shapez 2 News

Hello everyone!

With the Early Access release of shapez 2 set for August, we’re creeping ever closer to finishing development. Our current focus lies on remaining visuals and polish, especially when it comes to the UI. However, we still have some exciting new content additions to show you, so today we’ll walk you through what we’ve been working on lately.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[h2]News[/h2]

[h3]Alpha 22[/h3]

Last week we released Alpha version 22 for our Patreon supporters, which includes most of what we'll cover in this blog. If anything here makes you want to check out the game immediately and want to give us feedback, consider supporting us!

[h3]Disclaimer[/h3]

As always, a lot you see in this devlog is still subject to change. We’d love to hear your thoughts on everything, but if anything still looks a bit rough around the edges its likely still being worked on. For more info on what to expect from the Early Access release build, be sure to check out our previous blog.

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

[h3]New Scenarios[/h3]

We’ve added more scenarios to the savegame customization options. These scenarios affect the shapes you’ll need to deliver to the Vortex in order to progress. The higher the difficulty, the more shape types, layers and colors you’ll need to put together.

The types of shapes you’ll need to deliver are unique to their scenarios. We’re not talking small differences – these goals are completely different designs. We had a lot of fun making these challenges so we hope you’ll enjoy them as well!

Do keep in mind that unlike the difficulty Setting, scenarios are permanent and cannot be changed after the savegame has been created. You'll need to start a new savegame to play a different scenario.

Operator Certification
We highly recommend new Operators to obtain their Operator Certification before you do your own thing! You’ll be guided through building your very first factory with extra information and hints. The Operator Certification uses the default scenario settings, but you can customize the difficulty before you get started. Once you’re deemed worthy of the Certificate, you get to choose between continuing with the normal scenario or the hard scenario – more on them later. Your progress is fully transferred, including buildings and unlocked upgrades.



Factory - Normal
This is the default scenario and recommended for players unfamiliar with shapez. Eases you into newly-unlocked mechanics and shape goals are relatively straightforward.

Factory - Hard
Recommended for players who have already done a playthrough and are looking for an extra challenge. If you’re here from shapez 1, this scenario may be a good fit for you! Shape goals get more difficult faster, requiring additional cutting, stacking or painting when compared to the normal scenario.

Factory - Insane
If you’re a very experienced player and you’d like to push your brain to the limit, this scenario is for you. Will require game knowledge, precise planning and thinking ahead: shape goals need many different shapes and colors, often stacked to the maximum amount of layers – which for this scenario goes up to 5!

There's a lot of room for us to add more scenarios to the list and we already have some ideas in mind. Here's a teaser:

[expand]
This is not in the game yet and we can't guarantee it'll make it in for Early Access release, but it's something we're working on![/expand]

Scenario customization
This option allows you to customize the settings of any of the previously mentioned scenarios. You still need to select one of them, but you can then customize map generation (as highlighted in this blog) and set additional savegame rules of which there are more now! If the Insane scenario isn’t insane enough for you, you can make it even more difficult here :)



[h3]Operator Level[/h3]

Keep delivering previously unlocked shape goals to increase your Operator Level! Every level unlocks additional chunks and research points to aid you in growing your factory! Completing a goal will allow you to complete it again, but with an increased amount of shapes needed. Be sure to diversify!

Operator Levels allow your old factories to remain useful after completing their milestones. Instead of quickly building something and to get rid of it once you advance, this incentivises to expand instead of replace and long-term solutions instead of quick and dirty ones. We want to see big and tidy factories!



If you want to go the extra mile, you can also produce the Randomized Goal! This requires less shapes to produce in order to level up, but you’ll need to switch up your factory frequently to adapt to the new goal. Or, just set up a Make Anything Machine!

[h3]Blueprint Icons[/h3]

Remember two weeks ago when we said we probably wouldn’t be able to add Blueprint Icons before the Early Access release? Yeah, about that…

Introducing Blueprint Icons! You can now customize your Blueprints with up to 4 icons at a time to make it easier to tell them apart in lists and hotbars. There’s a big list of icons already used elsewhere in the game and a couple of preset shapes. You can also add custom shape icons with Shape Codes!



[h3]Other new things[/h3]

Platform and platform blueprints can now be mirrored! We’ve also expanded the tutorial (now Operator Certification) and expanded the Knowledge Panel with all milestones, mechanics, example videos and translations.

