It’s been an exciting few months for us with the release of the Last Oasis Modkit and Bellwright. We’ve been thrilled to see the incredible creations from our talented community using the modkit.
Bryan has been diligently improving the modkit to provide you with the tools needed to create your desired experiences. To support this, we’ve decided to merge all current S6 changes into the Modkit branch. While these changes might break some mods, we believe it’s better to address these issues now rather than later.
Please note that these changes are a work in progress. They don’t represent the final state of S6 and many are still prototypes. However, they aim to address significant issues from S5 and offer a better foundation for modding.
Here are some of the key changes:

• Walker Cap: Each walker has a specific amount of "walker power." The total max walker power on each tile can be 100, 200, or 300 based on the clan cap. Walkers stop moving if the walker cap is exceeded.
  
• Crew Cap: Each walker can carry a specific number of clan members. If the max crew size is exceeded, the walker stops moving (automatons count as players too!).
  
• Base Rarity Craftings: These do not require schematics, which can only be obtained on event maps.
  
• New Tech Progression: This system is based on map and level progression. Some items/resources cannot be obtained until the next tier map is available (Cradle > Canyon > Sleeping Giants > Kali Spires).
  
• Improved Grappling Hooks
  
• Decreased Stamina Consumption
  
• Grappling Hook Cooldown: Added cooldown after receiving damage.
  
• Trade Station Packing: Walkers can now be packed inside trade stations by renting personal or clan-shared packing slots.
  
• Reduced Sandstorm Damage
  
• Reduced Rupus Aiming Accuracy
  
• Redesigned Foliage for Each Map Tier
  
• Re-enabled Rarity Merging
  
• Re-enabled Walker Packing
  
• Increased Packing Decay to 14 Days
  
• Ammo damage against each armor type to make them more specialized.
  
• Tool Rebalance: Rarity tiers overlap so that a Rare tool is equal to the Base tool of the next tier.

Today, we also want to start a series of “Modkit Showcases” where we talk directly to creators and share what they’re working on and what they hope to achieve. This week we speak to Xanjis, creator of Oasis Adrift!

Today we speak with Xanjis, developer of the Oasis Adrift modpack. His modpack adds airships, completely changing the way the game is played.


“Ultimately I want the airship system to be an entire parallel progression path to regular walker progression with its own maps, recipes, stations, weapons, and harvesting systems. It would then be up to the player to either focus on walkers, airships, or both at the same time. Realistically being able to fly is always going to be a huge advantage but walkers will always be more durable, have more firepower, carry more players, and there will be no airship versions of the base utility walkers such as the camelop. Additionally there will be tools to even the odds such as the flak ammo and the heavy ballista. Currently the mod is completely playable on the oasis adrift server however its current state is a mere shadow of what I have planned.”



“Fundamentally Last Oasis has a huge amount of core issues, however players tend to be able to see past those problems for the first weeks of a wipe until suddenly they don’t and then the population starts its seasonal decline. In my opinion this is because the players run out of content. Either due to reaching iron tier, waiting for the devs to drop the next tier of map in a season, not having a large enough group to tackle the remaining content (capital walkers, quarry, large utility walkers), or not being able to progress to new content due to endless ganking/zeroing/raiding. Oasis Adrift seeks to massively expand the quantity of content in the game in order to give the player base something to do beyond harassing each other. Additionally it seeks to improve the quality of content by experimenting with types of content that can be more engaging long term such as skilled Rupu AI and AI controlled enemy ships.”



All discussion about the Oasis Adrift mod, modpack, and server can be found at our discord. https://discord.gg/HK8cCw2NpR

It has been some time since we last gave an update, but today, we are thrilled to unveil the release of our long-awaited Modkit! This opens up a world of possibilities, allowing for complete customization within Last Oasis. With access to these powerful tools, players will have the ability to craft experiences tailored to their wildest imaginations. From tweaking all game mechanics to creating entirely new items, weapons and creatures, the Modkit empowers you to shape the game how you want it.

Key Features of the Modkit:

• Modding capabilities that enable extensive customization.
  
• Tools and resources for crafting unique gameplay experiences.
  
• Play in editor to test new features locally.
  
• Documentation and support channels to assist players with any troubleshooting.

In order to access the modkit, you need to visit the Last Oasis Modkit storefront on the Epic Games Store: https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/last-oasis-modkit

To ensure stability and compatibility prior to merging everything into the main branch, we’re releasing the client/server with Mod support on a separate branch. Playing on or hosting a modded server requires you to be on the “SDKTest” branch.

Right click on the Last Oasis application in your Steam library and select properties > Betas

For any help or assistance, please visit the Last Oasis Discord where we have set up new channels for ModKit assistance and mod development, as well as documentation.

Modkit documentation can also be found on our Discord: https://discord.gg/lastoasis


Additionally, the Modkit branch will have a few sneak peeks from Season 6.

• Added the ability to merge rarity resources
  
• Rigs not don’t limit the location of structures, only the type and number.
  
