Caves of Qud News

Note: this update breaks save compatibility with previous versions.

206.17 - 'beta' branch

• Added new cybernetic implants: stasis entangler, polyphase modulator, and precision force lathe.
  
• We made some refinements to temple mecha.
  
  • Added special mechanics for infiltrating piloted mecha.
    
  • Added a new requirement for piloting an unaccessed mecha.
    
  • Mecha no longer heal on their own and must be repaired with 7 or 8 bits.
    
  • Mecha now require a special type of energy cell to function: mecha power core.
    
  • Piloted temple mecha now appear in dynamic encounters.
    
  • Unpiloted temple mecha can now be found, very rarely, abandoned in caves.
    
• Gyre wights now sometimes camp on the Stiltgrounds.
  
• Added new legendary names and titles for gyre wights.
  
• Added new gyre wight dialog.
  
• The approaches to Girsh cradles are no longer considered holy sites to gyre wights. Golgotha and Bethesda Susa themselves stil are, however.
  
• Rank girshlings and plasmatic girshlings now occasionally leave corpses behind on death, like other girshlings.
  
• Neutral-temperature liquids now stabilize their containers' temperature, including in the case of liquid-cooled overloaded weapons.
  
• Holograms are no longer immune to normality fields.
  
• Granite and tangled mudroot are now treated grammatically as mass nouns.
  
• Sparking baetyls no longer ask you for things you have equipped and cannot unequip.
  
• Prevented some cases of named creatures being randomly assigned the same term in multiple elements of their name.
  
• Friendly creatures can no longer swap you out of their way.
  
• Fixed several issues with yes/no/cancel dialogs in console mode.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused no keybinding to be displayed for some popups in console mode when playing with a gamepad.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused a long pause when returning the application to focus.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused you to be unable to enter some interiors if the entrance was blocked.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused keyboard input not to register on prerelease inventory and trade screens. Note: Directional navigation of prerelease trade and inventory screens won't respect binds and only responds to arrows and numpad.
  
• Fixed a number of issues involving environmental power systems when entering a zone.
  
• Fixed some message composition issues in mimic, jilted lover, and livid creeper special attacks.
  
• Fixed some issues causing NPCs to interfere with and delay each other in combat by swapping positions.
  
• [modding] The Impaler part now has a field NeedsToBeHidden, true by default, which if set to false makes being hidden unnecessary for the impalement functionality to work.
  
• [modding] Added weights to water ritual secrets and journal entries, making secrets more or less likely to be shared and discovered.
  
• [modding] Added weight modifiers to interests in Factions.xml, specified via a Weight attribute. Ex: Weight="50".
  
• [modding] Added GetWaterRitualSecretWeightEvent, which can modify the final weight of secrets in the water ritual.
  
• [modding] Added BuySecretWeight and SellSecretWeight attributes to the water ritual xtag, which can override a creature's weighting of secrets by id.
  
• [modding] Added EntityID and EventID to factions, allowing retrieval of their historic entities and events, respectively, when they exist. Example use is to get the village inhabited by a given village faction.
  

206.11 - 'beta' branch

• Added new cybernetic implants: grafted mirror arm and holographic visage.
  
• Revised the design of stasis resonators.
  
• Changed the Girsh water ritual liquid to cloning draught.
  
• Added a new water ritual option to the Girsh nephilim.
  
• Girsh nephilim now bleed.
  
• Gave girshlings fangs.
  
• Added a new butcherable to girshling corpses: girshling fangs, rank fangs, incadescent fangs, and zigzag fangs, depending on the corpse.
  
• Added defanged girshlings.
  
• We made more changes to the Gyre wights.
  
  • Changed default Gyre wight reputation from -650 to 0.
    
  • Gyre wights still consider nephilim cradles and their approaches holy places.
    
  • Replaced glow-wight cultists of Agolgot and Bethsaida with gyre wights of Agolgot and Bethsaida, respectively.
    
  • Added gyre wights of Rermadon, Shug'ruith, Qas, and Qon.
    
  • Legendary gyre wights of a particular Girsh are more likely to share the cradle of that Girsh.
    
  • Nephilim shrines now occasionally have gyre wights worshipping at them, and rarely, legendary gyre wights.
    
  • Fleshed out Gyre wight descriptions, dialog, and legendary titles coming soon.
    
  • Made gyre wight apotheotes have a hostile temperament.
    
• Added a new tile for the nephilim circles of light.
  
