UPDATED May 6

Abiotic Factor Update Patch Notes May 12

Hotfix 0.8.0.9803 May 6

Stoves, servers, saves and more!

Greetings!

The weekend has come and gone so it’s time for us to serve up another hotfix!

But before we get to that, THANK YOU AGAIN! Launch day went incredibly but this weekend you all absolutely blew us out of the water! All of your feedback, positive reviews and kind words fueled the whole team and we are all amped up to get working on continuing to improve and add to the game with your ideas in mind.

Not to be greedy but if you do have a spare review lying around feel free to chuck it on over! We’d love to hear from you and to continue shoveling them into the maw of our terrifying algorithmic lord.

Now, onto the juicy stuff!

HOTFIX 0.8.0.9803

You'll know you're on the right version because the above version will match the one at the bottom of your screen while in the main menu and in-game.

Keypad Hacker Note:

Some scientists are reporting that their Keypad Hacker has gone missing. Please make sure you check your Keypad Hacker slot in your equip slots (bottom left) if you shift click to move your Keypad Hacker from your inventory to your hot bar it may end up there instead, as intended. Your Keypad Hacker is not going missing it is actually going to the correct location.

If your Keypad Hacker is in your Hacker slot you simply need to press interact on the keypad to get it to work.

Containment Bulletin:

There have been increased reports of activity from IS-0091. Science help us all. As always, researchers; if you see it, report it!

Temporal Correction Warning:

GATE scientists have detected a mistake in the temporal flow, a strange disruption in time and space allowing scientists to venture into hidden portal worlds and skip content unintentionally. This has been corrected in the following ways.

Additional security measures have been added to the Laser Lab. However, something has grown over top of those security measures, and we don't want to touch it, so we'll leave it to you.

If you have previously accessed the Laser Lab in an existing world save, or are currently in the Laser Lab after updating to this version, this new growth will likely not be an issue, but future world saves will encounter these hurdles.

A properly locked door has been added to a very high up catwalk in Labs.

Server Browser Updates:

The Server Browser has received several filter options and a search bar to help you find your friends (or enemies.)

Server Browser names are now trimmed if too long, instead of spilling over into the rest of the UI like an uncontained growth.

The server browser has been massively optimized. Thank you for playing and hosting so many servers that it became an actual problem to solve. Much love from everyone here at Deep Field.

World Save Backups:

World Saves now create a backup when hosting from the main menu.

This backup can be used to recover corrupt world progress. We are still investigating a rolling backup.

If your world is corrupt, a button that says "RESTORE BACKUP" will appear. This can fail in very bad cases, but should help in some.

We are aware that world corruption and item loss are rare but very major issues when they occur, and they remain our top priorities. Please keep submitting bugs (and your world save data) through the Issue Report Form.

Player Corpse Changes:

We investigated a lot of reports about bodies becoming stuck in places that players can't access. We've made the following changes to correct this.

If the player corpse location has bad data, it would previously default to the death location, which is often unsafe or unreachable. If this happens now, the corpse will try to return with the player to their respawn location.

If this fails, the corpse will move to the Cafeteria in the Office Sector.

Upon rehosting a server, ALL corpses that are not looted will appear in the Office Cafeteria as well. If you can't find your corpse, there's a good chance it ended up there.

The Stove Stuff:

We've noted some players have experienced pots and pans being lost from stoves. Let's quickly talk about how this happened and what you need to be aware of.

Stoves had bad data on them due to a bug with stove state saving that slipped under our radar. We're a small team and we only found the issue once 7000 people started playing at once. When we fixed this issue in the latest hotfix, old stoves from older saves still had that corrupt data, but new stoves did not. This caused players' items to go missing, or appear to go missing, when they interacted with the stove.

For the deployable stoves, repackaging them and redeploying them (if possible) would fix this issue. For the fixed stoves, this was not possible, so those stoves will still be exhibiting this problem.

In this update, all stoves from existing saves will now dump out pots and pans. You may see a slight overabundance of these items in the form of some bags on stoves, so go scoop them up and enjoy this crockware compensation.

We believe we have corrected the issues laid out here, but we are getting some reports here and there. We are unsure if those are people playing on old versions or not, so please report anything else that happens outside of what was explained here and please include your version number. Thank you, and happy cooking!

General Changes:

Recipes on HUD have shrunk a bit. Remember, you can clear any auto-pinned recipes in your crafting screen if you want them out of the way!

We hear a certain trader is now willing to give you Welding Masks, if you've got what he needs in return.

Added some new paint to the Trader deposit box.

Throwable Nets now salvage into paper scrap, if you really want to get rid of them.

A few key enemies will now always drop their gib loot, instead of bio scrap.

Added drop-shadow to text chat to improve readability.

Grenade weights are now better balanced across all grenade types.

All items now take only 1 of their Repair Item to repair, instead of several. We are working on more repair improvements but they will be bundled together in a general repair quality-of-life update.

Empty liquid containers no longer show red in the item slot background, because this was misleading players into thinking the item was broken, instead of just empty.

Sneaking XP is now a bit easier to gain, is gained at a faster rate and from further range.

Lime Paint, Green Paint, and Carapace Arm armor recipes are now obtainable. You may find some new items associated with these recipes, but they're probably nothing to pick up your quill and write home about.

The initial welcome and analytics opt-in screen has now been localized for all available languages.

World Changes:

The Security Office on Offices Level 2 has had a timer installed on the shutters, for safety reasons.

IS-0018 should no longer have a chance to break when packaging it. We still don't recommend packaging it.

Some researchers have reported IS-0018 reappearing in its containment cell after it has been moved or destroyed. Someone should check that out.

A certain door by the Synchrotron will now unlock after the ███████████████ event, making it easier to access the room. Frake apologizes for making you walk all the way around. Who knew she had the keys the whole time!

Some previously non-interactable water in the Labs is now interactable.

A previously inaccessible vent near the Enders Containment Block is now accessible.

Some GATE staff may have carelessly left a sledgehammer aboard IS-0138.

A shipping container in the Induction Wing is reported to have contained some mining equipment, for those on the hunt for a new pickaxe.

Dedicated Server Changes:

Plants and other items will no longer decay when no one is present on the server. Plants will still grow for a time, however, and may need water when scientists return to their crops.

Reduced some logging spam and improved our ability going forward to provide good log data to server hosts.

Bug Fixes:

Updated some voice lines on certain Order enemies, mostly around connecting them to the correct volume sliders.

Filled a few holes in the Wildlife Pens.

Metal Bucket now has proper metal bucket texture. Who would've thought?

Fixed a logical issue that could cause sinks to not refill properly over time, as intended, under normal settings.

Fixed the AA setting not actually setting AA unless visiting a terminal.

Fixed an issue affecting the drop rate of Order weaponry.

Wherever the Wristwatch's watch-face was running off to, we think we've resolved that problem and it should remain happy and content where it belongs - on your wrist.

Hovering over the little blue-purple (blurple?) icon on recipes now works again and will display a helpful tooltip.

The Breachers will now cough up their shotguns, helmets and other belongings, if you force them to.

Deployed signs can no longer be used as bridges. If you have any bridges made of signs, no you do not.

If you are interested in KNOWN ISSUES, click here.

Thank you all once again for enjoying your time in the GATE Cascade Research Facility!

The feedback you have all already provided has been immensely helpful, as have all the bug reports and suggestions, keep it up! Please also keep helping each other out in the community, it has been amazing to see how welcoming everyone is. Thank you from the bottom of our volumetric flasks.

Onward -- to science.

Hotfix 0.8.0.9781 May 3

So it begins.

Greetings!

It's time for our very first update to Abiotic Factor since it launched on Early Access in the wee hours of yesterday morn (that's in Cascade time, of course.)

First, THANK YOU all for the incredible launch. We are already sitting at 98% overwhelmingly positive reviews, and we are blown away. Please continue leaving reviews - you know that's the magic nonsense the algorithmic old gods demand from us all.

A massive thank you to everyone who picked up the game and those who have webbed, weaved, and wiggled their way through the GATE Cascade Research Facility. We are incredibly humbled at the response, but not so humbled that we can't put on our best mad scientist goggles and control your destiny at a whim in the form of a delicious hotfix!

Delicious, you say? Boy, I hope it's pizza friday. Ahem, anyway, what DID we change in this hotfix? Let's find out -- together.

HOTFIX 0.8.0.9781

You'll know you're on the right version because the above version will match the one at the bottom of your screen while in the main menu and in-game.

General Changes:

Garden Plants now decay much much slower when they don't have water. (Plant Durability is now 350, up from 70)

IS-0053-B has started to exhibit new and strange properties when drunk. Please observe proper containment procedures and follow all signage for the safety of you and your fellow coworkers.

Improved visual clarity and reduced text ghosting while viewing emails located on Terminals.

Added additional images that can appear when viewing the Story Progress of a given server in the server browser.

