First of all, I want to thank both our existing a new players who discovered us with version 3.5. It was our biggest version in the V3 series so far and we received very valuable feedback that helped us a lot. Thank you!
After getting 3.5 out and doing a week of hotfixes, we went back to version planning. The main gameplay theme for 3.6 was already decided months ago, and it's going to be station events. The current invader events are just a taste of what we want to do with this system. We want to expand the variety of these events, and not all of them will involve combat. This is a good moment for it too, with the base station systems in good working order and with a lot more content after 3.5
We also triage small features from our huge internal backlog, prioritize them and devote some weeks to them before we start with the big new gameplay implementation. Here's what we've been doing.
Individual colors for all specs
This was suggested by a player in the forums. Indeed, why have your most specialized officers share an uniform color with your graduates?
Actual gameplay for opening new star systems
The last "cheat button" is gone in 3.6. We've finally implemented the regular gameplay system to open up new systems. We wanted it to have something to do with planets, so now you'll find a new special building in one of the towns in the inhabited planets in any start system:
As the description implies, this building contains the knowledge on new star routes. But you will have to pay for it (in case the planet civilization is friendly to you) or get it by force by destroying the building. Doing so will tank your reputation with that civilization, fast. Which may not be a problem when the civilization is hostile to begin with. But watch out for neutral civilizations!
Small features
Proper naming: A lot of planet objects, and all visitors, had placeholder or boring names. There's now name generators for all civilizations and all planet objects have proper names.
Hiring cost credits: Getting officers for free was more of a development cheat. Now officers will cost credits to hire, and the more officers you have, the more expensive it will be.
Drunks: There's now a random debuff for entities that drink too much. They may have some problems walking in a straight line...
Civs start hidden: In 3.6 only Spatials and Humans will appear in the Civs screen. You will unlock new civs as you unlock their systems.
Early visitor exit: A missing but very important mechanic for station efficiency. In 3.5, when a visitor is done of their tasks and completely satisfied, will linger without doing anything until their timer runs out. This is now fixed in 3.6. They will just walk back to their shuttle after they are done. And if all the shuttle visitors come back early, the shuttle will leave and thus make the dock available again.
Wallet scaling: Visitor wallet initial balances are now proportional to your reputation with their civ. The more reputation, the wealthier their visitors.
Performance woes
We've know for awhile that game performance wasn't great with a middle sized station. Frame time starts getting too big, and GC pauses start going for too long. In 3.5 this has become more visible than ever since the more polished station gameplay has kept players playing for longer and noticing this problem.
This is rooted in the choice of scripting VM made very early in the development of the game. Initially meant to be a way to make mods, it now powers most of the gameplay, with many thousands of lines of code, running for millions of cycles on every frame. It's not a performance oriented VM and it struggles when things get complex enough (which is not much, because we want people to build huge stations).
There's some optimizations left to do, and some of them have already been done. But the game needs a tenfold solution, not a 10% incremental improvement. This means I need to migrate to a new VM.
Finding a new VM that can interpret the specific dialect of Scheme I am using is impossible. So I either need to rewrite the entire core of the game in another language, or modify an existing VM to be able to run my Scheme code.
The only VM that can realistically make the extremely dynamic nature of the Galactology Scheme source go fast is LuaJIT. And, fortunately, there's already some Lisp-like eval libraries available for Lua, along with amazing bindings builders for C++ to connect the VM with the kernel of the game.
This means a partial rewrite of the game is looming on the horizon. And I'm tempted to tackle it sooner than later, because every new feature I write, is just adding more technical debt. It is a very complex task and I will have to rewrite thousands of lines, but it's not a total rewrite. In any case, as a very optimistic estimation, this will take at least a month.
While this is going not many new gameplay features will be able to be written. The fact the new scripting system will still be able to interpret some Scheme-like source (in addition to Lua!) means I can still do some new feature work as a break from the porting tasks, and still keep that work for 3.6 in case the porting takes too long for 3.6.
I've not decided yet when to proceed. On one hand this porting needs to be done, for sure. On another hand, it's feature updates like 3.5 which sell our game for real, with little sales volume between versions or discounts. Delaying 3.6 for at least a month goes directly into our bottom line.
If the next development update takes longer than usual, you now know why :)
Version 3.5 is now available!
A new major version of The Spatials: Galactology is now available!
The goal of version 3.5 was to flesh out many "placeholder" objects, items and game systems. It introduces 3 all-new research tech blocks, with proper progression, and dozens of new objects and products. All-new game systems like medical checklists and hotels have been added to the game to make the new content more interesting. There's now a lot more variety of options for satisfying vital needs and for building the perfect tourist trap.
The main highlights for this build are:
New, simplified combat controls
The Hospitality tech block with the new hotel system
A new Health and Hygiene tech block
New diseases with a new system for medical care
A new Commercial tech block with new commercial products with new shop objects
Fun has been divided into new vitals: fun, gambling, knowledge, inebriation and dancing
The new Recreation tech block has many new objects and products to serve the new fun vitals
Visitor archetypes, opinions and expectations
V3.5 is not save game compatible with v3.4 save files. But your saves are still there! If you want to keep playing them you can opt out of v3.5 by right clicking Galactology in your Steam library listing, select Properties, select Betas, then select the v3_4 branch. This will force your game installation to be v3.4 forever. When you are done make sure to go back to the default branch to keep getting updates and new features.
Simplified and enhanced manual combat controls
After finally enabling some light combat on low level planets, the flaws of the manual combat system were made evident. It was too complex, with bad UI.
