Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Maia
Maia Update: All Hands On Deck
It's Maia update time! This build brings features, fixes, interface, optimisations and Steam Deck and controller support to the game.
Cartographics! The new map pop up allows you to see the layout of your base quickly, track colonists and robots, spot threats and fires and to move around the map fast. Switching between the overlay modes also allows you to see atmosphere and temperature conditions in your base.
Controller support! The game now has controller support that will allow you to play the game on most modern controllers, compatible accessibility devices and of course portable PC devices such as the Steam Deck.
To support low power mobile devices the game has been deeply optimised. As well as general improvements, several large frame-time spikes have been eradicated, which should keep it running smoothly. The memory footprint of the game code has also been painstaking optimised down by about 25%. This means that lower end machines will benefit from better performance, and huge bases on large heavily populated maps on regular machines should run much smoother too.
Petting the animals in the game now has better feedback with a new cursor animation and friendlier AI responses from the dogs, and of course, absolute apathy from the cats. Keeping your animals social needs fulfilled will make them more eager to defend your base and catch any invading insects. It will also stop dogs distracting the colonists so much and the cats from destroying the furniture (maybe).
Other changes:
Fixed a shader issue with AMD GPU driver support that was stopping the game from running for some users.
Pause button on keyboard now rebindable.
Fix for colonists trying to make small adjustments whilst running causing them to abruptly come to a half and then start running again.
Upgraded SDL support.
Objective flashing animation improved.
Rain textures and animation improved.
Grid simulation no longer shows invalid values on energy storage devices when the game is paused.
Lava simulation optimised and threading removed to prevent crashes. (Full lava rewrite postponed due to complexity)
Colonists will now prioritise the meteor pickups in the second level of the campaign.
Massively reduced the constraint iterations on the cloth simulations to improve CPU performance when the player has lots of flags.
Fix for incorrect light colour in Radiation Containment room.
Protobird sleep behaviour fixed to stop it running automatically into groom behaviour.
Capsules landing will no longer set the ground on fire if the ground is covered in snow.
Join us on the Discord to show off you base, report bugs, request features and chat with the community.
On the deck I recommend using the Proton GE for maximum compatibility.
Linux builds will go live this evening.
That’s it for now. More updates coming soon™!
See all the changes going into the codebase as they happen on https://dev.maiagame.com/
Surface Detail
Greetings from the tier 5 exclusion zone! I hope this update finds you well, or at least alive.
Drop in on the Discord and let us know how you are doing.
[previewyoutube="QpL6J9QU1u8;full"]
MAIA now features a brand new ray-marched voxelised shadow system allowing every light in your base to cast accurate dynamic shadows into the world. This system really augments a colony’s atmosphere, doesn’t require any ray-tracing specific hardware and also won’t totally obliterate your frame rate.
Continuing the visual improvements, several new colonist head variations are now in the game, and the quality of many existing game textures has been increased. A multitude of small visual tweaks and polish improvements have been carefully worked in to improve the general feel and aesthetic.
Along with with the new lighting system and graphics improvements the game has been given a deep optimisation pass on the core game code and graphics pipeline. This means that densely populated maps with a mature ecosystem simulation and a large number of colonists, robots and creatures will see performance gains of up to 30-40% on a middle range CPU, which can lead to a much smoother frame rate.
On the GPU you may see up to a 15% increase in frames per second (with the new ray shadows switched off). The engine also now caches generated code, shaders and other data and will load the game several seconds faster.
The user interface was feeling a little left out so we gave it some love too. The middle click menu has now been extended to room placement to for those who prefer a list based selection. Many menu boxes, buttons and pop up texts have been given shadows and extra borders to improve readability in high contrast scenes.
