Hello Everyone! It's been awhile since the last update post, so I thought I'd throw together a quick progress report on the upcoming v0.1.4 update set to release on experimental sometime in the next week or so. Also, just to quickly preface this post - I am aware that the Discord link in-game is not working. We recently reached level 3 on Discord, and were able to setup a custom URL. However, I was unaware this would terminate the previous link we were using, and so it unfortunately no longer works. This will be fixed in v0.1.4, but for the time being you can only access our Discord using the new custom link. Please share it around for those that aren't aware: https://discord.gg/Vectorio With that out of the way, let's get into v0.1.4!

Power Rework - Overview

The main change in v0.1.4 is how power functions, and what buildings consume power. This rework fundamentally changes the way you need to think about power & heat as resources. For those that don't know, in v0.1.4 all logistics buildings (drones, collectors, labs, etc.) will no longer consume power, and ONLY produce heat. Defenses on the other hand (turrets, walls, shields, etc.) will no longer produce heat, and ONLY consume power. Ideally, this is meant to enable more strategic decision making on your part, making heat and power bounce off each other much more naturally instead of power feeling pointless & tedious to try and manage. In correlation to this change, since the total amount of available power has been drastically reduced, turrets are being MAJORLY buffed. This is meant to make each turret feel much, MUCH more impactful on your bases overall defensive capability. You'll require much much fewer turrets, and each turret will be balanced in a way where they can naturally bounce off each other to enable more strategic decision making with how you choose to setup turrets, instead of say defaulting to a wall of miniguns. For a deeper look into this subject, check out the power rework post below! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2082350/view/3681182908908723466

Power Rework - UI Redesign

One of the first things I noticed after beginning the power rework, was that the UI was lacking critical information that would actually help the player maker more informed decisions regarding power / heat balancing. The first change I made was to the inventory, which now much more clearly displays what type of resource a building uses, and the cost associated with that building. Here's an example of what power consuming buildings look like in the inventory panel...
And an example of what heat producing buildings look like...
I also changed where the power & heat counters are located, moving them to the top of the screen to free up space on the hotbar for multi-hotbar support. In the future, mode switching will be moved down onto the hotbar, and a "Region Overview" button will be added to the top near power & heat.
Finally, I redesigned the entity info panel, which is now laid out in a much MUCH neater way. The model preview has a little animation to it, and now supports custom model ID's & animations. When cosmetics are brought into the game, this is where you'll be able to select & view them from.

Power Rework - Generators

The way you produce power has also changed. Gone are the days of being able to produce free power at no cost to you - now, all generators will require some form of resource, whether that's directly from a node (like the essence reactor seen below), or from a resource input via a drone.
In the future, additional generators will be added with more unique pros vs. cons to them, letting you more strategically choose how you want to generate power.
Now here's where we come to the main issue I've noticed with the power rework - resource abundance. Before, the resource abundance was typically obfuscated by the fact you were constantly redesigning defensive structures, meaning you would typically notice a resource drain whenever constructing. However, as you now no longer need to produce as many defenses, it has critically highlighted how bad the issue with resource abundance is. Unless you're actively researching or expanding, there is practically no resource drains in the game. That has slightly changed now with generators consuming resources, but only a handful of resources are actually used towards power, meaning there's still plenty that have almost no real use-case to them beyond build costs & research costs. This is where the new planned levels & upgrades system comes into play.

Building Upgrades - The Plan

The current plan for upgrades is as follows. Please note this is all very much subject to change, and is actually the topic of this weeks discussion podcast with our community over on Discord.

