Mercury Fallen News

Howdy Folks!

In the last developer log I covered some of the visual changes coming to the planet map. These changes were made to improve the visual look, but to also provide better visual feedback to the player. Visualizing height, for example, ties into one of the new power generation methods being developed.

[h2]Power Generation & Distribution[/h2]

Solar panels will provide power during the day and perform best in hot, dry biomes.


Wind turbines will provide a relatively steady rate of power and perform best at higher elevations.


Power poles can be constructed to connect power back the primary facility as well as other structures that may need power.

[h2]Power Usage[/h2]
Some of the existing structures, such as the vehicle bay and mining station, will be updated to require power. Power requirements are still being adjusted and balanced and I look forward to feedback on this front when it becomes available on the experimental branch.

[h2]Roads[/h2]


In addition to new power generation I’m also adding in the ability to construct roads. Roads will provide increased movement speed for vehicles.

This is quickly becoming a rather large update and taking a bit longer than originally intended, but I’m happy with the over all direction it’s going in.

I plan to have a version available on the experimental branch within the next couple of weeks. Let me know what you think of the new content in development.

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Howdy Folks!

Alright, I know I’ve been quiet for a while, but that’s only because I’ve been working on some rather big changes. In the last developer log I went over the new mission system and story campaign progress. While more development has been done on that front, I wanted to talk about some big changes coming to the planet map.

[h2]Planet Map[/h2]
According to the surveys that I put out, a lot of you want additional construction and expansion opportunities on the planet map. This is something that has been on my todo list for a while. Part of the coming story/mission progression will include more points of interest, discoveries and new surface side structures.

The planet map itself is something that has been on the list of things to improve as well. The time has come and the planet map is getting a rather significant face lift.



This is still a work in progress, but the planet map now has visual height variety, proper coastlines and some new biome textures and detail objects.

[h2]Elevation[/h2]
The most notable change is a change in visual elevation. Planet map tiles now have varying heights. I’ve made this change both for the visual impact as well as the functional relevancy of terrain elevation for some upcoming surface side structures.




[h2]Biome Textures & Details[/h2]
Biome textures and visual details are also being updated/overhauled. Details, in this case, represents the artwork inside a tile biome such as trees, crystals and giant mushrooms. New details are being added and most of the existing detail models are being replaced or upgraded.

Detail variation is also being worked on so that, for example, the Fungal Forest biome pulls from a few variations of giant mushroom models instead of just one to make the biome look more visually interesting.




New shader effects are being added for trees to add wind animation to leaves.




[h2]Water & Coast Lines[/h2]
The water shader has also been improved to include transparency, new wave animations and animated shoreline waves.




A lot of work is going into updating the visual elements of the planet map. Some of these changes mean additional work to fix path finding and building placements, but development on that has been started. Stay tuned for additional developer logs covering more of the new planet map content.

Thanks for all the support and feedback. Let me know what you think of these new changes.

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Howdy Folks!

So it has come to my attention that there are a few issues with the new scheduling system. After running some tests, the colonist schedules are a bit too rigid. Colonists are not performing work actions during sleep/recreation times even if their needs have been met. This leads to a bit too much time where colonists are just wandering around aimlessly even though they could or should be performing work related tasks.

This patch update adds in some changes to how colonist schedules function to help make your colonists a bit more efficient. This should also help alleviate some confusion on why colonists aren’t doing their jobs.

Thanks for all the great feedback and bug reports. Certainly let me know of any issues with this latest update.

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[h2]Release Notes[/h2]

Changes

• Sleep/Recreation periods increase priority of eating/sleeping, but now also allow for work actions if needs are met.
  
• Improved text quality of colonist and research subheader buttons
  
• Pinned inventory item tooltip now displays total count
  
• Robots now have a separate attribute handler. Any mod changes to GDColonist data will have to be updated.
  
• Robots now move at 50% speed when power is low or empty
  
• Changed formatting of shortened forms of long numbers to display only one decimal place. Example: 10.23k will now display as 10.2k
  
• Changed how text is displayed in story windows
  

Fixes

• Fixed: Pinned inventory items not displaying icon
  
• Fixed: Pinned inventory items not displaying text correctly
  
• Fixed: Robots idle during sleep/recreation/training periods
  

Howdy Folks!

The latest update focused primarily on content related to the facility. The next content update will shift focus to additional surface expansion, primary campaign goals and perhaps a bit more.

[h2]Update 30 Survey[/h2]
If you have a few minutes and want to let me know what you think of the game and what you’re most interested in about it, then be sure to check out the survey link below.

Update 30 Feedback Survey

[h2]Objectives[/h2]
The game is currently a bit of an open-ended sandbox. My plan has always been to include more story content as well as an overall goal to the game. This is something I’ve been working on for a long time and it’s now ready for some implementation. I’m currently working on a new mission system that will replace the getting started guide and add many new missions to direct the player towards story goals.



Missions will provide more information as well as trackable objectives. Missions will be used to guide the player toward story goals as well as provide, in some instances, new rewards.

I’m also looking into adding smaller side missions that would be generated by colonists. Colonists could make requests such as wanting a functional kitchen, an assigned bed etc.. These side missions could result in various rewards or positive/negative results depending on user choices.

[h2]Story Content[/h2]
While I have a story system in place that is primarily used for expeditions, this system didn’t have a very good front end for creating these stories. Up to this point I’ve been writing content in a word processor and then manually setting up all of the functional data for a story to work in-game. This resulted in a few problems:

1. Stunted content: Due to not being able to see how a story segment flowed lead to writing shorter content with fewer options.
   
2. Errors: Manually setting up the data was more prone to errors from user input
   
3. Slower iteration: Testing stories was slower as I had to set up the data, load it in, test and repeat.
   

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve completed a dedicated story editor to solve these issues.



With the new story editor, I can easily view the flow of a story, it’s less error prone in terms of having correct data structure and I quickly test a story to see how it’s working. An additional benefit is that modders will be able to use this tool to create story content as well.

Using the new story editor, I’ll be able to create story content much more quickly and easily for future releases. This means you’ll get more story content, as well as stories with more choices and depth.

The next update will focus on adding the first chapter of the primary campaign. This will include new expeditions, discoveries, research and surface side structures. Much of this is still being worked on so, unfortunately, I can’t go into too much detail on exactly what will be included. What I can say is that there are some big changes and additions in development. More information will be available as development continues.

Thank you, everyone, for the great feedback and support.

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Howdy Folks!

Patch update 30.4 addresses a few more reported issues and adds a couple of quality of life changes.

[h2]Bed Assignment[/h2]

When assigning colonists to a bed, a check mark will appear next to colonists that already have a bed assigned.

[h2]Planet Minimap[/h2]
Vehicles will now appear on the planet side minimap. Vehicles on the minimap are colored differently depending on their type. This was technically a bug, but I’ll count it as a new feature.

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[h2]Release Notes[/h2]

Changes

• Bed assignment list now shows colonist portraits instead of colonist gender icon.
  
• Bed assignment list now shows a checkmark icon next to a colonist if they already have a bed assigned.
  
• Updated the text quality of the vehicle info in the vehicle list.
  

Fixes

• Fixed: Vehicle action description hidden behind upgrade buttons in vehicle list if text is more than one line.
  
• Fixed: Colonists not appearing on minimap when spawned from capsule or generated from cloning.
  
• Fixed: Robots not appearing on minimap when activated or created.
  
• Fixed: Vehicles not appearing on planet minimap.
  
• Fixed: Crop disease not removed when a colonist harvests an infected crop.