Other changes:
• Changing texture settings on the fly no longer causes glitches. • MSAA settings changes are improved. • Several menu options now require an “apply” click to help stop accidental changes. • The game will now spawn a much lower number of threads and use them better. • Screen space reflections straightened slightly. • Support for OpenGL 4.5 added. • The GUI now has a visual autosave notification. • Text colours are fixed when on in-game colonist selection screens. • The outbreaks of contagious colonist hypochondria have been reduced. • Colonist needs balanced. • The Utility bots will wait less for jobs. • Colonists need to be a lot more fatigued to go AWOL. • Colonist trauma will fade significantly faster. • Colonists will now need to be closer to cave-ins to be traumatised by them. • Room temperatures will now simulate more accurately. • Game log files updated to newer more detailed format. • Better shader loading verification. • Lots of small AI tweaks. • Intel 3000HD support dropped and fired into the sun. • Instability caused by giant wildfires fixed.
We'll be back soon with more features and fixes. Watch the updates as they happen on the dev site.
Firestorm
About time for an update!
Wildfires.
Raging infernos can now spread through the game world mercilessly incinerating everything in their path.
Keep your base clear of ground cover or risk being caught up in conflagration. These “rapid oxidation” events can be triggered by faulty equipment, explosions, tracer rounds and even the soft landing rockets on the capsules. High winds and sustained droughts heighten the dangers of the blaze.
Desertification
The planet's soil is now even more accurately simulated with erosion, soil stability, drainage, fertility and microbiomes all being computed.
Ground stripped of foliage by colonists, fauna or fire will eventually become desertified as the wind and rain relentlessly ravage the landscape. The dust from this depleted ground makes for poor foundations and can damage equipment.
[previewyoutube="phs9U9UIGUE;full"]
Balance and AI tweaks
The need for repairs for many items has been adjusted to ensure the colonists are more productive in the early and mid game. Priorities for repairing have been shifted to favour repair bots in the later game to ensure research doesn’t slow down or stop entirely as your base is consumed by entropy.
Interface changes
Removing room tiles now requires holding a right-click. This should reduce issues with accidental misclicks.
A progress bar has been added to loading sequences to give a better indication of time remaining. Several optimisations will mean that loading times are also significantly shorter.
Windowing has been improved to allow for high DPI monitors, better 4k support and Windows scaling options. The missing window icon has been readded.
Graphical improvements
The particle system has been revamped, new effects added and many older effects such as the smoke and fire have been improved to look more realistic.
Several graphical issues leading to stability problems on some systems have been patched to ensure your base building is uninterrupted.
Full modding support.
New game objects can now be created using a fully featured scripting interface. The system uses Squirrel, a language similar to LUA, that looks like C++ and has many modern language features and great performance. I will be releasing more documentation for this very soon, in the meantime if you want to start learning how to make mods join the Discord.
Coming soon:
Native fauna planting and rewilding.
Ground water extraction and irrigation systems.
More colonist variety.
New equipment and AI.
Several GUI changes.
Modding documentation and mesh importers.
The build is already live on Windows and will be going out on Linux later this evening. To see changes as they happen you can check out dev.maiagame.com.
Despite the large changes, older saves are supported. If you have any issues loading an existing map, start a fresh exploration mode, and load, and the game will fix the save.
That's it for now. Join the Discord and come show us your fancy base designs!
Trauma
It is the holidays and so you know what that means! Yep, it’s time to curl up into a ball and enjoy the cold sweats of some intense mental trauma!
Affliction
The drama and disasters around your base will now have a more complex effect on your colonists, with individual traumas embedding themselves in their minds. Earthquakes, cave ins, fires, alien attacks, meteor strikes, severe illness, neglect, deaths, and even intensely unpleasant social interactions can now cause long term anguish to your colonists. Their suffering will manifest in unpredictable behaviours, task aversion, distressed emails, and even as acute physical illness.
Science-fiction
The IMP first person mode has now been greatly improved with interface changes, and more responsive way to pick things up. They also now have the ability to grab, carry and use more useful items (such as minerals).
Improved Diction
Colonist emails are now more detailed with more descriptions of their actions in their reports, and several suggestions for the optimisation and balancing of your base. For instance they will now mention when there is a shortage of repair robots for the current base repair load.
Reduced Friction
There are many more small changes. With dozens of tweaks and balance changes made based on player feedback and further testing.
