I was looking to put up a patch today, but spotted some small bugs with it I want to fix and re-export tomorrow morning, so I thought I'd at least post a little bit of a progress report, as I don't like leaving the news empty for this long.
There are two main categories that I've been working on this week:
1. Colors
The biggest addition to color overall is the new biome based post-processing system. This slowly shifts color correction math used by the camera such as saturation and post-exposure based on the biome that you are in. Overall the game world is much more vibrant than it was before. I also plugged weather into this system, doing away with the old 6-7 types of weather, for a completely random system that also now takes into consideration what biome you're in.
Fog and sky, two complex and important sets of colors within this new color correction system I expect to further increase the diversity between biomes, though I am still in process of tweaking properly for each biome.
2. Clutter
I've removed most of the "flat" rather performance heavy trees in the grasslands, and replaced them with several types of trees that are also now much more colorful, giving more of a late summer feel with purples and red, rather than just green every where. To go with the new trees I've added a variety of trunks, mossy rocks, and general "clutter". I've also recently acquired a variety of new flora and fauna for the desert, the mountains, and the ocean as well, now that we have breathing potions in and working.
I don't want to spend too much time working on the ocean biome just yet, I'm more just looking to improve the general variety and color of each of the biomes as best as I can without changing the actual heightmap noise. Messing with the heightmap generation noise would require a "world update" in which all player placed objects have to be re-positioned, which isn't a huge problem, but improving heightmap noise isn't something I'm looking to prioritize right now in any case. More importantly I want to get back to working on player animations once this pass at the current biomes is finished.
The pollen count is steadily rising here in Japan, but so is the temperature, and that's a welcome change coming out of winter! Thank you to everyone posting here and in Discord, and my apologies if it takes a little extra to get to bug reports while I'm in the middle of some of these larger changes sometimes.
Best wishes, Malkere
Hotfix v 0.7.2.3
Some small fixes for things brought up recently.
Normal (non-simple) armors previously had a minimum of 1.0 armor, which leather and metal were above even at level 0, but cloth gloves are actually only 0.38 armor at level 0. This caused cloth gloves level 1-7 to look like they were all the same, as the number would get bumped up to 1.0 until level 8 when plain cloth (T0 common) gloves rise above that number. So, I lowered the minimum and reduced the armor gain from simple clothing to make cloth armor still much better than simple armor even if only level 0.
I've also moved all of the attributes to a single skill tree per request, and temporarily removed the "soul" category as there is nothing on it yet. There were also two odd problems, cave exit's had switched themselves to entrances, causing them to not take you back to the surface, and the world preview camera was hiding under a disabled object making it not work, both of which have been repaired.
This small patch probably best of all fixes a number of small math errors that could ultimately lead to trees and rocks spawning inside of encounters. This unfortunately will not retroactively re-roll all of the places anyone has already visited and consequently it may still be possible to find encounters with things improperly spawned in them if they are only several kilometers away from somewhere you have previously visited. For all newly generated encounter (towers, caves, etc) they should now be positioning themselves better to prevent other spawns from entering into their space.
I was out of town for the weekend visiting family, but am also now back to work on color, post processing, environment, and animations as my work on "presentation" continues.
v 0.7.2.3 2021.03.02 - Reduced simple armor from 0.5 armor to 0.25 - Reduced minimum non-simple armor values from 1.0 to 0.25 (minimum cloth actually adds up to 0.38 - Moved attributes to a single page - Fixed being able to place facilities onto procedural structures - Fixed world creation preview camera - Fixed cave resources not respawning properly - Fixed resource respawn rate being doubled - Fixed cave underground exits not exiting properly - Fixed large objects being able to intersect spawn radii - Fixed world encounters (cave/tower/etc) being able to spawn in locations that would prevent other objects from spawning within them (previously rolled/visited world encounters will not auto-reposition themselves, only newly found encounters will no longer have things spawning inside of them)
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
Now pushing all of the changes on the beta branch to the live default branch! The Goblin Dungeons still have some changes planned, but all in all there is a lot of new content as well as some new features and a fair share of bug fixes as well as some UX in the works. Check out the condensed patch notes for all of the new changes!
As previously mentioned I'm looking to spend some time for the next while here improving the "presentation" of the game, meaning primarily to improve the animations, audio, and the interface. We've got a lot of features in, with a lot of content planned to be added on top of those now in and working features, but the presentation of them all has been lacking, and it's time I showed them some love.
