Hi all!
I'm stoked to release the Foundations Update beta to the development branch starting right now! Foundations brings a ton of new content and QOL to the game: easier placement and upgrading, bosses, new power and heat distribution gameplay, new map elements to explore, a whole new tier of structures and ships to play with, new art, new artifacts, performance improvements and much more.
If you'd like to help playtest the beta before release at the start of April, just switch to the development branch in Steam. Beta testing is crucial to make for a stable release and your support is greatly appreciated.
NOTE IT WILL BE BUGGY AND UNSTABLE IF YOU'RE IN THE BETA! Please file bug reports in the forums or discord.
Here are the full patch notes for the Foundations Update:
0.20.0.0 Patch Notes
New Content
- Added tier 3 Assemblers, Ship Assemblers, Printers
- Tier 2 and 3 production buildings now have an inherent production bonus (5% at T2, 10% at T3)
- Added tier 3 Station Core, which also generates power and dissipates heat
- Added tier 3 Inserters and Cargo Drones
- Inserters now load on the Y axis instead of Z, it looks cooler
- Added tier 3 connectors and mass drivers
- Added Connector Overdriver Artifact, which will speed up all connected connectors on a station!
- Organic Compounds no longer cost organic compounds to craft
- Greenhouses now cost Organic Compounds to craft
- Solar Panels placed near stars will now operate at triple capacity
- Power and heat values have been tweaked for many structures across the board
- Duplicators now generate 6 signal
- Asteroid tiles are normalized so they all take up a circular radius, meaning you can copy and paste the same mining station across all of them
- Changed how the fleet moves around you. Combat units will try to stay slightly ahead of you as you explore. Knights will try to be in front in particular.
Quality of Life
- You can now directly swap structures by placing them directly on other valid structures. For example, you can hold a t3 connector in your hand, and click to place it over an existing T1 or T2 connector, and the existing connector will be swapped with the t3 in place (assuming you have construction bots available).
- Added the upgrade tool to the new quick controls UI menu near the minimap, which will allow players to mass upgrade/swap structures/inserters/cargo drones on the map
- Players can also now rotate items on the map by placing the same item on top of it in a different orientation
- Added several new filter options to the game. You can now filter in broad categories, or specific items, as well as all/none. A whole new UI panel has been added for this
- All the quick controls have been packed into hideable button menus near the minimap, and redundant toggles have been removed
- Mass Drivers (and Power Distributors) now retain their relative targets in blueprints, so you don't have to reset their targets after placing a new blueprint!
Power Distribution
- Added T1 and T2 power distributors to the game
- Power Distributors can send excess power to another target power distributor in any direction (similar to mass drivers)
- Removed T1 power transmitters from the game
- Increased max Dyson Power Transmission to 10000000kW
Heat
- Added heat transmitters to the game, which will transmit heat to a heat receiver in a line (similar to the old power transmitters, only now with heat)
- Added the Hydro Power Radiator to the game, which dissipates a huge amount of heat when given ice, and generates 2kW of power per 1 degree cooled
Exploration
- Added Ancient Guardian Boss
- Enemies can now hold their own fleets
- Added multi-weapon support to any unit
- Added Antimatter Nexus to the map, which, when activated, grants huge bonus power to nearby antimatter power stations
- More bosses and helpful megastructures are planned for this content cycle...
Art
- Revamped models for all enemies, enemy structures, many projectiles, including the player plasma bolt
- Updates materials and animations for several models
Performance and Infrastructure
- Split up the Station Grid calculation steps over 8 updates, which should greatly reduce CPU load for larger factories
- Most large map items have had their grid tiles calculated in a different way, which should greatly reduce the save file size
- Massive refactors have continued to support fixed timestep and deterministic system logic to prepare for multiplayer
- Implemented a whole new test case framework to aid with testing determinism in particular to prepare for multiplayer
- Updated to Unity 6
- Updated Entities packages to latest
There have been many more small improvements and bug fixes scattered about in addition to these broad patch notes.
Localization will happen towards the end of beta when we iron out the new strings.
Thanks to everyone who tests out the development branch. I couldn't make Final Factory without your ongoing support.
See you in the factory!
/Slims
Just a reminder: if you're enjoying Final Factory, steam reviews help a bunch!