Happy February to everyone. We're a few weeks into BETA 8 development, and this one is shaping up to be a bit longer than BETA 6 and 7. We are going to share what's going on in a dev blog or two, and what to expect out of BETA 8 when it does arrive.
(note the construction drones are picking tiles up from space) Construction is getting a good looking over. We've heard the complaints (and have the design related headaches to prove it) concerning inventory storage juggling while building, and have decided to modify how inventory sourcing (where items come from) will work while building your vessel. You will now be able to pick where your tiles/components come from or get stored while constructing. Possible options are: Your current controlled ship, Current target (if editing other vessel), Assembler's inventory (if cargo access is available) and best of all: Local Space. That's right, items can now sit in space around the vessel and be used for construction. You will be able to swap out the source on the fly, and this should be a great aid for all ship architects out there. Universe and star system generation is getting an overhaul. It's been a while since we've looked at these, and we've come to the conclusion that bigger isn't always better. What's the point in thousands/tens of thousands of systems when most players visit about 20 on average, 100 at most. Even then, most of those visited are just taking up space, on the way to another destination. We want to make the areas you do visit better and make traveling more worthwhile so we're adding a better generation model that will produce better, higher quality layouts. Don't fret though, while it will be smaller on an absolute scale, there will still be hundreds of potential systems to visit and explore if you wish. Eventually you'll be able to pick a number of options, like size and shape at universe creation. We are also simplifying levels to a 1-10 scale. Truth be told, there wasn't much difference between a level 51 and a 59 star system, and what there was, it was basically impossible to tell while playing an average game. So let's make each level matter more. In addition to all that, we're going to be experimenting with a new Experimental testing branch. This branch will be less tested/less finished than Pre-Release, but should allow players who want to try the latest changes nearly immediately. It will be less consistently updated than Pre-Release, as it will probably see several builds over a short period, then none for weeks. We're going to try it out and see how it goes. First one will probably be early next week with the new construction changes. That's it for now. We'll have another post coming in a week or two for some changes to faction, manufacturing and travel as we confirm the specific details.