• Reduced water consumption
  
• Added walker fleet cap
  Each walker counts a certain number of points and each clan has a cumulative total allowed on map at any given time.
  
• Add walker crew limit
  Each walker has a maximum number of crew members and will stop moving once exceeded. Automatons count towards this limit.
  
• Grapple changed to prevent use for 3 seconds after being hit, rather than in combat stance

We are extremely grateful to the community for sticking with us and we hope these new tools and changes will lead to a brighter horizon for Last Oasis.


In addition to the release of the ModKit, we’ve commenced work (and some closed testing) on Season 6. While it's still early to talk about too many specifics, we want to get the philosophy guiding Season 6 out there and share a few of our thoughts.

As we started to talk about what Season 6 should be, we knew we needed to consider the role that official servers would play now that the community has its hands on the ModKit. We believe the official servers have to provide a unique experience that cannot be replicated on a private server and we believe that role is emergent PVP in a large scale world.

This focus brings with it a certain set of assumptions about things like pacing, gameplay loops, persistence, safety mechanics, etc. For example, starting with Season 6, we will start regular periodic wipes, and balance the game around that duration, which is currently planned to be two months. We are also carefully considering all of the safety mechanics that have been put into Last Oasis throughout the seasons, such as stone building, removal of the lobby, and how to balance competition between clan sizes, just to name a few.

We are excited to share many more details with you as the development of Season 6 unfolds. Our goal is to do extensive public beta testing at each step along the way, so stay tuned for more information. To apply for participation in closed and open testing, be sure to join the Last Oasis Discord.

Greetings Nomads,

We want to give you an update on the project status and what you can expect coming on the horizon.
Our main priority in Last Oasis development right now is adding full modding support that will allow creators to modify all existing features and maps, adding new content as well as completely new features using Unreal Engine Blueprint scripting. We believe that this is a necessary step to unleash the full potential of LO and allow every nomad to find or create the experience they are looking for in our game.

Related to the news above, we are happy to announce that the author of “LO Classic” mod BryanTheHacker has joined our team. With his experience in modding Last Oasis you can be sure that our tools will provide all the freedom that modders will need to implement their ideas.

As for the status of official servers - active development and preparation for Season 6 will continue with the release of modding tools. We will share more information and details as it gets closer, but we can promise to reconsider features from Season 5 that didn’t work out as well as expected and also to implement multiple ideas invented by our community (some of which have or will be tested on modded servers).

Best wishes and stay hydrated,
LO Dev team

A little later than we planned, due to some final touches that we wanted to do in order to bring this update to a properly final state and try to avoid multiple hotfixes, learning from the previous experience with the packing update. You can consider this few days delay as a better reassurance that we won't need them (or, hopefully, not that many, at least).

Get ready to enter the mysterious city of the forgotten civilization!


The Ancient City is an oasis that contains the decaying remains of an ancient civilization. Little is known about who or what lived here, or, even, how long ago, but clues litter the landscape for Nomads to find. It is said that intrepid explorers, brave enough to explore the Ancient City, stand to find untold riches, while the Flotillan Historic Society will gladly accept new members, who help them research the ancient technology with a member-only benefit of an access to their Schematics Store at each Trading Station.

That is, if they can survive the Rupu claiming the ruins as their own. The Ancient Cities around the globe became a haven for Rupu, where they build various fortification to protect their Matrarchs. The most ferocious and powerful of their warriors reside in the ruins and the fortifications against the invading Nomads will be no easy feat to overcome on the road to riches and glory.


Now, backing off from the lore towards the technical side of this update.

The map received some pretty significant changes, as you might've guessed. Both literally - with fortified walls, now covering entrances to the city and a giant palace, featuring the most brutal melee-only PvE experience we've introduced to date, and from a conceptual standpoint - with the map's place within the progression being more defined and permanent, where going to the Ancient City will always be a rewarding experience.

All other maps in Last Oasis are built on a procedural spawning system, where Rupu camps don’t spawn entirely randomly, but they have a set of rules and pre-defined locations that can result in a significant seeming randomness. However, for the Ancient City, we wanted to go in a different direction. As an event map that introduces a whole new system of progression called "Relic Hunter", we iterated and tested various approaches, and realized that it would be much more interesting to have a more intentional and thoughtful design, rather than leave it all up to procedural spawners. In the end, it ended up providing quite a bit more of a deliberate gameplay, somewhat similar to how dungeons are played in other MMO games.

In addition, with the introduction of the newly designed Rupu structures that attempt to prevent incursions by Walkers, you will likely have to travel on foot quite a bit more, including the already teased melee-only camps and PvE experiences.


In the Ancient City, you will be able to find Relics and Forebear Coins, which are ancient coins that are, technically, also relics of the same civilization, but in a much higher abundance. These relics can be turned into the Trade Station for Relic Hunter Reputation, which is its own new progression system.

As you gain more Reputation, you’ll start receiving new Ranks within the Flotillan HIstoric Society, unlocking access to progressively higher rewards offered by them, as a token of gratitude for your efforts. The first mechanic that we're introducing with it is a Society Schematics Store, which allows you to buy schematics of any tier and rarity for Forebear Coins, depending on your Rank.

