• Added a new render-buffer flush mechanic to the window manager which aims to tackle the render-buffer getting out-of-sync after minimizing the game on some Windows hardware configurations. Due to none of my testing hardware being affected by the issue, this solution is somewhat of a theoretical approach and not fully confirmed as effective, but community testing results look promising
  

• It now tracks whether you had encountered actions prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  
• It now tracks your game completion and longest life data prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  

• Fixed a bug that could cause combat stalling to proceed for explorations that were no longer available, if they were still in the queue due to being manually added
  
• Fixed a bug in chapter 5 where the prevent auto-refill setting could fail to trigger after automatically filling up on eggs, if the return to the children wasn't also automated
  

• Various hotfixes to tackle launch day issues with the QoL patch
  
• Fixed an issue in the new restart generation feature that caused story completion times to not properly reset, which could lead to incorrect displayed times (those prior to the restart). This effect was purely visual/informational, and had no impact on progression. This fix takes one or two restarts or reincarnations to correct itself in your save
  
• Fixed the top-right close button of the restart generation modal not working
  
• Fixed an issue that stopped the reverseSkillColors launch parameter from working
  

• Added an option to restart your current generation, at the cost of resetting progress obtained throughout that generation. This feature is aimed for the min-maxers among you, to allow you to correct mistakes (ex: when you misconfigured an automation) at the cost of taking a bit more time
  
• Added a new automation behavior setting for experienced players: "Override exhausted", allowing you to automatically (temporarily) adjust automation priorities for cooking jobs when you lose access to the related resource job. Aimed to minimize manual intervention of runs for the very min-maxing ones among you, as well as offer some extra optimization potential for others
  
• You can now bookmark automations, causing them to appear in a new bookmarks-tab (similar to chapter tabs). This allows you to create a quick-overview of automations you may frequently change, without having to adjust things throughout multiple tabs. This option appears after unlocking the chapter 3 automations tab (because it doesn't offer much value earlier, and could overwhelm new players)
  
• The top-bar time tooltip now displays maximum health gain for the next generation in real time
  
• The hourglass tooltip now displays related completions as well, rather than just being visible in the reincarnation screen
  
• The maximum health tooltip on the reincarnation screen now displays more detailed information as to what contributed to the multiplier (if above 1), and what you haven't completed yet. Aimed to be both informative, and a reminder when you forgot something earlier in the game
  
• Added an option to display instinct levels gained during the current generation to the skill tooltips (Settings > General > Tooltip instinct gain)
  
• Added an option to change what instinct-data is displayed on the reincarnation screen, with options: "Level", "Multiplier" (default/what it always has been), "Both" (Settings > Visual > Instinct display)
  
• You can now click the top-left "view last generation screen" button in the reincarnation screen, causing it to stay enabled until anything is clicked, rather than only when hovering the button. This allows you to view tooltips at their final states
  
• Added an option to change the volume of the sound notification (if you have that enabled)
  
• Added an option to display an additional pause button at the top of the queue, mainly for mouse-only players that were bothered by the button positions changing as the queue size changes. The big pause button remains visible for its "edge of your eye" UX purpose, this setting just adds an additional small persistent-location button if enabled
  
• Slightly reworked a chapter 8 job (catch seals) look-ahead safety feature so that it gradually introduces itself as you get faster between generations. This aims to make it less "interruptive" early on, while staying true to its design intention to prevent accidental deaths for unfortunate automation setups as you pass that part increasingly faster
  
• Fixed a visual bug that caused maximum health to include newly rewarded health too early when reloading the game while the reincarnation screen was shown
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented a chapter 5 job (eggs) from automating, if it was below the prevent auto-refill priority and another job had automation disabled. It's almost poetic how the eggs are what automation keeps breaking...
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause eating as a result of a damage job to surpass your maximum health, if said food healed more than your maximum health
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the auto-refill prevention setting to kick in when a manual action was visible but couldn't be started due to a missing requirement
  
