Hi there!

So, this is technically the second part of the Expedition Overhaul, but it became much larger than anticipated. We have a lot of content to go over and not everything will be detailed in this article. As usual, I will only list the major changes here, you can refer to the changelog for a complete list.

(source on the official website)

Enjoy! :)

• Explore a whole new array of worlds, buildings and locations
  
• Setup traps to kill your enemies without risking your life
  
• Optional manual combats during expeditions (work in progress)
  
• New event and questline systems
  
• Get rid of enemy factions permanently

The promised feature is finally here! I know, it took a while, but here we are. Simply put, you can decide to play combat encounters yourself instead of letting the dice rolls decide. When you select this option, a map will be generated. The nature of said map depends on the location. Right now, only the various factories, the lumber mill and the military base have dedicated buildings and/or layouts, the other locations use a generic layout (a single large building). Enemy selection depends on who (or what) is currently controlling the area. If it's another faction, you'll encounter their soldiers, otherwise it might be infected or some hostile fauna.



The battle will happen in a "time bubble", your base and the rest of the game will be paused. You don't have to worry about missing a trader or being attacked. Of course, your goal will be to kill everything hostile on the map or die trying as, right now, there are no way to retreat (it's going to be added later on, don't worry).



Also, ammunition handling is disabled during those fights. Simply put, both you and the enemies have infinite ammo. It's unlikely to change as there are no simple, non cumbersome way to make that happen (both code and gameplay wise) . The whole system is still a bit bare-bone, the difficulty ain't really scaled to its automatic counter part. The enemy placement is not really adapted to the task. And most locations are using the same map layout. Still, the base system is there and it goes without saying that the following patches will be improving the whole thing.

Bored of that big and repetitive world map? Well, me too! This is why we have new world presets, rivers, bridges and the ability to have multiple, smaller cities.



See this nice button in the top right? It opens the menu in the center. A menu from which you can choose between 3 (currently) different world map generators. And yes, as usual it can be modded. It's not just cosmetic, for instance, the Dead Lands map will be mostly desert and scorched biomes while New Eden will have no hostile biomes at all. Rivers are not just there to be pretty either, they block the path of your expeditions (until you find the new amphibious vehicle) which will have to use a bridge to go on the other side.



The improvements don't stop at the world map either. New buildings have been introduced (various factories) and locations like the industrial zone, the factory and the lumber mill can be settled into. Additionally the amount of buildings in non city/roadside maps is now proportional to the size of the Playable Area. In other words, gigantic maps no longer feel so empty. Finally, the placement of buildings in Village type maps looks more organic.

Building upon the interactive travel events from the previous update, After The Collapse now includes the ability to build multi stage questlines. The first introduced quest is the new Bandit Convoy event (it's repeatable). Occasionally, your expeditions will encounter a very well defended enemy convoy. The game will offer several methods to deal with the problem (or ignore it). Assuming you manage to intercept said convoy, one of 3 rewards will get unlocked, 2 of them are rare or expensive loot, and the last one will continue the quest further.



Of course I won't spoil it further, but going through that quest several times will definitely highlight the abilities of the new system which will be extensively used in future patches and updates. If you've ever played Space Rangers or Frostpunk, this kind of short interactive stories should immediately feel very familiar.



Additionally, now that the world map is really dynamic, after unlocking the Radio technology, you'll occasionally receive radio transmissions from various sources. It might be a trader in your vicinity, a group of civilian asking for help, and so on. Those events will generally add a time limited location on the world map for you to explore. Beside the time limit, the main difference between those locations and the usual ones is that exploring them will trigger a dialog box (like the one in the screenshot above) or a small quest.

Due to popular demand (and completely unrelated to this update's thematic), you can now build a variety of traps, from simple fall traps your survivors have to reload manually to automated metal spike traps powered by your generators.



Ever thought about building an underground lair filled with your creatures but wondered how to lead your enemies there? Well, with those new fall traps, any hostile stepping on one of them will fall down in the layer below giving a free meal to whatever is crawling there. It's still a bit basic, and probably not very well balanced, but I think it makes for a fun addition to the defensive roster.

In no particular order:

• Factions can now be wiped out. Yes, no more pesky factions stealing all your outposts. You will have to conquer or at least wipe ALL their outposts before you can attack their HQ, though. I'd love to say it's a game design choice, but it's more of a technical one at the moment.
  
• A "Prison Guard" skill/job has been added, which should make it easier to keep those prisoners fed. The value for that skill has absolutely no relevance right now.
  
• To give people more stuff to do in the very early game the "Advanced Carpentry" tech has been removed, Looms and Tanner no longer have a tech requirement and the rest has been put in more relevant techs in the main branch. Additionally you can craft your own (colored) caps and padded vests at the loom.
  
• People with a large screen resolution will be very happy to know that you can choose how many resources you monitor in the "resource info panel" (at the very top of the screen). It's in the general settings, pay attention to the help bubble if you change this setting mid-game.

Turrets have a way more useful right click info panel / encyclopedia page. Same goes for the new traps. Speaking of documentation, an article about the Pandemonium virus has been added to the Encyclopedia. It explains in details what it does, how to detect it, and how it's transmitted. All of which might be very critical details for at least some of the scenarios.

The option to focus an expedition loot session on a particular category, which in practice adds stuff (that might not be there initially) to the location's loot table, is still there, but using it "consumes" the building 4 times faster. So, yes, you can still loot a lumber mill for weaponry and ammo, but it's gonna empty it much faster.

And of course there are tons of fixes, tweaks and minor improvements on top of all this.

This update is (surprisingly) compatible with save-games from previous versions. There are a couple limiting factors, though:

• The Prison Guard job/skill will be disabled by default on all settlers. You'll have to manually enable it.
  
• In the previous version the Genetic Abominations nest (assuming they spawned) might be invisible or impossible to attack or both. It's a bug that has been fixed here, but it's a problem that cannot be undone.

Mods for previous versions (unless hopelessly outdated) should be compatible. The only thing is that any mod relying on the now defunct Advanced Carpentry tech might need a small update.

I'm very happy with this update. Between the manual combat system which now has solid foundations for me to build upon and the quest / dynamic location combo there's a lot of new and pretty unique content that can be added in the future. Best thing is, it's entirely data driven using elaborated text files. It's now perfectly possible to add quests telling the player to visit several locations, build specific unique techs/items, and deal with problems going beyond the base building itself.

Speaking of quests, it's likely that in a very nearby future, the more Sci-Fi elements of the tech tree (sentient robot building I'm looking at you right now) will only be unlocked through such quests which would make a lot more sense.

Of course, I need to warn you. It's a very big update touching on a ton of things, as such, you can expect new and interesting bugs. They will be dealt with in the usual follow up hot-patches.

Speaking of bugs, now that most of the work for the 0.8x branch is done. I will take some time to focus on some of the few remaining long standing (but elusive and relatively uncommon) bugs  and glaring omissions while improving the newly added systems described above.

Now, I'm going to take a week off because it would be nice to see the sun at least a couple times before September :)

• Balance: Removed "Advanced Carpentry" tech, moved associated items to early branches of the tech tree
  
• Balance: Loom and Tanning stations no longer have a tech requirement
  
• Balance: Hospital bed moved to medical tech (from defunct adv carpentry)
  
• Balance: Pool table and large still moved to the construction tech (from defunct adv carpentry)
  
• Balance: Interactive events during expeditions are slightly more frequent
  
• Balance: During expeditions, focused search (for loot) consumes the "loot left" variable a lot faster (x4) than a standard search
  
• Content: Combats during expeditions can now be done manually. This is still experimental and will be improved upon, but it's there
  
• Content: Some map locations have unique combat maps (factories, lumber mill) while others use more generic buildings
  
• Content: Genetic Abominations' main base got its own unique buildings for manual combat
  
• Content: Expedition transports have a new "Noise" value which influences the chance to trigger hostile events
  
• Content: New category of defensive items: Traps (which completes the already existing artisanal mines)
  
• Content: Added several types/quality of spike traps, causing damage and bleeding (at various levels of the tech tree)
  
• Content: Added trap door which will make someone fall in the layer below (various versions at different level of tech tree)
  
• Content: Added recipes to build caps and padded vests to the loom (those are mostly decorative pieces of equipment)
  
• Content: Shamblers and tribals are marked as part of the new "Infected" faction
  
• Content: Lumber mill added to the list of locations you can settle in
  
• Content: Factories & Industrial zones added to the list of locations you can settle in
  
• Content: Multiple world presets making for more diverse world maps to visit
  
• Content: Expeditions are moving slightly faster when on roads
  
• Content: Added "Prison Guard" job/skill, used to determine who can feed and recruit prisoners
  
• Content: Some scenarios have been edited to enforce specific city layouts
  
• Content: Enemy factions can fully be destroyed by conquering all their outposts and then attacking their base directly
  
• Content: Occasional (time limited) traders can spawn on the world map, send expeditions to them
  
• Content: Sometimes, after radio tech, people might contact you and ask for help (besieged communities)
  
• Content: Several new random travel events for your expeditions to deal with
  
• Content: One long, multi staged travel event with multiple good and bad endings (repeatable)
  
• Content: Special, time limited, locations may appear on the world map as the result of various events
  
• Content: New amphibious transport for expeditions (can be acquired during a special event in the mid/late game)
  
• Content: New map location : water tower, produces daily fresh water
  
• Engine: Removed a bunch of no longer used textures and animation files (old versions of crabs, mantis, spiders)
  
• Engine: Code sanity pass, less code, faster code, better code (tm)
  
• Engine: Adding new job/skills no longer require to break savegame compatibility (the new skill will be toggled off, tho)
  
• Graphics: Added and improved some of the base tiles
  
• Graphics: Made world map lighting a bit higher for general visibility purpose
  
• Graphics: Trees & rocks on world map are more representative of what the location should contain when settled in
  
• Modding: New trap component which can be put on clutter
  
• Modding: Added LUA hook for ClutterData.UpgradableTo
  
• Modding: Added files (mapgen/worlds/*) to change the procedural generation of the world map
  
• Modding: Added NoiseModifier and CanFly fields to TravelItem (change likelihood of some travelevents, and CanFly allows to fly over rivers)
  
• Modding: Added "DeletePOI" (deletes the POI the group is located on), "MapEvent" (launch the selected game event), "Tech" (get a tech) results to travel events
  
• Modding: Travel events can test for vehicle noise, any Skill/Stat (best qualified member), an item being installed on the vehicle, if the player has/lacks a tech
  
• Modding: Travel events can be tagged as "Mature" (true/false), and can be put behind a "TechRequirement" for them to trigger
  
• Modding: Travel event menu can handle any amount of choices instead of just 3 (will add a scroll bar if too many choices for the panel)
  
• Modding: Game events can now spawn points of interest (EventSpawnPOI, see data/events/poi_*)
  
• Modding: Point of interests can trigger travel events when being explored (replaces loot)
  
• Modding: Point of interests can self destruct via timer
  
• Modding: World map can be tied to scenarios (Scenario's WorldMap field, "default" is the default map, duh)
  
• Modding: Added "TrapImmune" (default false) info to NPC data files (so cars or flyers don't fall into traps)
  
• Modding: Factions can have distinctly looking HQ (by using the FactionHQ true/false POI field)
  
• ProcGen: The world map can now contain rivers and lakes of various sizes and shapes
  
• ProcGen: Many new internal parameters when generating world maps (city size/spacing/count, biomes, brigdes, roads, custom locations)
  
• ProcGen: New map buildings: wood and coal processing factories, recycling factory
  
• ProcGen: "Random" building placement mode (used in villages, outside city and some underground locations) has been improved
  
• ProcGen: More diversity when it comes to floor types in buildings
  
• ProcGen: In several map types (city & roadside layouts excluded), the total amount of buildings now depends on the map size
  
• Steam: Moved/renamed the achievement previously associated with Advanced Carpentry to Manufacturing
  
• Steam: Added achievement for breaching a secret military bunker
  
• Steam: Added achievement for finding the amphibious transport
  
• Steam: Added achievement for wiping out another faction
  
• UI: Input value for factory recipes no longer capped to 999 items (4millions instead)
  
• UI: Information panel / encyclopedia page about placeable objects indicates if they block path or not
  
• UI: Tweaked world map menu to allow for the selection of the different world presets
  
• UI: Panel informing the player that one of their outpost was attacked/stolen got a button to center the map on the location
  
• UI: Tweaks to pharmacy select screen (people sorted by name, animals show ownership)
  
• UI: The amount of items in the resource panel at the top of the screen can be changed in the game settings
  
• UI: Right click info menu has specific information regarding traps
  
• UI: Right click info menu gives more detailed information about turrets and interactive items (beds, recreation)
  
• UI: Less wasted space in the inventory panel of survivors
  
• UI: Added article about Pandemonium virus to encyclopedia
  
• UI: Improved French translation, courtesy of Piebleu
  
• Fixed: Minor issue when an agent is changing layer / using stairs which could cause hostiles to shoot at a location the agent is no longer at
  
• Fixed: Bug that could cause barracks in the military base map to spawn without the intended rooms
  
• Fixed: Not all zombie and giant crab variants would be counted toward their respective achievements
  
• Fixed: Light sources not deleted when a world map is being generated again by the player
  
• Fixed: Tribals would sometimes incorrectly be spawned as part of the bandit faction
  
• Fixed: When the UI scale is not set to 1:1 (default), clicking/dragging on the minimap wouldn't work as expected
  
• Fixed: If an expedition is clicked just after loading a savegame while the game has been kept paused, it would cause a crash
  
• Fixed: Alignement of light sources after switching to map mode while the game is paused
  
• Fixed: Some of the "ambush" monsters located in buildings wouldn't be animated properly until the room is explored by the player
  
• Fixed: Some items supposed to spawn outside of a building could occasionally spawn inside instead
  
• Fixed: Escaped prisoner event could make the escapees spawn in a non valid tile (within a wall)
  
• Fixed: Missing ammo info indicator in some places
  
• Fixed: minor issues in factory queue
  
• Fixed: Survivors could get stuck if they try to retrieve (non weightless) ammo when their inventory is full
  
• Fixed: Dead bodies couldn't be selected anymore (which was a problem with things you can butcher)
  
• Fixed: Regression bug that was preventing the user from installing artifacts/backpacks from their individual menu
  
• Fixed: Heavy CPU spike when having a lot of wandering pets and placing a pasture in a location they can't access
  
• Fixed: Possible crash tied to emergency shelters
  
• Fixed: Abominations' HQ wouldn't properly create or delete itself when the late game event is triggered (regression bug in 0.8.3)
  
• Fixed: The 'action' menu for expeditions wouldn't always update properly when the expedition arrives at a destination (if the expedition is kept selected)
  
• Fixed: The pause and encyclopedia menus were not keeping track of the active pause and would reset it when closed
  
• Fixed: Rain not providing enough water to farms anymore
  
• Fixed: The "Raze" job could, under a very specific set of circumstances I've yet to replicate, crash the game. The job will just be canceled instead.
  
