Here is a new massive content update for our 0.7 branch! It's introducing the ability to tame many of the wild creatures you can encounter in-game. It's also adding many new ones ranging from chickens to giant scorpions while allowing to exploit your cattle for other things than food production (like shearing for wool, collecting eggs, and so on).
As usual, I'm only going over the major new features and changes. There are plenty more modding, UI and balance improvements you can find in the full change-log at the bottom of this very article.
Interactions with cattle
Until now, the only thing you could do with your cattle was to butcher it for food and collect a few additional resources on top depending on the species. Not anymore! Most animals are now small factories on legs. Chicken will drop eggs, your sheep can be sheared for wool, cows will give milk on a regular basis.
The system might look a bit cumbersome with a large animal population, but don't worry we added a few menus to handle cattle and settlers. We'll get to those further down.
Grow and tame wild animals
I added a new technology to research: "Animal Care" (located after Medicine). Once completed, most wild creatures will get a chance to drop eggs when defeated. Additionally, you'll be able to construct two new buildings.
The first building is a simple container for those live eggs. The second building is an Animal Nursery. This is where you can grow those eggs into tamed versions of the defeated foes. Depending on the species, the fully grown creature can be used as cattle or as a pet (or both).
Scorpions, Nests, Events
On top of the new peaceful animals, hostiles scorpions of various sizes and types have been added to the game. You'll find the smaller and fairly harmless ones in infested houses, caverns and sewers. Much larger and poisonous ones will appear during raid/migration events. Yes, poisonous! This is a new temporary health damaging effect, for which a cure can be researched at a medical station with the remains of a scorpion.
[previewyoutube="iWzpQ8HZIWc;full"]
Then, we have the Queen Scorpion, a rare, late game, event which we won't illustrate in this article. She is our first boss-type enemy. She is extremely deadly and has more that one trick up her sleeve. Granted you have the proper tech and you manage to kill her, you'll receive an egg to make a copy of herself.
[previewyoutube="x1e1dfqAPt8;full"]
Additionally, we're introducing the concept of nests. Simply put, those will spawn (within limits) creatures while will patrol the location around it. For now, nests can appear in two ways: in a new low probability building, or when removing a very large boulder (5% chance). Nests can be removed by shooting at them or razing them. You can also potentially use them as a fairly manageable hunting ground.
Colony Manager
I'm also introducing the new Colony Manager in this update. It's a menu replacing the old "faction/communication" menu and which is containing a few handy new features.
You are, of course, still able to discuss with other factions from this menu. But, on top of that, you can now select which jobs settlers can and cannot do based on their skill and the amount of people you want available. You can also use those settings as presets for new arrivals, so you don't have to review them individually if you don't want to.
In the same spirit and with the ability to use many tamed animal species as "factories", the colony manager also allows you to setup what you want to produce for each category in bulk. Making the whole process much easier to manage.
This is only the beginning regarding the Colony Manager, the menus will get standardized, and I will add new features in future updates.
Save Compatibility
This is technically compatible with 0.7.2 save-games. However, some of the main features won't be active until you start a new game:
Existing giant animals won't spawn eggs no matter if you have the "animal care" tech or not
None of the new events will occur (scorpions, queen scorpion, good/bad news)
Critter nests won't spawn
General Notes
This is a very. large. update. Hopefully, it's as bug free as possible (at least on the "critical" bug level). I've tested the version as much as possible, but we're way past the point where it was still possible to fully play-test all the features and all their combinations. No worries, we'll tackle any new issue in a timely manner through hot-patches, as usual :)
Full Changelog
AI: Fauna idles more often, giving a more natural movement pattern
AI: Red spiders can attack with both melee and ranged (instead of just ranged)
AI: Brawls between survivors are more likely to occur when their mood is low
Balance: Moods increase/decrease very slightly faster
Balance: Reduced health of wooden fence (250->150, as it was way too sturdy)
Balance: Toned down unhappiness for pet and friend's death a bit
Balance: Some low risk raids no longer trigger on very large bases (to avoid cases where 3 tribals would attack a 20 ppl strong base)
Balance: Reduced the occurrence of medical traits (one eyed/handed and so on) on settler spawn
Balance: Slightly increased bullet speed of most ranged weapons
Content: Added Animal Care to tech tree (after medical), unlocks the ability for hostile mobs to drop eggs, the ability to store and grow said eggs as exotic pets
Content: New Animal Nursery building (unlocked by animal care) to grow eggs into tamed animals
Content: New Egg container building (unlocked by animal care) to store eggs waiting to be grown.
