Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Infection Free Zone
Major Update #3 - Area Scavenge, Custom Buildings, Repairmen and New Storyline!
Greetings, Survivors!
The newest update is finally here! We are extremely thankful to all the early participants who were sharing their feedback with us, based on their open_beta branch experience. This update is focused on bringing you the features that were requested the most often. We hope that they will make the game more enjoyable for you and remove some of the unnecessary micromanagement. Want to know more? Check all the details below!
Highlights
A new Scientist Storyline has been added.
Illness and vaccine mechanics have been added.
An area Scavenge feature has been added. Drag-select over an area to add multiple buildings to the scavenging queue instantly.
Custom Building construction has been added.
Building Customization and Fortification have been added.
Repairmen Shop building has been added. Repairmen will automatically repair buildings in your Zone.
Stop-to-shoot logic for the Squads has been added. Squads will react to the nearby threat to defend themselves.
Warning icons have been added to the main UI, indicating no shelters, no food, full warehouses, etc.
Workers' attack immunity has been removed. Workers are now attacked by the infected and raiders. Workers are now running away from the threats.
New content has been translated into all the supported languages.
Other Changes
A new recommended city - Busan in South Korea - has been added.
A new recommended city - Alice Springs in Australia - has been added.
10 million new buildings in Spain, South Korea, and Taiwan were imported into the game.
Metal scavenging has been rebalanced. Vehicles give more metal, lamps give less.
HQ adaptation, repair, and deconstruction costs have been tweaked. Smaller buildings have less HP now, and bigger buildings have more HP.
Building prioritization for the Repairmen has been added.
90°-angle snapping has been added as an optional feature when placing Custom Buildings.
New tooltips with additional parameters have been added to the Vehicle panel.
New citizen behavior has been added. Citizens will now leave the Zone if the morale is too low.
Immigrants and births have been rebalanced. The Zone should even up to around 800 people.
The infected attack range has been decreased from 5m to 3m. It will be easier to run away now.
Infected attack range has been drastically decreased on expeditions.
The last used Emblem is now saved.
An objective to visit the tallest building on the map has been added.
A view distance for Squads in the biggest buildings has been added.
A new fermentation technology has been added to the Research panel, allowing the unlock of the Bar building.
New map decorations have been added, including traffic lights and signs, based on their real locations in the OpenStreetMap database.
Scavengable trains and trams have been added to some maps that include rails.
A new train event has been added to the maps, where a train can be found.
Palm trees and shrubs have been added to some biomes.
The Pyramids of Giza location has been slightly adjusted.
Various outer landmarks colliders have been fixed (i.e. Colosseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Tower of Winds, Tokyo Tower).
Scrollbar visibility in the "Save/Load" panel has been improved.
New generic remainders have been added.
A new objective to build the Medbay/Hospital buildings, when necessary, has been added.
A new GameOps launcher has been added to increase MapEditor visibility, along with other games.
Fixes
An available disk space check has been added. 1000 MB of free space is now required to start the game.
Military vehicles have been fixed to not pass through the buildings anymore.
Grass, water, flags, and weather movement pauses now.
Weapons should be remembered when repairing towers.
Infinite deconstructions should now be fixed.
Pixelated weather has been fixed.
Fonts missing pixels have been fixed.
Intensive Storms are not forced anymore on all the maps.
Multiple savegame issues have been fixed.
Multiple memory leaks have been fixed.
Multiple performance issues have been fixed (animations, shaders, pathfinding, worker’s AI, caching etc).
An issue with objective markers spawning in unavailable areas has been fixed.
An issue with the Research Tree panel, where some researches were displayed too close to each other has been fixed.
An issue with the citizens not consuming medicines has been fixed.
An issue that caused the Infected death animation to not display properly has been fixed.
A number of other stability changes have been introduced to improve the performance of the game.
Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone! If you encounter any issues, please let us know via in-game Bug Reporter. If you have suggestions for the next features and content that you would like to see in Infection Free Zone, feel free to share them in the comments below this announcement.
