# \[Dev Blog\]Getting Ready for Alpha 6! Steam latest branch updated for testing

**URL:** <https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538>\
**Category:** Development\
**Created:** [November 12, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538 "2014-11-12T22:43:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Solus](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/solus/32/44015_2.png) [@Solus](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Solus)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 10:43pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/1 "2014-11-12T22:43:49Z")

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[http://stonehearth.net/2014/11/12/getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/](http://stonehearth.net/2014/11/12/getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/)

I think i can say i’m adequately excited… my leg is shaking.

**Building templates**  
The game now includes pre-designed buildings for houses and halls. Access the templates from the new building UI.

Templates can be rotated before being placed in the world  
Templates can be edited just like normal building after being placed  
Your own custom buildings can be saved as templates

**Building improvements**  
The build system has gone through a major overhaul.

New slab tool, for building free-form structures  
New stone materials for building parts  
New building parts: double doors, colored roofs, and more  
Workers can now walk through scaffolding  
Streamlined the building designer UI

**Job System Overhaul**  
We have added an RPG-like progression system to citizen jobs, with experience, levels, and new abilities.

Citizens will now gain experience and level up  
Leveling up provides perks like more hitpoints and job-specific enhancements  
You can now change citizens’ jobs as often as you like  
Several new recipes for the carpenter  
Brightbell and Frostsnap flowers are now plantable by the Farmer

**Other Improvements**  
Ladders now build down when necessary  
The size is now shown for all boxes dragged out in the world: in the building tool, farms, stockpiles, etc.  
New command to undeploy a placed item, returning it to a stockpile.  
Significant UI revamp of the building UI  
Significant UI revamp of the job promotion UI  
Added job icon to the unit frame. Clicking the icon brings up the citizen’s character sheet  
Clicking a citizen’s name in the unit frame zooms the camera to that citizen  
Show icons for ingredients in the crafting UI  
Audio improvements. Improved the base volume and falloff for location-specific sounds

**Bug Fixes**  
Significant pathfinder performance improvements  
Massive memory-use optimizations  
Citizens no longer own their own beds, and are much more aggressive about finding a bed to sleep in before giving up  
Fix bug that prevented many buildings from being completed  
Fix multiple crash bugs when destroying an entity  
Fix embedded ladders in the terrain after building a building  
Fixed crash bug affecting Vista computers  
Fixed score calculation, allowing new immigrants again  
Fix for the camera getting stuck in obstacles like trees  
Combatants will no longer try to fight each other if they are on different vertical terrain levels  
Fixes to save/load bugs

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**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 10:59pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/2 "2014-11-12T22:59:05Z")

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_prepares to squeee_

**SQUEEEEE!!!**

oh well, so much for my LP series… 😄

time to start anew! 👍

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**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/3 "2014-11-12T23:08:35Z")

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Mayday! Mayday! Hilarious promote carpenter bug needs to be fixed. Debugging now…!

Edit: You might be able to get around this by renaming .smod -\> .zip and then unzipping the folder.  
Edit 2: Candledark seems to be causing the problem, probably because we changed the way the crafter recipes work (again). So, please remove Candledark from your mods folder and try again 🙂

@capotzalco, can you give this a shot for us and see if it works?

Eventually we’ll need a mod versioning system.

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**Author:** ![BloodW0lf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/bloodw0lf/32/11846_2.png) [@BloodW0lf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/BloodW0lf)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/4 "2014-11-12T23:14:42Z")

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will try it out soon can not wait to play with it 😄

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**Author:** ![capotzalco](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/capotzalco/32/3594_2.png) [@capotzalco](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/capotzalco)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 11:31pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/5 "2014-11-12T23:31:34Z")

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Yup wall of death errors ☹

Everything else looked so good and smooth tho 😃 😃 😃😃

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**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\
**Post date:** [November 12, 2014, 11:32pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/6 "2014-11-12T23:32:06Z")

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good grief, there are so many things to cover/gush about, there will be little actual playtime in the video! 😄 👍

going to be a bit groggy tomorrow … 😊

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**Author:** ![viewduedad](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/viewduedad/32/65428_2.png) [@viewduedad](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/viewduedad)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/7 "2014-11-13T00:16:47Z")

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I’m a 6’5" 350 pound guy and I’ve never “squeed” about anything in my life but there’s a first time for everything, so…

**_SQUEEEEEEEE!!!_**

I’ve been waiting and wanting building templates almost as much as I’ve wanted mining…

So once again…

**_SQUEEEEEEEE!!!_**

Thank you, I feel much better now. 😃

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**Author:** ![BloodW0lf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/bloodw0lf/32/11846_2.png) [@BloodW0lf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/BloodW0lf)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/8 "2014-11-13T01:14:43Z")

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yay a another bug update just came out!

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**Author:** ![hirokitkichiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@hirokitkichiro](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/hirokitkichiro)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/9 "2014-11-13T01:53:41Z")

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I think the best thing about this is looking at the amount of excitement an update generates, then realizing there’s so many more coming down the road.

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**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 1:56am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/10 "2014-11-13T01:56:36Z")

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> [@hirokitkichiro](#):
>
> I think the best thing about this

indeed! and the worst part is realizing it will be hours before the dust settles at home, and you have time to take the updates for a spin… 😄

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**Author:** ![jonzoid](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/jonzoid/32/44593_2.png) [@jonzoid](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/jonzoid)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:12am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/11 "2014-11-13T02:12:22Z")

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Hi-ho! Hi-ho! It’s off to work we go!

I found exploiting this to be seriously unstable, but if you draw a slab that ends lower than where it started, the slab will be marked as belonging inside a solid because it’s one solid cuboid and then your dudes will mine it out. You can then just remove the slab once it’s done.

 ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/uploads/stonehearth/original/2X/3/314c68df2f5843bdd5536b5d3220cf7ef88249fa.jpg)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sdee](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/sdee/32/65441_2.png) [@sdee](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/sdee)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:26am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/12 "2014-11-13T02:26:27Z")

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> [@jonzoid](#):
>
> You can then just remove the slab once it’s done.

Hat’s off. 😃 Well those slate roofs have to come from somewhere!

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**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/13 "2014-11-13T03:32:14Z")

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ok, took the build for a quick spin, and recorded the first 10 minutes of my play through…

love, love, **_love_** the new building mechanics! talk about optimization! 👍

cant wait to continue this preview tomorrow… 😄

**p.s.** forgot to mention, the only bug I’ve noticed so far has already been [reported](http://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/alpha6-r153-no-location-information-on-map-screen/8549)…

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**Author:** ![untrustedlife](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/untrustedlife/32/14019_2.png) [@untrustedlife](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/untrustedlife)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 5:01am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/14 "2014-11-13T05:01:59Z")

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loving the new building mechanics as-well. Makes building the same building over and over, much less of a pain. I can also stylize my villages, in a way I wish. Its just all around cool.

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**Author:** ![hirokitkichiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c68b51/32.png) [@hirokitkichiro](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/hirokitkichiro)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:07am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/15 "2014-11-13T06:07:09Z")

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New building mechanics are great! Plus more materials are always welcome. Everything certainly is more streamlined in that area, except like in the stream I’m seeing the double door preview go all whack. Sort of wish the UI would change to edit mode right after plopping a template though. Right now I have to exit build mode and re-enter it, otherwise it just stays in template selection. Maybe it’s just me, or I missed something. Otherwise the templates are just… awesome. Building large cities will be great, especially when mining is properly implemented and we get stone walls and stuff 😃

Was having a lot of fun anyway until my carpenter ran off into the woods like an idiot due to goblins, a problem with the AI I’ve had very often. Died out there and lost the saw. ☹ I really hope the rallying to flag or footman pathing features will be implemented soon. Villagers running out to their deaths is probably the #1 reason I’ve quit playthroughs. I do admit I tend to build in ways that separate everyone though, but I don’t think that should be a problem.

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**Author:** ![Newf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/newf/32/43487_2.png) [@Newf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Newf)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 6:49am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/16 "2014-11-13T06:49:06Z")

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Not another flood of Bug reports!!! 😢

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Teleros](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/teleros/32/63349_2.png) [@Teleros](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Teleros)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 10:20am UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/17 "2014-11-13T10:20:48Z")

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Incredibly, that’s really what this forum is for, as opposed to map games 😉 .

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**Author:** ![Helmic](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/helmic/32/44715_2.png) [@Helmic](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Helmic)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/18 "2014-11-13T14:17:43Z")

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I’m a little sad about the bed ownership thing, I liked being able to assign houses to specific workers. Will this be toggleable some time in the future, like it is with Dwarf Fortress?

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**Author:** ![SteveAdamo](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/steveadamo/32/13955_2.png) [@SteveAdamo](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/SteveAdamo)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/19 "2014-11-13T14:28:33Z")

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> Citizens no longer own their own beds, and are much more aggressive about finding a bed to sleep in before giving up

> [@Helmic](#):
>
> I’m a little sad about the bed ownership thing

yeah, i wonder if this is a result of the new upgrade process? perhaps it was bugging out the units if they owned a mean bed, that was then broken down and upgraded?

ideally, i too would like to see bed ownership, as it would be nice to have my carpenter sleep in the bed thats inside his workshop… 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Newf](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex022/user_avatar/discourse.stonehearth.net/newf/32/43487_2.png) [@Newf](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/u/Newf)\
**Post date:** [November 13, 2014, 4:44pm UTC](https://discourse.stonehearth.net/t/dev-blog-getting-ready-for-alpha-6-steam-latest-branch-updated-for-testing/8538/20 "2014-11-13T16:44:07Z")

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> [@Teleros](#):
>
> Incredibly, that’s really what this forum is for, as opposed to map games

Nah, the fact there is so many of them just does my head in.

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