Clanfolk News

Dogs/Wolves/Deer - A Quick Progress Update

Hi All,

I wanted to give a quick update on my progress with the Deerhound/Wolves/Deer update.

The Testing Branch has been unusually silent on this update due to the fact that I need to deliver these three creatures as a unit as they all work together. This means I have needed to be 3x the work before I could show the results, which is what is taking extra time, but I am getting close to having something ready for the testing branch.

So here is a high level account of what I have been up to over the last month to keep you all in the loop. I apologize for it taking this long. The systems are very complex and I have been heads down working instead of communicating as much as I normally do. These are exciting systems to work on.

What ended up happening was that my initial work on the Deerhounds was not producing the results I wanted gameplay wise in the first week. Without the wolves and deer, the deerhounds did not have enough of a purpose to make them interesting on their own. So I paused on the Deerhounds and began work on the wolves, which were meant to be a bit of a surprise, but since this update is taking a while, I decided to announce them directly, now. Wolves are coming.

The wolves were very complex because they have pack behavior. They needed to have essentially a shared brain sometimes, but other times do their own thing. The wolves also are both fearful or man but also will defend their kills and pups, which makes them have more AI states than the usual see man and flee mechanic of bunnies, rats etc...

Wolves are now almost ready, and I will continue to add behaviors to them as the testing branch progresses. They can hunt as a pack and keep themselves alive cooperatively. Over time I will have them defend kills and their pups as well. I will also start on the stealing sheep, goats etc. soon (preferring the young and old ones)

Once I started working on the wolves, I needed them to have a main prey item, and that is where the deer come in. Happily, the deer's herds and wolf packs are very similar AI wise. Deer are less complex, but also need to generally move as a unit. Wolves tend to use deer numbers as an indicator of when they should enter the map as well. They flow in with the deer for the most part, but will also stay around if they find other easy targets like sheep (this is on the todo list right now)

I have done quite a bit of research on medieval wolf/human interaction and some of it was quite brutal. The 1300's were around the height of the wolf hunting times. In some places taxes were even paid in wolf tongues as a method to keep their numbers down. How the Clanfolk deal with the wolves will evolve over time. I am not that interested in collecting tongues or having a yearly puppy hunt (Which was a thing) There was lots of use of poisons, traps, nets, and though there were rules about hunting most other animals at the time, with wolves it was anything goes. So they are a very rich historical element, but yeah, I think I will pass on the puppy hunts :) It is very interesting reading though.

So once I had the deer spawning, I decided to upgrade the world spawner for the animals to take seasons into consideration for both the animal numbers as well as when the babies will show up. Right now just the deer and wolves are hooked up to this more advanced system, but I will continue to add more creatures to it over time. This means in late spring and early summer would be the only time Fawns or Wolf Pups would appear. It is a neat thing to see when they arrive.

So in review, week 1 was getting deerhounds in there, but it ended up being mostly a design dead end as they behaved like large versions of cats. I want each animal to have a unique purpose, and the deerhounds needed one... so I paused them and started on wolves. Week 2 and a bit was wolves. This time was mostly figuring out how to handle pack hunting and figuring out how wolves would come and go from the maps. I also wanted wolves to be threatening but not a chore. It needs to be ok to manage them vs killing them, if desired. Deerhounds were to be the answer to managing the wolves as well.

The second half of week 3 and a bit of week 4 was getting the deer working while also upgrading the world spawner, but the bulk of week four was circling back to the deerhounds now with a new tool in my pocket, the wolf pack.

It occurred to me that an owner and their dogs works much like a pack and they can work as a team. This solved a large problem that I was having in that I just did not know how I was going to tell a deerhound to go kill a deer. You can't just give a dog a job and expect them to do it without their owner being there...

So then I thought, ok there would be a special hunting case for when you had dogs and that would trigger a person to come along as a guide (Which was going to be really confusing/lame) But packs were perfect.

How a pack works is that the pack detects one of the members going on a hunt, and the rest of the pack decides to help if they can. So now that is exactly how it works with a hunter. There is no new interface needed. If a hunter has a dog, that dog knows they are hunting and comes along to help in their own way. And boy o boy do they help.

Deerhunting with a bow is an all day affair that can span the whole map as the hunter chases and misses, spooking the deer. On the other hand, Hunting a deer with a bow AND a deerhound is a very efficient prospect. Multiple hounds are even better. So I am very happy with this. Prior to firearms, everyone wanted a deerhound on the homestead, and now I know why.

This new hunting behavior also required new AI behavior for the humans to deal with new situations, like a downed animal. By now you can probably see where the month has gone. The first time a hunter took down a deer with the dogs, the dogs backed off and then the hunter stood 10 paces back and took pot shots at the deer with the bow, sometimes a dozen times, until it was dead... So yeah, there is a new "put down" logic to avoid that silliness. Once the dogs down the deer, the hunter will finish it off by walking up to it, and then take the carcass home to the butcher block. A hunt is a pretty detailed series of AI tasks, but it seems to work well and looks pretty good.

Now I am getting into the last few nice to haves before the testing branch goes live. So I spent some time getting realistic wolf and deer sounds, as well as deerhound audio, but I ended up recording my own dog (standard poodle) which sounded oddly similar to the deerhounds when I pitched the audio down 5%. The up side of recording Max (my dog) is that I have virtually unlimited sounds I can record based on his moods, and then I can get these into the game for the deerhounds. Also since all the rest of the Clanfolk human audio are family members, I figured the dogs should be too.

