Sorry this is late! I was dealing with Englandflu on Friday. Englandflu is no joke.

ːpizzasliceː

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Evening folks! I imagine most of you have seen Supernorn’s post from last week about the sweeping additions to our crops and food recipes. Working off the robust documentation that was put together by Rosiedeux, I spent a couple of days last week mapping out precisely what buffs each cooked item would bestow. A daunting task, considering there is about 200 of them at present. I’ve ultimately settled on a system largely governed by the ingredients that make up each item.

In our new structure, our ingredients have a “weight” assigned to them, based on their value. Crops that take a considerable length of time to grow are almost guaranteed to have strong buffs associated with them, while fast-growing crops and ingredients you purchase will typically have weak ones.

As an example, potatoes are one of the first slow-growing crops the players will get their hands on. When used as an ingredient in a recipe, the resulting food item is almost guaranteed to provide a 20 point buff to maximum health. Typically the highest end ingredients will provide either a single strong buff, or a pair of moderate buffs.

In recipes that have you combine multiple ingredients together with the same buffs, their effects in turn will combine, either increasing their immediate effectiveness (rate of healing, energy regeneration, etc), or extending the buff duration. This means that the more high-end ingredients that are involved in a given recipe, the more substantial the buffs will be. Attentive players who get to know the effects of certain ingredients may even be able to assess the precise buffs a recipe will have, before they’ve even made it.

It’s worth mentioning also that most food buffs are able to stack with buffs provided by stims or capsules found in the environment. For instance, a bon bon will imbue the player with a 25% running speed buff that lasts 30 seconds, during which time the player could use a green stim to have their overall running speed boosted as high as 75% until the respective buff durations end. If you need to get out of trouble quickly, this could prove a valuable escape option.



These changes to our cooking system also necessitate a change to our cooking table interface, albeit a relatively small one. The categories of main, side, desserts, and drinks were not especially helpful to begin with, and in a new system where players want to know at the very least what type of buffs they can expect, it made more sense to provide categories that reflected that. We’re still leaving the discovery of precise effects to the players, but the categories now cover health restoration, maximum health boosters, energy regeneration, maximum energy boosters, mobility buffs, and the mysterious “other” category. Please excuse the placeholder graphics that I haphazardly put in there. We’ll hopefully get one of our artists onto creating nicer icons soon.

So with that whole structure all planned out, I’ve spent most of my time today making all the food items actually functional, providing their intended buffs, and available to prepare at the cooking table. I’m about halfway through all the recipes at this point and hope to get the rest finished tomorrow. The next step after that will be going through and structuring the progression of recipes. The intent is that players will start with only a couple of basic recipes, but as they discover new ingredients and cook, more recipes will be unlocked. The most potent recipes will likely be off limits until you’ve either worked your way up through cooking experience, or until you’ve earned them by completing specific quests.

I’m going to leave you tonight with a glimpse of some of the cool stuff Tiyuri’s been working on. These bad boys are going to tie into one of our quests. How, exactly? Who can say? ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQvCkUME8rE

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Oh dear lord, I don’t think I’ve made an update since…

<checks post log>

Sep 8th???

Oh, ummm… <looks around nervously> I uh, I think we’ve done some things since then, yeah, let’s check git…

<git log –since=”sep 8″ | egrep ‘^commit’ | wc>

1482 2964 71136

1482 is a lot of commits, okay, I’m sure I can find one thing to talk about at least, it needs to be super duper important too. What to post, what to post..

I’VE GOT IT

I give you the beachball:



And the paper plane:



In all seriousness we have all been working crazy hard trying to get the next stable update out, and have been making really really good progress. It’s just that some of us <cough> forget to do an update for a while. Since I posted last I’ve finished the new status system, the new liquid system, and I’ve done terrain gen stuff, lua bindings stuff, networking stuff, tech stuff, bugfixing stuff… lots and lots of stuff.

Back to work!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

While Kyren has been laying some groundwork to allow proper terrain generation for Ocean planets, I spent the week implementing a new monster type to live in them: large, aggressive fish! I’ve spent a lot of time in the pool testing and even though they’re simple, they’re a lot of fun to fight and should make Ocean exploration satisfying and dangerous.

See you guys on Friday!

Sorry this is late! I was dealing with Englandflu on Friday. Englandflu is no joke.

