We’re just a few days away from the Materials Update, Adaptory’s exciting first major update! Today I’ll be sharing a little preview of what’s coming.

Difficulty levels

The most common feedback I’ve received since EA was that the game was either too easy. OR it was too hard. (Which probably means launch balance was perfect!? 😂)

You can now choose your level of Adaptory challenge

In the Materials Update, we’ve added difficulty levels to give you more control over how you want to play Adaptory, with four options:

  • Relaxed: This difficulty level makes the game much less stressful, as explorers can no longer die. Random events are less frequent, and more likely to be positive; oxygen generation is easier; and the world is generated with many more resources. This is a great place to start if you’ve never played a game like Adaptory before.

  • Balanced: Previously the default difficulty level, this is the way Adaptory is meant to be played – the game is balanced, fun, and challenging. Explorers can die, but they can be revived in cryochambers. This is a good place to start if you have previous experience with base-building games or other colony sims.

  • Difficult: At this difficulty level, everything is more challenging. Resources are rarer, and random events occur more frequently and are more likely to be negative. If you found Adaptory too easy in a previous playthrough, this mode should be… a lot more interesting.

  • Hardcore: Explorers death is permament, resources and data chips are scarce, and random events never seem to stop. You’ll need to have complete mastery of the game to get through this difficulty, and I’m not confident it can be finished… not recommended 😅

At the moment, difficulty level is locked in at the start of the game (because it affects world generation and building properties).

No longer just dirt

Cryochambers are now constructed out of a combination of rock, iron, and glass

Buildings are now made out of different materials – and in some cases, more than one. When you start the game, everything will still be buildable with a single element (most likely you’ve crash-landed on granite) but as you unlock the research tree, more complex buildings will become available to you.

Most buildings can be made with any “type” of material; for example, tiles and ladders can be made with any “rock” type, which includes granite, graphite, basalt, and a new element: marble. Some buildings can also be tinted with their primary element, and the range of tintable buildings will increase in each update, so you can have more control over how your base looks!

Tiles, ladders, and background panels buildings are now tintable (left to right: marble, granite, basalt, graphite)

We’ve also added the new iron element to the game, an abundant metallic resource usable in powered buildings – so you’ll always want to have a supply on-hand. Iron will only be generated in new worlds, so I’d recommend starting a new save. That said, existing save games will automatically migrate any existing buildings, and iron is a valid element dropped by meteors and meteor showers…

Refining and storage

Some of the new resources buildings in the Materials Update

To round out the materials part of this update, we’ve also added five new buildings to help you with storage, processing, and refinement:

  • Gas tanks, which hold up to 250 kg of any gas for later use;
  • Liquid tanks, which hold up to 5000 kg of any liquid;
  • Gas refineries and liquid refineries, which allow your explorers to process resources into new materials. Refining is a background process that doesn’t require an explorer to manage; and
  • Glass furnaces, allowing your explorers to create the new building material glass by combining sand with salt.

Tanks can be manually closed by an explorer, or controlled with automation, or – if you unlock the new sensors research node – send signals directly to the circuit network, based on their contents.

This update also introduces recipes, which are unlocked through the research tree as well. Buildings and explorers now more clearly show what recipe is going on, and the refineries allow you to select which recipe to run. Recipe functionality will be used extensively in a future update 😉

Buildings and explorers now clearly show what recipe is happening

And more

There’s more to preview than can fit in a single blog post, so make sure to come back in a few days’ time for the second part of the preview, where I’ll cover some of the quality of life updates, and also (spoiler alert) reveal a slight tweak to the distress beacon…

I’m really excited to get this major update out into the wild, I’m having a lot of fun playtesting it, trying in vain to keep everyone in my hardcore world alive, and I can’t wait to share it with you. :D