Manor Lords — Major Update #7: Technical overhauls release notes

Hi everyone,

Thank you for the support and the kind words after the last post, means a lot to us!

The beta is now ready to be moved to the main branch.

Next stop: More content.

Here's a summary of all the combined changes from all the previous beta versions:

Steam Reviews: Your Feedback Matters

We'd really appreciate it if you could take a moment to leave a Steam review. As we're working hard on the next update, fixing bugs, and adding new features, we'd love to hear what you think about Manor Lords. Your feedback, opinions, and support all help us know what to focus on, improve, and add to Manor Lords. Even if it's a few sentences about how you feel about the latest update, it'd be a great help to the team and me.

Patch Notes — Version 0.8.065–0.8.090 (Main)

Major Changes

Major updates to the pathfinding system to reduce time spent waiting for a path.
Added a proper “island” system that quickly rejects paths between different enclosed zones (Manor Castles, riversides with no bridge connection and so on).
Further refactored character locomotion and collision to use proper substeps in order to reduce differences between different game speeds.
Refactored Squad move commands: When moving multiple Squads by short RMB release, it defaults to forming a wide line when commanded in an open field, a 3 column line when commanded on a road and a scattered formation if commanded over a building area. To use the previous behavior (keeping relative Squad offsets), the player has to hold the ALT key when giving commands.
Refactored the group pathfinding algorithm.
Overhauled the Game Setup screen’s aesthetic.
Added Gamepad controls.

Minor Changes

General

Made it possible to select buildings that have ended up inside the Manor area. (temporary change until town walls are ready - it's still not intended to place normal town buildings inside the castle area and castles are still intended to get more of their own modules later in development).
When fighting on roads, Squads try to align their combat formation to their shape.
Straight army paths are now saved and will be restored when loading. Multi-waypoint paths (Ctrl+RMB+drag) are currently not supported.
Sightings of neutral Squads happen less frequently and their messages are grouped together.
Neutral Squads no longer stop or slow down game speed.
Disabled the “always show region border under cursor location” functionality since it obstructed the view of the combat sometimes.
Church Lv1 & Lv2 boundary has been increased to make space for future levels.
Increased Quarry bounds to fix ground clipping issues when multiple are placed next to each other.
Changed menu buttons to act as “not clicked” if released while the cursor was outside button borders.
Wild Animal resource nodes will try to move to a forest edge position if no suitable forest position exists.

Collision & Pathfinding

Small improvements on collision avoidance around carts so that characters bump into them less often.
Further improved collision avoidance, especially when someone is performing an action and blocking the way, or walking in front while diseased.
For characters that are large and it’s hard for them to turn in place, we added a minor preference to follow path points that don’t require extreme turning early on.

Balance

General

Ale is no longer consumed by Lv1 Families.
Ale crafting output reduced from 2 to 1.
Threshing Priority default is now Low when constructing a Farmhouse.
Threshing Priority at Medium now uses 25% workforce, rather than 50%.
Raiders will attempt to fill up their inventory when looting, but will leave if 50% of the settlement’s loot has already been taken or 40% of the settlement has been torched.
Reduced the startle distance for Wild Animals.
Hunters and Hunting Hounds are less likely to startle Wild Animals.
Changed Pasture Space to be based on area instead of border length.

Tasks & Behaviour

Families become homeless only when their home burns down instead of when it catches fire.
Unemployed husbands can help fetch fuel or water.
Employed sons skip fetching fuel or water if there is an available woman in the same household.
Trading Post Families husbands can stock the Trading Post if no one else can.
Added Granary, Storehouse, Trading Post, Homeless Tents, and Bridges to locations to avoid doing idle tasks around.
Added a simple queue system for when multiple workers try to access the same exact task spot, for example when dropping resources.
Workers will return handcarts to the cart shed when available and when there’s no urgent other task (eg. rallying).
Workers harvesting vegetables at home will now walk back to their shed to drop off the produce.
Idle foragers may wait inside the Forager’s Hut during Spring and Summer instead of going home.
Tuned construction worker behavior to focus more on the building parts that are currently progressing.
Ungarrisoning is now forced when demolishing to prevent “asking person inside to leave”.
Increased garrisoning speed into the Deep Mine.

Cosmetics

Dirt cliff adjustments on Devil’s Hill Map.
Environmental touch ups on various maps.
Tuned the fog on High Peaks to fix overly brightly lit background mountains.
Replaced the placeholder wallpaper in the main menu with a higher res texture asset.
Added diversity to food assets in market stalls.
Reworked models for food resources being transported.
Switched cart loading animation to use the same good visualization that is later used on the carts.
Added handcart good transform overrides so that we can fine tune the goods position in the carts and avoid clipping in the future. Experimentally added a small rocking effect when placing down items into carts, too.
Items from the Construction category, as well as Leather, Hides, Shoes, Charcoal, and Clothes have had locations adjusted so they sit more naturally in a handcart.
Added clay tile basket carried visualization. \
Added a new “passing through” locomotion animation variation to handcart carriers.
Fences now appear as intended for bigger Lv4 Burgage Plots.
Refined edges between the buildings and the ground in a few spots.
Adjusted Stone Gatehouse and Tower entrances to better fit the platforms.
Lv2 Church Upgrade now displays scaffolding and ladders during the build process.
Added more construction resources assets to Burgage Plots and Church.