:pizzaslice:

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Evening folks! I imagine most of you have seen Supernorn’s post from last week about the sweeping additions to our crops and food recipes. Working off the robust documentation that was put together by Rosiedeux, I spent a couple of days last week mapping out precisely what buffs each cooked item would bestow. A daunting task, considering there is about 200 of them at present. I’ve ultimately settled on a system largely governed by the ingredients that make up each item.

In our new structure, our ingredients have a “weight” assigned to them, based on their value. Crops that take a considerable length of time to grow are almost guaranteed to have strong buffs associated with them, while fast-growing crops and ingredients you purchase will typically have weak ones.

As an example, potatoes are one of the first slow-growing crops the players will get their hands on. When used as an ingredient in a recipe, the resulting food item is almost guaranteed to provide a 20 point buff to maximum health. Typically the highest end ingredients will provide either a single strong buff, or a pair of moderate buffs.

In recipes that have you combine multiple ingredients together with the same buffs, their effects in turn will combine, either increasing their immediate effectiveness (rate of healing, energy regeneration, etc), or extending the buff duration. This means that the more high-end ingredients that are involved in a given recipe, the more substantial the buffs will be. Attentive players who get to know the effects of certain ingredients may even be able to assess the precise buffs a recipe will have, before they’ve even made it.

It’s worth mentioning also that most food buffs are able to stack with buffs provided by stims or capsules found in the environment. For instance, a bon bon will imbue the player with a 25% running speed buff that lasts 30 seconds, during which time the player could use a green stim to have their overall running speed boosted as high as 75% until the respective buff durations end. If you need to get out of trouble quickly, this could prove a valuable escape option.



These changes to our cooking system also necessitate a change to our cooking table interface, albeit a relatively small one. The categories of main, side, desserts, and drinks were not especially helpful to begin with, and in a new system where players want to know at the very least what type of buffs they can expect, it made more sense to provide categories that reflected that. We’re still leaving the discovery of precise effects to the players, but the categories now cover health restoration, maximum health boosters, energy regeneration, maximum energy boosters, mobility buffs, and the mysterious “other” category. Please excuse the placeholder graphics that I haphazardly put in there. We’ll hopefully get one of our artists onto creating nicer icons soon.

So with that whole structure all planned out, I’ve spent most of my time today making all the food items actually functional, providing their intended buffs, and available to prepare at the cooking table. I’m about halfway through all the recipes at this point and hope to get the rest finished tomorrow. The next step after that will be going through and structuring the progression of recipes. The intent is that players will start with only a couple of basic recipes, but as they discover new ingredients and cook, more recipes will be unlocked. The most potent recipes will likely be off limits until you’ve either worked your way up through cooking experience, or until you’ve earned them by completing specific quests.

I’m going to leave you tonight with a glimpse of some of the cool stuff Tiyuri’s been working on. These bad boys are going to tie into one of our quests. How, exactly? Who can say? ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQvCkUME8rE

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Oh dear lord, I don’t think I’ve made an update since…

<checks post log>

Sep 8th???

Oh, ummm… <looks around nervously> I uh, I think we’ve done some things since then, yeah, let’s check git…

<git log –since=”sep 8″ | egrep ‘^commit’ | wc>

1482 2964 71136

1482 is a lot of commits, okay, I’m sure I can find one thing to talk about at least, it needs to be super duper important too. What to post, what to post..

I’VE GOT IT

I give you the beachball:



And the paper plane:



In all seriousness we have all been working crazy hard trying to get the next stable update out, and have been making really really good progress. It’s just that some of us <cough> forget to do an update for a while. Since I posted last I’ve finished the new status system, the new liquid system, and I’ve done terrain gen stuff, lua bindings stuff, networking stuff, tech stuff, bugfixing stuff… lots and lots of stuff.

Back to work!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

While Kyren has been laying some groundwork to allow proper terrain generation for Ocean planets, I spent the week implementing a new monster type to live in them: large, aggressive fish! I’ve spent a lot of time in the pool testing and even though they’re simple, they’re a lot of fun to fight and should make Ocean exploration satisfying and dangerous.

See you guys on Friday!

Just linking to Armagon's post above, because it's quite long and Steam announcements have character limits!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hey everyone!

Today I’ve been working on a new sub-biome that you’ll encounter: A swamp environment.

I’m currently working on some biome specific plant life and fauna, including some huge swamp trees! There’s still a lot of assets to create for the biome, but I’m pleased with how it’s looking. I’ve added the pine tree from the garden biome for size comparison:



The rest of the team has been working on finishing up Tier 1, balance testing, fixing bugs etc.

