LithoBreak News

Greetings, Scientists!

February ended in the blink of an eye, and before we knew it we were already in March! We hope you’re as excited as we are for all the new stuff we've been working on including various refreshes of mechanics, and the progress we made on the Ceramics Processing!




[h2]New Builds and Feedback:[/h2]
We’re stoked to announce that the main branch for the game has been updated with everything from our January post! We also want to thank you for all the constant feedback you provided in our Discord. We have been working hard on the changes the community suggested so we can make sure it is the best version of itself as we come close to re-releasing Episode 1!

As we are ramping up development of the reworked episode, we are testing out all the new improvements, and incorporating feedback on a weekly basis!




[h2]Objectives Refresh:[/h2]
We have been hard at work freshening up the objectives and associated screens for the game, including completely revamping the objectives to be more flexible and responsive to the Player’s situation in game! All those changes will allow us to create more varied objective types in the future as well, giving us plenty of room to expand the game storyline.

You can now also play messages directly from the Objective Screen, making the game progression smoother and avoiding unnecessary navigation in the tablet.

When selecting objectives on screen, the objective now expands downwards to show all the options available. When a selection is made, the screen resizes around the selected option and the unselected ones animate, fitting the game UI nicely!




[h2]Ceramics Refresh (WIP):[/h2]
We have simplified the Sifter, making it work more predictably and less RNG based. The processing speed is determined by a set volume input rate, making it process a starting substance with 50% Silica twice as fast as a starting substance with 25% Silica into purified Silica.

The Mixer “Recipe” (what the unit will produce) will soon be set directly from the given inputs, meaning:

• Setting Silica to the top slot and Alumina to the middle slot will produce Fire Brick materials
  
• Setting Alumina to the top slot and Silica to the middle slot will produce Kiln Brick materials

I know it is short and sweet, but we have so much more lined up still to update you on soon! We hope you’re as happy as we are about these changes, and we’ll see you again soon! In the meantime, make sure to check out our Dev Live Streams, and join us on Discord!

Catch you in the Verse,
Tau Ceti Labs

Happy New Year, Scientists!

We’re excited to share our first Dev Log of the year with you all! This month’s update is mainly about metallurgy, resource links, as well as a first-look into our manufacturing room, currently in development. So sit back, grab your coffee, and jump on in!




Multiple buildings are currently in the works and can be seen coming to life on our Twitch channel! If you’re interested in seeing more behind-the-scenes work, make sure to jump in, subscribe and sit in with us while we develop the game!

There are 3 different buildings that can now produce metal ingots: the Inert Smelter, the Reaction Smelter, and the Allow Furnace. Each of these buildings will create different variations of metal ingots that you can use in manufacturing a vast amount of items later down the line.

Here is a brief rundown of their respective ingot production:

• The Inert Smelter converts Alumina powder into Aluminum, but requires vast amounts of energy to produce ingots.
  
  
• The Reaction Smelter will allow you to make iron and chromium ingots through aluminothermic reactions.
  
  
• The Alloy Furnace takes specific metals in, and melts them down to create different alloys, like 304L stainless steel which, fun fact, is the same steel grade used on the SpaceX Starship!
  

Once production is complete, haulers will then move ingots and materials between buildings based upon how you link your resources.




We are always working hard to make the Lithobreak experience even better, and recently have worked hard on some nice QOL changes that we’re sure you will love!

Sources and sink nodes now have smooth transitions between buildings, sprites, and window locations, making for a more fluid gameplay experience. This can be seen most notably when turning on and off the building sprites using the lower right sprite toggle.

Resource links can now also handle ceramic substance and metal ingot routing. The different substance types are color coded for better visibility and easier set up of production lines. In the future, resource links will handle fluid piping routes as well!




Our artist has been hard at work designing the metal processing buildings, but has also made a lot of progress on the station's next largest room, the Manufacturing Room!

This new room will house many metal printers of different sizes to supply different building parts, which will be extremely helpful to kickstart the moon mining operations on the horizon!

