ICARUS Beta Weekend #5 Adds Desert Mission, Keeps BW4 Arctic Mission

They say you can’t go home again, but that apparently no longer applies to ICARUS Beta Weekends. This Beta Weekend marks the fifth of a planned seven, and includes not only a new Biome and mission, but the option for Prospectors to attempt the Broken Arrow mission again if they so choose. From the mission briefing, it sounds like this weekend’s challenges will easily be the toughest yet.

First things first: This Beta Weekend begins Friday, October 22nd at 5pm PDT, and ends Monday, October 25th at 10pm PDT. Three days is a decent chunk of time, but thanks to either polar bears, bugs (the software kind), or some combination of the two, many players weren’t able to complete the previous mission with an equally long BW4. Presumably, the Desert mission will be even harder to complete, but Prospectors should come into this one more experienced — it will be interesting to see how the community does in this latest prospect.

Mission Briefing

The Desert biome’s mission is entitled Blacksand, and is a “simple” survey mission, gathering data on the area for the UDA. Ominously, “few have returned” from the Desert biome, so you’ll want to make sure you’re ready for arid conditions if you’d like to be one of the few who makes it back alive. RocketWerkz has stated that the mission will require someone on your team will need to be at least level 25, and that it will also require specific recipes (so save those blueprint points).

In addition to needing a high-level Prospector, there are a few other things to keep in mind heading into Beta Weekend #5:

Be ready for the heat – You’ll need more water than usual, so you should to create a Canteen if you can — that leaky Waterskin isn’t going to cut it. You’ll also want to wear appropriate armor. Cloth Armor will keep you cool, but it won’t stand up to fangs or claws very well — Leather Armor offers more protection but actually makes you less resistant to heat; same with Carbon Armor. The Ghillie Armor can also be an OK option, assuming the bug that prevented players from unlocking it has been fixed.
Be ready for the cold – The Desert gets cold at night, so you’ll want to bring some kind of portable shelter, and some warmer clothes if you plan on being out at after dark.
Be ready for serious storms – You might be used to ignoring storm warnings in the Forest biome, but the Desert has sand storms and heat waves that will force you to find shelter or suffer the consequences.
Bring supplies – Fiber and Wood will be hard to come by in the Desert, and the official announcement specifically suggests bringing ingredients for pills and tonics with you.

Check out our Desert Biome guide for some more tips.

There will also be new wildlife to look out for, some of which will likely be aggressive. The animals already revealed appear to be elephants, bongos, and jaguars, but who knows what else the sands may conceal.

icarus desert wildlife 3 — Maybe we’ll be able to ride them eventually…

icarus desert wildlife 1 — Maybe we’ll be able to ride them eventually…

The new playable area has also been revealed: It appears you’ll need to head north from the Forest and find one of a handful of tunnels leading to the Desert. Careful in those passageways — they apparently aren’t as stable as they look.

If you were hoping to spend some more time in the snow, you can always choose to attempt Beta Weekend 4’s Broken Arrow mission again, though you’ll have to start a separate Prospect if you do want to venture into the new biome.

Changes and Bug Fixes

The Beta Weekend will also bring with it bug fixes and QoL improvements. You can check them all out below, but here are some of the more interesting/exciting ones:

Firearms have been rebalanced, with the Hunting Rifle moved to level 30. The tech tree now includes the new Bolt Action Rifle, and there’s also a new Incendiery Rifle Round.
Animals will now leave trails of blood, making for a more interesting and realistic tracking experience.
Rabbits will provide less fur, so good luck making a Bedroll for your friend you’re introducing to the game.
Steel and Iron Repair Hammers have been added.

Below is a selection of key bug fixes and QOL improvements that we’ve actioned since the last Beta Weekend. This doesn’t reflect every change, but gives you an idea of where our effort has gone. Thanks – many of these bugs were reported by you on Feature Upvote.

Bug fixes:

Fixed an issue where the crafting bench could be fooled to think it had enough items to continue crafting
Fixed a bug where the shelter trace stops functioning and does not resume until reload, causing players and deployables to incorrectly take exposure damage
Fixed an issue with the ‘More for Less’ talent where the crafting recipe was incorrectly using resources and requiring double the intended amount
Fixed a bug where dying and Respawning and then fitting Fur Armor leaves armor in first person
Fixed a bug where the medicine pills weren’t providing any buffs due to the modifier removing itself immediately
Fixed a rotation issue of Polar Bear eating a carcass animations (start and end)
Fixed a bug where player appears in Out of Bounds Area when dropping in 011 for Broken Arrow mission
Added a patch where the system will deny animal spawns for a period of time in the location one was killed
Fixed an Error 024 by allowing the host to update the prospect heartbeat during the loading phase
Fixed an Error 020 by fixing incorrect append type for wrapping associated member character slot data
Adjusted the physics on the Cougar model to ragdoll more realistically
Animals that are fleeing from you are no longer able to be hit with stealth attacks
Fixed a bug where ammo was unloading into hotbar before main inventory, when there was still space for it
Fixed a bug where arm armor wasn’t visible when in first person
Fixed a bug where doors were being double-placed if the existing door was open.
Fixed an issue with solo talent tree being blocked by ‘coming soon’ nodes
Removed debug plane placed on one tree stump (looked like a white target)
Fixed a bug where punching was causing 0 damage, it will now cause 5. Remember though, Bears punch harder.
Fixed a bug where doors stopped rendering at certain distances

QOL improvements:

Certain deployable items will now produce recipes concurrently instead of consecutively to follow a more logical experience and progression
Added a Stat Modifier which modifies the held time to activate an item (i.e repair hammer)
Added a variation on the wall piece to allow for double-windows
Reworked the rain particle visual effects to provide a more realistic experience
Added a bleeding modifier to injured animals to provide a more realistic tracking experience
Split foliage quality and foliage distance into separate settings to help improve load speed and depth of field
Added Incendiary Rifle Rounds for those who just want to watch the world burn
Added Steel and Iron Repair Hammers
We felt firearms were too strong, too early, so we rebalanced the tree to include a Bolt Action Rifle, with the Hunting Rifle moving to level 30.
Set minimum charge required for Longbow, Recurve Bow and Compound Bow to 0.9 so arrows cant be launched at snail’s pace
Added messaging on solo talent tree to inform players that these talents are only activated when solo
Doubled range of fire warming aura modifier for easier sleeping
Added bench requirement tooltips on item repair context menu (i.e Longbow)
Added variants keyprompt on deployables with variants (i.e Wall)
Adjusted the min/max yield of the Rabbit so it produces less Fur

Excited about Beta Weekend 5? Have an irrational dislike of coarse, rough sand? Let us know in the comments!