Developer’s Log #6: Update 3
Hello everyone!
The golems have just opened up the terraforming business, and yet here we are, talking Update 3. That’s because things will be different this time around. In Update 3, we plan to improve the core of the game across the board, based on the popular requests we see on Steam, Feature Upvote, Discord, and other channels. Read on and let us know what you think!
Yes, with Update 3, the technology is here - you are able to recover some materials from the buildings you remove. With Timberborn’s focus on verticality and limited space, the player sometimes needs to remove a portion of their settlement to fix something, and losing all resources in the process feels bad. We're changing that now. As an added benefit, this also means you can treat your buildings as emergency sources of goods that are urgently needed elsewhere.
We didn’t want this feature to be as simple as “hit delete, Irrigation Tower disappears, resource numbers go up”. You do delete buildings instantly but the recovered materials first appear on the ground and need to be picked up by your dwellers. Beavers can pass through the rubble, and you can place paths underneath.
Also, you still can use the deletion tool to remove multiple buildings at once. In fact, it is oddly satisfying.
Maintaining the warehouses in their current state can be tedious, especially in larger colonies with tons of goods and multiple districts in operation. That’s why for Update 3, we are redesigning the entire system to make it easier to control what is stored where. Please note that this rework affects a key in-game system - treat what we describe below as a work in progress, as it may undergo significant changes before Update 3 even hits the Experimental branch.
First of all, we are getting rid of the messy warehouses that accept anything from potatoes to golem limbs. Each warehouse will now only store a single resource picked by the player. To implement that change and make manipulating the numbers easier, we are rebalancing the capacities and redesigning the warehouses. Folktails, of course, keep their unique Underground Warehouses.
Warehouses’ UI no longer includes the ‘Desired’ amount setting. We found it to be widely misunderstood and with the redesigned storage system, it would be even less useful. As a consequence, the ‘Distribute goods between warehouses when idle’ checkbox has also been removed. We are considering adding some form of warehouse priorities as a substitute for Desired amounts - let us know your thoughts!
At the same time, resource-specific piles and tanks (such as Log Piles or Catalyst Tanks) are going away, replaced with universal storage units that work similarly to the new warehouses. Dirt, Logs and Metal Scrap now use the Pile (or the stackable Industrial Pile if you’re Iron Teeth). To store fluids (Water, Biofuel, Maple Syrup and Pine Resin), your beavers will use three new universal tanks of different capacities.
The new system will introduce more visual variety to your colonies as a positive side effect. The stored good is always displayed on a model for each warehouse, pile and tank! And since crates containing goods are now color-coded, you can easily tell what that particular busy beaver is carrying without a single click.
Finally, if you want to quickly see where your goods are stored, we are also introducing a special UI overlay to Timberborn. At a hit of a button, all warehouses display what and how much they hold. This opens the door to adding further overlays - as long as having them makes sense.
As for moving your beavers and golems between districts, you generally liked what we had in the final iteration of Update 2 - but we knew there were still several areas we could improve.
In Update 3, the Settlement Panel’s UI receives several tweaks aimed at improving its clarity, further helped by the addition of Giant Blue Arrows in the game world. The arrows connect the centers of the two districts you’re moving units between. This makes navigating a colony easier and faster because guess what, the game no longer pauses when the Settlement Panel opens.
We have heard the concern that golems, while functionally useful, are a bit too far on the sci-fi side of things and did not fit Timberborn’s aesthetics - so we’ve redesigned them! We’re happy to announce that they will now sport a new, more neutral and beaver-ish look.
By the way, we took this opportunity to rename them. Golems shall now be called “Bots”, with Barrelbots renamed to Timberbots, and Cogheads now known as Ironbots. This should better explain the unit’s role to the new players while also helping alleviate the “magical” vibe the term “golem” evokes.
With Update 3, we also begin our long-term work on making the beaver factions more unique. Folktails and Iron Teeth do have several key differences (vat-grown kits say hi!) but we’d like to crank that up. We want each faction to have a stronger identity, boast a unique look, and offer a vastly different gameplay experience. Some changes will be as simple as updating models of shared buildings. Here are some concepts for the new Iron Teeth Inventor’s Hut with the new bot portraits as a bonus.
And here's how it looks in-game:
The other changes will be much more drastic, such as an upcoming redesign of Iron Teeth’s food production. We'll be implementing unique buildings, crops and production chains - as you can imagine, changes like this make achieving our ultimate goal a huge undertaking. This means the IT food rework may or may not be part of Update 3, and we expect the work on the 'making factions more unique' project to continue even after U3 ships.
The new stuff will drop onto the Experimental Branch in several rounds. Over time, we’ll continue to add more and iterate based on the players’ feedback. As is with us, no dates yet, but… Update 3, Part 1 is coming to the Experimental branch soon. Be on the lookout!
In the meantime, may we recommend... Going Medieval? Timberborn is now available bundled with the acclaimed base-building game by our friends Foxy Voxel - with a discount no less. So if you want to use your beaver architect skills to build a multi-storey medieval hooman castle, go for it now!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/28776/Timberborn_Going_Medieval/
Until next time!
