Increlution News

• Added a new render-buffer flush mechanic to the window manager which aims to tackle the render-buffer getting out-of-sync after minimizing the game on some Windows hardware configurations. Due to none of my testing hardware being affected by the issue, this solution is somewhat of a theoretical approach and not fully confirmed as effective, but community testing results look promising
  

Added additional data to the save for the restart generation feature (it takes one generation to properly populate this new data for your save)

• It now tracks whether you had encountered actions prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  
• It now tracks your game completion and longest life data prior to the current generation and resets that data on generation-restart
  

The new data above should tackle some edge-case issues where chapter completion records and automated backups could fail to fire if you: "completed a chapter, restarted that generation, and completed that chapter again". These bugs were limited to informational data and did not otherwise affect progression

• Fixed a bug that could cause combat stalling to proceed for explorations that were no longer available, if they were still in the queue due to being manually added
  
• Fixed a bug in chapter 5 where the prevent auto-refill setting could fail to trigger after automatically filling up on eggs, if the return to the children wasn't also automated

• Various hotfixes to tackle launch day issues with the QoL patch
  
• Fixed an issue in the new restart generation feature that caused story completion times to not properly reset, which could lead to incorrect displayed times (those prior to the restart). This effect was purely visual/informational, and had no impact on progression. This fix takes one or two restarts or reincarnations to correct itself in your save
  
• Fixed the top-right close button of the restart generation modal not working
  
• Fixed an issue that stopped the reverseSkillColors launch parameter from working
  

On another note, I'm aware that some Windows players are experiencing an issue where the video-buffer appears to get out of sync after minimizing the game. I am investigating this issue, but haven't been able to reproduce this on any of my testing devices. This leads me to believe it's either related to specific outdated GPU drivers, and/or GPU hardware scheduling being disabled in Windows (Windows Config > Monitors > Graphics settings > GPU hardware scheduling), although GPU hardware scheduling shouldn't be required (and can have mild performance downsides to other applications in Windows 10). I'll continue to monitor reports on this issue and attempt to resolve it when I can.

With this update I wanted to work through a significant amount of my feedback-backlog, primarily focusing on features that were too big to "pick up" during focused-developement cycles, such as content updates. It doesn't tackle the entirely of my list, but takes care of most things that don't have roadmap-benefits to hold off until more content is fleshed out.

Let's get straight to todays changes:

• Added an option to restart your current generation, at the cost of resetting progress obtained throughout that generation. This feature is aimed for the min-maxers among you, to allow you to correct mistakes (ex: when you misconfigured an automation) at the cost of taking a bit more time
  
• Added a new automation behavior setting for experienced players: "Override exhausted", allowing you to automatically (temporarily) adjust automation priorities for cooking jobs when you lose access to the related resource job. Aimed to minimize manual intervention of runs for the very min-maxing ones among you, as well as offer some extra optimization potential for others
  
• You can now bookmark automations, causing them to appear in a new bookmarks-tab (similar to chapter tabs). This allows you to create a quick-overview of automations you may frequently change, without having to adjust things throughout multiple tabs. This option appears after unlocking the chapter 3 automations tab (because it doesn't offer much value earlier, and could overwhelm new players)
  
• The top-bar time tooltip now displays maximum health gain for the next generation in real time
  
• The hourglass tooltip now displays related completions as well, rather than just being visible in the reincarnation screen
  
• The maximum health tooltip on the reincarnation screen now displays more detailed information as to what contributed to the multiplier (if above 1), and what you haven't completed yet. Aimed to be both informative, and a reminder when you forgot something earlier in the game
  
• Added an option to display instinct levels gained during the current generation to the skill tooltips (Settings > General > Tooltip instinct gain)
  
• Added an option to change what instinct-data is displayed on the reincarnation screen, with options: "Level", "Multiplier" (default/what it always has been), "Both" (Settings > Visual > Instinct display)
  
• You can now click the top-left "view last generation screen" button in the reincarnation screen, causing it to stay enabled until anything is clicked, rather than only when hovering the button. This allows you to view tooltips at their final states
  
• Added an option to change the volume of the sound notification (if you have that enabled)
  
• Added an option to display an additional pause button at the top of the queue, mainly for mouse-only players that were bothered by the button positions changing as the queue size changes. The big pause button remains visible for its "edge of your eye" UX purpose, this setting just adds an additional small persistent-location button if enabled
  
• Slightly reworked a chapter 8 job (catch seals) look-ahead safety feature so that it gradually introduces itself as you get faster between generations. This aims to make it less "interruptive" early on, while staying true to its design intention to prevent accidental deaths for unfortunate automation setups as you pass that part increasingly faster
  
• Fixed a visual bug that caused maximum health to include newly rewarded health too early when reloading the game while the reincarnation screen was shown
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented a chapter 5 job (eggs) from automating, if it was below the prevent auto-refill priority and another job had automation disabled. It's almost poetic how the eggs are what automation keeps breaking...
• Fixed a bug that could cause eating as a result of a damage job to surpass your maximum health, if said food healed more than your maximum health
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the auto-refill prevention setting to kick in when a manual action was visible but couldn't be started due to a missing requirement
  
• Added additional verification logic to the interface scale setting on launch, tackling an issue where it would incorrectly default to mid-scaling if the OS cache stored an incorrect scaling setting, or none at all
  
• Reworked the formula behind the screen scaling function, to reduce one pixel artifacts on various resolutions/scaling settings. One pixel lines with scaling can still slightly vary in when they become two pixel lines, but it should be far less frequent and limited to high screen resolutions
  
• Slightly adjusted the minimal screen sizes that are communicated to the OS, to better account for OS theme/window-manager additions such as top-bars at minimal size
  
• Added the --skipCloudSavePrompt launch parameter, for those that really don't want to enable Steam Cloud. I highly recommend against disabling Steam Cloud, but you can now stop the game from prompting you about it if you really want to
  

Some of these changes also form a preperation for future-features I'd like to add, such as the automation-override options internally being expandable to things like chapter 11 style content. However, it made more sense to flesh out more content before further polishing mechanics like that, as they could otherwise form creative constraints during content expansion. The same thing goes for Steam Achievements. I'm well aware that this is a highly requested feature, and one that I most certainly aim to add. But to determine a proper long-term value for Achievements, it feels more appropriate to hold off from defining them until the story is fleshed out further (possibly even completed).

[h2]So, what's next?[/h2]
With this done and live, I'll monitor bug-reports for a bit while starting the draft for new content. I've tested this update to a degree similar to most updates, so I don't expect many issues, if any at all. But I want to be well prepared to delve fully into content development again! Which will be the main focus for the next major update. I don't want to make too many specific promises as far as new content goes just yet, it's all far too subjected to change for that. But for those of you that want to stay posted as development progresses, I'll be moving back to the development diary during that development process!

Thanks for all the great feedback that largely inspired this update! Early Access is still pretty far from completed, but I feel that player feedback has already helped various aspects of the game reach a level of polish it wouldn't ever have without player participation!

Let me start off by thanking you for all the feedback that followed the release of chapters 10 & 11! With different people taking vastly different approaches to the same content, it was somewhat of a challenge to define the rough edges. But nothing is as helpful as in-depth thought-sharing of your experience to determine what to improve upon! So let’s get to the changes, I hope you’ll enjoy them!

[h2]Player feedback balance adjustments[/h2]

• Jobs that deal damage on completion (seals, magma, steel) now reduce your active food cooldowns by 10% of your maximum cooldown per completion as well. Providing an additional strategic element to tackle them through food variety. This aims to reduce a commonly reported frustration of "I get worse as I get faster" if properly utilized, without invalidating their place in the balance
  
• Chapter 8: Catch seal damage per completion was increased by 10%, to keep the initial pressure similar to how it was before, now that the cooldown reduction effect is added. It remains a clear buff for chapters 9+, but is initially fairly minor during chapter 8 (it's never a nerf either)
• Chapter 8: Catch seal now has additional safety logic, causing it to look a little ahead (one food cooldown) to prevent accidental automated deaths to the walrus fight. This should make it require less specific automation setups to comfortably pass at higher skill numbers
• Chapter 10: Mushroom school damage was increased by 12.5%, while required time/experience per completion was increased by 25%. Effectively making it 10% easier (damage per second), but in a way that benefits later stages of the chapter more than earlier stages
• Chapter 10: Added additional flavor text to the first dog exploration, to hint that you might want to explore that part even if you've already obtained the iron stick in chapter 3
• Chapter 11: Reduced the base difficulty of dodge by 20%, and the damage of trip by 12.5%. Aiming to soften the first phase for builds that are very low on agility (one of which is fairly commonly used)
  
