Happy Build Day Survivalist,
We have just released Alpha 7 which I must say is our biggest update to date! The build offers a complete world visual overhaul with new smooth terrain, ground textures, plants, trees and a new lighting model. We’ve also added a stealth system with noises, smells and a rock throwing distraction system. If that wasn’t enough we’ve added a cooking/chemistry system with new and improved recipes. We’ve also added loot and crafting timers, new death/drop, spawning and joining options, a new sound mixing system, a mining helmet a flashlight bind key, some new animations and many bug fixes.
Note: With the addition of cooking and the campfire system, saves for versions prior to 7 will be incompatible. Alpha 7 will be the main build now!

Official Alpha 7 Release Notes

Added

• Added new smooth terrain imported from the old world. The full terrain smoothing pass will come in the next big release
• Added new high res ground terrain textures, new model trees, bushes, cactus, grass and destroyed building block pieces. Who says the apocalypse can’t be a beautiful place.
• Added new sun shaft and brighter moon
• Added a new stealth system with minimap noise blips, zombie color aggression icons and an object throwing distraction system which currently works with small rocks and pipebombs. The system also uses food smells. Meats smell the most, then charred, grilled and boiled smelling the least. Carbs smell the least, raw or cooked, at least to zombies, so things like corn bread and blueberry pie that do not increase your health but can fill you up smell very little. You can now run away in the dark and crouch and lose enemies. No more zombie GPS!
• Added a campfire cooking system with many newly and improved recipes. The system uses 4 cookware including a cooking pot, grilling plate, sharp stick or chemistry beaker. Having a specific cookware combined with your ingredients unlocks new recipes.
• Added a new horde spawning system where player’s noises contribute to the possibility of a horde spawning. Zombies no longer no exactly where you are day or night.
• Added a new loot opening timer system. Crouching will take longer to open a loot container but make less noise. Take all gathers items quicker but makes more noise.
• Added crafting time for crafting which improves the survival experience.
• Added a new lighting model which allows point lights in the world and flashlights and torches to look better.
• Added a flashlight binding key ‘F’ which toggles on and off your flashlight or new mining helmet if you have.
• Added LOD for trees and large bushes and a slider in the video options that can be tuned to boost performance
• Added new player spawn rules: New players in coop spawn near other players. Solo players spawn at start points. New players in PVP spawn at the nearest spawn 100 meters away from other players. If you quit and rejoin it spawns you where you were at. When you die if you don’t have a bedroll its spawn you randomly 75 meters away from your death location. If you a bedroll and dies a selection comes 1. Spawn at bedroll 2. Spawn near from bedroll (75 meters away)
• Added new drop on death and quit options drop nothing, everything, tool belt and backpack only.
• Added new player dropped backpack model and map icon so you can find your loot. The system only displays your last dropped backpack and the backpack stays in the world until it’s emptied.
• Added start inventory of one water bottle and one can of chili
• Added regular zombie, fat zombie and snow zombie idle, walk and pain animations
• Added glass jar forging & molds, windows now have a chance to drop broken glass items that can be collected and melted into glass objects
• Added in an industrial wall light and fluorescent ceiling light
• Added model and icon for crushed sand
• Added Goldenrod Tea, charred, grilled and boiled meat recipes
• Added campfire and cook pots to the cabins
• Added new stone hit sound set
• Added Glass window forging
• Added ‘Destruction’ group in the creative menu and icons which contains all destruction sets
• Added preview icons for all existing building destruction sets modular sets
• Added impact particle effects for various materials vs snow terrain and block destroy effect for snow
• Added mining helmet to loot
• Added impact particle effects for stone vs various materials
• Added gravel recipe from destroyed concrete
• Added new icon for Coal Ore
• Added four variation set of steel sink faucet models
• Added brass version of sink faucet set
• Added gravel underground and reduced its stability so it can cave in making natural ore veins

Changes

• Changed the flashlight and torch to useable melee weapons
• Changed Rotated wood planks and rich wood so it tiles on stairs correctly
• Changed pig, rabbit and stag art
• Changed zombie hand animations to be more lifelike
• Changed sand so it can no longer make glass, but it can be crafted into crushed sand which can be used with the new glass forging system
• Changed Player punch does much less block damage
• Change Removed recipe to make empty jars from sand and thin metal plates
• Change lowered health regeneration rate
• Change filling water bottles now gives you river water instead of pure water
• Change water can be boiled into pure water in the cooking pot
• Change removed glass pane recipe from sand
• Change removed bed frame recipe
• Change reduced chance to find backpacks, purse, suitcases, etc
• Changed Rotated white and black woods so they tiled better
• Changed Log blocks only yield 2 wood planks instead of 4
• Changed Log spikes only yield 1 wood plank instead of 2
• Changed Slowed fire rate of knives and improved animation
• Changed Slowed rate of fire on stone axe and improved animation
• Changed ore to be several clusters
• Changed weight of iron ore to 96 ounces instead of 432 ounces since it is found in clusters
• Changed stone stairs to be cobblestone stairs
• Changed gunpowder and gas can recipe to be made with chemistry
• Changed all prefabs in the world to use new smooth terrain blocks where applicable
• Changed all destroyed and burnt buildings in the world to use some of the new block destruction set
• Changed wooden furniture you can pick up a fuel value so it can be burned
• Changed thinned loot containers in business areas in the plains/grasslands and upped spawning
• Changed lower stainless steel fridge to not be a loot container
• Changed sledgehammer hold and attacks
• Changed Biome spawning to improve zombie counts
• Changed stack number on crushed sand to 16
• Changed Concrete blocks break down into gravel now
• Changed red plank and red barnwood recipes to require less flowers per wood ratio
• Changed pine forest spectrum to have more variety
• Changed gravel so it’s harder to mine and iron ore weigh less
• Changed concrete recipe so it requires gravel instead of stone or destroyed concrete
• Changed Removed potassium nitrate, coal and lead ore from the world, instead it is found randomly when iron ore is destroyed

Bug Fixes

• Fixed reflective water is not switched off unless you quit the game and re-start again
• Fixed zombie dogs so they don’t spin circles
• Fixed hunting rifle, sniper rifle reload animations to not jerk the camera
• Fixed bushes to break easier and drop sticks
• Fixed burnt zombie so he has the right shader
• Fixed windows so zombies can see through them
• Fixed naked zombies not always playing their attack animations
• Fixed hunting rifle ammo icon based on bug report
• Fixed problem that chunks were not drawn any more
• Fixed crouch punch for male
• Fixed feet clipping on the zombie dog
• Fixed crouch punch for female
• Fixed wasteland having concrete layer under it

Known Issues

• When you light a pipebomb and don’t throw it, it will explode but the pipebomb is not “deleted”/removed from your inventory. If you die, all of them are dropped, including the one that exploded.
• Players can sometimes get stuck in small vertical spaces less than 2 blocks high like on top of a cinder block or trash pile
• Mac builds need to quit via the task manager
• Rocket Launchers and Hunting Rifles cannot be broken down yet or crafted
• Upgrading to Alpha 7 will sometimes cause players to lose key bindings go into options/controls/restore defaults and hit apply then close the game and start again to fix the problem
• Augers and Chainsaw make idle sounds when they are out of gas
• Sometimes trees are not rendered but their collision is there. The work around is to restart your server and restart your game. We will work on this for a patch.