Devblog 46

Sprint Cycle Changes

We're making changes this week. We're no longer going to release updates on a Friday, because it's stupid. We're going to be pushing our update out on Mondays. The devblog will stay on Fridays. The aim is to have it all ready by Friday on the dev branch, so that the early adopters that have joined the dev branch can test it all weekend, then we can fix any last remaining bugs before making it live on Monday. Which then gives us better opportunities to fix bugs during the week. What we really want to do is encourage more people to join the dev branch, so our stuff gets tested more before being pushed to the main branch.

Raiding Balance

We've removed the automatic health regen on building blocks. Freshly placed building blocks now have full health and upgrading a block gives it full health. You can repair a block with the hammer but it's going to cost you a fraction of the resources.

Twigs

We have added a new tier of building. It's called the 'twigs' tier. It's weak and it's cheap. The idea is that you can quickly and cheaply lay your building out before proceeding to upgrade it. These blocks are very weak - so if you make a mistake it doesn't take long to smash one to pieces.

Durability

We've also bought back durability - like in legacy. The idea behind durability is that it will punish you more if you're using a weapon wrong. For example, if you're using a hatchet to try to break down a stone wall it will wear out a lot faster than if you're using a pickaxe. This should make it more challenging for hatchet raiders, especially if you have upgraded walls. Because this is a big change please don't expect the balance to be perfect straight from day one. It's something we're going to watch and nudge the values around until it works.

Pump Shotgun

Tom, Goosey, Alex and Helk have done an awesome job bringing the pump shotgun to the game. It feels really meaty to use, like something from the original Quake. http://files.facepunch.com/garry/2015/February/06/Desktop%2002.06.2015%20-%2015.38.38.09.mp4

Timed Explosive

To make raiding more possible in the higher tiers, and to meet our baseline goals, we have added back explosives. The exact ingredients required to make explosives and the charge still need balancing, but the basics are all in. We're not sure whether tossing it will stay, or whether you'll have to go up and place it. http://files.facepunch.com/garry/2015/February/06/Desktop%2002.06.2015%20-%2015.42.12.15.mp4

Ambient Sound

Alex's ambient sound system is in! Currently it factors the biome you're in and the time of day. There's a base layer of ambience for each biome and a collection of one off sounds that are randomly triggered to break things up a bit. The map no longer feels like an empty game world, it feels like a world that is full of stuff.

Gibbing

Late in the week we worked out the foundations of gibbing. This is something we were sorely missing, and something that was going to get harder and harder to implement the longer we left it. Vince made some test gib models and I hooked it up. And it works! These gib models aren't 'done' - they were just made to test the theory of the system. We can start working our way through the models now, creating