Wayward Terran Frontier: Zero Falls
Updates and Let's Plays
We hope you're enjoying the Hollowed Centipede patch that went live today. George and Jan have been working hard to fix some longstanding issues with previous versions such as the ship logistics screen and the AI difficulty. We're making major improvements with each update and with each new patch we're making Zero Falls into a more complete experience.
We did want to let you know though that as of the latest patch it became necessary to update the profile format. The new profile system supports ship unlocking and spawning which the old one does not. There is no need to delete your character profiles, however you may run into some problems with the logistics screen unless you start a new one.
In other news, British Youtuber and voice actor ReformistTM did a Let's Play of Zero Falls today. He's been loving the game and only too happy to tell people about it, and we're grateful for his support.
If you're interested, you can watch his video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6lscsqmDo8&t=57s
Happy Holidays everyone! Try to avoid getting into shitfights with your uncle and enjoy your mashed potatoes.
0.8.2.00 patch notes
Highlights:
- The logistics ship spawn menu has finally been overhauled.
- Ship profiles are now in the database and cloud synced. Old existing profiles aren't technically deleted, but they are no longer compatible and will not show up in game.
- Significantly reduced monster difficulty at early levels
- The Torment special event ship is now in the game
- Module shape, meta-data, and artwork is now accessible to mod makers (though not yet via steam workshop) check the content folder to see where module data is loaded if you want to tinker
- Lots of optimizations and polish
Full notes:
- significantly lowered the energy cost of activating shield boosters
- fixed shield booster tool tip energy cost values which were inaccurate
- ship max speed in travel drive was doubled. We technically had not changed it until now, but when we fixed a bug that was updating movement twice it reduced actual movement by half, and when we updated the numeric display of travel speed to represent actual world size units instead of pixels it cut the number in half visually, so for all intents and purposes it fealt like the speed had been cut in half. Doubling the max speed should make it feel "correct" based on how it used to look and feel.
- unoccupied ships no longer turn off their shields, because shields are magic blue pixels and we all know the government of the universe physics enforcement comittee considers those to be a conserved quantity
- a number of module types now regain all energy when a ship gets its ammunition reloaded such as turrets, capacitors, and engines
- fixed a potential crash when trying to unlock a turret which is already unlocked
- nerfed monster lair's health(30%)
- nerfed monsters health(16%), damage(29%), and speed(6%)
- research complete notifications have been made more precise to have unique alerts depending on the unlock type
- the simulation now advertises a ship's primary target in a way that allows us to color code the interface
- fixed a bug where ships from nearby sectors were drawing with the wrong offset relative to the current sector (their turrets were drawing correctly)
- ships now spawn with as many crew as they have beds instead of as many crew as they have bedrooms since bedrooms can have multiple beds
- the "get" method on tooltip description text now returns the pre-wrapped text which lets us check the contents of tooltips with code
- turrets and thrusters and shield emitters and engines and active energy cost on-use modules now mostly will come into existence with full energy
- added a failsafe to module hitpoint calculations which will prevent corrupt module definitions from crashing the game
- Station Parts quest station now doesnt have any monster spawners in it and has limited amount of monsters in it
- fixed a bug where beam emitter count was changing when a ship interior was repeatedly instantiated
- fixed a design screen crash when opening a ship design with 0 crew
- fixed an issue where bullets fired towards a ship at point blank range could instead hit the source ship due to a bug with how bullet dodging was handled
- completely reworked the TOBI device to now grant a temporary buff to ship dodge chance that scales with the size of the ship
- We have done a complete overhaul of the logistics screen GUI and functionality
- single player ship designs are now fully moved to the database which means they will be part of cloud save, and we can do new things like delete unwanted designs
- Ship icons on minimap and exterior view now indicates hostility towards players
- Added new T2 energy mounts
- Added two new T2 weapon types (6 turrets in total)
- Massive research price balance pass - includes ships, weapons and modules
- Removed sector range limit from map
- Added sensor range check to map
- Added visualisation of sensor range to map
- Added crew count on locked target
- Added incoming target priority on locked target
- Extended few T2 loot tables
- Added new icons to research screen
- New framework for pulse turret effect
- New visual effects for turrets and beams
- Fixed beam emitter energy issues
- Added new T3 beam controller
- Added bigger Higgs drive
- Added animation to old Higgs drive
- Rebalanced Exotic matter economy heavily in favor of ship combat
- Gates now have visual effect and text prompt when they are active and ready to use
- Fixed bug allowing you to use inactive Warpgates
- Added double wide corridor conduit crossing and ending as part of T2 milestone rewards.
