Hi there!

With the 0.7 branch being more or less complete, It's time to talk about our next 0.8.x branch :)

As usual with my "road-map" articles, everything I'm going to write is still in the 'design' or 'early implementation' phase. The details may vary wildly in practice. I may delay or move some of it, add unrelated things as needed. The point is to give you a general idea, not a detailed picture. Also, this post is going to explain what 0.8x will look like at the very end of its development cycle. The initial 0.8.0 release will just pave the way for those features and will, by definition, be much more limited.

Oh, before we start, just a note regarding 0.7.7. I am aware of some small issues with it, which I promised to fix this week. While I was planning to take a few days off, unexpected family-related issues completely negated those. As such, I have to admit that I couldn't work on the game at all. Be sure it will be my the first order of business next week. Thank you in advance for your understanding.

Now that we are all on the same page, let's dive in! :)


While 0.7 was focusing on the base building proper, 08 is going to focus on pretty much everything else. Map generation, both at the base and city level will be the biggest and most time consuming chunk. The city map will become way more dynamic, expeditions will be improved and proper scenarios and extensive difficulty settings will be added. This is, of course, a very short summary. So, let's give all this a proper look!


While this is the first item in the list (as I need to explain it for context), it's the one thing for which I don't have a clear, step by step to-do list yet. Simply put, I am not satisfied with the current city map. Even if we forget how bad it looks graphically, it's just a very boring map to play with. Despite the fact that there's a small scale strategy game playing on that map, there's no actual path-finding: no blocking terrain, no rivers to "cut" the city in half. I also place locations in very unbalanced ways. The list could go on forever.

I'm still experimenting with various changes/features, and I have not settled on a particular one yet. Still, the following statements are, pretty much, sure things:

• Expeditions will use proper path-finding to move toward their destination (instead of traveling like birds)
• Add path-blocking rivers/lakes to the city map
• Depending on difficulty settings, add fog of war, forcing the player to explore the city to reveal locations

There are many other things i'll be experimenting with, but at this point in time, it's all I can share.


It's not exactly a secret that the map generation is far from being varied, especially in the city proper. Even if 0.7.6 and 0.7.7 added some variety when selecting locations bordering the city itself with new lakes, rivers and mountain ranges, it's still quite experimental (and occasionally unreliable). Buildings themselves are okay, but the layout in the city itself is not interesting or varied enough.

The major technical problem is the local map size which can be customized in ways that do not make much sense for my generator. To make better maps, I first need to standardize them. Simply put, the sizes labelled as "standard" and "gigantic" will be kept while "small" and "large" will be phased out (or marked as unsupported). A standard map will occupy one square on the city map, a gigantic map will occupy "2x2" squares. Yes, it means that a gigantic map will contain 4 smaller maps, possibly with different biomes. Additionally, I will also be able to "fill" the large empty/forest/desert space with larger buildings, small paths, parks and such to give a proper city vibe. Another goal is to add rivers (and bridges) crossing the map, of course aligned with the city's layout.


Kudos to Mack for suggesting this one to me a long time ago. In principle, it's self explanatory: add a map/building editor and allow players to share them (on the steam workshop or elsewhere). The game would automatically integrate them during city and local map generation. Of course, it's easier said than done. :)

Adding the editor itself ain't really a problem. I mean, ATC is a city builder already. I "just" need to modify the user interface using the already implemented creative mode as a base. On the user/creator side, the only big hurdle is to define under which conditions those buildings/maps should appear. Code-wise, it's simple enough for buildings. Regarding whole maps, it's another story, but I think it's doable.


I'm not satisfied with the main menu and it's 3 "new game" variants (including the tutorial). Not only that, but the follow-up menu for "full" and "custom" probably haven't really changed since 0.6 or so. Sure, it superficially looks "power-user"-ish, but in reality, it's quite messy and unfriendly looking to any newcomer. So, how to fix? If you have played my first commercial game, you already know what I am aiming for, just a tad more streamlined.

As such, I will remove all those options from the main menu, and just keep a "new game" button. This button will lead to a proper "scenario" menu with nice pictures and descriptions for each item. So, what's a scenario you ask me? Good question, imaginary average user! Simply put, it's a bunch of preset settings. A valid scenario could be the tutorial itself, it could be what we currently call the "full game" with starting location being player selected. It could force you to start with X specific settlers, or give you free reign. The list could go on. Special difficulty settings like "Last Stand (30/15 days)" would become scenarios in their own rights.

To the end user, beside the UI being more friendly, it won't change much in practice. All current options will just be specific default scenarios. However, it will allow modders to add new ones. For example, a modder could force you to start on a specific hand crafted map, with a hand crafted factions, and only use specific game events. They could preload it with customized difficulty settings as well (see below). The idea is to have very detailed files to describe a scenario, allowing as many combinations as possible.


After reading hundreds of feedback mails/posts/reviews, it's obvious that I have a very diverse user-base, some do find the game way too hard, while others find it way too easy. I don't have a magic formula to make everyone happy. But, I still can help players to tailor the game in the way they are the most comfortable with. When I started writing ATC, I wanted to emulate what Rimworld was doing with its "story tellers" (which are nothing more than re-branded difficult settings). I ended up with a bastardized system I'm not really liking. Not because it doesn't work, but because it is very tedious to maintain, annoying to mod, and frankly, doesn't fix the underlying issue.

You'll get settings to set at which rate you want events to popup, set how often peons need to sleep/eat/drink.., combat damage % modifiers, select if you want the game to balance good/bad events or not, and so on. I already wrote the file which is about 20-30 settings total. Detailing every single item would be pointless, but the goal is to make the game a heck lot more customizable.

Of course, not everyone want to spend 10 minutes editing arcane difficulty settings, especially newcomers. I mean, you get the idea, I will add easy/medium/hard presets, on top of a custom setting. Selecting "custom" will open a very detailed menu for you to mess with. Additionally, scenarios can and will come with their own difficult settings (that you can still edit if you want to).


With map generation and menu related features out of the way. Let's get to game content proper :)

Right now, the world map is quite boring. Sure, it's kinda dynamic as other factions take over locations and such, but that's pretty much it. Well, no more! I intend to add moving herds of animals that you might want to intercept with an expedition (more on that below) and special local events. Events like bandit camps appearing on the map, threatening your nearby production centers by spawning hostile enemies until you, or another AI faction, takes care of them. Yeah, I know it sounds a bit vague, and for good reasons, as it's a feature-set that will span over both 0.8x and 0.9x development cycles.

I also want both your expeditions (and AI expeditions) to become actual entities which can move around the map and possibly intercept / interact with each other. But, let's me switch to the next subject to explain this further :)


For those of you who played Frostpunk or the shameless clone from Paradox called "Surviving the Aftermath" (I'm joking, mostly), I'm going to use something quite similar. For those who did not, let me detail my goals more precisely.

So, until now, when doing an expedition, you pick a few of your people, and they go do the expedition, come back, and resume activities. Everything is pretty much automated. No matter how large the base, no matter the tech level, you'd run ONE single expedition at a time. It is very abstract. Sure, it does serve its purpose, but it's quite dull for such a major part of the game. Assuming I'm going to add a bunch of dynamic elements to the map, single fire & forget expeditions just won't cut it anymore.

So, instead, I'm planning to put a new system in place. After you discover the exploration tech, you'll be able to build your first "expedition building" (name pending). You assign a few settlers to this building to serve as the expedition group. When done, they will exit the local map (until they are manually disbanded) and become a "group" you can move freely on the city map. So, instead of setting up a goal and people for a specific mission, you'd just move your group to a location and on arrival, you'd press the button to loot or attack the target.

Let's pick a simple example. In 0.7, to take over a production center, you'd need 1) to send a first combat expedition to clear it up, 2) send another one to claim it. It'd take at least a few days, and in the meantime, you are not able to interact with the map anymore.  With the new system, once the expedition is done clearing the location, they are free to move elsewhere. The liberated location gets a "claim" button so you can send the required workers from your base directly (and independently of the expedition itself).

Additionally, AI factions would proceed in the exact same way.  Attacks against locations wouldn't be instant anymore. They'd send groups, which you can intercept, to attack/secure their targets. Couple that with the optional fog of war mentioned above and things might get quite interesting.

