFall client version. No wipe with this patch, the savegame is completely compatible with the previous A29 version.
If you don't want to update the server or stuck playing on a community server that is running an old version, you can switch to the previous client version in Steam Client (open CryoFall game properties in Steam Client -> BETAS tab -> select legacy-a29-v0.29.11.13 in the dropdown menu).

CryoFall Editor is also updated to this version.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.5 (A29 Patch #6) ===

Changes:
- New sounds for woodcutting and rock mining
- Many sounds introduced with A29 Update updated with better versions (e.g. Sand Tyrant boss sounds)
- The rest of the A29 Update's sounds updated with the best quality versions (stereo)
- It's no longer possible to transfer a vehicle to ownership of a public faction (the feature was intended only for private factions)

Fixes:
- CryoFall Editor: fixed an issue when the Editor was unresponsive after closing the main menu overlay

This is a client-only patch.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.6 (A29 Patch #7) ===

Changes:
- Restored previous woodcutting/mining sounds (the new mining sound is used for pragmium mining only)
- PvE: hidden diplomacy management faction permission (as there is no diplomacy in PvE)

Fixes:
- PvP: sometimes it was not possible to pickup player loot located in the opened door
- In the server list entry, the next wipe date was displayed in UTC time instead of local time

This is a client-only patch.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.10 (A29 Patch #8/Hotfix) ===

It's addressing the false-positive threat detection by Windows Defender and (hopefully) Norton AV.
Improved compatibility with Windows 7.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.13 (A29 Patch #9/Experimental local server) ===

The text below is outdated. Please refer to this guide: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/829590/view/3034840264061004771

This patch brings a new experimental feature to which we want to hear your feedback.
Local server runtime is now included and could be launched by the batch file right from the game folder. It makes it much easier to start a local game server for single-player use. The default server rates are also customized to make it more fitting for a single-player experience: x2 LP, x2 skill XP, x1.5 item gathering, no structure decay, bosses require only a single player to defeat (you can adjust all these rates by editing ServerRates.config file), 60 FPS tick rate.
Running the local game server will require an extra 1 GB of free RAM and several % of a typical CPU's resources.

How to launch and use the local server:

• 1. Navigate to the game folder (open Steam Client, right click on CryoFall -> "Manage" -> "Browse local files")
  
• 2. Double click on the "CryoFall Local Server" file. The console window for the local server will open and the server will start loading. Usually, it takes roughly a minute before the server is accessible (do not worry if it doesn't stop writing various information into the console—it's running properly and reports performance metrics). You may need to approve its access in Firewall if such a prompt will be displayed
• 3. Launch the game client as usual
• 4. Navigate to the "SERVERS" menu and open the "Custom" tab on the right side of the tabs bar (it has a distinctive "+" icon)
  
• 5. Connect to the "localhost" server (the first one in the list; it may take 1-2 minutes before it's accessible)
• 6. After you've finished playing, simply close the console window of the game server and it should automatically stop and save your progress (it also performs an autosave every hour same as multiplayer servers)

If you wish to edit the server settings or rates config, open the folder "<your Documents>\AtomicTorchStudio\CryoFall" (if it's empty please check the hidden folder "C:/Users/YOUR_USER_NAME/AppData/Local/AtomicTorchStudio/CryoFall") and edit these two files: SettingsServer.xml and ServerRates.config. Also, the savegame is stored in the Saves subfolder here.
If you have any problem please reach us directly via email support@atomictorch.com so we can investigate the problem together and gather more feedback about this experimental feature!


Patch notes:

Changes:
- Added local server runtime (experimental feature)
- Improved deconstruction outline effect
- Bioreactor interface improved with visual instructions on how to use it (similar to Mulchbox)
- Faction chat tab will be displayed always above the party chat tab instead of being mixed with private chats

Fixes:
- Assign faction role dialog was broken for Korean translation
- Fixed a random issue when, due to high packet loss, the Medical Cooldown status effect was not properly removed after completion, preventing player from attacking and using more medicine for a while
- Fixed incorrect deconstruction outline when playing in windowed mode
- Fixed incorrect teleport effect when playing in a small window and during camera zoom animation

This is a client-only patch.

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=== CryoFall v0.29.12.16 (A29 Patch #10/Signed executables) ===

This is just a service patch—nothing has changed but the game binaries were rebuilt.
We've finally acquired a Code Signing certificate from Sectigo. It should prevent problems with false-positive detection by antivirus software that are using machine-learning to guess whether the executable contains any similarities with known malware. Code sign will also prevent tampering of the game files. If you notice any issues, please let us know immediately.

Enjoy the game and stay tuned for A30 Update!