- Removed Exotic matter from abandoned stations loot tables
- Decreased energy cost for spawning ships by 25%
- Fixed access menu in interior view
- Exterior access menu state is now persistent
- Changed Mission Journal description formatting
- Removed extremely rare crash in interior screen related to armor shield display
- fixed a bug where beam energy emitters were drawing energy based on the wrong number of functional emitters leading to rare occurances of negative energy use
- final milestone rewards for T1 and T2 research progress were added
- added framework and assets for station minimap icons
- cargo added to ships via scripts or quests will now attempt to place itself in cargo bays which are functional and not fully destroyed. This will hopefully fix an issue where cargo placed into a station could be unreachable
- fixed a sound related bug what could cause a crash randomly
- actions which remove items from character inventory now instantly write to the database
- fixed the Tormment event quest which we thought was working except it was actually not implemented yet. We now have a spooky ghost ship event in gaame. See if you can find it and get totally wrecked. also it drops loot.
- added an alert to research blueprint use
- fixed a bug where crew were supposed to leave their console to fight intruders on their ship, but they would always leave their console if they were the intruders making it impossible for lazy-ass marv to do anything right
- fixed a bug where crew were leaving their consoles to defend their ship from dead invaders
- crew will now leave consoles to fight monsters invading their ship in addition to enemy crew
- fixed a bug where the start ship would unlock the start ship instead of unlocking an undamaged version of the start ship
- fixed a bug where audio volume wasn't updating immediately when changed
- fixed a bug that could cause ships to go unresponsive
- there are now ships defending signal relays
- relay stations now have longer range turrets
- significantly optimized standard pathfinding for crew and monsters, this is one of the biggest resource hogs for the interior simulation and we've reduced it by like...some!
- rewrote crew idle behavior to make less liberal use of the pathfinding algorithm which is still expensive. Their idle wandering will no longer caause massive FPS lag inside large ships
- ships can no longer fire weapons during travel drive or while charging travel drive
- module definitions have all been given new meta data which exposes their tech level to the game
- module artwork has been exposed to modification by the player as their artwork, tile maps, and meta-data maps are now uncompressed and in png format by default
Hi, I'm the Complaints Department. Entrance at the Back.
My name is Travis. I'm a freelance digital marketer based in the San Francisco Bay Area and the new PR and Social Media Coordinator for Reason Generator INC. I was going to give a whole spiel about how fun and rewarding Zero Falls has been to work on but George told me to tone down my chipper attitude because he's such a grumpy asshole.
I'm here to open a dialogue between the dev team and you, the fans. We're going live with our next update later this month, and we're open to any feedback about how we can continue to improve upon Zero Falls. In particular, we're curious to know what Zero Falls modding projects you've been working on, and whether there's anything we can do to to making modding Zero Falls easier.
We have big plans ahead for Zero Falls and November in particular is going to be a big month for us. Among other things, we recently submitted Zero Falls for consideration for the Indie Megabooth, the traveling showcase of indie developers that makes an appearance at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco and PAX East in Boston. We'll keep you posted on how that goes.
