After the Collapse News

Here is a small hot-patch fixing issues you've been reporting with the new 0.7.1 release.

Nothing major, it fixes a bug that was preventing modders from adding animated items to the game. It also clarifies that things spawned on the map are debris to be disassembled and not fit to be used in player made rooms. It means that bedrooms, dining rooms and such will no longer recognize things you haven't built yourself as valid to determine if the room is complete or not.

As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 and 0.7.1 are compatible with this patch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

• UI: Armor and Weapon info panels' trait list have been updated to show the tooltip and colorize the traits' names according to quality
  
• UI: When generating a new map, all objects are categorized as "debris" to make it clear that they should be recycled
  
• Fixed: After using a 0.7.0 save, launching a 0.7.1 game could have masonry auto discovered
  
• Fixed: Rooms not checking for the faction of the items inside when trying to determine whether they are valid or not
  
• Fixed: Settlers weren't checking the faction of the beds when trying to determine if there are enough beds in the settlement
  
• Fixed: A possible booze related crash when they are used by a settler as a mean to fix boredom
  
• Fixed: (modding) Animated items couldn't be added via mods
  
• Fixed: (modding) Animated items couldn't drop shadows
  

After The Collapse 0.7.1 has just been released. This first major patch is heavily re-balancing the early game and tech tree while redesigning the map, adding genetic(ish) animal breeding, and overhauling the way expeditions are handled. This article will detail the major changes. As usual, for a complete list, refer to the changelog at the end of this article. I however, strongly suggest regular users to read this article.

[h2]Balance and Tech Tree[/h2]
I heavily reorganized the tech tree. My goal is to make it easier for newcomers to navigate it optimally in the early game while making the late game technologies harder to bee-line to for the veterans so they don't skip as much content as they could. Some "free" technologies like hospitals, medical stations and repair zones have been locked behind techs to prevent new players from wasting their critical first few resources into things they'd only need much later down the line.



Now "Carpentry" should always be your first tech to research unless you're extremely experienced with the game's systems. It unlocks most of the essentials for a self sustainable early base, including an early low efficiency water well. Masonry now requires carpentry first. The main trunk goes from carpentry to masonry to metallurgy to construction, with branches going out at each step. I also added a "Power" technology between metallurgy and electronics. This is where you can start building coal-based power generators, get the radio tech to conduct diplomacy, and a few other features. It also unlocks the tinkering station, where you can build the generator (moved from forge). The "Electronics" tech comes later and takes more time to research.

The "Melee weapons" tech was renamed to "Basic weapons". It needs carpentry, and provides crossbows and melee weapons (which all got a damage boost) so you can fend off your first few raids without having to rush pipe weapons. I slightly pushed back pipe weapons, and again, made their damage output a bit better. Modern weaponry maintenance and ammo production has been pushed back a lot to make sure that pipe weapons can be considered a viable choice by the player for most of the mid game.

To stress out the importance of early weapon tech, the weapon selection your settlers can spawn with is much more low tech. While it's still possible for the occasional settler to spawn with a standard gun, most will start with pipe pistols and melee weapons. Same goes with armors.

Those changes are still a tad experimental. I did test them through a couple full game-sessions but I have no doubt that it will require further tweaks based on your feedback.

[h2]Map and Expedition UI Overhaul[/h2]
It's not a secret that the expedition planner was kinda clunky. You'd click on the table, click on menu, click again to get on the map to select a destination, and go back to the menu all that to select a destination. With 0.7.1, I removed the station completely and moved everything to the map itself. Simply put, you can now click on a destination from the map, select the type of expedition you want, and it'll show a single page menu asking you to select which settlers to send and to set the various options. Of course, the tech requirements still apply, you still need the Exploration tech to launch expeditions. The expedition log can be accessed by clicking on the destination. An option has been added to show a popup when your expedition comes back (listing loot and people found) as well.



