Holidays are upon us, and we have another batch of Update 5 tweaks for your merriment. Most importantly, badwater’s harmful effects on the land (reducing the irrigation’s range and contaminating the ground) now kick in at different concentrations. Also, Thousand Islands was reworked.
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Follow the instructions found here.
Badwater
Previously, badwater affected surrounding areas by limiting irrigation ranges and contaminating the ground simultaneously. Now, these effects trigger at different badwater concentration levels. This makes it less of a binary mechanic and adds more impact to the partial contamination.
- With badwater below 50%, the irrigation range decreases, depending on the concentration. At 50%, the water body no longer irrigates the land but doesn’t contaminate it yet. This means the affected plant life withers at its “regular” speed.
- With badwater above 50%, the water body starts contaminating the ground and actively killing plant life. The contamination’s range depends on the badwater’s concentration. At 100%, the effect is similar to what we had before today’s update.
Maps
The eleventh built-in map has just received its badwater-filled iteration. Thousand Islands is known for its water-themed challenge, so we had to figure out how to preserve its unique setup and add meaningful badwater interactions. It is also a good example of why the badwater changes listed above make sense to us. Check the map out and let us know what you think!
- Updated map: Thousand Islands now features large amounts of badwater. Swim carefully!
Balance
Alright, we’re going easy on you. Mother Nature won’t always be so gentle, though.
- Increased the minimum number of cycles before badtides hit to 7 (on easy difficulty), 5 (medium), and 3 (hard).
- Removed Terraforming Station from the game. It had its purpose when terraforming was exclusive to bots, but in Update 5, this duty is also handled by the regular beavers.
- Terraforming is now performed by builders.
Misc.
- Added Rubble Removal Tool 5000™ to the toolbar. Cleaning the leftovers has never been easier!
- Renamed Temple and Shrine to Agora and Contemplation Spot, respectively. The previous religious connotation didn’t make much sense to us. The Temple’s flavor text was also updated.
- Updated models for all bridges to make them stand out more with crowded colonies in the background.
- The ground is now hidden when previewing buildings with underground parts such as the Underground Warehouse.
- The standard buttons and headers used in the main menu etc. are now scalable.
- Updated the text in removal tools’ tooltips to be consistent across the category.
- Updated the look of the “Unlock this building” button.
- Updated the text on the “Clear this key binding” button.
- Added audio cues to transitions between seasons.
- Added missing sounds and the flavor text to Motivatorium.
- Reordered the Well-being buildings to match their increasing Science costs.
- Removed the extra arrows from the map selection list.
Bug fixes
- Fixed the brush flickering in the map editor, caused by changing its - the brush’s - parameters.
- Fixed a bug with saves not updating correctly after the system clock switches from daylight saving time. If you’re playing Timberborn at 2 AM, we admire your dedication.
- Removed that randomly placed tree on the Meander map.
