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Expressive Upgrade Testing Branch is now Open! - 277292


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Hello all you beautiful people!

Like waking from a daze, the Duplicants have suddenly become aware of life going on around them. They've become concerned for their fellow Duplicant. They've started wanting more out of their existence on this little asteroid. They've invented video games.

If you're interested, you can help us test this new content for the next two weeks before it goes live. As always we appreciate your feedback, so please share your thoughts and opinions on the Suggestions Forum. Thank-you!

Please note: The socialization and recreation systems are still being roughed in, so you'll find more loose ends and missing details than usual at the moment. We still have to add things like tooltips and icons, UI for the schedule, attributes and effects actually modifying each other, and so forth. We encourage you to comment on the game as you're currently experiencing it, as we'll be considering your feedback while we develop these systems.

What does this testing branch contain so far?

The following content is available in the testing branch:

Spoiler

Content:

  • New "work time" during the day:
    • Duplicants will avoid eating or peeing during work
    • After work, Duplicants will eat, pee, and enjoy their leisure time
  • Many new Duplicant "reactions" to:
    • Status effects
    • Fellow Duplicants
    • Environmental factors
  • Duplicants will converse with each other occasionally
    • Including animated mouths and eyes!
  • Quality of Life to replace food/decor expectations
    • Food, rooms, and recreation improve Quality of Life
  • Save camera positions with Shift 1-9, jump to them with Ctrl 1-9

Technical changes:

  • Improved boot times and load times, minor performance fixes
    • Many of these changes won't be noticeable in the Testing branch due to the debug logging, but will have impact in the Release branch in 2 weeks.
  • Fixed graphical issues that many OSX users were experiencing
  • Fix a startup crash due to GPU scaling
  • Cleaned up a number of memory leaks, especially when reloading a game

Check the patch notes for the most up-to-date changes!

What is open testing?

"Open testing" means players get to test-drive new content early and give us feedback and suggestions before it goes live. Because this is an unfinished and in active development version of the upgrade being released on June 14th, it's pretty likely you'll encounter bugs, crashes or balance issues while playing these builds. We'll try to fix any problems that crop up as quickly as we can, but it's possible you'll lose progress in your games while playing on the Testing branch.

Regarding performance, the Testing branch has additional debugging tools enabled to help us track down crashes. This makes the game run more slowly than the live version of the game.

Please also be aware that once a save is loaded in the Testing branch, it cannot be reopened again in the previous Live branch or previous builds.

Note that the Preview branch is now called the Testing branch.

What do I do if I find a crash or a bug?

Post it up on the Bug Tracker and we'll fix it as soon as we can. If you can attach a copy of your save file to your report, that helps us even more as we can pinpoint the source of problem more quickly.

Do I have to play the open testing build?

Nope! If you'd prefer to only play a stable build, you can continue to play in the current Early Access branch until the Expressive Upgrade releases in full on July 26th. Playing the Open Testing build isn't necessary, but it helps us a lot to receive your feedback and reports - if you're interested, try it out!

How do I become an open tester?

There's no sign up or registration for becoming an open tester. If you own Oxygen Not Included and want to join the Testing Branch, all you have to do is play the Open Testing build on Steam.

How do I play the open testing build?

You can switch your branch on Steam using the instructions below:

Spoiler

How to change branches in Oxygen Not Included (Steam)

  • In Steam, click on Library > Games.
  • Scroll down to Oxygen Not Included.
  • Right-click and select Properties.
  • Go to the BETAS tab.
  • In the dropdown, select the name of the branch you want to play. In this case, the branch name is "expressive_upgrade_testing"
    • This branch does not require a password.
  • In that same Properties window, go to the Local Files tab and press "Verify Integrity Of Game Cache."
  • Your game will be updated to the the previous branch.
  • Launch and play Oxygen Not Included

That's it! We hope you'll enjoy this taste of what's to come, and thank-you for your help testing out the new Upgrade!

 

 

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Meh... normally I go bonkers for your updates, but this one seems very very small. I actually thought you'd be adding in video games or recreation stuff after reading your opening lines there.

This seems more like a rework of the food/room system than an actual update with new material. Just being honest. Don't hate on me pls <3

 

 

Edit: I see a lot of that stuff in pictures posted above, but not that notes. Guess I'll have to test this out to see what we're really getting, as the patch notes aren't specific at all.

Edited by BadlyBurned
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I'm absolutely amazed that you finally added the "work time" to the game to force dupes to behave more efficiently (i'm still going to lock the door for days, to be sure they are 100% efficient tho). So BIG THANKS for that :)

However i was really hoping you'll also fix the dupes dropping stuff whenever they "change their mind" (going to the toilet, bed, going to eat, sneeze, etc). If it's really difficult to do then i'm sorry, i'll gladly wait longer. But ultimately this dupe behavior should stop. 

We have enough content to master so far, let's make it less irritating to play with ... keep up the good work ;) 

Edited by Ashpoker
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Just now, BlueLance said:

I do admit I feel kinda blegh about my dupes now having time off. but heck I honestly cant complain.... on brighter news, no need to re start a colony!

5 FPS with test version and my 500+ cycle base..

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Just now, turbonl64 said:

I can confirm that it is a huge drop in performance. I'll be beta testing to help the developers out, but if you want to play this preview branch for fun you will have to start a new colony to keep the FPS under control.

Yep. I wait for release, playing with my old base (40 FPS)..

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22 minutes ago, malloc said:

Started a new colony, black hole at the end of cycle 1/start of cycle 2.

same sent in a report although it saved and reloaded on day 2 so progress happens at least

Same crash on start of day 3 just after save

Edited by heckubis
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14 minutes ago, Ashpoker said:

However i was really hoping you'll also fix the dupes dropping stuff whenever they "change their mind" (going to the toilet, bed, going to eat, sneeze, etc). If it's really difficult to do then i'm sorry, i'll gladly wait longer. But ultimately this dupe behavior should stop. 

This! My biggest issue too. Cant they finish what they were doing? Unless they really gonna piss himself.

 

13 minutes ago, Oozinator said:

5 FPS with test version and my 500+ cycle base..

Im afraid to load my 1200 cycle base. But then again don't forget test branch have debugging on so it will lag a lot more.

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