Heya Drifters!

The Expertise update is here!
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?

With knowledge being the new requirement for research, we will now take a look at reworking the current research screen towards a tree with clear progression. This includes "researchables", which allows you to unlock more than buildings, like town-wide upgrades, recipes and more!

Enjoy the new update!

Changes

Drifter Expertise

• Drifters can now gain experience and level up by doing tasks.
  
• For each drifter level up, you can assign an attribute point, raising their expertise.
  
• For each drifter level up, you gain knowledge.
  
• Each level gradually needs more experience.
  
• Drifters start with some attributes increased, which adds to the total expertise. This allows those stats to go above the maximum (10).
  
• Drifters start with attribute Affinity, which increases their morale when using those attributes. (and thus, their learning speed)
  
• 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.
  
• Added the school, where drifters can use books to gain experience.
  
• On level-up, a drifter will spawn a little celebratory effect.
  

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.
  
• 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.
  
• Research UI will now show progress per knowledge point.
  
• Renamed "cancel research" to "pause research" so it gives the correct information.
  

Drifters

• Updated the drifter Water, Food and Sleep panel, lack of sleep is now tracked in the Morale panel.
  
• The debuff of not eating or drinking has now merged with the morale modifier.
  
• Morale modifiers can now affect other things, such as drifter attributes.
  
• Drifters not drinking, eating or sleeping will get stackable debuffs that reduce certain attributes.
  
• Drifters will now inform players if they are unable to perform their duties and why (mostly for blocked salvaging tasks due to unavailable storage space for resources)
  
• Hauling affinity now correctly shows in the drifter duties panel when a drifter has affinity for athletics.
  

Food and Resources

• 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.
  
• Fixed Seagull giving a morale debuff for leaving when they haven't left.
  
• Fixed Mooring Point signaling it being blocked when it was not blocked.
  
• Fixed a bug where a drifter could get stuck while salvaging a landmark by boat and a resource was toggled off.
  
• Fixed a bug where reassigning boats between Mooring Points could break their connection to the Mooring Point.
  
• Fixed broken Seagull panel.