Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles News

Hey everyone,

Today I have released Patch #3 , and it's a big one.

This is more or less a combined patch that fixes some bugs and reported issues, it rebalances things a bit and changes some mechanics and guidance to be clearer. These range from more resource capacity at wood sites, a lot more defending units on other faction settlements and stuff that was confusing folks.

The little red minus number above your command tower for instance is gone, replaced by a more elegant set of red bars atop a tower's resource situation in the bottom left overlay window. Less confusion , less urgency.

These are the type of changes in this patch, this also includes a few new guidance items, such as a spot for tips 'n tricks during the pause menu and some improvements to the tutorial end screen to point folks in the right direction.

Another thing to note is that the soultree now shows you the commanders and captains greyed out that you haven't unlocked yet. This so new players get a sense of what they can unlock over time.
This patch is more or less all the low hanging fruit from reading all the user reviews and chatting with you on discord. The stuff that could be handled in the first week as it were.

But more content is coming and I've tried to move forward on the roadmap the items most requested in the new content and mechanics category, but more on that (and sharing some of the spectacular creations you have all made) later this week.

Enjoy this patch, those of you that tried the beta patch that will now feature new updates and fixes as they get done. You can still try that out but it's always at a risk of beta testing something fresh.

Cheerio,
Tomas

[h2]Patch Content [/h2]

[h3]Guidance:[/h3]

• Added text at the end of the tutorial end-screen to include prompts about extractors and the soultree.
  
• Added a tips and tricks section to the pause menu, which will be updated over time.
  
• Rearranged the Map/Soultree/Inventory menus to be more visible.
  
• Soultree button added to the pause menu.
  
• Inventory button added to the pause menu.
  
• The Soultree now shows locked Captains and Commanders.
  
• Freebuild now has a spoken intro.
  
• When an outpost or extractor is targeted by the enemy, a warning is given.
  
  

[h3]Features:
[/h3]

• Moved the command tower worker cost from above the towers to within the building overview UI.
  
• The max amount of tower floors in Freebuild is now always 20.
  
• If a faction is fully defeated, no more random combat events or big raids are spawned from them.
  
• Even if a Captain is unhappy with the dominant faction, he will still accept trade routes that connect to settlements of his own faction.
  
• Leaders can only be assigned if their faction is the dominant faction unless they're near an embassy.
  
• Added additional map markers to the pool for giant settlements.
  

[h3]Balancing:[/h3]

• Gun towers now have more hit points.
  
• Improved the range and safety impact of the lighthouse which now also affects endpoint harbors.
  
• Settlement defending parties have been buffed significantly with more units.
  
• Outposts and extractor hit points have been increased.
  
• Top level raids have increased in strength.
  
• Added more refugee encounters.
  
• Most resource areas now have a little more supply and range, especially wood.
  
• Hostile raid scenario setting now also controls shipping raids.
  
  

[h3]Bugs:[/h3]

• Fixed when you save during the loss of a surveyor, you will now get a new one at load.
  
• Fixed when you try to assign Captains during the loss of a surveyor, the menu won't lock.
  
• Fixed the menu overlap on max UI scale.
  
• Commanders now don't infinitely spawn units if your battlegroup reaches its cap.
  
• Faction influence per building now correctly appears in the flow for command towers, harbors and outposts.
  
• The Bannerless capital airship now has a proper name.
  
• Definately have now removed the Discord sound (updated the wrong file previously).
  
• Prevented a lone null-ref if the surveyor crashed.
  
• Removed all achievement error logs completely.
  
• When an outpost or extractor is destroyed by the enemy, it's connected walkways are now also destroyed.
  
• You can no longer wipe the tutorial progress even if you haven't done anything.
  
• Removing a mawspring or Oberon's gate will no longer grant you an outpost in your inventory.
  
• Prevented an exploit which allowed you to start with many units.
  
• Minimal postprocessing setting now turns off bloom.
  
• Fixed selecting fast travel on the map when over another clickable item would prevent the button from being used.
  
• 10 Killcount achievement updated so it doesn't unlock at 50.
  

Hey Everybody,

I thought I would go into greater detail about Soul-Trees, the Tech trees within Bulwark.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

If you haven't jumped in to Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles yet. Now is the time as we have a demo and you can also save 10% off the price.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/290100/Bulwark_Falconeer_Chronicles/

Hi everyone.



As you hopefully can tell, I'm very active here and on the discord trying to help everyone, listening to improvements and fixes that need to get done. And I'd make patches every day if I could . (I do, but more on that later)

And two updates have already been released. But I recently notices a few bug reports where folks were using a version with issues that had already been fixed..

So the main problem here is, that if you open steam and within lets say 20 seconds open bulwark, Steam does not get the time to quietly update the game, and you are missing the patches , and you won't even realize it.

An example : some folks for a while had that issue where you only got the millwright commander that buffs wood extractors and provides a wood extractor. I re balanced that event as I saw all the requests on where to get more extractors (conquest, alignment and random encounters).

I made a mistake and for many hours folks reported that all random encounters where the wood lady.
Yet that bug was reported and fixed within 10 minutes (I was tired and did a last minute change after QA, won't happen again). But most importantly not everybody got that fix. This is not ideal.

[h2]So here are 4 ways to make sure you are up to date. [/h2]

1. Wait a minute before playing and often steam will start updating .
   
2. In properties verify the local files, often this will force an update, but takes a long time
   
3. Hard restart steam, close steam completely (not minimize, but force close) and it will update when you open it again after a few seconds.
   
4. My favorite: go to properties /betas and select the beta patch from the beta list. Then after it updates deselect it and it will update back to the normal version with all the updates.
   

Yes there is a beta patch you can turn on in properties/betas. It will give you my rapidly updating beta patch. These are untested features and fixes , so do this and you might find new bugs. If you do report them in the discord or forums, because that is super useful.

so for instance stuff that is in the current beta patch but hasn't passed Wired Productions QA is :

• when you save during a loss of surveyor , you will get a new one at load
  
• when you try to assign captains during a loss of surveyor the menu won't lock
  
• the pause menu has buttons to go to the soultree screen
  
• the pause menu has buttons to go to the inventory screen (so many buttons)
  
• fixed the menu overlap on max UI scale
  

And I'm working on some late game issues with the wonders not unlocking after combat and a free unit exploit, players found. So I literally add those fixes to the beta patch the moment they are done.

I literally love fixing bugs, it is the most satisfying thing in the world, and if someone reports something be sure that I will try to figure out what happened.

And I really want everyone to be up to date on the latest QA certified patch or even the beta patch.

So enjoy and don't forget to update,
Tomas

random encounters should be normal now, and not all the milwright wood lady and extractor..

my bad. sorry

Hi everyone todays post launch patch is live.

here are the patch notes:

• fixed that resolution is limited to a max of 4096 px to prevent crashes due to unity incompatibility with higher render sizes.
  
• fixed that the pirate captain that doesnt' transport people, dislikes the mancer rather than imperials.
  
• fixed the mawspring to be non-destructive. Only destroys stuff inside itself if demolished
  
• fixed that additional extractor and resource buff commanders can appear from the start (these can be tricky as they only spawn near the appropriate resource)
  
• added extra health to the small trading vessels
  
• the millwright commander that supplies a second wood extractor doesn't float in the air anymore when found
  

This is just the second of hopefully many patches and content updates.

Let me also note that the request for a bit more guidance on goals, the soultree progression and perhaps some clarity on extractors (you get them from conquest or random encounters) is well received and on my plate.
But changes to the tutorial require localization and so forth, this will take a little time.

So for now some urgent fixes.
Remember if you encounter serious technical issues the discord is the fastest way to get help and support
https://discord.com/invite/falconeer

See you there,
Tomas