Detonate explosives, study meteorites, harvest geothermal power and more: The Demolition Update is available now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B_SSD7Vcgk

Do your outside areas need clearing? Use the new mining explosives to clear your path of dead animals, landers, equipment and people. The explosives can also be used to trigger controlled cave ins.



Meteorites! Now your colonists can gain research from the pieces of debris that find themselves on Maia's surface. You'll find them in craters scattered around outside your base.



Building Materials givee a visual representation of the material your colonists are collecting from dismantling objects. Colonists will also be able to create building material from piles of minerals. In addition to this, colonists can now make ration packs to more easily store food.



The new Geothermal Generator can harvest energy from thermal vents found on Maia, providing power for base systems.



Tables and scanners make an aesthetic appearance in this update, but are not yet functional. These objects will start having interesting uses in future updates!



The way in which Maia generates the world has been tweaked. It is now much less likely that a starting base will be irrecoverably doomed. This is an example of the kind of under-the-hood improvements that the Demolition Update is full of.



These improvements have yielded greater stability, for less crashing and crazy camera antics. Changes to the particle effects system will boost framerates for players on less powerful machines, and improve visuals for others. Configuration file loading is now more resilient to corruption, and less likely to cause problems.

Here's the Demolition Update in tasty convenient list form:

• Meteorite research, for big data rewards.
  
• Mining Explosives. Clear exterior areas of rock and debris, or use them cause controlled cave ins inside.
  
• Regaining materials from object disassembly.
  
• Salvageable debris from object destruction.
  
• Large stability changes in the codebase. Less crashes and camera resets.
  
• Several new items, including the ability to make building materials from minerals, and to create your own ration packs.
  
• Geothermal Generators.
  
• Changes to world map generation and some cool new procedural base layouts.
  
• New furniture in some rooms.
  
• Fixes for resolution issues.
  
• Pfx changes, for better looking exterior particles and also a performance boost for low end users.
  
• Lots of fixed infotips on items, that should make there uses more apparent, and provide more flavour.
  
• Loading of game config files is now done better and with more fallbacks for corrupt files.
  
• Loading bugs fixed.

Detonate explosives, study meteorites, harvest geothermal power and more: The Demolition Update is available now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B_SSD7Vcgk

Do your outside areas need clearing? Use the new mining explosives to clear your path of dead animals, landers, equipment and people. The explosives can also be used to trigger controlled cave ins.



Meteorites! Now your colonists can gain research from the pieces of debris that find themselves on Maia's surface. You'll find them in craters scattered around outside your base.



Building Materials givee a visual representation of the material your colonists are collecting from dismantling objects. Colonists will also be able to create building material from piles of minerals. In addition to this, colonists can now make ration packs to more easily store food.



The new Geothermal Generator can harvest energy from thermal vents found on Maia, providing power for base systems.



Tables and scanners make an aesthetic appearance in this update, but are not yet functional. These objects will start having interesting uses in future updates!



The way in which Maia generates the world has been tweaked. It is now much less likely that a starting base will be irrecoverably doomed. This is an example of the kind of under-the-hood improvements that the Demolition Update is full of.



These improvements have yielded greater stability, for less crashing and crazy camera antics. Changes to the particle effects system will boost framerates for players on less powerful machines, and improve visuals for others. Configuration file loading is now more resilient to corruption, and less likely to cause problems.

Here's the Demolition Update in tasty convenient list form:

• Meteorite research, for big data rewards.
  
• Mining Explosives. Clear exterior areas of rock and debris, or use them cause controlled cave ins inside.
  
• Regaining materials from object disassembly.
  
• Salvageable debris from object destruction.
  
• Large stability changes in the codebase. Less crashes and camera resets.
  
• Several new items, including the ability to make building materials from minerals, and to create your own ration packs.
  
• Geothermal Generators.
  
• Changes to world map generation and some cool new procedural base layouts.
  
• New furniture in some rooms.
  
• Fixes for resolution issues.
  
• Pfx changes, for better looking exterior particles and also a performance boost for low end users.
  
• Lots of fixed infotips on items, that should make there uses more apparent, and provide more flavour.
  
