Shapez 2 will have a booth at PAX East in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center from May 8 - 11. Come check us out at booth 19098. You'll be able to try the game (if you haven't already) and get your hands on some exclusive merch! As a little teaser, here is what we have cooking for you. These magnet fidget toys will be available on a pre-order basis after PAX East, once we've had time to refine the design and logistics. More details to come soon!


See you there :)

[ 2025-04-24 12:00:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey there! We can finally reveal what we've been working on these past few months! Because we've partnered exclusively with Triple-i to bring you this news, we couldn't share it in advance as we usually do.

TL;DR: The next BIG shapez 2 update will be released on June 2nd. Save the date!

(Challenge: Can you spot the 22 new features/changes we've hidden in this trailer? Let us know in the comments!) [previewyoutube=MsshYSelka8;full][/previewyoutube] On the bad side, we suffered from massive scope creep for this update, which caused it to take much longer than originally expected. On the good side, it means this update is HUGE. Let's take a look at what's coming :)

Dimension Update Contents

3D Platform Building

This one's a biggie. You will be able to build platforms, rails, space belts, and space pipes on multiple levels, just like buildings! This means that our already infinite game is (somehow) getting even bigger. We thought it made a lot of sense, as you learn 3D construction with normal buildings, then move on to platforms and suddenly it's 2D again. This way, there's a whole new axis to play with, allowing you to build bigger, more compact, and more efficient factories.
The controls work similarly to normal buildings - in fact, we refactored the placement so that the building and platform placement share almost the same code. This means that Q/E works just as expected in platform mode, and so on.
We can't wait to see what kind of spaghetti you will make with this (although we can't condone inefficiency...).

Trains Rework

We have reworked the trains, both functionally and visually! Here are some of the changes we've made.

Visual Rework

Trains and rails have been completely redesigned visually!

Transfer Stations

This new buidling will allow you to transfer shapes and fluids from one wagon to another almost instantly, without having to unload and reload them!

Quick and Wait Stops

There are now two types of train stop that allow you to customise the behaviour of your trains. A quick stop will only stop a train if it can load or unload something immediately. At a wait stop, a train will wait for up to 30 seconds. Trains are also much smarter now, so they will not stop or continue waiting at stop if, for example, they are already full.

Unloader Configuration

You can now configure which layers a train unloader should unload. This also works well with the new quick/wait station logic.

Smaller Packages

Instead of having one package per layer, which gets larger as you upgrade your research (and therefore takes longer to accumulate and load, slowing throughput), you can now have multiple packets per wagon layer. These packs have a fixed size (currently 180 shapes / 1800 Liters) and instead you upgrade "Packages per layer".

More Train Colors

We have added 3 new train colours to unlock, bringing the total to 7.

Variable Belt Launchers (+ Pipes & Wires)

Belt launchers, fluid launchers, and wire transmitters now have a variable range, allowing you to densify your layouts even more!
This also means you can now much more easily cross a belt (in fact, it happens automatically if you drag 'over' it):

Faster Space Belts

Right now, many of the advanced factories look like this:
However, this is not what we intended. We wanted the platforms to feel more like buildings - i.e. 4-6 per space belt. With these highly condensed platforms, processing 12 belts at a time, it ended up being more like a 1:1 ratio in the late game. We've increased the throughput (not the speed!) of the space belts by 400%, which means you can now carry 4 times as many forms on them as before, building more like this:

Overflow Splitter

We have added a new version of the splitter that prioritises one output, and only outputs to the other side if the output stalls.

Searching Shapes

You can now search for specific shapes on the map! No more searching endlessly in infinite space.

New Platform Layouts

We have added the old T, Cross and L platform layouts along with some new ones!

UI Improvements

You can now see the operator shapes on the main screen:
We have also reorganised the shop into categories:
You can now also see the contents of a wire under your cursor:
And we have made the throughput of buildings such as the cutter and stacker clearer:
Also global wire transmitters / receivers now have 2 inputs - one for the ID, one for the signal, so you have almost unlimited channels now. In addition, you can now use the TAB key to toggle buttons under the cursor, and speaking of the cursor, there is now a 'Zoom to Cursor' setting (disabled by default).

Other

The above are just the big changes. There are so many smaller changes, fixes, and improvements that it would be impossible to list them all here. Please also note that we are still finalising this update, so some things might still change.

Note on savegame and blueprint compatibility

Savegames from 0.0.9-rc7 (the current version) are partially compatible, but might load with issues (i.e. Tunnels will be gone etc.). Savegames from previous versions (i.e. if you played on 0.0.8) are unfortunately not compatible, but we will make the current version of the game available as a branch on steam, so you can continue playing. Loading an old game into 0.0.9 and then into this update should make it load (with issues). However, I strongly recommend that you consider starting a new playthrough with all these changes to get the most out of this update (have you tried hexagonal yet?), rather than fixing your existing factories. There are so many new ways to be efficient now! Thank you for your continued support (and patience), and see you on June 2nd! ~Tobias

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[ 2025-04-10 16:10:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Big news - shapez 2 will be part of the Triple-i Initiative on April 10th, at 6pm CEST / 9am PDT. Be sure to save the date! It'll be 45 ad-free minutes of announcements from 30+ games from other studios like us - with world premieres, gameplay reveals, launch dates, and more. Check out the Triple-i website for more information. We are revealing the contents of the first major update for shapez 2, which is really MASSIVE. Prepare for a full new playthrough with all the new stuff - we can't spoil it yet unfortunately, but I guarantee you that it'll be worth the wait :) I also wanted to use the opportunity to apologize that it took us so long to come up with the update. We suffered massive scope creep, had to refactor a lot of technical debt and our own high quality standards definitely didn't help either. We hadn't really adjusted to the fact that it's a released game now, so we used to plan "We want feature X, Y, and Z and how long will it take us?" whereas now we are shifting more into a "The next update should be in 6 months, what can we achieve in that time?". With that shift in mindset and improved processes, as well as a bigger team - we hope that we can ship updates at least a bit more often :) Thank you for your continued support and see you on April 10 for the reveal! It'll be streamed on YouTube, Twitch and right here on Steam. Check out the trailer to get a taste of what's coming: [previewyoutube=zWldd4HloWk;full][/previewyoutube] See you there :) ~Tobias

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[ 2025-03-26 15:00:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Development on Shapez 2 is moving forward, and today we're excited to share a little progress update on what the team has been working on. Bear in mind, that this is a work in progress, and nothing below has been released yet. While we have some huge changes planned for the next Update, we can't spoil those yet, however, there are a few other improvements we already wanted to show you. Lets dive in!

News

QA Hiring status

We are happy to announce that we have expanded our Quality Assurance / Game Testing with a new team member to help us out with processing all your feedback and getting that feedback into the game. This process is still ongoing and still faces a bit of a delay, so please bear with us when reporting a bug or giving us feedback in the Steam forums. [hr][/hr]

Devlog 029 Progress Update

Balancing

• The tutorial has been completely reworked to be much shorter, getting new players into the action faster while learning all essential mechanics without unnecessary complexity.

Quality of Life & UI Improvements

• Shape Previews now indicate immediately whether a shape is correct if delivered to the Vortex.
  
• Operator Level goals are now displayed in the top bar of the main UI.
  
• Players can now claim their Operator Badge during the tutorial, which will also be displayed in the main menu.
• Added a small animation when unlocking research, making progress feel more rewarding.
• The Continue button now displays the name of the current savegame, making it easier to keep track of your progress.
  
• A changelog button has also been added to the main menu, making it easy to check the latest updates.
• Added Zoom to Cursor feature, which allows you to zoom in exactly where your cursor is pointing. This setting will be disabled by default and can be enabled in the options menu.
  
• Added the ability to filter shapes on the map, allowing players to search and highlight specific shape asteroids, making it easier to locate required resources.
  
• Map markers will now move immediately when clicking Move, preventing confusion when relocating markers.
• Added wire tooltip to show the current signal when hovering your mouse over any wire.
  
• Added a hotkey (TAB) to quickly toggle wire buttons under the cursor, making wiring adjustments more convenient.
• Improved Fluid Launcher display, to communicate throughput limitations better.
• Added new images to the Cutter, Stacker, and Swapper panels to clearly display their throughput limits.
  
• Updated player level ranking statistics based on the latest data.

Visual & Graphical Improvements

• Added a new shader for wire transmitters, giving them a sleek new look.
  
• Blockers have been added to locked vortex inputs, ensuring clearer interactions.
  
• The conflict indicators for belts and pipes have been updated to make them more intuitive.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed global transmitter/receiver not displaying uncolored channels properly.
• Fixed belt lift tutorial sometimes appearing too late, causing frustration.
• Fixed blueprint folders allowing invalid Windows names like "CON" and "NUL".
• Fixed compass shape not updating when changing color mode.
• Fixed map markers turning gray when changing color mode.
• Fixed colorblind patterns missing from shape resource visualization.
• Fixed belt & pipe stand alignment issuesthey should now be symmetrical.
• Fixed multiple simulation-related issues for improved stability.
• Fixed Jump to Vortex not jumping to the actual center.
• Fixed shape resource previews disabling at large distances from the vortex.
• Fixed white fluid asteroids appearing gray.
• Fixed unlock notifications not displaying tasks/upgrades correctly.
• Fixed misleading wording in milestone unlock notifications.
• Fixed train upgrades not appearing correctly in the tutorial.

[hr][/hr]

Whats Next?

As always, your feedback is crucial in shaping the games future! We cant wait to hear your thoughts on these changes and see the incredible factories you build. Stay tuned for more updates, and happy building! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 Team

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[ 2025-02-20 15:12:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! We're still working on the first major update for shapez 2, Update 0.1.0. While development is going ahead just fine, we're not quite ready to show what exactly we're working on. Though if you haven't already, be sure to check out the devlog about the new game mode planned for this update: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4520017657931497493 Today, Max will take you through the process of the Space Belt redesign of Update 0.0.9. Space Belts became quite a visual highlight in shapez 2, so let's have a look at how the new design came to be!

News

QA Hiring status

Last year we started looking for someone working in Quality Assurance / Game Testing to help us out with processing all your feedback and getting that feedback into the game. Some of you reading this may also have applied! This process is still ongoing and faced a bit of a delay. We're aiming to have the new QA start sometime in February, so please bear with us and have a bit of patience when reporting a bug or giving us feedback in the Steam forums. [hr][/hr]

Devlog 028

As a concept artist, you always need to decide between creating something cool and creating something cool that also actually works. Forshapez 2, it's almost always the latter. Space Belts were one of the most common topics in the feedback we got. They did not clearly communicate their functionality and didn't show what was being carried on the belt. One of the biggest problems was that it was unclear Space Belts had different layers and shapes also needed to be retrieved on the layer they were supplied at. This created a lot of bug reports by people who couldn't unload their belts, while attempting to do so on the wrong layer.
Old Space Belts
New Space Belts For an artist, it's usually easier to focus on creating something that looks visually appealing. When it comes to designing something that is both functional and aesthetically striking however, it becomes significantly more challenging. It needs to work, make sense, look good and fit the shapez 2 identity. Considering the feedback we got, visual clarity was top priority with the redesign.

Getting started

A project like this is started with a lot of discussion and brainstorming. The game design team plays a crucial role here, making sure the functionality is clearly defined from the outset. This ensures I know exactly what I shouldnt overload with visual noise and what elements need to immediately catch your eye.
One of the first tests clearly created too much visual noise Once the functional elements are locked in, it's all about research. You need to explore a variety of genres, gather inspiration from diverse designs and let fresh ideas flow into your mind while trying to stay true to the unique style of the game. Only when all that groundwork is done you can finally pick up the digital brush and start painting; it's time for the fun part!

Creating a concept

After narrowing down the numerous sketches to just a few and refining them, it was time for a sync with the development department. Together, we carefully reviewed the designs and brainstormed the key challenges the new system needed to address. For example, how the shapes would change lanes without intersecting or creating excessive visual clutter when crossing paths, and how to ensure smooth transitions while maintaining clarity.
Early Concept Art Through collaboration, we were able to find a solution that not only met all of our functional requirements but was also something the development team could easily implement with code. The result was a design that balanced both aesthetic appeal and technical feasibility.

The art team created a mock up to give the community a glimpse of how the space belts might look in-game once completed. The goal was to gather player feedback before committing to further work on the design. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and after considering some of the suggestions from the community, we moved forward with refining the concepts and finalizing the design.
Detailed concept for a straight segment of the Space belts One might think that was the end of the concept art part; and you'd be wrong. Space Belts are more than just straight lines: they can twist, turn, merge, split and even extend under platforms. You likely already know where this is going, but each of these variations require its own unique asset, attached with specific designs and challenges.

From Sketches to Updates

With a new art workflow essentially how we handle the process of turning a sketch into the final 3D mesh we gradually developed every variant over time. This process is far from linear and involves constant collaboration and discussions between 2D/Art Director and 3D Modelling. Some parts often needed adjustments, and occasionally we overlooked certain edge cases (trust me, we definitely did). One example: The tunnel had no mesh solution when placed without being connected to anything. It looked broken and a new concept needed to be done.
Space Belts are an incredibly complex system. In fact, we went through countless iterations on even the smallest components, only to end up discarding many of them later.


As you can see, being a concept artist in a small company of just nine people isnt all about painting pretty pictures. Its also about using your brainpower to solve problems, and maybe preserving a bit of your sanity along the way. Just a bit, though. In the end, the result turned out quite promising. Personally, I believe it enhanced both aspects: visual and functionality. It clearly shows what it's doing and how it would realistically work if we weren't building sci-fi space factories. You can now understand the Space Belt at a glance! This alone makes me happy, but seeing the positive response from the community takes it to another level its incredibly rewarding as an artist. [hr][/hr] I hope this brief glimpse gave you some interesting insights into how we approach the art process in our company. ~ Max & the shapez 2 Team

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[ 2025-01-30 14:00:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Update 0.0.9 is now available, which introduces a lot of the improvements and changes we mentioned in the past couple months! Most of you will see some major performance improvements, especially if the reason for poor performance was the game only using a single core of your many-core AMD processor. Our focus now shifts to the first major update of shapez 2: Update 0.1.0, set for early 2025. While 0.0.9 already includes a fair amount of the feedback you gave us, we have big plans for 0.1.0. This will be an update you'll want to come back for! If Update 0.0.9 doesn't download automatically, be sure to restart Steam. It should show '0.0.9-rc6' in the lower right of the main menu.

Changelog

Highlights

• Multithreading support: Support for multi-threaded simulation (enabled by default) for up to 40x improved simulation performance depending on hardware. For more information on this topic, check out our previous devlog:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4469355336712585838

• New Space Belt visuals: Reworked Space Belt visuals to more clearly show the layers of Space Belts and what shapes are transported on which layer. Space Pipes get the same visuals but with a cyan hue as a placeholder; their proper visuals are still being worked on.

Gameplay

• Wires signals are now stable, even when off-screen
• Added the Statistics Panel, which shows delivery statistics and structure counts

• Added Shape Multiplier Upgrades, allowing you to spend excess Research Points to multiply the delivery of a shape
  • For example, delivering a shape would count as delivering 2 of that specific shape towards your goal. This is a very late-game option mostly for Operator levels
• New Platforms: 1x3 and 2x3 platforms (replacing T- L- and Cross platforms)
  • Old platforms will continue to work and can be copy/pasted, but are no longer in the toolbar. (Edit: They will be back in the toolbar for Update 1)

• Automatic completion of random operator levels
• Fluid miner extensions are now unlocked by default
• Improved autosave speed by utilizing multiple cores.
• Labels now support special characters, numbers and multi-line text
  • Some characters may not be fully supported yet, so be sure to poke us with suggestions!

Game Design

• Added space belts + pipes to the train toolbar

• Added hotkey (default 'N') to reset the camera to point North again

Visual

• Improved game creation flow to highlight the alternative game modes (hexagonal / hard / insane)

Bug fixes

• Fixed various simulation precision issues (esp. off-screen)
• Fixed random operator level shape generation
• Fixed comparison gate not being mirrorable
• Fixed blueprint icon being overridden with save-as
• Fixed blueprint toolbar configuration not synced via steam cloud
• Fixed ability to create infinite paint by mixing tertiary/secondary with primary colors
  • Edit: This fix changed some color mixing recipes. Certain 0.0.8 color mixing setups may output a different color in 0.0.9
• Fixed various number formatting issues
• Fixed performance issues when using trashes as decorations
• Fixed Intel Arc(TM) GPUs being detected as low-end
• Fixed escape sequences breaking blueprint names
• Fixed empty markers showing broken tooltip
• Fixed rail twisters breaking train line preview
• Fixed train (un)loaders not showing progress on lower graphics quality
• Fixed debug.export-game-data not working
• Fixed wire simulation not behaving as expected
• Fixed belt filters dropping items when switching signals quickly
• Fixed automatic tunnel placement not working as expected with train stops
• Fixed various visual issues
• Fixed rail twisters breaking train line indicators
• Lots of other minor bug fixes and improvements!

Known issue

• Enabling "Parallel Rendering" in the game settings can significantly boost the performance even further, but some players reported encountering some stuttering, so it's disabled by default.

[hr][/hr]

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[ 2024-12-12 10:26:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! We got a lot of feedback on the performance on of shapez 2 since the Early Access launch. There are a couple of areas where significant improvements could be made. A portion of these including multithreading will arrive with Update 0.0.9, which is set to go live after a short period on the experimental branch. If you're interesting in being part of this process, be sure to join our Discord to try it right now! For today, Nicko will walk you through how the simulation in shapez 2 currently works and some of the improvements we're working on! It's quite a technical blog, but hopefully the images will help you visualize everything. But first, some news!

News

Steam Awards

The Autumn Sale brought along the annual Steam Awards! Be sure to vote for your favorite games from this year, though we'd like to recommend shapez 2 for no particular reason. You can vote for shapez 2 as many times as you want, in any category besides Labor of Love. The Sit Back and Relax reward is a great fit, alongside Game of the Year of course!

Cast your votes here!

Bundle Sale

We've partnered up with Youthcat Studio and Gamirror Games to bring you the Automation Pipeline Master bundle, giving you a 10% discount on shapez 2 and Dyson Sphere Program! Whether you already own one of the games or still have both of them on your wishlist, you can expand your library and try two different takes on factory building in space. Keep in mind, the 10% bundle discount stacks with any other discounts! During the Autumn Sale, shapez 2 is 25% off, Dyson Sphere Program is 20% off and you get an additional 10% off through the bundle, marking the lowest price yet for both games. The bundle is available until December 4th, 2024! https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46765/Automation_Pipeline_Master/

Disclaimer

As per usual, everything in this devlog is subject to change and things may end up working out differently than expected! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 027

In shapez 2, the core gameplay is quite simple: The player places a building and then it starts working. However, quite some effort is necessary to make all the buildings that are placed work together as the player expects. Besides the pure functionality of a factory, performance is a key element for shapez 2. The goal has always been to enable the player to build massive factories, in an enjoyable way. From a technical point of view, this means that shapez 2 must be capable of simulation millions of buildings while maintaining a stable framerate and must react fluently when the players make changes to their factories. We will first have a look at the state of development when the shapez 2 Demo was released, then the state of development of the current shapez 2 Early Access version, and finally the improvements with the upcoming 0.0.9 and 0.1.0 release. Lets go!

Past

During the development of the shapez 2 Demo, we focused on precise functionality and a sustainable way to create new buildings quickly. This time was not about scale, but to implement a solid basis which we can easily improve later.

Basics

All buildings are assembled from common components like belts, pipes, and fluid containers. In addition, most buildings also have some custom simulation logic. For example, the Rotator consists of three successive belt lanes. The input lane on the left and the output lane on the right are visualized as conveyors and will just move shapes forward. The processing lane at the center is visualized as a circle. It has a length of zero and does not move the shape. Instead, it contains the custom simulation logic that performs the rotation of the shape.

Connections

Each building also defines input and output connectors. For example, the entry to the Rotators first belt lane is defined as its input connector, and the exit of its last belt lane is defined as its output connector.
Whenever a building is placed, we check if adjacent buildings have compatible connectors at the same edge. If we find a compatible connector, we connect the two buildings.
In the example, the incoming Conveyor on the left will hand over shapes to the Rotator, as soon as they reach the end of the conveyors belt lane. The Rotator will hand over shapes to the outgoing Conveyor when they reach the end of the Rotators output belt lane.

Update Order

When the simulation is updated, it will move forward all shapes on any belt lanes in the factory. To move a shape forward, there must be enough space in front. However, on a full belt, there is no logical space between the shapes, even though we render the shapes with a gap for visual clarity.
In the example, you see five shapes and their respective, logical size. None of the shapes could be moved forward because there no space in front of them. To be able to move the shapes forward anyway, we must update the buildings and their components in the right order. Therefore we start updating at the end and finish updating at the start of a shapes path. This usually means that we move the shapes at the entrance to the Vortex first and the shapes at the Extractors last. For instance, the Conveyor at Rotators output is updated before the Rotator. The Rotator then updates its output, processing, and input lanes - in this order. Finally, the Conveyor at the Rotators input is updated after the Rotator.
With these requirements, we can compute an optimal update order for any setup of buildings.
If you're interested in learning more about our early optimization efforts, be sure to check out Devlog 011! https://steamcommunity.com/games/2162800/announcements/detail/3710460746137286715

Present

During the development of the shapes 2 Early Access version we focused on scale. We had to improve the performance of a running factory and improve the performance when players make changes to their factory. We also had to find solutions for some special requirements. At the release of the shapez 2 Demo, controlling the Belt Launchers and Belt Catchers was one of the biggest issues. Unlike the other buildings, they had to behave differently depending on the 'constellation' the relative positioning of the buildings. Binding the custom simulation logic directly to a building did not work out well in these cases.

Pattern Matching

For the Early Access, we introduced pattern matching to decide which simulation logic is applied to each building. This means, that whenever a building is placed, we can first check the buildings surroundings and then decide on one of multiple available custom simulation logic. We can also aggregate multiple buildings into a single simulation logic. This grants precise control of building behaviors in different constellations and opportunities for performance optimizations. As an example, a Belt Launcher without a corresponding Belt Catcher results in a simulation logic that blocks incoming shapes. A Belt catcher without a corresponding Belt Launcher results in a simulation logic that doesnt do anything. Only a Belt Launcher with a matching Belt Catcher results in a single simulation logic for both buildings together, capable of throwing shapes from one building to the other.
We can also make use of pattern matching to improve performance. For example, we now aggregate all directly connected Conveyors into a single simulation logic. This reduces the required computations dramatically.

Update Graph

Whenever buildings are added or removed, the update order has to be recomputed. This is a very expensive process. So we searched for a way to reduce this effort. For Early Access, we no longer compute the update order directly. Instead, we maintain a directed graph of simulation logic that determines the update order. This is much faster, as we usually only need to attach or detach a single node to the graph. More expensive computations are necessary only when the player makes big changes to the graph, like placing a big blueprint.
In the example, you can see how the connections between the simulation logic of of all placed buildings create a graph.

Clusters

Another benefit of a graph is that we can identify isolated subgraphs. These are parts of the graph that are not connected to other parts of the graph.
In the example, you can see that the Update Graph consists of three isolated subgraphs (blue, red, and green). To visualize a subgraph while playing, select a building and press the Select Connected hotkey O. For shapez 2, we move these subgraphs into structures we call clusters. We can benefit from these Clusters in multiple ways. First, even if we need to recompute an Update Order completely, we only need to do it for one cluster ignoring all other clusters. This especially improves the flow of the game when you place bigger blueprints. We can now also define an individual update behavior for each single cluster. Update Frequency Before introducing the clusters, we updated each simulation logic in every frame.
With the introduction of clusters, we dont do this anymore. Clusters that are far away receive an update only every few frames. And clusters that are out of view are updated only three times per second.
During the endgame of shapez 2, players currently easily place up to 500.000 buildings in their factories, resulting in several thousand clusters. Only the handful of buildings in view must be updated every frame, allowing the Early Access version to support about 20 times bigger factories than in the Demo version.

Future

Heading towards shapez 2 Update 1, we will further improve the performance of the game to finally support truly massive factories. The 0.0.9 release set to come very soon will give you a taste of the future scale of shapez 2. Here are some of the things included in the update: In the general settings menu, you will find two additional settings in the simulation section that enable new performance features.

Simulation Threads

Clusters dont interfere with other clusters during their update. This means we can make use of all available CPU cores and update multiple clusters at the same time.
In the example above, you can see how using a second core already improves the simulation performance by 100%. Depending on your hardware and the number of other processes running on your computer while playing shapez 2, this can speed up the simulation update by up to 2000%. AMD CPUs especially should see big improvements, as they tend to have a lot of cores. Again, join our Discord if you'd like to try this update earlier ;)

Parallel Rendering

During the games update loop, we need to do several things. By far the most expensive are the simulation update and the rendering.
Already during the development of the shapez 2 Demo, we decoupled the actual rendering from the gathering of all the information for the rendering. Therefore, the rendering is already decoupled from the simulation update. This made it a relatively small step to do the simulation update in parallel to the rendering. Depending on your hardware setup, this may double your performance as well.
[hr][/hr] We hope you enjoyed this devlog and maybe even learned something new! Soon, some of these changes will go live and hopefully give you a significant boost in performance. See you then! ~ Nicko & the shapez 2 Team

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[ 2024-11-28 15:30:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Done building your space factory and looking to harness the power of the stars? Need a break from spoiling resources? Well, we may have a deal for you! We've partnered up with Youthcat Studio and Gamirror Games to bring you the Automation Pipeline Master bundle, giving you a 10% discount on shapez 2 and Dyson Sphere Program! Whether you already own one of the games or still have both of them on your wishlist, you can expand your library and try two different takes on factory building in space. Keep in mind, the 10% bundle discount stacks with any other discounts! During the Autumn Sale, shapez 2 is 25% off, Dyson Sphere Program is 20% off and you get an additional 10% off through the bundle, marking the lowest price yet for both games.

Find the bundle here:

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/46765/Automation_Pipeline_Master/

About Dyson Sphere Program

Dyson Sphere Program is an open world automation game about expanding your factory across the universe! Start with a humble production plant on a single planet, expand to other planets with unique ecosystems and harness the power of your local star with a massive Dyson Sphere of your own design. Explore the universe in search of rare resources and power everything with even more potent stars! However, you're not alone: the Dark Fog does not appreciate you expanding across "their" domain and will do everything possible to get rid of you. [hr][/hr]

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[ 2024-11-27 17:59:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Been meaning to pick up shapez 2, or just missed out on the launch discount? You can now pick up the game with 25% off, the deepest discount so far! Discount is available until November 25th. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2024-11-11 18:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! It's been quite a while since the last proper devlog! We haven't been sitting idle though [spoiler](we've been playing Factorio)[/spoiler] and we want to show you what we're currently working on. While we're preparing Update 0.0.9 which will introduce new Space Belt visuals, multithreading and more later this year we're also working on Update 1 (0.1.0) for early next year already. We want this first big update to be meaningful and improve a few fundamental areas of the game based on the feedback you gave us since the Early Access launch of shapez 2.

News

We are hiring!

We're currently looking for someone working in Quality Assurance / Game Testing. If you'd love to work on shapez 2 with us, be sure to check out the position: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4057601157

Disclaimer

Pretty much everything in this devlog is subject to change. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on what you're about to read, but don't grow too attached to the visuals or get stuck on the details! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 026

One of the most common criticisms shapez 2 currently gets is that factories can't be reused enough, especially when it comes to side tasks. Simply erasing large portions of your factory is quite a valid option to free up space as you likely won't need to rebuild it for something. This makes the game sometimes feel too puzzle-ish and takes away a lot from the automation and logistics parts you'd expect from a factory automation game. Instead, we want to make sure there's a good balance between both, without getting rid of the current game a lot of you really do enjoy. That's how we came to create a new game mode that introduces a whole new system that ensures your factories remain relevant, even in the late game. You can still choose to demolish (parts of) your factories, but you'll do so to improve and/or move it and not because it became useless. While we are prototyping this as a secondary game mode, it may have the potential to become the new default game mode. However, it's still too early to decide that yet and we'll only do that after intense testing, which you'll be able to participate in if it comes to it. Though do keep in mind that at this stage we can't even say if it will actually make it into the game to begin with.