• Added additional verification logic to the interface scale setting on launch, tackling an issue where it would incorrectly default to mid-scaling if the OS cache stored an incorrect scaling setting, or none at all
  
• Reworked the formula behind the screen scaling function, to reduce one pixel artifacts on various resolutions/scaling settings. One pixel lines with scaling can still slightly vary in when they become two pixel lines, but it should be far less frequent and limited to high screen resolutions
  
• Slightly adjusted the minimal screen sizes that are communicated to the OS, to better account for OS theme/window-manager additions such as top-bars at minimal size
  
• Added the --skipCloudSavePrompt launch parameter, for those that really don't want to enable Steam Cloud. I highly recommend against disabling Steam Cloud, but you can now stop the game from prompting you about it if you really want to
  

So, what's next?

Player feedback balance adjustments

• Jobs that deal damage on completion (seals, magma, steel) now reduce your active food cooldowns by 10% of your maximum cooldown per completion as well. Providing an additional strategic element to tackle them through food variety. This aims to reduce a commonly reported frustration of "I get worse as I get faster" if properly utilized, without invalidating their place in the balance
  
• Chapter 8: Catch seal damage per completion was increased by 10%, to keep the initial pressure similar to how it was before, now that the cooldown reduction effect is added. It remains a clear buff for chapters 9+, but is initially fairly minor during chapter 8 (it's never a nerf either)
  
• Chapter 8: Catch seal now has additional safety logic, causing it to look a little ahead (one food cooldown) to prevent accidental automated deaths to the walrus fight. This should make it require less specific automation setups to comfortably pass at higher skill numbers
  
• Chapter 10: Mushroom school damage was increased by 12.5%, while required time/experience per completion was increased by 25%. Effectively making it 10% easier (damage per second), but in a way that benefits later stages of the chapter more than earlier stages
  
• Chapter 10: Added additional flavor text to the first dog exploration, to hint that you might want to explore that part even if you've already obtained the iron stick in chapter 3
  
• Chapter 11: Reduced the base difficulty of dodge by 20%, and the damage of trip by 12.5%. Aiming to soften the first phase for builds that are very low on agility (one of which is fairly commonly used)
  
• Chapter 11: The titanstone hut can no longer be finished after returning to the fight
  
• Added a new game plus perk that matches the fourth funnel
  

Other changes

• The inventory total food value tooltip now also displays uncooked food (after unlocking cooking for the first time)
  
• Reworked how food cooldowns internally behave when eating within the dynamic tick-range of 1-100ms, slightly increasing millisecond accuracy behind the scenes and aiming to tackle a rare situation where combat safety calculation could false-positive due to hardware delays or offline progress
  
• Chapter 10: Food-trade resource automation no longer continues to run food-jobs until it has enough food of that type to trade, but instead only triggers this automation for the very last food-job if total food is insufficient to trade. This way it should no longer interfere with manual min-maxing, while automation still uses the internal functionality
  
• Chapter 10: Food-trade no longer uses partial food-value food types during trades when it doesn't have enough of those to complete, to prevent wastage through previously getting combined with 1:1 food value trades
  
• Explorations that deal damage on completion now consume an additional food to reach maximum health, if health decay after completion would otherwise become deadly within one food cooldown. This mostly affects rare situations with low maximum health
  
• Action tooltips now update instantly when their automation unlock requirement is reduced by completing another action, instead of being somewhat delayed until something else triggered a tooltip update
  
• Chapter 11: The fourth funnel effect now updates affected tooltips more consistently/faster on completion
  
• Added additional logic to tackle the chapter 11 health bar element not visually updating during some first completions
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause low-priority jobs not to trigger, when no manual actions were present in chapter 5. Causing the game to require manual interaction when it shouldn't
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause combat-stalling logic to overwrite empty-food automation, if the food job was on a lower priority than other stalling options
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause automated jobs with additional requirements to get stuck in a loop (visual freeze) that required manual intervention, if job automations were prioritized in specific orders
  
