Hi!

Here's a very massive update for After The Collapse, hence the skip in the usual version numbering system. It covers multiple new systems, new quests, a slicker UI, heavily improved graphics, and a ton of fixes and balance changes. As usual, the full change-log is at the bottom of this post. I will also cover the reason why there has been no update in a year at the end of this article. The important bit is that updates will start rolling out again at a regular pace.

Visual and Audio

This will be the first thing you'll notice when launching the game. All background images, static cut-scenes, portraits, and illustrations during events and quests have been redesigned or replaced by much higher-quality assets sharing a similar art style. That's about 200 new or replaced images in total. Additionally, all main story cut-scenes have voice-over narration and dialogs, in English only, though (there's no plan to add more languages).

The visual improvements are not just limited to the "non-game" parts. As you can see in the screenshots below, all the different wall types, including the mountains and caverns, have been redesigned using a top-down 3D perspective. It really should have been done sooner as it makes the game look a lot better.

A very common complaint regarding the user interface is that it is oversized. As such, the font is now a bit smaller (which incidentally fixes an issue with the text being slightly distorted), and all menus, panels, and elements (like checkboxes and such) have been resized, if not fully redesigned. Even the menu at the bottom of the screen uses much less space. There's a side effect, though: scaling down the UI in the settings will make the text much harder to read.

There are still a few menus and screens I need to review and possibly redo, but they're in the minority. The next stop will likely be the overworld map, which really needs a facelift. I might also do something about the survivors themselves, replacing them by something better looking/animated, not 100% sure yet.

Fishing!

This is a new way to feed your base, which can be used as a replacement or as a complement to farming. It does not require any particular technology and is available right from the start of the game, assuming there is water nearby, of course.

You build fishing docks next to the water; they function similarly to a crafting station. You can either fish with bait or without, with the former being a lot more time-efficient than the latter. You can build fish bait at the camp fire. There are 2 recipes: the first one requires nothing (the survivor is "looking for worms") but takes a while; the second one uses plants and is much faster. All those activities use the new "fishing" skill. Fish are considered a food ingredient that can be used in the kitchen to make cooked fish or fish'n'chips (with potatoes). Both of those meals are very filling and give a pretty decent buff.

Compared to farming, fishing is more labor-intensive, as you need to make bait and have multiple docks with workers constantly busy fishing. Depending on the map, it also might be riskier, as you might need to fish relatively far away from the security of your walls. That said, it's immune to bad weather, the food you produce is of much higher quality (especially in the early game), leading to happier survivors, and it's easier to predict and monitor food availability.

Early game food production was one of the very few systems for which there was one thing, and one thing only, you could do. You'd make 30 tiles worth of farm in every game, probably even the very first thing you'd even place on the map. It always bugged me, but I never really had the time to add more ways to do it until now. It's also the first game system in a long line that I'm going to alter and make more meaty.

New Critters

On top of the new Giant Crab variant (a tanky melee focused ice/electric crab, more common in humid/cold biomes), entirely new creatures join the roster.

Giant ants come in 2 variants (soldier and worker). They aren't very tanky but come in large groups. As with the real ones, there's nothing much to gain from fighting them beside the satisfaction of not being eaten alive by a swarm of insects, which is as good a reason as any. I didn't get the time to expand on the concept much yet, but I'll be adding their own dedicated underground biome and unique world map battle map and systems in the next update. I'm pretty excited with what I'm going to do with them in the future.

Caterpillar-like critters now spawn in the underground layers. They are extremely weak, but can be pastured (they drop eggs). They reproduce quickly and are a decent source of silk and animal meat. There's only one variant, but more will come soon.

Finally, in the annoying, but rare and exploitable, spawner category, I added the mutated carnivorous plant and its poisonous spore minions

Unique Survivors

Those are survivors you can recruit during extremely rare events and world map mini-quests. Right now, there are 10 of them, but you'll see a lot less than that during the course of a game. They come with a custom portrait, bio, and equipment and have really good stats, traits, and skills. They are generally very costly to recruit.

Right now, they aren't integrated as well into the game progression as I'd like. It'll be ironed out in future updates, and I might even give some of them their own dedicated recruitment quest-line.

