AutoForge News

Greetings Golems!

With Summer coming to a close, we're thrilled to finally be dropping Major Update 0.3 - Strange Encounters! We thank everybody for their patience and also want to shout out our wonderful Beta Testers and the additional folks who have participated in the Experimental build the past few weeks.


In case you didn't catch any of our recent posts, when we started working on 0.3, we quickly realized it required prioritization of other features to better support what we were building. That means this update is has a lot of big improvements both visible and invisible that not only offer the necessary foundation for the base defense and invasion systems but also QoL groundwork for much else to come. We're talking fast travel, a better map system, upgrades, as well as huge performance gains benefitting all current and future hardware (Steam Deck we're coming for you!). This has meant that character customization has been pushed down the line a little, but we think it's worth it. Oh, and Steam Cloud Support also now joins us for those of you bouncing between multiple systems!




With all that said - the meat and bones of Strange Encounters is a vastly improved invasion system, new invaders, a new Warfare branch on the Research tree and tons of new tunable structures for base defense. Maybe it's time to just get into those patch notes?

[h2]Patch Notes for 0.3 - Strange Encounters[/h2]

[h3]Major Changes[/h3]

• Mainframe has acquired a new upgrade enabling Fast Travel between Mana Conduits
  
• Technology Tree has been greatly expanded upon with Warfare Technologies via a new Martial Essence
  
• New automated defensive structures can now be researched including Elemental Turrets and Sky Sappers capable of deploying Skymines
  
• Factory repair structure also now available via Warfare Technology
  
• Fully overhauled Invasion system with better frequency and communication
  
• Several new monsters have been spotted during invasions
  
• Invaders now use proper pathfinding (resulting in them digging up a fraction of the ground relative to before)
  
• Map has been reworked with Markers for discovered landmarks (with toggleable categories via a Map Legend)
  
• Additional New Upgrades for Inventory offering a Trashcan as well as the ability to quick transfer/deposit items
  
• Steam Cloud Support
  

[h3]General Improvements[/h3]

• Greatly improved performance of lighting which significantly reduces both CPU and GPU load
  
• Rebalanced and designed Mana Conduit system with new interface
  
• Technology Tree can now be zoomed in and out with mouse wheel
  
• Selecting an item on the toolbar now sets that as your active item even when an item is already grabbed
  
• Selected toolbar item is now highlighted
  
• Reworked HUD featuring:
  
  
  
  
  • New Heart-based health system
    
  • Improved active mode interface including the currently selected build range
    
  • New directional indicator showing structures under attack
    
  • Cursor targeted entities are now highlighted with a soft white pulse
    
• Added Input and output numbers for many structures
  
• Improved several inventory interactions
  
• Added option to toggle inventory auto-sorting
  
• Pressing Escape key now closes the map
  
• Ancient Tech and Void Matter are now currencies stored outside of player inventory slots
  
• Concrete is now a place-able block capable of withstanding increased damage from monsters
  
• Power Relay can have scaffolding placed over it now
  
• Increased the duration of the on hit effect
  
• Added some tooltips for several various UI elements
  
• Tiles can now be placed on top of grass, vines and other "fragile" tiles
  
• Torch's supporting tile can now be destroyed without first displacing the torch
  
• Various graphical tweaks and improvements
  

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]

• Magical Essence recipe has changed - Distillers currently making these need to have the recipe changed to update it properly
  
• Initial inventory was increased from 30 to 40
  
• Mana Conduits now only have a single infusion step per tier
  
• Mana Conduits now require slightly more Mana per tier
  
• Mana Conduits now has a single input point
  
• Monster invasions occur less frequently
  
• Assembler II maximum collection range was changed from 2 to 3
  
• Plant Supports now output seeds first
  
• Increased Otto's gathering range by 30%
  
• Item gathering now has a much shorter delay
  
• Jump time is now a little longer so you can jump up 8 blocks
  
• Decreased knockback of flying monsters
  
• Matter Refiner can now be crafted by players
  
• Magical Essence now uses and depends on Gadget Technology
  
• Significantly increased Ore Node richness
  

[h3]Critical Issues[/h3]

• Resolved crash caused by attempting to render too many things
  
• Resolved crash caused with animation system
  
• Resolved major performance issues on Steam Deck
  

[h3]Minor Issues[/h3]

