Colony Survival News

We’ve been having a lot of debates about how to implement monster&guards in 0.9.0. We wanted more options, more variety and more challenge. We made some significant steps, for example by connecting the size of the monster threat to the tech tree as well, instead of solely to the amount of colonists. But now we had to turn our general ideas into specific guards/monsters/weapons/ammo, and that turned out to be pretty hard to do right.

We kept running into some problems:

• How do guards select which monsters they attack / prioritize? Do players have control over this?
  
• How do we prevent the gameplay from becoming repetitive “unlock stronger guard”-cycles?
  
• How do we give players a fail-safe system that saves the colony if guards can’t handle a new, stronger wave?
  
• How to differentiate heavy damage early game weapons from middle game medium damage weapons?
  
• If we provide more guard-options, how do we prevent the guard-menu from becoming too cluttered?

Just today, Zun suggested an idea that I had rejected in the past, but which does seem to solve quite a lot of the problems we encountered. Traps! Disclaimers: we’re not 100% sure about this, it’s a very new idea. We’re going to think about it during the weekend, and we’ll read your responses here under the blog, and we’re open to discuss it on Discord. No guarantees it'll get implemented! But it does seem rather promising at the moment.

Early game traps could be placeable items that get triggered when monsters pass over them. These could be "damage-weapons" like bombs, but also things like caltrops or poison devices, to slow monsters down or to damage them over time. We're considering a dedicated "trapman"-job - a colonist who maintains and re-arms the traps.

Later in the game, the trigger could be a separate item from the weapon, something like a pressure plate. You would be able to configure the pressure plate to only be sensitive towards certain enemies, and you'd have to connect it to a specific weapon.

Traps enable a lot of new strategies. For example, at the very start of your monster funnel, you could have traps that poison and slow down the strongest monsters. At the end of your funnel, right before your banner, you could place a bunch of explosives. If your guards fail to kill any monsters, they’ll be defeated by the bombs and you will be clearly notified that you’ll need to upgrade your defenses!

It solves the player-control-over-prioritization problem in a relatively intuitive way, it prevents the guard menu from becoming too cluttered - it would be helpful in a myriad of ways! But is it the right solution? Should we keep exploring alternatives? Should we release 0.9.0 without traps and without trying to find an elegant solution for the problems mentioned above? We’re probably going to make a definitive decision at the start of next week, so this is the right moment to give us some input. Let us know your opinion, it’s sincerely appreciated!

Bedankt voor het lezen :D

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After last week's blog, we received some PMs with some feedback. It was becoming quite confusing to follow what plans we're actually working on and what exactly is going to be in 0.9.0 and what not. Those same PMs were also curious about our plans after 0.9.0. If there’s broader interest, we’ll discuss that in next week’s blog. But in this blog: our plans for 0.9.0!

Disclaimer: to a degree, the development of CS remains a flexible process. While testplaying, unexpected issues pop up, and we’d rather fix that than release a problematic version earlier.

[h2]Implemented: Tools[/h2]

Our current dev build contains a new feature that supports tools. Tools are used by workers when producing items. Tools break after having been used for a while. Different tools have different effects on productivity and different durabilities. Examples are stone, copper, bronze, iron and steel tools.

Jobs have a “Tool Usage Percentage” (TUP) that determines how important tools are for them. Jobs like blacksmiths are more reliant on tools than berry gatherers. The productivity of jobs with a high TUP are more affected by different tool types. It takes longer for a tool to break at low TUP jobs.

[h2]Implemented: Monsters linked to Science[/h2]

In all previous versions, the spawned amount of monsters in the night was linked to the amount of colonists in your colony. This incentives people to play very efficiently and to recruit as few colonists as possible. To further stimulate growth and expansion, we wanted to decouple this ‘punishment’ from colony growth. Monsters are now coupled to major milestones in the tech tree.

