Hello!

This was supposed to be a small and fun scenario for Halloween, but I might have been carried away. Just you know, a bit. So, here is both a new scenario and a fairly chunky update for you to enjoy!

As usual, full changelog at the end, save-games and mods compatible.

Rise of the Mutants

Let's start with the main attraction. RotM is a new scenario for ATC where you play as a group of mutants in search of their origin. It's not just a quick reskin, this scenario is designed to showcase what can be done in a week of work (and testing) with my engine.

(a note before we start: this scenario features cannibalism and a quest with some non-kid friendly content, nothing that's out of character in a fallout-ish game, but I'd rather mention it.)

The scenario features:

• A customized tech tree
• A decently sized quest mixing research, combat, exploration and text based adventure
• A playable race with unique mechanics (more on that below)
• New and altered game events
• A few new weapons, armors and items

So, the mutants, which are not inspired by any other mutant from any other franchise, definitely not, are big, green and mean. On the plus side, they have super human strength and endurance, an immunity to scorched biome and acid rain debuffs, increased melee damage, HP, and have a natural resistance to damage. They are excellent fighters and can one-on-one most mobs in the game even without fancy armors or guns. Oh, and they have no philosophical problem with eating humans, on the contrary.

On the negative side, they eat and drink more (20%), they are god awful at medicine and science. Most of the tech tree beyond electronics is closed to them. No robotics, no drones, automated kitchen, advanced turrets or modern weapon/armor repairs. They however start with exploration and animal care unlocked immediately and have access to unique bone melee weapons and armors. The weapons have a very high chance to incapacitate a target, and the armor is very good for its cost (better than the metal armor).

They also are quite asocial and will brawl and fight each other a lot. Keeping them content is quite difficult but it is not as bad as it sounds. The "depressed" mood doesn't apply to mutants. Instead, they become "agitated". An agitated mutant will brawl even more, but will also be stronger, get a military skill boost, and will be better at all jobs involving razing something, however they'll be slower builders in this state.

With a very slow research rate and no easy access to the high-end tier, they are meant to be played as a low tech faction relying on numbers and animals to defend themselves against raiders and other factions (speaking of which, Neo Roma is perma-hostile to you here, it's a feature, not a bug).

A few words of advice:

• I would suggest to start on a large desert river/oasis village map, preferably with a special underground biome and/or bunker. It's not necessary, but it's a nice change of pace from the less interesting city maps.
• Mutants need a lot of food and water, better make sure you have more farms and kitchens than normally. It is also a very good idea to allow them (Faction menu) to butcher sentient beings.
• Take advantage of the fact that you can collect and grow giant eggs right from the start. Just make sure you have a wheat farm and access to animal food before growing them.
• To start the quest, you'll have to complete the "Remembering The Past" research, which is just after Masonry. Pay attention to your (clickable) message log after researching it as it will reveal a world map location.
• This is a combat heavy scenario, you'll be raided slightly more often than usual and you will lose people, especially when dealing with raids from other factions.

I hope you'll enjoy this scenario and quest, it's still a bit clunky and the writing is, well.. mine (who isn't a native English speaker), but it should still give you a window to what will be done in the future. :)

AI, Balance and Content

Of course, it wouldn't be an update without the usual list of changes and improvements. I will list a few of the most notable ones here.

Previously, it was notably difficult to keep incapacitated enemies alive. I made that a tad easier: your survivors should be a lot faster at noticing they shouldn't shoot at their target anymore (assuming they aren't blood-thirsty) and newly incapacitated people get a few seconds of invulnerability so they can soak up bullets that were still flying at them (only if your faction menu is set NOT to attack incapacitated people).

Fire will also properly stop at walls now, no matter which tile those walls are built upon. It does make very large fires a bit more taxing on the CPU, though. Nothing dramatic, but it was the reason why it didn't work that way before. Speaking of fire, sand crabs are now immune so they stop burning themselves to death.

Oh, fun little fact, animals now get an unique name (well, from a list) the first time they get adopted by a survivor. Mutants also have their own name generator.

And as usual, I also included many new UI improvements and fixed a bunch of bugs.

