Greetings, Viceroys!

We’re introducing the Hauler Station – a new non-essential building – because even in a world tormented by apocalyptic storms, someone needs to carry the groceries. Your settlers can finally take a load off, literally!

What’s new:

• New buildings: Hauler Stations
  • Small – a ruin found in small glades
  • Big – a possible blueprint choice
• 16:10 resolution readability improvements (Steam Deck)
• New default town names
• And more!

Also, we recently created a video guide that presents the latest Ancient Seals mechanics and showcases the Sealed Forest biome:

While you’re there, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel.

DEVELOPER NOTES

We’re hot off the heels of the Sealed Forest release, and jumping right into yet another update! This time we bring you a brand new non-essential building type — the Hauler Station — as well as a whole host of UI improvements inspired by you – our great community. And of course, as always, some balance tweaks and bug fixes. Let’s jump into it!

First off, the Hauler Station. As you might have guessed by the name alone, we’re finally adding dedicated haulers to Against the Storm. Though, we’re not overhauling the game’s logistics to do so. Everything still works the same as it always had – workers assigned to production buildings will still fetch their own ingredients and deposit production yields themselves. The Hauler Station is just a bonus, another way of boosting your settlement’s productivity. Think of them as something similar to the automated mine carts in the Mine.

So how does it work? Simply put, you assign workers to the Hauler Station as you would to any other building. Once employed, the haulers will start transporting both production yields and crafting ingredients between buildings and warehouses, in a similar vein to how normal workers assigned to those buildings would. There is a small caveat though – the Hauling Station has a limited range, and haulers will only service buildings within that range.

Big Hauler Station Panel

There are two different Hauler Stations in the game right now – a small one and a big one. The Small Hauling Station has one worker and can only be found as a ruin in small glades. The big one has three workers and is given to players as a possible blueprint choice when gaining reputation (and can also appear in dangerous glades). We didn’t want to simply give these new types of buildings as essential blueprints, because this new system is not really an essential part of the game’s economy – it is really just another tool to increase the proficiency of the player’s settlement and to further optimize production chains. We also feel that having the Hauler Station in the same pool as other production buildings will create some interesting choices in the future.

Small Hauler Station

Let’s move on to some cool UI changes coming with this update. Most notably, we added the option to cycle between glade events of the same type (instead of just cycling through events with the same name), we changed the alert for depleted ore (it will now tell you if you can upgrade the mine), we improved the Citadel upgrade window (it now auto-scrolls to your last position and shows missing resource numbers in red), and we added a new in-game encyclopedia article about prestige difficulties and the Forsaken Altar. Of course, there are also multiple smaller changes, like wording improvements in World Events and a removal confirmation when deleting decorations.

Now, let’s delve into balance. We changed the Essence of Corruption objective (burning Blightrot Cysts) in the Ancient Seal to be retroactive, and we added a new early Citadel unlock with Mine upgrades as a reward. This is by no means a new system, we just wanted to move this mechanic to a spot, where it would have to be consciously picked/purchased. By doing so, we hope that players will organically learn what building upgrades are and begin to play around with them during subsequent runs. Additionally, hiding this system behind a Citadel unlock removes some of the mental load beginner players might experience early on.

Lastly, this update also brings some new sound effects, custom-translated town names on the World Map (generated when players don’t name their settlements), numerous localization improvements, and a whole host of bug fixes.

But wait… in our last dev notes, we promised to give you some more information about our future plans and the next big update. While we can’t give you any specific dates or details just yet, we can reveal that the next big feature on our roadmap is “Guidance & Lore”. This will be another step in fleshing out the game’s meta layer by adding more structure to it and giving new players a clear sense of direction. We also want to focus a bit more on worldbuilding, so that the lore enthusiasts among you will have more to speculate and talk about.

As always – thank you all for providing feedback and suggestions for the new update. If you’d like to share your ideas for upcoming updates, here are some useful links:

• Steam Discussions, Discord, Reddit – discuss the game with the community and share your impressions
• Feature Request Tool – suggest specific new features

May the storm be gentle on you,
Eremite Games

P.S. One of the best things you can do to help indie games is to leave a Steam review. If you’ve had a chance to play Against the Storm, we’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. Thanks!

