Caves of Qud - ptychomancer
Hi there,
We've been working on some UI features, including better gamepad support, a more robust input manager, and a whole new Abilities screen. That work is now live on the beta branch!

If you'd like to help us test it, right-click on Caves of Qud in Steam, select Properties, click the Betas tab, and switch to the 'beta' branch. Note: previous saves won't be compatible with this beta.

Please post your bugs here.

Live and drink, friends.

  • Merged all input managers down to one, meaning you no longer have to change settings for gamepad to work.
  • Made keyboard & gamepad input much more robust across the board.
  • We added a new Abilities screen ('a').
    • Added icons for every ability.
    • Added in-depth, dynamic descriptions for many abilities (the rest to come).
    • You can reorder abilities on the Abilities screen and they will also reorder in your hotbar.
  • We made several enhancements to the ability hotbar.
    • Your abilities are now automatically hotkeyed. You can change the hotkeys from the Abilities screen.
    • Added hotkeys for scrolling through your hotbars (default ctrl+1 - ctrl+5).
    • New ability icons also appear on the hotbar.
  • Added the new ability icons to the old UI sidebar. They also now respect the order of abilities on your ability screen.
  • Added a new, highly visible autoexplore danger indicator.
  • Holding down movement keys to move quickly is now safeguarded by the autoexplore danger indicator.
  • Added gamepad button glyphs for Xbox and PlayStation controllers wherever the UI indicates a button bind.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.87
  • Phasing is now better integrated with pathfinding.
  • Gave fire ant queens wings.
  • Made the default interaction for spiral borers be 'activate'.
  • Clonelings can once again drink cloning draught to restore their cloning capacity.
  • Added a bunch of new creature descriptions.
  • Changed the appearance of hyrkhounds.
  • Regeneration tanks now change tiles when broken.
  • Added an option to disable fire sounds.
  • Landing Pads now awards XP upon completion.
  • Reduced the degree to which creature AI avoids webs.
  • Lase's penetration value in the Light Manipulation description is now accurate.
  • Phase-harmonic spasers now generate omniphase plasma.
  • Quartzfur and glass armor no longer reflects damage from sources like bleeding and poison that are inside armor.
  • Resolved various issues involving conflicts between different sources of icon coloration for creatures.
  • Reasonably smart creatures can now slot fresh energy cells into various energy-cell-using equipment besides ranged weapons.
  • Fixed a bug that caused flaming objects coated in plasma to emit much more smoke than intended.
  • Fixed a bug that occasionally caused odd wind direction messages.
  • Fixed a bug that made merchant restocking announcements depend on the merchant being visible.
  • Fixed a bug that made gas tumblers not affect spasers.
  • Fixed a bug that caused villagers to occasionally be assigned duplicate titles.
  • Fixed a bug that caused points of interest and some exotic construction materials to have superfluous language in their descriptions.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause broken world history entries.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause exceptions in zone generation.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the final step of "Kith and Kin" to not award experience.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the "Spread Klanq around Qud" quest steps not to update unless you had saved & loaded your game.
  • Fixed a bug that caused villages with empty but unreachable cells to fail to generate.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Unity impostors to be visible with tiles disabled.
  • Fixed a bug that caused rust fields and bogs to fail to generate.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Slog to have two tails.
  • Fixed a rare exception in Slam.
  • [modding] Pettable creatures can now have their chance of assigning a Pet goal set using the intproperty PetGoalChance (default 10), and the number of times to wait (times they would otherwise have been assigned a Pet goal) after successfully assigning a Pet goal before assigning another with the intproperty PetGoalWait (default 100).
  • [modding] Added the AwardXP conversation action, which gives XP to the player or speaker with an optional popup message.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.84
  • We made Kickback work with any missile attack and moved it under the Tactics skill tree.
  • Bilge sphincter bonuses are now considered "base".
  • Normality fields have a new appearance.
  • Reduced the difficulty of the save to avoid going prone from Rocket Jump.
  • Various items that provide saving throw modifiers now say what they are doing using more descriptive language.
  • Simplified some save modifier language involving forced movement.
