Optional Beta 0.22103* - Short Beta To Test Changes

MikeSlugDisco

Community Manager
Staff member
Community Manager
We're running a very short optional beta for this one. It's mainly a bug fixing patch, but the fixes potentially have some far reaching implications and we'd like to be sure we haven't missed anything huge. We'd appreciate any feedback on issues you experience in this beta - if you're on Windows 64 bit and would like to participate in this short beta, read on.

We are looking for more information about a known bug where a leafcutter gets stuck on a plant with an exclamation mark appearing above its head. If this happens to you we would appreciate anything you can tell us or show us (screenshots or videos) about how it happened and if the leafcutter was affected by a status effect at the time (for example confuse caused by a devil’s coach horse).

Additionally we would appreciate it if you could let us know if anything unusual happens with creatures using their abilities. Any freezing, stuck in animations or changes to how it worked before would help. We made a change to something fairly fundamental to do with abilities which is why we are asking for information around them.

The beta code is summertimeants - the same as it has been recently. If you’re unfamiliar with how to activate a Steam beta, here’s how to do it:
  1. Find Empires of the Undergrowth in your Steam library, right-click on it and choose "Properties"
  2. Choose the "Betas" tab
  3. In the box titled "Enter beta access code to unlock private betas", enter summertimeants
  4. After the "Access code correct" information appears, make sure you've chosen "openbeta" from the "Select the beta you would like to opt into" drop-down menu
  5. Press close - the game will now update to the beta branch.
Fixes
  • Fixed an issue where food buried underground but not part of a cavern would not be labelled as buried and not seen as an outline
  • Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
  • Placing a marker on an enemy nest exit whilst your ants are in a different enemy nest will now cause your ants to leave the nest they are in
  • Fixed a bug that allowed you to get a refund for a tile upgrade if cancelled the same frame it was completed (was easier on low FPS computers)
  • Fixed a couple of painting issues on the surface to do with tunnel exits when they are not tunnelled out
  • Fixed a crash that could occur in formicarium challenge 3 when the hand moved
  • Player not selecting a unit option in freeplay will no longer refer to wood ants
  • Fixed a crash that could occur on low end hardware
  • Tunnel door now correctly stops ants walking through on The Other Foot
  • Freeplay maps without a map option now grey out the option in the basic setup
  • Fixed an issue for Russian language in the main menu text
  • Fixed an issue that could cause creatures to freeze in an animation until the player looks at them
  • Fixed a couple of spellings on the freeplay scoreboard
  • Fixed an issue where creatures could get stuck in the tunnel exit at a low frame rate
  • Fixed an issue that could rarely cause a creature to get stuck in the air when picked up by a praying mantis
  • Fixed an issue where the praying mantis could on rare occasions freeze doing nothing
  • Fixed some visual underground tile bugs
  • Fixed some UI issues with freeplay setup
  • Fixed an issue with pathing at the northern end of Basin
  • Destructible barriers can no longer be knocked back or affected by other effects
Changes
  • Barrier between nests in Basin is no longer destructible if you are not allied with the colony on the other side
  • Barriers that are destructible in Basin now appear as pieces of wood rather than stone
  • The Hungry Spider level’s uber beach wolf spider can now take more than 6 damage per hit (should be easier to kill with a bite build now)
  • Added in notifications explaining how to combat phorid flies in 3.1 and 3.2
  • The player is now given a warning that they could lose their rewards if they try and restart a level when rewards are waiting for them in the formicarium
  • Quitting or restarting Extremis now gives the player the reward points they had earned up to that point
  • Some creatures now cannot be knocked back or forced to flee
  • Some more improvement to funnel web performance in freeplay
  • Smoothed some of the landscape at the edge of 2.2 and prevented some tiles poking through the sea bed
  • Forum link changed to discord and patch notes link updated
  • Mole cricket (and uber mole cricket) added to the Battle Arena
  • Couple of icon updates for ant species in Battle Arena
  • Slave maker ants added to Battle Arena
  • Uber mole cricket can now be unlocked for freeplay by completing Excavators (should be retroactive)
  • Dropped creatures will now try and drop where they are held rather than the centre of the holding creature
EDIT: Update to 0.22103

