RocketWerkz released the Icarus Week 217 update on Steam this week, running a short, intensive playtest it calls a Project Clinic to iterate rapid fixes ahead of the Dangerous Horizons expansion and a free update that will add creature genetics and husbandry.
The studio postponed the planned release of new Workshop Sickles so developers could focus on the clinic and a recent foliage respawning issue that caused trees and rocks to unexpectedly regenerate in player bases. The sickles will return in a later update.
What the Project Clinic targeted
The Project Clinic is an intense, hands-on playtest period where developers play the game like players do and apply rapid fixes without the usual production overhead. That approach allowed the team to address small but wide-ranging systems issues across crafting, resource networks, creature behavior, and inventory interaction.
Alongside clinic-driven work the update includes a technical fix to stop foliage from regenerating unexpectedly on existing prospects after data changes. The team traced the problem to Datatable changes for new plants and harvestables and put validation steps and processes in place to prevent future accidental “dirtying” of foliage data.
Key gameplay and systems changes
Water and resource networks were improved so deployable storage objects such as batteries, rain reservoirs, and portable tanks can be drawn from directly when benches determine recipe requirements. That prevents situations where, for example, a bench required an active water pump even though a connected water storage was full. Players can also drink directly from the Tier 3 water purifier and interactions for drinking between rain reservoirs and purifiers were consolidated.
Inventory interactions were fixed to allow swapping items from survival slots more reliably. Items like Oxygen Tanks and Water Skins with a stack size of one are now recognized as valid swap targets, so players can drag them to swap quickly in purifiers, oxidizers, and other utility slots.
Creature and mount fixes include corrected walkable floor angle calculations for NPCs in builds so multiple creatures can navigate ramps as expected. The update also fixes cases where mounts and tames would fail to drink when below 75 percent food, and prevents mounts from abruptly standing from rest when hungry or thirsty.
A new item was added: Elephant Tusks. They replace mammoth tusks for elephants, grant half the amount of bone, weigh half as much as mammoth tusks, and yield 200 crushed bone.
Spider spawn behavior was changed to reduce surprise encounters near caves. The minimum distance a player must be from cave entrances before spiders spawn was tripled. Spider groups will not spawn at the same cave within five minutes of the previous group being killed or destroyed, and a cave will not spawn spiders if any are already present.
The Carbonweave Armor and Backpack recipe was adjusted to use electronics and gold wire instead of large quantities of organic resin. The update also includes dozens of other smaller fixes and improvements listed in the official changelog.
Next steps
RocketWerkz plans to continue the Project Clinic next week, iterating on base-game systems and Dangerous Horizons content, including creature genetics and husbandry features previewed in recent updates.
Patch Notes
The following is the official changelog shipped with version 2.3.28.147909-rel-GreatHunts.
Changelog 2.3.28.147909-rel-GreatHunts
Fixed
- Fix Flat solar panels not counting as solar panels for some missions due to base class change
- Updated DEP_Coal_Burner mesh, textures and destructible
- Tripled the minimum distance players must be from cave entrances before spiders are spawned
- Groups of spiders will no longer be able to spawn at the same cave within 5 minutes of the last spider being killed or destroyed
- Groups of spiders will no longer be able to spawn at a cave if spider(s) already exist there
- Update Caveworm spawner preview mesh to also include buried state. Hook material swap back up based on creature type
- Adjusting Carbonweave Armor / Backpack recipe – now uses electronics and gold wire instead of large quanitites of organic resin
- You can now drink from the T3 water purifier with X
- Adjusted T1 water purifier to be drunken from with X to match rain reserviours
Future Content
- Started TU_MED_002_DLC2 Cave, Elysium
- Debug output spelunking depth on CaveComponent temporarily while isolating cave issues
- Adjustment to end mission 3 dialogue to make it a bit snappier to keep the players attention and focus
- Adjustments and fine tunes to radiation audio
- Ely – fixed cave entrance actor rotation in Arctic > NW volcanic transition cave, red quad
- Adjusted timings for dialogue in ELY6 finale sequence
- Fix character mesh in CT_Cave_Entrance tool pointing 90 degrees wrong rotation causing directionality confusion
