InfraSpace News

Hello everyone!

After announcing the new terraforming feature last week and introducing you to the first couple of terraforming buildings, it's time to introduce you to the new terrain concepts.

These are 3D art concepts of the different biomes and the final version is still open to change.











Don't worry about the height of the grass: we will cut it around buildings and roads to give the city some space.

The fertilzer required for terraforming will be distributed via autonomous drones. Let us know which one you think looks the best!



On another note Ben, the programmer working on the new procedural terrain generation, got sick for most of the week, so we don't have much news there. We wish him a good recovery!

As always,
happy playing!

Hello everyone!

Today we're announcing the major feature of the next update besides the new terrain and mod support: Terraforming!

You'll be able to turn the planet's surface into a livable biosphere by changing the plant's environment step by step.

One of these steps is reducing the acidity in the soil. We went through a couple of ideas for this building...



... and in the end focused on a futuristic looking building that combines some of the concepts from before. It processes the and filters soil in a close range next to the building:



We also need to fertilize larger areas and this is where the drone port comes in to spread fertilizer and tend to some of the more inaccessible areas of the map:



Once you've made the planet liveable, there is going to be a variety of different new plants scattered on the surface (don't worry, they will not impede building building placement):



We are still working terraformed map itself as well as more buildings for the terraforming production chain, so stay tuned :)


In other news, it's not enough to just make 3D concepts of the terrain, so we have started work on procedural generation. The dried river is one of the most defining features of the map because of it's size, so that's what we started with:



Our procedural generator allows a variety of different shapes to make the random maps look more natural. It's work in progress, so only representative of the current state we have now not the final look.

And finally I want to thank everyone for the comments and suggestions you leave on these posts and on the forum. We also have bugfixes and performance on our mind of course as well as new features.

As always,
Happy playing!

Note: Steam's News post feature was acting up yesterday, so I was only able to post the Friday Dev News on Saturday here. You can also find Friday Dev News on the InfraSpace forum.

Hello everyone!

Today I'm stoked to announce a feature for the next major update that has been requested *a lot* in the community: Mod Support!

You will be able to:

• change all kinds of gameplay settings by editing json config files
  
• change the consumption and production rates and resources of buildings
  
• edit all texts and add your own custom translations for fun
  
• add new models and textures to the game. Specifically, this lets you create new buildings and entire new production chains
  
• add new resources to the game
  
• change the speeds and settings for roads and rails
  
• decompile InfraSpace and look through the code yourself
  
• write script mods by implementing Mod classes that we pre-made for you
  
• use the well known Harmony library to hook into our functions and change the game in deeper ways
  

Modding is available in different tiers of difficulty and possibilities:

1. Editing configuration files is so simple that anyone can do it. This includes changing building settings, production rates, etc.
   
2. Adding new models and textures to the game requires you to install Unity and Blender. You need to import your models into the InfraSpace ModKit project and export them to be used by the game.
   
3. Script mods require you to have some programming knowledge. Depending on the complexity of the mod, your goal can be reached in a few lines or it requires you digging deeper into the InfraSpace code.
   

In order to make things easier for you, we will provide 3 things:

1. A tutorial series that covers all the different kinds of mods.
   
2. An InfraSpace ModKit Unity project that contains all the resources you need to get started
   
3. Three small example mods that are available on the workshop and can be downloaded to check them out and see how they work.
   

The Cryo Chambers example mod adds another spaceship module and shows you how to edit configuration files and change simple values.



The salt mine example mod shows you how to create new buildings, add some animations, add them to the game and configure their new production chains.


With the new world and the mod support, the next update is going to be packed with big new features - and we haven't even announced the biggest news yet ;)

While we're working on it, I wish you as always, happy playing!

Hello everyone,

another week, another patch of biomes. The terrain overhaul in the next major update is going to bring 5 major biomes: you saw the dried river and the petrified crater in last weeks post, this week we're showing you our concepts for the volcano, the highlands, and the desert biomes.



The inactive volcano used to shape the landscape in the area. Now, its unusual soil composition nourishes some strange alien fungi. Also, the inactive caldera is a good source of valuable iridium.





The highlands are some of the most alive areas of this planet. The soil is still full of nutrients because of the proximity to the previously not-dry river and the plants here get enough sunlight compared to the ones in the dried river itself.



Most of the area in the map is taken up by the desert biome. Much of it is empty to give you enough space to build your city, but there are some rock structures strewn throughout containing the most basic mineral resources, copper and iron.

That's it for this week's Friday Dev News - we hope you enjoy the look of the new map and are looking forward to playing on it when it's released. We still need to create the procedural generation for the terrain, but on the other hand, we have not yet announced all the features we have been working on for the next update. Stay tuned...

... and happy playing!

Hello everyone!

As promised in last week's Friday Dev News, we're now showing our first 3D concepts for the new biomes. For now these are just artist test scenes and not procedurally generated. That comes later!

We tried to make the landscape look both interesting and alien, but still familiar enough that it doesn't look "off". Also, we added some slight fog effects for visual variety, but not so dense that they get in the way of gameplay or make the scene too dark.






While the dried river contains no flowing water, it's geology makes it a lot easier to reach underground water and methane deposits. The steep rock walls protect the area from both sun and wind and gives opportunity for mushroom-like alien plants to grow on the sides.



The petrified crater is a very different biome: It seems like a large asteroid impact long ago has compressed the soil can't hold much liquid resources at all and neither man nor nature can reach through the ground very easily. Any plants that grow here risk drying out and getting petrified in seasons with a lot of sun. On the other hand, the leftover asteroid material provides for some rich aluminum deposits.







I hope you like the scenes so far, let us know what you think! The art team would be happy to hear any comments.
We'll be able to show some of the other new biomes next week.

In other news, after 2 years of pandemic, I finally got covid myself. Luckily I'm already well on the road to recovery and the rest of the (remote) team has been doing a great job of continuing work on the game in the meantime, so it all turned out fine :)

See you next week and happy playing!