An update to the currently running short optional beta for Empires of the Undergrowth. This will only affect you if you've opted into the beta on Steam. Details:
  • Hunter and Domination game modes in freeplay no longer disable colony attacks
  • Simplified some interaction in the freeplay menus that were causing issues to do with creature checkboxes and the creatures type dropdown
  • Fixed a typo in the Discord tooltip
  • Fixed an issue preventing uber mole crickets spawning in freeplay
  • Fixed an issue where status effects were not being dealt with correctly in priority order (for example a creature could flee when stunned)
  • Fixed an issue where turning food gathering off whilst an ant was gathering caused it to walk back and forth to the food it was going to gather
  • Fixed some UI interaction issues with the freeplay setup menu especially when opening a saved setup
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Randomised caverns for leafcutters now produce smaller leaves as so not poke through the surface and are randomly rotated
I just discovered something interesting: Randomly generated caverns don't generate if you set the cavern resources slider to minimum and set cavern danager to a non-minimum value.
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Things not saved in the freeplay setup or displaying incorrectly after loading my saved setup:
Basic Setup:
Map. (Saved asBasin, loaded to The Dunes)
AI and player unit options. (Saved with leafcutter stun major for player and all 3 AI colonies. Upon loading the setup leafcutter taunt was selected for all.)
Difficulty. (Saved withInsane, loaded to easy)
Randomised Caverns. (Saved as on, loaded to off in Basic setup, on in Level Setup.)

Environmental Difficulty Setup:
Difficulty. (Same as Basic Setup)
Difficulty over time. (Saved as constant, loaded to Ramp.)

Level Setup:
Map. (Same as Basic Setup)
Randomized Caverns. (Saved as on, loaded to on in Level Setup, off in Basic Setup.)

There may be more settings not saving/loading correctly, I have not tried out all settings yet.

Edit:
The video footage, just in case I messed up and misreported something.
 
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HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Changing the Difficulty Over Time greys out the Export, Delete and Save buttons in the Freeplay Setup menu. I don't think that's intentional?
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Ehhh... That's not supposed to happen?

Edit:
For those who did not immediately see in the video, there are some tiles in the top of the screen that turn white for a frame if the camera enters/exits a certain area.
 
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HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
Before I forget, I think I saw some stray food pixels on the underground minimaps of the different underground areas on Basin. (Not sure if it is on all of them, I have seen it on one or two minimaps.)
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
Ehhh... That's not supposed to happen?

Edit:
For those who did not immediately see in the video, there are some tiles in the top of the screen that turn white for a frame if the camera enters/exits a certain area.
This has always been the case, I believe its a graphical issue to do with things not being rendered that are not on the screen then suddenly on for a split second, It probably needs addressing at some point will make sure its in the reports
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
AI and player unit options. (Saved with leafcutter stun major for player and all 3 AI colonies. Upon loading the setup leafcutter taunt was selected for all.)
I am getting really inconsistent results in testing this. I think the issue is being caused by events firing between basic setup option changes and colony setup. It seems to be working now but I don't think I made a change that would have fixed it.
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
Difficulty. (Saved withInsane, loaded to easy)
This difficulty selection is not loaded at all. The truth is is it not a real option but it is just something that changes the other difficulty options. On loaded setups I will flick it to custom as that is the only thing that will make sense
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
Changing the Difficulty Over Time greys out the Export, Delete and Save buttons in the Freeplay Setup menu. I don't think that's intentional?
Changing anything that is not a basic setup option switches the game from saved setup to custom as you have moved away from the original setup, however it pretty much makes save useless as not much can be saved, a few things can but most changes need to be saved as. Perhaps needs more thought
 

JohnSlugDisco

Administrator
Staff member
Developer of EotU
Before I forget, I think I saw some stray food pixels on the underground minimaps of the different underground areas on Basin. (Not sure if it is on all of them, I have seen it on one or two minimaps.)
I think they might just be the buried leafcutter queens that are lying around
 

HofNerd

Colony
Beta Tester
Extremely Helpful Person
I think they might just be the buried leafcutter queens that are lying around
Sometimes I wish buried corpses were visible like food items, they are the only buried thing that is not visible. (But they are visible on the map.) I think it's still a bit odd the buried queen is there even though the caverns were randomly generated.
 
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