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We joined TGS2023! Thank you for all your support! We are very excited to annouce that The Awakener: Forgotten Oath will release on Steam on October 28th.
And more! The demo is available now!! But it will only open for 7 days! So don't miss the chance!
This is our biggest patch yet! And the longest in coming. If you only want the patch notes then skip to the bottom.
Engine Upgrades
Planetation has been in development for a couple of years now and in that time we've only upgraded our game engine once (to Unreal Engine 5.0) and our voxel plugin never (we started already at 1.2). This is because both are a lot of work, and as a small team we have to be extremely efficient with our time. The voxel plugin upgrade alone would require a complete rewrite of our world generation systems, and we were never able to justify that.
Unfortunately, living in the past like that comes with its own problems. Because of unresolved engine bugs and outdated feature sets, it can end up taking twice as long to create something half as good than if we could leverage more modern supporting technology. For example, upgrading our game engine would give us more powerful dynamic lighting and faster and more robust networking capabilities, among other things. A full rewrite of our world generation for the voxel upgrade would also allow us to 'clean the cruft', by building in more advanced generation techniques that we never even knew existed the first time around.
This is (part of) what we've been working on for 0.9. The upgrade is done, and while Planetation might look mostly the same on the surface - every single update from here out will reap the benefits from our time spent behind the scenes. Before we get to the patch notes though, here's one quick example of the power of our new world generation system.
World Generation 2.0
We're extremely proud of Frontier (world gen 2.0), and in the coming weeks we'll post a full technical breakdown here for you too to salivate over. We've significantly improved performance, greatly reduced memory requirements, but most importantly we now have more control than ever before over our voxels, landmarks, and foliage.
This is especially true when generating underground environments such as the Geode introduced here in 0.9, something that would have been impossible before this upgrade. Giant cracked boulders guard the entrance to these important caches of wealth. Blow your way in with a well placed bundle of TNT, follow the spiraling tunnel down while keeping an eye out for sharp crystals of quartz, and then defeat a subterranean gravitational disturbance in order to earn your first Geneseed - and grow your first Iron.
Major Changes
Fully implement Mesa Geodes (access with TNT to earn an Iron Geneseed)
Add Tracer genemachine to the Genehouse, to point you in the direction of a Geneseed
Add Cracked Boulders to the Outback that can be destroyed with TNT
Add screen flash in direction of damage taken
Add UI toasts for looting uncommon and rare items (such as the Iron Geneseed)
Add cooking?
In unrelated news, you can now eat a Protato or a Baked Protato without already being mortally wounded
Reduce TNT explosion radius by 50% and add slight thematic delay
Fix the Jetpack consuming energy at only 50% of the rate intended
Polish job sequence for simplicity and to introduce the Tracer genemachine
Polish the Drop Pod intro sequence
Update Wood Gate art and add functional swinging doors
Minor Changes
Reduce number of taps required to destroy Quartz (3->2)
Improve placement of TNT, so you can put it on walls or on top of destroy-able rocks
Hide inventory notifications when adding or removing items entirely within your own inventory
Add 'teleport-biome [mesa/outback]' and 'teleport-region [regionID]' console commands
Mostly fix landmarks spawning inside of other landmarks
Award Stone when a Geode Dome is broken
Add sound effects for the Genehouse doors, for watering crops, for the Fling Pad, and for the initial TNT detonator button press
We're taking Planetation on the road in the month of October! We'll have a live playable booth at a number of conventions in Australia, and we'd love to meet you. It's going to be a busy month!
GCAP Melbourne
October 2-4 We have a demo station in the Screen Australia section, thanks to their continued and appreciated support.
Play Now Melbourne
October 5 Play Now is industry only, but thanks to VicScreen we'll be having a great time pitching to publishers.
SXSW Sydney
October 19-20 Later in the month we'll be on the show floor at the inaugural SXSW in Sydney! Come say hey and grab a unique trading card made out of the game!
We are happy to bring you two new trailers of combat system,and announce that combat system Rise of the Darkfog will officially be released in December 2023!
Momentary Explosions, Spectacular Fireworks
The Darkfog expands in response to the your progress. If the number of defense towers is insufficient when hordes of enemies invade, your defensive line will quickly be overrun.
To deal with such crises, you can activate "Supernova", which increases the firing rate of defensive towers by up to 25 times, applying intense pressure on the enemy and helping overcome challenging situations.
During Supernova mode, different facilities will also manifest their unique special effects. When all these are fired simultaneously, you can enjoy a large-scale fireworks display.
Shields for Planetary Protection
Not only will combat aircraft be deployed to destroy factories at close range, fleets dubbed "Gunriders" will also be dispatched from cosmic nests within the Darkfog.
These can deliver devastating blows to ground structures from far-off cosmic distances.
When the planetary shield expands globally, it can offer maximum protection to all facilities on the planet.
Battle Damage and Reconstruction
For the "Rise of the Darkfog" update, we has specially designed post-battle damage models for most structures. This enhances the intensity of the combat experience in a more intuitive way.
Even if defenses fail and multiple production lines are destroyed, you don't have to panic about losing facilities they’ve spent a lot of time building.
They can simply upgrade the "Auto-Rebuild" technology. Provided they have sufficient items, drones will automatically reconstruct the destroyed buildings, which will gradually return to normal operating conditions after reconstruction.
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The battle system in "Dyson Sphere Program" will continue to evolve. "Rise of the Darkfog" focuses on factory defenses while balancing development and defensive construction.
By 2024, you will venture into space combat, building space stations and deploying fleets to combat the perilous Darkfog nests. Furthermore, ultimate weapons are also planned for future updates.
We will gradually release more information about the "Rise of the Darkfog" update before the December, Stay tuned!
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