Content: Giant scorpions, spiders and crabs can be "adopted" this way, some work as cattle, others as pets
Content: Sheep can be sheared to retrieve wool without the need to kill them
Content: Added cows who can be milked to make cheese or butchered for food
Content: Added chickens who can produce eggs to make omelettes
Content: Added new recipes to basic and electric kitchens
Content: Cheese gives a temporary "bad breath" trait (lower social)
Content: Omelettes and Cooked meals give a temporary "Well fed" trait (small stats boost)
Content: New "Golden Scorpion" small and giant mobs (melee, poison damage)
Content: New "Black Scorpion" small and giant mobs (melee/ranged poison damage)
Content: New "Scorpion Queen" mob, spawn smaller scorpions around her
Content: More critter variety in infested buildings
Content: Various poison effects (gradually increases sickness and/or decrease health)
Content: Scorpions drop poison that can be sold or made into a cure at the medical station
Content: New creature nest object can spawn during map generation or during an event. It will generate animals guarding it.
Content: Boulders (2x2 rocks) have a 5% chance to uncover a scorpion or spider nest when removed
Content: Added a few "mood modifier" events
Content: Several new "invasion" events with the new mobs (early, mid, late-game events)
Engine: Animals having specific names for males are females (bull/cow) can be named accordingly now
Engine: Tamed animals/cattle can be interacted with to produce resources
Graphics: Replaced the various "pipe weapon" sprites (and their associated techs) by much better looking ones
Modding: Doctors will consider medical traits (missing eye/hand and so on) as things to fix, technically making artificial limbs a possibly moddable feature
Modding: Added "FactoryMale" and "FactoryFemale" info to RaceData files (works the same as with clutter, allows settlers to produce stuff from animals)
Modding: Added "CoolDownDuration" field to "Factory" info. Used to force the factory to "pause" for this amount of time in between completed recipes
Modding: Added the ability to use frame animations for npc (like we have for clutter)
Modding: Added ability for clutter to spawn another one on removal (look at data/clutter/pcg_rocklarge)
Modding: Added ability for clutter and npc to spawn more npc (look at data/clutter/nest_* files)
Modding: Added the ability for specific building to spawn specific npc/mobs instead of the generic ones
Modding: Turrets (invisible for now) can be put on NPC (look at npc/mother_scorpion file)
Modding: Turrets can specify their own load-out without the need to rely on the equiplist (look at npc/mother_scorpion file)
Modding: Added "DropOnDeathChance" and "DropOnDeathTech" to traits (to give a probability and tech requirement for DropOnDeath to occur)
Modding: The game will now accept mods with PNG files without the need to convert them to XNB. The option is still given to further optimize the mod (By Alex)
ProcGen: Added rare "infested house" building, spawn with spider nests
UI: The game log will properly display the cause of death when someone is killed by a health damaging trait (blood loss and so on)
UI: Increased game log "memory" from 100 to 200 items
UI: New "Colony Management" menu, replacing the "Faction" menu
UI: Colony Manager: Job overview / ability to apply job templates to settlers and new arrivals
UI: Colony Manager: Radio communication with other factions done from this menu
UI: Colony Manager: Ability to set default jobs for your cattle
UI: Added a "Stats" menu to the pause screen, showing all steam achievements status (Steam only) (By Alex)
Fixed: Some cases where the settler using a factory wouldn't automatically pickup the output
Fixed: Attack job was forcing the agent to turn toward target, even when moving, resulting in jittery animations
Fixed: Giant spiders were missing proper animations for melee and ranged combat (we're about to replace them with something professionally made anyway)
Fixed: Right clicking on the artifact slot would open the headgear item info panel instead
Fixed: Pressing the previous button when selecting a skin for a furniture wasn't working as expected
Fixed: Robots would count toward the amount of beds required
Fixed: Turrets with explosive weapons wouldn't take weapons "Min Range" into account, and would occasionally blow themselves up
Fixed: On slower machines, if you rush toward loading a game, before the initial background game loading is finished, the game might crash
Fixed: Settlers would occasionally pick a door as a valid location to work or use some furniture, causing their position to reset every few seconds
Fixed: Some cases where clicking a close button would open the menu for whichever item was under the button
Fixed: Fissures and cracks on the ground weren't tagged as "removable"
0.7.2 Release : Hot-patches 1 to 3
This is kind of an emergency patch. Apparently, 0.7.1 broke the tutorial at some point, and I really can't leave the game without a tutorial so here's the fix. Our apologies for the issue.
