Today we released our second update for Ceres. The save game code update is the most critical one in this patch but we also fiddled with drone behavior, targeting and overall performance.
Hope you like it!
List of changes
Updated: Collision code for stations and ships.
Updated: Minimum rotation speed for ships. Should make controlling
captured ships easier.
Updated: Drones will not trigger exit area.
Updated: Drone threat value adjusted.
Updated: Overview camera zoom is now faster and smoother.
Updated: Added structural damage chance to target ship when boarding.
Fixed : Indentured servant mission. Proximity issue with mission goal and station corrected.
Fixed : Minor coding addition in Indentured Servant.
Fixed : Ship won't move after load when using plane movement.
Fixed : Ship duplication in fleet management on load.
Fixed : Miscalculation with Ship AI on ship performance.
Fixed : Targeting modules. Ship will not fire only once at the module. Will fire now until ordered to stop.
Have fun playing and thanks for your support, suggestions and patience!
Tryggvi
First Update: v1.0.9
Hey everyone!
Our first update is now up and running and I've been working hard to fix those nasty bugs.
List of changes
Fixed: Camera Control. This was a major glitch that affected all systems in the game. (if for some reason it persists, remove your "reserve captains").
Fixed : Missing first letter in mission description (German version).
Fixed: Captain Perks saving method.
Fixed: Dropped loot naming corrected. Caused modules to disappear when loaded.
Updated: Mars Nation trade station. It now has its max currency increased from 50000 to 150000. Note: The money won't be updated for saves. But it should increase during next trade refresh increment.
Updated: Drone fixed from ships UI.
Updated: Jump code. Should prevent crashing while jumping.
Note: This does not work if you have ships in extreme distance from one another. The ships messed up the destination calculation causing the ships to crash into one another during flight. This still has some issues that need to be fixed. So be a little careful with it. If all ships are close and jumping together then it should work fine.
Updated: Drone boarding code. This should prevent weird behavior when returning to mother ship.
Updated: Drone collision code. Should stop their little dance.
Optimized: Drone docking range increased.
Optimized: Recon drone radar range increased. Should make them more useful.
And one thing, If drones are refusing to dock, try selecting them, Group or single and press "D" for Dock with the mother-ship.
I appreciate the patience you have shown me and I hope this patch improves your experience with playing Ceres.
First of I'm upset to see so many bug reports in the game. The game was thoroughly tested for almost 3 months and ran smoothly at the end of that testing phase.
I and the testing crew did not experience any camera loss or that the station defenses would suddenly fire upon the player for no apparent reason.
The camera issue still eludes me, but the station defenses should be fixed now. I rewrote the script that handles that.
Basically the station defenses thought that some pirates you fought earlier need protecting... Silly defenders.
Some were having trouble with controlling captured ships with no captain assigned to them. I've minimized the effect of no captain to a ships control systems.
There is some issue with the perks on a save game load. For some the perks are not loading correctly and seem to reset. I'm looking into that.
It also seems that the ships do not obey orders and that may be directly connected with the loss of camera control.
Drones are misbehaving.. Looking into that too.
I've been trying to fix theses issues and many more during the weekend and maybe a bit too quickly posting patches. A window patch was just uploaded yesterday that fixed the station suddenly firing upon the player. I will be uploading a patched demo version of that too.
I will be spending the next week full time working on issues with the game and posting patches. I've dedicated to much time and effort into Ceres to abandon it.
I'm actually quite upset about these bugs!
If you do experience any errors and bugs. Please post them and I will get right on it.
Also I'm asking the community politely to not post negative reviews if you are having trouble understanding the complex game controls. It was designed that way. Negative reviews impact the the game greatly in a bad way.
But I will not abandon the game just due to negative reviews.
I'm gonna fix my baby.
Tryggvi,
The main and only developer of Ceres.
Introduction to the Creator of Ceres.
Hey Everyone!
My name is Tryggvi Hákonarson and today I am releasing my first Steam game: Ceres
It has been a long and exciting journey and through this update I would like to give you a little background info on how it all started .
Around the year 2010, I started programming a Homeworld clone as a learning exercise for Unity3D. I created some ships, wrote some scripts and “voila” I had a simple Homeworld clone. Mine, attack, build and explode.
This simple clone did not want to be just a simple clone. So captains were added and captains needed perks and levels and skills. Drones, weapons, more ships, refitting, missions etc. followed.
The clone got more complex, grew a new identity and decided to become "Ceres".
First I worked on Ceres in my spare time, on my sofa with a laptop, sneaking in some programming during work...
Ceres kept growing over the next few years, until my daytime job grew dull and I decided to quit and focus solely on Ceres. It was a dream come true. I was a game developer. It's hard to become that here in Iceland. There isn't much support for that kind of risk taking.
Ceres started with just me. I worked on it in my spare time, on and off. I switched to other projects when I grew frustrated with bugs and errors, but I always returned to Ceres.
Then I put Ceres on IndieDB and it quickly got attention. Ceres was rough and ugly, but it got the attention of Pavlos Germidis, who joined me and fixed it up a bit. He created new ships, new textures and designed the UI for the ships, trade menus and refitting. Sadly he left after about a year to pursue other projects, but there was no turning back now. I started hiring talent, to do what I did not have the skills for, like Peter Jones who freshened up the textures and created some new meshes.
After some time on IndieDB, Ceres got the attention of Publisher Iceberg Interactive, with whom I signed a publishing contract.
Iceberg made sure that the game was polished enough for release, gave some good pointers regarding design and other important aspects, such as quality assurance and bug reduction.
Some good, patient people there. ..
I have probably spent thousands of hours on this game. Sometimes working on it 7 days a week, 10 to 14 hours a day, programming in my little room, nourished by coffee, fermented shark and Black Death (that's booze).
I have suffered through software crashes, hardware crashes, sickness and despair. Keep frequent backups, people!
I never intended Ceres to become so massive, with so many features. It's like it called for it or something, always wanting more. I had to stop that. so I picked a release date and worked towards completion of the game. I actually wanted to release this game in March 2015. However, my publisher Iceberg did not agree. And they were right.
If I would have had my way, this game would have been a failure. In March, the game was still really buggy, but I was blind to the bugs and glitches because this was my baby. I played the game as it should be played, knew exactly what to do and where to go. I did not play the game like a madman who was clueless what he was doing. Hurray for testers and quality assurance!
The game went through about 3-4 months of testing and QA. We found, fixed and verified so many bugs. Some weird, others just plain silly.
I also got a ton of support from the people on IndieDB who helped iron out some gameplay and game loop issues, early testers and IndieDB, I thank you.
It is weird knowing that I finally released my game. I don't really know what to do with myself...I think I'll relax a bit, loitering on the forums and keeping an eye out on your feedback.
For those who believed in me and kept me going, I would like to say thanks! For those new to the game, I am hoping you will enjoy it as much as I did programming it.
