Week 15 (April 12th – 16th)

Hello everyone. Here are the progress notes of week 15 of 2021!

Please note that the “Progress Notes” are different from the Starbase Alpha “Patch Notes”. Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

Design

Features

• Mining Backpack fixes have been tested, building/fixing now works with materials in backpack without tether connection to ore crates
• Mining Backpack UI tweaks have been designed, material stack size will be shown in slots when hovered over (1/1 normal stack size, 1/8 small 216kv stack).
• Large Generator asset improvement has been designed, module cores need to be accessible with Universal Tool

User Interface

• Design for station building tutorial has started
• New asteroid belt tutorial has been worked on
• Design on company bank statement, ship and station access rank rights has been worked on

Stations and cities

• Ship shops added to Empire Outpost B, Empire Outpost C, Pirate Base and Moon Fast Travel gate stations

Other

• Floating lamps and their holders on Lot Designer modules have been fixed
• Work on solid version of pipes and cables that can transfer resources and data continues

Code

Gameplay

• Objects and players now receive damage inside Plasma Thrusters
• Bug fixes have been made for Tripod weapons
• Work on ship tutorial continues

User Interface

• Implementing company bank accounts has been worked on
• Work on Company Ships have started – Ship Manager code has been refactored to make implementing Company Ships easier
• Tag manager UI has been worked on and support for tag icons on the server have been added

In-game Designers

• Foundation modules should now work properly with station refactoring

Art

Animations and Emotes

• Leg behavior when player flies has been improved
• Work on tripod animations continues

Stations and Cities

• Generic Spaceship shops have been finished
• Interior shots from one of our skyscrapers as our level artists are now decoration everything in the city slots. As a base model, most interiors are colorless as they can then be colored according to ownership

Other

• A snapping error with the ship diagnostic scanner has been fixed (should now snap correctly from the sides with the sockets as well)
• Exorium Tank: LODs have been added to the assets
• Icon has been added for “Launcher mount small turntable”
• VFX work on weapons continues
  • Updates to Antigel Rifle shoot, projectile, hit and reload VFX have been made
  • Updates to Whiplash shoot, projectile, hit and reload VFX have been made
  • New reload effect for Whiplash has been added
  • Work on Tripod Autocannon VFX has continued
• Various large component assets have been added to the game, which are still conceptual in design terms but are intended for bigger ships
• A pipe duct set for alternative ways to declutter big piles of pipe or cable has been added, this set would go into the grooves of the beams (work in progress and not yet implemented)
• Scope model for tripod attachment has been worked on, this would be used for many optical needs that a heave weapon would require such as magnification

Gallery

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See you next week! 🚀