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Release Notes for Timberborn

Update 6 (10/10/2024)

NOTE: Saves created on Update 5 will load fine. However, Update 6 replaces some buildings. This includes the old Metal Platforms or the deprecated High Power Shaft. If you load a save with those, they will be there, but you won’t be able to add more. The map you played on will not be updated. Also, if you started the save before the February hotfix, the flexible start won’t unlock.

Three-dimensional water physics

One of Timberborn’s hallmark features is water physics. Yet, until now, we’ve used a cleverly designed 2.5-dimensional system. Our water had variable depths and formed waterfalls, but it was like a sheet thrown over the map’s topography. With Update 6, we’re finally implementing the real, three-dimensional system, which allows way more complex interactions with fluids.

Under the new physics, it is possible to run layers of fluids atop one another and over buildings. As Levees and Dams can now be placed everywhere, the most obvious application is the long-requested ability to build aqueducts. Thanks to the newly added Impermeable Floor, water can also flow over platforms or the roofs of all Solid buildings. Pair that with the new ways of building vertically, and you may even build an entire underwater city!

Automated sluices

The new water physics system finally allowed us to add one of the most often-requested building blocks to Timberborn, the Sluice. And it’s automated!

New platforms

Three-dimensional water physics just asked for cool new toys! So, we’ve remade the existing Metal Platforms and added Overhangs - including natural ones available in the map editor. Use these tools to raise multi-layered airborne cities and save space on the ground.

Vertical Power Shafts

No beaver city is complete without an efficient power grid. With the Vertical Power Shafts we’re adding today, you’ll save lots of space when connecting areas on different elevations. For extra efficiency points, you can even a building directly on top of them.

Wonders

Timberborn is a highly replayable sandbox experience with self-imposed goals - and we stick to that! However, we’ve also heard your requests for more clearly defined end-game objectives. Hence the addition of faction-specific wonders - large, expensive buildings that can be activated to “complete” the run if you wish. Launching a wonder comes with a reward, too.

Flexible start

Your playing experience on a map may differ vastly depending on where you start. Now, after you complete a wonder, you can change the starting location for future runs on the map.

Modding support

We’ve also remade the modding system to make the most common modding tasks easier to accomplish, less prone to errors, less prone to compatibility issues, and overall, make the game more fun to experiment with. If you’re a mod creator, read the documentation on Timberborn Wiki and check out the GitHub repository with some sample mods and tools.

Tail customization, a.k.a. detailing

High fashion finally arrives at Timberborn thanks to the most punny building, the Detailer! You can pick from a few default faction-specific designs and have them temporarily tattooed on the visitors’ tails. Or, you can add your own custom images! (Just the SFW stuff, please).

Mud Pit and other changes to buildings

Beavers like mud, but some more than others. We’re giving Folktails a larger new building, the Mud Pit. The Iron Teeth retain the old Mud Bath. There are also quite a few other changes to buildings and their construction.

Construction stages
Construction guidelines

With the addition of overhangs, aqueducts, and increased focus on vertical building, it was time to implement a new quality-of-life feature. When constructing new buildings, it is now possible to toggle the construction guidelines view. This view helps you align new buildings correctly despite height differences or large distances.

New animations

Beavers, bots, and their animations have received extra love from us!

Maps and map editor

Timberborn now has 13 built-in maps! In addition to the pretty new map, Cliffside, all previously available maps have been updated to better work with the features of Update 6.

Performance

Our water physics rework as well as several other optimizations resulted in more gains on the performance front.

Analytics

We want to better understand how you play the game, and descriptive feedback is much more useful when paired with some hard data. That’s why when you open the game after the update, we will ask you to agree to the collection of data from your playthroughs. This helps us a lot but it is optional - and if you change your mind, you can always withdraw your consent and delete your data via the in-game settings. You can review our updated privacy policy here.

Localization

Timberborn is now available in a whopping 15 languages - and the original localizations should be improved. Let us know if you find any gaffes!

Misc.
Bugs

Update 5 (18/01/2024)

Please note: Update 5 should be compatible with Update 4 saves and maps. However, the existing maps were not created with badwater in mind. There are no Badwater Sources there, obviously, and even though badtides do come, their effects can be unpredictable on an unmodified map. Please start the new game on one of the fancily reworked built-in maps.

Badwater and badtides

Toxic waste of hooman origin now flows across the maps. It taints water, contaminates beavers, disables irrigation, and kills plant life. Its addition is easily the biggest change to the game since its launch. To better understand why we’ve added it, check out the original announcement here.

Badwater engineering

To counter badwater’s harmful effects you may use the ol’ reliable hydroengineering tools. However, sometimes even the most clever use of dams, floodgates, pumps, and terraforming may not be enough. That’s why we added a selection of special new buildings. And since we now have two free-flowing liquids on the maps, we also tweaked the existing infrastructure.

Extract and new production chains

Badwater may be a deadly threat but the lumberpunk beavers are too resourceful not to benefit from it, mostly through a new good known as extract. (Mass-produced adult Iron Teeth beavers are a net positive, right?)

