Based on feedback from our Alpha testers, there's quite a list of bugs that have been patched in this update:
Bug Fixes
-Crafting table has had several bugs squashed that would result in lost items
-Picking up items in the world no longer has a delay
-Fixed case where breaking a block in the world with full inventory would cause the loot to follow you around forever
-Several bugs fixed that would cause item loss when dealing with full inventories
-Tutorial chest now saves and restores correctly
-Game save lag on first spawning fixed
-Intro text larger
-Fixed grammatical error in intro
-Tutorial chest no longer too easy to break
-Climbing rope should work more reliably now
Community Update
Lastly, I wanted to post some screenshots that our Alpha testers have been sharing:
Alpha tester ThatOtherGuy braved the cold and climbed to the top of the station to grab this picture of the sunrise, probably just before freezing to death:
Tecknowolf created a multi-level base, complete with furniture, lighting and a heating system:
Dall77 went all-out on storage in his base, and keeps things at a balmy 72 degrees, thanks to the heat pipes and furnace system:
Dev update #12 Patch Day!
This will be the first of several bug fix releases in response to our closed alpha testing.
Special thanks to the following testers on discord for their help uncovering these bugs:
-Removed unneeded VR plugins from project to avoid VR hardware from thinking game is VR enabled
-Signs now have colliders
-Roadway blocks are easier to see in the dark and have a nifty glow effect
-Missing jacket slot added to paperdoll
-Fixed bug that can cause items to become un-placeable if they are in a stack that is split
-Mobs should no longer spawn at player start location, but can still follow the player there
Dev Update #11 Prepping for closed alpha!
We’ve been spending a lot of time focusing on prepping for our closed alpha testing, and there are lots of changes big and small that have gone in to this so far. Now is probably as good a time as any to start doing some official-ish patch notes.
A preview of some of the new items that have been added to the game
Features and Changes:
-Waypoint added on death, along with a container of your items
-Added settings menu
-Added number key shortcuts for each toolbelt slot
-Reticule visuals now more intuitive
-Door sound added
-Block placing sound added
-Various interface sounds added
-Tools can now be used by clicking, as well as holding down LMB
-Day/Night cycle more visually different now
-Armor can now mitigate damage
-Health regen and hunger now tuned to work better with armor mitigation
-Heat from furnace and HVAC pipes has been buffed
-Burn time of garbage buffed
-Improved Crafting bench UI
This is still an area of active development, and the current system will
likely see another large overhaul before all is said and done.
-Recipe lists now available in all machines
-Paperdoll menu now easier to understand
-Removed requirement for external prefab files in packaged game
-Many missing icons have been added
-Item drops now balanced better with regards to scarcity
-Temperature balanced better
-Music is now controlled centrally by an audio manager so we can craft moments better, such as the game opening
-Lore added to loading screen
-Loading screen visuals improved
-Story intro now fully hooked up for new games
-Message/coms functionality added
we can push content to the player HUD as needed to deliver certain story points
-Game now pauses when reading messages
-Dialog system now uses macro library so that inheritance will work properly
-Story points now save and restore on quit and load
-Save system now saves autosaves automatically
-Added tutorial experience
This is a work in progress, but will help explain at least some of the basic gameplay concepts.
Bug Fixes:
-Fan block can no longer create a feedback loop
-Items no longer disappear in the crafting benches when dragging
-Fixed controls when dying in a menu
-Planks now use proper base class
-Items in hand now clean themselves up properly when switching items
-Block highlighting now cleans itself up properly in all cases
-Fan block no longer pushes player when placing
-Pipes now have proper collision in all cases
-Shortcut for exiting menus now works reliably
-Dragging items now draws the item icon correctly after respawn
-Removed melee delay when first harvesting an item
-Lighting draw distance adjusted to improve performance
-Furnace now warms properly
-Improved load times by cleaning up un-needed preprocessing
-Music no longer plays more often than it should
-Shelter now calculates correctly in edge cases
-Can no longer place blocks inadvertently while opening doors
Devblog #10 Water, Water Nowhere
The endgame for the tech tree in Lamplight Station involves the ability to build a lot of complex and high-tech machinery. Things like stellarators, gene splicers and molecular printers are on the horizon. Most of these machines will require power, cooling and item inputs. This also allows for a lot of creativity, because the player can decide how to lay out these structures optimally, and automating them can become a possibility.
You have to walk before you can run, so some of the first multiblock structures that the player can craft will be much simpler.
Fog Collectors
These allow for the collection of moisture from the air, and built using two parts: A water barrel, and one or more collector blocks.
The collectors can be stacked vertically over a single barrel, at a slight efficiency penalty. Water can be collected from the barrels by the player for other uses.
Tier-II water barrels will be able to pipe water elsewhere for use in irrigation, cooling, etc.
Composter
Water is primarily useful for growing plants. It will be a challenge to even get started growing plants in such a harsh environment. Dirt is not available and must be created from ingredients scrounged from the level. Biomatter can be inserted into another craftable machine: the Improvised Composter, which will output key ingredients for creating soil.
As more machines become available during the development of the game, the possibilities for combining and using them creatively expands.
Devblog #9 Level Up!
Last week, we focused on improving the level design. There's much more variety in terms of tiles that spawn in the world now. The level also received some tweaks to make it easier to travel up/down in the level and increase the verticality a bit.
Highrise offices will be a good place to find rare items, such as wood, used in flooring only the most luxurious areas.
Terraced 'apartments' can provide a quick escape from the cold, and a way to travel up or down in the station.