• Fixed: Survivors would occasionally try to dispose of the body of things which are bound to disappear within seconds (dead giant spiders for instance)
  
• Fixed: Code typo which could lead to subpar world map generation and building placement
  
• Fixed: A location could change hand while the player is attacking it, which could lead to unexpected declarations of war
  
• Fixed: (Modding) MainBasePoI field in factions' data would be ignored
  
• Fixed: (Modding) Building.HasRoof had no effect

 

Hello!

It's probably not a secret that the 0.8.3 content update was released in a bit of a rough shape. My apologies for that. As the feature set expands, it gets increasingly time consuming for me to test for every single possible case. So, here's a much improved version. It fixes most (if not all) reported issues while improving or adding many little things. The changelog is nearly as long as for 0.8.3 :)

Beside the extensive bug fixing, there are a few important changes that will definitely make a lot of you very happy, starting with:


Survivors had a bad habit of trying to retrieve absolutely everything (dead bodies included) that has been dropped on the ground with no regard for their own safety. In some situations, it could easily lead to their death, causing even more people to get killed trying to retrieve all the shiny loot. Basically this:



Well, no more.

First, as long as you're in combat mode, civilians will automatically ignore any dead body or dropped loot. The game will assume that if you're in combat, it's probably not a good moment for your peons to retrieve loot.

Secondly, 2 checkboxes have been added in the faction menu, as shown in this screenshot:



They are kind of self-explanatory. If unticked, survivors will no longer try to retrieve dead bodies or loot coming from dead things, globally. When the situation is resolved, you can tick those checkboxes and they'll start doing it again. Tiles with "forbidden loot" have a distinctive icon.

Of course, items dropped by factories, raze orders and so on will still be collected.

Also, knowing that there are some cases when you'd want to prevent dead people's loot from being retrieved globally, but still want a specific tile to be collected. Well, it's also possible! Just "raze" the tile you want your settlers to collect nonetheless, the "no collect" icon will disappear and your guys will consider the location safe.

I think it's a slightly more elegant system than adding zones everywhere. At least I want to give this system a trial run. If it's not satisfactory, it won't be a problem to switch to something more involved.


If you're continuing a save, this will only apply to newly spawned agents, but from now on all dead bodies will decay no matter if they are in a in corpse disposal or not. They still decay faster in a corpse disposal (and won't make nearby people sick). This change is mostly there to make the Last Stand scenario less of a pain. Given that it's generally not possible to clean up dead bodies in the kill zone before the next wave, corpses would pile up indefinitely (or you'd be forced to make a corpse disposal in the kill zone, which, sure, works, but is kind of an "exploit") .

No accidental deletion of staircases anymore: You can now safely "raze" a whole room without having to be super careful, the stairs will be ignored if there are multiple objects in the selection. If you want to raze one, it must be the only object in your selection. The message log will inform you of that fact if you try to raze a whole room with stairs inside.

Farms no longer require purified water. They will still accept it, but if dirty water is available, they will generally favor it.

Repair Zones can overlap with other zones. Anyone who tried to defend a closed off base against wall eating shamblers will appreciate. Zones in general are less visually obnoxious: I made them a lot more transparent with a solid border.


Having to disband an expedition each time you want to retrieve its cargo was kind of annoying. A new button has been added to just "unload cargo", so they are ready to go back on the job pretty much immediately.



The menu to remove items from their inventory is nicer to look at, and more importantly it will inform you of the space you're about to free. In the same spirit of simplicity, looting duration is defaulted to "until full".

Finally, when an expedition is not doing anything, its members will heal passively.


Not all the above systems are perfect, and I'm sure some tweaks will be needed. I also still have a couple things to add and tweak before getting to the second part of the overhaul, but nothing major.

Cheers!

• AI: Survivors will automatically ignore jobs to retrieve dead bodies (and loot dropped from them) while you're in combat mode
  
• Balance: Razing spider webs (the decoration) will give spider web (the item) when disassembled (might only work on a new game)
  
• Balance: Stairs can only be destroyed when they are the ONLY item in the selection (to make the clearing of rooms with stairs less "risky")
  
• Balance: Expedition members will slowly heal damage when not receiving/executing orders
  
• Balance: Expedition loot order duration defaulted to "Until Full" (it just makes more sense given that the job can be interrupted)
  
• Balance: Farms will favor dirty water over cleaned water whenever available
  
• Balance: Fixed exploit where shooting down some of the animals (cows, sheep) would yield the same as butchering them
  
• Balance: All bodies will decay no matter if inside or outside of a corpse disposal (just a lot slower when not) to make some scenarios less of a pain
  
• Content: The retrieval of dead bodies (and/or their loot) can be disabled globally in the Faction menu
  
• Content: Loot disabled that way can selectively be retrieved using the raze order
  
• Content: Added standard pickup to suburbs and city center loot tables (slightly better than the one you can 'research')
  
