Aiming for an Early December Alpha 2

Hey everyone, I've been working on Vacuum and I'm hoping to have a rough version of the "state" system in place for characters needs. They'll need a place to rest and a place to eat in Alpha 2. Alpha 2 will also feature the newly revamped Vacuum system which shouldn't effect game performance. There's one little bug I've found in it right now that I'm trying to work out. I'm aiming to have this newest alpha out sometime in the first two weeks of December. I'm also going to be moving to a new distribution system, it'll be a code that gets sent out and then you can download the game at your leisure through itch.io.

The Good and the Bad

This week I've tweaked the "event" and their likelihood to occur to make them much more manageable. Pirates no longer raid you constantly, which is a hugely good thing. I've also made asteroids smashing into your space station a much less likely event(they're absolutely devastating right now since there's currently no way to repair destroyed walls, it's coming down worry). The bad news is I'm not sure when I'll be able to get the build out. I'm working full steam ahead on it and I'm really excited about the progress since the last alpha. The game is really coming along well. I'll try to post a gameplay video sometime to show off the progress so far.

Coding AI "Needs"

So this past week I've been working on making the AI have "needs". It's currently rather simple now but effective. Characters on the space station now need rest and food. Without either for too long they'll suffer ill effects. Marines become slower if tired and anyone who suffers from hunger from too long will die. This has also led me to have to work on space chickens more. I'm currently trying to strike a balance as to how quickly space chickens should repopulate on your station.

Lots of Optimizing

So the past week I've really been working on improving code across the board. I've re-written the unit movement code. This has stopped the space marines from sometimes randomly vanishing off into space when they collide with a partially closing door etc. I've included an update to my previous list of known issues from Alpha 1 and whether or not they've been fixed.

1. "Return to Game" button on Escape Menu crashes game.

2. Credits not always displaying.

3. Escape Menu covered by Station Walls

4. Various problems with Vacuum "spread".

5. Marines occasionally vanish to up left-hand corner.

6. Doors will get stuck if a unit blocks them on closing.

7. Marine shooting image occasionally faces the wrong direction.

8. Zombie Survival Version (Kickstarter Stretch-Goal)

The door issue should hopefully be fixed by today. As I've said in a previous post I'm also hoping to make the shooting AI work a little better. Now that I've fixed the movement AI the shooting shouldn't be too much of an issue. I'm also hoping to tweak the spawn rate of random events in the game to make it a much faster tempo.