New Short Quest-line

I added a new short quest-line, Wandering Stranger. It is not available in story mode, but it should work in all other scenarios. It triggers when an expedition is traveling the world map during the mid-game (it's gated by having radio researched). You do not have to accept it immediately; if you tell the wandering stranger 'No', the event will pop up again.

I won't go into much more detail. It's lore heavy but not particularly complicated and includes some unique rewards you can't find anywhere else.

New Wound System

If you've played After The Collapse for more than a few hours, you probably noticed that outside of combat, survivors would never get wounded. Even in combat, it was rare and limited to a very small selection. This was partly due to the implementation; each time I added a new injury, I would also have to edit every single weapon file accordingly. It was not a scalable system, and it made weapon modding more difficult than it should be. Plus, there was no way to make some wounds more rare than others. Well, those are things of the past.

Now, while working, your survivors will get wounded pretty frequently, actually. The less efficient a survivor is at a task, the more likely they are to get wounded. The nature of said wound depends on the task: hauling may cause back pain, while someone working at the smelter may get first-degree burns. Rare exceptions aside, those wounds are quite superficial and will heal on their own. They will impact the survivors' morale and stats/skills temporarily, though. This can be disabled in the difficulty settings, but I would strongly advise against it.

Regarding combat, instead of tying injuries to each weapon individually (which is still possible), the game ties those outcomes to the damage type and the weapon category. For instance, all standard rifles (ranged, piercing) share the same pool of injuries the game can pick from, while all shotguns (ranged, impact) use a different pool to pick from. In practice, this does not change the likelihood of being wounded when hit; it just increases the number of possible outcomes.

New Playable Faction Archetype

The Arakans (from Act 1 of story mode) are now playable in the other scenarios. They haven't been fully tested and are probably quite challenging to play. They have the same tech limitations as the mutants, barring you from using the late-game stuff. They are mentally unstable cannibals (mental breakdowns are slightly more common) and cannot recruit people normally. You can't even recruit while exploring world map buildings. Yeah, that's a lot of negatives, but there are a few upsides.

First, you can place giant spider nests on the map. They act exactly like the occasional spider nests you'd find on the map, except they're friendly, and you can adopt the spiders. They can use said spiders as pets, which is not possible when playing other archetypes. They start with the ability to launch expeditions and the ability to craft bone weapons and armor. They also have access to two unique technologies. The first one gives you increased mastery over spiders, allowing you to build nests for each sub-species of giant spider. The second technology is an early-game and low-cost replacement for the slave collar; it's to be installed in a vehicle and will allow you to capture survivors.

The general idea for this archetype is to use prisoners as a work force and recruitment pool (and possibly as a food source) while you rely on the spiders to protect your base. I would recommend starting with four more survivors than normal if you decide to play with this faction; it'll compensate for the lack of the initial recruitment event.

User Interface

The UI hasn't only been downsized; it's been improved as well! The most obvious improvement is the minimap, which uses little icons to show survivors, traders, critters, and even fire. Don't ask me why it wasn't implemented like two years ago; I don't know either.

All the world map menus (location, expedition, horde) got a makeover. They use less screen space while displaying more information. The combat strength of a given horde or expedition is clearly indicated on the menu via the sword and shield icons, giving you a clear, visible indication of how a(n automated) battle is likely to go down without having to dig through several menus.

Logged messages are generally more nicely written, especially when it comes to injuries, sicknesses, and deaths, avoiding unnecessary repetition of the same information. Speaking of death, instead of getting the associated settings menu when clicking on an occupied tomb, you'll get a short eulogy for the departed instead.

The list goes on. It's still the same UI, and things are handled the same; it just feels nicer overall.

Game Balance

The first thing regular or returning players will notice is that the smelters need workers now. This may slow down the pace at which the early game is played, as you'll need more manpower to do the same amount of stuff as before. The late-game electric furnace is still automated.

With the slower pace and the higher need to prioritize medicine over rushing to pipe weapons, I decided to increase the damage output and range of crossbows. It's not a big boost, but it's enough to make crossbows viable against early-game threats.

