v1.21.2-rc.1/rc.2 Story Chapter 2 Redux, TOPS-Lagspike patch

Dear Extraordinary Survivalists
v1.21.2-rc.1/rc.2, an unstable release, can now be downloaded through the account manager.


Screenshot by Plipp, shared on #screenshots on Discord

[Edit:] Also released rc.2 to account for a possible future fix for the prospecting on border regions.

This update addresses several significant areas of the game that I want to mention here specifically:

• Near spawn on our official server (also known as TOPS) players have built very large storage areas - we were able to significantly reduce chunk loading lag spikes caused by these
• Unfortunately a change we've made in 1.21 caused wrong Prospecting Pick results in some areas in older worlds, specifically within a few hundred blocks of a 1.20=>1.21 chunk border. This is now fixed for new worldgen, but readings in old border regions will remain incorrect, for now. ("Old border regions" are the places close to what was the edge of the world, when a server first moved from game version 1.20.12 to game version 1.21.0 or 1.21.1.) We will see if perhaps we can address this further through other means 
• We did a lot of work in getting Elk riding as smooth and tightly controlled as possible in both Single Player and Multiplayer
• Our second boss fight should be less janky now.

Game updates

• Tweak: Moon appearance reverted to a squared appearance, but with correct level of illumination (WIP)
• Tweak: Reduce mob spawn on medium, high and very high rift activity (low and apocalyptic activity unchanged)
• Tweak: More intense torch particles
• Tweak: Height of ground-placed hitboxes of crucibles, crocks, and pots reduced to make it easier to target them when placed on a table
• Tweak: Stone spears can now be ground stored on 2-block high walls instead of 3.
• Tweak: Sleek doors are now airtight, and will create a room such as a cellar or greenhouse
• Tweak: Tool and Ingot molds show metal breaking when using a chisel
• Tweak: When breaking ingot molds, only the one you're pointing at will break
• Tweak: Pillion now has max stacksize of 1, consistent with saddle and other elk tack
• Tweak: Updated community translations, added a Hungarian translation
• Tweak: Add debug logging for villagers spawning and de-spawning
• Tweak: Added player pitch to the HUD debug screen
• Tweak: Command entity selector can now specify a tag to match, e.g. e[tag=helloworld]
• Tweak: Command /entity locateg now has an alias: /entity find
• Tweak: Catch the most common OpenGL errors at startup and provide more helpful error message. Github #6888
• Tweak: On Linux installations, revert using DRI_PRIME=1 by default [Details: that setting may select the wrong GPU on some systems, if the dedicated GPU is actually 0.  So now the setting is not present by default, but the player can easily uncomment that line in the run.sh to enable it if appropriate for that system, has to be done manually for now.]
• Tweak: On MacOS installations, enable .Net server garbage collection to help with constant lag spikes
• Tweak: For Intel Arc GPUs, add recommendation about allowSSBOs setting at game start
• Performance: Higher frame rate when rendering large numbers of signs
• Performance: Improved loading times for translocators, teleporters, rift wards (and cheese curds bundle!)
• Performance: Improved loading times for large numbers of signs
• Performance: Improved loading times for large numbers of crates and labelled crates
• Performance: Improved loading times for barrels (on both server and client)
• Performance: Fixed various potential memory VAO memory leaks on game exit (seen in client-debug.log)
• Fixed: Lots of work to fix jitter and animation syncing oddities when riding an Elk in Single Player and Multiplayer. Plus tighter controls.
• Fixed: Elk body could be tilted the wrong way when it steps down or up, especially while walking backwards (the fix applies to all creatures but most obvious on a ridden Elk)
• Fixed: Temporary workaround: If entities/tooltips become invisible, turning Ambient Sound level to 0 should now fix it. Github #6946
• Fixed: Some poultice healing still cancelling when in the air
• Fixed: Rare crash when another player holds hot items in tongs. Github #6783
• Fixed: Long-standing lighting bug where rooms and caves do not always become dark when closed. Github #6717