It has now been removed from the game. There's no more "manual" combat mode for officers. Instead it's now possible to manually select a target for your squad or for individual officers, with the new Set Target action:
This is aided by the new target visualization, which displays the current combat target of any entity, officer or enemy:
This new system is still being tweaked, but for now it enables a much more usable walk+set target interaction, leaving the details of when and how to fire to the officer AI. And setting targets is still optional, the AI will automatically pick them up if none is set (or the set one dies).
Better squad visualization
The current squad selection will now be displayed for all officers in the squad:
The primary selection is still a rectangle, but now, when pressing Tab or manually selecting officers in the squad bar with click+shift, they will get a 4-corner reticle around them to indicate they are also part of the selection.
Additionally it has also been made much more clear that squad members are in exclusive combat mode:
Now, while in combat mode, the HP bar is always displayed, and it also gains a small combat icon.
System and research review: hospitality
A remake of the hospitality tree:
It adds new objects that will serve a new game system: hotels. The current beds will all be restricted to officers. Then new beds will be introduced: motel and hotel beds. These beds will only be usable by tourists, and they will first need to make a booking and pay for it in the check-in tables.
Players will need to make sure there are enough beds for your visitors. There's nothing worse for their opinion than overbooking!
Hotel system
A new system has been introduced in the game: hotels.
Beds are now segregated between officers and visitors. Visitors will need to purchase a booking at a reception table before they can make use of a visitor bed (which will be a motel or hotel bed, with different pricing).
The system involves the visitor entity transitioning into different states. First a visitor arrives, sleepy and wanting to book a room:
He needs to find a staffed reception desk. The old, too-specific bartender job is now the hospitality job and it covers all desk tending jobs in the station.
In the reception desk the visitor is able to purchase a booking:
And then he's able use hotel or motel rooms:
The hotel system may receive some more mechanics in the future, like better room furnishings for higher categories and prices, but for now its initial implementation is ready for testing.
New health and hygiene block
A new, fleshed out progression and mechanics for health and hygiene are now ready.
This new work introduces new game systems: the hospital/medical care system, and the diseases system. We all know and love the Gastrodisaster, but more diseases are needed to make the system interesting, with varied effects, plus a more fleshed out medical care system. The current bed care by doctors will be just one of the possible treatments. More objects and products are being introduced so treating diseases and injuries can become a multi-step process, from initial diagnose to surgery to resting.
Add new diseases
The new medical system in v3.5 finally abandons any relationship with the health vital. Health is cured by officers equipped with healing items, and it's now considered more of a combat vital.
The new medical system is instead based on curing diseases and injuries. Gastrodisaster remains in the game, and seven new diseases are being introduced:
Slowpox
Entities affected by slowpox walk a lot slower than normal.
Narcolepsy
Narcoleptic entities fall asleep from time to time, interrupting their work.
Dizzylapse
Dizzylapsed entities feel sudden dizziness from time to time, interrupting their work.
Argyria
Even in the 55th century people keep ingesting things that they shouldn't.
Gigantism
A huge hassle.
World enlargement
It all depends on your frame of reference.
Mutosis
A terrible disease, it will require your best equipment and research to cure.
Treatment checklist
When an entity is afflicted by a disease, it gains a checklist of all the objects it needs to use to be cured:
There's a variety of new medical objects. One was already in game (the hospital bed), and a new one has been introduced, the doctor desk. Entities will need to visit a doctor desk as the first step of their treatment, but it must be staffed by one of your officers to be usable.
Visualize entity anchors while constructing objects
The object build tool has gained a new trick, it will now show the required positions for interacting with the object:
I hope this will reduce some confusion when building certain objects.
Commercial goods
The commercial system is exclusive to visitors and 3.5 will enhance it with more product varieties and qualities.
This is now a big and varied tech block. For now the corresponding entity system remains very similar (a random shopping list of 5 unlocked items) but it may require some further refinement in the future to make it more interesting, like per-civ affinities.
Recreation
The recreation system has grown out of the old fun vital and associated systems. in 3.5, instead of a single fun vital, four more have been added: gambling, knowledge, inebriation and dancing.
This will give more variety to both the visitors and to the needs of your officers, which will become more extensive as they become more experienced, like in V2.
A dozen new objects have been added to this tech block alone, and they include new interaction modes, like objects with multiple user.
Visitor archetypes, opinions and expectations
Visitors to your station are now asigned a subset of vitals and systems, which match the technologies you have unlocked. The more technologies you unlock, the more varied your visitor demands will be.
This change also introduces the expectations and opinion system. The higher a visitor civ reputation with you is, the higher their expectations will be. This in turn will influence their opinion on the services and products they are using, making a good or bad opinion have a bigger or lower impact in your reputation.
RIP Cheat-O-Matic
Our favorite development aid, AKA cheat, has been eliminated. The cheat-o-matic is no more! All the placeholder item recipes it supported have been re-done and assigned to new and existing factories. Although the recipe ingredients themselves are not final (a raw resource review will be done as part of the final game balance), the quantities, duration, difficulty and unlock order are looking good.