[h2]Visuals and Graphics[/h2]

We’re working with new Rail visuals! Rails now look a lot less bulky and it clearly indicates which direction trains can travel. All the other visuals for trains are still work in progress though, so you’ll have to wait a bit longer to see everything else!



[h2]Development[/h2]

We’ve done a big simulation refactoring pass to improve simulation accuracy and stability. There have also been several more performance and rendering improvements.

DirectX 11 is now the default rendering backend on Windows systems, as we got a lot of feedback on the demo about some issues caused by Vulkan.

Factories outside of your view are now simulated at lower tick rates for up to 20x simulation performance improvements. This will prevent the simulation from struggling with huge factories, as only what you’re currently looking at is fully simulated. Your factory will continue to run perfectly fine if you’re not there to keep watch! It’s not like the belts start slacking off the second the manager is busy elsewhere. Or so they tell us.

[h2]Lore[/h2]

You read that right! We’ve begun to sprinkle bits and pieces of lore around the game to give it some flair. This includes the aforementioned Operator Certification, but you’ll be able to find lore and flavor text around various places in the game.



[h2]UI & UX[/h2]

As we’re getting closer to the Early Access release and most of it is ready, a lot of the remaining work consists of UI and UX changes. Here’s a list of what we’ve done!

• Cleaned up train toolbar & icons
  
• Added new 'conflicts' visualization: Whenever an issue is detected – like belts moving in opposite directions – an exclamation mark will appear at the location. There’s a button in the bottom right of the UI to toggle conflict warnings, though we suspect turning the warning off won’t fix the problem.
  

• Merged Upgrades and Shop into one shared tab: Allows you to shop for upgrades
  

• Added the option to clear all fluids in all fluid buildings
  
• Added setting to disable chromatic aberration
  
• Added setting to disable vignette: there will still be some vignette, but a lot less
  
• Added setting to choose the target display: for your sextuple monitor setups
  
• Added setting to reduce input latency: this may make the game feel more responsive, but will increase CPU load and may result in a lower frame rate.
  
• Disabled auto-rotation for large buildings, like the Painter
  
• Added setting to disable custom cursor (will make us sad)
  
• Splitters and Mergers are automatically placed when connecting or disconnecting belts or pipes.
  
• Added glow indicator for shapes that are actively being delivered
  
• Improved difficulty & scenario selection screen (see related section above)
  
• You’re no longer required to hold 'Shift' to replace conveyor belts / transport structures
  
• Transitions between waypoints or moving to the vortex are now animated
  
• Added placement indicators for fluid & wire buildings to better show inputs / outputs
  
• Improved fluid miner placement indicators
  
• Updated game logo: we gave it a real good scrub

• Added a button to take you directly to the relevant knowledge panel entry while placing or selecting a building
  
• Updates to the wire icons
  
• Improved & fixed belt launcher placement indicators & logic
  
• Added a setting to toggle toolbar selection mode between ‘deselect’ and ‘cycle’, with ‘deselect’ being the new default.
  
• Improved space belt & pipe placement, now should behave similar to belts but at a much larger scale (more improvements coming)
  
• Removed confirmation when purchasing speed upgrades: We know you got a need for speed
  
• Indicators for wrong connections are introduced for Buildings, Wires, and Pipes: These are the checkered blockers and separate from conflicts, though currently serve largely the same purpose.
  

[hr][/hr]

That’s it for now! Only a couple devlogs left to go before you get to play shapez 2 for yourself in August. We’re very excited (and very busy) and we hope you’ll join us again for the next devlog.

See you then!

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team


[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon


[h3]Check out the previous devlog:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4149584538797983676

Hello everyone!

Put it in your calendar, our Early Access release should be in Mid-August! We’re 97% sure we’ll make that, so while the odds are very good it’s not completely impossible that we’ll still need to reschedule.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

What can you expect from the Early Access version of the game? We’re glad you asked!


Generally, we think the game is in great shape with plenty of polish already! There are so many improvements over the first game that shapez 1 now feels more like a prototype for shapez 2.

In no particular order, there are:

• Multi-layer factories
  
• Trains
  
• New research system
  
• Fluids
  
• Blueprint library & toolbar
  
• Lots of quality of life improvements
  
• Crystals
  
• Pins
  
• Multiple progressions,
  
• Customizable map generation,
  
• Mirrorable buildings,
  
• Platforms
  
• Undo/redo
  
• So much more!

We also have a very high quality standard that we want to meet, so we have invested a lot of time in optimizing the user interface, onboarding & tutorial and making sure you have a smooth experience!