In addition to this, a lot of work has been going into crops and cooking recipes! No doubt you’ll be hearing some more about these soon.

Until next time, have a good evening!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hey there! Have we met before? Today I’ve been working on adding detail to the first mission you’ll find in the game. Kyren has added a mission tab to the AI window so you can access them from your ship. If you’re in a party when you are deployed, your friends will go with you so you can play through together! After all, spacefaring is an experience best shared with good company.



This will be in the Nightly soon enough, if you’d like to take a sneak peek! What could be lurking down there in the dark anyway?



Have fun!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hello everyone!

What a week this has been! lots of progress has been made, but I’m only going to focus on a few things for this update. As mentioned by Armagon in his earlier post, the food system is currently undergoing a huge rework. Everyone should say hello to Rosiedeux, who’s been working diligently on reworking Crops, Recipes, Craftable foods and more!

Now you’ll encounter more crops on the starting planet, meaning you’ll be able to collect ingredients and create food much earlier in the game. This greatly expands into the later tiers, allowing you to craft more complex foods by combining multiple ingredients.





A big change to the game is that alongside bandages, you can heal by eating food! Certain foods will heal you more than others, and higher tier foods will give multiple status effects, such as jump and run boosts!

To prevent buff spamming, the “well-fed” status effect will appear when you eat a food item, temporarily restricting you from eating more until it wears off. As an example, Fish & Chips will increase your max health by 20 points (until the ‘Well-Fed’ status wears off), while restoring 3.5 health points for a period of 60 seconds. Keep in mind that these will continue to be tweaked as they are added to the game, and will vary massively depending on the complexity of the food item.



Rosiedeux has mapped out which biomes and tiers you’ll find specific crops and ingredients in, including their buffs and durations. I won’t spoil anything by revealing all the details, but we now have around 200 recipes and 35 crops. Armagon is now going through the process of adding these to the game, while myself and Rosiedeux work on spriting the new ingredients. We’re also planning for you to be able to purchase more complex and rarer ingredients from the Infinity Express store at the Outpost. Crop Seeds will also potentially be available at the Terramart.



In Other News:

There’s been a lot of work going into the quests and missions system. The team has been working very hard on it, and you’ll hear about that shortly, but I will share this little thing:

I spent some time today tweaking and prettying up the parallax layers for the desert biomes. I’ve felt that some of the backdrop art could look much better, and I spent some time replacing a particularly ugly one with a new backdrop piece. I’ll be doing several variations of these to spice things up a bit!

Just linking to Armagon's post above, because it's quite long and Steam announcements have character limits!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hey everyone!

Today I’ve been working on a new sub-biome that you’ll encounter: A swamp environment.

I’m currently working on some biome specific plant life and fauna, including some huge swamp trees! There’s still a lot of assets to create for the biome, but I’m pleased with how it’s looking. I’ve added the pine tree from the garden biome for size comparison:



The rest of the team has been working on finishing up Tier 1, balance testing, fixing bugs etc.

In addition to this, a lot of work has been going into crops and cooking recipes! No doubt you’ll be hearing some more about these soon.

Until next time, have a good evening!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hey there! Have we met before? Today I’ve been working on adding detail to the first mission you’ll find in the game. Kyren has added a mission tab to the AI window so you can access them from your ship. If you’re in a party when you are deployed, your friends will go with you so you can play through together! After all, spacefaring is an experience best shared with good company.



This will be in the Nightly soon enough, if you’d like to take a sneak peek! What could be lurking down there in the dark anyway?



Have fun!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hello everyone!

What a week this has been! lots of progress has been made, but I’m only going to focus on a few things for this update. As mentioned by Armagon in his earlier post, the food system is currently undergoing a huge rework. Everyone should say hello to Rosiedeux, who’s been working diligently on reworking Crops, Recipes, Craftable foods and more!

Now you’ll encounter more crops on the starting planet, meaning you’ll be able to collect ingredients and create food much earlier in the game. This greatly expands into the later tiers, allowing you to craft more complex foods by combining multiple ingredients.





A big change to the game is that alongside bandages, you can heal by eating food! Certain foods will heal you more than others, and higher tier foods will give multiple status effects, such as jump and run boosts!

To prevent buff spamming, the “well-fed” status effect will appear when you eat a food item, temporarily restricting you from eating more until it wears off. As an example, Fish & Chips will increase your max health by 20 points (until the ‘Well-Fed’ status wears off), while restoring 3.5 health points for a period of 60 seconds. Keep in mind that these will continue to be tweaked as they are added to the game, and will vary massively depending on the complexity of the food item.



