Short update! The next version of the game will be live on sunday. In line with the previous one it is a rather small one while the roster of ideology buildings is being expanded.
My push to overhaul the UI is more or less finished. For the upcoming version, the main menu has been spruced up. Only some minor tweaks remain, but will do as more things getting added into the game in future versions.
I've prepared a short tutorial for tourism, as well as fixed up the recently added path finding system for blimps. Blimps should now have smoother movement when nearing stations. I now also have a functional hologram type shader that will be used for additional billboards!
Next devlog I'll share some more details on the different ideologies that can be adopted and what pros and cons they have!
/ Nick
0.51 patchnotes
0.51 - Temperature and day/night display on blimps - Animation manager added. This will control building animations across the city in a more efficient way and also mean building animations are subject to the current game speed. - Fixed bug where cars were not deregistered (the additional amount of cars that was added in recently). - Fixed tram network list null. - Stability fund policy fixed. If enabled, in a boom economy funds are diverted into a fund at an interest. The fund is then expended in a recession helping the city to automatically maintain a stable economy. - Employee funds policy adjusted. Increases income for citizens, but lowers growth. - Loading UI tweaked. - Random advice added when a city loads. - Refined pathfinding for atmofleets, freighters and blimps. - Stadiums now generate a team name and a team that can win and lose! - Crime and fire prevention output now visible when clicking police and fire departments.
Upcoming work
Hello!
A new version will go live tomorrow with a bunch of fixes and UI tweaks. This version and a couple of the upcoming ones will be fairly small as I'm now simultaneously working on unique buildings for the upcoming ideology implementation. For ideologies there will be 20 unique buildings and a bunch of unique decorations, so making the entire roster of ideology buildings will take a while.
Some of the additions coming after version 0.51 tomorrow is the remaining 4x4 hotel buildings, more billboards and a new main menu UI. A few versions down the line, the entire roster of ideology buildings will be added in at the same time along with the supporting systems. I will however display some of the new buildings along the way. First out, the surveillance bureau for authoritarian mayors out there:
Full patch notes for the upcoming version will be posted along with the update tomorrow.
/ Nick
Finishing up UI and policy
Hello!
Brief update on what's up and coming in the next version of the game.
Work on the UI is being concluded. I'm looking into updating the main menu a bit and should have that finished during this week. I also need to update some of the resource icons, this work is ongoing but takes a while due to the large amount of icons. I've added in some text in the loading screen to show what is being loaded currently. There will also be some random tips added. Most notably though, there's now an animation showing off what's going on behind the scenes so to speak.
I'm adding some polish to the pathfinding for blimps and other flying vehicles. The goal is to minimize flying vehicles having to "circle in" on the location they're going to. I've got a few ideas on how to improve the current framework to make this work well enough.
There's now also a building animation manager that will control animations for buildings. This is mainly to improve performance and to centralize how animations are handled. This will also make animations properly conform to the current game speed. The goods port is one such building that uses this new manager.
Also added in some additional freighter details, like sparks flying when it detaches from the goods port. The idea is to also have the lighting get turned off when the freighter takes off, as it is no longer being charged in the goods port.
Policies are now all tweaked and finished. Moving on I will start working ideology into the game properly, starting with the additional of additional buildings. Also took the time to get a temperature display on the blimps!
Version 0.5 is live!
Hello!
The game has been updated. The primary changes since last update:
0.5 - Added marker for which construction option is selected. Helps out when scrolling through different buildings. - Fixed large road connection for parks and plazas not working at times. - Split up traffic capacity of atmoports into two components - people traffic and goods traffic. - Fixed a bug in how traffic capacity is calculated. - Blimp movement added. Sometimes blimps can double park and path finding isn't always optimal, these things will be adjusted over the coming few weeks. - Aeronautics station demolition bug fixed. - Goodsport added. Refinements to animation is still to come. - Goodsport added as a booster building to industrial zones. - Goods port freighters added. Some refinements to movement still to come. - Fixed trams not stopping at tram stations. This issue was due to a recent optimization in the road/tram system.
0.5 will be live tomorrow - Blimps, freighters and more!
Hello, 0.5 will be live tomorrow. New additions are generally centered around flying vehicles and changes to how they find paths. I've also reworked some of the vehicle code to make it less difficult to maintain on my end, this fixes some bugs and issues that have arises since last time I worked on traffic.
Blimps are fairly well functioning after some additional testing. What needs to be added over time is some additional raycasting so that the path finder has an easier time navigating from the topside to downside of areas. Currently it needs to kind of circle in on an area to find it's way which is very inefficient. This will be fixed fairly soon as it only requires some minor additions to existing code.
