Alpha 18: The Release That Doesn’t Have a Name Yet

Welcome to the unstable debut of Stonehearth Alpha 18! In this release, we’re continuing the focus on building begun in Alpha 17. Except this time, the emphasis is on destruction rather than construction. That’s right — the “Remove” button is back… with a bang. That means your structures don’t just disappear, they’re demolished. This is an early implementation of this feature — improved animations and SFX will be added soon. You should be able to remove both completed and in-progress buildings, including those from older saves.

Still to come: a tool that will allow you to replace the dirt and grass for the hole where your foundation used to be. We’re trying to get this in as part of Alpha 18… but no guarantees.

This release also adds features and functionality that will improve your Stonehearth experience. You’ll now see more engaging idle behavior from your hearthlings, and even in some of your enemies! See if you can catch them in an unguarded moment. There’s also some functionality you won’t see — but it’s just as important. We’re instrumenting Stonehearth to provide us with anonymous data about how you play the game — how your towns grow, what classes you choose for promotions, how long you play a given settlement, and so on. This information is vital to help us continue to create a game that captivates you and exceeds your expectations. You can choose to opt in or out of this feature on your loading screen. Obviously, we hope you’ll want to participate!

We’ll be adding lots more new features, fixes, and improvements to this release in the coming weeks — including a name. Any nominations?

Remember that this is an unstable release! Which means that you may — nay, you will encounter glitches and the unexpected. Please report any issues in Discourse on Stonehearth.net or in our Steam forums. (Hey, that’s what unstable releases are for!) As with all unstable builds, this is available only on the Steam Latest branch.

Let’s take a closer look at the highlights in this release.

• Building removal is back! Hearthlings “tear down” buildings quickly, now. You currently get back 70% of the materials invested in the structure.
• Placing an item into a building blueprint or finished building attaches that item to the building blueprint. If the item is destroyed, hearthlings will attempt to replace it.
• You (currently) cannot place an item into a building that is under construction.
• New ladder creation routine reduces some of the ladder-spam seen around complex structures.
• Fixed a bug in scaffolding that lead to some scaffolding being built within building structures.
• Fixed some objects not falling when support is removed.
• Some performance improvements for large building construction.
• Scaffolding will now wait for associated ladders to be torn down, before finally marking itself as “torn down”.
• Fix for autosave not happening sometimes.
• Fix some memory leaks from reloading a game.
• Fixed bug where some items were not being placed.
• Added Goblin Emote: Pick Ear
• Added hearthling Emotes: Tap Foot, Count Fingers, Tool Inspection
• Touched up hearthling animation: Whistle
• Added new anonymous data collection functions to better understand play patterns (for example, number of game days played per settlement; total hearthlings in settlement per game day; balance of crafters, workers, and combat units… etc).