Release Notes for Firmament

Update 3 (01.06.2023)

Features:

• Various VFX added to spire controls.
• Various VFX added for sulfur dumps in Juleston.
• Various VFX added for certain scenarios in the end-game.
• Added power lines on each battery platform in Juleston to help players see where power is routing.
• Added a tutorial to indicate the water level needs to rise before using the cavitation hammer in Juleston.
• Added a reset to the dive area elevator so that it would reset on Teleport to Safe spot.

Fixes:

• A team of Keepers went in to maintain the ice crane in Curievale. We are happy to report that repairs have completed and it is much, much harder to get the crane stuck in unusual situations again. Additionally, the crane arm should cease from getting completely disconnected and shaking wildly upon loading a game in certain scenarios.
• Fixed the Camelus in St. Andrew being able to clip through or avoid certain collision and escape the navigable area entirely.
• Nudged a loudspeaker in the Juelston factory up a little but to avoid the sulfur cart tipping into it when it dumps.
• Added dark fade planes to the sulfur machine to try and minimize the visibility of the buckets popping in.
• Fixed the St. Andrew conservatory interior disappearing when taking the elevator down.
• Applied stability fixes to the elevators in each Arch.
• Added a check in the Camelus hatch audio to make sure the player is not socketed in the Camelus movement socket, otherwise the hatch audio would play each time a movement mode was switched.
• Fixed the music while you’re in the Camelus not properly playing.
• Added a fix to make sure to update the displayed window size after the resolution changes are applied in the graphics settings menu.
• Improved the hair shader on the Mentor so her hair doesn’t get blown out when looking at it from specific angles.
• Added a reset to the dive area elevator so that it would reset on Teleport to Safe spot.
• Removed invisible collider on a planter in the St. Andrew conservatory planter puzzle that should not have had collision.
• Fix added for windowed fullscreen support on Mac.
• Added fixes to prevent the initial ice skiff puzzle from getting stuck when collecting ice.
• Fix added for ladder floor collision preventing player from walking around the ice crane cabins
• Fix added to prevent the ice cranes from being able to shove an ice block into the ground.
• Fix added for wrong color sockets in specific areas.
• Fixed some of the ice that should be melting around ice heaters in the dive area in Curievale.
• Various minor lightmap, detail mapping, & UV fixes.
• Various minor collision fixes.
• Various minor mesh clipping fixes.

Update 2 (25.05.2023)

Fixes:

• Adjusted some meshes around the large crane area in Curievale to help alleviate some “stuckage” issues, and added more checks to make sure that the crane generally won’t get stuck. We’ll have another upcoming patch that addresses some of these cases even more as well.
• Various crash fixes for crashes folks were experiencing due to race conditions.
• Various fixes for collision in areas that should not have been blocking the player, but were, and vice-versa.
• More potential safeguards have been added for speeches getting missed, however, the majority of these issues should have been solved in Patch 1, and we have confirmed that save games that have been sent in so far to our support team that still report missing speeches do actually have speeches properly playing (they are just deliberately scarce in the part of the game folks may be playing in). The Mentor just needs to catch her breath sometimes!
• Fixed the “visually impossible gears” (3-interlocked-gears problem) on the Spire bridges.
• Fix for the crane arm in Curievale getting detached sometimes when you load a save game.
• Added catch-all zones that should plop the player back to the nearest Zone mesh if they have fallen or exited a zone. This will prevent areas from suddenly unloading entirely.
• Performance improvements to the St. Andrew conservatory interior by removing some other levels from being visible while being inside of the conservatory.
• Lowered wall collision in the St. Andrew pumphouse around the omniwheel dock so that the player is not pushed out of the omniwheel when standing by the door.
• Added collision safeguards to prevent players from getting stuck on top of the St. Andrew or Juleston bunkers when the bunkers raise.
• Minor visual tweaks and fixes throughout the game.
• Added a fix to prevent a faint breathing sound from being heard during the credits. (Yes, this is very creepy and we are glad it is fixed.)
• Fixed some aggressive LODs in various places around Firmament that didn’t need to be so aggressive. Calm down, LODs!!!!!!!!
• Moved clipboard in St. Andrew to a more discoverable location. Minor modifications to prop placement and collision to accommodate.
• Transport pod - Added a player location auto-correction to the center of the pod when loading a save game. Will fix getting stuck, and potentially triggering a link when it shouldn't.
• Fix for the gray square in the background of intro logos when using HDR.
• Added a catch-all for the transport pod linking audio. If the age selection is enabled and the linking sound is playing and the player is not in the transport pod, it will stop playing.
• Fixed a corner of the dive area in Curievale not hearing the dive audio when you are in the dive room.
• Translucency sort priority tweak to fix the Transport Pod traveling effect on the windows
• Fix for the Juleston bunker wanting to raise/lower even if there is no power after returning to the bunker once trying to open it once already.
• Fix for unloading of the St. Andrew spire interior if you run up and down the walkway toward it quickly.
• Fix for Juleston elevator potentially pushing the player off of it in VR if you were to hug the very back/side of the elevator as it ascends.
• Fixes to both the airlock/vat water and also the ocean water, to make the specular highlight a LOT less flickery/flashy on low settings.
• Made it much harder for folks to get stuck on the battery grid puzzle bridges.
• Fix for being able to take the dive suit out of the dive area and tromp around with it like a madman all around Firmament.

Update 1 (20.05.2023)

Fixes:

• Fix for the speeches in the game sometimes not playing for the rest of the game instance.
• Fix for an unload/soft block occurring if you save your game at the edge of a platform on the battery puzzle in Juleston, then try and load the game.
• Moved a speech trigger out of an odd corner of the conservatory interior to a more reasonable location.
• Extended a collider spline inside of the mixing vat in Juleston (around the railing) so that a small section now matches the majority of the interior collision. Prevents the player from becoming stuck inside the railing mesh.
• Added disabled states to the ice building platform.
• Flipped animation on the Juleston bunker pistons, as they moved in the opposite direction as the other bunkers and would clip into the surrounding rocks when the bunker was raised.
• Updated localization from our localization partner for prove-it tutorials when you get an upgrade.
• Fix for target transport pod being invisible when linking within the same age.
• Fixed the door lighting channels on the St. Andrew conservatory pod.
• Text on the transport pods in the Swan getting cut off in some localizations.
• Added a suit position for after don/doff of the suit in a certain location.
• Fix for a certain circumstance of speeches not playing after returning to the Swan.
• Fix for a sound not being affected by sound volumes set in the in-game menu.
• Fix for being able to see the unloaded interior of the conservatory or exterior courtyard.
• Added auto close regions to the purge doors (they're fairly large in order to not be defeated by the extended tether upgrade).
• Fix for purge door sockets playing the disabled sound when they shouldn’t be.
• Increased size of scroll bar in graphics settings menu.
• Decreased size of menu in 2D.
• Increased size of main menu in VR.
• Hid the frame rate limit setting in the graphics settings menu when you're in VR.
• Campaign backers only: Fix for the gamepad not focusing on the adjunct UI scale option when you move up with the d-pad from the adjunct skin option in the display settings menu.