After the Collapse News

Hi peeps!

Here's the promised devlog, barely a few hours late.

So, let's start with the basics. This is a devlog, any new feature I am talking about here, no matter how detailed it is, is subject to changes, improvements, or even plain cancelation depending on how the implementation goes before it's actually being released. In short, don't assume that everything I'm going to talk about here is going to happen exactly as planned. It's still a relatively accurate guideline for the future. With this obligatory introduction out of the way, let's get to it :)

[h2]0.9 Major Update[/h2]

The 0.9 release is the next major update for ATC. From an user perspective it probably won't be as massive as the Expedition overhaul or the Dig Deeper update. Still, it's going to introduce the final touches so everything else can be completed. From a modder's perspective it's going to be fun, though. Of course, I'm skipping the usual UI tweaks, minor improvements and bug fixes.

[h3]Map & Building Editor[/h3]

As much as I'm happy with the current state of the procedural generator, I have to admit that a few hand-crafted maps and buildings wouldn't go amiss. This is where the editor comes into play. It'll allow me (and anyone else) to build expedition combat maps, spawn locations or scenario maps with ease. Additionally, I hope to be able to integrate the hand-crafted buildings in the generators proper: aka the ability for such buildings to spawn in city, roadside and village maps. This should pave the way for "building/map" mods.

And last but not least, It will allow me to design more interesting scenarios with very specific starting maps and I'm not gonna miss the opportunity to add a "trapped in a mall/prison/hospital surrounded by zombies" scenario.

[h3]Patrol Zones and Manned Turrets[/h3]

One system that's currently missing internally is the ability to assign a survivor to a particular task and that task only (basically preventing them from querying the general job list while assigned to this task). Once implemented, I'll be able to add commonly requested features: namely the ability to setup patrol zones and manned turrets.

Patrol zones will be configurable, you'll be able to assign any amount of survivors there, and decide if you want to guards to stay there all the time (except when eating/sleeping, obviously), which is a good way to guard your gates against roaming critters, or decide to only make it active in combat mode (good for kill zones).

Same idea with manned turrets. Don't get me wrong, automated turrets are fine and dandy, but they probably should be put much higher in the tech tree (and require some beefier construction costs). Manned turrets could fill a mid game defensive role before you're swimming in modern guns, money and ammo, offering some decent firepower and some cover to whoever is assigned to it.

[h3]More Expedition Stuff[/h3]

With the two above features completed, I will be able to put the finishing touches to the expedition system. Manual vs Auto combat will get (at least somewhat) balanced. The generic combat maps will be replaced by hand crafted ones. Some enemies will start patrolling around their base instead of all waiting in rooms. Expedition vehicles will get their own pool of HP, which might be impacted by travel, terrain and events. An expedition with a car out of HP will be forced to return home.

You'll also get more options when dealing with enemies attacking your production centers. You will likely be able to resolve those battles manually or bribe your way out of some of those encounters. I still need to think how I am going represent the money put into "buy defenses" in such combats, though. But, I'll figure something out or replace that sub-system completely.

[h3]World Map: Roaming mobs[/h3]

Some of the mobs will also start to visibly roam the world map. They'll generally be relatively passive, but will still move from time to time. If your base or a production center is in their way, it'll trigger an attack. Herds will be interactive, you can send expeditions their way to either get rid of them remotely, or you might even be able to lead them toward your base intentionally. Why would you want to do that? Spider queen eggs don't grow on trees and the chance of a spider queen attack to happen normally is incredibly low.

Animal herds will be an introduction to "moving" map locations. It's likely that I'll expand the system to other things and couple it with "spawner-type" locations. It's also very likely that the abominations will be a prime candidate to mix all of those systems together into a proper end-game threat. That last part goes beyond 0.9 proper and extends into 1.0.

[h3]Base Relocation[/h3]

Simple enough, the ability to pack up & leave the base for greener pastures, retaining all techs, people and some resources. It won't have a massive gameplay impact in 0.9 proper. Sure, it will be nice to be able to relocate in order to hunt for exoskeletons and other goodies only available in some biomes. But it's a feature that I will mostly need for the 1.0 storyline, so might as well implement it now.

[h2]1.0 Release Plans[/h2]

First of all, I've said it already but it's worth repeating for the newcomers: 1.0 is not the end of the line. All it means is that I consider the game to be ready to get out of Early Access. That it's feature complete compared to the goals I've set years ago (and let's be honest here, we're already way past those goals :D). And that it's in a decent shape stability and performance-wise. Development will continue post 1.0, just at slightly more relaxed pace (and after getting a proper vacation). Those last few months have been really intensive, and it's probably not a healthy rhythm to maintain forever. But you can be sure that there will be more major updates after that.

Beside the addition of raw content (items, weaponry, armors, mobs and events), 1.0 will pretty much entirely focus on the addition of a main questline: Story Mode.

Story Mode will technically replace the tutorial slot in the new game menu. It will integrate a (probably optional) tutorial section, and give general tips during the whole playthrough, but it will also contain multiple quests similar in concept to what you've seen in the rise of the mutant scenario. Some quests will flesh out the lore, others will unlock techs or deal with the other factions or give you special bonus. All those quests will merge toward a conclusion.

I'm sorry if I'm being very vague on the actual details here as I don't want to write spoilers. Also, please, don't expect some revolutionary stuff here, I'm in no way a great writer (English is not even my primary language) and it's pretty much my first attempt at storytelling. I just hope it'll be entertaining to play through. :)

[h2]Final Thoughts[/h2]

Hopefully, the first draft for 0.9 should be available before New Year Eve. I don't expect many problems with it. The editor will be the most time consuming thing to deal with. Not writing it proper, because you know, it's technically already there, being a base building game & all. It's the integration of those custom maps/buildings that will be more of a pain.

1.0 is scheduled for February/March 2022. I'm not entirely sure I will be able to keep this exact deadline, but it shouldn't be much later.

Price-wise. ATC will reach it's planned official price ($14.99) when I start working on 1.0 proper. Due to the way Steam works, it's not possible to change the price & discount the game without leaving a month in between those two actions. Given that I will apply a day 1 release discount, price has to be raised slightly in advance.

I think I've covered everything I wanted to talk about for now. :)

Cheers!

Hi there!

Here's the last weekly patch for this version of ATC, after this one, and barring any large problem, I'll switch gears toward the next major update which I'll talk about in a devlog tomorrow.

This patch includes several new UI improvements regarding the Raze button and the replacement of the Repair button by a multi purpose button. It's also getting rid of several bugs ranging from incredibly minor to very annoying.

As usual, saves & mods are compatible and the full changelog is at the bottom :)

[h2]Balance Pass[/h2]

Fire has been tuned down. Wild fires will spread (but also die on their own) and damage 33% slower. The heat-wave weather pattern can no longer appear in the first 2 weeks, which should give you more time to prepare.

Additionally, got it, fire crabs are a bit too overpowered. Their range has been reduced by 2 tiles. The fireball they throw at you got its armor penetration value reduced from High to Medium, meaning that any medium+ integrity armor will offer its full protection (assuming it does something against fire damage). Fire vests also got their integrity increased from low to medium.

[h2]Raze Button[/h2]

It functions exactly as usual by default. But, you'll notice that when pressing the button or keyboard shortcut, a row of buttons appears just above the bottom menu.



As you can see, you can now set what you want to raze exactly. For instance, using the "Clutter" button, It's a lot faster & easier to "clear up" a house while keeping the walls intact. Additionally, EVERYTHING related to removal is in this menu. You no longer have to go look deep inside the "Build" menu to remove roofs or tiles anymore.

[h2]Misc. Orders[/h2]

The barely used "Repair" button has been replaced by a "Misc Orders" button (same icon), it works similarly to the new Raze sub-panel.



From there, you can still repair stuff, but you can also mass-assign butchering jobs or copy existing structures (and their settings) without having to use the build menu. Both of those options already existed but only in forms of keyboard shortcuts until now.

Additionally, the "Forbid Items" and "Allow Items" buttons can be used to manually allow or disallow your survivors to retrieve specific items dropped on tiles. This can be used to prevent survivors from going into a death trap to retrieve a piece of wood.

[h2]Misc. Improvements & Bug Fixing[/h2]

After getting a lot of work done on the underlaying UI code, the keyboard shortcuts should also behave in a way more consistent fashion no matter if you're in combat mode or building mode. Esc should also escape from all situations properly (if you really don't like to right click for some reason).

As usual most, if not all, reported (and non reported) bugs have been fixed :)

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• AI: Survivors are better with the retrieval of items on tiles (and stopping the job if the tile get forbidden or emptied)
  
• Balance: Reduced penetration value for the fireball used by fire crabs (from high to medium) and reduced its range by 2 tiles
  
• Balance: Reduced update rate of fires by 33% (spread & damage slower)
  
• Balance: Increased integrity of fire-vest (from low to medium), making it a good early defensive armor against fire crabs
  
• Balance: Heat waves can't appear for the first 2 weeks (instead of 3 days) to account for the fires it can now cause
  
• Content: Items on the ground can be manually forbidden/allowed for retrieval
  
• Content: Added and updated some screens in the tutorial to mention some recent/important features
  
• Engine: Further hardening of the engine to prevent crashes from removing mods mid-game (never will be perfect, but it's pretty decent at it now)
  
• Engine: Pass at the input code, keyboard shortcuts should work in a more consistent fashion, independently of the game's state
  
• UI: Expanded the "Raze" button: the default option stays the same but you can click buttons to raze specific things (plants, clutter, wall, tiles, roofs...)
  
• UI: With the expanded raze button, options to delete zone, roofs and tiles have been removed from the build menu
  
• UI: Renamed "fixed strange scar" by "fixed early pandemonium symptoms" to clarify that the Pandemonium cure is working as intended
  
• UI: Rewrote the descriptions of all the stats and jobs/skills, giving a lot more information
  
• UI: Replaced the "Repair" button by a "Misc Orders" button, which reveal a row of useful stuff (repair, mass butcher, copy item, forbid/allow item retrieval on tile)
  
• UI: Added encyclopedia article listing all stats & skills and what they are used for (it's basically the same as the new tooltips, but in an article)
  
• Fixed: Hostile animals could follow people through stairs (regression bug from 0.8.6 performance pass)
  
• Fixed: Minor UI fixes (text overflowing in some menus)
  
• Fixed: top resource bar not aligned properly when the UI size is not 1:1 after quitting & reloading a savegame
  
• Fixed: All farms had the same name which could lead to confusion in some of the encyclopedia menus
  
• Fixed: Putting someone at a doorway wouldn't reveal the room on the other side
  
• Fixed: Missing tooltip for survivor statistics in New Game / Settlers menu
  
• Fixed: Can't rebind Esc key in settings menu
  
• Fixed: Possible issue with LUA mods after loading a save
  
• Fixed: Raiders and new recruits would occasionally spawn in an area in which they can't path toward your base
  
• Fixed: It was technically possible for suppliers and traders to spawn at a location where they can't path toward your trading zone
  
• Fixed: After opening some of the main menus via keyboard shortcuts in combat mode, the combat shortcuts might no longer work until mode is reset
  
• Fixed: Made Fullscreen mode a lot less crash prone on load (or just don't check other windows while the game is initializing, Monogame doesn't like that at all)
  
• Fixed: One weird crash that someone had consistently despite the fact it would imply using a combination of keys at the very first frame when the game is launched
  
• Fixed: Survivors under your direct control wouldn't fire back at enemy turrets in range on their own
  
• Fixed: A case where the UI would start at the wrong scale (menus going off-screen) on first launch with some screen resolutions (and stay that way until fiddling with settings)
  
• Fixed: The tutorial stage where player is asked to raze 10 things was (wrongly) expecting the user to raze everything at the same time
  
• Fixed: Supply Left info not updated in New Game / Customize Equipment menu when loading it for the first time

Hi there!

Here's the third weekly maintenance patch. It's fixing reported issues (and non reported ones). It's also adding a few tweaks and improvements. Save-games and mods are compatible as usual.

Expect a proper devlog detailing my plans for the next major update either at the end of this week-end or during the next week.

Cheers!

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• AI: Improved efficiency of crafting stations by trying to give the work job to whoever brought the required goods
  
• Balance: Added weight to some items which had none (ammunition, basically)
  
• Balance: Increased the amount of ammo people will take with them (mostly with rifles and handguns)
  
• UI: Added tooltips to resource panel at the top (naming what's up there), it can also be right clicked to show detailed info about the item
  
• UI: Jobs/Skills can be sorted by competence in the individual survivor menu
  
• UI: Added clickable "assigned" field to factories, showing who is working at a given factory or if it's queued
  
• UI: Color code for the queue in factories: green (ok), orange (condition not met), red (no resources)
  
• UI: Main menus (encyclopedia, save, settings, stats, mods) can be closed with [Esc] like any other in-game menus
  
• UI: Added DPS info to weapon tooltip
  
• Fixed: Some of the weapon "turrets" on enemies (scorpion & spider queen, and several low tier enemies) were not working
  
• Fixed: The "small gun turret" was available (and free) in the "new game - customize equipment" menu
  
• Fixed: After the generation of some uncommon types of map, bonus deposits would no longer drop from mountain/cavern walls until the game is restarted
  
• Fixed: Faction logo selector not behaving correctly when the UI scale is not set to default
  
• Fixed: Farmers not clearing wild plants, small rocks and other decorative clutter when building a farm
  
• Fixed: People could rarely path to (0,0) instead of the correct destination, generally when trying to work on cattle
  
• Fixed: Game spamming incorrect "I can't find a depot to unload [item] ([quantity])"
  
• Fixed: Weightless items would interfere with inventory clearing tasks
  
• Fixed: Problems where a keyboard shortcut would interfere with a text box (rename things, depot presets)
  
• Fixed: If someone scheduled for an expedition dies before the expedition is launched, the garage would end up being stuck
  
• Fixed: Prisoners would try to sleep outside of their cells
  
• Fixed: People still trying (only on some map types) to use non faction beds
  
• Fixed: Minor logic issue when checking if a need can be satisfied
  
• Fixed: If for some reason someone was dedicated enough to stay in the tutorial until electricity tech, the game would likely crash
  
• Fixed: More random typos
  

This is a relatively small maintenance patch, it won't interfere with existing saves or mods.

While hunting for that elusive teleport bug, I came across several issues which are now fixed. I also tweaked a few things and further improved performances on very large / gigantic maps.

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• AI: If a survivor has their inventory full before trying to eat, they'll try to clear some space (either by dropping in a depot or, if unable, on the ground)
  
• Balance: Pastures' auto butchering setting will skip old animals while they are pregnant (and until they are not anymore)
  
• Balance: Standard beds fill the "sleep" need faster than tribal beds and sleeping bags (might only apply to newly constructed beds if continuing from save)
  
• Engine: Very slightly improved performances when loading a save-game
  
• Engine: More improvements to general performances (economic and general pathing/region calculations)
  
• UI: Double click on an outpost in the faction menu will open/center map on outpost
  
• UI: Locations on the map which have been fully looted are shown in red
  
• UI: Made it clearer that you can click on loot left (in map location menu) to see what the location can drop
  
• Fixed: Small display glitch in the expedition's "members" panel where health was written 2 times
  
• Fixed: Issue in the people selector when assigning people to a production center
  
• Fixed: A problem, possibly tied to the teleportation bug, that could cause people not to recognize walls in extremely specific situations
  
• Fixed: AI logic issue with pickup jobs, which could prevent people from grabbing food (when hungry) directly from the ground
  
• Fixed: Logic issue when loading save which was the underlying cause for the inventory sometimes going into the negative
  
• Fixed: When a savegame doesn't have an associated screenshot, and oversized icon would be displayed
  
• Fixed: A survivor could (again, super rare) get stuck in place despite being marked as moving toward a target
  
• Fixed: (modding) "Leash" field for spawners had no effect, they would always spawn as leashed to the spawner
  
• Fixed: If a creature following a spawner (like baby/mother spider) is separated by impassible terrain, it would freeze and waste CPU cycles (it'll just remove the leash now)
  
• Fixed: Newborn animals spawn (or after loading a save) full size for a few seconds
  
• Fixed: Requested traders from other faction aren't announced in the log or via sound
  
• Fixed: If the game UI somehow displays characters not handled by the font, it would become very laggy
  

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the scenario released for Halloween :)

This new update goes over a lot of reported problems, while improving the UI and the game's economy, rebalancing a few things in the process. It's not a very large patch but it's featuring improvements which should have been made a long time ago.

You can expect at least one or two more before the next devlog explaining my plans for the future.

As usual, saves & mods are compatible, and the full changelog is at the end.

[h2]Production and Economy[/h2]

First, a new setting has been added to all crafting stations (and water collectors) recipes, it allows you to produce a given recipe until adjacent (compatible) depots are full.



While this work for everything, this is especially useful with dirty water production/collection. You can now set your collectors and well(s) to produce only until your adjacent dedicated depot for dirty water is full, which is a lot easier than micro managing it or setting a global limit.

Regarding cattle management, butchering stations can now be paused and will detect adjacent compatible depots and the products will automatically be moved there, saving some travel time in well designed bases.

Additionally, animals can individually be moved from a pasture to another. Click on a pastured animal, and using the new "Relocate" button.



While this is not particularly useful when handling food or work cattle, anyone who has used sand crabs as a defense system will appreciate. It can also be used to separate "good" animals from "bad" ones when trying to do selective breeding.

Oh, and if you've played through the new scenario (or done any cannibal run), you probably would have loved a way to mass-assign dead bodies to butchering jobs. This is now possible! A keyboard shortcut has been added to btcher everything in the selection (which you place like a zone after pressing the shortcut). As usual with keyboard shortcuts, it can be changed in the settings.

[h2]Fire[/h2]

Fire's effectiveness at ruining you day has been tuned down.



First, rain, on top of dousing the flames, prevents fire from spreading through grassy and other non constructed terrain. This should make it a lot more effective at killing large fires.

Secondly, survivors on low health (
Finally, and this is what I suspect to be the crux of the issue: fires will no longer be able to incapacitate whoever they hurt. I think that's what happened to players who got too many deaths or heavily injured people when dealing with fire. Due to the way fire damage is applied, very small damage but in a repeating pattern, it made wildfires the most effective way to incapacitate someone.

[h2]User Interface[/h2]

A few nice QoL improvements.

First, those barebone popups shown during game events (raids, traders...) or weather changes are a lot nicer to look at now. Some of them are more informative or/and have additional functionalities.



This is also working when clicking events and weather changes in the log.



Additionally, HP information has been added to the "settler/animal selector" panel used in a lot of menus. This is especially useful when selecting people to send in an expeditions so you can make sure you don't send people with next to no HP.

The multi-survivor panel displayed when you have multiple people selected at once (generally in combat mode) now show who is using what weapon. This should make it a lot more useful.

[h2]Bug Fixing: Savegame Failure[/h2]

Simply put, on very rare occasions, an auto/quick save would fail and give you a message. The game does not crash, and saving again would work as normal, but it would still rotate the quick/auto slots, making you lose the older version.

After looking at this bug for a few days, there's no real way for me to fix the failure entirely and definitely at this point without massively tanking performances during those saves. Given how uncommon it is and the fact it has no real impact on the game, it's not worth that cost.

So, I did the next best things:
1. I heavily reduced the likelihood of it happening at all.
2. If an auto/quick save operation still happen to fail, it won't erase any previous file anymore.

I really hate to leave a technical bug standing, but it's the closest I can get here. I might still be able to completely fix it later granted it triggers again in front of me while I am debugging the game, but that will have to do for now.