[h2]Implemented: Better Crafting Times[/h2]

We had little room to vary crafting times in previous builds. Crafting times varied per job, not per recipe: all recipes at one job shared the same crafting time. The crafting time was also limited to about 15 seconds maximum. Both have changed. One job can now simultaneously have long and short crafting times, and the crafting times can be minutes long. We’ve been using this to fix “workaround recipes”, recipes that include things like 15 copper nails and 20 linen to artificially boost crafting time.

[h2]Implemented: ”UI Science”[/h2]

In the past, players needed to recruit an actual scientist who worked “cycles” to unlock new things in the tech tree. The idea was to eventually have dozens of scientists working on Manhattan Projects. In practice, this didn’t happen. Quite often, there were significant delays between unlocks, where it makes sense to delete your Science Lab and the scientist-job, just to re-recruit 1 or 2 when needed. This isn’t fun gameplay.

In our dev build, science can be unlocked in the UI without a Science Lab or a scientist, provided that the right ingredients are present and all requirements are met. There are new jobs like the writer, who take quite some time to produce parchment scrolls. They partially replace the scientist.

[h2]Implemented: ”Real” Currency and “Real” Traders[/h2]

From the beginning, we’ve had coins, but these coins were items like all others. They had to be crafted at a job, and the merchant job worked like any other job, while using coins as ingredients.

In our current dev build, this has changed significantly. The Colony Points from 0.8.0 are now ‘Colony Currency’. Instead of automatically distributing luxury goods to colonists for points, they now have to be sold at the trader. The trader has its own unique interface, where things can be sold and purchased instantly, in large quantities if so desired.

[h2]Implemented: Stone Age to Bronze Age Content[/h2]

To make the best use of all of these new features, we’re seriously refactoring the content of the game. Colonies grow bigger, quicker and we’ve added more jobs and items to make earlier ages feel worthwhile. This includes items like the tools and leather.



[h2]Not Yet Implemented: Iron Age to Gunpowder/Machine Age Content[/h2]

We haven’t moved past the Bronze Age, so things like iron smelting, crossbows and muskets are not in the game yet. We’d rather not release 0.9.0 while having removed such significant content. We’re planning to add more ages, which will include a lot of the content from previous versions.

[h2]Not Yet Implemented: Models and Icons for all Content [/h2]

Most of the Stone Age to Bronze Age content has icons, but the models for new job blocks have not been made yet. Content in ‘coming ages’ lacks both icons and models.

[h2]Not Yet Implemented: New Guards and Monsters [/h2]

We’re planning to add new guards and monsters. Not merely variations on current features, but new mechanics like area of effect damage and ranged monsters as well. We’re still debating if and how we should implement armored guards. We’re also considering adding new 3D models for the colonists, guards and monsters.

[h2]Not Yet Implemented: UI Overhaul[/h2]

New features like the traders and the tools have a rudimentary UI so we can test them, but not yet a ‘decent’ UI that is ready for release. Of course, we want to change that.

[h2]Not Yet Implemented: Colony Recover Mode[/h2]

With monsters not being linked to colonists anymore, a successful monster attack that wipes out half of your colony doesn’t proportionally diminish monster attacks in the next night. We’re planning a mode that costs a lot of Colony Currency and that removes your ability to unlock new tech which allows you to rebuild your colony while monster attacks are seriously diminished.

[h2]Not Yet Implemented: New Terrain Generation, and other Fundamental Changes that Require New Worlds [/h2]

Update 0.9.0 is the largest overhaul in years, and completely restructures a lot of content. We’ve already refactored savegame structure for this update. Old worlds will not be compatible with 0.9.0. Disclaimer: We use the Steam Beta Branches to make major previous versions available, allowing you to replay older worlds! Nothing is lost.

There are things we can’t improve, fix or refactor without breaking savegames, but of course, we want to do that as rarely as possible. Now that we’ve made this choice, we want to combine this with other world-breaking changes, like new terrain generation.

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These are the main features we have implemented or are planning to implement for 0.9.0. There’ll probably be some minor changes, and we always encounter small unexpected issues, but the main structure of 0.9.0 is clear to us. We hope it’s clear for all of you as well now! We’d love to hear your opinion. If you want to hear what happened to earlier plans unmentioned now (like logistics), or what our other plans are post 0.9.0, or our opinion on specific proposals - let us know in the comments or on Discord!

