The last major change to 0.6.4, this patch completes the new biome management system.
As you can see in the picture above which is 4 random seeds as viewed in the world creation preview window, biomes now blend and shift between each other much more naturally. This system was built to allow for an unlimited number of biomes so that I can add more and more over time, and hopefully in the future I will be able to setup a biome design system so that community members can even design their own biomes and upload them to Steam Workshop.
For now we have Grasslands, Mountains (which includes the snow biome), Desert, Swamp, and Ocean. I do hope to get more varied fantasy biomes in, for example volcanoes past 10km, maybe a mushroom forest, crystal peaks, etc. I would also like to add biome specific weather and atmosphere, so that it feels more musky in the swamp, and doesn't rain like it's totally normal in the desert.
Please note that this patch will require a world update because of the major changes to the topography. A world update will mark all buildings and facilities for readjusting their height when the come back on for the first time so they don't end up underground or floating in the air. A new world is certainly the better choice, but the world update option is there to try and minimalize me forcing wipes every time anything biome related changes.
Also please note the the world settings related to biomes are not yet updated in this patch and will not affect the outcome. I will plug those back in so users can lower the influence and/or frequency of biomes as they could before.
Currently I am forcing Ocean, as seen above the starting point (solace/purple pillar) marker in the images above, with Mountain clockwise from there, then Grass, then Desert, so there are always a bit of the four starter biomes near the start. They can however still be largely overpowered by their neighbors so even the starting area can be quite different between two seeds.
Mostly just small bug fixes and improvements left for the 0.6.4 branch, hopefully I will be able to push it live mid next week.
v 0.6.4.20 2020.07.17
- Improved biome blending and generation
- Re-enabled and improved the new world preview system
- Added grass deletion to floors and town building pre-mades
- Fixed the "Levels per kilometer" setting not being used properly in some methods
- Fixed a bug related to saving boats
You may need to restart Steam for the update to begin.
To opt into Beta you only need to go to your Steam Library, right-click on Solace Crafting, select Properties, click on the Beta tab, and opt-in to the beta.
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