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

 
Greetings Pioneers!

This week has been full steam ahead in the run up to the next release. We have been pushing ourselves to get most of the new features into an internal build this week so we can test and debug them over the next few weeks. Oh so many items, icons, creatures, features and new mechanics coming soon!

John – Lead Designer

So this week we have been working really hard to get an internal build together of the following components; Armour System which includes crafting of the armour and how it will affect stats, the survival system’s first pass, including food stuffs and looking at how it may affect level design, the Wolf and Deer (placeholder names – these just represents the creature’s characteristics), the Loot system for finding Armour, Weapon Parts, Full Weapons, Compound Resources (Parts such as circuitry or advanced metals for stronger Structures and new Utilities).

Once these are all in, we will then review the level design of the Compounds that the players can raid and how we are going to spawn enemies within the Compounds and smaller procedurally spawned Bases. I’ve also been working on the final stat designs for the Modular Weapon system which will be receiving its first internal build next week and guiding the guys with the final HUD and UI designs.

Matt – Art Director

Many icons were made this day, pixels were sacrificed and saturated, layers were copied and deleted. Their memory had consumed most of my maximum capacity, but what was discarded shall not be forgotten. I’ve been putting together models for many of our new survival items as well as taking images for icons to use in our armour system ‘paper doll’.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I began by debugging the group behaviour component and started testing it. I’ve also been working on creating some new AI this week, the deer and the wolf. The deer is ready for testing now, while the wolf still needs a bit more care and attention. Another AI I’ve been looking at is our first crustacean creature, which is now ready for testing too.

Tristan – Senior Developer

This week I have been working on implementing the majority of the modular weapon system. We still have to put the crafting components in but hopefully you will be able to experience it sometime soon.

Yves – Senior Developer

I have been working on the first pass of the loot spawning, we have a selection pre made bases which are randomly spawned in, and their lock boxes are filled up randomly from a loot table.

Ricky – Developer

Armour and HUD/UI redesigns.

Adding extra polish to the HUD and UI, along with ironing out a few leftover Armour system HUD components. (Approximate target designs below)

Marcin – Designer

With so many new systems planned for the next release and the core mechanics of them all already in place, we are currently focusing on making sure that the user interface is crystal clear about how it all works and fits together. This week, Joe, Ricky and I have been mainly working together on integrating new UI elements for the armour, the new statistics and the effects they’re under, and the new map, while at the same time identifying and fixing readability and usability issues with our current solutions.

Joe – Environment Artist

This week I finished all the initial UI and HUD concepts that were needed before moving on to creating the artwork we required for our new ingame HUD! Over the past couple of days I’ve been helping Ricky and Marcin with implementing the new HUD so we can actually use it in-game. Additionally I’ve gone over a huge number of issues with the Tab Menu.

Tom – Character Artist

The flying beast is complete! Prepare to be attacked from above muhaha

Lauren – Animator

This week I have been working to refine the ‘deer’ and ‘wolf’ animations, adding additional movement such as leans and turns, idles and reactions and adding variant wolf attacks. I have also been putting together animation blueprints for two of our crustaceans.

Simone – Concept Artist

This week I have been mainly working on creating concepts for different Tiers of the Eden Kit. Each Tier needed to feel more and more stable, while also building up to the current Eden Kit which will be Tier 4. We have worked to make the Tier 1 have a more portable feel, with more folding parts and simple shapes to make the overall kit less bulky. Whereas, the Tier 3 of the Kit has more of a skeletal structure of the Tier 4 Eden Kit (current Kit), such as the petals that encase and fold down around the current kit. There is still work to do to get these 100% what we want but exciting times!

Andy – Lead QA

This week I continued with the testing of the new consumables and got play around with the first implementation of the new armour mechanic.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix