Greetings, Viceroys!

Welcome to the world’s most predictable weather forecast. Brace yourself, folks, it’s going to rain again.

Fortunately, Rainpunk engineers continue to find new ways to leverage the persistent rainstorm to bring innovations. Here’s what’s new:

• Revamped Rain Collector
• New building: Advance Rain Collector
• Upgradable Geyser Pumps
• New Glade Events
• New Forest Mysteries
• New Cornerstones
• 5th Species Vote (time-limited!)
• And more!

Now, grab your trusty umbrellas and join us as we delve into the details of the new features of Rainpunk Update (Part 2).

COMMUNITY VOTE

You have until February 9 to vote for the 5th playable Species. Once you unlock Harpies, a Community Vote button will appear in the bottom right corner of the Main Menu. From there, you can vote for one of the three Species:

• Frogs,
• Bats,
• Foxes.

Community Vote

Important: You can only vote once and can’t change your vote after that. When making the decision, please consider not only the visual appearances (which are subject to change slightly from the concepts) but also their characteristics and different playstyles they can bring to the game.

We will announce the results of the Vote in the next Update notes on February 16 and will work on the winning species for the next several weeks.

DEVELOPER NOTES

In today’s release, we bring you the second part of the recently added Rainpunk system. After the last update, you’ve given us a lot of feedback about Geysers, Blightrot, and the overall theme of rainpunk. We also had a lot of unfinished ideas for it in our backlog (hence the name “Part 1” back then). So as usual, we took your feedback, mixed it into our own plans, and voila – Rainpunk Update Part 2 was born. This time we focused primarily on the Rain Collector, the overall balance, UX improvements, new perks, Glade Events, and Forest Mysteries.

Let’s first start with the Rain Collector. Many of you have correctly pointed out that this building was in a weird place after the introduction of the three water types. Even before that, Sparkdew was a niche resource – used only for Crystalized Dew production, some Glade Events, and sometimes as an additional source of Amber. So we decided to simply get rid of it, and make the Rain Collector produce Infused Rainwater instead. The way it works is very similar to a Geyser Pump – workers produce water, which is then stored in the rainwater tank. The type of rainwater is determined by the season.

Geyser Pump Upgrades

We hope that this change will not only make the rainpunk system more cohesive but also allow players to make use of Rain engines a lot sooner, even with bad Geyser RNG. At the same time, we added a new building – the Advanced Rain Collector. It works similarly to the normal Rain Collector, but is a lot faster and produces more. It’s unlocked at level 15 and is a normal, draftable blueprint (not essential).

Advanced Rain Collector and Pump

Advanced Rain Collector panel

Let’s now talk a bit more about Blightrot. The previous update made the game a bit easier overall because Blightrot was no longer something that spawned passively. You could basically never engage with this part of the game if you didn’t use Rain Engines. And while that’s still true to an extent, we also added more external sources of Blightrot – mainly in the form of Glade Events and Forest Mysteries (as well as a Prestige modifier). Now even if you don’t utilize rainpunk technology, you will have to think about the Blightrot threat from time to time.

Corrupted Caravan and Noxious Machinery

Blightrot Cauldron

Withered Tree and Infected Drainage Mole

A big part of this update was also just balance and overall improvements to the Rainpunk system. The most notable examples are:

• Upgradeable Geyser Pumps – increased tank capacity and Automatons (autonomous rainpunk workers).
• Big increases in the production output of Geyser Pumps.
• Buffs to the production speed and double yield chance effects in Rain Engines.
• Overlay improvements – Geysers visible in the Resource Overlay (B), and water type shown in the Rainpunk Overlay (Tab).
• Geyser Pump UI improvements.
• Removable Geysers. 
• And more.

Lastly – we also added 4 new cornerstones (mostly tied to the Rainpunk system), rebalanced the Greenhouse and Clay Pit, rebalanced Pipes and Wildfire Essence, changed how Blightrot footprints work, and fixed a lot of bugs.

Thank you for providing us with 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. We were positively surprised to be nominated for the “Excellence in Design” award at GDC’s Independent Games Festival. As a result, Against the Storm is also nominated for the Audience Award. We’d be grateful if you decided to cast your vote for us!

CHANGELOG

Changes marked with ⚡ were inspired by community.

New content and features

• ⚡ Revamped the Rain Collector.
  • The Rain Collector can collect Infused Rainwater and has an internal tank. It doesn’t require a geyser to do that.
  • Rainwater is collected based on the season you’re in. Drizzle Water in Drizzle, Clearance Water in Clearance, and Storm Water during the Storm.
• ⚡ Added 5 new Glade Events tied to Blightrot.
  • Infected Drainage Mole – One of the mythical guardians of the forest – still alive, but plagued by a mysterious disease. The Blightrot has taken over his mind, causing an unstoppable rage. The disease has progressed too far for him to be saved.
  • Noxious Machinery – A damaged and abandoned rainpunk contraption. The area was probably deserted because of a significant explosion risk. The machine’s valves emit a distinct Blightrot odor.
  • Blightrot Cauldron – A Rainpunk Cauldron filled with Blightrot-contaminated liquid. A moving, living fluid spreads around.
  • Corrupted Caravan – A large caravan abandoned in the woods, overgrown with Blightrot Cysts. They must have fed on the transported goods… or people.
  • Withered Tree – The once mighty tree has been deformed by the Blightrot living in its root system. The Blightrot poisons the tree’s tissues, leading to its long-lasting degradation.
• ⚡ Added 6 new Forest Mysteries.
  • Blight from the Sky (Storm) – Blightrot seems to grow uncontrollably quickly in this region. Every Storm 2 Blightrot Cysts appear in the settlement (multiplied by the number of years that have passed).
  • Vanishing Water (Storm) – Infused rainwater slowly evaporates. You lose 1 unit of a random type of water for every 2 units of water used in Rain Engines.
  • Blightrot Infection (Storm) – Villagers report feeling sick, especially during the Storm. When a villager leaves or dies, 2 Blightrot Cysts will appear in the settlement. 
  • Golden Dust (Drizzle) – Some raindrops seem to have a golden hue. Gain 5 Clearance Water for every 10 Drizzle Water gathered.
  • Saturated Air (Drizzle) – A pleasant, earthy scent is in the air. Gain +1 to Global Resolve for every 50 units of water used in Rain Engines.
  • Heavy Drops (Drizzle) – +3 to Drizzle Water production.
• ⚡ Added 4 new Cornerstones.
  • Cooking Steam – If you leave rainwater for a while, it will begin to release a pleasant and warm vapor. Food production speed is increased by +10% for every 50 units of Drizzle Water stored.
  • Counterfeit Amber – Apparently, there is a technique for extracting crystals similar to Amber from rainwater. Gain 10 Amber every time you use 100 units of water in Rain Engines. Blightrot Cysts grow 20% quicker when using Rain Engines. (unlocked after reaching level 17)
  • Calming Water – Rainwater seems to soothe the forest. Hostility is reduced by -10 points every time you use 150 units of water in Rain Engines. (unlocked after reaching level 17)
  • Force of Nature – The forest and the everlasting rain are connected somehow. Gain +1 to Storm Water production for every 3 Woodcutters in your settlement. 
• Added a new building – the Advanced Rain Collector. 
  • It works in the same way as a regular Rain Collector, but has a larger rainwater tank, higher production speed, and collects more water.
  • The Advanced Rain Collector is unlocked as a normal blueprint after reaching level 15.
• Added upgrades to Geyser Pumps.
  • Automaton – A rainpunk automaton will permanently occupy one workplace. It doesn’t eat, and it doesn’t need rest. Its sole purpose is to work. Automatons have no chance of producing double yields.
  • Tank Capacity Increase – Increases tank capacity for the corresponding rainwater type by 50.
  • Second Automaton.
• Added a new Prestige modifier to the Prestige 2 difficulty.
  • Blight Swarms – Large swarms of Blightrot migrate across the realm. Every third Clearance, 5 Blightrot Cysts will appear in the settlement.
  • This modifier was added in place of the old Prestige 2 modifier that increased Blightrot spawn rates and Hearth Corruption speed.

