Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Dev Diary #46: The Launch and the upcoming VELOCIRAPTOR update

[LennartGS]

Hi there, and welcome to the first Planetfall development diary after release! With these journals we plan on keeping you informed on the things we are working on as we continue to improve the game. First, we must say that we are very thankful for the great reception the game has gotten on release. Working for four years on a project means there is a lot at stake. It’s been a herculean effort both for Triumph and the team at Paradox Stockholm. Kudos for all the fantastic work.

This launch is just the beginning and we aim to support the game for a long time both with free updates and premium expansions. This dev diary is all about looking toward the time directly following launch.

Launch Day PC Patch

We have decided to name our substantial updates after dinosaurs in honor of the Amazon beasts. We’ll try to reflect the updates’ focus in the choice of dino.

We’ve already dropped a nameless PC launch day patch addressing critical issues which kept some people from launching the game on certain PC configurations and in certain countries, in addition to a couple of other small fixes. Apologies for any inconvenience these launch day issues might have caused.

The only bugs we want in this game are of the cool Kir'ko kind ​

COMING SOON: OUT NOW The Velociraptor Update

The first proper update is therefore called the Velociraptor Update, as it comes quick after release and one of the major things it contains is AI speed optimizations.

• This update will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to finish its world map turns. It can be 2 to 3 times as fast pending situation without affecting decisions.
• Edge Scrolling Option for PC
• Safe Zone UI controls for Xbox One
• Production Overflow Fix
• And more!

See the Full VELOCIRAPTOR PATCH Notes:

Of course, the Velociraptor patch will also include the launch day patch fixes for Console and a bunch of other fixes including Gameplay balance.

Patch Roll-out Procedure
We roll out our patches as follows:

• Step 1: Open Beta on Steam PC: If you have a Steam copy of the game, you may opt to switch to the latest beta version of the game. Note that this version is in the process of being tested and it is not recommended to play multiplayer games with it. See here how you can do this.
• Step 2: Live PC: Once it has enough time in Open Beta, we put it live on all platforms. The time between open beta and PC depends on the size of the patch and feedback.
• Step 3: Console Roll Out: Console Updates benefit from the PC open beta, but have to go through a separate QA phase and need to be certified by the platform holders. This means the console patches will be a bit behind on those on PC. This delay should be a matter of days rather than weeks though.

Have fun playing and please share your feedback with us in the forums!

 

[Tombles]

What was the issue with production overflow?

Imagine a city gets 80p a turn, and you only have one thing in the queue, which needs 50p to finish. So, you hit end turn and the system spends 50p on the item, finishing it, leaving 30 over for the next thing. What should happen is that 30p overflow is available for the thing you queue in the next turn, however a bug meant it was lost. That should be fixed now.

 

[Tombles]

If this (or the next) patch is for QoL features, then I may as well add a few more I've noticed:

1) Add an option to restrict city population growth. With the pop/happiness mechanic similar to Civ, one feature Civ had was you could check a box in the city interface to stop a city from growing. This would be useful if a city is "capped" on population by its happiness.

2) Add an option to switch between heroes the same way you can switch between armies using the arrows on the UI. AoW3 had this and it was super convenient when trying to find where your hero stacks were.

3) Make it so you can adjust tactical combat speed mid-fight instead of just at the beginning. The arrows that adjust combat animation speed only appear when the fight starts, can't seem to bring them up mid-fight. Also, a "force high speed tactical combat" rule in the game settings would be nice, like in AoW3.

4) Healing abilities (like Dvar Foreman's heal) don't seem to heal outside combat, unlike in AoW3. Is this intended or just a bug? Making them do so would also make support units a bit better (currently they seem a bit underpowered to me, compared to one extra infantry unit instead).

1) As mentioned, you can use Share Food to do this. Alternately, prioritize your colonists towards everything except food. The system will automatically assign enough colonists to make sure your people don't starve.

2) In the miltary overview (top left, the icon that looks like 3 soldiers) there is a hero overview you can use for htis.

3) We're talking about this right now, and looking into adding it back somehow. I'm not sure what the current status is though.

4) You're correct, having a foreman should speed up stack healing on the world map (it does with the vanguard MULE and Biomancer, for example) I'll look into getting this fixed

 

[LennartGS]

The Velociraptor Update is out beta and available now on PC for Steam, GOG, PDX - See the build notes here:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...lanetfall-v1-004-velociraptor-update.1230898/

Console versions are now in QA, expected release in about a week if all goes well.

 

[LennartGS]

Any body experience the unwavering crashing after completing a certain quest line for the syndicate on the second vanguard mission I've tried completing it like 7 times now and the game crashes every time I'm on xbox 1 x

Sorry you ran into this issue.
I checked with the team, looks like this crash is fixed in this Velociraptor Patch, it will be available on console in a soon (needs to go through certification first).

BTW Please report bugs in the bug forum so the support team spots them easier.

 

[Tombles]

This is true! We've been discussing this internally, we're looking into possible solutions. Possibly by having an option to sell excess food for energy somehow (at a loss, like 3 food = 1 energy) so people don't get annoyed at how a "STOP GROWING NOW" option might end up wasting excess food income.