Today is a great day, we're officially leaving Early Access!
The project now been in development for 6,5 years and in Early Access for almost exactly three years, and in our eyes, the game has developed big in that time.
THANK YOU!
Now is the best time to say thank you to everyone who contributed to the project during this great journey, with their ideas, playtests, bug reports and feature requests!
Features everywhere!
We went through two entire refactorings of the game code and implemented all features planned for the Early Access phase - but also a lot more thanks to your feedback: We added PVE missions, coop raids, PVP arenas and a lot of balancing and UI features due to community request. Last but not least: A lot has been done in terms of tutorials, in-game wikis and videos, which wasn't originally planned for Early Access.
Update: Bugfix & Performance build
Hello everyone!
With today's update, we're fixing a few things which have been lingering in the queue for a while:
* Two of the achievements could not be triggered, this has now been fixed.
* Material required for World upgrades have been rebalanced to the following values: 250, 750, 1500, 2500, 5000.
We reworked the vertex build algorithm for chunks and ships to produce less memory swapping and therefore remove crash causes.
Also, we fixed a significant performance leak with ingame video players. This fix might also fix the famous purple screen bug for some of you.
If you still encounter the purple screen bug,please try to re-install the XNA runtime, via:
Hey guys,
take the chance now to get Galactineers at a discounted price before we leave Early Access!
With our week deal, you can buy Galactineers for 70% off until next Sunday.
Buy now and have fun!
Cheers
Chris
Here comes Level 5!
Hello guys!
Today we fulfill one of the last and the biggest features we had promised for the Early Access phase: World Level 5!
Level 5 buildings
Defense Tower: Boom. Enough said :-)
Docking Bay: More supply and demand slots. Level 5 ships and merchants can dock here.
Jump Portal: Allows to jump to Jump Portals inside 500 blocks range. Can be used by Level 5 ships.
Mining Tower: Extracts 1 resource in 12 seconds
Solar Panel: Collects 1 energy sphere in 12 seconds
Storage: 80 storage slots (public) and 40 private slots at your service
And of course, there's a Level 5 factory, which gives you access to the Level 5 ship designer, in which you can build Level 5 ships!
Okay, we're closer to the finish line than ever! Level 5 has finally been released, but there's still a few little things to do, before we can FINALLY fully release the game from Early Access phase:
Approaching the purple screen bug - Please help!
Hello guys,
you know, one big to-do besides the release of level 5 is that stupid purple screen bug, which happens to some people, when lighting is enabled.
Unfortunately it did not happen on any of our test machines.
Now, we finally have an idea where and why the purple screen bug occurs and added a lot of debugging behaviour to that code passage, but we need your help!
Please, if you're affected by the 'purple screen bug', when lighting is enabled...
<*>Start the game and enable lighting
<*>Start a map or the tutorial, this is where the bug usually occured
<*>After a few seconds, the game should crash (forced by us in this particular case)
<*>In the game folder, you'll find a file "crashlog.txt". Verify, it has the current date.
<*>Please send contents of that file to our support address info@galactineers.net, post it in the purple screen bug discussion thread, or as a comment to this news post.
Thank you very much, your help is very much appreciated. We really want to get rid of that bug. Thank you!
Level 5 Status
Hello guys,
we know, some of you are still waiting for our final update which releases Level 5 and finishes our Early Access phase. With this update we want to give you an insight, what it means to create content for an entire world level:
First of all, there are the buildings
For each building, we need to create 3D models, three kinds: The part which has the material texture, the parts with the own textures (like windows, or lava) and the part which has the player colour.
For all parts which have own textures, these textures must be created.
For each building, the UI must be adjusted by adding a new case to each piece of code which deals with buildings. This also applies to sound effects.
The collision box for each building must be defined.
All server-side code must be extended to handle and save level 5 buildings to the savegames.
The new buildings must be added to the map editor.
Translations and help texts must be added.
Some buildings even get their own new logic with a new level, for example the combat values of the level 5 defense tower, including their sound effects and particle effects, or the research lab for level 5
The good news: All Level 5 buildings are DONE
Then, we have the ships
Besides the new ship modules, there are some parts to be done, which are not as obvious:
Models for Level 5 shield effect
Models for Level 5 selection circle
The new ship designer sizes
Definitions for the creation of ship preview icons
All that is DONE This means, Level 5 itself is fully operational, it just does not have many ship modules yet. The ship modules are pretty complicate to create, as well:
As for the buildings, we need the three types of 3d models: own texture, material texture, player color.
The module texture and collision boxes must be created, too.
Translations, help texts and logic (attach directions, hitpoints, etc.) must be defined.
For engines, it gets even worse:
Particle effects must be created and aligned properly
Sound effects must be created and assigned.
Especially those two points take a lot of time. The good news: All the engines are DONE
Then, there are still other things to do for the ships:
Weapon ship modules (these are as bad as the engines, with all 3d modules, textures, sound effects, particle effects, and weapon behaviour)
Harvesting modules (these have particle effects and sounds, too!)
Other static ship modules like cargo elements, decoratives, and detector elements.
Build at least one level 5 ship for each major and minor faction in the game, so these guys can spawn at jump portals and appear in missions.
Level 5 will not contain as many ship modules as the previous levels, but there's still stuff to do.
Last but not least, we want to point out, that we're not a game company, but people with day jobs, family and friends, and this is a pretty massive project.