Reduced the overall size of the gun reticle (laser dot) at distance. This dot will shrink some as you level up Accuracy skill, but now the base size is a bit smaller.

Tamed Pests released from Pest Wheels will no longer try to immediately return and will instead behave more like tamed Pests released from Pest Traps.

We tried to remove the Coworker but he would not leave so we're just going to let him stay for now.

Accessibility & Settings Changes:

Pagers now have a volume knob, which can be accessed via the Audio Settings menu.

Added anti-aliasing options to the Graphics Settings menu.

New Accessibility Option: Loud Ambient Sounds. On by default, disable this to no longer hear extra spooky sounds around the place. This will not affect other players hearing those sounds.

Adjusted several of the aforementioned loud ambient sounds.

Bug Fixes:

We've loosened up the joints on the Armor Stand skeleton and it should now strike poses as science intended.

Scientists can no longer skip their first day of work by jumping out of the vehicle early during the introduction.

The medium-skill Scrapshot reload now has sound effects.

Removed erroneous trait points number on the Job Selection screen.

Fixed an issue where dedicated servers would indicate they had modified sandbox settings when they did not.

Cooking pots are now added back to player inventory after becoming empty from soup, if the player has room.

Your last selected hosting options now persist between sessions, meaning whatever you selected last will remain.

Fixed a bug where scientists were spontaneously generating ammunition when unloading weapons from containers.

Improved the reliability of properly saving items on carts, vehicles, and trams.

Fixed potential save issues and disappearing pot issues with Stoves, portable and otherwise.

NOTE: If you have issues with a deployed stove, please package it and put it down again, this may help with those issues. There may be other issues here and we are still investigating it. We have top scientists on the job.

Perk Tooltips should no longer get stuck on screen when closing the Skill menu while hovering over a tooltip.

Pest Cages are no longer playing sounds in 2D.

Ironman and Hardcore mode options removed from Sandbox Settings. They were not meant to be there. Pretend they are still not there. Maybe they'll come back some day. Maybe the guy in charge of not shipping the game with these options is getting put in a containment cell. There's a lot of questions around this, who knows why things are the way they are. It's really a big mystery, when you think about it.

Scientists finding themselves in a certain far-flung fungal foliage, while flinging themselves from the fringe, they will no longer be falling forever into the Anteversian abyss, and will instead simply die.

Scientists should no longer fuse together when trying to use a moveable cart or any other vehicle at the same time.

Scientists have now figured out how to use sinks and other water containers while holding flashlights and other devices when their battery is empty. It's amazing what you can achieve when you think around a problem.

Soup Recipes that have been learned should now properly show up in the Compendium.

There is now a timeout if Bruce refuses to acknowledge your presence in the introduction. He's a busy man, sometimes he just doesn't pay attention to the little things. Sorry about that.

Fixed an issue where elevator buttons could become inoperable due to saving and loading at just the wrong time. Or the right time, depending on how you look at it.

Anteverse Wheat and other things that grant XP when collected will no longer give XP every time they're attempted to be collected, and instead will only give XP when the collection succeeds.

Performing the Greet emote should no longer hide the weapon in your hand to other scientists. This feels more natural, and disappearing weapons are scary and unknown. We're scientists, not ghost hunters! Not yet anyway.

**We also demonstrated our expertise in making video games by breaking some stove-saving stuff in Hotfix .9777, so here are the changes in our second tiny Hotfix 0.8.0.9781.**

Fixed an issue where stoves would randomly lose their stovetop items. Please continue to report any strange stove behavior to the nearest GATE authority.

GATE's architectural department has added some concrete flooring to a few precarious elevators to help prevent unfortunate falls of both personnel and property.

You can now take a nice nap with your Coworker.

There were reported anomalies with Televisions sets spontaneously duplicating themselves. The kinetics team has looked into it and isolated a rogue portal event causing this issue. It should no longer occur.

Potential fix for Cooking Pots not getting the correct stoveware type on Dedicated Servers.

If you are interested in KNOWN ISSUES, click here.

Thank you all once again for enjoying the GATE Cascade Research Facility.

The team is now taking a brief and well-deserved weekend nap (probably) and we will begin our regular patching and update cycle, aiming to bring more quality of life fixes, balance, and the occasional feature or three. And yes, we're even going to look at adding more functionality to the Server Browser.

We're gathering a lot of feedback, and we're very excited to put it to use. Keep reporting bugs, leaving us feedback, and helping each other out in the community.