All of this can be found and explained in the Stats Menu (P) by scrolling to the Relic Hunter page, which will show your current Ranking within the society, your reputation, current bonuses, and what the next rank will unlock. Both donating Relics for Reputation and buying Schematics for Forebear Coins can be done at any Trading Station and the list of Schematics is unique for each member, refreshing the list every time, which can be found in the store itself.

Currently, Ranking up will increase the tiers of Schematics that can be purchased, their maximum possible rarity, the number of schematics offered on each level, and how quickly the offers refresh. Also, some lucky Hunters might find unique cosmetic Schematics offered only by the Historic Society.

But don't be so hasty to donate all of the Relics you find on your adventuring. The store only accepts ancient Forebear Coins as currency, which you'll need to also find at the Ancient Cities. Luckily, some black market merchants will gladly trade you those coins if instead of donating your Relics to the Historic Society, you sell them to those shady Nomads.


We buffed all the grapples, as we've mentioned we'll do for quite a while now. Longer range, more balanced reeling speeds, lower torque consumption, and other tweaks have been applied to every grappling hook type.

A bunch of changes to quests were also included. We've added some quests to kill various creatures and updated existing ones with better balance and clarity. For example, the quest for bringing items, rather than a delivery for specific armors and weapons, the quest will now request an “Armor Shipment” or “Weapon Shipment” which is crafted at a new station available within the Simple Constructions from a collection of equipment pieces.

We've also rebalanced some loot drops to work better with the addition of the new map, improved Rupu behaviors across the board and added some new ones that made sense to use outside of AC as well, and also a ton of small tweaks like removing the rated all-time-most-hated walker wing from the general items merchant, optimized performance where we could, and so on. And, as customary, a few packing fixes. Now, definitely last ones.

As we've been talking about multiple updates, such as the PvP Update, Quality of Life Update, and hinting at more, what you'll see this patch is an effort regarding, primarily, the addition of the Ancient City map and all the related features, while everything else that we've been working on in parallel like the King of the Hill feature and so on, will be coming separately. How we've already explained many times, a lot of those features only make sense when released together and won't have the desired effect or could even make things worse if added one by one, so we hope you'll be having fun with the new experiences for quite some time, while we'll have time to work on the massive overhaul of PvP and other planned changes.

We won't be including the bulletpoint changelog this time, as hundreds of changes can be summarized as "Added Ancient City" and many more are still in the works as explained above, so fishing for specific small tweaks on top of it that got in won't make much sense when everything critical was already explained above. Everything that's important has been described in great detail in this post already and what hasn't been, would be a great way to ruin your first experience on the new map, so try it and see for yourself!


We’re still hard at work developing the things we’ve talked about and will be trying to release them as soon as we can. We're expecting to monitor how this new update is working and fix any issues if they appear, as well as release smaller updates when it makes sense, as we've done before. However, taking into account the size of the planned updates (we're talking overhauling literally the entire PvP experience here and more), and considering the upcoming Holiday season (with the international team being away at very different times in the upcoming months), we expect that it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to deliver those full scale overhauls at least within a month. As mentioned, some parts might come out as separate smaller updates, but not the gigantic overarching overhauls.

Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the new update, the completely changed map, the new progression system, and much more that we've got up our sleeve in this patch (and I'm sure you'll find at least a few surprises we haven't talked about). We'll try to keep you updated and announce any concrete info on what's coming next whenever we have it. We're also discussing some new ideas that we'll be sure to put to a poll as we've got used to doing by now if they get some traction on our side first.

Don't get lost in the ruins and happy hunting!

Early next week, we will introduce the Ancient City back into the game. It will be an event map that spawns in both PvP and PvE form, with only rarity available on the PvP version. Next week with the release we’ll have a full post that lays out the new experiences available on the Ancient City, as well as the brand new gameplay mechanics.

Today we’ll introduce another small packing update which should improve unpacking and resolve all the known issues. We’ll monitor over the weekend and then begin burning additional tiles when we patch Ancient City.

Patchnotes:

• Improved unpacking checks to finish with the packing for good and start burning tiles.
  
• Fixed all the remaining known issues with packing.

We’ve been promising a Q&A for a while. Originally it was in regards to the planned PvP update, but since we’ve talked about several other things since then, we figured we would open it up to anything. Based on the questions, it seems like a lot of the devblogs weren’t read fully. If you have any questions, there is a lot of good transparent information in them and we recommend going back through them. Either way, we’ll answer a few of the questions in each devblog until we get through them.



Short answer, no. The big changes we made when we started designing S5 were for reasons that we considered fully over long periods of time and we still believe in those reasons. That isn’t to say that features won’t ever come back individually, or even more likely, that we’ll bring individual functionalities back in some way that mitigates the previous problems we saw while still giving most if not all of the benefit.

In the QoL devblog we talked about many of the features that are often mentioned when referring to past seasons, like the lobby, traveling, nomadism, etc.



