the time has almost come: Next Friday we're going to release the traffic lights udpate with configurable traffic lights, traffic signs, UI scaling, grids, and more. This week, I'd like to introduce you to a gameplay change:
Arenas used to "produce" culture and then deliver that to the habitats like any resource. From now on, arenas, parks and schools will have an area of effect to satisfy habitats needs for culture, relaxation, and education:
Our character side project has been progressing nicely. Let me introduce you to our female colonists:
For now, the colonists will just inhabit the habitants and give the game some detail. In the future, there might be more human-centric plans that are not on the roadmap - just a little extra from us ;)
And finally, thanks everyone for all the comments on grids! I think I should ask more questions in Friday Dev News because the participation has been great.
We decided to go with a global grid for now because it's easier and most people want that. But, there is a twist: You can not only toggle the grid, you can also rotate it by 45 degrees if you want! That can make building more interesting cities a little bit easier:
(You can still build with grids turned off, which is how the infrastructure on the screenshots above were made.)
If all goes according to plan, we'll be able to release the traffic lights update next Friday and until then - happy playing!
Friday Dev News #58 - Deliveries
Hello everyone!
In today's Friday Dev News I'm bringing you another bunch of features for the traffic light update on Feb 25th.
Straight Buildings
It's been a fun experiment and some players liked our slanted buildings, but on the other hand they could look a little extreme on mountain ranges. Also, habitats sometimes collided with each other after upgrading to taller buildings if they were slanted just slightly towards each other.
That's why after this update buildings will be standing upright. The terrain will adapt to the shape of the building.
Before:
After:
Outgoing Storage Visualization
A question we hear repeatedly from confused players is "my outgoing storage is full - why is it not delivering?"
In order to help out with delivery issues, we introduced this small button:
Click it and you'll get a visualization that shows you possible delivery targets:
Green buildings consume the resource in question and are ready for delivery. Yellow buildings consume the resource in question, but are already full. Red buildings are not connected to the selected factory by road or rail.
Colonists
Finally, I'm happy to report our side project colonists have made it into the game:
For now, they just inhabit your buildings. Who knows what else they will do in the future ;)
Experiment: Optional Grids?
And as a last nugget of info - check out this experiment:
It's still an experiment and we're not sure how it will be implemented or if at all... But, would you like a grid? Let us know!
Happy playing, Daniel
Friday Dev News #57 - UI Scaling & Settlers
Hello everyone!
It has probably been our most requested feature so far if you don't count items on the roadmap: UI Scaling!
Well, I'm happy to report that not only are we working on it, but we also plan to ship it with the next major update on Feb 25th. Have a look at the screenshots!
Default UI Scale:
Large UI Scale:
We're also thinking about whether it makes sense to slightly increase the font size for all small texts, since it seems like bad readability of those is where most of the complaints come from.
Settlers
Finally, since UI screenshots can't really be used for news post cover art, I'm glad I can also share some progress on our secret character-related side project with you. Character model, space suit are finished, textured, and set up to be ready for animation:
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #56 - Traffic Light Settings + Update Release Date
Hello everyone,
if you want to use traffic lights, you can just turn them on and they'll be set up pretty decently for most situations. But if you have specific needs, you'll be able to edit the details:
You can add and delete traffic light phases at will and adjust their timing. The progress bar on the left shows the current phase and can be used to switch through phases quickly during editing.
The checkbox on the top makes it a little more efficient: High traffic intersections in real life use weight sensors in the street or cameras to detect if cars are waiting on a specific lane and adjust the light cycles dynamically. Similarly, with this checkbox enabled, the intersection detects if traffic is through on one side and skips the rest of the light phase.
For each phase, you can select which lanes are supposed to go. If you want, you can select conflicting lines on the same phase, but then cars may have to wait on each other to go!
Major Update Release Date
We want to fill the next major update with more stuff, but also let you know about when you can expect to play with it, so here you go: The traffic control update is scheduled for February 25th.
Traffic control is the main topic, but that's just traffic lights + traffic signs. We'll spend the next weeks until the release on quality of life stuff in our list (thinking about UI scaling + more grid building tools, as requested by you).
Today's Minor Update
This week I didn't get to all new saves that have been sent to me to check out, but today's update features:
A fix that prevented players from deleting adamantine mines
A fix where trains would lose cargo on their way (reason was: habitats were upgrading and goods on delivery didn't reroute to new upgraded habitat properly)
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #55 - Traffic Lights
Hello everyone!
Today I'm happy to announce our next big roadmap item: Traffic lights!
You will be able to configure them in detail, down to which lane shows which color at which point in time. To make things easier, traffic lights will get sensible default settings that are ok for most situations. Together with the existing lane config tool, this should allow you to manage high traffic intersections much more closely.
Closely related to this are traffic signs to make cars yield or give them right of way. This is both an easier way of prioritizing roads as well as a necessary tool to make proper roundabouts.
Next week, I'm planning to show more of the configuration interface for both.
Small extra: Today we saw our first player city with 58k population - so it's fitting you're getting a loading screen progress bar with the next major update:
And finally, for this weeks update, I fixed another save loading issue for the 2 players who reported it on the forum and we also added the Thai translation.
Happy playing!
Friday Dev News #54
Hello everyone!
It's already late here, so I'll keep it short.
While we work on background tasks, please enjoy this week's fixes & features:
Trains now select unoccupied platform in train station instead of taking the closest one
Fixed leftover issue with road building performance
Added a back button in the main menu when you click on "new game" (I guess this was overdue :)
Added Romanian translation (thanks community translators!)
Also, this year we want to delve more into the challenges of creating a human city on a faraway planet. Here is a first sneak peek for you (work in progress, not finished yet):
