Zombie Cure Lab News

We have a little Christmas present for you, before our staff makes into their Christmas holidays. Cool new stuff awaits you on the beta branch to test out the little gifts we prepared. For more in-depth info check out the patch notes underneath.

Beta Branch: Winter Update

• Storage for frozen Zombies (boost your Humbie production, store some for later)
  
• Mines & Quarries (late game endless iron ore and stone production)
  
• We are also preparing a major update for the end of January that will bring the production overview screen, custom key bindings, a new boss mob zombie and lots of more interesting stuff.
  

Default Branch:

• Version 0.15.19 released for everyone, updating the balancing and fixing some bugs, see the patch-notes below.
  
• Since today there are new world map rewards available for unlocking, a cactus, the stone crusher II and even a new mission. We are planning to release such new content in a two weeks cycle and you can help unlock it faster for everyone by doing science a favor using the completely optional docking hero application.
  

On top of the above we are working on translating the game to Korean, Thai and Japanese by using CrowdIn and your helping hands. Check out our discord to see how you can contribute.
Underneath you can find the patch notes for both branches. We wish all of you wonderful Christmas Days and look forward to improving Zombie Cure Lab further with you guys in 2023!

[h3]Patch Notes 0.15.19 (0.15.14 -> 0.15.19)[/h3]
Balancing:
- All towers buffed by roughly ~50% damage to make it easier to freeze Zombies again, requires little less towers to deal with zombie waves. Since patch 0.15.14 the towers have been buffed twice to account for recent changes.
- All missions have more weak zombie waves, those have more zombies but lower health to make easy to freeze rounds and gain workers quickly if well prepared
- All mission threat gain by mission duration, reduced by ~20%, the spikes with 50 days + even more reduced
- Humbie Level 1s do not cause other workers to flee anymore, this helps greatly to deal with constant outbreaks, because now your workers do not constantly abort important jobs like repairing caused by fleeing
- Zombie day behavior, less attacks on objects before rethinking what they do, making them more reactive to opened gates and they should leave quicker
- Wreckage Only reward mission that can be unlocked via the worldmap was rebalanced completely, should be a fun twist how to play ZCL. No trees and food, just car wrecks to start with, from the start low health, but max damage Zombies.
- Threat level was increasing at constant pace similar for each worker type, added that after 40 workers for each type, threat increases quicker. This is a temporary solution to slow down population increase for high population, brining in stronger Zombie waves if greedy with workers.
- Newly balanced sandbox mission got own waves that have no large zombie waves attacking. If you want a relaxed ZCL experience, the sandbox mission is your place to be.

Bugs:
- Grilled meat on pile looked to big, fixed
- Fixed a bug where time was stuck and not progressing
- Performance bug fixed (Stuck Zombies causing very low performance)

[h3]Patch Notes 0.16.1 [Beta Branch][/h3]
Features:
- Stone Quarry and Mine added. You can place it on pre-defined rockwalls at the map border. They are very big buildings that cost a lot and give you constant iron ore and stone output respectively.
- Power Poles T1 to T4 upgrades have been added, you can finally build high-tech power poles with a high cable range and electricity distribution area.
- Cooling chamber room type added. You can now build frozen zombie storages in this room type that keep frozen zombies frozen for longer. Each frozen zombie storage upgrade has a stronger freezing value that keeps stronger zombies frozen. You need haulers that put the frozen zombies there. Be aware that they might still melt and wrack havoc inside your base!
- Air Conditioners can be build as well and only require electricity to freeze surrounding targets wich is meant to be combined with the frozen zombie storages and keep your zombies frozen even longer.
We are looking forward to your feedback, don’t forget you only find those changes in beta!

Balancing:
- All towers buffed by roughly ~50% damage to make it easier to freeze Zombies again, requires less towers again to deal with zombie waves. Since patch 0.15.14 the towers have been buffed twice to account for recent changes, also with focus on the multi target towers.
- All missions have more weak zombie waves, those have more zombies but lower health to make easy to freeze rounds and gain workers quickly if well prepared
- All mission threat gain by mission duration, reduced by ~20%, the spikes with 50 days + even more reduced
- Humbie Level 1s do not cause other workers to flee anymore, this helps greatly to deal with constant outbreaks, because now your workers do not constantly abort important jobs like repairing caused by fleeing
- Zombie day behavior, less attacks on objects before rethinking what they do, making them more reactive to opened gates and they should leave quicker
- Wreckage Only reward mission that can be unlocked via the worldmap was rebalanced completely, should be a fun twist how to play ZCL. No trees and food, just car wrecks to start with, from the start low health, but max damage Zombies.
- Threat level was increasing at constant pace similar for each worker type, added that after 40 workers for each type, threat increases quicker. This is a temporary solution to slow down population increase for high population, brining in stronger Zombie waves if greedy with workers.
- Newly balanced sandbox mission got own waves that have no large zombie waves attacking. If you want a relaxed ZCL experience, the sandbox mission is your place to be.

