Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
RimWorld
What's Next for RimWorld
The release of RimWorld - Royalty has been a great success! Thanks to everyone who's bought it so far, the testers and translators, modders, streamers and video makers.
I thought it would be a good idea to write a bit about what to expect next. In the past I've rarely written about the future because release dates and game designs often change unexpectedly during development. I can't tell you how many times in the past I had a firm expectation of some development outcome that was totally wrong in the end. Not talking about the future avoided the risk that something would change and people would get angry because they perceive some promise to have been broken. Talking less also allowed me to focus on making the game great instead of spending time managing public expectations.
Now, though, I think it's time to give a bit more info of what to expect to to help people in the community make their own decisions and to help modders be ready for what's coming next.
Hotfixes
We had some great testers play 1.1/Royalty in testing since September to help find issues, but with a game this complex, increasing the number of players by thousands will always reveal new issues. We've released a few hotfixes for issues that have cropped up, and we're going to release more as needed. These should be compatible with savegames and mods.
We'll hotfix as long as we need to to solve the noticeable bugs that are interfering with players' enjoyment of the game, but I am hoping this phase will be done in a week or two.
Royalty content add-on
We're going to release a content add-on mostly focused on expanding Royalty content. It'll be compatible with savegames and we're going to try hard not to do anything to disturb mods either (which should be feasible if we stick to just adding new things).
With a huge amount of feedback available from the community, we're in a better position than ever to find the best ways to improve the game, but the process is still iterative. So it's not yet decided exactly what the content add-on will contain. Below is a list of things I'm considering, but I'll emphasize that none of this is decided 100% so please don't take any of these are promises. These are just concepts we're looking at:
A way to renounce or otherwise get rid of a royal title you don't want.
More bulk production recipes similar to cooking, for things like drugs.
Additional combat psycasts: I've got designs written for a few psycasts that seem like they could add a lot of interest. Testing will reveal how beneficial these actually are.
A new element or two for mech clusters. Specifically, I'm looking at ways to to make it sometimes optimal for players to
not* fight a mech cluster for a long period of time, and instead leave it sleeping. The dramatic tension of having a mech cluster present on the map, but not yet fighting it, seems valuable. So, if we can find more ways to have players intentionally keep clusters around it could add a lot of interest to play stories. This needs gameplay testing, of course.
Additional quest content: This one is definitely in the 'maybe' category, but quests are very expandable and it would be nice to have a few more variations.
We'll be running public tests of this stuff as we work on it, on Steam's 'unstable' development branch. Everyone is welcome to participate and feedback will be highly appreciated as always, but be aware that this branch is called 'unstable' for a reason and everything may break at any moment.
Later updates
We will be updating the game further after the content add-on. While the content add-on will stay on version 1.1 and generally not break mods, there will a version 1.2 some day, and it will have breaking changes. We're going to try hard to avoid unnecessary code breakages and keep documents about changes for all future updates, and without such a big Unity update I hope mods in general will be easier or trivially easy to update than the 1.0 -> 1.1 shift. However, things will still inevitably need updating.
That's it for now, thanks everyone for reading and for all the excellent feedback we've received!
-Ty
Update 1.1.2560 released
Another day, another hotfix! This is build 1.1.2560.
Side note: There were some recent major changes in a few key mods, so there are still some mods with compatibility problems with each other. More info on this in the last hotfix update and a writeup from the author of the Harmony mod. Let's give them a few days to get things settled!
This hotfix is small. Its primary purpose is to fix a bug that would cause mechanoid clusters to never be defeated if you saved and reloaded the game after the associated quest arrived but before accepting it. I just wanted to get this out quickly since while this bug is rare, it is quite annoying when it occurs.
If this bug affected your savegame, you can defeat any existing broken mech clusters like so:
Turn on development mode in the options menu
Look in the quests menu at the quest that won't end
Turn on the checkbox "Dev: Debug" under the quest description.
Scroll down.
To the right of the 'send signal' box, click the '...' button. Select the entry similar to Quest0.cluster.AllEnemiesDefeated.
Turn off development mode in the options menu.
Change list:
- Fixed a bug that would cause mechanoid clusters to never be defeated if you saved and reloaded the game after the associated quest arrived but before accepting it. - Languages update - Updated Readme.txt with information about needing quotes around the -savedatafolder command when the path has spaces. - Fixed a bug that would cause trade request quests imported from 1.0 saves to give no rewards. - Fixed a bug that would cause no psyamp reward after quests if the recieved was not spawned. - Fixed a bug that would cause random joining animals to have names despite having no bond. - Fixed a bug that would cause a harmless error message on slaughtering a cobra
We will be fixing some more lingering issues over the coming week. Thanks for the great bug reports.
Update 1.1.2559 released
EDIT 2: It appears there's a lot of incompatibility between mods at the moment. Mainly this derives from a recent change in how the Harmony mod worked, which was itself compelled by a change in Unity/.NET. This broke compatibility with many other mods. Here is a full article about Harmony from its author explaining what happened.
The recommended fix for now is:
Disable the Replace Stuff mod.
Place the mods HubsLib and Harmony directly after Core/Royalty in the mod load order.
That should address most issues, but a some mods may still need to be updated over the next days.
I'm talking to modders more so we can pass along info about this kind of thing more clearly in the future.
I originally reverted the hotfix after getting these crash reports, but I've released it again since we haven't found any crashes from the hotfix itself.
ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:
A new hotfix for 1.1 has been released. It should be compatible with all mods and saves. The version is 1.1.2559.
Note that some recent changes within mods were breaking the game for some people. The mod Harmony changed how it interacts with other mods, so some other mods are now broken until they update.
Change list for this hotfix update:
- Avoid spawning quest shuttles near fires, hostile things and map edges. - Map mouse drag sensitivity improvements, it's now configurable via Prefs. Improved middle button scrolling for world camera as well. - Decrease minimum comfortable temperature for yak, donkey, and goat. - Increase min points for mech cluster incident 300 -> 500. - Burden range increased from 25 to 30. Stun entropy cost increased from 10 to 12. Stun range decreased from 25 to 20. - Harvest decrees now check the temperature of the next 15 days to see if anything can grow. - Hide items that Tribute Collector is not willing to trade from trade screen. - Art bench no longer crafts harp and harpsichord; they are on the crafting spot and smithies. Art bench didn't make sense since it uses the art work type, but these instruments take crafting skill. - Prisoner relations gain on release string when injured changed to 'Untended injury' - Adjust mini-slugger description to reflect its long range.
Fixes:
- Mitigate bug where save file lacking rules causes designators to be broken. - Fix: If you shoot a mech turret and it explodes and it hurts your quest helper, the quest helper's faction will hate you for it. - Fix Unrelated stats showing on mechanoids InfoCard - Fix: False "No acceptable food" alert on berries and reserved food. - Fix: Leaving a bandit camp mid-fight causes the quest to be incompletable - Fix: Compact weaponry act as replacement parts. - Fix: Missing "pawn != null" checks in ApparelScoreRaw.
Update 1.1.2258 released
We've just released another hotfix of version 1.1. It should be compatible with all mods and saves.
Change list:
- Updated translations - Add feedback on trying to deconstruct walls of a mech cluster before defeating it. - Give 1 psychic amplifier as inheritance reward. Make title rewards a separate message that can handle more than 1 item. - Cancelling monument markers for quests sends a copy via drop pod. - Adjust smelt apparel description. - Fix: Mod descriptions are cut off if they use tags. - Fix: Royal ascent quest doesn't end properly when the stellarch dies before arriving - Fix: Unfeasible farming decrees during winter. - Fix: Royal prisoners try to swap pants continuously. - Fix: Explosion in null map error in SmokepopBelt for unspawned pawns - Fix: Designators not appearing with old custom scenarios where rules is null. - Fix: Fertility grid doesn't update when edifices are removed. - Fix: Can trade with outpost without required title. - Fix: Transhumanists aren't satisfied with certain implants. - Fix: Missing translation key. - Fix: Various typos.
Update 1.1.2257 released
We've been hard at work on a hotfix for some important bugs discovered in 1.1. The hotfix build is now released. The build number is 1.1.2257.
Saves and mods should be 100% compatible.
Please let us know if you have any trouble with it!
We're still working and there will be more hotfix builds with language updates and more fixes.
