FOUND — Update 0.4.78

(everything since 0.4.76)

A new AI director for zombies, a big performance pass, new optional forest trees, a slower story pace after the radio errand, and a fix for the camp sometimes landing in the snow.

Zombies: AI director

Zombie spawning is now paced by a director inspired by Left 4 Dead 2. It works on top of the existing rules: in story mode zombies still only roam at night and in the far areas, the camp stays safe, nothing spawns while you are under a roof, and in co-op only the host spawns them.

• Tension (0-100) rises when you take damage, kill zombies nearby, have zombies chasing you or fire guns. It falls once things have been quiet for a few seconds.
• Build up → Peak → Relax: zombies trickle in first. At high tension a short peak (12-20 s) is the hardest part. Then a relax phase (30-45 s) with no new spawns gives you room to breathe before it starts over.
• Hordes: too many gunshots close together call a horde of 8-14 zombies from one side ("Screams in the distance... a horde is coming!"). It has a 5-minute cooldown.
• Zombies left behind far behind you and out of sight are not deleted. They are moved to hidden spots ahead of you.
• It reads your state: low health brings the peak sooner and makes it shorter. Running low on pistol ammo means slightly fewer zombies.
• Fair spawns: never in view, never in water, never inside the camp, never right next to you. At most 30 zombies are alive at once.

Story

• After Rıza tests the enchanted radio, the missing crew member call now waits much longer (about 8 minutes of play plus a game day, at most 20 minutes). The wait is saved, so you get time to explore the island first. The quest step in between is now "Look around, test the game".

World

• Camp placement fix: on some islands the camp could end up in the snow biome. The camp search now keeps looking for forest (smaller forest areas, lake shores inside the island) before it ever gives up on the biome.
• Forest lakes no longer count as forest land when the island is split into its three equal biomes, so a big lake doesn't make the dry forest smaller.
• New forest trees (optional): low-poly PSX-style pines. Choose them in Settings ▸ Grass ▸ "Tree type". They apply on the next world. The old trees stay the default.

Performance

• DirectX 11 is now the default (about 14 % faster in builds). SSAO runs at half resolution.
• Removed periodic full-scene searches that caused ~2.5 ms hitches.
• Distant rain and volume clouds no longer cause frame spikes (distant rain scan: 1.36 ms to 0.04 ms).
• The F1 panel costs nothing while it is closed.
• Typical build at 1080p: around 177 FPS.

Player

• The kick animation plays at normal speed, and kicking again right away restarts it cleanly.
• Peeing is visible the first time you use it.

F1 cheat panel

• Zombies tab: director status (phase, tension, timers), director on/off, panic horde, force relax, tension +30.
• Tree type button (old / new pines).