copied from https://www.unitystation.org/blog/weekly-update-6
by Bod9001
Welcome to the sixth edition of our weekly update blog post! We've been hard at work this week fixing and refactoring various aspects of our funny spessman game. While we don't have much audiovisual material to showcase this week, we have made significant progress behind the scenes.
As always, please keep in mind that these are just some of the noteworthy changes we've made. You can find a comprehensive list of all updates on our
Fixing memory leaks
Over the past month, Havietisov (also known as "Angry Sonic Dude" on Discord) has been diligently working to study and fix memory leaks on our server. Through his efforts, he identified a significant number of references from a previous round that were still being stored in memory, causing the application's RAM usage to increase over time.
As of the time of writing, Havietisov has already submitted four pull requests, gradually improving the memory footprint and greatly enhancing the server's longevity and performance. We're incredibly grateful for his contributions to the project!
Separating Character Customization
In the latest update, NoooneyDude has been focused on improving the character customization system by separating some of the saving processes. This move is part of our effort to transition from using Firebase to Django for our account system. We've encountered limitations with Firebase and have also discovered that it's blocked in some countries due to its association with Google.
By separating the character customization system, we're taking a step towards a more efficient and robust account system that can support our growing player base and particular needs. We appreciate NoooneyDude's efforts in this regard and look forward to sharing more updates with you soon!
Alien UI and evolution has been fixed
After the recent Mind Rework, aliens were a somewhat neglected. One issue that arose was a broken UI for evolving. However, we're pleased to announce that this issue has been resolved in the latest update.
While the fix may still be a bit rough around the edges, we have plans to revamp all custom playable creatures such as AI, blob, and aliens. Our goal is to convert these elements to the new health system, being currently enhanced by Bod9001 to allow for even more flexibility and ease of extension. There are going to be more news about this new approach soon, so keep an eye on it!
Fixes and improvements to StationHub
CorruptComputer has been hard at work improving the Stationhub launcher, which is used to launch and join Unitystation games. Although the latest version has not been released yet, you can expect to see it soon with some exciting new improvements, including:
No more intimidating debug console when opening the program.
No more unused tabs on the graphical interface.
Improved MacOSX build that can now be launched by simply double-clicking (although you will still need to allow it to run as Apple blocks any unknown app from running by default).
We're also in the process of gaining ownership of the Flatpak repository for the launcher, which was previously maintained by Rane. We're grateful for Rane's contributions and once the transfer is complete, we plan to update and improve the performance of the Flatpak version of the launcher.
That concludes this week's update. We hope you enjoyed reading about the latest fixes and improvements we've been working on, even if it seems a little less eventful than usual.
We have some exciting pending improvements on the horizon, including updates and fixes for Pog station, as well as several system improvements for health and robotics. Keep an eye out for these updates in the coming weeks, as you might be surprised by what we have in store.
We want to take a moment to express our gratitude to everyone who puts time, heart, and effort into Unitystation, including all our contributors. Without your support, we wouldn't be able to achieve all that we have so far.
If you want to stay up to date with our progress, don't forget to join us on Discord and consider supporting us to help us continue improving the game.
Thank you for reading, and we'll see you next week!
Weekly Update Hello and welcome to this last weekly update blog post of Februray. We have some exciting things to share with you, including some fantastic mapping contributions. We'll also give you a sneak peek into what's coming up next week (or maybe later, don't quote me on this!).
As always, please keep in mind that this is just a highlight of the most notable changes from the past week. For a full list of changes, please refer to our Changelog Page.
Ministation has its own syndicate base
Thanks to the talented mapper AtnerNT, we now have a brand new syndicate base in Ministation! It's always a treat to see new and unique syndicate outposts for each station, and AtnerNT's contribution definitely delivers on that front.
Who knows, maybe in the future we can even randomize which outpost you get for an added layer of surprise! Thank you to AtnerNT for their hard work on this.
Advanced Light Replacer!
With a bit of research you can now make the advanced light replacer. A powerful tool allows you not just replace broken lights with ease but also comes with a cool extra feature that lets you customise the light colour!
Run around replacing broken lights like no one's business, improve the ambient of rooms and now you can make your dream disco!
Thanks MaxIsJoe!
Outpost station update
We're excited to announce some updates to Outpost Station! Thanks to the hard work of PerfectTangent, the station now features public terminals, a protolathe, a blast detector, and tools for making explosives for toxins research. We understand how important it is to keep our maps up to date with new features, and we greatly appreciate PerfectTangent's contribution.
General improvements and bug fixes
Here is a list of other unsorted changes from this week.
Disconnection issue: More work has been put into fixing the disconnection issue. Next week's playtest should help determine whether the issue has been resolved.
