Alright, here is a short list of most major upcoming changes that are NOT DLC-specific for those who don't want to read long patch notes, with some explanations and opinions.
Obviously, some things here may change since it's only a beta.
- Dupes now get incapacitated when they run out of oxygen instead of dying, and can be brough back by another dupe giving them CPR, all that's needed is an area with oxygen, where the dupe doing the CPR will automatically take the victim. The dupe who the CPR was administered on doesn't seem to suffer any major consequenses, not even a temporary stress penalty. This does work on Bionic Duplicants as well.
- Certain occurences can now create bubbles in fluids. The examples are:
- Flatulent duplicants farting in water with natural gas
- Algae debris when submerged in water and provided with sufficient light (500 lux, 1 lamp is enough) now makes oxygen bubbles.
- Liquid tepidizer in turbo mode (more on that later)
Bubbles travel up through the liquid. Once they reach the air or the same element, what they contain is dispenced into the enviroment, without displacing the fluid they spawned in in any way. If there is no atmosphere/vacuum to dump the gas into (e.g. if they're in a room completely filled with water), a gas tile will be created. Likely more applications of this mechanic will probably appear in the future, since it doesn't actually come up a lot in practice rn.
- Liquid tepidizer got massively nerfed, but also somewhat buffed.
- It now only produces a quater of the heat it used to, while still consuming 960kw. However...
- It no longer has a maximum fluid temperature (was 85°C), so you can heat up anything to any temperature as long as it doesn't overheat.
- It now has a togglable turbo mode (currently can only be toggled manually, dk if it'll change). While in turbo mode, it produces as much heat as pre-nerf, but consumes 4kw. Additionally, it also creates bubbles of the material that the fluid it's submerged into evaporates in. So, if it's submerged in water, it produces steam bubbles, if it's in crude oil - petrolium bubbles (yes, I checked),
- I did try to make a petrolium boiler out of this. The rate at which the bubbles are produced increases with the temperature and close to the boiling point it's about 1kg/s per tepidizer, which isn't worth it. I did try designs without turbo mode too, but the heat produced is simply not enough for a viable petrolium boiler.
- Four tepidizers without turbo mode are about the same as one in turbo mode except that they don't produce bubbles, which may be important in some designs.
-2 new buildings: fish pickup (critter pickup for aquatic critters, finally) and aquatic critter fountain, which allows feeding brackene to pacus and other swimmers. This... is actually more important than you think.
- Pacus got massively nerfed. Their eggs no longer produce eggshells for lime, and the food yields are halved. However...
- ALL CRITTERS got buffed with the new happiness system. The reproduction speed now scales with happiness. At 4 happiness (tame groomed), it's same as normal, so no nerfs there. But further ahead the reproduction speed seemingly becomes proportional-ish to happiness. A critter condo will increase the reproduction speed of hatches from about 16% per cycle to about 20% per cycle, which is already significant while being basically free. And with brackene, the reproduction rate is 39% per cycle for hatches. More than double of a normal groomed tame hatch. It was already noted by another user, that this allows to make oakshells resource-positive with nosh beans.
- Microbe masher can now create pacu treats from 1 seed (currently only 6 seeds in the list, most notably - waterweed, mealwood and sleet wheat) and 5kg of water. A pacu treat increases the happiness of a pacu by 2 when eaten. not sure if the dupe labor is worth it, tbh.
- BTW, if you DO get the dlc, pacus can be groomed in the new aquatic critter station, which allows you get a pretty big happiness bonuses and speed up the taming process.
- Pokeshells now molt 60kg of pokeshell molt (was 10kg). They might now be the best source of lime in the game, especially with pacus now being out of the picture. Also, Sanishells eat less food now, so they're much more viable for meat now. Oakshells didn't get dirrect buffs, but again, brackene and critter condo buff them too. So basically, pokeshells are actually good now.
- Waterweeds got MASSIVELY buffed. They no longer need bleach stone and can be irrigated with normal water, brine OR salt water. They do require 10kg/cycle now (was 5), but it's not a huge deal, since you don't need many anyway. Not having to bother with bleach stone is huge. Also, they can be fully submerged now and they look cooler. Basically, no point of wild farming them anymore.
- Critters can now technically be tamed without the ranching skill, via a critter feeder that now gives -10% wildness per cycle. This takes 20 cycles (all critters have a passive +5% to wildness). Might be important early on in some edge cases, but otherwise not very useful. Also, the fish feeder got nerfed and also gives -10% wildness per cycle (was -15%). Pacus basically take double the time to tame now. I hope they revert this.
- Gaskets are now an ingredient that replaces plastic in most buildings where it was previously used. They are made of... plastic. On a crafting station. Rubber from the DLC is the alternative ingredient. Not sure what's the point, to be honest.
Yeah, "short"