Another cause of delay was all the advertising stuff that has to be prepared before switching from Early Access to full release. That's new screenshots with the upgraded graphics engine and also two new trailers (cf. last update). Especially cutting new gameplay material and recording voices takes a lot of time.
But we are at 99% before finally leaving Early Access, and we WILL finish the last 1% as well. And it will not be that long anymore!
We're looking forward to the final release, too, so just stay tuned a little bit. :-)
Cheers
New trailers for the shop page!
Hello guys, not only the development approaches the finish line of Early Access phase, but also some other to-do's for the shop page had to be done. The two major tasks have been new trailers including the updated graphics engine and a professional voice over (people probably got bored hearing my voice :-P).
The two trailers can be watched on the shop page, but you can also have a look at them on YouTube:
Big Ship Module Pack, New Tutorials and Progress Report
Hello guys,
nice you're still around! There hasn't been an update for a long time for two reasons:
What's happening right now
1. We are re-writing the entire game client to increase performance. With more hardware instancing and therefore less draw calls, we can drastically increase the FPS. This requires so much of refactoring and different organization of data, that we decided to re-write the entire client. This is very time-consuming but will be worth the effort. We're still having a few memory problems, but we're on a very good track.
2. In a parallel branch, we're developing the final world level, Level 5. That's a lot of content: level 5 buildings, the level 5 ship designer, level 5 weapons, engines and other modules, level 5 NPC ships. This being said, all support work (3d modelling, sound design) has been done and we started adding it to the game. This will not last long anymore to be released.
Update
To compensate for the long downtime, we decided to publish an intermediate release. This is still the non-performance-optimized version of the game, but offers a lot new content:
Ship Module Pack
The new build introduces approx. three dozens of new ship modules, distributed over all four levels. These are mainly storage and decoration modules, to make your ships even more custom and detailed. This means, we're now close to 250 modules in total!
NPC factions complete
With the new modules introduced, we finally finished all NPC ships of all 8 races. That means: All three hostile factions and all five trade factions will now spawn at all Jump Portals from level 1 to 4 and have their unique ship designs throughout all four levels.
New Tutorials
There are two new tutorial videos, one for the Automation Lab, and one for the Research lab, explaining the transmitter system (how you can automate item production and progressing, and supply your big buildings with energy), and the research and world upgrade system.
These have been integrated to the ingame Wiki (press F1 ingame to open it), and also appear as tutorial screens, as soon as you build either building. You can also watch them on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCZVY4ooiec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFW5Ykr_JTc
We hope, you like the update and wish you a lot of fun until Level 5!
Cheers
Chris
Editor Upgrade
Hey guys,
today we release another upgrade to the Galactineers Editor, which raises the level of the editor features up to the current development level of the game itself. In details, this means:
* You can now configure the new Lightbox item in the editor with a nice color picker.
* You can now set outgoing connections and transported item types for transmitters. That way, you can ad partial transmitter systems to your space objects, which will then appear -ready to use- on your map. This feature has also been added to the PVE instances, so you can use transmitters + transmitter connections for storytelling/decoration purposes in your PVE mission scripts.
* Some improvements in the property grid (e.g. showing the right properties (color, outgoing connection, sign text) for all objects instead of generic ones)
Also, the scripting API has been extended by new functions:
- AddItem($itemId, $coordinates, $rotation)
- RemoveItem($coordinates, $explode)
That way, you can add and remove (also with explosions!) all buildable items via a mission script. These features were essential to finish scripting of the upcoming "The Jump Portal" PVE mission.
We hope you like it and happy mapping!
Cheers
Let there be light!
Hello guys!
Today we're proud to release a big game update, which we've been working on for weeks. It significantly improves the overall visual quality of the game.
Lighting improvement
At first, we added bump mapping to all blocks an buildings! This increases the level of detail dramatically and creates a more three-dimensional surface for all blocks and building walls.
At second, we added light sources and illumination (this can be (de)activated in the settings). Items like buoys or powerblocks do now emit light and enlighten the environment around them. This improves the games atmosphere in a big scale. Furthermore, spotlights can be attached to your ships to create seeker ships or just as a nice decoration.
And with it comes the content
To allow you to make use of the new visuals, there are over a dozen new ship modules from level 1 to 3, which you can use in the ship designer (no need to unlock via a mission loot). From point light beacons over floodlights to lanterns, you'll find everything to build nice illuminated ships.
A new trading race has been introduced to the game, the Copper Miners. On the above screenshot you can see their home base, which can now be found in outer space as well. They'll sell copper, coal and also a new item called Lightbox. The lightbox can be used to illuminate your structures with spotlights of different colours (can also be seen on the above screenshot). Of course, the copper miners will also appear at your jump portals to trade with your docking bays. Just make sure you check out our wiki to see the supply and demand of all trading races.
Bugfixes and improvements
Of course, as with every update, we also fixed bugs and added a few improvements and/or features from our to-do list. For example the tutorial has been improved with new tag messages, so it's even more obvious for newcomers to get into the game, and the shields (available for ships of level 2 or above) have now been implemented to the combat engine.
Roadmap
In the next few days, we'll focus on updating our shop page with new screenshots and trailers, so new visitors get a better impression of the game in updated quality. Also, trading cards and our wiki page will be updated with improved screenshots. Maybe, we'll launch another Steam visibility round to get a new wave of players in.
After everything has been updated to the better visual level, we'll return to mission scripting and finally release the next two PVE missions you're all waiting for.
But for now, have fun with the update and thanks for reading! :-)