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Added a new non-essential building type to the game – the Hauler Station.
  • Hauler Stations are special structures that employ haulers – a new type of worker who transports resources between buildings (including warehouses).
  • Haulers transport both production yields and crafting ingredients.
  • Haulers work only within a certain range of the Hauler Station. The connected buildings are indicated after selecting the station.
  • There are two Hauler Stations in the game right now – a small one, found only as a ruin in small glades, and a big one, given to players as a possible blueprint choice.
  • The Small Hauler Station has a range of 8 fields and can employ 1 worker. The Big Hauler Station has a range of 10 fields and can employ 3 workers. 
  • The Big Hauler Station costs 4 Planks and 4 Bricks to construct. 
  • The Big Hauler Station blueprint is unlocked after reaching level 12. Before that Hauler Station ruins can still be found in glades, and the blueprint can be bought from traders. 
• Added a new Citadel upgrade to the Dim Square branch.
  • The new upgrade was added to the beginning of the upgrade tree and is accessible at level 5.
  • The upgrade unlocks guaranteed Planks with every embark (moved over from Brass Forge Level 2) and a global production speed increase.
  • Due to this addition, the last upgrade in the Dim Square branch was pushed a bit higher up the tree.

Balance

• ⚡ Changed the objective for the Essence of Corruption in the Ancient Seal. It now requires burning 10 more Cysts, but the progress is counted retroactively. 
• ⚡ Rebalanced trade routes for settlements established in the Cursed Royal Woodlands. Previously, these settlements would have the same desired goods as towns built in the regular Royal Woodlands. From now on they will have a unique mix of resources they are ready to buy.
• ⚡ Removed the longer storm modifier from the Viceroy difficulty level.
  • We’ve gotten quite a lot of feedback about the recent change made to Viceroy, so we decided to remove the storm duration modifier from this difficulty level. And while this effect didn’t really affect prestige players, people who were just starting to progress through the difficulty ladder experienced an unnecessarily steep difficulty increase (as they got a longer storm in addition to more hostility, harsher Forest Mysteries, harder orders, etc.).
  • The longer storm duration effect was moved to Prestige 2, and all Prestige levels above that were bumped up accordingly. There is no P21 however, as Prestige 11 was merged with Prestige 1.
  • Prestige 11 was merged with Prestige 1, resulting in a new combined effect: increased Reputation cap and Order difficulty.
  • We hope that with this change, we can smooth the difficulty curve a bit (at least before Prestige games), allow more relaxed games for players who up to the last update enjoyed them on the Viceroy level, and give players a better entry to the difficulty climb in general.
• Changed the unlocks in the Brass Forge Level 2 upgrade in the Smoldering City.
  • The guaranteed Planks were moved to the Dim Square branch.
  • In place of the guaranteed Planks, Brass Forge Level 2 now unlocks Mine upgrades.
  • We decided to do this, because we wanted to make the unlocking of Mine upgrades a conscious decision on the player’s part. We realized that a lot of players didn’t even know upgrades existed and were confused when ore deposits would not disappear after depletion (they would stay on the map, as they could still be deepened using upgrades). We hope that with this change some of this confusion surrounding ore will dissipate.
• The Rich Glades Cornerstone is now unlocked at level 2 instead of level 12. The Big Hauler Station has taken its place as a level 12 reward.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added a new in-game encyclopedia entry about Prestige difficulties and the Forsaken Altar. This article will automatically be linked in the “Read More” section of the HUD when a player starts a Prestige game for the first time.
• ⚡ Changed how cycling through glade events works. From now on, pressing the arrow buttons next to the event name or using the arrow keys will no longer go through all events with the same name, but rather through all events of the same type (for example all caches regardless of size).
• ⚡ Added a “perpendicular camera angle by default” setting to the options menu. Enabling it will automatically align your camera to a frontal view of your settlement when pressing H (reset camera hotkey) or starting a new game.
• ⚡ Added the removal confirmation popup to all decorations.
• ⚡ Improved the wording in the description of the converted Altar of Decay to better explain its effect.
• ⚡ Unified the naming of small glades across the game (they were previously called “regular glades” in some circumstances).
• ⚡ Improved the wording of the “order recipes by priority” setting in the options menu to now also refer to fuel priority in the Hearth.
• ⚡ Improved the wording for Reserve Embarkation Point rewards in some World Events (like Mosquito Nest and Forsaken Gods Followers).
• ⚡ Improved the wording in the description of the Secure Perimeter Cornerstone to clearly indicate that Hostility gains from Forbidden Glades are also reduced.
• ⚡ Improved the wording in the description of the Stormwalker Tax Cornerstone to clearly indicate that the effect only triggers when accepting newcomer groups from the Citadel.
• ⚡ Changed how “ore depleted” alerts work.
  • If an ore deposit is depleted, and the Mine can no longer be upgraded (or upgrades are not yet unlocked in the Citadel), the alert will simply say “Mine has no available ore”.
  • If an ore deposit is depleted, but it can be upgraded, the alert will say “Upgrade mine for more ore”.
• ⚡ Changed the ore tooltip. It now always shows the full number of charges for a given deposit (with all the upgrades).