Attractions and decorations

Our efforts towards making factions more unique continue! After the all-new monuments in Update 4, today’s update brings significantly more variety to the attractions and decorations.

Terraforming

With bots granted a new trait in the form of badwater immunity, we can finally allow beavers to shine in the terraforming business. Speaking of which, cool beavers don’t look at explosions but with the new, badwater-powered dynamite in place, they may reconsider.

Other changes to buildings

Here are the many other additions and changes to the roster of in-game buildings, mostly rounding up our “make the factions more unique” initiative.

Irrigation rework

Adding badwater and the contamination shenanigans in Update 5 prompted us to look further at the irrigation system. The resulting rework finally eliminated the two long-standing issues with this core feature of Timbernborn.

Reworked maps

We have updated all built-in maps to accommodate the presence of badwater and badtides, as well as the irrigation tweaks. Changes range from slight to dramatic - Thousand Islands, Mountain Range, and Helix Mountain, for example, have been completely rebuilt.

Balance

In light of Update 5 changes, we’re tweaking the game’s balance across the board. Here is what we changed on top of the tweaks mentioned elsewhere in the patch notes.

Flipping

This is the end of an era! Starting today, buildings no longer have entrances available only on one side - you can flip them. We’ve added this feature to all buildings with asymmetrical door placement, plus some others where it made sense (such as most monuments).

Key bindings YES, it only took us two years since launch to add customizable key bindings to the game.

Seasons

With the game now switching between three vastly different seasons, we wanted to make it easier to notice when they change and to what. We’ve added fancy new splash screens and sounds that should be really difficult to miss.

Savegame preview

Gone are the days of guessing what that particular “asdasdad” save contains. Now, whenever you save the game, a screenshot is taken to be displayed on the load game screen. The load game screen has also been overhauled to improve its usability.

Map previews

Whenever you start a new game and pick the map, you will see a thumbnail and the map description set up by the map’s creator within the map editor.

Animations

The first recorded request for proper tree-cutting animations in Timberborn is from 1784. Update 5 adds many custom animations, so we didn’t want to miss out on updating something this crucial.

Map editor

With all the additions of Update 5, the editor also needed some love.

Other UI and QoL changes

As if the cool new stuff such as flippable buildings or customizable key bindings were not enough…

Misc.
Bug fixes

Update 4 (24/05/2023)

Note: Update 4 shouldn't break compatibility with Update 3 saves but especially on the Iron Teeth saves, things won’t be the same anymore - as detailed below. As all Iron Teeth know, progress sometimes requires sacrifice. Please consider starting a new game.

Food production changes

As part of our “making factions more unique” project, the Iron Teeth received an entirely new food production chain, and most of the older crops are now exclusive to Folktails. We designed the new Iron Teeth crops and buildings to reflect the faction’s industrial nature. For them, food is all but another cog in the great lumberpunk machine. They want their eatables produced efficiently and on a large scale, and they now have the tools for that. Let Folktails keep their tasty organic food nonsense!

New monuments and other changes

In addition to the above, we’re updating several other buildings to make Folktails and Iron Teeth playthroughs feel different, both in terms of gameplay and visuals. Notably, all six monuments were replaced and are now faction-specific. We have also updated and split some decorations.

Districts rework

The introduction of districts solved many problems Timberborn had in the past, including but not limited to, original performance woes. However, we heard a lot of feedback about this feature and specifically, district range limits. Over time, we’ve optimized the game’s code to make the range less of a performance hog, and in Update 4, we’re removing range limits entirely. If you want to cover the entire map with a single district, you can! Just remember that if a worker spends half their day commuting, their efficiency and well-being take a hit. You still may optimize and specialize your colonies with districts, but it’s now optional and way more straightforward.

Distribution rework

Here’s another reason to continue using districts - we’ve completely reworked the distribution mechanics to make it (truly) automatic. By default, your workers will distribute goods to districts with a warehouse for a particular good, or a factory that consumes it. Some basic goods such as water, food, and logs are always imported, even if the district does not have dedicated storage for them. While those default settings should work for most cases, you can customize the rules for import and export in the new Distribution tab added to the Settlement Panel.

Maps

It’s finally time for a new built-in map - Craters (192x192). Fire up this medium-difficulty map and find your way across three treacherous craters, starting next to the map’s border. We also made some tweaks to older maps (which will only apply when starting a new game).

Optimization

Making optimizations that help rather than break something is a lengthy process. We needed to thoroughly test different approaches and double-check the results on the experimental branch, but it seems we succeeded! We aimed to reduce lag spikes, cut loading times, and increase the framerates, especially on larger maps and settlements with hundreds of units. Your mileage may vary depending on a save and your configuration but based on our benchmarks, Update 4 increases the average FPS by up to 80%. Some players are reporting even higher gains.

Quality of Life and UI
Balance
Audio
Visual
Misc.
Bug fixes