Greetings, one and all!

It's that time again, and we've got some exciting changes coming to Sanctuary in Time. Two new outpost types to unlock (w/ game-changing mechanics and brand-new Templar and Cleric assignments), plus changes to how and when outposts in general are revealed to the player; significant changes to Strength & Persuasion stats, game interface improvements, and more!

So, dive in, check it out and let me know what you think. Feedback is always greatly appreciated! But, remember...

Above all else, have fun!

Max (Novus Operandi)

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Sanctuary in Time is a text-based, adult game with sci-fi & RPG elements! Your father's just been murdered. He was the God of Time. Now, it's your turn! Save damsels from dark corners of history; train them as warriors, courtesans, or workers. Build your forces. Expand & upgrade your citadel. And survive the enemies that seek your death!

Feature update: redesign of how Strength and Persuasion work.

Previously, the amount of Strength / Persuasion a follower contributed to the settlement was based entirely on their current duty assignment. Trainee assignments contributed +1, basic work assignments +2, advanced work assignments + 3, and Matrons +4. Now, however, this system has been redesigned to have more depth & flexibility.

• Only followers assigned to combat duties will contribute Strength, and only followers assigned to courtship duties will contribute Persuasion, but the amounts of Strength / Persuasion they contribute are now largely based on their individual skill levels in combat or courtship, respectively.
• Novices & Beginners contribute +1, Students & Specialists +2, Skilled Experts +3, 1st Level Masters +3.5, 2ndLevel Masters +4, 3rd Level Masters +4.5, 4th Level Masters +5, and 5th Level Masters +5.5.
• Matron assignments gain a +0.5 bonus, regardless of their skill level, so long as they hold that assignment.
• Now, if a follower needs to drop from a higher level assignment (such as Holy Paladin) to a lower level assignment (such as Knight Errant), they won’t contribute less Strength to the settlement upon doing so, they’ll just bring in lower earnings. Matrons are the only remaining exception to this rule, who will lose their +0.5 bonus upon vacating that position.
• The higher Mastery levels of a skill are now more valuable, because they not only increase a follower’s chances for good weekly performance, they also add bonuses to the strength / persuasion contributed. This also makes highly-skilled followers more valuable than previously, as it allows them to produce the same benefit as multiple less-advanced followers combined.
• The in-game tutorial section GAMEPLAY TUTORIALS>HOW STRENGTH & PERSUASION WORK has been updated to reflect these changes.

Feature update: new events revealing outpost blueprints!

Previously, the outposts of the settlement (e.g. Missionary Outpost and Communal Farmstead) were available to construct as soon as the game began. Nothing needed to occur for them to be available. However, this arrangement wasn’t as satisfying as I would like, so I’ve redesigned how outposts are revealed to the player.

• At different points in the lifespan of the settlement, Eva will now “discover” the blueprint for an outpost that was never completed. A brief side story event will occur in which Eva informs you of her discovery, briefly describes the nature & benefit of building the outpost, and then informs the Celestial that it’s now available to be constructed. After such an event completes, the button that allows one to build the outpost in question will appear under DISMISSAL OPTIONS in Follower Management. And prior to these discovery events occurring, the buttons for the outposts in question will not be present.
• Outposts that have already been constructed (or are currently under construction) will not be affected by this change, and will continue to function as before. This change will only affect outposts that have not yet been purchased.
• The Missionary Outpost can now unlock anytime after turn 25, and the Communal Farmstead after turn 60. (Whether the main story is enabled or not has no effect on these events.)
• The weekly Facilities Report and Boons Report have also been updated to include bookmarked sub-sections just for outpost information, which will only be displayed if at least one outpost has relevant details to display.

Content update: two new outpost types!

Two new constructable outposts are now available, called the War Sanctum and the Cloister of Eros (which will be occupied by ‘dedicated templars’ and ‘devoted clerics,’ respectively). These outposts are remote, offworld locales dedicated to the studying, practicing, and advancing of their respective arts. They also represent advanced dismissal options for followers, which allow the player to gain weekly bonuses to their Strength or Persuasion in exchange for permanently dismissing followers. (Reserved for the Complete Edition.)

