Core Keeper 1.3.0.1 Is Live With Mounts, Scepters and a New Sub-Biome

Core Keeper 1.3.0.1, Riders of the Underground, is live with a new Moss sub-biome, Orex cattle, mountable animals and a major expansion of the game’s combat and progression systems. The full official Steam announcement also details new Scepters, Hookshots, pets, armor, accessories, enemies and boss loot. The launch also begins the Road to the Maw plan, with Trials of the Depths and Beyond the Breach planned as later chapters, as outlined in the Road to the Maw roadmap.

Players can find the Moss sub-biome inside the Forgotten Ruins and encounter Orex there. Every type of cattle can now become a mount by using either a Saddle or Racing Saddle. Vehicles also received several practical changes, including a handbrake for go-karts, better turning, reduced inertia and new key binding options.

Summoning received one of the update’s biggest system changes. Minions no longer expire, players can dismiss them manually, and a new action can spawn the maximum available number at once without a cooldown. Two new Summoning talents replace older talents to support the new behavior.

Combat now includes Wingling and Searpent enemies, three new weapons, seven Scepters for Warlock builds and two Hookshots. The update also adds three pets, 10 armor pieces, 15 rings, 15 necklaces, four achievements and new loot chests for Azeos the Sky Titan, Omoroth the Sea Titan and Ra-Akar the Sand Titan.

Outside combat, the patch adds gear comparison, customizable cursor and crosshair options, loadout cycling, larger paint brush areas, faster Waypoint and Portal activation, improved map markers and a new mods menu. ModSDK users can create custom scenes, alter most game objects and configure new map marker icons.

The balance pass reduces experience requirements for several skill trees, changes magic resource regeneration, adjusts Magic Barrier scaling, increases selected boss gear drop rates and cuts crafting costs for boats, go-karts, Portals and the Railway Forge. The changelog also covers audio, graphics, performance improvements and fixes for PC and Switch.

Patch Notes for Core Keeper 1.3.0.1

Riders of the Underground adds new exploration areas, mounts, weapons and progression options before moving into balance adjustments, modding changes, quality-of-life improvements and bug fixes.

Gameplay

• New sub-biome: Moss – Found in the Forgotten Ruins biome.
• New cattle: Orex – Found in the Moss sub-biome.
• All cattle can now be turned into mounts by using the following new items on them:
  • Saddle
  • Racing Saddle
• Minions now persist indefinitely instead of expiring.
  • Introduced 2 new talents to the Summoning skill tree to reflect this behavior, which replaced 2 previous talents.
  • The player can now also decide when to despawn minions.
• Introduced the ability to spawn the max amount of minions all at once, based on the available max amount of minions the character can spawn at the moment of the action.
• The cooldown for spawning minions has been removed.
• Added a craftable Training Dummy.
• Introduced 2 new enemies:
  • Wingling
  • Searpent
• Introduced 3 new weapons:
  • Corrosion Staff
  • Blizzard Staff
  • Sniper Rifle
• A new weapon type for the Warlock play style: Scepters. There are currently 7 Scepters available, including a Legendary variant.
• Introduced 3 new pets:
  • Hoppet
  • Azeos Jr.
  • Something lazy that can be found in The Desert of Beginnings
• Introduced 10 new armor pieces.
• Introduced 15 new rings.
• Introduced 15 new necklaces.
• Introduced a new type of off-hand item: Hookshots. There are currently 2 available, including:
  • Hookshot
  • Gilded Hookshot
• Introduced new loot chests for the following bosses:
  • Azeos the Sky Titan
  • Omoroth the Sea Titan
  • Ra-Akar the Sand Titan
• Introduced 4 new achievements.
• Boats, minecarts, and go-karts no longer transfer to the player’s grave on death.
  • If the player dies while seated in a boat, minecart, or go-kart, the vehicle is now dropped and transferred to the player’s inventory.
• Introduced a handbrake button to go-karts, which reduces speed and increases inertia.
• Increased turning and reduced inertia across all go-karts.
• Reduced activation time for Waypoints and Portals.
• Introduced the ability to compare gear.
• It is now possible to customize the cursor and crosshair indicators in the Options menu, from a variety of available options.
• Added a key bind to cycle through loadouts.
• It’s now possible to resize the affected area of all paint brushes up to 5×5.
• Reconnecting after a disconnect now restores the character’s health from the disconnected client’s last state, even if health changed on the server.
• Some giant objects that couldn’t be obtained in the past are now breakable and placeable.
• Cattle, minecarts, boats and chairs now require line of sight to use.