• Added a new tile for the Single Weapon Fighting ability toggle.
  
• NPCs can now use healing foods like witchwood bark and urberries.
  
• The chiming rocks at Eyn Roj and the glowing soft below it are now points of interest.
  
• Leather whips can now be modded with some item mods.
  
• You no longer switch targets to a clockwork beetle when one spawns.
  
• Liquid collection now indicates the direction the liquid is being collected from, and the source if from a container.
  
• You now receive a popup when non-trifling companions fall down a pit or similar terrain feature.
  
• Fixed many issues with faulty zone generation. Canyons and canyon-like areas should be more canyon-like again.
  
• Fixed a bug that made relics providing improved block not remove the effect when unequipped, quickly resulting in 100% blocking chance.
  
• Fixed a bug that made some relics associate themselves with an incorrect historical period.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused key delay to reset to the lowest value after existing and re-entering the game.
  
• Fixed an issue that would sometimes cause tomb stairs to spawn encased in walls.
  
• Fixed an issue that would ocassionaly cause historic sites to not generate correctly.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused pit ledges to render incorrectly after a serialization cycle.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused multiple simultaneous throw animations to each require an individual keypress to animation cancel.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused missile weapon penetration to be more limited than it should have been under some circumstances.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused rapid flickering of the zone transition arrows.
  
• Enabled opengl support for legacy OSX 10.3 systems.
  
• [modding] The BleedingOnHit part now has a field Holographic that, if true, causes it to inflict holographic bleeding instead of regular bleeding, and no longer has a SelfOnly field, instead using its IActivePart scope configuration to control what it affects (with WorksOnSelf, WorksOnEquipper, WorksOnHolder, WorksOnWearer, and WorksOnImplantee supported).
  
• [modding] Symbolic links are now be excluded from workshop uploads.
  
• [modding] Populations within interiors are no longer be placed outside the bounds of the map.
  
• [modding] ModTransmuteOnHit's description is now moddable via the DescriptionTerm field, and creatures transmuted into other creatures are no longer considered to have died.
  

If you're interested in modding Caves of Qud, come join the Caves of Qud Modding Jam: Monster Mash!

https://itch.io/jam/caves-of-qud-modding-jam-1


It's a perfect entry point for new modders.

206.10 - 'beta' branch

• Added cradles throughout Qud where the Girsh nephilim reside.
  
• Added secrets for the locations of the cradles.
  
• Nephilim cradles and their approaches are now considered holy places to Gyre wights.
  
• Legendary Gyre wights are now willing to share the locations of nephilim cradles. Gyre wight creature updates coming soon.
  
• When one of the nephilim is killed, the ones remaining now absorb its essence and become more powerful.
  
• The nephilim now leave behind chorded circles of light when they perish.
  
• Added shrines to the nephilim throughout Qud.
  
• Added new sound effects for Girsh nephilim presence and irisdual beam attack.
  
• Added girshling variants to population tables.
  
• Temple mechas Mk 1a can now use their gigantic machined edge again.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused armor pieces to be ineffectually equippable to any limb.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused temporary mutations to be removed inconsistently.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused torches to not automatically equip.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused creatures to sometimes equip gigantic items they shouldn't be able to equip.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the equipment screen to occasionally close when unequipping an item that provided limbs.
  
• Fixed a bug in fork-horned gnu's description.
  
• [modding] Severed body parts now have string properties EquippedBlueprint, DefaultBehaviorBlueprint, and CyberneticsBlueprint set to the blueprints of the respective attached objects, if any.
  
• [modding] Added a Tree tag to objects considered trees.
  
• [modding] Added 'music' and 'widget' tags to Worlds.xml, which are aliases for ZoneBuilders.Music and ZoneBuilders.AddWidgetBuilder, respectively.
  

206.4 - 'beta' branch

• Added a new piece of furniture: wire extruder.
  
• Added wire extruders to Grit Gate, Yla Haj's workshop, and the Yd Freehold.
  
• We made several balance changes to the Horns mutation.
  
  • Horns now costs 4 mutation points instead of 3.
    
  • Changed the damage scaling from 2d(3+[rank/2]) to 2d(3+[rank/3]).
    
  • Changed tho to-hit bonus scaling from +rank to +(rank/2)+1.
    
  • Changed bleed damage scaling from 1d2+(rank-4)/3 to 1d2+(rank-4)/4.
    
