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Originally posted by author:A Message from Rocket
We release the key content for free in our updates, pairing them with companion DLCs that contain adjacent or decorative content. For a detailed outline of our strategy you can read more below
[expand type=showmore]On 4 December 2021 we released ICARUS to deservedly mixed reviews. It was a big project for a new studio and our launch was filled with plenty of stumbles. At a certain point you have to stop making the game you think you should be making, and start making the game you actually have. We took a deep look at how we were operating and committed to doing a update every week to earn the trust of the community. We did so, every single week, with not a single one missed including through COVID lockdowns, two serious floods, a tropical cyclone, a gas leak, and an active shooting.
We are carving out an approach that involves releasing consistent free updates to the game and alongside paid DLC that is adjacent or decorative. These DLC are, hopefully, a little underwhelming compared to the free content we release. This is intended, part of us trying to carve out a space in the middle of the market. We're thrilled we have been able to continue to make ICARUS better and better. We have a massive amount of new free content planned and exciting work coming with the new major "Dangerous Horizons" expansion as well as a whole host more free major updates. Our DLC is also not DRM checked beyond the cursory steam check, which can be easily bypassed especially when running a dedicated server. We place as little restrictions as possible on our DLC. All very much intended.
Initially our move away from data decentralization was not popular, but I feel confident time has shown it was the best decision. That move away from central servers was enormously expensive for the studio in development costs, but secured the future for ICARUS that means it would outlive the studio. We believe this is an important step all game companies should make, regardless of the costs. We hope to continue to earn your support in our efforts to make games this way, in ways that let the games live far longer than the studios that make them and the platforms that hold them.
- Dean "Rocket" Hall, CEO[/expand]
Our free Laika update is here
[expand=showmore]Laika was a Soviet space dog who was one of the first animals in space and the first to orbit the Earth. As the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, Laika's survival was never expected. She died of overheating hours into the flight, on the craft's fourth orbit.
Animals have been a part of our existence, sometimes in our lives they can at times even feel like the reason we exist. So we wanted to name this update after a loyal and brave dog, who perished because of us.[/expand]
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/40692/Icarus_Pets_Bundle/
Those paying attention will know that in addition to our regular weekly updates, we bundle up some large features to deliver as 'named' updates. The latest, Laika, brings all prospectors a ton of new animal-themed content, improvements, two new optional DLC packages, a bonus DLC operation and even more.
Laika is headlined by the new Mount Leveling system where Mounts can earn XP, Talent Points and base stat improvements while specialising with their own Talent Trees.
It's not just mounts, though. Through Snare Traps you can now capture and slowly win over some of Icarus' unique wildlife, including Wolves (both the forest and arctic variants), Hyenas and Wild Boar.
In addition, the new Sheep and Chickens can be ordered from the Orbital Workshop and the ability to take pets to and from other prospects has been introduced, so they’re no longer locked to one session and can be leveled up over multiple drops.
Our new DLC expand on this content, with a ton of troughs, beds, saddles and more in the Creature Comforts DLC and Dogs, Cats and Horses in Pet Companion pack. As a bonus for those who purchase both you can get the Zebra Rescue Mission DLC, which gives you the exclusive ability to train and raise Zebra’s as a new mount.
There’s a ton to catch up on, so hop in and have a read.
This Week: LAIKA Features
Animal Leveling and Talents
Mounts and Tames now gain XP and level up as they adventure with you and amble around at home base. These levels gained will improve their base stats such as health and stamina, but that’s not all...Mount Talent Trees
Leveling up your pets will now also give them talent points to spend on their own talent trees. Every existing mount type in Icarus now has its own brand-new talent tree, along with all new tames and future mounts to be added. These will include a mix of base talents and bespoke ones for each different creature.Mount Persistence
Your pets have now also got their customs clearance. You’ll now be able to transfer your pals between prospects, open worlds and outposts, done via the Orbital Exchange Interface (OEI) that you currently use to send exotics to space, and purchase workshop items from the planet. From here, you’ll be able to order a pickup for your Tame/Mount and send them up to orbit, where they can be accessed the same as a workshop item.Mount Food Buff Rework
Just like players, Mounts and Tames can now have 2 active food buffs at any time and different foods will provide different improvements. This can be increased by unlocking the appropriate talent.New Tameable Creatures
Certain creatures can now be tamed in Icarus. Wolves, Arctic Wolves, Hyneas and Wild Boars can all now be tamed and become a loyal companion, each with their own talent tree.Taming Creatures
To tame one of the above animals, you’ll need to use the new snare trap system. These work when baited, and creatures you capture will slowly warm up to you over time, as long as you keep them warm and fed. Don’t expect a warm reception right away though, it’ll take a while for your new tame to stop being aggressive towards you and become docile.We’ve also got two new creatures which are available for purchase in the Orbital Workshop!
