May 2, 2021

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

Hi there!

With me working on the next big update, it's a good time to go into more details about the planned expedition overhaul. Of course, as with all my "design" articles, everything I'm going to write is subject to change depending on how things go during the implementation and testing phases.

Identifying the problems

Before replacing a perfectly functional feature, it's a good idea to know why. It's especially important when it's the second time you're doing it, as there definitely won't be a third full rewrite. So let's look at the different problems with our current system. Of course, your mileage may vary. Not all points will have the same weight to everyone.

1) Only one expedition at a time

This is probably the most obvious problem. No matter how large is your base, no matter your tech level, only one expedition can run at the same time. This is especially annoying when you have to clear a location before looting/claiming it. In the current system, it means that you need to run at least 2 expeditions in a row. Also, due to this limitation, there's only so many things I can do on the world map before things become too cumbersome.

2) The world map is too static

In other words, the city is a pretty boring place to look at. This is, at least partially, a result of the first problem. The places you can go to are set in stones. Outside of one late game special event, there's no destinations being added, removed, changed or moved over the duration of the game. For instance, someone mentioned to me recently that "rare traders" (trading artifacts and such) were too rare. With a different system, such traders could instead spawn in the city for a specific duration, and one of your expeditions could try to reach them. In the same spirit, herds of creatures could move around the map for hunting purpose. Bandit lairs could periodically spawn and make some areas more dangerous until they are dealt with.

3) The current system feels disconnected from the main game

This is of course a matter of opinion. Still, expeditions are entirely menu driven and visible on the city map only. Outside of production centers, expeditions are pretty much a separate minigame running within the main game. The removal of the "expedition planning table" from the very first version, while necessary at the time, was probably a step in the wrong direction in that regard.

4) Very limited "exploration"

For something called "expedition" in a survival post-apocalypse game, there's very little exploration going on here. Of course, with the current system, it's literally impossible to "explore" the city map. I don't think that having to launch an expedition just to "uncover" terrain would be well received. I don't think that adding a complete fog of war over the city would make much sense either. It's safe to assume that people would have a map or some mental image of the city they live in. On the other hand, it feels weird to have perfect knowledge of the city from the get go (every location you can repair, every faction and their HQ..).

5) Hands-off battles

Last but not least, off map battles, to clear a location or wipe out bandits, are done through dice rolls. While it's a perfectly okay choice for most encounters, it's a bit of a missed opportunity. Especially in specific situations like attacking a faction HQ, getting rid of the late game Abominations, etc. having the option to go through a real combat would be a lot more impactful.

Planned Changes

Assuming everything goes according to plan, the way expeditions are handled will be scrapped pretty much entirely and replaced by a system closer to what can be seen in games like Frostpunk or Surviving the Aftermath. In short, expeditions will become tangible agents you can move around the city map pretty much freely.

Setup and Settings

The general idea is to add a "garage" building to the game. One garage equals one expedition/group. Said building will be where you assign people to your group. But more interestingly, it's also where you'll be able to customize it. I'll add a new item category dedicated to improving the efficiency of your expeditions. As an example, a car would improve movement speed and cargo space but would make the group more likely to be ambushed. A metal detector would improve loot chances. You get the idea. Once the group is setup correctly, press the launch button on the menu associated with the building. Selected survivors will exit the base and appear on the map as a new group for you to command.

City Map

The newly created group will appear on the city map screen. From there, you'll be able to move it around like you would with a combat unit. Moving around the city will, obviously take time, which is when the "random" events can appear (one chance per tile, with a long per tile cooldown). Assuming you move one of your group to a point of interest, a context menu would appear. Basically the same as the current "Attack", "Loot" and "Takeover" options. The main difference being that when the action is over, your group will stay in place ready for more orders. If your cargo is full of loot, you might want to bring them back home, otherwise, you'll be able to move on to a another location.

Combat

The "Attack" option, available when a point of interest is occupied by hostiles (or when dealing with other factions) will get, on top of the usual "auto-resolve", the option to generate a small combat oriented map. If a player is willing to fight off a bunch of soldiers, abomination or mercenaries by themselves, more power to them. Such encounters will be self-contained "time bubbles". For simplicity sake (and my own sanity), the rest of the world will be paused until the situation is dealt with and ammo consumption will be ignored.

Don't expect good combat maps in the first few releases, though. There's a lot of things to do already, mapping will come, just not until all of this is working properly.

Benefits

There are a lot of benefits to this system. Obviously, multiple expeditions to be managed at once. You can chain multiple "missions" without having to go back and forth. With the dedicated equipment / items, you can customize each group for a particular task. More to the point, with this system, there's a lot more things that can be added in the future. For instance, groups could have a limited field of vision, so you can uncover special locations by exploring the map. Biomes can have an impact now as well. Places like the scorched biome could need a specific car type or special suits for your group to explore.

Later on, I could add rivers to the city which you can only pass-through via one of the few remaining bridges. AI factions would start to use this system as well: instead of "teleporting" assault teams to your base (or one of your production centers), they'd send groups you could potentially intercept with one of yours. Same could go for bandits, or even the larger animal migrations.

Other Changes

To keep things smooth, survivors you find during exploration will likely travel to your base on their own. I'm not entirely sure how to fill production centers with workers yet, probably similarly to what I do now: once the location is clear, your group will be able to call home and ask you who to send. It'll just "teleport" your workers there (well, timed teleport to simulate travel time for immersion purpose).

I'll have to modify the "Exploration" branch. I'll remove radio, range and movement related techs, as they will be obsolete in that context. New ones will be added to control the max number of groups you can run simultaneously. Same goes for the equipment, which will likely be a mix of tech and loot you can find.

And, of course, I will need to edit the UI to take all that into account. Outside of the obvious new menu for the garage building, we'll need to keep track of our expeditions from the main UI. It would be too bothersome to switch between the game and the map just to keep track of each group. This is what the vertical space under the mini-map will be for. Each group will be represented by its own icon and subtext. Subtext will be something like "awaiting order", "resting", "looting"... Clicking on the icon will of course switch to the world map and center the screen on the associated group.

Conclusions

So, that's the general plan. Not gonna lie, it's going to take me a few weeks (at least) to get close to all that. I'll probably need a few more weeks for bug fixing and polishing. Depending how long it takes in total, I might divide the overhaul into 2 releases. The surface (groups, garage, items) stuff first. Details (combat, biome impact, FoV, etc.) second. I'd rather not, but Valve's metrics tend to go down the shitter when you don't release anything for too long.

Once this feature is completed, it'll be time to schedule the next price increase for the game. It'll be moved from $11.99 to $12.99. For reference, the 1.0 (first version out of EA) should be released at 14.99. This is half of Rimworld's price, which sounds more than fair to me.

The Future

After we're done, it'll be time to work on a building and map editor, so players (and me) can make and exchange hand-crafted content via the workshop. Not entirely sure how things will go yet, but the idea is to offer more varied spawn locations, and make it synergize with the combat stuff mentioned above, again, to offer more interesting maps than what the generator can make on its own.

This should conclude the 0.8x branch feature set. We'll talk about 0.9x later :)

Cheers!

May 1, 2021

0.8.2 Release : Hot-patch 4

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

Hi there!

This technically shouldn't be called a "hot-patch" given there are structural changes that people need to be made aware of, but it's a bit too late for me to change my version system. :)

Pathing Changes

The main reason for this update was to address a old bug which was causing settlers and animals to, sometimes, be teleported to the wrong side of a wall. Basically it would happen when something is pathing around a corner and gets worsened when a game is saved right when this happens. For barely half a second, the peon was technically "in the wall" which could force the engine to forcefully push it outside, not always on the correct side.

As such, instead of pathing diagonally through a the corner of a house, they'll path around it. It gives a more natural looking movement. There's a downside to this change, though. One movement type that was possible in previous versions is not anymore. Best way to illustrate is with a picture:

Moving between corner-adjacent obstacles is no longer possible. Settlers will go the long way around. If parts of your base is relying on people moving diagonally through a bunch of depots/walls, those parts have to be redesigned to allow access.

I know this fix is going to be slightly annoying to some of you. But at this point in time, it's the only valid choice I have to fix the issue.

There's an upside, some fairly frequent calculations (flood fill) done by the game are now a lot less CPU intensive, which should help with performances on very large maps.

Build in Combat Mode

Build mode keyboard shortcuts are now working in combat mode. As such, and assuming you know your shortcuts, it's possible to build, cancel and raze stuff from the combat UI now.

This should be especially useful with "special projects" that require active guards, like walling off parts of the sewers or securing a spawner to make a food or giant egg generator. You won't have to switch between build & combat mode nearly as often.

This is still a bit experimental, but so far my testing hasn't found any deal breaker.

Biome Specific Weather

Biomes can have their own weather patterns, and even weathers which are unique to them. For instance, in the scorched biome, "acid rains" have been replaced by a way deadlier "blood rain" version and cold waves can no longer happen.

In the same spirit, arid biomes no longer have cold waves, and rain is much less frequent. Swamps have no heat waves and it's raining more often. Most other biomes are left unchanged for now.

Notes

This is still a hot-patch, technically. As such, there's no compatibility problem to expect. Just keep aware of the changes in pathing.

Beside that, devlog about 0.8.3 incoming sunday :)

Full Changelog

Balance: Given all animals a very slow (only outside combat) health regen ability to compensate for the fact they can't heal on their own otherwise
Change: It is no longer possible for agents to path through diagonally-adjacent walls/obstables
Content: Weather patterns depend on the biome you spawn in (swamps get more rain and coldwaves, arid less rain and more heatwaves, scorched is hellish)
Content: Scorched biome: acid rain replaced by blood rain (local mobs are generally immune to its effects) and the water there is now red.
Engine: Slightly improved overall performances on large maps
Engine: Switching to/from the world map is now near immediate instead of freezing the game for a good second
Modding: Some mapgen/terrains files have a new "WeatherPatterns" field (see arid.json or humid.json)
Modding: Weather pattern files have a "CanUseInProcGen" true/false setting, if set to false, this pattern will only show up if it's included in the terrain's data
Modding: Added "CanSocial" true/false to npc files (to enable/disable relation tab/funcs on relevant npc types)
UI: Updated some of the tutorial and game-tip messages with more accurate/useful information
UI: Right clicking zones in the build menu will display a detailed info menu like it does for other objects
UI: Added "Zones" category to the encyclopedia
UI: Most of the build mode keyboard shortcuts are now working in combat mode (building, razing, cancelling and most menus)
Fixed: Messages about brawls would incorrectly indicate that all brawls are from your survivors (even if it's between hostile people in a bunker)
Fixed: The biome dropdown in custom game / underground menu was clipped incorrectly
Fixed: Basements could spawn on the surface in some scenarios
Fixed: Frenglish "recolt" changed to "harvest", and corrected other outdated information in the tutorial
Fixed: On rare/specific occasions, agents could end up on the wrong side of a wall (after loading a save, especially), this *should* be fixed
Fixed: Animals, zombies and robots spawning with the "social" module, unnecessarily consuming CPU cycles (not many, but hey)
Fixed: Zombies weren't immune to the heavy version of acid rains.
Fixed: In some underground scenarios, "surface events" (new recruits, traders...) could still happen before the player breaches the surface

Mar 22, 2021

After The Collapse 0.8.2: Digging Deeper

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

Hi there,

Long time not seen! My apologies for the lack of news on the official website and, more generally, the lack of store-page posts outside of game releases. The first two months of 2021 have sadly been cannibalized by personal reasons which I'm not going bother you with. I'm not looking for an excuse, just know it was unavoidable. When forced to make a choice between the two, I always favor writing the game itself over community interactions. The best way to catch me is through the discord channel if need be. Don't worry, I do still get, read, and fix anything related to crash/bug reports as long as they go through the established methods.

With that out of the way, let's talk about the game proper, that's why we're all here after all. :)

The major 0.8.2 update has just been released. Contrary to 0.8.1 which was mostly putting the finishing touches to 0.8.0, it's a big chunky one hinting at what I envision the game to be when we reach 1.0. Without further delay, let's dive in the new features.

Dig Deeper

This is the big new feature of this update. Definitely setting us apart from Rimworld and other games in the same genre, at least when coupled with other features I will explain further down.

As you might have noticed, ATC does include an underground layer. With this update, ATC is finally able to handle any amount of underground layers, within technical limitations, of course. Each layer basically runs on a specific thread. Ideally, you still want to keep at least one cpu core free for pathfinding, the sound manager and co. But, beside that, it means that ideal performances vs layer count will very much be tied to what kind of CPU you're using. An entry level Ryzen with 6 cores should work okay with 4 layers total (including the surface). a 8 core CPU will happily deal with 6-7 layers. And well, if you're a lucky bastard with a ThreadRipper, have fun playing with one of the very few games specifically optimized for high core count CPU :).

It goes without saying that the time it'll take to generate a map or save/load a game will slightly be impacted by the number of layers you're using.

I do want to stress out something because it might not be obvious to most of you: moving from a dual layer system to "anything goes" was more complicated than just tweaking a few numbers left and right. The way I was generating maps, saving and handling map data, or even generating scenarios has been completely overhauled. I'm probably not even done with such modifications, but it seems to work well enough for a public release. It was a lot of work and I do fully expect that new and fun bugs will appear as a result. We'll have a hell of a day getting rid of them, I'm sure, but hey, that's my job :)

Of course, just adding more of the same would be pretty pointless. If all underground layers looked the exact same or had no real content beside more caverns, it would all be very freaking boring. This leads to the next 2 major new features!

Procedural Map Generation

If you've been here from the beginning, you might have noticed that the procedural map generation hasn't evolved much in the last year, if at all. I mean, it's serviceable enough, but maps do get very similar to each other after only a couple games.

While the code itself isn't that bad, the way it was structured was very unwieldy and difficult to work with. And with the addition of more layers, keeping it that way just wasn't an option anymore.

In practice, with only structural changes and no new "magical algorithm", I have a lot more options to generate underground layers. You'll find underground forests, rivers and lakes. Even completely alien mushroom biomes.

I can spawn buildings underground (which, outside of the vaults, wasn't a thing). Mobs can spawn according to a biome: the arid biome will have a lot more scorpions, sewers have more zombies, and so on and so forth. Likewise, building infestations (mob ambushes in buildings) can be defined at the building level. If you remember the occasional house with the spider nest, well, now the random mobs in said building will always be spiders variants.

Additionally, buildings can have multiple layers: houses can have basements, and, while it's not there yet, I can easily generate a whole "dungeon" with 3 or more layers. Note that the above screenshot, showcasing said basements, is just from a test map, basements will not all be the same and might contain mobs in the released version. There are still a few caveats I will fix soon enough. For instance, the surface map generator within the city itself (the outside is in a decent state tbh) is still very repetitive. It's definitely something I will work on during this 0.8x cycle. But, right now, the main change on the surface, is that some buildings can spawn basements (with goodies, and baddies). The actual fun stuff is underground.

Goal Driven Scenarios

Coupled with all the above, scenario files got a lot more options to play with. As such, the 0.8.2 update introduces 2 specific scenarios highlighting those new features. It's hard to talk about it without spoiling said features, but I guess it's fine to share the 2 first things you'll see when actually launching one of said scenarios:

This is the new intro text coming with most scenarios.

It quickly explains what's special or unique about it. In this case, you have to establish a base, tech up, dig down, find a path toward a military bunker while fighting off a bunch of giant spiders. It comes with a reward (a high-end tech unlocking new stuff) unique to this specific scenario. Note that, as specified, one of the layer cannot be dug into, you'll have to find, clear and use a specific building to access that layer. It's a new feature of the map generator, making so that some layers cannot be pierced into and have to be accessed by existing means instead. As you can guess, it's made so you can't just place 3 stairs on top of each other to access the loot, skipping all the mobs in the process.

And here's a mostly spoiler-free (and slightly outdated) screenshot of the bottom layer. It's highlighting the new map generation pretty well. A whole biome with giant mushrooms, underground rivers, and spider themed mobs and clutter. Sure, it's still a cavern map, but it does still look very different from the good old cavern you're used to.

The second scenario will spawn you one layer below ground. The surface is a monster infested hell-hole where your survivors will get a massive debuff causing them to get thirsty, sick and get constant health damage. Basically, you can only access the surface for looting purpose, but can't live on it, at all.

That being said, 2 layers below you, there's a scientific bunker. It might contain some gizmo which might help you to overcome this problem. Well... Granted you don't get killed by the mobs. Yes, it is meant to be very difficult compared to what the game would normally throw at you.

Those two scenarios in particular are highlighting features I'm planning for the 1.0 "story mode". This will be the subject of the next devlog.

Biomes and Layouts

With the new layer system and the many new settings, the "custom game" mode got more options to play with. Still it's only a few more. Writing a menu able to tweak all those new proc-gen parameters for any arbitrary amount of underground layers would take me ages. At some point, it's just easier to rely on the city map. If someone is hell bent on writing his own map, editing text-files is (and will always be) the most practical option.

The city map allows you to pick the number of underground layers you want, warns about deadly surface biomes and can highlight "unique" underground biomes too:

There's also 2 new technologies and a bunch of items associated with them. One technology is unique to the "Scorched Earth" scenario. The other one can both be found in the "Arachnophobia" scenario and in the unique biomes mentioned above in the standard gameplay options.

I also added the new following biomes:

Swamps (surface): grassy with patches of water everywhere. Nice location all in all.
Scorched (2 variants, surface): Dead, toxic, scorching heat and full of monsters
Several new cavern variants with or without lakes and rivers
A slightly more open sewer layout
Two unique underground mushroom biomes: one infested by spiders, the other overrun by shamblers

It also includes a variant to the "Nature & Buildings" layout, called "Forest village". It's not fleshed out yet, so in practice it's a bunch of randomly placed buildings in an open area, and if the biome works with forests, then it should generally feature a lot of trees. There are a couple modifications made to existing buildings to account for their optional basement. And of course, a lot of new clutter, walls and tile types to give some identity to those new structures and biomes.

Misc Changes and Bugfixes

As you can see, this update is mostly about making the maps and scenarios more attractive. As such, there are very few changes to the core gameplay loop. Still, it should be noted that the randomized loot table (those boxes in the underground) has been tweaked. It's no longer possible to find high-end gear in those. It was breaking the early game balance/economy to get free spec-ops armors due to lucky dice rolls. On the plus side, you'll find some on the surface, and there's a bit more. Some high-end (intact) weapons have been marked as rare, like the rocket launcher and most assault rifles, to prevent them from appearing too often, especially early game. You'll also be happy to know that if you start underground, your bunker's door will automatically be locked from the start, so you don't have to look for it for 5 minutes before unpausing the game.

And, as usual, there's a few bug fixes, minor UI tweaks, and general improvements. Refer to the full changelog for details.

