New Version 19.01.08

Hi everybody. While taking my winter break, I actually took some time to implement a few new features that I’d been meaning to do last year but hadn’t gotten around to. Some of these features are now in the game with version 19.01.08, some others I’m still working on and testing to make sure that they’re stable. 19.01.08 is compatible with older versions of DwarfCorp but your mileage may vary when it comes to objects from previous saves behaving correctly when it comes to fire.

Better Fire and Lightning

Most of the changes that made it into the 19.01.08 are related to fire, lava, storms, water and how these systems interact. Fire now looks better, spreads from object to object, and lights grass/wood blocks on fire. Fire also permanently darkens some objects. Dwarfs flee fire, and a flaming dwarf can now set other stuff on fire.

New fire which spreads from object to object.

Fire can now be put out by rain — but rainstorms can also start fires with lightning bolts.

A lightning storm.

Explosives now generate fire.

An explosive starting a fire.

Some other Changes

19.01.08 also has some other miscellaneous systems changes.

Water/Lava – water and lava look nicer while rolling over uneven terrain or falling. Lava now generates fire while spreading.

Tree Growth – to counter the spread of fire and dwarves chopping them down, trees now sometimes generate seedlings near them which grow into adult trees over time. Rain now has a chance of growing seedlings, while snow has a chance of killing a growing seed.

Currently in Progress

There are a couple of other systems that I have going on an experimental branch right now which I will roll in once they’re sufficiently tested.

Nicer Animals

I’ve been doing some work on the way carnivores attack. Previously, all carnivores would attack all herbivores and dwarfs all the time. I’ve changed this so that carnivores only attack when threatened or hungry (with the exception of giant snakes, which are just evil). This change needs some testing to make sure it works in the expected corner cases.

Collapses

I’ve also been working on a change which makes blocks that aren’t 6-connected to bedrock collapse. This change needs some testing to make sure it doesn’t reduce performance too much and that it works in some corner cases (like what happens when a dwarf is under the collapsing structure, what if there are objects in the way, etc.)

Dragons

When the player has enough gold (TBD, right now $5k) a dragon may come to try and take it. This change is mostly finished and is just waiting on artwork (as you can see right now the dragon is just a green flying snake!)

Bugfixing

Now that my break is over I hope to get back to bug fixing soon, hopefully by this weekend!

Full Changeset

• Improved look and feel for fire.
• Fire spreads.
• Creatures flee fire.
• Fire destroys and spreads in wood blocks.
• Plants produce seedlings occasionally.
• Explosives produce fire.
• Tutorial popup noise and pause/time noises quieter.
• Fix bug that was causing sounds to be produced from the wrong place.
• Do not add certain trivial objects to the octree to save some memory.
• Randomly pitch UI sounds slightly.
• Raindrops grow plants.
• Snow sometimes kills seedlings.
• Storms move more slowly and have more clouds.
• Lightning from storms creates fire.
• Fix bug that was causing raindrops to float in the air after clouds left the world.
• Water and lava has improved appearence on slopes or when falling.
• Water and lava look and sound better when spreading.
• Lava spreads fire when moving or falling.