Many, many traits and professions have been added or altered. Some of the very good or very bad ones are also more rare (not everyone gets to be a genius, not every soldier survived the war, and so on). Speaking of traits, they can influence the invisible "mental stability" meter of each survivor alongside a variety of other factors. I'm a bit torn on keeping this value invisible, but it's way too easy to cheese when it's not.

Regarding the environment itself, plants spread a bit slower, fires die down during the rain at a much faster pace, while acid rain and blood rain are shorter but may damage the sanity of whoever is outside when the calculations are done.

Modding

As usual, everything is data-oriented; in text files, even the questlines are 100% data-driven. A lot of existing systems have been improved in this particular update, but it stays compatible with any mod that was already compatible with 1.0.

A Few Words

So, yeah... I've been away for a bit. Well, a year. While it's true I was severely burned out after the 1.0 release, burnouts don't last a whole year (it did last a few months, though). I'm not going to share my private life publicly because it's not really who I am. I'll just say that a lot of stuff happened, mostly of the bad kind, and it took me a while to recover from said stuff. The important bit is that I'm back, and there shouldn't be more interruptions in the foreseen future.

The pacing of said updates won't be as hectic as in the pre-1.0 era. I'd like to take the time needed to implement the new features properly. First things first, the world map need to be made more pretty to look at, because the more content and quests I add, the more it takes the centerstage, and the current visuals are starting to really clash with the rest of the game. I might try a node based system instead of a free roam one, it might make world exploration more engaging. Weather effects and transitions (or lack thereof) need a refresher too.

Beside that, I'd like to add the ability for mixed damage types: like modifying a rifle with some macguffin artifact to add fire damage on top of its piercing damage. Retractable walls could also be a fun addition to play with (connect a bunch of walls to a lever, push lever to toggle the walls on / off). Neutral critters and visitors would also help in making the local map feel more alive. Finally I'd like to review how fires interact with plants, the fact that they leave absolutely nothing behind is bugging me.

Anyway, that's all for now. I Hope you'll have a time with the update!

Cheers!

