Icarus Week 256 Fixes Creature Spawn Crowding and Adds Tech Tree Shortcuts

The update frees natural spawns from several autonomous creatures and makes it quicker to jump from a Field Guide entry to its Tech Tree unlock.

Bojan Kicevski19 seconds ago

0 2 10 minutes read

An armored Icarus prospector holds a tablet in front of a Tech Tree interface beneath Week 256 Quality of Life lettering.

Geothermal and volcanic regions in Icarus should have more room for their natural wildlife after Week 256 fixed a creature-spawn bottleneck. A bug let some creatures from autonomous spawners count against the limits for natural spawns, leaving fewer slots for other wildlife, especially in multiplayer. The Week 256 Steam update also adds shortcuts for finding items and their unlocks.

Icarus uses natural spawns to populate biomes with creatures, while autonomous spawners handle specific wildlife, nests, and Great Hunt encounters. The two systems were meant to use spawn limits differently, but incorrect tagging caused some autonomous spawns to take up space in the natural-spawn budget. Gaseous Floaters were a particularly visible example in geothermal and volcanic areas, where large groups could leave little room for other creatures.

Gaseous Floaters, Kea, Kiwi, Bees, and Dreadwings will no longer count toward natural-spawn limits. Creatures from Great Hunt spawners will still count, as intended. The fix addresses one source of sparse wildlife, though RocketWerkz notes that it will not resolve every spawning issue.

Icarus Tech Tree showing item unlocks across crafting tiers

Week 256 also makes the Tech Tree search more direct. Instead of only highlighting a matching result, a search now pans the tree to the first match. Searches include item description text, so a broad or more specific search may help when an item does not appear under the name you expect.

Field Guide item page with the Show in Tech Tree button

On an item’s Field Guide page, a new button jumps straight to its Tech Tree unlock when one applies. The changelog also fixes the button for use while in space and adds the keyword turrets to Field Guide searches.

Other player-facing changes include lower Bestiary point requirements for the Lava Hunter and Sandwyrm Queen. The Sandwyrm Queen requirement falls from 1,500 points to 400, while the update standardizes world-boss requirements and keeps Landshark and Black Wolf Boss progress at live values because those bosses appear more often. Alteration Bench durability also rises from 500 to 750 for the T3 bench and from 500 to 1,500 for the T4 bench, which also loses its flammability trait.

Railings can now snap to full-sized ramps as well as stairs. The update also prevents creatures from spawning on small rocks in several Elysium lakes and lets the structure for the Lost quest clean up when the relevant server setting is enabled.

RocketWerkz previewed a Spelunking rework for the next planned update. The early Olympus operation will get new quest steps, mining nodes, a prebuilt hut, and quest markers, alongside adjustments to weather events and fixes for cases that could block completion. Week 240 had already begun a first refresh of older Olympus operations.

Icarus 3.0.34.159385-rel-DangerousHorizons Patch Notes

New Content

Added border grow and fade animation to searched highlight button in tech tree.
Re-enabled Field Guide/Tech Tree search highlight and focus always functionality.
Re-enabled the Field Guide’s missing show in tech tree button.
Fixed not being able to use the Field Guide’s show in tech tree button whilst in space
Added turrets keyword so that it can be used to find them in the Field Guide
Stair Railing deployables can now snap to all full sized Ramps, not just Stairs

