Dream Engines: Nomad Cities - Ruins Update is live
Overseers,
The ruins update is our first major update since releasing the alpha of Dream Engines two months ago. In this update our focus was to address the main issues we identified in all the feedback our alpha players sent.
I'd like to once again thank all our early supporters and all of you who sent us feedback. It has been invaluable for improving the game, and I hope you enjoy this new build. If you haven't joined our alpha yet, check out our supporters page to find out more.
Below is a list of the most significant changes in this update. You can see the full list of changes in this link.
Note: Saves from alpha 1 are no longer supported. If you wish to continue your old games, you can still play the older version by selecting Alpha 1 from the betas tab on Steam.
[h2]Ruins, debris, and new content[/h2]
The largest change in this update is the addition of ancient ruins that you can find around the map. These ruins hold ancient machinery that can be used to craft unique equipment that can't be researched or crafted otherwise, or you can scrap the ruins for resources. Every map has one main ruins building, and every such building has a different selection of items, randomly chosen depending on the map difficulty and the type of ruins. There are 3 ruins types, and you can see which one will appear in each map in the destination selection window. You can only craft one item per ruins building (2 at higher difficulty maps), so you must choose carefully.
To craft items at these ruins, you'll need various resources, including the new "Old-world Scraps" resource. These scraps can be found in debris that we added for you to destroy all around the map, by destroying the smaller ruins around the main ruins building, or by scrapping the main building instead of crafting in it.
Some of the items that can be crafted at the ruins are unique and can have a significant impact on your game. This improves the game's replay value, by adding a random element that has significant effect on your game, yet is "nice to have", so you won't win or lose just because the gods of chance chose to give you this or that item. Some of these items include melee weapons that deal AOE damage, different variations of the starwood and copper armor that don't affect movement speed, and a repeating crossbow that has a very long range.
The more interesting items include "Modules" that can be installed in the character screen, but only one of each type can be active at any time. There are two types, one for the mech that provide combat or exploration bonuses (such as speed boost, beserker module, tank module, and a module that turns your ranged attacks to AOE), the other for the city (such as a module that reduces the rate at which the threat level increases, or makes your refineries "green" producing resources slower but using up less raw materials).
There are also special utility items, such as one that gives you extra infrastructure points (without increasing the upgrade parts cost of future upgrades), one that lets you expand your city area even before you research the relevant tech (and also doesn't increase the cost of the next expansion), a consumable that lets you place small turrets anywhere, and a construction kit that lets you build Tarbomb turrets - AOE turrets to protect your city.
[h2]Avoiding enemy shots[/h2]
Originally we aimed to make the combat more dependant on your equipment, abilities and stats rather than skill. However, we heard your feedback, almost everyone that played the game complained to the fact that ranged enemy attacks always hit even if you moved away. So now you can avoid enemy shots.
This has some balancing implications. Ranged enemies now have faster rate of fire (and also a small penalty in damage but overall their DPS is higher), and we also increased the walls health to make up for it (walls can't avoid shots). Your steambot's melee attacks now deal significantly more damage than ranged attacks, to make up for the inability to evade shots at melee range. Melee enemies now have faster attack animations and a lower attack range, so they always hit if you enter their range.
[h2]Fuel, glow honey, the cauldron[/h2]
Fuel now becomes a more meaningful element of your economy. Instead of just crafting it from Flux, you now need to find a new resource (Glow Honey) after researching the correct tech, in order to produce fuel at a new building called The Cauldron.
Glow honey, unlike other resources, can only be collected through a harvester that you need to research, so you can't just punch it to collect. It also never runs out, so once you find a node and build a harvester, the longer you can protect it and stay in the map, the more of it you can collect. On the other hand, glow honey is harvested much slower than other resources, so you do need to find it early and collect as much of it as you can. Fuel crafting is also very slow, much slower than collecting glow honey, so your cauldrons will continue working even when you are unable to collect the resource.
Glow honey only appears at difficulty levels 3 or higher, so you need to keep an eye on your fuel reserves before you are advanced enough to survive in those levels. When relaxed mode is on, you start with more fuel, so you can explore more landing locations before having to reach level 3 to get fuel, and you can also find fuel in some ruins to stretch that even longer.
All in all, fuel is now a more significant resource, and it will become even more significant once we implement the explorable world map system in later updates.
[h2]Difficulty customization, scoring, and Ironman mode[/h2]
We received a lot of feedback on the game's difficulty, and not all of it was the same. Some thought that it was good as it was, others felt it was too hard and preferred a bit less of a challenge when they're just getting started. A few even felt it was too easy. So it seemed there was no one size fits all solution to this - the best option was to let you choose how you want to experience the game.
From now, when starting a new game, there are many options to customize the difficulty level. These include control of the map size (larger maps are considered harder because they take more time to explore and have more empty areas), the amount of enemies you will face, how fast the threat level increases, how fast the global infestation level increases (including the relaxed mode which means that global infestation does not increase over time), and a very important Ironman mode which is on by default.
Each difficulty setting will affect your score multiplier, and at the end of every game, win or lose, you will be scored according to you achievements in the game, and that score will be multiplied by the difficulty multiplier.
