SCUM August Update 1.3.3: Research Facility, Mutant Bears and Cooking

Prisoners,

The Into the Wild August Update is live!

Enter an underground TEC1 Research Facility, face mutant bears through new Master Hunter quests and claim exclusive rewards. Cooking has been expanded with new Heatless recipes, faster cooking times and a Food Effects overhaul that gives your diet a greater role in survival. Repeated respawning now also comes with Cloning Sickness, a temporary condition that becomes more severe if you die again before recovering.

The Stalker Outfit Pack also launches today and is available to purchase separately. It includes a complete outfit set and a bone tomahawk.

Take your first look inside the Research Facility in the new trailer below, then read on for everything included in the August Update.

Deep beneath the Island, TEC1 once operated a Research Facility to experiment on wildlife. Its abandoned corridors now lead into habitats still occupied by the creatures it left behind.

GETTING INSIDE

Choose one of three converted underground bunker entrances across the Island. Each leads to its own Facility, with the same layout and challenge at all three.

To open the door, you’ll need a Research Facility Keycard. Earn one by completing certain Master Hunter quests or find one as rare loot elsewhere on the Island. A Keycard works at any of the three locations, expires after a limited time and is consumed when used.

One Keycard is enough for a group. Once the door opens, everyone can enter together.
Once a group begins a run, the entrance locks until the Facility resets.

THE PURGE

Starting a Facility run begins a ten-minute purge and opens the door to the first containment area for 30 seconds. Make sure everyone is ready to move. Once the door closes, anyone left behind cannot enter the containment area.

Fight through the containment habitats and find an exit before the countdown ends. Any prisoners remaining inside will be terminated before the Facility resets.

You can leave before the purge ends by activating an exit. Once triggered, the exit will only remain open for a short time.

THE FACILITY

Mutant bears inside will not flee. They will work to flank you and will be drawn to careless gunfire. Their positions will also change between runs.

Survive the purge and reach the deepest part of the Facility to uncover what TEC1 left behind and escape with rare medical and scientific loot.

Facility loot spawns when the purge sequence begins and is refreshed for every run. A group carrying multiple Keycards can complete several runs back to back, collecting a fresh set of loot each time.

The Island’s largest predator has become even more dangerous.

Mutant bears can also be found at specific locations across the Island, adding a deadly new target to the Master Hunter questline. The map at the Hunters Grotto has been updated with known mutant bear sightings.

The questline now includes several new Tier 3 hunts focused on mutant wildlife. Complete the required quests to earn a Research Facility Keycard and unlock Apex Hunt, a new Tier 4 quest that sends you into the Facility to eliminate every mutant bear inside.

Complete the new hunts to claim exclusive rewards, including a weapon charm, mounted skull trophy and the Master Hunter headgear.

SCUM’s metabolism system already tracks calories, nutrients and digestion in considerable detail. This update gives those systems more weight, from the energy spent digesting food to how well your prisoner handles exhaustion, injuries and sickness.

Yes, there was a chemist involved.

HEATLESS COOKING

You can now put together a proper meal wherever you are.

The new Hands option in the Cooking menu lets you prepare salads, sandwiches and other simple meals without any equipment.

Meals prepared using Hands count as cooked food, giving them the same digestion benefits as food prepared using a stove. Unlike standard cooking recipes, Heatless recipes cannot go into overtime once complete.

The update adds 15 new Heatless Cooking recipes:

• Salads: Cheese Mixed Salad, Cucumber Salad, Fish Salad, Fruit Salad, Lettuce Salad, Mixed Salad, Sauerkraut Salad, Tomato Salad, Waldorf Salad, and Improvised Salad.
• Sandwiches: Tuna Sandwich, Bean Sandwich, Cheese Sandwich, Spon™ Sandwich, and Improvised Sandwich.

FASTER COOKING

Cooking times have been reduced across all existing food and drink recipes except the four smoked recipes, which remain unchanged.

Every recipe included in the rebalance now cooks faster, with reductions ranging from approximately 25% to 69% depending on the recipe and your Cooking skill.

