Founders' Fortune Update 1.3 - Hobbies, Fixes, and Quality of Life Changes!

Hello everyone!

It's time for another Founders' Fortune Update!

In the last week, I've secretly been scouring the forum to see what the community's biggest wishes and issues were and went on to fixing and rebalancing. Without further ado, here is the...

Changelog

Hobbies

• Colonists now pursue their hobbies on their own much more than before. (44% instead of 18% of idle interaction decisions).

• A colonist now keeps a main hobby after some minutes of practice. This makes them work on their one main hobby more and more, instead of switching around all the time.

• Fixed an issue where the music hobby specifically would not trigger colonists playing instruments on their own.

Balance

• The fun need decreases 35% slower, so you don't have to micromanage it as much.

• Ghost quest rebalance: lots of players had problems triggering this one and collecting the achievement for it. Now, the math has been rebalanced so that the chance increases with every passing year. By year 4-5, you're (almost) guaranteed to get it.

• Also, the ghost quest can now appear even though you're still busy with other quests. I assume that in the past other quests being active have stopped the ghost quest from appearing for some players.

Quality of Life

• You now get a notification when you have turned on "only work on designated objects", but no objects are designated (anymore). That usually happened when you designated some trees for woodcutting in a specific area only, but then they ran out. This change should help with finding out why the colonists are just standing around sometimes.

• As a bonus: Plants that come from growing spots (needle trees, apple trees, cotton) are now always designated. I assume that growing spots are (usually) used to grow more resources, so they get auto-designated for work when done growing.

• Lots of translation fixes and completion of missing entries. Fixed some issues where %% translation markers would appear in text.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug where the "Faster Work Speed" effect of the tool chest masterpiece furniture made colonists work slower instead of faster.

• Fixed instrument music that continued after the colonist stopped playing.

• Modding: Several colonist config values now accept decimal numbers that would be read as integers instead.

Note: I looked into reports of "colonists not respecting the schedule", but I think what's happening is: If you tell a colonist to do something, they'll see that as priority and only stop for sleep and food. The schedule only aborts automatic actions. You can see what type of action they're doing in the top left, there is an icon for it. (There are also minor other factors, like colonists stopping sleep when they're rested enough).

Testing Branch

Since I don't want to break anybody's game, the update is on the Testing Branch* *for around a week or so. I'd be super grateful if a bunch of brave souls could check out the update and let me know if anything's wrong.

To switch your game to the testing branch:

On Steam, go to Founders' Fortune -> Properties -> Game Versions & Betas -> Select "preview-test (Playtesting new features)"

On Founders' Fortune Updates

As you know, Founders' Fortune has been a finished game since we reached 1.0 in 2020 and fulfilled what we promised in Early Access. It was our first game, so it may not be perfect, but we still support it and fix issues and improve things from time to time.

For that, it's always helpful to get good, detailed reports! When I search the forums for bug reports and issues, I often see vague complaints like "the colonists get stuck". Now, in order to fix it, it would be great to know what they get stuck on. So any time you see an issue or bug in your game, just send your save file to support@dionicsoftware.com. I may not be able to supply a hotfix immediately, but at least then I have some solid material for when the next update comes around!

Besides that, big thanks to the community in general for being so nice! I know FF is an older game now, but I still smile when I see familiar names in the comments <3

Speaking of Founders' Fortune being our first ever game...

We are currently making our next game, and it's coming along really well. Third person town building, sandbox, single- and multiplayer. Up to hundreds of villagers working together. Check it out and wishlist if you're interested!

[dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/2481240?utm_source=ff_news"][/dynamiclink]Thanks, and happy playing!!