UI & Text

Styling & Quality of Life

Load screen styling adjusted to match the revised Game Setup screen.
Updated Building Panel opening animation.
Transition of the Building Panel categories are smoother.
Ale consumption is now displayed in the Family Consumption UI in the People Tab.
Added info about permanently assigned animals to building floaters (TAB key).
Styling adjustments to Squad Tooltip to prevent stat text-cut off and improve consistency.
Improved tooltip when the player does not have enough resources during Burgage Plot placement.
Trade Category icons updated to be consistent with Resource Bar UI.
Squad icons move more smoothly when distant character movement is optimized.
Opening castle planner closes pinned building tabs, this prevents some potential bugs with demolishing manor.
Popups for “Hunger” etc. will not appear while the player is holding LMB, to avoid interfering with some game mechanics.

Text

Localization updated.
Added missing strings for squad stances that may be prevented (can’t run because using Shieldwall etc.).
Added new tooltips to Threshing Priority levels.
Collapse chance tooltip updated to reflect daily chance and give more accurate info.
Added logistics tutorial and shortened some early tutorials to prevent overbearing info.
Reduced text for Market Supply Capacity and improved visibility on when it appears.

Bugfixes

General

Fixed reentering into the Main Menu not spawning already enabled AI Lords.
Fixed coat textures being broken after reentering the Main Menu.
Fixed random starting season not working correctly on returning to the Main Menu and selecting a new game again.
Fixed map edges not counting as any region when detecting region swaps.
Fixed cross regional roads exclusively reading the starting regions obstacle data, ignoring obstacles in the connected regions.
Fixed the ability to place a building in an adjacent region and skip construction requirements by holding the right mouse button.
Fixed being able to place buildings with flexible borders on top of Wild Animal resource nodes without triggering migration.
Fixed ALT+LMB not removing buildings in castle planner.
Fixed game freezing during Cinematic Mode (Ctrl+C) after blocking popup appears.
Fixed game freezing when popup appears while rotating building.
Fixed issue with duplicated animation actions upon pause/resume leading to various issues.
Fixed possibility of “Hunger” appearing while there is some food left due to transport tasks reserving food.
Fixed Families not moving into a Burgage Plot if its construction process was paused right before completion.
Fixed Homeless Tents not being removed if the last accommodated family died or migrated.
Fixed fruit trees not being planted when the sown vegetable garden was replaced by an orchard.
Fixed ox not abandoning their plowing task if the field switches to Fallow.
Fixed pasture road snap points leading inward, depending on creation direction (clockwise vs counter clockwise).
Fixed wrong logic of unmaintained building collapsing, that could potentially lead to collapsed building being in invalid state, without possibility to be rebuilt.
Fixed broken task processing in AI lord regions captured by the player, leading to bugs such as demolished buildings occupying space - disallowing placing other buildings in their position.
Fixed animals killed by arrows emitting human death sounds.
Fixed animals and civilians counting towards “Enemies killed”/”Soldiers Lost” for achievements.
Fixed animals dying affecting "Lost Villagers" for achievements.
Fixed workers not aborting their “pet” tasks when the animal stopped being idle.
Fixed targeting animals to pet that aren't from the same region, are a mount, or are moving.
Fixed characters sometimes not triggering actions after reaching their destination.
Various character collision fixes.
Fix peace option from second tab in letter creator not removing current claim while declaring peace.
Fixed characters sometimes not waiting until another character finishes action, for example at the well, and trying to force their way through.

Production

Fixed destroyed or unoccupied Burgage Plots still producing eggs and similar passive products.
Fixed buildings with more than one upgrade not being properly refunded when demolished.
Fixed Hunting Camp not reporting "storage full" for its generic storage.
Fixed Hunting Camp not processing the last carcass when storage is full.
Fixed faulty logic for Hunters that prevented the placement of animal traps.
Fixed warning for no resources to harvest not disappearing when Berries/Mushrooms regrow.
Fixed foragers going to get a basket even when there were no resources to harvest.
Fixed Stone Gatherer Camp not logging its yield in the production tracker.
Fixed Stone Gatherer Camp completely ignoring storage capacity.
Fixed workers from Stone Gatherer Camp unequipping baskets upon starting to gather Rubble.
Fixed production buildings not adjusting their initial reserve based on if a deposit is Rich.
Fixed wrong amounts of food being added to the production log when taking food from a unit carrying food.
Fixed Collapse Chance due to proximity of mines for Mining Pit and Deep Mine not triggering unless they were missing Maintenance resources.
Fixed Livestock Trader abandoning the animal they are importing if reassigned to another job.
Fixed Sheep Herders leaving their home region to herd sheep that are being imported.
Fixed sheep being targeted for shearing while being transported.
Fixed sheep shearing being possible in Winter.
Fixed workers fighting for the same crafting spot, e.g. in the Clay Furnace.
Fixed Artisan Tailors not respecting production limits on Clothes.
Fixed workers sometimes visiting a distant Church rather than the one closest to them.

Logistics

Fixed incorrect calculation of how many more goods can be transported to a Granary or Storehouse.
Fixed Granary and Storehouse workers not picking up unwanted goods from market stalls.
Fixed Granary and Storehouse workers not prioritizing supply dumps enough.
Fixed workers with handcarts walking slower on roads.
Fixed Trading Post not respecting reservation and surplus limits.
Fixed several instances of incorrect trading decisions when no target inventory has been set.
Fixed some imported and exported goods not being taken into account when calculating available surplus.
Fixed Trade Route Merchants only buying from a region once.
Fixed wrong retinue armor price if plate armor is added to ignored goods in Trading Post.
Fixed workers abandoning import livestock tasks when being reassigned to another building.

Military

Fixed raiders being able to loot Timber logs.
Fixed raiders not picking a random good in inventory to loot.
Fixed raiders going after enemies outside the target region.
Fixed raiders forgetting they were going home and starting to raid again.
Fixed nearby squads outside the battlefield registering as part of the battle even while moving away.
Fixed battles not ending when the last enemy unit left the battlefield.
Fixed squads not tactically retreating when breaking off engagement if the enemy squad wasn’t previously targeted.
Fixed AI squads sometimes “dancing around in place” during their attack instead of charging forward.
Fixed formations sometimes reversing direction when sent to road locations.
Fixed soldiers sometimes still ignoring building collision when moving in formation.
Fixed polling of fighting skill availability (such as shieldwall in forest).
Fixed squads recovering fully from fatigue when disbanding and rallying in quick succession.
Fixed inability to place rally points on roads.
Fixed villagers coming out of hiding during attacks to guide animals.
Fixed presence of troops (such as retinues) preventing game over if every citizen dies.

Pathfinding

Fixed collision logic sometimes treats streams as impassable obstacles.
Fixed mismatch between pathfinding and collision logic that could cause workers to get stuck.
Fixed collision logic not being able to handle a worker being stuck against an impassable obstacle like a bridge or cliff.
Added an emergency push out if a character ends up inside an impassable obstacle, for instance after a castle wall section finishes construction.
Fixed one more instance of characters being able to force their way through building collision.
Fixed characters sometimes walking through walls after a failed task.
Fixed characters not being able to connect to pathfinding even though they may stand right on top of a path point, due to the path point not having enough free space around it.
Fixed one instance of an obstacle being missed by pathfinding.
Fixed pathfinding links not always regenerating after demolishing a building, including when the Castle/Manor gets reconstructed.
Fixed a problematic area on the Jagged Cliffs that caused pathfinding to fail sometimes.
Fixed traders getting stuck on the Devil’s Hill map due to generated paths hitting the safety limits too early.
Adjusted Lime Kiln layout to fix pathfinding issues.
Fixed Manor Castle platform path points spawning on the wrong floor.
Fixed Manor Castle not marking its obstacles as “impassable”.
Fixed collision model for Manor LV1 Gatehouse.
Fixed missing pathfinding links in the Stone Manor module, leading to workers getting stuck during construction resource transport.
Fixed builders getting stuck in walls during Stone Wall construction.
Fixed the castle construction being stuck if a module gets placed in the exact spot where the ox is expected to drop a log.
Fixed workers stuck trying to exit Deep Mines continuing to extract more resources.
Fixed one more case of characters stuck when facing each other perfectly en face.
Fixed Task queue getting clogged on lower framerates, possibly leading to workers getting stuck.
Fixed another instance of handcart workers being stuck.
Fixed Free Merchants making additional stops and aborting going to their original target Trading Post.
Fixed Free Merchants not going home if there is no Trading Post to visit.
Fixed Free Merchants not stopping at Trading Posts along the way.
Fixed traders not being able to dismount, making other workers at the Trading Post stuck.
Fixed startled Wild Animals not returning to their Resource Node.
Fixed bandits constantly getting stuck or failing pathfinding while being at camp.
Fixed raiders moving erratically due to constantly picking a new location outside the map to return to.
Fixed soldiers facing the enemy even when they are extremely far away.
Fixed workers forever stuck drinking at the tavern.
Fixed Gatehouse being opened and closed not relinking pathfinding properly, leading to soldiers getting stuck inside the castle.
Fixed pathfinding sometimes returning an invalid path when selecting a target inside up on the walls while Gatehouse was opening.
Fixed pathfin