Adaptory News

This is a small patch that makes a couple of balance changes to liquid pipes and plants, and also fixes some rare crashes and bugs from the Alpha 10 release.

[h2]Internal[/h2]

• Increased opacity and offset of the tile hover panel so the contents are more readable
  
• Plants are now included in the tile hover panel
  
• Tweaked the character renderer to render moving explorers more smoothly in-between world ticks
  
• Explorers will no longer try to write diary entries or eat food in doorways
  
• Explorers will no longer try to write diary entries, eat food, or idly wander to a cell that is exposed to the vacuum of space, even if that cell is breathable
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Reduced the rate of wild plant growth from 50% to 20%
  
• Increased number of brown bernie plants generated at world generation by 25%
  
• Reduced the number of ration packs buried at world generation
  
• Reduced the capacity of liquid pipes and other liquid network buildings from 10kg to 2kg
  
• Reduced the oxygen generator water consumption from 2.5kg/sec to 1kg/sec
  
• Reduced the amount of transmitite generated at world generation from 500kg to 400kg per cell
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a crash where explorers would try to pick up too much mass to supply an errand
  
• Fixed a crash if a liquid pipe network tried to split up a very small liquid mass
  
• Fixed "brown bernie" plants and foods sometimes showing up in-game as "mushroom"
  
• Fixed tile hover text displaying "ship-tile" instead of "ship tile", "oxygen-candle" instead of "oxygen candle", etc.
  
• Fixed a long explorer name breaking the layout of the priorities dialog
  

We’re excited to release a brand new update for the Adaptory Demo today as part of TactiCon 2024!



This is a major release that adds food and hunger to the game, that has rewritten explorer priorities to be more flexible and intelligent, and also includes lots of small improvements and quality of life fixes. The full patch notes are listed below.

You can download a copy on itch.io, or play the demo on Steam for free today:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2201620/Adaptory/

[h2]TactiCon[/h2]

Alpha 10 is being released exclusively as part of TactiCon 2024 and we are thrilled to be a part of this incredible event. TactiCon is a celebration of strategy games on Steam with demos, discounts, exclusive announcements, and developer panels, and is running 18-22 July this year.

Jevon is also one of the speakers on the panel Inclusion and Diversity in Strategy Games, along with some of her new best friends at Balancing Monkey Games. We had a fantastic chat and yarn about diversity, accessibility, parenting, and all sorts of important topics. You can catch our talk at 8pm CEST, Saturday 20 July (RSVP here).

https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/42427156/view/6572523942428195439

Please check out all of the TactiCon selected games, watch some panels, download some free demos, and have a great TactiCon!

[h2]Hunger[/h2]

We’ve added the new hunger mechanic that you’ll need to manage to look after your crew. Your explorers will get hungry over time, and you’ll need to discover, farm, or otherwise create food in order to keep them happy and working at peak efficiency.

Explorers now seek out food when they get hungry. Om nom nom nom

Luckily your ship had a healthy supply of emergency ration packs before it crash landed, but many of them got scattered across the world on impact.

[h2]Plants[/h2]

We’ve added wild plants to the game as a long-term source of food for your explorers, and in the demo, we’ve added the brown bernie as the first wild plant.

Each plant type has specific growth requirements (temperature, atmosphere, pressure, light etc.), and they will only grow if all of their growth requirements are being met. Fully grown plants can then be harvested by your explorers with the new “harvest” errand.

Different types of plants have different growth requirements

[h2]Goals and priorities[/h2]

In this release, we’ve completely rewritten explorer priorities, based on your feedback. Explorers now have more flexibility in choosing which task or errand they’ll choose to do and when, and are a bit more intelligent too – they’ll prioritise doing urgent, high-priority, and nearby errands. (They’ll also stop trying to write diary entries while underwater or in the vacuum of space.)

We’ve also added a new screen to manage your explorers and optimise your base. Do you have an explorer that hates digging? Now you can control how often, if at all, they’re subjected to doing the one job they dislike more than anything.

You can now configure task priorities for individual explorers

[h2]And a lot more[/h2]

Along with the usual batch of bug and balance fixes, we’ve also added in some frequently-requested quality of life changes to the demo – such as being able to build wires and pipes around corners with a single drag, regenerating individual explorers when starting a new game, and automatically disconnecting neighbouring connections when deconstructing wires and pipes.

