Surviving the Aftermath News

Greeting survivors!

We have just released our patch for the “Shattered Hope” DLC—including some bigger changes as well. Here we will go through them with some brief explanations as to why they have been made. As usual, the full patch notes can be found at the end of this post.

DIFFICULTY REWORKED

We have gone and reduced the DLC’s overall difficulty in many different ways. If you look at the Hope bar for example, you can see that it looks a bit different than before. The “safe zone” where no negative effects can happen is larger and the Hope levels have been adjusted accordingly. This means there are now bigger and clearer changes between the levels, but also much more time before Hope becomes a serious issue. This allows players to divide their attention to other things, without Hope constantly demanding actions by causing Anguish.

We have also done multiple smaller adjustments to balance the difficulty. For example, the negative impact of disasters and catastrophes has been reduced. Positive Hope effects have been added to accepting survivor groups and when gate combat is won without the bandits breaching the gate. Trauma centers now also offer two patient slots, which should alleviate the situations where many colonists are in anguish at once. The negative event results and the cost of feasts have been slightly tweaked to a more balanced direction as well.

Trauma centers now offer two patient slots instead of one.

HOPE AND HAPPINESS CONNECTED

One major rework ties Hope together with Happiness, which was heavily requested by our players. Previously we had a system where Hope would drop daily with no way to counter the nasty effect. Now, the player can counter this effect and even turn it into a positive, just by keeping the colony happy!

This is easier said than done however, and there is a catch. “Challenge” selected in the pregame determines how much Happiness will affect Hope. With harder difficulties, low Happiness also hits the colony harder. This is one of the ways we hope those players who like a bit of difficulty can still challenge themselves. Connecting Happiness and Hope also gives the players a chance to eventually progress into a situation where hope is less demanding when the colonists feel satisfied in the safety of the colony.

The daily Hope effect is now tied to the difficulty level selected in the pregame.

OTHER CHANGES

One of the smaller adjustments we made was to push the start of the DLC’s questline to appear a little earlier in the game. While this change allows the quest to spawn already at day 29, the random nature of the quests can cause it to be slightly delayed. Always remember to check your side quest status when waiting for a specific one—there can only be one side quest active at any given time!

We also want to encourage our players to use the building overtime feature to overcome the new challenges, which is why we added some lunar dust as a reward to the starter event. This allows the players to start boosting production in buildings right away!

The introduction event now encourages the player to start overtiming buildings with some free lunar dust.

If you want to know more details please refer to our patch notes and feel free to ask questions! Once again we thank all of you for your feedback and hope you’ll enjoy the new and improved experience with Surviving the Aftermath ”Shattered Hope”.

General

• Daily decrease of hope now scales with game difficulty.
  
• Easier difficulties still have almost the same baseline daily hope change, but harder difficulties now have a steeper daily decrease.
  
• This is a way for us to provide a smoother gameplay experience for those who wish to play with easier settings, but still be able to provide a challenge for the daring.
  
• Daily decrease of hope is now tied to colony happiness.
  
• Unhappy colony loses hope faster while the hope for a happy colony increases per day.
  
• The current daily effect of happiness can be seen in the hope bar tooltip.
  
• Hope bar now functions more accurately.
  
• Previously, there was some scaling which made the hope drops seem more drastic than they actually were when the hope bar was close to full.
  
• Adjusted the thresholds for when anguish is given to colonists accordingly.
  

Gameplay

• Added hope reward when accepting survivor groups.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused gate combat to not give hope when defeating bandits directly at the gate.
  
• Many text changes related to Shattered Hope features.
  
• Added daily effect text to the hope bar tooltip.
  
• Added overtime text to the Lunar Dust tooltip.
  
• Tweaked hope description in the hope bar tooltip.
  
• Tweaked anguish description in the help menu.
  
• Tweaked the descriptions of Shattered Hope buildings.
  
• And other smaller text changes.
  

Balance Adjustments

• Reduced hope impact of all catastrophes and disasters.
  
• Reduced catastrophe hope impact by around 30%.
  
• Reduced pollution cloud and space junk disasters’ hope impact by around 30%.
  
• Reduced moonfall, rat swarm and overcharge disasters’ hope impact by 50%.
  
• Adjusted the hope impact of most events.
  
• Reduced the impact of negative event results by 30%.
  
• Positive event results mostly unchanged.
  
• Increased patient slot count in Trauma Center from 1 to 2.
  
