Greetings fellow Dwarves! Today we are super excited to announce Orebound's latest update: The World and Gameplay Update.
This is a very large, exciting update that has improved many aspects of the game. There's multiple changes coming in this new update that improve multiple systems inside the game. We will write a full detailed description of what's been changed, but below is a nice summary:
A new dynamic material system for the entire game that vastly improves how the world renders.
Multiple Biome overhauls, new snow forest, new jungle, new woodlands, new materials for rocks and trees.
Major lighting changes, caves are now much darker but lights have been boosted massively to light up underground. Night lighting has also been overhauled.
Minecart systems overhaul. Huge changes here, mine carts can now be put into groups, filtered and split or merged.
Market improvements. The market now provides every item to purchase in the game as you unlock them. Also a brand new model.
NPC head tracking system.
An additional 9 minute sound track.
Refreshed main menu.
Lore in the citadel to read.
Hunger Re-balance
Notification Improvements
With the changes made in this update, we hope both returning and new players will be able to enjoy the new views as they climb the tallest peaks, or explore to the darkest depths!
If you love Orebound and want to share your ideas, builds or feature requests, join our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/tRt7KDak
Landscape Material System Overhaul
Behind the scenes, we've been working hard to ensure the world of Orebound is immersive and exciting to play. One way we have improved the landscape is through new triplanar technique upgrades. These changes help make the landscape more varied and appealing while traversing the world.
Previously, our smaller-scale materials system worked decently for the first few updates of the game, but as we continue to build upon the expansive world of Orebound, we needed a stronger and improved system for our materials. One of the biggest issues we have with Orebound is getting a complex procedurally generated landscape to texture properly with multiple layers and multiple depths or angles.
We worked tirelessly to create our new system that not only has improved graphics for current biomes, but will also allow us to create more distinct cave layers and biomes in the future. Our new system uses pretty complex math to determine which material should be shown, which helps bring more depth and structure to the environment around you, particularly for mountains and cave entrances. You’ll start to see more improvements in the future for below ground now that our environment generation is maturing into a much nicer state.
Environment Improvements - Biome Overhauls
We have continued our efforts from previous updates to improve the environment presented in the Orebound by improving individual biomes. For some time, most of the biomes did not feel completely unique, which took away from the overall experience. Most biomes have seen both material and item additions. For example, snow mountains and snow areas have been overhauled and divided into two biomes and the mountains are now split between lower and upper. Each of which now contain their own models and details.
Snow forests have also been improved, with new snow pine trees, snowy grass and new material outlines, making traversing the snowy lands more exciting for players visually.
The rocky biome now has different rocks to make the biome more unique, including bigger boulders which may take longer to destroy, but give a high stone return.
The Jungle has now been completely redesigned with new plants and consumables and looks vastly better than before.
These changes mean that not only will the world be more immersive for new or returning players, but will allow for more distinct biomes to be added in the future.
Lighting
One major change we have made is the lighting in the caves. We became aware of how bright the caves previously were, which took away the mystery or the adventurous elements of looking for precious ores, and made the torches redundant. Many players asked for the caves to be darker and on our playtests we actually really enjoy playing this way.
We have adjusted the caves’ lighting to make the experience more realistic, by decreasing the brightness of the caves. This now means that torches are now essential when diving deeper into the mines as you may not be able to see what lies ahead.
We have increased the lighting power of all lights so people have plenty of light range whilst exploring the dark. All in all they just needed a lot of balance to get the dark/light gameplay correct.
However, they are too bright for most base building uses so to counter this we have given players the ability to turn lights up or down in intensity. So now you can change the brightness of your base lights to match!
We will likely tweak these values later on depending on player feedback but we’re happy with the changes for now!
Minecarts
Our previous minecart system did not have a lot of complex capabilities, which made organising tracks and stations difficult for players. As we recognised that minecarts have not had a fresh overhaul, we have now finished a new experimental mincart system with new UI, but also focused on how players can use them effectively in their builds.
In order to help organise minecart systems, we have introduced minecart grouping, which allows players to select stations, minecarts and rail splitters to group together so they only interact with each other. This means that if there’s several stations on the same rail line, but not all are a part of the group, then the minecart will not interact with the groupless stations and will skip to the next grouped station.
Two new types of rails have also been introduced to allow for more complex rail systems: the Rail Splitter and the Rail Merger. Rail Splitters have the ability to filter one side by a specific Minecart Group which allows the player to split routes and send specific carts to different areas or stations, and then after use Rail Mergers to merge back into the main route. Rail Splitters with no group will split Minecarts 50/50.
