It's that time of year again! For a holiday? No! What's a Holiday?! It's time for another Maia update of course.

https://youtu.be/sn2QTFseTEs


Colonists are now able to hold items whilst walking around the base allowing them to telegraph what task they are hoping to do next. A colonist with a hammer may be on their way to build some room segments, one holding a wrench on a build or repair job, rations the food station or storage, and a colonist holding a glow stick during a blackout might just be afraid of the dark.




Insects form a critical component of any food chain, and on Maia the rule holds true. The new flying insects will provide a food source for the smaller alien creatures, allowing them to broaden their diet and grow quicker. The bugs use bioluminescence for mating, so exterior base lighting might attract their attention and cause them to swarm your colonists.



The migration and breeding of the alien life has changed to reflect this new system. The balance should reduce the risk of equipment destruction or alien incursions to new bases, but increase it substantially later in the game.


Raw research data is now represented by physical data tapes in the world, allowing colonists to stockpile and store information they have learned about the planet ready for it to be crunched into new technologies and techniques in the research lab computer systems. Just be careful to keep them dry and safe, magnetic tape is flimsy and extremely flammable.


 

As well as adding several new colonist visual models into the game this update brings new psychological differences to your colonists. The personality of a colonist can effect their motivation, moods, how they interact with others and even their susceptibility to certain mental conditions. Picking the right traits might just be a matter of life and death.




The base system will now announce many more of the incoming issues and disasters facing your colony. Many sounds have been added or tweaked in the game world and user interface to give better feedback and a more balanced soundscape.


New cache optimisations, path finding changes, C++ code modernisation and threading balance has improved CPU performance for large bases up to 40%.

• Stand alone missions extended
• Chickens set for destruction will be prioritised for eating over others.
• Chickens respond to player by ejecting feathers.
• Utility robot is now much less likely to immobilise itself in first person mode.
• Text crawl effects reinstated for new emails and messages from colonists.
• Updated (deliberate) glitching effect on infotips of objects hit by solar flare eletromotive effect.
• Clean up of solar arrays and geothermal infotip generation.
• Meteor strike lighting tweaked.
• Communications tower now repairable by robots.
• Megacephalagia initial migration randomised to prevent email spam.
• UI made more responsive.
• New item descriptions.
• Photosynthesis more accurately linked to light wavelengths.
• Work light power usage reduced according to what colour the light is.
• Colonists walking and running tweaked. Fix for stamina and stop-start running.
• Movement tweaks to reduce pauses waiting for doors.
• Colonist social needs reduced so they waste less time.
• Colonists can turn faster in suits to prevent them getting stuck walking in circles.
• Starting base has a wall screen to hint to new players they should be using them.
• Snap-to-grid key now rebindable.
• Bulkhead doors and airlocks are more effective at stopping cave ins.
• Plant blight spreading behaviour changed (If you get a lot of blight, plant less crops!)
• Fix for object selection issues when tracking or when setting colours.

If you want to see more changes to the game as they go live. Get on the Development branch on Steam. You can also watch as I update the repo on the development site.

As always I am very open to feedback and will fix bugs as we find them or they are reported. If you are enjoying playing the game, please remember to leave a Steam review!

It's that time of year again! For a holiday? No! What's a Holiday?! It's time for another Maia update of course.

https://youtu.be/sn2QTFseTEs


Colonists are now able to hold items whilst walking around the base allowing them to telegraph what task they are hoping to do next. A colonist with a hammer may be on their way to build some room segments, one holding a wrench on a build or repair job, rations the food station or storage, and a colonist holding a glow stick during a blackout might just be afraid of the dark.




Insects form a critical component of any food chain, and on Maia the rule holds true. The new flying insects will provide a food source for the smaller alien creatures, allowing them to broaden their diet and grow quicker. The bugs use bioluminescence for mating, so exterior base lighting might attract their attention and cause them to swarm your colonists.



The migration and breeding of the alien life has changed to reflect this new system. The balance should reduce the risk of equipment destruction or alien incursions to new bases, but increase it substantially later in the game.


Raw research data is now represented by physical data tapes in the world, allowing colonists to stockpile and store information they have learned about the planet ready for it to be crunched into new technologies and techniques in the research lab computer systems. Just be careful to keep them dry and safe, magnetic tape is flimsy and extremely flammable.


