Hey Drifters! We've got a small update to test for you all; The Research Tree. It's another step towards better research. It brings dependencies and nodes with multiple unlocks, allowing us to structure a more clear research progression path. As well as being fully expandable later on to include more than just constructions being unlocked.
It's still in an early stage so it will only be available on experimental until we iron out all the kinks and get it to where we want it to be.
What's next?
With the latest patches, we're nearing the point where we've setup all foundations for adding goals to the game. We've got something cooking but it'll take consecutive patches to fully set up. Next patch will either add more scouting options or will be a first iteration of said goals.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Early Access 0.6.2e1: Research Tree
Research Tree
Research is now contained in a tree of connected research nodes.
Research now has branching dependencies. (E.g a construction that needs Metal Plates requires the Scrapsmith to be unlocked.)
Research nodes can contain multiple unlocks. (E.g the Salvaging Boat and Mooring Point unlock in one node.)
Expertise
Added icons for each attribute.
Changed drifter duties icons to more accurately reflect the corresponding attributes.
Balancing
The Desalinator no longer requires Metal Plates.
The Unbottler no longer requires Eel-ectricity.
Fixes
Fixed some tooltips displaying the wrong text.
Fixed some tooltips not displaying properly.
0.6.1: Woodworking Split
Woodworking Shed Split
Hey Drifters! We've got a small update for you all before the research tree goes into beta. We've split the Woodworking Shed into two different buildings; the Sawmill and the Chopping Block. The original Woodworking Shed was meant to be a toolshed for a different feature and as such, felt a bit off-key visually. Now that we're working on the research tree, we took some time to split these into two different constructions. This way we can properly introduce fuel creation with research later on in the game, as well as look into a streamlined UI for single-item-workshops.
We also fixed some issues, most importantly; in certain edge cases a construction that was being deconstructed could cause a save to break. This is now fixed, and old saves with this issue can be loaded up again.
What's next?
We're testing the Research Tree internally and will have it ready for testing soon. After that, we're looking at scouting upgrades to work towards objectives.
Early Access 0.6.1: Woodworking Shed Split
Sawmill and Chopping Block
Removed the Woodworking Shed. Loading saves with Woodworking Sheds built will still have working Woodworking Sheds in the town.
Added the Sawmill, a construction that makes Planks.
Added the Chopping block, a construction that makes Firewood.
Added new animations and effects for the Sawmill and Chopping Block.
Fixes
Fixed issue where schools would not list any drifter beyond the ninth drifter you rescued.
Fixed several language key issues.
Fixed issue where you couldn't salvage highway landmarks with boats.
Fixed issue where you would start with the functionality of a watchtower if you built one, went back to main menu and started a new game.
Fixed issue where a buildable that was being deconstructed wile the game was saved could cause the save to break. Saves that were broken this way will now load properly.
0.6.0p1: Localization Fixes
Localization/Language fixes
Hey Drifters! We had some long-standing issues with the localization of Flotsam. In some cases, google-translated suggestions from Localizor (community translating tool) overwrote correct and top voted suggestions. As well as some keys showing up as [] squares or #REFERENCED TERM MISSING#.
These errors are now fixed. Any untranslated text will now default back to English and no longer use Google-Translate. While this makes it harder to play for some languages, untranslated keys are noticed instantly and can be tracked down to translate by the community.
Help us translate!
If you're multilingual, you can help improve Flotsam for the languages you speak. Localizor is a community translating tool in which you can contribute to help people to understand your language and enjoy the game better.
Fixed issue where google translated suggestions from Localizor would import over top voted suggestions. (this sometimes caused weird translations such as % DAY%)
Fixed issue where some keys would show as [] instead of the correct key.
Fixed issue where pre-Early Access launch translated keys would not be imported.
Fixed issue where suggestions not meeting the like threshold would get imported over the top voted suggestion.
Fixed issue where linking to untranslated terms inside tooltips of non-English languages would state #REFERENCED TERM MISSING# instead of defaulting back to English.
Fixed several keys to correctly link to their corresponding terms.
Removed old Survival Guide keys still present in Localizor.
0.6.0: Expertise is OUT NOW!
Heya Drifters!
The Expertise update is here! It brings depth to the drifters with Expertise, Morale and Knowledge.
Your drifters will now gain experience and level up by doing tasks. This will give them knowledge, which replaces books as requirement for research. With the introduction of morale, your drifters will have wishes that affect their levelling speed.
Coming with this update as well is a look at the issues with boat abandonment. Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked and will communicate a warning to the player. Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points will teleport back.
What's next?
With knowledge being the new requirement for research, we will now take a look at reworking the current research screen towards a tree with clear progression. This includes "researchables", which allows you to unlock more than buildings, like town-wide upgrades, recipes and more!
Enjoy the new update!
Changes
Drifter Expertise
Drifters can now gain experience and level up by doing tasks.
For each drifter level up, you can assign an attribute point, raising their expertise.
For each drifter level up, you gain knowledge.
Each level gradually needs more experience.
Drifters start with some attributes increased, which adds to the total expertise. This allows those stats to go above the maximum (10).
Drifters start with attribute Affinity, which increases their morale when using those attributes. (and thus, their learning speed)
Updated tooltips of attributes to correctly give all required information.
Updated the attributes. The attributes are now as follows; Construction, Athletics, Liquids, Crafting, Research, Cooking, Fishing, Salvaging.
Each attribute can be levelled to 10.
Added the school, where drifters can use books to gain experience.
On level-up, a drifter will spawn a little celebratory effect.
Drifter Morale
Drifters have morale. Their morale will affect their levelling speed.
There are 5 states of drifter morale with each an effect on levelling speed; Very Low (25%), Low(65%), Neutral(100%), High(135%), Very High(200%).
The morale is outlined in a bar in the drifter panel.
Drifters now have affinity for certain attributes. When they work tasks using those attributes, they will work at increased morale.
Drifters will now prioritize tasks they have an affinity for, then by their attribute amount.
Added various morale modifiers such as; new community, new friends, wet, etc.
Added thought bubbles, drifters will now show thoughts of what morale is affecting them.
Research and Drifter Knowledge
Researching now requires knowledge instead of books.
Updated the research station; it does no longer have an eel-ectricity requirement. The footprint and cost has been reduced. The visual has been updated.
Research is now done per knowledge, rather than the whole progress at once.
You can now research one knowledge at a time without requiring the full amount of knowledge.
Research UI will now show progress per knowledge point.
Renamed "cancel research" to "pause research" so it gives the correct information.
Drifters
Updated the drifter Water, Food and Sleep panel, lack of sleep is now tracked in the Morale panel.
The debuff of not eating or drinking has now merged with the morale modifier.
Morale modifiers can now affect other things, such as drifter attributes.
Drifters not drinking, eating or sleeping will get stackable debuffs that reduce certain attributes.
Drifters will now inform players if they are unable to perform their duties and why (mostly for blocked salvaging tasks due to unavailable storage space for resources)
Hauling affinity now correctly shows in the drifter duties panel when a drifter has affinity for athletics.
Food and Resources
Food now has a quality level: Icky, Ordinary or Yummy. Each give a different morale modifier.
Updated tooltips of resources to correctly give all required information
General
Added various icons for new features.
Changed localization keys for new features.
Removed pollution bar on the portraits.
Updated some of the UI elements.
Mooring Points and Boats
Boat abandonment was a long-standing issue, we looked into fixing annoyances and communicating the issues to the player.
Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked. These will show a warning.
Boats moored at blocked Mooring Points will not be used by drifters doing tasks.
Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points are no longer abandoned. These will teleport back to their linked Mooring Point.
Fixes
Fixed an issue where the polluted woods scouting tower didn't have a selection circle.
Fixed Seagull giving a morale debuff for leaving when they haven't left.
Fixed Mooring Point signaling it being blocked when it was not blocked.
Fixed a bug where a drifter could get stuck while salvaging a landmark by boat and a resource was toggled off.
Fixed a bug where reassigning boats between Mooring Points could break their connection to the Mooring Point.
Fixed broken Seagull panel.
Update 0.6.0: "Expertise" now ready for testing!
Hey Drifters!
We have another update ready to test for you all: the Expertise Update. It brings depth to the drifters with Expertise, Morale and Knowledge.
Your drifters will now gain experience and level up by doing tasks. This will give them knowledge, which replaces books as requirement for research. With the introduction of morale, your drifters will have wishes that affect their levelling speed.
Coming with this update as well is a look at the issues with boat abandonment. Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked and will communicate a warning to the player. Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points will teleport back.
What's next?
Our first priority is ironing out any bugs that might accompany this update. After that, we are looking at re-introducing books with the School building. Here, they can be traded for big jumps of drifter experience. 0.6.x will see plenty of patches to continue working on this feature, like a research-rework, a brewery and more.
How do I test this update?
This patch is still in development and can be tested on its own branch to give feedback.
It can be played on the new separate branch 0.6.x_Expertise_Update, it's not the experimental branch. This is so we can still push minor updates to 0.5.x on the experimental branch if necessary.
This is how you can enable the Region Update branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game: 1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Flotsam 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select '0.6.x_Expertise_Update' in the drop-down. 6. The game will update automatically.
Enjoy the new update!
Patch Notes
Drifter Expertise
Drifters can now gain experience and level up by doing tasks.
For each drifter level up, you can assign an attribute point.
For each drifter level up, you gain knowledge.
Each level gradually needs more experience.
Drifters start with attribute Expertise, which increases the points of those attributes.
Drifters start with attribute Affinity, which increases their morale when using those attributes.
Updated tooltips of attributes to correctly give all required information
Updated the attributes. The attributes are now as follows; Construction, Athletics, Liquids, Crafting, Research, Cooking, Fishing, Salvaging.
Each attribute can be levelled to 10. Expertise allows it to go higher.
Drifter Morale
Drifters have morale. Their morale will affect their levelling speed.
There are 5 states of drifter morale with each an effect on levelling speed; Very Low (25%), Low(65%), Neutral(100%), High(135%), Very High(200%).
The morale is outlined in a bar in the drifter panel.
Drifters now have affinity for certain attributes. When they work tasks using those attributes, they will work at increased morale.
Drifters will now prioritize tasks they have an affinity for, then by their attribute amount.
Added various morale modifiers such as; new community, new friends, wet, etc.
Added thought bubbles, drifters will now show thoughts of what morale is affecting them.
Research and Drifter Knowledge
Researching now requires knowledge instead of books.
Books are temporarily useless (they will regain a purpose once we add the school building, where you can transfer books to drifter experience)
Updated the research station; it does no longer have an eel-ectricity requirement. The footprint and cost has been reduced. The visual has been updated.
Research is now done per knowledge, rather than the whole progress at once.
You can now research one knowledge at a time without requiring the full amount of knowledge.
Food
Food now has a quality level: Icky, Ordinary or Yummy. Each give a different morale modifier.
Updated tooltips of resources to correctly give all required information
General
Added various icons for new features.
Changed localization keys for new features.
Removed pollution bar on the portraits.
Updated some of the UI elements.
Mooring Points and Boats
Boat abandonment was a long-standing issue, we looked into fixing annoyances and communicating the issues to the player.
Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked. These will show a warning.
Boats moored at blocked Mooring Points will not be used by drifters doing tasks.
Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points are no longer abandoned. These will teleport back to their linked Mooring Point.
Fixes
Fixed an issue where the polluted woods scouting tower didn't have a selection circle.
0.5.1: New Inventory!
Hey Drifters!
We reworked the inventory panel to a more clear, concise bar at the top. With added functionality, this bar allows personal preferences to be set using the filter tools.
What's next?
The Expertise patch is nearing a state where it's ready for testing. You can expect to see drifter levels, stat increases, morale and more coming in everything 0.6.0 soon :)
Enjoy the new update!
Patch Notes
New Inventory
Moved the inventory into a new top bar that can be opened/collapsed.
Added category filters for each type of resource, allowing personal preferences to be set in the inventory panel.
Added a new resource category: Ingredients. The categories are now as follows; Raw, Construction, Fuel, Ingredients, Food, Water, Special.
Updated the inventory visuals slightly to make the categories clear.
Behind the scenes: Refactored item code.
Fixes
Fixed a bug where a drifter could get stuck in the jumping transition.
Misc
Re-scaled other UI elements, such as the speed buttons.
Townheart water storage capacity increased from 15 -> 20.
0.5.0p3: Stuck drifter/item fixes
Early Access 0.5.0p3
0.5.0p3 fixes various bugs where drifters could get stuck and unresponsive. As well as items that got stuck in boats and storages.
Fixes
Fixed a bug where drifters would get stuck in a transition between the water and the walkways.
Fixed a bug where drifters would get stuck while salvaging landmarks with a boat but swam to it instead.
Fixed a bug where food or water items would get stuck in storage/building inventories. Loading save files with this bug should fix the save files.
Fixed a bug where double-click movement on map would stop working after going back to the main menu.
Fixed a bug where enabling the energy overlay would not have it display the energy lines.
0.5.0p2
Hey Drifters,
We pushed a quick fix that solves some saves not loading after last patch.
Early Access 0.5.0p2
Fixes
Fixed issue where saves would not load.
0.5.0p1 Stuck drifter fixes
Hey Drifters,
A small update to 0.5.0 which mainly fixes the bug where rescued drifters got stuck. As well as other issues caused by this behavior like clogged inventories.
Early Access 0.5.0p1
Fixes
Fixed a bug where drifters would get stuck on landmarks.
Fixed a bug where resources would get reserved and never unreserved whenever a drifter tried to queue a project for a vital for which it already had a project queued. In other words, stuck drifters will not cause resources to clog storage or export inventories.
Fixed bug where the 'Main Menu' button that would appear in the loading screen when something goes wrong would not load the Main Menu.
Fixed build-states of the Solar still, drifters will no longer float in the air when constructing it.
Misc
Made shadow distance dynamic, allowing shadows in map view.
Townheart movement is now triggered with double-click instead of single-click. Any other way of moving the town has not changed.
Camera to Townheart movement toggle can now be set in the input settings.
Added town-name support for longer Townheart names.
Increased Canned Food at start from 4 to 9.
UI
Made some changes to the HUD, equipping the bottom bar with the important UI elements.
Rescaled some UI elements.
0.5.0: Regions are OUT NOW!
Heya Drifters!
Over the past few months we have been working to improve the speed with which we can develop new content for Flotsam. As part of this development we created several tools that allow us to build the world of Flotsam by hand. This creates a more solid foundation for crafting, testing and balancing all the new features we have lined up for future updates.
One of those features is the addition of Regions! The World Map will now have 3 distinct regions you can travel to, each with their own unique landmarks and resources to gather. Regions allows you to look for your specific needs and will act as a solid base for upcoming features.
What's next?
Regions will see regular updates using handmade maps in the following weeks. It's a great system to build upcoming content onto that we're excited to show to you all soon :). You can expect region updates throughout 0.5.x and onwards. The next bigger update will be "Expertise" that will focus on drifter attributes and research.
Enjoy the new update!
Changes
Regions
With 0.5.0 we introduce regions to the World Map! Each of these regions has a distinctive feel, defined by unique landmarks and resources to be gained.
Added 4 Regions to the game; the Polluted Woods, Rural Ruins, Highways and City regions.Created new landmarks for each region.
Created new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for each region
Added a scouting landmark for three regions; Watchtower for the Polluted Woods, Church for the Rural Ruins and Skyscraper for the City.
Regions can now be revealed by using the scouting landmarks.
Added a handmade world map with all regions.
Added a choice between handmade map (regions) and random spawning (0.4.2 and down) game modes when starting a new game. Regions will only be present in the handmade map for the time being.
Adjusted the World Map visuals to correctly reflect the region.
You can now use the arrow keys to move around on the World Map and sail freely.
You can now toggle camera and movement on the World Map, allowing you to move using WASD.
You can now click to a location and the town will move there.
You can now click and hold to move your town to your cursor.
You now bump into landmarks on the map. You can not go closer than your building radius.
Landmarks show their boundaries on the map.
Buoy markers and landmark projects will no longer be cancelled upon World Map movement. This will only occur once they breach interactable radius.
Added a visual to indicate where drifters will moor onto landmarks in the map view.
A radial menu showing energy has been added around the townheart on the map so you can quickly glance at remaining energy.
Behind the Scenes
Worked on the World Editor, allowing us to craft a handmade map.
Added region functionality to the World Editor.
Added underwater highway functionality to the World Editor. This was used to test if underwater roads can lead players to city regions.
Made and improved landmark creation and testing tools, allowing us to more rapidly create landmarks.
Improved Salvageable and Non-Interactable prop handling, allowing leftover pieces and unique animations.
Made tools to balance each region's resources.
Correctly textured and re-imported older props, increasing performance but destroying older saves in the process.
Fixed input handling. Key-binds for each player will be reset upon playing 5.0 and up.
Adjusted how camera dragging works.
Visuals
Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Polluted Woods region.
Made new Landmarks for the Polluted Woods region.
Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Rural Ruins region.
Made new Landmarks for the Rural Ruins region.
Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the Highways region.
Made new Landmarks for the Highways region.
Made new Salvageable and Non-interactable props for the City region.
Made new Landmarks for the City region.
Remade the Solar Still visual
Landmark Map Visuals now scale with camera movement.
Energy bar will now pulse when you're low on energy.
Re-implemented flag that shows completed landmarks so players can properly see it from a distance.
Fixed missing resource visuals that showed as pink in-game.
Increased shadow resolution on high(er) quality settings.
Added an animation for drifters picking up resources while swimming.
Balancing
Rebalanced the entire game to smoothly work with new region functionality.
Fishing Chair now handles fish per region and does not require you to be near a fishing spot.
Drifters will now only be able to catch bottled fish when using the fishing chair. This change has been made in tandem with the daily limit that can be set on the fishing chair so the limit can be linked to cooking recipe requirements.
Map movement now costs 2/3 as many Eels.
Fixes
Various fixes were made to be able to correctly implement all new features.
Fixed issue where boats could be linked to multiple mooring points.
Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a LandmarkBehavior reference not being restored properly.
Fixed issue where games wouldn't load due to a bug with Energy producers.
Fixed issue where arrow keys could not be bound as input
Fixed issue where boats would moor at a mooring point to which they were not linked after loading a saved game.
Fixed issue where region jump button was deactivated after loading a saved procedural game.
Fixed issue where agents that were no longer on any pathfinding graph would be lost forever.
Fixed bug where seagulls would not salvage Floaters from plastic patches.
Fixed annoyance where drifters would fish all day long in the fishing chair. It is now possible to set a daily limit for fish caught in the fishing chair.
Fixed issue where on low resolutions the main menu could get obfuscated by the road map visual.
Misc
Removed experimental camera as it was no longer worth it to update it during development.
Removed cost per mile from World Map HUD as the information became obsolete with the new map.
Removed resource counters and population counter from the HUD.
