Surviving the Aftermath - Dev Diary #25 - Rebirth DLC
Greetings survivors!
Our third DLC is now available! “Rebirth” offers a new way to literally transform your colony into a post-apocalyptic paradise! Clear the waters and purify the soil with new terraforming discoveries to bring back the once green fields and lush forests. The journey is not without its perils though, as a new threat is on the rise. A mysterious fungal disease called the blight has infected both animals and plants, creating new challenges for the player. But their wild mutations also hold the key to victory!
IMAGE: Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth
The DLC includes a modular Blight Lab, which allows players to advance in the new “Discoveries” tech tree. This can be used to unlock new buildings and permanent improvements for your fight against the blight, eventually turning the threat into an advantage. Seeing the colony’s grim and hostile beginnings turn into a beautiful and inviting landscape is truly something special.
Terraforming
New terraformers allow players to transform the barren soil and murky waters into a healthy, vibrant environment. These advanced buildings can be discovered via the Blight Lab, which players unlock after completing a special quest. Once built, you can order its workers to plant new soil within the work area, transforming the very earth patch by patch.
The terraformers are fueled by blight samples that you collect from numerous sources during your fight against mutated creatures that seem oddly determined to stop your progress. In addition to striking visuals, terraformed soil offers superior production with fields and water wells in its area.
IMAGE: Terraforming the soil
The Blight
The fungal blight is tainting the very soil and everything living on it. It grows fast, infecting animals and plants alike, centering on blight cores, which infect the soil and cause blighted nests, hives and lair to emerge. You’ll see its effects everywhere from strange-looking fungi to enemies that roam the lands. The blight is not without its merits though, as it can be studied and turned into beneficial discoveries in the blight lab. These blight samples can be collected from multiple sources such as carcasses, blighted trees, deposits and even farmable crops and mutated ranch animals.
Blighted creatures
New blighted enemies are a constant, evolving threat to the colony. They spawn from nests, hives and lairs around the colony. The initial encounters with these creatures should pose little problems, but their dangers become stronger as the colony grows. The largest enemies can infect the colonists with an incurable condition with horrific consequences. These creatures can also appear on the world map and might attack your specialists if you cross their path. So stock up on weapons and build guard towers to protect the colony.
IMAGE: New enemies
New anti-blight buildings
Rebirth has several new buildings which allow the player to fight against the blight and turn the rapidly mutating threat into an advantage. It all starts after unlocking the new Blight Lab by completing a special quest. This modular building grows in size as you unlock new discovery tiers by supplying it with blight samples to study.
Purification Posts clear blighted trees and corpses to extract blight samples from them, but can also clear small pollution patches early in the game. It’s highly polluting, though, so build it on the outskirts of your colony. Its "Exterminators" upgrade allows clearing enemy-spawning nests, hives and lairs for a brief respite from enemy attacks and as an additional source of blight samples. And finally, upgrading your Environmental Station to a new Hazmat Station unlocks the ability to clear the blight cores - the root cause of the infestation.
IMAGE: New buildings
Other Improvements
Scout Towers and Guard Posts have been revamped and are now more efficient than ever before as a stationary line of defense. New attack animations have been added to emphasize their new role. On the world map, some of the early research outpost spots have been turned to regular science locations, allowing easier access to your first science points. Colony has more metal deposits than before and pollution spreads more evenly. Pollution overlay is also now clearer on which areas are affected. Several combat-heavy quests have been pushed back so the player has a better chance of completing them with multiple specialists.
IMAGE: Guard posts shooting at blighted creatures
On the visual side, buildings remove less foliage when placed, creatíng a nicer-looking colony. Various user interface and usability improvements include “Specialist ready” indicator pulsing faster, more visible blocked tile overlay in build mode, reworked soil overlay color with color-blindness in mind and an “exit vehicle” icon for the vehicle UI. Society list also shows all tradable resources instead of just the first five.
IMAGE: Community-created specialist
Community-created specialist
A while ago we asked you to design a new specialist. After considering all your wonderful applications, we ended up with "Gloriosa"! She’s a born-and-raised doomsday prepper who turned scavenger and can be selected as a starting specialist in a new game.
We’re eager to see you turn the inhospitable wasteland into a lush and green paradise!
Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth is now available both as a part of the Ultimate Colony Edition or separate purchase.
Change Notes
General
Added a new specialist to the game called Gloriosa.
Gloriosa was created by you, the community. She is a born and raised doomsday prepper and can be selected as a starting specialist in a new game. A big thank you to all participants!
We’ve heard many reports from players that they cannot find enough metal. Because of this, we adjusted the way metal and concrete deposits spawn in the colony.
There is now a higher likelihood that metal deposits spawn closer to the starting location. Scouting is still likely necessary, though.
Some metal can also be scavenged in the world map.
Added six new Rebirth DLC related achievements.
Tower Defence - Build 5 Guard Posts.
Timber! - Cut down 100 blighted trees.
Pest Control - Kill 40 blighted creatures.
Core of the issue - Destroy a Blight Core.
Rebirth - Complete “Rebirth” quest.
Post-Apocalyptic Paradise - Terraform the majority of the map.
Gameplay
Changed the way pollution spreads from pollution deposits and buildings. The pollution area remains mostly unchanged, but the intensity is now spread more evenly.
Blocked some achievements from unlocking in a custom game. Previously, some achievements could be unlocked by playing a custom game which was not intended.
Increased the amount of resources shown in the society trade menu. Previously, only six resources were shown, but now it shows everything a society has to offer.
Consoles only: Fixed an issue that caused Wind Turbine, Martian Wind Turbine, Lightning Rod and Lightning Tower to be unrepairable if Ultimate Colony DLC was enabled. This issue was already fixed on PC versions some time ago.
Fixed an issue that caused the meteor storm catastrophe to only drop one meteor.
Fixed an issue that caused the game to get stuck if the camera moved over a combat location when trying to confirm combat victory in the world map.
Fixed an issue that caused combat disasters (for example rat beetle or boar attacks) to stop working after the endgame quest started.
Fixed an issue that caused a colonist to get stuck if its workplace was close to the colony border and the colonist had no home.
Fixed an issue that caused deposit guardian animals to not return to the deposit properly after disengaging from combat.