Cooking timers now display real-world time instead of in-game time, so you can see exactly how long each recipe has left.

Here are the shortest and longest rebalanced recipes as examples:

DIGESTION BURN RATE

Digesting food now temporarily increases your prisoner’s Energy Burn Rate. The size of that increase depends on what they have eaten, giving you another reason to turn your ingredients into a proper meal.

Cooked food has the lowest digestion cost, while canned and processed foods require considerably more energy:

If several foods with different values are being digested at the same time, the Energy Burn Rate UI will display the median increase.

Raw meat, medications and snowballs do not increase the digestion burn rate.
Raw meat and certain unprocessed foods will now build Food Repulsion. If the bar fills, your prisoner will vomit.

NUTRIENT BUFFS & DEBUFFS

Keeping key nutrients at healthy levels can now activate new buffs, while deficiencies can trigger an opposing debuff.

Vigor & Lethargy

• Vigor reduces exhaustion gain and stamina loss. Lethargy increases both.
• Affected by protein, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, Vitamin B2 and Vitamin B5.

Mending & Erosion

• Mending increases healing speed and resistance to bleeding. Erosion reduces both, resulting in greater blood loss from injuries.
• Affected by Vitamin C, zinc, Vitamin B5, copper and manganese.

Resilience & Run Down

• Resilience improves resistance to sickness by strengthening the immune system. Run Down weakens that resistance.
• Affected by Vitamin C, Vitamin D, zinc and selenium.

Stability & Instability

• Stability increases movement speed while limping. Instability further reduces movement speed while limping.
• Affected by Vitamin C, Vitamin K, calcium, phosphorus and copper.

SCUM’s survival systems are built around managing your prisoner’s condition. To prevent death and respawning from becoming a quick way to clear exhaustion, deficiencies or illness, this update introduces Cloning Sickness.

Cloning Sickness is a temporary condition applied whenever you respawn after dying, regardless of the cause of death. It begins at C1 and only increases in severity if you die again before fully recovering.

At C1, your health, energy, water and vitamin levels, along with Fame Point gains, are temporarily reduced by 10%. Each additional severity increases those reductions by another 10%, up to 40% at C4. Higher severities also introduce headaches and further effects on performance, exertion and immunity.

Cloning Sickness begins recovering automatically, with more severe cases taking longer to clear:

Once recovery begins, its effects will gradually return to normal. Phoenix Tears will immediately move Cloning Sickness into recovery. If recovery has already begun, they will reduce the remaining recovery time by 50%.

Cloning Sickness cannot begin recovering while you are affected by Acute Radiation Sickness, Infection or Sepsis. These conditions must be treated first.

The condition is active on Official Servers. On private servers, it is enabled by default, but server owners can choose whether to keep it active.

SCUM Stalker Outfit Pack

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5006300/SCUM_Stalker_Outfit_Pack/Built for prisoners who prowl the wild in pursuit of their prey, the Stalker Outfit Pack unlocks a complete outfit set and an intimidating bone tomahawk for when the hunt gets close.

CRASHES & EXPLOITS

• Fixed a crash that could occur when another player used voice chat near your character.
• Fixed a crash that could after interacting with quest interactables after relog
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to repeatedly fill blueprints by manipulating nearby ground items using vehicles, enabling rapid skill progression.
• Fixed an exploit that could cause chests to become stuck in the player’s hands, allowing multiple chests to be carried.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players to destroy vehicles in Safe Zones using flamethrowers and gas tanks.

SERVER FUNCTIONALITY

• Fixed an issue where players would be unable to connect when they had a large number of active quests across multiple characters.
• Fixed an issue where the server would incorrectly detect a hang and create a crash folder, despite recovering and completing startup successfully.
• Fixed an issue where small garage doors remained lockable when the ‘Garage Door Lockability’ setting was disabled.

NEW SERVER & CUSTOM ZONE SETTINGS

CLONING SICKNESS

• Cloning Sickness Enabled
  [Respawn] -> RESPAWN
  scum.CloningSicknessEnabled=True
  Enables or disables the existing Cloning Sickness system.
  Default: True

RESEARCH FACILITY KEYCARDS

• Maximum Research Facility Keycards
  [World] -> BUNKERS
  scum.MaxAllowedApexFacilityKeycards=4
  Controls the total number of Research Facility Keycards that can be found across Police Stations and Radiation Zones.
  Default: 4
• Maximum Keycards in Police Stations
  [World] -> BUNKERS
  scum.MaxAllowedApexFacilityKeycards_PoliceStation=3
  Controls how many Research Facility Keycards can be found in Police Stations.
  Default: 3
• Maximum Keycards in Radiation Zones
  [World] -> BUNKERS
  scum.MaxAllowedApexFacilityKeycards_RadiationZone=1
  Controls how many Research Facility Keycards can be found in Radiation Zones.
  Default: 1

CUSTOM ZONE SETTING

• Vehicle Damage from Unowned Explosions[Custom Zones] -> VEHICLE
  Damage dealt to vehicles by explosion of no-owner items
  Controls the damage dealt to vehicles by explosions caused by items without an owner inside the Custom Zone.
  Default:
  Global configuration: Allow
  Outpost configuration: Block

WEAPONS

• Fixed an issue where weapons could be fired outside of Combat Mode by holding the left mouse button during a reload.
• Fixed incorrect alternative ADS offsets when using scopes for multiple weapons: VHS-2, M16A1, MK18, SVD, Kar98k, Mosin Nagant, Improvised Rifle, Hunter 85, Carbon Hunter, AS Val, VSS, AKS-74U, all AK-47 variants, AK15, AWM and AWP.
• Fixed incorrect reticle offsets while aiming down sights for multiple weapons: Carbon Hunter, Hunter 85, SCAR-L, SKS, Kar98k, AWP and AWM.
• Fixed an issue where the M1 Garand displayed a black border when aiming down sights through a scope.
• Fixed an issue where the camera could clip through the M1 Garand’s stock while firing in alternative ADS through the M1 scope.
• Fixed an issue where the SKS clip remained visible in the weapon chamber after the reload animation had finished.
• Fixed an issue where bullets flickered during the SKS clip-loading animation.
• Increased the SKS spawn rate.
• Reduced the damage Pressure Cooker Bombs deal to sentries by a further 50%.
• Fixed an issue where the character’s hand clipped through the Hunter’s Blackhawk Crossbow during the ‘Check Ammo’ and bash animations.
• Fixed an issue where the Hunter’s Recurve Bow could not be painted.

VEHICLES

• Fixed an issue where some vehicles appeared on the map when using the ‘#showvehicleinfo’ command but were missing from their marked locations.
• Fixed an issue where the Car Jack disappeared from the vicinity after servicing a vehicle.
• Fixed an issue where mounting a SUP while holding a paddle briefly caused the character to enter a T-pose.

USER INTERFACE, INVENTORY & TRADERS

• Fixed an issue where the ‘Cut’ and ‘Search’ actions would not work unless the camera was angled down from above the character.
• Fixed an issue where players could interact with base-building storage elements while aiming at them, even when no interaction prompt was displayed.
• Fixed an issue where items inside a loot container could not be taken after moving away from the original examination point.
• Fixed an issue where containers could not be searched.
• Fixed an issue where the player’s ‘Hands’ slot became locked after picking up an item with no remaining uses.
• Fixed an issue where the event duration timer appeared in unrelated inventory tabs.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Check Time’ action displayed the wrong message while the character was moving.
• Fixed an issue where the Milk icon was upside down.
• Fixed an issue where incorrect descriptions appeared in the ‘Metabolism’ tab.
• Fixed an issue where using certain fonts in a character’s name could cause the name to appear invisible on the map.
• Fixed an issue where capitalization-only changes to the names of vehicles, tombstones, signposts and other objects were not saved.
• Fixed missing translations for base-building element names and hints in the Chinese-language context menus.
• Grouped the four Master Hunter clothing items into a dedicated Master Hunter Gear category under Clothes > Civilian in trader menus.
• Fixed an issue where animal skins were labeled as a ‘Boar Leg’ in the trader’s Sell menu.
• Fixed an issue where the ‘Submit’ button did not work when renewing a Gold Card.
• Fixed an issue where the age slider appeared in the Doctor menu for Apex characters despite their age being fixed.
• Fixed an issue where an Apex character’s hair color was not saved after their first relog.

