Hi there!

Here's a new sizable update for After The Collapse. I'll also talk about the planned DLC somewhere below in this article. I know, I know, I'm a tad behind schedule. Nothing's new :)

Anyway, this version 1.3.5 brings substantial improvements to the world map faction AI, game balance, and visuals. As usual I will go over the main changes only, you can refer to the full changelog at the end for the nitty gritty details.


This update includes a major visual refresh across multiple aspects of the game. All body and head armor sprites have been completely redone with a much prettier and consistent look. Same story for many of the basic resources, food, and other manufactured goods.



Every single faction logo were redesigned, same goes for the vast majority of the technologies. I also replaced two of the most "out of place" trading cars with more "post-apocalyptic" looking alternatives that better fit the game's theme.

This doesn't impact the "playing area" itself much, but at least now, all the icons and items look pretty consistent, quality and style wise.


I've put significant work into making the faction AI more dynamic and challenging. Main factions now grow stronger as they expand their territory, with increased population caps and faster reinforcement rates based on the number of locations they control. As factions expand, they'll unlock more powerful soldiers and equipment, creating a more realistic progression of threat (note: this requires starting a new game). This only concern the main factions in free play, story mode is not really impacted.



During raids, enemies can now be alerted by the noise your soldiers make. Gun shots are more noisy than melee. Simply put, when you shoot at something, it has a chance to alert the enemies in the nearby rooms (10 tiles radius for now, might tweak further down the road). This should make manual raids a bit more dynamic, but also slightly more difficult.


Several balance tweaks have been implemented to improve the gameplay. You will no longer lose the equipment of your defeated soldiers during offensive world map raids, their equipment will now be automatically transferred to your vehicle's cargo if space permits (it can still be damaged in the process).

Expedition vehicles now automatically repair when parked at your home base - no more disbanding and recreating parties just for repairs! Which is great, because I've reduced the van's speed and HP to make it less of an obvious mid-game choice.



Production centers now provide 50-100% more basic resources (stone, wood, metal, coal, food), making them more valuable targets for expansion and control. This is still under evaluation, I might push it further.

In Story Mode, I've removed the bandit lair spawn event from Act 1, as it was too challenging for new players and too exploitable for veterans. Act 4 of Story Mode now features a second radar dish location to speed up the first phase, and the Brotherhood faction (when hostile) is now much more active in this act, providing a greater challenge.

Two backpacks have been added to the utility slot (formerly artifact slot), which increase carrying capacity. These can be looted or crafted at the loom, giving your survivors more space for resource gathering.


So... Initially, this update should have accompanied the DLC "Echoes of the Machine" and was supposed to only be minor engine-related changes to accommodate the new content. But as I was working on the DLC, I realized that the assets I was making were of much higher quality than those in the base game. And because the result was quite visually jarring, well, I ended up remaking over 100 sprites in the base game too.

This obviously delayed me quite a bit, so I decided to flesh out this free update, and release it now instead of rushing the DLC's development.

Echoes of the Machine might still be released in (very late) March, as I'm done with most of the assets, but it's a lot more probable that you'll have to wait until April.

• AI: Main factions see their max population and reinforcement rate increase with with the number of locations they control
  
• AI: Main factions unlock more powerful soldiers and equipment as they control more locations [new game required]
  
• AI: In raids, enemies have a chance to activate if they hear a noise nearby (shots, people hit, stuff like that)
  
• Balance: Slightly reduced AoE effect and damage spread of (modern) rocket launcher
  
• Balance: Equipment of defeated survivors during world map raids is put back into vehicle's cargo if there is enough cargo space
  
• Balance: Reduced the van's speed and HP making it less of an obvious midgame choice
  
• Balance: Removed bandit lair spawn event from act 1 of story mode (too much for newbies, too easy to farm for veterans)
  
• Balance: Added a second radar dish location to story mode's act 4 (to speed up first phase a bit)
  
• Balance: Made the Brotherhood (when hostile) a lot more active in act 4
  
• Balance: Production centers give a lot more basic resources (stone, wood, metal, coal, food), increase from 50% to 100% depending on the building
  
• Content: Expedition vehicle is automatically repaired when sitting on homebase tile (no need to disband and remake party)
  
• Content: Added variant of stone wall with a different texture, mostly for map variety, but can also be built
  
• Content: Added 2 different backpacks for the utility slot (increase carry capacity), lootable and craftable at the loom
  
• Engine: Renamed artifact slot to utility slot (with the backpack addition, it makes more sense)
  
• Engine: Work behind the scene for the DLC
  
• Graphics: Two of the trading cars were replaced by more "post-apocalyptic" looking ones
  
• Graphics: Replaced all body and head armor sprites by much prettier and consistent-looking ones
  
• Graphics: Replaced all faction logos by new ones
  
• Graphics: Replaced most technology icons by better looking ones
  
• Graphics: Replaced many of the resource icons by new ones (food, resources, animals, etc)
  
• Graphics: Other minor graphical changes and improvements
  
• UI: power consumption of factories refreshed in real time in their menu, and clarified information
  
• UI: Sorted equipment by name in slot equipment list
  
• Sound: Replaced the main menu music by two new tracks
  
• Fixed: Cats making explosion sounds instead of meowing (lol sorry about that one)
  
• Fixed: Power-consuming factories that can't produce due to lack of resources were still using power
  
• Fixed: Power-consuming factories could have their production loop stuck under some circumstances

Hi there!

So, as expected, here's the long-awaited announcement for the upcoming DLC dubbed Echoes of the Machine. It should be made available in mid-March 2025. It will feature a new multi-map storyline and a ton of late-game content.

Before I explain what it should contain, please understand that this is still in early development, and some of the stated features below are subject to potential changes. This article is more about giving you a general layout for the DLC than explaining everything point by point exactly as it will be.

With that in mind, let's dive in! 🙂


I'm not going to go into the details of the story itself, obviously, but it's a separate story from the main game, still in the same universe. You will be facing an army of robots handled by a prewar AI gone rogue.

Similarly to the base game's story mode, you'll visit multiple world maps, meet new factions, do missions for them, and gather resources and information to defeat the machines.

Comparatively, it should be slightly shorter than the other story, but it will feature more unique content not seen before. As the theme implies, you'll meet many new enemy types, and uncover new late-game technologies and high-tech weaponry to deal with the threat.


It is a bit early to detail every single planned feature, many of them are still in the concept stage, and quite a few would count as massive story spoilers. So, instead, here's a very neutral list of the planned features:

• New story-line with 3 acts, and voiced (static) cut-scenes
  
• A new hostile terraforming faction, the Machine Empire
  
• A new playable high-tech faction archetype that can access special world map locations
  
• Numerous new robotic enemies
  
• Expanded late-game tech tree featuring new drones, energy weapons, turrets, and so on
  
• Overhauled robotic station to build new robots and drones
  
• Multiple new world map locations, some of which unlock special interactions
  
• New map generators (both underground and above-ground) with their dedicated tile-sets
  
• New unique survivors

A free update for ATC will accompany the DLC. Some of the systems stated above should be part of the free update (like the robot-making overhaul), but you'll still need the DLC to exploit them to their full extent.


Echoes of the Machine should be priced at around $9.99. This might sound a bit high with a main game at $14.99, but After The Collapse is quite under-priced (especially after several years of inflation) while still receiving free updates. So, yes, this DLC is meant to fund further development, I'm not going to be shy about that.


As for the release date, as stated above, it should be around mid-March 2025. Until that time, I'll solely dedicate my work hours to the DLC. So don't expect many updates for the main game, besides potential maintenance patches, in the coming months. I can only work on so many things at the same time. 🙂

Oh, and the official page for the DLC should be available next month or so. I still need to figure out a couple of things in that regard. I'll keep you posted.


I will try to post devlogs for the DLC, at least for the new systems. I have to admit it has become difficult to find the right balance between keeping you informed about the development and not spoiling the content. Most of the fun stuff falls deeply into story spoiler territory. Still, I'm sure I'll figure out something to talk about!

Cheers!

Hi!

this is a small / medium patch prior to a big announcement you'll get next week. As usual, this update should be compatible with prior save-games and existing, compatible, mods.


Cats have been added to the roster of pets your survivors can have. There are 4 different colors, and they have a much more varied animation set than other pets. They do sleep, have 2 different idle animations, and will actively avoid combat (making them a lot more survivable than dogs for instance), They are also only "roughly" following their owner, instead of sticking to them like glue.



It's part of a larger rewrite of the pet system. The mood bonus given by pets depends on the species. It's not meant to be a judgement on the cat vs dog debate (it is), but just as a way to balance them. In short, cats provide the most happiness, but won't defend their owner. Dogs provide the next highest bonus, and will defend their owner. Giant scorpions and other monster-type pets provide a much smaller bonus, but are generally a lot better in combat. Finally, combat drones no longer provide any mood benefit.

Chickens and sheep, while not pets, use the same combat logic as cats, and will try to avoid combat instead of running to their untimely death.


People, animals, and turrets, using ranged weapons should be slightly better at aiming assuming their perception is high enough to even shoot in the right direction. I've added a predictive algorithm to the "shoot at" function, It's not perfect, and I have no intention to make it so, but overall, people should waste a lot less bullets.

This is an experimental change. In my short testing session, it seemed to work well enough, but I couldn't test every single weapon combination manually. Expect (undocumented) patches and tweaks along the way.


Other notable changes include a new law to balance work accident with work speed. It's exactly as it sounds, you can slightly decrease/increase work speed for large increase/decrease of work-related accidents.

I also went through more of the "old code", refactoring tons of economic and pathing-related functions, which should improve performances in specific cases. More importantly (for me at least), it makes all that stuff A LOT easier to maintain and improve.


Expect a big announcement during the coming week.

Have fun!

• AI: Predictive aiming for ranged weapons. Survivors, turrets, and enemies, should miss a lot less
  
• AI: Pets can sleep now (used for cats only so far)
  
• AI: Cats, sheeps, and chickens will flee when engaged in combat
  
• Balance: Different pets offer different mood bonuses (cats > dogs > everything else). Robotic drones no longer provide a bonus.
  
• Balance: Pet related mood bonus now capped at 15 (from 10)
  
• Content: Added cats as pets, useless in combat but cute and with a high survival rate due to their fleeing mechanic
  
• Content: New "Work Safety" law, ratio between work speed and wound chance can be adjusted
  
• Engine: Complete refactoring of economy-related functions, should be faster in very large bases (and a lot easier to maintain for me)
  
• Engine: Minor optimizations to the way the game handles the pathing map
  
• Graphics: Added support for alternate idle animations (used in cats: standing or sitting)
  
• UI: Added some color to expedition widget to make it easier to see the status of the expedition
  
• Fixed: Amphibious Vehicle HUD Issue
  
• Fixed: Prisoners not gaining compliance from sleeping
  
• Fixed: PetRange setting in species data files didn't do anything (modding)
  
• Fixed: Potential crash when checking a factory using a recipe that was removed from the game (modded game, mostly)
  
• Fixed: Survivors could still use booze as fun reduction even if they were not allowed to drink (if the booze and non booze are in same container)
  
• Fixed: Loot table in POI info screen could show duplicate items
  
• Fixed: Animals could reproduce while in combat or sleeping and across map layers
  
• Fixed: When changing equipment from the population menu, the equipment panel wouldn't scroll properly

Hi,

This is a simple patch fixing 2 problems in the latest update. Expect another patch in the coming days, following by an announcement.

Bug Fixed:

• Truce immediately stopping with bandits (regression bug 1.3.0)
  
• Raids would occur even if you're underground and never breached the surface (regression bug 1.2.8)
  
• Mod uploader stopped working (regression bug 1.2.8)

Introducing the 1.3.0 Update for After the Collapse!

Hi there!

This new update brings a wealth of exciting new content and features to the post-apocalyptic wasteland of After the Collapse. Let's dive in and take a look at what's new!


This is the first step in introducing procedurally generated loot. This update introduces rare, modified weapons to the loot and trade tables. From armor piercing and shock ammo to elite rifles with boosted stats, the total number of weapons has been multiplied by about 8.



While there's still some work to be done (it'd be nice to have multiple modifiers per weapon), and while armors haven't been touched yet, it's still an important step toward more varied loot tables.




This old wave survival scenario was severely outdated when compared to the other ones, as it didn't take into account any of the most recent improvements to the underlying engine. As such, I rewrote the whole scenario, got rid of some of the most obvious exploits, and edited the events for a more seamless progression.



Now the scenario has its own world map, and there are no other main factions to help you. You still get 30 days to prepare with daily traders and recruits, but they'll stop coming in completely on day 30. You'll get lore messages at day 30, 40 and 50 introducing increasingly large and dangerous waves of infected, including the advanced zombies (found in the Act 3 of the main plot and in a late game quest-line in sandbox) at day 50. You'll get some supply traders (ammo and basic resources) on rare occasions after day 30.

Difficulty customization is no longer available for this scenario, and will increase over time instead. Expect zombies to start munching on your walls by day 60, assuming you're still alive by then.


Due to popular demand, you can now add a little flair to your post-apocalyptic base! With the new Home Decoration technology, you can now unlock a variety of decorative items to spruce up your base. From fancy chairs, to decorative bookshelves, plants, carpets, and statues, there's something for everyone. All those assets come in an assortment of sizes and styles. Those items are not purely cosmetic, they also boost rooms' quality, improving morale.



Note that, after 6 years of R&D and advanced coding, you can now put an item on top of another, in this case a carpet under a furniture. I know, I can't believe it myself either! 😁


Of course, that's not all! This update brings with it a host of other improvements, balance changes, and bug fixes. Bandit hordes (and bandits in general) will now respect truces, even if they spawned before the truce was established. Wooden chairs are no longer a quick fix for improving room quality. Mob Spawners on both the world and local maps now feature some level of randomness, and the world map ones tend to pump out troops less often, giving players a bit of a breathing room.



Under the hood, this update brings code optimizations, new modding triggers and files, and general quality of life improvements. And a bunch of bugs have been squashed, from rare situational crashes to UI issues. After the Collapse should be running and load faster than before (not that it was really a problem to begin with).

Cheers!


Artificial Intelligence

• Bandit hordes (on the world map) will no longer attack the player's assets if they are in a truce, even if the horde was launched before the truce.

Game Balance

• Normal wooden chairs no longer improve room quality.
  
• Most spawners (both on world and local maps) have some level of randomness in their spawn frequency.
  
• World map spawners tend to spawn troops less often.

New Content

• Added rare variants to all weapons, between 5 and 14 different variants depending on the weapon.
  
• The Last Stand scenario was entirely reworked: new map, new events, and difficulty progression.
  
• Added Home Decoration technology, unlocks a bunch of decorative items to make the base look prettier (requires metallurgy).
  
• Added fancy-looking chairs, they are more expensive but improve room quality (4 colors).
  
• Added decorative vases (4 colors)
  
• Added decorative statues (dogs and big monsters, 5 variants total)
  
• Added 2 sizes of decorative potted plants (8 variants total)
  
• Added decorative barrels (3 variants)
  
• Added 26 differently sized carpets of various colors and shapes, with 2 different alignements (tile or square centered)
  
• Removed non functional 2x2 large table

Game Engine

• Minor code optimizations: cavern generation should be a tad faster, optimized distance calculations.
  
