GREETINGS, CREATORS!
What a time in which we live! We hope that all of you in the northern parts of the world are keeping warm. Our dear planet has been acting a bit strange lately, and a few states here in the US are feeling the brunt of it. Someone has clearly been running too many Gas Plants for too long.
However, we must press on! Welcome to the first update of 2019! It’s going to be a glorious year indeed. Even with the team winding down over the winter holidays, we have made significant progress with new features, reworks, and bug fixes. We’re officially moving into the Industrial Era (Modern Age)! A number of new buildings have been added to begin the transition, but we’ll need some more time to fully flesh out the new era. Within a few patches, we shall begin looking to the stars for new adventures.
Before you dive right into all of the new content, we have a favor to ask. If you’ve been enjoying The Universim long enough to have an opinion on the game and where it’s going, please drop us a review on Steam. Your reviews always brighten up our day and help us to identify areas that need improvement. If you ever have an issue or would like to chat to our devs and fellow community members, drop into our Discord channel right here.
SHINY NEW CONTENT
GLASS FACTORY
We are finally rolling out some new production buildings! The Modern Age is the era in which resource extraction will be in full force. You will need to build many new factories to produce the materials and technology of the future. The glass manufactured here, for example, will be used throughout modern architecture, and eventually reinforced for use in spacecraft.
In addition to this, with the Modern Age bringing new forms of automation to your civilization, we have refactored how Nuggets work within factories. Nuggets will no longer need to be inside these buildings in order for them to produce goods. Assigned workers will increase the overall production, but having no workers present will not cause the factory to stop working. Hooray for automation stealing jobs!
MINISTERS
We are introducing 8 new roles to your civilization. Say hello to Ministers!
- Minister of Defense
- Minister of Agriculture
- Minister of Education
- Minister of Water
- Minister of Food
- Minister of Entertainment
- Minister of Architecture
- Minister of Medicine
- Minister of Power
Ministers can be assigned using the Town Hall. Each Minister will be responsible for a specific industry within your civilization, encompassing certain buildings that perform functions related to that industry. For example, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Water will ensure that there is enough food and water for everyone. If not, they will automatically designate workers to construct more sources of food and water, like Farms and Water Pumps. This will be a great help to you as your civilization grows to avoid constant micromanagement and the frustration that shortages bring.
We would love to hear your thoughts once you’ve taken this new system out for a spin. We worked hard to make it as useful as possible, but your feedback will ensure we get it perfect. If we can do something better, please let us know!
HAPPINESS & CRIME TOOLTIP PANEL UPDATES
We have completely redesigned these panels to clarify what actions have the most negative or positive impact. This is now visualized via two distinct colors and a certain number of dots, which has replaced the tricky mathematics we had in the previous version.
CHEMICAL FACTORY
The modern world could not exist without advanced chemistry, so it makes sense that Nuggets would eventually figure it out thanks to their wild and wacky experiments. The Chemical Factory works in conjunction with many other buildings in the Modern Age. Chemicals are used across a wide variety of industries. One such building is the new Genetics Center, which allows you to create your own Nuggets. Let’s hope they don’t slip up and create some kind of monster.
CEMENT FACTORY
The Cement Factory eats quite a bit of Gas and Stone during production. Cement will be used to construct modern buildings and a few advanced technologies. It works in a similar manner to the Glass Factory, so ensure that you have enough raw material extraction and assigned workers to maximize efficiency.
HOT AIR BALLOON
Hot Air Balloons provide Nuggets with a sensational new form of entertainment, offering them stunning views from previously unreachable heights. Plus, they look cool.
UNIVERSITY
It’s time to combat stupidity! Nuggets can now acquire a higher standard of education and a nifty piece of paper showcasing their achievements. This is excellent news for a society that continues to create increasingly more intricate buildings and technology. Educated workers will perform technical jobs with greater efficiency and a better regard for safety guidelines. Uneducated Nuggets may accidentally start a fire within these buildings, and they might not notice until it’s too late.
NEW PARKS: CHUNDER PARK & CUPIDON PARK
We have expanded on the rewards you receive for completing certain quests. The new Chunder and Cupidon Parks will increase the Happiness of Nuggets and offer them a place to relax.
MODERN AGE PUMP
This is the first of many Modern Age building upgrades you’ll be seeing. Beyond being quite stylish, it also provides way more water to your civilization.
TELEKINESIS CREATOR POWER UPGRADE
We have extended the capabilities of Telekinesis, allowing you to transport any resource piles you see lying around on the ground to any building that requires them. Additionally, to improve usability, we have updated construction pop-ups to alert you if you are trying to drop a resource it does not require.
NEW LANGUAGE SUPPORT
A number of amazing people reached out to us in the past two months to assist with translation, and we wanted to ensure their hard work was reflected as soon as possible. Italian and Czech are officially joining the list of supported languages as of this patch. Thank you to everyone who has helped with all of the translations! We and the community truly appreciate it!
MEDIEVAL DECALS
We’re updating the visual style of the Medieval Era with new building decals.
Enjoy the pretty colors!
BUILDING FOLIAGE
We have put a lot of emphasis on the game’s visuals, so anything average or underwhelming is never enough for us. We like to push the boundaries of what we can achieve. A new quality pass has been made on buildings that has introduced various types of foliage and vegetation. Let us know your thoughts!
SETTINGS MENU UPDATE
As more visual improvements are made, more juice is inevitably required from your machine. Not everyone can afford that much juice, so we have added a new option to toggle foliage on or off for the best experience.
NEW STEAM ACHIEVEMENTS
With so much new content, you certainly deserve new Steam Achievements. There are 10 more to earn, so all of you achievement hunters better get cracking!
MEDIEVAL MUSIC
As the final touch and a fond farewell to the Medieval Era, we wanted to introduce medieval-themed music to the game. Now you can enjoy the merry sounds of yesteryear as you go about managing your city.
MEDIEVAL CLOTHING
Medieval fashion will give your Nuggets enough flair to impress everyone at the local fair! Expect to see plenty new shirts and dresses. We added few clothings to test syste, more is on the way.
SHIFT SYSTEM REWORK
We heard you! Many of you requested that we give you the option to turn shifts on or off for specific buildings, and that’s exactly what we’ve added. Once you research Shifts, you will be able to toggle it off for individual buildings or turn it off completely across all buildings if you really aren’t a fan of the system.
WOLF ATTACKS / EXILE VILLAGE RAIDS
Nuggets are rather timid creatures by nature who prefer to run away from their problems, such as imminent death, but there are always heroes who are willing to stand up and fight. Hunters, Enforcers, and Guards will now take up arms against external threats.
PATHFINDING UPDATE
We are constantly optimizing the game to ensure the best experience, and we’ve just recently done some extensive work on our pathfinding solution. It’s not perfect yet, but we have managed to squeeze out better performance and greater stability during the later stages of the game. Lower-end machines will see the most benefit.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed: Broken Radio Tower demolished prefab.
- Fixed: Broken Park prefabs.
- Fixed: Multiple worker auto-assignments occurring when buildings were upgraded.
- Fixed: Duplicate building spots after save and load.
- Fixed: Clicking right mouse button while viewing building interior panels unintentionally rotated the main camera.
- Fixed: Construction pop-ups during the Tesla quest displayed incorrect resource requirements.
- Fixed: Building placement ghosts now display the required biome instead of current biome.
- Fixed: Upgrade requests were not removed when an upgrade-ready building was destroyed.
- Fixed: Issue with Nuggets getting stuck due to critical hunger status without food available.
- Fixed: Nuggets getting stuck when trying to reach a resource pile that is within a water source.
- Fixed: Loading issue when attempting to load multiple configs but unable to locate them.
- Fixed: Certain entertainment buildings not increasing Happiness.
- Fixed: Nuggets getting stuck during a Windstorm.
- Fixed: Temples incorrectly being constructed within Lumbermills.
- Fixed: Nugget Progs upgrade would consistently crash the game.
- Fixed: Save system had a chance to fail, which lead to the issue of being unable to save the game anymore due to the system becoming locked.
- Fixed: When loading a save, spots in the Cemetery were cleared but gravestones remained in place.
- Fixed: Gravediggers getting stuck due to a failed request.
- Fixed: Creator Power Carousel bugging out when switching between windowed & full screen modes.
- Fixed: Certain buildings that require a certain biome not displaying said biome.
- Fixed: AI error that caused a crash when an adult Nugget moved houses after their house was destroyed.