• When the new stat bonuses become available, they’ll be displayed on the main interface screen as ‘base_value +bonus_value,’ with the bonus values in green.
• Automated systems alone can produce a small bonus, but the true potential won’t be unlocked until you start dismissing followers to live there. Each follower then contributes to the maximum bonus that can be received. So, the more followers you send, the more bonus you can get. But, to keep things interesting, the actual bonus received each week is then based on a sliding scale determined by that outpost’s weekly performance.
• Since Strength / Persuasion contributions are now largely based on a follower’s skill level (see above), these dismissed followers won’t just be sitting idle in seclusion, they’ll be leveling up! Each week, there’s a chance that one of your dismissed followers at these new outposts will also increase their skill level in accordance with that week’s performance. So, over time, these followers will actually contribute more Strength / Persuasion as they carry out their remote assignments.
• These new outposts now open the possibility for an alternate playstyle, in which the size of the player’s settlement doesn’t have to keep expanding in order to keep up with increasing challenges. Instead, the player can now maintain a smaller, more manageable force on-site, while bolstering their Strength / Persuasion numbers with off-site followers dismissed to these outposts.

User Interface updates:

• Updated the type of scrollbars used in the game so they look more attractive and better match the colors of the interface theme.
• Updated the type of frame bordering used around many Text fields in the game (primarily those w/ scrollbars attached), so they look sleeker & more attractive.
• Removed the ‘Weekly Report’ title from the top of the weekly turn report interface. It was largely redundant & the interface looks sleeker without it.
• Updated the weekly Facilities Report so that construction status for individual rooms inside a building is only mentioned if all of those rooms have not yet been constructed. But once all rooms in a building are constructed, the report will now simply say ‘The building_nameis fully constructed.’ This was done to make the text of the report easier to digest & less repetitive.
• Updated the type of message box widgets used in the game. (These are the little pop-up dialogs that confirm changes made or ask for confirmation before making a change.) Previous versions used were the Windows system default and they did not match the colors or style of the surrounding application (plus, they had other drawbacks). The new versions now reflect the colors and style of the application; they also auto-center on the application itself rather than the screen as a whole, so if you drag the application off to one side, they’ll follow it; they also have the alert sound (chime) disabled (which some players said they would prefer); and they also allow re-reading of the message text they contain (by text-to-speech apps) via keyboard traversal (just use the Tab key to cycle back around to the text displayed). (Only a few rare instances of the original message boxes are still used in the game, such as during the save game dialog, which is managed by a Windows default system framework).

Feature update: changes to when boons unlock.

In an effort to better balance the kinds of rewards gained from the various types of boons, I’ve updated when these boons unlock during the lifetime of the settlement.

• The Automated Aid Station. Able to unlock after turn 10. Grants health bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• The Missionary Outpost. Able to unlock after turn 25. Grants silver bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• R.O.V.R - the experimental search & rescue drone. Able to unlock after turn 30. Grants lump sum energy bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• Statue of Yourself as God of Time. Able to unlock after turn 45. Grants devotion bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• The Communal Farmstead. Able to unlock after turn 60. Grants energy bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• The first follower statue (combat or courtship). Able to unlock after turn 65. Grants silver bonuses. (Any Edition.)
• The War Sanctum. Able to unlock after turn 80. Grants strength bonuses. (Reserved for Complete Edition.)
• The Cloister of Eros. Able to unlock after turn 80. Grants persuasion bonuses. (Reserved for Complete Edition.)
• The second follower statue (combat or courtship). Able to unlock after turn 95. Grants silver bonuses. (Reserved for Complete Edition.)
• Experimental Generator Upgrades. Able to unlock after turn 110. Grants percentage energy bonuses. (Reserved for Complete Edition.)

Gameplay balancing:

• Slightly increased performance bonuses Matrons grant to the women working under them.
• Slightly increased chance for Strength and Persuasion themed events to occur following the weekly turn report. (Erotic events may occur slightly less often as a result).
• Updated the Medic duty assignment, so that medics now have a 75% chance to experience slight increases to their medical skill, even when no patients are assigned to them. These minor skill increases are the result of their continued studies while they wait for patients to arrive.
• Increased the potential severity of all injury types for followers by 5% (for both health and devotion).
• Increased the chance for a random weekly injury to be ‘severe’ in nature by 10%.