We're also going to be rolling out some changes to our social media content, most especially with our Twitter handle @wtfdevs. Among other things we're going to start asking for feedback during #FeedbackThursday as part of our syndicated content, when we ask you, the fans, what you would like to see in future updates. So if you think of any way that Zero Falls can be improved, that would be the appropriate time and place. Depending on what else we're working on we may or may not ignore you.
We're planning to go live with our next patch Zero Falls v.0.8.2.0.0 right before the Black Friday sale. You may have seen that we posted our latest patch notes just now. Some of the biggest changes include an overhaul of the logistics screen GUI and the addition of energy mounts for tier-2 research. We also got the Torment event quest to spawn properly and now you can fight a ghost ship.
Edit: Patch notes have been deleted, to clarify the patch will not be live until later this month. We apologize for any confusion that might have caused.
Tl;dr Hi I'm the complains department. Please take a number.
Solicited blog rant: topic = game design
That being said, I'm only going to cover player self expression and content exploration here. I don't want to start any more debates over docking right now, I don't think I can handle that.
So here are some of the things we want to add in the future which fall into the above categories
Player self-expression
We want ships to be specialized at the top tier for specific roles based on how you like to play. Those roles were introduced and are taking shape in the previous two content releases, and they are: gun ships, missile ships, drone carriers, and beam weapon ships. Add into that mix some defensive build choices around evasion, armor, shields, or point defense, and you get a lot of potential build targets for players to choose from. The idea is not for one choice to be better or worse, but to be choices and optional alternatives. Choices should be based on preferred play style, and options are valuable when attempting to overcome specific challenges.
Up until now, we have still been implementing the base module types, with beam alchemy and drones making their first real appearance with the most recent patch and point defense AI being a fairly recent addition. Some of those systems feel like they are in a pretty good place, and others feel like they really need to be fleshed out more with some modules that offer interesting synergies.
Missiles, for instance, are really easy to add to any design, but if you want factories you need to optimize your entire design around them, often at the exclusion of other weapon systems. That puts missiles close to where we want them except then turrets require no supporting modules, so a player can have a missile build and then also add turrets with no drawbacks. That doesn't feel like designing for a target, or building a ship for a role, it just feels like throwing modules into a blob.
In order to improve the amount of player self-expression you can get out of the design system, we want to supplement existing modules with supporting modules and module synergies as well as module trade-offs in the future. We also have some future plans to rework the mastery system in a way which might make individual ships feel more customizable.
I can assure you that if tweaking and optimizing ship designs is your cup of tea, we want to diversify your options in the future. I'm also open to suggestions for creative module additions. Though the effort to make a module is much greater than the effort to suggest one, so I can't promise any individual suggestion will be implemented.
Content exploration
Zero Falls is supposed to be just that: a game about exploring content. The problem is the quantity and accesability of the content. Right now, I see 2 very large areas of potential improvement: features and improvements to the dynamic economy, and better use of procedural content and mods.
To start with the economy was sort of implemented and then ignored, but never really fleshed out. It seems like a great candidate for a future overhaul that could include a lot more player interaction. As it is right now you find a good trade route, run it one or two times, and you are done earning credits forever. That's way unbalanced, it prevents most players from even realizing that the economy is dynamic at all, and it provides no incentives to do the types of activities we originally envisioned when making an economy.
The entire idea behind the economy was supposed to be that players who were interested in economic manipulation would use piracy, blockades, and cargo hauling to turn things in their favor. I think there is still a lot of opportunity to make that into something that actually happens in Zero Falls, and I'm willing to dedicate a future content patch to looking into it. I don't have an ETA for when just yet.
On the topic of procedural generation, well we need more of it and I am currently doing some research into that very subject. I have lots of ideas, but I don't want to commit to them in writing just yet. However one thing I will say, is that I encourage the use of workshop mods even in a fresh play-through of the game. If people are having problems with workshop mods, or if the existing workshop mods are in need of new features, I'd like to hear about it. I would love to expand on any system that allows custom 3rd party content.
Misc
As a final note in this blog, we are in a stage right now where our effort is divided 2 ways. We are making a series of smaller improvements and refinements that we want to release as smaller updates, but we are also slowly slipping back into the territory of working on secret stuff that is big and exciting which we aren't ready to talk about yet. We don't know what will be in the next content update yet, but all of us are either starting work on something really cool, or working hard on a project that has been on the back burner for a while.
We decide our release schedule based on what we have finished, and what we are working on that might prevent pushing a patch. It's a form of controlled chaos which I think is necessary. There is some strategy to it to be sure, however I find that programmers program the fastest when they work on the thing they are currently most excited about.
I know I've personally found my next project.
-George
0.8.1.00
- fixed everetts coherence quest
- fixed a crash caused by rendering stations outside of singleplayer mode caused by a check to see if the station was the player's home base
the save that happens after a crash will no longer display a loading screen. This will feel a little more rough for the user due to lack of visual feedback, but it will fix issues where the save could not happen in instances where the crash was rendering related
- added lounge module to research and unlocked modules in T2 corridors group unlock, module is also retroactively unlocked when missing on older character profiles
- fixed mineable crystals in stations giving crystals
- fixed some quest names
- added wide hallway conduit to research and unlocked modules in T2 corridors group unlock, module is also retroactively unlocked when missing on older character profiles
- made Assault pirate base quest logic more robust
- made Kill Greg quest logic more robust
- made Kill Budd quest logic more robust
- added an event that triggers when a missile fires
- added an event that triggers when a missile explodes
- equipped gear to crew of Missile, Beam and Drone bosses
- added waypoint to Moral Crusade quest
- fixed the_data quest being lost when loading game
- fixed Signal Relays quest not removing their map icons when they are destroyed
- fixed a bug in monogame that prevented the framework from detecting mouse keys 4 and 5
- fixed a bug in our keybind code which was preventing the game from recognizing "on release" events for mouse keys
- added a fancy UI element around your ship for beam weapon energy
- added a fancy UI element to the mouse that shows missiles ready to fire
- added a fancy mouse cursor element which shows if your beams can fire at a location
- Significally extended arc rendering framework
- Reworked blue biome now "outer rim"
- Fine tuned glaciers
- Reworked green biome now "infested" biome
- Added brand new asteroid type - these will only show up in new worlds, but they don't affect gameplay
- Changed Toxic planets
- Adjusted biomes display on map view
- Significally improved beam low energy response
- Fixed possible beam energy exploits
- Fixed a tooltip bug for the heavy dual vortex gun
- Asteroid icons were included in GUI alpha fade
- Assigned unique names to T2 reactors
- Assigned unique names to T2 engines
- Assigned unique names to T2 thrusters
- Assigned unique names to T2 beams
- Also factories, shields, controllers...
- Added Beam Controllers tooltips
- fixed a crash caused by outdated beam emitters
0.8.0.05 patch notes
- fixed tutorial location/quest to save properly so now you can exit to menu without breaking the save
- fixed a crash in logistics screen
- added a catch to the function which moves the player into ships which will allow it to fail gracefully if for some reason it gets called without a valid ship as a parameter
- you can now right click core nodes to add them to your currencies similar to how exotic matter works
- fixed blueprint 401030 unlocking the wrong research (it pointed to placeholder module)
- fixed small cargo nook missing from group unlocked modules in T2 research, the missing research is also fixed up when game loads now.
