Sapiens is progressing nicely and the next big content update "Windstorms" will be ready to launch one week from now. The update is available for testing now on the unstable branch if you'd like to get an early look and help find those last few bugs.
Full release notes are coming, but here's an overview of what's new in 0.4:
Windstorms
Every couple of years or so, you can now expect to experience a windstorm severe weather event. These windstorms can damage buildings, blow things away, extinguish fires, and sapiens can get injured by flying debris. Windstorms are a fun new challenge to plan for and overcome.
Composting & Mulching
Soil quality will now degrade slowly if you harvest many times from the same area. To enrich the soil again, you can now mulch using manure or compost. Manure can be found where animals have been, and compost can now be produced from rotting organic matter in compost bins.
Stone chiseling
A number of new rock types have been added to the game, including granite, marble, sandstone (in a variety of colors) and lapis lazuli. Your sapiens can now chisel stone blocks directly from rock, and use these blocks to build walls, or chisel them into tiles for roofs and floors. Soft rocks like sandstone and limestone can be carved using chisels made out of hard rock, but to craft blocks out of the harder rock types, your sapiens are going to need bronze chisels.
Bronze
Tin and copper ore veins are now scattered around the world. Once you've mined some and crafted a kiln and a crucible, you'll be able to research blacksmithing. With bronze your sapiens can smith chisels to carve hard rock, but they can also now craft a range of more durable and powerful tools and weapons.
New roof and floor types
0.4 Adds a number of new roof pieces to help your sapiens build better houses and villages. With new corner pieces, smaller slopes, and triangular floor pieces too, you'll have a lot more design options than before.
Much more
0.4 is packed with many other smaller features, quality of life improvements and bug fixes. The look has been improved with new detailing textures and more realistic shaders. You can now build as high as you like, as the camera height limit rises when you build. You can mine on steeper slopes, and set a maximum quantity to be stored per storage area. There are new options for the cursor reticle and autopause when you're AFK too, amongst many other tweaks and fixes.
If you would like to try it out now, you can switch to the unstable branch:
- Right click on Sapiens in your library on Steam.
- Select Properties->BETAS and then choose "public-beta-unstable" from the pull-down menu.
- You don't need to enter a code, that's it, Steam will then download the latest beta.
Currently the unstable version is PC only, I'll be sending out the Mac version to the unstable branch early next week.
WARNING: If you join the unstable branch and create or load worlds on that branch, it is dangerous to then move back to the default branch and load those saves again. If you do decide to opt in to the unstable branch, you should back up your worlds regularly.
I hope you enjoy the update!
-Dave