I also need to make things like dog beds and do some testing of the day to day life with the dogs. Hunting is tested in sandbox settings, but when it comes down to day to day life there are different problems that appear. Here is an example...

So it turned out that I solved the problems with doors and cats with cats being liquid (as everyone knows) but huge deerhounds do not fit under doors... So how does the deerhound get into the house to sleep at the foot of the bed. Well another half day went to keys inheritance. Deerhounds will inherit the key settings of their masters. This means we can be assured that they will remain loyal companions, near their owner. So far it seems to work quite well.

There is also the question of setting the master of a dog. Since the dogs act more like fuzzy slobbering tools, they need to be able to be assigned. Dogs will pick their human like cats do, but this will also be able to be overridden in the case of dogs to prevent frustration with none of the dogs linking with the one hunter. This I still have to set up, but will likely have working before the first testing branch goes live. It is all these little things that eat up time.

Another fun new system is carcasses. When cats kill a bunny, the bunny vanishes... When a pack of wolves kill a deer, the deer does not vanish. The carcass is now a temporary feeding and defense territory for wolves. Human want to collect carcasses, so I need to stop them by default, else the human would wander into a very bad situation as well.

Right now Wolves will not attack humans, but eventually they will. I am keeping the interactions between dogs/wolves/deer for the first testing branch release, and will slowly add the human interactions because it will add a whole new layer of AI complexity. Over time the wolves eat the carcass, but if a human decides to steal it, they can. The resulting hides and meat will be lowered based on how fed upon the carcass is. The act of feeding also spoils the carcass, so you need to get to them quickly.

I also had to upgrade the AI rate for fleeing and hunting animals. The tick rate for thinking of non livestock is once every 2 seconds, which is fine for wandering around and pooping, but during a chase it lead to constant pauses and misses. I upgraded the task system to allow it to bump up the fleeing and hunting animal AI to human levels to keep it snappy. This is another behind the scenes upgrade that was cool, took time, but isn't easily apparent. Cats are likely ultra deadly now and will need a re-tune.

Another thing was an upgrade to the threat assessment system for long range travel. This system still is not perfect, but now with wolves being a thing, I needed to prevent deer from picking greener pastures that were full of wolves. So this new system detects the livability of end positions when doing a long range wander to a new position with a pack or a herd. (Wolves also do not want to move in next door to people) As they wander, they also continually assess if their path is taking them past somewhere nasty and reevaluate. The wolves introduced a lot more and mobile threat to the environment, so the wander and flee tasks needed an upgrade.

Wolf howls are just cool, and lead me to upgrade the ambient sound system to understand time of day as well. This means that the wolf packs will begin to howl in earnest in the evenings, and roosters will crow a lot more in the mornings. In working on the audio system, I also decided to finally give Foxes a voice. They still need to be moved into the world spawner and will get some hunting AI of their own, but they sound like foxes now :)

The sound environment is a lot richer now with the wolves and red deer. Both of these animals have long range calls and fill out the environment well. The deerhounds playfully bark and the foxes yip as they go about their business. I am going to continue working on this as well as atmospheric audio is very important to me, but it will be ongoing as the testing branch progresses. I have happy, sad, confused, hurt, angry sounds for the dogs that I would like to get hooked up to the right behaviors. I think it will add a lot of personality to the dogs as they follow their owner around all day.

Testing branch wise, I am hoping for mid next week to have a version live to test out. This version will not be near feature complete, but it will be playable and will not break your progress, which is my main concern. Once that version goes live, I expect to go back to testing branch updates every few days again as I make fixes and we talk about ideas for this new system.

Thanks for your patience everyone. This system has taken longer than expected, but I am doing my best to make it worth the wait :)

Update 9: Idea Points!

Hi Everyone,

Update 9 was all about Ideas. I had a desire to explore a more strategic game mode for Clanfolk, where the unlocking was slower and the player needed to plan their progress.

Idea Points solved the problem of waves of unlocks flooding the player as new items were made. In some cases, like with Planks and Nails, a dozen new techs could unlock at once, and that number would only grow over time as new items and objects are added.

I wanted the Player to plan their progress but also to not have the Clanfolk tied to a research bench. The current learning by doing approach also needed to be maintained. In the end, on the testing branch we went through four different iterations on the Idea Points system. What we have now is what we call version 4.1. The testing branch participants were a huge help here as well, providing their input and testing.

So for the sake of keeping this post to a reasonable size, I won't go into the entire journey from Idea Points 1.0 -> 4.1 but it was quite a journey indeed and the full patch notes are listed below if you would like to follow along.

It is important to note up front that this is an optional system, built mainly for experts. Idea Points mode is a lot more difficult and does not support tutorials, so please do not try this mode until you have survived a few winters.

[h2]Idea Points 4.1[/h2]

When Idea Points Mode is active, all normal unlocking rules are still in effect. This means that there are still unlocking requirements for coming up with Ideas. So for example, to unlock the Thresher, the player still must have harvested Straw first to make the Idea available, but now there may also be a final step.

There is an Idea point cost for important Objects. The Player must decide how to best spend the Idea Points that they have generated. These points can be spent in the Ideas Panel where available ideas and their point costs are shown. (Note: The Ideas Panel is likely getting an upgrade in the next Update to make things easier to find.)

Other Objects unlock as before, but with greater resource collection work required. (Originally all Ideas took Idea Points to unlock, but it turned out this lead to many Ideas never being unlocked for objects like Storage in favor of Industry unlocks, this got very messy indeed.)