• Loading of game config files is now done better and with more fallbacks for corrupt files.
  
• Loading bugs fixed.

Maia 0.48 is out! The ignition update bring us a new hazard. Fire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4kgsfrDkKk&feature=youtu.be

The brand new fire system really adds a challenge to base gameplay. Poorly maintained items will short circuit and catch alight. The fire is simulated realistically using oxygen from the atmosphere, the energy stored in objects and heat transfer between them. Even in an unpressurised room, objects can retain now heat and reignite when oxygen is reintroduced. Lock doors and bulkheads to choke off the air supply or risk letting your colonists try and fight the flames unaided.




The tutorial has been drastically reworked to provide a softer landing into the game for new players. Get a simple base up and running in five minutes by following the easy steps.




The hydroponic plants are now more deeply simulated. Responding realistically to changes in lighting colour and intensity around them. Through simulated photosythesis they produce more breathable air and can now be used in lieu of mechanical atmosphere generation.

• MSAAx4 and MSAAx8 support in the menu. If your GPU is hefty enough to run antialiasing you can now benefit from the extra clarity and detail in the graphics. 
  
• Text effects are now also tweakable in the menu. If you had problems reading the text before due to the scan lines or glitching, you will be able to adjust them to your needs.
  
• Long planned optimisations to the renderer. For some people they may see as much as a 30% increase in performance and also less lighting tile errors.
  
• Balancing for colourblindness. Several colours have been tweaked and information adjusted to make the game more playable.
  
• Fire and fire damage added.
  
• Space suits can become charred and damaged over time.
  
• More placement information, you will get a visual and text warning if interaction points of an object are blocked when in placement mode. If all interaction points are blocked, the object will not be buildable.
  
• Interaction point holograms are brighter and more obvious, change colour when blocked.
  
• Several unbuildable objects now fixed.
  
• Colonists will no longer get stuck placing a flag.
  
• Colonists will no longer eat chickens to extinction.
  
• Colonists wearing suits will no longer spin on the spot in the airlock.
  
• Game config.xml reworked, holds more settings data. Less likely to get corrupted, can rebuild properly if a corruption is detected.
  
• Picking game res at startup will pick the desktop res instead of the highest capable res of your monitor.
  
• Heat haze glitchyness fixed.
  
• Game rendering/lighting optimised, many shader bugs fixed.
  
• Reflections optimised.
  
• A new email tab. See all your emails, queue them up, right click to dismiss them.
  
• Email system's first email is now a quick intro to using it.
  
• Emails for deaths, research notifications and other major events.
  
• More email variation. New important information may be mentioned by colonists.
  
• Sleep is more effective at reducing fatigue.
  
• Flywheel system's model changed for easier reading of the lights.
  
• Several tweaked models and textures on items like the worklight.
  
• Critical AI bugs fixed. AI will now never ignore blueprints.
  
• IMPs will prioritize minerals better.
  
• The protobirds are now a bit more likely to kill chickens.
  
• Colonist lander capsules now work better. No more map glitching and multiple colonists can come down.
  
• Colonist lander UI is now never hidden, but is greyed out and a timer provided.
  
• New UI fixes and improvements.
  
• Loads of new music. Really really awesome synth ambient tracks that will make your spine tingle.
  
• Brand new comprehensive tutorial to get new users up and running with the game much faster.
  
• Toilets are no longer death traps.
  
• Flags have stopped exploding.
  
• Level generation is now deterministic so the tutorial will always be on a good world.
  
• 30+ major critical or crash bugs fixed.
  
• Glitching on older Nvidia hardware fixed.
  
  Thanks for all the feedback and bug reports. We have a lot of new fixes and features coming. We'll be posting an updated road map here in a few days.

Maia 0.48 is out! The ignition update bring us a new hazard. Fire!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4kgsfrDkKk&feature=youtu.be

The brand new fire system really adds a challenge to base gameplay. Poorly maintained items will short circuit and catch alight. The fire is simulated realistically using oxygen from the atmosphere, the energy stored in objects and heat transfer between them. Even in an unpressurised room, objects can retain now heat and reignite when oxygen is reintroduced. Lock doors and bulkheads to choke off the air supply or risk letting your colonists try and fight the flames unaided.




The tutorial has been drastically reworked to provide a softer landing into the game for new players. Get a simple base up and running in five minutes by following the easy steps.




The hydroponic plants are now more deeply simulated. Responding realistically to changes in lighting colour and intensity around them. Through simulated photosythesis they produce more breathable air and can now be used in lieu of mechanical atmosphere generation.

• MSAAx4 and MSAAx8 support in the menu. If your GPU is hefty enough to run antialiasing you can now benefit from the extra clarity and detail in the graphics. 
  
• Text effects are now also tweakable in the menu. If you had problems reading the text before due to the scan lines or glitching, you will be able to adjust them to your needs.
  
• Long planned optimisations to the renderer. For some people they may see as much as a 30% increase in performance and also less lighting tile errors.
  
• Balancing for colourblindness. Several colours have been tweaked and information adjusted to make the game more playable.
  
• Fire and fire damage added.
  
• Space suits can become charred and damaged over time.
  
• More placement information, you will get a visual and text warning if interaction points of an object are blocked when in placement mode. If all interaction points are blocked, the object will not be buildable.
  
• Interaction point holograms are brighter and more obvious, change colour when blocked.
  
• Several unbuildable objects now fixed.
  
• Colonists will no longer get stuck placing a flag.
  
• Colonists will no longer eat chickens to extinction.
  
• Colonists wearing suits will no longer spin on the spot in the airlock.
  
• Game config.xml reworked, holds more settings data. Less likely to get corrupted, can rebuild properly if a corruption is detected.
  
• Picking game res at startup will pick the desktop res instead of the highest capable res of your monitor.
  
• Heat haze glitchyness fixed.
  
• Game rendering/lighting optimised, many shader bugs fixed.
  
• Reflections optimised.
  
• A new email tab. See all your emails, queue them up, right click to dismiss them.
  
• Email system's first email is now a quick intro to using it.
  
• Emails for deaths, research notifications and other major events.
  
• More email variation. New important information may be mentioned by colonists.
  
• Sleep is more effective at reducing fatigue.
  
• Flywheel system's model changed for easier reading of the lights.
  
• Several tweaked models and textures on items like the worklight.
  
• Critical AI bugs fixed. AI will now never ignore blueprints.
  
• IMPs will prioritize minerals better.
  
• The protobirds are now a bit more likely to kill chickens.
  
• Colonist lander capsules now work better. No more map glitching and multiple colonists can come down.
  
• Colonist lander UI is now never hidden, but is greyed out and a timer provided.
  
• New UI fixes and improvements.
  
• Loads of new music. Really really awesome synth ambient tracks that will make your spine tingle.
  
• Brand new comprehensive tutorial to get new users up and running with the game much faster.
  
• Toilets are no longer death traps.
  
• Flags have stopped exploding.
  
• Level generation is now deterministic so the tutorial will always be on a good world.
  
• 30+ major critical or crash bugs fixed.
  
• Glitching on older Nvidia hardware fixed.
  
  Thanks for all the feedback and bug reports. We have a lot of new fixes and features coming. We'll be posting an updated road map here in a few days.

Maia 0.47 is here with some big gameplay changes. Here's a video demoing today's build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy-VOF7PZx0


The PA system. A stern automated base announcer that warns of incursions into your base perimeter, low atmosphere levels and other hazards facing your poor neglected colonists.



Flywheel energy storage. Conserve your energy using um, the principle of the conservation of energy. Nothing says "safe" like a big hunk of metal spun up to thousands of RPM.

Detailed construction. Colonists will now build new rooms based on your blueprints.



Aggressive protobirds! Protect your chickens and shiny objects from this new spiny menace.



Other new things:

• Animation system changes. Less teleporting and glitchyness. More fluid and efficient character motion through the world. Less "getting stuck".
  
• Save files now hold more data, colonists personalities will be maintained. Lots of small save bugs fixed. Including the much loved "colonist sex flip" bug.
  
