After the Collapse News

Welcome!

After several years of heavy development, After The Collapse is finally out of Early Access! While this doesn't mean the development is going the stop anytime soon, it's still a very important milestone.

I would like to thank everyone who bought the game early and everyone who contributed in any way, no matter if it's feedback, bug reports, mods, coding advices or general support. Without you, I wouldn't be here. You have no idea how grateful I am.

in my last devlog I said that story mode would be the "one and only" big feature included in 1.0 compared to 0.9.8. Well, I was wrong. I implemented a lot of nice features I'm going to detail in this post.

This will be followed by a chapter mentioning my immediate plans following 1.0 and the inevitable hot-patches ːsteamhappyː

[h2]Story Mode[/h2]

This is the major new feature in this release. Story Mode is designed both for new players and those who'd like to have a more directed experience. In this mode, you go through an intro sequence establishing the lore, followed by a reworked (and optional) tutorial touching on most of the basic aspects of managing a base. It will then expand in a four chapters long story about you and the other factions.



This story follows a group of survivors who are fresh out of their bunker and who have to adapt to a strange post-apocalyptic world. It includes four world maps, a couple new factions, new mobs, multiple quests, and unique map locations to visit and conquer. As the story progresses, the more advanced gameplay options are explained as the need arises. As such, this mode is a good way for new players to familiarize themselves with the mechanics by following clear goals.



But this mode is not for new players only. It's hard for me to go into details without getting into spoiler territory, but I really hope the more experienced players will enjoy the second to last acts. I don't pretend to be a good writer or storyteller but I'm pretty happy with the different missions and obstacles put in your way. I also left space for future improvements (both mechanically and story-wise).

[h2]Faction Archetypes[/h2]

Many of you requested this feature after I released the "Rise of the Mutants" scenario. Back then, I wasn't entirely sure it was possible. Well, I was wrong. It's even likely to be expanded upon in future major updates.

Simply put, you're no longer forced to play as a boring bunch of technologically minded humans. There's a whole new framework allowing me to define completely new archetypes with their own tech tree, events, maps, quests, and such.



In practice, in all sandbox modes and many scenarios, you get to choose between 3 completely different archetypes to play with. They determine the kind of survivors you'll recruit and capture, your access to technologies, the type of random events you'll encounter, and so on:

• Humans: The default faction you're already used to. Access to all techs, flimsy but talented humans. Some might start with a basic gun, some might start with nothing.
  
  
• Mutants: Big, green, mean and punch super hard. Limited tech tree, but immediate access to taming and expeditions. They are prone to infighting but don't get depressed. They are pretty fun to play.
  
  
• Cannibals: Same as humans but all your recruits will be cannibals, you have access to decent early game bone weapons and to all techs. They are, overall, less skilled than the other humans and spawn with very bad gear.

The whole thing is, like most of everything else, moddable. From a technical standpoint, adding in new archetypes, with completely new tech trees, event selection and playable characters is pretty simple.

[h2]Combat: Control Group[/h2]

Until now, it was a pain to locate and activate only a select few people (preferably holding the best guns) when you were under attack. Sure, patrol zones help a lot, but it's not always an optimal solution. So, I added a "control group" hotkey. If you're not used to the term, it allows you to save a group of people you want to use in combat mode and call them into action with the press of a single hotkey.

In practice, you select the people you want to act as your "emergency defense force" and press [ctrl]+[hotkey] to save this group (or shift+hotkey to add whomever you have selected to the group). And yes, you can add/remove from the control group directly from the population menu.

Once set up, whenever you need soldiers without disturbing the whole base, all you need to do is to press the hotkey. It'll switch them to combat mode, ready to obey your orders. As usual, I updated the Encyclopedia to reflect the new feature.

[h2]Combat: AI and Balance Pass[/h2]

I fixed a few problematic behaviors. One which was particularly annoying when moving many people at once. They wouldn't stay in a tight pack on arrival to their destination, making it a pain to move more than a few soldiers through a building or sewers. Another issue was that people would try to "find cover" when shooting at something which can't fight back. They don't do that anymore: shooting down doors or windows will no longer waste ammunition and disrupt your group's positioning.



To a more controversial take now. I halved weapon damage across the board, it's implemented through a global Damage Modifier option in the settings file (so you can revert this change, or customize it to your liking).

The reasoning is as follows. As the game progressively got new weapon classes and as the average bullet-speed changed from glacially-slow to lightning-fast, combat became incredibly deadly. Initial placement and cover became the only things that really mattered.

This change slows down things so you can occasionally save a badly hurt soldier by repositioning them. Also, it's putting a lot more pressure on your modern ammo production which, until now (when you knew what you were doing) was pretty much never an issue. It's also justifying the existence of melee weapons as backup options.



Of course, the global damage alone wouldn't be enough. Some weapons' damage output has been tweaked/increased. Boss monsters got their bonus health heavily reduced. Advanced melee weapons like the "electric axe" or the "chainsaw" have been added. Some mobs, like the scorpions and crabs, got an armor covering both the head and the body (so they can no longer get one-shot by someone with a half-decent military skill).

[h2]Quests and Content[/h2]

As announced previously, it's no longer possible to research the robot building tech directly. Figuring out how to build giant sentient robots seemed a bit out of the realm of possibilities for a band of survivors in a post-apocalyptic world. Instead, you'll acquire the tech through a random event that can trigger once you satisfy various requirements. It'll be expensive and require you to go through a deadly bunker that will appear on the world map once you accept the quest.



I also tweaked some of the existing "mini-quests" you get while moving your expeditions around. Exploring the random loot building can now have negative consequences instead of just being a freebie.

Story mode includes a lot of new buildings to explore through the quest system, some of which will likely be incorporated (with tweaks) into the standard game in the future. In the same spirit, later stages of the main story contain a few monsters you won't find the standard game. They will be incorporated in future updates.

I also added the option to manually defend your production centers when they are under attack. It works basically the same as a standard map battle (except this time you're the one inside the building). It's optional and can be set to always be automated in the gameplay settings if you don't like getting interrupted by popups.

[h2]Map Generation[/h2]

I improved map generation too. In maps where buildings are not bordering a road, said buildings are placed more intelligently. They won't be placed over a river or blocked by a mountain range. As a result, villages in complex biomes look a lot better. It takes a few more seconds to generate the map, but it's definitely worth it. I also added a couple more building types, and tweaked a few formulas, the usual.



I think we're in a good place with those changes. City block generation is still a bit lacking, but I don't think it's a massive issue. I will likely continue to tweak and improve the various map/building generators for a very long time, it's the kind of code I would write for fun anyway.

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

New helpful articles are featured in the in-game encyclopedia, many context/help menus are more informative and have been updated to make sure they are up to date with 1.0. The weapon info panel show a lot more information.

A lot more things have been added to make all things "gel together" but listing every item would be a bit boring, you can refer to the full changelog for the whole list.

[h2]Misc. Improvements, Bug Fixing and Optimizations[/h2]

Well, I'm not going to list every single bug-fix in 1.0 here, you can refer to the changelog. I'll address a few issues that were present in 0.9.8 (and before)

- The annoying short freezes that would happen sometimes and which would be "fixed" by reloading a save have been fixed. It was a pain to pin-point the root of the issue, but it has been eradicated. On top of that, the overall economy-related code has been entirely rewritten, leading to better performances in larger and older bases. Contrary to the previous iteration, it's also thread-safe, eradicating one the last ways the game could crash.

- An issue with underground and indoor farming was causing plants to (very slowly) degrade when your camera wasn't looking at the layer the farm was in. It was tied to more global issues related to the way I handled light sources. Game will also tell you when plants are dying so you can check what's up.

- The world map was incorrectly handling location ownership, leading to locations flipping back to an incorrect faction after loading a save. This has been fixed. In practice, the late game "mutated horrors" (renamed to The Swarm) perform much better, AI expeditions and enemy hordes are much better at their doing their respective jobs.

- Complete French Translation. It's no secret the French language was left a bit behind during Early Access. ATC contains a lot of text (enough to fill a large book), most of which went through several revisions. As such, keeping the translation up to date was just not cost-efficient. This is corrected. Everything has been translated properly. I can't promise that there won't be any oddities or the occasional overflowing text in some menus, but the game is perfectly playable and understandable in French.

[h2]What Now And What Next?[/h2]

Well, I'll stay around for a couple weeks to handle what I assume will be a deluge of bug reports and complaints regarding years old systems I didn't explain fully, forgot about, or assumed easy to guess. I'll publish the inevitable weekly hot-patches accordingly. I'll also try to add Steam Cards. The game has already been verified by Steam, so it's just a matter of motivation. Then, I will take some time off. This year has been quite eventful, both online and offline, and I really could use some.

After all that, I will get back to coding. I have no todo-list to offer right now. For once, I'll be able to code it on the fly instead of going through a checklist, and that's generally where I shine. The rest will depend on how well received is the game. A graphical and audio makeover ain't out of the question, but that's for much later. Just know that more free content updates will follow. I have the habit of working on my projects long after their 1.0 release, ATC won't be an exception.

[h2]Mod & Save Compatibility[/h2]

ATC 1.0 save-games are NOT compatible with previous versions. It's intentional. I assume that the next few weeks are going to be very busy already. Handling incredibly specific problems tied to a save-game which might be dating from versions as old as 0.8.3 is just not an option.

Mods working with 0.9.8 should still work here as I made no breaking changes to the modding system, just improvements and additions.

However, I heavily suggest to disable all mods when playing Story Mode (texture / graphic ones are safe), especially anything altering the world map (new locations, loot, factions).

[h2]A Few Words[/h2]

So (potential bugs aside) 1.0 is pretty much what I wanted ATC to become. Of course, there's still room for improvement, plenty of it. But the overall formula of feeding your late game base through world map exploration and domination is working pretty well. Especially as it can be expanded upon by adding new world map quests, secret bunkers, or other late game events.

To any newcomer who read through all this, I sincerely hope you will like the game and give it a fair chance. And, If not, no hard feelings, that's what refunds are for. I can't please everyone and that's okay too. :)

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

[h3]Artificial Intelligence[/h3]

• Combat AI no longer tries to find cover when attacking something that can't fight back
  
• Large group of combat-mode survivors move in tight packs when given a move command, making navigation and combat a LOT easier
  
• Survivors properly recognize which seat is in use, meaning that undersized dining rooms will make people unhappy
  
• Pets (the combat friendly ones) are more reactive to their owner being attacked, targeted or killed
  
• Survivors will check if there's any doctor beside themselves before going to the hospital and whine about the lack of doctor if there's none
  
• Settlers will no longer ALWAYS pick the nearest break room (75% of time instead), this will help them use all the facilities in a multi layer base
  
• Improved AI and navigation of world map hordes and AI factions' expeditions
  
• Enemy raiders will no longer try to clear infested buildings for you and generally try to ignore the hostile fauna (no more "free" map clearing)
  
• Survivors are much better at using all the dining rooms if there are multiple (using the nearest first if seats are available)
  
• Survivors handle tiles with a LOT of content to pickup more efficiently (multiple people can work on the task)
  