  • Changed the bleed save target from 20 + 3*rank to 20 +2*rank.
    
• We made some balance changes to Single Weapon Fighting.
  
  • Made all the stat requirements Strength OR Agility instead of just Agility.
    
  • Descreased skill point cost to 100sp.
    
  • Renamed Expert Strikes to Penetrating Strikes, increased the skill point cost to 200, and increased the stat requirement to 23.
    
  • Broke Weapon Mastery into two skills: Weapon Expertise and Weapon Mastery. Expertise costs 150sp and has a 21 stat req, gives 50% chance for a second attack. Mastery costs 300sp and has a 29 stat req, bumps the second attack chance up to 100%.
    
  • You can now make offhand attacks with horns and stingers even if Single Weapon Fighting is toggled on, but if you make either one your primary weapon, then you do not get offhand attacks with the swapped limb.
    
  • Made Penetrating Strikes no longer apply to non-creature walls.
    
  • Extra attacks from Weapon Expertise and Weapon Mastery now trigger off activated weapon abilities.
    
• We made some balance changes to Multiweapon Fighting.
  
  • Made all the stat requirements Strength OR Agility instead of just Agility.
    
  • Increased the stat requirements of Multiweapon Expertise and Multiweapon Mastery from 21 and 25 to 23 and 27, respectively.
    
  • Increased the skill point cost of Multiweapon Mastery from 150 to 200sp.
    
• Gave the Girsh nephilim base resistances.
  
• Gave portable wall a new tile.
  
• When two spacetime vortices come into contact, they now explode instead of one being sucked into the other.
  
• Stable, stationary spacetime vortices are now points of interest.
  
• Creatures now refuse to chat or trade with you when they are on fire.
  
• Kesehind now knows how to use the shield he carries.
  
• Walking by flowers now refers to some flowers rather than a set of flowers.
  
• Made some performance improvements to autoexplore.
  
• Added a popup message when a companion fall down a pit.
  
• Improved messaging when robots are affected by Sunder Mind.
  
• Temporarily replaced overly long melee attack sounds.
  
• Irisdual beam is now more audible through walls.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the legendary grand newfather's followers to be much lower level than they should have been.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused lockups in autoexplore.
  
• Fixed a bug that made Flaming Ray and Freezing Ray hands variants stop working after eating the Cloaca Surprise or Crystal Delight.
  
• Fixed a bug that made the first deployment of a stasis grenade's stasis field be unaffected by normality.
  
• Fixed a bug that brain brine to not be consumed upon drinking.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented entering clams.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the achievement for defeating a chrome pyramid to not be awarded.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused you to be unable to attack with hooks for feet.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused hooks for feet not to regenerate again.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused irisdual beam's vfx to be delayed by the firing of other missile weapons.
  
• Fixed missile weapon VFX from offscreen zones being displayed.
  
• Fixed pagination controls on character generation screens.
  
• Fixed a bug that would rarely cause an object to become invulnerable.
  []
• Fixed a bug that would rarely cause a UI lockup when interaction with an object.
  
• Fixed a bug that made Flaming Ray and Freezing Ray hands variants stop working after eating the Cloaca Surprise or Crystal Delight.
  
• Fixed the spelling and capitalization of Dyvvrach's name in the fourth step of If, Then, Else.
  
• Fixed a typo in a medassist module loading message.
  
• [modding] The Consumer part now has the fields Message and FloatMessage for configuring its message log message and, optionally, a floating text message.
  
• [modding] The parts Breeder, LeavesTrail, LeaveTrailWhileHasEffect, PopulationSpawner, and DeploymentGrenade all now support extended blueprint syntax (# can preface a comma-separated list of blueprints to select from, and @ can preface a population table name). The first four also have a new Range parameter that allows objects to be deployed at a randomizable range from the source.
  
• [modding] ModSerene and ModHorrifying now work with existing equip slots configurations, adding a head and/or face requirement if not already present, rather than replacing existing configurations entirely.
  
• [modding] Any mutation that grants natural equipment (such as wings or hooks for feet) can now specify variants using the "MutationEquipment" tag.
  

Our next feature arc, Creatures of the 7th Plague, is now in beta! Big picture, this arc includes the next quest in the main questline, significant updates to the UI and input, lots of new visual and sound effects, lots of performance improvements, and many gameplay changes.

