System Era’s hit interplanetary exploration game Astroneer has received a huge patch in their free Summer Update with patch 1.2.0.0.
The list of updates in this patch is fairly large and includes several new items. First off System Era has added the EXO Recreational Sphere and Recreational Canopy. This is to go along with the various spheres already discovered in game for those lucky enough such as the zebra sphere. Now Arid type planets will have special editions of these spheres too.
Base designs will surely change going forward with today’s patch with the addition of Medium Platform C, Tall Platform, Tall Storage, and Medium Storage Silo. All of these can be printed from the small printer. In addition all those lighting problems and dark areas can now be illuminated with the new Floodlight. The new light source can be printed from the backpack from one tungsten carbide.
Hazard plants that previously didn’t drop seeds may now have a chance at dropping rare mutant seeds. These new seeds cannot be scanned for research, but instead planted for decorative purposes. Potential drops may come from Boomallon, various Hissbines, Noxious Spewflower, Elegant Spewflower, Spiny Attactus, Noxious Cataplant, and Volatile Cataplant.
Several quality of changes have been introduced. The terrain tool decal has seen a visual overhaul allowing players to better respond to the relative angle of the environment. All functionality remains unchanged.
Vehicles have seen a slew of adjustments that include improvements to handling and increased ability to execute maneuvers. Performing “donuts” or “side tricks” in vehicles will be much easier than before. Vehicle cables can now twist with a tolerance that is limited to 15 degrees.
New braking assist allows vehicles to slow down faster than they speed up and automatic parking brake. Towing has seen improvements with more stability with tow boost and now takes into account the difference in weight between itself and its trailers.
Drill control improvements include front-mounted drills now responding to left and right steering and will shift deformation sideways appropriately allowing proper banking of the drilled surface. When steering straight ahead the drilled surface will align with gravity keeping the surface level. Vehicles have a wider turn radius while drilling to prevent creating overly-tight tunnels. The maximum speed of vehicles while drilling has been reduced and will be affected by the difficulty level of the terrain.
A large list of bugs have been fixed in patch 1.2.0.0 that include general, multiplayer, and customization fixes. Game performance has seen improvements with a significant optimization for the flecks that fly from harvested materials into the player’s terrain tool. This is to eliminate spikes in frame time when harvesting. Optimizations to actor spawning to reduce spawning things on frame rate and various optimizations to transform updating along with overlap detection have been added.
Players who download patch 1.2.0.0 and login to their platform of choice before August 31, 2019 will receive new Summer themed Palettes and Visors. The new additions come in two themes, sunset and sunrise.
Astroneer is available on Steam and Xbox for $29.99 USD. More information on the game can be found on it’s website at astroneer.space.
System Era Softworks (@SES_dev Twitter) is an independent game development studio based out of Seattle, Washington. Inspired by space-exploration and possessing an optimistic view of space-age futurism, the System Era Softworks team strives to build games that motivate future generations of spacefarers.
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