This version needs further stabilizing and is still not recommended for most players. Also note that the GUI and character editor still have work to be done in the future

FIXES

• Launching DX11 in fullscreen still crashes, but not if you run at your screens native resolution. Still trying to figure out the cause
  
• Fixed a character editor crash
  
• Fixed getting stuck in editor when recruiting someone
  
• Fixed the white character portraits in DX11
  
• Shops have more items in stock
  
• Fixed the inventory icons for items, not for armour yet
  
• Hostile patrols are 50% less likely to attack towns
  
• Cleaned up the launcher options
  
• Fixed some more AI system bugs, including animals not attacking
  
• Fixed characters getting stuck in idle mid-combat
  
• Fixed some random crashes

This version needs further stabilizing and is still not recommended for most players. Also note that the GUI and character editor still have work to be done in the future

FIXES

• Launching DX11 in fullscreen still crashes, but not if you run at your screens native resolution. Still trying to figure out the cause
  
• Fixed a character editor crash
  
• Fixed getting stuck in editor when recruiting someone
  
• Fixed the white character portraits in DX11
  
• Shops have more items in stock
  
• Fixed the inventory icons for items, not for armour yet
  
• Hostile patrols are 50% less likely to attack towns
  
• Cleaned up the launcher options
  
• Fixed some more AI system bugs, including animals not attacking
  
• Fixed characters getting stuck in idle mid-combat
  
• Fixed some random crashes

The latest update is now out on Steam! To download it, you will need to opt in to Steam Experimental.


This is a super unstable version, it's not ready for release but because there hasn't been a release for a long time I'm putting it out in the "Experimental" branch so people who are interested can play around with it. If I try to fix everything first then I'll just keep delaying it more and more until the players lynch me. If you'd prefer to play it when more stable, we recommend waiting a couple of weeks after patching.

• Keep the "view distance" low, it has a drastic effect on performance. This is caused by the terrain engine, it's getting fixed in a future update
• Keeping the population size low will help performance too
• Run the game fullscreen, disable civilian NPCs, turn off shadows will all improve the frame rate
• Running the game in DirectX11 mode has a better frame rate

• There is a slave camp in the west. Any newly captured slaves will be sent to the camp. Escape attempts will be met with harpoons. Intruders will be captured.
• Slavers strip slaves and shave their heads. Confiscated items are put into storage. Slaves are kept in cages and made to work in the mines during the day.
• Slaves have shackles locked onto their feet. They can't be removed unless lock-picked or broken with tools.
• Stolen items are now tagged and the original owner can recognise them
• More limits to trading/looting things at a distance, can't take items from other peoples storage without looting it directly
• Disguises- If you wear the uniform of another faction, NPCs will think you are one of them. Until you get recognised
• NPC towns can have gates, gate guards that challenge you on approach, and recognise unauthorised intruders and escaping prisoners

• New race added, the Shek (People keep complaining that we are adding races instead of fixing bugs- The guy who makes the races is an artist, he's not the same person as the ones fixing bugs!)
• New character editor that uses morph targets for the facial features instead of bones. Looks better, gives more control, and has better in-game performance.
• Character models overhauled, male and female faces look much better, less piggy.
• New GUI re-skin and overhaul.
• Turrets are faster at aiming. NPC guards can man turrets.
• Lots of upgrades and features added to the construction set
• Support added for level mods (to add towns and stuff to the map)
• Support added for physics object attachment to characters and animals
• AI system tune up- better performance and no task oscillation bugs
• Added auto-job for the corpse furnace (careful, they'll burn any loot too)

• DX11 mode (DX9 still supported, but will look crappier and run slower)
• Lights! Night time is darker, buildings can have lights mounted on them
• New global illumination ambient lighting model, and BRDF material shaders

• Improved the terrain collision accuracy
• NPCs won't loot someone who's being carried
• Fixed the bug where guards wouldn't protect you from bandits
• Ragdolls are now created on the background thread
• Fixed the invisible ragdoll bug
• Fixed missing upper body combat animations
• Fixed harpoons getting stuck in mid-air
• Stopped large animals trying to attack targets inside buildings

• Will be focused on bug-fixing and stabilisation
• Will have a new movement system to avoid the characters getting stuck, flickering, and random framerate drops caused by Havok, until then we've worked some quick-fixes into the current release to help things as best we can
• After the performance issues are sorted out the wall placement problems will be looked at

• The gui is not 100% finished and full of cosmetic bugs
• The pathfinder is super broken right now (movement flickers, getting stuck, no collision, and performance drags) because we aren't quite finished with a re-write, it will be updated properly in a few weeks time
• Still needs more features for the lights, like more techs, types, power-related light brightness and stat penalties for working in the darkness, personal lanterns
• Still needs more ways of getting enslaved
• Performance is terrible, it will improve drastically with 2 future updates: The pathfinder (ETA: 2-3 weeks) and the terrain system fix (ETA: 1-2 months)

The latest update is now out on Steam! To download it, you will need to opt in to Steam Experimental.


This is a super unstable version, it's not ready for release but because there hasn't been a release for a long time I'm putting it out in the "Experimental" branch so people who are interested can play around with it. If I try to fix everything first then I'll just keep delaying it more and more until the players lynch me. If you'd prefer to play it when more stable, we recommend waiting a couple of weeks after patching.

• Keep the "view distance" low, it has a drastic effect on performance. This is caused by the terrain engine, it's getting fixed in a future update
• Keeping the population size low will help performance too
• Run the game fullscreen, disable civilian NPCs, turn off shadows will all improve the frame rate
• Running the game in DirectX11 mode has a better frame rate

• There is a slave camp in the west. Any newly captured slaves will be sent to the camp. Escape attempts will be met with harpoons. Intruders will be captured.
• Slavers strip slaves and shave their heads. Confiscated items are put into storage. Slaves are kept in cages and made to work in the mines during the day.
• Slaves have shackles locked onto their feet. They can't be removed unless lock-picked or broken with tools.
• Stolen items are now tagged and the original owner can recognise them
• More limits to trading/looting things at a distance, can't take items from other peoples storage without looting it directly
• Disguises- If you wear the uniform of another faction, NPCs will think you are one of them. Until you get recognised
• NPC towns can have gates, gate guards that challenge you on approach, and recognise unauthorised intruders and escaping prisoners

• New race added, the Shek (People keep complaining that we are adding races instead of fixing bugs- The guy who makes the races is an artist, he's not the same person as the ones fixing bugs!)
• New character editor that uses morph targets for the facial features instead of bones. Looks better, gives more control, and has better in-game performance.
• Character models overhauled, male and female faces look much better, less piggy.
• New GUI re-skin and overhaul.
• Turrets are faster at aiming. NPC guards can man turrets.
• Lots of upgrades and features added to the construction set
• Support added for level mods (to add towns and stuff to the map)
• Support added for physics object attachment to characters and animals
• AI system tune up- better performance and no task oscillation bugs
• Added auto-job for the corpse furnace (careful, they'll burn any loot too)

• DX11 mode (DX9 still supported, but will look crappier and run slower)
• Lights! Night time is darker, buildings can have lights mounted on them
• New global illumination ambient lighting model, and BRDF material shaders

• Improved the terrain collision accuracy
• NPCs won't loot someone who's being carried
• Fixed the bug where guards wouldn't protect you from bandits
• Ragdolls are now created on the background thread
• Fixed the invisible ragdoll bug
• Fixed missing upper body combat animations
• Fixed harpoons getting stuck in mid-air
• Stopped large animals trying to attack targets inside buildings

• Will be focused on bug-fixing and stabilisation
• Will have a new movement system to avoid the characters getting stuck, flickering, and random framerate drops caused by Havok, until then we've worked some quick-fixes into the current release to help things as best we can
• After the performance issues are sorted out the wall placement problems will be looked at

• The gui is not 100% finished and full of cosmetic bugs
• The pathfinder is super broken right now (movement flickers, getting stuck, no collision, and performance drags) because we aren't quite finished with a re-write, it will be updated properly in a few weeks time
• Still needs more features for the lights, like more techs, types, power-related light brightness and stat penalties for working in the darkness, personal lanterns
• Still needs more ways of getting enslaved
• Performance is terrible, it will improve drastically with 2 future updates: The pathfinder (ETA: 2-3 weeks) and the terrain system fix (ETA: 1-2 months)

We’ve been pretty quiet these past couple of weeks mainly bug fixing and preparing the slavery update for a hopeful release next week. Sam is still on the pathfinding (more details about that in our previous post) while Chris has been fixing bugs caused by the new content. He’s also optimised the AI system for a slight boost in performance.

Currently, there are three main things at the moment making the game run slow:

1. The AI system has been growing too complex. As above, the good news is that this has been optimised now so it won’t be a problem anymore.
   
2. The Havok system uses up a bit of CPU time and also causes framerate spikes by freaking out whenever a path fails. Sam is working on this with the pathfinding and it will be fixed shortly after the next update.
   
3. The new terrain plugin has poor performance. This will also be Sam’s job to fix after he has sorted out Havok, possibly around 2 weeks work.

Maykol’s finished implementing the biggest changes in the new GUI – all the windows, panels and new character editor. Right now he’s focused on fixing small UI errors and details with Otto for the release. If we have time before the release, we’re planning on implementing pinned windows for the inventory and the stats, this should make it easier to transfer items between characters.