Normally this patch should have been much larger (and should have been released later as well), but here we are. Expect a follow up patch before the end of the week. As usual refer to the change-log for the full overview.
As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 and 0.7.1 are compatible with this patch.
Changelog
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
UI: Added confirmation menu when recalling settlers from expeditions or abandonning a production center
UI: Added proper right-click info panel for artifacts
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
Fixed: Some help tooltips would keep appearing no matter if you click "never show again" or not
Fixed: Some issues when changing weapons/armors from the settler info panel
Fixed: When controlling multiple production centers of the same type, assuming the game isn't restarted between supply drops, the player would receive exponentially more resources
Fixed: Problem when designing robots, costing exponentially more resource. (same root cause as above)
Fixed: Some characters in the french version were causing issues in the menus
After The Collapse 0.7.2 Released
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
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
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 1920x1080 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
0.7.1 Release : Hot-patch 1
Here is a small hot-patch fixing issues you've been reporting with the new 0.7.1 release.
Nothing major, it fixes a bug that was preventing modders from adding animated items to the game. It also clarifies that things spawned on the map are debris to be disassembled and not fit to be used in player made rooms. It means that bedrooms, dining rooms and such will no longer recognize things you haven't built yourself as valid to determine if the room is complete or not.
As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 and 0.7.1 are compatible with this patch.
Changelog
UI: Armor and Weapon info panels' trait list have been updated to show the tooltip and colorize the traits' names according to quality
UI: When generating a new map, all objects are categorized as "debris" to make it clear that they should be recycled
Fixed: After using a 0.7.0 save, launching a 0.7.1 game could have masonry auto discovered
Fixed: Rooms not checking for the faction of the items inside when trying to determine whether they are valid or not
Fixed: Settlers weren't checking the faction of the beds when trying to determine if there are enough beds in the settlement
Fixed: A possible booze related crash when they are used by a settler as a mean to fix boredom
Fixed: (modding) Animated items couldn't be added via mods
Fixed: (modding) Animated items couldn't drop shadows
After The Collapse 0.7.1 Released
After The Collapse 0.7.1 has just been released. This first major patch is heavily re-balancing the early game and tech tree while redesigning the map, adding genetic(ish) animal breeding, and overhauling the way expeditions are handled. This article will detail the major changes. As usual, for a complete list, refer to the changelog at the end of this article. I however, strongly suggest regular users to read this article.
Balance and Tech Tree
I heavily reorganized the tech tree. My goal is to make it easier for newcomers to navigate it optimally in the early game while making the late game technologies harder to bee-line to for the veterans so they don't skip as much content as they could. Some "free" technologies like hospitals, medical stations and repair zones have been locked behind techs to prevent new players from wasting their critical first few resources into things they'd only need much later down the line.
Now "Carpentry" should always be your first tech to research unless you're extremely experienced with the game's systems. It unlocks most of the essentials for a self sustainable early base, including an early low efficiency water well. Masonry now requires carpentry first. The main trunk goes from carpentry to masonry to metallurgy to construction, with branches going out at each step. I also added a "Power" technology between metallurgy and electronics. This is where you can start building coal-based power generators, get the radio tech to conduct diplomacy, and a few other features. It also unlocks the tinkering station, where you can build the generator (moved from forge). The "Electronics" tech comes later and takes more time to research.
The "Melee weapons" tech was renamed to "Basic weapons". It needs carpentry, and provides crossbows and melee weapons (which all got a damage boost) so you can fend off your first few raids without having to rush pipe weapons. I slightly pushed back pipe weapons, and again, made their damage output a bit better. Modern weaponry maintenance and ammo production has been pushed back a lot to make sure that pipe weapons can be considered a viable choice by the player for most of the mid game.