Fixes:
- Fixed not being able to uninstall/reinstall unstable power cells after defeating mech cluster. - Made smoothed stone count as floor for royal room requirements. - Fixed a bug where the mechanoid cluster quest never completes. - Mech clusters can no longer drop indoors. - Fixed a bug where injured pawns would never do recreation. - Added info on new features to ModUpdating. - Fixed a bug where turrets have a red cross overlay after loading a 1.0 savegame. - Fixed a bug where a "colonist died" thought would appear when a quest helper died. - Mood caused mental breaks are now disabled for the wimp from the noble wimp quest. - Change string.Replace to Substring for finding relative file path in LanguageData. - Fixed a bug where the "Carry to shuttle" command drops the target on the floor if the shuttle is outside the allowed area. - The Empire intro quest is now skipped if the player has opted out of royal favor rewards from the Empire. - Fixed a bug where arrest success chance can exceed 100%. - Fixed a bug where royal apparel generated on non-royal characters to satisfy warmth requirements. - Fixed a bug where a different trader would arrive than the one requested. - Added monument size limit for quests. - Fixed a bug where the noble wimp doesn't leave the colony after the quest ends - Fixed a bug where the "Open linked quest" command appears even if the quest is expired/completed/dismissed. - Fixed a bug where unnecessary blueprints are removed in DoTerrainChangedEffects - Fixed a bug that would cause a black screen if a mod was missing packageID in dependencies. - Fixed a few typos.
Modding features:
- Added IgnoreIfNoMatchingField attribute to allow having custom data in About.xml. - Added the ability to set description and dependency relations on a game version-specific basis for About.xml. - Added support for negative conditional load folders support. Rename attributes to IfModActive/IfModNotActive. Allow comma-separated packageId lists as values. - Added Language folder support to LoadFolder system. - Added MayRequire attrib functionality to individual load folders, to allow using them conditionally.
RimWorld free update 1.1 and Royalty expansion released
Two big pieces of news today!
Free update to version 1.1
RimWorld's free 1.1 update is now live for all players! This update has been on the unstable branch for a week to smooth the transition for mods, and now it's the standard branch for everyone.
To see the full change log for this update, see the end of this post.
RimWorld - Royalty released
RimWorld's new expansion RimWorld - Royalty is available!
The expansion includes a new system for nobles and titles, psychic powers, mechanoid combat structures, quests and rituals, luxurious palaces, Imperial technology, and new music from Alistair Lindsay.
Here's some of the things that have been important to us recently:
Supporting modders: I was a modder for 5+ years, back in the days of Unreal Tournament. So mod support, and supporting the mod community has been critical to us for a long time.
That's why we've brought A-list modders like Brrainz and Fluffy to give feedback on our development. We also did a public beta of version 1.1 to give time for mods to be updated. We added multi-version support for mods so players would still be able to continue on version 1.0 without mods breaking (if modders choose to support that).
Supporting modders also means being clear about the relationship between mod content and official content:
Minor update #5 to unstable build (1.1.2552)
Another update with some fixes!
- Fix: Material memory leak in DrawFieldEdges and possibly other places - Updated translations and player created names.
Minor update #4 to unstable build (1.1.2551)
Another small update with some fixes today.
- Fix RebuildModList being called prmaturely during initialization. - Fix nested RebuildModList calls messing up active mod list in some cases. - Convert all tabs to spaces in ModUpdating.xml - When a kidnapped pawn dies, we now remove the "lost" thoughts because we add "died" thoughts anyway. - Workaround for text overflowing a single character with UI scaling. Also, reset label width cache when changing scaling. - Drafted colonists again automatically shoot fleeing enemies. Raiders and drafted colonists again automatically shoot all insects. - Replace string.GetHashCode with GenText.StableStringHash for mod packageId.
Minor update #3 to 1.1 unstable (1.1.2550)
Another minor update to 1.1 unstable. There are a few more final fixes to do. Thanks to everyone who reported a bug on the bugs forum!
- Fix: Selecting different kinds of zones displays first selected label in inspect pane. - Fix: Minor graphical issue with IED antigrain warhead trap transparency - Fix: inspect pane displays name of first selected pawn if several are selected. - Fix: Multi-selecting minified things selects all minified things in view. - Fix: Barricades are never flammable, even if made of wood. - Fix: Mouse scrolling is inverted on Linux
This is version 1.1.2550.
Compatibility fix 1.0.2549 released
I've just pushed version 1.0.2549. This is an update to version 1.0.
The only change is that the game will no longer log errors when processing mod metadata (About.xml) from a multi-version mod that supports 1.0 and 1.1. It's purely a small compatibility fix.
