Hello to our very fishy friends,

Please take a moment away from staring at your aquariums in order to scoop up this hotfix. This hotfix should resolve some major issues. If you aren't encountering these issues, awesome, keep assuming the game is bug-free and perfect, and be sure to leave a positive review stating as such.

Please update your game and servers when you get a moment away from scientific study. If you don't receive an update, verify game files.

• Potential fix for "Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime" error, where players are not receiving the proper VS Redistributable Runtime when installing the update.
  
• Renamed Angling Waders to Mud Waders
  
• Fixed Quill Rifle not having some of its sounds tied to proper sound SFX sliders.
  
• Fixed certain lighting conditions to better match the previous iteration of the engine, and improved the look of the game when using low GI settings, which disables Lumen.
  
• To fix some configuration issues on dedicated servers, we've disabled Steam P2P for those servers and instead use direct connections. These servers can still be joined through the server browser as normal and there should be no visible change to scientists joining the server.

We are still investigating some player reports and other issues, please keep the science coming. Thanks!

Onward to science!

And say hi to your fish for us.

❤ The Deep Field Team

The scientists of GATE (that's you) are always on our mind with your brilliant deductions and suggestions. To celebrate all of your good ideas, we’ve implemented a whole bunch of them in this Community Update #2! We’ve taken your ideas and our ideas and blended them up into a delicious idea soup for you to sup.

Here's a vlog about today's update. It's a wild one!

Details, you ask?
We've been making inroads to address various issues scientists are encountering. This update we've upgraded several major underlying support structures of Abiotic Factor to help with these problems. They are as follows:

• FLEMING ERROR - Switching from regular Steam networking to Steam Sockets: We believe this is the primary cause of the Fleming issue. We still have more investigating to do on this issue, but we have reproduced the Fleming connection issue in a controlled environment and this switch appears to have fixed it. This is a change to how Hosting and Joining works under the hood so new issues could manifest. Please continue letting us know how this goes!
  
• Push-Model Networking: We've switched to a new method of networking which requests data a bit more on-demand instead of constantly checking for things that need network updates sent to clients, which should be a huge un-burdening of CPU data load on the Host's computer. The Host player should see decent performance gains from this change.
  
• Engine Update: We've updated from Unreal Engine 5.3 to 5.4. This is just a general back-end upgrade for the dev team to use some new tools as well as take advantage of new optimizations made by Epic. You probably won't notice much change here, but we have redone a few of our graphical setting presets, so you may want to tweak your graphics settings when you launch this update.
  
• NPC Spawning Revamp: We've seen reports of and experience many issues ourselves with NPCs not appearing rapidly enough when entering certain areas. We've completely overhauled the spawning system for NPCs, including when returning to areas you've previously visited, so you should see a more prompt presence. There could still be an issue lurking here that we haven't isolated yet, so please continue reporting problems as you find them.

As the title says, you can now modify your world save's Sandbox Settings at any time from the World Selection screen. Simply click the "Modify Sandbox Settings" button when your world save is selected. This means you can now change anything, tweak difficulty, you name it. Speaking of difficulty...

More difficulty options have arrived! You can now select from 3 Difficulty levels, Normal, Hard, and Apocalyptic. This option will be available both when making a new server and in the Sandbox Settings when selecting your existing world save.

The difficulty modes are as follows:

• Normal: This is the new default difficulty. This will be slightly easier than the previous "default" as we have rebalanced some of the NPCs and limited some of their reaction times and abilities in this mode. This is to create a more forgiving landscape by default, but also puts things more in line with our intended challenge and difficulty goals. NPC spawn density (the number of enemies present in an area) are approximately the same as they have been, for a solo scientist.
  
  
• Hard: This difficulty mode is slightly harder than the previous default settings, and will give NPCs quicker reaction time, higher spawn density, and access to a few more abilities. We recommend that experienced scientists or scientists who have been asking for a little more challenge and higher NPC spawn counts change their Sandbox Settings Difficulty to Hard in this update. This can now be easily done in the World Select menu or when creating a new world save.
  
  
• Apocalyptic: We recommend to anyone looking for a serious challenge that they try Apocalyptic difficulty, and we've even made some aspects of it slightly less fair. We are considering a difficulty level above this as well, but we're not quite ready to crack open that ebbguh yet.

Throughout your exploration of the GATE Cascade Research Facility you will now encounter Check-In Terminals at the start of each sector, more or less, as well as at least one other location. These new Check-In Terminals will simply provide a single point where you can respawn upon death, if you want. This will not erase your Bed Spawn Point or other spawn points, it will just provide another option.

Your character can only be saved to one Check-In Terminal at a time.

You can now right click on a slot in your inventory to favorite (and unfavorite) it. Once favorited, the item in this slot will no longer be pulled from your inventory when standing on the Distribution Pad or when using other stacking methods.

Rare fish variants now look more rare with various different colors and patterns to differentiate them from their more common counterparts. We won't spoil them all here, but you'll notice your existing or new catches have had some improvements.

And to show off these rare biological beauties, we’re introducing the Aquarium! This container fits up to 6 fish, and will preserve them indefinitely - as long as it's powered! Keep that bubbler bubblin'.

In the quest for new storage and better ways to transport certain items, Platform Carts can now be upgraded in a number of ways. We've added the following craftable Platform Carts for you to create - once you find the recipe!

• Platform Cart - with headlights! (Toggle with your Flashlight key)
  
• Hazard Cart - for more safely transporting hazardous materials.
  
• Aquarium Cart - for when you just can’t find a fish sitter. Unlike the Aquarium, this will NOT preserve fish forever, but a bit longer still.

Remember the last time you went to your fridge and grabbed a tomato? Remember how your entire DNA was fried by the radiation emitting from your fridge because you also store alien parts in there? Well, worry no longer.