Chickens
Chickens can be sent down from orbit and raised at your base, where they’ll make a hell of a racket along with produce eggs. Chickens will need to be kept fed, watered and warm - and if you meet all the requirements - will produce eggs roughly 2 eggs per day on Icarus.If you build a chicken coop (another new item) the Chickens will lay their eggs inside for easy collection, otherwise, they’ll drop them on the ground randomly.
Sheep
Sheep can also be sent down from orbit, where they’ll produce wool at roughly one full coat a day. You’ll need the new Shears to be able to gather the wool, and will need to keep your sheep fed and watered for it to produce wool for you.This Week: Tameable Creatures List
The list of tameable creatures has expanded considerably this week, so here’s a breakdown of each group and how to tame them:
"Rescued" as Juveniles:
- Moa
- Buffalo
- Terrenus
- Tusker
Capture with a Snare Trap:
- Wolf
- Arctic Wolf
- Hyena
- Wild Boar
Brought down from the Orbital Workshop:
- Chicken
- Sheep
- Cats* (3 Variants)
- Dogs* (4 Variants)
- Horses* (3 Variants)
This Week: General Mount Improvements
We’ve made extensive improvements and adjustments to Mounts and Tames in general, especially in their AI and behaviors:
Mount AI
- Passive Mounts and Tames set to Follow will now try to evade combat when hurt
- Fixed a bug where mounts weren't attacking when set to Defensive
- Fixed a bug where Moa weren't fleeing correctly when damaged
- Added a tooltip above mounts and tamed creatures indicating their current behavior action
- If Mounts and Tames get stuck when set to 'Follow', they will teleport to their leader after a period of time (if far enough away)
- Added additional idle behaviors and animations for tamed creatures
Mounts / Tames General
- Added level and name to tame/mounts death message
- Rebalanced base stats of mounts, increasing the base health of Moa and speed of Buffalo. Still some variance but larger variance comes through talent selection
- Added fall damage reduction as a baseline for all mounts and tames, preventing many accidental deaths
- Added the Ranching Station, consolidating all mount and tame related recipes to a single bench
- Added water troughs that can be connected to water networks
Non-Mount notable fixes
- Fixed electric wall light visual setup, now lights a much larger area
- Adding in Latest Patch Notes Section on the Title Screen (so you can easily see a link to the latest patch notes)
This Week: New Items
On top of all our new creatures, talent trees and systems, we have a ton of new items to pair with them.Resources
- Eggs - Gathered from Chickens
- Wool - Gathered from Sheep
Eggs & Chicken Recipes
- 6 Egg based recipes - Fried, Omelette, Tomato & Egg, Scrambled, Big Breakfast, Pickled Eggs
- 3 Chicken recipes - Grilled, Roasted and Fried
Wool
- 5 wool based recipes - Platinum Weave, Fur, Arctic Pelt, Rope, Bandage
- 1 new wool item - Fuel Brick (a longer lasting fuel source for fire)
Deployables
- Ranching Station - A new one-stop shop for your saddles, troughs, animal feed, carts and animal beds
- Large Water Trough - Can be connected to the water network and can be used by 4 creatures simultaneously
- Electric Water Trough - This provides filtered water to animals which has extra benefits for them
- Electric Food Trough - This converts food placed in it into an omni feed for animals
- Food and Water Bowls (Cat/Dog variations) - Colors can be customized
- Snare Trap - Used to catch Wolves, Arctic Wolves, Hyenas and Boars when baited
- Hitching Post - A place to tie your animals and mounts to if you want to keep them in place
- Hitching Rope - Can be used to secure an animal to the hitching post but also as a lead when equipped
- Chicken Coop - Chickens will walk in and lay eggs - this is not required but preserves eggs for longer rather than them being dropped randomly on the ground
Trophies
- Chicken and Sheep Trophies, for those wanting to show their mastery over creatures great AND small.
