Greetings Pioneers!

Before we start introducing more creatures and our much larger world we’ve been working hard at tackling memory leak issues along side today’s changes, so we should be getting closer to the more desirable stability we want from multiplayer.

In terms of new additions we have two major goodies for you. Firstly, we have now have basic controller support! You can now use the controller in all of the game menus, hurrah!

Secondly we now have Degradation and Claiming of structures that are not within an Eden Kit shield. Structures outside of shielded areas will degrade over time and will eventually get destroyed. If you place an Eden Kit over structures not already inside one, it will claim them and make them yours (or your colony’s). This should reduce the number of empty bases and help extinguish some of the stress on the servers as a side effect.

So on the PvP side of things, you can now properly steal structures from other Pioneers, by destroying a hostile Eden Kit and placing your own it its place! However do not fear PvE players, we’ve introduced new variables so servers can be configured to different play styles!

Important: If you are running a server of the previous version, you will need to update it to run with this release.

Read the change-list below for more information:

    Gamepad Support

• Added first pass of Gamepad support, so all menus and gameplay is usable from the comfort of your sofa/bed/hammock (what you don’t have a gaming hammock yet?).

Note – The changes and additions to allow for gamepad required any saved custom keybindings to be reset to defaults.

• Added Gamepad Layout to the Options Menu > Gamepad section!

    Deterioration and Bases

• Added deterioration to Structures outside of Eden Kit Shielded areas.
• Added ability to claim primitives, foundations and turrets that are not protected by an Eden Kit Shield by placing down an Eden Kit.
• Eden Kits now only require 1 foundation and will properly snap to existing structures
• Put in functionality to allow anyone to build on anyone else’s blocks if they are not protected by an Eden Kit Shield

    Server configuration

• Added server configurable functionality for fortifying structures within an Eden Kit Shield
  • BlockDamageReductionFromPlayer for reducing damage from Players
  • BlockDamageReductionFromAI for reducing damage from AI

• Added server configurable functionality for structural deterioration
  • EdenKitShieldDeteriorationModifier for modifying block deterioration under an Eden Kit Shield
  • WorldDeteriorationModifier for modifying block deterioration outside of an Eden Kit Shield

The server command line property BlockDamageReductionFromPlayer will determine how much damage can be dealt by players to structures within Eden Kit shields.

Set this variable the same way as you would set an auto-save interval, in properties of the shortcut to the server. This is a value between 0 and 1, the default being 0. As a result of the setting, it will change the display in the server list to PVE or PVP. Any value above 0.7 will result in a labeling of PVE (70% of damage from players to structures will be blocked within Eden Kit shields).

Please Note: This currently only affects structures within Eden Kit shields and will not reduce damage dealt to player characters by other player characters.

Example PVE setup:

<install_dir>\EdenGameServer.exe -ServerName”MyServer” -ServerAutoSaveInterval 300 -BlockDamageReductionFromPlayer 1 -ServerLoadFromLastSave

• Optimisations to structure logic to allow for deterioration and mass destruction of bases.
• High level Stalker and Splintermite hives now use a different visual. Stalker and Splintermite hives are now differentiated by their colouring.
• Sniper Rifle Aim Down Sights sensitivity lowered
• Added the Deployment screen UI to Single Player for all times after you’ve viewed the opening cutscene.
• Gamepad Sensitivity, inversion and looking using the right analog stick options corrected so they will work for the gamepad too (In future we will likely separate these).
• Added Melee Target points so that melee will select these locations rather than the centre of the actor (for Juggernaut functionality).
• Put extra functionality to smash so for certain enemies the camera does not interpolate to the target point and instead freezes at the point the smash is instigated (for Juggernaut functionality)
• Put in ability to limit allowed smash directions per object (for Juggernaut functionality)
• Put in the ability to have enemies cause a grab to be released (for Juggernaut functionality)
• The ‘Use’ key (R or X on gamepad by default) now opens UI Menus such as lockboxes and Eden Kits
• Removed popup for save game override if the slot is empty
• Minor visual tweaks and fixes to Swamp biome grass and glow plants.

• Fixed memory leak to do with server and single player saving causing save files to double in size each time they were loaded and saved again.
• Fixed memory leak to do with PFX spawning on server.
• Refactored collision on Onyx rocks. This should fix material shards/pioneers falling through the floor as well issues with mantling and walking on them.
• Added a fix for spawning issues with Eden Kits in the Deployment screen UI – sometimes you would be unable to spawn as the button would not work.
• Fixed a bug with Beams (Kinetic Laser, Laser Turret, Energy Harness/Mine etc) where there were differences between single player and multiplayer in the damage outputs
• Fixed a bug where after upgrading the Kinetic Laser Range Node, it would end up doing less damage
• Fixed bug in multiplayer where inventory weight wasn’t updated correctly, and could differ on client vs server showing incorrect error messages.
• Fixed a bug where absorbing anything in multiplayer made the display for the amount you’ve gathered show double.
• Fixed (fun) issue where Splintermite shards hitting a tree caused it to go flying wildly out of control.
• Fixed issue with energy blade becoming unequipped when player loads a save.
• Fixed issue with baton and energy blade meshes disappearing when loading from a save.
• Fix for an issue where the Stalkers would stand around and not move.
• Fixed visual disparancies on upgrade trees, some nodes were the wrong size/position
• Fixed the strange button sizes occurring in the keybinding menu
• Fixed incorrect highlighting on the Build Menu