Also, given that expeditions would become proper "agents" on the world map, the next obvious step is to allow the player to have multiple expeditions running at the same time. That can be unlocked through research: Expedition level 1 = 1 group, expedition level 2 = 2 groups, and so on. Also, now that each expedition has it's own building, it opens the road for more customization. For example, you could find/build/repair a vehicle and add it to the building. The vehicle would expand their range, movement speed and cargo space. There's a lot of things that could be added to further customize each group.

Anyway, let's get to what some of you have been waiting since the very first version of the game.


So, for the majority of people who aren't aware of my initial promises: one of them was to allow players to micro manage expedition encounters (optionally, because I am fully aware that most people do not want to do more combat than necessary). While on a purely technical level, it's something I can perfectly manage, on a more practical level, it gets quite complicated. I would need a map generator for each and every single location on the world map, and unless you want the game to be delayed for the next 2 decades, it's not a very realistic option.

Heck, modded locations would need a map generator too.  One of the most popular mods adds a ton of new locations to the city. Asking the modder to make a specific map for each and every one of those is not viable. Plus, generally speaking, such maps would rarely be "combat friendly". Of course, I could just use a generic map for the battle, but it's not a very appealing option either.

So, what to do?

It easy enough for me to design specific small "combat oriented" maps. Imagine them as the entrance of your targeted location. A bunch of walls, sandbags, with optional turrets, and specific spawn locations for the hostiles. I can make such maps (and with the community map feature, modders and players alike might be able to) to offer a proper challenge in a controlled environment, something that a default map definitely cannot provide.

Even in this context there are a few issues to go over like ammo management (we'll likely pretend it doesn't need to exist, or use whatever is available in your settlement). Still, all things considered, it seems like a very manageable problem to me.

In practice when your expedition is about to attack a location, you'd be asked if you want manual or automated combat. If you respond "manual", you'd be "teleported" to a combat map which you'll need to clear from hostiles. The"automated" option would run roughly the same formula as before, probably with added tweaks and options.

Of course, it's never going to be XCOM because I'm running a one-man-band budget game not a million dollar franchise. But this way, I can make it interesting while keeping it manageable code and time wise.


Of course, those are the main focus. I will continue to do the usual, adding general content, tweaking the UI, fixing issues, and experimenting with small features. I don't expect any major problem while writing this branch, this is code I know I can write. It is going to take some time to get done, tho, and at this point in time, I can't say which of those features will (or will not) be in the initial 0.8.0 release.

That's all for now, thank you for reading and supporting the game!

Hi people!

So, this is the last large content update for the 0.7 branch (minor bug fixing patches will still be released as need be). I will be moving toward 0.8 which will focus on procedural generation, the worldmap, and the game outside of the base building part proper.

In any case, this last update both redesign and add tons of content all over an expanded tech tree. I will go over the main changes in this article, but for a complete list, please refer to the changelog at the end of this article.


Modern weapon and armor repairs/building has been completely overhauled. To repair a weapon (or armor) you no longer need 2 damaged ones. Instead you need one + gun or armor parts. Armor parts, like gun parts, can be acquired through looting and trading.



Additionally, a Recycling Bench has been added to the game. It can be used to recycle armors and weapons (damaged or not) into components, which in turn can be used to repair damaged weaponry.

As such, t is slightly easier to produce/repair modern equipement as a damaged G36 can be repaired from parts scavenged from other guns. Depending on how things go, i might tweak rarity and break rate accordingly.


Both the associated tech tree and the turrets themselves have been completely overhauled.

Basic turrets can be researched a bit earlier than before (power + pipe weapons). Those turrets will use artisanal ammo and will need to be fueled by gasoline manually. With electronics and another rank in turrets you'll unlock more modern versions. Those can be connected to your electrical grid, require proper ammo (rifle ammo for rifle turret...), but are more resilient and do a lot more damage. By raiding a military base, you'll find research documents to build another military tier level of turrets which use electricty as ammo.



Additionally, turrets are built from generic "turret parts" (built at tinkering station) instead of having to build specific instances of each. And they have their own menu detailing the turret's HP, ammo and weaponry now.

All in all, turrets can be accessed earlier, but are more difficult to maintain (ammo, fuel). They can make for a decent early game defense (when you go through the pipe weapon branch instead of rushing tech) and it incentivize city map exploration in the late game. The ammo requirement also makes kill zones slightly more difficult to maintain.


This is still a tad experimental, but all in all it's working well enough to be added.



With advanced electronics, and later, robotics, you can build drones at your tinkering station from gun and turret parts. Drones behave like adoptable creatures. They can be assigned to one of your soldiers, will follow them around, actively hunt hostiles in range, and can be directly controled in combat mode. Menu-wise, they are handled exactly like pets (and might be still be referenced as animals left and right, I will be fixing that soon).


Many price inconsistencies between items and their components have been fixed. A very low tier bed (wood + plant) has been added, recipes and features have been tweaked to make both the early and the end game more meaty. High caliber rifle ammo has been added as well, it is used by sniper rifles, and 30cal machine guns. As a result, ammo related techs have been slightly tweaked to accomodate for the new ammo type. I also made expeditions travel 2 times faster, because the default speed was definitely too slow.


Simply put, traits can be contagious now. For instance, the bad cough trait can be transmitted through conversations between your settlers and can evolve either in a benign common cold or a slightly more annoying flu.

Shamblers and tribals are infected by the newly introduced Pandemonium virus, succesful attacks from them might transmit the disease to your settlers, which in turn can transmit it during brawls. It is difficult to detect, even manually, and getting a cure (and toxin) will force you to explore nearby hospitals. Of course, this is just an introduction, more 'multi stage' ilnesses an afflictions will be progressively added.




You can now contact the raiders by radio and request prisoner traders. Additionally, if for a reason or another, you "happen" to detain prisoners from another major faction, it's possible to ransom them through the diplomatic screen.


I put a lot of effort into standardizing the menus (title formating, item placement...), and making most of them more clear and informative. Same goes with item descriptions, tooltips, help-screens and the tutorial.



The first thing you'll notice is that the build and zone menus have been merged. Having two separate menus for zones and buildings didn't make much sense to begin with, and the recently improved build menu had more than enough room to accomodate the new category. As such the main game menu has been reorganized a bit, nothing major.



The depot menu has been clarified, detailed filter buttons are always visible, categories are color coded, and numbers have been added to represent the amount of items in each category. To access a depot's inventory, simply click on the cargo space gauge at the top.



The crafting menu has been cleaned up as well. Single recipe crafting stations (tanner, water purifiers, well..) got a simplified single screen version of it. The recipe selection sub menu is a tad different than before but functionality wise it's virtually identical.



The world map was slightly improved as well. Points of interest have icons showing if there are enemies and if it's a production center. It's also possible to switch between different filters (normal, map ownership, hostility, loot left).

The list is way too long to go over, but the goal was to make a more consistent UI while updating all tooltips and menu items to "current days".


Old turret format is now deprecated and will be phased out in 0.8. CattleAI is deprecated and will be phased out in 0.8. Please update your mods.

Addictions are partly implemented, refer to data/addictions (and alcohol items) for examples. Traits can now morph entities (and morphed entities can be attributed a new faction). Please refer to the sickness_pandemonium_tribal trait for example. Traits can be transmitted through conversation (only for now, I'll be adding more options soon), see sickness_cough for an example. RaceData files contain more details: PetRange (distance vs owner), PetProtectOwner (true/false), PetMourning (true/false), Aggressive (true/false), DirectControl (set if player get direct control of it during combat).

Finally, mods adding/altering languages, sounds and themes can now be added to the game. LUA integration got a facelift with a bunch of fixes and improvements.


This version should be compatible with saves dating back from 0.7.2 and over. Of course, the more recent the savegame the better, but generally speaking, it should work without too many problems.

One big exception, if you have turrets placed already: they *might* behave incorrectly until they get replaced by the new ones.


So, this was the last large 0.7x update. I still have some non-critical / rare bugs and issues to fix, which I'll go over through small patches, but all things considered I think the game is in a good place to transition to the next branch of development.

