Good news! The new 64-bit engine is officially finished!
Now all that's left to do is for Sam to finish up the pathfinding system, then the next update will be ready for release. We still don't have a finish date, so please hold on a while more for an ETA.

Dialogue

In other news, we've taken on a freelance writer, Harald Hagens, for the next three weeks. He'll be working on writing dialogue for NPCs - this should give all the local inhabitants and bandits a little more 'soul', depth and meaning. With this, NPCs will show memory and reactions to situations, to you as a player.

For example, town people may recognize earlier encounters of you saving their lives; bandits may start a fight with dialogue, rather than blindly attacking you on sight. The improved AI should make the world a whole lot more reactive and consequential in the future.

Good news! The new 64-bit engine is officially finished!
Now all that's left to do is for Sam to finish up the pathfinding system, then the next update will be ready for release. We still don't have a finish date, so please hold on a while more for an ETA.

Dialogue

In other news, we've taken on a freelance writer, Harald Hagens, for the next three weeks. He'll be working on writing dialogue for NPCs - this should give all the local inhabitants and bandits a little more 'soul', depth and meaning. With this, NPCs will show memory and reactions to situations, to you as a player.

For example, town people may recognize earlier encounters of you saving their lives; bandits may start a fight with dialogue, rather than blindly attacking you on sight. The improved AI should make the world a whole lot more reactive and consequential in the future.

Sorry about the duplicate post, but I realised that lots of people were missing our progress announcements in the Steam forums. So for all those who haven't read already:

"There have been a lack of updates lately while we work on the more challenging jobs of the pathfinding, 64-bit engine and new world biomes. However, Sam has been making good progress and will hopefully be finished with the pathfinding and 64-bit engine very soon.

That being said, when we take the potential bugs and glitches into account, it could still be a few more weeks until this next update - it's best not to announce an exact finish date until we are absolutely sure, otherwise people just get twitchy and frustrated! Hence our quiet last few months while we get the game into a more stable state.

In other news, Chris has started working on the new stealth and thievery features. This should add a nice bit of variety for all those sneaky player types. Also, Maykol started work with us yesterday so we now have an extra programmer to speed things up."

Maykol is now starting work on the weather system. You can read more about Kenshi's development on our blog at http://lofigames.com/

Thanks for your patience everyone! Watch this space for a more accurate ETA...

Sorry about the duplicate post, but I realised that lots of people were missing our progress announcements in the Steam forums. So for all those who haven't read already:

"There have been a lack of updates lately while we work on the more challenging jobs of the pathfinding, 64-bit engine and new world biomes. However, Sam has been making good progress and will hopefully be finished with the pathfinding and 64-bit engine very soon.

That being said, when we take the potential bugs and glitches into account, it could still be a few more weeks until this next update - it's best not to announce an exact finish date until we are absolutely sure, otherwise people just get twitchy and frustrated! Hence our quiet last few months while we get the game into a more stable state.

In other news, Chris has started working on the new stealth and thievery features. This should add a nice bit of variety for all those sneaky player types. Also, Maykol started work with us yesterday so we now have an extra programmer to speed things up."

Maykol is now starting work on the weather system. You can read more about Kenshi's development on our blog at http://lofigames.com/

Thanks for your patience everyone! Watch this space for a more accurate ETA...

Sorry for the delay - the big frame rate boost should really help with performance now. Plus, building and wall placement will be a lot more smooth and user friendly.

This update is currently just for the "Experimental" version. If you don't know how to get it, you need to right-click Kenshi in your Steam library, go to properties->betas and select "Experimental" from the drop down list there.

0.69.0

FEATURES

• Big frame rate boost!
  
• Totally revamped wall placement system
  
• Slightly better building placement in general. Easier to place furniture inside buildings.
  
• Toughness now affects degeneration rate, meaning that rookies are more likely to die than veterans when defeated.
  
• Difficulty settings added to the New Game and Import Game windows.
  
• -Added an "Amount of death" slider to the new game options to increase difficulty. Setting it higher than 1.0 makes ALL characters in the game more likely to die from their wounds (eg 2.0 means bloodloss + wounds degenerate 2x faster).
  
• -"Easy prospecting" option: resources are adjusted by biome only.
  
• -Multipliers for research, building and production speeds
  
• Some subtle tweeks to the combat AI to help characters deal with being outnumbered slightly better.
  
