Hey just a quick question are you planning to make a animation set for spears?
If you are I have a couple of ideas. How about another class off of the footmen, say like a pikemen, that uses just pikes and halberds? The knight would still have variety with short swords and maces, and it would make a little more depth for combat. One thing the pikemen could have is a high chance to parry or scare enemies to give it a niche.
If you needed to free up the spot you could put archers along side footmen as an alternate starting combat class, which could also branch into its own class upgrade. You already have animations for crossbows so you could make a sniper class that uses the crossbows with extra range and make the archers have shorter range, less damage, and faster firing.
Just a few ideas for down the road, though I think the archer thing might not be to hard to do.
I don’t think we’ll be adding more combat classes, but if we can provide the framework to allow other modders to do that more easily, then that’s within the scope of ACE.
Here are a few thoughts I’ve had in my playthrough.
Overall, I love all the new things that have been added! Really feels more complex without being too over the head. Here are a couple of things that I feel like could be fixed up a bit, though:
Consistency:
For starters, the green trading shelf looks neat, but the market stall (and most other Ascendancy stuff) is still blue. I think the team should decide between one or the other, or extend the ornate catalog to provide green versions of all the blue cloth items. (Hopefully the other factions will have unique “ornate” colors too!)
I dislike the use of “Long Sword,” as it is often misused to depict what is often a bastard sword. Longswords were in fact two-handed swords.My humble solution is to simply rename the “Long Sword” to just “Steel Sword” because the bronze and iron tier swords are simply named “Bronze/Iron Sword” and it would be good for both correctness and consistency.
I would advise the team to look into the knight’s shield. The knight’s shield has blue markings on it, while the rest of his armor has red highlights. It is in fact the only piece in the (Ascendancy’s) knight’s arsenal that is blue. I always felt like this was just a simple oversight in vanilla, but since the team has already done some color swaps for some other models, this one should be quick and simple enough! Consistency is good!
…Unless, all the Ascendancy’s knight equipment were to change into blue for even more consistency. RC has red themes for both footman and knight, and NA has yellow themes for both footman and knight too. In that case, the shield talisman should be devoid of any color highlights to make it fit all factions better.
Balancing:
Currently, 2H weapons feel a bit weak. They are usually always outclassed by dual-wielding. (Steel “long” sword + Steel dagger is 18 + 14 for a total of 32(!) damage compared to the 28 damage of the 2H sword (not to mention the added versatility benefit of perhaps partially equipping two footmen) for the exact same overall price. I propose the offhand weapons offer a both a small attack and defense bonus to offer a sort of middle ground between 2H and 1H + shield.
Additionally, knight polearms do not give knights any true advantage because they sacrifice so much protection for a minimal amount of extra damage. A knight armed with a silver halberd is only about as damaging as a footman with an single iron sword due to the footman’s class damage buffs while being significantly more expensive and time consuming to equip. The knight’s 2H weapons should thus be somewhat buffed to make the considerable armor trade off more appealing.
Future Ideas?
I’d love to see more of the material refining process ideas! Stone bricks! Construction Lumber!
Option to turn farmers into shepherds would make sense as well. (More sense than trapper to shepherd, anyway)
Combat Mounts for knights would be super cool! (Understandably super difficult, too) (Goblin wolf-riders when?)
Bows for Trappers to turn them into proper hunters?
The new weapon system is much more interesting than the original, but I get a bit confused with such a plethora of weapon types available. When traders drop in with weapons from other kingdoms, I cannot figure out what is worth buying because tooltips don’t show class, required level and weapon parameters. This is a typical example of a ‘tooltip or pedia’ problem.
Thank you for awesome piece of feedback! As usual, I’ll try to cover most points
The Trader Market Stall and the Shelf are not ours (as you probably know) but indeed we could change it. I guess it would make sense to make it blue especially because only the ornate carpentry items are green and that item is definitely not ornate (it’s actually quite low level.). Will see about it.
And yes, there are a couple more ornate items coming (curtains, rug) and there are also “ornate tiers” for the other professions coming: marble for the mason and porcelain for the potter!
When reformulating the weapons, I thought about changing the Long and Short Sword to Steel Sword and Steel Short Sword. I mostly didn’t do it out of “respect” since they’re very traditional items that have been around for so long but maybe it would be better for the player readability.
A plain, “fits-all” shield is probably the best idea. Good call
The thing about the new weapon organization is that each type of weapon has now a special “buff” they inflict upon their enemies. The problem is that the current UI doesn’t really support showing that to player in an intuitive way that explains why the Mace with lower damage than the Short Sword is better, why the 2H is better than Dual Wield in terms of damage, etc…
We’re trying to come up with solutions - we might add some icons to the crafting screen even if as a temporary solution - to try to point that out.
