Update #14 | Fire & Training Structures

Greetings, medievalists!

The new major update, titled “Fire & Training Structures” (0.22.10) is now live on Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG! It includes: fire system, new weapons, combat improvement and much more!

But before we talk about that, check the new trailer for the game and share it with your friends:

Here are the notes for what awaits you in this version:

Fire System

A fire system has been added to the game. Flames spread from thing to thing in the game and as the flame appears on that thing, it will take down its HP. If that HP is depleted and destroyed, so will the flame disappear (if nothing else exists on that tile to keep burning). A single flame starts small and grows slowly as it consumes the HP of the thing it’s destroying.

Here are important notes about the fire system:

Flammability is an attribute of all objects (e.g., grass, vegetation, buildings, people, animals, resources). It determines the likelihood of catching fire and how quickly the object loses HP while burning. For example, a pile of hay has high flammability, whereas a brick floor has zero flammability.
Animals & humans can catch on fire (determined by the clothing and armor they are wearing). When on fire, they will slowly sustain burn wounds and spread the fire wherever they go.
The wetness system in the game reduces flammability. The wetter an object is, the lower its flammability, making it impossible to catch fire.
Fire emits significant heat, causing nearby vegetation to die, snow to melt, and wetness to evaporate.
Fire can cause a heat-related health issue to the settlers where they faint.
Rain and snow extinguish fires.
Settlers will automatically extinguish fires if their Firefighting job is enabled in their job panel. They can fight fire in two ways: For small flames nearby, they’ll stomp them out without needing additional resources. For larger flames, they will fetch water from any water source (or from a Well, a new structure—more on that later) and use it to extinguish the fire, leaving wetness behind. This method is more effective for larger fires.
Buildings get damaged by high temperatures, so high temperatures will damage things like limestone walls and whatnot. The temperature threshold for damaging structures is low and not realistic, but in a gameplay sense, we chose to use these lower temperature thresholds to make fire a bit more dangerous. That means making structures out of different materials is not a full proof defense against fires.
Heat damage related info is located at the Info tab in the building bottom right panel.
Buildings that use fire (torches, braziers, etc) have a high temperature threshold.

Combat with fire

Both enemies and your settlers can utilize fire in combat. Here is how:

Fire arrows usage – Any flame source (e.g., braziers, torches) can enable the use of fire arrows. Drafted archers will see a “Use Fire Arrows” option next to the Attack command. Once activated, if they are standing near a flame source, a fire arrow icon will appear above them, indicating they can shoot fire arrows instead of regular ones.
Fire arrows spawn a small flame at the point of impact.
Fire arrows have lower precision and deal less damage than regular arrows.
Fire arrows damage the bow much faster than regular arrow usage making the bow break faster due to the heat and flames.
Only Short bow, Longbow, Warbow and Curved Bow can use fire arrows.
Enemies can set structures on fire during their attacks, including furniture and production buildings. Raiders be evil like that!
Fire traps release oil within a certain radius when triggered, which will also instantly ignite.
Fire arrows landing on oil will ignite it.

Speaking of oil…

Flammable Oil

Flammable oil is a resource that you can produce and use as a trap against enemies.

Flammable oil is created in the Oil press (new building), with Coal and Oil Source (like tallow and flax seeds).
You can order settlers to spill oil on tiles making them extremely flammable and when the oil is ignited (with a fire arrow) it will spread super fast from oil tile to oil tile making a nice stronghold-esque fire trap. 😀
We also added a separate type of fire called Greek fire (at the moment it’s green in the game like the wildfire from Game of Thrones). This fire type can burn underwater and in the rain. It does not spread as Greek fire but spawns regular fire around it. It’s just a stronger version of fire.
Greek fire oil can also be created in the Oil press, but you will need Flammable Oil, Saltpeter and Quicklime (more on those later). Greek fire oil behaves the same as regular oil, but with the green fire that can’t be extinguished easily.
Greek fire can spread in low water.
Greek fire oil is ignitable during the rain.
Greek fire can spread on Greek fire oil blobs, even in rain.
Greek fire oil blob burns 3x longer when compared to the regular oil blob.