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Major Update #3 Preview - Area Scavenge available on the OPEN BETA branch
Greetings, Survivors!
The open_beta branch has been updated and we have added the much-anticipated Area Scavenge feature. Please visit THIS thread to learn how to change the branch of the game. If you are eager to wait though, the Default branch will receive the Major Update #3 in around 7 days.
Highlights
Area Scavenge feature has been added. Drag-select over an area to add multiple buildings to the scavenging queue instantly.
Building prioritatization for the Repairmen has been added.
90°-angle snapping has been added as an optional feature when placing Custom Buildings.
New content has been translated to all the supported languages.
Other changes
"Missing Vaccines" warning has been added.
Vaccine expiration time has been changed to 12 days.
Stop to Shot feature has been updated to allow for more natural squad behavior under different circumstances.
Custom Buildings now have to be unlocked through the corresponding research.
Scrollbar visibility in the "Save/Load" panel has been improved.
New generic remainders have been added.
Custom Building maximum size has been increased.
Custom Building minimal distance from other buildings has been reduced to 3 meters.
A new objective to build the Medbay/Hospital buildings, when necessary, has been added.
Fixes
An issue with objective markers spawning in unavailable areas has been fixed,
An issue with Repairmen repairing medieval walls has been fixed.
An issue with the Research Tree panel, where some researches displayed too close to each other has been fixed.
An issue with the citizens not consuming medicines has been fixed.
A number of stability changes have been introduced to improve the performance of the game.
Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone!
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Major Update #3 preview - available on OPEN BETA branch
Long time no see! We are coming back to you today with a nice chunk of good news. First of all - the next Major Update is in advanced development. Second of all, we aim to bring you this Major Update at no later date than October 25th, 2024. Those of you, who are feeling adventurous, will have a chance to test this update even earlier, on the open_beta branch in around a week or two.
Expect the following changes in the Major Update #3:
Scientist Storyline and Illness
Custom Buildings
Repairmen
Stop to Shoot
Many others!
Most of those changes are being introduced upon your request. We have made you a promise to listen to your feedback and now we are doing our best to add features, which are being mentioned most often. We hope that you will enjoy all those new changes, as they significantly reduce the micromanagement and make the gameplay more enjoyable. We can't wait to see your reactions to this update!
Scientist Storyline and Illness
The Story goes on! With the introduction of the Scientist Storyline, we are also adding the Illness system to the game. While most of the citizens, who have survived, seemed immune to the Mad Virus for a long time, the Virus started to mutate. Now it's your job to cooperate with the new Scientist faction, research vaccines, and produce them for your citizens. Worst case scenario? Infection outbreak inside the Zone.
Custom Buildings
We are fully aware that many of you like to start your gameplay in the wildest locations around the world. Those locations include islands, deserts, and small villages with a few buildings here and there. Previously, most of those locations were hardly playable. With the addition of the Custom Buildings, we want to allow players to place their own buildings. Select a specific shape, building color, roof type, and height. If you have the resources and the workers ready, the construction starts!
[TAG-20]
Repairmen
One of the most common requests that we have received was making the repairing of our Zone easier for the player. It's fully understandable, especially if a swarm of infected attacks our settlement every few days. Previously, we have added the "Repair all" option into the game. Now we are introducing a whole new building adaptation, the "Repairmen Quarters". Simply adapt a building for the repairmen, assign a satisfying number of workers, and watch them automatically go through your Zone, repairing structures one by one.
Stop to Shoot
Last but not least, we want to address the aspect of the squads' responsiveness to encountered threats. We were receiving several reports highlighting how annoying it is to lose the squad and not even notice that it was actually fighting at all. That's why we have improved the Move at Will squad stance with the Stop to Shoot logic. When attacked, moving squads will now stop and instantly return the fire. On top of that, the squad's behavior might differ depending on the situation, taking into account the direction the enemy is coming from and some other parameters. That said, small groups of bandits and hordes shouldn't pose as much threat anymore!
