1-LED blocks and multicolored LEDs

There are some new electric blocks coming in 2.1 too, it’s not all about survival.

1-LED block:

This is a full-block sized LED that changes color depending on the voltage applied. Useful for making (huge) color screens. It complements the existing 4-LED block that has a fixed color, but lights up a combination of 4 constituent LEDs depending on voltage.

Multicolored LED block:

This is a small LED block that changes color depending on the voltage applied. Complements the existing fixed color LED blocks.

Thank you for all the replies on the Bestiary question I asked a couple posts back. Based on that, I have now decided to make the bestiary fully visible at all times. I don’t think spending extra day adding the animal discovery logic is worth it.

Rivers & Biome Size

The terrain generator had a large overhaul for 2.1. Have a look at the video:

Bestiary

There is a list of all animals with their properties coming in 2.1. It’s called Bestiary.

That’s how it looks like (I will probably add loot info as well):

Also have a look at the video:

At the end of the video I have a question for you: I can make it so that bestiary is initially filled with “undiscovered” entries. As the animals are discovered by the player, they will appear there. Discovering an animal means looking at it from close range (e.g.  less than 5 blocks) for a period of time, or killing it.

This way player has some incentive to wander off and find more animals.

Do you think I should do it for 2.1, or should the bestiary be complete from the start? Please let me know in the comments!

Now for something else.

Here the way the game calculates attack damage (to give some meaning to attack power/resilience figures in Bestiary):

Each animal has a life value that is between 0 and 1 (dead to full health). The life value of player is displayed as hearts. A successful attack reduces the life value of a creature by the following amount:

damage = attack power of attacker / resilience of target

A random factor of +/- 20% is added to every attack.

For example, a human male using bare hands has an attack power of 1. If attacking a brown bear (resilience 60), the resulting damage will be:

damage = 1 / 60 = 0.0167

Not much. You need about 60 bare hands hits to kill the bear. On the other hand if you’re wielding an iron machete (attack power 7), you just need 8-9 hits.

If the defender is wearing armor, the armor takes the damage instead, leaving body unharmed. After taking enough damage (indicated as Armor Durability in Recipaedia), the armor will disintegrate.

“Soft” types of armor (like leather or fur) only absorb a part of the damage, and the attack still partially damages the body. The percentage of damage armor absorbs is displayed as Armor Protection (0 to 100%) in Recipaeadia. Hard armors have it at 100%, leather at 50%, furs at 25%. For 2.1 I am also making cotton clothes have 10% instead of 0% (so that wearing clothes always helps a bit).

Anyway, please go to the comments and let me know what you think about the Bestiary idea.

 

Gamepad controls

As you know, I am adding gamepad support in 2.1. This is to allow multiple players to play the game on a single device.

This of course works best on a PC, but a fast 10″ tablet is quite playable too if you prop it against something and have two bluetooth gamepads paired with it. Or better mirror the screen to a large TV.

Anyway, here’s the gamepad controls in Survivalcraft 2.1:

Left Trigger + A is equivalent to Shift + Click on an inventory item. It will automatically move the item to a suitable slot in the other inventory (e.g. chest).

iOS gamepads do not have thumbstick buttons or start/back buttons (they only have a single pause button in the middle of the controller), that’s why these functions are duplicated to D-Pad up and down.

In general I found that the quality of bluetooth gamepads for phones/tablets is pretty dire. I have two of them that I use for testing: ipega 9021 (for Android) and MadCatz Micro (for iOS).

Ipega 9021 for Android. Horrible, horrible deadzone implementation. You need to move the sticks almost half the way to the edge before any movement is registered. Then it suddenly reaches 100% way before the stick is actually at the edge. Avoid.

Mad Catz Micro for iOS. Slightly better deadzone than Ipega, but buttons frequently skip clicks, so you have to mash them hard to be sure they will register. Avoid.

On the other hand, Xbox 360 gamepads that I use on Windows (you can also pair them to Android device if you have an OTG cable, but they will sadly not work in iOS) are brilliant. Playing with them is almost as nice as using mouse and keyboard.

Xbox 360 controller. A fantastic piece of kit. Precise thumbsticks, perfectly working buttons. Puts all the bluetooth garbage gamepads to shame.

I suspect Playstation or nVidia Shield gamepads are just as good as Xbox ones.

Anyway, I don’t know what to recommend to you. Maybe other bluetooth controllers are better than Ipega or Mad Catz. Although I suspect they are all dodgy.

Music

Some of you have noticed, there was music playing in one of the last videos.

Yes, Survivalcraft will get menu music from version 2.1. Listen to some here:

There are several different tracks that get randomly crossfaded, so the music should be different every time.

Maybe at some point I will add in-game music, but it needs to be situation dependent and non distracting.

Temperature

As you’ve seen in the videos, there’s a new simpler temperature bar coming in 2.1. It simply shows the temperature of the environment around the player (not body temperature, you can check that in Vital Stats panel).

The thermometer has 7 possible readouts. The middle one, with skin-tone color is the ideal environment temperature. The one below it should still be fine if you have some clothing on. The two most extreme cold require specialist clothing to survive, preferably made of fur.

The hottest readout will quickly give you blackouts if you don’t move to a cooler area. The orange ones are good to sleep in when you have flu.

In 2.1 environment temperature varies much more with day/night cycle than in 2.0. Even if you can comfortably stay outside during the day, at night you will likely get cold (and sneezing! Shudder).

Transfer.sh

There is a new way to get the worlds off your device in 2.1.

In 2.0 and before you were limited to Dropbox, plus direct SD-Card access (on Android devices only).

In 2.1, it is possible to upload your worlds to Transfer.sh service. This is an anonymous filesharing service that does not require creation of user accounts or logging in. After uploading your file, you get a link that gets copied to clipboard. The link is valid for a few days. After that your data gets automatically deleted from the servers.

This is how transfer.sh shows in the upload destination dialog:

This is what you get after the upload completes:

Look Ma, no accounts needed!

Kudos to the Dutch Coders!

 

 

 

 

Big fish

Check out the new fish coming in 2.1:

 

Player level requirement once again

Two posts back I asked you what you think about the player needing a certain level to use advanced tools / wear advanced clothing and your response was rather negative, so I decided to get rid of the idea.

But I still think, maybe in a reduced form, we could leave it in? How about I leave the level requirement only for diamond tools / diamond armor? They will require level 2 to use / wear. This means that if you die a few times you will lose capability to use them for a couple of game days (this is how long it usually takes to progress from level 1 to level 2).

The whole idea of diamond tools / armor is a bit fantasy and maybe it adds a bit of realism for the player to have some skill to be able to use them properly. Plus it adds more weight to the level system, which I think is quite important.

Please let me know what you think in comments.

[EDIT] If I do it, I will probably make it that worlds started before 2.1 work the old way (i.e. allow all tools and armor)

 

Flu

Thank you for the massive response to the question about levels! I have now disabled the limitation of using better tools based on levels.

More survival mechanics coming in Survivalcraft 2.1. This time it’s flu!

Flu makes your hearts turn blue and slowly drop to just 2. You become slow, weak and sleepy. Your actions are constantly interrupted by sneezing and coughing.

To recover, get dry and warm and sleep it over.

To avoid getting ill in the first place, watch out for warning sneezes as you get cold. Sneezing means you are at risk of catching flu. Warm yourself up quickly and you’ll be all right.