ICARUS receives a notable update this week by introducing a highly requested Solo Pause feature, alongside crucial fixes for multiplayer NPC hitboxes and deep ore vein duplication on the Prometheus map. These changes improve gameplay stability and quality of life, especially for solo adventurers and those playing on dedicated servers.
Introducing True Solo Pause in ICARUS
A new pause functionality has arrived exclusively for single-player sessions in ICARUS. Until now, players who needed to step away mid-session faced challenges as gameplay continued without interruption. The newly added feature stops all game activity when you press Escape during solo play: enemies cease movement, health and resource depletion pauses, crafting halts, and time within the world completely freezes.
This addition wasn’t a simple toggle but required detailed work behind the scenes. Developers examined every system that drives gameplay—custom-built or part of the core engine—to respect ‘delta time.’ This concept manages timing based on how much time passes between frames so that progress like crafting or hunger depletion remains consistent regardless of frame rate variations.
As an example, crafting durations are meant to feel uniform no matter if your machine runs at 30 FPS or 60 FPS. If progress increased per frame instead of by elapsed time, faster frame rates would speed up crafting unfairly. The pause interrupts delta time flow entirely to freeze these processes during breaks from action.
If you want to share feedback or report edge cases with this new tool, there’s a dedicated place through Feature Upvote, where developers can see player input directly.
Multiplayer Creature Hitbox Improvements
ICARUS‘s team is experimenting with enhancements affecting creatures’ hitboxes on dedicated servers and friend-hosted multiplayer games. Previously, client-side desynchronization caused misaligned creature animations and hit detection errors due to optimization shortcuts taken earlier in development.
The recent change moves animation processing fully onto the server during combat encounters so that clients receive perfectly synced poses. This means attack points line up correctly with actual creature models across all players connected remotely—a welcome fix after reports of frustrating missed hits.
This update has already shown positive results during internal testing as well as among community members trying it out via the experimental branch on Steam. Thanks go out to helpful players discussing issues over Discord channels who contributed helpful observations towards this fix.
Tackling Deep Ore Duplication on Prometheus Map
An annoying bug causing duplicated deep ore veins each time a prospect loaded recently resurfaced specifically on the Prometheus map following environmental updates from Null Sector content additions. This led not only to inconsistent resource types appearing but also ballooned save file sizes considerably due to repeated data entries.
The development team traced the problem back to improper object configurations during world generation phases. They applied corrections along with safeguards designed not just to patch current saves but also automatically clean duplicate veins whenever affected prospects load again—preserving any attached mining drills safely intact.
A Preview for Next Week: Stone Signs Crafting Option
The next update might include a batch of stone signs craftable early at Tier 1 benches—a fresh way for players interested in customizing bases beyond existing options introduced previously (like those signs added back in Week 176). Those curious about base decoration could look forward to giving their builds more character soon enough.
ICARUS Patch Notes v2.2.53.136221
New Content
- Enabled pause-game functionality in escape menu (singleplayer only)
- Adding missing ENV No LPF bus to pause. Was still having the occasional building creak play when in pause menu
- Updating logic of unpause audio to account for unstucking
- Escape menu now closes after using Unstuck command
- Adding vocalisation bus to pause when game is paused to stop low health vocalisation state continuing to play
- Loot Retrieval and Resupply buttons now unpause the game when clicked
- Fixed issue where audio wasn’t being unmuted in all cases where game was being unpaused
Fixed Issues
- Fix invalid node in Riverlands Delivery quest (should function the same)
- Fixed mission equipment resupply timer going into negatives and not being usable after the first resupply
- Deep ore miners attached to incorrectly duplicated deep ore veins are now attached to the nearest valid ore vein on prospect reload
- Fix for some Prometheus Deep Ore deposits that were getting duplicated on prospect reload
Future Content Plans (Preview)
- Revamp Ape_D to require a little bit of construction and some taming
- Fixed typo in IM researcher tooltip
- Cliff and Landscape Pass in Swamp, Purple/Orange Quad, Elysium
- Elysium – cliff and ledge placement, dead tree test placement with temp meshes in geothermal, red quad
- Adding a bunch more and better GH UI sounds. Giving the weapons a more deluxe feel
- Updating ape lab text to Chrissys suggestions. Gving dead prospectors correct ammo types for the guns they are holding
- Great Hunts UI – fixed a bug where ‘world bosses’ would only create 1 widget. Added new defaults so when on a map that doesnt have a great hunt the buttons are all still populated
- Setup placeholder Ape_G mission for Great Hunt outcome testing
- Adding first pass of GT_Dead_Tree with four vairants for the Geothermal biome
- GH UI audio balance
- Fixed a few GH typos
- Updates to rock golem gauntlet behaviour + damage balance tweaks
- Wip on wound material for creatures
- Added Landmine VFXs for base, poison and frost explosions
- Changed round cliff in volcanic on Purple Quad, Elysium
- Improved projectile hit registration for clients when attacking NPCs, especially on dedicated servers
- NPC’s UpdateVisibilityBasedAnimTickOption now uses nearest player on server instead of player in slot 0