Is that all? Absolutely not! We are working on several other new features and preparing new content. While we don't want to announce things that are not guaranteed to end up ready for Major Update #3, don't worry. The Changelog will be a big one! Thank you for your Support and for playing Infection Free Zone!
We have noticed an important issue with the previous build that caused some swarms to get stuck in the corners of the map. While this issue is fixed in this build, we want to let you know that it won't get rid of those "broken" infected that already exist in your current saves. If you notice large amounts of swarms stuck in your gameplay (and thus, impacting your performance) starting a new save might be the best option.
Changelog:
The maximum number of immigrants joining the Zone at once has been reduced to 10,
The number of the infected in swarms has been adjusted to be even more dependent on the "hordes number" setting in the game customization,
Attacking with melee weapons from vehicles has been disabled,
An issue with swarms gathering in the corners of the map has been fixed,
An issue with an excessive number of vehicles spawning on expeditions has been fixed,
An issue with squad path visualization not being visible upon squad selection has been fixed,
An issue with the Research resume requiring additional scientific materials has been fixed.
After introducing Children, we noticed that the population growth was too steep when combined with the immigrant system. Hence the decision to reduce the maximum number of immigrants that can join your Zone at once. Other than that, we are further improving the Hordes Number customization option to ensure that players can really make this smooth transition to harder or easier difficulty, depending on their preferences.
This time we are coming back to you with a minor update, which addresses the most recent issues with expeditions and allows for better customization of your games. We hope that with the new horde modifiers, you will be able to tailor the gameplay accordingly to your needs!
Changelog
New Horde Multipliers have been added to the Game Customization - x0.4 and x1.6. Use it to change the amount of the infected to your liking. You can also change that in your current savegames, via "Customize" in the Esc Menu.
The number of resources on the expeditions has been readjusted and should correspond to the real building volume in that location.
The number of gun POIs on the Washington recommended map has been increased.
An issue that resulted in some hordes not being visible on the expeditions has been fixed.
An issue with squads taking incorrect paths through expeditions has been fixed.
An issue with the Map Info Panel displaying incorrect temperature ranges has been fixed.
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Bugfix Update #7 - Further optimisation and balancing
Greetings, Survivors!
We are pleased to deliver another important batch of fixes - v0.24.8.7 11 BETA is now available at the default branch - make sure you update the game!
First of all, we changed our entire compilation infrastructure, to build a more stable game that will work much more smoothly and crash less often.
However, we have an important message to all 3% of you who try to use integrated graphics cards: Infection Free Zone cannot work properly with integrated graphics cards. The game is simply too complex, there are usually way too many dynamic 3D objects and the pathfinding grid is too large for the older generation of machines. IFZ might look aesthetically old-school, but it is actually extremely computation-heavy.
Changelog:
The HPs of the adapted buildings have been increased based on their size.
The amount of hordes, immigrants, and bandits that we encounter will now be affected by the total volume of the buildings on the map, rather than the total number of buildings on the map.
Beverages now need 2x less grain
Bugfixes:
New animations for hitting the infected with a vehicle have been added.
An issue with some buildings not completing adaptation after reaching 100% has been fixed.
An issue with the mood modifier from kindergartens being too low for loaded games has been fixed.
An issue with production not starting in very small buildings has been fixed.
An issue that made it impossible to disband a squad after replenishing has been fixed.
An issue with some resources on expeditions being unavailable when saving the game has been fixed.
An issue with the adapted buildings losing green filling during winter nights has been fixed.
An issue with the barn event not appearing for some players has been fixed.
Another set of small changes aimed at improving optimization has been released.
An issue with some maps crashing after launch has been fixed.
An issue with some buildings losing mouseover highlights has been fixed.
An issue with hordes sometimes not selecting the attacker as a target has been fixed.
An issue with the vehicle icon disappearing after loading a game has been fixed.
An issue with the squad groups assigned to numbers not being saved has been fixed.
An issue that prevented an exchange with a broken vehicle has been fixed.