Next week, I will publish an article detailing the major features and improvements I'll be working on. Generally speaking, we'll be focusing on map generation, world map interactions and start up scenarios.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this update :)

• AI: People will fetch all items they can before delivering them to a crafting station (like with constructions), reducing back and forth a lot.
  
• Balance: Recipes to repair damaged armors use the new "armor parts" and 1 instance instead of 2 instances of the same item
  
• Balance: Recipes to repair damaged weapons use gun parts and 1 instance instead of 2 instances of the same item
  
• Balance: Most turrets require a steady supply of ammo now
  
• Balance: Reorganized top part of the tech tree a bit
  
• Balance: Doubled scavenging expedition base traveling speed
  
• Balance: Ammo making technologies has 3 different tiers: basic (gun/shotgun), rifle (rifle/high caliber) and explosive (rockets/flamer/grenade rounds)
  
• Balance: Cows give animal hides when butchered
  
• Balance: Fixed "damaged" vs non damaged weapon and armor price and weight inconsistencies
  
• Balance: Misc minor changes
  
• Content: Added "Research Paper: Military Laser" scavenging only tech (found in military bases). Unlocks high tier weapon turrets.
  
• Content: Added new and edited existing turrets
  
• Content: Added "Turret parts" item, built at the tinkering station, used as a generic construction item for turrets
  
• Content: Added "Armor parts" item, found while recycling damaged/existing high tier armors
  
• Content: Added high caliber bullets (+ recipes), which are used with most sniper rifles and high cal machine guns
  
• Content: Added recycling bench (under Electronics tech), used to disassemble items into lower tier components (damaged rifle -> gun parts + metal)
  
• Content: Added powered ammo stations, can make high grade ammo and no longer need charcoal
  
• Content: Added medical lab, requires power, can make serums and other advanced substances the medical station no longer can
  
• Content: Added electric water purifier: can automatically converts dirty water from adjacent depots (same tech as electric kitchen)
  
• Content: Added cheap tribal bed (mood penalty). Removed mood penalty from sleeping bags
  
• Content: Added artisanal mines (pipe weapons tech, for now)
  
• Content: You can buy and sell prisoners from/to the new random prisoner trader (random event)
  
• Content: Added option in the dialogs with other main factions to ask for a ransom (assuming you have prisoners from the selected faction)
  
• Content: Added option to request a prisoner trader when talking with the raiders
  
• Content: Added recipes to produce booze in larger quantities
  
• Content: New addiction mechanism: some consumable can be addictive, causing people to consume them independantly of settings and giving side effects when not available
  
• Content: Beer and vodka are now addictive substances
  
• Content: Added small (1x1, low production) and large (2x2 large production) variants to the still
  
• Content: Added 'Nuky weed' seed/plant, used to produce slightly addictive consumables used for recreational purposes
  
• Content: Added ability to build combat drones from turret and gun parts with the Advanced Electronics technology
  
• Content: Added ability to build tesla drones from turret and gun parts with the Robotics technology
  
• Content: Combat drones behave like aggressive "pets" for your survivors, and can be controlled directly in combat mode
  
• Content: Bad cough is now a contagious trait, it spreads through conversations between npc and can lead to common cold (benign) or flu (slightly annoying)
  
• Content: Added Pandemonium virus: transmitted by attacks from infected peoples, shamblers and tribals
  
• Content: Added "Research Paper: Pandemonium" scavenging only tech (always found in hospitals). Leads, with Pharmacy, to...
  
• Content: Added "Pandemonium Virus" technology: unlocks recipes in the medical station to cure and infect people with the Pandemonium virus.
  
• Content: Added "Bones" (generated by butchering cattle): used to make bone statues at the crafting station, can also be used to make bow and crossbow ammo.
  
• Content: Added "Bone barricade" to defenses
  
• Content: Added farm variant on city map, produces animal food
  
• Content: Tamed Scorpion Queen and Spider Queen can now be directly controled during combat mode
  
• Content: Pastured/tamed giant spiders can produce poison in addition to silk now
  
• Graphic: Updated some sprites. Better looking tanner and crafting station.
  
• Graphic: On many crafting stations, the item produced by the currently active recipe is drawn on top
  
• Modding: Added "Addiction" files (data/addictions)
  
• Modding: Added "Addiction" info to consumables and traits
  
• Modding: Traits, like consumables can morph entities (same syntax + added optional MorphSetFaction field to both)
  
• Modding: Traits can be contagious (conversation only for now)
  
• Modding: Recruit events can be told to give recruits a specific trait (useful for random infected)
  
• Modding: A tech can be set as the "tech reward" for exploring a point of interest. The player will automatically get this tech (+ feedback menu) when returning from expedition.
  
• Modding: Added "PharmacyData" -> "Filter" field to clutter files, allowing to set a filter for a pharmacy type item
  
• Modding: Factories can remove inputs from recipes (like the electric kitchen recycling the basic one's recipes)
  
• Modding: Turrets, in the current data format, can optionally request ammo (or keep infinite ones)
  
• Modding: In RaceData, added: PetRange (distance vs owner), PetProtectOwner (true/false), PetMourning (true/false, Aggressive (true/false), DirectControl (set if player get direct control of it during combat)
  
• Modding: You can make translation mods for the game now (by Alex)
  
• Modding: A lot of LUA additions, fixes and improvement (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Themes, sounds and sounds can be properly overwritten by the modding engine (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Ability to write sprites on the world map (by Alex)
  
• UI: Depot menu redesign (click on 'cargo space' bar to access inventory), proper coloring, filter buttons always visible
  
• UI: Factory/crafting menu full redesign
  
• UI: Single recipe stations (water well, tanner...) get a simplified single menu design
  
• UI: The zone building menu has been integrated in the general build menu
  
• UI: Standardized menus display/content: power generator, storage, relay, depot, crafting, research menus
  
• UI: More useful equipement selection menu (more compact items, show equipment inventory count, proper icons for "unequip" buttons)
  
• UI: Reorganized main bottom menu bar and moved filters to the bottom right, next to messages.
  
• UI: A bunch of tweaks to the world map: icons over hostile and production type point of interest. more legible expedition. spheres of influence. filters.
  
• UI: Added button to world map menu to cycle between different overlays
  
• UI: Added proper menu for turrets
  
• UI: Standardized recipe and item names (in crafting menus/queues)
  
• UI: Standardized colors in game log (npc colored as is: green (you), red (hostile), orange (prisoners), gold (non hostile))
  
• UI: Slightly improved factory and recipe selection menus, with more compact lists
  
• UI: Pressing "[N]ext unit" to cycle units in combat more will show associated menu
  
• UI: Clicking an event in the game log or using the shortcut to go to last event try to open a menu for the event. (new building => menu for building, settler or animal => info panel, ...)
  
• UI: Updated main/important tooltips to be more accurate, slightly standardized text
  
• UI: Replaced deprecated "Menu: Room" shortcut by "Menu: Faction" to open your faction's menu
  
• UI: Added "Menu: Job Priority" shortcut

  . The associated menu is screen centered and draggable now
  

• UI: Updated tutorial regarding some of the features.
  
• UI: Added addiction info to character screen (below traits)
  
• UI: Changed Floors category in build menu to "Floors and ceiling"
  
• UI: Improved build menu's right click info panel for most objects
  
• UI: A ton of small tweaks and changes to various menus and elements
  
• UI: If a mob has a turret, it's displayed in place of the artifact panel and can be clicked to show details about the turret
  
• Fixed: Can't butcher tamed spiders, crabs, and scorpions
  
• Fixed: After loading a save, expeditions returning home would not remember they were coming back with survivors
  
• Fixed: Some transitions from world map to game map could glitch rendering
  
• Fixed: Mobs and hostiles could get stuck trying to attack someone who left the map (0.7.6 regression bug)
  
• Fixed: Expedition members not automatically unclaiming pets before mission
  
• Fixed: Fixed camera positioning issues when loading a savegame
  
• Fixed: Cancel job shortcut/button wouldn't cancel roof building orders
  
• Fixed: Minor issues with job removals
  
• Fixed: Research info tab wasn't scaled to UI like the menu
  
• Fixed: Generator menu wasn't identifying self powered items (gen power = consumption && gen range = 0) as such
  
• Fixed: Animals who got old while pregnant would never give birth
  
• Fixed: Issue with non firing turrets
  
• Fixed: "Build power generator (charcoal)" recipe was using Forging skill instead of Tinkering
  
• Fixed: "Research completed" and event sound effects were always played at full volume
  
• Fixed: "Select All" shortcut/button when game is paused in combat mode would select animals as well
  
• Fixed: Pressing escape on the city map would incorrectly pause/unpause the game
  
• Fixed: Possible issue where a settler could get stuck after a brawl
  
• Fixed: Corrected a ton of typos, bad translations, outdated info...