• It's now possible for items to be built on top of each other (like a table on top of a rug)
  
• General code update and review
  
• All translation files are encoded in UTF-8 now

Modding

• Added new mod_weap folder containing possible ""mutators"" used for the procedural weapons
  
• Spawner both on the world map and in local maps can both have some randomness in their frequency, and be delayed
  
• Text Events can set/unset global variables, and as such, trigger other global/travel events

Graphics

• Replaced sprites for the wooden chairs by better looking ones
  
• Replaced fridge sprite by something better looking
  
• Added green and red variants to the beds
  
• Added 5 new table variants (4 wooden and 1 stone)
  
• Added 2 wood shelves variants
  
• Added one variant to the game table (checkers)
  
• Changes and additions made to multiple objects used for map generation

User Interface

• Ammo information shown in group selection menu.

Bug Fixes

• Possible crash when Steamworks doesn't respond due to a network issue
  
• Due to a (semi recent) typo in the code, bandits would mostly ignore truces with the player
  
• The Job Manager screen would incorrectly show the ""Store Tile Content"" jobs for tiles not set to be retrieved
  
• Moving a furniture around wouldn't update pathing map properly
  
• Many of the issues associated with The Last Stand scenario (most of them were due to its old age) are resolved
  
• Event and raid timers in some scenarios
  
• Misc minor issues were fixed during the code review
  
• Minor issues in the main story's lore entries
  
• Escape key wouldn't close the ""Save / Load"" menu
  
• Control+G(roup key) would not work properly if somebody is selected and was part of the existing group

Hi there!

Let's get the bad news out of the way: this update is only partially compatible with older save-games (saves will load, but it'll be buggy). It's possible to rollback to 1.2.5 to finish your game if you need to. I'll explain how-to in this very article.

As usual, the full change-log is at the bottom of this post.

Now, let's get to the good stuff!


It's not really a secret that the event system was starting to show some cracks, especially when it comes to enemy raids. Until now, ATC was relying on an extensive list of semi hard-coded raiding groups, which would unlock as the player discovers technologies or reaches population thresholds. Each time I added a mob to the game, I also needed to add a new "raid" file for that mob to show up, and it would interfere with other events (more raid files = other event less likely to spawn). In short, it was really getting increasingly messy as I added more content.



Well, it's all over! Raids are now dynamically generated using your base's firepower as a metric to determine their intensity. If you have a bunch of machine-gun wielding soldiers in exo-armor, you'll get much stronger opponents than when you're just a bunch of unarmed civilians.

The enemy distribution is also more varied, but will keep making sense (no zombies allying bandits or silly things like that). There's also more variety in the way raiders behave and enter your base. Some might move as an organized group, others will enter the base in mass from a whole side of your map, and so on.

Additionally, The raids' strength and ratio compared to other events is now configurable in the event settings.



A fair warning, this is a very big change in how ATC is handling difficulty and game balance. Standard difficulty is less forgiving. Traps and turrets will be necessary in the late game. Don't be afraid to tune down raid frequency and difficulty if you feel like it's too much, no one is going to judge you for it. 😉


Alongside the raid-related changes, I also reviewed how events are distributed and sent at the player. One of the problems before this update was that some mid/late game quest-lines would rarely trigger due to the sheer amount of raids/events the game could pick. Now, the game will try (whenever possible) to select events in a more varied way, avoiding repetitions.


New critters join the roster. Two giant red ant types (worker and soldier), faster and hit a bit harder than black ants, however they have less armor and health. Red and black ants hate each other, and the concept will continue to be expanded upon in the future 1.3 content update.



I also added two giant beetle type mobs. They are slow and decently armored. They can drop eggs if you have the animal care technology, and can be pastured for defense or for food. They can't be used as pet.

Finally, a new cave spider replaces the normal ones underground. It's very slightly stronger than its counterpart.

You may also notice more mob infighting (red and black ants hate each other for instance).


Other main factions (like the Federation, Brotherhood, ...) can now send hunting parties against hordes they consider hostile if they have the firepower to defeat them. This should help keeping the world map zombie population under control, and it gives you an incentive to keep them around.

I intend to add more AI vs AI interactions like this in the future.


I want to apologize to the new players, as there's a large influx of you guys due to the current discount. I promise, it's not in my habits to break saves, this is just very poor timing. But here we are, and I'd rather release this now before you guys gets too far into the game.

While you can still technically load older save-games, the game will be buggy if you do so. AI controlled factions will no longer behave as they should; main factions won't expand; beast-based raids will use the Raider-AI instead of the Fauna-AI; many of the bug fixes and changes won't apply or will only partially apply until you start a new game.

If you want to finish your pre-1.2.8 game, you can roll back to 1.2.5. To do so:
1) Right click on After the Collapse in your library, select "Properties"
2) Click on the "Betas" tab, and in the drop down menu, select the 1.2.5 version
3) Close and wait for Steam to roll back the update.

Mods altering or adding factions will need to be altered to be compatible with 1.2.8.


Outside of maintenance patches (bug fixes), this will be the last patch in the 1.2x "Rebirth" series. Next major update will be 1.3. It should introduce rare procedurally generated weapon variants (unique to each playthrough), new ant-related biomes, events, late game crisis, alongside new in-game activities and constructions.

I will also be working on a large DLC, more info coming soon.

Cheers!


Artificial Intelligence

• Other AI factions seek and destroy hostile hordes within their sphere of influence if they have the manpower for it.
  
• During some of the raids, enemies may move as a group with a leader instead of just zerging the base.

Game Balance

• Dynamic event system (what handles raids, recruits, and other random events) was fully rewritten.
  
• Event difficulty settings are a lot more impactful and better balanced.
  
• New formula to evaluate the relative strength between 2 agents, or groups for expeditions.
  
• Relative raid difficulty can be set to start low and gradually increase over time.
  
• Added a flag to the gigantic boss-type mobs to make them immune to falling traps.
  
• Reduced black ant soldiers' "armor" rating a bit as it was too tanky for an entry level enemy.

New Content

• Enemy raid compositions are procedurally generated, you'll see way more combinations of mobs.
  
• Added "Cave Spider", equivalent to a normal giant spider with its own graphics, a bit of armor, and living mostly underground.
  
• Two giant beetle mobs added to the enemy roster. Beetles can also be pastured and butchered for food.
  
• Added a few different animal "factions" which should lead to occasional mob infighting.
  
• Various biome related changes to increase mob diversity.
  
• The "Truce" diplomatic option with raiders is more useful (will prevent raids, and make world-map bandits ignore your assets)
  
• Two new ant-type mobs added to the enemy roster (fast/weak and slow glass cannon).

Game Engine

• Event delivery balanced by multiple additional factors.
  
• Complete overhaul of the raid system, most raids are procedurally generated, removed now useless files.
  
• Reworked faction files to incorporate the new improvements. This will cause some diplomacy-related bugs in existing save-games, mods altering/adding main factions need a minor update.
  
• Minor performance improvements (load times, mostly)

Graphics

• Some more new/replaced melee weapon hit animations.
  
• Replaced some of the world map vehicle sprites (AI factions).

User Interface

• Added POI combat info directly to main POI menu, replacing the stars.
  
• Reworked one of the overlay filters to see survivors/enemies' name, health, and current activity all at once.
  
• Reworked "Event Difficulty" panel in the scenario selector's difficulty settings.

Bug Fixes

• Inconsistencies when killing a trading vehicle from another faction. Now they'll properly declare war on you for doing so if they can.
  
• Issue where a faction flagged as "always hostile" would end up neutral to another faction if it's added later into the game.
  
• Misc issues in the Halloween scenario (missing events).
  
• Logic issue in friend/foe detection that was causing issues between animals and (not-owned) doors.
  
• Typo "Regenative Tissues" -> "Regenerative Tissues".
  
• Multiple issues with event balancing after loading a game.
  
• Save files in the save/load screen weren't always sorted properly.
  
• Missing french translation for some of the mobs
  
• Some structures, when being disassembled, would not play an animation.
  
• Area of Effect traps wouldn't always behave as intended.
  
• Oversized world map vehicle for some AI factions.
  
• Infected enemies getting "infected again" by the Pandemonium virus (zombies becoming tribal bug).
  
• Possible crash when using a zone as a template to copy a bunch of constructions in one go (obscure, power user bug)
  
• Fire on top of non burnable walls could still spread (fire going through walls bug)

Hello!

This is a mid-sized update with no particular theme. It is compatible with existing saves and mods, but due to changes in the way damaged weaponry is handled, you may need to redo your weapon and armor maintenance stations' queues. This short article details the main changes while the change-log at the bottom lists every single change, as usual.

Enjoy!


Your survivors (and relevant enemies) can now automatically switch between melee and ranged weapon based on the situation. It takes into consideration the ammo left in the ranged weapon, the DPS, and range of each weapon before taking a decision. For instance, they'll still use their shotgun at point blank, even if they also have an axe, but they will likely switch to said axe if they are just wielding a pistol, or if they need to reload.

On top of that, if you order a survivor to attack a door or a window to breach into a building: if the survivor is within 5 tiles of the target it'll attack with melee (saving ammo); if they are farther away, they'll assume you don't want to take any risk and will just shoot at the target.


It's something that, as a user, you will barely notice, but which is making my life a lot easier. Until now, each time I added a piece of gear to the game, I'd also have to add a "damaged" variant for the piece, add a file for the repair recipe, and finally alter the relevant maintenance station file to add said recipe. And, everything being manually added, prices and values didn't match up properly. It also contributed to increasing load times (3 data files to load per piece of gear instead of one).

Now, while the older system still exists to handle special cases (and for backward compatibility) it's no longer in use. Damaged gear is handled and generated automatically based on information added to the weapon and armor files.

In practice for you:
- More gear can be repaired and looted in their damaged state.
- Repair/Selling price have been standardized (damaged gear is half the value of the intact variant).
- Repairing high tier gear cost more weapon/armor pieces (early gear is mostly unchanged).


There are a lot more minor changes (see below), but nothing really worthy of a paragraph-long explanation, the 1.2.x branch is in a good place content/stability-wise. So, unless there's a big problem with 1.2.5, the next patch will be a major content update.

Cheers!


Artificial Intelligence

• When forced into melee, survivors (and their enemies) will assess if it's better to switch to their melee weapon or not.

Game Balance

• Increased the rate of fire of many melee weapons (the ones you build, animals are unchanged).
  