How it works

The new game mode concept introduces an entirely new research system. Instead of a research tree, there are now platforms that you can place called Converters, with 8 different tiers. The Converter packages the shapes you feed into it and loads them into a rocket that will fly to your home planet. It will 'trade in' the shapes and return with new shapes.
Tier 1 Converter You'll be tasked with delivering a shape with parts you cannot produce in any way, aside from with a Converter. To get the Converter to fetch what you need, it requires another shape, which you can produce normally. Essentially, the Converter is a 'building' at platform level that performs a fixed operation: input shape A to get shape B at a limited throughput, which you need to advance.
Imagine the red circle part to be a shape part that you can not produce otherwise. Higher tier Converters are larger and require multiple shapes at once, but will also return more valuable ones to you. The shapes these higher tier Converters require are from previous tiers, so you'll slowly be upscaling your factory. As an example, the Tier 4 Converter below requires three different shapes at once.
Tier 4 Converter These Converters serve as a reduction mechanic. Take the example below: you need 2 quarters of the special red shape part you got from a Tier 1 converter. So to fully satisfy a Tier 2 Converter, you'll need two Tier 1 Converters to produce the shape it needs, plus some other, regular shapes.
This reduction mechanic is similar to other games, where you need multiple of one resource to produce on of another resource, which leads to a tiered structure of shapes (4 Iron Ore -> 2 Iron Bars -> 1 Iron Thingamabob). A full belt of end-game Tier 8 shapes could require a hundred or more full belts of shapes needing Tiers 1 through 7. Or, to visualize, an easier example:
We have a few concepts for higher tier Converters. These continue to grow in size and the amount of different shapes they need before they'll fetch that coveted special shape for you. Connecting and supplying them at scale since youll need many of them is a challenge on its own and we hope it will improve the logistics aspect of the game. Since you still need to supply the extra shapes and process the outputs of the converters, this game mode would keep what makes shapez unique: creating shapes without fixed recipes.
Tier 1, 4, 6 & 7 Converters

The Goal

Now that you know what this new game mode would like, you may be wondering what the ultimate goal you're working towards is and how it would be integrated into the research system. Our current idea would be to replace the current research tree. Instead, you'll be working through tiers. Completing a tier requires you to deliver an amount of the required shape, either to the Vortex or Converters (we don't know yet). The next tier will unlock new mechanics (trains, fluids, etc.) and the next Converter tier. Research points still exist to unlock speed upgrades and optional buildings but we haven't figured out yet how they would be generated. Maybe your home planet will include some points in deliveries as a gift? Operator levels will be moved to the end game, with the shape you get from the tier 8 Converter being required to level up. This would be the infinite end game challenge yourself to make as many tier 8 shapes per minute as you can. Random shapes may also make a return to keep Make-Anything-Machines viable. We also have some ideas for a Prestige system for speed upgrades. Once maxed, you would be able to reset the upgrades (going from 180/s to 60/s), but every shape is worth three times as much. You can then upgrade speeds again, reset and so forth for practically infinitely increasing belt speed as long as you have research points to spend. [hr][/hr] So this devlog is still full of woulds, coulds, what ifs and even some maybes. These ideas are still all in the concept stage and we're pitching them to you to see what you think. We'll continue to prototype to gather more insights, but would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on everything. This would let us know whether we may be on to something or we need to reconsider. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 Team

Join the community:

Discord Reddit Suggestions Portal X / Twitter YouTube https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2024-10-24 13:01:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! The Early Access launch of shapez 2 went exceedingly well, so to celebrate the first month we thought it'd be fun to share some stats and share what we are already working on behind the scenes! PS: Be sure to also check out the new content at the bottom of this post!

Early Access Launch Statistics

Sales & Player counts

In total, shapez 2 sold 273.000 units within the first month. Compared to our projection of 90.000 units, we were completely overwhelmed and surprised by the response and success of the game! Putting this into context, with all games released in the past 3 years on Steam that are tagged as 'Automation', removing the non-factory related games and use the review count as an indicator of copies sold, this means shapez 2 already surpassed all factory games released within the past 3 years, within just a month. It also has the highest review score out of theses with 98.5% positive reviews (!). As we are automation game fans ourselves and really enjoy those other amazing games, this really feels a bit surreal.
Games tagged 'Automation' (top 5 tags) and initially released on Steam within the past 3 years, ordered by review count. A few days after launch, we hit the milestone of 18,806 concurrent players, and 79,119 daily active users!
Out of these players, 2.9% were playing on macOS and 1.9% on Linux. Unfortunately, it seems that Linux players had by far the most issues on launch, with sound problems and some crashes that could be resolved with an Unity update in version 0.0.8 eventually. As we already stated in a previous devlog, we chose to cut the game length a bit in order to be able to deliver a more polished product on release. Still, we are very satisfied with the average playtime of almost 20 hours, as we expect that to grow a lot over time and with future updates!

Community Stats

Here's a little insight into the community side as well. It's safe to say there's a lot more of you now! The shapez 2 Discord server almost doubled in size through August, from 16,000 to 30,000! From the release of the game until now, it's up from 19,000 to 32,000. Throughout August, 82,000 messages were sent by 2,000 people (up from 14,700 by 250) and there was 45,000 minutes of voice chatting going on. Sadly Discord analytics is having some issues, so we had to make our own graph. Shout out to one of our mods Loupau38 for the data points!
r/shapezio is booming as well, with the monthly posts going up from 99 to 1,212 and monthly comments from 740 to 8,800! The community got 1,269,000 views and 79,000 unique visits, up from 136,000 and 16,000 respectively.
Back home on Steam, our blogs used to get around 30,000-40,000 impressions and 2,500 reads each. Since the release, there are a lot more of you! The Release blog got 780,000 impressions and 33,000 reads, the Update 0.0.8 blog got 550,000 impressions and 72,000 reads!

Future Plans

The success of shapez 2 so far allows us to expand the company by getting new people on board! Hopefully, this will allow us to more efficiently go through all your feedback and suggestions, as there's a lot of it! We also working to adjust some of the initial plans we had for after the release, as we feel like we can do a lot more with shapez 2 than we initially expected. It's still too early to talk about this though, just know that you shouldn't look back to the plans we outlined before the release as they're likely outdated. However, there's a few things we are already working on that we wanted to give you a sneak preview on!

New Content

We are currently brainstorming how we can introduce new content that justifies starting a new savegame. It's still too early to share details and we are not sure if it'll actually happen, but currently we are thinking about a new game mode that adds a significant twist, like building away from the vortex instead of towards.
(Early draft of a new game mode)

Multithreading

Right now, the game supports roughly up to 500,000 buildings, depending on your setup and factory structure. Some players have pushed the game to its limit already though, building factories with over 1.5 million structures. Currently the simulation and rendering both run on just a single thread. With this change, we are offloading the whole simulation to separate cores. We designed the simulation to work with this constraints, which made it harder to implement, but hopefully pays off now!

Performance improvements on a i7-10700 CPU - From 0.8 FPS to 43.7 FPS As a disclaimer - actual improvements may vary a lot, and other bottlenecks might occur. We also haven't been able to fully test it yet, so it will take a lot of effort to ensure the game runs stable. While we are trying to include it in the next major update, unexpected issues can already arise that force us to push it back. We'll most likely start by rolling out the build to our Patrons once we have a version that seems roughly stable.

New Space Belt Visuals

The art team is currently reworking the space belt (and in the future space pipe) visuals, with the intention to make it more clear that shapes are delivered on separate layers. Here are already some concepts:

Vertical T-Pipes/Wires

Some frequent feedback we got were about the limitations of vertical pipes / wires. Making them more flexible required a huge internal refactoring to support buildings accepting inputs from the top / bottom. We finished a big part of the refactoring this week, and now need to add the actual support for these connections. In practice, this means being able to split a pipe to the side for example that is also going up!

Further Improvements

While we haven't managed to go through all your suggestions & feedback yet, we feel we already have a good initial understanding of the current improvements that could be done, for example a Statistics Page, more train controls, improved space pipe visuals and so on. We will work through these over time and try to include a bunch of them as part of every major update! Be sure to keep suggesting and upvoting them on our Suggestions Portal! [hr][/hr] Thank you for being part of the statistics and we hope you enjoyed this little insight! We'll see you again soon. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 Team

Join the community:

Discord Reddit Suggestions Portal X / Twitter YouTube https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2024-09-16 15:46:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone, We just released update 0.0.8, which includes a bunch of improvements and fixes based on your initial feedback already. Thank you for taking the time to help us out! This does not yet include anything from the Roadmap Survey. We just started going over the 13,000 responses (!) so that will take a while .. If the update doesn't automatically download, be sure to restart steam. It should show '0.0.8-rc3' in lower right of the main menu.

Changelog

General

• Updated Unity version to resolve various issues with DirectX 12, Wayland, sound on Linux and many more.

Balancing & New Content

• Added Pipe Gate, allowing you to control the flow of fluids with logical signals.
• Added Virtual Pin Pusher

Visuals

• Improved train loader / unloader package icon meshes

UI/UX

• Space Belts / Pipes and Train Rails now automatically place tunnels while dragging.

• Added 'Save As' option as well as 'Replace' for an improved blueprint editing workflow

• Added visualizations for Trains.

• Added visualization for map markers in Overview Mode.

• Dragging a Rail towards the Vortex now automatically places a Train Launcher (once unlocked).
• Allow pasting blueprints directly in the library with 'Ctrl + V'.
• Added setting to control animation quality/fps when zooming out.
• Properly display conflict indicators for Rails if blocked by an adjacent Platform.
• Disable research points 'flashing' reminder for 15 minutes when clicking it.
• Added 'Invert Y Axis' option.

Localization

• Improved Bent Stacker description to mention it's faster than the normal Stacker (now you know).
• Fixed inconsistent names between 'Halves Swapper' and 'Swapper' as well as 'Halves Destroyer' vs 'Half Destroyer'.
• Fixed inconsistent wording for Train upgrades.

Bugfixes

• Fixed Space Belts / Pipes sometimes not accepting / delivering items at expected throughput.
• Fixed Train Unloaders producing a small gap when switching packages.
• Fixed Fluid Catcher not transferring fluid to other launcher when the former is on a platform edge.
• Fixed blueprint toolbar not updating when changing folder contents.
• Fixed crash when connecting item producer directly to Trash.
• Fixed research progression statistic showing 100% during tutorial.
• Fixed overriding blueprints with different case not working as expected.
• Fixed invalid Space Pipe throughput display.
• Fixed various pipe/wire path placement issues.
• Fixed Fluid Launchers not always displaying throughput / contents.
• Fixed screenshots being stored in wrong folder, now saved in user pictures folder.
• Fixed some specific space belt loops crashing the game.
• Fixed blueprints drag-n-drop in library not working when folder list was scrollable.
• Fixed rare crash when analytics failed to init.
• Fixed incorrect fluid providing flow.

[hr][/hr]

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[ 2024-08-29 15:17:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! As we mentioned before, we didn't want to start Early Access with a static roadmap. As a developer, it can be easy to focus on things that we think might be super important, but are actually minor while there might be other severe topics that we should look into first! While we are still overwhelmed with the reception of the game as well as the amount of feedback we got (Around 1.700 feedback form responses, 10.000 new discord members, 600 bug reports and over 1000 Suggestions), we thought it would be a good time to now ask what we should prioritize for the next major update!

Roadmap Survey

So, please fill out our first Roadmap Survey:

Fill out the survey here!

The next steps

Currently we are finalizing 0.0.8 and we are aiming for roughly this Thursday or next Tuesday if everything goes as planned (fingers crossed!). It improves blueprint editing, adds auto-tunnel-placement for space belts & rails, marker visualizations & much more! You can already give it a try on the experimental 0.0.8 branch on Steam (although please backup your savegames!).
Automatic Tunnel Placement coming in Update 0.0.8 For the first major update, we want to introduce some bigger changes & content, so it's unlikely we'll finish it this year. Our current prediction would be Q1 2025, so 0.0.8 would probably stay around for a while (unless severe issues arise). We want every major update to make it worth picking up the game again. You can expect every major update to include new content, quality of life improvements as well as bug fixes & performance improvements. We also want to make sure it's exciting enough to pick up the game again; while we plan to add more endgame content, we are also aiming to add new scenarios that let you experience the game in a different way again or new mechanics that add a twist to the game. We are aware that the current shapez 2 experience might be shorter (50-150 hours depending on your playstyle) compared to other long-established factory games. In order to create shapez 2, I had to cut one of these: content, quality or time. To launch shapez 2 within a reasonable time into early access, we decided it's better to focus on creating a very solid baseline for the game that we can then expand for many years. Over the course of time, our goals is to increase the amount of content within the game, until we reach the point were you can just constantly keep playing between the updates. That's it! Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey - We're very excited to see what exactly the roadmap will end up looking like! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 Team

Join the community:

Discord Reddit Suggestions Portal X / Twitter YouTube

[ 2024-08-27 15:54:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you!

The launch has been amazing and the initial reception of the game is far beyond our expectations (over 600 99% positive reviews!!)
This wouldn't have been possible without YOU, our community. Shapez 2 has so much feedback integrated during the two years and it's so amazing developing this game together! Thank you for participating in the surveys, giving constant feedback and playtesting the early builds especially the Patrons, Mods and Community Helpers!) It's something we want to keep doing and we are super excited to push the game even further during early access - this is just the beginning. That being said, I don't want to distract you - the factory must grow!

What's next?

We are going through all the feedback right now (we try to read every post!), which will probably take a few days as new feedback is constantly added. In the meantime, we are already working on 0.0.8 which fixes a few issues and also adds some improvements, like automatic space belt tunnel placement and rail launcher placement. We also are finetuning the space belt visuals to better show on which layer the shapes are, but this might not make it into this update. In about a week we will then run a survey to collect even more feedback, and then in around 2-3 weeks we should be able to put together a first 'roadmap'! Our goal is that the first major update will be really worth picking up the game again (in case you ever stopped)! Based on your ideas we will put together 3 different options for what this major update could be and let you vote! Again, thank you for being here with us. ~ The entire tobspr Games Team [hr][/hr]

Join the community:

Discord Reddit Suggestions Portal X / Twitter YouTube

[ 2024-08-16 12:00:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

It's here! Shapez 2 is officially available!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [previewyoutube=SFoml48FR2M;full][/previewyoutube] Shapez 2 is finally out in Early Access and we couldn't be more excited to see you all play it! We'd like to thank everyone involved with development and of course the community for all your thoughts and feedback. Be sure to share your builds and blueprints through the channels below! We'd love to see what all of you are building :)

What to expect from Early Access

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4357881096234065558

Questions? Check out the FAQ!

Reporting bugs/issues

The best ways to report bugs and issues are through our Discord or the Steam forums: Discord Steam forums

Giving feedback & suggestions

We'd love your feedback on the game after you had the chance to play it for a bit! The best ways are through the Discord or the Suggestions Portal: Discord Suggestions Portal

Connect with us and the community!

X / Twitter YouTube Reddit

[ 2024-08-15 11:00:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Weve shared a lot of information the last couple months, so wed like to recap everything you should know for the Early Access release of shapez 2 tomorrow.

Launch time

What to expect

Last week, Tobias talked you through some of the history of how shapez 2 came to be and what you should expect from Early Access tomorrow and the first few months. Its a fun read so check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4357881096234065558 If you havent seen it yet, be sure to check out the Gameplay Trailer! It gives you a good impression of what shapez 2 is and what content will be in the game tomorrow: [previewyoutube=A9MpsOixJsg;full][/previewyoutube]

Steam Deck Support

Steam Deck won't be officially supported for the Early Access release. The current state is 'okayish' as Steam identifies it as 'Playable'. Keep in mind that the game is not optimized for the Steam Deck and you could run into issues. We do plan to improve Steam Deck compatibility in the future, we'll keep you posted!

Getting the game

Shapez 2 will be available for $24.99 / 23.99 / 19.99 and can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ If you really want to show your support, you can pick up the Supporter Edition! You can either pick it up alongside the base game for $34.99 / 33.49 / 27.99. Want to give shapez 2 a go first? You can always upgrade later. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3075620/shapez_2_Supporter_Edition_Upgrade/ The Supporter Editions purpose is to give you a way to support us further if youd like. We didnt want to let you go empty handed though, so youll get something in return. Included are a Rail Loop & Rail Twister for your trains, 40 minutes of extra in-game music and the full soundtrack will be available for download. You can find the full soundtrack below: [table noborder=1] [tr] [th][/th] [th]Disc 1 (base game)[/th] [th][/th] [th] [/th] [th] [/th] [th]Disc 2 (Supporter Edition)[/th] [th][/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]1[/td] [td]Sphere[/td] [td]1:27[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Prism[/td] [td]5:15[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2[/td] [td]The Vortex LTD[/td] [td]3:32[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Perpetual Motion[/td] [td]3:40[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]3[/td] [td]Operator's Journey[/td] [td]3:32[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Tetrahedron[/td] [td]4:04[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]4[/td] [td]Trains Go Choooo[/td] [td]4:46[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Torus[/td] [td]3:49[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]5[/td] [td]Exploring the Void[/td] [td]3:13[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Icosahedron[/td] [td]3:46[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]6[/td] [td]Endless Shapes[/td] [td]3:44[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Belts Be Massive[/td] [td]3:32[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]7[/td] [td]Dodecahedron[/td] [td]4:09[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Distant Calls[/td] [td]4:26[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]8[/td] [td]MAM[/td] [td]3:20[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Signals[/td] [td]3:31[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]9[/td] [td]CwRwCwCw[/td] [td]3:58[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Merging Matter[/td] [td]4:58[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]10[/td] [td]Cubical Cosmos[/td] [td]4:12[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td]Wired Up[/td] [td]3:15[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]11[/td] [td]Stellar Expanse[/td] [td]3:29[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]12[/td] [td]Deep Space Pyramid[/td] [td]1:10[/td] [td] [/td] [td] [/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [/table] The base game and the Supporter Edition will both have a 20% launch discount for the first two weeks! The Supporter Edition Upgrade DLC will have a 10% discount at launch. A friendly reminder that there are no free or heavily discounted versions or copies of shapez 2 being supplied by us. Be wary of third party vendors claiming otherwise!

Changes to regional pricing

The astute among you may notice that some of these prices are different from what we previously communicated. After the initial announcement, we got a lot of feedback from you with concerns about the price of the game in certain currencies. We made several adjustments based on these conversations, taking account average monthly income and purchasing power (more information here). You can find the up-to-date list of regional pricing here.

Connect with us

There are a couple of ways to connect with us and the community. Discord Our primary channel where you can connect with the community, chat with us, participate in surveys, report bugs and share blueprints. Steam forums Ask questions, give feedback and report bugs on the forums. You can of course use Steams features to upload screenshots, artworks and guides. Suggestions Portal Leave suggestions & feedback here and vote for others' input! Don't use this for reporting bugs. Reddit A shared space with shapez 1 to show your builds & blueprints, ask questions, participate in discussions and connect with the community. YouTube Where the trailers for all our games go. We also share news through the community tab! X (Twitter) Another good place to stay in the loop with what were working on. We share a lot of news and coverage here, and show off screenshots and footage from the game. [hr][/hr] Thats it, youre up to date and ready for tomorrow! Were super excited to finally release the game and we hope youre just as excited as we are. See you then! ~ Jelle & the shapez 2 team

[ 2024-08-14 14:00:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys! Before shapez 2 releases on August 15 (thats less than a week!) I wanted to do a personal post about the history of shapez 2 and what to expect during early access. Weve been super transparent in the development process so far, and thus I thought it would be a great opportunity! This post is a bit longer, but I tried to include a bunch of images and interesting insights! If you'd like to skip to the Early Access expectations part, click here.

TL;DR

• Shapez 2 releases August 15, 13:00 CEST
• It should be polished & enjoyable and basically bug-free
• No roadmap; Instead we will survey after the release what you want us to actually work on
• First update might take a few months

Why shapez 2?

Back in early 2021, I was struggling to come up with new ideas for content and updates in shapez 1. The game loop felt very closed, all new ideas evolved around adding more complex shape mechanics at the end of the game, which would only benefit a fraction of the playerbase. Popular mods like shapez industries did exactly that, but they also heavily modified the early game already, which I didnt want to change (as I felt it was already in a good place - except for blueprints being a bit late). Performance was a frequent complaint, but there was nothing left to optimize. Shapez 1 is written in JavaScript, so its literally just a website. There is no support for efficient rendering, memory management or proper multithreading and the language itself is at least a magnitude slower than C++ or C#. If you look at it from this perspective, its actually quite insane how well the game runs up to a certain scale. These were just a few of the factors that led me to the conclusion to focus on something new, instead of adding more content and features to the first game. Now that shapez had shown huge promise (which, by the way, was totally unexpected!) my goal was to now do it properly with a real engine and build a base that could be expanded for many years. Due to personal reasons it took me a bit longer to actually start, but back in July 2022 I wrote the first line of code for shapez 2, without any clue how itd eventually turn out.

Researching

As during that time a lot of sequels couldnt deliver on the expectations, I was very worried and careful to make sure we build a great sequel that is both liked by existing players and potential new players. While this sometimes meant going for less experimental changes, I think we found a great compromise by now. To determine what defines a shapez game, I did a survey in the shapez 1 Discord server. I wanted to avoid changing the essential things that made shapez stand out in the first place:
The results showed me what to keep and expand on, as well which mechanics we could probably exchange or get rid of entirely. For example, only 18% of players voted for the complex shape mechanics that are introduced in level 20. I never really liked the mechanic in the first place, and so we decided to remove it and add more intuitive mechanics instead. Additionally, I wanted to find out what new features could be exciting for a sequel:
These surveys immensely helped us to determine what to focus on. If you look closely, youll see that weve implemented almost everything from the list already

The Discord

Starting from day 1, I shared a lot of development progress in the shapez 1 discord. I wanted to try making a perfect game (spoiler: [spoiler]quite impossible[/spoiler]) and I knew I could only do it with the help of the community. The early community input helped a lot, and during the whole development process, many ideas were discussed and then later discarded. I never held something back, instead as soon as there was an idea or prototype (be it just a paint sketch) I tried to get feedback as soon as possible. We even let the community decide the art style for shapez 2! I initially didnt want to make another space-themed factory game, so we proposed a bunch of concepts:
The initial winner was D, which later evolved into the space theme Unfortunately developing a sequel isnt as easy as just doing a survey and implementing everything. We had to make a lot of tough choices, and sometimes even decide against the initial community response. As the discord is somewhat of an echo chamber of players that like shapez enough to be interested in the early development of a sequel, we always had to be careful to not just listen to this vocal minority and actually get different opinions and perspectives. Some of these topics evolved in very heated discussions with more than 1000 comments. To name a few:

• Straight Stacker vs Bent Stacker (spoiler: [spoiler]both made it in[/spoiler])
• Art Style (CPU Theme vs Space Theme)
• Floating shapes (aka Level 20 Logo Shape from shapez 1)
• Cutters always cutting from north to south, regardless of orientation
• RGB vs RYB color scheme (now a setting)
• The name of the new Diamond shape

If you are interested, all of these are still available in the #discussions channel on the shapez 2 discord! In total, we did around a hundred surveys on the discord so far. Im very happy with how it turned out, and I really like this way of developing a game together with the community instead of presenting a finished product. This way we can be sure that starting from day 1, we are moving in the right direction! This also means despite launching into early access, the game has already been hugely impacted and improved by community feedback. The main reason we are launching into early access is to show our commitment to keep updating and improving the game even further!

The move to 3D

I knew from the beginning that I wanted shapez 2 to be 3D, simply because I saw a lot of people not trying the game because of the simple graphics. So besides improving the gameplay, I also wanted to package the game nicer to make it appeal to a wider audience.
shapez 2 very early on in development It also added the opportunity to make all buildings open and animated, something that sets shapez 2 apart from all other factory games: because all operations are logical, we can visualize how a shape is cut, stacked, rotated and so on. Other games only have black box machines that receive inputs and spit out the result and we believe this is something truly new to the genre (which we are very proud of!). However, while 3D was the most prominent addition in the beginning, over the course of time so many new gameplay features and mechanics have been added that instead of calling it shapez 1 but in 3D it feels more like shapez 1 was a prototype for shapez 2, and shapez 2 is now the real game. While switching, we also decided to switch to a new engine (Unity) which allowed us to use a more performant language and rendering pipeline.

Growing the Team

Whereas shapez 1 was developed by me alone back then, I realized that shapez 2 was too ambitious to develop alone. I wouldnt be able to focus on all areas with enough attention if I would have to work on the development, game design, marketing and art. Over the course of the two years, the team grew to 8 full time members, which was only possible because we got funding from the German government, which we are very grateful for! Without this team, shapez 2 wouldnt have been possible and Im very proud of what the team has achieved together.

Iterating and iterating

Since you always just see the end product, its easy to forget how many iterations sometimes are required to get something right. There are so many mechanics we tried that didnt work out or required a major rework: Fluid packing & simulation, Trains, Platform building, Research, Shape crates, and many more. For example, we implemented around 10 (!) different research systems until we found the current one, which we now quite like (until #11 arrives). You can read more about this journey here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/2162800/announcements/detail/4103413768091304193

Game Design Challenges

One of the biggest challenges was (and still is) balancing the puzzle part with the logistics part. Our surveys show that the player base is split, with some players preferring more complicated shape puzzles whereas others are focused on building and scaling huge factories.
(Left = Puzzle , Right = Logistics) Finding the balance has been very hard, and is one of the reasons we have added so many customization, difficulty and game modes - to make sure everybody can enjoy the game how they want to. While talking to experienced players all day in discord, its easy to forget how difficult the game can be for first time players. We tried to get better insights by running a lot of playtests (we captured around 450 hours of playtest footage) with different audiences and optimizing the early game experience, but finding the perfect default difficulty was very, well, difficult. Adding more complex game modes like the insane or hexagonal mode definitely helped though, because now you can simply adjust the difficulty to your liking. [h2=EA]What to expect from Early Access
Weve spent a lot of time polishing the game already and are really happy how it turned out. We believe its in a great state and is meant to be played. With 4 game modes, theres plenty of content to be explored. There should be at least 40 hours of content but its easy to get over a hundred hours or more, as our playtesters have proven already.
As we have over 1000 patrons playing the game on a regular basis already, we were able to fix a lot of bugs and issues already. There are no major issues known to us at the time of writing, except for the usual driver-related crashes (which we cant really do anything about - except recommending a different backend like DirectX 12 / Vulkan). We also spent a lot of time on the tutorial and UI/UX, making the belt placement really easy to use and everything feel smooth (which weve already gotten a lot of praise for!). That being said, there are still a bunch of things that can be further improved we dont stop when something is just good but always try to go the extra mile. For example, space belt placement is missing a few quality of life tweaks like automatic tunnel placement, unfinished space pipe visuals and so on. However, all of these should be minor in the grand scheme of things its more our perfectionism speaking here.
Space pipes don't look like pipes yet We would also like to explore a few more experimental game modes, if there is demand for it. For example having to explore the map, or introducing (as an alternate game mode!) energy or power requirements.

Performance

As mentioned above, shapez 1 started to bog down after a while when scaling to huge factories. We tried to improve this for shapez 2 and are happy with the results so far. For shapez 1, your factories would start to lag starting at around 5,000 - 10,000 buildings, and would be almost unplayable at 40,000 buildings, depending on your setup. In shapez 2, everything should currently run very smooth until 100,000 buildings, pretty smooth until 250,000 buildings and depending on your setup somewhat smooth with 500,000 buildings (30 fps on a higher end setup). Players have built factories with up to 1,25 million buildings and above, but they encountered significant lag. For reference, the average player has around 40,000 buildings when completing the game, so we already support 12x more than that. [previewyoutube=P7VBWTGYitw;full][/previewyoutube]Recorded on Alpha 23. Contains placeholder visuals (mostly the trains) However, keep in mind that you might encounter lag if you are GPU bound (which is independent of the simulation). You might want to experiment with lower graphic settings then if you are experiencing low FPS for smaller factories. There are also some shaders and effects that are unnecessarily complex, causing the game to use slightly more resources than necessary. While it is not too noticeable on mid and high range setups, theres still a few things we can enhance for the lower end setups. While we are happy with the performance - this is just the beginning. We believe we can easily make it run twice as fast, as we still have some pending optimizations like multi-threading or certain optimizations for the space belts. However, since buildings are free to place and copy/paste over and over again, there will always be a limit to how much the game can handle. The limit may be 100 times greater than what it is now, but you'll still be able to hit that limit if you really want.

Future roadmap

You might be wondering - if we are satisfied with the game already, what will we be working on next?This is exactly the reason we are releasing the game now in Early Access - we need your input! I dont like launching with a roadmap immediately, especially not for early access. If the roadmap is already predetermined, what impact do players actually have?
Instead, we will be doing surveys after the release to find out what you want us to work on next! Additionally, we have a suggestions portal where you can leave feedback and suggestions, or vote on existing ones!

Early Access Duration

We havent set a duration for early access because it could be years in theory. This is not because the game is not ready but because we want to show our commitment to keep updating and improving the game even further. How long the game stays in early access also depends on the success. Our dream goal would be to keep updating the game for many years while it finances the development. However, as the game industry is unpredictable, we dont want to promise something we cant keep. That being said - please do not purchase the game if you dont like it in its current state and just hope that it gets better in the future. Quoting Steam: If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development.

First / Future Update Timing

Finishing everything up for the launch has been a challenge, so we're taking it somewhat easy for a little bit. With so many big factory game releases and updates coming later this year, we wanted to make sure to hit this deadline. We will of course be monitoring the release and early reception if a major issue pops up, we'll be sure to hotfix it. Once the release has cooled down a bit, we plan to work on a few fundamental things that didnt make it into the launch build due to time constraints. We want to refactor a few things that we had to hack in and also prepare the game to make it easier to expand and add new features (like multi threading). Of course, we don't know yet what you want us to work on, so we'll have to see!
However, this does mean it might take a while until the first major update. We're sure certain other factory games will keep you busy in the meantime though ;) We're looking to use the following structure, depending on how things go:

• Major Updates: Every few months with big changes that justify picking up the game again and fit our quality standards (localized, well tested, etc.)
• Beta Branches: Irregular updates anyone can opt into, with previews of upcoming updates that might not be finalized yet
• Closed Betas: Irregular (but more frequent) builds for our patrons to try out bleeding edge features (untested and possibly broken)

Thank you for reading! We are super hyped for the release, and hope to see you there! I hope you will be able to enjoy the game as much as we do. ~Tobias

[ 2024-08-08 15:01:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone!

Were super excited and proud to announce that shapez 2 will release into Early Access on August 15th, 2024!

Almost exactly a year after the Reveal Trailer, youll finally be able to play the Early Access of shapez 2.

Watch the shapez 2 Gameplay Trailer here:

[previewyoutube=A9MpsOixJsg;full][/previewyoutube] Shapez 2 will cost $24.99 / 24.99 / 20.99. If youre looking to support us further, consider the Supporter Edition! This would really help us out with the development of the game. The shapez 2 Supporter Edition (which includes the base game) will be $34.99 / 34.99 / 29.99. If youd first like to give the base game a go, youll be able to pick up the Supporter Edition Upgrade DLC at any time. Everything will have a 10% discount for the first two weeks after the Early Access launch! As a thank you from us for your extra support, youll get the Rail Loop & Twister for your trains and 40 minutes of extra soundtrack with the Supporter Edition.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3075620/shapez_2_Supporter_Edition_Upgrade/ Before the Early Access release, well have another blog with a full overview with whats in the release build of shapez 2 so you know exactly what youre buying. While shapez 2 will already offer what we think is a full experience with Early Access, we want to work together with you to make the game even better and refine everything for the full release come next year. Wed love it if youd join us! There are only 3 more weeks to go, so be sure to wishlist the game to help us out for the release! 300,000 of you already did and we truly appreciate it. See you soon, ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

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[ 2024-07-23 13:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Were getting very close to wrapping up development on the shapez 2 Early Access release build. At the end of last week we released Alpha 23 with 23.1 and 23.2 the last Patreon-exclusive Alpha build following shortly after. Were moving to Beta builds where Patreons can test the release candidate and report any remaining issues they find. In two weeks, well officially reveal the exact release date (which is set in August) of shapez 2. If you dont want to miss out, be sure to follow and wishlist the game here on Steam and join the Discord! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ If you really want to get your hands on this build before the release, be sure to check out our Patreon! Youll also get access to the betas to help us iron out the last couple bugs, the first of which released today! Your savegame will be compatible with the Early Access build from Alpha 23.2 onward, barring any unforeseen issues. This devlog will be a bit shorter as were currently very busy, but lets walk you through what Alpha 23 brought to the game. Final note, even at this stage everything is technically still subject to change. [hr][/hr]

New Content

Hexagonal Scenario

As teased in the last devlog, Hexagonal shapes are now real! Added as a separate scenario, a layer now holds 6 segments (sextants), 90 Rotators now rotate 60 and there are three new shape types exclusive to this scenario:

• H Hexagon
• G Gear
• F Flower

Hexagon (left), Gear (middle), Flower (right) The shape code works as youd expect, with an example below. Well leave the rest for you to explore for yourself :)

Train loop & Twister

We added the Rail Loop and Twister to spice up your trains. Wildly inefficient, but I'm sure you'll be forgiven. They're unlocked as part of the shapez 2 Supporter Edition alongside a whole lot of additional soundtrack!
Gif contains some placeholders

Other new things

Aside from that big ticket addition, there are a handful of other new bits of content and balancing changes.

• Added train speed and capacity upgrades, as well as an upgrade to allow you to dunk a train directly into the Vortex to deliver all its cargo at once.
• Rebalanced fluid buildings to be more intuitive and added more information in the panels.
• Supplying a different fluid to fluid buildings now makes them slowly drain and eventually consume the new fluid instead of waiting for the previous fluid forever.
• The same system also applies to trains loading a different shape or fluid.

Visuals

We added brand new visuals for Shape Miners, Fluid Miners and their respective Extensions.
Train locomotives finally have their visual!
Added new visuals for train loaders and unloaders.
Added animations for belt/fluid launchers launchers towards space belts/pipes.
Theres a new animation for shapes going into the Vortex.
Also included are several animation fixes and improvements across the board, including improvements to fluid shaders.

Development

As were finalizing a lot of things, there were lots of rendering, blueprint and simulation performance improvements. Placing blueprints and large islands should now be much faster, various issues with wire logic were fixed and weve vastly improved savegame loading times. To show off the current state of performance optimization, here's the game running on a Mac Book Pro M1 Max at full HD with 420,000 buildings. The goal is still 1 million buildings at 60 fps, but we're happy with our progress! [previewyoutube=P7VBWTGYitw;full][/previewyoutube]Video contains some placeholders

UI / UX

The origin point (the part of a building thats placed where your cursor is) of the Painter and Crystal Generator buildings was moved to the conveyor belt instead of the tank. This makes placing these buildings feel a lot better, but it does break any blueprint made prior to Alpha 23 that uses them. Theres now a button to clear the selected platform, space belt/pipe or train (un)loader of all its contents. Additionally, rail placement and the Feedback dialogue have been improved, the latter of which now has a link to report translation issues. Speaking of translations, the translations for almost all of the languages we wanted to include were added. [hr][/hr] Thats it! As we said, a shorter devlog this time. The Beta has started in order to hunt down the last issues. Once thats done, we can freeze development on the Early Access release build. Were super excited to finally release shapez 2 next month, so be sure you have the game wishlisted (sorry for asking so often) and well see you again with a big announcement in two weeks. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

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https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4220517501549404713

[ 2024-07-11 15:00:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! With the Early Access release of shapez 2 set for August, were creeping ever closer to finishing development. Our current focus lies on remaining visuals and polish, especially when it comes to the UI. However, we still have some exciting new content additions to show you, so today well walk you through what weve been working on lately. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Alpha 22

Last week we released Alpha version 22 for our Patreon supporters, which includes most of what we'll cover in this blog. If anything here makes you want to check out the game immediately and want to give us feedback, consider supporting us!

Disclaimer

As always, a lot you see in this devlog is still subject to change. Wed love to hear your thoughts on everything, but if anything still looks a bit rough around the edges its likely still being worked on. For more info on what to expect from the Early Access release build, be sure to check out our previous blog. [hr][/hr]

Gameplay

New Scenarios

Weve added more scenarios to the savegame customization options. These scenarios affect the shapes youll need to deliver to the Vortex in order to progress. The higher the difficulty, the more shape types, layers and colors youll need to put together. The types of shapes youll need to deliver are unique to their scenarios. Were not talking small differences these goals are completely different designs. We had a lot of fun making these challenges so we hope youll enjoy them as well! Do keep in mind that unlike the difficulty Setting, scenarios are permanent and cannot be changed after the savegame has been created. You'll need to start a new savegame to play a different scenario. Operator Certification We highly recommend new Operators to obtain their Operator Certification before you do your own thing! Youll be guided through building your very first factory with extra information and hints. The Operator Certification uses the default scenario settings, but you can customize the difficulty before you get started. Once youre deemed worthy of the Certificate, you get to choose between continuing with the normal scenario or the hard scenario more on them later. Your progress is fully transferred, including buildings and unlocked upgrades.
Factory - Normal This is the default scenario and recommended for players unfamiliar with shapez. Eases you into newly-unlocked mechanics and shape goals are relatively straightforward. Factory - Hard Recommended for players who have already done a playthrough and are looking for an extra challenge. If youre here from shapez 1, this scenario may be a good fit for you! Shape goals get more difficult faster, requiring additional cutting, stacking or painting when compared to the normal scenario. Factory - Insane If youre a very experienced player and youd like to push your brain to the limit, this scenario is for you. Will require game knowledge, precise planning and thinking ahead: shape goals need many different shapes and colors, often stacked to the maximum amount of layers which for this scenario goes up to 5! There's a lot of room for us to add more scenarios to the list and we already have some ideas in mind. Here's a teaser: [expand type=spoiler]
This is not in the game yet and we can't guarantee it'll make it in for Early Access release, but it's something we're working on![/expand] Scenario customization This option allows you to customize the settings of any of the previously mentioned scenarios. You still need to select one of them, but you can then customize map generation (as highlighted in this blog) and set additional savegame rules of which there are more now! If the Insane scenario isnt insane enough for you, you can make it even more difficult here :)

Operator Level

Keep delivering previously unlocked shape goals to increase your Operator Level! Every level unlocks additional chunks and research points to aid you in growing your factory! Completing a goal will allow you to complete it again, but with an increased amount of shapes needed. Be sure to diversify! Operator Levels allow your old factories to remain useful after completing their milestones. Instead of quickly building something and to get rid of it once you advance, this incentivises to expand instead of replace and long-term solutions instead of quick and dirty ones. We want to see big and tidy factories!
If you want to go the extra mile, you can also produce the Randomized Goal! This requires less shapes to produce in order to level up, but youll need to switch up your factory frequently to adapt to the new goal. Or, just set up a Make Anything Machine!

Blueprint Icons

Remember two weeks ago when we said we probably wouldnt be able to add Blueprint Icons before the Early Access release? Yeah, about that Introducing Blueprint Icons! You can now customize your Blueprints with up to 4 icons at a time to make it easier to tell them apart in lists and hotbars. Theres a big list of icons already used elsewhere in the game and a couple of preset shapes. You can also add custom shape icons with Shape Codes!

Other new things

Platform and platform blueprints can now be mirrored! Weve also expanded the tutorial (now Operator Certification) and expanded the Knowledge Panel with all milestones, mechanics, example videos and translations.

Visuals and Graphics

Were working with new Rail visuals! Rails now look a lot less bulky and it clearly indicates which direction trains can travel. All the other visuals for trains are still work in progress though, so youll have to wait a bit longer to see everything else!

Development

Weve done a big simulation refactoring pass to improve simulation accuracy and stability. There have also been several more performance and rendering improvements. DirectX 11 is now the default rendering backend on Windows systems, as we got a lot of feedback on the demo about some issues caused by Vulkan. Factories outside of your view are now simulated at lower tick rates for up to 20x simulation performance improvements. This will prevent the simulation from struggling with huge factories, as only what youre currently looking at is fully simulated. Your factory will continue to run perfectly fine if youre not there to keep watch! Its not like the belts start slacking off the second the manager is busy elsewhere. Or so they tell us.

Lore

You read that right! Weve begun to sprinkle bits and pieces of lore around the game to give it some flair. This includes the aforementioned Operator Certification, but youll be able to find lore and flavor text around various places in the game.

UI & UX

As were getting closer to the Early Access release and most of it is ready, a lot of the remaining work consists of UI and UX changes. Heres a list of what weve done!

• Cleaned up train toolbar & icons
• Added new 'conflicts' visualization: Whenever an issue is detected like belts moving in opposite directions an exclamation mark will appear at the location. Theres a button in the bottom right of the UI to toggle conflict warnings, though we suspect turning the warning off wont fix the problem.

• Merged Upgrades and Shop into one shared tab: Allows you to shop for upgrades

• Added the option to clear all fluids in all fluid buildings
• Added setting to disable chromatic aberration
• Added setting to disable vignette: there will still be some vignette, but a lot less
• Added setting to choose the target display: for your sextuple monitor setups
• Added setting to reduce input latency: this may make the game feel more responsive, but will increase CPU load and may result in a lower frame rate.
• Disabled auto-rotation for large buildings, like the Painter
• Added setting to disable custom cursor (will make us sad)
• Splitters and Mergers are automatically placed when connecting or disconnecting belts or pipes.
• Added glow indicator for shapes that are actively being delivered
• Improved difficulty & scenario selection screen (see related section above)
• Youre no longer required to hold 'Shift' to replace conveyor belts / transport structures
• Transitions between waypoints or moving to the vortex are now animated
• Added placement indicators for fluid & wire buildings to better show inputs / outputs
• Improved fluid miner placement indicators
• Updated game logo: we gave it a real good scrub

• Added a button to take you directly to the relevant knowledge panel entry while placing or selecting a building
• Updates to the wire icons
• Improved & fixed belt launcher placement indicators & logic
• Added a setting to toggle toolbar selection mode between deselect and cycle, with deselect being the new default.
• Improved space belt & pipe placement, now should behave similar to belts but at a much larger scale (more improvements coming)
• Removed confirmation when purchasing speed upgrades: We know you got a need for speed
• Indicators for wrong connections are introduced for Buildings, Wires, and Pipes: These are the checkered blockers and separate from conflicts, though currently serve largely the same purpose.

[hr][/hr] Thats it for now! Only a couple devlogs left to go before you get to play shapez 2 for yourself in August. Were very excited (and very busy) and we hope youll join us again for the next devlog. See you then! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-06-27 14:01:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Put it in your calendar, our Early Access release should be in Mid-August! Were 97% sure well make that, so while the odds are very good its not completely impossible that well still need to reschedule. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ What can you expect from the Early Access version of the game? Were glad you asked!

Early Access Release Status Update

Generally, we think the game is in great shape with plenty of polish already! There are so many improvements over the first game that shapez 1 now feels more like a prototype for shapez 2. In no particular order, there are:

• Multi-layer factories
• Trains
• New research system
• Fluids
• Blueprint library & toolbar
• Lots of quality of life improvements
• Crystals
• Pins
• Multiple progressions,
• Customizable map generation,
• Mirrorable buildings,
• Platforms
• Undo/redo
• So much more!

We also have a very high quality standard that we want to meet, so we have invested a lot of time in optimizing the user interface, onboarding & tutorial and making sure you have a smooth experience!

Launch Month!

We are now aiming to launch in Mid August. This is around 97% confirmed so while we are pretty certain, please dont be mad if we have to reschedule it!

Our Plans for Early Access

Generally, we think the best time to get started with the game is already during Early Access. During Early Access, we will be mostly working on adding big new content iterations every few months that justify picking up the game again. We will of course release hotfixes and so on, but we believe fewer, bigger releases make more sense than more numerous smaller increments. Less frequent releases also allow us to work more effectively on bigger updates. For these bigger updates we want to try more experimental things like new game modes with bold changes that we didnt want to try for the main game mode. However, we will decide what to work on based on surveys that well run after the release! After all, we want to work on things you actually care about! Of course there may be issues (minor bugs, unfinished or non-optimised visuals, etc) but were not using Early Access to put out an unfinished game for testing - for us Early Access is a way to get feedback and show our commitment to updating the game! We want to make sure that you can make an informed decision about whether to jump in with the Early Access launch, so heres an overview of what to expect

Whats looking good for Early Access

Game Design, Progression & Balance

We are happy with how the game design is going. The overall progression and balancing feels very nice already. Obviously this is always an on-going part of development and we will continue to fine tune based on your feedback. We also got way more done than initially planned - if everything goes well, we will launch with 3 progression modes - Normal, Hard, Hexagonal. This does depend on how the final weeks leading up to the launch go, but were hopeful!

Usability

We have invested a lot of time to make sure the belt placement & general UI/UX is as smooth as possible. There might be an initial learning curve, but after that it should feel pretty natural - even elegant!
We are also currently working on doing the same improvements to the Space Belts & Trains and are confident well get that in for the Early Access launch as well. A few minor things might not make it, but we have them tracked and will do our best to fix them as soon as possible.

Technical Systems

The game is very stable and you shouldnt see much in the way of crashes. However, its not impossible that you will encounter some issues with DirectX 11. If that does happen, you can try switching to Vulkan or DirectX12. We dont do anything vastly different to other Unity games, so if you can run most Unity games fine you should not run into any trouble with shapez 2. We are also still planning improvements to our input system for people who want to use exotic configurations or rebind modifier keys like Shift+C, which will cause issues in the initial Early Access release.

Performance

We are already very satisfied with the rendering performance, and we are constantly improving the simulation performance, with the ultimate goal of simulating around 500k-1 million buildings well. To put that in perspective, you need about 15k to complete the game, and currently we can simulate around 100-200k.
Rendering performance is another area we will continue working on, but with average setups you should already enjoy smooth performance. However, on low end setups, you might have to reduce the graphical settings to achieve your desired frame rates, since additional effects or very detailed 3D geometry can drag down the performance. There are also some individual animations which are not yet optimized for performance (like the vortex animation), causing unnecessary high GPU load. These will of course be improved. Also, every setup, driver, OS is different, and we need more data from players to optimize the game for all the different combinations, so please let us know if not everything is running smoothly for you yet!

Reusability of Factories

Already vastly improved since the demo, there are even more big improvements planned for the Early Access release. We dont know exactly how far well get with this by the time of the release, but we will of course be working to make things even better throughout the Early Access period. In fact we are already working on a new Operators Badge mechanic that will also improve this, but more on that later!

Wires

We initially thought wires would not make it into Early Access, but a fun weekend of prototyping them changed that! The wire system has grown quite a bit but never got the attention it deserved, which is why there are a few issues we still need to iron out. So to be clear, they are fully functional, but lacking a lot of quality of life features. Our patrons are already building Make Anything Machines with them, even for crystals. Theres around 25 wire buildings, although that number is inflated by logic gates and simulated buildings. Heres what we still need to polish:

• Update order is not deterministic, so you might run into issues when you build memory cells or attempt to build a CPU with wires.
• The art is placeholder, so dont expect anything fancy - and there are issues like buildings not showing where exactly which output goes (i.e. where does the fluid input go and where does the shape go) making them harder to use than they should be.
• There is no tutorial or knowledge panel entry for wires yet, so you are a bit more on your own on them. However, they are also in no way required to complete or enjoy the game.
• The Vortex does not output the current shape signal yet, so if you want to build a MaM you have to manually input a signal.

Some wiring and a XOR Logic Gate. Signals are represented in light green (active), green (connected but inactive), dark green (not connected) and red (conflict)

To Be Improved During Early Access

There are a few areas (mostly visual and audio) where more work is needed or placeholders are still in use and we dont have final assets yet. These will be updated and added during Early Access.

Vertical Inputs / Outputs i.e. for Pipes & Wires

This is a technical issue and we will need to refactor a good chunk of the game before we can implement something like an L shaped pipe and actually split the pipe up into two structures. Right now every building can only have 4 outputs (right, left, up, down) and we would need 2 more (upper, lower) to support this. This is a lot of work however, so it wont be there for the Early Access launch and may even take until after Early Access.

Artwork

There are a few items in the game that simply didnt get their art pass in time, so they might have placeholder visuals or at least dont live up to our standards on release:

• Pin pusher
• Crystal generator & Crystal shapes
• Space pipes (They just re-use the space belt visuals for now)
• 2-Layer Conveyor Lifts
• A rare visual glitch with shapes on splitters - this one is actually a tricky logic issue, but were working on it

Blueprints

We have a few items on our todo list for blueprints which probably wont be done by the time we launch into Early Access.

• Blueprints dont support icons yet, and there is no preview in the library, making it harder to distinguish than necessary.
• The blueprint toolbar configuration is not saved when you exit the game (a minor issue, but still).
• Blueprint placement indicators of platforms could be further improved, for example computing & showing arrows on notch inputs / outputs to make them feel more like buildings again.
• Placing huge blueprints is slower in performance terms than required right now - once placed, they should run fine though.

Sound

Most buildings from the demo in the game have sound, but we didnt get to add sound to the new mechanics like fluids, trains and wires yet. Sound in general is something we want to improve during Early Access.

Modding

The game already supports custom progressions (theres even a community created editor!) but it only works by copying a JSON file to the appropriate folder. Later we want to integrate Steam Workshop support and add the ability to create Code-Based mods - this is something weve prototyped, but its not ready for release yet.

We hope to see you there!

That should give you all the info you need to tell if you want to join our Early Access! See you again in two weeks! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-06-13 14:02:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! We got quite a few requests in our devlog feedback survey to talk about Fluids! It's a subject we haven't really talked about much before, mostly in passing and progress. So, let's have a look through what we're working with right now! As always, a lot youll see in the devlog is work in progress. The mechanics are there and almost at 100%, but the visuals are in various stages of development. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [hr][/hr]

What are fluids?

Fluids are what youll use to give shapes different colors. If youve played the first shapez, youll remember mining colors and transporting them by belt. For shapez 2 though, we wanted something different. Colors have been turned into colored fluids, which you move around through Pipes. This adds some visual variety and a couple of new challenges. In short, coloring shapes should be more exciting!

Gathering & Transporting Fluids

The process of gathering and transporting fluids starts off very similar to regular shapes, though youll need the fluid variants of the regular buildings youd use:

• Fluid Miner instead of Shape Miner
• Fluid Miner Extension instead of Shape Miner Extension
• Pumps instead of Extractors
• (Space) Pipes instead of (Space) Belts
• Fluid Wagons instead of Shape Wagons

All the specialized fluid variants behave the same as their shape counterpart. Pipes have some differences though. When placing, Pipes currently behave mostly the same as belts. They have the same placement limitations: They can split off horizontally in every direction. We plan to add more flexibility to the pipes, allowing you to branch them off of vertical parts, but this is planned for later.
To get fluids across a gap, you can place a Fluid Launcher. This version of the Launcher will accumulate fluid to create a blob that it will launch to the other side. It can store two blobs-worth of paint, scaling with painting speed. One fluid launcher will be enough to support one full belt of painters.
Unlike shapes and belts however, theres currently no limit to throughput for pipes. Pipes do not have capacity of their own: if theres fluid available in the buffer of the output building, it will show the fluid in the pipes. When this buffer is empty, the pipes will be empty as well. Essentially, any paints used by another building will be taken directly out of the Painter buildings. The pipes determine where the building can get paint from.
We plan to make some improvements for this, like a limit to throughput would be introduced to make pipes behave more realistically. However, there is no advanced fluid simulation planned. Adding flow / pressure-based simulation would add a lot of complexity to the game without major added gameplay value. We want you to be able to focus on solving shapes, instead of having to worry about fluids getting stuck in pipes. Then theres the Fluid Tank. This building holds up to 1,800 liters and works as a buffer between out- and inputs to make sure the flow continues to flow for a while when your Painters run dry. They give you room for error, but can be optimized out of the system if youd like!

Painter

To paint a shape, you have the Painter building. This building can paint any shape you send through it, but only the top layer. To paint multiple layers, youll need to paint first, stack later. It has a buffer of 20 liters and has inputs on three sides for extra flexibility. Painting a layer uses 10 liters.
In previous builds, we had a Full Painter building that painted every layer of the shapes you run through it. However, we recently removed it as it was not very useful for the challenges we set.

Mixing

With default world settings, youll only be able to find Red, Green and Blue fluids throughout your world. To get the secondary colors and the tertiary, youll need to mix the fluids. For this, you have the Color Mixer! This building has two inputs next to each other, and one output on the opposite side. Colors are mixed as followed:

• RGB: Additive color mixing, works like light
• RYB: Subtractive color mixing, works like paint
• CMYK: Subtractive color mixing, works like printer ink
• Colorblind: RGB with textures, with additive textures (dots mixed with lines becomes dots with lines)

All three buffers have a capacity of 50 liters each. The ratio is 1:1, so 25 liters of each input fluid makes 50 liters of the output fluid.
Visuals are work in progress

Crystals

Towards the later stages of the game, youll start to run into Crystals. We did a deep dive into Crystals last year, though a lot of it is quite outdated by now. To summarize, Crystals are made by providing fluids to the Crystal Generator. This building will pump the fluid into any Empty or Pin quadrants up until the top layer of the shape you run through it. This paint will then harden into Crystal, matching the color of the fluid used. The problem with Crystals is that when you try to separate two adjacent Crystal quadrants or try to stack it on top of another shape, it will shatter and disappear. You can separate Crystal from a regular shape and stack shapes on top of Crystals, however. Filling a shape uses 20 liters of fluid, regardless of the amount of quadrants it has to fill.
Both the building and crystals themselves are still work in progress

Other tidbits

The fluids fully support the newly added Color Schemes, including Colorblind RGB!
When generating a new world, you have the option to include secondary and tertiary colors, allowing you to gather them using Pumps. If you choose to include all colors in the world, the Mixer becomes optional. You can also choose to remove primary colors, but some patches of primary color fluids will remain near the Vortex to allow you to progress. [hr][/hr] Thats about everything! We hope the new fluids make for a more interesting system than using belts to move colors. Let us know what you think! See you next time! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-05-30 14:02:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! It's been a little while since we've done a progress devlog! We have a couple of bigger changes and various small improvements across the game, so let's take a look. As a side note, thank you to everyone who filled in the devlog survey! Based on the responses, we've made two changes to this devlog. First up, more images! We'll try to show off as much of the game as we can in blog format, though gifs didn't make much sense for today's topics. Secondly, we've tried to keep our writing a bit more to-the-point. Let us know what you think! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [hr][/hr]

Game Customization

Weve added a ton of new settings and features to customize a new start to how you want to play shapez 2. Patreons can expect these features in Alpha 21, coming soon!

Difficulty Presets

You can currently select from 5 different difficulty presets that change a handful of modifiers to change the way you play. You can customize all of these presets, or start off with the Custom preset at the bottom of the list. These presets can be changed at any time!

• Normal: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked, but theres a limit to how many platforms you can place.
• Chill: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked and theres almost no limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are decreased slightly.
• Classic: Copy/Paste costs blueprint points, but theres a limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are decreased slightly.
• Logistics: Copy/Paste costs double the amount of blueprint points and theres a limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are quintupled. Will require you to move a lot of shapes around!
• Puzzle / Fast: Copy/Paste is free once unlocked and theres almost no limit to how many platforms you can place. Research goal costs are minimal. Little need to optimize production or throughput.

Scenario Presets

Scenarios will allow you to completely change the game. From core mechanics to map generation, everything can be changed. For now though, we just have the normal preset and custom. When you go to edit a Scenario Preset, you get 3 tabs. Scenarios This is where you can select a scenario separate from map generation and game rules. Again, for now its just the standard experience and something were experimenting with but wont show today.
Map Generation Just make it a setting? Fine, weve made everything a setting. Aside from the Seed, you can customize pretty much everything about how the map will be generated. At the top are the general Shape & Fluid patch settings. You can customize how many will generate, how large they start off, how much they will grow based on distance from the Vortex and the max size. For Shape patches, you can set how colorful theyll be and how often rare shapes will appear. For Fluid patches, you can choose whether primary, secondary and/or tertiary colors are generated. Scrolling down, you can set the likeliness and minimum distance from the Vortex for each shape category. On the right, youll see a preview of the map youre about to generate. You can zoom, look around or hide it if you dont want spoilers.
Do keep in mind that with this much map customizability, there are plenty of ways to make your time very difficult or even impossible to progress. We highly recommend keeping all the settings at the default for your first playthrough. Game Rules In the last tab you can set extra rules that can really change up certain mechanics. For now, there are just two.
These settings will allow us as well as modders to create presets that massively overhaul the game and make shapez 2 infinitely replayable! Sharing options for map generation are being worked on.

Colors

The name of the shape color Purple has been changed to Magenta. If youre using shape codes, this means that any use of p needs to be changed to m to work. Keep this in mind when importing shape codes from shapez 1! If youre not familiar with shape codes, dont worry about it. The contrast between uncolored shapes and white ones has been increased to make it easier to keep them apart.
Weve added two more color schemes that change all the shape colors and fluids, totaling to four color schemes. Whether you need a change of scenery or struggle differentiating certain colors, be sure to check out the other modes! They can be changed at any time in the settings.

• RGB (Default): Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow & White
• RYB: Red, Yellow, Blue, Orange, Green, Purple & Black
• CMYK: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Blue, Red, Green & Key (Black)
• RGB (Colorblind): Increases contrast of the default RGB colors and adds a texture

The same shape in RGB (top left), RYB (top right), CMYK (bottom left) and Colorblind (bottom right) Keep in mind that the shape codes stay the same, regardless of the color scheme youre using. In RGB, CwCwCwCw will create a white circle. In RYB, this circle will be black.

Other changes

Weve made a large amount of changes to fluids, but well save that topic for a dedicated Fluids blog.

Gameplay

Theres now a separate miner extension for fluids. Miner layouts now have a new layout, reducing the maximum amount of extensions that can be attached to a miner to 4. However, patch arrangements have been improved!
Miner Extension visuals are still placeholder The Full Painter building has been removed. It just wasn't very practical and there was little reason to use it. The regular Painter building is still available, which colors the top layer of any shape you run through it. Map generation has been made more interesting. The farther from the HUB you go, you'll get rare shape patches that can save you some work. Patches in general are much bigger, but everything can be customized in the map generator now!

Visuals

Fine-tuned the pins shader to be more visible on top of shapes, keeping in mind the new color schemes.
The visuals of the Stacker building have been finalized!
There are new placement indicators when placing fluid miners & pumps, to make it a bit less confusing when your camera is angled.

User Interface

The top left corner now has a button for every research tab: Milestones, Shop, Tasks, Upgrades. If you unlock something new in any of those categories, it will show a small notification marker.
Unlocking a milestone now shows an overview for the newly unlocked tasks, upgrades and content. You can click the info icon on the new milestone to see the overview again, or check out any of the other milestones overviews.
The Upgrades UI has also been improved to clearly show the effect it has on speed.
There are now Feedback buttons in several places of the game that will open a window with several more buttons that take you to either the Discord, Feedback Form or Suggestions Portal.
[hr][/hr] That's the devlog! A lot of our focus is currently set on refining the game, but we have plenty more to show soon. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-05-16 15:02:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Last devlog we talked about trains, so let's look at your other option today: Space Belts. You'll likely be using these a lot, so let's take a look at what we're working with. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Devlog survey

We're really interested to learn if there are ways for us to improve the quality of the devlogs and/or align them more with what you'd truly like to know about shapez 2! This survey includes questions about quality, usage of visuals, your interests as well as a suggestion box where you can suggest topics for future devlogs. So whether this is your first devlog or you've already read all twenty(!) of them, we would really appreciate it if you could take the time to check out the survey!

Fill out the survey here!