Savegame & Mod Compatibility

This version is definitely not compatible with previous save-games. I tried to put most of my save-game breaking changes in it so it doesn't happen again too soon. Yet, I can't make any promise in that regard due to the many large features/changes planned in the 0.8x branch. In any case, if you want to finish your game, you can roll back to the previous version as usual (right click on ATC in steam, properties / beta tab).As far as I am aware, all available mods should be compatible with this update unless they feature extra scenarios or tweak map generation in specific ways. I don't think such mods exist at the moment.

Closing Words

While restructuring the code and writing the ability to dig further down was a bit of pain, I am very glad of the results. It will very probably cause some uncommon bugs, especially in very busy bases. While I don't put a hard cap on the number of settlers and layers you can run at the same time, you can easily understand why the more you're trying to push the game to its limits, the more likely are things to go wrong. It's a good thing as it will help catch very rare/situational bugs which would have otherwise stayed (mostly) dormant. I didn't get the time to play with all the new options, so there's still a lot I could add regarding special buildings or tweaking settings by just adding/editing data files.

Anyway, now that I can add procedural multi-layered bunkers and goal oriented maps, it'll soon be time to venture outside of our base (and comfort zone) to tackle the second "big goal" of the 0.8 branch. Oh, and also make the basic "general city" surface map generation less dull.

I hope you'll enjoy this update and the new scenarios :)

Cheers!

Full Changelog

AI: Settlers can recognize "technologies" as special items and will mark that tech as discovered when looting one (triggering the 'tech found' panel)
Balance: Player bunker's external door is locked by default to prevent edge cases where a settler would go outside on accident
Balance: The random loot drops can no longer spawn (very) rare late game items (unless specified otherwise by a scenario)
Balance: Some of the high tier weapons (sniper rifle, rocket launcher..) have been marked as Rare
Change: The generic 'stairs' construction has been replaced by 'stairs up' and 'stairs down'
Content: Multilayered maps where you can dig several layers below ground
Content: The starting location in "The Plague" scenario is now 2 layers below ground
Content: Biome specific (both below & above ground) mobs can spawn (instead of picking from a generic list)
Content: When starting a new game, you can specific how deep you want to be able to dig
Content: Added new "Arachnophobia" scenario, breach an underground military bunker to retrieve a powerful tech
Content: Added new "Scorched Earth" scenario, breach a scientific bunker so you can find a way to survive above ground
Content: A new rare underground biome: Giant spider nest (a cavern with an mutated biome, full of spiders)
Content: A new rare underground biome: Breached research bunker (zombies and toxic goo everywhere!)
Content: Recipes and items to exploit the resources from those biomes (this is very much a spoiler, so no details)
Content: Added 3 new surface biomes "Scorched earth" surface biome: makes the surface a hellscape where nothing can grow or survive long, beside (some) mobs
Content: Added "Forest Village" (basically lots of random buildings and trees, need fleshing out) surface map setting
Engine: The engine can support any amount of layers, each running in its own thread / cpu core
Engine: Scenarios can set the terrain's depth and add additional mobs and loot
Modding: Scenario files have a LOT more options (mob density, underground forests, tweak mountains, unique mobs, loot tables, all of it entirely undocumented :D)
Modding: Initial mob spawn no longer hardcoded: located in terrains' data files (mapgen/terrains/*) and are allowed to spawn stuff on the surface.
Modding: Ambushes (mob in buildings) can be set at the building's level (mapgen/buildings/*, takes priority) or at the terrain level (mapgen/terrains/*).
Modding: Terrain definition files can apply traits (see terrain/scorched.json), it works like a weather traits in practice (goes with the new trait category "Terrain")
Modding: Added "IntroText" field to scenarios, displayed when the game starts (useful if the scenario feature specific goals. see scenarios/arachnophobia.json)
Modding: Modded biomes (mapgen/terrain/*) will automatically be integrated in any new game alongside official ones (on the surface & and in caverns).
ProcGen: Generally speaking the map generation is more powerful and a lot more option are available both for me and the modders
ProcGen: Several new cavern layouts (underground rivers, lakes, alternate walls, underground forests, variants of existing biomes)
ProcGen: Alternate, more "open" sewer layout will occasionally pop up
ProcGen: More decorative items (bones, bone piles, mushrooms, computers, electronic gizmos, cables, barrels, dirt walls...)
ProcGen: Handles any amount of underground layers (in reality it should not go above the number of cores on your CPU, but you do you)
ProcGen: More water, building, forest and mountain generation settings, working on all layers
ProcGen: Buildings with a vertical component are a thing now (buildings going several stories deep into the earth)
ProcGen: The city map generator got tweaked to take all new settings into account
ProcGen: Optional craters and "ruined" buildings on the surface
ProcGen: Tweaks to many existing buildings to use some of the new options
Sound: Ambiant sound layer (wind, rain and such) volume decreased when you're below ground
UI: Replaced the button to toggle map up/down by a more appropriate widget
UI: Scenarios with special rules (new ones, last stand, the plague) will display an introduction panel after launching the game
UI: Added button to the city map selection: choose how many underground layers you want for your map
UI: Slightly tweaked scenario screen menu
UI: Added ability to highlight special underground biomes on the city map when selecting spawn location
UI: New settings in the custom game's map generation tabs
Fixed: Several pathing and item placement issues related to map layers, unsurprisingly
Fixed: FaunaAI staying all riled up forever by a settler who moved back to a different layer ages ago
Fixed: Building a stair would immediately mark a settlement as "above ground" (independently of depth, which wasn't a problem until now).
Fixed: More typos (like, but not limited to "benomous" -> "venomous")
Fixed: Potential issue with the amount of mob spawned in the military base
Fixed: NPC were not respecting render layering properly (making big things like spider queens awkwardly appear below smaller spiders)
Fixed: Buildings standing on top of a water planes (a ground layer is now placed under such buildings)
Fixed: In the encyclopedia, some items could be tagged as being part of a location's loot table even if said item is marked as "NeverLootDrop"
Fixed: Missing tooltip in depot menu (clicking on the gauge to open the inventory)
Fixed: After generating a city, the selected location wouldn't get updated until it's clicked again
Fixed: It was possible to move stairs around, which was a Very Bad Thing (tm)
Fixed: Random events pop up in the tutorial (before it ends)

Feb 9, 2021

After The Collapse 0.8.1 Released

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

Here's the first update of the year! It's not as massive as you're used to because I had to extend my "vacations" (big quotation marks) for a couple weeks longer than anticipated. Anyway, I'm back and kicking and future patches will be much larger than this one.