Yes, these are some of the things that we will eventually do, but unfortunately, at the time, they're on the backburner while we work on getting all of the features we want into S5.



The wingsuit will return, later in progression. We’ll be implementing some changes to the grapple next week with the AC update.

As we all know, the grappling hook is a ton of fun, but anyone who has played for any length of time in PvP knows the downsides.

When first designing S5, PvE maps were not meant to be all of the progression. This obviously changed over time as we considered things, but we didn’t reconsider that since players will have entirely safe from PvP options through most or all of the PvE progression, that we could live with a grapple that allowed a bit more skill expression.

We won’t be completely reverting the grapple. Obviously grappling in combat had quite a lot of bugs, so the changes ultimately fixed a lot of the most egregious problems in mutual PvP, but also we believe the stamina cost on grapple is a good balancing tool that needs to be adjusted more. But we will be buffing/rebalancing the grapples across the board in various ways.



Most of our plans for schematics are detailed in the PvP devblog. Tl;dr is you’ll be able to learn how to craft most schematics with the PvP update and the AC update will allow to buy schematics at the Trade Stations.

We know there are still some pain points, like inventory management, etc, and we’ll continue to monitor those as we go along.



As with everything, an ETA is just not something we can commit to. But it is something we want to do. The issue is that it will require a ton of mostly transparent work and we want to get to a point where the base game is fun to play before we commit that time. Most likely, we'll dedicate a long stretch of time for it after full release.

There was a bug related to unpacking and we decided to tackle that and finish out the last “Anti-Griefing” mechanic for unpacking. That’s the patch for today. In addition, we’ll be disabling base decaying while packed until we’re sure you can unpack in all cases. After that, we'll also start burning some of the tiles to condense the World Map for the current population.

We added what we’re calling the Clearance Phase. For the first 30s of unpacking, the structure checks to see if the area is valid. After 30s, all collisions are enabled at once and packing won’t be canceled by attempting to make the area invalid afterwards. This means that on a PvE map, after 30s a player cannot disable/pause your unpacking simply by standing in the area.

Changelog this time is not so big, as most of the changes we're working on are for the unreleased maps and updates, but they should have a pretty big impact nonetheless (at least the first two):

• Added Clearance Phase to Unpacking, which prevents most griefing with unpacking.
  
• Fixed a bug, which prevented unpacking bases in some cases.
  
• Fixed collisions on the Rupu Throne buildable structure.

As we stated in the last post, each week we’ll do updates on the state of our various lines of effort. Since we’re just starting now, this isn’t a list of everything that’s been done, but, rather, a selection of the most important and needed things we’ve worked on this week.

It's a new format we're trying out to keep you in the loop on everything important that's happening. Therefore, treat it more as a progress report than a full devblog for each part of the post and expect a larger post sometime soon.



One of the major efforts here has been working on a system that will allow us to more easily edit rigs. Editing existing rigs can currently cause a lot of issues, and there are quite a few problems with the existing rigs on some walkers, so this is, unfortunately, one of those “transparent” things which is happening in the background for us to work easier, rather than a change you'll immediately see. What it will allow, though, is an easy way to update any rig on any walker for us to put in an update.

Next week, we’ll also introduce some more quest changes - adding back some of the old quests that have been redesigned and rebalancing the existing ones to fit the current economy better.



The promised Quality of Life update is coming along.

Right now, we're actively working on fixing the issue with clan permissions not persisting (i.e. they get reset during server restarts, updates, etc), which is a more complex issue than might seem, since it requires both the work on our game code, the backend, and the database.

It's been a common complaint for some time now, so the fix should be coming in one of the next patches, instead of waiting for the full QoL Update to bring it in.



PvP Update is also on its way.

We finalized the detailed design for the "King of the Hill" feature and Schematic Learning/Crafting that we've discussed in one of the previous devblogs. They should provide a balanced experience, encourage active PvP for map control, and make Schematics more of a tool that requires less attention the more you progress, similar to Water or Torque.

We also concepted the KoTH POI model, which will be the main arena for those PvP battles, so it will take a few iterations to get to a good gameplay feeling. Our goal with it is to make it a mixed melee/walker fight. Meaning, that you will be able to impact the success using walkers, but to actually capture the point you’ll need people with their feet on the ground, so while it will be possible to capture solo if the competition is not too strong, but larger clans should be able to have proper fights for control and bonuses that it provides on the map.



The next map is one of our main priorities at the moment, so there's quite a bit about it.

As expected, tons of work here, but we don’t want to spoil the surprise too much, so this will probably be more vague than you’d want.

We've finished the overhaul of the map design, which will be entirely different from what it was before, except the main part that it's still an Ancient City, so you can expect completely new gameplay, new features introduced with the map, and much more.

When it comes to details, we've finished creating new Rupu variants, finished setting all of their weapons and projectiles. all of the Rupu camp encounters are set, including bosses that weren't present in the game at all before, finished all of the loot tables, and much more boring details.

Now, we're starting work on creating Rupu melee behavior variations, so that each new Rupu type feels unique when fighting, especially putting the focus on the new bosses.

