Hi everyone! Your favorite Pete here again.
It's time for the second Werk in Progress. The next update, v0.5.20, is taking a bit longer than usual (heh, or a normal amount of time?), mostly because of the localization support, and will probably come out late next week.
Going forward I'm also trying to work a bit less. Since I quit my job at the start of this year and started working full time on the game, I've basically been working 12-16 hour days, 7 days a week, practically all the time I've been awake, and that is not healthy in the long run. It is hard to stop, but I'm doing my best to at least try doing shorter days, and maybe even taking a day or two off once in a while.
Anyway, here is what is going on with the update and what else I've been looking at.
Localization support
The biggest thing in the next update is that the game can be translated into other languages. That means going through every text in the game and making it possible to translate each one. It involves touching a large part of the code, so there is a huge amount of internal changes, and all of it needs to be tested.
The game's own font also doesn't have the letters for languages like Russian, Chinese or Japanese, so those are shown with a different font, and I have to test at least roughly that the different fonts show up and look right. So it is all taking quite a bit of time.
There won't be any official languages other than English, at least for now. I don't have the capacity to support official translations, so translations will come from the community instead.
The next update adds Language settings (in the main menu, in Settings under Interface) with a section for translators. It makes the translation file for you, and you can then edit it in Poedit or in any text editor.
A translation doesn't have to be complete. Anything that isn't translated yet just shows in English.
Steam Workshop
Steam Workshop support comes in the same update, and for now it is used for sharing translations.
If you make a translation, you can publish it to the Workshop from the Language settings. Everyone else can find it with Browse Workshop in the same place, subscribe to it, and then pick it from the list of languages. When the translator improves it later, Steam downloads the new version and you get it the next time you start the game.
Of course this only works once someone has made a translation for your language, so if you feel like making one, please do!
Blueprints are getting Workshop support too, but I'm not sure yet if that makes it into the next update or comes a bit later. Until then, blueprint strings are still the way to share them.
Power and balance
I'm looking more into the balance of power generation. Batteries get a buff in the next update, so both the MK 1 and the MK 2 hold a lot more energy than before.
At the moment solar and wind power is always used first, and batteries can only be charged with what is left over from those. This is because the batteries waste some of the energy when charging, so having them charge from things like a Steam Turbine would mean wasting fuel. I'm thinking about removing that automatic top priority, and about making it possible to charge batteries with steam power too, and at least reducing the battery charge waste, or possibly just removing it. That is still only an idea I'm looking into, so no promises.
I'm also aware that towards the end of the current content the numbers scale up quite a bit, and that it can feel like too steep a jump. I don't have a simple fix for that yet, as part of it is that not all of the content is there yet, like nuclear power and more efficient recipes to make things, etc. I also try to avoid doing too much ping-pong by buffing something temporarily now and then nerfing it again later when more content comes, so it might take a bit more time for the balance to really settle in better.
Your reports
A lot of feedback has come in again through Report a Problem in the pause menu, together with the Steam forum and Discord.
Some crashes have been reported with it too. Getting the crash dump and the save game along with a report helps a lot, because those are what let me get the fixes done quickly. The rare crash while fluids were flowing (fixed in v0.5.19) and the crash when a Drone Port or Fuel Depot was destroyed while a drone was using it (fixed in the next update) were both tracked down from the crash dumps you sent. So please keep the reports coming.
30,000 wishlists
FluxWerks has reached 30,000 wishlists. Thank you to everyone who has wishlisted the game, and I hope to see you buying the game eventually, maybe at the end of Early Access?
An even bigger thank you to everyone who has bought it. It means a lot and already ensures I can continue working on the game full time.
Also a small reminder that if you have played the game and even liked it and haven't left a review yet, please do, as those really help.
See you in the next Werk in Progress!