Fixed a repair related issue caused by selecting a destroyed building right after a save was loaded.
Fixed an issue that caused a colonist to get stuck when multiple colonists were gathering resources and the deposit was cleared at the right time.
Fixed an issue caused by pressing the demolish mode hotkey while hovering a building right after loading a save.
Fixed an issue that caused the colonist cause of death to be incorrect if it died from combat damage.
Graphics
Adjusted the colors in soil fertility overlay and in the circle around Water Well to be more color blind friendly.
Added a combat animation for the Scout Tower and Guard Post.
Made the red color brighter when placing buildings to make it easier to see unavailable building placement.
Buildings remove a smaller area of foliage and props around them when placed.
Added an exit vehicle icon to the vehicle panel.
Vehicles now show the correct amount of passenger slots available.
Made the overlay info panel darker and more readable.
Updated higher resolution icons to multiple places in the game, for example building info, top bar etc.
Updated two child portraits to higher resolution versions.
Decreased the light intensity of heatwave catastrophe in the world map.
Removed the by-product UI element from animals in the ranch that do not produce a by-product.
Increased the visibility of the wheat crops in fields.
Updated the model for the Lightning Rod and adjusted the build menu icon accordingly.
Fixed an issue that caused Martian Wind Turbine to not play animations during winter.
Fixed an animation issue that caused concrete extractor workers to move out of bounds instead of working in the cabin.
Fixed an animation issue when moving the camera very close to the radar building.
Minor polish to the following UI elements:
Deposit info panel.
Specialist ready indicator in the specialist bar.
Specialist action done indicator in the world map.
Buttons in the building info panel.
Loading bar.
Energy and water consumption/production icons.
Repair/demolition/overtime mode tooltips.
Balance Adjustments
Replaced some medicine, weapon and clothing scavenge locations with metal, corn and firewood locations in the world map.
Removed the lowest tier of science outpost locations and replaced them with regular science point locations that can be scavenged.
Added a minimum starting date for combat quests. This should make quests a little bit easier in the beginning of the game.
Adjusted the shooting and reload times of specialists and guards so that they cannot attack repeatedly. Stutter stepping allowed them to attack very quickly.
Reduced the patrol range of guards in the Guard Post.
Increased the attack damage and range of the Scout Tower slightly.
Surviving the Aftermath - Announcing Rebirth DLC
For the longest time, you strove to survive the aftermath on planet Earth. Now, thanks to your knowledge, skills, and leadership, you can finally look forward to a new chapter for humankind. “Rebirth” is your mantra, your goal, the dream that will make you overcome old and new challenges, for your survivors and all humanity...
Greetings, survivors!
We’re almost ready to release something we’ve wanted to share with you for quite some time - our third DLC, Rebirth! It features an all-new way to literally transform your colony via terraforming the very soil it’s built on as well as a new, ever-present threat.
Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth launches on March 16th for PC, Xbox One, and Playstation4 at a suggested retail price of 14.99 USD / 11.99 GBP / 14.99 EUR.
More details are to come in the upcoming weeks, but here are its core features:
The Blight: from threat to resource After decades of exposure to radioactive pollution, a new infestation called Blight has emerged. Mutated fungi have started to infect the animals, causing them to become aggressive and dangerous. This infection has spread through the wasteland and is threatening to take over. You will need to find a cure for the Blight to defend against it. Gather Blight samples, study them in a new research building and make discoveries to unlock new buildings, resources, and upgrades.
Terraforming: from a wasteland to green pastures Let’s turn this barren land into fertile soil! With the Terraformer, you will be able to welcome new life: the more you terraform, the more your map will turn green and lush with vegetation and animals. Be aware of the blighted areas that you will terraform, here, blight monsters will spawn and attack your survivors.
Blight Lab - plus other new buildings and upgrades “Rebirth” adds three new buildings, three building upgrades, plus an all-new multi-stage Blight lab with its own Research tree. Embark on a quest to find a scientist with the means of fighting against the blight and build the modular Blight Lab to make discoveries to aid and overcome the threat. A Purification post will allow you to remove small pollution deposits and it can be upgraded to an Extermination post to clear blighted nests, hives, and lairs. The Basic Terraformer turns the land into terraformed soil and it can be upgraded to Advanced Terraformer. The Environmental Station becomes the Hazmat station: with it, survivors can clear the blight cores and stop the creatures' attacks. While not a new building, the Guard Posts have received significant improvements and will now be more critical than ever when defending your colony.
Watch the reveal trailer on YouTube:
Surviving the Aftermath - Shattered Hope DLC - Patch Notes
Greeting survivors!
We have just released our patch for the “Shattered Hope” DLC—including some bigger changes as well. Here we will go through them with some brief explanations as to why they have been made. As usual, the full patch notes can be found at the end of this post.
DIFFICULTY REWORKED
We have gone and reduced the DLC’s overall difficulty in many different ways. If you look at the Hope bar for example, you can see that it looks a bit different than before. The “safe zone” where no negative effects can happen is larger and the Hope levels have been adjusted accordingly. This means there are now bigger and clearer changes between the levels, but also much more time before Hope becomes a serious issue. This allows players to divide their attention to other things, without Hope constantly demanding actions by causing Anguish.
We have also done multiple smaller adjustments to balance the difficulty. For example, the negative impact of disasters and catastrophes has been reduced. Positive Hope effects have been added to accepting survivor groups and when gate combat is won without the bandits breaching the gate. Trauma centers now also offer two patient slots, which should alleviate the situations where many colonists are in anguish at once. The negative event results and the cost of feasts have been slightly tweaked to a more balanced direction as well.
Trauma centers now offer two patient slots instead of one.
HOPE AND HAPPINESS CONNECTED
One major rework ties Hope together with Happiness, which was heavily requested by our players. Previously we had a system where Hope would drop daily with no way to counter the nasty effect. Now, the player can counter this effect and even turn it into a positive, just by keeping the colony happy!
This is easier said than done however, and there is a catch. “Challenge” selected in the pregame determines how much Happiness will affect Hope. With harder difficulties, low Happiness also hits the colony harder. This is one of the ways we hope those players who like a bit of difficulty can still challenge themselves. Connecting Happiness and Hope also gives the players a chance to eventually progress into a situation where hope is less demanding when the colonists feel satisfied in the safety of the colony.
The daily Hope effect is now tied to the difficulty level selected in the pregame.
OTHER CHANGES
One of the smaller adjustments we made was to push the start of the DLC’s questline to appear a little earlier in the game. While this change allows the quest to spawn already at day 29, the random nature of the quests can cause it to be slightly delayed. Always remember to check your side quest status when waiting for a specific one—there can only be one side quest active at any given time!
We also want to encourage our players to use the building overtime feature to overcome the new challenges, which is why we added some lunar dust as a reward to the starter event. This allows the players to start boosting production in buildings right away!
The introduction event now encourages the player to start overtiming buildings with some free lunar dust.
If you want to know more details please refer to our patch notes and feel free to ask questions! Once again we thank all of you for your feedback and hope you’ll enjoy the new and improved experience with Surviving the Aftermath ”Shattered Hope”.
General
Daily decrease of hope now scales with game difficulty.
Easier difficulties still have almost the same baseline daily hope change, but harder difficulties now have a steeper daily decrease.
This is a way for us to provide a smoother gameplay experience for those who wish to play with easier settings, but still be able to provide a challenge for the daring.
Daily decrease of hope is now tied to colony happiness.
Unhappy colony loses hope faster while the hope for a happy colony increases per day.
The current daily effect of happiness can be seen in the hope bar tooltip.
Hope bar now functions more accurately.
Previously, there was some scaling which made the hope drops seem more drastic than they actually were when the hope bar was close to full.
Adjusted the thresholds for when anguish is given to colonists accordingly.
Gameplay
Added hope reward when accepting survivor groups.
Fixed an issue that caused gate combat to not give hope when defeating bandits directly at the gate.
Many text changes related to Shattered Hope features.
Added daily effect text to the hope bar tooltip.
Added overtime text to the Lunar Dust tooltip.
Tweaked hope description in the hope bar tooltip.
Tweaked anguish description in the help menu.
Tweaked the descriptions of Shattered Hope buildings.
And other smaller text changes.
Balance Adjustments
Reduced hope impact of all catastrophes and disasters.
Reduced catastrophe hope impact by around 30%.
Reduced pollution cloud and space junk disasters’ hope impact by around 30%.
Reduced moonfall, rat swarm and overcharge disasters’ hope impact by 50%.
Adjusted the hope impact of most events.
Reduced the impact of negative event results by 30%.
Positive event results mostly unchanged.
Increased patient slot count in Trauma Center from 1 to 2.
The Shattered Moon quest can now trigger after day 29, this was day 32 previously.
Please note that the Shattered Moon quest cannot trigger if you already have another regular quest active.
Slightly decreased the baseline food and plastic cost of the small feast.
Added and adjusted hope rewards slightly in multiple quests.
Slightly increased the negative hope impact when abandoning a quest.
The initial Shattered Moon event now gives 20 Lunar Dust.
Surviving the Aftermath - Dev Diary #24 - Shattered Hope DLC
Greetings survivors!
Our latest DLC “Shattered Hope” has just been released and we are excited to shed light on its features. Brand new challenges await as fading hope risks the entire colony’s survival. Other improvements include a new moon rock disaster, an ability to boost production with overtime and being able to hold special feasts! A new questline adds interesting buildings and resources to the mix, giving Surviving the Aftermath even more variety than before.
IMAGE: Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope
Let’s first talk about the Moon and the features tied to it. As previously established, the Earth’s Moon shattered at the start of the cataclysm years ago and now the consequences of that can be felt in the colonies. Falling pieces of the Moon can be seen plummeting from the skies at night. However, these moon rocks are not just another hazard but can be gathered and turned into valuable lunar dust. This rare material is in high demand by societies and bandits alike, but its most interesting function is its ability to greatly boost buildings’ efficiency. It allows the use of overtime, hastening production and healing speed for 48 hours!
IMAGE: Lunar dust can be used to increase buildings’ efficiency
This all comes in handy when trying to overcome new hope-related challenges. Colonists’ hope for the future is constantly shifting from good to bad to worse. Colonists are disheartened by setbacks such as being defeated in combat, dismissing events or quests and especially catastrophes such as fallout or winter storms. If hope falls too low, the colonists can become anguished. Anguish cannot be treated in normal medical buildings, but requires special treatment at trauma centers. Anguished colonists can eventually become hostile, turning against their peers if they are not treated in time! Recovering from this condition is a lengthy process, so it is wise to try to keep hope from falling into dangerous levels.
IMAGE: Colony hope must be kept high to avoid negative consequences
Hope can be increased by completing quests, making the right decisions in events, combat victories and most importantly, holding special feasts. These can be held at the colony square, a new building fit for holding these kinds of festivities. The special feasts can be costly but drastically increase hope and happiness by providing momentary entertainment. To hold larger feasts for larger colonies the building must be upgraded, which can only be done after completing the new questline.
IMAGE: Feast selection at the colony square
“The Shattered Moon” quest opens the lore behind the broken moon and how the people of the wasteland have come to exploit its fallen riches. The quest also introduces the mysterious group of bandits some players might recognize from the main quest. These fellows can also sometimes appear at the colony gates demanding lunar dust with the threat of violence. Whilst uncovering their secrets you’ll be unlocking new buildings and resources, such as the med hut and mushroom farm, which can make recovering from anguish much quicker. The med hut can also produce antibodies for treating mutations much faster than before.
IMAGE: “The Shattered Moon” quest illustrations
Other improvements include new events, some unique to the DLC and others for the base game for everyone to enjoy. Events coming with the free update aim to make the early game experience a little more varied than before. The colony clock has also gotten a facelift visible to all users, making it easier to track the shift between day and night and when specialists’ action points are replenished.
The free update includes balance adjustments, quality of life improvements, bug fixes and new visuals. We have updated over 30 building textures to make them more recognizable and added more colonist portraits for women and children. Additionally, we present our special seasonal content in the spirit of Halloween! Check all improvements and fixes from the changelog(link below).
IMAGE: Halloween pack includes new decorations and spooky variations to existing buildings
We hope that you’ll have a great time with all the new features, buildings and other improvements in "Shattered Hope". It has a lot to offer whether you’re looking for additional challenges or just more buildings to construct. You can continue your old save or begin a new one to start boosting your production, hold great feasts and mend the broken hope!
Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope is available now on Steam, Epic Store, the PlayStation™ Store and Microsoft Store on Xbox. It is also included as a part of the Ultimate Colony Upgrade with more DLC to come later.
Change notes - “Shattered Hope Xbox and PS4 release”
General
Added Halloween content to the game. Spooky! The content can be toggled on or off in the settings.
Added Goo Cauldron and Scarecrow decorations that can be unlocked by Prestige.
Torch, Lantern and all Street Light decorations change to more Halloween themed lights.
Added jack o'lanterns and other halloween props to colony buildings.
Added halloween themed hats for colonists.
Added three new Shattered Hope DLC achievements/trophies:
Hero of the Wasteland - Complete "The Shattered Moon" quest.
Mean Boss - Overtime 100 buildings.
Beacon of Hope - Hold a special feast.
Memory optimization. These changes improve the stability of the game especially on consoles and low-end PCs.
Removed unused buildings, shaders and other assets from the build.
Improved memory management of tutorial popups and help menu images.
Gameplay
Added six new events. These should improve the early game event variation so that the same events don’t happen that often.
Improved the way that queued movement works when sending specialists to combat in the World Map. Specialists should no longer get stuck on each other when pathing to a location.
Happiness effects in events and quests now show an icon instead of the “+10 Happiness” text.
Added a tooltip for repair tool that displays the amount of resources required to repair a building.
Added a tooltip for demolish tool that displays the amount of resources gained when demolishing a building.
Improved the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends.
Notifications display hours instead of days when there’s less than a day remaining. Previously notifications had texts such as “0 days remaining” and that is now displayed in hours.
Changed the way that quick tool can be accessed on a controller. Quick tool now has a single button that activates it and then it’s possible to change between repair/demolish/overtime mode with another button.
Destroyed buildings can now be removed with the demolish tool.
Well, Well, Well event had a hidden effect that is now visible.
Fixed an issue that occurred in custom games when the animals option was set to ‘None’ and then selecting a resource deposit in the game.
Fixed an issue that caused pause and demolish hotkeys to be usable on construction zones that had those functionalities disabled e.g. Campsite could be paused during the intro and would cause a softlock.
Fixed an issue that occurred when saving and loading the game just as colony combat was about to finish.
Fixed an issue that caused disasters to disappear after saving and loading a game while the disaster was ongoing.
Fixed an issue that caused minor disasters and Winter Storm catastrophe to not update properly in the statistics menu.
Graphics
Added four new child portraits and seven new female portraits for colonists.
Updated textures for over 30 buildings.
Added and adjusted animation visuals in most entertainment buildings. For example, Stormdome now has colonists battling in the building while other colonists cheer the fighters on.
Added DLC icons to save game menu that displays which DLCs are enabled in the save.
Added a tooltip to main menu DLC buttons that displays if the DLC requires a new game to be active.
Added a popup to save game menu that informs if activated DLCs cannot be applied to a save that is being loaded.
Balance Adjustments
Changed the way that scaling works for catastrophes. The goal is to make all catastrophes scale better with game difficulty. Previously catastrophes had the same “effective phase” that affected conditions, damage and other factors.
Increased the happiness effects in The Great Unknown and Hidden Fortunes events.
Reduced the fiber cost of Basic Clothing.
Slightly lowered the protection value of Basic Clothing.
Very slightly lowered the protection value of Sturdy Clothing.
Increased fiber production in Fields.
Haunted Wasteland
Hello survivors!
It's the spookiest time of year, and we are excited to bring you a free in-game event on Steam and Epic that includes Halloween themed decorations and buildings. This also includes a free patch of some gameplay fixes, such as improvement to the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends, as well as some graphics and balance adjustments like increased fiber production in the fields. What better way to prepare for the moon shattering DLC Shattered Hope that comes out the week after?
The event visuals will include:
Halloween themed hats and masks for colonists.
Two new decoration "buildings":
A Scarecrow
A Cauldron full of nuclear liquids
Buildings with lights will change their appearance with more Halloween themed lights:
Regular lights/lanterns in buildings in the game will now turn into Halloween themed lanterns, such as jack-o'-lanterns
Halloween Decorative lamps
The Halloween event will turn on automatically on the 24th of October, but can of course be turned off in the settings if you prefer playing without it.
Change notes - “Halloween patch”
General
Added Halloween content to the game. Spooky! The Halloween content is turned on automatically on the 24th of October and turned off on the 7th of November. The content can also be toggled on or off in the settings.
Added Goo Cauldron and Scarecrow decorations that can be unlocked by Prestige.
Torch, Lantern and all Street Light decorations change to more Halloween themed lights.
Added jack o'lanterns and other halloween props to colony buildings.
Added halloween themed hats for colonists.
Added six new events. These should improve the early game event variation so that the same events don’t happen that often.
Gameplay
Improved the way that queued movement works when sending specialists to combat in the World Map. Specialists should no longer get stuck on each other when pathing to a location.
Added a tooltip for repair tool that displays the amount of resources required to repair a building.
Added a tooltip for demolish tool that displays the amount of resources gained when demolishing a building.
Improved the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends.
Notifications display hours instead of days when there’s less than a day remaining. Previously notifications had texts such as “0 days remaining” and that is now displayed in hours.
Changed the way that quick tool can be accessed on a controller. Quick tool now has a single button that activates it and then it’s possible to change between repair/demolish/overtime mode with another button.
Destroyed buildings can now be removed with the demolish tool.
Fixed an issue that caused pause and demolish hotkeys to be usable on construction zones that had those functionalities disabled e.g. Campsite could be paused during the intro and would cause a softlock.
Fixed an issue that occurred when saving and loading the game just as colony combat was about to finish.
Fixed an issue that caused disasters to disappear after saving and loading a game while the disaster was ongoing.
Graphics
Added four new child portraits and seven new female portraits for colonists.
Updated textures for over 30 buildings.
Added DLC icons to save game menu that displays which DLCs are enabled in the save.
Added a tooltip to main menu DLC buttons that displays if the DLC requires a new game to be active.
