As announced on stream tonight, here is the new update! https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis
Improved message when a station can not be build
It wasn't immediately apparent what the red circle around the colony ship meant when trying to build a settlement. This new text should clarify the situation.
New "new game" intro images
I started to work on the "new game" intro image. Before we only had a single still image. I plan to add a few more if the story needs it.
New shiny recruit / train interface
A big change in the interface! I re-build the recruit / train interface from scratch to make it much more clear! The interface to purchase a ship will be next.
Old interface:
New interface:
Additional small changes
Right click on a docked ship in the home world will now open he trade window
Better load/save fade in/out
Auto trade is still really in alpha, but it should not delete your ships anymore
The outliner will now show more than one docked ship per station
Remove filtering on sprite images - everything should look more crisp!
And don't forget, I need you! Let me know if you have any feedback on the game so far! Comment greatly help!
The best place to get in touch and chat with the community is on discord: https://discord.gg/eqxF58uqjC
Alpha Update 18
Hello Builders!
As announced on stream, here is the important mid-week update with many improvements.
Improved Zoom and Pan
Moving around the map was a bit glitchy. Zooming in and out of the belt could be slow. All of this should be better now! Let me know your feedback.
Drag and drop ship in Homeworld and Stations
Undocking a ship from a station used to be done with a right click. This was a inconsistent and confusing user experience.
There is now a better visualization of which ship is selected and a button to undock it. You can also drag and drop the ship on the button to undock.
The same drag and drop interaction also work in the Homeworld trade screen. You can now drag a ship to the outgoing queue to send it back to the belt.
Visual progress for lobbying
A new progress bar in the top information bar of the belt map shows you the lobbying progress without opening the lobby screen.
Keybinding remap
You are no able to remap the default Inputs in the Option menu. The default key binding is now WASD instead of ZQSD layout.
Additional minor changes
Selecting a citizen should be easier - the mouse is more accurate at detecting them
Fighting in the fog of war is not visible anymore
The Gatepedia automatically reset its zoom level on new search
The default quantity of neutral floating cargos in the asteroid belt has been increased to make the early game easier and faster.
Twitch Integration
A new Option screen allow you to configure the Twitch Integration settings
The !hireme command now impact the default immigration in-game. Hiring a new viewer will cause an influence deficit for the player. This deficit need to be repaid in full before natural immigration restarts.
The deficit is visible in the top information bar in the belt map.
And don't forget, I need you! Let me know if you have any feedback on the game so far! Comment greatly help!
The best place to get in touch and chat with the community is on discord: https://discord.gg/eqxF58uqjC
Alpha Update 17
Hello Builders!
I didn't publish a new version on Steam since a while due to summer holidays and Tobujam #1.
However, coding continue, as well as the Monday Dev Stream on https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis If you want to join us live, the stream is at 8 PM GMT+1 (CEST) every Monday
So? What is in this updated alpha?
New Error Dialog
A new error dialog give in game detail about exceptions. This should make it more clear when something goes wrong. If you see this dialog in-game, it may not prevent you to keep playing, but do let me know!
New Random Number Generator
This may seems technical and obscure but every game needs a way to generate random numbers. The previous random number generator used in Gate Builder was not very random.
Tutorial improvement
The tutorial will now remember the steps you already completed in case of save and reload.
Step to implement AI
The AI caused the game to freeze between turn in the previous Alpha. "This should be solved" - said the developer while crossing his fingers
A new Debug UI was also added to the game and can display what is happening in the brain of the AI. A setting is available in the option menu to turn it on or off.
Better Audio Sliders
The volume control in the Option Menu are now more logical for human ears. Thanks Wheffle!
Twitch integration
Last few stream, we worked on a Twitch Chat Integration to allow twitch viewers to participate in the game.
Twitch viewer are now able to be hired as Citizen and join the Homeword of a streamer. They will get a salary every turn if they are working in a station or if they are present in Chat. (With a bonus for subscribers)
In this alpha, viewer can not do anything with this salary yet. More will come soon.
The list of implemented commands is:
!jobs: display a list of valid jobs
!hireme : add the viewer in the homeworld imigration queue
!bal / !balance: show the viewer wallet balance
!modgive[s] : only for mods, add credits to a viewer wallet
Viewer name, online status and balance are displayed in game on a name plate over the viewer's citizen.
What's next?
I will probably work one or two more stream max on the Twitch Chat Integration, as it's a fun things to do with the community.
In the mean time, I plan to resume a more steady development cycle now that the summer holidays are over.
And don't forget, I need you! Let me know if you have any feedback on the game so far! Comment greatly help!
The best place to get in touch and chat with the community is on discord: https://discord.gg/eqxF58uqjC
Alpha Update 14
Hello Builders!
Since Monday Stream, I have been hard at work fixing some of your bug reports and trying to hunt them down
Here is a list of all the changes in alpha 14:
Music UI
A new user interface show the current music name and allow you to skip to the next one
I also modified how the next random music is selected. It will now play the full album before repeating a music a second time. No more 2 hours of the same music.
Sponsor
We have new in-game sponsor available early and giving access to a corvette. If you want to hunt pirates and neural transport early game, this one may be for you!
Bug under investigation
We have report of space ship breaking the law of physic! Long distance teleportation is a bug. If this is happening to you, please let me know. I am trying to understand why.
One of the potential reason is a duplication / clone of a single ship. I encountered the issue a few weeks ago but I thought it was fixed.
If this happens to you, just save your game and reload, it should fix it in Alpha 14. Reloading a save will clean all duplicate ship until I figure out what cause the duplication. (undocking, travelling from the homeworld?)
If you have any more info about those bugs, or figure out how to reproduce them, please let me know!
Other minor changes
Added a new tooltip explaining how to undock ships from station
Removed the highlight box in the main menu button
Savegame now remember which version of the alpha created them (mostly useful for me)
Properly count Android as citizen - they now consume batteries to survive as it was supposed to be. I realized they didn't in the previous versions due to a bug.
That's it for today!
Thanks a lot to all the amazing alpha testers. I'm sorry you encounter many issues, but it was expected as a first release to our small community. Program never work the same on the developer computer as on others. This is the magic of programming ^^
Togis
Post-Stream update - Audio Loop and Linux Build
Hello Builders!
Following today's Playtest on Twitch here is a quick Alpha update:
Fix the music constantly looping the same song
Create a Linux Build (experimental)
First Live Playtest of the pre-alpha on Twitch
Hello Fellow Builders!
The alpha is almost ready to be sent to the first testers in the community.
Tonight, I am going to playtest the game live on stream at 8 PM CET.
Join me here: https://www.twitch.tv/tobugis and discover Gate Builders and how I hunt for bugs.
