Hi GOG!

The next major update for Timberborn is now live for everyone, and as you’re about to see, we’ve addressed some of the most popular player requests. Watch the feature trailer below!

https://youtu.be/dXa0YA62szc

Here’s a summary: districts no longer have range limits, and the distribution is automated. The Iron Teeth now boast a whole new industrial food production chain complete with new crops and buildings. We made both factions more unique with new monuments and updates to decorations and other buildings. There’s also a new map (Craters) and a slew of tweaks and fixes. Oh, and we improved the framerates by up to 80% (according to some: even more)!

The update’s content evolved thanks to the ongoing feedback from our experimental branch players, so a big shout-out to you all!

Patch notes: 2023-05-24 (Update 4)

Note: Update 4 shouldn't break compatibility with Update 3 saves but especially on the Iron Teeth saves, things won’t be the same anymore - as detailed below. As all Iron Teeth know, progress sometimes requires sacrifice. Please consider starting a new game.

Food production changes

As part of our “making factions more unique” project, the Iron Teeth received an entirely new food production chain, and most of the older crops are now exclusive to Folktails. We designed the new Iron Teeth crops and buildings to reflect the faction’s industrial nature. For them, food is all but another cog in the great lumberpunk machine. They want their eatables produced efficiently and on a large scale, and they now have the tools for that. Let Folktails keep their tasty organic food nonsense!

- New crop: Kohlrabi (can be eaten raw; Iron Teeth only) - this starting food keeps the belly full, but that’s about it.
- New crop: Canola (Iron Teeth only) - used to produce a new good, Canola oil.
- New crop: Cassava (Iron Teeth only) - fermented in the Fermenter.
- New crop: Soybean (Iron Teeth only) - fermented in the Fermenter.
- New crop: Corn (Iron Teeth only) - turned into rations in the Food Factory.
- New crop: Eggplant (Iron Teeth only) - turned into rations in the Food Factory.
- New tree: Mangrove Tree (grown in shallow waters; Iron Teeth only) - yields tasty fruit, and in an emergency, can be cut for some logs.
- New crop: Coffee Bush (grown by Forester; Iron Teeth only) - yields beans that are then roasted to make coffee, duh.
- New building: Fermenter (Logs x25; Iron Teeth only) - with the unique process known only to the Iron Teeth, it ferments Cassava, Soybean, and Mushrooms.
- New building: Oil Press (120 SP; Logs x20, Planks x20, Gears x20; Iron Teeth only) - squeezes oil out of Canola seeds.
- New building: Hydroponic Garden (200 SP; Planks x20, Gears x10, Metal blocks x5; stackable; Iron Teeth only) - with a steady supply of water and over the course of a looong period, this stackable garden grows algae and mushrooms, used to create highly nutritious rations and fermented food.
- New building: Food Factory (300 SP; Planks x40, Gears x15, Metal blocks x10; Iron Teeth only) - produces nutritious rations from corn, eggplants, and algae.
- New Building: Coffee Brewery (500 SP; Treated planks x25, Gears x10, Metal blocks x 15; Iron Teeth only) - brews coffee from gathered coffee beans.
- New tree: Oak (takes 30 days to fully grow, yields 8 logs). These mighty trees may take a while to grow but the reward is grand!
- Wheat, Carrots, Potatoes, Sunflowers, Cattail, and Spadderdock are now Folktails-exclusive. On existing Iron Teeth saves, ground crops are replaced with Kohlrabi, and aquatic crops are gone.
- Chestnut Tree and Maple are now Folktails-exclusive. On existing Iron Teeth saves, these trees are replaced with Pines and Oaks, respectively.
- Lowered Maple’s log yield.
- Aquatic Farmhouse, Grill, Gristmill, and Bakery are now Folktails-exclusive. On existing Iron Teeth saves, these buildings are gone, with related goods replaced with various new goods. For example, Bread is replaced with Fermented Soybean.


New monuments and other changes

In addition to the above, we’re updating several other buildings to make Folktails and Iron Teeth playthroughs feel different, both in terms of gameplay and visuals. Notably, all six monuments were replaced and are now faction-specific. We have also updated and split some decorations.

- New building: Farmer Monument (1000 SP, 200x Logs; Folktails only). Folktails salute the workers who ensure they have something to put in the oven.
- New building: Brazier of Bonding (3000 SP, 400x Planks; Folktails only). Because in these trying times, family is all that matters.
- New building: Fountain of Joy (12000 SP, 400x Planks, 100x Treated Planks, 300 Metal blocks; needs to be placed in water to operate; Folktails only). Having an abundance of water is definitely a reason to rejoice.
- New building: Laborer Monument (1000 SP, 200x Logs; Iron Teeth only). Work hard, work hard!
- New building: Flame of Unity (3000 SP, 300x Planks, 50xMetal blocks; Iron Teeth only). How many Iron Teeth do you need to change the lightbulb refuel a brazier? Four, apparently.
- New building: Tribute to Ingenuity (12000 SP, 400x Gears, 100x Treated Planks, 300x Metal blocks; needs power to operate; Iron Teeth only). The burden of the world lies heavy on an Iron Teeth’s shoulders.
- On existing saves, most old monuments are replaced with new versions. The only exception is Tribute to Ingenuity (Folktails) which simply disappears. It’s huge, and a fountain built a hundred feet above ground would be weird even by beaver standards.

- New building: Hedge. This replaces the Log Fence and is a new Folktails-exclusive decoration.
- Metal Fence received an updated model and is now Iron Teeth-exclusive.
- Benches, Shrubs, and Wood Fences (previously: Plank Fences) now use different, faction-specific models.
- New building: Farmhouse was renamed Efficient Farmhouse (Logs x25). It is now exclusive to Folktails and has three workers.
- Updated building: Farmhouse (Logs x20; Iron Teeth only; 2 workers). It is a smaller (2x2) version of the building previously known under that name.
- New building: Industrial Lumbermill (Logs x20). This Lumbermill variant is exclusive to the Iron Teeth and has a new, twice as sawwy model. Also, it has two workers.
- Updated building: Lumbermill (Logs x15; Folktails). It is now Folktails-exclusive.
- Updated models for the following buildings, with different variants for each faction: Campfire, Forester, and Tapper’s Shack.

Districts rework

The introduction of districts solved many problems Timberborn had in the past, including but not limited to, original performance woes. However, we heard a lot of feedback about this feature and specifically, district range limits. Over time, we’ve optimized the game’s code to make the range less of a performance hog, and in Update 4, we’re removing range limits entirely. If you want to cover the entire map with a single district, you can! Just remember that if a worker spends half their day commuting, their efficiency and well-being take a hit. You still may optimize and specialize your colonies with districts, but it’s now optional and way more straightforward.

- Districts no longer have range limits.
- Colored range lines remain on paths to inform you that a building might be too far from the District Center to operate efficiently.
- Added a colored heatmap to better communicate ranges across the district. The heatmap is visible after clicking any path tile, stair, or slope within the district.
- Added colored numerical range indicators to the Settlement Panel and individual building panels to further help you identify buildings that might be too remote.
- Path tiles, stairs, and slopes now display the distance to the parent District Center in their panel.
- Selecting a Slope now shows range lines (and the heatmap), similar to stairs and paths.

Distribution rework

Here’s another reason to continue using districts - we’ve completely reworked the distribution mechanics to make it (truly) automatic. By default, your workers will distribute goods to districts with a warehouse for a particular good, or a factory that consumes it. Some basic goods such as water, food, and logs are always imported, even if the district does not have dedicated storage for them. While those default settings should work for most cases, you can customize the rules for import and export in the new Distribution tab added to the Settlement Panel.