Once you unlock the recipe, you'll have the Hazard Fridge available to you! This fridge works just like a normal fridge (it even requires one in the recipe) with the added benefit of blocking all Radioactivity emitting from within. About time, huh? But that's not all.

Looking for something a bit more long-term? Or a better way to cool things down? The Freezer has you covered. Once you unlock this recipe, you'll be able to store food indefinitely within this frozen chamber.

By popular demand from all our Somatic Gastrologists out there, Dr. Thule's has assisted us in implementing the Item Transporter on the Chef's Counter. You can now select this upgrade from the Bench Upgrades when using the Crafting side of the Chef's Counter.

The Chef's Counter now also only displays food-type recipes, because you asked so nicely.

The more trinkets added, the harder it is to pick between them. Sure, some probably need a buff -- and we're thinking about those -- but a few are no-brainers (I'm looking at you, IS-0052) and we thought, hey, why make you have to pick? We put our big science brains together, thought real hard, and we've come up with a solution. It was staring back at us through the microscope the whole dang time.

Second. Trinket. Slot. Enjoy.

To start off on a new system, we're introducing a single new ammo type and a new damage type you haven't seen before; Acid Bolts.

The Office Crossbow, a very stealthy weapon, should now stay a bit more relevant for longer. Much like swapping bait on your fishing rod, by holding the Reload action, you will see a radial wheel which will allow you to change the ammo present in your weapon, as long as you have the ammo type in your inventory.

Since you are bound to ask, yes, we would like to look into more ammo types in the future. We'll let you know what R&D comes up with when the time comes.

The days of eating Anteburgers your colleagues dropped on the floor are over! (... If you want them to be. We won't judge.)

You can now right-click (Alt Fire) while holding a food-type item and this will offer it up for fellow scientists to grab. A much more elegant and social method for sharing your cooking.

We've added a new Sandbox Setting (ON by default) which allows the Host player (or admins) to access the Death Bags dropped by scientists when they kick the bucket. This change has required us to change the Death Bags to a more traditional container, so for the time being we have removed the ability to quick-retrieve all of your death items, but for now we're largely happy with this process taking a tiny bit more time and how it puts a bit more gravity on death.

We have also added a chat message indicating if your Death Bag has moved to a new location, to help reduce some of those "Where the heck did my loot go!?" forum posts. They went to Warren, by the way. Please make sure you cite him in your Steam reviews.

We've increased the default Structural Support Limit for deployables to 5, up from 3. We've also made this a variable you can change in the Sandbox Settings menu. If you set it to zero, you will remove this requirement entirely.

We still recommend the default values for balance reasons, but hey, we're not your mom. Probably.

There are many new collectibles available to find, from bobbleheads to figurines. We've also added a new Kill Count section to the Compendium entries for several enemies, and upon reaching these kill counts, you will receive a recipe reward. Keep an eye out for these.

In our ongoing and not-yet-final efforts to make Jobs a bit more meaningful, we've added XP bonuses to all of the Jobs based on what we feel are their primary skills. These bonuses are the baseline, but will stack with other XP bonuses that you might have from food or equipment. In no particular order...

• Epimedical Bionomicist now gains +50% First Aid XP.
  
• Trans-Kinematic Researcher now gains +75% Fortitude XP and +50% Strength XP.
  
• Archotechnic Consultant now gains +50% Construction XP.
  
• Phytogenetic Botanist now gains +50% Agriculture XP.
  
• Somatic Gastrologist now gains +50% Cooking XP.
  
• Paratheoretical Physicist now gains +50% Throwing XP and +50% Crafting XP.
  
• Lab Assistant now gains +50% Sneaking XP.
  
• Defense Analyst now gains +75% Accuracy and +75% Reloading XP. (Still affected by Slow Learner Trait.)
  
• Summer Intern does not have any additional XP gains as this will remain "the blank slate" Job.

We are aware of the discussions and suggestions around improving Jobs and making them more meaningful. We don't want to look at anything too harsh (like capping skills or locking you out of certain skills if you have a certain job) so the solution is probably something a bit more nuanced. It's an on-going conversation that we're happy to keep having with the scientific community. We'll see where we get on it!

The Heavy Weapon perk, at Strength Level 8, allowing you to properly swing Heavy Weapons, now has the added bonus of allowing you to permanently smash vending machines, spilling their contents all about! You probably shouldn't do this if you want to keep this resource available, but we're not going to stop you, because we think freedom is more important than uh... Farm Puffs.

We have added more soup recipes to utilize more ingredients, especially the fish!

We've also heard quite a bit of feedback and we're looking at ways to improve the soup recipe learning system, or otherwise make it more engaging. We've also heard some criticism of Bad Soup. Hmmmm. Interesting stuff, but change will take time. Stay tuned.

When playing on someone else's world save, Client players can now access their Server Profile from the escape menu and delete their character save data. This allows a client to restart their character save on a server without the host having to dig through server files. When deleting your Client character save, all of your inventory loot will be placed in a loot bag by our favorite Security Officer, Warren. For the time being, the Host cannot delete their personal character save this way and will still have to delete their own save from the world save. Be careful about item loss!

We also have a future plan for resetting character traits by in-world means, but that's not a threshold we're willing to pass through just yet.

Accessibility is something we take pretty seriously here. We want as many scientists as possible to contribute to the scientific efforts of the GATE Cascade Research Facility. We've done a large update to the Misophonia options, for those who have varying sound sensitivities, and we've also added a mode to turn off vomit-related effects.

For more details on these settings, we'll now turn this section over to our Accessibility Director, Kate.

---

Hey, scientists!
I'm really excited to tell you more about these two accessibility options - one new, the other upgraded.