[h2]Generating Idea Points[/h2]

Idea Points are Generated through Work.

How it works: Idea Points are generated for most tasks that have a skill attached to them and consume or produce a resource. So chopping trees, which uses the Lumber skill, will generate Idea points based on the amount of work done (based on time) but also the skill of the worker.

There is strategy here as having the most skilled workers do the jobs generates the most Idea Points for that job. This means that Seniors for example that tend to have the highest skills will use their lifetime of experience to come up with more Idea points. Idea Points mode very much encourages job specialization.

Some jobs that could be easily exploited like Hauling do not generate Idea points. The general rule is that if a resource is produced or consumed, idea points will be generated.

[h2]Idea Point Strategy[/h2]
Mood has a huge role to play in how quickly Idea Points are generated. An unhappy worker is not a creative worker. It is important to have workers do the jobs they like or are very good at.

Giving workers time off occasionally will greatly boost mood, alternatively, making workers work overtime will have the opposite effect and the Idea Point generation will suffer.

Another important factor to the speed of Idea Point generation is job placement. We want workers working, and not travelling between jobs. Since Idea Points generate based on Skill Level x Work Time, travel becomes downtime.

[h2]Idea Point Level[/h2]
It is important to note that each new level of Idea Points costs a little more than the previous level. On the bright side, the Clan also grows over time so that increased cost is offset by more minds somewhat, but it is still important to prioritize the order of what if unlocked because new Ideas will become more expensive.

The Ideas Button has gotten an upgrade in Idea Points Mode. It now tracks how many points the next level will cost, and also has a helpful progress bar that is always visible for times when you are waiting for that next point.

[h2]Ideas Panel Upgrade[/h2]

In Idea Points mode, the Ideas Panel will look a little different. This first thing you will notice is that everything is visible, along with their costs. This is to help with long term Idea Point spending planning.

When an Idea is available, the thought bubble on the Idea in the Panel will become Golden colored. This means it can be unlocked by spending the required points.

In Idea Points mode, there are also slight differences in how the Ideas flow from one to another. In normal mode, some Ideas require other Ideas as prerequisites to prevent flooding the player with unlocks, but since this is not a problem in Idea Points mode, some of those pre-requisites have been removed.

For example the Traveler, Trader, and Worker signs are on the same level in Idea Points mode, but each requires points to unlock.

[h2]The Tinkering Bench[/h2]

When Idea Points mode is active, the Tinkering Bench becomes available. The Tinkering Bench is a tool to generate Idea Points when normal jobs have been exhausted. It exists to prevent busy work to generate the next point.

At the Tinkering Bench skilled workers experiment using resources associated with their day to day jobs. This will consume resources, but they will also come up with new Ideas based on how skilled the worker is.

The Tinkering Bench is a multi-skilled object in that whatever Tinkering Job has been selected will set the skill required to use the bench.

Since we probably do not want Tinkering to block other work tasks, there is also a new mode with the Tinkering Bench ( Free time Only )

In Free Time Only mode. The Tinkering Bench is only used when the worker has nothing else to do. This prevents doing work just for the sake of generating points and also works automatically.

Another nice side benefit of the Tinkering Bench is skills training. While workers experiment at the bench, they also learn. This can be useful to train up a new Cook if it looks like the current Senior Cook does not have much time left in their life attribute.

A useful trick is to set the ownership of a tinkering bench to be the Clanfolk who you want to do the skills tinkering. In that way only specific Clanfolk will work on specific skills.

[h2]How to Activate It?[/h2]

Idea Points Mode needs to be activated on World Creation. There is a small tick box under the World Seed Input Box.

Idea Points mode will always be an optional mode. I wanted to make something for the really experienced players this time.

[h2]Now onto the Changelists[/h2]
So if you have read this far, you probably like to get lots and lots of information, so here it comes :)

There is quite a bit of info about the evolution of Idea Points mode in the listing below, and I think it does a good job of showing what Early Access is all about. Experimentation and Community input.

We went on for weeks in the testing branch creating and evaluating new modes. I am very grateful for all those who helped with this on the testing branch!

I would like to plug the testing branch one more time as well. If you like constant updates and don't mind the occasional bug, it is open to everyone and the bug reports/ideas are a invaluable to me.

To join the testing branch, select Clanfolk->properties->betas->testing branch (from the drop down)

Note: There are also quite a few bug fixes/QoL updates below, but I am out of character headroom for this post. Changelist 330 in particular has a lot of highly requested items.

[h2]V0.317[/h2]

Butcher Block default priority moved from 5 -> 10 to solve cases of animals not being butchered. Set extra high so that with non strict priorities it will still be serviced since it is a very quick task.
Remade the Ash Wash into a combiner object from an automated resource processor so the amount of ashed hides being created can be controlled. This allows control over fur vs leather clothing now. This also works with auto supply
Bark -> Wood Ash recipe now takes 25 Bark for 50 Wood Ash, instead of 50 Bark
Converted Ashed Hide into a combined item for the new Ash Wash Combiner. New Recipe: 10 Dry Hide, 10 Wood Ash, 50 Water
Eggs now take 10 -> 20 days to spoil. Eggs are surprisingly resilient when they have not been washed.
Cooked Eggs take 2 days to spoil though, so don't cook them all at once.
Added Cooked Eggs (Eggs unlock from the animal bed because they are required for egg laying.)
Gold Ingots can now be sold to traders for 50 coins a piece
Fixed days of food indicator going into the billions once everyone in the clan dies/leaves.
Fixed stubble not being selectable in 100% Harvest Mode