Rosiedeux has mapped out which biomes and tiers you’ll find specific crops and ingredients in, including their buffs and durations. I won’t spoil anything by revealing all the details, but we now have around 200 recipes and 35 crops. Armagon is now going through the process of adding these to the game, while myself and Rosiedeux work on spriting the new ingredients. We’re also planning for you to be able to purchase more complex and rarer ingredients from the Infinity Express store at the Outpost. Crop Seeds will also potentially be available at the Terramart.



In Other News:

There’s been a lot of work going into the quests and missions system. The team has been working very hard on it, and you’ll hear about that shortly, but I will share this little thing:

I spent some time today tweaking and prettying up the parallax layers for the desert biomes. I’ve felt that some of the backdrop art could look much better, and I spent some time replacing a particularly ugly one with a new backdrop piece. I’ll be doing several variations of these to spice things up a bit!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

So I started work on adding shield generators to the existing dungeons at the end of last week. I’ve gotten a few done so far. Some have been relatively easy to handle, chiefly the dungeons that already had places naturally suited to the addition of a shield generator, with appropriate obstacles in place.

Others have involved a bit more work. With our dungeons now having wire functionality, I was able to do a lot of the stuff I’d wanted to do with the Apex test chamber dungeon since I first started it.

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

To give a better idea of what you’re looking at in the video, the player entering the facility will need to power things back up before they can progress any further. There is now a shield generator, but you aren’t going to be able to get to it at first. Two sets of doors restrict your access and you’re going to have to find the two switches that open them. Each switch opens one layer of doors. Only when you’ve activated both will the shield generator be exposed to you.

Presently in our nightly the shield generator just gets turned on and off by player interaction, but the intent is that you will have to smash them yourself. Once the generator is disabled you gain access to one last reward room where you might find something quite nice inside! Disabling the generator also restores the player’s ability to take the dungeon’s objects and blocks, as well as their ability to place blocks inside it.

This all is fairly simple when you describe it, but making it actually work has been a bit of a nightmare, since I have wires that appear in different rooms in random locations so I had to wrap my head around how best to use the logic gates, which I’m still relatively new to using. I had to make sure the brushes worked dungeon-wide and the pieces that were needed always appeared. I mean, take a look at this!



There’s still some functionality I’ll need before I can truly finish the dungeon as I originally envisioned, chiefly the ability to have traps and hazards controlled by wires. I ideally wanted the teslaspikes to only turn on when the player walks into the room (so you don’t know what the room is like until you get there), and to turn off when the switch at the end of each path is thrown (so you can travel back to the entrance in relative safety). I’ve already worked out precisely how I’m going to do this when the trap wiring functionality is added, but as this is more of a polish thing, its going to have to wait for now.

It’s been fascinating to see how something as simple as having a light turn on and off under specific circumstances can be incredibly involved. Still, it’s great to have this kind of control over the wiring system now. I don’t expect every dungeon will receive this treatment but I thought you might find it interesting to see how I’m using it so far. For now I’ll continue to update the other dungeons with our shield generators.

See you later folks!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

It’s been a busy week already, and it’s only Wednesday!

We’ve completed most of the content and basic configuration for the first few tiers of the new biome and crafting progression, so we’re now working through the game one tier at a time to fix bugs, balance numbers, and generally tie everything together. There are a few more biomes to add (particularly at high tiers) and some exciting things like missions that we’ll be working on as we go along, but this mostly involves intensive playtesting and cleaning up all of the new (and old) issues we discover.

GeorgeV and the other artists continue to add more content, including a few more items to liven up the Garden biome. Armagon is configuring weapons and adding shield generators to dungeons. I’ve been fixing bugs and improving biome configurations. We’ve also gotten a good start on numerically balancing the combat and crafting for tier 1 (and discussed how this will relate to the overall progression). Too many small improvements to list!

Kyren also just finished a revamp of the liquid system. The main visible difference is that liquid is no longer compressible, so the total amounts of liquid in large pools will make much more sense, but the rendering methods are still the same. The more important benefit of this is that large quantities of liquid will now settle much more quickly and won’t lag out servers, so we can now start real work on ocean planets.

We’ll be posting more about Oceans and other biomes soon, once we get into the relevant content tiers, but I did just a bit of preliminary testing with Oceans in the new water system and I’m very excited about the prospect of filling them with life!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hello everyone!

Today I spent time working on the starting planet’s garden biome. Those of you playing around on the nightlies might have noticed it needed a little bit of love.

