Outcast - Second Contact - Patch 1 released!

[Nacon]

Outcast - Second Contact has been updated. The first patch brings performance enhancements, crash fixes, additional options, improvements to jumping and more.

You can find the full list of changes below:

• Controls have been enhanced and inertia of movement lowered.
  
• Constraints on jumping have been relaxed in some areas to avoid the occurrence of "invisible walls".
  
• The responsiveness of jumps has been improved.
  
• Slight adjustments to jumping behaviour when in air.
  
• The triggering of dodge rolls has been adjusted in order to prevent interference with sprinting. 
  
• The contents of ammo boxes have been rebalanced.
  
• A rare bug that could occur when purchasing the Magwa in Shamazaar has been fixed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some characters (for example Zokrim) to get stuck in bodies of water, and sometimes blocking progression.
  
• A display issue that caused Naarn to not properly display in some instances has been fixed.
  
• Added a "vibrant colors" graphic mode. (Thanks to Dmity Andreev for this feature)
  
• Implemented true full screen mode (as opposed to the default borderless windowed full screen) as an option in order to alleviate stuttering that appeared on some PC configurations. 
  
• A target frame rate option has been added.
  
• Ultra-widescreen support (21:9) has been implemented.
  
• Implemented automatic surround sound support, in cases where adequate hardware is detected.

• Audio options with separate volume controls have been added to the options menu.
  
• The audio mixing has been rebalanced.
  
• Snowfall animation at high frame rates has been improved.
  
• CPU usage has been optimized to allow for better frame rate when multiple characters appear on screen.
  
• Multiple crash fixes, in particular when using Daokas, have been implemented.

UPDATE HOTFIX:

• Added Steam offline-mode support.

[Raff]

Controls definitely have greatly improved!

What about "real" graphics options? Texture/mesh quality, Anti-Aliasing, shadow filtering/resolution etc.? Looking forward to patch 2.

Best regards,
Raff

[Sarn]

Génial! Merci, les dev!

[D1PST1CK]

Thanks. :) Unfurtunately, the game is still not starting in offline mode.

[Gromit]

This update is so great ! Thanks !

[Deepo]

This is such a great update! Addressed all my issues with the game, so it's time to dig in for real. Thanks!

[LyR]

Implemented true full screen mode (as opposed to the default borderless windowed full screen) as an option in order to alleviate stuttering that appeared on some PC configurations.

How do you select it or is it applied automatically because I still get micro-stutter...
Perhaps it's a little better now but i can't really tell, it's so minor.

[Ulukaï]

this patch also improves greatly on controller support

however, heavy stuttering still kicks in after about an hour of play

[Yves Grolet]

Originally posted by LyR:

Implemented true full screen mode (as opposed to the default borderless windowed full screen) as an option in order to alleviate stuttering that appeared on some PC configurations.

How do you select it or is it applied automatically because I still get micro-stutter...
Perhaps it's a little better now but i can't really tell, it's so minor.

It's selectable in a menu that Steam displays when you start the game.
Maybe Steam client need to be restarted to have this menu appearing.

[Maverique]

This made the game much more playable for me :) thank you!

[Nacon]

Originally posted by D1CKHE4D:

Thanks. :) Unfurtunately, the game is still not starting in offline mode.

We just implemented a hotfix. this should work now.

[vandal]

Thanks for all the hard work! I'm loving replaying this awesome game all these years later. Keep up the good work guys!

[Zaxx]

The contents of ammo boxes have been rebalanced.

Can I ask what does this mean? More or less ammo (I hope less :D).

Anyway I think returning players (and players who'd like more replay value) would really appreciate a "survivor mode" where ammo and other resources like medkits are very limited. I like that the remake has a damage resistance setting but that does not really solve the difficulty problem of the original game: ammo and resources are so plentiful that the game's action gameplay quickly becomes a walk in the park. Cutter's lower damage resistance really does not make the game harder when you have 40 medkits and thousands of rounds of ammunition at your disposal. Could we have this harder gameplay setting as an option in a future patch?

[PlanetAdelpha]

Ammo per box was reduced a bit to re-balance. But no radical changes.

[Yves Grolet]

Originally posted by Zaxx:

The contents of ammo boxes have been rebalanced.

Can I ask what does this mean? More or less ammo (I hope less :D).

Anyway I think returning players (and players who'd like more replay value) would really appreciate a "survivor mode" where ammo and other resources like medkits are very limited. I like that the remake has a damage resistance setting but that does not really solve the difficulty problem of the original game: ammo and resources are so plentiful that the game's action gameplay quickly becomes a walk in the park. Cutter's lower damage resistance really does not make the game harder when you have 40 medkits and thousands of rounds of ammunition at your disposal. Could we have this harder gameplay setting as an option in a future patch?

We lowered the content of ammo boxes ;-)
Survival mode is a very good idea. We will see if we can make it for a future update.

[PomboJedi]

- Maar and Mazum are slightly out of places;
- Game can get laggy if played for a long period of time on shamazar with the minimap open (I think this happens in outcast 1.1 as well);
- Frame limiter is not working with exclusive fullscreen.

Other than those, I'm enjoying a lot the game. I still own the original game's box and cds, its one of my favorite games of all times and it still holds up pretty well for today standards.