12/17 @ 11:30am EST - There was an update this morning, we are back up and haven't had a mass drop / crash yet. I'm writing my article for today and will keep you posted as the day progresses.

9:40pm EST - I can't stand being totally down so I threw up an auxiliary server with 20 slots and 2k world size. It's only dropping every 20 minutes or so... woo!

8:45pm EST - Looks like no more updates tonight. We're still down for the count. The current server code on the main branch has "Server has closed" errors every couple of minutes and no players can wake up on the development branch. If you're of the lucky server owners which have not updated since this morning, do not update tonight!

6:20pm EST - After crashing every couple of minutes for the last half hour, I've decided to just shut the server down till the next patch comes out. There is currently a bug which causes the server to stop every couple of minutes. If you are a server owner and have not updated in the past 2 hours, don't update! This mornings build was much more stable in comparison to what is currently on the main branch. The team is actively working on this so I expect a new build to be out soon. I'll post an update once it's out.

5:40pm EST - The server has been up and down a lot this afternoon. That is in part due to the mass drops and also partially due to trying out some hot fixes. Garry is currently working to track down the issue and implement a fix. Hopefully, we'll see one soon!

1:05pm EST - Early this morning, the long awaited update launched to main. This update, which has been about a month in the making, introduces a ton of new things. For full details, check out my post from last week. Unfortunately, the mass drops (one of the main pain points we’ve been experiencing for weeks), are still happening. That being said, the vast number of improvements and fixes seen in this update far outweigh the fact we’re still seeing mass drops.

Mass drops

To stress test this update, I doubled our slots and increased the world size to 6000. Everything was running ok till we hit around 80 people and the server started disconnecting everyone. I restarted and many people were getting stuck on the receiving data screen. After another mass drop a couple minutes after restarting, I decided to cut our loses, wipe the server, dropping the slots and world size again. We’ve been running at around 50 people for about an hour without another mass drop yet. Garry responded to a tweet saying he has a hunch on what might be causing it so hopefully a fix is on the horizon.

Chickens!

Another very noticeable thing about this update is the chicken sounds are back with a vengeance. We had this issue when chickens were first introduced a couple weeks ago. The sounds were turned down in a day or two, however, they are back big time with this update. It’s funny how quickly you can feel your sanity slipping away when all you hear in the background is, “buck buck buck buckaa!”

New console

The console (f1) has been switched over to the Unity default. That's cool and all, I just really wish I could press the up key to quickly re-enter my last command!

Rad towns

Garry is doing some work on the rad town front. He’s created a small rad town scene and added some basic loot crates to it. I’m excited to see rad towns back in the picture!

Sleeping animals

Apparently animals will soon have the ability to sleep. Minh has added the sleeping and wake up animations for the rabbit, stag and wolf.

AK on the way

Tom has added the textures and LOD’s for the AK into main. This means we should be seeing this new weapon in the next update or two.

Plane wreck

Megan posted a new concept for a monument: Plane wreck. Here’s two shots: