Fellow dwarves! Good news and bad news! Bad news is we can now sustain wounds that require a full rest to recover. Good news, so can our opponents, and we've designed a new sturdier armour to protect us! Oh and we can finally fit through doors without brushing our arms...
Patch Notes
The big stuff:
Iron Platemail - Previously both iron weapons and armour existed in a single tech. Iron armour has now been moved to its own tier 3 tech, with a new addition: Platemail. Platemail offers more defence but slows the dwarf's movement. Obsidian helmets are also coming with this update, requiring both obsidian and fire shards to make, and offers resistance to fire damage such as the attacks from fire elements or wurms.
Critical Wounds - Battle is getting a little more dangerous as critical hits now pack a punch! A crit (scoring a hit immediately after an opponent fumbles) now has the potential to cause one of five wounds: Blinded, Concussed, Disarmed, Hobbled or Winded, or deal a death blow! Wounds (with the exception of Disarmed) last until the unit has fully rested. The likelihood of a more severe crit is based on the combat and overall levels of the attacker and defender. There will be more info on this in the in-game guide.
Skirmish Mode - The configuration for skirmish mode has received a small overhaul, rearranging and adding a new feature: Presets. We ran out of time to fully flesh out presets, but our plan eventually is to allow you to create your own! New saves will also show more details about your chosen game in the Save UI, which applies to campaign and caverns mode as well.
By-laws Update - The By-laws UI has received 3 new by-laws to configure: Food rations, and how much health/stamina may be lost before going to rest autonomously. If your food supplies are low, reduce the rations! If you have more than enough warriors, rest often and stay healthy!
Doors Redrawn - After reading feedback about our doors, we went back to the drawing board, and faced the challenge of fitting round objects through hexagonal spaces, and we're glad for it! Doors now properly fit the dimensions of dwarves! They've also changed position (central to the hex), so your existing doors from previous saves will remain as they are, until you move or rebuild them.
The small stuff:
Campaign Updates - Chapter 1 has received a number of updates including most maps seeing a new side-quest. We've learned a lot about world-building since we started this project, and have started applying this knowledge to the original levels of the campaign. More updates like this to come!
Stat Bars - Health, stamina and hunger bars will look a little different, now segmented into units of 50 (for dwarves, goblins etc) or 100 for buildings. If a dwarf has 100 health, their health bar will have 2 segments. This should make it easier to intuit how much of a stat someone has.
Show HUD Abilities - The Show Keybinds key (Alt by default) now also reveals each dwarf's equipment and abilities above their heads, to serve as a quick overview of who you have where.
New & Modified Traits - Arachnophobic and Necrophobic are two new traits. Dwarves with these traits will have reduced attack against spiders or draugr respectively, and become panicked near them. We've also modified the Socialist & Loner traits. They no longer work slower when not around their preferred social quota, but instead stamina simply drains quicker.
Bedrolls Tech - Now includes a buildable campfire that provides nearby sleepers with the Sound-asleep trait, recovering stamina and health quicker. Previously this buff would only apply if you had as many beds as dwarves, which is still the case, however the campfire provides another way.
Enemy Drops - Wurms now drop meat when killed, with higher drop rate based on level. Elementals will also drop elemental shards, which will be used more in a future patch. For now, you can use them to craft gems at the Stonecutter (requiring one of each type). Also, draugr now retain their former level after resurrecting from heads, making them even more formidable!
Foot-trails - As units repeatedly tread over the same patch of dirt, they will start to leave trails behind. This is not only a visual cue to help you identify where to place cobblestone paths, but helps indicate where enemies might have been.
Caverns Mode Fixes - We noticed a number of different bugs in caverns mode, including 'Distant Clans' option no longer taking effect. To receive these fixes, you'll need to start a new game.
Bed Priorities - Beds used to have restrictions, allowing you to ban certain classes or traits from particular beds. We have flipped this logic and instead of restricting, you can now set priorities. This means any bed will still be used if no priority beds are available or close by.
Ability Buffs - Track-Runner, Tunnel-Whisperer, Back-Breaker and Reconstruction abilities have been buffed. Track-Runner now also applies while standing on cobblestone, Reconstruction is more likely to take effect and now works on goblin buildings, Tunnel-Whisper works for thicker walls and Back-Breaker attacks now properly count as crits and can cause wounds.
Behavioural AI Bugs - Fixed some bugs including an occasional loop of picking up meals and dropping them again. Also setting specific units for instruction zones would occasionally be scrambled when saving & loading.
When choosing equipment for your dwarves, clicking the equipment slot now also provides an option to consume it (if consumable), instead of relying on 'force eat'.
Performance Improvements - We've made improvements to performance for various elements, including the marker radius for support posts, runestones etc, and when zooming fully out.
Feedback Form - We no longer ask for email, and instead provide an option to automatically send us a snapshot save-state of your current game. This should help us track down some of the more elusive bugs. We are also now able to respond to feedback in-game with a popup dialog. We won't be responding to all feedback in this way, but we wanted to be able to communicate two ways without requiring personal information.
Demo Improvements - We've also received reports of a number of issues with the Demo, so that has also seen some attention, and has been updated to the same build.
We have tinkered with quite a lot in this update, including core systems, so older saves may experience some issues we hadn't accounted for. However, we ask that you continue to report any issues you encounter, as we will work quickly to resolve them. The upcoming Halloween patch will mostly see bug fixes as we continue to focus on chapter 3.