Changelog

Version: 2.1.4
Date: 2026-10-09
  Graphics:
    - Rats sit up to eat: they pull the hay off the belt or the ground in front of them, bite into it and chew with their paws at their mouth, and the hay goes down as they eat.
    - Rats come in brown, black, grey, cinnamon and (rarely) white, and in five sizes. Nests and released rats get a random one, and babies mostly take after a parent.
  Changes:
    - A second Haystack track, Gambling Needle: a slow, atmospheric bluegrass song, in Haystack's rotation with Bluegrass Factory and Nauvis' music.
    - Rats need a mate to breed. Two fed rats that can get to each other kiss and cuddle for a while before the babies come. A lone rat doesn't breed, and nor do two with a wall between them.
    - Baby rats are born at their parents' feet, so they can't appear on the other side of a wall.
    - Shooting a rat makes it run away. A domesticated rat that gets shot goes wild again and heads for the nearest nest.
    - A scout is only domesticated when there really is no way home, not when it is taking the long way round.
    - A scout whose nest has been destroyed heads for another nest, or stays wild, instead of becoming domesticated.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed the game wouldn't start with Alien Biomes. (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Haystack/discussion/6ac8858af6514c7e9ce1856d)

Version: 2.1.3
Date: 2026-10-06
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed offshore pumps couldn't be placed. (https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Haystack/discussion/6ac4e2f3da48313d50d2aef5)

Version: 2.1.2
Date: 2026-10-06
  Changes:
    - Rat nests send out one scout at a time instead of all their rats. A scout heads home after a while, and the nest only replaces it if it dies or is picked up.
    - Scouts don't breed while they are out.
    - Scouts go round scarecrows instead of walking straight into them.
    - Domesticated rats aren't scared of scarecrows any more, so a scarecrow can protect your pet rats.
    - Rat tooltips show whether a rat is wild or domesticated.
    - Players walk through rats instead of bumping into them.
    - A scout that can't find its way home has been trapped, and becomes yours as if you had picked it up.
    - Removed rats passing away.
  Bugfixes:
    - Fixed you could do the sifting recipes in assembling machines.
    - Fixed droppings item wasn't showing in item filter menus (inserter filter, etc.).

Version: 2.1.1
Date: 2026-10-04
  Changes:
    - Change scarecrows to unlock by just mining rats.
    - Allowed scarecrows to be hand-crafted.
    - Allowed placing picked-up rats back down as entities.
    - Rats have a chance of passing away, to prevent unlimited overpopulation.

Version: 2.1.0
Date: 2026-10-04
  Major Features:
    - Haystack, a farming planet covered in haystacks. Somewhere in all that hay there is a single needle.
    - Find the Needle scenario: crash land on Haystack with almost nothing, build up from hay, and find the needle. Plays with the Space Age mod switched off.
    - With Space Age, Haystack is a planet to visit as a side trip in a normal game.
  Features:
    - Every hay mined has a one in a million chance of being the needle. Hold it to research Found it! (and to win Find the Needle).
    - Hay sifting for iron, copper and stone, by hand, in the burner hay sifter or in the electric hay sifter.
    - Hay and hay bales burn. Hay bales also make a cheap wall.
    - Rats live in nests around the haystacks. The scent of hay mining wakes them up, and they come for the hay on your belts, drink from your pipes, leave droppings and breed.
    - Droppings ferment wet hay, which refines into crude oil. There is no crude oil to find on Haystack, so in Find the Needle oil gathering completes oil processing.
    - Rat farms: pen rats in with walls, feed them hay and water, and collect their droppings. Overcrowded rats knot together into a hostile Rat King.
    - Scarecrows keep rats out of an area. Picked-up rats wriggle free after a while.
    - Rats can't resist the needle, and follow whoever holds it.
    - The countryside around the haystacks is a patchwork of fields with hedgerows, boulders and the odd cliff, for wood and a bit of early stone.
  Graphics:
    - With Space Age, Haystack shows in the background of space platforms in its orbit.
  Sounds:
    - Haystack's own music, Bluegrass Factory. Nauvis' music plays there too.