  • Creatures are now much less willing to use special movement abilities to go to dangerous locations.
  • Slog is now more willing to enter pools of filth.
  • The Stuck effect from a grabber arm now ends if the grabber arm is destroyed or moved out of adjacency to the target.
  • Hints about location of the Ruin of House Isner found in books now use more sensible language when the hint is less than one parasang.
  • Fixed various cases of things being described awkwardly as sets. This fix will show up unevenly in existing saved games.
  • Fixed a bug that removed creatures' titles from restocking announcements and points of interest.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the messages for discovering a lair not to indicate the type of creature the lair owner is. Lairs in existing save games will not be affected.
  • Fixed a bug that caused several quests not to complete correctly if you had swapped bodies. More fixed quests to come next week.
  • Fixed a bug that caused crashes in some situations with stuck creatures.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the player's name to be rendered as "you" when items were named for them.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some maker's marks to cause strange text generation.
  • Fixed a capitalization issue with generated quest item names.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some exotic construction materials to be described as wet when they weren't.
  • Fixed bugs that caused brinestalk, sliced bop cheek, wild rice to be treated as plural.
  • [modding] Added a new part, ExcludeMods, that can be used like <part Name="ExcludeMods" Exclude="ModSharp,ModScoped" /> to prevent an item from getting specified mods it would otherwise qualify for. Exclude="*" will exclude all mods, though typically that would be done using <tag Name="Mods" Value="None" />.
  • [modding] Added AfterSecretRevealed, PlayerAfterConversation and PlayerEnteredCell events to IGameSystem.

Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.83
  • Rocket skates now alter Jump into Rocket Jump.
    • +4 jump range
    • Minimum range 3
    • You can rocket jump over creatures.
    • Upon landing, you make an Agility 20 save or fall prone.
    • You leave a trail of burning exhaust behind you.
  • The Hurdle skill now lets you jump without interrupting your sprint.
  • Movement confirmation now a yes/no popup, rather than requesting confirmation via moving again, when moving up or down.
  • When you perform the water ritual with a social coprocessor installed, you now gain additional reputation with the creature's faction if your implant's performance has been boosted by compute power.
  • Photosynthetic skin, vine-weave tunics, and other leafy items no longer count your own foliage (if you are a plant or plant-like creature) in determining camoflauge DV.
  • The Leap, Frog achievement now triggers when you are taught Jump by a wider range of frogs, including svardym.
  • Flaming vents are a little more destructive.
  • Robots can no longer eat food or drink liquids. Existing robots in saved games won't be affected.
  • Robots no longer heal while EMPed. Existing robots in saved games won't be affected.
  • Forts no longer sometimes spawn disconnected from the rest of the map.
  • Added new descriptions for several map terrain objects.
  • Replaced the tiles for low-tier relic hats and helmets with different, better-suited existing tiles.
  • Improved the spawn placement of esper assassins.
  • The main menu music now restarts when returning to the main menu from an active game.
  • Added a section on saving throws to the manual.
  • Fixed a bug that caused a variety of item types to be unable to stack.
  • Fixed a bug that made buying skills in the water ritual display the original cost in the dialog rather than the adjusted cost.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the natural claw weapons of burrowing claws to not be removed with the mutation.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Slog of the Cloaca to not award reputation when killed.
  • Fixed a bug that made pettable creatures with multiple pet responses fail to display proper messages.
  • Fixed a bug that caused several quests to not complete correctly if you had swapped bodies. More fixed quests to come next week.
  • Fixed pettable creatures pet responses that used the old format (all Patreon pets).
  • Fixed a bug where Rainwater Shomer was able to follow you back into the corporeal world.
  • Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Eskhind, Liihart, or Meyehind from spawning.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the names of lairs not to indicate the type of creature the lair owner is. Lairs in existing save games will not be affected.
  • Fixed a bug that caused creatures not to equip shields.
  • Fixed a bug that caused legendary tortoises to be described as legendary tortoises twice.
  • Fixed a bug with the network of roots pet that caused its inventory to transmute into "pooled objects".
  • Fixed a bug that caused a non-dominant biome for an area to sometimes be listed as its most notable feauture.