• Content: Added order to "drop cargo and get back to work" to expeditions (so you don't have to rebuild an expedition each time you drop cargo at base)
  
• Engine: Regular code and data cleanup to keep the rot away
  
• Engine: Reduced CPU usage of farms (not that it was high to begin with)
  
• Graphics: Zones and rooms are a lot more transparent but with visible border lines, making them less intrusive graphically
  
• UI: Better looking "drop item" menu for expeditions' inventory which also show the weight being dropped
  
• UI: Slightly reorganized the Faction menu (settlement tab is shown first as it became the most useful now)
  
• UI: More information in game log when razing something as a way to indirectly document the changes about stairs and loot
  
• UI: In the encyclopedia, techs which can only be looted will appear as such instead of showing a "research difficulty" rating
  
• UI: In the depot menu, items are sorted alphabetically
  
• UI: Minor graphical improvements, text alignment in various menus
  
• Fixed: Some mob types (under rare circumstances) could be incorrectly be flagged as neutral in the user interface
  
• Fixed: Animals found by expeditions wouldn't be converted into proper agent when loot is being dropped in the base
  
• Fixed: Rare pathfinder issues (on very narrow/long paths) caused by a change in 0.8.2.4
  
• Fixed: Animals from expeditions spawning as civilian instead of player owned
  
• Fixed: Debris (from clutter having been shot at) would resurrect themselves if the game is saved/loaded before the debris disappear
  
• Fixed: Dead NPC and settlers would emit a dying sound when a savegame is loaded
  
• Fixed: Multiple minor issues with dead things not always staying dead and other similar oddities caused by the new savegame format
  
• Fixed: Repair zones couldn't intersect with other zones (or each other) making them very annoying to setup
  
• Fixed: Gun turrets placed on the map during map generation could spawn "decayed" (without the shooting part)
  
• Fixed: "Salvaged Ambulance" and "Salvaged Sports Car" technologies had missing icons
  
• Fixed: If a survivor has part of what is needed for a construction, but the rest is not accessible (locked door or something), they could freeze
  
• Fixed: It was not possible to loot a place you've taken over (regression bug in 0.8.4)
  
• Fixed: Minor issue when closing the Garage menu if the settler selection panel is still open
  
• Fixed: Many potential issues when trying to setup 2 expeditions at the same time (the same settlers or items could be added to both, locking them in a non working state)
  
• Fixed: Wooden trailer was altering people capacity instead of cargo capacity
  
• Fixed: Performance loss in 0.8.3 and semi regular micro freeze in very largely populated bases (>50 people)
  
• Fixed: Job manager wouldn't notice if incapacitated people died before being move, keeping the jobs stored for longer than necessary
  
• Fixed: Issue with dead body disposal job that could cause settler to "move" already deleted bodies

Welcome to the 0.8.3 update!

As explained in my previous devlog, this update (and the next) is focusing on the expeditions. A very short summary would be that we can now manage multiple expeditions at once. Of course, as with all major updates, it runs a lot deeper than that. As usual, this article will focus on the main changes while you can find a complete changelog at the very end. Without further ado let's get to it.

Enjoy!


The city map and expeditions are no longer completely abstracted. Both became tangible things connected to the game world. To explain that in simpler terms, you are now able to given direct orders to your expeditions, tell them to move to wherever you want them to, and change you mind mid travel. You can move them on the world map like you would move a survivor in combat mode. You can loot or attack multiple locations with the same expedition and decide when you want them to come back home.



More importantly, you are no longer permanently limited to run a single expedition at a time. Unlocking specific technologies will increase the maximum amount of expeditions you can run simultaneously to a maximum of 4 in a vanilla game.

I made a lot of adjustments to the UI and help screens to make the transition as smooth as possible. For instance, you can track the status of each expedition in the optional panel on the right side of the screen (can be toggled on/off in the filters), clicking one panel will center the screen on the expedition or its garage if it's not off map.


This new building is pretty much the heart of this update. Your first garage is unlocked with the Exploration technology and will allow you to setup and manage one expedition. Other technologies will permit you to build more garages for more simultaneous expeditions (radio, logistics and garage maintenance).



Garages have to be built on the surface, in a spot from which a vehicle can path to the border of the game map. This is where you can assign a vehicle, people and items to a specific expedition. New vehicles can be found by exploring specific location on the map and from research. Items, right now, can only be found while exploring the city. Vehicles and items will determine how many people you can bring with you, your movement speed and can also influence how good will be your group at given tasks.

Once satisfied with your choices, you can launch the expedition. The selected survivors will hop in the car, leaving any useless cargo behind (and releasing their claim on any personal bedroom or pet). The car will exit the game map and will then be available on the world map. From there, you'll be able to order it around, tell the expedition to path to any point of interest, attack hostile locations, loot or take control of others.


It's now possible to order your expeditions to loot a location until it's empty or until their cargo hold is full. If you change your mind, you can order your expedition to stop the looting session at any time. To recover the cargo found during your looting session(s), you'll have to manually bring the expedition back home.



You can also decide to get rid of loot you don't want to make room for more useful stuff. It means that don't need to go back home each time you collected too many stones. To do so, simply open the expedition's cargo screen, click on the item you don't want and a menu will appear allowing you to select how many units you want to get rid of. The menu is still a bit ugly, but I'll get that fixed soon.


Of course I had to tweak some features to work with this new system. Here are the most important points you should be made aware of:

• The whole expedition tech tree has been changed. Techs to increase movement speed, range or capacity have been scrapped. Instead you'll get techs to repair better vehicles than your default car. The best cars can only be found by exploring specific locations.
• Expeditions can be renamed like you would for a survivor: by clicking on their name in their associated panel.
• People you rescue while looting a location will automatically be sent to you base. You no longer need to wait for your expedition to come back home, instead a "recruitment" event will popup roughly 12 hours after your expedition is done with the looting.
• There is no longer a limit to how far an expedition can travel to. Once you can send your first expedition, the whole map is available to you. It might just take a while for your guys to travel, especially with the default car. In the same spirit, the amount of people you can bring is only determined by the vehicle you'll be using. Same goes for the cargo space.
• Taking over a production center will no longer "consume" the expedition. Instead, you'll be asked to select people who are still in your base. Once the repairs are over, the expedition will be available again and ready to go do something else.
• It is now possible to conduct diplomacy with other factions early (before Radio) by sending an expedition to their headquarter and opening diplomatic channels.

I'm particularly proud of this one and you'll see a lot more of it in the future. While traveling, expeditions will occasionally encounter situations requiring your input. They might have found  something worth investigating, been attacked by bandits, and so on.



You'll be offered different options with different outcomes. Each option will generally be testing a particular statistic tied to the expedition. A positive outcome might give you loot or a bonus while a failure might damage or even kill some of your people. Once the situation has been resolved in a way or another, the group will continue on its merry way.

This system replaces the old non-interactive travel events completely.


I also fixed several minor issues with the survivors' AI. Most notably, there was a problem that if something is being constructed next to a depot, it could temporarily prevent people from accessing it, causing any survivor trying to do so to freeze in place.

Survivors are also much better at recognizing that an order has been canceled or is not longer possible to complete: instead of pathing all the way toward the no-longer-relevant-destination they will switch to something more productive.


This version is not compatible with previous save-games. 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). Most existing mods should be compatible, including those adding or altering city locations. Mods altering expeditions or adding travel events are not compatible but shouldn't cause any major issue.


This is the first part of the expedition overhaul. It's setting up solid foundations for the more content oriented "Part 2". Switching to a proper "scene" to handle the city as a whole instead of relying on smokes & mirrors took a while, and made me rewrite things I never thought I would need to, but I'm pretty happy with the end result. A lot and I really mean A LOT of new content can now be added to this part of the game.

Speaking of adding new content, Part 2 will do just that by adding the optional ability to manually handle most combat related stuff during expeditions. It'll also add new things to interact with on the map like travelers, merchants, other factions' expeditions and roaming beasts. It will also add new terrains (rivers, lakes, chokepoints) alongside new items and events to form a more interesting and cohesive experience.

In any case I hope you'll enjoy this update, because it was a real pain to write :D

Cheers!

• AI: People are better at detecting that their job target has been destroyed and will no longer travel all the way over something that no longer exists
  
• AI: People are better at detecting that a raze order has been canceled and will stop earlier
  
• AI: Minor optimizations to the job dispatcher
  
• Balance: Marked clothing items as rare to make them less common during trading
  
• Balance: Due to the more permanent nature of expeditions, members will 'unclaim' their private room(s) when leaving
  
• Balance: Radio and Logistic techs both allow you to build an additional garage (see below)
  
• Balance: Made sure that city locations with high tier loot (military base, police station) are always at least somewhat defended
  
• Content: First part of the expedition overhaul (multiple groups, new UI, equipment and transports)
  
• Content: New garage building to manage individual expedition settings
  
• Content: Added several new "travel items" which are used to improve an expeditions' performances
  
• Content: Loot in an expedition's cargo space can be destroyed to make room for more important stuff
  
• Content: New trade/loot tables and technologies to integrate those new items into the game
  
• Content: New transports for expeditions can be found through technologies, some of which can only be found during expeditions.
  
• Content: Reworked the expedition tech tree to accomodate the new changes
  
• Content: Looting action for expeditions can be run "until the cargo is full / place is empty"
  
• Content: Diplomacy can be conducted before the radio technology by sending an expedition to another faction's main base
  
• Content: Random events during expeditions are interactive now, giving you control on how to deal with the situation
  
• Content: Added "Police Station" to the list of explorable map locations
  
• Engine: Added ability to cap the spawn of hostiles with RaiderAI, especially useful in Last Stand scenario (settings.json -> RaiderAICap = max number)
  
• Engine: Reworked the save/load logic and format to accommodate the changes (+ some future proofing)
  
• Engine: Initial loading time very slightly reduced (moar parallelism)
  
• Engine: Switch from/to world map is now instant
  
• Modding: Removed "CanDrop" and "Tradable" from item data, as it was a duplicate of the "DontDrop" and "NeverTrade" tags. Adjusted all items accordingly.
  
• Modding: Cleaned up base files of outdated fields
  
• Modding: Clutter with a MaxCount per map, can have that count changed via techs (see garage & expedition tech tree)
  
• Modding: Techs are used to unlock new transports for expeditions (see garage & expedition tech tree)
  
• Modding: Filters used for expeditions loot (and pharmacy) got the new WantedName field: overrides all Allow/Deny. Used to force a particular item in the loot table.
  
• Modding: Added "ForceHostility" field to map POIs (the mapgen will use this to override the tile's hostility if it's lower than the value)
  
• Modding: New interactive travel events can added/customized (see files data/travelevents)
  
• UI: Right clicking items' checkbox in the depot menu will display their associated info screen
  
• UI: Added new menus to handle the expeditions from the world map
  
• UI: Expedition message log is kept when saving/loading a savegame
  
• UI: Added scrollbar to the optional 'research completed' panel
  
• UI: Added widget to the right side of the screen to display the status of each active expedition/garage (can be toggled on/off in Filters)
  
• UI: Title and text in the recruitment menu is context sensitive (recognizing if from an expedition, escaped prisoners or simple visitors)
  
• UI: Added specific item info screen for the new expedition related items
  
• UI: Updated help screens and the encyclopedia article about expeditions
  
• UI: Pressing the "go to map layer X" shortcuts is now working even from the world map
  
• Fixed: Bow from tribals, if used, could propagate pandemonium infection to unintented target. The bow can no longer drop.
  
• Fixed: The panel shown when you research a tech, find it in an expedition, or find it in loot always had the same title, which might have been confusing
  
• Fixed: Texture for settlers in some menus could be outdated (still wearing an armor they no longer have and so on)
  
• Fixed: When renaming a survivor or animal (or expedition, now) pressing the WASD would still move the camera around
  
• Fixed: Potential crash if one of the survivors is exiting the map (for an expedition) while still being selected
  
• Fixed: Potential crash on the save/load screen if a savegame from a NEWER version is present in the folder
  
• Fixed: In some underground scenarios, "surface events" could still happen before the player breaches the surface (for good this time, my bad)
  
• Fixed: Multiple uncommon/rare issues on the world map
  
• Fixed: Filter menu panel was slightly too short to fit all elements
  
• Fixed: the 'Escaped Prisoners' event would display an useless dialog box below the message from the faction.
  
• Fixed: Annoying bug where settlers would seem locked trying to get to a depot when something is being built at the spot they'd use to drop items in said depot
  
• Fixed: Minor fixes & tweaks

Hi there!

Here's a post about the new expedition system, with a video showcasing some of the progress :)

Not gonna lie, it took a while to get things rolling (so to speak).

My approach to code tends to be very "top-down". Meaning that I rarely have something to show until late in the development of a specific feature. The upside is that as soon I reach this stage, progress happens at a very fast pace.

As such, most of my time since last patch was spent figuring out a new way to handle the world map, making a more powerful save system able to digest the changes (and future ones) without the need for me to edit it constantly. And "mapping out" the required structure for all the planned content. Basically, the kind of stuff which ain't really fun to code or to talk about.


With that out of the way, I can work on the features proper and I even have a very early preview of the new system. Please note that everything in the following video is very alpha, played in debug mode, with hastily made menus (and sprites). It should still put into video format most of what I explained in the previous article.



So expeditions are launched from the garage buildings (1 group per garage). An expedition is comprised of an obligatory transport (you start with a default one, the old car) and 2 slots for optional items.

- The car/transport determines the maximum amount of people you can send, the cargo capacity and the movement speed of the expedition. It can modify other stats like offense, scavenging or defense too.

- The optional items can modify each of those variables. For instance in this demo, the detailed maps will slightly increase movement speed, the metal detector improves scavenging. Of course the released version will feature a lot more items (and probably an additional slot).

Anyway, once satisfied with the settings, you can assign people to the expedition and launch it. People will move the required items (and, weirdly enough, the car too) from storage to the garage. As soon as it's done, the selected group will get into the car and exit the map.

Then, from the world map, you can move expeditions individually (like you would with people in combat mode). Move a car to a point of interest, and its menu will adapt to show your available options. If it's defended, you can attack it, and if not you can loot or claim it.

Note that destinations can now be looted until they are empty or the cargo hold is full, whichever come first. If a (or multiple) survivor(s) is found, they will be sent to the base through a delayed recruit event (scheduled to happen a few hours after the search is over). You don't need to bring them back manually. However, you'll have to bring back the expedition to deliver its loot.

Oh, and it'll be possible to discard loot you don't want, so you don't have to come back each time you find 40 stones :)

That's the gist of it for now.


I will definitely have to make this stuff a 2 part overhaul if I want to publish the next update in a timely manner. First, most of the map stuff (basically what you've just seen, but you know, completed). Second, the combat layer, roaming hostiles/neutral groups, and polish.

Regarding this first part, I want to have more interesting 'travel events' (you know, the 2 headed cow, snipers, caches,...) by making at least some of them interactive. For instance the group could come across some booby-trapped loot. You're given a choice to try your luck (or the skill of whoever is the most skilled in electronics, with a visible success chance) or to ignore it and go on your merry way. I just need to figure out a format that won't be too much of a hassle to use for modders.

I still have to finish up some menus, add some widgets to track the expeditions from the base, add some items, alter the tech tree, and test all that in a full game. But it nothing too complicated.

I don't have a precise ETA for the first part, but unless something exceptionally unlikely happens, it should be there within a few weeks :)

Thanks for your support!

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.


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.

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.

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.

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.

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..).

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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!

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. :)


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 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.


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.


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 :)

• 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

Here is the third small patch for 0.8.2.

As mentioned in the previous post, this one is fixing specific issues reported on the forum, discord and through email.

The most notable one is a bug introduced in the last patch causing issues when trying to add people to an expedition. It should also give better performances on maps with a lot of mobs (the Arachnophobia scenario is a good example of such). Outside of that, it's either very minor or situational improvements/fixes.

With 0.8.2 in a good place now, I will mostly focus on 0.8.3. Outside of unexpected reports of crashes or major issues, we shouldn't have many more hot-patches for this version.

Cheers!

• Change: Animals queued for butchering will no longer reproduce/give birth (to make population control less of a hassle)
  
• Engine: Better overall performances in maps with a lot of hostile mobs
  
• UI: Zone placement (walls, rooms, floor..) should be more responsive
  
• Fixed: A fix in the previous patch had the unforeseen consequence of messing with the selection of expedition members. It's fixed for good this time.
  
• Fixed: Lasso selection being shown during zone placement (which was confusing as zone placement is not a lasso selection)
  
• Fixed: Reported crash after switching resolution to/from fullscreen (possibly, couldn't reproduce)
  
• Fixed: Right-clicking on 2x2 tiles (or larger) objects to issue an attack order would only work if clicking on the top-left corner of said objects
  
• Fixed: More very minor issues

Here is the second patch for 0.8.2

This patch adds keyboard shortcuts to switch between layers so you don't have to constantly click on Up/Down button/shortcuts if your base layout is vertical. The default settings are [Home] key to go to the surface and the 1-9 keys to access each underground layer (assuming they exists). As usual, you can rebind those keys in the game settings to fit your needs.

I've also fixed a bunch of not-so-recent bugs and other minor issues. Most notably, you are no longer forced to click in the top-left corner of a large object to properly select it (old time players will appreciate). Another long time running one causing crafting stations' "Add Job" to edit the first job entry as well. I also fixed a couple of expedition related issues.

A few more issues have been reported on the forum, discord and emails. I'll get over them ASAP :)

• Balance: Raids with giant crabs should have more "normal" ones and less "sand/fireball" ones.
  
• Change: Single recipe factories, like wells and water purifiers, are no longer in that weird paused state once built (as it was sorta confusing)
  
• Graphics: Forges and Weapon Forges graphically show what's being built (like most of other factories)
  
• Graphics: Both dark and bright night settings are a bit less dark
  
• UI: Added keyboard shortcut to go back to the surface (home key by default)
  
• UI: Added keyboard shortcuts (top 1-9 keys by default) to directly send you to the associated underground layer (if it exists)
  
• UI: Messages like "going to {coordinate}" are formatted in a more legible and compact way
  
• Fixed: The selection/highlighting of large objects is now working properly, it's no longer required to click near their top-left corner
  
• Fixed: During expeditions, people who are already dead could still get damaged, receive wounds, etc. causing misleading messages in the log
  
• Fixed: Settlers with the "soldier" job would never get the intended armor on spawn
  
• Fixed: Potential multithreading related crash (due to the way some of the debug information was logged in the background)
  
• Fixed: If an autosave is done at the very end of an expedition (recruit/result panels), it could prevent the settlers from respawning properly when loading said save-game later on
  
• Fixed: Weird behavior in crafting stations, causing the "Add Job" button to edit the first job entry as well
  
• Fixed: In the trade menu, you could go over what's actually in store by using the mouse-wheel to set the value
  
• Fixed: Typo in "hospital bed" description
  
• Fixed: The "Live egg container"'s description was incorrectly stating that eggs decay over time (they don't)
  
• Fixed: Trying to access the world [M]ap during the tutorial -> crash. The option is disabled now.

Here is the first and obligatory patch to the 0.8.2 update ːsteamhappyː

It's fixing a problem in the Scorched Earth scenario. Due to an oversight on my part, the mutagen associated with said scenario was tagged in a way that made it invisible to the pharmacy. This is now fixed (pre-patch mutagens will work too).

As usual, expect a few more small patches in the same spirit while I am working on the next major update.

Cheers!

• Fixed: Heat Resistance mutagen not showing up in the pharmacy screen
  
• Fixed: Loading a game with modded farm plots after removing/disabling the associated mod would cause a crash. It will disable the farms instead now
  
• Fixed: Missing french translation for the Heat Resistance Mutagen

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.


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!


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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!

• 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)