• Water supply job for farms will automatically set itself to high priority if the farm ran out of water completely
  
• Ability for AI faction with high aggression to send overkill-sized raids when targeting production centers (only if hey have the manpower)
  

[h3]New Content[/h3]

• Story mode, a story with 4 chapters spanning several maps with unique missions, monsters and mechanics, teaching you every system you should be made aware of
  
• The mutant faction archetype can be selected in the sandbox modes (surface dweller, bunker inc, custom map)
  
• A more 'fleshed out' cannibal faction archetype has been added (on top of the standard humans and mutants)
  
• Optional defensive combat when your production center are attacked (can be set to always auto in game settings)
  
• Melee weapon tree expanded to add new and fun melee weapons (chainsaw, superheated blade, electrified weapons)
  
• New factions to meet in story mode, older factions being fleshed out
  
• The ambulance vehicle (in expeditions) provides passive healing on the move
  
• Added "Field Medicine" item, can be put on an expedition vehicle, give passive healing no matter if moving or not
  
• Manufacturing Bench can produce armor pieces (it's a lot more expensive than breaking down armors, but more practical)
  
• The "mutated horrors" special end game threat has been renamed as the "Swarm" and associated units/buildings have been renamed accordingly
  
• The "Swarm" fields more unit types, including a deadly bloater who'll release a bunch of poisonous swarmlings on death
  
• Multi layer building can be explored in world map's combat maps (seen in act 3)
  
• The whole Robotic tree has been moved out of the standard tech tree. It can be acquired through the event/quest system (after Manufacturing).
  
• Several new world map quests/dungeons will pop up as the game progresses (mostly in story mode)
• Added 4 achievements for completing each part of the main story
  

[h3]Game Balance[/h3]

• Reordered some of the technologies and associated unlocks
  
• The construction of exoskeletons relies on the rare lootable tech coupled with manufacturing (instead of robotics)
  
• Removed wooden water well (ugly looking & too quickly outclassed to be relevant), moved normal water well to carpentry
  
• Bone weaponry is under the Bone Tools technology which is available to both mutants and (human) cannibals now
  
• Reduced traders' buying prices (at least for most of them)
  
• Metal smelting recipe at basic smelter produces twice the metal and require a bit less than twice the resources and time to reduce job spam
  
• Halved fire environmental damage + tweaks (having a group wiped in seconds because someone caught fire was a tad too much)
  
• Better placement of initial spawn, vehicle won't be planted in a wall or a mountain and should leave room for survivors to move around
  
• Reworked some numbers to make automated combat in world map more on par with manual combat (still a work in progress)
  
• The ammo crafting station can craft the artisanal ammo, like the artisanal weapon bench, to facilitate base organization
  
• The amphibious combat vehicle can carry 8 people instead of 6
  
• The lack of constructed tiles will decrease the value of a room (this is relevant to private bedrooms and break rooms)
  
• Tweaked prices of a few items
  
• Added weights to map exploration loot tables (factories more likely to give actual resources, fuel stations give more fuel and so on, modern weaponry is a lot more rare)
  
• Armor of many animals and end-game mutated horrors apply to both their head and their body
  
• Critical damage decreased from 100% to 50% additional damage, lowered chance on ranged weapons, especially rapid firing ones
  
• It's no longer possible to evacuate or reinforce an outpost while it's under attack (was too easy to exploit)
  
• Added DamageMultiplier to game settings file. This is a 'incoming damage multiplier' which is applied to everyone. It dictates the pace of battles.
  
• Halved all damages using the above multiplier, causing a much needed increase in ammo consumption while making the actual fights more engaging
  
• Slightly tweaked many weapon and armor values
  
• Reduced the health bonus many mobs get to compensate for the lesser damage output and armor related changes
  
• Many crafting recipes have been tweaked either in components or execution speed
  
• Slightly reorganized mobs' weaponry (melee spiders have a bite attack instead of using "claws" and so on)
  
• The "Can Attack incapacitated enemies" is the default setting when starting the game to reduce confusion
  
• Force attacking (ctrl+right click) an incapacitated enemy will set their invincibility timer to zero so ammo don't get wasted
  
• People with 0 perception would be unable to see anything farther than 1 tile, which gameplay-wise, led to problems (increased to 5).
  
• Slightly improved the gear mercenaries (defenders of production centers) can spawn with
  
• In progress constructions can no longer be used as "perfect" cover (in other words, they can be shot and destroyed)

[h3]Game Engine[/h3]

• Heavily reduced CPU cost of "combat mode activated" survivors under your control (no more slowdowns at 50+ fighters in your combat group)
  
• Restructured all the economic/logic system, saving tons of CPU cycles in the process, and nullifying the risk of threads colliding
  
• Final code optimization pass, slightly better overall performances. Also removed unused and duplicate data/asset files.
  
• Better code for combat map scene generation, allowing basic "go there" missions instead of just "kill all things" (used in story mode)
  
• Overall better handling of lights, especially when a light source is moved to a different layer

[h3]Graphics and Sound[/h3]

• Upgraded a few item textures
  
• New textures for the basic smelter, armor forge, and tweaks to a couple other buildings
  
• Wild plants and trees no longer spawn perfectly aligned to the grid, leading to a more natural look
  
• Some headgears (exo and specops helmets, construction hat) will emit a cone of light in front of whoever is wearing them
  
• Additional sound effects and variations for grunts, weapon fire and reload, item building, object razing

[h3]Modding[/h3]

• Support for custom playable faction archetypes (like humans and mutants here), see "data/playableraces/*"
  
• It's possible to prevent a faction archetype from receiving free recruits, or exploring for recruits/prisoners by keeping related fields empty
  
• All relevant game data can be fully translated (support for travel events, cutscenes, laws, scenarios and encyclopedia articles)
  
• Travel events and hordes can be gated with the same parameters as normal events (including difficulty and mature tags)
  
• Added "TechBlacklist" field to travel/normal events and hordes, will prevent them from happening if said tech is researched
  
• Melee weapons can use ammunition properly now
  
• Expedition vehicles and items can provide passive healing while moving (on top of when resting), see ambulance and field medicine
  
• Travel events can open the diplo screen with either a specific faction or the one owning the current tile
  
• Travel events skill/stat testing can check a previously set variable instead of using a set number (see main_radiotower_battle and _battle2)
  
• Local trader visits's event files can set a min/max inventory count with "MinProducts" and "MaxProducts" fields
  
• Added "Weight" field to loot tables, make item(s) in this filter more likely to be picked (like weight = 2 is the same as having 2 times the same filter)
  
• Added system in map files to force the player to spawn in a specified location (see main_act2 map)
  
• Added "ForceCanAttackWalls" (true/false) setting to raid event settings, will override the player's difficulty setting
  
• Added "DeathSpawn", "DeathSpawnChange", "DeathSpawnCount" fields to NPC, allow to spawn other NPC on death, see mother_spider
  
• Map POIs can be set to force manual combat, which is useful for the "go here" type ones
  
• Researching technologies can set global variables (see main_robot_data)
  
• Added "IgnorePOI" to faction def files (string list), used to prevent a faction from targeting specific POI
  
• Added "LightSource" and "LightSourceColor" to all items which can be equipped, adds cone of light to wearer (see specops helmet)

[h3]Procedural Generation[/h3]

• Village type maps no longer spawn buildings over water and mountains, leading to much better looking results
  
• Better spacing of cities in world map generation (and more reliable at spawning the correct number)
  
• A few more building and room types

[h3]User Interface[/h3]

• You can now define a set group of people you can put in combat mode with the press of a button, useful in small fights and clearing building
  
• You can zoom out further (only really useful in gigantic maps, and yes it might be a tad laggy at max zoom out on busy map)
  
• If there's nothing left to research, the research screen will show a message explaining that some techs can only be found through exploration
  
• Scenario menu's faction tab altered to take the new playable races into account
  
• Weapon encyclopedia/info panel displays a lot more information about the weapon's properties
  
• Encyclopedia's weapon comparison table can be sorted by any of the categories
  
• Innate equipment (animal claws, turrets' weapon and such) can be filtered out in the encyclopedia's comparison tables
  
• Flamer ammo renamed to fuel capsule (as it's used by the chainsaw too)
  
• Reworked some tooltips, added contextual help screens and warnings (like plants dying of poor health)
  
• Complete French translation (there's a few oddities left but it's an enormous improvement compared to previous versions)
  
• Updated the "Combat UI" encyclopedia page with information about the new control group hotkey
  
• Added article about "Relocating your base" to the encyclopedia, explaining all the associated systems
  
• You can now (re)load a game while in a manual battle
  
• The Filter button/widget is no longer hidden in combat mode
  
• Most interactive events after conquering a POI are automatically triggered so you don't have to attack and then press explore (which was a bit awkward)
  
• In interactive events/quests the % chance of success and/or conditions are shown as tooltips instead of taking a lot of space in the menu
  
• In the menu associated with map locations, the items being produced can be clicked to open their respective encyclopedia/info panel
  
• All interactive events/quests properly pause the game
  
• Right clicking the upgrade button will show the the upgrade's info/encyclopedia page

[h3]Bugs Fixed[/h3]

• Redesign of the Military Base's main building was too big to spawn (regression bug 0.9.8)
  
• Issue evaluating how long a base survived in the game over screen (regression bug 0.9.8)
  
• People wouldn't drop their melee weapon on death (regression bug 0.9.8)
  
• Underground farm plants could lose health when the camera is not underground (regression bug 0.9.?)
  
• Minor issue that was preventing eating/drinking sound effects from playing correctly (regression bug 0.8.5.3)
  
• Weird game freezes in specific conditions (tied to people taking breaks in lounges and using classrooms)
  
• Potential crash when attacking a horde with an expedition and clicking the attack button just the moment either of them move to another tile
  
• Extremely rare crash tied to pathing (not sure it could happen outside of debug mode tbh)
  
• Non crashing exception in attack script
  
• Micro freezes and other rare crashes caused by the economic layer
  
• It was possible to put the game's UI in a non functional state by clicking some of the elements while the pause menu is up
  
• Game log wasn't cleared during defensive/offensive manual combat map, allowing the player to break game logic by clicking on it
  
• Melee weapons using ammunition were non functional (there was no such weapon in base game until now, though)
  
• Wrong sound effect being played when a door is destroyed
  
• When loading a save where a trader was exiting the map, it could cause them to go back to trade zone and disappear
  
• Multiple minor issues with the way interactive objects are claimed and unclaimed
  
• The result of AI vs AI map location takeovers wouldn't be properly registered when saving/loading a game
  
• Missing feedback message when a horde fails to attack one of your outposts
  
• Typo in attack script which could cause ranged attackers to freeze at a door under some conditions
  
• A couple issues with pastures & butchers which couldn't always recognize that whoever is working for them died
  
• Relocating a base would reset the date causing issues with events and game logic
  
• Relocating a base could reset pet ownership
  
• Minor inconsistencies depending on how you toggle combat mode
  
• The "Escaped Prisoners" event could trigger on factions not intended to work with said event
  
• More grammatical and spelling errors (so many of them. I'm sure there are plenty more left, be sure to notify me)
  
• Genetic Horrors' map spawners would incorrectly spawn zombie aligned hordes
  
• In Population menu, sorting by skill wouldn't place people who can't use a particular skill at the bottom
  
• Issue when a Technology is dropped on the floor (result of expeditions) alongside other items, it would prevent the settlers from storing the tile's content
  
• During manual battles, time would (partly) continue to pass on the world map (hordes would move and so on.)
  
• Small metal spikes were using the wooden version of the sprite
  
• Some autosaves not displaying a screenshot in the save/load menu (different bug from "not taking the screenshot at all" which is still a thing)
  
• Cosmetic issue where you could still click the attack button in the expedition menu while your attack is already under way
  
• Small issue with the way civilians try to get to the safe zone in combat mode
  
• Some oddities with pathing when adding/deleting building orders (generally with walls)
  
• If a map location has no loot table and no associated quest the explore button was not greyed out (only relevant to modders)
  
• In some very specific situations, AI factions would ignore undefended production centers they normally could take.
  
• Some map events' loot could drop items that are not meant to be accessible normally
  
• Bug/Exploit where you could repeat a stage in a quest/travel event by closing the menu at the right moment
  
• Rare issue where a dead mob would still run the fighting script for one update cycle, potentially causing an error
  
• If someone was supposed to water the farm but got taken away to occupy a production center, the farm wouldn't be able to get water until save is reloaded
  
• Very large path-blocking factories/interactive objects would cause issues with pathing (it wasn't really an issue until a specific building was added in this version)
  
• Problem with factories in very low resource situations
  
• Using the copy command/hotkey on an occupied tomb would create a tomb that is also occupied

This short post is made to inform you that, after many delays, After The Collapse will leave Early Access this Friday! It will be released with a 25% discount. There won't be a larger discount in the next store-wide sale (or the next).



The store page will soon be updated to reflect the new 1.0 content.

A proper announcement will be posted on Release day.

You'll probably also notice that the game already has 4 more achievements, they'll be unlockable in 1.0. Steam Cards will be made available soon after the 1.0 release (they take a while to design and get validated).



From a development perspective, this doesn't change much.

I'll post the obligatory post-big-update weekly hotfixes as usual. And, after a few weeks of vacation, active development will resume with 1.1 in mind. Again, it's something I'll talk about in more depth in the release post.



I hope you'll enjoy the update. I know the wait has been a "tad" longer than anticipated :)

Cheers!

Hi there!

Long time not seen. I know, I know. I sorta disconnected from the internet to get ATC finished. And yet, I'm super late. I'll explain what's going on after describing this final "pre 1.0" release. I'm not going to be active online until right before my work is done. At this point, there's no feedback you guys could give me which would influence the development until I'm done with this part of the development.

[h2]TL;DR[/h2]

• Completely rewritten tutorial section touching on all important aspects of ATC's early game
  
• More interesting food + rebalance (the more advanced food source gives big and lasting bonuses)
  
• Ability to equip both a ranged and a backup melee weapon (bonuses stack)
  
• Relocate your base to another map or location (still in testing)
  
• Farming stats telling you how much food you consume/produce
  
• Enemies have their pets accompanying them in battle
  
• Many UI and feedback improvements
  
• All main remaining bugs fixed
  
• A massive amount of features for modding purposes

[h2]Tutorial / Story Mode[/h2]

The "tutorial" scenario has been replaced by "Story Mode", it defines the official world setting (and yes, it ties in my previous game, because it's the same universe), with an intro cutscene. In this version, you only have access to the tutorial part itself.



It's a complete rewrite of the previous and outdated one. It teaches new players how to optimize production by placing & editing depots adjacent to crafting stations. It explains how to assign skills & jobs to people who should be doing them. And that's on top of the basics.

More advanced parts of the game (expeditions, diplomacy, and world map interactions) are taught in Act 1 which is only available in the nightly build. I do not recommend playing the nightly build unless you want the story to get spoiled early with no guarantee that your saves will work properly in 1.0.

[h2]Food & Farming[/h2]

As much as the system was functional. There was no way for a new player to know how many farms they should build compared to their population. And it's not a simple matter, given that farms produce ingredients, ingredients which can be used in a variety of recipes, which can be modded/added/removed, it was kind of a headache.



I made this a lot easier to understand for the player.

1) Each farm got a new button telling you (depending on the selected crop) how many calories they can produce compared to your population's consumption. It's taking into account all the available recipes, and the min & max amount of ingredients each tile can produce. It's not super precise, but it will tell you roughly how many people it should be able to feed.

2) In the faction menu, a "farming report" button has been added. It merges the information from all your farms, evaluates your whole population, and compares your food production to your food consumption. It's even taking traits into account in the calculations.

Of course, it's not perfect, traits change all the time, bad weather can fuck things up, and it's assuming that your kitchen is working as efficiently as possible. Still, overall, it's giving you a piece of information that was missing very much.

And that information was not lost on me either. Food production and consumption have been rebalanced and made more interesting. Potatoes are more reliable but still boring, rice is still a net upgrade but more fragile. Pumpkin pie is no longer the be-all/end-all of food production. And more importantly, all "annoying to produce" food items like omelets, cheese, tomato cans... give large bonuses to whoever consumes them (like passive healing, strength/speed boost, and so on).

[h2]Dual Wielding[/h2]

Your survivors got a new weapon slot. One for melee one for ranged. If the ranged weapon is out of ammo, they'll use the melee one instead. The reason for this upgrade is not combat-focused, though. Even if it's a nice perk. It's to reduce the micromanagement some of you were doing for expedition and job specialization.