New Known Issues

• On rare occasion the Eden Kit hologram will lose the Eden Kit model and look like a single foundation. Moving the camera around restores it back to normal. This will be addressed in a future update.
• When using a gamepad in the menus, if the cursor leaves the screen it can appear to stick to the edges if you continue moving it further outside the screen. Closing and reopening the menu will restore it back to normal.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 
Greetings Pioneers!

We have been hammering away at the memory leak issues, giving the new map some TLC and refining the Juggernaut attacks this week. If you want to get a taste of what these beasts are going to be about we’ve released some test footage which you can watch below!

We have also been getting the gamepad controller to work with the menus and working on a capturing system that once complete, will allow empty bases on servers to be ‘claimed’ by placing your own Eden Kit.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

John – Lead Designer

Spreadsheets, production planning, biome and creature behaviour designs with the design and art team. And last but not least, cracking the brutal but delicious licorice whip.

Matt – Art Director

Working on rock placement and several feature areas which should really start to make the new map come to life, some of which will remain a secret until release. However it’s worth letting everyone know that some of these feature areas will eventually act as pivotal points for telling snippets of story throughout the world.

Also been planning the Biomes with Simone, John, Tom and Joe for behaviours and food chain structure of the creatures within said biomes, to ensure it all comes to life when they are implemented fully.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I have been fine tuning the Juggernaut attacks to make sure it feels good. I’m also trying to iron out any last remaining bugs before we release this to the public. I’ve also been planning some group behaviours for creatures we have planned further down the line.

Tristan – Senior Developer

I have been working with Marcin on implementing player interactions with the Juggernaut to make sure it’s as fun as possible (and that you can actually kill the thing).

I have also been looking into another rather major memory leak we discovered. We have been working to track it down with the help of some you awesome community members. Thanks everyone and hopefully we can get this one fixed up and ready to go soon.

Marcin – Designer

This week has been all about the Juggernaut: debugging and fine tuning. That’s pretty much the size of it, but it’d be boring if I just left you with that, so let me give some more details:

• Added the ability to shoot the legs down, in addition to being able to smash them.
• Added the ability for the Juggernaut to regenerate armour.
• Added so-called ‘Melee Points’, fixing the issue where Melee Lunge would get you stuck inside the Juggernaut.
• Implemented Smash direction clamps to legs, fixing the issue where you could smash legs underneath the Juggernaut and it looked pretty bad.
• Fixed an issue with the Juggernaut’s Flame Breath attack, which made objects by its “chin” to be immune to it.
• Fixed an issue, which caused the Juggernaut to block its own Navigation Mesh.
• Fixed an issue which caused the Juggernaut Armour to hide him from turrets.
• Fixed a few issues which allowed for the Juggernaut to be permanently incapacitated.
• Added new death effect.

Unfortunately I don’t have any new images of the progress, but I have a funny gif of one of the tests. Enjoy 🙂

Yves – Senior Developer

The two areas I’ve been working in is optimisations and features. For features I’ve been working on capturing logic, so that placing an EdenKit in proximity of blocks not already surrounded by another Edenkit’s bubble makes them yours. The second feature is the gradual decay blocks not surrounded by another.

When I test my code I push it with extreme cases, with a decay that would inflict 6000 damage a minute to every block a performance issue with structure evaluation was revealed, meaning a massive slow down for planned items that feature mass destruction of building blocks (the juggernaut, grenades, etc), so I’ve been working to further optimise that area.

Ricky – Developer

I’ve been adding the first stage of very basic gamepad support throughout the game this week, with the implementation of a Gamepad Cursor. This also entailed cleaning up the configuration files since they’ve not been altered to reflect the changes in weapon systems such as having build as a permanent Module assigned to Q.

I know alot of games don’t bother with changing onscreen Prompts between mouse/keyboard and gamepad in realtime, but I felt it would be a nice touch and so shall it be forevermore.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I’ve been working the new map mostly, refining and improving the landscape and onyx placement to make the world more interesting (and challenging…) to explore. I’ve worked on finalising the gameplay components such as tweaking loot numbers, fixing hive placement, testing mechanics.

There are a fair few issues that require working towards before we can responsibly release this to you all 🙂 Lastly I’ve made a few minor improvements to Swamp foliage, and enemy ground hives – they should look more gruesome at higher levels!

