Sierra Madre: The Wild West Revised Roadmap 03/04/2019
Roadmap
Thank you for your feedback. This roadmap is an overview of planned features for the game based on user feedback. Please note that this is not finalized and is subject to change.
Improved Core Architecture and Input System Migration We are working to migrate to a superior input module as well as improving the game's core architecture. The new input module should improve game-pad support.
More Complex NPC Interactions We are working on adding meaningful interactions between the player and NPCs. These interactions will include simple dialogues and will vary by scenario.
Factions and Public Opinion We are working on shaping the game to be based off of factions and a form of public opinion. We want your actions in the game to shape how NPCs react to you. We are also planning on allowing the player to choose / shape which faction they are a part of.
Native Americans Native American artwork and NPC behavior is under development.
Road Networks and Travelers We are planning on adding clearly defined trails to the game with wandering travelers, bandits that rob people, etc.
NPC Recruiting / Hiring We are planning on allowing the player to hire NPCs to assist them in their adventures.
Better Survival Equipment and Interactions We are working on adding more survival items. This will include individual foods, more tools, and more inventory items. We are also designing new interactions for existing and future tools. For example, we want to make tasks such as lighting a fire or cooking more interactive.
Weapon Variety We will be adding more weapons / weapon variants to the game.
Pick Your Own Adventure We want to give the player greater choice in what role they do in the game. We will be adding various activities or jobs that will shape the player's role. We would like to add tasks like farming, shipment escorting, ranching, buying properties, etc.
More Activities and Scenarios / Missions We are planning on expanding the number of activities in the game. We would like to add activities such as rodeos, ranch management, farming, gambling, etc. We are also designing various scenarios / additional missions.
Character Customization We are planning on adding some form of character customization to the game.
Improved Graphics and Lighting With the release of Unity 2019.1, we will be migrating to a new and improved graphics rendering module.
Injury Mobility Limitations Currently the player decreased vision when hurt. We would like to extend this to include limitations based on injuries to certain body parts. For example, if the player is shot in the leg they should move slower.
Saddle Bags, Stashes, and Inventory Improvements We are planning to add features such as saddle bags, saddle holsters, and loot stashes where gear can be stored.
More, better sound effects We are planning on improving our sound effects and adding more sound effects.
Mac & Linux (Debian) Support We would like to have full Mac, Linux, and Windows 10 cross-platform support. Note: we only intend on supporting x64 versions of these operating systems.
Better Wildlife Better wildlife are under development to ensure a more realistic experience.
Better Artwork We are currently overhauling our animals, character art, and other game assets to be more realistic.
Better In-game UI We will be making the user interface easier to use, more aesthetically pleasing, and more compatible with game-pads.
More Maps We have a series of maps planned that are currently under development.
Being Researched, To Be Determined
These features are being researched as possible additions to the game.
A Separate Multiplayer / Co-op Game Mode The addition of a multiplayer mode depends on a lot of factors and will only be done after we have created a solid single-player experience. Any addition of multiplayer / co-op would be treated as a separate game mode and will not effect the single-player game mode.
That being said, the changes we are making to the game's core architecture have been designed with networking in mind. We are designing the game to allow for the addition of a separate multiplayer mode.
Basic Modding Support Mods support is under research and the extent of what kinds of mods could / should be added to the game is still being determined.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Build 3605021 - New Building Art, IL2CPP, Texture Streaming
Changes and Improvements
Started adding new building art, props, and town layouts to towns.
Added adjusting day / night lengths to the Gameplay settings menu.
Switched to IL2CPP. IL2CPP is a scripting backend by Unity Technologies that offers a 3x speed up (CPU only) in some cases.
Switched from Facepunch .Steamworks to Steamworks .NET.
Tweaked hunger / thirst settings.
Minor tweaks to HUD.
Inventory items and weapons can now be purchased at the general store in towns.
Textures are now asynchronously streamed. This reduces memory usage and should help prevent crashes related to memory allocations.
Reduced clothing sticking through on gunslingers.
Fixed gunslinger jackets having a low-poly look.
Fixed an issue where piano music was heard at the wrong side of town.
Added a sheriff star to the marshal's chest.
Tweaked lighting setup.
Known Issues
When switching quality settings, restart may be required before full changes take effect.
Dusk / Dawn may have blackened shadows when loading certain saves at certain locations.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Development Blog 2/21/2019
We have been working on a number of internal improvements to the game's architecture to facilitate new features.
New Character Art
We are overhauling all character art in the game. A preview of this character art has already been rolled out to the gunslinger NPCs.
New Town Layouts and Building Art
We are overhauling our buildings with models that are both more realistic, higher quality, and more efficient to render. We hope to have the new building art in the next update coming soon. The new building models use typically a third of the polygons and at least half of the texture memory of the old building models.