Fixed

Adding unique fish tag to fish 20 (blinky) so it can be used as an ingrediant in the Fish Feast Recipe
Description fix for Iron Cupboard stating its number of storage slots
Updated flavor text for Interior Wood Cupboard, Small Wood Cupboard and Small Interior Wood Cupboard to show correct slot count. Updated icons for all cupboards and added icon scenes
Adding GameplayTagsToApply from D_AutonomousSpawns to NPCs spawned by AISpawnBehaviour and to creatures spawned by autonomous nests and spawners through SpawnNewAI, so each autonomous spawn row decides whether its spawns count towards biome spawn density
Fixing issue where autonomous spawns where preventing teather targets (players) from being selected when attempting natural ai spawning – in general Creatures that spawn from Dens will count toward biodiversity, but birds / floaters / bees etc will not, can now all be defined in datatable
Removed logic and widget hierarchy in ItemPopup UMG that used to ensure DLC icons and title text didn’t overlap, after the DLC icon content was moved elsewhere in the widget and resulted in long titles to be left-aligned unncessarily
Crafting Sulfur Worm and Vesper Trophies now grants bestiary experience as intended. Same fix for future radiation flyers
Adding extra validation to fix assert for when fire particles were already set to turn off
Styx Quest Extermination: Chemical Enhancement now appropriately requires a medicine bench instead of kitchen and herbalism benches
Fixed a number of typos and text errors across items, dialogue, and quest text
Adding help tips and some clarification to Icestorm quest so it is more distinguished from Field Test, and some general description cleanup when directing players to the crafting menu
Removing defunct interact option from the layered plating in Quest Research: Metal Plating
Structure for the Elysium quest Lost will now cleanup if the server setting is enabled
Fixed non-varying damage amounts displaying as a range when its not
Sandwyrm Queen Bestiary points required from 1500 >>> 400. Exotic reward increased from 35-50 >>> 50-75. Biomass Reward Increased from 10-10 >>> 15-25
Fixed subcategory index/detail view widgets being ignored.
Standardizing world bosses to require the same amount of bestiary points. This means a reduction in number of kills required to max for the LavaHunter, Alpha Wolf Boss, and Landshark
Increased Advanced Alteration Bench (T4) durability from 500 to 1500 and removed flammability trait. Increased Alteration Bench (T3) from 500 to 750 to better suit the tiers
Bestiary progress for Landshark and Black Wolf Boss reverted to live values as they’re encountered with higher frequency than other world bosses
ELY – Masked out AI spawn map in E10, H10 and H11 Tundra lakes in order to prevent creatures spawning on tiny rocks and becoming stuck

