Sand: A Superfluous Game
0.3.9 Released
UNIQUE COMPANIONS
As per my last post I've added the system to recruit unique companions. As of right now I have only one that is recruit-able. Details are as follow:
- Found at Steven Farm after you complete the main quest there.
- Recruit-able for 500 scrap. Which can be made easily from the repeatable mission that Steven "The Younger" gives you.
- Being the first companion you come across he isn't hard to get... well sorta :) <-- You'll understand once you play
- A twitchy sniper character with a rifle.
So companions take up a bed in your base but do not count against your people cap. They do not doing any real work (except act as guards I suppose) [see CAMP MATE IMPROVEMENTS BELOW]. They will in the future eat and sleep like camp mates do.
I plan on maybe 6 to 8 companions you can find and recruit. Other soon to come companions are as follows:
- AFTER ANCHORAGE QUEST LINE: A nudist raider with shotgun (because why not?)
- AFTER ELLIE'S ORPHANAGE MISSION: A kid with a bat. Can't die (obviously), but sits down and cries if they take too much damage. Hops back up after enemies are gone fully healed. Won't have lots of life, but you won't have to heal them so it is a trade off. Only available if you didn't press the button (SPOILER IF I SAY MORE).
- OTHERS ARE UP IN THE AIR
CAMP MATE IMPROVEMENTS:
Camp mates can now be assigned jobs, but are no longer recruit-able to join your adventures. Here is the implemented and planned list of jobs:
- Guard - Defends the camp with a bow (or other ranged weapons based on defense level [not implemented])
- Farmer - plants, harvest and waters crops
- Lumberjack - Cuts and plants trees
- Rancher - Harvest animals and fills up water barrels
- Water Manager - collects water from wells (the easiest job to replace with auto wells and a collector)
- Custodian - Sweeps floors and refills generators with wood. They will also clean solar panels (when I implement that)
- (Planned) Market Manager - will auto fill market stalls according to a inventory level (set with a register item[not made])
- (Planned) Mechanic - repairs any damaged base item
Jobs can be switched by talking to a camp mate and using the new camp mate menu.
You can call a camp mate to you by right clicking OR by using a bell to call everyone. The bell wakes people up and stop them from doing their job until you turn it off (old bell used to turn itself off after a period of time). It also spreads your mates out better and displays their job titles (though not always legible :) ).
They also have energy and now must sleep when they are tired. They have hunger and thirst but those won't be implemented until later. The sleep system will change too: to be more realistic. Energy will drain doing jobs or slowly by itself at night time. Right now it just slowly drains with no regard to actual work. I'll need to work on balancing the amount of time awake and working versus sleep.
OTHER CHANGES:
- Chickens eggs are harvest-able for meat. Ranchers don't kill chickens (like the robot does) instead they harvest the eggs for meat.
- Livestock grates are a new build-able. I noticed that sometimes animals escaped now that people can open and close doors. I added this to block all animals from crossing, but it will allow people to cross.
- Robots cost a lot more to make
- Camp mate max update from 6 to 8
- Camp mates remember their looks, names, and jobs. This should have been a given but wasn't the case until this update :)
- Rifles now penetrate
- Bells now call unique companions as well.
- Game zip is bigger then usual. I am working on getting music smaller but faster.
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Great job,
Few thoughts, I m certain u planned on adding at some point.
a) for each animal, could the corn deplete -1 each day. ( not sure if u want to add a corn feeder, much like the water feeder)
b) for each fire pit, could wood deplete -1 each night.
c) for each companion part of my tribe , could food/water deplete -3 each day.
d) also could these status show. just like u have the power draining. This would make resource management more in-depth and challenging.
e) is their any way for cows/chickens/bison to auto die at about the same rate they are born, and be auto harvested by the robots, tribe mates, in order to keep the population under control.
f) Can u, while exploring other terrains on the map, add crashed cars/planes/trucks/tanks/missiles, so we can farm for metals, it would visually feel more in-depth.
g) Can u add oil Pumps, to work much like water pumps through out the map so we can harvest oil, and can you add an oil power generators stoves, use oil and generates much more power?
Thx an advanced, I just feel these additions at some point would make the game more subversive, and more challenging.
a. Yes food mechanic will be added. Basically water replenishes the resource they produce and corn will replenish their health (which will slowly deplete over time.
B. I've thought about that maybe the fire slowly get less bright and needs to be refueled.
C. Yes this will happen. Probably soon. See one of my previous dev logs about it.
D. Yes i will probably show a daily resource drain some where.
E. There is going to be several management items to set limits and do more micro manage stuff for those that like it. I just need to think about how it will work for those that don't.
F. Yes that mechanic is in place already. I just haven't added much to it yet
G. Yes I've gone back an forth about this. I've thought of just pure pumps that slowly get oil or turning corn into oil or having locations on the map you have to repair or refuel and defend over several waves of enemies choosing to risk a harder wave or leave with what oil you got.
thx u for the reply. I shall await these implementations. and look forward to continuing to supporting ur game.
Thanks!
Regarding special locations and general accessibility of items. Maybe the size of the overworld could be used for that.
Right now outside of specific points of interests there's little reason to travel anywhere since all resources are accessible near home. Would be interesting if some, the less basic of them would be nearly impossible to acquire in the wild aside from occasional resource node once in a blue moon (together with loot drop adjustments as skellies certainly drop too much rubber, oil and electronics for how primitive they appear to be, living in ruins and whatnot and stone protrusions seem to be 50% made out of pure metal at times) with some areas all over the world where those defendable oil rigs, metal wrecks etc could be found.
This is a pretty sweet update. :)
Thanks