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0.8.5 Hotpatch 1

Here's the first obligatory hot-patch. It's, as usual, compatible with previous save-games. However, If you are settled in Lost Eden, you will probably have to restart. My apologies for the inconvenience.

Cheers.

[h3]Changelog:[/h3]
  • Fixed: A typo in the "Lost Eden" world file caused some parts of the map to cause a crash when settled in (and other very unfun side effects).
  • Fixed: A rare/new problem with mountain generation in the overworld could cause an infinite map generation loop
  • Fixed: Deleting tutorial critical buildings during the tutorial would cause a crash (those buildings are now protected against raze orders for the duration)

After The Collapse 0.8.5: A New Frontier

Hi there!

So, this is technically the second part of the Expedition Overhaul, but it became much larger than anticipated. We have a lot of content to go over and not everything will be detailed in this article. As usual, I will only list the major changes here, you can refer to the changelog for a complete list.

(source on the official website)

Enjoy! :)

[h2]TL;DR[/h2]
  • Explore a whole new array of worlds, buildings and locations
  • Setup traps to kill your enemies without risking your life
  • Optional manual combats during expeditions (work in progress)
  • New event and questline systems
  • Get rid of enemy factions permanently


[h2]Manual Expedition Battles[/h2]
The promised feature is finally here! I know, it took a while, but here we are. Simply put, you can decide to play combat encounters yourself instead of letting the dice rolls decide. When you select this option, a map will be generated. The nature of said map depends on the location. Right now, only the various factories, the lumber mill and the military base have dedicated buildings and/or layouts, the other locations use a generic layout (a single large building). Enemy selection depends on who (or what) is currently controlling the area. If it's another faction, you'll encounter their soldiers, otherwise it might be infected or some hostile fauna.



The battle will happen in a "time bubble", your base and the rest of the game will be paused. You don't have to worry about missing a trader or being attacked. Of course, your goal will be to kill everything hostile on the map or die trying as, right now, there are no way to retreat (it's going to be added later on, don't worry).



Also, ammunition handling is disabled during those fights. Simply put, both you and the enemies have infinite ammo. It's unlikely to change as there are no simple, non cumbersome way to make that happen (both code and gameplay wise) . The whole system is still a bit bare-bone, the difficulty ain't really scaled to its automatic counter part. The enemy placement is not really adapted to the task. And most locations are using the same map layout. Still, the base system is there and it goes without saying that the following patches will be improving the whole thing.

[h2]Improved World Generation[/h2]
Bored of that big and repetitive world map? Well, me too! This is why we have new world presets, rivers, bridges and the ability to have multiple, smaller cities.



See this nice button in the top right? It opens the menu in the center. A menu from which you can choose between 3 (currently) different world map generators. And yes, as usual it can be modded. It's not just cosmetic, for instance, the Dead Lands map will be mostly desert and scorched biomes while New Eden will have no hostile biomes at all. Rivers are not just there to be pretty either, they block the path of your expeditions (until you find the new amphibious vehicle) which will have to use a bridge to go on the other side.



The improvements don't stop at the world map either. New buildings have been introduced (various factories) and locations like the industrial zone, the factory and the lumber mill can be settled into. Additionally the amount of buildings in non city/roadside maps is now proportional to the size of the Playable Area. In other words, gigantic maps no longer feel so empty. Finally, the placement of buildings in Village type maps looks more organic.

[h2]Quests and Dynamic Locations[/h2]
Building upon the interactive travel events from the previous update, After The Collapse now includes the ability to build multi stage questlines. The first introduced quest is the new Bandit Convoy event (it's repeatable). Occasionally, your expeditions will encounter a very well defended enemy convoy. The game will offer several methods to deal with the problem (or ignore it). Assuming you manage to intercept said convoy, one of 3 rewards will get unlocked, 2 of them are rare or expensive loot, and the last one will continue the quest further.



Of course I won't spoil it further, but going through that quest several times will definitely highlight the abilities of the new system which will be extensively used in future patches and updates. If you've ever played Space Rangers or Frostpunk, this kind of short interactive stories should immediately feel very familiar.



Additionally, now that the world map is really dynamic, after unlocking the Radio technology, you'll occasionally receive radio transmissions from various sources. It might be a trader in your vicinity, a group of civilian asking for help, and so on. Those events will generally add a time limited location on the world map for you to explore. Beside the time limit, the main difference between those locations and the usual ones is that exploring them will trigger a dialog box (like the one in the screenshot above) or a small quest.

[h2]Spikes and Traps[/h2]
Due to popular demand (and completely unrelated to this update's thematic), you can now build a variety of traps, from simple fall traps your survivors have to reload manually to automated metal spike traps powered by your generators.



Ever thought about building an underground lair filled with your creatures but wondered how to lead your enemies there? Well, with those new fall traps, any hostile stepping on one of them will fall down in the layer below giving a free meal to whatever is crawling there. It's still a bit basic, and probably not very well balanced, but I think it makes for a fun addition to the defensive roster.

[h2]Stuff People Wanted Very Much (tm)[/h2]
In no particular order:
  • Factions can now be wiped out. Yes, no more pesky factions stealing all your outposts. You will have to conquer or at least wipe ALL their outposts before you can attack their HQ, though. I'd love to say it's a game design choice, but it's more of a technical one at the moment.
  • A "Prison Guard" skill/job has been added, which should make it easier to keep those prisoners fed. The value for that skill has absolutely no relevance right now.
  • To give people more stuff to do in the very early game the "Advanced Carpentry" tech has been removed, Looms and Tanner no longer have a tech requirement and the rest has been put in more relevant techs in the main branch. Additionally you can craft your own (colored) caps and padded vests at the loom.
  • People with a large screen resolution will be very happy to know that you can choose how many resources you monitor in the "resource info panel" (at the very top of the screen). It's in the general settings, pay attention to the help bubble if you change this setting mid-game.


[h2]Balance, UI and Improvements[/h2]
Turrets have a way more useful right click info panel / encyclopedia page. Same goes for the new traps. Speaking of documentation, an article about the Pandemonium virus has been added to the Encyclopedia. It explains in details what it does, how to detect it, and how it's transmitted. All of which might be very critical details for at least some of the scenarios.

The option to focus an expedition loot session on a particular category, which in practice adds stuff (that might not be there initially) to the location's loot table, is still there, but using it "consumes" the building 4 times faster. So, yes, you can still loot a lumber mill for weaponry and ammo, but it's gonna empty it much faster.

And of course there are tons of fixes, tweaks and minor improvements on top of all this.

[h2]Savegame & Mod Compatibility[/h2]
This update is (surprisingly) compatible with save-games from previous versions. There are a couple limiting factors, though:

  • The Prison Guard job/skill will be disabled by default on all settlers. You'll have to manually enable it.
  • In the previous version the Genetic Abominations nest (assuming they spawned) might be invisible or impossible to attack or both. It's a bug that has been fixed here, but it's a problem that cannot be undone.

Mods for previous versions (unless hopelessly outdated) should be compatible. The only thing is that any mod relying on the now defunct Advanced Carpentry tech might need a small update.

[h2]Closing Words[/h2]
I'm very happy with this update. Between the manual combat system which now has solid foundations for me to build upon and the quest / dynamic location combo there's a lot of new and pretty unique content that can be added in the future. Best thing is, it's entirely data driven using elaborated text files. It's now perfectly possible to add quests telling the player to visit several locations, build specific unique techs/items, and deal with problems going beyond the base building itself.

Speaking of quests, it's likely that in a very nearby future, the more Sci-Fi elements of the tech tree (sentient robot building I'm looking at you right now) will only be unlocked through such quests which would make a lot more sense.

Of course, I need to warn you. It's a very big update touching on a ton of things, as such, you can expect new and interesting bugs. They will be dealt with in the usual follow up hot-patches.

Speaking of bugs, now that most of the work for the 0.8x branch is done. I will take some time to focus on some of the few remaining long standing (but elusive and relatively uncommon) bugs  and glaring omissions while improving the newly added systems described above.

Now, I'm going to take a week off because it would be nice to see the sun at least a couple times before September :)

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

  • Balance: Removed "Advanced Carpentry" tech, moved associated items to early branches of the tech tree
  • Balance: Loom and Tanning stations no longer have a tech requirement
  • Balance: Hospital bed moved to medical tech (from defunct adv carpentry)
  • Balance: Pool table and large still moved to the construction tech (from defunct adv carpentry)
  • Balance: Interactive events during expeditions are slightly more frequent
  • Balance: During expeditions, focused search (for loot) consumes the "loot left" variable a lot faster (x4) than a standard search
  • Content: Combats during expeditions can now be done manually. This is still experimental and will be improved upon, but it's there
  • Content: Some map locations have unique combat maps (factories, lumber mill) while others use more generic buildings
  • Content: Genetic Abominations' main base got its own unique buildings for manual combat
  • Content: Expedition transports have a new "Noise" value which influences the chance to trigger hostile events
  • Content: New category of defensive items: Traps (which completes the already existing artisanal mines)
  • Content: Added several types/quality of spike traps, causing damage and bleeding (at various levels of the tech tree)
  • Content: Added trap door which will make someone fall in the layer below (various versions at different level of tech tree)
  • Content: Added recipes to build caps and padded vests to the loom (those are mostly decorative pieces of equipment)
  • Content: Shamblers and tribals are marked as part of the new "Infected" faction
  • Content: Lumber mill added to the list of locations you can settle in
  • Content: Factories & Industrial zones added to the list of locations you can settle in
  • Content: Multiple world presets making for more diverse world maps to visit
  • Content: Expeditions are moving slightly faster when on roads
  • Content: Added "Prison Guard" job/skill, used to determine who can feed and recruit prisoners
  • Content: Some scenarios have been edited to enforce specific city layouts
  • Content: Enemy factions can fully be destroyed by conquering all their outposts and then attacking their base directly
  • Content: Occasional (time limited) traders can spawn on the world map, send expeditions to them
  • Content: Sometimes, after radio tech, people might contact you and ask for help (besieged communities)
  • Content: Several new random travel events for your expeditions to deal with
  • Content: One long, multi staged travel event with multiple good and bad endings (repeatable)
  • Content: Special, time limited, locations may appear on the world map as the result of various events
  • Content: New amphibious transport for expeditions (can be acquired during a special event in the mid/late game)
  • Content: New map location : water tower, produces daily fresh water
  • Engine: Removed a bunch of no longer used textures and animation files (old versions of crabs, mantis, spiders)
  • Engine: Code sanity pass, less code, faster code, better code (tm)
  • Engine: Adding new job/skills no longer require to break savegame compatibility (the new skill will be toggled off, tho)
  • Graphics: Added and improved some of the base tiles
  • Graphics: Made world map lighting a bit higher for general visibility purpose
  • Graphics: Trees & rocks on world map are more representative of what the location should contain when settled in
  • Modding: New trap component which can be put on clutter
  • Modding: Added LUA hook for ClutterData.UpgradableTo
  • Modding: Added files (mapgen/worlds/*) to change the procedural generation of the world map
  • Modding: Added NoiseModifier and CanFly fields to TravelItem (change likelihood of some travelevents, and CanFly allows to fly over rivers)
  • Modding: Added "DeletePOI" (deletes the POI the group is located on), "MapEvent" (launch the selected game event), "Tech" (get a tech) results to travel events
  • Modding: Travel events can test for vehicle noise, any Skill/Stat (best qualified member), an item being installed on the vehicle, if the player has/lacks a tech
  • Modding: Travel events can be tagged as "Mature" (true/false), and can be put behind a "TechRequirement" for them to trigger
  • Modding: Travel event menu can handle any amount of choices instead of just 3 (will add a scroll bar if too many choices for the panel)
  • Modding: Game events can now spawn points of interest (EventSpawnPOI, see data/events/poi_*)
  • Modding: Point of interests can trigger travel events when being explored (replaces loot)
  • Modding: Point of interests can self destruct via timer
  • Modding: World map can be tied to scenarios (Scenario's WorldMap field, "default" is the default map, duh)
  • Modding: Added "TrapImmune" (default false) info to NPC data files (so cars or flyers don't fall into traps)
  • Modding: Factions can have distinctly looking HQ (by using the FactionHQ true/false POI field)
  • ProcGen: The world map can now contain rivers and lakes of various sizes and shapes
  • ProcGen: Many new internal parameters when generating world maps (city size/spacing/count, biomes, brigdes, roads, custom locations)
  • ProcGen: New map buildings: wood and coal processing factories, recycling factory
  • ProcGen: "Random" building placement mode (used in villages, outside city and some underground locations) has been improved
  • ProcGen: More diversity when it comes to floor types in buildings
  • ProcGen: In several map types (city & roadside layouts excluded), the total amount of buildings now depends on the map size
  • Steam: Moved/renamed the achievement previously associated with Advanced Carpentry to Manufacturing
  • Steam: Added achievement for breaching a secret military bunker
  • Steam: Added achievement for finding the amphibious transport
  • Steam: Added achievement for wiping out another faction
  • UI: Input value for factory recipes no longer capped to 999 items (4millions instead)
  • UI: Information panel / encyclopedia page about placeable objects indicates if they block path or not
  • UI: Tweaked world map menu to allow for the selection of the different world presets
  • UI: Panel informing the player that one of their outpost was attacked/stolen got a button to center the map on the location
  • UI: Tweaks to pharmacy select screen (people sorted by name, animals show ownership)
  • UI: The amount of items in the resource panel at the top of the screen can be changed in the game settings
  • UI: Right click info menu has specific information regarding traps
  • UI: Right click info menu gives more detailed information about turrets and interactive items (beds, recreation)
  • UI: Less wasted space in the inventory panel of survivors
  • UI: Added article about Pandemonium virus to encyclopedia
  • UI: Improved French translation, courtesy of Piebleu
  • Fixed: Minor issue when an agent is changing layer / using stairs which could cause hostiles to shoot at a location the agent is no longer at
  • Fixed: Bug that could cause barracks in the military base map to spawn without the intended rooms
  • Fixed: Not all zombie and giant crab variants would be counted toward their respective achievements
  • Fixed: Light sources not deleted when a world map is being generated again by the player
  • Fixed: Tribals would sometimes incorrectly be spawned as part of the bandit faction
  • Fixed: When the UI scale is not set to 1:1 (default), clicking/dragging on the minimap wouldn't work as expected
  • Fixed: If an expedition is clicked just after loading a savegame while the game has been kept paused, it would cause a crash
  • Fixed: Alignement of light sources after switching to map mode while the game is paused
  • Fixed: Some of the "ambush" monsters located in buildings wouldn't be animated properly until the room is explored by the player
  • Fixed: Some items supposed to spawn outside of a building could occasionally spawn inside instead
  • Fixed: Escaped prisoner event could make the escapees spawn in a non valid tile (within a wall)
  • Fixed: Missing ammo info indicator in some places
  • Fixed: minor issues in factory queue
  • Fixed: Survivors could get stuck if they try to retrieve (non weightless) ammo when their inventory is full
  • Fixed: Dead bodies couldn't be selected anymore (which was a problem with things you can butcher)
  • Fixed: Regression bug that was preventing the user from installing artifacts/backpacks from their individual menu
  • Fixed: Heavy CPU spike when having a lot of wandering pets and placing a pasture in a location they can't access
  • Fixed: Possible crash tied to emergency shelters
  • Fixed: Abominations' HQ wouldn't properly create or delete itself when the late game event is triggered (regression bug in 0.8.3)
  • Fixed: The 'action' menu for expeditions wouldn't always update properly when the expedition arrives at a destination (if the expedition is kept selected)
  • Fixed: The pause and encyclopedia menus were not keeping track of the active pause and would reset it when closed
  • Fixed: Rain not providing enough water to farms anymore
  • Fixed: The "Raze" job could, under a very specific set of circumstances I've yet to replicate, crash the game. The job will just be canceled instead.
  • Fixed: Survivors would occasionally try to dispose of the body of things which are bound to disappear within seconds (dead giant spiders for instance)
  • Fixed: Code typo which could lead to subpar world map generation and building placement
  • Fixed: A location could change hand while the player is attacking it, which could lead to unexpected declarations of war
  • Fixed: (Modding) MainBasePoI field in factions' data would be ignored
  • Fixed: (Modding) Building.HasRoof had no effect

 

0.8.3 Patch 1: The Better Version (tm)

Hello!

It's probably not a secret that the 0.8.3 content update was released in a bit of a rough shape. My apologies for that. As the feature set expands, it gets increasingly time consuming for me to test for every single possible case. So, here's a much improved version. It fixes most (if not all) reported issues while improving or adding many little things. The changelog is nearly as long as for 0.8.3 :)

Beside the extensive bug fixing, there are a few important changes that will definitely make a lot of you very happy, starting with:

[h2]No More Lemmings[/h2]

Survivors had a bad habit of trying to retrieve absolutely everything (dead bodies included) that has been dropped on the ground with no regard for their own safety. In some situations, it could easily lead to their death, causing even more people to get killed trying to retrieve all the shiny loot. Basically this:



Well, no more.

First, as long as you're in combat mode, civilians will automatically ignore any dead body or dropped loot. The game will assume that if you're in combat, it's probably not a good moment for your peons to retrieve loot.

Secondly, 2 checkboxes have been added in the faction menu, as shown in this screenshot:



They are kind of self-explanatory. If unticked, survivors will no longer try to retrieve dead bodies or loot coming from dead things, globally. When the situation is resolved, you can tick those checkboxes and they'll start doing it again. Tiles with "forbidden loot" have a distinctive icon.

Of course, items dropped by factories, raze orders and so on will still be collected.

Also, knowing that there are some cases when you'd want to prevent dead people's loot from being retrieved globally, but still want a specific tile to be collected. Well, it's also possible! Just "raze" the tile you want your settlers to collect nonetheless, the "no collect" icon will disappear and your guys will consider the location safe.

I think it's a slightly more elegant system than adding zones everywhere. At least I want to give this system a trial run. If it's not satisfactory, it won't be a problem to switch to something more involved.

[h2]Ease of Use[/h2]

If you're continuing a save, this will only apply to newly spawned agents, but from now on all dead bodies will decay no matter if they are in a in corpse disposal or not. They still decay faster in a corpse disposal (and won't make nearby people sick). This change is mostly there to make the Last Stand scenario less of a pain. Given that it's generally not possible to clean up dead bodies in the kill zone before the next wave, corpses would pile up indefinitely (or you'd be forced to make a corpse disposal in the kill zone, which, sure, works, but is kind of an "exploit") .

No accidental deletion of staircases anymore: You can now safely "raze" a whole room without having to be super careful, the stairs will be ignored if there are multiple objects in the selection. If you want to raze one, it must be the only object in your selection. The message log will inform you of that fact if you try to raze a whole room with stairs inside.

Farms no longer require purified water. They will still accept it, but if dirty water is available, they will generally favor it.

Repair Zones can overlap with other zones. Anyone who tried to defend a closed off base against wall eating shamblers will appreciate. Zones in general are less visually obnoxious: I made them a lot more transparent with a solid border.

[h2]Expeditions[/h2]

Having to disband an expedition each time you want to retrieve its cargo was kind of annoying. A new button has been added to just "unload cargo", so they are ready to go back on the job pretty much immediately.



The menu to remove items from their inventory is nicer to look at, and more importantly it will inform you of the space you're about to free. In the same spirit of simplicity, looting duration is defaulted to "until full".

Finally, when an expedition is not doing anything, its members will heal passively.

[h2]General Notes[/h2]

Not all the above systems are perfect, and I'm sure some tweaks will be needed. I also still have a couple things to add and tweak before getting to the second part of the overhaul, but nothing major.

Cheers!

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
  • AI: Survivors will automatically ignore jobs to retrieve dead bodies (and loot dropped from them) while you're in combat mode
  • Balance: Razing spider webs (the decoration) will give spider web (the item) when disassembled (might only work on a new game)
  • Balance: Stairs can only be destroyed when they are the ONLY item in the selection (to make the clearing of rooms with stairs less "risky")
  • Balance: Expedition members will slowly heal damage when not receiving/executing orders
  • Balance: Expedition loot order duration defaulted to "Until Full" (it just makes more sense given that the job can be interrupted)
  • Balance: Farms will favor dirty water over cleaned water whenever available
  • Balance: Fixed exploit where shooting down some of the animals (cows, sheep) would yield the same as butchering them
  • Balance: All bodies will decay no matter if inside or outside of a corpse disposal (just a lot slower when not) to make some scenarios less of a pain
  • Content: The retrieval of dead bodies (and/or their loot) can be disabled globally in the Faction menu
  • Content: Loot disabled that way can selectively be retrieved using the raze order
  • Content: Added standard pickup to suburbs and city center loot tables (slightly better than the one you can 'research')
  • Content: Added order to "drop cargo and get back to work" to expeditions (so you don't have to rebuild an expedition each time you drop cargo at base)
  • Engine: Regular code and data cleanup to keep the rot away
  • Engine: Reduced CPU usage of farms (not that it was high to begin with)
  • Graphics: Zones and rooms are a lot more transparent but with visible border lines, making them less intrusive graphically
  • UI: Better looking "drop item" menu for expeditions' inventory which also show the weight being dropped
  • UI: Slightly reorganized the Faction menu (settlement tab is shown first as it became the most useful now)
  • UI: More information in game log when razing something as a way to indirectly document the changes about stairs and loot
  • UI: In the encyclopedia, techs which can only be looted will appear as such instead of showing a "research difficulty" rating
  • UI: In the depot menu, items are sorted alphabetically
  • UI: Minor graphical improvements, text alignment in various menus
  • Fixed: Some mob types (under rare circumstances) could be incorrectly be flagged as neutral in the user interface
  • Fixed: Animals found by expeditions wouldn't be converted into proper agent when loot is being dropped in the base
  • Fixed: Rare pathfinder issues (on very narrow/long paths) caused by a change in 0.8.2.4
  • Fixed: Animals from expeditions spawning as civilian instead of player owned
  • Fixed: Debris (from clutter having been shot at) would resurrect themselves if the game is saved/loaded before the debris disappear
  • Fixed: Dead NPC and settlers would emit a dying sound when a savegame is loaded
  • Fixed: Multiple minor issues with dead things not always staying dead and other similar oddities caused by the new savegame format
  • Fixed: Repair zones couldn't intersect with other zones (or each other) making them very annoying to setup
  • Fixed: Gun turrets placed on the map during map generation could spawn "decayed" (without the shooting part)
  • Fixed: "Salvaged Ambulance" and "Salvaged Sports Car" technologies had missing icons
  • Fixed: If a survivor has part of what is needed for a construction, but the rest is not accessible (locked door or something), they could freeze
  • Fixed: It was not possible to loot a place you've taken over (regression bug in 0.8.4)
  • Fixed: Minor issue when closing the Garage menu if the settler selection panel is still open
  • Fixed: Many potential issues when trying to setup 2 expeditions at the same time (the same settlers or items could be added to both, locking them in a non working state)
  • Fixed: Wooden trailer was altering people capacity instead of cargo capacity
  • Fixed: Performance loss in 0.8.3 and semi regular micro freeze in very largely populated bases (>50 people)
  • Fixed: Job manager wouldn't notice if incapacitated people died before being move, keeping the jobs stored for longer than necessary
  • Fixed: Issue with dead body disposal job that could cause settler to "move" already deleted bodies

After The Collapse 0.8.3: Expedition Overhaul Part 1

Welcome to the 0.8.3 update!

