Alpha 0.15 is now available on the Test Build branch!

While the main feature of Alpha 0.15 is the new planetary exploration/mining, there are a lot of other additions and changes.

Some of the new changes in Alpha 0.15 include new surface exploration/mining, new research and discoveries, additional raw resources, new recipes, new objects, various fixes and performance improvements. If you’re interested in helping test Alpha 0.15 please click the link below for additional details.

For more information about the 0.15 Test Build, including release notes:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/704510/discussions/3/1743346190274134560/

Hope everyone is doing great. I had a vacation a couple weeks ago and hit the ground running upon my return. There has been a lot progress made on the upcoming content update. I’m currently in the final private testing phase and finishing up minor tweaks and features before it hits the Test Build branch for public testing. Here are some of the things you can look forward to.

Planet Exploration

The big-ticket item for the next update is the planet exploration content. In the next update you will be able to scan biomes and mine new resources using remote surface vehicles. Colonists still don’t get a chance to leave the facility quite yet, but that is planned for a future expeditions update. A lot of work was required to get the foundation set up for planet exploration. This is the main reason this update has taken longer than I would have preferred.
Several new resources have been added that can only be gathered on the surface. Additionally, all alien flora/fauna must now be discovered on the surface, and researched, before they can be grown and harvested. New and existing resources can be mined on the surface. This will resolve issues with running out of resources for power or construction as resources are not depleted on the surface.

Discoveries & Research

Many new discoveries and research projects have also been added. The research project tree has been updated so that some research now requires additional surface discoveries.

Misc

Several new resources and recipes are available for advanced crafting. A couple of ambient music tracks have also been added.

I’m in the home stretch and Alpha 0.15 should be available in the Test Build branch soon. Thanks for your support and patience.

Alpha 0.14.5 is now available on the Test Build branch. This is a “small” update/patch while work continues on the planetary exploration update. The planetary exploration update is coming along very well, but more development time is still needed.

Some of the new changes in Alpha 0.14.5 include new mining/deconstruction selection graphics, updated map sizes, HUD inventory options, colonist priority improvements, updated UI elements and more. See the release notes below for the full list of changes and fixes.

For information about accessing the Test Build branch click the link below:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/704510/discussions/3/2381701715712468002/

Release Notes

Changes

• Added: New option buttons for the HUD Inventory list. Can now sort alphabetically and by quantity. Can toggle list/category view and hide items that have zero quantity.
• Changed: HUD Inventory panel now has a background. Background opacity increases when moused over.
• Changed: New game interface window elements have been rearranged and updated.
• Changed: New game map sizes are now 80×80, 100×100 and 150×150
• Changed: Added new background on various floating windows such as in game menu and load game.
• Changed: Notification icons now slide out to the left of an open info window instead of being hidden behind it.
• Changed: Reduced the amount of ore contained in deep mining tiles.
• Changed: Mining and Deconstruction tile highlight are now visually different each other.
• Changed: More noticeable work speed increase from colonist job levels.
• Changed: Camera edge scrolling now works with info window open on right screen edge.
• Changed: Fixed a couple of typos and updated some object descriptions.
• Changed: Various colonist action costs updated to better behave with assigned job priorities.
• Changed: Medi-Bed screen now lights up when in use by a doctor.
• Changed: Optimized various model textures for better performance.

Fixes

• Fixed: Disabled objects not disabled after loading save game. This fix will only apply to new save games.
• Fixed: Multiple item chests spawning on top of each other
• Fixed: Lock cursor to screen stops working after tabbing away from the game and returning.
• Fixed: Water Pump/Power Generator providing resource if conduit under generator isn’t built yet.
• Fixed: Colonist not using crop fields if aeroponic farms are placed, but there is no available plant nutrient.
• Fixed: Camera Edge scrolling not working diagonally when moving mouse to the corner of the screen.

As many of you know, my current focus is to build the foundations for planetary exploration. In the last two developer logs, I covered how the planet surface is generated and a bit about vehicles and resource discovery. There has been a lot more progress on vehicle construction which I will cover here.

Vehicles

Surface exploration will require vehicles that need to be researched and constructed. Vehicle templates are created using the vehicle designer.

There are different vehicle types that determine various base attributes of a vehicle, such as its speed, cargo space, battery capacity, the number of passengers it can accomodate, and more. Additionally, you can apply various equipment and upgrades which will further increase the capabilities of your vehicle.
Different types of vehicles, equipment and upgrades will need to be discovered/researched before they can be used. Different parts will determine the build/upgrade cost of your vehicle.

Engine
The engine affects the vehicle speed and power drain.

Sensors
Sensors affect both analyzing speed as well as visibility range. Visibility range is the number of tiles around the vehicle that will be uncovered when the vehicle is moving.

Exterior
While I plan for various uses for exterior equipment, the initial release will allow for mining lasers to be attached so that ore resources can be mined on the surface.

