Surviving Ceres News

A few quick fixes and tweaks based on feedback. They are as follows;

- Removed an issue related to transferring all items to machines
- Fixed an issue where oxygen would not go to max capacity on loading
- Added funding to the main player inventory / stats menu
- Changed the export value for bars and manufactured export packages
- Added a message for rockets landing on Ceres
- Fixed an issue that allowed exported goods to re-appear when rocket was recalled from Earth
- Added Block of ice as a refined version of Ice
- Added Blocks of ice to a few recipes
- Tweaked some iron costs vs copper and ice (Game flow wise you needed significantly more iron than any other resource. I am attempting to smooth this out and have all three types be important more equally)
- Unlocked a few recipes to smooth out the flow from early to mid-game
- Changed the RND menu to be more clear and concise with less sub categories
- Increased storage capacity and refinery capacity
- A variety of colonists fixes and improvements to there AI and pathing (This is a tricky aspect to get right but with enough iteration we will get there)

We will be posting more small updates to further improve the game as an experience in the near future as we continue to test and iterate. Huge thank you to everyone helping with testing. If you want to join the beta pop into the discord and request a key.

Greetings Pilgrims;

The first round of translations have now been added to the game. These were done by me using machine translation. So, they won't be amazing, but they will allow our non-English players to get into the game, give feedback around formatting issues, and update translations to better suit each language.

There is also a variety of fixes based on feedback from beta players.

Thank you, and good luck to all our non-English players who have been waiting. I hope you can Survive on Ceres.

Greetings Pilgrims;

This update marks a big milestone for the game, as we are now virtually content ready for release. There is still a lot left to do in terms of balance, tweaking the experience, and the major visual overhaul, but mechanically, the game is looking great.

[h2]What Is In This Patch[/h2]

[h3]You Got Cut[/h3]

Some unused aspects and stats have been trimmed or temporarily removed. When I create certain things I over build in case we need additional complexity in certain systems. It is easier to trim out unnecessary complexity than it is to add it in later. So, for now certain things were trimmed such as tolerance, and game options.

[h3]I need Help[/h3]

The help glossary which contained 21 entries has been expanded to 76 entries. This makes the vast majority of topics and questions players might have readily available to be answered.

[h3]What Do I Do[/h3]

Mission objectives have been updated to be viable from start to finish, offering you an overarching idea of what to head towards next to progress. These main objectives don't hold your hand or ask for specific things, but they offer a general idea of what you need to reach next on your way to completion.

[h3]Miles of Milestones[/h3]

Much like the mission objectives milestones and their connected to steam achieves have been taken from 15 to 40. Milestones offer a cash payout for doing certain things, some of these things are related to beating the game and some are just optional things you may or may not do. Each gives an achievement when completed, a bit of funding, and posts your total score to the leaderboard.

[h3]Parts For Days[/h3]

Many new parts have been added to the parts constructor as well as manufactured goods to the advanced manufacturer and additional recipes were added to the grinder. These additions make new materials from the newly acquired resources expanding what recipes you need to craft advanced buildings and machines.

[h3]Recipe Overhaul[/h3]

All the advanced recipes have been overhauled using the newly created parts. This is still early stages and you can expect recipes to be modified as we test the game as an experience. I aim to offer meaningful progression that doesn't feel too tedious or too simple. This will take time to nail down, but the first draft of the recipes is now live.

[h3]Mission Guidance And Tips[/h3]

The small guidance and tips have been updated and extended into the late game. For those who want these tips, they will offer you some solid information to help you succeed on Ceres.

[h3]Death Is Inevitable[/h3]

Colonists can now die. Based on the newly added colonist hunger and thirst settings, colonists will now die if they receive no food or water for a long enough period. If they do receive food and water this will reduce their chances of death, but starving them now comes at a cost.

[h3]Power Updated[/h3]

All the new beta facilities were set to 0 MW of power usage to make life easy, but now as we move to test the game as a whole power requirements have been added. You will now need to produce enough power.

[h3]New Power[/h3]

To go along with this update to the power requirements of facilities I felt it necessary to add a new palceable power unit that didn't require colonists. I have added the "Hydro Power Converter". This unit is placed outside of your base and will only function if terraforming is beyond 25% (where rain can begin) and it generates 50 MW of power. It will be very helpful in the later stages of the game when power requirements begin to get high.

