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.