v0.10 is released!

Today's daily update focuses on improving the early game and optimizations for late game.

Firstly, I want to make the game easier for new players.

As new buildings and tabs get added, they populate the build menu with clutter, making it difficult to find buildings they're looking for and overwhelms them at the start. Thus, tabs will unlock based on world's progress.

Storage, Electricity (and in future, Defense) tabs will be hidden by default. Cards can now be collected in the world that grant specific buildings, but also unlock the tab permanently once collected.

(I might add particle effects and a purple beam of light from the collectible to exaggerate its importance in future.)

The second change is I think there's too many things to learn at the beginning. Settlers can reduce the storm duration and increase your chance of survival, but most people don't even know that. I added this as my intention was to tell players that they need to get as many settlers as possible to survive the first storm. The idea is cool, but execution was bad. This mechanic is confusing and unintuitive, so I've removed it and instead just made the storm shorter. The settler revamp in maybe v0.12 (optimistically) will hopefully be enough to communicate to new players that settlers are important, without having to rely on obscure mechanics and reading texts.

Lastly, I am considering to remove Distiller, and make Wells produce water right away. I notice people spam building Wells thinking it gives them Water for farms. But they don't realise they also need the Distiller. I wanted to add production chains and have future buildings skip these chains as upgrades, but perhaps they add unnecessary complexity at the beginning as players have more items to keep track of and remember?

I am preparing for the electricity update which might be the very next one! Full changelog:

Features:

• Storage tab unlocks at 40m
• Add free storage building card at 40m
• Storm duration halved (first storm 120s -> 60s)
• Settlers no longer reduce storm duration
• Faraday's Turret and Small Turret now shows settler counts required
• Rename Diving Hut to Fishing Hut for clarity
• Card speed penalty no longer reduces after every storm

Fixes

• - Optimize loading time when loading long bridge savefiles (about 90% faster)
• Optimize performance when bridge gets long (about 2x faster at 3000m than before)
• - Optimize constructing new buildings
• - Fix missing import/export/folder buttons
• - Fix reset research popup displaying wrong items refunded

Experimental Content:

• - Electricity tab unlocks at 60m
• - Add free electricity building card at 60m