Bulwark Evolution: Falconeer Chronicles News

[h2]Tidings from development [/h2]

Hi everyone.

I wanted to do a quick post to explain why the speed of updates has completely stopped for the last two weeks. It's a combination of a number of factors, one of which is the passing of my dad. Sometimes life just gets in the way of gamedev.

But there are also practical factors, chiefly that a brand new tutorial is coming , one that is longer and makes lots of things that are poorly explained more explicit. This new tutorial requires voice acting, which is somewhat out of my control and expensive to a degree it is better if its done right in one go. So the new tutorial needs to be completely finished, and completely tested by the Publisher to see that yes we can go ahead and get the fabulous Chris Lines to act and voice the advisor once more for it.

I expect this to take a few weeks more realistically.

But in the mean time I wanted to share with you some of the improvements that are already done.

[h3]New Content.[/h3]

• Added systems for static pre-made settlements and towns
  
• New tutorial
  
• Added a starting pre-made settlement for the tutorial
  
• Tutorial now explains how to "grow" industry
  
• Tutorial Starts on the ground until you need iron
  
• Tutorial now in depth explains how to design a control tower
  
• Added a Warbird Freehouse commander to the Tutorial.
  

[h3]QoL improvements[/h3]

• Added selector function to your dropable inventory on the Q/E buttons or the d-pad up/down. You decide what outpost to build!
  
• improved the ground cursor workings of the surveyor, smoother and less janky
  
• Surveyor hovers 80meters behind a tower, not on top of it.
  
• Made it that the resource system updates directly faster after building a new tower, so you don't have to wait to see the resources update..
  
• walkways from citadels are now iron/defensive
  
• made it so that commander HQ props only spawn in the commander menu.
  
• made it so that higher balconies don't always obstruct the construction of lower foundations.
  
• loosened the harbor build restrictions a bit (i.e harbors can be closer together)
  
• changed the method to open the commander or captain selector to A/LMB so you can just click it when the line is retracted rather than "build"
  
• if you open the commander menu on an unfinished tower, it will cap it .
  

Fixes

• made the floodlights near industrial zones more common
  
• Made the dark patch on the construction FX fade in the ground fog (especially noticable in the maw etc)
  
• stone walkways up to industry stay stone or iron longer. But have more floodlights and only the very tip (connecting to the extractor ) is wood
  

An image of the new Outpost selector GUI on the ground cursor, allowing you to switch between outposts and special buildings you've collected.

[h3]Conclusion[/h3]
I've been testing out the new tutorial with a few discord users and the feedback so far is that its a great improvement, and it explains a bunch of stuff that was simply never explained. I hope to also have one "pre-made" settlement in the game by the time the update rolls around. These are the handcrafted locations that dot the Ursee and have their own unique NPCs and dialogue , friendly or hostile.
I also think the new ground cursor is gonna win over a few friends as the old one was indeed quite jittery and janky, but that's always up to you to decide.

I am glad to say I am fully back to work and working hard as possible to release this large upadate asap. Sorry for the delays and hope this small update helps in keeping you up2date.
Cheers,
Tomas

the new Freehouse Warbird Commander's takeover model. Fits nicely to expand the freehouse esthetic.

a WIP shot of the new 'Oberon's Reach' pre-made Mancer settlement, these guys may be friends or enemies based upon your choices.

I did a number of smaller updates the last 3 days, but didn't do a changelist. So here it is.

• removed the dx12 option as it was giving consistent issues on AMD hardware.
  
• made freehouse citadels a little higher
  
• prevented freehouse foundations from sinking into the mountains better
  
• made a new dynamic music system prototype for Benedict (with new music)
  
• made the red/blue coloring of the buildine more consistent
  
• you can build towers (tho not auto-walkways) from harbors
  
• fixed the mouse stuck to a section of the screen error in the map
  
• removed even more of the mouse jitters when in air mode
  
• made map roll overs more consistent
  
• fixed mouse locking over the horizon or sometimes when orbiting the camera
  

Small changes tho they do quite improve the overal consistency of the control experience. Basically reduce jank and take away a few blocking annoyences, (especially on mouse).


as always let me know if i broke something;)

Quite a lot of new content in this one, Lets hope it doesn't introduce new issues, as always let me know if it does.

