Skywanderers
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w14a: Brick Entity Rendering Distance
This means that your very large ship can be visible from a greater distance (almost infinite).
A lot of improvement to the rendering tech where done to not impact negatively performance, so please report any regression of the graphic side!
Most importantly it opens to road to replace the current space habitat with brick entities which will yield massive performance gains,
make the code base simpler and add more variety. Stay tuned!
A word on decals: decals wont render further than 1000km away (which is quite far away).
But there is still some clipping issues to be fixed, especially with large stretched and flat decals.
Thanks for playing!
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w12a: The Fuel Saga #4: A New Harvest
Gas clouds will spawn close to the sun and are harvestable by the player for refuel.
To do do link (with pipes of course) a Fuel Scoop to a tank and fly inside the gas cloud.
Gas Cloud Feature:
- You need to get close to the sun to find them.
- Expand or retract depending on a much fuel is stored inside the cloud.
- Built using the latest particle system technology.
- Will be visible far away through a LOD system.
- Largest cloud can be selected as tracking target, so you can check how much fuel is left.
Fuel Scoop:
- Can be set to harvest or Expel in case you need to dump fuel.
- In case of expel a new gas cloud will be created if necessary.
- Can be toggled On or Off.
- It has three signal events for all your logic needs : [Is harvesting], [Is Expelling] and [Is Inside Gas Cloud]
- Has a harvest and expel particle effect.
- All built using DOTS technology, so it should be super fast!
Other features:
- HUD Fuel fuel widget has been improved.
[previewyoutube="iM3V3bNK-SE;full"]
WIP:
- Fuel rate will likely require more tuning as it might be too slow.
- The gas clouds pops-in a bit abruptly. This will be fixed once the size of the world will be reduced (that will be necessary for other reasons too).
Community Feedback:
I want to conclude this post by asking you some feedback!
I am considering implementing multi-fuel.
The basic fuel will always be available at every star and compatible with both engine and reactor, but higher tier fuel would be more rare and would provide power / range bonus for either engine or reactor, requiring more complex design to be exploited fully.
A tank could only store one type of fuel at a time.
This could be interesting and add depth for advanced players, but I fear it might be too cumbersome.
Thanks a lot for playing!
Francois
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 22w10b: Hotfix Royale
Bugfixes:
- Various station generation fixes.
- Station generation: modules metadata reload upon generation, allowing better iteration.
- Light controller not working
- Flood light not rendering correctly.
Thanks for playing!
Francois
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 22w10a: VFX technology overhaul
It will allows much greater performance in VFX intensive situation like space combat.
All particle systems have yet to be converted (for now Laser / Beam and multitool sfx has been converted)
New system features:
- smaller memory footprint: this will shave off ~400mb of RAM (once all vfx are converted).
- leverage entirely on unity DOTS: this means super fast and multi-threaded performance CPU side.
- completely batched (one vfx system for all instance in the world): this means better GPU performance
- built-in stream: VFX will unloaded when far-away
- easier to author and integrate: which will allows to add more vfx in the future.
- light are fully integrated to the engine, with GPU culling and tiled rendering. Again this means better performance.
- this will allow making further improvements to the engine
Some more tweak have been made to Light rendering:
- Falloff is a bit shorter which means better GPU performance.
- Some other tweaks also unlock better GPU performance.
Thanks for playing!
Francois
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w09b: License to Hotfix
Changes:
- #4586 #4563 Box delete now takes 2 frame between each delete to combat lag. It means that large deletion will take some time to complete.
- Codex Entity Property: New Collision off toggle for station generation.
Hotfixes:
- #4608 #4597 #4595 Shipyard not working when blueprint loaded during game.
- #4601 Targeting Widget does not hide with F2
- #4594 Flashlight positioning a bit off.
- #4583 Brick preview can be too strong.
- #4573 Hull bricks normal map issue.
- #4585 Targeting sub-system issue when no system is present on target.
- #4609 Turret manually controlled when flying a ship does not follow mouse movement.
- #4558 Cannot request landing on a terrain entity.
Thanks for playing!
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w09a: The Fuel Saga #3: Revenge of the Tank
Lightcruise engines now require fuel like reactors. Power consumption have been rebalanced and a bunch quality of life features where added.
Check out the full list:
Lightcruise engine:
Lightcruise engine will now require fuel to function properly. Like the reactor they have an internal tank of 250l for a 1m one (1/4 of its volume).
Their power draw have been greatly reduced accordingly.
As a result existing ship power usage balance will now be much lower.
Power Rebalancing:
There is now a bigger difference between idle and charge consumption for weapon and shield bricks: from 4x to 8x.
The goal is to have an active but idle ship consume little fuel to minimize "fuel anxiety" should the player want a to explore at a slow pace.
