A chilling prospect – Interstellar Rift development update 020

In the cold abyss of space, ice asteroids have formed! Mining these asteroids with a resource extractor will grant you supplies of hydrogen. This means that for the first time in Interstellar Rift fuel will be consumed by ships when you fly around.

In this update we are starting to roll out energy consumption for all devices in Interstellar Rift, starting with engines. This means that unlike before when devices only required a set amount of electricity to operate they now constantly consume fuel and electricity (Ion engines would fill their buffers with electricity, but not actually consume any of it).

This system will be expanded in the future as we ready more devices. For this update only the ion engines will consume electricity, all other devices will still work indefinitely as soon as their buffer has been filled.

In order to construct ships, players now need to mine ice asteroids as ships require the tanks to be filled before you can spawn them. This to prevent players from spawning a ship that has no power (doors and other devices will not work without power). Tanks can be filled up and emptied by inserting or extracting fuel tanks from them. We are planning on introducing battery packs for players in upcoming updates, to make sure that players can always charge and use devices that have no power.

As mentioned in our previous update the ship helms will now start using ingame monitors as we continue to work on updating every device with our new ingame screens. The old space flight interface remains for now in the exterior camera. These monitors will be tweaked over the coming updates to improve ease of use and readability.

We also fixed some issues with helms that caused them to get locked up if multiple players tried to access them at the same time. Among the bugfixes are also server stability updates as we continue to find and eliminate bugs that cause unstable servers.

Due to the upcoming holidays, this will be the last update of Interstellar Rift for 2014, updates will continue in the new year.

As always, you can reach us through our forums, by following us on Facebook or Twitter or by simply sending us an e-mail. All your feedback is welcome and only serves to help make Interstellar Rift a better game for you!

Happy holidays from everyone at Split Polygon!

Hide away your valuables! Interstellar Rift development update 019

Are you tired of losing all your resources every time you leave the server? Are you sick of constantly having to mine all those resources again and again just to build a small ship? Well have we got the update for you!

This week we’re introducing the first parts of persistent server saving, starting with the vault. Vaults are star system wide banks where players can safely store their belongings. These vaults can be found on NPC stations, players can deposit and withdraw their items at any vault within the same star system. If you construct a ship from a station with a vault, the resources within the vault can be used to construct that ship in addition to the resources in that stations cargo bay.

What this means is, that once a player has managed to get his valuable resources to a vault, those resources are safe from other players, they cannot be destroyed or stolen from that point on. We are using the vault as the first step to persistent world saving, meaning they will still be available to you when you leave and rejoin the server, or when the server is taken down for whatever reason.

We have also changed the way we save ships to prepare for world saving. This means they are now saved in a database. Although this doesn’t have many direct effects for the player, it does have some side effects:

• Ships load much faster in game.

• .ship files can no longer be loaded, to still allow you access to your old ships, we’ve added an import function to the editor load menu. By using this feature you can update your old ships so they will once again be available in the build menu.

• Servers should be more stable. We continue to monitor server stability, although this is an iterative process, a completely stable server is one of our main goals at this point.

Over the coming weeks we will be adding more features to persistent server saving. Such as ship ownership, ship positions, player positions and many others.

Another long overdue feature we’ve added is proper first person cockpit view. Players can now walk up to a pilot seat and sit down. The camera will automatically switch to first person mode, from which players can now control the ship. Later down the line, all of the monitors in the cockpit will become active and can be used to manipulate different systems aboard the ship. Also some of the existing cockpits will be redesigned to better accommodate these new screen features when they go live.

To get this working, helms are the first prop that feature some functionality you can look forward to in future updates for other props, namely we can now select specific elements of props rather than the whole model (such as a single chair in a cockpit).

Finally, we have also added a couple of new props to the game. Among these are a disposal unit to cleanly dispose of your unwanted crates, an all new small helm, and a couple of new industrial exterior blocks.

We hope you’ll enjoy this new update and as always you can reach us through our forums, by following us on Facebook or Twitter or by simply sending us an e-mail. All your feedback is welcome and only serves to help make Interstellar Rift a better game for you!

If you want to support us further, you can vote for Interstellar Rift in the IndieDB Indie of the year awards by clicking the button below!

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The universe is expensive! Interstellar Rift development update 018

It’s time to sign up, because from this update onwards you’ll need an Interstellar Rift account to be able to play the game. But don’t worry, these accounts are free and registration is quick. We need these accounts to be able to save your inventory, ship and other server related information. This means that in upcoming updates you will finally be able to actually own a ship yourself, instead of sharing it with everyone on a server.

Please note that the new accounts are only for in-game use, the accounts for the community forums are still separate.

To make a new Interstellar Rift account, go here

For this update we have also added resource costs for every piece of ship interior. There are two resources in the game right now, Copper and Iron, and you’ll need to mine these before you can build a ship. For your convenience, we have also added a mining station which spawns along with the starter station to gather resources with.

This is how ship building works right now;

1. First, you must use the resource extractor that can be found on the mining station to mine some ores. These ores will be stored in crates next to the extractor.

2. The crates must be placed on cargo pads (any cargo pad will do, but they cannot remain on the extractor.)

3. The ship editor terminal now shows an overview of costs for every ship, as does the editor. On the display of the ship editor terminal you can see how much resources are stored on a station, and if you select a blueprint it will show you how much that blueprint costs, and how much resources you’ll have left after construction a ship.

Eventually you’ll be able to store your materials inside the station’s vault to ensure the resources remain yours, and can only be spent by you. but for now all resources placed onboard a ship can be used by everyone until we add the vault.

For now, all ships must be build with resources but we will allow you to set up your own servers and games to make use of creative mode in the future.

The ores you mine can be used in unrefined form right now, but we will implement ways to refine them into proper construction resources in the upcoming updates as well as add more available ores and resources to build with.

The addition of resource costs is a game changing feature and we’re going to need your help to balance this to be fair and fun to use.

 

I want to push the button! – Interstellar Rift development update 017

In our first development blog we showed you how we intend to make the terminal screens work. Then a few weeks later we released the initial version of the game without those features. Now more than 7 months later we’re re-introducing it. After today you’ll be able to operate certain machines and system by activating the monitor and simply clicking on functions on the screen.

Not everything is functional yet because we are still designing some of the interfaces. But expect more of these screens to pop up all over your ships. This however means that some of the old devices and systems have to be redesigned to incorporate screens and the like. The prime example for this patch being the teleporter. Which has been moved to the props category and will have to be placed again in all your ships. This is just the first iteration of these new interfaces and we will be working on improving their performance and ease of use.

Aside from the new direct control monitors we’ve also been working on our upcoming account system which will allow you guys to actually own ships and have servers store your characters data. Such as where you logged out, what items you had in your inventory, you ships permissions and more.

In the coming weeks we are going to roll out our new registration system. and allow you to create your new Interstellar Rift accounts. These accounts will determine your in-game username and your forum accounts.

We will be posting more info about user accounts and registration when we get closer to implementing them. For now please enjoy this new update and as always, your feedback comments and just general discussion is more than welcome on our forums, Twitter or Facebook.

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Over the rainbow! – Interstellar Rift development update 016

Tired of the old, grey paint scheme for your mobile home among the stars? Worry no longer! for today we’re introducing paint schemes for ship interiors!

That’s right folks, as of today we are going to let you colour your ship interiors by choosing from a variety of colour palettes. In the ship editor, a new paint button has appeared on the right hand side of the screen. When placing new blocks, they will automatically be coloured in the currently selected colour scheme. But you are also able to change the colour of existing blocks by clicking on them while the paint mode is active. You are able to give each individual block a different colour scheme. We’ve had some fun testing this new feature and we cannot wait to see what you guys come up with!

I can already hear you asking: “But what about ship hulls?”. Well, those are coming in the very near future. But in this patch, we had to focus on interiors to make sure the tech was working as intended. Now that we know it does, we can start to focus on ship hull paint in an upcoming patch.

But thats not all, we are also introducing the first stage of targeting. For the moment that means that the space station and every player ship will have target marker. This is to make it easier for players to find each other and to make it back to starter station. Eventually, we intend to allow players to highlight ships and other objects in space.

In addition to the new features we have also implemented a few bugfixes, chief among them are bugs that crashed servers after a while. we have tested it and servers should once again be functional. of course if you are hosting a server and have found the server still crashes after this patch we’d like to hear from you.

We hope you enjoy this new update, and if you have any more suggestions for colour palettes and other features we’d love to hear from you on our forums, Twitter or Facebook, whichever you prefer.

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Mining with my spacecraft – Interstellar Rift development update 015

In this patch, we’re adding the beginnings of space mining!

Since there is essentially no gameplay in waiting while you point a mining laser at an asteroid and it is not generally considered “fun”, we have done some thinking about other ways to implement this feature. As such, we have implemented the extractor unit.

Instead of using mining lasers to harvest resources from asteroids, the extractor unit will let you teleport asteroids and chunks of asteroids onboard your ship, straight into your extractor unit. It will then automatically start harvesting. As the resource extractor fills up, boxes will appear on the hopper pad. Once the hopper is full, these boxes will need to be transferred to a cargo pad before the resource extractor can continue its work.

Once the asteroid is mined out, it will disappear and you will be able to teleport another asteroid aboard and begin the process anew. This will allow players to harvest resources while performing other tasks and exploring the universe.

This introduces another new addition to the game; the inventory system and the ability to pick up storage crates. Storage crates can hold one type of resource and a player can carry a couple of them at a time. Players can collect storage crates from the extractor’s hopper and place them on standard cargo pads. Each cargo pad can hold up to 8 storage crates.

Further down the line, we will continue to explore other options of mining. We are not saying mining lasers will never be in the game. As a matter of fact, considering multiplayer and asteroid scouting, it can definitely have be a very fun and interesting mechanic. Every feature in Interstellar Rift is an iterative process and we aim to actively search for the implementation of every mechanic that feels the best for the game.

