Answers to your FAQs
Welcome Pioneers to a new episode of Weekly Apart! In today's edition we want to revisit our two live streams from the past week, in which we premiered alpha gameplay footage exclusively for our Discord followers. We're super happy that we didn't encounter too many game crushing bugs and, with a few exceptions (damn you flickering smoke particles blocking the screen), were able to show you the three pillars of Dawn Apart, namely factory building and terraforming, colony life and destruction.
We're even happier that we received tons of questions and suggestions and did our best to answer them while on the air. We want to use this post as a write up for the most frequently asked questions so those that weren't able to join can learn a thing or two about the game as well. By the way - we are planning to do more of those streams once we can show more cool stuff, so please make sure to join our Discord to be a part of our next stream.
Before we dive into the answers to your questions some housekeeping: We're part of the Steam Strategy Fest that runs through September 4th. We're pretty buried in "Upcoming" section but please visit the festival page to check out other amazing games that proudly wear the 'strategy' and 'colony sim' tags. Also we want to give a special shout out to Bottleneck Gaming - a very cool website with an adjacent podcast for all things automation games - who reached out to us and are going to feature us in an upcoming episode.
Okay, let's dive into your questions in no particular order:
How does terraforming work and will you be able to make underground bases/factories?
Whether there is a hill in your way when building a factory or you have to dig trenches to protect your production facilities against hordes of It'ak - you can add or remove terrain through off-grid and on-grid terraforming (by raising and lowering huge areas of voxels). However, as of now it isn't really practical to dig deep and build underground bases. So the building, automating, and fighting will take place above ground.
What are the benefits of enclosing your factory with walls and roofs?
Just like IRL building your assembly lines indoors protects your machines from environmental decay, makes it easier to maintain them and expands their durability. Also having your machines enclosed makes it much harder for It'ak to destroy your production capacities.
Is there a height limit?
We are going to put a height limit in, but there isn't one in our current build of the game. It won't be extreme though. Just not past the minimum height of the camera. But the game will encourage you to a certain extent to build vertically and you'll be able to erect sky-high factories.
How does the whole 'structural integrity' thing work?
Since you're going to stack multiple floors with heavy machinery on top of each other, we are planning on factoring in structural integrity - meaning for example you would need to place stilts under floors or otherwise they would collapse under a certain weight. However, we're planning on just developing a pretty basic system for it - s in not totally physically accurate. Also we know that there are a lot of players who don't care for such a system so we might as well make it optional.
Will this game be story driven?
While we are adding lore to the world and there will be events and story beats and even decisions in the main campaign, all narrative elements will be purely optional.
So what's the level of micromanagement with your workers? Will you be able to order them directly or are they going to work autonomously?
Both. We have designed a priorities and task system that allows you put the colonists on schedules for sleeping, working and recreations. In addition each colonist has a certain skill set that allows him to do certain tasks that others won't. You'll also be able to draft individuals and make them do activities that interrupt their schedules. Read all about it here.
Will there be allies and neutral people, or only enemies? And what will their technology and military strength be like?
Aurora is populated by the It'ak a humanoid alien race that worships Lucrum (the same precious resource that your employer, the Kobayashi Schwarz Corp., is after). They live in rather primitive huts, have inferior technology and are for obvious reasons not super happy that you dig up their home planet. In the mid- to endgame, you'll be able to interact with them in various ways from collaboration to outright war. Various folks in our Discord community suggested to make the It'ak a heterogenous group consisting of various tribes with different cultures. Others have asked if it was possible to kidnap/recruit It'ak and add them to your workforce. Both are actually great ideas that might end up in the game.
We're even happier that we received tons of questions and suggestions and did our best to answer them while on the air. We want to use this post as a write up for the most frequently asked questions so those that weren't able to join can learn a thing or two about the game as well. By the way - we are planning to do more of those streams once we can show more cool stuff, so please make sure to join our Discord to be a part of our next stream.
Before we dive into the answers to your questions some housekeeping: We're part of the Steam Strategy Fest that runs through September 4th. We're pretty buried in "Upcoming" section but please visit the festival page to check out other amazing games that proudly wear the 'strategy' and 'colony sim' tags. Also we want to give a special shout out to Bottleneck Gaming - a very cool website with an adjacent podcast for all things automation games - who reached out to us and are going to feature us in an upcoming episode.
Okay, let's dive into your questions in no particular order:
How does terraforming work and will you be able to make underground bases/factories?
Whether there is a hill in your way when building a factory or you have to dig trenches to protect your production facilities against hordes of It'ak - you can add or remove terrain through off-grid and on-grid terraforming (by raising and lowering huge areas of voxels). However, as of now it isn't really practical to dig deep and build underground bases. So the building, automating, and fighting will take place above ground.
What are the benefits of enclosing your factory with walls and roofs?
Just like IRL building your assembly lines indoors protects your machines from environmental decay, makes it easier to maintain them and expands their durability. Also having your machines enclosed makes it much harder for It'ak to destroy your production capacities.
Is there a height limit?
We are going to put a height limit in, but there isn't one in our current build of the game. It won't be extreme though. Just not past the minimum height of the camera. But the game will encourage you to a certain extent to build vertically and you'll be able to erect sky-high factories.
How does the whole 'structural integrity' thing work?
Since you're going to stack multiple floors with heavy machinery on top of each other, we are planning on factoring in structural integrity - meaning for example you would need to place stilts under floors or otherwise they would collapse under a certain weight. However, we're planning on just developing a pretty basic system for it - s in not totally physically accurate. Also we know that there are a lot of players who don't care for such a system so we might as well make it optional.
Will this game be story driven?
While we are adding lore to the world and there will be events and story beats and even decisions in the main campaign, all narrative elements will be purely optional.
So what's the level of micromanagement with your workers? Will you be able to order them directly or are they going to work autonomously?
Both. We have designed a priorities and task system that allows you put the colonists on schedules for sleeping, working and recreations. In addition each colonist has a certain skill set that allows him to do certain tasks that others won't. You'll also be able to draft individuals and make them do activities that interrupt their schedules. Read all about it here.
Will there be allies and neutral people, or only enemies? And what will their technology and military strength be like?
Aurora is populated by the It'ak a humanoid alien race that worships Lucrum (the same precious resource that your employer, the Kobayashi Schwarz Corp., is after). They live in rather primitive huts, have inferior technology and are for obvious reasons not super happy that you dig up their home planet. In the mid- to endgame, you'll be able to interact with them in various ways from collaboration to outright war. Various folks in our Discord community suggested to make the It'ak a heterogenous group consisting of various tribes with different cultures. Others have asked if it was possible to kidnap/recruit It'ak and add them to your workforce. Both are actually great ideas that might end up in the game.