Hello everyone!
We want to thank you for the great feedback shared since Update 5 hit the experimental branch two weeks ago. Badwater is a huge change that was bound to require some tweaks, and today, we’ve got the first batch ready. Please let us know what you think!
Visuals
You’ve made it clear that the colors of badwater and extract should change. We’re happy to oblige.
- Toned down the hue of badwater to make it look
less like lavamore like the toxic waste it is. - Changed the color of extract to red so that it better corresponds with badwater’s.
Water physics
You asked for more ways to control how the pollution spreads, so from now on, Dams, Levees, and Floodgates stop the ground’s contamination. This change also applies to irrigation, though, so plan carefully.
- Dams, Levees, and Floodgates now prevent irrigation and contamination spread.
Extract
While badwater does well as a new threat, its positive side has been lacking. We sought a way to improve that, and we’ve found bots to be a good choice.
- New building: Grease Factory (2000 SP; Gear x30, Treated Plank x20, Metal Block x10; 2 workers; Iron Teeth-only). Boasting Danny Zuko’s seal approval, this building turns extract into a new, oily resource.
- New good: Grease (Extract x1, Canola Oil x1 gives Grease x2). Stored in tanks and consumed by Iron Teeth bots, grease increases their condition by 1.
- New good: Punch Cards (Paper x2, Plank x1 gives Punch Card x2; Folktails-only). Containing more precise instructions, punch cards are an extra paper sink and a new, earlier boost to Folktails’ bots. Produced at Printing Press (which is now a Folktails-exclusive building, remember?) and stored in warehouses, cards are consumed by Folktails’ bots to increase their condition by 1.
- Updated recipe: Catalyst (Maple Syrup x1, Extract x1 gives Catalyst x3; Folktails-only). With extract added to its recipe, we’re making catalyst the second, more advanced boost available to Folktails’ bots.
- The maximum condition achievable by bots is now 2. A bot with access to both faction-specific boosts enjoys +80% movement speed and +120% working speed.
Balance
In light of Update 5 changes, we’re tweaking the game’s balance and difficulty levels.
- Small Windmill: maximum power output is now 150, down from 200.
- Large Windmill: maximum power output is now 300, down from 400.
- Wheat flour recipe: now takes 0.5h to complete, down from 0.78h.
- Cattail flour recipe: now takes 0.25h to complete, down from 0.66h.
- Bread recipe: now takes 1h to complete, up from 0.42h.
- Maple pastry recipe: now takes 1.5h to complete, up from 0.55h.
- At hard difficulty preset, it now only takes a single guaranteed drought cycle before the game starts randomizing your plight between droughts and badtides.
Misc.
- Updated the Diorama map to remove a visual glitch causing water to clip through the terrain.
- Updated icons for several water- and badwater-related buildings, as well as the icon for the injured beavers.
- Updated descriptions of difficulty levels to mention badtides.
- Updated the welcome screen so that it no longer refers to the ancient alpha, beta, and demo times.
- When selecting a good in a storage building’s panel or via the storage overlay, its extended tooltip - the same as the one used in the top bar - is now used.
Bug fixes
- Fixed a crash caused by using the layer hiding tool (again).
- The “It’s dying” progress bar is no longer displayed for partially collected crops.
- Fixed the map editor’s “Hide resources” icon behaving incorrectly.
- Fixed the missing injury chance in Dirt Excavators and the incorrect injury chance in Explosive Factories.
- Fixed the “Empty storage” status icon being displayed under range lines.
- The units’ movement speed bonus is now correctly displayed.
- Fixed a bug with goods’ icons on barrels sometimes having the wrong color.
- Fixed a bug with water pumps partially disappearing while in preview mode.
- Fixed a bug with Water and Badwater Sources setting the contamination of the water tiles above them to 0% and 100%, respectively.
- Fixed numerical input fields crashing the game when trying to use certain character combos.
- Beavers now only become contaminated right after finishing their current task. Illness is an illness, but finishing work takes priority.