- added some T2 drone bays and T2.5 reactors to live modules (players can acquire/unlock them and use them in ship designer)
- you will no longer get the quest to explore for the initial cloning upgrade if your character already has it unlocked
- fixed a bug where the speed indicator was displaying speed in pixels per second instead of meters per second
- reduced the fade-out duration of in-world text animations from the tutorial to guarantee they would eventually go away if the script doesn't clean them up properly
- fixed an issue with the raid data center quest which caused it to forget the waypoint location after loading a save
- reduced the range of the docking assist magnetism
- slightly reduced the percentage of max thrust which can apply to docking magnetism
- optimized engine thrust animations and reaction control thruster animations by removing references directly to the ship interior simulation which is on another thread
- fixed attack drones icon
- added tobi(s), ogre and rosen modules to live modules
- added 2x attack drones module to special deletion group so the module can be cleared even though it cannot be researched/acquired
- drone arbalest design upgraded to inflict more pain and suffering
- changed drones on SSC Pike to repair instead of attack (2x version shouldnt be accessible in game)
- Updated Trading quest to change tooltip when you are in the station
- increased the ai engagement range of drone ships
- fixed a crash caused by rendering stations outside of singleplayer mode caused by a check to see if the station was the player's home base
0.8.0.03 - 0.8.0.04
0.8.0.03
- Added apply button to Keybind screen
- Added Docking assist toggle to settings
- fixed rendering of research category progress mini bars in the research screen
- fixed rendering of research category progress mini bars on the character select screen
- fixed a bug that was preventing docking magnetism from being disabled by left click
- fixed a bug where exotic matter could be right clicked to earn money from certain slots without removing the item
- added the ability to claim dense exotic matter to your wallet by right clicking
0.8.0.04
- warp gates were made 200% more explody
- fixed the spawn logic for the waypoint to the final boss by spawning a warp gate. Before, since no gate spawned, the quest was telling players to go to coodinate 0,0 which is very far away
- added a check to the ssc mega fort quest which will allow it to correct itself if it finds that its quest location is at location 0,0
- added a tool to design screen which lets you spend Core Nodes on unlocking modules
- updated F1 help info to use new default keybindings for launching missile
- added a catch to the function which moves the player into ships which will allow it to fail gracefully if for some reason it gets called without a valid ship as a parameter
0.8.0.02 patch notes
- fixed armor module tooltips
- fixed crash when opening design screen due to older version of characters.sqlite file
- fixed an error with beam alchemy where rebuilding the ship interior was increasing the cost of firing beams by doubling the list of contributing controllers
- set a limit on the number of beam controllers which can interact in beam alchemy to 5 as was always intended
- fixed a bug where the SSC faction was placing the waypoint to their data center on the wrong station
- T2 door blueprint fixed (thus T2 corridors batch now properly includes them instead of T1 airlock)
- T2 toilets added to blueprints (T2 corridors batch now unlocks them)
- T2 conduit crossing added to blueprints (T2 corridors batch now unlocks them)
- T2 corridor life support added to blueprints (T2 corridors batch now unlocks them)
- T2 corridors completely obliterated from T2 loot tables including wide ones
- T2 non-corridor life support added to blueprint and added to loot categories
- removed floating text from the design screen backdrop
- fixed a category type in the design screeen (Corridor*e*s)
0.8.0.01 Patch notes
- fixed a bug that would cause the ingame ship design screen to crash if you had no ship profile selected (from the main menu) which it should not have been checking during the story mode
- fixed a bug where the respawn screen would show you the option to replace crew on the opposite side of the star system even though that action is not supported. Clicking the bug would result in a crash.
- fixed a bug where scrapping a ship with damaged shields would add black pixels to the top
- scrapping a ship will now remove white tiles from the bottom layer of the design before unlocking it. We can't do the same to the top layer because white is a valid color there.
- fixed a bug where shops didn't know what loot to sell after killing budd triggered the next phase of the story
- fixed a single dialogue option in a quest that was looping
- fixed the tooltips for some pirate quests in the red zone which were still counting kills after reaching their completion state. The quests were actually completed, but the tool tip was misleading.
Forgotten Patch notes
0.8.0.00 notes continued
- The green zone has ships and loot in it now
- Tier 2.5 ship hulls and technology can be found out in the green zone