SANDBOX UPDATE v.192 is now Live! New Region, New Wildlife!

Raphael van Lierop

By Raphael van Lierop
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Raphael van Lierop Pathfinder

Raphael van Lierop

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The Long Dark -- Sandbox Update #21 (v.192) -- New "Pleasant Valley" Region! New Wildlife! Harvestable Plants!

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***NOTE: Save games from previous versions have been confirmed to work with the v.192 update.***

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Hello,

We're excited to share some details about our 21st update to The Long Dark's Sandbox. Our newest region, Pleasant Valley, is nearly 10 square kilometres of rural mountain valley featuring abandoned fields, farms, caves, surrounded by a vast wilderness.

Between Mystery Lake, Coastal Highway, and Pleasant Valley, the Sandbox is now nearly 20 square kilometres of playable space.

In addition to the new region and Mystery Wildlife (details to be updated once the first sightings are reported), this update adds Harvestable Plants (so players can produce their own first aid items), Torch Brandishing gameplay (used to scare off Wolves), improved Wildlife AI, and an entirely new Inventory interface!

Details in the Changelist Below!

Accessing Pleasant Valley & Region Unlocking

Pleasant Valley is accessed through the Coastal Highway region. Please note that for existing players, Pleasant Valley will only be unlocked in the Sandbox Menu after it has been discovered in the game. New players will first need to discover Coastal Highway before they can find Pleasant Valley.

General Note on Game Performance & Optimization

We've seen quite a few notes about people with high-end systems experiencing lower than expected performance in the game. We're continuing to work on optimizing the game world, but unfortunately some of the issues are related to how our core engine -- Unity -- was built, and how it utilizes multiple CPU cores for physics objects.

You'll notice that game performance is more dependent on CPU speed than GPU speed, which is why changing graphics settings has little effect on frame-rate (assuming you are CPU-limited).

We will continue our optimization efforts and work with Unity to find good solutions. We are hopeful that the upcoming Unity 5 will address these limitations, as the existing outdated physics engine is being replaced. We're also exploring our own ideas, the goal being to improve performance without sacrificing the size or detail of the world.

We appreciate your patience as we continue to work on this thorny technical challenge!

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The Long Dark -- Sandbox Alpha -- v.192 Changelist

MAJOR ADDITIONS

* New Region! Pleasant Valley. Nearly 10 square kilometres of rural mountain valley.

* New Mystery Wildlife! Keep your eyes open.

* Harvestable Plants. Collect Old Man's Beard Lichen, Rose Hips, and Reishi Mushrooms and craft natural remedies.

* Torch Brandishing. Craft Torches and Brandish them against Wolves. You might scare them off!

* Visual Inventory. Completely redone Inventory screen with improved navigation and embedded Repair and Harvesting actions.

GENERAL IMPROVEMENTS

* General improvements to wildlife AI, to support better player decision-making about Fight or Flight response and clarify wildlife presence and intent.

* Predators are now attracted to the smell of Blood (bleeding wounds, raw meat, etc.) and will come investigate if within range.

* Scent is now affected by Wind speed and direction.

* All Beds now have a Warmth value displayed in the Rest interface.

* Bedrolls now lose Condition and must be maintained. It's possible to find multiple Bedrolls in the world.

* All fires now visualize their state (ignition, full burn, cooling off, coals) through flame, sparks, and smoke. Smoke also respects wind direction.

* Various new sounds, and many previous sounds have been replaced based on a new foley recording session.

* Many UI improvements throughout.

* Updated Silent Hunter and Pacifist achievements to clarify they need to happen in the first days of a game (not after many days have already passed).

* German and Russian translations have been fully updated.

BUGS FIXED

* Fixed Exploration achievement

* Achievements are not sent to Steam if player is dead.

* Fixed key binding issue with AltFire.

* Fixed discrepancy between time survived and time of day.

* Fixed scroll wheel issue on right side of container screen.

* Fixed issue when dying during a load scene fade

* Fixed issue with failing to Transfer All showing incorrect info on screen afterwards.

* Fixed issue with fishing huts sometimes not blocking wind

* Fixed issue with phone wires dropping at game start (physics)

* Fixed inaccessible Prepper Hatch bug

* Fixed issue where First Aid items were disabled if used, then use was cancelled, then the item was dropped

* Fixed issue where Log could show incorrect days in a new session after dying.

* Fixed errors in Calorie Burn amounts being displayed for Resting, Foraging, Ice Fishing and Harvesting

* Increased navmesh accuracy to address a variety of pathfinding issues

* Fixed issue with dropped items sometimes being inaccessible

* Fixed issue with campfire disappearing if cancelling out of creating a fire in a stove.