Bedankt voor het lezen :D

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The overhaul of the tech tree is going well. The internal dev build is continuously getting new jobs and content. The past weeks saw the addition of new things like leather, animal carcasses, parchment scrolls, cooked meat and bronze tools. Testing these things is a lot of fun! It generally works as intended and requires only minor amounts of refinement.

But this week, we did discover that the early game does require a significant amount of reworking. We scaled down the monster threat at the beginning, and slowed down quite a lot of jobs. This works really well when you’ve reached 30+ colonists, but the start can be pretty annoying. This has multiple causes:

• Science progress relies on things like wheat and flax - requiring you to wait on your newly unlocked jobs for 48 or 24 hours
  
• Expansion of your colony requires items like beds, stone tools and crates, which all take longer to craft than they did in 0.8.0
  
• Your crafters still use stone tools, which seriously slows down your crafting
  
• You’re not attacked by any, or by barely any, monsters, making the nights pretty pointless
  
• There’s a serious lack of building materials, so you can’t start working on walls, towers and buildings

We’re working to fix this. Some essential items can be crafted quicker now. We’re working on new building blocks that can be produced on a large scale at the start of the game. Some other content and unlocks are being moved to the early game as well. The monster system is getting an overhaul, and there’ll be a significant amount of them at the start.

There’s something else that might be a bit repetitive to those who’ve read all previous blogs, but it was really noticeable to me this week. The biggest thing I personally was missing in Colony Survival was something I could really put my teeth into. I would hop from a relatively minor project to another relatively minor project - and then I had finished the tech tree. I would’ve built a big fort, I would have 350 colonists, I would’ve 50 builders & diggers available who could terraform the world into any shape I desired - but no grand purpose to put all of that to use.



0.7.0 was supposed to fix that with the New-Colonies-In-Other-Biomes idea. It works, but not in the satisfying way we hoped for. Your old colony makes a glider and a Colony Starter Kit, and that’s it. Then you pretty much start over from scratch, with slightly different content. It’s not a grand purpose for your original colony.

While playing the 0.9.0 dev build, I've gotten convinced that we’ll finally manage to implement that purpose successfully. Things feel more “weighty”. Items like leather and linen take a decent amount of time to craft, making them feel more valuable and incentivizing you to expand and put more workers in these jobs. I was at 50 colonists when I unlocked copper! Simultaneously, reaching 50 colonists is a lot less punishing, because colonists attract a lot less monsters in 0.9.0 (with ‘monster attraction’ being partially shifted to tech unlocks) and them not requiring luxury items anymore. You’re also not forced to work through production chains that require a lot of random items any longer.

I’m really looking forward to building out the tech tree, right into the early modern period. It would be amazing to be able to properly reward players for building a city with 1000 colonists. Not just with an achievement, but with the gameplay actually requiring it and continuously rewarding you with new tech, new weapons and new jobs. That would truly be the grand purpose I’ve been looking for for years now!

Bedankt voor het lezen :D

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This week, we’ve added more items, jobs and science to our internal dev build. Apart from that, we’ve also added the fundamentals of a pretty radical overhaul to gameplay: in 0.9.0, the monster threat will be mostly connected to your scientific/technological progress!

In all previous versions, the monster threat was solely connected to the amount of colonists you had recruited. Of course, this is a strong incentive to minimize the amount of colonists. In 0.9.0, we deliberately want to encourage rapid and sustained colony growth. To achieve this, increases in monster threat level will be mostly connected to scientific unlocks. There will be a number of key milestones like ushering in the bronze age or the iron age. In the science menu, these milestones display how much “monster threat” they add. In the top-right corner of the UI, the currently accumulated monster threat level is shown.

We’ve been testing this system this week, and are happy with the results! It encourages a different style of gameplay. Instead of doing small improvements to your defenses every couple of nights, you’re now really preparing for a big event. Another benefit is that it allows us to “determine the pace” better. In previous versions, inefficient players were punished pretty harshly. They needed more colonists, which attracted more monsters, which required more defenses and guards and ammo. Vice versa, very efficient players could reach the endgame with a pretty small number of colonists.

In 0.9.0, we can easily finetune the threat. If we want to add an end game milestone that attracts extreme numbers of monsters, requiring extensive defensive preparations, we can do so. Things like that weren’t possible before, and we’re looking forward to using these new abilities to their fullest amount.

[h3]The Previous Blog[/h3]

In last week’s blog, we wrote that we were starting from the ground up and totally reworking the tech tree, items and jobs. That resulted in some very concerned comments - you’ve already been working on this game for 4+ years and now you’re going to start over?!

As soon as I read these comments, I realized that I hadn’t properly explained the situation. It’s not very intuitive. Technically, Colony Survival is a complex mixture of homemade systems and predefined standards. It’s not always obvious how much effort it costs to change something. It’s like replacing the same spelling error you’ve made 150 times in a 300 page text. That takes forever when you’re dealing with handwritten notes, but it happens with the press of a button in the case of a digital text.

In some aspects, Colony Survival is a lot easier to change, adjust and improve than people think. In other aspects, changes are a lot harder to pull off. Our systems have been designed in a way that allows us (and modders!) to easily change things like crafting recipes (per job) and the tech tree. The main difficulty there is not weeks or months of difficult programming, but having a good idea for improved gameplay.

Those are the kind of things that are getting reworked from the ground up now. It should result in an entirely new and improved gameplay experience, but the “development cost” is relatively minimal. Most technical systems are working fine and we’re leaving them intact. A lot of old items and jobs are coming back in 0.9.0 as well - often with a twist. Problems like cooked fish not being a meal anymore will be fixed. We understand the concerns, but nobody has to worry that we’re pointlessly redoing all the systems in the game :)

Bedankt voor het lezen!

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In the past weeks, we've built the first prototype with actual 0.9.0 content. In the past, we did alter some systems, but we kept 0.8.0 content. The new prototype has lost pretty much all 0.8.0 jobs, items and science. We're starting from the ground up! The tech tree is getting completely reworked, and so are the jobs and items. Of course, a decent chunk of 0.8.0 items are coming back, but often in different places, with different recipes.

For four years, we've been building on the foundation of 0.1.0. Now, we're completely restructuring the game while taking into account all the lessons we've learned since the first release. We've listened to your comments, we've played and tested and experimented, we've thought and debated, and now we're implementing those new ideas.

Playing the prototype has been a genuinely exciting experience. In our opinion, things work a lot better than they did. The most noticeable change at the moment is the longer crafting time. Combined with the new tech tree, it really changes the way the game feels.

In the past, crafting an item often took only a handful of seconds. Beds, weapons, new jobblocks: most were done in 3-7 seconds. Fifteen seconds at the maximum. Crafting times were the same for all items at one job. Core items like planks could be made instantly by the player. This was a fundamental restraint, and we tried to work around it by requiring a bunch of random ingredients for many items. Beeswax, olive oil, copper nails, iron rivets. A lot of time was spent figuring out which random item was missing and setting up the production chain required for it.

This has been dramatically streamlined. Recipes are clearer and more straightforward, but require significantly more crafting time. Instead of random items being the bottleneck, you’re now facing “labor constraints” way more often. You want more crafters, more miners, etcetera. Players themselves can craft barely any items. You’ve got to expand your colony faster now, and we’ve made that a bit more fast-paced to counter the more punishing crafting times.



Of course, there’s an alternative to boost your production! Tools have also been implemented. You start out without tools, and gradually work your way up, from stone tools through copper tools to bronze tools. Each comes with a significant boost in production speed, but unlocking them is gradually more challenging.

We’ve discussed plans for more public betas as well. We’re hoping to be able to open up 0.9.0 to those who’ve tested previous updates in roughly one to three months. New testers will be able to sign up one to two months later!

Bedankt voor het lezen :D

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