1.4 "Extinction" Patch Notes :etmantis:
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Hey! Looks like it's time for a new update! The theme on this update is Extinction. To this end, some encouraging journal entries concerning death and extinction have been added,
as well as a new Fossils mechanic that can create permanent beneficial marks on your work when a long-lived species goes extinct. Additionally, there have been quite a number
of polish updates and a few balance adjustments.
NEW MAJOR FEATURE: Fossils
Fossils are a new type of structure that appears underground when long-lived (7000/14000/28000 age respectively) species go extinct. Fossils act as a minor progression piece of the world,
and serve as memoirs to successful species.
- Depending on the species age when it goes extinct, either a Minor, Major, or Grand Fossil is created, which are visually distinct.
- Fossils slowly emit nutrient around themselves, with more depending on the tier.
- Clicking on a fossil causes it to emit nutrient around itself, but also cracks it. Pace yourself! If you crack the fossil too often, it will break and be deleted.
- However, breaking a fossil will immediately give you a large amount of interventions.
THE NEW:
- added new journal entry Death
- added new journal entry Extinction
- if you want to reset your journal, you can press Control+Alt+C to use the debug command to do so. Be warned: it will happen instantly and there is no recorvery.
> later on there will be a built-in option for resets.
- Snails can now climb tallstalk fungi (such as mushrooms), it is now a unique snail behavior that they will climb tall fungi as they feed on them, for food and safety.
- Interventions now have a price multiplier, when used, an intervention will dramatically increase in cost and then decay back to its previous price. In return, most have been made a bit cheaper.
- added a special Detailed Nutrient Metrics window to help diagonose your world's health: see your nutrient capacity, and how much of it is locked away in raw nutrient / dead fungus / dead bug / biomass!
REBALANCING:
- water osmosis has been adjusted: it now occurs more slowly, causing wet surface soil to retain moisture longer after rain (additionally improving performance)
- initial soil nutrient content has been adjusted dramatically: it now initially forms in striations and bands instead of evenly distributed.
- Random Immigrations are reduced
- Player Immigrations now occur on-screen instead of in a random place on the map
- Random Event Immigrations still occur randomly across the map, but random bug immigrations now prefer to drop onto areas with fungi. This should hopefully decrease the amount of bugs that immigrate and then go extinct before having any meaningful interactions with the world. It is still advised that you go find your new bug and place it in a position you think it will do best in. (or WORST in, if you'd rather it just be gone)
- Random Bug and Fungi Immigrations will preferentially pick species that are not currently available on the map.
- Living Biomass now additionally counts towards the Nutrient total, just like stray nutrient and dead biomass, which can slow nutrient fall rate.
- Wind Comb has had its "deeproot" gene removed (sorry, windcomb!)
- Spores now spend more time in the air before falling
- Nutrient now leeches upwards at a higher rate (but still slowly). Nutrient only leeches upwards towards wet soil (>25% wetness).
- the Intervention cap has been raised from 30 to 50
- the Passive Intervention Rate has been halved
VISUALS:
- moisture and nutrient display has been slightly reworked. The new appearance is more visually appealing, as well as more effective at communicating information.
- some feedback animations have been added to a few animations (such as an effect when picking up a bug or spore)
- some other sprites have been improved or reworked: Spiderwebs, Yellow Mold, Green Mold, Wind Comb, Roach, Cordyceps
- new particle effect on meteors
- spores now "fade in" when spawned, and have a subpixel floating effect
- most fungi have been given simple "idle animation" additions, much like the only the mushrooms have had for a while.
- a minor text display to show changes in interventions
AUDIO:
- some new sound effects have been added to various actions
- you can now hear bug chirping ambiance, which increases in volume based on the quantity of bugs present on screen. Fun fact: I personally recorded this audio.
BUGFIXING
- fixed a visual issue where the sprites for moisture were not probably changing when a tile changed from being surface to non-surface
- the issue where sometimes when you clicked on an entity to pick it up and it wouldn't work should now be fixed
- The steam workshop uploader should work now (previously you had to roll back to 1.2 to have a working version)
Thank you for playing everyone! If you haven't already, please consider leaving a review and checking out the workshop for other Modules! (and make sure to let any module creators know if you like their module!)
(and maybe follow my Twitter)