One of the new features - Relic Hunter Reputation, which we won't spoil yet, has also been finalized, including a detailed design, all the models, and so on. That's what will make Ancient City an event map that won't stop being relevant as it was before and will provide almost limitless gameplay in that regard.

Today we’ll go over the patch and then a few updates on each of the major lines of effort and where we stand on them. The patch today is, mainly, focused on fixes and tweaks to Sleeping Giants and, most of all, closing out all of the packing bugs and improvements. There is one more feature we want to add that should prevent anyone using packing from getting griefed while trying to unpack on PvE tiles specifically, but will work on all tiles with the same rules and intention. Unfortunately, that will come a bit later in a separate patch, but we'll try to add it as soon as possible, without waiting for any large patch to include it, so expect one to come soon.

Otherwise, the patch today focuses on continuing to improve the Sleeping Giants experience, through fixes, and implementing new features, or tweaking existing features in new ways. The main feature we've been working on, though, is packing. Since its release we've received quite a few reports regarding it, like difficulty to unpack or other issues, especially with Hangar Walls, and tried to address them all in this patch. Overall, once we’re sure that all of these packing changes didn’t introduce any new terrible catastrophic bugs, we’ll start burning some tiles to condense the World Map, as we've talked previously. The burn will have a timer of at least 7 days prior to the actual decay of the tile, so you'll have plenty of time to pack and move to another tile that's not being burnt. You'll see a timer above a tile that's being burnt on the World Map and if a map doesn't have one, it will not be burnt.

We'll keep monitoring gameplay with the new changes and the lower number of tiles on the World Map and keep adjusting the numbers if we see that there are still too many tiles or that they're all to crowded without an ability for someone who wants peace and quiet to go to a less populated oasis.

Changelog. This time, in the beginning of the post:

• Made unpacking use the same allowed distance to other bases as building allowance.
  
• Fixed an issue with an error that says a base is too close when it actually isn't.
  
• Increased Lathe Torque inventory to 1,000.
  
• Added packing information and decay timers to Walker HUD to see them while driving.
  
• Reduced Stamina use for Long and Sturdy Grappling Hooks.
  
• Allow raising and lowering unpacked base to allow for an easier unpacking experience.
  
• Made unpacking ignore the owning player when checking for obstructions to make it easier.
  
• Fixed bugs with dirty and toxic water being treated as normal water - autoconsumed in bottles, used for repsawning, etc.
  
• Made toxic water on maps damage only players who are inside it, not mobs or structures.
  
• Improved visuals of toxic water on maps to make it look more dangerous.
  
• Increased Falco HP to 34,500 from 24,500. Did not increase current HP, so need to repair.
  
• Increased sap drop rate from saw blade harvesting.
  
• Fixed sap not dropping with proper loot and quality when using a sawblade.
  
• Made windmills and excavator not decay on the ground.
  
• Made all other structures decay when placed on the ground without a foundation and maintenance chest.
  
• Added Repair Station (small hardpoint on walkers).
  
• Made Repair Station take damage on repairing items, as it's considered heavy workload. Requires repairing the station or rebuilding it. Higher quality Repair Stations last much longer.
  
• Rarity Items can be repaired with the use of rarity resources and a schematic of any rarity, including non-rarity schematic of that item.
  
• Common items can be repaired with common resources without any schematic.
  
• Updated and improved delivery merchant quest to make it more clear.
  
• Replaced Delivery Merchant model to look different from any other Merchant, so it's instantly visible that it's unique and stealthy (as they're smugglers).
  
• Added Medium Water Bag to store more liquids in (small hardpoint on walkers).
  
• Fixed not being able to pack small gates.
  
• Prevented using unpacking to build sky bases. This is not a challenge! Floating bases are subject to be deleted by divine intervention at any moment and the owners banned as per the ToS.
  
• Added highlighting the invalid part when unpacking to make it easier to figure out what is preventing placement.
  
• Made it easier to place bases on uneven terrain.
  
• Added packing period multipliers configurable in server settings for private servers owners.
  
• Separated weapon, tool, and armor rarity durability multiplier. Increased tool and armor durability scaling, slightly rebalanced Weapon durability.
  
• Added tool tier rarity multiplier. Rare items now have higher tool tiers and will harvest higher quantities. Low tier tools like early Axes might be able to harvest Redwood when rare now, and so on.
  
• Added Lathe and Curing Station to a Medium Hardpoint on Walkers.
  
• Fixed Magma Seed not being harvestable by Scythe-type tools.
  
• Overhauled Event Tile spawning feature.
  
• Made it a much lower probability that Event Tile maps with the same settings will spawn back to back (to prevent 1 Clan Cap Canyon after another). Added some other tweaks to settings to make it more balanced.

