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DevBlog #58 | Foundry Fridays: Mod Support

Hello everyone!

For this Foundry Friday I wanted to talk about the upcoming Steam Workshop support along with a some of the modding tools that we will be releasing in the next update. But before we get into the details, there's one 'mod' that we've made to the Foundry team that I'm extremely excited to share with you...

We are extremely proud and honored to have Erkle join the Foundry Team! For those of you who've been following the modding channel on discord, you'll already be aware of all the cool mods Erkle has been creating for the game such as the tweaks and blueprint systems. Given how familiar
Erkle is with modding Foundry, teaming up just made sense. Now lets talk about some of the modding tools we're adding this update...

[h2]Steam Workshop Support[/h2]
The first thing to mention is that we're adding Steam Workshop support to Foundry. This means you can now share/download all your favourite mods through the workshop. There's also now an in game mod menu where you can manage your mods:


[h2]Game Tweaks[/h2]
The next thing to talk about is that we've(Erkle) integrated Erkle's game tweaking system directly into the Foundry. Some of you who've been following the modding channel on the discord have already been using this sytem to make tweaks of your own. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the tweak system, it lets you create/edit recipes, research, items, machines etc just by creating a few simple text files. Here is an example of a tweak that changes the machinery parts crafting recipe so that it now produces 4 items instead of 1:

CraftingRecipe:
_base_mic_i:
output_data:
- identifier: _base_mic_i
amount: 4


[h2]Foundry Mod Kit(Early Access)/Foundry Asset Packs[/h2]
The last thing two things I wanted to talk about are The Foundry Mod Kit and the Foundry Asset Packs. The Foundry Mod Kit is a Unity project which lets you bring in your own new assets such as new textures/models/materials into the game. The Foundry Asset Packs allow you to download Foundry game assets into the Mod Kit to use as a template which you can then change/replace/kit bash as you please.

Here's an example where I've downloaded the Assembler I Asset Pack into Unity:



And then with the help of our art director(Jason), we created a new Erkle themed assembler called the ErkleFab. The ErkleFab uses new materials/model/animations while still reusing the screen panels from the base game:



And here it is in game:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Here's another example I used to test the mod kit where I've taken a modular sci fi base building kit from the Unity Asset Store and turned it into a mod. You'll notice that the sci fi lights actually affect the voxel lighting system and the new sci fi doors have new models/materials while still using the existing door switches from the base game:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The SciFi base building kit, the ErkleFab along with many of Erkle's other mods such as the blueprint mod will be available on the Steam Workshop as part of this upcoming update.

A big thanks goes to Zirus, Jason and Erkle who've done a lot of work to put this whole system together! We're all very excited to see what kind of mods you guys create!

Thanks for listening!
-Cheerio

[h3]Check out the roadmap to find out about other planned features![/h3]

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DevBlog #57 | Foundry Fridays: Screen Panel Pass

Greetings Founders! I’m trying really hard to make that stick

We have been hard at work on the next update, tinkering away on systems, recipes and buildings - as well as a few surprises. But, I wanted to take some time to show how we have addressed a very common piece of usability feedback, the almighty screen panels.


[h2]The Problem[/h2]
As you know, Foundry features a world space UI on many of our machines, adding a sense of immersion and context as you interact with these devices. It’s a great mechanism for allowing you fine grained control of a building, even as your factory grows in complexity. We have done a ton of work to make these world space interfaces performant and scale with your builds- but in many dense configurations (or when playing on small screens like the Steam Deck) it can be difficult to both read and interact with these panels. Even more common, is that a friendly loader blocks you from getting right up against the panel.


[h2]The Solution[/h2]
It’s hard to take credit for this solution, because it was directly suggested numerous times in feedback reports and on the game's official discord. When looking at a screen panel you can now press interact (E) to open up a screen space representation of the UI. This UI is consistently placed in the center of your screen and does not block other screen space UI interactions, like moving around your inventory.



This new UI space panel has much larger, more readable, text. Your mouse opens at the center of the screen each time, and the UI is consistently placed/sized, which means configuration movements will be consistent between panels. And for those prone to it, you also have a locked camera rotation helping reduce nausea.


Right now we have the interaction set so you need to look at the panel to interact with it. We did this because a few buildings have multiple panels, but it may be possible to tweak the system so you can interact with the panel simply by targeting the larger building. We are still unsure if the context of having interacted directly with the panel is worth the loss in usability of being able to sloppily interact with the building. I’m really looking forward to hearing different thoughts on how this should be rolled out.



[h2]Quality Of Life[/h2]
We have received tons of feedback on how to make the minute to minute experience of Foundry better, but we are always looking for more. What’s the one thing you wish we would fix/improve/rework in Foundry to have a better time? Let us know in the comments or on the official discord.

Cheers,
-Mark

[h3]Check out the roadmap to find out about other planned features![/h3]

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DevBlog #56 | Foundry Fridays: More Content Previews

Hello everyone!

For today’s FOUNDRY Friday we continue to look into some of the smaller things we’re working on. We are also working on larger features, but it’s too early to talk about them. However at the end of the post I’ll share a work in progress screenshot of a larger new system and it’s for you to guess what it could be.


[h3]New Colorizeable Doors[/h3]
We have done a polishing pass on all three doors to make them look better. On top of that we have added color tool support so that they fit better together with the other decor pieces.


[h3]New Lights[/h3]
We have added two new lights. One is a smaller light pole, it becomes available after completing the first “Lights” research.


The second light is a late game light, which does not require power because of its in-built fuel rod and energy cells. It’s more expensive, but it’s great for lighting places that have no power available.


[h3]Art: Escalators + Liquid Cargo Ship[/h3]
In the past FOUNDRY Friday we have mentioned liquid cargo ships and faster escalators, and today we’re ready to share pictures of the finished models and textures.


[h3]What are we working on?[/h3]
Here is a picture of a new system that is work in progress and I’m not going to further comment on it. Feel free to speculate about it until we will reveal it soon - maybe on the next FOUNDRY Friday.


This wraps up today's post. I'm looking forward to reading your guesses about the mystery screenshot above.

Until next time,
- mrmcd

[h3]Check out the roadmap to find out about other planned features![/h3]

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Hotfix [2024-06-26]

Hello everyone,

New Hotfix out now:

Changes:
  • Cargo ships do no longer consume power while idling in queue. (Existing cargo ships will only be fixed after rebuilding the pad.)

Fixes:
  • Fixed a bug that caused some conveyor balancers to stop working after loading a game.
  • Fixed an issue causing coked ignium to not show up as a filterable element on the filtered loaders.
  • Reduced memory usage when autosaving which should fix some crashes that were occuring when autosaving on dedicated servers/steam decks.
  • Launching the dedicated server through the Steam client should no longer cause the main Foundry game to look like it's running.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when toggling day/night using the camera tools when connected to a dedicated server.
  • Improved dedicated server save file transfer speed.


Have a nice day!

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Listen to the Official FOUNDRY Soundtrack!


Hello everyone!

We are happy to share that you can now listen to FOUNDRY soundtrack not only in the game, but also on our Official YouTube channel!

Enjoy the chill beats of the game together with the beautiful landscapes and factories anywhere, anytime, and don't forget to tell us what you think:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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