Generationship News

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

Last iteration there were several play testers where i learned a lot how to improve the game. They all came with good feature requests what i wanted to add. I also added an Event Help so new players can interpret and deal with them better.

[h3]Event Helps[/h3]
I saw playtests where players ignored the important warning panels. So i added a Help Panel to them when an event panel appears the first time. It's showing a help text next to it (with speech) with reasons and solutions.



[h3]New Timewarp button[/h3]
Players accidentally dismantled buildings, due to they are used to double click. To make this less, i changed the behavior of the Time warp button. It now just needs a single click. When pressed, its turning to a stop button, due to players who clicked it by accident can just click again to stop it. I hope the old players are not too annoyed to use it, due to they learned to double click on them.



[h3]Improved Multi Selection[/h3]
Ships gets bigger, crew increases. This caused a remake of the multi selection logic. Its now unfolding as much as possible, up to the maximum amount. Means, when e.g. 30 walkways are selected, 20 of them will be unfolded, and just the 21. item will be "10 Walkways" more that can be selected also. It has also a priority for less selected buildings, so non-walkways will be unfolded more likely.



[h3]Convinient Shortcuts[/h3]
To cancel buildings, i added the cancel button to the multi selection view. But when a lot was planned, it was still annoying to cancel them. Thanks to a good idea from Melodie i added a shortcut to cancel the selected buidlings. Its showing a summary popup to prevent unwanted cancels.



[h3]Transfer multiple boxes[/h3]
When coming to the later game, it was a bit annoying, to transfer the water to the mass balancers, so i added a ctrl support to transfer multiple boxes. Its just possible for boxes of the same storage and just for the same resource type. I also changed the transfer to the left mouse key, due to this feels way more convenient. Thanks to Melodie and Hokay for the hint.



[h3]Adapt to pressure[/h3]
Till now, all air values had the optimum value calculated for 1 bar. This ment, that when the pressure is low/high e.g the Oxygen was not adjusted to 20% causing troubles for the crew. I update now the optima, so this value is updated and there should be no strange problems with that values anymore.

[h3]Center of Mass[/h3]
The Center of mass Overlay now shows the current center of mass. Before it was shown the center with 0 balancing activators, to make the mass balancers look working, the ui is moving now the center of mass point, where the mass balancers pushed it. Thanks to Melodie for the hint.



[h3]Connect Storages[/h3]
Its now easier at the startup to connect the storages.

• Added a field for "choose all" to the popup, to all possible connections with one click.
  
• Holding the SHIFT Key while clicking the building will also select all of them, without showing the popup.
  
• Holding the CTRL Key while clicking will also just restart the choosing, so multiple ones can be selected
  

So if the player presses CTRL and SHIFT, and just clicking on all Buildings, he can do that setup now in a very short time. Thanks to acidbeats for the hint.





[h3]More Warnings[/h3]
I also added a warning icon to the overlay for general storages, when they are full. Depending on the player usage, it might be a problem to be full. By default it's not shown and need to be enabled with the warnings overlay.




[h3]Choose Overlay Colors[/h3]
When using the choose feature it was just shown in one color. It is useful, to see more details there, so i make the highlight individual and action specific. So e.g. for Person Activities its differenciate the work and service buildings (and later the living quarter). For Maintenance it will show the current condition and for building a difference between dismantle and construction.




[h3]Discord Bot[/h3]
I created a custom Discord Bot for the Game. Its uploading the highscores now directly to discord. The bot is also checking roles of the members to connect from the game. I also added a license model, so all players are at default getting just a "Demo" License. This means, the game will stop at a specific point. To gain the full access, players can enter their discord id and the bot will verify, that they joined the discord server.




[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Fixed crash when building Shuttle Bay
  
• Fixed Chinese System language crash Unities UI Framework (thanks to I0lOl0I for report
  
• Fixed Tutorials can stuck when deselecting at wrong time (thanks to Najeeb for report)
  
• Fixed Air Leak not removed from the UI when dismantled
  
• Prevent Empty possible names at renaming (thanks to Ichao for report)
  
• Fixed Problems with Continue and Load Game buttons in special cases (thanks to IOIOIO and alexa for report)
  
• Fixed Selection State of overlay buttons
  
• Set max width for Event Help to look better
  
• Fixed Bug with Event Help when panel disappeared before help was closed
  
• Shows also the current Speed when simulation is too slow in normal time acceleration
  
• Fixed not removed red highlight border in special cases
  
• Style of Scrollbars improved
  
• Hide the Cursor in Intro scene
  
• Building require Walkway instead of Grid to inflate walls
  
• Fixed Line breaks in Person UI and removed workaround for old UI-Toolkit versions
  
• Fixed Bug when all air is out of the ship, the air is not updated well.
  
• Fixed overlapping Person Icon in Consultant Tab
  
• Fixed not clickable buildings above the consultant tab-circle
  
• Slow down default Time warp at unknown estimation.
  
• Make not chosen crew in gray in shuttle bay
  
• Fixed Not correct simulation break on special Event Registration
  
• Use default Time warp at special cases on Person-Time warp
  
• Make it all buildings with condition maintainable by the player (auto start at 80%)
  
• Fixed clearing the Problem when directly switching between special time warps
  

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

[h3]Shuttle bay[/h3]
A new building to do the moon missions is added. In the Shuttlebay, there is space for 1 shuttle.



[h3]Moon Missions[/h3]
With that new Building its possible to start Moon Missions. For now, there is just 1 mission, but i prepared already to add different Missions with player the option for the player to choose the amount of resource to give, to increase the output or probabilities later.
What is needed is the crew. Its separated from Building Workers, so when starting a mission, workers from other buildings can be choosen.




[h3]Container User sorting[/h3]
Group the Producers and Consumers in the Overview of the Container Users even if they have 0 usage. Also it could happen, that the view was showing duplicate values (Thanks to Melodie for report)




[h3]Improved Ship Resource[/h3]
To make it easier to see that a resource of a building belongs to the ship (like energy or air-values) i added the ship icon in front.



[h3]Make Unit deltas better readable[/h3]
Before it was using the time to make it readable. Due to its not really comparable i changed it to the weight value. E.g. before it was 20kg/d and 0.1kg/y. Now its more like 3g/d and 2kg/d.




[h3]New single storage[/h3]
Till now, there was just internal storage with 3 boxes. In the Shuttle Bay, this would be very much, so i changed it to 1. I added a generic one to be used in new buildings. I also think i will change some existing buildings to that single storage, e.g. for water boxes, that holds very long.




[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Fixed endless update loop in special case of simulation (Thanks for report Hokay)
  
• Fixed Exception when Person dies and still in the Metabolism Stopped Panel (Thanks for report Hokay)
  
• Fixed Filter of storage in special cases (Thanks to Melodie and Hokay for report)
  
• Fixed wrong priorities for Maintenance Modules (Thanks to Melodie for report)
  
• Fixed not stopping instant to live mode on space bar in special cases
  
• Added 120fps to fps options (Thanks to Melodie for the hint)
  
• MassBalancer is not able to be a construction storage (Thanks to Hokay for report)
  
• Fixed color of gas-resources in the model (Thanks to Melodie for report)
  
• Fixed Exception when Dismantle a maintained building
  
• Fixed Problem where Condition can get negative
  
• Fixed MassArea was not shown after games loaded
  
• Fixed Ship was not spinning anymore
  
• Fixed problem that people not eating anymore when the water was filled (thanks to Melodie and Hokay)
  
• Fixed select the building when clicking on the building in the chooseWorker Panel
  
• Warn the player when he want to increase game speed very high in tutorial
  

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

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]
I planned to start with moon missions, but i saw some playtests and found it would worth a retry to add speech. I tried this not successful last year but now it worked well. Due to this is a big improvement and took several days, this was going to be the main goal for this iteration. Besides that a lot of other polish and other new player hints have been added.

[h3]Speech[/h3]
I added speech for the intro, the tutorial and the achievements. I use different speakers, generated from the google APIs. For now it doesn't make sense to let it speak by real humans, due to it changes too much. Maybe that is already good enough :)

[h3]Intro[/h3]
After adding the speech, the intro needed to be adapted. It was using a timeline, but with different languages and different text-content it was a big effort to always adapt, so i redo the tutorial to use scripts, respecting the length of the new speed text.

[h3]Easier Life support start[/h3]
A lot of players had problems with the startup of the ship. After 1 month the Humidity increased very fast, what makes it impossible for new players to fix that. To prevent that, the life support module is now degenerating way slower, so the player has enough time with a small crew.


[h3]Event Panel Details[/h3]
I improved the Event panels by making the single elements directly clickable. Hover over them will highlight them also in the scene now. Before just all of them were selected and shown in the multi selection panel. I also added the details panels, known from the selection panel, as tooltips for them, to directly see it.



[h3]Metabolism stopped Event[/h3]
I added an Event Panel when a person have a serious problem. A lot of testers complained, they didn't know why people dying. To help with that and deal with that situations better, i added now an simulation stopping event when a person has that kind of problem. This happens, when the person run out of water, nutrition or oxygen. Its also shown directly in the panel as a icon with tooltip in front of the person.



[h3]Power outage Problem[/h3]
To make it better visible that a power outage shuts down a building, i added a special Problem Icon for that.



[h3]Maintanence Timewarp[/h3]
Time warp till something is repaired was using a generic time warp. Problem with that is, that its stopping when the worker stops working. To fix that i did something similar than for the construction time warp, so its now warping till the target of the work changed. There is also a new maintenance tutorial step added.




[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Small tutorial improvements
  
• Rework all of English text (Thanks to envelupo)
  
• Fixed Exception when not follow tutorials (Thanks to StarCon for report)
  
• Internal I18n tool to make it easy to update translations and speech
  
• More logging of game events to figure out player problems
  
• Improved Click behavior of the Event Panels.
  
• Only play ambient sounds, when the building is working or has users
  
• Fixed Exception due to outdated validates related to construction storage (thanks mtstanley for report)
  
• Added maintenance tutorial
  
• Fixed some visual problem with the Highlight Animations
  
• Prevent overflow in log files by ignoring duplicate log messages
  

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Infrastructure removed[/h3]

A lot of feedback was, that the game is too complicated. I think most of it was related to the construction process. To make this easier, i decided to remove the infrastructure buildings. They were added as one of the first buildings, but as the game changes, as more irrelevant they got for the gameplay. Now its more like all other building games, where you just place and construct the buildings.

The Grid and Railways are now integrated in the buildings, so e.g. the walkway contains already the grid structure and the railway. The separate grid structure, railway and also the infrastructure module has been removed.



[h3]Maintenance module[/h3]
Due to the infrastructure module has been removed, i needed a replacement for it in the tutorial. I decided to move the maintenance work of the Construction module to a new building. I changed the condition of the generator to 50% at startup, so we have a good reason to build it at the start. In the main tutorial the conditions are now shown and explained. Hope this helps now players, to not get lost, when the "Air leaks".



[h3]Problem indicators[/h3]
When a person problem appears, it shows now an animation, to hint the player better to the problem. To see the problems of a work better, there is now a red border around the working storage when an input storage is empty or an output storage is full.



[h3]Highlight why persons loosing health[/h3]
If a person losing health, players didn't see what's the reason. As one indicator, i added now a background for empty needs, to make it more obvious when food or water is empty.



[h3]Problem highlights[/h3]
To see easier problems with a storage, a red border has been added, showing up when a input storage is empty or an output storage is full.



[h3]Event UI improvements[/h3]
Instead of adding also a help button to the event panel, i improved the UI for it instead. I make them individual and now they can show also reasons for the event. This is also added for now for the energy empty, so its directly visible, where problems are and why we ran out of energy.



[h3]Planning Shortcut improvement[/h3]
Players accidentally cleared the planning. The first Esc hit now just removes the current selection, like in other games. If nothing is selected, it shows another confirm popup, to prevent an unwanted clear.



[h3]Improved Help style[/h3]
To make the help windows better readable, i added a light background to the info and warning areas and increased the icon. I also added to most of the helps some bold texts, to hint what's in there and make the player easier to see if the info is relevant for him.

To make it easier to create and modify, i added markdown support for all the text in the game. All helps have been changed to that new system. The new style can be now easier written and all parts of the UI can now be styled easy.



[h3]German Language[/h3]

I translated the complete game to German and added an option to the menu.



[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Fix for macOS, due to wrong steam config
  
• Added First Energy Achievement to explain the energy
  
• Longer construction times to balance removed infrastructure.
  
• Added Tooltips for Sound types in options
  
• Fixed Player-Efficiency Marker not updated in some situations
  
• Fixed bug where construction sites were served without completed connections
  
• Trying another line-break layout problem fix for unitys UI toolkit
  
• Changed arrow in production and color, to make it more obvious
  
• Improved help for Buildings, to show also storage settings
  

[h2]Release Video[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Updates in this Iteration[/h2]

[h3]Tutorials in Achievements[/h3]
The Achievements have been enhanced by the new Tutorial kind approach. When a new Task is given, its now also explaining necessary things to this task, to lead the player step by step to all features.



[h3]Continuous Tutorial[/h3]
The tutorial will now hint to the next tutorial, if one tutorial is done. This should prevent that players not seeing the next tutorial.
Thanks to "ironman" for the feedback (hope it was that problem).

[h3]Simpler UI for new Players[/h3]
The UI starts now with just the real basics, and get extended when the player goes through the tutorial and achievements. This should prevent overwhelming the player. I also added a button to the option for experienced players, to show all hidden elements.
Thanks to "ScruffyJoe" for the feedback.



[h3]Help System[/h3]
Beside the Help in the Achievements, there is now a new Help button, were some parts of the tutorials were moved to. It should get more and more content over time, for now there is just some basics in. It has also an interactive help system like the tutorial. When this is started, the "?" Button will turn into a "Stop Help" button.



[h3]SaveGame Hotfix[/h3]
A day after releasing the last version 0.56.0 i found some problems with the savegames, so i made an quick additional release fixing that.
Also some other problems related to save games are fixed, when save and load happened in different cultures, the comma and dot values were breaking things.

[h3]SaveGames[/h3]
Many playtests got errors and strange behaviours, due to loading old games. Due to the big changes that are still made to the game, this could lead to problems.
The warning for is now also shown when using the "Continue" button in the Main Menu, to hint to that cases.
I also started with migration scripts to make old savegames work better, but it cannot deal with all things, so its always better to start a new round on new versions :)




[h3]Added the Moon[/h3]
After changing the astronomic algorithm last iteration, i added the moon of the earth, to be used in the next iteration for the planned moon missions. I also changed the orbit direction of the spaceship, to make it more realistic.



[h3]I18n improvements[/h3]
I added an export/import feature for the text in the game, to be usable in spell checking and translation web pages. This should help to reduce the spelling mistakes in the texts.
Thanks to "Saggy Bumflaps" for the hint.

[h3]Other smaller changes[/h3]

• Show ResourceOverview Icon also when no resources but an input storage
  
• ResourceOverview calculated in parallel, not impact the framerate anymore
  
• Fixed some Simulation Issues, when air goes low[
  
• Fixed issues with Error and Feedback Reports
  
• Fixed ui performance when minimize game
  
• Moved more stuff to effect layer
  
• Added more UI layers for example for menu.
  
• Intro scene not flashing the UI at start
  
• Improved save game entity-names for better debugging
  
• Make error-popup more reliable.
  
• Fixed Problem, that something can't be selected at new games.
  
• Added Markdown-support for all Texts