The hovercraft repulsor logic has been overhauled, it now feels much closer to the suspension of a car. The ride will feel much less stiff and more natural. If set very soft it will be wobbly for a nice hovercraft feel.
Hovercraft changes:
New spring stiffnes and damping setting.
Some tooltip help have been added to the setting
Hovercrafts can now ride on the planet water too.
Incorrect sfx origin issue has also been fixed.
Also some much needed crash fixes related to crafting.
Bugfixes:
#5350 Wrong symmetry on some rounded bricks
#5320 Crashes will crafting
Missing chunk of terrain
Cheers!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w50b: Memory and FPS improvements
This build fixes the crashes introduced in the last version regarding terrain generation. An engine refactor was needed which in turns will free up roughly 300mb/400mb of memory on planets. Another improvement was done that should yield an 10-20% improvement to fps when CPU bound on planet.
Bugfixes:
#5386 #5387 crash on planets
Cheers!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w50a: Better Mining
This build focuses on improving the mining experience as the player will spend quite a bit of time mining in survival.
Changes
New mining beam sfx.
Mining stone feels different: stone will breaks in less often but in bigger chunk compared to dirt.
More rocks are dropped
Ore will drop ore and rocks
fixed several issues linked to mining deep underground.
fixed and improved several VFX
added some new rocks sfx.
Bugfixes:
#5374 camera effect issue at low FPS.
#5375 improper symmetry on new stone blocks
#5382 Fan not saving their state
Cheers!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w49a: Hotfix, better jetpack camera
The jetpack camera effect have been improved with a new physics based solution. Also they wont applied when using speed keys (as it is too extreme)
Bugfixes:
#5364 FOV dash effect when speed is high.
#5367 Manual crafting does not create multi-shapes blocks.
Cheers!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w48a: Survival Early Game Components
This update brings several components needed for the survival early game.
Here are the new blocks and features in a nutshell:
Personal crafting.
New jump/boost jetpack mode.
More wood shapes and blocks. Wood retains original tree color.
Crucible: can smelt ore into ingots
Crafting bench.
Wooden crate.
Wind Turbine.
Stone block, stone retains original rock color.
Coal spawn like other ore. Coal be used to fuel the crucible
Personal Crafting The player can now craft a few basic schematics from its inventory menu. More survival pratical items will be added over time. The crafting here is purely manual (so it is made to be a bit tedious)
Crafting Bench The crafting bench is a stepping stone between the personal crafting and the full fledged assembler. Like the personal crafting it is manual.
Crucible Like the furnace the crucible can smelt ore into ingots. Unlike the Arc Furnace it do not require access to a powered grid but will require coal or wood to process ingots. It also can only process a few ore type compared to the furnace. It is possible to queue up several ingots.
Wood and coal It is now possible to destroy tree to get wood. Wood can be used in various schematics. More wood shapes have been added. The wood will retain the color of the original tree, so it is up to you to explore the galaxy to get wood of the color you fancy!
Stone blocks Stone block can be crafted from rock. Like the tree they will retains the original rock color.
Wind Turbine The wind turbine is a power generator available early from the crafting bench. It requires wind to produce power. I picked an helix design so it can scale easily verticaly!
Jetpack refactor Obviously being able to levitate infinitely is not doable for survival, so a new jetpack mode is introduced: the jump-pack. Jump-pack will provide a boost to the player jump, but also a dash forward when pressing shift. I am not 100% satisfied with the dash, the keymapping will likely change. Anti-g and 6-dof are still accessible in 0 or low g environment.
Bugfixes: #5351 Various issues with solar panels
Thanks for playing!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w45a: More Hotfixes
Some more hotfixes.
Bugfixes:
#5325 Weapon dropped pass through floor after pickup on stand.
#5305 Ship power stuck at 0 in some rare instances
#4890 Copy/paste of a handheld grip causes issues.
This build introduce a new game mechanic: scraping!
Change to Life-support system following community feedback:
the VFX will no longer plays when a children entity moves inside the volume.
Fixed airtightness issues with a few blocks (canopy)
Added a "not airtight" property for some block like girder or grating
Added a decorative air vent cover brick, perfect to hide the life-support brick behind. It would block the vfx from playing
Wrecks spawning
Several wrecks will spawn on the terrain. Frequency depends on the planet.
Some vine will grows on them.
Scraping
A new scraping mechanic has been added: mine wrecks for scraps!
Scrap can then be placed into the furnace to extract iron.
The scraping mechanic will give rise to a consortium and some associated missions.
For now the only scrap is a iron based one but further components will be added.
Other changes: The wreck spawn require significant change to various part of the engine so minimize loading hiccup. Please report any regression!
Thanks for playing!
[New build - EXPERIMENTAL] 23w41a: Life Support, Air-tightness, Force fields
This build introduce a capital element for survival: oxygen. As it is expected in any survival space game you will have to manage your oxygen level in order to not die is space.
Player changes:
An oxygen meter bar has been added to the UI
the player will die when this empty out
Automatically refill inside breathable atmosphere or inside a ship pressurized room.
Die much faster when helmet is off in space
Of course those can be toggled On / Off in creative mode
Life Support blocks The life Support system will pressurize the room it is placed inside, allowing the player to breath without its helmet. There is a nice screen displaying the status and even a rotating fan with some cool VFX!
The algoritm works like in real life: a few oxygen molecules are emitted and will bounce around to find the volume pressurized. If a molecule ends up outside the ship bounds a leak is declared and pressurization is not achieved. The downside is that the volume is a box, ie a L shaped room will potentially give oxygen to a volume outside. You can check how it is working by selecting a Life Support brick with the link tool (molecules travel more slowly in preview mode). It worked well on the ship I tested, and it will react automatically to any new blocks or moving door / mechanism triggered.
The tank reserve allows for a long uptime (2 hours) before a replenish is needed. Tank replenish either manually (not recommended for large ships), or automatically inside an atmosphere or near a station (it is magic). As it would be too tedious to have to pipe them, they cannot be connected to pipes at all.
Again an option has been added inside the Entity screen to provide Oxygen ship-wide for creative or older ships.
Force-Field The force field will project a wall preventing oxygen from leaking, but allowing player or ship to cross it. Perfect for hangars! The brick will raycast at the two extremity to determinate the height of the field. It comes in standard and wedge variant.
As a bonus two creative new features have been added:
The Air Vent brick can now play the gas VFX (like in the old days) if active
A new Fan brick has been added: you can configure the fan speed. This is purely decorative.
Other changes: - Can see atmospheric and oxygen density inside the holomap
Fuels, or more correctly fluids, are now of three type: Hydrogen, Water and Oxygen. Hydrogen: the fuel currently existing in the game. Used to power reactor and lightcruise engine, and can be harvested near stars. Water: can be harvested in oceans. Oxygen: can be harvested in atmosphere. Will be tied to a survival mechanism in a later update.
Brick added: Electrolyser. During the early game as the player strive to reach space crafting Hydrogen will be necessary. The way to do will be to use the electrolyser that will split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Other features:
Display can connect to tank: they will show what fluid is contained and how full the tank is.
Tank can now accept a single fuel type: open their UI to change their setting. Changing the setting will dump previous fuel.
Transparent tank have a different color and density depending on the fluid.
Added an HUD help message for gas bottle.
Still to do:
Harvest Oxygen from atmosphere (when atmosphere is breathable)
