Flotsam News

Hey Drifters!

After an extensive amount of testing on the experimental branch, we've implemented walkway upgrades and fixed a plethora of issues :)

[h2]Early Access 0.7.2p1, 0.7.2p2, 0.7.2p3[/h2]

[h3]Walkways[/h3]

• Walkways can now be upgraded. Plastic -> Wood -> Tiled -> Grass.
  
• Walkway segments now decide cost, have beauty and weight instead of the pontoons.
  
• Balanced costs, beauty and weight of walkways.
  
• Increased beauty of the Townheart 15 -> 25.
  
• Fixed issue with deconstructing walkways resulting in stuck drifters and stuck walkways.
  
• Upgrading Grass walkways will result in a Tiled walkway, and vice versa. This does not cost resources.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed issue where dead drifters would still need a home.
  
• Fixed issue where upgrading a producer with the required items to upgrade would be in that producer's export inventory, would bug out the upgrade process.
  
• Fixed issue where constructions with decoration slot did not have a description.
  
• Fixed issue with wrong amount of water shown in water storages.
  
• Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck when loading a save when his boat was still moored at a landmark.
  
• Fixed issue where drying racks would not always show the resources being dried.
  
• You can no longer right-click to remove water from Solar Stills.
  
• Fixed issue where drifter portraits reverted to their default pose when opening the menu when the game was paused.
  
• Fixed issue where producers did not show an error when their export inventory was unable to be emptied.
  
• Fixed issue where a walkway wouldn't build.
  
• Fixed issue where you could no longer plant any decoration.
  
• Fixed issue where a drifter could get stuck inside plants.
  
• Fixed issue where save file couldn't load due to a broken plant.
  
• Fixed issue causing drifters to get stuck when upgrading a construction.
  

Hey Drifters!
The Engineer update is here!

With the recent addition of parks and flowers, the current build radius quickly got too small. So, with this patch, we're changing up how building space and town movement works! Previously, a radius defined how close your town can move to landmarks, but now it's now based on your town's actual shape. This means that, if you build your town in the shape of a triangle, you'll be moving a triangle around on the map. If you decide to make a squiggly wave of a town, you can slither inbetween landmarks like a snake. All up to you!

In addition, the max building range has been increased from 50 to 150, allowing you to build 9 times as much as before.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
We're still working on the next map updates, forging it into a continuous experience. In the meantime, a Quality of Life: Housing update will add multi-drifter housing and other various improvements.

Enjoy the new update!

[h2]Early Access 0.7.2: The Engineer[/h2]

[h3]The Engineer and Town Movement changes[/h3]

• New Specialist: The Engineer.
  
• Updated town collision to use the town shape as a collider.
  
• Implemented Physics-based town movement.
  
• Maximum build radius increased from 50 to 150.
  
• Town now has a weight cap. Once the cap is reached, you can no longer build.
  
• New construction: Town Tugger. The Town Tugger adds 2000 weight capacity.
  
• The Townheart has 4000 weight capacity.
  
• Weight tiers are now based on a percentage of the total weight capacity.
  
• Removed double-click town movement.
  
• Improved click-and-hold movement to now support reverse movement.
  
• Energy Pole, Walkways and the Town Tugger can be placed regardless of weight capacity.
  
• Town Weight is now calculated using the sum of all constructions, not counting items any longer.
  
• Construction weight is no longer calculated from item weights.
  
• Re-balanced all construction weights.
  
• New Overlay: Weight Overlay. This shows the weight above each construction.
  
• Added a tutorial showing different ways to move the town.
  
• Town movement now has a cooldown when 0 energy is reached.
  
• Electrocrafter, Electric Scrapsmith and Electric Desalinator can only be unlocked if you have an engineer.
  
• The Electrocrafter can only be worked by The Engineer.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed landmark UI error where it would state you're not in swimming range when you needed tools to salvage.
  
• Fixed issue where main menu would not load correctly because PlayerData was empty, resulting in the main menu consisting of only ocean.
  
• Fixed a 4 length tiled walkway sometimes showing as a grassy walkway instead.
  
• Fixed issue that caused a boat to not despawn correctly when moving away from the landmark it was moored.
  
• Fixed issue where closing a landmark panel would spawn an error.
  
• Fixed issue where game would give an error when generating a new world.
  

[h3]Performance[/h3]

• General performance improvements.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Added Engineer and Botanist idle animations.
  
• Various small changes and fixes.
  
• Wood walkways beauty score from 1 to 0.
  
• Grassy and Tiled walkway beauty score from 2 to 1.
  

Hey Drifters,
We've got a new update to test out; The Engineer!
With the recent addition of parks and flowers, the current build radius quickly got too small. So, with this patch, we're changing up how building space and town movement works. Instead of a circle defining how near your town can move to landmarks, it's now based on your town's actual shape. If you build your town in the shape of a triangle, you'll be moving a triangle around on the map. If you decide to make a squiggly wave of a town, you can slither inbetween landmarks like a snake. All up to you!

In addition, the max building range has been increased from 50 to 150, allowing you to build 9 times as much as before.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
We're working towards 'finishing' the work we did with handmade maps, and forging it into a more continuous experience, increasing the map size. We'll be rolling out some tests after this patch goes live.

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]Changelog[/h2]

[h3]Early Access 0.7.2e1: The Engineer[/h3]

[h3]The Engineer and Town movement changes[/h3]

• New Specialist: The Engineer.
  
• Updated town collision to use the town shape as a collider.
  