[h2]0.318 - Idea Points 1.0[/h2]

New Experimental Idea Points Mode!
This is an Optional Mode selected at World Creation.
In Idea Points Mode, Clanfolk still learn by doing and Unlock Ideas as before, but some Ideas also have an Idea Point Cost as a final step.
Idea Points are generated ambiently by all Clanfolk based on their Mood, Time Off Status, and Age (Seniors are faster due to life experience)
Idea Points are not generated when sleeping or incapacitated.
Large Populations slow down Idea Point generation due to overlapping Ideas (people think of the same thing and also of course conflicting Ideas). Large populations will still end up generating ideas faster, but not linearly faster.
Idea Points mode is meant to be much more Strategic. Players must decide what ideas are most important to them and work towards those before Winter.
Keeping a high mood is a lot more important now as it directly modifies idea point generation. So it will be important to also build in a way that keeps the people happy if you want them to progress most efficiently before Winter.
All Ideas show up visibly in the Ideas Panel in this mode so you can plan your Idea Point spending into the future.
Currently this mode still needs more presentation work, but I wanted to get feedback first.
I need to make it more obvious when an Idea Point is generated, but for now, if you select a Clan member and mouse over the new Idea Attribute, you will see what is changing the value.
I would really love feedback on the mode itself, but also help in tuning the rates of idea generation and technology cost.

[h2]V0.319[/h2]

Experimental Idea Mode Tuning Changes
The goal with this tuning pass to to cut down on the waiting around for Idea Points and also to make storage items more desirable again. I do not want lots of down time or clutter as that feels more like punishment than gameplay.
Ideas generate 2x as fast, BUT important tech costs 2x as much. This allows storage ideas still to have a small cost, but for it to be minimal compared to crafting ideas.
When Sleeping Ideas generate of 0.5x vs 0x before.
Tilled Soil now costs 1 -> 2 Idea points (So same as before with increased idea generation speed) BUT Flax/Oats do not cost Idea Points to plant. Once you have the seeds, need to have a use for them. This will extend to future crops as well.
Grass/Flax/Oats now costs 0 Idea points to plant (Trees, Reeds, Berry Bush still cost 1)
Bathtub 1 -> 2 Points
...lots of tuning notes...
Log Wall 2 -> 3
Seniors Generate Points at 1.5x speed vs 2x
Time Off gives 1.5x Point Rate vs 2x

[h2]V0.320[/h2]

Experimental Idea Points Mode Tuning
Fixed Tilled Soil being 2 Idea Points to Unlock
When Sleeping, Idea rate from 0.5x to 0.3x
Ideas take 50% longer to generate 0.5 days to 0.75 days.
Snare Kit costs 2 points to unlock, but do not need Idea Points for the Placed Snare anymore
Clothes Zone 1 -> 2 Points

[h2]V0.321 - Idea Points 2.0[/h2]

This last week I spent upgrading the Experimental Ideas Mode into something that I thought would play better and resolve a few big issues it.
Sadly, I am not happy with the result, but I feel after waiting a week for this that you deserve to at least give it a try.
To fix the issue of players only purchasing key tech and skipping everything else, I added Tech tiers which required a certain amount of point spend to unlock the next level of tech. This created a ton of extra waiting around, which was the exact thing I was trying to solve.
This Tech Tier system will be disabled within the next few updates. It fundamentally changes how Clanfolk plays and changes it from a game with free flowing building ideas to a halting experience with long wait times.
Another Issue was that individual Clanfolk generating their own Idea Points was hard for players to track, so the points felt like they dropped at random. For this I created a unified Idea Points Bar that they all feed into. This lets you see progress toward the next combined point at a glance. This is likely a good change.
The Idea Point System will not become the Default for new players. It is an interesting tool for me to make much harder and longer game modes for skilled players, but it does not feel like Clanfolk to me when I play it.
This sometimes happens in game development, and I wanted to give you all a glimpse behind the curtain. I really appreciate your patience and support. I get crazy ideas and need to explore them or they just won't leave my brain. This one did not work out as well as I had hoped, but I did get a new game mode in there, so all is not lost.
My plan now is to get caught up on the bug reports from the last couple weeks and then get back into content creation.

[h2]V0.321[/h2]

Senior Idea Point Mult 1.5 -> 1.333
Time Off Idea Mult 1.5 -> 1.25
Sleeping 0.3x -> 0.25x Idea Point Mult
Changed Idea Population mult from 1 / n^0.5 -> 1 / n^0.6 (Larger populations will not increase idea rate quite so much)
Max mood mult 2 -> 1.5
Juveniles 0.5 -> 0.75 Idea rate.
Removed Requirements In Idea Points Mode:
Branch Door (Removed Straw Door Req)
Branch Gate (Removed Straw Door Req)
Ash Bin (Removed Coal Bin Req)
Bark Bin (Removed Coal Bin Req)
Bathtub (Removed Water Dipper Req)
Leather Bottoms and Leather Tunic no longer need Linen Hanks to make. But take +2 leather
Trading Post (Removed Vacancy Sign Req)
Job Board (Removed Vacancy Sign Req)
Unlocking Tier 1: Fire
Unlocking Tier 2: Pottery
Unlocking Tier 3: Iron
Unlocking Tier 4: Spinning (Thread and Cloth) This will be key in later Decoration
moved alert for needing twine from day 2 to day 1
Idea points generate 50% faster BUT each Idea level increases the cost of the next point. This helps to keep the costs in line with the growing Clan and also rewards points more quickly early on to prevent so much waiting around.
Unlocked Ideas that do not have the required points available show with a darker though bubble to make it more obvious
25 Start Points to Mitigate some of the Early Tier 2 Wait Time.