The new Ironman mode will be on by default, this is how the game was meant to be played. It means that you have a single save file per game, which is automatically overwritten every time you exit the game. If you lose, the save file is deleted. Still, for those of you who prefer to have the option to save, try something, then reload if it fails - you can turn this mode off in the new game difficulty settings.
[h2]Intersections and resource controls[/h2]
There are two important additions to your resource management options. One is intersections - whenever you build two rail sections so that they cross each other, an intersection will be created to allow carts from these two sections to cross one another without creating a traffic jam. Two carts can move in the intersection tile at the same time from different directions, and this allows for much better rail system planning.
The other addition grants you the ability to determine how much of a certain resource needs to be available in the storage building before it is sent out to a specific output slot. For example, you can create an output that sends bloodwood planks to the workshop for the production of upgrade parts, only if you have at least 50 planks remaining in storage. That way you always make sure you have at least 50 planks for building walls and turrets. You can then add another output slot for planks for producing Starwood, and this time set the limit to 60. That means that if there is a shortage of planks, they will be used for upgrade parts first, and only then turned to starwood.
[h2]Tesla cells & acid shards[/h2]
Tesla cells are no longer crafted from Livewire (dropped by tier 2 cable snake enemies). Instead, they are produced in the workshop, and use a large amount of power plus some acid shards. Tesla cells were also made a more significant part of the economy, used not only to craft a weapon or two, but instead they are used in several building upgrades, equipment, and equipment upgrades.
Since Tesla cells are now produced from Acid Shards, and are now more widely used, we also added an acid shard harvester building to automate gathering this resource and increase the yield of each node.
Since Livewire is no longer used to craft Tesla cells, we had to find new uses for it, so we added more advanced crafting recipes for the Remote Surge AOE attack consumable, and for starwood & copper repair kits. These advanced versions cost livewire in addition to the regular resources, and deal / heal more damage. There is also a new crafting recipe to process Drep parts for flux, that uses livewire to enhance its efficiency.
[h2]Materializer[/h2]
This new building allows production of featherstone and bloodwood logs directly in the city, without having to search for resoruce nodes. It only uses renewable resources such as flux, tar and purptatoes - however it is expensive to build and maintain. If your economy is strong enough, this building can significantly reduce the time you have to spend exploring and harvesting these resources.
[h2]Moving towers?[/h2]
You can now move defensive towers between raids. As long as there is no active raid or upcoming raid marker on the map, you can move these towers and re-organize your city.
[h2]Got questions?[/h2]
Remember to check the full list of changes on our website.
If you have any questions, join our discord and chat with the team!
The ruins update is our first major update since releasing the alpha of Dream Engines two months ago. In this update our focus was to address the main issues we identified in all the feedback our alpha players sent.
I'd like to once again thank all our early supporters and all of you who sent us feedback. It has been invaluable for improving the game, and I hope you enjoy this new build. If you haven't joined our alpha yet, check out our supporters page to find out more.
Below is a list of the most significant changes in this update. You can see the full list of changes in this link.
Note: Saves from alpha 1 are no longer supported. If you wish to continue your old games, you can still play the older version by selecting Alpha 1 from the betas tab on Steam.
[h2]Ruins, debris, and new content[/h2]
The largest change in this update is the addition of ancient ruins that you can find around the map. These ruins hold ancient machinery that can be used to craft unique equipment that can't be researched or crafted otherwise, or you can scrap the ruins for resources. Every map has one main ruins building, and every such building has a different selection of items, randomly chosen depending on the map difficulty and the type of ruins. There are 3 ruins types, and you can see which one will appear in each map in the destination selection window. You can only craft one item per ruins building (2 at higher difficulty maps), so you must choose carefully.
To craft items at these ruins, you'll need various resources, including the new "Old-world Scraps" resource. These scraps can be found in debris that we added for you to destroy all around the map, by destroying the smaller ruins around the main ruins building, or by scrapping the main building instead of crafting in it.
Some of the items that can be crafted at the ruins are unique and can have a significant impact on your game. This improves the game's replay value, by adding a random element that has significant effect on your game, yet is "nice to have", so you won't win or lose just because the gods of chance chose to give you this or that item. Some of these items include melee weapons that deal AOE damage, different variations of the starwood and copper armor that don't affect movement speed, and a repeating crossbow that has a very long range.
The more interesting items include "Modules" that can be installed in the character screen, but only one of each type can be active at any time. There are two types, one for the mech that provide combat or exploration bonuses (such as speed boost, beserker module, tank module, and a module that turns your ranged attacks to AOE), the other for the city (such as a module that reduces the rate at which the threat level increases, or makes your refineries "green" producing resources slower but using up less raw materials).
There are also special utility items, such as one that gives you extra infrastructure points (without increasing the upgrade parts cost of future upgrades), one that lets you expand your city area even before you research the relevant tech (and also doesn't increase the cost of the next expansion), a consumable that lets you place small turrets anywhere, and a construction kit that lets you build Tarbomb turrets - AOE turrets to protect your city.
[h2]Avoiding enemy shots[/h2]
Originally we aimed to make the combat more dependant on your equipment, abilities and stats rather than skill. However, we heard your feedback, almost everyone that played the game complained to the fact that ranged enemy attacks always hit even if you moved away. So now you can avoid enemy shots.
This has some balancing implications. Ranged enemies now have faster rate of fire (and also a small penalty in damage but overall their DPS is higher), and we also increased the walls health to make up for it (walls can't avoid shots). Your steambot's melee attacks now deal significantly more damage than ranged attacks, to make up for the inability to evade shots at melee range. Melee enemies now have faster attack animations and a lower attack range, so they always hit if you enter their range.
[h2]Fuel, glow honey, the cauldron[/h2]
Fuel now becomes a more meaningful element of your economy. Instead of just crafting it from Flux, you now need to find a new resource (Glow Honey) after researching the correct tech, in order to produce fuel at a new building called The Cauldron.
Glow honey, unlike other resources, can only be collected through a harvester that you need to research, so you can't just punch it to collect. It also never runs out, so once you find a node and build a harvester, the longer you can protect it and stay in the map, the more of it you can collect. On the other hand, glow honey is harvested much slower than other resources, so you do need to find it early and collect as much of it as you can. Fuel crafting is also very slow, much slower than collecting glow honey, so your cauldrons will continue working even when you are unable to collect the resource.
Glow honey only appears at difficulty levels 3 or higher, so you need to keep an eye on your fuel reserves before you are advanced enough to survive in those levels. When relaxed mode is on, you start with more fuel, so you can explore more landing locations before having to reach level 3 to get fuel, and you can also find fuel in some ruins to stretch that even longer.
All in all, fuel is now a more significant resource, and it will become even more significant once we implement the explorable world map system in later updates.
[h2]Difficulty customization, scoring, and Ironman mode[/h2]
We received a lot of feedback on the game's difficulty, and not all of it was the same. Some thought that it was good as it was, others felt it was too hard and preferred a bit less of a challenge when they're just getting started. A few even felt it was too easy. So it seemed there was no one size fits all solution to this - the best option was to let you choose how you want to experience the game.
From now, when starting a new game, there are many options to customize the difficulty level. These include control of the map size (larger maps are considered harder because they take more time to explore and have more empty areas), the amount of enemies you will face, how fast the threat level increases, how fast the global infestation level increases (including the relaxed mode which means that global infestation does not increase over time), and a very important Ironman mode which is on by default.
Each difficulty setting will affect your score multiplier, and at the end of every game, win or lose, you will be scored according to you achievements in the game, and that score will be multiplied by the difficulty multiplier.
The new Ironman mode will be on by default, this is how the game was meant to be played. It means that you have a single save file per game, which is automatically overwritten every time you exit the game. If you lose, the save file is deleted. Still, for those of you who prefer to have the option to save, try something, then reload if it fails - you can turn this mode off in the new game difficulty settings.
[h2]Intersections and resource controls[/h2]
There are two important additions to your resource management options. One is intersections - whenever you build two rail sections so that they cross each other, an intersection will be created to allow carts from these two sections to cross one another without creating a traffic jam. Two carts can move in the intersection tile at the same time from different directions, and this allows for much better rail system planning.
The other addition grants you the ability to determine how much of a certain resource needs to be available in the storage building before it is sent out to a specific output slot. For example, you can create an output that sends bloodwood planks to the workshop for the production of upgrade parts, only if you have at least 50 planks remaining in storage. That way you always make sure you have at least 50 planks for building walls and turrets. You can then add another output slot for planks for producing Starwood, and this time set the limit to 60. That means that if there is a shortage of planks, they will be used for upgrade parts first, and only then turned to starwood.
[h2]Tesla cells & acid shards[/h2]
Tesla cells are no longer crafted from Livewire (dropped by tier 2 cable snake enemies). Instead, they are produced in the workshop, and use a large amount of power plus some acid shards. Tesla cells were also made a more significant part of the economy, used not only to craft a weapon or two, but instead they are used in several building upgrades, equipment, and equipment upgrades.
Since Tesla cells are now produced from Acid Shards, and are now more widely used, we also added an acid shard harvester building to automate gathering this resource and increase the yield of each node.
Since Livewire is no longer used to craft Tesla cells, we had to find new uses for it, so we added more advanced crafting recipes for the Remote Surge AOE attack consumable, and for starwood & copper repair kits. These advanced versions cost livewire in addition to the regular resources, and deal / heal more damage. There is also a new crafting recipe to process Drep parts for flux, that uses livewire to enhance its efficiency.
[h2]Materializer[/h2]
This new building allows production of featherstone and bloodwood logs directly in the city, without having to search for resoruce nodes. It only uses renewable resources such as flux, tar and purptatoes - however it is expensive to build and maintain. If your economy is strong enough, this building can significantly reduce the time you have to spend exploring and harvesting these resources.
[h2]Moving towers?[/h2]
You can now move defensive towers between raids. As long as there is no active raid or upcoming raid marker on the map, you can move these towers and re-organize your city.
[h2]Got questions?[/h2]
Remember to check the full list of changes on our website.
If you have any questions, join our discord and chat with the team!