Additionally, the map menu itself has been standardized and uses the same "look" as the rest of the user interface. It has a bottom menu bar and the buttons to change game speed and pause the game. You can now access the population, diplomacy and stock menus directly from the world map too. I also fixed the instabilities/crashes introduced when I made the map compatible with real time game-play.

[h2]Genetic Breeding[/h2]
Until now, new animals would be straight up copies of either their father or their mother. It was all very boring. Now, both parents will be taken into account both at the "trait" and the "stats" level. If both parents have a trait in common, their child will have it too. It will also pick a random trait from either of them. If there's not too many traits, it'll pick one at random as well. It also picks stats from their parents at random with a slight randomization on top.

This is mostly interesting for dogs, which can be selectively bred to be strong and resilient, making them way more durable in combat situations. But to make that a tad more interesting for cattle, I also added a "Fat" trait to them. Animals with this trait will drop one more raw meat when butchered.

[h2]New Stations, Concepts and Upgrades[/h2]
0.7.1 includes a selection of new things to build. The most important being the new Grow Lamps. Until now, you could "light up" underground farms with any light, even a camp fire. This was making underground farms clearly superior by any metrics to surface level ones. Now, you'll need to place grow lamps near your underground farms for them to be able to grow surface plants. There's 2 of such lamps. The first one is unlocked at the Metallurgy tech, and is fueled with coal. The second one is unlocked by the Electronics tech and will connect to your electrical grid.



Depots' capacity (starting at stone) has been increased. A medium metal one has been added to fill the gap between the underground and the large depots. Note that you no longer need to fully rebuild a depot when a better one is available, there's a button to upgrade them in their menu. Speaking of upgrades, some factories can be upgraded too without having to rebuild them from the ground up (kitchen -> electric kitchen, forge -> electric furnace, wooden water well -> water well).

[h2]User Interface[/h2]
On top of the new world map UI, many menus have been slightly improved, especially the menu to select individual settlers (used in expedition, pet & room attribution). Additionally, when you have the bio or job menu open for a specific settler, clicking on another settler will directly open this menu for them. It makes it easier to compare two or more people. Oh, another user request: settlers can be banished from your settlement now (in their bio, there's a new banish button).

[h2]Modding and Engine[/h2]
Alex and I have been adding a lot of new functionalities for modders to play with. Consumable can heal people now. Factories can optionally feed themselves directly from adjacent depots. Traits can be filtered so they can only apply to specific species. We also have a lot more LUA bindings for those who dabble in those arcane modding arts. Check the change-log for a full list.

[h2]Save Compatibility[/h2]
This version is mostly compatible with previous 0.7.0 saves. However, depending on where you are on the tech tree, your ability to build some of the items will be restricted until you've researched the new technologies added in this version (medical stuff in particular, but also tinkering stations and coal-based generators). Also, due to the way we store save-data, existing depots and factories placed before this update won't have the new "upgrade to x" button.
Also note that if you have underground farms (growing surface plants), you will need to replace your light sources by the proper grow lamps or your crops will die.

[h2]A Few Words[/h2]
So, this wasn't exactly the update I was planning on releasing, but many of those improvements have been long overdue. The tech tree changes, depending on your earlier play-style, will most likely get a few more of your settlers killed in the first few raids. Settlers' death is intended and an integral part of the game. This is partly why it's so easy to replenish ranks through expeditions and random events.Next update will focus on some of the major features planned for 0.7. Namely a way to add a "roof" above your settlers' heads and the ability to tame new neutral critters.

[h2]Full Change-log[/h2]