• Bandits can now catch you if you are running away and can't run fast enough.
  
• Strength improves slightly faster from encumbrance
  
• "Max blood" stat is now influenced by character's strength.
  
• Heavy club was a bit overpowered, so I turned it down.
  
• Added Splint Kits to the research list
  
• Forgot to mention in last update, gun turrets now have an advantage when placed at a higher altitude than their target. Put them on hills, on walls, and it will make them much more effective
  
• You can now upgrade or delete a whole chain of walls at once
  
• More audio sfx additions from Kole Hicks

BUGFIXES

• Fixed the "reset position" for game imports
  
• Fixed some characters being invisible when dead or paused
  
• Fixed outnumbered characters causing a big freeze-up mid-battle
  
• You can't run away mid-stumble anymore
  
• Skin tone wasn't being randomised properly for NPC generation.
  
• Fixed a bug where splint kits sometimes cause healing to get stuck
  
• Fixed the high-velocity ragdolls bug
  
• Fixed research ETA, also daytime speed was running too fast when time as speeded up

Sorry for the delay - the big frame rate boost should really help with performance now. Plus, building and wall placement will be a lot more smooth and user friendly.

This update is currently just for the "Experimental" version. If you don't know how to get it, you need to right-click Kenshi in your Steam library, go to properties->betas and select "Experimental" from the drop down list there.

0.69.0

FEATURES

• Big frame rate boost!
  
• Totally revamped wall placement system
  
• Slightly better building placement in general. Easier to place furniture inside buildings.
  
• Toughness now affects degeneration rate, meaning that rookies are more likely to die than veterans when defeated.
  
• Difficulty settings added to the New Game and Import Game windows.
  
• -Added an "Amount of death" slider to the new game options to increase difficulty. Setting it higher than 1.0 makes ALL characters in the game more likely to die from their wounds (eg 2.0 means bloodloss + wounds degenerate 2x faster).
  
• -"Easy prospecting" option: resources are adjusted by biome only.
  
• -Multipliers for research, building and production speeds
  
• Some subtle tweeks to the combat AI to help characters deal with being outnumbered slightly better.
  
• Bandits can now catch you if you are running away and can't run fast enough.
  
• Strength improves slightly faster from encumbrance
  
• "Max blood" stat is now influenced by character's strength.
  
• Heavy club was a bit overpowered, so I turned it down.
  
• Added Splint Kits to the research list
  
• Forgot to mention in last update, gun turrets now have an advantage when placed at a higher altitude than their target. Put them on hills, on walls, and it will make them much more effective
  
• You can now upgrade or delete a whole chain of walls at once
  
• More audio sfx additions from Kole Hicks

BUGFIXES

• Fixed the "reset position" for game imports
  
• Fixed some characters being invisible when dead or paused
  
• Fixed outnumbered characters causing a big freeze-up mid-battle
  
• You can't run away mid-stumble anymore
  
• Skin tone wasn't being randomised properly for NPC generation.
  
• Fixed a bug where splint kits sometimes cause healing to get stuck
  
• Fixed the high-velocity ragdolls bug
  
• Fixed research ETA, also daytime speed was running too fast when time as speeded up

This will be in experimental version only until most bugs are fixed. If you want to try it out now, go to Kenshi in your Steam library, right click->properties->Betas and select Experimental version.
You can always switch back again if it gives you problems. Once this new version has been stabilised it will appear in the regular version too.

0.68.0
FEATURES
The new pathfinder system isn't ready yet, but I have made a release of the new features so far. The same old bugs with the walls and collision will persist until then I'm afraid, but it's on the way.

• Prospecting added. The button in the bottom right makes your selected character analyse the surrounding terrain for resources, based on his science skill.
  
• Farming, wells, mines etc are now dependent on the available resources in the area they are built. Mines from old savegames will be capped at a certain minimum value if they happen to be in a low or zero yield area.
  
• Random patrols passing by are now likely to attack your base and other towns
  
• Production rebalanced: Most machines and mines need way less workers, and also have a more pronounced efficiency improvement with each upgrade.
  
• Build speed doubled.
  
• Added 3 new walls and gates, levels 3-5
  
• Turrets now snap to fixed wall positions
  
• Added training turrets, so you can train your turret skills.
  
• Added harpoon turrets! Including a double barrel and 6-shot version, if you can find the blueprints.
  