Alpha 20

Not only do you get Devlog 020 today, Patreons also just got access to Alpha 20! This new build includes everything mentioned in this blog, plus a bunch of new features and visuals. Updated content includes train collision avoidance, simulation improvements, map generation improvements, new visuals for a couple of buildings and much more.

Disclaimer

Just a reminder, everything shown in this blog is still in development and is still subject to change. They're not quite placeholders anymore, but the visuals of the Space Belts are not finished yet. Your thoughts and feedback are welcome, as always! [hr][/hr]

A brief history

Space Belts are an essential tool to transport large quantities of shapes between platforms. Ideal for short distances, they allow you to easily cross a gap or connect a train station to your factory for pickups or deliveries. However, their original design was quite different from what were working with now. Lets walk you through it!

Just build it yourself!

Initially, you were expected to build connections using these platforms manually. You would place platforms and then build belts and launchers on them to create connections. It quickly became obvious that this is very burdensome to do all the time for every connection (as you may expect), so we started working on improvements.
Old build

Space Tunnels

One of the first improvements was the addition of special tunnel platforms. These allowed your connections to transport shapes under other platforms, making connecting across sections much easier. Additionally, their ability to consistently transport large quantities of shapes essentially made them function as Space Belts, but without the flexibility of seamlessly splitting and merging. The tunnels exist as their own form of transport alongside the buildings you know from shapez 1, as well as Shape Launchers.
Old build

Hyperbelts

The first step towards improving space platform connections was Hyperbelts. Despite the fancy name, it was just a tool that allowed you to easily place prebuilt versions of the space platforms with belts & launchers without having to build all of it yourself. It was based on the idea of belt placement in your factory, but very simplified - it didn't support merging or splitting unless you manually made platforms to do so.
Old build This system is what you saw in the demo and this is as expected something we got a lot of feedback on. Technically we couldve made more prebuilt versions to allow for more complexity, but it would still be clunky and not very pretty. We can do better.

Space Belts

With a ton more feedback under our belt, the Hyperbelts flaws became clearer and clearer. Aside from the lack of complexity we already mentioned, it was also just very slow. They moved shapes at the same speed as all other belts in your factory, and when youre crossing larger distances, it really did take a while before your shapes got anywhere. Essentially, what we needed was a system that had all the functionality of regular belts, but much larger, faster and independent of platforms. So, we made just that.
Enter: Space Belts. Theyre huge belts that support up to 12 regular belts across 3 layers, move shapes way faster and retain the flexibility you expect from belts, all without needing platforms to build on! This makes Space Belts your best option to connect platforms over shorter distances. If you need to move something over long distances however, Trains are the better option.
Shapes moving across the Space Belt
When there are Space Belts, you also need Space Pipes. With the recent fluid system rework, it became possible to transport fluids across notches with pipes. This then allowed us to make the prototype of the Space Belts younger brother, Space Pipes! These work identical to Space Belts, but move fluids instead of shapes and have a different look to reflect this. Have a look at the concept below.
This may or may not be what it will actually look like

Merging with Tunnels

For close-distance transport, we would now have both Space Tunnels and Space Belts & Pipes. The key difference between the two is that Tunnels can move shapes under a platform, bypassing it without slowing down. However, they can only go straight and have a range of 4 chunks, which is where Space Belts and Pipes come in. Now, youll likely come across a situation where youd like to place your Space Belt across a platform, without connecting to said platform. Thats where you connect a Space Tunnel to your Space Belt! However, keeping Space Tunnels and Space Belts separate doesnt make much sense anymore as they work closely together now. So, Space Tunnels now have a brand new visual that matches that of the Space Belts, theyre both part of the Space Belts category in the UI and Tunnels can now be integrated into the smart-placement tool.

Whats next?

Space Belts are already in a really good state, but there are some improvements yet to be made. As we just mentioned, the Space Tunnels still need to be integrated into the placement behaviour of Space Belts. Thats to say, Tunnels should automatically be placed when you drag a Space Belt across a platform. We are already considering other ways of improving them even more, however: a topic that has come up internally is that merging or splitting across different factory lanes and layers in space is too troublesome for too small of a result. To make this easier, we are evaluating Merge/Split Balancers. These special space platforms would have one side that can receive up to 12 belts and another 36 split across 3 other sides. The Merger takes up to 36 input lanes and distributes contents evenly across up to 12, while the Splitter takes up to 12 input lanes and distributes the contents evenly across up to 36. [hr][/hr] Well, that's everything for now. The bottom line is that Space Belts should act similar to regular belts, but a lot bigger. Anyway, progress is going very well and we have plenty more to show, so we hope to see you again for the next devlog. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-05-02 15:01:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! It's finally time to talk about possibly the most anticipated feature of shapez 2: Trains! We'll keep the intro short, but please remember to wishlist shapez 2! There's a high chance you already have (in which case, thank you very much!), but every single wishlist helps out! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Disclaimer

Please note that the vast majority of train visuals are placeholder or early concepts. The mechanics and balancing explained in this blog are also subject to change, depending on community feedback. To read more about how we implement new content and the current state of the game, check out our previous devlog! You can explore everything you see and read in this blog yourself in Alpha 19, available to Patreons.

Our goal for trains

Wed like to quickly preface the blog with our intentions for trains. Their purpose is to transport a large amount of shapes over large distances. While tunnels and space belts work fine to connect nearby platforms, trains will connect your distant platforms that mine that specific shape you really need, but spawned multiple sectors away. Ultimately, our goal was to create a fun, long-distance transport option that fits well into the existing shapez world and the mechanics youre used to. It should be easy to get into but provide depth for optimization and versatility. For this reason weve omitted signals and other, more complex train mechanics in favor of a simpler line system that still offers a lot of depth for those willing to invest their time into optimization.

The basics

To get started, lets place a station! You can also choose to start with the track or a depot, but well start with a station as they come with a pre-build segment of track. The station building tells a locomotive where to stop. To load and unload the wagons you need to place Train Loaders and Train Unloaders, both of which are available for both shapes and fluids. Each (Un)Loader can service one wagon. Once the stations are in place, its time to place tracks. You dont have to worry about the length of the line, as placing tracks is completely free. Connect the stations by track in any way you want, but do keep in mind that tracks are directional. Additionally, trains have to slow down when making a turn and speed up on long, straight sections. Youll want to minimize the amount of turns a train needs to make in order to maintain a high speed.
When your stations are connected, you wont have to worry about making a loop or a place where the train can turn around: tracks are double-sided. When a train reaches the end of a line, it will flip to the bottom side of the track and turn back to where it came from. This helps a lot with space management as you wont have to worry about frontal collisions or need to make two tracks to allow trains to travel back and forth. However, trains traveling along the bottom of a track cannot be serviced by stations and only travel in a straight line. If the line has junctions or switches, you may still need to complete a loop to get your train back to the start.
Now that youve connected an input station and an output station, its time to get a train running. To spawn a train, you need a train Depot. This depot is one chunk big and allows you to spawn a single locomotive that cannot carry any products by itself. To add capacity, youll need to attach a Wagon Extension to the Depot. You can choose between two types of cargo wagons: Shape Wagons and Fluid Wagons. Filler Wagons are also available to space out two cargo wagons, but cant be used to transport products. Youre free to mix and match the wagon types, theres no need to stick to just one. With these wagon extensions attached, any train spawned by the Depot will pull a single wagon for every extension. If youd like a second train, youll need to place a second train Depot with its own wagon extensions.
A train will automatically spawn from the depot and do its thing: it will follow the track and stop at every station it comes across. It will load shapes at Train Loaders, and unload shapes at Train Unloaders. This is the simplest use of trains: a single train moves along a line and does its thing. You can stop there, but theres a lot more possible.

Lines

If you were to give every single line its own track, youd need to reserve a lot of space for all the tracks youd need. Instead, you can work with colors! When placing a track or a Depot, you can currently pick between four colors: red, green, blue and white. The color determines which line which train will follow. For example, a train from a red Depot will always follow the red line in case of a switch. The colors come into play once you merge two or more tracks of different colors into a single track. If you have a green line and you merge a red line onto the same track, the track will become both green and red in the direction of the track. This means that both red trains and green trains can travel along this line! If you were to split the green line off this track, youd get your separated red and green tracks back.
A track can support all four colors simultaneously, giving any piece of track an effective limit of four different lines. If you require more lines, youll need to make a parallel track that travels in the same direction or separate your train network into smaller subnetworks. When traveling along the bottom of a track, trains will no longer follow their line and only go straight at switches.

Crossings

If you need to cross tracks, there are two ways to do it. The first one is to simply create a crossing by placing a second track across an existing track to create a crossing. At a crossing, lines and trains can only go straight. If you want to give trains the option to merge into the other track as well, you need to manually build a switch.
However, the second way is a lot more fun: just make a Train Launcher! Just like with conveyor belts, you can place a launcher that will launch the train into the air and across any other tracks and onto the catcher. Unlike the conveyor belt equivalent, you can change the strength of the launcher to determine how far the train will fly.
Before you ask: Yes, the Train Launcher also works on trains at the bottom side of the track.

Balancing

So after all this, you may wonder why youd use trains instead of tunnels or space belts. Aside from being way cooler, its a matter of cost, speed and throughput.

Costs

Below, you see a table with the costs of running a train. For this example, we run a single train with three wagons between two stations with capacity for all wagons. [hr][/hr][table noborder=1 equalcells=1] [tr] [th]Object[/th] [th]Chunk cost each[/th] [th]Amount[/th] [th]Chunk cost sum[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Locomotive[/td] [td]10[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]10[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Wagon[/td] [td]5[/td] [td]3[/td] [td]15[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Station[/td] [td]1[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]2[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Platform[/td] [td]2[/td] [td]6[/td] [td]12[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td][/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td][/td] [td]Chunk cost total[/td] [td]39[/td] [/tr] [/table][hr][/hr] 39 chunks may sound like a lot, but the best part is that tracks are completely free! This means that no matter the distance, be it 5 chunks or 500, the cost remains the same. Additionally, locomotives dont require fuel and theres no maintenance fee either. If you compare this to our other mass-transport options like Space Belts and Space Tunnels, both of which have an effective per-chunk cost of 1, trains become increasingly more chunk-efficient the longer the distance traveled. The cheapest possible setup for a functioning train is one locomotive with one wagon running between two stations, which would cost you 21 chunks.

Throughput

Shapes and fluids are loaded on a train in packages. A single wagon has capacity for three packages one for each building layer with each package having a capacity of 960 shapes or 9,600 L of fluids. This gives every wagon a maximum capacity of 2,880 shapes or 28,800 L of fluid when using all three layers. Trains will only pick up packages that are completely filled, giving a wagon a minimum required load of 960 shapes or 9,600 L as well. A wagon can only pick up one package per layer. If you only use the bottom layer of the station, the wagon can only pick up one package: it does not automatically place a second package on top of the first one. Additionally, Loaders and Unloaders can store up to two full packages per layer. To make full use of both the wagons and the (Un)Loaders, youll want to split the load across all three layers. When it comes to speed, trains are considerably faster than the alternatives. If you were to move shapes across a distance of 300 chunks using space belts, youd be looking at almost an hour of travel time! A train however, will cross that distance in under 30 seconds. Trains slow down for turns and take some time to get back up to speed, so every corner will considerably increase the travel time of a train. Adding wagons to a train does not affect the speed or acceleration. To summarize the balance, space belts and tunnels are ideal for short-distance connections between platforms. Trains are what youll want to use for medium and long distances. Theyre incredibly versatile and you can add or remove trains and wagons as needed. However, it takes time to set them up and poor planning and/or using too many trains can create bottlenecks when collision avoidance enters the fray more on that next.

Future possibilities

Collision avoidance

In the latest Alpha build (Alpha 19 at the time of writing), trains still just phase through each other. However, were currently experimenting with a collision avoidance system. How it will work exactly is still to be determined, but a train should brake when another train gets in its way. Once the path is clear, it should continue its journey. This also means that congestion would be possible if you have a lot of trains on the same line or have a very busy crossing. Avoid conflict points, build station bypass tracks and use the line colors to the best of your ability to avoid gridlocking your entire transport system.

Colorblind features

Since were working with colors, were planning to use the same color pattern shaders we showed in the last devlog for the line colors as well. How exactly this will look depends on what the final train and track visuals end up looking like. We have some more ideas, but they require more testing before we can say with certainty they'll make it into the game. Names pending.

• Side swapper track: Special track segment that will flip the track and allows trains to swap to the other side while continuing in the same direction, without slowing down.
• Locomotive recoloring platform: Change a locomotives line color and reroute them on the fly with a special platform.
• Vortex train launch: Launch trains directly into the Vortex to deliver a large amount of shapes at once.

[hr][/hr] Can't wait to try trains and want get involved in the process? Consider supporting us on Patreon to get access to the bi-weekly Alpha builds as they release! Your feedback is essential to us while we're working very hard to get shapez 2 ready for Early Access. That's all we have on trains for now! We hope to soon be able to show you what trains will actually look like, but we first need some more time to get all the features in. Thank you for your time and we hope to see you again in two weeks. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-04-18 15:02:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! We have something a little bit different for you today! Our topic for this devlog is the future more specifically, where we are with the development of shapez 2, what still needs to be done and how were looking at the Early Access release. In general, it should give you a better insight of how we work. You could technically call it a roadmap, though all the information wed like to be included is a bit too wordy to be put into a single fancy image. Youll have to do with a 5-page devlog again. Sorry!

Demo reception

To get us started, lets talk about the demo again. Two weeks ago we shared a survey with everyone. Theres a lot of very useful information here that will help us determine the sentiment on the demo now that its over and gives us more to work with when it comes to the eventual release of the game. However, we would like to share the results of one of the questions.
These are the grades you all gave the shapez 2 demo. Of course, these results will be biased. We shared the demo within the Discord and the blog, so the people filling out the survey will be big fans of shapez. Its safe to assume that the grades will be higher than they would be if we were to ask a group of players that have no prior knowledge of shapez. However, even if we were to subtract a point of every grade for a possibly more accurate score, were very happy with the responses. It fills us with confidence that the demo gets such high scores, considering the flaws it had most of which have been fixed by now.

Shapez 2 today & the road ahead

Shapez 2 and the development thereof is looking very promising. With the demo, we were able to show what were capable of, now that were more than just a single person working on a game. We want to deliver the same quality for Early Access, but aspire to go beyond. The biggest challenge we face now is to finalize the newer mechanics. The demo mostly consisted of proven mechanics, things from shapez 1 that we know work well. Shapez 2 and its Early Access will of course have a lot of new mechanics as well, which require more iterations and testing to make sure theyre functional and fun. So, let's start to look ahead. There are three phases: developing the core mechanics, making them work in the game & polishing everything up for publishing. This system is used when it comes to developing mechanics, but it also applies to the game as a whole.

Phase 1: Game Mechanics

The beating heart of any game are the mechanics and core elements. Were still partly in this phase, developing new mechanics, reworking old mechanics and gathering feedback on everything to make sure it all feels right. Its a lengthy process, but you cant really continue when parts of the core game are still missing. Currently, were happy with the following major mechanics:

• Fluids
• Wires
• Crystals
• Research
• Building layers
• Blueprint library
• Pin mechanics
• Space belts & tunnels
• Shape types (including the reworked Windmill shape)
• The majority of buildings
• Colorblind mode (see below!)
• ...and many more smaller features and improvement to tie everything together

This is not to say that we will never change anything about these mechanics ever again, but were confident that they are fun and work as intended leading into Early Access.
Colorblind mode colors have patterns to help differentiate them if two or more colors look alike
Colorblind mode these patterns are also applied to icons in the UI There are also some mechanics that are still in the concept or prototype phase and were actively gathering feedback on how they should work. Once the concept is sound, we can finalize the concept and work on implementing it all into the game. These mechanics are as followed:

• Trains
• Chain miners & Fluid Extractors
• Infinite Research (not yet started)
• MAMs (Make Anything Machines): Everything you need to make a MAM is in the game, but there currently is no incentive to make it without the Infinite Research goals.

Were aiming to have all the major mechanics done by the end of April. When everything is functional, its time to move onto the next phase.

Phase 2: Production

This is the phase where you turn the mechanics from phase 1 into a completed package. It includes all the visuals, quality of life improvements, placement, optimization, sounds and music all in the name of making shapez 2 a nice experience. Lets go through a couple of these points.
Wires are functional, but everything is still missing its visuals
Fluid pipes were in already, but got some improved visuals We are always improving the simulation (dont make me link the blog again). Currently, our focus lies on the precision issues of shapes and factories that are not on your screen. This is important to make sure every shape is where it should be and the factory keeps behaving when you look away for a second. Additionally, we have lofty goals when it comes to maintaining performance for huge factories. Not all our planned improvements made it into the demo but did get implemented shortly after, so its already in a very good state compared to what you got to try. We didnt stop there though: its our goal to allow for 500k to 1 million buildings in a save on an average PC setup. For context, shapez 1 would start stuttering at 50k on the same system. Then theres our planned input rework. Shapez 2 works well with its default keybinds, but things start to break down a bit when you start customizing them. Its very easy to produce conflicts or unexpected behavior rebind Shift at your own discretion. When it comes to physical keys, there are some issues as well. For example, on the German QWERTZ layout you have to press Ctrl+Y instead of the expected Ctrl+Z to undo an action. Outliers like these are very difficult to fix, but not impossible. Other ongoing work includes readability improvements like the overview mode needing improved visualizations and a statistics panel. How long this phase will take is hard to predict, but were currently planning to spend about three to four months to get this phase right. That puts us around early August!

Phase 3: Polishing

Now, the gameplay is mostly done. Theres still a lot to do though! This is where we work on the tutorial and the knowledge panels with all the necessary content. The research goals need images or videos and the game should be localized for all the major languages.
Work on UI is also always ongoing, but you can now bind blueprint and folders to your toolbar!
New animation when you deliver your first shape This is also the moment where we do a lot of testing of all parts of the game with the help of the community and external partners. A feature may work in phase 2 but a bug could still suddenly rear its head when youre finalizing it with an image. At this point its also time to work on the trailer for the Early Access release. The visuals will be done by this point, so we can record the footage we need. This phase should take about one or two months, putting us around September or possibly October.

Early Access

So looking at this all, its unrealistic well be ready for Early Access before September. Our bottomline is to release the game this year still. The latter half of the year already seems quite busy when it comes to factory games, so well need to find a good window of opportunity to release shapez 2 and we would like the game to be ready for us to jump on said opportunity. As weve always said, our outlook on Early Access is that while the game is technically not finished yet, it should feel and play like a complete and polished game. We dont want you to think youre missing out on anything by playing it early! A lot of you tried the demo and gave us incredibly valuable feedback on the game, and the same goes for Early Access. Well be confident in the state of the game, but there are always other perspectives and ideas to explore that could make shapez 2 even better. [hr][/hr] If youd like to be part of this process and support us during development, do consider supporting the game on Patreon. It helps us fund the ongoing development costs, and gives you access to bi-weekly Alpha builds with the newest features before they go into Phase 3. Your feedback on these builds will in turn help us make a better game. Another way to support us is by simply wishlisting the game on Steam! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ That's it from us today. We hope to see you again in two weeks! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-04-04 18:21:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Its been a while since you last had a look into our progress. In fact, we havent really updated you since the release of the demo! While we already did a deep dive into the evolution of the Research System (which you can read here), its time we show you what other parts of the game weve been working on and what will be available in Alpha 18.

News

End of the shapez 2 Demo

The demo will soon be coming to a close. It will remain available until Monday, March 25th, 10 AM CET. This gives you the entire weekend to give the demo a go and see what shapez 2 is all about, or finish the projects youre currently working on! Pick up the demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

shapez 2 Demo feedback survey

A ton of you have already given us your feedback and thoughts on the demo and its system. As always, thank you so much for your time! We have a couple more specific questions wed love you to answer.

Find the survey here!

Alpha 18 release

We just released Alpha 18, which includes all of the changes mentioned in the blog and a little bit more. If you'd like to test it and share your opinions with us, consider subscribing to our Patreon! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 017

Production

The Windmill shape has been reworked. The previous design was the only shape type that was asymmetrical and always looked a bit awkward because of this. The new design is symmetrical, allowing for better looking shapes in our opinion. The shape goals with Windmill quadrants have also been changed to make better use of the new design. It may take a bit of time to get used to it, but let us know your thoughts!

We have a new design for the Pin Pusher youve seen in the bonus build of the demo. Before, it only placed one pin in one quadrant, but it now places a pin under every existing quadrant. This changes where in your production line it would be best to use the Pin Pusher, as you may need to utilise a couple more cutters if you don't want pins under everything.
A grey circle after going through a Pin Pusher Inspired by the original shapez, weve added Chain Miners and Chain Fluid Extractors that youll be able to connect to your main extraction platform. This saves you from having to go through the trouble of having to set up multiple platforms and connect them all. It also allows you to use all nodes of a cluster if one of the nodes is completely surrounded by other nodes without blocking any of the adjacent nodes. The map generation has seen some changes to allow for better usage of these chain miners and extractors.
Visuals are still WIP

Transportation

The old hyper belts (single platforms with four belts on them) were replaced with Space Belts. These new belts work similar to regular belts in that you can split and merge them, but a space belt carries four regular belts on three layers and can split the load into different directions. They are quite a bit more versatile than tunnels, but move shapes at a lower speed. Use them for short-distance connections between platforms or train stations. Trains now travel along a solid set of rails, instead of the old rainbow ones. This makes the rails look a lot more weighty and inline with platforms. You can place a station platform along any set of rails. Connect the station with your factory using your second-favorite mode of transport, load them on a train and watch your shapes go off into the sunset.
You can build centralised train stations and connect them with your factory using space belts We are still determining what role exactly trains should fill in shapez 2, but we've been getting some good feedback from the Patreon testers in the Discord. We hope we can share more about trains soon! The first prototype of the 3-way splitter is here! While its still missing the visuals to make it make sense, we know its been a highly requested feature and are glad its making its way in.
We are working with a new Fluid Simulation system that should be more accurate and intuitive. To make sure the pipes feel good to use and keep the simulation running smoothly, were essentially working with a signal-like system. If theres any fluid anywhere in a continuous pipeline, any connected building will be able make use of it. There will not be any fancy liquid simulations or advanced pumping mechanics. Additionally, Fluid Tanks are now directional to prevent back flow. You now start with a new Vortex platform layout. Its a 3x3 platform with a Miner on every side, supported by Chain Miners. These will pump up the shape output of the Miners so you have enough shapes to keep you busy until you unlock Chain Miners yourself.

Mechanics

There has been some progress on the wiring content for the game. We now have functioning Buttons, Displays, Virtual Rotators, Virtual Analyzers and Virtual Unstackers! Its still early days for wiring so theres still a lot of progress to be made.
Alpha 18 has the brand new Blueprint Library design. Essentially, it works just like the files in your operating system. Youll be able to organise all your blueprints into separate folders by simply dragging and dropping them as you wish. If youd like to use a blueprint, you can drag the file into the hotbar for quick access. Want to organise your blueprints without launching the game? Just head into the blueprint folder using something like Windows File Explorer and youll find everything exactly as you left it in game. Your library is synced between save games and devices.

Various other changes

• A lot of rendering refactoring & performance improvements
• Various improvements and extra visuals for the UI in many parts of the game
• Further changes to simulation ticks & steps per unit to fix (some) precision issues
• The shader of the shape viewer has been improved. Shapes now reflect some light.
• We brought back larger platform layouts as optional unlocks.
• The max range of tunnels has been changed from 3 chunks to 4. Their entrances now input and output shapes on 3 layers, with 4 belts on each layer.
• Platforms are now one tile bigger in every direction. This has decreased the gap between platforms and belt launchers had their range reduced to match this change.

[hr][/hr] Thanks for checking out our progress! Again, you only have a couple days left to try the demo before it goes on cooldown. Be sure to give it a go and wishlist the game if you're into it! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Until next time! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-03-21 15:16:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! A popular point of feedback on the demo was the research system. It's kinda a hassle to navigate and you couldn't really play how you want to play, unlock what you want to unlock. We went back to the drawing board and took another look at the research system, There's a new system now, and we'd like to explain it to you! However, we think it would be interesting to walk you through the history of the research system. If you'd just like to read about the newest system, feel free to skip to design #4. So to get where we are now, we had to make a number of iterations of the research system, see what elements worked and which didnt and then improve upon that iteration by making a new, hopefully better one. Lets walk you through these iterations, so you have a good idea of our progress!

Design #1: The initial research tree

Way back when, the research system had a classic tree structure connecting one research to the next. Every research could require multiple previous ones and each and every individual building and building variation had a unique research youd have to unlock.
While such a research tree would be functional in the end youd have everything this design brings a couple of major problems. Features were extremely broken up. You had to complete multiple separate researches to unlock all the bits and pieces of a single mechanic. You could make painters but wouldnt have a way to move paint around to make use of the new unlock. Youd also be missing out on a lot of quality of life features that make building a lot easier, so you waste a lot of time and space building elaborate factories while a single unlock would make that system a lot easier and compact to work with. The researchperbuilding system also means the tree would be extremely large and overwhelming. It was hard to find out what exactly you were working towards, if you could even find what youre working on right now. What we needed was a new tree design that combined various buildings into single researches to make the tree more compact and easier on the eyes.

Design #2: Main progression line with categorized subtrees

For this design, we went with a linear research tree a tree trunk, you could say. Core elements such as rotators and stackers would be right at the top and the main mechanic you unlock when completing the research. Many of the smaller bits and pieces were unified as part of these core unlocks to make sure you unlock all the necessary buildings you need for the main new mechanic.
Other unlocks that werent part of the core mechanics would be in separate, smaller subtrees. Youd have a subtree for belt speed, one for building speed, one for blueprints, etc. This removed the clutter from the main tree and organized all the other unlocks in separate tabs. This design made it a lot easier to see the next big thing you were working towards, and made it impossible to miss any core mechanics youd need to progress the game. The fact that youd immediately have all the elements you needed to fully enjoy the new mechanic prevented a lot of frustration that came with the old design.
However, this design too came with issues. The splintered subtrees would still make it difficult to find some researches, since some researches could fit in multiple categories. Is fluid packing part of fluids, or part of transport? It also made it difficult to keep track of your progression across subtrees: you sometimes had to flip through multiple tabs to find out what you just unlocked and where a new research had just become available. Additionally, it was hard to understand the connection between the main progression line and the subgoals. The small trees give you a general impression of what you had to do to progress unlock one belt speed increase to unlock the next increase but subgoals also needed you to progress the main progression line at times. The only way to find out about this was to guess. Cant progress this subtree? Got to be the main line.
The tree-like design also just didnt really add much. Some researches would be locked behind other researches just for the sake of looking like a tree. You had to unlock the CCW rotator before you could unlock the 180 rotator, even though you can definitely do without the former to use the latter. To add insult to injury, some unlocks most would consider essential and were huge QoL improvements were spread across these subtrees. You had to go out of your way to unlock splitters and mergers for example, and while you could technically progress without them, it made complex factories unnecessarily painful and inefficient to build. While this iteration fixed a lot of the issues of the first design, it brought a whole host of other issues to light. So, we went back to the drawing board.

Design #3: Milestones & Side goals

We decided to ditch the trees and go with stones instead. This new design consolidated the main progression line into milestones: bigger, more meaningful unlocks. Every milestone you reach is like a whole new world of options and side goals to explore. The tree structures and all the separate tabs were completely removed and everything was centralized within the new milestones. Essential quality of life unlocks like mergers and splitters are now unlocked from the start, and more minor unlocks could be found behind optional side goals you unlock with the milestones.
It was now extremely easy to understand when you unlock what mechanic and when new side goals become available. You have complete freedom in choosing what side goals you want to take on, as you no longer have to unlock full cutters to unlock the swapper, for instance. Milestones are now the only dependency. This iteration of the research system is the one currently seen in the demo. While it worked well enough for the part you could play in the demo, some issues started popping up here and there. Thank you again for all the feedback!
The big issue here is that the progression of the shape you needed to make to unlock the milestones didnt really progress in a logical way. The required shapes were too different from each other, and with the limited space available especially before you unlock space platforms it required you to demolish your previous work to make space for the new production line. This process is very mentally draining and doesnt feel as rewarding as it could. The milestones should incentivise growth, not feel like a rogue-lite game. Additionally, the long, single line of milestones made it difficult to keep track of all the available and completed side goals. You had to navigate back and forth constantly to find the ones you wanted. Again, since the demo wasnt that large, this isnt that big of a deal yet. When all the milestones become available in the full game however, finding anything will be a struggle. Adding more goals to the game would be a challenge as well as theyre tied 1:1 to the milestones, but it would also make the previous problem worse.

