Greetings Pioneers!

More great strides have been made by the team this week to implement features, fix issues and improve vistas. To show some of the state of the current work in progress we have some footage of some of the new update. As John mentioned last week, there are a number of remaining core feature elements left to implement, but we thought we’d show you a little…

John – Lead Designer

This week Andy and I have been working through production and it looks like July would be a push with the ETU battle in the Silo station so… we’re going to forgo that and a number of other components before we get a release out to you, including vehicles and the new Fuel connections between Generators and Receivers. Instead of using Generators, we’re considering having all items individually powered by their own Fuel initially (Note: we’ll balance this initially so that they’ll practically last forever until we the reimplement Generators and the new connection system).

I’ll update this post over the weekend with core elements remaining to do;

TBC

Matt – Art Director

Worked through some basic concepts for in world airlock UI to allow players to easily see interaction points in the environment. This should help draw players to important doors and entrance areas as well as act as a more immersive visual sci fi element. Next steps are working on widgets for these with the guys so we have them animate properly when using doors/sequences in world.

Lee – Technical Director

This week I managed to get a few fixes in to do with the navigation system where sometime an AI would spawn then fail to find the navmesh or just not spawn at all. I also managed to track down a tricky bug which was throwing the orientation out as the AI traversed over terrain. I’ve also continued with the reaction work this week, which I hope to have complete in the next couple of days.

Tristan – Lead Developer

Working through reviews of the Fuel stat on the player and how this will tie into MATA-Tool power use (a little like ammo for the MATA-Tool) and the ability to power your suits O2 scrubbers etc. In addition to this I have been looking at the final steps in refining the melee weapon systems. Still 6 more tasks to hack my way through (pun intended).

Ricky – Lead Developer

Got in the fuel system on the player, and a few necessities for that such as the ability to increase the fuel stat again once it’s used, while getting weapons optionally consume fuel when they fire. This is just the start of many ideas we have for the utilisation of the fuel mechanics in Eden Star. Did someone say jet boots?

We also have implemented the changes to the consumables weapons system, so now you can equip consumables into your hotbar and equip them as a weapon. You’ll see the item in the palm of your hand and we’ve hooked up the animations to gobble it up (it’s a bit more sci-fi than that).

The spear and grenades are also in a usable state in the game though not fully fleshed out such as hold grenade to cook them, but you can either swing or throw spears and they lodge into wherever they impact then can be picked back up for another shot.

Tom W – Designer

It’s been a pretty busy past few days, mostly on the bug-hunting side of things, as well as playing/recording some nice footage for you to have a gander. Other than the video, we have fancy new floodlights for the camp, a little bit of J.J. Abrams, shiny new glass, as well as the usual landslide of small updates to our rocks and sand.

Tom H – Designer

This week I have been putting the finishing touches on the new AI spawners we have in place in the levels, making encounters with enemies much more dynamic and interesting. The Dam now feels as infested as can be with Splintermites crawling on every surface as your disturb their new hive, and atop the Dam stalkers now perch and wait for their prey to approach. These new spawners have given the levels a fresh feel and provide more interesting gameplay and encounters for all you wonderful pioneers!

Lauren – Lead Animator

Focused on transitions for Enemy attacks and cleanup surrounding our character animation system in general. Also focused on getting some footage compiled for the preview video which includes a lot of the animations I’ve been responsible for. (pretty much every animation :P)

Sam – Concept Artist

This week We’ve closed in on a more finalised UI set for the collection of items and newly available “recipes” – essentially what you’ll see on-screen when you’ve got enough materials to craft a brand new item. Getting the balance between flashy and function is key! On the other side of things, I’ve also been working on a new weapon, which shares a lot of the same traits from the junk spear – the junk axe!

Things are still in the preliminary stages, but next week we’ll surely have something much prettier to look at. Whether this item is actually going to be implemented with the next update is still up in the air, but at least we’ll have the concepts to support it whenever it chooses to emerge.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix