It looks like it could be interesting (and I just discovered from their website that there is multiplayer ! ), but I couldn't find, neither on the last kickstarter update nor on their website, what they will do now that their kickstarter campaign hasn't reached its goal.
They don't mention it, as if they'll continue like nothing happened....
Next, I just want to assure everyone that development of Outer Colony will continue to move forward, despite the campaign's failure. This Kickstarter campaign was meant to serve as something of a litmus test for Outer Colony's prospects. Regrettably, we failed to gain significant traction, and despite my best efforts, the campaign didn't generate much in the way of media coverage.
This is OK! A negative result can be just as useful as a positive one, from a decision making standpoint. The campaign has demonstrated that we need to do a better job of marketing. The metrics bear this out, as we had well under 1,000 views in total.
I couldn't find, neither on the last kickstarter update nor on their website, what they will do now that their kickstarter campaign hasn't reached its goal.
They don't mention it, as if they'll continue like nothing happened....
This is essentially dwarf fortress with aurora ui. I'll have to correct myself, this isn't dwarf fortress.Special thanks to etgfrog, who's been testing the game and posting bug reports to our forums. Your observations are astute and correct; there are a great many bugs in Outer Colony, of widely varying severity. Outer Colony is undergoing a bunch of changes, and the code base is not particularly stable at the moment. We've also got a very small group of testers – really, only a handful of people – so every time we get a new player, the game is always exercised in unexpected ways. I don't know if anyone ever demolished a light structure before that contained stockpiles, but you discovered a sort of dwarven atom smasher that shouldn't exist, in this case.
So I've been playing this quite a bit more...apparently the ai can break the game rules in favor of itself.
I'll have to correct myself, this isn't dwarf fortress.100% correct. As far as I'm concerned, nothing will ever quite be Dwarf Fortress. I used to work on high fidelity simulations that grew from tens of millions of dollars of research funding, and from where I sit, none of them came close to being as comprehensive or holistically compelling as Dwarf Fortress. From a software engineering perspective, Dwarf Fortress is staggering.
Even worse, eventually the pilot would get tired of waiting for them to return to the ship, and he's just take off and leave them behind. Then, your colony would be stuck with these weird free agent kind of denizens. They're not a part of your colony, as they're part of a general, non-player faction, so they don't even consider following any of your orders. They will, however, pilfer goods from your food stores when they start starving and create social friction by trying to romantically partner with locals. Sometimes they'll marry a local and merge into your colony, but sometimes they'll marry a local and take that local out of your colony's control, creating another weird free agent that's living in your lands.Would this be why animals will loaf around the initial stockpile so much?
Bugs tend not to annoy me in projects like DF or something like your game, where it's an indie project by someone who's not really making much/any extra profit off of the game. They *do* annoy me in big-name games and game companies (I'm looking at you, Gaijin) who really ought to be able to figure these things out, but that's just me complaining about the ridiculousness of certain games.
Very interesting first post there. Very cool to see a focus on Multiplayer on this type of game.
Would this be why animals will loaf around the initial stockpile so much?Animals loafing around stockpiles is mostly them being lazy. Many species love human food and will steal it, when given the chance, and after ripping into packaged meals and gorging themselves, they tend to just flop down nearby and sleep there, until they feel like mating or eating again.
Is there some sort of mechanic such as a secure stockpile that only the colonist can access? a door that only colonist can open?
My only other thought is why not have leadership titles start off with only a single title for the initial group then expand when the 1 position cannot keep up with the amount of population.
The solution to vagrancy should either be jail time and/our expulsion onto the next ship.
There so happened to be 12 critters on the stockpile and the colonist pulled a gun from the stockpile that the critters were on then started shooting.Hahaha, forum user Torvus has run into the exact same problem:
One thing I've noticed right off the bat that the menu on the right side would probably benefit from some words.
the game would be much more approachable if an in-game tutorial of some form is built that highlights buttons, one by one, walking you through the basics of creating a standardized outpost (Shelter, food, manufacturing of basic items, etc.)
The first child after the first lesson has 21 strength at 6 years old.
Oh.
I ignored that like it was a "Credits" button. Whoops.
How am I supposed to get fabric beside mineral wool?
Butchery products never leave the station, and get deleted when you remove it.
I usually don't act like an idiot, but when I do, I do it like theprofessionalsbiggest idiot around.
I think part of accomplishing that will be to overhaul the visuals. It's going to take a long time, and it'll be something of a pain, but I think we've agreed to overhaul all of the game's graphics and to replace the current, top-down perspectives with isometric rendering. I don't think our current sprite set is stylistically uniform enough to give Outer Colony a solid "look and feel", and I think that if we can make it more aesthetically pleasing, it'll help draw players in. Isometric graphics should make the game stand out more, and it helps in gameplay, giving players a better feel for the 3D nature of the world in non-Z-level views.
What do you guys think? Would really sharp, isometric graphics help improve the fun factor? If you can build cooler looking things, do you think you'd enjoy Outer Colony more?
This game seems promising but with so many sci-fi games on the market right now, from triple A rts that have much better graphics, through indie games that have some base-building elements like Starbound to free to play games such as Prospector it will be really hard to market it. Perhaps you could try to develop it along the similar lines that Toady has chosen for DF - F2P with donations by a loyal fanbase? I would certainly chip in.
What do you guys think? Would really sharp, isometric graphics help improve the fun factor? If you can build cooler looking things, do you think you'd enjoy Outer Colony more?
The specified username is currently inactive. If you have problems activating your account, please contact a board administrator.
What do you guys think? Would really sharp, isometric graphics help improve the fun factor? If you can build cooler looking things, do you think you'd enjoy Outer Colony more?
Don't go iso, it only makes the screen harder to read for 3D stuff like towers or pits. Gnomoria went iso, and it's the worst part of the game, in my opinion. True Topdown flat 2D (without any perspective faked) is the best way to do this kind of games, according me and myself.
You need to change the tiles however, for something clearer and fancier at the same time (RimWorld is close to perfect, Prison Architect is great too, in that domain). Currently, it's too "flat", or "grey" or "saturated" or "dirty" or other words i don't know in english. All the persons i've shown the game to have the same first reaction, and it's something like : "even Dwarf Fortress in ASCII mod is easier to read". They don't care about "low poly" or "simplistic graphisms", but they, and i, think OC is "ugly" and "uneasy to read (not about the texts of course)". Aurora also, can't say it's high level of visual, but it's easier.
Also i tried to register on your forum but my account is on hold since 2-3 days.QuoteThe specified username is currently inactive. If you have problems activating your account, please contact a board administrator.
I like to see how different players have different views, and all are right. Must be some hard choice for the devs each time they have to make a decision (in any game), haha...
As i still cannot connect to the forum, i will suggest some things here.
- When refining, add buttons to auto-select 100, 75, 50, 25%, not only a manual entry (like i have 230000 quartz, if i select 100% it will refine all, but if i click 50% it will auto pick only 115000 units).
- Add links from everything to the encyclopedia. So, if a look at my refining screen, a can alt-click on Quartz to open the encyclopedia and see what i will get from it. If i alt-click on any object ingame, same.
- Maybe i missed it, but I'd like to have an event log bigger than the very small and reduced one we have now. Maybe add a terminal-like window somewhere, movable like others, with full events showing in. Now, it seems i need to click the events noe by one to see what's actually going on ("Material Synthetized", but i don't know what, quality, who did it, where, etc).