Thanks everyone for reading this month’s Dev Log! See you next month for more, and in the meantime you can check out our Dev Live Streams and join us on Discord!

Catch you in the Verge,
Tau Ceti Labs

Greetings Scientist,

Have you ever dreamt of exploring new worlds and managing your own space mining station? Well, now is the time!

From January 27th to February 3rd, Lithobreak will be 20% off to celebrate the Lunar New Year!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1091030/LithoBreak/

Lithobreak will put you in a world where the Earth is running out of natural resources, and the Corporation managed to monopolize inter-planetary resource mining granting them tyrannical rule throughout space. Driven to restore balance and bring power back to the people, Eli, a rogue inventor and scientist is the only hope to change the face of mining technologies in The Verse and inturn, restore his legacy.

Happy Lunar New Year Scientists, a whole new world awaits!

Tau Ceti Labs

Greetings Scientists!

This year has been full of changes in our lives, but also in terms of Lithobreak development. Starting this month, we will be providing our players monthly development updates. We would like to include everyone in this journey and be more transparent with everything moving forward. We also have our Head Developer Moe stream Lithobreak's development twice a week on Twitch, so if you are interested in seeing it live, do join us!

Without further ado, lets jump into our current state and recent development:

[h3]New Roadmap[/h3]
A roadmap for the game has been added to the title screen. We wanted a way to show sneak peeks at what’s to come, and the new UI design that we are working on. Do note that this roadmap does not fully represent all our plans, just the ones that are finalized and scheduled in the full roadmap.



More about the roadmap: We are revealing our plans for “voxelized” moons. Allowing true-to-life sized moons to be explored and exploited for resources. The roadmap will be periodically updated as finalized decisions are made in its development.

[h3]New Agroponics Room[/h3]
The Agroponics room will be accessible in-game soon. This is one of the largest rooms in the station so far, complete with fruits, vegetables, and mushrooms to be harvested.



[h3]Agroponics room features the following:[/h3]

• Sized to keep a maximum of 15 fed (Even though there’s only Eli in the station).
  
• Provides produce for the kitchen robotics to support well-rounded diets (for all walks of life).
  
• Integrated with the waste processing systems of the station for sustainability.
  

[h3]Episode 1 feature is completed[/h3]
The updated script for episode 1 is finalized, and new voice clips will be added to ease players into gameplay. Sara has a bit more explaining to do when it comes to messing with the mining console (instead of just cutting Eli mid-sentence).



Ceramics have been completely revamped since the start of early access. Materials are now a finite set, with materials being routed around with nodes. More game mechanic polish to come, such as simplifying the sifter etc.

[h3]Introduction to Metal buildings and QoL Improvements[/h3]

• Metal buildings are now in development (more information soon).
  
• Development videos are on Twitch (We stream twice a week!).
  
• New buildings cover the production and processing of base metals and metal alloys.
  
• Metals ingots will now be routed around the moon much like ceramics.
  
• Starting metals are produced in the inert smelter.
  
• More advanced metals are produced in the reaction smelter, which consumes another metal in the process.
  
• Alloys are produced in the alloy furnace to attain higher material properties.
  
• Different properties will be important when it comes to producing parts in various factory types including casting, forming, machining, and moulding.
  

Thank you so much for reading our Devlog, and making it to the end! More will be coming soon.

Don't forget to join our discord and have a chat with the LithoBreak team! Invite Link: Discord

Also, follow us on our socials for up to date news and announcements! Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

May the Verse be with you,
Tau Ceti Labs

Scientists!

Now is the best time to get your hands on the newest and hottest moon mining equipment.

Lithobreak will have a 20% discount from December 22, 2021 to January 5, 2022, don't miss out!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1091030/LithoBreak/

Make sure to grab your coffee scientist, and let's dive into Lithobreak!

Don't forget to join our discord and have a chat with the LithoBreak team! Invite Link: Discord

Also, follow us on our socials for up to date news and announcements! Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

May the Verse be with you,
Tau Ceti Labs