[h2]Launch Month![/h2]
We are now aiming to launch in Mid August. This is around 97% confirmed so while we are pretty certain, please don’t be mad if we have to reschedule it!

[h2]Our Plans for Early Access[/h2]

Generally, we think the best time to get started with the game is already during Early Access. During Early Access, we will be mostly working on adding big new content iterations every few months that justify picking up the game again. We will of course release hotfixes and so on, but we believe fewer, bigger releases make more sense than more numerous smaller increments. Less frequent releases also allow us to work more effectively on bigger updates.

For these bigger updates we want to try more experimental things like new game modes with bold changes that we didn’t want to try for the main game mode. However, we will decide what to work on based on surveys that we’ll run after the release! After all, we want to work on things you actually care about!

Of course there may be issues (minor bugs, unfinished or non-optimised visuals, etc) but we’re not using Early Access to put out an unfinished game for testing - for us Early Access is a way to get feedback and show our commitment to updating the game!

We want to make sure that you can make an informed decision about whether to jump in with the Early Access launch, so here’s an overview of what to expect…

[h2]What’s looking good for Early Access[/h2]

[h3]Game Design, Progression & Balance[/h3]
We are happy with how the game design is going. The overall progression and balancing feels very nice already. Obviously this is always an on-going part of development and we will continue to fine tune based on your feedback.

We also got way more done than initially planned - if everything goes well, we will launch with 3 progression modes - Normal, Hard, Hexagonal. This does depend on how the final weeks leading up to the launch go, but we’re hopeful!

[h3]Usability[/h3]
We have invested a lot of time to make sure the belt placement & general UI/UX is as smooth as possible. There might be an initial learning curve, but after that it should feel pretty natural - even elegant!



We are also currently working on doing the same improvements to the Space Belts & Trains and are confident we’ll get that in for the Early Access launch as well. A few minor things might not make it, but we have them tracked and will do our best to fix them as soon as possible.

[h3]Technical Systems[/h3]
The game is very stable and you shouldn’t see much in the way of crashes. However, it’s not impossible that you will encounter some issues with DirectX 11. If that does happen, you can try switching to Vulkan or DirectX12. We don’t do anything vastly different to other Unity games, so if you can run most Unity games fine you should not run into any trouble with shapez 2.

We are also still planning improvements to our input system for people who want to use exotic configurations or rebind modifier keys like ‘Shift+C’, which will cause issues in the initial Early Access release.

[h3]Performance[/h3]
We are already very satisfied with the rendering performance, and we are constantly improving the simulation performance, with the ultimate goal of simulating around 500k-1 million buildings well. To put that in perspective, you need about 15k to complete the game, and currently we can simulate around 100-200k.



Rendering performance is another area we will continue working on, but with average setups you should already enjoy smooth performance. However, on low end setups, you might have to reduce the graphical settings to achieve your desired frame rates, since additional effects or very detailed 3D geometry can drag down the performance. There are also some individual animations which are not yet optimized for performance (like the vortex animation), causing unnecessary high GPU load. These will of course be improved.

Also, every setup, driver, OS is different, and we need more data from players to optimize the game for all the different combinations, so please let us know if not everything is running smoothly for you yet!

[h3]Reusability of Factories[/h3]
Already vastly improved since the demo, there are even more big improvements planned for the Early Access release. We don’t know exactly how far we’ll get with this by the time of the release, but we will of course be working to make things even better throughout the Early Access period. In fact we are already working on a new “Operators Badge” mechanic that will also improve this, but more on that later!

[h3]Wires[/h3]
We initially thought wires would not make it into Early Access, but a fun weekend of prototyping them changed that! The wire system has grown quite a bit but never got the attention it deserved, which is why there are a few issues we still need to iron out. So to be clear, they are fully functional, but lacking a lot of quality of life features.

Our patrons are already building Make Anything Machines with them, even for crystals. There’s around 25 wire buildings, although that number is inflated by logic gates and simulated buildings.

Here’s what we still need to polish:

• Update order is not deterministic, so you might run into issues when you build memory cells or attempt to build a CPU with wires.
  
• The art is placeholder, so don’t expect anything fancy - and there are issues like buildings not showing where exactly which output goes (i.e. where does the fluid input go and where does the shape go) making them harder to use than they should be.
  
• There is no tutorial or knowledge panel entry for wires yet, so you are a bit more on your own on them. However, they are also in no way required to complete or enjoy the game.
  
• The Vortex does not output the current shape signal yet, so if you want to build a MaM you have to manually input a signal.

Some wiring and a XOR Logic Gate. Signals are represented in light green (active), green (connected but inactive), dark green (not connected) and red (conflict)

[h2]To Be Improved During Early Access[/h2]
There are a few areas (mostly visual and audio) where more work is needed or placeholders are still in use and we don’t have final assets yet. These will be updated and added during Early Access.

[h3]Vertical Inputs / Outputs i.e. for Pipes & Wires[/h3]
This is a technical issue and we will need to refactor a good chunk of the game before we can implement something like an ‘L’ shaped pipe and actually split the pipe up into two structures. Right now every building can only have 4 outputs (right, left, up, down) and we would need 2 more (upper, lower) to support this. This is a lot of work however, so it won’t be there for the Early Access launch and may even take until after Early Access.



[h3]Artwork[/h3]
There are a few items in the game that simply didn’t get their art pass in time, so they might have placeholder visuals or at least don’t live up to our standards on release:

• Pin pusher
  
• Crystal generator & Crystal shapes
  
• Space pipes (They just re-use the space belt visuals for now)
  
• 2-Layer Conveyor Lifts
  
• A rare visual glitch with shapes on splitters - this one is actually a tricky logic issue, but we’re working on it

[h3]Blueprints[/h3]
We have a few items on our todo list for blueprints which probably won’t be done by the time we launch into Early Access.

• Blueprints don’t support icons yet, and there is no preview in the library, making it harder to distinguish than necessary.
  
• The blueprint toolbar configuration is not saved when you exit the game (a minor issue, but still).
  
• Blueprint placement indicators of platforms could be further improved, for example computing & showing arrows on notch inputs / outputs to make them feel more like buildings again.
  
• Placing huge blueprints is slower in performance terms than required right now - once placed, they should run fine though.

[h3]Sound[/h3]
Most buildings from the demo in the game have sound, but we didn’t get to add sound to the new mechanics like fluids, trains and wires yet. Sound in general is something we want to improve during Early Access.

[h3]Modding[/h3]
The game already supports custom progressions (there’s even a community created editor!) but it only works by copying a JSON file to the appropriate folder. Later we want to integrate Steam Workshop support and add the ability to create Code-Based mods - this is something we’ve prototyped, but it’s not ready for release yet.

[h2]We hope to see you there![/h2]
That should give you all the info you need to tell if you want to join our Early Access! See you again in two weeks!

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon

[h3]Check out the previous devlog:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4174352435291228979

Hello everyone!

We got quite a few requests in our devlog feedback survey to talk about Fluids! It's a subject we haven't really talked about much before, mostly in passing and progress. So, let's have a look through what we're working with right now!

As always, a lot you’ll see in the devlog is work in progress. The mechanics are there and almost at 100%, but the visuals are in various stages of development.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[hr][/hr]
[h2]What are fluids?[/h2]

Fluids are what you’ll use to give shapes different colors. If you’ve played the first shapez, you’ll remember mining colors and transporting them by belt. For shapez 2 though, we wanted something different. Colors have been turned into colored fluids, which you move around through Pipes. This adds some visual variety and a couple of new challenges. In short, coloring shapes should be more exciting!

[h2]Gathering & Transporting Fluids[/h2]

The process of gathering and transporting fluids starts off very similar to regular shapes, though you’ll need the fluid variants of the regular buildings you’d use:

• Fluid Miner instead of Shape Miner
  
• Fluid Miner Extension instead of Shape Miner Extension
  
• Pumps instead of Extractors
  
• (Space) Pipes instead of (Space) Belts
  
• Fluid Wagons instead of Shape Wagons
  

All the specialized fluid variants behave the same as their shape counterpart. Pipes have some differences though.

When placing, Pipes currently behave mostly the same as belts. They have the same placement limitations: They can split off horizontally in every direction. We plan to add more flexibility to the pipes, allowing you to branch them off of vertical parts, but this is planned for later.



To get fluids across a gap, you can place a Fluid Launcher. This version of the Launcher will accumulate fluid to create a blob that it will launch to the other side. It can store two blobs-worth of paint, scaling with painting speed. One fluid launcher will be enough to support one full belt of painters.



