Any big features coming in A18?

[sarke]

Based on Tynan's latest tweet, it looks like it's only small stuff again...

Alpha 18 is coming along! Working on new world quests, new mortar shells, spreading crop blights, new incidents/weather, river visuals, etc

Are there any major features (Trade, Religions, animal riding, customizing the world, etc.) coming this time?

If not, any chance of something big for A19?

[Goldenpotatoes]

New incidents and expanding on world events sound pretty good to me. Hell, I'd be happy with just the blight event rework.

Maybe if you bug him enough something magical will happen, like Z levels or network multiplayer. (don't actually bug him)

[Crow_T]

IMO incidents/weather are the heart of the game, adding more of these creates depth which is always good!

PS I'd love to see more UI/QoL improvements tho

[Spoonbandit]

Maybe its just me but I would settle for stable gameplay after about 2 years in game time. It's a great game, I have spent like 250 hours on it, it gets annoying however when your colony effectively becomes unplayable because it will only run smooth on speed one, and even then it's still laggy. Seems to most often be an issue with visiting factions or caravans, or maybe it's my mods. Either way my rig is pretty good, 7700k with 1080ti, and I don't see how it is this CPU intensive, it just doesn't seem optimised after a certain point.

Even that mod that supposedly fixes and frees up resources doesn't work for me, perhaps I am in the minority for this issue, who knows.

I should point out this happens on even the small maps with all three storytellers on difficulties from rough to extreme, but i usually play on the 325x325, and yes the point of the game is to build and ship and get off planet, but I would much rather build a fortress somewhere.

So yeh, if the point of major updates is to add new functionality, why not make it more stable first?

[ReZpawner]

Gotta agree about the stability of the game. I've barely played it at all in this version, because 2 years into the game, it becomes unplayable. Optimisation should really be the key focus for the next alpha.

[Canute]

Or it should be hurry to leave the planet within 2 years ! That is still the current goal :-)

[crazyroosterman]

and there you see if he decided to add something else huge into the game (yea know like what we got in the last update) heed have to spend more of his time making that meaningful in game along side doing the same for the current world mechanic.
which while I like the idea of it the actuality is a bit well weak at the moment when it gets worked im sure it'll be awesome but that's still going to take up his time.

I do think a big update with nothing but optimisation in it would be pretty sweet though cant argue with that.

note I'm not saying I think tynnan should refrain from putting any big huge mechanical or system based things ever again its just Id like to be able to praise the current big huge system that's been added before he does.

[sarke]

Ummm - we haven't had anything huge since A16 or A15 I think....

[Dodging Rain]

If he finds a way that allows a large colony or even 2 to run smoothly, I'd take that over any new feature creep that anyone can think of.

[Nafensoriel]

Well technically rimworld is an alpha. Optimizing during an alpha is kinda shooting yourself in the foot in the long run.
Why do a job 50 times when you can do it during the beta after your feature set is somewhat locked?

Honestly that's what it boils down to.. do you want time spent on optimizing an unfinished game or do you want more features? Can't really have both. Rimworld doesn't have a 200 man dev team.

[jchavezriva]

If any dev reads this... can you tell if this and the following alphas are going to break save files? I would like to begin a super long lasting colony but if i actually get far and its save becomes unusable i will kill myself lol

[Dargaron]

Not a dev, but on the Steam version, you can play old patches by opting into the "betas" that are just out-of-date copies of Rimworld. At the moment, you can go all the way back to Alpha 14.

Just right-click the game in your library, hit "properties," click on "betas," and the dropdown list is right there.

[Calahan]

If any dev reads this... can you tell if this and the following alphas are going to break save files?

Every new Alpha* will break save games from a previous version of the game. But as Dargaron says, if you playing the game on Steam then once A18 comes out you will be able to access A17b from the "betas" menu (in order to continue your current game). Although if you are using mods you might want to move them offline** to avoid them breaking your save when the mods get updated for A18. And if you are using the DRM-free version then just keep the A17b game files and/or install file, and you can play A17b and whatever associated saves as much as you like.


* An Alpha is defined as new when the number changes. ie. A16, A17, A18. If an Alpha gets patched (eg. A17b) then that's just a patch rather than a new Alpha, and usually won't break save games (or at least Tynan doesn't like releasing patches that break save games).

** Details on how to move Steam Workshop mods offline can be found here: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29440.0

[Bozobub]

I'm willing to bet medicine ranks during treatment (as opposed to during surgery) will be fixed, if nothing else, as well as pathing (because Tynan has mentioned both, at least in passing).  Those, alone, would be plenty good; anything else is gravy, imo.

We've seen a *lot* of new mechanisms, lately (caravans, drop pod delivery/invasions by the player, multiple colonies, etc.); I think we're way overdue for a good housecleaning, optimization, and bug-squishing interlude.

[Nameless]

New world quest and new incidents/weathers are already good enough for me.