Pets editor: Max All / Reset All talent buttons

If you've ever fully trained a pet, you know the click cost. Twenty-some taps minimum, more if you're juggling multiple mounts. Two new buttons in the talent tab header collapse into one click each:

• Max All sets every talent in the selected mount's tree to its catalog-defined max rank. Per-talent caps are respected, since talent ceilings vary across the tree, and a flat "max value" doesn't apply.
• Reset All clears every talent on the selected mount.

Both operate only on the currently selected mount, so other mounts in the save remain untouched. Recovery mode disables them (matching the rest of the editor's edit endpoints). No confirmation modal, since max and reset are reversible on a round trip, and the modal would just be friction.

13 new tests went in with the feature.

Pets recovery: the Download button now turns on like you'd expect

u/stubouyer flagged this one on r/IcarusTools last week. Quoting them directly because the report nails it:

>

Exactly right. The recovery success branch was re-enabling the Apply button but not the Download button, even though the success toast itself told you to click Download next. One-line fix: enable the Download button after a successful recovery, in parallel with the non-recovery save path. If recovery errors, the button stays disabled (nothing to download anyway).

Thanks for the report. Keep them coming.

Variation data corrections (Slinker, TundraMonkey, Boar, Storca)

The variation picker dropdown is fed from a generated data file. That file got cleaner this week.

The Slinker was missing an eighth variant. The Legendary M_CRE_Slinker_Blue phenotype was in the game's pak data but not in the editor's canonical list. Now it's there.

TundraMonkey's rarity was wrong. Variant 0 was weighted 50 (Rare) when it should have been 2,000 (Common). Hand-typing error from a previous data-entry pass that never got caught. Corrected.

Stale mesh-name suffixes are gone. TundraMonkey's eight mesh names all carried a _FurCards suffix that pointed at the wrong primary mesh. Slinker variants 1 through 6 had a similar _Feathers artifact mid-name. Both were leftovers from an earlier extractor pass that didn't know how to pick the primary mesh out of multi-key MeshMaterials slots. The new extractor handles that correctly; the data file was regenerated from live pak, and the strings are correct now.

Chew is no longer in the creature list. It was a row-name duplicate Slinker that crept in during data-table churn. Removed.

8 Boar phenotype variations and 8 Storca phenotype variations got added to the dropdown earlier in the week. Nothing you have to do, the editor auto-populates them from the data file.

Soon

Pack up your outpost. Move it to the next prospect.

Got a question this week about whether the "blob" in Icarus save files is encrypted, and whether you can read or edit the world resources, tools, ore, or stackable items hidden inside it. The answer is short and the long version is worth writing down, so here it is.

Short answer: it isn't encrypted

The blob looks scrambled because it's base64-encoded zlib-compressed binary, not because it's locked. Once you base64-decode it and run it through zlib, you get a structured stream of UE4 (Unreal Engine 4) serialized properties in the engine's standard GVAS format. No keys, no cipher, no DRM. Just compression.

If you want a one-liner to prove that to yourself in Python:

import base64, zlib

with open("YOURPROSPECT.json") as f:
    blob_b64 = f.read().strip()  # whatever field holds the base64 string

raw = zlib.decompress(base64.b64decode(blob_b64))
print(len(raw), "bytes of UE4 property data")

A populated prospect tends to land in the low single-digit megabytes compressed and decompresses to tens of megabytes. Big, but plain.

What's actually inside

After decompressing, you get six top-level UE4 properties. The interesting one is StateRecorderBlobs, which is a list of game-state actors. The number and mix of those actors varies wildly by map, by how long you've played the prospect, and by what you've actually done. A fresh drop has almost none. A long-running outpost has thousands.

What I have parsed and operate on directly in my tools:

• ResourceDepositRecorderComponent and ResourceDepositIceRecorderComponent: deep ore and ice deposit nodes (the kind you'd hit with a mining drill). My Cartographer tool reads these and plots them on the real terrain map.
• OilGeyserRecorderComponent and EnzymeGeyserRecorderComponent: oil and enzyme geyser locations. Cartographer surfaces these as well.
• CaveEntranceRecorderComponent: cave entrance positions. Cartographer plots these too.
• DeployableRecorderComponent: anything you've built and dropped (crates, stations, lights, processors, etc.). Each carries a FoundationActorIcarusUID that resolves through the catalog (D_Deployables → D_Itemable) into the inventory-form item it packs back into. My homestead pack-up code currently resolves 883 of 883 deployables in my Olympus test save.
• BedRecorderComponent**,** CropPlotRecorderComponent**,** DrillRecorderComponent**,** SignRecorderComponent**,** CharacterTrapRecorderComponent**,** PaintingRecorderComponent: the rest of the player-built actor types that the under-development homestead pack-up tool can pack up. Each resolves cleanly through the catalog the same way deployables do.
• IcarusMountCharacterRecorderComponent: tamed mounts living on the prospect (separate file from Mounts.json, which holds workshop saved mounts). Same property layout as the mounts in the standalone file.
• Player actors (BP_IcarusPlayerCharacterSurvival_C in ActorClassName): your character's full live inventory (backpack, hotbar, belt, equipment, ammo, exosuit, lantern, mount saddle and cargo), plus position, health, and stats, all serialized as a nested binary payload inside the actor's BinaryData. This is what Prospector decodes and edits.