Technical development notes
- remove planet storage limit
- display current target for selected entity, like it is done for walk target
add actual target icon
- remove per-squad-member aggressor action in the bar
- add "set forced target" action
- fix: manual target is lost even while alive
- fix: manual target for healing is a bad idea, the AI is much better, ignore it
- add right click action for setting target too
- restore walk button on toolbar
- remove auto/manual control from aggressor panel
- change the border in the squad buttons to line or corners, to reflect its selection status
- idea: while 2 or more squad members are selected do not display normal right panel
- put active item icon and cooldown display on top of squad selector button
display only while in cooldown
- when in combat mode
officers in squad always display hp bar
display small swords icon next to hp bar
- to any fear-capable entity, add the ability to stop walking when an enemy is sighted
with prio between combat mode busy and aggressor SM busy
just a one-time stop action, not a busy state
this makes the AI less suicidal, and healers don't go so much into a melee
- add some scrolling icons when interrupted due to enemies or when starting combat
- when setting a target, if the entity is not compatible (healer -> enemy), do a nearby walk
with the previous system it will stop because of enemy sighting, but still accompany their fighter friends
- fix: don't waste teleporter cooldown when the target is nonwalkable
- fix: restore melee-simple
- fix: if a factory breaks while an item stack is busy with it, the stack remains busy
patch the existing missing busy catcher to also use the item busy ID
if it's the job sm ID, and the subj busy ID is NOT job SM ID, then remove busy
make the job sm set the proper IDs on busy stacks
- fix: repair can pick an unwalkable position for work area
- replace use of dots as checkmarks with a proper checkmark
in the job matrix
in the filter for storage area
- dont display item categories in storage area filter
- factory recipe selector should be a picker list
in manual order: combo list
in filter for global production: checklist
in ship recipe selector
- introduce high prio busy walk for manual walk orders
higher than flee
- display item list for officers in crew picker for ships
- add new resources
- add new objects images
- fix: stale corpses being eternally carried by officers
use busy aspect checking for the parent
- hospitality tech tree
buildings
research tiers
decors
- change "bartender" to "hospitality"
- put all room unlocks in facilities tree, for now
- fix: production tutorial is broken
- fix: asteroids still are being hardcoded to one gray shade for home
- make sure enemies are using the earlier aggressor target semantics
now they are pursuing targets to the other end of the map
- cancel forced targets on walk and teleports
- add object use purchasing
hygiene: use soap price, already there
fun: use item price
and a fixed price for dance floor
- add fixed object vital factors
fun: dancefloor is hardcoded, for now
sleep: vital-sleep-step for object model, set in component in finalize-bed, sm takes it
- normalize job xp based on duration
30s is 1 xp, with a min of 1xp
- custom mechanic: hotel
entities have can have sleep vital, and refuse to use some beds but not others
entities can get the need to make a booking at an hotel reception
an hotel reception sells bookings, needs to be staffed first, like the bar
after buying a booking, the entity is entitled to use beds of the right category
- fix: xp scaling is wrong, too high
- fix: anchor jobs for tending desks should wait for ReadyComponent on parent
- refactor "bartender" job logic and anchor entity to be used by other systems
test with pre-v3.5 hospital bed logic first
support
continuous standing (bar, reception)
spot standing (doctor jobs)
custom job data (duration, resources, comp, etc)
custom posing
custom parent aspects for job validation
generic presence component
- object building should also display needed empty tiles around an object, and complain when they are not
default tile by peeking into the object settings
anchor: prop for other objecs
fix: restore immediate floodfill area draw
- full disease system
different disease have different effects on entities
vomiting
interruption: forced sleep
interruption: dizzy
gigantism
shrinkage
color change
mutant reskin
slowpox
each disease has a checklist of treatments to be performed, in order
generic vital fullfill system that can delegate to right SM and their data, based on the disease checklist
generic registry for medical objects
once the checklist is at the end, the entity is cured
- fix: correct selection reticle for scaled entities
- inspector for disease checklist
- introduce doctor desk (placeholder gfx)
desk job for officers
must have officer present
- re-introduce hospital bed for resting and treatment
using the new tender system
tender consumes pills
- fix doctor desk anchors
- fix hospital bed anchors
- add tender job bias support
- introduce xray
pose patient as idle
once a patient is on one side, a standing job opens for officers
- introduce analyzer
same as xray
- introduce surgery pod
same as patient bed, but requires organs for doctor job
- introduce regenerator pod
same as a shower, but requires bionanites stock
- add tint layer for cryopod
- temp recipes and factory for new medical and hygiene products
- helper to decide if a disease can be applied given the tech level
- patch and enable random officer disease system to consider tech level
- hygiene area of new health tech tree
properly model objects
- restore research tiers for medical and hygiene objects
- commercial tech tree
gfx
object models
add products to shops
product recipes
add recipes to factories
research tiers
- add missing soap tier
- use new checklist style for shopping list
- entertaiment tech tree
gfx
divide fun into more vitals
fun, gambling, inebriation, knowledge, dancing
object models
add products to shops
refine systems and makers for each object
tavernbar: transition to inebriation
tavern table: for inebriation
barbar: transition to inebriation
disco table: for inebriation
holo1: for knowledge
holo2: for knowledge
library table: for knowledge
comics
book-shelf
dancefloor: for dancing
jukebox: dance in front, for dancing
gogobot: dance in 4 sides, independent, all must trigger action pose, for dancing
pinball: for fun
arcade: for fun
excessivemachine: for fun
photobooth: verify angles, for fun
changemachine: shop for casino coins
slotmachine: for gambling
blackjack: needs croupier, for gambling
- entertaiment tech tree
roulette: 3 sides like gogobot, plus croupier, for gambling
billiard: 2 anchors for vitals, independent, both must trigger action pose, for fun
product recipes
