It’s the first patch for the still-in-development version of Alpha 19 (available now on our Steam unstable branch).
This release offers several improvements and bugfixes. Plus, see the notes for the stuff we forgot to mention in last week’s release… such as, well, scaffolding and ladders are now “free” — that is, they no longer require wood. We have also disabled (for now) the Militia option — it really wasn’t working as intended and we’re developing a better approach.
As always with the release of an unstable version, we ask that you report any issues (or compliments, the team likes compliments) on Discourse or our Steam forums.
##Here’s what’s new in this release:
Updates We Forgot to Mention in the Previous Release Notes
Hearthlings can now fabricate multiple blocks at once, greatly reducing the time it takes to construct buildings!
Scaffolding and ladders no longer require wood to build! Though less realistic, these are quality of life changes that we believe make the building more enjoyable.
Disabled the Militia tab for now because it was causing bugs and the team did not feel it was a good solution for what it was trying to solve. We would like to come up with something better.
Landscape scars caused by encounter placement can now be filled in. After finishing the encounter, select the pile of dirt in the scar and press the button to restore the terrain.
Hearthlings and items no longer disappear from view when in slice mode if they are standing on a structure that is visible. Previously they would disappear from roofs even though the building was visible and potentially starve to death.
Fixed mining and hearthling pathing visualization for slice and xray modes.
Improvements
The official Debugtools mod is now included with the game (but disabled by default). You can enable it using the settings menu in the title screen.
The custom tab in building templates is now always the last tab.
Potters will now auto queue clay bricks when building, if auto queue is enabled.
Herbalists now gain slightly more experience from crafting.
Bug Fixes
Fix for strange camera movement when trying to move and rotate the camera at the same time. Rotating the camera using the right mouse button will now have priority over moving the camera
Fix for Rayya’s Children UI not loading correctly
Temporarily disable the ‘simple caravan’ trader event because it was causing bugs with reserving items (this is the caravan event that asks for an immediate trade with your settlement). We hope to revisit the entire trading system in the near future, so we should have a better experience for trading in general soon.
Fix for mining error when connecting mining regions.
Love the new speed of building and the removal of wood for scaffolding
It was defiantly to slow before now i might build a lot more of my houses during youtube vids and livestream in the real way
Noticed that chopping trees is a “Haul” thing for Hearthlings was it not “Job” before? feels like it should be atleast since hauling for me is moving items not chopping trees.
I agree with the ladder cost. I’ve had hearthlings who were spawning on higher levels who then could get themselves down without even having acces to the town or it’s supplies
So, How do we know our lil Hearthlings are not carrying around a emergency wood block just for these special occasions? Out in the boonies, no help around… use the emergency stash and make a ladder to salvation!
I originally agreed with you @BarbeQ, but Yang (I think it was Yang, maybe Stephanie) gave a very good reason on stream: beside speeding up building free ladders can be critical for people who get all their Hearthlings stuck in a hole. Apparently this happens more than we’d think.
You (they) have certainly a point there. And I guess, It wouldn’t make much sense in differentiating between manually placed ladders and those auto- placed by hearthlings.
I know the problem of stuck hearthlings all too well. In fact, I was already thinking about a mod to give all of them a rope or a rope ladder to fight the issue.
Well, as a educated house builder etc etc and a bit of a ‘‘realistic’’ gamer id like it to cost wood to make thos scaffoldings… anyway to have it toogle on/off ?
a way to toggle it on/off. Maybe an difficulty option. I agree with this. A thing I like about stonehearth is that nothing just happens. Every block has to be made, every bit of scaffolding has to be made so the hearthlings can reach it, etc. I understand the need of free scaffolding, but a difficulty option or other kind of toggle would be appreciated.
The renaming of parties was removed some builds ago, along with other performance fixes that Yang made.
I think they will put it back when they finish reviewing the UI / UX.
