Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been working on some new world generation as well as a new crafting system. I can’t seem to make up my mind when it comes to the world generation, but it’s a pretty important aspect related to the starting conditions of the game.

Starting Conditions

After reviewing a bunch of information related to what I have and what I originally intended, I realized that my initial plan for starting wasn’t going to work. The game has just naturally evolved in a different, and better, direction than where I started with my design document.

I originally wanted the game to start with only 1 colonist and grow from there, but given the way professions, and the new crafting system, work, it would mean a lot of micromanagement juggling on the part of the player. While the initial part of the game should be fun and exciting, I don’t think juggling professions is what I had in mind. This means that the starting condition will need at least 2 or 3 colonists as well as basic starting supplies. This is fairly standard for this kind of game and, after evaluating the other aspects of the game, is not a place I need to be unique.

World Generation

I keep poking at the world generation code to make it a bit more configurable. I did finally add in a world generation screen so that I can test various seed values. I keep bouncing back and forth between heightmaps and cellular automata. The latest iteration of the world generation is using layered cellular automata which I’m using for ore distribution. There is now iron ore, copper ore and anthracite in the map. There is also a nice mix of caves, but I still have to add water back in.

Crafting

In an effort to better unify the crafting system I re-wrote the whole thing. After setting up crafting for the cook station I realized that cooking and smelting worked differently. Ideally I wanted a better way to handle crafting in general that was more consistent across all stations.

The new system is more simple and straight forward, but allows for more management. Each craft station has recipes that can be queued up for crafting. Once a recipe is queued for crafting the appropriate colonist, based on profession, will gather the materials and craft the item at the station. The colonist will repeat this for however many is in the crafting queue for that station.

This means all craft stations work the same, but have different recipes. It also lead to a new profession. I’m also planning for additional recipes, for existing stations, to get unlocked via research.

I’ve been working on a lot of various things for the game and making some great progress with a lot of the core elements. Recently I start implementing the profession system.

Professions

Each colonist can have a designated profession. This controls what actions they can perform other than their core needs such as eating and sleeping.

A colonist will have a starting level in each profession and as they perform work related to a profession they will gain experience. Each level of a profession will improve work speed as well as certain profession specific attributes.

Engineer

Right now the engineer just builds and deconstructs objects assigned by the player. I’m still debating on whether to have a durability to some objects that can be restored/repaired by the engineer.

Miner

This one is fairly obvious, but the miner will mine out dirt/stone/ore designated by the player.

Cook

The cook handles taking raw food from the fridge and cooking it at the cooking station. They will then take crafted meals to the eating table so that colonists, ideally, won’t starve to death.

Botanist

The botanist handles the planting and harvesting of crops to produce raw food as well as materials that can be refined.

Scientist

The main role of the scientist, right now, is to handle research projects. Research projects will unlock additional rooms, object and upgrades.

Doctor

The doctor ensures the health of the colonists. The doctor will also handle cloning and corpse “removal”.

Comm Officer

While the core of the game is under ground, I plan to have the planet surface explore-able by using the the communications room to manage expeditions to points of interest on the planetary map. The comm officer will be responsible for scanning the planet surface for new points of interest.

As the game is still in early development there may be changes or additions to the professions as they stand right now. What are your thoughts on the professions?