• Balance: Reduced value and weight of animal food
• Balance: Reorganized storages' costs, capacity and location in tech tree
• Balance: Massively reorganized the tech tree (see release post for a summary of changes)
• Balance: Weapon and armor selection for initial settlers contains more low tier equipment
• Balance: Growing outdoor plants underground now requires specific lamps (standard lights and campfire no longer work)
• Balance: Slightly increased DPS of some weapons
• Balance: Balanced pig vs sheep fertility (made pigs a tad less, while sheeps are a tad more)
• Content: Added wooden water well (less efficient than stone well) at carpentry level
• Content: Added 2 plant grow lamps (one self sustained via charcoal for early game, one linkable to the electrical grid for mid game)
• Content: Big sofas provide entertainment now
• Content: Added small metal container to bridge gap between stone & large depot (stone containers can be upgraded to this one)
• Content: Forges, basic kitchens and artisanal water wells can be upgraded to more advanced versions with proper tech
• Content: You can now selectively breed animals to weed out bad trait/stats and favor good ones
• Content: Added a few more traits both for humans and animals
• Content: Survivors can be banished from the settlement (Settler Menu / Character / Banish)
• Content: Removed expedition table (as everything expedition related is now done from the world map)
• Modding: Factories can now be upgraded to a new version the same way depots can
• Modding: Factory files get the new "AllowInputFromDepot" field (true/false, default: false). If true, they'll try to pick input from adjacent depots before issuing supply jobs
• Modding: Consumable modifying the "Heal" need will heal the user (or harm with neg value). Settlers won't seek those items unless they also fix one of the more standards needs (food, drink,...)
• Modding: Lights can be compatible with plant growth or not (LightSource component, "PlantGrowth" true/false field. default is false)
• Modding: Traits now have a whitelist and blacklist of species they can be applied to (WhiteListRace and BlackListRace)
• Modding: Traits now have a whitelist and blacklist of bodyagent category they can be applied to (WhiteListCategory, BlackListCategory)
• Modding: Traits have a new DropOnDeath parameter, which is a list of item that will be added to the owner's inventory the second before death. (see "traits/animal_fat")
• Modding: XNB textures can now be exported to PNG files for editing purpose (by Alex)
• Modding: Added info about SubClutter to documentation (by Alex)
• Modding: Animations can now be overridden properly (by Alex. Thanks, Xen)
• Modding: LUA - Added ClutterData.Clone() (by Alex)
• Modding: LUA - Direct list access for List fields is deprecated and may be removed in a later version. Please use GetX() and SetX() instead.
• Modding: LUA - Added a lot of new bindings, completed existing ones (Factory, Recipe, FoodRecipe, Points of interests....) (by Alex)
• UI: Expedition handling is now done directly from the world map
• UI: Added techs' "difficulty rating" to research menu
• UI: The world map menu got overhauled, giving access to expeditions, logs, stocks, people, diplomacy and game speed settings
• UI: Standardized and improved sub-menu to select settlers and animals (used in expedition, ownership and pet attribution)
• UI: Slight faction list and factory menus make-over
• UI: Clicking on two settlers in a row no longer closes the character/job panels, making it easier to compare settlers
• UI: Option to show expedition's findings when scavenging group returns home (settings/gameplay - enabled by default)
• Fixed: Several edge cases where you could send the wrong number of settlers in a takeover expedition
• Fixed: Issue where you couldn't recall people from a production center
• Fixed: Animals could get traits which only really make sense with humans
• Fixed: Cold & Hot traits weren't tagged properly as weather effects, removing "X is hot/cold" message spam when the weather changes
• Fixed: Rare random crash when trying to create new mods from mod_skel (by Alex)
• Fixed: Several crashes caused by the addition of the real time map in 0.7 (generally when disassembling rocks and walls while looking at the map)

Here is the second hot-patch for 0.7.0.

You can now upgrade your standard wooden depots into stone ones with the appropriate tech and requirements. It's done by a button appearing at the bottom of the wooden depot's menu. It also fixes the few reported issues, and the solar panel texture has been replaced by a much nicer looking one courtesy of Xen.

As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 are compatible with this patch.

With that out of the way, and barring any critical problem, we'll be working on the next large 0.7.x update. I'll likely be publishing a devlog about that next week-end.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

• Content: Wooden storage can be upgraded to stone without having to raze and rebuild it, thanks to a new button in the storage menu
  
• Graphics: New solar panel texture, courtesy of Big WDS
  
• Modding: Added "UpgradeTo" field to cluttter. Which is used by the new storage upgrade feature. Only works for storage presently
  
• Modding: Further hardening of the code against removed/bad data issues
  
• UI: In the research screen, the tech info panel is now scrollable. Buttons are properly anchored and colored.
  
