if you need a “Reason” for people to use solar and wind over JUST using thermal, what about some mild weather effects? high/low sun, and high/low wind. both could provide MORE power than thermal during a high period, but much less during a low
additionally, would you also consider some power relays seeing as how things need constant power, and maybe some devices that can kinda link together(building an X next to a Y gives a boost)
Perhaps a refinery next to a drill to increase crystal collection?
Wind generators already worked that way in Spacethumper 1, although I personally preferred solar in the early game, as it was more reliable. If Chubberdy is interested in revisiting that idea, my suggestion would be to have such weather effects be localized in some way so that different areas would call for different generators. So, for example, a seaside location might have steady winds but also a tendency toward cloudy or foggy skies, making wind a better choice than solar in that particular area.
I hope that there will be bigger sizes in the second game
Ooh, this looks like it adds a lot of depth to base-building! Can’t wait to see people develop speedrun strats with this new system.
How does transferring power work? Right now it looks like each generator has a limited number of outputs, is there any sort of range limitation or could you connect two buildings on opposite sides of the map if you wanted to?
Does Pilot require an output slot to gather power from generators or can she just stand next to them like before? In a similar vein, can she choose to power a specific building instead of whichever one she’s closest to?
Judging by the “Minimum” and “Optimal” power settings, it seems like buildings won’t function as well if they’re below optimal power. Will there be any consequences for giving a building too much power? Will they stop working or explode or something?
Unrelated to the latest update, but is this related to any sort of Spacethumper content or were you just doodling? It would be fun to have new characters to interact with and potentially enlarge.
I like the changes to power BUT I am afraid that the additional windows might change the play of the game to much. So let me ask some questions, highlight problems and give some statements:
A1. Where are the information displayed? Do you need to go to a building and “inspect” it? Or is there an additional window that displays the information for the building permanently displayed on the screen?
A2. Have you thought about research? Will the research buildings need to be paid like before or will they need energy to be recieved like other buildings? (Crystal cost ignored here)
A3. How do you balance energy transfer if adjecent buildings are insufficient powered? Will there be a “energy grid” for all adjecent buildings to balance it or will power only be transfered between generators and adjecent consumers?
A4. How do you balance the player drawing from a generator with its comitments to adjecent consumers? Will the player be priority or last?
B1. The changes you want to make to energy generation, consumption and transfer will give it a more involved layer for players to keep in mind and will make it more engaging but complicated. In my opinion.
B2. Spacethumper 1 is from an UI standpoint very simple and accesable. Your proposed changes will make it nessecary that more informations are displayed to the player. That in itself might be a problem and should, to keep its former interation sleek design, very carefully considered in how it is displayed to the player.
B3. The most consistend task in ST1 was to check the walls for damage and how to concentrate turrets enough to minimize it. With the addition of needing to power turrets carefull testing should be done in how this should affect enemy spawning.
B4. Have you thought about a story for ST2 already? ST1 was an emergency evacuation. Will ST2 be the same but more refined or will it be a planned return for profit. This will have massive consequences on the progression of the game.
I did have a thought of an energy accumulator that can steal power from generators near it, but other than that generators will have to be built directly adjacent to power consumers to provide any power. The energy accumulator might be a bit tricky to code properly, so we’ll see if that even stays in.
I did have a little bit of that with the wind turbines in ST1, but people seemed to mostly like the reliability of the solar over the potential of the wind for low level stuff. There will be situations in which they’re more/less effective, but those will be less random and more about where you build them now.
Generators will automatically give power to adjacent consumers with the output connections just showing the number of things they’re powering for easier math (so in the above screenshots if the player walked away from the solar panel the output connections would drop to 1, but the power per output would go up to 15), and consumers will draw power from adjacent generators.
Nah, she just gets energy from whatever she’s near. Same with powering buildings when venting, so care will have to be taken not to waste energy!
Nope, my plan is to just make buildings stop accepting energy from the player when they’re at optimal (for running), so that the energy can go towards repairs/other buildings.
I am planning on the very least having some more NPCs, so some of those doodles might be showing up in one way or another.
All the UI stuff that’s not the resource bar at the top is going to be on a panel in the middle that’s only there when you want it.
Both, still balancing things out to see if research will be over time or instant, but I’m leaning towards instant.
Only between generators and adjacent consumers.
Generators will split evenly between all consumers, including the player, creating the possibility of things not working if the player stands there and sucks up some of the energy.
I have a vague outline of what it’s going to be, but I don’t want to commit to some of the specifics until I get more of the major systems that those specifics involve working (and check if they’re fun).
Awesome, one thing that bugged me was that it was more efficient to rush nuclear using just solar, so having additional utility for other power sources sounds cool. I also wanted to ask, will the “tower defense” gameplay remain the same, or will you be changing the core gameplay any with the addition of new NPCs and make it more sim-like, like with Growing Portly with quests and the like?