You no longer have to choose between a gun & a crowbar for your expeditions, you can get the scavenging benefit from the crowbar and the ability to defend yourself in combat from the gun at the same time. The same goes for other stats-boosting melee tools like pickaxes and shovels.

Do not expect the combat AI to automatically switch between weapons depending on the situation. It might happen later down the line, but right now, that'd be way too time-consuming to alter the combat scripts accordingly.

[h2]Relocate the base[/h2]

Tired of playing on a map you've fully mined out? Need a challenge? Well, this is for you. The new option in the Faction menu allows you to move somewhere else. It can be on a completely new world map or within the current world. Some scenarios disallow this feature.



The game will move all your survivors, pets, cattle, tech, and inventory to the location of your choice. It is very costly in gasoline, though. 250 units to move within the same world, and 500 to move to a new one.

There are a few limitations. Your prisoners will be lost. Your production centers will be kept if you stay within the same world map but will be lost if you don't. Your old base is forfeit, the game cannot keep track of the old structures you've built.

Be warned that moving 50+ people with a ton of animals to a completely new location with no infrastructure will be a challenge in itself.

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

I put a lot of care into standardizing everything. For instance, auto queuing of building, zone, and such is the default method. You no longer have to keep shift pressed to keep placing those. Just right-click to get out of build mode.



Feedback sound effects have been added to specific situations, like expeditions needing player input, enemy spawners being revealed by someone digging into a rock, and survivors getting attacked while offscreen. Speaking of which, there's a new Gameplay checkbox (default: true), that will pause & center the game when an offscreen survivor gets targeted by an enemy.

Traits can be clicked (in the survivor info panel) to display a much more informative description panel. Sickness and Wound type traits inform you of the item(s) which can remove them too.

There's a lot more but you get the idea.

[h2]Other Notable Improvements[/h2]

Other factions have set preferences regarding pet ownership. In short, it means that in both raids against you, and map locations you attack, some of your enemies will be escorted by dogs, mutant hounds, or even combat drones depending on who you're dealing with.



I also fixed a large number of bugs and added some more variety to the building and map generation in the process of finalizing 1.0.

[h2]What's Up With The Delay[/h2]

I hate to talk about this kind of stuff but here we are. My personal life has been heavily impacted by family matters in recent months. I already deal with my mother's bone cancer, but since January, family infighting regarding the status of another elderly family member has been added to the pile of problems. While it only has a minor impact on my available work hours, it does take a toll mentally and on my performance. It's the main reason why I stay away from the internet at the moment, as I don't think I'm in the proper mood to interact with customers positively.

That's the gist of it. I will be back (and active) online in a few weeks, don't worry.

On the positive side, this is the last delay. After some growing pains, the Storyline scripting system is working fine. Act 1 is fully done and tested. Half of the second act has been written. Getting the two (and a half) final acts should take 2 to 3 weeks. After that, the game will be ready to be shipped.

This leads to a small problem. I'm not going to release in the middle of the Summer Sale, because new releases get practically no visibility during the sale. I still have to move the price to $14.99 which is scheduled for right after this very update is published.



As such, 1.0 should be out two weeks(-ish) after the Summer Sale. I might not be able to participate due to the price change and release discount setup. I'm not sure yet.

This is a blessing in disguise, I'll have time to make sure 'story mode' is working as well as it should. I might be able to jam a couple more of the features I wanted for the game and do some marketing for the release.

In any case, thank you for your patience.

Cheers!

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• Balance: Zombie type infected are a bit slower
  
• Balance: Many food items provide long lasting bonuses, making it rewarding to produce the more exotic ones
  
• Balance: Slight changes to food efficiency. Potatoes more reliable. Pumpkin pie no longer the ultimate food source (as i don't want to live in a world where it would be)
  
• Balance: First time "new recruit" event gets a larger selection
  
• Content: Added intro sequence (to main scenario/tutorial)
  
• Content: Completely rewritten/expanded tutorial, covering the use of depot adjacent workshops and how to deal with some common problems
  
• Content: Ability to relocate the base (not all scenarios allow it) from the Faction menu
  
• Content: Survivors can equip both a ranged and a melee weapon
  
• Content: Melee weapon will be used as backup if the ranged one is out of ammo, its stats modifiers are also applied (like work tools providing skill bonus)
  
• Content: Added mutant variant of dogs (larger, stronger) which can be found as mobs in various maps and accompanying mutant raiders
  
• Content: Raiders can come with their own pets: the type of pet depends on the faction (military can use drones, bandits have dogs, mutants have mutant hounds...)
  
• Content: Enemy pets also added to manual combat maps
  
• Content: New hostile turret variants can be found in the relevant buildings (bunkers and other military bases)
  
• Content: Game start "box of stuff" replaced by a broken down vehicle for immersion purpose (+ free resources on disassemble) on surface start
  
• Content: All production centers fall back to some type of configuration featuring one or multiple buildings instead of empty maps
  
• Engine: Job/AI update rate increased: high ROF weapons will shoot as often as supposed to and survivors are more responsive
  
• Engine: Lowest level tiles (base terrain) can be altered in mass with little to no lag
  
• Engine: Ability for the game to use series of text/background combo scenes as static cutscenes
  
• Graphics: In farms, new plants' texture are larger so it's easier to see what progress has been made by the farmer(s)
  
• Modding: Added several fields to Faction files to determine the faction's ability to have pets (see most main faction files)
  
• Modding: Added identical fields to raid event files which can be used to override default faction settings (see raid_mutant_medium and others)
  
• Modding: Clutter data files got the GfxScale field (like NPC files) so their sprites can be scaled without editing the image
  
• Modding: Buildings' room list can now use "Variants". For instance, in "buildings/militarybase", all security rooms are handled in one spot
  
• Modding: Ability for world map files to setup hardcoded POIs locations (see the main_act1 map file).
  