• Fixed: Propick density search mode readings in areas originally created in very old saves (1.18 and older) could become incorrect when nearby (map border) areas were generated in game version 1.21.x
• Fixed: A villager buying selling things that he shouldn't (Folds)
• Fixed: Occasional crash when typing that would delete selected text
• Fixed: Unable to type a - symbol into an empty number input box for negative numbers
• Fixed: Many issues with the 2nd boss fight
  • Fixed hideous flight paths
  • Fixed hideous hurt animation when it was on ground
  • Shields not blocking projectiles if they came from a relatively high angle
  • Not able to hit boss when inside its hitbox
  • Picked up projectiles turning into stones when collected
  • Stays a little longer on the ground on the slam attack for melee attacks and no longer slides away
• Fixed: Bowls in the village were missing
• Fixed: Block breaking overlay missing on all chiseled blocks
• Fixed: Excavating out a ruin in sand did not remove the sand first
• Fixed: Wood path recipe no longer shapeless, to not conflict with the crate recipe
• Fixed: Z-fighting on distant wood path
• Fixed: Bad held transform on the Rift Ward
• Fixed: Ctrl/Shift modifier no longer working on number inputs in GUIs
• Fixed: Wrong block breaking decal on tool and ingot molds
• Fixed: Block breaking decal on trunk not disappearing in some cases
• Fixed: Pick block will properly select the ingot mold you are pointing at
• Fixed: Quern handles z-fighting with adjacent forge (they'll still clip)
• Fixed: Cozy bed did not have sleep hours
• Fixed: Bear hide leg armor selection box when dropped on ground was way off
• Fixed: Dark fins on salmon and mahi-mahi
• Fixed: Resolved an issue where failing to set up a player on their first join could prevent them from being saved correctly in the savegame
• Fixed: Placing beams in IFP mode was fiddly because of small camera motion right on placement
• Fixed: Mitigated crucible pouring particles way off
• Fixed: Reduced bear spawn chance back to 1.20 levels
• Fixed: Particles falling on fence floating mid-air
• Fixed: Game crash when clicking tutorial links to open the handbook
• Fixed: Handbook search input would always reset once a tutorial was started
• Fixed: Errors during worldgen when generating the story locations
• Fixed: Missing death message translations for deer and goats
• Fixed: Missing self teal glow after respawning
• Fixed: Flat fog from weather no longer reduces deep cave visibility
• Fixed: Rare crash for Hopper picking up food item during off-thread item physics
• Fixed: Prevent game crash when ground storage placing above world height. Github #7023
• Fixed: Might reduce mobs clipping into player as they run towards them
• Fixed: Tower elevator up/down arrows were hidden by the up/down levers when player was seated at the elevator position in front of the up/down levers
• Fixed: Thatch blocks had poorly aligned textures and incorrect textures.  Now should match hay blocks better
• Fixed: Multi player fight Eidolon dropped elucidatory vessel at >1 stack size instead of multiple with 1 stack size
• Fixed: Command /weather setw still did not clear fog from sandstorms
• Fixed: Allow command /fixmapping applyall force to be run from the server console
• Fixed: Dead tame and semi-tamed elk would remain standing up
• Fixed: Missing language string for dead partially tamed elk, and inconsistent capitalization for other elk
• Fixed: Cupronickel plates could not be smithed.
• Fixed: Art objects were sunken into base of display cases.
• Fixed: Adult pigs were not being aggressive towards the player when piglets were around.
• Fixed: Reduce the incidence of a rare shader compile error on certain GPUs. Github #7015
• Fixed: Re-add ModMaker to the Mac build
• API Tweak: Mortally woundable behavior now checks animation code names from the entity json, instead of animation names directly
• API Fixed: Crash if a mod added the ability to place bowls on elk, boats, or similar
• API Fixed: Duplicate keys are created for POI Registry dictionary - wispae
• API Fixed: Defining any textureSizes: [] in a model caused it to ignore the default TextureWidth/TextureHeight
• API Tweak: Allow a renderer, when registered, to also reserve a range within RenderOrder for itself and one other renderer type
• API Tweak: Attempt to kill game on launch if a mod assembly is already loaded