Starbound [Winter Update!]

http://playstarbound.com/17th-july-progress/

 17 July Progress

Hi guys, another super productive day today!

The majority of the day was spent making use of Kyrens new treasure pool system that allows us to set up treasure chests that are leveled nicely with content that fits the stage of the game you’re at.

We’ve been ensuring each of the games mini biomes have a good deal of treasure to find. Treasure includes unique consumables, weapons, crops, costumes and even furniture sets.

We’ve also been finishing up the dye system, in which the player can take petals from various flowers. Turn them into dye and mix the dye to achieve various colours. The dyes can then be applied to armor, costumes and some other items.

Also added was a clothes crafting system, which is ready to go. Our art team will be filling it with all sorts of clothing. I’m still trying to decide where fabrics should be obtained. Thoughts?

I’m afraid I don’t want to show off too many screenshots of these things because they’re all massively spoilery and I want you to find them yourselves.

But in the interests of giving you a screenshot. Here’s a field of flowers:

http://playstarbound.com/18th-july-progress/

 18th July Progress

Just a short one today.

We’re at that stage of development now where almost every major feature is done (save for quests, but they’re not far away).

So each day we’re making use of those features and throwing in tons of content. Today was no exception.

We threw in a whole bunch of new items and furniture. We’re making sure each mini biome gets a set of unique items and fun stuff and we completed two of those today.

We also made the background planets a higher resolution so the big ones are no longer blocky (as you might ave seen in some screenshots).

Bartwe is in the process of getting the first quests appearing, which is very exciting.

Kyren is working on something realllly cool, but that won’t be done until *at least* tomorrow. If it is done tomorrow I might show you guys a short video.

A million other small tweaks also happened today.

Here’s a screenshot of the higher res planets.



EDIT: Also! We’re going to be at Multiplay’s Insomnia Gaming Festival in the UK at the end of August! Here’s a list of events so you’ll know where to find us. Events are subject to change up a bit, though!

http://playstarbound.com/19th-july-progress/

 19th July Progress

[video=youtube;P1GI0NV-oVs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=P1GI0NV-oVs[/video]

Yup, if you go high enough you’ll now climb out of the planet’s atmosphere and find asteroids to explore.

The terrain here is COMPLETELY temporary. So don’t worry about that. We simply spawned a random jumble of dirt to test this out. It’s going to get far more asteroidy very soon.

Sorry about the poor video, just a quick one recorded for the daily update before I head to sleep. I’ll put up a high quality video when we’ve finished the asteroid ‘biome’.

Also I do have admin on, that’s why I didn’t go splat!

http://playstarbound.com/20th-july-update/

 20th July Update

Hi guys,

Today’s Saturday, which means weird random stuff day.

Today I worked on falling damage. We’ve had it in for a while, but I tweaked it to where it’s also based on velocity as well as time fallen, so you don’t get into situations where you jump then are knocked into the air when you fall on a monster only to crater when you land after bouncing. So that’s good. I also wrote an incomplete feature (waiting on assets) to where if you’re falling more than x seconds you start to produce a flame like a atmospheric reentry. Don’t know if that’s going to continue being a thing or not though. I also fixed a bug that caused player’s run animation to sometimes play backwards when they’re not holding anything.

I haven’t forgotten about the grappling hook. I just suspended work on it to work on other things for the time being. I’ll come back to it.

Bart spent most of the day hunting down little graphical errors that have been bothering him recently, generally having to do with floating point error. It’s hard, thankless work, but it’s got to be done, so send some love his way. Because that means I don’t have to do it, and I like not having to do things.

Kyren worked more on Asteroid generating algorithms for the new Biome. And Arch also did some terrain generating stuff.

Tiy worked on a bunch of little stuff, including changing up randomly generated names of swords, modifying the camera smoothing settings, and a bunch of little stuff.

http://playstarbound.com/21st-july-progress/

 21st July Progress

Good evening! Or morning. Some time of day.

Despite it being a Sunday, today was a pretty busy day for bug-fixing. Not much to talk about there, although Bartwe apparently fixed the “oldest bug in the game” because he’s a mad scientist. Many fixes were made to rendering bugs, cameras were tweaked. Not bad for a weekend!



GeorgeV made this animation for when players are falling really really fast– like when they’re falling through space. Like this (though…the animation isn’t actually implemented in this screenshot, I just thought it was pretty)!



More work was done on the food system! So far, each race will start with 16 recipes that reflect their culture/biology. There will be a bunch more recipes to discover in your travels- the more difficult they are to make, the better their buffs! We’re still working on balancing the effects of all the food items and their ingredients. Those recipes haven’t actually been implemented yet, though. Soon!

