Final Early Access Version - Now On The Beta Branch!
Atomic Society Patch Notes — June 8, 2021
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Update 10 - Now On The Beta Branch
After months of work the final content update to Atomic Society is now available to try on the beta branch for those who want to give it a road-test.
This last major update is probably our biggest yet and contains new buildings, more than doubles the length of the game, and has as many player suggestions we could handle.
As soon as the beta is over, Atomic Society will be ready to leave Early Access at last. The end is nigh!
Then What?
Atomic Society has been a labour of love from start to finish. It started 6 years ago as a hobby project which magically found a small yet loyal audience, even though I have no interest in marketing. We created it by working day jobs to pay for things and developed in the evenings & weekends (at home), all while dealing with those serious heath and personal issues that life loves to chuck your way.
There's been a few times I've wanted to give up and walk away to be honest, but we hobbled on, and for the first time the game feels truly "finished", or as finished as any creative thing ever does (maybe I should move that tree 3 feet to the left...)
It's just as well as the game engine we've been using hasn't been updated since 2017 (because updating would break everything) and it's starting to catch fire, so after a week or two of the beta, we’ll flip that scary button and leave Early Access after 10 big patches, countless new features, 2.5 years in Early Access, and a heap of learning.
Of course we’ll continue to fix bugs, look into translations and make minor tweaks if necessary. I'll also write more about the process when I've had a chance to recover.
We've definitely had a small but dedicated bunch of players over the Early Access years, so thanks to everybody who made it all worthwhile and took a gamble on ultra-indie games like this. I'm not saying Atomic Society is the best game evar!11!, but we're very proud of it, and it wouldn't exist without you.
Hope you enjoy the new content.
To Access The Beta...
1. Right click Atomic Society in your steam library and select properties.
2. Select the betas option on the left. Then choose the beta branch from the dropdown menu.
3. Close the window and in your library Atomic Society will automatically update to the beta (if it doesn't restart Steam). It should say version 1.0.0.0 when you start the game.
Patch Notes
Warning: Update 10 brings so many changes to the game that it makes any existing save games incompatible, so please don’t try the beta unless you want to start over. Achievements WILL carry over from the beta to full release however.
- Gameplay Modifiers: 18 game-changing modifiers have been added to the game, creating new challenges, goals and perks (see below). 6 modifiers are unlocked each time you beat the game until you’ve got them all. These mods essentially give the game levels or stages, and should test any veteran of the game (but some of them are just for fun). Good luck to anybody insane enough to use all 18 of them at once!
Available Mods:
- Outpost Builder: A new goal to build your town around 3 randomly chosen landmarks.
- Bartertown: A new goal to trade a number of resources in each stage.
- Progressive: A new goal to set at least 6 laws to “encouragement” forcing some tricky moral choices upon you.
- Tyrant: As above but now you must set at least 6 laws to execution or flogging.
- Resource Package: Spawn building and food supplies in your storehouse immediately. Good for emergencies (or cheaters!)
- Double Loot: Ruins contain twice as much salvage, so you can just build and relax.
- Assassin: Target a citizen and terminate them!
- Plague Outbreak: Struggle against a new wave of infection that will decimate your population once a year.
- Reinforcements: Spawns a new group of citizens instantly. This mod can be essential if you are playing on the hardest difficulty with other mods turned on.
- Bad Behaviour: Citizens commit social issues a lot more frequently, making the town more chaotic.
- Radiation Sickness: Occasionally a radioactive wind will sweep through the town, culling a percentage of your population.
- Storehouse Rats: Food supplies will go missing periodically when you have more than 10 of something, so you can never be totally comfortable.
- Full Refunds: Get back all the building materials when you demolish a structure, letting you redesign your town more easily.
- Slow Builders: Increases building times, forcing you to plan ahead and also making the town leader’s upgrades more vital.
- Harvest Time: Food and drink buildings produce twice as much, for a much more laid back experience.
- Hard Times: Citizens are depressed and morale drops much faster than usual, making this need something to really think about.
- Slow Learner: Research times are increased so you have to be more tactical and keep your researchers as happy as possible so they stay at work.
- Lone Wanderer: Start the game entirely by yourself, no help from engineers or citizens.
- 85 Achievements Added: Many achievements have been added, ranging from simple ones that will help new players learn the game works to new challenges for veterans.
- New Building - Miner’s Shack: Every map now has a few mineable areas if you can reach them. Once researched, the Miner’s Shack can dig up these buried resources endlessly, if you tell it what to dig for.
- New Building – Refinery: Mined resources need to be processed into useable materials at the new refinery building before you can use them. Together the Mine and Refinery will help your town become self-sufficient, and move away from scavenging, giving a sense of progress.
- New Reputation System: A reputation meter has been added which goes up or down as your population changes. It goes up through 8 levels and each time it “levels up” you’ll be swamped by a wave of migrants and people will flock to your town more quickly. This keeps the tension going as you master the wasteland, but the good news is you won’t have to wait so long for people to show up and can build bigger settlements.
- Brand New In-Game Goals System: The goals system has been overhauled from scratch to make the game more compelling and addictive. Goals now appear on the right side of the screen and come in various stages as you play. Each stage can have different types of goal to add variety. We have also added some brand new goals. (You can minimise this if you don't care about the goals).
- Extended Goals: After completing all the regular goal stages (which beats the map), players can now keep on building with advanced goals that will require you to build a huge town and raise a brood of kids.
- Map Completion Progress: You can now earn stars and medals for every map letting you track your progress through the game. Beating each map’s extended goals also adds an additional cosmetic medal for those who are really dedicated.
More Improvements:
- The Leader’s Mansion can now be upgraded with electricity, letting your spouse(s) and children survive for longer.
- Citizens no longer die when their morale is zero. They now pack up and leave town instead.
- A new type of ruin (a burnt church) has been added on certain maps.
- The “raiders are considering an attack” warning messages can now be disabled in the options.
- Added a new message when a child becomes an adult worker.
- Citizens now age up physically as they should, changing from children to elderly models.
- Various menu/UI tweaks.
- Various balance tweaks.
Notable Bug Fixes/Tweaks:
- The AI navigation system has been upgraded, removing various oddities and bugs like citizens walking around the map.
- Frame-rates have been improved greatly.
- Fixed: A rare bug that could cause saving to freeze.
- Fixed: Prison and Punishment Center was draining nearby morale far too quickly.
- Fixed: A bug where the pause button didn’t behave correctly after pressing Escape to open and close the menu.
- Fixed: The “would you like to save” message getting stuck on the screen if you were building at the time it popped up.
- Fixed: Certain the hidden skeletons having incorrect text.
Update: Beta Patch Notes
Here's some of the things we fixed during the on-going beta. Thanks to all the players who took time to send us a bug report.
- Fixed: A rare pathfinding issue that could cause citizens to stop moving for a while.
- Fixed: A typo with the extended goals. The text now correctly shows 60% for the needs goal.
- Fixed: Stats screen was not adding citizens who had come to the town because you encouraged a certain law.
- Fixed: Certain status effects on citizens were not lasting as long as they should.
- Fixed: An issue with the news feed where it played the "migrants with encouraged issues" more than it should if you encouraged multiple issues.
- Tweaked: Certain social issues are now make less impact on the birth rate. This will however increase the odds of people having abortions (more pregnant people = higher possible abortion rate)
- Tweaked: The camera can be zoomed out further on the Summit map.
- Tweaked: Reduced the chance for migrants with encouraged issues to occur, as it was happening a lot at maximum migration speed.
- Tweaked: Increased the chance people will give birth in big, established towns.
Welcome to the Post-Post Apocalypse?
On top of all the many big updates we've made before this, we hope it all adds up to make a satisfying little indie game for you.
Please do let us know in the forum if you find a bug or use the “contact us” button on the title screen to tell us directly.
Happy building and thanks again for supporting Atomic Society!