Added a popup to save game menu that informs if activated DLCs cannot be applied to a save that is being loaded.
Balance Adjustments
Reduced the fiber cost of Basic Clothing.
Slightly lowered the protection value of Basic Clothing.
Very slightly lowered the protection value of Sturdy Clothing.
Increased fiber production in Fields.
Changed the way that scaling works for catastrophes. The goal is to make all catastrophes scale better with game difficulty. Previously catastrophes had the same “effective phase” that affected conditions, damage and other factors.
Surviving the Aftermath - Announcing Shattered Hope DLC
Hello survivors!
We are pleased to announce the new DLC for Surviving the Aftermath. Shattered Hope introduces the Shattered Moon calamity, giving players the ability to boost resource production and the task of maintaining survivor’s hope. Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope launches on November 3rd for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC at a suggested retail price of 9.99 USD / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 EUR.
During the apocalypse, the Moon was destroyed and now the consequences of that are showering down from the sky in an unforeseen disaster. By gathering resources from Moon Rock deposits and coming together as a people, the survivors must find hope to proceed and prosper. Shattered Hope focuses around increasing resource production in the colony while attempting to keep up Hope for the colonists - otherwise the new Anguish condition can cause trouble for them and the entire colony.
Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope Key Features include:
Face the Moonfall and use it to your advantage with the new Building Boost mechanic The Moon is shattered in the sky and its fragments are crushing down on Earth leaving behind them devastation - but also moon rock deposits. You can refine lunar fragments and obtain lunar dust which will be used to increase the production of your buildings for a limited time. This new building boost mechanic is called overtime.
Keep your hopes up, and feast! Hope is a new global value that decreases over time and when catastrophes happen in the game. If kept too low for too long, it will trigger a new condition called anguish that, if left untreated, may turn your colonists hostile. So, keep your hope as high as possible by holding feasts at the new colony square building.
New production chain: take care of your colonists When colonists experience anguish, you can help them by building a trauma centre where they will heal. They will recover faster thanks to a brand new medicine called antistress. To make it, you’ll have to grow raw resources on the mushroom farm, then refine them into the actual medicine in the med hut building.
Change notes - “New Alliances PC patch”
Base game
General
Added 11 new achievements:
Base game:
Doomsday is canceled - Complete the Doomsday Bunker Project.
Choo-choo! - Escape the harsh winter by fixing the train in Cold Rush.
Finnished - Survive in the Endless Winter scenario for 100 days.
Tailored to fit - Survive until day 100 in a custom game.
Customized calamities - Secret!
New Alliances DLC:
Undercover - Complete all four covert mission types.
Best friends forever - Ally with a society.
Binary world view - Secret!
Diplomatic quarter - Have four embassies built at the same time.
Dynamic Duo - Secret!
Federation forever - Form the federation.
Improved build menu performance dramatically.
Fixed an issue that prevented loading a save if a resource box was out of colony bounds and the game was saved while a carrier was moving to pick up the box.
Gameplay
Replaced the “trade offers available” text in the society menu with “trade unavailable” when there aren't enough workers in a Trade Center.
Double-clicking now works when overwriting a save game.
Fixed an issue that caused some buildings to not receive resources from storages if request resources was used. This was the reason that Fuel was not always delivered properly to a Garage.
Fixed an issue that caused up and down navigation to be inverted on a controller in request board.
Fixed an issue that caused NPC animations to freeze in combat upon selecting a specialist.
Fixed an issue that caused the camera to move to the wrong location when pressing the resource depleted notification.
Added a missing text in French in the custom game pregame menu.
Graphics
Updated portraits for caribou, boar and bear in the world map.
Added tooltips to colonists, resources and buildings tabs in the statistics menu.
Fixed many text overflow issues in multiple languages.
UI polish:
Updated some tech icons in the tech tree.
Added a black filler background to the society menu for ultrawide monitors.
New icons for group health and animal attack in the world map UI panel.
Many smaller button and text changes in world map panels.
Added fake colonists to entertainment buildings and adjusted animations in them.
Added fake workers to Forester, Maintenance Depot and Concrete Scavenger.
New Alliances
General
Added a tooltip to the society menu that displays information about embassy bonus buildings.
It should now provide an easy way to see information about different buildings when allying with a society.
Fixed an issue that prevented loading a save caused by a roaming bandit spawning incorrectly.
Gameplay
Rival reputation gain is now visible when failing or declining a society request and in the world map when hovering over a request location.
Added reputation markers and player/rival reputation amounts in the society menu’s reputation bar.
Fixed an issue that caused society convoys to move out of bounds.
Rewards from society requests are now visible after forming the federation.
Fixed an issue that caused the carrier count to increase visually when adding and removing workers in the Academy building.
Roaming NPCs in the World Map now face the way they’re moving.
Replaced generic specialist mission accomplished sounds with a voice-over for covert missions.
Added sound to Bomb Bunker.
Graphics
UI polish:
Changed the coloring and reduced the size of roaming unit’s path indicator.
Reduced the size of request, animal and convoy floaters in the world map.
Many smaller button and text changes in New Alliances related menus.
New Alliances building polish:
Fixed icicle placement on Society Depot.
Texture changes to most New Alliances buildings.
Reduced the size of outposts in the world map.
Added a missing material in Bomb Bunker.
Balance Adjustments
Reduced silver from scavenging locations.
Increased New Alliance tech costs.
Requests and reputation:
Patrol and Teach loan request sector triggers lowered.
Lowered individual request type cooldowns across the board.
Increased rival rep gains from failed requests (by quite some margin).
Decreased the cooldown to spawn new requests.
Increased Rival reputation gains from failed requests across the board.
Altered request rewards to less silver and more other resources.
Removed tools from greenhouse society building recipe and increased plastic required.
Population and federation:
Increased minimum rival population slightly.
Roaming units:
Reduced the amount of roaming animals.
Decreased the cooldown for spawning society convoys.
Surviving the Aftermath - Dev Diary - New Alliances DLC
Dev Diary #23 - New Alliances DLC
Greetings survivors!
“New Alliances” is here and we can finally share more details about what it means for Surviving the Aftermath. We’ve already teased its contents a bit, so let’s dig deeper into what makes it special. Society requests, alliances and federation add a fresh dimension to societies, while roaming bandits, covert missions and a new powerful Rival faction challenge you in new ways.
