Solar Lander News

A small update to the Physics Update is now available which should now make the game winnable.
[h2]Change Log[/h2]

• Added game version number to main menu (0.2.x is the Physics Update).
  
• Undocking will now fire retrograde thrusters for just two seconds instead of indefinitely.
  
• Adjusted fuel and thrust upgrades to be roughly linear in terms of how much extra fuel and thrust you get with each upgrade. Cost increase is unchanged.
  
• Adjusted min throttle and ISP upgrades to "max-out" relatively quickly.
  

Solar Lander's Physics Update is now available on the main branch. There are many changes, improvements, and bug fixes with this update, with the main highlight being the physics updates.

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Superstructures are now treated as a single body, greatly improving the physics (and controllability) of the lander, especially around large planets.
  
• Axis assignments are now done in-game instead of in a dialog box that comes up before the game starts.
  
• Staging before landing in Progression now resets the current level instead of skipping to the next level.
  
• Free Roam now gives you a lot more freedom to play around with.
  
• Upgrades Screen gives you more information about your ships capabilities vs what is needed to complete the level (and how much each individual upgrade will contribute).
  
• Terrain generation is now based off of this YouTube video, making it look more natural.
  
• Fuel indicators have been made to look more like the rest of the HUD.
  
• The trail renderer has been replaced with a display of what your orbit looks like (disappears when on ejection orbit).
  
• Terrain colliders are generated in chunks to improve performance (adjustable in settings).
  
• Made some adjustments to the game over, pause, credits, and help screens.
  

[h3]Additions[/h3]

• Added the ability to adjust input response in the settings screen.
  
• Buttons on some controls can be made to gradually go from full-off to full-on.
  
• Added leaderboards for highest landing score and highest docking score.
  

[h3]Bug Fixes[/h3]

• (Hopefully) Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause steam stats to not get saved properly.
  
• Fixed a bug where the engines and RCS thrusters would produce more thrust than they should be capable of.
  

EDIT: The game was supposed to go on sale right before this post was made, but I accidentally scheduled the sale to start June 7th.

This took me a lot longer to implement than I would have liked, but the Physics Update preview is no longer a demo version of the game. This means that you now have stuff like achievements, stats, and leaderboards among other things. Keep in mind that there's a reason that this is on the "beta-build" branch, though. Not everything is implemented. For example, we don't yet have free roam or all 21 planets implemented. But we do have a new upgrade screen, and a reworked upgrade system backend.

[h2]Change Highlights[/h2]

• Upgrade Screen gives you a ratio for the amount of Delta-V needed to go from orbit to the surface and back (1.0 requires perfect burns).
  
• Upgrade Screen shows you how much your Delta-V Ratio and Thrust to Weight Ratio (TWR) will change with any given upgrade.
  
• Upgrade Screen now comes in pages.
  
• The record for largest amount of points awarded for landing and redocking are now tracked on their respective leaderboards.
  
• The "I Won!" achievement progress is now tracked by Steam (currently unobtainable because not all levels are accessible).
  
• Re-added 2 more planets in the game to use the new terrain generation feature.
  

After a much longer wait than what I wanted, a preview of the Physics Update is now available on a new branch called "beta-build". Technically, this is preview is the same as the new demo version (which has also been updated). I published the demo to the beta branch just in case those who have bought the game are unable to run the Demo. Over the next few weeks, I intend to update the beta branch to the full version as I reimplement the features for the full version. There will be another announcement once the Physics Update goes onto the main branch.

Change Highlights:

• New Terrain Generation for more natural-looking Terrain.
  
• Superstructure Assembly no longer uses Unity's joint system, which should allow for smoother rotation around larger distances.
  
• Gravity simulation below planet's radius reduces gravity linearly with ratio towards center. Gravity above planet's radius is unchanged.
  
• Hopefully a bunch of performance enhancements.
  
• In-game axis assignments!
  
• Input response viewer.
  
• More control assignments (eg: custom zoom controls).
  
• Can disable joysticks in-game.
  

Demo Changes:

• Reduced number of planets for progression to just one.
  

Bonus Changes:

• Visual orbit indicator now draws the entire orbit (unless the orbit is an ejection orbit).
  
• Docking port on command module modified for easier docking.
  

NOTE: The demo version doesn't have the Steamworks API implemented.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Terrain Generation[/h2]
[h3]Hopeful Performance Improvements[/h3]
The terrain is now generated in "chunks" in an attempt to optimize the performance of the simulation when you get near the terrain. Currently, there may be a significant frame-rate drop on some planets when you get near the planet, especially if the engines are firing. You will be able to change how many of these "chunks" are generated indirectly by setting a limit to the number of elevation points in each chunk.

On top of that, the collision mesh will no longer generate through the center of the planet, but will stop about 5% of the way down to the center. Again, this is to help with the performance of the simulation. I'm hoping that Unity's built-in simulation engine will not do very detailed collision checks for chunks that are very far away from the space craft. So far, the results are looking very promising.

[h3]Terrain Coherency[/h3]
Using a programming tutorial that I found on YouTube, I adjusted the terrain generation to give a more perlin-style noise generation to make the terrain look more natural. The terrain resolution is now much higher than it was before, but with very little performance impact because of the new chunk generation system. The terrain can also now generate with an elevation that is lower than the radius of the planet.

[h2]Orbital Mechanics Adjustment[/h2]
I've tweaked the physics system governing the orbital mechanics so that if you were to somehow phase into the planet, then the gravity would decrease linearly with decreasing distance. This effect would only happen if your distance from the center of the planet is less than the radius of the planet. When the distance is greater then the radius, then the gravity still increases by the square of decreasing distance.

Under the old (and current) system, the planet was treated as a point mass. So if you were somehow able to phase into the planet and get near the center, floating point errors would build-up to the point where you would be ejected from the planet's sphere of influence. Under the new system, there will be almost no gravity near the center of the planet, which is how gravity works in real life.

[h2]In-Game Axis Assignments[/h2]
I have thought of a way of allowing you to assign axis from within the game in spite of Unity's terrible input system. It will even include the ability for you to set the null zones for each individual axis as well as inverting said axis. So when the update comes out, the dialog box that appears when you launch Solar Lander will be removed completely as it was only there for you to be able to assign axis before the game started. As for the other things that you could do in that dialog, you can already do those within-game for the most part.