- Radiation adjustments. Now based on needle radiation amount, removing from uranium node audio event. To be fine tuned in game experience
- Mission 6 Search area not on compass. Fixed MapSearchArea not working with the icarus compass
- Ely – removed foliage and grass + additional set dressing around radiation zone, removed cave prefabs from unused part of map in swamp, orange quad
- Added Rocks to Cave Tunnel in the Rad Caves in the Arctic Green Quad, Elysium
- Added Animal Husbandry Modifier icons
- Removing Cat Meshes from the Aquarium
- Adding Workshop Cats / Dogs / Rams etc for Homestead
- Ely – additional set dressing around radiation zones in NW volcanic, red quad
- Added Decals and Small Rocks to Expanded Radioactive Area in the Desert on Yellow Quad, Elysium
- Dialogue tweaks and quest dialogue adjustments, OS small tweaks
- Ely – swapped Uranium Nodes to MetaSpawns, added to D_ExoticSpawn
- Dialogue and quest text tweaks for ELY6
- ELY6 – Fixing Quest Markers that where not saved
- Added additional valid check when making entries to PlayerHistoryTracker to prevent dedi server crash when multiple clients join
- Adding saloon door opening audio
- Added accolade text for DH Steam Achievements
- Added valid check when making entries to PlayerHistoryTracker to prevent dedi server crash when multiple clients join
- Adjustments to how radiation is triggered. Now based on proximity to uranium node rather than modifier low rad, medium rad and high rad states
- Added Scoria material versions to all curved and diagonal Brick buildables
- Ely – replaced Deep_Mining_Ice with DeepOreDepositSpawn
- Ely – fixed manual cave entrance actors to point the right direction in geothermal, red quad
- Eden – fixed foliage clipping
- Resaving Mount Tooltip as Variable Names Changed
- Tames can now specify unique gestation periods, defaults to 1500s (25min)
- The uranium nodes and crystals will now light up / dim depending on if the nearby uranium node has any resource left that can be mined
- Updating the Meta Nodes Spawner DT to point to the correct class when spawning uranium exotic nodes
- Committing inventory component to fix the radiation fix compile error
- Adding Curve for the Radiation Strength based on distance
- Quick pass on Genetic Values so level 3 is always 0 increase / decrease, slight adjustment of stats
- Adding Male / Female Symbols to mount tooltip
- New Mounts & Tames created / spawned / tamed in Homestead will automatically generate their wild genetics
- If Animals who are gestating are resting on an animal bed, their gestation speed triples
- Males will now only succeed in fertalizing when they are close to the female rather than 2000 units away
- The Fertility Serums no longer provide food recovery
- Renaming BT.Pregnant to BT.Husbandy which is used to drive husbandry behaviours
- Males will now find and move to females when attempting to fertilize
- Moa’s and Buffalo will attempt to find a bed to rest on when gestating
- When animals are gestating they will default to passive behaviour and find a bed to sleep, they will wake up and eat / drink as appropriate
- Cows, Chickens and Goats will attempt to find a bed to rest on when gestating
- Datadrive the finding of females class and fetilisation checks as well as adding functions to BP library so they can be accessed in other classes if needed
- Adding additional restrictions to fertilisation (Must be Females, Must have Genetics Accessed, Cannot be in resting state immediatly post gestation)
- ELY6 – Adding fallback case to mission 6 security door to the tower, in case you have already entered the code
- ELY3 – Preventing 6 extra Eden Devices from spawning during the mission
- ELY6 – Injecting new quest steps for moving to and through the cave to the northern arctic – hooked up dialogue to correct spot
- Renamed Homestead Lantern to Rustic Lamp to help people realise its a deployable rather than one that can be equpped in the light slot
- Adding Mission Images for ELY1/2/3/4/5/6
- ELY4 – Removing Debug Spheres from the epic creature quest steps
- update on mission six orbital sequence FX
- Data table setup for new dog tames
- Improvements to Food tools, output Health/Stam values
- Drones – Removed carrier attack override that was causing constant jitters when target not in sight
- Added TU_SML_002_DLC2 Cave and Added Prefab, Elysium
- Added new tusk item for elephants to drop instead of mammoth tusk. Elephant tusks grant half the bone amount and weigh half as much
- Added better corpse rewards for Yeti
- Pushing alarm further back
- Ely – added TU_SML_001 cave level + prefab
- Ely – rotated entrance actors for M6 cave to hopefully fix lighting/audio issues
- Pull back of the siren in OL
- Tame capture device is now a g-slot item