- New building: District Crossing (600 SP; Logs x30, Planks x15). This two-sided building replaces the District Gate. Each side of the building connects to a different district and has dedicated workers responsible for moving goods between the Crossing and the rest of their district.
- Removed Distribution Post and Drop-off Point from the game.
- Added an additional toggle (“Supply”) to all storage buildings. When set to “Supply”, it employs haulers to pick up the goods from the storage and redistribute them to other warehouses, while continuing to accept new goods.
- Goods are distributed across districts proportionally to the capacity of storage and factory inputs for a particular good. Warehouses set to “Empty” or “Supply” are excluded from the import demand calculations.
- Added the “Distribution” tab to the Settlement Panel. Use it to set per-district, per-resource export thresholds and enable or disable import from outside. If the import is enabled, you can also choose whether the good should be imported even if the district does not have any warehouses that store it or factories that need it. That’s the default setting for key goods such as water.
- “Labor” category on the bottom toolbar received a new icon and was renamed “District Management”. It also houses District Center (and District Crossing) now.

Maps

It’s finally time for a new built-in map - Craters (192x192). Fire up this medium-difficulty map and find your way across three treacherous craters, starting next to the map’s border. We also made some tweaks to older maps (which will only apply when starting a new game).

- New map: Craters (192x192).
- Tweaked the layout for Plains, Meander, Waterfalls, and Lakes so that these maps [strike]are not too easy[/strike] play better after the removal of district limits.
- Since Maple and Chestnut Tree are now faction-specific for Folktails, all built-in maps have been updated to replace the faction-specific trees with other plants.
- Removed a misplaced berry bush in the Thousand Islands starting area.

Optimization

Making optimizations that help rather than break something is a lengthy process. We needed to thoroughly test different approaches and double-check the results on the experimental branch, but it seems we succeeded! We aimed to reduce lag spikes, cut loading times, and increase the framerates, especially on larger maps and settlements with hundreds of units. Your mileage may vary depending on a save and your configuration but based on our benchmarks, Update 4 increases the average FPS by up to 80%. Some players are reporting even higher gains.

- Made multiple CPU and GPU optimizations that greatly improve framerates.
- Updated the animation system for buildings and characters.
- All in-game models now use Timbermesh - our custom 3D model format. If you’re a modder, feel free to check out the documentation on how it works. You’ll find it on our GitHub.
- Thanks to an update to how sounds and music are played, the game now utilizes less RAM.
- Decreased loading times by 15% on average.
- Selecting large numbers of objects (for example when marking tree-cutting areas) should no longer cause frame drops.

Quality of Life and UI

- It is now possible to select goods for warehouses using dropdowns available in the storage overlay view.
- “Hanging” buildings (Water Pumps, Showers, Gravity Batteries, Bridges, and Lidos) are now easier to correctly place on the grid.
- Tooltips for several buildings such as Water Pumps and Lidos now inform you that the building needs water access.
- Added new information to crop tooltips to indicate whether a crop can be eaten raw.
- Farmhouses, Flags, and other gathering buildings now adjust their inventory capacity based on resources in range so they no longer skew the fill-rate indicators.
- Ruins now display a number of goods “in stock” in a way similar to other places.
- Added progress bars for Engines, Irrigation Towers, and Medical Beds to indicate how long their supply will last.
- Tweaked all in-game progress bars to be consistent across the UI.
- Made the font sizes more consistent across the UI.
- The scroll bar is now highlighted when hovering a cursor over it.
- Tweaked the tooltip position relative to the cursor position.
- Fixed click sounds and highlights that were not aligned with the actual clickable areas on the toolbar.
- Added good icons to dropdowns.
- Reordered needs in beaver panels to align them with how the game usually progresses.
- Names for goods across the UI should now correctly use the plural form.

Balance

- Default difficulty settings have been rebalanced in tune with Update 4 changes.
- Ruins can no longer be demolished, making them an obstacle map creators can use to pace the player’s progress.
- Power Wheel’s power output is now affected by the worker’s Walking Speed. That makes sense, right?
- Dandelion is known to be an unwelcome party guest so we’ve lowered the speed at which it self-spreads.