• Added "Enable civilians in towns" to the options. Turning off civilians will improve performance a little bit.
  
• Added auto-save time to options

BUGFIXES

• You now own and can dismantle the furniture in buildings that you purchase
  
• Limited population slider options to 2x. Too many people were setting it to 4 and wondering why the frame rate was so bad. (you can still set higher than 2 by editing settings.cfg)
  
• Fixed the storage chest not working, as well as a visual bug for storage boxes inventory
  
• Fixed another inventory bug duplicating stacked items
  
• Changed the name of the town of Catan/Capan to Catun. Ssshhhh...
  
• Made indoor buildings more tolerant and easier to place
  
• Stopped gates and walls appearing red before you place them
  
• Fixed the bug where clicking to attack an enemy that was too far away would make your characters just stand idle.
  
• Fixed a bug with the female character editor limits using the male limits

HIGH-PRIORITY FOR FUTURE UPDATES:
-64-bit build, to prevent super-crashes
-New pathfinding/movement system
-Fixing the awkward wall placement interface

This will be in experimental version only until most bugs are fixed. If you want to try it out now, go to Kenshi in your Steam library, right click->properties->Betas and select Experimental version.
You can always switch back again if it gives you problems. Once this new version has been stabilised it will appear in the regular version too.

0.68.0
FEATURES
The new pathfinder system isn't ready yet, but I have made a release of the new features so far. The same old bugs with the walls and collision will persist until then I'm afraid, but it's on the way.

• Prospecting added. The button in the bottom right makes your selected character analyse the surrounding terrain for resources, based on his science skill.
  
• Farming, wells, mines etc are now dependent on the available resources in the area they are built. Mines from old savegames will be capped at a certain minimum value if they happen to be in a low or zero yield area.
  
• Random patrols passing by are now likely to attack your base and other towns
  
• Production rebalanced: Most machines and mines need way less workers, and also have a more pronounced efficiency improvement with each upgrade.
  
• Build speed doubled.
  
• Added 3 new walls and gates, levels 3-5
  
• Turrets now snap to fixed wall positions
  
• Added training turrets, so you can train your turret skills.
  
• Added harpoon turrets! Including a double barrel and 6-shot version, if you can find the blueprints.
  
• Added "Enable civilians in towns" to the options. Turning off civilians will improve performance a little bit.
  
• Added auto-save time to options

BUGFIXES

• You now own and can dismantle the furniture in buildings that you purchase
  
• Limited population slider options to 2x. Too many people were setting it to 4 and wondering why the frame rate was so bad. (you can still set higher than 2 by editing settings.cfg)
  
• Fixed the storage chest not working, as well as a visual bug for storage boxes inventory
  
• Fixed another inventory bug duplicating stacked items
  
• Changed the name of the town of Catan/Capan to Catun. Ssshhhh...
  
• Made indoor buildings more tolerant and easier to place
  
• Stopped gates and walls appearing red before you place them
  
• Fixed the bug where clicking to attack an enemy that was too far away would make your characters just stand idle.
  
• Fixed a bug with the female character editor limits using the male limits

HIGH-PRIORITY FOR FUTURE UPDATES:
-64-bit build, to prevent super-crashes
-New pathfinding/movement system
-Fixing the awkward wall placement interface

Another small update, still focusing mostly on stability for now:

0.67.1

• Added "auto-arrange" button to item containers
  BUGFIXES
  
• Fixed a bug with duplicating swords in the inventory
  
• Fixed the bugs around buying buildings in towns and placing furniture in and around them etc. (Still buggy to import a game with purchased buildings though)
  
• Chain armour bench now actually uses chainmail as the resource
  
• Improved some of the error reporting details
  
• Fixed an occasional crash on loading from an existing game
  
• Fixed a portrait bug
  
• Found a few more smaller memory leaks that have been fixed
  

Another small update, still focusing mostly on stability for now:

0.67.1

• Added "auto-arrange" button to item containers
  BUGFIXES
  
• Fixed a bug with duplicating swords in the inventory
  
• Fixed the bugs around buying buildings in towns and placing furniture in and around them etc. (Still buggy to import a game with purchased buildings though)
  
• Chain armour bench now actually uses chainmail as the resource
  
• Improved some of the error reporting details
  
• Fixed an occasional crash on loading from an existing game
  
• Fixed a portrait bug
  
• Found a few more smaller memory leaks that have been fixed