The Sapling News

So far, species classification was based on the features of an organism. Simply put, if a plant evolved a new type of leaf, or an animal evolved a new type of fin, the game decided this was a new species, without giving it further thought. For longer simulations, this resulted in hundreds of thousands of species (99% of which only had 1 organism before going extinct), eating up RAM and disk space.

Now, instead, the game only considers a subpopulation of a species a new separate species if it's large enough. This solves many of the tech problems and seems to be more intuitive to players, but also brings new challenges. Most notably, large species might have one or more subspecies that are different from the main species in one way or another, but not large enough to justify branching it off; think of a single stemmed plant having a grass subspecies, or a herbivore species with a subspecies that also eats meat.

• Fixed huge memory leak in the planet editor, causing the game to crash during longer sessions (thanks TheSpaceCore69, Feather!)
  
• Fixed huge memory leak when drawing statistics, causing the game to crash during longer sessions (thanks Deven Lobua!)
  
• Moving the secondary color sliders in the animal editor now updates the colors in real-time
  
• Removed a very frequent log message when (auto)saving which made it very slow
  

• Making upright bodies longer now makes it longer on top (instead of at the bottom)
  
• Newly extended torso position is now closer to the cursor
  
• Extending the torso position after adding sessile foot no longer results in illegal animals (thanks theGreyHanded, Flyer24!)
  
• Animals with a sessile foot are now always sessile, even if it also has fins (thanks igloo!)
  

• 'Escape' can now also be used to leave animal placement mode
  
• The main button to skip the intro is now space (but x also still works)
  
• Fixed UI glitch after doing escape + click in the species list view
  

• The mechanism that moves sessile feet to the side of the animal if mutated into something else sometimes also triggered when it shouldn't, resulting in illegal animals (thanks MarcoDBAA, Ed Balls!)
  
• When loading scenarios, the climate zone information was not provided, preventing loading scenarios at all (thanks Bird!)
  

• Mutated body parts no longer retain the descriptive label (when hovering them in the editor) of their ancestors (thanks TaterTot!)
  
• 'Montane' climate zone boundary now depends on ocean height (thanks Slurp, Chared!)
  
• Fixed maximum population size statistics for species
  
• Fixed wrong volcano texture after eruption
  

[h3]I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or [email protected].[/h3]

This is the first time the new movement update is available to everyone, regardless of whether you chose the beta. A quick overview of all new features:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This is what has changed since the movement update patch last week.

• When changing posture of adults, and juveniles have the same posture, also change it for the juvenile... fixes unexpected behavior and ALSO prevents crashes related to accessories on top (thanks, Shemariguess, al!)
  
• For juveniles, have the handle at the correct position also when the posture is different from the adult form
  
• Fixed handle initially not responding when looking at the juvenile form of an animal
  
• Made sure the handle is at the correct position when entering the editor
  

• Fixed not being able to highlight a volcano directly after creating it
  
• Moving a volcano now also moves the hole (thanks TaterTot, Mike the Drawman!)
  
• Fixed problem with hability calculations that caused volcanoes to be linked to existing landmass indices (thanks TaterTot!)
  
• Volcanoes that were removed by the player can no longer erupt (thanks TaterTot!)
  
• Volcanoes no longer remain highlighted after you selected which one should erupt
  

• In the plant editor during the scenarios, the correct plant traits are unlocked also when mutating a plant two times in a row (thanks TaterTot!)
  
• Sandbox mode now requires finishing the first scenario again
  
• You can no longer click and play scenarios that are not unlocked yet (thanks VoidHydra!)
  
• The 'cool completionist' achievement is now only awarded when all scenarios are actually beaten (thanks VoidHydra!)
  
• Fixed the 'Courageous Carnivore' achievement never firing (thanks al!)
  

• Disaster panel: moisture button no longer influences ocean moisture level
  
• When randomly generating a planet, gravity is now also randomized instead of always being super strong (thanks TaterTot!)
  

• Made sleeping and giving birth animations slightly less weird for upright animals (thanks Parrokeet!)
  