The animals are predefined as far as names and parts go. But the stats ("genetics") of the animals are random and of course in this game that is modeled through reproduction. So in theory in one game an animal could be a long living strong monstrosity and in another it could be a weak short lived creature after a few generations in certain areas. You could of course find a way to use eugenics within your area of influence if you really tried
TL;DR version: Visuals need upgraded, UI needs more intuition, hotkeys
5. Why can't I maximize the screen? Why would I want to play a game on a high resolution monitor if I am stuck in a windowed mode in a resolution far below my screens resolution? Maximizing the screen would make the game more enjoyable.This owes to a peculiarity of the way the engine is built. The whole structure is constructed on top of JavaFX, and while there are ways to full-screen it, I haven't had a chance to explore it. This is the downside of building a custom engine. I have to handle every piece of functionality myself.
Perhaps you could try to develop it along the similar lines that Toady has chosen for DF - F2P with donations by a loyal fanbase? I would certainly chip in.Hey, thanks, man! That's extremely generous! I think everything is alright on the funding front for now, but I really appreciate such a nice suggestion. If you guys can keep providing feedback and suggestions as new releases are published, that's way more help than I could possibly ask for at this stage in the operation.
Don't go iso, it only makes the screen harder to read for 3D stuff like towers or pits.Hahaha, I'm so sorry dude, but I think we're going to go with it! We're going to try to implement things in the smoothest, most intuitive way possible to deal with vertical structures like towers and pits. I've never actually tried Stonesense, but I've heard that it has elegantly solved many of these problems already. Perhaps I can get some ideas on how to do so from that.
You need to change the tiles however, for something clearer and fancier at the same time (RimWorld is close to perfect, Prison Architect is great too, in that domain).I know those titles are popular, but for me, the look of those games is one of the reasons I've never tried them. Everyone likes different things, I suppose, and I definitely don't want to take anything away from them! I know those games are both amazing, but I just can't imagine trying to employ that sort of style with Outer Colony.
Also i tried to register on your forum but my account is on hold since 2-3 days.I'm terribly sorry about that. I get so many spambot registrations that I sometimes have difficulty telling real users apart from the fake ones. If anyone else has registered an account, but I've failed to activate it, I've probably mistakenly labeled you as a spam bot. Feel free to send me a DM here, and I will correct my mistake.
Butchery isn't useful, leveling the terrain prevents you from growing plants on it and the quick buildings are weird. Trying to put a one story building with doors in my level area to prevent animals from eating my food turned into a three story building that was only accessible on the 2nd floor.Absolutely. The game's riddled with features that range from *needs improvement* all the way down to *barely functional*. We've got a long climb until we reach the top of the mountain. Every time a player uses the game in a slightly unexpected or untried way, a new bug may be unearthed. The more you guys find, the more I log, and (hopefully) the better the game eventually becomes. I appreciate all your posting here, man.
I didn't try butchering or even hunting anything yet, but my farming plots tend to disappear after they got harvested instead of being replanted.Auto-replanting is something everyone craves. This function is supposed to be handled by one of your bureaucrats, the Minister of Agriculture, but we're considering removing that and just making it happen automatically.
BTW, is there a way to increase the elevation? Like filling a hole with dirt for example?Right now, the only way to do it is via construction. You can build stone walls, for example, over an area to increase its elevation. Dirt kinda' semi-disappears following excavation, as another weird violation of underlying rules. It's an exception case I created, because NPCs spending so much time clearing mounds of dirt was killing productivity on the mining front. It's sorta' offensive that the dirt materials disappear magically, and it feels extremely game-y to me, but that's how it works, for now.
Edit: Also, I don't know if that's intended, but you can only download version _46 with the download link on the frontpage.My bad. I need to fix this.
And what I'm really curious about: Are all the animals running around randomly generated or pre-defined?
Honestly, I wish I could do it myself, because then I'd have a full three-dimensional first-person full-physics-simulation survival game where you start before history (As a human) and then move on, building things, interacting with the environment, and using actual physics. As in, if you strike two rocks together (Accidentally, perhaps?), the game doesn't know that it produces sparks and can start fires, but it DOES know that two objects with such-and-such masses, speeds, and compositions have just struck each other and they need to produce such-and-such a reaction, which can then result in a spark landing on some tinder starting a fire, used to fuel your forge so you can dodge a thousand years of development, heating a lump of iron in your simplistic, rock-based charcoal forge....etc.
All the way to SPACE, because I'm a mad astrophysicist at heart.
If you're developing the game for YOURSELF, well, I've seen a couple of developers who decide to build the game they want to play.
This sounds silly but this game's name isn't doing it any favors given how many "colony" games there are.
Besides doing random without it being insignificant requires good thinking and planning.
In many ways it needs to not be random :P
This sounds silly but this game's name isn't doing it any favors given how many "colony" games there are.
I think the opposite, the name lets me know what is it about, and it's actually the first thing that made me look at it at the very first time i've read about the game.
where can i throw money at the screen to get my hands on the beta ?https://voyagergames.com/
where can i throw money at the screen to get my hands on the beta ?https://voyagergames.com/
The demo is the game right now.
The download link is not up to date.I finally fixed the link today. Sorry that took so long, I just got distracted by a bunch of miscellaneous tasks last night.
Just replace the 0_46 in the link with 0_50.
(right click the download button, copy link address, paste it into your URL bar, change version number, hit enter (but not too hard pls), profit)
where can i throw money at the screen to get my hands on the beta ?Oh man, don't get too excited, and set your expectations extremely low. In its current state, Outer Colony is about a hundred miles away from the point at which it could be sold. It's very buggy, the graphics need a complete overhaul, the control scheme needs help, several features are decidedly primordial, and so on. It's semi-playable, and my friends and I have a bunch of fun with it, but it's very far from a completed state.
the mmo is really teritary to better more streamlined ui, more depth and fixing it so it feels easier to pickup like rimworld does ( while maintaining its complexity), more small scale events, like crashed cargo pods, expand teh social interactions a bit more theres room for small improvements that make big impacts
more small scale events, like crashed cargo podsAgreed. One of the things I've struggled with from a design perspective is getting the frequency of events to feel right.
theres room for small improvements that make big impactsI agree once more. There are a bunch of little improvements that ought to help the system as a whole.
Does the need datanet terminals fast have anything related to the bug where if you forget to build a terminal in 3 days time they simply will not use them?
Does the need datanet terminals fast have anything related to the bug where if you forget to build a terminal in 3 days time they simply will not use them?
Does the need datanet terminals fast have anything related to the bug where if you forget to build a terminal in 3 days time they simply will not use them?*Edit*
One of the biggest problems with Outer Colony now is that it doesn't do enough to tell a player what's going wrong when something is going wrong. It's something I really need to work on, because almost all players run into situations where something doesn't work, and it's entirely unclear why.
(http://i.imgur.com/h0eyLs7.png)
I think that is a bit...excessive considering the original equipment manufacturing station was quality 65. So far in my new game I've gotten data terminals up by hour 17 and so far no one has used them.
Unsuccessful. it crashed on installj4Total bummer, man! I had hoped it'd run normally in Wine, but I see that we've got no such luck.
This sounds silly but this game's name isn't doing it any favors given how many "colony" games there are.It's funny you bring this up, Neonivek! Many years ago, the project was actually called, "The Far Reaches", but after tons of thought and discussion, we renamed it to Outer Colony. You'll still see some remnants of TFR if you look back into the project's ancient history, but we changed the name specifically because people seemed not to be able to tell anything about the game from its title. "Outer Colony" is certainly a bit more generic, but it's also more descriptive than "The Far Reaches".
I think that is a bit...excessive considering the original equipment manufacturing station was quality 65. So far in my new game I've gotten data terminals up by hour 17 and so far no one has used them.Etgfrog is right again - exceptional item calculations are a bit out of whack in the quality of goods they're yielding. They're going to have to be adjusted to yield more sane results, since right now, certain types of exceptional items have effects that are way too powerful. A single exceptional chemistry set can turn all the children in your colony into DaVincis. It's like a monolith from 2001, A Space Odyssey.
