Linux Update (25th August 2016)
- Added 64-bit Compatibility
Patch 2.0.2 (24th August 2016)
As of this update, Linux players can now experience the nightmarish joys of driving through the fog-filled apocalypse of Fear Equation! Plus, a special treat for custom passengers.
Fear Equation has been updated to version 2.0.2! This patch marks the release of the Linux version of the game.
While we can only officially support Ubuntu 12.04, the game should run on a variety of distributions. A Linux technical demo is available if you'd like to check if the game is compatible with your setup: https://forums.screwflystudios.com/index.php/topic,890.0.html
We've received a number of requests from players asking for a full, customised allotment of passengers and as of 2.0.2, this is now possible! The custom game screen has been tweaked to support up to 150 player-made passengers.
Finally, we've added five achievements based on the mysterious Wanderers. Time to harness the power of the fog for your own ends...
The changelog for 2.0.2 can be found below:
- Added: Fear Equation is now available on Linux. Please note the game is only officially supported on Ubuntu 12.04.
- Added: It is now possible to have up to 150 custom passengers. The passenger tabs have been replaced with a list that can be sorted by name, occupation and priority.
- Added: (Steam only) Five new achievements based on Wanderer interactions.
- Fixed: A typo in the beacon report.
- Fixed: An issue with Wanderers as carriage leaders.
- Fixed: An issue with passengers being killed while attacking a Wanderer.
- Performance: Optimisations to SMAA (anti-aliasing).
- Performance: Small optimisation to bloom effect.
It is recommended (but not required) you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
Patch 2.0.1 (29th March 2016)
- Fixed: (Salvation) Investigating a wanderer would cause the game to stop working correctly.
- Fixed: (Blockade) An issue with Blockade victory that could cause the game to stop working correctly.
- Fixed: (Blockade) Enemies getting stuck after a successful negotiation attempt.
- Fixed: (Blockade) A few issues with weapons not firing when they should during Blockade resolution.
- Fixed: (Blockade) The alarm sound continuing to play after a military defeat.
- Fixed: Screen flash effect not working on systems running DirectX 9.
Patch 2.0.0 (16th March 2016)
"Yes, you read that right! Fear Equation just hit the big 2.0.0. Why the jump from 1.6.0? Well, Fear Equation has received its meatiest update ever – an entirely new game mode called "Blockade"!
In this scenario, the military has set up a blockade to the East. Take a squad of military deserters, upgrade your train's weapons and bust through the blockade. But be quick and efficient: if you lose someone, you can't replace them - and in a few weeks, the military will bomb the region.
Take charge of a single carriage and 15 military deserters
Upgrade the train's weapons and take out the roaming military forces
Watch combat unfold in real-time via a new mode on the mission computer
Discover secret military documents that provide special bonuses
Manage damage to subsystems and prioritise repairs
And more...
Please note we're still fine-tuning this experimental mode, so expect a balance / bug fix patch or two down the road! We also highly recommended only experienced players tackle Blockade – a strong familiarity with the fundamentals of the game is required to master the scenario.
Regarding custom games: Firstly, custom passengers are not shared between game modes. Secondly, you cannot create custom Engineers for the Blockade scenario. Finally, the selection of occupations differs between modes, with Blockade restricted to a small pool of more combat-focused careers."
For all the changes in 2.0.0, check out the changelog below:
- Added: New game mode - Blockade. The military has set up a blockade to the East. Take a squad of military deserters, upgrade your train's weapons and bust through the blockade. Note that the original game mode is now called "Salvation".
- Tweak: Pressing the time acceleration key while in the rear section of the train during the guard phase will automatically put the player into bed.
- Tweak: Slightly increased the speed of the "falling asleep" animation.
- Tweak: The player ID card and modifier bundle have been moved to the carriage console.
- Tweak: The dream log and lottery card are now hidden for carriages containing no passengers.
- Fixed: (Windows) Reverted volumetric lighting quality to pre-1.6.0 levels.
- Fixed: Potential issues with holding the carriage console notebook and attempting actions such as moving or accelerating time.
- Fixed: "NaN" appearing in the loading text during startup.
- Fixed: The graphics options menu is no longer cut-off on non-16:10 resolutions.
- Fixed: Map generation elements not being cleaned-up properly on new games.
- Fixed: A visual issue in Direct3D 9 where UI elements would disappear.
