I've never posted any devlog here, so here I am. Maybe let's introduce myself first :D I'm Denis and I'm 17 years old. I was born in Poland and moved to Germany when I was 12. I started working on the code year after when I was 13. Why am I telling you all the stuff? It's important for you to understand, that I still go to the school and I'm able to work on EarthX only in my free time, in evenings.
Last 3 months were amazing. I released my first game ever on the Steam, which I'm very happy for. I've never experienced so many new stuff and things to organize and make in that short period of time. I'm very glad that what I achieved (with the help of you all!), but that all was in my vacation time. Now the school begins and I won't make that much stuff rapidly.
DENIS! What does that mean? No EarthX updates? GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK! No-no-no. The updates are still going to be released. I just now need little more time to make them. Take in mind, that I began working on EarthX at the beginning of this year, where I also was in school. If I did it in the past, then I can also do it in the future! :D
Gamedev was and will still be my passion and hobby, and I'm glad I can work on EarthX with this community.
Okay. Now I will stop cry and announce a few new things coming in the future.
All of the things listed below were also announced on my Discord server, where you can very easily contact me! https://discord.gg/sbXwwMs
Firstly: I added NVIDIA Ansel support to EarthX. Now every one of us can make beautiful screenshots from the game. It should be available in the 0.2.8 snapshot 2 update.
Now let's go to the real gameplay features: As some of you guys know, I'm actively working on the 0.2.8 update, which brings AI and a lot of more new features to the game. I released the first part in the snapshot 1 update, and I will release snapshot 2 in a few days.
The first feature, which I want to remake, is the rocket creafting tool. I released the first preview of it today on Youtube: [previewyoutube="B8AbkeSnw4E;full"]
I will also add full batteries/GPS support and few other surprise modules-related features. I really hope you will like them.
Thanks for reading it all, let me know if you like this type of posts here.
Denis
EarthX 0.2.8 (snapshot 1)
Hey,
After 9 days of me taking a "break", I can finally release the first snapshot of the 0.2.8 update.
Why is snapshot 1 amazing? Because it takes the graphics on another level! I tried to make it look nicer but also that you can still run it on low-end PC. The system requirements are going to be a little higher, but this is what I do expect from the players on Steam. You can still launch EarthX on LOW at a potato PC tho.
Why did it take more than a week to make? One of the reasons is my private life problems, like school or my destroyed PC. I will talk about that later in a new post ;)
Snapshot 1 is now available for everyone.
Changelog:
Visual:
Improved: Everything is smaller I made every object 30 times smaller to get more space for AI companies, but also for better visual appearance.
Added: New water appearance The water has now its animation, reflections, and the actual visible ocean deep.
Added: Wind All trees and clouds are affected now by the wind.
Added: Shadows All objects have now its shadows!
Added: Better color shadings Now the colors are looking even more dynamic and nicer!
Improved: The earth rotates now the right way! So many players requested me to change this, so here you go!
Improved: GEO sats are now static Just like IRL.
Added: Engine smoke when the rocket is flying in the atmosphere
New features:
Added: New build mode I reworked the build mode. Now instead of 24 slots, you can place buildings where you want and how you want.
Added: New rocket animations (AGAIN!) But this time with a lot better appearance and performance! I added 3 types of animations for LEO, MEO and GEO orbits, so everything is now visualized. Even the second stage! You can now see the fairings deploy on the second stage :D The landing has now sonic booms!
Other:
Improved: Test mission will be no longer selected on default
Improved: Mission report window appearance
Improved: Camera movement (it's more responsible now)
Fixed: rockets didn’t reset their position after a launch
Fixed: landing rockets could cause a lot of errors sometimes
Fixed: rocket reliability could be more than 100%
Fixed: mission report showed the wrong info after the failed static fire
Fixed: the offices are looking for wrong contracts after game load
Fixed: particles didn’t work properly on some of GPUs
Fixed: profit after a mission was wrongly calculated
Fixed: Tooltips didn't change their scale
Fixed: Static fire took 2 payments
Removed: Truth mode (Flat earth)
How to download this (and other) snapshots?
This snapshot was published for everyone. Visit our Discord server: https://discord.gg/sbXwwMs
EarthX 0.2.7
Hey,
After 4 snapshot updates, I'm glad to announce, that the full 0.2.7 update has been released now.
This update was actually really easy to make, but of course, there were some hard times, which I passed through.
0.2.7 "Research is consistent" update was focused on adding research stuff and I think I've achieved the goal. You can now upgrade your modules, the rockets are getting cheaper and cheaper over time, and you can research the explosions. This update gave EarthX more deep and opened me the door to add a lot of more stuff.
Please take your time to read this changelog (Screenshots are here too!) and in the end, I will talk a little bit about 0.2.8 (next) update.
Watch the trailer here: https://youtu.be/hspjjg0l8w4
Changelog:
Rockets and modules
Added: Completely new explosions system The explosions are now based 100% on the reliability of the modules. There're of course some randoms in it, but now you can really do something about it.
If a rocket explodes, you actually know why. I've added about 25 reasons (4-5 for each module) like overpressure or software failure. An issue can happen only one time, so after 15-20 explosions the rockets are getting more and more reliable. A perfect fundament for crew missions :D
Added: New rocket animations I moved the animations 100% to the code, so I can have a lot of more control over it. That's why now if a rocket explodes, it starts to spinning around before it. The rockets can now tip over at landing and explode after it.
Added: New explosions effect
Now if a rocket explodes, the camera shakes.
Added: New static fire logic
If you're making a static fire now, there's a 5% chance that the rocket explodes on the launch pad. However, there's also a 20% chance of finding an issue in the rocket, which adds reliability to it.
Added: Mission reports You can now see a report after every mission. It contains stats and so on. No more annoying notifications while launching the rocket :D
Added: New rocket repairing system
Now repairing rockets is more intuitive and easier.
Added: One step forward to make rockets affordable
Now the modules are cheaper each build. For example, if you've built 10 small fairings, they just get cheaper (so is the rocket too).
Added: New durability system
I moved the durability from the rocket to each of the modules, so the rocket repairing would be more intuitive. It also affects the explosions a little bit.
Added: Now you can preview the modules in the rocket preview
You can see the build costs at building and durability status at launching/repairing.
Added: Module upgrades Module upgrades make the desired module cheaper, more reliable and the build time is faster.
Added: 3 new skill point types Fairing, Fuel tank, and Engine skill points are used for upgrading the modules.
Other
Added: Tutorial Now the John (James actually) will teach you, how to play EarthX :D
Added: Factory stats
Now if a factory builds 60 engines, it will build them 6% faster. You can see it as the building upgrades (which got removed in snapshot 2).
All buildings have now their level.
Added: Hangars existing sense Now the hangars are actually storing your rockets. Every hangar can store up to 3 rockets.
Added: Tooltips
As the players requested, I added tooltips to some places in the UI.
Added: GEO ring
The satellites launched on GEO orbit are flying around the earth in a very visible way. Besides that, I added 6 new satellite models, which are made by rykllan.
Added: Naming buildings Now you can name every building as you want. Feature requested by one of the players.
Added: Flying numbers
It's just a better visualization of money income/outcome etc.
Added: Game version control Now you can't play the save files from older versions of EarthX. This caused a lot of bugs and it will be not supported in Early Access. This game develops rapidly ;)
Added: One secret easter egg
Improved: Working with offices
Now you can decide, which type of contracts the office should look for.
Improvements and small features:
Improved: Research tree look
Improved: Overall UI improvements
Improved: Unlocking balance
Improved: Rocket look
Improved: Added 150 satellites object limit
You can still launch more than 150 satellites, but the game will show only the max of 150 of them on the Earth orbit.
Improved: Added colors to the building icons
Improved: Building trackers appearance and performance
Improved: Buttons
Now if a button is disabled, it will look more like it's disabled.
Improved: Rocket repair logic
Now the durability of the fairings after a mission on a reusable rocket will be 0%.
Improved: Loans amount are now higher (Inflation hehe)
Improved: Paying taxes
In older versions of EarthX, if you got 10M$ of income and 5M$ of the outcome, you would still pay 13% of that 10M$ income. Now you pay 13% of (income -
outcome), in this case, 5M$.
Improved: Game balance
Improved: Increased the character limit on every input field.
Improved: Main menu home look
Bugfixes:
Fixed: Research tree loading
Fixed: 3-core rocket building was too easy
Fixed: Contracts and missions didn't work properly
Fixed: Modules build didn't progress sometimes
Fixed: Bug, where you could create a new game, while you were already in the game.
Fixed: Bug, where you could build a rocket without unlocked modules.
Fixed: Truth mode loading didn't work properly.
Fixed: The resolution in the settings tab was always the lowest.
Fixed: You couldn't get into the build mode if any window was open
Fixed: You couldn't pause the game if any window was open
Fixed: If you paused the game, it would unpause if you closed any window
Fixed: Employees pay was always 0$
Fixed: Buildings rent was always 0$
Fixed: The contract would be removed even if you're launching a mission right now.
Removed: Building upgrades
Added in a new form of factory stats.