Unlike shapes and belts however, there’s currently no limit to throughput for pipes. Pipes do not have capacity of their own: if there’s fluid available in the buffer of the output building, it will show the fluid in the pipes. When this buffer is empty, the pipes will be empty as well. Essentially, any paints used by another building will be taken directly out of the Painter buildings. The pipes determine where the building can get paint from.



We plan to make some improvements for this, like a limit to throughput would be introduced to make pipes behave more realistically. However, there is no advanced fluid simulation planned. Adding flow / pressure-based simulation would add a lot of complexity to the game without major added gameplay value. We want you to be able to focus on solving shapes, instead of having to worry about fluids getting stuck in pipes.

Then there’s the Fluid Tank. This building holds up to 1,800 liters and works as a buffer between out- and inputs to make sure the flow continues to flow for a while when your Painters run dry. They give you room for error, but can be optimized out of the system if you’d like!



[h2]Painter[/h2]

To paint a shape, you have the Painter building. This building can paint any shape you send through it, but only the top layer. To paint multiple layers, you’ll need to paint first, stack later. It has a buffer of 20 liters and has inputs on three sides for extra flexibility. Painting a layer uses 10 liters.



In previous builds, we had a Full Painter building that painted every layer of the shapes you run through it. However, we recently removed it as it was not very useful for the challenges we set.

[h2]Mixing[/h2]

With default world settings, you’ll only be able to find Red, Green and Blue fluids throughout your world. To get the secondary colors and the tertiary, you’ll need to mix the fluids. For this, you have the Color Mixer! This building has two inputs next to each other, and one output on the opposite side. Colors are mixed as followed:

• RGB: Additive color mixing, works like light
• RYB: Subtractive color mixing, works like paint
• CMYK: Subtractive color mixing, works like printer ink
• Colorblind: RGB with textures, with additive textures (dots mixed with lines becomes dots with lines)
  

All three buffers have a capacity of 50 liters each. The ratio is 1:1, so 25 liters of each input fluid makes 50 liters of the output fluid.

Visuals are work in progress

[h2]Crystals[/h2]

Towards the later stages of the game, you’ll start to run into Crystals. We did a deep dive into Crystals last year, though a lot of it is quite outdated by now.

To summarize, Crystals are made by providing fluids to the Crystal Generator. This building will pump the fluid into any Empty or Pin quadrants up until the top layer of the shape you run through it. This paint will then harden into Crystal, matching the color of the fluid used. The problem with Crystals is that when you try to separate two adjacent Crystal quadrants or try to stack it on top of another shape, it will shatter and disappear. You can separate Crystal from a regular shape and stack shapes on top of Crystals, however.

Filling a shape uses 20 liters of fluid, regardless of the amount of quadrants it has to fill.

Both the building and crystals themselves are still work in progress

[h2]Other tidbits[/h2]

The fluids fully support the newly added Color Schemes, including Colorblind RGB!



When generating a new world, you have the option to include secondary and tertiary colors, allowing you to gather them using Pumps. If you choose to include all colors in the world, the Mixer becomes optional. You can also choose to remove primary colors, but some patches of primary color fluids will remain near the Vortex to allow you to progress.

[hr][/hr]

That’s about everything! We hope the new fluids make for a more interesting system than using belts to move colors. Let us know what you think!

See you next time!

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team


[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon


[h3]Check out the previous devlog:[/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4173225900655549931

Hello everyone!

It's been a little while since we've done a progress devlog! We have a couple of bigger changes and various small improvements across the game, so let's take a look.

As a side note, thank you to everyone who filled in the devlog survey! Based on the responses, we've made two changes to this devlog. First up, more images! We'll try to show off as much of the game as we can in blog format, though gifs didn't make much sense for today's topics. Secondly, we've tried to keep our writing a bit more to-the-point. Let us know what you think!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[hr][/hr]

[h2]Game Customization[/h2]

We’ve added a ton of new settings and features to customize a new start to how you want to play shapez 2. Patreons can expect these features in Alpha 21, coming soon!



[h3]Difficulty Presets[/h3]

You can currently select from 5 different difficulty presets that change a handful of modifiers to change the way you play. You can customize all of these presets, or start off with the Custom preset at the bottom of the list. These presets can be changed at any time!

• Normal: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked, but there’s a limit to how many platforms you can place.
  
• Chill: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked and there’s almost no limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are decreased slightly.
  
• Classic: Copy/Paste costs blueprint points, but there’s a limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are decreased slightly.
  