- Fixed: Failure to load save games due to a bugged building construction request. The issue was caused by the game being saved exactly at the same time as the game was running a check for where to place a new building.
- Fixed: Out of range exception that was happening in extreme cases on quest completion or building placement.
- Fixed: Intro scene mountains were rotated weirdly.
- Fixed: Prison UI panel breaking after Shifts are unlocked.
- Fixed: Water / Electricity usage being displayed incorrectly in the UI.
- Fixed: Wind indicator incorrectly displaying the current wind status.
- Fixed: Dropping Nuggets after using Telekinesis occasionally caused them to fall endlessly.
- Fixed: Removing a Nugget’s name and saving the empty field caused the renaming feature to become locked.
- Fixed: Residential buildings displaying the upgrade button in their panels.
- Fixed: Hitting the Esc button when an Election notification popped up caused the celebration panel to become stuck on screen.
- Fixed: Steam API activation occurring too late lead to issues with Achievement unlocks.
- Fixed: Police Station UI panel was missing the crime scale.
- Fixed: Police Station UI panel caused Null Reference Exception due to incorrect value updates.
- Fixed: Buildings providing Happiness despite not working.
- Fixed: Extreme performance spikes during late game.
- Fixed: Error caused by Defense Towers after loading a game.
- Fixed: Icons for the Weak and Hermit Traits were displayed incorrectly in the Nugget panel.
- Fixed: Neutral Trait appearing twice in the sort panel when trying to sort Nuggets by Traits.
- Fixed: In some edge cases, the Creator Power Carousel’s icons were scrambled and displayed incorrectly.
- Fixed: Nuggets not able to leave Schools during a Windstorm.
- Fixed: Construction pop-ups incorrectly displayed the same colors for all resources.
- Fixed: Redundant mesh colliders on certain objects.
- Fixed: Game wasn’t pausing when opening the Wiki.
GENERAL BALANCE CHANGES / IMPROVEMENTS
As many of you have pointed out, electricity shortages become far too common as you approach the Modern Age, which we have addressed with a bit of rebalancing. This should brighten up your day.
- Kinetic Generator Electricity Storage Capacity increased from 2000 -> 5000
- Kinetic Generator Electricity Output increased from 38 -> 50
- Kinetic Generator Extreme Electricity Output increased from 75 -> 100
- Small Kinetic Generator Electricity Output increased from 15 -> 25
- Small Kinetic Generator Extreme Electricity Output increased from 30 -> 50
- Wind Turbine Electricity Storage Capacity increased from 2000 -> 5000
- Wind Turbine Electricity Output increased from 75 -> 100
- Small Wind Turbine Electricity Output increased from 30 -> 50
- Gas Plant Electricity Output increased from 200 -> 300
- Power Battery Storage Capacity increased from 5000 -> 10000
We have also completely reworked the Crime & Happiness systems to ensure they function properly with the UI changes and new mechanics.
ART
- Foliage was added to all Stone, Pre-Medieval, and Medieval buildings.
- New stone decals added to Medieval buildings.
- Added Chundering Park.
- Added Cupidon Park.
- Parks now have lanterns that require a separate Perk to be researched in order to appear.
- Added Medieval roads.
- Added Modern Genetics Center.
- Modern Hot Air Balloon implemented as a local business building.
- Added Modern Cement Factory.
- Added Modern Glass Factory.
- Added Modern University.
- 3D resources added for Glass, Cement, and Chemicals.
- Added Modern Water Pump.
- New Medieval Era clothing.
- New Modern Age clothing.
- Added modular Residential Buildings for Modern Age.
- Foundations added to Stone and Pre-Medieval Water Pumps.
- Decals added to Stone and Pre-Medieval buildings.
- Parks have new decals.
- Added Thermo Generator building.
UI DESIGN
- Implemented Nugget customization panel.
- Added new tooltips for Crime and Happiness systems to main UI.
- Construction menu - added crime indicator scale.
- Added Prison and Police renders to Wiki screen.
- Factory panel implementation.
- New Exile Village icons.
- Prison panel: fixed broken Shift containers.
- Added new renders for the construction menu.
- Settings menu - added option to turn foliage and decals on/off in buildings.
- Added icons for new Research Perks.
- Added icons for new news messages.
- All quests have new icons assigned.
