Hi peeps! Here's the promised 0.9 content update!

This is the first draft for the 0.9x dev cycle. It contains most of the promised core features outside of the map/building editor and handcrafted maps (they go hand-in-hand). As with all milestone updates, despite a lot of testing, it might not be as polished or stable as the previous version, but all bugs and oddities will quickly be addressed.

I'll talk about the future of the 0.9 branch later, but for now, let's focus on the new features and changes. As usual, full changelog at the end. I'll only cover the major changes in the article.

• Deeper world map mechanics
  
• Patrol zones
  
• AI/Hostile hordes roaming the map
  
• AI Factions sending their own expeditions
  
• End-game's Genetic Horrors faction overhaul
  
• Mental breakdowns
  
• Content, engine, UI, and balance pass

Patrol zones are a new type of zone you can define. It's relatively self explanatory. You can assign survivors to a patrol zone, either as a permanent job or as a rally point when you switch to combat mode. People assigned to a patrol zone will attack any hostile in range automatically. This is a great way to reduce pre-raid micro management, as your soldiers will automatically go to the locations you've assigned them to. Additionally, setting up a permanent zone near your base entrance with a couple guards is a great way to defend against pesky animals.



Note that unless specified otherwise, people will still go to sleep, eat, drink and take breaks. You can prevent them to by checking the appropriate checkbox, just make sure you don't forget, because they will starve to death otherwise.


It is now possible to assign a particular worker to a single factory or research station using the new advanced tab in the factory menu. Most of the time, this won't be nearly as productive as just letting the survivors pick their jobs on their own (as you know, if there's a single worker assigned to factory, that factory won't be producing anything while the worker is on break). That being said, it synergize very well with robots as they don't take breaks.



That warning out of the way, it works very well for research stations. Simply assign your best science guy to the research station and you're all set. Before, you'd have to disable science on everyone else, which was pretty tedious.


Until now, all the game had to work with to generate opponents in manual combat maps (or run automated battles) on the world map was just a single number per tile dubbed "opposition strength". I had to extrapolate, from that single number, the number and type of enemies and what would be the result if you opted to do the combat automatically instead of manually. As you can guess, it didn't make for a good or accurate representation with difficulty/results between manual and automated battles being completely disconnected from each other.

So, I rewrote the whole system completely, including AI factions' logic, how the data itself is handled, how you reinforce your productions centers and how "offline" combat works, all that in a way that wouldn't break mod or save compatibility. Now factions and the world map generator is using proper NPC to populate the map. Factions no longer send "points" to a production center, they send people. They don't grow by points, they grow by adding new soldiers to their roster. Each faction grows at a different pace and have different thresholds when it come to select an action.



The first visible result is that instead of having a very vague pre-battle screen when looking at a hostile location, you'll have the exact list of who you're going to fight against. The offensive and defensive stats are shown both for you and the opposing party. And, finally, the automated combat results are a LOT less in your favor. Even a 100% victory chance might still mean that half of your party will be on the brink of death (when the combat is roughly balanced number-wise). It's not very well balanced yet, but now, i have actual data to play with to improve the results.

Factions no longer teleport always winning "numbers" to a location they want to invade, instead they send their own expeditions with a given amount of soldiers (deducted from the people at their base), which might or might not succeed. You can intercept AI expeditions with your own but I will cover that later.

Additionally, you no longer "build defenses" at your productions centers. Instead you recruit mercenaries. While in practice it serves the exact same purpose: boosting your ability to defend the location; in the near future, it'll make you able to manually control your military forces during the defense of your production centers. It's something that I will improve during the follow up 0.9x patches. For instance, it would be fun to have the ability to recruit different mercenary types you could unlock through diplo, quests or tech.


As explained in the previous devlog, your expeditions are no longer the only things roaming the world map.

AI Factions will send expeditions to capture production centers. Expeditions that you can intercept with your own and potentially fight against. They aren't using this system when attacking your own base yet (troops still get teleported and rely on the random event system), but this will likely happen in the next patch.



Additionally, naturally occurring hordes will gradually spawn in the world map, it might be infected hordes or herds of giant animals. They move slowly, aimlessly but grow over time in population (within limits).  They might take over or attack map locations, even capturing places you've cleared in the past. If they come across your base, this will automatically trigger a raid. Likewise, they can be intercepted by your own expeditions before they become a nuisance or for their loot. Hordes can be fought manually or automatically. Right now it's using the same setup as with production centers, meaning that they'll hide in buildings.

Finally, some large infected hordes (and a faction, more on that later), can "infect" a building. Infections are a special type of conquest. They change a location into another one, generally with the ability to spawn additional hordes. So, if a large horde infects one building in a cluster, the rest of the cluster will likely follow within a few days. Infected buildings can be cleared the same way you attack locations normally.


The end-game threat of genetic abominations got a lot more dangerous. It's taking advantage of all the mechanics explained above. Their numbers grow quickly, they send expeditions regularly and they infect conquered locations, spawning more hordes. They might spiral out of control in a matter of weeks if not dealt with. This should make the end game a bit more hectic.



I can't really say it's carefully balanced, as I didn't have much time to test this. I will adjust if need be.


It's also something I explained in the previous devlog, but here's the gist of it. The main goal of this feature is to make sure that experienced players can no longer completely ignore happiness. Contrary to popular belief, the "depression" trait has a minimal impact on gameplay and could be ignored while passing laws that would boost productivity and reduce food consumption at the cost of happiness.



Now, your survivors have an invisible gauge determining their sanity. Sanity slowly decreases when they are unhappy, and slowly gets back to normal when they are happy. If a survivor's sanity reaches zero, they'll have a mental breakdown. They won't respond to any command and pick a detrimental action from a list. They might break some furniture, light something on fire, or flat out turn hostile. Assuming they survived, their sanity will be reset and resume work as usual. Note that, occasionally, they will pick multiple actions. More possible actions will be added over time.

The feature can also be tweaked or disabled in the difficulty settings. Still, this is not a very punishing mechanic, it takes several days of 24/24 misery for a survivor to have a breakdown. The goal here is to prevent an exploit and accelerate the process when a base is doomed, not to punish small mistakes.


We have a proper loading screen now! Hopefully, this should help with people who [alt]+[tab] right at the moment where the game engine doesn't support losing focus (when loading graphical data). More mood and activity dialog bubbles have been added to the menus and game to give better feedback. A vehicle comparison table has been added to the encyclopedia. It's possible to remove people from combat mode using the multi selection panel. The "research completed" popup contains a button to open the research panel.

Oh, "forges" have been renamed to "smelters" which is more accurate, as someone mentioned recently.

Of course there are more minor changes, please refer to the changelog for a complete list :)


Your expeditions' vehicles have HP now. It decreases very slowly while traveling naturally (or not so slowly when going over some hostile terrains) and can be damaged during events. Notably, the minefield event will damage the vehicle on failure (or when ignoring it). When the HP pool reaches zero, your expedition will automatically head home for repairs. You do not lose anything in the process. I might add a difficulty setting in the future to make it deadlier.

Firearms have been tuned. They got better looking sprites, bullet speed has been increased and standardized, damage output slightly tweaked. There's 3 new guns: a revolver, a submachine gun and a combat rifle. Tomato cans, which was way too expensive to build have been tuned. You now get back the metal after consuming the can (it ends up in the inventory of whoever consumed it). Quartz is now used to build solar panels and CPU chips, justifying it's very high trading price.


