Scanning Beta 4: Ready for Release?
Planet scanning is here (in the beta branch anyway), and this version is much more successful than the previous experiment from late August. Please note that I have very good scanners in the image below. You will *not* be getting that much information when you start out!

You know the drill by now:
I wrote a blog post about how hard this actually was, adding scanning to a 7-year-old game.
Also in this version is the "Look" command. But since the L key is taken by the Captain's Log feature, it's called "Peer" and assigned to the [P] key. Of course you can re-bind that yourself...
You can even press [enter] to move to the space you've selected with the peer command.

Try it out!
Help files have been updated considerably, and the tutorial now includes information about all the new major features that have been added over the past months.
I am really hoping to move this into the main branch on Friday, get it 100% stable by Sunday, and then start on the next big project. I said it was going to be deeper interactions, and that is the next really big project.
But David (AI's artist) has been sending me a wealth of new images, and instead of putting them in a little bit at a time, I want to drop them all at once. I'm actually going to need to re-write how planetary terrain is handled, but it's going to be worth it...
[h3]Graphics Update Incoming![/h3]

You know the drill by now:
- Move over a planet.
- Press [V]
- Get details:
- Atmosphere
- Environmental Damage
- Terrain
- Amount and Kind(s) of life
- Amount and Type of natural resources
- Special features
- Alien signals?
- Human life signs?!
- Atmosphere
I wrote a blog post about how hard this actually was, adding scanning to a 7-year-old game.
Also in this version is the "Look" command. But since the L key is taken by the Captain's Log feature, it's called "Peer" and assigned to the [P] key. Of course you can re-bind that yourself...
You can even press [enter] to move to the space you've selected with the peer command.

Try it out!
Help files have been updated considerably, and the tutorial now includes information about all the new major features that have been added over the past months.
I am really hoping to move this into the main branch on Friday, get it 100% stable by Sunday, and then start on the next big project. I said it was going to be deeper interactions, and that is the next really big project.
But David (AI's artist) has been sending me a wealth of new images, and instead of putting them in a little bit at a time, I want to drop them all at once. I'm actually going to need to re-write how planetary terrain is handled, but it's going to be worth it...
[h3]Graphics Update Incoming![/h3]