Notable changes:
Dogs no longer become so tired that they become despondent and never respond to orders.
Cats also no longer do nothing due to tiredness. (Given their interests, this is probably a bad thing)
Campaign mission 2 now allows more colonists after the (spoiler!).
Right click now drops tool for room placement mode.
To destroy completed rooms segments you now need to click and hold the right mouse.
The reloading of turrets is better handled and colonists will get around to it faster.
UI warnings panel will mention if repair bots are insufficient.
Microwave smelter bug where it would be stuck closed fixed.
Microwave smelter progress text updates slower to be more readable.
Fix for terminal computer getting stuck reporting no capacity.
World gen now checks to avoid plants placed slightly in walls or unwalkable tiles.
Repairing burnt planters need changed from food creation to food preparation.
Priority orders can now be switched off.
Font size of manifest reduced.
Manifest screen now has text alignment for data after names.
Condenser name loading fixed.
Nerve gas research name and text fixed.
Fixes for vox nocturnis's getting stuck in their nests.
Door frames set for destruction no longer need to be upgraded before being destroyed.
Propagators can now be disassembled.
Solar flares slightly reduced on all maps.
Fix for too many pop-ups caused by the pop-up limitation code doing the exact opposite of its job.
Fix for crew selection pop ups shortening time to colonist choices.
Fix for tutorial state remaining into next mission after completing it.
Crew selection pop ups will be totally skipped if Place Room, Rotation or Rename modes are enabled.
Crew selection pop ups will be postponed if user is in place entity mode until they leave that mode.
Lifespan on text without VO longer.
Bug stopping VO playing fixed.
Level 3 typo for VO.
Fix for typos in campaign mission 2.
Fix for the code that was designed to push colonists out of walls pushing colonists into walls due to weird room shapes.
Chickens will now idle correctly.
Fix for bug that was saving the music in a low volume state if you exited the game whilst VO was playing or waiting.
Console spawn command can now include number of items to spawn after the item ID.
Text GUI buttons now have a border area to make them easier to click.
Thanks to the community for their detailed feedback and save files. If you want to get involved join us on the discord and keep an eye on the development site for changes going into the game.
Obviously this is a slightly more compact update than usual. I'm working on a much larger release with some much bigger changes and some very interesting features for release in the new year.
Until then, enjoy the holidays, be merry, and try not to set too many things on fire.
Launch!
It's finally time to launch the game! The 0.69 update has hundreds of changes, fixes and a space shuttle's worth of new content. It's live now so give it a go!
This won't be Maia's final update, we're got a lot more coming very shortly!
The Campaign
The full seven mission narrative campaign is in with voiceover. The missions will take about 14 hours for the average player and test your skills in a variety of situations.
Role Allocation Systems
Want a dedicated builder, hydroponics worker or researcher? Construct the role allocation systems in the control room and choose from your colonists with the right skills. Remember if you don't have the skills the desk in the research room can be used by colonists to learn new expertise.
Soundscape
The entire soundscape of the game has been reworked. The environment sounds richer, more varied and also gives away many more useful game play cues.
The soundtrack has been extended with many more spine tingling dark 70's synth tracks.
Build Menu and Interface changes
In item build mode you can hold alt or middle click to bring up a selectable menu of items to place. This makes dealing with the longer lists much easier.
Many other small tweaks have come to the interface with smarter popups, less text, a smaller default cursor, better responsiveness and less clutter.
AI and balance
The colonists needs and AI have been given a balancing pass, with the notable change that fatigue is reduced on several actions. Surface operations will be more viable with longer trips and better use of suit refill points and airlocks.
Other changes:
You can see a full list of changes since the last update at the developer website.
Daily builds will continue on the dev branch so make sure you're on that if you want the latest fixes and features.
Maia 0.68: The Penultimate Truth.
