[b]Hello engineers![/b] Release is a mere 5 days away! In this final week, I'm focusing on bug fixes and stability. But over the past 2 weeks, I broke my content freeze rule and added a bunch of stuff (whoops!). Let's review! [h3]Alarms![/h3] Notifications for bad things happening in your base have been sorely lacking in the game. I've beefed them up with multiple warnings types: [list] [*] Warnings for structures being damaged by attackers (no alarm sound) [*] Warnings for structures being destroyed (urgent alarm sounds) [*] Warnings for structures being damaged due to overheating (mild alarm sounds) [*] Warnings for when asteroids are low on resources (non intrusive alarm sound) [/list] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43547551/5cc3a264c518bb71b1368b57bbe09270f3d2e460.png[/img] This should really help players see at a glance if things are going wrong, before things get out of hand. [h3]Technology Rework[/h3] The tech tree, especially planetary science, has been reworked a bunch. [list] [*] Most planetary techs have had their costs greatly increased. You could easily make due with 1 or 2 planetary research stations and not have to produce that many bots [*] Comet Catchers and greenhouses now require Planetary Science, and hydrocarbon and high density material techs require you research both. This should guide the player more for the organics production pipeline. Before these techs and their order made no real sense. [*] Planetary Science itself now requires advanced materials in addition to Ship Reprocessing [/list] [h3]Factory Balance[/h3] There's been some items on my list for rebalancing for some time now. [list] [*] Greenhouses now produce 7 organic ores, up from 6. Since the production loop requires 5, this basically doubles their effective output [*] T2 assembler machines all have had their craft speed buffed to 1, up from .8 [*] Singularity Power Stations no longer cost stability, to encourage their use more, especially for ships. They also got a baseline 20kW buff. They should be a very attractive power option, despite them consuming fuel [*] Increased based Rocket Adapter speed to 100, up from 80 [/list] [h3]Combat Balance[/h3] Combat is tough to balance in FF. You want just the right amount of difficulty to make exploring satisfying, but not tedious. You also want just the right amount of attack strength so the entropy of enemy attacks is a real threat, but not overwhelmingly so, as players mostly just like to quietly work away building their factory. A huge number of balance tweaks have been made to various units, see the full patch notes for details. But the gist is this: [list] [*] Most friendly ships have had their attack power increased [*] Most enemy ships have had their hit-points cut substantially, to make them easier to clear out [*] Attacks have been made more difficult overall, as before they were barely even noticeable on standard mode [*] Camps respawn their buildings much more slowly, so they aren't respawning new structures while you're destroying them [*] Camps are now less dense overall, making it less tedious to clear them out as you explore [/list] [h3]Loot[/h3] Enemies that are sent on attack to your base no longer drop loot or research. This is for 2 reasons: [olist] [*] It's awkward to have a bunch of items and research dropping that can not be feasibly picked up, making it feel wasteful [*] I want exploring to be more rewarding. The new system encourages leaving your base to farm items and research [/olist] I also reduced artifact drop rates by 20% overall. This should make the end game artifact assembler more useful. And securing one is a good challenge for later in the game. [h3]Game Modes[/h3] I've added a bunch of new presets to the game to encourage playing the game in different ways. Hardcore mode: Enemies are stronger and attack more (not quite as much as relentless mode though). In addition, the first planet and oracle are not explored, nor are they automatically spawned nearby like in the other modes. You'll have to do a lot more exploring to find them in this mode. Technology costs are also doubled. Explorer mode: enemy camps do not spawn in this mode. However, they will still be guarding precious resources and points of interest. Once defeated they won't ever respawn. This definitely has a different feel from the normal mode. If you're not interested in the Factorio-style camps, and want enemies to stay dead, this is the mode for you. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//43547551/3de7992d845ccb303d80608f25ccd4c78bb61270.png[/img] [h3]User Interface[/h3] I've beefed up the user interface in various important ways: [list] [*] The maximum power a station could potentially consume is now displayed on the Station Grid Panel, making it easier to plan how much power you should place [*] The maximum heat a station could potentially produce is now displayed on the Station Grid Panel [*] Adjusted the default position of Defense Platform Range indicator panel so its not hidden when you open it [/list] [h3]Performance[/h3] A number of huge performance fixes have been made. [list] [*] Enemy camps more than 3 chunks away from player structures or the player will now be deleted. This effectively means that performance related to enemy camp spawns are no longer linearly scaling with how much map the player has explored, which should be a huge performance boost for players that have explored a large part of the map. Previously every chunk you've ever explored would have camp generation logic applied to it, so every new chunk explored would cost performance. Now chunks are only considered for camp generation if they are within 3 chunks of player activity. [*] Production stats on large bases would pile up, causing major performance issues that scaled with your production levels. I've added a system to regularly consolidate old production stats data, so that the amount of data remains constant, greatly improving speed of tracking production stats for larger bases [*] Improved performance of station connections calculations so that placing large blueprints is faster (and doesn't crash the game!) [/list] Countless bugs have also been fixed. For full patch notes, head over to the discord starting [url=https://discord.com/channels/530867164866150410/1072387196927094845/1220726732479266887]here[/url]. Final Factory is nearly ready for EA launch. I plan on continuing to support this game with the same tenacity I've had for this last year with my great playtesting community. I cannot wait to finally share this game with the world. See you all next week for launch! Slims