We hope you enjoy these new additions and let us know what you think. What would you like to see added or changed. Your feedback is very valuable in these early stages, so don’t hesitate to voice your opinion on our forums.

There are only a couple more steps left on the road to alpha! So stay tuned and, as always, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest info and screenshots!

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Interstellar Rift Pre Alpha Teaser Trailer

Because we are going to present our game at the INDIGO event in Utrecht, we made a teaser trailer, check it out below.

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The Road Ahead – Interstellar Rift development update 014

Last week, we released a fix for the teleportation bug and in the process caused a few new ones. This is the reality of a game this early in development, fix one thing and break seven more. We’ve spent most of this past week fixing bugs and improving a few of the existing systems.

We have also added some new assets to the ship editor. Among these are a new wall, floor and the new cargo racks. We have also re-added the biodome to the editor. These new cargo racks are just for looks at the moment, but will become functional over the coming months.

Also, we figured you might enjoy a change of scenery, so we’ve changed the space environment a little. We’ve made the asteroids a little bigger, and added a very basic and early sun. Of course these are far from finished but we felt like changing things up and the new lighting will make it a little easier to see.

We’ve received quite a few questions about what’s in store since we gave you a sneak peek a month ago. Instead of answering each individual question we’ve made a roadmap that we want to share with you. This is what we’re planning to release in the coming months leading up to the alpha release. This map only displays the major milestones, of course we will be releasing general stability, performance and content updates along the way.

We hope you’re looking forward to the upcoming features as much as we are.

For more info please visit our forums or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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The great shining – Interstellar Rift development update 013

It’s that time again, two weeks sure fly by quick. This time we’ve spilled a rather large bottle of polishing agent all over our wonderful matte construction blocks. We’ve added support for specular maps, which means that the game will be 100% shinier.

Over the next several weeks you can expect us to keep adding more graphical features to the game now that our shader system and particle engine are coming online. But don’t worry, we havent just spent the last two weeks “polishing” the game. To celebrate our fancy new specular maps we’re adding new prop blocks for your ships or stations medical bay. As well as a series of cargo elevators that will let you move between two floors.

It’s not all content and polished floors this week. We’ve done a lot of bugfixing under the hood as well. we’ve made some changes to the ship storage code which should make your old ship compatible with newer versions of the game. Which means, no more crashes when pressing the power connection tool. This does however mean that you will need to re-connect the power on all your ships. but if we did this right, this will be the last time that is required.

Additionally, the next time you try to teleport to another ship you’ll notice that the teleporter interface is different. this is because you are now able to select to which teleporter on the target ship you go to. The teleporter will be named after the room it is placed in, to make it easier to identify where you wish to go. so don’t forget to name the rooms on your ship or station in the editor. With this new teleporter system you can also teleport within ships.

Exciting things are on the horizon, so stay tuned and, as always, see you in space!

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest info and development updates as they happen.

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A sample of things to come – Interstellar Rift development update 012

This weeks update includes quite a few menu upgrades. It is now more in line with the rest of the game and it offers a lot more space to place necessary settings. As such, you will find a few new settings to play with. The join game window has also been revised to match with what you’d expect from a server browser in most multiplayer games. While it is in no way complete, we feel its a step in the right direction and it should make joining servers easier and feel more familiar.

 

This week we’re also adding a new prop type with the tech II Ion Engine. This much larger engine has both an interior and an exterior component, this will eventually allow players to make repairs while in transit, unlike the tech one engines which will require a repair drone or a repair station.

We have received feedback, pointing out that the mirrored version of some exterior tiles were missing, and these new hull blocks have now been added. Mistakes like this are to be expected in a pre-alpha, but we are working to get the game as complete as we can, and feedback like this helps us to do it as fast as possible. Additionally, some missing quarter walkways components have been added to the game.

 

As an indie company, we like to support and get in touch with the industry as much as possible, so we went to gamescom to find out what’s up. Although we didn’t have our own stand or official presence this year, we met a lot of interesting people. We are very interested in the indie games industry, so let us know what you are working on.

Character customization

I’m sure you all really love our test character, but are eagerly awaiting the ability to change your character’s gender and appearance. We are planning to allow players to gather new armor pieces from the galaxy by looting, crafting and trading. Each armor piece will have its own module slots and stats. Here’s a preview of the Apollo armor set, designed by Anthony Scroggins. This is but one of the dozens of armor sets which players will be able to find in the game and mix and match with other sets to create the look that will make your character unique.

 

Graphical improvements

Also, behind the scenes, our programmers are working hard to improve the visuals of the game. One of the biggest challenges of building your own game engine is creating various special effects yourself and being able to take a specific twist on it so it meets the specifications of the game and the company as close as possible. Although it is not finished yet, we are working on a shader editor and particle engine, once these are completed we’ll be able to let the artists loose on those, which will greatly improve the way the game looks.

Here’s a teaser picture of the upcoming material system:

There are many more things to come, such as the procedural galaxy, enemies and a lot more. but we’ll reveal more about those when we get closer to implementing them.

For now, we hope you enjoy this new update and follow us on facebook and twitter for the latest info about Interstellar Rift