Solace Crafting News

Beta has been updated.
Every shader has been replaced.
Post processing has been reconstructed from the ground up. It's still much darker and less vibrant, I hope to remedy that.
Most in-game video settings have been rewired.
Weather has been reconstructed.
Grass in the grasslands has been reconstructed, other biomes still pending.
Fog on the foreground camera is not working, both above and below water.
ːsteamfacepalmː
FPS on max settings is up for me about 600-800%.
Work to be done, but glad to have a test build up.

This update is entirely visual and engine based. As such, it shouldn't affect save files, but better safe then sorry. I do recommend you make a copy of any characters or worlds you wish to try the beta with, especially if you plan on switching back and forth. Having said that though, other than the bloom settings, save files should be mutually compatible with both the current live version and the beta version.

I crashed hard after trying to crunch finish all of this before the weeklong sale started. My sister-in-law gave birth to the first grandchild of the siblings last week, and my wife is 13 weeks pregnant. So, got a little stressed out there for a minute, kinda had to shut down and recuperate. Sorry for the delay on this first wave, but the performance is looking a lot better, and I hope to be able to get the lighting and general vibrancy back to where it was previously ːsteamthumbsupː

v 1.0.5.5 2024.05.03
- Upgraded Unity from 2019.4.4 to 2022.3.14
- Switched from the Built-in Render Pipeline to the Universal Render Pipeline
- Replaced shaders for all materials
- Fixed enchants using Nail, Horn, and Claw from requiring them to be of an equal tier to the recipe
- Fixed some enchanting recipes using the wrong materials

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

Solace Crafting is on sale with a weeklong deal!

Unfortunately I was not able to get the big update I've been working on up in time, but here's hoping today goes well!

I've been working a variety of pretty serious engine upgrades including upgrading from Unity 2019.4 to Unity 2022.3, switching from the Built-in Render Pipeline to the Universal Render Pipeline, and a handful of FPS improvements. Last time I checked FPS was up around +75%, but in order to do that I've had to update over 3500 materials, and rewire basically all of the video settings, weather components, all fluids such as waterfalls and lava, and quite a bit more. Sadly the new water shaders in particular are still giving me problems to the point that I was up till 1AM last night trying to get everything sorted out.

So things are not quite ready yet, but should be ready to go here very soon. I just wanted to break the silence and let everyone know what's going on.

Happy gaming!

Traders and NPC villages now live!

Coming off the beta branch now, a variety of traders offering to buy and sell different types of goods on an in-game weekly loot schedule can now be found scattered throughout the world. The "world" is actually an infinite plane by the way, if you were wondering... Complete with head tracking and dialogue bubbles.



I want to create custom buildings for each of the different types of traders, but I'd like to do so with building textures that are more fitting to their biomes. So, as an in-between step I'm going to start working on new building textures on the beta branch tomorrow.

As always, there are a number of bug fixes and small improvements to go with the new content as well.

v 1.0.5.4 2024.03.26
- Added Trader "General Store" to wild towns (random spawn) that will buy and sell basic resource on a weekly (in-game) rotation
- Added Trader variations: Weaponsmith, Alchemist, Herbalist, Fletcher, Arcanist, Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Tailor
- Fixed the ivy shader that seemed to have broken
- Added randomly generated NPC towns
- Added head tracking for friendly NPCs
- Added chat bubbles for friendly NPCs
- Added random animation logic to friendly NPCs
- Removed enchant stats decaying based on player level
- Resources attempting to respawn near player built objects will now check a 10m radius sphere instead of only a vertical line directly through their position, not respawning if anything player built is touched
- Fixed the proper harvesting tool not always showing when harvesting
- Fixed standard Cloth Armor English translations
- Fixed a typo for Smithing Melee Speed
- Fixed harvesting profession level up achievements decreasing swing speed instead of increasing it
- Harvesting profession level up achievements now reward 2% speed increase per achievement
- Fixed some facility interfaces overlapping when a new one is interacted with while one is already open
- Fixed the near terrain draw distance setting button in the main menu
- Fixed Strong Harvest skills not displaying a hotbar cooldown

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

Still on beta for a quick safety check, but the "General Store" NPC can now be found randomly in most wild towns. These traders will buy basic resources, and will offer a random assortment of raw resources for sale, including at times uncommon and rare resources. The resources they offer will change and refresh every in-game week.

I also want to add other types of traders that can randomly spawn, including a weaponsmith, an armorsmith, an alchemist, etc. Adding new types and new loot tables is easy enough, once the tech of them and their towns are all working properly.

v 1.0.5.1 2024.03.18
- Added Trader "General Store" to wild towns (random spawn) that will buy and sell basic resource on a weekly (in-game) rotation
- Fixed the ivy shader that seemed to have broken

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker

I've added some life into the non-player characters in the game, as well as added procedural towns to the game world. There's still a lot of work and content I'd like to add on to both towns and NPCs, but this is a nice start.

NPCs will now notice you and others in-game, look at you, and often give a bit of dialogue. I've also added some animation changes to them, so they can randomly play a different animation here and there rather than just standing still all the time, but I do need to add more animations onto their capabilities still.

What I really want is to get them wandering around a bit, but this has its ups, its downs, and its dangers. For example if town NPCs can just wander freely all over the place, you might not know where your fletcher is when you need him/her. We already have it setup that interacting with a town buildings sign-post provides the same services, but there are a number of things like that that I am weighing against one another to figure out the best way to let NPCs move around at least to some degree; especially so for procedural towns.

Procedural towns are a new variable in world generation, so things may shift around a bit, but it would be very unlikely for a town to spawn somewhere you've already been building, for example. For safety still, I will push this to beta first and work some things out before I move it to the live branch.

I've also removed the math that makes enchants decay as players level up. The conversation was basically that a legendary enchant really isn't legendary after you've leveled up a few levels, which isn't a very difficult thing to do when you're actively out searching for resources in the big wild. There's also definitely some drop math regarding some of the components for certain enchants that I am looking into.

So, lots being worked on! Fishing also won the vote for what's next, though I am openly discussing how to best go about that as I'm honestly not much of a fishing fan myself. I have received some great input already though.

v 1.0.5.0 2024.03.11
- Added randomly generated NPC towns
- Added head tracking for friendly NPCs
- Added chat bubbles for friendly NPCs
- Added random animation logic to friendly NPCs
- Removed enchant stats decaying based on player level
- Fixed the near terrain draw distance setting button in the main menu
- Fixed Strong Harvest skills not displaying a hotbar cooldown

You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin, or you can verify file integrity to trigger it.

To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.

Join us in Discord!

Interested in supporting development of Solace Crafting? Please consider becoming a patron via Patreon!

Check out the bug / suggestion tracker