product factors and prices
add recipes to factories
research tiers
- add some randomness to vital obj selection
- add prices for medical object use
- show full object info in description panel
- increase social vital gains
- visitor archetype model
pick a few vitals or systems
name plus short description
research dependencies
min civ rep
archetypes
Researcher
Shopper
Sick
Bored
Wasted
Tired
Gourmet
Party animal
Gambler
- update visitor maker to use archetypes
check research dependencies and civ reputation
diseases must be curable by unlocked tech
goods must be purchasable by unlocked tech
disable some harsh negative consequences for low vitals in visitors
- display visitor archetype in vitals inspector
- opinion vital and system
update based on avgs of visitor archetype vitals and systems
expectation mechanic
the more civ rep, the more expectations
ui on archetype block
High expectations (35% meet)
Reputation hit on departing: -15
hook rep deltas when visitor leaves
- move chemical factory as soap factory to health tech
- use placeholder metal press for fuel cells
- bring back vital progression tied to officer promotion
- fix: update officer power stats on spec promotion
- fix: diseases not being applied
- fix: visitor archetypes with no extra vitals not being handled correctly
- fix: wrong var in consumerist SM
- enable PoseAnglesCache
- fix: unlock item pallet at right moment
- slow down doctor xp progression
- increase tourist ship frequency, amount of tourists
- add missing decorations in hospitality: wardrove, wardrove02, wardrove03
- fix: tending job for hotel desk was not created
- fix: rotation errors
comic library
book libary
motel desk
hotel desk
- fix: add some missing strings
- fix: billiard is not working
missing maker call
check for non-stock objects when applying vital delta for product in vital SM
- ease up min vital thresholds for visitors
- different vital thresholds for visitors and officers for all vitals
- fix: non ascii renamed officers are not serialized properly
- fix: tavern bars had wrong hints
- make inventory window not display locked products, unless some stock already exists (or are unlocked)
- inventory min stock UI should be more visible
- station: prices for each object in finalized trees
- set initial cash to 150K
- fix: set mead as default stock for tavern
- add homelydivisor to dinner tier
- add classydivisor to bistro tier
- increase req xp for doctors and tenders
- fix: add proper owner hint for job transport sm items
- leak: while on pause the mover system creates useless move objects
disable pause mode for mover system
Update 3.5.1
This is a bug fix release:
- meds dispenser is making it impossible for bed doctor jobs to complete
- Esc should properly remove the selection
- repair parts and fuel cells should not be demanded by visitors
- wrong display for shopping list
- allow civs to visit starting at neutral rep
- gambling does not work
- shopping should be faster
- shoppers are purchasing items not in their shopping list
- slowpox is too slow
Update 3.5.2
This is a bug fix release:
- min rep for visitor archetypes must be 40%, otherwise stuck visitors can be created
- internal shopping vital is counting backwards
- chemical workshop -> soap maker
- remove extra randomization when picking vital objects
- photo frames are not a shopping item
- some fun-giving objects need to be marked as shops to stop being used as source pallets
- 3 of gogobot sides were free to use
- ignore ready status when checking if a planet object already exists
- warp existing stocks out of tile when changing the preferred pallet/shop resource
Update 3.5.3
This is a bug fix release:
- hangup on new game with russian translation
- don't stock bionanties in meds dispenser
- missing setup code for slot machines, nuclear kitchen and saunas
Development update 2017-02-06
The past weeks were devoted to the bulk of new v3.5 content. The addition of the hotel system and the revamp of the disease and medical system were done first and documented in previous updated. For the last two weeks another two blocks of new and revamped content have been added: commercial goods and recreation.
Commercial goods
The commercial system is exclusive to visitors and 3.5 will enhance it with more product varieties and qualities.
This is now a big and varied tech block. For now the corresponding entity system remains very similar (a random shopping list of 5 unlocked items) but it may require some further refinement in the future to make it more interesting, like per-civ affinities.
Recreation
The recreation system has grown out of the old fun vital and associated systems. in 3.5, instead of a single fun vital, four more have been added: gambling, knowledge, inebriation and dancing.
This will give more variety to both the visitors and to the needs of your officers, which will become more extensive as they become more experienced, like in V2.
A dozen new objects have been added to this tech block alone, and they include new interaction modes, like objects with multiple user.
RIP Cheat-O-Matic
Our favorite development aid, AKA cheat, has been eliminated. The cheat-o-matic is no more! All the placeholder item recipes it supported have been re-done and assigned to new and existing factories. Although the recipe ingredients themselves are not final (a raw resource review will be done as part of the final game balance), the quantities, duration, difficulty and unlock order are looking good.
Development update 2017-01-21
This past week work continued on the new medical system, adding more diseases to the game, introducing the treatment checklist, and starting the systems for the new objects.
Visualize entity anchors while constructing objects
The object build tool has gained a new trick, it will now show the required positions for interacting with the object:
I hope this will reduce some confusion when building certain objects.
Add new diseases
The new medical system in v3.5 finally abandons any relationship with the health vital. Health is cured by officers equipped with healing items, and it's now considered more of a combat vital.
The new medical system is instead based on curing diseases and injuries. Gastrodisaster remains in the game, and seven new diseases are being introduced:
Slowpox
Entities affected by slowpox walk a lot slower than normal.
Narcolepsy
Narcoleptic entities fall asleep from time to time, interrupting their work.
Dizzylapse
Dizzylapsed entities feel sudden dizziness from time to time, interrupting their work.
Argyria
Even in the 55th century people keep ingesting things that they shouldn't.
Gigantism
A huge hassle.
World enlargement
It all depends on your frame of reference.
Mutosis
A terrible disease, it will require your best equipment and research to cure.
Treatment checklist
When an entity is afflicted by a disease, it gains a checklist of all the objects it needs to use to be cured:
There's a variety of new medical objects. One was already in game (the hospital bed), and a new one has been introduced, the doctor desk. Entities will need to visit a doctor desk as the first step of their treatment, but it must be staffed by one of your officers to be usable.
Next week the remaining medical objects will be introduced to be used by the disease checklists.
Development update 2017-01-12
Hotel system
Work continued on integrating the new Hospitality tree. A new system has been introduced in the game: hotels.
Beds are now segregated between officers and visitors. Visitors will need to purchase a booking at a reception table before they can make use of a visitor bed (which will be a motel or hotel bed, with different pricing).
The system involves the visitor entity transitioning into different states. First a visitor arrives, sleepy and wanting to book a room:
He needs to find a staffed reception desk. The old, too-specific bartender job is now the hospitality job and it covers all desk tending jobs in the station.
In the reception desk the visitor is able to purchase a booking:
And then he's able use hotel or motel rooms:
The hotel system may receive some more mechanics in the future, like better room furnishings for higher categories and prices, but for now its initial implementation is ready for testing.
Work started in new health and hygiene block
A new, fleshed out progression and mechanics for health and hygiene are now ready to start its implementation.
This new work will introduce new game systems: the hospital/medical care system, and the diseases system. We all know and love the Gastrodisaster, but more diseases are needed to make the system interesting, with varied effects, plus a more fleshed out medical care system. The current bed care by doctors will be just one of the possible treatments. More objects and products are being introduced so treating diseases and injuries can become a multi-step process, from initial diagnose to surgery to resting.
Development update 2017-01-05
After v3.4 and the holidays break, we are back! Work has started on v3.5, with a general review of manual combat controls and the start of a big content and mechanics upgrade for many station systems.
Simplified and enhanced manual combat controls
Now that v3.4 is finally enabling some light combat on low level planets, the flaws of the manual combat system were made evident. It was too complex, with bad UI.
It has now been removed from the game. There's no more "manual" combat mode for officers. Instead it's now possible to manually select a target for your squad or for individual officers, with the new Set Target action:
This is aided by the new target visualization, which displays the current combat target of any entity, officer or enemy:
This new system is still being tweaked, but for now it enables a much more usable walk+set target interaction, leaving the details of when and how to fire to the officer AI. And setting targets is still optional, the AI will automatically pick them up if none is set (or the set one dies).
Better squad visualization
The current squad selection will now be displayed for all officers in the squad:
The primary selection is still a rectangle, but now, when pressing Tab or manually selecting officers in the squad bar with click+shift, they will get a 4-corner reticle around them to indicate they are also part of the selection.
Additionally it has also been made much more clear that squad members are in exclusive combat mode:
Now, while in combat mode, the HP bar is always displayed, and it also gains a small combat icon.
System and research review: hospitality
The first systems review has started, and it tackles a remake of the hospitality tree:
It adds new objects that will serve a new game system: hotels. The current beds will all be restricted to officers. Then new beds will be introduced: motel and hotel beds. These beds will only be usable by tourists, and they will first need to make a booking and pay for it in the check-in tables.
Players will need to make sure there are enough beds for your visitors. There's nothing worse for their opinion than overbooking!
Sad news
We were saddened by the passing of Carrie Fisher. May the force be with you.
Version 3.4 is now available!
A new major build of The Spatials: Galactology is now available!
The main highlights for this build are:
Real civ ships in the galaxy, so when you get visitors or invasions, they will travel the galaxy map just as the player does. This also influences tourism, which now is generated by the civ systems in the galaxy.
The Medus and the Chuchus, two new civs
Item system enhancements, like looting, master craftsman bonuses, and a simpler power system
New alert system, less annoying and more useful
Made many fixes to attacks in order to standardize their procs and systems
Introduced more crowd control items and a new item category, damage shields, for passive healing
And as always, many other little details.
V3.4 is not save game compatible with v3.3 save files. But your saves are still there! If you want to keep playing them you can opt out of v3.4 by right clicking Galactology in your Steam library listing, select Properties, select Betas, then select the v3_3 branch. This will force your game installation to be v3.3 forever. When you are done make sure to go back to the default branch to keep getting updates and new features.
Much more informative tooltips in research screen
The research screen icons representing objects and recipes now display a lot more information. Before it was just the name, now it's:
This is a very often requested enhancement so it's good to have it now in-game.
Recipe and ingredient info for resources
Products will now display a simplified recipe information when displaying their information. And raw resources will also display a list of icons for the recipes they are an ingredient of:
New civs!
Meet the medus and the chuchus!
The medus are aquatic creatures that live inside a glass balls. Aided by their technology, they can enjoy your station amenities or vaporize your officers just fine.
The chuchus are a formerly brutal species that got a bit more civilized in the past millennia. Unlike currently brutal species they can be convinced to buy your shinny baubles in peace.
Autopilot visit icons in planets
The system view in the galaxy screen will now display an icon next to the planet to indicate if any ship has an autopilot order that visits that planet, plus the number of ships that do so. This will be very helpful when planning autopilot routes, so you can see quickly what planets are visited by your fleet and avoid making unwanted visits.
Warning icons and progress bars for jobs
Jobs now have an on-map progress bar to quickly glance how long is going to take. Consumption actions also display this progress bar.
Jobs that have been stopped or have some kind of status warning will now also display an icon on top of them. Clicking the object will give more information, as before.
Raid landing area hint
It has been requested that there should be some indication of where a raiding party is going to strike. While we agree it's a good idea, having the exact position would cheese up too much the game, since then it's very easy to isolate it by removing corridors, for example. But we still wanted to add such a feature to the game, so now a big wide circle will be displayed. The raiding party will spawn inside this circle, but the exact position will be random inside its area.