• Modding: Added optional "SetWidth" and "SetHeight" to room definitions, allowing to set fixed Width and/or Height value for a room
  
• Modding: WorldGenData can override scenario data when it comes to selecting the faction that will be on the map
  
• Modding: New 'cutscene' system (background image slideshow + text) which can be loaded at the start of a scenario (instead of the introtext)
  
• Modding: Interactive events can load cutscenes and change relations between a faction and the player
  
• Modding: WorldGenData files can be hidden from start menu (so they are only used for relocation)
  
• Modding: Tech other than radio can unlock long range diplo so it's easier to build alternative tech trees (see radio tech for the change)
  
• Modding: Tech other than logistics can unlock map takeover (see logistic tech for the change)
  
• ProcGen: Water tiles removed from combat maps to avoid rare cases where the player couldn't reach a building or enemy
  
• ProcGen: Added "mountainside bunker" map generator (used for intro sequence and can be played in a custom game but will be sorta odd)
  
• ProcGen: Minor tweaks and improvements to building generation
  
• Sound: Added sound notification when an expedition needs help
  
• Sound: Added audio feedback when a spawner is uncovered by razing something
  
• Sound: Additional UI feedback sound effects
  
• Sound: Added audio feedback when someone gets hit and is near death while offscreen
  
• UI: Added pet information to the various factions' encyclopedia pages
  
• UI: All menus have been updated to take the new equipment slot into account
  
• UI: Added "Remove All" button to patrol zones
  
• UI: Added "Remove All" button to study zones
  
• UI: Wounds and other medical related traits display what item can be used to remove them in their associated tooltips/menu
  
• UI: The Traits' menu is more detailed and is consistent with the rest of the UI color scheme
  
• UI: Traits are clickable in settler info panel now
  
• UI: Hospital zone renamed to Infirmary so it's less confusing when the world map Hospitals are mentioned
  
• UI: Added "Goal" tab to Faction screen, shows either the IntroText of a scenario or what you're supposed to do during the main story
  
• UI: Added "Farming Report" panel to Faction menu, showing total farming production compared to your population's needs
  
• UI: Added "Food Efficiency" info panel to farms, showing roughly how much food they can produce compared to your population
  
• UI: Added button/panel to display a sorted list of all the locations in the world map (will make search of specific type easier)
  
• UI: Manually combat-activating people from their individual menu are auto selected (don't need to click them again)
  
• UI: Standardized zone and building queuing behavior, shift is no longer needed/used to queue multiple zones, roofs...
  
• UI: Added gameplay setting to center/pause on someone who gets hurt/attacked while offscreen and not in combat mode (toggled on by default)
  
• UI: Unlocked vehicle field in relevant tech info popups/screens is clickable
  
• UI: Expedition combat maps start paused and at speed 1
  
• Fixed: Some minor issues with animations (people continuing to use the walk anim when not walking for instance)
  
• Fixed: During some cutscene parts of the tutorial it was possible to still run commands, causing unpredictable results
  
• Fixed: Rare, possible placement problem when loading entities
  
• Fixed: Finally got rid of the rare occurrence where the game would initialize with corrupted menu or tile textures
  
• Fixed: The main menu is sluggish for a few seconds after it's loaded
  
• Fixed: Changing an agent's AI on the fly (which is a very situational case) was causing logic issues
  
• Fixed: Possible savegame failure when the game is unable to take a screenshot for a reason or another
  
• Fixed: Minor issues with ambient lighting
  
• Fixed: Placing a path blocking object next to another one could interfere with jobs/pathing until something else is built
  
• Fixed: Rare case where a survivor would get stuck in bed or using a play table despite having other needs to deal with
  
• Fixed: The "Seed" input during world gen wasn't functional (regression bug)
  
• Fixed: Player spawn location sometimes located in the middle of a mountain or within a minuscule island
  
• Fixed: The last reason why supply AI would freeze when trying to "feed" a building location
  
• Fixed: Issue where a faction would consider itself at war with another, but not the other way around
  
• Fixed: Issue about logs warning you that someone who's already dead was "hit & near death" during firefights
  
• Fixed: A bunch of minor issues I didn't keep track off
  
• Fixed: Oddity with the way menus and selection behave just after toggling combat mode
  
• Fixed: Many grammatical and spelling errors

Hi there!

So as you might have noticed (granted you're not too busy playing Elden Ring, and I'm not gonna lie, it did cannibalize a week of my time too), there was no update in a while. I explained it in previous posts, but it's worth repeating one last time: my goal is to complete 1.0 now. While I'm not entirely sure how long it's gonna take me exactly, I doubt it's going to be more than a couple months.

The main branch might get one more small update before 1.0, maybe not. In any case, it's pretty much it until the game is officially out. I will be switching to the official price soon ($/€ 14.99). As promised, you'll get a warning beforehand.

The Nightly Branch will continue to receive irregular (and mostly undocumented) updates. If you want to be kept up to date, this is the way to go. However, be warned: those updates might not be as stable as the official branch and save-game compatibility is not guaranteed.

Anyway let's get to what I'm working on.

[h2]1.0 Devlog[/h2]

I've finished writing the design document for the story mode itself. It's not the whole thing in exact details yet, but it covers most of the background lore, in-game story elements, all the factions, the different acts the player will go through, alongside a summary of the various missions to be completed.

From that document, I wrote a list of minor features I still need to get done so the story can take place. Given that I'm not completely incompetent at my job (i know, i know), most of what I needed is already ready, but there's still a few things to get done before I can fully get started.

My overall goal is to keep everything as data-driven as possible, to a point that a modder could theoretically create a similarly complex story on their own. It's making things a lot more complicated for me than if I was just saying "fuck it" and did it purely by code, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run.

Right now, I'm working on world map traders (working like local traders, replacing those menu driven ones), the ability to move from a world map to another (and the ability to optionally force the player to follow a series of "levels" using this system), the ability for a world map to come with specific factions & events which can override a scenario's settings. I'm also adapting the interactive travel event/quest system to work in more situations. And finally i'm adding a lot of flags left & right (allow/disallow radio contact with specific faction, events handlers when a faction is killed and tons of customizations that will benefit modders on top of helping me with that story mode).

Point is most of what I'm working on right now is to deliver an intricate story with several chapters that will also serve as an interactive free-form tutorial (in the first chapter at least). Think like the "Rise of the Mutant" scenario, but dialed to 11, over several maps. And if you haven't played that scenario, you probably should :D

Don't get me wrong, I'm still working on UI elements, tweaking the AI and improving the overall game balance, but those concerns are secondary at this point (beside the fact that they are in a decent place overall now).

Currently my main enemy is time: writing the quests, the transitions between the different acts of the game, and doing that tutorial section aren't technically that complex, but it's VERY time consuming. It's tedious to write and to debug alike. This is sorta why the game is lagging behind the release schedule, those last 10% are more time intensive to write proportionally than the previous 90%.

But hey, I'll tackle this like I did with everything else, one step at a time. :)

[h2]Long Term Future[/h2]

Given that I'm not going to spoil the story-mode proper and that I really want to stress out that 1.0 is not the end but a new beginning, I'd like to discuss what will likely happen in this new brave post 1.0 world. Of course, the following is subject to changes and will heavily depend on sales. As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, I still do this for a living.

[h3]Maintenance Support[/h3]

No matter what, as I always do, I will continue to offer (obviously free) bug fixing and balance patches for as long as I physically can. While I know that bugs can't be entirely eradicated due to the incredibly complex nature of a game like ATC, I've always made it my main goal to keep bugs to a minimum.

Now, assuming things go mostly according to plan:

[h3]Development As Usual[/h3]

After a few months of obligatory maintenance patches, new player support/feedback patches and me getting a well deserved vacation very far away from anything dev related, development will resume as usual.

I'll define a new set of features for 1.1, followed by another for 1.2 and so on until this is no longer viable for me to do so financially (and knowing me, probably for longer than I should have). That being said, while my TODO list for early access was set in stones very early on, this likely won't be the case here. As much as writing stuff as "i feel like" would have been a terrible pre-1.0 policy (and pro-tip: this is why most EA games die), I miss being able to work on the things I want when I want to.

There are a lot of areas I would like to experiment with: The whole prisoner system could be improved tremendously, some of the canceled features like the randomly generated illnesses are also worth another look. Many features you guys have been suggesting will likely be reviewed and possibly implemented too. Radiations, mutations and so many other areas could be explored too.

[h3]DLC Policy[/h3]

I know, some people are allergic to the mere concept of DLC. I get it, when a multi-millions dollar game is trying to sell you horse armors for 10 bucks, it's insulting no matter how optional it is. Point is, I'm not making a million dollar game (sadly :p), the goal is to keep the game going, not to squeeze money for just the sake of it. Also, I promise that if i ever release a dog armor DLC, it'll be free :D

That being said, I will release downloadable content for the game when we're in stable post 1.0 state. Due to how data driven & modular the game is, it would be a shame not to. Adding new scenarios, story lines or item packs is incredibly easy on a technical level.

The goal of such DLC will be to fund new features for everyone to enjoy, while DLC supporters would get scenarios tailored to explore those features to their maximum potential.

I'll likely start with story heavy scenarios (again, the Rise of the Mutants update was a good example of what could have been released as a cheap DLC: a whole new faction, some unique mechanisms, items, techs and a story rich interactive mission diving in the game's lore), and possibly expand into more focused content depending on feedback.

[h3]Standalone Content[/h3]

Ok, now we're talking really long-term, but it's worth talking about. ATC's engine can technically work with any topic/era/story as long as it's a base builder. Re-using the same code to make a fantasy pre-historical game with tamed dinosaurs is as much an option as making a modern farming simulator.

Making cheaper stand-alone games based on ATC could be interesting and could help into financing the main game's update cycle for much longer than DLC could.

[h2]That's all, folks[/h2]

That's all for now. I will keep you posted with 1.0 development updates in the coming weeks, likely in shorter devlogs. It's going to get increasingly difficult to write about the game without getting into spoiler territory. It's not like I'm writing some kind of masterpiece story line, but still, that's dev 101 to keep that stuff under wraps :).

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy the game.

Cheers!

Hey!

As expect, here's the first obligatory hot-patch for 0.9.1 :)

It's a very small update fixing a crash bug introduced in the previous version which could trigger when a "research completed" (or any menu displaying a tech) is shown when the player is looking at the world map.

It's also fixing several long standing problems where dropdown fields in the "new game" menu wouldn't behave properly when the player is customizing the difficulty settings manually.

There are a couple more things to fix and tweak (nothing as problematic) and I will get to it ASAP.

Cheers!

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• Fixed: The encyclopedia page for a tech and "research completed" menu could cause a crash if opened from the map or main menu (regression bug 0.9.1)
  
• Fixed: Issues with user customized difficulty settings (dropdown list settings not saved/applied properly)
  
• Fixed: Manually changing "Drink consumption" difficulty settings would incorrectly modify the food consumption instead