The goods port has been added into the game. This building will more or less expand on what the atmoport does today. It will be essential to increase the number of maximum trades that can be managed at the same time, and determine the capacity of how much can be imported/exported per time tick.
Currently, goods containers are only loaded onto the freighter, but come next update freighters will also come into the city loaded with containers that will be unloaded.
The game now features cars, trams, monorails, vacuum trains, atmofleet, freighters and blimps - additional vehicles I'm adding in are helicopters, small hot air balloons and some boats that will appear where there is water. After that I'm calling it on adding vehicles.
I'm still making some minor tweaks to the UI, I still need to make some graphics and update some of the icons, but will add most of this in for the next version.
Blimps are here! 0.5 postponed
Hello,
Brief update - I've finally overhauled the way atmoport fleets find their path in and out of the city. The new system makes it possible to cheaply perform path finding in the city as well so that blimps can find their way around.
Blimps check against blocks, water and buildings. Like everthing else in the game, this is made all the more complicated by the fact that everything works in an open volume. The way I decided to go about the whole thing is to have a path seeker that continously tries to get from point A to B. The path is then smoothed to avoid stuff like can be seen in the above picture (zig-zagging). Paths are constantly being checked for changes like new blocks or buildings that have grown and positions are then loaded to vehicles when they've landed. Blimps are quite slow moving, so they will occasionally clip through stuff until their paths have been updated. This will be refined later on!
Above is a path that has been changed since a building has grown in the way of the old path.
Another issue I'm working on is that blimps need to gradually shift over and face the proper direction when landing on an upside down station for example. I've got this planned out, but it's not fully functional yet. The idea is to have blimps gradually turn to the next station's up direction over the course of its travel.
Atmoports are functional with the new system as well. Generally, things look fairly similar, with the main difference being that fleets will better find their way out when atmoports are placed in more closed in locations.
There are still some situations that take too many positions to figure and as such "time out" leaving vehicles inactive, but they are generally quit few.
Further refinements will be added over time, as well as some optimizations to the system.
Initially I had planned on launching 0.5 tomorrow, but I've decided to post pone it a week to finish up the remainder of the UI stuff as well as adding in a fully functional and animated goods port. My target date for the update is the 15th of february instead of the 8th.
Brief update on version 0.5
Hello!
Work on the UI is moving forward, but I've decided to take a small break to get some work variety. The next version of the game will see the addition of a goods port building. This one will be the first of a new type of building - booster buildings. Currently, there are good and bad buildings. For example industry buildings are considered bad by residential buildings, while schools are good. To get the city to grow, things need to be built in such a way that good buildings are in reach, while bad buildings are kept at a distance. Booster type buildings, on the other hand, will not be required to get things to grow, but will boost efficiency of nearby buildings. Goods ports for example will boost the output of nearby industry by a couple of %-points.
I have a few ideas for buildings that will boost commerce and hotels. So more on that later on!
Other than that, 0.5 is scheduled to launch next monday (monday the 8th of february).
/ Nick
0.49 is live!
Hello!
A small update is now live (0.49). There's a lot of under the hood stuff done on the UI, to prepare for the upcoming changes. BUT, here's what's noticable:
- Fixed partitions in RCIH building menu so that it adjusts the spaces between zone sizes when zones types are unavailable in certain modes. - Tidied up the latest additions to the tutorials. - You can now cycle through the buildings of the same category as the currently selected building for faster construction. - Removed wave power plant and sea wind park from building options in all modes except the drowned world retro mode. - Two new bridge types added. - Fixed bridges not loading with correct road tiles. - Fire and welfare safety calculation changed and icon blinking red incorrectly fixed. - Heatwaves and blizzards are still too frequent, lowered likelihood of them occuring. - Made some minor adjustments to the info window, more to come.
/ Nick
More bridges and additional UI tweaks.
Hello,
Didn't post an update last week, as most of the work recently has gone into minor refinements and fixes for the UI. Although still heavily into UI work, I've tried to vary the work a bit by adding some new buildings and tweaking systems a bit.
New bridges! This is a more classical look - a golden gate bridge type. There's also a new bridge with a more futuristic look being added - but that one is not quite finished yet.
The econopedia is getting some updates, most recently I fixed the input/output panel. This one will be getting some additional features after the upcoming version.
I've been tweaking collider sizes for icons - previously the status icons would overlap the building category buttons a bit, which meant you could get incorrect inputs. This is now fixed, as is the fire and welfare safety icon blinking red even though conditions have been met.
Using shift + mouse wheel now switches buildings within the same category. This also meant I needed to move the building name to the small cost bar so that it's easy to keep track of what building you have selected currently.
The tutorials have also been tidied up a bit since some recent additions. There will be some more work put into these before the next tutorial (on tourism) gets added in.