I had to rewrite the whole way sound and music is handled, switching library. In practice, for 90% of you, it won't make any major change. The audio settings gained a "master volume" gauge which adjusts all sounds at once. Large battles with a lot of sounds being played at once sound better thanks to the much better mixing. That's about it. For the remaining 10%, your KN/N edition of Windows is now compatible right out of the box with ATC, no need to download the windows media player pack. And if you're one of the last 3 people on Earth who still install those codec packs, ATC is now codec independent and your setup should no longer interfere with the game's audio.

The low level DirectX interface / library has also been updated, I've not noticed anything really relevant in their changelog, but well, it'll probably fix some edge case bugs or graphical oddities.


Old saves dating from 0.8.5 and later should be compatible, roughly, and believe me, given all the structural changes it's kind of a small miracle. Not all features will be present, and I cannot 100% guarantee that everything will be working with older saves. Don't yell at me if your save is not working, you can roll back to 0.8 from Steam (properties / beta tab) if need be.

Mods are generally compatible with 3 exceptions:

1. Mods adding or editing existing factions are outdated, while they shouldn't break the game, they might prevent some of the improvements from taking effect. It's not possible to update or (fully) remove such mods mid game as faction data is loaded once when a new game is started.
2. Mods altering existing firearms (beside purely textures) are outdated, but can be removed safely.
3. Mods adding or altering sound effects MUST be in Stereo 44.100Hz mp3 files (also, music/effects are no longer compiled, ATC can read mp3 files out of the box).

I think it's the first time I have so much of a branch todo list in the very first release, despite the time I had to waste replacing the sound library.

The obvious missing feature is the map editor (and all the content that would come from it), it's being worked on but it's nowhere ready, and I can't really rush it. Also, I sorta had to get those world map changes finished first. I'd rather dedicate an update to this feature so I can write it properly without worrying about the other 50 items in my changelog. Base relocation ain't there yet. It shouldn't be a problem, it just didn't make the cut. Same for manned turrets, all the underlaying mechanics are here, I just didn't have to time to implement it.

Oh, I *might* have fixed that elusive teleportation bug thing. I noticed that after loading a save-game, the game would load the map and start running before the pathing information is calculated. So, for a few frames (depending on machine), all the map would be considered impassible terrain. While in theory it's not a real problem, I suspect that under some rare conditions (lag), it might cause a survivor to run it's emergency "omg I'm in a wall and shouldn't be, I need to teleport somewhere else" script before the information is loaded.

Anyway, I hope you'll like this release! While I probably added more bugs than I fixed (which is sorta the rule with milestone updates), I doubt it's anything major or game breaking. Just report any problem you encounter and I'll get it fixed ASAP.

And with that, I wish you all a happy new year! I'll come back to Discord and stuff as soon as the year is over.

Cheers!

• AI: NPC and turrets using fire based weapons now take this damage type into consideration to determine which target they should focus on
  
• AI: Several improvements to the other CPU factions' overworld AI
  
• Balance: Quartz is now used to build solar panels and CPU chips
  
• Balance: Some world map interactive events have been tweaked to take new features into account
  
• Balance: Expedition vehicle speed bonus on roads increased from 20% to 25%
  
• Balance: If set to NOT recover death-drop items, items dropped from crates destroyed by fires will also be marked as not to be retrieved
  
• Balance: In expedition, manual and automated combat are more on par, with automated no longer being a free win
  
• Balance: Increased healing rate of idle expeditions + added much smaller healing rate during travel
  
• Balance: Consuming a tomato can gives back the metal that was used to pack it
  
• Balance: Desert Eagle penetration from High to very high, increased base damage, decreased RoF (so the revolver can fit the high penetration slot)
  
• Balance: Standardized / Increased bullet speed for all gun type weapons (very fast for real guns, fast for pipe weapons, medium for bows and crossbows)
  
• Balance: Tweaked damage output, RoF and reload time of several rifles
  
• Balance: Removed blood-thirsty tag from antisocial trait (translation: they won't ignore incapacitation settings anymore)
  
• Content: Expedition vehicles have their own HP pool and can be damaged by events or during travel
  
• Content: A vehicle with no HP will force the expedition to go back home for repairs
  
• Content: Research and crafting stations can be assigned to specific workers (be sure to read related information/tooltips)
  
• Content: Configurable patrol zones where people can be assigned to guard strategic locations
  
• Content: Added internal "mental breakdown" meter to survivors which might cause a survivor to leave or do other more "fun inducing" actions
  
• Content: Being happy reduces the "mental breakdown" gauge, getting/staying depressed increases it
  
• Content: Added remote explosive collar pack (vehicle equipment), allows you to take prisoners instead of recruits during expeditions
  
• Content: Added hordes/groups to the map: moving 'points of interest' which can appear naturally or as the result of random events
  
• Content: Hordes grow over time and might trigger an attack when coming into contact with your base or another map location
  
• Content: Map locations now inform you of their exact enemy content before battle (instead of a rough list of possible enemy types)
  
• Content: New world map locations that will spawn hostile groups until conquered are making their appearance (either from start, or through random events)
  
• Content: Large zombie hordes can infect a map location after a successful attack
  
• Content: AI Factions send expeditions (which are visible on the map and which can be intercepted) to conquer map locations
  
• Content: A couple new "random" events (horde spawn mostly)
  
• Content: The defense of outposts is done using mercenaries that you recruit the same way you built defenses previously (work in progress)
  
• Content: End game threat of genetic abominations turned up to eleven, able to infect buildings and spawn hordes on a regular basis
  
• Content: Added Magnum .44, FAMAS G1 and FN-P90 weapons (just under slightly different names because copyright is a thing)
  
• Engine: Minor code improvements and optimizations, update of the low level DirectX interface
  
• Engine: New sound library, removing the need to use the unreliable windows media player library
  
• Engine: Windows KN & N editions are now compatible with ATC right out of the box (no longer requiring the download of a media player pack)
  
• Graphics: Replaced most of the older weapon textures by more detailed ones (handguns and most assault rifles)
  
• Graphics: Added a couple faction leader portraits, replaced some older ones
  
• Graphics: Exploding fat zombies have a new, easily recognizable, body
  
• Modding: Ability to damage vehicle during interactive map events (see the minefield one)
  
• Modding: Added horde data files
  
• Modding: Added EventSpawnHorde event, function similarly to POI spawner event, see "data/events/horde_*"
  
• Modding: Musics and SFX have respectively moved from Content/Music & Content/SFX to data/musics & data/sfx
  
• Modding: All sound effects/music *must* be in 44.1kHz MP3, preferably stereo. Any bitrate.
  
