Flotsam News

Hey Drifters,
You can finally test out the Farmer!
For the longest time, sustaining a large town with food has been notoriously challenging, often resulting in a ton of unhappy drifters. Additionally, obtaining early-game food has been tricky and came with a needless amount of pollution. In short: the food pipeline just wasn't great. We've been building towards changing it for the longest time, and are ready to roll out the first changes :)

So let's jump into the details: for 0.8, we're changing up our usual workflow a bit and hopping onto Experimental much sooner. While some of the new features are not yet fully implemented, and the UI remains unclear, the most important aspect is that it works and you can play :) Share your thoughts and feedback and we'll iterate upon the patch with quick consecutive patches!

Starting off, the entire food pipeline has been reworked, polluted food is no longer a thing, the Seaweed Grower has been improved to functions as a farm and the Fish Farm is now available to let you grow some fish. Later on, we'll be looking at adding Fresh-water Farming (vegetables) during experimental.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
This update will be on experimental until all features are properly implemented. After that, The Cook will make it's appearance!

This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.

This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.

[h2]Early Access 0.8.0e1: The Farmer[/h2]
This is an early version of 'The Farmer', featuring the introduction of Fish Farming and improvements to the Seaweed Grower. Some of the new features have not fully been implemented and UI is still very unclear, but consecutive small patches during experimental will quickly tackle these issues. Additionally, we're looking at adding 'Freshwater Farming' (vegetables) during the experimental phase.

• Reworked the entire food pipeline, changing most recipes. Re-balanced pacing of food creation. 'Icky' food is now much easier to produce, while 'Yummy' food requires proper pipelines.
  
• Reworked Food Pollution. Food no longer has any pollution value. Pollution will be re-introduced later on in a different manner.
  
• The Seaweed Farm now continuously produces seaweed, without needing to refresh the spores.
  
• New construction: The Fish Farm. The fish farm will grow fish from egg to adult stages where they will reproduce and create new eggs, then continue to a harvest stage where they can be harvested. It currently only works for Gobblers.
  
• New construction: The Extr-egg-tor. (temporary) This building will harvest eggs from fish. It currently only works for Gobblers. This building will most likely be removed during experimental.
  
• New construction: The Animal Chow Grinder. This building allows the creation of various Animal Chow. Various Animal Chow is needed to feed fish in the Fish Farms.
  
• New construction: The Seaweed Spinner. The Seaweed Spinner now handles Seaweed recipes, while the Chop Shop has changed to handle Icky fish recipes.
  
• New construction: The Manual Dryer. You can now build a Manual Dryer to dry Wet Wood into Dry Wood. This increases the speed by which you can get Dry Wood in the early game and fixes some of the pacing issues.
  
• Re-balanced the early game to depend much less on passive buildings. The early buildings had a high dependency on waiting, not allowing direct fixing of problems when they arose. Changes to the Desalinator, Chop Shop and more should now relieve that.
  
• Removed constructions: Drying Rack (the one slot version), Solar Still, Fish Sticks.
  
• Behind the Scenes: Changed how items are handled in the game.
  

Hey Drifters,

Another quick hotfix patch, mainly fixing an issue with rescue landmarks that could cause the game to no longer be savable.

[h2]Early Access 0.7.6f3[/h2]

• Fixed issues with the persistence of rescue landmarks, which caused the game to no longer be savable.
  
• Fixed issue where a rescue landmark could be completed multiple times upon saving and loading subsequent to rescuing the drifter.
  
• Fixed issue issue where boats could be left abandoned on landmarks after saving and loading twice while drifters were doing that landmark's tasks.
  
• Fixed issue where using the overlay button to open the Architect Mode could cause the water to remain in Architect Mode even after exiting the mode.
  
• Fixed issue where the energy overlay button did not open the energy overlay.
  
• Fixed issue where clicking on research notifications would no longer open the Tech Tree.
  
• Drifters with items in their inventory no longer become immobilized when storage space is unavailable.
  
• Various small UI improvements.
  

Hey Drifters,

Here's another small hotfix patch for 0.7.6, mainly fixing some additional issues with the Architect Mode not working properly.