To stress out the importance of early weapon tech, the weapon selection your settlers can spawn with is much more low tech. While it's still possible for the occasional settler to spawn with a standard gun, most will start with pipe pistols and melee weapons. Same goes with armors.
Those changes are still a tad experimental. I did test them through a couple full game-sessions but I have no doubt that it will require further tweaks based on your feedback.
Map and Expedition UI Overhaul
It's not a secret that the expedition planner was kinda clunky. You'd click on the table, click on menu, click again to get on the map to select a destination, and go back to the menu all that to select a destination. With 0.7.1, I removed the station completely and moved everything to the map itself. Simply put, you can now click on a destination from the map, select the type of expedition you want, and it'll show a single page menu asking you to select which settlers to send and to set the various options. Of course, the tech requirements still apply, you still need the Exploration tech to launch expeditions. The expedition log can be accessed by clicking on the destination. An option has been added to show a popup when your expedition comes back (listing loot and people found) as well.
Additionally, the map menu itself has been standardized and uses the same "look" as the rest of the user interface. It has a bottom menu bar and the buttons to change game speed and pause the game. You can now access the population, diplomacy and stock menus directly from the world map too. I also fixed the instabilities/crashes introduced when I made the map compatible with real time game-play.
Genetic Breeding
Until now, new animals would be straight up copies of either their father or their mother. It was all very boring. Now, both parents will be taken into account both at the "trait" and the "stats" level. If both parents have a trait in common, their child will have it too. It will also pick a random trait from either of them. If there's not too many traits, it'll pick one at random as well. It also picks stats from their parents at random with a slight randomization on top.
This is mostly interesting for dogs, which can be selectively bred to be strong and resilient, making them way more durable in combat situations. But to make that a tad more interesting for cattle, I also added a "Fat" trait to them. Animals with this trait will drop one more raw meat when butchered.
New Stations, Concepts and Upgrades
0.7.1 includes a selection of new things to build. The most important being the new Grow Lamps. Until now, you could "light up" underground farms with any light, even a camp fire. This was making underground farms clearly superior by any metrics to surface level ones. Now, you'll need to place grow lamps near your underground farms for them to be able to grow surface plants. There's 2 of such lamps. The first one is unlocked at the Metallurgy tech, and is fueled with coal. The second one is unlocked by the Electronics tech and will connect to your electrical grid.
Depots' capacity (starting at stone) has been increased. A medium metal one has been added to fill the gap between the underground and the large depots. Note that you no longer need to fully rebuild a depot when a better one is available, there's a button to upgrade them in their menu. Speaking of upgrades, some factories can be upgraded too without having to rebuild them from the ground up (kitchen -> electric kitchen, forge -> electric furnace, wooden water well -> water well).
User Interface
On top of the new world map UI, many menus have been slightly improved, especially the menu to select individual settlers (used in expedition, pet & room attribution). Additionally, when you have the bio or job menu open for a specific settler, clicking on another settler will directly open this menu for them. It makes it easier to compare two or more people. Oh, another user request: settlers can be banished from your settlement now (in their bio, there's a new banish button).
Modding and Engine
Alex and I have been adding a lot of new functionalities for modders to play with. Consumable can heal people now. Factories can optionally feed themselves directly from adjacent depots. Traits can be filtered so they can only apply to specific species. We also have a lot more LUA bindings for those who dabble in those arcane modding arts. Check the change-log for a full list.
Save Compatibility
This version is mostly compatible with previous 0.7.0 saves. However, depending on where you are on the tech tree, your ability to build some of the items will be restricted until you've researched the new technologies added in this version (medical stuff in particular, but also tinkering stations and coal-based generators). Also, due to the way we store save-data, existing depots and factories placed before this update won't have the new "upgrade to x" button. Also note that if you have underground farms (growing surface plants), you will need to replace your light sources by the proper grow lamps or your crops will die.
A Few Words
So, this wasn't exactly the update I was planning on releasing, but many of those improvements have been long overdue. The tech tree changes, depending on your earlier play-style, will most likely get a few more of your settlers killed in the first few raids. Settlers' death is intended and an integral part of the game. This is partly why it's so easy to replenish ranks through expeditions and random events.Next update will focus on some of the major features planned for 0.7. Namely a way to add a "roof" above your settlers' heads and the ability to tame new neutral critters.
Full Change-log
0.7.0 Release : Hot-patch 2
Here is the second hot-patch for 0.7.0.
