De-Jank and Game Juice Update (1.17.0-rc.1/rc.2)

Dear Feature-Rich Community
v1.17.0-rc.2, an unstable release, can now be downloaded through the account manager

[Please use this to replace rc.1 if you already downloaded it, as it now turns out that rc.1 had a little bug introduced at the last minute...]

We are inching ever closer to 1.17 stable
This release should be crash free for most players and safe to use for creating new 1.17 worlds.  If upgrading your 1.16 worlds to 1.17, there is an issue with the water and reeds in this release rc.2 (that issue will be fixed and existing water anomalies healed in our next release), so you may want to hold off playing existing worlds until the next release.  We do recommend making backups of worlds that you value. We'd also like to use this moment to send out a heartfelt thank you to everyone that has tested the pre-releases - your testing, bug reporting and general feedback are immensely helpful to us. Thank you so much for the support!

As usual for rc (release candidate) releases, we will here only list everything we have newly added since pre.1. Please also look at the pre.1 update for a list of the features added since 1.16. When the first stable 1.17 release comes out, we will then present you with a complete feature list.

Game updates

• Everything listed in the pre.1 blogpost
• Feature: Added an oxygen meter. Can now only breathe for 20 seconds underwater, as opposed to infinite air
• Feature: Added "arctic supplies" stashes to arctic climates, comes in 40 variants
• Feature: New rain drip behavior for leaves and stick layers. Added Accumulating droplets. Keeps on dripping for a while after the rain stopped
• Feature: Directional water physics. Doors, slabs, chiseled blocks, etc. now provide directional blocking of water flow for greater realism
• Feature: Handbook improvements
  • The handbook now also shows how a block/item can be stored
  • Added guides in the handbook on Dye Making and Ground Storage
  • Added text about swapping glass panes to the lantern entry
  • Added description of how to make ferrous (iron) anvils
  • Chairs are now grouped in the handbook
  • Improved handbook hotkey (<hk>) visuals. They now look like the hotkeys shown in the in-game block interaction help
• Feature: Continued work on shields
  • All shields now craftable. Most of them have a new recipe. Ornate shields can only be made by a tailor
  • Added metal hoops and bosses. Made by smithing. Shields are now crafted with hoops and bosses instead of metal plates
  • Shield now properly scale for ground storage. They don't fit as nicely if you try to place two shields next to each other now, but it looks better overall. Deemed a worthy trade-off
  • Added appropriate stats to all shields
  • Rebalanced shield durability. Blackguard shield no longer top durability, but cheaper to make than full metal shields
  • Adjusted transforms for shields, blades, and shovel
  • Fixed wrong naming on metal shields
• Tweak: Reworked waypoint dialog. Icon and color are now a grid of clickable icons.
• Tweak: All tools can now be placed on the ground
• Tweak: Bears no longer spawn (runtime and during worldgen) in the first 4 in-game days and wolves don't spawn in the first 4 in-game hours. This should help with getting killed right at the start of a new (single player) world.  This change will not affect multi-player servers which have already been running for more than 4 in-game days.
• Tweak: Most land creatures now flee from bears
• Tweak: Players should no longer spawn underwater in new worlds. Search range for solid land broadened, if it still fails to find land, it will spawn a block of planks for the player to rest on instead, i.e. a mini-raft
• Tweak: Dye System fine tune
  • Dyes are now made with water instead of diluted alum/cassiterite/chromite
  • Dye-making now requires a barrel for mordants and a barrel for dyes instead of combining both of them
  • Reduced and standardized the amount of alum/cassiterite/chromite needed to make a mordant
  • Added a mordanted cloth variant, which is now used for dyeing
  • Reduced the amount of dye liquid needed to dye cloth
  • Woad blue now has its own dye barrel since it doesn't require a mordant
  • Black dye now made by adding pigment to gray dye, similar to orange dye
  • Removed Brown dye until we add more pigment options for it. For now, cloth can be added to strong tannin to make brown cloth without needing a mordant
• Tweak: Added tool mode icons for the scythe
• Tweak: Leather can now be dyed pink
• Tweak: Ales now give Grain nutrition
• Tweak: Wrench can now also be used to rotate chiseled blocks
• Tweak: Added more descriptions for the smithing GUI
• Tweak: Replaced the 360° character autoturn in the character dialog into a light left-right swivel
• Tweak: Hares now also eat peanut plants, and early stages of rice and amaranth
