Hi there!
As promised, and by popular demand, here is the absolutely fascinating ROOF UPDATE, which I will now proceed to explain in great details. There’s also a few new features like proper tombs for your settlers. As usual you can find the full change-log at the end of this very article.
Roofs
So, we’ve added roofs. They can be built anywhere on the surface (1 wood per tile) to protect your settlers from the weather. You can of course also remove the roofs, but the wood is lost. You’ll find both options in the zone/room menu. The underground, by definition doesn’t need roofs. Because, you know, it’s underground.
In practice, what does it change?
Well, things like solar panels and water collectors won’t work under a roof. Farms can, but most plants will require a grow lamp nearby. Things and settlers under a roof are not affected by weather effect. For instance, the dreaded acid rain will not kill your crops and make your settlers sick while they are under a roof. Additionally, most rooms (barracks, dining rooms, bedrooms, break room, hospitals) need to be under a roof for them to function properly.
If you start a new game with 0.7.2, buildings on the map come with a roof. If you’re continuing a game from 0.7.1, you’ll have to build your own, and rather quickly because all your rooms are likely to be missing a roof. Sorry about that.
Weather
I wouldn’t normally go over what is mostly a graphical feature, but given how better it looks now, I couldn’t resist.
The main issue when adding roofs was for the rain not to appear in roofed areas. As you might remember, our “rain effect” was an extremely crude animated texture put over the screen. It was ugly and make it not show over specific parts of the screen pretty much impossible.
So, I rewrote the system entirely. Rain is now dynamic, with water droplets falling on the ground (in the open only). Note that the screenshots do not do it justice, it looks much better when in game. Interestingly, now there’s a visible difference between a light rain and a heavy storm.
Graves and Mourning
You can now build proper graves for your settlers (and enemies if you wish). It gives the ability for your (still breathing) settlers to occasionally visit the tombs of their dead friends for a temporary morale boost.
Settlers will only visit the tomb of someone they had a strong opinion about (be it a friend or a foe). It’s not cutting down on their productivity as they’ll only visit a tomb when they’d normally take a break.
As with pretty much any other in-game feature, tombs are fully moddable, and while the game currently offers just one individual tomb giving a mild happiness boost, it’s perfectly possible to add “better” tombs giving better boosts or mass graves having an opposite effect.
Modding
Speaking of modding, Alex has been hard at work adding an in-game mod editor. Currently, it cannot edit every single file type yet, but it will be gradually improved upon in the coming months. It also allows you to test your changes in a live game without having to restart the game each time you edit something.
I’ve also added several new features. Notably, traits can give constant damage or healing now (well by constant I mean every 5 seconds). Animals kids can have a different size than their parents, and weather effects can be tagged as “dangerous” to tell the engine that the settlers should favor pathing through roofed areas whenever possible.
Misc Improvements
I’ve also included a bunch of requested features, like keyboard shortcuts to center on the selected item, and to center on the last event in the log. More importantly, and note that this is still a tad experimental, most menus (factories, doors, research and so on…) can now be opened even when you’re in combat mode. You no longer have to switch in and out just to lock your gate.
Alex has also been adding a bunch of new Steam Achievements. More will come gradually.
And of course there are a bunch of smaller improvements, UI/balance tweaks and fixes based on your feedback. Refer to the change-log for a complete list.
Save-game Compatibility
This version should be fully compatible with 0.7 and 0.7.1 save-games. The only issue is that if you continue from a previous save-game, you will have to build a lot of roofs before your settlers start complaining.
What’s Next?
With the roofs finally out of the way, we’ll be resuming our schedule. Next on the menu will be wild animal taming and the ability to interact with your cattle in “non lethal” ways, like milking cow, shearing the wool from a sheep, and so on.
We’ll also start implementing a new “Colony” menu where you’ll be able to set general rules and laws for your settlement. This is also likely where I will be adding a few useful features like the ability to automatically set jobs/skills based on your parameters in the future.
Then, in a few updates, we’ll be adding non lethal combat and the ability to take prisoners.
Full Change-log
- AI: Settlers will try to avoid tiles without a roof during acid rains
- AI: Settlers whose friend(s) are dead and buried in a proper tomb will occasionally visit the tomb and receive some happiness from it
- AI: When told to equip a new weapon, settlers will immediately try to grab ammo as well
- Balance: In the start menu, increased equipment points from 2000 to 2500 to take some price changes into account
- Balance: Some traits like laceration, blood loss and infection cause regular health damage until they go away (or get fixed)
- Balance: Added conditions to the unique/rare “ken” raid to prevent it from wiping out new settlements
- Content: Added individual tombs for your settlers (in build/utility)
- Content: Added Roofs (can be built and removed through the zone/room menu, build cost = 1 wood. no refund.)
