Surviving the Aftermath News

Game version

PC: 1.14.0.8855
Xbox: 1.14.0.147

General

Due to the changes made in this update, previous saves can no longer be continued. You should receive a warning if you try to load an older save.

Colony generation has now been greatly improved for both the soil and the deposits around the colony.

• Colony soil can still be fertile, normal or dry, but the areas themselves should now be bigger and more consistent.
  
• The starting area in the colony should always have at least normal soil or even fertile soil. This starting area is larger on the easier settings and smaller on the harder settings.
  
• The Fertility Overlay should now match the actual soil generation a lot better.
  
• Larger deposits around the colony should now be spawned into more of a cluster close to each other. Smaller deposits can still spawn all around the colony.
  
• The Pregame choices for both the soil and the deposit now have a bigger effect on the generation.
  

First version of the new Outpost functionality and Settlers have been implemented.

• After researching the tech Frontier Outposts from the Exploration category, you will be able to build the Outpost Depot in your colony.
  
• The depot can no longer store resources, instead it is used to create Settlers from your Specialists. Turning a Specialist into a Settler is an irreversible action. After selecting a Specialist to turn into a Settler, the Settler will be sent to the World Map where they can move, scout sectors and build an Outpost.
  
• The Outpost is used in a similar way as before, moving a Specialist or a Vehicle on top of it will create a convoy of resources that will be sent to the colony. Instead of being instant as before, the convoy will take some time to get to the colony. The resources will be added to the Campsite building in the colony.
  
• You will only be able to build one Outpost Depot in your colony and the entire building is now visually different as well.
  

The population softcap has been increased by 50 colonists.

• This means you should still get new survivor groups with colonists until you have around 150 colonists in your colony and new births can still happen until you have around 200 colonists.
  

You can now select one Construction Zone in your colony and make it a priority to be built next.

• There is a button in the info panel of all construction zones called Build Next. Selecting this will cause all colonists to focus on that construction zone and bring resources to it first. They will not stop what they are doing at the moment, but their next task should focus on this construction zone.
  
• You can only have one construction zone set with this. Selecting Build Next while the colonists are still working on the first one will show a popup to confirm the change in prioritization.
  
• You can also cancel the priority from the same button.
  
• The High to Low priority setting has been removed as it was not functioning properly.
  
• The colonist who brought the last resources to a construction zone should begin working on constructing it as well.
  

Major improvements on the colony logistics have been implemented.

• The colonists should now prefer to eat meals over raw food and try and fetch food located in a storage building closest to them. The colonists should also try and eat food that will balance their diet the best to avoid malnutrition.
  
• The colonists will now target resource boxes on the ground with priorities based on how soon the resource box is about to decay and how much of the resource is currently in storage. This should prevent resource boxes from decaying as often as before and ensure they focus more on the resources you need to have more in your storages.
  
• The colonists will now fill buildings that require resources to be stored in them at a much steadier rate. This change affects buildings like the Burner and the Sauna. The colonists should carry resources to these buildings until they are full but the priority of this task is lowered whenever the building is filled, ensuring they will not focus on only one building at a time but instead always on the emptiest one first.
  

Al lot of updates have been done to the mods and mod support. Because of these updates, all mods created before the update will need to be updated before they will work with the game.
This includes the Steam Workshop that has now been integrated.

Gameplay

• Fixed an issue that would result in a lot of colonists dying of old age when a save was loaded.
  
• Building upgrades that have an area of effect can now be built directly from the Build Menu after they have been unlocked from the Tech Tree. This includes the Large Transformer, the Boosted Burner, the Industrial Radiator and the Lightning Tower.
  
• Resources brought to the gate will no longer be spawned all in one place. They should be spawned in a neat line next to each other. This should make it easier to command your Specialists to pick specific resources up and take them to storages.
  
• Colonists working on a construction zone should now be highlighted when the construction zone is selected. This works in the same way as when a workplace building is selected.
  
• The Specialist Menu has been improved as well. The menu will now show a progress bar that shows the progress of the current action of that Specialist. If a Specialist has completed their action on the World Map, the icon shown in the Specialist Menu will now flash an exclamation point to indicate this. Hovering over the Specialists in the menu will show a tooltip that tells you the name and type of the Specialist and also their current location and action.
  
• Building info panels should now show more information about the current status of the building. This change affects the construction zone status of all buildings and the production status for buildings that require colonists to go out and gather resources to produce a resource. For example the Scrapper, the Trapper, the Logging camp etc.
  
