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The company highlighted carbon capture and energy efficiency in its 2021 Environmental Progress Report.
Apple says its products will be carbon-neutral by 2030
Apple promises to make its supply chain and all of its products carbon neutral by 2030.
The Repopulation is focusing on feature completion
In what its devs are calling a "very busy month," The Repopulation pushed out three major patches in September, not to mention another one this past week. Above and Beyond says is all being done to fill out the game: "We've been pushing hard to get our experimental tweaks and additions out of the way now as we push towards feature completion." In addition to pages and pages of patch notes, The Repopulation made significant changes to Medics, added a Points of Ingrigue extension to its enemy camp system, and completely overhauled the tutorial. The sandbox title promises that another round of testers will be invited into the game in the middle of October.
TUG prepares Survival Games servers
TUG's hardcore survival mode will get its first iteration of testing with the so-called "Survival Games" coming to the beta in January 2014. The team is preparing limited, focused matches on special servers to experiment, refine, and polish its PvP systems. The Survival Games servers are a prelude to TUG's survival mode in which players are thrown onto a map and challenged to be the last man or woman standing. In addition to straight-up combat, these maps contain enemy NPCs and crafting resources. The shrewd survivalist might be able to fashion a weapon or trap on the fly to help gain an edge. As players engage in the Survival Games, the TUG team will be changing the rules constantly and allowing players to implement their own mods in order to develop the best final product. "No name handles, no global chat, and dead is dead," the team described the servers. "Expect some serious trolling from us in these matches... FOR SCIENCE!"
TUG alpha moves closer to multiplayer, terraforming
It's been a little while since we've heard from TUG, the crowdfunded sandbox that moved from Kickstarter campaign to alpha testing in record time. But that doesn't mean that work hasn't been moving forward on The Untitled Game; in fact, there has been plenty of progress on the tech side of things. Devs released an update outlining the current systems being worked on -- namely, networking and multiplayer, a scripting sub-system, character and AI systems, and terrain modification tools. If everything goes smoothly, TUG alpha testers can look forward to playing together in creative mode in two patch cycles. Additionally, devs are "working on a host of fancy terrain modification tools, which will include things like chiseling, sculpting, odd shape blocks, etc." that will help TUG to lose that cube-only feeling. Hear all the details about these systems and more in the full progress notes.
Latest Perpetuum dev blog delves into research system
At the end of last year, Avatar Creations posted a detailed dev blog outlining some of the new systems and revamps in store for Perpetuum. In today's blog update, the devs offer a progress report on the new research system. A fixed tech-tree system will replace the random lottery that's currently in place, and players can accumulate research points to unlock items within the tech tree. As it stands, the system will have separate trees for each of the three main factions -- Pelistal, Nuimqol, and Thelodica -- as well as one for the modular colony system, one for the industrial items/robots, and one for the common stuff (although the final two might be combined). The blog also touches on an extended combat log system that will pave the way for an achievement system. For more details on these two systems, check out the full progress report.
The Repopulation's May report highlights new crafting and combat goodies
Another month has come and gone, which means it's time for another end-of-the-month status report for The Repopulation, the upcoming sci-fi sandbox game that plans to start a round of alpha testing this month. To get ready for this next step, Above and Beyond Technologies has been hard at work adding new elements to the game and tweaking many existing ones. Amid the UI tweaks and bug fixes, this update includes world, skill, crafting, and combat changes. Two new areas (Oasis Valley and Wreckage Site 94) have opened, while other areas have been revamped. Over fifty new decoration items have been added, including benches and chairs where players can sit. Stealth has been reworked so that players can now detect others using their own skill check. Crafting has a new system in place that will require players to respond to occasional events and the responses will affect the result of the craft. Combat sees new immunity timers for daze and stun effects that will prevent players from becoming stun-locked in PvP. And that's just the tip of the update iceberg; full details can be found in the patch notes.
iTouch Jailbreak Update: Still Not There
For those of you keeping track of the iTouch Jailbreak, here's a quick progress report. After I modified iPhuc to send arbitrary commands to the iTouch in recovery mode, the team has gotten as far as sending the StartRestore command (that's a third command on top of Goodbye and QueryType.) .If you'd like to try this out yourself, download a copy of iPhuc from the Google Code repository and use the following modified files: Restore, Recovery, and Main.