- Added WIP prototype for item that can pick up and deploy tamed creatures
- Added assets for Animal Nesting Bed, including SM, materials and textures
- More adjustments and fine tunes to the OS sequence. Slightly reducing the alarm and increasing scream for more intense
- Change lake in Eden to have ‘rain’ water with decreased chance of dysentery
- Update the the French Bulldog texture and skinning, Update to the Border Collie fur splines
- Calfs will now grow up into Bulls if they are male instead of male cows
- Added Advanced Exotic Delivery Interface item icon
- ELY1: Make Tower base unobtainable, fixes battery being destroyed via weather and no EZ gains concrete mansion in first mission
- Remove ‘Recommended’ from Elysium drop group
- More scary OL audio and adjustments
- Put a fix in for mounts / tames sometimes failing to drink when food is <75%. Fix should also prevent mounts from abruptly standing up from their sleeping or laying state when hungry or thirsty
- Renaming Rad-X to Anti-radiation
- Shifting the geiger counter to T5 and positioning before the uranium extractor
- Removing emitters from Uranium nodes and deposits, so only in placed emitters are the ones the generate radiation for the enviroment calculation
- more additions and updates to the OS sequence m6
- Fixing item and modifier decriptions for anti-radiation items
- Fixing Cargo Slot Virtual Stat calculation
- EL3 – Adding Hazmat BP as a reward for the mission
- Clamping a Carryweight and Melee Damage
- Added temporary fix for creature genetics bringing stat values below zero. Fixes issue where some tames spawned overencumbered
- Adjusted dialogue subtitles in ELY3 ending sequence
- Adjusted FX details and timing for orbital sequence
- Reduced wool cost in most recipes to better match the output of sheep
- Added New Shaders and WIP textures for the moa breeding colour variants
- Adding Super Rare Black Moa Variation
- Various Homestead asset/BP fixes
- Fixed issue where walkable floor angle wasn’t properly getting calculated and assigned to NPCs in builds. Should fix issues with multiple creatures not being able to walk up ramps (effectively increases walkable floor angle of most NPCs from 45->50)
- ELY Ach – Added missing d_accolade information in last submit
- ELY Ach – Place reactor/concrete or stone fortifications/crude oil generator. – Make laser pistol/portable battery. – skeleton for mushroom biome and hammer to break drone spawner
- Added More Caves to the Desert on Yellow Quad, Elysium
- Adding unique raptor mount attack and flinch events so the volume can be adjusted accordingly. Removing random vocalisation from yeti boss kill mission part
- swapped ground mat on BP_MetaDeposit_Uranium to fix pink glow
- ELY Ach – Enter geothermal implement
- ELY Ach – Kill spectre achievement. Changed tame quests to use gameplay tags instead of the creature type for future proof
- Update Wood Burner BP to add lights/VFX to suit updated mesh. Tweak LODs
- Added a new jet black moa variant textures and materials to be used for the super rare variant
- ELY Ach – gain 5000 uranium exotic
- Ely – fixed landscape seam in arctic between green and orange quads
- Added Empty, Butchery, and Herbalism benches for Homestead, as well as updaded the other Homestead benches with a minor translation shift to ensure that they all line up with the Empty corner piece
- Ely – fixed hole in landscape near M6 location
- ELY Ach – Kill queen/kill queen on hard implement
- New Tundra caves – tweaks to TU_SML_001, added TU_MED_001 and MED_003
- Update Eden Landing Pads to use split mesh setup for surface type reasons. Fix up Light hierarchy and parent to SK sockets
- ELY Ach – Tame raptor/skulk/storca/chew/slinker achievements
- Additioanl fine tune to lower level radiation levels and also slight increase to distance of rad prospector vocal range
- Added initial plant boss art assets to the project
- Increasing tolerance for randiation audio to account for very low levels of radiation. Currently was not registering if under 10%
- ELY Ach – Drop into ely first time implementation
- Adding idle animation audio for raptor for nibbling and footstep notifys
- ELY Ach – Implemented 250 drone kills
- Add additional _R parent for Corner stairs so snow setup can be configured properly. Remove recently added snow mesh variations as the scaling can be done via the Snow component variables instead. Delete unused Stairs_Corner parent BP. Scale snow component to what it should end up as for quick visual confirmation
- ELY Ach – All 6 mission quests and ‘complete all’ quest implementation
- Adding 8 new Buffalo Rare Variations for Genetics
- Adding Point Allocation algorithm for genetic combination in generation of child stats
- Increased BP_AISpawner max spawn count in ELY from 15->30 to match other terrains
- Removed include to fix build error