On another note...why isn't nickel or cobalt a ferros metal when they both are ferromagnetic?
so fleshing out of the creativity and media skill trees and associated content might be agoOllobrains is actually right here. I never thought about this, but if all your colonists are below a certain intellectual and creativity threshold, no one will produce media. I might have to do something about this, or I might have to make it so that the default stats for starting colonists includes one who's smart and creative enough to function in this capacity.
I didn't realize floors and the like were made in batches, so I ended up making several thousand. Having it say how many a 'unit' produces would be nice,You can always trade them away.
This game needs a better worker shift management UI. As in one where I don't have to wait around hoping I'd ambush the right colonist that looks vaguely similar to every other colonist. And if there is a better way, please enlighten.
(Skipped Tutorial.)
We do have two Linux users right now, including Tchey, but it requires a bit of Java expertise to run at the moment. As you've seen, there is no installer / auto-updater for Linux presently. You can download the executable .jar for Outer Colony at this link:
http://outercolony.com/beta/OuterColony.jar
Then make sure you've installed Java 1.8, at least update 101 and making sure you have a 64 bit version. Then from the command line, you can run Outer Colony with the following, once you've changed directories to the one containing OuterColony.jar:
java -jar OuterColony.jar -Xmx8192M
I've got like 5 people with the exact same first and last names. ... Oh there is a batch of 6 with same first/last names... and another 5 here... and another 4 there...
What was the problem with the light building? (You seem to have been able to place one now)Its purely random where I can and cannot place it. It goes against my aesthetic sense to tear down the natural walls, plus it takes 200 materials per floor/wall piece.
What was the problem with the light building? (You seem to have been able to place one now)Its purely random where I can and cannot place it. It goes against my aesthetic sense to tear down the natural walls, plus it takes 200 materials per floor/wall piece.
I tried building rooms by doing individual floors/doors.... but it just seemed to have blocked access to the places beyond. Pathfinding for that seems to be voodoo/broken.
Bug #2: Burying local wildlife requires a grave marker and coffin.
Not sure if intended behavior, but why do my people not drink my cactus juice over water? It's tasty as fuck.Those colonists are numbskulls! Cactus juice is supposed to be a total delicacy. Does your population have a cultural aversion to sweet tasting beverages? This is almost certainly a glitch in how they're weighing the merit of different kinds of beverages when deciding what to consume.
Anyone else getting performance problems? It says 4GB for small worlds, but I'm getting massive delays with 16GB and a micro world.There definitely are still cases that can cause massive performance problems. How big is your population? It's likely that this is being caused by some nonsense happening on the periphery of your colony that you're barely aware of, but large populations can cause lag. There's a ton of room for performance improvements, I'm just putting the hardcore optimization off until I'm much closer to a proper release.
I've got to look at se5a's issue and try to figure that out at some point soon. We really need a proper Linux installer - that's the real answer.
And Zangi, you're totally correct - there's way too much stuff that's entirely counter-intuitive. There's probably some aspect of your office space that isn't quite perfect or something else like that. I've never tested light structures underground - in fact, I've never even thought to build them there, so you're in uncharted territory and are likely uncovering tons of bugs. In interacting with Asgarus, one of the biggest general issues is something you're experiencing now. When things don't work, as a player, no one has any clear idea as to why. It's a significant problem that I've got to address.
Finally, as for structures, Outer Colony's are a bit weird. Shooer is right, proper structures' nodes occupy full volumes (an entire Z level) themselves. Light structures sorta'-semi have walls, floors, and ceilings within a single tile, while free-form structures do not. The system just sorta' evolved this way. Initially, there were no such things as light structures, but I added them to the game to help players get started, as building proper structures was proving a major challenge to brand new players. Now, though, it's almost like there are two competing systems for structures, and I'm not sure if it's a problem. I need to think more about this, too.
I'm going to get some sleep soon, but I will try to provide more thorough responses this weekend. You guys are seriously awesome with this play-testing.
If I may suggest, allow floors to also act as roofing for the floor below? That would make things much more simplistic, plus... it makes sense for multifloor buildings. Not so much when you have a multifloor building, where each floor has an arbitrary double layer of building material between them. ... awesome for vermin I guess?It only checks if there is a roof above it, not if it's covered directly with a roof.
You essentially build both out of the same amount of materials anyways.
If I may suggest, allow floors to also act as roofing for the floor below? That would make things much more simplistic, plus... it makes sense for multifloor buildings. Not so much when you have a multifloor building, where each floor has an arbitrary double layer of building material between them. ... awesome for vermin I guess?I don't use roofs anymore. Floors work just as well.Otherwise you couldn't do multi storage buildings, and I have those in my colony.^^
You essentially build both out of the same amount of materials anyways.
Also, do I need to use the room autobuild option to make custom buildings register? Or am I able to individually build and designate rooms/buildings on my own? My limited experience in using the autobuild option, putting in the numbers for dimensions, it just doesn't match.Never used autobuild. As long as the room as no holes in the floor/ceiling/walls you can designate it as a private/communal room.
I get huge lag when designating a large chunk of area for logging / plant gathering, it even does the hickup when I do around a 7x7 area. Also happened when I set up an agricultural zone for my Agricultural Bureaucrat...I get that, too. Not sure why.
(I've stopped playing for now, considering how frustrating it is to manage peasants. It is worse then doing it in DF... plus the underground city issues.)Yeah, colonist management definitely needs to be worked on.
Also, do I need to use the room autobuild option to make custom buildings register? Or am I able to individually build and designate rooms/buildings on my own? My limited experience in using the autobuild option, putting in the numbers for dimensions, it just doesn't match.
(I've stopped playing for now, considering how frustrating it is to manage peasants. It is worse then doing it in DF... plus the underground city issues.)
It seems many of you are playing OC like Dwarf Fortress (tower-dungeon-like), while i feel i'm playing it more like RimWorld (village-like). I did dug mines, but i even didn't try to build underground. I thought about doing it, but as i have premade stuctures, it "feels more right" to build outside and consider the underground only for resources gathering.
I appreciate the emergent-ish nature of the AI in this game, from what I've heard, is there anything they really cannot do at the moment?
I'm curious about what the best tools / mechanisms are for managing large numbers of dwarfs in DF. Is there anything I can look at for inspiration? I'm envisioning a user interface that shows a searchable / sortable list of all the colonists, plus information about their stats, skills, primary jobs, etc, but if you guys have a tool / plugin for DF that you recommend highly, I'd like to check it out, for ideas.
Sorry, you missed my last post and I need a good sci-fi game.
I've had some issues with downloading it, suffering an error that says something about it being unable to install java.exe.
And Dwarf Threapist looks amazing...that, right there, is what Outer Colony needs. Thanks, Tchey!
While we are talking about UI upgrades.... that event log.
It needs a filter. I don't really care that Colonist #5 went to sleep.... for the umpteenth time during the same leisure shift. Seriously, they usually have nothing better to do and their sleep time is like 5 seconds.
I know some players have gotten much farther then me... is that 4 line event log a whirlwind or what? Already bad enough for me after buying another set of peasants and they also procreated.
| Event | Description | Coordinates |
| Furniture manufactured | Bob successfully manufactured a bed using Furniture Manufacturing Station | 10;20;70 |
| Someone died | Kenny just died from old age | 13;15;70 |
| Someone died | Kenny just died from a wound caused by Bill | 40;50;70 |
| Manufacturing completed | Bob successfully completed the manufacturing of 10 beds. | 10;20;70 |
Not right now. I guess I will make a new colony once the colonist management is a bit less of a burden. :P
Not right now. I guess I will make a new colony once the colonist management is a bit less of a burden. :P
I had a monster week at work last week, but this is the next feature I hope to tackle. I'm aiming to work on this a lot this weekend, and it'll probably be the last significant feature I take on before shifting my focus onto improving the isometric rendering framework.
