[h5][color=#33FFDD]Greetings, esteemed colleagues![/color][/h5]

We’ve just dropped a new update that focuses on community feedback, new difficulty modes for the truly hardcore, some craftable exercise equipment, and MORE!

First, a vlog from Zag & Criss, as per usual, summarizing the update and inducing scientific levels of cringe upon some of the more susceptible scientists. And of course, if you want even more information, read on below, too!

Introducing… Hardcore Difficulty and Iron Mode!

“What are those?” we hear you ask (you should really disable that microphone).

Hardcore Mode is a forced-Apocalyptic difficulty mode where the bravest of scientists can take on the challenge of losing everything if they perish. Along with this mode, we’ve added a basic Spectator mode in which you can continue spectating after you have died. We’ve also added a button to the Admin panel to allow Admins to reset Hardcore state, if you must. But just know that is the coward’s way.

Iron Mode is a selectable job when running on Hardcore Mode, which will disallow certain actions, such as sharing recipes with others, reducing health regen substantially, and more. If you are just in it for the pain, Iron Mode might be for you! This role can also be disabled by the server in Sandbox Settings, for whatever reason one might want to do that.

One major update we made to Apocalyptic Difficulty (whether in Hardcore Mode or not) is enemies will now occasionally have new abilities. Ever wondered if Peccary might be harder when they can actually steer their charge? Well, the answer turns out to be… yes. There’s a whole slew of new abilities and changes, but we’ll let you discover what those are. After all, we wager you are playing Apocalyptic difficulty for one reason, and one reason only.

Can we really be called scientists if we’re afraid of simple machinery? No! Therefore, we’re happy to announce, our scientists can now utilize exercise machines to skill up AND keep your base powered while doing it!

No more carrying around 10 radfridges to get your sweat on, now scientists can level up their strength in the comfort of their own base! Sprinting into a wall repeatedly to level up Sprinting? Try the Exercise Bike instead!

Yolk up, eggheads.

What’s more, pre-existing gym equipment is no longer indestructible. You can dismantle these chunky objects and free up some extra floor space to fill with anything you like (maybe even the new charging crate, which does exactly what it sounds like it does!)

There’s a new way to throw throwables, such as grenades. Alt Fire no longer does an underhand throw, but instead toggles which state you are in (underhand or overhand.) We felt this was better from a user-experience standpoint.

Remember how you’ve had to reload all the shells and rounds in your shotgun and/or magnum revolver when you reloaded? Well, that will soon be a distant memory. You can now reload each round individually, meaning if you only spent one round, you only reload one round!

Sheesh, we sure took our sweet time on that one, huh? Wild west of game development out here. Yeehaw.

Highly requested changes have been made to trader behavior. That’s right, they can sit down now!

Oh! And they’ll get out of your dang way. Traders will try to move if you bump into them, and you can also shove a particular ‘lil fella who gets underfoot a little too often. Should we add a bed for him or something?

There’s a new upgrade for the Makeshift Crossbow, which comes with a very minor 2x scope.

In our quest to only take care of Sharp Melee users (that was a joke) we have added a new Hardlight Spear, something with a bit more range, wieldable with a shield, and a unique throw type which sends out a holographic hardlight something or other instead of throwing the actual weapon itself.

We have also made some improvements to at least one substantial encounter (avoiding spoilers here) where melee wielders were a bit left behind. There is now a way to deal consistent melee damage during this particular, climactic fight. Are we being vague and also clear enough here? Maybe!

And yes - we’ll look at the Blunt Melee drought as well. We hear you. It’s definitely on The List, we just want to make sure we get it right and actually address the core of the issues.

We’ve got a number of other improvements and changes to enjoy, including some bug fixes. A few (non-inclusive list of) highlights are:

• Improved teleporter tags (with a much wider selection of phrases or words)
  
• Broken armor indicators on your HUD
  
• New Chef Sense Cooking Perk
  
• GROWABLE MUSHROOMS
  
• Plantable berries of a specific shadowy sort
  
• A couple more ways to eat pumpkins
  
• More sandbox settings, such as toggling visible radiation, tainted sink water, enemy accuracy, base inventory size, and bonus perk points available at the start! There’s more than that, probably.
  
• Some buffs now save properly long-term, such as broken leg states.
  
• The aforementioned Charging Crate
  
• Skink Meat
  
• and the ability to craft ammo at the new Ammo Bench!

Really buried the lede on that one, didn’t we. You folks have been clamouring for an Ammo Bench for years at this point. When do we get to pick up our “they finally did it” award?

Our dear beloved publisher Playstack has finally okay’d us to add some Balatro stuff to the game.

There’s a new tie and two new ID Cards, which arrive with a whole new system we built to allow for ID Cards to have more variety in appearance and even dangly physics. There’s also a fun hat around here somewhere… Ah, no matter, we’re sure you’ll find it.

The new Home World DLC has arrived. You can scoop it up HERE if that’s your cup of coffee, and on that page will be all the info about the goodies you get alongside the Home World.

As always, no major or stat-boosted game content is locked behind this Home World DLC. It is JUST a cozy place for a base, if you so choose, and comes with cosmetics (including a new low-defense made-for-transmog armor set), a couple new furniture items, and a sprinkling of lore regarding the Home World itself. Some also say we did another convoluted secret, but those people have since turned to stone.

Anyway, we hope you enjoy this Home World - we had a lot of fun crafting it, and the art and level team knocked it out of the park... Or, garden, rather.

Need something to blow all that new CS2 weapon skin money on? (See, we keep up with current events.) Well, Abiotic Factor will also be on sale as part of the Playstack Publisher sale at 20% off from November 6th to the 13th. Dive. On. In.

And get your friends to do the same!

And then leave a positive review!

And also drink water, it’s good to stay hydrated!

And call your mother!

We’re actively wading through candidates for adding a new designer to the team to help see the future of Abiotic Factor forward (because frankly, poor ol’ Zag is spread just a bit too thin) so you can expect a new face on the dev team before long, and that face will probably come with some words, and plans. We are also looking at methods for dropping future surveys more frequently, because our last one was a smashing success, with over 46,000 replies. Wow, I do not envy the Deep Field scientists who have to wade through those!

The so-called “holiday” update is well underway already and will be dropping in December. That’s all for now. ☃ If you’d like to know more about what the future has in store, take a peek at our latest roadmap in our recent Roadmap Post.

Thank you so much for your support throughout Early Access, throughout our 1.0 launch, and today - with 1.1. We have more in store, and Abiotic Factor’s journey is far from over. And we’re spinning up some new things too! Perhaps one day the fog will part, and we will all see what lies ahead.

If you aren’t too busy playing ARC Raiders like we are, please check out the patch notes below for full update information. And good luck out there in the Rust Belt– er, the GATE Cascade Research Facility.

Click here for the full patch notes.

[color=#33FFDD]Onward -- to science. (Science that hopefully does not result in killer robots overthrowing humanity.)[/color]

Also, Zag says hi to the person who left this on his Steam profile.

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