[Game Update] - Public Testing 507983

[JarrettM]

Hi everyone,

Today’s hotfix to the public testing branch fixes a few bugs and unexpected behaviors as well as adds a new masterwork blank canvas artwork. Checkout the full patch notes below.
 

Changes and Improvements

• All versions
  • Added a new artwork variation to the Blank Canvas.
  • Added Ranching Supply errand to the Supplying errand group.
  • Oakshells won’t molt regularly if they are unhappy.
  • Modding
    • Added a warning before granting access to the new Dev Tools. These tools are implemented using the Dear ImGUI library and are completely unsupported and subject to change (including RegisterDevTool) but may be of use debugging your mods.
• Spaced Out! only
  • Rovers can now climb down a tile and jump across the gap. They could already do the reverse.
  • Artifact Analysis errand now belongs to both Researching and Decorating errand groups. 
  • Botanical Analyzer errand now belongs to both Researching and Farming errand groups.

Fixes

• All versions
  • Fixed issue where save/loading during printing a care package would duplicate the items.
  • Critters in existing saves receive updated egg chances from new critter morphs.
  • Fixed issue where excess of 100t of Oakshell molts would be deleted.
  • Fixed Oakshell molts UI in Sandbox Spawner and fabricator screens.
  • Patch notes screen header is now translatable. 
  • Fixed flopping Pacus not being overcrowded.
  • Fixed rendering issues in colony summary screen new achievement sequence.
  • Fixed issue causing timelapse playback screen to render behind other menus.
  • Modding
    •  Changed ElementCreatureMonitor egg chances to use CreateTag.
• Spaced Out! only
  • Rocketry diagnostics display a Rocket icon instead of a Dig icon.
  • Fixed crash deconstructing/self-destructing a rocket with a Pokeshell inside.
     

View full update

[JRup]

2 hours ago, JarrettM said:

Fixed issue where save/loading during printing a care package would duplicate the items.

So the not-so-secret-freebie-save-of-abundance is finally gone, hmm.

[Universal Set]

2 hours ago, JarrettM said:

Oakshells won’t molt regularly if they are unhappy.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.  (I was really enjoying there being a nice alternative to pip-planted arbor trees for resource-positive pdirt and ethanol/pwater.)  I wonder if it would be good to tie molt rate to metabolism rather than just an on/off switch?

Since the design philosophy here seems to be that tame critters shouldn't be both low-dupe-labor and resource-positive by themselves, could we maybe see a nerf to the one-tile infinite Pacu farm, and maybe to tame+glum drecko scale growth (not to zero necessarily, but maybe to the wild growth rate)?

[Gurgel]

I also noted that germ display in natural tiles seems to work again. May have been in an earlier fix though.

Edited May 19, 2022 by Gurgel

[blakemw]

5 hours ago, Universal Set said:

Since the design philosophy here seems to be that tame critters shouldn't be both low-dupe-labor and resource-positive by themselves, could we maybe see a nerf to the one-tile infinite Pacu farm, and maybe to tame+glum drecko scale growth (not to zero necessarily, but maybe to the wild growth rate)?

Yes, I would love to see that change to Dreckos.

In my current game I have about 15 Dreckos (mixed normal and glossy) in a Ranch with 1 Mealwood growing in a single CO2 pocket, the thing is a veritable fountain of reed fiber and plastic and requires zero grooming. This worked before the calories bugfix but now it's deterministic.

And even if glum dreckos had a -80% penalty to scale growth it'd still be respectable considering the zero grooming.

As for pacus, I do feel that now we can easily feed them there's little excuse for starvation ranching of pacus to remain a viable strategy.

[krop]

11 hours ago, JarrettM said:

Hi everyone,

Today’s hotfix to the public testing branch fixes a few bugs and unexpected behaviors as well as adds a new masterwork blank canvas artwork. Checkout the full patch notes below.
 

The backslashes in strings_template.pot are still not properly escaped. See

 

I had a look at the strings_preinstalled_*_klei.po files, the backslashes around 'Click' are fine...

and STRINGS.UI.DEVELOPMENTBUILDS.TESTING_TOOLTIP has a missing space:

This game is currently running a Test version.\n\n\Click\for more info.

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by krop

[blakemw]

I've been playing with (tame) Oakshells and they seem really lackluster.

One problem with (tame) Oakshells is their heavy dependency on polluted dirt to get real value out of them. Polluted dirt isn't that useful overall, but it's also quite hard to make. And while feeding pdirt to Pokeshells gets you lime and more sand or feeding it to Sage Hatches gets you coal and meat, the output of Oakshells is not that valuable, basically once all is said and done it only really gets you power+water, or nosh beans.

What's worse is that when looking at how to make pdirt to feed Oakshells, the best option by far is also the best competition to Oakshells: either wild Arbor Trees, or Arbor Trees fed pwater, which is much more abundant than pdirt. If there is limitless filtration medium then Water Sieve can also make respectable amounts of pdirt, but the 75% mass loss from the Oakshell x the 80% mass loss from the Water Sieve does mean the sand pooped by Oakshells doesn't go very far to produce pdirt to feed them (5% of the input pdirt).

Dietary Changes would help

One of the issues is just the exclusive pdirt diet, which makes them highly sensitive to the amount of pdirt that can be recycled, to the point where they are kind of bad because you need an input of pdirt from arbor trees, or kind of "something out of nothing" because they can completely feed themselves. I think there are some logical alternative foods they could be fed to break the pdirt cycle:

• Slime: Not many things eat slime, only Mushrooms and Sage Hatches. One could reason is it's because it is "diseased". Well, Oakshells live in freaking ethanol, they can probably handle it. Slime can be produces by Pufts, and is the least annoying kind of Puft ranch. 
• Fertilizer: Considering the name "Oakshell" and they grow Wood, then Fertilizer immediately makes sense. It's only directly eaten by Sage Hatches, so it is established that at least some green critters can eat it. Fertilizer by mass requires about half as much dirt, so even if eating at full rate would be much easier to make dirt over-unity, but I'd think that they should eat less Fertilizer (say 50% as much), making a Fertilizer diet good for growing wood but not for making sand. Fertilizer is also one of those often pretty useless things a lot of the time.

Should Sanishell also have Dietary Changes?
 

It does have to be said, that since the Sanishell is explicitly germicdal, there would also be a good argument for making Slime a part of its diet. This would be a great alternative use for Slime instead of growing Mushrooms which are a bit of a dead end it could be directed towards Surf'n'Turf.

Edited May 19, 2022 by blakemw

[Steve8]

I agree with doing something about starvation ranching. It's just too good. With dreckos it's practically infinite plastic without any effort. Shove voles also fall under this, especially with the immense amount of meat the provide.

[SackMaggie]

Critter screaming about "over crowded" when there's an eggs in the room.

Meanwhile one-tile-fish and shove vole box said it's fine.

Does it make sense to me? Absolutely no.

[Jorge Junior]

Hello, thank you very much for all your work. 
hen will the general version of the game be released?

[Ntr1cate]

On 5/19/2022 at 5:36 AM, JarrettM said:

Added Ranching Supply errand to the Supplying errand group.

To be honest having mixed feelings about this, the ranching setting allowed to control which duplicants interacting with critter feeders more frequently since you can set a higher priority on non-skilled dupes without doing random other supply runs.

I hope this isn't going to be removed from the ranching supply setting as a rancher without a supply errand priority (to avoid doing supply errands for other buildings) and there is very few other dupes with a supply errand with a supply setting will starve critters in a longer term (depending on the situation)