• Creature AI expanded. See them search out places to sleep and mark their territory.
  
• Hydroponics now produce a more accurate (and useful) amount of atmosphere.
  
• Multiple airlocks now work much better. Colonists will pick reasonable routes to use them. Good for large bases.
  
• Balancing of damage and repair needs for wind turbines and work lights.
  
• Door placement based on raycasting. This system will allow arbitrary object placement on the walls. So soon we will have lights, readout screens and clocks to place around your base.
  
• Rewritten wall intersection tests. This should fix many of the issues with the AI getting totally stuck and also improve framerate
  
• Hunger and fatigue deaths for creatures are now balanced.
  
• Colonist needs tweaked for better accuracy, it will also make the game a little easier.
  
• Twenty or so crash bugs fixed.
  
• IMP wandering off bug fixed. Many rough edges fixed in the IMP code.
  
• Improved meshes for all rooms. Unified texture atlases to improve rendering speed.
  
• Chicken AI re-added so they will now prefer brighter warmer places.
• Chickens will also now breath atmosphere.
  
• Chicken breeding rate limited a bit more to stop them asphyxiating your whole base when their population explodes.
  
• Colonists will prefer eating chicken and hydroponic fruit over rations.
  
• Read information about rooms when mousing over them in interaction mode.
  
• Skinning is fixed on the main character bodies. No more weird distortions. (Some heads still need updating.)
  
• Many other bugs and issues fix that the community reported. Thanks!

That's all for now. As always, some things didn't make it in time for the announcement, so look out for new features popping up over the next week or so!

Maia 0.47 is here with some big gameplay changes. Here's a video demoing today's build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy-VOF7PZx0


The PA system. A stern automated base announcer that warns of incursions into your base perimeter, low atmosphere levels and other hazards facing your poor neglected colonists.



Flywheel energy storage. Conserve your energy using um, the principle of the conservation of energy. Nothing says "safe" like a big hunk of metal spun up to thousands of RPM.

Detailed construction. Colonists will now build new rooms based on your blueprints.



Aggressive protobirds! Protect your chickens and shiny objects from this new spiny menace.



Other new things:

• Animation system changes. Less teleporting and glitchyness. More fluid and efficient character motion through the world. Less "getting stuck".
  
• Save files now hold more data, colonists personalities will be maintained. Lots of small save bugs fixed. Including the much loved "colonist sex flip" bug.
  
• Creature AI expanded. See them search out places to sleep and mark their territory.
  
• Hydroponics now produce a more accurate (and useful) amount of atmosphere.
  
• Multiple airlocks now work much better. Colonists will pick reasonable routes to use them. Good for large bases.
  
• Balancing of damage and repair needs for wind turbines and work lights.
  
• Door placement based on raycasting. This system will allow arbitrary object placement on the walls. So soon we will have lights, readout screens and clocks to place around your base.
  
• Rewritten wall intersection tests. This should fix many of the issues with the AI getting totally stuck and also improve framerate
  
• Hunger and fatigue deaths for creatures are now balanced.
  
• Colonist needs tweaked for better accuracy, it will also make the game a little easier.
  
• Twenty or so crash bugs fixed.
  
• IMP wandering off bug fixed. Many rough edges fixed in the IMP code.
  
• Improved meshes for all rooms. Unified texture atlases to improve rendering speed.
  
• Chicken AI re-added so they will now prefer brighter warmer places.
• Chickens will also now breath atmosphere.
  
• Chicken breeding rate limited a bit more to stop them asphyxiating your whole base when their population explodes.
  
• Colonists will prefer eating chicken and hydroponic fruit over rations.
  
• Read information about rooms when mousing over them in interaction mode.
  
• Skinning is fixed on the main character bodies. No more weird distortions. (Some heads still need updating.)
  
• Many other bugs and issues fix that the community reported. Thanks!

That's all for now. As always, some things didn't make it in time for the announcement, so look out for new features popping up over the next week or so!

Maia 0.46 is ready to play! Here's a video showing some of the new features.

http://youtu.be/d7WG3gdcCBQ


Behold, Botany! Research the local flora with the new plant sample containers and added research technologies.



Nanoprinters! 3d print new IMP robots to expand your workforce and improve the efficiency of your base!



Bugs squished! Thanks to the help of the community we've killed over 50 bugs in the last month. The game is increasingly stable and glitch free.


Other new things to look out for.

• Many IMP bugs fixed. No more random wandering off or freak outs.
  
• IMPs can now use teamwork, digging is much more efficient.
  
• Find your IMPs with the robots button. (bottom left)
  
• Rest facilities are now their own need. Colonists will build beds at a much higher priority.
  
• 4k resolution crashes and performance issues fixed.
  
• Massive optimisations on the CPU. Threading is improved, as is cache coherancy. Running on an Intel i5 you will be able to keep CPU usage under 50% at 60fps.
  
• Pathfinding is improved, so less performance spikes.
  
• Decent GPU improvements, shader fixes.
  
• Loading directly from the menu.
  
• Loading speeds are greatly increased as is saving.
  
• Ground water levels are now shown, watch puddles form and evaporate.
  
• More music tracks.
  
• More sounds for common base items to impart more game information via audio.
  
• Bodybags! No more treading on rotten corpses.
  
• Creature burrows on the surface.
  
• Colonist energy usage tweaked. Food values recalculated.
  
• Many colonist AI bugs squished. Including the one where half full barrels in the solar still drove the colonists insane.
  
• Placeable airlocks.
  
• Tutorial updates to point out UI changes.
  
• AI delegation is now weighted towards being more needs based. A colonist with a greater need will go for the action first.
  
• Lighting is redone for better effect. Less glitches.
  
• A few save state bugs fixed.
  
• Yosemite support added.
  
• Intel GPU shaders optimised for below minimum spec machines.

A few features didn't make the deadline, but as always we will be adding them in the coming weeks. In 0.47 you can expect colonists to show their emotions, write useful base reports and even look forward to a new terrifying creature to sabotage your base!

We'll see you then!

Maia 0.46 is ready to play! Here's a video showing some of the new features.

http://youtu.be/d7WG3gdcCBQ


Behold, Botany! Research the local flora with the new plant sample containers and added research technologies.



Nanoprinters! 3d print new IMP robots to expand your workforce and improve the efficiency of your base!



Bugs squished! Thanks to the help of the community we've killed over 50 bugs in the last month. The game is increasingly stable and glitch free.


Other new things to look out for.

• Many IMP bugs fixed. No more random wandering off or freak outs.
  
• IMPs can now use teamwork, digging is much more efficient.
  
• Find your IMPs with the robots button. (bottom left)
  
• Rest facilities are now their own need. Colonists will build beds at a much higher priority.
  
• 4k resolution crashes and performance issues fixed.
  
• Massive optimisations on the CPU. Threading is improved, as is cache coherancy. Running on an Intel i5 you will be able to keep CPU usage under 50% at 60fps.
  
• Pathfinding is improved, so less performance spikes.
  
• Decent GPU improvements, shader fixes.
  
• Loading directly from the menu.
  
• Loading speeds are greatly increased as is saving.
  
• Ground water levels are now shown, watch puddles form and evaporate.
  
• More music tracks.
  
• More sounds for common base items to impart more game information via audio.
  
• Bodybags! No more treading on rotten corpses.
  
• Creature burrows on the surface.
  
• Colonist energy usage tweaked. Food values recalculated.
  
• Many colonist AI bugs squished. Including the one where half full barrels in the solar still drove the colonists insane.
  
• Placeable airlocks.
  
• Tutorial updates to point out UI changes.
  
• AI delegation is now weighted towards being more needs based. A colonist with a greater need will go for the action first.
  
• Lighting is redone for better effect. Less glitches.
  
• A few save state bugs fixed.
  
• Yosemite support added.
  
• Intel GPU shaders optimised for below minimum spec machines.

A few features didn't make the deadline, but as always we will be adding them in the coming weeks. In 0.47 you can expect colonists to show their emotions, write useful base reports and even look forward to a new terrifying creature to sabotage your base!

We'll see you then!