General event updates:

• Updated recruitment events, so that if the recruitment opportunity is declined (in any fashion), a random side story event will now launch afterward instead. (This is to help alleviate the potential feeling of a turn being “lost” or “wasted” after one declines to recruit a potential follower.)
• The ‘Climax Choices’ menu in sex dialogues has been updated to read as ‘Options to Finish.’ This was done to better reflect its newly-expanded functionality which now includes a non-climax exit choice. The scene text which displays upon selecting that menu has also been changed from “You feel ready to climax...” to “You feel ready to finish....”
• There were a few climax scenes with out-of-date text that still read “You tell followeryou wish to climax outside of her mouth,” “You decide to climax outside follower's vagina,” or “You decide to climax outside follower's rectum,” instead of using the newly-updated wording for ‘climax on face,’ ‘climax on vaginal lips’ and ‘climax on butt cheeks.’ These scenes have now been updated to reflect the new wording.
• Updated starting arousal levels for ‘Naïve’ and ‘Shy’ followers who are both in love with the player and about to be inspected. Now, their arousal levels will start out as one level lower than other personality types who possess the same amount of love (although they’ll never start lower than ‘slightly aroused’).
• Added a new sex dialogue response (that can occur randomly during sex interactions with a follower) which is unique to a girlfriend / wife who is also the player’s bio. mom.

Cosmetic updates:

• The buttocks size category of ‘well-rounded’ has been updated to read as ‘amply rounded.’ This was done to avoid awkward wording when paired w/ the ‘well-defined’ muscles category (e.g. “Her well-rounded, well-defined buttocks” will now read as “Her amply rounded, well-defined buttocks”).
• Rewrote descriptions for outfit ‘breastplate (bronze)’ and its winged variants, to make them flow better and be a bit shorter. Did the same for outfit ‘temple robe (ornate)’ and its winged variants. (Also made sure all outfits w/ wings now have those wings described in a separate paragraph from the main outfit description, in order to help break up these longer blocks of text.)
• Added panties to those combat outfits which previously only had an armored skirt w/ out panties, (e.g. breastplate (leather), breastplate (bronze), and the winged variants of breastplate (bronze)). These can now be seen & removed during undressing actions.
• The outfit ‘warpaint leather’ and its topless variant have been updated to no longer include footwear in their undressing options. Footwear was never present in the description for this outfit, though an option to remove a pair of sandals was available. Now, however, this outfit is explicitly barefoot, and even mentions the follower’s barefoot status in its description.
• Added new first name variants ‘Margaret’ (to Celtic & Norse ethnicities) and ‘Marguerite’ (to French), as well as nickname variants of ‘Meg’ (to Norse) and ‘Maggie’ (to Celtic). Added new last name of “O’Connell” (to Celtic). (These name variations may now appear in individuals offered as potential recruits.)
• Renamed the current weight category of ‘underfed’ to ‘waifish,’ and slightly updated both its description and that of the ‘emaciated’ category below it.
• Added new hair style option to the Barber Shop of ‘slicked-back’ with short, med, and long variants, which features hair that’s combed straight back in a slightly “wet” look.
• Added new tattoo for the Tattoo Shop, described as “your initials in flowing Gothic calligraphy.” There are variants for the side of the neck, the shoulder (either side), buttock (either side), and stomach.

Misc. updates:

• Corrected the starting weights of unique (and semi-unique) npcs in the game (such as Brianna Morgyn and other recruitable main story characters, endgame bosses, unique historical figures, and recruitable family members), which were lower than intended after the recent expansion of weight categories in update 0.4.4.
• Fixed bug causing follower to start out as fully nude for the erotic_officeseated event (in which a follower approaches the player while he’s going over reports and then offers to provide a more pleasing distraction). She now starts out as fully clothed before offering to undress.
• Fixed bug causing both the player & follower to *not* start out as fully nude for the erotic_privateshower event (in which a follower enters the bathroom while the player is showering and then offers to share the water). They both now start out as fully nude.
• Fixed typo found in endgame event during which the citadel is invaded by a human scouting party (“unuathorized” - > “unauthorized”).

Hotfix: 0.4.5b

• (For TTS) Fixed bug causing the new item-by-item undressing choices (in the inspection dialogue) to produce a text-to-speech response of “blank” when TTS is enabled.
• (For TTS) Fixed bug causing the new item-by-item undressing choices (in full sex dialogues) to have the reading of their scene text overridden by the reading of the transition scene text which might follow when the follower is ready to proceed to more sex options. Now, the transition scene text will only be read after the undressing scene text has finished before it.