• Chapter 11: The titanstone hut can no longer be finished after returning to the fight
• Added a new game plus perk that matches the fourth funnel
  

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• The inventory total food value tooltip now also displays uncooked food (after unlocking cooking for the first time)
  
• Reworked how food cooldowns internally behave when eating within the dynamic tick-range of 1-100ms, slightly increasing millisecond accuracy behind the scenes and aiming to tackle a rare situation where combat safety calculation could false-positive due to hardware delays or offline progress
  
• Chapter 10: Food-trade resource automation no longer continues to run food-jobs until it has enough food of that type to trade, but instead only triggers this automation for the very last food-job if total food is insufficient to trade. This way it should no longer interfere with manual min-maxing, while automation still uses the internal functionality
• Chapter 10: Food-trade no longer uses partial food-value food types during trades when it doesn't have enough of those to complete, to prevent wastage through previously getting combined with 1:1 food value trades
• Explorations that deal damage on completion now consume an additional food to reach maximum health, if health decay after completion would otherwise become deadly within one food cooldown. This mostly affects rare situations with low maximum health
  
• Action tooltips now update instantly when their automation unlock requirement is reduced by completing another action, instead of being somewhat delayed until something else triggered a tooltip update
  
• Chapter 11: The fourth funnel effect now updates affected tooltips more consistently/faster on completion
• Added additional logic to tackle the chapter 11 health bar element not visually updating during some first completions
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause low-priority jobs not to trigger, when no manual actions were present in chapter 5. Causing the game to require manual interaction when it shouldn't
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause combat-stalling logic to overwrite empty-food automation, if the food job was on a lower priority than other stalling options
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause automated jobs with additional requirements to get stuck in a loop (visual freeze) that required manual intervention, if job automations were prioritized in specific orders
  
• Fixed some story elements firing their "done this before" story alteration on first completions, after an earlier update changed how that was tracked internally
  
• Fixed a bug that caused combat-decay increases on completion of explorations (funnels, ch11) to also apply to the very last tick prior to completion, causing them to deal a fractionally higher amount of damage than intended (usually 0.03~3ms of extra combat decay) and in very rare occasions caused the combat safeties to fail
  
• Similar to the bug-fix above, constructions now consume their in-tick time prior to triggering a completion as well. In this case the same bug was arguably (fractionally) working in your favor for huts
  
• Fixed a bug in the chapter-completion backup logic for chapters 6, 7 and 8 that caused it to backup too early, causing it to miss one completion in the data. Previously affected backups should also be detected and work again with this update
  

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
The following update(s) will focus on UI/UX player feedback, as well as quality of life additions. This was originally the intent right after the content update, but there was quite a significant amount of feedback regarding the balance of the new chapters, so I decided to adapt to that first. This update was a slight detour, but I hope it improves your experience throughout the existing content!

January 21

• Jobs that deal damage on completion no longer halt to prevent lethal damage before they are actually close to completion
  
• The new game plus passive jobs perk no longer progresses two specific jobs in the middle path of chapter 10, to prevent wasting valuable resources
  
• Slightly expanded the rendering system to better detect when it missed something, and catch up next frame. This should tackle a rare chapter 11 visual bug where a number/bar wasn't visually updated after completing certain explorations if they finished at the exact same time as something else such as eating food
  
• Added a small number-precision safety check to a chapter 11 finale event
  

January 20

• Fixed the passive jobs NG+ perk cheating its way past two chapter 11 job requirements
  
• Fixed a chapter 10 person following you around after moving on without meeting that person (how rude)
  

January 19

• Fixed a cache bug that could cause the construction button to not listen for a specific chapter 11 construction
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltip-experience information to not visually update with certain chapter 11 explorations