Scientists with emetophobia will suffer no more!

The Emetophobia Mode toggle is located in the Accessibility Settings menu, under the Accessibility - Other section. Like Arachnophobia Mode, Emetophobia Mode is off by default, but can be enabled at any time. Scientists not using this mode are not affected by those that are, and vice versa.

What to expect when using Emetophobia Mode:

• Scientists will not see or hear themselves vomiting, nor any other scientist in the Facility.
  
• Vomit puddles (decals) will no longer appear.
  
• Scientist dialogue about feeling sick will still be heard as normal.
  
• When a scientist would normally vomit, their needs will decay rapidly for the duration, and a message will appear on the HUD stating "You've expelled some food and water."
  
• When another scientist in the Facility would normally vomit, a message will appear in the chat box stating "<ScientistName> has become sick."
  
• As it is important for gameplay, scientists can still get hit by another scientist's vomit, and this will show as green speckles. You can wash this off in water, as usual!
  
• A quiet liquid splash sound may be heard from time to time, but without any visual effects.
  
• This setting is not retroactive - any existing vomit puddles will not be cleared until they disappear on their own over time.

We hope that this new mode brings some relief!

When ABF launched into Early Access, our Misophonia mode was a simple toggle for the most common trigger: eating and drinking sounds. As someone who has Misophonia, I know all too well that triggers extend far past the dinner table. The ways in which Misophonia or other sound sensitivities and their triggers manifest varies greatly. A sound that is comforting or enjoyable to one person may be triggering or distressing to another - there is no universal solution.

As of this update, Abiotic Factor now has 5 separate Misophonia trigger categories! The volume of all 5 of these categories are independently adjustable using sliders, with a range of 0% to 200%, like our other audio sliders.

Additionally, the Misophonia setting location has changed. These new Misophonia categories can be found at the bottom of the Audio Settings menu, under the Accessibility - Misophonia section.

Here is a quick rundown of the new categories:

Eating / Drinking SFX

• This category pertains to sounds associated with eating and drinking, such as slurping, gulping, crunching, and chewing.

Breathing SFX

• This category pertains to the enclosed-space breathing sound effect that plays while wearing full-body suits.
  
• This will not necessarily remove all inhales and exhales from character dialog, but we snagged a few more "sound effect" style utterances from your scientist and other characters.

Humming SFX

• This category pertains to the humming sounds associated with running devices or lights, such as fluorescent lights, air conditioners, fans, or electrical transformers.
  
• (Note: If you are still hearing similar humming-type sounds after this is muted, try adjusting the Ambient Volume slider located in the Audio settings menu.)

High Pitched SFX

• This category pertains to sounds that are high pitched or particularly sharp, such as metal squeaks, electrical beeps, certain alarms, etc.
  
• (Note: While the definitions of 'high pitched' and 'sharp' can vary from scientist to scientist, this slider should cover most of these sounds.)

Repetitive SFX

• This category pertains to sounds with repeating patterns or continual tapping, such as Geiger counter clicks, water faucet drips, beeping, etc.

Please note:
The sounds listed for each category are not fully inclusive. There also may be some sounds that got missed, incorrectly categorised, or may otherwise change. As always, please be sure to Report[form.jotform.com] these issues as you discover them.

Improving accessibility in Abiotic Factor is an ongoing effort, and we are continuing to update existing options as well as add new ones throughout development. Your feedback is taken into account with every iteration and addition. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts, and keep it coming! And most of all, enjoy Abiotic Factor.

- Kate, Accessibility Director

---

Thanks for reading this far - we're almost done. We have one final note.

There have been reports of IS-0091 invading people's dreams. These reports are to be ignored. There is no concrete evidence of this phenomenon. We would also like to note that Dr. Thule is actively working on methods for re-containment of IS-0091, if for no other reason than to stop these ridiculous (and frankly, paranoid) rumors.

---

If you’re wondering where we gather suggestions from, the answer is mainly from our 💡 Scientific Suggestions Steam forum. We’re snagging them from other platforms such as Discord and Reddit but Steam is your best place to post where we won’t miss them.


And as always, please keep submitting your bugs through the in-game links[form.jotform.com] so we can keep doing these updates!

Thank you for all your work in the GATE Cascade Research Facility!

Onward -- to science.

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• YouTube
  
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https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

Welcome to the Status Report! As developers, we have big ideas. Big, big ideas. As scientists, you also have big ideas. Sometimes we like to take our big ideas and squish them together with your big ideas, and provide you with a big ol’ pot of idea soup.

To the point, we’re working on another Community Update, to be released sometime between now and the (October) Halloween update. We don’t have a specific date to reveal just yet, but you can kinda do the math here. You are geniuses, after all.

Let’s get into the soup - what kind of stuff are we planning for Community Update #2?

While we won’t cover everything here, we will cover some big stuff. We are adding a system for setting an overall difficulty for scientists who want more punishment, while better balancing the lower end (easier) settings.

Does this mean we’ll finally be balancing Snipers? Hah, we’ll see.

Boom, headshot.

Ahem, we’re adding difficulty options to World Creation, and we’re adding a menu to edit your Sandbox Settings once you’ve already started a game (without having to mess with game files.)

The exact specifics of each difficulty level will be revealed later, but for now, you can assume it will be something along the lines of “harder difficulty means more enemies and faster AI response times.” This will include bringing back some of the more frequent and numerous spawns in areas that some scientists have reported felt a bit barren. We are confident we’ll deliver some pretty decent difficulty changes for those who want a serious challenge, as well as better balance to the Normal difficulty mode for those who don’t.

Scientists who want a challenge will probably want to bump their difficulty up to Hard right when the update drops.

We’re working on more artwork for rare fish, as well as adding some aquarium-type items for displaying and preserving your favorite fishy friends. Glub glub.

Something that we’re also focusing on this update is more storage possibilities. We have heard the need, want, and desire for more ways to transport and store goods. There are a bunch of new things in the works, from Tier 2 Platform Carts to new ways to refrigerate your food. Here’s a look at some of those things - a work in progress, of course. And yes, those are headlights.

We’re adding a second trinket slot. Accessory-motivated scientists are sure to be elated.

Heavy Weapons will be receiving some new utility. And when we say utility, we mean BIG CLUB ME GO SMASHY SMASHY.

Naturally, this will stop the Vending Machine from ever working, ever again. Therefore maybe only do this as a last resort, or to simply upset your fellow scientists. Either way, the option now exists.

Quite a few additional quality-of-life changes (requested by YOU) are in the works as well. Here's a quick but non-exhaustive list of stuff we’re investigating or actively working on. Some of these may end up in Community Update 2 - some may arrive later. We’ll try our best to get them to you as soon as we can.

• Item/Slot Favoriting so items don’t get auto-stacked or sorted out of your inventory
  
• Job/Perk re-speccing
  
• Allowing clients to delete their character on a server to start over
  
• Fish traps
  
• More paintable deployables
  
• Additional respawn points/checkpoints between or at the start of Sectors
  
• Some new armors and weapons
  
• Less building/support restrictions
  
• Updates to a certain friendly trinket…
  
• FISH COMPENDIUM?
  
• And a whole bunch more!

Goooood… very good… now give us your bugs! Through the in-game bug report form[form.jotform.com].

Thank you for all your work in the GATE Cascade Research Facility!

Onward -- to science.

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https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/427410/Abiotic_Factor/

Glub-glub-glub, colleagues!

Please surface from the depths for a moment to scoop up this hotfix which will resolve some issues and add a couple more quality-of-life features. If you aren't encountering these issues, awesome, keep assuming the game is bug-free and perfect, and be sure to leave a positive review stating as such.

Please update your game and servers when you get a moment away from scientific study. If you don't receive an update, verify game files.

• Added some failsafes to fix progression issues in Security Sector. Reloading the server (or entirely leaving the sector and coming back) should resolve this issue and open the way forward.
  
• Fixed some progression skips in Security Sector, where keypads could be interacted with when they should not have been.
  
• A large fix has been put in place to try and correct missing triggers if a conversation is interrupted by exiting the area. This should prevent certain progression issues around conversations and buttons that are meant to be interactable. If you experienced a problem that sounds like this, try again now.

• Added support for sub-objectives. There are now two major objectives in the game that will show sub-objectives underneath them when viewed on the HUD. These will be obvious to anyone who is familiar with these objectives, but more importantly, new scientists should find it much easier to figure out where to go and what to do once these objectives are reached.
  
• There is now a new Gadget Bar on the HUD, which features things like Radiation from a Geiger Counter, Oxygen remaining when swimming underwater, and Jetpack battery and cooldown.

• A sleepless realm has... shifted slightly. Along with slightly more sensible navigation, GATE portable power stations (or possibly multiple copies of the same one?) have been reported. There are also reports of IS-1057, but we believe these to be fictional manifestations and not proper occurrences... We think.
  
• There are other oddities abound in this realm, but nothing to concern yourselves over.
  
• Added a skillful “Good” Reload animation to the Wessex Rifle, if your Reloading skill is high enough.
  
• Added unskillful “Bad” Reload animation to the Patois Rifle, if your Reloading skill is low.
  
• Corrected an issue where the Security Pistol’s “Good” reload was not properly following the normal rules for Good Reload Durations.
  
• The Deatomizer has received a sound upgrade.
  
• The Energy Pistol has received a sound upgrade.
  
• The Magbow has received a sound upgrade.
  
• The Portal Toilet now rapidly uh, removes unwanted material, making it much quicker to use than a normal toilet. Hopefully this will entice scientists to sit upon it more frequently, or even urgently.
  
• Our top scientists have corrected an unintended blood ritual involving the Portal Toilet. Thank you for your investigations into this matter.
  
• Dr. Thule took a look at your so-called Laser Katanas and has optimized the Laser consumption, as well as stabilized the beam. It should perform much better and longer than it could previously.
  
• The mushroom pads in the Mycofields seem to have adapted with some kind of bioluminescent material, making them much easier to spot in dark areas.
  
• The minimum size the aiming laser dot can be has been increased, disallowing micro-dots, even when Accuracy skill is very high.
  
• The Healing Briefcase is now considered a Medical item and can be used from the Medical radial wheel (hold X by default.) It also will not be sorted out by the Distribution Pad.
  
• The Tacklebox no longer requires a screwdriver to package or construct.
  
• There are rumors that the close-quarters combatants found in the Alps will now sometimes drop their helmets.
  
• Defense Bots now have slightly longer respawn times.
  
• Moved the red pain flash (when taking damage) to the HUD so that it appears in all conditions, including when special effects are active, such as NVGs or underwater. F10 will now also hide this effect, as it hides all HUD elements.
  
• Updated Keypad Hacker icons

• The Flashlight/Lantern flicker effect has been reduced some.
  
• Added an Accessibility option for disable Flashlight Flicker, which will entirely stop this effect. (Note: If you toggle this on during the effect, this will still require the effect ending before it takes effect.)

• Added no-build zone where Anteverse 23 is entered so that the destination cannot be accidentally blocked.
  
• A snowy portal destination now allows respawning at the entrance if you die while within it.
  
• Your hard-earned Hydroplant ID Card should no longer should appear blurry in some situations.
  
• The Facility trams are now color-coded and have other details to help scientists identify where they lead
• at a glance.
  
