Generationship News

The simulation of the game has a detailed algorithm to calculate the efficiency of an Activity. To make this better visible, i am proud to introduce you to the new Interface for activities.

Due to the feedback, i received from some playtesters, i thought about the layout of the activity ui and found a good way to merge the productivity, storages, workers and more together to one single interface.



At the headline its still similar, showing the title, and the main Problem. Below there is the current Productivity where the player can turn it off, or setup the productivity. If there is a target, the state is also shown below with a smaller line.




Below are the new items showing several details of it. Its split up in single items that have 3 columns:

The first column has a large icon, showing the type of the influence. Clicking there can navigate to the items or change them. In the followed column a short headline with details are added. At the end of this column are some details. It ends with the influence change.

[h2]Condition[/h2]
The first influence is the condition of the Building. Its reduced over time and can be increased by the maintenance activity.



[h2]Gravity[/h2]
Some Activities are influenced by the gravity. It belongs to some internal processes of the interior item are more efficient with gravity. Also when workers need to do something on the machine, on low gravity it took more time.



[h2]Player[/h2]
Here the player can set a maximum efficiency, to e.g. reduce the amount of energy or other resources are used. He can also turn it off completely.



[h2]Resource-Boxes[/h2]
If the Activity creates or uses Resource Boxes from storages in the rooms, they are also shown. In this line, there is also shown how much resources are used and how much would be used with 100% productivity.



[h2]Ship Section-Resources[/h2]
Some Activities using from or adding gas to or using it from the air of the section. The maximums here can be controlled by the ship section, to adjust automatically the amounts in the air.



[h2]Ship-Resources[/h2]
Additional to the Ship Section Resources, there is also Energy, used by the whole ship. If there is not enough energy, or the batteries are full, this value will be regulated by the ship automatically.



[h2]Target[/h2]
Some activities have targets, like the maintenance or construction activity. Usually the distance to the Target influences the efficiency.



[h2]Workers[/h2]
If the activity needs workers, they are shown here. Some need special skills, that are shown next to the headline. The mood will influence the productivity a lot, so if that is low, they will not work well.



[h2]Users[/h2]
Service activities will increase or decrease values of users of the activity. E.g. a Dringing activity will increase the H²O value of the person.




There are different calculation methods used for every line. They are applied from top to bottom, showing the total efficiency till the row.

• Multiply
  
• Multiply Average
  
• Minimum
  
• Minimum Average
  
• Subtract Relative
  

to the growing community for all the ideas and feedback.
Thank you for reading. we would be happy to welcome you on our discord.


and don't forget to wishlist and follow us to keep up to date.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1638030/Generation_Ship/

Storages are one of the main gameplay elements, so its important to make them act understandable are easy configurable.


Since the last iteration, the there existed input and output storages, that are related to the activity. Activities needed an input storage for consuming and output storages for producing resource boxes. Beside that there are general storages that can have in and out behaviors, special storages e.g. for the dock or the shuttle bay and many more.

The old design had several hardcoded behaviors, depending on the type of the storage and how they are used. It was build at the start of the development and being improved a lot of times, but the major design survived till these days.


Now all of that has been replaced by just one kind of storages with several options. These options replacing the old special behaviors and make them way easier to understand and as a good side effect, the player can change them to their needs. It depends a bit on the kind of storage what options are changeable by the player or not, due to for some special storages, it doesn't make sense to change them.

To make it easy, the activity storages get automatically options, depending on what interior items are placed in the blueprints. So if activities just using it as an input storage, the storage will be preconfigured as only input behavior, but it can be changed later afterwards.


[h2]Input Storage Option[/h2]
Not Allowed
No Input connections are allowed.
Request Only Full Boxes
This is the default behavior for the Activity storages. They just request boxes when they are full, so not so many transport actions are triggered.
Request Partial If Empty
In some cases the other box is filling very slow, but its essential to get that as fast as possible, to get the activity to be able to work. This will be only triggered when the storage has no more boxes, so its not filling all up.
Request Partial
This is a special option that is default for construction storages to be able to grab all resources they need at the building lot.



[h2]Output Storage Option[/h2]
Not Allowed
No output connections are allowed.
Auto Send Only Full Boxes
This is the default behavior for Activity storages. They just send boxes when they are full.
Auto Send Unused
In some cases it can be useful to send a box out, when its not used by the room anymore, e.g. when an activity stopped.
Force Empty
This is a special option and is used e.g. for the Dock or dismantle building lots.



