New version 18.07.08

Hi everybody. In the month of June we were working on clarifying and improving the design of DwarfCorp before we leave Early Access in October of this year.

We’ve been deciding which features to expand (for example, trading, dwarf interaction and crafting), which to redo or balance (magic, combat and mining), and which to cut altogether (TBD). Some of the design changes we have already implemented for this next version, 18.07.08. Others we will be rolling in during the coming months.

Almost Everything Is Tradeable

One of the design changes we’ve implemented for this new version is that all items that dwarves create can now be traded or stockpiled. Goblins, Elves, Molemen and the Undead also craft items that they will try to trade with you. You can now deconstruct objects and put them into stockpiles for trading.

Mining Nerfed

We noticed that players could basically strip mine the entire world in a few hours. Not that strip mining isn’t an important part of DwarfCorp (it is!) but we wanted to make this a little more challenging for the player. We have added 6 new stone types (Sandstone, Shale, Slate, Granite, Marble and Obsidian) that spawn in layers depending on the biome. These stone layers get more and more difficult to mine for low-level dwarfs, so as you go deeper, it takes longer to mine stuff. We’ve also increased the rate at which dwarves return to stockpiles to deposit stone to further slow down mining.

We’ll be making more changes to mining over the coming months. We’re hoping to have a natural progression from easier to harder as you go deeper into the earth. That will mean more challenging enemies and bigger rewards for players who delve deeper. This will also mean making our world deeper than it is now.

Context Menus

When using the select tool, you can now right click on objects to open up a context menu. Selecting groups of items also brings up context-sensitive commands on the bottom of the screen. This makes doing certain tasks a lot easier. Expect more context sensitive tools in the future.

Trolls

Trolls are now in the game. They appear alongside goblins, and have a devastating ground pound attack!

Other Stuff

There are some other changes we’re working on now which haven’t made it into the game yet.

Dwarf Uniqueness

Since one of our design goals is to increase interaction with dwarves, we wanted to make the dwarves a little bit more unique. To do this, we’ve decided to implement a dwarf customization system so that dwarves have distinguishing hairstyles, noses and skin/hair colors. The technical part of this system is nearly done, and we are now in the process of making all the required art.

Better Conversations

We’ve begun integrating the YarnSpinner framework for interactive story telling into DwarfCorp. Hopefully this will allow us to generate more interesting events and conversations with dwarves and other NPCs in the world.

Change List

• Content: Troll added to the game.
• AI: bug fix with crafters not behaving properly when a stockpile order was cancelled.
• UI: craft items now have categories. Submenus added for ladders, doors, magic items and training items.
• Crafting: All training items can now be crafted individually.
• Crafting: “Any” wildcard resource added to all craft objects in case the player doesn’t want to specify the type of resource used to craft an item.
• Mining: More stone types added with varying hardness.
• Crafting: Items can now be deconstructed and stockpiled/traded.
• Crafting: You can now construct tables and chairs out of stone or metal.
• Bug: Disabled crash reporting on Linux/Mac because it was failing.
• Bug: fix lava disappearing on game load.
• AI: creatures try harder to stay out of lava, and freak out when on fire.
• Bug: fix highlight for tutorial not resizing when screen resolution changing.
• Performance: integrate mine/farm designations into chunk geometry.
• Bug: Fix chair height offset while moving chair.
• Crafting: Explosives are now crafted like any other object, and are called “Explosives” rather than “Primed Keg”.
• UI: Implement universal selector and context menus.
• Debug: Do not list generated resources in cheat menu spawn list.
• Bug: fix crash when a trade envoy demands tribute, but you have no balloon port.
• Bug: fix carts not getting cleaned up when dwarves ride on rails (again).
• AI: make dwarves return to the stockpile more often.
• Bug: Fix “empty backpack” button.
• Bug: Fix “cancel task” button.
• Bug: destroy turret trap when the voxel underneath it is destroyed.
• AI: When creatures are trying to leave the world (but fail), just delete them after a few minutes.
• AI: Kobolds and Gremlins now leave the world after a while.
• Performance: Cache checks for mine tasks and break up computation for tasks into chunks.