Future Content

Spelunking reversion to Live
Spelunking rework: new quest steps, nodes for mining, prebuilt hut, quest markers
Spelunking rework – Fix up some quest descriptions and DNT help tips that were missed
Spelunking – Adding recently created audio events, retiming weather events
Spelunking fixing weather event that was doing high amounts of wind damage to the hut, making weather transitions start later in the quest flow and toning them down
Spelunking re-creation of cavebottom quest marker as it wasn’t saving. New landing dialogue to better fit quest
Spelunking removed undescribed quest step and now tell player to return to hut
Spelunking storm events modified. No longer calls thunderstorm on leaving cave. Thunderclouds gathering lasts longer, has a bit of visual rain and wind added to it and otherwise feels more foreboding
Spelunking – tone way down fog treatment in thunderclouds gathering, clean up script for find hut subquest
Spelunking addition of initial crafting step at quest outset for pickaxe, torch, weapon. Moved pod location slightly away from hut. Moved cave bottom quest marker. Fixed consistency of naming of quest steps and erroneously punctuated DNT tags
Spelunking – splitting up mining steps so quest list isn’t as ginormous at a single point. Cleaning up descriptions, new string for repair failure state
Spelunking – Fixed location of spawnblocker and made weather event trigger more organically
Spelunking collect ore quest now appropriately scales with difficulty and amounts match later subquest
Spelunking thunder subtitle now from unknown source instead of Sol
Spelunking help tips pass and re-ordering of some quest steps
Adding storm warning audio and dialogue to match for new mission
Adding lightning in cave audio, event and quest setup
Adjustments to timing and volume of lightning and lightning reacts etc for missio
Further fine tune to timing of surprised dialogue line. More small tweaks to come
Further refinements to react dialogue timing
Updates to spelunking dialogue, sharpening up all lines making them feel less laggy and a touch more urgent
Further refinements to spelunking mission dialogue and text timing
Face Customization – Data driving face presets D_FacePresets.
Clamped face preset values to be 0-2. Need to still validate if enums are in valid positions.
Mouse Shape widget changes to match face preset.
Added forward declaration to livingitemshotitemdata to fix error.
Combined 4 semi duplicated functions for each direction into 1 function.
Face Customization – Fixed helmet not being properly attached to the head
Updated tattoo material function for character customization
Face Customization – Added new hair/beard models
Swapped Customization columns so Head customization is on left, moved headpiece visualization to middle top, and customization no longer needs scrolling.
Face Customization – Fixed disjointed face and helmet animations
Made both customize box options the same length on character creation menu, added background to visualize box.
replaced hair shader parent material from MA_HairSheet to MA_CHA_Hair_Customization for color customization to work
Face Customization – Added v2 variants to a few helmets that were too tight.
Face Customization – Corpses now have correct hair when dying e.g. ‘helmet on’ short hair version. Corpses now stop playing face animations when dead. Added a new column in D_Armour for helmets when the rebreather is on (if applicable).
Face Customization – Normalized hair names. Shifted positions of bars around in order of importance.
Face Customization – Fixed visualization checkboxes not reseting on body type change
Face Customization – Adjusted envirosuit section layout to be less cramped
Face Customization – Rebreather checkbox – Moved logic to check whether the checkbox should be checked or not from construct to when the visibility becomes true. hopefully fixing cases where the data isnt valid yet and defaulting to unchecked even when player has rebreather on.
Face Customization – Added Beard Style #09 helmet version so beard doesnt poke through helmet.
Radboss Bestiary population. Added strengths/weaknesses and stat unlocks (radiation and explosive resistance). Fixed typo in Bestiary Traits for laser weakness
Irradiated Trophies feature level fixed from none >>> core. Mistake from removing their feature level from GH Ely in previous check-in
Fixing Rad Flyer’s loot so it no longer scales its reward with bone harvesting stats
Added third person aim animation for the legendary launcher
Added bone to the flamethrower skeleton for the loader on the legendary launcher. Added rotate anim for the launcher loader bone.
Launcher – Added new 3rd person ADS animation
Launcher – Split loader (1 rotate, 1 static) added to living item upgrades and spin anim plays on reload.
Launcher – Reload animation. Fixed animation end point being reset.
Launcher – Reload Animation. Fixed idle length being reset on editor reload due to end point being longer than the animation. now uses scale to stretch duration out.
Updated the legendary launcher upgrade pieces so more of the loaders will be static, reducing obvious anim snapping. Updated the loader spin anim to rotate further
Fixed texture settings on Radboss bestiary image
Launcher – Added barrel rotation when shooting.
Launcher – Fixed shoot anim blending out too slow making transition visible
Implement workshop data for Larkwell Frag Grenade. Increase stack size to 10. Switch to ‘impact’ ballistic setup. Unhook Workshop Dropship Beacon from Workshop Repair kits as they have no logical connection to each other and the gadgets category is largely singular unlocks now
Fixed missing Item.Meta tag on Workshop grenade
Added SM_DEP_Settlement_Radio_Tower
Added ITM_Microchip
Adjusted chimney meshes in the Quarters BP to be the correct configuration, as well as pointed the BP to to correct SM instead of the test mesh. I also updated the Kit textures/materials.