As explained in my previous devlog, this update (and the next) is focusing on the expeditions. A very short summary would be that we can now manage multiple expeditions at once. Of course, as with all major updates, it runs a lot deeper than that. As usual, this article will focus on the main changes while you can find a complete changelog at the very end. Without further ado let's get to it.

Enjoy!

[h2]Expedition Overhaul[/h2]

The city map and expeditions are no longer completely abstracted. Both became tangible things connected to the game world. To explain that in simpler terms, you are now able to given direct orders to your expeditions, tell them to move to wherever you want them to, and change you mind mid travel. You can move them on the world map like you would move a survivor in combat mode. You can loot or attack multiple locations with the same expedition and decide when you want them to come back home.



More importantly, you are no longer permanently limited to run a single expedition at a time. Unlocking specific technologies will increase the maximum amount of expeditions you can run simultaneously to a maximum of 4 in a vanilla game.

I made a lot of adjustments to the UI and help screens to make the transition as smooth as possible. For instance, you can track the status of each expedition in the optional panel on the right side of the screen (can be toggled on/off in the filters), clicking one panel will center the screen on the expedition or its garage if it's not off map.

[h2]The Garage building[/h2]

This new building is pretty much the heart of this update. Your first garage is unlocked with the Exploration technology and will allow you to setup and manage one expedition. Other technologies will permit you to build more garages for more simultaneous expeditions (radio, logistics and garage maintenance).



Garages have to be built on the surface, in a spot from which a vehicle can path to the border of the game map. This is where you can assign a vehicle, people and items to a specific expedition. New vehicles can be found by exploring specific location on the map and from research. Items, right now, can only be found while exploring the city. Vehicles and items will determine how many people you can bring with you, your movement speed and can also influence how good will be your group at given tasks.

Once satisfied with your choices, you can launch the expedition. The selected survivors will hop in the car, leaving any useless cargo behind (and releasing their claim on any personal bedroom or pet). The car will exit the game map and will then be available on the world map. From there, you'll be able to order it around, tell the expedition to path to any point of interest, attack hostile locations, loot or take control of others.

[h2]Loot Management[/h2]

It's now possible to order your expeditions to loot a location until it's empty or until their cargo hold is full. If you change your mind, you can order your expedition to stop the looting session at any time. To recover the cargo found during your looting session(s), you'll have to manually bring the expedition back home.



You can also decide to get rid of loot you don't want to make room for more useful stuff. It means that don't need to go back home each time you collected too many stones. To do so, simply open the expedition's cargo screen, click on the item you don't want and a menu will appear allowing you to select how many units you want to get rid of. The menu is still a bit ugly, but I'll get that fixed soon.

[h2]Important Changes[/h2]

Of course I had to tweak some features to work with this new system. Here are the most important points you should be made aware of:

  • The whole expedition tech tree has been changed. Techs to increase movement speed, range or capacity have been scrapped. Instead you'll get techs to repair better vehicles than your default car. The best cars can only be found by exploring specific locations.
  • Expeditions can be renamed like you would for a survivor: by clicking on their name in their associated panel.
  • People you rescue while looting a location will automatically be sent to you base. You no longer need to wait for your expedition to come back home, instead a "recruitment" event will popup roughly 12 hours after your expedition is done with the looting.
  • There is no longer a limit to how far an expedition can travel to. Once you can send your first expedition, the whole map is available to you. It might just take a while for your guys to travel, especially with the default car. In the same spirit, the amount of people you can bring is only determined by the vehicle you'll be using. Same goes for the cargo space.
  • Taking over a production center will no longer "consume" the expedition. Instead, you'll be asked to select people who are still in your base. Once the repairs are over, the expedition will be available again and ready to go do something else.
  • It is now possible to conduct diplomacy with other factions early (before Radio) by sending an expedition to their headquarter and opening diplomatic channels.


[h2]Interactive Events[/h2]

I'm particularly proud of this one and you'll see a lot more of it in the future. While traveling, expeditions will occasionally encounter situations requiring your input. They might have found  something worth investigating, been attacked by bandits, and so on.



