Post Re-instated from – 14 JUN @ 5:39PM

Greetings Pioneers!

Reporting in.. the team have been in the underground bunker with their focus goggles on. We’re now in the process of working towards our next update where MANY things have changed. Our build system is getting some vast UI improvements. Our AI system is becoming more designer friendly as well, which means more variety with in world encounters, not to mention vehicles on the horizon.

Matt – Art Director

There have been some big ol’ tasks on the horizon for a while which we’ve just started to tackle. A bit of radio silence on our end due to the lack of pretty things to show recently! And let’s face it, you read these updates for the nice pictures 😉

Now that we have layouts that meet the gameplay criteria for this overhaul.. the Art team have been tasked at building a more streamlined way to theme and construct our ‘non destructible’ underground facilities. This has involved some heavy planning from an assembly point of view, to ensure we get the variety needed to produce a number of different and varied structures all using one master kit.

Lee – Tech Director

So I have finally had some time to create a new custom editor for our AI system. It’s something I have been wanting to do for a long time.

It will allow the designers to quickly put together new prototype behaviours using blueprint tasks which can them be assembled in the editor and tested. This should enable anyone in the office with some basic blueprint knowledge to tweak AI behaviours with ease.

This version of the editor doesn’t include much in the way of debugging, so my next task will be to add a debug mode, but for now people can start using it.

Joe – Lead Artist

A big mix of different (but all equally important) tasks and meetings over the last few weeks. I have mainly been working through pipeline and process changes for our interior spaces. The hope is we’ll be able to create large, visually impressive ‘dungeon’-style areas – quickly and efficiently, once the first couple are complete. Additionally, there have been many discussions to ensure we hit the ground running with new tasks that provide a ton of value for players going forward.

Glenn – 3D Artist

David and I have been busy working on the maintenance kit for the dam. We have made some good progress and now have a new trim sheet so that we can make some interesting rooms quickly and efficiently. I have also finished work on the Transport Vehicle model. The model is complete and looking cool in engine, we still have some implementation work to do on it though.

Tom W – Lead Designer

This week I have been part of a production clean up to help focus the design team towards solving the problems that will allow us to get closer to a shippable build. This has been mainly finishing lots of designs that we had backlogged to make sure the engineers have stuff to implement. Also with this there has been lots of clean up happening with removing old prototypes and refining what we do have so hopefully everything works better and faster!

Lauren – Lead Animator

Animations and rigs for our new vehicle meshes have been the focus recently. The hoverbike aka ‘The Speeder’, and the transport vehicle have been getting some attention after a long time on the backlog.

Matt W – 3D Artist

Plenty of progress made creating an alternate ‘non-terran’ tree that is part of the same genetic family as the local creatures. Moved onto baking this monstrosity at the end of this week.

Katrine L – Senior Artist

Lately I have been helping out with some spring cleaning (yes it is still spring/winter here in England). I have also done some landscaping in Eden Star, placing some new rocks on top of pione.. I mean terrain! It is looking good!

Andy H – Level Designer

The Dam has a lot going on in and around it at the moment as I have been busy making adjustments to the layout to make it feel better from a gameplay perspective, giving some areas a purpose and I’ve been making blockouts for additional areas within the Dam Including a new way for enemies to spawn. Also I have been changing our triggered spawners over to use a more efficient system throughout the world.

Melissa – Technical Designer

Besides lots of meetings this week to discuss various elements of the game, work has been going smoothly on the new build wheel and I’m making a lot of headway ensuring that the new wheel works well with the building system itself.

This also means that I’ve had to review the structure of the building system itself and have plans to internally improve the flow.

I’ve also been looking into and planning how we can integrate further gamepad support and controls for the game as a whole which will include both gameplay and any UI / menus; ultimately working towards much better controller support for the future.

Carlos– Developer

I’ve been delving deep into our respawn logic. Our new tent and respawn managers are now in a good place. I’m currently looking into re-working the way we spawn the pawn to make it easier to follow and more robust. This should hopefully lead to more stable respawning logic that ensures our Pioneers don’t go missing below the new lovely terrain!

Tom – Developer

This week I’ve been mostly working with Leon on our new marker system – making it much more expandable so we can mark pretty much anything! The new system should allow for landmarks to be easily placed on the compass, the world map, or your screen without much extra effort.

Leon – Developer

Hey guys I’m new on the team but have been taking a look at a number of bugs related to the markers placed on objects you interact with, as-well as adding multiplayer functionality to the lift in the tower!

Markers are now cleaned up from the user interface when you open your inventory and I’ve been working on making it so foliage instances behave nicely with these interaction UI elements.

In addition to this I’ve updated the Pioneer armor pieces so they now provide appropriate amounts of shield making it easier for the Pioneers out there to survive the harsh reality of a desolate planet.

Dan – Developer

With changes on the horizon to the respawn system, I’ve been preparing a system to improve the respawning process – ensuring the world has loaded smoothly for a newly respawned Pioneer.

When finished, this should prevent a few reported multiplayer issues that occur during respawning. In addition, various bugs have been addressed regarding the inventory UI and interacting with lootable items in the world.

Ricky – Lead Developer

Among the wave of several UI design talks I’ve been creating a weapon holstering mechanic this week. This will coincide with changes to player equipment management and player progression going forward.

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix