Howdy Folks!

Update 25 :: New Horizons is now live and includes an overhauled tech tree, new decoration research, improved expedition mechanics and a whole lot of tweaks, changes and fixes.

Updated Game Progression

The tech tree has been re-worked completely to provide a clearer path of progression. To accommodate some of these changes, I’ve also made changes to the early game progression.

The elevator no longer provides power and is constructed later in the game. The new E.M.G., or Emergency Mechanical Generator, has been added to provide early game power.

The water trap no longer requires bait, but will use bait if it’s available. Bait will increase the operation speed. A new cave-dwelling fish can now be captured in the water trap.

Improved Expedition Mechanics

Expeditions were meant to be a means of exploring the surface, making new discoveries and gathering resources for the facility. While this did happen, I received a lot of feedback that it required more micromanagement than it really needed.

With this update, expeditions are far easier to manage. Now, to create an expedition, you select destinations along with supplies and passengers. Once the expedition team has been selected they will automatically travel to each POI, and then head back to dock at the facility. The POI interaction screen will appear when they arrive at a destination.

Additionally, the vehicle dock action no longer requires that the vehicle be adjacent to the facility. Vehicles will return to the facility and dock from the tile they are on.

Points Of Interest

Points Of Interest on the surface map are no longer generated via the Comm Station. Instead, they will appear automatically as the surface area is revealed.

New points of interest have been added and some existing POI interactions have been updated. Additional POIs will continue to be added in future updates.

The Comm Station can no longer be researched or used, but will return with a new use in a future update.

Surface Visuals

Rivers have been visually updated to be more, well, river-like. Water colors have also been updated.

Colonist Accessories

Colonists now have a chance to spawn with random accessory items such as glasses or facial hair.

And More…

A new decorations section has been added to the research screen. Here, you can unlock new and existing decoration items. This will form the foundation of more content to come.

The existing Coal Generator has been visually updated and renamed to the Solid Fuel Generator. The Solid Fuel Generator now requires water to operate.

I had more planned for Update 25 that didn’t make it in. The next content update will continue the improvements and additions to planet surface content.

Check out the release notes below for the full list of changes, fixes and additions.

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Release Notes

Progression

• Massive re-work of technology tree to improve progression
• Updated getting started tasks to reflect new starting progression

Power Management

• Added EMG. Replaces elevator as early game power.
• Elevator no longer provides power when constructed.
• Renamed coal generator to Solid Fuel Generator
• Solid Fuel Generator now requires water
• Increased fuel consumption rate of coal generator
• Updated the look of the Solid Fuel Generator and footprint size. Already constructed Solid Fuel Generator will still use the old model due to the change in footprint size.
• Minor increase to fuel amount provided by anthracite
• Solid Fuel Generator fuel percent now has a tooltip to show fuel percent and total amount stored
• Solid Fuel Generator now has greater negative decor impact
• Increased construction cost of Solid Fuel Generator
• Decreased power output of Geothermal Generator
• Fuel Item shows fuel amount in item tooltip
• Reduced power requirement of research bench from 125 to 100
• Power generators now show power output amount in build menu info
• Power storage objects now show power storage amount in build menu info

Expeditions

• Added new POI types
• Updated look of Create Expedition window
• Destination POIs must now be chosen when creating an expedition
• Once an expedition is created it will automatically travel to the selected POI locations and interact with each POI in turn. Once all POI locations are visited the expedition will automatically return to the facility and dock.
• Robot passengers no longer affect Estimated Food Supply time in the create expedition window
• Expedition vehicles no longer have “move to” and “investigate POI” actions. Expeditions can still be canceled early by clicking the Explore POI action to turn it off and then selecting Dock which will return the expedition to the facility and dock.
• Updated Expeditions guide topic

Points Of Interest

• POIs are no longer generated using the Comm Station/Radar Towers. POIs will appear automatically as the map is uncovered/explored. There is no limit to the number of visible POIs.
• Comm station no longer unlockable in the tech tree. Comm station will return in a future update.
• POIs now have a more informative name/description
• POIs now show a risk level, recommended job(s) and required gear.
• Re-worked how POI stories calculate success chances
• POI action success chance no longer based on health/stress
• Added POI story action type that allows for a chance based result from the expedition party as a whole instead of choosing a specific colonist. Not all POI stories updated to new system.
• Game will now pause when interacting with a poi story