Minecarts themselves now have two inventory slots instead of one, helping speed up the process of transferring goods from different stations. Minecarts don't require space to drop their entire content anymore, they'll drop whatever the station can store, and will no longer stop at full stations.
Market Rework
The needed market changes overhaul is here! Markets now sell a larger array of useful items (now priced higher than their actual value, he’s got to make his market profitable somehow!) that previously were not purchasable, making more items accessible to players. Items can also be bought in bulk, up to the maximum item stack size, which saves a significant amount of time for players who previously had to manually purchase individual items. New items are also unlocked by upgrading your research level, giving players even more reasons to regularly check their research stations to see what they need to reach the next level. This also comes with a new model as the old one didn't quite fit.
NPC Head Tracking
This one is smaller but still vital, all NPCs, including orcs, will now track the player with their heads. This was something we wanted to get to earlier but other tasks took priority. In addition all Dwarven NPC’s have been made more unique and individual.
Update notes:
New triplanar calculation and optimisations, allowing new landscape material. We've added a lot here, including different top and side material display, and near and far textures with blending between them.
Changed the navigator behavior so that it only drains mana when moving. Mana will regen when you stay stationary
When you obtain a Tool and there is free space in your Hotbar it'll automatically set it to that slot
Moved general notifications to the center of the screen
Added more notifications for the building tool modes
Details on landscape biome changes:
The jungle biome has been changed in style to a different type of forest. The jungle was using market place assets and the new assets are custom creations by our artist dwarf.
The snow forest biome has been redone, with new material outline, snow grass and snow pine trees.
The mountains are now actual mountains, not just snow and are split into two new biomes, the lower mountain and upper mountain. The upper mountain goes all the way through, the lower mountain has just a hard outer stone shell and dirt inside. Mining the stone parts of the lower and upper mountain requires a level 2 pickaxe and will give you stone.
The desert biome, while still barren, now looks more sandy.
The rocky biome now has different rocks, including large boulders that will take a lot to destroy and will give a larger stone reward.
Changed the navigator behavior so that it only drains mana when moving. Mana will regenerate when you stay stationary
When you obtain a Tool and there is free space in your Hotbar it'll automatically set it to that slot
Moved general notifications to the center of the screen
Added more notifications for the building tool modes
Minecart System Improvements:
Minecarts will now take items from the last slots and not the first.
Minecarts now have 2 inventory slots instead of 1 which helps with item flow and stations that contain different types of items.
Minecarts don't require space to drop their entire content anymore, they'll drop whatever the station can store.
Minecarts that can't deposit items or can't pick items up won't do a full stop at the station anymore
Fixes to the station and cart collisions and rail heights.
Minecart Groups System
The addition of Minecart Groups which is a system that will allow players to create and assign groups to Minecart Stations, Minecarts and Rail Splitters. The groups system will allow players more control and automation of their Rail Networks.
A minecart will only perform a stop and interact with a station if they are of the same group, it will totally skip stations assigned to other groups than itself. This allows players to control which carts can interact with which stations and thus control the flow of items by controlling the number of carts available to each station of a certain Group.
A minecart can be interacted with to see its contents and to change its group after it has been created.
The addition of Rail Splitters and Rail Mergers to allow for more complex Rail Networks.
Rail Splitters have the ability to filter one side by a specific Minecart Group which allows the player to split routes and send specific carts to different areas or stations and then after use Rail Mergers to merge back into the main route.
Rail Splitters with no group will split Minecarts 50/50
Changed lighting values for all light based buildings in the build hammer to suit the new overall cave lighting changes
New icons for buildings within the first page of the build hammer
"Dwarfified" some in game text
Tweaked a couple of food recipes - boar bacon sandwich, barley bread.
Added new items into the jungle- Blue Jungle shroom & Jungle bush
Dwarves are now interactable within the citadel and will have unique text.
Market Rework:
Market now sells new Items
New items are unlocked through research
Buying items from Market costs more than their actual value
Can select any amount of an item to buy between 1 and the max stack size
Improved NPC Visuals:
Most NPCs now look at the player when they get near, or are being targeted in the case of orcs
Blacksmith dwarf now only hammers when crafting
Market dwarf now only waves when you interact with him (Open or close shop)
Bug Fixes:
Build mode switch sound now gets effected by SFX volume setting
Fixed clicking around Tutorial popup sometimes hiding mouse (Also takes away player movement until dismissed)
Hunger only damages the player to a certain amount
Peaceful and Easy only damages the player to 50 health
Standard only damages the player to 10 health
Hard only damages the player to 1 health
Very Hard will reduce health to 0 and kill the player
We also might be working on something special for Orebound’s 1 Year Anniversary, so stay tuned ;)