ICARUS Week 60 Update: Overhauled Weather, Forecasting System, and 30 Minute Backups

It’s Week 60, and this time RocketWerkz overhauled a system so pervasive that it might change how we experience each mission and open world build. The entire weather system got an overhaul, from the way storms vary over time and between biomes to how they are forecast to the player. A new backup system was also implemented to help players recover from file corruption issues. Read on to get a closer look at these major changes.

New Weather System

icarus week 60 update prospector night incoming snow storm

In the past, storms on Icarus progressed predictably while appearing almost instantaneously. There was little time to prepare, but you knew what kind of storm was brewing and exactly how the severity would progress. Such pampered prospectors we were!

No longer do prospectors get to know what kind of storm is coming. Nor is the type of storm going to be consistent or continuous. Weather predictions will not be precisely accurate, either. In exchange, the new weather forecast meter will predict (with some inaccuracy) how storm intensity will change over the following 2 in-game hours, allowing for more preparation. The storm meter will continue to suggest the duration of different storm intensities, as in the graphic below.

icarus week 60 update weather forecasting meter

These new weather patterns will be synchronized across all biomes: the type of storm (sandstorm vs. rain storm vs. blizzard) will vary, but the intensity will not. Weather patterns now have 7 levels of intensity, as depicted in the chart below. This clears up any confusion about the difference between “heavy” and “severe”, or black and dark red. The difficulty mode will continue to change the severity of storms, but some damaging storms will occur even in Easy mode.

icarus week 60 update weather intensity damage chart

An important change is that concrete structures are now immune to all weather damage, which allows prospectors to build confidently all across an open world map, even in Hard mode.

Weather is a major system that defines the feel of each mission, so this change has the potential to provide a fresh experience for those interested in a new playthrough. RocketWerkz will be monitoring user feedback on the missions and forecasts and tweak this new system as needed.

icarus week 60 update sandstorm prospector spear

New Local Data Backup System

Character data, profile data, and active prospect data are now be backed up in 30-minute intervals on your system. These backups are stored in the same folder as the current game data, and labeled with the “.backup” extension.

In case of a file corruption issue due to a system or game crash, for example, the game data will be restored from the most recent backup. This limits the progress lost to no more than 30 minutes. Up to 5 hours of backups will be kept, and players can revert to earlier backups by deleting the current data and removing the “.backup” extension from the data they want restored.

icarus week 60 update prospector tamed buffalo face off

Interesting Future Content

Now that detailed patch notes are being published again, players can get a forecast of content yet to come. There are a few interesting developments to take note of:

A new fishing workbench is in the works, with once side able to craft rods and lures, and the other able to process your catch.
A lot of work is being done on the story and missions in the upcoming Prometheus expansion, including a set piece called “Sol’s Hideout”.

Check out the detailed patch notes below for more details on current and future changes to ICARUS!

Detailed Patch Notes (v1.2.35.106983)

Merge WeatherUpdate to Trunk
Re-export datatables after merge
Adding New Weather Patterns for all the Prospects
Fix the parameter type in logs for Weather forecasting
Added GGHost to the list of verified server providers
Fixing Cheat to Trigger Quests
Adding new Text to Objective List when Objectives are loading
New Weather Icons, Adjusting Weather Block Tiers by Player Selected Difficulty and Adjusted UI to fit better in with the other HUD Elements
Added remaining weather events to the All_Weather pool, added a All_Weather_MoreLight pool for use in early missions
Lowered weather intensities maximum to facilitate better difficulty scaling
Changed Open World weather pattern to MidPeak, reducing maximum intensity. (Hard difficulty will still get the maximum intensity weather rarely)
Added a MostlyMild weather pattern, as a middle ground between later patterns and the interoductory pattern
Moved some early missions and all Outposts to MostlyMild weather pattern
Increased average storm severity on exploration missions
Exposed client logging system to code and cleaned up multiple blueprints related to it
Added client logging to connection errors
Fixed some issues with the Error 65 auto-retry system
Tierified storm damage events to ensure building damage is normalized throughout tiers
Fixed invalid susbystem errors in UMG_ConnectingOverlay after renaming LogOverlaySubsystem
Updated weather tier icons
Resaved WeatherTierIcon datatable to update tier 0 storm icon
Added an optional initial forecast to prospects (possible grace period to ease players in on new prospects)
Fixed an order of operations issue that was causing forecast blocks to be skipped on save/load
Fixed a bug where the client would only see the boss icon from ‘Crazed Creature’ dynamic mission when within a small area