• Modding: Music and SFX no longer need to be compiled with the modding tools
  
• Modding: mapgen/worlds files can define which hordes can naturally spawn on the map (and how many and often)
  
• Modding: Spawn of events and hordes can be gated by variables set in an interactive event
  
• Modding: Added ability for PoI to spawn hordes (see spawner_* poi files for details, technically same format as for spawner clutter or npc)
  
• Modding: Faction data overhaul, all Strength* fields replaced, added new horde customization fields (see any main faction files)
  
• Modding: Added "GiveItems" field to consumables, will add the items to the user's inventory on consumption, (see tomato can)
  
• Sound: Much better sound quality when a lot of effects are played at once
  
• Sound: Added "master volume" setting to audio settings (alter all outputs at once, practical when you want to keep relative levels intact)
  
• UI: Proper loading screen (which will be less confusing that the blank screen in fullscreen mode on a non-ssd drive)
  
• UI: Added more mood/activity dialog bubbles in various menus/situations
  
• UI: Renamed "Exploring/I am exploring" by "Idle/I am taking a break" which is more accurate
  
• UI: High priority and new assignment settings have been put into the new "advanced" tab in the factory screen
  
• UI: Added expedition vehicle comparison chart to encyclopedia
  
• UI: Added Hit Point information to every vehicle/expedition related menus
  
• UI: Added mental breakdown difficulty modifiers
  
• UI: Multi selection menu can release a group of people from combat duty when in combat mode
  
• UI: Jobs button in settler info panel is no longer greyed out in combat mode (only the military skill checkbox)
  
• UI: Faction leadership change event got its own interactive panel with the ability to contact the faction directly (if you have radio tech)
  
• UI: Added difficulty toggle to enable/disable naturally spawning hordes
  
• UI: Research completed popup got a button to directly open the research screen
  
• UI: More information on the expedition combat screen
  
• UI: Renamed a few things so they make more sense: "Former Military" -> "Army Remnants", "Forge" -> "Smelter"
  
• UI: Popup message when a (player owned) production center gets taken/destroyed by another faction (optional, enabled by default, in game settings)
  
• UI: Warning (in the log) just before a production center gets attacked
  
• Fixed: Mood/Status dialog bubble were shown in menu displaying survivors
  
• Fixed: Scrollbar occasionally placed off panel until panel is refreshed / mouse goes over
  
• Fixed: The "yell for help" system (used when someone is attacked) could disrupt operations of nearby expedition goers or people trying to get to the hospital
  
• Fixed: People selection menu in the garage had barely relevant and overflowing text due to change of description for scavenging skill. (regression bug 0.8.7.8)
  
• Fixed: Long standing bug (no idea how it managed to stay unnoticed forever) which would lead to some mood/trait parameters to reset on loading a save
  
• Fixed: Fairly large memory leak each time a savegame is loaded
  
• Fixed: A couple extremely improbable (and never reported) potential crashes
  
• Fixed: Stone tables and seats could catch fire
  
• Fixed: Fire SFX would keep playing when the game is paused and the camera away from fire
  
• Fixed: Recently introduced issue between with tile placement and savegames (was fixed in a non documented patch earlier)
  
• Fixed: Possible crash on exit if a combat map contains an electric grid item (power relay and such)
  
• Fixed: Mood modifiers from laws were not applied consistently
  
• Fixed: Enemy faction soldiers would spawn with sub-par statistics
  
• Fixed: A problem which could, in theory, teleport NPC semi randomly when loading a save-game (that might be the one that eluded me for so long, finally!)
  
• Fixed: The last built path-blocking object, if 2x2 (or more), wouldn't update the map information correctly until something else is built, which could confuse survivors pathing
  
• Fixed: The initial/starting depot (which initially contains more than it's allowed to) was interfering with the information given in the storage menu
  
• Fixed: A couple minor issues in the user interface
  
• Fixed: People being "force-pushed" when they are building/removing something while positioned at a tile with a door
  
• Fixed: Couple small issues with animation selection (during combat, and yes, large melee enemies still look derpy when fighting, will be fixed)
  
• Fixed: Some more typos (please report any remaining typo, suggestions for better sentences/descriptions are welcome now)
  
• Fixed: [Ctrl]+[Right Click] wouldn't allow to attack incapacitated hostiles

  

Hi there!

To make up for the lack of weekly patches while I'm coding the 0.9 update, here's a devlog instead (I know, technically, I did patch ATC a couple times to address random/rare issues found by people but still, nothing major).

Oh before i start. I know it's unusual, but i'd like to advertise Piecewise, a chat-bot making tool made by a friend of mine who also did a lot of work on ATC, including the Steam workshop integration. If you're enjoying ATC mods it's in great part thanks to her. It would mean a lot to me if you gave a follow or considered buying it if it's something you'd be interested in.

Anyway, to summarize, progress toward 0.9 is going well, several of the features I talked about in the previous devlog are fully or at least "mostly" implemented, and the rest is being actively worked on. There are a few technical problems and bugs I had to deal with, but nothing really major.

So, let's see what I have done so far. Comments are welcome, obviously :)


This was one system that ATC didn't have until now. While 9 times out of 10, it really didn't matter who was working on what station, it still made it more difficult than it should to assign someone competent to a particular task. It also limited what I could do with the game. This is fixed.



I'm still feeling ambivalent about this feature. On one hand, it makes it a lot easier to assign the correct person to the research station and it gives more control to the player. On the other hand, 9 times out of 10, work stations being public is way more effective (when a worker takes care of their needs, their job can be resumed by someone else). And I fully expect to get forum posts complaining about inefficiency, production not being executed (because assigned worker is sleeping/sick), or settlers not working (because the work station has no job it can complete). But welp, it's the price of progress, i guess.

To counterbalance that risk, the feature is going to be put in an advanced sub menu (as shown in the screenshot) alongside the "high priority" checkbox, and where additional "non newbie friendly" filters like "minimum skill" will likely be added in the future.


The menu is still very "beta" looking, but it's complete feature-wise. Simply put, it allows you to assign settlers to guard a particular location (like the entrance of your base).



It comes with a lot of useful settings. The most important one being that you can select if you want the people assigned to the patrol zone to guard it at all time (they'll still leave to eat/sleep/.. unless you specify otherwise) or only when combat mode is toggled on.

This is super useful as you can pretty much automatize your base's defense using this system. Setup a few patrol zones in non permanent mode, assign your soldiers, disable military skill on everyone else, and poof, the second you press the "combat mode" button, your militia will automatically move to their designated defensive position and deal with the incoming threat.

It goes without saying that this will replace the cumbersome "save/load patrol point" system we had before. There's a few more settings to talk about but they aren't written in stone yet, and I still need to have something to write about in the release post :D


This one, I didn't talk about in the devlog, but it felt like a necessary addition. This is an entirely optional feature, and can be tuned up/down/disabled in the difficulty settings.

I've noticed over the years that new players with a doomed first (or second) base will often continue to play a very depressing game instead of restarting a new base, not because of the challenge but because the fact it's doomed hasn't been communicated very well.

Mental breakdowns can be seen is pretty much all base builders in a form or another because they address this very problem, they accelerate the process hopefully in an entertaining way.

I'm still tuning the system, but right now the rule is as follow. Each survivor has an invisible "mental breakdown" gauge. Each day, the survivor counts for how long they've been depressed (very low morale), and for how long they've been happy (very high morale). If they've been depressed more than happy, the gauge increases proportionally. Same thing in reverse for happiness. If they've been neither of those things, it doesn't move.



When the gauge is full, the settler will enter a "mental breakdown" state. They won't respond to any commands and will perform one (or a few) detrimental action(s). This action can be anything from deciding to leave the base, to punch furniture, turn hostile, attack someone they hate, mop in a corner for a few hours, burn down something, ... Not every action has been written yet, and it's fairly adaptive, i can easily add more. Assuming they survive and do not leave the base, this will reset the gauge.

It's not meant to be something you really have to manage, the gauge increases very slowly. Right now, on default settings, it takes 4-5 days of 24/24 misery for a survivor to have a breakdown.

But, beside accelerating the downfall of a base in an entertaining fashion, it's also meant to prevent experienced players from completely ignoring mood. As much as it's a common complaint from new players, the depressed state ain't really that bad. And once you've figured that out and start stacking up laws which reduce mood but improve everything else, it can even be beneficial (if you don't mind people punching each other all the time). Now, you can still do it, but a survivor might decide to burn down the barracks in protest. :D

This also introduces a concept of criminality to the game. To answer the obvious "can i arrest those people?", well not really right now. There will likely be a "convert to prisoner" button for the offenders, but that'll be it initially. I have post 1.0 plans to introduce special roles like sheriff and leader (think royalty in Dwarf fortress, but somewhat useful) to deal with those problems in interesting ways, but we're not there yet.


For simplicity sake i'm going to call this system a "horde" no matter if it's zombies, animals or a group of bandits, as it's the name used internally anyway.

That's the big feature I'm working on right now. In principle, this is self explanatory: growing hordes of hostiles roaming the map. If they come across your base, it triggers a raid-type event (assuming they are hostile toward you). If they come across a point of interest they might attack it if defended, or take over it if it's empty.



They can be intercepted by expeditions. and can be attacked before they become a problem, or lured toward your base if you are itching for a fight. More contextual interactions will likely be added, as they'll be able to use the interactive event/quest system.

I'm quite happy with my implementation. And, due to the way they are written, the manual vs auto combat options are a lot more balanced. Manual combat generally being the less risky option, as it should (if you know what you're doing, ofc).

Last devlog, I wasn't sure if i could make AI faction use this system instead of using teleportation to do everything. Now I'm pretty sure that they'll be able to use it to capture production centers or send raiding parties. Maybe not on 0.9.0 proper, but soon after that. This will add a lot of mid/late game gameplay options, like the ability to intercept enemy hordes before they reach their destination so you can fight them in the open.

I'm still experimenting with the system, but so far so good.


That's part 2 of the above system. Probably won't be in the initial 0.9.0 release in any meaningful way, but i'm working on having the ability for a horde to "convert" a map location into something else that can spawn a configurable amount of additional hordes until it's cleared by another AI faction or the player.

It's a system i might use for abominations in the standard game, and for the zombies in a heavily reworked zombie survival scenario. Basically a horde comes across, let's say a farm and conquers it. The farm is morphed into an "infected building" that will spawn another horde every day until it has like 2 or 3 under its control. Those hordes will move toward other buildings, attack them, and if victorious, convert them. This is a situation that will need to be dealt with or it might spiral into something very bad for everyone else.

This should make for a way more interesting end game threat than the current version of the abominations. Might also give a strong incentive to keep other main factions alive as they might help against the threat.


Okay, not going to lie. I'm struggling with this one. It's extremely time consuming to write (and boring, so... incredibly... boring...) and there's a lot of things I do while generating the map that aren't really easy to translate into an editor. I mean, yes, i do have the basics of placing walls, furniture and terrain in there and the ability to save/load the map itself. But it's peanuts compared to spawn points, hidden zones, faction attribution and many other systems.

I still need this as a feature, at least for me to use, but it is going to cannibalize a lot of time, and I can't say I'm happy about it. As I'm not entirely sure how long it's going to take me, and that it ain't exactly a key feature, the rest of the to-do list takes priority over it. What time left I have after the rest is done will be for the editor.


As usual i just mentioned the big features. I've added/fixed/altered plenty of things. The game has a proper splash/load screen now, so people don't get confused by that white screen (in fullscreen mode) or the big delay (in borderless mode). Expeditions vehicles have their own HP pool, terrain and events can damage a vehicle forcing people to go back home for repairs. UI get tweaked, bugs get fixed, content get added. The usual :)

All things considered, it's going pretty well. Editor aside, for once, I'm quite ahead of schedule. This might give me some time to add some content I never got around to, like fertilizer for farms, additional mobs (and variants), training facilities, sprinklers to get rid of fires and/or take care of farms. Don't assume i'm going to do all that, the to-do list takes priority as always, but it's on the table :)

Anyway, I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Comments and ideas are welcome, just understand that I'm not going to alter things much at this point until I'm done with that whole 1.0 release thing.

Cheers.

This is just a small maintenance patch. It however might fix the issue with the game not always closing properly when launched from Steam on some systems.

As usual, no save or mod compatibility issue to be expected.

• UI: In population menu, skills are now sorted alphabetically
  
• UI: Added option to pause game when research is completed (settings/gameplay)
  
• UI: Zone/building/razing plans are now drawn over the rest of the game, making it clear what you're about to do
  
• Fixed: People whose inventory is full of dirty water in a base with no dirty water storage wouldn't know how to get rid of it to get food.
  
• Fixed: Changing an item in the top item resource panel wouldn't update the associated tooltip
  
• Fixed: console window not being properly freed on exit (this *might* be the reason for the game not exiting properly on some systems)

Hi peeps!

Here's the promised devlog, barely a few hours late.

So, let's start with the basics. This is a devlog, any new feature I am talking about here, no matter how detailed it is, is subject to changes, improvements, or even plain cancelation depending on how the implementation goes before it's actually being released. In short, don't assume that everything I'm going to talk about here is going to happen exactly as planned. It's still a relatively accurate guideline for the future. With this obligatory introduction out of the way, let's get to it :)


The 0.9 release is the next major update for ATC. From an user perspective it probably won't be as massive as the Expedition overhaul or the Dig Deeper update. Still, it's going to introduce the final touches so everything else can be completed. From a modder's perspective it's going to be fun, though. Of course, I'm skipping the usual UI tweaks, minor improvements and bug fixes.


As much as I'm happy with the current state of the procedural generator, I have to admit that a few hand-crafted maps and buildings wouldn't go amiss. This is where the editor comes into play. It'll allow me (and anyone else) to build expedition combat maps, spawn locations or scenario maps with ease. Additionally, I hope to be able to integrate the hand-crafted buildings in the generators proper: aka the ability for such buildings to spawn in city, roadside and village maps. This should pave the way for "building/map" mods.

And last but not least, It will allow me to design more interesting scenarios with very specific starting maps and I'm not gonna miss the opportunity to add a "trapped in a mall/prison/hospital surrounded by zombies" scenario.


One system that's currently missing internally is the ability to assign a survivor to a particular task and that task only (basically preventing them from querying the general job list while assigned to this task). Once implemented, I'll be able to add commonly requested features: namely the ability to setup patrol zones and manned turrets.

Patrol zones will be configurable, you'll be able to assign any amount of survivors there, and decide if you want to guards to stay there all the time (except when eating/sleeping, obviously), which is a good way to guard your gates against roaming critters, or decide to only make it active in combat mode (good for kill zones).

Same idea with manned turrets. Don't get me wrong, automated turrets are fine and dandy, but they probably should be put much higher in the tech tree (and require some beefier construction costs). Manned turrets could fill a mid game defensive role before you're swimming in modern guns, money and ammo, offering some decent firepower and some cover to whoever is assigned to it.


With the two above features completed, I will be able to put the finishing touches to the expedition system. Manual vs Auto combat will get (at least somewhat) balanced. The generic combat maps will be replaced by hand crafted ones. Some enemies will start patrolling around their base instead of all waiting in rooms. Expedition vehicles will get their own pool of HP, which might be impacted by travel, terrain and events. An expedition with a car out of HP will be forced to return home.

You'll also get more options when dealing with enemies attacking your production centers. You will likely be able to resolve those battles manually or bribe your way out of some of those encounters. I still need to think how I am going represent the money put into "buy defenses" in such combats, though. But, I'll figure something out or replace that sub-system completely.


Some of the mobs will also start to visibly roam the world map. They'll generally be relatively passive, but will still move from time to time. If your base or a production center is in their way, it'll trigger an attack. Herds will be interactive, you can send expeditions their way to either get rid of them remotely, or you might even be able to lead them toward your base intentionally. Why would you want to do that? Spider queen eggs don't grow on trees and the chance of a spider queen attack to happen normally is incredibly low.