- Construction site info pop-up - added alert when incorrect resource is dropped.
- Nugget ID panel visuals update - now 3 Traits can be displayed.
- Glass, Cement, and Chemical icons added to UI.
- Genetics/Clone Center panel implemented.
- Construction menu renders for: Glass Factory, Cement Factory, Genetics/Clone Center, Water Pump
- Fixed broken sprite bug in a few panels.
- Added 2 more Doctor slots to the Hospital panel.
- All buildings updated with ability to toggle Shifts off.
- Added global Shift toggle for all buildings.
- Added new status icons.
PERFORMANCE OPTIMIZATIONS
Several under-the-hood performance improvements have been made, increasing stability and increasing the frame rate later in the game when you have a large number of Nuggets and buildings.
Saved games are now compressed and take up a lot less disk space.
Steam Cloud support for saved games. Your saved games will be uploaded to the Steam Cloud and synced to other computers automatically when playing with the same Steam account.
MISCELLANEOUS
Saved games are now compressed and take up a lot less disk space.
Steam Cloud support for saved games. Your saved games will be uploaded to the Steam Cloud and synced to other computers automatically when playing with the same Steam account.
KNOWN ISSUES
Due to recent changes in the engine, some localization functionality may have been affected. Please report any localization issues that you encounter on our Discord channel. We will do our best to fix it ASAP.
A few Nuggets may still wander into lakes. This is a small issue within our pathfinding solution. We are making constant improvements to the system and will do our best to resolve all issues in the coming months.
Save / Load issues: We occasionally receive reports of save games not loading. If you encounter this issue, please get in touch via Discord. Reach out to one of our developers, Sasha#5709, and send him the affected save file. This helps us tremendously to replicate and resolve such problems. We greatly appreciate your help!
SNEAK PEEK FOR THE NEXT PATCH
GENETICS / CLONE CENTER
This is a major new addition to the Modern Age, allowing you to create genetically-modified Nuggets that will have their own unique pros and cons. It will require some pretty special chemicals and tech to function, but it’ll totally be worth it and certainly won’t lead to a superior Nugget uprising.
This building is basically ready and we’re in the process of adding the last few touches. We were planning to release it in this patch, but we decided to hold it back to polish it a little more to avoid any weirdness. Expect it in the next patch!
MODERN AGE ARCHITECTURE
The latest batch of architectural upgrades is coming! We are currently working on a system for the sheer size of modern buildings and the logistics behind it all. Like the Genetics Center, it’s more or less ready, but we’re not 100% happy with it yet. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts!
WHY YOU CAN’T USE PREVIOUS SAVE GAMES
We apologize for any inconvenience this causes all of you, but it unfortunately cannot be avoided. This is entirely due to the drastic changes made to major systems within the game after every patch. Older saves conflict with these changes on a fundamental level, as the logic is completely different. There is an enormous amount of interconnected systems and complexity happening behind-the-scenes that make backwards-compatibility impossible right now.
Consider the updates we made to Oil in this patch. The Oil Jack building is now unlocked at a later stage than in the previous update. This means that Nugget AI will completely break, and there will be a slew of Null Reference Exceptions across the board when loading an older save. Roads changed, balancing changed, the manner in which we update our UI icons changed, and that’s just scratching the surface.
This is why we unfortunately cannot support older saves at this time, as the underlying tech and systems are constantly evolving and being rebalanced. However, we also don’t want to leave your old saves in the dust if you want to go back and enjoy them. That is why we will always be keeping the previous version of the game active for download via Steam. You can find it under the Steam options for the game, called “Previous Version V#”.
We hope you understand. Please refrain from posting bug reports regarding older saves not loading, as that consumes time for our devs who attempt to reproduce and identify the issue. Please only report current save/load issues, if they arise.
We will always be as transparent as possible and we truly appreciate you being a part of our community. Please join us on Discord to chat about the game and follow us on Twitter for day-to-day updates. Let us know if you have some great ideas to make the game better or improve certain systems. Your feedback is invaluable!
Thanks again for being there for us and always coming back for more! We have plenty in the works right now and we can’t wait to reveal it all to you. Do you have any suggestions, feedback, or questions? Drop them in the comments, on the forums, or even on social media. We want to hear from you!
All our love,
The Crytivo Crew