Here's the first small hot-patch for our 0.7.6 release.

Beside the usual small changes and fixes, it's adding two features which, in retrospect, make a lot of sense. Firstly, a "Build Roof" button has been added to the room menu whenever relevant, so you can add a roof without having to go back to the zone menu. Secondly, a "[H]alt" button and keyboard shortcut has been added to combat mode. It tells selected soldiers to stop moving (and start firing if relevant).

As usual with hot-patches, it's compatible with previous 0.7.x save-games.

• Balance: Punching gets an innate chance to incapacitate the target when below 50% hp
  
• Balance: Prison cells no longer require roof over their head
  
• Balance: Tweaks to gauss turret recipe
  
• UI: Added button/shortcut to tell your military to stop moving ("H"alt) in combat mode
  
• UI: Research menu is scaled like most other menus to the screen's height
  
• UI: Added button to room menu to automatically queue "build roof" orders whenever relevant
  
• Modding: Removed warning about mods compiled for older versions of the game as it was doing more harm than good
  
• Modding: Added "ApplyAllTraits" field to consumables (by default trait is picked at random in list, if ApplyAllTraits is set to true, all traits are applied)
  
• Fixed: Color coding in Room menu was inconsistent
  
• Fixed: Trying to attack something that's in a different layer wouldn't work
  
• Fixed: Crash in world map when closing/changing expedition target while the "Add Settler" menu is open
  
• Fixed: Power grid not working when loading a save in (in game) night-time and when it is only fueled by solar panels and batteries
  
• Fixed: It could take way too long for the power grid to put itself back on after loading a savegame

Hi there!

This is a new major content update for After The Collapse. I added three entirely new interlocked features, while improving the graphics, user interface, AI, balance, gameplay and fixing (most) bugs that have been reported to us.

It's going to be a long ride, so let's get started. I'm only going over the more notable changes. There are plenty of other improvements you can find in the full, 100 item long, change-log at the bottom of this very article.


Combat, at least between humans, became less of a binary affair in this update. Attacks that would normally kill someone, or get very close to, have a small chance to incapacitate the target instead. Note that getting incapacitated will not prevent them from dying of their wounds if any.



If one of your survivors gets incapacitated, a doctor will try to retrieve them and bring them to your hospital for treatement. If it's an enemy, you'll have an option to take them prisoner (more about that later). If no one comes to take care of an incapacitated person, they will come back to their senses after a few minutes.

Additionally, some weapons have a higher chance to incapacitate a target. Low tier melee weapons like the bat, the shovel and the spears all have increased chances to succeed. I've also added two new weapons entirely dedicated to this task: the stun gun and a gas grenade launcher. Both have an extremely high chance to successfully stun their targets without damaging them too much, but are pretty useless in any other situation.

Note that only humans can be incapacitated at the moment. Monsters and shamblers are immune to it.


This is the core new feature in this update. You can now take prisoners, make them work for you, recruit them, or do terrible things to them.

It is done with the introduction of a new Room, aptly named "prison cell", which needs a bed and 4 walls. Assuming you have a prison cell ready, enemies you have incapacitated have a "take prisoner" button in their (new) info panel. When clicked, they will be converted into a prisoner and one of your survivors will bring them to their cell.



Unless specified otherwise, prisoners will stay in their cell, and your survivors will occasionally feed them. So why would you want to take prisoners? Well, because they can also be put to work, don't eat nearly as much as your survivors and do not take breaks all the time.

However, you'll need to remember that prisoners are not willing workers. They have a "compliance" meter to replace their "entertainment" needs. A high compliance means that the prisoner won't try to escape and can even be recruited. If the compliance goes down to zero, they will riot.

Generally speaking, being well treated (given food and a proper cell) will slowly increase this value. You can also allow your survivors to chat with the prisoner, which will generally increase it much faster, but can also backfire. Prisoners chatting together have a fairly high chance to decrease their compliance, though.

And if you're not happy with your prisoners' behavior, well there's still another option...


So, do you want to run your settlement as a band of cannibalistic raiders, or acid rains killed all your crops and you're desperate for food? Well, I have good news for you! If you allow it in the new "Settlement" section of the faction menu, you can now butcher both human dead bodies and your prisoners for meat.

As soon as the option is enabled, bodies in your disposal zone and prisoners will have a "butcher" option like your cattle does. This action is considered an atrocity by anyone in your settlement who's not already a cannibal or who isn't starving to death, and will bring their morale down quickly.



On the other hand, eating human meat has a small chance to convert a survivor into a cannibal and a recipe has been added to the medical station / pharmacy combo, to make a drug that will definitely turn someone into one. So with a bit of patience and planning it's possible to convert at least most of your settlement to their new diet.


Well, this new Faction tab is still under-developped, but it's what is linking all those features together. This is where you'll decide of your policies regarding incapacitated enemies (keep or kill), the ability to butcher people, and even if your survivor are allowed to consume booze or not. While the 'human butchering' option wasn't technically a necessity, I think it's best to keep the option behind a checkbox for those who'd be disgusted by it.



In the long run, i intend to add more options to this menu regarding what your settlers can and cannot do, which might influence their mood and behaviors in different ways. Eventually leading some of them into breaking rules and being punished for it. But that will be a story for another update :)


Two simple features have been added to keep your cattle/pet population in check. Firstly, a checkbox has been added to pastures to prevent any new birth as long as the pasture is full. Secondly, adopted pets can be neutered as well through their info panel.



Both options put together with various other fixes and improvements should make things much more manageable when it comes to handle large animal populations.


The first thing you'll notice is that the Build menu is larger, has more categories and that items are sorted alphabetically, making it much easier to navigate, especially with mods. Note that some items have moved categories. Namely, stairs are in the utility section now, and everything power production and storage related is in the new "Energy" category. The only downside, beside ruining your muscle memory (sorry about that), is that the menu looks quite empty in the very early game.



The top panel used previously for neutral and hostile agents has been replaced by a top left menu similar to the survivor info panel for consistency sake. It also delivers more information than the previous panel.

Graphically, the giant mantis has been replaced by a different, but way better looking and fully animated critter. About 20 items got new icons; wood, especially, got a way more legible one. Techs, mainly in the main 'tree' got new, better icons as well.

Raiders are also much less CPU hungry and while this is more a bug fix than a feature, they will no longer come close to freezing the game when encountering a player base that is completely walled-off (with no door).


The mod editor is now able to add items of any kind (thanks to Alex), several issues with mods altering vanilla crafting stations' recipe lists have been fixed. Data wise, several fields have been added to weapons, to handle incapacitation and new tile graphical effects for AoE weapons. You can refer to the new "stungun" and "chemicallauncher" weapons for examples. Additionally, factories and farms can technically create agents now (you'd proceed the same way you'd do elsewhere, with an ItemAgent).

CattleAI is deprecated now, occurences should be replaced by PetAI. Determining if animals are adoptable or not is done through their racedata file ("Adoptable" field true/false) now.


This version should be compatible with saves dating back from 0.7.2 and over. Of course, the more recent the savegame the better, but generally speaking, it should work without too many problems.

