Icarus Week 243 'Livewire Revamp' drops, Carbon Fishing Rod teased

Week 243 of Icarus is headlined by the biggest Olympus Operation Update entry yet: a major revamp of Livewire, the early Olympus mission that was the first combat-and-defense Operation players ever took on. The build is tagged 3.0.21.155201-rel-DangerousHorizons.

The reworked Livewire brings the mission in line with newer Icarus Operations: a fresh flow, new tactical challenges, clearer hints, a restored mission briefing, and a bigger role for NPC medics like Griff, including new dialogue. The quest now uses the newer infrastructure with lootable radar and backpack objectives, hedgehog collection steps, ambush-style wolf pack spawns, per-player scaling, and an Alpha Terrenus that uses a distinct skeleton and mesh. Prebuilt structures also load asynchronously over time instead of popping in, reducing mission stutter.

Senior designer John Frank says the Olympus Operations effort has no single end goal, but the team's focus is on clarity, preserving the sense of earned struggle, and updating older missions to current standards with balance passes, bug fixes, hints, and full revamps "as long as they deliver real value."

Since release, Icarus has had just three in-world fish types: Fish01, Fish02, and the piranha-like Fish03. Next week's update makes the dozens of fish from the fishing system appear in the world too, with spawn locations matching the areas where each species can be fished.

It also adds the Carbon Fishing Rod, a carbon-fiber rod crafted on the Fishing Bench with improved stats for easier fishing.

• Mission Rewards (Blueprints, Workshop Items, Legendary Weapons) should now unlock and persist correctly instead of being lost when leaving a session.
• The Lava Hunter no longer attacks random creatures or chases players endlessly; it now anchors near its lava arena.
• Prebuilt Structures no longer incorrectly connect to existing resource networks.
• Clay, Scoria, and Obsidian Sledgehammer Attachment recipes now use the correct item inputs.
• Metal Grate building pieces now have destructible meshes and break apart like other buildings.
• Beast Scanner scanning is disabled on Mounts because the damage modifier wasn't being applied.
• Solar Backpack and focused-item charging logic were fixed.
• Assorted audio, animation, tooltip, and co-op replication fixes are also in.

The changelog's Future Content section includes early WIP work on a large raptor dino, a coastal bird (kea), a turtle duck, a two-player speeder bike, passenger saddles, new character-customization toggles, and more Great Hunt RAD boss tuning.

The Dangerous Horizons expansion and Icarus Free Weekend Bundle are on Steam.