Ruinarch update for 1 March 2023

Hello everyone! This is our final update prior to our 1.0 launch in late April. I wanted to have a better thematic title to put for this update but can't come up with any since the update has a little bit of everything: some performance improvements, new power, QoL, balance tweaks, etc.

I just want to emphasize that this is the final update before 1.0 but we still intend to provide more updates even after we exit Early Access, just in a slower pace as we give more focus to our next game.

Performance

This is one of the biggest player concerns that we have to address. Due to the underlying simulation, character pathfinding and constant logging of events occurring per tick, the game suffers slowdown that becomes noticeable especially on larger maps and on longer playthroughs. Some of the performance improvement work we've done have been included in this update but more significant fixes are still in progress. We still expect some lag spikes and memory leaks but we intend to have most issues fully resolved when we launch 1.0.

Critical Break

Villagers in Critical Mood used to randomly trigger a Mental Break. This will no longer happen. Instead, a new Critical Break has been added so that it is up to the player to trigger it whenever they want to. Once activated, the player gets to choose from 3 Critical Break options.

The following are available:

• Break up with a lover
• Abandon faction
• Kill an enemy or rival
• Become a cannibal
• Trigger a lightning storm (magic users only)
• Expel an enemy or rival (faction leader only)
• Commit suicide
• Become a bandit
• Become evil
• Set building on fire (must not be pyrophobic)

This is intended to further reinforce the game's premise of giving the player more control over the miserable things that can happen to the Villagers.

Monster Spawner Actions

In order to make Monster Spawners more useful, landmarks with Monster Spawners now have special actions that the player can activate. The action available depends on the landmark. The following are available:

• Kill Villager
• Snatch Villager
• Harass Villagers
• Destroy Structures
• Destroy Defenses
• Destroy Supplies

Base Building QoL

Players can now more quickly build demonic structures without first building the required corrupted tiles. It will still require the same amount of corrupted tiles but the game will place it automatically for the player.

It's also no longer necessary to have space between demonic structures. This should allow players to build more within the same corrupted tile limit.

Lastly, some of the bigger demonic structures have been resized smaller: Spire, Meddler and Maraud

Various Status Effect Changes

• Non-combatant villagers harassed by demons or monsters will become Traumatized when they get knocked unconscious.
• Unconscious villagers will gain Injured once they wake up from Unconsciousness. This won't occur if someone else helps them out of unconsciousness.
• Damage dealt by an Injured character should be reduced by 50%.
• Frozen status may now add a new status effect: Frostbite
• Frostbite can cause death by Hypothermia
• An external tile on a Blizzard should have a 25% chance per tick to remove Burning on the tile and its objects
• Bad Weather status effect now only has 1 stack limit and can be gained from Blizzard, Heat Wave and Rain
• Ice Block should remove Burning on the tile
• An Ice Block should apply Wet to the tile
• All Ice Blocks have 25% to melt on adjacent tiles of a Burning tile or Burning object.

Chaos Orb Spawn Caps

All player Powers that spawn Chaos Orbs now have limits to the total amount they can spawn. The caps are mostly lenient as the intention here is just to prevent players from exploiting some of the easier options too much. This probably requires further tweaking and we'll actively watch player feedback regarding this.

Autosave

New autosaving feature has been added. The game will autosave at the start of each day.

Tweaks

• Village behavior has been tweaked to make them build important structures faster.
• When a Villager attempts to strangle self, they will now only choose nearby wilderness area to do it rather than any distant spot in the entire map.
• Players can now demolish unoccupied landmarks.
• Villagers attempting to steal because of Kleptomaniac Trigger Flaw will still proceed even if there are witnesses to the act.
• Removed Blizzard's separate additional Freezing chance. It should now simply apply Freezing through its Ice damage.
• Removed Drain Spirit from Kennels since Sacrifice already serves similar purpose.
• Criminals fleeing from their faction will now avoid combat. This should increase the likelihood of them escaping. Villagers attempting to apprehend them will drop it once they are far enough from the Village.
• Villagers will now more often place Fisheries closer to the Village Center.
• Cultist Dark Ritual will now only produce 3 Chaos Orbs instead of 4.
• Chaotic Energy gained from Chaos Orbs has been increased to 6.
• The Chaotic Energy costs of Portal's Release Power has been significantly reduced.
• Cultists can no longer change class to Stalker.
• Improved night lighting of some structures.
• Added a new log whenever a Ward Light detects hostiles.
• Updated world generation so landmarks will not spawn adjacent to each other.
• Work Structure can now be clickable from the Character Info UI.
• Log limit setting has now been turned into a slider that can be set between 1000 to 5000.
• Updated popup message when Trigger Flaw of Unfaithful did not work because the target has no lover.

Bug Fixes

• [FIXED] Laziness does not produce a Chaos Orb when the Villager refuses to do work.
• [FIXED] Building of Bandit Camp may sometimes fail and cause a loop.
• [FIXED] Game may get stuck if all three randomized Wildcard Powers chosen was already unlocked from previous Portal upgrades.
• [FIXED] Game cannot be saved while an object or villager is currently seized.
• [FIXED] Error when Villagers attempt to restrain an intruding Ent that already reverted back to a tree.
• [FIXED] In Polish, Portal UI button text does not fit in the button.
• [FIXED] Fixed Empowered tooltip.