Terrain Deformation, Inventory Slots for Lantern & Backpack Added to ICARUS Experimental Branch

Two much-requested features just made their way into the ICARUS testing branch, where players can try out the new “L” (for light) slot as well as the ability to put a backpack in its own specific armor slot. No more dropping your torches in cave water, and finally — a use for the lantern! The Experimental Branch patch also includes a huge list of fixes, and adds some new and missing sounds.

Growth stages for many plants are implemented in the experimental branch, so you’ll now be able to see your plants go from seed to harvest in more than one step. Terrain deformation is also available as a toggleable option, and should allow players to finally dig up those expensive orbital items that get dropped in the snow by accident.

How to Check Out the Experimental Branch

To access the new Experimental Branch, you’ll need to right-click ICARUS in your Steam library and click properties, then go to the “Betas” section. Then enter the following code into beta access code field:

• iaccepttheriskandwilluseanewchar

Then, you’ll be given the option to click on the Experimental Branch, and your game will patch itself. When you want to play on the live patch again, you can come back to this menu and use the drop-down list to select “None”.

Warning: The access code is no joke, and you may experience serious instabilities while testing the Experimental Branch. It is recommended that you create a new character and load a new prospect while playing on the Experimental Branch patch.

If you want to contribute to ICARUS, reporting bugs or issues you discover in the Experimental Branch via the #experimental-branch channel of the official Discord is a great way to help out!

