Enhancement Patch #4 - Changelog

Greetings Survivors!
Today we’re bringing to you Enhancement Patch #4, which focuses on the colonists task system and gatekeeper improvements. It also introduces a brand new Milestone and Prestige system.

It’s the first update planned for a new line of patches based on your feedback and suggestions. As always, we are grateful for your continuous support!

[h3]Game versions
PC: 1.13.0.8500
Xbox: 1.13.0.140[/h3]

[h3]General[/h3]

Milestones have been added to the game.

22 different Milestones have been added that you can now complete to earn Prestige for your colony.
Each Milestone will have three different factors that determine how much Prestige you earn from it.
- Base Prestige is set for each Milestone individually.
- Difficulty Bonus is based on the difficulty level you select when you start a new colony.
- Day Bonus is based on how quickly you complete the milestone.
The Milestones can be found in the Milestones menu which can be accessed from the bottom right corner when playing with a mouse and keyboard. With the controller, it is in the same menu as other menus are.
You can always see your current amount of Prestige in the game from the same bottom right corner.
Milestones will not work with older saves. The menu can be accessed but none can be completed until a new colony is started.

A complete overhaul of the Colonist AI task system has been performed.

This overhaul should first of all improve the behavior of the colonists in the game.
Colonists should now check the availability of the task they need to perform before starting the task, for example, previously whenever a resource was produced that several colonists would need (such as tools), they would all stop their current task and run towards it. This overhaul should now prevent this behavior and instead assign this task to only as many colonists as many resources are available.
Colonists should also check and see if, for example, the Outhouse is available before running to it if they are in need of washing up and they occupy the slot immediately to prevent other colonists from taking up space before they get to the building.
This overhaul should also increase the performance of the game as well, especially with larger colonies.
The road building task has also been redone so that now more colonists can build roads if they have nothing else to do. There should always still be a few colonists working on building roads if you have carriers available in your colony.
If a colonist has a workplace that is disabled for any reason (paused, critically damaged, contaminated etc.) they should now start performing carrier tasks immediately instead of idling.
The colonist pathfinding has also been improved - this should mean that they run less on water and through buildings.

The Gatekeeper system has also been redone.

This system decides what happens in your colony on a bigger level, selecting catastrophes and events for example.
This change will now make a clear difference between the choices you make in the Catastrophes and Gatekeeper pages of the Pregame selections. It will ensure you are able to better control the difficulty of the game.
This change will affect several different elements of the game that happen outside of player control.
- Catastrophes and disasters should now happen either more or less frequently based on the selection in the Catastrophes page.
- You should never experience the same catastrophe or disaster twice in a row anymore.
- Each catastrophe and disaster also has several levels of difficulty that can occur so even if you do get the same catastrophe frequently, they should always feel a bit different.
Events both in the colony and at the gate.
- Colonist events, Combat events, Quests, Survivor Groups.
- Should happen at more random times of the day instead of always around the same time.
- The combat events that occur at the gate should now be better balanced.
Condition spawn rate in the colony.
- The gatekeeper system can in some cases cause some of your colonists to get a condition if their needs are not taken care of.
- Colonists with bad hygiene can suddenly become Infected for example.
The Gatekeeper will always check the current situation of your colony before deciding what will happen next.
- This is to make sure the game remains interesting and has some challenge.
- The system will base this also on the Gatekeeper selection made in the Pregame selection screen.
With the Colonist AI task system overhaul and the Gatekeeper system being redone, older saves should work but might at first function in a bit of an odd way.
- The AI task system overhaul will force all of your colonists to stop their current task and get a new one from the system. You should receive a warning notification about this when you load your old save.
- The Gatekeeper system will require a few in-game days to start working in the way as described above. The old system will first execute the previous events and catastrophes that might have been set already before.
- While your previous saves will work, we do highly recommend starting new games as the Milestones cannot be completed with the old saves.

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

All of these upgrades have been added to the Tech Tree and must be researched first before you can perform the upgrade.
The Water Well can now be upgraded to the Drilled Well which provides more water from the same amount of efficiency.
The Scrapper and Recycler buildings now have a downgraded version of them that is available from the start of the game. Once the relevant tech has been unlocked, you will be able to upgrade them to the Speedy Scrapper and Speedy Recycler and get more resources out of them than before.
The Sauna can now be upgraded to the Steam Sauna which requires Energy as well as Water to function but does not cause any pollution.
The Outhouse can now be upgraded to the Toilet. This building requires a Water source but will no longer cause pollution.

Bandit controlled sectors must now be cleared in order to walk past the sector.
The sectors highlighted in red will now be impassable with single Specialists and with a Vehicle until the bandit has been defeated.
Defeating the bandit happens in a similar way as in regular combat except that with these, the Specialist will automatically path their way to the combat with the bandit once commanded.
Retreating from this combat will return your Specialist back to a hex outside of the sector.

The Specialist Menu has been updated.
Specialist portraits will no longer jump from one end to the other when the Specialists leave the colony to go to the World Map or come back.
If a Specialist is in another view than you are, their portrait will now be only faded instead of being grey.
Selecting a Specialist in another view (colony vs. World Map) will now change the view to the correct one and focus the camera on that Specialist.
The Specialist menu also shows icons telling you what the Specialist is doing in either view. If the Specialist is on the World Map, you can also see their Action Points in the menu now.
Low health Specialists will show the red color in their portrait to alert you of their status.
If a Specialist has died, their portrait turns visibly dark and there is also an icon in the Specialist Menu to alert you to this.
Fixed an issue that caused the Specialists to exit vehicles on top of the colony on the World Map, causing the vehicle to become stuck on top of it.
With the new colonist task system, the bug that caused the colonists to randomly become stuck somewhere should be fixed.

Other performance improvements have also been implemented.
Floaters shown on top of buildings and colonists are now updated with a slight delay. This delay is small but can be noticeable.
Construction zones are now lighter for the performance of the game.
Offscreen animations and pollution effects are disabled to improve performance.
Fixed some memory leaks and memory usage, in general, that could cause the framerate of the game to drop if the game had been saved multiple times during the same game session.
If commanded to a location on the World Map to scavenge resources or combat a bandit with the queued movement, the Specialists should now be able to perform the action as well. With scouting sectors and quests they will still only move as close to the location as possible.
Changed World Map generation so that you should always be able to return to your colony, even if it visually spawns into a mountain.
Fixed an issue that caused quest locations to disappear if they had spawned to a sector controlled by a bandit but the bandit was defeated. The quest locations should no longer spawn at all to sectors controlled by bandits.
Made a change to the World Map generation that now allows societies and bandit sectors to be closer to each other. This should allow other societies to spawn closer to your colony.
Colonists will no longer lose health due to conditions like Injured while being treated by Medics.
Colonists working as guards will now seek treatment much quicker after being commanded by the player. Giving them another command will still override their need to seek treatment.
Fleeing colonists with conditions will stop the fleeing behavior much quicker now to ensure they have time to seek treatment before they die of the condition.
Quest pop ups will now be automatically triggered after combat when selecting a Specialist on the World Map that had been combatting the bandit.
The Irrigated Fields will no longer be affected by the Heat Wave Catastrophe.
Animal carcasses in the colony will no longer block building placement.
Fixed an issue that caused the game to instantly create an autosave when another save file was loaded with autosaving turned on.
Fixed an issue that prevented buildings to be selected if they were on top of Underground deposits. You should now be able to select anything placed on top of them without issues.
Fixed an issue that caused some tech effects to be applied on other buildings as well. This happened with techs like Axial Flow which is supposed to only affect the amount of energy the Water Pump uses. Because of this issue, other buildings that used the same amount of energy were affected as well.
Missing sounds both on the World Map have been added. You should now be able to hear many more ambient sounds in the World Map, based on the surroundings.
Fixed an issue that caused outposts to be removed during saving and loading due to invalid placement. You should no longer be able to place outposts to a spot on the World Map that cannot be walked on. If this issue had occurred in a save, the affected outpost should now be reset and you should be able to place it to a new location on the World Map.
Fixed an issue that caused the game to not show the option to play in Full Screen Window mode when playing the game in German.
Fixed an issue that caused the save to become corrupted if it was saved at the exact time a trade was half done with another colony.
Fixed an issue that caused errors in the game if the game was saved quickly after closing the workslot in the Guard Post.
The game should now show you a warning if it was unable to perform an autosave.
Fixed an issue that caused the colony statistics to show the production values as consumption values for some resources.
Fixed an issue that caused errors in the game if the game was saved and exited right after defeating a wild animal.
Added missing selection sounds to some buildings in the colony.
Fixed an issue that caused the tech Rigid Chassis to override another tech in one of the ideologies.
Colonists working at the Environmental Station will no longer walk through anything and everything when bringing back pollution to the building.
The Outpost Depot is now indestructible in the colony. It can no longer be damaged by catastrophes or bandits but can still be Demolished by the player.
Fixed an issue that would cause the trade window to become unresponsive when playing with a controller.

[h3]Graphics[/h3]

Added craters to the pollution deposits around the colony.
The pollution deposit icon has also been updated.
Fixed red panels showing in the Industrial Radiator.
The height map of a specific mountain range in the colony has been fixed. This issue caused the area around the mountain range to be uneven and block building placement even without visually looking like it is higher than the rest of the ground.

[h3]Balance Adjustments[/h3]

With the change to the Gatekeeper system, the catastrophes have been rebalanced completely. They are now shorter in duration, but should still be as dangerous for your colonists.
Balanced the building costs of several different buildings. This includes but is not limited to the following buildings: Library, Memorial, Recycler, Scrapper, Lumber Yard, different housing buildings.
The Ranch sizes have been increased for both the regular Ranch and the upgraded version.
- The smaller Ranch can now have 10 chickens, 6 sheep, 5 cows or 6 pigs in it.
- The Large Ranch can now have 16 chickens, 10 sheep, 8 cows or 10 pigs in it.
The Trapper has been balanced to be as productive as the Fishing Pier.