• Both the Milestone Menu and the Societies Menu can be opened in the World Map. If you are using a controller, a small menu similar to the one in the colony view should open.
  
• The issue that would cause Specialists to become stuck on the World Map should now be fixed.
  
• Exiting the Society page on the World Map should no longer cause a white screen to flash.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the colonists to still show a green glow and be counted as Irradiated in the notification even though they did not have the condition. This issue would previously disappear by saving and loading the game.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused colonists to remain stuck for a moment after a construction zone was cancelled while it was being built.
  
• Colonists working in the Guard Posts and Medical buildings should now stop working immediately after being unassigned.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the bodies of dead colonists to remain on the ground and not get picked up.
  
• Colonists portraits should now always be updated to adult portraits after a child grows up.
  
• Fixed a navigation issue in the Overlay menu when using a controller.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause the trade routes from the World Map be shown in the colony side as well.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Plastic and Metal tutorial to appear even after you had already built the Scrapper and the Recycler.
  
• Changed the settings on the keybindings for the Overlay Menu, Toggle Last Used Overlay and the Milestone Menu so that these keybindings can also be changed now.
  
• The Sand Worm will now attack only colonists that come close to it unless threatened.
  
• Production limits can now be set to all buildings that produce a resource.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause some foods to be harvested immediately from open fields.
  
• Fixed an issue with the Food Consumption and Production values to make them show more accurate numbers.
  - Previously Production would show meals that were being produced in for example Cookhouses but Consumption would not take into account the food that was used to create the meals.
  - Consumption will now show these values correctly.
  - Fixed also another bug with the numbers that caused them to be calculated incorrectly.
  - Consumption values can still vary a bit depending on what food the colonists eat, but the numbers should now be much more accurate.
  
• The vehicle on the World Map transferring resources from Societies and Outposts should now have an animation in the World Map.
  

Graphics

• New resource box graphics have been added to the game.
  
• The Berry Bushe models in the colony have also been redone.
  
• A lot of new objects for the colony have been added to make the colony appear visually more interesting.
  
• Notification shown when a milestone has been completed is now shown underneath the Specialist Menu and has a completely new visual look as well.
  
• The Milestone Menu button now has an animation showing if you have completed new milestones.
  
• Shadow Quality Setting has been adjusted so that changing it will now remove shadows from smaller items in the colony. This can greatly improve the performance on lower end hardware.
  
• The highlights shown when a Specialist is in combat with a Bandit on the World Map should be faded but visible at all times, not just when the Specialist is selected or hovered over.
  
• A new empty Specialist portrait has been added to the game.
  
• Pollution deposits have been tweaked visually.
  

Balance Adjustments

• With the increase to the population softcap, the birth rate has also been slightly increased.
  
• The Cookhouse can no longer be used to make Insect Meals and Mixed Meals.
  
• The Mess Hall now produces food faster.
  
• Balance adjustments to the bandits on the World Map.
  - Their health has been increased slightly.
  - The damage they deal has been decreased slightly as well.
  - The damage they deal is now varied instead of a constant number.
  
• Reduced the amount of trees on different soils and increased the per-tree production of tree buildings.
  - Biggest difference in the amount of trees can be seen on the fertile soil.
  - Production change affects the Trapper, Lumber Yard and the Logging Camp and their upgrades.
  - Buildings such as the Sauna and the Burners use Firewood more efficiently as well.
  
• The amount of Planks in deposits around the colony has been slightly decreased.
  
• The Despair condition should no longer cause the colonists to stop working.
  
• Changes to the catastrophes have been made.
  - The Fallout catastrophe has been adjusted so that it affects a smaller amount of colonists.
  - The Heat Wave catastrophe will last longer.
  - If easy options are selected in pregame, the Pandemic catastrophe should be easier.
  - If more difficult options are selected in pregame, the Magnetic Storm and Meteor Shower should be more difficult.
  
• Water wells now require less fertile soil to be as effective.
  
• Clean water storages are slightly smaller than before.
  
• Increased the amount of shelter space in Tents, upgraded Tents and Emergency Shelters and Shanties.
  
• The durability and effect of tier 2 and 3 items have been increased.
  - The tier 2 and 3 versions of Tools will last longer and give a bigger boost to production speed.
  - The tier 2 and 3 versions of Clothes will last longer and give a better shielding against pollution.
  - The tier 2 and 3 versions of Weapons will also last longer and cause more damage when used.
  - The recipe for Iodine Pills has been changed, they now need Milk instead of Pollution to be produced.
  