What I can identify but haven't decoded the inner geometry of:

• VoxelRecorderComponent and SpawnedVoxelRecorderComponent
• BuildingGridRecorderComponent: the persistence backing for player-built bases (foundations, walls, roofs).
• SplineRecorderComponent and BP_IcarusSplineActor_C: spline-tool placements. In Icarus, splines are the utility lines: electricity, water, oil, and fuel pipes.
• Quest and world managers (IcarusQuestManagerRecorderComponent, WorldTalentManagerRecorderComponent, WeatherControllerRecorderComponent, etc.). I can read the named fields at the top level (mission name, completion bools, world talent row names).

For the full structural reference, see:

• Initial Findings, Prospect Blob Structure for the top-level structure and component class index.
• Binary Format, UE4 Property Layout for the byte-level property header and every type tag (IntProperty, StrProperty, StructProperty, ArrayProperty, etc.) with the StrProperty UTF-16 fallback, you'll hit on non-ASCII names.

What about tools, ore, and stackable items?

This is the question that triggered the post. Different things you'd want to edit live in different places, and three of those places are inside the prospect blob you just decoded, not next to it.

Your live inventory while on a prospect (backpack, hotbar, belt, equipment, mount cargo) lives inside the prospect blob, as a nested payload on the player actor. My Prospector tool decodes that, lets you edit slots (add, remove, move, edit stacks, durability, item GUIDs), and re-encodes it back into the prospect file. Slot validation, item IDs, stack sizes, and dynamic-data indices are all handled for the items in the live game catalog (97% coverage at last sync).

Deep ore deposits live in the prospect blob too, in ResourceDepositRecorderComponent actors. Cartographer decodes those and plots them along with caves and geysers. Read-only today.

Account-level meta-progression (workshop currencies like Credits and Biomass, workshop unlocks, mission/achievement flags) lives in Profile.json, separate from any prospect. Prospector edits this in the Workshop tab.

Workshop loadout items and legendary bio-lab weapons live in MetaInventory.json, also separate from prospects. Prospector handles loadout, add/remove/transfer-to-backpack, and bio-lab weapon upgrades from there.

Mounts and pets are a fourth file (Mounts.json), and that's what my Pets editor handles.

So if you're trying to "edit ore," the answer depends on what you actually want:

• Want a stack of iron in your backpack on an active prospect? Prospector, Editor tab.
• Want more workshop credits or a workshop item unlocked? Prospector, Workshop tab (Profile.json).
• Want to upgrade a legendary bio-lab weapon? Prospector, Bio-Lab tab (MetaInventory.json).
• Want to know where the deep ore nodes are on the map? Cartographer.

If you want to dig in yourself

The two doc pages above cover everything I've published. The catalog has the live game data tables that the property names and enum values refer back to, so you can cross-reference an actor's RowName against the actual D_*.json table from the game's data pack.

If you find something I haven't documented, or you spot something wrong in what I have, open an issue or ping me on r/IcarusTools and I'll fold it in.

I would also like to add that I'm looking for one or two people to help moderate this subreddit. Not so much because it's a rowdy place, but because between work, family, and the Icarus tools, I don't have time to really make this place pop visually or socially.

The big one this week: if you've ever lost pets to a boss raid, decay, or whatever else the planet threw at you, you can now bring them back from a world save backup. That's the headline. There are a couple of other quality-of-life wins underneath it.

Bring Your Pets Back (#138)

Pets killed in a boss raid don't have to be gone for good. There's a new Recovery Mode toggle on the Pets editor.

Important: you'll need a backup of your world save from before the loss, meaning the world save where the pets still existed. The portal can't conjure pets out of nothing; it copies them from a save where they're still alive.

Good news: Icarus already does this for you. The game keeps a rolling stack of ten automatic backups in your prospect folder, named {prospect name}.json.backup_1 through .json.backup_10. Pick whichever one is from before the raid. That's your recovery source.