• The Shattered Moon quest can now trigger after day 29, this was day 32 previously.
  
• Please note that the Shattered Moon quest cannot trigger if you already have another regular quest active.
  
• Slightly decreased the baseline food and plastic cost of the small feast.
  
• Added and adjusted hope rewards slightly in multiple quests.
  
• Slightly increased the negative hope impact when abandoning a quest.
  
• The initial Shattered Moon event now gives 20 Lunar Dust.
  

[h3]Greetings survivors![/h3]

Our latest DLC “Shattered Hope” has just been released and we are excited to shed light on its features. Brand new challenges await as fading hope risks the entire colony’s survival. Other improvements include a new moon rock disaster, an ability to boost production with overtime and being able to hold special feasts! A new questline adds interesting buildings and resources to the mix, giving Surviving the Aftermath even more variety than before.

IMAGE: Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope

Let’s first talk about the Moon and the features tied to it. As previously established, the Earth’s Moon shattered at the start of the cataclysm years ago and now the consequences of that can be felt in the colonies. Falling pieces of the Moon can be seen plummeting from the skies at night. However, these moon rocks are not just another hazard but can be gathered and turned into valuable lunar dust. This rare material is in high demand by societies and bandits alike, but its most interesting function is its ability to greatly boost buildings’ efficiency. It allows the use of overtime, hastening production and healing speed for 48 hours!

IMAGE: Lunar dust can be used to increase buildings’ efficiency

This all comes in handy when trying to overcome new hope-related challenges. Colonists’ hope for the future is constantly shifting from good to bad to worse. Colonists are disheartened by setbacks such as being defeated in combat, dismissing events or quests and especially catastrophes such as fallout or winter storms. If hope falls too low, the colonists can become anguished. Anguish cannot be treated in normal medical buildings, but requires special treatment at trauma centers. Anguished colonists can eventually become hostile, turning against their peers if they are not treated in time! Recovering from this condition is a lengthy process, so it is wise to try to keep hope from falling into dangerous levels.

IMAGE: Colony hope must be kept high to avoid negative consequences

Hope can be increased by completing quests, making the right decisions in events, combat victories and most importantly, holding special feasts. These can be held at the colony square, a new building fit for holding these kinds of festivities. The special feasts can be costly but drastically increase hope and happiness by providing momentary entertainment. To hold larger feasts for larger colonies the building must be upgraded, which can only be done after completing the new questline.

IMAGE: Feast selection at the colony square

“The Shattered Moon” quest opens the lore behind the broken moon and how the people of the wasteland have come to exploit its fallen riches. The quest also introduces the mysterious group of bandits some players might recognize from the main quest. These fellows can also sometimes appear at the colony gates demanding lunar dust with the threat of violence. Whilst uncovering their secrets you’ll be unlocking new buildings and resources, such as the med hut and mushroom farm, which can make recovering from anguish much quicker. The med hut can also produce antibodies for treating mutations much faster than before.

IMAGE: “The Shattered Moon” quest illustrations

Other improvements include new events, some unique to the DLC and others for the base game for everyone to enjoy. Events coming with the free update aim to make the early game experience a little more varied than before. The colony clock has also gotten a facelift visible to all users, making it easier to track the shift between day and night and when specialists’ action points are replenished.

The free update includes balance adjustments, quality of life improvements, bug fixes and new visuals. We have updated over 30 building textures to make them more recognizable and added more colonist portraits for women and children. Additionally, we present our special seasonal content in the spirit of Halloween! Check all improvements and fixes from the changelog(link below).

IMAGE: Halloween pack includes new decorations and spooky variations to existing buildings

We hope that you’ll have a great time with all the new features, buildings and other improvements in "Shattered Hope". It has a lot to offer whether you’re looking for additional challenges or just more buildings to construct. You can continue your old save or begin a new one to start boosting your production, hold great feasts and mend the broken hope!

Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope is available now on Steam, Epic Store, the PlayStation™ Store and Microsoft Store on Xbox. It is also included as a part of the Ultimate Colony Upgrade with more DLC to come later.

[h3]Change notes - “Shattered Hope Xbox and PS4 release”[/h3]

General

• Added Halloween content to the game. Spooky! The content can be toggled on or off in the settings.
  
• Added Goo Cauldron and Scarecrow decorations that can be unlocked by Prestige.
  
• Torch, Lantern and all Street Light decorations change to more Halloween themed lights.
  