[h2]V0.322[/h2]

Removed Tier System from Experimental Idea Points Mode
Back to Starting with 10 Idea Points
Idea Point Rate from 0.5 to 0.7 days per point (point costs still increase by 5% per level)

[h2]V0.323[/h2]

Fixed Babies being able to dig themselves out of blocked in rooms. Caused them to turn into haulers as well.
Added code to make units smarter about how they exit blocked tiles such that they not only pick the nearest room, but also pick a room that they can potentially exit.
Fix for case where workers get trapped when trying to take babies to food or a bed because they cannot exit the door that they used to solve the baby/doctor task. Now units in areas where they cannot get travel the outside will consider those areas private zones and will exit those areas. So if all the exterior doors of a house are locked, the interior doors do not need to be locked because they will form a private zone where the worker does not have access (aside from in emergency cases)
Fixed case where 2 Clanfolk wanted to socialize, but one was in a doorway (blocking line of sight) causing the other to enter the doorway to talk while the first one leaves the doorway (this kept cycling) Clanfolk will not move toward people in doorways to talk to them now.
Updated Even more logic to keep Babies out of sealed rooms, in this case if they somehow find themselves surrounded by walls on all sides.
When Babies are picked up, now clearing their previous path data as a failsafe. I never saw them with path data, but it is the only explanation that I can think of for them ending up in a wall hole.

[h2]V0.324 - Idea Points System 3.0[/h2]

Idea Points are generated based on Work, not based on being idle or waiting around.
This new systems fits in very well with the Idea's systems philosophy of Learning by Doing.
Idea Point XP is modified by the XP mult similar to the Skills XP. (See Mood Attribute XP Mult)
No Idea Points are generated through Time Off or Sleep. Time Off will increase Mood though which will increase Idea Points generated when they go back to work.
Only work tasks that consume a resource generate Idea Points (so digging poop holes x100 does nothing)
The higher the Skill of the person doing the job, the MORE Idea Points will be generated. This is very powerful for optimizing Idea Point Growth.
Ideas generate at half the rate when working overtime
Removed the population multiplier for Idea Overlap. Bigger Clans do more work and generate more points.
Starting Idea Points fron 10 -> 5, but levels come more quickly.
Kidbrain too effective. 6x to 4x learning speed
Skills advance 50% as fast in Ideas Points mode, promotes cultivating experts in jobs to maximize idea point yield.
Use Set Owner on Crafting Stations to ensure only the best workers use them for max Idea Points.
Fixed Bunny Hauling bug introduced Nov 2. Prevented bunnies from getting hauled back if the Butcher Block was already reserved.
This version may need a lot of tuning due to how Idea Points generate by work now.
Please let me know if you find major exploits or Idea Point generating tasks that are too good to be true.
Thanks very much for trying Idea Points 3.0 :)

[h2]V0.325 - Idea Points System 4.0[/h2]

The big change this version is the introduction oft he Tinkering Bench.
The Tinkering Bench allows Clanfolk to improve their skills and also generate Idea Point XP at a resource cost.
The Idea of earning Idea XP by doing nothing (v1,2) did not feel right, but also earning XP only through work (v3) was too punishing and there was a tech wall where too much busy work had to be done to advance. Grinding is never the goal.
The Tinkering Bench works only during time off by default (there is a toggle), but can also be set to be part of the normal daily schedule.
The Tinkering Bench's work skill will change to match whatever is in its task queue. It is the first adaptable crafting object and also the first to be to work after hours.
The Tinkering bench is VERY good for making specialists if you make that Specialist the owner of the bench and then set the related still on repeat. Then whenever the specialist has a free moment, they will improve AND also generate Idea Points.
In upcoming versions, I will be experimenting with some crafting/building recipes having minimum skill thresholds to build/craft. The Tinkering bench will also be a valuable training tool for that.
If the Tinkering Bench turns out to be a success, I will look into higher Tier Skill recipes and Higher Tier Tinkering Benches with more exotic ingredients.
The Tinkering Bench works just like other Crafting Objects and can be made part of a daily schedule using the wait until tomorrow option or by setting a task queue. I have had the best results by setting owners on them and then setting what is essentially a study schedule for the owner.
In working with Idea Points mode, It is clear that the Idea's Menu needs a revamp to make things easier to find as well as to group things more logically. This will be coming as well.
Idea Points Mode and Normal Mode now have two distinct tech trees. There is no Tinkering Bench in the Normal mode for example, and some of the prerequisites are very different between the two.
Storage Unlocking is now work based and not point based. So for example collecting 1000 Clay will unlock the Clay Storage. Some of the unlocks require quite a bit of work, but we can look at this as a kind of side goal. I am curious how this ends up feeling.
Lowered Idea Point Cost per level increase from 10% to 5% to slow down later grind.
The number of Unlocking Point changes are too many to post individually here, but there are a ton. Please let me know if something feels off or is too hard to unlock.
This is not the Final Iteration of the Idea Points system, but the addition of the Tinkering Bench I think is a great solution to the tech wall encountered in v3.0.
I am very excited to get feedback on this new version. In my testing, I played the Fresh Start Scenario, and the first three days went quite well. The Hermit type scenarios may be quite difficult and I would like feedback on that was well if possible.

