Hello everyone!
The experimental branch is back today with some shiny new stuff. It is not Update 2 – you’ll find a status update on that at the bottom of this post. But today, we’re introducing two new maps, a brand new population panel with job prioritization, a day/night visual overhaul, and more!
Patch notes: 2022-03-03 (Experimental)
If you need a refresher on how to play Experimental Branch, check this topic.
New day/night visuals
We’ve made a series of tweaks to the lighting to diversify how the game looks depending on the time of day, whether the drought is in progress, etc.
- Added dawn and dusk to the day/night cycle, each with unique lighting effects.
- Adjusted the lighting’s colors and intensity across the day.
- Added variable length to in-game shadows – it changes depending on the time of day.
- Added unique fog effects to droughts and temperate seasons, most visible during dusk and dawn.
- Updated the skybox.
Population panel and job priorities
Per popular request, we’ve added a panel that lists all beavers and buildings in one place (in five tabs). This allows you to control the colony, and that includes setting the newly added job priorities! You can browse global or, which probably makes more sense, district-based lists.
- Added population panel to the game. It contains data split into five tabs: Characters, Housing, Workplaces, Storage, and Power.
- Clicking an object on the list shows its location in the game. Each tab contains information about currently active status effects such as “Building paused”.
- Using the panel you can pause buildings, change their recipes, mark the building as a priority for the haulers etc. Most importantly, you can pick a job priority for the building.
- Added job prioritization. Similarly to building prioritization, there are five priority levels, which affect where your beavers go to work first.
- Added a new population panel button in the upper left corner. While the panel is open, the game is paused.
- Updated the upper left panel to contain only key information such as population count.
New map: Beaverome (192x192)
Beaverome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will be your settlement here. This brand new map challenges you to follow the steps of the beaver pioneers who transformed seven water-filled craters into the heart of the modern beaver civilization.
- Beaverome (192x192) is now a part of the built-in map roster.
- With this map, we’re trying a more challenge-like approach. The available areas are narrow and the slopes steep, and it’s not that easy to find a strong water current – but hey, at least there’s enough to drink for everyone, right?
New(-ish) map: Helix Mountain (256x256)
The map co-created with the community and used in our city-building contest turned out to be so popular we wanted it permanently in the game! To ensure smooth gameplay, however, we made a series of changes to the map, including moving the mountain.
- Helix Mountain (256x256) is now a part of the built-in map roster.
- The map underwent significant changes, including moving the mountain closer to the map’s center. The mountain is also larger, which makes creating your settlements a bit harder, as the water takes longer to flow down.
Balance changes
We have realized that the number of gears needed to grow your colony is too dam high.
- Wood Workshop: Gears cost reduced from 50 to 40.
- Mud Bath: Gears cost reduced from 50 to 40.
- Mine: Gears cost reduced from 500 to 350.
- Efficient Mine: Gears cost reduced from 600 to 450.
Miscellaneous
- Windmill, Large Windmill: Shafts can be connected from any side now.
- Resources have received updated panels to better communicate what, when, and how they yield.
- Warehouse inventory panel is now available during the construction stage, so you can micro your warehouses right after placing them!
Optimization
All models in the game have had their models updated to reduce the number of polygons and improve the game’s performance.
Bug fixes
- Beehives no longer work underwater.
- Crops affected by the Beehive are now correctly highlighted.
- Fixed the torches not lighting up in the Temple.
- Fixed a bug with water becoming too bright at the deepest levels.
- Underwater buildings and plants are now correctly highlighted when selected.
- Fixed the collider in Mechanical Water Pump.
- Fixed a bug that allowed building a Mine in the middle of two adjacent Underground Ruins.
- Fixed a bug that prevented beavers from using books directly from the Printing Press.
- Fixed a bug with stock counts in the district distribution panel calculated differently than in the top panel.
- Fixed a bug that allowed Farmers, Gatherers, Lumberjacks and Tappers to pick up goods not belonging to their workplace.
- Fixed a visual bug where Smelter’s worker would not sit in the door when there was nothing to do.
- Fixed the camera switching places when the game was paused or unpaused with a beaver selected inside the building. Uh-oh.
- Fixed a bug where moving a cursor slooowly over buttons broke their highlighting and the ability to click them.
- Fixed a bug with attractions not accounting for Power Efficiency.
- Fixed a bug with hot single beavers in your area not pairing with each other in Lodges.
- Fixed a bug forcing children to grow up only in the morning.
Where’s my Update 2?
It is coming but we’d like to ask you for your patience. This year’s beginning has been very busy for us because Mechanistry is growing. Last month, we were joined by a new game designer, Adrian. As of March, the team also includes assistant Olga, 2D artist Tomek, and 3D artist Bartek – and a few more new faces are coming. Please give them all a warm welcome, for example on our Discord.
We’re still a small indie company, though. The hiring process is one of the reasons why we’re having a smaller patch today, and Update 2 needs more time in the oven. Another is that we want to make that “futuristic” feature really cool. This resulted in expanding its scope beyond what we originally planned – which we can only do because the studio is growing.
We’ll let you know as soon as we can share more details. For now, we hope you’ll enjoy what we’ve just pushed to the experimental branch. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
~Team Timberborn, Now Chonkier Than Ever