• Added jack o'lanterns and other halloween props to colony buildings.
  
• Added halloween themed hats for colonists.
  
• Added three new Shattered Hope DLC achievements/trophies:
  
• Hero of the Wasteland - Complete "The Shattered Moon" quest.
  
• Mean Boss - Overtime 100 buildings.
  
• Beacon of Hope - Hold a special feast.
  
• Memory optimization. These changes improve the stability of the game especially on consoles and low-end PCs.
  
• Removed unused buildings, shaders and other assets from the build.
  
• Improved memory management of tutorial popups and help menu images.
  

Gameplay

• Added six new events. These should improve the early game event variation so that the same events don’t happen that often.
  
• Improved the way that queued movement works when sending specialists to combat in the World Map. Specialists should no longer get stuck on each other when pathing to a location.
  
• Happiness effects in events and quests now show an icon instead of the “+10 Happiness” text.
  
• Added a tooltip for repair tool that displays the amount of resources required to repair a building.
  
• Added a tooltip for demolish tool that displays the amount of resources gained when demolishing a building.
  
• Improved the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends.
  
• Notifications display hours instead of days when there’s less than a day remaining. Previously notifications had texts such as “0 days remaining” and that is now displayed in hours.
  
• Changed the way that quick tool can be accessed on a controller. Quick tool now has a single button that activates it and then it’s possible to change between repair/demolish/overtime mode with another button.
  
• Destroyed buildings can now be removed with the demolish tool.
  
• Well, Well, Well event had a hidden effect that is now visible.
  
• Fixed an issue that occurred in custom games when the animals option was set to ‘None’ and then selecting a resource deposit in the game.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused pause and demolish hotkeys to be usable on construction zones that had those functionalities disabled e.g. Campsite could be paused during the intro and would cause a softlock.
  
• Fixed an issue that occurred when saving and loading the game just as colony combat was about to finish.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused disasters to disappear after saving and loading a game while the disaster was ongoing.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused minor disasters and Winter Storm catastrophe to not update properly in the statistics menu.
  

Graphics

• Added four new child portraits and seven new female portraits for colonists.
  
• Updated textures for over 30 buildings.
  
• Added and adjusted animation visuals in most entertainment buildings. For example, Stormdome now has colonists battling in the building while other colonists cheer the fighters on.
  
• Added DLC icons to save game menu that displays which DLCs are enabled in the save.
  
• Added a tooltip to main menu DLC buttons that displays if the DLC requires a new game to be active.
  
• Added a popup to save game menu that informs if activated DLCs cannot be applied to a save that is being loaded.
  

Balance Adjustments

• Changed the way that scaling works for catastrophes. The goal is to make all catastrophes scale better with game difficulty. Previously catastrophes had the same “effective phase” that affected conditions, damage and other factors.
  
• Increased the happiness effects in The Great Unknown and Hidden Fortunes events.
  
• Reduced the fiber cost of Basic Clothing.
  
• Slightly lowered the protection value of Basic Clothing.
  
• Very slightly lowered the protection value of Sturdy Clothing.
  
• Increased fiber production in Fields.
  

[h3]Hello survivors! [/h3]
It's the spookiest time of year, and we are excited to bring you a free in-game event on Steam and Epic that includes Halloween themed decorations and buildings. This also includes a free patch of some gameplay fixes, such as improvement to the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends, as well as some graphics and balance adjustments like increased fiber production in the fields. What better way to prepare for the moon shattering DLC Shattered Hope that comes out the week after?

The event visuals will include:

• Halloween themed hats and masks for colonists.
  
• Two new decoration "buildings":
  
• A Scarecrow
  
• A Cauldron full of nuclear liquids
  
• Buildings with lights will change their appearance with more Halloween themed lights:
  
• Regular lights/lanterns in buildings in the game will now turn into Halloween themed lanterns, such as jack-o'-lanterns
  
• Halloween Decorative lamps

The Halloween event will turn on automatically on the 24th of October, but can of course be turned off in the settings if you prefer playing without it.


[h3]Change notes - “Halloween patch”[/h3]

General

• Added Halloween content to the game. Spooky! The Halloween content is turned on automatically on the 24th of October and turned off on the 7th of November. The content can also be toggled on or off in the settings.
  
• Added Goo Cauldron and Scarecrow decorations that can be unlocked by Prestige.
  
• Torch, Lantern and all Street Light decorations change to more Halloween themed lights.
  