Thank you to everyone participating in Early Access. A big extra super thank you to everyone helping support development via Patreon. And thanks to everyone in Discord and those that have taken the time to post on the bug tracker!
v 0.7.2.2 2021.02.24 Condensed live patch notes: - Added deconstruction bench - Enchants are now sockets, insertable and removeable from equipment - Added procedural "Goblin Dungeons"
- Added new potions - Potions can now give buffs - Potions are now unlocked via alchemy - Potions can now be crafted at different rarities - Added enchanted torches with color, intensity, and range controls - Glowing mushrooms in caves are now harvestable
- Updated and blended a number of player animations (WIP) - Added links to twitch, merchandise, and tipping to the start screen - Added an "Item Editor" button to the main UI in Creative mode - Added "Empty" and "Fill" buttons to chests / tombstones / loot - Moved armor sets to skill trees - Cleared caves will no longer spawn monsters in single-player - Brightened underwater fog (WIP) - Increased the "area" despawn distance by 1 to prevent repeated spawn/despawn when walking back and forth over threshholds
Most recent changes (not yet pushed to beta): v 0.7.2.2 2021.02.24 - Fixed Item Template Editor in creative mode not properly clearing certain selection windows post selection - Fixed creative worlds not backing up/updating/deleting properly - Fixed player mouths hanging open - Fixed a bug that could cause grass to stop updating
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
Had some small fixes that I wanted to get patched in before pushing live, but ended up with a busy weekend and a gale that kept my up all night last night! Assuming there's nothing that needs immediate attention, I'm again looking to push this patch live tomorrow. It mostly addresses some small bug fixes, but also includes a number of updates to the player animations.
Character controllers are a tricky business, and I have neglected ours for a long time. Still very much a work in progress, I've updated most of the armed and unarmed animation as well as blended them all together rather than the twitchy immediate changes we've had up until now. I've also updated some of the bow animations, but some of the backwards and strafing movements are still pretty bad. I also need to work on swimming as well as combat animation in general.
v 0.7.2.0 2021.02.23 - Updated and blended a number of player animations (WIP) - Removed combat stance timing out to idle. Instead equipped weapon and whether it's sheathed or not is used to determine animations. - Added a Goblin Dungeon map icon - Fixed water, fire, and tannin font recipes not showing up
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
I'm looking to push this patch and all the recent changes to the live public build tomorrow if all seems well after simmering on beta for a day.
First off in today's patch are enchanted torches:
These special, currently wall only, torches have a settings interface that will let you specify their color, range, and intensity. I wanted some of these components for use in procedural content like the goblin dungeons, and so just extended things a bit and built an interface with some customizable "preset" color slots, and so forth.
I've also added breathing potions and "light range" potions to the alchemy tree. Breathing potions are pretty self-explanatory, and the light range potion applies a buff with a new stat called "light range". This increases the range of the player's light aura, brightening up a larger area either at night, underwater, or in caves, for example.
I've also fixed a few small problems that had been bothering me like procedural areas turning on and off repeatedly when you cross back and forth over a distance threshold. This happens very often at the starting platform because it is spawned right in the corner of 4 areas. Areas to be marked for despawn will now have 1 extra unit of allowed distance (128m) than areas being marked to spawn to prevent that. Grass not joining together properly at the seams causing long straight bald lines to appear every 128m has also been repaired.
I've already started working on the character controller and animations, something I've been putting off for a long time that is very a common issue with players that leave a negative review here on Steam. It's almost midnight here, but even after just a couple hours of working on it it's already looking a lot better. I've only updated the out-of-combat movement animations though and it was too late to export the changes into this patch. All-in-all I think I've no other choice but to buy some better animations for the combat stance as the running caveman animations I'm using right now just don't do anyone any good.
Updating the controller and animations is the first of several "presentation" upgrades I want to make over the next few patches, as I've really only focused on "features" for a long time, and the poor presentation of them is turning away players and press that otherwise might find a quite enjoyable game. I'll be looking to finally implement some lore and am in the processes of consulting with some peers on UI improvements for which I've already garnered some great advice.
Thanks as always to everyone joining in for early access, and a special thanks to all of my Patreon supporters!
v 0.7.1.9 2021.02.19 - Added a "Light Range" potion that increases the range of the players light aura - Added a breathing potion that allows breathing under water - Added console commands for resource spawn rates, though they should not be used unless necessary - Added enchanted torches with color, intensity, and range controls - Glowing mushrooms in caves are now harvestable - Increased the "area" despawn distance by 1 to prevent repeated spawn/despawn when walking back and forth over threshholds - Brightened underwater fog (WIP) - Fixed turning all the cave resource spawn settings to max causing iron and copper to become unable to spawn - Fixed grass "areas" not overlapping properly, leaving obvious gaps
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
One lesser know aspect of creative mode finally gets a button in this patch. The item editor allows you to create most types of items, except for potions and sockets, and then even upload them to the Steam Workshop for Solace Crafting. I've also fixed a couple of small problems that were preventing structures subscribed to via the Steam Workshop from showing up in game via the building / load / workshop tab. I'm hoping to add a preview screenshot capability for uploading to the Steam Workshop as well.