If you'd like to help us test it, right-click on Caves of Qud in Steam, select Properties, click the Betas tab, and switch to the 'beta' branch. Check out this thread if you want to post your feedback and get access to fast-forward wishes to help test the new quest. Note: previous saves won't be compatible with this beta.

Live and drink, friends. Patch notes below.

[h3]NEW MAIN QUEST AND THE GIRSH NEPHILIM[/h3]
Added the next leg of the main quest. Talk to Barathrum after completing the Golem.
Added the Girsh Nephilim, 7th plague of the Gyre. Lairs to come.


[h3]UI AND INPUT [/h3]
Several of these changes were merged in from the "input" beta.

Merged all input managers down to one, meaning you no longer have to change settings for gamepad to work.
Added a new keybind screen and made key binding more flexible, with many more commands now bindable.
Made keyboard, gamepad, and Steam Deck input much more robust across the board.
We added a new Abilities screen ('a').

• Added icons for every ability.
  
• Added in-depth, dynamic descriptions for many abilities (the rest to come).
  
• You can reorder abilities on the Abilities screen and they will also reorder in your hotbar.
  

We made several enhancements to the ability hotbar.

• Your abilities are now automatically hotkeyed. You can change the hotkeys from the Abilities screen.
  
• Added hotkeys for scrolling through your hotbars (default ctrl+1 - ctrl+5).
  
• New ability icons also appear on the hotbar.
  
• Added the new ability icons to the old UI sidebar. They also now respect the order of abilities on your ability screen.
  

We added many new visual effects.

• Added new visual effects for several abilities: flaming ray, flame breath, teleportation, slammed, digging, and temporal fugue.
  
• Added new visual effects for several types of deaths: decapitation, transmuted, consumed, lased to death, and immolated.
  
• Added new visual effects for several missile weapons: all lead slug weapons, all arrows, laser rifle, chain laser, laser pistol, point defense laser, spitting seed plant, light rondure, flamer thrower, null ray pistol, and rocket launchers.
  
• Added new visual effects for several other creatures and items: aloe pyra, flaming vents, HE grenades, neutron flux, and hookah.
  
• Added new visual effects for throwing.
  
• Replaced the combat slash animation with a new one that has three grades of intensity for 1, 2-3 and 4+ penetrations.
  
• Added a new animation for bludgeoning damage.
  
• Added a new block animation.
  

Added a new, highly visible autoexplore danger indicator.
Added new tiles for some flashing status indicators: swimming, wading, covered in spores, flying, and sprinting.
Holding down movement keys to move quickly is now safeguarded by the autoexplore danger indicator.
Added gamepad button glyphs for Xbox and PlayStation controllers wherever the UI indicates a button bind.
Right-stick up and down now defaults to page up and down in menus.
Added default force-attack diagonal bindings: Ctrl+Shift+arrow keys.
Added a bunch of new keybinds.
Page Up and Page Down can now be used to navigate popups and the look menu.
Changed the default bind for the Factions page to ctrl+f.
Removed "laptop defaults" keybind options. The new defaults should be usable without numpad.


[h3]GAMEPLAY[/h3]
Added new creatures: grand newfather, temple mecha mk I, and temple mecha mk II (legendary).
Added new items: grappling gun and longreach grappling gun.
We revamped the First Aid skill tree.

• Renamed the skill tree to Physic and reduced the initial purchase cost to 50sp.
  
• Staunch Wounds now simply improves your bandaging rolls, both in and out of combat.
  
• You can now use Staunch Wounds on your companions.
  
• Removed the Heal and Set Limb skills.
  
• Added a new skill: Nostrums. 100sp. INT 21.
  
  • You can treat bleeding, poison, illness, and disease onset at a campfire.
    
  • Treatments can be applied to companions.
    
  • Some treatments require a medicinal ingredient.
    
• Added a new skill: Amputate limb. 50sp. INT 23.
  
  • You can voluntarily amputate your own limbs.
    
  • You can amputate your companions' limbs, if they are infected or equipped with unremoveable equipment.
    
• Added a new skill: Apothecary. 100sp. INT 25.
  
  • Healing tonics you apply last an extra round.
    

We revamped the Dual Wield skill tree and made changes to how offhand attack changes are displayed. (Experimental: subject to change)

• Renamed the skill tree Multiweapon Fighting and the skills Multiweapon Proficiency, Multiweapon Expertise, and Multiweapon Mastery.
  