The first issue was the lack of variation in foliage, so I spent some time drawing some additional pine trees. Metadept tweaked the biome settings to generate more flowers and bushes.

The second thing was the parallax background. The rolling hills were beautiful, but it looked a bit flat with the trees only available in the foreground. I fixed this by adding a few parallax layers with pine trees of various scales amongst the hills.

Lastly, the mountain skybox. I spent some time making it look unique, with tiny pines, grasslands and flowing rivers.

Here’s the culmination of these tweaks below:



The rest of the team has been busy working on bug fixing, starter quests (including quests that generate when you pick up certain items) and the game’s first mission. I expect you’ll be hearing about these in the near future!

Until next time, have a good evening!

ːSBpenguinː ːpizzasliceː

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

So I started work on adding shield generators to the existing dungeons at the end of last week. I’ve gotten a few done so far. Some have been relatively easy to handle, chiefly the dungeons that already had places naturally suited to the addition of a shield generator, with appropriate obstacles in place.

Others have involved a bit more work. With our dungeons now having wire functionality, I was able to do a lot of the stuff I’d wanted to do with the Apex test chamber dungeon since I first started it.

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

To give a better idea of what you’re looking at in the video, the player entering the facility will need to power things back up before they can progress any further. There is now a shield generator, but you aren’t going to be able to get to it at first. Two sets of doors restrict your access and you’re going to have to find the two switches that open them. Each switch opens one layer of doors. Only when you’ve activated both will the shield generator be exposed to you.

Presently in our nightly the shield generator just gets turned on and off by player interaction, but the intent is that you will have to smash them yourself. Once the generator is disabled you gain access to one last reward room where you might find something quite nice inside! Disabling the generator also restores the player’s ability to take the dungeon’s objects and blocks, as well as their ability to place blocks inside it.

This all is fairly simple when you describe it, but making it actually work has been a bit of a nightmare, since I have wires that appear in different rooms in random locations so I had to wrap my head around how best to use the logic gates, which I’m still relatively new to using. I had to make sure the brushes worked dungeon-wide and the pieces that were needed always appeared. I mean, take a look at this!



There’s still some functionality I’ll need before I can truly finish the dungeon as I originally envisioned, chiefly the ability to have traps and hazards controlled by wires. I ideally wanted the teslaspikes to only turn on when the player walks into the room (so you don’t know what the room is like until you get there), and to turn off when the switch at the end of each path is thrown (so you can travel back to the entrance in relative safety). I’ve already worked out precisely how I’m going to do this when the trap wiring functionality is added, but as this is more of a polish thing, its going to have to wait for now.

It’s been fascinating to see how something as simple as having a light turn on and off under specific circumstances can be incredibly involved. Still, it’s great to have this kind of control over the wiring system now. I don’t expect every dungeon will receive this treatment but I thought you might find it interesting to see how I’m using it so far. For now I’ll continue to update the other dungeons with our shield generators.

See you later folks!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

It’s been a busy week already, and it’s only Wednesday!

We’ve completed most of the content and basic configuration for the first few tiers of the new biome and crafting progression, so we’re now working through the game one tier at a time to fix bugs, balance numbers, and generally tie everything together. There are a few more biomes to add (particularly at high tiers) and some exciting things like missions that we’ll be working on as we go along, but this mostly involves intensive playtesting and cleaning up all of the new (and old) issues we discover.

GeorgeV and the other artists continue to add more content, including a few more items to liven up the Garden biome. Armagon is configuring weapons and adding shield generators to dungeons. I’ve been fixing bugs and improving biome configurations. We’ve also gotten a good start on numerically balancing the combat and crafting for tier 1 (and discussed how this will relate to the overall progression). Too many small improvements to list!

Kyren also just finished a revamp of the liquid system. The main visible difference is that liquid is no longer compressible, so the total amounts of liquid in large pools will make much more sense, but the rendering methods are still the same. The more important benefit of this is that large quantities of liquid will now settle much more quickly and won’t lag out servers, so we can now start real work on ocean planets.

We’ll be posting more about Oceans and other biomes soon, once we get into the relevant content tiers, but I did just a bit of preliminary testing with Oceans in the new water system and I’m very excited about the prospect of filling them with life!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Hello everyone!

Today I spent time working on the starting planet’s garden biome. Those of you playing around on the nightlies might have noticed it needed a little bit of love.

The first issue was the lack of variation in foliage, so I spent some time drawing some additional pine trees. Metadept tweaked the biome settings to generate more flowers and bushes.

The second thing was the parallax background. The rolling hills were beautiful, but it looked a bit flat with the trees only available in the foreground. I fixed this by adding a few parallax layers with pine trees of various scales amongst the hills.

Lastly, the mountain skybox. I spent some time making it look unique, with tiny pines, grasslands and flowing rivers.

Here’s the culmination of these tweaks below:



The rest of the team has been busy working on bug fixing, starter quests (including quests that generate when you pick up certain items) and the game’s first mission. I expect you’ll be hearing about these in the near future!

Until next time, have a good evening!

:SBpenguin: :pizzaslice:

Hey!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Last Wednesday I decided to spend some time on caves as part of my work improving the terrain generation. Starbound’s cave generation used some very simple algorithms that worked reasonably well but weren’t very exciting, and I wanted to try my hand at an improved cave generation algorithm. So, I wrote a new generation method and reworked the existing ones to get more interesting results. The short version is that caves are more frequent, more connected, and more varied. If you want the long version, keep reading for a technical explanation!

I’ve been calling the new method “karst” cave generation since it loosely mimics natural geology by generating caves in layers. The algorithm itself is fairly simple, relying on a combination of several Perlin noise sources with different configurations. All of the noise is applied vertically, so it’s possible to use only one-dimensional noise sources. For Starbound, however, I’m sampling in two-dimensional coordinates around a circle with circumference equal to the world width, which creates a noise pattern that smoothly wraps around the world seam.

The first step in the algorithm is to pick layers to place caves at. This could be a simple probability applied to each Y position in the world, but I’ve chosen to enforce a minimum layer resolution in order to avoid clumps:



Next I use a Perlin function with a high period to select where on these layers caves should be generated:



Then I apply a second Perlin function with a moderate period and amplitude, as well as some positive bias, to vary the caves’ ceiling height:



I use another, similar function to vary the floor depth, with a lower amplitude to make the caves easier to walk in:



Next, I taper the endpoints of the caves to avoid the harsh edges, based on the original noise function being below a cutoff point:



At this point it looks a bit like real caves, but they’re very horizontal and boring, so the next step is to apply another function with a very high amplitude and period, which gives the caves slopes and makes the layers cross over each other:





This is looking much better, but is still very horizontal, so we mix in some large, tall chambers using a different configuration of the same algorithm:



…and finally mix in some normal worm caves to further increase verticality and connectivity:



The final result is a good mix of caves that feel natural and provide plenty of opportunities for exploration as well as some hazards (sudden drops and chambers of enemies) to keep things fresh.



In this example there are a LOT of caves in the world, and I’ve been tuning the configuration to get slightly fewer caves but still retain the right amount of complexity. I’ve already been having a lot of fun testing it, so that’s a good sign!

Sorry for the lengthy post, but hopefully some of you will find the explanation interesting and maybe even useful in your future projects.

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

G’day folks! Today I’ve taken a bit of a break away from getting more of the new biome weapons and drops working, in favor of working on a number of smaller things that I’ve needed to give some attention to for a while now.

Many of the game’s trap objects were broken when the status system overhaul hit, resulting in players no longer taking damage. Some of these objects were already a bit broken to begin with (electric-sounding instakill wooden spikes, anyone?) so I gave the traps we had a bit more TLC today.

Now their damage levels are a bit more reasonable across the board (though they could still be subject to change down the line), they make more appropriate sounds when you hit them, and what was probably most time-consuming was fixing all their hitboxes to more accurately reflect the areas that are actually dangerous, including when they are flipped.



Previously most had their hitboxes generated automatically, often extending into empty space around the object that should have been safe for the player. It’s one of those subtler details that one would rarely think about when playing games (unless they’re done poorly), but it’s pretty important to get right when you’re the one making them.

As a small aside, those of you more familiar with the game’s objects may have noticed that the propeller can be placed on walls and ceilings now. The more I looked at it, I figured it would be nice for the airship-enthusiasts in our player base to have more options. The spinning propellers are still dangerous though, so be careful where you place them!

I also did a little tidying with the interface to make sure all the new status effects were displaying the appropriate graphics when inflicted upon the player.



In a bit of more exciting news, Metadept has pretty much wrapped up work on the shield generator for our dungeons (which I spent some time testing today). Essentially these generators will exist somewhere within the dungeons, restricting the player’s ability to build, place, break and wire objects within that space. That is until the player locates the generator and disables it. This will mean players can no longer circumvent all obstacles by building across or digging through them unless they’ve already been lucky enough to find the shield generator before-hand.