• ⚡ Citadel Resource numbers on upgrades the player can not afford are now marked in red. 
• ⚡ Changed the order of the buttons in the upper right corner of the HUD to reflect the order of tabs in an open UI panel.
• ⚡ The upgrade window in the Citadel now automatically scrolls up to the last purchased unlock.
• Added a custom game result screen to Sealed Forest games (both when the game is won and lost).
• ⚡ Changed some UI elements so the game is more readable in 16:10 resolutions, with maximum supported UI size enabled (mainly for the purpose of playing on the Steam Deck).
  • The Steam Deck version of the game now automatically launches with the maximum supported UI size.
  • Increased the font size in numerous UI panels to help with readability on the Steam Deck.
  • Moved the upgrade section in the Ancient Hearth to a new tab in the building’s UI panel. 
  • The virtual keyboard is now automatically invoked when selecting a text box on the Steam Deck.
  • Slightly changed the layout of the Embarkation Panel to not cover any vital information with UI frames when playing with maximum supported UI size and 16:10 resolution.
  • Adjusted multiple elements on the HUD to reduce instances of overlapping UI when playing with maximum supported UI size and 16:10 resolution (perks, species panel, resources).
• Changed the NPC and dialogue in the “pick a cornerstone” window when getting an Epic Cornerstone for acquiring a guardian part in the Sealed Forest.
• Added special labels to all building and event panels to more clearly state their type (for example “service building”, “production building”, “glade event (cache)”, or “dangerous glade event”).
• Updated the encyclopedia entry about Ancient Seals with more up-to-date information.
• Changed the location of the “move” button in the UI panel for all movable buildings.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some dangerous glades not being revealed correctly. 
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Escaping the Shadows tooltip showing incorrect information.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the upgrade tab in houses having an incorrect tooltip.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with a missing tooltip text in the Forsaken Gods Followers World Event in the Japanese version of the game.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Spiced Ale perk showing an incorrect Resolve value in its tooltip (1 instead of 5).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Inspiring Work effect not stacking Resolve bonuses correctly after at least one stack has been removed.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Woodcutters’ Camp sometimes breaking when being moved.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Looming Darkness effect sometimes not being removed correctly after a Storm.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Unyielding Corruption Forest Mystery being drawn in games with the Monastery of the Holy Flame modifier.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Gentle Dawn Forest Mystery being drawn in games with the Forbidden Lands and Dangerous Lands modifiers.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with glade events spawned by the Plague of Fishmen appearing in undiscovered glades.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Blood Sorcery working effect (Fishman Soothsayer) not displaying the number of killed villagers in its tooltip.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with tracked resources not appearing on the HUD after being acquired for the first time in a given game.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with duplicated Modifiers being pickable in the Sadrath The Wise World Event.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with some Blightrot Cysts in the Brickyard spawning in the wrong place.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Stormforged version of the Flame Amulets Cornerstone having the flavor text mixed up in the description of the mechanics.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with flickering ingredient tooltips in production building panels.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Twitch minigame UI overlapping the Orders HUD.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with the Herbs order being called incorrectly in-game.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with a missing space before the percentage sign in the French description of the Frequent Caravans perk.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with percentage signs in the Game History tab being displayed incorrectly.
• ⚡ Fixed multiple typos and inconsistencies in the Simplified Chinese version of the game. Most notably in building descriptions, Forest Mystery tooltips, World Events, update news, Seal Keeper dialogue, encyclopedia entries, and various UI elements.
• ⚡ Fixed a few typos and errors in the Japanese version of the game (Gambler World Event description, Exploration Expedition tooltip).
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Rainpunk Drill glade event description.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some resource tooltips having two dots at the end of their description instead of one. 
• Fixed an issue with inconsistent line spacing in the options menu.
• Fixed a bug with builders taking twice the amount of goods when the game is reloaded during their trip to the warehouse.

Other

• ⚡ Added some new custom sound effects to the game.
  • When opening the UI panel of the Forsaken Altar.
  • When sending goods back to the warehouse.
  • When decision popups appear.
• Changed the randomly generated town names that appear on the map when players don’t name their settlements. These names are now more unique, tied into the lore of Against the Storm, and translated into all supported languages.

The current game version is 0.59.1.

COMMUNITY CORNER

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