Cleanup and improvement on Styx Landscape LODs. Textures were lowest mip due to memory constraints, now fixed for about 45% of the tiles, bug still exists making it difficult to generate correctly. Deleted LOD2 and LOD3 which aren’t needed (triangle count is around 500) and caused additional unnecessary texture generation. Further improvements to remaining unfixed tiles to come
Small adjustment to the lowest waterfall height volume / intensity to make sure very small waterfalls feel appropriate
Fixed issue where double trunk trees weren’t properly supported by TreeBase.cpp, and were causing crashes when chopped down
Fix remaining Styx landscape LOD textures that failed to generate properly
Fixed bug where SandWorm WorldBoss could sometimes teleport to the centre of the map.
Fixed bug where dead SandWorm WorldBoss icons would re-appear when re-hosting a prospect.
Reduced performance impact of SandWorm world bosses active in the world when players aren’t nearby
Improve Olympus distant landscape LODs (part 1), settings update, extracting assets individually and regenerating, deleting LOD2/LOD3
Disabled skeleton ticking/refresh on SandWorms in the level that aren’t currently relevant
Fixed steam offline issues by forcing sessions to be configured for Lan
Fixed a typo in a mission description
Fixed a few typos in mission objectives
Fixed a few typos
Add some more logging around server suspend/resume
Missions no longer start until a dropship has landed
Fixing Dropship Dialogue so it players correctly before the quest dialogue
Refactor and apply various optimisations to the multi point audio system to improve performance at scale. Should reduce the CPU cost of weather and fire audio systems, especially when applied to very large structures made of many grid bases, and refactor will make it easier to apply further optimisations
Fix an issue where the UI does not refresh buffs when mounted
Fix a merge bug in logging (internal only)
Resubmitting file that didnt save properly
Fixed crash caused by being able to click the cancel queued recipe item button in auto-crafting deployables (campfires/composters/etc)
Added a FOV reset on destruction of firearm objects
Fixes a bug where if you die while zoomed in with a rifle, you would stay zoomed in when you get revived
Reworked how character/profile/prospect backups work; Backup files are now generated every 30 minutes of game time and up to 10 are stored at a time. Added functionality to attempt auto-repair of corrupt save files in the case of computer shutdown during save operation
Changed order of ops for when grace period is applied due to UI refresh issue

