Quality of Life Update

Greetings, medievalists!

The new major update, titled “Quality of Life” (1.1.7) is now live on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG! All the fixes and improvements from the experimental branch are now stable, tested, and present in this update! These include: replacing structure option, advanced settler behavior, additional animal control & visuals,  and more!

Here is a video where one of our devs plays and explains all the new things:

For a more detailed report, read below.

Replacing Structures [Community Request]

This was one of the features you demanded the most. Certain building elements, once selected, have a Replace Structure option in the bottom-right corner of the screen. From there, you’ll see all the available options you can replace them with. Here are the important notes about this feature:

• Some replacement options may not be available if the required construction material is missing.
• You can select several different constructions and use replacement options.
• Replacing will overwrite the existing building and not affect the existing stability.
• Old replaced construction will drop some resources as a result.

Structures that support this function include walls, floors, stairs, beams, windows, doors, ladders, gates, tall gates, pen gates, pen fences, and merlons.

Plan Mode

Plan your buildings with this mode that will make sure that your settlers don’t start working on them until they are ready. Once you select one of the construction options, you will be offered an option to place it with a Plan Mode.

Every blueprint that you place will be forbidden while using the Plan mode. When you are ready, use the Allow tool so settlers can start working on your constructions.

Use this option in the upper left corner to show/hide forbidden blueprints so the visuals don’t bother you.

Affection System, Perks and Chemistry

By selecting a settler and going to the Social tab, you will be able to get more information regarding that settler’s relationship with other folks. Now this window provides more info, a little bit of history with them, what influences it, and how far can friendship/rivalry be taken.

This range is now influenced by perks, as perks now get along with some perks, while they can be at odds with others.

Some perks can even trigger certain behaviors. Like, their owner might start a fight depending on their mood, or even start insulting others just because. Looking at you, Lord of Misrule.

And some might provide additional benefits:

Perks can also have an area of effect that will influence other settlers. Some might have a soothing presence, some might react badly when they see someone work, some might be amused by their drunk neighbor.

These outcomes can be triggered by the settler’s state, which also received an overhaul:

Merry / Rebel State

Before, when a settler was merry (indicated by the green 🙂 icon next to their profile), they would get a positive work speed modifier and… that is it. Sure, the effect lasted for 12 hours, but the whole achievement felt pretty basic. On the other hand, a rebellious settler would just ignore your commands for 18 hours. Just that. They would idle around and exist.

Now we have added more personality to them. Merry states have a chance to trigger additional perk benefits, while rebellious may trigger the negative ones. Both merry and rebellious behaviors can provide different outcomes. Here are the most important changes for you:

When you round it all up, here is what you need to know about states, mood and perks.

Settlers will have positive or negative mood changes due to other Settlers’ behaviors, depending on their perks.

• For example:
  • Wounded Moribund Settlers will now emit an odor from their wounds that would negatively impact fellow nearby settlers.
  • Wise and Erudite settlers will have no patience for Dullard settlers.
  • Industrious settlers will positively impact the settlers around them when working.
• Settlers now have specific rebellious states depending on their perks. For example: Eat Binge, Insult Spree, Solitary, Drink and Entertainment, Fist Fight, Hot, Cold, Feral, etc.

Depending on their rebel state, they will behave differently and probably affect other settlers in the process.

• In addition to the Merry state lasting the whole day, settlers in the merry state can trigger special effects of some perks. For example:
  • Gourmet has a chance to turn a simple meal into a lavish one upon completing the production.
  • Winsome perk will influence better trading deals and positive social interactions.
  • GreenThumb can sow plants faster and harvest more.
  • etc.

• Some perks provide Positive/Negative chemistry to people that are owners of other perks. For example:
  • Iron Stomach owners get along with Callous, Cannibal settlers, while they dislike settlers with Gourmet, Dainty, Precious, and Austere perks.
  • Contemplative doesn’t gel with Outgoing folks.
  • Infirm settlers appreciate Benevolent ones.
  • etc.

And when they do nothing of sorts, settlers may idle.

Improved Idling

When idling, Settlers will no longer just stand around; they can do one of the following:

• Lean on a wall
• Rub their hands for warmth near a fire
• Sit next to a campfire on the floor or on chairs

When performing social interactions, settlers will perform talking animation.

Advance Animal Control

You can choose where your animals will idle and sleep in the Overview panel

• Sleep preferences can be:
  • In Quarters – in the room of their owner
  • Inside – anywhere inside of buildings (usually great hall/resource cellar)
  • Outside -anywhere outside of buildings
  • Anywhere
• Idle Preference: choose where you want your animals to idle – inside or outside.

Animal beds are added to the game. They can’t be assigned and are used as additional control for animals’ sleeping preferences.

Pets can be buried and/or set on pyre with the simple check options.

Note that per default settings, pyre only accepts carcasses of dogs and cats, but you can edit that.

You can also choose what type of animal you want to use in the production building, thus preventing scenarios where settlers would butcher your pets.

Animal Color Variety

The color base for animals has been significantly expanded.

• Each animal type now has multiple colors
• The color name is shown when hovering over animals, or their trade entry in the tooltip.
• Some colors are rarer than others. For example, orange female cats are rare, but albino animals are the rarest.
• Color rarity influences the price of the animal slightly.
• There is some light genetics at play, where each color is a part of a genetic bracket (for example, all tortoiseshell cats are part of the same bracket), and the parents’ genetic bracket influences the offspring’s color.
• Any animals you currently have in your save will be assigned a random color on load.

Repairing items

Items can be repaired at production stations based on their material type.

• Woodwork Bench and/or Bowyer’s Bench is used to repair wood-based equipment.
• Sewing Station is used to mend clothes.
• Blacksmith’s Forge is used to repair metal items.
• Armourer’s Table can handle all the repair actions.
• Repairing restores an item’s hitpoints, but does not change its quality.
• Repair costs 5 resources of the material of the resource the item can be made of.
• Repair time is influenced by the settler’s skill and the amount of hitpoints the item is missing.
• Repairing an item grants a small amount of XP to the settler performing the action.

Combat Refinement

Combat has been rebalanced and enemy behavior readjusted.

• Enemies now do less damage to buildings when attacking without siege weapons.
• Enemies will now prefer to knock out, rather than kill your Settlers when your Settlement has few Settlers.
  • 1-3 -100% that they will knock them out
  • 5 – 80% that they will knock them out
  • 10 – 30% that they will knock them out
  • 20+ – 0%
  • The values in between get estimated. For example: 4 settlers will be 90%.
• Upon being defeated in the raid by enemies, they will take some of your resources or the settler they came to pursue (for runaway events).
  • Things located within War chests will not be claimed.
  • Things that are walled in and the enemy can’t access them will not be claimed.
• If you’ve been defeated in a raid and raiders are leaving the map, drafting Settlers will be temporarily disabled.

Stability visualizer

Use the icon above in the icon list in the top left part of the screen to activate the stability visualizer and display stability values around the cursor. Press the icon again to turn it off.

When you hover over an area or start placing a blueprint, the game checks the nearby construction points and displays their current stability value directly in the world. Instead of having to guess how well a structure is supported, you can now see the stability numbers around the placement area while building. The system also adapts depending on what the player is doing.

More Quality of Life improvements

• You can now pet your animals. Settlers will autonomously pet animals from time to time. You can also force settlers to start petting: right click -> prioritise pet animal. This will provide a small mood bonus to your settler.
• We’ve optimized some goal calculations a bit, so Settlers idle less when calculating paths (this might fix the issue where settlers refuse to rope and barter). This should also significantly lower settler idle time on massive saves once you load the game.
• If a wall supporting a beam is destroyed and another wall is directly in line with it, the beam will automatically extend to connect to the new support. Note: Beam extension is limited to one additional voxel and must still remain within the beam’s maximum length.
• Doors/Gates can be Opened/Locked with drafted settler and right click prioritization.
• Added penumbra effect to shadows.
• Further shader optimizations.

Bugs and Fixes

• Fixed several crash occurrences.
• Fixed the long-standing issue that prevented pets from sleeping with their owners. You will not be missed.
• Fixed the issue where animal names would be visible no matter what the in game settings are.

And that would be all for this update. Development on Going Medieval doesn’t stop here, so keep your eyes on upcoming blogs.

Please leave us a review as that helps with the visibility, share your impressions and creations across all social media, join our wonderful community on Discord and don’t forget to…

Stay medieval!