Upgrade Modules
Each vehicle type has a fixed amount of upgrade slots. Many different types of upgrades will become available to increase various vehicle attributes.

Once a vehicle template is created, it’s available for construction in the vehicle assembler, which is built in the assembly room. After the vehicle has been constructed it’s visible in the vehicle bay. Vehicle templates can later be updated in the vehicle designer allowing for existing vehicles to be upgraded based on its template.

Vehicle Bay & Embarking

You can access the vehicle bay by clicking your primary facility on the planet map. You can then embark a vehicle from your list of created vehicles. This involves choosing the colonists that will ride in the vehicle as well as any items you want to take with you. Once the vehicle is ready, you can select it and choose where it will go. Vehicles will uncover parts of the map as they move around.

While some details are still in development, and may change, the current plan is that vehicle distance will be limited by food and power. Each vehicle has solar panels, which allow the vehicle to recharge should it run out of battery power. When transporting human colonists, you will need to bring food, which will denote how much time, in days, the vehicle can be out before colonists will start dying of starvation. I do plan to allow for robots as passengers, which will not require food. Robots, however, are not able to do all the things a human colonist can.

Exploring The Surface

The initial release of surface exploration is expected to include uncovering your surroundings, analyzing and harvesting resources. Analyzing resources will take time and better sensors/upgrades added to your vehicle will decrease this time.

While there is still a lot of work left to do, development is coming along very well. I can’t provide a definite timeline, but I will say that there are at least several more weeks’ worth of development work ahead to build up the content for the next update. I greatly appreciate your patience, as this update will take longer than the previous ones that I’ve released. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on vehicles and planetary exploration? I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Hope everyone is having a great time at or watching E3! Some great stuff is being announced. In Mercury Fallen news, I’ve been working hard on the implementation of planetary exploration and resource gathering.

Planetary Resources

In the previous developer log, I covered the procedural generation that creates the planet’s surface. The surface map also contains many resources, such as ores, flora and fauna, and there will be new resources found only in certain biomes on the map, in varying degrees of abundance.

The initial focus on the surface will, of course, be to explore your surroundings to find and analyze resource nodes. While icons will show the basic resource type, you’ll need to analyze resources to find out specifically what they are and how much is there.

Exploration

Exploration on the surface is done using vehicles. Vehicles will require colonists to operate, but are directly controlled by the player. New biomes, areas and resources will need to be uncovered before they can be used. Different types of vehicles will be required to navigate some areas such as oceans and mountains.

I’m developing the foundation of planetary exploration, which means that when planetary exploration is released it is only the start of even more content to come. There are various features I I have planned for surface and underground game play that are too big to pack into a single update, so I’m working to divide up the new content in manageable releases, as I’ve done with previous updates.

Vehicle Construction

Vehicle construction is performed in the assembly room with the new vehicle assembler, coupled with a surface-level vehicle bay used to assign colonists to vehicles and where vehicles must return to be upgraded.

You’ll be able to choose the vehicle type and the equipment that goes in it. Vehicle slots will allow you to customize cargo space, seats, engine, utilities and more. The vehicle type will determine the basic look and attributes, as well as what, and how many, slots it has.

Mercury Fallen Discord Server

For those that are interested, I’ve set up a Discord server where players can meet to chat about Mercury Fallen. There are some great people already there, and I’ll be there, when I’m not busy creating new content. 😉

https://discord.gg/WdndeXx

Alpha 0.14.3 is out of the test build branch and now live on Steam. This is a small update while I continue development of the next big content update.

The craft queue and robot assembler interfaces will now show available ingredients highlighted in green and unavailable ingredients highlighted in red.

As objects get constructed they will now dissolve in. This has the benefit of looking cool and illustrating the build progress.

Thank you all for the awesome feedback and support. Keep an eye out for future developer logs where I’ll cover progress on the new planetary exploration features in development.

Be sure to follow Mercury Fallen on Facebook / Twitter for the latest news and updates:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mercfall/

Twitter: @mercuryfall

Release Notes

• Added: Can now toggle UI by pressing F10. Key can be remapped in settings.
• Added: Objects being built now dissolve in to show build progress.
• Changed: Objects no longer flicker on/off when getting power for the first time when running multiple generators.
• Changed: Craft queue and robot assembler interfaces now outline available ingredients in green and unavailable ingredients in red.
• Changed: Minor improvement to performance to decrease memory usage.
• Fixed: Power/water generators still showing positive output when disabled.
• Fixed: Output bonus on aeroponics farm not showing as percentage

Alpha 0.14 was a big update with a lot of new content and now that it’s out the door I’m back to the grind stone working on the next major content update. Something that has been asked a lot, and that I’ve teased in the past, is how and when surface/planetary exploration will be added to the game. There is still not a concrete answer to that, but I’ve been putting a lot of work into getting the planetary content out of prototype and integrated into the core game. I wanted to cover the progress so far and go over various aspects of the how and what of planetary exploration.

Planetary Map Generation

Planetary surface exploration will be handled on a separate planetary map that will be accessible via the Facility Management interface. The goal of the planet map is to offer a good deal of variety as well as a somewhat accurate, and fun, representation of an alien world with a variety of biomes, details and events. Similar to the players primary facility the planet map is procedurally generated to offer a good amount of extended game play and replay value. The map itself is a large hexagon grid where each hexagon represents a location on the map.

I decided to base biome generation on the Holdridge Life Zones which uses temperature and moisture levels to define biome types. For any given cross section of temperature and moisture a biome can be determined, for example the hottest and wettest areas would be akin to a tropical rain forest and the the hottest driest areas are desert. The first step was creating temperature, moisture and elevation maps using procedural noise. The temperature map also considers elevation and latitude so that areas at higher elevations or further north/south are colder. The elevation data is also used to determine both mountains and sea level.

The final break down is a 5×5 grid to divide temperature and moisture values ranging from hottest to coldest and driest to wettest. Sampling the temperature/moisture values for each hexagon grid location into the biome chart gives a biome sector. Additional biome sectors are generated for oceans, fresh water and mountains for a total of 28 biome sectors.  The final biome for a tile is based on a biome definition that is mapped to a biome sector and has a predefined frequency of occurring. Using this method I can have some biomes that very commonly generate within a sector, but also include special rare biomes that have a lower chance of generating within the same sector.

The final biome definition also defines the color, texture and details that occur for that biome as seen in the image above. The above image only shows part of the 48,000 tiles on the complete map. Map size may vary depending on game starting options, but testing is being done on large scale maps.

Additional biome details are currently being added to provide more visual distinction between the various biomes.

Planetary Exploration

Upon first opening the planetary map screen the only visible area will be immediately surrounding the players primary facility. Building and sending out exploration drones will allow you to explore the map and uncover new resources, story content, points of interest and expansion opportunities.

I’m still working on designing the systems for exploration and expansion, but it’s coming along very well so far. Stay tuned for further developer logs where I’ll cover points of interest, outposts, expeditions and more.

Game Updates

The new planetary map game play will take a bit of time and releasing all of it’s content all at once is not the goal. The core of planetary exploration will get added first with further updates to add additional content. I have quite a lot of content planned for the planetary aspect of Mercury Fallen and it won’t come all at once.

I’ll also be focusing on releasing smaller game updates while work continues on integrating the planetary map features.

More developer logs will be coming to cover the planetary map as they get implemented so stay tuned. I’m really excited about the new planetary map content. What are your thoughts on planetary exploration/expansion?

Alpha 0.14.2 is out of testing and now available on Steam. This patch update addresses a couple of bugs, but also adds the ability to change the order of objects in the construction build queue.

The new Set High Priority button in an objects build info window will set the object to be first in the build queue. Other objects may still get built first if materials are not available for the object. Further improvements to managing the build queue are expected in future update.

Release Notes

• Changed: Object construction window now outlines available materials in green and unavailable materials in red.
• Changed: Added Set High Priority button to object construction interface. This set’s the object to be first place in the build queue. Other objects may still be built first if materials are not available for the object.
• Fixed: Colonist stuck in place if at high stress and unable to reach a built chair/bench.
• Fixed: Incorrect text for Ate Raw Food attribute effect in colonist needs section

Alpha 0.14.2 is another small patch update to fix a couple things, but also adds the ability to change the order of objects in the construction build queue. Alpha 0.14.2 Test Build is now available on Steam.

The new Set High Priority button in an objects build info window will set the object to be first in the build queue. Other objects may still get built first if materials are not available for the object. Further improvements to managing the build queue are expected in future update.

For more information about the 0.14.2 test build, including release notes:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/704510/discussions/3/1696046342851980237/

What is the Test Build branch?
https://steamcommunity.com/app/704510/discussions/3/2381701715712468002/

Alpha 0.14.1 is a small patch update to fix and tweak a few things and is now available now Steam. The most notable change in this update is that colonist death notifications now reference the cause of death. Additionally I made some tweaks to the tech tree and the food quality of sushi to better balance food production. The inability to complete the “Refine Structure Resin” tutorial task has been fixed.

Check the release notes below for all the changes/fixes.

Release Notes

• Changed: Colonist death notification now references cause of death
• Changed: Starving effect renamed to Starvation
• Changed: Clicking the colonist portrait in the colonist info window will set the camera to follow the colonist, if not already being followed
• Changed: Aquarium now has a colonist roster.
• Changed: Starting supply chest now has 20 emergency rations instead of 10.
• Changed: Food Processing research is now after Biology research
• Changed: Sushi now has a higher food quality.
• Fixed: Refine structure resin tutorial task not completing after refining structure resin.
• Fixed: Colonist not spawned with 100% health if random quirk affects maximum health value.
• Fixed: Can still move camera by moving cursor to the bottom edge of the screen when facility management interface is open.
• Fixed: Cooked potatoes has wrong name in research interface tool-tip