New Factions and NPC Behavior
We are working on a new American Indian Faction as well as overhauling the current NPC behavior. The new NPC behavior will focus on creating more interesting scenarios and adding interactions with NPCs. The new system is being previewed with the gunslinger NPCs in the game. This system will be brought to the other NPCs soon.
New Character Controller and Other Foundational Improvements
Migrating to a better character controller
We have begun internally migrating over to an improved character controller. The character controller is responsible for moving the player, handling weapon mechanics, animating the player's model, and handling interactions between the player and objects in the world.
Fortunately, our game's core architecture uses a loosely-coupled, modular design and will allow us to migrate to this new system without breaking important functionality.
Why are we migrating to a new character controller?
Well, the character controller that we currently use in game was rigidly designed and is not modular enough to handle some of the new features and interactions we are working on.
Instead of rewriting parts of the core character controller every time we need to add functionality for new features, we have decided to migrate to a modular and flexible controller. A modular character controller makes it easier for us to write interactions and to add new features.
Input system improvements and better interactions
As part of this migration effort we are moving to a new native input module and looking to simplify input in the game. The new native input module will have better support for game pads (e.g. XBox controllers).
We are also working on simplifying complex interactions and making basic tasks more interesting.
Moving weapons into the inventory
Currently weapons are managed outside of the inventory. We are working to migrate weapons to being stored in the inventory and to being treated as inventory items. Moving the weapons into the inventory will allow us to improve aspects of game-play related to weapon selection and picking up and dropping weapons. One such aspect is allowing the player to customize the game's HUD bar to include the tools / weapons that they want to have quick access to.
How these changes affect the development of the game
These foundational changes are aimed at making development of new features easier as well as improving general game-play. Once we have completed and integrated these foundational changes we will be better able to design and implement user feature requests.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Build 3551795 - New AI System & Character Art Preview
Build 3551795 Changes:
Reworked the Steam client initialization process to report when problems occur with the app's connection with the Steam client.
Build 3548967 Changes:
Hugely reduced texture memory usage to mitigate crashes where some systems would run out of memory.
Build 3546173
We would like to thank the community for all of your excellent suggestions and feedback. Your feedback is being used to shape the game and as a result we have begun redesigning some of our subsystems to better incorporate your ideas. One of these subsystems was our AI module.
New AI System
We have reworked how the AI work internally to be more flexible and better able to handle the necessary changes to incorporate your suggestions.
Our old AI Module consisted of the following:
A civilian subsystem.
An animal subsystem.
A gunslinger subsystem.
Each of these subsystems were disjoint and used a minimum level of connectivity in order to interact with each other. This system was not flexible enough to support the new activities and interactions that we have been designing based on your feedback.
We have reworked the AI System into a new one that will allow for diverse and interesting scenarios created through context aware behavior as we continue to develop the game. The new system has only been implemented for the gunslingers (outlaw and lawman) for this build, but will be coming to animals and civilians in the future.
The new system is extremely modular and changes to behavior can be implemented with ease.
Currently the new gunslinger AI behaves very similarly to their predecessors, but after we migrate all NPCs and animals in the game to the new system we will make the gunslinger's actions based on your actions.
Character Art Preview
In this build we are previewing our new character artwork. This artwork has a few known issues that we will be addressing in the future.
Lawmen are now dressed in lighter colors.
Outlaws are now dressed in dark colors.
Civilians have been left alone for the current build, but will receive new artwork after we have migrated them to the new AI System.
Changes
Corpses should now only de-spawn after the player has walked a great distance away from them.
Gunslingers are now controlled by the new AI system.
New character artwork is now being used by gunslingers.
Known Issues
Clothing sometimes sticks through gunslinger jackets.
Gunslinger jackets can have a slightly low ploy appearance in some lighting.
The game now uses slightly more memory than before so you may need to increase your page file size if you run into any problems. Future updates will reduce the game's memory usage.
Let us know if you run into any issues.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Build 3495898
Note: We recommend resetting your control bindings if you use customized key bindings.
Improvements
Fixed jagged edges in the terrain.
Fixed snow texturing issues.
Added deciduous trees to parts of the map near water.
Improved AI combat behavior. AI now try to maintain their distance and seek cover rather than charging the player.
Added a long barreled double barrel shotgun.
Renamed short barreled double barrel shotgun to Coachgun.
Dead enemies can now be looted for supplies (tonic, animal hides, food, etc.) and will only drop ammo and weapons.
Added a stone tomahawk.
Added a torch that can be used for both lighting and bludgeoning (you have to purchase this at a trading post).
The player can now carry multiple melee weapons. Hitting the melee select key (4 by default) will cycle through melee weapons.