Oli has been refining biomes and created some super sized trees (you can see these in the background of the swamp screenshot). These are almost finished now and just need some hanging tendrils and vines added, roughly just a day’s more work.




And the Hive People from last week are almost finished! The models are now complete, they just need fixing up to make them compatible with the character editor.




Thank you all for waiting so patiently so far, hopefully if all goes smoothly we can finally get this out to you next week!

We’ve been pretty quiet these past couple of weeks mainly bug fixing and preparing the slavery update for a hopeful release next week. Sam is still on the pathfinding (more details about that in our previous post) while Chris has been fixing bugs caused by the new content. He’s also optimised the AI system for a slight boost in performance.

Currently, there are three main things at the moment making the game run slow:

1. The AI system has been growing too complex. As above, the good news is that this has been optimised now so it won’t be a problem anymore.
   
2. The Havok system uses up a bit of CPU time and also causes framerate spikes by freaking out whenever a path fails. Sam is working on this with the pathfinding and it will be fixed shortly after the next update.
   
3. The new terrain plugin has poor performance. This will also be Sam’s job to fix after he has sorted out Havok, possibly around 2 weeks work.

Maykol’s finished implementing the biggest changes in the new GUI – all the windows, panels and new character editor. Right now he’s focused on fixing small UI errors and details with Otto for the release. If we have time before the release, we’re planning on implementing pinned windows for the inventory and the stats, this should make it easier to transfer items between characters.

Oli has been refining biomes and created some super sized trees (you can see these in the background of the swamp screenshot). These are almost finished now and just need some hanging tendrils and vines added, roughly just a day’s more work.




And the Hive People from last week are almost finished! The models are now complete, they just need fixing up to make them compatible with the character editor.




Thank you all for waiting so patiently so far, hopefully if all goes smoothly we can finally get this out to you next week!

This week, Sam’s been working on the pathfinding bug where characters get stuck on corners and hills. This problem is caused by a bug in Havok that we can’t access, so at the moment he’s just working on a way to work around it. There are a few problems caused by some bugs in the Havok library, so after the next update Sam will have to write his own movement system for the collision part of the pathfinding himself.

Chris and myself have been working on fleshing out the lore - the main factions, conflicts and positions on the map. Oli’s been making a few final rearrangements to the new world map and blending the biomes together to fit with the layout of the faction territories. We’ve also added a function to the dialogue system that allows unlockable conversations that will lead to ongoing/ continuing events with NPCs. Possible conversation spoiler A good example for this is a conversation where smugglers can develop crooked partnerships with corrupt gate guards.

Otto’s been working on a new race which we’ve temporarily called the Hive Men (you may have seen the concept art for them already).



Here are our very rough notes on them so far:

• Hive based, serve their queens. When a queen dies, the subjects all either die or become lost "Ronin".
  
• All male, except the queen. Males are impregnated by the queen.
  
• No blood, they are "dry lubricated", silicon based.
  
• Wider FOV angle due to eyes on side of heads
  
• Very skinny, low strength, high speed + dexterity.
  
• Their selfless loyalty to the hive and desire to work hard is enforced by the hive’s pheromones
  
• Known for being untrustworthy.
  
• Often merchants who sell produce for the hive.
  
• Ronin of lost hives become the more interesting individuals.
  
• Separate worker and warrior classes.
  
• Value the good of the hive above all else, personal benefit and safety is irrelevant.
  
• Soldiers/Hammerheads are the soldiers and enforcers. Dumb and aggressive. Shorter, bulkier and stronger.
  
• Workers/Tallheads are the workers, industrious, fast. Sometimes sent as traders for more dangerous jobs, because they are more expendable.
• Bonus to labouring
  
• Princes/Hivefaces are the high ranking smart ones- generals, diplomats, assassins, traders.
  
• Those that spend too long far away from the hive gain more free will and individuality. Some can die instead.
  
• They don't have a concept of individual names

Free Hiveman/Defectors:

• Spent so long from the hive that they become free and individuals. Choose not to go back. "Defect" to freedom.
  
• The most existentially confused and depressed. More so than the Skeletons. Suddenly going from higher purpose to nothing but the self.
  
• Hammerheads are too dumb to get free, usually return because they just like having a violent purpose. Those that do remain free usually become bandits or mercs. Military won't take them.
  
• Faces are designed to be away and independent for a long time, so they don't have a problem, defecting to freedom is very rare.
  
• Tallheads are the usual, as they are smarter than hammerheads and more heavily controlled than faces.
  