• Collection range is now copied and applied with pipette tool
  
• Resolved issue with manual crafting not working as intended when crafting dependencies
  
• Resolved issue with power display numbers being multiplied by 4
  
• Resolved issue with UI sometimes not resizing vertically to fit content
  
• Resolved issue with putting more of an item into an item slot than allowed
  
• Resolved issue with unlocking a item slot
  
• Resolved issue with an unavailable item being required for unlocking a region
  
• Resolved issue with quickly unlocking two neighboring regions resulting in one remaining locked on the UI
  
• Resolved issue with progression technologies not working properly
  
• Resolved issue with settings UI getting into a back state when reselecting the selected category
  
• Resolved issue with power connection with Mana Conduit not being shown
  
• Resolved issue with soil rendering
  
• Fixing issue with audio settings not working
  
• Fixing HUD vitals misalignment that occurs from UI scale change
  

While this major update brings many features and improvements, there are still many issues lurking about, so please let us know if you encounter any instabilities or have any feedback to share. As always, our Discord remains the best place for support but our Steam Discussion Forums are still good too for those who prefer! This is only the first of many major updates to come and we will continue to be active with player support, balancing the game and fixing any issues you may come across.

As one last note; AutoForge will also be on sale for 15% off for the next week to celebrate the launch of this update!

Thank you as always for continuing this journey with AutoForge through Early Access. We look forward to sharing more about our next content-driven update 0.4 - 'The Stargazer' with you soon!

Now, let's get cranking!

AutoForge's first major update, Strange Encounters, is now available to play on the public experimental branch. We hope to be on the experimental branch for about a week before moving to a full release for the update.

As mentioned in previous updates, we have a lot coming in this update. The focus has been on monster invasions and base defense. We will provide the patch notes for Strange Encounters will it's official release. Here is a little preview of a new invader, the Valerian.



Here are details on how to get started playing the update:

First, you will want to backup your saves just in case. You can find them by browsing to the installed files directory and copying the "saves" directory. With this update we have introduced Steam Cloud support so once you have updated your save files will be relocated to another directory. It will look something like "\Steam\userdata\\1960480\remote\saves".

Next you simply need to go to AutoForge Properties > Betas and select the "experimental" branch from the dropdown menu. Steam should update AutoForge to the latest build. You can verify this by launching the game and checking the version in the bottom left corner. It should be "0.3 experimental 1".

Please provide your feedback and report any issues you run into while playing on experimental. Thank you for your continued interest and help making AutoForge a better game!

[h2]Things are heating up for the release of 0.3[/h2]
We’ve been busy this summer preparing for our next big update, Strange Encounters, and also trying to not melt from the heat. At the beginning of the month we thought we were close to finishing this update. We learned repeatedly that there were many loose ends we needed to finish up. We’re excited to share with you everything we have been working on but we don’t want to spoil too much. The update is now about ready to go out, but before we do we want to release it as a closed Beta, and then Experimental for players.



[h3]Closed Beta[/h3]
The closed Beta will be for a small, select, group of players for a short period of time. If you’re interested, please make sure to join our Discord server for more information on how to request access.

[h3]Public Experimental[/h3]
After the closed Beta, the Experimental will be open to the public. An update will be shared with information on how you can access the Experimental branch, as well as important information, like backing up save files. We’re expecting to have Experimental open for about a week.

[h3]Next Steps[/h3]
Once the Beta and Experimental are complete, it’ll be time to review all the feedback we receive and make any necessary adjustments and bug fixes. Ideally, we would like to have 0.3 released within a few weeks of the Experimental wrapping up, but that could change based on the feedback and reports we get.



Some of you may have noticed we were teasing some of the new turrets and elemental ammo in Discord and on our social media channels, but what good are those without something new to defend against, like this guy:



As always, please join our Discord! We welcome feedback and bug reports there, and would love to see how your forges are progressing. We’re also actively posting on our social media pages about updates, upcoming features, and of course the occasional meme or two, so please follow us on those platforms as well!
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[h2]Prepare yourself for Strange Encounters![/h2]
Our first major update, Strange Encounters, is piecing together nicely and is coming up on the horizon! Launching into Early Access, Monster Invasions were extremely barebones and based on your feedback we knew they needed a lot of work. While there is a lot of upcoming content that we're itching to get to we thought it was important to put in the work upfront to not only make sure that this aspect of the game is fun, but that it rounds out the core gameplay loop for AutoForge. Factory Building 101- you gotta have solid foundations.