You'll be offered different options with different outcomes. Each option will generally be testing a particular statistic tied to the expedition. A positive outcome might give you loot or a bonus while a failure might damage or even kill some of your people. Once the situation has been resolved in a way or another, the group will continue on its merry way.

This system replaces the old non-interactive travel events completely.

[h2]AI Tweaks and Fixes[/h2]

I also fixed several minor issues with the survivors' AI. Most notably, there was a problem that if something is being constructed next to a depot, it could temporarily prevent people from accessing it, causing any survivor trying to do so to freeze in place.

Survivors are also much better at recognizing that an order has been canceled or is not longer possible to complete: instead of pathing all the way toward the no-longer-relevant-destination they will switch to something more productive.

[h2]Savegame & Mod Compatibility[/h2]

This version is not compatible with previous save-games. If you want to finish your game, you can roll back to the previous version as usual (right click on ATC in steam, properties / beta tab). Most existing mods should be compatible, including those adding or altering city locations. Mods altering expeditions or adding travel events are not compatible but shouldn't cause any major issue.

[h2]Closing Words[/h2]

This is the first part of the expedition overhaul. It's setting up solid foundations for the more content oriented "Part 2". Switching to a proper "scene" to handle the city as a whole instead of relying on smokes & mirrors took a while, and made me rewrite things I never thought I would need to, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. A lot and I really mean A LOT of new content can now be added to this part of the game.

Speaking of adding new content, Part 2 will do just that by adding the optional ability to manually handle most combat related stuff during expeditions. It'll also add new things to interact with on the map like travelers, merchants, other factions' expeditions and roaming beasts. It will also add new terrains (rivers, lakes, chokepoints) alongside new items and events to form a more interesting and cohesive experience.

In any case I hope you'll enjoy this update, because it was a real pain to write :D

Cheers!

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]
  • AI: People are better at detecting that their job target has been destroyed and will no longer travel all the way over something that no longer exists
  • AI: People are better at detecting that a raze order has been canceled and will stop earlier
  • AI: Minor optimizations to the job dispatcher
  • Balance: Marked clothing items as rare to make them less common during trading
  • Balance: Due to the more permanent nature of expeditions, members will 'unclaim' their private room(s) when leaving
  • Balance: Radio and Logistic techs both allow you to build an additional garage (see below)
  • Balance: Made sure that city locations with high tier loot (military base, police station) are always at least somewhat defended
  • Content: First part of the expedition overhaul (multiple groups, new UI, equipment and transports)
  • Content: New garage building to manage individual expedition settings
  • Content: Added several new "travel items" which are used to improve an expeditions' performances
  • Content: Loot in an expedition's cargo space can be destroyed to make room for more important stuff
  • Content: New trade/loot tables and technologies to integrate those new items into the game
  • Content: New transports for expeditions can be found through technologies, some of which can only be found during expeditions.
  • Content: Reworked the expedition tech tree to accomodate the new changes
  • Content: Looting action for expeditions can be run "until the cargo is full / place is empty"
  • Content: Diplomacy can be conducted before the radio technology by sending an expedition to another faction's main base
  • Content: Random events during expeditions are interactive now, giving you control on how to deal with the situation
  • Content: Added "Police Station" to the list of explorable map locations
  • Engine: Added ability to cap the spawn of hostiles with RaiderAI, especially useful in Last Stand scenario (settings.json -> RaiderAICap = max number)
  • Engine: Reworked the save/load logic and format to accommodate the changes (+ some future proofing)
  • Engine: Initial loading time very slightly reduced (moar parallelism)
  • Engine: Switch from/to world map is now instant
  • Modding: Removed "CanDrop" and "Tradable" from item data, as it was a duplicate of the "DontDrop" and "NeverTrade" tags. Adjusted all items accordingly.
  • Modding: Cleaned up base files of outdated fields
  • Modding: Clutter with a MaxCount per map, can have that count changed via techs (see garage & expedition tech tree)
  • Modding: Techs are used to unlock new transports for expeditions (see garage & expedition tech tree)
  • Modding: Filters used for expeditions loot (and pharmacy) got the new WantedName field: overrides all Allow/Deny. Used to force a particular item in the loot table.
  • Modding: Added "ForceHostility" field to map POIs (the mapgen will use this to override the tile's hostility if it's lower than the value)
  • Modding: New interactive travel events can added/customized (see files data/travelevents)
  • UI: Right clicking items' checkbox in the depot menu will display their associated info screen
  • UI: Added new menus to handle the expeditions from the world map
  • UI: Expedition message log is kept when saving/loading a savegame
  • UI: Added scrollbar to the optional 'research completed' panel
  • UI: Added widget to the right side of the screen to display the status of each active expedition/garage (can be toggled on/off in Filters)
  • UI: Title and text in the recruitment menu is context sensitive (recognizing if from an expedition, escaped prisoners or simple visitors)
  • UI: Added specific item info screen for the new expedition related items
  • UI: Updated help screens and the encyclopedia article about expeditions
  • UI: Pressing the "go to map layer X" shortcuts is now working even from the world map
  • Fixed: Bow from tribals, if used, could propagate pandemonium infection to unintented target. The bow can no longer drop.
  • Fixed: The panel shown when you research a tech, find it in an expedition, or find it in loot always had the same title, which might have been confusing
  • Fixed: Texture for settlers in some menus could be outdated (still wearing an armor they no longer have and so on)
  • Fixed: When renaming a survivor or animal (or expedition, now) pressing the WASD would still move the camera around
  • Fixed: Potential crash if one of the survivors is exiting the map (for an expedition) while still being selected
  • Fixed: Potential crash on the save/load screen if a savegame from a NEWER version is present in the folder
  • Fixed: In some underground scenarios, "surface events" could still happen before the player breaches the surface (for good this time, my bad)
  • Fixed: Multiple uncommon/rare issues on the world map
  • Fixed: Filter menu panel was slightly too short to fit all elements
  • Fixed: the 'Escaped Prisoners' event would display an useless dialog box below the message from the faction.
  • Fixed: Annoying bug where settlers would seem locked trying to get to a depot when something is being built at the spot they'd use to drop items in said depot
  • Fixed: Minor fixes & tweaks

Progress Update: Expedition Overhaul

Hi there!

Here's a post about the new expedition system, with a video showcasing some of the progress :)

Not gonna lie, it took a while to get things rolling (so to speak).

My approach to code tends to be very "top-down". Meaning that I rarely have something to show until late in the development of a specific feature. The upside is that as soon I reach this stage, progress happens at a very fast pace.

As such, most of my time since last patch was spent figuring out a new way to handle the world map, making a more powerful save system able to digest the changes (and future ones) without the need for me to edit it constantly. And "mapping out" the required structure for all the planned content. Basically, the kind of stuff which ain't really fun to code or to talk about.

[h2]What's done so far[/h2]

With that out of the way, I can work on the features proper and I even have a very early preview of the new system. Please note that everything in the following video is very alpha, played in debug mode, with hastily made menus (and sprites). It should still put into video format most of what I explained in the previous article.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

So expeditions are launched from the garage buildings (1 group per garage). An expedition is comprised of an obligatory transport (you start with a default one, the old car) and 2 slots for optional items.

- The car/transport determines the maximum amount of people you can send, the cargo capacity and the movement speed of the expedition. It can modify other stats like offense, scavenging or defense too.

- The optional items can modify each of those variables. For instance in this demo, the detailed maps will slightly increase movement speed, the metal detector improves scavenging. Of course the released version will feature a lot more items (and probably an additional slot).

Anyway, once satisfied with the settings, you can assign people to the expedition and launch it. People will move the required items (and, weirdly enough, the car too) from storage to the garage. As soon as it's done, the selected group will get into the car and exit the map.

Then, from the world map, you can move expeditions individually (like you would with people in combat mode). Move a car to a point of interest, and its menu will adapt to show your available options. If it's defended, you can attack it, and if not you can loot or claim it.

Note that destinations can now be looted until they are empty or the cargo hold is full, whichever come first. If a (or multiple) survivor(s) is found, they will be sent to the base through a delayed recruit event (scheduled to happen a few hours after the search is over). You don't need to bring them back manually. However, you'll have to bring back the expedition to deliver its loot.

Oh, and it'll be possible to discard loot you don't want, so you don't have to come back each time you find 40 stones :)

That's the gist of it for now.

[h2]Current To-Do List[/h2]

I will definitely have to make this stuff a 2 part overhaul if I want to publish the next update in a timely manner. First, most of the map stuff (basically what you've just seen, but you know, completed). Second, the combat layer, roaming hostiles/neutral groups, and polish.

Regarding this first part, I want to have more interesting 'travel events' (you know, the 2 headed cow, snipers, caches,...) by making at least some of them interactive. For instance the group could come across some booby-trapped loot. You're given a choice to try your luck (or the skill of whoever is the most skilled in electronics, with a visible success chance) or to ignore it and go on your merry way. I just need to figure out a format that won't be too much of a hassle to use for modders.

I still have to finish up some menus, add some widgets to track the expeditions from the base, add some items, alter the tech tree, and test all that in a full game. But it nothing too complicated.

I don't have a precise ETA for the first part, but unless something exceptionally unlikely happens, it should be there within a few weeks :)

Thanks for your support!