As usual, I'm only going over the major new features and changes and you can find in the full change-log at the bottom of this very article.

Power Grid

This is probably the major draw to this update and definitely one of the most frequently requested improvement. The power grid has been rewritten to work with multiple map layers. As such, it's now possible to transmit electricity from a layer to another.

I thought about adding a new construction dedicated to this task, but it was just simpler (code-wise) to add the functionality to power relays. Simply put, to move electricity from the surface to the underground (or the other way around), you just need to build 2 power relays at the exact same [X,Y] location, but each one on a different layer.

Additionally, the power relay menu got a makeover. It now allows you to change the relay's range which should make it easier for those who want to have separate or complex grids. It also indicates if it's connected to a relay in another layer.

Finally the "Power Grid" info panel shown in all relay, battery and generator menus now indicates the amount of power stored and total storage.

Survivors' Equipment

Until now, new (and starting) survivors would spawn with a random selection of low tier weapons. While it's adequate, it's just not very fun. The game's engine is now able to associate a job and specific equipment. Simply put, cops will generally with a gun or a taser and a police vest, doctors will have a doctor vest, soldiers and mercs will get decent gear, and so on, and so forth.

Some professions come with no equipment at all and a few others are still using a random default selection. And note that the equipment spawn list for each profession still gives them a chance not to spawn with their "logical" piece of armor.

To reduce the incentive to "farm" the map and recruitment events just to gather decent equipment, people you expel or refuse entry to have a chance to bolster the ranks of a random AI faction (slightly increasing their manpower).

As I add more equipment and jobs I will continue to improve this feature.

Encyclopedia Articles

I finished the work on the encyclopedia. The missing recipe category has been added. Items and crafting stations pages correctly link to the appropriate recipes. More importantly, I've added larger/longer articles to the Encyclopedia's main page.

Right now there's 3 main articles explaining the electrical grid, expeditions and the combat system. If enables, there's a forth article listing all the features included in the Halloween DLC.

The interesting part, at least for the veterans and modders, is that new articles can be added by mods. As such, it could be a great location for the more complex mods to add their own documentation instead of relying purely on their steam mod page.

New Content and Balance Changes

One hour of additional ambient music has been added, doubling the total, courtesy of CO.AG (under CC-BY 4.0 license). They mix pretty well with the existing tracks, but I noticed a couple playing at a very low volume. I'll alter the sound levels if I deem it necessary after playing for a bit longer.

This version also comes with 3 new weapons, all of which are low tier melee weapons (crowbar, heavy pipe, hammer). They all have a high chance to incapacitate a target and offer small skill bonuses. They cannot be crafted, but are commonly found on survivors. In the same spirit, i've added 2 padded vests (armor) and 4 differently colored caps (headgear) which offer next to no protection and cannot be crafted but which survivors can spawn with.

To make the first tech choice a bit more meaningful, the "card playing table" no longer has a tech requirement, so it's no longer obligatory to pick carpentry first (and fast) before risking people to get very moody.

Last but not least (for the masochists), a difficulty setting has been added. It tells zombies that they are allowed to target walls when they can't find a better target. It's disabled by default.

Save Compatibility

This is fully compatible with 0.8.0 save-games and mods. As usual, some minor changes/fixes will only apply on newly spawned agents but that's about it.

General Notes

As I explained in the intro, this is a relatively small update, but at least, it completes a bunch of features I've promised since forever ago. Next updates will start focusing on the new expedition system, probably coupled with procedural map generation improvements.

Cheers!

Full Changelog

AI: People are better at reacting to wounds; they will generally rush to the doctor instead of getting a meal (at least if there's something they can do about it).
Balance: Visitors you refuse entry to have a chance to bolster the ranks of other factions instead
Balance: The card table doesn't require the carpentry tech anymore (so it's no longer a tech you need to get first no matter what)
Content: You can now place 2 power relays at the same position, but one on the surface and one underground, to transfer electricity from a layer to another
Content: Power relays' range can be configured in their associated menu
Content: Survivors generally spawn with armors or weaponry related to their profession (cop with police vest, construction worker with hard hat...)
Content: Added difficulty setting allowing shamblers to attack walls if they cannot find an entry point or any other accessible target in your base
Content: Sleeping bags and tribal beds can be upgraded to standard beds when you get the proper tech
Content: Added crowbar, hammer and pipe to spawn & loot tables. Low tier weapons with bonus to skill and to incapacitate enemies
Content: Added variety of mostly decorative caps (headgear with very minor armor protection)
Content: Added two decorative armors (very minor armor protection)
Engine: Rewrote the power/electrical grid manager. It is more CPU efficient, responsive and able to handle different layers
Engine: Decoupled music from weather (ability to handle music playlists independently of weather patterns)
Modding: Articles can be added to the encyclopedia, which can be a very practical way to document your mods (see data/encyclopedia/*)
Modding: Base traits (those settlers/animals can spawn with, jobs included) can add specific items to their target. Applied once on spawn.
Modding: Added CanAttackDoors (true) and CanAttackWalls (false) to npc files, telling if they are allowed to attack either target. Only useful on RaiderAI fueled npc. Won't impact turret behavior.
Sound: Added 16 new background music tracks (one additional hour of music, doubling playtime before repeat), courtesy of CO.AG under CC-BY 4.0 license
UI: Added confirmation box when banishing survivors or running self destruction sequence on robots
UI: Added power storage information to power grid information panels
UI: Overhauled the power relay menu (more info, configurable range, similar "look" to other power management menus)
UI: Added Recipe category to Encyclopedia
UI: The welcome screen of the encyclopedia has been overhauled to contain articles about the game: combat, electricity and expeditions so far. More to come.
Fixed: Fire Crabs didn't get the intended health bonus, making them much less tanky than planned (will only work on crabs spawned after the update)
Fixed: A few tutorial messages couldn't be translated
Fixed: Robots and other "non sentient" agents would incorrectly try to check if they need to go to the hospital
Fixed: Crash in the encyclopedia when trying to access information about a Tech if it's accessed from the main menu
Fixed: Some typos in the game tips
Fixed: Technologies were shown in the item section of the encyclopedia (despite having their own category already)
Fixed: The non functional "Bandit Lair" setting (it's planned but not implemented yet) was visible in the difficulty settings
Fixed: It wasn't possible to "just rotate" a furniture (you had to move it away once and then place it again)
Fixed: In some scenarios, accessing the city map from the underground layer would incorrectly show your base being located in the top left corner
Fixed: Shamblers and tribals would get a job-type trait which wasn't intended.
Fixed: Using "OnTop" rendering for pieces of armors/headgear wouldn't always align properly (Modding issue)

Dec 14, 2020

After The Collapse 0.8.0 Released

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

After The Collapse 0.8.0 has just been released!