Design #4: Evolving milestones & Side tasks progression

With all that in mind, we move on to the research system thats currently available in the latest Patreon-exclusive Alpha. We stick with the milestone system, but have made a handful of big changes. Milestone goals are no longer limited to one shape type. Some goals may have multiple shape requirements that either build upon shapes you had to deliver previously or will be reused in a future goal. This is a fairly standalone change, but theres more.
Introducing: Research Points. Optional unlocks, like belt speeds and blueprint limits, are no longer tied to goals. Instead, youll be rewarded Research Points by completing Side Tasks, which in turn are unlocked by reaching new milestones like before. These side tasks start off simpler than milestones, but you unlock new, more difficult side tasks by completing them. These side tasks lines (name pending) can have between 3 and 7 tasks and will continue to ramp up in difficulty until you reach the end of the line. Side tasks can also award other minor rewards alongside research points, like extra blueprint points and platform limits.
The research points you obtain can be spent on whichever upgrade you like as long as you have completed the milestone to unlock the mechanic you want to upgrade. All possible upgrades are now on one dedicated screen a shop, as it were instead of being tied to a long, single row of milestones. You can really go wild with your research points: want to max out belt speed in the early game? If you can afford it, its yours.
This system is quite a big departure from the iterations we had before, but it brings a lot of improvements to the unlocking experience. Milestones now feel even more important and rewarding to unlock. They clearly show what you get by unlocking them, without being bloated by small upgrades. The research points and the shop where you unlock upgrades gives you both a lot of freedom to play how you want to play and also makes it a lot more clear what upgrades are available. This also helps make the game more replayable you could decide to focus on different upgrades and challenge yourself in new ways. The new system is clearly the perfect solution to all current and future problems and will never have to be improved ever again! is what we tell ourselves to sleep at night. Joking aside, wed love to hear your feedback on the new research system. It wont be added to the demo, but it is currently available to Patreon supporters. [hr][/hr] With all these iterations, the research system of shapez 2 is the single most reworked element in the game. Its really important to get this right. The game should feel both challenging and rewarding, without being frustrating. We will continue to tweak this system until we nail the balance! That's the devlog! We hope you enjoyed reading about the history and old designs of the research system. See you again soon! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

Be sure to wishlist shapez 2 and play the demo!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

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[ 2024-03-07 15:23:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! The demo period has been very insightful for us, so today wed like to talk you through some of our learnings from the demo and our plans leading up to the Early Access release. Though, theres something else wed like to tell you first!

Demo extension

To start us off, we have an exciting announcement. A lot of you asked for us to extend the demo, so we did! The demo has been extended until Monday, March 25th. This gives you a whole extra month to try out the demo or get truly creative with the tools at your disposal. However, we currently have no plans for any additional updates for the demo. Youll have to do with whats there now! If you havent already, be sure to opt-in for the Pins branch to try out Pins and complete some new challenges! You can read about how to install the update here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/4042612637275401107

General feedback

Weve received a ton of feedback from all of you. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much! Hearing your thoughts and having discussions with all of you really helps us out developing shapez 2. Theres been very little negative feedback, though there were some recurring topics worth pointing out. First up, the reusability of shapes and production lines wasnt great. You at times had to remove what you just built to make space for a completely different shape. This simply doesnt feel good, as if youre not really progressing. Weve already taken action to address this and have already significantly changed the research system to allow you to reuse shapes and expand upon your existing production lines. If youre a Patreon, you already have partial access to the reworked system.
(New research system menu mock up early WIP) There were a lot of suggestions for features and changes we were already working on, but did not make it into the demo. We sadly had to cut out some features to make it in time for the Steam Next Fest. Included in this list are a lot of the further performance enhancements we explained in devlog 011 as well as certain Quality of Life features for the Blueprint library, which was missing folders, icons and more. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2162800/view/3710460746137286714?l=english The Pin Pusher you could unlock in the Pins branch has already seen a significant rework to make it more interesting than just pins being essentially a fifth shape. You can find all the suggestions we are planning to add to shapez 2 on https://shapez-2.nolt.io/. Make sure to use the filters available to get a good idea of what were currently working on and what were planning for the future.

Known issues and plans to fix them

There were quite a significant amount of issues with the exclusive fullscreen mode of shapez 2. This includes difficulty alt+tabbing, flickering during the load screen, overlays not working or functioning correctly, misaligned cursors and certain crashes. These issues can be traced back to Vulkan, the graphics API we are using, and Unity, the games engine. We expect these issues to be resolved if we were to switch to DX12, so thats something we are currently considering. Rebinding keybindings and overlapping keybinds is something that could use some love. We plan to really improve this experience ahead of Early Access. Performance in general was really solid, especially considering not all the optimizations we were working on made it into the demo. Some players were encountering unexpected performance issues however, even on systems that should easily be able to run shapez 2. We are looking into these edge cases and hope to fix them, but with some many possible PC configurations we cant promise to fix them all. The brave pioneers who journeyed to the farlands may have seen some graphical issues along the way. If you move far enough away from the hub, the map would get choppy because of floating point issues. We plan to fix this, but its currently not a priority for the Early Access release as most players will never come across this. We are happy though that most players did not encounter any issues during their time with the demo.

Moving forward

Currently, were focusing on the mid- and end game where youre really expanding your factory with the use of space platforms. We are prototyping and finalizing the mechanics we have planned for this portion of the game. This includes trains, space belts, fluids and the new research tree.
Work in progress Progress is being made on improving the simulation to be fully precise, even when out of view. This feature was disabled for the demo as the scale is quite small, but this is something that needs to work in the full game. Slowing down the tick rate of the parts of the factory that are out of view allows for massive performance gains and will keep the game running smoothly when your factory reaches gargantuan sizes. Once were happy with the state of the mid- and end game mechanics, well move into production mode again. This is where we work on art for the mechanics, refinement, balancing, quality of life improvements and wrap it together into a finished product.
We move into the bug fixing, localization and quality assurance phase once all the features are in. This is the last step, and after this the game is ready to release in Early Access. Its our goal to deliver a very polished experience straight from the get-go. Thats to say, while the game will release in Early Access, we internally treat it as the big 1.0 release. [hr][/hr] To close it all off, here are some player stats from the demo: The demo was played by 109,477 unique users so far. The median time played comes in at 48 minutes. The milestones you hit are as follows:

• 73% of players reached the Stacker milestone, with a median time to complete at 15 minutes
• 48% of players reached the Blueprint milestone, with a median time to complete at 49 minutes
• 29% of players finished the demo, with a median time to complete at 2 hours and 49 minutes
• 6,7% of players finished the extra demo challenges, with a median time to complete at 5 hours

In two weeks, your regularly-scheduled progress devlogs will finally return. We have a lot to discuss, as we've made some good progress on trains, space belts, the new pin pusher design and much more like the new vortex platform design as seen below.
Thank you again, and see you soon. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

Be sure to wishlist shapez 2 and play the demo!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

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[ 2024-02-22 15:02:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Thank you all for playing the shapez 2 Demo! As a little thank you gift, we have a small content update for you. This update adds pins to the game alongside some new demo challenges to go with it! Be sure to read on, as the update wont automatically install.

New content

The new update brings pins to the game. These pins arent a shape, but do occupy the space theyre placed in. This allows you to put shapes on top of the pins and create so-called floating layers. You can gain access to pins by unlocking the new Pin Pusher milestone in the research menu, situated between Space Platforms and Demo Challenges.
It may not sound like much at first, but it adds a lot of new challenges and possibilities. The challenge goals at the end of the demo have been updated to require the use of pins, so be sure to give this new mechanic a go and let us know what you think! If you're ever unsure on whether or not a shape is using a pin, remember to click on the shape you need to make to see a 3D view!

How to install

Now, this addition required us to make some changes to the research unlocks. As to not erase your research progress, this update has been added as a separate game branch. Youll need to manually opt in for this branch. You can still load your existing savegame in the Pins branch, however you will lose all progress past the space platform unlock. If youre planning to do this, please make sure to make a backup of your savegame before you overwrite it in the new branch. A savegame from the Pins branch is incompatible with the main demo.

To install the new update, follow these steps:

[olist]

Go to your Steam library.

Right click shapez 2 Demo.

Click on Properties (the last option in the menu).

Click on Betas in the new menu (fourth option in the list on the left).

To the right of Beta Participation, click on the dropdown menu.

In the dropdown menu, click on pins - New Pin Pusher Content. If you do not see the option, you may have to restart Steam.

The shapez 2 Demo should now automatically begin updating. You can close the properties window.

Wait for the game to fully update and play the game! [/olist]
Please keep in mind that this update does not fix the known issues of the demo. We are actively working on fixing these, but this most likely wont be ready before the end of the demo period. Additionally, the new pin branch hasnt been tested as much as the main branch, so please report any bugs you may find! We recommend you play the base version of the update first before diving into the update, though theres nothing stopping you from going with the pins version immediately. Hope you enjoy the update! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-02-07 15:02:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Today wed like to officially announce that the shapez 2 Demo is now officially taking part in the Steam Next Fest. If youve already played the demo, the following segment may not be too interesting for you. Feel free to skip to Initial Feedback!

What to expect from the Demo

The Shapez 2 Demo will feature about 2 hours worth of content, depending on how minimalistic or elaborate you build. However, theres no limit to how long you can play!
Everything up to and including space platforms is unlockable, which is done by completing specified shape delivery goals. Rewards include destroyers, rotators, stackers and a second building layer to go with it. Youll unlock basic access to blueprints to duplicate production lines or share them with your friends or the community. Most main goals come with one or more side goals that give you various upgrades and buildings to further optimize your factory with. Additionally, youll encounter some Demo-exclusive challenges to rack your brain over once youve unlocked everything!
The Demo is fully fledged with a tutorial, tips that appear while you play as well as a Knowledge Panel in case youre stuck. It fully supports English, German, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional) and Japanese. Additionally, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Korean, Turkish, Polish, Russian and Thai are supported through community translations. Keep in mind that the quality of community translations may vary, so be sure to let us know if anything could be improved. Please note that Demo save files will not be compatible with the Early Access version of the game, planned for later this year. Blueprint save file compatibility is likely but not guaranteed.

Grab the demo here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [hr][/hr]

Initial Feedback

Weve received a lot of glowing feedback from everyone so far! Of course, its not perfect yet, but were really happy to hear a lot of you are happy with the quality were aiming for. We will continue aiming for this level of quality and polish working on Early Access. We have a couple of bigger changes in mind. Were planning to poll them so you can let us know how you feel about these changes before we put our time and resources into it. Yesterday, a survey went out with proposals for reworking the research system, adding an energy resource to balance blueprints and trains, making the map unlockable instead of being accessible immediately and making the starting platform around the Vortex modular for more flexibility. You can find this survey and future polls or surveys in #discussions in our Discord server. There are a couple of known issues, including some that prevent players from launching the Demo. Please read through our known issues forum thread to check for potential solutions. If none of them work, please join our Discord server, check #troubleshooting and start a thread in #bug-reports there so we can assist you!

Our Plans

Currently, were evaluating our options for Early Access. Were happy with the feedback and the quality we provided in the Demo, but theres still plenty for us to change and iron out, including the things that will be polled and so may or may not make it in the game. We have a couple of internal scenarios to consider as 2024 seems to be a busy year for the factory building genre, so well keep you updated on the estimated release window! [hr][/hr] We would like to thank everyone who has already tried out the demo already. Your support has been amazing and keep the feedback coming! If you havent tried the demo yet, dont wait too long! It will be available until February 26th. ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-02-05 18:30:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Today is the day! You can officially play the shapez 2 Demo, right now! We wont keep you any longer, you can download the Demo straight away below: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ The Demo is available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems and requires a 2-button mouse with scroll wheel to play. Controllers are not supported right now, but will be in the future. Please note that Demo save files will not be compatible with the Early Access version of the game, planned for later this year. Blueprint save file compatibility is likely but not guaranteed.
Got a question for us? Be sure to check out the FAQ below in case we already answered it: https://steamcommunity.com/app/2162800/discussions/0/4148445959734030278/ Want to get in touch with us about your feedback or a bug you encountered? The best way is to join the shapez 2 Discord server, and head over to the dedicated Demo feedback channels. You can join here. If you're not on Discord, you can instead head over to the Steam forums and make a topic on your issue. Well check the forums regularly, but support can be slower than through Discord. Additionally, well keep an eye on the shapez subreddit and our X (Twitter) mentions, but the two ways we mentioned above are much preferred.

What to expect

You can expect around 2 hours of gameplay in the demo, depending on how you play. During this time, you can unlock the following:

• Half Destroyers
• Rotators (90 CW & CCW, 180)
• Second building layer
• Stackers
• Cutters
• Trash
• Blueprints
• Swappers
• Space Platforms
• Speed upgrades for belts and many of the buildings above

The Demo has been localized for the following: [table equalcells=1] [tr] [th]Official Support[/th] [th]Community Translation*[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]English[/td] [td]Spanish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]German[/td] [td]Brazilian Portuguese[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Simplified Chinese[/td] [td]French[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Traditional Chinese[/td] [td]Korean[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]Japanese[/td] [td]Turkish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Polish[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Russian[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td][/td] [td]Thai[/td] [/tr] [/table] * Keep in mind that community translations may contain errors. Be sure to report them through our Discord! [hr][/hr] A huge thank you to the community and all the supporters on Patreon for making this possible! We are super happy the shapez 2 Demo is finally publicly available, so we really hope you enjoy it. Let us know what you think! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-01-25 14:02:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Get a first look at the factory-builder game shapez 2 with the official livestream of the shapez 2 Demo, available from January 25th to February 26th. Find the Shapez 2 demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2024-01-23 15:53:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Get a first look at the factory-builder game shapez 2 with the official livestream of the shapez 2 Demo, available from January 25th to February 26th. Find the Shapez 2 demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2024-01-23 15:53:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! Were incredibly excited and proud to finally announce that the shapez 2 Demo will become available this very month! Starting from January 25th, youll finally be able to play shapez 2 to your hearts content. The demo will be part of Februarys Steam Next Fest and will run until February 26th. In case you need a refresher, check out the shapez 2 Reveal Trailer here: [previewyoutube=0VO_52LJ268;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

What to expect

The shapez 2 Demo will feature about 2 hours worth of content, depending on how minimalistic or elaborate you build. However, theres no limit to how long you can play!
Everything up to and including space platforms is unlockable, which is done by completing specified shape delivery goals. Rewards include destroyers, rotators, stackers and a second building layer to go with it. Youll unlock basic access to blueprints to duplicate production lines or share them with your friends or the community. Most main goals come with one or more side goals that give you various upgrades and buildings to further optimize your factory with. Additionally, youll encounter some Demo-exclusive challenges to rack your brain over once youve unlocked everything!
The Demo is fully fledged with a tutorial, tips that appear while you play as well as a Knowledge Panel in case youre stuck. It fully supports English, German, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional) and Japanese. Additionally, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Korean, Turkish, Polish, Russian and Thai are supported through community translations. Keep in mind that the quality of community translations may vary, so be sure to let us know if anything could be improved. Please note that Demo save files will not be compatible with the Early Access version of the game, planned for later this year. Blueprint save file compatibility is likely but not guaranteed.
[hr][/hr] So far, shapez 2 has only been available to a limited audience. This Demo finally allows us to get feedback from the broader community and will really show us what still needs to be done before we enter Early Access. The quality of the Demo is representative of the quality of the final version of the game, barring any feedback we may receive. We are very ambitious to make the Early Access version feel like a full, finished game, so your feedback on the Demo will truly be invaluable to us. If youd like to join the conversation and give us feedback directly, you can already join the shapez 2 Discord server! There will be a button in the game to take you there. The Steam forums are also always open for you to leave your thoughts. See you soon! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2024-01-11 14:03:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Before we get into this progress devlog, I, the tobspr team and everyone else involved with Shapez 2 would like to wish everyone a merry Christmas and an amazing 2024. It's been a wild year and were super proud of what we have achieved so far. We can't wait to show parts of it to you with the upcoming demo! We will be taking some time off these holidays, but well be back next year to deliver you the Shapez 2 Demo to everyone in February. More news on this next year! If youd like to stay up to date with all the news and development of Shapez 2, be sure to wishlist and follow the game here on Steam! It helps us out a ton. Click the button below or click here. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Giveaway

To celebrate the season, we're giving away a set of Shapez Cookie Cutters! They're brand new and not yet available anywhere else, so this is your chance to be among the first to build your shape production line in your kitchen. Catapults not included.

Participate here!

You'll need to have Shapez 2 wishlisted in order to participate. Once you have, be sure to check out the list of other actions you can do to gain more entries and increase your odds of winning! All actions will support us directly. The winner will be contacted at the beginning of next year.

News

Shapez Mobile Release

Two weeks ago, we released the original Shapez on mobile devices! The game features all the content of the PC version up to level 20. You can play the first 7 levels at no cost at all. The full game is available for $4.99/4.99. Watch the trailer: [previewyoutube=QJAxyd8jifI;full][/previewyoutube] Find the game on your preferred platform:

Alpha 15 release and Demo Early Access

We released Alpha 15 this week, which features all changes mentioned in this progress devlog. Additionally, the Shapez 2 Demo is very nearly finished, barring any bug reports and feedback we get. If youd like to help us test the game and get early access to our latest development on Shapez 2, consider subscribing to our Patreon! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 015

New content

We added sound effects to every building in the game to match their animations! You have to pan your camera quite close to the building to really hear it, but even if its just a faint sound, it adds a lot of life to the machines and makes this space factory game feel a bit more realistic. Looking forward to everyone experiencing the new sounds! What do you mean, theres no sound in space?

Game Design & Balancing

Weve re-reviewed the content on the tutorial and made some changes to make hints more compact, yet efficient. They should be a lot more clear and easier to follow! Buildings will now automatically rotate to fit the direction of the belt or building its being attached to. This will make placing buildings require less actions, but manually rotating may still be required in certain configurations.
Tips are now shown more prominently for a few seconds, so theyre less easy to miss. Of course, you can turn tips off if you dont need them.
The prediction icons are now always shown on unconnected belts & building ends, as well as vortex inputs. This functions both as an indicator of what shape is being made, and a reminder that you still have work to do!
In addition to a previous change that automatically places splitters when connecting belts, this function now also applies to attaching buildings to a belt. Merging in this fashion is still being worked on.

Visuals

We improved the shape visualization and shapes now also have their LODs, the latter of which will both improve performance and make them more readable from a distance. Generally, more LODs have been added to pretty much everything. LODs are neat. We made some changes to Rotators to make them more visually distinct from processing buildings. This comes down to applying the visual language we discussed in Devlog 013. Further changes for the Rotators will come at a later date.
Placement indicators for half destroyers, full cutters and halve swappers have been improved. Their functionality and direction are now more clear and should prevent the unnecessary frustration of placing blueprints the wrong way around.
The Vortex received a number of changes. Have a look!
In general, a lot of small tweaks and improvements were made across the board in preparation for 2024.

Development

Weve made lots of performance improvements and the game should now run a lot more smoothly especially on lower-end systems. You can expect an increase in FPS of up to 200%! We expect Shapez 2 to run stable on hardware as low as Intel UHD Graphics with the right settings. We added a shader quality setting and added shaders for the lower settings. Map generation has been vastly improved in terms of performance, with improved loading times and reducing stutter when moving around the map quickly.

Audio

New music tracks have been added. The vibes are immaculate. We also added more interface sound effects, plus a setting to mute the audio when the game is not focused (you clicked outside the game window).

UI/UX

The game now uses physical keys for keybinding. For the users of QWERTY keyboards, nothing will change. However, users of other keyboard layouts will no longer have to start the game off rebinding all the keys. The game now uses the physical location of the key to determine the default keybindings instead of the letter itself. For example, for AZERTY keyboards the game will now default to ZQSD instead of WASD for camera movement. General improvements to UI and UI readability have been made, including conflict indicators, miner placement indicators, additional tooltips and several easy-access ways to get to various menus. Youll also get a little popup dialogue when finishing the demo.
We added a feedback button to the game that will redirect you to the Shapez 2 Discord server, where you can easily provide us your feedback in the dedicated channel. Belt catapults now show clearly when theyre not properly connected to the Vortex. They also delete belts in between a catapult and the receiver whenever theyre placed on a belt.
The main menu has seen several improvements and its looking amazing, if we say so ourselves! You can find a preview on YouTube below: [previewyoutube=UMimVRKZPDI;full][/previewyoutube] [hr][/hr] Thats it for now. Its a bit of a shorter one as there are no big ticket new additions this time around. Were very happy with the current state of the Shapez 2 demo and are super excited to let you all play Shapez 2 for the first time in February. Stay tuned for news on that soon! If youd like to give us a Christmas present, wed really appreciate it if you could add Shapez 2 to your wishlist. Thats all we want this year! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ For now, were gonna enjoy our holiday break and well be back with another devlog next year! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-12-21 15:04:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Its time for another progress devlog! Last month weve been hard at work nailing down the details of the upcoming Shapez 2 demo. To get into the upcoming Steam Next Fest, we have to submit the demo early January. With the holidays coming up, that means theres a lot to do! We would like to humbly request you to add Shapez 2 to your Steam wishlist. It helps you, it helps us, and its completely free. Sounds like a fair deal! Just press the blue button below, or click this bit of text. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Alpha 13

Alpha 13 went live last week and includes all the changes mentioned in this blog and more. Its available to our Patreon supporters!

Steam Next Fest Demo

Our current focus is set on the Shapez 2 demo that will be available to play for everyone in the upcoming Steam Next Fest in February. Patreon supporters were given early access to this demo version and will help us find issues and leave feedback on the demo version. This way we can make sure the demo is the best it possibly can be when the time is nigh and it becomes available right here on Steam. You can expect a dedicated devlog all about the Steam Next Fest demo soon.

Looking for testers

We're looking for new testers, preferably ones who haven't really played shapez before. If youre interested in the game but haven't actually had the chance to play, make sure to sign up through the Alpha Playtesting form! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 014

As we hinted at earlier, this month we are focussing on refining the content we already have instead of working on brand-new content. We already have all the content you will find in the demo after all! So think bug fixing, perfecting key game mechanics and more optimization. However, lets start with a couple of things that are new-ish to the current build.

New content

We added a brand-new overview mode that will show islands, trains, shapes, rails, tunnels and more when zoomed out very far farther than the Overview mode youve used so far. You can now zoom out four times further than before! Maybe space isnt big enough to house the factory youre going to be building after all
One of the highlights of our past month is the Operation Preview feature. This feature will calculate and preview the resulting shape in real-time while youre placing buildings. With this new tool in your hands, it should be a lot easier to spot an error and snuff it out before your belts are filled with a shape you didnt want to make.
The Full Cutter now has a mirrored variant, which can easily be swapped to by pressing F (by default).
The map generation has been reworked entirely. You can now configure the generation when creating a new game, but for now only the seed can be changed. This does mean you can share the map seed with others now! Additionally, more resources will spawn in the starting area to make long-distance transportation less of a necessity in the early game. We added more knowledge panel entries for most mechanics, as well as an introduction when starting a new game. This introduction will tell you about your goals, how you progress and how you can pull up the knowledge panel when youre stuck. The panels will only show up when theyre relevant.

Game Design & Balancing

Major changes were made to the progression system in the demo. Tunnels are now unlocked alongside islands, which in turn are unlocked right after platform buildings. Splitters and mergers are now unlocked at the start, so belt placing should feel a lot better in the early game. Additionally, the demo now includes asteroids with colored shapes.
You can expect to spend around 2 hours on progression in the demo. Youre free to continue playing as much as you like after everything is unlocked, but you wont unlock anything new. The tutorial has been reworked to be much more expansive and complete. Every step in the tutorial is accompanied by a video that helps visualize the step. We hope the tutorial is now clear enough to teach the ropes to someone who has never played a factory game or anything similar before.
The Rotator buildings rotating speed is now directly linked to the belt speed instead of the cutting speed. This should make it easier to keep your belts running smoothly! Weve reworked the way you place buildings and grow your factory. Its now much easier to replace buildings as pressing the Shift key will now always override whatever building is currently placed. Weve done a lot of finetuning and made various fixes for blueprint placement.

Visuals

New shape resource node visuals have been introduced that are dynamically generated based on the contained shape. Youll see the change just below the upper plate: all the shapes you see will be the same as the shape you get when extracting from that node. Shapes with squares will clearly be more square compared to the pointy star shapes. Its a minor change but it will add some more flair and detail to the game!
Weve made various improvements to the shaders for buildings, island hover effects, blueprints & blueprint placement, the selection of buildings as well as the island grid visualization. We added new visuals to belt launchers (yeeters) and catchers and updated the visuals for notches, shape patches and playing fields.

Various improvements have been made to shadows. They now render from farther away, space stations now have shadows on both high and extreme settings and asteroids and miners have shadows on extreme settings. In general, shadow quality should be much better than before. On the topic of quality settings, fluid deposits now have reduced visuals on lower quality settings. All LODs (level of detail, read this devlog for more information) for all remaining buildings that will be available in the demo are done, which will help with performance a lot for all quality settings. These buildings are the full cutter, halves swapper and rotator. Miners, shape patchers and fluid asteroids now also have their LOD.

Development

Two things in this section. First up, weve made further improvements to rendering performance. This, as always, is an ongoing process, so theres plenty more to come! Second, we introduced the Building Details graphics settings that should vastly improve the performance when set to low. This setting will make the game run a lot better on low-end systems.

UI/UX

We made a lot and I do mean A LOT of changes to the UI and UX in the past month in preparation for the demo next year. Lets start off with a couple highlights. The entire toolbar has seen a lot of updates with a new look and feel. The button icons are now more distinct from the buttons themselves, and the functionality clearly stands out in bright shapez 2 orange. The lock indicators of locked buttons have their opacity decreased to look less clickable than before because, well, theyre not. Additionally, the buttons have been reorganized.
We reworked the pre-load splash screen and improved the games startup time. There will be a brief loading screen to pre-load shaders and other visuals so the game will run a lot smoother during gameplay.
The last selected variant of a building is now stored and re-selected when you select the same building. For example, if the last variant of the Full Cutter is the mirrored variant, said mirrored variant will be selected by default the next time you select the Full Cutter. Steep camera angles are now somewhat being restricted the more you zoom out. This is required to guarantee the game will continue running smoothly. We'll keep a close eye on player feedback for this change. Interface settings & features were added for the following:

• Zoom sensitivity
• Invert zoom
• Mouse panning
• Mouse panning speed
• Invert vertical angle
• Lock cursor to window
• Move camera with floors

Now, we have a lot more changes to list, but this devlog would become too long if we were to write them all out. So below, you can find a collapsable list of all the changes we made the past month or so, if youre interested. Enjoy! [expand type=showmore] Sprint 19

• Entire Toolbar has been reworked & reorganized
• Selection is no longer undo/redoable and also less permanent
• First polishing pass on english translation
• Default keybinding rework: - Knowledge panel is now 'G' - 'Space' now toggles between buildings / islands mode - New: Switch between toolbars ('' and 'Shift + ') - Toggle layers: 'L' -> 'V' - Delete: Can now also use 'X' - Pipette / Clone: 'G' -> 'F' - Center on HUB: 'Space' -> 'H' - Create waypoint: 'M' -> 'L'
• Allow replacing catapults with belts
• Mirror inverse (SHIFT + F) now works again
• Reworked all translations
• Tooltips for research nodes now show the actual speed changes
• Less suggestions are now shown when you have lots of pins
• Contextual keybinding hints have been moved next to the toolbar, also show some "standard" keybindings when nothing is selected
• Removed icons for keybindings since they were confusing -> Now text is always shown (i.e. "SHIFT" instead of arrow icon)
• Show future milestones in research tree for demo builds
• UI adjustments, cleanup & polishing, for example moved buttons into panels
• Cleaned up layer manager, consolidated UP/DOWN buttons into keybinding hints
• Compass now shows a west half indicator together with the current milestone shape
• Fixed hover animations being dependent on simulation speed and not disappearing when game is paused
• Added toggles instead of dropdowns for on/off settings
• Moved research button to the top right of the screen
• Fixed research nodes not being clickable and thus not unlockable
• Removed screenshot-without-ui feature since you can press F2 and then F4
• Reworked tooltip & cursor info
• Improved island grid visuals & add indicator around cursor while placing an island
• Removed unused "focus on selection" / "convert path to blueprint" feature
• Fixed tutorial videos not loading on Linux / Steam Deck
• Allow replacing extractors with an extractor that is differently rotated
• Shape packers/unpackers now show shapes per crate in details
• Fluid packers/unpackers now show liters per crate in details
• Rework camera indicator (lower left), now also show zoom level & zoom stages in camera indicator
• (Re-) Aligned HUD elements and reduced padding to the screen borders
• Reworked layer display & moved to right lower side of screen
• Reworked hotkey display on right side screen panels
• Reworked visualizations panel and moved to lower right as well
• Updated research tree UI, now showing the names of upcoming milestones
• Fixed completed research nodes not having tooltips, also show tooltips in suggestions & pinned research
• Hover effects for buildings now fades in / out
• Increased speed of main menu animations
• Input / output indicators when placing now have different sizes depending on the layer> i.e. Stacker input on layer 2 has a smaller arrow while placing
• Streamlined panels -> Clickable panels now have the border, "background" panels are just a flat panel (i.e. blueprint currency)
• Updated style of icon buttons to be more holo
• Allow saving selection with Ctrl + S already (to avoid having to press Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + S)
• Decreased UI blur amount
• Research unlock notification now has a short 5 second timer on the continue button to avoid accidentally skipping it
• Fixed jump to hub not actually jumping to the hub & also it now resets the zoom level (but not the rotation anymore)
• Show CPU & GPU info in settings menu to make it easier to see if the game is running on an integrated GPU
• Decreased opacity of toolbar "locked" indicators to avoid looking like they could be clicked
• Fixed "pending" selection looking like it would be above buildings
• Fluid resources visualization has been removed
• Fixed island grid visualization being "below" the islands making it a bit confusing
• Fixed train station visualizations being too big
• Fixed stacker output preview being shown at wrong location

Sprint 20

• Moved layer switch buttons to layer manager again
• Moved skill academy above toolbar to be more noticeable
• Show cost while placing space belts, and better show when running out of platform blocks
• Added continue button to main menu
• Show platform limit increase in research tooltips
• Allow deselecting building/island selection with right click
• Show warning on first game start when playing with integrated / low end GPU
• Swapped hotkeys for delete - default is now X with Del being the secondary key
• Improved delete-area icon
• Show space belts also on extractor tab now
• Improved clarity/sharpness of mouse icons
• Reworked preload / splash screen, improved game startup time
• Last selected variant (i.e. rotator) is now stored and re-selected
• Do not show train visualizations when trains are not yet unlocked
• Hide main button panel when none are visible
• Show incompatible savegames in menu (i.e. outdated version, or Demo vs Full edition)
• Updated credits
• Updated game mode selection
• Added header for pinned shapes (Active Sidegoals)
• Added hint on blueprint library when there are no entries on how to save a blueprint to the library
• Flipped halves destroyer icon to align with the building functionality
• Disallow binding windows key
• Improved sharpness & Clarity of icons on lower resolutions
• Added hint in research unlock notification that you can find more information in the knowledge panel
• Made toggle buttons look less like they have been disabled
• Fixed invalid mouse sprites
• Added popup when changing language to require restart

[/expand] [hr][/hr] Now youre caught up! Share your thoughts in the comments below, or join the discussions on the Shapez 2 Discord server. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed this devlog, and wed love to have you back for devlog 015! ~ Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-11-23 15:15:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello everyone! One of the biggest differences between Shapez 1 and Shapez 2 is, of course, the visual upgrade. The transition from 2D to 3D is an enormous task, and we spare no effort to guarantee we will ace this step forward. For this devlog, we asked Nils, our 3D artist at tobspr Games to take you through the process of how we settled on the design philosophy of Shapez 2 and what we have to keep in mind whenever we design something. Before we get started, please make sure you have Shapez 2 wishlisted! We have some exciting times ahead of us, and it would be a shame if you were to miss out on future updates! :) https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Alpha 12

Last week saw the release of Alpha 12, a huge update that focuses on improving the onboarding experience of Shapez 2. We are currently working on polishing this experience to a near-final state, barring any feedback we may receive from you. Want to try it out for yourself? Consider joining our Patreon! [hr][/hr]

Nils here!

