Developer Log #58

Howdy Folks!

Thanks for the great feedback on Update 25 :: New Horizons. Now that the more critical issues have been patched up, I’ve started work on Update 26. Update 26 will continue to expand and improve upon surface side content.

Surface Resources

Resources are getting an overhaul and you’ll no longer be able to mine anywhere or infinitely. This will make expansion and resource acquisition on the surface more varied and engaging.

Each surface side resource deposit will come in varying depths. This determines the quantity of a resource and what is required to mine all of it. A resource can be mined by either an expedition team, mining vehicle or mining platform, with each being able to mine deeper.

Deep resources could still be mined by an expedition team, but the expedition team will only be able to acquire resources closer to the surface. A resource deposit could then be mined further by a mining vehicle or mining platform.

How these resources appear on the map and additional scanning mechanics are in development.

Surface Construction

I can’t say too much about it at this stage, but surface construction is in development. This will include new surface side structures and construction mechanics.

Points Of Interest

There are currently far too many POI locations and far too little variety. I had originally planned to just add more POI location types to increase variety.

While this is still something that will happen I’m also re-working how POI locations are generated on the map. POI locations will have a limit to how many times they can appear on the map. This means some repetition will occur, but far less so.

There are a few repeatable POI locations that have a random chance of several different types of rewards. I’m working to create new POI locations that are targeted towards specific rewards. This will help to decrease the need for repeatable POI locations as well as offer more overall variety.

The end result will be less POI locations, but more unique POI stories and rewards.

Colonists

The colonist, understandably, was something that was coded very early on in development. It’s seen a lot of additions to it, but I finally got around to breaking it down and re-working colonist data. The rework focused on splitting the visual elements of a colonist from the underlying data that represents a colonist.

What this means is the ability to better handle colonist data without having them visible in the facility. Starting colonists can now have their data generated before leaving a stasis capsule.

Starting colonists will now have a predefined job role with proper attributes. While these colonists can still be assigned other job roles they will at least start out being good at something.

In a future update this will allow me to provide control over starting colonists in the new game interface.

There are a lot of things being worked on for Update 26 and I’m really excited about all the changes and additions. I’m actively working to get Update 26 ready for the experimental branch and hope to have something ready next week.

Thanks again for all the great feedback and if you haven’t had a chance to check out the Feedback Survey, now is a great time.

Feedback Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PDXSRZG

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