0.8.2 Release : Hot-patch 4
Hi there!
This technically shouldn't be called a "hot-patch" given there are structural changes that people need to be made aware of, but it's a bit too late for me to change my version system. :)
[h2]Pathing Changes[/h2]
The main reason for this update was to address a old bug which was causing settlers and animals to, sometimes, be teleported to the wrong side of a wall. Basically it would happen when something is pathing around a corner and gets worsened when a game is saved right when this happens. For barely half a second, the peon was technically "in the wall" which could force the engine to forcefully push it outside, not always on the correct side.
As such, instead of pathing diagonally through a the corner of a house, they'll path around it. It gives a more natural looking movement. There's a downside to this change, though. One movement type that was possible in previous versions is not anymore. Best way to illustrate is with a picture:
Moving between corner-adjacent obstacles is no longer possible. Settlers will go the long way around. If parts of your base is relying on people moving diagonally through a bunch of depots/walls, those parts have to be redesigned to allow access.
I know this fix is going to be slightly annoying to some of you. But at this point in time, it's the only valid choice I have to fix the issue.
There's an upside, some fairly frequent calculations (flood fill) done by the game are now a lot less CPU intensive, which should help with performances on very large maps.
[h2]Build in Combat Mode[/h2]
Build mode keyboard shortcuts are now working in combat mode. As such, and assuming you know your shortcuts, it's possible to build, cancel and raze stuff from the combat UI now.
This should be especially useful with "special projects" that require active guards, like walling off parts of the sewers or securing a spawner to make a food or giant egg generator. You won't have to switch between build & combat mode nearly as often.
This is still a bit experimental, but so far my testing hasn't found any deal breaker.
[h2]Biome Specific Weather[/h2]
Biomes can have their own weather patterns, and even weathers which are unique to them. For instance, in the scorched biome, "acid rains" have been replaced by a way deadlier "blood rain" version and cold waves can no longer happen.
In the same spirit, arid biomes no longer have cold waves, and rain is much less frequent. Swamps have no heat waves and it's raining more often. Most other biomes are left unchanged for now.
[h2]Notes[/h2]
This is still a hot-patch, technically. As such, there's no compatibility problem to expect. Just keep aware of the changes in pathing.
Beside that, devlog about 0.8.3 incoming sunday :)
[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
This technically shouldn't be called a "hot-patch" given there are structural changes that people need to be made aware of, but it's a bit too late for me to change my version system. :)
[h2]Pathing Changes[/h2]
The main reason for this update was to address a old bug which was causing settlers and animals to, sometimes, be teleported to the wrong side of a wall. Basically it would happen when something is pathing around a corner and gets worsened when a game is saved right when this happens. For barely half a second, the peon was technically "in the wall" which could force the engine to forcefully push it outside, not always on the correct side.
As such, instead of pathing diagonally through a the corner of a house, they'll path around it. It gives a more natural looking movement. There's a downside to this change, though. One movement type that was possible in previous versions is not anymore. Best way to illustrate is with a picture:
Moving between corner-adjacent obstacles is no longer possible. Settlers will go the long way around. If parts of your base is relying on people moving diagonally through a bunch of depots/walls, those parts have to be redesigned to allow access.
I know this fix is going to be slightly annoying to some of you. But at this point in time, it's the only valid choice I have to fix the issue.
There's an upside, some fairly frequent calculations (flood fill) done by the game are now a lot less CPU intensive, which should help with performances on very large maps.
[h2]Build in Combat Mode[/h2]
Build mode keyboard shortcuts are now working in combat mode. As such, and assuming you know your shortcuts, it's possible to build, cancel and raze stuff from the combat UI now.
This should be especially useful with "special projects" that require active guards, like walling off parts of the sewers or securing a spawner to make a food or giant egg generator. You won't have to switch between build & combat mode nearly as often.
This is still a bit experimental, but so far my testing hasn't found any deal breaker.
[h2]Biome Specific Weather[/h2]
Biomes can have their own weather patterns, and even weathers which are unique to them. For instance, in the scorched biome, "acid rains" have been replaced by a way deadlier "blood rain" version and cold waves can no longer happen.
In the same spirit, arid biomes no longer have cold waves, and rain is much less frequent. Swamps have no heat waves and it's raining more often. Most other biomes are left unchanged for now.
[h2]Notes[/h2]
This is still a hot-patch, technically. As such, there's no compatibility problem to expect. Just keep aware of the changes in pathing.
Beside that, devlog about 0.8.3 incoming sunday :)
[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
- Balance: Given all animals a very slow (only outside combat) health regen ability to compensate for the fact they can't heal on their own otherwise
- Change: It is no longer possible for agents to path through diagonally-adjacent walls/obstables
- Content: Weather patterns depend on the biome you spawn in (swamps get more rain and coldwaves, arid less rain and more heatwaves, scorched is hellish)
- Content: Scorched biome: acid rain replaced by blood rain (local mobs are generally immune to its effects) and the water there is now red.
- Engine: Slightly improved overall performances on large maps
- Engine: Switching to/from the world map is now near immediate instead of freezing the game for a good second
- Modding: Some mapgen/terrains files have a new "WeatherPatterns" field (see arid.json or humid.json)
- Modding: Weather pattern files have a "CanUseInProcGen" true/false setting, if set to false, this pattern will only show up if it's included in the terrain's data
- Modding: Added "CanSocial" true/false to npc files (to enable/disable relation tab/funcs on relevant npc types)
- UI: Updated some of the tutorial and game-tip messages with more accurate/useful information
- UI: Right clicking zones in the build menu will display a detailed info menu like it does for other objects
- UI: Added "Zones" category to the encyclopedia
- UI: Most of the build mode keyboard shortcuts are now working in combat mode (building, razing, cancelling and most menus)
- Fixed: Messages about brawls would incorrectly indicate that all brawls are from your survivors (even if it's between hostile people in a bunker)
- Fixed: The biome dropdown in custom game / underground menu was clipped incorrectly
- Fixed: Basements could spawn on the surface in some scenarios
- Fixed: Frenglish "recolt" changed to "harvest", and corrected other outdated information in the tutorial
- Fixed: On rare/specific occasions, agents could end up on the wrong side of a wall (after loading a save, especially), this
- should* be fixed
- Fixed: Animals, zombies and robots spawning with the "social" module, unnecessarily consuming CPU cycles (not many, but hey)
- Fixed: Zombies weren't immune to the heavy version of acid rains.
- Fixed: In some underground scenarios, "surface events" (new recruits, traders...) could still happen before the player breaches the surface