Soulash 2 v0.7.0 "Adventuring Parties"

Greetings fellow gods,

The time has come for our second milestone update v0.7 "Adventuring Parties" introducing party mechanics, hireable and constructible companions, and Leadership, a new skill to support it. Here are some details.

Leadership

Leadership is a skill focused mainly on passive bonuses to all party members. It offers 3 companion slots that we can use to hire new members to travel with us and amplifiers that allow us not to hurt our allies with AoE skills or replicate self-targeted buffs.

Construction Enhancement

You can say goodbye to the golem in a box, as a new dwarven technology has been invented. We'll build the golem permanently and craft custom items for 4 unique slots this time. The Construction skill provides one companion slot alongside the Golem at level 40, and together with the Leadership skills, it allows you to realize your dream of being an artificer protected by beefy adamantine constructs.

Party System

With these additions, it's now possible to hire any military unit from any town, except for generals, as long as the player character has access to an empty companion slot. The price may vary depending on stats, skills, and equipped items. The companions require only a single payment, with no additional upkeep of gold or food.

The companions will follow you anywhere and attack your enemies on their own, but you can also order them to do any activity by selecting their portrait on the left side of the screen.

They will also automatically help you build if they can access the required tools and serve as mules, as you can freely access their equipment and backpack by dropping items on party member portraits. While stashing and trading, you will see all companion backpack items for easy access.

Changelog

Here's the changelog for this update:

Added

- New skill: Leadership.
- Added the Party section to the Equipment screen that shows up when the player acquires a companion slot from any skill. 
- Selecting a party member on the Equipment screen allows ordering them to change their equipment and see their statistics.
- Added an option to drag & drop items to and from companions.
- Added a list of companions under player portrait on the game screen. Selecting the companion allows giving orders the same way the player performs actions.
- Added a button that randomizes the player character's name during the character creation.
- Party members who have the necessary tools can help build structures.
- Added 22 new recipes to Construction skill related to Golem parts.

Changed

- The golem recipe has been reworked to be buildable instead of craftable and is now a full companion with custom item slots.
- Golem and Elemental Core are now level 40 construction recipes. There are new recipes for golem items in Construction skill above level 40.
- On the Trading Screen and Stash Screen, the items belonging to the player are shared with the party members, allowing direct sales or stashing from the companion's backpack.
- Changed experience gained from crafting, upgrading, and building to equal 1 per resource used. The exception to that is Agriculture, which adds 2 experience points.
- The green portrait border is now reserved only for the player party members.
- Improved Ostrich Feather bonuses.
- Mycelium Pins added to Agriculture skill.
- Dwarves invented fence doors and integrated them into Sheep Ranches.
- Stash now requires 2 basic wood units to construct.
- Changed the Book item type to Note instead of Usable, since it has no use.
- Increased the chance to spawn new special locations once they drop below a certain global number.

Fixed

- Fixed an issue that would prevent selecting some items on character creation.
- Wooden Fence Doors no longer block the view.
- Item component has been removed from Peat Moss.
- Fixed some tents having walls instead of floors.
- Replaced furnace with the oven in an abandoned farm.
- Fixed some kavian villages not having kavians.
- Fixed flickering effect on item pickup and action selection.
- Swamp Guardian corpse now provides the Swamp Guardian Eye when scavenged.
- Great Larva Slime is correctly categorized as a magic ingredient.
- Fixed an issue that caused many settlement NPCs to have too low move speed.

Modding

- Added an option for passives to apply only to party members.
- New passive effects: Companion, Party Move Speed (details in doc).

I hope you'll enjoy the new mechanics and systems. We're back on weekly updates now, I'll focus on the backlog of bugs reported on Discord and some UX improvements, with the next content target being the Hunting skill. If you missed Roadmap to v1.0, the next major update is planned in 3 months and will focus on filling our settlements with NPCs. Remember to join our community on Discord, where you'll find plenty of great players to discuss the game with!

Have fun,

Artur