Hi everyone, and welcome to another VEIN Weekly! We're doing more basic/preparatory/behind the scenes stuff in service of getting 0.023 out. It's taking way too long, so we want to focus entirely on stuff that will get it out of the gate sooner rather than later. At the same time, we've got a partially assembled team that is working on new content and bugfixes while we push towards getting the update out. Here's what we've been working on.

We've finally started testing for Steam Deck. There are a lot of problems we weren't aware of with it, such as broken UI. It's also helped us with testing very-low-end platforms. While this isn't especially relevant to most of our players (most players are on mid-to high-tier PCs according to our stats), it still holds impact, as any improvements to very-low-end are that much better on the high-end. If we improve low-end performance, we then have bandwidth to improve things on the high-end such as lighting quality, zombie graphical quality, etc.

Ani has been working on some very satisfying new animations for the .38 Special. We'll be testing this in-game over the next few days. Our current character arms are placeholders, so there will be a bit of a transition process as we get these running. The same goes for our character and zombie art – as we replace these, there will be a period of having both the new and old art in the game, so bear with us.

We added freezer controls, similar to thermostats, that turn on and off walk-in freezers.

With the work on Steam Deck support, we're continuing work on controller/gamepad support. This involves more UI rewriting, which has already broken some features on [c]experimental[/c] branch as of this writing (like lockpicking). We're going to have to test 0.023 thoroughly.

On the topic of testing, though, we're happy to welcome Noname to the team, who will be helping with quality assurance. Noname has been playing VEIN for quite some time and we're already finding and fixing a ton of bugs with his help.

The VEIN soundtrack has been updated, courtesy of Remancer! You can find the soundtrack on various streaming platforms. You can find links to it here[linktr.ee], and the Steam soundtrack will be updated soon.

We added the ability to wire radiators to gas tanks.

Air conditioners on roofs not working has been fixed. They should now show up in thermostat panels. We also separated out central air and heating systems in buildings, so some buildings have central air or central heating but not both.

We fixed a long standing bug of players getting cut by barbed wire on top of fence gates, fixed some issues with not being able to pick up stuff on rugs, fixed incorrect crafting time tooltips, fixed warehouse ladders blocking the camera, etc. We're continuing to fix bugs over time. We don't list many bug fixes in the weekly update just because we don't think it's very interesting; not many people are here to read the changelog – you're more interested in what we're doing on a larger scale and how we're growing the game and moving forward. (At least, I think so).

I'm continuing to work on foliage optimization and have done a few fixes over the last few days, which are now on the [c]experimental[/c] Steam beta branch. There's more to do on this for sure, but we're making headway.

We're in the design stages of a couple new systems and changes to the game. The first is the mastery system. Many players have reached level 100 in at least a handful of stats after hours in-game. The mastery system will function as a sort of prestige: once you hit level 100, you continue to gain experience, which funnels into mastery points after a certain point. Mastery points can then be spent on simple buffs, like extra max HP, faster melee attacks, etc. The point is to give end-game players continued rewards for continued XP gain.

We're also designing a new utility cabinet/base protection system. Currently, base ownership is tied to the closest utility cabinet to the fortification – if you're a member of that utility cabinet, the nearby fortifications are owned by you. This means ownership is tied to utility cabinets. In the new system, when you build a fortification, the fortification is associated to your character, not a utility cabinet. Utility cabinets will be purely for base maintenance, not ownership.

If another player's utility cabinet moves closer to the fortification, the fortification ownership still won't change. Raiding a base and getting to the utility cabinet has the same effect as it does now – you become the new owner of everything in the radius – but this new system should stop a few exploits. In addition, it lets us finally allow moveable utility cabinets on vehicles (e.g. RV bases, train bases, boat bases, etc.)

We also have the Groups section in the Journal, which has a separate group system. We're going to merge the two. Anyone in your Journal group will be considered a base owner.

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So, a pretty boring week. Unfortunately, as we've said in past weekly updates, we have to get a lot of boring stuff done to get 0.023 out the door.

If you're interested in helping out, as always, feel free to send a portfolio or resume to jobs@ramjetstudios.com, as we are continuing to go through applications we receive.

Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week!