• Fixed some story elements firing their "done this before" story alteration on first completions, after an earlier update changed how that was tracked internally
  
• Fixed a bug that caused combat-decay increases on completion of explorations (funnels, ch11) to also apply to the very last tick prior to completion, causing them to deal a fractionally higher amount of damage than intended (usually 0.03~3ms of extra combat decay) and in very rare occasions caused the combat safeties to fail
  
• Similar to the bug-fix above, constructions now consume their in-tick time prior to triggering a completion as well. In this case the same bug was arguably (fractionally) working in your favor for huts
  
• Fixed a bug in the chapter-completion backup logic for chapters 6, 7 and 8 that caused it to backup too early, causing it to miss one completion in the data. Previously affected backups should also be detected and work again with this update
  

What's next?

• Jobs that deal damage on completion no longer halt to prevent lethal damage before they are actually close to completion
  
• The new game plus passive jobs perk no longer progresses two specific jobs in the middle path of chapter 10, to prevent wasting valuable resources. But they no longer provide passive experience either
  
• Slightly expanded the rendering system to better detect when it missed something, and catch up next frame. This should tackle a rare chapter 11 visual bug where a number/bar wasn't visually updated after completing certain explorations if they finished at the exact same time as something else such as eating food
  
• Added a small number-precision safety check to a chapter 11 finale event
  

• Fixed the passive jobs NG+ perk cheating its way past two chapter 11 job requirements
  
• Fixed a chapter 10 person following you around after moving on without meeting that person (how rude)
  

• Fixed a cache bug that could cause the construction button to not listen for a specific chapter 11 construction
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltip-experience information to not visually update with certain chapter 11 explorations
  

All new content has been balanced and tuned for a "first playthrough"

Other changes

• Jobs that deal damage on completion now include off-cooldown food in their combat-safety computation, to be more accurate at low maximum health values
  
• Food cooldowns in the inventory tab now display as rounded up, rather than rounded down. To tackle a common confusion when dying when it displayed 0.0s, when that could just mean "below 0.1s" internally. Internal cooldowns still work on the same millisecond precision, this change is purely visual
  
• Chapters 6-8 now record their chapter completion stats upon finishing their last exploration for the first time, rather than reaching the next chapter. To better account for pathing options
  
• New game plus perk tooltips now display the previous perk price, as well as the total dna allocated on said perk. To be more informative in helping you determine how you may reallocate dna between playthroughs, would you want to
  
• The game client now detects when the Steam client isn't running on launch, and requests the steam client to relaunch the game automatically
  
• The prevent auto-refill setting should no longer fire when no manual actions are shown. To prevent unexpected halts of automation in edge-cases
  
• Fixed a rare case where run-once jobs could run twice, if automation triggered in a specific way behind the scenes
  
• Fixed a display bug that could prevent the reincarnation screen from showing if death occurred during the hiding transition. This could occur to some self-assigned challenge-run players when combined with offline time
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the chapter 8 meta-progression mechanic to not have it's downside applied, if the chapter 6 meta-progression mechanic wasn't ever completed
  
• Fixed a minor rounding-error in the fifth new game plus perk, causing it to occasionally display a slightly better value than it would actually be (last digit)
  
• Fixed a minor display bug in the story timediff seconds notation that could cause it to format as 1Ks instead of 1,000s when between 999.5s and 1000s
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause opening and closing (cancel) the NG+ screen during a run to unpause the game
  
• Reworked exploration completion accuracy at high numbers, mainly to support new content. But it should also make speedrun levels of optimization a tad more accurate
  
• Removed an internal cap to offline progress that was still there by mistake, causing offline progress to be capped to 5% of the total playthrough time when it shouldn't be
  
• Reworked various internal calculation-functions to support new scaling factors, allowing for new and future meta-progression mechanics
  
• Reworked how the NG+ passive jobs perk affects the action queue, to be more easily maintainable for future job-types
  
• Expanded various internal data management aspects, further reducing creative constraints for future content
  
• The game will now notify you when it detects that an update was installed (after this one)
  

Announcing the first price raise

What does a price-change mean if you already own the game?

Why did this update take 7 months?

Early Access development roadmap

Short term roadmap (approximately 2-4 months)

Long term roadmap (definitely over a year, quite likely more than 2 years)

Today's changes

• Reduced the default automation unlock requirement by 20% (500 > 400 for jobs, 10 > 8 for constructions/explorations). Actions with specific requirements have been tuned accordingly. New game plus scaling remains the same percentage, but the result is 20% lower by effect (subject to rounding)
  
• Added two options that allow for accumulations of offline time when a menu is open, or the reincarnation screen is shown. Similar to when the game is closed, this causes the game to fast-forward to catch up on time that would have progressed if it was running normally, up until a paused state is reached. Aiming to support less attentive playstyles, if desired
  
• Local saves are now also stored in [installFolder/saves], as a third save-loss prevention layer. For the very rare edge cases where Steam Cloud could fail, and a local disk-cleaner could remove the local file from the temp folder at the same time
  
• Added an auto-backup feature with a frequency setting, allowing you to configure when the game should automatically create a save backup to [installFolder/saves/backups]. The setting defaults to new completions of current content, but can be configured up to every reincarnation. Only works for milestones after downloading this update, because this data wasn't stored before
  
• Added a chapter completions tab to the generation history, to provide more in-depth information about how your playthrough compares (either to your own new game plus runs, or to flex to friends)
  
• Automations that have their requirements reduced by completing another action, now mention which action that is. If that action has been encountered at least once
  
• When automations are unlocked because their alternative was completed, even if it wasn't completed during the generation itself, it now explains that in the tooltip. To clarify a fairly common confusion
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the "prevent auto-refill" priority setting to prevent refilling during combat-stalling when something manual was available, resulting in unintended pauses
  
• Automated explorations that can fail and use "stop before completion" through the setting now re-apply that setting when they fail
  
• Chapter five tools now reduce the automation unlock requirement of their alternatives, since obtaining them all isn't really an option until well after automation is unlocked
  
• Three constructions in chapter seven now also appear when their requirement is missing (but can't be built). To make the effect of an earlier pathing choice harder to miss
  
• Those same three chapter seven constructions now reduce their automation unlock requirement when completing the required fourth construction. Similar to how some other optional things handle automation unlock requirements
  
• The first optional exploration in chapter two now also reduces its automation unlock requirement when moving on
  
• Lowered the automation unlock requirement of a chapter nine job
  
• An early chapter five exploration now also reduces its automation unlock requirement when moving on
  
• One chapter five exploration that requires a resource no longer halts filling-up automation with the setting, if the exploration itself as well as the resource are automated. To require less of a specific automation setup to proceed
  
• Fixed a bug that caused passive jobs to remove the active job when running out of the required resource, if they shared a resource requirement but weren't the same job. It now causes resource automation for the active action to trigger similar to when it's normally started
  
• Fixed a bug in the completion-damage exploration safety-check that caused it to not include decay increases, and potentially considering completion "safe" too soon. This affected one exploration in current content
  
• Fixed a bug that caused queuing the same action as run-once before a fill-up to remove the fill-up from the queue on activation
  
• Added a textual hint to the new game+ screen, indicating that right-clicking perks allows you to freely reallocate dna between playthroughs, to make that harder to miss
  
• Slightly adjusted the order of warning messages when actions can't be ran, to make them a little more accurate to what's most relevant when notifying you
  
• Added additional logic to the tooltip-rendering to ensure they're updated when available actions change, aiming to prevent tooltips of actions that are no longer available from remaining visible until moving the cursor
  
• Added another safety-check to the launch process to verify that the connection to Steam succeeded. Aiming to prevent save-loss when the Steam API failed to connect
  

So what's next?

