DevSlog

Mod Support in SpaceSlog | Devlog #2

Produno

In this update video we focus on the importance of mod support in SpaceSlog plus various other ramblings.

Being the creator of a popular Game of Thrones mod i know creating mods can be time consuming and can be met with certain restrictions. Modding is fun, and for some the fun part can be overcoming such restrictions. For SpaceSlog we aim to remove as many of those restrictions as possible, allowing people to create the exact modification they wish.

My work within the modding scene over the last decade has also influenced the reasons why i want SpaceSlog to be as fully modifiable as possible. We go into these reasons a little bit in the video and show whats currently possibly. We also talk a little bit about what we expect for the future. Of course all of this comes down to the scope of the game and how long we can actually spend on development. Which also depends on how popular the game will be, or if at all.

Information

Forums Update and Youtube.

Produno

To provide the best security and experience we were required to upgrade our forums to the latest version. Unfortunately that meant our old theme would no longer work. So I found a new template and modified it to fit. Feel free to go check it out and let me know what you think. Hopefully the forums will eventually hold a lot of useful information so it’s important we ensure a good browsing experience. P.s, you can find the original theme here.

Forums

We also have a new dedicated Youtube channel. Here we will be uploading devlogs and other videos regarding SpaceSlog and Produno Games Studios. Please go give us a follow!

DevSlog

Electricity

Produno

We now have power in SpaceSlog. Power will be required to run everything on your ship including thrusters, lights, powered doors, oxygen generators, air scrubbers, computers and more. Not having power could cause serious consequences for your crew.

Currently there are two types of power. Generators and solar. Solar is currently unusable as we do not have an energy source for them to take power from. Though eventually going near stars will allow these to generate energy. The only problem being, you will need to store this power in batteries because of course once you move away from the star your solar panels will no longer be working. Generators will take a type of fuel, though it is still not clear how this fuel will be acquired. For now it can be purchased from passing ships, so you should probably be stocking up whenever you have the chance.

All powered items need to be connected via a cable. I thought long and hard on the type of ‘feed’ we would use for the power supply to items and i decided on using cables as i think this adds a nice extra layer of strategy. Other ideas were to use ‘wireless’ electricity, but again, i think that would remove a layer of strategy where you need to decide where to place your items and cables for maximum efficiency. Of course enemy ships might eventually decide to take out your power supplies or cabling systems.

As usual all the parts that make up a powered item are added as components/modules and can be added to various items via JSON.



If you have any other ideas or suggestions regarding power in SpaceSlog, then feel free to join our Discord or Forums or post a comment below.

DevSlog

Improvements to core features

Produno

With the initial test build released on Itch.io i have spent a bit of time making improvements to some of the core features of the game to improve usability.

When multi selecting an item it will now only select up to 200 items of that type, this should help performance if you have too many objects that are the same. I also removed the ability to multi select hull pieces as there are always quite a few of these for each ship. There should also not be any reason for you wanting to multi select all hull.
To further improve performance, I added a VisibilityNotifier to each Entity in the game, this is a node provided by the Godot engine and allows us to check which items are being shown on the screen, or what the player can actually see. Using this we can now make sure only those on the actual screen will be selected.

Multi Select

I further improved the multi build tool adding new sounds to let the player know when the multi build has started. Unfortunately you cannot hear those sounds in the gif below. I now need to allow multi build for removing build objects and blueprints.

Multi Build

Skin and Hair Colours

I have moved skin and hair colours into a separate JSON file. This allows modders to easily change what colours they want in the game and for which race to assign them to. As you can see below, the pawn data file accepts an array of colour categories, this means you can create separate categories of skin tones and add as many as you want to each race.

The Skin Colours data file.
The Skin Colours data file.
The Pawn/Human data file
The Human data file.

This also means you could have different coloured skin tones for humans too if you really wanted.

Green Human