Full Changelog

• AI: When in a lounge or study room, survivors will benefit from the effects of seats with special effects (like the sofa)
• AI: When placing tiles, survivors will try to pickup enough building material to place several in a row whenever possible
• AI: Creatures (outside of combat) should be a bit more chill and not constantly move around
• Balance: Reduced "Logistics" research time by 20%, slightly increased vehicle research time
• Balance: Some very good and very bad traits/jobs are now less common than others
• Balance: Reduced the max amount of initial hostiles on maps (mostly visible at High and Very High danger level)
• Balance: The basic smelter requires a worker instead of being automated (the late game one is still automated)
• Balance: Acid/Blood rain weather patterns are a bit shorter, blood rain will cause sanity damage
• Balance: Flamethrower range reduced by 1 across the board (pipe version 5->4, modern version 6->5)
• Balance: Standardized and extended the types of wounds people can receive from being hit by weapons
• Balance: Increased bow and crossbow damage to make them a bit more viable in early game so players don't feel the need to always rush pipe weapons
• Balance: Reduced Exoskeleton Helmet (all variants) ranged damage bonus from 10 to 5
• Balance: Initial good events when starting a game no longer count toward good/bad event balancing (reduces likelihood of having multiple bad events in a row once the protection goes off)
• Balance: Wild plants and trees grow and reproduce more slowly
• Balance: Replaced "Laceration" wound by "Bad Cuts" in the Very Bad Day scenario, to reduce the likelihood of instant game over
• Balance: Being exhausted, starving, or dehydrated (basically any deadly need at max value) decreases mental stability
• Balance: Underground giant mushrooms propagate in much less dense clusters
• Balance: Tweaked a few items' weight to make exploring mines less cumbersome Balance: Wild vegetation shouldn't expand to completely separated regions anymore (underground giant mushrooms no longer invade empty parts of the cavern)
• Balance: Fires die down much faster when it starts raining
• Balance: Reduced spawn rate of buildings overrun by the infected by 33%
• Balance: Chatting with friend/foe has a less extreme influence on morale, and multiple tweaks to the system (some discussions have more long lasting effects than others)
• Content: Fishing! Added fishing dock to catch some fishes, the Fishing skill itself, a bait recipe to campfire, and 2 recipes to cook your fishes
• Content: Added fishing rod to skill-boosting items you can build (or loot)
• Content: Playable Arakan faction archetype, mastery over spider kind, cannot recruit people normally, must take prisoners and possibly convert them, 2 unique tech to research
• Content: A fairly long expedition event chain 'Wandering Stranger' with unique rewards (not available in the main story, radio tech required)
• Content: Added unique survivors, with custom equipment and boosted stats, who can be recruited very rarely during standard recruitment events
• Content: Added a few events (both local and travel events) to recruit those unique survivors
• Content: Workers have a small chance to get themselves hurt when working, depending on skill and activity (can be disabled in settings)
• Content: Improved combat related wound system
• Content: Abominations from act 3 are integrated in the other scenarios
• Content: Many new survivor traits, professions, and a lot of new wound types
• Content: Added surgical kit to medical stations, used to remove lodged bullets and shrapnel wounds
• Content: Added ice crabs to the fauna, tanky and melee focused, available for taming too
• Content: New monster type: Giant black ants (2 variants: worker and soldier), not particularly dangerous, but tend to show up in large groups
• Content: New underground only critter: Giant caterpillars (can be pastured and used for silk production, eggs can be found by killing them or through traders)
• Content: Added wood wall to basic carpentry tech, useful on maps with little access to stones
• Content: New enemy spawner, mutated carnivorous plant and it's poisonous spore-like minions (appears the same way as other spawners, by razing nature)
• Content: The giga crab joins the ranks of the boss-type critters, it's not meant to be a fair fight, and only appears as a horde in the late game
• Content: When a farm is selected, you can see a progress bar below each individual plant to show how much they are grown (the bar is yellow when in progress and green when ready)
• Graphics: Most cutscenes, events, and mission-related images have been redesigned in HD with a coherent-ish art style (150 pictures, took quite a while)
• Graphics: Some of the lower quality textures and assets have been replaced
• Graphics: Added new legible icons to the minimap to show fires, survivors and critters
• Graphics: Replaced all existing wall types by ones with a fake 3D perspective
• Graphics: Mountains and cavern walls got a similar treatment
• Graphics: Tweaked main scenario's intro sequence (arrival at bunker) and replace invading zombies by their fully animated variant
• Graphics: Added some event-specific artwork to replace the generic ones (like corridors are actual corridors, and not the tunnel picture)
• Graphics: New farm tiles, looking distinct from the rest of the terrain
• Graphics: Much better sleep animation and positioning
• Graphics: New venomous spider sprites and animations (no longer just a recolor)
• Modding: Ability to blacklist specific travel events in scenarios (Scenario.Events.BlackListTravelID)
• Modding: Added ability for travel events to make sure that at least someone survive no matter the event's effects.
• Modding: Point of interests can be preloaded with specific mobs instead of faction dependant ones (see qradio_bunker)