- Mix pass. Reducing audio spam for being burnt by fire. A few general mixing things. Making the best snow outfit sound a little more destinctive. Removing profilings. General touch ups and balances based on profiling
- Added a persistent spawn blocker immediately surrounding Eden
- Added new creatures to the appropriate texture collections
- balance pass on vocal volume and damage volume from bullets from drones since this wasnt originally in. Slightly louder cut through for more obvious damage taken. stopping audio from playing outside of distance for eden layers etc
- Added French Bulldog Bones asset to the project and added it to the French Bulldog and Pug corpse BPs
- Further tweaks to Irradiated Prospector collision
- MemTestMap now supports building and deployable placement
- Updated TU_MED_002_DLC2 Cave Prefab, Updated TU_SML_002_DLC2 Cave Prefab, Elysium
- Cave_AC_MED_008_DLC2 – added rocks on 1st level ceiling to cover cave worms sticking through
- Adding unique event and callback for unique variations
- Adding Genetic Skin Variations to Moa’s and Buffalo
- Adding new variable to mount recorder so that we know genetics have been assigned
- Adding new cheat for spawning mounts where you can pass the variation through
- Updated Skin Variation Genetics – we roll a 80% chance to inherit the skin from one of the parents (at an even chance) and a 20% chance to mutate to another skin from the wild weighted list
- AI debug command now prints into to all connected clients
- 2 Unranium Nodes are Guarenteed to be selected during exotic replenishment
- The Manufacturer will now display whats crafting on its screen in world
- Adding Oil Can Item in the T5 Tech Tree and slightly adjusting recipe for Oil Barrel
- Oil Barrels can now be deployed on the ground
- Cleanup of old mission devices and oei’s in eden
- Adding a high fur cost biofuel recipe for the composter for dangerous horizons
- Slightly raised up LC cliff in red quad to prevent navigation from being blocked inside mission 3 bunker
- Fix Half Floor and Quarter Floor snow mesh setups
- Fix Half Ramp snow mesh setup
- Update Elysium minimap textures
- Raptor footstep adjustments
- Finished TU_MED_002_DLC2 Cave, Added Prefab and Added Voxels TU_SML_002_DLC2 Cave, Elysium
- Adjustments to raptor new attack animation audio
- Updated moa colour variants with tweaked colours. Updated Moa to use new eye shader. tweaked moa LODs. Created carcass materials for the new colour variants
- Various improvements and tweaks to Yeti combat behaviours
- Mixing pass from multiplayer session. Saving profile of audio dropouts when entering cave on mount. Cave listener correlation not correcting itself until got off and on mount
- Added base and rare variants of Buffalo textures, as well as updated the gfur settings for the juvenile buffalo
- Increase sort order transparency on Radiation sphere from 0 to 1 so that it renders over the top of cave voids
- Convert dead mount name variable from string to name and save data
- Show dead mount’s name on hover of corpse icon
- Adding Biomass -> Material Recipes for Dangerous Horizons
- Converting Cleaning Device & Organic Residue Cleanser to no longer be auto-select recipe machines
- Orbital sequence FX polish
- Increased Irradiated Prospector agent step height
- Tweaked collision and movement settings on Irradiated Prospector to hopefully allow them to walk up ramps in build
- Add map/compass icon for dead Mounts :sadge:
- Adding 2 Lava Hunter Spawns to Elysium
- Shifting Sandworm & Slug spawns on Elysium
- Manufacter now has the same recipes as crafting bench, machining bench and fabricator
- Fix Chew Mount stat curves being 0-120 (should be 0-50) and buffed health values. Based wild chew min health from 1500 to 2000
- Remove obsolete ‘Group’ variable from Cave Creature Spawner BP
- Big round of mutation animation notifys for audiuo
- Add Max Health/Stamina stats to new DHs food modifiers. Add ability to Filter ItemsStatic and/or Modifier results
- Orbital sequence timing adjustment
- slight adjustments to tone of radiation geiger to closer match reference. adjustments to spawn amount of geiger counter sounds to ramp up slightly more with needle
- Locking the new Workshop Sickles
- Fixing issue with Workshop Calfs the where feature locked when they where not supposed to be
- Unlocking and Balancing New Inarus Workshop Sickles
- Small fix to crafting tags so that uncommon vestiges use the correct gameplay tag query
- Adding new NPC to Eden who you can trade Vestiges for Ren (prototype)
- Radioactive Items can not longer be put in bags
- Inventory Radiation Emitters now Scale based on stack size
- Adding Small Emitters to Uranium nodes to create hotspots within the larger area
For more on Icarus follow updates on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram.
Icarus
Developed by RocketWerkz