IMAGE: Keyart
New Alliances adds a new, more dynamic layer to the world map and how you interact with societies. Instead of just having nice trade partners, you can now befriend and eventually ally with them with the ultimate goal of creating a federation! To do this, you must help your soon-to-be allies by completing requests and assisting them against various threats in the wasteland. But if making friends isn’t your thing, you can raid their convoys for resources or have your specialists complete covert missions inside the societies to steal loot, science points and other benefits. But note that you’re not alone in your ambitions, as a mysterious Rival faction has taken an interest in your part of the wasteland.
IMAGE: Build request
Forming a federation and solidifying your status as its leader will take some time. Once you’ve met the first societies, a new society depot building becomes available. It allows you to construct helpful buildings inside societies to raise their population, protect them from bandit raids or provide alternative sources of science points and silver. You can construct these buildings for a society whenever you want, even if they haven’t specifically sent a request for them. In addition to building requests, societies might also ask you to hunt bothersome animals, deal with dangerous bandit forts or loan one of your specialists to them.
IMAGE: Federation screen
Each completed request gives you rewards and brings your two colonies closer. Once you’ve gained enough reputation, they’ll offer to ally with you and share their secrets after you’ve built their embassy in the colony. These unique, society-specific benefits range from nuclear power plant blueprints from Chemville to extra action points for every specialist from Dead Creek. Discover all the perks in the new federation status screen and choose which ones you want the most! New Alliances features eight new reward buildings and 13 permanent bonuses for your colony.
IMAGE: Part of the rival illustration with failed request
But as you encounter more societies while still dealing with all the hardships of catastrophes and bandit assaults against your own colony, you’ll be forced to decide who to help and who’s plea for aid goes unheard. Each failed request pushes them closer to your Rival, who will turn them against you! To end their influence in the wasteland, you must create a strong federation with your closest allies.
To form the federation you must get the majority of the wasteland’s population on your side. Raise your allies’ population by constructing shelters and food production facilities while embarking on propaganda missions to draw people away from hostile societies. Once the majority has been achieved, you’ll be rewarded with sharing the spoils of war your Rival left behind along with other benefits.
IMAGE: Successful covert mission end screen
Another major aspect in New Alliances involves a bit more shadier tactics. Your specialists can now embark on four different types of covert missions against other societies for various benefits. You can for example steal science points for your research via espionage with your scientists or sabotage Rival operations with scavengers to reduce their influence. Different specialist types have a higher chance to succeed on these missions, so pick your operative carefully as failure means a big drop in reputation and a potentially lethal escape from the rather offended society.
IMAGE: Anti-covert mission buildings
But be on your guard as these covert missions can also be used against you. Both your Rival and other societies can infiltrate your colony to steal, disrupt your research or even set off explosives! To combat this, unlock protective buildings like anti-propaganda towers and surveillance vans from the new tech branch and have them staffed at all times. The more workers you have stationed, the greater the chance you’ll prevent anything bad from happening and maybe even uncover the culprit in the process.
IMAGE: Roaming animal
The world map is also more active than ever before. You might spot a herd of deer roaming around looking for food or a group of bandits searching for prey. Hostile units might chase your specialists who are moving on foot or decide to take over your world map outpost, halting its operations until you clear them out. For best protection, have a fleet of capable vehicles on hand at all times, as the bandit hordes are unable to catch a fast-moving car with all your scavenged loot inside. As the game progresses, you’ll start seeing more powerful Rival troops on the world map. Approach them with caution (and several specialists).
The base game is also receiving an update with a number of quality-of-life improvements, user interface additions and bug fixes. Most notably the main quest now has mid-quest rewards, permanent effects are now visible in the Statistics screen so you can see which affect your colony, and a toggle for faster world map animations has been added to the Settings menu. Check all improvements and fixes from the Changelog: Update 4 link below.
IMAGE: Colony beauty shot
We hope you’ll jump in and discover all that the New Alliances DLC has to offer in terms of new buildings, tactics and decisions. There’s a lot to play around with from deciding who to help and who to hinder, and which powerful rewards to go for. So prepare yourself against bandits, rivals and sandworms alike to unite the wasteland!
As we’ve mentioned before, New Alliances will be released for PC platforms first while we continue working on the console counterparts, so stay tuned!
Surviving the Aftermath: New Alliances is available now on Steam and Epic Store. It is also included as a part of the Ultimate Colony Upgrade with more DLC to come later.
Changelog
General
Added Main Quest rewards.
Gather enough Main Quest knowledge to unlock new modifiers that improve your colony, or alternatively, choose a resource reward instead.
Each knowledge type (Life Support, Medicine, Defense and Ecosystem) gives different rewards.
Added a new Global Effects tab in the statistics menu:
Other: displays modifiers that affect the whole colony.
Custom game settings: displays the chosen custom game settings.
Added a setting for faster World Map animations.
Increases the animation speed of World Map actions, such as specialist movement.
Changed the way that other societies spawn in the World Map.
Societies now spawn randomly to improve gameplay variation.
Previously certain societies always spawned in the World Map, such as Lushton.
Added the New Alliances DLC banner to the Main Menu.
The banner is visible for players that do not have the New Alliances DLC.
The banner changes to a DLC toggle button for players that have the New Alliances DLC enabled.
Gameplay
The carrier bringing the last resource to a construction zone should now start constructing the building.
Previously a random worker would start constructing the building.
Defeating bandit camps in the World Map now gives resource rewards based on the location.
For example, defeating bandits in a research location will reward the player with science points.
Defeating bandit sectors gives a currency reward.
Notifications that have many targets can now be selected multiple times to go through all the affected targets.
Affects all notifications, such as “constructions finished” and “colonists are injured”.
Previously, clicking on the notification moved the camera to the first affected target.
Research queue now takes the active research into account when choosing its path. This should make the research queue work much smoother.
The top row was prioritized before. This change fixes the issue where a tech has been researched on the bottom row and it would still queue techs through the top row.
Low HP colonists will now visit Medical Tents or Field Hospitals to heal themselves.
Colonists often had very low health that caused unintended deaths caused by hunger, malnutrition etc.