Invaders shuttle
Raiding parties will now arrive by shuttle and stop just over the spawning area, to make this station event a nicer feeling. The shuttles are unique for each civ. We really want to go back to adding new station events, and making a better design of the current ones is a first step.
Looting
Now that there's an item system, looting items dropped by enemies is back in the game:
First an item generation and spawning proc was added to enemy deaths. This is straightforward for the station, and it actually doesn't involve any looting at all, since everything that falls on the station floor is yours to keep.
For planets a similar system to V2 was adopted, you need to order your officers to walk near the dropped items to loot them. They are then added to the exploring ship cargo (with zero mass), and dropped on your station when your crew goes back.
Master item making bonuses
Items can now have extra bonuses over what is provided by the basic item template:
In the example screenshot, the item is "Strong" because it includes an extra health bonus (no gun has +health, by default), and it's "Epic" because said health bonus is +2 levels above the item roll. For now only master engineers are able to produce such items, with a chance proportional to their experience.
Revamped alerts
The remake of the alert system is underway, and it's looking much better already:
Alerts should be useful, not something that gets in the way, and the old ported over system from V2 wasn't very good. Alerts are now a lot more robust and have new features. Clicking any alert popup will automatically change the screen and focus on the correct object. Alerts are now also displayed as icons at the top of the screen. Clicking the icons has the same effect, plus also bringing up again the alert popup. Inside the popup you will also find buttons to hide it again, or to delete it forever.
Final UI/UX for alert bar
The prototype alert bar introduced in the last update has now been fleshed out and it has taken on a more important role. Alerts will now be displayed one by one, to avoid the much reported spam. They all will still be displayed, but at a slower pace. You will also be able to select recent alerts by clicking on them on the alert bar, or delete them by right clicking. A focus rectangle is now displayed to highlight the corresponding alert icon in the alert bar.
Unification of specialized passive power bonuses in items
Items do not boost any more a particular kind of combat action. Instead a new generic bonus as been introduced, "power". This bonus is automatically added every time an active combat action is performed by the officer or NPC, no matter what kind it is.
This simplification was introduced in order to make officer specs participate in combat bonuses:
The spec factor gets multiplied to the power bonus from wearable items. This makes clothing easier (removing complexity from gearing officers), while making officer specialization more important and meaningful.
Refactor of procs for active combat items
Combat items now have independent proc and effects. The proc is what "carries" the attack (a projectile, a bomb, a beam, etc.). The effect is what happens when the proc is done (damage, healing, crowd control, etc). This change makes it easier to develop new items.
New attacks
For procs, there's now support for damage over time areas and direct attacks. For effects, crowd control has been fleshed out and there's now items that can make officers and NPC dizzy, sleepy or crazy. And finally work is also starting on a new kind of combat action: damage shields.
Damage absorption shields
A new kind of combat ability is now in the game:
Damage shields are an alternative way of providing healing to your officers. They spawn an hemispherical shield over its area of protection, usually centered in the casting officer:
After it's spawned it will absorb every damage hit sustained by friendly units under its surface. It will be destroyed once its own HP reaches 0, or when a timer runs out.
Any officer will be able to wield this ability, but it will be much more potent in the hands of a Scientist.
Civ ships visiting your station
Other civ ships are now able to visit your home asteroid, and they will be displayed in the galaxy map:
This is the backbone of making more sense of some station systems and events, so other civs NPC wanting to visit your station first have to get there, instead of magically spawning.
No more than one ship will be spawned per system, to keep their numbers under control.
A galaxy filter will be implemented later on to hide these ships, if the user desires so.
Civ-specific shuttles, visitors and ships
As a continuation of the on-galaxy civ ships, visitors now arrive in one of those ships, and dock in your station using a civ specific shuttle:
Visitors will respect its visiting ship schedule, coming and going using their respective ships.
Invasions based on ships, hostile event gating
The next system to migrate to galaxy ships will be group invasions. Before any group invasion happens a ship will have to be spawned from an hostile system, so the advance notice for the invasion will make more sense (and the area warning will also be kept). This means the user first has to unlock a system with a hostile civ before invasions start.
Other smaller invasion events, like sneakers and impostors, will also be locked this way, making the early game free of invaders.
