Monday 21st: Summary: - Finished Automation. - Some other fixes. Finished the work with saving and loading the Automation connections. I didn't make a new ID number in the end, instead the Wire remembers the ID of the Building it's attached to, and then a binary decision of whether to go for point '1' or '2'. First problem today is a glitch where the automation wire keeps flashing when hovering over its building. This is because it's being turned on by one building, but not by the other. Spending some time trying to think of the best way to solve this. I didn't want to use 'Raycast' again or shuffle everything around completely, so I just made sure only to hide the object at the beginning of the script if either of its buildings are the highlighted object. In other words, fixed it. So that ends Automation for now. I'm sure to run in to some bugs down the road [found a small one straight away], but I'll call it done until then. Next is to playtest and fix. The aim this week is to get a build out which is ready for Early Access, though I will almost definitely get a lot done between now and then. Sorted out some bugs with Pipe Building and Camera Positions. Tricky puzzly stuff but fairly satisfying. Tuesday 22nd: Summary: - Streamed playtest. - More little fixes. Did a stream where I built up my base and showed off all the features of the build. Today trying to tackle the thumbnail icons. I got it to work a bit, so I'm determined now. Seems to work sometimes but not others. Possibly something to do with how long it takes?... Doesn't work at all outside of Unity. One of the big challenges today was figuring out what to do next. I made a list that should keep me occupied for a few days. Wednesday 23rd: Summary: - Fixing bugs from last week's updates and more. Hitting the list I made yesterday. First thing was the building and item sprites. Had to use screen snipping tool to grab the pictures and then assign each of them individually. If someone knows a better way, please let me know. A very tedious task in all but it's so much nicer to play with these. Sorted bug on deleting building with automations attached. Now the wire is disconnected, deleted and refunded properly. Sorted Loading Automations properly. Sorted out bugs in the Box and Vat. We now have the box-splitter-export box automation setup available in the game to deal with overflow. Fixed missing category icons, using leftover unused ones for now. Sorted repositioning Automation wires when moving buildings. Spent quite a while trying to get automations to copy over with the copy pasting. In the end I shelved that idea because it's very very difficult. Sorted weird rotation issue that was happening. We'll see if it happens again. Sorted pressing T to cycle between Smart Splitters. Fixed that pesky bug where walls could be built inside of walls sometimes. Was that e number stuff again interferring with my code to exclude perpendicular walls in the hitbox. Tomorrow is all about playing and implementing new objects again. I definitely feel like I'm running on a treadmill. Automation is a big achievement to be honest.
Thursday 24th: Playtesting and fixing. Fixed some bugs. Added the Fridge and got it to work. Added the Clothinator. I had already programmed this one but let's see how well it works in practice. Thinking about streamlining production of things like clothes and drugs. Not just from the player's perspective, but as a programmer. Is it even a problem? Should full Automation be a challenge, or should it be easier? The thing is, I'm not even sure if this is a bad thing. There are some fun solutions in game as well. My brain is kind of breaking. I think the logistic puzzle is much more complicated in this than in other games, and I guess that's a good thing if true. For now I'm going to leave it. Some solutions will come up organically and really it's going to come down a lot to player feedback which I don't have right now. I had an idea for a supply box feature where Humans could carry from a single source to multiple objects without the need for conveyors. That's something better to consider after a few people have played the game. Now I have a whole list of fixes and improvements before continuing my current run properly. In regards to the spaghetti problem(?) above, I have an idea: The idea is Precursor items. For example you would make your basic Drug Precursor. That would then be mixed with Organs to produce Drugs. You wouldn't set which Drug you want to make, it would be determined by the Organ you combined with the Precursor. Same with Clothes. 'Basic Clothes' would be the precursor, made from Hair and Skin. Then, you would combine something with it to make the other Clothes. This way the maximum amount of Fabricators you would need per industry is 2, one for the precursor and one for the final result. Because for the 2nd Fabricator, the Human will just make whatever they can with the ingredients delivered. I'm really happy with this idea. I feel like this is a real breakthrough in the game design. It will make things much easier, and I can always ramp up the 'difficulty' later by having more advanced recipes and there is still the cooking. There is so much left to do.
Friday 25th: - Bug fixing and new build uploaded. Finished off the list of small things from yesterday. One bug that's left over is that it's possible to build multiple walls onto one space. I would need to break the brain bank to solve it so I'm shelving it now. It's not remotely game or immersion breaking. Uploaded a very stable build that could be called the first Early Access build. I still have over a month until then, so there is plenty more to add. Now for getting started on the Fabricator modifications. Having a good think about how the recipes should be. The main question is if I should ever have items used in more than one recipe, that really changes things. In the end I decided it's probably ok. Saturday 26th: Programmed the new setup for Fabricators. Should work. There will probably be bugs but we'll see.