Guards are now more effective as they will heal themselves if their health drops low enough.
Critical conditions from workers in entertainment and sanitary buildings are not instantly removed anymore.
Building many saunas or entertainment buildings reduced the amount of conditions given to colonists in different situations.
Specialists can now be commanded to move to the exact same location as the previous specialist. This was mainly an issue on a controller.
Removed camera centering when exiting specialist menu while using a controller.
Previously, the camera moved to the player’s colony when the specialist menu was exited.
Added a notification when finding a new building in the colony view. Mainly affects the Cold Rush scenario right now.
Percentage bonuses from techs now stack cumulatively. Only the latest percentage bonus was active previously.
Main quest gives percentage rewards that affect the whole colony. This change was added so that the rewards can stack with all other percentage modifiers e.g. building durability.
Graphics
Polished the Society Menu.
Removed unnecessary society introduction texts.
Added “Trade offers available” text.
Added reputation text and icon.
Other smaller image, text and icon changes in different society menu panels.
Polished all World Map panels.
Increased the size of World Map panels and the texts in them.
Made the Society panel more concise.
Improved textures for Wind Turbine, Food Storage, Tent, Emergency Shelter and Trapper.
Balance Adjustments
Added resource rewards to the early stages of the main quest.
Rewards have been added throughout the main quest to make it more compelling to do.
Hungry colonists now seek food when hunger is at 20%, was 10% previously
We received many comments about colonists dying from hunger, even though there was plenty of food available in the colony. This change should reduce the times random hunger deaths happen.
Tired colonists now seek shelter to sleep in when tiredness is at 20%, was 10% previously.
Bug Fixes
Xbox only: fixed an issue that caused Wind Turbine, Lightning Rod, Lightning Tower and Martian Wind Turbine to be unrepairable when the Ultimate Colony DLC was active.
Fixed an issue that caused the colonists to run in place and the game would reset to day 0 when loading a save where a building has just been destroyed before saving.
Changed the wording for “wasteland biome” in multiple languages in the main quest. This caused misunderstandings in the main quest step that required an outpost to be built on the wasteland biome.
Dev Diary Teaser - New Alliances
Greetings survivors old and new!
We’re very excited to reveal what we’ve been doing amidst all the updates up to this point. It’s the first part of our Season Pass and will be released very soon. Here are some of its key features which gives the game’s sandbox a whole new dimension with more replayability and new challenges!
Surviving the Aftermath: ”New Alliances” adds an in-depth layer to world map societies and a new, powerful rival faction as your adversary. Help your neighbours deal with new threats and gain unique rewards while uniting the wasteland under a single banner! Or use your specialists to conduct covert missions inside other societies for your own gain…
Form the federation Assist societies and complete requests to gain enough reputation to ally with them. Build embassies to unlock unique permanent bonuses and buildings for your colony. Help your alliance population grow and bring the wasteland on your side by forming a federation!
Rival faction A powerful opposing faction has taken an interest in your part of the world. Their control over societies grows every time you ignore or fail requests, so fight back by helping those in need or use specialists to reduce rival influence.
Covert missions Your specialists can now embark on covert missions within societies to steal resources or incite its population. But beware as the same tricks can be used against you! Build new protective buildings such as Surveillance Vans and Anti-propaganda Towers to defend against these attacks.
Roaming bandits and animals Bandits, society convoys and even animals are now active on the world map. Move out of their way or risk an attack. Raid convoys for loot or defeat bandits for loot and reputation. Hostile units can even take over your outposts, so be prepared to clear them out to resume production.
Dev Diary - Free Update #3
Greetings once again, survivors!
With the Lunar New Year celebrations passed, we’re back with a new and quite a hefty update. It includes the already teased new game mode “Scenarios” with two winter-themed experiences along with a ton of other improvements to logistics, statistics and so on. But wait, there’s more! In addition to this new twist on the familiar gameplay, we’re also bringing you Custom Game mode. It allows players to really tweak the experience how they want with dozens of new settings from a very laid-back experience to a pure horror show.
Scenarios allow you to dive into Surviving the Aftermath’s sandbox with new themes and twists on the basic formula, adding more replayability to the game. Some offer a more compact and narrative-driven experience with heavily modified rules while others throw a wrench in the works on how the long-form game plays out. This might mean a permanent weather effect or limiting the tools at your disposal, forcing you to overcome obstacles in new ways. In “Cold Rush” you start with a small colony suffering from a permanent winter storm with no other option than to find a way out. Explore and exploit your surroundings to guide the colonists away from the cold in a way previously unseen in the game. “Eternal Winter” is a more traditional sandbox experience with a never-ending winter storm along with custom rules. Can you survive in an environment where open field farming is no longer an option and the ever-present cold takes a constant toll on your colonists?
You’ve requested the ability to customize your playthrough further, and here it is. The new Custom Game adds dozens of settings you can flip around to tailor the experience to your liking. Disable catastrophes, increase the number of starting specialists and remove death by old age completely for a more chill game. Remove societies, halve food nutrition and disable childbirth to really ramp up the difficulty. You can also adjust map generation even further with more soil settings, amount of terrain features, forest coverage, amount of lakes and more. On PC it’s also possible to remove the population cap completely. Since these settings can drastically change the difficulty level, achievements will be disabled in custom game mode. There’s a lot to experiment with, so give it a go!
On the logistics front, you can now control how goods are distributed around the colony by controlling which storages request and receive various resources. These “storage requests” allow players to move and maintain specific amounts of resources between storages to create independent production areas or distribute food more evenly around the colony map. You can, for example, add a storage request for meals at the food storage next to a metal production site, so your workers don’t need to walk all the way to the colony center to eat. This, with workers living close to their job from the previous update, allows you to spread around the map more efficiently. Carriers will also divide big tasks between more people, so you should see large stacks of resources move faster - provided you have idle colonists available.
The map seed for your generated game world is now visible and customizable. This allows you to save interesting maps to be reused on subsequent playthroughs or shared with the community. Your current map seed is visible in the lower right corner in the pause menu. The first set of numbers refers to the various map parameters while the second set shows your pregame selections in numerical fashion.