- Fixed: A few visual issues with map pin placement.
- Fixed: Workarounds for erroneous damage messages involving the Rewind fear.
- Performance: Small optimisations to light cookie textures.
- Performance: Various optimisations to reduce memory and CPU demands.
It is recommended you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
Patch 1.6.0 (16th February 2016)
1.6.0 has arrived and along with the usual bounty of streamlining improvements, fixes and tweaks, this update marks the debut of the mysterious and powerful Wanderers.
The Wanderers are Fearless who wish to leave the fog, but need the Engineer's help to do so. When you encounter a Wanderer, you'll have to decide what to do with them. If you let them on the train, they'll bring special abilities with them – even more powerful than VIP modifiers.
The Wanderers' abilities come at a price, however. So, it's time to ask yourself: Just how far are you willing to go to survive the fog?
Also in this patch, we've added a number of settings to streamline the game for experienced players. These can be accessed via the new "Gameplay" options menu:
Page turning animations: Enabled by default.
When disabled, all books in the game, including the carriage console notebook and manuals, will have their pages turn instantly. This can also provide a performance boost on systems with low-end CPUs.
Faster movement transitions: Disabled by default.
When enabled, the crossfade effect when moving around the cabin and jumping between cabin areas will be much shorter. Turning using the keyboard is also significantly quicker.
Sleep immediately on time acceleration: Disabled by default.
When enabled, pressing the time acceleration key (normally Tab) or clicking on the clock at the front of the cabin will make the player fall asleep immediately, bypassing the need to move to the bed and wait for the sleep animation to finish.
Everything included, changed and tweaked in 1.6.0 can be found below:
- Added: The Wanderers. Wanderers are Fearless who wish to leave the fog, but need the Engineer's help to do so. Wanderers brought onto the train grant special powers... for a price.
- Added: Gameplay options menu. This menu adds the following settings: Disable page turning animations; Faster cabin movement and Instant sleep.
- Tweak: It is now possible to select pages in the carriage console notebook using 0-9, with "0" representing the 10th carriage. Pressing the tilde or minus key will select the overview pages.
- Added: Ambient sounds when passengers board and alight from the train.
- Tweak: Modifier cards provided by passengers now show which carriage that passenger is from.
- Tweak: Normal cabin movement / turning is slightly faster.
- Fixed: Idle passengers would sometimes not start repairs automatically.
- Fixed: Food not being destroyed properly, causing it to reappear in loaded games.
- Fixed: An issue with the vignette screen effect.
- Fixed: Various issues with letterboxed resolutions resulting in visual garbage.
- Fixed: Moving to and from the bed using the keyboard now plays the correct sound effects.
- Fixed: Jump keys (F1-F4) being enabled when they shouldn't.
- Fixed: Additional workarounds for the lottery phase being skipped after waking up.
- Fixed: A workaround for duplicate disappearance reports.
- Fixed: An issue with Twitch integration and SSL connections.
- Fixed: Twitch integration now uses moderator names in addition to viewers.
- Fixed: (Mac OS X) Workarounds to address visual corruption caused by the volumetric lighting effect.
- Performance: Small optimisations to book page turning.
It is recommended you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
Patch 1.5.0 (08th February 2016)
Think you have the fears of the last Nightmare Pack under control? Well, now you'll have to contend with another five fresh ones in 1.5.0!
So, what's in store for your train and its passengers?
Witches: No matter what you do, you can't heal your wounds.
Buried: The train is your coffin.
Spirits: Fallen comrades come back to life.
Wasps: An experiment gone wrong.
Snakes: Why'd it have to be snakes?
Details for previous Nightmare Packs can be found on the forums.
1.5.0 also comes with a new loss condition: Stranded. As of this update, the train starts with just three beacons. If you use them all and run out of both passengers and fuel, it's game over. Don't worry, if you prefer the old way of doing things, a new modifier is available that provides unlimited beacons.
For users with less powerful system configurations, we've added a low-quality lighting mode, which can be set in the Graphics options. This should provide a healthy framerate boost, at the expense of visual fidelity.
We've also tweaked a few balance dials behind the scenes. The biggest change is that engine upgrades now boost the train's speed. However, damaged carriages will slow you down. To help you keep track of these bonuses and penalties, a new card with all the information you need has been added to the route plotting notepad in the front cabin.
