Devlog: Combat, UI Improvements and bugfixes !

Fighter Wing

Snap1474First of all, a big thank you to the fine folks at the Bay12 (Dwarf Fortress) forums ! Your help has been invaluable. If you want a pick at the Unending Galaxy’s topic it’s here.

Anyway, as we are slowly but surely closing in on the final release, I have been reviewing each feature one by one in order to make it whole. There’s still a lot of ground to cover but we’re getting there. I also improved how ships act in battle in quite a major way. Next beta should be available in roughly 2 weeks, barring any IRL issues.

Let’s get down to it, shall we ?

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Devlog: Free Traders, code optimization and stuff

Snap1427Hi guys !

My apologies for the delayed update, life got in the way and it’s likely that next week will be problematic as well. When I have to make a choice between coding and writing here, I favor the former. So don’t get alarmed by the erratic schedule, development goes on as usual.

Anyway, I made a fair bit of progress toward the release of the Beta 3 with a massive performance and stability boost, the new “free trading” AI module for your ships and multiple smaller other changes i made to the game.

Let’s get to it, shall we.

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Devlog: Space critters and Hunting

Snap1216Weekly devlog !

I added a hunting mechanism to the game. When a game starts, a few locations will be selected to spawn small space creatures living in asteroid fields. When killed, they will drop a loot, used by some factories to produce wares that can be traded or used. Right now the creatures are harmless, and it’s only to produce some space rations. But the interesting part is that, in the game, everything that can be built or used is a trade item. So more dangerous creatures (like The Swarm) could very well be used to drop something necessary to the making of specific weapons, shields, or even ships. […]

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Devlog: Solar Systems, UI and Ship Commands

Snap1212It’s time for our weekly development post !

First of all, good news ! The beta version should be released in roughly 2 weeks from now. Needless to say, it will be quite a major improvement over the current alpha with much more things to do, an better user interface, and lots of improvements across the board.

This week, the integration of solar systems in the game’s engine is roughly finished leading to nice names for our sectors and more importantly a police force that won’t be fooled by your ship going in and out of their home-sector. I also improved many parts of the user interface (log, communications and world map mostly), and reviewed the ship setup menu so you give roles to the ships you buy in a less confusing manner. There’s also many minor improvements and fixes.

Enjoy 🙂

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Devlog: Scavengers and passengers (also stats!)

Snap1176Hi, first of all, sorry for the slight delay with this development log.

Anyway, this week focused on adding some gameplay features with new lucrative jobs for both the player and the NPC ships thanks to the introduction of passengers. I also greatly improved the sector map usefulness, added a screen with the statistics of the the various factions over time, added new AI for ships, and many other improvements that will be detailed in this article.

Enjoy 🙂

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Devlog: The Devil is in the Details

Snap18Devlog time !

When programmers say that the last 10% of a task tend to take 90% of the time, they are not kidding. One big exception aside, this week’s changes are mostly details, some big, some small, but all needed in a way or another.

I divided my free time between improving the user interface, adding the ability to customize your faction (as quickly explained last week), fixing a few limitations of the rendering system and further balancing the in-game weapons.

On a side note, I also fought against a massive spam bot invasion on most parts of the website. It’s under control now, but it is fairly unusual to see such stubbornness from a single spammer (as far as I can tell) against a fairly low traffic website like mine.

As usual, the full article will explain those improvements into details. Enjoy !

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