Its been a while since the last Friday Blog, and a lot longer since the last released update. This has resulted in some questions. It seems its the right moment for a summary of our progress! Wed like to divide that summary into three parts:

• Things that are finished
• Things that still need to be done before we can release the public beta
• Things that need to happen between the release of the beta and the definitive, public release of 0.9.0

I.) Things That Are Finished

Outposts An improved version of the multiple-colonies idea from 0.7.0. New colonies were very much separated, requiring players to complete a separate tech tree and to start over nearly completely from scratch. If you wanted to bring items from colony A to colony B, you had to navigate a tedious trading UI. Outposts are the opposite. While they are physically in a different place, they are deeply connected with the main colony, automatically. They share scientific unlocks, and they automatically store items in, and take items from, the same stockpile as the main colony. Theyre not intended for distant exotic biomes - theyre intended to allow you to colonise and utilise the other side of the river. We believe the multiple-colonies idea from 0.7.0 to have failed somewhat. The systems were too convoluted to result in long-term engaging gameplay. Were hopeful that Outposts in 0.9.0 will fix that! From Points to the as of yet unnamed Currency Instead of giving items to colonists for Colony Points, spendable on upgrades in a specific UI, 0.9.0 has Currency, earned by selling items to a merchant. This currency can then be used to purchase items at that same merchant. This gives players more control, compared to the automatic distribution of meals and items that happens in 0.8, and it gives us a realistic way to give players access to outside items. In all previous versions of Colony Survival, the focus was on producing everything by yourself. In 0.9.0, you will be able to import vital goods and resources from the (distant, not visitable) outside world. This combines well with the Outposts. Vital resources can be restricted to locations like mountain tops and fens, and dont have to be directly accessible for your main colony. You will be able to purchase those resources, and later on you can build Outposts in these other locations to harvest those resources directly.
Traps Static blocks that automatically attack monsters that walk in front, on top or below them. Weve already got multiple varieties, and want to add some more. These blocks have to be reloaded by a colonist working a job currently called the trap fixer. During the day, they wander around their job spot reloading nearby traps. Were strongly considering re-using this mechanic to allow people to build for example custom, functional libraries. Enhanced Crafting In all previous versions of Colony Survival, there were some tight restrictions on crafting. Producing any item couldnt cost more than 15 seconds, and the crafting time was determined per job, not per recipe. This means that in 0.8, all recipes at a single job necessarily share the same crafting time. A bullet and a gun cost equal time to make. Both restrictions are gone. So the bullet can cost 10 seconds to craft, while crafting a gun could cost 5 minutes. This allows us to make things a lot more realistic and sensible, it allows us to remove filler ingredients like copper parts & copper nails, and we can use it to encourage people to build bigger colonies and recruit more colonists. Threat from Science The amount of monsters that spawn per night, the threat level, was previously completely determined by the amount of colonists currently in your colony. This worked well to scale the threat with your progress, but it also disincentivized that very progress! It encouraged players to min-max, to make sure that every colonist was optimally efficient. It made the game very easy for experts who were good at that, and it made the game very difficult for newcomers who were running less efficient colonies. This has been changed completely. The threat level now mostly increases due to certain big steps in the tech tree. Instead of rewarding min-maxing, we want to reward players who expand, who build big colonies filled with colonists. Tool System Most workers now need tools to do their job. These tools eventually degrade, and workers will have to visit the tool shop to grab new ones. There are multiple different types of tools with varying effects on crafting speed and durability. The most primitive jobs cant use the most advanced tools, and some advanced tools dont function with primitive tools. Completely New and Restructured Jobs, Items and Tech Tree With all these changes to core gameplay mechanics the old items and recipes have become very outdated. We want to take advantage of all the new possibilities, and were doing that by completely restructuring the tech tree and adding lots of new jobs and items. Were now working with an Age Format. Currently, there is content from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.
Elevators / People Movers Weve added infrastructure which players can use to move themselves to other locations quickly. Building the infrastructure is quite costly. Weve also enhanced gliders. Their previous incarnation was a bit weird and glitchy. It required players to do a vertical take-off, and then switch to gliding. The new glider is a lot more sensible: you build it on top of a roof, cliff or tower and when you enter it, its launched forward with some speed. Misc Many, many small things have been fixed and improved. The save format has been replaced with a SQLite database, which scales better, fixes some problems and helps prepare for cloud saving. Multithreading has been improved. Unity has been updated from the 2019 edition to the 2021 edition. NPC rendering has been redone, allowing for more animations and different NPC types more easily. Most jobs that worked in invisible squares now have actual meshes as job blocks. NPCs are way less likely to walk on top of their job blocks. The negative impact of torches on performance has been halved. Monsters now keep existing when reloading or restarting the game.

II.) To-Do-List before Beta Release

Late-game Content Currently, 0.8 content like the printing press and matchlock guns isnt in our dev build anymore. The 0.9 beta should cover at least all time periods that 0.8 did. The content that is currently in 0.9 ends rather abruptly, and that should become a nice transition to the later ages, from the invention of gunpowder to the mass adoption of the printing press. Were currently specifying all the necessary recipes, new jobs and scientific unlocks. Terrain Generator Changes The 0.9 content is planned with a new map in mind. Instead of enormous tiles with other resources hidden in very distant other tiles, the rare resources should be distributed much closer to the spawn. We want to use features like heaths and fens for that. Realistically, they occur relatively frequently and a bit randomly in temperate regions. They are easily recognizable, and they will hold unique resources like coal ore and sulphur. Changing the terrain generator makes older savegames unusable, so we want to finish that before releasing the beta.

III.) To-Do-List before Public Release

More Distinctive Monsters All monsters look quite alike, both in 0.8 and in the 0.9 dev build. We want to create new meshes for them so theyre easier to tell apart, and to more properly signify differences in strength and capabilities. Finalize the UI Quite some new features currently have rudimentary work-in-progress interfaces. These are obviously not release-ready and need to be improved. Incorporate Beta Feedback We dont know how youll feel about the beta and what youll encounter. Well probably need to balance some recipes and better clarify certain games in-game, based on your feedback. Perhaps we even need to alter, remove or add certain features. Well have to see!
[hr][/hr] We hope this overview helps you understand our current position in the development cycle! Update 0.9 is a massive undertaking that pretty much deserves the title Colony Survival II, but we want to release it as a free update to everybody who has been supporting us during this Early Access journey. We cant wait to see your reactions and want to release the update as soon as possible, but we also want to make sure the update meets stringent quality standards. Were changing and removing some deeply ingrained systems and content, and we only want to release that publicly when we are 100% certain that 99% of the community considers the new content and systems at least 1.5 times as good as the old ones! Bedankt voor het lezen :D Reddit // Twitter // YouTube // Website // Discord

[ 2022-05-27 16:38:12 CET ] [ Original post ]