Hi everyone,
A small and new update (v0.4.078) is out which includes some new weapons, an upgrade of the pathfinding system, a question and some fixes & adjustments.
I have to say, we have some really hot days here now and I hope you have a nice and relaxing summer these weeks too.
New Weapons
To make the game a little more interesting, I have added a few new weapons beside, that have a similar functionality like the already existing weapons.
Baseball Bats (Barbed Wire & Metal)
At the suggestion of players, there are now 2 baseball bats in the game, which are the following:
- Baseball Bat (Barbed Wire) Because of the barbed wire, this bat is also dealing bleeding damage and deals slightly more damage than the basic axe.
- Baseball Bat (Metal) This bat is similar to the wooden bat and can be seen as a modern version of it, which also deals no bleeding damage. (perfect for beating colonists or animals immobilized)
Note:
The bats will be unlocked with the 'steel weapons' and 'modern weapons' technology
Modern Axe
The modern axe is a modern version of the basic axe and differs mainly in its look to the modern sword. It deals a little bit less damage than the modern sword, but is also cheaper to craft. Additionally, they can also be equipped by enemies, wanderers and traders, which adds some variety to these events.
Note:
The modern axe will be unlocked with the 'modern weapons' technology
Non-Lethal Shotgun
The non-lethal shotgun is the first firearm in the game, which deals no bleeding damage when the projectile hits a colonist or an animal. This weapon can be used to immobilize colonists in mental breakdowns or to immobilize animals which you want to lock in an animal cage. Even though the name says non-lethal, your colonists can still kill / execute immobilized beings through a direct command or through jobs like hunting.
Note:
The non-lethal shotgun will be unlocked with the 'machine guns' technology
Question about 2-Handed Weapons
A little bit ago I got the suggestion to add 2-handed melee weapons to the game - and because there are multiple ways to add that functionality I wanted to ask you what you think would be the best way.
1)
Adding new weapons like a 2-handed sword and similar stuff which can only be used 2-handed (so no way to equip a shield in addition)
2)
To upgrade the default melee weapon functionality so that when you have no shield equipped, the weapon is automatically used with both hands (and another combat animation).
To hold a weapon 2-handed will of course deal more damage and will probably also impact the 2 blocks beside the target, which means you can hit multiple enemies at once.
You can always write what you think in the discussion to this post or on my discord server.
Updated Pathfinding
A really noticeable problem in the game was a sometimes incorrect calculation of the pathfinding algorithm, which led to the situation that colonists have avoided doors. This should be fixed now and your colonists should choose a far more accurate path - also on larger distances.
To be a bit more technical here, the main problem was the higher navigation layer system (working on a 4x4 grid on 40 meter distance to target position) in connection with doors, because they are seen as separated chunks / nodes (that is required to forbid pets or neutral colonists to cross a door).
As can be seen in the image below, this let the algorithm (which goes from node to node) think, that the path around the doors (yellow) is shorter than the path through the doors (red).
While I experimented here a time around (to also find a performance friendly way), I came to the solution to no longer count directly by nodes, but by the 4x4 bounds (with a bit more complicated second search algorithm) which should fix that problem in a smooth way.
If you still find or see a very weird path, then please let me know :) Sometimes there can be a special case which I have not seen / encountered in my testing.
Updated Demo
In addition, I have finally updated the demo version of the game, because the last update was in November 2023 and still had some bugs in it which I have fixed only for the alpha version.
Patch Notes
Last but not least, I have here a short list with all relevant patch notes:
- added missing fire update translations (ch, jp, fr)
- upgraded and improved path finding algorithm
- added new weapon (baseball bat (barbed wire))
- added new weapon (baseball bat (metal))
- added new weapon (modern axe)
- added new weapon (non-lethal shotgun)
- fixed that fires were not extinguished on client in online coop
- decreased mine time of blocks by 15% (jobs need to be placed again)
- insects nests produce more resources based on their level now
- fixed basic axe blood effect not shown
- increased check time for target behind obstacle slightly
- updated demo
- some smaller fixes
I hope you all have an awesome day and will enjoy the update,
Cheers!