[Aspettando] Space Engineers - sandbox, engineering, construction, manteinance

[Axios2006]

Update 01.068 – Camera zoom, Damage effect for blocks

Summary
Blocks now have particle effect when they are damaged either by shooting or drilling. The effect is visible when the damage is below the red line and it differs according to the type of block that is damaged (armor blocks do not have any effects). Also, we implemented camera zoom – by using the mouse wheel while in camera mode. Additionally, tool shaking has been added to world settings (enabled by default for new worlds, disabled in existing worlds). This can enable the shake when grinders or drills are used. This shake is also applied on the object that is being ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6qV3TxuC5w

Features
- camera zoom
- damage effect for blocks
- tool shaking (can be enabled via edit settings)
- MOD API added generated documentation (C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\SpaceEngineers\Tools\Documentation.chm)
- MOD API added interfaces to load and create voxel maps
- MOD API added possibility to start/stop damage effects from scripts

Fixes
- fixed collector physics issues
- fixed sensor detecting every ship as enemy
- fixed bug with audio being played during loading screen
- fixed one case of exploding rotors
- fixed wrong mouse position in programmable block
- fixed issue with Storage not saving in programmable block
- fixed voxel hands painting is not visible on other client

Known issue: text panel display is white (we're fixing it)

[Axios2006]

Update 01.069 – New armor block types, Armor and asteroid modding

Summary
New types of armor blocks have been added - rounded and angled. Moreover, we have expanded the modding possibilities to armor and voxels (asteroids). You can find more info in the modding guides linked below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEYZGatrsDA

Features
- new armor block types: rounded, angled
- armor modding
- asteroid modding

Guides
Armor: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=391202025
Asteroid: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=391149836

Fixes
- fixed crash when starting DS when using faction chat
- fixed some instances of welding issues (still work-in-progress)
- fixed some instances of launchers exploding themselves up (please let us know, if it worked)
- fixed damaged armor blocks not rendering properly

[Axios2006]

Roadmap Space Engineers 2015

In breve: da asteroidi di 400 - 500 metri si passa a pianeti di decine / centinaia di kilometri.

Atmosfera, piante, ossigeno sulle grandi astronavi.

Conversione del gioco a DX11, nuovo rendering, texture dettagliate e scalabili. (DX9 sempre disponibile)

Motore fisico Havok multithread.

Tutto ovviamente soggetto a possibili cambiamenti.

-----------------------------------------

http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/02/sp...irectx_18.html

Space Engineers: Planets, oxygen, DirectX 11, optimizations and multi-player

People keep asking us "what is the next big feature to be added to Space Engineers". As at the moment the major part of our plan focuses on long-term goals (which will take months to finish), and we don’t want to keep people in the dark, we’ve decided to reveal some of them.

Before I continue, let me emphasize that everything I say in this blog post is subject to change. The process of game development at our studio goes through multiple stages (idea, concept, development, testing, feedback, more development…) and during the later stages it’s likely that some of the earlier stages get changed due to feedback and the experience that we gain later.

Planets and oxygen
When we started working on Space Engineers we were not sure whether we wanted to add oxygen and planets. We didn’t know if people wanted us to go this direction and we also didn’t know how challenging it would be to develop. But now we see that it’s one of the most requested features and we are also confident that we can deliver it.

First we will focus on oxygen in space ships (grids). The algorithm will traverse through the volumetric grid, check if there’s a closed or open area, and if the oxygen can expand or stay contained. We may use solutions already developed for conveyors (it’s an obvious graph traversal / flood-fill algorithm).

The next stage will be planets, which will basically be asteroids ranging in sizes from tens to hundreds of kilometers across. We need to be careful with the expensive procedural generator here and the simplest optimization is to avoid generating terrain for volumes that are too far from the planetary surface (because they are almost always full or almost always empty and there’s no need to run the generator there).

Then we will need to add some sort of terraforming: oxygen generator, trees, grass, etc.

One of the open questions we haven’t decided yet is how to place station blocks on planets. If we keep our axis-aligned approach and the player starts building a station at some place on the planet and then keep adding blocks to it, soon the blocks will deviate from planet’s spherical surface. One idea is to allow rotation of the base block and so the player could align the station with the spherical planetary surface. The other idea is to add a new type of block grid: one based on spherical coordinates.