[h2]Bugs Fixed and Bugs Remaining[/h2]

As usual there's a small list of reported bugs being fixed. Most notably, custom player-made equipment presets in the new game menu wouldn't always be displayed, some inconsistent / non working settings, nothing really game breaking or major.

This leaves us with one last remaining long standing bug I consider "major". The dreaded settler teleport bug. And I'm not talking about settlers walling themselves off when placing objects or a settler being force-pushed outside of a wall not exactly where it should, while annoying, it's just inherent to colony-sims. I'm talking about a survivor flat out "teleported" into the middle of nowhere in the underground.

Comparatively to the overwhelming majority of bugs I had to deal with, this one is really annoying to locate for due to its nature. Player reports are, understandably, way after the fact and can't really provide useful or reliable information (not your fault, it's just not that kind of bug). Even if I see it happen in one of my playthroughs, it's after the fact. And, of course, it's rare and irregular enough that brute forcing things doesn't seem to work.

My point for this long rambling is that I'm going to dedicate some more time trying to get rid of it, but it's going to be a pain and it might take a while. :)

[h2]Full Changelog[/h2]

• AI: People on low health (
• Balance: Rain prevents fire from spreading through grassy and other non constructed terrain (on top of the droplets dousing the flames)
  
• Balance: Animal hide from butchering mutants & humans (only apply to newly spawned ones if loading from old save)
  
• Balance: Manual combat maps no longer drop any loot to prevent farming and flee/attack loop exploits
  
• Balance: Fire damage can no longer incapacitate targets (so people don't fall "asleep" in the middle of a fire)
  
• Balance: The game makes sure that the spawn location selected by default when starting a new game is not in a very hostile biome (or a location you can't settle into)
  
• Content: Animals can be assigned/relocated to specific pastures via new button in their info panel
  
• Content: Like factories, if there's an adjacent compatible depot next to a butchering station, the products will automatically be moved there
  
• Content: Added option for crafting stations and water collectors to produce until adjacent container is full (in the recipe selection menu)
  
• Content: Specific butchering tables can be disabled/paused
  
• Engine: Heavily reduced likelihood of an autosave to fail (a bug that cannot be completely removed at this point without massively tanking save performances)
  
• Graphics: Added some light randomization of water droplets placement during rain so they don't always fall at the right center of a tile
  
• Modding: Added TexturePath to both Events and Weather effect, adds a specific image for their new improved panel shown when clicked (or when set to auto pop)
  
• UI: Added weapon icons to the panel shown when multiple survivors are selected (making sub selection easier)
  
• UI: Added HP information to settler/animal selector used in many menus (garage, room, prison cell, pet attribution)
  
• UI: Added hotkey to butcher everything in a zone (U by default, rebindable)
  
• UI: Queue in Factory screen is color coded to show which recipe can complete
  
• UI: Nicer looking weather change and game event menus (for those who popup on screen, or when clicking them in the log)
  
• UI: Events spawning map locations have a window showing an option to center & select the location on the map
  
• Fixed: Quick and auto save wouldn't recognize when a save is already in progress. The game will now properly recognize it and skip the second attempt
  
• Fixed: Auto/quick save file rotation would still be done on failure, deleting the oldest instance
  
• Fixed: Reset speed settings in game options was inconsistent (both for raids and traders)
  
• Fixed: In the RotM scenario it was possible for the "Leadership Change" event to fire for (the perma-hostile) Neo Roma, causing minor relation glitches
  
• Fixed: Traders stuck in houses will self delete after a while, this ain't very elegant but it will serve as a temporary solution until i figure out the cause
  
• Fixed: Clicking on events on the short log panel and the expanded window wasn't consistent
  
• Fixed: Remove Tile job and Fire wouldn't update the game's internal map when destroying a bridge or other tiles allowing passage between 2 areas
  
• Fixed: Disappearing player-made equipment presets in the "new game" menu
  
• Fixed: Rare failure in "drop items" job
  
• Fixed: A couple minor typos and glitches