Dev update - what has happened during the summer news

Greetings all!

It's been a while since last update, for me the summer is time for various outdoor activities and relaxing. Hope everyone has had fantastic summer! I've also been working with Aurora Heir every now and then and now it is time to get hands dirty again :)

During the summer I've implemented several new features and updated existing ones. Here is a summary of things that has been done.

Widening the perspective

Camera controller received an update, which enables wider perspectives and camera can now be tilted slightly along vertical axis also. Let's see if I will free the camera once and for all from any axis limitations in the future...

Weather effects has received an update and weather now has direct impact on resource consumption.

Also environmental elements has been yet again updated with more pleasant outlook (hopefully).

Profession guided work steads

I've started implementing (and partially finished) profession guided work steads, which basically means huge reduction in terms of micromanagement. Micromanagement is still there, if you wish to do it, yet more efficient method has now been implemented.

Also several GUI elements has been updated to support new features and profession controller has received dedicated GUI panel (it's a kind of similar mechanism than Banished).

Extending the grid

One thing that I've decided to experiment with is to have a grid based game with possibility of placing stuff in a free-form manner. This basically means that some of the buildings may be placed without position or rotation limitations while others are bound to "snap" to the grid due to their "nature".

Modular buildings

Some of the buildings are now "modular", which basically enables combining them and building various log building complexes. Also there are "porte cochere" elements, which enables villagers to pass trough.

Decorative building category

New decorative building category has been added with currently 5 different decorative buildings and elements:

* Wooden fence
* Roundpole fence
* Flower bush
* Birch
* Spruce

Also since fences has been introduced, I needed to implement efficient mechanism for placing them. Decorative fences are not bound to grid and they won't bock movement - instead they slow any unit crossing them. Placing a fence was implemented by mouse drag mechanism, meaning that player clicks desired position and while holding down mouse button drags to desired position and fence will be placed in between.

Population growth

Previously player had to manually recruit new villagers to his/her domain... This was something that I changed more towards simulative approach, in the future new villagers will join to the tribe based on various conditions such as:
* Overall happiness
* Water turnout
* Food storage balance
* Available housing

Let's see if this one needs more tweaking, probably yes :)

Other considerations

There are several other more or less minor issues and features, which also has been implemented / fixed.

Armories for example, received major update which enables player to place target dummies as he/she wishes and amount of cadets is determined by amount of target dummies.
Farms received update, which enables player to manually add / remove fields as he/she wishes.
And much more...

Next things to do

Next I will concentrate on consumables such as tools and weapons, perhaps even clothing. Need to try out if they fits in the game. I also have several other things in my idea list which I will do some experimenting with.

Thanks for reading and you may follow the progress also on Twitter, I will be posting there minor updates more often!