Balance

• ⚡ The Blightrot footprint mechanic was removed from the game. Instead, Blightrot Cysts will now be generated for every X water used in Rain Engines. 
  • We decided to do this because the previous system was too convoluted – you needed to keep in mind a recipe’s base footprint, then multiply it by the Blightrot Footprint Rate, and then try to figure out when a cyst might appear.
  • Now, the Rainpunk UI simply shows a progress bar that slowly fills up for every unit of water used. Once it’s full, a cyst will appear, and the bar will reset. Hovering over it will display a tooltip with more detailed calculations.
• ⚡ The Greenhouse and Clay Pit no longer allow you to install Rain Engines. Instead, they use rainwater directly to produce goods. The Greenhouse uses Drizzle Water, and the Clay Pit requires Clearance Water.
• ⚡ Rebalanced all Pipe recipes and changed the trading value for Pipes. It’s now a lot cheaper to make them and buy them.
• The base speed at which Blightrot Cysts and Corruption are generated was increased (to a level similar to the previous Prestige 2 modifier).
• Removed Sparkdew from the game.
  • Spardew always had a weird place in the game, and even more so after the introduction of the rainpunk system. Now that the Rain Collector produces rainwater, Sparkdew was no longer needed.
  • Crystalized Dew can now be made from Drizzle, Clearance, and Storm Water instead of Sparkdew.
  • Infused Tools can now be made with Drizzle, Clearance, and Storm Water instead of Sparkdew.
  • Amber can now be made with Drizzle, Clearance, and Storm Water instead of Sparkdew.
  • Orders that required Sparkdew and/or a Rain Collector were rebalanced and now require rainwater.
  • Glade Events that required Sparkdew now require a specific type of rainwater instead (rainpunk events, ghosts, haunted ruins, and archaeological sites). 
  • Ruins that previously had Sparkdew in them now give Resin or Pipes.
  • The Giant Proto Fungus in the Marshlands now has Insects as a secondary resource instead of Sparkdew.
  • The Overheating Forest Mystery now requires Drizzle Water instead of Sparkdew.
  • Traders no longer buy or sell Sparkdew. Mystery Boxes sold by the Hooded Trickster will also no longer have Sparkdew in them.
• Slightly lowered the Geyser spawn rate due to rainwater being accessible in Rain Collectors.
• Increased the number of Pipes required for upgrades in the Archaeologist’s Office and the Mine.
• Increased the number of Pipes required for solving rainpunk Glade Events.
• Removed two Forest Mysteries – Fermented Rain and Crimson Rainfall – because they didn’t fit the revamped Rain Collector mechanic.
• Increased the bonus from the Efficiency perk in Rain Engines from +40% production speed to +50% production speed.
• Increased the bonus from the Reliability perk in Rain Engines from +20% chance for double yields to +25% chance for double yields.
• The trader Xiadani Stormfeather is now unlocked after reaching level 16 instead of 15.
• Added more resource options to Archaeological Discoveries in the Scarlet Orchard.
  • Added the option to use Pipes in the final stage of the event.
  • Added the option to use Drizzle Water in the first stage of the event.
• Increased the cost of building Small Hearths from 1 to 2 Wildfire Essences. At the same time, the trade value of this resource was lowered by almost half, and the number of Wildfire Essences given to the player at the start of a game was doubled. 
• Increased the number of Wildfire Essences gained from Glade Events and Orders.
• Increased the chance for Copper Ore from Clay Deposits.
• Decreased the amount of rainwater required in delivery Orders.
  • Water Delivery – now requires 40/70/100 Drizzle Water.
  • Infused Rainwater – now required 50/75/100 Drizzle and Clearance Water.
• Decreased the Hostility penalty from the Darkest Shadow effect from 80 to 50.
• Changed the request from Ghost of a Royal Architect. It now requires having two hubs at the District level (instead of two hubs at different levels).
• Changed the penalty for failing the Fishmen Lighthouse Glade Event. It now increases working time in Glade Events by 20% but is permanent.

