Greetings pioneers!
This week has seen the release of the big v0.0.11 and even a couple of hotfixes. We would like to thank everyone who has been letting us know about any of the critical issues so we could resolve them quickly – You guys are awesome 🙂

If you’ve missed the previous mentions, some of the team are at the NEC in Birmingham this week for EGX, showcasing Eden Star. If you’re around, come down and give us a high five, we’re in the Rezzed Zone!

So in the Hotfix today, we have (hopefully) fixed the issue with the Splintermites damaging the Eden Kit from a distance and the issue with not being able to rebind the Middle Mouse Button functionality to other buttons. We also realised the graphics settings were all being set to Ultra by default – which is why some of you might have been experiencing lower than expected frame rates. We had optimised a lot in v0.0.11 but might have been hard to tell with everything set to maximum! The full change list is below:

Bug fixes

• Fixed Eden Kit being damaged by Splintermites from a distance.
• Fixed Volume starting at 0 occasionally.
• Fixed not being able to rebind Middle mouse button.
• Fixed not being able to build in some parts of the world.
• Fixed Graphics Settings being set to Ultra by default

Changes and Balancing

• Increased the length of whole day to 25 minutes which now results in the day being 20 minutes long and the night 5 minutes long.
• Lowered the base material cost of Foundations and Cubes from 8 to 5.

So as it’s Friday let’s have an update on what the team have been working on this week, exciting things to come!

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John – Lead Designer

This week I have been helping the guys out with testing the latest builds, talking business, and towards the end of the week I have been at Eurogamer Expo at the NEC, showcasing Eden Star THE SWAMP, getting harassed by a Swamp Walker. 

Matt – Art Director

This week I have been testing releases, continuing work on the grenades and working with Joe and Chris, painting terrain on the mountains and setting up foliage volumes to get the right look and feel for the different Biomes across our huge new map. Today I am at EGX with John (that’s me in the green).

Lee – Technical Director

So this week I have been trying to get bugs fixed with the AI which don’t seem to want to play nice with the new build system. I’ve now also started work on getting all the AI to work in multiplayer, which seems to be going quite well so far…

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been working on squashing bugs for the release we just put out. Hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. I wasn’t really focused on any one thing much like the rest of the team just a routine of find bug, fix bug, repeat. Since then we are all full steam ahead on getting everything ready for multiplayer. Getting the power system working across the network seems to just fill me with energy right to my core. DOUBLE POWER PUN.

Yves – Senior Developer

So you are enjoying the new construction system huh? You’re welcome 🙂

Marcin – Designer

With the patch 0.0.11 + hotfixes released I was able look towards some of the features that did not make the cut, such as the ability to grab, damage, and eventually rip the Cirrus Spore out of the ground with your Smash skill.

Another interesting thing I was looking into was the enemy navigation and its interaction with the new building system. Previously, or should I say currently, anything you build marks the ground it stands on as non-navigable, which in a few gameplay cases causes us (and you) problems. Did you ever see a Splintermite get stuck on seemingly clear ground? Yeah that’s most likely the culprit, no navigable route. I’ve been experimenting with marking the area as difficult terrain instead, and it seems to be going in the right direction so far.

Ricky – Developer

Cleaning up bugs and then got the multiplayer system back in working order ready for a thorough workout.

Carlos – Developer

This week I’ve been sorting out a few of the bugs left over, some of these fixes should be out with the next hotfix update. Aside from this I’ve been making a start on multiplayer, helping set up our multiplayer lobby UI.

Chris – Designer

This past week I have been playtesting and refining the current map including balancing tweaks and bug fixing. In the latter part of the week I have returned to working on the new 8km map, mainly focusing on adding foliage to the world before moving onto working on our new destructible rock assets.

Joe – Environment Artist

Over the past week I’ve jumped onto testing our latest builds to help ensure our massive update went out as smoothly as possible. I’ve also fixed the bug where you were unable to build in certain areas of the map so I want to see all of your awesome cave-bases! With the releases out I’ve had time to refactor the visuals on some of our Apex Rocks:

 

Lauren – Animator

This week, in between testing releases, I have been working on multiplayer and re-working the cutscene, animations and drop pod setup to work with multiple spawn points and players.

Gav & Simone – Concept Artists

We’ve been jumping around on various tasks this week but collectively we’ve mainly been working on the hive bases, the portable turret and some nice tweaks to the HUD interactions that hopefully the UI heads out there will appreciate 🙂

Andy – Lead QA

WE RELEASED AN UPDATE! Then I got to check out EGX on Thursday. We’ll be there all weekend so come say hi if you’re going down.  

As always if you encounter any bugs, continue to let us know. Don’t forget to check out our Trello board for all the latest developments and progress.

Happy hunting!
-Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

We hope you’re enjoying the update from last night, please give us your feedback and any input on your experience so far.

We’ve updated the build again this morning to address crashes previously mentioned that were associated with saving and loading a game with laser walls.

Don’t forget you can [url=https://trello.com/b/dmyocCtO/eden-star-public-board]visit our public Trello boards[/url] to see what has made it in so far and to view our progress on other features in development!