[h3]New Decorations[/h3]

I have added 4 new decorations. A custom poster, a custom sign, a GDM poster, and a GDM sign. These represent the 4 main types of decorations I plan to add. The custom posters can be placed on any wall, floor, or ceiling. Once placed you can open them up and choose a label and a directional arrow. This should help make your base easier to live in with a bit of signage. The custom sign is the same but placed outside. The GDM (Game Dev Masters) poster and sign are just art from my previous title on Steam "GDM". As part of the visual modeling update, we will add several unique decorations you can use to spruce up the walls and ground of your base, but for now, this is what is on offer.

[h3]Things Are Getting Difficult[/h3]

All new difficulty settings have been added related to colonist difficulty, alien attack difficulty, and frequency. These of course work in the difficulty multiplier used to calculate leader board score.

[h3]All Supplied[/h3]

The back supply boxes found in the cave with a 70% terraforming melting wall have been updated to contain some high-level parts and more. They are now a great pickup when you reach that threshold of terraforming.

[h3]Mutated Scorpion Update[/h3]

The mutated scorpions (Ground Severity 3 attacks) have been changed to now target your Hydro Power Convertors. With adding a new power unit, we needed them to be targets and the scorpion was hungry.

[h3]Isn't That Special[/h3]

The special materials gathered from expeditions and the firing of the missile silo can now be gained infinitely. This was added in case someone threw away a resource they would be essentially boned on that save. You can now re-clear expeditions or hand in more ballistic payloads for radioactive waste. You shouldn't need to do this, but just in case someone makes a whoops I wanted to have this covered.

[h3]Cheating Made Easy[/h3]

I have updated the Admin console accessible by the beta with all the new materials and resources, but it is now moved to the options menu and is called cheats. If you choose to enable cheats then you can no longer gain achieves or post to leaderboards, but for those who just want to try something out or whatever reason you have for cheating, it is now there. This also covers the need for a creative mode with less design time on my part. It isn't creative, but you can spawn with meter loss difficulty on NONE and cheat in any items, so it is a creative mode.

[h2]What Is Next[/h2]

Up next now that most of the menus and everything has been expanded and updated we will be looking to format all the HUDS for translations and begin to gather the text as well as post the first draft of translations. Once complete anyone who wishes to help with translations please feel free to reach out, I will have a document with all of the game's language ready to be translated. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I can't wait for the game to start taking shape with the visuals update starting shortly after translations.

Greetings Pilgrims;

This major update marks a big milestone for the beta. We now have most of the content and mechanics in place for release. We still have a long way to go before we can consider releasing, but content-wise we are close.

This update allows the player to reach 100% terraforming. With the exception of 4 terraforming events that are purely visuals and will be completed in the visual section of development in the future.

Part of terraforming the planet will require you to eliminate the alien lifeforms through expeditions and firing missiles at the nests of flying creatures. Doing so will give you materials used in crafting terraforming upgrades. We will go over the specifics below.

The majority of the new advanced facilities and structures all have the basic recipe of one copper bar, and one iron bar to make testing easy. The majority of these also have a 0 power cost to make life easy. This will be changing in the next major patch and we will begin to look at the balance and flow of the game.


[h2]Terraforming Events[/h2]

[h3]35% Lakes[/h3]

After you pass this threshold a large lake will begin to appear in the starting area. This water is fully interactive with the ability to swim etc. It will begin to slowly rise as it rains anytime beyond this point in the terraforming.

[h3]40% New Areas And Resources[/h3]

I previously left the last update at 40% progress, but I had not added the new resource. We have now added platinum to the new area that was unlocked at 40% including the deep deposits and platinum drills. As well as the ability to refine platinum bars and use those to craft the next terraforming upgrade.

[h3]50% Atmosphere[/h3]

When you reach 50% there is no longer any oxygen loss on Ceres. With the exception of going underwater. If you have oxygen set to none in the difficulty settings it will also stay full underwater. Assuming you have oxygen loss on anything but none you will only lose air when underwater beyond 50% terraforming.

[h3]60% Grass Grows[/h3]

A short time after passing 60% the landscape will change to a simple grass layered landscape vs the rocky landscape you start with. This is just a visual change it has no real impact on the game, but it does feel good to see the world change.

[h3]65% Mutated Scorpion Attacks[/h3]

At 65% the mutated scorpions begin their attacks. These lethal creatures will target a lot of different structures, but using expeditions will allow you to end any form of aggression. We will go over that below in the expedition section.