Tomorrow I'm looking to add a couple of new building customization tools that will hopefully make for even more interesting uploads.
This patch also adds an empty button to monster drops, tombstones, and monoliths, as well as a fill button to chests.
v 0.7.1.7 2021.02.16 - Added an "Item Editor" button to the main UI in Creative mode - Added "Empty" and "Fill" buttons to chests / tombstones / loot - Added new icons for not yet updated enchant sockets - Fixed workshop subscribed buildings not listing / loading properly - Fixed saved structure load placement doubling the placement height modifier (Q/E) - Fixed strong harvesting skills not working on elemental stones - Fixed the new Armor and Alchemy recipes on the skill trees from leveling up beyond level 5 - Fixed socket icons not loading properly in storage chests and bags
Beta v 0.7.1.6
I've been working on cleaning out old files and improving some of the data structures that manage enchants and skills in particular. This patch rearranges some of the skill trees and moves the 3 starting armor types, cloth, leather, and metal, to the skill trees, using the updated item template system instead of hard coded recipes. I'm still a bit on the fence whether these work better entirely on the skill trees, or if maybe the first level of them each should be awarded to new characters for free. We'll try it out though and see how things feel.
Also, due to popular demand, I've added a deconstruction bench, that allows old gear to be broken down into some of its original components. Only resources such a lumber and metal can be recovered in this way, and only half of them rounded down will be rewarded. Items that do produce returns due to the previous two rules will be ignored by the bench.
v 0.7.1.6 2021.02.14 - Added deconstruction bench - Moved armor sets to skill trees - Removed up a variety of scripts, textures, and models no longer in use - Fixed a number of harmless errors printing to console/log during startup
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
I had to put out a small hotfix for some long standing fog/cloud/weather timing and color issues that were amplified by last nights patch causing flickering at certain times of the day. All in all this smooths out a few different problems that were present with the light/color timings, and instant weather changes and some things.
I generally stick to 1-2 topics to work on, making "passes" at different systems that need improvement or work. I hadn't touched weather lightning/clouds/fog in a long time, and it is looking a lot better now with just a bit of work. Still not the desired end result where I want to program an entirely dynamic weather system, which won't be difficult, it's just hard to justify prioritizing something like that when there's so much to do. Glad with the outcome of these unanticipated repairs though.
I've been working on beta and the default branch simultaneously, but wanted to get these latest fixes up first. The biggest noticeable difference is with the fog. Apparently the main fog shader was being stripped from the build entirely, even though it was working properly on my end. This also adds a semi-bright fog to caves which makes them quite a bit easier to look at. I also fixed the math causing a variety of a cave resources to rotate improperly into their walls.
More to follow shortly!
v 0.7.0.25 2021.02.10 - Updated fullness/hydration for most items - Fixed signs not working in multiplayer - Fixed town recipes not properly checking against building rank - Fixed non-sky fog not working - Fixed not being able to drink from equipped watering cans - Fixed crafting experience not being rewarded in creative mode - Fixed a variety of cave items/resources rotating improperly into the walls
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
This (beta) patch brings in a lot of new potions, potions with lasting buffs, and sockets.
Sockets replace the current system of enchants which used to be "magic" cast onto an item, with new socketable/removeable objects. One of the main goals for this is the add sockets that are not necessarily magical enchantments, for example weapon attachments, armor upgrades, etc. I don't yet have new icons setup for all of the new sockets, so some of them are temporarily using their enchant icons, but I will add unique icons for each of them.
This is all part of a movement to add a variety of new recipes into the game as well as to the skill trees and town buildings, a variety of which still have no or very little unlocks on them. This patch also moves a number of "known by default" recipes to now require unlocking via the alchemy and masonry trees, along with upgrades to the related systems to support such functionality. As a result of this profession unlocks have been forcibly reset and points should be automatically refunded requiring only that you respend them in whatever way you see fit.
I am continuing work on adding more recipes and can now begin to add more socketable recipes in particular to the Tailoring, Leatherworking, and Masonry skill trees.
Have a good idea for a drop, ingredient, potion, set enchant, or socket? By all means, please join in the discussion on Discord. The game already has a built-in and largely automatic import system for inputting custom enchants as well as items (along with the item creation interface accessible via the "i" key in creative mode (my apologies some of these things aren't better presented in a clearer manner)) that I plan to make easier to access and understand in hopes that the community can help out in designing actually in-game content.
v 0.7.1.5 2021.01.29 - Added new potions - Potions can now give buffs - Updated fullness/hydration for most items - Enchants are now sockets, insertable and removeable from equipment - Cleared caves will no longer spawn monsters in single-player - Fixed a bug not properly displaying the bonuses of set enchants - Fixed the sort buttons in the solace travel UI not greying on/off properly - Fixed the possibility of respawning cave resources adding rarity icons to the overworld map
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