Even though Shapez 1 was a pretty complex game, it wasnt what we would call a looker. The graphics were simple and readable, but not exactly aesthetically pleasing. Its programmer art, as our lead artist would say! This is fine for those who value function over vanity, but it makes it difficult to attract new players who arent experienced factory builders already. If you take a look at a game like Satisfactory, a game thats both complex and beautiful, it appeals to all kinds of players. It has the visuals to be interesting to players who are new to the genre and the gameplay to teach them the ropes, while also being complex enough to keep veterans engaged. This is something we feel Shapez 1 lacked. While the low-stakes gameplay was very friendly to new players, the visuals made it more of a game for people interested in IT and programming. So, for Shapez 2, Tobias envisioned a sequel that takes all the gameplay strengths of its predecessor, but takes the jump to 3D and makes it look good while keeping the game accessible. One other change we deemed important is the complete removal of black box buildings. If you look at the buildings in Satisfactory, Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program, the resources you feed into a machine disappear into nothingness. A couple seconds later, a product pops out, and you have no clue which steps happened in between. We think the segmented nature of the shapes allows for a non-black box approach where you can see exactly what a machine does by simply looking at it doing its thing. We are not smelting iron, copper and Arachnian stalagmites to create the inverse Galerian crop circle or whatever. We cut squares into smaller squares, circles into slices, paint and then stack them. We can animate every step in the journey a shape takes, from extraction to delivery. There are some exceptions to this rule, however. Some processes would be too difficult to animate and take more time than its ultimately worth. An example would be the packing of a thousands shapes into a small crate it makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but would visually not work well.

Getting started

We started off with a very basic aesthetic, inspired in some ways by Mini Motorways. Limited geometry, a desaturated color palette and no fancy effects. No metallic objects, reflections or bevels. We made a few concepts for the general theme of the game and worked together with the community to settle on the space theme Shapez 2 now sports. With the theme set in place, we could now start detailing with shading, reflections and metallic objects. The visual language for the buildings repeating patterns, colors and design choices developed over time. Back when I joined tobspr Games, all I had to work with were some very basic visuals Tobias made. Essentially, it was my job to make them look good! I proposed a few early design ideas, created animations and defined design rules that we still adhere to today. Some of these early ideas are still present in the current version of the game, like the animation for the lifts.

Pinpointing our vision

The direction we wanted to work towards could be described as a marriage between the realism (physicality) of factories and the abstraction of space. Good examples of this are the belts and belt corners. Instead of being a simple 90 degree curve with a stretched texture, or a hard UV seam like many other games do their belts, we made something akin to how a real belt functions. These belts have a texture looping around rollers, cartoonified a bit by hiding certain complexer parts of the mechanism. This way, the belts get the vibe of a real factory, with enough abstractness to allow for greater creative freedom. More examples will follow later on! In general, were aiming for a highly polished look with tons of detail, many of which may never be seen by a lot of you. The buildings would hold up in a (non-existent) first person mode, even if we didnt design them with that goal in mind. With the use of LODs, a consistent design language and a lot of iterating, we ended up with the world we imagined. It captures the spirit of Shapez 1, while looking a lot more appealing (to most), as well as being more readable and easier to understand.

With this design philosophy in mind, lets dive into some specific examples!

Designing buildings for Shapez 2

The building blocks that make up the core of Shapez 2 stayed largely the same as in Shapez 1. Quite literally actually, as the game is still logically separated in square blocks of one. Since the functionality of a lot of buildings is directly taken from Shapez 1, we only had to come up with ways to visualize their inner workings. This turned out to be quite the challenge, however. With the technical and artistic constraints we were working with, it became very difficult to come up with the designs. A lot of the technical constraints are set to make sure the game keeps running smoothly. We had to limit animations and forgo most of Unitys basic systems in order to support large factories. We cannot use baked animations, for example. If youd like to read more about the performance constraints, be sure to check out devlog 011!

Four pillars of design

Readability, building uniqueness, building uniformity and coolness. These are the four design pillars we try to adhere to. However, within these four pillars, we can already find two conflicts: readability versus coolness and uniqueness versus uniformity. Lets go over both these conflicts! Readability versus coolness In a nutshell, readability is the ability for the player to easily differentiate between buildings and understand what a building does from a distance, in our case about 30 meters away. For this reason, buildings shouldnt have too much visual noise and animations should be simple, e.g. not have too many moving parts. Coolness is all about how fun and interesting the game looks.
Of course, it would be fun if we could give every building big lasers, launchers and complex animations, but this comes at the cost of readability. The more flair a building gets, the more detailed it gets and the less readable it becomes. If we make every building a big light show, youd have no clue whats going on after youve placed a couple down.
Uniqueness versus uniformity This conflict links directly to readability. You need buildings to look and feel unique to make them stand out and make their function clear. However, the game should look coherent and every building should share one visual design language.
Every building should follow these four pillars of design. They should look cool, yet readable. To be readable, they should look unique, yet similar enough to fall in line with the other buildings.

Design pipeline

Each and every building has to go through a long string of departments and stages before its finalized form makes it into the game. Their journey is as followed: [olist]

Game design prototyping

Art concept

3D prototyping

3D refinement

Polishing (Quality Assurance) [/olist] Of course, this is a very simplified look at the entire process. It makes sure we dont miss any crucial oversights, like animation clipping between adjacent buildings or concepts not adhering to the aforementioned design pillars.

Logistic versus processing buildings

We differentiate between logistic and processing buildings. Belts, mergers, splitters and lifts are logistic buildings; they move shapes around. Buildings like cutters, stackers, painters and swappers are processing buildings; they make changes to the actual shapes, producing different shapes. The function of a building will also determine their design language. Logistic buildings have lightweight, open designs that clearly display what theyre transporting. They have unique designs per build layer to differentiate them, and have one central orange element that does something, like the pusher element in a splitter. Processing buildings should stand out and really look like buildings. They have very boxy designs and have thick, orange borders, yet should retain a unique look to differentiate them. With these differences, players should easily be able to tell the difference between the two types of buildings, even from far away.

Design limitations and rules

With all this in mind, we face a handful of limitations when it comes to designing buildings, the design pillars aside. [olist]

Buildings must not exceed their defined chunk (their personal space, as it were), especially not during animation

Inputs and outputs should always be in the center of the chunk and be uniform across all buildings (looking at you, old tunnel entrances and exits)

Animations should be readable from a distance, good looking up close and convey their purpose

Animations are limited to moving, rotating and scaling

The amount of (moving) objects per building should be limited to keep performance smooth

Shader-related restrictions, like glass being expensive to render

Shapes should not be rotated during an animation (except, of course, the rotator)

Shapes should not clip through objects during an animation or when transported

Animations should loop perfectly

Animations should support a belt at full capacity and stop when the output stalls

Shape supports should be handled in some way, they may not just spawn in or magically disappear [/olist]
One issue were still actively working on are the supports for multi-layer buildings. As you can place buildings below these belts, the belt supports can conflict with the building below. Not having any supports looks weird, but theyre technically not relevant for gameplay.

Casus 1: The (full) cutter

Anyone familiar with Shapez 1 will probably recognise the cutter:
This building works well in the Shapez 1 style, but it doesnt translate well to Shapez 2. Tobias created a basic model for the cutter, which gave me a rough idea on how it should work in 3D as an open design. However, the visuals needed a complete rework. This presented quite the challenge, since in Shapez 2 the building operations are not dependent on camera rotation, but tied to the world as it were. This is necessary, as blueprints wouldnt work if the buildings would change the axis they work on. If the cutting angle would be baked into the building itself, said angle would change if the rotation of the blueprint would change. This also means youd get a different output every time you rotate a blueprint. You can see the solution below. The blue half circle indicates which part of the shape is manipulated. The same principles extend to the Swapper as well.

Casus 2: Lifts

To introduce a completely new problem to developing this game, we decided to add layers. You have to be able to move a shape from one layer to the layer above or below. Lets go through all the boxes it has the mark off, shall we? Lifts should

• not clip
• not use baked animations
• support a fully upgraded belt
• be able to stop if the output stalls
• not use more than 2 moving parts
• support corner and backward delivery options
• make sense when viewed from above
• fit the general style of the game
• not take up too much space (open design)
• look solid and sturdy
• have visible support for moving parts
• have a looping animation

Thats quite a lot of requirements to work with, but were very happy with how it turned out. The current design is almost a year old by now, yet its still one of my personal favorites. Not to mention you can make stuff like this:

Its in the details

As we mentioned before, we went for a very polished, yet stylized look. Almost every building currently has one or two little details that you can discover if you zoom in close enough. Lets have a little peek:
The belts were made to emulate the look of real conveyor belts, including a bit of suspension that holds everything in place. We made sure the UVs and textures arent stretched and decided on handling the change of direction of belts in a way where they feed into each other instead of warping.
Or take a look at the painter, which is admittedly still very much a work in progress as far as shaders are concerned and will get another overhaul later. We wanted the painter to adapt to the height of the shapes coming in. So, we added a hinge and allowed the roller to move up and down as shapes of different heights are fed into the machine.
[hr][/hr] We hope this devlog showed you a complete picture of our design process for Shapez 2. Of course, we also hope you enjoyed it :) If you have any questions, be sure to join the Discord server.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ See you again in two weeks! ~ Nils & the Shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-11-09 16:02:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Happy progress blog day! Weve been working a lot on the visual presentation of Shapez 2. This includes everything from making the game easier to navigate, as well as making the whole factory-building aspect (which is quite important in Shapez 2, Id say) smoother and a bit faster. As always, these blogs are bi-weekly! One week, it's all about the progress we made developing the game. Two weeks later, we do a deep dive into one specific mechanic or feature that warrants some explaining. We plan to keep this cadence going until the full release of the game, and probably even after! While youre here, make sure you have Shapez 2 wishlisted! Not only does it allow you to stay up to date with the latest know-how on the game, it also gives Shapez 2 a better shot at getting featured by Steam. It would help us out a ton, thanks! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Alpha 11

Alpha 11 is available to our Patreon supporters and features all the improvements we mention in this blog, alongside a handful of smaller changes (like bug fixes). These alphas are as per usual available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems. [hr][/hr]

Devlog 012

Well first tackle some changes that directly impact how you build your factories. We will then move on to the visual changes that will improve the overall gameplay experience.

Game Design

It's finally here: Introducing the Blueprint Library! While still a work-in-progress, it allows you to save and load blueprints to your heart's content. You can also copy the blueprint to share with others through a simple text message, or dive into your game files to find the Blueprints folder. From here, you can share the blueprint files with others or back them up for later use. This is just the start of our plans for the Blueprint Library. We'll be adding a bunch of features to organize your library, like folders and customizable icons. You can now also research discounts for your blueprints that allow you to place the specified amount of buildings free of charge.
We made some changes to the way you connect two space stations to each other using belts. When placing belts, the game will automatically place receivers on station notches for you when you place the catapult. There is now also an indicator for this mechanic to make it more clear.
Deleting one of the outputs of a belt splitter or merger will now automatically remove the left-over connection of the deleted output. So, when deleting an output, a three-way splitter will turn into a two-way splitter and a two-way splitter will turn into a regular belt.
We added some new station platform designs. Have a look!
The shape & fluid patches have been updated with a new potential layout. These changes are accompanied by updated visuals for the fluid patches, as well as the outer walls of fluid and shape miners.

Additionally, a starting map will now spawn resource patches closer to the HUB, lowering the amount of transportation necessary in the early stages of the game.

Visual Updates

A new design for the Full Cutter has been added, and the name for the Full Cutter will just be Cutter going forward.
New Halves Swapper design & animations have been added.
The HUB was rotated 90 degrees so the initial camera position now faces north. This should make it easier to get your bearings when starting a new game! The tunnel entrances and exits are now finally centered! No more throwing shapes through solid walls.
New indicators for mismatched belt directions have been added. Weve all messed this up before, so now it should be easier to notice when something is off! The current visuals are placeholders and will be changed in the near future.

UI/UX

Weve been putting a lot of work into updating the UI and UX in the latest Alpha versions. Lets take you through the highlights! The icons for the toolbar, all the buildings and some UI elements have been updated in a new style. Thank you to the people in the Discord for your initial feedback on these new visuals!
Additionally, the icon for certain key bindings have been updated to be more readable. For example, the 'SHIFT' key binding is now reflected with [strike]a single-family home[/strike], the arrow you see on most keyboards.
The Skill Academy we covered in Devlog 010 is now implemented, and will give you quick tips on newly unlocked features. Be sure to read them if you ever run into a skill, uh... issue.
Unlock notifications now display videos of the newly unlocked buildings, which show how theyre used.
Updated placement grid and Layer UX visuals now indicate which layer is selected. This should make it easier to build across multiple layers and keep track of the layers on which youre building.
The lock indicators are now always shown, so youll always know which slots are locked and which ones aren't.
Building descriptions are now shown when selected and are unique per variant. The descriptions for every building and its variants have been updated along with this change. Several improvements have been made to the main menu and settings page. These improvements include drop-down lists for most settings and clearer key bind settings, as well as a confirmation prompt when leaving the graphic settings page with unsaved changes.

Were experimenting with hover indicators when hovering buildings or islands. Hovering is the state the building is in when the building is selected but not yet placed. Please let us know your thoughts on these indicators!

Balancing

Were working on rebalancing various goals to make the progression of the game feel more rewarding. The Tunnels, Chunk Limit 1 and Blueprints have been moved to unlock slightly earlier, while the splitter & merger goal will take more shapes to unlock. Platform and chunk limits have been increased. Half Swapper and Full Cutter speeds have been changed. For both, youll now only need 4 to keep up with a full belt.
[hr][/hr] And that wraps up everything for this devlog! Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments, or join the discussions on the Discord server. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed reading devlog 012, see you again in two weeks! ~Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-10-26 14:10:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! We get a lot of questions about performance, so we thought it would be a good idea to take you through our progress of optimizing Shapez 2 to run as smoothly as possible. We asked Lorenzo, one of our developers, to take you through everything. This is a very technical blog, so if you're not experienced with this stuff, feel free to skip this one. Before you dive in, be sure to wishlist Shapez 2 if you haven't already! It helps us out massively. Thanks! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [hr][/hr]

Lorenzo here!

In our journey to evolve the shape of Shapez from a 2D game to a stunning 3D experience, we've encountered numerous exciting challenges and opportunities. This transformation not only adds depth to the game but also infuses it with more personality, gameplay possibilities, and aesthetic appeal. However, this transition has not been without its fair share of obstacles. The move to 3D has introduced a multitude of development challenges, spanning game design, artistic direction, and technical implementation. Perhaps one of the most significant technical challenges lies in rendering 3D objects. In Shapez 1, rendering was relatively straightforward, with one sprite per building. In the 3D realm, each building has thousands of triangles to render, different materials and animations. For large factories, this requires a considerable amount of optimization, both in the simulation of these entities and in the rendering process. In this devlog we go in-depth in a lot of the rendering optimizations tailored specifically for Shapez 2, as well as what is missing and what are the next steps in keeping a stable frame rate with massive factories.

Introduction

Performance has always been at the forefront of our development philosophy. Right from the beginning, we made deliberate choices to ensure the game's efficiency. In the game context, we can split the performance into three categories: Simulation, Rendering & Interfacing. The simulation changes from Shapez 1, as well, as some insights of how we are pushing the performance for large factories can be found in Devlog 001. The interface, meaning, every interaction that the user communicates with the game and reflects both in the simulation and rendering, is very circumstantial. It can be optimized on a case-by-case basis. The rendering issue, however, is one of the biggest challenges to overcome. We already did a lot, but given the massive scope that we aim for, it might not be quite enough yet. To kick this devlog off, let's first discuss a bit about how the rendering works (in a very high-level way).

Overview of the rendering workflow (CPU-GPU)

It is important to understand that CPUs and GPUs serve very different purposes. I like to think of the CPU as the solver of all problems: no matter what you throw at it, it can handle it to some degree. Sure, if you jump around instructions and memory, the performance will degrade, but it is not compared to how a GPU would handle it. CPUs pipelines help process many instructions per cycle while branch predictors try to minimize the amount of incorrect jumps and L1, L2 & L3 caches reduce RAM fetching latency. On top of that, processors today come with many cores, but leave the responsibility of using such cores to the developer. More on this later. The GPU on the other hand is a hardware specialized in processing a single instruction for a very large amount of data. That's why it shines in computer graphics and game development: just think about the number of pixels in your screen, the number of polygons a model has or the amount of rays that need to be traced to render one frame of a path-traced scene. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is not so good at switching state (branching). In other words, drawing two different objects once is slower than drawing one object twice. With that in mind, the processor is the part that will handle all the input, interfacing, and simulation for game development. And after all that, it will dispatch to the GPU what it wants to draw. In order to draw something into the screen, the CPU needs to pass some data to the GPU: a mesh, transformation matrix and a shader (yes, this is very, very oversimplified). Imagine if we want to draw our very hard-working belt. The CPU, after processing the simulation, asks the GPU: Hey, would you be so nice to draw this belt mesh at this position using this shader right here? While youre at it, draw this shape in this position slightly above the belt and so on.

Culling

The CPU tells the GPU (nicely or not) what it should draw, and the GPU complies without hesitation. What data is communicated is crucial for performance. Imagine telling the GPU to draw every object in your scene? Even the ones behind the camera? The GPU does not have a lot of context to work with and will process most parts of its rendering pipeline until realizing that the object is not in view. Defining which objects are visible in the current view is called Frustum Culling. Ideally, this should be performed by the CPU. The way that the data is communicated is also very important, that's why the Khronos Group at some point realized that their OpenGL was too high-level and created Vulkan, a very low-level API for interoperating between CPU/GPU. Unfortunately, Steam character limit wont allow us to go in depth, but you can read more about it here.

What we have been doing

Alright, now that we are in sync regarding how CPU and GPU need to communicate, let's talk about what already has been implemented in Shapez 2 to maximize the performance.

Game Object avoidance

We steered clear of Unity's Mono Behaviors for core components that demand high performance. Except for the UI, almost all of our systems are written without Unity components. This allows us to employ a better architecture following C# principles and have fine control over all aspects of the game, including the performance.

GPU instancing

In Unity, to draw geometry on the screen, draw calls are issued to the graphics API. A draw call tells the graphics API what to draw and how to draw it. Each draw call contains all the information the graphics API needs to draw on the screen, such as information about textures, shaders, and buffers. Less draw calls are better, as the GPU has less work to do and less switching to perform. One of the most important optimizations in the rendering of Shapez 2 is using the full potential of GPU instancing: grouping objects with the same mesh and shader in a single draw call.
In my assignment to enter tobspr, I was tasked to create a shader that would logically render many materials based on some mesh data. So I did, but In order to fully explore the potential of such a shader, I decided to run some tests comparing the performance of drawing Game Objects vs. batching all rendering in a single instanced draw call. For the test, I used 64643 = 12k low-poly belts and the results were astonishing:

Material combination

Our buildings and space stations are composed by different materials:
Since each building might be composed using multiple materials, this would require multiple draw calls per building. To improve it, we combined all of them in a single shader. This allows us to have only one mesh for each building main part which is drawn with a single material, thus a single draw call. The material split is made inside the shader using the information of the UV0 channel, which encodes the material index per vertex data. Additional moving parts and effects need to be drawn separately.

Mesh combining

Having a shared material for all buildings reduces tremendously the number of draw calls, but it also provides the foundation for a very interesting optimization: mesh combination (also sometimes called mesh baking). At runtime, buildings on the same island are combined into a single batch dynamically. Since the material is unified and the mesh contains all buildings, we can render tons of buildings with the most varied materials in a single draw call. The example below uses only two combined meshes to draw all of these buildings main components:

Level of Detail (LOD)

We take vertex count very seriously, even one extra vertex can become 300,000 extra ones when rendering very large factories. To support very detailed, yet scalable meshes, we created different meshes for each building in different levels of details. The model that is actually presented on the screen is calculated at runtime based on the camera distance.

What's the problem, then?

With all those optimizations, the rendering performance should be excellent, right? Well, it is, but we always want more. Better performance means bigger factories, more compatibility with older hardware and less hardware pressure. The question naturally becomes: what can be optimized next? So far, you might have recognized a pattern in the optimizations above: they are all targeted at optimizing the GPU rendering process. Less draw calls, less vertices, less context switching. Indeed, the hardest part of rendering is always focused on the GPU, and were getting very close to the scale we are aiming for. However, all of these techniques put further pressure on the CPU, which already needs to deal with the simulation part. As Tobias always says, each 0.1ms saved from the rendering will be well spent in the simulation, allowing for further complicated factories to run. During development, we avoided using Unity components as they are generally not very performant. Core components have been written with performance in mind, employing several algorithmic optimizations to ensure everything runs smoothly. However, the code executed by the CPU is still written in C#. This comes with limitations on how performant it can be, as the language offers a trade-off between productivity and runtime performance. The table below provides some insights about the performance of each language for single thread tests. The algorithm executed is the same, yet the time difference to execute it can be abysmal.
Source

Enter DOTS (or part of it)

Unity is a beginner-friendly engine with a lot of features both to help you get started and for veterans to write very complicated systems. However, although there are many highly optimized systems and a high influx of new optimizations, the underlying structure was not created with performance in mind. During the past decade, the engine race was quite fierce between Unreal and Unity. Numerous debates over which one is the best one, forced Unity hand to take their lack of performance into consideration, thus yielding a completely new paradigm with a powerful tool belt to back it up: the Data Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS). It was created with the slogan: Performance by default and since its impressive debut in Megacity (2019), has received dozens of improvements. DOTS is a combination of technologies and packages that delivers a data-oriented design approach to building games in Unity. Applying data-oriented design to a games architecture empowers game creators to scale processing in a highly performant manner. It is composed mainly by three technologies: ECS for Unity, Burst Compiler & C# Job System. ECS is a data-oriented framework focused on structuring the code in a very different manner than traditional Object-Oriented (OO). Instead of mixing and matching data and implementation. As the name suggests, ECS has three main parts. Heres an excerpt from Unitys own documentation:

• Entities the entities, or things, that populate your game or program
• Components the data associated with your entities
• Systems the logic that transforms the component data from its current state to its next state

Inside the DOTS Infrastructure, ECS is powered by the mighty Burst Compiler: that translates IL/.NET byte code to highly optimized native code and the C# job system: which allows Unity developers to take advantage of multicore computing platforms with parallelized code that can run safely and at speed. DOTS looks amazing on paper: a completely new approach to design your game with a clear division between data and logic that is also very efficient due to the contiguous nature of ECS and the underlying tools that back it up. In practice, however, using ECS on production was not advised until recently, since the package was still in development. It also comes with a heavy price to pay if your code is already written and although it is easier to maintain, the initial code creation can be much more challenging. For the last few years, the API changed dozens of times, many of these rendered previous implementations obsolete. A lot of core systems, such as physics, audio and multiplayer have also stayed in pre-release for the last couple of years. Using ECS for production was risky and not advised. The good news is that the Burst Compiler and the Job System work independently of ECS, and we get to enjoy their performance benefits without the hassle of rewriting all of our codebase from scratch.

Burst Compiler

Burst operates within constraints and patterns that empower the compiler to perform much of the heavy-lifting. These are:

• Limited C# Subset: Burst Compiler operates on a constrained subset of C# and does not support, by design, inefficient patterns.
• No Garbage Collection: Manual memory management eliminates the need for garbage collection, reducing time spikes.
• No References, Just Plain Data: Data is stored without references, facilitating faster memory access.
• Adjacent Memory: Most jobs are written reading/writing to contiguous memory, making it possible to use vectorization (SIMD) and efficient use of CPU caches.
• Parallelism with Job System: Enhanced parallel processing capabilities.

When all these factors combine, they can result in remarkable speed improvements of 30x to 300x in CPU processing. This means that for code that is highly independent, math-dependent, and data-focused, we can significantly enhance its performance.
Source

Job System

In the game development realm, many games process everything in a single thread, not using the full potential of the processor. Heres why:

• It can be challenging to split the workload between multiple threads;
• Most games are not coded with that in mind and have data dependencies everywhere;
• Race conditions, deadlocks and complicated issues might arise
• Most games do not have a lot of processing to do (generally the rendering is the performance culprit)

The Job system is Unitys answer to all of these problems, providing a solution to take advantage of multicore computing platforms with parallelized code that can run safely and at speed.

Restrictions

The Burst Compiler and the Job System almost seem magical given the increase in performance they can provide. They come, however, with a hefty price to pay: it is way harder for your code to comply with them. A lot of constraints restrict how you should structure your code. In short, they do not support managed references. You need to stick with bare bones data-only structures and some pointers to help structure collections. And that's all you got. The benefit is that you can write very efficient code. If you are curious about what is allowed and what is not, here is an overview of what is supported by Burst: [table noborder=1 equalcells=1] [tr] [td] Arrays (T[])[/td] [td] Unity Mathematics [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Managed types (classes)[/td] [td] Unity Native Collections[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Anonymous functions*[/td] [td] Structs[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Delegates[/td] [td] Primitives (int, float, bool)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Strings[/td] [td] Pointers (IntPtr, T*)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Char[/td] [td] Pure static methods (no side effects, no[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] Static data access[/td] [td]mutable data access)*[/td] [/tr] [/table] *ECS actually supports when defining systems that will execute on archetypes, but it is just syntax sugar, the lambda is converted down to a simple function As shown, the Burst Compiler only accepts a very small subset of C# that feature-wise looks a lot like C. Furthermore, both Job System and the Burst Compiler do not accept references to managed code. To understand managed vs. unmanaged, it is crucial to first understand how the memory allocation works.

C# memory management

In the C# context, whenever you create a new instance of a class (and in many other circumstances), it allocates the class data in the heap to avoid loss. Once again, C# makes it easy for programmers because it implements a garbage collector. On the other hand, if you use C# structs, the data is passed around on the stack by default. That means that using a struct, per se, does not allocate memory on the heap. When the function reaches its end, the data is automatically gone. The inconvenient part is that the programmer must guarantee that the data is properly copied between functions since it does not survive scope ending.

Managed vs. Unmanaged

With this in mind, we further refer to data allocated and disposed by C# simply as managed. This includes all instances where data is allocated in the heap. But what is unmanaged data, then? Well, it is not that this memory is not managed, it is just that it is not managed by the compiler. Instead of having the compiler solve it for us, the programmer becomes responsible for allocating and disposing it. Forgetting to dispose unmanaged memory will cause memory leakage. Premature disposal of it might invalid memory accesses and crashes. In Unity, this is done using a handful of DOTS extensions that are very similar to C's malloc and free functions. It is important to note that unmanaged memory should not reference a managed one, as this can create a lot of issues with the garbage collection and in general with the C# memory management. In the Burst context, accessing managed references is not even allowed, forcing the programmer to rely on blittable structs and unmanaged memory.

Garbage collection

The garbage collector is a system component responsible for managing memory by reclaiming and deallocating memory that is no longer in use. It identifies and frees up memory occupied by objects or data structures that are no longer referenced by the program. This process helps prevent memory leaks and simplifies memory management for developers, as they don't need to manually release memory. Garbage collection can introduce performance overhead compared to scenarios with manual memory management. It adds periodic pauses to a program's execution to identify and reclaim memory, which can result in unpredictable delays. These pauses can be especially problematic for real-time or performance-critical applications, causing jitter and latency issues.

How to render with DOTS?