Next up, Fearless are now much more of a threat. If you happen to experience a fear attack in the same sector as a Fearless unit, your train's defences against that attack will be halved. All the more reason to give the Fearless a wide berth...
Finally, hungry passengers will last longer before perishing and upgrades at higher tiers now require more time to complete.
For the nitty-gritty of 1.5.0, check out the full changelog:
- Added: Five new fears: Witches, Buried, Spirits, Wasps and Snakes.
- Added: "Stranded" loss condition. As of 1.5.0, the train starts with three signal beacons instead of an unlimited supply. Once these are expended and the train has no fuel and no passengers, the game will end in a loss. Modifiers are available for custom engineers to alter the beacon limit. This change does not affect games currently in progress.
- Added: A card on the route plotting notepad that show the bonuses and penalties currently affecting the train's speed.
- Added: Lighting Quality graphics option. This changes the rendering pipeline from deferred shading to deferred lighting, which results in a loss of lighting fidelity, but can substantially improve performance on low-end systems. Note that on the "Low" setting, directional occlusion is replaced with ambient occlusion.
- Added: A detailed explanatory note regarding fear attacks now appears after the first such event. Players will find it positioned near the bed.
- Added: Ambient noises from the first carriage can now be heard in the Engineer's cabin.
- Added: Epilogue text is now exported when the game ends. On Windows, epilogues are stored in "My Documents\Fear Equation\Epilogues". On OS X, epilogues can be found in "Users/<USERNAME>/Documents/Fear Equation/Epilogues", where "<USERNAME>" is your OS X user name.
- Balance: Increased the time it takes to complete upgrades at higher tiers.
- Balance: Engine upgrades now increase the train's speed, but damaged carriages now reduce speed.
- Balance: Fear defense effectiveness is significantly reduced when the train occupies the same sector as a Fearless unit.
- Balance: Hungry passengers now live longer.
- Tweak: Mission equipment – by default, all are drawn from lottery carriages; added modifier to allow mission items to be drawn from any carriage.
- Fixed: OpenGL platforms now use Fast Approximate Anti-Aliasing (FXAA) instead of Subpixel Morphological Anti-Aliasing (SMAA) due to ongoing rendering issues.
- Fixed: Carriages containing passengers with a desired power setting of zero will always be set to low power when the train is refuelled after a "power out" event.
- Fixed: Incorrect gender pronouns sometimes appearing on messages.
- Fixed: Technology and Passenger concerns were not being calculated correctly.
- Fixed: Cargo items not being saved correctly, resulting in items changing when loading a game.
- Fixed: A few workarounds to try and fix sound issues on some systems.
- Fixed: Randomly-generated passengers not having portraits assigned properly.
It is recommended you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
Patch 1.4.0 (01st February 2016)
Fear Equation has just hit version 1.4.0! This update marks the arrival of our third Nightmare Pack, which includes five new fears to tackle.
Here's a taste of the terrors included:
Hunchback: A monster, a victim, a child. He just wants to play.
Void: There's nothing here but the distant stars you'll never reach.
Demons: The Devil's minions climb up from Hell to drag you down.
Creatures: Perhaps the Void isn't empty after all.
Beast: The fog lingers with those who have encountered the Beast.
Details for previous Nightmare Packs can be found on the forums.
Patch 1.4.0 also includes a bunch of new bits and pieces, including accessibility options to help colour-blind players, a multi-cargo order card, dream histories for individual passengers and various tweaks, bug fixes and optimisations.
Everything contained in v1.4.0 can be found in the change list below:
- Added: Five new fears: Hunchback, Void, Demons, Creatures and Beast.
- Added: Accessibility options – colour blindness support and high contrast text. These features are currently being refined and will be improved based on player feedback.
- Added: It is now possible to dump / move up to five cargo items at a time with the Move Cargo order.
- Added: A dream history to the passenger dossier.
- Added: The start-up screen now shows percentage progress while processing custom portraits.
- Added: A surprise ending for players who frequently kill passengers on purpose by cutting carriage power.
- Tweak: Added a Clear button to the lottery.
- Tweak: Computer status bar now shows usage instructions for order duration while the order duration dialog is visible.
- Tweak: Passengers can be removed from the lottery card and transfer card by holding shift and left-clicking.
- Tweak: More information regarding controls added to a few tutorial notes.
- Tweak: Order cards are offset slightly to the right so they don't overlap the projection wheel.