Here are the caveats:

• Creatures already present on the map won't be updated graphically
  
• Mods adding or altering animals need to be updated for this version or they won't behave properly
  
• Factions' settings might be wrong (zombies incapacitating your people instead of eating them)
  
• Your world map won't benefit from the new special locations and terrains

As you can see, it's quite a large update, but I'm not yet done with the prisoner stuff. Next update will add more interactivity with prisoners, with the ability to buy, sell and ransom them. I also intend to improve the pretty bare-bone "riot" they do when compliance reaches zero, making it a tad more threatening and less predictable. Also I'll be adding a few tips

I am aware of three, very minor but quite hard to pin-point, bugs which have already been reported on discord and the forums and which I couldn't fix for this release. If you're interested, the reported remaining issues are:

1. Very rarely, a wall section building order would get lost.
   
2. A settler could erroneously change layer. I've been unable to reproduce it so far.
   
3. When crossing the corner of a building, an agent can (rarely) move to the wrong side of the wall

I'm still working on fixing them, but I can't justify delaying this release further when it contains dozens of more critical fixes and improvements. No worries, I don't doubt we'll have a few hot-patches to get them fixed.

In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this update! ːsteamhappyː

• AI: If multiple hospitals are available for a wounded or sick person to go to, they will pick the closest one instead of a random one
  
• AI: Added prisoner specific AI package
  
• AI: Cattle/Pets are a bit more responsive to detect when they have been assigned to a new pasture
  
• AI: General minor improvements to survivors' behaviors
  
• AI: Survivors have more varied diet (no longer picking the first food item in the container)
  
• Balance: To discourage people from building small boxes when they shouldn't, they cost 1x wood now (but are slightly faster to build)
  
• Balance: Less frequent low level raids (replaced by larger ones) against large, long running bases
  
• Balance: Rifle ammo price slightly increased by one, energy cells cost heavily decreased (from 200 to 40), and grenade round price slightly decreased
  
• Balance: Removed flamethrower's ability to score critical hit (to balance how OP it can be against enemies who take fire damage)
  
• Balance: Misc recipe and pricing tweaks
  
• Content: People can get incapacitated during combat. Depending on who's who, the attacker might not finish off their target.
  
• Content: Some weapons are better at incapacitating people than others. The bat, shovel and spears especially (making them somewhat useful past the first few minutes of a game).
  
• Content: Incapacitated people might become active again or die from their wounds (if left to their own devices)
  
• Content: Medics will try to save incapacitated people of their own faction
  
• Content: Added prison cells to the the zone menu. Used to "store" incapacitated enemies and make them prisoners (1 prisoner/cell)
  
• Content: Prisoners can be used as a workforce
  
• Content: Prisoners have a compliance meter, high compliance prisoners can be recruited, low compliance prisoners might cause a riot
  
• Content: Prisoners' compliance varies over time and depending on different factors (chats, food, isolation, work, traits)
  
• Content: Added setting to the Faction panel to tell your soldiers if they should kill on sight or (try to) ignore incapacitated enemies
  
• Content: Added setting to the Faction panel to tell your faction if it should be allowed to cook prisoners and dead bodies
  
• Content: Added settings to the Faction panel to allow/prevent your settlers from consuming alcohol, and cannibalistic food.
  
• Content: Added "Bloodthirsty" tag to traits, someone with that tag will kill incapacitated enemies, independently of settings
  
• Content: Added "Cannibal" tag to traits, someone with that tag will not mind if you decide to start cooking your own prisoners
  
• Content: Human dead bodies are generally butcherable
  
• Content: Butchering sentient beings, even already dead, will give a big mood penalty to everyone who's not a cannibal or who's not starving
  
• Content: Added human meat cooking recipe. Human meat is disgusting to non cannibals, but has a chance to convert someone into a cannibal
  
• Content: An option has been added to pastures to prevent animals from reproducing if the pasture is full
  
• Content: Added option to neuter claimed pets
  
• Content: Added clay deposits to mountains/cave, clay can be used to make low grade ceramic at forges (after masonry)
  
• Content: Replaced Mines on the city map by "Iron Mines", "Coal Mines" and "Quarry", each with a different mix of production
  
• Content: Added a few new traits to take advantage of the new features
  
• Content: New items and recipes to take advantage of the new features
  
• Content: The pharmacy can be used on prisoners and animals now (note that it's only really useful with mods adding specific animal friendly consumables)
  
• Content: Added stun gun to loot tables, it's not using ammo, but has a very very slow reloading time. It has a high chance to incapacitate any target it's shooting at
  
• Content: Added custom recipe to make chemical grenades and launcher (explosive ammo technology) which is a low damage, area of effect weapon with a very high chance to incapacitate targets
  
• ProcGen: Added lakes terrain type with bodies of water to custom games and world map (only outskirts of the city)
  
• ProcGen: Added riverlands terrain type with (generally) large rivers to custom games and world map (only outskirts of the city)
  
• ProcGen: Added more settings to the surface map generator in custom games
  
• Engine: Code consistency pass (less code, doing more things, hopefully better)
  
• Engine: Running the game in Safe mode will both disable the mods and the modding engine instead of just disabling the mods (by Alex)
  
• Engine: Massively increased performances when a raid is occurring against a fully walled-off player base
  
• Engine: Generally speaking, raiders are consuming a lot less CPU
  
• Graphics: Added "heart" emote when 2 animals reproduce successfully
  
• Graphics: Minor tweaks to city map locations
  
• Graphics: Added some color variations to settlers' hair and bodies while removing minor graphical artifacts
  
• Graphics: People (alive or not) being moved by other settlers are now displayed properly instead of being made invisible
  
• Graphics: Added blood splatter effect on butchering station when something is getting butchered
  
• Graphics: Shamblers walk like proper zombies, and get a few more graphical variations
  
• Graphics: Replaced the icons of over 20 items and techs by better looking and more distinct versions
  
• Graphics: Replaced the old and ugly "giant mantis" mob by a fully animated giant grasshopper
  
• Modding: Added ability to set in which category of the build menu you want your clutter to end up in (BuildMenuLocation field, use editor to see values or ask on Discord)
  
• Modding: Added ButcherTo field to npc files (see most human npc) and "CanButcher" which can be set to false to prevent a specific agent from being butcherable
  
• Modding: Factories and farms can technically create agents now
  
• Modding: CattleAI is now deprecated, PetAI should always be favored. Mods adding/modifying animals must be updated accordingly
  
• Modding: LUA mods adding recipes, modifying lists, or anything in the Database really, should be using the new Event "DBLoaded" instead of the "Game" event from now on (to prevent a bunch of bugs)
  
• Modding: RaceData files got the Adoptable (true/false) field to set if an animal can be adopted or not
  
• Modding: RaceData file's ReproductionType field can be set to "None" to disable reproduction while keeping other advantages of having a species
  
• Modding: Added item creation/editing to the Mod Editor (armors, weapons, artifacts, consumables, materials...) (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Misc LUA fixes (by Alex)
  
• Modding: Added "VeryRare" tag to items: They have a 95% chance from being removed from loot/trade tables. Rare have a 66% chance.
  
• Modding: Added "CannibalDiet" tag to items: Consumables with this tag will make people angry when they eat it, unless they are cannibals
  
• Modding: Added "ComplianceModifier" field to consumables: change the compliance of a prisoner by this amount whenever consumed
  
• Modding: Added "Stats.IncapacitateChance" (0-100) and "Stats.IncapacitateIgnoreHP" (true/false) to weapon files. Determining the chance of a weapon to incapacitate a target (see stungun weapon)
  
• Modding: Explosive / AOE weapons can spawn animations on all the impacted tiles (see chemicallauncher weapon)
  
• UI: Resized outpost manager list to take advantage of menu screen estate
  
• UI: Hostile and neutral critters/people got their own info panel (similar to settler/animal info panel) instead of relying on the small top menu
  
• UI: Enemies, prisoners and neutrals have a (smaller version of the) settler info menu like your settlers.
  
• UI: In combat mode, selecting a single settler/enemy will show it's usual settler info panel. Removed "top middle" panel as a result.
  
• UI: The build menu is larger, so you don't have to scroll as much (especially in modded games) and items are sorted alphabetically now. Sorry for your muscle memory.
  
• UI: Added a new Energy section to the build menu (power generators/batteries/relays/charging pads) also moved stairs to the utility section.
  