This first 0.8.x release is not as large in scope as my previous major releases. The main goals here were to make the game more friendly to newcomers, give more options to experienced players who want a challenge, while fixing many issues and doing the necessary internal groundwork for the next set of massive changes planned for it.

Before we start. I want to announce that I will be taking a break until early January. Beside the holiday season, I have important family matters to deal with and I also personally need to get some time off the game. I will still be around on our Discord channel, and will publish the usual hot-fixes if need be, just not at the pace you're used to.

Anyway, let's get to the update.

Scenarios, Events and Difficulty Settings

This is the core component of this new update. The new game menu has been reorganized through several start scenarios. Each scenario can be customized and difficulty can be tweaked to satisfy anyone from a total beginner to expert players.

Food and water consumption can be tweaked, alongside dozen of other aspects of the game. One of which is the "Rare Water" toggle. This one dramatically changes the way water is handled in game. If this setting is selected, water wells must be placed next to a water source and must be placed at least 8 tiles apart from each other. It's also tagging purified water as a "rare" item, making it much less likely to appear while looting or trading. This, coupled with various other settings, like Lethal Sickness and high Pandemonium infection rates can make this game extremely difficult.

Of course, all of this is entirely optional.

Additionally, the distribution of "random" events (raids, traders, and so on) and frequency can be tweaked from this same menu.

Most scenarios allow you to preview and reroll your starting survivors to further tailor your experience.

The world map menu used to select your starting position in some scenarios is also a lot more user friendly and informative. It quickly explains what you can expect from a location, the reason why you can or cannot settle somewhere, and so on.

Notable Additions and Balance Changes

Gas masks who were until now situational and overpriced items now protect against most illnesses and against the dreaded acid rains' effects.

Two new mobs have appeared in the city. The Fire Crab and the Explosive Shambler. While both can, very rarely, appear in standard event difficulty, they are more common with difficult events selected. The fire crab is relatively tanky and will hurl fireball at anyone hostile. The explosive shambler will explode on contact AND on death causing a short range but deadly chemical explosion.

Water is a more prominent features, you'll find small lakes dotting the surface and the underground caverns on a regular basis.

If you decide to start the game underground, you'll notice that the game will no longer trigger recruitment, raids and trading events until you've breached the surface. This was a common issue I finally addressed. Creatures will still occasionally appear on the surface map, though.

New events and traders will appear on your map. Notably, the exotic pet trader, who can start appearing after you've discovered the Animal Care technology and who will sell you those rare and valuable eggs so you can build your own army of mutated animals.

A new "Mature Content" checkbox is available in the gameplay settings menu. If unchecked, cannibalism, most blood effects, and prisoner traders will be removed from the game (it is still possible to take prisoners, just not to trade or eat them). This setting is best changed before starting a new game.

Graphics

The water is now animated and, much, much, much nicer to look at. In the same spirit, wheat, tomato and mushroom farms got a much needed facelift with plants actually looking like what they are supposed to represent.

User Interface

The most notable changes regarding the UI, outside of minor tweaks, are two important additions to the Combat UI. You can now order your survivors to go fetch more ammunition, either through a keyboard shortcut or through the new button in the bottom menu.

Additionally, it is now possible to add/remove individual survivors to your combat group without having to reset combat mode completely though the Recruit/Release button in their individual menu.

Furniture now have their own menu which allow you to move and rotate said item without having to raze and rebuild it. Same goes for power relays.

Engine & Fixes

I went through a lot of old code and either rewrote or improved it, fixing bugs, improving performances and reliability. It's a very slow and tedious process which has very little directly visible benefit to the end user. But it's work that needed to be done nonetheless if I want to continue improving it. At least It led to a lot of fixes for both reported bugs and unreported bugs.

Oh and I've added support for the Cyrillic charset, which should open the door to the game being translated to new languages through modding.

Mod and Savegame Compatibility

This version is NOT compatible with save-games from previous versions. You can roll back and finish your game by going in AtC steam properties, beta tab, and select the 0.7.7 version.

All mods I am aware of should work in 0.8 without any issue. Mods for which it could have been a problem have already been updated.

Author's Notes

I hope you will enjoy this version, while it's not as large as I wanted it to be, I've done my best to provide most needed improvements. After taking my break, we'll resume our usual schedule and start working on the next content updates.