The full patch notes are listed below.

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[h2]New features[/h2]

• Explorer goal selection has been rewritten
  
  
  
  • Explorers no longer prefer tile errands over supply errands; they will always start whatever errand is closest to them
    
  • When explorers arrive at a tile errand, they now immediately start the errand, rather than turning forward and then back to the side
    
  • Added experimental "errands" tab to the selected explorer panel, showing all errands that they can do, in priority order
    
• Explorer priorities!
  
  
  
  • You can now manually change the priorities of different categories of explorer actions!
    
  • Explorers will prioritise the errands that are highest priority and closest to them first
    
  • You can prevent an explorer from doing an entire category of actions, if needed
    
  • The list of actions will be expanded as we get closer to Early Access
    
• You can now force explorers to drop what they're carrying in one of their inventory slots
  
• Added buttons in the new game panel to regenerate individual explorers before starting out
  
• Explorers now get hungry!
  
  
  
  • When explorers' hunger hits 0%, they will work a lot slower
    
  • Explorers will automatically eat food when they're idle and hungry
    
  • Some ration packs are available when you crash land, and are also scattered throughout the world
    
  • Added ration pack and brown bernie foods
    
  • World generation now generates some brown bernie plants as a slow-growing wild food source
    
  • Wild plants can be harvested with the new "harvest" errand
    
• New building overlay icons
  
  
  
  • Overlay icons have tooltips when moused over
    
  • Added "no foundation" overlay icon to buildings that require foundations
    
  • Added "no ceiling" overlay icon to buildings that require a ceiling
    
  • Added "no connection" overlay icons to buildings that require a connection to a power network
    
• Added conversation log to explorers, so you can see what they've been chatting about
  

[h2]Internal[/h2]

• The gas layer is now rendered behind "foreground" buildings and characters, but in front of "background" buildings
  
• Added gas texture to gas layer
  
• Tweaked breathability layer to better represent lower levels of oxygen
  
• Personal explorer errands such as diary-writing now show progress in pink, not yellow, so it's clearer they're not interacting with a tile errand
  
• Explorer oxygen level bars now render above all other progress bars
  
• Explorers will try to give each other a bit more space, by sometimes moving when there is another explorer in the same tile
  
• Explorers will no longer try to write diary entries in water or the vacuum of space, or on ladders
  
• When an explorer deconstructs a wire or liquid pipe, neighbouring connected wires/pipes will now also be disconnected
  
• Wire and liquid pipe corners can now be built with a single drag, rather than needing to drag two straight lines
  
• Changed debug info keyboard shortcut from F8 to shift+F8
• Added keyboard shortcut Alt+Enter to change fullscreen/windowed mode
  
• The game can now change fullscreen/windowed mode with F5 or Alt+Enter while it is still starting up
  
• Rewrote the liquid network flow resolver, so that networks split with multiple sinks (e.g. vents or oxygen generators) should now be equally split across the network, rather than all packets preferring the nearest sink
  
• Tweaked the packet renderer to render moving packets more smoothly in-between world ticks
  
• Explorer conversation replies have been moved down so they're easier to read
  
• Updated liquid network overlay icons to be a bit clearer
  
• Updated in-game database text for all buildings
  
• The in-game database list of buildings for each building category is now sorted in alphabetical order
  
• Added more conversation texts between explorers
  
• Added an open source licenses dialog in the Credits panel
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Made battery charge/discharge units consistent with power generation units – all are now measured in W (watts), allowing batteries to charge and discharge faster
  
• Batteries now require a foundation to charge and discharge
  
• Liquid pumps now require a foundation to consume electricity and operate
  
• The transmitter now requires a foundation to transmit the distress signal
  
• Lights now require a ceiling to consume electricity and operate
  
• If explorers have an assigned bed, they will no longer work until they pass out
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Explorers no longer obsess supplying a coal generator over other errands
  
• Explorers will no longer take dirt or oxycans to bed when sleepy
  
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a liquid network loop was connected to a vent with no liquid pump
  
• Fixed a crash if "none" was selected for any dropdown in the sandbox tools
  
• Fixed UntranslatedString in resource counter tooltips for items
  
• Fixed a crash if a build errand was cancelled while an explorer was supplying it with a resource
  
• Explorers can no longer build buildings behind dirt or other solid tiles
  
• Fixed 3D sound spatialization imbalance
  
• Fixed a number of issues with windowed fullscreen mode not being captured correctly by Windows, OBS, or other capture tools
  
• Fixed build panel layout issue at 80% UI scale
  
• Fixed a slight text alignment bug in the credits panel
  
• Fixed some save files not loading
  

This is a small patch that fixes a few unusual bugs from Alpha 9, and also should make the lower levels of the generated world a little bit more challenging! 😉

[h2]Internal[/h2]

• Building pages in the in-game database now list the specific effects they may have on your explorer (for example, the bed's impact on explorer happiness)
  

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Increased magma default temperature in world generation from 1200 C to 2000 C
  
• Added a wider variety of materials to world generation, increasing the difficulty to get down to the lowest levels
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug where continuous music would eventually stop playing music altogether
  
• Fixed a bug where a transmitter could have 2499.994 kg of transmitite but could not be filled up further
  

Alpha 9 is now live! This is a major release that has updated every single screen with brand new user interfaces that look and feel better. You can download a copy on itch.io or play the demo on Steam today.



If you find any bugs, issues, balance problems or suggestions, please let us know on Discord or by email. A huge thank you to the community testers who have helped test this release, and found some really unusual bugs! ❤️

[h2]A refreshed main screen[/h2]

The main game screen has had a complete overhaul:



There’s a brand new world time clock in the top right, with speed buttons clearly listed. It also shows you the progress of the day/night cycle.



The explorer selection bar now displays their mood as a background colour and progress bar, so you can quickly see if someone is having a bad day.



Building blueprints are now in different building categories, with separate dropdowns for each category (oxygen, power, liquid, gas etc.). Some of these categories will only become available in Early Access. These menus also give us room to add many more building types in future updates.



Selected objects now have different information panels to show different categories of information. For example, if you’re clicking on an explorer, you’re probably more interested to know how they’re feeling, and less who their best friend is, or what material they’re made out of – but it’s still important to know these details sometimes.

[h2]User interface design[/h2]

We’ve worked hard on a brand new user interface design that feels closer to the hand-drawn lineart style of the game. Buttons and dialogs are now rounded, shadows are cleaner, dropdowns are animated and have a scrollbar, text is crisper, rendering is faster, and there’s been lots and lots of other tweaks and polish.

User interface scaling is no longer experimental; whether you’re running the game at 80% or 200% zoom, the user interface should work great. Pressing keyboard shortcuts such as enter and escape now work more consistently across all user interfaces.

[h2]In-game database[/h2]

As we add more content and systems to the game, it’s important to be able to see what everything does. While Adaptory will have a wiki eventually, I think it’s better to have this detailed information available in-game – and in Alpha 9, we’ve added a fully interactive in-game database!

For now, the in-game database shows all of the possible buildings and materials

[h2]And a lot more[/h2]

We’ve added a lot of quality of life and user interface tweaks in this release, so the game should feel much more fluid and user-friendly. Please let us know what you think and if you like the changes!

Full patch notes below.

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[h2]New features[/h2]

• A brand new user interface design which will take us into Early Access!
  
• A brand new in-game database showing detailed properties for all materials and buildings in the game
  
• The top explorer selection bar now also displays their mood as a background colour
  
• Added new world clock to the top right, which also has game speed buttons
  
• The build panel is now categorised, with separate dropdowns for each building category (oxygen, power, liquid, gas etc.). Some of these will only become available in Early Access
  
• Updated transmitter with new art
  
• Most windows can now be moved by clicking and dragging the header, and closed with enter or escape
• Updated selected object panels:
  
  
  
  • Panels now have tabs with different categories of information
    
  • Added tooltips to describe the impact of each explorer trait, if any
    
  • You can now cancel an individual building errand by selecting the errand and clicking the new "cancel build" button
    

[h2]Internal[/h2]

• Improved performance of all user interfaces and components
  
• Tweaked text rendering to be slightly crisper
  
• Fixed small transparent images sometimes having very subtle rendering errors from filtering
  
• Dropdowns with too many values to fit at once will now display with a scrollbar
  
• Animated opening and closing dropdowns
  
• Added inner drop shadow rendering to scrollable areas
  
• When changing the UI scale, a confirmation dialog now pops up giving you the opportunity to revert the scale back
  
• Updated some tutorial text to be clearer and simpler
  
• Added a tutorial step to help the player unpause the game if it was accidentally paused at start
  
• Improved game startup speed by only generating bitmap fonts on demand
  
• Changed order of layer overlays, to align with the building category order
  
• Tweaked right click to close more selected objects and actions, including the move explorer command and any selected overlay
  
• When dragging an action, right click will now cancel that draggable action
  
• Renamed artifact item type to artefact
• Explorer thought bubbles are now rendered above solid elements, so you can always see what they're thinking
  
• Keyboard input changes:
  
  
  
  • Pressing tilde ~ within the console while the console has focus now closes the console, rather than typing the character
    
  • Pressing enter in the Save Game dialog is now the same as pressing the Save button
    
  • Changed the power overlay keyboard shortcut from F4 to F2
    
  • The numpad enter key now works the same as normal enter
    
  • Pressing space on a button no longer "clicks" the button, as game pause/unpause should be higher priority. Enter and numpad enter are still keyboard shortcuts to click the button
    
  • Pressing escape when an overlay layer is open will now close the overlay, rather than opening the escape menu
    

[h2]Balance[/h2]

• Reduced supply goal slider resolution from 1kg to 10kg
  
• When opening an explorer's diary, new entries are no longer automatically marked as read
  
• The day/night cycle now has an actual night period where sunlight is zero (1/4 of a day)
  
• Oxygen candle holder buildings are now called oxycan holders
• When a non-solid tile moves (e.g. sand falling), all dig errands attached to that tile are now moved as well
  
• Increased event budget cost of solar flare event from 1.0 to 3.0
  
• The salt element is no longer a fixed solid, but loose like sand

[h2]Accessibility[/h2]

• Added "background star movement" option to options panel, which stops the movement of the main menu's background stars
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed a number of font scaling bugs when the UI scale was not 100%
  
• Fixed a bug where text tooltips would sometimes not be replaced with rich tooltips
  
• Fixed a bug where if the options dialog was open, escape would instead close the escape menu
  
• Fixed not being able to subscribe to email updates from the main menu
  
• Fixed being able to change an explorer's name to a blank string
  
• Fixed a rare bug where you could not click on the Close button in Save/Load dialogs that listed a lot of save games
  
• Fixed a memory leak that could occur when a scrollable user interface was left open for a long time
  
• Fixed the sound at the start of the game sometimes being played more than once
  
• Fixed a rare bug where the game would sometimes start paused
  
• Fixed a rare crash from trying to delete a missing particle effect
  
• Fixed a bug where a highlighted tutorial area would remain highlighted after clicking "hide all tutorials"
  
• Fixed being able to unpause the game with space while in the escape menu or other modal dialogs
  
• Fixed being able to change the layer overlays while in modal dialogs
  
• Fixed a significant texture memory leak – thanks rhys! 😊
  
• Fixed the game slowing down if a large number of sounds all tried to play at the same time
  
• Fixed a bug where mass stored in a build errand would be deleted if the errand was cancelled
  
• Fixed a bug where the camera would sometimes not center on the crashed ship at the start of a new game
  
• Fixed a crash if an explorer stood on top of a pile of vacuum
  
• Fixed a bug where suffocating explorers would not die until their body became visible (e.g. if they were stuck in sand)
  
• Fixed a bug where digging a solid element would sometimes not visually update
  

We are thrilled to share that Adaptory is part of the 2024 Women's Day Sale on Steam!

Over the next week, please check out some of these games being made by diverse studios across the world. We're feeling very lucky to be a part of this event, alongside some really incredible and inspiring studios.

2024 Women's Day Sale

Now is also the perfect time to play the free Adaptory demo. We're working hard on the Adaptory user interface at the moment, based on your feedback from Steam Next Fest, so please do continue sharing your feedback and ideas!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2201620/Adaptory/