• UI: Clicking on a dead body will open a small settler info menu (allowing you to butcher them if it's within your faction's ethics)
  
• UI: Replaced the farm's close button by a red delete button (so it's on par with other room/zone menus)
  
• UI: Added butcher/cancel-all-in-list buttons to butcher menu
  
• UI: Updated consumable info panel to show more complete information (especially on weird modded items)
  
• UI: Hovering the "Stats" title in the survivor's character panel will show a summary of all the traits merged together
  
• UI: Many more small usability, tips and cosmetic improvements
  
• Fixed: Orders to build tiles will no longer try to build tiles under walls
  
• Fixed: Right clicking an animated object in the build menu (windmill in modded game) would cause an error and the correct texture wouldn't show in the info panel
  
• Fixed: Exiting the trading menu would resume the game even it was paused before opening the menu
  
• Fixed: Text overflow in the pharmacy screen (and probably others), the text is now cropped
  
• Fixed: The terrain would always be of a mixed type when playing the full game (when starting by selecting a point on the city map)
  
• Fixed: Settlers would still try to execute an order to remove a tile even if it's not accessible
  
• Fixed: Bunker door not attributed to the player when starting a game underground
  
• Fixed: An exploit was allowing to buy items for free in the trade menu (thanks to Kamiloo for spotting that one)
  
• Fixed: When loading a savegame, 2 butchers could "fight" for the same target
  
• Fixed: Robots and settlers would "equip" weapons and armors they just crafted (instead of storing it)
  
• Fixed: When loading a save, settlers who are moving weaponry around might equip it instead of their assigned equipment
  
• Fixed: Minor issue with build job attribution
  
• Fixed: Pets and Robots would show up as "unemployed" in the multi selection menu
  
• Fixed: Lasso selecting a single agent wouldn't open their associated menu
  
• Fixed: Using the mouse wheel in the trade menu to change the amount of things you want to buy/sell would cause the main list to scroll
  
• Fixed: Issues when setting and restoring patrol locations (wouldn't work for settlers in the scene you're not looking at)
  
• Fixed: The game could incorrectly be stuck in french when the user system's locales (which ain't the same thing as the system language) are set to french.
  
• Fixed: It was possible to build a floor over a tile which has the same floor already
  
• Fixed: Population count in pastures wasn't always reliable
  
• Fixed: In graphical settings, you could "change resolution" while in borderless mode while it should be locked to your desktop resolution (causing scaling issues)
  
• Fixed: It was possible to build farms over impassible terrain, causing issues with the AI. You'll need to clear the location from trees and rocks before designing a farm now.
  
• Fixed: Farms will no longer try to remove the top level tiles if the lower level terrain is considered impassible (fixing a problem in the sewers)
  
• Fixed: When 2 or more settlers are overlapping, they would "fight" for whoever is drawn first, causing annoying flickering
  
• Fixed: Last Stand (15 days) and Last Stand (30 days) scenarios wouldn't work properly after loading a save (regression bug from 0.7.5, thanks to ZakTheFallen for spotting this one)
  
• Fixed: Raiders would stay stuck in place if the player's base is completely walled-off (with actual walls)
  
• Fixed: The lighting/shadow system wouldn't update properly when switching from the underground to the surface until the mouse is moved

Here's a small hot-patch for 0.7.5.

Nothing major it's fixing several small issues with spider/scorpion nests, which when combined would cause the critter population to grow way beyond what's intended over time. It's also adding ways for modders to add their own ores to mountains without interfering with the base game files.

Also, and this need a bit of an explanation, a weird bug was reported recently: mountains/caves would always uncover ores when mined. It was due to a technical problem with the way I accessed the random number generator from multiple threads. It would cause the RNG to stop working as intended in extremely random and rare cases.

This is now fixed, but there was a small price to pay, map generation will take a bit longer now, not by much, but I guess it might be noticeable on larger maps / older computers.

As usual with hot-patches, it's compatible with previous 0.7.x save-games.

• Modding: Walls are exposed to LUA, and fields like RazeTo can be edited via lua (so you don't overwrite stuff from the game)
  
• Fixed: Spawners/Nests would spawn stuff even when hidden which wasn't the intended effect
  
• Fixed: Some spawners would lose track of the creatures they control over time, causing them to spawn more critters forever
  
• Fixed: Extremely rare bug with the random number generator which would cause all calls to return "0". As you can imagine, it could lead to all sorts of 'fun'.

Hi there!

So.. I was working on the next hot-patch for 0.7.4, but I seemingly got carried away and the update became a tad larger than anticipated. Given that I can't possibly call this a hot-patch anymore, welcome to 0.7.5, the Unscheduled Update!

As usual, full changelog at the bottom of this article, and yes, this is fully compatible with previous savegames.


Remember our comical 6 legged spiders? Well, no more, we now have fully animated, high quality and 8 legged giant spiders.



There are 4 variants total, including the ice spider, venomous spider, and our good old red and brown spiders. As usual, the new variants can drop eggs (once you get the animal care technology) for you to grow.

Also, in the same spirit as with the scorpions, a Spider Queen has also been added to the game. It's a mid to late game boss-type enemy with unique weapons.

Crabs have also been updated with, again, new detailed and well animated models.



No new variants for them, yet but it's just a matter of time.

Lastly, all the new redesigned creatures (spiders, scorpions, crabs) have proper death animations instead of just "blinking out" of existence.


To make mining a tad more interesting, mountains and cave walls have a very small chance to uncover gold, coal, quartz and iron deposits, which in turn can be mined for those resources.



Gold can be smelted into proper gold bars (with metallurgy) which can be sold at a very high price to merchants. Quartz can also be sold (for a small profit) or used to build windows (don't think about it).

This is basically an experiment with mining. I intend to add more ores in the future and make them fully part of the economy.

Additionally, I added 3 new firearms (high tech assault rifle, a light SMG and a sawed off shotgun) and 2 new pieces of armor (mercenary armor and police riot helmet). They can be found during trading, expeditions and on the corpses of some of your foes.


The factory/crafting station menus scale vertically with screen estate now, which is super handy on heavily modded games where factories have tons of recipes.



The generator and the power relay menus have been tweaked, and they display the total power consumption, production and balance for the whole grid they are connected to. This makes power management much easier.



Once you have the "logistics" technology and own at least an outpost on the map, you'll be able to access the new Outpost Manager located in the Faction menu:



It shows all your outposts and allows you to interact with them without having to use the world map. This is especially useful in the late game when you have to juggle with a dozen or more outposts.


Right, this was initially supposed to be a hot-patch :)

This update fixes a bunch of problems with pasture and butchering mostly. Pastures would still count butchered and dead animals as occupying room; after loading a savegame, it was possible for animals marked to be butchered to never be processed; and so on. Additionally I found a 'small' bug with multi-bulllet weapons (flamer thrower, shotguns..) that was diminishing their efficiency against crowds by quite a lot. They are now as deadly as they should be.

And last but not least. When an update add or modify game events, until now, you'd have to start a new game to get them to trigger. Well, not anymore! New events will trigger in old save-games without any problem.


This is compatible with any save-game from 0.7.2 and over, with a single cave-eat. Existing crabs and spiders will not have their graphics updated (newly spawned one will be, though).


Outside of the usual small hot-patches, this should be the last big update for at least a month. The next milestone update is a pretty big one (prisonner management), so it will take me some time to get that working correctly.

And yes. This 0.7.5 update will be priced at $11.99 (from 10.99) starting Friday, as mentioned in the previous article.