Other fire facts:

Trees when burning can have the canopy burning.
Trees leave burnt trunks.
During summer heatwaves, bushes in the wild have a chance to catch fire randomly.
Vegetation has different flammability that’s affected by the time of the year and phase the plant is in.
Grass on the ground also has different flammability depending on the time of year. In the summer and autumn, its flammability is the highest

Water & Fire Management

As mentioned, settlers with a Firefighter job will go and extinguish the fire. For bigger flames, they’ll need water. Here is how that will go:

Settlers can fetch water from rivers or lakes at any accessible point.
Settlers need to “go down” to shallow water to grab it. Only medium and high water level is viable for pickup from the shoreline.
Water level updates when a settler takes water from a well/river/lake. (One full voxel has 3000L of water and the settler takes 60L with each run)
You can construct a Well (a new structure) over a water source. Settlers will prioritize fetching water from the Well when using it for production or storing into barrels, giving you better control over water usage. When it comes to extinguishing fires, they’ll grab water from the closest point.
Water can be stockpiled in barrels (new structures). There are two sizes: small and large. Barrels act as water sources during fires. Additionally, when barrels are exposed to fire, they have built-in rope and wax systems that melt and release the stored water, creating an automatic extinguishing mechanism.
Rain can refill water barrels. Barrels fill up faster when under the edges of the roof.
Water barrels can spill water manually by settlers via barrel selection and choosing Open in the bottom right corner.
Barrels can freeze when in <0°C temperature for about 3h. They can be filled with water when they are frozen, but no water can be taken from the barrel in that case.
Upon their destruction, frozen barrels will drop ice blocks.
Barrels can’t be opened if they are frozen.

Fire spread can be controlled from custom difficulty via “Fire Spread Multiplier”. While you can’t turn off the fire, setting this to 10% will make sure that any fire appearance and spreading will be slowed down significantly, thus making it easy to extinguish.

Combat Changes

We’ve also added a lot of minor and major changes to the combat that will enrich the whole fighting experience, especially once the updates #15 and #16 come out. What you need to know now is:

Multiple Drafted Stances

Until now, settlers behaved quite simply when drafted. We’ve now introduced two stance types for players to choose from when drafting a settler for battle.

The new stances are Default and Hold Ground:

Default: This is the same as before – settlers will engage in combat when an enemy enters their line of sight.
Hold Ground: Settlers will ignore everything around them and engage in combat only when directly attacked or within range.

Keep in mind that the Hold Ground stance is automatically lost if the settler moves.

Shield Changes

Shields have gone through a bit of a change to make fighting overall more interesting and dynamic.

Shield cover percentage is now divided into ranged cover and melee cover, meaning shields differ in how much protection they offer against different types of attacks. For example, the buckler shield has a lower ranged cover than other shields but offers excellent melee cover.
Shields now have a cover angle. Shooting a shielded enemy form behind will result in a direct hit.
People with shields will automatically turn towards their attackers (even if they are receiving ranged attacks).
During a melee attack animation, ranged cover is briefly reduced—because who’s holding a perfect block mid-swing?
Raised shields as an animation has been added. Now, people raise their shields when in combat or attacked.
Any weapon can now act as a shield, with its own cover values. Yes, this means a melee fighter can sometimes block arrows with their weapon, and an archer can try to block melee strikes with their bow. Using a bow to stop enemy blows will damage the weapon and even break it if the strike is strong enough.
We’ve added sparks and VFX when a shield receives a hit. The shield will also turn red and flash a bit when hit, thus indicating that the shield has taken damage and not the human.

Alternative Attack Mode

Each weapon can have an alternative animation, damage and ruleset depending if the combat is ranged or melee.

If an archer is attacked he/she will use the bow as a staff and fight with it like that instead of using bare hands like they do now.
When a settler uses ranged weapons as melee in combat, they will use Melee skill to calculate performance.
Using ranged weapons as melee will damage those weapons much faster than using them in ranged combat.

New Weapons

With the introduction of the alternative attack mode, we’re now able to introduce new ranged weapons that settlers can also use as melee – throwing axes, javelins, slings and stave slings.

Throwing axes – (Axes in the Research window, made in Blacksmith’s Forge) – They are short-ranged and have a loose precision with distance, but are massively strong against shields and armor. Settlers can also use them with a shield in the other hand, thus making your ranged units shielded as well.
Javelins – (Wooden Weaponry 2 in the Research window, made in Woodwork Bench) – They have a bit better range than axes and are also great at taking down shields.
Slings and Stave Slings are just low-tech low-cost variants of the other two. They are produced at Bowyer’s table. (Stave Sling is located in Fletching 2 in the Research window)

All of the mentioned weapons can also damage buildings (while arrows cant) so they are a great addition to the attacking forces.

Training Settlers [Community Request]

This has been one of the most requested features after the water, and we thought that this is the perfect time to introduce it.

