Sons of the Forest Patch 09 Notes: Radio Alarm Trap, New Cannibals, and Hundreds of Fixes

Endnight Games keeps cranking out updates for Sons of the Forest, and Patch 09 lands with plenty to chew through. Survivors get a brand new trap, two fresh enemies, dozens of building tweaks, and a long cleanup pass on bugs and audio.

Headline Additions

The standout newcomer is the Radio Alarm Trap. Drop it around your base perimeter and it pings you when cannibals or other hostiles wander into range. Less getting jumped while sorting your inventory.

On the enemy roster, a large female cannibal joins the regular patrols, and the Returning Creepy finally arrives. The Returning Creepy is a many-armed humanoid horror reserved for the endgame, so save it for after you have the better weapons.

Patch 09 also lets you set radios down as world objects, adds a control setting that lets you adjust the speed of the inventory camera, and introduces a batch placement input so you can chain-place blueprints without reopening the build book between every piece.

The rest of the changes from the Steam announcement are below.

Patch 09 Notes (August 18)

New Features

• Radio Alarm Trap added.
• Creepies can now be blown apart into chunks.
• Held radios can be placed.
• The Returning Creepy joins the endgame roster.
• A new heavier female cannibal variant has been introduced.
• Controls options now include a slider for inventory camera pan, tilt, and pivot speed.
• New batch place input: hold left shift (or left stick on gamepad) while placing ghosts to keep the blueprint active for repeat placements without reopening the menu.

Improvements

• Ducks can now land and walk on the ground, including the golf course.
• Loot pouches can be opened even when your inventory is full of those same items. The overflow drops out when you clear the mat.
• Night vision goggles and the rebreather can be toggled with a hotkey if bound.
• Holding the Take prompt now equips skulls directly from a pickup.
• Armsy can now jump (apologies in advance).
• Kelvin gathers stones even when you are not nearby.
• Player traps that kill enemies now count as player kills.
• Traps deal damage to larger enemies and can knock them down.
• Plants in plots can be harvested at 70% grow size. Growth time is unchanged, only the scaling of the plant.
• Items can no longer be stored when you do not have your backpack. They drop instantly instead.
• Localization added to the multiplayer respawn timer.
• New options page settings: Tutorial Visibility, Vitals HUD Visibility, and Global GUI Visibility.
• Smoother visual transition when grabbing onto a zipline.
• LOD setups added for the golf bag and putter, grenade, time bomb, Molotov, vodka bottle, pills, wristwatch, and money.
• Hokey Pokey trap pendulum repositioned so the rope no longer looks disconnected at the anchor.
• John2 now properly trips traps.
• Radio music events now sync both position and rotation.
• UI interaction prompts on ropes sit in better positions.
• Climbing ropes stop at the water surface rather than sinking to the bottom.
• The 3D printed sled is scaled down while it sits in the printer.
• New option lets traps trigger on players. Off by default, on in Hard Survival. Spring traps always trigger.
• The Fly Swatter and Bone Maker now hurt the player if you walk into your own setup.
• All traps can be placed on steeper slopes.
• Dedicated server direct connect via `<ip>:<game port>` is available in the multiplayer menus. No more waiting on the full server list to refresh.
• Cooking pot lid animation properly updates for clients.
• Pickup audio events can be overridden so berries plucked from bushes use the correct sound.
• Trap LODs updated.
• Hard-to-grab quick select items like herbs are easier to pick.
• The printer UI now shows the Q button so people know they can cycle backwards.
• Animals received LODs.
• Shooting dead bodies with the rifle imparts more force.
• Freeform structures (fire, fence posts) placed on floors are now linked with the floor. Dismantling rules apply, and collapse propagates if the floor is destroyed.
• Reinforced fire rocks remain in place after fuel runs out, and a stick can be added to refuel.
• Damaged effigies now only distort the first stick, and repairing returns the stick to position.
• Small structure links sync to multiplayer clients so restrictions evaluate locally instead of after the server rejects the action.
• Tree stump LODs added.
• Floating driftwood range increased, plus new LODs.
• Extra light blockers and Distance Activated Groups for the Food Bunker fix lighting leaks.
• Various environment cleanup and fixes.
• Bunker Entertainment spittle moved to the work scheduler, missing LODs added.
• Bunker Entertainment sections now enable and disable by area.
• Food Bunker dining tables and couches with collisions stay active for bosses when no host is in a bunker.
• Cave rocks in Bunker Entertainment moved to the work scheduler.
• LOD setups for door planks, stick paths, defensive wall spikes, stone fake pillars, stone struts, defensive walls, log and stone beams, electric wire elements, wires, wire zip ties, and lightbulbs.
• Shadow setup optimized in freeform LOD hierarchies.
• New combined LOD system for walls and floors significantly cuts render cost for full walls without windows and floors without holes.
• Wall torch particle optimized.
• Cliff Rocks LOD2s optimized.
• Rock LOD2s optimized.
• Rock A LOD2 looks better.
• Bunker Entertainment light blockers adjusted with Distance Activated Groups.
• Save game directories now stored as zips. Fewer files to sync to the Steam Cloud.
• Male Puffy, Female Puffy, and Heavy Heads now use primitive colliders.
• Defensive wall three-quarter LOD improvements.
• Water quality settings now include a displacement toggle.
• Debug console (cheats menu) overhauled for look and usability.