Full Changelog

• AI: Hospital patients will no longer starve themselves if a doctor doesn't come to visit for a long time
• AI: Fighters under your control are better at not shooting at incapacitated targets (if incapacitate is set in faction menu)
• AI: Survivors can detect when they can no longer pickup something from storage and will cancel their movement instead of traveling all the distance
• Balance: Strengthened all active factions and increased their maximum range
• Balance: Factions' main HQ have a minimal amount of enemies to kill an exploit where it would be way too easy to attack them in manual combat
• Balance: Tweaked event frequency (reduced cough, increased some raiders, removed some technology gating for late game raids)
• Balance: Fire will stop at walls, independently of the type of tile it's built upon
• Balance: Incapacitated people, assuming your faction settings are set to keep them alive, get a few seconds of invulnerability after going down
• Balance: Slightly reduced the time it takes to boil water at camp fire
• Balance: Sand crabs are now immune to fire damage, because they really need to for their own sake
• Balance: Most animals/people yield more bones when butchered and/or dying
• Content: New unique "Rise Of The Mutants" scenario, see post for details
• Content: Unique name generator for mutants
• Content: Bone equipment (bone axe, club, armor and face mask)
• Content: Added recipes to armor forge and crafting station for bone weapons (mutant scenario only)
• Content: Lot of additional content added to the mutant scenario only
• Content: Pets get baptized the first time they get adopted by a settler (only apply to newly created animals if loading from pre update save)
• Engine: Many improvements to the interactive travel event system, allowing for much more complex quests to be built
• Graphics: Additional leader faces for some of the factions
• Graphics: Reduced the scale of survivors' footprints to be more on par with their actual size
• Modding: Added "EventOnDiscovery" (string) field to tech files, will automatically launch the specified game event whenever the tech is discovered/researched
• Modding: Ability for scenarios to override "happy" and "depressed" traits (see mutant scenario for all the new/recent scenario related features)
• Modding: Added "EventTextDump" game event type, does pretty much what's written on the tin (seen events/scen_rotm_mutagen for example)
• Modding: Travel events can set, increment, decrement and test global and persistant variables (GetVar Validator, SetVar/IncVar/DecVar Effects)
• Modding: Added MinHostileCount to POI files (defines a minimal number of opponents in manual combat mode, assuming there is actual any opposition)
• Modding: Footprint scale is moddable
• UI: Minor tweak to faction list, longer descriptions, font the same size as the rest of the UI.
• UI: More space in Population menu for settlers' names (so long names don't wrap into the text)
• UI: Made sure the recruitment menu cannot be canceled by a misclick outside of it
• UI: Added "required techs" to individual tech info panels/encyclopedia entries
• UI: Minor improvements to the UI of the interactive travel events' menu
• UI: Animal Nursery's menu got improved, species field can be clicked for info, and the egg selector menu got a facelift
• UI: Added "Recruit All" button to recruit menu
• UI: More minor changes not worth bloating a changelog with
• ProcGen: Village maps can feature some surface mountains
• Steam: Replaced the pictures of many of the older achievements
• Steam: Added achievement for completing the 'Rise of the Mutants' storyline
• Fixed: After loading a save, wild plants marked for deletion wouldn't be highlighted in red like they should (0.8.6.0 regression bug)
• Fixed: Last stage of pandemonium would turn people into the hostile faction instead of the infected one
• Fixed: Text being cut in farms' crop selection panel
• Fixed: Sound effects coming from other layers would still be played
• Fixed: A few of the debris/clutter already on the map could still be used by your survivors which goes against lore and gameplay
• Fixed: Enemies waiting in ambush in building wouldn't fight back against anyone but the player
• Fixed: Apple trees are invisible for a few days after being planted
• Fixed: Fauna had a tendency to stare forever at doors they encounter (since 0.8.6.2)
• Fixed: Plants would die in pastures and in other zone types where this effect wasn't intended (only apply to new zones if continuing from old save)
• Fixed: (modding) Interactive event validators for Tech and NoTech were non functional
• Fixed: (modding) Issue with traits causing npc to morph into another one if KeepTrait is not set
• Fixed: Doors would "push" people who stay on the tile for too long, which could lead to unwanted teleportation
• Fixed: Ordering soldiers to move on a tile with a door wasn't working as it should
• Fixed: Recruited prisoners wouldn't have the law and job settings applied
• Fixed: Minor rendering issue with doors copied using the shortcut