Bugs:
- Grilled meat on pile looked to big, fixed
- Fixed a bug where time was stuck and not progressing
- Performance bug fixed (Stuck Zombies causing very low performance)

Balancing:
- Zombies can take way more hits now, health range times ten to make room for more towers and new damage balancing. Goal is that players need to build more towers early on and it gets a bit harder to freeze lots of Zombies or complete waves.
- Humbie Level 1 and Level 2 can now use defenses, Level 1 humbie dealing only 75% damage
- Threat value more mission duration and lab size dependent, especially in normal and hard mission. Will be way harder to reach day 50, 60 and beyond. Worker population have a fix threat gain value per worker. Every 10 days threat levels spike even more.
- Easy and very easy mission threat grows way slower to give room for slower play style.
- You can play the sandbox mission now to have a relaxed ZCL experience where the zombie damage does not really grow much and the threat value neither.
- FASTER GAME SPEEDS, can be set up to 3x instead of previously 2x
- Workers move ~30% faster, goal was to change game pacing especially for the early phase, overall you should be able to progress quicker.
- Missing production buildings like grill and meat growers now also have the storage tags, their input and output storage will be accounted for by nearby producers. In other words, produced meat would directly go to the grill and not the main storage first.
- Science room machines moved to science tech-tree category
- Added a T1 fridge that produces ice packs very slowly for electricity as an alternate ice pack production to play around with.
- Bellow Breezer produces little more ice packs per hour
- Feeding pile 1 and 2 have more capacity for meat, stacks may look a bit nicer now. (Please report if this creates savegame problems)
- Default auto repair threshold increased from 70% to 90%, important for new players that do not now of this feature, you can change this value however you like.
- Repair cost even further reduced from 25% to 15% that players with large destruction have a better chance to recover.
- Sleeping Pod T3 a bit better, minor value tweaks
- Treatment training requirement for humbie levels unified to three. Humbie Level 3 only needs to train three times instead of five, greatly reduced the time until he is ready for treatment.

Ui/ Feature:
- Nicer storage amount ui in info boxes, sliders for refill/ take out thresholds more visible
- Improved look of resource icons
- Easier savegame deletion in save screen
- Worked on final CrowdIn integration (see localization channels)

Bugs:
- Queued need jobs fix where workers sometimes would not abort jobs for needs (Mainly wood cutting)
- Humbies at feeding piles would cancel before finish eating leading too satisfiying less then 30% and making it difficult to produce enough meat for humbies especially when there is already none and their needs are vey low.
- Worldmap even reward sunflowers bug fixed, can now be researched after unlocked

Sound:
- Fixed sound bugs, many tweaks and new sound effects

Known Issues:
- Game speed tooltip still shows slower speeds, but it is actually 3x speed on highest now believe me!
- Grilled meat on feeding piles looks bigger then raw meat on other feeding piles (What really matters)

We just released Version 0.15.14 on the beta branch as a larger balancing update. 3x highest game speed instead of the previous 2x, workers move faster, all humbies can use defense towers, a new fridge that produces ice packs ad much more to improve the pacing of the earlier phases of the game.

If that is not enough we are currently working on a cooling chamber as a new room type with frozen zombie storage ❄️ units and adding the mines and quarries as a larger next update. So stay tuned!

The beta branch is accessible to anyone and helps us test an update before we make it an official update.

If you don't know how to switch branches in Steam at all, do the following:

Right-click on the game in your library, and click Properties.
Select the Betas tab, and select the branch you want to switch to. Then click OK.

Patchnotes:

Balancing:

- Zombies can take way more hits now, health range times ten to make room for more towers and new damage balancing. The goal is that players need to build more towers early on and it gets a bit harder to freeze lots of Zombies or complete waves.
- Humbie Level 1 and Level 2 can now use defenses, Level 1 humbie dealing only 75% damage
- Threat value is more mission duration and lab size dependent, especially in normal and hard missions. Will be way harder to reach day 50, 60 and beyond. The worker population has a fix threat gain value per worker. Every 10 days threat levels spike even more.
- Easy and very easy mission threat grows way slower to give room for a slower play style.
- You can play the sandbox mission now to have a relaxed ZCL experience where the zombie damage does not really grow much and the threat value neither.
- FASTER GAME SPEEDS, can be set up to 3x instead of previously 2x
- Workers move ~30% faster, goal was to change game pacing, especially for the early phase, overall you should be able to progress quicker.
- Missing production buildings like grill and meat growers now also have storage tags, their input and output storage will be accounted for by nearby producers. In other words, produced meat would directly go to the grill and not the main storage first.
- Science room machines moved to the science tech tree category
- Added a T1 fridge that produces ice packs very slowly for electricity as an alternate ice pack production to play around with.
- Bellow Breezer produces little more ice packs per hour
- Feeding piles 1 and 2 have more capacity for meat, stacks may look a bit nicer now. (Please report if this creates savegame problems)
- Default auto repair threshold increased from 70% to 90%, important for new players that do not know of this feature, you can change this value however you like.
- Repair costs are even further reduced from 25% to 15% and players with large destruction have a better chance to recover.
- Sleeping Pod T3 a bit better, minor value tweaks
- Treatment training requirement for humbie levels unified to three. Humbie Level 3 only needs to train three times instead of five, which greatly reduced the time until he is ready for treatment.

Ui/ Feature:

- Nicer storage amount UI in info boxes, sliders for refill/ take out thresholds more visible
- Improved look of resource icons
- Easier savegame deletion in the save screen
- Worked on final CrowdIn integration (see localization channels)

Bugs:

- Queued need jobs fix where workers sometimes would not abort jobs for needs (Mainly wood cutting)
- Humbies at feeding piles would cancel before finishing eating leading to satisfying less than 30% and making it difficult to produce enough meat for humbies especially when there is already none and their needs are very low.
- Worldmap even reward sunflowers bug fixed, can now be researched after unlocked

Sound:
- Fixed sound bugs, many tweaks and new sound effects

Known Issues:
- Game speed tooltip still shows slower speeds, but it is actually 3x speed on highest now believe me!
- Grilled meat on feeding piles looks bigger than raw meat on other feeding piles (What really matters)