The latest patch in publicbeta is all about better mod support. The most obvious change is when you start a new game you can now browse and select any Story from the Workshop (including those you haven't downloaded yet). You can download them in-game, and also Like them if you want. You can sort by Highest Rated, Trending, or Newest:
The second big change is I've split them into two types: Stories and Mods. You can only select one Story, but you can have multiple Mods applied to it. The idea is Mods would be things like "a new gun" or maybe "a new bit of What's Up dialog" which could be applied to any Story. Stories would be custom maps with their own narrative and quests, or variations on Sandbox mode:
Once you're playing a game you can also add more Mods if you want:
Perhaps more importantly, I've added support for new weapon and clothing models, which I'm demonstrating with a couple of small Mods, the Magnum and the Trilby Hat mod:
I'll write a couple of guides for mod-makes who want to do that soon! Lastly I've also changed the structure a bit so either mods or stories can be dependent on each other, meaning if you download one it can force another to be downloaded as well if it's dependent on it. I'll update the guides in the coming days.
I think having done this I've gotten more or less to the end of the Workshop/Editor work that I wanted to do for the time being. There might be a few bug fixes and tweaks to the mod stuff here and there, but I'll be aiming to get back to working on the game itself. I'll be interested to see what new things people are capable of making with the tools now! I see there are a few adaptations of Sandbox mode that have become quite popular already, such as The New Z World.
Here's the full changelist:
- Added support for new weapon and clothing mods
- View all workshop items, and download them, from the story selection menu
- Split workshop items into two types, Stories and Mods. You can only select one story, but multiple mods.
- Stories or mods can be dependent on each other, so you don't have to make a copy of Sandbox to make one small change to it, you can just make it a dependency
Meanwhile, I've moved v108 from publicbeta to the main game.
What's this publicbeta thing?
v109 will be in the "publicbeta" branch for a while, before pushing it to the main game. If you want to try the latest features as they come out (and help test them!) it's a good idea to start using this branch. But keep in mind:
- Because it's the bleeding edge it could be less stable
- If you want to be able to play online co-op with someone you'll need to be on the same version as them
- If you go back from the "publicbeta" branch to the main branch you may not be able to load savegames created on "publicbeta".
To use publicbeta, just right-click on Survivalist: Invisible Strain in your Steam library and go to Properties, then Betas and in the drop-down select "publicbeta".