Vortex Gaming

· Discord Integration: Discord friend sessions are now displayed in the Friends tab of the server browser, improving multiplayer accessibility.
· Zombie XP Adjustment: XP gained now increases proportionally to zombie health and attack power. For example, Hooded Zombies now grant 500 XP instead of 400, speeding up leveling.
· Chicken Sounds Added: Chickens now make sounds when moving, making it easier for players to detect their presence.
· RWG City Planning Improvements: City structures are now more complex during Random World Generation. Increased T-junctions, L-shaped roads, and dead ends add more fun to exploration.
· Wasteland Mutant Zombie Buff: The Wasteland Mutant Zombie, nicknamed 'Broccoli Senior,' has received significant buffs to its ranged attack range, projectile speed, attack patterns, and damage, greatly increasing the danger of the Wasteland biome.
· Enemy AI Warning Sounds: Enemy AI now emits warning sounds when taking damage or fleeing, making it easier to track zombie movements.
· Animal Sound Effects Added: Ostrich and Bear now have 'destruction' and 'alert' sound effects, making it easier to detect their presence.

· Animal Hunting Challenge Eased: Bone Knife requirement removed, allowing all knife types to butcher animals and complete the challenge.
· Loot Abundance Setting Change: Construction crates, hidden stashes, and buried treasures are no longer affected by the 'Loot Abundance' setting, always dropping 100% of their items. This aims to balance game difficulty and emphasize the importance of treasure.
· Wasteland Weather Adjustment: Extreme heat and cold events have been added, leading to drastic temperature changes in the Wasteland biome. Survival difficulty has significantly increased, with temperatures dropping below zero or exceeding 40 degrees Celsius during storms.
· Zombie Block Damage Adjustment: Zombie Crawler and Male Hazmat Zombie block damage has been reduced to be consistent with other zombies.
· Zombie HP Adjustment: Some zombies (Normal Zombie, Hooded Zombie) have slightly increased HP, making them tougher but also providing more XP.
· Player Kill XP Increased: XP gained from killing other players has been increased.
· Radiated Zombie Passive Removed: The boss-tier enemy passive applied to Radiated Utility Workers and Businessmen has been removed, making them receive similar attack power adjustments to regular zombies.
· Beehive Interaction Improved: Bees now appear when the beehive is 'closed' rather than 'opened,' improving the unfairness of being attacked by bees while checking contents.
· Dew Collector and Empty Bottle Crafting: Dew Collectors now require empty bottles as 'fuel' to generate water, making them more cumbersome to use. Conversely, empty bottles can now be crafted with just dirt and clay, without a jar, making water issues much easier to solve. This has significantly reduced the utility of Dew Collectors.
· Chuck Zombie Rock Hitbox Improved: The hitbox for rocks thrown by Chuck Zombies has been changed from 'arrow' to 'rocket,' preventing them from passing through bars or window grates.
· Gyrocopter Mod Slots Increased: Gyrocopter mod slots have increased from 4 to 5. However, gyrocopters crafted before version 2.5 will retain 4 slots; new ones must be crafted after the 2.6 stable update to utilize 5 slots.
· Animal Detection Range Extended: Direwolf and Zombie Bear auditory and visual detection ranges have been extended, allowing them to detect players from further away, increasing danger.
· Bear Movement Pathing Improved: Bears can now pass through door frames (1 block wide, 2 blocks high), improving their mobility.
· Snake Footsteps Added: Snakes now have footsteps, though they are difficult to perceive.
· Melee Weapon Resource Gathering Penalty Removed: The penalty for gathering basic resources like plant fiber, wood, and stone with some melee weapons has been removed, allowing resource gathering with any weapon/tool (yield may vary).
· Scavenger Skill Updated: The harvest tags for the 'Scavenger' skill have been updated, potentially applying its effects to more types of junk blocks.
· Armor Perk Description Updated: Armor perk descriptions now include information about loot-increasing items.
· Medical Challenges Eased: Completion requirements for some medical challenges have been reduced from 10 to 5 times (e.g., treating burns, fractures).

Biome	Added Zombie Types	Game Stage Adjustment	Game Stage Bonus
Snow	Radiated Chuck Zombie Orange Chuck Zombie	2 → 3	20 → 30
Wasteland	Radiated Mutant Zombie Hell Mutant Zombie	3 → 5	30 → 50

· City Area Performance Improvement: Severe performance degradation issues in city areas have been resolved. This appears to be a response to lag issues specifically on the PS5 version.
· Bear Attack Hitbox Fixed: The issue where hits occurred before the bear's attack animation started has been fixed, aligning bear movement with its attack hitbox.
· Fuel Retained When Harvesting Beehives: Fixed an issue where fuel (honey) inside beehives would disappear when harvested.
· Workbench Progress Bar Reset Prevention: Fixed an issue where the progress bar would reset if fuel was removed from collection-type workbenches like beehives.
· Bottle Recycling Rate Adjusted: The base bottle conversion rate has been set to 60%, making recycling easier.
· Metropolis Issues Resolved: General issues occurring in metropolises have been resolved.

· Version Labeling: The 2.6 stable version is internally 2.6(B14), content-wise identical to the previous 2.6 test version.
· PC Version Impact: PC users who were playing the 2.6 test version will see their version label change to 'stable' without any content changes.
· Key Change: The most significant aspect of this update is the support for cross-play on PS5 and Xbox versions. This suggests that considerable development time was invested in stabilizing the PS5 version.
· PS5 User Feedback Requested: Feedback is being requested from PS5 players regarding the improvement of game stability after the update.