Timberborn is yet another example of just how brilliant the city-building genre is right now. Mechanistry’s beaver-themed management sim lets you construct a water-powered metropolis for the world’s most engineeringly-minded rodent, constructing dams and aqueducts, powering your city with waterwheels. All that, and it’s still in early access, with subsequent updates adding mechanised beavers and disgusting polluted water.
Now, a whole new update has arrived, and it folds in some pretty dramatic features to the city builder. Update 7—Ziplines and Tubeways adds two whole new ways to move your beavers around your city, as well as making fundamental changes to how cities can be constructed, as well as a few other goodies.
Let’s address those new modes of conveyance first. The ziplines and tubeways are divided between the two beaver factions Timberborn lets you play as—the nature-loving Folktails and the industrially-focused Iron Teeth. The Folktails get access to ziplines, which function similarly to regular pathways, but move beavers 2.5 times faster than walking and are obviously elevated, letting them pass over structures. Ziplines begin at a zipline station, and are connected to tall zipline pylons, or smaller zipline beams designed for navigation through more densely built-up areas.
Naturally, this means that the tubeways are reserved for the Iron Teeth. According to Mechanistry’s Steam post about the update, tubeways require “a little more careful setup than ziplines”, presumably because they can’t pass over buildings in the same way (though it seems they can pass underground for short sections). Once built, however, tubeways will move beavers at four times normal speed. Tubeways likewise have their own stations, and are built from horizontal and vertical tubes.
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Alongside these new modes of transport, update 7 brings an overhaul to terrain, to make it truly 3D. “While the in-game terrain has always been made of little 3D cubes, you could only place them one atop another,” Mechanistry explains. “With update 7, terrain blocks go on all Solid surfaces—roofs, platforms, and overhangs.” This means you can do things like grow crops on top of buildings like lodges and warehouses, and construct buildings beneath overhangs and even inside caves.
This new terrain system also brings several subsidiary features. Beavers can now build tunnels directly through terrain, so you no longer have to construct meandering pathways around or over mountains. In addition, Mechanistry has expanded the functionality of its layer tool, enabling you to scroll through terrain slices in sequence to peek inside caves, tunnels and so forth.
Other improvements include “adaptive” power shafts that make it easier to rejig power grids, revised game maps designed to facilitate the 3D terrain and new transport buildings, and a substantial list of balance and bug fixes. I’m only going to highlight one of these here, but it’s a doozy: “Fixed units breakdancing when traversing and rotating multiple sets of stairs”. Bug or not, I cannot fathom why you would remove breakdancing beavers from your game. I’m starting a petition. Mechanistry, let those beavers throw down!
All told, it’s another impressive update for Mechanistry’s beaver building sim. There’s no word on what Update 7 represents in terms of pushing Timberborn toward completion. But if Mechanistry keep adding updates of this scope and quality, it can keep Timberborn in early access as long as it darn well pleases.
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