Cleaned up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Added art assets for ITM_Super_Cooled_Ice to project
Added base rock asset for meta tree and updated meta tree blueprint with new assets
Exotic Tree Device – added backpack mesh + material, edited textures
Optimisation removing tick function from audio occlusion components
Create an audio reflector interface to enable overriding of surface-based reflection values on specific actors. Apply to hollow trunk blueprints to enable appropriate audio delay effects when players are using them
LC Terraces – added collision to terrace meshes
Added ALN_Exotic_PlanA_Var1 wild version
Adjustments to lava river. Adding flow parameter and adjustments to the sound and pitch of the speed
Adding the predator bird attack vocal to the swoop animation. Not currently in use
Added Mage Tree Roots & Genreal Clean Up on Blue Quad, DLC Map
Added Geothermal Lakes and Foliage Pass of LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Clean up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Adjusted Frozen Rive Shader to use WP and replace default shader on SM
Fixing 1.3.0. dialogue
Adding in Dialogue for Promethus Main Mission Chain 1-5, Updating Quest Objectives and Item names to match dialogue
Added Deep Ice Deposit Spawns to Artic on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
Added growth stages for ALN_Exotic_PlantA
Adding texture files that didn’t get submitted properly for ALN_Exotic_PlantA
Adjustments to swamp quad footsteps. Adding more mud layer and dirt grit
Fixing Promethus Progression by granting account flags when players finish missions 1,2,3
Fixing Deployable Varitation Spawning in Prebuilt structure code
Updating Prometheus Story 2 so the prebuit structure spawns correctly and adding new structure json
Removing Removed Flags from being references into the Talents Table
Updating Prebuild Structure for the Treehouse as well as updating the base structure icons
Updating Promethus Story 1 & 2 to use a better flow for prebuild structures
First pass on lights support for lava rivers, disabled by default
Clean up resources and painted LC foliage, in P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Added cave with lava Cave_LC_SML_004
Foliage Pass on LC biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
First pass on volcano mesh and textures
Updating Prometheus Story 3 quest steps and adding quest markers into the prometheus terrain
Updating Fish data to include 04, 05 and 06 variations. Suffixing BP with names and uniforming DT row names
LC Stones – added mesh, textures, FTs, BPs and data table entries
Volcanic Rocks – assigned correct PMs to materials
Adding in 3rd person Sledge hit animation and custom focusable for the sledgehammer to give more control over attachement offset etc
Implementation Of Volcano Mesh, Building Rest Of Volcano & Removed Old Impassable Meshes on Yellow/Red Quad, DLC Map
Swamp Rocks – assigned correct PMs to materials
Grasslands Rocks – assigned correct PMs to materials
Adding Sols Arctic Hideout Base
Updating Prometheus Mission 4, adding Sols Hideout, Swaping Boss Creature to be a Snow Stalker and Updating Questmarkers and locations for Quest
Tundra Rocks – assigned correct PMs to materials
Replaced Crevasse Static Meshes with BP Versions & Shorten Waterfalls that are too Long on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
Landscape Pass On Lava Rivers In Phase 1 and 2 Areas and Foliage Pass on Lava biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Regenerated Landscape LOD textures for Olympus to fix blurry low quality assets
Added foliage in LC biome, cleaned up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Further small adjustment to small waterfalls volume curve (small vs big)
Setting up Voxel Distributions for Prometheus
LC Cliffs – added proper convex hull collision
Adding footstep crack ice sweetener event and sounds. Not currently hooked up. To use footstep override
Fix Striker GFur settings and add LODs
Add or fix LOD settings on various assets
Adding Correct Resource Collection to the various new plants added to prometheus
LC LavaCold meshes – added convex hull collision
Fix GeodeLamp asset settings, textures, LODs, etc
Finish Volcano Blockout Red Quad, DLC Map
Add Hyena, Cougar, Elephant, Jaguar, Piranha and SnowLeopard decoration statue data (not yet available to craft). Icons and recipes still need creating
Adding System for spawning Exotic Plants
Geothermal Pools – added convex hull collision to meshes LC_Geotherm_03-07, disabled RVT on their materials
Added Cave with Lava Cave_LC_MED_005
Landscape Pass On Lava Rivers In Phase 1 and 2 Areas and Foliage Pass on Lava biome, clean up decals and resources, P2 Purple Quad, DLC
Seperating Out Fishing Bench and allowing 2 devices to be placed on one deploy
Fishing bench can now craft rods and lures on one side and fillet fish on the other
Changed popping log array from front and re-appending from the back to a circular buffer
Removed ELogCategories enum and moved it to a data table
Array doesn’t change size after initialization anymore
Removed unnecessary functions
Changed BPs to use new DT enums/text
Changes were suggested from an upsource review
Reconciling offline work. fixing build validation
Went through all relevant files and refreshed all nodes and force saved the DT
Exotic Tinted Plants Resource Placement on Green/Blue Quad, DLC Map
Volcanic Rocks – Convex hull collision on LRG and MED rocks
Volcanic Rocks – Convex hull collision on MAC rocks
Exotic Tinted Plants Resource Placement on Purple Quad and A Foliage Pass, Purple Quad, DLC Map
Adding t3 and t4 communicator computer audio and events and BP addition
Finished Cave with Lava Cave_LC_MED_005
Volcanic Rocks – convex hull collision on cave entrance meshes
General clean up of foliage, decals and riverbanks in Grasslands and Tundra, Green Quad, DLC
Replicating the RunQuest Variable
Fix missing uproperty specifiers in MultiPointAudioNodeArray members