This update will go live to every Clockwork Empires player via Steam!

We have also updated our Clockwork Empires: Development Progress report!

Don’t own the game? Clockwork Empires can be purchased on ClockworkEmpires.com via Humble or from Steam.

Want to hear about all sorts of updates via email plus receive silly images from development? Sign up for the newsletter here.

Major player-facing additions this month:

added many event arcs, including REDACTED

civilians will now fight to protect themselves (just not as well, or as long, as soldiers)

added upkeep to buildings (& multitude of systems and balance changes to support this)

changed UI for creating on-map assignments to “stamp” system

many other UI improvements done to improve information available to player and improve control over game systems

significant optimization of game speed, save size, save/load speed

… which let us add a 2X game speed button

housing and immigration systems much improved

If you’re in a hurry, that should cover it. But if you find yourself with the inexplicable urge for more, you’re in luck, we’ve got the full changelog posted below — or the extra special annotated changelog in the Clockwork Empires Development Report.

Begin Full Beta 53 Changelog

UI/UX

added list of workshops/offices/houses to click on when the menu is open

added new buttons for spawn points to embark screen

added currently selected highlighting to lists of offices/housing, changed visual style slightly.

new, improved emotion value display added to character window

removed “chop down”, “mine surface node”, “forage”, “clear terrain” and replaced them with assignment stamping tools

added Upkeep display to workshops (still TODO: Offices & Houses)

did work crew selection box improvements (shows skill level, number of labourers assigned to crew)

improved FYI alert UI style

added disturbance counter.

added current/max population widget to UI

the population counter now correctly reflects your starting pop in all loadouts

“I have altered the tooltips on population capacity. Pray I don’t alter them further.”

“Delete Module” command renamed “Dismantle Module”

new building construction command tooltips added

disabled some empty UI containers

updated tutorial to reference new immigration

added production menu coloring feedback for stuff you don’t have the ingredients for

fiddled about with a lots of UI (cleaning out extra elements, making standard tooltips and displays consistent between buildings)

moved all workshops, offices, housing over to workshops, offices, housing panel

swapped position of trade office and naturalist office in the offices submenu

added alert for if traders attempt to visit but no trade office is built

modules slated for dismantling will display an icon to show that they have been so designated

text numbers for commodities in module placement tooltips turn red if that material requirement can’t be fulfilled

module placement button grays out when material requirements can’t be fulfilled

added “?” box tutorial for farms

standard welcome event should overflow the text box less often

made module menu glass buttons a bit more opaque

added smarter tooltip anchoring code

added anchored tooltips for emotion bars which should cause fewer issues.

Graveyards are now use fixed zone size system (like farms)

2x button, workshops, offices, houses, and commodities buttons now highlight when in use

the Barbershop now notifies you in its UI when it is nonfunctional because of a lack of chairs

broken (dueto lack of upkeep) module UI elements should no longer permit mouse events

added confirmation windows on all exit without saving options

FIXED: productionWindow not initialized after save/load and may contain garbage

FIXED: house demolish button

FIXED: when farms are removed they will be correctly deleted from Offices list

FIXED: Cancel button works for building creator

FIXED: explore waypoints can now be properly cancelled

FIXED: module tooltips now persist across save/load

FIXED: tutorial window sticks around when game is shut down, causing crashes

FIXED: no longer allow player to click individual trees for harvesting (will fill this need via TODO improvement)

FIXED: deleting null ptr when regenerating work crew selection box

Events/NPCs

added a major cult crisis or two

cleaned up various edge cases in Trader group behaviour

removed trader item drop on flee (avoids weird edge cases)

Bandits will become enraged (and an alert will appear) if you forage their tents when they’re nearby

added sounds to a number of steam knight animations

airships now crash in more varied locations

non-player agents who get stuck on the map will self-despawn if they fail pathing too many times

balance: immigration is more likely to give you lots of characters if you have significant excess capacity

FIXED: crashed airship ending scripterror (in certain cases)

FIXED 52D: grimoire scripterror when no vicar present

FIXED: grammar error in the airship crash event

FIXED: various typos

FIXED: bandits could be set to double-plunder your settlement, which was confusing