Added first pass of the Settlement Watch Tower
Hooking up Microchip Item to Meshable
Adding Radio Tower Mesh and Setting up Radio Tower Blueproint for Settlements
Settlement – Fixing NPC Spawn Location for visitors to the settlement and adjusting interaction projection location
Settlement – Updating Settlement UI so that the settlement widget has and overview, ledger, talents and inventory
Settlement – Settlement Only items now have a unique item slot colour
Added item text for microchip currency
Settlement Buildings can now be upgraded, during this process the old building is deconstructed in place and a new one is contructed over top
Settlements – Fixing issue where clients could not unlock talents on the server as they where only unlocked client side
Settlements – Fixing issue where clients could not interact with NPCs
Settlements – Fixing issue where clients could not building anything other than stockpiles
Settlements – Fixing issue where clients could not see NPC’s in the drop down menus
Added initial setup for the settler armour materials and textures.
Added settlement item icons.
Added the Settlement T1 Kitchen mesh, with all textures and materials, as well as added it to the Settlement Building DT. I also pointed teh Quarters DT entry to the correct mesh, as well as added the watch tower to the DT.
Adding additional plant elite movement loop events to walk
Adding turtle attack audio, event and data table setup. ALso adding sol react line to dialogue
Tropical Bird – Fixed BPs pointing to wrong table rows, added caracass recipe.
Adding turtle roar audio, event and notify. Duplicating animation to add unique one for turtle BP. Also adding plant emerge additional audio
Jungle Hunter: Fixed texture groups on assets and deleted SM version of creature. Updated prediction box bounds
Adding updated turtle roar audio WIP
Fixed incorrect collision bones on Elite Plant Creature
Arctic Kangaroo – Initial datatable/blueprint setup.
Adding turtle aggro event and data table setup
Jungle Hunter bones increased to Large to suit its size. Moved Alert component up higher and adjusted prediction box further
Increased large dino mass and wander min/max distance so that it walks further before pausing. Moved anim assets out of Raptor folder. Added new simplified idle montage without the arm pit sniff
Adding giant turtle death audio event and data table setup. Setting up new aggro event to fix weird problem where it didnt create properly
Jungle Monkey – Fixed/tidied up datatable/blueprint setup.
Plant Creature Ranged (Vinequill) – Added plant creature gameplay tag.
Plant Creature Spore (Vinespore) – Added plant creature gameplay tag.
Plant Creature Melee (Vinewhip) – Added plant creature gameplay tag.
Plant Creature Elite – Added plant creature gameplay tag.
JungleMonkey: Updated mesh. Fixed FurSplines file name. Added missing EyeSocket to skeleton. Improve SK LODs. Updated Gfur component
Fixed Storca variant asset folders and filename schemes. Fixed texture group settings
ARK – Decreased storca jungle spawn weighting, population cap to 2 (6 total with 2 followers each), and increased overall jungle density to 15
Plant Creature Melee – Fixed scale, added missing sockets and setup animation blueprint
Plant Creature Spore – Fixed scale, added missing sockets and setup animation blueprint
Plant Creature Ranged – Fixed scale, added missing sockets and setup animation blueprint
Adding beetle idle audio, event and aggro event and data table setup
Adding bettle attack audio, event and data table setup
Giant Turtle – Fixed Physics Asset being too large and folding in on itself.
Giant Turtle – Added corpse/bones meshes. Added beginnings of bespoke turtle IK control rig
Adding beetle death audio, event and data table setup
Updated the flying tank skeleton with the new bones for the artillary creature
Removig refereces to tank from beetle
Adding a touch more weight and dynamic variance to some ground dragon vocal layers
Giant_Beetle (Ironwing) bestiary setup (grants fall resist and chitin harvest bonus), rewards tuned, trophy created
Giant Beetle (Ironwing) now aggressive as intended. Fixed an issue with his animations not matching flying state
Adding jungle hunter attack vocalisation first pass audio, event and DT setup
Adding jungle hunter roar, footsteps notifys etc
Giant Turtle – Fixed phsyics asset breaking due to soft constraints.
Jungle Monkey – Initial anim blueprint setup.
Ground Dragon: Fixed base stats, increased base speed slightly. Refined physics asset. Created new Turn BS and assigned in AnimBP as existing was using Wyrm with anim references containing screenshake. Disable unused bones and updated transform of EyeSocket at mesh level. Updated preview mesh in related anims to be Ground Dragon mesh. Reset character BP back to base class defaults as there was lots of boss related overrides
Adding unique events with pitched audio for the axolot more accurate to the size
Alloy mesh, textures and materials setup
updated textures for alloy aluminium bronze and ferro titanium
Added Lead Ingot item icon.
Blocking Coast Area, Updated Biome Map and Blockout Some foliage on Green Quad
Blocking Coast Area, Green Quad
Created dedicated AISpawnMap assets for T022. Updated satellite image in PSD and fixed layer organization
Inversed lava and volcanic colors on AISpawnMap asset
doing feedback for cliffs on Ark in blue qaud
Removed FLODFism component from NOFLOD banyan FTs
seagull niagara FX for coastal

Have you noticed thin wildlife in geothermal or volcanic regions, especially in multiplayer? For updates on the upcoming Spelunking overhaul and other Icarus changes, follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

An alien world for the taking. Explore, survive and make your fortune if you dare. Icarus is a multiplayer co-operative survival game with persistent metagame progression.