• Upgrades will work similarly to research, in that you can have one active upgrade set at a time
• The upgrade will consume resources using a "Upgrade Bench", again similar to research
• Each building will have 5 unique upgrade levels to start, with more in the future
• With each level, you get to select from 3 different upgrades unique to the building being ugpraded
• Upgrade improves the effectiveness of a building, but in turn increases its heat & power
• Heat and power increase apply retroactively, meaning you need to be careful when upgrading
• Carelessly upgrading can result in power outages or heat level increases
• Upgrades are permanent, but you can completely reset a building back to level 1 at anytime
• In the future, upgrades will unlock engineering slots, which alter the way a building functions
• Ability to upgrade is unlocked after essence, with the new "Upgrade Bench" building

As you can see, this is quite a large system that adds a ton of depth to the strategic gameplay options you have. Upgrades are not a mindless task, but rather something you need to be mindful of and plan ahead with. Careless upgrading can result in your base hitting limits it's not yet built for.
Here is a little example of what this would look like. You have a choice between three upgrades, each with it's own benefits, however each one effects the overall cost to run the building. In-game, this would also display the overall change to your bases power or heat if applied, showing if it would result in a heat level increase, or power outage.

Building Upgrades - What's in v0.1.4?

This system is very much needed to solve to the resource abundance problem, and so I am doing what I can to at least get it partially in a testing state for v0.1.4 - however, this is something that requires a lot of thinking in order to balance properly, and so there's a chance it may not be ready in time. In the case it isn't ready on-time, other methods will be used to temporarily solve the resource abundance problem will be used, such as temporarily higher build and late-game research costs. But, the end goal is to move resource sinks towards upgrades and engineering, with upgrades being an additional motive to expand and gain new resources, and engineering being a huge resource sink you need to scale your base up to obtain. (as it'll have ongoing costs associated with it)
Finally, many people have been requesting expansions to the OST. Our lovely producer Drew and I are well aware of this, and we've both agreed that the OST would be expanded over the course of the games early-access lifespan, including unique theme tracks for each region. In v0.1.4 however, two additional tracks are being added to the main playlist. Here's a little sneak peek at them below, for you music lovers are out there!

Vectorio OST - Gridspace Preview

A super spacey track that fits in perfectly with the rest of the soundtrack. Inspired by Com Truise, this track brings a new unique touch to the Vectorio OST! [previewyoutube=LFtWzIjJ44c;full][/previewyoutube]

Vectorio OST - Horizons Preview

A very chill ambient track that is meant to counteract the more futuristic / space themed tracks. This one was heavily inspired by one of the newer tracks in the early-access Steam game, Satisfactory! [previewyoutube=2kXxQ3oBtCw;full][/previewyoutube]
While not directly tied to v0.1.4, we recently had a survey on our Discord server that asked the community what features they'd like to see next. You can see a screenshot of the survey below.
With this survey in mind, certain feature priorities are being shifted around, here's a list of the changes being made so far, which will be reflected in an updated roadmap coming out sometime after v0.1.4 is released and stable on the live branch. [olist]

Multiplayer has had a boost in priority, moving it into the release view for v0.2

RTS mechanics (unit control) will be partially implemented in v0.2, but not fully

Logistics v2 will be split into multiple segments, part of which will be in v0.2

Armory (cosmetics) & other gamemodes have been lowered in priority. [/olist] These changes are mainly to ensure that there are better ways to attack enemy bases and setup supply chains in v0.2, but will not be a fully inclusive update to either feature, as multiplayer will be receiving more of my attention going into that update!

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Please let me know! I love hearing from the community and what they think about certain changes or features, and it helps me to make more informed decisions on specific features. New Discord Link: https://discord.gg/Vectorio This Friday we'll be hosting another episode of our community discussions podcast, which is where we pick a specific topic and let the community directly give their feedback on it. This weeks podcast will be on the upcoming levels system, so if you want to give your ideas or feedback on the subject, this is a great chance to do so! Like previous episodes, this will be uploaded on YouTube afterwards. I can't wait to see everyone get their hands on v0.1.4! Lots of new exciting changes are coming in it that will start to pave the path towards Phantom Plains (v0.2), the first major early-access update. Thanks for reading, ~ Ben

[ 2023-09-13 22:48:05 CET ] [ Original post ]