[h2]Early Access 0.7.6f2[/h2]

• Fixed issue where Korean symbols defaulted to square symbols.
  
• Fixed issue where Drifter morale icons were not correct in regards to their attributes.
  
• Fixed issue where the Upgrade Tooltip was always the first Upgrade Tooltip shown during that session.
  
• Fixed issue where the Control Mapper data was not saved.
  
• Fixed issue where you could open the SurvivalGuide and Map in the Architect Mode.
  
• Fixed issue where the boatwake would spawn an error, clogging log files.
  
• It is no longer possible to apply in Architect Mode while moving a building.
  
• Various small fixes to landmark salvageables.
  
• Various small UI Improvements.
  

Hey Drifters,

Here's a small hotfix patch for 0.7.6, mainly fixing the issue with Architect Mode not working properly! We're also aware that the tooltips of upgrades can be incorrect due to this update, this will be fixed in the next hotfix patch :)

[h2]Early Access 0.7.6f1[/h2]

• Fixed issue where Walkways were not stored correctly in the Architect Mode.
  
• Fixed issue where Architect Building Menu would remain open when Architect Mode was closed.
  
• Fixed issue where Birdhouse salvaging toggles would not be persisted.
  
• Fixed issue where the Upgrade Tooltip would show an incorrect resource amount.
  
• Fixed issue where some UI elements were cut off in the Building Panels.
  
• Fixed issue where the Fullscreen and Research Panels would not close on cancel.
  
• Fixed issue where 'R' would no longer reset the camera rotation.
  
• UI scale can now be scaled to 0.5.
  
• Draining Water on landmarks now has a drifter animation.
  
• Various small UI improvements.
  

Hey Drifters,
Controller Support is finally here!

We've been hard at work implementing controller support to bring you the most optimal joystick experience. We will continue to improve this in future patches, so give it a spin and share your thoughts!

In addition, we've taken a look at the entire User Interface. Lots of the UI was either temporary or quickly built-up during Early Access. This is no longer the case as all of it has been reworked and mostly finalized :)

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Next up is the Farmer! The food pipeline has been lacking for a while. In the early game, food often came with the downside of pollution. Not being able to fix this doesn't feel great. In the late game, making yummy food is notoriously hard to keep up. At that point, there's a clear need for a farming setup. Thus, we're aiming to fix these aspects with our newest specialist.

[h2]Early Access 0.7.6: Controller Support[/h2]
0.7.6 brings Controller Support to the game! While this is a big feature, the changelog is pretty straightforward:

[h3]Controller Support[/h3]

• Added Controller Support: all features of the game are now playable with controller!
  
• Lots of the user interface was either temporary or quickly built-up during Early Access. This is now reworked and mostly finalized.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed issue where returning to the default view from the map would result in a blue haze due to a rescued drifter not being able to disembark.
  
• Fixed issue where the Salvage Boat Marker could be placed without a boat being built.
  
• Fixed issue where the game would crash when using an incompatible proton version.
  
• Fixed issue where a certain game-state could prevent leaving the World Map.
  
• Fixed issue where salvaging icons on the map would not disappear.
  
• Fixed issue where Scouting Markers on the map would not disappear.
  
• Fixed issue where the game would no longer save because of a deleted boat.
  
• Fixed issue where centering back to the Townheart did not work in the map.
  
• Fixed issue where the portrait of a rerolled drifter would be wrong in the Drifter Overview.
  
• Fixed issue where Upgrade Tooltip would not disappear.
  
• Fixed issue where mouse movement on the map was blocked by open game panels.
  
• You can no longer deactivate Parks, Watchtower, Radio Tower, Architect Station, Town Tugger or the Battery.
  
• Salvage Markers no longer give notifications on finished.
  
• Revised the Architect Mode. Architect Mode no longer creates an 'Architect Save' file.
  
• Landmarks now give an error if you cannot perform any actions.
  
• Updated the cancel behavior so panels are now closed in order when cancelled. ESC now cancels by default.
  
• Birds can now fetch any Flotsam.
  
• Various small bugfixes.