Camera Perspective Mode, Performance Improvements and new Settings

I've been busy behind the scenes further refining the game. With this update I've introduced a series of new changes and optimisations that are worth highlighting

Foreground Item Detail Setting

In the previous update I added a setting to let you control the number of items that appear in the background. With this update I've added another one to control the foreground items. With this setting (under display > performance) you can control the amount of detail the foreground has. You can use this setting in combination with the background setting to greatly improve performance.

Setting your foreground detail to medium or lower can help you boost performance

Camera Perspective

I've been working on adjusting the camera so now you can either set to Side Perspective (the default 45 degree angle) or Top Down Perspective (a semi 2D top down view).

You'll be able to switch to either mode by changing the setting under the General tab. Visually there's still a bit of improvement to come for the new top down mode, but it's fully functional and should give you a new view to play with if you're so inclined.

Switching to the new Top Down Perspective can give you a unique look at your settlement.

Various Model Changes

I've been looking at ways to optimise performance on low end machines and with this update comes a series of changes to some of the meshes / buildings in the game.

Most of the buildings / models in the game now have 2 models of detail. A Close up model for when you're relatively zoomed in and a lower detail model for when you're zoomed ou t. The game will switch between these automatically to improve rendering performance (as generally when you're zooming out you will render more objects, so switching them out to lower poly models will help bolster performance)

Visually you shouldn't notice any drastic changes as by the time you've zoomed out you couldn't see the precise details of the models anyway.

Zooming out you can faintly see the model switch to it's low poly version

Most of the low poly models have significant savings compared to their high quality counterparts. With almost all models being switched out, there should be a positive performance boost with almost no visual degredation.

Comparison of high and low poly assets for the huntress statue. Switching out dozens of models can easily save hundreds of thousands of polygons

Other Changes

Here's some other quick things that have changed

• African / Gaul senate missions now require 30% elapsed game time before they will start to trigger, giving you more time to get your settlement running before the Senate will contact you

• Game camera adjusted to provide a more stable position, the camera will now always be in the same position on each map (beforehand there were very slight elevation differences, meaning the DOF looked stronger / weaker on selected maps)

• Several resource descriptions have been updated (and more coming)

• Series of spelling / gramma fixes. There's heap of text in the game so it's a slow process