Soulash 2 News

Greetings fellow gods,

Today's update brings the 3rd dexterity-based skill - Hunting. Centered around bows and crossbows, the skill offers a variety of tools to track beings, tame animals to become your companions, and exploit enemy weaknesses while shooting them from a safe range.



The full changelog is available below:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New skill: Hunting.
- 9 new polearms.
- Added Hearth recipe to Construction.
- Added "mapregen" command to force refresh the region map.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Changed ore vein minimap pixels to be more visible.
- Bonus damage percent from abilities like Rage applies to bonus damage from statistics and basic weapon and ability damage.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Removed the option to craft multiple skill books at once.
- Fixed Mutant's Lair spawning invalid area on z -1.
- Pole Fighting level 44 correctly provides a Pole Fighting skill book.
- Archer type NPCs no longer prefer to equip daggers.
- Fixed rare crashes when placing an arrow or bolt in the stash.
- Fixed rare slowdown in elven settlements.
- Fixed elven leatherworker available recipes.
- Fixed issue with the create item orders sometimes becoming unclaimable.
- Mycelium Wardens are willing to talk to players.
- Fixed cooldown of books when crafter more than 1 not preserving on save.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Added new passive property "restrict_tags" that can be used to apply passive effects only to entities if they have at least one matching tag, like "animal".
- Fixed rare crash in Map Maker.
- Fixed crash in Data Tables.
- Fixed Ability Editor hiding the last effect input.
- Updated modding docs with extra cheat console commands.

[h3]Hotfix v0.7.2.1[/h3]
- Fixes the crash when going through the Construction skill.

What's next? Work on the next civilization that will rise on the tundras of our worlds has begun. It will be a fun surprise, as we didn't have such a race in the first game!

As always, thank you for your fantastic support, allowing me to build my dream game full-time. I'm available to talk to you on Discord daily if you have more feedback or bug reports or just want to chat about the game. If you've been enjoying your time with Soulash 2, and believe others could too, make sure to recommend it through the Steam review system. It really helps!

Have fun pew pewing with your bows and taming giant frogs,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

Today's update focuses on addressing your feedback and reported bugs, with the main addition being craftable skill books on level 44 of every skill that goes up to 50 to allow mastery of skills through your own pursuit of knowledge without needing a trainer.

There are also several improvements and tweaks, like canceling orders to deal with edge situations related to simulation, like the death of the crafter while they make your item with delivered precious resources.

Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- Books that increase potential can now be crafted from skill level 44 and up. Once the recipe is unlocked, a new book may be written every 3 years.
- Added an option to cancel orders and recover resources.
- Experience gain from using resources when crafting and upgrading is now displayed before confirming. Hovering over the XP icon displays the affected skill.
- Added a tooltip to the Family Selection screen that described family benefits.
- Added a tooltip to the Character Creation screen that offers some details about the skill system and a recommendation for new players.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- While cooking multiple meat units, the cooking sound is not interrupted before being done, and the rest of the sound is disabled.
- Increased the chance to steal items and resources from families when robbing their stashes.
- Improved Rob action tooltip to indicate a Sneaking vs Hearing check performed for nearby entities.
- Improved visibility of item quality borders in equipment.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed moving items to party members with more than 1 companion.
- Fixed Mycelium Pins recipe to be available in the building instead of crafting.
- Buildings in large towns no longer generate too close to the edge of the map, preventing entry.
- Player character no longer becomes a sibling with itself.
- Chaining Lunge no longer moves the character under the enemy.
- Fixed crash when attempting to upgrade an item that has already been salvaged.
- Fixed T-shaped ability targeting combined with range amplifier.
- Fixed message log about thorns damage.
- Fixed thorns damage dealt by enemies.
- Fixed Hit and Run ability sometimes not performing to the expected standards.
- Fixed Swap Places ability sometimes not working or causing the character to disappear.
- Fixed an issue where asking for a trainer would return an empty building name.
- Continue button no longer gets disabled when going back from character creation to difficulty selection.
- Companions correctly preserve their alternative weapons.
- Robbed items are correctly marked as stolen.
- Blinded archers no longer shoot at their normal range.
- Single-handedly ended the clone wars.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Added cooldown property to the Craftable component, which can delay crafting multiple units of specific recipes.
- Fixed issues with saving the Equipment component in Entity Editor.

[h3]Edit v0.7.1.1[/h3]
- Milestone checks happen on loading a save game to enable new ones immediately.
- Fixed Agriculture and Armorsmithing book milestones.

Work on Hunting skill continues, and we've also settled on the next civilization that will rise on the world map in the upcoming weeks. Thank you all for offering your invaluable feedback, and I wish you all many more hours of fun.

Enjoy,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

Following the feedback, I've updated the experience gained from crafting to include resource quality to promote crafting better items to advance rather than spamming trash and tackling some of the issues reported on Discord.

Here's the full changelog:

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- Resource quality adds to the experience gained by crafting and upgrading, but not building.
- Updated resource borders and name colors to reflect their quality.
- Breastplate crafting time reduced by 70%.
- Strawberries can be planted in the forest biome.
- Gatherable Herbs Bush spawns in the wild instead of Herbs.
- Improved glyphs for coal and peat moss to be more noticeable.
- Candles are now stackable.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed crash on companion death.
- Fixed crash when using using Arrow Deflection on Thorn Spitters.
- Fixed crash related to death in Hardcore mode.
- Fixed the item ownership issue in special locations.
- Fixed deconstruction action in own settlements.
- Fixed an issue where ordering multiple stackable items at once would take only a single resource unit.
- Live Moss can be used as a magic resource.
- Yew Tree planting no longer causes immediate tree growth.
- Wooden Spikes no longer block vision.
- Wooden Doors and Shell Doors can be deconstructed in the owned region.
- Fixed missing icon in crafting when a specific resource is required.
- Fixed usable items like Clay Jugs not showing in the Crafting Screen for selection.
- Fixed GUI issue in building menu related to scrolling and filtering.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Fixed Block Light component not selecting correctly in Entity Maker.


Have a fun weekend,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

The time has come for our second milestone update v0.7 "Adventuring Parties" introducing party mechanics, hireable and constructible companions, and Leadership, a new skill to support it. Here are some details.

[h2]Leadership[/h2]

Leadership is a skill focused mainly on passive bonuses to all party members. It offers 3 companion slots that we can use to hire new members to travel with us and amplifiers that allow us not to hurt our allies with AoE skills or replicate self-targeted buffs.



[h2]Construction Enhancement[/h2]

You can say goodbye to the golem in a box, as a new dwarven technology has been invented. We'll build the golem permanently and craft custom items for 4 unique slots this time. The Construction skill provides one companion slot alongside the Golem at level 40, and together with the Leadership skills, it allows you to realize your dream of being an artificer protected by beefy adamantine constructs.



[h2]Party System[/h2]

With these additions, it's now possible to hire any military unit from any town, except for generals, as long as the player character has access to an empty companion slot. The price may vary depending on stats, skills, and equipped items. The companions require only a single payment, with no additional upkeep of gold or food.

The companions will follow you anywhere and attack your enemies on their own, but you can also order them to do any activity by selecting their portrait on the left side of the screen.



They will also automatically help you build if they can access the required tools and serve as mules, as you can freely access their equipment and backpack by dropping items on party member portraits. While stashing and trading, you will see all companion backpack items for easy access.

[h2]Steam Leaderboards[/h2]

New Steam Leaderboards have been added for worlds created in v0.7 and later, including the races of Mushmen and Reptilions. As a reminder, these are not protected since the whole game is local, so they are just for casual fun.

The leaderboards are available here: Global Leaderboards

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

Here's the changelog for this update:

[h3]Added[/h3]
- New skill: Leadership.
- Added the Party section to the Equipment screen that shows up when the player acquires a companion slot from any skill.
- Selecting a party member on the Equipment screen allows ordering them to change their equipment and see their statistics.
- Added an option to drag & drop items to and from companions.
- Added a list of companions under player portrait on the game screen. Selecting the companion allows giving orders the same way the player performs actions.
- Added a button that randomizes the player character's name during the character creation.
- Party members who have the necessary tools can help build structures.
- Added 22 new recipes to Construction skill related to Golem parts.

[h3]Changed[/h3]
- The golem recipe has been reworked to be buildable instead of craftable and is now a full companion with custom item slots.
- Golem and Elemental Core are now level 40 construction recipes. There are new recipes for golem items in Construction skill above level 40.
- On the Trading Screen and Stash Screen, the items belonging to the player are shared with the party members, allowing direct sales or stashing from the companion's backpack.
- Changed experience gained from crafting, upgrading, and building to equal 1 per resource used. The exception to that is Agriculture, which adds 2 experience points.
- The green portrait border is now reserved only for the player party members.
- Improved Ostrich Feather bonuses.
- Mycelium Pins added to Agriculture skill.
- Dwarves invented fence doors and integrated them into Sheep Ranches.
- Stash now requires 2 basic wood units to construct.
- Changed the Book item type to Note instead of Usable, since it has no use.
- Increased the chance to spawn new special locations once they drop below a certain global number.

[h3]Fixed[/h3]
- Fixed an issue that would prevent selecting some items on character creation.
- Wooden Fence Doors no longer block the view.
- Item component has been removed from Peat Moss.
- Fixed some tents having walls instead of floors.
- Replaced furnace with the oven in an abandoned farm.
- Fixed some kavian villages not having kavians.
- Fixed flickering effect on item pickup and action selection.
- Swamp Guardian corpse now provides the Swamp Guardian Eye when scavenged.
- Great Larva Slime is correctly categorized as a magic ingredient.
- Fixed an issue that caused many settlement NPCs to have too low move speed.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
- Added an option for passives to apply only to party members.
- New passive effects: Companion, Party Move Speed (details in doc).


I hope you'll enjoy the new mechanics and systems. We're back on weekly updates now, I'll focus on the backlog of bugs reported on Discord and some UX improvements, with the next content target being the Hunting skill. If you missed the Roadmap, the next major update is planned in 3 months and will focus on filling our settlements with NPCs. Remember to join our community on Discord, where you'll find plenty of great players to discuss the game with!

Have fun,
Artur

Greetings fellow gods,

As I hinted last week, we'll skip the weekly update today.

There are some very exciting things in the works regarding Adventuring Parties, the first major milestone update planned in our Roadmap to v1.0 of Soulash 2. Aside from being able to recruit military units to our party, it will include a new Leadership skill that will concentrate on enhancements to the new mechanic, and reworked Golems from the Construction skill to become permanent companions with custom craftable body parts. I gotta say the Construction looks really tasty with these additions.

I think we'll be ready with everything next week, but since it's a major update that will shake things up quite a lot, we may need to take some more time to ensure our new companions perform their duties well.

As always, I'll keep you posted about the progress here and on Discord.

Thank you for playing and following the development,
Artur