Animal herds will be an introduction to "moving" map locations. It's likely that I'll expand the system to other things and couple it with "spawner-type" locations. It's also very likely that the abominations will be a prime candidate to mix all of those systems together into a proper end-game threat. That last part goes beyond 0.9 proper and extends into 1.0.


Simple enough, the ability to pack up & leave the base for greener pastures, retaining all techs, people and some resources. It won't have a massive gameplay impact in 0.9 proper. Sure, it will be nice to be able to relocate in order to hunt for exoskeletons and other goodies only available in some biomes. But it's a feature that I will mostly need for the 1.0 storyline, so might as well implement it now.


First of all, I've said it already but it's worth repeating for the newcomers: 1.0 is not the end of the line. All it means is that I consider the game to be ready to get out of Early Access. That it's feature complete compared to the goals I've set years ago (and let's be honest here, we're already way past those goals :D). And that it's in a decent shape stability and performance-wise. Development will continue post 1.0, just at slightly more relaxed pace (and after getting a proper vacation). Those last few months have been really intensive, and it's probably not a healthy rhythm to maintain forever. But you can be sure that there will be more major updates after that.

Beside the addition of raw content (items, weaponry, armors, mobs and events), 1.0 will pretty much entirely focus on the addition of a main questline: Story Mode.

Story Mode will technically replace the tutorial slot in the new game menu. It will integrate a (probably optional) tutorial section, and give general tips during the whole playthrough, but it will also contain multiple quests similar in concept to what you've seen in the rise of the mutant scenario. Some quests will flesh out the lore, others will unlock techs or deal with the other factions or give you special bonus. All those quests will merge toward a conclusion.

I'm sorry if I'm being very vague on the actual details here as I don't want to write spoilers. Also, please, don't expect some revolutionary stuff here, I'm in no way a great writer (English is not even my primary language) and it's pretty much my first attempt at storytelling. I just hope it'll be entertaining to play through. :)


Hopefully, the first draft for 0.9 should be available before New Year Eve. I don't expect many problems with it. The editor will be the most time consuming thing to deal with. Not writing it proper, because you know, it's technically already there, being a base building game & all. It's the integration of those custom maps/buildings that will be more of a pain.

1.0 is scheduled for February/March 2022. I'm not entirely sure I will be able to keep this exact deadline, but it shouldn't be much later.

Price-wise. ATC will reach it's planned official price ($14.99) when I start working on 1.0 proper. Due to the way Steam works, it's not possible to change the price & discount the game without leaving a month in between those two actions. Given that I will apply a day 1 release discount, price has to be raised slightly in advance.

I think I've covered everything I wanted to talk about for now. :)

Cheers!

Hi there!

Here's the last weekly patch for this version of ATC, after this one, and barring any large problem, I'll switch gears toward the next major update which I'll talk about in a devlog tomorrow.

This patch includes several new UI improvements regarding the Raze button and the replacement of the Repair button by a multi purpose button. It's also getting rid of several bugs ranging from incredibly minor to very annoying.

As usual, saves & mods are compatible and the full changelog is at the bottom :)


Fire has been tuned down. Wild fires will spread (but also die on their own) and damage 33% slower. The heat-wave weather pattern can no longer appear in the first 2 weeks, which should give you more time to prepare.

Additionally, got it, fire crabs are a bit too overpowered. Their range has been reduced by 2 tiles. The fireball they throw at you got its armor penetration value reduced from High to Medium, meaning that any medium+ integrity armor will offer its full protection (assuming it does something against fire damage). Fire vests also got their integrity increased from low to medium.


It functions exactly as usual by default. But, you'll notice that when pressing the button or keyboard shortcut, a row of buttons appears just above the bottom menu.



As you can see, you can now set what you want to raze exactly. For instance, using the "Clutter" button, It's a lot faster & easier to "clear up" a house while keeping the walls intact. Additionally, EVERYTHING related to removal is in this menu. You no longer have to go look deep inside the "Build" menu to remove roofs or tiles anymore.


The barely used "Repair" button has been replaced by a "Misc Orders" button (same icon), it works similarly to the new Raze sub-panel.



From there, you can still repair stuff, but you can also mass-assign butchering jobs or copy existing structures (and their settings) without having to use the build menu. Both of those options already existed but only in forms of keyboard shortcuts until now.

Additionally, the "Forbid Items" and "Allow Items" buttons can be used to manually allow or disallow your survivors to retrieve specific items dropped on tiles. This can be used to prevent survivors from going into a death trap to retrieve a piece of wood.


After getting a lot of work done on the underlaying UI code, the keyboard shortcuts should also behave in a way more consistent fashion no matter if you're in combat mode or building mode. Esc should also escape from all situations properly (if you really don't like to right click for some reason).

As usual most, if not all, reported (and non reported) bugs have been fixed :)

• AI: Survivors are better with the retrieval of items on tiles (and stopping the job if the tile get forbidden or emptied)
  
• Balance: Reduced penetration value for the fireball used by fire crabs (from high to medium) and reduced its range by 2 tiles
  
• Balance: Reduced update rate of fires by 33% (spread & damage slower)
  
• Balance: Increased integrity of fire-vest (from low to medium), making it a good early defensive armor against fire crabs
  
• Balance: Heat waves can't appear for the first 2 weeks (instead of 3 days) to account for the fires it can now cause
  
• Content: Items on the ground can be manually forbidden/allowed for retrieval
  
• Content: Added and updated some screens in the tutorial to mention some recent/important features
  
• Engine: Further hardening of the engine to prevent crashes from removing mods mid-game (never will be perfect, but it's pretty decent at it now)
  
• Engine: Pass at the input code, keyboard shortcuts should work in a more consistent fashion, independently of the game's state
  
• UI: Expanded the "Raze" button: the default option stays the same but you can click buttons to raze specific things (plants, clutter, wall, tiles, roofs...)
  
• UI: With the expanded raze button, options to delete zone, roofs and tiles have been removed from the build menu
  
• UI: Renamed "fixed strange scar" by "fixed early pandemonium symptoms" to clarify that the Pandemonium cure is working as intended
  
• UI: Rewrote the descriptions of all the stats and jobs/skills, giving a lot more information
  
• UI: Replaced the "Repair" button by a "Misc Orders" button, which reveal a row of useful stuff (repair, mass butcher, copy item, forbid/allow item retrieval on tile)
  
• UI: Added encyclopedia article listing all stats & skills and what they are used for (it's basically the same as the new tooltips, but in an article)
  
• Fixed: Hostile animals could follow people through stairs (regression bug from 0.8.6 performance pass)
  
• Fixed: Minor UI fixes (text overflowing in some menus)
  
• Fixed: top resource bar not aligned properly when the UI size is not 1:1 after quitting & reloading a savegame
  
• Fixed: All farms had the same name which could lead to confusion in some of the encyclopedia menus
  
• Fixed: Putting someone at a doorway wouldn't reveal the room on the other side
  
• Fixed: Missing tooltip for survivor statistics in New Game / Settlers menu
  
• Fixed: Can't rebind Esc key in settings menu
  
• Fixed: Possible issue with LUA mods after loading a save
  
• Fixed: Raiders and new recruits would occasionally spawn in an area in which they can't path toward your base
  
• Fixed: It was technically possible for suppliers and traders to spawn at a location where they can't path toward your trading zone
  
• Fixed: After opening some of the main menus via keyboard shortcuts in combat mode, the combat shortcuts might no longer work until mode is reset
  
• Fixed: Made Fullscreen mode a lot less crash prone on load (or just don't check other windows while the game is initializing, Monogame doesn't like that at all)
  
• Fixed: One weird crash that someone had consistently despite the fact it would imply using a combination of keys at the very first frame when the game is launched
  
• Fixed: Survivors under your direct control wouldn't fire back at enemy turrets in range on their own
  
• Fixed: A case where the UI would start at the wrong scale (menus going off-screen) on first launch with some screen resolutions (and stay that way until fiddling with settings)
  
• Fixed: The tutorial stage where player is asked to raze 10 things was (wrongly) expecting the user to raze everything at the same time
  
• Fixed: Supply Left info not updated in New Game / Customize Equipment menu when loading it for the first time

Hi there!

Here's the third weekly maintenance patch. It's fixing reported issues (and non reported ones). It's also adding a few tweaks and improvements. Save-games and mods are compatible as usual.

Expect a proper devlog detailing my plans for the next major update either at the end of this week-end or during the next week.

Cheers!

• AI: Improved efficiency of crafting stations by trying to give the work job to whoever brought the required goods
  
• Balance: Added weight to some items which had none (ammunition, basically)
  
• Balance: Increased the amount of ammo people will take with them (mostly with rifles and handguns)
  
• UI: Added tooltips to resource panel at the top (naming what's up there), it can also be right clicked to show detailed info about the item
  
• UI: Jobs/Skills can be sorted by competence in the individual survivor menu
  
• UI: Added clickable "assigned" field to factories, showing who is working at a given factory or if it's queued
  
• UI: Color code for the queue in factories: green (ok), orange (condition not met), red (no resources)
  
• UI: Main menus (encyclopedia, save, settings, stats, mods) can be closed with [Esc] like any other in-game menus
  
• UI: Added DPS info to weapon tooltip
  
• Fixed: Some of the weapon "turrets" on enemies (scorpion & spider queen, and several low tier enemies) were not working
  
• Fixed: The "small gun turret" was available (and free) in the "new game - customize equipment" menu
  
• Fixed: After the generation of some uncommon types of map, bonus deposits would no longer drop from mountain/cavern walls until the game is restarted
  
• Fixed: Faction logo selector not behaving correctly when the UI scale is not set to default
  
• Fixed: Farmers not clearing wild plants, small rocks and other decorative clutter when building a farm
  
• Fixed: People could rarely path to (0,0) instead of the correct destination, generally when trying to work on cattle
  
• Fixed: Game spamming incorrect "I can't find a depot to unload [item] ([quantity])"
  
• Fixed: Weightless items would interfere with inventory clearing tasks
  
• Fixed: Problems where a keyboard shortcut would interfere with a text box (rename things, depot presets)
  
• Fixed: If someone scheduled for an expedition dies before the expedition is launched, the garage would end up being stuck
  
• Fixed: Prisoners would try to sleep outside of their cells
  
• Fixed: People still trying (only on some map types) to use non faction beds
  
• Fixed: Minor logic issue when checking if a need can be satisfied
  
• Fixed: If for some reason someone was dedicated enough to stay in the tutorial until electricity tech, the game would likely crash
  
• Fixed: More random typos

This is a relatively small maintenance patch, it won't interfere with existing saves or mods.

While hunting for that elusive teleport bug, I came across several issues which are now fixed. I also tweaked a few things and further improved performances on very large / gigantic maps.

• AI: If a survivor has their inventory full before trying to eat, they'll try to clear some space (either by dropping in a depot or, if unable, on the ground)
  
• Balance: Pastures' auto butchering setting will skip old animals while they are pregnant (and until they are not anymore)
  
• Balance: Standard beds fill the "sleep" need faster than tribal beds and sleeping bags (might only apply to newly constructed beds if continuing from save)
  
• Engine: Very slightly improved performances when loading a save-game
  
• Engine: More improvements to general performances (economic and general pathing/region calculations)
  
• UI: Double click on an outpost in the faction menu will open/center map on outpost
  
• UI: Locations on the map which have been fully looted are shown in red
  
• UI: Made it clearer that you can click on loot left (in map location menu) to see what the location can drop
  
• Fixed: Small display glitch in the expedition's "members" panel where health was written 2 times
  
• Fixed: Issue in the people selector when assigning people to a production center
  
• Fixed: A problem, possibly tied to the teleportation bug, that could cause people not to recognize walls in extremely specific situations
  
• Fixed: AI logic issue with pickup jobs, which could prevent people from grabbing food (when hungry) directly from the ground
  
• Fixed: Logic issue when loading save which was the underlying cause for the inventory sometimes going into the negative
  
• Fixed: When a savegame doesn't have an associated screenshot, and oversized icon would be displayed
  
• Fixed: A survivor could (again, super rare) get stuck in place despite being marked as moving toward a target
  
• Fixed: (modding) "Leash" field for spawners had no effect, they would always spawn as leashed to the spawner
  
• Fixed: If a creature following a spawner (like baby/mother spider) is separated by impassible terrain, it would freeze and waste CPU cycles (it'll just remove the leash now)
  
• Fixed: Newborn animals spawn (or after loading a save) full size for a few seconds
  
• Fixed: Requested traders from other faction aren't announced in the log or via sound
  
• Fixed: If the game UI somehow displays characters not handled by the font, it would become very laggy

Hey, I hope you enjoyed the scenario released for Halloween :)

This new update goes over a lot of reported problems, while improving the UI and the game's economy, rebalancing a few things in the process. It's not a very large patch but it's featuring improvements which should have been made a long time ago.

You can expect at least one or two more before the next devlog explaining my plans for the future.

As usual, saves & mods are compatible, and the full changelog is at the end.


First, a new setting has been added to all crafting stations (and water collectors) recipes, it allows you to produce a given recipe until adjacent (compatible) depots are full.



While this work for everything, this is especially useful with dirty water production/collection. You can now set your collectors and well(s) to produce only until your adjacent dedicated depot for dirty water is full, which is a lot easier than micro managing it or setting a global limit.

Regarding cattle management, butchering stations can now be paused and will detect adjacent compatible depots and the products will automatically be moved there, saving some travel time in well designed bases.

Additionally, animals can individually be moved from a pasture to another. Click on a pastured animal, and using the new "Relocate" button.



While this is not particularly useful when handling food or work cattle, anyone who has used sand crabs as a defense system will appreciate. It can also be used to separate "good" animals from "bad" ones when trying to do selective breeding.

Oh, and if you've played through the new scenario (or done any cannibal run), you probably would have loved a way to mass-assign dead bodies to butchering jobs. This is now possible! A keyboard shortcut has been added to btcher everything in the selection (which you place like a zone after pressing the shortcut). As usual with keyboard shortcuts, it can be changed in the settings.

Fire

Fire's effectiveness at ruining you day has been tuned down.



First, rain, on top of dousing the flames, prevents fire from spreading through grassy and other non constructed terrain. This should make it a lot more effective at killing large fires.

Secondly, survivors on low health (<50% right now) will no longer attempt to fight off fires without being manually ordered to. People who are already fighting a fire but got hurt to a point their health went below that limit will stop (and likely go seek a doctor).

Finally, and this is what I suspect to be the crux of the issue: fires will no longer be able to incapacitate whoever they hurt. I think that's what happened to players who got too many deaths or heavily injured people when dealing with fire. Due to the way fire damage is applied, very small damage but in a repeating pattern, it made wildfires the most effective way to incapacitate someone.

User Interface

A few nice QoL improvements.

First, those barebone popups shown during game events (raids, traders...) or weather changes are a lot nicer to look at now. Some of them are more informative or/and have additional functionalities.



This is also working when clicking events and weather changes in the log.



Additionally, HP information has been added to the "settler/animal selector" panel used in a lot of menus. This is especially useful when selecting people to send in an expeditions so you can make sure you don't send people with next to no HP.

The multi-survivor panel displayed when you have multiple people selected at once (generally in combat mode) now show who is using what weapon. This should make it a lot more useful.

Bug Fixing: Savegame Failure

Simply put, on very rare occasions, an auto/quick save would fail and give you a message. The game does not crash, and saving again would work as normal, but it would still rotate the quick/auto slots, making you lose the older version.

After looking at this bug for a few days, there's no real way for me to fix the failure entirely and definitely at this point without massively tanking performances during those saves. Given how uncommon it is and the fact it has no real impact on the game, it's not worth that cost.

So, I did the next best things:
1. I heavily reduced the likelihood of it happening at all.
2. If an auto/quick save operation still happen to fail, it won't erase any previous file anymore.

I really hate to leave a technical bug standing, but it's the closest I can get here. I might still be able to completely fix it later granted it triggers again in front of me while I am debugging the game, but that will have to do for now.

Bugs Fixed and Bugs Remaining

As usual there's a small list of reported bugs being fixed. Most notably, custom player-made equipment presets in the new game menu wouldn't always be displayed, some inconsistent / non working settings, nothing really game breaking or major.

This leaves us with one last remaining long standing bug I consider "major". The dreaded settler teleport bug. And I'm not talking about settlers walling themselves off when placing objects or a settler being force-pushed outside of a wall not exactly where it should, while annoying, it's just inherent to colony-sims. I'm talking about a survivor flat out "teleported" into the middle of nowhere in the underground.

Comparatively to the overwhelming majority of bugs I had to deal with, this one is really annoying to locate for due to its nature. Player reports are, understandably, way after the fact and can't really provide useful or reliable information (not your fault, it's just not that kind of bug). Even if I see it happen in one of my playthroughs, it's after the fact. And, of course, it's rare and irregular enough that brute forcing things doesn't seem to work.

My point for this long rambling is that I'm going to dedicate some more time trying to get rid of it, but it's going to be a pain and it might take a while. :)

Full Changelog

• AI: People on low health (<50%) will no longer try to fight fires on their own (i'll make that a setting, alongside auto-engage combat, later)
  
• Balance: Rain prevents fire from spreading through grassy and other non constructed terrain (on top of the droplets dousing the flames)
  
• Balance: Animal hide from butchering mutants & humans (only apply to newly spawned ones if loading from old save)
  
• Balance: Manual combat maps no longer drop any loot to prevent farming and flee/attack loop exploits
  
• Balance: Fire damage can no longer incapacitate targets (so people don't fall "asleep" in the middle of a fire)
  
• Balance: The game makes sure that the spawn location selected by default when starting a new game is not in a very hostile biome (or a location you can't settle into)
  
• Content: Animals can be assigned/relocated to specific pastures via new button in their info panel
  
• Content: Like factories, if there's an adjacent compatible depot next to a butchering station, the products will automatically be moved there
  
• Content: Added option for crafting stations and water collectors to produce until adjacent container is full (in the recipe selection menu)
  
• Content: Specific butchering tables can be disabled/paused
  
• Engine: Heavily reduced likelihood of an autosave to fail (a bug that cannot be completely removed at this point without massively tanking save performances)
  
• Graphics: Added some light randomization of water droplets placement during rain so they don't always fall at the right center of a tile
  
• Modding: Added TexturePath to both Events and Weather effect, adds a specific image for their new improved panel shown when clicked (or when set to auto pop)
  
• UI: Added weapon icons to the panel shown when multiple survivors are selected (making sub selection easier)
  
• UI: Added HP information to settler/animal selector used in many menus (garage, room, prison cell, pet attribution)
  
• UI: Added hotkey to butcher everything in a zone (U by default, rebindable)
  
• UI: Queue in Factory screen is color coded to show which recipe can complete
  
• UI: Nicer looking weather change and game event menus (for those who popup on screen, or when clicking them in the log)
  
• UI: Events spawning map locations have a window showing an option to center & select the location on the map
  
• Fixed: Quick and auto save wouldn't recognize when a save is already in progress. The game will now properly recognize it and skip the second attempt
  
• Fixed: Auto/quick save file rotation would still be done on failure, deleting the oldest instance
  
• Fixed: Reset speed settings in game options was inconsistent (both for raids and traders)
  
• Fixed: In the RotM scenario it was possible for the "Leadership Change" event to fire for (the perma-hostile) Neo Roma, causing minor relation glitches
  
• Fixed: Traders stuck in houses will self delete after a while, this ain't very elegant but it will serve as a temporary solution until i figure out the cause
  
• Fixed: Clicking on events on the short log panel and the expanded window wasn't consistent
  
• Fixed: Remove Tile job and Fire wouldn't update the game's internal map when destroying a bridge or other tiles allowing passage between 2 areas
  
• Fixed: Disappearing player-made equipment presets in the "new game" menu
  
• Fixed: Rare failure in "drop items" job
  
• Fixed: A couple minor typos and glitches

Hello!

This was supposed to be a small and fun scenario for Halloween, but I might have been carried away. Just you know, a bit. So, here is both a new scenario and a fairly chunky update for you to enjoy!

As usual, full changelog at the end, save-games and mods compatible.



Let's start with the main attraction. RotM is a new scenario for ATC where you play as a group of mutants in search of their origin. It's not just a quick reskin, this scenario is designed to showcase what can be done in a week of work (and testing) with my engine.



(a note before we start: this scenario features cannibalism and a quest with some non-kid friendly content, nothing that's out of character in a fallout-ish game, but I'd rather mention it.)

The scenario features:

• A customized tech tree
  
• A decently sized quest mixing research, combat, exploration and text based adventure
  
• A playable race with unique mechanics (more on that below)
  
• New and altered game events
  
• A few new weapons, armors and items

So, the mutants, which are not inspired by any other mutant from any other franchise, definitely not, are big, green and mean. On the plus side, they have super human strength and endurance, an immunity to scorched biome and acid rain debuffs, increased melee damage, HP, and have a natural resistance to damage. They are excellent fighters and can one-on-one most mobs in the game even without fancy armors or guns. Oh, and they have no philosophical problem with eating humans, on the contrary.



On the negative side, they eat and drink more (20%), they are god awful at medicine and science. Most of the tech tree beyond electronics is closed to them. No robotics, no drones, automated kitchen, advanced turrets or modern weapon/armor repairs. They however start with exploration and animal care unlocked immediately and have access to unique bone melee weapons and armors. The weapons have a very high chance to incapacitate a target, and the armor is very good for its cost (better than the metal armor).



They also are quite asocial and will brawl and fight each other a lot. Keeping them content is quite difficult but it is not as bad as it sounds. The "depressed" mood doesn't apply to mutants. Instead, they become "agitated". An agitated mutant will brawl even more, but will also be stronger, get a military skill boost, and will be better at all jobs involving razing something, however they'll be slower builders in this state.



With a very slow research rate and no easy access to the high-end tier, they are meant to be played as a low tech faction relying on numbers and animals to defend themselves against raiders and other factions (speaking of which, Neo Roma is perma-hostile to you here, it's a feature, not a bug).

