After the Collapse News

The progress update report for march 2019 has just been published on our official website. It explains our future plans for After The Collapse.

Cheers.

As we're gearing up for more content centric updates, this patch's main goal was to clear most of the remaining bugs and annoyances, improve usability and finish our sewer procedural generator.





The sewer generator is fully usable now. It's a slightly more dangerous area than the caverns (with default settings) as it's harder to find areas that are safe from roaming creatures. On the other hand, you'll find plenty of metal and stones inside. Note that the impassible water tiles can be covered by floor tiles.



After making a base dedicated to booze production, I noticed that large amount of booze production facilities would interfere with the cooking jobs (as it's the same activity), as such, I added the Brewing skill for everything booze related. Also, I added the ability to copy/paste queues from stations to other (similar) stations.



Additionally, I added a much needed keyboard shortcut (M by default, rebindable) to select all military ready units when you're in alert mode. Several menus and tool-tips also got minor tweaks, a right click when no menu is open will also trigger to content tool-tip (disassembling content and cargo info have been separated for player owned stuff as you can see in the screenshot).

Last but not least, unharmed settlers get a small passive healing buff while sleeping and power generators will send "do it now" jobs when they are about to run out of fuel.



I increased performances during large mining and wall building/disassembling operations. This is especially noticeable on very large maps (and yes, more performance fixes will come for large maps).



And finally there's a bunch of bug fixes, most notably a rare & random crash when multithreading is enabled, several cases where creatures would get stuck into a wall when saving & loading a save-game, and the game not warning you when a trait morph into something else (like a laceration getting infected).



This is save compatible with the previous version, but some of the changes will only apply to newly built crafting stations. Additionally, and if and only if you're loading an old save-game, the brewing job is disabled by default on all of your settlers. Beside that, you should be good to go.

+ AI: Power generators will send "high priority" resupply orders when critically low on fuel
+ Content: People who are neither ill or wounded get a (very slow) passive heal effect while sleeping
+ Content: Brewing job has been added for everything alcohol related (as a base dedicated to alcohol production/trading was difficult to maintain without it)
+ Content: Sewers' dark zones are now made of cavern-type walls instead of more concrete/cement walls
+ Content: Completed the sewer generator
+ Engine: Massively reduced CPU spikes during large mining or wall building operations
+ Engine: Made the multithreading system a bit more robust (should help prevent and, more importantly, catch rare crashes)
+ Engine: Reduced CPU cost of the user interface
+ UI: Right click on something when no menu is open also triggers the content tooltip (so you don't have to show the menu to quickly browse one of your containers)
+ UI: Separated cargo and disassembling info in the tooltip for player owned buildings 
+ UI: Removed inventory tab from crafting stations' menu (as it's now handled by the tooltip and was rarely useful)
+ UI: Removed inventory tab from research station and increased the list's length
+ UI: You can copy/paste similar crafting stations' queued orders from one to the other
+ UI: Replaced generic "got trait" message by "is wounded" or "got sick" when survivors get sick/wounded 
+ UI: Added "Select All Military Units" keyboard shortcut in military mode (M by default)
+ UI: Added settings for sewer generator and removed warning
+ UI: You no longer need to scroll in the exploration's planner dropdown to select the "find survivor" focus
+ Fixed: Settlers not picking up some of the stuff dropped on the ground 
+ Fixed: Another case where a settler would get stuck into a wall or other construction
+ Fixed: Enabling Alert Mode could cause military units to attack the last targeted object (bed they are sleeping in, patients being fixed by doctors, that fun stuff)
+ Fixed: People would occasionally try to pickup items dropped in areas they don't have access to
+ Fixed: Animals & raiders could get stuck into terrain after saving/loading a game
+ Fixed: Cave digging improperly set as "disassembling" instead of "mining"
+ Fixed: Game doesn't warn when a wound or sickness morph into something else (laceration to infection for instance)
+ Fixed: Missing shroom recipe in electric kitchen
+ Fixed: The game was allowing multiple research and exploration stations
+ Fixed: Disassembling "smoke" animation always displayed in the current layer even when happening in the other one
+ Fixed: Loot setting in "new game" menu was inverted (regression bug 0.5.3)
+ Fixed: Another rare multithreading-related crash
+ Fixed: Sewer generator would always have the same layout
+ Fixed: More missing french translation strings

This version was released a bit in a hurry to fix a crash in 0.5.2 caused by the advanced kitchen. This fix should apply to existing save-games as well. As such it contains some partially implemented features (which are optional and marked as such in game).



I've mostly been working on the procedural generation and began to make the necessary changes for the soon to be implemented world map.

But more visibly for the user, there's now an "underground" tab in the custom game menu. It allows you to change the settings for the underground layer. There's 2 different cavern generators, all completed. There's a sewer generator, which is a work in progress (layout & terrain are ok, but there's no clutter yet), and a bunker generator which is in very early stage and which is definitely not recommended to play with (as it's completely empty).

Internally, there's a lot of new options for the surface as well (arid terrain has a sandy ground noise compared to the other terrains) and it will ensure a more varied procedural generation in the near future.



The menu got cleaned up a bit. Some of the options moved to the difficulty tab (no hostiles, unlimited points). A 'technology' tab was added too, it allows you to give your group some starting technologies to quick-start your game.

Equipment presets can now be saved for later use, so it's no longer necessary to go through the trouble of editing one of the presets each time you start a new game.

Oh, and unlimited points really mean unlimited points now. It will disable achievements, though.



It is now possible to set containers to ONLY accept input from adjacent factories (you'll still have to make sure it's set to the correct filters), further facilitating automation.

Something a bit more controversial. Our latest changes to combat and group selection made any encounter trivial to deal with. The option for your fighters to move & attack at the same time basically meant that you were immortal. As such, it is no longer possible for people under your direct command to use a ranged weapon while executing a move order. This is theoretically making some melee weapon a bit more viable while making enemy encounters more tense.



Expect a much larger update in the coming month :)

+ Balance: Military units under the player's direct control can no longer move & shoot at the same time with ranged weapons 
+ Balance: Changed costs to embark with armor (400->250) and weapons (200->250)
+ Content: Preliminary sewer generator (still very much in process, right now the layout is ok, but no proper textures & content is applied yet)
+ Content: You can now setup depots so they only accept input from nearby factories
+ Content: Option to start a game with some of the specific technologies
+ Engine: Made the game more robust when meeting bad data (factories with missing or faulty recipes)
+ Modding: Tile data can set if over or below ground noise
+ Modding: Terrain data can change ground noise color & intensity and be set for outside or underground layer
+ ProcGen: Procedural map generator handles ground noise color for each biome
+ UI: Removed "close" button from depot menu (use a right-click like everywhere else)
+ UI: New Game menu overhaul
+ UI: Added the 'cavern' tab to the "new game" menu where you can tweak the underground generator
+ UI: Starting equipment presets can be saved for later use
+ Fixed: Disassembling pool tables (from the procedurally generated map) would never give fabric
+ Fixed: Giving unlimited points on startup wasn't cancelling achievements
+ Fixed: The 'unlimited setup points' option now properly gives unlimited points instead of a very large number
+ Fixed: Fixed crash caused by the change in data format implemented in 0.5.2 (modern kitchen)

 
 + AI: Settlers will more often drop stuff in containers instead of hoarding
 + Engine: Added a "previous autosave" to the auto save system (last autosave will be renamed previous-autosave instead of being erased by a new one)
 + Fixed: Crash if the game encounters a corrupted zip file (as in the zip itself, not the savegame inside)
 + Fixed: People would try put stuff into "factory only" containers, causing their AI to freeze (0.5.3 bug)
 + Fixed: Potential crash in Storage Screen (not happening in-game, but future proofing) 

 
 + Fixed: Potential crash in PathTo job if trying to access something outside of the game's location (potential issue with spider spawn)
 + Fixed: Crash in armor calculations under specific conditions
 + Fixed: Under very sound intensive combat (lots of smg and turrets), the game could queue so much sfx that the fight would continue to play long after being over
 + Fixed: Multithreading settings not properly applied at game start (enabled by default even if manually disabled)
 + Fixed: Rare crash related to bullet and explosions
 + Fixed: Logic issue that could cause agents to be placed outside of the map
 + Fixed: Secondary and minor issues

Warning: This update breaks save-game compatibility with previous versions.

Here's a fairly major update for 0.5. It introduces a new farming system with new crops, more efficient food & water production and an improved AI. We'll go over those changes in details, but, for those who want a TL;DR here it is:

• Your survivors and the economy are more efficient at doing most tasks
  
• Farms produce more but require water and lighting (at least underground)
  
• Expeditions can be sent to recruit new survivors
  
• Bugs introduced with 0.5 should all be fixed now
  

This is the big new feature in this update. Simply put, food production is more efficient. Probably too much at the moment, as it still need balancing. Generally speaking recipes give more bang for your buck with a lesser time investment.

Additionally farms are no longer magical things. Plants will require water and (generally) lighting to stay alive. Your farmers will automatically supply the farms with purified water whenever necessary, and rain will also help.



As this screenshot demonstrates, underground farms will require proper lighting for the plants to survive, unless you decide to grow our new edible mushrooms there. Those can't grow above ground and are awfully inefficient but don't require any lighting. We also added rice as a new crop, it requires a lot of water but also produces a lot of food.

A new water purification building has been added too (construction tech). It's way more efficient than using camp fires and doesn't require a survivor to work at the station for the work to be done.

Lettuce and lettuce related recipes have been removed and replaced by hops for beer production only. Speaking of alcohol, vodka has been introduced. Alcohol fixes the need for 'fun' but might render your survivors drunk for a few hours (slower, less likely to work).

Right now, we're producing way too much food and water, even with large bases. Which, I'm sure, is a nice change for many, but it's not going to last forever either. While it's not part of this update, pests and farm related events will be introduced later down the line.

We also have more changes planned for the food production, as we'll soon be introducing generic recipes based not on specific ingredients but on their category (for instance: meat + vegetable = medium meal) instead.



It's only a few changes but it makes a world of difference.

Firstly, assuming that a crafting station is adjacent to a storage building, and that said storage building accepts its production, anything built in the crafting station will be automatically put into the container. For instance, if you put a container accepting consumable items next to a water collector, the process will be entirely automated, the container will get automatically filled with dirty water.

Secondly, when disassembling/razing stuff, settlers will look for nearby similar and unclaimed jobs, massively reducing back & forth between the area being destroyed and your base in the process. They also regularly look around them for stuff dropped on the ground, no matter what they are currently doing, and will pick it up if they have the storage capacity.

There are a few other minor tweaks, but generally speaking much less time is being wasted by your survivors.



Another much requested feature. It's still a bit experimental, but you can set expeditions to focus on rescuing other survivors. It will not guarantee that the expedition will find new survivors (especially if it's a short one) but with this focus, there's a 60% chance per successful search you'll find someone.
You won't know anything about the rescued survivors until the expeditions is back home. When back, the same menu you get during recruitment event will appear, and you'll be allowed to review them before taking them in (or banishing them).

Also, you can (finally) click on a queued item in the crafting station menu to remove it from the list. No need to clear the whole list each time you need something removed anymore!

• AI: Farmers will take care of plants, providing water
  
• AI: Factories (including water collectors) will auto drop their production in a container if they can find an appropriate one adjacent to them
  
• AI: Survivors will look for nearby "disassembling" jobs when done disassembling something (same we do for collecting stuff from the ground)
  
• AI: Tweaked "satisfy needs" AI logic (they will, sometimes, use vodka or beer to amuse themselves even if a card/pool table is built)
  
• AI: Settlers will (generally) pickup stuff from the ground if they are walking by those items while doing something else
  
• Balance: Water well and collector production increased significantly
  
• Content: Added water, light and location requirements to seeds/crops for farming purpose
  
• Content: Added rice farms and food production chain
  
• Content: Added mushroom farms and food production chain
  
• Content: Added water purification building (more efficient and hands off than other methods) in the construction tech
  
• Content: Removed lettuce & related recipes, replaced by common hop which is used exclusively for beer production
  
• Content: Added vodka and recipes (at a still). Vodka nullifies the need for fun, but will get someone drunk)
  
• Content: Expeditions can now look for new survivors to recruit!
  
• Engine: Another performance & stability pass
  
• Modding: Added ability to disable speech bubbles and mood handling in npc data files
  
• Modding: Building locations can use any item category as building materials (was previously limited to, well, materials)
  
• Modding: Crops/plants can grow into any item category instead of just ingredients (yes, you can mod in a bullet-growing farm)
  
• Modding: Ingredients are their own item type with specific properties
  
• UI: You can click on a crafting station's queued order to remove it (so you don't have to clear the whole list each time)
  
• UI: The Farm menu adds a lot of info about crops and the farm's health
  
• UI: Added overlay to see plant health
  
• UI: Renamed "Ethics" to "Work Ethics" for clarity
  
• UI: Pressing shift and a movement key will double camera speed
  
• UI: In the custom game menu, added tooltips with description over inventory items
  
• Fixed: Zombies, animals and cars no longer get mood swings
  
• Fixed: Regression bug in 0.5.0 causing all survivors to look alike after loading a savegame
  
• Fixed: Regression bug in 0.5.1 allowing to place some structures over each other
  
• Fixed: Clicking on a survivor in an expedition (in the population menu) will teleport you to a fake map you're not supposed to access
  
• Fixed: Pathing issue related to the underground layer occasionally preventing people from reaching something in the opposite map layer
  
• Fixed: Potential crash tied to underground spider migration event
  
• Fixed: Region manager wouldn't count windows as walls causing walled off people not to notice they are walled off.
  
• Fixed: Changing layer while the game is paused wouldn't update wall or lighting data
  

We just got alerted that the game would crash on systems that are not using the international date format or at least a Latin-based date or time system. This is now fixed. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Our next agricultural patch should be available in about a week.

Cheers!