• Fixed a hole in the Facility near a radioactive pool along a tram route.
  
• Impact Hammer no longer has the Consume option on its context menu. Please do not ingest hammers.
  
• Fixed an issue where the laser dot would not show up properly on some enemy combatants.
  
• Fixed Night Vision Goggles causing a very bright and never-ending light to appear after teleporting. Magnificent.
  
• Added a HUD controls prompt to show Steady Aim (Hold Breath) when zooming in with a scoped weapon. This will steady the swaying motion more, depending on your Accuracy skill.
  
• Charging Stations have a new completion beep and it now beeps once every 20 seconds, instead of rapidly. Removing the item will end the beeping.
  
• Set up or updated the potential salvage items for the following items: Karate Helmet, crafted Storage Crates (all), Makeshift Spear, Makeshift Screwdriver, Hazard Crates, Small Ramp, Ramp, all Battery types, and the Magazine Stand.
  
• Improved reliability of an emergency broadcast playing its sound properly when first entering Anteverse 23.
  
• The Quill Rifle now requires a Vibrant Exor Arm to repair, instead of a regular one.
  
• Fixed the bug where threat sensor outline still visible after taking off Cascade Armors.
  
• The Crowbar 2.0 can no longer violently interrupt the sleep of a fellow scientist, hurtling them off into the great beyond.
  
• Improved plant ropes and their ability to pull scientists out of water when they are deployed over water.
  
• Snipers no longer keep their laser toggled on when giving scientists a good (well-deserved) kick.
  
• Modified sniper fire distant audio for better readability.
  
• Enemies can now more reliably perform their intended idle actions, resulting in more door banging, for starters.
  
• Fixed an anomalous visual issue causing the Wessex Rifle magazine to clip through the weapon.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Chef’s Counter would not be deployable via the right-click context menu.
  
• Added missing icons for at least one item -- no spoilers!
  
• Fixed a pop in a Quill Rifle reload animation.
  
• Fixed the hold poses for Exor Quills.
  
• Fixed several issues/exploits where certain items would award the wrong type of melee XP, or award infinite melee XP when used on certain objects.
  
• Fixed a typo in the Fog Lantern buff description.
  
• Fixed an anomalous GATE Security Crate in the Security Sector. This crate has had its identity sorted out and should be unlockable now -- with the right key.
  
• Note: If you spot any bright pink non-openable crates, please report them, as they will be exhibiting this same issue.
  
• The Talagi Magnum has been scaled up in third person, slightly.
  
• Fixed an anomalous visual issue with the Snow Gloves.
  
• Fixed an anomalous visual issue with grass appearing too dark in some situations.
  
• Added missing Crouch Fire animation to the Energy Pistol.
  
• Air Compressors no longer have durability.
  
• Fixed an anomalous issue where Hydroplant workers were, in fact, being caught dead in Engineering attire. Ridiculous!
  
• Fixed a spot in a corner of a Laser Lab where the level would unload.

We're aware there is an issue where some scientists are having trouble joining servers and receiving a kick message on join. We believe this is caused by a large influx of network traffic when joining and we're investigating a fix for this issue.

In the meantime, to work around this, we recommend trying the following:

• Have the host leave the current area or area where the joining player is spawning in (travel to a different sector or less "busy" area)
  
• Have someone else host the world save
  
• Have the host start a new world save, join that, and then exit and start your previous save and try joining then
  
• Reset VOIP in the Escape Menu when possible / make sure players are not using VOIP as someone joins
  
• There are potentially several other workarounds but these have worked for some people. Thanks for your patience while we investigate this issue.

Onward to science!

And do remember to come up for air - at least every once in awhile.

❤ The Deep Field Team

Strap on your flippers, Crush Depth is now LIVE!

Crush Depth is our first major roadmap milestone since releasing into Early Access back in May and it is jam packed with new content for your scientific brains to explore! As such, we’ll try to keep this short and relatively spoiler-free so you can get out there with untainted minds.

And if you’re not in the reading mood (worn out from getting all those PhDs no doubt) Community Manager Criss has new informative vlog ready for your viewing eyeballs:


The story continues in the GATE Cascade Research Facility - first with a bold journey into the dark gauntlet of Security Sector and then a big splash in the watery Hydroplant! Each locale - and other worlds beyond - contain new resources, enemies, and [REDACTED]!

For obvious reasons, that is pretty much ALL we will say about the new locations. We want you to experience and explore at your own pace and without any preconceived notions about what to do, where to go, or how to conduct your scientific progress. And yes, you can continue your existing saves if you want - though you might find a few changes throughout the early game too, especially with the new boon of Fishing and whatnot.

We hope you enjoy exploring these new Sectors and portal worlds as much as we enjoyed building them. And don’t forget to bring a flashlight.

Need a break from the day-to-day mad science? Tired of the same old Pest-burger? Grab some office supplies, cobble together a Makeshift Fishing Rod and cast your line! The new Fishing skill can be leveled to unlock fishing-related recipes and increase your general skill in acquiring those feisty fish.

With fishing also comes a whole new bait system (simply hold your Reload key to add bait to a rod) and many new ways to get certain resources - and a few new things you may not expect. And you better believe that Reload feature is a sign of things to come.

One thing you can expect is fish. You will get fish when fishing. Usually. Different fish can be caught in different types of water, and there’s even a few sneaky variants that may lurk below. As with most things in the GATE Cascade Research Facility, we’ll leave the thinking up to you.

Well, not everywhere, but a lot of it, to be sure! We’ve even added a couple new spots to swim and fish about! The swimming system has been updated a bit for better navigation, and some new items lay in store to help you where you might need it. We won’t say more on this topic, because we feel we’ve said just the right amount.