And you're completely right, Paul - the workers are far too willful right now in blowing off orders, and it makes for a more frustrating gameplay experience than it should be. A lot of this comes down to tweaking numbers in how they weigh their goal selection options. One of the downsides of the way that the AI is designed is that it can be hard to get it to achieve a *specific* thing, and that makes it a little bit challenging from a game design standpoint.
Huge thanks for your continued testing too, ollobrains! I'm adding an improved event viewing interface to my stack of feature requests. That is another essential addition.
I appreciate everyone's patience here, and I'm sorry again for being so slow in hammering these fixes and features out!
So you said this was inspired by sim earth? You mean the graphics? Otherwise I see fairly little relationship?
Hi, guys, just a quick update this weekend! I had some free time last night to start properly working on the general colonist management interfaces. Some of the screenshots of Dwarf Therapist look tremendous, so much of my functional design draws on that. This is extremely early look at what I'm doing, but I've built a primordial version of an activity management screen:
(https://voyagergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/ColManUITry1.png)
You can flip on and off activities here for all your colonists' work shifts. Right now, turning the activities on will just set them at the default priority, but I'm going to make it so that you can specify priorities from this screen, too. I also have a plan for it to provide color-coded recommendations for which colonists should do what. Finally, if you don't want to manage any of it, I'll include a button that'll auto-optimize everything, just like the minister of labor does when he works. When you hit the button, everyone's activities and priorities will be algorithmically optimized.
I would've liked to have gotten further this weekend, but my girlfriend had a meltdown today about not spending enough time with her. My Sunday was spent shopping for autumn house decorations. A wreath was purchased. Disaster averted. Hopefully I'll get further along with this during the nights this week.
...
Rimworld has a similar thing where you can put it in advanced mode and instead of just on/off you can give each thing a priority of 1 - 4. (or off)
Might I recommend putting the skill level of the characters to the left of the check boxes for each related task for the ones that are relevant?
Island life is hard. The lack of resources is frustrating, but traders leave their ship and walk to the bottom of the ocean trying to find "A safe location". Maybe they're trying to walk along the bottom to the opposite shore?This is a great test case, Scout. I haven't messed around with building in areas that are surrounded by water, and this will probably play havoc with some of my location utility functions. I wonder what the hell those idiots are running from, prompting them to find a safe location. I might need to expand the action text for this activity to provide that information.
Most of them just vanished, but atleast one from each shuttle is hiding at the bottom of the ocean.QuoteIsland life is hard. The lack of resources is frustrating, but traders leave their ship and walk to the bottom of the ocean trying to find "A safe location". Maybe they're trying to walk along the bottom to the opposite shore?This is a great test case, Scout. I haven't messed around with building in areas that are surrounded by water, and this will probably play havoc with some of my location utility functions. I wonder what the hell those idiots are running from, prompting them to find a safe location. I might need to expand the action text for this activity to provide that information.
Did they at least drown when they idiotically tried hiding at the bottom of the ocean? If they're still alive and just hanging out down there, this is indication of a pretty serious bug with drowning calculations. This is a great test case you're trying out - I can't believe I haven't really played on a small island before, but huge thanks for thinking of this!
Played around with it a bit.
Is it just me, or do workers randomly decide to skip a whole day or more of work to produce virtual media? Even when not assigned the job and with zero skill in writing?
I have a ton of data terminals and all my workers are constantly playing with writing virtual media instead of harvesting crops and producing stuff. One couple has been waiting for days to get a bed in their new house because both my consumer goods manufacturer guys are writing virtual media instead,
Work orders seem horribly inefficient too. I can't seem to find a way to differentiate food vs other raw materials. My food station is 1 step from the food stockpile, but all the meat and crops get brought to the materials one. Ordered 100 grennage rolls, the guy walks back and forth twice each time to grab small stacks of meat and grennage. Then produces one roll and does it again. Then another worker runs way across to pick up the single grennage roll and drops it, then runs back to the social area, then comes all the way back to grab another one.
... was just watching one of my workers. He finally finished producing virtual media, went and got materials to make a bed, started work on it, then decided it was leisure time. Then he ran around socializing and such a bit, then started producing more virtual media.
Sam, have you found an artist for the iso graphics yet? Just out of curiosity. :)I think I'm close to making an exciting announcement on this front. I'm talking with a really, really, really talented isometric pixel artist, and I'm very excited about the prospect of bringing her onto the team. I'll hold off on saying more until our situation becomes more certain, but I'll post an update as soon as I have solid news on that front.
Contrats, you've discovered the lazy facebook/twitter nuts of the future.This cracks me up! The media system is one of the funniest parts of the game sometimes, and I'm always amused when people become consumed by an obsession to fiddle around on the DataNet terminals.
My one amazing genius 100-skill max stat female, Gartha or some such, just married and was impregnated by a rando who saw lots of infantry combat action from killing annoying pests who kept trying to eat my food. Lo and behold, she's extremely attracted to those who've seen combat. Go figure.Haha, that's really funny! I love it when people pay attention to the interactions of individual colonists like this - I always have fun watching their little lives unfold. There might be a good reason for her liking this kind of thing. Are you generally promoting militarism in your local culture? If your colonists have produced a ton of media glorifying infantry combat, it may well have pushed her to really liking that sort of thing.
Speaking of, I combed through the website, googled to death, watched LPs, watched your combat videos, but... How in the hell do I get my soldiers on guard/patrol to stop doing that? Its like I tell them to move to point A, they arrive, engage "Guard" duty, and then never want to do anything else but stand there and even ignore kill orders on passing enemies.
Sadly not... I tried different layers... Surface, in air and underground in a tunnelHi, HopFlash, and thanks for your kind words and testing! Big thanks to Ehndras, too, for lending some guidance here.
Bugs with trading that everyone should know about
1) Once you set your first landing zone YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE IT (actually this is a bug with area designation, in that the Remove Area Designation just doesn't work)
1b) Trade zone elevation must match initial colony elevation, or you can't trade. Hence why above is so important.
2) If you buy more than one item, then place that item, only one item gets placed and all the other items seem to disappear (actually, I think the game treats 10 Cots as one cot, so you'll get the clump back, but you'll never be able to untangle them). So buy your furniture, machinery, etc. ONE AT A TIME.
3) I've never gotten the minerals that I've purchased to be usable, but maybe that's just me.
4) Sometimes, you embark and there are no trade partners. Look before you invest any serious time in a colony.
Non-trade related trader bug: Sometimes there are corpses on the trader ship, which triggers a need for them to be buried...but then the trader flies off with the corpses and you can't satisfy that need. I'm starting to wonder if the traders are linked between my planets as this has affected multiple worlds, I always assumed each world was stand alone and not part of a larger galaxy with the other worlds.
Feature: I just found out that more trade partners can become available after embark. Probably based upon colony size, as I got the extra trade partner after finishing my first building, making several pieces of furniture, trading the first trade partner, and mining a bit.
Bugs with trading that everyone should know about
1) Once you set your first landing zone YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE IT (actually this is a bug with area designation, in that the Remove Area Designation just doesn't work)
1b) Trade zone elevation must match initial colony elevation, or you can't trade. Hence why above is so important.
2) If you buy more than one item, then place that item, only one item gets placed and all the other items seem to disappear (actually, I think the game treats 10 Cots as one cot, so you'll get the clump back, but you'll never be able to untangle them). So buy your furniture, machinery, etc. ONE AT A TIME.