Also, we still don’t know if oxygen will just be an aesthetical function. We need to come up with the advantages that players without helmets or suits would have - something that can only be done if the character has no space suit. Otherwise nobody will take off their helmet and the whole point of air in spaceships will be lost. On the other hand, we can’t penalize players in suits because that’s how almost everyone plays the game now.

A natural landscape generator, trees, grass and sky are already finished - thanks to Medieval Engineers.


DirectX 11 and optimizations
During the development of Medieval Engineers we created a brand new DirectX 11 renderer. Its main feature is PBR (physically based rendering) that allows us to define surface textures with very realistic appearances.

EDIT: Older DX9 renderer will stay in place (for those who don't have DX11 hardware)

Additional benefits:
multi-threaded rendering
more efficient processing of generated geometry (e.g. grass)
smooth LOD (level of detail) transitions based on screen-space object dithering (no popping)

This new renderer will soon come to Space Engineers. Our artists have already started work on finishing our 3D models up to their final quality (you may have noticed that most of the models in Space Engineers are just temporary concepts, low-poly, no textures).

We are keeping the original art style and just making the models prettier. During this change we will also reduce unnecessary polygons and add multiple models for LOD optimizations (LOD means that objects in the distance are rendered in a lower quality). The positive thing is that we can keep working on this iteratively, block after block.

Multi-core physics and optimizations
Havok is a physics engine developed by Intel and we use it in Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers.

Havok is able to utilize multiple CPU cores for its physics calculations. At present our games don’t support this and some work on our side is required to rectify this.

We will need to handle callbacks from Havok to our game, so that when they are triggered from different threads they will not cause any problems. For example, when Havok detects any contact between two physical bodies, it sends a message to our game so that it can play a sound or render a particle effect.

The other big piece of work will be extending thread safety in voxel polygonization and procedural generation. Right now this runs asynchronously (so the game doesn’t lag when large terrains are requested), which can be a problem in situations where Havok needs real geometry to calculate potential collisions between objects that suddenly approach each other.

Benefits of multi-core physics:
faster calculations = less lag in critical situations
ability to compute more objects in a world, e.g. massive count of debris during structural integrity collapse in Medieval Engineers

Multi-player
The bottom layer of our networking engine relies heavily on Steam networking and we can’t use this on the Xbox One port of Space Engineers.

The new networking library we chose allows us to better control message and channel priorities and reduce multiplayer lag and waiting periods.

This upgrade comes thanks to our decision to port Space Engineers to Xbox One and in future will lead to increased platform independency of our game engine.

---

Thank you for reading this!

[AuxPlinsky]

non mi è chiarissimo al momento cosa c'è da fare in game
parlo della modalità survival:
sono in un mondo persistente con altri giocatori tipo mmo dove mi devo procacciare le risorse per sopravvivere e posso costruire basi/astronavi per esplorare l'universo ed eventualmente entrare in conflitto o allearmi con altri giocatori con tutte le implicazioni del caso?

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da AuxPlinsky

non mi è chiarissimo al momento cosa c'è da fare in game
parlo della modalità survival:
sono in un mondo persistente con altri giocatori tipo mmo dove mi devo procacciare le risorse per sopravvivere e posso costruire basi/astronavi per esplorare l'universo ed eventualmente entrare in conflitto o allearmi con altri giocatori con tutte le implicazioni del caso?

Esatto.

[AuxPlinsky]

se muoio che succede?
la mappa quanto è grande?
quanti players per server?

[IL_mante]

1-se muori respawni alla più vicina postazione medica oppure in una mininavetta con le costruzioni base in un punto a caso nella mappa
2- 3- dipende da chi ha creato la mappa che impostazioni ha scelto, se la mappa la crei tu e inviti altra gente puoi deciderlo tu

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da AuxPlinsky

se muoio che succede?
la mappa quanto è grande?
quanti players per server?

Se muori ed hai una sala medica di tua proprietà, respawni lì. Altrimenti in una scialuppa
di salvataggio in un punto distante della mappa. A tua discrezione aver approntato gps e / o un faro spaziale (beacon) per ritrovare la tua roba.

La mappa dipende da chi ha impostato il server: da 4 asteroidi in 10 km cubici a mappe con infiniti asteroidi da un 1,000,000,000 km di diametro.

32-64 in base al server. A volte anche di più.

