Generationship News

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Graphic Performance Improvements[/h2]
The change of the rendering and added realtime lighting had impact on the performance. The minimal ship already hit a very high amount of verticies, so it was needed to improve that. I added LOD support to the system, so when zoom out, so the model swaps to a less vertecies version. I created for most of the expensive models some LOD versions and added them and could push the vertex count for the starting scene >50% down. It should have a big impact on big ships, due to the content of the container took a lot of verticies.

[h2]More Interior and rooms[/h2]
The Air Buildings and the Generator has been converted to the new interior system, so they can be placed as the other buildings. In addition, the style of the starting satelite has been adapted to fit to the buildings.



[h2]Tutorial and Achievements[/h2]
The tutorial has been updated to cover the customized buildings. Its now requesting to build one lifesupport backup building instead of the 4 specialized air modules. To fix some issues with the starting generator being damaged, its now the dock, that is damaged. It has no relevant implications, so its an easier target for the start for being repaired.


[h2]Other new Models[/h2]
The new Resourcebox. No wood anymore, but steel and also added a small light, to be maybe used later for the fillstate.



[h2]Resource Merging[/h2]
Due to its now possible to have partial resources for the construction, there was also a way needed to merge them together again. For now, i added a merging mechanism that starts, when a storage is full. Its than merging all resourceboxes with the same resource as much as possible together. Later i plan to add this as a storage option like the "Throw out when full" Option and add a manual "Merge" button.


[h2]Building Templates[/h2]
Due to more and more buildings are converted to the new templating system using the interior, the template choise is moved to the Buildmenu. This makes it searchable and easy choosable. Its shown as a kind of tree-structure and showing all details of the building while hover over it.




[h3]Internal improvements[/h3]
Most of the UI Logic has changed by using now Prototype Entities instead of GameObjects. Due to this the GameObjects are not lying around, so no performance impact anymore from them. With that, the game initialisation process could be changed to be more clean and easy. The other setup has been also simplified by more generic systems. All of that is also needed for a mod support later. The new change had some performance impact to the tests so it took ~15min to run all of them. To fix that a cache has been added pushing the usual 1.2s initialisation time down to 200ms by reusing the first init data, so they run now in 5min.


[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Improved Detection if the Cursor is over a menu element
  
• English locale improvement (Thanks to BurritoBotV3000)
  
• Removed Big Dock due to exceptions (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
  
• Fixed problem with SaveLoad properties could lead to illegal states (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
  
• Changed logic for autoselecting interior to work also for machine room
  
• Fixed new bug dismantle when buildings with customers (Thanks for report to BurritoBotV3000)
  
• Fixed problems where moving persons on very high speed are the wrong position.
  
• Improved internal Animation calculation for more performance.
  
• Removed GridStructure from some buildings to look nicer (Thanks to Melodie)
  
• Fixed shadows are wrong on highhest zoom levels
  
• Prevent some rounding errors to stable the simulation.
  
• Handle Exceptions while loading a broken savegame
  
• Autosave in general checks for thrown exceptions (Thanks to Ichao)
  
• Fixed Shadows are wrong in loaded games
  
• Fixed wrong shown values
  
• Added Resource users to resourceBoxes popup (same as for other containers like electricity or air)
  
• Fixed extrem vertex count for Icon-Meshes
  
• Fixed Person Pathfinding not working in a special case
  
• Fixed shortcut for directly start planning a building using enter in searchField
  
• Added a hint to the building rotation in the totorial (Thanks to "Gideon_Medic")
  
• Photovoltaic Panel visual fixes
  
• ProblemText now better eadable
  

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]
This iteration tooks a bit longer than usual, but its a very big think added, causing a lot in the game and tests to change. Hope you enjoy it and tell us if you like it :) I was also able to fix a unity bug, causing the simulation not run with burst (so x20 slower), but a sad news for MAC users: For Mac i couldn't fix it. I hope unity will fix this issue soon.

[h3]Interior placement[/h3]
The player can now customize the interior of a building and setup the work. It will now effect the efficiency and speed of a building and the maximum number of workers or users.



[h3]Templates[/h3]
Some of the buildings were migrated to templates for the basic buildings, so when placing a construction room, there are some default buildings. Later the player can also create custom templates.



[h3]Game Sceen Ui Overlay[/h3]
To show the details of the placed interior, the ui panels can now stick to the gamescene camera. This is also used for seal icons of the doors, and maybe later also for more details of the buildings or storages.



[h3]Partial Resources[/h3]
To make the interior also cost some reasonable amount of resources, its now possible to have partial building resources. The boxes are automaticly split to the correct size and transfered. Merge two boxes will come in the next iteration.



[h3]New Planning Shader[/h3]
To make the planning look more clean and nicer, i polished my old shader from the start of the game development two years ago. Its just rendering the model as a wire frame. The rendering logic is also changed, so there are no more overlapping renderings so it looks way nicer.



[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• A lot of UI Fixes (thanks to Ichao)
  
• Fixed wrong display of building mass
  
• Fixed Selection in high zoom levels have a small offset
  
• Moved the walking area to height 0 (from 1m)
  
• Fix update of customer slots in UI
  
• Improved FastForward and Assign Buttons in Person (thanks to Gideon_Medic)
  
• Better visual separation of Building Parts (Thanks to Gideon_Medic)
  
• Prevent Walkway to be rotated wrong with r key
  
• Added Rotation with Middle MouseKey to Building Planning
  
• Enabled Burst mode for Simulation again (was broken after a unity update)
  
• Fixed section-details-headline was not shown after loading
  
• Fixed problem with search field getting back the focus
  
• Inflatable Walls have no longer unrealistic openings
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

The original plan in this iteration was to create Factories, but there was a unity update that makes it possible to do deferred rendering. So before i add more buildings, that all got obsolete soon, i decided to do a big graphic update instead.

[h3]New UI Style[/h3]

I got some feedback, that the UI colors were too bright and not really fitting to the style of the game, so i tried to improve this part also. I choose now way darker colors.



[h3]Graphic improvement[/h3]

With the new Unity update it was possible to use deferred rendering, what makes better lighting with the entity system finally possible. Before, the lighting was prebaked, now its calculated in realtime. Due to this it was possible to split up the buildings to different objects without breaking the lighting, so it was a very big refactoring of the buildings and settings.



The shadow of the sun is also working now.



[h3]Big refactoring[/h3]

A possible change in the next iterations will be custom buildings. So like in many other building games, the player can add the interior where he wants and also enhance it with other interior than the needed ones for the work. To make this work i refactored a lot in this iteration. I created empty 5 buildings with different sizes and used them to do the current buildings.



To make it usable for all kinds, the walls and floor textures can be changed on runtime, so different buildings will reuse the main textures and the complete model.



To make the small storage inside of a building work, i created a mechanism to cut parts out of the model, so at runtime the holes needed for them are done.



Interiors are now separate objects inside of the model. All settings related to it, like the action points, animation paths or the storage-settings are moved to there.



Buildings have now interior bounds what is now used for path calculation for the persons and later to know where the player can place the interior.



Besides all of that, the work is separated to a different object, to be also choosen later from the player, make one internal storage can be reused by multiple works and changed the internal coordinate system. To round everything up, i generated the lights to have a balanced lighting inside of the building.



[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Fixed Animation of Unconciousness was looping wrong
  
• Fixed not updating Animation when staying in the building
  
• Readded Legend for inner Details
  
• Fixed person Icons had no background-color on first selected building.
  
• Fixed flickering of UI in some special situations
  
• Fixed Crash related to not canceled Tasks after destroy a building (Thanks to Ichao for report)
  
• The Dismantle button got an icon instead of a text.
  

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

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

[h3]New UI Design[/h3]

Due to the new Ship Sections added in this iteration, it was needed to restructure a bit. I used this opportunity to redo most of the ui structure, to have a more modern and cleaner design. There is now an aligned style of the windows, the section parts of the values were moved to the bottom. The build button there was moved with the camera and overlay buttons to a side menu, that is visible, when nothing is selected.



[h3]Sections[/h3]

Next to the UI, another big features has been added: Sections. Till now the complete ship was one section, means they shared all values like air or the water-tubes. This could be bad, e.g. if a building leaks air, efffects the whole air of the ship. Now, the broken buildings can be split into separate sections, having their own air and tube system. All of the section values are shown in the lower part of the UI




[h3]Seal Building[/h3]

The player can now seal the doors by hand between modules. If there are multiple, like at walkways, he can seal them separate. This will block persons to move through, and will create new sections if needed. It can be used e.g. for emergencies like when a building is leaking air, and the player cannot deal with it. He can than just seal the building and not loosing the whole air in the ship.
Thanks to Ichao for the basic idea.




[h3]Search Buildings[/h3]

Due to the new UI, it took always a deselect to open the buildmenu. To make this faster, i added "b" as a shortcut, to deselect and open the buildmenu. Than its opening another new feature, that makes it possible to search for buildings. So the player can just press "b Wal" and the Walkway will be shown. If he is pressing enter or just clicking in the screen, the building is automatically selected as to be planned, so he can directly drop it.




[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Fixed endless loop in simulation (thanks to Ichao)
  
• Fixed Flickering Doors at Photovoltaic Panels (thanksto Ichao for report)
  
• Fixed bug for endless loop in special cases (thanks to Ichao for report)
  
• Fixed bug for a special case in simulation (thanks to Gazzy for report)
  
• Supply Popup not flickers when opening (faster update)
  
• Fixed wrong selection highlight of some buttons
  
• Added definable Positions for Icons, to prevent inside of buildinglots (thanks to Ichao for report)
  
• Prioritize new consultants over old ones to prevent confusion of players
  

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

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]


[h3]Building Storages[/h3]

The Buildings can have now an internal storage of a resource. This was already used for the Condition, but now it can also be directly used in a work process. This means e.g. the Storage have a included water barrel, to store e.g. Water something without a box. It can also be used as internal work process like in a greenhouse where the workers plant food and the food grows without need of a worker.



[h3]Water Tubes[/h3]

Many buildings need water but the waterboxes are very heavy. Its was also not realistic to store big water barrels in each building. To solve that, there is now Water as a new ship-resource. It represents the WaterTube and all buildings are automaticaly connected to it. It behaves like power, so buildings can produce or consume this. To make it work from the start of the ship, the storage gets pumps to pump resources to the tubes.



[h3]Multiple Work Processes[/h3]

For the tubes it was necessary to switch between pump in and pump out. To make this easy work, i decided to implement a feature that is also needed for other future buildings. Each work can now have multiple processes, where the player can choose from. Later e.g. a factory could produce different things, depending what the player needs.



[h3]Visible Resource box fill state[/h3]

To make the visuals better, i added special shaders for the resource content, so they can show the filling-state of the box.



The Box for water is also now different to the others, to see the content better. It also has a Glass around, to have a nicer effect.



[h3]New Storage design[/h3]

Including Water pumps for the Ship and a Water barrel with visible filling state.



[h3]New Building designs[/h3]

Improved the 3x storages to a side by side design, to save space.

The Canteen gets a new design, due to the new Water Tubes and the possible animations.



Also the Toilet has been adapted and now just has 1 output garbage storage for the Brown Water. I also left a bit space for a small shower if this comes in one of the next iterations. I also added a sit-down animation.



The SleepingModule also get updated to have an open bed and a lay down/sleeping animation.



[h3]Animation Improvements[/h3]

While adding several new Animations, the System got enhanced. It can now also blend between the different animations, so it should be way smoother now. To make e.g. sleeping nice and easy, i added also a looping feature, that can loop inside of the animation. So the Animation will start usual, and repeating one segment in it. When the Animation should stop, it finishes it till the very end.



[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Change just emissions not the complete material for working effect
  
• Fixed an overlapping of the Building Details UI
  
• Queue up speech, so speakers are not interupted by events
  
• Fixed Broken animations on loading a game
  
• Fixed Inflate animation starting also on non finished buildings (Thanks to ichao for report)
  
• Fixed possible >3 connections when using modifier keys while connecting
  
• Fixed random flickering of highlights
  
• Fixed Doors closing when moving a plan over an existing building
  
• Fixed Doors not animated in loaded games
  
• Door flickering through the wall of Photovoltaic panels
  
• Photovolitaic panels are just be selectable at the building, not at the panels.
  
• Improved Performance of Animation Bake / Person Generation to fix lags