• Tweak: Added more credits to the credits screen.
• Tweak: Tannin can now be made out of acacia logs as well as oak.
• Tweak: Adjusted the crafting cost of hide and pelt-based clothing. Costs less in general now, and crafting costs scale based on hide size instead of all having the same cost, e.g. 8 small hides are worth the same as 1 huge hide.
• Tweak: Adjusted lamellar armor crafting to follow the same principle of scaling hide sizes as above ^. Wood lamellar can now be repaired, only requiring firewood.
• Tweak: Oiled/curing hides now also scale according to hide size. For example, 1 piece of fat can make 4 small oiled hides, 2 medium hides, or 1 large hide. Huge hide now requires 2 fat.
• Tweak: Can now do "/worldconfigcreate int lungCapacity [milliseconds]" to define for how long a player has air (default: 20000)
• Tweak: Can now do "/worldconfigcreate int fertilityRecoverySpeed [speed]" to define farmland recovery speed (1.16 default: 0.33)
• Tweak: Added missing mushroom ingredient names
• Tweak: Disabled all custom cursors on MacOS, mouse controls may now be less glitchy on MacOS Catalina and above
• Tweak: Added helpful descriptions for items that can be used as a mordant
• Tweak: Held items can now also emit light (i.e. the candle)
• Tweak: Adjusted a couple animations to work better in Immersive First Person mode
• Tweak: Fish now die when exposed to air for 30 seconds. Fixed upright dead fish model
• Tweak: Increased the size of a number of items when dropped
• Tweak: Server admin: Handle invalid SaveFileLocation more gracefully and log to server-main.txt
• Tweak: Mitigate lag spikes caused by ground storage
• Tweak: Some texts were not translatable, updated community translations
• Tweak: Mitigate sizzle sound spam + OOM by reducing its sound range from 32 to 16 blocks
• Fixed: Able to chute-push random items into ground storage areas
• Fixed: Tiny memory leak in the main menu
• Fixed: Crafting dupe bug with some recipes
• Fixed: Falling sand block oddities in certain cases
• Fixed: Hopper item collecting oddities
• Fixed: Avoid a crash in the fruit tree block entity (report an error instead)
• Fixed: Selecting a very large view distance in single player then reloading the world made it revert back to a shorter view distance
• Fixed: Missing tool mode info on prospecting picks
• Fixed: Game crashing on ".debug perceptioneffects"
• Fixed: Mitigate occasional z-fighting on overlapping leaf blocks with wind motion
• Fixed: Infinite crafting dupe glitch when the inventory is full
• Fixed: Exception thrown on invalid book shelves
• Fixed: Some mushroom stews were invisible
• Fixed: Better localization for a few mushrooms.
• Fixed: Missing block broken particles on ores
• Fixed: Liquid dupe bug with barrels
• Fixed: Barrel closing sound not playing in some cases
• Fixed: Game freezing on the singleplayer screen if a savegame is write locked
• Fixed: Repairing armor consumed all materials. Now only consumes as much as needed.
• Fixed: Pink bonnet and funeral bell mushroom not poisonous
• Fixed: Mitigate derpy turning behavior in 3rd person while swimming
• Fixed: Game crashing when looking at a chiseled block with a soldering iron in hands
• Fixed: Too high speed on a shader effect on lava
• Fixed: Able to move a dialog outside the screen and no way to recover it. Reopening the dialog will now move a corner back into the window so it can be dragged back
• Fixed: Solved an issue that caused the game to crash when the `handle` texture for shields was not found.
• Fixed: Center aligned richtext did not properly align in some cases
• Fixed: Fruit tree error log spam
• Fixed: Various texture errors logged to client-main.txt on startup
• v1.17 related changes
  • Tweak: Performance: Use native ZStd library on Windows platforms for more efficient memory management
  • Fixed: Rapid breaking of adjacent reeds (and other blocks more generally)
  • Fixed: Water buckets placement issue (fixes a more general issue where ExchangeBlock calls were not respecting the liquids layer; also now allows water buckets to place water down onto any non-solid block)
  • Fixed: Should fix oddities when placing water from a bucket in existing water
  • Fixed: All clutter blocks generated underground were invisible
  • Fixed: Falling snow block behavior not working
  • Fixed: Panning bony soil not working correctly
  • Fixed: Wrench not properly attached to tool racks
  • Fixed: Arrows getting lost on impact
  • Fixed: Running out of air on the client on old worlds
  • Fixed: Shields now appear in the proper location when placed in a mold rack.
  • Fixed: Newly introduced crash in barrels
  • Fixed: Able to place water lilies underwater
  • Fixed: New reflective shader effect not respecting fog levels
  • Fixed: Incorrect linebreaks on Japanese translations
  • Fixed: Avoid a crash on invalid book shelves
  • Fixed: Unknown texture on mantle blocks
  • Fixed: Crafting improvised armor did not consume ingredients
  • Fixed: Game crashing when changing Ctrl/Shift mouse modifiers
  • Fixed: Render issue on the clay handbook page
  • Fixed: Some blocks (e.g. querns, tools on toolracks, ground storage blocks) waving in the wind weirdly
  • Fixed: Wrong shaggy hair on some bears (Panda, Polar, Sunbear)
  • Fixed: Frost overlay on chests
  • Fixed: Game crashing when right clicking a full ingot pile
  • Fixed: Shields on tool rack not using correct textures. Fixed z-fighting on adjacent racked shields
  • Fixed: Fish running away from players... while on land
  • Fixed: Wrong selection box on ingot piles (and likely other piles)
  • Fixed: Low fps during low quality shadows
  • Fixed: Blackguard and Forlorn blade had 1 durability
  • Fixed: Placement issues with ground leaning tools
  • Fixed: Tool Durability multiplier and some other world config values were not taking effect in 1.17
  • Fixed: Large lakes pure water chunks sometimes did not render
  • Fixed: More issues with wall leaned tools
  • Fixed: Dropped candle not emitting light on ground
  • Fixed: Client side taking damage after getting out of water with no oxygen left
  • Fixed: Seraph protecting eyes from strong wind while swimming
  • Fixed: Shields no longer missing icons in smithing menu or handbook.
  • Fixed: Fixed a texture path issue with the gazelle shape.
  • Fixed: Misaligned buttons in the main menu due to new dialog based menus
  • Fixed: Prospecting pick no longer working
  • Fixed: Water overwriting lava, also caused significant lag. Fixed sizzle sound no longer working
  • Fixed: Wrench transform on tool racks, fixed wrench model z-fighting
  • Fixed: Chest lids no longer animated
  • Fixed: Game crashing when looking up boards in the handbook
  • Fixed: Accordion seraph voice same as altoflute
  • Fixed: Hot items dropped in water not cooling down
  • Fixed: Missing error texts when trying to place tools on the ground
  • Fixed: Unable to plant reeds/papyrus in flowing water
  • Fixed: Unable to do edge sitting on a block if there is grass in front. Generally made the edge sitting triggers more tolerant.
  • Fixed: "worldgen" issue and rare crashes in 1.16.5 worlds loaded in 1.17-pre.1
  • Fixed: Wrong drops for hay block (thanks Stroam)
  • Fixed: Game crash when holding a plumb and square in hands
  • Fixed: Minor issue when setting keyboard controls for Sprint key
  • Api Fixed: Modmaker patches not prefixing "game:" domain for vanilla patches
• API Changes
  • Feature: liquidBarrierOnSides attribute allows blocks (e.g. slabs) to prevent liquid flow below a certain height
  • Feature: Added IGameCalendar.ElapsedSeconds/Hours/Days property to read how much in-game time has passed since world creation. Might be inaccurate on old worlds.
  • Refactor: The server event OnTrySpawnEntity now has an additional IBlockAcccessor argument, as it might be a worldgen block accessor now.
  • Refactor: Renamed BlockBehavior.ShouldReceiveClientGameTicks to ShouldReceiveClientParticleTicks. Added BlockBehavior.OnAsyncClientParticleTick
  • Tweak: Refactor from -pre.1-4, the liquids layer is now called "fluids layer" and consequential changes
  • Tweak: IBlockAccessor.GetBlock() now takes an optional BlockLayersAccess parameter (which is an integer constant, see BlockLayersAccess class for the options)
  • Tweak: IBlockAccessor.GetBlock() method signatures from 1.16.5 and pre.1-3 preserved but deprecated
  • Tweak: Add convenience methods IBlockAccessor.GetSolidBlock() and GetFluidBlock()
  • Tweak: Liquids can now also glow
  • Tweak: SimpleParticleProperties can now also be async
  • Tweak: Networking / startup: Server Identification packet sent before mods PreStart phase, even in singleplayer (restores the order of events in 1.16.x: mods PreStart and Start phases can read WorldConfig values and other Server Identification packet info).  Note: 1.17-rc1 and pre.5 game clients are not compatible with 1.17-pre.1, pre.2, pre.3, pre.4 servers, please update your servers.
  • Tweak: Vintage Story now ships with debug symbols (=pdb files), so that crashes will print line numbers \o/
  • Tweak: Can now define "asphyxiating: false" attribute to blocks to prevent players from asphyxiating inside them
  • Tweak: Update Harmony to 2.2.2.0
  • Tweak: Added Melchior's new metal properties for modders
  • Tweak: updated XML text for IBlockAccessor.MarkBlockDirty: it does NOT trigger a neighbour block update, if one is needed please also call IBlockAccessor.TriggerNeighbourBlockUpdate() on the server side
  • Fixed: TriggerNeighbourBlockUpdate() vulnerable to blockpos edit after getting called
  • Fixed: Crash when removing the health behavior from an entity
  • Fixed: Wildcard matching not working across game domains
  • Fixed: In BlockFruitTreeFoliage fix resolving foliageProperties producing invalid texture paths with different domains