  • Fixed a rare crash during gem tumbling when the tumbler was frozen.
  • [modding] Added IfHaveLiquid, GiveLiquid, and UseLiquid conversation delegates (wiki ref: Modding:Conversations#Delegates_2).
  • [modding] Added a PlayerTook event to IGameSystem.
  • [debug] Wishing "rebuild" on the world map now correctly places you on the rebuilt world map.
  • [debug] Fixed the Grit Gate doors not being properly opened when wishing "stage4".
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.82
  • Non-player creatures now occasionally pet nearby pettable creatures.
  • Eating a plant or fungi-based meal at an oven as a carnivore no longer provides satiation and may make you ill.
  • Photosynthetic Skin now gives a small bonus to DV when occupying the same tile as foliage.
  • We made some cosmetic changes to jungle trees.
    • To reduce confusion around which tree blocked movement -- tanglewood tree or shimscale mangrove tree -- we replaced the tanglewood tree with a new tree, ziv bough, and gave shimscale mangrove tree (the movement blocking one) both mangrove/tanglewood tile variants.
    • Added another new tree: star palm.
    • Witchwood trees now have a tile variant.
    • Dogthorn and swarmshade trees now use their tile variants.
    • Tweaked the tree population in the jungle and jungle-like regions.
    • Added new descriptions for shimscale mangrove tree, swarmshade tree, star palm, and ziv bough.
  • Containers of pure water that are also quest items are no longer excluded from NPC inventories in trade.
  • Clicking on an object to walk toward it now continues to walk toward the object if it moves rather than the location it was in when clicked.
  • Legendary chefs no longer occasionally spawn without an oven.
  • Village ovens may spawn surrounded by liquid but no longer spawn immersed and unusable.
  • Village ovens no longer spawn in hallways.
  • Village ovens are no longer removed by random rivers passing through them.
  • Pathfinding now avoids visible sprouting orbs.
  • In the modern UI, characters with Nerve Poppy now have their HP bar move when they change HP statuses.
  • Save file cleanup no longer deletes any folder starting with a period.
  • Improved some failure messaging for Flaming Ray and Freezing Ray.
  • Improved the determination of whether a creature is in combat for the purposes of Narcolepsy.
  • Tweaked some descriptions on the worldmap.
  • Fixed a bug that caused creatures to fall in love with objects that weren't real.
  • Fixed a bug that caused soup sludges to only equip a single pseudopod.
  • Fixed a bug that assigned extra titles to some creatures.
  • Fixed a bug that caused game crashes in some exotic combinations of creatures being stuck and engulfed.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some named items to be called weird artifacts in their descriptions.
  • Fixed a bug that made Flaming Ray and Freezing Ray unusable when granted by cooking effects.
  • Fixed a bug that caused burrowing claws granted by skulk injectors to not generate their natural claw weapons.
  • Fixed various bugs involving messages not being generated, or sight being lost on targets, because a creature you're fighting is across a zone boundary.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.78
  • Gaslight chisels can now be used to engrave hard, inorganic body parts in a fashion similar to how tattoo guns can be used to tattoo soft, organic body parts. (Existing gaslight chisels in saved games will not receive this functionality.)
  • Digging while autoexploring or otherwise pathfinding now prefers somewhat to dig through softer walls.
  • When a selected target square for Jump is invalid, you are now asked to select it again rather than exiting the command entirely.
  • Village pets talk less like villagers now, and smart use brings up their interaction menu rather than immediately chatting with them.
  • Attacks now pass harmlessly through holographic walls, unless they are animated.
  • Reduced the weight (and thus gravity grenade damage when they slam into you) of conveyor belts.
  • Added some references to the Corpus Choliys and spray bottles in apothecary dialolg.
  • Non-player creatures can now use the following implants if they have them installed: matter recompositer, high-fidelity matter recompositer, inflatable axons, nocturnal apex, and stasis projector.
  • Non-player creatures wielding psionic melee weapons now unequip them if their target is immune to psychic attacks.
  • Non-player creatures wielding psychal fleshguns now stop trying to shoot targets that are immune to psychic attacks.
  • Improved the death messages for being killed by your Temporal Fugue clones and similar phenomena.
  • Fixed a bug where "Wait N turns" was waiting 1 extra turn.
  • Fixed a color inconsistency in village generated dialog.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented smart use on some objects from correctly bringing up their interaction menu when it was supposed to.
  • Fixed a bug that caused plural creatures to sometimes be referred to as a set of themselves.
  • Fixed a bug that caused some cybernetic implants to sometimes be described strangely.
  • [modding] Added an after-render callback to some displays that were not using it (especially Targeting displays).
  • [modding] Fixed a bug that caused XML files of failed mods to be loaded.
  • [modding] The unapproved mod alert now only displays when nothing else prevents that mod from running.
  • [modding] Generally standardized on use of The.Player over Core.Player.Body
  • [modding] Fixed several instances where UI screens (Skills and Powers, Status, etc.) were referencing The.Player directly instead of the object passed in to them.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.74
  • When aiming a missile or thrown weapon with a known maximum range, the portion of the selected path beyond that range is now colored black.
  • When aiming a thrown weapon, the portion of the selected path beyond your full-accuracy throw range is now colored yellow.
  • Geomagnetic discs are now subject to being intercepted by point-defense systems.
  • Point-defense systems now respect phase.
  • Glowfish and glowcrows now emit a small amount of light.
  • Kickback no longer activates if you have no feet.
  • Renamed the "Open chests while auto-exploring" option to "Look in containers while auto-exploring", made it apply to all container types, and removed the now vestigial "Open bookshelves while auto-exploring" option.
  • Using the Confusion mutation now makes affected targets angry.
  • Added a custom message on Pax Klanq's death.
  • Liquid pools now freeze into solids based on the primary liquid in the mixture.
  • Manual equip now uses body parts' descriptions rather than names.
  • Flurry can no longer be activated on the world map.
  • Smart use near harvestable plants now harvests them.
  • Inflated axons and prowling effects now end if the corresponding cybernetics are removed.
  • Added color animation effects to glowspheres, floating glowspheres, luminous motes, quantum motes, and black motes.
  • Added new descriptions to grenades and several other items.
  • Improved the grammar used with the leatherworking tools in Bey Lah.
  • Improved the grammar in messages related to examining and putting things on tables and bookshelves.
  • Color-coded grenade tiles and ASCII glyphs.
  • Fixed some issues with the stats assigned to tinkered turrets.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the cone picker to not respond to movement directions properly when locked.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the cone picker display to be assymetrical.
  • Fixed a bug that removed the "space-select | lock/unlock (F1)" line of the fire/throw target picker from the text UI.
  • Fixed a bug with the display of some sultan names in village histories.
  • Fixed a bug that caused rebuked followers to keep following you when dismissed.
  • Fixed a bug that disabled the look interaction on items in containers and implanted cybernetics.
  • Fixed a bug causing some deep shafts and special worldmap terrains to have "set of" prepended to their names.
  • [modding] Gave Meal Preparation its own Class name unique from CookingAndGathering (CookingAndGathering_MealPrep).
  • [modding] Added a new 'rapid:[n]' wish to trigger rapid advancement.


Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.72

  • Added a remappable command for interacting with your companions (defaults to Ctrl-C).
  • Items being gigantic no longer uses up one of their three modding slots.
  • Improved the artifact identification messages shown when you permanently come to understand an artifact you temporarily understand due to tech or bioscanning.
  • When a weapon can only penetrate a maximum of 1x, the penetration arrow icon in its display name is now black.
  • Offhand attacks from your stinger now always apply their venom.
  • Palladium electrodeposits are now destroyed on removal, and their Intelligence bonus, when applicable, now counts toward skill requirements. (Existing implants in saved games will not be affected.)
  • Becoming hungry no longer interrupts autoact. Becoming famished still does.
  • Items marked to be treated as scrap no longer continue to be treated as scrap if they become unidentified.
  • Brinestalk gates and iron gates no longer occlude vision while closed.
  • Popups from pulsed field magnets ripping things off your body now require you to press space to dismiss them.
  • You no longer get a chronology entry for visiting a generated village if it's the village you started in.
  • Gave glowsphere and silver rondure more appropriate tiles.
  • Made the gigantic chassis plate metal.
  • Made wavy doors metal.
  • Improved the sort order of liquid containers.
  • Fixed a bug that caused named items to include superfluous details about their state in their descriptions.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the "Find Eskhind" quest to start when Eskhind was slain.
  • Fixed an issue where pressing a movement direction multiple times could cause one press to not register.
  • Fixed a bug that made nulling melee weapons not necessarily eligible for the Jacked mod.
  • Fixed a bug that made autoexplore unable to swap positions with animated doors that the player was unable to unlock.
  • Fixed a bug that made some remote sensing effects carry through inappropriate colors to the tiles shown.
  • [modding] The PortableWall part now supports a field DeployingWhat for controlling the text the field picker displays.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.71
  • The watervine farmer calling now starts with bonus reputation with the Farmers' Guild.
  • Ticking vents are now limited to spawning 30 clockwork beetles in total.
  • Fungal infections on hands now display their stats as melee weapons.
  • You now fall to the ground if you lose your wings in-flight.
  • Gave equimaxes double-muscled.
  • Creatures are now more willing to attack force fields and plant growth and, sometimes, dig through walls to reach an enemy.
  • Gigantic creatures now break most beds and chairs they attempt to sleep or sit in.
  • Certain liquids are now converted to other liquids if they react with a desalination pellet.
  • The target selection prompt for stasis and force projectors now refers to a field rather than a wall.
  • You can no longer enter the [redacted] if you do not bear the Mark of Death.
  • The bit cost of item modifications is now in part based on the base item's tech tier instead of its general tier. This mostly has no impact, except that it's now easier to mod recoilers even if they port you to late-game locations.
  • When a creature is pushed or pulled due to an effect that propels them through the air (e.g., Slam, gravity grenade), they no longer interact with liquid pools they pass over.
  • Pariahs in pariah groups no longer exhibit extremely antisocial behavior like leaving trash trails and swallowing things whole.
  • Attempting to sleep on a bed or sit on a chair with a neutral creature in its square now swaps positions with the creature, if possible, rather than asking if you want to attack them.
  • Added new descriptions for several creatures.
  • Removed an outdated version of Electrical Generation from electrofuges and gave them the newer one.
  • Improved some suboptimal grammar in tombstone messages.
  • Fixed a bug that occasionally made exploding items explode multiple times.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed you to complete quests with temporary items.
  • Fixed a bug that caused permanent clones of narratively important NPCs to flag the original as dead when the clone died.
  • Fixed a bug that made geomagnetic discs not overloadable.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented NPCs from reloading some missile weapons.
  • Fixed a bug that made the fists installed by fist replacement cybernetics persist after the implant was removed.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented the player from automatically equipping a torch on game start.
Caves of Qud - AlphaBeard
204.69
  • Slugsnouts and leering stalkers no longer use their ranged weapons at point-blank range.
  • Reverted last week's change about not being able to open doors if you can't access your extremities. Now, certain creatures won't open or close doors based on behaviorial factors.
  • Made it harder to get to [redacted] if you don't have the Tomb of the Eaters quest.
  • You can no longer travel to [redacted] while in a body that's not your own.
  • The deployment of portable walls and stasis projectors is now animated.
  • Increases the frequency Ruin of House Isner secrets appear in generated text, which had become less frequent since the last corpus refresh.
  • Messaging for secrets discovered via Trash Divining is now sensitive to the "Display popups when noting information in your journal." option.
  • Revamped some creature descriptions.
  • Fixed a bug causing some sentences to refer to a creature when they should have referred to a piece of the creature's equipment.
  • Fixed a bug that made some creature detection effects continue highlighting creatures if you switched bodies into something lacking the detection capacity.
  • Fixed a bug where heavy weapons were categorized as rifles in tinkering categories, resulting in heavy weapon schemasofts with no blueprints.
  • Fixed a bug where the Hampered effect was categorized as mental, which caused it to terminate Sunder Mind.
  • Fixed a bug in the construction of some trader restocking messages.
...