Full Changelog

Balance: New and reorganized difficulty settings (there are a LOT more of them)
Balance: Greater ability to customize event distribution and frequency
Balance: Gas masks now protect from the negative effects of acid rains (both light & heavy) and most illnesses
Balance: When starting underground, most surface events (raids, traders, recruits) won't fire until you build your first staircase
Balance: Traders should, on average, have a larger selection of goods
Content: New and reorganized game scenarios
Content: Updated Halloween DLC to work with the new scenario system
Content: New and difficult "The Plague" scenario
Content: New "Really Bad Day" scenario (unfair solo survivor start, inspired by CDDA)
Content: Player faction flag can be customized
Content: Ability to start as a standard faction or as cannibals (more options coming)
Content: Ability to customize your starting survivors and add as many as you want
Content: New rare special traders (ammo trader, egg/pet trader after Animal Care tech)
Content: New and altered raid events
Content: Added ability to toggle "Mature Content" in the gameplay settings. Makes the game more kid-friendly by disabling blood effects, cannibalism, prisoner traders, human meat and so on...
Content: Furniture and power relays can be moved easily (thanks to a new button in their menu) without having to deconstruct and reconstruct them again.
Content: New Fire Crabs variant. Yes, they are basically a tanky flamethrower. Dangerous, but great as defensive pets if you manage to get some eggs
Content: New Explosive shambler variant. Will explode on contact and death, causing massive but localized AoE damage
Content: Added achievement for reaching day 60 in Last Stand (Steam only)
Content: Added achievement for reaching 30 survivors in The Plague (Steam only)
Content: The job template settings are now applied to prisoners too
Engine: Technical debt payment (fixed/improved/removed a lot of crappy old code)
Engine: The code in general should be more "secure" (crash preventing) and a tad faster (i have no idea if it's noticeable to the end user or not)
Engine: Replaced the white screen of death during game loading by the console (showing that there's some progress being done)
Engine: Added support for Cyrillic character set (opening the door for more translation mods)
Graphics: Water is way prettier and properly animated
Graphics: New sprites for wheat, tomato and mushroom farms
Graphics: Minor tweaks and improvements
ProcGen: New garage building added to map generation
ProcGen: All surface maps and caverns can now contain lakes, also added a lake quantity setting to custom map generation menus
ProcGen: In the Military Base map, the main building is more organic but also more difficult to clear
ProcGen: It's possible to settle in city center, commercial districts and suburbs (no special map feature for now)
UI: Completely reworked the "New Game" menu to manage all the new options
UI: Reworked the Game Settings menu (larger menu, more tooltips, clarified obscure settings)
UI: Added Encyclopedia button to the main menu
UI: Overhauled the "select spawn location on city map" menu to give more helpful information (and made it better looking)
UI: Refreshed the Recruitment panel (fixing alignment problems, added colors)
UI: Added button/shortcut to order survivors to go fetch more ammunition (if needed) in combat mode
UI: Individual settlers can be added/removed to/from combat mode on the fly using their info panel
UI: Added menu when clicking on furniture (chair, beds, tables..) with the ability to move the item somewhere else.
Modding: Replaced event handlers by scenario files with extensive gameplay and difficulty customization settings
Modding: Added "Mature" to events, items and traits' tags. Also added to recipes (as a true/false flag). Mature tagged items will not be applied/run if the user unchecked "mature content"
Modding: CattleAI is permanently deprecated
Modding: Older turret component versions are permanently deprecated
Modding: If only some of a mod's textures are compiled, the game could fail to load those which are not. This is fixed.
Modding: Added WaterNoiseColor to terrain files (colorize the water plane if any. default blue-ish.)
Modding: Thanks to the new "furniture" menu, things like chair, beds (and so on) can now be upgraded like other clutter
Modding: Added "mod_examples" folder, containing a documented example to write your own translation for the game
Modding: Added DeathShot to weapon files. Assuming the weapon is AoE, it will trigger a shot when the owner dies, shooting at itself. Useful for mines and such.
Modding: Moar LUA hooks into the game: (Game.Time, Game.Paused, Tile.HasRoof, Tile.RoofStatus, ERoofStatus, and several UI components) (by Alex)
Modding: Trade events can now have a list of preselected items (see trade_special_* events)
Fixed: Survivors would occasionally ignore likes & dislikes when calculation their opinion of each other
Fixed: The raid from "exiled" survivors couldn't trigger
Fixed: Power generators were supposed to automatically make their job prioritary when near empty but weren't
Fixed: The game wouldn't take the male/female ratio into account for the species which use this parameter
Fixed: Mods couldn't override leader portraits and other textures (trait -> replace body part for instance)
Fixed: If both "tech is unlocked" and "query is sent about player technologies" happen in the same frame, it could potentially lead to a crash
Fixed: Rare crash related to minimap being updated by 2 threads at the same time
Fixed: Potential crash on world map
Fixed: In the new game menu, when customizing equipment, it was possible to crash the game by entering something else than a number in the quantity field
Fixed: Right clicking items in the 'expedition result' panel wouldn't open the associated info panel
Fixed: Several more internal issues way too obscure to go over
Fixed: Fixed a bunch of typos in trait descriptions
Fixed: Some more missing french localization strings (laws and traits especially)
Fixed: When editing settings for a custom map, changing map architecture would not update settings properly
Fixed: Clearing up an abomination nest from the map could lead to a crash when looking at the world map
Fixed: Pausing game would remove clouds and fog from the map
Fixed: The game wouldn't indicate you can't build over water (or other impassible tile) properly
Fixed: The game would allow you to place walls directly over water
Fixed: Monster spawner/nests could accidentally be hidden below mountains during map generation, causing animals to spawn around the mountain.
Fixed: Issue preventing translation mods from translating the User Interface
Fixed: In some cavern maps, it was possible for the bunker to "infect" the cavern, causing razed cavern walls to uncover metal walls instead of more cavern ones
Fixed: Rare bug in underworld map generation which could lead a bunker to contain cavern walls and features
Fixed: Mines would only explode on contact, not when being shot

Nov 23, 2020

November 2020 Progress Update

After the Collapse - Anarkis Gaming

Hi there!

With my work on the 0.8 branch of After The Collapse taking most of my time, we've hit a temporary lull in my release schedule. To keep you waiting, I think it's a good time to talk about the progress made toward the next major update. Out of the many things planned for the 0.8x cycle, I decided to focus first on what I consider to be ATC's major issue when it comes to player retention. Namely, a very unfriendly "New Game" menu, and near useless difficulty settings. Of course this first update won't just stop to those two items, but it'll be the main subject of this article.

Please note that many of the changes detailed in this article are still under construction. As such, the implementation might vary slightly.

New Game Menu

The three different new game buttons (tutorial, main, custom) are being replaced by a single "New Game" button leading to a very complete scenario selection menu. For those in a hurry, here's a short video detailing the whole menu and a few other things:

As you can see, the same menu regroups all usual starting positions in addition to scenarios like the good old Last Stand and newcomers like "The Plague".

Scenarios are a fully customizable and moddable. They define the starting location, difficulty levels, events, your starting survivors, equipment, technologies among a ton of additional settings. They also define what the player can or cannot change before starting a game. For instance, with the "custom game" scenario, you can change pretty much everything about your game. While with "The Plague", you start with a preset location, survivors, events and difficulty settings. We'll go over difficulty settings further down.

Anyway, once a scenario is selected, and we'll use "Custom Game" as an example here, you get to the next screen:

The first tab allows you to customize your faction. You can select your name, flag, ethics and (if the scenario allows it) if you want to start above or below ground. The main feature, beside the ability to select a different flag, is that you can decide to start with a bunch of cannibals or not. Speaking of cannibals, I also added a mature content flag to the settings which I will detail further down this article.

The next tab is your usual equipment customization menu. Not much has changed here except that the menu is larger and a few minor issues have been fixed. Let's get to the new and interest bit, then.

