Rewrite Devlog #7

Welcome to July's edition of the rewrite devlog, showing off new features and improvements of the new proper version of Alien Horizon, that's being worked on. Currently, it's scheduled to be released in January, but don't take it as a promise.

A lot of work is still being done under the hood, so not a lot to really show, but I am going to at least talk about some of the huge changes that are being done to colonists and their simulation.

Here we have the colonist selection window:

You can also see how the game's UI is very different. Let's go through it item by item:

At the top, you can see the colonist's gender and age, similar to how it is in preview alpha, and their name, with a much more obvious rename button.

Home and jobs

The next section is the colonist's home and a list of their jobs. You can focus the camera on the location by clicking on the icons. And yes, jobs, plural. Colonists can have multiple jobs in some circumstances, but keep in mind that if they're spending too much time working, it will affect their productivity.

Each job has a profession specified, construction engineer in this case. Colonists gain experience at the profession they're working at, which can be shared between different jobs of the same profession. For example, if the colonist gains experience working as a service worker in a Store, they will carry over the experience to any other service worker job, for example in a Bar. Experience directly contributes to productivity. Professions also determine which skills the colonist needs to work at the job.

Status and skills

Next are sections detailing colonist's status - what they're currently doing and if they're affected by any status effects like injuries - and a list of skills, similar to preview alpha.

Productivity

One big change is that productivity is measured in 10% steps instead of 25% like in preview alpha. Another is how productivity is determined - morale is gone and the factors affecting productivity are more spread out, nebulous and intentionally opaque. The main sources are internal and external motivation, which are not visible.

Internal motivation represents the colonist's own desire to work and is mostly gained by fulfilling their needs.

External motivation is the outside pressure to perform, which can be boosted by more forceful methods, like threatening with homelessness.

The point of this split is that high productivity can now be achieved without necessarily fulfilling colonists' needs, if you're ruthless enough. Note that external motivation hasn't been properly implemented yet, which is why the shown colonist has such low productivity.

Health

Colonist can no longer die from anything other than low health. Instead of directly causing deaths, events like injuries, hunger or low temperatures affect health, increasing their chance of dying if it goes negative. Whatever factor was lowering health the most is then listed as the cause of death.

Basic needs

The next section shows each of the more basic needs of a colonist.

Outlook - How optimistic or pessimistic the colonist is about their situation. This mostly affects internal motivation, and the thresholds of individual needs, which we'll talk about in the next section.

Comfort - How comfortable the colonist's life is. This is mostly affected by material conditions, like housing quality, availability of goods or food variety, and is a big contributor to internal motivation and health.

Privacy - Colonists don't like it when their privacy is invaded. This is why not all of these stats sections are going to be visible to the player, depending on privacy laws, with the lower sections representing more intimate details. If you want more information about colonists, this is the stat that's going to suffer for it. Any other laws regarding surveillance will affect it as well, and so will living in bunkhouses or boarding houses. Privacy mostly affects comfort and fertility.

Safety - How safe the colonist feels living in the colony. Lack of fundamental needs such as oxygen or food will greatly lower safety and so will excessive crime (crime will not be present in the initial version of the rewrite, but will be added soon after). Safety affects outlook, health and fertility.

Hygiene - How well the colonist can take care of their hygiene. Determined by availability of water and soap and affects health and comfort.

Fitness - Long-term bodily fitness of the colonist. Increases with exercise, while lack of it decreases it. Greatly affects health.

Exercise - How much the colonist exercises at services. Affects fitness in the long term.

Nature - How much natural greenery the colonist has seen lately. Can be gained by visiting parks or farms and affects health and comfort.

Individual needs

These needs are more personalized for each colonist. A colonist cares much more about two of these and much less about other two. This affects the thresholds at which the need contributes either negatively (red) or positively (green) to the colonist's well-being (yellow meaning a neutral effect). This particular colonist cares more about friendship and recreation, making the fulfilled value of 3 near negative, but cares much less about community and self-esteem, making them positive even at 3. The thresholds are further affected by the aforementioned outlook.

These needs replace the preview alpha's social, joy and relaxation needs. They can be fulfilled at service buildings.

Friendship - Need to have close friends, someone to care about or talk to. Colonists can form friendships with other colonists, most easily at services that provide this need. A colonist with highly fulfilled friendship need randomly adds positive points to their friends' needs, while unfulfilled need randomly subtracts them.

Community - Need to have a web of acquaintances, a community that helps each other. High community makes the colonist feels safer, while low makes them feel unsafe. Community also contributes to external motivation, because the colonist doesn't want to leave their community hanging.

Growth - Need to improve skills and grow as a person. Affects rate of experience gain. Low growth can even cause loss of experience.

Self-esteem - Need to feel sure and competent with as a person. A big contributor to internal motivation.

Recreation - Need to wind down and relax after a hard day. Affects health.

Enjoyment - Need to be active and enjoy activities. Can randomly add or subtract points from other needs, depending on fulfillment.

Agency - Need to have own life under control. Big contributor to outlook and the most difficult need to fulfill.

Expression - Need to express oneself to others, be it by appearance, performance or creativity. Affects comfort.

All the individual needs are also going to have special anti-social affects when they're not fulfilled enough (red), but probably not in the initial version of the rewrite, as most are tied to crime.

There are also other colonist needs that are not visible in the colonist selection window. These include food variety, fertility, sleep and the fundamental needs of oxygen, water, food and warmth, but I'd say those are self-explanatory.

Next time will be all about workplaces and employment and how they're now tied to individual needs, so be on the lookout in August. You can also hop on the official Discord server. I hope you've enjoyed this devlog and see you next month!