Playtest Version 66 - Settlers and Colony Management

06 Sep 2026Developer post

Version 66

Farming is now Stardew-style: till individual tiles, get a dirt patch, then plant that tile. There is no more single farm-shaped plot - you choose exactly which ground gets broken.
Ground can be tilled anywhere on open ground near your base, not just in one fixed area.
Each crop now grows through five real stages of art (25% through 100%) instead of a single generic sprite, and every crop - wheat, corn, red cabbage, carrot and potato - has its own growth pictures.
Corn and wheat now sort above or below the player correctly depending on how tall they've grown, instead of always drawing on top of you.
Crop colours have been toned down to match the rest of the game's look instead of looking neon-bright.
Crops no longer die from a single cold night. A frost has to persist for several nights in a row before it kills something, and a warm night resets that clock.
Time skipped while sleeping or fast-forwarding is now counted properly - a crop won't die just because your farmers couldn't physically run out and water it fast enough before you woke up.

Both must now be equipped in your weapon slot to use - they no longer go in quick slots, and they can no longer be swung to attack.
The tilling grid only appears while the hoe is actually equipped, instead of showing constantly.
The watering can now shows a blue fill bar while equipped so you can see how much water is left.
The watering can can be refilled at a buildable Well, unlocked through Survival research, or in a pinch from water bottles.
Tilled soil visibly darkens when watered, so you can tell at a glance what still needs attention.
Rain now waters your crops for you.
Recipes for the Garden Hoe and Watering Can have been added to the quick crafts.

Seeds for every crop now exist as real items, stack up to 999, and carry no rarity.
Harvested produce stacks up to 10 per slot instead of behaving like a one-off pickup.
The trader now stocks seeds under a new Farming category, with the same buy-quantity picker used for ammo.

Build a tent and, if there's a free one, a settler can arrive and move in - one tent per occupant.
Once someone has moved in, you can put them to work from the Colony screen.

You can assign settlers to the new Farmer job from the Colony screen. Farmers till, water, harvest and plant on their own, without needing a field assigned to them individually - they simply work whatever ground has been marked out.
A new "Designate farm field" button lets you drag out the area you want farmed without needing a hoe equipped. That marking is permanent: once a field is harvested, farmers till and replant it automatically instead of the ground reverting to nothing.
A separate Jobs screen, opened from Colony, lets you pick which storage containers farmers draw seeds and tools from, and which containers they carry the harvest into.
You can click containers directly in the world to select them, and each one now outlines cleanly around its actual picture instead of using a rough guessed box.
Farmers fetch real tools out of the locker and hold onto them while working, so you need enough hoes and watering cans to go around.
If work stalls - no seeds, no water, no hoe, or a full storage container - it's now reported clearly instead of everyone silently standing still.
Multiple farmers now spread out across a field instead of clumping on the same tile.
Farmers no longer freeze up waiting at a locker once there's nothing left to do.
Farmers keep whatever they were holding across a save and reload instead of losing their tools and seed.

Every settler now needs food and water, job or not, and will walk to whichever storage container in the base actually has something - not only the ones you designated for farming.
Thirsty settlers can also drink straight from a Well for free. Whichever is closer, a well or a locker, is where they go.
Going without food or water for too long is fatal. This takes a while - it's a last resort, not something that happens overnight - and anything the settler was carrying is returned to storage.
The Colony screen now shows a settler's status in red when they're hungry, thirsty, or in real danger.

Warnings and events, such as a settler dying or a farmer being unable to work, used to flash briefly across the top of the screen and then vanish for good. They're now kept in a dedicated Notifications panel you can open at any time, with the newest notifications shown first.
A small stack of cards appears in the corner of the screen when something happens, so you still get an immediate heads-up, but nothing is lost if you miss it.
Repeated identical messages are now counted instead of spamming the same line over and over.
Notifications are saved with your game.

The "visit a base" panel no longer appears unless someone else is actually connected.
A quick key now opens the Colony screen directly without bringing up your full inventory.
Help menu entries have been added covering colony management and how farming now works.
Fixed the missing MG1 counter.
Quick slots no longer interfere with typing in other menus.