• Added jack o'lanterns and other halloween props to colony buildings.
  
• Added halloween themed hats for colonists.
  
• Added six new events. These should improve the early game event variation so that the same events don’t happen that often.
  

Gameplay

• Improved the way that queued movement works when sending specialists to combat in the World Map. Specialists should no longer get stuck on each other when pathing to a location.
  
• Added a tooltip for repair tool that displays the amount of resources required to repair a building.
  
• Added a tooltip for demolish tool that displays the amount of resources gained when demolishing a building.
  
• Improved the day and night meter to display when night starts and ends.
  
• Notifications display hours instead of days when there’s less than a day remaining. Previously notifications had texts such as “0 days remaining” and that is now displayed in hours.
  
• Changed the way that quick tool can be accessed on a controller. Quick tool now has a single button that activates it and then it’s possible to change between repair/demolish/overtime mode with another button.
  
• Destroyed buildings can now be removed with the demolish tool.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused pause and demolish hotkeys to be usable on construction zones that had those functionalities disabled e.g. Campsite could be paused during the intro and would cause a softlock.
  
• Fixed an issue that occurred when saving and loading the game just as colony combat was about to finish.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused disasters to disappear after saving and loading a game while the disaster was ongoing.
  

Graphics

• Added four new child portraits and seven new female portraits for colonists.
  
• Updated textures for over 30 buildings.
  
• Added DLC icons to save game menu that displays which DLCs are enabled in the save.
  
• Added a tooltip to main menu DLC buttons that displays if the DLC requires a new game to be active.
  
• Added a popup to save game menu that informs if activated DLCs cannot be applied to a save that is being loaded.
  

Balance Adjustments

• Reduced the fiber cost of Basic Clothing.
  
• Slightly lowered the protection value of Basic Clothing.
  
• Very slightly lowered the protection value of Sturdy Clothing.
  
• Increased fiber production in Fields.
  
• Changed the way that scaling works for catastrophes. The goal is to make all catastrophes scale better with game difficulty. Previously catastrophes had the same “effective phase” that affected conditions, damage and other factors.
  

Hello survivors!

We are pleased to announce the new DLC for Surviving the Aftermath. Shattered Hope introduces the Shattered Moon calamity, giving players the ability to boost resource production and the task of maintaining survivor’s hope. Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope launches on November 3rd for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC at a suggested retail price of 9.99 USD / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 EUR.

During the apocalypse, the Moon was destroyed and now the consequences of that are showering down from the sky in an unforeseen disaster. By gathering resources from Moon Rock deposits and coming together as a people, the survivors must find hope to proceed and prosper. Shattered Hope focuses around increasing resource production in the colony while attempting to keep up Hope for the colonists - otherwise the new Anguish condition can cause trouble for them and the entire colony.

Surviving the Aftermath: Shattered Hope Key Features include:

• Face the Moonfall and use it to your advantage with the new Building Boost mechanic
  The Moon is shattered in the sky and its fragments are crushing down on Earth leaving behind them devastation - but also moon rock deposits. You can refine lunar fragments and obtain lunar dust which will be used to increase the production of your buildings for a limited time. This new building boost mechanic is called overtime.
  
  
• Keep your hopes up, and feast!
  Hope is a new global value that decreases over time and when catastrophes happen in the game. If kept too low for too long, it will trigger a new condition called anguish that, if left untreated, may turn your colonists hostile. So, keep your hope as high as possible by holding feasts at the new colony square building.
  
  
• New production chain: take care of your colonists
  When colonists experience anguish, you can help them by building a trauma centre where they will heal. They will recover faster thanks to a brand new medicine called antistress. To make it, you’ll have to grow raw resources on the mushroom farm, then refine them into the actual medicine in the med hut building.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Base game[/h3]
General

• Added 11 new achievements:

• Base game:

• Doomsday is canceled - Complete the Doomsday Bunker Project.
  
• Choo-choo! - Escape the harsh winter by fixing the train in Cold Rush.
  
• Finnished - Survive in the Endless Winter scenario for 100 days.
  
• Tailored to fit - Survive until day 100 in a custom game.
  
• Customized calamities - Secret!

• New Alliances DLC:

• Undercover - Complete all four covert mission types.
  
• Best friends forever - Ally with a society.
  
• Binary world view - Secret!
  
• Diplomatic quarter - Have four embassies built at the same time.
  
• Dynamic Duo - Secret!
  
• Federation forever - Form the federation.