Flip Recovery Mode on and the editor changes shape:

1. Upload one of those .backup_N files directly. No need to rename it. The portal scans it for pet actors that belong to you.
   • You can also upload your prospect's main .json If it's from before the loss.
2. Pick a character if your save has more than one player on it. The portal matches owners automatically when it can.
3. Pick the pets you want back. Each pet shows up as a card with the same look as the regular editor, just read-only.
4. Recover. The portal copies the pet's actor data straight into your current Mounts.json and offers you the download.

A few things worth knowing:

• It works for any creature, not just specific species. If the pet exists in your backup save and was yours, it can come back.
• Duplicates are blocked. If a pet still exists in your Mounts.jsonThe portal won't let you accidentally clone it back in.
• Recovery mode is fully read-only. All the normal edit buttons go quiet, so you can't trip over them mid-recovery.
• Free for everyone.

If you've got a backup world save sitting in your artifact storage from a previous portal session, you don't even need to re-upload it. The portal sees it and lets you reuse it.

Tool-Created Mounts Not Loading? Fixed.

If you used the New Pet button to spawn a creature, then took the save back into the game and the mount just... didn't appear, that was a bug on our side. It's fixed now.

• New pets you create going forward are fine.
• Existing tool-created pets sitting in a Mounts.json will be quietly corrected the next time you upload, with a small toast letting you know. No action needed on your end.

If you've had a tool-created mount refuse to load in-game, re-upload your save. You should be set.

Where To Find Us Now

Quick housekeeping. There are now "Join us on Reddit" links in the top nav and the footer, pointing at r/IcarusTools.

That's our home base for tool announcements, bug discussion, and feature requests outside the bug report system. Come say hi.

Behind the Scenes (Briefly)

A couple of things that don't change anything you'll see directly, but are worth a line:

• Cartographer now has usage metrics (#232). I had no visibility into how the Cartographer was actually being used: page visits, which maps people loaded, and share-link clicks. That's wired up now, which means I can prioritize Cartographer improvements based on what people actually do with it instead of guessing.
• CI is roughly 45× faster. Internal-only, but it means fixes ship faster.

What's Next

Two open user reports are still on the board:

• Black/orange cats spawning gray (#241). The variation isn't sticking with cats. Reproducible. Up next.
• Maxed talent points not saving (#240). Reported a couple of weeks back; still on the list.
• mounts.json parse error on upload (#262). A new one from this week. Investigating.

If you've reported one of these, I haven't forgotten. The pet recovery epic ate a chunk of the last week. Back to triage.

---

Thanks for using the portal. As always, bug reports that lead to fixes get premium credits.

More soon.

Two big things changed for you in the last couple of weeks. If you use the portal regularly, both will feel obvious the next time you log in.

Your Work Is Saved

The biggest one: your uploads and edits now persist.

Before, the portal was session-scoped. You uploaded a save, you edited, you downloaded, and the moment your browser session expired, everything was gone. If you came back the next day to tweak something, you had to start over from scratch.

Not anymore. Every file you upload, and every edited version you generate, is now stored against your account. Log in next week, next month, whenever, and you will find all of it waiting on your profile page.

What this looks like in practice:

• The profile page now includes a new Artifacts section that shows your upload and rebuild history for each tool (Pets, Prospects, Prospector). Every file is downloadable. The download links continue to work as long as the artifact is retained.
• Continue banner on each tool picks up where you left off. Open the Pets editor, and if you have a recent session, it offers to resume instead of making you re-upload.
• Bug reports now automatically attach the exact save files you had in session when you filed. I can reproduce issues without asking you to re-upload anything.

Free vs Premium: the free tier keeps the most recent upload and rebuild per tool. Premium keeps everything, forever. When you cross the free limit, the portal quietly prunes the oldest file and keeps going. Nothing you care about disappears without warning.

This was a massive rebuild under the hood (eleven shipped tickets, a new database schema, dual-write migration so nothing got lost in the transition), but the goal was always that you wouldn't have to think about any of it. Upload, edit, download. Come back whenever.

Bug Fix: Currency Editing in Prospector (#231 (closed))

Thanks to B4DZZ for catching this one.

If you edited currency values (Credits, Biomass, Ren, Flake stacks) in the Workshop tab, the edits were saving correctly, but the Apply and Download buttons did not re-enable afterward. That left you stuck: the change was in, but you had no way to actually push the save back out.

Two root causes, both fixed. The editor now correctly marks Profile.json as modified on currency updates, and the button state refreshes after Workshop edits. Credits in the patch notes to B4DZZ for the specific repro that got me there.