• Dead trees don't burn, giving forests a chance to regrow.
  
• All weapon and armor repair recipe costs have been edited (better gear needs more parts).
  
• The connected grow lamps now cost a bit more resources to build than the non-connected ones.
  
• In Story Mode, Act 1, the AI factions expand less quickly and less far (playing wake-a-mole with enemy outposts is a bit much to ask of a new player, only apply on new game).

New Content

• Added giant anthills, an ant spawner, commonly found in caverns.
  
• Added mercenary helmet (similar to military one) and bulletproof vest to loot, trading tables, and Neo Roma guards' gear.
  
• Added repair recipes and damaged variants to Mark One rifle, 30cal MG, PAS-25, mercenary outfit, and military gas mask.

Game Engine

• When the camera is zoomed out, agents no longer drop shadows and grass is hidden to help with FPS a bit.
  
• Minor optimizations to dynamic lighting, rendering in caverns and sewers should be faster.
  
• Damaged variants of most firearms and armor pieces are dynamically generated. It leads to more recipes being available, and their repair cost to make more sense.

Graphics

• Added hit animations to many melee attacks.
  
• Better looking barbed wires, egg containers, power generators, and other misc items.
  
• New textures for the riot police and spec-ops helmets.
  
• Traits and wounds causing a loss of health make the survivor to drop blood on the ground.
  
• Pigs and cows get a shadow, like other large animals.
  
• New separate textures for the food, ammo and gun crates found in various buildings.

World Generation

• Room dimensions (in buildings) are more strict, coupled with new building generation method, give better layouts.
  
• Improved biome generation, allowing to spawn some (but not too many) critter spawners in the underground layers.

User Interface

• The 'Repair' keyboard shortcut key becomes 'Misc Commands' and opens the sub panel at the last used position (can still auto select repair by tapping twice).
  
• Removed experimental flag from the Arakan faction archetype, added warning to tool-tip / info.
  
• Renamed the scientist's camp unlocking the robotic path from "Encampment" to "Scientist's Camp" to distinguish it from traders.
  
• Added proper "housing" info (pasture, category and owner) to the animal tab in the Population menu
  
• Removed comma in Cannibal and Mutant name generator as it looks weird with the game's font (will only work on new characters in existing saves.)
  
• Added button to general settings to mark all contextual game tips as read (so they don't popup).
  
• Standardized some more menus + many small tweaks i didn't keep track of.

Bug Fixes

• Rare 'Mushroom' underground biome could spawn with way too many carnivorous plants.
  
• The melee attack animation was missing for black ant soldiers.
  
• Using the mouse wheel over health/mood bars would change their value (cosmetic only)
  
• Banishing people, and sending them to expeditions, wouldn't clear all their assignments properly.
  
• Prisoners, in combat, were confused by the concept of stairs.
  
• Some low level entity update timing issues which may have wasted CPU cycles and botched animations.
  
• Minor issues with weapon hit animations.
  
• Right clicking an item in the 'Build Menu' would disable mouse scrolling until menu is re-opened.

Hi there!

As promised, here's a new update focusing on the prisoner system. With the recent introduction of a prisoner-centric faction archetype, the Arakans, it really needed some love. Of course, it's far from the only change in this update, which should make your whole population easier to manage.

As usual, the full change-log is at the bottom. I highly recommend to give it a look, as many important details will only be mentioned there. I am a bit short on time today, so the article is shorter than usual, while the change-log is more detailed to compensate.

Enjoy!


First thing first: Compliance. This value, used to determine how close is a prisoner to riot or to join you, now works pretty much as you'd guess. Treat prisoners well and give them good individual cells, and their compliance will grow steadily:

• The higher quality the individual cell, the more compliance will grow. Low quality cells, or missing cells, will cause compliance to decrease quickly (and VERY quickly if a prisoner is left without a place to sleep)
  
• Getting food, or medical care increases compliance
  
• Working very slightly decreases compliance (easy to counter with good rooms)
  
• Prisoners chatting together decrease their respective compliance a bit
  
• Prison guards talking to prisoners increases compliance (usually, but if the guard is bad at his job it may backfire)

Generally speaking, and assuming good working conditions, prisoners will gain compliance much faster, turning them into potential recruits.


Speaking of housing prisoners, I added a new zone type: the jail. Yes, it's a barrack for prisoners. It does NOT provide a compliance bonus, but it provides beds for large quantities of prisoners at a minimal cost. It's especially useful if you don't intend to keep your prisoners for long (hi, cannibal factions).


Prisoners can now be treated by doctors (if you allow it), and got a refreshed individual survivor menu with nicer icons and a prominent compliance gauge.

You can also set default settings for your prisoners directly from the Faction/Settlement menu.


I fully redesigned the Population menu. Not only it scales vertically with your screen resolution, but it handles survivors, prisoners and animals simultaneously.


While the Animal tab still needs some work, the prisoner and survivor tabs are fully functional and offer new filters and features. For instance, you can assign rooms and prison cells from this menu directly. To do so, simply click on the new "Housing" filter, and right-click on any person you want to reassign.


And, of course, in the prisoner tab, you can change individual prisoner settings (work, eat, recruit, chat, doctor), and sort people by compliance.