After a several month mission Maia 0.68 has touched down! Watch my video below to see a quick overview of some of the new features and fixes.
https://youtu.be/y28WgF5jozI
This is the penultimate development version of Maia. The next update, 0.69 will take the game out of the early access program. This of course won't be the last addition to the game and there are plenty of new and exciting things to come. (I'll also be sticking to my no DLC policy, all main game content updates will remain free.)
If you enjoy Maia's updates, but want to try them earlier, don't forget to set your game to use the development beta branch on Steam which will give you access to my daily builds. (Right click on the game in your library, click properties and go to the beta tab.) We also have a new Discord server to report bugs and talk about the game. Leaving a review would also help us very much as we approach release.
This update brings the all new fire fighting utility robot. This nifty little machine will dart across your base to extinguish the inevitable conflagrations of your poorly maintained colony. If you need a more hands on approach it is of course fully controllable in first person too.
New AI behaviours have been bestowed on the animals, robots and alien creatures in the game, adding many new avenues for emergent game-play. Chickens now can be startled and will flock dynamically to avoid perceived danger. But don't worry, they'll also now nest on many items in the game, providing plenty of annoyance to your colonists and plethora of new and exciting fire hazards.
Colonists are more aware of the actions you take and will sometimes mention if they think you followed their advice and will also comment on what they think of new equipment. They'll also produce more detailed emails and discuss new topics such as the weather, storms and climate and how it's affecting the base and it's inhabitants.
The alien creatures of the planet have had many of their territorial behaviours improved and will now migrate independently in herds on and off the mission area. The changes will also see them attacking your bases in a smarter ways, leading to more dramatic incursions.
Your IMP robots are now more fragile and can be seriously damaged by earthquakes and have their circuits scrambled by solar events. You'll also want to keep them happy as they can now take action against your poor management, hijack your email system and organise a labour movement. Listen carefully and you'll hear IMP robot's new voice-over lines. They'll comment on the awful state of your base, provide snide but perhaps useful observations of your colonists and go on endlessly about how depressed the doors are making them.
The base announcer now has twice as many lines detailing equipment state and supplies, and several new call outs for the colonists. Several of the announcements note ongoing progress in the base that will save you from watching every unboiled kettle.
The new rename tool allows you to set a callsign for any item, room, animal, plant, colonist or robot in the game. The new name will appear in the quick selection menus and emails to help you better manage your base.
The mouse over information on unbuilt objects now states any recent attempts to build an item and if those are still ongoing or if the colonist has given up and why. The base manifest has had another pass too with a new layout with more information and an easier to read format.
But that's not all. There are a lot of changes to the game.
If you're playing the game for the first time I would suggest watching the 0.67 video guide, as it will help you pick up many of the things the tutorial has to skip in the name of brevity.
https://youtu.be/9zvcbDKnqsU
Remember you can read every single commit I make to the repo on dev.maiagame.com. If you are enjoying the huge amount of work going into the game, don't forget to update or leave a review and send me your feedback.
Maia 0.67: The Polisher
Maia 0.67 is here! This huge update is all about polish. Check out this quick video of me showing off the major changes:
https://youtu.be/rb7sM-HgOaA
Polished.. floors.
Fine dust in a humid underground base quickly turns to sticky, sticky dirt. Colonists will inevitably traipse it all around the base, making everyone intensely miserable at the state of it all.
Thankfully there is now a floor cleaning robot ready to remove dirt and polish scuffs off the floor! Just build it and watch it methodically work its way around the base. Or maybe take it for a spin in first person?
[Seedyness Intensifies]
The propagator adds a new level of depth and interaction to your hydroponics room. The systems grow seedlings in a carefully controlled environment to maximise yield from the colony’s seed stocks from earth.
IMProvements
The IMP robot can now pick up items (and creatures) in first person, manipulate them and carry them about. This new level of interaction gives you more control over the little things in life (such as chickens).
The repair bot has also been upgraded with new first person user interface systems to help identify items requiring repair.
What are they plotting?
The colony’s wall screens are now able to show useful base data graphed. See real time feeds of room temperature and atmosphere, grid status, storage amounts of rations, materials and minerals and even receive advanced notice of shockwaves and earthquakes using the accurately generated seismograph.
Inbox Zeros
Colonist emails are now more detailed and varied and will focus on core issues in the base. They also include profile pictures for the colonists sending them to help you identify the sender and grow closer to them before they inevitably die in a fire.
Mist opportunities
Exterior rendering has been improved substantially with new detail in snow and ground water. A new volumetric effect outside will render fog, dust and smoke with realistic movement depth and shadows.
It must be f/8
The user interface has had a lot of tweaks and improvements. The game camera is now smoothed and can also zoom into rooms and will adjust its height automatically when moving around the base.
Placing rooms is now easier with new icons for each room type. Many of the UI modes are more responsive or have been tweaked for clarity. More text has shadowing, and mouse over info tips have been clarified and shortened to make them easier to skim.
Other notable changes:
If you want to see more changes to the game as they go live. Get on the Development branch on Steam. You can also watch as I update the repository on the development site.
0.68 is already in the works and will again be focused on improving the AI, more management and feedback from the games systems, rounding off some of the sharper edges.
Please let me know if you find any big bugs or issues. If you appreciate the effort going into the game, don't forget to leave a Steam review!
Maia 0.66: Caves of Steel
Maia 0.66 is here! This build brings hundreds of changes focusing on balancing, emergent behaviours, performance and the user interface.
Here's a short video of me showing off a small handful of the new features:
https://youtu.be/M2zi-qsPgBs
“Do you want me to sit in a corner and rust, or just fall apart where I’m standing?”
Your I.M.P robots now have a growing sense of person, and with that of course, comes existential dread. Keep your robots occupied with work or they will start getting depressed, misbehaving, annoying your colonists or even smashing up valuable equipment.
“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!”
With the new middle-click menu you can set which colonists are allowed to use a certain item. This functionality has many potential uses uses, from assigning ownership to a bed, to optimising entire rooms by having a select team of skilled users for the equipment. In the later game it can even be used to segregate off entire sections of the base. Of course the colonists, being human, might not always follow the rules forced upon them.
Colonist mouse-overs have been improved with ECG readouts now hinting at what exciting life threatening issues they may have and a brief inventory list of what the colonist is carrying around with them.
Bok bok.. thud
Chicken AI is improved with new physical and personality traits. Some may be more susceptible to fire and sparks, some able to breath in a low atmosphere environment, some social, some anxious. As the chickens breed these traits will be passed down and potentially strengthened. Of course for this selection to happen chickens have to die a lot more, so they do.
“What the photon is it?”
0.66 brings many optimisations and performance gains for many system configurations as well as improved visuals with a new ambient occlusion algorithm and lighting systems.
Many aspects of item placement and path-finding have been improved. Placement holograms are improved with smoother transitions between warning states and clearer information when there is an issue. Interaction points are brighter and higher resolution to better indicate how to face an object.
More changes:
If you want to see more changes to the game as they go live. Get on the Development branch on Steam. You can also watch as I update the repo on the development site.
As always I am very open to feedback and will fix bugs as we find them or they are reported. If you are enjoying playing the game, please remember to leave a Steam review as they drive sales which allows further investment in new content and development.
Maia 0.65: Non Stop
It's that time of year again! For a holiday? No! What's a Holiday?! It's time for another Maia update of course.
https://youtu.be/sn2QTFseTEs
Hands-On.
Colonists are now able to hold items whilst walking around the base allowing them to telegraph what task they are hoping to do next. A colonist with a hammer may be on their way to build some room segments, one holding a wrench on a build or repair job, rations the food station or storage, and a colonist holding a glow stick during a blackout might just be afraid of the dark.
Intentional Bugs
Insects form a critical component of any food chain, and on Maia the rule holds true. The new flying insects will provide a food source for the smaller alien creatures, allowing them to broaden their diet and grow quicker. The bugs use bioluminescence for mating, so exterior base lighting might attract their attention and cause them to swarm your colonists.
The migration and breeding of the alien life has changed to reflect this new system. The balance should reduce the risk of equipment destruction or alien incursions to new bases, but increase it substantially later in the game.
