Well, it's been three days (and an extra four while under review) and we're officially out of pre-alpha and into... alpha?
Still, there's quite a bit of content so buckle up.
Additions
Create has been added and is intended to increase the amount of effort to obtain improved gear. Keep an eye on obtaining Brass as they'll be crucial later on.
However, Encased Fans are not craftable as bulk smelting is extremely overpowered as it stretches the player's coal supply, giving the player far more comfortable amounts to turn into gunpowder and makes smelting steel effortless.
An armor set (officially the DEA armored set) from LesRaisin Armor is now craftable, intended to serve as a mid-late game armor until you manage to craft yourself either the Attacker or Defender set. While the full set will provide passive Resistance, the pants and boots won't last very long.
Insurgent mob from the Insurgents mod will now roam villages, inhabits outposts and Woodland mansions, and excavate Ancient Cities. They do not spawn outside of these structures so for the time being stay clear of the villages, unless you want to be shot at.
Two new (well technically one, but anyway) starting kits are available. They're called Survivalist kits and provide you with an Iron Knife, Steel Longbow, and the usual water canteen, food, clock, and wool/leave armor.
Backpacks can no longer be upgraded beyond Iron and Item Stack upgrades are no longer obtainable to prevent backpacks from being turned into a mobile dedicated storage facility.
Netherite and Diamond armor are no longer craftable (you can still find Diamond leggings in Ancient Cities, and this is subject to removal later on as configuring chest loot table is a different beast to tackle).
Weapon Balance Changes
Ammunitions for TaCZ firearms now require Brass Ingots instead of Copper. This is done to give the bows greater importance in early game as smelting for steel ingots is simply a waiting game.
Assault and Battle Rifles have received more changes to their recoil profiles since prealpha-0.2.0-preview.
Zombie Changes
Increased Zombie spawning distance and group proximity to relieve players' bases from being constantly besieged during mid-late game.
Progressive difficulty by Improved Mobs now increases faster (to counteract increased day length by Hourglass).
Notice
Originally day lengths are supposed to be four times longer, but I forgot to include the defaultconfig folder (which contains the Hourglass config file) in prior versions. Apologies for the oversight.
Notice: This is a preview of the upcoming update and things preset in the preview is subject to change, removal or even addittion.
Weapon Balance Changes
All TaCZ firearms now have significantly higher recoil, with select-fire weapons lending themselves to either semi-automatic near-spam firing or automatic tap firing. This is to address the rather unfinished recoil readjustments present in previous versions.
Player Balance Changes
Heart Balance is removed as the craftable Mega Health Pickup is essentially a full heal while costing only slightly more than brewing Instant Health Potions.
Both Lumberjack starting kits now have Iron Axes instead of Steel ones.
Zombie Balance Changes
Zombies will no longer drop Health Pickups (as Heart Balance is removed).
Zombie Spawns have been significantly opened up to prevent players from being confined to their bases as difficulty ramps up. (This is still being tested and the final release may see how far the spanws are opened up).
Maximum progressive difficulty by Improved Mobs has been capped to 150.
Weapon Balance Changes
All TaCZ weapons will no longer partially reset their vertical recoil climb.
Zombie Balance Changes
Improved Mobs is reintroduced as the spawn.json-based progressive zombie improvements conflicted with Magnum Torches. Naturally, this means any spawn.json-based progressive difficulty system has been discontinued.
Improved Mobs will no longer spawn zombies carrying any ranged weapons (i.e. bows, snowballs), use shields, throw Ender Pearls, or cast Evoker Fangs or Shulker projectiles.
World Generation Changes
The Deep Dark will no longer be covered in sculk, but rather deepslate (This will possibly be an interim change).
Zombie Changes
Zombie stats improvements will now focus on increased hitpoints and strength, maxing out as the in-game day counter passes day 80. Speed, on the other hand, will be capped at an earlier period (for the time being speed increases is still capped at the same time period as strength and hitpoints, as I'm debating to whether cap it at day 50 or 60).
Patches
The vanilla Golden Carrot recipe is finally removed (I forgot that I also had to remove the recipe before adding the more expensive one in its place).
Loot Changes
Vanilla gold ores will now be replaced by denser versions of it.
Bug Fixes
Zombies should now receive custom stats multiplier as according to what's configured in the spawn.json file.
Resolved a syntax error that prevented spawn.json from functioning.
Notice: The now-deleted prealpha-0.1.0 version released several hours ago have been removed due to a syntax error in the spawn.json file, apologies for any inconvenience.
Zombie Stat Changes
Improved Mobs removed in favor of more consistent and progressively improved stats configured in In Control's spawn.json. (This is also done because during the first few days zombies would spawn with armor, able to teleport via ender pearls, and in rare cases, cast Evoker Fangs).
Zombies are planned to receive more buffs through spawn.json in the upcoming versions/patch notes.
Weapon Balance Changes
The AK-47 now has a cheaper crafting recipe, albeit with slightly increased recoil.
Lukas' Weapon Leveling has been removed.
Depending on how the upcoming zombie buffs turn out, Spartan's Armoury (particularly Two-Handed Swords) may be removed.
Loot Changes
Golden Carrots are more expensive to craft (Given the importance of Night Vision in navigating caves and mining ores, and the difficulty of getting the Night Vision Goggles, it's only appropriate that Golden Carrots are made more expensive).
SecurityCraft mines are now uncraftable to remove redundancy as MineTrap mines are craftable.
Weapon Balance Changes
All TaCZ rifles received increased damage per shot and armor penetration values.
Late-game Assault and Battle Rifles (HK-416D, SCAR-L, SCAR-H) now cause higher damage and significantly better armor penetration stats, making them more worthwhile to acquire than holding onto cheaper, midrange weapons.
Reduced crafting cost of M16A1 to reflect it's profile as a starting rifle.
Both the G3 and SCAR-H now have higher recoil to match their identity as Battle Rifles.
The Mk14 EBR received substantially higher damage per shot, with significantly higher recoil to match it's profile as a Designated Marksman Rifle, not a regular Battle Rifle like the SCAR-H or the midrange G3.
Both the AWM and M95 now have far lower rate of fire and substantially increased recoil.
Loot Changes
A new crafting recipe for Blaze Rods, meant to fully replace obtaining Blaze Powder through killing zombies with melee weapons with Looting II/III.
Zombies no longer drop Blaze Powder when killed with a melee weapon enchanted with Looting II/III.
Temporarily removed Lost Cities and Lios Overhauled Village until further notice, with the former having compatibility issues with terrain generation mods in the modpack.
Luki's Grand Capitals has been removed for the forseeable future.
The public inaugural release of the Apocalypse modpack. At the moment the modpack will remain in pre-Alpha until the Deep Dark is fully removed and terrain generation issues are resolved (refer to the description page).