Removed: City names
Now you can name every building on your own.
Research is consistent. Big thanks to rykllan for mental support and for helping to make the next update 0.2.8 possible.
Now I will begin working on the 0.2.8 update, which will focus on... competition. Imagine fighting against other space companies. The contract count is limited and you have to convince others, that you're the best. I really hope I can do that because the game will get much more gameplay deep after that.
Anyway, we will see how it goes :D
Discord server: http://mesotegames.com/discord
EarthX 0.2.7 (snapshot 4)
Hey,
This is the final snapshot of the 0.2.7 update. The full 0.2.7 official release is scheduled for tomorrow.
Working on this all snapshots was very exciting and I learned a lot. Now I will make few days break and then I will begin working on 0.2.8 update :)
Changelog:
Added: Tutorial
Added: Naming buildings
Now you can name every building as you want. Feature requested by one of the players.
Added: Hangars existing sense
Now the hangars are actually storing your rockets. Every hangar can store up to 3 rockets.
Added: Flying numbers
It's just a better visualization of money income/outcome etc.
Added: Game version control
Now you can't play the save files from older versions of EarthX. This caused a lot of bugs and it will be not supported in Early Access. This game develops rapidly ;)
Added: One secret easter egg
Improved: Working with offices
Now you can decide, which type of contracts the office should look for.
Improved: Paying taxes
In older versions of EarthX, if you got 10M$ of income and 5M$ of the outcome, you would still pay 13% of that 10M$ income. Now you pay 13% of (income -
outcome), in this case, 5M$.
Improved: Game balance
Few experiments with explosions and employees pay.
Improved: Increased the character limit on every input field.
Improved: Main menu home look
Fixed: Truth mode loading didn't work properly.
Fixed: The resolution in the settings tab was always the lowest.
Fixed: You couldn't get into the build mode if any window was open
Fixed: You couldn't pause the game if any window was open
Fixed: If you paused the game, it would unpause if you closed any window
Fixed: Employees pay was always 0$
Fixed: Buildings rent was always 0$
How to download this (and other) snapshots?
Go to your library and click with the right mouse button on EarthX on the list. After that go to the properties and select "BETAS", and then "snapshots" from the dropdown list.
You will probably need to restart your steam after that in order to begin downloading snapshots versions.
Snapshots are available only for Windows in the English language.
Note: Snapshots are for testing purposes only. If you've found any bug, please let me know on my discord server: https://discord.gg/sbXwwMs
EarthX 0.2.7 (snapshot 3)
Hey,
I'm glad to release this not-a small snapshot update today. I've worked on it for about a week and the work time I put into it was massive.
I hope you will all enjoy it. I will now work on the last snapshot update and release the full 0.2.7 after it.
Changelog:
Added: Completely new explosions system
The explosions are now based 100% on the reliability of the modules. There're of course some randoms in it, but now you can really do something about it.
If a rocket explodes, you actually know why. I've added about 25 reasons (4-5 for each module) like overpressure or software failure. An issue can happen only one time, so after 15-20 explosions the rockets are getting more and more reliable. A perfect fundament for crew missions :D
Added: New rocket animations
I moved the animations 100% to the code, so I can have a lot of more control over it. That's why now if a rocket explodes, it starts to spinning around before it. The rockets can now tip over at landing and explode after it.
Added: New explosions effect
Now if a rocket explodes, the camera shakes.
Added: New static fire logic
If you're making a static fire now, there's a 5% chance that the rocket explodes on the launch pad. However, there's also a 20% chance of finding an issue in the rocket, which adds reliability to it.
Added: Mission reports
You can now see a report after every mission. It contains stats and so on. No more annoying notifications while launching the rocket :D
Added: Factory stats
Now if a factory builds 60 engines, it will build them 6% faster. You can see it as the building upgrades (which got removed in snapshot 2).
All buildings have now their level.
Added: Tooltips
As the players requested, I added tooltips to some places in the UI.
Improved: Building trackers appearance and performance
Improved: Buttons
Now if a button is disabled, it will look more like it's disabled.
Improved: Rocket repair logic
Now the durability of the fairings after a mission on a reusable rocket will be 0%.
Improved: Loans amount are now higher (Inflation hehe)
Fixed: Bug, where you could create a new game, while you were already in the game.
Fixed: Bug, where you could build a rocket without unlocked modules.
Removed: City names
How to download this (and other) snapshots?
Go to your library and click with the right mouse button on EarthX on the list. After that go to the properties and select "BETAS", and then "snapshots" from the dropdown list.
You will probably need to restart your steam after that in order to begin downloading snapshots versions.