Only the changes since pre.5 (note these changes are also listed above)

• Tweak: Shield now properly scale for ground storage. They don't fit as nicely if you try to place two shields next to each other now, but it looks better overall. Deemed a worthy trade off.
• Tweak: Add handbook section on ground storage
• Tweak: Server: Handle invalid SaveFileLocation more gracefully and log to server-main.txt
• Tweak: Reworked waypoint dialog. Icon and color are now a grid of clickable icons.
• Tweak: Bears no longer spawn (runtime and during worldgen) in the first 4 ingame days and also don't spawn wolves in the first 4 ingame hours
• Tweak: Performance: Use native ZStd library on Windows platforms for more efficient memory management
• Tweak: Most land creatures now flee from bears
• Tweak: Mitigate sizzle sound spam + OOM by reducing its sound range from 32 to 16 blocks
• Tweak: Added tool mode icons for the scythe
• Fixed: Running out of air on the client on old worlds
• Fixed: Shields now appear in the proper location when placed in a mold rack.
• Fixed: Newly introduced crash in barrels
• Fixed: Falling sand block oddities in certain cases
• Fixed: Hopper item collecting oddities
• Fixed: Able to place water lilies underwater
• Fixed: Wrong naming on metal shields
• Fixed: New reflective shader effect not respecting fog levels
• Fixed: Incorrect linebreaks on japanese translations
• Fixed: Avoid a crash in the fruit tree block entity (report an error instead)
• Fixed: Avoid a crash on invalid book shelves
• Fixed: Selecting a very large view distance in single player then reloading the world made it revert back to a shorter view distance
• Fixed: Unknown texture on bedrock
• Fixed: Chiseled blocks now react more correctly to water flow
• Fixed: Rapid breaking of adjacent reeds (and other blocks more generally)
• Fixed: Game crash when holding a plumb and square in hands
• Api Feature: Added IGameCalendar.ElapsedSeconds/Hours/Days property to read how much ingame time has passed since world creation. Might be inaccurate on old worlds.
• Api Refactor: The server event OnTrySpawnEntity now has an additional IBlockAcccessor argument, as it might be a worldgen block accessor now.
• Api Tweak: Update Harmony to 2.2.2.0
• Api Tweak: Added melchiors new metal properties for modders
• Api Fixed: Crash when removing the health behavior from an entity
• Api Fixed: Modmaker patches not prefixing "game:" domain for vanilla patches