Setting up the existing dungeons with this new functionality will likely be my focus for the next few days. This will mean creating shield generator rooms for each one and getting them to spawn reliably. This can sometimes be difficult when you want to have them appearing in randomized locations (and preferably some distance from the entrance).

If things go the way I’d like, it’s my intent that each shield generator should have some form of obstacle to make shutting the generator off challenging or risky in some way. This could be as simple as the generator being locked behind doors that are only able to be opened from elsewhere in the dungeon, some strong enemies might be guarding it, maybe a little tricky platforming and problem-solving, or perhaps a combination of all of the above.

That’s it from me, good night folks!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

After working on terrain and cave generation last week, I’m now configuring biomes and treasure pools to include all the new assets that GeorgeV, Armagon and the rest have been building. It’s actually been a lot of fun to test, and I’ve enjoyed discovering many interesting little spots:







…yep, just another day in the universe!

'Til Friday! <3 ːpizzasliceː

Hey!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Last Wednesday I decided to spend some time on caves as part of my work improving the terrain generation. Starbound’s cave generation used some very simple algorithms that worked reasonably well but weren’t very exciting, and I wanted to try my hand at an improved cave generation algorithm. So, I wrote a new generation method and reworked the existing ones to get more interesting results. The short version is that caves are more frequent, more connected, and more varied. If you want the long version, keep reading for a technical explanation!

I’ve been calling the new method “karst” cave generation since it loosely mimics natural geology by generating caves in layers. The algorithm itself is fairly simple, relying on a combination of several Perlin noise sources with different configurations. All of the noise is applied vertically, so it’s possible to use only one-dimensional noise sources. For Starbound, however, I’m sampling in two-dimensional coordinates around a circle with circumference equal to the world width, which creates a noise pattern that smoothly wraps around the world seam.

The first step in the algorithm is to pick layers to place caves at. This could be a simple probability applied to each Y position in the world, but I’ve chosen to enforce a minimum layer resolution in order to avoid clumps:



Next I use a Perlin function with a high period to select where on these layers caves should be generated:



Then I apply a second Perlin function with a moderate period and amplitude, as well as some positive bias, to vary the caves’ ceiling height:



I use another, similar function to vary the floor depth, with a lower amplitude to make the caves easier to walk in:



Next, I taper the endpoints of the caves to avoid the harsh edges, based on the original noise function being below a cutoff point:



At this point it looks a bit like real caves, but they’re very horizontal and boring, so the next step is to apply another function with a very high amplitude and period, which gives the caves slopes and makes the layers cross over each other:





This is looking much better, but is still very horizontal, so we mix in some large, tall chambers using a different configuration of the same algorithm:



…and finally mix in some normal worm caves to further increase verticality and connectivity:



The final result is a good mix of caves that feel natural and provide plenty of opportunities for exploration as well as some hazards (sudden drops and chambers of enemies) to keep things fresh.



In this example there are a LOT of caves in the world, and I’ve been tuning the configuration to get slightly fewer caves but still retain the right amount of complexity. I’ve already been having a lot of fun testing it, so that’s a good sign!

Sorry for the lengthy post, but hopefully some of you will find the explanation interesting and maybe even useful in your future projects.

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

G’day folks! Today I’ve taken a bit of a break away from getting more of the new biome weapons and drops working, in favor of working on a number of smaller things that I’ve needed to give some attention to for a while now.

Many of the game’s trap objects were broken when the status system overhaul hit, resulting in players no longer taking damage. Some of these objects were already a bit broken to begin with (electric-sounding instakill wooden spikes, anyone?) so I gave the traps we had a bit more TLC today.

Now their damage levels are a bit more reasonable across the board (though they could still be subject to change down the line), they make more appropriate sounds when you hit them, and what was probably most time-consuming was fixing all their hitboxes to more accurately reflect the areas that are actually dangerous, including when they are flipped.



Previously most had their hitboxes generated automatically, often extending into empty space around the object that should have been safe for the player. It’s one of those subtler details that one would rarely think about when playing games (unless they’re done poorly), but it’s pretty important to get right when you’re the one making them.

As a small aside, those of you more familiar with the game’s objects may have noticed that the propeller can be placed on walls and ceilings now. The more I looked at it, I figured it would be nice for the airship-enthusiasts in our player base to have more options. The spinning propellers are still dangerous though, so be careful where you place them!

