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DevBlog #62 | Foundry Fridays: Belts n' Lasers

Greeting Founders,

I heard every good factory game needs a laser update, so I’m excited to share some early laser related developments within the world of Foundry.

Now Witness the Firepower of This Fully Armed and Operational Space Station

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/zXcci0UtY5Y[/previewyoutube]
[h2]Orbital Laser[/h2]

The orbital laser is a late(-ish) game Space Station upgrade that gives you access to a terraforming laser. It makes short work of large chunks of terrain, but has the limitation that it’s fired down to the planet from the sky and indiscriminately destroys everything it touches. Removing pesky mountains has never been easier- just don’t fire it too close to anything you love! This early version hasn’t had all the kinks ironed out yet, so we would love to hear your thoughts as we polish it up.


[h2]Orbital Uplink Tool[/h2]
Expanding on the utility of the Space Station has always been the plan, adding additional upgrades and functionality to reward your factory progress. We have begun work on adding a mobile “Orbital Uplink Tool”. A craftable item that will allow you to remotely command the Space Station, including targeting the new Orbital Laser. The hand tool in the video is just a placeholder as we decide on the design for the holdable.


[h2]The Future of Terraforming[/h2]
One of the most obvious USP’s for the game right now is the procedural, modifiable voxel terrain. We are actively thinking of ways we can make better use of it, especially in the early game, to help folks see how cool Foundry is. If you have any thoughts on what we could do in regards to this, we are listening.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]One more thing…[/h2]
This one has been on our TODO list for a long, long, long, long, long time. Introducing the brand new multi-directional-belt-drag mode!

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/ZgMxchpsZLk[/previewyoutube]
Placing belts is one of the most common tasks in the game, and previously it involved swapping between multiple items and modes. So, in addition to the precise placement mode you are already familiar with, we (and by we I mean MrMcDuck) have added a powerful, and simple, click drag mode. It works in multiple directions, handles numerous turns in a single drag, and even automatic vertical belt placement.

[previewyoutube]https://youtu.be/milJtS8YjsE[/previewyoutube]
I know everyone has been (very patiently) waiting for the next content update, and is itching to get their hands on new content asap. Please rest assured that despite our belts and lasers initiative here, that we are working hard on a substantial content update with tons of surprises.

Cheers,
-MarkL

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DevBlog #61 | Foundry Fridays: Art Timelapse

Hello everyone!

Today we have something new for you: A timelapse video of our Art Director Jason creating one of the modular buildings, the Long Range Scanner. You can see him modeling the whole building from start to finish in a heavily sped up format of just nine minutes.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Let us know if you enjoy seeing how games are made behind the scenes and if you'd like to see more content like that.

Speaking of behind the scenes, we've spent the past week on improving usability for conveyor belt dragging and I think you'll like the result. It's a little to early to share, but I still wanted to mention it.

That's all for today. See you next time,
-mrmcd

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DevBlog #60 | Foundry Fridays: Update 2 Overview

Hello everyone!

Last week we launched our first update and we’re happy to see you enjoying the new features. Some of you have already uploaded mods to Steam workshop and our team is very excited to see that. We also want to thank everyone who sent us feedback, always appreciated.

With the first update done, I want to use this FOUNDRY Friday to look at the future and discuss what we’re planning for the second update and the road towards it.

[h3]Key Priorities[/h3]
Our key priorities for the upcoming future are more and new gameplay content, usability improvements and performance improvements. Let us go over them a bit more in detail below.

Gameplay Content
This is obviously the big one everyone is waiting for. Of course we want to make the game longer and deeper, but we even more so want to focus on making the game more unique. I wrote an entire blog post about a proposal for that and the feedback we received was invaluable and allowed us to further refine our plan.

To quickly recap the problem in short: I feel like FOUNDRY is too generic. While we added a bit of a story with Carl and C3-BB and a space station as a goal on the horizon, the game mostly revolves around making your way through the science tree. That is not a bad thing, but it lacks meaning and motivation.

The one sentence pitch to solve it: In FOUNDRY you build a galactic factory that is all about robots, produce, utilize and sell them.

FOUNDRY has a pretty unique feature in selling robots, but it comes very late in the game and I want to bring that right from the start. The other thing that became obvious from your feedback was that you care even more about using the robots you make instead of just selling them. The honest truth from a game design perspective is that it is a lot easier to sell a lot of different robots instead of using them in your factory, but we will try to come up with as many use cases as possible for using robots as part of your factory.

There is a lot to say about our further refined plans on this topic, but I will save that for upcoming FOUNDRY Fridays.

Usability Improvements
We want to make playing the game more enjoyable by reducing friction while building your factories. Especially improving belt and pipe placement as that is what we’re receiving the most requests for. We understand that while we tried to make the building part of the game as comfortable as possible, we have a lot of additional work ahead of us to fully get there. If there are other usability issues you find critical, now is the time to let us know!

Performance Improvements
Foundry runs pretty well if you are focussed on finishing the research tree in an average sized factory. But of course factory games are made to go far beyond that and for exactly that we want to further optimize FPS so that you can build the mega factories of your dreams.
Those of you who enjoy making use of massive amounts of decor blocks might have experienced that those might not necessarily cost a huge amount of FPS, but they take a while to fully fade in again after you have been further away and that is the second part of performance improvements we want to look at.