Bigger fuel draw will be linked to actual gameplay like lightcruise travel or space battle.
Inactive ship wont draw power until someone fly them.
This change will not require any tweak to the number of reactors needed on existing build.
To better understand a ship power balance there is now two "Power Draw" stats: a "Power Draw at Idle" and a "Power Draw at Charge".
It is okay to have "Power Draw at Charge" over 100% (you might want to add Capacitors to smooth out any potential down time).
A few note on balancing:
- Both reactor and engine can function at full power on their internal tank for 6 min.
- It means that a 1m reactor/engine piped to a 1000L tank will be operational for 30 min at full draw.
- Idle time will be around 48 min and 4 hours on internal and 1000L tank respectively.
- This means actual real gameplay time will be between 30 min and 4h for a reasonable tank.
- Pipe flow requirement has been reduced: a single 0.25m pipe is enough to power 4x 1m reactors/engines.
- Check your uptime estimate in the entity codex stats screen. You will have to configure your tank first.
Quality of Life:
- Fuel debug mode: you can visualize an X-ray view of your ship system and piping. The direction of flow is also displayed!
- Check it to make sure your piping is working as expected.
- Pipe to tank connection: a little brick will spawn once a pipe connects to a tank, reactor or engine.
- This allow a better visual feedback and is more believable on the edge of systems.
- New Tank Join. Flat pipe allowing to connect two adjacent tanks, reactors or thrusters.
- Idle and Charge range stats are added.
- HUD: fuel level widget added.
- Tank config screen: set the tank type in order for the HUD and stats to be computed accurately. This does not impact how the tank will work.
Next up will be fuel harvesting in the world!
Thanks for playing the game!
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w07b: Space stations custom generation
New options have been added into the Entity Codex window:
- new Station Generation sub-tab (new UI feature)
- new "Generate Station" and "Clear Stastion" buttons to test the feature. Module spawned wont be saved.
- "Station Generation Enabled" attribute: mandatory for the first module used by the algo.
- "Station Module Count Min Range" and Max range. Will help the algo determine when to stop the algorithm.
- "Module Min Max" property: you can add several of these to ensure a specific number of module will be spawned.
- "Spawn weight": the weight factor modifier to be used by the algo when this module is shortlisted for a spawn.
- "Force Upward": if set at true then algo will ensure this module will align its up direction with the station.
Additionally a new property have been added at the level of the Docking Port Config brick:
Connector type: this can be set at Universal (default), Female or Male.
Universal dock will dock to other universal, while male will require a female port and vice-versa.
Other features:
- Station will spawn with the sun closer to the zenith.
- Standard Interplanetary station modules and generation have been updated.
- More modules from SI and even a brand new station will follow soon!
Community Suggestions:
- #4242 Thruster is renamed Lightcruise Engine.
Hotfixes:
- #4582 #4567 Raycast issue in some case on new entities.
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w07a: The spy who Hotfixed me
Hotfixes:
- #4575 Teleport not working.
- #4576 TAB menu not working for client in multiplayer.
Thanks for playing!
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w06d: Hotfixes
Time freeze during Menu has been removed for now as it was causing various issues.
Hotfixes:
#4564 Codex Tab button Disappears on Prefab Menu
#4565 Codex scroll handle wrong placement
#4568 Keybind no longer work.
#4566 Holomap not usable.
[New build - DEFAULT] 22w06c: Player Progression and Reputation
For now the work done was mainly on the UI side but more in-game features will be added.
TAB-Codex Menu changes:
- Tab menu has been re-organized: main tabs buttons move to the top, and sub-tab buttons move to the left side of the window.
- This makes the navigation more hierarchical and logical while also allowing for further developments.
- A new Player Progression tab has been added, with three sub-tabs: Galactic Reputation, Consortium Reputation and Faction Reputation.
Galactic Standing and Reputation:
- The Galactic Standing is a xp score representing the player fame. It will increase as the player accomplish various actions in the game.
- For now only Landing at a landing pad (+10xp) and discovering a station (+50xp) and bounty mission gives some xp, but a lot more will be added.
- the Galactic Reputation is a score representing player honor or infamy. It can go negative if the player accomplishes some bad actions.
- The diplomatic alignment is unused at this stage, and will tie to faction play.
Consortium and Faction Reputation:
- Consortium reputation is a xp score increasing as the player accomplishes more action related to a particular consortium.
- Bounty mission increase the space police rank.
- Faction reputation is unused at this point.
Still WIP:
- Title and ranking system
- More player action yields xp
- Tie this system to Steam Achievements
- player bounty system
- In a first time we will focus on making a compelling positive reputation play style, negative (aka pirate or outlaw) will come at a much later point.
Hotfixes:
- #4548 Landing impossible in some cases.