Vehicles

• Can now use the Dock vehicle action from anywhere. Vehicles will automatically return to the primary facility and dock.
• D.O.G.E. and Wasp vehicles no longer convertible to radar towers as radar towers are no longer used to scan for POIs

Planet Surface Visuals

• Change to river generation on the planet surface to avoid rivers being too close together. This change helps rivers to be better distributed and not as clumped together.
• Updated look of river biome tiles
• Updated the color of water tiles
• Mountain tiles with less than two adjacent mountain tiles should no longer appear flat

UI

• Added notification when a vehicle docks at the facility if the planet map window is not open
• Updated the look of the story interface
• Changed the tooltip for Unknown Research projects in research window
• Facility Management buttons moved to a new button bar at the left edge of the screen
• Updated tooltip text to use a better text generation method to reduce blurry text in some cases

Misc

• Primary facility on surface no longer shows vision range when selected
• Colonists now have a chance to spawn with random accessories such as glasses or facial hair.
• Water trap no longer requires bait to function. Base gathering speed decreased, but can be increased if using bait. Bait brought to the water trap automatically if it’s available.
• Water Trap now shows status in info window
• Added guide section for Water Trap
• Bio-Waste removed from water trap loot table
• Blood fish and blood fish egg added to water trap loot table
• Bait now unlocked in the recipe research section under the food processor
• Added Decoration research section to research interface. Existing decoration research moved to the decoration section.
• Added new unlockable decorations via research
• Re-organized recipe research section
• Updated how research sections are generated
• Updated power generation guide topic
• Added Blood Fish and blood fish egg items
• Updated fish tank interface to be able to change fish type
• Fridge and food dispenser no longer have a required room
• Bio samples added to organics chest loot
• Humans and robots are now different colors on the minimap
• Increased research cost of food processor recipes from 25 to 50
• Cave salad meal recipe no longer uses Sponge Stalk
• Change to how some numeric values are saved to reduce save file size

Modding

• Updated loot table processing to be more consistent and allows currencies to be used in any loot table
• CItemEdible no longer has values for satiation and nutrition. These values are now under a values tag inside CProperties
• CElectricCreatorSolidFuel now has a “fuel_consume_frequency” tag which is the time in seconds one unit of fuel is consumed. A unit of fuel is not the fuel item delivered, but is a unit of “max_fuel_store”.

Fixes

• Fixed: Tab no longer works to close management window after saving game in some cases
• Fixed: Starting supply chest spawning inside stasis capsule on game start in some cases
• Fixed: POI stories not checking “seen before” flag correctly which meant seen before text was not shown in some cases.
• Fixed: Arrowhead Mushroom discovery not received when getting a seed from harvesting the wild crop
• Fixed: Water pump output amount shows under requirements in build menu.
• Fixed: Space between number and percent in some user interfaces
• Fixed: Gather from water trap showing wrong description text
• Fixed: Twin Fin fish clipping through top of aquarium
• Fixed: Colonists on expeditions still count towards being over populated in the facility
• Fixed: DOGE/Wasp vehicles stop working during biome scanning
• Fixed: Game becomes unresponsive and or crashes due to auto explore vehicle action exploring near map edge
• Fixed: Expedition list available if map table is placed, but not finished being constructed
• Fixed: Game crashes or becomes unresponsive if surface structure is too close to the edge of the map
• Fixed: Objects not updating correctly when placed which causes visual glitches in some cases
• Fixed: Attribute tooltips not showing correct value formatting in some instances
• Fixed: Vehicle speed showing mph when unit setting is metric
• Fixed: Construction Queue remains open when opening facility management screen
• Fixed: Colonists spawn with conflicting quirks
• Fixed: Recipe not set correctly when updating craft queue item in some instances
• Fixed: Unable to scroll research tech tree to access off screen items in some resolutions
• Fixed: Ability to set “Repair At” durability slider to 100%. Max is now 95%. Resolves issue with colonists constantly trying to repair an object if slider was set to 100%
• Fixed: Item Pickup/drop off audio heard during game load
• Fixed: Inventory max quantity not showing updated value when installing an inventory upgrade
• Fixed: Missing language strings