UX/UI improvements

• ⚡ Added Geysers to the Resource Overlay (B).
• ⚡ Water icons pointing to nearby Geysers are now automatically shown on the screen when selecting a Geyser in the construction menu (similarly to how nodes are displayed when building camps).
• ⚡ Rainwater Geysers can now be destroyed.
• ⚡ Geyser Pumps now show water production times and stars.
• ⚡ Added water type icons to the Rainpunk Overlay (Tab). If there is no Rain Engine installed, the overlay will only show the water type and a button to install an engine. 
• ⚡ Removed some unnecessary text from geyser tooltips (to make it easier to read and eliminate weird worldbuilding).
• ⚡ Changed the style of inactive and pressed buttons in the Trade Route panel to make it easier to see if you can afford a deal. 
• Added a new tooltip to one of the resources in the tutorial version of the Ancient Shrine. It now states that it needs to be changed to a different good.

Bug fixes

• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some penalties from unsolved Ghost events not being applied correctly.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with 3×2 buildings incorrectly rotating (making it possible to place them partially inside other buildings).
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some saves being corrupted when Blightfigters were interacting with houses at the time of saving.
• ⚡ Fixed a rare bug that caused the game to freeze or crash when exiting.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Orders related to Blightrot being drawn even if players didn’t have Rainpunk unlocked.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with some gatherers getting a double negative Resolve effect when the Open Vault Glade Event is being worked on.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue that caused Trade Routes to still be available when the Trading Post was destroyed.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with villagers stopping their current task when their home was destroyed. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Deed progress carrying over between settlements. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused camps with no workers to lose their warning icon when upgraded to an advanced camp.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with housing counters showing incorrect values for species-specific houses.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with Living Matter and Fishmen Totem counting towards Dice With Death completion.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Cosmetic Specialization Cornerstone displaying incorrect values in the progress footer in its tooltip. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with Pipes and rainwater not being available to choose from when starting a Training Expedition.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with keybinds registering incorrectly after closing and reopening the Recipe Panel.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with storage capacity perks being listed in Geyser Pump UI.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Viceroy’s Survival Guide Cornerstone being listed in Farms’ UI. 
• ⚡ Fixed an incorrect frame around the Mesmerizing Light effect.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with big numbers in the species HUD not scaling properly.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the Recipe Popup displaying the wrong key on the Reset button if keybinds were changed.
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with completed Deeds not being possible to untrack. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug with the “allow all ingredients” option not working on the Blight Post. 
• ⚡ Fixed a bug that caused the game to automatically unpause after closing the feedback window.
• ⚡ Fixed a missing sound effect in the Trade Route window.
• ⚡ Updated two outdated Encyclopedia entries – about the Hearth and Farming.
• ⚡ Updated a few loading tips with incorrect and outdated information.
• ⚡ Fixed an issue with missing capitalization in some Order objectives.
• ⚡ Removed some unnecessary text indentations in a few Encyclopedia entries.
• ⚡ Fixed a typo in the Simplified Chinese description of the Better Packaging perk.
• Fixed a bug with the wrong sound effect being played when a villager death notification appeared.
• Fixed an issue with the high Resolve sound effect being too loud in some biomes.
• Fixed a rare bug with the Big Shelter being offered as a blueprint choice before unlocking in by completing the corresponding Deed.
• Improved multiple lines and names in the Russian, Traditional Chinese, and Japanese versions of the game.

Other 

• ⚡ Improved the game’s overall performance in settlement mode, especially in towns with a lot of farms and crops.
• ⚡ Added three new music tracks to the game (Drizzle and Storm, Cursed Royal Woodlands). Additionally, some existing tracks were shuffled around to make the music in the Cursed Royal Woodlands more unique and fitting. 
• Added a sound effect when buying upgrades in the Mine, Geyser Pump, and Archaeologist’s Office.
• Tweaked the volume levels of Glade Event sound effects.
• Tweaked the volume levels of multiple UI sound effects (button clicks, HUD selections, alerts).
• Tweaked the volume levels of some ambient sound effects (like rain during the Drizzle).
• Tweaked the volume levels of ambient sound effects inside certain buildings (Geyser Pump, Druid’s Hut).
• Added an in-game vote for the next playable species to the main menu (available after unlocking Harpies).

COMMUNITY CORNER

Check out the latest community memes on Steam:

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