But basically the logic is this:
Footman
One-handed Weapon 1 (Bronze mace, Iron & Steel axe) - Lightweight buff (they run a bit faster), higher damage.
One-handed Weapon 2 (Bronze, Iron & Steel Swords) - Damage is a bit lower but they inflict “Hamstring” debuff. Hamstring will make enemies “bleed” and be severely slowed down. So overall it has an advantage over the axes.
Off-hand Weapon (Bronze & Iron Hatchet, Steel Dagger) - Inflicts “Out of Balance” debuff. That makes enemies inflict less damage against your units. They don’t attack as often as mainhand weapons so even if the “Total ATK” is high, their DPS isn’t.
Two-handed Weapon (Bronze Axe, Iron Battle Axe, Two-handed Sword) - Inflicts “Open Wounds” debuff. This is an extreme bleed effect (Around -10 HP per tick on the strongest version, “Major Open Wounds”) So even though their ATK seems “lower”, they actually inflict a lot of damage.
One-handed Weapon 2 (Iron, Steel & Silver Mace) - Slightly lower damage but inflicts the “Fracture” debuff. Fracture reduces the target’s armor, making it take more damage from all sources.
Two-handed Weapon (Iron Pike, Steel Lance, Silver Halberd) - Substantial damage gains for the cost of defense, AOE Taunt & inflicts the “Shaken” debuff. Shaken reduces the opponent’s Courage, making it more likely to run away.
In the end, as you can see, the idea is not to see what is better or not but to actually realize that the best setup you can have is to have one of each “weapon preference”. If you have a Dual-wield footman, a two-handed footman and a one-handed footman, a traditional knight and a two-handed knight, for example, you’ll inflict such an array of debuffs that combined will make your military overwhelming. So that’s what we went for - not having a “unique” meta like before (two handed sword footmen, short sword knights) but give value to variety. Each “specialization” adds that value to your combat team with the debuffs they inflict and when you look at it in an “organized” fashion like this, you can notice that the progression is actually very streamlined with 3 Tiers per class (Bronze-Iron-Steel & Iron-Steel-Silver) and the “same” weapons on each tier.
The issue remains what was mentioned, however - it is difficult to relay this logic to the player only through the current UI features we have. Maybe with icons on the crafting recipes this might get a bit better - or maybe we could try using some text spaces better (like the weapon swap toggle buttons could mention these), but we’ll see
There is, of course, a lot of balancing to do as well! But the idea is basically that!
Not a bad idea since it would be consistent with clay and clay bricks, we did consider doing that. However there’s a couple of hindering factors that we had to take into account, like the fact that wood is also used (even if a little) by other factions that would have no access to the saw anytime soon, etc. So we discarded that. However the beauty of Stonehearth is that it is super easily modded, so you can still hope for that one day
It does. Might be something to consider if we ever tackle the abandoned “Animal Trainer” class, it could replace the shepherd as the trapper evolution and move the shepherd to the farmer (since the Trapper already tames small critters anyway, makes more sense)
We also thought about that, would basically be one of the two main “features” of the Animal Trainer. Can’t promise anything though
We decided to leave “proper hunting” as an exclusive trait of NA, with other factions accessing big game hunting through the trapper on level 6. That was also decided as a way to leave room for future hunting mods, if people want to do that Would be cool!
Also a personal dream thing for me, something akin to RimWorld’s temperature tracking and such… But also not really something that fits into ACE’s logic of enhancing/working upon the base game but without dramatically changing its complexity/the way it plays. But like I said, SH has a lot of modding potential, so… let’s hope
I hope it covers most of your thoughts and thank you very much for enjoying and for the feedback!
This is so true. I really wish trader tooltips would show not only some basic weapon stats (Job, level, ATK or DEF) but also things like furniture appeal.
I really wish! Maybe at some point we could take a look at that?
We could also use the optional multi-parent job requirement functionality: a shepherd could be promoted from either a farmer or a trapper (same with a cook).
I have a problem with the carpenter because he doesn’t craft his workshop. i know (because this happened to me a lot of time ago ) that is a compatibility problem with smart crafter mod but i cant eliminate it because is integrated in ACE. I love this game and this expansion and i would like to enjoy it as soon i could.
what i need to do to avoid this bug ?
there is anything i can do to continue playing without problems ?
This sounds like a weird issue, haven’t seen it happening!