- Content: Solar panels and water collectors won’t work under roofs
- Content: Farms under a roof will function the same way as if they were underground and require a grow lamp
- Content: Weather effects (cold, hot, acid rain) only apply to people who aren’t under a roof
- Content: Many rooms require to have a roof (bedrooms, dining room, hospitals, break room) to function properly
- Content: Added rare and deadlier version of the Acid Rain (mid/late game, causes direct health damage and heavier sickness)
- Content: People you’ve exiled from the settlement might occasionally come back with a vengeance
- Content: A bunch of new Steam achievements (by Alex)
- Graphics: Rain will not show over roofed areas
- Graphics: Non adult animals are smaller now
- Graphics: Mutants (the green guys) are a tad larger
- Graphics: Much better looking rain effect
- Graphics: Intensity of rain varies depending on the weather
- Graphics: Better looking wooden fence
- Graphics: Replaced sprites for batteries (small and large)
- Modding: Added Mod Editor (in mod manager), it’s not yet covering all the features, but it’ll be improved upon (by Alex)
- Modding: You can “inject” mod editor code directly into a live game for testing purpose (by Alex)
- Modding: Added “DangerOutside” (true/false) to weather data telling if settlers should avoid going outside
- Modding: Added “ScaleBirth” (0.7 default) and “ScaleAdult” (1.0 default) to RaceData files, to set size depending on age
- Modding: Added “GfxScale” to npc files to change the default scale of living beings
- Modding: Added “RequireRoof” to room data files (default = false)
- Modding: Traits can provide constant heal/damage by using “NeedMods” -> “Heal” (positive value = heal, negative = damage), every 5 seconds.
- Modding: Tombs can be modded to give specific amount of morale boost (or decrease) via “MoodModifier” and give a trait to whoever is visiting it via “GiveTrait”
- UI: Farm plots lacking proper lighting have an warning icon
- UI: Added “Center camera on last event” and “Center camera on selected item” hotkeys to game settings
- UI: In combat mode, Shift clicking a settler which is already in the selection will be removed from selection (like in most RTS)
- UI: Most menus (factories, depots, doors…) can now be properly interacted with while in combat mode
- UI: Made the “building in progress” menu nicer to look at
- UI: Added ability to add/remove roof overlay from view in the filters
- UI: Added confirmation menu when recalling settlers from expeditions or abandonning a production center
- UI: Added proper right-click info panel for artifacts
- Fixed: I might have forgotten to tell the farms that they need “grow lamps” instead of “any light source” (my bad)
- Fixed: First time the game is launched, if the desktop resolution is over 1920×1080 the user interface’s scale might be wrong
- Fixed: When renaming a settler/depot you could still call a game shortcut by mistake
- Fixed: Weird sentence in the log “settler is sick: dead” replaced by “settler is dead (sickness)”
- Fixed: Entering a limited combat mode (with only one or a few settlers) would incorrectly tell other settlers to go to the shelter
- Fixed: There was a mob overpopulation problem in the underground when a small cavern is generated
- Fixed: 0.7.1 broke the tutorial by accident, it’s now fixed
- Fixed: In the settler info panel, under some condition, the weapon slot couldn’t be clicked
- Fixed: The price of fabric would clash with the price of its component (cotton). Increased first, decreased second.
- Fixed: Loot button (on player owned production centers) was clickable when an expedition was already running
- Fixed: Settlers would unequip artifacts when loading a savegame
- Fixed: (modding) new NPC wouldn’t equip artifacts
- Fixed: Missing achievements
- Fixed: MP5 and assault rifle in the starting equipement menu were the “innate” versions (which don’t use ammo and can’t be unequipped)
- Fixed: MultiSelection menu (in combat mode) wouldn’t update itself when a settler is shift+clicked to be added/removed
- Fixed: MultiSelection menu wouldn’t update the health information of settlers in real time
- Fixed: MultiSelection menu wouldn’t appear or close itself properly when clicking specific buttons or (de)selecting people in combat mode
- Fixed: Pressing the “select all military units” button/shortcut wouldn’t open the MultiSelection menu.
- Fixed: Robots and vehicles could still get the hot, sick, infected, blood loss, lacerations (and so on) effects. No more robots in your med bay.
- Fixed: Crazed robots would ignore shamblers, tribals and other fauna (they now have their own faction, new game only)
- Fixed: Keyboard shortcut to increase game speed was capped at 2.5 instead of 3
- Fixed: Weapon/Armor duplication glitch when ordering multiple people to equip something simultaneously
- Fixed: Weapons’ “Rate of Fire” wouldn’t take game speed into account