[h3]70% Ice Melts[/h3]

At 70% the final chunk of ice melts. This new area does not have new materials it just has a couple of supply boxes with some goodies for you to help move your crafting forward.

[h3]75% Vegetation Grows[/h3]

This is one of the 4 visual updates that does not yet exist but the functionality is in place. When created this will cause basic bushes and other vegetation to scatter the landscape.

[h3]80% Simple life forms manifest[/h3]

This is one of the 4 visual updates that does not yet exist but the functionality is in place. When created this will cause basic life forms to appear such as insects and other simple life forms.

[h3]85% Trees begin to grow[/h3]

This is one of the 4 visual updates that does not yet exist but the functionality is in place. When created this will cause trees to sprout up across the landscape.

[h3]95% Advanced life forms manifest[/h3]

This is one of the 4 visual updates that does not yet exist but the functionality is in place. When created this will cause advanced life forms to begin to come alive. These will include small animals like birds and perhaps rabbits or other small creatures.

[h3]100% Terraforming complete[/h3]

When you reach 100% you will have a popup victory window that will tell you your terraforming score based on how long it took you to reach 100% as well as posting this score to the terraforming leader board. You can then choose to end the game, continue for fun, or to complete milestones.

[h2]Expeditions and Enemy Eliminations.[/h2]

[h3]Expeditions[/h3]

There are three expeditions you will need to clear. Each expedition when you kill the boss you will gain a special crafting material used in terraforming upgrades.

To do an expedition you just need to create an expedition facility and then launch the expedition you wish to clear. Should you somehow lose the special material gained from an expedition you can re-clear that expedition again.

The three expeditions have not yet been fully made on the visual side much like everything, but currently, you can go to their maps which have a few eggs and mobs to fight. You can fight them using turrets and the new Killbot 9000 created for this specific purpose. After you kill a set amount of aliens and eggs the boss will spawn. Once you kill the boss you will receive the crafting material and can get in the return pod to go back to base.

These expeditions are not meant as a complex and difficult combat event. I don't want the game to be about combat or have you killed. They are instead just another interesting way to use crafting. If you have a few killbots ready to go they will clean up the area quite easily.

Each expedition gets harder, but that just means more bots and turrets. You are never in danger of dying and you can leave an expedition at any time. If you place one bot and it gets killed you can head home to craft more and then return. It is meant as an alternate way to make the player craft not a serious combat challenge.

[h3]Kill Bot 9000[/h3]

The killbot can be used as a defensive unit for your base as well as a killing machine for expeditions. If placed on your base it will patrol the area from where it was placed. When used on an expedition it will patrol an area around the player but continue to stay with you.

Bots and turrets used on expeditions can not be dismantled and taken back home, they are locked to that expedition. When used at your base you can pick them back up.

[h3]Missile Silo[/h3]

The missile silo is your answer to the flying creatures found on the map. You will need to construct a silo and then craft a ballistic payload in the military crafting facility. Once you have a payload you can launch a missile from the silo which will destroy one of the 6 nests found on the map.

Each time you fire a missile you will receive radioactive waste which is a material used in crafting the final terraforming upgrade, along with the scorpid venom gained from expedition three.

As you remove nests and complete expeditions those enemies will no longer be present in the base as well as their attacks will no longer happen.

You will need to clear all three expeditions and all six nests to craft the last two terraforming upgrades needed to reach 100% terraforming. Once again these are not meant to be challenging combat situations, just another interesting means to push crafting forward.

[h2]What is next?[/h2]

Now that we have the mechanics and systems in place next up is a large patch that will flesh out many existing aspects. Currently, many recipes just call for one iron bar and one copper bar for testing purposes. The next patch will add more parts and finalize recipes while expanding existing systems like milestones, game options, mission objectives, and much more. The next patch will expand all the existing systems while also adding smaller additions such as decorations, signage, and more.

There is still a lot to be done but we are making great strides towards an initial release. Once all the systems have been fleshed out we can move on to the modeling and visual side of the game which will bring the game to life.

A huge thank you to everyone for their continued support, especially those participating in the beta giving critical feedback around bugs and issues. Soon we will be able to test the game as a whole and tweak balance to ensure progression is smooth and respects the player's time.

If you would like to join the beta test pop into the discord and ask for a key to gain immediate access. Thank you, and have fun out there.

Greetings Pilgrims;

This is not the complete third part of the mid-game update, but it does allow terraforming to progress until 40% completion. Every 5% a new world event is triggered giving access to new areas, affecting weather, and bringing the first rounds of enemy attacks.