Archery Range and Practice Dummy are new buildings where setters can level up their ranged and melee skills.
Settlers have a new “Train” job that will make them go to those stations to get some sweet XP;
To use the station, settlers will need to bring assets there – Practice Target to Archery Range and Dummy to Practice Dummy station. Once they bring it, the training (in a form of production) will start.

New Structures

Oil Press (Oil Press in the Research window, appears in the Production category) – used for creating Flammable Oil and Flammable Greek Fire Oil.
Oil Splash (Oil Press in the Research window, Appears in Warfare category) – these are created with flammable oil. Combine it with fire arrows for utter chaos.
Fire Trap (Defensive Structures 4 in the Research window, appears in the Warfare category) – when activated, it spills oil and ignites it.
Small & Large Water Barrel (Barrels in the Research window, appears in the Misc category) – used for placing water and controlling fire.
Well (Appears in the Base building category) – used as a control point from where the water will be taken from.
Saltpetre Work (Chemistry 2 in the Research window, appears in the Production category) – used for making saltpeter.
Archery Range (Combat Training Equipment in the Research window, appears in the Leisure category) – used for improving the Marksman skill of your settler.
Practice Dummy (Combat Training Equipment in the Research window, appears in the Leisure category) – used for improving the Melee skill of your settler.

New Items/Resources

Flammable Oil (Created at the Oil Press) – can be used as a resource for various oil related things.
Quicklime (Created at Kiln) – used as a resource for making Greek Fire.
Saltpeter (Created at Saltpeter Works) – used as a resource for making Greek Fire.
Greek Oil (Created at the Oil Press) – advanced version of the regular oil. More durable and stronger.
Practice Target (Created at Woodwork Bench and/or Bowyer’s Table) – used as a resource for Archery Range.
Dummy (Created at Sewing Station) – used as a resource for Practice Dummy.
Dung – Cows, donkeys, sheep and goats produce dung once a day. Dung just drops in the pen or where they stand. Dung is a type of waste and can be used to create saltpeter and dung bricks. Dung has an effect on certain people – dainty and precious perks are affected by the smell of dung and are unhappy when around it.
Dung bricks can be created in kilns from dung and hay. Dung bricks are a reliable form of fuel.

Quality of Life Improvements

Ranged weapons now have different projectiles. Now, crossbows shoot bolts and not arrows (what a time to be alive).
We now have underground water sources (unfortunately you need to start a new game to have them on your map) They have been added to Valley and Hillside maps. Mountain and Marsh maps don’t have the. They can be easily found by going through the layers of your terrain.
Enemies now have a different pathing when approaching your base. They should act a bit more naturally by not going in one line when attacking. They will try to function and path more like a group.
Enemies should no longer spawn in a very long line when in large groups but in a kind of square formation.
Enemies will no longer idle around when waiting for one of them to get through the door but will stand in a battle-ready stance.
Warden will now get a sad effector if they lose that role.
Projectiles now have an arc to them. It’s just a visual thing (the projectile won’t be stuck in the ceiling or anything) just gives some nice visual flavor. This also means that bolts have the smallest arc.
Sweet fire visuals on arrows (note, all projectiles have the visuals. If you change the json files so that let’s say a sling can use fire projectiles, it will work).
Added very hard enemy types with the appropriate equipment. This will also balance the spawn rate of the late game enemies (the idea is to have about 50 more difficult enemies, rather than 100 of them).
We’ve changed the chances for destruction of traps a bit. Stick trap has 4% chance to be destroyed, wood 3% and metal trap has 1% chance to get destroyed when activated. Fire traps have a 100% chance to get destroyed when activated.
Alcohol is no longer visible in the UI in settler’s Stats.
Low alcohol does not have negative mood effects anymore unless a settler has certain perks that are about alcohol use.
Wording has been changed so that it’s obvious it’s about drinking booze and not water to avoid the confusion that settlers need to drink water.
We now have underground water sources (unfortunately you need to start a new game to have them on your map) They have been added to Valley and Hillside maps. Mountain and Marsh maps don’t have the. They can be easily found by going through the layers of your terrain
Enemies now have a different pathing when approaching your base. They should act a bit more naturally by not going in one line when attacking. They will try to function and path more like a group.
Enemies should no longer spawn in a very long line when in large groups but in a kind of square formation.
Enemies will no longer idle around when waiting for one of them to get through the door but will stand in a battle-ready stance.

That would be all for the official update notes. New patches and improvements will be deployed accordingly. In the meantime, feel free to post your experience regarding the new update on Steam discussions. If you want more dynamic/direct communication – head over to our Discord server. Even though we might not reply, we are reading everything. And be sure to..

Stay medieval!