I’m very excited to announce the release of alpha version 0.06 which available now on Itch.IO. A large focus of this update has been related to the colonist needs, attributes and the new Quirks. There have also been various updates to other parts of the game as well. Let’s take a look at some of the new features

Stats

A lot of work went in to updating the colonist info window so that it has a better break down of needs, attributes and Quirks to better show how the colonist is being affected. The info window has been divided into tabs and the new Stats tab has detailed information with additional information found in hover tool tips. This is a great new way to see what is effecting your colonist.

There have been some additional changes to how some stats affect your colonist. The muscles attribute now directly affects a colonists inventory carry capacity. A colonist carrying more than their capacity will have reduced movement speed. Haulers picking up items from the ground to bring to storage will generally not overfill their inventory. Builders, however, need to collect all the items in order to build a structure which means, depending on the structure & their capacity, they may carry over the inventory capacity and thus be reduced in speed when going to build the structure.

Quirks

With the better break down of information I was able to add in Quirks. This is something I’ve wanted to add for a while, but wanted to ensure it was presented clearly to the player. Quirks are permanent affects on your colonist that are randomly added when the colonist is created for the first time. A Quirk affects a need or attribute and can change the change rate, max or current value. For example the Paranoid Quirk reduces max stress by 5 which means a paranoid colonist will become completely stressed out sooner. I have added in many different possible Quirks and I will continue to add more over time as well as more side effects related to Quirks.

Other Updates

There have been various other updates such as changing iron/copper ore over to Hematite/Azurite. Plant pots have been added for decoration and some floors/ground affect movement speed.

There are a lot of great new features in 0.06 and lays the foundation for more content. Keep those bug reports and suggestions/ideas coming! Check out the release notes below for the full list of updates.

Release Notes

Features

• Colonist info window now has tabs to better organize information. Colonist info window is sectioned into Info/Jobs/Stats.
• Added new breakdown of colonist needs/attributes/quirks under stats tab
• Added Quirks. Quirks permanently affect attributes of the colonists in different ways. Colonists can have both positive and negative quirks which are added when a colonist is created.
• Some floor/objects affect colonist movement speed. Movement affect will show in info when selecting floor/objects.
• Added Plant Pot decoration item. Select plant pot to choose what gets planted in it.
• Colonist management screen now shows colonists needs/attributes.
• Muscles attribute now affects colonists inventory carry capacity. Colonists that are carrying more than their capacity will walk slower. Colonists will not pick up more items than they can carry when hauling to storage, but bringing all the items to a construction project may result in a colonists carrying more than their capacity.
• Camera now moves to focus on selected structures/colonists. If colonist selected the camera will track them as they move around. Right click/Escape to close info window will unlock object tracking.

Changes/Updates

• Colonist energy need changed to Fatigue and increases similar to hunger. This was to have more consistency in attributes instead of hunger going up and energy going down.
• Iron Ore changed to Hematite
• Copper Ore changed to Azurite
• Updated look for Hematite/Azurite
• Removed O2 Generators. O2 generators in existing maps will still load, but still non functional.
• Removed O2 from info bar at bottom of screen. In its place shows the current colonist count.
• Eating time increased to be more reasonable.
• Eating/Sleeping actions now trigger at a lower percentage.
• Updated eating animations.
• Updated item tooltips to show item description and type.

Fixes

• Colonist hunger rate is stopped while sleeping so they won’t die of starvation while they sleep.
• Updated attribute effect generation to reduce memory overhead and increase performance
• Colonists prioritize eating higher quality meals over of raw food.
• Fog Of War no longer offset by half a tile
• Minor update to water shader for improved performance