The limitations on the Burst Compiler and Job System also requires no access to managed API, including most of the Unity systems. Game Objects? Nah. Physics? Think again. Graphics API? Big no. This created a big problem for us. We wanted to use DOTS to speed up the culling process, but without access to the graphics API, there was no way to actually submit the render commands to the GPU. One option was halting the main thread and waiting for the jobs to complete at the end of the frame. That did not yield any performance gains, though, as the overhead was too big for dispatching the jobs, waiting for their completion and submitting the computed data from managed code. To properly solve it, we had to research how Megacity solved it back in the day. Luckily for us, not only is the API available, but also received a recent update in Unity 2022.2 that improved the usability. The Batch Renderer Group API was designed to be accessed by unmanaged/native code (DOTS compliant). The way it works is that at the end of each frame, the BRG generates draw commands that contain everything Unity needs to efficiently create optimized, instanced draw calls. As the developer, we can fill in that draw call information and specify exactly what we want to draw from within an unmanaged context. Meshes and materials are managed types that need to be worked around. In BRG, we register them during a managed context and assign a unique ID to them. This ID is just a type-safe structure holding an integer, allowing us to reference meshes and materials from within the unmanaged code.

Space Background Decorations

Now, as mentioned, writing code supported by the Job System and the Burst Compiler is harder than writing regular C# code. Both technologies can be considered recent and, although quite mature, we still approached the problem with caution. Instead of refactoring dozens of rendering classes and completely switching to Burst-compiled jobs, we opted for focusing our attention on a very isolated system: the background rendering. The background has no relation with the simulation and, except for the camera data, has no dependency with any other class. That provided us the perfect experimenting backyard where we could test the power of DOTS without the massive amount of work required to implement it everywhere. Bonus: the background rendering was using quite a lot of the CPU, and optimizing it yielded good results in many setups being bottlenecked by the processor. More specifically, we focused on the background rendering of the chunked decorations, because they are dynamically generated based on where the player is looking. There is a lot of optimization that could be made algorithmically to improve the decorations, but we kept them the same to analyze how impactful using DOTS could be. The decorations are generated based on noise the first time they are discovered and cached for future queries. The Batch Renderer Group has several interesting features that might fit a lot of games well:

• Persistent GPU
• Scriptable layout
• DOTS instancing shader variant
• Compatible with DOTS

Evidently, for us, the compatibility with Jobs & the Burst Compiler was the captivating factor, but the BRG offers something for many projects. For example, the persistent GPU offers a pipeline similar to Unreal Engine, where data is uploaded to the GPU once and updated sparsely. This avoids having tons of data to wire between the CPU and the Graphics card. In Shapez 2, we dont have static geometry (like most games have), except for the main HUB. We actually upload instance data every frame to the GPU. The new scriptable metadata layout allows customizing exactly which data is passed to each instance. For the decorations, we keep the data to a minimum to reduce the amount of data uploaded to the graphics card. To understand how the improvement works, heres a breakdown for a simple scene without many buildings using the previous solution. By inspecting the Profiler data closely, it is possible to check that the main CPU loop (the left side) takes most of its time culling the decorations (Draw Managed Background Particles / Asteroids / Stars). Only after they all finish, the data submitted to the GPU can start being processed.
The main change we implemented is running the decorations culling using burst compiled jobs. These jobs are scheduled as soon as we have the camera data information (the only data the decorations need to be culled). While the main thread is busy processing the inputs, simulation and other rendering, the jobs execute concurrently as can be seen in the image below:
The jobs are much faster than their original managed counterpart, but even if they werent, we would see improvements due to the parallelism. When the main thread is done with the other tasks, the decorations are already culled and everything is ready to be dispatched to the GPU. In these example frames, the CPU time reduced from 9.21ms to 2.35ms, halving the total frame time. There are many optimizations missing for the jobs that would make them run even faster:

• Due to the nature of a culling algorithm, vectorizing the code is very challenging, but we believe a part of it could still benefit from the AVX set;
• You can see that each decoration is culled sequentially in a single thread. Each decoration could dispatch one job per thread, or the jobs could be scheduled to run at the same time. For higher numbers of cores, both could be combined to achieve even more parallelism.

Mesh combiner

Besides the background, one of our highest bottlenecks comes from combining meshes. As mentioned earlier, combining meshes at runtime reduces a lot of pressure on the GPU, which can draw many buildings with many materials in a single draw call. The mesh combination process, however, needs to be processed by the CPU. In order to reduce the pressure on the processor, a new mesh combination system was written using the Job System and Burst Compiler. The goal was creating a system that could handle combination requests from both managed and unmanaged code, while the combination itself would be performed in a job to reduce the amount of work the main thread has to do.

In-game results

The FPS improvements we have seen in most systems are very exciting, but the individual performance improvements are even more. Before we dive into the numbers, let me quickly explain the difference between the cached and uncached tests: since the decorations are created dynamically based on the seen chunks and the map is infinite, there is no way to bake all the decorations beforehand. Whenever a chunk is seen for the first time, the decoration for that chunk is generated from noise and cached for further lookups. One issue in the previous version was that turning the camera fast and discovering many new chunks at the same time would cause a huge spike in the frame time. It would also generate a lot of memory garbage to be collected. This is not a problem anymore with the new solution, as it can handle the generation much faster. Disclaimer: these tests are not averaged. They are a representative average frame manually sampled from the profiling pool. Tests are using an i3-9100F & RTX 3060 Ti.


For the average case, the performance is increased by 6x. However, since it is running in parallel, the effective benefit we see is 28x faster culling. This only holds true if the jobs finish before the main thread, which requires the main thread to be busy and the other threads not so much. Further improvements will need to consider balancing what is processed where. The more tasks we move to other threads, the less impactful these changes are.


Now, looking at the uncached case, which is the one that requires more from the CPU, we can see that for generating new chunks both scenarios struggle more than with cached data. While the original one drops the FPS substantially, the Burst version still delivers runtime acceptable performance. Most of the jobs time was used in the lazy mesh combination. The combination still requires some improvements on the managed side (some balancing), but some delay is expected (something close to 0.5ms per frame that fetches mesh data). If we schedule one per frame, its not an issue, but the meshes might take too long to bake. That's why we need some smart balancing.
These results should give you a rough idea: 30x 120x improvements in the main thread. 6x 114x overall. Now, lets also check the memory improvements and the actual FPS improvements in-game.

From the benchmark, you can see that the average FPS improved. The 1% however, was the most affected metric, highlighting that the new version should handle processing spikes much better.

Now what?

Eventually we will reach the limit of what we can do to optimize the factories, but we are still not there yet. The next steps are more challenging, but we have some optimizations prepared. The first step is moving all the mesh combinations from managed to unmanaged code. This is easier said than done. To fully support it, there is an incoming headache of standardizing the vertex layout formatting or solve it generically, balancing problems to figure out and more optimizations to research regarding using the main thread for computing. Besides it, we have many checks and benchmarks aligned to make sure everything is compliant with the performance standards we established. After this is done, ideally, we would like to move the whole rendering to burst compiled jobs, but that is a complicated task that involves lots of refactorings, structural changes and many Unity crashes to go. You can see it for yourself! Starting from Alpha 8, we also created a new benchmarks' menu, which can be used to evaluate the performance running the exact same scenario with multiple configurations.
[hr][/hr] So, that's about everything! We hope you enjoyed this deep dive, and we'll see you again in two weeks. ~Tobias, Lorenzo & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-10-12 14:02:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Its time for another progression blog. These past two weeks were all about visual improvements to the shapes, building and various menus & UI! As per usual, make sure you wishlist shapez 2 here on Steam to support the development of the game! Following the game will also make sure you stay up to date with the latest news. Thanks! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

News

Alpha 9

Since Devlog 008, we have released two new Alphas! Patreon Supporters gained access to Alpha 9 last week, with all-new progression, research UI, new visuals, massive performance improvements and much more! If youd like to get your hands on the latest Alpha version, consider supporting us on Patreon. [hr][/hr]

Devlog 010

So, what have we been working on the past month? Lets talk you through the highlights.

Visual update to shape designs

We made a couple of changes to the general look of all shapes in the game. The sides of shapes are now solid black and the height of every layer has been lowered. This will make shapes with many layers a lot less tall and clunky than before. Be sure to let us know what you think about these changes!

Progression Rework

We have completely reworked the progression of the entire game. We swapped around the Halves Swapper and the Stacker, as we found that the Halves Swapper was too complicated to be unlocked that early into the game. While we were working on this change, we figured it was a good time to look at the rest of the progression. We got a ton of feedback from the community on the progression system, so we made a lot of changes to the later stages of the game especially. We hope that the newly reworked progression system will feel more natural than the previous one. Patreons can experience the new progression in Alpha 9.

Building design updates

Stackers have been updated to be more of a challenge to use. The old design, with the input on one side and the output on the opposite end, had one very clear, obvious and quite boring optimal setup that everyone would use. The new design has the output at a 90 degree angle compared to the input, either on the left or the right. This will make Stackers a bit more tricky to use, and allows for multiple different solutions to the problem. We also made stackers faster to keep optimal designs similarly compact even with the added space for creative problem solving: now instead of needing 5 Stackers per full belt, you will only need 4!
All variants of the Rotator building have updated design concepts to more clearly display their use.
Half Cutters have been renamed to Half Destroyers to more accurately reflect their functionality. Their design has had a big update, featuring a fancy laser beam of destruction.
Additionally, the Full Painter building has been updated with a new design concept.

Skill Academy

We added what we call the Skill Academy. Essentially, these are tips that appear in the top left corner to guide new players through the early stages of the game. This is not the tutorial, but should help prevent confusion when players are new to shapez or factory building games as a whole. These can be toggled off, if desired.
Speaking of the tutorial, you'll also spot the "First Steps" section. This is, in fact, the tutorial. It will guide you through the early sections of the game while you're playing, by giving you pointers to what things are what exactly is expected from you while playing Shapes 2.

UI updates

A lot of screens got various degrees of updates. The research screen got a reworked concept, and should now more clearly show what you can unlock, when you unlock them, and how you unlock them. The progression system has also received an update, with side goals that are unlocked once reaching a specific main goal.
The research unlock screen got updated to display the new tools you unlocked and how they work. The current visual of the unlocked tool is a placeholder.
The in-game shape viewer has had an update to make the shape code editable, allowing you to view any shape you want. Hours of entertainment guaranteed!
Finally, we gave the building and island toolbars a fresh lick of paint for better readability.
We would love your feedback on all these UI updates, so let us know what you think!

Blueprinting

Blueprints have received a big update in two parts. Now, when selecting one or more space stations, youll get an overview of all buildings and connections, as well as the total cost of everything thats placed on or connected to them. Youll also get a more in-depth overview that breaks down the amounts for each type of building.
The second big update lets you copy, cut, rotate and paste your selection of space stations. This means youll be able to grow the factory faster than ever and increase your throughput with just a few clicks, as long as you have the resources!
You can accumulate more blueprint resources by delivering shapes of completed research.

Performance Improvements

We made big strides when it comes to performance! Below, you can watch a showcase of what it's like playing on a Macbook M1 Pro at 4K. This save features 540.000 buildings. [previewyoutube=ZuY9avTWe8Y;full][/previewyoutube] Of course, the FPS isn't the greatest, but these machines aren't really made for games. You would already hit 60 FPS on modern machines. Shapez 1 would already run at 1 FPS under these circumstances. We still have a lot more performance improvements planned, so the game will run even better when we enter Early Access. Rest assured that we work very hard to make this game playable on as many machines as possible!

Various other changes

The procedural map generation has been improved. You should now come across more interesting shapes to work with. The nodes remain placeholders for now. The Overview Mode view for these resource nodes has also had a visual update!

Tunnels can now be set to automatically place tunnels connection your space station.
We added a new concept design for the 1x1 Shape Miner platform. Just look at this little guy go!
We continue our work on trains and will soon be ready to do a deep dive into how exactly they will work and what you can do with them. Additional mouse and keyboard settings have been added to the settings menu, allowing you to set your horizontal and vertical mouse sensitivity, as well as the keyboard camera movement speed. It goes up quite a lot, in case time is of the essence.
[hr][/hr] Thats everything for this blog. Let us know if you like what youre seeing! The next blog will go more in-depth again, so on the lookout for that one dropping in two weeks. Again, please consider wishlisting the game if you havent yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed devlog 010, and well see you again soon! ~Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-09-28 14:02:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Were working on a new shape type thats coming to shapez 2: Crystals. These crystals will massively shake up the endgame and come with a couple of handling instructions. Before we get into it, be sure to wishlist shapez 2 if you havent already! It really helps us out with the release of the game. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ [hr][/hr]

Devlog 009 - Crystals

While were still in the early development stages of crystals, we would like to walk you through how they work and our vision for the mechanic. Be sure to let us know what you think! Please keep in mind that the current visuals for the crystals are placeholders and will be changed before early access.

What are crystals?

Crystals are a brand new shape type you will encounter in the final stages of the game. Theyre pieces of solidified colored paint that are quite brittle in nature and should be handled with care. This fragility means crystals come with their own set of rules and mechanics, which will shake up the production order youre used to and provide greater depth and diversity when it comes to producing shapes.
You'll come across the basics of crystals in the final milestones of the game. The more complex crystal milestones will be an optional challenge for those who dare.

Creating crystals

Crystals are created using the Crystal Generator, a machine that will turn any paint you pipe into it into a hardened shape. The shape the crystal takes on depends on what you use as a mold: the Crystal Generator will fill up any empty spaces including supports of the shape you send through the machine up to the uppermost layer of the shape.
Doesnt matter if youre a bit square or a star as long as the space is occupied by any shape, even other crystals, the Crystal Generator will not pour paint into it. Additionally, crystal isnt any specific shape, like a circle or a square, and cannot be painted after hardening. Its 100% solid crystal with the color of the paint you used to create it.

Handle with care

The tricky thing with crystals is their aforementioned fragility; if youre not careful with them, theyll shatter into millions of incredibly tiny shapes, unfit for production. Thats to say, they break and disappear. So, when it comes to keeping these crystals intact, there are two rules to keep in mind: 1. Separating (cutting, swapping) two or more connected crystal parts will cause all adjacent crystals to shatter. Crystals can be safely separated from normal shapes (molds), however.
To help you determine when two crystals are connected, here is the code:
2. Dropping crystals on top of another shape using a Stacker will cause the dropped crystals to shatter. Shapes can be safely dropped on top of crystals, however.

A brand new challenge

The inclusion of crystals will seriously change up the way you need to think about creating shapes. It essentially inverts your production; instead of directly producing the shape you need, you need to produce the exact opposite and leave the spaces you want the paint to harden in unoccupied. The molds themselves could be considered an intermediate-level shape goal, with parts that can either be discarded or reused continuously. Considering the fragility of crystals, its wise to delay the inclusion of crystals in your production chain as long as possible. Prepare everything you can, produce the ideal mold for the crystal shape goal you need, and only pour the paint after everything else is done. If your shape goal only requires one color of crystals, you will only need one mold. However, if multiple colors of crystals are required, youll need one mold for every color and pour the paint in stages. Once all the different crystal components have been poured, combine the crystals using a half swapper, for example. Just remember: do not separate or drop crystals!
[hr][/hr] Thats all we have to share on crystals for now. This mechanic is still in early development, so be sure to let us know your thoughts on this addition! You can join the discussion on the shapez 2 Discord server. If you like what you see, be sure to wishlist shapez 2 to support the game and stay up to date with development! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ ~Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-09-15 07:18:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Its been a little while since the last devlog. Weve been very busy with the Gameplay Reveal trailer from two weeks ago, which was then followed up by Gamescom. However, were back now! So lets discuss what weve been working on since devlog 007.

News

As previously mentioned, we finally released the Gameplay Reveal Trailer for shapez 2! Thank you to everyone who joined us for the premiere and supported the trailer. In case you missed it, you can find the trailer here: [previewyoutube=0VO_52LJ268;full][/previewyoutube] If that got you as excited as we are, be sure to wishlist the game and follow shapez 2 to stay up to date with the news! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

Reinforcements

The astute among you may have noticed a second logo at the end of the trailer. We are working with Gamera Games who you may know from Dyson Sphere Program to publish the game in Greater China & Japan. They will also handle the Simplified Chinese translations for our announcements and devlogs! Additionally, we have enlisted the help of Game Drive, a games marketing agency. As were moving ever closer to the Early Access release next year, marketing becomes more and more important for the growth of the game, so we need some extra manpower!

Alpha 7 Build

Alpha 7.4 of shapez 2 is currently available on our Patreon and has been for a bit. A lot of the changes youll read about below have already been implemented in this build. If youre interested in giving this new build a go, be sure to subscribe to our Patreon to get access, alongside a host of other great benefits! [hr][/hr]

Devlog 008

So with all that out of the way, lets dive into the new devlog.

Rendering & graphical performance

After watching the trailer, a lot of you had questions about the performance of the game. Once you really got going in shapez 1 and made a huge factory, or made a make-everything-machine or two, the simulation could start to lag quite badly. So understandably, when people saw the graphical uplift of shapez 2, people assumed this would make things worse. Well, fret not! Unlike Shapez 1, Shapez 2 is made in Unity with C#. This gives us a lot more tools to optimise the simulation and prevent unnecessary use of your systems resources. One of the changes is that the game now supports multi-threaded processing, so the simulation and the game wont run on just one of your CPUs cores. The biggest change however, is how we handle off-screen simulation. Instead of just fully simulating everything in your factory at all times, were limiting the simulation of the portion of your factory that isnt currently on your screen to just 2 times a second down from the full 60 times a second while still running at full precision. You wont notice a mechanical or visual difference at all. However, itll make sure the simulation runs smoothly regardless of the size of your factory. We stress tested this system on a mega factory of 360.000+ buildings and it works great. In fact, you saw this very factory in the trailer! Our goal here is to allow for about 1 million buildings on a modern PC build for the release of the game.
Do keep in mind that the massively improved graphics will mean you most likely wont be able to sneakily play Shapez 2 on the school computer as you could (and we know you did) with shapez.io. You will require a bit more computing power to run this at a smooth frame rate; without any tweaking of the settings, that is! To counteract the increased resource demand of the game somewhat, there will be a host of graphical options to tinker with, alongside a minimal mode. This mode will reduce the visuals to an absolute minimum and allows Shapez 2 to be played on laptops. This mode has been tested on a Microsoft Surface Pro and runs fine! Exact minimum and recommended system requirements are to be determined and published closer to the release of the game. If you want to give it a try right now though, be sure to download the free alpha version through our Discord server! As the game still has a lot of optimisation to go in its current state, its safe to say that if your PC runs Alpha well, it will be able to run it in the future.

Trains progress

We know youre excited for space trains, and were working hard to make them a reality. Youve seen them in action in the trailer, so youll have a good idea of the vision we have for them. Do keep in mind that the trains are still subject to change.
However, a lot of work still needs to be done to make trains fully operational, but were on track to have the trains depart for Early Access next year. We hope to do a devlog dedicated to trains in the future, once theyre finalised.

Barreling

In devlog 006, we introduced you to the world of fluids. One of the topics we addressed here was fluid packing and cross-island transport. As theres no way of moving fluids directly between islands, youd need to produce barrels to keep the fluid in, fill the barrels, then move it by your preferred mode of transportation. Once at your destination, youd empty the barrels and pump the fluid back into your pipe system. We feel like the process of producing barrels didnt quite fit. Having to deliver shapes somewhere to produce the barrels made fluids a hassle to use. It didnt add anything interesting to the mechanics, just more tedium. Instead, the Fluid Packer building will take the fluid and freezes it into blocks that can be transported however you wish.

Auto pinning side goals

As the side goals are very important for your progression through the game, we want to make them a bit more prominent. Now, side goals are automatically pinned if you produce the shape they require. We will continue working on the early game and research experience and are planning to add a full tutorial.

Visualisation layers in overview mode

We added brand new visualisation layers to the overview mode. You watch a neat little demonstration here: [previewyoutube=pJmYjAyCzbg;full][/previewyoutube] The layers now include:

• Islands grid
• Shape Patches
• Fluid Resources
• Shapes
• Explored Areas & islands
• Tunnels
• Train Items
• Train Lines
• Train Stations

You can enable multiple layers at once, or even all at once if you hate being able to see what youre doing.

Island selection toolbar

We added a new Island Selection toolbar, allowing for quick and easy access to the different types of islands you can place. Youll also be able to select multiple islands and delete them all at once. Its easy to accidentally delete a lot this way, but dont worry, you can undo everything if you mess up.

Packer Building

Weve been working with the Packer and Unpacker buildings. The Packer building allows you to stack many shapes of the same type and color and pack them into one item. The Unpacker, as you may expect, does the opposite. The main purpose for these packs is to transport the shapes via train. Pack the shapes, insert the packs into a train, remove the packs from the train, then unpack everything again. Its also great for massively increasing the throughput on a belt, as long as you have enough Packers. Details on how this building will work together with trains, will come in the devlog dedicated to trains.

Graphical Improvements

A lot of time has been spent on improving the graphics of the game across the board. Improvements have been made to the materials of the Space Station, all buildings, the playing field as well as global lighting effects. We hope you liked what you saw in the trailer!

One of the main improvements weve been working on is LOD (Level of Detail). For those who dont know, a common technique to increase performance is to lower the LOD of models that are far away from the camera. This technique is especially important to make the game run smoothly when zoomed out, like in Overview mode. We dont want the decrease in LOD to look jarring when you zoom out though, so were trying our best to make this look smooth and as unnoticeable as possible. This is done by having multiple stages of LOD, so the transition from one LOD to the next isnt as big. Were also fading out the shadows now, instead of simply removing them.
[hr][/hr] Now, were finally caught up! Again, apologies for the lack of devlogs lately. Now that the trailer is out and we have some reinforcements, we hope to bring you new devlogs every other week. If youd like to support the game, please wishlist the game here on Steam and follow the Shapez 2 page if youre not already. It really does help us out a lot. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ We hope you enjoyed this devlog and cant wait to show what else were working on! ~Tobias & the shapez 2 team

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[ 2023-08-31 14:01:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Its been a long time coming, but its finally here: we now have a Reveal Trailer for shapez 2!

Watch it on YouTube:

[previewyoutube=0VO_52LJ268;full][/previewyoutube] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Shapez 2 is all about building the biggest shape-producing mega-factory you could imagine. With the infinite canvas of space to exploit, its up to you to create a machine that can extract, cut, paint and assemble the shapes you need to progress and grow your factory. Start off with the humble gray circle and work your way up towards increasingly more complex shapes while unlocking new machines, upgrades and modes of transport along the way.
You can play shapez 2 however you like! Make a spaghetti belt factory even you no longer understand, or optimize every little detail in the production process. Make one big mega-factory, or split the production chain across multiple smaller factories that you connect by space trains. Theres no threat of alien invasion or worse: running out of resources. Take your time, experiment and build a factory you can truly be proud of!

Thank you for your support

Whether youve been with us from the early days of shapez.io or are only passing by just now, we thank you for the time and support weve received over the past couple of months and years. We owe much to the community, and without you, shapez 2 simply wouldnt be possible.

Help us test the game

Eager to give the game a go? You can join our Discord server to access the public build of shapez 2 and give us feedback on the gameplay and the stability of the game. If youd like to support us early, head over to our Patreon! Patreon supporters get access to the latest alpha build whenever a new one releases. Together, we hope to bring the Early Access of shapez 2 to you in 2024 in the best possible shape it could be. Be sure to wishlist shapez 2 on Steam! Indie games like shapez 2 heavily rely on wishlisting to reach a broader player base. Wed really appreciate your support, and youll be kept up to date with news about the game! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

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[ 2023-08-16 13:02:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys! First of all, I apologize for the short break on devlogs. We are super busy working on the reveal trailer right now (which we want to showcase somewhere in August) which is why I simply lacked the time to do those detailed devlogs!

News

Be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to receive important updates and notifications about playtests! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

New Team Members

Our team has grown, so that we are now 6 people in full time, and about to become 7! Currently we are: Tobias - Producer / Developer / Game Designer Daniel - Lead Artist Nils - 3D Artist Dimitri - Game Designer (part time shapez, part time secret unannounced kiwi project) Lorenzo - Developer Stefan - Community support + Quality Assurance Nicko - Developer (Starting in July)

Alpha 6 Builds

We are currently working on finalizing Alpha 6 which will still take a while, but if you are interested in trying it out and get involved in the development process as early as possible, our Patreon Supporters already have access! Subscribing to Patreon also gives you a few other benefits, like exclusive discord channel access, live Q&As, Steam Keys and more. Alpha 6 will probably launch as a Steam Playtest, but we will announce that in a later news post!

Devlog #007

Alright, time for a new devlog! In this devlog, I want to go over the changes we've made since the last update:

New HUB effects & indicators

The visuals of the central hub have been reworked! First of all, there are now indicators that show you whether the shape you currently deliver is required for any research. A red "X" means you are definitely delivering a shape that is used nowhere in the game (very useful!). Also the hub now glows more the more shapes you feed in :)

Progression

Alpha 6, as the first alpha, will have actual progression! We expect around 10-15 hours of gameplay already. We also made a small tool to help us balance the research tree, which you can check out here!

Overview Mode Improvements

The overview mode (when you zoom out far) got a lot of improvements and also visualizes trains & tunnels now properly. However, it is still very much work in progress!

Megafactories

For our trailer we started to build a megafactory already, and here are some impressions!
We still need to add a lot of graphics optimizations (a lot of things are still rendered at the highest lod, regardless of the distance) but the simulation can already simulate factories that big! The factory in the screenshot consists of around 360,000 buildings. As you can see, the idea is that in the endgame, instead of building your buildings individually, you build modular islands (like a "stacker" / "cutter" island) and blueprint / reuse them! Basically like playing shapez 1, but you built the buildings (=space stations) yourself :)

Tunnels

Tunnels are a way to transport shapes up to 10 space station chunks wide, but only in a straight path. We updated the visuals, although tunnels are still work in progress, game design wise!

New Placement UI

When placing space stations, you now have a proper "blueprint" look, as well as indicators what shapes you are about to mine:
Same goes for buildings:
And you now also get indicators during placement:

Improved Research UI

The research UI has been improved quite a bit. The main milestone is now shown much more prominent, and you can now also see which milestone unlocks which upgrade:

New shape patch visuals

The shape patch got reworked, and you can also see the reworked materials here:

HUB Island Improvements

The HUB island has been improved visually, but there are more changes to come!
Also the notches have been improved, and they now glow when a catapult is placed:

Updated pipe meshes

Pipes have been updated (even after the last devlog) and also upward/downward pipes now show the fluids correctly:

Updated Shape Miner + Extractor Visuals and Animation

The shape miner space station has also been improved and now has a (WIP!) animation:
The extractor is now also connected to the shape patch:

Updated Main Menu

Finally, here's a screenshot of the updated main menu:
---------- I hope you enjoyed the devlog and the new style of showing the changes from the last update! Wish you a great start into the week! ~Tobias PS: All screenshots are taken from Alpha 6, which is already available to our Patreon supporters.

Wishlist Shapez 2

Be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to receive important updates and notifications about playtests! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2023-06-19 15:41:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! Today I wanted to give you some insights about the fluids in Shapez 2! As always, be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to get a notification on important updates: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Alright, so let's dive into the devlog!

Devlog 006 - Fluids & Painting

Recap - Shapez 1

Shapez 1 didn't have fluids, and colors were simply items that you could mine, just like shapes. The painter would then take those items as an input and modify the shape color:
This worked, but for Shapez 2 we wanted something more interesting and also more "visual" and easy to understand. This is why we are introducing fluids:

Fluid Extraction

The first step to acquire fluids is to find a fluid resource on the infinite map. In the area close to the HUB you will be able to find the 3 primary colors: red, green and blue. Farther apart, we can imagine that there will also be secondary colors, but that's not settled on yet.
We still haven't figured how those fluid resources should look, so they are still placeholders in the game. Daniel already made some concepts for them, but all of these are super early!
Once you found a resource to mine, you can place a fluid extractor island on it. Again, this is only a placeholder:
There is already a concept for it as well, but again, very early!
On the miner itself, there will be a fluid patch, similar to the shape miner, where you can place pumps to extract fluids. Pumps currently extract 1200 Liters per minute, but this is not final. Currently the unit used to measure fluid volume is liters, although we could imagine introducing additional units in case we ever want to add steam for example.

Fluid Transport & Simulation

To transport fluids on the island, you can then place different types of pipes. There are straight, corner, junction and cross pipes. As everything in the game is open, we wanted the pipes to also be open so you can see the fluids actually flow through your factory!
Fluids are simulated at a fixed tickrate right now. Basically every pipe has a "storage" called "FluidContainer" internally. The size of that storage is 50 L for pipes currently. Every container then stores the current flow to the adjacent containers. When updating the simulation, it basically goes like this: 1. Iterate over all containers and "spread" fluids. Every container can only store one fluid at a time, so once it is "tagged" with that fluid, it can only store that fluid until it is entirely empty again. More about that in the "Mixed Pipes" section. 2. Compute & propagate pressure differences Pressure in a container is simply computed as value / maxValue. The simulation then tries to achieve a state of "balance" where all containers the system have the same pressure. However, just trying to average the container levels won't work great, because then the throughput will be extremely low at some point. Thus, instead of storing only the pressure, we also store a flow rate, which is determining how much fluid from one container flows to another container in one tick. The flow rate only changes very slowly, and increases / decreases based on the pressure difference. There are still some issues that a lot of fluids simulations typically have, for example dealing with waves. But we already have a few ideas how to tackle them! 3. Clamping & clearing In the last step, all containers that are empty are now un-tagged, so they can receive a different type of fluid again. Also in case any container did over- or underflow, it will be clamped. While the fluid simulation can be a little technical, our goals is and was that if you just want to use fluids, it should be intuitive and "just work". With the current system in place and the visual indicators, we feel that already is the case, but we are very interested in your feedback!