You can now upgrade your standard wooden depots into stone ones with the appropriate tech and requirements. It's done by a button appearing at the bottom of the wooden depot's menu. It also fixes the few reported issues, and the solar panel texture has been replaced by a much nicer looking one courtesy of Xen.
As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 are compatible with this patch.
With that out of the way, and barring any critical problem, we'll be working on the next large 0.7.x update. I'll likely be publishing a devlog about that next week-end.
Changelog
Content: Wooden storage can be upgraded to stone without having to raze and rebuild it, thanks to a new button in the storage menu
Graphics: New solar panel texture, courtesy of Big WDS
Modding: Added "UpgradeTo" field to cluttter. Which is used by the new storage upgrade feature. Only works for storage presently
Modding: Further hardening of the code against removed/bad data issues
UI: In the research screen, the tech info panel is now scrollable. Buttons are properly anchored and colored.
UI: When starting a new game, the bar used to select the number of settlers will colored according to number selected, and a warning will show up if selecting 10-12.
Fixed: Clock not going to the next day when auto-saves are disabled
Fixed: More possible issues when a mod is removed in the middle of a game (this is still not a miracle cure and never will be)
0.7.0 Release : Hot-patch 1
Here is a small hot-patch fixing issues you've been reporting with the new 0.7 release.
It fixes a few possible crashes introduced in 0.7.0. It also adds a way to build fabric from the camp fire so it's easier to start the game with a large base. Updated a few skills and stats related popups to represent what they influence more accurately. Also, removing or adding mods mid-game is also possible to some extent.
As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 are compatible with this patch.
Modding: More robust modding system, savegames warn about missing textures on load
Modding: Removing mods from a game no longer systematically prevents the save from loading succesfully (it's not a miracle cure, though)
Modding: Misc online api documentation improvements (modding.anarkisgaming.com)
Modding: System for modders to mark a mod as "deprecated" so it's detected ingame to give users a warning
UI: In the depot panel, the checkbox text is now green when you have allowed specific items to the category (so it's the same color as the button)
UI: Updated tooltips for settlers' stats and job skills
Fixed: Super rare issue causing the bug-report module to crash itself into oblivion when launching the game
Fixed: Irregular crashes caused by the change from wheat to animal food in 0.7 in interaction with a mod
Fixed: Crashes in zombie horde scenarios
Fixed: The "damaged police armor" was incorrectly tagged as a firearm (making it drop where it shouldn't in loot tables)
Fixed: Some missing localization strings
0.7 Branch Update : A Man's Best Friend
Here is the first content update for our 0.7 branch, introducing pets, social mechanics, a new in-game mod browser, artifacts, and plenty more.
As usual, I'm only going to go over the major features and changes. There are plenty more modding, UI and balance improvements you can find in the full change-log at the bottom.
Pets
The idea with this 0.7x branch is to add neutral critters to the map, some moving in herd, for the player to tame or hunt. Both in build mode, and on the world map.
As a the first and biggest step in the right direction, we can now breed and adopt dogs. Pets will defend their owner and provide a flat bonus to their happiness. Their death causes a temporary debuff to their owner. Dogs without owners will hang out in a pasture and can be butchered.
Dogs can be found during expeditions, both during travel and in specific locations (bars). The animal trader also sell them. Pets, like cattle, die of old age, can reproduce and be butchered.
The animal info menu is now similar to the one used with humans. And in this menu you can give them a new owner.
Animal Food
Instead of wheat, all settlement creatures eat animal food now, dogs included. To make the transition go smoothly, wheat farms produce "animal food" directly for now. You can also make more by cooking meat. It is also a proper food item, instead of an ingredient.
Your settlers won't eat animal food, though. This is a first step toward having diets for specific groups of settlers or animals.
Happiness and Personality Traits
Happiness changes are gradual instead of instant. People gain and loss points at a rate determined by their new personality trait. Other traits have been redesigned to make use of that system. The mood of your survivors should be much less erratic. Settlers also spawn with a new small list of traits they like and dislike.
Humans also start with base stats much closer to average now. As such, traits, mental attributes and jobs have a much more meaningful impact on a new survivor's abilities. In turn, it removes many cases where a settlers with a trait like Strong would still have very sub-par strength.