[h2]Enemies[/h2]

First I would like to discuss how enemies have been implemented and their intention. I want enemies to mix up the game loop adding some variety and a bit of danger, but I don't want enemies to come and destroy players' games if they aren't ready. To this effect, I have created enemies that lean into terraforming Ceres as quickly as possible to score high on the leaderboards. Their main focus is not to destroy a player's game, but to instead focus on delaying their progress with targeted attacks per enemy type. I will cover each type as we go over the events that occur as you terraform below, but in general, enemies are meant to slow you down and can easily be thwarted if you have prepared defenses.

[h2]Terraforming Events[/h2]

Several events trigger every 5% completion. The terraforming facilities' main console HUD provides detailed information regarding these events and enemy attacks.

[h3]5% Events[/h3]

At 5% two things happen. First, there are no more extreme blizzards. You will still face snow and light snow weather types, but the extreme blizzards will no longer occur.

Secondly, you will face the first wave of ground attacks at severity 1. This consists of 3 spider flies. This mob has one focus and that is to destroy your drills. They will appear, move to a random ledge, jump down, and then seek out any placed drills. If you have no drills or once your drills are destroyed or you kill these bugs the attack will end.

Provided you have an enemy scanner built you can choose to be notified of an attack 30/45/60 seconds early pending scanner upgrade level. You can also choose to have the scanner automatically call and end a "Red Alert" for your colonists.

If you haven't defended your drills then you can expect to lose them to this attack. Once destroyed a box with any ore that was on the machine will be dropped down for you to collect. You can then use that ore to remake any lost drills to resume ore acquisition.

[h3]10% Event[/h3]

This first ice wall will melt granting access to a cave where you will find Dolomite ore and deposits. Once you process this new ore into bars you can then craft a tier 2 terraforming upgrade module allowing terraforming to continue towards 25%.

[h3]15% Events[/h3]

At 15% it is now possible to have days where it doesn't snow allowing the terrain to change and snow to melt. You can still have snowy days, but they are not the only option anymore.

This is also when the first aerial attack wave severity 1 can begin. This enemy wave consists of 5 green bombers. Their sole purpose is to fly over your terraforming facility and drop goo bombs onto the facility clogging up the machinery stalling terraforming progress. Currently, each bomb will delay you by 30 seconds. So with no defense, the 5 bombers can stall your terraforming by 2.5 mins. If you have an aerial defense turret built you can manually shoot these down or have the process automated as long as there is an active worker on site. This is where a red alert can come in quite handy as you don't want to lose time terraforming because your worker was out to lunch.

[h3]20% Event[/h3]

Another ice wall melts granting access to an additional cave where Obsidian can be found.

[h3]25% Event[/h3]

At 25% completion, it is now possible to have rain begin to fall, and there is also no snow moving forward.

[h3]30% Event[/h3]

At 30% the second ground wave severity 2 will begin to come. This wave contains 1 mantis and 3 spider flies. The mantis aims to depower your base by destroying any outdoor power generators such as solar panels and wind turbines. Much like the spider fly it will seek out these specific structures and then leave if not killed. Having your base lose power is a big setback, but something you can recover from. Even better it can be defended against by using well-placed .50 Riffle Turrets.

[h3]35% Event[/h3]

At 35% large bodies of water can begin to form. In essence, the starting rocket area will become a lake, but this will happen slowly as rain falls and the water rises.

Currently, the water is not yet complete as I need to setup post-processing effects and swimming mechanics, but the event to raise the water is in place.

[h3]40% Event[/h3]

At 40% ice melts and a new cave opens that will contain platinum. I have not yet included this resource as I am not ready for you to push terraforming from 40% to 60%, but this will come soon in the next update.

Along with this new cave, other ice melts that connects all 3 underground caves with resources you can exploit together. This should help facilitate ore collection for you or your workers by adding a shortcut.

Placeable teleport pads will be available crafted from platinum soon as well which should really take the strain out of going to collect ore from drills.

[h2]What is Next[/h2]

Next up we continue the terraforming process from 40-60% with some major events planned during that period. This is as far as we plan to go before early access, and the final 40% will be tied to the end-game expedition loop planned to be created during early access. Once we reach that 60% point we will look to flesh out existing systems and begin the visuals side of the game while we test and tweak the overall experience to ensure nothing is too tedious or too boring. Thank you for your continued support. If you wish to take part in the beta come on into the discord and request access. Thank you.