The player can now put away a weapon by hitting the associated select key again (with the exception of melee weapons; hitting the melee select key will cycle through your owned melee weapons).
Increased the cost of items in stores.
Decreased the value of items being sold at stores.
Fixed an issue where the player could activate a light on the Coachgun in third person perspective.
Fixed an issue where the O key was double mapped. The O key is now mapped to bring out the torch (you may have to reset your control bindings if you use customized key bindings).
Sierra Madre: The Wild West - Third Person Perspective Update
Build 3465972
Third Person Perspective
Note: If you have customized your controls you may have to reset your control bindings.
Due to all of the requests we have been receiving for a third person perspective, we decided to add a third person perspective mode to the game before our NPC behavior / character art update. The new third person perspective can be activated by pressing the "v" key by default.
Changes and Improvements
Third Person Perspective
Reworked horse follow mechanics: Your horse no longer follows you all the time, but will stay where you have left it. Now, when you call your horse it will approach you and stop as soon as it reaches you. If you are a great distance from your horse it will be spawned behind you and then approach you.
Sleeping at your tent: You can now approach the entrance of your tent (look at the poles) and sleep until dawn or dusk depending on the current time of day.
Increased spawn rate of deer and bears.
Added an Auto-Run key [CAPSLOCK by default] for horses and wagons.
Added a work around which should mitigate (if not resolve) crashes on exit.
Known Issues
Firing while not aiming in third person mode can make the player character model twitch.
Switching to prone while reloading in third person mode will cause the reload animation to cease playing (but you will still reload).
While riding a horse in third person mode, muzzle flash and cartridge ejections may be out of sync with the firing animation.
Third person horse mounting animation is not always perfectly synced.
In confined spaces the third person perspective camera may pass through the player mesh.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Feature Update 1
Build 3436240
Note: We did some reworking with the default keybindings and added new key commands. You might need to reset your controls if you set custom mappings prior to update.
New Features and Improvements
Difficulty Settings under the new Game Play Settings Menu
New Inventory, store, and map U.I.
The Quick Interaction Menu is dead... and has been replaced with the Quick Interaction HUD Bar. This new HUD bar has keys mapped to each interaction, such as heal, eat, drink, place tent, etc. (toggles with TAB by default).
A new HUD (that can be turned off) with health stats, stamina, and a mini-map.
Gamma correction settings under the Game Play Settings Menu.
Invert Mouse under the Game Play Settings Menu.
All around improved loading times.
Replaced the next generation experimental vegetation rendering system with a more stable one. The next generation experimental vegetation rendering system was likely causing crashes on older CPUs.
New MSAA Setting
Cloud Settings
Lighting Settings
Difficulty Settings allows users to tweak difficulty of the game's enemies and survival elements.
Mini Map that shows player location and direction
Hitting a single key [M by default] brings up Main Map
Fixed Inventory loading saved data loading when starting a new game
Clamped horse speed to mitigate incorrect fast movement across map
Eating and drinking now heal the player
Hot keys for eating, drinking, heal
Predators now detect player when attacked
Hitting the Use Key will now dismount player from Horse / Wagon without pointing at the ground
Fixed player foot sounds not affected by audio mixer
Enemies might act wounded when shot
Enemies dropped weapons can no longer be picked up by player Enemy weapons can now be picked up again.
AI spawning improved to make it more organic
Added bridges
Added loot chests around the map
New wagon
Added tutorial map
Upgraded the mine
Minor terrain fixes
Fixed weather effects not triggering
Added dedicated audio settings for saloon music.
Fixed an issue where getting on a horse while too close to another horse could cause unfortunate side effects such as flying around the map.
Known issues
Some buildings may have smudged lighting appearance on some walls when close up.
Animals are now overly shiny / more reflective. Should have been resolved in Build 3436240.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West User Feedback Update 1
Build 3418701
This update incorporates some minor improvements and a new feature suggested in user feedback.
Wood Chopping
Gathering fire wood no longer consists of searching the ground looking for sticks. Now you can gather fire wood by simply walking up to a tree and chopping the tree with your knife or hatchet.
The knife will gather a stick of wood for every third hit to a tree and can gather up to three sticks of wood per tree. The hatched will gather a stick of wood for every hit to a tree and can gather up to nine sticks of wood per tree.
Improvements
We have added some more steam achievements. Note: if you are currently on one of the missions that has one of theses achievements, the achievement will not take effect until you have completed the mission a second time.
The enemy AI is now way less aggressive, doesn't jump around as much, deals less damage, and has lower accuracy.
The enemy AI now loses sight of the player more quickly and forgets the player sooner.
Increased enemy loot lifetime.
The player's health now auto-regenerates up to 66% a few seconds after being damaged instead of only regenerating up to 25%.
Ambient audio is now always controlled by the ambient audio slider.
