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DevBlog #98 | Foundry Fridays: More Quality Of Life

Hello, dear robots!

In this episode of Foundry Fridays I am excited to introduce… myself. My name is Omi, I recently joined the team to support all things game design.

We are currently baking Update 4, and besides new content like trains we are also working on some Quality of Life features and various improvements to the early game. You might have already heard about the Info Overlay (U key) or the screen panel remote access (E key) in the last Foundry Friday episode.


There are more things in the oven! For example, a remote controllable construction drone which should make early game building more comfortable. However, I won’t be talking much about it today (oh wow, spoilers!), but what I’d like to mention in this episode are a couple other changes we’ve made recently.

[h3]Drone Miners[/h3]
With Update 4, Drone Miners will have a fixed base output of 60 ore per minute, and the entire ore patch will be considered "in range", meaning that drones will mine until the last bit while maintaining the stated output. Of course, the upgrades and bonuses to production will still be there.


The Control Panel will also show how much ore is left in this patch. Truly, a revolution! Some other elements were removed to make the panel easier to read.

[h3]Tooltips, inventory and crafting UI update[/h3]
Another Quality of Life change that should streamline the planning and designing stage is an update to item tooltips. First, recipe tooltips will display production per minute instead of time needed per item.


Second, item tooltips will have an expanded mode (ALT key) which allows you to immediately bring up the crafting recipe.


As a small bonus, inventory and crafting action hotkeys will be always displayed on the little panel to the right instead of being hidden behind tooltips.

There is more to come from where this came from, so stay tuned and don’t forget to oil your joints!

-Omi



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DevBlog #97 | Foundry Fridays: Info Overlay

Today, I’m excited to introduce a brand-new tool we’re working on to help you debug your factories more easily: the Info Overlay.

Once released with the next update, you will be able to toggle the overlay at any time by pressing U, and it looks something like this:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
With the overlay enabled, you can instantly see what a building is producing from any side — no more running around trying to reach the screen panel:


We’ve also added new pulsing status indicators, so you can quickly spot when something isn’t quite right. And if you want the details, the tooltip in the bottom-right will list the exact issues:


Whether a machine is power strained, has no recipe configured or a drone miner has run out of ore, you’ll now be able to tell from a distance without needing to inspect the screen panel.

On top of that, we’ve made interacting with buildings much more convenient: you can now open a building’s screen panel in full screen by pressing E from any side of the machine:


This means you can inspect and control your factory faster and more comfortably, even in dense builds.

Right now, the overlay supports some of the most common machines and warning/error states — and we’ll keep expanding it over time based on your feedback.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think.

Looking forward to your thoughts,
Yog



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DevBlog #96 | Foundry Fridays: Trains on Experimental

Hello everyone!

It’s been about two weeks since we launched Update 3 “Xeno Tech” and I wanted to take the time to say thanks to everyone who played the game so far. Many of you came back for the new content, and feedback has been very positive. We’re really happy to see the Steam reviews trending upwards and we will continue to work hard to improve FOUNDRY!


[h3]Trains now on the Experimental Branch[/h3]
As some of you might already know, the Trains are now available on the experimental branch. We have quietly rolled them out on our Discord during the past two weeks to get some initial feedback and find the most serious bugs. It’s a big feature and we knew there would be bugs, so we didn’t want to let everyone know at the same time in case there are some bigger roadblocks. But now it’s time to let everyone know!

We have set up a Steam discussion explaining how to get access and what’s important to know:
Link to Steam Discussion

I’ll recap the most important points:
  • Savegame Compatibility: While we will try, it is not guaranteed that saves on the experimental branch will never break since we’re giving access early while the feature is actively under development. Never overwrite your current Update 3 savegame. Ultimately when Update 4 launches, it will be compatible with Update 3 saves.
  • Feature Preview: This version is a feature preview, we haven’t added surrounding content yet. The trains are not part of the research tree, but immediately unlocked. We haven’t added any new content or made any changes to integrate trains better to the core gameplay loop.
  • Work In Progress: This time we’re giving access to the experimental branch way earlier than with Update 3, so expect things to be less polished.

We’re looking forward to your feedback! It’s important to get trains right and every bit of feedback helps.

Enjoy trains and see you next time,
-mrmcd

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Update 3 Hotfix #1 now live!

[h3]Update 3 Hotfix #1 Patch Notes[/h3]
  • Fixed an error that could occur when starting a dedicated server
  • Fixed an error that could occur when loading certain save files
  • Fixed an issue where the game would no longer warn the player if their graphics card was too old to run foundry
  • Fixed an issue where the game would no longer warn the player that their C++ runtime might be out of date



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DevBlog #95 | Foundry Fridays: Path to Update 4

Hello everyone!

Just two days ago Update 3 “Xeno Tech” was released and we hope everyone is enjoying the new features. Naturally we’re now mostly focused on reacting to feedback and bug reports, but thanks to Update 3 being on the experimental branch for about 6 weeks this should be a smooth launch - fingers crossed!


[h3]What’s next?[/h3]
Next up for us is of course Update 4, which will center around Trains, the new Power Plant and more Science Pack 5 content. On top of that we will look at improving some of the existing features.

We don’t have a public timeline yet, but given we have already put in quite a bit of work on some of the Update 4 features we expect the time between Update 3 and 4 to be shorter than between the recent big updates.

Meanwhile the public experimental branch for trains is on track to arrive next week. Stay tuned for more information.


[h3]Which parts of FOUNDRY need improvement?[/h3]
I would like to use today's blog post to start a conversation about which existing features of FOUNDRY could need improvement the most.

I’ll start with an example, for me personally modular buildings are high up that list. The general idea of large buildings that allow for different configurations, built by the construction industry seems full of potential and fun, but I don’t think we have managed to make those super interesting in terms of gameplay. I don’t have an immediate suggestion for improvement, but it’s certainly something I will spend some time on in the upcoming weeks. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject!

Every suggestion is welcome. Please let us know in the Steam comments below.

Enjoy the weekend,
-mrmcd



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