Hey Drifters!

We have another update ready to test for you all: the Expertise Update.
It brings depth to the drifters with Expertise, Morale and Knowledge.

Your drifters will now gain experience and level up by doing tasks. This will give them knowledge, which replaces books as requirement for research. With the introduction of morale, your drifters will have wishes that affect their levelling speed.

Coming with this update as well is a look at the issues with boat abandonment. Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked and will communicate a warning to the player. Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points will teleport back.

What's next?

Our first priority is ironing out any bugs that might accompany this update. After that, we are looking at re-introducing books with the School building. Here, they can be traded for big jumps of drifter experience. 0.6.x will see plenty of patches to continue working on this feature, like a research-rework, a brewery and more.

How do I test this update?

This patch is still in development and can be tested on its own branch to give feedback.

It can be played on the new separate branch 0.6.x_Expertise_Update, it's not the experimental branch. This is so we can still push minor updates to 0.5.x on the experimental branch if necessary.

This is how you can enable the Region Update branch of Flotsam. This will only work when you're not in a game:
1. Open Steam Library
2. Right click Flotsam
3. Select Properties
4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top.
5. Select '0.6.x_Expertise_Update' in the drop-down.
6. The game will update automatically.

Enjoy the new update!

Patch Notes

Drifter Expertise

• Drifters can now gain experience and level up by doing tasks.
  
• For each drifter level up, you can assign an attribute point.
  
• For each drifter level up, you gain knowledge.
  
• Each level gradually needs more experience.
  
• Drifters start with attribute Expertise, which increases the points of those attributes.
  
• Drifters start with attribute Affinity, which increases their morale when using those attributes.
  
• Updated tooltips of attributes to correctly give all required information
  
• Updated the attributes. The attributes are now as follows; Construction, Athletics, Liquids, Crafting, Research, Cooking, Fishing, Salvaging.
  
• Each attribute can be levelled to 10. Expertise allows it to go higher.
  

Drifter Morale

• Drifters have morale. Their morale will affect their levelling speed.
  
• There are 5 states of drifter morale with each an effect on levelling speed; Very Low (25%), Low(65%), Neutral(100%), High(135%), Very High(200%).
  
• The morale is outlined in a bar in the drifter panel.
  
• Drifters now have affinity for certain attributes. When they work tasks using those attributes, they will work at increased morale.
  
• Drifters will now prioritize tasks they have an affinity for, then by their attribute amount.
  
• Added various morale modifiers such as; new community, new friends, wet, etc.
  
• Added thought bubbles, drifters will now show thoughts of what morale is affecting them.
  

Research and Drifter Knowledge

• Researching now requires knowledge instead of books.
  
• Books are temporarily useless (they will regain a purpose once we add the school building, where you can transfer books to drifter experience)
  
• Updated the research station; it does no longer have an eel-ectricity requirement. The footprint and cost has been reduced. The visual has been updated.
  
• Research is now done per knowledge, rather than the whole progress at once.
  
• You can now research one knowledge at a time without requiring the full amount of knowledge.
  

Food

• Food now has a quality level: Icky, Ordinary or Yummy. Each give a different morale modifier.
  
• Updated tooltips of resources to correctly give all required information
  

General

• Added various icons for new features.
  
• Changed localization keys for new features.
  
• Removed pollution bar on the portraits.
  
• Updated some of the UI elements.
  

Mooring Points and Boats

Boat abandonment was a long-standing issue, we looked into fixing annoyances and communicating the issues to the player.

• Mooring Points now detect if they are blocked. These will show a warning.
  
• Boats moored at blocked Mooring Points will not be used by drifters doing tasks.
  
• Boats returning to blocked Mooring Points are no longer abandoned. These will teleport back to their linked Mooring Point.
  

Fixes

• Fixed an issue where the polluted woods scouting tower didn't have a selection circle.