The Sapling News

• Added neotony, a special mutation where the adult stage takes on the characteristics of the juvenile stage
  
• Added a 25% chance that some mutations are only applied to juveniles
  
• Babies that have a different sex than their parent will no longer copy their statistics from the parent
  
• It's now possible that only the juveniles (and not the adults) have a shell or vice versa
  
• Fixed a bug where manually changing the juvenile stage color also changed the adult stage color
  

• When adding a new sex, its offspring sex distribution is divided over all available sexes by default
  
• When removing a sex, any references to it in the offspring sex distribution of other sexes are automatically removed
  
• When adding sex B for the first time, sex A will already have its distribution set to 50% sex A, 50% sex B by default.
  
• Added a deathcause type for when organisms died of old age, but without reproducing
  
• Individuals that can only reproduce sexually will no longer reproduce asexually
  
• To make obligate sexual reproduction feasible, make it possible to mate (and store sperm) already before being ready to give birth
  
• Fixed a glitch that occurred when two sexes of the same species had different limbs
  
• Fixed sex distribution chances: you no longer only see the first two sexes
  
• Fixed a bug where the game showed the animal model of the wrong sex for children of manually placed animals
  

• Added mutation of the secondary color
  
• All traits in the mating tab now also mutate at random
  
• Body parts will now also mutated for the non-default sex (sex B-F)
  
• Bodyparts that have been upgraded or downgraded will now have the correct values for new statistics like attractiveness, defense, etc.
  
• Sexes can now also be added and removed at random
  
• Limited the enormous list of useless instincts after running random mutations for a while
  
• Fixed a crash when the mutation system was touching diet
  
• Fixed a crash when the main sex lost a torso part while another sex still had body parts there
  
• Fixed a crash when mutating an animal with 6 sexes
  

• Species taken from the archive no longer get a new random name, but keep the name they had in the archive
  
• Widely different sexes of one species will no longer be classified as separate species
  
• Evolving a new sex is now a reason to be classified as a separate species
  
• When creating a new animal classified to be part of an existing species (because it is so similar), that species' statistics will now be updated to match the ones of the more recent creation
  

• Changed the default secondary color to something brighter, so bioluminescence in various bodyparts is visible without tweaking sliders
  
• The primitive stigma pollination organ can handle higher temperatures
  
• Fixed glitch with illegal fruit shapes in the plant editor
  
• Added support for comments in the statistics YAML files
  

• The plant cell requirements panel now also uses the new nutrients icon
  
• Fixed accidentally going into the organism detail view (zooming into a plant, for example) when trying to place fungi
  

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

Work on the species detail view:
* It now support renaming species * It now supports fungi!
* The options buttons no longer block the family tab
* Fixed a bug where the statistic dots were the wrong color

Implemented spore distribution methods (wind, animal touch, raindrops) for fungi:
* Fungi dependent on animal touch will no longer spread to areas without animals
* Fungi dependent on raindrops will no longer spread to areas without moisture
* Fungi that depend on wind and are close to the ground will no longer spread to new areas, so always have an expected offspring count of 1
* Fixed the game glitching when fungi had a 'spore travel distance' of 0
* Fungi that are not dependent on wind, will now always travel a minimum distance of 2

Fixes relating to editing and mutating organisms:
* When mutating a fungus, the correct buttons are now preselected
* Various fixes to fungus organism counts, so the game knows when the player is allowed to mutate
* When not in the sandbox mode, non available options in the fungus editor are now locked
* The correct sleep patterns and egg types are selected now when you edit or mutate an animal
* The correct egg types and skin types are unlocked now when you mutate an animal
* It no longer shows two locks on the land carapaces
* You can no longer unlock body parts by going to the juvenile stage and back

Finalized rough version of body part stats:
* Implemented defense for shells
* Filled out everything for attractive body parts
* Improvements to eye statistics, as suggested by Did/ULTRANEON
* Removed incorrect carnivory from the 'proto petal' flower (https://the-sapling-encyclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Bud_Flower)

Improvements for the organism builders:
* Improved positioning of fungus caps when there is no stipe (stem)
* Improved positioning of animal bodyparts that are not in the center subslot

Fixes to the editors:
* Fixes rotating with arrow keys for plant and animal editors
* Added rotating with arrow keys for alga en fungus editors
* Sliders that can be disabled are no longer whited out when enabled
* You can no longer invert day/night/twilight indicators in the day night period slider in the planet editor

Designed new icons:
* Added a button for the merch web shop in the main menu
* Added a new 'nutrients' icon to the soil stat dropdown

Fixed bugs in the world view:
* Fixed a crash when adding animals from the archive in the daily challenge
* Fixed the game crashing when there was seagrass along the edge of the map
* Fixed a missing material to pipe leaves (shown a bright pink) when placed in the world

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

The editor camera is no longer extremely slow at low quality settings! Low camera settings often caused high FPS, and in some situations the camera didn't respond correctly to this and slowed down; my assumption that I had made it independent of FPS was incorrect... but not anymore!