CLOTHING & ITEMS

• Fixed an issue that caused some clothing to appear silver or metallic.
• Fixed an issue where multiple Woodland Ponchos could be equipped simultaneously.
• Fixed an issue where holsters floated beside the character when no supporting belt or strap was equipped.
• Fixed an issue where equipping Tactical Gloves with the Trucker Jacket caused the character’s wrists to deform.
• Fixed an issue where the Police Sweater occupied an incorrect amount of inventory space.
• Fixed an issue where the CD Player had the same description as the Air Pump.
• Fixed an issue where sunflowers could not be interacted with.

GAMEPLAY & QUESTS

• Fixed an issue where the bait feeder could be filled and activated while being carried in the player’s hands.
• Fixed an issue where animals could sometimes freeze in place when attacked.
• Fixed an issue where eating raw pasta rapidly filled the player’s stomach with water, causing it to rupture.
• Fixed an issue where the dropship did not appear alongside the cargo drop.
• Fixed an issue where green Bunker lockers used loot presets intended for locked lockers despite not requiring lockpicking.
• Fixed an issue where quests configured to provide multiple reward items failed to grant all of those items upon completion.

BASE BUILDING

• Fixed an issue where mutant animal heads could be used in base-building blueprints that required normal animal heads.
• Fixed an issue where moving through an unfinished base-building blueprint could prevent players from jumping onto an adjacent completed element.
• Fixed an issue where players could not rotate base-building floors using the mouse wheel.

AUDIO & VISUALS

• Fixed an issue where no rowing sound played while using the Dinghy.
• Fixed an issue where the character animation was misaligned while manually opening Abandoned Bunker doors.
• Fixed an issue where horses slid while getting up from a lying animation.
• Fixed an issue where the character’s elbow visibly popped out of place while steering a motorbike left or right.
• Fixed an issue where character shadows remained stationary in first-person mode.

WORLD & LEVEL DESIGN

• Fixed an issue where driving over a specific spot at Samobor’s southern entrance could destroy the player’s vehicle.
• Fixed an issue where the fence door in Sector B2 had an excessively large interaction range, preventing players from interacting with the nearby ladder.
• Fixed an issue where players could clip into docks while swimming near them.
• Fixed an issue where invisible collisions blocked multiple doors in the C4 Abandoned Bunker.
• Fixed a wall in the Sanitarium POI that had no collision.
• Fixed an issue where players could not get wet or drive a boat in a specific location in Sector C4.
• Fixed an issue where a set of doors in the Krško POI could be interacted with when they should not have been.
• Fixed incorrect textures on the A1 Bunker doors.
• Fixed transparent sections on the radio tower beams in the Krško POI.
• Fixed an issue where bright triangular shapes appeared on the surface of the water in Sector D0.
• Fixed an issue where rain fell through the roof of a building in part of the Radiation Zone.
• Fixed trees growing out of rocks in various locations.
• Fixed bushes clipping through walls in multiple locations.
• Fixed misplaced fences clipping through rocks in multiple locations.
• Fixed floating streetlights, lamps, tires and containers in multiple locations.
• Removed a mushroom floating in the sky above Sector B2.
• Fixed an old spotlight overlapping the Hunters Grotto sign in Trader Zones.
• Fixed low-resolution textures on bags of concrete.

That’s everything included in the August Update.

Thank you for continuing to share your feedback and bug reports. Please keep them coming as you explore the Research Facilities and get to grips with the new systems.

Into the Wild continues in September.

See you on the Island, prisoners.