[h2]Changelist[/h2]
-added imperial capital ship commander and dockyard to Freebuild
-added thunderstrike capital ship
-added arched bridges from skyways
-AI units now get a speedboost to stay closer to the player
-Ai units now target the location where you clicked making their movements more responsive and predicitive
-fixed the surveyor getting stuck when dropping an outpost on a sheer cliff and it just never building
-Here comes the Sun, sun and atmospheric reflections were turned off for like a month!!, now fixed
-Added some extra splosh to the maw
-fixed a bug where walls wouldn't delete logically
-made the ridiculous steep walkways done steeper so they don't look so ridiculous.

[h2]Video of the new unit behavior[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]A shot of the new imperial dockyard and thunderstrike capital shipz [/h2]


[h2]Some shots with the new reflected sun[/h2]



Anyways thats the changelist from the patches since friday. Enjoy!

[h2]UPDATES[/h2]
I have been doing a few updates the last few days but haven't done an update due to some family things popping up.

So here's the changelist for the last few days. There's quite a bit of new content and content changes.
For those interested in trying out the battle mechanics, the units you gain from commanders should now be more useful and importantly any hostile force you leave activated will make their way to your settlement or ships. This should spice things up a bit.

• added a few more buildings to the Imperial Houseset
  
• changed the Mancer tall citadel
  
• added a few ornamental lightposts to freehouse and imperial sets to get more freespace in the towns with a piazza-esque feel
  
• Added two mancer refugee events
  
• Hostile battle groups now make their way to your settlement after you flee or are defeated (Proto raids!)
  

• improved unit AI so they go aggro faster
  
• made the force that pushes the camera above the terrain softer
  
• show faction in captain selector
  
• changed behaviour of zoom in/out on worldmap
  
• the player verhicle pointer on the worldmap is now pointing in the direction of the vehicle , not the camera.
  
• if you demolish a tower and the nearest tower is far away , the selection goes to the surveyor instead
  
• made some changes to the lighting colors
  
• minor visual tweaks
  
• removed the worst of the nasty mouse jitter in airborne mode
  
• prevented the weird issue where your surveyor would just pop out of existence
  
• 
  

As always issues may arise and bugs are real, please report what you find.;)

[h3]EUROGAMER![/h3]
On a sidenote Eurogamer's Christian Donlan did a deep dive into Bulwark and the result is quite something special to read: Do so here:
https://www.eurogamer.net/bulwark-falconeer-chronicles-further-excavations-from-one-of-the-deepest-imaginations-in-games

[h3]Showcase[/h3]
here's some pretty pictures to showcase the fiddling I've done with some of the visuals the last week.

I've updated the Mancer Citadels (now also available in campaign mode) they were lacking a focalpoint and the empty facade with the dual arch makes for an interesting negative space I found.

Here's a nice 4k wallpaper(click for full image)

[h3]Space elevator[/h3]
On the Discord a player decided to reach the starts by building an infinitely vertical tower.

click here to see a little video of the space elevator ;)

[h3]What's nex?[/h3]
in closing, next up is probably fixed settlements, so the other factions in the game will have their own towns , which can be friendly, neutrol or... hostile. I have no idea how long development of this will take, but its a decent sized addition.

Cheers and enjoy Easter

The last couple of days have seen substantial mechanical changes. First in the organic population manager that is now creating more factional sprawl radiation outward from inhabited command towers and citadels (basically little houses of the controlling faction now spawn further away).

But also a the removal of limitations on building in deep water. You can never build a tower in the deepwater but you can now always connect a walkway or wall, taking away some of the guessing here.

This has lead to it being very easy to wall up your harbors and prevent them from connected. I already had little harbour bridges that could open and close, I worked yesterday to allow ships to pass these without much effort.

Here two harbours are enclosed and the traderoutes pass thru the raised bridges.


To do this I've had to refactor the traderoute pathfinding a bit also leading to "tighter" traderoutes

As seen here also better able to pass narrow gaps.

So this post is to update on the new capabilities, but also to notify this was a deep refactor and it might be rough, be good to hear if any funny business occurs with traderoutes.

here's the changelist.

• Benedict made better sounds for the move swoosh and snap squish
  
• improved trade-route path-finding so that it may path thru bridges and narrow gaps better
  
• prevented trade-route path-finding from going behind the harbors.
  

p.s Benedict Nichols the award winning composer and partner in crime on The Falconeer is back to do the soundtrack and sound design on Bulwark and he's starting work;) So a few first audible changes are appearing in the changelists, expect more the coming months.

For those enjoying the ingame music all the current music is placeholder from the Falconeer OST, which you can buy here on steam, on BandCamp or Spotify or even Vinyl!!:

here's the spotify link so can check it out. https://open.spotify.com/album/4WIJ1qwdkPsZuQeqhMHfdc?si=sb-90Sq8RRSY4XAWJBefJg