Taxinaut cover
Taxinaut screenshot
Steam
Genre: Simulator, Adventure, Indie

Taxinaut

Patch TAXINAUT version 0.8.90 WIN_EARLY
Patch that makes it now much more viable to find the Baco Plant and Covenant of Light (sources for anti-graviton charges and warp-jumps) without having to talk to the Moon Man. I'm still working on danger areas in space but also on making the game so you can reasonably play it without interacting much with the storylines.

There's also some bug-fixes. One thing you might have noticed is the game seemingly hanging for a few seconds after you talk to bar clientele and then click CONTINUE to go back to the main bar interface. This now shows the UI as "busy" and hides the ADIOS and SAVE buttons so you know the game is "processing" something. That pause will probably be fixed for most cases anyway in a later update but the game when it can't process user-input should always give an indication to the user that it "needs a moment". Also some rare crashes should now be fixed...stuff like that.

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.89 WIN_EARLY

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.88 WIN_EARLY

Patch TAXINAUT version 0.8.86 WIN_EARLY
Small patch that fixes some crashes:


  • Crash when entering a previously visited system by transport in system without station (this also caused crashes in other situations).
  • Crash when leaving an expressway junction where the expressway has only one junction. (These 1 junction expressways are a mistake but I can't remove them now because existing games might depend on them being there).
  • Start of a gameplay FAQ in the game manual.

My thanks to Darko and strandd505.

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.85 WIN_EARLY
Tiny update that makes warp-jumps more "dramatic". See:

https://youtu.be/CwgJd7u-ems

Next I might do a round of bug fixes or something else (that's more fun to do like create some more planets).

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.84 WIN_EARLY
We're coming close to version 0.9. This is the last of the updates I had planned up to V0.9. I'm going to do a little round of bug fixes after this update and then make it version 0.9. After that I'm going to start to add more content (mainly planets, mobs and NPCs) and flesh out the "world" a bit more to hopefully make the main game-play more interesting.

This version mainly cleans up the Eldergrav storyline. It was working but would have been very hard to complete. It's still less "hand-holding" than the other storylines. Eldergrav was the first storyline I ever did (probably nearly 3 years ago now), so don't expect too much. There are some good rewards at the end.

One extra thing worth noting is that all types of scans you do on a planetary surface (e.g. subterrain scans) are now all under the regular surface scan ('basic surface scan', 'advanced surface scan' and 'supreme surface scan'). So if you had any subterrain scans or abiogenetic scans, etc. these will have been replaced by equivalent surface scans.

I won't add a technical change log this time because it would mainly consist of spoilery technical bits that just spoil the Eldergrav storyline.

Patch TAXINAUT version 0.8.80 WIN_EARLY
Tiny patch to fix that help isn't working. Sorry, never noticed myself because it only happens when TAXINAUT is installed under C:\Program Files... because of the space in "Program Files" when looking up the local manual html file.

So nobody ever had a working help...
...right

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.78 WIN_EARLY
Very small update that just adds the ability to run TAXINAUT in a regular window. You can scale the window to your liking from 50% of 1920x1080 to 400%. (See manual).

All the settings now also have a little question-mark button that when clicked opens up the manual section for that setting.

Thanks to Decker and Heckboy for bringing it up and PSYK for helping out.

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.76 WIN_EARLY
It took a bit longer but here it is: This one adds "Gongs". Gongs are mutations on your clone that improve your clone's abilities like improving the range you can squeeze out of warp-jumps, reducing information costs, improving possible melee weapon damage, etc.

Each Gong has a level that can be increased. Normally you increase a Gong's level by ingesting a "gong-larva" which you can buy at some clinics. Each type of gong-larva increases the level of a certain Gong. Some Gong larvae come pre-identified while other are unidentified and only reveal what they do once you ingest them. The Gongs on your clone, their level and what they do can be seen at your home in the Cryonary. You can get there by clicking on your portrait on the left side of the home UI.

To prevent the Player from permanently losing an improved clone when they cycle, each clone you inhabit will create what's called an "Imago" in the cryonary. When you change clones (either because you cycled or through other means) any clone you previously inhabited will be available at your cryonary as an Imago. You can change back to an Imago by buying "re-gen" at a clinic. This works in a similar way to "insurance credits" for ships.

See also the manual

I've also improved the whole "story" "charm" mechanic. Instead of a low possibility of giving a once-off small percentage decrease in topic costs they now mostly give a more significant flat reduction on topic costs for the NPC you use the story on. You can now also stack multiple "charms". The amount of charm (that is, the reduction in topic cost) diminishes by a random-ish amount each time you buy a topic. Stories should also be a bit easier to find.

Technical change list:


  • Actor interface for Skills.
  • Fix NPCs don't have Skills.
  • Increased the chances of NPC having a StoryTopic.
  • Warp-jumps now all auto-determine their speed from the distance of the jump (because else with increased warpRange Skill jumping futher with a lower-tier jump would be too slow).
  • Insurance credit Item is now mainly orange to match ShipAdminPanel UI colors for lost Ships.
  • Topics that the Player doesn't have enough vudu for now show their price in red.
  • TaxiUI.showWait(...) now takes an optional Pane as parameter that can be displayed instead of the regular SleepUI (clock).
  • Reduced some of the abuse the Player gets when a Fare gets angry (removed some swearing etc.).
  • Traffic is no longer a SiteDataRoot now that it doesn't need to store topic-timeout data anymore (because Galaxy.npcData now is used for this).
  • Rename ExtendedData, ExtendedDataCollection and ExtendedDataRoot to SiteData, SiteDataCollection and SiteDataRoot. SiteRecord.extendedData has also been renamed to SiteRecord.siteData. Similar for ZoneRecord.extendedData (now ZoneRecord.zoneData).
  • Renamed all the XDABitArray, XDACommonFlags, etc. to SDABitArray, SDACommonFlags, etc. (for 'SDA' for 'SiteData' instead of 'XDA' for 'ExtendedData').
  • NPC.addAttributeData(...) etc. have been removed because NPCAttributes (and everything else to do with NPCs) now store data as NPCData (normally on the Galaxy.npcData NPCDataStore).
  • NPCAttribute.scoreModifier(...) and other methods like that now return an immutable ScoreModifier class that holds a mutliplicative modifier and an additive modifier.
  • Story Items still cause charm or offense but now these have an amount that simply equals the reduction or increase in Topic costs on the NPC the story was used on. The amount can be reduced/increased by using more Stories and each time a Topic is bought from the NPC the amount of charm or offense is reduced by a random-ish amount. The charmed or offended state and amount now also generally stays on the NPC even after the Player leaves the NPC (e.g. by leaving the Site). See rule #0079 and Story.use(...).
  • The likelihood of an NPC 'selling' Story Items is now greater.
  • The 'intimidated' NPCAttribute and definition now have their own classs NAIntimidated and NADIntimidated.
  • NAHostile removes 'charmed' and NAIntimidated removes both 'charmed' and 'offended'.
  • New system for saving data for NPCs that is not attached to a Site but keeps an NPCDataCollection for each NPCDefinition.id and NPC name pair. Everything to do with storing data for NPCs (NADABirdiesUncle and topic-timeouts) has been ported to the new system. Fare has also been changed to use that system (its own NPCDataStore) for its own NPC data where necessary. The new system has separate data stores for data that must be available across session (saved in SaveFile) and data that is only available for the current session.
  • NPCs can now indicate through storeDataInSave() whether their data is stored in the SaveFile data-store or the current-sesion-only data-store.
  • Cryonary where the Player can change to previously inhabited clones (called 'imagos') by using 're-gen' available from Clinics.
  • Skills (or 'Gongs') on Player clones that increase the Players abilities in all kind of aspects. From increasing ShipWeapon firing-arcs to making story-charms more effective. The Gongs can be bought from Clinics and upon consumption increases the level of a certain Skill on the Player. The Skills and their level can be viewed for each clone/imago in the Player's Home Cryonary. Skills on clones will restore together with the clone/imago when the Player uses 're-gen' on an imago.
  • NPC.read(...) and NPC.write(...) don't read/write temporary NPCAttributes anymore because this conflicts with attributes that save NPCData and restore themselves. This in particular applies to PassengerItem (which used NPC.read/write) to store its NPC.
  • All stuff to do with the old 'Skill' (e.g. BaseSkill, etc.) has been removed.
  • ItemGroups are Items that are a set of Items and can be used when you want a set of Items to be picked from as if it was only one Item in an Item Index. So if the Item picked from an Item Index is an ItemGroup then it will use ItemGroup.pick(...) to pick the actual Item it is going to pick.
  • HomeGarage now shows light squares where unoccupied Ships and mods are on the Ship and mod grids (just like HomeCloneStorage does). The selected Ship now also pulses a bit like the selected clone on the HomeCloneStorage clone/imago-grid.


Next up I'll patch-up the "Eldergrav" storyline (which I think might be broken). After that I'll probably move to version 0.9 and do a big round of bug fixing. After that I'm hoping to finally start adding more regular content (more planets, more creatures etc.) and flesh-out the galaxy a bit more.

Update TAXINAUT version 0.8.71 WIN_EARLY
This is an exciting update for me because it finally introduces supported "widescreen" view where the main-view occupies the whole screen and the control-panel slides off screen. This is how TAXINAUT was really always meant to be and it makes TAXINAUT look a little more "modern" i.m.o.

The widescreen view is NOT the same as the (still unsupported but fully functional) "sightseeing" view. Widescreen will keep the perspective and zoom the same as the normal view does. You can toggle the widescreen with the little arrow button at the top-left of the control-panel or by pressing 'V'. To see the control-panel while in widescreen move the mouse over the control-panel-toggle widget at the middle of the right edge of the screen or by pressing 'focus' on your controller. Since this is a rather big change I expect there are some glitches that I didn't catch but there shouldn't be anything game breaking.

Another change that might be of interest is that you can now in SETTINGS>DISPLAY set a "Base fog level". Increasing this will increase fog on all planets, possibly making it easier to distinguish between mobs and the planet background. By default this is left at 0%.

Here the technical changes list:


  • New supported widescreen mode (different from sightseeing mode in that it keeps the same perspective as the normal mode) that can be toggled with the WidescreenToggle button at the top-left of the ControlPane.
  • Some UI settings like widescreen mode and HUD are now saved as part of the save-file and restored when loading a game.
  • A base level of fog (basehaze setting) can now be set to possibly make Mobs stand out more clearly from the planet background.
  • Start on Skills and them effecting ShipWeapon arc, range, etc.
  • ShipWeapon.withinWeaponParameters(...) now takes a Unit shooter argument so that the shooter can be queried for their Skills.
  • Fix fog suddenly popping in/out at end of Planet descent/ascent when it is night (this only happened for Planets that have DayNightCycle set to ALWAYS_DAY).
  • Fix using Recycle Item in widescreen shows a glitched ControlPane area during the cycle white-out sequence.
  • TaxiUI.showGameOver(...) now closes the slided-out ControlPane if in widescreen and not showing the GalaxyMap.
  • When cycling and getting a new cab on loan the instructor now only disables widescreen toggling once you agree to do the tutorial again.
  • Fix Widescreen toggle through 'V' key (or mapped controller) only works if devkeys are allowed.
  • Widescreen toggling can now be disabled and it is during the tutorial or when doing the second tutorial bit after cycling.
  • Added synchronization on VIEWMODE_MUTEX to most operations that make changes to the view-mode (toggling widescreen, sliding, etc.).
  • Fix ControlPane staying slid open after traveling on transport or liner in widescreen.
  • TaxiUI.slideControlPane(false) doesn't turn-off slideMode anymore by calling ControlPane.slideMode(false);
  • Weapon-parameters (arcs & range) are now in real (pixel) coordinates instead of screen-coordinates. The weapon-arcs are now also drawn properly in perspective.
  • Start on Skills...


Next I will be working on clone customization.
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