 

As well as adding several new colonist visual models into the game this update brings new psychological differences to your colonists. The personality of a colonist can effect their motivation, moods, how they interact with others and even their susceptibility to certain mental conditions. Picking the right traits might just be a matter of life and death.




The base system will now announce many more of the incoming issues and disasters facing your colony. Many sounds have been added or tweaked in the game world and user interface to give better feedback and a more balanced soundscape.


New cache optimisations, path finding changes, C++ code modernisation and threading balance has improved CPU performance for large bases up to 40%.

• Stand alone missions extended
• Chickens set for destruction will be prioritised for eating over others.
• Chickens respond to player by ejecting feathers.
• Utility robot is now much less likely to immobilise itself in first person mode.
• Text crawl effects reinstated for new emails and messages from colonists.
• Updated (deliberate) glitching effect on infotips of objects hit by solar flare eletromotive effect.
• Clean up of solar arrays and geothermal infotip generation.
• Meteor strike lighting tweaked.
• Communications tower now repairable by robots.
• Megacephalagia initial migration randomised to prevent email spam.
• UI made more responsive.
• New item descriptions.
• Photosynthesis more accurately linked to light wavelengths.
• Work light power usage reduced according to what colour the light is.
• Colonists walking and running tweaked. Fix for stamina and stop-start running.
• Movement tweaks to reduce pauses waiting for doors.
• Colonist social needs reduced so they waste less time.
• Colonists can turn faster in suits to prevent them getting stuck walking in circles.
• Starting base has a wall screen to hint to new players they should be using them.
• Snap-to-grid key now rebindable.
• Bulkhead doors and airlocks are more effective at stopping cave ins.
• Plant blight spreading behaviour changed (If you get a lot of blight, plant less crops!)
• Fix for object selection issues when tracking or when setting colours.

If you want to see more changes to the game as they go live. Get on the Development branch on Steam. You can also watch as I update the repo on the development site.

As always I am very open to feedback and will fix bugs as we find them or they are reported. If you are enjoying playing the game, please remember to leave a Steam review!

Maia 0.64 is here! Cats, Dogs, Hurricanes, GUI, detailed new AI and lots of optimisations and fixes. Here's a quick video showing off some of the cool new things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtiB-eOa-C4


Firstly we have the cats. Based off the pets of our Kickstarter backers, our feline friends have travelled across the cosmos to keep us company (when they feel like it), damage furniture and sleep in a lot in inconvenient places. They will, very occasionally, socialise with the colonists and boost moods around the base.





The dogs make themselves a little more useful. Defending the territory of the base, they will follow patrol routes, noting weaknesses in the bases defences as they go, iterating and improving their coverage. They will alert and then defend against alien incursion, barking and growling at any intruder. They can also be given move orders which they will (sometimes) obey and integrate into their guarding behaviour.

It's not all work, they will also distract colonists for tummy rubs, boosting moods and fulfilling the social needs of the lonely. Whether the dogs make friends with the cats or not is up to the cats, and so is a rare and unpredictable occurrence.




The alien creature AI is now more dynamic, with all species now having social structures and breeding patterns. They now suffer from fear and panic and so can be forced out the base using your dogs to herd them, rather than using the weak and unpredictable colonists.


Hurricanes can now make landfall and threaten your bases. These catastrophic events will build up over time, tearing apart equipment on the surface and shutting down wind and solar generation. They will also leave a lasting effect on the weather simulation, leaving drastic pressure changes that will take weeks to normalise. On the bright side you'll generate a lot of wind power before the turbines go into lock down and/or explode.

]


There are many changes to the UI, but a key one is the new finder panels opened by clicking the colonist, warning and robot buttons on the left hand side. These provide an easier way to find a specific colonist, robot or problem with the base. The warning panel now focuses on many of the smaller issues that a base may face, allowing you to isolate and fix smaller issues before everyone dies in an embarrassing manner.

Autosaves are now in game, so you will always have a base to go back to when you "accidentally" murder everyone in your charge by locking them in a room with no doors and a hundred angry chickens.





The lighting engine has had some major rewrites and optimisations. This will allow for more extravagant base designs at higher and smoother frame rates. Remember, your choice of lighting will have a noticeable impact on the moods of your colonists.

Many shaders and effects have been tweaked or in some cases rewritten, leading to more natural lighting and more aesthetically pleasing visuals.


The dogs aren't the only woofers you'll be hearing in 0.64! We've implemented many new sounds and reworked some of the existing ones to add more feedback from the game and realistic detail in the soundscape.


Other Tweaks:

• Over-ripe crops will suffer less blight progression.
• Airlock cycles and new door models.
• Wall heaters now turn off at 26 rather than 30 degrees.
• Several late game food generation issues addressed
• New font tweaks for better shadows and easier reading.
• Text button active areas better fitted to buttons.
• Several texture compression artifacts fixed.
• Screenspace raytraced reflections corrected.
• Creature territory systems optimised
• Events and dangers generation balanced and tweaked for longer games.
• Thousands of small optimisations and code modernisations.
• More temporary names in the colonist generator (Kickstarter names list coming soon!)

That's all for now. I will be back soon with more updates, content, fixes and softly spoken update videos. Get yourself on the Steam development branch to get them as they go live. All feedback is appreciated!

Maia 0.64 is here! Cats, Dogs, Hurricanes, GUI, detailed new AI and lots of optimisations and fixes. Here's a quick video showing off some of the cool new things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtiB-eOa-C4


Firstly we have the cats. Based off the pets of our Kickstarter backers, our feline friends have travelled across the cosmos to keep us company (when they feel like it), damage furniture and sleep in a lot in inconvenient places. They will, very occasionally, socialise with the colonists and boost moods around the base.





The dogs make themselves a little more useful. Defending the territory of the base, they will follow patrol routes, noting weaknesses in the bases defences as they go, iterating and improving their coverage. They will alert and then defend against alien incursion, barking and growling at any intruder. They can also be given move orders which they will (sometimes) obey and integrate into their guarding behaviour.

It's not all work, they will also distract colonists for tummy rubs, boosting moods and fulfilling the social needs of the lonely. Whether the dogs make friends with the cats or not is up to the cats, and so is a rare and unpredictable occurrence.




The alien creature AI is now more dynamic, with all species now having social structures and breeding patterns. They now suffer from fear and panic and so can be forced out the base using your dogs to herd them, rather than using the weak and unpredictable colonists.


Hurricanes can now make landfall and threaten your bases. These catastrophic events will build up over time, tearing apart equipment on the surface and shutting down wind and solar generation. They will also leave a lasting effect on the weather simulation, leaving drastic pressure changes that will take weeks to normalise. On the bright side you'll generate a lot of wind power before the turbines go into lock down and/or explode.

]


There are many changes to the UI, but a key one is the new finder panels opened by clicking the colonist, warning and robot buttons on the left hand side. These provide an easier way to find a specific colonist, robot or problem with the base. The warning panel now focuses on many of the smaller issues that a base may face, allowing you to isolate and fix smaller issues before everyone dies in an embarrassing manner.

Autosaves are now in game, so you will always have a base to go back to when you "accidentally" murder everyone in your charge by locking them in a room with no doors and a hundred angry chickens.





The lighting engine has had some major rewrites and optimisations. This will allow for more extravagant base designs at higher and smoother frame rates. Remember, your choice of lighting will have a noticeable impact on the moods of your colonists.

Many shaders and effects have been tweaked or in some cases rewritten, leading to more natural lighting and more aesthetically pleasing visuals.


The dogs aren't the only woofers you'll be hearing in 0.64! We've implemented many new sounds and reworked some of the existing ones to add more feedback from the game and realistic detail in the soundscape.


Other Tweaks:

• Over-ripe crops will suffer less blight progression.
• Airlock cycles and new door models.
• Wall heaters now turn off at 26 rather than 30 degrees.
• Several late game food generation issues addressed
• New font tweaks for better shadows and easier reading.
• Text button active areas better fitted to buttons.
• Several texture compression artifacts fixed.
• Screenspace raytraced reflections corrected.
• Creature territory systems optimised
• Events and dangers generation balanced and tweaked for longer games.
• Thousands of small optimisations and code modernisations.
• More temporary names in the colonist generator (Kickstarter names list coming soon!)

That's all for now. I will be back soon with more updates, content, fixes and softly spoken update videos. Get yourself on the Steam development branch to get them as they go live. All feedback is appreciated!

Maia 0.63 is ready. This update brings a lot of new features as well as an overhaul of the game's simulation and balance. I want to say thank you to everyone who gave feedback over the summer, it's helped me improve the game significantly. Here's a video of me playing the latest build and showing off some of the new features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3i7aMNqyvA&feature=youtu.be
 

If treated poorly enough, colonists can now leave the base and head off to their inevitable deaths in the barren wastelands of Maia. Fulfilling food, rest, social needs and building an aesthetically pleasing base will all be important to keeping them loyal. That said, some colonists are just cowards, so don't feel too bad about them.




The games bodily simulation of the colonists has been made more accurate with heat loss through convection, conduction and radiation in different mediums. Colonist metabolisms are finer tuned with effects from sweat, to kinetic energy losses affecting them as they go about their days. Keep your colony warm and sources of water abundant to keep them happy, efficient, and breathing.



 

The day length of Maia has been made longer. This will give your colonists more time to carry out essential.. and less essential tasks, and take the pressure off growing colonies. Conversely with the slower simulation of the climate and weather, and longer nights, solar and wind generation will now be more challenging to keep online, requiring a greater focus on efficient storage and energy management.




 

• IMPs no longer get stuck sparking.
• IMPs will now place minerals in the smelter. They cannot start it themselves however so you will have to manually - or wait for a colonist.
• Player now receives an email when they lose all their IMP robots.
• Flywheels can be clicked on to be put into charge only mode. Allowing you to store energy for emergencies.
• PAUSE BUTTON added to the UI. Pausing no longer causes glitching, is compatible with the building UI. (Don't get too used to the bottom left placement, it's going in the top right soon)
• UI changes to hide text and mouse attached objects when hovering over buttons.
• Mouse now sits properly infront of UI items.
• Condenser now has visible running water when clicked on or used.
• Minerals make dust clouds when dropped or clicked on.
• Workshop table, bodybags, foot packets, grass and other items now have click reactions.
• Alien plant samples have a nice mist effect.
• Numerous tweaks to AI and balancing.
• Large amounts of food creation balancing.
• Food preparation bugs fixed.
• All food KJ calculated more accurately based on the correct breeds and in many cases have increased substantially (potatoes and chickens are over double what they were).
• Ration packs are now far more likely to be built.
• Ration packs can be opened by colonists and the player.
• Colonist standard and binge meal sizes increased.
• Condensers now advertise the high level "water purification" need (like the solar stills) so are better prioritised when building.
• Many small optimisations and a huge amount of code cleanup. Potentially fixing a lot of bugs and likely preventing future ones.
• Missing rain fixed.
• Food trays appearing "unbuilt" issue fixed.
• Colonists now simulate heat radiation and conduction due to convection on their skin.
• Colonists put less direct heat into a room (as roughly 20% is put into kinectic/mechanical energy)
• Fix for missing molerat animation causing a crash.
• Smelting priority tweaks.
• Stockpiling bugs fixed.
• Creation of hydroponics planters priority increased.
• Bug fixed on determining food creation priority need.
• Colonists with suitable skills (construction) will be able to produce twice as much building materials from the smelter.
• Colonists are less likely to hoard materials.
• Colonists can now binge on food if they need to make up more than one meal. This means they can eat 10000kj of energy rather than the usual 6000kj.
• Colonist energy needs slightly balanced to account for heat generated by food digestion.
• Wind turbines will take more damage before advertising repair task to colonists (although will repair bots will maintain the current level)
• Fix for black tiles being left when a door is removed.
• Doors sat in the middle of rooms will now automatically be set to be destroyed by colonists.
• Fix for missing text on the Fusion and Fission reactors.
• Fix for KW/W mixups.
• Fix for IMPs not picking up fossils.
• Desks now moveable by colonists.
• Fix for colonists not filling up the storage room shelves with raw food once a prep station has become full.
• Smelter now advertises it's need for minerals sooner after being emptied. This should speed up construction of building materials marginally.
• Stockpile settings for building materials lowered so people get less stuck if they don't realise they should be managing it.
• Stockpile settings panels now comes up when mousing over a room. Hopefully people will realise it exists now.
• Window sizing bug fixes.
• Full screen now works far better.
• Rendering quality improved.

 
There are more updates, fixes and features coming soon. I recommend jumping on the development branch if you haven't already!

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews. I'd really love some up to date Steam reviews.

Maia 0.63 is ready. This update brings a lot of new features as well as an overhaul of the game's simulation and balance. I want to say thank you to everyone who gave feedback over the summer, it's helped me improve the game significantly. Here's a video of me playing the latest build and showing off some of the new features:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3i7aMNqyvA&feature=youtu.be
 

If treated poorly enough, colonists can now leave the base and head off to their inevitable deaths in the barren wastelands of Maia. Fulfilling food, rest, social needs and building an aesthetically pleasing base will all be important to keeping them loyal. That said, some colonists are just cowards, so don't feel too bad about them.




The games bodily simulation of the colonists has been made more accurate with heat loss through convection, conduction and radiation in different mediums. Colonist metabolisms are finer tuned with effects from sweat, to kinetic energy losses affecting them as they go about their days. Keep your colony warm and sources of water abundant to keep them happy, efficient, and breathing.



 

The day length of Maia has been made longer. This will give your colonists more time to carry out essential.. and less essential tasks, and take the pressure off growing colonies. Conversely with the slower simulation of the climate and weather, and longer nights, solar and wind generation will now be more challenging to keep online, requiring a greater focus on efficient storage and energy management.




 

• IMPs no longer get stuck sparking.
• IMPs will now place minerals in the smelter. They cannot start it themselves however so you will have to manually - or wait for a colonist.
• Player now receives an email when they lose all their IMP robots.
• Flywheels can be clicked on to be put into charge only mode. Allowing you to store energy for emergencies.
• PAUSE BUTTON added to the UI. Pausing no longer causes glitching, is compatible with the building UI. (Don't get too used to the bottom left placement, it's going in the top right soon)
• UI changes to hide text and mouse attached objects when hovering over buttons.
• Mouse now sits properly infront of UI items.
• Condenser now has visible running water when clicked on or used.
• Minerals make dust clouds when dropped or clicked on.
• Workshop table, bodybags, foot packets, grass and other items now have click reactions.
• Alien plant samples have a nice mist effect.
• Numerous tweaks to AI and balancing.
• Large amounts of food creation balancing.
• Food preparation bugs fixed.
• All food KJ calculated more accurately based on the correct breeds and in many cases have increased substantially (potatoes and chickens are over double what they were).
• Ration packs are now far more likely to be built.
• Ration packs can be opened by colonists and the player.
• Colonist standard and binge meal sizes increased.
• Condensers now advertise the high level "water purification" need (like the solar stills) so are better prioritised when building.
• Many small optimisations and a huge amount of code cleanup. Potentially fixing a lot of bugs and likely preventing future ones.
• Missing rain fixed.
• Food trays appearing "unbuilt" issue fixed.
• Colonists now simulate heat radiation and conduction due to convection on their skin.
• Colonists put less direct heat into a room (as roughly 20% is put into kinectic/mechanical energy)
• Fix for missing molerat animation causing a crash.
• Smelting priority tweaks.
• Stockpiling bugs fixed.
• Creation of hydroponics planters priority increased.
• Bug fixed on determining food creation priority need.
• Colonists with suitable skills (construction) will be able to produce twice as much building materials from the smelter.
• Colonists are less likely to hoard materials.
• Colonists can now binge on food if they need to make up more than one meal. This means they can eat 10000kj of energy rather than the usual 6000kj.
• Colonist energy needs slightly balanced to account for heat generated by food digestion.
• Wind turbines will take more damage before advertising repair task to colonists (although will repair bots will maintain the current level)
• Fix for black tiles being left when a door is removed.
• Doors sat in the middle of rooms will now automatically be set to be destroyed by colonists.
• Fix for missing text on the Fusion and Fission reactors.
• Fix for KW/W mixups.
• Fix for IMPs not picking up fossils.
• Desks now moveable by colonists.
• Fix for colonists not filling up the storage room shelves with raw food once a prep station has become full.
• Smelter now advertises it's need for minerals sooner after being emptied. This should speed up construction of building materials marginally.
• Stockpile settings for building materials lowered so people get less stuck if they don't realise they should be managing it.
• Stockpile settings panels now comes up when mousing over a room. Hopefully people will realise it exists now.
• Window sizing bug fixes.
• Full screen now works far better.
• Rendering quality improved.

 
There are more updates, fixes and features coming soon. I recommend jumping on the development branch if you haven't already!

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews. I'd really love some up to date Steam reviews.

It's update time and Maia 0.62 has been deemed fit for consumption! Here's a quick video of me showing off some of the latest features I've been working on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR-8YrmHrWY

More of the alien creatures can now breed and produce a flock of tiny cute murder machines. This will change how they protect their territories, react to colonists, and also feed back into the simulation of the ecosystem in new and emergent ways.

Baby creatures, and animals of all sorts, will now imprint on the first thing they see and follow and copy their new parent. So be sure to keep your livestock room doors locked unless you want your dogs to become unsuspecting parents to your hatchling chickens.



 
Colonists will now sometimes break down and run away from something if it terrifies them, such as an alien sneaking into the base or an out of control fire breaking out. They will go cower and cry and feel guilty about how much of a burden they are to the colony.

When trapped in rooms colonists will start getting very upset and start banging on doors to try and escape. Leaving them in the room will deeply upset them, potentially damaging their sanity causing them to harm equipment or themselves!

 



 
Colonists can now sit down at the dining table for relaxing communal meals in the living area, allowing them to rest, eat and socialise simultaneously.

They can can also now deposit raw food supplies in the storage room if there is a surplus of production. These can be picked up later to build ration packs or to fill a food preparation station.

 



 
Colonists can now learn skills by practising them, once a new skill is leant it will allow the colonist to perform the action better, faster or more often. They can also sit at desks to learn new expertise in theory, saving themselves the effort and bringing more exotic skill sets to your colony.

 



 

• Fix for locked doors blocking nearby objects.
• Loads of new detail and variants in colonist activity report emails.
• Colonist activity reports added for building rooms, panicking, and shooting animals.
• New 32 exe for Windows users. Stop using 32 bit Windows, please, join us in the future.
• Turret tracer effect added. Turret PFX updated.
• Several object placement problems fixed (such as nearby blocked objects stopping you placing something).
• Higher density of grass, foliage and creatures on the exterior world map.
• Button flashing added for new emails to grab the user's attention faster.
• Fusion reactor now requires you to initiate a power up. This will require many fly wheels or super capacitors.
• Fly wheels and super capacitors have a higher capacity to better represent future materials. This now makes a larger solar powered base more feasible.
• Smelting rebalanced.
• Colonist stockpiling needs balanced.
• Rebalancing of lighting.
• Colour grade changed.
• New animated volumetric fog outside.
• Lava fluid simulation optimised.
• Body KJ of energy for creatures changed which should lead to different hunger and carrion behaviours.
• Bug with air vents settings fixed.
• Crop blight tweaked to be slightly less predicable.
• Several maintenance needs tweaked for different items.
• Pips added to the GUI between emails to denote the differences in specific days.
• Fixed several door pathfinding fixes.
• Massive performance optimisations on several core systems. (40% better frame rate in some cases).
• Many small optimisation fixes.
• Fixes for several missing pfx in the exterior and lava.
• Large amounts of code cleanup on game and engine.
• A few potential crash bugs fixed.

Maia is now undergoing very regular changes. Sometimes several a day. Get on the development branch if you'd like to be part of this transition from Alpha to Beta. The 1.0 release for Maia is now set for August so I need all the help I can get with testing.

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.

It's update time and Maia 0.62 has been deemed fit for consumption! Here's a quick video of me showing off some of the latest features I've been working on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JR-8YrmHrWY

More of the alien creatures can now breed and produce a flock of tiny cute murder machines. This will change how they protect their territories, react to colonists, and also feed back into the simulation of the ecosystem in new and emergent ways.

Baby creatures, and animals of all sorts, will now imprint on the first thing they see and follow and copy their new parent. So be sure to keep your livestock room doors locked unless you want your dogs to become unsuspecting parents to your hatchling chickens.



 
Colonists will now sometimes break down and run away from something if it terrifies them, such as an alien sneaking into the base or an out of control fire breaking out. They will go cower and cry and feel guilty about how much of a burden they are to the colony.

When trapped in rooms colonists will start getting very upset and start banging on doors to try and escape. Leaving them in the room will deeply upset them, potentially damaging their sanity causing them to harm equipment or themselves!

 



 
Colonists can now sit down at the dining table for relaxing communal meals in the living area, allowing them to rest, eat and socialise simultaneously.

They can can also now deposit raw food supplies in the storage room if there is a surplus of production. These can be picked up later to build ration packs or to fill a food preparation station.

 



 
Colonists can now learn skills by practising them, once a new skill is leant it will allow the colonist to perform the action better, faster or more often. They can also sit at desks to learn new expertise in theory, saving themselves the effort and bringing more exotic skill sets to your colony.

 



 

• Fix for locked doors blocking nearby objects.
• Loads of new detail and variants in colonist activity report emails.
• Colonist activity reports added for building rooms, panicking, and shooting animals.
• New 32 exe for Windows users. Stop using 32 bit Windows, please, join us in the future.
• Turret tracer effect added. Turret PFX updated.
• Several object placement problems fixed (such as nearby blocked objects stopping you placing something).
• Higher density of grass, foliage and creatures on the exterior world map.
• Button flashing added for new emails to grab the user's attention faster.
• Fusion reactor now requires you to initiate a power up. This will require many fly wheels or super capacitors.
• Fly wheels and super capacitors have a higher capacity to better represent future materials. This now makes a larger solar powered base more feasible.
• Smelting rebalanced.
• Colonist stockpiling needs balanced.
• Rebalancing of lighting.
• Colour grade changed.
• New animated volumetric fog outside.
• Lava fluid simulation optimised.
• Body KJ of energy for creatures changed which should lead to different hunger and carrion behaviours.
• Bug with air vents settings fixed.
• Crop blight tweaked to be slightly less predicable.
• Several maintenance needs tweaked for different items.
• Pips added to the GUI between emails to denote the differences in specific days.
• Fixed several door pathfinding fixes.
• Massive performance optimisations on several core systems. (40% better frame rate in some cases).
• Many small optimisation fixes.
• Fixes for several missing pfx in the exterior and lava.
• Large amounts of code cleanup on game and engine.
• A few potential crash bugs fixed.

Maia is now undergoing very regular changes. Sometimes several a day. Get on the development branch if you'd like to be part of this transition from Alpha to Beta. The 1.0 release for Maia is now set for August so I need all the help I can get with testing.

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.

Maia 0.61 is out now. Right now. This build brings many new useful features to the game and a significant amount of tweaks and fixes.

Here’s a video of me playing the latest release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZyRkEkUCME


This update brings several new user interface and management tools to the game. Room options are now available and allow for managing the stockpiling of items, new security features and even tweaking the lighting of a room. Just click a room to see the available options. Carefully managing these fine grained controls can significantly improve the efficiency of a busy base.





When placing items the UI now presents more useful information about whether an object is reachable, and visible paths are shown to illustrate how the colonists would walk to the item.


You can now practice your interior design skills and rearrange items in your base using the new movement order. By click-dragging on an item you will create a new move order and your colonists will push the items to their new locations. Utility robots given movement orders will use them as waypoints and if they are not too busy, go directly to the locations.




The tutorial has been significantly reworked and with more guidance and information, and provides an easier and clearer first contact with the game. Even experienced players may find it useful to give it another go.


Build priority changes for better base flow and design. Colonists are now more aware of the flow of a base and will order door builds based on the need of that specific room. They will also no longer have complete emotional breakdowns when locked in a room with no doors, so will build one if it is placed. They will also share workbenches more efficiently and the amount of duplicated builds has been reduced.

Suit refill points are now critical to surface operations. You can no longer build items far away from your base and must build a supply chain to the item so your colonists can restock their suits and rest.

 



Resuscitation and first aid has been added, allowing colonists to save unconscious members of the team (if they like them enough). Just ensure you pick some colonists with medical skills as improperly given resuscitation can give patients other health complications.

• Colonists with surface walking skills will now walk much faster in suits.
• Atmosphere generator output increased a little.
• Vent system tweaked to push less air than the atmosphere generator.
• Medical emergencies are now mentioned by the base announcer.
• Probe generation fixed. Every map now has several lost robotic probes to find.
• Tutorial spelling mistakes fixed.
• Migration event emails now lock onto specific creature.
• Camera locks on to colonist who sent an email when it is opened.
• Utility robot infotip fixed.
• If an AI is destroyed in code they will now properly release any item they were using.
• Tutorial can now be completed using the alt-rotate.
• Text overlays for objects and rooms are no longer drawn when an email is open.
• Mouseover text is hidden if the player opens the manifest.
• Cursor animations for left and right clicking.
• Cursor size options added to the menu.
• Capsules should no longer land next to each other.
• Holes in several environment models fixed.
• Fix for pathfinding bug where colonists went to wrong interaction point, potentially getting stuck.
• Interface options menu split off.
• Lights brighten when mouse-overed.
• Tracking sound fixed to only fire when clicking a living item.
• Sounds for selecting colonists on the menu added.
• Sounds for turning on and off heaters fixed.
• Fixed several colonist animation bugs.
• General game code improvements and optimisations.
• Inter-gameobject messaging improved code quality and to reduce bugs.
• Engine render calls made more efficient.
• Lava lights fixed.
• Lava optimisations.

As you may be aware, we are rapidly approaching beta, so do send us all your bugs and issues. Be sure to get yourself on the development branch to see all the latest changes.

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.

Maia 0.61 is out now. Right now. This build brings many new useful features to the game and a significant amount of tweaks and fixes.

Here’s a video of me playing the latest release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZyRkEkUCME


This update brings several new user interface and management tools to the game. Room options are now available and allow for managing the stockpiling of items, new security features and even tweaking the lighting of a room. Just click a room to see the available options. Carefully managing these fine grained controls can significantly improve the efficiency of a busy base.





When placing items the UI now presents more useful information about whether an object is reachable, and visible paths are shown to illustrate how the colonists would walk to the item.


You can now practice your interior design skills and rearrange items in your base using the new movement order. By click-dragging on an item you will create a new move order and your colonists will push the items to their new locations. Utility robots given movement orders will use them as waypoints and if they are not too busy, go directly to the locations.




The tutorial has been significantly reworked and with more guidance and information, and provides an easier and clearer first contact with the game. Even experienced players may find it useful to give it another go.


Build priority changes for better base flow and design. Colonists are now more aware of the flow of a base and will order door builds based on the need of that specific room. They will also no longer have complete emotional breakdowns when locked in a room with no doors, so will build one if it is placed. They will also share workbenches more efficiently and the amount of duplicated builds has been reduced.

Suit refill points are now critical to surface operations. You can no longer build items far away from your base and must build a supply chain to the item so your colonists can restock their suits and rest.

 



Resuscitation and first aid has been added, allowing colonists to save unconscious members of the team (if they like them enough). Just ensure you pick some colonists with medical skills as improperly given resuscitation can give patients other health complications.

• Colonists with surface walking skills will now walk much faster in suits.
• Atmosphere generator output increased a little.
• Vent system tweaked to push less air than the atmosphere generator.
• Medical emergencies are now mentioned by the base announcer.
• Probe generation fixed. Every map now has several lost robotic probes to find.
• Tutorial spelling mistakes fixed.
• Migration event emails now lock onto specific creature.
• Camera locks on to colonist who sent an email when it is opened.
• Utility robot infotip fixed.
• If an AI is destroyed in code they will now properly release any item they were using.
• Tutorial can now be completed using the alt-rotate.
• Text overlays for objects and rooms are no longer drawn when an email is open.
• Mouseover text is hidden if the player opens the manifest.
• Cursor animations for left and right clicking.
• Cursor size options added to the menu.
• Capsules should no longer land next to each other.
• Holes in several environment models fixed.
• Fix for pathfinding bug where colonists went to wrong interaction point, potentially getting stuck.
• Interface options menu split off.
• Lights brighten when mouse-overed.
• Tracking sound fixed to only fire when clicking a living item.
• Sounds for selecting colonists on the menu added.
• Sounds for turning on and off heaters fixed.
• Fixed several colonist animation bugs.
• General game code improvements and optimisations.
• Inter-gameobject messaging improved code quality and to reduce bugs.
• Engine render calls made more efficient.
• Lava lights fixed.
• Lava optimisations.

As you may be aware, we are rapidly approaching beta, so do send us all your bugs and issues. Be sure to get yourself on the development branch to see all the latest changes.

That's all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.