0.9.1: Classrooms & Pets
Hi there!
I know. I said that I would go for smaller patches until 1.0, but this update is still going to be quite large due to an unforeseen delay waiting on some graphical assets. In any case, this update introduces new features, new pets, and many UI/UX improvements. I'll go over the major changes in the post, the full list can be found in the changelog at the bottom, as usual.
[h2]Pet The Dogs[/h2]
Dogs got a new coat of paint so to speak. Gone is the static sprite, we now have fully animated doggos. There are two breeds, German Shepherd and Pitbull. Stats have been improved overall, and each breed has its own stats. Pitbulls are bulkier and hit harder but are slower than the german shepherds. You can mix them together through breeding, it won't magically create a new sprite of course, but stats can be merged this way.
While they will still easily die to larger mobs, they can now hold their own against entry level ones. Events and traders have been altered to include the new breeds.
You can expect more dog variations in the future (wild ones, mutants and so on).
[h2]Skills & Classrooms[/h2]
A new "classroom" zone has been added. It has no particular requirements beside needing a table and some chairs. Once built and functional, you can assign people to it (one per chair) and select a skill. The most performant survivor in that particular skill will teach the others until they reach the same level as the teacher. The menu is self-explanatory and works in the similar fashion to the patrol zone. Right now, skill gain is entirely dependent on the the classroom. Data wise, it's possible for me (or modders), to add specialized classrooms which would deal only in a particular skill but with a much better skill gain.
To balance out the classrooms, normal skill gain for most activities (especially construction, farming and disassembling) has been heavily reduced. However, survivors found while exploring the city and prisoners you can purchase from slave traders have a small chance to have one of their skill with a very high value. 10% and 20% chances respectively. The game will try to pick a skill in relation with their job whenever possible to make this as believable as possible. There's some minor randomness at play, though.
Tangentially, traits attributed to survivors are more balanced. People spawning with 3 good traits and no negative ones is no longer a thing. Hopefully, combined with specialized survivors and slower XP rate, it should make the selection of survivors a bit more impactful, as you might still take someone with a very bad trait if they can at least teach others.
Note, if you're not into mix-maxing that's fine too. Skills, overall, don't have such a massive impact that it would kill a game not to pay too much attention to them. Good doctors and farmers make things a lot easier, but beside that, skills are meant as a bonus, not something to obsess over.
[h2]New Trading Screen[/h2]
The trading screen was probably one of the most notorious pieces of bad UI. I didn't really update it since the initial release. Hopefully, this new dual-panel version will be significantly better.
It works exactly as you'd expect from such a menu. You can do your purchases and sales in the same operation, and no money or goods are exchanged until you validate your trade deal. This makes things a lot easier when you're low on cash compared to the previous version and it's a lot less error prone.
On my side, this menu will be a lot easier to adapt and recycle for other uses. You can expect this to be used for world map traders in the near future.
[h2]Other QoL Improvements[/h2]
The crafting/factory station menu has been tweaked. You can now edit a queued order just by clicking on it (instead of having to delete it). To make this possible, the queue is no longer constantly rotating, instead there's a visual indicator in front of the currently active item in the queue.
There are many other UI/UX improvements. The slave trader is using a menu similar to the recruitment one where you can check stats, traits and skills. The pasture and butcher screens waste a lot less space, displaying more animals on the same surface. The stocks menu got tabs for the missing categories (medical, valuables..). The way to attack another faction's HQ has also been clarified: the attack button is no longer hidden, instead, if the conditions aren't satisfied, a sub-menu will appear telling why you can't attack the HQ and list all the outposts you need to remove.
Oh, a last thing worth explaining. The game will now inform you if it thinks that one of your survivors is stuck somewhere where they shouldn't be. Click on the warning to center the camera on target. Given the game cannot read into your mind, it might warn you about a situation you're perfectly aware of. As such, the setting is optional and can be disabled in the gameplay settings.
[h2]Save & Mod Compatibility[/h2]
Saves from 0.9.0 are compatible, however existing dogs *and their potential children* won't be updated graphically (or stats-wise) due to the way reproduction and save-data work. Some of your factories' progress might be reset as well. Saves from previous versions won't crash unless the save is very old, but expect some odd things left & right.
There's no notable changes regarding mods. Of course, mods altering the dogs' main file or associated items will interfere with the new ones.
[h2]Closing words[/h2]
I encourage you to read the changelog as it includes a lot of player requests (crowbar crafting, rise of the mutant scenario being more customizable, and so on).
Beside that, I think the game is in a good place overall. It's stable, with very good performances and bugs are getting increasingly situational/minor at this point (yeah, I know, writing this pretty much guarantees that I will have to publish an emergency hot-patch). There's sill a bit of work to be done on the UI and there are some AI and behaviors I'd like to improve, but we're mostly there. As I said in the last devlog, next step is story mode coupled with the remaining 1.0 content, don't expect massive updates until then, as I'd like to have something left to be put in the 1.0 changelog beside story mode. :)
[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
I know. I said that I would go for smaller patches until 1.0, but this update is still going to be quite large due to an unforeseen delay waiting on some graphical assets. In any case, this update introduces new features, new pets, and many UI/UX improvements. I'll go over the major changes in the post, the full list can be found in the changelog at the bottom, as usual.
[h2]Pet The Dogs[/h2]
Dogs got a new coat of paint so to speak. Gone is the static sprite, we now have fully animated doggos. There are two breeds, German Shepherd and Pitbull. Stats have been improved overall, and each breed has its own stats. Pitbulls are bulkier and hit harder but are slower than the german shepherds. You can mix them together through breeding, it won't magically create a new sprite of course, but stats can be merged this way.
While they will still easily die to larger mobs, they can now hold their own against entry level ones. Events and traders have been altered to include the new breeds.
You can expect more dog variations in the future (wild ones, mutants and so on).
[h2]Skills & Classrooms[/h2]
A new "classroom" zone has been added. It has no particular requirements beside needing a table and some chairs. Once built and functional, you can assign people to it (one per chair) and select a skill. The most performant survivor in that particular skill will teach the others until they reach the same level as the teacher. The menu is self-explanatory and works in the similar fashion to the patrol zone. Right now, skill gain is entirely dependent on the the classroom. Data wise, it's possible for me (or modders), to add specialized classrooms which would deal only in a particular skill but with a much better skill gain.
To balance out the classrooms, normal skill gain for most activities (especially construction, farming and disassembling) has been heavily reduced. However, survivors found while exploring the city and prisoners you can purchase from slave traders have a small chance to have one of their skill with a very high value. 10% and 20% chances respectively. The game will try to pick a skill in relation with their job whenever possible to make this as believable as possible. There's some minor randomness at play, though.
Tangentially, traits attributed to survivors are more balanced. People spawning with 3 good traits and no negative ones is no longer a thing. Hopefully, combined with specialized survivors and slower XP rate, it should make the selection of survivors a bit more impactful, as you might still take someone with a very bad trait if they can at least teach others.
Note, if you're not into mix-maxing that's fine too. Skills, overall, don't have such a massive impact that it would kill a game not to pay too much attention to them. Good doctors and farmers make things a lot easier, but beside that, skills are meant as a bonus, not something to obsess over.
[h2]New Trading Screen[/h2]
The trading screen was probably one of the most notorious pieces of bad UI. I didn't really update it since the initial release. Hopefully, this new dual-panel version will be significantly better.
It works exactly as you'd expect from such a menu. You can do your purchases and sales in the same operation, and no money or goods are exchanged until you validate your trade deal. This makes things a lot easier when you're low on cash compared to the previous version and it's a lot less error prone.
On my side, this menu will be a lot easier to adapt and recycle for other uses. You can expect this to be used for world map traders in the near future.
[h2]Other QoL Improvements[/h2]
The crafting/factory station menu has been tweaked. You can now edit a queued order just by clicking on it (instead of having to delete it). To make this possible, the queue is no longer constantly rotating, instead there's a visual indicator in front of the currently active item in the queue.
There are many other UI/UX improvements. The slave trader is using a menu similar to the recruitment one where you can check stats, traits and skills. The pasture and butcher screens waste a lot less space, displaying more animals on the same surface. The stocks menu got tabs for the missing categories (medical, valuables..). The way to attack another faction's HQ has also been clarified: the attack button is no longer hidden, instead, if the conditions aren't satisfied, a sub-menu will appear telling why you can't attack the HQ and list all the outposts you need to remove.
Oh, a last thing worth explaining. The game will now inform you if it thinks that one of your survivors is stuck somewhere where they shouldn't be. Click on the warning to center the camera on target. Given the game cannot read into your mind, it might warn you about a situation you're perfectly aware of. As such, the setting is optional and can be disabled in the gameplay settings.
[h2]Save & Mod Compatibility[/h2]
Saves from 0.9.0 are compatible, however existing dogs *and their potential children* won't be updated graphically (or stats-wise) due to the way reproduction and save-data work. Some of your factories' progress might be reset as well. Saves from previous versions won't crash unless the save is very old, but expect some odd things left & right.
There's no notable changes regarding mods. Of course, mods altering the dogs' main file or associated items will interfere with the new ones.
[h2]Closing words[/h2]
I encourage you to read the changelog as it includes a lot of player requests (crowbar crafting, rise of the mutant scenario being more customizable, and so on).
Beside that, I think the game is in a good place overall. It's stable, with very good performances and bugs are getting increasingly situational/minor at this point (yeah, I know, writing this pretty much guarantees that I will have to publish an emergency hot-patch). There's sill a bit of work to be done on the UI and there are some AI and behaviors I'd like to improve, but we're mostly there. As I said in the last devlog, next step is story mode coupled with the remaining 1.0 content, don't expect massive updates until then, as I'd like to have something left to be put in the 1.0 changelog beside story mode. :)
[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
- Balance: Heavily decreased the automatic skill gain for practicing most jobs
- Balance: Trait attribution is less random, people with all positive traits & jobs are a rare exception instead of the rule
- Balance: Increased lifespan of most animals (still balanced around the game's time scale, but a bit more generous)
- Content: New and improved dogs: 2 races + color variants, improved stats, more opportunities for breeding programs
- Content: Rise of The Mutant scenario is less restrictive and allows you to start with any number of mutants (10 is still the strongly encouraged default)
- Content: New "classroom" zone used to share skill knowledge from teacher to students
- Content: Slave traders occasionally have very specialized and skilled prisoners (20% chance a prisoner is very skilled)
- Content: Occasionally, a survivor found during an expedition will have a skill with a very high value (10% chances a recruit is very skilled)
- Content: Added crafting recipe for crowbar (Metallurgy at crafting station)
- Content: Traps can be upgraded to their more modern variant (when available)
- Content: Minor alterations to some events and traders to incorporate the new dogs
- Graphics: Replaced the static dogs by fully animated variants (Only newly spawned dogs will be upgraded in save-games, existing ones and their kids will use old models)
- Graphics: Replaced more icons and textures
- Modding: Added "ReplaceFists" field to NPC data files, used to set a default weapon instead of fists (so it's no longer necessary to use a trait/equiplist for this)
- Modding: Added "Variants" field to ItemAgent files so multiple NPC can share the same item (used here so grey and brown pitbulls don't need individual items)
- Modding: Scenarios can set which NPC type you want the player to start with (first step toward free form mutant or other race game not relying on highly customized scenarios)
- UI: The factory/crafting station menu has been altered so queued orders can be edited and removed on the fly (and with no missclick)
- UI: Population screen menu slightly upsized and displaying more people simultaneously
- UI: New modernized dual-pane trading menu
- UI: Further standardization of colors & menu formatting
- UI: zone menu(s)'s first button in the bottom row is colored differently depending if room is complete or not
- UI: Tweaks to butcher and pasture screen to show more animals simultaneously
- UI: Added tabs for medical & misc items in the Storage menu (everything that wasn't covered yet)
- UI: Prisoner trading menu has been updated to show more detailed information (look/work like the recruit menu)
- UI: Clarified conditions to attack another faction's HQ with the addition of a specific submenu
- UI: The game will inform you when a survivor manages to get themselves stuck (this can be disabled globally in gameplay settings)
- UI: Added button to center on raid in event popups and set automatic camera jump to disabled by default
- UI: Minor tweaks to pets/cattle's individual info menu
- UI: Loot table shown in encyclopedia and context screen for map location is sorted alphabetically
- Fixed: Multiple issues with scrollbars (misalignment, unwanted list position reset, wrong length, ...)
- Fixed: Animal panels in the Butchering table's menu would overflow from the menu
- Fixed: Wrong menu being shown after placing a prison cell
- Fixed: Tooltip in factory/crafting menu would blink in and out of existence due to the way it's refreshed
- Fixed: Issue in the way loot tables were validated causing the display of incorrect information in encyclopedia and minor issues in (modded) pharmacy type stations
- Fixed: The camera's movement speed was accidentally tied to game's speed
- Fixed: Writing in many text boxes was unreliable or could trigger hotkeys (while the mouse was outside of the textbox)
- Fixed: Animals not always getting a proper name when adopted
- Fixed: Emotes / speech bubbles would incorrectly scale with the sprite they are tied to (looking super bad with new dogs)
- Fixed: Mutants having the cannibal trait on top of the standard mutant trait (which includes cannibal behavior already)
- Fixed: Specific conditions could cause a NPC to spawn with traits which are incompatible with each other
- Fixed: There was a delay before the correct scaling was applied to juvenile animals
- Fixed: The minimap was still interactive while the pause menu is open (causing graphical glitches when used)
- Fixed: Issue with lines drawn toward power generators in the energy overlay making it more confusing than it should be
