Patch #25: Construction Yards! Roadmap to next update!

Medium Term Roadmap!

Thank you everyone for playing our game! I want to give you all a heads up about our intermediate plans. You see, we've noticed players asking for a bigger scoped updates. A lot bigger scope. And we've decided that for the next 4+ months we're going to focus on adding these big features.

If you are reading this during this development period, I want to reassure you that we are indeed working hard! Whiskerwood is our passion project and we appreciate everyone who has given our game their play time.

For background: exactly 6 months ago we released Whiskerwood into Early Access. At that point we started doing daily patches, writing down every feature request and bug report. What we noticed after 2 weeks of daily patches, was the features commonly requested were getting bigger & bigger in scope changes. This is natural, when doing daily patches we could only destabilize the codebase for 1 day. That limited the size of tasks we could safely tackle. Thus we releaized we needed to switch to larger patches in incremental steps.

We then worked on weekly patches for several months, before switching to the current pace of bi-weekly (1 patch every 2 weeks). Bi-weekly has proven a good balance, but now we've arrived at a point in development where a grand leap forward in gameplay is going to required. We cannot reach our next goal through bi-weekly updates. We need to ask for your trust, as we work longer on a massive update.

You see, our goal for the next update is to add full ship construction, trading between other colonies, naval battles, and island defenses (towers and fortresses). This is a large chunk of work and we need to destabilize the codebase. We are in effect going back into production mode. We plan to post news about this update as it progresses, but overall I need to ask players to be patient. Please bare with us during this waiting period and please be excited for the new content we'll be able to add and polish thanks to this wait!

Once the big update ships we intend return to daily, then bi-weekly patches.

Daniel

Lead Programmer on Whiskerwood

Patch #25's Construction Rework

What we have shipped in this Patch #25 is a focus on stability and a much needed rework: construction. Now you can control construction workers more precisely, and even boost construction efficiency through the new construction yard.

Construction yard:

• Construction yard is now an insta-build/movable camp that can be assigned a required (apprentice) foreman and 5 additional builders
• Researchable in second research tier (T1)
• All workers gain a small speed/productivity buff, and use carts for delivery
• Yard workers only work on sites within their work radius (configurable)[list]
• Yard workers work on sites sorted by distance/priority relative to their construction yard.

Construction yard supports overtime, with associated buff and ability to work through the night.

Construction sites and policies:

• Construction speed now accounts for whisker productivity. It was previously just based on builder count. with RapidConstruction applying a flat multiplier on top of it.
• RapidConstruction policy and construction yard bonus now act consistently via agent modifiers with productivity and speed bonuses. Thus the description of rapidconstruction has changed slightly.[list]
• Rapidconstruction otherwise scaled ridiculously high being a X2 mult over all other modifiers

Late Construction policy has been fully removed from the game. Instead being a benefit of construction yard overtime.

Globally, workers will try to finish a construction delivery in their hands instead of immediately failing upon nightfall.

Construction site UI has been improved, showing lines to inbound whiskers, number of whiskers building, their overall productivity, and time remaining.

Changelog

v0.6.193 Patch #25

Features

• Add insta-build Construction Yard which can be staffed with an Apprentice foreman and 5 builders
• Construction Yard builders will use carts and work only within the yard’s radius
• Add overtime construction mechanic through construction yard

Gameplay

• Rework construction progress logic now to consider Whisker productivity in build times
• Remove Night Construction policy to be replaced with the Construction Yards as a mechanic
• Rework Rapid Construction logic to boost based on Whisker traits
• Change night time builder logic, now Whiskers complete a delivery before transitioning to seeking night time activities
• Claws now charge a fee for forcing them to fire their cannons

UI

• Add lines to show on construction site ui to display active builders
• Add estimated time remaining to construction site ui

Bugs

• Fix work radius preview when moving camps showing default radius
• Housing bedding/furniture consumption is now reported in daily statistics
• Fix case where whiskers may refuse to replace their tailored cloaks before becoming threadbare (May take a couple nights to take effect)
• Fix Copy/Paste of farm field settings not correctly copying ‘remove rocks’ toggle

Acknowledgements

• Thank you to Dragon King on discord for helping with clothing bug
• Thank you to Phlimmphlam on discord for reporting farm rocks bug
• Thank you to Lady on discord for reporting missing bedding reporting

Steam Reviews

We'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to share your thoughts about Whiskerwood in a Steam review. Each review helps us understand what you enjoy, what you'd like to see changed, and what you'd like to see added next. It's a powerful way for you to not only share feedback with us directly but also influence what comes next in a patch. We're carefully reading through all feedback, and your opinion matters!

Official Wiki and Beginner's Guide

We have some fantastic resources to help get you started on your colony building in Whiskerwood. Check out our beginner's guide and our official community wiki page to help get you the answers you need.

We also have a compilation of tips and tricks sourced from the community to help you out right here:

Join the Whiskerwood Community

Become part of the Whiskerwood community. Join us on Discord to chat with other players, share your villages, and see what others are creating. You can also follow updates and discussions on Reddit, stay informed through BlueSky and Twitter.