Greetings Pioneers!

This week has been full of debugging, fixing and polishing all these shiny new features. Many things are functional now but there are still a number of remaining critical issues such as crashes that we need to sort out before release (even to experimental) but we thank you for your patience!

So what can you look forward to in the next build?

• New map – 4x4km playable space, that’s around 16 times more than the old map.
  • Includes 2 new biomes – Marshland and Underwater!

• Survival system additions – food and medicine consumables, hunger, thirst, stamina, oxygen, new utilities.
• New modular weapon system.
• New Player Armour system with 3 different armour sets.
• HUD and UI overhaul. Including Item filtering.
• (At least) 4 new creatures, wolf-type, deer-type (deer and wolf names TBC, suggestions welcome), Scuttlecomb and Bloodpod. Maybe more if we can get them ready 😉
• Abandoned colony base to explore and loot.
• More bugfixes than you can shake a Splintermite at.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

John – Lead Designer

This week i’ve been looking over mid-term production goals! It’s been pretty crazy but we can finally say that we are nearing a major milestone and should have some great news for you soon. We intend to push out this release into the experimental branch to all of those who have registered their interest initially, we will then release publicly once we have run our final tests. After this I want to look at adding objectives along with a clear tutorial and/or introduction that delivers the full overview of the game world.

Keep the faith and we’ll stream some footage next week for you, in the meantime – CHECK OUT MY GUNZ!

Matt – Art Director

Working on the finishing touches to the weapons system and initial version of the abandoned colony base/bases. Done a bunch of revisions to textures and materials to add to overall visual improvement for existing assets such as the Mata Tool. Also been setting up decorator assets and revising the muzzle particles for each barrel component of the weapon. And now it’s pretty polys time.

Lee – Technical Director

So this week I’ve really begun to try and get as many bugs fixed with the new AI as possible. I’ve also started to try them out in the new level to get a feel for them. This allows me to see if they are behaving the way I want or if we need to tweak things slightly. If all goes well I want to try and add a couple more creatures which are nearly ready, to help fill out the new world.

Marcin – Designer

Most of my attention was directed towards the finishing touches on many aspects of the game, especially all of the new systems we’ve introduced – armour, modular weapons, consumables, survival stats, etc. I wanted to make sure that with the limited time we had left to finish them, they were as self-explanatory as possible. As a designer I am biased in what can be considered obvious, so there’s always a lot more work involved in presentation of such features as I’d initially imagine. Therefore I’ve been mostly working with Ricky and Tristan on integrating the UI with the modular weapon system and other items.

Joe – Environment Artist

A mix of UI debug and Level cleanup this week. A bunch of new rivers and lakes have been added to the new map to expand the Underwater biomes and provide more variety in player exploration and I’ve spent more time fixing issues with the level to ensure a smooth release. I’ve reworked all of the creature spawners to spread our new critters across the correct biomes which is going a long way towards making our world feel more alive. I’ve also cleaned up the Colony tab screen and helped with debugging different areas of the UI.

Tom – Character Artist

Very close to showing what creatures I’ve made for the underwater Biomes, so watch this space!

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been pulling out my hair this week, I will be bald before the month is out. I’ve been dealing with some crashes to do with low-level memory operations. I’ve also placed in the decorator feature, which Matt has now been playing with.

Ricky – Developer

The HUD and UI overhaul was no small feat. We’ve changed the look and functionality of several aspects of these. This week I have been implementing Item filtering and working with Marcin towards new ways to display Item descriptions beyond simple flavour text and an icon.

We have a new Utility and a changed utility in the form of the Fabricator and the Weapon Assembly station. The Fabricator is a new design for the original Crafting Station which caters for Misc Compounds and Consumables while the Weapon Assembly is a dual crafting station which Crafts Armour/Weapon/Modules etc and can combine Modular weapon parts together.

I’ve also managed to sort out the game ready for localisation so we can begin the translation processes in due time.

Lauren – Animator

Spent this week mainly debugging the four release creatures as well as the ‘bear’ and ‘elephant’ types which are looking fabulously buggy.

I have also been animating the ‘vulture’ which may as well be called a ‘dragon’ currently as we’ve made it bigger. This will sometimes attack from above and maybe even lift you up to drop you from a height. We really need to replace all these placeholder names with real ones!

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been putting lots of tweaks into the modular weapon system with the help of the rest of the team. Its looking really good. I have also been looking into and working on numerous bugs which we seem to have found.

