Flotsam News

Hey drifters!

This updates sees an overhaul on how your saves are structured and displayed. While all of it is in a new jacket, the save files themselves remain largely unchanged, and should not have any issues being loaded.

[h2]Saves[/h2]

• Saves are now stored per town / community in a folder.
  
• If you start your game with the old save file storage, a migration tool will move your saves to the correct folder structure. If there are any communities with the same name, they'll be placed in the same folder. This operation will only move files, not delete them.
  
• Due to the new folder structure, new towns may not have the same name as any saved town.
  
• Added a button to the main menu to continue your latest save.
  
• The load menu now shows all your towns, and the save files related to them.
  
• Instead of showing playtime on a save, a save now displays how many days you've survived instead. Older saves will show 0 days until saved in this version.
  
• Saves now display their size and file name as well.
  
• Added a button to open your save folder in file explorer.
  
• The pause menu now has a load button where you can load up older saves, or a different town.
  
• The pause menu now has a "Save As" button that displays all the saves of your current town. Here you can make a save file, or overwrite an existing save.
  
• The pause menu now has a "Save" button which will overwrite the most recent save of this town.
  
• The save overwrite prompt now warns you which save you're about to overwrite.
  
• Auto-saves are now made at the end of each day, instead of every 10 minutes. A maximum amount can still be set in the options menu, and the oldest auto-save will be overwritten if you exceed the set number.
  

[h2]Changes / Fixes[/h2]

• Updated fonts so they switch colors correctly in different languages.
  
• Fixed save not loading if the resources on a landmark were changed and a drifter was in the process of salvaging it.
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• Reduced fishing time of drifters using the fishing chair.
  
• Slightly reduced drying times for Dried Bottlefish and Dried Unbottled Fish.
  
• Increased amount of starting food.
  
• Polluted drifters now lose all pollution when sleeping through Microbe-Plastics
  

Hey drifters!

The Polluted Fishies are ready to be caught!
This patch updates the food pipeline with the new Polluted Fish and a Pollution Mechanic.

As the first step towards pollution, drifters can now get polluted by eating the various tiers of polluted fish; Bottle Fish, Oil Gobblers and Bloated Flounders. Eating too much will get them ill and bed-ridden for a short amount of time.

Thanks again to everyone who tested it in experimental! Your reports and feedback are always a great help Enjoy everyone and sea you next patch!

[h2]Early Access 0.4.1: Polluted Fishies[/h2]
[h3]New Pollution Mechanic[/h3]

• Edible items now have a pollution amount.
  
• Drifters can get gradually polluted.
  
• Drifters that reach full pollution contract a disease.
  
• Added disease: Microbe-Plastics. Drifters that contracted Microbe-Plastics will be bedridden for a duration.
  
• Pollution is shown on drifter overview portraits.
  
• Items that are polluted will have a color that reflects how polluting they are.
  
• Added a survival guide page on Pollution & Disease.
  

[h3]New Polluted Fishies[/h3]

• Added three new polluted fishes: Bottle Fish, Oil Gobbler & Bloated Flounder.
  
• Fishing now fishes up random fish. The odds of fishing better fish will increase as you clean up the ocean.
  
• Added Seaweed Sheet, which is used as an ingredient in certain food recipes.
  
• Added the Fishing Chair, where drifters can fish in the town. They'll fish up any fish in the swimming radius.
  
• Added the Unbottler, where bottled fish can be unbottled to reduce pollution. This building requires energy and has the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Fish.
  
• The Chop Shop no longer has the Bird Chow recipe, but it did gain the following recipe:
  
• Seaweed Sheet.
  
• Added the Fishwasher, where polluted fish can be cleaned and prepped. It has the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Filet.
  
• Gobbler Filet.
  
• Flounder Filet.
  
• Bird Chow.
  
• Re-introduced the Fish Sticks. It has the following recipes:
  
• Dried Bottle Fish.
  
• Dried Unbottled Fish.
  
• The recipes in the Fish Kabob have been changed to the following recipes:
  
• Grilled Gobbler.
  