Full screen fix: When the game is in full screen mode, it will no longer minimize when you tab out. This is great for quickly checking Discord while the game is running. Thanks to Bod9001 for adding this feature.
Finall we want you to check out this picture for a glimpse of what Bod is currently working on:
That's right, we're diving into robotics! Be sure to follow our progress on our Discord, where we discuss our development progress pretty much every day.
Before we wrap up, we want to express our gratitude to everyone involved in this project - our patreons, developers, spriters, mappers, players, wiki editors, and all those who support Unitystation in any way. You are all integral parts of our beloved Unitystation community, and we couldn't do this without you. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us!
Welcome to another weekly update blog post, where we highlight the most noteworthy developments from the past week. As always, remember that this is just a brief summary, and you can find a more comprehensive list of changes on our Changelog page or at our Github repository.
Without further ado, let's dive in and explore some of the thrilling updates we've been working on this week!
Genetics!
After months of development, we're excited to announce the arrival of Genetics in our game! With this new feature, players can now assign both negative and positive mutations to other players. Additionally, the phyisical appearance of other players can be mutated and their body parts can even be changed to different species, opening up a whole new world of possibilities for creating unique and monstrous creatures.
But let's dive into the specifics of how Genetics works.
Introducing the Genetics console! You will be able to find it in the geneticist office. Interacting with it is quite simple, let's see it step by step. The console UI will look like the picture on the left and is composed by 3 main sections.
Targeting
The system targets body parts based on their name. For instance, if you want to apply a payload to someone's arm, inputting "arm" will target their arm. But be careful, because it will affect both right and left arms, since they both contain the term "arm".
Although it's a simple and effective method, we are open to suggestions for better ways to handle body part targeting. So if you have any ideas, please don't hesitate to share them with us.
Mutations
There 3 types, mutations, customisation mutations (physical appearance) and species mutations. These sections will be populated by the mutations you can research (see next section).
Payload
You drag and drop boxes from the available mutations into the payload designer. These are all the mutation that will have an effect on the targetted body part.
Once you are done playing god, you simply click the "Generate" button. It will generate a DNA syringe ready to use.
DNA farming
Well, how do I discover or research mutations to fill in the available list? You will need to get some DNA. There are currently 2 ways to do so.
Amber ore. Mining can find this wherever they mine. All you need to do is insert it into the genetics console and it will give you DNA points to spare.
Solving the DNA stabilization puzzle. Align all the sliders so the lines are purple. Finding the sweet spot wil also grant you DNA points.
Dino Eggs
So what do we want DNA for? Well to print dinosaur eggs, of course. Well maybe it isn't that evident, but keep reading.
Having enough DNA points gives you the ability to synthesize a dinosaur egg. Place it somewhere safe, as it will hatch after some time and it might or not hatch into something dangerous and aggresive!
Once the baby dino is born, use your mutation grabber to study the newly created lifeform and find out what they like to eat. Make sure to have great relationship with your local botanist, because these dinos have different diet preferences, from berries, subterranean food, vegetables or even meat.
Feed your dinosaur, so it grows strong and big. Once they are in adult growing phase and their DNA is more stable, you can use your mutation grabber again and study the mutations they might have developed from the synthetic conception. Load your findings into the geneticist console.
Customisation mutations
Going back to the genetics console UI, the customisation mutations represent the physical appearance of a living thing. It is encoded in this format presented in the picture. By analising the crew, you can study the names and proper format of different phyisical appearances and apply them on the geneticist console.
This feature is subject to be buggy and change as it is more experimental.
Species mutation
These represents the DNA composition of individual body parts. You unlock them by solving a puzzle, which will grant you a random specie out of the pool (Current puzzle is a sudoku, we are open for suggestions).
Giving you the ability to morph body parts into any of the available body parts you have researched, even cross species! Yes, this means you can turn someone into a pile of kidneys and sell them to cargo.
picture by Pixel_Mania#7430 Oh, the monstrosity!
A work in progress system
There are going to be bugs, some names aren't very descriptive and we will be revising pretty much everything. We just wanted to provide you with some more stuff to do in game, and also this way you can be part of the development!
Let us know what you think about the genetics system, what would you improve, what you like. >
Emote window
MaxIsJoe introduced a new dynamic selection window that can be reused for pretty much anything, using the Emotes window as the proof of concept.
Thanks to this window, accesible by pressing your local chat keybind + shift, you will be able to select an emote from the list without needing to remember the exact word that triggers it when you type it in chat. Giving you access to a huge list of emotes you can use to express yourself in game!
General fixes
Last but not least, here is a list of some other contributions we want to highlight.
CorruptComputer has done some cleanup and tackling code quality. Thanks a lot!
And that's all for this week's update. We hope you found it informative and exciting! As always, we want to thank our amazing community for their support, from those who play the game and provide valuable feedback to those who contribute with code, sprites, and
Weekly update #3
a copy from https://www.unitystation.org/blog Greetings everyone, and welcome to our third Weekly update blog post!
We are always thrilled to share with you the exciting changes and developments we've been working on. As always, we want to remind you that this blog post serves as a mere highlight of what has been accomplished this week. If you want to delve deeper into the details and older changes, be sure to check out our Changelog page.
Without further ado, let's dive into some of the most exciting highlights of this week's update.
New dinosaur sprites Sprites for Brachiosaurus, Saichania, and Stegosaurus have been added as neutral dinosaurs for the work in progress genetic system. The gameplay revolves around extracting DNA from amber to create an egg that will hatch into a dinosaur. As a player, you will be responsible for feeding and caring for your dinosaur until it reaches maturity, at which point it will reveal any mutations it may have. However, be warned, some dinosaurs may have a bit of a bite, so caution is advised. Get ready to embark on a thrilling adventure as you bring these ancient creatures to life!
Janitor cart improvements
Janitor carts have had a nice little polish. Enhancements include the ability to hold mops, helpful tooltips for new users to interact with the cart, dynamic sprite updates to reflect the state of the cart and some lovely splashing sounds to go with your cleaning.
Mind that some some work is needed to be in feature parity with the original SS13's janitor cart, but this is some good progress towards that goal.
By MaxIsJoe
Cloning damage and mutations! Receiving cloning damage (after being cloned, for example) now has a 2.5% chance per body part of having a random mutation, whether positive or negative, when being cloned. This means that there is now a possibility that a player may emerge from the Cloner with different physical characteristics than before. This development has made the Cloner even more unpredictable, and highlights the need to be extra cautious when using this technology
By Bod9001
Syringe Inject Time
We have received feedback from players about the instantaneous nature of injecting another player with a syringe. In response, we have added a progress bar to the syringe injection process. The completion time for the bar will now depend on the level of armor the victim is wearing. Additionally, a warning message in red will display if a player is being injected by another player.
So no more murderous medic instantly filling your heart with salt when you are trying to kill him as a traitor and making your assasination attempt fail miserably.
By MaxIsJoe
Fallstation mapping improvements
CorrupComputer keeps their awesomeness streak by contributing a bunch of fixes to another map, this time it is Fallstation.
Changes include:
Making the HoP shutters respond to two independent buttons. Making HoP office less dark, by adding another well positioned light. Reassigning devices in HoP office to the right APC. Adding public terminals to all departments.
By CorruptComputer
And that's it for this week's blog post. Hunger for more? Remember the full list of changes, including older ones, are available in our Changelog Page. Your support means everything to us, and you can help us continue to improve the game by contributing on Github, To connect with other fans and stay informed on the latest updates, join our Discord community. We look forward to seeing you in the next update and playing with you during our playtests. Thanks again for your support!
Dev Blog 004
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Kept you waiting, huh? Take a look at our 4th developer update video! Progress continues as we relentlessly push towards version 0.7.
Here's a sample of some of the latest working features:
Space wizards! - torment the station with a slew of magical spells
The Blob - play your own strategy game versus the occupants of the station
New player UI - slick, shiny, and very robust
More random events - from radiation storms to mouse infestations, things will be a lot more lively aboard the station.
Ghost roles - Even in death, the fun never ends!
If you'd like to get involved with the community or help with development, click this banner to check out our discord:
Don't forget to wishlist Unitystation to be notified as soon as it's out.
See you on the station!👋
Dev Blog 03
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Watch our third update video! Here's a taste of what our developers have been up to.
The Atmospherics rework - Real air vents, all across the station
Crew PDAs - And for traitors, the Syndicate telecrystal uplink
The Fugitive - A new antagonist role, always on the run
Disease Events - Triggerable by admins, though not yet curable (or lethal)
Updated Sprites - And lighting changes, just in time for Halloween
And much, much more - Seriously! It's an eight minute video!!
Unitystation will be released on Steam for free, and is scheduled for late 2021. Wishlist it to be notified as soon as it's out.
See you on the station!👋
Dev Blog 02
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Our new developer update video is out, made by Jack Trachea. Watch it to see some of the contributions to Unitystation since March. Here's a short overview:
Nuclear Reactors
Safe and fun if you know how (not) to operate them.
The Disposal System
Send trash (e. g. your co-workers) down pneumatic tubes.
Meteor Showers
And other events, occuring "randomly" or at the admin's discretion.
Exploding Lemons & Intoxication!
[Unintelligible]
...And More!
Such as mime spells and conveyor belts.
We're planning to release Unitystation on Steam for free in late 2021. Wishlist it now to be notified when it's ready.