• UI: When starting a new game, the bar used to select the number of settlers will colored according to number selected, and a warning will show up if selecting 10-12.
  
• Fixed: Clock not going to the next day when auto-saves are disabled
  
• Fixed: More possible issues when a mod is removed in the middle of a game (this is still not a miracle cure and never will be)
  

Here is a small hot-patch fixing issues you've been reporting with the new 0.7 release.

It fixes a few possible crashes introduced in 0.7.0. It also adds a way to build fabric from the camp fire so it's easier to start the game with a large base. Updated a few skills and stats related popups to represent what they influence more accurately. Also, removing or adding mods mid-game is also possible to some extent.

As usual with hot-patches, save-games from 0.7.0 are compatible with this patch.

[h2]Changelog[/h2]

• Balance: Edited suburbs' loot list (now gives -> cloth, leather, low level damaged weaponry, pets, food, water, electronics)
  
• Modding: More robust modding system, savegames warn about missing textures on load
  
• Modding: Removing mods from a game no longer systematically prevents the save from loading succesfully (it's not a miracle cure, though)
  
• Modding: Misc online api documentation improvements (modding.anarkisgaming.com)
  
• Modding: System for modders to mark a mod as "deprecated" so it's detected ingame to give users a warning
  
• UI: In the depot panel, the checkbox text is now green when you have allowed specific items to the category (so it's the same color as the button)
  
• UI: Updated tooltips for settlers' stats and job skills
  
• Fixed: Super rare issue causing the bug-report module to crash itself into oblivion when launching the game
  
• Fixed: Irregular crashes caused by the change from wheat to animal food in 0.7 in interaction with a mod
  
• Fixed: Crashes in zombie horde scenarios
  
• Fixed: The "damaged police armor" was incorrectly tagged as a firearm (making it drop where it shouldn't in loot tables)
  
• Fixed: Some missing localization strings

Here is the first content update for our 0.7 branch, introducing pets, social mechanics, a new in-game mod browser, artifacts, and plenty more.

As usual, I'm only going to go over the major features and changes. There are plenty more modding, UI and balance improvements you can find in the full change-log at the bottom.

[h2] Pets [/h2]
The idea with this 0.7x branch is to add neutral critters to the map, some moving in herd, for the player to tame or hunt. Both in build mode, and on the world map.

As a the first and biggest step in the right direction, we can now breed and adopt dogs. Pets will defend their owner and provide a flat bonus to their happiness. Their death causes a temporary debuff to their owner. Dogs without owners will hang out in a pasture and can be butchered.



Dogs can be found during expeditions, both during travel and in specific locations (bars). The animal trader also sell them. Pets, like cattle, die of old age, can reproduce and be butchered.

The animal info menu is now similar to the one used with humans. And in this menu you can give them a new owner.

[h2] Animal Food [/h2]
Instead of wheat, all settlement creatures eat animal food now, dogs included. To make the transition go smoothly, wheat farms produce "animal food" directly for now. You can also make more by cooking meat. It is also a proper food item, instead of an ingredient.

Your settlers won't eat animal food, though. This is a first step toward having diets for specific groups of settlers or animals.

[h2] Happiness and Personality Traits [/h2]
Happiness changes are gradual instead of instant. People gain and loss points at a rate determined by their new personality trait. Other traits have been redesigned to make use of that system. The mood of your survivors should be much less erratic. Settlers also spawn with a new small list of traits they like and dislike.



Humans also start with base stats much closer to average now. As such, traits, mental attributes and jobs have a much more meaningful impact on a new survivor's abilities. In turn, it removes many cases where a settlers with a trait like Strong would still have very sub-par strength.



As you can see, the character and mood panels got a face-lift to illustrate the new system.

[h2] Making Friends [/h2]
Settlers will now talk and bond with each other as illustrated here with the new speech bubbles.

While they appear simultaneously, the bubbles show one of the different outcomes of the discussion, taking happiness, relation with other settler, social stats, likes & dislikes, and some dice rolls, into account. Generally, the more blue ? and ! speech bubbles, the better.

Having friends gives small happiness buffs, but if one dies, his friends will mourn for a few days (slower, sad). Of course, enemies provide a small debuff. Occasionally, two settlers who dislike each other may start brawling. It's a non lethal (normally) duel with punches only, its duration may vary. Once the fight is over, they'll hate each other less.



A "Relation" tab has been added to the settler info menu to keep track of each settler's relationships, pets included.

[h2] Artifacts [/h2]
Settlers can equip new rare and powerful items in their new equipment slot. They can be acquired when raiding mutated nests and during scavenging runs (rare). There's only a few for now, but more will be added along the way.



[h2] Map and User Interface [/h2]
This is still a bit experimental, but the world map no longer pauses the game. You still use the keyboard shortcuts to control time in map mode. As such, you can see your expeditions moving in real time. Still from the world map, you can open diplomatic channels with a faction by clicking on its flag. The idea in the long run is to also have expedition management directly on the map screen.



[h2] Mods and Steam Workshop [/h2]
Thanks to Alex, you can now share your saves on the Steam Workshop to your friends and to the community at large. Workshop mods can now be listed and subbed directly from the game. There's a new modding doc available here. And we have a new in-game mod manager as pictured below.



Speaking of mods, I should point out the ones made by Xen. Lots of good content in there! ːsteamhappyː

[h2] Save Compatibility [/h2]
Start a new game. As with all major milestone updates, save files aren't compatible with previous versions.

[h2] Release Notes [/h2]
This 0.7.0 version is by no mean perfect, and you'll probably find some issues left & right which i'll address through hot-patches, as usual. The very small "fixed" list in the changelog is still a testament to our progress over the last few months: ATC works, generally (tm).

My apologies for taking so long to publish 0.7, it should have been completed much earlier this month, but I also had to take care of older family members due to the covid19 quarantine. As such, it's now clear that we won't reach 1.0 before end of Q2 2020. It doesn't mean much, as i plan to continue coding past 1.0, but it's only fair to tell you.

Also note, that we'll be increasing the game's cost by $1 somewhere near the end of the 0.7 branch, you'll be warned in advance, and it'll be coupled with a discount when applied.

[h2] Plans for future 0.7.x updates [/h2]
Prisoner management is the big thing. Basically a way to capture, sell, and put to work prisoners. The new non-lethal combat, social features and pet system are an introduction to this.

I would like to add migratory herds to the world map as well. They could be hunted by expeditions and serve as event generators when entering in contact with the base, productions centers or expeditions. It could in turn be used to replace the random enemy raids and migration events by something a bit more natural.

Give more reasons to grow in population, with settlement laws to be enacted at each milestone. A mayor's office for the colony's leader would be nice as well. In a more distant future it'd help adding elections and a political system in general.

The last major arc is an improved medical system. But it might get delayed or swapped with the following as I'm not sure I like the idea of dealing with this topic in the current situation. It would feel a bit ghoulish.

Instead, preset scenarios and generally speaking a more user friendly new game menu. Coupled with a basic in-game mission system to provide guidance in a less intrusive way than with popups, and a general makeover of the map/expedition/diplo UI stuff which is way too disjointed at the moment.

[h2] Full Changelog [/h2]

• Balance: Merged "consumable" item category into "drinks" (it was only used for dirty water, use depot filters when needed instead)
  
• Balance: Mood changes are now gradual and vary from a settler to another
  
• Balance: Joyful & Depressed are no longer timed and will always trigger whenever a settler's mood is over 85 or below 15
  
• Balance: Traders have more items in stock
  
• Balance: Humans spawn with roughly average base stats, making traits and professions more meaningful
  
• Changes: Animals eat animal food (categorised as food) instead of wheat (categorised as ingredient)
  
• Changes: Wheat farms produce animal food, removed wheat from ingredients
  
• Content: Added recipe to produce animal food from meat at basic kitchen
  
• Content: Added new traits illustrating the new mood system and edited existing ones
  
• Content: New equipment slot for settlers (backpack/artifacts)
  
• Content: Added several powerful items and artifacts to the loot and trade tables (your settlers can equip them in the new slot)
  
• Content: New artifact trader event (very rare, late game, event)
  
• Content: Settlers can now form relations with each other
  
• Content: Settlers can chat with each other, modifying their mood and relations
  
• Content: The death of a friend will cause a settler to mourn for a few days (bad morale, slow speed, low social)
  
• Content: Having friends will increase a settler's mood while having foes will decrease it
  
• Content: Settlers who hate each other may occasionally brawl (which will partially reset their relation)
  
• Content: Pet dogs for your settlers to adopt and breed (or eat, you maniacs)
  
• Content: Pets provide basic help in combat and a slight happiness boost to their owners
  
• Content: The death of a pet will render their owner sad for a while
  
• Content: Ability to share your savegames on the Steam Workshop (by Alex) (Steam Only)
  
• Content: Pets and cattle regen health when eating.
  
• Content: Claimed production centers can still be explored for resources now
  
• Modding: New ingame workshop mod manager (by Alex)
  
• Modding: New modding api documentation, online version here: https://modding.anarkisgaming.com (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Ability to set recipes with varying quantity produced (see data/recipes/_example.txt file)
  
• Modding: Factories can now properly understand recipes with multiple output (they sorta did already, but items would not always end up where they should)
  
• Modding: Added several mood/relation modifiers to traits
  
• Modding: Added "AI" = PetAI to npc files (they'll need a properly set race for the agents to be considered properly ownable pets and be of the animal category)
  
• Modding: Traits have the new DamageThreshold field (add/remove flat incoming damage in combat)
  
• Modding: Traits have the new MeleeDamageModifier and RangedDamageModifier fields (add/remove flat outgoing damage in combat)
  
• Modding: Added ability to toggle developer mode and menus (see devmode.txt in game's folder)
  
• Modding: Added _example.txt files to data/npc, data/racedata, data/recipes and data/traits to start documenting stuff a bit (more will come)
  
• Modding: Animal fodder consumable must have the "Fodder" tag attributed otherwise settlers will eat them too.
  
• Modding: UI graphical elements can be retextured (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Detection and warning messages for outdated/broken mods (by Alex)
  
• Modding: (change) Metalsmith jobs properly tagged as "Metalsmith" instead of "Social" in data files now (update your mod if need be)
  
• Modding: (change) Consumable item Category removed. Use food, drink, medical.. instead (update mod if need be)
  
• UI: Updated trait tooltip to display mood growth/decrease modifiers when relevant
  
• UI: More legible settler character sheet displaying more info while using less screen estate
  
• UI: Updated settler info panel and population screen to take the new artifact/utility equipment slot into account
  
• UI: Added relation tab to the settler info panel (displaying friends, foes, pets)
  
• UI: The mood tab in the settler info panel got a makeover and displays more info
  
• UI: Clicking on a faction's banner on the world map open their diplomatic screen (when applicable)
  
• UI: The world map can work without pausing now and pause/speed keyboard shortcuts work (no buttons yet) (bit experimental)
  
• UI: The animal info panel has been reworked and behave very similarly to the settler info panel
  
• UI: Butcher screen display population count by species
  
• UI: Multiselection menu added to combat mode
  
• UI: Experimental: pause/speed keyboard shortcuts work on the worldmap now.
  
• UI: Much needed facelift to the in-game mod menu.
  
• Fixed: Possible case where a settler could stop moving (despite the UI telling you they are) until they switch to a new job on their own.
  
• Fixed: Misc issues found in the experimental version
  
• Fixed: Clicking on combat log messages wouldn't center the camera on the action
  
• Fixed: Expeditions not properly reset when starting a second game