Balloons, automatic sails, steam engines oh my! Hey everyone - hope you are all keeping safe out there! Thanks so much for all the feedback from our beta testers, it has been really useful. If you aren't in the beta but want to join you can sign up here. Today I've pushed out the first update which contains some new panels. These panels will all appear in the second act which is not currently in the beta so we've also included a new challenge mode to let you try them out...

Balloons

Balloons is the first panel which will effect the weight and friction of your vehicle. They will reduce the friction and weight of the column you build them on.

Automatic Sail Trim

Who has time to jump around raising sails? Well with this panel you can raise all the sails on the column you build it on with a simple smash of a button!

Steam Engine and Water Tanks

Act 2 of the campaign is going to be all about automation. Some of you have already been playing with fans to automate solar panels, well the steam engine is a panel which is automated right from the start. You'll need to build some water tanks to provide the steam but once they have run out they are gone. These will only get refilled when you reach a truck stop. The steam engines can be turned off and also put into a boost mode, it will generate twice the thrust but use water twice as fast.

New Weekly Challenge Mode

All the panels introduced in this patch won't be available in the campaign mode since they are act 2 panels. So we have added a new challenge mode which is guaranteed to have the panels which were introduced in the last patch, plus a few random ones to spice things up a bit.

General Changes

• Redrafted dialogue throughout to reflect game play changes.
• Added a backwards facing cannon.
• Internally we have added the concept of 'child' and 'parent' panels in the engine. This allows us to create dependencies between panels and automatically unlock child panels when you unlock the parents. For example, solar panels are child panels of electric engines. Typically child panels won't be unlockable independently. This allowed us to remove solar panels from constantly appearing in the challenge modes.
• Added a button prompt for the first time you need to attack a carrot.
• Added a visual indicator of where walls will be built for each panel in the build UI.
• Leaderboards are now linked to the version number, so they automatically get reset when any balance changes come in.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where pausing the game while in the working animation would lock you into that animation.
• Fixed a bug where you could get stuck in build mode in the challenge modes.

Balance Changes

• Increased the difficulty of Ellen's race and decoupled carrot attacks from rest phases.
• Reduced the difficulty of keeping to schedule.
• Carrots now have a chance of dropping a coin when you eat them.
• Increased the max thrust of bellows.
• Increased effectiveness of turbine and propeller.
• The drag of the vehicle now increases less rapidly with size. This means that building larger vehicles is a more viable strategy.