Hello and welcome to the first update in 2018 – Finally.. Pre-alpha 0.2!
You might argue that it would make sense to write news more often. But this time it turned out to be quite an effort to get to the point where it starts to make sense to show something. Many of the new features where too interwoven. It felt bit like trying to unravel a chaotic thread ball. Despite: many of the more visual changes where just done in the last few weeks.
However, now there are so many new things I want to show you that I had to split the post into smaller pieces. 8 in fact…
So this news is just the first in a row about Pre-alpha 0.2. I will constantly release them over the next few weeks while working on less news worthy stuff. This will include the basic infrastructure required for testers and in general for preparing a first iteration of a fallback distribution system beside Steam, GOG and co.
This update not only took way longer then expected, it also includes way more then intended. Some tasks where planed to be tackled later but they turned out to be required to properly implement the engineering system as a whole.
What’s new?
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New structures (obviously)
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Enhanced construction preview system
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Blueprints, kits, recipes and fuel
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Production
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Research
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Storage
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Trading
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Transmission of goods
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The compound model system
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Structures with attachments
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Triplanar world mapping
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Physical objects (local or network wide)
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Entity system
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Screen space sub surface scattering (ss-sss)
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Layered attachments
And then there is this big chunk of invisible work done to make the game faster and more stable. Like when I discovered (thx Frame Debugger!) that the moon was still causing a full shadow caster pass – even though he was on the opposite side of the world.. -.-
And last but not least the creation of development tools I need to handle and streamline the dev process. I really love this part! There is hardly something more satisfying as pushing a button and watching the computer doing all the boring work in just a few seconds.
Engineering 2.0: New Structures
I’ve implemented now several structures in a basic conceptual (grey box) stage. They feature all the new gameplay systems of Pre-alpha 0.2 and even some I can’t reveal yet. Most of them are just a few blocks in size but some are huge. I mean really huge (yes, I’m talking about you Airfield).
Placing and building such big structures becomes a task for it’s own and benefits a lot from working together as a team.
Engineering 2.0: Wreck it
Wrecking! This is tiny but nonetheless important: You can now destroy structures in an orderly fashion. Which means you get some of the resources back you (or someone else) put in. This not only includes the full inventory content but also parts the construction materials. Wrecking takes longer then destroying so it’s not the best approach during battle.
As mentioned above this was just the beginning. The following posts will be online soon. If you like newsletter you can sign up to get one as soon as the next news shows up.
Thanks for reading, till next time!
