Here's a smaller update uniquely focused on survival balance!
The game is supposed to be harsh and realistic, but the previous body mechanics balance was a real pain: no matter how you managed to survive, you always ended up wasting all your muscles and fat.
With the new balance your body will respond more dynamically to your lifestyle, making good use of the occasional feasts (aka: finding a carcass and filling your stomach with its meat). But remember the game is not completed, and new content will make it easier (especially new foods), so it is still supposed to be harder than the final version.
Many other aspects of survival have been rebalanced as well, like skills increase rate (some skill were too easy to increase in particular), and stomach fullness decay rate. Also, number of animal generated on a new game decreased, especially Tyrannosaurus (I'm sure this will make many of you happy! :P)
There are some conveniance tweaks too, like an arrow showing the position of a gathered item (which can be hard to spot, especially at night) and some fixes as well.
Dan
Long term balance - I need your help!
Hey!
I'm working on a quick balance update to address some deep balancing problems in the Survival mode, especially after several days in game.
Some very important tweaks have been made, mainly regarding muscle and fat loss, which in the current game build are exaggerate and always lead to become extremely slim and weak, even if you manage to get some good food from time to time. The body should (and does, after the new update) make good use of the occasional feasts, just like in real life!
What I need is your feedback: many different areas are being balanced, including skill increase/decay, stamina, stomach fullness and so on.
If you are playing a long game, consider sending me a screenshot of your current character (in the info screen enabled with Tab), or just write the essential info in the comment!
The balance update should be ready as long as I gather enough feedback and apply the final tweaks!
Thanks!
Dan
Update v0.53.0 - 64bit support, settings expanded, lots of tweaks
FULL CHANGELOG Video devlog for this update is probably coming in a few days!
This update is NOT compatible with old savegames!
Major glitches and bugs may occur if you try to load a previous save.
Settings expanded:
One thing that always bothered me (and, I guess, most players) is the setting menu: it was only accessible from the game, not the main menu, and any change in the individual options were saved for that specific game, not remembered for new games globally.
This is changed in v0.53! Settings can now be set from the main menu and when starting a new game, it will no longer prompt you with the setting screen, and settings will be applied for any saved game, past or present.
Other than that, new settings have been added, especially for performance scalability, benchmarking and new game generation:
There is a "Preset" option that allows to quickly select the best map creation parameters according to your needs.
Also, you can see an "Asteroid" option, which is just a place holder now (but the feature is going to be added soon).
New Stomach and interface improvements:
The Stomach icon in Survival mode has been replaced with a new one, you may think it doesn't look that much better (or even worse) than the old one, but the point is that it works better. The reason is that the "content" now varies gradually, instead of "jumping" from a filling stage to the next.
There are also some tweaks to the interface layout, for both the Survival UI and the other menus, but still no change to the God mode UI which needs to be redone completely in a future update.
Fullness mechanics have been revised to be both more forgiving and realistic (having the cake and being able to eat it? Done), which means eating and drinking feels more natural.
One additional thing regarding the interface, finally the game tells you how many component you already got when hovering the mouse on a Crafting/Building recipe:
64 bit support and versioning changes:
DinoSystem now runs at 64 bit by default, but the 32 bit version is still mantained in the "32bit" download branch, if you have a 32 bit OS. To run the 32 bit version, right click on the game on Steam -> Proprieties -> BETAS and select "32bit".
Moreover, as you may have noticed, the version number changed from 0.5.3.0 to 0.53.0, this because the "53" represents the % towards the final version, and that makes it more clear!
The revision number jumped from 2xx to 520, this to account for a huge "numbering gap" of the last year, when I decided to change the revision system on a dayly basis. So I just calculated the "missing" 300 days (roughly) and added them to the revision count (yes i know it's just details, but I'm a perfectionist :P).
Other stuff:
This update has tons of tweaks to the survival balance, which should now feel more natural and overall easier to get into. I recommend to check the full changelog for the list of changes.
There are also many fixes and details, as always!
About the Troodon / Taming update:
The aforementioned update is not everything I worked for in the past 2 weeks, Troodon is shaping up pretty well, but didn't make it into v0.53 update as there's still work to do on it.
Anyway, here's the art used for it:
Here's the dead one:
This little guy will be very smart and have a highly social behaviour, which makes it great for taming. This also means it will hunt you in packs, unfortunately.
I'm now pretty confident that November will be the Troodon/Taming month! But considering the complex nature of the update, I can't make promises, just rest assured I'm always working on something else to bring to the table even if the "major" update isn't ready yet ;).
This is a quick update to fix a bunch of bugs reported in the recent v0.5.2.0 build, but there are some minor additions and tweaks too; therefore, the update is not tagged merely as "hotfix".
As always, make sure to check the changelog for the list of changes!
PS: work on the Troodon is proceeding well ;)
Dan
Update v0.52.0 - Dead trees, weather improvements
FULL CHANGELOG No devlog for this update, as there are no major additions worth for a video!
This update is NOT compatible with old savegames!
(major glitches and bugs may occur if you try to load a previous save)
Dead trees and vegetation rebalancing:
Trees will now lose all their leaves when dying. This seems like a a minor thing, but it enhances the environment, giving the idea it is actually dry. Autumn will look more like autumn! Dead trees only drop branches and burn pretty quick if hit by lightning.
On top of that, vegetation mechanics have been revisited, both to improve the current long-term balance and to allow me to implement more related content and features in the upcoming updates.
Weather effects improvements:
Rain and snow now follow the direction of the wind, at the wind speed. This makes checking the interface to see the wind direction unnecessary, and allows to instantly get an idea of its strength by just watching rain/snow.
There are many minor things in this update like the ability to repair structures and some fixes, so, as always, make sure to check to full changelog and report any bug you find ;).
Next update:
I'm now ready to begin the work for next update featuring the troodon and the taming system. This is going to be a very big update and will most likely take a month, or even more. I'll keep you updated along the way!
Daniel
Hotfix v0.51.1 + info about the next update
This is a very small update to address some bugs, especially the infamous "insomniac bug" that prevented the player from sleeping. Credits to the user Juan for sending me the savegame where it happened, allowing me to fix it.
This small hotfix has nothing to do with my current work on the next update, which started the day after the release of v0.5.1.0.
Troodon and taming system are still in the short term list, but I'm now focusing on reworking the vegetation system, and then will move to work on animals after releasing this update.
Some things added (so far) in the next version:
- Dead/dry trees that drop only branches
- Improved vegetation/terrain long term balance
- Expanded weather effects (snow/rain follow the direction and strength of the wind + more)
- Fire spreads on vegetation also based on wind direction/strength
- As always, bugfixes
The update will be release on the 14th or 15th this month!
Dan
5th devlog video is here!
With a 3 days delay, here is the video devlog where I (try to) explain the additions of the latest update with my perfect English (well, kinda).
In the final part of the video, I anticipate some of my plans for the short-term development.
If you missed it and don't want to watch the video, check the previous announcement for info about the latest update.
Daniel
Update v0.51.0 - Mountains & Balance changes
This update brings a new map feature: mountains, along with some deep and important changes to the game balance, focused around the timescale speed which as been slowed down to 50%.
This update is NOT compatible with old savegames!
(major glitches and bugs may occur if you try to load a previous save)
MOUNTAINS:
You can set the amount of mountains generated in the island creation window, or you can disable them if you prefer so. Mountans add a new layer of depth to both the ecosystem simulation and the survival gameplay, because they can create "safe zones" on the island, allowing some animals or plants, and the player, to stay relatively isolated from the rest of the ecosystem.
Mountains also work as "walls" for the wind, and prevent sandstorms or snowstorm from passing, which can be useful if there is a desert nearby.
TIME SCALE:
Before this update, a day in the game (24h) lasted 240 seconds. This was rather fast, even for a 2d top-down ecosim like DinoSystem: several players reported that in Survival mode they were not able to undertake the basic actions before the end of the first day.
As I mentioned in the previous announcement, balancing DinoSystem isn't easy, because the variables in place are many, and everything is inter-connected and persistant: I can't just change a slider or a variable to slow down the time scale and that's it, because there are factors like sun relative position, weather, animal AI routines, vegetation energetic mechanics and survival mechanics that need to be coherent with the timescale.
But i did it. A day in the game now last 2 times longer than before (480 sec), and it now feels just right. I don't regret listening to the feedback, because it was completely worth it!
On top of that, there are many improvements and fixes in this update, so as always just read the full changelog for a complete insight!
About the next update, I'll post an announcement in the upcoming days explaining the short-term development plans. Make also sure to always check the development thread which is constantly updated!
Daniel
Next update - Balance changes
Upcoming update will bring some important balance changes.
The main problem with the game balance, in survival mode, is the timescale, which is arguebly too fast. This will change in the next update, as the day length has been extended by 240 sec, effectively doubling it (from 240 sec to 480, from 4 min to 8).
So why didn't you do it before?
Balancing DinoSystem is a bit harder than balancing the average survival game: every change in the timescale has a huge impact on the whole ecosystem, so I had to re-balance everything: from the weather system, sun relative position throughout the day, to animal and plant lifecycle, and finally survival mechanics.
Also character needs have been rebalanced to require you to eat, drink and sleep less frequently, allowing the player to play in a more relaxed manner and don't rush! As a sub-feature, this also reduces the frequency of screen messages and hints.
Ecosystem evolution
For testing purpose, I recorded and assembled a video (taking a snapshot every day for 14 ingame years) with the new balance, you can check the video by clicking here.
The result is quite impressive: the island changes more radically throughout each year, but you can spot some parts (the forest on the left of the volcano forming the 2d year) that "survive" throughout the whole duration of the simulation. This variety makes the simulation more interesting!
Next update will come on 30th September and will feature also more stuff, as always!
Stay tuned!
Daniel
Update v0.5.0.0 - Shelter System!
First of all, I apologize for being late with this announcement: the update was live 24 hours ago and I got tecnical issues uploading it on Steam, so I had no time spare to make the devlog and write a proper announcement!
This update is NOT compatible with old savegames!
(major glitches and bugs may occur if you try to load a previous save)
SHELTER SYSTEM:
Finally, after a whole month of work, the shelter system is complete: you can build basic stone walls and a rudimental ceiling (a thatch made with wood and leaves). Both walls and ceiling offer protection one from wind and animals, and the other from rain, snow and sunlight. By building a proper shelter, you can reach 100% protection from the enviroinment for you, your fire and your stuff!
More buildable structures will be added in future update, and the system will be expanded with the ability to repair and deconstruct.
UI IMPROVEMENTS:
The update brings many improvements to some areas like crafting, interface and animations, as well as some minor AI improvements and balance changes:
The UI is now clearer to read, and less frustrating and information-intensive. The right panel with metabolism, muscles, fat, weight and skills is gone, and is replaced by a new screen accessible with the Tab key.
Equip mode slots have now images to quickly identify them, and can be enabled by simply dragging an item on your character sprite.
MORE STUFF:
Added a new craftable item: Torch.
Snapshots taken are now automatically saved in Documents/DinoSystem.
You can extinguish a fire by jumping on it!
You can make burp sounds if you eat and get full (that's a core feature now :P).
Many, many more additions, improvements and bugfixes, so as always make sure to check the changelog.
GUIDE BY PHANTOMRAPTOR:
If you missed it, I strongly recommend you to check this guide by the Steam user PhantomRaptor, that will help many player survive in the game as it is very well done!