Tom – Character Artist

Planning for native Biome creatures and how their behaviors and interaction will influence their visual design. Working on blockouts for additional enemy creatures!

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been jumping between finishing off the animations for the ‘Elephant’ movement and its various attacks if you manage to enrage it enough. I’ve also been tweaking the juggernaut animations as and when needed and helping out with the testing of fixes and new features.

Simone – Concept Artist

This week I have been working with Matt and Tom on the creation of environment biome paintings to help the team understand what creatures will be together in each environment and whether there are any holes in the food chain and creatures necessary to fill them.

This is a long process but great fun to do! By the end we should all have an understanding of what each creature does/lives/looks like and how each one will behave around the others.

Andy – Lead QA

This week I’ve been ribbing Matt about him not making me a cup of coffee. If you see him have a quiet word because if nobody says anything he’ll never learn. I also got to test the new Juggernaut enemy type and even though it completely trashed my base, it added an entirely new feel to the game.

Also a massive thank you to all the guys and gals who helped us out with the Flix Dev Memory Test server, we managed to get a load of data which we are hoping will lead us to fixing the memory leaks and stability problems we have been having in multiplayer.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 
Greetings Pioneers!

This week, alongside several big planning meetings and fixes for memory leaks, we have started work on our next sprint and have been continuing work on exciting future features. These include Juggernaut mechanics and cleaning up the upcoming new map, in preparation for their initial releases!

Here is what we’ve been up to:

John – Lead Designer

Planning production for the next steps, new creatures, biomes, features and survival mechanics. There are a lot of things to come, but I’ve taken the time this week to take on board community input with the guys and re-focus our critical tasks for reaching Alpha (feature complete).

Matt – Art Director

Joe and I have teamed up this week to place a much higher density of rocks within the new level. Both destructible and indestructible. A few weeks of clean up on the biomes needs doing before we’ll be comfortable enough to release the first version of this 16 squared kilometer monstrosity.

Lee – Technical Director

Getting back into my stride with A.I bug fixes after a week out of the studio. Also sorted out a blip with perforce by oiling the cogs on the wheels that power our in house machines.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been working heavily on design and production with the Grand Master and Co to try and get the next few sprints sorted features wise. I have also been helping out looking into memory leaks as well as some server performance profiling in the Pharus map.

Yves – Senior Developer

Trying to kill a few memory issues, one where multiple people building structures could cause rapid memory consumption due to the Garbage Collector not activating when clearly needed, so we are not reliant on the whims of the GC we now pool the offending objects. I’ve setup a dev server that will be tested over the weekend with these changes to see if at all helps with memory consumption.

Marcin – Designer

Long story, short: I’ve been working on Designs and the Juggernaut attacks. Short story, long: We have been hearing a lot controller support requests from the community recently.

For a while now we were focusing on making sure we have all the relevant functionality in before we tie it in with the controllers (otherwise we’d have to constantly redesign as new things is added), but now with the fundamentals of inventory in place I was able to have a look at the controller. Have a peek at the initial design, but please bear in mind that anything can still change.

As for the juggernaut attacks, they are are coming along nicely, thanks for asking. 🙂 Because of the size and nature of the creature, they are all pretty much Areas of Effect, which makes them slightly more challenging to do right, but at the same much more impressive. I have another sneak peek for you. So many peeks this week 😀

Ricky – Developer

I’ve been sorting through the plans for the next phases of development, currently for myself that’s adding the first pass of gamepad support across the game and menus.

We’re still deciding between gamepad custom rebinding (similar to current Keyboard system) or specific layout rebinding (southpaw, legacy, tactical etc). Let us know if you have any thoughts.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I took some time to sort out the number of collision issues you’ve all been having with rocks… namely materials falling through the floor (and occasionally the odd pioneer…) as well issues with mantling and walking on them. You should see a big improvement in our next update.

I then moved on to our new map, sorting out underwater biome AI, polishing rock and landscape placement – and adding the odd Easter Egg or two. It’s a long process but hoping to show you the results of our hard work soon! 🙂

Simone – Concept Artist

This week has been a mixed week of working on pretty pictures and rainbows! Really this week I have been working on bits and pieces that need updates/texture concepts. Also, I’m working on a water purifier to make sure that every sip of Pharus 7 crisp space water will not kill you… mostly!

Tom – Character Artist

Working on a blockout for another larger enemy beast known as the Seiger!

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been animating the movement for the  ‘Elephant’ a creature we should probably choose a real name for soon.

This creature will be of a similar scale to the Juggernaut but not as aggressive. However like elephants, you wouldn’t really want to annoy one of these powerful beasts!

Andy – Lead QA

This week consisted of recovery Monday (God bless bank holidays) and working with Yves to try and nail down a particularly annoying memory leak. I also got to have a little run around in our new map which is looking and feeling amazing.
See you in the fray!

-Team Flix