We also had another play-testing session tonight and talked a lot about player progression. I built a farm with a working kitchen and took a couple of screenshots:





That’s all for tonight. Goodnight, guys.

http://playstarbound.com/22nd-july-progress/

 22nd July Progress

Hey guys,

Today we continued our bug fixing spree. A ton of small bugs were fixed. We also managed to cut bandwidth usage in half when playing multiplayer! Which is awesome.

The artists and I have been working hard on adding new mini-biomes and filling them with content and fun things to find. We added 3 more minibiomes today, each of which contains chests, blueprints, furniture to find, weapons, statues, new building materials and so on. These are all super unique drops that I’d rather not spoil with screenshots. But it makes hunting around for new items really fun.

I also completed the naming system for weapons today, names are procedurally generated and of course immediately after completing it I found a tier 1 weapon called ‘the useless slapper’ -_-

We’re also making a few small changes to the GUI. We’re having it display the health of the last monster you hit, streets of rage style. For a while we had health bars above the monsters heads but it was far too intrusive. This ought to fit nicely.

We also added tar as a new liquid. It was needed to finish up the appearance of one of the minibiomes. I should probably figure out something else to do with it though.

We’re now at 859 place-able objects, 102 building materials, 365 non procedurally generated melee weapons, 22 instruments, 383 non procedurally generated pieces of armor, 55 miscellaneous items and a bunch of other stuff we haven’t talked too much about yet. That’s on top of the procedurally generated weaponry

http://playstarbound.com/23rd-july-progress/

 23rd July Progress

Evening, guys!

We got a bunch of stuff done today! Monster health bars are in. They’re not totally finished, and right now every single monster in the game is called Waffles because we haven’t implemented the monster namegen. But…they’re in!



Omni’s gonna finish those up soon and then move onto the party window GUI, which should actually be the last major piece of GUI-work. So, yay.

We implemented some more minibiomes- for snowy worlds in particular- and some biome structures, which are mostly just interesting bits of terrain that have a chance of generating. They help to add some more variety to the landscape. A lot of the time they’re just little caves, or rock formations, but here’s an igloo!



Kyren is finishing off ore distribution, which should add a whole lot of balance to the game in its current state. Bartwe is still plugging away at the quests system, which we’re all really excited for.

And then Tiy, Rho and I played instruments in-game and pretended we were in a hipster rock group/Bon Jovi cover band. That’s all folks! Goodnight.

http://playstarbound.com/24th-july-progress/

 24th July Progress

Hi guys!

So on top of adding a bunch more biome content / things to find (that’s happening every day lately), Bartwe moved heaven and earth to make this happen:



This isn’t a mockup. Our quest system is go! When humanoid NPCs are finished off we’re going to be adding a ton of quest templates.

I know some of you are concerned about the font. We’re looking into making it more readable without completely ruining the style.

We’re also putting the finishing touches on the way various elements of the game change as you visit planets of higher levels.

Finally we’re starting work on our first boss, it’s rather elaborate but very cool. Aside from minibosses, there will be a boss at the end of each tier of play. I’d show you a screenshot of that if I could, but that’s a majorrr spoiler we’re also going to try and make sure any regular mob can become a miniboss.

That’s all for today.

\o

http://playstarbound.com/25th-july-update/

 25th July Update

Hi Guys,

Today’s blog post got saved as a draft instead of posted. I guess I misclicked.

I was at a business meeting all morning so I’m only just now finding out about it.



Today we added a whole bunch of new, fun items. Many of which are hilarious. We’re aiming to fill the game to the brim with things to find that make you smile.

We also added a couple more minibiomes. One of which is definitely my favourite so far.

I’m currently working on getting pools of treasure into all of the dungeons. To make sure there are fun things to find wherever you go.





We’re finishing off the last pieces of GUI work (GUI work is always mind numbing, so this is a big thing for us). And finishing the last pieces of the progression system (though there is still content to add there.)



More than ever I feel like we’re not just building a game. But a platform for future adventures and storytelling. A sandbox we (and you!) are going to be able to build an endless array of content on top of.

http://playstarbound.com/26th-july-progress/

 26th July Progress

Hi guys,

So ore distributions based on planet levels (we’ve had regular ore distribution for a long time) was finished today. My god the numbers, the numbers!!

I’m currently drowning in probabilities making sure I’m happy with how often each ore spawns, at each level, at each depth.

A bunch more biome work was completed. Particularly on ice and glacier minibiomes.

A bunch more of the initial tutorial quests were finished. We also added a nice jingle that occurs when the quest complete screen pops up. Jingles are important!