• Balance: Small HP boost to some spiders
  
• Balance: Slightly reduced Flamethrower DPS because the fix below is making them way too powerful otherwise
  
• Balance: Increased the minimal amount of money the trader can spawn with
  
• Balance: Military armor and military gas mask are now considered 'rare' (less likely to appear in loot/trade)
  
• Balance: Damaged versions of top tier weapons and armors also marked as rare
  
• Balance: Higher bullet speed for most weapons
  
• Balance: Tweaks to some of the store-type buildings (small chance to find random seeds or electronic parts)
  
• Content: Added new spider variants (ice and venom spiders) which can also lay eggs and be tamed
  
• Content: Added Giant mother spider that will spawn smaller ones around her (similar mob/event/reward combo to the Scorpion Queen)
  
• Content: Mining mountains (and caves) has a very small chance to uncover gold, coal, quartz and iron deposits which can be mined for resources
  
• Content: Gold ore can be smelted at the forge to make valuable gold bars (with metallurgy)
  
• Content: Quartz can be used to build windows (don't ask about it) with metallurgy or it can be sold for profit
  
• Content: Added mercenary armor and police riot helmet to loot and trade tables
  
• Content: Added 3 new firearms (assault rifle, light SMG, sawed off shotty) to loot and trade tables
  
• Engine: It is no longer required to start a new game to take advantage of new or edited special events after an update
  
• Graphics: Replaced the giant crab models by much better looking ones with proper animations
  
• Graphics: Replaced the giant spider models by much better looking ones with proper animations
  
• Graphics: Added proper death animations to spiders, scorpions and giant crabs
  
• Graphics: Standardized animal 'armor' textures so they fit properly in the menus
  
• Graphics: Replaced the spears' textures by better versions
  
• UI: The factory menu's height scales with screen estate (like depots and pastures)
  
• UI: Added feedback in the game-log when a pet or cattle give birth
  
• UI: The generator menu displays the total power consumption, production and balance of it's associated grid
  
• UI: Updated power relay menu to also contain the total power usage for the associated grid + small make-over wasting less screen estate
  
• UI: In the factory menu, I clarified the field about power consumption when the factory is inactive
  
• UI: Added option to reset game speed when non raid events happen
  
• UI: Added outpost tracker to the Faction menu (Available after Logistic tech)
  
• UI: Robots can now be destroyed (you get a very few resources back), through a self destruct sequence located in their character panel (replaces banish button for normal settlers)
  
• Fixed: Pastures would still count butchered and dead animals as occupying room (until save/reload)
  
• Fixed: Removing "to butcher" marker from an animal wouldn't always work as expected
  
• Fixed: After loading a save, it was possible for animals marked to be butchered not to be processed
  
• Fixed: Multi bullet weapons like flamethrowers or shotguns could not hit anyone but the intended target of the shot (which was decreasing their efficiency by a lot)
  
• Fixed: The minor events "good news" and "bad news" could never trigger
  
• Fixed: Minor issues with jobs issued by farms
  
• Fixed: Possible graphical crash with farms if they are 1x1 sized
  
• Fixed: Robots could get hit by friendly fire
  
• Fixed: Creature nests would still spawn when hostile creatures are disabled in the settings
  
• Fixed: Some of the giant creatures wouldnt' be scaled properly when tamed (oversized spiders and crabs)
  
• Fixed: Multi selection screen allowed to put people who can't do military at all in military mode

Hi there,

Here's the first patch for 0.7.4. I would have normally waited for all the reported issues to be certifiably fixed, but I found a possible crash while investigating, forcing my hand in releasing this patch a bit early.

Anyway, it's fixing a few problems while refreshing both the Butcher and Pasture menus. The pasture menu is now scaled according to your vertical screen size, meaning that the list will be longer on bigger resolutions (like I do with depots already).



The butcher menu has been redesigned completely. The left-most panel contains a bunch of filter for the list itself. You can sort your animals by species/age/fertility, hide specific species or pregnant animals.



The interface has been standardized. They use the same looking list and it reacts the same in both menus. Left click an animal to schedule it for butchering, Right click it to open its associated menu.

Additionally, I fixed many smaller issues tied to pastures, corpse disposals and the selection of entry and exit points (traders, expeditions, suppliers, visitors) from the map.

(As usual with hot-patches, it should be compatible with previous save-games)

• AI: People will clear their inventory before going on expeditions
  
• UI: Pasture menu's height scale with game resolution (longer list on larger screen)
  
• UI: Overhauled the Butcher menu: added ability to filter and sort animals
  
• UI: Standardized UI between pasture and butcher. In both menus left click animal to schedule for butchering, Right click to open its info panel.
  
• Fixed: Right clicking in the inventory panel shown after succesful expeditions would not show associated item information
  
• Fixed: Dead zombies could drop infected tissues each time you load a savegame (trait related drops would be triggered each time a save is loaded)
  
• Fixed: Decay of dead bodies in the corpse disposal would not take game speed into account (also reduced time for bodies to decay in general)
  
• Fixed: People who end up on a corpse disposal when they die would not decay
  
• Fixed: Making a pet out of a pastured animal would not always remove it from its former pasture properly
  
• Fixed: Animals with an owner would still be shown in the butcher menu, causing issues with the game's logic
  
• Fixed: When assigning a pet to someone, double clicking a target in the list instead of pressing the select button wouldn't update the menu
  
• Fixed: Suppliers and traders spawning in a place from which they can't move to the trading zone
  
• Fixed: Most cases where new settlers would spawn stuck in a place not connected to the base
  
• Fixed: People could pick a non accessible exit point when going on an expedition, preventing them from completing the job
  
• Fixed: Rare crash related to logs (regression bug in 0.7.4)

Here is a new update for our 0.7 branch!

It's introducing the ability to pass various laws for your settlement, ranging from rationing to healthcare. It's also adding the new Pharmacy building and associated technology allowing you to use experimental mutagens and drugs on your survivors. As usual, I'll only be mentioning the major new features and improvements in this article. For a full list, please refer to the change-log at the bottom.

Before we get started

I will be increasing the game's price by $1 (to $11.99) between the end of this month and August (after a few more minor/hot-patches). It was scheduled to happen a bit later, but given that the game is currently very stable and knowing the legal requirements (no discount for a whole month), it's best to get that out of the way before the next large autumn sale and more experimental updates.


A new "Law" tech tree has been added to the game. Each technology in that tree unlocks a few laws and slots for them in the Faction menu (where you already conduct diplomacy, and assign jobs).



Laws influence your settlement's productivity and your survivors' happiness and needs. For instance, one of the early laws is about Rationing, which has 4 options ranging from people eating and drinking 40% more (and receiving a happiness and stats boost) to people needing 40% less but which will cause them to be grumpy and slow.



Another law, the "Emergency Shift", will dramatically increase your survivors efficiency for a day, they will even ignore the needs to sleep, drink or eat, but it will give them a massive debuff the next day.

There's a total of 9 laws included in this release, more will be gradually added in future updates.


This new tech/building combo unlocks various "mutagens" and drug recipes and allows you to tell survivors to consume specific items using this new building.



It serves a dual purpose:

1) If you don't trust your medics to save someone ill or wounded in time, you can tell the wounded to go use the item themselves.

2) It gives you (the modders and me) a way to 'feed' survivors with items they wouldn't normally use, like the 3 new drugs and mutagens included in this release.

It also opens the doors for addictive substances in future updates. As usual, more content related to this new feature will be added in future updates.


This is the first part of a 2 parts update on the turrets. They look much nicer now, with a fixed body and a rotating gun and new more detailed sprites. Trading vehicles have visible and working mounted turrets now. Attack a trader if you dare :)



Next turret update will overhaul our current turrets, from low level ones that will require ammo, to larger gun platforms with several cannons on the same item.

Also as an experiment, a rare Gauss Cannon schematic (this is for all intent and purpose a tech) can be found while exploring military bases. This is a rare drop, however, so you might have to try quite a few times before getting it. This is something (unlocking tech through exploration) that will become more common in future updates.


The initial loading time has been very heavily reduced. Beforehand it would take up to 20 seconds on my machine to get to the main menu (without mods), it's now taking about 5 seconds (first launch excluded, because windows does its thing each time an executable change). Similarly the impact of mods on loading time has been reduced.

Additionally, I fixed a fairly annoying memory leak (tied to the menus) which was causing the memory usage to go beyond 4GB over time. The game now keeps a fairly steady memory usage over much longer periods (roughly 2GB on a medium sized map). This should also improve performances on older machines.


By request, pastures can now be set to contain a list of species instead of the former one/all approach. That should make it easier to separate meat production from utility animals.



Many of you will be happy to know that survivors will no longer do a bunch of back and forth fetching different items when constructing a structure requiring multiple resources. Instead they will grab everything they need (assuming they have the inventory space) and bring it to the construction site in one go. It speeds up the construction of walls and many other structures by quite a lot.

However, they will still have the old behavior when feeding stations/forges and so on. I do intend to make that work for those too, but it requires many changes to how stations operate as well. So it will have to wait. Don't worry, it'll happen soon barring any problem :)

And of course, there's a bunch of fixes, modding and graphical improvements, balance and UI tweaks which you'll find in the change-log :)


This should be compatible with any save-game from 0.7.2 or 0.7.3 with a few caveats.