Physical Research
Raw research data is now represented by physical data tapes in the world, allowing colonists to stockpile and store information they have learned about the planet ready for it to be crunched into new technologies and techniques in the research lab computer systems. Just be careful to keep them dry and safe, magnetic tape is flimsy and extremely flammable.
Colonist Variation
As well as adding several new colonist visual models into the game this update brings new psychological differences to your colonists. The personality of a colonist can effect their motivation, moods, how they interact with others and even their susceptibility to certain mental conditions. Picking the right traits might just be a matter of life and death.
Announcements
The base system will now announce many more of the incoming issues and disasters facing your colony. Many sounds have been added or tweaked in the game world and user interface to give better feedback and a more balanced soundscape.
Performance Changes
New cache optimisations, path finding changes, C++ code modernisation and threading balance has improved CPU performance for large bases up to 40%.
Other Notable Changes:
If you want to see more changes to the game as they go live. Get on the Development branch on Steam. You can also watch as I update the repo on the development site.
As always I am very open to feedback and will fix bugs as we find them or they are reported. If you are enjoying playing the game, please remember to leave a Steam review!
Maia 0.64: CATS AND DOGS
Maia 0.64 is here! Cats, Dogs, Hurricanes, GUI, detailed new AI and lots of optimisations and fixes. Here's a quick video showing off some of the cool new things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtiB-eOa-C4
MEOW
Firstly we have the cats. Based off the pets of our Kickstarter backers, our feline friends have travelled across the cosmos to keep us company (when they feel like it), damage furniture and sleep in a lot in inconvenient places. They will, very occasionally, socialise with the colonists and boost moods around the base.
WOOF
The dogs make themselves a little more useful. Defending the territory of the base, they will follow patrol routes, noting weaknesses in the bases defences as they go, iterating and improving their coverage. They will alert and then defend against alien incursion, barking and growling at any intruder. They can also be given move orders which they will (sometimes) obey and integrate into their guarding behaviour.
It's not all work, they will also distract colonists for tummy rubs, boosting moods and fulfilling the social needs of the lonely. Whether the dogs make friends with the cats or not is up to the cats, and so is a rare and unpredictable occurrence.
RAWR
The alien creature AI is now more dynamic, with all species now having social structures and breeding patterns. They now suffer from fear and panic and so can be forced out the base using your dogs to herd them, rather than using the weak and unpredictable colonists.
WOOSH
Hurricanes can now make landfall and threaten your bases. These catastrophic events will build up over time, tearing apart equipment on the surface and shutting down wind and solar generation. They will also leave a lasting effect on the weather simulation, leaving drastic pressure changes that will take weeks to normalise. On the bright side you'll generate a lot of wind power before the turbines go into lock down and/or explode.
There are many changes to the UI, but a key one is the new finder panels opened by clicking the colonist, warning and robot buttons on the left hand side. These provide an easier way to find a specific colonist, robot or problem with the base. The warning panel now focuses on many of the smaller issues that a base may face, allowing you to isolate and fix smaller issues before everyone dies in an embarrassing manner.
Autosaves are now in game, so you will always have a base to go back to when you "accidentally" murder everyone in your charge by locking them in a room with no doors and a hundred angry chickens.
TWINKLE
The lighting engine has had some major rewrites and optimisations. This will allow for more extravagant base designs at higher and smoother frame rates. Remember, your choice of lighting will have a noticeable impact on the moods of your colonists.
Many shaders and effects have been tweaked or in some cases rewritten, leading to more natural lighting and more aesthetically pleasing visuals.
Beyond lies the.. WUB
The dogs aren't the only woofers you'll be hearing in 0.64! We've implemented many new sounds and reworked some of the existing ones to add more feedback from the game and realistic detail in the soundscape.
Other Tweaks:
That's all for now. I will be back soon with more updates, content, fixes and softly spoken update videos. Get yourself on the Steam development branch to get them as they go live. All feedback is appreciated!
]