As you can see, the character and mood panels got a face-lift to illustrate the new system.
Making Friends
Settlers will now talk and bond with each other as illustrated here with the new speech bubbles.
While they appear simultaneously, the bubbles show one of the different outcomes of the discussion, taking happiness, relation with other settler, social stats, likes & dislikes, and some dice rolls, into account. Generally, the more blue ? and ! speech bubbles, the better.
Having friends gives small happiness buffs, but if one dies, his friends will mourn for a few days (slower, sad). Of course, enemies provide a small debuff. Occasionally, two settlers who dislike each other may start brawling. It's a non lethal (normally) duel with punches only, its duration may vary. Once the fight is over, they'll hate each other less.
A "Relation" tab has been added to the settler info menu to keep track of each settler's relationships, pets included.
Artifacts
Settlers can equip new rare and powerful items in their new equipment slot. They can be acquired when raiding mutated nests and during scavenging runs (rare). There's only a few for now, but more will be added along the way.
Map and User Interface
This is still a bit experimental, but the world map no longer pauses the game. You still use the keyboard shortcuts to control time in map mode. As such, you can see your expeditions moving in real time. Still from the world map, you can open diplomatic channels with a faction by clicking on its flag. The idea in the long run is to also have expedition management directly on the map screen.
Mods and Steam Workshop
Thanks to Alex, you can now share your saves on the Steam Workshop to your friends and to the community at large. Workshop mods can now be listed and subbed directly from the game. There's a new modding doc available here. And we have a new in-game mod manager as pictured below.
Speaking of mods, I should point out the ones made by Xen. Lots of good content in there! ːsteamhappyː
Save Compatibility
Start a new game. As with all major milestone updates, save files aren't compatible with previous versions.
Release Notes
This 0.7.0 version is by no mean perfect, and you'll probably find some issues left & right which i'll address through hot-patches, as usual. The very small "fixed" list in the changelog is still a testament to our progress over the last few months: ATC works, generally (tm).
My apologies for taking so long to publish 0.7, it should have been completed much earlier this month, but I also had to take care of older family members due to the covid19 quarantine. As such, it's now clear that we won't reach 1.0 before end of Q2 2020. It doesn't mean much, as i plan to continue coding past 1.0, but it's only fair to tell you.
Also note, that we'll be increasing the game's cost by $1 somewhere near the end of the 0.7 branch, you'll be warned in advance, and it'll be coupled with a discount when applied.
Plans for future 0.7.x updates
Prisoner management is the big thing. Basically a way to capture, sell, and put to work prisoners. The new non-lethal combat, social features and pet system are an introduction to this.
I would like to add migratory herds to the world map as well. They could be hunted by expeditions and serve as event generators when entering in contact with the base, productions centers or expeditions. It could in turn be used to replace the random enemy raids and migration events by something a bit more natural.
Give more reasons to grow in population, with settlement laws to be enacted at each milestone. A mayor's office for the colony's leader would be nice as well. In a more distant future it'd help adding elections and a political system in general.
The last major arc is an improved medical system. But it might get delayed or swapped with the following as I'm not sure I like the idea of dealing with this topic in the current situation. It would feel a bit ghoulish.
Instead, preset scenarios and generally speaking a more user friendly new game menu. Coupled with a basic in-game mission system to provide guidance in a less intrusive way than with popups, and a general makeover of the map/expedition/diplo UI stuff which is way too disjointed at the moment.
Full Changelog
Balance: Merged "consumable" item category into "drinks" (it was only used for dirty water, use depot filters when needed instead)
Balance: Mood changes are now gradual and vary from a settler to another
Balance: Joyful & Depressed are no longer timed and will always trigger whenever a settler's mood is over 85 or below 15
Balance: Traders have more items in stock
Balance: Humans spawn with roughly average base stats, making traits and professions more meaningful
Changes: Animals eat animal food (categorised as food) instead of wheat (categorised as ingredient)
Changes: Wheat farms produce animal food, removed wheat from ingredients
Content: Added recipe to produce animal food from meat at basic kitchen
Content: Added new traits illustrating the new mood system and edited existing ones
Content: New equipment slot for settlers (backpack/artifacts)
Content: Added several powerful items and artifacts to the loot and trade tables (your settlers can equip them in the new slot)
Content: New artifact trader event (very rare, late game, event)
Content: Settlers can now form relations with each other
Content: Settlers can chat with each other, modifying their mood and relations
Content: The death of a friend will cause a settler to mourn for a few days (bad morale, slow speed, low social)
Content: Having friends will increase a settler's mood while having foes will decrease it
Content: Settlers who hate each other may occasionally brawl (which will partially reset their relation)
Content: Pet dogs for your settlers to adopt and breed (or eat, you maniacs)
Content: Pets provide basic help in combat and a slight happiness boost to their owners
Content: The death of a pet will render their owner sad for a while
Content: Ability to share your savegames on the Steam Workshop (by Alex) (Steam Only)
Content: Pets and cattle regen health when eating.