Technical development notes
- add richer popups for research tree
recipes, objects and floors have full panel info equivalent
- display mini recipe in info panel for products
separate from basic info to not be reduntant in research screen
- display mini "ingredient of" in info panel for resources
just list of icons for recipes
- update planet editor mod
- add all sprites for new civs
- hide walls should be persisting in the game model
- add build info text line about object solid mode
- add info text and image to pallet build info panel
- fix storage area once for all
stronger buildable check
on building area, refuses if room is not empty
for every other object building attempt (!) refuses if area is present
- hide aesthetics bar
- create new civ rules
- scale planet buildings to planet level (prev was only for enemies)
- auto scale station object hp based on unlocked invader level, plus some auto factoring of the kind of object
add manual factors for doors and similar
- auto scale station turret attack power based on invader tech level
- fix: interrupted vital objects do not reset pose to idle
- plain bed must be listed before officer bed
- building job and out of money keeps officers becoming busy for no reason
fix job sm to not go into wait-for-worker when missing money
- viz in galaxy for planets visited by autopilot
show icon in planets visited by autopilots
- more icon and progress vis on top of factories
feedback for % work progress, bar on top of object
icon with job warning
- spawn some kind of marker with the "incoming raiders" warning to indicate the area of arrival, 1m in advance
do a big circle with some random offset to avoid cheesing with floor deletion
- add hovering pirate etc shuttle over the spot where invaders spawn
enter and exit animations
- test drops on death on station (no problem with pickup or ship transports)
- item drops and pickup on planets
store metas in ship
on ship station arrival dump metas as new items
looter system for officers in planet
- show looted items in bridge stock view
- ship bridge placeholder job should not display warning icons
- add goal and counters for looting
- remove shower demands from master specs
- remove in-shop and in-storage components from resource stack when dismantling any pallet like object
re-enable passive shop and storage marking system
- item forge: masters with high xp can add random extra bonus to item
also change meta name
chance is factored over XP ramp past master level
Rare: +1 level bump for bonus, 15% max chance
Epic: +2 level bump for bonus, 5% max chance
Legendary: +3 level bump for bonus, 2% max chance
Powerful: +dmg, Surgical: +healing - don't add those to items that doesn't make sense to
Strong: +hp
add bonus on top of existing bonus for items that already have it
- alerts revamp: model
focus
must support checks for liveness
any entity from any world (also support planets)
position on a world
officer for staff
ship for bridge
planet
galaxy
introduce internal IDs for ships and officers (sigh)
icon: any frame or any officer id
flags for enabling minimize and trashing
keep existing flags for read, etc.
- alerts revamp: UI
update report log
icon with subject
clickable popup to focus
timer is prop to text size
minimize button to keep around in alert bar
icon alert bar shows latest alerts
trash button to remove from alert bar
- change alert popup display system
only one alert is ever displayed
icons for pending messages get an icon to indicate it
user can interact any time and override the displayed popup
each message gets a display time then moves away to display the next pending one
- more alerts
final code for autodeletion, respect the canTrash flag
keep just latest 10 alerts any required fixed alerts, independent of MAX_ALERTS
right click alert bar icon to delete it
check throttling for some alerts (going crazy, strike, demands)
add cursor rect for open alert popup over its icon in the bar
- fix: highlighted alert icons look bad
use a simple dot instead
- fix: panning from system to system is introducing artifacts
- items: introduce active items with crowd control power
- items: unify all bonus powers under a "power" stat
- items: classes can now factor over the bonus power
medics: extra power to healing
strategist, engineer: extra power to damage
diplomat: extra better CC power rolls
scientist: extra power to absorb
think about enemies too
pick a base bonus based on carried active item
- add factor and base bonus to aggressor info panel
- add spec factor bonus to staff screen
- fix equip matrix filter
- new standarized proc "carriers" for combat
Direct
affect a single target directly
Beam
point to a target or point then produce a ray that can hit anything between it and the target
Instant circle area
Centered on a target or point, affect everything inside its area
Projectile
an entity is spawned and moves in a direction until it hits something, or some time passes
Explosive projectile
same as projectile but does a circle area on hit, instead of single target
Reactive circle
a circle is put on a point or target, then ticks a proc fast, with a duration, start radius, end radius
procs are called at random for entity hits
Reactive projectile
same as explosive, but the circle is held for N seconds
- compose functions for sounds and sprites
- new standarized hit procs for damage and healing
proc is passed reason of call: hit with map, hit with entity, timeout
- port all existing items to the new proc system
test and debug
- new crowd control procs and items
add cc proc
support various kinds of cc
applied based on power formula roll vs max hp
stun attack items
- final attack selection for active items
- fix: after new combat changes, officer attacks and healings do not have any effect
- review random picker for enemy npcs for new items
- fix: sleep stun should work for all entities
- new shield items and mechanic
vis: hemisphere dome of horizontal lines
model: on every hit, a point query is performed to catch any friendly shield
then decrease delta from shield hp until it goes 0 or less, then destroy
also destroy on timeout
introduce optional delta proc for vitals
- bump save version
- wider squad bar buttons with hp bars
- fix: dont call hit proc on healing (blood)
- per-system civ alien ships
one potential ship per system
n equal to systems, so max 1 ship per system, goes nice with progression
model
declare all civ ships
add ship name to civ model
add shuttle name to civ model
fleet has separate set for civ ships
galaxy view iterates over both, disables most interactions for civ ships
- docking for visitors
"waiting for a free dock" concept
ships come from friendly systems by themselves and park in home
consider all home parked npc ships, visitor travel ship state must be VISITOR_SHIP_WAITING_DOCK
never use central teleporter
only use built docks
if all are in use, it waits parked for a max of X minutes
use correct shuttle for the ship civ
- fix: errors on notifications for sneakers and others
- fix: hit proc is randomly firing for blueprint objects
- fix: civ ships should not be clickable in any way
- fix invasion event: do it visitor ship based, with warnings
dont do it in the system tick, keep the central event control for this, and use a helper to find a system
use faster ship
so only can come from hostile systems
base invader level on tech unlock level, not highest planet level
divide event in two halves, so the raid event is independent from the ship launching event
- fix sneaker event: if no hostile systems are open, do not enable
and make sure aggressor civ matches a civ with open systems
- fix impostor event: if no hostile systems are open, do not enable
and make sure aggressor civ matches a civ with open systems
- proper rep deltas and display from killing enemies
- tourist deaths should carry large rep loses
- sync planet constructions with greatly increased rates
for all involved models (build, rep, storage, etc)
- fix: proper visitor ship timings
- tourism: advert buildings (1 per planet) makes visitor ship cycle go faster for their system, up to 3x
- system view with civ filter should display icon for embassy, recruitment and ads objects
- diplomacy system: delta+ for hostile
allow embassies buildable on hostile, no margin area
make them invulnerable
ask for them to be built near any town
also for recruit and ads objs, but only with friendly towns
- fix: stop planet enemies from attacking fauna, stop fauna from attacking enemies
- galaxy view filter to display all ships or only player ships
with save game persistence
- double points gained from research, reduce xp tiers a bit
- add hp power factor to all officer specs, including redshirts, for balance vs npc
- dont spawn fauna in tutoland
- update vis for any item stacks after obj destruction
Hotfixes
3.4.1
- make sure no healer only ships are possible on new game
- make fauna less lethal
- buff officers again
- display a warning when landing only with healers
3.4.2
- violent fauna should be GenericEnemy
- add another special case to avoid neutral civs targeting fauna
- add missing hp to medus and chuchus
3.4.3
- tentative fix for crasher in officer picker
Development update 2016-12-08
Damage absorption shields
A new kind of combat ability is now in the game:
Damage shields are an alternative way of providing healing to your officers. They spawn an hemispherical shield over its area of protection, usually centered in the casting officer:
After it's spawned it will absorb every damage hit sustained by friendly units under its surface. It will be destroyed once its own HP reaches 0, or when a timer runs out.
