In December, we released 0.8.0, which tried to improve some fundamental systems and fix some flaws. In January and February, we were making huge plans for 0.9.0. We wanted to take our time, add a lot of new content, and introduce awesome new features. We were considering to implement realistic logistics.
This would be a huge change and impact a lot of other systems. We were trying to think through the entire plan. For example: with realistic logistics between colonies, it’s important to spread out resources. It doesn’t make sense for all ores to be present at every location. So resources like iron ore should only appear in certain specific places.
But that means players need multiple colonies when they get into the Iron Age! That’s a lot earlier than currently is the case. So we’ll need to add a lot of pre-Iron Age gameplay to balance things out.
We also added things like support for longer crafting times, which requires a full overhaul of all the crafting recipes. Zun optimized the savegames, which also leads to the requirement for new worlds in 0.9.0 (Disclaimer: Old worlds will always be accessible in old branches / 0.9.0 is a long way out / a converter might appear!). The need for savegame continuity is pretty restricting, and without that need, we have a lot of extra possibilities. We want to use as many as possible of them, to make sure future updates don’t require another continuity-break.
At the end of March, I started moving. It was quite a lot of work, and due to some unforeseen problems I spent nearly two weeks without proper access to the internet. But things are working now :D Things are still a bit Early Access but I don’t mind that too much.
I’ve had a lot of time to think, and things seemed a bit… overwhelming. Update 0.9.0 had become a gigantic overhaul with loads of uncertain but interdependent features, and a three year workload. The plans certainly sounded awesome, but doing it all in one gigantic step started to seem impractical.
So we had a long discussion and decided to change our plans for 0.9.0. It’s still not 100% certain, there are plenty of details to work out, and we’re open to your input! But here are our rough plans.
Update 0.4.0 added a nice progression system. From inventing bronze to smelting iron to producing steel, slings > bows > crossbows > muskets, from slow weak monsters to fast strong monsters. It works very well, and it’s still the core of the game. 0.5.0 and 0.6.0 added ‘branches’ to this framework, and 0.7.0 added multiple colonies to the end of this system. But the ‘spine’ of the game is still the bronze/iron/steel thing (with the related monsters and weapons), added after a couple of months of development in 2017.
We’re considering to refactor that spine. To improve it and to extend it. To make it work with all the other features we’ve added since 2017, and the features we’re planning to add in 0.9.0 (and keeping in mind the features we’re hoping to add afterwards!).
We want to increase the timespan. We’d love to start in the Stone Age and have players invent and use copper tools as a serious improvement above stone tools. Tin should become a rare resource, and to start the Bronze Age, players would have to export luxury goods and import tin.
To decrease their dependence on expensive imports, players should have the ability to start using iron. We’ve done quite a bit of extra research into iron, and apparently, producing it is hard. Iron loves to bind with oxygen, so you’ve got to remove it from your iron ore and prevent the oxygen from returning again too soon (which is known as ‘rust’). To do so, you’ve got to mix it with carbon while heated, but heating the ore up increases iron’s susceptibility to binding with oxygen. Leave too much carbon in your iron and it’ll become brittle; leave too little carbon in your iron and it’ll become soft.
Correctly executing this process requires a lot of knowledge, the right tools, and a lot of good fuel. We’d love to implement this into the game more realistically. We’re considering having multiple ‘levels’ of iron and multiple methods of smelting iron. There could be simple but lengthy processes that result in weak, brittle tools and weapons, and more complicated methods that result in better tools and weapons.
The final step could be steel - which requires very high temperatures or huge amounts of labor to achieve. Add some chromium to get stainless steel. The mass production of steel only became possible at the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Of course, each of these steps should have a purpose and not just be a messy crafting chain required to get to the endgame as soon as possible. We’re considering to add “Tools” as a crucial component of the game. Instead of just foresters and miners requiring a one-time specific tool, most jobs should use them. Instead of each job having their own specific requirement, the Tools would be more general. But Tools will have a trait ‘Durability’, and when it’s depleted, the tool breaks and the worker will require new tools. The tools should also impact productivity. That way, each tool can have their own unique set of benefits and drawbacks. Copper Tools could be cheap but with low durability. Bronze Tools could have high durability, a large boost to productivity, but cost a lot to produce. Primitive Iron Tools could have the same boost to productivity at a lower cost, but also with lower durability.
Now, we don’t just want to make the game more convoluted, with more steps and more requirements. The new crafting chain and the new tech tree should also lead to more possibilities! An underdeveloped aspect of the game, which players have often requested to be expanded, is the combat-side of the game. We’d love to add more monsters and more guards, with new abilities. How about ranged monsters? Guards with area-of-effect damage, and others with the ability to poison or slow down enemies? How about monsters that strengthen nearby monsters, and monsters that get harder to defeat the longer they live? That would make mazes less overpowered and allow for a more diverse array of strategies to be useful. We're also considering options to make some monsters more intelligent. They're harder to implement properly, but monsters that fill moats or scale walls would be very interesting.
Just as in 0.4.0, these things should be connected. Unlocking new materials requires expansion of the colony, new materials lead to new weapons, expansion of the colony leads to more and stronger monsters.
Compared to realistic logistics, these plans are a lot more achievable in less time, while we’re still very enthusiastic about the outcome. We think it would be a huge improvement above the current situation. Let us know your opinion and it’ll help us make a final decision!
The plans for realistic logistics aren’t completely scrapped. We do keep them in mind while working on 0.9.0 and make our choices appropriately. We’re pretty certain we want to make ores like tin scarce, requiring multiple colonies if you want to play without importing and exporting from (offscreen) ‘NPC colonies’. But logistics between multiple colonies were always intended as some kind of endgame, and we’d like to put a lot of effort into the early and midgame first.
TL;DR: I moved successfully, plans for 0.9.0 got extremely huge, considering a new plan for a refactored, improved and lengthened early-to-mid-game with more realistic metals and tools, and new weapons and monsters. Let us know what you think!
Bedankt voor het lezen!