FIXED: error in certain cases during bandit plundering of goods relating to stacks and goods ownership

FIXED: traders will abort trade mission if you demolish the trade office (and they will not consider a trade office in process of being demolished to be valid trade target)

FIXED: Stahlmark special traders no longer use Novorusian flag

FIXED: steam knights will now never land inside buildings or in water

FIXED: in several cases, traders would not find a valid trade office

FIXED: “You recieved 1 immigrants” grammar issues

FIXED: Rogue Stahlmarkian could stay in your colony forever

FIXED: various edge cases that would cause traders to be stuck in player’s colony

FIXED: dormant obeliskian could attack people in very rare case where its dormancy sequence was interrupted by combat

FIXED: “Suspicious Goods” event now uses the proper start position

FIXED: foreign-office triggered traders were not showing up

Buildings/Economy

added building upkeep

Repair Trunks are now craftable (for upkeep)

housing population cap increase system added: houses will now increase population cap per appropriate social class as you add amenities, look for details in the UI

players cannot place modules into inappropriate buildings (Blueprints where you can place a module will show as blue. Blueprints where you cannot place a module will show up as red.)

added Rare Painting module to game. Placing these in your houses increases their population capacity. (it can be acquired from various events and traders)

farm harvests are now output in stacks rather than individually

foraging collects stacks rather than single units (as applicable)

“Chop Tree” job will place output stack into chopper’s hands & will return to stockpile if available

“Mine Surface Node” jobs will place output of up to 3 items in miner’s hands & will return to stockpile if available (job time increased to compensate for faster extraction speed)

doors can now be properly dismantled

added support features for multi-item system being used by upkeep trunks

added (deliberately) overdramatic particle effect to modules when they need upkeep. This may be toned down later.

added unique gun locker models

stockpiles can now be assigned to work crews (a work crew that is not busy and can haul will still attempt to haul, however)

commodities used in the production of module goods are now stashed in the module using them, and will be released if the job is aborted (!!!)

added some new techs to mining

sugarcane can be brewed into booze

buckets of agave syrup may now ignite if set on fire

dissecting horrors now has a chance to increase science points in random lab

modules will now return their materials when deconstructed

buildings will return their construction materials when dismantled

changed “Bricabrac” to “Bric-a-brac” upon order of the Dept. of Pedantry

added unique model for moonshine

Master/W-tier upkeep trunk commodities now show the actual number being produced in their recipe

balance: starter crops all yield faster harvests (the proportion of crops over time is the same)

balance: time it takes to chop tree and mine surface node have been changed

balance: added one MC and one LC character to all loadouts

balance: max science points for lab now determined by Overseer science skill level

balance: added upkeep trunks to starting loadout supplies

balance: added upkeep trunks to traders’ potential goods

balance: inactive workshops/offices do not require upkeep

FIXED: Scrap Iron can now be smelted into iron bars

FIXED: players cannot place modules on top of other modules

FIXED: construction jobs did not use closest materials

FIXED: pickling a certain type of fungus could lead to problems (and not the Fun kind)

FIXED: issue with healing afflictions in Barbershop

FIXED: display cost of mechanical mixing tank

FIXED: pickling chillies

FIXED (42A): chilli stew in Iron Oven

FIXED: <building_destroy_item/> did not actually delete commodities in a stack (this affects Make Stone Bricabrac etc.)

FIXED: smelt gold ingots

FIXED: label on bottle laudanum job

FIXED: icon on brick charcoal kiln

FIXED: brick charcoal kiln construction requirement

FIXED: barber job weighting

Map/Biomes

animals will now eat forest meat

reduced # of points on world; optimized world gen a bit

reduced map size and dealt with The Consequences Of These Actions (this has added benefit of provided great optimization to game speed, save/load time, save file size, etc.)

added embarkation button icon biome detection code

reduced animals spawned at start of game (they were crowding things)

scaled the terrain generator parameters to altered map size

added a new biome generator for alpine forests

balance: added clay to Tropical Dry Forest

balance: added clay to Boreal Forest

balance: the area immediately surrounding the starting location is now guaranteed to be flat

FIXED: removed some unpathable cliffs in temperate swamp

Characters

overhauled the immigration system (Immigration is now based on your housing capacity. 2 workers per Lower Class House, 1 overseer per Middle Class House.)

rebalanced off-shift social jobs to make things more interesting

improved “shoo animal” job; it will work more effectively now

added new event for reaching the 150 char population cap

added new trait: Light Sleeper. Can only sleep in beds.

added new trait: Heavy Sleeper. isn’t woken by preaching/gunfire/etc.

traits: Adaptable trait now gives bonus to skillgain of best 3 skills

traits: Brutish trait gives a bonus to melee damage

traits: Materialistic colonists are harder to please with house quality

traits: Reclusive colonists don’t make friends on spawn

traits: Scholarly trait gives bonus to science skillgain and penalty to all others

traits: Xenophobic overseers can cause diplomatic incidents if you assign them to a foreign office

traits: Patriotic overseers give a bonus to empire diplomacy point gain

traits: epiceureans learn cooking skill faster

traits: removed Voracious trait

traits: Hale and Hearty trait grants a bonus to HP

added new trait: Jack of All Trades. Gets a bonus to leveling skills that are below lv3

added new trait: Highly focused. Gets a bonus to learning their best skill and a penalty to all others

added new trait: Woodtouch, Stonesense, Ironborn. Gives boni to Carpentry, Ceramics, Metalworking skillgain respectively. Ironborn grants a small melee damage bonus.

added new trait: Oblivious Worker. Gains no benefit or penalty from workplace quality

decreased priority of idling when off-shift

added additional error checking in “vicar_take_confession” fsm

“Ceramics” skill is now “Stoneworking” (In future builds its scope will be expanded to include mining)

Steam Knights now contribute significantly to colonists’ feeling of safety

the following jobs will now show progress bars: Finish Upkeep, Clear Object, Deconstruct Building, Deconstruct Module, Flatten Terrain

added smarter abort case to carrying corpse job

balance: made drinking booze make colonists slightly happier

balance: made combat memories more fearful to civilians

balance: colonists must drink booze in a pub. They may not drink booze outside the pub. To do so would be Uncivilized.

balance: made some QoL bonus/malus changes (generally making these less forgiving as other game systems mature)

balance: all starting characters start with “Pioneering Spirit” trait

balance: civilian colonists will get more negative memories from combat

balance: seeing eldritch horrors is now more terrifying

FIXED: various jobs could be performed while carrying commodities now require they be dropped (eg. hunting, repairing buildings)

FIXED: colonists will no longer drink booze that doesn’t belong to them

FIXED 52D: items stuck to hands due to job interrupts

FIXED: colonists no longer only wander into the woods when afraid

FIXED:mining surface nodes took more than twice as long as intended

FIXED: dipping into trade-food required only half the hunger it was supposed to

FIXED: corrected more memories with non-player facing display names

FIXED: fixed up “slapped_other” type memory names

FIXED: “Repair Module” job now restriction to workcrews with “construction” enabled

FIXED: sermon-giving issues

Combat/Military

added civilian combat AI

removed starting NCO and field promotions

added a number of new military techs

made people smarter about keeping guns loaded

FIXED: attacking a quill would freeze character

Engine & Etc.

added 2x simulation button! HOLY VORPULON

FIXED: save game crash after starting new game, quitting, starting new game again

FIXED: replays not saving work orders for workshops, causing determinism break

FIXED: Replays now work again! Yay. Please look forward to Reproducible Bugs Being Removed.

FIXED: a couple of crashes switching in and out of building creation modes

FIXED: highlighted region now corresponds to where your mouse is in full screen mode when game is run with a backbuffer that is larger than the display area

FIXED: leftover jobs showing up in jobs menu after starting new game, quitting to main menu, starting new game again

FIXED: crash bug with the work crew selection widget

FIXED: beetles eating longpork will no longer transform it into charred meat

FIXED 52D: gridAddItem error, for real

FIXED: forest meat rides again

Wish to peruse the full annotated changelog? Read it in the Development Report!

Have fun and let us know through our mysterious portal or forum if anything goes wrong.