For anyone in Birmingham this week, If you happen to be going to EGX we’ll be there! You can find us at the Creative England booth, so come and talk to the developers and we’ll be more than happy to chat about all things sci-fi.

Happy Hunting!

– Team Flix

 

Greetings Pioneers!

Today you’ll get to see the efforts from the team over the last few months come together in a good chunky release. We’ve refactored the build system and menus to allow for a greater variety of structures including half-walls, curved walls, arches, windowed walls and a door!

We have expanded the map and added a new Swamp Biome for you to explore… We’ve added the new generator and power system to allow for bigger bases and more defences. We have also revamped our foliage tools to make them more efficient, meaning denser forests and hopefully an increased frame rate, woot!

Please note: Saves from version 0.0.10 and below will no longer work in this version!

• New Construction System added! – Enjoy the new and improved building experience. Say goodbye to the chain of complex menus and build anything right in front of you. Activate the Building Module (default button: 2) to access your block schematics. You can now scroll through your available Holograms and Materials (default: mousewheel) and see the result in the persistent “Construction Output Window”. If you are happy with your decision, just press a button to place (default: LMB) your structure.
• We’ve expanded the current level by 150% adding a whole new biome – the Swamp! Work is still continuing on a brand new map which will be much bigger!
• New instanced foliage system. This system should drastically improve performance of our foliage, and allow us to create large areas of dense, destructible forest more quickly than ever before. Going forward, this will also be fully replicable in multiplayer!
• Added 20 new primitives including ceilings, corners, half walls, and pillars for you to build awesome bases out of!
• Knock knock. Who’s there? The new Utility – the Door! It requires a small amount of power, but will open just for you.
• New Utility – the Power Generator. You are now able to extend your power reserves and reach with the first of many generators to come. Power Generator and Eden Kits connect together into Power Networks which consolidate and distribute produced power.
• New Power System and Power UI added!
• New enemy Hive defense – Cirrus Spore – These will pop up around hives and fire acid at you!
• New Neutral Fauna type – The Swamp Walker
• New Motion Graphics HUD. The new HUD will no longer blur as you move around the world, maintaining pixel perfect images throughout; even on lower quality settings.
• Added the option to adjust FOV via the options menu.
• Added a new material – Illumium! This is a new energy Material used for Laser-related upgrades and buildings. You can find it in the new swamp biome.
• Added new jungle-style trees and improved tree visuals.
• Added a new perception system to the AI which should make them more efficient.
• The Drop Pod can now be salvaged for Materials.

• Balancing pass for build/craftables. See this balancing spreadsheet for detail and make suggestions!
• Buildables are no longer held in the inventory and instead are created and placed on the fly. The player inventory will now only contain Consumables (ammo), Materials and Weapons (before equipping them).
• While the Tool is equipped, Scrolling the mouse wheel no longer cycles through Equipped Modules, you must use the select keys (1,2,3,4,5 by default). You can still scroll through weapons with the mouse wheel when in weapon mode (‘Q’).
• Revamped Onyx and Rock shader/textures.
• Revamped Landscape shader/textures.
• Improved visuals for AI disintegration.
• Smashed Splintermites now drop more deadly spikes.
• HUD elements now fade out when not in use.
• Added Build Snapping using the PowerShift Key (Ctrl Key by default), which even lets you snap Eden Kits together.
• Normal mode will no longer grant you foundations, walls and turrets as buildables are no longer added to the inventory before placement.
• Removed Gauss Gun upgrades for increasing spread.
• Lowered Aim Down Sights turn rate.
• Selling and Regenerating structures will now tell you how long their process will take in the on-screen scan display while targeting the items.
• Added Access Point functionality to the Eden Kit – If you’re close and looking at your Eden Kit and then press Tab, you will automatically be taken to the Eden Kit UI. In future other utility buildings may use a similar system.
• Increased viewing distances of the level meaning you can now see foliage and rocks over a greater distance.
• Streaming tweaks.

• Fixed a crash to do with dying without an Eden Kit.
• Fixed a crash to do with level streaming.
• Fixed Splintermites recovering in mid-air sometimes.
• Fixed flickering white pixels on Low and Medium Quality setting.
• Fixed an issue causing Vogels not to react to the player.
• Fixed a hole in the level that players could crawl through (thanks Thunderwolf47!).
• Fixed bug resulting in small gaps appearing in some areas of the level.
• Fixed Small Trees being placed too low into the ground preventing you from building over them even after destroying them.
• Fixed some AI and Flora spawning underground.
• Fixed some Onyx chunks not colliding with player.
• Fixed numerous terrain texture issues.
• Fixed Internal texture visuals on destructible rocks.
• …and many other general fixes!

We have made every effort to iron out the major bugs and some of the issues raised in the last build in relation to short freezes moving between areas. Please tell us if you notice anything out of the ordinary,

You can find the latest know issues list here

if you are having issues building any certain structure on top of another, find the controls difficult, or happen to find any other bugs or annoyances – Let us know on our forums and we can work on further fixes and tweaks. 🙂

Before we let you go, here are a few screenshots from the two biomes!

Happy Hunting!

-Team Flix