I should probably stop posting pictures of quest windows. Especially when I’m posting about sound. But it’s just so satisfying when they pop up!

Work on the first boss is going well, can you guess what it is? We should get a boss idea thread going on the forums.

With ore distribution out of the way, we’re going to be moving onto the finer points of humanoid NPCs. Having them chat to you, give you quests and sell you goodies.

That will likely come after the weekend though. Ideas for fun features we should work on in our down time this weekend?

http://playstarbound.com/27th-july/

 27th July

Hi guys,

Today was all about the music, getting it playing at the right times, choosing what tracks go where. That kind of thing.

It took us almost the entire day to sort everything out (we have so much music now!) but Curtis has done a wonderful job and the music just fits beautifully.

We’ve also spent a lot of the day play testing the new ore distributions and seeing if they work for us. I think they still need a bit of tweaking but they’re close thankfully.



Aside from that there’s been the usual round of bug fixing and tweaking. Adding of new items and expanding the content.

It’s great that it’s now so easy to add content to the game that our artists can simply throw in more content whilst the programmers work on other things entirely.

http://playstarbound.com/28th-july-progress/

 28th July Progress

Hi guys,

Today we’ve been focusing on getting the battle music working just right, fading it in when the action ramps up and fading it out again seamlessly when things get a little calmer. It’s a nightmare of tweaking to get right but the end affect is one we think you’ll be really happy with.

The tutorial quest line has been more or less finished. It’s entirely optional but it gives you a good idea of how to play the game should you be new to sandbox titles.

The last of the ore distribution changes are complete.

Aside from some finishing touches on the battle music, the music changes are complete.

We’re working on humanoid NPC behaviours now, the way they chat with the player and react to each other.

We’re also looking to get the party interface completed soon, here’s a mockup of that:



Take care guys!

We got mouths that flap with words now.

http://playstarbound.com/29th-july-progress/

 29th July Progress

Hello guys!

Another day full of new content!

Kyren is well underway on the new NPC behaviours, we really want them to behave naturally so it’s a nice challenge.

Omni completed the monster portraits on the monster healthbar UI, they’re no longer floating severed monster heads.

Bartwe worked on a bunch of loot related tweaks, as well as continuing work on ‘action music’ when combat ramps up.

Armagon added a whole bunch of new sounds to the game as well as working on some of his dungeons.

Legris added a verrry pretty new biome that I shouldn’t reveal

George continues to work on his bosses (and their minions).

Rho is doing a whole bunch of animation work on boss attacks (beams, explosions, etc).

I added a whole bunch of new underground layers and configured bits and pieces throughout the game.

http://playstarbound.com/30th-july-progress/

 30th July Progress

Hi guys,

So today the finishing touches were made to the battle music system. It fades in and out nicely now and resumes where the previous track left off.

Two very cool new minibiomes were added with new goodies to find and craft.

A whole plethora of bug fixes were made. (I think we stamped out the last (for the moment) crash bug).

A bunch of work was carried out on NPCs and how they converse with the player.

A ton of new sounds were added to objects.

The first boss was given a whole bunch of new animations and vfx.

Personally I’ve had a bunch of (really exciting!) meetings today and I’m exhausted so I’m going to go pass out!

Goodnight all! Here’s a random screenshot from todays playtesting:

http://playstarbound.com/31st-july-progress/

 31st July Progress

Hi guys!

So today work continues on bosses, they’re now doing things in the game but there’s a fair bit to finish there.

We also got the durability system in. I know durability is a controversial subject. So i’ll explain once again what the current plan is with durability (as always, subject to any changes we might thing are required).

So first off, durability is only present on mining tools. Not swords, axes, guns or anything else. Secondly when your mining tool runs out of durability it doesn’t break. It’s simply marked as ‘blunt’ or similar. Blunt tools continue to work but are much less effective.

You can sharpen your mining tool at any time using an ore. The better the ore the sharper it gets. Returning to your ship automatically restores all mining tools to full durability. It’s very easy to keep your tools sharp assuming you aren’t mining straight down. Mining straight down is still an option, it’s simply no longer the most efficient one when it comes to traveling quickly.



Our first milestone for NPCs has been hit today, which means we’re making good progress there.

Some work was completed on sunsets/sunrises and skies.

Network performance was given another big improvement.

Dungeons were filled up nicely with loot.

We continue to add new biomes and content.

A huge amount of work was completed on melee combat to make it tighter and more responsive. The weapons were given new hitboxes, their stats were reconfigured, swing time was reconfigured among a whole bunch of other small tweaks. Combat is looking a lot better.