[AuxPlinsky]

no ok ma si trovano server con quanti players al massimo?
la costruzione fine a se stessa non mi interessa quindi volevo capire se sono previsti ed eventualmente esistono già server tipo altri survival come rust/dayz dove appunto devi procacciarti le risorse per sopravvivere costruirti una base e invitabilmente vieni in contatto con altri players

è una cosa del genere ambientata nello spazio?

[AuxPlinsky]

Originariamente inviato da Axios2006

Se muori ed hai una sala medica di tua proprietà, respawni lì. Altrimenti in una scialuppa
di salvataggio in un punto distante della mappa. A tua discrezione aver approntato gps e / o un faro spaziale (beacon) per ritrovare la tua roba.

La mappa dipende da chi ha impostato il server: da 4 asteroidi in 10 km cubici a mappe con infiniti asteroidi da un 1,000,000,000 km di diametro.

32-64 in base al server. A volte anche di più.

ok quindi si direbbe il "classico" survival ambientato nello spazio forse con un focus maggiore sulle costruzioni o comunque con la possibilità di costruire molto varia e ampia
sembrerebbe interessante e già ampiamente giocabile e ricco di contenuti

[AuxPlinsky]

se lo gioco con altri amici ho la possibilità di respawnare vicini gli uni con gli altri fin dal primo istante di gioco?

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da AuxPlinsky

se lo gioco con altri amici ho la possibilità di respawnare vicini gli uni con gli altri fin dal primo istante di gioco?

No, a meno che non costruiate tutti la stazione medica vicino.

E poi all'inizio mica si è tutti accanto. Bisogna trovarsi col gps.

[AuxPlinsky]

ok grazie

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da AuxPlinsky

ok quindi si direbbe il "classico" survival ambientato nello spazio forse con un focus maggiore sulle costruzioni o comunque con la possibilità di costruire molto varia e ampia
sembrerebbe interessante e già ampiamente giocabile e ricco di contenuti

No. È un gioco prevalentemente di costruzioni con una componente survival limitata: il pg non ha fame, sete, basta ricaricare la tuta di energia e salute in pochi secondi nella sala medica.

Con Rust e DayZ non ha nulla in comune.

Qui il fulcro è costruire mega strutture o piccoli droni. Ore a costruire e 2 min per demolire tutto in battaglia e poi ore a raccattare i pezzi e ricostruire.

Comunque dovrebbe esserci questo week end o il prossimo un week end free su STEAM.

[AuxPlinsky]

ah bene adesso è più chiaro

[Axios2006]

FREE Weekend da oggi alle 19:00

https://steamdb.info/sub/61131/

[AuxPlinsky]

ottimo lo provo sicuramente anche se probabilmente non è il mio genere

[IL_mante]

in teoria avendo già scroccato un free weekend dovrei avere ancora i dati di gioco dall'altra volta giusto? dovrò scaricare i vari aggiornamenti..

il gioco mi piace vediamo quanto è cambiato dalla volta scorsa, non era scoccata la scintilla (solo una scossettina piccina)

[Axios2006]

Originariamente inviato da IL_mante

in teoria avendo già scroccato un free weekend dovrei avere ancora i dati di gioco dall'altra volta giusto? dovrò scaricare i vari aggiornamenti..

il gioco mi piace vediamo quanto è cambiato dalla volta scorsa, non era scoccata la scintilla (solo una scossettina piccina)

Basta che inizi una nuova partita.... alcuni update hanno cambiato la gestione degli asteroidi.

[Axios2006]

Update 01.070 – LCD panel, new type of round armor

Summary
We added a new variant of the rounded armor blocks which will not merge with the grid around them, you can use them for more acute connections of rounded and normal armor blocks. Additionally, the LCD panel block is now available. It has the possibility to actually show text or texture on its own screen. It can also display custom textures created by the players.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3WjlvdAGDY

Features
- LCD panel
- new exploration ships
- added new type of round armor
- improved normal maps of current round blocks
- mod API update for text panel

Fixes
- fixed crash when trying to load workshop item for wrong appid
- fixed rounded blocks are not built correctly in survival
- fixed sound block exception in programming blocks that caused crash
- fixed stuck in death after conversion of a survival world to a creative while character was dead
- fixed Havok crash
- fixed "GetBlockWithName" Thruster exception in programming block that caused crash

Warning: LCD panel reset when merged with another grid or when ground down and merged again - it is a bug. It is also a known issue - please do not report it. Workaround is to switch panel OFF and ON again and the correct text/texture appears. Armor LODs are changing at short distance, it is also known. We will be fixing these issues as soon as possible.