• Implemented Physics-based town movement.
  
• Maximum build radius increased from 50 to 150.
  
• Town now has a weight cap. Once the cap is reached, you can no longer build.
  
• Townheart adds 3000 weight tugging capacity.
  
• New construction: Town Tugger. The Town Tugger adds 1000 weight capacity.
  
• Weight tiers are now based on a percentage of the total tug capacity.
  
• Removed double-click town movement.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed issue where closing a landmark panel would spawn an error.
  
• Fixed issue where game would give an error when generating a new world.
  

Hey Drifters!
The Botanist update is here!

With this patch we introduce the second specialist: The Botanist.
A specialist who allows you to build parks, plants, and flowers! These have a level of beauty to improve your town's overall beauty score with. A positive beauty score can improve the morale of your drifters, while a negative score will decrease it. Achieving a high beauty score grants even bigger bonuses.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Parks sure take up a lot of space.. So, for the next patch, we're going to expand the construction area!
As you actually travel with your little mobile town, expansion comes with a few "problems". Increasing the build radius from the start can make it difficult to maneuver around, and can even lead to getting stuck surrounded by landmarks. To mitigate this issue, we have been working on some designs and solutions that we are ready to implement in the next patch.

Enjoy the new update!

[h2]Early Access 0.7.1: The Botanist[/h2]

[h3]The Botanist[/h3]

• New Specialist: The Botanist. The Botanist. The Botanist unlocks parks and decorations.
  
• Constructions now have a beauty score.
  
• Added Town Beauty which counts all construction's beauty scores in your town.
  
• Added Town Beauty morale effects. A negative score will decrease morale, while a positive score will increase it, with higher scores granting bigger bonuses.
  
• New constructions: Parks in grid sizes from 1x1 to 5x5.
  
• New construction: Grassy Walkways.
  
• New construction: Tiled walkways.
  
• New decorations: Various new Plants: Sunflowers, Ficus, Flowerbushes, Moneyplants, Monstera, Plantbushes.
  
• New decorations: New Trees: Birch Tree, Pine Tree.
  
• You can now place decorations on decoration slots. The park holds decoration slots equal to it's grid size.
  
• Added a decoration remove tool.
  
• Added new resources: Birch Trees, Bush Seeds, Ficus Seeds, Flower Seeds, Moneyplant Seeds, Monstera Seeds, Pine Tree Seeds and Sunflower Seeds.
  
• New Construction: Seedbank. The Seedbank stores seeds.
  
• Added the Botany task, a drifter doing the Botany task will plant seeds in Parks.
  
• Added new overlay: Beauty Overlay, which shows the beauty score for all constructions.
  
• Landmarks with nature can now contain seeds. These can only be harvested once the Seed Bank is built.
  

[h3]Misc[/h3]

• Split the town building category into Walkables and Town.
  
• Added new resource type: Seeds.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed issue with energy producers not unloading correctly, keeping floaty drifters in the scenes even when loading a new game.
  
• Fixed issues with pathfinding targets that didn't have the correct type.
  
• Various fixes and changes to error logs to more properly debug log files in the future.
  
• Fixed issue with some of the pathfinding targets not referenced correctly.
  
• Fixed issue that would have drifters idle on landmarks for a while when loading a game.
  
• Fixed issue where a rescue project keep the screen blue upon returning from map view.
  
• Fixed issue with inventory filter not showing.
  
• Fixed pathfinding issue that resulted in a node that was found not being the closest.
  
• Fixed issue with upgrade button sometimes having the wrong functionality.
  
• Fixed issue where icons would not look directly at the camera.
  

[h3]Behind the Scenes[/h3]

• Made various design tests to increase the town's buildable radius.
  
• Tested cobblestone/tiled parks for decoration variation.
  
• Adjusted pathfinding so diagonal paths are available.
  
• Implemented a Palette Color Picker.
  

Hey Drifters!
We've got an update to test for you all; The Botanist.
We are trying out a different approach with this patch! The first version is barebones and just introduces the base concept: The Botanist specialist that unlocks parks, plants and flowers to build. These plants don't do anything yet, and are currently free to place to prettify the town.

[h2]What's next?[/h2]
Seeing what everyone creates with them will lead the design forward. We'll drop frequent updates to the branch. Testing out things like large trees that take up more decoration space, beauty score which ups morale, and more. We'll pivot the priorities depending on what everyone likes and wishes to see happen for decoration going forward.

It's in a very early stage so it will only be available on experimental until we get it to where we want it to be.

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]Specialist: Botanist[/h2]

• New constructions: Parks in various grid sizes.
  
• New decorations: Various new Plants: Sunflowers, Ficus, Flowerbushes, Moneyplants, Monstera, Plantbushes.
  
• You can now place decorations on decoration slots. The park holds decoration slots equal to it's grid size. Decorations have no gameplay impact yet.
  
• New constructions: Grassy Walkways. It has no gameplay impact yet.
  
• New Specialist: The Botanist. The Botanist currently only unlocks the new constructions and acts as a regular drifter.
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed issue with energy producers not unloading correctly, keeping floaty drifters in the scenes even when loading a new game.
  
• Fixed issues with pathfinding targets that didn't have the correct type.
  
• Various fixes and changes to error logs to more properly debug log files in the future.
  
• Fixed issue with some of the pathfinding targets not referenced correctly.
  
• Fixed issue that would have drifters idle on landmarks for a while when loading a game.
  
• Cleanup of older scripts.