Roadmap November 2023

Hello everyone and welcome to another roadmap update. I will briefly explain how things are going and what changes there are compared to the last roadmap update!

We have recently released Vanilla Races Expanded - Archons, a mod adding a new, enigmatic race of Archons, former humans that were left on transcendent world and learned to adapt and utilise archotechnology to their advantage. This is actually quite an important release, as parts of it inspire a brand new addition to our roadmap, on which I will talk about below.

Vanilla Factions Expanded - Tribals is undergoing final testing and I have already started preparing infographics for it. It will be releasing in the next weeks and will be a perfect mod for you early game enjoyers.

Work is ongoing on Vanilla Races Expanded - Lycanthropes - I will soon be covering them in some devblogs, letting you know what genes they will have and how they will behave. We're also developing Vanilla Furniture Expanded - Recycling module, which will allow you to turn those terrible wastepacks into actually useful resources through a variety of different processes.

We are still finalizing the update to Vanilla Vehicles Expanded which will introduce two new Tier 1 vehicles - a Scytheman mobile rocket artillery, and the Toad siege drop pod.

Vanilla Vehicles Expanded - Old War is awaiting its turn for me to finalize the art assets and actually write down how the vehicles will work. The mod will add 6 new Tier 4 vehicles that you will be able to find and restore to working order. All vehicles are inspired by WW1 and WW2 vehicles.

After that is done, it will be Christmas, and I will be taking a Christmas time off. Things get a little complicated in Q1 2024, as I will be in the process of moving internationally in January. This means my time working on mods will be limited, but that doesn't mean that the team will be sitting there doing nothing. Programming work will be ongoing on anything that I manage to make art assets for.

Next year we will have plenty of big, new releases, led by Vanilla Factions Expanded - Megacorp, potentially one of our biggest faction mods yet. In fact, who am I kidding, definitely the biggest. It provides so much content and the content is so varied that honestly, from design stand point, I don't even know where to begin. Fortunately, I already began and 1/3rd of the mod is already designed.

Not quite sure when in 2024, but at some point we will release Vanilla Archotech Expanded. A lot of you have been pretty enthusiastic about this mod, and it's quite tricky to design it, because we still want to maintain the element of mystery of the Archotech. I can however give you a quite lengthy glimpse of what is to come:

