Cichlid owners and aggro-fish curious folks REJOICE! IT’S TANK OF THRONES TIME.
Before we get in to it: our discord's here if you want to join. You can have a real impact on the direction of the game. We're very close to 1000 members!
OKAY
Just like people, some fish are JERKS. For good or foul, it can’t be denied that jerks make their surroundings more... interesting.
[previewyoutube=CBqVqz8UfEY;full][/previewyoutube]
Here’s what’s happening:
Fish (if it makes sense for the species) will regularly try to intimidate peers in the pecking order to elevate their own status or steal a territory. They’ll do this through a ton of improved and newly-added behaviors such as quiver & mouth-gape displays, lip-locking & flaring.
Every fish has been updated to reflect their real-world counterparts, with a ton of improvements outside of the hierarchy system as well.
Depending on the result of the challenge, a fish’s hierarchy stat will increase or decrease, which affects its overall state of fear, which affects its overall health.
If the Tank Boss is weakened or another fish’s hierarchy stat increases enough, it becomes a target for rivals to challenge and boom, we’ve got a medieval grasp for the crown on our hands.
Aquariums are now significantly more dynamic & interesting. Behaviour looks much more realistic, and the narratives developed in your aquariums are much higher stakes.
As a fishkeeper, this adds the challenge of building tanks that are the right size and decorated appropriately (breaking up lines of sight, providing lots of hiding spots) for everyone to get along. Or, you can do things “wrong”, see how they play out and learn more about species interactions without risking fish in real life–we’d rather it happen here!
To put the icing on the cake, we’ve added the rare & aggressive Atabapo Pike Cichlid–YouTuber Drae’s favourite fish. We hopped on a call with him with Unreal open and he helped us make sure its behaviour was looking good!
Here is the full change list (HUGE)!
Improved Hierarchy System and Behaviors:
-New Hierarchy system that influences aggression, coloration, swimming patterns, territory management, and chosen behaviors. Tank bosses emerge, are dethroned, and challenged by subordinates. Peace settles on tanks that have time to form stable communities. Moving a fish will make it forgive or forget, giving you the ability to actively balance or destabilize the system. Dither fish and community size affect the chance that a fish will get targeted or harassed. Stability remains a moving target as fish age and new opportunities present themselves.
-Added Gape Display, Quiver Display, and Lip Lock Behaviors.
-Improved Guard Territory behavior to respect the improved hierarchy system. Fish can now be chased out of their territories or abandon them entirely if necessary.
Improved Fish-Substrate interactions:
-Added ability for fish to hold substrate in their mouths and spit it out in a different location.
-Added particle effects to fish swimming near the surface of the substrate.
-Added Sharpness to certain substrates, which will injure fish that spend time bumping into them.
-Improved audio for substrate scaping. The sound should now match the material being used.
Added Community Scape Theme widget to the pause screen:
-Updates every week with a new theme, with over 2 years' worth of themes to make and share with the community.
Improved Tutorial for better beginner experience:
-Update to text, aiming to be less wordy and more to the point.
-Short guided intro, to reduce the amount of random clicking with the goal "how do I get fish?"
-Added (?) buttons to all panels to make information more "opt in" and less forced.
-Added controls reminder for players who have never moved the camera after over an hour of play.
-Updated shop order to create a better flow for the first few hours of play.
-Rearranged Keeper XP items to make more sense for introducing players to content.
Major UI polish improvements. There are dozens of changes and additions, but overall it should just feel nicer to interact with:
-Added a basic sorting tool for the Fish Panel so you can order the fish by certain stats. This will likely be worked on for a little while longer, but this is a great start.
-Fixed UI bugs that created unreadable text or broken buttons when text was too long or the window was too small.
-Fixed Main Menu video playback, which had been laggy for reasons unrelated to game performance.
-Made most tools remember their state per tank, not per profile. This is better for a lot of situations, but the typical one is needing to select the right kind of food for a tank that has specific dietary needs. Now the last food you chose for that particular tank will be selected by the default. Less annoying clicking.
-Added pausing to the credits by clicking.
-Just so many animations and transitions. Probably more to come!
Added new fish name system that is optionally localizable for languages that really should have a different name set:
-Added optional Species names, so fish species with extreme personalities can be given names that match them.
Major behavior audit for all fish:
-Many fish will have improved behaviors, making them more lifelike than before. This will apply to new fish; all your old ones will stay as they were.
Misc Improvements:
-Adjusted the color of algae that grows on glass and substrate. It had been acid green a little too long. It should now match the color of the algae in the water column.
-Improved the appearance of dust particles.
-Improved highlight effect on Fish, Plants and Hardscape so it is smoother and less jarring when switching between actors.
-Added highlight when the player hovers over an item in the Fish/Plant panel so it is easier to see the intended target. Prevents clicking many times while throwing the camera around looking for an individual. Also helps locate plants that are buried in a clump of other plants. Aquashella Daytona suggestion from one of the kids! Thank you!
Bug Fixes:
-Fixed major bug with the game time/calendar that would freeze time after a large amount of play, which caused a large number of small seemingly unrelated errors.
-Fixed Ailment/Illness confusion with alerts. Fixed a number of bugs relating to alert icons.
-Fixed fish who like low water column regions warping under the substrate if it was thick enough to go above their max desired height. Fixed a similar issue with food being ignored when on thick substrate.
-Fixed fish getting "Illness" stat but no actual bacteria or parasites when eating other fish.
-Fixed Keeper XP bug that would fill the screen with a yellow circle sometimes.
-Fixed bug that would make eaten fish spawn into a bubble if clicked on via the Fish Panel.
-Fixed fish claiming territory outside the tank.
-Fixed plant and hardscape depth when squished against the tank glass, appearing between reflecting parts, not just inside the tank.
-Fixed sorting problem with leaves when pressed against the glass. They no longer clip through each other.
-Fixed Hornwort text, which had been duplicated from Cabomba plant text.
-Fixed certain settings not being initialized properly when spawning. (Framerate and VSYNC)
-Added setting for turning off substrate damage.
-Added setting for turning off toilet joke when deleting fish.
