shapez 2 News

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]

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon


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

Hello everyone!

Last devlog we talked about trains, so let's look at your other option today: Space Belts. You'll likely be using these a lot, so let's take a look at what we're working with.

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

[h2]News[/h2]

[h3]Devlog survey[/h3]
We're really interested to learn if there are ways for us to improve the quality of the devlogs and/or align them more with what you'd truly like to know about shapez 2! This survey includes questions about quality, usage of visuals, your interests as well as a suggestion box where you can suggest topics for future devlogs. So whether this is your first devlog or you've already read all twenty(!) of them, we would really appreciate it if you could take the time to check out the survey!

[h3]➡ Fill out the survey here! ⬅[/h3]

[h3]Alpha 20[/h3]

Not only do you get Devlog 020 today, Patreons also just got access to Alpha 20! This new build includes everything mentioned in this blog, plus a bunch of new features and visuals. Updated content includes train collision avoidance, simulation improvements, map generation improvements, new visuals for a couple of buildings and much more.

[h3]Disclaimer[/h3]

Just a reminder, everything shown in this blog is still in development and is still subject to change. They're not quite placeholders anymore, but the visuals of the Space Belts are not finished yet. Your thoughts and feedback are welcome, as always!

[hr][/hr]
[h2]A brief history[/h2]

Space Belts are an essential tool to transport large quantities of shapes between platforms. Ideal for short distances, they allow you to easily cross a gap or connect a train station to your factory for pickups or deliveries. However, their original design was quite different from what we’re working with now. Let’s walk you through it!

[h3]Just build it yourself![/h3]
Initially, you were expected to build connections using these platforms manually. You would place platforms and then build belts and launchers on them to create connections. It quickly became obvious that this is very burdensome to do all the time for every connection (as you may expect), so we started working on improvements.

Old build

[h3]Space Tunnels[/h3]
One of the first improvements was the addition of special tunnel platforms. These allowed your connections to transport shapes under other platforms, making connecting across sections much easier. Additionally, their ability to consistently transport large quantities of shapes essentially made them function as Space Belts, but without the flexibility of seamlessly splitting and merging. The tunnels exist as their own form of transport alongside the buildings you know from shapez 1, as well as Shape Launchers.

Old build

[h3]Hyperbelts[/h3]
The first step towards improving space platform connections was Hyperbelts. Despite the fancy name, it was just a tool that allowed you to easily place prebuilt versions of the space platforms with belts & launchers without having to build all of it yourself. It was based on the idea of belt placement in your factory, but very simplified - it didn't support merging or splitting unless you manually made platforms to do so.

Old build

This system is what you saw in the demo and this is – as expected – something we got a lot of feedback on. Technically we could’ve made more prebuilt versions to allow for more complexity, but it would still be clunky and not very pretty. We can do better.

[h2]Space Belts[/h2]
With a ton more feedback under our belt, the Hyperbelt’s flaws became clearer and clearer. Aside from the lack of complexity we already mentioned, it was also just very slow. They moved shapes at the same speed as all other belts in your factory, and when you’re crossing larger distances, it really did take a while before your shapes got anywhere. Essentially, what we needed was a system that had all the functionality of regular belts, but much larger, faster and independent of platforms. So, we made just that.



Enter: Space Belts. They’re huge belts that support up to 12 regular belts across 3 layers, move shapes way faster and retain the flexibility you expect from belts, all without needing platforms to build on! This makes Space Belts your best option to connect platforms over shorter distances. If you need to move something over long distances however, Trains are the better option.

Shapes moving across the Space Belt



When there are Space Belts, you also need Space Pipes. With the recent fluid system rework, it became possible to transport fluids across notches with pipes. This then allowed us to make the prototype of the Space Belt’s younger brother, Space Pipes! These work identical to Space Belts, but move fluids instead of shapes and have a different look to reflect this. Have a look at the concept below.

This may or may not be what it will actually look like

[h3]Merging with Tunnels[/h3]
For close-distance transport, we would now have both Space Tunnels and Space Belts & Pipes. The key difference between the two is that Tunnels can move shapes under a platform, bypassing it without slowing down. However, they can only go straight and have a range of 4 chunks, which is where Space Belts and Pipes come in.

Now, you’ll likely come across a situation where you’d like to place your Space Belt across a platform, without connecting to said platform. That’s where you connect a Space Tunnel to your Space Belt! However, keeping Space Tunnels and Space Belts separate doesn’t make much sense anymore as they work closely together now. So, Space Tunnels now have a brand new visual that matches that of the Space Belts, they’re both part of the Space Belts category in the UI and Tunnels can now be integrated into the smart-placement tool.



[h2]What’s next?[/h2]

Space Belts are already in a really good state, but there are some improvements yet to be made. As we just mentioned, the Space Tunnels still need to be integrated into the placement behaviour of Space Belts. That’s to say, Tunnels should automatically be placed when you drag a Space Belt across a platform.

We are already considering other ways of improving them even more, however: a topic that has come up internally is that merging or splitting across different factory lanes and layers in space is too troublesome for too small of a result. To make this easier, we are evaluating Merge/Split Balancers. These special space platforms would have one side that can receive up to 12 belts and another 36 split across 3 other sides. The Merger takes up to 36 input lanes and distributes contents evenly across up to 12, while the Splitter takes up to 12 input lanes and distributes the contents evenly across up to 36.

[hr][/hr]

Well, that's everything for now. The bottom line is that Space Belts should act similar to regular belts, but a lot bigger. Anyway, progress is going very well and we have plenty more to show, so we hope to see you again for the next devlog.

~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team


[h3]Join the community:[/h3]

X / Twitter YouTube Discord Reddit TikTok Patreon