Terra Firma 2 news & patch notes

Greetings worldbuilders! The next major update for Terra Firma 2 is now available to test on the beta branch. This update features vastly improved water physics for large flows of water, with the ocean now fully simulated. Test out new features like:

Trigger floods that wash away everything in their path

Raise the sea level and watch the landscape slowly flood

Lower the sea level and watch the oceans drain, uncovering the sea floor

Trigger tsunamis to wreck havoc across the landscape

Lava now melts snow and ice better

Other improvements:

• Minecraft export supports exporting to different versions (1.20.1, 1.20.2, 1.21.1, 26.1+)

• Bugfixes and improvements to the Minecraft export

• General 10-20% performance improvement for main simulation

• Groundwater improvements make low lying flat areas swampy

• Groundwater improvements make plant growth in deserts much more realistic

• Added temperature visual display

• Fixed major bugs with the amount of sediment that is deposited

• Configuration options for whether water will try to avoid flowing off the map edges

• Water properly flows over the top of lava now

• Ice, lava and water render properly on map sides

• Lighting options saved to configuration

• Fixed bug with symmetrical random editing

• Added hotkeys for different camera modes

• Savefiles remember whether the game was paused or running when loading

• Numerous other bugfixes and small improvements

Greetings worldbuilders! The next major update for Terra Firma 2 is now available to test on the beta branch. This update features vastly improved water physics for large flows of water, with the ocean now fully simulated. Test out new features like:

Trigger floods that wash away everything in their path

Raise the sea level and watch the landscape slowly flood

Lower the sea level and watch the oceans drain, uncovering the sea floor

Trigger tsunamis to wreck havoc across the landscape

Lava now melts snow and ice better

Other improvements:

• General 10-20% performance improvement for main simulation

• Groundwater improvements make low lying flat areas swampy

• Groundwater improvements make plant growth in deserts much more realistic

• Added temperature visual display

• Fixed major bugs with the amount of sediment that is deposited

• Configuration options for whether water will try to avoid flowing off the map edges

• Water properly flows over the top of lava now

• Ice, lava and water render properly on map sides

• Lighting options saved to configuration

• Fixed bug with symmetrical random editing

• Added hotkeys for different camera modes

• Savefiles remember whether the game was paused or running when loading

• Numerous other bugfixes and small improvements

Volcanoes

• Volcanoes that erupt over time, building mountains and then ending with the caldera collapsing

• Customise the type of lava to produce mountains with gentle or steep slopes

• Watch volcanic islands rise from the ocean and then erode back into atolls

• Improved lava physics so that it flows to form conical mountains rather than square pyramids

• Improved the texturing so that flowing lava is better displayed

Earthquakes

• Added ability to trigger earthquakes which warp and transform the landscape

• Customise the fault direction, horizontal and vertical slip amounts to simulate different earthquake types 

Other Changes

• Changed dirt and rock erosion to form conical shapes rather than square ones, producing smoother and more organic looking landforms

• Fixed multiple rendering issues on Linux/Proton

• Added Turkish translations

• Improvements to snow rendering 

• Fixed bugs with UI scales other than 100%

• Many other minor bug fixes

The first major update is now available for testing on the beta branch on Steam! This update adds Volcanoes which erupt over time, causing lava flows which continually reshape the landscape.

Explore the landscapes created by different types of lava flows. Slow moving and viscous felsic lava volcanoes form steep mountains, whereas fast moving mafic lava flows form shield volcanoes with gentle slopes.

Watch volcanic islands emerge from the ocean and then slowly erode back in. Experiment with different types of volcanoes to produce different islands and island chains.

The beta will be in testing for a period of time and then released once any bugs have been fixed, new UI assets produced and text translated to languages other than English.

Version 0.1.2.1 of Terra Firma 2 was released today, which fixes the issues that Linux/Proton users were having with the UI not working, mostly notably the main menu buttons being invisible until hovered.

• Changed ice so glaciers don't flow off the map edges and cause excessive erosion
• Added ores to Minecraft world export
• Added caves to Minecraft world export

• Fixed bug with tectonics simulation UI not working properly with UI scales other than 100%
• Fixed tooltips appearing in wrong place with UI scales other than 100%
• Completed French translations
• Changed minecraft export so that the border between snow/rain is accurate

On Monday the 29th of January, 2018 I wrote the very first lines of code for a project I called "land". It was meant to be a simple little project that I could knock out fairly quickly and get some experience actually finishing and releasing a game. How wrong that was- it wasn't quick, or simple, and really "water" would have been a much better name anyhow.

Well, 8 years later we've finally made it! It took 2,746 code commits, around 5,000 hours of work, 65,000+ players of the free version providing valuable testing and feedback, and approximately 89 trillion deer running around infesting your worlds but the day has finally arrived. No longer constrained to play Terra Firma for free, you are now able to play Terra Firma 2 in exchange for your hard earned money.

A sincere thank you to all the people who made this possible, most especially all of you on steam who provided your support. The game literally, actually would not be here without your encouragement and validation of the concept I had for this game.

But that's all history now! Looking forward there is still a ton of features and content I want to add and your support of the game will allow me to do that with 100% of my focus. I've decided to release the game as "Early Access", to convey a committment on my part to keep working on this project. I hope the 4 years I've been doing so in public on steam without taking payment shows how seriously I take the committment should you choose to purchase the game.

Happy worldbuilding!

• Temperature variations, with snowfall, ice and glacial erosion
• Rainfall editing and variations, allowing deserts, rainforests and everything in between
• 16 different biomes with plants and animals based on rainfall and temperature with completely redone visuals
• Different types of rock with different erosion characteristics
• Loading and saving worlds, importing and exporting worlds to various formats, including a minecraft exporter
• A campaign mode featuring 40+ worldbuilding challenges
• First person and flying camera modes
• Improved water simulation producing more coherent rivers and floodplains