3) I've never gotten the minerals that I've purchased to be usable, but maybe that's just me.
4) Sometimes, you embark and there are no trade partners. Look before you invest any serious time in a colony.
Non-trade related trader bug: Sometimes there are corpses on the trader ship, which triggers a need for them to be buried...but then the trader flies off with the corpses and you can't satisfy that need. I'm starting to wonder if the traders are linked between my planets as this has affected multiple worlds, I always assumed each world was stand alone and not part of a larger galaxy with the other worlds.
Feature: I just found out that more trade partners can become available after embark. Probably based upon colony size, as I got the extra trade partner after finishing my first building, making several pieces of furniture, trading the first trade partner, and mining a bit.
About 1b - I designated my landing zone on top of a floor that was laid on ground that was levelled to match my starting colony elevation but I cannot trade.
Should I have done it 1 level down to account for the floor?
Finally, the other essential task that was knocked out in the last couple weeks: I'm back on the road! Behold, the new set of wheels:
(https://voyagergames.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/van_small.png)
'99 Dodge Caravan - It's a lot of car for $950. Got it with 90k miles and a brand new state inspection. The thing runs like a champ and costs next to nothing to insure, so it should help keep funding available for the upcoming graphics overhaul. Things are moving right along!
Bugs with trading that everyone should know about
1) Once you set your first landing zone YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE IT (actually this is a bug with area designation, in that the Remove Area Designation just doesn't work)
1b) Trade zone elevation must match initial colony elevation, or you can't trade. Hence why above is so important.
2) If you buy more than one item, then place that item, only one item gets placed and all the other items seem to disappear (actually, I think the game treats 10 Cots as one cot, so you'll get the clump back, but you'll never be able to untangle them). So buy your furniture, machinery, etc. ONE AT A TIME.
3) I've never gotten the minerals that I've purchased to be usable, but maybe that's just me.
4) Sometimes, you embark and there are no trade partners. Look before you invest any serious time in a colony.
Non-trade related trader bug: Sometimes there are corpses on the trader ship, which triggers a need for them to be buried...but then the trader flies off with the corpses and you can't satisfy that need. I'm starting to wonder if the traders are linked between my planets as this has affected multiple worlds, I always assumed each world was stand alone and not part of a larger galaxy with the other worlds.
Feature: I just found out that more trade partners can become available after embark. Probably based upon colony size, as I got the extra trade partner after finishing my first building, making several pieces of furniture, trading the first trade partner, and mining a bit.
About 1b - I designated my landing zone on top of a floor that was laid on ground that was levelled to match my starting colony elevation but I cannot trade.
Should I have done it 1 level down to account for the floor?
I'm fumbling around just as you are, but when you say "cannot trade", do you mean that there is no trade partners, or that when the trade vessel comes that nothing happens when you select "Trade Negotiations"?
1b specifically refers to the second instance. I'll try what you did as well (I never floored my landing zone)...in my recent experiment, the trade ship isn't even coming, although that could other issues (undeveloped founder nation perhaps, I haven't played these founders much). But you are right, the elevation increases when you add a floor, and would seem to cause problems.
It would help if I remembered to designate a Landing Zone...
I'll keep experimenting, as although I have had problems, I need to reset because I hit the Summon Migrants and Summon Trade Partner buttons too many times before designating a landing zone, which can't be good (I have some sort of ship, but it won't leave).
EDIT: So far, so bad. Even if the elevation matches, the floored landing zone doesn't seem to allow trading, and its the type where nothing happens when "Trade Negotiations" is selected. Now to make sure it will work without the flooring...
CONFIRMED - All flooring is bugged for landing zones, regardless of elevation. I'll update my Trading Bugs list.
Yeah I feel the same way. While the comparison to dwarf fortress is clear, dwarf fortress was not made for the future, it's a middle ages simulatorBugs with trading that everyone should know about
1) Once you set your first landing zone YOU CAN NEVER CHANGE IT (actually this is a bug with area designation, in that the Remove Area Designation just doesn't work)
1b) Trade zone elevation must match initial colony elevation, or you can't trade. Hence why above is so important.
2) If you buy more than one item, then place that item, only one item gets placed and all the other items seem to disappear (actually, I think the game treats 10 Cots as one cot, so you'll get the clump back, but you'll never be able to untangle them). So buy your furniture, machinery, etc. ONE AT A TIME.
3) I've never gotten the minerals that I've purchased to be usable, but maybe that's just me.
4) Sometimes, you embark and there are no trade partners. Look before you invest any serious time in a colony.
Non-trade related trader bug: Sometimes there are corpses on the trader ship, which triggers a need for them to be buried...but then the trader flies off with the corpses and you can't satisfy that need. I'm starting to wonder if the traders are linked between my planets as this has affected multiple worlds, I always assumed each world was stand alone and not part of a larger galaxy with the other worlds.
Feature: I just found out that more trade partners can become available after embark. Probably based upon colony size, as I got the extra trade partner after finishing my first building, making several pieces of furniture, trading the first trade partner, and mining a bit.
About 1b - I designated my landing zone on top of a floor that was laid on ground that was levelled to match my starting colony elevation but I cannot trade.
Should I have done it 1 level down to account for the floor?
I'm fumbling around just as you are, but when you say "cannot trade", do you mean that there is no trade partners, or that when the trade vessel comes that nothing happens when you select "Trade Negotiations"?
1b specifically refers to the second instance. I'll try what you did as well (I never floored my landing zone)...in my recent experiment, the trade ship isn't even coming, although that could other issues (undeveloped founder nation perhaps, I haven't played these founders much). But you are right, the elevation increases when you add a floor, and would seem to cause problems.
It would help if I remembered to designate a Landing Zone...
I'll keep experimenting, as although I have had problems, I need to reset because I hit the Summon Migrants and Summon Trade Partner buttons too many times before designating a landing zone, which can't be good (I have some sort of ship, but it won't leave).
EDIT: So far, so bad. Even if the elevation matches, the floored landing zone doesn't seem to allow trading, and its the type where nothing happens when "Trade Negotiations" is selected. Now to make sure it will work without the flooring...
CONFIRMED - All flooring is bugged for landing zones, regardless of elevation. I'll update my Trading Bugs list.
It was the nothing happens when "Trade Negotiations" is selected thing.
I started a new world and tested as you have and have come to the same conclusion.
Also for some reason my trade stockpile will not persist as set to trade but that is another thing. It always reverts to unticked.
Great game. I love how the dev is committed to the idea rather than developing to a demographic market. Makes me want to commit to testing it.
Just wanted to say that the '99 Dodge Caravan is a great car.Hahaha, that it is!! I'm not going to lie, I'm mildly embarrassed about enjoying a minivan this much, but I kinda' like driving it. With the 3.3, it's shockingly fun and peppy.
I love how the dev is committed to the idea rather than developing to a demographic market. Makes me want to commit to testing it.Thanks for the kind assessment, man! This is what the project is all about - realizing an idea in working software. At the end of the day, Outer Colony is not a product, at least, not in the sense that most AAA and III games are. The way so many games are built today, where development is driven by focus groups and marketing data, fed into massive teams of hundreds of 3D modelers and artists and programmers, manufacturing a product that's specifically designed to generate revenue - the whole affair seems to degrade the character of games, at least to me.
Anyone get this running on linux?
I get "Error: Could not find or load main class com.voyagergames.tfr.TFRApplication" when trying to run the jar file.
Oh, and Tchey, if you'd like a behind-the-scenes look at Voyager Games operations, I can give you the grand tour in a subsequent post. You might get a kick out of how we operate, man!
Anyone get this running on linux?
I get "Error: Could not find or load main class com.voyagergames.tfr.TFRApplication" when trying to run the jar file.