* Display correct Calorie Burn on the UI for activities when in Pilgrim and Stalker modes

### END OF CHANGELIST ###

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Maikleeps Pathfinder

Maikleeps

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First of all: staying up late for the new update was so worth it. You guys from hinterland did a great job! Thank you!!! :):D

Second, I really want to know if the update v. 192 eliminates the bug that wolves lingering and circling around the abandoned lookout and not going away ever and don't die when shooting ar them? The list of changes unfortunately doesn't mention it. Thanks in advance for helping me to dare to go to the abandoned lookout again :-)

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Bill Tarling Pathfinder

Bill Tarling

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First of all: staying up late for the new update was so worth it. You guys from hinterland did a great job! Thank you!!! :):D

Second, I really want to know if the update v. 192 eliminates the bug that wolves lingering and circling around the abandoned lookout and not going away ever and don't die when shooting ar them? The list of changes unfortunately doesn't mention it. Thanks in advance for helping me to dare to go to the abandoned lookout again :-)

Yes, wolves will move away... but you know there was an easy way to get past them even before (just run over edge of hill and crouched going over edge -- made for an easy way to escape them each time before) ;)

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Denyo Pathfinder

Denyo

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And just watched the first live Twitch streamer who found Cubby, the new wildlife :D

Was that new animal on new map or they are in all three maps? I hope nobody will post,what the new kind of wildlife is and spoil the excitement of discovering it.I"m kinda reading this topic posts with one eye now,lol.Just that I don"t notice the name of new wildlife. :D

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frunsi Prepper

frunsi

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And just watched the first live Twitch streamer who found Cubby, the new wildlife :D

Was that new animal on new map or they are in all three maps? I hope nobody will post,what the new kind of wildlife is and spoil the excitement of discovering it.I"m kinda reading this topic posts with one eye now,lol.Just that I don"t notice the name of new wildlife. :D

found it on the new map. needless to say, my first encounter was quite a surprise

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RapidGnome Wolfbait

RapidGnome

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Anyone else noticed that the warmth/cold meter doesn't go down the way it should be? Example: When I entered a cabin in the new area the cold/freezing meter didn't go down not even after like 15 seconds, so is this a bug or is this a new difficuly setting? Thanks!

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Raphael van Lierop Pathfinder

Raphael van Lierop

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Anyone else noticed that the warmth/cold meter doesn't go down the way it should be? Example: When I entered a cabin in the new area the cold/freezing meter didn't go down not even after like 15 seconds, so is this a bug or is this a new difficuly setting? Thanks!

Was the temperature above freezing? If not, the Cold meter will not go down.

We've done a tuning pass on interior temps to coincide with the fact that beds now provide Warmth.

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RapidGnome Wolfbait

RapidGnome

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Anyone else noticed that the warmth/cold meter doesn't go down the way it should be? Example: When I entered a cabin in the new area the cold/freezing meter didn't go down not even after like 15 seconds, so is this a bug or is this a new difficuly setting? Thanks!

Was the temperature above freezing? If not, the Cold meter will not go down.

We've done a tuning pass on interior temps to coincide with the fact that beds now provide Warmth.

No I actualy checked that is was like 1 or 2 degrees, just a little bit above the freezing point, unfortunately I haven't made a screen shot.... Anyway thanks for the quick reply though!!

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Denyo Pathfinder

Denyo

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Anyone else noticed that the warmth/cold meter doesn't go down the way it should be? Example: When I entered a cabin in the new area the cold/freezing meter didn't go down not even after like 15 seconds, so is this a bug or is this a new difficuly setting? Thanks!

Was the temperature above freezing? If not, the Cold meter will not go down.

We've done a tuning pass on interior temps to coincide with the fact that beds now provide Warmth.

Raph,my hat down.It will take some time to get used to new inventory interface,but it looks much more organized and transparent.Game improvements seem to me very smooth and I encounter now smoother gameplay and even framerates are better now,altough I play on laptop and even if I have steam overlay on.Before I could get 24-30 Fps outdoors and from 12-16 Fps indoors,sometimes even less than 10.And I had steam overlay turned off and low graphic settings.Now I have indoors Fps from 22-30 and outside even 44 Fps.And I have steam overlay on now.So,for me,this update brought improvement of gameplay so far.And movements are more smoother and easyly to controll.

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ChillPlayer Pathfinder

ChillPlayer

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This update is freaking awesome, I was streaming for three hours and speeding through the map, I still haven't seen half of it. Discovered lot's of new stuff (but saidly no big brown fluffy) and ended the stream with discovering a bunker in the new map :D The new houses are awesome, especially that big farm with silo and cellar, the red barn is also very nice. And the view from the radio tower is just breath taking - literally, I was trapped in the little shack nearby for almost 16 hours because a blizzard just wouldn't stop lol.

Only one thing: I wished the torch would be reusable like the storm lattern. A cloth in Stalker is more worth than a bullet (because much rarer) and to have to use one everytime to craft a new torch is just too costly. So although it is a great idea and would motivate to make more night trips, I won't use it much because it's just too expensive.

Any chance you could make it refuelable only with fuel or reclaimed wood? Or a compromise, you can put new fuel on it for say 5 times before you have to craft a new one with cloth, would be closer to reality too.

Other than that I love all what I've seen in this update so far. Didn't die yet, crossed from CH around day 39 and am now somewhere day 50ish. Killed alot of wolves though :twisted:

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