[h2]V0.326 - Idea Points 4.1[/h2]

Removed 50 Bog Iron requirement for Peat Spade Unlock
[* ]Butcher Block 3 -> 2 Unlock Points
Base Idea Point reward for Tinkering Bench Tasks 250 -> 400
Building Tinkering: 1 Large Rock -> 10 Stones (since the large rocks can be a bit precious)
Crafting Tinkering: Removed 5 Stones from here and moved to Building Tinkering. Still takes 5 Straw, 5 Branch
Cooking Tinkering: 5 Dried Mushrooms -> 20 Water
Hunting Tinkering: Snare -> Twine + Branch
Flax Retting 200 -> 100 Flax Stems to unlock
Bloomery 5->4 Unlock Points
Mushroom Rack 2 -> 1 Points
Tinkering Bench 2 -> 1 Points
Fixed case where some recipe ingredients were giving less than 1 Idea Point per unit when crafting. This lead to some very low returns on some recipes.
Added 3 low population Idea Points Bonus Afflictions "Hermit Brain" 3x, "Pioneer Spirit" 2x, "Musketeers" 1.5x
Fixed case where Rats/Other Animals could cause public poop shame (and other privacy related afflictions) based on the order where the units entered the room
Doubled Idea Points from Hunting/Slaughter. "There can be only one!"
Building/Gathering Tasks that do not require/consume resources like Dirt Paths, and Gathering Clay now reward Idea Points, but at a reduced rate (40%) vs other tasks.

[h2]0.327[/h2]

Idea Points 4.1 (Good enough for now version)
Building Tinkering: 10 Stones -> 1 Large Rock
Crafting Tinkering: Added 5 stones requirement
Tinkering Bench 1 -> 2 Idea Points to Unlock
Mushroom Rack 1 -> 2 Idea Points to Unlock
Idea Points for non resource consuming tasks from 40% -> 30% multiplier for Idea Points generated
This will likely be the Idea Points version for the next little while. Idea Points consumed more time than expected, and I need to get to work on some new content as well as bug fixing. I think it is now in good enough shape to be sent to the Default Branch for the rest of the players to try.
Thanks very much for all the testing though all the Idea Points versions! I am not done with Idea Points and will come back to them.
For the next few days I will be offline (mostly) spending time with family for the Holidays. Thanks for all your support!

[h2]V0.328[/h2]

Fixed case where Patients or Babies could be taken into a very warm room (hot summer day, not sealed area) and when the Doctor/Care Giver tries to complete a task in that hot spot, the baby/patient becomes too hot and needs to be taken back inside to cool down. This caused a repeat in the logic cycle.
Fixed case where it is very hot outside and a unit is also sweating and the unit was in free time mode. They would sometimes wander into the hot outside when they should stay inside in the shade to stay cooler while wandering.
Fixed Black Bar that shows up for inventory bookmarks when the list that can be shown is full, but there is nothing new to scroll to in the list yet.
Fixed a very hard to find case where sometimes when a tile was updating its stockpile color, it could end up looking at the mouse position instead of the tile position to get the stockpile data. This may have lead to the problem of sometimes stockpiles being colored weirdly or X's appearing on containers, but also may have lead to sometimes stockpiles and container objects getting cross wired. Since this bug is so hard to reproduce this is all theoretical, but the fix should be good.
Removed the invisible Cooking Fire Tutorial complete requirement from unlocking Tilled Soil
Fixed a very expensive case where there were many people in a single large room and I was trying to detect the environment state of the room (private, everyone sleeping etc) It now takes 20x less CPU in that case. This was most visible when running at 12x speed.

[h2]v0.329[/h2]

Text work for Translators in prep for Update 9 release to Default Branch

[h2]V0.330[/h2]

Fixed Save/Load Menu Titles using old art that was shaped wrong.
Critical Food/Water Attribute state moved from 10% bar fill to 15% bar fill. Units should break off tasks to Eat/Drink a little sooner.
Updated Japanese
Updated Brazilian Portuguese
Updated Spanish
Added Button to Show/Hide Stockpiles to the Top Right button rack next to the Show Roofs mode button. Hidden stockpiles will become visible when the stockpile button is selected, also show when selected by clicking on them.
Added Screenshot Mode LeftAlt + S This will hide all menus and overlays. Left Clicking will go back to normal.
Fixed when Workers and Travelers arrive their menus will recalculate to update the hire/rent room buttons
Fixed when Workers get 100% satisfaction and are selected that their Join Family/Marry Off button will update if already selected.
Fixed case where objects in crates were to be moved to a new spot could sometimes be grabbed by other jobs if the move priority of the other job was higher. This would lead to an orphaned crate that when destroyed would delete the object build using the wrong crate.
Fixed case where Flour and Butter were counted based on containers vs contents in the UI, which was pretty confusing.
Added Option in Settings/Gameplay to toggle off Resetting the Speed to 1x at Sunrise
Fixed case where if a Unit died in a doorway that it would not be haulable
Fixed Left Shift clicking clothing allowing selection and breakdown of Trader/Bed Seeker/Worker clothing.
Lowered base Idea Points reward for Tinkering Bench skill study from 400 -> 350.
Fixed case of livestock indecision where an animal had to pass from inside a barn to outside to drink/graze but it was raining outside
Fixed case where Chickens that were starving or dehydrated would juggle their eggs on their nests instead of getting food/drink. No more juggling circus chickens.

[h2]v0.331[/h2]

Fixed case where stumps from trees that were not 100% grown could not be removed when the 100% harvest option was selected
Upgraded Tool and Recipe Item acquisition such that the worker will not just find the closest item to themselves, but will also check for the closest item to the target object such that whichever combined path will end up being shorter will pick the item to be used. This will prevent the worker from back tracking to get items that are closer to them, but further from the target.
Fixed the Auto Supply text being invisible in Thai due to being too large.
Updated Italian Language
Updated Korean Language
Updated Polish Language
Updated Russian Language
Updated Thai Language
Fixed case where if there was a wait until tomorrow in a build queue where bypass queue was active, that non buildable recipe items would block wait until tomorrow causing buildable items on the other side of the wait to never be built, even the next day.
Fixed typo in Objects Tutorial "resouces"
Fixed Stockpiles exclusion settings such that Items that the player has not spawned, but that they do own can now be excluded. This for example means that when starting "A Fresh Start", you will see the Dried Mushrooms and Dried Meat in the options for stockpiles (for as long as those items exist)
Stockpile exclusion fix should also work for Container fixing cases where Workers who joined the Clan will now show their clothing items that came with them when they joined in wardrobes and clothing baskets.
Updated Inventory menu with same logic such that items that were purchased on map start or come with joined family members will show up too.

[h2]v0.332[/h2]

Updated German Language
Updated French Language
Removed Vertical Scrollbar from the Skills Index
Setup Horizontal Scrollbar in Skills Index to work using the mouse wheel
Fixed (potential) case in Free Time mode when units could sometimes get their movement locked down. Saw some errors in a player.log but was unable to reproduce
Fixed a round off error in partially fillable recipes where there were not enough items to complete the recipe that would permanently block the recipe from completing until more of the required item were created to fully fill the recipe. This also blocked other auto supply.
Fixed a case resulting from the fix of prev where the auto supply system would jump in line ahead of partially filled recipes once they had started if there were not enough items available to totally fill the recipe, causing the partial recipe to abort in favor of another.

[h2]v0.333[/h2]

Updated Hungarian Language
Updated Simplified Chinese Language
Updated Traditional Chinese Language

[h2]Road Map[/h2]

There is a lot more to come! Please take a look at the Road Map for further long term details as well.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1700870/view/3388412789658793666

Diving back into the code now.

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Award Nomination: Sit Back and Relax

Hi Everyone,

The Steam Award nominations have started, and I would love it if you would consider Clanfolk for the "Sit Back and Relax" category.

I built Clanfolk as a personal place to escape from daily stress and chill out while watching a little medieval family grow. I take a lot of pleasure in adding the little details to enhance the atmosphere like the fish jumping in the lakes, the flocks of crows returning home at sunset, or cats delivering presents to their human. Sometimes I just like to watch the dim fire light flicker and listen to the kids playing instruments, poorly, before bedtime.

When building Clanfolk, I was really concerned that I may be wasting too much time on these things because they are not actually gameplay, but since release I have received many emails and forum posts where people specifically call out these little details as being special. I wanted to say thanks so much for noticing!

I have been surprised and honored at how many others were looking for the same thing as I was.

It is a bit of a long shot, but if you have enjoyed your time escaping with Clanfolk, please tick the nominate button in the image above.

Thanks!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Recent Updates v0.306 - v0.316

Hi Everyone,

Here is a listing of the recent changes from the testing branch that are now live in the default branch.

Please consider joining the testing branch. It makes the game better and more stable, AND you get access to all the new (sometimes rough) systems as soon as I build them. See v0.312 to see some of the fun that you can experience on the testing branch (Clothing Eating Doorways)

To join, select Clanfolk in your library, then properties, betas, and in there find "testing branch"

These changes mostly cover important bug fixes and quality of life improvements

Soon I will be working on a new large content update again, but I wanted to get these issues dealt with so that you all can have the best experience possible while I work on the next major update.

So, here are the recent changes since Update 8:

V0.306

Fixed case where if a senior wild cat dies of old age in a den, it could cause a lockup in the pathfinder freezing everyone in position because just at that moment it may also have thought about trying to catch one last rabbit, triggering a pathfind that went to a dead cat. It wanted one last hunt and took the whole game with it.

V0.307

Fixed Tiled Peat Stoves being activated in dark rooms for lighting because they only provide heat.
Fixed case where sold chickens could get stuck in barns because they were unable to exit barn doors
Updated German Language
Fixed case where a Water Jug is on a Stopped Pallet and it freezes that the new Ice Jug ejects from the Pallet because it cannot be added due to the stopping. If Ice Jug ejection is desired, then mark on the pallet that Ice Jugs are not valid items for this pallet.
Fixed case where an item that is dropped in a room that has no doors and where all floor tiles are occupied was destroyed. In the test case, this was an ice jug being destroyed in a walled off room that had been ejected from a jug pallet that was stopped. Now the jug is allowed to exist instead of self destructing, but may be doubled up with another item on a single tile, which is usually not allowed.