• If you have already placed turrets, those won't be updated graphically and might be buggy
  
• Faction menu settings (population and animal settings) will be reset
  
• Pasture settings are reset to accept all species

We'll likely have another medium sized update like this one (to make mining more interesting and to add a bunch of laws and drugs/mutagens while finishing the work on turrets) before the "next big update" as in non lethal combat, prisoner and force labor management.

In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this update!

• AI: If you kill a trader from a faction, they will declare war on you (in an official capacity)
  
• AI: Once a doctor has diagnosed someone, neither them or their patient will get distracted by needs until treatment is over
  
• AI: Reduced the amount of back & forth survivors will do (moving supply around) when building new structures
  
• Balance: Added option in the new game menu to start with better settlers (enabled by default): no medical conditions, need less food, work harder
  
• Balance: Traits modifying needs (eating, drinking...) have been overhauled
  
• Content: Pastures can contain a combination of species instead of a switch between a single one and all of them.
  
• Content: You can now "pause" your production centers (from world map) so they stop sending resources without having to abandon the location
  
• Content: Pharmacy tech, unlocks the pharmacy building and add recipes to produce "mutagens" with various effects to the medical station
  
• Content: New pharmacy building, allows the player to force-feed settlers with consumables (mutagens mentioned above, but technically any consumable)
  
• Content: Three mutagen/drug recipes (more to come)
  
• Content: Once pharmacy is researched, tribals and shamblers have a chance to drop infected tissues which can be sold or used to make mutagens
  
• Content: A few more Steam Achievements (steam version only)
  
• Content: Traders' weapon (the .50cal machine gun) is a visible turret on top of the vehicle now
  
• Content: Rare turret schematics (technically a technology) can be found exploring military bases
  
• Content: New "Law" tab in the Faction menu, allowing you to pass/revoke various laws for your settlement
  
• Content: New tech tree unlocking laws for the settlement
  
• Law: Rationing - trade off between food consumption, happiness, and stats
  
• Law: Leisure - trade off between need for recreation and happiness
  
• Law: Workload - trade off between more productive settlers and sleep requirements
  
• Law: Production Focus - choice between different options of factory production speed
  
• Law: Research Grants - Increases research speed, decreases build/raze time
  
• Law: Emergency Shift - Makes your settlers way more productive (and not consume anything) for 36h, but will cause immense fatigue the next day
  
• Law: Rousing Speech - 36h boost to military stats, but will cause immense fatigue the next day
  
• Law: Building Permits - Increases building and razing speed by 33%
  
• Law: Health Care - Provide a small passive sickness removal and healing, decreases medical job speed
  
• Engine: Heavily reduced "game launch to main menu" time
  
• Engine: Decreased impact of mods on loading times
  
• Graphics: Replaced gun, rifle, rocket and shotgun ammo (and charcoal) textures by better ones
  
• Graphics: Replaced turrets by much more detailed models with a fixed core + rotating gun
  
• Graphics: Added variants to trading and supply cars/pickups
  
• Graphics: Slightly smoother rotation of agents (and scaling with game speed)
  
• Modding: Traits got a new NeedMultipliers field to modify settlers' needs using a ratio instead of the raw values of NeedMods (see law_ration_* files or the updated _example.txt file)
  
• Modding: Traits got a new NegateNeeds field which allow to completely disregard a (list of) need(s) for the associated settler (see law_emergency_active or the updated _example.txt file)
  
• Modding: Traits got a new ReplaceUnarmed field, if set, it will replace the unharmed weapon (fists) by the weapon specified here (this weapon must not use ammo)
  
• Modding: Laws can be added / modded (see data/laws/* files)
  
• Modding: New turret format (backward compatible with previous one so i don't break older mods)
  
• Modding: Expedition loot tables can contain technologies, the game will manage that properly and unlock the tech when ppl come back
  
• Modding: Wall files got the RazeTo, RazeToFaction, RazeToChance fields which work the same as with clutter
  
• Modding: Added MorphTo field to consumable allowing to morph the consumer into another agent. Look at the new data/items/consumable/_example.txt file for a full rundown
  
• UI: Tweaked the tooltip and panel for traits
  
• UI: In the game log, when displaying a "X got new trait: Y" message, the mouse-over tooltip will show full details about the trait instead of just its description.
  
• UI: Doors can be upgraded from wood to stone to metal through their associated menu
  
• UI: Added log feedback to doctors (tells when they remove a wound or heal someone)
  
• UI: Declarations of war from other factions come in a proper "diplomatic" panel instead of a generic popup.
  
• Fixed: After loading a save, the game would stay on the main menu song which was not the intended effect
  
• Fixed: Issues with some of the "Kill X amount of stuff" achievements
  
• Fixed: Closing the pasture screen while the rename sub panel is open wouldn't close the panel
  
• Fixed: Upgraded factories and depots would keep the name of the un-upgraded version
  
• Fixed: More cases where closing a menu would cause the menu for the item below to appear
  
• Fixed: Suppliers from production center turning hostile if you kill a civilian trader
  
• Fixed: Survivors sent to take over a production center would keep their bedrooms and pets (they now get unassigned as soon as the location is claimed)
  
• Fixed: Fairly large memory leak tied to the menu system (especially visible in trading screen)
  
• Fixed: In combat mode and during an Acid Rain, soldiers would path trying to stay under roofs, which was not the intended behavior
  
• Fixed: The character screen would look funky if the associated character has a very long list of traits
  
• Fixed: Some minor logic and pathing issues (build job duplication, occasional pathing failure...)

Here's the third and normally last hot-patch for 0.7.3.

It's fixing the bugs you reported on discord and the forums. I didn't want to wait until the release of 0.7.4 (Rule of Law), even if it's coming out soon, to address them.

(As usual with hot-patches, it's compatible with previous 0.7.x save-games)

• UI: Added in-game setting to pause the game after loading a save
  
• Fixed: Random nests could popup during the tutorial, possibly killing the settlers.
  
• Fixed: Newly created player settlers could simply be named "tribal"
  
• Fixed: Pets attacking people during brawls
  
• Fixed: You couldn't right click weapons/armors/... in the menu used to change equipment (i also made the selection menu draggable so you can compare easily)
  
• Fixed: After telling someone to change equipment, the info wouldn't be properly updated in the associated menu until it's closed and reopened
  
• Fixed: When playing on the military base map and taming a red spider or a queen scorpion, the animal would attack walls
  
• Fixed: More cases where clicking on a close button would open up the menu for the item under said button

Here's the second hot-patch for 0.7.3.

This small patch make settlers with a low work ethic stat. a bit more willing to work while fixing a bunch of smaller issues. Notably, giving the order to equip weapons/armors/etc. should always work now, unless the settler gets attacked.

Additionally, we added a QuickSave shortcut (F8 by default, can be changed in settings). And for those of you who're using mods like More Beds will be happy to know that we added a menu to select which skin you prefer so you don't have to click "next skin" a million times. As the screenshot below shows:



To make the menu appear, just click on the item between the two green arrows.

As usual with hot-patches, it's compatible with previous 0.7.x save-games.

Cheers!

• AI: Made settlers more likely to drop excess inventory items
  
• Balance: Settlers with a very low "work ethics" stats are a bit more likely to go to work
  
• UI: When building furniture, clicking on the item itself (between arrows) will open a sub menu to directly select the skin
  
• UI: Added Quicksave shortcut (F8 by default, can be changed in settings), 2 slot system, like autosaves
  
• Fixed: Death sounds being played when loading a savegame (which has dead people)
  
• Fixed: Store Inventory button (in settler inventory screen) was not always reliable
  
• Fixed: The various buttons to equip weapon/armor were not always reliable
  
• Fixed: Clicking Contact Faction without choosing faction caused a crash in the new Faction menu (oops)
  
• Fixed: In combat mode, right clicking an hostile faction raider could occasionally not issue an attack order
  
• Fixed: Loading a savegame from a game that was in combat mode would force the player to reset the UI (game will always load in standard mode from now on)
  
• Fixed: Autosaves couldn't be deleted from the menu