Greetings medievalists!
You know what we never introduced, since the game launched in Early Access? New map type. Time to change that. Say hi to Marshes.
What makes a marsh different from other map types (valley, hillside and mountain) is that their terrain will be covered with 50% of shallow water, and limestone and metal will not be present throughout that land. This map type is considered a bit challenging because digging cellars/basements will be tricky, since water could easily fill them (and we mentioned that production buildings stop working in shallow water).
We also mentioned that the majority of trees and plants will not be able to grow in shallow water, so let’s talk about the ones that can: New flora and fauna is coming in the next update!
White willow is a new tree that will be present on all of the map types, but marshland will have the majority of these trees. And yes, you will be able to cultivate them on water voxels, but just on the ones with shallow depth.
Reeds are a plant similar to tall grass in a sense that harvesting it will provide you with hay. Like white willow, they’ll be on all map types, but they’ll be most common on marshes. You will not be able to cultivate reed, but they will spawn organically (as the tall grass does) at random, in shallow waters.
Water voles are a semi-aquatic rodent. They are often informally called the ‘water rat’ and while they look like rats, they will provide you with a solid amount of meat and leather if you decide to hunt them, among other things.
Mallard is a medium-sized waterfowl species that is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks. It will be exclusive to the marsh map type and will be idle in water, regardless of its depth.
It’s worth mentioning that almost every new map created after the Update 10 launches will be generated with some water source like a river, pond or lake. The majority of water sources will be destroyable by building dirt voxels in their place. However, those sources located at the edge of the map will persevere due to them being located in the forbidden zone where you can’t build. Old map saves will not have water magically appear on them, but once the update goes live we’ll post a guide on how you can integrate water there. More on that when Update 10 is officially released.
There are some challenges that we are currently facing with these new features, hence why we don’t have a date for the update yet. This was not unexpected, but it is worth talking about. Water is a big undertaking for us and as such, we want to set proper logistics that we can expand down the road.
In the next MMT we’ll talk about these current issues. Maybe then we’ll have a date for the Update #10, or at least for the experimental branch Update. It’s gonna stay there for a couple of weeks until the majority of bugs are fixed and we feel confident in its release. Until then,
Stay medieval
Foxy Voxel