Boppio News

Hello everyone!

This is another bug fix update. I know its been a while since the last update and these issues have been hanging around a long time but I have been really busy. Thank you again to everyone who continues to report bugs and checkout the stream from time to time. I hope everyone is doing well :)

Quick update: Technology Tier 2 Extended patch has been pushed back to November 1st. Official 1.0.0 release of Boppio has been pushed back to December 20th. The roadmap has been updated to reflect these changes: https://boppygames.gg/?page_id=440

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

- Load times have been substantially improved
- Coop through steam is now working again
- Fixes to network culling related to multiplayer
- Fixed audio slider in the main menu
- Keyboard shortcuts not being disabled while in the save screen
- Autosave not working after first autosave
- Fixed an issue where client players could not chop trees

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

- GPU instancing is now supported on most terrain cosmetics. GPUs that don't support instancing will fallback to combining meshes.
- Tons of performance improvements
- Fixed issue with 100% GPU usage on newer cards
- Better culling for offscreen objects
- The player is now prevented from saving over an autosave file
- Trees now show up in minimap generation in the terrain generation preview in the main menu

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

- Steam Engine power output changed from 12.5k -> 3125W
- Power input requirement for Blast Furnace 800W -> 12.5kW

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

- There seems to be a common crash on integrated graphics, I am still looking into this. Likely an upgrade to the unity engine version will fix this.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

Thank you again everyone who stops in for the twitch streams, and thank you to everyone who reports issues in the discord. I would not be able to fix so many things if people did not help with testing the game. Also, the best place to report bugs is either the steam discussions or the discord. Thank you to everyone who continues to report bugs :)

I will again be out of town this weekend, but I can respond to bug reports and suggestions in the steam discussions and in the discord.

Have a great weekend everyone,

Boppy

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCwEkbpmzIaxdEfdVTQEINw
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/yY9wHNn
Twitch: https://twitch.tv/boppygames
Website: https://boppygames.gg

Hello everyone,

This is another bug fix patch. This release fixes the well-known Catador/Ondor generation bug where your world generation is lost either between loads or between scene transitions. This bug was extremely hard to track down and was debugged entirely on stream. Thank you to Pops for sending in the save file that replicated the issue consistently.

If your save file has been affected by this bug, it should at least be consistent now. If you need a save file fixed for whatever reason, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Discord. This bug did not affect everyone and typically only affected Catador. Its also likely that you experienced this bug but it was relatively harmless and it went unnoticed.

I am also working on improving the testing procedures to try to cut down on simple bugs like this in the future. The Technology Tier 2 was increasingly hard to test and the fact that the game has a lot of content now makes it hard to test all of it. I'm continuing to develop an automated testsuite to make sure that the game is functioning properly with each release.

There will be at least one more patch for this release to fix issues - but other than that I am excited to start working on the new Technology Tier 2-Extended update. A roadmap for the feature updates can be found here: https://boppygames.gg/?page_id=440

Thanks again everyone,

Boppy

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/yY9wHNn
Twitch: boppygames
Website: https://boppygames.gg

Hello everyone,

This is yet another bug fix patch. Several users submitted some game breaking bugs that were somewhat common, so here is another fix for those users. The list of bugs is definitely decreasing by the day and it seems like this release is on its way to basically being completely stable. I am unaware of any existing issues that could break save files and also I have implemented a new in-game save system which gives users more control over the file they are overwriting.

Fixed

- Improvements to the item delivery and routing system, this was causing extremely low FPS on large factories. You should now see a substantial improvement.
- Fixed an issue where hitting the cancel button in the audio settings would hard crash the game
- Fixed an issue that would prevent users from entering Catador.

Improvements

- The save menu has been updated, you can now change the name of a save in the in game menu. You can also delete saves from the in game menu.
- Better checks for preventing broken save files. All known save file issues are now fixed.

Known Issue

- There is an issue with the item transport portal, this is the next highest priority on my todo list.
- Load times for large factories can take up to 5 minutes, this will be fixed in the next bug fix release.
- Several coop bugs are still known, these will be fixed as well.

Thank you to everyone who has reported issues and sent me save files for reproducing issues. Special thank you to the user Pops in the discord who kept on top of issues and sent many save files.

Thank you again everyone,

Boppy

Hello again everyone!

This week has been crazy with the Technology Tier 2 launch. A lot of my time has been spent updating the trailer and marketing material, but now I am back into 100% game mode. I am currently spending most of my time just working on fixing bugs, which should be obvious based on this patch.

This bug fix release is backwards compatible with 0.4.1-beta, 0.4.2-beta and 0.4.4.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

- Fixed an issue that prevented the player from extending fluid pipes using the extender
- Fixed an issue that prevented the player from extending fastr transport tubes using the extender
- Fixed an issue where the quadruped would not enter the running animation while targeting a player
- Oil is now shown in the resource preview for oil derricks
- Miners no longer preview oil resource when hovering over an oil patch
- Fixed an issue where direct inserting items wouldn't remove items from the player's inventory\
- Powered miner is now working properly
- Fixed an issue where "phantom" patches would spawn after the initial generation. These patches would not be mineable until you saved and reloaded. These patches don't hurt your save file.
- Fixed an issue where you could unlock the powered buildings earlier than you should be able to
- Fixed an issue that prevented players from unlocking in the item teleportation module
- Fixed an issue where a save file can be loaded in and all of the resource patches are missing
- Fixed an issue where the bug report screen soft-locked the game

[h2]Changes[/h2]

- Transport Tube 1 module changed to 10 copper ingots (removed iron requirements)
- The Steam Engine's power output has been doubled - this is due to the fact that there is only one way to create power right now and coal requirements are super high

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

Unfortunately there are still some issues that need to be addressed that I have not quite fixed. These issues are my top priority.

