Alpha14b now out, unlocks the other half of the game

Posted July 18th, 2016 by Tynan Sylvester

With the flurry of support and fraud combat tasks abating, I took a little while to watch Zeebos’ stream. A discussion was had and it quickly became apparent that a lot of the events in the game weren’t really firing – ever. No heat waves, no crazy animals, no crashed ship parts.

Doing some local testing, I realized how bad it was. Most of the events in the game would never fire.

Holy crap!

I’ve fixed the issue and uploaded a patch to Steam. Your save games will be compatible. The new build is 0.14.1238 – look for that number at the top left of the main menu to confirm you’re running it.

Look at it this way – it’s like releasing a juicy content patch!

Note: I haven’t updated the DRM-free download yet, I’ll do that when I’m a bit more certain the patch is still balanced.

Patch notes:

  • Fix: Events never fire (except in some exceptional circumstances):
    • Infestation
    • Manhunter pack
    • Psychic ship part crash
    • Poison ship part crash
    • Animal insanity (single)
    • Eclipse
    • Solar flare
    • Psychic drone
    • Toxic fallout
    • Volcanic winter
    • Heatwave
    • Cold snap
    • Flashstorm
    • Short circuit
    • Crop blight
    • Alphabeavers
    • Psychic soothe
    • Refugee chased
    • Thrumbo passes
  • Fix: Storyteller incorrectly adjusts trader frequency in relation to ally count.
  • Fix: Threat cycle event maker sometimes queues events without enough points to actually fire them.

24 Responses to “Alpha14b now out, unlocks the other half of the game”

  1. BloodyHell

    Thanks for the quick fix, I was wondering as well why my Cassandra colony on Challenge difficulty did not have many events even after 100+ days and was also watching Zeebos’, Disnof’s and Spartyon’s streams with little to none of these events.

    This will now feel like a whole new game, so glad to see it fixed.
    I can’t check right now but I suppose the SendOwl version will be updated when the Steam branch moves from unstable to stable, correct ?


  2. Yeah, SendOwl will get updated when it’s confirmed stable.

    I’m 99% sure it won’t crash or anything now, I’m just a bit worried that it’ll throw the event balance off too much (making them too dense).

  3. BloodyHell

    Sounds great, many thanks, you’re doing a wonderful job, also with taking all that community feedback into account.
    Given the many changes since A13 it’s almost natural that something breaks and all these events may need some extended testing and tuning, so a A14c at some time perhaps.

    Since your testers and the “core” streamers are playing the game quite a lot I’m sure there’ll be plenty of opportunities to refine it even more.


  4. Thanks for the quick update and community support.

    Too bad I can’t test the unstable branch right now, it seems A14 is broken on linux. As BloodyHell said, with all changes since A13, it’s not that surprising.

    keep on the good work and let us dream again 🙂

  5. JoseM

    Well, the new version is up and stable at Steam, but DRM-Free version is still the .1234

    I assume this will happen more as dev continues now that game is on steam as it is quicker than sendowl system?

    Anyway, time to try if we have too much events now 😀

    Thanks!

  6. Robert McPherson

    Hi

    My lad has been playing this weekend (since it became available on steam) and is finding the game quite challenging. However he’s now rather disappointed to find that Wooden things he’d managed to get no longer appear to be available since Steam updated!!!

  7. RoadCrewWorker

    Patched and within 2 days my super-easy free play mode chill-out farming colony got hit and wrecked by concurrent toxic fallout, heatwave and psychic drone, with a few solar flares for good measure.

    Overfixed or working as intended?

  8. RoadCrewWorker

    That’s using the Phoebe Chillax storyteller, by the way. Guess she’s tasted blood now.

  9. Robert McPherson

    So come on – give us a hint! My lad has been lured in by obviously promoted video peddlers – which i don’t mind – but if you’ve managed to put him off already we’ll have our money back please!!!!

  10. Fluffy

    Robert, there’s a few mods around that provide different story tellers. There used to be one that was very passive, not sure if it’s been update yet.

    In any case, after today’s events I’ll bet you there’s going to be a mod on the workshop by tonight that will reduce the events back to the amounts that A14 launched with.

  11. hwfanatic

    What are “Wooden things”? Can you please elaborate?

    And about multiple events firing at the same time, I suspect it may be because the way events use timers to trigger, and these timers must have gone “way past overdue” in a pre-existing save as opposed to a new game for example.

    Also, mods can and do change game balance, so always watch out for that and if necessary, unsubscribe from them.

  12. pandy

    Please don’t punish those of us who purchased the DRM-free version by making us wait several hours for updates, while folks who have the steam version get it first. This happened during the 14A update too :\

    Seems like we shouldn’t be discouraged from purchasing the option that gets you more of our money instead of Valve.

  13. iMatrix7

    The events spawns way too quickly.
    I loved the alpha 14, but now with the alpha 14b, playing this game is became a nightmare.

    Please implements a way to customize the difficulty.
    Thank you.


  14. pandy – I’m just trying to avoid having to release several times in a row, nobody likes having to re-download over and over. Steam is faster to test in.

    iMatrix – There is a storyteller and difficulty selector. You can also change these settings during a game, in the options menu.

  15. Dieter

    Wow, events spawned like crazy. Hopyfully it’ll settle down now.

  16. pandy

    You’re right, but it still makes me grumpy. >:(

  17. RoadCrewWorker

    I wasn’t using any mods or custom settings. It was a fresh steam(version) install using the default basebuilder and phoebe chillax difficulty settings.

    I have since then reloaded my save and ended the “stacked” map conditions using dev mode. No issues since then.


  18. RCW – Ok good to know, thanks.

  19. cameron

    i got rimworld about 4 mouths ago and it came out on steam and i have alphl 13 and i wont 14 and i have not goten eny up datas so…….. can some one help me with this plz

  20. Steve

    Odd, some of these events were happening for me before the patch. Like the infestation and the heat wave. I was having a lot of trouble communicating with merchants, though.

  21. Steve

    Never mind, didn’t realize we were on a new alpha. This was weeks ago.

  22. nccvoyager

    Aha! This explains why I was sitting around with a giant underground complex for several (real-life) days, and just waiting for an infestation that never appeared.
    Well, thank you for the quick patch(es).
    Now I can revel in the digital suffering…
    Muahahaha!

  23. Frenetic

    i bought the game on this website on 17th july but i did not get a permanent download link. no email or anything. i could only download the game once after i paid with paypal.
    i wrote an email to the devs but no response for some time. i really would love to be able to update the game to alpha 14b :/

  24. Frenetic

    nevermind, derp. apparently i cant read. i got my key now