[h3]Monster Invasions[/h3]
Improving Monster Invasions was a broad task, that has had ended up having a lot of implications. It meant more types of monsters, more base defenses, better mechanics, better monster AI and in order flow properly - better mobility for the player (more on this below). There will be over a dozen new technologies to research, new kinds of defenses including (but not limited to) new types of turrets, elemental ammunition AND new kinds of invaders - each with different behaviors to strategize for. Does that sound like a lot? Here's a gif of us trying to navigate all of this - just kidding, here's some debug footage of the new 'intelligent' Monster Pathing (sorry if you really liked tunneling invaders turning the world into swiss cheese).




[h3]Fast Travel[/h3]
Sometimes your factory is under attack and you're halfway across the map. With fleshing out Invasions it was immediately apparent we had to push up another much-requested feature: Fast Travel. Now you can get around in no time by teleporting between Mana Conduits and even Apotheos! Between this and another upcoming movement skill we think this is really going help the flow of the game even outside of Invasions.




[h3]Interface Improvements[/h3]
All of this is great and all, but we heard you at the back asking about Other Stuff? Well, we're thrilled to say there are also a bunch of minor UI and interaction updates and fixes coming too. There's reworked toolbar interactions, so now clicking on a slot will always select that item - even if you have another item in hand. The inventory itself has received some additional attention, with QoL features like toggleable auto-sorting and functions to quick stack/deposit as well as trash items. Can you spot the other big change?




[h3]Release Date?[/h3]
We're not quite ready to announce a release date for Strange Encounters but we hope that this sneak peak has whet your appetite for what we have in store. For those who simply cannot wait for the update's full release we'll be doing a public experimental beta branch in the future and even some closed beta testing. We will post on Steam once the experimental branch is live but if you want to learn more about the closed beta testing then head on over to the AutoForge Discord server and keep an eye out for announcements there!

[h3]Steam Summer Sale[/h3]
AutoForge will be part of the Steam Summer Sale and have a lovely 15% discount.



Stay tuned for more news and, as always, thank you for your wonderful support!

[h3]The first major update, Strange Encounters, is well underway![/h3]
Here's a bit of insight into what we've been working on and what to expect for our next update!

[h3]Base Defense[/h3]
When we started this update we knew we wanted to focus on fleshing out the base defense aspects. As we began work on this we quickly realized there was more to be done than what we originally envisioned. The tech tree is receiving a major extension to accommodate a full array of new technologies and production materials for base defense. We're saving a closer look for our upcoming 0.3 preview but here's a quick sneak peak at the Manufacturer; a brand new fabricator focused on creating various ammunitions...



[h3]Feature Pivot[/h3]
Originally, we were planning to introduce Character Cosmetics with 3.0. After laying out a lot of the groundwork for them it became clear over time that other changes would be much more relevant and impactful to the focal mechanics that this update is built around. So, for Strange Encounters we have pivoted to improving many other aspects of the current game rather than introducing yet another unfinished system (this will give us the space to give the cosmetics system a more polished and robust implementation too). Changes that we are bringing instead include some much needed improvements to the map and other systems that we honestly don't think this update could have done without. We will shed some more light on some of this with our update preview in just a few weeks!

[h3]Expanding the Team[/h3]
If we've seemed a little extra busy lately it is because we have also been busy improving our Team! Game development requires many things outside of work on the actual game... such as hiring people to help! We have spent some time going through over 120 candidates for a Social Media Manager / Community Manager role and have found somebody who we think is going to really help us with AutoForge's development and the community. This is HUGE for us as it will free both of us up from a lot of things we have been juggling, so we can instead continue to focus on the things we do best, like the art and code! This doesn't mean we'll be going anywhere though, rather we're bringing somebody with much needed experience and time to assist in the areas we are lacking.

Thanks for keeping up with us and your continued support! For now, it's back to the Forge!

[h3]Stay tuned for the Strange Encounters Update Preview in just a few short weeks![/h3]