More filters and options will be added to this menu as I continue to improve it.


I also added a few settings to the Faction menu, while reorganizing the existing ones:



You can now set your base to automatically turn downed enemies into prisoners as long as you have free prison cells (or a jail). You can also tell your survivor what to do with dead bodies depending on their type (survivor, prisoner, animal, and non faction). Dogs can be buried now, assuming you've set a tomb to allow animals, it'll be extended to other pets in the next update.


I'm aware of a few situational bugs reported recently, I couldn't investigate them before release, but if there's something to fix, I will publish a fix very soon.

You can also expect a second update where I add some more meat to the prisoner system, and add more features to the population menu in a week or two. After that, we'll move to a different topic.

Cheers!


AI and Behaviors

• Animals (pets, wild, cattle) now obey their faction's rule about attacking incapacitated targets, making dogs and giant spiders pretty good at catching new prisoners.
  
• Medics moving downed people will try to apply first aid before moving the patient if their health is very low.
  
• Survivors and prisoners are better at claiming a room to sleep in when those are made available by the player.

Game Balance

• Some large dead creatures need to be butchered to retrieve meat, bones, and such; corpses decay over time.
  
• Reviewed the prisoner compliance system, compliance is easier to gain if you treat your prisoners well.
  
• You need less decoration to make a "good" cell than to make a good bedroom.

Content

• Recruiting prisoners turn them into cannibals automatically if you're a cannibal-type faction.
  
• Prisoners' compliance is now influenced by the quality of their cell (high quality cells improve compliance over time)
  
• Added switch to allow prisoners to be treated by a doctor (in individual prisoner info panel and pop menu)
  
• Default settings (work, eat, recruit..) can be set for new prisoners in the Colony Settings menu
  
• During the Besieged Settlement map events, you can now enslave the villagers if your vehicle has an enslavement item installed, like the slave collar pack.
  
• Added Jail zone, a barrack for prisoners. It can hold multiple prisoners, doesn't provide much compliance.
  
• Burials can be attributed to pets, survivors, prisoners, or others, individually.

Game Engine

• Ability for the game to use multiple variants for a constructed tile: for instance, road/asphalt tiles have multiple variants with small cracks/fissures.
  
• Massively reduced the CPU impact of large herds of animals
  
• Overall better performances, especially underground
  
• Tweaks to nature layer, chance for a plant to die on death changed from a bool to a percentage

Graphics

• Replaced the sprites for a few early game objects (campfire, storage area, sleeping bags)
  
• A bunch of sprites and tiles used when generating the local map have been replaced by better looking ones.
  
• New and more varied asphalt texture(s) for the roads in the local map. It's relatively hard to notice due to ground dust effect.
  
• In the world map, the road tile-map was replaced by something better looking / more detailed
  
• In the world map, replaced buildings, trees, and rock textures + additional variations thanks to rotations
  
• In the world map, village tiles are easier to spot as they are represented by a big bunch of buildings

User Interface

• Main menu newsfeed points to steam now, and is always up to date
  
• Redesigned population menu, scaling with vertical space available on your screen, better layout.
  
• Ability to switch the population menu to a mode displaying your prisoners with relevant info, filters, and settings
  
• Added a tab for the animals to the population menu (still a working in progress)
  
• Added "Housing" filter to population menu, you can right click people in this mode to assign private bedrooms or prison cells
  
• Added activity filter to population menu
  
• Improved individual prisoner panel + tweaks to other individual panels
  
• More detailed corpse retrieval, butchering, and burying tasks can be set in the colony settings
  
• Automatic capture of downed hostiles can be setup in colony settings (will auto capture downed enemies if you have a prison bed available)
  
• You can now move the camera around and use hotkeys even when the mouse cursor is over a menu
  
• Added specific briefing for the "go to room" combat maps (like the Robotic Lab in Act 3, and the Robotic tech tree)

Bug Fixes

• Changing a prisoner's cell wouldn't unassign them from their previous accommodation
  
• Prisoners were unable to combat fire
  
• Prisoners were unable to experience the joys of mental breakdown
  
• Line of sight bug causing all sorts of problems
  
• Traders from different factions should no longer attack each other (they also get named after their faction), they probably can't be used as an exploit to clear the map anymore either.
  
• Prisoners would keep their melee weapon on capture
  
• Pandemonium infected people would keep their melee weapon when morphing into a zombie
  
• Outdated tooltips in prisoner feeding checkbox implied that people with the hauling job would feed them (instead of prison guards).
  
• Issue between hunger and reproduction (cattle and pets)
  
• Prisoners could run the "prison guard" job, causing some logic issues.
  
• Minor button coloring issue in Misc Orders (regression bug 1.2.1)
  
• Chat moodlets in mood sub-menu not always pointing to the right target (people talking to themselves)
  
• Typo in a data file used during map generation which may have caused, on rare occasions, to cause a room to be entirely empty
  
• Very small minor memory leak (when loading saves or going back to main menu) tied to the way walls and tiles are reset
  
• If the building "fog of war" setting is disabled, it's not clear where you're supposed to go in Act 3's Robotic Lab

Hey there!

I hope you all had a good holiday season. Let's hope this year will be better than the last.