Anyway, you can de-activate Smart Crafter in the settings! Just go into Settings > Gameplay > Authorized Community Expansion and untick the Auto craft recipe dependencies (or something like that) setting
i was testing the ACE without auto craft recipe dependencies and the carpenter can carft the workbench but while he is crafting it the item doesn’t appear and the workbench is bugged and incrafteable.
We’ve been working on more fixes, additions and things to make the 0.9 release more stable and functional! Our plan is to - once the release is in a good shape - stay away from public releases for a while until 1.0 is ready! More information on that shall be released early next year
For today we’re launching 0.9.2 which aims to fix many of the issues reported during that first week of ACE + some performance improvements with the overall reduction of the mod weight by reducing the size of many models. Due to some of those changes, however, it is very likely that this update will behave weirdly with existing saves of ACE!(i.e.: Birch trees and Yew trees might become little trees ) So we strongly recommend that you start a new game to enjoy the changes without running into unwanted issues!
If you do use an older save, please let us know during any issue reports since many issues will likely be caused because of that and it will be easier to filter than that way
If you really want to continue an older save and keep some stability, please follow this link and download the 0.9.1 version of ACE, and then only update back to the Workshop mod once you’re done with your game
Thank you very much for all the kind words and happy moments shared over the last few days! We hope you all enjoy this very much and have a wonderful end of the year!
ACE Pre-Release 0.9.2
Added:
Porcelain recipes are now in the game! Porcelain is an advanced tier of pottery crafting - similar to the “Ornate” recipes for wood furniture. The recipes are all high level and somewhat expensive but very worth it!
Thatch now drops from Silkweed and Wintermoss.
Added a shrub to the Highlands that drops Thatch called Dwarfsbeard. It also drops Dwarfsbeard Fiber Bundles.
Added a Practice Sword recipe for the Potter. They were jealous of the mason.
Added Embers & Log Embers, decorative entities. They appear in your firepit after the fire burns out, as a way to signal the player that they can’t immediately use the charcoal generated. Embers will disappear after a while and Log Embers will turn into Charcoal.
Added Input Box filters for a lot of the new resources that were missing, including but not limited to: algae, doughs, thatch…
Added Snow Poppies and Violets, crops. Native from the Arctic, these pretty flowers can be cultivated by the Northern Alliance and replace the Frostsnaps.
Added Arctic Pine and Arctic Juniper, crops. These saplings will grow into any of the possible variations of trees from the Arctic and can be planted by the Northern Alliance.
Added Seed Boxes for the following crops: Sweet Potatoes, Snow Poppies, Violets, Arctic Pines, Arctic Junipers, Highland Pines, Birches, Yews.
Added new recipes to the Herbalist based on the biome you’re in. Herbalists can now create Seed Boxes of some of the native flora, mainly non-food crops like trees and flowers.
Highland Vines and Daisies, which use the vine component, now grow and spread as they were intended to! Should be backwards compatible with existing saves.
Additionally, Daisies now have seeds, drop seeds on harvest and both daisies and highland vines now have sprout stages.
Re-enabled connections! Vines no longer use connections, which was the primary source of lag. Currently not actually used much until more content is added.
First version of Chinese (Simplified) localization.
Changed:
Porcelain furniture and decorations have had their values tweaked to reflect their crafting recipes better. Balance might still not be good, thread carefully!
Adapted the text in the Farm UI to make it clearer that irrigation is not obligatory and farms will still grow without it.
Re-organized the Weaver’s crafting recipes (the decorations) to have a more sensible progression. They could craft everything on level 1 (and only a tapestry on level 5). Now they have old and new recipes nicely distributed over their levels.
Updated the description of grass so it is clearer they drop thatch.
Updated the description of Thatch so it is clearer it comes from grass. The circle of life, Mufasa, etc.
The water level on the Desert has been lowered a bit again from 0.1 to 0.5. The depth of the shallows has been increased from 1 to 2.
Updated the flavor text of some recipes so the player knows where to get thatch from.
Updated the flavor text of the Enhanced Anvil so the player knows where to get Hard Coal from.
Hard Coal drop rate from coal veins slightly increased.
Made it so that the Carpenter Saw can be crafted with the normal anvil; that should make it not so difficult to obtain again.
Changed the “Wooden Sword” name to Practice Sword for consistency. The Mason was getting stressed about crafting stone practice swords and ending up with wooden swords.
Changed the Stone Practice Sword recipe to be a bit less inconsistent as well.
Lowered the experience gain from training so now you’ll probably need more than one Dummy/Target to get a fighter to level 3.
Removed Herobrine.
The Firepit Component was changed to accomodate the new functionalities (Embers and Log Embers).