Food is now exclusively crafted at a new early-stage bench, and the right-hand side specifically enables the butchering of fish. To procure the meat and other resources from fish, you’ll need a powered-up Chef’s Counter in whatever hovel you’ve decided to call home.

The Temperature System has been completely reworked from the ground up to require a little planning, but much better feedback and easy solutions, if you know where to look. As you increase cold and heat resistance, your temperature gauge will change to reflect your tolerances, and you’ll now have much better on-screen feedback when it comes to the ambient weather.

Equipment will indicate if it’s going to give you a nice bonus one way or the other. There’s a lot more nuance here, and once again - use that big brain to solve those big problems.

There’s a bunch of new scientific deployables for you to invent which should fill out the missing spots in your base.

• Auto-Salvager
  
• Moisture Teleporter
  
• Carbon Bridges
  
• Carbon Barricade
  
• Carbon Storage Crates
  
• The radiation-neutralizing Neutrino Emitter?!
  
• THE PORTAL TOILET?
  
• This is nonsense, absolute nonsense. And this isn’t even a full list!

The Laser System has been expanded and there are now several new laser-based and laser-powered deployables. And some weapons, or so we’ve heard.

We could not begin to enumerate the threats and theories you’ll uncover (nor do we want to spoil your adventure), but we can give you a handy breakdown of a few new technologies we feel you’ll be clamoring for in no time.

• At least one new armor set, but probably more like three
  
• New goggles, of both the swimming and night vision variety
  
• The scoped Magbow
  
• Several new craftable Heavy Weapons, and major buffs to Heavy Weapons in general
  
• A couple new military-grade weapons, and Biomimic Armwraps
  
• A jetpack?
  
• That thing on the Exor’s arm??
  
• You can drive the SUV now!?
  
• The rest of this list is far too long, my fingers hurt!

We feel these weapons and armor will help you against the threats that lay ahead. But that’s just a feeling.

You can now level your skills all the way to Rank 15. That’s a high number (but not the highest we have planned.) Maybe there’s a few new perks along the way! (There are. There are a few new perks along the way.)

Two new bench upgrades have found their way into the Crafting Bench; the Metabolic Field and the Spontaneous Matter Synthesizer. We feel the names speak for themselves.

Warren has followed through on his threats and finally opened a small trading post. You can give Warren (or rather, his trading terminal) a bunch of different items, and more will unlock as you progress! He might have a few handy things for sale, including staplers. He also said something about strange dreams with orange skies, and reckoned he’d trade us a GATE Security Crate key if we could help him sleep a bit better. Weird. Maybe you can sort that out for him.

Dr. Thule tells us he’s spoken with several scientist passer-bys that claim the foggy Facility weather is too dang foggy. We got him a few cups of coffee and he spent a bit of time tinkering around and upgrading the Facility ventilation systems. We’re happy to report that it worked.

The Facility now has two sensible locations for venting weather, both Fog and Radiation Leaks. Along with that change, the fog itself seems to have been reduced in intensity, just a bit.

As we parted ways with Thule, he gave us a small bite of something he said he “fished up.” He called it Fogiri, and when we ate it, we could swear the Fog came swirling in just the next day! Maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe.

Now now, don’t get too excited. We can’t promise we fixed all of the optimization issues some scientists have experienced, but we can guarantee one thing: we gave it a pretty good shot! We tore apart some of the Sectors and put them back together in a way that allows smaller chunks of the areas to load. The most affected sectors are the Laboratory areas - you know the one - and the new Sectors also benefit greatly from this. We’d like to do this with more sectors over time, but it does take time and a lot of care. We hope you enjoy these changes and we can say personally - we felt the difference.

Various micro (and some macro) improvements have been made all throughout the Facility. Let’s just run down another (incomplete) list, shall we?

• Holding interact on Charging Stations will now bring up a radial wheel allowing you to place any low-battery items.
  
• Holding the Flashlight toggle button will now bring up a radial wheel featuring all your available flashlight, weapon, or headlamp illumination options.
  
• Ovens do a ringy dingy now.
  
• There are a handful of new plants, and we’ve even added some new ways to get things that were previously one-offs. Keep an eye out for things that grow. A lot of food recipes are hiding just behind a suspicious leaf, if you get our meaning.
  
• A lot of food-related items have been rebalanced. See the full patch notes (linked below) for a more detailed breakdown.
  
• Widened some roadways (or hallways) in a few key spots for better vehicular travel, something we’ll keep an eye on.
  
• We’ve made improvements to the recipe substitute system, allowing more varieties of resources to be used in certain recipes. We’ve also looked at resources that were difficult to get and improved the rate you might encounter them.
  
• Certain cabinets have had their space expanded (such as Med Kits) but now only allow a specific item type. This can be disabled in Sandbox Settings, but we feel this balances out some of the overuse of high-capacity refrigerators for things that aren’t strictly food.
  
• The Compendium now shows when something new is unlocked, and what that something is. Look for an orange dot!
  
• We heard The Order has given Ornate Keycards to more of their troops. The reasoning for this is unknown, but it can only help us science folk.
  
• There has been an increase in sightings of IS-0407 in Flathill.
  
• There’s so much more we could list, but we simply can’t cover it all here. See patch notes (linked below) for a more detailed look at the changes.

Keep in mind the patch notes will NOT include new content, for the most part, as we feel discovery is a major part of the experience. Thank you for your understanding.

A good handful of achievements have been added - many will be obtained by visiting (for the first time or by returning) to your favorite portal worlds, as well as a couple new sneaky ones. Speaking of sneaky ones - let us know when you find the Hydroplant uniform.