Regardless, I’m very hyped to see what you develop and any new content of the pilot and her misadventures to near-immobility
Phew. I’m glad you said it. It’s always a harsh lesson that an idea that sounds promising, even viable, on paper just might fall short when put into practise.
I’m hoping that this new power management aspect does bring a fresh dynamic to the gameplay and improves the experience overall.
I’m definitely planning on making the tower defense aspect a little more involved than just one type of turret and walls on either end, but for the rest I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up with specifics until I get that defense aspect at least kinda balanced (I also don’t want to trick myself going down the rabbit hole of coming up with super specific ideas that are months out from implementing and then getting disappointed that they’re more trouble than they’re worth once it’s feasible to do them).
question although this is optional.
about the story that will happen?, although only to know if it will be before the protagonist arrived on the planet, or is it after escaping the planet or did she never escape because she was too fat to enter the portal, and if so, the latter, another character will go to save him, or this sequel has nothing to do with the first game?.
keep it up bro you’re doing great
Well, colour me hyped, didn’t expect this little gem to get a sequel.
Query: well there be more or less enemies?
Want to see if the challenge will be heightened or lowered
For now all I’m going to say is that we’re heading back to the same planet.
There will be both a wider variety of enemies and more of them present at once as well. They won’t spawn as often though, so less chance of just snowballing into death once the first wave spawns.
Originally I was going to show these off piecemeal, but fuck it. I want to catch you guys up on most of the stuff I’ve been working on, so this is going to be a big one. I’m gonna stick it under a dropdown so it doesn’t take up as much room.
First off, in addition to the building info menu, there’s now an entirely new build menu! No more tapping through the different buildings to get to what you want to build, everything you have unlocked is right there, in organized tabs. Additionally upgrading buildings directly is no longer a thing, Mk. 1, Mk. 2, etc. buildings are now built separately.
This includes a whole new category of thing to build which is another major change from the first game: platforms. No longer will you be constrained to the ground! Collision is still a little janky but this isn’t a platformer so making that perfect isn’t a priority at the moment.
There is a new resource, metal, which will be part of the construction of everything. Don’t worry though, you get it waaaaay faster than crystals.
Speaking of crystals, there is now a downside to reactors in that they cost crystals to keep running. For how powerful they are though I think it’s a fair cost.
Oh, and turrets look way different now. A couple buildings do actually but this one was a bit more complicated than the others so I’m showing it off.
Other things that I don’t want to make separate screenshots for:
The things I want to finish up before releasing a demo type thing are pretty much just spritework at the moment, but I’ll probably be doing some backend stuff at the same time as well.
Oh man all of these look amazing and in very short time too! So as usual take your time and im pretty the end result is gonna be amazing.
“A rushed game is forever good, a rushed game is something idk I forgot”
-Some japanese dude
Damn, this is starting to look like a proper base building game with the addition of vertical levels like Terraria or Starbound. Though this does make me wonder how that will affect enemy pathfinding, like if they’ll focus on the foundation on the ground level to knock it all down or not, how increased energy gain range will be affected or if it’ll just act on a horiztonal, square space like in the first; and if “prestiging” will make a return and affect that in any way with the increase in size with the pilot’s feet on the first floor and her head sticking up into the 2nd or if it’ll all just be visual like before.
But shoot, I’m interested in seeing how this continues to develop.
Those screenshots look amazing. I have one question if you’re making the new spirites based of the HD pack does that mean the animations will be added as well?
The platforms look really interesting, and I think they’re a great way of adding a second dimension to base-building without completely reworking the game to be top-down. I do have a few questions regarding them:
I’m also curious what your idle animations look and how similar they are to mine. I wasn’t 100% sure I was capturing the intended mood of the character with them, so it’d be fun to know how close I got to what you were picturing. I figured there was a fair bit of dialogue about being tired and having difficulty with movement, so having Pilot be visibly tired at larger sizes was a safe bet. I thought about adding her fiddling with something or tapping her foot at smaller sizes, but not having created the character myself it’s hard to say what would fit for her. (also less work on my end :p)
Overall, everything looks great so far and I can’t wait to see more! Again, if you need any spriting help at all, let me know!
I’m reminded how in Kingdom: Two Crowns a new feature was that you could take the fight to the Greedlings and blow up their caves. Now that we’re looking to settle a more permanent outpost on Planet, requiring the removal of hostile native life, would we see a similar endgame at play here with clearing out the local slime nest?
I mean… As was established in the first game, the suit doesn’t actually feed her so depsite how big Pilot got she was actually famished throughout… Maybe some research is required into making the slimes fit for consumption…
I know that this isn’t everyone’s favorite cup of tea, per-say, but will there be belly sounds in the sequel like in the first game? I just couldn’t resist asking! o//w//o