Simone – Concept Artist

This week I’ve been working on rendering images…and more rendering….and all the rendering… ALL THE RENDERS. I’ve been working on finishing up some marketing images for the game and have started work on the female pioneer’s armour sets!

Andy – Lead QA

Much of the same this week guys. Lots of new content and features have gone in so the entire team including myself have been working really hard to get loads of the bugs addressed. You’ll all be happy to know that the team have been making fantastic progress.

Here’s a cheeky screenshot (early promo) of the new HUD working in game to finish off with!

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

Greetings Pioneers!

It has been another busy week of continuous feature implementation, optimisation, debugging, tweaking and polishing creatures and features. Although this may sound the same as last week, a lot of the mechanics are now at an internally testable stage. There will be a lot of bugs to fix once we finish tying all the new systems together but we are making steady progress with it all. Check out our individual progress below:

John – Lead Designer

Staying on top of the team, but not literally because that would just be weird. Been pushing the guys to keep on track with our current production plan.

Some features are moving faster than others and it looks like we’ll be hitting our debugging and testing phase in one week’s time. This could potentially mean a possible release to our experimental branch sooner than later for community members that would like to opt in, so let us know if you would like to get involved in our testing phase on the steam forums or in the comments and we’ll look at giving you more details on this soon!

Matt – Art Director

Shiny metal things, shiny metal things that propel shiny metal things. Shiny metal things flying everywhere. The weapons have been getting their final pass treatment, this can only mean one thing.. Better looking shiny metal things will be in your shiny metal gloves very soon.

Lee – Technical Director

At the start of the week I was finishing off a few implementation details with the Wolf, before moving onto the Elephant. I’m now in the process of starting to debug the new creatures and polish them ready for the next release.

Tristan – Senior Developer

The modular weapon system is nearing completion. Well the implementation part anyway. Then it’s time for the balancing. As well as the modular weapon system I have been looking into possible rendering and gameplay optimisations for our large colony bases with the help of Matt and The Designers.

Yves – Senior Developer

I’ve been working on updates to do with the save system in preparation for new building features, I’m in the final stages of getting that working.

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been mostly working on the animations for the ‘bear’. This is a Juggernaut-class neutral creature with, long claws, a big temper and a powerful swipe. I have also been working on bits and pieces for our other creatures along with Marcin and Lee, refining and tweaking to polish them for release.

Ricky – Developer

A rather busy week indeed. The UI for modular weapon crafting/assembly and attachments is now functional for testing but still needs some remaining parts finishing off, along with changes to how these 3 UI’s and other UI elements in the UIMenu look and behave with each other such as tabs and where they sit on top of each other in different scenarios.

Joe – Environment Artist

Lots of different bits this week, mainly with tweaking and fixing many elements of the UI and adding in my icons from last week for the modular weapon components, final weapons and attachments. I created a widget to allow us to display Tooltips over hovered UI elements which should help with making the game more friendly for new players. Other UI bits and pieces include an initial pass of the new reticle textures and adding in stats for all barrel and receiver combinations.

Alongside this I’ve had some time to get back into the level and get it polished for release. I’ve fixed a load of level issues that have been bugging me for ages and made a few improvements to detail textures. In more exciting news, 4 new creatures that the other guys have been working on are now walking around the level, and I’m in the process of adding new lakes and rivers to expand our Underwater biomes!

Marcin – Designer

Good evening everyone. Along with Lauren and Lee, we have been working on implementing additional creature to populate the world with. Our goal for this week was to get 4 of them finished: a deer-style creature, a wolf-like creature and two crustacean-style creatures: the Scuttlecomb and the Bloodpod.

We managed those, and also got some work in on the two new juggernaut class creatures: the elephant-style and the bear-style animals, so hopefully if we get enough time, we can bundle them together in the future release. As you can see we are still very bad at naming the animals on time, so if you guys have some nice ideas, please let us know in the comments, on steam, or on our public trello board.

Simone – Concept Artist

I was away at the beginning of the week, so I have been catching up the last couple days on changes to the big fish concept and continuing work on the Eden Kit upgrade concepts. I’m also working on creating some marketing pieces for the game.

Tom – Character Artist

Under the sea, under the sea. Down here all the fish is happy, as off through the waves they roll. The fish on the land ain’t happy, they sad ’cause they in their bowl. Working on the models for the sea creatures!

Andy – Lead QA

With the pace the guys have been working at we haven’t really had many new builds with fixes in because the team are fully focused on getting all the new features implemented. However I did manage to get my hands on a build with a load of the new AI in. Yes they still need a little work, but it’s been so much fun watching the world really come together and feel alive!

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix

 
Greetings Pioneers!

John – Lead Designer

So this week I realised that with the next update we are effectively re-launching the game. It’s evolving into what we (Flix and the vocal community) want it to be and that is both scary but fun! The fact is, if we add NPC Colony elements to the game it will change the game to mean that your driver is resource gathering in order to maintain the sanity of your small crew. When i’ve been looking over these designs I want to make sure that each crew member is an asset and never a hindrance.

These are competent survivors, your friends and allies, that will help automate the mundane processes and drive your need to build a livable base, whilst helping you defend (for those NPC’s who are competent) as enemies attack. Sustaining them would provide you with guidance and objectives in the world, whilst finding and saving other survivors would open up new research, schematics and goals.

We are not 100% set on the final instigating factors with this yet because we also want an affiliation with these characters that would most likely cause us to double our budget in order to get right, however we do have some ideas for changing these survivors out for something a little different – i’ll let you know more when it’s been further fleshed out next week. For now, let me know your feedback on the initial scenario design idea here ::

http://steamcommunity.com/app/259570/discussions/0/360672137532227096/

Please leave us your feedback!

Matt – Art Director

Ever had that empty home feeling? Well say goodbye to those vacuous living space worries, I’m here to satisfy your interior design aspirations with a wide selection of the finest Aeon corp furniture and appliances.

These range from beds, to dividing walls, even functional information terminals that you will eventually be able to hook up to your most valued utilities, allowing you to monitor them from the safety of your own home. All of which will permit the Pioneers of the future to construct purposeful spaces.

Oh and you will be able to make Canteen areas for chowing down on that tasty loot, Nom.

Lee – Technical Director

I began the week working on the behaviours for the Crustaceans, looking at what did and didn’t work. I’ve also been back to look over the Wolf attacks before finally beginning work on creating the behaviours for the Elephant, which is a Juggernaut class creature.

Ricky – Developer

Getting weapon crafting and attachments set up. Additional touches to the new UI/HUD redesigns and setting up the armour integrity stats for display.

Marcin – Designer

This week I have finished my work on the HUD elements concerning the armour and its remaining durability as well as giving the armour another balancing pass. I’ve restructured damage types so that the armour can reduce damage properly, but three is still a few bugs to iron out there.

Next, we tied up the water mechanics, which also just needs some debugging at this moment, but should all be in one place and sorted. At this moment I am working on bringing all new creatures up to scratch by making sure all the settings are correct. This is a long process and it’s probably going to take all of next week too.

Joe – Environment Artist

Lots of different bits this week, I’ve mainly been working on concepts and then the assets for the Weapon Assembly and Weapon Attachment screens along with doing all of the icons for each new weapon component and each barrel and receiver combination.

I’ve also done a bunch of polishing and bug fixing on various parts of the HUD and UI and added high-res description column icons for all of the new consumables and all the new armour pieces. New buttons have been made for future Tab Menu improvements and I’ve also done a pass over concepts for a new build wheel and build placement HUD. So much new stuff, we can’t wait to get this new update out!

Tristan – Senior Developer

I have been continuing on with the development of the modular weapon system. It’s coming together quite well now. I have also been looking into story and objective design with John.

Yves – Senior Developer

This week i have been fixing up bugs to do with the new stat and armour system as well as creating new environmental effects system for the whole map.

Tom – Character Artist

Its big fish time. Started working on creatures of the deep for next week!

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been making a start on the ‘bear’ animations, fixing up some of the ‘elephant’ animations in addition to assisting with the debugging of the ‘deer’, ‘wolves’ and two of the ‘crustaceans’. If you are wondering about the actual names we have selected for the crustacean critters, soon you will meet the Scuttlecomb and the Bloodpod 🙂

Simone – Concept Artist

This week I’ve created orthographics for the big fish creature ready to be modelled by Tom. The shark has had some colour concepts completed and is awaiting the go ahead to create orthographics for it to be modelled. With the feedback from Matt I have created a second pass on the Eden Kit levels and am working on refining the designs! Now time for a cup of tea!

Andy – Lead QA

This week has been very much the same as last week. Lots of testing in the new Pharus 7 map. Working on issues with water volumes and tidying up out trello boards.

Don’t forget you can keep up to date with what we’re working on via our public Trello boards here 

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix