Roadmap September 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to a new roadmap post. I am now back from my honeymoon, which was great, and I'm ready to continue work on some of the coolest mods yet!

We have recently released Vanilla Factions Expanded - Insectoids 2, which was one of the coolest redesigns we've done so far, and I think it was very well received. The mod is simplified, but also offers something many of you have asked: buildable hives that you can manage and control.

Because the mod was so popular, I have decided that it needs one more major content update before we move onto other mods. This content update will include some much needed QoL features, such as an automatic casting of insectoid abilities, the insect burrow siege making a return with a new insectoid mini-boss, three new insectoid types, a few new structures and floors and a new insectoid turret. It will also feature a brand new storyteller with an exciting wave survival mode...

We're also currently testing two new mods that add depth to pawns: One of them introduces sanity as a new need if you interact with Anomaly DLC, while the other, created by Sarg, adds a food variety need, with favourite food types for your pawns. Yes, eating nothing but rice will make them sad.

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Medieval 2 is now entering development. It's not as big of an overhaul as Insectoids 2 was, but it adds some exciting new content and fleshes out the medieval stage of the game.

We're currently designing Vanilla Vehicles Expanded - Imperial, as I want to get it out of the way asap to focus on Warwalkers. I will need a lot of bandwidth for that, bandwidth I currently don't have.

Vanilla Exploration Expanded is also undergoing some design work right now. Since we will rely on our testers for creation of prefabs, I need to write detailed instructions and technical parameters for how the prefabs should look.

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Megacorps is of course still being worked on. It's a big mod, with lots and lots of exciting end-game systems. In fact, it's bigger than any RimWorld DLC when it comes to the amount of systems and content it adds. It wakes me up at night just thinking about it.

Vanilla Health Expanded has entered design stage some time ago and we're drafting up different illnesses and stuff for all of you to suffer, but also ways to add depth to the entire health system. I think it will be pretty exciting.

As you can see, I've changed the format of the roadmap. The previous format caused me quite a lot of issues, especially on the good ol' mental front. It created expectations, and nobody wants expectations when doing their hobby. The lines leading from mods to mods meant that I felt guilt whenever a new idea popped into my head - I was unable to work on it, because people would always say 'hurr durr but the lines say you should do XYZ before'. Well, tough shit, sometimes I just lose interest in the project only to come back to it way later. Such is the beauty of design - it's chaos.

This new roadmap should also be more informative - you can now see the individual stages of mod design well, and you can see which mods are actively being worked on, and which mods are just plans. Sure, you may be disappointed that your favourite mod is still just 'a plan' and not 'a design document', but the harsh truth is: I'm overworked. I work 12 hour days every day with no days off, and I manage a team of many extremely talented people, while writing hundreds of words a day in many design docs, while also doing art for the mods, managing testing, creating infographics, responding to comments, releasing mods, collating bug reports etc. Because of that, I think I have the right to work on what I currently want to work on - it worked well for me so far, as you can see with Insectoids 2!

I hope this new roadmap brings a bit more clarity into the state of many of our projects in development. The longest stage is always the Design stage - as it involved creating the entire mod on paper. Such a design document then gets passed to programmers so that they can implement it. Rest assured - when the mod clears the design stage, chances of it being cut/scrapped/cancelled are almost 0. After all, 80% of work has already been done!