Enough patching and bugfixing, let’s get to the good stuff!
Here’s what we’ve been working on between bug reports. We hope you find these additions exciting, and consider the possibilities as we work on even more. Keep in mind we do this on our nights and weekends, not as a full-time gig – we’d love to have even more, but this is a pretty good start
Currently Planned for next update (Subject to Change, No Promises, Guarantees or Warranties!):
Doors!
Not just any old boring door either. We’ll be implementing a style of door that is retractable and can be scaled. It will not require any specific rotation or axis, so it will be possible to have horizontal or vertical sliding doors, interlocking “toothed” doors, as well as access panels and single-block hatches – they can be on the floor, in the ceiling, or well, wherever. They could even be conceived as a retractable bridge, or collapsing walls. They’ll really be up to your imagination, and they’ll be … well … awesome.
Switches and Conduit.
Starting with Doors, Switches will be used to activate adjacent doorframes, or can send a signal down Conduit blocks which transmit over a distance according to the switch. This also paves the way for Power Grids (though not in the current update) which will answer some of the questions such as “why are solar panels creating so much energy?!” Yeah, those Cores and Forges and Relays are supposed to require power
The CentriForge will have a ‘tabbed’ list for item creation.
Gear will take damage, and there will be a Repair screen in the CentriForge for fixing it.
There will also be a Reclaim screen in the CentriForge , which will let you destroy/recycle items for some of the materials back.
Game Engine
The Voxmill engine will have received its first major overhaul, freeing up about 50% of the memory usage from before, paving the way for future updates to start adding things like fluids and air pressure.
Here are a few more things that will likely be included, but have a little more “maybe” to them (we need time to playtest how they affect the game):
“Special” actions related to Gear
Gear items, such as boots, helmets and suit may now have special actions associated with them. The Grav Boots are an excellent example of this (already implemented). We hope to extend this feature by adding Zoom capability to Helmets (later other vision enhancements) and Thruster/Jet Packs to either the Backpack or the Suit. Prototypes are already in, these are in heavy testing.
Difficulty Levels
For those who want to turn up the heat and make the game harder, a mode or two to enhance hardship. Probably a Hardcore mode as well (permadeath).
Keep in mind this is what we’ve managed to do while in the midst of fixing and closing out two patches worth of bugs. If the game continues to grow and do well, we can continue with our bigger and more important update plans. Please continue to spread the word, as the game needs to thrive for us to get to even bigger and better future updates!