We’ve also made some changes to the in-game bug report form[form.jotform.com] to make it easier for you to submit your bugs. It now has bug type categories to choose from, cutting down on the amount of information we’re asking you to type in. Quick and easy! That’s how all great science gets done. With your help, we will continue making Abiotic Factor the best it can be.

Be safe out there, scientists.


Be sure to update your dedicated servers and as always, please keep submitting your bugs through the in-game links so we can keep working on improvements.

While Dark Energy is indeed our next major, major update, we have a couple more things in store between then and now. A September Community Update? Maybe! A Halloween Special? Who knows! The potential is unlimited, but we are human, so we’ll have to narrow it down. We’ll let you know when we’re ready to spill the beans. And yes, we’re also looking into more robust Difficulty settings, because we know some of you just can’t get enough pain.

Alright, that’s enough reading outta you lot, let’s get in there and explore!

Thank you for all your work in the GATE Cascade Research Facility!

Onward -- to science.

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We reach Crush Depth on August 12th!

Mmm... fish-flavored! Prepare yourself in a most scientific style for the second episode of Abiotic Factor - Crush Depth - available from 10:00 AM PST on the 12th of August 2024. Think fast and get 20% off until August 15th as part of the Tiny Teams Sale!

Need more data for your research? Review our recent Status Reports for insights into what might be lurking in the shadows of Security Sector, or dwelling in the depths of the Hydroplant...

• SR #13: First Look at Crush Depth
  
• SR #15: Approaching Crush Depth

Thinking even further ahead? Consult our newly updated Roadmap for hints and highlights of what’s to come later this year. With so much new content, we’ve had to condense it a little so not everything is listed, but hey, what's a few secrets between friends?
Poised on the cusp of the next installment, we’d like to say: Onwards to science, colleagues!

It’s been an extraordinary three months since we launched into Early Access with labcoats aflurry. And to every single scientist, to everyone who’s commented, reviewed, posted, sent in feedback or just picked up a pipe club and ran with it… THANK YOU for taking part in this weird-science journey - much love from the Deep Field Team. And much more to come!

Stay focused, and we’ll see you in Crush Depth!

Hail science! We’ve reached 600,000 copies sold since we began this adventure on May 2nd, 2024. In the words of Dr. Manse, I am confident we will understand this phenomenon in time, but until we do, it violates a dozen scientific principles.

Thank you to YOU, the scientific community of the GATE Cascade Research Facility, for making this adventure something truly special. Thank you.

This isn’t the only big announcement we’ve got for this week, so keep your eyes peeled. Stay focused.

- The Deep Field & Playstack teams

As you all know so terribly, terribly well, the Crush Depth update arrives this summer. But it IS already summer, you say? Well well. Then it must be close. With summer in full swing, why not take a dip into this Crush Depth preview to cool off?

Two major new Sectors are on their way, and at least a Portal World, maybe two. Maybe three. It’s hard to say, but we won’t.

Are you finding this Status Report hard to follow? Well, get used to it, bucko, because the dim lighting in Security Sector is bound to make your navigation difficult. IS-0059 isn’t bound to make it any easier.

Previously, we’ve teased a small sampling of the Security Sector and that image was mostly a black blob. Here, have a second one.

We hope you aren’t afraid of the dark, but we’re confident you will find your way to the light once again.

Speaking of Security, we know you’ve been eyeing these large, chunky crates.

Luckily, Warren has finally followed through on something (for once) and opened up a new trading post. You’ll find he has a few things available for purchase, but that’s all we can say about that right now. He’s got a gun, after all.

Perhaps when you explore enough of this concrete superstructure, you’ll be bold enough to strap on the new Rebreather and slip into those murky depths. You never know what’s waiting for you in those dark waters. Maybe some food or weird alien technology or seaweed or something.

Need to cool off further? Take a trip into the snowy mountains of the Voussoir Facility! Though this brisk vacation may not be as relaxing as you’d hoped.

With the new temperature system, we’d recommend grabbing (or crafting) some cozy gear to keep you warm from head to toe! We’ve completely reworked the temperature system, making it both easy to understand, and fun to counteract.

Power and defense all in one!

Power your home, from near or far – just watch where you step. We’re excited to see what crazy stuff you can come up with using the laser system. We just build the thing. You’re the ones who put it to use. … After you also build it because this is a survival crafting game.

The Research Division has gone fishing. Literally. We’ve done a bit of work on fishing but since it’s not quite ready to show, here’s a little debug nonsense for you to stare at. We’re spending a lot of time getting the feel right, and we’re trying to keep the fishing activity as in-world as possible.

We also hear rumors of a Fishing Skill with unlockable perks – but that sounds like a whale of a tale, if you ask us.

We’ve also moved a lot of food recipes and fish butchery (is that a word?) over to the Chef’s Counter, a split-table which can be crafted fairly early on to fit nicely into your base and help bring out the worst food-obsessed habits from the chef-oriented scientists of your group.

We aren’t quite ready to show it all off, but a few new plants are hitting the waves… and caves. This appears to be some kind of psychedelic rice. What new dishes could be in store?

We’ve made a major change to certain inventories. Zag says it’s for the good of the gameplay balance. I say it’s because he HATES us. By us, I mean the cool scientists. Supposedly this “big brain game designer” feels that certain “containers” are “overpowered” and thinks by restricting items by tag we will expand our bases and not “just use refrigerators to store everything.”

Sure Zag, whatever you say. Now certain containers can only hold certain types of items. This currently only applies to the Fridge, being able to only hold food (or mostly food) items, and the Med Kits only able to hold Medical Items.

In news that makes it feel like Zag does actually care about us instead of wanting to watch us pack-rats relentlessly suffer, there are now a bunch of new easy-to-use radial wheels coming in Crush Depth.

• When accessing Charging Stations, you can hold interact to bring up a wheel of all the available chargeable items in your inventory and place the one you want.
  
• When holding down the Flashlight action, you can bring up a radial wheel to toggle which flashlight you want instead of having to cycle through the available options.
  
• Holstering has had the same treatment. If you want your weapon, your shield, or neither, you can hold the Holster key to bring up a wheel to select your desired state.

As before, you’ll still be able to tap the action to cycle through these things, but this should bring a nice massaging effect to your experience. This is also a good time to remind you that you also already have a Medical Wheel, if you hold the Health key (X by default.)

We were going to say a lot about the following features, but we’re just so gosh-darn busy these days that we don’t want to stop and talk about it. We just want to CREATE. And we still have a lot left to do. Here is a small sampling of some other things on the way in Crush Depth… And we assure you, this is not all.

We also want to take a moment to address some performance concerns. We are on top of it. We’ve spent an enormous amount of our time this update overhauling a few areas of the game (specifically Labs) and planning ahead with some of the new sectors (Hydroplant in particular, which is quite massive in scale.) In Crush Depth, these areas will do a lot more loading and unloading as you move about the space, for much greater efficiency.

We expect some hiccups along the way, since we’re technically pulling levels apart and putting them back together. We expect a few oddities with existing saves using those areas (nothing catastrophic - most likely just some duplicate/respawned objects) and you may see some visual changes from this, changing how some areas might look from a distance. It is an ongoing process, but we’re really happy to report we’re seeing improved performance in these areas. We’d like to do this with more areas as we go along - we’ll keep you posted.

We’ll talk more about this on release day, and set some expectations or let you know if there’s anything to watch out for. We don’t expect many bumps here, but we’re entering our larger internal testing phase now and should iron out the kinks in no time.

Yes. These things are both true. We will leave it up to the scientific community to do the math here. We trust that you can do it.

Dr. Thule has been making improvements to the Facility’s ventilation system and claims he can “control the weather.” What the heck does that mean? That man is losing it, I tell ya.

That’s all for today, folks. Thank you for checking out today’s preview of our upcoming summer update; Crush Depth. If you missed the first installment, please check it out right here. Please continue leaving us excellent feedback, good reviews, and do not fall asleep during IS-0059 sightings. If you do, you may end up in Anteverse 39, and we aren’t sure if you can make it back. Or if you’ll even want to.

Onward -- to science.

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Salutations, colleagues!

We're back once again with a hotfix to resolve a few more issues you might be encountering. If you aren't encountering these issues, awesome, keep assuming the game is bug-free and perfect, and be sure to leave a positive review stating as such.

Please update your game and servers when you get a moment away from scientific study.

That's 10487, which is different than our last hotfix, 10478!

• Fixed several issues with Duct Tape repair not functioning as intended.
  
• Explosive Damage type now has an icon and text name when it appears in the Compendium.
  
• Fixed an issue where an item (Water Filter, in this case) would not properly be researchable even though it no longer required research if the player had already discovered the recipe.
  
• Crafting Bench rename button has moved to the left side of the Crafting Bench name in the crafting interface.
  
• Fixed Splints and some other consumable/useable items not properly working using medical radial wheel (hold X key by default) or when using the right-click context menu to use the item.
  
• Fixed location of interaction text on Wall Clocks.
  
• Field reports from a strange tile-laden locale have indicated there are no longer multiple buttons available, but just one, which will reveal the exit.
  
• Fixed an issue where the game could soft-lock by spamming Tab and Escape key.
  
• Shortened the range which certain enemy subtitles might appear, to not give them away so blatantly...

Hey all! Zag here. Got a few things I wanted to talk about with the scientific community.

• We've absolutely heard the feedback regarding the fog - some people love it, some people find it a bit overbearing. That is sorta the point, but we will look into some future sandbox settings and/or some in-world methods for dispelling weather early. We have ideas, but we'll need some time.
  
• We're also looking at ways to call forth specific weather types. You know, eating a foggy hamburger or something. (That's a joke, probably.)
  
• We've heard some feedback about optimization. We can share more in the future on this topic, and how we're fixing it if you're into the technical side, but the simplest reasons for low framerate are largely CPU overhead. We have a lot of enemies roaming the world, and our levels are very large, so a lot of stuff is just too active all at once. We're planning some fixes for Crush Depth that should improve this in a few areas, with better support for loading and unloading additional sub-levels. Our first test of this will be in the Labs / Adjustment Wing where this manifests the most, and we'll tackle more as we go along.
  
• We also recommend if you're struggling to run the game well, try running in DX11 mode, and/or with Global Illumination and some other graphical features turned down. That dynamic lighting can really do a number on your system and these settings disable it. Still, if you aren't having trouble, we recommend for the best "intended look" to run in DX12 with Global Illumination as high as you're comfortable. It's worth noting here our intent is not to just mimic Gold Source as lighting plays a much, much larger role in Abiotic Factor than whatever that game is you're comparing it to.
  
• We've heard some feedback about overworld weaponry being hard to repair. This is also the point but fret not, we have some other plans cooking. We hear Warren wants to open a business, whatever that means down here.
  
• We've also heard some feedback about difficulty - some people want things harder, even when solo. We'd like to provide those options, and we're working on a plan for that. We'll see what we can squeeze into Crush Depth, which is jam-packed with new stuff already. And with that...

Onward to Crush Depth, releasing this Summer!

• The game is still on sale, now and until the end of the Steam Summer Sale! Tell your friends!
  
• Positive reviews always help, thanks for leaving them, and thank you for working together and being kind with one another - it's how we get the science done. Thanks for the birthday wishes to our dear programmer, too.

Do stay safe out there in the Fog.

- The Deep Field Team