Snapshots are available only for Windows in the English language.
Note: Snapshots are for testing purposes only. If you've found any bug, please let me know on my discord server: https://discord.gg/sbXwwMs
EarthX 0.2.7 (snapshot 2)
Hey,
In this snapshot update, I continue to rework and improve all the modules & rockets related stuff.
The full 0.2.7 will be a pretty big update, which changes all how we play EarthX.
I started working on the module upgrades, but I also began working on new buildings related things.
Please stay tuned for more snapshots and of course for the full 0.2.7 version of the game.
Changelog:
Added: 3 new skill point types
Added: Module upgrades (in BETA)
Added: Modules list to the rocket preview
Added: Module prices in the rocket preview
Added: New rocket repair system
Added: New rocket durability system
Improved: Rocket look
Improved: Added 150 sats limit on the orbit
Improved: Research tree look
Improved: Building icons
Fixed: Contracts and missions didn't work properly
Fixed: Modules build didn't progress sometimes
Removed: Building upgrades
How to download this (and other) snapshots?
Go to your library and click with the right mouse button on EarthX on the list. After that go to the properties and select "BETAS", and then "snapshots" from the dropdown list.
You will probably need to restart your steam after that in order to begin downloading snapshots versions.
Snapshots are available only for Windows in the English language.
Note: Snapshots are for testing purposes only. If you've found any bug, please let me know on my discord server: https://discord.gg/sbXwwMs
EarthX 0.2.7 (snapshot 1)
Hey,
After releasing 0.2.6 with the new user interface, I opened the way to easily add new content now. So here it is!
Take in mind, that this is a snapshot (test/beta) version of 0.2.7 update and not everything will work correctly.
Changelog:
Added: GEO ring
Added: 6 new satellite models (by rykllan)
Added: Module build price decreases over time (so is the rocket build price)
Added: Modules in rocket preview
Added: You now have to repair every module itself
Improved: Research tree look
Improved: Rocket displaying in the preview
Improved: Research tree unlocking balance
Fixed: Research tree positioning was wrong (lvl 20 module in lvl 6 section)
Fixed: 3-core rocket building was too easy
Fixed: Rocket repair price was wrong
Fixed: Rocket engine sound would appear even if the sounds are disabled
How to download this (and other) snapshots?
Go to your library and click with the right mouse button on EarthX on the list. After that go to the properties and select "BETAS", and then "snapshots" from the dropdown list.
You will probably need to restart your steam after that in order to begin downloading snapshots versions.
Snapshots are available only for Windows.
EarthX 0.2.6
Hey,
With this update, I want to begin to fix the game. As you probably know, the research tree is too simple and the old user interface (UI) didn't work as it should.
I've spent a lot of time making new in-game and main menu UIs, but I've made it! The new UI work now on most of the modern displays, it's more intuitive, and of course - it looks better IMO.
You can see the biggest changes in the main menu and in the research tree. The main menu got a new feature - a changelog (as someone requested).
I've also prepared the research tree UI for the next update, which will bring new and improved stuff to it.
Sadly, new UI also removed something... in-game achievements. Why?
Because I want to add steam achievements in the near future, maybe after this summer.
I hope you will like the update as much as I do, and be now prepared for more content update, starting with 0.2.6.1 ;)
Changelog
Added: new main menu UI
Added: new in-game UI
Added: earth rotation effect
Added: 10 new levels
Added: Russian language (by rykllan)
Added: French language (by Superkooka)
Fixed: time would stop sometimes at the end of some quarters - no more!
Temporaly removed: In-game tutorial (was very buggy, I will have to remake it)
EarthX Beta
Hey,
As I said, I created a new user interface for EarthX. I've changed a lot of code so probably a lot of things just don't work the right way. That's why I need your help at testing it!
The beta is of course only for those, who want it. You can enable it now by going to game properties -> betas, and selecting the "snapshots" from the dropdown. The beta update should start automatically, but if it doesn't, restart your steam.
The full 0.2.6 update is planned to release this weekend. Thanks for all the good words and for giving your trust in me!
Regards,
Denis
New user interface preview
Hey,
I currently don't talk much, but I'm working hard at these hot days at making a new user interface for you.
I've finally got something of it done, so take this quick preview and tell me your feelings :D
New UI features:
more info (prices, what is something doing etc.)
more flexibility (windows are drag-and-move, time will probably not stop if any window is open)
more control (sorting, we love and respect your scroll on your mouse!)
uses newer technologies (TextMeshPro for sharper text, UI Gradient + Procedular Image for colors and shapes, and new blur for the better and faster behind-interface-blur!)