• Logistics: Copy/Paste costs double the amount of blueprint points and there’s a limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are quintupled. Will require you to move a lot of shapes around!
  
• Puzzle / Fast: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked and there’s almost no limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are minimal. Little need to optimize production or throughput.
  

[h3]Scenario Presets[/h3]

Scenarios will allow you to completely change the game. From core mechanics to map generation, everything can be changed. For now though, we just have the normal preset and custom. When you go to edit a Scenario Preset, you get 3 tabs.

Scenarios
This is where you can select a scenario separate from map generation and game rules. Again, for now it’s just the standard experience and something we’re experimenting with but won’t show today.



Map Generation
Just make it a setting? Fine, we’ve made everything a setting. Aside from the Seed, you can customize pretty much everything about how the map will be generated.

At the top are the general Shape & Fluid patch settings. You can customize how many will generate, how large they start off, how much they will grow based on distance from the Vortex and the max size. For Shape patches, you can set how colorful they’ll be and how often rare shapes will appear. For Fluid patches, you can choose whether primary, secondary and/or tertiary colors are generated. Scrolling down, you can set the likeliness and minimum distance from the Vortex for each shape category. On the right, you’ll see a preview of the map you’re about to generate. You can zoom, look around or hide it if you don’t want spoilers.



Do keep in mind that with this much map customizability, there are plenty of ways to make your time very difficult or even impossible to progress. We highly recommend keeping all the settings at the default for your first playthrough.

Game Rules
In the last tab you can set extra rules that can really change up certain mechanics. For now, there are just two.



These settings will allow us – as well as modders – to create presets that massively overhaul the game and make shapez 2 infinitely replayable! Sharing options for map generation are being worked on.

[h2]Colors[/h2]

The name of the shape color Purple has been changed to Magenta. If you’re using shape codes, this means that any use of p needs to be changed to m to work. Keep this in mind when importing shape codes from shapez 1! If you’re not familiar with shape codes, don’t worry about it.

The contrast between uncolored shapes and white ones has been increased to make it easier to keep them apart.



We’ve added two more color schemes that change all the shape colors and fluids, totaling to four color schemes. Whether you need a change of scenery or struggle differentiating certain colors, be sure to check out the other modes! They can be changed at any time in the settings.

• RGB (Default): Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & White
  
• RYB: Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green, Purple & Black
  
• CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Blue, Red, Green & Key (Black)
  
• RGB (Colorblind): Increases contrast of the default RGB colors and adds a texture
  

The same shape in RGB (top left), RYB (top right), CMYK (bottom left) and Colorblind (bottom right)

Keep in mind that the shape codes stay the same, regardless of the color scheme you’re using. In RGB, CwCwCwCw will create a white circle. In RYB, this circle will be black.

[h2]Other changes[/h2]

We’ve made a large amount of changes to fluids, but we’ll save that topic for a dedicated Fluids blog.

[h3]Gameplay[/h3]

There’s now a separate miner extension for fluids. Miner layouts now have a new layout, reducing the maximum amount of extensions that can be attached to a miner to 4. However, patch arrangements have been improved!

Miner Extension visuals are still placeholder

The Full Painter building has been removed. It just wasn't very practical and there was little reason to use it. The regular Painter building is still available, which colors the top layer of any shape you run through it.

Map generation has been made more interesting. The farther from the HUB you go, you'll get rare shape patches that can save you some work. Patches in general are much bigger, but everything can be customized in the map generator now!

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

Fine-tuned the pins shader to be more visible on top of shapes, keeping in mind the new color schemes.



The visuals of the Stacker building have been finalized!



There are new placement indicators when placing fluid miners & pumps, to make it a bit less confusing when your camera is angled.



[h3]User Interface[/h3]

The top left corner now has a button for every research tab: Milestones, Shop, Tasks, Upgrades. If you unlock something new in any of those categories, it will show a small notification marker.



Unlocking a milestone now shows an overview for the newly unlocked tasks, upgrades and content. You can click the info icon on the new milestone to see the overview again, or check out any of the other milestones’ overviews.



The Upgrades UI has also been improved to clearly show the effect it has on speed.



There are now Feedback buttons in several places of the game that will open a window with several more buttons that take you to either the Discord, Feedback Form or Suggestions Portal.



[hr][/hr]

That's the devlog! A lot of our focus is currently set on refining the game, but we have plenty more to show soon.

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team


[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

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[h3]Check out the previous devlog: [/h3]
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4207001628976651047