We have bit of an odd collection of topics for this Dev Update.
Victor has been working on two new objects for the game, and we'll give you a first look at them.
Mining drones
For the station to function and expand, it's essential to bring in outside materials like water, ore and fuel. To do this, we have the mining ship, which you load up with colonists and send them off on mining missions, to planets, moons or asteroids.
But we also wanted an easier, less risky and more consistent way of bringing in these resources, especially for early-game, and thus the idea of a mining drone was born.
The drone will fly away to collect resources from small asteroids nearby.
It will use the same type of dock as the exploration probe.
It won't bring as much resources as a mining ship, but it will be more consistent, when it delivers, what it delivers and how much.
To get higher tier resources, you'll still need a mining ship.
Keep in mind that these are only rough wip animations.
A huge benefit of our new component system is that creating different drones will be really easy, without the need of new code. A mining drone can easily be changed to provide other resources or even bring back colonists, as some kind of kidnapping device rescue pod.
Growing Meat
Because even in space, colonists will be longing for juicy steaks.
This meat happens to be 100% vegan, as no animals were involved in the creation process.
Much like regular meatbags colonists, this meat is grown in tanks. Just add biomass, a bit of DNA, then let it brew for a few days, and the biomass turns into which ever type of meat/protein selected.
This machine can grow meat, chicken and eggs, but not at the same time.
It's the same size as a regular farm box, and most likely won't be terribly costly to build.
- It grows chicken with bones and eggs with the shell?
Yes, that makes it much easier to see what it is.
Usually in sci-fi, everything comes in similar shapes and packages, but that's not great for gameplay. The game already has a lot of different resources and there will be even more in the future, so it's important that the graphics look recognizable.
That's everything for now,
- Victor (artist)
