We are rolling right along with our latest additions and improvements for Farthest Frontier!
The introduction of mansions and a pastry shop will allow you to advance your settlements to gorgeous new heights and revamped military controls add a new layer of strategy when defending your people from encroaching raiders. You can also expect improved performance with the latest batch of optimization!
But that is just the start of v0.9.4. For the full list of changes, stop by the forum.
V0.9.3 is Now Live!
Pleased to report that Farthest Frontier's first optimization pass has just gone live for everyone!
While we expect framerate to improve for most players, this is only the first step. You can look forward to further performance boosts in upcoming updates!
This isn't all that v0.9.3 has to offer, as it comes alongside a significant balance and visual pass, new military controls, and more!
As we approach the finish line, it is time for a State of Early Access update!
Today, we are ready to go over our full plans, from v0.9.3 leading up to Farthest Frontier leaving Early Access with v1.0 later this year! If you've been eager for a roadmap, this is the update for you.
We are planning a total of 5 more major patches before we will consider the base game content complete and can start our post-release journey with free updates and paid expansions. This may sound like a lot, but we want to get features out to you as soon as they are ready. We are aiming for a Fall release window for v1.0. Above all else, we want you to have a polished experience!
A quick heads up, intrepid pioneers of the Farthest Frontier, another update is soon upon us.
We hope you have been enjoying the major additions in v0.9.2 and are eagerly awaiting what's next. We wanted to give you a quick heads up that v0.9.3 should be entering public playtesting in the next couple weeks.
Performance This update has a heavy focus on optimization, especially for very large settlements. From our own internal testing, we observed as much as a 90% increase in framerate for towns with over 2000 villagers. Naturally, your mileage will vary based on your system specs and town setup, but we expect most players should see measurable gains! This is our first major pass on performance, but not the last. You can expect more improvements as we approach v1.0.
Balance v0.9.3 also includes a significant pass on game balance. For starters, buildings will have significantly increased radii for desirability bonuses, granting you much more flexibility in how you lay out your settlements.
We also we made the decision to adjust the pace of the game overall. You will find that, at 1x speed, each game day will take 8 seconds, up from 5 seconds. We found that, as we balanced the game over the years, it became difficult to balance villager productivity and needs against the limit of how fast we can make them move around (before it looks ridiculous, and some of you might argue things have already gone too far) and how much distance they can cover in a day. Increasing the length of the day will provide much needed flexibility, result in less villagers accidentally dying of exposure, and provide a more relaxing 1x pace for those that currently find the game to be a bit frantic.
Combat In addition, we are working on further improvements to combat controls:
In v0.9.3, you will see all of your active military companies on the bottom of the screen, which you can use for quick-selection and deployment without having to track down your military buildings or using control groups.
We also made significant improvements to Archers, letting them move faster and automatically go to rearm themselves when they run out of arrows rather than charging in to their doom in valiant fisticuffs combat.
What's next We know you are eager to see our plans leading up to v1.0, and we are eager to share them with you. We are in the process of preparing another big State of Early Access update in June that will lay it all to bare! Everything from v0.9.4 to the vaunted v1.0 will be revealed!
V0.9.2 Hotfixes
We are always committed to addressing your critical concerns. We recently released a series of 4 hotfixes for v0.9.2, with the latest just today.
The latest hotfix includes a pass on combat tuning, based on your feedback, and addresses a number of frustrating issues.
We are now diving deep on preparing the next patch, which will include a number of significant optimization improvements, and of course MOAR!
Beary Good News (April Fools 2024!)
Exciting changes are on the way in v4.1.24, be sure to check out the reveal!
We hope you all enjoyed this (not so real) news. But while the announcement was not real, bear mode very much is!
You can continue to opt into it through beta in your Steam library:
Right click Farthest Frontier.
Choose “Properties”.
Select the “Betas” tab.
Select the Bear Mode branch in the dropdown box.
Suffer the consequences of your life choices.
Farthest Frontier v0.9.2 is now live!
We are pleased to announce that the Farthest Frontier combat update, v0.9.2, is now live! Recruit new soldier types and enlist the aid of powerful horsemen units to defend your town from new threats! Soldier management has been completely overhauled with military companies and new RTS controls that help you deploy your forces where they are needed most.
But the combat update is not all about combat. Pacifist players can enjoy the addition of goats and chickens, a number of quality of life improvements, such as the ability to request resources from the trading post, and more!
We will be hosting a livestream on Twitch on Thursday (03/07) at 1PM EST (6PM GMT) to show v0.9.2 in action and answer your burning questions about Farthest Frontier!
In addition, v0.9.2 will go into public playtesting after the livestream. Learn more about playtesting and how to opt in once it goes live (requires forum registration): https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/frontier-playtester-faq.
Come hang out with the devs! https://www.twitch.tv/crateentertainment
An Update on v0.9.2 Development
Hello everyone! Given how extensive v0.9.2’s development is and that is has been a couple months since our last official update, we feel we should give you a heads up on where we are and how things are going.
The short of it is that v0.9.2 is turning out pretty big, making the version number a bit of a misnomer. There are a lot of moving parts involved and some pretty fundamental tech that got overhauled. This means two things: significant work and bugs, all the bugs, and exciting things in store!
It is time for another State of Early Access! Last time, we announced multiple upcoming features and outlined our plans for the game up to v1.0. Today, we would like to give you an update on where we are and how things are going!
2023 was a very productive year for Farthest Frontier. The game received 5 major updates (not including smaller hotfixes):
We took our first major stab at optimization in v0.8.1, improving performance across the board.
V0.8.2 added numerous highly requested qualify of life features, including building counters, Arborist automation, Graveyard and Town Center relocation, automatic compost, cloud saving, and more.
V0.8.3 introduced infinite endgame resources with deep mines, quarries, and forestry. V0.9.0 was our anniversary update, and we made sure to celebrate with a bang.
With v0.9.0, we added the Spirituality system, which not only allows you to create your own custom faith for your people but also made exploring the map more fun with ancient ruins. We also added the paper industry, guilds, and the removal of the population cap.
Finally v0.9.1, which released last month, laid the foundation for of our upcoming combat improvements with the addition of raider encampments, which again made exploring the map more compelling (and dangerous), but also more rewarding as bringing the fight to the raiders not only earned you loot but delayed future raids. But as we are always committed to MOAR, v0.9.1 also added crypts, droughts, map-based weather and storage limits.
Note: everything you read here is a preview and is subject to change before release. This is not an all-encompassing list of every feature in the works. Nothing is set in stone, until it is!
See our latest preview for Farthest Frontier on the official forums!