• Improved build menu performance dramatically.
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented loading a save if a resource box was out of colony bounds and the game was saved while a carrier was moving to pick up the box.

Gameplay

• Replaced the “trade offers available” text in the society menu with “trade unavailable” when there aren't enough workers in a Trade Center.
  
• Double-clicking now works when overwriting a save game.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused some buildings to not receive resources from storages if request resources was used. This was the reason that Fuel was not always delivered properly to a Garage.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused up and down navigation to be inverted on a controller in request board.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused NPC animations to freeze in combat upon selecting a specialist.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the camera to move to the wrong location when pressing the resource depleted notification.
  
• Added a missing text in French in the custom game pregame menu.

Graphics

• Updated portraits for caribou, boar and bear in the world map.
  
• Added tooltips to colonists, resources and buildings tabs in the statistics menu.
  
• Fixed many text overflow issues in multiple languages.
  
• UI polish:
  
  • Updated some tech icons in the tech tree.
    
  • Added a black filler background to the society menu for ultrawide monitors.
    
  • New icons for group health and animal attack in the world map UI panel.
    
  • Many smaller button and text changes in world map panels.
• Added fake colonists to entertainment buildings and adjusted animations in them.
  
• Added fake workers to Forester, Maintenance Depot and Concrete Scavenger.

[h3]New Alliances[/h3]
General

• Added a tooltip to the society menu that displays information about embassy bonus buildings.
  
  • It should now provide an easy way to see information about different buildings when allying with a society.
• Fixed an issue that prevented loading a save caused by a roaming bandit spawning incorrectly.

Gameplay

• Rival reputation gain is now visible when failing or declining a society request and in the world map when hovering over a request location.
  
• Added reputation markers and player/rival reputation amounts in the society menu’s reputation bar.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused society convoys to move out of bounds.
  
• Rewards from society requests are now visible after forming the federation.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the carrier count to increase visually when adding and removing workers in the Academy building.
  
• Roaming NPCs in the World Map now face the way they’re moving.
  
• Replaced generic specialist mission accomplished sounds with a voice-over for covert missions.
  
• Added sound to Bomb Bunker.

Graphics

• UI polish:
  
  • Changed the coloring and reduced the size of roaming unit’s path indicator.
    
  • Reduced the size of request, animal and convoy floaters in the world map.
    
  • Many smaller button and text changes in New Alliances related menus.
• New Alliances building polish:
  
  • Fixed icicle placement on Society Depot.
    
  • Texture changes to most New Alliances buildings.
    
  • Reduced the size of outposts in the world map.
    
  • Added a missing material in Bomb Bunker.

Balance Adjustments

• Reduced silver from scavenging locations.
  
• Increased New Alliance tech costs.
  
  
• Requests and reputation:
  
  • Patrol and Teach loan request sector triggers lowered.
    
  • Lowered individual request type cooldowns across the board.
    
  • Increased rival rep gains from failed requests (by quite some margin).
    
  • Decreased the cooldown to spawn new requests.
    
  • Increased Rival reputation gains from failed requests across the board.
    
  • Altered request rewards to less silver and more other resources.
    
  • Reduced combat and loan requests slightly, increased build requests slightly (via cooldowns).
    
  • Reduced timeouts on almost all requests, so there’s less time completing them (esp. loans).
  
  
  
• Covert Missions:
  
  
  • Player:
    • Increased damage specialists take from failed covert missions.
      
    • Increased covert mission duration for theft and steal research mission types.
      
    • Reduced archetype bonus in covert missions from 85% to 75%.
      
    • Reduced base covert mission success chance from 60% to 55%.
      
    • Increased duration a specialist spends on a loan request.
    
    
    
  • Hostile society & rival:
    
    • Increased minimum silver amount stolen in Theft.
      
    • Increased chances to identify the culprit, especially if the hostile mission failed.
      
    • Decreased rival's mission cooldowns.
  
  
  
• Society rewards:
  
  • New Alliances building repair resources updated to use higher tier resources in most cases.
    
  • Added pollution to Chemville's tradable goods.
    
  • Increased Nuclear Plant’s initial resource request amount.
  
  
  
• Society buildings:
  
  • Removed tools from greenhouse society building recipe and increased plastic required.
• Population and federation:
  
  • Increased minimum rival population slightly.
• Roaming units:
  
  • Reduced the amount of roaming animals.
    
  • Decreased the cooldown for spawning society convoys.