• The amount of Concrete needed to construct certain buildings has been decreased and the amount of Concrete in deposits around the colony has been increased.
  
• The campsite building now allows for more resources to be brought to it.
  

[h3]Greetings Survivors!
[/h3]

We hope you’re all ready for a very exciting week for Surviving the Aftermath! Right before PDX Insider, we communicated that the game needs more time in Early Access, so our hard-working development team will be able to focus on players’ feedback and fixing more issues. We also promised to reveal more information about our new roadmap, as being transparent and open with our Community has always been very important to us.

Today we’re happy to announce 4 new updates coming to Surviving the Aftermath. We’re starting this week with our Bronze Update! Alongside a big number of fixes, tweaks, and improvements, Bronze Update will also include Steam Workshop integration.

If you want to learn more about the next big patch for Surviving the Aftermath tune in to our special live stream tomorrow on Tuesday, April 20th at 4:30pm CEST (GMT+2) at our Twitch channel - https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Stay safe and see you in the Aftermath!

[h3]Hello Survivors![/h3]

We hope you’re as excited as we are about Saturday's Paradox Insider showcase! All of us at Paradox have been hard at work putting together a killer show, packed with updates for your favorite strategy and management games.

Paradox’s Surviving games will be at the show sharing updates about the future of Surviving Mars. We’ve seen a lot of speculation about what we can possibly share for Surviving Mars nearly two years after its last expansion and we think you’re going to love what’s coming next.

We know many of you are excited to learn what’s in the pipeline for Surviving the Aftermath. While we have a ton of updates in the works, Surviving the Aftermath will not be at the show on Saturday. Considering where we are in development, and after listening to our players, we have decided to keep Surviving the Aftermath in Early Access a bit longer. We will use this extra time to fix issues flagged by our community, with our primary focus on improving the already existing systems and elements within the game. We are working on an updated roadmap for Surviving the Aftermath and will share more information about this next stage of Early Access in the coming weeks.

While the full announcement will be at the show, we can go ahead and say we’ve heard the Surviving Mars community loud and clear! We are excited to usher in a new era of Surviving Mars with all of you at Paradox Insider.

You can tune into the show on Saturday at 8 p.m. CET / 2 p.m. Eastern / 11 a.m. Pacific on the Paradox Twitch channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive

Stay safe and see you all on Saturday!

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]

Another batch of building upgrades have been added.

• 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.

Game version
PC: 1.12.5.8236

General

Fixed an issue with the quests that caused save files to appear broken after loading.

• When a save with this issue was loaded, several symptoms could be seen, for example, the pop up notifying you of access to the World Map was shown again, the fog of War had returned, all Specialists had been returned back to the colony from the World Map.
  
• This fix should allow you to now continue with that save - an ongoing quest will have been removed but the save itself should work.
  

Fixed an issue that caused the survivor groups to sometimes cause an exception in the background.

• This exception should not have caused any visible gameplay issues, but it should also no longer occur either.
  

Balance adjustments

Adjustments to Tools and Clothes.

• Increased the durability of both Tools and Clothes on all levels.
  
• Decreased the production time for the Tailor and the Toolshop, allowing for faster production of the items.
  
• Decreased the amount of Fiber it takes to produce Sturdy and Superior Clothes.
  

Adjustments to food production amounts of food and food values around the game.

• Increased the amount of berries in the Berry deposits around the colony to allow for more sources of food.
  
• Increased the amount of Fish the Fishing Pier and the Fishing Hut produce per cycle.
  
• Fish, Venison, and Berries give a slightly smaller amount of pollution to colonists when they are eaten.
  
• Prime Meat now has a better nutritional value and a smaller amount of pollution it gives to colonists when eaten.
  
• The Aqua Farm now produces more Fish per cycle.
  
• Decreased the nutritional value of Eggs and Milk and made them less filling to colonists to try and ensure the colonists will not eat them up before you are able to use them in the Bakeries.
  
• Increased the amount of food found in locations on the World Map.
  

Adjustments to basic resource amounts.

• Increased the amount of basic resources found in locations on the World Map.
  
• Increased the amount of Concrete in the Concrete deposits around the colony.
  
• Increased the amount of Planks both the Lumber Yard and the Sawmill produce per cycle and decreased the production time of the Lumber yard slightly.