Game Balance

• The following already existing armor pieces’ stats were adjusted:
  • Moldweb Breastplate
  • Slime Helm
  • Slime Armor
  • Scholar’s Hood
  • Scholar’s Cloak
  • Caveling Chest
  • Assassin Hood
  • Assassin Cloak
  • Tassel Earrings
  • Tassel Top
  • Gemstone Garment
  • Gemstone Harem Pants
  • Sulfossil Helmet
  • Sulfossil Cuirass
  • Sulfossil Boots
• Updated the drop sources for the following armor sets:
  • Moldweb armor: Now also drops from Large Mold Vessels.
  • Gemstone armor: Now also drops from Sun Crystals and Large Sun Crystals.
• Reduced smelting time for higher tier ores.
• Reduced the crafting costs for boats, go-karts, Portals and the Railway Forge.
• The amount of Rails received when crafting has been increased from 5 to 10.
• Fewer plants need to be harvested to earn Gardening skill points early on.
• Increased the gear drop rates for the following bosses:
  • Ghorm the Devourer
  • The Hive Mother
  • Ivy the Poisonous Mass
  • Omoroth the Sea Titan
  • Morpha the Aquatic Mass
  • Ra-Akar the Sand Titan
  • Igneous the Molten Mass
  • Druidra the Wild Titan
  • Crydra the Ice Titan
  • Pyrdra the Fire Titan
  • Core Commander
  • Oblidra the Void Lord
  • S.A.H.A.B.A.R.
• Melee, Ranged, and Magic skill gains now scale with attack speed.
• Reduced the total experience required for maxing the Melee, Ranged, and Magic skill trees. Adjusted the experience curves so skill points are earned faster at early levels.
• Reduced the critical hit chance of the “Weakness detection” talent from the Ranged skill tree to 50%.
• The talents on the Magic skill tree have been rearranged.
• Increased Magic Barrier scaling on gear, it should now be roughly twice as strong at full upgrade level.
• Mana regeneration is no longer stopped for a short period after casting. It now continues at 50% effectiveness whilst actively attacking with magic and for 1 second after your last active cast.
• The “Mana recharge” talent from the Magic skill tree, the Arcane Symbiote pet and the Arcane Monk armor’s set bonus (that reduced mana regeneration delay) now increase mana regeneration percentage while casting instead.
• Reduced the amount of mana regeneration gained form the “Arcane transfusion” magic talent.
• Reduced the amount of magic damage gained from the “The best offense” magic skill tree talent and the “Lily Pad Shorts”.
• Removed magic skill “Firmly grounded” (Magic barrier regeneration delay reduced by 5–25%).
  • Magic barrier regeneration’s delay baseline has been reduced by 25%.
  • Added new magic skill “Mental Defense” (20–100% of additional max mana added as magic barrier).
• The “Mana channeling” talent from the Magic skill tree has been reworked to recover mana cost on critical hit.
• The “Mana Blast” talent from the Explosions skill tree has been reworked to reduce mana cost for a short duration after detonating an explosive.
• Reduced the “increased mana regeneration” set bonus effect from the Pajama set.
• Rebalanced minion base damage to align with the new Scepters’ minion damage bonuses.
• Increased the amount of Tin Ore found in the Clay Caves biome.
• Reduced the difficulty of Spearman Cavelings and Skirmisher Cavelings.
• Reduced the number of Tentacles that could spawn in the Sunken Sea and the damage they could cause.
• Reduced the crafting cost of the Soul Seeker.
• Significantly reduced the resummon cooldown for all Titan bosses.

Graphics

• The following pets now can be hatched in different colors:
  • Arcane Symbiote
  • Electro-Pet
• Some ranged weapons’ secondary actions now use an aim pose.
• Updated the graphics of the tire marks left by go-karts when driving.

Audio

• Added long distance ambient audio that triggers randomly for the following bosses:
  • Azeos the Sky Titan
  • Atlantean Worm
  • Urschleim
• Introduced new soundtracks for the following boss fights:
  • Ivy the Poisonous Mass
  • Morpha the Aquatic Mass
  • Igneous the Molten Mass

Modding

• Custom Scene creation tools are now available in the ModSDK after completing the full asset import workflow. Building these scenes into a mod and then loading that mod will make the scenes spawn in-game.
• Most game objects can now be modded to behave or look differently.
• Player map markers are now configured using MapMarkerIconDataBlock, making it easy to add new icons or replace existing ones.
• A new mods menu has been added which shows the loading state of mods with the option to re-arrange their loading order as well as the source of installation for those mods.

