It has been a busy time since the Early Access release on 30th August. I have received so much feedback and suggestions! And so many people have made videos and held streams. You guys are amazing!
Key changes
For the past two weeks, I have been fixing bugs and issues as well as adding most pressing quality of life feature requests. All in all, 14 patches were uploaded.
Among the top feature requests was the construction task priority toggle:
In fact, the construction HUD received a full overhaul to clearly show the progress and used/available/needed materials:
Similarly for deconstruction, which now reclaims some of the used building materials:
Both construction and deconstruction can now be canceled/reversed at any time and will account for progress and materials proportionally.
Other important feature interactions were changed instead; for example, you could previously Shift-click on an auxiliary building button to enable/disable that production:
But this wasn't obvious and required the player to fully read the button's tooltip. So I added a distinct toggle instead, which should be much more intuitive (and also turns green if compatible buildings are in range):
A lot of tooltips received improved information, such as the population summary listing a breakdown both by occupation and by task purpose:
This is still a very high-level overview and lots more work needs to be done to provide feedback on individual villagers.
A bunch of gameplay additions were also included. For example, a proper Mortuary and Graveyard for the deceased villagers:
Higher road tiers have also been requested and are now available, including an easier upgrade (you can also just "build" over old roads and it will upgrade instead):
And let's not forget the permanent speed-up toggle (Tab can still be held to temporarily speed up or pressed to toggle):
Future plans
I believe that a balanced long-term expansion and a more realistic civilian needs system are the most needed goals. Currently towards the end, materials simply stockpile, food is a non-issue, and majority of villagers just stand idle, while happiness skyrockets. Villagers are perfectly happy with their houses being cramped together in a giant patch with the nearest tavern 50 tiles away while food magically teleports to support them. In other words, changes will be coming to address unreasonable village logistics and layouts as well as balance higher population needs and (non-existent) resource usage.
Full changelog
Changes
* Building output items are now in separate stacks by item type (no more clogged up outputs)
* Framerate capped to 120 by default
* Added VSync toggle option, disabled by default
* Add separate building inspection auxiliary building toggle (instead of Shift-click)
* Tree Nursery minor update
* Add unit breakdown by profession to population overview tooltip
* Added toggleable construction (and material delivery) task priority in building inspection
* Clearer construction material info in building inspection
* Construction progress bar in building inspection
* Add Mortuary and Graveyard to bury Villager Corpses
* Shift-building did not set production item causing crashes
* Shift-build allowed placing copies of unique buildings
* Hidden goal display would not show complete goals for claiming
* Glassblowing not unlocking Sand
* New game window tutorial dropdown showing "Yes" when locked
* UI scaling graphics option (auto by default)
* Add Mead
* Construction and deconstruction of buildings and roads can now be canceled/reversed at any time
* Buildings and roads return a portion of materials when deconstructing
* Add Stone Road and Brick Roads unlocked with Roads knowledge
* Add road upgrading to higher "tiers" (including directly building on top)
* Add permanent speed up toggle in HUD and short Tab press to toggle
* Add update summary window when loading an older save
* Remove "display locked features" option
* Various sprite tweaks
Fixes
* Wrong info in some tooltips
* Tutorial arrow stuck between worlds
* Auxiliary building disable toggle not working for non-built buildings
* A couple rare crashes related to items at buildings
* Invalid production item in buildings due to version conflict
* Crash when units start idling after a job too close to the edge of the world (mostly on small maps)
* Buildings not updating values between save versions and potentially corrupting saves
* Catch and remove phantom objects like already-chopped Trees persisting through saves
* Extra objects like flag persisting through transitions
* Music starting to play on entering game when disabled
* Framerate was capped to auto-enabled VSync
* Abrupt window background blinking, smoother window transitions
* Items believing they belong to a phantom building between saves
* Minor tooltip typos
* Forester not planting more than 1 Tree per tile
* Items getting dropped from buildings between saves
* Goal HUD broken for matching goals between worlds
* Remedy attempt for a few crash cases
* Villagers occupying building worker slots thinking they need to observe minimum carrier limit
* Minimum carrier check ignoring idle (i.e. available for delivery tasks) units
* Multiple tasks at once over-assigned over the unit limit
* A delivery task marked as work task
* Buildings that need all auxiliaries (like Beekeeper) allowing auxiliary toggle
* Building inspection auxiliary button clickable area outside expected bounds
* Hide objective display once complete
* Units forever idling when surrounded by blocked tiles (like buildings)
* Workers of similar clumped buildings with multiple auxiliaries (like Carding Mill) would get stuck not doing anything
* Some items ignored for certain uses between reloads
* Forester would not plant different Trees together
* Incorrect sprite lookup for some buildings between saves
* Confirmation window passing through input to windows below
* Buildings keeping incorrect disabled production list (and toggle not working) between saves
* Buildings not keeping items properly stocked, like the Brewery, between saves
* Building not accepting deliveries between saves
* Rare delivery task assignment hang/error with many items for competing tasks
* Toggling production on storage buildings like Warehouse could fulfill construction materials
* Buildings under construction could get stuck if the builder leaves
* Previously-built roads before their time reverted back to dirt roads
* Woodcutters chose closest tree to custom operating range center instead of the building itself
* Windmill sails not spinning
Optimization
* Reduce memory juggling in some hotspots
Rudy
Snowy Ash Games