• Modding: Added "ReplacePOI" to TravelEvent effect list (see new event chain, ValueString is POI ID, ValueFaction is optional faction ID)
• Modding: Travel event options can check for a second condition (global variable check, see qradio_stage3_storage)
• Modding: Added global event to replace a point of interest (see the qradio questline ending)
• Modding: Traits can be set as "Rare" (true/false, default false) to reduce how likely they are to spawn by 66%
• Modding: Similary, hordes can be set as "Rare" (true/false, default false) to reduce how likely they are to spawn on the world map by 66%
• Modding: New or existing wound-type traits can be associated to activities/skills in the new wounds_work folder (add new files instead of editing base ones)
• Modding: In the same spirit weapon types and damaged types are linked to wounds in the wounds_weapon folder
• Modding: Unique survivors can be added to the pool by adding "UniqueNPC: true" (alongside a few optional params) and to a new NPC file (see npc/unique_*)
• Modding: Added DailyMentalBreakChange, MentalBreakModifierGain, MentalBreakModifierLoss settings to traits
• Modding: Added EventUniqueRecruit to the event types, used to recruit either a random unique NPC or a specific one.
• Modding: Added "InitialStorage" and "AddToInventory" to faction archetype file (see the new arakan archetype)
• ProcGen: In the world map, deadly biomes are less common and have patches of non deadly biomes instead of being big blobs
• ProcGen: Mountains on the surface can properly touch the sides of the map
• ProcGen: More distinct biome fauna
• Sound: Added voiced dialogs for all main story cutscenes (english only)  
• UI: Rooms with enemies inside are more clearly indicated with a much brighter red color
• UI: General UI cleaning pass, making the user interface look a bit less like an oversized toy
• UI: The font used in the menus is more compact (side effect: screen resolutions below 900p are difficult to read, I'm looking into new options for potato computers)
• UI: Scaled down many UI elements to improve legibility (drop-down lists, checkboxes, health bars and such)
• UI: Added info to factory screen, warning when there's no compatible adjacent depot for queued orders
• UI: Job management menu more legible (less yellow text everywhere)
• UI: In the world map, the "point of interest" menu, and its sub-panels, have been redesigned to look less barebone
• UI: In the world map, the "horde" and "expedition" menus have been altered in a similar fashion
• UI: Many lists and menus have been resized, standardized, and made more compact
• UI: Survivors' stats and job sub-panels are a lot more compact
• UI: In the "Add a recipe" submenu for crafting station, items in the list can be double clicked to be added quickly
• UI: Expedition widget is now available in combat mode
• UI: Added a "Mass Trade" button to the diplomacy tab, allows you to request traders from all factions simul
• UI: Bottom menu downsized and reskinned
• UI: The short text/lore cutscenes can be skipped with [ESC]
• UI: Replaced some of the "Settler got trait: X" by nicer messages
• UI: Occupied individual tombs have a new menu showing an epitaph + details about whoever is buried there
• UI: Camera automatically centers on a survivor if they turn into a zombie if "center/pause game if survivor is hurt" is checked
• UI: Expeditions are automatically named after the vehicle being used
• Fixed: Farms could drop the "plant seed" job on rare occasions
• Fixed: Small blocking issue in the "build roof" job
• Fixed: Some typos and weird looking sentences have been corrected/rewritten
• Fixed: Map generation had a small chance to cause scorpion or spider dens to appear during the intro cutscene
• Fixed: Some bits of text, in a few menus, were displayed with a very slight distortion
• Fixed: Mouse-wheel scrolling in some menus, when the list is barely longer than the menu itself, would be very slow
• Fixed: An issue where placing or deleting a build location, walls especially, wouldn't always update the pathing map correctly
• Fixed: Right clicking a tile with items on the ground would incorrectly state that a survivor would get the items when those are set not to be
• Fixed: Tooltips would appear incorrectly sized for a few frames (partial fix)
• Fixed: Misc building related issues
• Fixed: When manually defending a production center against a raid, hostiles would not try to break the doors
• Fixed: Message "we're done exploring X (0.0132023154kg space left)" sent after an expedition finishes wasn't formated properly
• Fixed: When using "Automated Battle" on a map location tied to an event, it wouldn't automatically launch the event
• Fixed: Text dump events (triggered in a few specific questlines) couldn't display its optional banner image properly
• Fixed: It was technically possible to trigger the same interactive event menu twice
• Fixed: Misleading message spam when an illness is spreading
• Fixed: Sickness timer was reset each time one is transmitted, even to someone already having it, causing epidemics to stay for way too long
• Fixed: Tutorial characters (bob, clara and such) couldn't be butchered properly or use their fists in combat
• Fixed: The event used to spawn hordes on the world map would display an incorrect alert
• Fixed: People sleeping too far away from their bed
• Fixed: Weapon info panel was giving erroneous stats when it comes to their chance to apply wounds
• Fixed: Cannibal faction archetype wouldn't automatically set the faction setting to allow eating human meat
• Fixed: The faction summary tab wasn't checking if the private bedrooms were completed or not
• Fixed: Dead critters being rendered on top of live ones
• Fixed: Probably a bunch more, didn't keep track of everything