Icarus Experimental Branch Patch Version 1.1.2.91363

Retrieved from the #experimental-branch channel of the Official ICARUS Discord

• Added individual growth stages to the fiber, tomato, pumpkin, watermelon, coffee, wild tea, green tea & cocoa plants.
• Added new Titanium Hammer to Tier 4.
• Added terrain deformation which, besides being awesome, makes it easier to find quest items dropped in snow. This feature is experimental, is off by default, but can be turned on via options.
• Added the ability to sort your inventory by weight.
• Fixed some cave entrances having an invisible blocker.
• Fixed issue preventing some players in Korea from connecting to the Icarus content servers.
• Updated Flare Arrow appearance and Icon.
• Improved render performance of creatures and characters at distance.
• Fixed Flare Arrows being permanently ignited if shot into a creature or character.
• Fixed several issues relating to characters animating oddly when interacting with arrows or dead and ‘ragdolled’.
• Updated Buffalo skeleton to a ‘meatier’ variant.
• Optimized some particle emitters where they were not correctly being deactivated at range. Fixed issue where trying to fire while sprinting could leave arrow reloading in a bad state.
• Added new terrain feature pieces for use in future missions.
• Fixed backpack-mounted extractor being oriented incorrectly.
• Fixed mismatched armor appearance between first and third-person models.
• Improved performance of Rock material on High and Epic settings.
• Added a dedicated backpack slot to the Inventory screen.
• Improved skybox overall (skylight, moon, sun).
• Lowered volume of critical hit audio at close range.
• Fine tuning internal ambience during storms.
• Added more ice in the arctic outpost.
• Added distant polar bear idle audio for better awareness.
• Added rain sounds to concrete and stone roofs.
• Improved cave worm death audio.
• Improved hunter armour in first person perspective.
• Improved radar deploy and animation sound.
• Added larger squash plant to better fill the crop plot.
• Added fix for animals poking their heads though walls and doors when attacking players or running away.
• Improved underwater at night to not be so bright.
• Fixed item crafting sounds when crafting from player inventory.
• Added ability to Delete Outposts in UI instead of needing to the Delete file manually.
• Improved clarity on selected outposts in UI.
• Fixed occasional crash when exiting the dropship.
• Fixed player still running on clients if they activate photo mode while running. Fixed player entering photo mode while typing in the chat box.
• Optimizations to the performance of the fire system – less emitted embers, texture resolution adjustments, updated material.
• Added missing buffalo footsteps and light movement sounds.
• Fixed an issue where Pumpkin Bread and Pickled Carrot weren’t decaying.
• Fixed an issue where carnivores wouldn’t target deer corpses in the same way that they would target rabbit or raccoon corpses held on the hip.
• Fixed an issue where the Black Cougar Boss was walking through the walls of its den.
• Fixed an issue where the Taxidermy knife wasn’t yielding trophies in some instances.
• Decrease Fur Rewards for Chamois, Wolf and Rabbit.
• Added 2 second health regen delay to NPCs.
• Added sound when animals are placed on the skinning bench.
• Fixed hunting rifle being able to load and shoot flint arrows.
• Improved sound of creatures when they fall.
• Improved Nav mesh of creatures in the Waterfall: Expedition Mission.
• Improved Audio of when a tree falls onto your house.
• Polished the look of the Chemistry bench.
• Improved Trophy Bench visuals by adding fur.
• Fixed the ability for Elephants to stand on top of the radar and rotate with it.
• Improved texture on the Single Shot Pistol.
• Fixed creatures sometimes not reacting when taking damage from players.
• Fixed animals being able to deal damage after they die if mid-attack animation.
• Fixed 3rd person whoosh audio being out of sync.
• Improved memory usage across the board.
• Fixed issue where animals would try to walk through Sandworm corpses.
• Fixed issue where players could get trapped in an infinite loading screen in certain circumstances.
• Improved heavy emissive smoke puffs from Voxel hits.
• Fixed break chance of Poison Arrow to be 100% instead of 10,000%.
• Fixed Pill Modifier Icons.
• Fixed bug with bushes blocking melee hits.
• Added additional Food specific consume sounds.
• Fixed desert animals spawning at the entrance of the cave in M9.
• Fixed issue in Mission ‘Voyager: Recovery’ where a quest step would not be able to be completed on reload.
• Fixed High Tech Asset in Mission Snowcrash: Recovery from bouncing and falling through the ground when dropped.
• Fixed Talent ‘Tis but a Scratch’ which was providing a +% stat instead of a % stat.
• Polishing Character Selection/Creation UI.
• Polishing Prospect Select Screen.
• Fixed Pistol and Bolt Action Rifle not costing any resources to repair.
• Fixed texture on the buffalo carcass.
• Fixed an issue in Mission Broken Arrow: Recovery where Epic animals would not spawn.
• Fixed Mission timer being visible on Outposts in the escape menu.
• Fixed XP notification showing mining coal instead of mining exotics.
• Improving the UX of menus in the station.
• Escape key now backs you out of all menus.
• Fixed Polar Bear Armour covering guns in certain poses.
• Added animations to the small and medium interior crates.
• Fixed Prospect Text overlapping with the duration in the Prospect select screen.
• Improvements to the AI spawning code.
• Fixed all angle wall piece icons to show correct direction.
• Fixed animal spawning issue in Mission Incursion: Scan.
• Fixed female head from clipping through head cap.
• Fixed the Conifer Wolf turning into a Snow Wolf on death.
• Added claim reward sound for notification screen and notification pop-ups.
• Optimized level of detail of rocks and added better collisions to some cliffs.
• Added gameplay setting to toggle tooltip delays, now off by default.
• Fixed animals attacking the player slowly for the ‘Live Wire: Terrain Scan’ mission.
• Improved the dead Buffalo ragdoll behaviour.
• Optimized torch causing frame drops.
• Fixed desert wolf’s front foot looking broken.
• Improvements to the repair sound feedback to structures, impacts & metal variants.
• Fixed starting text box scroll position for workshop and prospect select screen.
• Fixed destruction sound on the glass door.
• Fixed ballistics not causing animals to flee when fired.
• Fixed fur armor dynamics, or how parts of the armor respond to character movement/wind etc.
• Fixed issue where clients weren’t seeing the noise bar increase when they are far away from the host.
• Added repair hammer audio.
• Fixed issue where the player sometimes didn’t take fall damage.
• Fixed issue where the extractor would stop playing audio if a player changed fuel quickly.
• Fixed issue where the material processor did not require fuel to function.
• Fixed issue where the biofuel generator would not always reactivate attached devices when powered on.
• Improved syncing of morning and night music to correct time of day.
• Fixed issue where multiplayer chat texts were being replaced by a white square characters.
• Fixed issue where there was incorrect subtitles to dialogue in the Broken Arrow, Recovery mission.
• Fixed issue where objectives have the “not charging” text displayed even when it is charging.
• Added an “add Oxite” sound for Oxite Dissolver.
• Fixed some instances where scan mission did not complete correctly.
• Fixed issue where players appeared as level 0 in Steam Rich Presence (friends list).
• Fixed various mission and item typos.
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect placement blueprint/ghost was showing for the MXC Furnace.
• Fixed an issue where MXC Crate & Seeds were unable to be returned to the Station.
• Fixed an issue where Mission names were overflowing from their UI boxes if over a certain length.
• Fixed an issue where the game would crash after attempting to place trophy benches in some circumstances.
• Improved the look and texture (and performance) of the Sandworm Boss scales.
• Fixed an issue with character and animal corpse ragdolls colliding with the camera in third-person.
• Fixed an issue where shotgun shells would float after being fired in third person.
• Improved bear and buffalo sounds depending on how far away you are.
• Improved animal pathing in narrow passes in the Arctic.
• Improved Sol’s vocal delay so he doesn’t talk too soon.
• Fixed issue where you could see the radar on your back and in your hand in 3rd person.
• Fixed some instances of kill target quests not being flagged as complete upon death of the target.
• Fixed issue where you could toggle UI while photo mode was active.
• Fixed issue where the feminine base character head was visible through their space suit.
• Fixed UI issue where claimed prospect warning would be displayed where players could not see it.
• Fixed issue where you couldn’t see character names displayed on the Mission report lobby info.
• Fixed issue where wine and beer bottles weren’t given back on consumption.
• Fixed issue where wine was giving beer buff when consumed.
• Fixed issue where a cave in F4 was unintentionally underwater.
• Improved performance when opening the map.
• Fixed issue where the ghillie and carbon arms armor stretched while walking.
• Fixed bug where frag grenades would disappear from players’ hands if another grenade exploded nearby

Have you tried the new experimental branch features? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!