The vacation is over and the update is ready. This release marks the addition of the thing that has long been on my radar. I'm talking about ingame encyclopedia. A lot of people ask questions about this and that part of game, or end up confused or even wrong, and before there was no place they could receive the basic information apart from my answers and Steam discussions. Since I'm not all that good at keeping details in my head, some of the answers had me consulting the code and that took valuable time. Don't stop asking questions and giving feedback since that makes me think hard about the game. But now you can also read the explanations and intent behind some of the design. I've intentionally left off anything related to the mechanics and sources of actual evolution improvements (apart from the habitat growths and brain probe), this information is best discovered on your own. I think I've covered all the topics but there might be something I missed. Side note: you can actually write decent code even if there are people drinking, chatting and watching movies around you if you use brown noise and music combo to keep focus. Small kids are harder to ignore but thankfully, there was only one.
After I finished working on the encyclopedia I've had some time left so I went ahead and added one of the requested features into the game: now you can store hosts in your habitat and return to them when needed. For that you must evolve and build a preservator growth. The amount of hosts that can be preserved with one of these is calculated from the level and assimilated hosts gain benefits to starting control value. That leaves only one question: how would you gain access to that improvement? Well, that's easy, just find a --REDACTED-- with --REDACTED-- somewhere in the --REDACTED--. Anyway, have fun.
Changes:
- Encyclopedia articles and UI
- Preservator improvement and habitat growth
- Additional visibility code to better draw walls when the player is close to them
- More starting control on assimilated hosts after invasion
Fixes:
- Fix for brain probe action when attached to host
- Loading AI mask bug fix