As requested, you can now customize your settlers, see what they will look like, add, reroll and remove them at will. I still have a small problem to overcome. It makes it too easy to start with overpowered survivors. In the future, I'll have to find a way to balance that. The obvious (and easy) solution would be to limit the amount of rerolls. But I know all too well how much people love to optimize the fun out of their games. I'm afraid it would incite some people to restart the game over and over again. The alternative solution, which is much more annoying to write, would be to write a secondary settler generator (for this menu only) which would attribute good and bad traits in a fairly balanced fashion. We'll see. I'll keep it "as is" in this first release, though.

I'll skip the surface and underground settings as they are pretty much unchanged from 0.7x.

Finally, assuming you're playing on a scenario asking you to select a location on the map, this menu has been overhauled too!

As you can see, it got a much needed makeover. It's not exactly what I want it to be yet, but we're getting there. You get a lot more information about the spot you want to settle on, It warns you about potential difficulties related to the selected map. The menu also tells you why you can't settle in some locations like point of interests and AI factions' headquarters.

And, of course, after the location is selected, the game starts as usual.

Difficulty Settings

Difficulty settings were pretty lackluster in previous versions. Finding a balance between the newcomers who find the game too hard and the regulars who find it way too easy was pretty much impossible. Well, this will hopefully become a problem of the past. As you might have noticed in the previous screenshots, scenarios have 3 drop down menus below their descriptions. Let's see what up with those.

Clicking the Difficulty dropdown (which comes with several presets) will unlock this sub screen. As you can see, it's fairly complete and adds a ton of new settings to the game. I am not going to explain each individual one, as you can easily guess what most of them do, but I will still go over a few of the more interesting options.

First we have the "Pandemonium Infection Rate". It determines the percentage of survivors who are infected by the virus (which will slowly turn them into hostile tribals or shamblers if left untreated). It does not impact your starting people, but it does impact any new recruit. In the same vein, you can now select if the "Sickness" meter is lethal or not and you can disable the negative health effects given by acid rains.

The next setting, which I still have to implement (I am not yet 100% certain it will make it to 0.8.0), is the "Rare Water Sources". Simply put, it makes water a lot more difficult to get. Water wells will need to be next to actual water sources like lakes or rivers (yes, those are being implemented), and cannot be placed too close to one another, while purified water itself is made a "Rare" item, making it much less likely to appear during expeditions. The idea behind this setting is to give a proper challenge to the most experimented players.

You can also customize other factions, making them easier or harder to deal with. And finally, we have the "Bandit Lair" setting. It's not yet implemented, and probably won't be part of 0.8.0 but its goal is to occasionally spawn bandit lairs around the maps. As the name entails, bandit lairs are local bandit groups which will attack nearby bases and points of interest in a regular basis until the player (or an AI faction) destroys the lair.

Event Settings

And of course, game "random" events will be customizable too! The 2 other drop down menus (events and event frequency) both open the same sub menu:

You can filter in/out easy and difficult events and you can even completely remove positive or negative events (or both if you don't want any event at all). It's also possible to customize their frequency manually or by using one of the 3 different presets.

Toggle Mature Content

I know that there's quite a few parents playing the game with their kids and that the recent additions to the game might not be very kid friendly. As such, I am replacing the "toggle blood" setting by a much more complete Mature Content one. If checked, it will disable several of the most 'controversial' features:

Blood effects and decorations won't appear in the game
Cannibalism is completely disabled (with the exception of the Pandemonium virus)
Prisoner buyers and sellers will never spawn (you can still take prisoners if you want to, just not cook or sell them)

On a technical (and moddable) level, events, recipes, items and traits can be tagged with a "Mature" tag. The game will simply ignore everything marked as such when the "Mature Content" checkbox is disabled. As such, mods can also support "kid friendly" versions if need be.

Map Generation

As shown in the video, water looks a lot better now. It's an animated 256x256 texture (again, fully moddable) which is tiled under the map, instead of being a small 64x64 blueish tile. Lakes will be added to maps (to fill up those map corners and in preparation for the "Rare Water" difficulty settings) both above and under ground. I'm also adding a few new building variants and other small tweaks and improvements.

Nothing major, but do not worry, there's a LOT more to come in this area. Just not for the initial 0.8.0 release.

Game Engine

I went through most my code, looking for issues, removing duplicate code, optimizing what can be and so on. It's definitely not as sexy as the previously mentioned features, but paying your technical debt is an important part of maintaining an healthy project. Still, it should make the game way more stable. It's not like it's particularly unstable, but all bugs must be exterminated nonetheless. It should be a tad more optimized, but I am not entirely sure it's something the end user will notice, except in particularly busy situations.

Weather and Climate

Last but not least, the weather system is going through a major rewrite. Contrary to previously mentioned changes, I am still in the middle of rewriting this part, as such the final implementation may vary a bit from what I am writing right now.

As you've certainly noticed, the weather in ATC didn't make a lot of sense, a cold wave could follow a heat wave, and weather could suddenly go from a stormy weather to clear skies in the blink of an eye. While I don't think it was that much of a concern gameplay wise, it was still annoying. I'd like to replace that by a climate system that will determine the average temperature, precipitations, acidity levels, wind strength, and their min/max variation.

It would have several implications. Firstly, not all starting locations would be equal when it comes to weather. Some regions would be colder and humid while others would be arid. Yes, I know, we're in a city scale-wise and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but nor do crops growing in 3 days. Scale and speed have to be tweaked to make a game. Secondly, instead of switching from a weather pattern to another every few hours, changes would be more gradual, clouds will appear before it's raining, temperature will slowly rise up and down instead of toggling between different states, giving you some time to prepare.

Of course, it also means I have to scrap and rewrite the whole weather thing. It's going to take a week or two and we'll surely find new an interesting bugs that way.

In Conclusion

This 0.8.0 update is going on nicely. The "New Game" menu was incredibly painful to write, the user interface library I am using was definitely not made for that level of complexity, but I am very happy with the end result. I don't have an exact ETA for the first release yet, but I'm pretty sure it should be ready in early December, hopefully during the first week. I will publish an untested version in the Nightly Branch soon-ish.

So, what next? Well, after the usual cycle of hot-patches, I will start working on the new expedition system detailed in my previous devlog at least as the main focus. I will still continue to improve other parts of the game in parallel.

Cheers!