In other improvements, the statistics overview page has been completely overhauled. Instead of the massive spreadsheet of already known info, it has several sections with high-level info with more detailed data in the right column. All types of wind turbines are now less effective when placed next to trees to make solar panels a bit more competitive in your colony’s energy production and add a layer of planning required for your wind parks. Specialists will now move and spend their Action Points immediately at the beginning of a new day, if you’ve set a destination for them. This was done to make the multi-turn movement feature clearer when you order them to return to the colony, for example. The full list of balance changes and improvements can be found in the patch notes post, as usual.
And here we are! The new game modes, logistics upgrades and other additions should provide a lot of replayability for Surviving the Aftermath, so we sincerely hope you’ll enjoy them! We’d love to hear in comments what you think of the new scenarios, and what you’d want to see next.
When starting a new game, you will now be asked to choose from either the original New Game, creating a Custom game or starting a Scenario.
Creating a Custom game allows you to change various different settings in your game.
The older pregame settings are still present, as are a lot of new settings such as changing the sizes of deposits, the amount of features in the colony terrain and altering the birth rate in the colony.
Please note that some settings will not be present on all platforms due to performance limitations.
Playing the game in a custom mode will disable the ability to unlock any achievements. They can still be unlocked normally by playing the original version of the game.
We have also added two new Scenarios to the game.
These scenarios will challenge your skills in surviving.
The Cold Rush scenario will give you a challenge unlike before where you must find a way to escape the cold within the time given to you!
The Eternal Winter scenario will not restrict the amount of time you have however as implied by the name, the colony is under constant winter! Can you survive and be able to finish the main quest?
Note: Due to technical limitations these scenarios will not be available on the Switch. We are working on bringing them to the Switch as well in a future update if possible.
The ability to select the Map Seed has also been added to the pregame settings for the Normal Game.
Using a specific Map Seed will allow you to have the exact same colony, world map and pregame settings as in a previous game.
The Map Seed can be seen in the bottom right corner when the Pause Menu is accessed in game.
On the PC the seed can also be copied to clipboard by clicking on the button next to it.
The Map Seed is only visible in new games started after the game has been updated.
Once you have the Map Seed you wish to apply in your next game, you can edit this in the Summary page of the Pregame Selections when starting the new game.
The Statistics Menu’s Overview page has been redone.
We’ve clarified the Overview page of the menu and added in new information to be visible.
Each section will show more detailed information when hovered over.
Note that the information shown here will not count what happened in the save before the game was updated.
For example Techs unlocked will only show what techs you have researched after updating and continuing with your save.
Added an option to storage buildings that allows you to select a resource that the colonists will bring to that specific storage building.
You can select this resource from each storage building by selecting the building first and then selecting the slot under the Request resources section.
After selecting a resource you will be able to select the amount of that resource you want carriers to bring to this storage building.
This change also added the option to select how many resources you wish buildings such as the Burner to hold in them.
Gameplay
Specialists on the World Map that have queued movement will now move automatically when their APs are filled.
Previously they would move only right before their APs would be filled again, causing confusion if they are actually using the queued movement.
Now if there is a target set for them, the Specialists will immediately move or start action once the APs are filled.
Wind Turbines are now affected by trees that are close by.
All Wind Turbines will now show a radius around them when being placed and when selected in the colony.
All trees within this area will have an effect on the efficiency of the turbine.
Note that the efficiency of the turbine can change if trees grow or are cut down around it.
Changed how the carriers can carry resources to construction zones.
Previously only one colonist could carry a specific type of resource, causing construction zones to wait for resources longer.
Now multiple carriers can bring the same resource to the construction zone which should allow construction to be faster.
Snow on the terrain and ground is now shown immediately when saves are loaded instead of requiring the game to be unpaused first.
Fixed an issue that would cause some sectors to block outposts from being built without any visible reason.
Children should no longer visually all try to go to the same one school.
The bug would cause all children to visually try and be at the same school despite being in different schools’ occupants lists.
Now they should all go to their corresponding schools.
Colonists should now run inside their homes if they are fleeing instead of running in front of them.
Fixed an issue that would prevent saving the game after an error happened with broken Solar Panels.
The game should no longer spawn any events if the Game Over screen has been shown.
Colonists should no longer run inside resource boxes for a moment before they pick the box up.
Added a failsafe to the game that prevents quest locations from spawning into unreachable places in the World Map.
Fixed an issue with the indicator arrows that would cause them to point wrong when playing with specific resolutions.
Fixed an issue that would cause the game to focus on the notifications instead of rotating the building when the corresponding button was pressed on the controller.
The Escape button will now cancel building placement even after moving the camera with the mouse while in placement mode.
Upgrading the campsite should no longer reset the allowed resources that were selected in the previous version of it.
Fixed an issue that would cause a Specialist to be stuck in the colony until commanded after saving and loading the game.
Construction zones that have been canceled will now also show a floater similarly to buildings that are being demolished.
If colonists have nothing to do they should now idle close to their home or workplace instead of close to the Campsite.
This should now allow your colonists to be in proximity to their workplace and be able to start work faster when they are able to.
Fixed an issue that would cause several tutorials to show at one time or cause them to become stuck.
The Building Health Overlay will now show the Repair floaters on top of damaged buildings.
A limit to how many buildings and how many tiles of road can be built has been added to the game on the Switch.
This was put in place to ensure the game can still function without issues even after progressing further in the game.
Graphics
Added new icons for Insect and Plant seeds to the game.
These should now be easy to differentiate from the actual resource itself, especially when trading with societies.
Updated the Pregame selection header panel and some button icons.
Floaters should no longer appear grainy or pale in the game.
This issue was most visible when playing on the Switch.
Crops growing on open fields should no longer be invisible.
This issue was most visible when playing on the Switch.
Building decals should now always be shown despite having low graphics settings.
Trees should no longer flicker during catastrophes.
This behavior was visible especially when playing on consoles.
Updated images for a few events in the game.
Balance Adjustments
Switch only: The speed of gathering knowledge for the main quest has been increased by 50%. This adjustment was done to compensate for the smaller World Map that is generated on the Switch due to technical limitations.
The skills of each starting Specialists have been adjusted to ensure that they all have the best values in their respective skill based on their archetype.
When a building is demolished, you will now gain back 75% of the construction costs.
