Hello, it feels really nice these weeks. We actually have some time to improve the game instead of just fixing bugs. Lets take a look on some of the improvements.
Hello, we spent one whole day by playtesting the 0.12 multiplayer. To my surprise, we didn't encounter any problems so we are just few small bugfixes far from the 0.12.23 which will be probably the version used on steam. I thought how experienced and good we are when we managed to make pretty big factory in just 8 hours, but once I saw the Factorio world record speedrun I don't think so any more :)
Good day to all, it is hot here. Really hot. We have loosened our "dressing policy" to "no T-shirt is fine". Both of our fans are running full speed and the fridge is stacked with ice cube plates. People come and go all the time - it is the mids of vacation period after all. Half empty (or half full) office has become a standard these days. Still the work goes on and there is progress.
Hello hello, I hope that the powerful constellation of Friday the 13th has brought you good luck or at least good humour. We have seen quite sharp decline in some Factorio related statistics in the past days so it seems that the AAA titles invasion starts to be felt ... many of you playing Fallout 4?
Hello, Bugfixing for 0.14 has been going quite well this week, and while its still in experimental we've been adding some supplementary features before programming work begins properly on 0.15. With the summer ending, things have been settling back into a nice rhythm here in the office.
Crash site: First state Ernestas, V453000, Albert For many weeks now the GFX department has been focused on preparing replacements for the placeholder graphics of the campaign crash site. The subject as usual is not that easy because we had to first solve the main concept of the crash site. It happens that those new entities belong to the Factorio universe, but they come from a different reality than the usual DIY/diesel punk of the game. So we had to invent a new way to design machines that look like Factorio but that are not too familiar. Here a proof of concept of the look: The concept is that the big (medium) spaceship broke into pieces as it crash landed, and lost many components that the player, during the introduction, will repair and use for his own profit. The look of the spaceship remnants are a little bit based on the designs of the 60’s/70’s pulp Sci-Fi. Fortunately we can keep the look of Factorio due the accident, which allows us to destroy and dirty up the machines show many inner mechanical details. It is also part of the concept that all the machines that the player builds, are based on an existing technology from his home planet. So the machines that we see in the regular game are like 'cheap' versions of the original ones. For the lab, we keep the dome shape and the beams inside in order to keep consistency with the regular laboratory. So slowly the player gets used to the meaning of the shapes. The generator is similar to a substation -more or less-, connectable like a pole but it also produces electricity. Sometimes we really have to invent. This works like an assembling machine. The design is more based in the (yet unshown) redesign of the assembling machines, rather than on the actual 'classic' ones. These cylinders are like chests. We decided to make them cylindrical instead of a box for this difference in technology level that we are speaking about. The player will recognize them for the shape, color, and they also always have a number printed. You don’t really want to know the meaning of the numbers. All this new content is a work in progress, and we made these new entities first for the testing of the campaign. Based on feedback with testers we will have the chance to tweak and adapt whatever is necessary. In the case of the introduction, the positioning of the entities can have a large impact on the flow of the gameplay. Once we are more sure of the final placement, we can see how all the pieces will fit together. The next round for the crash site is the main crashed spaceship, and some other assets that converts the scene into a full composition, more proper for the introduction of the game.
Hello, as the team is getting slowly bigger and we still don't have any dedicated project manager, we had to start looking for tools to help us manage the team. We are testing software that allows our team members to track time spent on individual tasks, so right now my timer on "Friday facts related work" is running. I hope it to give me better insight into what kind of tasks our time goes to, where are we losing most of it, or what were the people doing when I was not here. People tend to not like these kind of changes, but we just have to admit that we are not the 4 people punk development team working from our living room and we need to invest more time into working efficiently.
Hi everyone, the summer is slowly preparing to pack its stuff. Overall weather is still very pleasant however mornings and evenings are getting colder and days are getting shorter. So is our list of bugs on the forum actually! With current 0.12.6 there are about 30 open bug reports in total. The pendulum is swinging back and forth all the time but it seems like a good start for having stable release within few iterations. At the moment it looks like that development work for the release will be done before the gfx work - we are commited to ship a full set of new technology and equipment sprites for the stable 0.12.
Hello Factorio players, lets start our developer to player interaction right now! :)
