“Captain! I think it wants to communicate” Interstellar Rift development update 011

Last time, we let you guys get a first taste of multiplayer, and I must say that the results have been great. Seeing so many of you drop by the test server and exploring your ships has been a real treat for us here at the office. Of course there were bugs, like there are with any game at this stage. That said, there was something missing, something no multiplayer game should be without. We saw so many of you walk around and explore the test server but no one could talk to each other. And on the forums and through e-mail you have made your wishes perfectly clear.

So today we add chat to multiplayer. As well as a round of bugfixes that should fix most of the big issues in multiplayer, such as the characters which remained on the server even after the players had logged out.

Apart from that we’re also adding mass based ship controls. Based on your ships interior, the number of engines and the amount of maneuvering thrusters you place on your ship, your vessel will behave differently. The bigger your ship’s interior, the more engines and maneuvering thrusters you’ll need. Engines will provide your ship primarily with forward thrust and a slight amount of turning and strafe capability. While maneuvering thrusters will provide your ship solely with turning and strafe ability. Along with this, we have created a new space flight GUI to make things clear.

This is a very early incarnation and is going to be subject to a lot of tweaking. your feedback is very much appreciated.

As a final note, we have also put a new large hydrogen tank into the game and filled it to the brim with fuel.

Also, we’ve recently been getting a lot of questions from many different sources, asking: “When do you update the game?”.

We are currently on a bi-weekly update schedule, so every two weeks on Monday/Tuesday (depending on your location), we will release a patch. The next one is scheduled for August 18th/19th.

As always we appreciate your feedback and we look forward to seeing you guys and flying your creations on the servers.

This is the Split Polygon team, Signing off!

 

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To boldly go… Interstellar Rift Development Update 010

It has been an interesting 5 months. We went from building ships with the first release, to walking inside those ships and now we’re ready to release our biggest update to Interstellar Rift as of yet!

Two weeks ago we teased you with the prospect of multiplayer, this week we are ready to deliver! As of today the host game and find game buttons have become active. From now on you will be able to start your own multiplayer servers and join others from the server browser.
for the time being, all the multiplayer characters will be female as we are still slaving away on the male version.

You’ll be able to walk around onboard the starter station and spawn ships! Ships that you’ve built will be available at the ship construction terminal. Simply spawn them as you did before and wait a few seconds for the ship to spawn. Once it has appeared outside the station it will appear in the teleport list and everyone on the server will be able to teleport aboard.

But wait! there’s more! once you’re all aboard, go to the helm. (you will have to replace the helm on previously built ships, and power it) you’ll notice that you can now activate the helm. and yes, that is exactly what it means! hold on to your butts as space flight is now enabled in single and multiplayer! If you’ve connected your helm to a power source you’ll be able to fly your ship through the space environment we’ve created for you. Using the Tab key you’ll be able to switch between free flight and mouse flight, as well as third and first person viewpoint.

Now, this is a very early version of space flight, and many things will require iteration and tweaking over the coming months. At the moment, all ships handle the same way and travel at the same speed, regardless of their size shape and number of engines. This will be changing over time as space flight will incorporate ship mass, engine power, and thrust power into the flight model.

We are at a crucial moment where your feedback can help shape the future of Interstellar Rift, Please take a moment and let us know what you think of the ship controls and the current multiplayer incarnation.

Thank you and we hope to see you online!

 

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“Good things come in small packages” Interstellar Rift Development Update 009

Yes, it’s that time again. This week’s patch is on the modest side. We’re adding some new sounds, some old objects now have animations and we’ve added a brand new storage locker. In the future this locker can hold any number of items, from weapons and ammo to medkits and oxygen tanks. You’ll find it among the storage items in the Interstellar Rift Ship Editor.

 We also bring some good news for those of you who have been unable to play the pre-alpha thus far because of an outdated graphics card. We’ve added in backwards compatibility for OpenGL 3.2 and higher (instead of 4.0 and higher), if you have an older graphics card that supports this version of OpenGL you’ll now be able to play around with the Interstellar Rift ship builder and virtual tour mode. This has been the biggest source of game crashes in the past and with this new update we hope to enable you with older hardware to enjoy our game.

If you’re still have any trouble with this, feel free to drop us a message on the forums, and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

 As a new feature, we are adding 3d location based sounds to the game. Currently this only works in stereo, But we are working to add support for full 3d surround sound at a later date.

And now for a brief look into the future, as those familiar with our vision for Interstellar Rift know, this game will be heavily focused on multiplayer. And our biggest hurdle to get features implemented into the game has been this “multiplayer integration”. Every single device on your ship will need to communicate with the server and all new additions to the game will have to be integrated into our networking code. Sadly that also means progress is slow for seemingly small features right now.

And now for some good news, we’re close to getting the player character functionality ready for multiplayer testing. And that means very soon we’re going to let you invite your friends aboard your ship. note that in the beginning, this will only consist of running around and jumping but you’ll be running around and jumping with your friends inside your ship. We’re very close to having this ready for you guys but for now you’re going to have to make do with this silhouette of our test character.

If you’d like to know more, we pretty much have an AMA policy on our forums so please feel free to drop by, let us know what you think and what you’d like to see in the future.

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“Open Sesame!” Interstellar Rift Development Update 008

As you may have guessed from the title of this week’s update, we’re introducing functional doors!

That means: every single door in your ships will now require power if you want to pass through them. As with many of the features we’ve added these past few weeks, this represents another big step in adding engine functionality to the game. This time it’s the animation system that we’ve implemented, as with many of these engine features it is still in the early stages. Which means it will be expanded upon in the future, but for now, it will make sure doors open and close.

The second major update is the re-designed ship construction editor. While most of the editor still works as it used to, from now on, In Interior mode, you will only see the room which you currently have active. if you want to change active rooms simply move your mouse over to another room and press spacebar. With this new viewmode we hope to give you guys a better overview of what you’ve built, while also increasing editor performance.

A similar view will also be available for the power connection tool, when you activate the power connection mode you will now see your entire ship in blue ghost mode regardless of which buildplane you had active, with only the devices that generate and require power highlighted, including exterior solar panels. This will enable all you shipwrights to connect the devices more easily across your entire ship.

As always we would greatly appreciate any critique, comments and feedback you guys are willing to provide. and we hope you enjoy this latest patch

“Care for a snack?” – Interstellar Rift Development Update 007

Ladies and gentlemen! Come one, come all and have a taste of Higgs and Boson’s fine pastries’ latest creation! With great pride, we introduce the mass infusing Higgs Doughnut! Available now at your nearest “Hurles Co Vending Division” food dispenser.

This week is a rather light update as we introduce a few new props and interior decorations. Chief among them, the Hurles co. vending machine, and the new maneuvering thrusters. These thrusters can be placed on your hull and will eventually help steer your ship. Do pay attention to the direction they are facing, though. For it will affect their function once the ship flight update goes live.

Aside from the new props were are enabling power requirements for several systems. Most important among them, the teleporter. This means you will have to connect the teleporter or any of these other devices to a power generator. If they are not connected they simply will not function. That means you will be able to teleport to your ship but if it is not connected you won’t be able to teleport back.

The power connection tool has also gone through a few changes as we integrated it with our network systems. This has been partially based on your feedback and our own internal testing. This meant that we have had to change how the connection tool works. Rather than connecting everything to an input and output as before, you will now just have to click between the generator and the device you want to power.

Since you are not yet able to gather fuel, all fuel tanks are filled to infinity and you will not have to worry about running out of juice. That said, we are also reworking the values that these devices require and put out. So for the time being you can connect as many devices to a single generator as you wish. This will change soon however as we finish the design for this system.

We hope you enjoy this week’s update, and as always, any feedback you are willing to provide is much appreciated.

 

Interstellar Rift can be downloaded here.

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“You are here!” – Interstellar Rift Development update 006

Are you tired of getting lost on your own spaceship? Tired of trying to find the bathroom in the maze of corridors you’ve just erected? Well, trouble yourself no longer! The Interstellar Rift internal map system will allow you to quickly find where you are aboard your ship.

Firstly, we added the much requested large helm. This new bridge module has three seats. two for the pilot and navigator and one for the captain. We look forward to seeing what cool new ships you make with this new piece.

 

With version 0.0.7 we’re introducing the first part of the internal sensor grid. Starting today, the AGOS. wall and desk terminals have been made active. For the time being, you will only be able to access the “Systems”, which will bring you to the internal map of the ship you are currently on.

Using the up and down buttons you’re able to switch between different floors. The third button will center the map on your position. Eventually, the interior icons will have tool tips that display the status of the ship systems when you click on them. The map will enable us to do a lot of cool stuff in the future such as monitor where your crew is aboard your ship, seal doors, vent the atmosphere from certain compartments and much more.

We’re also chugging along on the network code behind the scenes. While these features are not yet relevant for you guys, they are very important for the longevity of the game going forward. This week we’ve started on device network sync. We’re also re-tooling some of the device connection mechanics based on your feedback and our own internal testing.

Here’s a little sneak preview of the upcoming Device Connection System (and new font renderer), coming to you in a future update:

We hope you enjoy this weeks update and as always, drop us a line in the forums, facebook or twitter.

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All Aboard! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 005

The first real steps into on-board machines! Try out the new Ship Editor Terminal and hop around using the Teleporters.

This week’s update brings you the first milestone on the space lane to the implementation of working space flight. The next time you launch the game you will start aboard a standard starting station. To check out your ships you’ll now have to go to the Ship Editor Terminal and select the ship you want to use. When you press the “Start Construction” button, your newly constructed ship will appear in space next to the Starter Station. To board your new ship simply walk over to a teleporter and activate it by pressing “E”. After selecting the ship you wish to teleport to, you will instantly be teleported. In v0.0.6, Teleporters have no power requirement as of yet. We just want to make sure they work as advertised before we hook them up to the powergrid.

We have updated the way the ship editor works as well. The Ship editor can now also be accessed from the Ship Editor terminal in-game in addition to accessing it from the main menu. We have also taken some advice from you guys and changed the way deleting props works. Now, when you right click on a prop it will only delete that prop, and not the entire room. The room tile will only be deleted once the selected room tile is empty.

We had to change the folder in which the game saves it’s config and ship files. This is because some users (especially those on windows 8) experienced problems saving their ships.
To preserve your existing ships, copy them into %appdata%/roaming/InterstellarRift.

As usual, these systems are still early in development and your feedback is much appreciated. Please feel free to drop by our forums and let us know what you think. A Split polygon Employee will be along shortly to answer any questions you might have.

 

Interstellar Rift v0.0.6 can be downloaded here.

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Space rocks and patchers – Development Update 004

We’re a little later than usual, but once again we come bearing goodies. As of today Interstellar Rift will be using a launcher with a built-in patcher. This way you’ll just have to start the game and wait for it to find and install updates. No more downloading rar files and guessing which file you need to run, just open the launcher and click play when it has finished updating.

We are also bringing a test asteroid field into the game. Just take a look out of the window of your ship. Now, these asteroids aren’t just for show. Each one is synced over the local network. For the player this syncing doesn’t do much as of yet. So if multiple players would join they would see the asteroids the same way, in preparation for one of the coming networking updates. We’re venturing into some new and exciting territory here with these asteroids and other space based objects. But in the end we believe it’ll result in a space game unlike any other out there.

But wait, there’s more! In the last patch, we introduced the first phase of the power systems. This time we’ve made a few changes and added in the ability to save them. So from now on you don’t have to worry about losing all your work when you’ve set up a very fuel efficient ship. There are more things that we’ll be adding to this system in the next few updates, and we have some ideas on how to improve it, so please give us your thoughts and any feedback you’re willing to give will help us to greatly improve this system.

Interstellar Rift v0.0.5 can be downloaded here.

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Interstellar Rift Vidblog 002

We recorded a small video to talk a bit about the new power distribution system and how you can connect systems. These new additions to the game are not in any way complete and will have bugs and issues. In the coming updates we will build on this system and slowly open up the possibilities to control your ship.

You can download the latest version of the ship builder here.

Please let us know what you think, you can discuss the changes on our forums.

Interstellar Rift Development Update 003

Another two weeks have passed and its time to update again. We have lots of stuff going on under the hood this time, networking is where the focus is right now, and we will be sharing more information about this soon. But we have some new features for you guys to play around with as well. This fortnight, we bring you sound! Thats right, we have some early music in this week! Composed by Pim ”Sir Xemic” Schreurs. For the moment it’s just the one song, but expect more to come in the near future as we build on our sound engine and start supporting more audio.

 

Apart from sound, we’re also introducing the basics of power distribution and system connectivity. This system is a very early work in progress, but we want to get it into your hands and see what you think about it right out of the gate. This system needs refining and might change a lot over the coming weeks and months but we want you guys to be comfortable using it, since it’s going to be the backbone of your starship.

We’re also adding support for multi block props, this feature is necessary for tech II and higher ship systems and certain large props. This automatically creates room space for the placed prop. This will also enable us to place things like the hyperdrive we showed you in the devblog without it poking through the hull on all sides. For this update however we have only added the tech II hydrogen generator. But expect a lot more to come soon.

You can find the new editor available for download here. We appreciate any input and critique you guys are willing to share.