Work on fungi:
* Mushroom stipes (stems) now have a more realistic shape and longer ones have rings
* Random mutations have been added
* You can now filter by fungi in the species list view
* Mushrooms no longer all face the same way (random rotation)
* The bulldozer tool now also removes fungi (and deep sea animals)
* If you click a fungus to zoom in, it now shows information about this organism
* Decreased chance fungi and plants grow in the exact same location
* Added the number of fungus species to the time skip view
* Fixed a bug where opening the fungus archive directly after creating a world would cause the game to glitch

Work on the fungus editor:
* Added a new tab with bioluminescence and poison settings
* The red handle to scale the cap is now always at the same height as the cap
* Large cup fungi no longer block the red handles in the editor
* Fixed a bug where the starter cap had its minimum temperature decrease (instead of increased) when the cap was scaled up
* Polished the scale and positions of various UI elements

Tweaking the look of twilight and night mode in the editors:
* Twilight mode now relies more heavily on color correction post processing (as opposed to just changing the background color)
* Fixed over the top bloom effects caused by counter shading and back lighting
* Added a twilight and night mode to the fungus editor
* Also unlock the secondary color sliders if an animal has bioluminescence (as you need them to change the light color)

Entering more (rough versions of) body part statistics:
* Carnivorous plant body parts
* Mouths
* Limbs
* Mushroom caps
* Attractive body parts (unfinished)

More work on species labels shown when hovering an organism:
* Hovering an egg now shows the species inside, as well as its diet.
* Labels no longer show through the success message, shown when beating or losing a level.
* Algae and plants that started their life invisible (for optimization reasons) now also show their species when hovered.

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

Completely refactored how plant and animal color is processed, leading to fixes like:
* Dragged body parts no longer have the 'error' color (bright pink)
* Dragged leaves take the color of the plant they are about to be attached to
* When dragging the color pickers, the color of the animal changes in real-time, to the correct colors
* When the animal has no secondary color, the secondary color pickers are now disabled
* Billboards (for optimization) now take on the color of the bark instead of the main color of the plant
* Animals that are hurt flash red again

Improved UI for the 'allowed color' mechanic:
* Replaced the weird '4 boxes' light color picker with regular sliders in the planet editor
* There's now a small 'randomize light color' button in the planet editor
* You can no longer place alga and plants if the color is not allowed, for example when you got them from the archive
* Added 'allowed color' to the requirement panel for algae and plants

Finished moisture and drought resistance as a statistic for leaves:
* Added a first draft version of the statistics to all leaves
* Added the statistic to the plant requirements panel seen when placing
* Plants outside the moisture range take damage
* Added 'too dry' and 'too way' as possible death causes

Entered rough body part stats for:
* Leaves
* Eyes
* Mouths (not finished)

Worked on animations for the new body parts:
* Putting new body parts behind the animals to get a tail (like the rattle, club tail and thagomizer) no longer leads to the animation system crashing
* All new mouths now correctly open when the animal is eating
* Added attack particles for the electric eel fins and poison spraying abdomen
* The mouth with the ballistic tongue now has its own eating animation

General UI improvements:
* Redesigned the animal requirements panel, with separate icons for whether an area is suitable for animals and eggs
* Added limits for the night cycle period slider in the planet editor
* The new species names on hover no longer show through other UI elements
* Added a new '300 degree' icon for the eye field of view statistic

Small editor fixes:
* Improved the hitbox for the aquavision eye
* In the alga, plant, animal and fungus editors, hitting 'h' will now remove handles and dust/bubbles, so you can make better screenshots

Completely refactored how body part stats are stored: there now are user editable statistics files in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sapling\the_sapling_Data\Resources\BodyPartStats". This allows me to enter body part statistics faster for the next patch (most of the new body parts still have placeholder statistics), but also allows any player to make changes and see how that affects the simulation.

Finishing up individual (new) body parts:
* Improved hitboxes for all attractive body parts, so you can move and scale them (way) more easily
* Changed 2D icon to be closer to 3D models:
* plate
* attractive fins
* Added folded version for various body parts when put on the side
* Large attractive feathers
* Spine sail
* Other color display
* Other color crest

Fixes to the animal editor UI:
* You can now also remove sexes with the right mouse button
* Fixed a problem where a white joint dot in the animal editor incorrectly remained solid (hovered) until the cursor touched it again
* The 'hanging baby' toggle now only shows for the adults, and only when the JUVENILE form has hands (whether the adult has hands is irrelevant)
* The animal editor now shows the correct default tab when you click 'behavior'
* Fixed animals becoming glitchy/invisible when you put a mouth on the back of an animal

Various fixes for animals with shells:
* making swimming animals with the shell skin types (the turtle ones) no longer crashes the game
* Reworked skintype shells so they could part of the animation system, and thus move more naturally as the animal walks
* Skintype shells no dissapear in the distance
* Body part shells (the slug ones) now also work with the hiding action

Completed the animal noise feature (rattle, cicada tymbals, etc)
* Increased the visualization size, and added a short delay so the sound matches up better
* You now actually hear the sound in the world
* You now hear the sound when looking at the species detail view
* Noise sounds are no longer created every day

Fixed animals that could crash the game:
* Aquatic hanging babies no longer cause game breaking errors
* Fixed problem where animal with >4 legs became so slow they didn't move at all

Small UI fixes for the planet editor:
* Fixed tooltip that was too eager in the planet editor
* 'Randomize all' button no longer leads to a corrupt sandbox

Misc smaller touches:
* Added screenshake for fungi
* Fixed the disclaimer text when you start the game (wasn't showing before)

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