Mixed Pipes

Since mixed fluids in the same pipe wouldn't really make sense, we don't allow them. Instead, every fluid container can only store one fluid and is tagged with that. Transfer between containers then only works if they have the same fluid:
There are also buttons to flush pipes or the entire network, in case you mess up.

Secondary & Tertiary colors

In order to produce secondary and/or tertiary colors, you can mix colors with the color mixer:

Cross-Layer Transport

Fluids can be transported up and down, however, in order to transport them up you will have to place a pump:
The pump will limit the flow to one direction, so you can also use it as a gate to prevent backflow:
We are also considering to add a building just for that, in case it becomes a commonly used pattern. Instead of going for an overly complex system, the rules for cross-layer transport are very simple: Fluids only go up in a pump, and they go down in regular pipes. This should be very intuitive and still allow for some interesting designs. However since it's not final - let us know what you think!

Buffering

In case you want to store some fluids, there is also a fluid tank, and because of the cross-layer pipes, you can also stack them on top of each other:
Keep in mind that, because the simulation effectively averages the pressure, the tanks will only fill once you have a surplus of fluid in the system.

Painting

There will be different types of painters in the game, for now we have planned a topmost painter and a full painter. The topmost painter only paints the highest layer of a shape where as the full painter paints the whole shape (and needs more paint in exchange). Here's an early concept of the topmost painter in action (the animation is currently broken):
As you might have seen, there are multiple inputs - and again, due to the multi-dimensionality of the game, you can build some pretty cool & compact setups!

Fluid Packing & Cross-island transport

If you read the past devlogs, you might wonder how you actually transport fluids between islands, since there is no building space for pipes in between. Disclaimer: The following mechanics are work in progress and we don't know whether they will end up exactly like this in the game. However, let me explain what we have right now! To transport fluids, first you have to produce barrels. Barrels are produced from shapes, and the size & color of the barrel depends on the used shape:
Once you produced the barrels, you can now fill them using the fluid packer:
Then transport them between islands and unpack them again.
Since barrel production is pretty slow, you can also recycle the production by returning the empty barrels again (as seen in the above gif) We are not 100% certain this feature will be a great fit, so be sure to leave your feedback on it, so we know whether you like it or not!

Color Blind Support

As soon as colors are a crucial part of the gameplay, we have to think about color-blind support as well. We are still looking for good ways to make it easier in case you are affected, such as patterns, or different symbols for fluids. If you have any ideas please let us know!

Wishlist Shapez 2

I hope you enjoyed the devlog, and I wish you a nice remaining weekend! And as always, be sure to wishlist & follow Shapez 2 to get a notification on important updates: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ ~Tobias

[ 2023-05-21 17:16:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! First of all, I want to apologize for the late devlog. A lot of stuff is happening right now, and it's hard to find time in between!

News

We are slowly growing the team - last week we welcomed Lorenzo who will help with the Development, so there are now 5 people working full time on shapez 2!

New Soundtrack

Shapez 2 will ship with 40 minutes of soundtrack from Petter Sumelius, the composer who also made the amazing shapez 1 soundtrack! Additionally, there will be a supporter edition that will add additional 40 minutes of soundtrack to the game, composed by Petter as well!

Wishlist shapez 2

Be sure to wishlist & follow shapez 2, so you get a notification on any significant updates! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ And if you want to try out the current alpha, be sure to join the shapez 2 discord!

Devlog - Research, Progression & Blueprints

Please note: A lot of content shown here is subject to change. While we are already satisfied with the new research system, we can not guarantee it will end up exactly like this in the final game.

Recap - shapez 1

In shapez 1 you had a linear level system, where you had to deliver one certain shape to complete the level and unlock the next technology. Additionally there were 4 different upgrades where you could increase the speed of buildings.
While efficient, this system leads to some issues. First of all, having a purely linear structure means that even if the next level contains a building / technology you don't need or want, you still have to unlock it to progress. Additionally, it means that the replayability is not really good, because every playthrough looks exactly the same, without a lot of meaningful choices. Which is why for shapez 2, wanted to rework the system.

What we tried - and didn't work

Our first approach making a big research tree. There was a "main" goal section in the middle, but otherwise it was just all research nodes in one single tree:
(The image is quite large, you can click to enlarge it) However, during playtesting, it showed that this was way too confusing. It was almost impossible to figure out which upgrades to go for next, which ones were more important or even required, and which not. Thus, we decided that we needed to go for a hybrid approach instead.

New approach - Categorizing upgrades

To make the upgrades easier to understand, we started separating them into 3 different categories:

Milestones

Milestones are upgrades that unlock new technologies which allow you to produce new types of shapes. These upgrades are required for the progression within the game and can not be skipped, for example painting shapes. Milestones are supposed to be large goals you work towards for a while, while also pursuing other goals in the meantime since they can take a while to complete. Basically we went over all upgrades and asked the question "Will the game experience be bad if the player doesn't unlock this?". For the current alpha, we already ended with 14 milestones, although we plan to add a lot more content, even for the early access release.

QoL Upgrades

Quality-of-life upgrades are upgrades like the storage, counter-clockwise rotator, decorations, labels and so on. These are upgrades that you can go for if desired, and they can make a lot of sense for your factory, but they are not required to progress in the game. Thus, you have a lot more choice if and when during your playthrough you want to unlock them.

"Flat" Upgrades

Flat upgrades are upgrades like Belt Speed, Platform Limit, HUB Size which just have different tiers (i.e. Belt Speed 1, Belt Speed 2, ...). Those upgrades are supposed to be infinite, but we haven't figured this out exactly yet.

Organizing the upgrades

To connect the upgrades together in the research UI, we started with a linear progression at the top. We put the milestones in a linear order, which is very similar to the levels system in shapez 1.
Then we started categorizing the QoL and Flat upgrades into different categories like Transport, Processing, Fluids and so on. Each category got their own little tech-tree, in which you can unlock the QoL upgrades, as well as an area at the bottom for the flat upgrades to better separate them:
The QoL and Flat upgrades can depend on previous upgrades, as well as milestones. For example, if a QoL upgrade requires red circles, it will most likely depend on the "Painting" milestone. This is also shown so you have an idea which shapes you can already produce, and which ones need new technologies first.
You can also pin all upgrades to your screen to track them:
With this change, you now have a lot more control when to unlock optional upgrades, while still having a guideline through the game progression! While we really like the new system, we'd love to hear your feedback and thoughts on it though!

Random Goals - Replayability

While the new system makes the replayability a little better, it's still not great. Thus, we are planning to add a "seed" to the research tree. All shapes you have to produce are then randomly generated, instead of predefined. There is a standard seed (0) which is the default research tree, but you can enter another seed to get an entirely different set of shapes. This means that whenever you want to start a new playthrough of shapez 2, you don't end up having to produce the same shape again and again, but instead every time it's a new one! Additionally, this also allows us to have a much better difficulty setting than just increasing the amount of required shapes for every goal: Basically, we will develop an algorithm that allows to create a shape requirement, given a set of currently available technologies and desired difficulty. The more difficult, the more steps (like cut, rotate, ...) and resources need to be chained to produce the shape. If you then play on "easy" difficulty, you will get shapes that require far less steps than on "insane". Of course, in the beginning of the game both modes will still require simple shapes (since you can't produce more complex ones) but especially in the end of the game it will be a huge difference! We hope that this makes the game a lot more replayable and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

Blueprints

A big, if not the biggest complaint in shapez 1 was that blueprints unlocked a little late. Basically the issue with blueprints is, the earlier they are unlocked, the simpler the blueprint shape needs to be (because you can't produce more complex ones at that point). For shapez 2, we wanted to change this, so we came up with the idea of blueprint points: You unlock blueprints very early, and in order to gain the blueprint points (BP), you need to deliver a certain shape which is then converted into points:
Once you unlock new milestones, you also unlock new shapes you can deliver to more efficiently generate the blueprint points:
Basically if you deliver the left shape, you get 1 blueprint point, whereas you get 100 if you deliver the right shape. Copying structures or islands then cost blueprint points, and exponentially more the larger the blueprint or island is:
This allows us to make blueprints available a lot earlier, but still having interesting blueprint shapes later in the game! Let us know what you think about this as well! PS: There will also be a blueprint library - you can already share and load blueprint strings in the current alpha, but we want to make it easy to also create collections of blueprints, store them, share them and so on! But more on that in another devlog!

Wishlist & Follow Shapez 2

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Have a nice remaining weekend, and I hope you enjoyed reading the devlog! ~Tobias

[ 2023-05-07 17:24:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey guys! In this devlog I wanted to share some insights how the map in shapez 2 works, which is mainly based around the concept of building space stations platforms. Here's a quick screenshot of how the islands look like, although it is already outdated:
However, to understand why the concept ended up the way it is, we need to look at how shapez 2 evolved: IMPORTANT NOTICE: This devlog includes a lot of old screenshots, alpha footage and placeholders. The final game will look very different!

How it started

Back in July 2022 when I started prototyping shapez 2, this is how it looked:
As you might notice immediately - I actually started with a hexagonal grid. This originated from a survey on the shapez 1 discord, and was basically my starting idea to distinguish shapez 2 from shapez 1:
It quickly evolved, and starting from the beginning I already wanted all machines to be open:
However, once I actually started to implement basic belt placement, I ran into the first issues already.
Placing straight belts on a hexagonal grid is possible, but only in 3 directions. This leads to weird looking sharp-turn belts. Disabling sharp turns didn't make it any better though, since then connecting machines got really annoying, and you still can't have straight belts in all directions:
Additionally, symmetry and tilable designs are possible, but work very differently in a hexagonal grid:
Which is, after long consideration, I decided to drop the hexagonal grid, in favour of allowing to build multidimensional factories (which we will cover in another devlog!).

Infinite map?

I definitely wanted to have an infinite, procedurally generated map for shapez 2. However, to make it look more interesting than in shapez 1, initially I wanted to introduce a concept of "Biomes". Biomes could be areas that contain exclusively red color patches for example. This would also incentivize the new mass transport features. Here is a first overview how it looked with those different biomes:
The result was not pleasing, but because I wanted to keep shapez 2 abstract, I couldn't just introduce styles like "Forest " or "Water" which would have made it more interesting. Thus we came up with the "Islands" concept (they are still called like this internally), which evolved around the idea of, while still having infinite space, having to build the playable area yourself:
The idea was that you could craft islands by using shapes:
Basically better islands would cost more and/or better shapes, and they could also have shape and color resources. After a few iterations, we simplified the crafting dialog:
However, while playtesting, we found that the crafting mechanic wasn't really interesting. The main issue was that the organic factor was entirely missing, thus every playthrough would be the same. And I didn't want to introduce randomness into the crafting, since that would not fit the concept of shapez. To fix this, we decided the resources should instead spawn procedurally on the map again, and to mine them there will be special miner "islands":
Here is an early screenshot of the map, although the resource distribution is temporary and will change!
I hope you can already see at which scale you'll be able to build within shapez 2!

Modular Designs

Another feature of the islands was allowing to build modular - the idea was that in the lategame, you no longer have to build individual islands but instead you have an island that contains only cutters or stackers and you can rearrange them - building on a much, much larger scale. The idea was basically that these modules are like a building from shapez 1, but instead it was built and designed by yourself! (If you want to find out more about building modular, Giantwaffle showed it during his exclusive stream of the alpha) This is a first draft how I wanted it to work:

Art Style Change

During the transition, we also introduced an art style change, which is a topic for another devlog! However, because we changed to an "Abstract Space" style, the islands now became space station platforms:

Island Layouts

I wanted to have different layouts of islands which allow for interesting combinations, while not being too simple. Inspired by the idea of "Pentominos", every island consists out of chunks which are up to 16x16 tiles large.
(Image source) The layouts for the islands are not determined yet, but we will try to make sure that every layout has a use and it doesn't get too much of a puzzle (i.e. there should be some puzzle aspect - but it could also get very frustrating if the layouts don't fit together nicely).

Inter-Island Transport

Additionally to the mass transport (trains - covered in another devlog) we of course also need local transport between islands. To make the islands actually meaningful, it was clear that we can not just allow transport on all sides of the island. Otherwise, there would be no actual difference to an infinite map. Thus, we came up with the idea of "notches", only allowing to transport shapes at certain locations of an island:
The concept is very simple: There is a building (we call it "belt port" internally) that allows you to catapult shapes over a certain range. Because the distance between two islands is higher than the maximum range of the belt port, transport is not possible. But because the "notch" has 4 tiles that are closer to the other island, these are the places where you can exchange shapes between islands. A notch allows for 4 of these buildings per layer - so once having unlocked 3 layers, that means effective 12 belts throughput (throughput of the belt ports is identical to the belts):
Notches are displaced, so that if both islands have a notch at this location, you actually get twice the throughput:
As you can see, they are also bi-directional (which is actually something we are considering to change - let us know what you think!)

Island costs

We spent a long time thinking about the costs of the islands. Since we removed the crafting mechanic, at this point the islands were entirely free to place. The first idea was to make them still cost a certain shape. However, then we figured it makes a lot more sense to instead keep them free, because it would fit the concept of shapez best - buildings are free as well, after all. This incentivices playing around with the islands, rearranging them, deleting them without having any penalty attached to it. To still reward building optimized factories, we then introduced a "limit" to the maximum chunks you can place, which can be increased via research. Every island consists of multiple chunks (as shown above), so larger islands are more "expensive". But because it is just a limit and not a cost, you can just play around find out what works best for you!
As you can see, the cost if the island (4 chunks) is shown when placing it, as well as the current usage and the limit. Of course, the limit can be increased via research, and we actually want to make it an infinite research so your factory can grow forever!

Further topics

Writing this devlog has actually been incredibly difficult, because there are so many more topics I could dive into, but even writing this together already took quite a while! (Which is why I had to delay it by one day). However, I wanted to already give you an insight on what topics you can expect from further devlogs: - Fluids & Fluid packaging - Multidimensional factories - Crystals - Trains - Research Tree - New blueprint system & currency - Art style change - ... and so much more! If this was an interesting read to you, please let me know in the comments so I know the devlogs are appreciated! And if you want to stay informed about the upcoming devlogs, giveaways and more, please follow the Shapez 2 store page:

Follow to get updates

PS: In order to get updates, be sure to wishlist AND follow Shapez 2, since just wishlisting doesn't give you any notifications on new events & updates! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Have a nice remaining weekend! Tobias

[ 2023-04-29 15:55:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! As promised in the last devlog, I wanted to cover the changes and new mechanics regarding item stacking in Shapez 2! However, I wanted to also quickly mention that we have a new logo for Shapez 2:

New Logo

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ Let us know in the comments if you like it!

Devlog - Stacking

Please note: This devlog might contain spoilers regarding shapez 1, if you haven't completed level 20 yet.

Recap from shapez 1 - The old system

In shapez 1, the stacking basically works like this: If you combine two shapes, let's say, two halves, it will combine them on a single layer:
However, if you try to stack shapes that have overlapping parts, the right shape will stack "on top" of the other shape, effectively getting smaller:
The reason for the upper shape is getting smaller is making sure you can still read both layers. It can get more complex quickly though - what if the shapes only partially overlap? In this case, you will produce an overhang:
If you now try to cut this overhang, the right side "falls down" and gets bigger again:
Here for example is how you produce a shape that has a "floating" piece which is not connected to anything else (like in the logo):
Using this mechanic is required to produce the logo (level 20) shape - and it can be very unintuitive. In fact, it is so unintuitive that we got hundreds of bug reports about "broken stacking mechanics" so far!

The reason to change

When making a survey in the shapez 2 discord about the stacking mechanics, this is what we got out of 927 votes: A) 31%: I have completed level 20 in shapez 1, and figured the solution on my own B) 51% I have completed level 20 in shapez 1, but I looked up the solution fully or partially C) 3% I stopped at level 20 D) 15% I stopped before level 20 Seeing that only 18% stopped at level 20 or before - it shows that this is really represents the core audience of shapez, having played the game at least for 10 hours +. And yet, out of the 82% who completed level 20, effectively 62% had to look up the solution on the internet! This showed us that the mechanic definitely needs a change, and this is what we did in Shapez 2.

Stacking in Shapez 2

Our goal for Shapez 2 was, besides of making all buildings open, making the game more accessible. This also includes making all mechanics feel like a challenge, but not like a bug, and thus they have to be intuitive. I'll simply show the exact same setup from above, but this time in shapez 2. (PS: There are alpha builds available in the discord, if you want to try it yourself!) Again, if you combine 2 halves, it looks like this:
If you stack 2 shapes that have overlapping parts, it looks like this:
If you stack 2 shapes that only partially overlap, it looks like this:
So far so good - but what happens if you now try to cut the overhang?
As you can see, there is now a little animation showing how the overhang is falling down and resizing to its original size. This also applies if you try to build a floating shape:
As you can see - the overhang now falls down as well! This means that floating shapes, which are not connected to any adjacent shape, are not possible in Shapez 2 - are they? Let me introduce you the new pin mechanic!

Pin Pushers

To allow to produce floating shapes in shapez 2, we wanted a mechanic that makes more sense and also looks "reasonable" with the new 3D environment - having parts just float in the air would look weird and inconsistent. Thus, we are introducing a new mechanic - the pin pusher.
It introduces a new "shape part" type (Short code: "P-"), that is a little different compared to the other shape parts. It effectively removes a whole quadrant and replaces it with a single pin. Utilizing the pin, you can create floating shapes again:
This makes whole process a lot more intuitive. And you can produce some pretty .. interesting shapes! Notice how the right shape is actually the "a" from our new logo - a shape you can only produce in Shapez 2!

The algorithm

The shape stacking logic has been created completely from scratch in Shapez 2. It now does an actual, physics based simulation of the shape (which is of course cached, so it's very efficient). The first step is identifying "groups" within a shape. 2 parts of a shape count connected if: - They are on the same layer - They are adjacent quadrants (i.e. top right and bottom left wouldn't connect) - Both are a "full" shape - that means, not a pin A group is connected physically, so it means that when it falls down, all parts fall down by the same amount. After identifying the groups, we run our "physics" simulation which basically applies gravity to all groups, until the shape is not changing anymore. This might sound rather complex at first, but the behaviour is actually a lot more intuitive if you try out! PS: Again, there are alpha builds available in the discord, if you want to try it yourself! PPS: If you are interested in the exact details - you can find the C# Source here! We are always happy to get suggestions on the code, just like in shapez 1.

Further mechanics

The floating shapes mechanic was a beloved mechanic from a lot of veteran shapez 1 players, and we are very well aware that the pin pusher mechanic simplifies the process quite a bit. Especially for those who love (hard) puzzles, there is now a gap. However, don't worry - this is why we are introducing additional shape mechanics as well, such as crystals! Be sure to follow the Store Page to get notified about new devlogs covering those mechanics!
PS: Did you notice all GIFs loop seamlessly? This was actually a lot of work! If you like the devlogs, let us know in the comments so we know it's appreciated :) Have a nice weekend! Tobias

Wishlist & Follow Shapez 2

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/

[ 2023-04-21 17:53:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone again! The response to the latest devlog was super positive, so I thought I'd try to give you more regular updates now! This devlog is covering the topic of cutters, rotationally dependent shapes and much more. Enjoy the read!

Why cutters are difficult

How it started

Cutters have often caused confusing in shapez 1 already. Here's a quick reminder how they work:
Basically the right side of the cutter always outputs the right half of the shape, no matter the orientation. There is actually a good reason to not just cut the shape in half like a wedge on a belt: It would break blueprints. Imagine having a blueprint with cutters and rotating it - the blueprint would now work differently, being effectively useless. However, we felt that this is still a suboptimal solution, since there were frequent "bug" reports of the cutter not working, which was due to a misunderstanding how it works. For shapez 2, we wanted to revisit this mechanic, and here's what we ran into:

Making the cutter 'open'

As mentioned in the previous devlog, one step to make the cutter more obvious was to make it fully animated:
However .. Besides of the animation & mesh being work in progress, I'm not sure this makes it any better at all to be honest. While the process is more visible - it's still very hard to determine how the cutter will cut.

Camera Rotation / North indicator

Another issue is - while the camera rotation in shapez 1 was fixed, you can fully rotate the camera in shapez 2. In order to determine how a cutter will cut, you now also have to factor in the camera rotation. For example, if you revisit the gif from above - are you wondering why the cutter is putting the right side on the left belt? This is actually because the camera is rotated by 180 degrees - the cutter is actually facing downwards. To better show in which direction the camera is currently facing, we added a small compass:
As well as a small indicator (WIP!) on the shape:

Belt Relative Rotation

At some point, there was the suggestion for belt relative rotations. What does this mean? Basically, right now, all shapes always point upwards. This means that the cutter also always has to cut from top to bottom. If the north of the shape would now be aligned instead towards the direction of the belt, the cutter could always cut in that direction, because even if you rotate the cutter, you'd get the same result.
While this would partially solve the cutter issue - it now introduces a whole bunch of other issues. For example, as you can see in the gif, it's now extremely hard to predict how the stacker will combine the shapes, because they rotate on every belt corner. Which is, after quite an extensive discussion on the shapez 2 discord, we decided against it.

Rotation for Research Goals

Another issue we ran into: In which direction would you actually have to deliver the shape into the hub? In shapez 1, the shape had to be rotated in the correct direction in order to be accepted. However, can you spot the issue on this screenshot?
Because the camera is rotated by 180 degrees, it looks like you would be delivering the shape in the correct rotation, while in fact you are delivering a shape that is flipped. This lead to a lot of confusion - and even bug reports like "HUB is not accepting shapes". To avoid this, we simply now allow the shape to be delivered in any rotation into the hub (However - if you are looking for a more hardcore experience, we are considering to add an achievement to deliver all shapes in the correct orientation! And probably also an option in the game creation settings, although probably not on the initial release). PS: Did I already mention the artists are currently reworking the hub? Follow the shapez 2 store page to receive future updates!

Operation Previews

Another improvement we made to make using cutters (and other buildings) a little easier: Whenever you are about to place a building, it shows you the predicted output:

Simplifying the onboarding / "Light" Cutter

We've been really trying a lot to make the cutter easier to understand, however even with all the improvements, the cutter can be hard to understand. Because the cutter is the very first processing building you unlock, we felt that it can quickly overwhelm new players. Thus, we came up with a solution - A "light" cutter which only outputs one half of the shape, and trashes the other side. This avoids the whole directional conflict, has a much simpler animation, and is easier to understand: (The mesh is a placeholder)
Later in the game, you can then unlock the full cutter as an additional unlock, effectively "flattening" the difficulty curve a bit, while you can still choose to rush it. And the great thing is, the light cutter still has its use case after unlocking the full cutter: If you only need one half of the shape, it's more efficient (space & throughput) to use the light cutter.

Follow & Wishlist!

Be sure to follow Shapez 2 on Steam to receive notifications about future devlogs! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/
I hope you enjoyed the read, and stay tuned for the next devlog, where we will cover the new stacking mechanic in Shapez 2! ~Tobias

[ 2023-04-14 19:50:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hey everyone! I wanted to give you an update on the development of Shapez 2, our current plans and more!

News

Funding Secured

Shapez 2 will be partially funded by the German Government via the "Computerspielfrderung des Bundes". This allows us to produce the game with a much higher quality, more content and bigger team. We are super excited and extremely grateful that we can now produce the game with all the features & content we have in mind!

We are hiring!

Speaking about a bigger team - we are currently looking for a Senior Unity Developer as well as a Community Manager! If you are based in Germany and want to work in a small, super motivated team as well as having a huge impact on Shapez 2, please apply!

Alpha Gameplay & Screenshots

If you are curious how Shapez 2 will look and feel, you can check out this exclusive alpha gameplay stream from Giantwaffle! We usually don't allow anybody to show the game outside of the discord, but we made an exception to get early feedback. Keep in mind this is a very early version of the game with still months of development to come, but we think it already shows very nicely in which direction we are heading!
We've also updated the Store Page with current Screenshots from the Alpha! PS: We are currently not looking for more alpha testers, but follow the Shapez 2 Store Page to get updates when we do!

Devlog

Simulation Updates

I wanted to give you a quick idea how the simulation works in Shapez 2, to also explain why the simulation performance will be up to 30 times better than in Shapez 1! All buildings in Shapez 2 are represented via a concept called "Belt lanes". A belt lane has basically 3 relevant parameters: Current Item, Progress, Next Lane. The lane then also has a "Belt lane definition" which stores parameters as the duration, speed, world position etc.
These belt lanes know about their next lane, so for the simulation, it is not relevant to which building a lane actually belongs - the simulation itself does not have the concept of buildings. When you place or remove a building, a graph of those belt lanes is built. In order to make sure the simulation runs at full precision, we have to build the graph and compute which dependencies every building has. This results in a flat list, which is built individually for every island (thats what we call the space station platforms internally). You can see an example of the update order here - as you can see, the buildings at the end of the chain are updated first, and the extractors are updated last. This is extremely important, since otherwise you would constantly have gaps between items on the belt (And it also means loops are less efficient - so don't build loops! :))

Belt Simulation

To better visualize and debug the simulation graph, we have created a small tool for which we ported the main parts of the C# Simulation (since Shapez 2 is written in Unity) to TypeScript. You can give it a try here, and also have a look at the simulation code here! Basically the simulation works like this: From the last lane (on the right) to the first lane (on the left), the simulation first computes how far the item can maximally progress (reading the MaxStep from the next lane). Then, it computes how much the item can actually progress based on the time elapsed, and moves it as much forward as possible. As a last step, it updates it's its own MaxStep property. You can visualize the property by checking the "Show max step" checkbox. The computation of how far an item can progress can get rather complex, because there are two dimensions to take into account: Time and Distance. An item can not progress faster than the maximum speed of the lane, which is the main limit of the throughput. However, items must also not overlap when being rendered, which is why between two items, we have to ensure there is always a distance of 0.5 units. This sounds simple at first, but can get pretty complicated. For example, if you have two lanes which have a length of 0.5 world space units and a speed of 1 unit/second, it means an item needs 0.5 seconds to reach the end of a lane. If the second lane has an item at 50% progression,it means it is at 0.5*50% = 0.25 units. if both lanes are directly connected, it means an item on the first lane can only move 0.25 units on the first lane as well, until it would intersect with the item on the second lane. This is what the MaxStep property basically stores. However, there are buildings which have lanes that have a length of 0 units, but still a duration. Imagine the rotator for example - it has 3 lanes: Input Lane, Processing Lane, Output Lane.
The processing lane has a duration of 0.5 seconds by default, but it has a length of 0 world space units. If we now look at the graph using the world space length as the dimension from left to right, it looks like this:
However if we look at the graph using the time as dimension from left to right, it looks like this:
If you look at the visualization (again, link), you will see that in the world length dimension the item just stops (and would rotate in the real game) whereas on the time dimension, it just continues to progress. Depending on the complexity of buildings, this can be a pretty daunting task to get right, especially if we want to get all buildings to run at 100% precision.

Visualization of Items

Another big problem is that we can not "hide" items, because all buildings are supposed to be fully open. In almost all other factory games, buildings are solid structures that have inputs & outputs, but they just "consume" the items and output others. Because shapez 2 is fully open, this adds a lot of new issues (but we think it is worth it!):
For example, splitters can sometimes still have overlapping items:
This is super hard to fix, because we can not simply "warp" the items, however we will cover this in another development log!

+3000% Simulation Performance

You might ask why we are doing all these efforts to put the nodes into a graph structure. The main reason for this is that we want to make the simulation 100% precise at just 2 UPS (Updates per second). This means that islands which are not currently in view can be updated at 2 UPS instead of 60 UPS. Compared to Shapez 1 (and almost all other factory games) this is a huge performance improvement - to put it into numbers, about 30 times faster. We've done some initial tests and it seems that factories with >1,000,000 buildings and thousands of islands are just fine. However, we want more - and thus we're also building the simulation to support multiple threads. Because every island is it's own graph, we can update islands independently of each other, and then update the "shared" structures afterwards. If we use 8 threads instead of just 1, this means the simulation would in total be about 240 times faster than in shapez 1. Realistically, we will hit other limits (like memory bandwidth), but in general you can expect the simulation performance to be at least magnitude better than in shapez 1, and probably also compared to other major factory games. Of course, this is only the simulation - if you choose to select ultra-high graphic settings for example, the game can still run slow if you don't have an appropriate setup. However, we are giving our best to make sure huge factories run perfectly smooth!

Graphic Requirements

We've received a lot of questions about the system requirements with the all-new graphics. We know that one advantage of Shapez 1 was that it ran well with low requirements, and our goal is to make sure that Shapez 2 also runs on low end setups, which is why we will also include a "minimal" graphics mode which will make the game run very ugly, but also very fast. Tests have shown so far, that it should be no issue playing on an integrated laptop GPU for example, but we will keep you updated with definite stats closer to release! That's it for today, and we will keep you updated on the development progress - Please let us know in the comments if you liked this technical insights and would like to see more! And last but not least, be sure to wishlist Shapez 2 if you haven't yet! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2162800/shapez_2/ ~Tobias

[ 2023-04-09 13:34:59 CET ] [ Original post ]