A few words of advice:

• I would suggest to start on a large desert river/oasis village map, preferably with a special underground biome and/or bunker. It's not necessary, but it's a nice change of pace from the less interesting city maps.
  
• Mutants need a lot of food and water, better make sure you have more farms and kitchens than normally. It is also a very good idea to allow them (Faction menu) to butcher sentient beings.
  
• Take advantage of the fact that you can collect and grow giant eggs right from the start. Just make sure you have a wheat farm and access to animal food before growing them.
  
• To start the quest, you'll have to complete the "Remembering The Past" research, which is just after Masonry. Pay attention to your (clickable) message log after researching it as it will reveal a world map location.
  
• This is a combat heavy scenario, you'll be raided slightly more often than usual and you will lose people, especially when dealing with raids from other factions.

I hope you'll enjoy this scenario and quest, it's still a bit clunky and the writing is, well.. mine (who isn't a native English speaker), but it should still give you a window to what will be done in the future. :)


Of course, it wouldn't be an update without the usual list of changes and improvements. I will list a few of the most notable ones here.

Previously, it was notably difficult to keep incapacitated enemies alive. I made that a tad easier: your survivors should be a lot faster at noticing they shouldn't shoot at their target anymore (assuming they aren't blood-thirsty) and newly incapacitated people get a few seconds of invulnerability so they can soak up bullets that were still flying at them (only if your faction menu is set NOT to attack incapacitated people).

Fire will also properly stop at walls now, no matter which tile those walls are built upon. It does make very large fires a bit more taxing on the CPU, though. Nothing dramatic, but it was the reason why it didn't work that way before. Speaking of fire, sand crabs are now immune so they stop burning themselves to death.

Oh, fun little fact, animals now get an unique name (well, from a list) the first time they get adopted by a survivor. Mutants also have their own name generator.

And as usual, I also included many new UI improvements and fixed a bunch of bugs.

• AI: Hospital patients will no longer starve themselves if a doctor doesn't come to visit for a long time
  
• AI: Fighters under your control are better at not shooting at incapacitated targets (if incapacitate is set in faction menu)
  
• AI: Survivors can detect when they can no longer pickup something from storage and will cancel their movement instead of traveling all the distance
  
• Balance: Strengthened all active factions and increased their maximum range
  
• Balance: Factions' main HQ have a minimal amount of enemies to kill an exploit where it would be way too easy to attack them in manual combat
  
• Balance: Tweaked event frequency (reduced cough, increased some raiders, removed some technology gating for late game raids)
  
• Balance: Fire will stop at walls, independently of the type of tile it's built upon
  
• Balance: Incapacitated people, assuming your faction settings are set to keep them alive, get a few seconds of invulnerability after going down
  
• Balance: Slightly reduced the time it takes to boil water at camp fire
  
• Balance: Sand crabs are now immune to fire damage, because they really need to for their own sake
  
• Balance: Most animals/people yield more bones when butchered and/or dying
  
• Content: New unique "Rise Of The Mutants" scenario, see post for details
  
• Content: Unique name generator for mutants
  
• Content: Bone equipment (bone axe, club, armor and face mask)
  
• Content: Added recipes to armor forge and crafting station for bone weapons (mutant scenario only)
  
• Content: Lot of additional content added to the mutant scenario only
  
• Content: Pets get baptized the first time they get adopted by a settler (only apply to newly created animals if loading from pre update save)
  
• Engine: Many improvements to the interactive travel event system, allowing for much more complex quests to be built
  
• Graphics: Additional leader faces for some of the factions
  
• Graphics: Reduced the scale of survivors' footprints to be more on par with their actual size
  
• Modding: Added "EventOnDiscovery" (string) field to tech files, will automatically launch the specified game event whenever the tech is discovered/researched
  
• Modding: Ability for scenarios to override "happy" and "depressed" traits (see mutant scenario for all the new/recent scenario related features)
  
• Modding: Added "EventTextDump" game event type, does pretty much what's written on the tin (seen events/scen_rotm_mutagen for example)
  
• Modding: Travel events can set, increment, decrement and test global and persistant variables (GetVar Validator, SetVar/IncVar/DecVar Effects)
  
• Modding: Added MinHostileCount to POI files (defines a minimal number of opponents in manual combat mode, assuming there is actual any opposition)
  
• Modding: Footprint scale is moddable
  
• UI: Minor tweak to faction list, longer descriptions, font the same size as the rest of the UI.
  
• UI: More space in Population menu for settlers' names (so long names don't wrap into the text)
  
• UI: Made sure the recruitment menu cannot be canceled by a misclick outside of it
  
• UI: Added "required techs" to individual tech info panels/encyclopedia entries
  
• UI: Minor improvements to the UI of the interactive travel events' menu
  
• UI: Animal Nursery's menu got improved, species field can be clicked for info, and the egg selector menu got a facelift
  
• UI: Added "Recruit All" button to recruit menu
  
• UI: More minor changes not worth bloating a changelog with
  
• ProcGen: Village maps can feature some surface mountains
  
• Steam: Replaced the pictures of many of the older achievements
  
• Steam: Added achievement for completing the 'Rise of the Mutants' storyline
  
• Fixed: After loading a save, wild plants marked for deletion wouldn't be highlighted in red like they should (0.8.6.0 regression bug)
  
• Fixed: Last stage of pandemonium would turn people into the hostile faction instead of the infected one
  
• Fixed: Text being cut in farms' crop selection panel
  
• Fixed: Sound effects coming from other layers would still be played
  
• Fixed: A few of the debris/clutter already on the map could still be used by your survivors which goes against lore and gameplay
  
• Fixed: Enemies waiting in ambush in building wouldn't fight back against anyone but the player
  
• Fixed: Apple trees are invisible for a few days after being planted
  
• Fixed: Fauna had a tendency to stare forever at doors they encounter (since 0.8.6.2)
  
• Fixed: Plants would die in pastures and in other zone types where this effect wasn't intended (only apply to new zones if continuing from old save)
  
• Fixed: (modding) Interactive event validators for Tech and NoTech were non functional
  
• Fixed: (modding) Issue with traits causing npc to morph into another one if KeepTrait is not set
  
• Fixed: Doors would "push" people who stay on the tile for too long, which could lead to unwanted teleportation
  
• Fixed: Ordering soldiers to move on a tile with a door wasn't working as it should
  
• Fixed: Recruited prisoners wouldn't have the law and job settings applied
  
• Fixed: Minor rendering issue with doors copied using the shortcut

One day, I will remember to never ever write something about the lack of bugs or crash in an update :)

Anyway, this small update fixes a crash with manual battles, which was a side effect on the recent optimizations. It also fixes several minor problems with the AI which when combined on a struggling base could lead to a death spiral.

Cheers.

• AI: Starving settlers who are cooking something can no longer have this task interrupted by any other AI process
  
• AI: Tweaked logic to make sure that someone with 0 work ethics will still do something productive, sometimes
  
• Balance: Depressed trait no longer cancel the ability to do expeditions as it was sorta confusing
  
• Fixed: Negative value inventory
  
• Fixed: Crash in manual combat expeditions (regression bug due to optimization pass)
  
• Fixed: Minor problem with factory logic due to saturday's optimization pass
  
• Fixed: When food is lacking and people are looking for stuff on the ground, they would incorrectly identify fodder as proper food, throwing their AI in a disarray
  
• Fixed: Some tests done when looking to grab something left on the ground wouldn't check if the tile is accessible or not