Revision 28 is now uploaded to Steam for Earliest Access purchasers. The following is the changelog: Removed "chop log directly into a plank" and "cut stone directly into bricks" due to micromanagement. (Build a Carpentry Workshop, already!) Added icons for Lingonberry and Saskatoonberry preserves crate commodities Subtly re-organized building icons to suggest a build order FIXED: added default melee attacks for very unconventional weapons (caused rare scripterrors) added a seed memory to each new colonist (to normalize moods a bit at start of game) vaguely improved and massively cleaned up harvestable Nature objects (oreNode, tree, forageSource, and clearable) - still job assignment issues w/ stumps & new saplings though. harvestable nature objects will create job icon immediately rather than waiting for overseer to accept job (better feedback for player) memory weighting adjusted slightly (a bit less overall madness) Internal rewrite of stockpile code: stockpiles are now considered used/not used based on if they are empty or not, and stockpiles should no longer jam up with half-empty squares. Stockpiles will show their borders with a different colour model (placeholder 'til final assets are done) Enhanced "flee" job based on Dienes' suggestions; colonists much smarter about running away from danger various minor character texture fixes in added a bunch of new head and hair models made sure all tools & weapons use correct melee attack animation FIXED: "tin exotic caviar" job should work correctly FIXED: commodities no longer float in stockpiles FIXED: Character info window remembers its position and no longer defaults to topleft corner of screen FIXED: Workshop window remembers its position and no longer defaults to topleft corner of screen Gravesites now enabled (however the corpse picking up/dropping animation is not in yet) (FIXED: digging graves requires a shovel and a HUMAN corpse, not ANY corpse) Houses can now be renovated. FIXED: numerous memory leaks FIXED: Cleaned up memory storage for clean game exits FIXED: Fixed memory footprint overrun in save games (saved games still not publically available) FIXED: floating unremoveable job icons should no longer happen FIXED: dead Colonists job description is no longer stuck on what they were doing before they died FIXED: workshop job using tool when interrupted will no longer permanently attach tool to character's hand FIXED: no work party icon will not appear on dead colonists and will remove itself from colonists who die There are obviously some things that did not make it into this revision; we decided that we did not wish to hold things up while we got things in. We will be aiming for another revision next week, probably around Wednesday so that we can nicely synchronize things with Blog Posts and all that.
Removed "chop log directly into a plank" and "cut stone directly into bricks" due to micromanagement. (Build a Carpentry Workshop, already!) Uh, we only start with 3 planks and the airship supply drop can't even give them. You've gone back to the problem of being able to terminally break a colony in the first minute if you don't use your planks right (although the bug of required modules not actually being required means you don't actually need the carpentry shop's desk at the moment).
Yep! We need a different solution, unfortunately; we're just not sure what it is yet. As it currently stands, everybody immediately goes around chopping logs directly into planks, all the time, without ever using a carpentry work shop, and then do the same thing with their bricks. "Water finds a crack," as David noted. Remove Overseer Promotion has been removed for the same reason - rampant abuse. We had to do this with Dredmor a lot; it's all part of the process.
You can build a carpentry shop using only logs then get plank production going from there. (I will concede however that this is not explained very clearly.)
Hence my note about required modules. A carpentry workshop lists a standing desk as a required module and if that was actually enforced that would mean you would need at least 1 plank to make a carpentry shop.
Maybe the workshop makes planks 2753% faster than planks people make in the fields with their teeth? Seems like it would be a wise investment at that point, but there's still an "oh crap" solution if you build in the wrong order.
It might be an interesting idea to make standing desks improve the speed of any workshop they are attached to. Although, in reality of course, bureaucracy only slows things down, in our little steam world perhaps it can speed things up. For awhile, at least. And only 1, not more.
Or go a little further and make it so the speed of workshops is improved only if the desk is being manned by an overseer. It'd give the overseer more of a role than just being a person required in order to have a work crew.
I'd rather give it a more tangible gameplay benefit than a passive must-have 5% boost. Maybe let it prioritize the job types per shop or aid in some administrative task. You could make it an in-game menu that gives you access to the shop owner's log that gets periodically updated with details about the work crew or things that went on near the shop.
I'm seeing a way higher rate of job icons sticking in the map, bricking the resource so that it cannot actually be accessed.
Can you explain what you mean here in more detail? The ability to issue commands onto objects are indeed removed when a job icon is assigned (as giving more orders would be redundant / do nothing), but if the icon is there, the job is should still be awaiting pickup by an overseer.
I mean the little icon for a job target sometimes comes up but the job never gets completed. Almost every game I've had at least one, usually one tree and one bush. The resource then does nothing when clicked on, and never gets cleared. With the new update it's happening with startling frequency, witness: All the icons in the above image are stuck. Let me know if you want a replay file.
Realized I had no axes at this stage in the game. Not sure how to get more, but the bushes were just stuck.