• Grilled gobbler Filet.
  
• Grilled Flounder.
  
• The recipes in the Food Truck have been changed to the following recipes:
  
• Unbottled Roll.
  
• Gobbler Roll.
  
• Quarter Flounder.
  
• Temporarily removed the Fishing Hut.
  
• The amount of pollution on food can be found in the item tooltip.
  

[h3]Research[/h3]

• Certain research is now locked behind other research.
  
• Slightly reduced cost of Research Station, as it comes into play sooner now.
  
• Empty categories no longer show in research panel.
  
• Chop Shop, Battery, Scrapsmith and Watchtower are now behind research.
  
• Added research images to more construction research projects.
  

[h3]Balance Tweaks[/h3]

• Weight tiers now affect energy requirement more gradually then before.
  
• Energy mileage has been increased which means less energy needed for the same distances.
  
• Reduced amount of food you start with.
  
• Reduced cost of Energy Pole.
  
• Reduced metal cost of the Seaweed Grower.
  

[h3]Performance Optimizations[/h3]

• Reduced memory allocation of certain UI elements. This should reduce stuttering.
  
• Reduced memory allocation of animations. This should reduce stuttering.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where the drying rack would work at twice the speed it should.
  
• Fixed Captain's Log not showing the energy production and consumption correctly.
  
• Fixed error spam when a building with inventory visuals got deconstructed or upgraded.
  
• Fixed fuel requirement still showing in the research window.
  
• Fixed description of drifters producing energy.
  
• Fixed an issue where fish would show in salvage markers.
  
• Fixed an issue where the movement button on the map would not update when the set path became available.
  
• Fixed research panel not updating the next available research when research completed.
  
• Fixed research panel unlock button not updating when research was completed.
  
• Fixed warnings not disappearing when a drifter died.
  
• Fixed battery meters not updating on load.
  
• Fixed an issue where drifters would swap between electricty generators every 30 seconds.
  
• Fixed storages not being able to accept newly added items.
  
• Fixed an issue where the walkway segment status would throw an error and not update to the correct value.
  
• Fixed some Chinese characters showing as boxes.
  

[h3]Misc.[/h3]

• Added generator storage visual.
  
• Changed item color backgrounds: Polluted items are now purple. Rare and Crafted items are now the same green.
  
• Updated the item tooltips improve color background visibility, and tweaked layouts to fit them.
  
• New icon backgrounds added to landmark, marker, production panels.
  
• The item tooltip now shows the weight of an item.
  
• Added movement cost back to the map.
  
• The movement button on the map now always shows, but will be disabled when you cannot move to a set point.
  
• Added warning for hunger / thirst.
  
• Drifters will now always prioritize the Manual-Powered Generator over the Townheart Crank.
  
• The salvaging attribute will now change the priority of landmark salvaging as well, instead of only changing the priority of the salvaging assignment.
  

[h3]Behind the Scenes[/h3]

• Created a manual world editor to provide testing grounds for future patches.
  
• Added functionality to add images in text, which will be used for clarity in the future.
  
• Changed the way we store item information in the back-end, reducing the amount of bugs around drifters not eating.
  

[h3]Experimental Changes[/h3]
For those who played the experimental build, here are the changes from the latest experimental build that are not mentioned in the full patch notes:

• Added remaining storage visuals for certain fishes.
  
• Fixed Unbottler missing an energy overlay.
  
• Fixed Unbottled Roll referencing a missing term.
  
• Fixed daily report not counting consumed water.
  
• Fixed old saves with Nibble Fish breaking workshops.
  
• Fixed Unbottled Fish & Unbottled Filet having swapped resource visuals.
  
• Fixed plastic counter not displaying the right amount of Plastic Waste.
  

Hey drifters!

We have another update ready to test for you all: Polluted Fishies.
This patch brings a shift in the food pipeline with polluted fish and a pollution mechanic.

As the first step towards pollution, drifters can now get polluted by eating the various tiers of polluted fish; Bottle Fish, Oil Gobblers and Net Fish. Eating too much will get them ill and bed-ridden for a short amount of time.

We wanted to get these changes out to you as soon as possible in order to gather feedback.
As such, the feature can be accompanied by bugs.

We invite you all to test this update and give us your feedback.

When bugs occur, provide as much information as possible to help us resolve these faster!
Read here how to submit and track the current bugs in the game.

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.

Enjoy the new update!

[h2]New Pollution Mechanic[/h2]

• Edible items now have a pollution amount.
  
• Drifters can get gradually polluted.
  
• Drifters that reach full pollution contract a disease.
  
• Added disease: Microbe-Plastics. Drifters that contracted Microbe-Plastics will be bedridden for a duration.
  
• Pollution is shown on drifter overview portraits.
  

[h2]Polluted Fishies[/h2]

• Added three new polluted fishes: Bottle Fish, Oil Gobblers and Net Fish.
  
• Added the Fishing Chair, where drifters can fish in the town. They'll fish up any fish in the swimming radius.
  
• Added the Fishwasher, where polluted fish can be cleaned and prepped.
  
• Added new recipes: Dried Bottle Fish, Unbottled Fish, Dried Unbottled Fish, Gobbler Chops, Grilled Gobbler, Net Fish Filet and Baked Net Fish.
  
• Re-introduced the Fish Sticks. The Fish Sticks now dry Bottle Fishes and Unbottled Fishes.
  
• Temporarily removed the Fishing Hut.
  

[h2]Changes / Fixes[/h2]

• Weight tiers now affect energy requirement more gradually then before.
  
• Energy mileage increased. Less energy needed for the same distances.
  
• Bird Chow is now made at the Fishwasher.
  
• Fixed an issue where the drying rack would work at twice the speed it should.
  
• The item tooltip now shows the weight of an item.
  
• Fixed Captain's Log not showing the energy production and consumption correctly.
  
• Certain research is now locked behind other research.
  
• Empty categories no longer show in research panel.
  
• Fixed error spam when a building with inventory visuals got deconstructed or upgraded.
  
• Added generator storage visual.
  
• Fixed fuel requirement still showing in the research window.
  
• Reduced amount of food you start with.
  
• Chop Shop, Battery, Scrapsmith and Watchtower are now behind research.
  
• Fishing now fishes up random fish.
  
• Slightly reduced cost of Research Station.
  
• Reduced cost of Energy Pole.
  
• Added research images to more construction research projects.
  
• Updated the item tooltips improve color background visibility, and tweaked layouts to fit them.
  
• Changed item color backgrounds: Polluted items are now purple. Rare and Crafted items are now the same green.
  

[h2]Behind the Scenes[/h2]

• Created a manual world editor to provide testing grounds for future patches.
  
• Added functionality to add images in text, which will be used for clarity in the future.
  

[h2]Early Access 0.4.0p2[/h2]

• Fixed the inefficient grid warning not having a proper tooltip set.
  
• Fixed the gears in the Research Station panel not stopping when it is not researching.
  
• Fixed the upgrade button's arrow being greyed out even when the button could be pressed.
  
• Fixed the Seaweed visual growth not fully growing.
  
• Fixed inefficient energy grid warning not popping up when the gamespeed was paused.
  

[h2]Early Access 0.4.0p1[/h2]

• Energy producers in an energy grid will now only produce enough energy to match the energy consumption.
  
• Certain energy producers now get priority over others. This means if you have a lot of Solar Panels, your other energy buildings will not turn on until the energy grid requires more energy.
  
• Drifters will now try to prioritize the Manual-Powered Generator over the Townheart's crank.
  
• The path on the world map will display how far you can go with your current energy amount.
  
• Added a tooltip to the Next Region button to indicate that you need a certain amount of energy before you can move to the next region.
  
• Fixed passive energy generator overlay not correctly reflecting if it was working or not.
  
• The subjects in the survival guide are now scrollable.
  
• The gears around the research in the Research Station window will now reflect if the building is currently researching.