Dev Log #56 :: Farming & Harming Update

Howdy Folks!

A huge thanks for all the great feedback on Update 23. It’s great to hear what you enjoy and what you don’t. I’ve been hard at work tweaking some existing content, and creating the next content update, called the Farming & Harming update.

Farming

The crop management interface is getting a face-lift. The new design should make managing crops easier and more clear.

Crops will now require seeds in order to be planted. Seeds can be acquired from harvesting wild plants and planted crops. POI locations will now offer a plant discovery as well as some seeds so that you can start planting those new crops.

Crop yield is now affected by colonist botanist level. A higher level botanist is able to gather more out of the grown plant than an inexperienced botanist. While harvested crops guarantee that seed is returned, a higher level botanist will have a higher chance of getting multiple seeds that are needed to expand farms.

Crop growth speed is affected by fertilizer, delivered and applied by a botanist after a crop is planted. Fertilizer can be set after a crop is selected, and is consumed per growth cycle.

Additional objects/machines are being designed for fertilizer crafting and new storage options for seeds and crop items.

Crop withering and crop disease mechanics are also in development.

Harming

A feature that has been long requested and on my to-do list for even longer is finally coming. Random events, that are both positive and negative, are under development.

Some of the random events currently being developed for inclusion are cave ins, crop disease, colonist mood changes and more.

Cave ins can occur in areas that are not near structural support such as walls, natural walls or flooring. Flooring is currently considered structural to avoid cave-ins within your facility area. This may, however, change.

Colonists may be affected at random with either mood boosts or depression based on various factors.

Each type of random event requires several conditions in order for it to occur. Some events won’t start until a preset amount of days have passed. Events also have a reset time so that they don’t occur too often. I’ll be looking for feedback during the Test Build phase to help balance the frequency of these events.

Additional events will be added in future updates.

Balancing

Various tweaks to resources and production are in development to improve game progression.

The updated power system that was added in Update 23 is being tweaked so that batteries and coal generators are a bit less overpowered.

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Thanks again for all the great feedback. Let me know what you think of the content in development.

Howdy Folks!

It’s patch time again. Patch update 23.2 includes a few fixes and some improvements. Thanks for the great feedback on Update 23. It’s always good to hear what you like and what you don’t. Development has started on the next content update and more information will be available in the next Developer Log.

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Release Notes

  • Added Cancel All button to bottom of construction queue
  • Added action information to object info windows. Action information will show if a colonist is coming to perform or currently performing an action on this object.
  • Vehicle auto explore will now actively find and go to un-scanned tiles in it’s vision range
  • Improved vehicle auto explore behavior. Auto exploration will now check several unexplored bordering tiles closest to the vehicle and go to a close tile that is also closest to the primary facility. This should reduce aimless wandering.
  • Fixed: Incorrect description on Fridge
  • Fixed: Job level does not increment in colonist info window when gaining enough experience for a new level without closing and reopening to the info window
  • Fixed: Game becomes unresponsive if selecting an object while it’s being deconstructed in certain situations
  • Fixed: Enable/Disable button showing on harvest-able crops
  • Fixed: Missing language strings

Howdy Folks!

Thanks for the amazing feedback on the New Beginnings Update. More content in development, but wanted to address a few reported issues.

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Release Notes

  • Expedition story positive/negative success chance based on attribute/job level is now capped to 25%
  • Expedition story success chance now gains a +5% bonus if colonist stress is %5 or less
  • Lowered athletics attribute requirement for a certain POI expedition
  • Expeditions in expedition list now show action description when moving
  • Improved vehicle auto explore logic. Auto exploration will now prefer exploring tiles closer to the facility first. Further improvements to this logic are being worked on.
  • Fixed: Research Points total not showing correctly on research screen after loading a save game in certain situations
  • Fixed: Expedition story actions success chance showing less than 1% chance if less than 10% chance
  • Fixed: Robot out of power icon shows near elevator when robot is on an expedition

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