Audio

- Added new sound sets for the following buildings and objects: Water Source, Ruins, Underground Ruins, Inventor, Wood Workshop, and Forester.
- Added a new sound effect for the dynamite explosion.
- Added a missing click sound for Barriers.
- Most UI sounds are now mono.

Visual

- Some crops’ models are now randomly rotated on spawn.
- Particle effects are now only turned on for working buildings (rather than having a minor particle effect for idle buildings).
- Added the antialiasing checkbox to Settings.
- Tweaked preview models for Dandelions and Blueberries.
- Tweaked models for Teeth Grindstone, Refinery, and Sunflowers.
- Fences of different types built on adjacent tiles now stay separated instead of clustering. This includes setups such as two fences forming parallel lines.
- Added the “Update 4” bar to the main menu so you can’t miss what version you’ve just launched.
- The lights at Campfires, Rooftop Terraces, and other self-lighted buildings are now less prone to bugging out.
- Fixed a minor visual bug in tanks.
- Slightly adjusted the blueness of Blueberries because it made our 3D Artists blue.

Misc.

- Tweaked the save validation mechanism. The game now recognizes “soft” and “hard” incompatibility. When trying to load a save with a “soft” incompatibility, you will be warned about possible issues but the game will still let you load the save. When the save is too old and the “hard” incompatibility is detected, the game refuses to load it.
- Replaced "_" with "#" in the names of objects so that it's less likely to be used by accident. If you’re a modder, this is important to you.
- Goods recovered from deleted buildings are now split more evenly across rubble piles.
- Added new studio employees, Eager Beavers, and Masterful Architects to the credits section.
- Removed the “Empty storage” toggle from Engines and Irrigation Towers.
- Resources used by factories are now consumed right at the start of production.
- Fixed rounding errors, for example for tree growth, displayed as 100% despite being slightly lower.
- Platforms are now built over Medical Beds with 94,3% less clipping!
- Fixed colliders for Breeding Pod and Small Industrial Pile.
- Added some missing flavor texts that definitely weren't supposed to be added over a year ago.
- Whenever a new beaver is born, something special may or may not happen.
- Natural resources such as trees no longer aggressively self-spread onto higher tiles and threaten the beavers with “The Last of Us” scenario.

Bug fixes

- Fixed "path not available" prompts appearing on construction previews when the path itself is at the construction stage (for example to be built on platforms).
- Fixed a bug with Gatherer displaying the "Nothing to do in range" error.
- Fixed blurred status icons.
- Fixed blinking status icons on Scavenger flags.
- Fixed a bug with incorrect range indicators on stairs.
- Fixed beaver/bot toggles that sometimes would be displayed incorrectly.
- Fixed range lines on paths messing up with buildings' blueish range indicators.
- Fixed a game crash caused by setting priorities for numbers of objects that were dam too high.
- Fixed beavers so thirsty they would break through water tanks' back walls.
- Fixed overzealous farmers and foresters that would sometimes try to plant something on an already occupied slot.
- Fixed a bug with warehouses being emptied to make room for a new good that wouldn't be added to the storage count for that new good.
- Fixed a bug with selfish beavers that called dibs on a stocked good and wouldn't let anyone touch it.
- Fixed tutorial highlights not disappearing in certain situations.
- Fixed a crash caused by deleting Rubble right as it was to be picked up.
- Fixed a bug with corner-cutting beavers that would just rush to their destination, ignoring the paths carefully placed by the player.
- The settlement panel will no longer crash when the player interacts with a dead beaver.
- Fixed a weirdly specific visual issue with Tapper's Shack doorstep interfering with decorations' AoE indicators.
- Fixed several crashes occurring after selecting an object.
- Fixed impatient patients that would casually leave Medical Beds to fulfill their needs.
- Fixed a crash caused by rubble moving out of the selected area when using a selection tool.
- Mechanical Water Pump no longer consumes energy when not working.
- Fixed a bug that delayed refreshing the Settlement Panel content after selecting a different district.
- Tweaked the model for the Beaver Statue (Iron Teeth) so that it no longers boops itself with the hammer. Ouch!