An issue with vehicle icons not stacking properly on expeditions has been fixed.
An issue with the game freezing when picking up the resources from the ground has been fixed,
An issue with scroll in warehouses not working when having more than two lines of resources has been fixed,
An issue that caused errors on maps with very high amounts of buildings has been fixed,
An issue that caused some buildings (including barns) to not finish after reaching 100% adaptation has been fixed,
An issue with the building's HP not increasing properly when progressing the partial adaptation has been fixed,
An issue that resulted with "Create Squad" button not selecting the best fit members for the squad has been fixed,
Several events have been updated to improve the stability of the whole event system.
The LOD system has been updated to improve the performance of the game,
An issue with some saves returning the "The Zone has fallen" message has been fixed,
An issue with exiting the exchange sometimes returning errors has been fixed,
An issue with some hordes burying underground in the water has been fixed,
An issue that resulted in all the hordes in the swarm having exactly one infected has been fixed,
An issue with some infected staying outside the buildings has been fixed,
An issue with production progress being cancelled at sunset has been fixed,
An issue with unresponsive icons for the deconstructed buildings has been fixed.
Known Issues
Squads will find wrong paths when sent from one expedition to another through the Zone Area. Send them home first to avoid this error.
We are doing our best to provide you with another Update as fast as possible. Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone's Early Access. Your feedback and support are extremely appreciated!
Please use internal Bug Reporter (available in ESC menu) to let us know about any issues that you encounter - this is the best way to send us broken savegame files, the logs, specs, etc!
Thank you for all your feedback regarding the Major Update #2. We are happy to see all the positive comments under our recent announcement. Nonetheless, we stay on guard and keep on tackling all the issues that are reported to us. Below you will find a list of fixed issues and known issues that we are currently working on. Thank you for your patience!
Changelog:
Scavenging has been further improved for cases where there are high amounts of resources in the building.
An issue with some old saves not working when the user has scavenged all the buildings on one of their map tiles has been fixed.
An issue with workers not coming back to the closest warehouse has been fixed.
An issue with an exchange between squads not working has been fixed.
An issue that resulted in icons not showing up for ruined structures has been fixed.
An issue that resulted in infected having a low chance of burying underground in the buildings has been fixed.
An issue that resulted in some areas being unavailable after deconstruction has been fixed.
An issue with the "return all squads" button not working in some specific cases has been fixed.
Known Issues
Adaptation of some buildings (usually small) cannot be finished after reaching 100% progress.
The Kindergarten building affects negative Mood modifiers to a greater extent than intended.
It is possible for the hordes to leave small buildings during the daytime.
We are doing our best to provide you with another Bugfix Update as fast as possible. Thank you for playing Infection Free Zone's Early Access. Your feedback and support are extremely appreciated!
Best regards, Jutsu Games Team
Bugfix Update #6 - open_beta branch
Greetings, Survivors!
A new Bugfix Update v0.24.7.25 10 is now available for Infection Free Zone on the open_beta branch!
Open Beta
How to join the open_beta branch:
Right-click on the Infection Free Zone in your Steam library,
Click on the "Properties..." on the list,
Choose the "Betas" tab,
Select the "open_beta" branch from the list,
The newest build should start downloading. Enjoy!
Mind you, the open_beta builds can potentially fix your previously encountered issues but aren't confirmed as stable. We will publish this build on Default once we can confirm that users are not encountering any critical issues with it.
Changelog:
Scavenging has been further improved for cases where there are high amounts of resources in the building,
An issue with some old saves not working when the user has scavenged all the buildings on one of their map tiles has been fixed,
An issue with workers not coming back to the closest warehouse has been fixed,
An issue with an exchange between squads not working has been fixed,
An issue that resulted in icons not showing up for ruined structures has been fixed,
An issue that resulted in infected having a low chance of burying underground in the buildings has been fixed,
An issue that resulted in some areas being unavailable after deconstruction has been fixed,
An issue with the "return all squads" button not working in some specific cases has been fixed.