• The bonuses to offhand attacks granted by Multiweapon Fighting skills now apply to all offhand limbs, except mutation-based weapons like Horns and Stinger. This now includes chimera limbs, as before, but also limbs granted by Multiple Arms and Helping Hands.
  
• Reduced the offhand bonuses from the three skills from (effective) +20/40/60% to +20/35/50%.
  
• Reduced the skill point cost. Each skill is now 150sp, down from 300sp.
  
• Natural offhand limbs and weapons wielded in offhand limbs now display their offhand attack chance in their descriptions.
  
• When you swap your primary limb, your old primary inherits the offhand chance of the new primary you swapped to. This was always the case but is now easier to track due to the offhand chance getting displayed in the limb/weapon description.
  

We added a new Single Weapon Fighting skill tree. (Experimental: subject to change)

• Single Weapon Fighting. 150sp. AGI 17. You no longer make offhand attacks in exchange for mastery with a single weapon (toggleable).
  
• Opportune Attacks (free with skill) - Whenever you score a critical hit with a melee weapon, the cooldowns of up to two random weapon or shield skills are immediately refreshed.
  
• Expert Strikes. 200sp. AGI 19. Your attacks always penetrate one extra time.
  
• Weapon Mastery. 150sp. AGI 23. Whenever you make a melee attack, immediately make a second attack for free.
  

We made improvements to how mutation variants are chosen and displayed.

• Added new tiles and descriptions for each mutation variant. E.g., horns, horn, spiral horn, antlers, and casque now each have their own tiles and descriptions.
  
• Added new tiles and descriptions for Flaming Ray's ghostly flames and Freezing Ray's icy vapor.
  
• When you choose a variant during character generation, the appropriate tile and description are now displayed.
  
• When you randomly choose mutations during character generation, you can now get mutation variants.
  
• When you gain a mutation after character generation, you can now pick a variant.
  

Increased Gun Rack's license point cost from 4 to 6.
Intravenous ports now stack by adding to the tonic's duration its original duration, before any modifiers, for each implant.
Objects that occlude vision, like trees, and stationary pieces of furniture now have a chance to be hit if a missile passes through their space.


[h3]MISCELLANEOUS[/h3]
Added MANY new sound effects.
Changed the penetration SFX to match the 1, 2-3 and 4+ tiers.
Replace "Then Things to Do When You Start the Game" with a "Quickstart" guide that has up-to-date info and dynamic keybinds.
There is now case specific death messaging for dying from reflected damage.
Removed the unfinished dungeon Trembling Dunes, to return at a later date.
Simplified the campfire sounds.
Greatly improved save & load performance for both the game and previously visited zones.
Greatly improved performance when new game objects were created.
Improved general rendering performance.
Improved performance when sounds would play during your turn.
Improved performance when custom effects play during your turn, particularly offscreen.
Improved performance when a creature takes damage and attempts to alert nearby allies.
Reduced memory usage & fragmentation for long play sessions, particularly when saving or loading the game often.
Reduced save file size.


[h3]BUGFIXES[/h3]
Rejoinder no longer counterattacks while toggled off.
Fixed a bug that caused Light Manipulation to cast ambient light even when out of charges.
Fixed a bug that caused some popup selections to cancel autoexplore immediately after.
Fixed an issue that caused a spurious option popup when selecting a category in the trade menu.
Fixed some grammar issues in Disintegration's messaging.
Fixed a bug that caused several dynamic quests to stop working if you swapped bodies.
Fixed a bug that prevented "find a relic"" dynamic quests from immediately completing the find step if you already had the relic when you got the quest.
Fixed a bug that caused the first step for site-finding dynamic quests to not complete if you found the site before you got the quest.


[h3]DEBUG & MODDING[/h3]

• Improved the map editor UI.
  
• The workshop uploader now provides a native file picker for images.
  
• The workshop uploader now allows you to close the upload status screen after an error.
  
• The workshop uploader now allows you to elide hidden files from your uploads.
  
• The map editor now provides a native file picker for maps.
  
• Fixed a bug in the map editor that caused dragging the map to be scaled improperly.
  
• The mod manager now displays disabled mods as grey instead of red.
  
• GameSystems.FireEvent now supports all events fired on the player
  
• There is a new GameSystems class which provides public static helpers for raising an event on all game systems.
  
• Added string, int, float, list, and dictionary properties to Quest XML.
  
• ReflectDamage is now an IActivePart.
  
• Systems now support PlayerEquipped, PlayerActivating, and PlayerObjectAddedToInventory.