[h3]I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or [email protected].[/h3]

• Added arm swing animation for animals with arms
  
• Upright bipeds no longer have their feet clip through the ground when placed
  
• Upright bipeds no longer slowly sink into the ground when walking
  
• Prevented walking animation problems for creatures with limbs that do not walk, like fins or arms
  

• Revised walking animation parameters for the 'long but lightweight leg' and 'sturdy' limbs
  
• Remodeling the hopping leg to better work with the procedural walking system
  
• Improved special animation for 'water surface walker' (thanks Komodo, TealClaw, Jupiter hater!)
  
• Avoid some weird looking idle animations for animals with arthropod legs
  
• Created special dying, sleeping and egg laying animations for animals with arthropod legs
  

• Climate zones are now updated when a season changes mid simulation
  
• When looking at the statistics overlay while the season changes, the terrain no longer becomes solid white or black (thanks Izaiah Bradford!)
  

• In the planet editor, when you start drawing land on top of an existing mountain, the new land will now be even higher than that mountain so you can see what you are drawing (thanks UltraNeonGodPet!)
  
• Fungi are now repositioned if you change the height of a continent (thanks Shemariguess!)
  

• Made greenhouse scenario way easier by removing the whole carnivore requirement
  

[h3]I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or [email protected].[/h3]

• Tested and rebalanced all scenarios to work with the new features of the movement update
  
• Redesigned the soil statistic button to have a planet icon
  
• Added new terrain overlay steepness stats and climate zones to all scenarios
  
• For all scenarios, added new limbs to 'anchored body parts' (which don't require mutations to reach) wherever it made sense
  
• Prevented plants spreading all of their seeds in the beginning of their life (which could happen with large seed surpluses that the disaster scenario requires)
  

• Linked the new random terrain generator to the challenge generator
  
• Made the 'ocean floor walker' leg always unlocked, to give players easy access to the new arthropod limbs if they want to
  
• Disabled terrain editing tools
  
• Fixed the upper half of the 'let's go' button not registering clicks
  

• Drawing stats no longer causes the game to freeze (thanks, Jupiter hater!)
  
• Switching to smaller map sizes while in manual stats mode no longer causes the game to freeze (thanks, Jupiter hater!)
  
• Meteorites craters now appear on the correct location (thanks, Jupiter hater, azul1462, Col. caboose!)
  
• Hovering continents is now (much) more precize
  
• Volcano smoke now appears above the volcanoes
  
• Highlighting continents now continues to work after editing the terrain
  

• Revised walking animation parameters for the 'hoof', 'webbed', 'sturdy walker', 'very sturdy' limb, 'hangs upside down', 'lightweight webbed foot' and 'sharp talons' limbs
  
• Remodeled 'fast two-toed runner' to better work with the walking animation
  

• You can no longer by accident attach the sessile foot to a slot that is not the bottom one
  
• Fixed how animation bones are connected for upright animals
  

• Fixed the limb stats in the animal editor showing the max weight for walking where it should show max weight for climbing (thanks UltraNeonGodPet!)
  
• Made fade animation more robust to edge cases
  
• Made it possible to select continents very far away from the camera mid simulation
  

• 
  

[h3]I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or [email protected].[/h3]

The new version of the button generates small and large landmasses at random, using the new continent system. They can be moved and changed by the player. Most of the other random changes (like temperature, moisture, rings, etc) could be reused from the previous iteration of this button, but they're now also linked to the climate zone system so you can quickly see what has been generated for you.

• Fixed 'lightweight foot', 'fast hopping' and 'hopping' limbs not showing the hopping animation
  
• Made it possible for some (fast) legs to lift the feet higher, so it looks more like running
  
• Remodeled 'clawed, walking on toes' limb to better work with with the walking animation system
  
• Made it less likely that legs move in the incorrect order for any nr of legs (2, 4, 6, etc)
  
• Polished walking animation settings for 'knee', 'besides the body', 'long toes', 'mountain climbing hoof' and 'adhesive pads' limbs
  
• Revised arthropod walking limb animation bones to work better with walking animation
  

• Fixed mouths on top or near the bottom duplicating, causing illegal animals (thanks theGreyHanded!)
  
• Fixed sessile animal's diets not being tracked (thanks Ultraneongodpet!)
  
• Made it so that the sessile foot mutate into jets (at random) it also moves the jets to the side of the animal (thanks Ultraneongodpet!)
  

• Fixed exterminating alga spores
  

[h3]I often forget to read comments below release notes, so if you have questions, suggestions or bug reports, feel free to reach out via the Steam forums or [email protected].[/h3]