[h2]Problem Option[/h2]
There are 2 different problems that can be configured. Full storage and empty storage. After several playtests i figured out, that players use the storage in different ways, so sometimes, the "full" is good, sometimes its bad.
For each Storage, the player can now configure them depending on the usage:

• Error (Red Icon)
  
• Warning (Yellow Icon)
  
• or nothing should be shown
  

To round the storage changes up, i also improved the Connect Storage Overlay. I used the new approach what i developed for the Person Activity and added also existing ones and show problems e.g. for maximum connections.




to the growing community for all the ideas and feedback.
Thank you for reading. we would be happy to welcome you on our discord.



And don't forget to wishlist and follow us to keep up to date.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1638030/Generation_Ship/

To make the builder assignment easier, i added a popup-button to the Construction Sites. It shows all possible Builders and an easy assign button, so its not needed anymore to assign it on all construction rooms in all interiors, what was a bit much work.




After the change of the working places it was not easy visible how many workers are assigned to a room. To make this visible, i added a list of all persons, assigned to the selected room to the details panel.




To have a better view to the inside of the ship, there is now a button to hide the upper part of the rooms. I'm thinking to close the normal rooms in general, so its more realistic and they can be darken better when adding a night mode.




Due to a lot of feedback to the construction Priorities, i added more priorities to let the player differenciate easier. It also contains a Pause Option, so the building is not automatically choosen anymore.




Like in most Strategie games, you can now use Ctrl+(1..0) on the keyboard to save the selected things and restore it with a simple press on the (1..0) Keys.
Thanks to BLUESKY-WR for the idea.


This are just the smaller changes of this new Version. Larger things will be published from now on in more detail besides that updates.


[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Always show the Unseal Buttons even when the building is not selected
  
• Better text alignment in FillBars (Thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Add Arrow-Keys to WASD to move camera (Thanks to Revolus for Report)
  
• Shift For SupplyRocket to completely fill/empty (Thanks to Revolus for Report)
  
• Using lower value check for Air-Values to check for equals
  
• Added Support for Click on the Buildings in the Resource-Overview Tooltip
  
• Added Support for Click on the ContainerUser Window
  
• Added General Burst to options for debuging hard crashes
  
• Set Minimum Center of Mass Distance for spin to -1m to make Mass Balancers optional
  
• Hide +-0 at gaugepanels when not updated
  
• Improved Light setup for BigHemisphere
  
• Shortcuts for Select or Choose are now correct shown in the current Shortcut area
  

[h2]Performance[/h2]

• Improved performance for Supply ship Setup
  

[h2]Bufixes[/h2]

• Fixed Unity Bug where space was used as mouseevent on a not shown button (thanks Glitch for report)
  
• Fixed missing Unit in GaugeElements
  
• Fixed Empty Area of Configurator blocked dropping Interior Items (thanks to Revolus)
  
• Fixed Interior Items can't be dropped when over 0 cylinder position (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Fixed Crash using the delete button in the interior Item list (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Prevent Autosaves when game is already removed to prevent broken savegames (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Fixed Crash like UI Update after special kind of big bugs due to History (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Fixed Endless update Loop where a patient wanted to heal himself (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Fixed not shown Storage at Mass Balancer
  
• Fixed overlapping Resource-Overview Panel (lower left) to all resolutions (thanks to Revolus for report)
  
• Fixed Buildmenu could open in first person mode
  

to the growing community for all the ideas and feedback.
Thank you for reading. we would be happy to welcome you on our discord.



And don't forget to wishlist and follow us to keep up to date.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1638030/Generation_Ship/

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This release took a bit longer, due to a 3 week vacation after working every day over the last 2.5 years.

[h2]Skills[/h2]

This iteration skills for the crew was added. They have now 5 basic Skills that have different impacts. A general skill is the astronaut skill. As higher it is, as less impact the 0 gravity will have and as better the person is in navigating and steering the shuttles. The other skills are for the specialized machines and activities. As higher, as faster they can do the work and some are restricted with a minimum skill.




[h2]New Layout of Supply Request

Adding the skills also caused a rework of the Request Supply Ship. It has now way larger items and the summary is better to see. It also prevents to change the size of the popup and showing larger icons.




[h2]Better Person List[/h2]

The List of Persons have also been improved to show the new Details and the current Activity. It also shows the Basic needs to prevent choosing ones that are in a bad state. I'll add filters and sorting options in another iteration also to easier choose from groups of larger persons.




