Hey everyone!

You guys have been waiting so patiently for the next update and I appreciate it. It is very close to being ready for beta. I'm looking to get it out there for April. This update is huge and I'm doing my best to make sure everything works well. Thanks for waiting.

You can check out the December Dev Log to see some of the overworld features I've been working on. But, today, let's take a look at what else is in store...

The Tomek

Well, I finally started on the game's fifth race. It's a long--LONG--time coming...

What makes the Tomek special? These are a subterranean species that is constantly at war with the rat-like, Nequhtli horde. While the Humans and other races are busy bumbling around on the surface, the Tomek clans are busy keeping Odd from becoming overrun by swarms of Nequhtli filth.

The Tomek benefit from the special ability to start their settlement underground. Players will be able to see ALL underground caves on the map that are above 100z.

These cave dwelling creatures have incredibly hard skin which gives them a significant toughness bonus from the get-go. To maintain this defense, the Tomek eat a strict diet of various ores. And they've developed the unique ability to 'grow' various ores in their underground farms.

Very excited to get this race out to you folks as I think they are quite interesting.

Updated Dungeons, Caves, and Ore Gen

With the addition of the Tomek, I also wanted to improve underground exploration.

First off--and I'm sure a lot of you will be happy with this--I've made it so ore now generates in proper veins. No longer will they be peppered around the map randomly.

Caves are now more... 'cave-like'. They have more room and longer tunnel formations. And dungeons now have more room types and generate proper connecting corridors.

Additionally, I have been adding more entities and items for you to find underground...

New Items/Entities

I'm going to keep most of them a surprise but I did want to show off one of the legendary items you can find underground: The Slipway Disc. This handheld item allows the bearer to instantly teleport to their target destination. The entity must be able to path to the location, but as soon as a path is found, they will teleport immediately to the end. This is exceptionally handy when given to a laborer and I enjoy watching them bounce around the map making quick work of stocking a room.

New Apiary Room

No doubt you've seen the bees buzzing around some of the biomes in the game. Now, you'll be able to utilize these tiny friends with the new Apiary room. This room will let you gather honey from bees which is an excellent food source. It is also extremely valuable in the Market.

More Ancient Minions

For as long as the Ancients have been around (which is almost as old as I am), you guys have asked for more minions for the Ancients to summon and use. Well, I'm happy to announce that I've added a couple more. I will only showcase one for now... the Machix.

The Machix are a mechanical entity that are powered by void energy. Thousands of years ago, when the Ancient population was first starting to become dangerously low, the Ancients created the Machix to help build and maintain their cities.

These mechanical builders only need energy to function. When their energy is depleted, their movement and efficiency is greatly reduced. Ancients will then need to recharge them in the transmutation chamber. This process consumes a lot of the Ancient energy which will require them to sleep more often.

In addition to the Machix is another entity that is focused on defense. I won't spoil them just yet, but know that they are very powerful, and will require a lot of resources to build.

QoL Stuff

You can now hold shift to designate jobs in a line.

Also, you can use shift+scroll to rotate props before placing them. Or you can rotate them from the tooltip:

You'll also notice that tooltips will show optional jobs for the object you select. This is handy if you want to issue a job that's permitted there without needing to go through the jobs menu.

And, speaking of selecting, I've added a lot of feedback to indicate items, plants, and props that can be selected. This works just like entity selection where an outline will appear around the object.

Kingdom Level And Edicts

What the helly is an Edict? This is what I'm calling 'kingdom points'. You use these to unlock new research as well as expand your kingdom in the overworld map.

Every kingdom level, you will get to choose 2 options from a level up list. You can choose to get edicts, increase the max settlement population, or apply random global buffs to your settlers. Also, your settler max level will increase as normal with kingdom level.

I really like this change as it has made the kingdom level up process a lot more engaging and I hope you find it fun too.

Profession And Room Tuning

Something I'm super excited to get out to players is new tuning for professions and rooms. In the live version, these two things are... kinda fuzzy. Rooms aren't very strict on who can be an occupant. And it's not very clear who is needed for a room to function.

In the new version, rooms are way more strict about who can be an occupant. Rooms no longer allow anyone with a certain skill to join. You HAVE to have the correct profession. Stockpiles require Laborers. Workshops require Builders. Farms require Farmers. Etc. This makes it extremely clear what your room needs for workers. You can change a profession at any time, but it will incur a 24hr 'learning new profession' debuff.

As well, I've moved ALL entity auto jobs to rooms. It was SO confusing to have entities with their own eat, drink, graze jobs. You had to go and look at the individual entity to see what was going on. Now, these are directly tied to a room. So, for Humans, their eat/drink jobs are in the Human home. Graze is in the animal enclosure. And so on for other unique races. I love this change because it is so much easier to understand how things work. And, a lot of rooms have way more value. The Human home, for example, is no longer just about sleeping:

I've also added lots of the cooking and prep jobs to the home. So, no, you don't need a cook just to have your settlers well fed. It helps because they are more efficient at it, but it's not necessary. You can have a hermit run with one settler that has just a house and that works fine. Human Homes and other racial rooms are the few exceptions where Race is used to determine occupant instead of Professions. But, it also is super clear:

In addition to all this, I've made it so leaders are now professions too. This is to allow players to select their leaders and also use certain rooms. For example, the Human King and Queen are now responsible for the Town Hall and its jobs. The King is required for integrating citizens and the Queen blesses citizens.

The other races also have their own leader professions and rooms. The leader professions are unique in that only one entity at a time can have the profession. Plus, leader professions can choose one skill to increase each level.

Room Quality

You might have noticed room quality in the screenshots. This is a new addition to rooms that affects the spirit of your settlers. Settler spirit will add/remove buffs, so it's ideal to fill your rooms with nice things so their spirit stays high.

New Game Options

I've made a change so that new game item options will show you things you've discovered in other games. So, if in one run you discovered the Slipway Disc, you'll be able to take it into a new game with you.

Concluding Thoughts

Ok, there's soooo much more to show you guys but this post is already too big. I truly think this next version makes the game way more fun, So many new things to discover and a million UI and QoL improvements. I cannot wait to get the update out there but there is a lot for me to finish up and polish. It's not that far off. Thanks for being patient and for continuing to follow the game.

Cheers!

-Waylon