Tools
- Shears - Used to cut the wool off a sheep when fully grown
Animal Feeds
- 7 new Animal Feeds with unique buffs - Omni, Desert, Arctic, Volcanic, Endurance, Sprinters, Mountaineering, Survival
Animal Carts
- Planting Cart - Plants seeds & creates crop plots when pulled by an animal
- Watering Cart - Waters nearby crop plots when pulled by an animal
- Harvesting Cart - Harvests nearby crop plots when pulled by an animal
This Week: Known Issues and Frustrations
We have been heavily playing the Free Laika update this week with no cheats to experience the game as players will. Myself (CEO) I have put over 80 hours this week into this update. This fits with our motto of games being "played not made". As a result a number of issues, frustrations and the need for quality of life improvements have shown up. We need to heavily test the resultant changes and fixes but these will be implemented in either next weeks update or in the weeks after that. They will be available on the experimental branch in a few days and be part of the Week 126 update a week from now. As always, we will be waiting for your feedback as to where to go with this as well.
- Commanding your animals. We are looking at ways to "whistle" or access commands better, and make the UX for making them follow or stay better.
- Mount modifiers displaying while riding them. Currently you see the mount health bar, but not its modifiers. The work has been done for this, but it needs to be carefully tested and will be in the next build we do.
- Controlling your chickens. This can be a real pain, sometimes a source of hilarity. We looked as some simple fixes, but really we need new fencing options and egg collection deployables to give more options that just the chicken coop. This will be something we investigate much more.
- Pets sometimes get 'fixated' on a task, such as trying to eat from a particular trough even if there is one closer. You can often manually break them out of this by helping them complete the action - like manually giving them food/water or changing their set behaviour and back again.
- More agency for pet and mount control. Similar to the "follow" or "stay", we might add more buttons to enable/disable specific actions, and make it faster and easier to do so. We don't want to rush these changes in.
- More animals that are tamable. This does involve significant expense for us, they need animations and sometimes other meshes. Let us know what you would like to see, and consider supporting us with DLC purchases so we can spend more money adding more mounts and companions to the game.
- Camera issues with some mounts. Sometimes the external camera is in a weird position, or the position just is not good. This will be fixed and adapted in our next updates.
- Lights on mounts not working properlly when in player slots. This can be utterly infuriating, it is something we are working on a fix for as soon as we can.
- Ways to breed animals especially things like chickens. This requires careful balance is something we need to think about a bit more. It might require special T4 (who knows, maybe T5) buildings. We will seek feedback from players, feel free to pitch ideas on Feature Upvote or in the forums
We identified much, much, more but hopefully this gives you some confidence that even where we have not got things right yet - that we are aware of it and will do what we can to address these issues going forward.
Next Week(s): Coming Soon
We often have content that has been partially or even fully made but hasn't made it into the live game yet. This allows us to keep up our weekly update cadence as well as still push out large updates of free content like this one. Also get the first peek at the content planned for our next major expansion - Dangerous Horizons.Future Confirmed (FREE)
We have a huge amount of future content planned, below is just some outlines of things we are preparing or even have ready for testing in some cases. This list is not exhaustive. Please consider buying supporter DLCs if you want to see even more.- Cave / Arctic Bats
- New Mounts: Wooly Zebra, Redback, Blueback,
- Workshop Guns: Shotgun, Rifle, Pistol
- Turrets
- Tree Respawning
- New Creatures: Ghost Croc, Swamp Bird, Skulmut, Dibbo, Kiwi
- Prometheus Part II Map Expansion
- Icarus - In-Game Wiki
- Biome specific crop growth, storms damaging crops
- A "directors cut" hardcode mode, like actually a real one approved by Rocket not all this chill vibes stuff but a mode for real prospectors. That works on dedicated server. Yes Rocket wrote this! Nobody edit it.
Dangerous Horizons Expansion
Our next big expansion we promised at launch has been in development. Our last one, New Frontiers, we adapted with what worked and what did not from our initial game, and we plan to do the same with what is coming. This will be new content, as well as the concept of "Great Hunts". Expect a key focus on exciting and downright terrifying monsters to face as a seasoned veteran prospector.- Building Tier & Resource: Limestone
- Curved & Diagonal Building Pieces
- New Bosses: Hammer Head, Rock Golem, Swamp Ape, Ice Mammoth
- New Biolab: New fully Customizable weapons