An issue where water splashes were heard for no reason should now be resolved.
Player now gathers wood using chopping of trees instead of picking up sticks.
We reduced the brightness of sun shafts and toned down the overall brightness of the sun.
Horses now have greater stamina and can gallop for greater distances.
The player's horse now has twice the hit points and is harder to kill in combat.
Tweaked spawning of enemies to reduce instances were huge mobs of outlaws are attacking the player.
Increased piano's volume in the bar and tied the piano's volume to the music audio channel.
Fixed the pianist's rag doll to not fall through the bench when killed.
The Next Feature Update
Things discussed below this point will be in the next feature update to the game and are not in today's update.
The next feature update will focus on improving the user interface, making in game interactions more intuitive, and improving the game play aspects of the game.
The next feature update will include the following improvements:
An improved and simplified inventory / store system.
A better in-game map.
Game play related settings options including gamma correction, mouse invert, enemy AI difficulty, survival difficulty, a difficulty preset, and in game HUD settings.
An optional HUD that will include things such as a mini-map, horse stamina read outs, and other things to help you navigate the world and survive.
A new 3D, interactive tutorial. The current tutorial is, in a word, bad. We are going to replace it with a tutorial that actually has you do things to learn how to do them.
New enemy AI spawning rules that will make the game more interesting and less repetitive.
Better game play elements.
Introduce graphics settings to help with flickering in buildings.
We value your opinions and feedback, so please let us know how we can improve the game and things that you would like to do in the game.
Please post any feature requests for the next feature update as well as any issues with today's update in the comments below.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Cumulative Hot fixes
Hot fixes
After the initial release we have been working to resolve problems as they come up and respond to feedback. Yesterday we released a few hot fixes to solve issues related to crashes caused by certain gamepads.
Today, we have released a new hot fix designed to tackle some of the issues that have been brought up in user reviews.
We have just released Build 3409937 (should automatically download), which has the following attributes:
Fixed a bug where enemies would spawn too close to the player.
Fixed a bug where enemies would fire multiple shots for one shot.
Spawns of friendly lawmen, enemy outlaws, and skirmishes between lawmen and outlaws now play a short piece of music.
Fixed an in issue where the piece of music played on death was too loud and did not respond to sound settings.
Tweaked gunslinger spawn rate.
Increased the damage of player weapons.
Decreased the health of civilians in towns.
Improved gun shot sounds for both player and gunslingers.
Removed tracers from player weapons; they did not accurately follow the path of the bullet.
Sierra Madre: The Wild West Release Announcement
Sierra Madre: The Wild West is now available on Steam!
If you have any issues with crashes on launch:
We have issued a new hotfix, which should resolve this issue. Please let us know if it does not. You may have to exit and reopen the Steam Client for it to download.
However if you continue to experience the issue:
Let us know.
Some players are experiencing an issue related to having a gamepad plugged in. If you unplug the gamepad and relaunch the game, the issue should be resolved.
Another work around is to double click the Sierra Madre.exe in the install folder.
Sorry for any inconvenience.
Thank you for your interest and support. We hope you enjoy the game.
Release Notes
Features
Three mission modes: Delivery, Outlaw Hunter, Town Liberator. Play these missions to earn in game cash to buy supplies and new weapons.
Horse ownership: the player will own a horse which can be called to the player. The player can buy new horses.
Survival Elements: hunting, cooking, gathering, thirst, hunger, and a really simple crafting system are part of Sierra Madre: The Wild West.
Weapons: the player will have access to six unique weapons.
Weather, Dynamic Sky, Day Night Cycle: The weather, sky, and time of day changes as time progresses.
Towns and Trading Posts: Sierra Madre: The Wild West has unique towns and locations to explore. Towns are filled with towns people that react if mistreated.
Outlaws and Lawmen: Fight outlaws with the help of fellow lawmen. Watch your fire as lawmen attack traitors.
Known Issues
The game must be launched with Steam in Online mode and with an active internet connection for the game to run.
Some cacti in the desert may not be fully on the ground.
The mine in the game may render with a black texture depending on your system.
Wagon horse (on the wagon only) can pass through trees and buildings.
About Privacy and Opting Out
We use services built into the Unity game engine to collect information about your computer's hardware, drivers, operating system, a unique device identifier, and any issues in the game. This information is exclusively used to improve the game and fix bugs. We do not associate this information with your Steam profile. The game will continue to work as expected if you choose to opt out.
You can opt out of these services by clicking on the "Open Privacy Page" button in the main menu. This will open a webpage in your browser that will allow you to opt out of collection.
These services are known as Unity Analytics and Cloud Diagnostics. Please see the Unity Privacy Policy.
We do not sell information that we have collected and only use this information to improve our products. Please see the Broken Dream Studio Privacy Policy for more information.