V0.308

Fix for multi job selection where before the units would select 1 high priority job, then be allowed to select and other jobs in the area (sometimes lower priority when other high priority jobs were available.) Now the units will select the highest priority job and will only do other jobs in the area if they are of equal priority. If there is a lower priority job in the area, but it is now the next highest priority job on the map, then it is also allowed to be picked. Jobs are picked within a range of 5 tiles, so sometimes workers will not take a full load to complete all 6 nearby jobs because it may be that there is another place on the map that needs those supplies more.
Fixed bug that caused priorities to sometimes be ignored because tasks would try to chain to nearby lower priority tasks and ignore far away but higher priority tasks. This was a fairly major fix and should resolve much of the "why are they not following the priorities" bugs. It was very well hidden.
Fixed issue where when a unit was building multiple tiles like for roofs and the closest valid build tile was not on a wall, but the next one was on a wall, it would not extend the multiple build onto the wall and would not bring a full load of materials. If the build started on a wall it worked, but not if a build moved onto a wall.

V0.309

Fixed case where when a Cat would complete a hunt, the prey was marked as paused for a frame preventing it from being added to the haulable list. This meant the bunny would not get picked to be hauled home.
Fixed an issue with hauling tasks such that then an item was in the rain or had a temporary priority offset like if they were sick, when being tested to find the best item to haul next, the entire list of entities could be skipped after the offset one as part of an earlier optimization. This would ALSO mean that the darn bunny would not get hauled sometimes when there was another bunny outside then a bunny inside, then the one just hunted.
Fixed case where if a Cat decided it wanted to hunt for food while doing an instinct hunt, it would skip bringing home the present from the instinct hunt and go hunt something else for fun/food.
Fixed case where when a cat was hunting and had killed its prey (default priority 7) then there was another dead bunny somewhere with priority 8 or more, the cat would go try to haul that back as a present instead.
Fixed bug with hunting tasks by humans where after the target was killed, a higher priority target could end up being picked to be hauled instead of the one at the hunters feet.
Fixed case with dead animals in the rain getting the same +1 virtual priority as items. This lead to cases where the dead bunny half way across the map was picked for butchering when there were dead bunnies all around the butcher block, but 1 priority level lower.
Fix for case where a container object can be created but the associated stockpile was not created (have not found out how this happens yet) If anyone sees a container object repeatedly deconstructing itself, please let me know and I will find out what is creating the problem in the first place, but for now, this will prevent all the units from locking up as a result of this bug.

V0.310

Fixed Composts, Bark Wash, Ash Wash, Hide Rack not showing required item count to activate their auto processing
Fixed containers not auto stacking to nearby storage when emptied into a crafting object for a recipe. (Manure Baskets + Compost -> Gong Place)
Fixed case where with chained tasks sometimes a higher priority task could be ignored due to it being outside of the chaining range. In this case the chain should break so that the higher priority task can be serviced.
Added a "Remove Wall" task for when units are trapped inside a room with no doors. This task will allow them to find demolish wall jobs and dig their way out.

V0.311

Fixed case where if items were on top of a build task that was also on a wall that the build task would never complete.
Items that would spawn on walls are now kicked to the nearest valid room if possible. A recent change had them stacking on walls which makes them impossible to haul away.
Added helper on load that will move all items that are stuck on walls to valid positions.

V0.312

Fixed Doorways eating peoples' clothing when a unit is loaded that was travelling through a doorway when the save happened. That helper in v0.311 turned out to give doorways a mighty hunger too...

V0.313

Fixed case with Graves where if a dead person had rotted and vanished, that the Alert for them still needing to be buried would never go away
Added a counter to the Grave Alert so players know how many are currently needed
Changed the Alert indicator on the Grave Alert so it does not look like an unlocking alert and instead looks like a missing item alert.

V0.314

Fixed very rare case where the ground would glow brightly as a result of the addition of Peat Bogs and some combination of video driver + hardware.
Fixed it being impossible to rename Clanfolk if their naming has been aborted and they were called "Human"
Added some code to hopefully prevent the name inputs being somehow activated when people are scrolling the map with WASD. I am wondering if this is somehow controller related now. If anyone has a reliable way to reproduce the bug where people end up names swwwawwd etc. I would love that info.

V0.315

Updated the Auto Supply Slider to make is much easier to select high values.
Updated Auto Supply window with a tip to click the number to enter the exact value.
Fixed Case (After 4 months of looking, yay) where the blue unlock icons could sometimes get stuck on the category and type buttons. What caused this was right clicking in the Ideas Menu on a locked item before it had been unlocked.

V0.316

Fixed case where sometimes names would become "wsaa" etc... This was actually more nasty than it first appeared. When a toggle was clicked, and then WASD was used within a second AND the player moused over a part of the screen where there was a hidden input field or slider, that UI element would be set active for a split second and get input due to a bug in Unity's auto UI navigation system. So in some cases names were changed, but sounds and video sliders could also change depending on what hidden UI element had been moused over when WASD was used in that split second.
NOTE: It would be a good idea to review your Sound and Video settings if you used WASD a lot for camera movement.

Thanks very much for playing, reporting bugs, and generally participating and sharing ideas!

Andrew Hume (Blorf)
MinMax Games Ltd.

Scottish medieval city builder Clanfolk adds bogs and bagpipes

Scottish medieval city builder and colony sim Clanfolk just got even more Scottish with the addition of bogs and bagpipes to the management game. Update eight has now rolled out for Clanfolk's Steam Early Access build, and developer MinMax Games is celebrating with an ongoing Steam sale offering the city-building game at a discount. Also included in the latest patch are heather and thistle patches, and a new range of historical Scottish Clan tartans for players to choose from.

Read the rest of the story...