Animal and Farm Improvements, Branch Merge and Update #51

Hello everyone!
Time for a new update.

First. Today we're updating the main branch to the latest version before we introduced the new animal system. We will be merging the new system a bit later, once it has become more stable and balanced.

This will be the last update before the holidays, so we would like to take the opportunity to wish you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! :)

Now, to the new content:

Animal Improvements:

We've made many improvements to animals and there are still more coming. We will be tweaking all these new features over the following weeks. So let us know if you have any feedback or find any bugs we may have missed! :)

Navigation:

Animals can finally no longer magically climb cliffs. Not even when fleeing!

Traps:

The old trap system is no longer active for the animal npcs. Animals will now fully interact with traps on their own and will have a chance to trigger them based on the type of trap, your trapping skill and their own cunning. Also, wolf packs can again interact with traps and lose some of their wolves to them.

Food:

Animals are now able to eat food from the ground if they're hungry. So be careful with leaving things on the ground.
Shy animals like hares or deer will generally avoid it unless they're very hungry, but more aggressive animals, like wolves, bears and boars, will usually don't mind you being around. They will not eat your food while you're there, but they will get progressively more angry if you don't leave.

Smell:

Some animals have a good sense of smell and can detect food from afar. This can be a problem, but can also be used to your advantage. At the moment this only works for smellier food items, such as meat, and doesn't work for vegetables. Boars and bears have a particularly good sense of smell, and the latter are specially dangerous since they can even open inventories and eat the food from inside.

Crops:

Some animals are now able to eat from gardens and fields; damaging your plants.
Boars can be quite dangerous for your crops so plan accordingly. At the moment, the best way to deal with them is to have you crops near home so you can hear the boar approaching and attack him before he causes any damage, or alternatively, setting enough traps in the area that he'll eat from them instead and hopefully get killed.

Farming Improvements:

Levee:

This new location improvement is a difficult to build but will protect an area from floods, making it more viable for long term settlement. It slowly degrades over time, so it also requires a bit of maintenance.

Wheat:

A new grain crop that can be bought from the trader. As a crop it's a lot more delicate than rye and consumes and requires a lot of nutrients, while also growing faster and being tastier.
It will produce the most yield if planted during spring on fertile soil.
Its grain can of course be use to make all bread products as well as ale and syrup.

Thresher:

A new, relatively simple tool that makes the process of threshing rye and wheat faster.

Sickle:

A new metal tool that can be used to harvest plants at a faster speed.

Scythe:

Another new metal tool that can be used to harvest plants faster and more efficiently (lower stamina cost). This tool however can only be used in fields and not in gardens.

Metal Hoe:

As the flint hoe, but with much greater durability.

Field Improvements:

Fields now have double the yield, but double the harvest steps.

Garden Improvements:

Garden plots now lose acidity and nutrients a lot slower, making them easier to maintain.
Fertilizer now adds half as much nutrients, making it more practical and usable. It is also easier to make, as excrement and rotten remains now give twice as much value in the compost bin.
There is now also a new special action in gardens that allows you to "reset" the soil; restoring its default nutrients, acidity and hydration, at the cost of damaging its plants.

That's all the main new features for this update.
And here are the patch notes:

Version EA_0.56 and hotfixes since the last Patch Notes:

- Traps now work with the animal npcs.
- Animals can now eat food items.
- Animals can now interact with crops.
- Bears can now interact with inventories.
- Added new farming tools (thresher, sickle, scythe, metal hoe).
- Added Levee improvement.
- Balancing tweaks to garden plots and fields.
- Added wheat and all of its derivatives.
- Tweaked the sanctuary values of some furniture and improvements.
- Bears will more frequently visit regions that have in-season berries.
- Animals spawning rates have been made slower.
- Hunting Spear now requires a metal spear before it can be researched.
- Fixed a bug which allowed players to skate on Frozen Water without Skates.
- Fixed a bug which caused medium or high snow to affect the Skate action.
- Being tired no longer hides the Southern Rapids dive into Green Falls action.
- Boiling durability is now hidden if its 0.
- Pond now has proper Winter art.
- Cutting down large trees now costs a bit more stamina.
- Pyre now burns through its fuel faster than before.
- Fixed a bug where saving and loading a game while having items in inventory blueprints such as Crucible would move items between slots or mess with their durabiities and type.
- Sledges can now be repaired using twine.
- Fixed a bug which prevented Springberries and Billberries from being placeable in Unsealed Fermentation Bin.
- Removed the Partridge Enchantment Blueprint from Duck Carcass.

- It is no longer possible to move items and liquids in and out of sealed Fermentation bins.
- Animals now get tired a bit faster when running away from the player.
- Frost Shrine now melts on temperatures above 0.
- Removed enchantment recipe from skinned squirrels.
- Fixed a bug which prevented metal skinning knife from being used in blueprints requiring a cutting tool.
- Fixed the art for Hare Urge.
- Fixed a glitch where a rustic barrel would permanently stay heated up.
- Dry needles are now considered bedding material and improvised bed can be made from them.
- Campfire, Rain, Frostleaf and Garlic now offer some mosquito protection.
- Fixed some typos and incorrect texts.
- Added description for Cattail Fluff.
- Ongoing saves which started outside of River Clearing should no longer get stuck when you enter River Clearing.
- Infection statuses are now visible and pinable inside the Internal Status Page.
- Rustic Barrels can no longer hold liquids and solids at the same time.
- Fixed a bug where the will o' wisp even would appear when you entered the river clearing if you had started from a different location.
- Mortar and Pestle can now crush edible acorns into flour.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the death of bears to affect other animals.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the animals (including the bear) not to die properly when poisoned.
- Fixed a bug that was causing the wolf to be too aggressive.
- Nesting Box can now be picked up and placed down. (if your partridge are not laying eggs, trying picking the box up and placing it again)
- New areas now have proper icons for the Parchment Map.
- Fixed a bug where carcasses would get eaten by wolves from the player's hands.
- Ducks and Partridges eaten by predators no longer drop hooks and needles but bone pieces instead.
- Hardtack now lasts a lot longer before spoiling
- Intermediate hunting now unlocks when both basic hunting and basic survival are completed.
- Dried nettle leaves now have a trade value.
- Fixed the weight of unfired storage pot and cauldron.
- Frost Shrine Blueprint now properly spends the water used.
- Fixed an issue where animals couldn't be attacked.
- Fixed a bug which caused nightvision to persist after moon blessing.
- Warming up by the Furnace no longer triggers fire spirit Summoning.
- Updated Chinese translation.
- Fixed duplicate texts in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
- Hopefully fixed an issue with starting older save files on modded version of the games.
- Wolves will now get angry if you spend too much time in an area with them.
- Added starting resources to new starting locations.
- Sharpened stone can now be made in the Dark.
- Squirrel Carcass can no longer be eaten or cooked it needs to be butchered first.
- Fixed a bug which allowed the player to butcher the piglet carcass more than once.
- Fixed a combat window bug that would get the game stuck.

That's all for now.
See you all in 2026!

Reminder: All fixes and new content are added to the public beta branch first.
If you want to access them you can find the instructions on the link below. Be warned though, things are less stable there and are likely to undergo balance changes quite frequently! :)
https://steamcommunity.com/app/2868860/discussions/0/600774299444324511/