Any officer will be able to wield this ability, but it will be much more potent in the hands of a Scientist.
Civ ships visiting your station
Other civ ships are now able to visit your home asteroid, and they will be displayed in the galaxy map:
This is the backbone of making more sense of some station systems and events, so other civs NPC wanting to visit your station first have to get there, instead of magically spawning.
No more than one ship will be spawned per system, to keep their numbers under control.
A galaxy filter will be implemented later on to hide these ships, if the user desires so.
Civ-specific shuttles, visitors and ships
As a continuation of the on-galaxy civ ships, visitors now arrive in one of those ships, and dock in your station using a civ specific shuttle:
Visitors will respect its visiting ship schedule, coming and going using their respective ships.
Invasions based on ships, hostile event gating
The next system to migrate to galaxy ships will be group invasions. Before any group invasion happens a ship will have to be spawned from an hostile system, so the advance notice for the invasion will make more sense (and the area warning will also be kept). This means the user first has to unlock a system with a hostile civ before invasions start.
Other smaller invasion events, like sneakers and impostors, will also be locked this way, making the early game free of invaders.
Development update 2016-12-01
After some offline events kept us off development in the past two weeks, plus some traveling, we are back to v3.4, on track to be released before the end of the year.
The past week was devoted to refining the new alert system and combat system before moving on to new systems.
Final UI/UX for alert bar
The prototype alert bar introduced in the last update has now been fleshed out and it has taken on a more important role. Alerts will now be displayed one by one, to avoid the much reported spam. They all will still be displayed, but at a slower pace. You will also be able to select recent alerts by clicking on them on the alert bar, or delete them by right clicking. A focus rectangle is now displayed to highlight the corresponding alert icon in the alert bar.
Unification of specialized passive power bonuses in items
Items do not boost any more a particular kind of combat action. Instead a new generic bonus as been introduced, "power". This bonus is automatically added every time an active combat action is performed by the officer or NPC, no matter what kind it is.
This simplification was introduced in order to make officer specs participate in combat bonuses:
The spec factor gets multiplied to the power bonus from wearable items. This makes clothing easier (removing complexity from gearing officers), while making officer specialization more important and meaningful.
Refactor of procs for active combat items
Combat items now have independent proc and effects. The proc is what "carries" the attack (a projectile, a bomb, a beam, etc.). The effect is what happens when the proc is done (damage, healing, crowd control, etc). This change makes it easier to develop new items.
New attacks (ongoing)
The last item for the week was reviewing our notes on new attacks and mechanics and introducing new ones. For procs, there's now support for damage over time areas and direct attacks. For effects, crowd control has been fleshed out and there's now items that can make officers and NPC dizzy, sleepy or crazy. And finally work is also starting on a new kind of combat action: damage shields.
Development update 2016-11-17
This past week was devoted to smaller system-level features, and some non-development tasks.
Steam Cards!
Max has advanced a lot the work on adding Steam Cards to Galactology. Here's a sneak peak at one of the cards artwork:
We will probably add the cards to the game on the v3.4 release or a bit earlier.
Looting
Now that there's an item system, looting items dropped by enemies is back in the game:
First an item generation and spawning proc was added to enemy deaths. This is straightforward for the station, and it actually doesn't involve any looting at all, since everything that falls on the station floor is yours to keep.
For planets a similar system to V2 was adopted, you need to order your officers to walk near the dropped items to loot them. They are then added to the exploring ship cargo (with zero mass), and dropped on your station when your crew goes back.
Master item making bonuses
Items can now have extra bonuses over what is provided by the basic item template:
In the example screenshot, the item is "Strong" because it includes an extra health bonus (no gun has +health, by default), and it's "Epic" because said health bonus is +2 levels above the item roll. For now only master engineers are able to produce such items, with a chance proportional to their experience.
Revamped alerts
The remake of the alert system is underway, and it's looking much better already:
Alerts should be useful, not something that gets in the way, and the old ported over system from V2 wasn't very good. Alerts are now a lot more robust and have new features. Clicking any alert popup will automatically change the screen and focus on the correct object. Alerts are now also displayed as icons at the top of the screen. Clicking the icons has the same effect, plus also bringing up again the alert popup. Inside the popup you will also find buttons to hide it again, or to delete it forever.
Carlos at IndieCade Paris
Carlos is traveling tomorrow to Paris to visit IndieCade!
