After the Collapse News

Here's our (semi) regular progress update regarding After The Collapse and our studio in general. There are a few important announcements you should read.

As usual, it's available on our official website.

Cheers.

This is quite a major update, and it goes with a new trailer as the old one was getting embarrassingly dated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOmtvJ-0Pjs

We'll go over the major changes below, but here are the main points for those who want the TL;DR version first:

• Animal Husbandry has been implemented
  
• Added the butcher shop, tanner, and pastures
  
• 10 to 20% better performances overall, with reduced RAM consumption
  
• Wall placements using zoning method instead of one by one
  
• Balance tweaks
  

You can now pasture pigs and sheep for meat, wool, and animal hides which can be in turn converted into food, cloth and leather at specific new or existing crafting stations. To that effect, I added a reproductive system and those animals will age. Kids and old animals can't reproduce, but can still be butchered.



Domesticated animals require a pasture (zone) and food (wheat, a new easy to grow, crop). Animal food production won't be efficient at first, you'll need to hit a large enough group for those to make enough children for that to work out. As such it's probably best for mid to late game bases.

You can find those animals in the forest (which is a new destination for the exploration planner) or get them from the new merchant.



As explained above, domesticated animals gained the ability to reproduce. There's a soft cap of 60 alive animals per species per game. This is a feature I will be introducing for underground critters too in future updates once we've figured out a couple issues.

For 2 animals to reproduce, they need to both be adults (animals reach adulthood after an in-game week or so) and be in close proximity. There's no animation or special behavior for now, it just "happens". Pregnancy last also around a week. Children individually take either the traits of the mother or the father, and children' stats are re-rolled close to one of their parents.

As this is a new feature, I am preventing them from dying of old age, but that will be included in future versions.



All animals (hostiles or domesticated) are now dropping animal hides instead of leather. A tanner has been added to convert such hides into proper leather.

The new butcher shop might be a bit confusing as it doesn't come with its own menu. Instead, when you click on a domesticated animal or change the settings of a pasture you can order animals to get butchered. This is where your settlers with the animal husbandry skill will make burgers out of your cattle. I'll likely add its own menu (listing ALL your animals for instance) in a coming update.

The pasture is, well, a pasture. Domesticated animals you bought or found will be parked there. This is also where they will eat. Don't forget that you will need to provide them with wheat if you don't want them to starve.



Leather requirements for many recipes have been increased thanks to that new renewable source. Additionally, while making the trailer I couldn't help but notice that making large buildings was taking an ungodly amount of time, as such, wall building time has been halved, and tile placement is 5 to 10 times faster (for a settler with average construction skill, at least). HP of defensive structures (sandbags, and barbed wires) has been increased as well.



The game got a proper loading screen when starting a new game, with bonus random tips. Walls are now placed like zones, with a specific renderer giving you a preview of what your construction will look like. I also smoothed the mouse cursor and reduced its size a tiny bit so it doesn't look all "pixely" anymore.



I went on a fairly extensive performance pass, leading to on average 10 to 20% better performances. The time spent between launching the game and getting to the menu has been reduced (it continues to load when you're in the starting menu now). It should also consume a bit less memory and save/load a bit faster. There's still room for many more improvements, but nothing that I can really touch at this stage of development.



While this is "technically" compatible with previous save-games, everything that was dropped on the ground will be lost and many changes will only impact newly created structures or won't be present (animal trader) until you start a new game.

There's a LOT of additional changes and tweaks in this version, but I'll have to refer you to the changelog below for that.

Cheers!

 + AI: Added Cattle AI module
 + AI: Added reproductive component (for pigs and sheeps only right now)
 + Balance: Increased leather requirements for multiple recipes (armor, some clutter)
 + Balance: Reduced build time for floors (massively) and walls (halved)
 + Balance: Updated default equipment pack (more food stuff and wood. removed spears, renamed to quick start). Leave just enough room to add basic weapons or 2 techs.
 + Balance: Reduced value of very basic weapons (removing a trading exploit)
 + Balance: Increased HP of barbed wires and sandbags
 + Balance: Edited (and added) jobs to take the new activities (brewing & animal husbandry) into account
 + Content: Domesticated pigs can be raised for meat and leather production
 + Content: Domesticated sheeps can be raised for meat and wool
 + Content: Added animal trader event
 + Content: The new butcher shop is used to process cattle into meat
 + Content: The new tanner can process animal hides into leather
 + Content: Loom can convert wool into cloth
 + Content: Replaced leather drops from animals by animal hides
 + Content: Added pasture zones to feed and care for the cattle
 + Content: Added wheat farming (fodder for the cattle)
 + Content: Survivors got a new skill, "husbandry" for everything animal related (butchering, pasture management)
 + Content: Added the "Forest" to exploration destination table, ability to find animals
 + Engine: Ability for agents to reproduce
 + Engine: NPC can produce sounds at semi random intervals (pigs and sheeps for now, will be added for more stuff along the way)
 + Engine: Ability to convert items into animals (for expeditions & trading purpose)
 + Engine: Reduced RAM consumption, incidentally increasing save/load speed
 + Engine: Multiple CPU optimizations (Fauna, and UI being the biggest targets, more stuff to come) giving 10 to 20% better performances on average
 + Engine: Heavily reduced wait time between launch and start menu
 + Engine: Improved Discord integration
 + Graphics: Added yellow grass to all terrain presets for smoother transitions between terrain types
 + Graphics: Better looking mouse cursor
 + Graphics: Wall placement using the zoning method show actual walls instead of the usual transparent rectangle
 + UI: Added settings menu for pasture 
 + UI: Added cattle specific NPC panel
 + UI: Wall placement now done like zones instead of a wall-per-wall basis
 + UI: Zoom/Unzoom via mousewheel is smoother and more consistent
 + UI: Optional zoom to cursor option in the settings (still needs some work)
 + UI: Added "game is loading" panel when starting a new game (so people don't assume it crashed)
 + Fixed: Missing UI text for some orders
 + Fixed: Giant crabs would still get needs related problems (other animals were already fixed)
 + Fixed: Animal Husbandry skill was disabled by default
 + Fixed: Small bug that might have caused some issues with queued jobs
 + Fixed: Some additional cases where a builder would try to build something they don't have access to
 + Fixed: Stone statues available in start menu despite being useless outside of trading purposes
 + Fixed: Bug that was delaying most events from happening for way too long
 + Fixed: Trade jeep teleporting from tile to tile in trading zone instead of being immobile
 + Fixed: People with the hauling skill disabled would still pickup stuff from the ground

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