Are you sick and tired of finding your ship all banged up after a good night’s sleep. or waking up to an empty cargo hold? Well fear no longer! Introducing the Vaultron Store-o-Tron Ship storage kiosk!
So this week we are introducing a somewhat smaller update than usual because this patch has to go out a little early. On the starter station you will find a new Kiosk brightly labeled as the Store-o-Tron. This new kiosk will enable you to put your ship into safe storage, so when you are logged out you can rest assured that your ship will not be damaged or destroyed.
In order to store a ship, it will have to be within 500 meters of the starter station.
Like the vault the ship storage kiosk is only available under dev models and requires unobtanium.
it is not intended for player construction use.
This week we will also be at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, showcasing Interstellar Rift at the holland pavilion in the business area. So for all of you attending gamescom, if you see us walking the floor feel free to say hi. You’ll recognize us by the Interstellar Rift t-shirts. This also means that in the coming week we’ll be a little less active on the forums.
Note: As an admin, if there are stored ships in the Store-o-Tron on your server please note that if you rebuild your server via the admin menu all stored ships will be deleted. We will update the kiosk so it survives server resets in the near future.
We hope you’ll enjoy this patch and if you want to see previews of things to come, follow us on Twitter, Facebook or drop by our own or our steam forums.
Raise shields! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 035
Death, destruction and all of that good stuff. Ship destruction hits Interstellar Rift in patch 0.1.2!
As of today, asteroid mining has become a whole lot more dangerous. Asteroids impacting your ship will now cause damage and if you’re not careful it will destroy your ship and everything and everyone on it. But don’t worry too much, we do have some new defensive technology ready to help protect you.
Introducing the Sentinel Security Systems Shield Generators. These new shield generators will allow you to protect your ship from incoming damage. When an object impacts your shield bubble, it will decrease its strength for a moment and deflect whatever object hit you. Then it will quickly regenerate back up to full strength. Shields require a constant power supply in order to remain operational. Therefore we recommend that you do not run your shields at full strength when you are not near an asteroid field or not playing a destruction derby with another ship.
If the shield strength falls to zero, it will take a while before the shields regenerate enough again to form a bubble. When your shields are down and an object impacts your ship you will start to take hull damage, hull damage does not regenerate. The only way to repair your ship for the time being, will be to salvage it and rebuild it.
With this patch, we will also be introducing particles. The only particle effect we are shipping in this patch will be the explosions when ships receive fatal damage. In the future we will be adding more particle effects in both interior as well as exterior to make the game feel a whole lot more spectacular.
The introduction of the new power system in the previous patch was missing a device, a proper battery. So we are adding these as well. The battery works in such a way that it’s actually a battery and it discharges its power slowly rather than all at once which is what the power cells did before. This means you can leave your ship to charge its power cells for a while and you’ll be able to fly it for a while until the power cells are empty. So in theory solar powered ships should once again be somewhat viable.
We hope you enjoy this Interstellar Rift patch and if you want to know more feel free to drop by our Steam Forums our own Forums or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Electrifying – Interstellar Rift Development Update 034
Today we are releasing the much coveted powergrid revamp. This is a major change as to how ships are powered and how devices behave under low power conditions.
For example, your ship produces 1500 power but your consumption is at 1700. That means that devices will function at a lower efficiency. Engines will not produce their maximum thrust output unless they are fully powered. The amount of thrust will be relative to the amount of power they receive. In a future patch we will be adding proper power management features such as the ability to divert power from one system to another.
This new power system has many benefits. One of the main advantages is that it is far more efficient, meaning the server should be able to handle far more ships and ships and stations with lots and lots of devices. Players in the past have made gigantic space stations that were almost completely powered by solar panels. When spawned, these stations would lag the entire server. The new power grid should alleviate this problem substantially. Keep in mind though, that solar panels are meant as a supplement to your generators, not a replacement. Be prepared to put a lot of solar panels on your ship or station if you want to go green.
Power cells have also been updated and are now required to help keep your ship at a more stable power level. For example when a teleporter is used, it instantly takes a big bite out of your available power, usually more than generators and solar panels can generate. Charged power cells act as a buffer between the device and your generators which handle large power spikes like this accordingly.
Another very notable effect of the new power system is that devices don’t need to charge anymore. Before today’s update, every device had its own power buffer which needed to be charged before the device would operate. This caused devices to appear underpowered where in fact they were waiting for other devices to be charged. The new power system only powers devices when they are used and divides its power equally over all those devices.
The new power system makes it a lot more predictable compared to its predecessor. This allows us to put some information in the ship editor indicating how much power a ship generates, how much it drains and how big your spikes can possibly get. This should give you an idea on how your ship is going to perform. In the G.R.I.P. and on terminals you should now find some graphs which can be used to find out how much power is drained when certain devices are being used.
We’ve also done a balance pass on the power consumption of several devices. So dont be surprised to find that your ships go faster or slower than you’re used to. Additionally, we have added some new control functions like mouse sensitivity and mouse Y-axis inversion.
We’ve also fixed most of the performance problems that were plaguing the map. When you activate the regular or cargo teleporter your performance should no longer be affected as much by the loading the map.
We hope you’ll enjoy this update, and as always, if you want to know more feel free to ask us anything on our Forums, the Steam forums or follow us on Facebook and twitter.
Welcome to Early Access! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 033
Early Access! We’ve done it, we’re here! Split Polygon’s first game Interstellar Rift is now available on Steam Early Access! To celebrate we’ve made another trailer for everyone to enjoy
As of today interstellar Rift will work exclusively with Steam. This means that the Interstellar Rift account which you used to play the pre-alpha is now no longer usable. You’ll need a valid steam account that has Interstellar Rift attached to it in order to access the game. This also means there is no longer a log in menu at the bottom of the screen in the main menu.
With today’s Release we are implementing a couple of new features such as creative mode.
You will now be able to host a server or start a solo game with creative mode enable. This allows you to test your ship designs without the need to gather the necessary resources. To enable this feature simply check the box in the host game menu or the solo game menu.
In addition, we have improved the ship and asteroid interpolation which means that asteroids and ships no longer jitter when they move. And as of this patch the character sits in the pilot chair when piloting a ship.
In the coming weeks/months we will be focusing on further expanding the game in the same manner that you’ve come to expect from us. And update every two weeks and a hotfix whenever necessary.
The first big feature coming in two weeks will be the power grid revamp. This redesign will significantly increase performance for ships and stations that have a large amount of devices installed. Instead of working like a valve system where one device is charged at a time, every device connected to a power source will charge at the same time.
Not long after the updated power grid we will be implementing shield generators and then finally combat!
We know you’re probably tired of hearing this but just one more time for old time’s sake. Thank you! We wouldn’t be here without the support from you guys!
It has been an awesome year, in no small part thanks to you guys. Back in March of 2014, we made a simple little ship editor available for everyone to try. Back then, we took a risk and stepped off what everyone thought was the normal way to release games. For over a year, we took your feedback and support and used it to turn that little ship editor into a more fully fledged game. Although an open development cycle seemed a little daunting at first, releasing the game for free and updating it every two weeks with direct input from the community has been invaluable to us. And if this past year is any indication, we have no doubt that with your help Interstellar Rift will continue to grow and expand.
But today is not about us, it is about you! As a token of our gratitude for your support, we are pleased to present everyone who has registered an account and has played the game between November 11th 2014 and June 2nd 2015 with a Steam copy of Interstellar Rift. Thank you all!
To claim your Steam copy, you can head over to this page:
Simply log in with your Interstellar Rift Account and you will be given a key which you can apply to your Steam Account.
We sincerely hope you’ll stick with us as we bring Interstellar Rift into the next stage of its development. The next few months are going to bring some very interesting features into the game such as combat and trade.
The final frontier – Interstellar Rift development update 032
Today is a red letter day. This will be the final update for the free pre-alpha version of Interstellar Rift. The past year has been a giant experiment for us, releasing the game in a barely playable state. Initially with just the ship editor, then the ability to walk around a few weeks later right up to the point where players were flying their star ships around in multiplayer. Now we are ready to take the next step. As some of you already know, Split Polygon is a team of 5 who work on Interstellar Rift in their spare time. This has granted us a lot of creative freedom, but also has some drawback. We want Split Polygon to grow and become more dedicated to creating innovative video games and pushing the limits of technology, with Interstellar Rift leading the charge. In order to achieve this goal we have decided to bring Interstellar Rift to Steam Early Access.
A move that would have been impossible without the support of you, our awesome and growing community. Thanks to your efforts we made it through Steam Greenlight in just a few days, and your feedback has been invaluable to get Interstellar rift into the state it is today. From the bottom of our hearts, Thank you!
In the coming months you will see the same if not a greater level of commitment from us that you’ve come to expect over the past year, with updates every two weeks and an “ask us anything” policy all the time. Now that the core of the game is working it’s time to start adding more of the fun stuff. Soon you will start seeing features like combat and trade make their way into the game.