A whole bunch of other things too!

http://playstarbound.com/1st-august-progress/

 1st August Progress

Hey guys, another productive day!

A whole bunch of new mini-biomes have gone in, especially in the underground. There’s a good bit of variety in the things you’ll come across as you work your way deeper and deeper, so there’s more to catch your interest while you’re looking for those more precious materials!

Work on improving the combat has continued today, pretty much everyone on the team is really happy with where melee weapons are right now. One of the more significant changes that has come with the hitbox tweaks is that it’s now possible to take cover from projectiles behind walls that are two blocks high (so long as you remember to duck, anyway). This opens up some interesting tactical possibilities that I personally will be factoring into future dungeon design.

Omni has been tackling a lot of GUI work under the hood, making preparations for some cool stuff coming up. Among these, our action bar is starting to undergo some changes and improvements, here’s a glimpse!



The durability system Tiy described yesterday is almost completely finished, we’re in the process of balancing the life of the tools along with the amount restored by each of the ores. I feel it’s getting to a very good place right now, but further playtesting with larger groups is going to be key.

As far as what I’ve been up to, I’ve spent a bit of time balancing and playtesting with the loot pools for our early dungeons. Speaking as someone who routinely would read patch notes for other games to glimpse the mentality behind certain changes, it’s an interesting turn being put in the position of the designer and making those same kinds of balance considerations.

Chiefly it’s a matter of assessing how much loot a player should get out of a dungeon and what the odds should be for particular kinds of loot, especially the rare novelties we’d like players to be able to find, but without making it so common that it loses any significance. The feedback from the rest of the team has been encouraging so far!

I leave you tonight with this snapshot I grabbed when we were playtesting the durability!

http://playstarbound.com/2nd-august-progress/

 2nd August Progress

Hi guys,

So a very dull update today. We took a little break from progress to bug fix and performance enhance.

It’s been a really good day for debugging, we’ve increased the framerate, massively reduced the bandwidth requirements when hosting a server, decreased the minimum required specs. All really important stuff, but sadly nothing that translates into a good screenshot. (It even gives me the wrong fps if I try to take a screenshot with the fps counter enabled! !)

Of course our artists have been plugging away at more biomes and content.



Here’s an image I posted earlier today from a playtest + balance session. We’re polishing and fine tuning the core gameplay now. I think one day soon I’m going to stream some tier 1 gameplay. Tier 1 takes you through the tutorial quests, teaches you to build a camp and survive whilst improving your equipment. It ends of course with an awesome boss fight.

http://playstarbound.com/3rd-august-progress/

 3rd August Progress

Hi there,

So today was another round of bug fixes and technical changes.

A lot of work has gone into getting msvc working nicely with Starbound, which will make it far easier for us to debug and bug fix in the future.

We’ve made sure stack traces are as informative as possible.

We’ve revamped our performance logging / charts to display additional data.

Vsync and triple buffering were made optional in direct 3D mode, improvements were made to D3D error reporting.

A bunch of GUI work was completed. the GUI is nearing 100% completion. Only a couple more things to add.

The tier 1 boss continues to receive new behaviors (as does it’s minions).

Some bug fixes were made to the weather system.

I managed to get hold of some orange sunglasses so I could work outside, now I have a sunburn.

http://playstarbound.com/4th-august-progress/

 4th August Progress

Hello again,

Despite today being Sunday, quite a lot happened today! I’m a bit tired at the moment so I’m going to run through this pretty quick:

More progress on the tier 1 boss! There are little sub-boss creatures that it spawns and they have some basic behavior now, as well as other fixes / improvements.

Tiy put in a brand new monster generator!

Bartwe (with a small assist from me) continued working on bugfixes and trying his mad dash of trying to get starbound working under Visual Studio. There’s a good reason we’re doing this, and it’s because the way we compile on windows is getting old and finicky and creaky (MinGW) and it’s causing us a lot of headaches. Well, to be frank supporting even the latest latest MSVC compiler is giving us headaches too, but it’s nice to have options This I think is JUST about working finally, so woo.

Omni worked on some weapon tweaks and more bugfixes today.

Artists did artisty things with a few new objects and UI work.

And I pushed a fun new feature… The lighting for morning / midday / evening / night is now much more configurable and also configurable per biome / star. This sort of completes omni’s previous work with getting lighting colored based on the planet’s star, except now the background sky and parallaxes and all the things not lit in the main world layer are also colored and match nicely, and the effect is overall really good.

BEGIN SCREENSHOTS

http://imgur.com/a/QmpEF#0

MORE SCREENSHOTS

http://imgur.com/a/fGCiZ#0

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I used imgur cause too many screenshots.