Currently, the installer will not work on Linux, but Tchey has managed to run executable .jar from there. I haven't posed an updated jar to the download server in quite some time, but if you'd like, I can DM you the instructions I gave him on getting that bad boy to run.
I have a problem trying to play Outer Colony.
Possibly useful information.
My Documents folder in windows is located on a drive other than my system drive. This is because my system drive is a fast but very small SSD.
All my other software plays nice and uses the correct location but Outer Colony still puts the save files in my system drive. I think it is because they are in */user/ rather than in */user/Documents/My Games/Outer Colony or somesuch.
Anyway - no biggie but just a headsup.
:)
did you have any more ideas on the problem I'm having getting it running in linux?
java -jar OuterColony.jar -Xmx8192MAnd I think it's worked for our other users.
Cool, it's a tricky one since as I understanding it it's Java itself failing to find the main class from the manifest, so its finding the manifest, but the program never really starts.
If you're going to look at a linux installer, I'd maybe look at Flatpak...And I meant to respond to this when I saw it, but totally spaced on it! Flatpak is awesome, but I've actually got a highly-polished solution for building a Java installer for Linux. Thanks to the righteous guys at ej-technologies, I'm using install4j to handle installation and auto-updating across Windows, Linux, and Mac. A Linux installer could technically exist with just a few hours worth of work, but I just don't have a platform to test it with yet, and that's a big part of what's standing in the way of supporting Linux and Mac.
java -jar OuterColony.jar -Xmx8192M
Error: Could not find or load main class com.voyagergames.tfr.TFRApplicationjava -jar OuterColony.jar -Xmx8192M
Exception in thread "JavaFX Application Thread" MediaException: UNKNOWN : com.sun.media.jfxmedia.MediaException: Could not create player! : com.sun.media.jfxmedia.MediaException: Could not create player!
at javafx.scene.media.MediaException.exceptionToMediaException(MediaException.java:146)
at javafx.scene.media.MediaPlayer.init(MediaPlayer.java:511)
at javafx.scene.media.MediaPlayer.<init>(MediaPlayer.java:414)
at com.voyagergames.tfr.audio.AudioManager$4.run(AudioManager.java:519)
at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$null$5(PlatformImpl.java:295)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at com.sun.javafx.application.PlatformImpl.lambda$runLater$6(PlatformImpl.java:294)
at com.sun.glass.ui.InvokeLaterDispatcher$Future.run(InvokeLaterDispatcher.java:95)
at com.sun.glass.ui.gtk.GtkApplication._runLoop(Native Method)
at com.sun.glass.ui.gtk.GtkApplication.lambda$null$5(GtkApplication.java:139)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: com.sun.media.jfxmedia.MediaException: Could not create player!
at com.sun.media.jfxmediaimpl.NativeMediaManager.getPlayer(NativeMediaManager.java:274)
at com.sun.media.jfxmedia.MediaManager.getPlayer(MediaManager.java:118)
at javafx.scene.media.MediaPlayer.init(MediaPlayer.java:467)
... 9 more
I think a game like Dwarf Fortress needs Z-levels because of the adventurer component, not the colony building.
I personally think Z-levels adds a lot to the game, and makes it much more intriguing - as Tchey said, there are a lot of flat games already. But there is probably a reason for there being so many flat games - it's a lot harder to develop with z-levels, and it adds a significant (I would guess 50-100% more development time, but I'm a web dev not a game dev). Not having z-levels puts an artificial limit on the game's complexity, and requires a lot of simplification of things that could otherwise be very robust.
Surface and above Z-levels are probably the biggest pain.I've often thought about just getting rid of these views and showing only Z levels. It's been a really long time since I've played Dwarf Fortress, but how does it handle this stuff? Does it provide surface / top down views, or does vanilla DF only show one Z level at a time? A part of me thinks that by adding these convenience views, I've just made things more complicated for users.
My memory might be wrong... but its cause you have trees blocking the view between the leaves and the ground. This sort of thing probably needs a better visual indicator that you ain't actually looking at the ground.I've tried pretty hard with this, but some of the rendering options might be buried in a place where users don't look. If you open the advanced view options dialog (clicking on the eye-button in the toolbar), there's an option called "Enable Elevation Shading". It renders lower tiles darker, and higher ones lighter, to give a quick feel for the terrain's slope:
Also an easy to see indicator that the ground isn't flat.
I was getting jealous of Tchey for a second there...
Will ASCII graphics ever be implemented into this game?
(Plus I hold onto a hope, likely forlorn, that multi-z levels will one day make their way into the game...)
keen to see it, I struggled a little bit with the pure top down view.
artists
I would think that there are more pixel artists out there though, but I guess that skill is becoming rarer and rarer.Hi, Asgarus, and thanks for still following the project, man! I think we've just been having a run of bad luck lately. There are people out there who have the skills and motivation to work on a project like this, but we've just been having some trouble connecting with them. If we keep trying, I'm sure we'll eventually find the right person.
I just did a bit of advertisement for Outer Colony on a different forum. May or may not get any hits from it, but I linked to both the forum here and the Outer Colony webpage, asking specifically for pixel artists interested in making a bit of money for their work.Oh man, the biggest thanks possible! That's hugely appreciated. We really just need to find a motivated pixel artist that's the right fit for our team.
Hopefully you are able to get your money back from the flakes though. Stuff like that definitely needs to be put under contract. Ugh.Yeah man, I actually use copyright transfer agreements and formal work order contracts with all the team members who are producing assets. It just helps clarify the deliverables for each batch of work, and it keeps everything tight and clear from an intellectual property perspective. Plus, defining work in discrete sets like this facilitates my paying upfront, which I've been told by team members is one of the nice things about working on Outer Colony.
Would you have pictures of what you expect, arts wise ?That's a great question, Tchey, and right now we actually don't – that's intentional. My goal is to find an artist who's a real master of the craft. Someone who understands color theory, mood, technical nuance, and all the things that go into making a game have a great look-and-feel. I don't know a damned thing about art, especially game art, so we want to give a great deal of creative freedom and general autonomy to whoever we bring on to produce the sprites.
As always, really excited about this.
In regards to art, I'd really, really recommend trying to find a 'new' art style for it if possible. I know there's 'nothing new under the sun' and all that, but I don't think something that just looks like rimworld/prison architect etc. would suit. I only say that because it seems to be the default graphics style at the moment, and whilst I have nothing but respect for those sorts of games, they all merge into one and it'll be more difficult to stand out.
Even if the design ends up a bit out there, it'd be better than generic sci-fi sprites #24252.
I think you guys are insightful with these posts about the game's visual direction. We definitely won't be going with a RimWorld / Prison Architect sort of style. I haven't played those games before, and while I'm sure they're amazing, I don't think that visual style would really fit the experience we're trying to create here.
We're 100% going with an orthogonal / isometric projection for the new visuals, in order to more properly display the world in 3 dimensions. When we're talking to artists now, we share screenshots of Stone Sense, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, and a couple other late 90s / early 2000s isometric games. The style hit an interesting kind of peak then, and I think it'd just fit great with what we're trying to make here. I don't think we want to go very low-fi with our graphics, because I don't think it'd fit quite right with the game's overall feel.
We still haven't had any luck finding someone to work with us, despite my eagerness to shovel cash at a qualified candidate. I've tried recruiting from DeviantArt, but haven't had good responses in the last few weeks. Would you guys be able to suggest a place for finding a freelance pixel artist? I'm halfway considering going all out and hiring somebody as a W2 / regular employee to get this done, as that's what it feels like it might take to get somebody with the necessary skills. At that point, I'd probably post the job on Indeed / Monster / Careerbuilder. Any ideas you can share for recruiting a pixel artist would be hugely appreciated!
Artstation and Pixeljoint have a lot of talent. I'd be looking at more targeted communities.Oh man, these are some pretty awesome websites! I'm kinda' shocked I never came across them in my searches, but if the current candidate doesn't work out, I'll definitely try these places for further recruiting efforts. Thanks again, man!
Is this game available? Saw this thread, looked it up, don't see a download or buy button anywhere.
Is this game available? Saw this thread, looked it up, don't see a download or buy button anywhere.
I'll save the developer a second and post this https://voyagergames.com/ (https://voyagergames.com/)
Hm, seems they took down the demo. Maybe they would be nice enough to release it somewhere?
Is this game available? Saw this thread, looked it up, don't see a download or buy button anywhere.
I'll save the developer a second and post this https://voyagergames.com/ (https://voyagergames.com/)
Hm, seems they took down the demo. Maybe they would be nice enough to release it somewhere?
Sam took it down because the demo as it is now is not representative of the game as it will be upon release now that he's chosen to go with an isometric view. I dont think he'd mind my telling you that a new pixel artist has been found and the first set of ground sprites have been produce, but not enough for an isometric demo.
Hi !
Spring is a good time for some news, isn't it ?
Hey, Just saw on their youtube page they posted a video demo of the Isometric overhaul, And it looks pretty awesome in my opinion.
here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9-I9Q3IOvg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9-I9Q3IOvg)
@VoyagerGames - Think you could add in a wireframe/outline mode to the visuals? I have a problem with my eyes where I cannot see in '3D', so judging angles and elevation are really hard for me, especially when the colors tend to blend into each other. It's easier with the greens and darker colors, because you do have a spacing between the individual cells, but for the desert and other light-colored terrain it is nearly impossible for me to see the details.
You can consider it a request for thus of us who are visually impaired, or those of us who prefer to have visible grid-lines in games like Civilizations. Lol.
Hey, So @voyagergames , I'm really trying to download and play outer worlds, but I can't find the download. I've gone just about everywhere, but I can't find the download. I tried asking on your forums, but in order to register, I have to do a reCAPTCHA code, which has apparently been shut down. Because of that, This is the only way I can think of contacting you. I would really like to play your game, but currently, I think it's impossible for me to get it. Thank you for considering.
Thanks for the update.
The camera is fixed, or can be rotated ?
If fixed, how will you deal with stuff behind other stuff ?
If rotations, ther are free or 90/45/others ?
Do the solar panels track the sun as it passes by?
The camera is fixed, or can be rotated ?
If fixed, how will you deal with stuff behind other stuff ?
If rotations, ther are free or 90/45/others ?
I also noticed that the UI is still what it was, Are there any plans for the UI to be modified, @VoyagerGames?Another good question, BloodLibrarian. The game's UI is the subject of constant improvement, the goal being to iterate from where we are now to a more smooth and functional experience. What we have now is a baseline - everything works. But there's a lot of room for improvement. We need to finish the isometric overhaul and re-release the beta with the new system in place. Then we can get the play-testing and real user feedback we need to make the necessary improvements.
I dont believe so, but they will noticeably turn off at night or when the sky is sufficiently overcastThis is correct. Solar panels don't visually track the sun, because of the how our sprites exist in the rendering engine. They're isometric pixel art, rather than 3D models, so there's no way to "rotate" them the way you might expect of a 3D game. There are things we could do with static animations in the future, but right now, the animations satisfy their purpose of showing the functionality of the device. They show when they're working (in sufficiently bright sunlight) and show when they're not working (when it's nighttime, too overcast, in a sandstorm, etc).
Hey, don't mean to be rude, but I would really like an update on the procedural graphics.Hi Stingpie, thanks for the question! It's never rude to post here, always feel free to ask anything you'd like. I appreciate any interest that anyone has in the project.
And I have to say, I'm always impressed when someone can handle both a day job and a side project like this for an extended period of time. A lot of projects with promise get abandoned, so kudos for the dedication!Thanks, man. I've been working on this for so long...I probably shouldn't say out loud when the first, primordial lines of code were written. At this point, it's more a source of embarrassment than pride. There's just no other good way at present to fund the operation than by consulting during the week, so that's the way forward.
this is looking like a fun game, thank you for continuing development.Blood Librarian, good to hear from you! Honestly, it's people's kind words and the sort of support I've gotten here that keep me going. I really hope that some day, people other than me can have a lot of fun with this.
That pond is just beautiful.Hugely appreciated! The water effects, simple as they are, are some of my favorite visuals in the game. I'm excited to showcase the improved weather effects when they come out, too. Sometimes, if I'm just hanging out on my computer, I'll open a window of Outer Colony on my second monitor and let the nature just hang out on screen. It's kinda' relaxing, just watching the day night cycle, watching the weather change, watching the seasons shift, watching animals and birds and stuff roam around, living their virtual lives. Maybe it's like a screensaver? I don't know, maybe it's weird to say, but I like it.
I'm still lurking !Tchey! Every time you post here, man, it reminds me that somebody hasn't forgotten it. I'll do my best not to let you down. When I release next, maybe we can play a multiplayer world together if I host a server. That'd be really, really satisfying for me.
Man, I was just about to come in here and post the video link when I saw it appear on my phone. Glad to see production is still chugging along, and sorry to hear about the head cold. Best Wishes manMazarus!!
Those sprites look great! Very cool to see how modular they are :DThanks, man! All credit to the art side of the house. I'm going to point the project's pixel artist to this thread, and I'm sure your post will make him smile. I know a ton of time and effort has gone in from his side, and I think he's producing fantastic looking sprites.
That's a lot of sprites and customization, great for any colony builders !Due to coppa bullshit if youtube flag your channel as *for kids* most if not all communitu related building tool are disabled to *protect* children unless you go through a bunch of holla hoops on fire while drunk and swearing to proove a point.
Also, why comments are disabled on Youtube ?
Also, why comments are disabled on Youtube ?Jocan's right, there's some weirdness with the new-ish comment settings on YouTube channels, and I haven't gone through and taken the time to figure out what they really should be for my videos. On the whole, though, YouTube comments are generally pretty toxic and unhelpful. I think I wound up turning them off a few years ago, because people were wigging out at each other under my videos, and I didn't really wanted to deal with it.
The iso graphics look incredible and I LOVE the detail when it comes to items like in the video.Thanks Asgarus, we're getting close, man! I've started recruiting a 3rd artist to try to speed up these later stages of sprite production so we can release again as soon as possible. A lot of the nuanced work in figuring out templates / systems for generating the procedural sprites are in place, so I really just need one more person to help fill in all the various component sprites, rather than figure out radically new sorts of visuals.
Main UI gives me some feel of gnomoria and its a good thing for me!. Really hope you push it to completion because im hooked :). Good luck!Huge thanks, man! The UI's been one of the things I've focused on improving over the last 2 years, and while it's still got a ways to go, I'm trying to simplify and simplify as much as possible. The problem with games like these is that there's so much functionality - so many different things you can do - that it's hard to facilitate all of that succinctly in an elegant control scheme. Hot keys are something that are currently on the table, and I think they're going to help a lot.
Your video has been flagged for kid again. Might want to check that out.YouTube just baffles me at this point. I just want to upload a video the internet so people can watch it. At some point, when I'm really trying to reach a wider audience, I'll see if I can square this stuff away. Thanks for the heads up, man.
"Dawn has broken."I'm certainly trying to. Thanks for your post, you made me smile!
I hope you are feeling this. :)
/lurksTchey, what's up, man? You're on the short list for early release distributions. I can't yet say a definitive time frame, but I hope at some point in the next 6 months, I can send you a fresh installer.
In a lot of ways this project reminds me of the golden age of Maxis.Oh man, this might be the highest praise I've ever received. Can't tell you how good that makes me feel. I grew up playing SimCity 2000, Sim Tower, Sim Ant, Sim Farm. I had them all. I think Sim Earth is one of the overlooked gems of the collection, and the game and its concept were decades ahead of their time. As a software engineer, Will Wright has kinda' been the guy I've aspired to be. I'd be so proud if this project gets compared to the great Maxis games after release.
If it helps, these times have been rough on a lot of people.Thanks, man. It has blown mightily, and it's sucked a lot worse for tons of other people than it has for me. I've still got my day job, and I haven't had my hours or pay cut or anything like, so that's very fortunate.
Agreed. Glad you're still getting some work on this in, despite everything!Thanks as always for your support, Mephansteras. When it comes time for release candidates / previews, all you guys who've been with this for years can get binaries.
Tchey, what's up, man? You're on the short list for early release distributions. I can't yet say a definitive time frame, but I hope at some point in the next 6 months, I can send you a fresh installer.
I've gotta say I'm excited to check it out and compare to the old version I have clunking around my hard drive.
Really? I've been trying to get a demo of this game for a while, but just discovered it as the online demo was taken down. I would appreciate it if you could upload it to dropbox or something.
I've gotta say I'm excited to check it out and compare to the old version I have clunking around my hard drive.
Really? I've been trying to get a demo of this game for a while, but just discovered it as the online demo was taken down. I would appreciate it if you could upload it to dropbox or something.
Yeah, I recall having to change view every time I wanted to do literally anything. It was still fun, but took forever and I generally screamed if I accidentally moved the camera even the slightest bit, as I might never find my colonists again. :'(This kind of feedback is super, super useful.
It is true that the graphics and UI intimidated me a lot and was the reason why I haven't dug into the game (I tried it some days ago).Yeah, if the look and feel isn't up your alley, I'd recommend holding off on playing it. I always kinda' like the overhead graphics, but to each his own.
Yeah, I recall having to change view every time I wanted to do literally anything. It was still fun, but took forever and I generally screamed if I accidentally moved the camera even the slightest bit, as I might never find my colonists again. :'(This kind of feedback is super, super useful.
Can you suggest anything to make this a little easier to understand / figure out? What I really, really want to do is hone in on exactly these kinds of experiences and make those critical improvements.
Have you used Discord at all to do screen sharing and just watch playtesters play? See exactly how a stranger interacts with the interface?
Have you used Discord at all to do screen sharing and just watch playtesters play? See exactly how a stranger interacts with the interface?
That is an excellent idea.
Yeah, I recall having to change view every time I wanted to do literally anything. It was still fun, but took forever and I generally screamed if I accidentally moved the camera even the slightest bit, as I might never find my colonists again. :'(This kind of feedback is super, super useful.
Can you suggest anything to make this a little easier to understand / figure out? What I really, really want to do is hone in on exactly these kinds of experiences and make those critical improvements.
I think the bed isn't the most obvious icon choice for that behavior. A crosshair probably gives the wrong impression... a magnifying glass over a house? That probably looks too much like inspect. An arcing error pointing at a house, maybe? If that doesn't fit well, a straight error pointing at a house probably also works.
In the context of a colony building game, I'd expect an icon like that to be how I build houses, not how I zoom to someplace.Yeah, I recall having to change view every time I wanted to do literally anything. It was still fun, but took forever and I generally screamed if I accidentally moved the camera even the slightest bit, as I might never find my colonists again. :'(This kind of feedback is super, super useful.
Can you suggest anything to make this a little easier to understand / figure out? What I really, really want to do is hone in on exactly these kinds of experiences and make those critical improvements.
I think the bed isn't the most obvious icon choice for that behavior. A crosshair probably gives the wrong impression... a magnifying glass over a house? That probably looks too much like inspect. An arcing error pointing at a house, maybe? If that doesn't fit well, a straight error pointing at a house probably also works.
I think just a 'home' icon would work - thinking of the icon used by firefox browser, for example.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=home+icon&ia=web (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=home+icon&ia=web) (because I'm too lazy to upload an image...)
In the context of a colony building game, I'd expect an icon like that to be how I build houses, not how I zoom to someplace.Yeah, I recall having to change view every time I wanted to do literally anything. It was still fun, but took forever and I generally screamed if I accidentally moved the camera even the slightest bit, as I might never find my colonists again. :'(This kind of feedback is super, super useful.
Can you suggest anything to make this a little easier to understand / figure out? What I really, really want to do is hone in on exactly these kinds of experiences and make those critical improvements.
I think the bed isn't the most obvious icon choice for that behavior. A crosshair probably gives the wrong impression... a magnifying glass over a house? That probably looks too much like inspect. An arcing error pointing at a house, maybe? If that doesn't fit well, a straight error pointing at a house probably also works.
I think just a 'home' icon would work - thinking of the icon used by firefox browser, for example.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=home+icon&ia=web (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffsb&q=home+icon&ia=web) (because I'm too lazy to upload an image...)
I think the bed isn't the most obvious icon choice for that behavior.
How about a system like DF does for setting bookmarked locations to warp the camera to? So you can have multiple such locations, and not get stuck with just one.
Have you used Discord at all to do screen sharing and just watch playtesters play? See exactly how a stranger interacts with the interface?This is another fantastic suggestion. It's funny, I've fallen a little behind on some of the current meta-tools / technologies in gaming, and Discord is something I really haven't gotten into. I know it's far from new, but I've got to check it out. When it gets time to do testing again, maybe I should ask here for volunteers to do precisely what you describe.
Text chat is also an option. But what if you just throw them in the deep end and take notes on how they play.Absolutely, this is exactly, 100% what I'd want to do. I'd just need to find some volunteers!
I'd also suggest having an easy way to zoom in on a particular colonist if you don't already.This functionality we do have, and it's a great idea. It's one of the first things I found myself craving as I'd be playing solo. I basically set this up the way that the old Command and Conquer games do it with units, where you can map a colonist or a fire team to a number (0-9) and press that number to warp to them. I think it works pretty decently for expressing directives during combat.
Disclaimer: It was years ago that I had played the beta.It's a little grim when I think about how long it's been, and I certainly can't expect a lot of really specific recollections about the experience. The UX has changed so much between then and now that it'll play rather differently, anyway. I'm super glad and grateful that people can remember anything about the old beta at all, to be honest.
The biggest problem was with the views: You had to have the right combination of views in order to find stuff, or it disappeared. So Isometric should fix all that.I personally think the isometric perspective makes the world space so much more palatable and easy to understand. It doesn't need a ten minute tutorial video anymore to explain how you're looking at a 3D world that's being rendered in a 2D format. Now it should just...work. For the most part. That's the hope, at least.
Also, for those who say "but you could figure it out in DF!", there are two responses:I'm with you on this, too. It's not about remaking DF or trying to replicate the DF user experience. Sometimes it's a useful frame of reference, because most people who have tested OC have played DF, so it's sometimes easy to point to things that DF does better. But OC has to be fun in its own right, and it has to deliver the right kind of experience - that's what ultimately counts.
A map with a big X marks the spotThat's actually a great idea, too. Some marker on the minimap and world map to show you where you've got structures and colonists would be a huge help.
any new updates to give us been a while ?
I can confirm that there is progress. The first thing that comes to mind is that skills are being condensed a bit and placed into profession skill trees.
2022 seems reasonable
New video dropped on their channel. Progress Pog
https://youtu.be/ATtZZ7J53qs
Good to see it’s still going on.
I wonder when it will be playable in a decent complete state.
Let’s say end of 2022, and see then how i was wrong.