Here's a small patch for 1.2 focusing on recent player feedback. It's fixing a few bugs and balancing issues. It's nothing major. Unless some major crash or bug pops up, this will likely one of the last "hotfix" for the Rebirth update, next patches will add proper content (on top of the usual fixes and tweaks).

Expect a full devlog in a few days.

• Balance: During the Main Story, "experienced" trait progression is reset in between acts, so new players don't get overwhelmed by 30+ settlers crying about the lack of a proper bedroom
  
• Balance: Reduced the ratio of pandemonium infected recruits (15%->10% in Rare, 30%->20% in Common, 95%->90% in Everyone difficulty settings)
  
• Balance: Enforced limits to the amount of boss level hordes being active on the map at the same time (only one of each kind, max), also made them to spawn later
  
• Balance: The Swarm faction event can no longer spawn super close to the player base (also slightly reduced the amount of creatures inside on spawn)
  
• Balance: Hordes won't spawn too close to the player base (unless it's intended)
  
• Balance: 3rd degree burns, if left untreated for 4 to 5 days, will heal on their own but leave permanent scars decreasing morale and some stats
  
• UI: In "Misc Orders", added two buttons to 'turn off' and 'turn on' all the selected production buildings
  
• UI: When an expedition gets killed, a new, prettier, info panel is shown, displaying the reason why it happened + a log of last messages
  
• UI: When someone turns hostile due to mental breakdown, auto pause/center camera (if set in settings), there's also an alert sound, and the message is written in red
  
• UI: When someone under mental breakdown starts a fire, there's a new alert sound, and the message is written in red
  
• Fixed: It was technically possible to spawn in a 1x1 island in some specific scenarios (including Act1) preventing you from being able to play the game properly
  
• Fixed: Impossible to attack walls/windows/clutter when defending a map location
  
• Fixed: A crash with travel events, more specifically, the zombie horde travel event had a 33% chance to cause a crash when the player fails the event
  
• Fixed: One of the "animal food" recipes was missing in the electric kitchen
  
• Fixed: Pandemonium infection wouldn't spread through brawls as the standard fist/punch attack wasn't properly replaced by the infected variant
  
• Fixed: Multiple minor issues with world map spawners (bandit hideout for instance) when they are conquered by a horde

Hi,

This is a small patch to fix the issues found in 1.2, most of which are related to the Arakan playable faction archetype. There's no need to reset your progress or anything like that.

The main visible change, beside a few minor graphical improvements, is the new bone carving station. As the name implies, all bone-related recipes (mainly a thing for cannibals and mutants) have been moved there. It means that the bone armor is now available right from the start, possibly making the very early game a bit easier for those factions.

• Fixed: Possible crash in "Scenario->Custom->Equipment" menu if one of the items provided in the scenario doesn't exist (outdated mod issue)
  
• Fixed: If a survivor is being "summoned" by the pharmacy while their inventory is completely full, they would get stuck in place
  
• Fixed: Similar issue with doctors not having the room in their inventory to grab some bandages, for efficiency's sake, inventory weight check is disabled while treating a patient
  
• Fixed: It was somehow possible to break stairs and the associated logic by building a farm over them, causing one part to disappear, and confusing the hell out of the survivors below

• Balance: Crafting recipes unlocked by the bone working tech (cannibals and mutants) moved to the new bone carving station
  
• Balance: All other bone based ammo, tools, and weapons have been moved to this new station (for consistency sake)
  
• Balance: Added exploration tech to base technologies known by Arakans
  
• Balance: People are more careful after getting wounded at work, meaning that they are not likely to get wounded again for a bit
  
• Balance: Underground raids have been moved to the surface as their likelihood of getting to be an hindrance to the base is practically zero otherwise
  
• Graphics: Replaced the expedition military jeep's sprite (found in military bases) by something looking a lot better
  
• Graphics: Replaced the expedition motorcycle's sprite by a new one
  
• Graphics: New headgear sprites (military helmet, metal helmet, and the various caps)
  
• Graphics: Replaced body armor sprites (military, mercenary and metal armor)
  
• Modding: The Arakans' ability to make pets out of typically non-adoptable critters is now data driven instead of being hardcoded
  
• Fixed: Both the new questline and one of the unique survivors you can recruit while exploring the world map had their effective cost doubled
  
• Fixed: Arakans' spiders would forget who had adopted them after reloading a save, alongside a bunch of fun stuff in the same genre
  
• Fixed: Babies made by arakan-adopted spiders would spawn as wild
  
• Fixed: Similar issues if a NPC changes its AI module midgame (pretty sure it was only a thing with some modded mutagens)
  
• Fixed: Missing "downloaded a mod" achievement check when starting a new game, meaning that the achievement would only trigger when downloading a mod from the game's UI
  
• Fixed: The pharmacy's logic code wasn't handling a few cases where the jobs wouldn't be distributed properly
  
• Fixed: Clicking the button "adopt" on a friendly wild spider would causes the butcher or neuter checkbox to be accidentally checked
  
• Fixed: Warning/Failsafe when using Windows 10 K or KN was yeeted at some point, not informing people with those exotic versions to go download the media pack
  
• Fixed: The "Select All Units" button was not legible enough
  
• Fixed: Prisoners coming back from an expedition were keeping their weapons/armors