Patch #18: Belts Splitters, Filters, Lifts, Warehouse Extractors, & Dropoffs

Patch #18

Based on feedback from players, and the hard work of the entire team: I am super proud to announce the addition of 5 new additions to Whiskerwood's belt mechanics!

Each new machine has a specific purpose in mind. We hope players will design their late game logistics around these conveyors. The new machines are:

1. A Splitter which takes in 2 paths and outputs 2 paths. It will round robin switch items between the paths and can also be used to cleanly merge two paths or just randomly balance volume between the paths.

2. A Filter which takes a path in at the top and will drop any configured item types down to the bottom path

3. A C shaped Liftback. It takes items in at the bottom and through a geared ratchet mechanism lifts them back on themselves upwards. This machine comes in 2 high and 3 high varieties.

4. A Dropoff Shed. A tiny warehouse meant for usage with Conveyor Belts. It can only be fed by a belt, and allows belts to deliver resources right to the doors of industries. Allowing the Whiskers working in said industries quick pickup of their inputs when supplied by belts. Think of the Dropoff as the inverse of the Input Hopper.

5. A Warehouse Extractor. These extractors can pull configured items from any warehouse they touch. Watch out! Roofs do not count as touching.

You can unlock all these new machines by researching the new Advanced Belts schematic.

We've also added visual indicators of where machines can be connected by belt for easier setup.

The warehouse extractors allow you to warehouses to feed belts. Until today all belts were aimed at delivering outputs into warehouses. This extractor closes the loop, allowing warehouses to feed inputs. The dropoff buildings you can see in the above screenshot, in the right, act as belt specific destination warehouses. We expect players to build extractors from buffer warehouses, delivering to Dropoffs near factories.

The Liftback machines should allow for easier integration of belts into vertical mine shafts.

We've also fixed a number of crash reports. Please do check out the full changelog below, and if you've not reviewed Whiskerwood yet please do consider doing so :)

Daniel

Lead Programmer on Whiskerwood

Changelog

v0.6.181 Patch #18

Features

• Add Belt Filters & Splitters

• Add Belt Liftback and Taller variety for vertical item lifting

• Add Belt Dropoff for delivering industry inputs to industry

• Add Warehouse Extractor to pull items from Warehouses onto Belts

• Add smarter congestion avoidance when using multiple elevators and rail stations

• Add work overview shortcut to sidebar menu

Gameplay

• Reduced injury chance from building explosions from 100% to 50%

• Fix tax ship ui promising an inaccurate chance for schematics

• Double how much natural fertility increases by fertilizer uses

• Crops now completely pause their growth cycle when cold

• Flip Stone to CutStone recipe ratio from 2:3 to 3:2

• Reduce Stone Cutter cycle time from 377 to 233 seconds.

• Prevent Two Whiskers who both already are inspired won’t engage in rebellious conversation

• Halve the chance of rebellious remarks

• Whisker Launcher vertical range adjusted to max 10 tiles up or 3 tiles down (from 10 up or down). Max range details now shown in destination assigner.

• Fix destination assigner not showing all possible valid destinations

UI

• Increase font size on policy menu

• Add time of day to save entries in load menu

• Make vsync setting greyed out in window and window fullscreen modes

• Expand ui hitbox for guild in whisker overview menu

• Disable the temperature display