- The load times are terrible, especially with very large factories. Load times up to 5 minutes can be normal for factories that are in the late game.
- Performance degrades after loading
- Several coop bugs are known including buildings not running on clients and construction animations not working - fixes for these issues is on the way.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

Thank you to everyone who has reported issues in the steam discussions and in the Discord. These users have saved me a lot of time by finding issues and sending me detailed bug reports, so thank you. If anyone has new issues they would like to report, either the steam discussions or the Discord is a great place for those reports. I look at each individual report on both the steam discussions and Discord.

Thanks everyone,

Boppy

Hello everyone!

First of all I would like to thank everyone who tested out the Technology Tier 2 content on the beta branch. There were a lot of bugs reported in the Discord which helped a ton in stabilizing this release.

The Technology Tier 2 release is finally ready to be released to the default branch. It has been available on the beta branch for about a week now, and after addressing a ton of bugs it is ready for everyone through the default branch.

Unfortunately for this release as well it is not backwards compatible with 0.3.X saves. This mainly has to do with the terrain generation system being rewritten.

[h2]Summary[/h2]

Major Features
- Catador is now available through the Portal
- New Terrain Generation Engine
- Technology Tree updated - tons of new techs and items
- New buildings, including the lava pump, centrifuge and item teleportation buildings
- New enemy on Catador
- New ingame tutorial
- New mineable resources
- Building context menus allow you to disable/enable certain building functionalities

Change List
- Major item routing refactor. Graph recalculations now happen within seconds rather than minutes.
- Minimap + Fullscreen map improvements
- Game now saves over 3 autosaves rather than just 1
- Linux now defaults to OpenGL, see this post for details on forcing Vulkan.
- Performance pass
- The Habitat can now request items
- Terrain Generation toggle for unlimited resources
- Terrain Generation toggle for disabling enemies
- New warning for loading incompatible save files
- Fixed an issue with Cache Chest placement size
- Resources now preview for Miners

There are also tons of smaller fixes and usability improvements.

[h2]Catador[/h2]



Catador has introduced a new liquid for processing: Lava. Lava can be put through the Centrifuge and converted to Sulfur or Silica and is also a component in Rocket Propellant which is made in the Laboratory.



Catador is protected by the Ancient Guardians who are able to float above lava and teleport to targets when attacking. For the time being we have slightly reduced the attack damage and difficulty of the Ancient Guardians as to not be a major hurdle in exploring Catador. In the next major combat refactor this will likely be changed.

[h2]New Buildings[/h2]



The Lava Pump can only be placed in Lava on Catador. It requires the use of some new items to build it, including Heat Shielding, which is also going to be used in space components in a future update.



The Centrifuge is primarily for extracting minerals from Lava. This can be used to create Sulfur and Silica, which go into higher level crafting materials.



The Item Teleportation Hub and Item Teleportation Portal are used to transport items instantly over larger distances. The portals themselves do not require power but the Item Teleportation Hubs require most substantial energy. For this update because there is only one way to make power we are temporarily reducing the power requirement for the Item Teleportation Hub.

[h2]Technology Tree Updates[/h2]

It took me a while to remember where we left off from the previous update. The new tech tree has a ton of new techs, ending with a new building that will remain locked until December. I am not showing off this building in the update as to leave it as a surprise to users.

The new tech tree contains new modules that unlock a ton of new items and 5 new buildings. The Steel Furnace has been renamed to the Blast Furnace because it can now smelt Aluminum. Originally I only was going to make the Steel Furnace produce Steel, at the time I hadn't even started thinking about Technology Tier 2 yet. Instead of making an entire new building to smelt Aluminum I decided to merge the functionality into the Steel Furnace (now the Blast Furnace).

Here is an overview of the new Technology Tree:



As you can see we have expanded past the portal technology into what will become space technologies at the end of the tree. The focus of the modules for Technology Tier 2 is expanding into Catador and preparing for buildings that will be required for Technology Tier 3, which will mostly involve constructing buildings in space.

[h2]Known Issues[/h2]

Currently I know the loading times are pretty bad. I will continue to improve this over the next few weeks and by the time Technology Tier 2 Extended is here this issue should be resolved. If your save file takes longer than 3 minutes to load its likely another issue has occurred.

If you run into any new issues, please post in the Steam discussion or feel free to join the Discord and leave a report in the #bug-report channel. I look at every post on the Steam discussions and every bug report in the Discord server.

[h2]Technology Tier 2 Extended[/h2]

Technology Tier 2 Extended (TT2 Extended) is going to be a minor update coming around October 15th, 2021. This will include all of the content that didn't quite make into this update. This includes a vehicle for helping the player get around the map more quickly and also includes at least one other form of power generation. Its likely TT2 Extended will contain some accessibility improvements like color blind mode.

The roadmap, which outlines the development timeline, has been updated. It can be found here

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

Thank you again to everyone who has stopped by the Twitch stream and kept me company while I've worked on this update. Also thank you to all of the players who played the beta release, I know it was kind of buggy but without the beta players it would have been much worse.

Thanks again everyone,

- Boppy

Discord: https://discord.com/invite/yY9wHNn
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/boppygames
Website: https://boppygames.gg