Miscellaneous

• Made several improvements to map markers placed by players:
  • Added 4 new map marker icons and changed the style of the existing ones.
  • You can now set a custom text to be shown when hovering over a marker.
  • Each icon now has 10 color variants for you to choose from.
• Updated puzzle scenes to prevent bypassing them with Pressure Plates.
• The Ancient Hologram Pod now includes all its craftable items in Creative worlds.
• Added key binding options for vehicle turning and breaking.
• The default key binding for vehicle honking has been changed for controllers.
• Made the difference between buffing and attacking pet types clearer through their tooltips.
• Mushrooms are now mushy and wobbly when walked over, like plants.
• Walls and floors no longer indicate being unable to be painted when the player tries to paint it with the same Paint Brush color.
• Added the ability to see the currently selected slot when the inventory is open, even if the slot isn’t part of the hotbar.
• Updated the color of various button descriptions.
• Updated the colors of the text in the Shortcuts window for better clarity.
• Organized some items in a few Creative UI sub-categories.
• Locked Solarite Chests now have a chance of dropping a Large Potion Pouch instead of a Potion Pouch.
• Titan Breath can now be crafted by right clicking any of the materials on the hotbar.
• Improved the descriptions for all Figurines and some boss summoning items.
• Improved the readability in the Shortcuts window.
• Fixed a few texts and translations throughout the game.

Performance

• Worm type enemies now cause less network load and are not as prone to start jittering if the network updates cannot keep up with their movement.
• Fixed a lag spike when entering S.A.H.A.B.A.R.’s arena.
• Tileset textures are now unloaded from memory when they are not being displayed on screen.

Bug Fixes

• Void Cavelings can no longer attack through walls.
• It is no longer possible to place things directly through walls.
• Melee attacks against invulnerable players no longer grant skill progress.
• Lowered Electricity Generators will no longer end up below bridge tiles.
• Removed extra unintended pixels from some font characters, such as @ in the Latin font.
• Vehicles now turn equally with keyboard and controller.
• Removed duplicate “Apply Burning” effect from the Embertail pet.
• Chat text no longer shows on top of other UI.
• Giant shells encountered in some world scenes now correctly wobble when hit.
• Adjusted the spacing of gamepad hints in the map UI to prevent overlapping.
• Locked Chests no longer flicker for a second after being opened.
• It is no longer possible to place things on the walls that an Electrical Door or Electrical Drop Gate are connected to.
• Other player’s fishing lines no longer flicker when you move around.
• Fixed an issue where clicking between inventory slots in a chest or action bar while holding an item would drop it into the world.
• Fixed an issue where dungeon rooms could spawn outside the radius dedicated to the dungeon, potentially overwriting other nearby scenes.
• Fixed an issue where Hydras did not play their initial animation when emerging from the ground.
• Fixed an issue where some enemies would ignore the player’s attack from long range.
• Fixed an issue that caused minions to be unable to attack Cocoons.
• Fixed an issue that caused the light from the Advanced Automation Table to linger for a few seconds after it had been destroyed.
• Fixed an issue where some enemies could be damaged with radiation while they should be immune.
• Fixed an issue where items could disappear if they were placed in a chest at the same time as it was destroyed.
• Fixed an issue where Azeos’ music started playing again after it had been defeated.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the cages of caged cattle to slightly change color when placed on the hotbar.
• Fixed an issue where Lowered Electricity Generator, Enemy Proximity Sensor and Explorer Proximity Sensor would reflect onto adjacent Glass Floor tiles.
• Fixed an issue where shadows would not update correctly when light quality was set to low.
• Fixed an issue where the key binding to toggle the shortcut window was not shown.
• Fixed the light color from Paper Lanterns not always matching the object color.
• Fixed the interaction outline flickering when standing inside a Portal, which could prevent it from being used.
• Fixed the placement cursor sometimes sliding in from off-screen after teleporting instead of appearing at the correct position immediately.
• Fixed the mouse cursor briefly flashing its default look when switching from an area-of-effect weapon to a ranged weapon.
• Fixed inconsistent sorting results when inventory contains a full stack.
• Fixed god mode in Creative worlds not being able to destroy the Locked Desert Prince Chest, Locked Desert Queen Chest, Locked Desert King Chest, and some other objects.
• Fixed several situations where the visual cursor would not be perfectly aligned with where clicks were registered.
• [Switch 1, Switch 2] Fixed an issue that caused unique dungeons and locations to be spawned in the wrong biomes.

Which part of Riders of the Underground will change the way you play most, the new mounts, permanent minions, Scepters or the modding tools? Share your pick in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.