Bronze smelting has returned to Blacksmith level 1! Additionally, the Crucible recipe now requires Clay & Ore instead of Iron and is a level 1 recipe. That feels more logical.
The Blacksmith level 1 & 2 perk texts have been changed to accomodate the changes above.
The Blacksmith experience earning has been very slightly reduced.
Changed the flavor text of chopping Firewood to better reflect the proper usage of logs.
Inverted the colors on the Clay Training Dummy so the pot sizes are now consistent with the craftable pots.
Updated the pictures of the Ascendancy’s Mason House and Potter House templates.
Changed the model of the Comfy Clay Bed so it feels more like a Clay Bed evolution.
Extremely reduced the mod’s size in like 60%~ by greatly reducing the detailing on two of the new tree types: Birches and Yew. They’ll look slightly less detailed and more bland, now - but the performance gains should be significative.
Additionally, Highland Pine trees were also attacked by the God of Symmetry and revamped to more harmonious and pretty forms.
Box move and undeploy now check if the corresponding command is enabled for each selected entity, not just if it exists. No more undeploying filled crates!
Added rotation-specific model variant options for tile component.
Auto Harvest now requests harvests for entities that spawn with a renewable resource node (e.g. berry bush grew into fully grown version).
Renamed “Short Sword” to “Steel Short Sword” and “Long Sword” to “Steel Sword” for consistency, better readability among the other weapon tiers and player clarity.
Slightly recolored the Knight’s Shield so it feels more neutral next to the different Knight outfits.
Recolored the wooden Market Trading Shelf from green to blue. Now it should feel more consistent against the other wooden furniture that uses blue cloth.
Made fish more likely to reproduce.
Roast Fish recipe now accepts any kind of raw fish, even those from beautiful, sunny archipelago shores!
Fixes:
Added an “offhand_placeholder” to all shields and off-hand weapons. We modified shields and standarized their slot as “offHand” instead of “leftArm” since the vanilla standard is not “friendly” to modding of new types of off-hand equipment. That change made it possible for hearthlings to equip non-ACE adapted items and ACE off-hand items at the same time, however. For example: a modded shield + a hatchet. To prevent that, all ACE off-hand items will now unequip non-ACE adapted “leftArm” items without issues of hearthlings having 3 equipped weapons/shields
Fixed dried algae so it’s not auto-queued by the Herbalist every time. Again. This is the third time we “fix” this issue
For some weird reason the Blacksmith Workbench was set up through an override instead of clever mixintos. That was fixed for increased future compatibility.
Moved all seasons 7 days back in the Highlands to accomodate for a base-game bug with the season system. At least one season has to start on Day 0. We’ll consider fixing (monkey-patching) the issue in the future so modders have more freedom over their seasons. This was responsible for several errors that should not happen again on a fresh game.
The Curtains (base game) were not perfectly centered. They are now
The Market Stalls were not centered either and received the same perfectionist treatment
Fixed some Mason and Carpenter recipes that were asking for Pedestal/Toolbench even though they were level 2. They now require the base Workbench.
Cooked Nuts, Cherry Tart, Stirred Poultry & Nuts, Cherry Pie and Nut pralines had no description. A description was added. Gosh. Sorry.
The Knight’s equipment preference had an issue that made them prefer short swords over maces, which is bad because maces have lower damage but apply the Fracture debuff that makes enemies take more damage.
Fixed nil error in shepherd pasture grass spawning.
Fixed another nil check with patrol banners.
Fixed an error in equipment piece upgrade check if the current season was nil. This error was related to the base game error with seasons mentioned above and should not happen anymore.
Fixed water wheel connection (and hopefully all x- or z-aligned entities with connections); Still unused.
Many fixes and optimizations to connections, including an option to maintain graphs for connection types. (defaults to false)
Fixed an error that allowed the Trapper to tame animals from the “Big Game Trapping” category. This caused issues by creating pets that are not supposed to exist, have no pet logic and caused errors.
Small possible fix to patrol banners connecting to banners of the wrong party.
Fixed an issue where Iron Portcullis was appearing on some shops and it was not supposed to do so.
PS: This might be the last chance to craft your Holiday Cheer caps… So do it quickly!
If you don’t know what I’m talking about… promote a weaver
I mean, to be honest it is weird that I set up the anvil and the forge like that. If you look, none of the other workshops were overriden, just mixed. So I feel really weird about it because I also can’t remember why I did that. Anyway, I’m glad you spotted it and motivated me to fix it
but maybe it would be better for the player readability.
I hope you enjoy your time!
) So we strongly recommend that you start a new game to enjoy the changes without running into unwanted issues!
They are now