[h2]User and Worker layout[/h2]

For Activity Users there are now placed in lines instead of single icons, so its also shown the other needs of them and a written name. For Workers its similar, but it shows the relevant things that influence the efficiency.



[h2]New Choose Icons including Problems[/h2]

To make the choose of the Activity more easier, i enhanced the choosing mechanism with icons, showing above the interior items. It indicates the kind of activity. If its not available for some reason (like all slots used, no resources or private room) its showing now also but with a reason icon behind with a tooltip on hover.



[h2]Prepare for more Languages[/h2]

To make more languages available, the possible languages are now scanned. Adding a new language can be now done with just adding a new file in the Locales folder. To make Languages with non latin characters possible, i added an option to change the font and added some predefined fonts for chinese and japanese for now.



[h2]Graphic improvements[/h2]
I added a bloom effect and changed the lighting inside of the Base Buildings. They use now separate Lamps to enlightned it. The fake lights i used before sometimes made the lighting unreasonable strange.



[h2]Hide upper part of Buildings[/h2]
The upper part of a building is now cut off in the configuration mode. I'll add also an option, to cut the buildings as an option the player can choose to see more in the other parts of the gameplay.



[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]
Changes

• Better color for Choose Resident
  
• Add resourceType to the storage icons in configurator
  
• Fixed Warning: Entity didn't have interior bounds (dock module for new persons)
  
• Partial Boxes are send also out to construction sites
  
• Added TextShadow to Bar-Text to make them better readable on all backgrounds
  
• Using workhours as an estimation for a underconstruction without an active builder.
  
• Increased Icons in Container UI Elements
  
• Increased Readability of Shortcuts
  
• Allow some tooltips to over with the mouse over them
  
• Better readable Red for Error-Hints
  
• Changed behavior of Assign WorkSlot (was still workplace behavior)
  
• Randomize output of supplyship to make probems with not unloaded more rare
  
• Layout of Shuttlebay Storages are now aligned
  
• Added Bloom for nicer look
  
• Hide BuildingButton when clicked to make clicking easier
  
• Improved layout of Blueprints in the Buildmenu to show grouped InteriorItems
  
• Show Problems on Choose Activity for Private Rooms and No Slots
  
• Added Person Details popup to all Person-Icons
  
• Make the Font changable in the Language file to support more languages
  
• Added font for Simplified Chinese and Japanese
  
• Make use of similar work InteriorItems random, so everything is used more equal.
  
• Click on the Resource Type Icon in a Storage will now start transfer of all resources of that type
  
• Added Cutting of upper part of the building, to make the Hemisphere BaseBuilding better usable
  
• Added Wall Lamps for the Basic Buildings to improve lighting
  

Bufixes

• Fixed General Storages not shown in Resource Overview when only in transit boxes
  
• Prevent Assign Worker with the Working Slot button when its not possible
  
• Fixed possible crash when assign a person and shuttlebay is ready to mission
  
• Fixed disabled camera controls in special cases of popup closings
  
• Fixed wrong icon at Low H2O at metabolism Stopped
  
• Fixed not not showing details of storages in blueprint configurator
  
• Fixed Storage Problem of general storage sometimes not shown
  
• Fixed wrong highlighting when transfering resources
  
• Fixed Wrong iconshown for some blueprints
  
• Fixed flickering of Tooltips at first frame in some cases
  
• Fixed some Resource animation starts at 0,0 when split up
  
• Fixed highlight problems of transfer resources stayed on in special cases
  
• Fixed Hemisphere Basebuilding
  
• Fixed Problems of MultiSelect Itenerior Items (thanks to Glitch for report)
  
• Fixed Wrong Shadow Distance when switching to another perspective
  

[h2]Release Video[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The main change this time is a larger change on the rooms. They are now not activity oriented anymore, to make it easier to build them up. Instead the interior items are the main thing in rooms now. Each of them have their own activity and that leads to larger changes also in the UI and interactions. Due to that large changes i couldn't add so many new needs as i wanted. Instead just the hygiene and a med bay has been added for the persons.


[h2]Combined Rooms[/h2]
The main change this iteration is a new approach for the activities. Instead of having the activities to be choosen in a building, now each interior item can be dropped to add an activity. Each one has its own to make it easier to understand.

To make it easier to find interiors, i combined some of the rooms. Before the rooms than would have had too many activities to choose, but now its way cleaner to do so. When opening the configuration, there will be a interior item build menu, where all possible interior item are grouped in categories. When an interior item is dropped the needed storage will appear in the first "storage" category. Later i plan to let also other storage droppable in that category.



[h2]Choosable Room Icons[/h2]
The change to have all interiors possible in one room made the Icon obsolete. To make this still useful, the player can change the icon to some preconfigured icons.



[h2]Interior Problem Icons[/h2]
Due to the new Gameplay with exactly one activity on one interior item, its now possible to move the problem icons directly above the interior items. Also problem markers for storage have been added to hint better to potential problems.



[h2]Choose Activity[/h2]
The choosing of the activity of a person also needed to be adjusted. The Player can now directly choose the interior of the activity to send him to this. Only possible, not blocked ones are shown. While updating that, i also fixed some performance issues with that topic, leading on some point to lower fps.




[h2]New Workplace[/h2]
With the new systems it become not useful anymore to assign a person to an activity whats not a single machine. This part has been changed a lot in this iteration, so now the persons can search ship wide for works to do. Its possible to filter these tasks for each individual person by assigning a workplace. This is now a building, and you can assign as many as you want. The person will than just work in this building. In later iterations its planned to add more filters, like activity type specific, so you can let him only grow plants or maintain the buildings. Maybe also to assign a daytime range when he should work, to have kind of shifts in the game.



[h2]Construction Calculation[/h2]
The Construction and Maintenance activity can now work paralel on the same item. This was neccessary, due to its no more possible to build one big construction activity, but having many small ones instead. I added a "Effort" unit mesassured in wh (working hours) and used the usual container logic to represent the build. Each worker now just adds deltas as all other systems and use events from the building instead of precalculated times.



[h2]New Room: Med bay[/h2]
Big thanks to BlueSky-wr to design the medical bed. Its directly added to the only interior item for a new room (more will be added later). The healing is a new kind of activity, what needed a small change in the simulation, so customers can also go there, even if there is no worker attached.



[h2]New Need: Hygiene[/h2]
The person now also needs hygiene. To add a washing activity without gravity, astronauts using simple washcloth. So i used the sink to show that in an easy way. The Drink activity now uses a new water dispenser instead.



[h2]Resource Quality[/h2]
To add the new Wash activity to increase the hygiene, it was needed to add content of the resources. Brown water contains nutrition, that can be filtered by the purification plant. Till now, this amount was fixed, due to it was just created by the toilet. The wash activity now should also create brown water, but with way less biomass inside. To make this work a quality has been added. In case of brown water, higher quality means more biomass contained. Later this can be also used for food quality or harvested iron ore.




[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]
Changes

• Force a person to do something will now just increase the metric so he working longer
  
• Prevent Persons idling in buildinglots
  
• Added Ambient Occlusion effect
  
• Better layout for Configurator
  
• Added edit-button to all changable Names
  
• Changed Worker Color to orange, to make the type better visible
  
• Shuttle bay send also partial resources out automatically
  
• More possible crashes are converted to Error Logs
  
• Also stop sleeping when being on a mission, to prevent emergency sleep while mission
  
• Use a large Storage for the starting Toilet module, to make the start easier.
  
• Prevent transferring empty boxes (due to leads to other problems and useless)
  
• User nicer and smaller on/off button as a phone like button
  

Performance

• Prevent updating not shown things in the UI
  
• Improved UI for storage with many connections
  
• Improved UI performance for Choose Actions
  
• Improved UI performance for Person Overview
  
• Better cutting, to use less verticies for buildings
  

Bufixes

• Fixed Visual cuts in buildings
  
• Fixed Partial full Boxes are not send out by general storage
  
• Fixed Crash when assign a person to multiple Missions
  
• Fixed Effect of Shuttle not stopping when load a save game where shuttle is gone
  
• Fixed Wrong visual position of collected boxes
  
• Fixed Person not hidden after loading when was on a mission
  
• Fixed I18n Mixed Texts for Fuel Cell and Electrolytics (thanks to Erosis)
  
• Prevent showing warning when person goes to fulfill a low need at 10%
  
• Fixed special case where UI didn't detect the cursor is on the scene.
  
• Make RequestIfEmpty to minimum 1% to prevent problems and too much transfer.
  
• Fixed Problem with loading wall materials
  
• Fixed not animated Resource box when moving it inside of a building