The new settings for private server owners regarding packing decay are:

• PackingDecayGracePeriodMultiplier
  
• PackingDecayPeriodMultiplier
  
• PackingPreparePeriodMultiplier

There are still several outstanding issues we’re continuing to work on. Your bug reports and feedback are incredibly valuable here. We have lots and lots still to do to make Sleeping Giants as high quality as we want. From improving loot tables, to fixing Okkam aggro, adding and balancing quests, balancing the rarity upgrader, and so on. Basically, lots of tweaks and fixes left to be done. But little by little we’re whittling all of the issues and inconsistencies down, and we think the end is in sight here. Keep sending your feedback and we’ll keep up the drumbeat of adjusting things regularly.



We recently grouped a bunch of features that have been hanging around as good ideas into a focused plan we’re calling the “Quality of Life” Update. This includes many of the things we’ve talked about publicly, like how we want to implement features that replace some of the functionality of the lobby, like a “Vacation Mode” that would allow to safely log out of the map into a lobby with your walker at a Trade Station, a “Teleport to Home Tile” feature that would allow to build a Portal, much like the ones at the edges of the map and travel directly to your Home Tile, as well as Base Walker Packers that would allow to pack Walkers you don't use daily in a compact packer instead of having a gigantic Hangar.

Other than that, we've listed some ideas for other features that we either discussed ourselves or the ones that you suggested to us directly, which we'll discuss in another post when we flesh them out a little more to be presentable and worthy of your discussion.



We promised a Q&A here, but we’re going to need a rain check on that one. We had a lot of great feedback and questions posted by all of you, so not wanting to make it just a small post with a few handpicked questions, we'll try to make a proper Q&A without shying away from difficult questions and sharing as much information as we can through that post.



The Ancient City is coming along nicely and we’re, actually, really excited about how it is shaping up. It is going to be a completely new experience that hasn't been possible in Last Oasis before, with many pieces and parts hand-placed into the map, rather than spawned randomly. Meaning that we can design the experience in a much more specific way to make it both visually stunning and gameplay-wise exactly as we want it.

We’ll also be creating a completely new player-progression mechanic tied-in to exploring the Ancient City. Through finding and looting Relics, you’ll be able to improve your reputation when sharing them with the Flotillian Historic Society, unlocking the ability to buy high rarity schematics directly from one of their representatives, and, also, some unique rewards that will only be available by having a high reputation with the guild.

Overall, our current plan is to spawn Ancient City as an Event Map, separate from Rarity Event Maps, so you'll have 2 possible Event Tiles to go to at most times. We'll most likely be spawning the map both as a PvE and a PvP experience, where the PvP map will have rarity like any other Rarity Event Map that's PvP, while the PvE one will have no rarity, but all the same features and mechanics across the board, including the Relics.



Each week our devblogs will be giving updates on the current status of each line of our efforts. As we’ve said many times, setting deadlines and ETAs are just recipes for disappointment, but we are endeavoring to attempt to be as transparent as possible and provide frequent status updates as we work on each update going forward. Expect more details on the newly announced Quality of Life Update, the PvP Update, and the Ancient City map release, which might be coming earlier than you expect.

Thank you for reading this post and, in general, supporting us through this development with your feedback, Steam reviews, daily discussions, and many more ways to make it easier for us to make Last Oasis better.

We thank everyone for all the discussion and feedback about the PvP changes we posted about last week, as well as helping us sort out all of the bugs with Balang. Today’s patch should fix most of the remaining issues with packing and add a few other improvements.

Currently, we can't name an exact release date for either the PvP Update or the Ancient City map. As we continue to work through development and all the new features, there is a possibility we’ll release the PvP update in parts, rather than all at once, but that’s to be confirmed and finalized. We know there was some confusion about that coming from Friday, but our goal here is to release a fun and, most importantly, working improvement to the PvP part of the game. We'll have to see if releasing it in parts will still maintain the fun gameplay every individual update or we'll need all the components together to make it work as we intend it to.

For our full devblog later in the week we’ll do a Q&A with many of your questions that were brought up as a result of the PvP Update devblog and all the discussions about the future of the Packing feature, and try to answer any other lingering questions out there. Again, a lot of good discussions that are helping us very much to refine the design and improve the gameplay around it that we're very grateful for.

Changelog for today:

• Fixed packing restrictions regarding some specific pieces like Hangar Roof.
  
• Fixed Clay Lump not being allowed in Quality Upgrader.
  
• Increased clay pot healing radius from 12.5 to 25.
  
• Made canceling pack/unpack a Hold action to avoid accidents.
  
• Fixed packing wall count calculation (for bases that weren't packable even when under the limit)
  
• Increased Base packing distance of the Balang from 30 to 100 meters.
  
• Increased Walker and Maintenance Chest packing distance from 30 to 70 meters.
  
• Lowered Walker unpacking time from 20 to 10 minutes.
  
• Lowered Walker packing time from 2 to 1.5 minutes.
  
• Lowered Hangar piece cost from 4 to 2.
  
• Lowered Hangar packing/unpacking time from 4 to 2 seconds each.
  
• Made Automatons give back 100% of the cost on disassemble, since they're not packable.

This post will be rather short, since we had a very long one just last weekend and it's more of a follow-up update, so the focus will be on the new packing changes and the similarities with the previous version of it. We'll expand on other parts of the development later this week, as we promised, and answer the most pressing questions in a Q&A format in just a few days.


Packing is finally back in a new and slick packaging! We're happy to announce that you'll be able to freely move your base and walkers around your own tile and between them, something that truly has a nomadic spirit to it and allows to resettle on new territories or move into a better spot for convenience or just a picturesque view from your base.

Please take note that I emphasize the word move here because this is now the main focus of the packing feature in its current form, rather than storing bases or walkers for long periods of time, as it was before. Our goal with this update is to allow complete freedom of movement and settling on a different map. What isn't our goal is to make Hangars obsolete or make it an abusable mechanic for deploying forward operating bases or using it to store a small base at all times to quickly deploy to take advantage of an opportunistic situation with regard to PvE or harvesting as it was often used previously.

What it means in practice is that the packing will now have a timer until decay that will take 2 hours with the current balance, after which anything packed into that slot will start slowly taking decay damage, similarly to how it works without a Maintenance Chest. The full time to decay any packed base or a walker is 6 hours, on top of the first 2 that we call a Grace Period. We hope that this new mechanic will promote usage of the packing for moving and resettling, essentially, packing up your base and walkers, moving to another place, and unpacking as soon as possible not to take any decay damage.

In addition to this, another measure in vein will be the minimal time to pack and unpack structures and walkers, which is 2 minutes of packing and 20 minutes for unpacking. It means that before each piece of the packed base or a walker starts packing or unpacking, the Preparation Phase needs to finish before it actually starts. Another, maybe obvious, thing to point out is that our goal for the packing is to make it usable out of combat as much as possible, for that reason the Packing feature will work only when out of combat, but unlike before when it would instantly cancel packing as soon as someone is in a way or a rupu attacks and crosses the place of unpacking, the process will pause and give you 20 seconds to clear the area, at which point it will continue unpacking. If the area is not cleared in that time, the system will assume that it's a larger-scale attack and cancel the packing, both to prevent its use in combat as a FOB and to protect the base from attacks.

On that note, the Balang Walker is a real beats when it comes to Walker strength. It stayed Solid as it was previously, even thought it's not limited to a core as before and allows to pack regular bases. In addition to it, the Walker will have 50,000 HP to make sure your possessions are completely safe from the outside interference or an accidental Okkam attack. The only thing to worry about in that case will be the decay timer, but we hope that 8 total hours that a base or your walkers can be packed for will be enough to safely move and unpack in any conditions or even if you have to suddenly leave for some time and come back in a few hours. Your packed structure might endure some damage and will require repairs, but it will maintain structural integrity and you can be sure that no one will steal your things.

When it comes to how much you can pack, we decided to go a bit above our original estimation and allow 300 base pieces per Balang Walker. Keep in mind that it's the only limiting factor for packing, but also worth mentioning that Hangar pieces count as 4 walls and will take 4 seconds to unpack, as opposed to a single wall or other structure that will take a second and only actual base pieces like foundations, walls, roofs, and so on will count in this limit. In addition, the Balang Walker will allow to pack up to 3 Walkers of any size, except, of course, another Balang. That means that most players should be able to easily pack their entire base together with the garage and the Walkers inside, as we estimated that players who own more than 3 Walkers in addition to a Balang are likely player at least with a couple of friends, who each can drive their own Balang and pack as much into their mobile homes.

Those Values are in no way final and will definitely be tweaked and balanced as we keep observing the gameplay on servers and collecting your feedback, so please let us know what you think after you try it yourself. We specifically ask you to try it yourselves first before passing any judgement, as words often don't describe the actual experience well enough to imagine how it is to actually use. With that, hopefully, there shouldn't be any issues, as Balang Walker Schematics will drop from both the new Sleeping Giants and Canyons to allow its use from early gameplay soon after Cradle.

In other aspects, the Balang Walker stayed pretty much the same, as we felt that it was a fair balance compared to other walkers, with regard to its Armor type and Health. It means that the Walker will not have a usable deck that allows placing anything on it and neither does it have a storage or a gear container. What it will have is a Water container to allow respawning on it with the first tier unlocked by default to allow immedaite respawning on it as soon as you fill it with a bit of clean water, so that once you pack your base and Walkers to move away, you have a safe walker to respawn on from the get go, without the need to additionally unlock the water container. Of course, if you want to increase the capacity of the water container or unlock the ability to use Torque in case of the Wing failure or just to run away from danger when the most precious things are packed inside, you're free to do so by upgrading them manually.



As promised, in addition to Balang Walker with the ability to pack bases and other Walkers, we're also adding packing and moving functionality to Maintenance Chests of all tiers. As opposed to the Walker, packing in Maintenance Chests is limited to individual structures like crafting stations, chests, humidifiers, and so on.

Essentially, this is a way for you to move your structures within your base, on your walker, or even between the two. It should work seamlessly with the rig system and hardpoints, so you can easily move a structure from your base to any of the acceptable points on any of your walkers or vice versa. The distance at which you can pack and unpack is limited to 30 meters, which, similar to all other values mentioned, is a subject to change and we'll likely be tweaking it once we get the first feedback. As most Maintenance Chests are usually near the entrance to a base, it should be more than enough to move the structures between your base and your walkers or just neatly place down the chests that someone threw around the base like they're garbage bins. Basically, it's the dream of any home renovator.

Using the same system as the packing on the Balang Walker, Maintenance Chests will have decay period assigned to them, which, in this case is much shorter and takes only minutes. The reason for this is, essentially, the same - we designed this feature to be used for moving and not storing. I can just say that from our tests, none of us needed more than was given by the chests to move some chests around or exchange a weapon on a Walker.



As we talked previously, we want to continue developing this feature moving forward. We've already established that we'll keep iterating over what's here now and will be tweaking the numbers and improving the mechanics using your feedback. What else is on the horizon for packing then?

Well, we already mentioned that we're considering a special walker that would do the opposite of Balang and could actually be a mobile fort used for combat. In that case, it will mot likely be similar to what Balang was originally. As in, having a special core part as its main foundation to create a sort of a mobile War Tower that you can deploy around your base for protection, next to a PvE camp to use as a respawn and gearing outpost when taking on an especially vicious camp or a monster, or even in PvP to get the benefits of a base on the go and attack others having a safe place to fall back to in the heat of combat. It could be especially useful once we start getting into more detail on the PvP Update and start testing out mechanics and ideas.

To be clear, this is just a rough idea at this moment and more of an example of what we could consider for the future of packing in general. Another, much more tangible thing, would be the second tier of a packing walker - the Silur. This one is most likely a done deal at this point, as it would be a direct improvement over Balang, same as it was previously, just with more packing pieces, more Walker packers, and maybe some more interesting deviations from the original design.

For now, we'll stop here with speculations about where the packing feature could go. Let us know what you think about those ideas and send us your own. We read Discord and other platforms on a daily basis and will surely read your discussions about anything related to packing, so even if you don't send an official feedback report, we'll take note and take it into account when making decisions on future planning.

That's it for today! Keep an eye out for the next big post later this week and we'll most likely do some kind of a smaller update too, but will mainly depend on how the current update will go and what we'll plan for the upcoming weeks.

You can find the changelog for the today's update below. Thanks for reading and supporting us through this (quiet turbulent) season.


Full Changelog:

• Added Balang Walker able to pack a large base and 3 Walkers.
  
• Added packing to all Maintenance Chests to move structures easily.
  
• Overhauled Packing System entirely. Packing now only possibly with special Packing Walkers, there is a decay timer that pushes you to use packing for moving instead of storing, completely remade the UI, made it more clear, overhauled packing restrictions to only count walls. Basically, read the post.
  
• Fixed dead mobs like Okkam dealing damage after being dead if you ram into them.
  
• Fixed Furnace not crafting quality items. All recipes should now craft quality.
  
• Fixed Sap and Sulfur Pebbles not being the same Rarity as the original foliage.
  
• Fixed Automatons not dropping their ammo inventory on destruction.
  
• Fixed Automatons sometimes getting destroyed when netted.
  
• Buffed Automatons from 500 to 900HP at default Rarity.
  
• Made Automatons use Soft Armor instead of none.
  
• Fixed Xbox/Controller navigation in some menus and containers.
  
• Fixed all placement issues on Buffalo Walker.
  
• Fixed some collisions on Trading Station. Made it easier to pass in some places, patched up holes where there was no collision.
  
• Fixed Purification Station evaporating Water (won't do it again).
  
• Made furniture light sources not craft items.
  
• Improved furniture light sources UI to be more clear, added names and tooltips.
  
• Added Wooden Slab as an optional source for fueling furniture light sources.
  
• Increased burning time of items in furniture light sources. Basically, improved light sources.
  
• Fixed Humidifier not having proper name and tooltip when opening the screen. Lots of UI improvements this patch.
  
• Made containers always show the correct name of the structure when renaming them.
  
• Disabled renaming containers inside them. Made it more consistent to rename through building menu.
  
• Removed Rarity from Flots. That was confusing.
  
• Removed Flots from some Rupu loot tables. They were giving way too much.
  
• Changed Buffalo and Falco T3 legs from Reinforced to Medium.
  
• Fixed Rupu Throne rotation, position, and available poses.
  
• Maybe fixed Rupu getting stuck in Ash Region Fortress camp on Sleeping Giants (please report if it happens again).
  
• Fixed Papak, Okkam, and Nurr sometimes respawning instantly after death.
  
• Fixed Contaminated and Toxic Water not evaporating when dropped like clean one.
  
• Made Insect Bomb damage not stack the timer, but work the same as grappling hook snapping by extending the timer.
  
• Lowered Insect Bomb damage from 0.9 to 0.5 per tick.
  
• Fixed Gunpod Stinger not having Bone and Chitin ammo allowed like normal Stinger.
  
• Fixed Gunpod and Gunpod Stinger sounds not playing when in use.
  
• Added new icons for Gunpod Stinger to make it different from regular Stinger.