• Added checkmarks to the automation tab for constructions and explorations that were completed in the current generation, for a slightly easier overview of what your current automations managed to complete
  
• Replaced the 25% health check from the safety combat logic with a more accurate alternative, for a few edge-cases where it could cause combat to be lethal when it didn't need to be
  
• Resource-jobs are now only triggered to fill-up (last in line within a priority), but no longer specifically trigger when empty (like food jobs still do), unless required by another action
  
• When a fail-damage exploration that won't be completable is triggered with safeties off, it now automatically triggers stalling with jobs when it would normally proceed to the next exploration
  
• In the save-selection screen that's shown when the local and cloud save are out of sync, new game+ DNA points are now shown as well, if unlocked on either save. For additional clarity on which save is more recent
  
• Fixed a rare fatal launch error for saves with particular action-settings queued. Saves that ran into this issue should work again! Apologies for the inconvenience
  
• Expanded the Steam Cloud processing logic on launch to tackle a very rare situation where the Steam client could fail to properly provide the Cloud save file to the game. The game now recognizes this, and exits after a warning for manual intervention. Aimed to tackle a rare situation that could result in data-loss
  
• Fixed a rare bug where passive jobs could cause automation not to properly reach the queue, if triggered at the exact same time as a passive completion
  
• Added a line of text to the launcher to help solving installation file integrity issues for the unlucky few that run into them
  

• Added an "automation behavior" section to the ingame settings tab (Menu (ESC) > Game settings) with three new options related to automation
  
• Added an automation option that causes empty jobs to be automated with "run once", if triggered when empty. Causing stocking up to happen after other actions of the same priority have completed, rather than before
  
• Added an automation option to trigger low priority explorations with "stop before completion", if their time left is above 1 second
  
• Added an automation option that allows you to prevent automatic refilling of the inventory when no automated explorations of a lower priority are available. Low priority used to do this, but this behavior now adjust to this configuration instead
  
• Food-resource automations now trigger as "run once" if triggered by a cooking action that was initiated as "run once" as well
  
• When jobs are automated to stall during combat, it now uses "run once" to get back to fighting as quickly as possible. This especially helps efficiency at lower maximum health values
  
• Stalling with automations now properly triggers when starting a damaging exploration, if it is unable to start the exploration right away. Instead of triggering the warning too quickly
  
• When queuing the same action as the last queued action, it now updates run options instead of skipping it (such as stop before completion)
  
• Slightly reworked how hiding of resources in the inventory is handled with specific explorations, aiming to tackle a display bug that could cause resources to remain visible in the inventory when they were actually lost
  
• Slightly reworked how queued actions are picked up as active action when moving forward in your queue, to tackle a few rare edge-cases that could cause actions to fail from starting
  
• Reworked when passive jobs are processed in the gameloop, to prevent very rare queue conflicts with automation
  
• Passive cooking jobs no longer trigger resource automation, to prevent some interruptions that could conflict with your queue
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the first generation of new game+ to not properly add maximum health, if new game+ was initiated from the reincarnation screen
  
• Fixed a bug in "stop before completion" that could cause the next queued action to be skipped upon stopping the active action
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the "replace on start" option to sometimes trigger for automations when it should only apply to manual actions
  
• Fixed a display bug that caused the reincarnation screen maximum health tooltip to not reset after new game plus, until the multiplier became above 1 again
  
• Fixed a situation where if the game paused directly after a high-speed job, the bar could remain visually active during that pause
  
• Corrected a small mathematical accuracy issue in the percentual timediff notation, for times slower than last run
  
• Added a bit of text to clarify that you lose access to a chapter two job with a certain exploration
  

• [Yesterday, hotfixed] Fixed two bugs that could cause older or empty saves to prevent launching the game after the NG+ update
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause new game plus perks to change after cancelation, shortly after initiating a new game plus
  
• Fixed data shown on the end screen not properly resetting with new game plus, causing it to show outdated values upon completing new game plus
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the automations modal to show as empty because it tried to open the last selected chapter after starting new game plus, when that chapter was no longer available