I also did a little tidying with the interface to make sure all the new status effects were displaying the appropriate graphics when inflicted upon the player.



In a bit of more exciting news, Metadept has pretty much wrapped up work on the shield generator for our dungeons (which I spent some time testing today). Essentially these generators will exist somewhere within the dungeons, restricting the player’s ability to build, place, break and wire objects within that space. That is until the player locates the generator and disables it. This will mean players can no longer circumvent all obstacles by building across or digging through them unless they’ve already been lucky enough to find the shield generator before-hand.

Setting up the existing dungeons with this new functionality will likely be my focus for the next few days. This will mean creating shield generator rooms for each one and getting them to spawn reliably. This can sometimes be difficult when you want to have them appearing in randomized locations (and preferably some distance from the entrance).

If things go the way I’d like, it’s my intent that each shield generator should have some form of obstacle to make shutting the generator off challenging or risky in some way. This could be as simple as the generator being locked behind doors that are only able to be opened from elsewhere in the dungeon, some strong enemies might be guarding it, maybe a little tricky platforming and problem-solving, or perhaps a combination of all of the above.

That’s it from me, good night folks!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

After working on terrain and cave generation last week, I’m now configuring biomes and treasure pools to include all the new assets that GeorgeV, Armagon and the rest have been building. It’s actually been a lot of fun to test, and I’ve enjoyed discovering many interesting little spots:







…yep, just another day in the universe!

'Til Friday! <3 :pizzaslice:

Howdy!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Regular readers of the blog might remember my previous posts about adding more terrain variation to planets. Well, that’s what I’m working on this week! Rather than talking much about it I’ll just show you a few samples of new terrain patterns:

Spikes!


Canyons!


Ledges!


These are still WIPs, and I’ve got more ideas to put in, but so far it’s adding a lot of interesting variety to planets and I’m excited to continue working on this for a bit.

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

I’m sure you can guess what I’ve been working on. Yup! Still adding new weapons and loot! While I’m keeping some stuff a surprise, over the past few days I’ve implemented a few fun craftable throwing weapons. Here’s a peek at a couple of them!



Thorn Grenade
“A makeshift nail bomb. Scary what one can achieve with a fruit and small explosive.”

You may recall there was a nailbomb grenade in the game, however I personally found it not particularly useful due to the fact it operated on a timer and it was almost impossible to get the nails hitting where you wanted them to. This devilish combination explodes on impact, spraying twice as many thorns, making it pretty lethal if you land direct hits, particularly if the target was already in the middle of a large group.



Throwing Bones
“Nothing screams archaic like throwing bones at your enemies.”

Finding old bones may now prove beneficial in more ways than one. This item when thrown releases three bones in an arc that bounce a couple of times before breaking apart. This makes it entirely possible to sling them considerable distance across the landscape, if the terrain is in your favour.

That’s it from me. Good night everybody!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

It’s coming…



A slight preview…

See ya!

George is a man of few words.
'Til next week, friends! ːpizzasliceː

Howdy!

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

Regular readers of the blog might remember my previous posts about adding more terrain variation to planets. Well, that’s what I’m working on this week! Rather than talking much about it I’ll just show you a few samples of new terrain patterns:

Spikes!


Canyons!


Ledges!


These are still WIPs, and I’ve got more ideas to put in, but so far it’s adding a lot of interesting variety to planets and I’m excited to continue working on this for a bit.

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

I’m sure you can guess what I’ve been working on. Yup! Still adding new weapons and loot! While I’m keeping some stuff a surprise, over the past few days I’ve implemented a few fun craftable throwing weapons. Here’s a peek at a couple of them!



Thorn Grenade
“A makeshift nail bomb. Scary what one can achieve with a fruit and small explosive.”

You may recall there was a nailbomb grenade in the game, however I personally found it not particularly useful due to the fact it operated on a timer and it was almost impossible to get the nails hitting where you wanted them to. This devilish combination explodes on impact, spraying twice as many thorns, making it pretty lethal if you land direct hits, particularly if the target was already in the middle of a large group.



Throwing Bones
“Nothing screams archaic like throwing bones at your enemies.”

Finding old bones may now prove beneficial in more ways than one. This item when thrown releases three bones in an arc that bounce a couple of times before breaking apart. This makes it entirely possible to sling them considerable distance across the landscape, if the terrain is in your favour.

That’s it from me. Good night everybody!

---

#Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

It’s coming…



A slight preview…

See ya!

George is a man of few words.
'Til next week, friends! :pizzaslice: