Blacksmith Master News

This is just a small hotfix to bring back sorting by ingot type in "craft ingots" column

[p]Hello everyone!
Another update for Blacksmith Master is ready! I'm trying to address as much feedback and reviews as possible, so for the next few updates, expect new features, as well as reworked old features that are causing issues and confusion. :)

Also, if you’ve spent some time with the game and feel like leaving a review on Steam, that’d really help me out. I’ve been going through reviews constantly to figure out what’s working and what isn’t — a lot of the changes in this update came directly from stuff mentioned there. No need to write anything fancy or long, but even a few honest lines make a difference.

Thanks again for all the support and feedback — it makes a big difference.

Upgraded Smelters
The first thing I want to address is the issue where, in the mid-to-late game, you need too many assistants crafting ingots, and it becomes a bottleneck really fast. It was really obvious that, besides upgraded furnaces, I should also add upgraded smelters, which can produce 2 and 3 ingots simultaneously. You need to unlock these upgrades in the mastery tree. :)



Restock Resources Overhaul
One of the most frustrating things in managing the workshop was restocking ingots. You had to drag an assistant to the "Restocking ingots" column, then manually choose the source and destination for transferring. With many storage facilities, the number of assistants grew exponentially. It was also really illogical how restocking wood and ores worked one way, and ingots completely differently. That's why I decided to merge both duties into one, just called "Restock resources".

Now, besides selecting wood or ore, you can select any ingot, and the assistant will do all the work :)

For this to work, I was missing one piece, and that was a way to mark ingot storage as either "source" or "destination" for restock.

Obviously, you want ones close to smelters to be the source, and ones close to blacksmiths to be the destination.

I also read a lot of feedback on how you guys want certain storages to be used only for smelting, and others used only for crafting items, because blacksmiths were constantly coming to the smelting area to take ingots.

Taking all this into consideration, I added new settings for each ingot storage, allowing you to choose whether to allow or block certain actions.



Mastery Tree & Stronger Miners
For readability, I also added two new rows to the mastery tree, but that's just the first step. In the next update, I will introduce a completely reworked mastery tree that allows for much more control over what you want to unlock. :)

Finally, there was one more improvement that addressed a significant issue - the inability to produce enough ores in the mines. Upon analyzing the situation, it became evident that miners wasted a lot of time traveling back and forth to collect ore.

That's why I added a new upgrade to the mastery tree - stronger miners. When you unlock it, they will be able to carry 2 ores at once, improving their performance by a huge margin.

Bug Fixes [/p]

• [p]Certain elite traits will not appear in the pool if you have already hired workers who have them.[/p]
• [p]Alt-tabbing out of the game will not cause a lot of sounds to be played when you come back.[/p]
• [p]Continued improving performance for certain situations.
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[p]Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post. We look forward to seeing you in two weeks for the next update! ~Luka [/p]

[p]Coin presses, cannon wheels, and a whole lot of molten metal — Blacksmith Master’s Early Access roadmap is officially underway.
[/p][p]This is Part 1 of what’s planned for the months ahead, and it’s already off to a strong start. The first wave of community-requested quality-of-life features arrived last week in Update #5, including:[/p]

• [p]Two new furnaces supporting 2–4 blacksmiths at once[/p]
• [p]Shared access for ore and ingot storage (no more queuing!)[/p]
• [p]Smaller ingot racks for tighter layouts[/p]
• [p]FPS improvements on cluttered workspaces[/p]
• [p]A rebalanced mastery tree for slower late-game unlocks[/p]
• [p]Fixes for assistant pathing, save UI clutter, Mac edge scrolling, and more[/p]

[p]That was just the warm-up.[/p][p]Next in line:[/p]

• [p]Ingot Smelter Upgrades allowing multiple ingots to be smelted simultaneously (I hope I spelled that right)[/p]
• [p]Coin Minting, a new production chain turning copper, silver, and gold into royal currency[/p]
• [p]Staff Management upgrades for more control over worker loadouts and abilities[/p]
• [p]A second batch of QoL features, based on continued community feedback[/p]
• [p]And the crown jewel: the Siege Workshop, where players can construct multi-phase war engines built for the battlefield, not the storefront
  
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[p]You can view the full Part 1 roadmap above. Five updates are already live — and this is just the beginning.[/p][p][/p][h3]Community Feedback[/h3][p]Speaking of Community Quality of Life (QoL) features, many of the improvements in Update #5 were driven by player feedback. From furnace capacity to storage behavior, we’ve been reviewing Steam comments closely to help guide ongoing development.[/p][p]If you’ve had thoughts while playing, leaving a review is one of the most effective ways to share them. It provides us with a clearer understanding of what’s working, what’s needed, and where to focus next as we continue to expand the game.[/p]

- Fixed problem with props disappearing in build mode when hovering over hidden notifications
- Fixed problem that small ingot storage was marked as inaccessible sometimes when placed at specific positions

This is just a small hotfix for a few exceptions happening in the background