Content: Claimed production centers can still be explored for resources now
Modding: New ingame workshop mod manager (by Alex)
Modding: New modding api documentation, online version here: https://modding.anarkisgaming.com (by Alex)
Modding: Ability to set recipes with varying quantity produced (see data/recipes/_example.txt file)
Modding: Factories can now properly understand recipes with multiple output (they sorta did already, but items would not always end up where they should)
Modding: Added several mood/relation modifiers to traits
Modding: Added "AI" = PetAI to npc files (they'll need a properly set race for the agents to be considered properly ownable pets and be of the animal category)
Modding: Traits have the new DamageThreshold field (add/remove flat incoming damage in combat)
Modding: Traits have the new MeleeDamageModifier and RangedDamageModifier fields (add/remove flat outgoing damage in combat)
Modding: Added ability to toggle developer mode and menus (see devmode.txt in game's folder)
Modding: Added _example.txt files to data/npc, data/racedata, data/recipes and data/traits to start documenting stuff a bit (more will come)
Modding: Animal fodder consumable must have the "Fodder" tag attributed otherwise settlers will eat them too.
Modding: UI graphical elements can be retextured (by Alex)
Modding: Detection and warning messages for outdated/broken mods (by Alex)
Modding: (change) Metalsmith jobs properly tagged as "Metalsmith" instead of "Social" in data files now (update your mod if need be)
Modding: (change) Consumable item Category removed. Use food, drink, medical.. instead (update mod if need be)
UI: Updated trait tooltip to display mood growth/decrease modifiers when relevant
UI: More legible settler character sheet displaying more info while using less screen estate
UI: Updated settler info panel and population screen to take the new artifact/utility equipment slot into account
UI: Added relation tab to the settler info panel (displaying friends, foes, pets)
UI: The mood tab in the settler info panel got a makeover and displays more info
UI: Clicking on a faction's banner on the world map open their diplomatic screen (when applicable)
UI: The world map can work without pausing now and pause/speed keyboard shortcuts work (no buttons yet) (bit experimental)
UI: The animal info panel has been reworked and behave very similarly to the settler info panel
UI: Butcher screen display population count by species
UI: Multiselection menu added to combat mode
UI: Experimental: pause/speed keyboard shortcuts work on the worldmap now.
UI: Much needed facelift to the in-game mod menu.
Fixed: Possible case where a settler could stop moving (despite the UI telling you they are) until they switch to a new job on their own.
Fixed: Misc issues found in the experimental version
Fixed: Clicking on combat log messages wouldn't center the camera on the action
Fixed: Expeditions not properly reset when starting a second game
Beta 0.7 Released in the Nightly Branch
An early version of After The Collapse 0.7.0 is available in the experimental branch. Those of you who'd like to test the new features are welcome to give it a go.
Summary
We'll get over each new feature individually in more details on the official release day (count a week or two depending on feedback and bug reports). But here are the 4 major new features:
Dogs/pets for your settlers to adopt and breed
Settlers can form relations with each other giving buffs and debuffs (enemies might even punch each other occasionally)
Rare and powerful artifacts to find and equip
Deeper and less arbitrary mood / happiness system
It should all work but this version doesn't provide any contextual help for the new features (yet) and the french translation is quite incomplete. The relationship/friendship/enemy stuff isn't probably scaled very well to the game's pace.
Dogs can be found during expeditions (taverns are a good spot), or through traders. Artifacts are much more difficult to find by design, but worth it. Can occasionally be found during expeditions in some of the most dangerous locations, and given as a reward for clearing an abomination nest. A trader might come to your settlement in the late game.
There are many more improvements, you can refer to the changelog below for a complete list.
About the following full release
This early version includes all the major features for 0.7.0 proper but in an early state. More raw content will be featured in the full release, with appropriate bug fixes and minor improvements.
Of course, the 0.7 branch won't stop with this version. I have a lot more things planned and we'll go over those in a few days when 0.7.0 is officially released.
Save Compatibility
As with all major milestone updates, save-games from previous versions are not compatible with 0.7. However the official release of 0.7 will be compatible with this experimental version.
Changelog
Balance: Merged "consumable" item category into "drinks" (it was only used for dirty water, use depot filters when needed instead)
Balance: Mood changes are now gradual and vary from a settler to another
Balance: Joyful & Depressed are no longer timed and will always trigger whenever a settler's mood is over 85 or below 15
Content: Added new traits illustrating the new mood system and edited existing ones
Content: New equipment slot for settlers (backpack/artifacts)
Content: Added several powerful items and artifacts to the loot and trade tables (your settlers can equip them in the new slot)
Content: New artifact trader event (very rare, late game, event)
Content: Settlers can now form relations with each other
Content: Settlers can chat with each other, modifying their mood and relations
Content: The death of a friend will cause a settler to mourn for a few days (bad morale, slow speed, low social)
Content: Having friends will increase a settler's mood while having foes will decrease it
Content: Settlers who hate each other may occasionally brawl (which will partially reset their relation)
Content: Pet dogs for your settlers to adopt and breed (or eat, you maniacs)
Content: Pets provide basic help in combat and a slight happiness boost to their owners
Content: The death of a pet will render their owner sad for a while
Content: Ability to share your savegames on the Steam Workshop (by Alex) (Steam Only)
Content: Claimed production centers can still be explored for resources now
Modding: Ability to set recipes with varying quantity produced (see data/recipes/_example.txt file)
Modding: Factories can now properly understand recipes with multiple output (they sorta did already, but items would not always end up where they should)
Modding: Added several mood/relation modifiers to traits
Modding: Added "AI" = PetAI to npc files (they'll need a properly set race for the agents to be considered properly ownable pets and be of the animal category)
Modding: Traits have the new DamageThreshold field (add/remove flat incoming damage in combat)
Modding: Traits have the new MeleeDamageModifier and RangedDamageModifier fields (add/remove flat outgoing damage in combat)
Modding: Added ability to toggle developer mode and menus by pressing [ctrl]+F12 (USE AT YOUR OWN RISK)
Modding: Added _example.txt files to data/npc, data/racedata, data/recipes and data/traits to start documenting stuff a bit (more will come)
UI: Updated trait tooltip to display mood growth/decrease modifiers when relevant
UI: More legible settler character sheet displaying more info while using less screen estate
UI: Updated settler info panel and population screen to take the new artifact/utility equipment slot into account
UI: Added relation tab to the settler info panel (displaying friends, foes, pets)
UI: The mood tab in the settler info panel got a makeover and displays more info
UI: The animal info panel has been reworked and behave very similarly to the settler info panel
Fixed: Possible case where a settler could stop moving (despite the UI telling you they are) until they switch to a new job on their own.
Fixed: (modding) Metalsmith jobs properly tagged as "Metalsmith" instead of "Social" in data files now
Faction Warfare: Hotpatch 2-4
Here's another small hot-patch for the Faction Warfare update.
As usual with my hot-patches, It's entirely compatible with the previous version.
It's fixing an annoying bug where your settlers and turrets wouldn't recognize other factions as hostile during a faction raid under some conditions (thanks for the report). It's also adding a few "quality of life" options to the game settings.
Changelog
UI: Added "Gameplay" tab to game settings to change "center camera", "pause" and "game speed" options when an event occurs
UI: Moved relevant settings (zone and research popup) to the gameplay tab
Fixed: Turrets & settlers not always properly recognizing raids from hostile factions as hostile
Fixed: User interface not always properly tagging enemy faction raiders as hostile
Fixed: Some missing sentences in the french translation
Fixed: Issue when loading savegames when the zoom is min/maxed out (unforeseen float rounding issue)
Fixed: Loading savegame on a freshly launched game could cause settlers to "jump around" tiles on the surface world
Fixed: (modding) WorldMapTraveGroupSizeModifier on Tech wasn't doing anything