Various storefronts can contain food items, or electronic components.
Stairways provide quick access to some of the upper levels of the station.
These industrial cooling towers actually house tenement housing in the large cavities within.
Skywalks connect some of the more well-to-do housing and office units.
Devblog #8 It's Getting Windy Out There
The last few weeks, we've focused our efforts on polishing gameplay for the first 20-30 minutes of playtime. We still have a ways to go but many bugs have been squashed, new content has been added, and settings have been tuned. Here's some of what we've been up to:
Exposure System
The game is now aware of how exposed the player is to the elements. Your temperature penalty is now calculated based on this, and there are visual/audio cues as well. Precipitation is more affected by the wind the more exposed you are.
Exposure is calculated via a combination of checks:
1. Testing to see if the player is under a roof or not.
2. Testing to see how directly in the path of the wind the player is.
This second check is accomplished via a 3D pathfind between the player and the wind emmitter. The path is then scored on distance and directness of route to calculate the sheltered amount.
Here you can visualize the path the wind follows in debug mode.
General Updates
-Game now starts mid day, to give ample time to get situated before the more difficult nighttime temperatures.
-Adjusted nighttime cold to do damage but not kill you the first night.
-Hunger now has 5 states. The two extremes will effect you: starving hurts your health and well-fed will heal you slowly.
-Loot spawning has been refactored. The old system relied on the nav mesh to spawn loot, and was too finicky in a variety of edge cases. The new system performs much more reliably, but is slightly costlier on level generation. This trade off should be acceptable, because you only need to generate the level one time when you first start a new game.
-Different building types in the game will now have their own loot types that spawn in them, making the discovery of various buildings more important.
-Block placing is now much more intuitive, and shows a preview of the block location. Blocks now snap to player direction as well, so that the player can control orientation of the block.
Look for more updates in the coming weeks as we get closer to early access!
-Trev
Devblog # 7 Save Me!
This past week we focused on getting some of the smaller, yet vital features added to the game. Your progress in the game is now saved upon exit, and you'll have the option of starting a new game or continuing with a previous game upon launching. There's also a loading screen now and a system for spawning into the world only after the level has fully loaded.
We've also added several new tiles to the map generator: an alleyway tile, and an apartment lowrise tile. These areas of the world were once inhabited by the less well-to-do residence of Lamplight Station, and are good sources of resources early in the game.
Alleyway tile. A good place to go to get materials for lights.
These apartments are not a great place to live, but you may find valuable components here.
Devblog #6 Craft All the Things!
This week we focused on adding new craftable items to the game, particularly in the metal casting crafting tree.
New Machines
Molding Bench Patterns can be turned into sand molds using this machine.
Casting Bench Molten metal can be poured into molds in this machine, leaving you with a strong cast component.
Recycling Bench Scavenged metal and electronic scrap is broken down to components using this bench. The addition of the proper tools can increase the amount of items you receive when breaking things down.
Because of the sheer number of items we will have in the game, it became clear that some basic validation of the item data was needed so that we don't inadvertently allow mistakes to creep in as we create items for the game. To that end, some very basic sanity checks were added to the item library that should alert us if we make mistakes when adding new items to the game.
In addition, we can now generate some basic reports about what items are craftable in-game, and which machine blocks are required to do so. This will eventually be presented to the player by way of a browse-able crafting tree, so now we have the foundation for that in-place. Originally, we were tracking this by hand in spreadsheets, but that method is prone to error and gets out of date quickly. This way, there's only one true representation that is guaranteed to be up-to-date.
-Trev
Devblog #5
This week, I focused on generalizing the classes and logic for machines. This will allow us to quickly add new machine types to the game and configure them and their uses and purpose.
It's sometimes hard to understand how to design something that can be expanded and will work simply for many use cases, so I started with a specific use case (the furnace) and then generalized from there.
Machine blocks essentially take some form of input(s), and transform them to one or more output.
[B]Examples include:[/B]
Accept an electrical input and output heat
Accept wood and scrap metal as an input and output a metal ingot
Accept coal, scrap metal and a metal mold to output a molded metal part
Accept Seeds, soil and water and grow plants
Specifically, machines can implement the following superset of functionality:
-Consume a particular type of item to power the device
-Allow the player to turn them on/off
-Consume a specified set of items and output another item or set of items
-Accept particular items in specified slot to increase efficiency
-Route outputted items through pipes to other machines
The last task needed is to integrate the machine block class with the pipe routing system, after that it's time to shift our focus to creating the actual machines that the player will be able to craft.
As a bonus, we also switched the inventory class to be more event-driven. Now classes can subscribe to inventory objects and get notified when that inventory changes state. This will make it much less complicated for objects to implement the inventory class in the future.
-Trev
Devblog #4
This week was spent buttoning up the machine/pipe block logic and generalizing a few things so that it's easily extensible.
Using the above, the improvised furnace, fan, and gas pipe blocks are now placable in the world and vent heat when the furnace is running. The furnace also now consumes resources in order to run, so you'll need to scavenge for items to burn in the furnace in order to keep things heated.
Furnaces, Fans and Pipes can now be placed down by the player and connected.
Excusing the programmer art, here you can see the furnace consuming resources, and pumping heat out of the ends of the pipes!
We also added a chest block, so storing items now becomes a possibility. Chests will also spawn in the world and can be configured to contain various loot tables, so they will soon take the place of the generic 'loot' blocks that we've been using for this purpose up to this point.
Our next big push will be continuing to add different types of machine blocks to the game to greatly extend the combinations and possibilities for player created machines.