• Tend to wander a lot, seeking purpose

The Shek (you may remember them referred to as bone people previously) will now be in game alongside the new human character models. The new models should reduce a bit of the CPU load.





Before we can release, the GUI and lighting just need fixing - at the moment, everything in game is completely silver until the shaders are fixed in DirectX11. Apologies for the vagueness on a finish date for this so far, we want to be 100% sure of a date before announcing.

This week, Sam’s been working on the pathfinding bug where characters get stuck on corners and hills. This problem is caused by a bug in Havok that we can’t access, so at the moment he’s just working on a way to work around it. There are a few problems caused by some bugs in the Havok library, so after the next update Sam will have to write his own movement system for the collision part of the pathfinding himself.

Chris and myself have been working on fleshing out the lore - the main factions, conflicts and positions on the map. Oli’s been making a few final rearrangements to the new world map and blending the biomes together to fit with the layout of the faction territories. We’ve also added a function to the dialogue system that allows unlockable conversations that will lead to ongoing/ continuing events with NPCs. Possible conversation spoiler A good example for this is a conversation where smugglers can develop crooked partnerships with corrupt gate guards.

Otto’s been working on a new race which we’ve temporarily called the Hive Men (you may have seen the concept art for them already).



Here are our very rough notes on them so far:

• Hive based, serve their queens. When a queen dies, the subjects all either die or become lost "Ronin".
  
• All male, except the queen. Males are impregnated by the queen.
  
• No blood, they are "dry lubricated", silicon based.
  
• Wider FOV angle due to eyes on side of heads
  
• Very skinny, low strength, high speed + dexterity.
  
• Their selfless loyalty to the hive and desire to work hard is enforced by the hive’s pheromones
  
• Known for being untrustworthy.
  
• Often merchants who sell produce for the hive.
  
• Ronin of lost hives become the more interesting individuals.
  
• Separate worker and warrior classes.
  
• Value the good of the hive above all else, personal benefit and safety is irrelevant.
  
• Soldiers/Hammerheads are the soldiers and enforcers. Dumb and aggressive. Shorter, bulkier and stronger.
  
• Workers/Tallheads are the workers, industrious, fast. Sometimes sent as traders for more dangerous jobs, because they are more expendable.
• Bonus to labouring
  
• Princes/Hivefaces are the high ranking smart ones- generals, diplomats, assassins, traders.
  
• Those that spend too long far away from the hive gain more free will and individuality. Some can die instead.
  
• They don't have a concept of individual names

Free Hiveman/Defectors:

• Spent so long from the hive that they become free and individuals. Choose not to go back. "Defect" to freedom.
  
• The most existentially confused and depressed. More so than the Skeletons. Suddenly going from higher purpose to nothing but the self.
  
• Hammerheads are too dumb to get free, usually return because they just like having a violent purpose. Those that do remain free usually become bandits or mercs. Military won't take them.
  
• Faces are designed to be away and independent for a long time, so they don't have a problem, defecting to freedom is very rare.
  
• Tallheads are the usual, as they are smarter than hammerheads and more heavily controlled than faces.
  
• Tend to wander a lot, seeking purpose

The Shek (you may remember them referred to as bone people previously) will now be in game alongside the new human character models. The new models should reduce a bit of the CPU load.





Before we can release, the GUI and lighting just need fixing - at the moment, everything in game is completely silver until the shaders are fixed in DirectX11. Apologies for the vagueness on a finish date for this so far, we want to be 100% sure of a date before announcing.

Just a short progress report to let you know what we've been up to this week: Oli has been designing a black frontier prison based on the citadel outpost from last week...



Programming-wise, Maykol is still at work on integrating the re-designed GUI; hopefully it will be ready for the last final touches next week. Chris and Sam have both finished slavery mechanics and the DirectX11 upgrade, now back on fixing up the path-finding system and other general bugs which have emerged after adding the new content. We've also finally added the very first torch lights into the game!...



Otto's been working on a range of odd jobs, including models for lights, the latest new race (sorry, no screens just yet), our re-designed logo & avatar, and some WIP sketches for new creature concepts:





Let us know what you think!

Just a short progress report to let you know what we've been up to this week: Oli has been designing a black frontier prison based on the citadel outpost from last week...



Programming-wise, Maykol is still at work on integrating the re-designed GUI; hopefully it will be ready for the last final touches next week. Chris and Sam have both finished slavery mechanics and the DirectX11 upgrade, now back on fixing up the path-finding system and other general bugs which have emerged after adding the new content. We've also finally added the very first torch lights into the game!...



Otto's been working on a range of odd jobs, including models for lights, the latest new race (sorry, no screens just yet), our re-designed logo & avatar, and some WIP sketches for new creature concepts:





Let us know what you think!