Hey folks, we've got another update for ya. As we get closer to finishing the story content for the 1.0 release of the game (more on that later), we're going through our existing systems to make sure that we finish up some of the things we had planned but never got around to. To that end, we've significantly revamped the battery/energy system, added a new stamina mechanic and we now have basic Steam Workshop support implemented.

Batteries and Energy

Prior to this update, batteries were very simple and didn't actually hold a charge. You would craft one once and it would run forever. No more! As of this update, batteries must be charged to function. This includes the battery equipped in your MEG tool. We've also added a craftable Capacitor which can be installed in your MEG tool. The capacitor now determines how much available energy you have (Basically it is the old energy bar) while the equipped battery now influences the total pool of power which is displayed underneath the capacitor's energy on the top left of your HUD.
With no capacitor installed and no (or an uncharged) battery installed, you will have only 25 energy available and the charge time of the capacitor's energy will be slow. With a standard capacitor (+75 capacitor charge), then you would have 100 energy (same as prior to this update) and as long as you have a battery equipped with any amount of charge, your capacitor's energy regeneration speed will be faster than what it was prior to this update.

Batteries

• Small Battery - [5000 Capacity] [1x Copper Wire, 1x Lead Ingot, 1x Spitter Extract, 1x Rubber]
• Medium Battery - [10,000 Capacity] [2x Small Battery, 1x Copper Wire]
• Large Battery - [25,000 Capacity] [2x Medium Battery, 1x Copper Wire]

Capacitors

• Makeshift Capacitor - [+25 Capacitor Charge] [1x Copper Wire, 1x Copper Ingot, 1x Beeswax]
• Standard Capacitor - [+75 Capacitor Charge] [1x Copper Wire, 1x Aluminum Ingot, 1x Plastic]
• Advanced Capacitor - [+175 Capacitor Charge] [1x Copper Wire, 1x Silver Ingot, 1x D6 Polymer]

In addition, we have adjusted many powered structures so that they require charged batteries to function, and they consume power as they do their functions. For example, the Teleporter now requires a battery and uses a small amount of power each time you teleport.

Charging Options

• Solar Charging Station - Slowly trickle charges a battery as long as it is daytime and there are no blocks above it. You should be able to find one on newly generated worlds near the Pioneer Station on the right side.
• Powered Charging Station - A quicker battery charger that will only function if you are on a map that has an activated Pioneer Station Generator.
• Magnetic Inductor - The magnetic inductor (shake weight) will now slowly charge your equipped battery.

Battery Powered Structures

The following structures now require a battery to function. They also have an on/off switch that is accessible by right clicking on the battery port.

• Iris Port Bot Spawner
• Material Printer
• Personal Medbay
• Teleporter

This is the absolute baseline for this system, and these changes should also let us do some fun things down the line such as batteries or capacitors with special or unique properties.

Stamina

In this update, we've added a stamina system. This is something that has been a long time coming, because it took us awhile to come up with a system that gets in the way as little as possible, while adding some more meaningful decisions that have to be made during combat. Dodge rolls, back-jumps, running, jumping and melee attacks all have a melee cost now, and when you completely run out of stamina you will get exhausted for short time which prevents running and slows you down a bit.
While stamina is a thing you'll need to take into account now, it also means we'll be able to use stamina for things like new power attacks, and it will allow us to differentiate the weapons more. We could make clubs heavy, high stamina, slow weapons that do appropriately high damage for example. We want this mechanic to make the game *more* fun, not *less* fun, so let us know how you feel about it after playing with it for a bit. All of the stamina costs, regen values etc are very easy for us to tweak (and even moddable!) so your feedback will help us nail down a system that encourages more thoughtful combat without being annoying.

Steam Workshop

Earlier this year we started working on mod support, and adding Steam Workshop support was the next obvious step. We've always thought it was very important to support Steam Workshop because of how convenient it makes it for folks to subscribe and search through mods. We've put a few Example Mods on the workshop, and if you would like to make mods you can check out the Modding and the Steam Workshop pages on the Official Wiki. We've also added several mods related to this latest update: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2209316957 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2209316784 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2209317132 Everything about the mod support is still a work in progress, so bare with us as we fix issues that crop up and continue to expand the documentation. If you have any trouble or confusing documentation, we're more than willing to help out. We're usually reachable from the official Discord Server if you run into any issues either using or making mods.

Weapon Mechanic Test

One of the neat things about this workshop support is that we can use it to let folks test out some mechanics that are still a bit of a work in progress. Along with these other changes, we've been tinkering around with some changes to both melee and ranged weapons. To that end, we put out an optional mod on the Workshop that adds a "Test Iron Sword" and a "Test 9mm Pistol" https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2237032351

Melee Weapon Combos and Charge Attacks

One of the mechanics that we're considering is adding combos and charged power attacks to melee weapons. The "Test Iron Sword" has the ability to progress through a 3 hit combo by clicking the attack button shortly after hitting a creature, and if you hold the attack button after progressing to the third attack in the combo it will do a flurry attack that attacks very quickly until you run out of stamina. The goal here is to add options for more involved combat in a way that can be pretty much ignored if you don't want to engage with it.

Ranged Weapon Hipfire and Focus Fire

The "Test 9mm Pistol" uses a hipfire by default, and a focus fire with a higher accuracy and rate of fire when the right mouse button is held. Try these out, and let us know if you think we should apply these mechanics to the rest of the weapons in the game.

Bees

Sometimes beehives now form on trees. If this happens, try to avoid pissing off the bees, and definitely don't huck them like a crude organic grenade.

What's Next?

This update includes some of the systems and mechanics that we've been working on since the last content update, but we've also been working on story content that isn't quite ready to release. The next story update will include new story elements, alien ruins, new creatures, a new boss and a revamped mining base in the world. That update is about half finished at this point, and we're hoping to get it out before the end of November. Here is one of the creatures that will be in the next update:
After that, our plan is to start working on our plans for the endgame. We've got some *really* cool plans for the endgame section of the game, and we're really looking forward to making it our main priority. Lots of cool stuff ahead, so stay tuned =) As always, we really appreciate any feedback you have. We're inching our way towards finishing the 1.0 version of the game, but we're still very much able and willing to change things based on feedback so don't be shy. Feel free to post a comment on this announcement, make a post in the Steam discussions, or join us at the official Discord Server.

[ 2020-10-02 23:56:34 CET ] [ Original post ]