Team Timberborn
The golems have just opened up the terraforming business, and yet here we are, talking Update 3. That’s because things will be different this time around. In Update 3, we plan to improve the core of the game across the board, based on the popular requests we see on Steam, Feature Upvote, Discord, and other channels. Read on and let us know what you think!
Recyclable buildings
Yes, with Update 3, the technology is here - you are able to recover some materials from the buildings you remove. With Timberborn’s focus on verticality and limited space, the player sometimes needs to remove a portion of their settlement to fix something, and losing all resources in the process feels bad. We're changing that now. As an added benefit, this also means you can treat your buildings as emergency sources of goods that are urgently needed elsewhere.
We didn’t want this feature to be as simple as “hit delete, Irrigation Tower disappears, resource numbers go up”. You do delete buildings instantly but the recovered materials first appear on the ground and need to be picked up by your dwellers. Beavers can pass through the rubble, and you can place paths underneath.
Also, you still can use the deletion tool to remove multiple buildings at once. In fact, it is oddly satisfying.
Storage wars
Maintaining the warehouses in their current state can be tedious, especially in larger colonies with tons of goods and multiple districts in operation. That’s why for Update 3, we are redesigning the entire system to make it easier to control what is stored where. Please note that this rework affects a key in-game system - treat what we describe below as a work in progress, as it may undergo significant changes before Update 3 even hits the Experimental branch.
First of all, we are getting rid of the messy warehouses that accept anything from potatoes to golem limbs. Each warehouse will now only store a single resource picked by the player. To implement that change and make manipulating the numbers easier, we are rebalancing the capacities and redesigning the warehouses. Folktails, of course, keep their unique Underground Warehouses.
Warehouses’ UI no longer includes the ‘Desired’ amount setting. We found it to be widely misunderstood and with the redesigned storage system, it would be even less useful. As a consequence, the ‘Distribute goods between warehouses when idle’ checkbox has also been removed. We are considering adding some form of warehouse priorities as a substitute for Desired amounts - let us know your thoughts!
At the same time, resource-specific piles and tanks (such as Log Piles or Catalyst Tanks) are going away, replaced with universal storage units that work similarly to the new warehouses. Dirt, Logs and Metal Scrap now use the Pile (or the stackable Industrial Pile if you’re Iron Teeth). To store fluids (Water, Biofuel, Maple Syrup and Pine Resin), your beavers will use three new universal tanks of different capacities.
The new system will introduce more visual variety to your colonies as a positive side effect. The stored good is always displayed on a model for each warehouse, pile and tank! And since crates containing goods are now color-coded, you can easily tell what that particular busy beaver is carrying without a single click.
Finally, if you want to quickly see where your goods are stored, we are also introducing a special UI overlay to Timberborn. At a hit of a button, all warehouses display what and how much they hold. This opens the door to adding further overlays - as long as having them makes sense.
Better migrations
As for moving your beavers and golems between districts, you generally liked what we had in the final iteration of Update 2 - but we knew there were still several areas we could improve.
In Update 3, the Settlement Panel’s UI receives several tweaks aimed at improving its clarity, further helped by the addition of Giant Blue Arrows in the game world. The arrows connect the centers of the two districts you’re moving units between. This makes navigating a colony easier and faster because guess what, the game no longer pauses when the Settlement Panel opens.
New golem (bot) models
We have heard the concern that golems, while functionally useful, are a bit too far on the sci-fi side of things and did not fit Timberborn’s aesthetics - so we’ve redesigned them! We’re happy to announce that they will now sport a new, more neutral and beaver-ish look.
By the way, we took this opportunity to rename them. Golems shall now be called “Bots”, with Barrelbots renamed to Timberbots, and Cogheads now known as Ironbots. This should better explain the unit’s role to the new players while also helping alleviate the “magical” vibe the term “golem” evokes.
Making factions more unique
With Update 3, we also begin our long-term work on making the beaver factions more unique. Folktails and Iron Teeth do have several key differences (vat-grown kits say hi!) but we’d like to crank that up. We want each faction to have a stronger identity, boast a unique look, and offer a vastly different gameplay experience. Some changes will be as simple as updating models of shared buildings. Here are some concepts for the new Iron Teeth Inventor’s Hut with the new bot portraits as a bonus.
And here's how it looks in-game:
The other changes will be much more drastic, such as an upcoming redesign of Iron Teeth’s food production. We'll be implementing unique buildings, crops and production chains - as you can imagine, changes like this make achieving our ultimate goal a huge undertaking. This means the IT food rework may or may not be part of Update 3, and we expect the work on the 'making factions more unique' project to continue even after U3 ships.
When does it ship?
The new stuff will drop onto the Experimental Branch in several rounds. Over time, we’ll continue to add more and iterate based on the players’ feedback. As is with us, no dates yet, but… Update 3, Part 1 is coming to the Experimental branch soon. Be on the lookout!
In the meantime, may we recommend... Going Medieval? Timberborn is now available bundled with the acclaimed base-building game by our friends Foxy Voxel - with a discount no less. So if you want to use your beaver architect skills to build a multi-storey medieval hooman castle, go for it now!
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/28776/Timberborn_Going_Medieval/
Until next time!
Team Timberborn