Summary
It took a bit more time than anticipated, but I think I got most, if not all, of the 0.5 bugs under control and added some of the most requested features. I've been playing a 10h game with this patch (with multi-threading enabled) and it's stable. I've also fixed the path-finding issue that was preventing players from having multiple separate underground areas. We're also back to pre-0.5 performances after another code optimization pass.
While i could speak about bug fixing for a while, let's get to the more interesting parts:
Lasso Selection
Firstly, lasso selection during combat has finally been implemented. You can lasso select your units (in combat mode) to move them in group. No more awkward 1 by 1 unit selection. It however makes most encounters trivial to deal with. I might need to re-balance events or prevent settlers from shooting & moving at the same time when under player control. I'll leave it as is for now.
Weapon Strength vs Material Integrity
That's something I have explained in multiple locations already. Simply put, the general idea is that a weak attack like a punch or an arrow shot shouldn't do the same amount of damage to a soft body and to a metal wall.
To that effect, each weapon has a "strength" value and each armor/object/target has an "integrity" value, both ranging from 1 (very low) to 5 (very high). The bigger the difference between the 2, the higher the damage reduction (by 20% increments).
For instance a very low strength (punch) attack versus a very high (metal wall) integrity target will lead to a 80% reduction in damage. The opposite isn't true. High strength vs low integrity won't increase the damage.
It's still a bit experimental, but all in all it's working. Strong doors last much longer, but they aren't going to hold off a horde of shamblers indefinitely either.
Tool-tip System
I slightly extended the tool-tip system. Clicking an object will no longer show that cumbersome center-top panel. Instead it will display a transparent popup providing more information and less visual noise. It also has the handy side effect of showing the content of your containers / storage buildings with a single click.
I will continue to improve that system, replacing some of the large menus by more dynamic tool-tips when it makes sense.
Changelog
Balance
- Collecting water from well is 33% faster
- Purifying water at a camp fire is 25% faster
- Reduced wall and tile building time by about 33%
Combat
- Lasso selection for multi-unit selection during combat
- Ability to give move and attack orders to whole groups of survivors
- Weapons, objects, armors have a strength and integrity variable influencing damage (low strength vs high integrity lowering damages)
Engine
- More code optimizations, which should put us back to pre 0.5 performances, give or take
- Job Dispatcher is now thread-safe which should make the multi-threading option safe'ish now
User Interface
- Slightly tweaked panels so menus look a bit better
- Replaced the top panel for furniture, walls and player owned constructions by the new tooltip system
- Tooltips look better and deliver more information
- Added weapon strength and armor/object integrity info to contextual right click menus
- Updated tooltip and tutorial to account or multi unit selection in combat mode
- Added keyboard shortcut info to main menu button tooltips
Bug Fixes
- It was possible to build (buggy) stairs over blackened walls when the intented behavior is "only above empty cavern"
- Potential crash when the colony collapses
- Weird french sentence in exploration monitor menu (me deplace vers)
- In caverns (invisible) walls marked for deletion could keep the tile colored in red after being deleted
- Survivors would appear near a stair instead of on top of it when changing scene, potentially blocking them into a wall
- Combat mode circles showing even when in the wrong floor
- Bug that could teleport someone in the wrong floor
- Regression bug (0.5.0) preventing job priority settings to be restored when loading a savegame
- Pathing errors when having multiple and separated underground locations
- Damaged palisades would show the default wall damage sprite that's larger than the palisade
- Epidemics are not checking for faction, causing spiders and lizards to catch the flu
- Camera centering via menus would not switch to the proper scene
- Automatic change of layer (events, menus, etc.) would not always properly update the lighting
- Traders could appear in the underground (and stuck to boot)
- Repair job not working properly
- RaiderAI could take forever to start if the majority of the base is underground