Balance

• Creepies no longer cluster around cave entrances in late-game after loading. They spread out over a wider zone.
• Fewer creepies wander outside during late-game.

Fixes

• Several network disconnect issues resolved.
• Centering fixed on multiple UI elements.
• Left-hand items no longer vanish while the repair tool is in use.
• The crossbow no longer locks you up when picking up new items in quick succession.
• The Hokey Pokey pendulum no longer enters a broken physics state and spins out of control.
• Unique items defined as non-one-to-one layout group representations now remove correctly.
• Animation issues and stuck states resolved when grabbing a rope while swimming.
• Fixed scaling on a misshapen quick select mushroom.
• Laser sight mod pickup no longer shows the laser beam.
• Broken sticks no longer cause mesh collider error spam during arrow crafting.
• Item Hotkey UI hidden on items resting on the crafting mat.
• Resin volume and percent complete readouts now correct after loading.
• 3D printer audio fixed for saves with prints in progress or finished prints on the plate.
• 3D prints resume from the correct visual height after loading.
• "Collected" UI notifications no longer pop every time a held item is stashed.
• Batteries no longer clip through the inventory mat, and their shuffle animation was redone.
• Multiplayer lobby is marked non-joinable when connections are maxed, preventing weird overlap during a client timeout.
• Cooking prompts are repositioned and stay onscreen.
• 3D printer readouts now show correctly for clients after loading.
• Players can no longer accidentally lose their equipped combat knife when stashing multiple held items without their inventory.
• Equipped items no longer lose their Item Instance data when an equip sequence is canceled.
• Client audio while cooking directly on a fire now works in multiplayer.
• Clients no longer get an extra drink after a cooking pot is emptied.
• Clients no longer see ghost arrows being printed when loading into a save with an active print.
• The Hokey Pokey trap no longer thinks it is disarmed while still in the reset state.
• Drinking from a cleaned cooking pot now works after the pot is placed back on a fire.
• The flashlight no longer emits light for other players when the battery is dead.
• Out-of-resin beeping stops on the 3D printer after the print is removed post-load.
• Stashing quick select hides renderables with a delay to dodge the last-frame gimbal pop.
• Some actions used different inputs when interacting with a ghost structure. Inputs are now consistent.
• Serialization error resolved when loading a save with an idle 3D printer.
• Growing plants can no longer be interacted with when they should be off-limits.
• The tracker antenna in inventory no longer renders white.
• Horsetail and aloe vera layout items on the grab bag are correctly scaled.
• Rain shows up in the opening crash cutscenes.
• Player rain SFX no longer plays during the opening helicopter scene.
• Non-clients now get the correct printer bed height on save load.
• Placed paper targets save correctly.
• Cooking pot lid animation and audio resume correctly after loading a save with an active cook.
• Radio sync works correctly on other players while the local player is in their inventory.
• Some structures no longer take more melee damage than intended.
• Network explosive damage edge cases (extra damage, no damage) resolved.
• AI no longer tries to path through LeanTo walls.
• Player-attached UI (speared fish, etc.) no longer jumps around.
• Skinning prompt now appears immediately on creepies, and the missing prompt on certain animals is fixed.
• Dead bodies no longer regrow limbs when you return.
• Small birds no longer land on objects underwater.
• Loading a save with the final boss dead but the ending unfinished now shows him in his dead state.
• Seagulls no longer get stuck in animation when their landing is interrupted.
• John2 now plays death and hit animations.
• Fences can be placed on cliffs.
• Detached fence placement no longer snaps to existing fences.
• Cliff placement UI is visible.
• Quitting to the title screen while looking at a ghost structure no longer causes issues on return.
• Dismantling free wire no longer blocks dismantling a supporting structure.
• Dismantle attempts on fence wire no longer move the renderer.
• Cave entrance light blocker collisions removed so they cannot block actions.
• Repairing floors with inverted supporting beams works.
• Placing fire in a fireplace works for clients in fence placement mode.
• Failsafe checks added to electric wire and the power grid to reduce breaks from bad linking states.
• Destroyed floors and doors leave behind log planks.
• You can no longer cut a pillar that supports a wire (regular or free).
• You can no longer cut floor holes while supporting freeform structures like a fire.
• Window shutter toggle works in edge cases.
• Defensive wall gates no longer partially collapse.
• Defensive wall gate placement now checks log contiguity to prevent gates from looking broken.
• Beam placement has no more delay between the first stone and the rest.
• Destroyed sharpened stick defense now spawns its stick.
• Broken doors spawn the correct amount of planks.
• Stone pillars no longer use non-LOD versions in some cases.
• Lifting a beam with a too-short pillar now links the structures properly.
• Damaged UI shows up when it should.
• Dismantling logs on uneven terrain no longer leaves a fake pillar.
• Detached fence prompts no longer overlap existing posts.
• Detached fence placement on slopes is no longer blocked when the player can reach the position.
• Beam repair now syncs element transform.
• Cutting a window in a wall no longer fails at the end of the animation when a shutter is supported. The prompt is hidden entirely in that case.
• Destroying stone pillars, beams, or walls now spawns the actual quantity of stones used rather than a single stone.
• Some structure damage sounds now sync in multiplayer.
• Destroying a quarter log variation pillar yields the right pickup.
• Transforming a single log wall into an apex by adding a shorter log works.
• Placement preview arrow centers correctly when placing a log on an apex.
• Zipline controller cleans itself up when destroyed with player focus, preventing E-press errors afterward.
• Wall log rotation is no longer affected by the Random system seed and consistently picks a random Z rotation.
• Light leak in maintenance bunkers on Ultra Low Shadow fixed.
• Light blockers no longer appear in inventory view inside maintenance bunker hallways.
• Default error initializing tree wind audio fixed.
• Collider initialization delay fixed.
• Multiplayer chat box max characters limited, and auto-formatting fixed to prevent overrun.
• Glider and Knight V duplication bugs resolved.
• Linked collider error spam on suitcases fixed.
• Wall torch particle toggle logic fixed.
• Underwater controller no longer thinks it is in water when the trigger is disabled, removing odd lava cave underwater rendering.
• Multiplayer clients no longer stomp the bunker hatch/door open state on load.
• Time of day initialization from the server now works, fixing seasons not switching on first connect.
• Radio playback bugs in Bunker Entertainment fixed.
• Light popping in Luxury Bunker with flashlight held and SSR disabled fixed.
• Thread runner error that locked up the game in the credits fixed.
• Cave B dead wakeup inventory bag locations fixed.
• Lava streams now damage players.
• Math.Epsilon replaced with Mathf.Epsilon to fix errors on some hardware.