That is all for today and I’ll be sharing more details as our work on the game progresses.

See you on the next one,
-mrmcd



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New Hotfix is already live!

Hello everyone! We've received 2 hotfixes after the Cable & Creations update.

Read the full list of fixes below:
  • Fix for a crash when placing/deconstructing the assembly line consumer.
  • Fix for a crash when detonating dynamite when connecting to a dedicated server.
  • Fix for an issue displaying localized fonts on machines
  • Fix for an issue where loaders would remain disabled after being disconnected from data cables
  • Fix for crash that occurs when loading legacy mods
  • Fix for missing liquid cargo ship connector points
  • Fix for servers browser not being able to sort after clicking refresh


Thank you and have a nice day!
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Update 1: Cables & Creations is LIVE!

Hello Founders!



The time has come: Update 1 “Cable & Creations” is finally here! Upgrade your advanced processes and gain unprecedented control over your factory operations with the new Data Cables, or expand your creative horizons while delving into Steam Workshop with the addition of mod support. Endless possibilities will be there waiting to be explored!

Watch the Update overview video on our YouTube channel!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Patch Notes: [/h2]

[h3]Changes:[/h3]
  • New data cable system that allows you to remote control machines and build advanced logic. Consists of five new building types: Data Cable, Data Processor, Data Evaluator, Data Sources, Data Memory
  • New world gen settings: Configure Frequency & Richness for every resource type (ore patches, ore veins & reservoirs)
  • New Decor Pieces
    • 2 new 3x3x1 wall decor
    • Plain wall blocks (solid color, no texture)
    • Outside and inside corner (tall, upright orientation) for 1x2 slopes
    • New 1x2 slope stairs
    • Stairs now tintable
    • New 1x2 slope railing
    • Railings are now tintable
    • 1x2 slope modular windows
    • 1x2 slope wedge modular windows for vertical/horizontal walls
    • Modular window edge pieces (round and sharp edge)
    • Modular 1x1 strut support blocks with 1x1 and 1x2 slopes (tintable)
  • New portable light (works without LVG or HVG)
  • New smaller size pole light
  • New large 3x3x3 industrial ceiling light
  • New tier 2/3 escalators.
  • New power pole art
  • New liquid cargo ships.
  • Added Steam workshop support.
  • Added new mod management menu.
  • Critters now spawn in the world.
  • You can now press E to zoom in on screen panels.
  • New door art.
  • Doors are now tintable.
  • Jetpack bob is now also disabled in demolition mode.
  • Max field of view is now 140.
  • Improved framerate when rendering batteries.
  • Improved framerate when rendering solar panels.
  • Drill sound no longer comes out of just one ear.
  • Add warning if currently configured mods do not match the save file/server you are joining.
  • Cargo ship pilots now animate.
  • Added server browser.
  • Increased saturation of Xenoferrite texture to further differentiate it from Ignium.
  • Rebalanced fuel:
    • Liquid Fuel 100 -> 500
    • Ignium Fuel Rod 100,000 -> 400,000
    • Coked Ignium 4000 -> 5500
    • Ignium Ore 10,000 -> 12,500
    • Portable Fuel 15,000 -> 16,000
  • Rebalanced fracking (Liters/Minute):
    • Ignium Vein 5 -> 150
    • Mineral Rock Vein 5 -> 150
    • Technum Vein 5 -> 150
    • Telluxite Vein 5 -> 150
    • Xenoferrite Vein 5 -> 150

[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
  • Fixed an issue where if you ran a dedicated server and a regular game on the same pc, clicking resume in the launcher could cause you to resume the incorrect game.
  • Fixed issue where tooltip on sky platform frame would not disappear when closing the frame.
  • Fixed an issue that could occur on connect if the transfer rate of the dedicated server exceeds the transfer rate of the client.
  • Fixed an issue where the conveyor balancer might not work correctly after loading a save file.
  • Fixed rendering of drill/tablet/laser in different fields of view.
  • Fixed an issue where screen panels could incorrectly prevent interaction with objects that were near them but not directly behind them.
  • Fixed an issue where the cardinal directions on the compass were not being properly localized.
  • Fixed an error where the snap mode didn't snap properly for building/terrain blocks at negative coords.
  • Fixed gears not updating on the deluxe office table.
  • Fixed an issue where loaders could rarely stop working when using certain recipes.
  • Cargo ship pad screen panels now display the station names case-sensitive.

[h3]Modding:[/h3]
You can finally add mods to your game and
  • Added Steam workshop support.
  • Added Foundry Mod Kit which is a unity project which lets you import your own prefabs/models/textures/materials.
  • Created Foundry Mod Kit Assembler Tutorial.
  • Added new Steam Workshop uploader.
  • Added Erkle game tweak support.
  • Added ability to iterate transformers.
  • Mods can now specify if they are client only.
  • Mods can now have a thumbnail image.
  • Mods can now depend on other mods and are loaded based on their dependencies.
  • Increased max crafting recipes to 1024.
  • Increased max buildings to 512.


Quite a lot of stuff, right? If you want to know what else we are working on, check the roadmap video we released recently!

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