• Archotech ruins - players will venture into the world to explore various archotech installations similar to the archonexus. From mysterious pylons and towers, to derelict hyperstructures with walls of archolite, these new sites will provide an engaging way of obtaining new archotech artifacts and gaining archotech knowledge.
  • These ruins generate with random threats, so that each ruin may make the player face a different issue that will need solving to properly interact with said ruin.
  • These threats include new weather phenomena, powerful psychic drones, manhunting animals, raider camps and also automated archotech defense systems, in which nearly indestructible, psychically-animated constructs will try to stop the player.
  • Exploring the ruins will provide players with not only new archotech artifacts, but also access to inert archolite and archotech knowledge points, which will be required for various interactions with the archotech.
  • Exploring said ruins and taking advantage of them may increase the chances of archotech incursion, also known as transcendence.
• Archotech construct enemies - powerful constructs reanimated using psychic influence, these various, randomly generated machines are as enigmatic as they are difficult to face. Each has random, unique look and unique effects, so that the player never knows how to fight them. From constructs that multiply when destroyed, or constructs that generate impenetrable shields around themselves, to slow moving behemoths that vaporize everything in front of them, each archotech construct will prove to be a boss fight in itself.
• Archotech thralls - enthralled people often accompany such constructs. With their brains completely wiped, such thralls come from all walks of life - impid hunters that ventured too deep in some ruins, spacer hussars who were sent to their doom or even sanguophages that willingly gave themselves to the archotech. These thralls are the frontline infantry of any construct raids.
• Archotech personae - an extremely powerful, undying entity that rarely manifests - either on colony map or in archotech ruin location. It cannot be targetted, as it doesn’t quite exist in our dimension. It cannot be stopped or killed - it can only be avoided. It doesn’t have a physical form - it looks more like a glowing silhouette. As it slowly wanders through the land, anything around it changes - soil becomes hard archolite, rocks turn to archolite shards, any human constructions crumble to dust. Wherever it walks, the local area in radius essentially changes into transcendent biome. Anyone looking at the Archotech personae immediately goes insane, and anyone who wanders in too close disintegrates.
• New archotech artifacts - a large number of new artifacts make the ruins exploration even more exciting. These artifacts include, but are not limited to:
  • Psychic Harmony emitter - a standing device that fills everyone around with a sense of bliss. They will become less productive, but no mental breaks will happen.
  • Cognitive amplifier - a standing device that increases everyone’s intellectual capabilities, meditation psyfocus gain and work speed at the cost of rapidly generating exhaustion.
  • Psychic duplicator - a powerful artifact capable of duplicating an object of any kind, provided that object is not of archotech tech level. In case of stacks, it will duplicate an entire stack.
  • Temporal distortion emitter - a standing device that generates a field of accelerated time. Anything inside the radius happens much, much faster. Leaving the radius of temporal distortion emitter will have the people enter a time desynchronization state, in which everything will be done much, much slower.
  • Psychic bond forger - an artifact capable of creating a psychic bond between the user and another individual.
  • Knowledge inducer - an artifact that when used, immediately finishes a research project.
  • Psychic evaporation lance - a powerful belt-equipped artifact that violently evaporates anything it targets.
  • Echo splitter - a powerful artifact capable of duplicating a human being. The downside is that if any of the two individuals die, both of them die.
• Archolite - a brand new resource which represents the indestructible archotech metal. It exists in two stages - inert and awakened. Inert archolite can be worked with and does not have the indestructible properties of the awakened variant. It’s dull green in hue and is only slightly harder than plasteel. A method will exist to awaken archolite, which will turn it into a gleaming yellow color and will make it completely indestructible. Awakened archolite can no longer be tampered with or changed. Anything built will become permanent.
• Vanometric power expansion - use archotech knowledge to learn a way to wirelessly transmit power, and a way to generate power out of thin air. The output is not stable and the energy you get varies, but noone quite knows what influences it.
• Archotech weapons - utilise archotech knowledge to craft powerful psychic weapons of mass destruction, so that no human enemy can ever dare to attack you.
• Archotech defense systems - spend archotech knowledge to get access to powerful new defensive solutions, including vaporizer fields, eraser charges and even the powerful archotech obelisk.
• Archotech skipgates - find ancient archotech skipgates in ruins and see if you can find a way to activate them. Each archotech skipgate can have a random effect - some may transport you to a distant place, while others may transport something else to you - for example new creatures from other dimensions.
• Reality shifting - via special archotech nodes, players are able to alter the reality itself. While it leaves a huge mark on the time and space continuum, players may choose to change some stats of some individual item, similar to how Oskar Obnoxious changes things at random. For example, player may be able to increase the damage output of assault rifles, or make wood much more valuable.
• Archotech transcendence - players have to be extremely careful not to make too big of a mark when interacting with archotechnology. Every single use of archotech devices, every single expedition to archotech ruins and in fact, any sort of interaction with the archotech may advance the invisible to the player Transcendence meter. Once the meter is full, an Archotech will turn its eyes on the rimworld, and initiate an event called Transcendence.
  • Players receive cryptic warnings as they draw nearer to full Transcendence, hinting at the consequences without revealing specifics.
  • Players can't stop Transcendence; they can only delay it and prepare for it. Preparations could involve building defenses, researching psychic insulation, or seeking alliances with powerful factions. Whilst utilising archotechnology in the base yields to a powerful advantage during the normal game, once transcendence occurs, all that technology turns against the player.
  • As the meter fills, strange phenomena occur more frequently, like unexplained crop failures, animal migrations, psychic droning, or unseasonal weather patterns.
  • When Transcendence is initiated, an Archotech entity begins to manifest on the planet, altering the terrain and wildlife. Initially appearing as randomly scattered ‘transcendence’ biomes on the world map, these points will begin to spread rapidly. Over time, the entire world becomes a collection of various types of transcendent biomes.
  • During transcendence, archotechnology of any kind turns against the player, regardless of whether the player colony is in transcendent biome or not. Not all technology turns against the player at the same time - the process is somewhat gradual. Following are examples of what happens to archotechnology:
    • Archotech artifacts detonate on the map and in equipment of colonists, causing whatever effects they had to immediately trigger. Psychic shock lances will shock whoever was carrying them, psychic animal pulsers immediately turn all local animals against the player, archotech erasers trigger, erasing everything in the area where they were stored.
    • Psylinks fry the brains of psycasters, causing permanent damage and disabling psycasting permanently.
    • Archolite walls and furniture melts into puddles of extremely toxic new archosludge, which will deconstruct everything in small radius.
    • Archotech structures will go haywire, and operate in a new way, harmful to the player.
  • During transcendence, a new phenomena may occur called Dimensional instability. The fabric of reality starts to fray, with parts of the map blinking out of existence or transforming into something other.
  • Transcendence harms everyone on the planet, and as such people may seek refuge. Large groups of refugees will force themselves onto player colony, and it will be up to the player to decide whether to let them stay or to kill them all.
  • During Transcendence, massive Archotech structures emerge on the local map, altering the landscape and possibly providing both new resources and dangers.
  • When Transcendence is fully achieved, the Archotech's presence is fully realized. The map is significantly altered, with new Archotech-inspired graphics and sounds to enhance the alien atmosphere. The entire planet becomes one massive collection of various archotech biomes. Food can no longer be grown. Temperature is no longer hospitable. Faction bases slowly disappear as more refugees arrive at the player base. Eventually, player is the only faction remaining, as the world slowly turns inhospitable. Building a ship to escape the planet is advised.
• New Archotech biomes - During transcendence, the world changes and new archotech biomes appear. These biomes vary slightly, but they are all inhospitable as they were not designed for humans. From Archotech heat emanator biomes that burn so hot that the air is hard to breathe, to archotech construct biomes with indestructible gleaming structures aligned in perfect grids, making building very hard, these new biomes offer challenge if the player chooses to carry on living through the Transcendence and beyond.

I hope you are just as excited about the future as I am. I will see you soon with some more development blogs - and if you are unsure whether to support us or not: there has never been a better time!