I'm pleased to announce that the Ironwood update is feature-done, and only needs some testing and balancing before it's released. No official date just yet, but hopefully in a week or two, depending on how it goes.
So let's take a quick look at what's coming with the next release...
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[h1]A summary of the changes[/h1]
- Materials are now unlocked by clearing a mine, or cutting a sapling from the forbidden forests. Also no more multi-ore rocks or multi-wood trees.
- Two boss enemies/arenas to fight in the mine
- A new type of map - the enchanted forest
- Ship upgrades, limited range and cloth
- Smarter enemies, ranged enemies, support enemies
And going into those in a bit more detail...
[h1]Material Unlocking[/h1]
With this next release, you no longer unlock materials (iron, orium, hardwood, heartwood) through capturing specific islands. Since they representing such important milestones, I felt that they deserved having something more interesting.
Let's start with metal. Now you start off with copper rocks on your starting island, and what appears to be an abandoned mine.
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Unlocking Iron, and Orium require you to defeat specific bosses. The first one is a giant spider which spawns more smaller spiders, whilst the second is an abandoned mining golem which can bring parts of the roof down on your head.
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As you defeat those bosses, the mine becomes usable and you can get all the iron and orium you need from it.
As for wood - now there are special hardwood and heartwood bearing trees, which don't grow on your starting island... initially at least.
But there are enchanted forests available on the world map which have giant world-trees which you can grab a sapling off. If you do so, and survive a return to your ship, these special trees will start growing on your starting island, giving you a supply of these rare woods.
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Of course, the forests are not unguarded...
[h1]Ship upgrades[/h1]
The ship can now be upgraded.
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This feature brings with it two items of note. Firstly, the first column of upgrades is about extending the ship's range. It's designed in a way that you can't access the more dangerous islands until you unlock iron and hardwood, and the rest until you unlock orium and heartwood - making the progression a bit more clear.
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Also, the speed upgrades require cloth. A new plant has been added which you can farm, then weave into cloth.
[h1]Enemies[/h1]
Enemies are now a bit smarter. Where applicable, they now move in a squad, so fighting them is not as easy as picking them off one at a time.
Also a bit more variety has been added to enemies. The goblins, dark elves, and everpunished now have their own ranged and support enemy types. The ranged one just makes your life miserable until you get close enough to them to cut them down - having less defense than their peers.
[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42309538/b4ba825367d21ddec9c8943402e94b77f22ed60c.png[/img]
The support unit is different for each of the factions. The Everpunished one for instance, heals their peers - so they might be a priority when fighting them.
[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/42309538/ebf0dc2d179288a9e300df1910ecfceb93fc13f9.jpg[/img]
So that's it in terms of major features. There are smaller features which I'll leave as a surprise to discover, and hopefully I'll have an official announcement in a week or two with the actual release.
And for reading this far, you get an image which you can use as a background.
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