Hey drifters!
We have a major update ready to test for you all: Eel-ectricity!
This patch brings energy, weight and slottable items to your floating villages. Allowing you to connect buildings with energy grids and produce power to move your town.
Each item has it's weight, which will impact the energy required to get to destinations. Workshops can be slotted with Generators, replacing their need for a drifter to work there.
This patch comes with a complete update to the render pipeline, offering smoother performance and fancier graphics. (shadows on the water!) As well as a pacing rebalance and many other changes.
We wanted to get these changes out to you as soon as possible in order to gather feedback.
As such, the feature can be accompanied by bugs.
We invite you all to test this update and give us your feedback.
When bugs occur, provide as much information as possible to help us resolve these faster!
Read here how to submit and track the current bugs in the game.
This patch is still in development and can be tested on the experimental branch to give feedback.
This is how you can enable the experimental branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
Enjoy the new update!
Change Notes
New Energy System
- Energy buildings can now be connected to energy grids. * Buildings that require energy will draw energy from their connected energy grid. * If an energy grid becomes overloaded, connected buildings will work at reduced efficiency.
- Certain buildings now require energy, instead of fuel * Town Engine * Research Station * Desalinator * Food Truck
- The townheart starts with a crank to produce energy which prevents players getting stuck when they didn't build an energy related building.
- Added an energy overlay that shows the energy consumption, production or storage of energy related buildings.
- Removed old fuel import system and replaced it with the fuel being part of the production recipe.
- Added a method to link energy grids together using click and drag energy wires.
Town Weight
- Your town now has a weight, which will affect the energy cost of town movement. * The town weight is calculated by the total accumulation of all resource weights in construction costs, inventory and in storage.
- There are currently 6 different weight tiers: * Very Light: 0kg - 400kg * Light: 400kg - 800kg - Movement cost increased by 50% * Medium: 800kg - 1200kg - Movement cost increased by 120% * Heavy 1200kg - 1600kg - Movement cost increased by 230% * Very Heavy: 1600kg - 2000kg - Movement cost increased by 400% * Overloaded: 2000kg+ - Movement cost increased by 600%
Slottable Items
- Certain buildings can now slot items in them as an upgrade. * A generator can be slotted in workshops to remove the need for a drifter. Workshops with a Generator will need to be connected to an energy grid. * Batteries can be slotted in the Battery Holder to increase their energy storage.
New Buildings
- Battery Holder: A holder where adding batteries will increase energy storage.
- Wood-Powered Generator: This building can burn wood to generate energy.
- Oil-Powered Generator: This building can burn oil to generate energy.
- Energy Pole: A building that is used to connect buildings to the energy grid.
- Solar Panel: Generates energy from solar power.
- Electro Crafter: Turns Electric Scrap into various electric items.
New Items
- Battery: Used for energy storage. Can be slotted in a Battery Holder
- Generator: Used to upgrade a workshop to no longer require a drifter. Can be slotted in any workshop.
- Solar Panel: Used to generate energy from solar power.
- Electric Scrap: Can be made into energy related items.
- Temporarily removed Books.
New Landmarks
- Polluted Woods
- Car Battery Island
Pacing Rebalance
- The research station comes into play much faster now, with many buildings being behind research.
- The research station no longer requires books. Instead, it requires plastic buoyants and energy.
- Dried wood can now be found more frequently on a new landmark: The Polluted Woods.
- Wood drying has been slowed down.
- Reduced Metal Scrap cost for Metal Plates.
- Increased amount of landmarks containing Metal Scrap.
- Overhauled each building's cost to take weight, time and energy in regard.
Render Pipeline Update
- Updated the render pipeline to the Unity Universal Render Pipeline.
- Reworked all shaders to increase overall performance and visuals.
- Reworked the ocean shader.
- Shadows can now be cast on the water.
- Reworked the underwater world, as you can now see it better.
Animations
- Added Manual-Powered Generator animation.
- Added Ropecrafter animation.
- Added Plastic Recycler animation.
- Added Reroll animations for the crew selection screen.
- Added Wood-Powered Generator building animation.
- Added Oil-Powered Generator building animation.
Misc.
- Seagulls will now be scouted by drifters.
- Added LODs for walkways.
- Added LODs for flotsam.
- Changed names and descriptions for various buildings.
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the fog of war would not go away around the town when moving to the outer edges of the map.
- Fixed an issue where loading a save would make the day / night visuals appear out of sync.
- Fixed an issue where a drifter would get stuck on a mooring point after moving the town.
- Fixed an issue where the boat panel would sometimes show the wrong captain on a boat.
- Fixed an issue where a boat would get stuck at the wrong mooring point after moving the town.
- Fixed an issue where a drifter would not eat or drink if the game was saved in the night.
Behind the Scenes
- Added a landmark generator to improve our workflow for the landmarks.