Audio

• Weapons hitting structures now make a proper impact sound.
• Missing impact combinations have at least one fallback sound per material.
• Glider impact sounds added, including the detach sound when the glider hits something.
• Demons burning on the cross now have audio.
• New damage sounds for defensive walls and stone structures.
• Golf cart impact audio events added.
• Golf cart traction audio smoothing speeds tweaked.
• Some network audio bugs with the golf cart fixed.
• Radio panning improved.
• Armsy VO and footstep distances retuned.
• The 3D printed GPS case now has mouseover and pickup audio.
• Wood structures emit a destruction sound.
• General ambient audio mix improvements.
• Defensive wall gate open and close events added.
• In-game audio mix updates for squirrel footsteps, player footsteps on leaves, and berry pluck.
• Missing audio for placing reinforcement rocks fixed.

What Stands Out

Patch 09 is mostly stability work, with two real combat additions worth pointing at: the Radio Alarm Trap and the Returning Creepy. Both reshape how late-game bases play. The trap rewards thoughtful perimeter design. The Returning Creepy keeps the endgame from getting comfortable.

The building and audio overhauls deserve attention too. The combined LOD system for walls and floors quietly trims render cost, which helps when you host a packed multiplayer base. The save game zip conversion is one of those fixes you only appreciate when Steam Cloud sync stops being a chore.

If you run a Sons of the Forest server with HolyHosting, Patch 09 slots in cleanly once the server build matches the client. Back up your save files before the first launch on the new version, and try the dedicated server direct connection feature if you keep your server private.