Closing a Few Older Reports

A couple of reports from earlier in the month got formally closed this fortnight because the fixes had already shipped in the previous release:

• Olympus Great Hunt branch unselection (#192 (closed)). The fix from April 9th (#229 (closed)) already covers Rock Golem on Olympus, along with the other maps; I just got around to confirming it on this specific report.
• Bio-Lab items disappearing in-game (#185 (closed)). The Transfer to Backpack feature and the entitlement warning (both shipped April 9th) are workarounds for this category of issue. The items do not actually disappear; they fail entitlement validation. Transfer them directly into your prospect inventory instead.

Two other reports (#194 (closed), #195 (closed)) were closed due to no response to follow-up questions. If either of those was yours and the problem came back, please reopen or file a fresh one; happy to dig in.

Behind the Scenes

Two pieces of plumbing that are invisible to you but matter anyway:

Dev blog RSS feed (#191 (closed)). If you want these posts delivered automatically, point your RSS reader at /blog/feed. No more checking the site manually.

Stronger GDPR coverage (#220 (closed)). When you use the "Export my data" or "Delete my account" features, the portal now also covers your cartographer maps and bug reports, not just your editor sessions. Closing a loop that was half open.

What's Next

• Max talents not saving (#240) and black and orange cats spawning gray (#241). Two open user reports on the Pets tool. These are next up.
• Cartographer improvements. The tool is stable but has room to grow. If you have ideas, file a bug report with the "feature request" checkbox.
• Faster updates. My deploy pipeline currently takes about 40 minutes per change. I am working on getting that down to under 10, which means fixes land faster for you.

Thanks for using the portal. It passed 370 registered users this week, which is genuinely wild given I started this as a weekend project. Bug reports that lead to fixes still get premium credits. Keep them coming.

More soon.

Hey everyone, some of you may have seen my posts about the pet editor or the prospect mission reset tool. I wanted to give a proper introduction to the project because it's grown into something bigger than any single tool.

Icarus Eureka Portal: https://icarus.eurekaendeavors.com

It's a collection of web-based tools for editing Icarus save data on PC (Steam). No download, no install — everything runs in your browser. Sign in with Steam, upload your save files, make your changes, and download.

What's live now:

Pet & Mount Editor (free)
Edit talents, swap species, adjust genetics, and appearance for all 26+ creature types. Clone your favorite mount, create new ones from scratch. 656 talents across 34 trees.

Prospect Editor (free)
Reset completed missions, so other players on your server can run them. Great Hunts, Open World, story missions with a full dependency chain that cascades so nothing breaks.

Prospector / Character Editor (premium)
Full drag & drop inventory editor. Move items between slots, edit equipment, manage workshop talents and currencies, upgrade Bio-Lab weapons, and edit your loadout. Full talent tree visualization for your character's survival, combat, solo, and workshop trees. This is the deep one.

Data Catalog (free)
Browse all 287 game data tables extracted from the game files. Every item, every creature, every talent, every recipe — searchable and browsable. Also shows what changed in each game patch.

Bug Report Feedback Loop (Added 3/31/20201)
Right now, you can submit bug reports through the portal, but you don't hear back when they're fixed. Working on closing that loop so you'll get notified when your report leads to a fix. Learn More

Cartographer (free) Added 4/1/2026
An interactive Google Maps-style viewer for your prospect saves. Upload a save and see every ore deposit, cave entrance, geyser, and deep vein node plotted on the actual game map. I've already extracted 644+ resource locations with XYZ coordinates from save data; now it's about building the UI. Learn More

What's coming:

Pet Recovery (free)
Lost pets to a boss raid bug? Recover them from a pre-raid save backup. I have some working code I've used to help my wife with her saves. I just need to make it production-ready and give it a UI.

Pricing:
Most of the portal is completely free. The Prospector (character/inventory editor) is the only premium tool — $4 for 28 days. That keeps the servers running and the lights on. If you submit a bug report that leads to a fix, I will award you free premium credits as a thank-you.

Bug reports & feedback:
There's a bug report button built right into the portal. Hit it from any tool page, and it creates a tracked issue on my end. Include what you were doing and what went wrong, and I'll usually have a fix out within a day or two. Reports that lead to fixes earn free premium credits.

How it works (PC/Steam only):
Your save files live in %localappdata%\Icarus\Saved\PlayerData\<SteamID>\ — upload the relevant file for whichever tool you're using, make your edits, and download the modified version. The tools parse UE4 binary data server-side and handle all the complexity for you.

The boring stuff:

• Sign in via Steam (your save files never leave the browser→server connection, and sessions auto-expire)
• Bug reports can be submitted directly through the portal
• I actively fix reported issues; three community-reported bugs were fixed just today
• The data catalog and patch diffs are useful even if you never edit a save

I've been building this for a couple of months now, and the community feedback has been incredible. Happy to answer questions about any of the tools, or tell me what you'd want to see next.