Hello!
This is NOT a post to say the next update is out! Some confusion there on my last development post as I erroneously used the word, 'update'. haha That's my bad! Also, I noticed some concern that I'm not posting these dev posts enough and all I can say is that it takes quite a bit of time for me to write them and I'd rather focus on work on the game. So, apologies for not writing them every week. I encourage you to join our discord server if you want constant news updates as I'm in there every day talking to the community. Here's a link to that: Discord Server
Anywho, on to the meat and bones:
I'm currently in the process of wrapping up work I had started on re-doing the rooms screen. Now, I know what you're thinking as I've thought it too, 'ugh, more work on a screen that's already done??' The thing is, that screen was initially done pretty poorly and because new rooms (such as the Prison Cell) need way more UI support, I had no choice but to fix it up.
Firstly, the room screen no longer appears when you open the room menu. Instead, you'll see a much smaller panel in the bottom right corner which simply displays a list of all the rooms that have been placed, their current status, and will have the ability to go to them or delete them altogether.
Some things to note about the status of a room:
-Orange rooms indicate that the player has manually added occupants. Green means the room will automatically add/remove occupants based on the room's requirements.
-The little rectangular bar to the right of the name indicates how full/empty the room is as well as whether it is missing required props (indicated by being red).
The main room management window now has its own button on the bottom right toolbar. This window lets players edit individual rooms to a much finer detail.
All rooms start with ideal default settings based on their functionality as they did before. i.e., The animal enclosure requiring Shepherds. Now, players can edit profession, skill, and race individually to have full control over who is automatically occupying the room. So, you could, say, have warriors fulfilling the role of an animal enclosure occupant. In most cases, I don't think players will really need to edit the default setting but the control is there if they wish. There are no restrictions to how players set these requirements. You want a bedroom full of cats? Go for it. The only negative to incorrectly placing occupants like so would be that the room may not be utilized correctly. i.e., manually assigning cats to the workshop and having nothing produced from that room as a result. Rooms such as this have a warning to indicate this misuse.
You can also edit the room size if you wish (with a max level based on the room's placement size in the world). Might be handy if you only want one prisoner per prison cell room. Or you only want one guard.
In the above image you can see the popup which appears when you click to edit room requirements. The symbols on the title bar indicate, 'SELECT ALL, SELECT NONE, RESET TO DEFAULT.'
Something which you cannot see here, because I have yet to add it, is the room ability info. This will be right below the requirements info of the window and will provide room specific control and important benefits the room provides. i.e., Bedrooms will show benefits of beds and family stuff, whereas the prison cell will let you manage food and prisoner permissions.
One other minor addition I've added is the ability to move windows around by middle-mouse dragging them. Windows which can be dragged have a highlighted border when you mouse over them. You can easily reset window positions back to their default and they cannot be dragged completely off screen.
Lastly, I've also added the Scholar profession which lets entities go to the Library room to earn research points to spend on the research tree. I've also added an Alchemist profession and respective room but I don't think that one will make it into version 0.10.0.0 because it will require a lot of room mechanics which would push this update out even further. But I'm looking forward to adding that one to have fun potions in the game and also a method for healing entities. Which means diseases and interesting injuries later! :D
As you can see, I've got a lot on my plate. The room functionality is particularly complicated and I really want to take my time to make sure it is providing players a fun and engaging method for interacting with rooms. Things such as the new diet window and room window update are all carefully planned to lead into the Ardyn race implementation as they will depend heavily on prisoners.
I've learned my lesson about promising dates so I can't really tell you when this version will be out. It won't be soon and I really, really appreciate your patience and support. Just know that I am always working on the game and have no plans to abandon it! :)
Thanks!
W