- Tweak: When moving to the carriage console or computer stations from the front or rear of the train via mouse click, the camera will automatically be rotated to face those stations.
- Fixed: Bloom levels are now clamped globally.
- Fixed: Floating radio text is no longer visible when the main menu is up.
- Fixed: A bug that allowed unlimited assignment of mission items.
- Fixed: Clicking the train's current location is now less fiddly.
- Fixed: Numerous issues with disputes and dispute canisters.
- Fixed: The destination map flag now reappears when the effects of the Absent Minded modifier wears off.
- Fixed: Movement issues when jumping from the computer while a radio channel is selected.
- Fixed: The Shadows fear blowing out lights when bloom is enabled.
- Fixed: Various workarounds for custom portrait issues.
- Fixed: The computer not resetting properly at the end of some phases.
- Fixed: The Bindings fear once again has the "ropes" intensity.
- Fixed: An issue that could cause the player to miss the lottery phase.
- Fixed: The "Calm Down Everyone" modifier can now be selected.
- Fixed: Custom portrait issue on certain system configurations.
- Fixed: A selection bug when only one location is available to raid.
It is recommended you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
Patch 1.3.3 (22 January 2016)
- Note to Mac OS X users: You will need to install Mono in order to run the update.
- Added: Twitch integration. To enable, select Options -> Twitch Settings from the main menu and enter a valid Twitch channel name. If the channel is found, passengers will be generated using chat usernames. You can also create random passengers from chat users in the Custom game screen.
- Added: Two new graphics options for high-end PC: Real-time reflections and an "Ultra" mode for directional occlusion.
- Added: A message on the main menu screen explaining that saving is only possible during the Lottery phase.
- Added: Resolution support for 1280 x 1024 screens.
- Balance: Rescued survivors no longer have an immediate effect on dreams.
- Balance: Fuel consumption has been reduced by 20%.
- Balance: Reduced the radius bonus of the level II radio upgrade.
- Tweak: On Windows, custom portraits can now be placed in "My Documents\Fear Equation\UserPortraits".
- Tweak: Pressing spacebar (or return) now confirms an order duration.
- Tweak: Fear attack jump points now provide a better view out the cabin windows.
- Tweak: Increased the font size of dream notes and the dream folder is now docked closer to the player camera.
- Tweak: Reduced the intensity of red text on the route planner.
- Tweak: The cursor on the in-game computer is hidden while a Hail Mary or beacon is running.
- Tweak: Once a mission order is confirmed, the status bar will return to the passenger selection menu.
- Tweak: Defenses now have a different outline to regular cargo items.
- Tweak: It is no longer necessary to zoom into the computer to read a message capsule or turn the radio on/off.
- Tweak: Cargo items now have a highlight when moused over.
- Tweak: Slightly increased the player's keyboard turning speed.
- Tweak: Radio and mission transcripts on the computer are now read automatically when you move through them with the up/down arrow keys.
- Fixed: Several fixes to message system to prevent "floating" capsules.
- Fixed: Fuel estimate inconsistency after plotting a route.
- Fixed: Passenger radar dots were sometimes not scaled properly.
- Fixed: It's no longer possible to click "through" the route planner and manipulate the train controls.
- Fixed: A rare error when distributing items during world generation.
- Fixed: A workaround for a visual issue on Mac OS X at game start.
- Fixed: The fog light now turns off when the fog level is low.
- Fixed: A number of issues with saving and loading games.
- Fixed: A number of issues with abandoning and then starting a new game.
- Fixed: Workarounds for custom portraits not working correctly on lower-end systems.
- Fixed: Carriage console power bars are now more accurate.
- Fixed: A contradiction in the train manual relating to phase start and end times.
- Fixed: Dead VIPs causing problems with the player's modifier card stack.
- Fixed: Projection wheel dot positions and sizes not updating to match the wheel mode on page turn.
- Fixed: Keyboard location panning is disabled when the order duration dialog is visible.
- Fixed: Clicking "Confirm" on the order duration dialog no longer makes the location view snap around.
- Performance: Many optimisations to reduce CPU workload, memory usage and intermittent stuttering.
- It is recommended you start a new game after updating, as saved games may not be compatible between versions.
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Note to Mac OS X users: You will need to install Mono in order to run the update.
1.3.2-hotfix (OSX only) (18 January 2016)
- Hotfix for colour inversion that occurs upon game start.