Some of the things you can expect us to implement in the coming months are:
Combat – Both in space and on foot. players will be able to take on each other in dogfights, and firefights on stations and inside ships. Or multi ship fleet engagements.
Trading – Players will be able to sell their mined resources to to stations and players for credits.
Revamped inventory – We are going to add the inventory to the grip to better accommodate player items and redesign the way you carry cargo.
Player items – Players will be able to purchase, craft and loot items such as weapons, medpacks, oxygen tanks and more.
Multiple star systems – Players will be able to jump between star systems using their jump drive. The further away from the starting system you go the more dangerous it becomes.
Procedural galaxy – Every star system will be generated in a unique way ensuring an infinite galaxy to explore.
Character customization – Players will be able to craft, buy and loot new player armor pieces, you will also be able to choose a gender and color your armor pieces.
*the above list is in no particular order
Aside from the Early Access announcement, we also bring a patch. This week, we’re adding respawning on ships, some editor Improvements and login and out on the same location. When you log out and log back in you will now be in the same location. No longer will you find your ship lost in limbo with no way to quickly get back after you log out.
The other big new feature is the Logicorp Molecular Assembler, this new device replaces the old non functional respawner tube. This device will allow you to respawn on your own ship or the starter station when you die so long as the device is powered. So make sure you install the new Logicorp Molecular Assembler on all your ships.
You’ll also notice the escape menu is completely revamped. Instead of a popup, it is now integrated in the GRIP. Here, you’ll also find a respawn button. This is a stopgap measure to prevent players from getting stuck on their ship. Once we have more systems online there will be better ways to prevent players from getting stuck on their ships.
We’ve also added some small visual improvements to the editor, new indicators will now show you where you can and can’t place certain interior tiles as well as a grid highlight. In the hull editor you can also see the pivot of certain blocks so you’ll know at what point they rotate.
This has been a great year and we are eagerly looking forward to what the future holds.
In the following weeks we will be making another big announcements leading up to the release.
If you have any questions regarding Interstellar Rift and our move to steam early access please don’t hesitate to ask us, you can reach us through the forums Twitter, Facebook or you reach us through our new Ask.fm
Thank you!
The Split Polygon Team
A teleportation conundrum – Interstellar Rift development update – 031
Today we are implementing teleporters in a way they were originally intended. The regular teleporters that have been in the game since we first launched the pre-alpha over a year ago now have a range of 500 meters. This means you will no longer be able to teleport from the starter station to the mining station using these teleporters. Instead, we are adding the long range teleporter. This new device has required us to slightly redesign the concourse of the starter station and the arrival bay on the mining station to accommodate for this new teleporter. The long range teleporter has a range of 12.5 kilometers and requires more power and also a new resource, silicon to build. When activating the console it will also display how much power is needed to teleport to that location.
In addition to teleporter ranges, we are also changing how teleporters work. Over the past year many of you have asked us why the control console is on the outside of the teleporter. The answer is, because the teleporter was not working the way we intended. Now, once you have chosen a destination, you have 5 seconds to step onto the teleporter pad and then it teleports anybody present on the pad at the same time. The long range teleporter works in a similar manner.
We are also adding additional asteroid fields, and these new fields are where you can find silicon and asteroids with higher yields of the other resources. The contents and position of these asteroid fields are randomised, so every new galaxy you start will be different. In the future we plan to expand this system when we implement the procedural galaxy to include more resources, and different types of asteroids, amongst other things to explore.
Another feature we are rolling out this patch is a new set of hand animations in first person which will display what item you currently have selected. We hope this will make it clearer when you are holding something and when you can and cannot place something in a device or on a cargo pad.
In March 2013 we first unveiled and released the pre-alpha build for Interstellar Rift to the public. Then last March you helped us get through Steam Greenlight by voting for us and launching us into the top 100 in just eight days. And now we are ready to announce the next step in Interstellar Rift’s development. Steam Early Access! We are ready to bring Interstellar Rift out of pre-alpha and into proper alpha stage in late June. This is a big step for both the game and us as a studio. We thank you for your support in helping us get this far and we hope you will keep supporting us in the future.
Prepare for Ramming speed! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 030
At last! Today marks the biggest update in terms of code since the day we first introduced multi-player to Interstellar Rift. Today we implement double precision, which will fix the bug which has become known as the glitch lands. No longer will your ships hull begin twitching when you get more than 10 kilometres away from the starter station. From now on you will be able to fly for a grand total of 0.28 light years from the starter station before that bug rears it’s ugly head again. This will allow us to start filling up space with stuff for players to interact with.
Asteroid Physics
Our second major feature, and this is a big one, is space physics. As of today you will no longer be able to fly straight through objects. While it’s implementation is not 100% done yet, our revolutionary implementation will allow for thousands of moving asteroids, players and other space objects to interact with each other on a single server. These new features were the last major roadblocks standing in the way of real ship to ship interaction, and were necessary for things like space combat, large star systems, warp, space anomalies and much more.
for the time being, all space objects will have a simple box or sphere collision shape. In future patches these will change to more accurately represent the shape of the object. But at least for now you won’t be able to move through objects anymore. Your ship won’t take damage yet though, that’s also coming in a future patch, but for now these new systems open the doors to many new features.
As a result of our new space physics systems, space ship controls are now physics driven. In practice you won’t notice much of this yet apart from your old ships being faster or slower depending on their mass. Also their handling will be slightly different as ships will now drift accordingly based on their thruster power and mass. Ships will still automatically stop themselves. The new ship controls will be more refined in future patches.
For us this is a major milestone and are very pleased with what these new features now enable us to do. As always please enjoy this patch, and let us know what you think. You can do so by following us on Twitter, Liking us on Facebook or visiting our Forums.
House cleaning! – Interstellar Rift Development Update 029
We’ve had some small features which were gathering dust so we decided to dedicate this patch to implement them and polish up some others.
First up when the oxygen in a room drops below 10%, an indicator on the hud will now alert you that you are in a low oxygen environment. In addition, we’ve increased the amount of oxygen in your suit. It now gives you more of a fighting chance to escape low oxygen situations.
low oxygen warning
For a while now we’ve been aware that the upgrade button on the ship construction terminal has been malfunctioning and is confusing. So instead we’ve removed the upgrade button and replaced it with salvage. Using the salvage button will destroy your ship and refund all resources of a ship along with the cargo on board. You can only salvage ships that you built yourself. Resources will go into the vault or onto available cargo pads aboard the salvaging ship or station. If no space for cargo and no vault is available, resources will be lost.
We also found that some screens were confusing, especially on larger devices which could be activated by clicking anywhere on the device. Screens now work on proximity, meaning they will automatically activate when they are approached.
Lastly, we have upgraded the exterior a bit, windows now have a blue-ish colour and reflect outer space.
Reflective windows on the mining station
A word about the future.
Over the past several months we’ve received a lot of questions about what’s coming up in Interstellar Rift. It’s time to peel back the curtain a little and tell you about some of our upcoming features.
Space physics
This is a big and much requested feature, sadly it is also a very complicated one. Although we have been working on this very hard and there is a lot of progress, we are not ready to show anything to the public just yet, so please be a little more patient.
Combat
This is the big one. Yes we are going to have it, and it may be coming sooner than you think. The first thing we are going to implement is first person combat. Soon players will be able to use our upcoming item crafting system to construct a plasma pistol and ammo cartridges. More weapons are planned in future patches.
As always we hope you’ll enjoy this new patch and we hope you’ll let us know what you think. You can do so via our Forums, or Twitter and Facebook.
Take a Deep Breath – Interstellar Rift Development Update 028
Today we’re adding the first of many survival mechanics to Interstellar Rift. That’s right folks, as the title suggests, take a deep breath because from now on ships and stations will require a functioning life support system in order for players to remain alive on board your vessel.
In order to make a ship habitable, players will need to install at least one life support system aboard the ship and put at least one air vent inside each room. Life support systems require a supply of oxygen to function, which can be refined along with hydrogen from Water in a refinery. Oxygen will only be consumed if a player is inside the room, and the more players inhabit that room the faster the oxygen will be consumed. The Player’s suit provides a limited supply of oxygen, however this will deplete rapidly. This supply will be replenished if the player enters a room filled with oxygen. When the suit’s oxygen supply runs out, the player will take damage.
Player death is currently in a very early state and if you die you’ll immediately respawn at the starter station. In a future patch players will respawn inside the respawner vats.
Life support will also require maintenance. the life support system will distribute oxygen throughout the ship, but it will also filter out waste. This waste will be collected in a separate crate which will have to be removed from the life support system periodically. This carbon container will have to be collected and either stored or ejected from the ship. In a future patch we plan to make the carbon waste useful as a crafting material.
In addition to the life support system we’ve also updated the small single seater helm to a small double seater helm. with an updated design to be more in line with our other helm modules.
As always we hope you’ll enjoy this new patch and we hope you’ll let us know what you think. You can do so via our Forums, or Twitter and Facebook.
