[2020] Starbase – Progress Notes Week 49 (2020)

Week 49 (November 30th – December 4th)

Hello everyone! Here are the progress notes of week 49!

Please note that the “Progress Notes” are different from the Starbase Alpha “Patch Notes”. Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

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Design

Features

• Fix for the Mining Laser and Ore Collector throttling exploit has been sorted out
• Cleaner collection areas have been added around mining job workstations, any chunks of asteroids thrown outside the workstation are collected without rewarding credits
• Cutting Tool power consumption design has been worked on, it will use power packs as “ammo” like Buzzsaw does
• Improvements to the ship transponders have been designed

User Interface

• Design for using premade parts in Spaceship Designer has been worked on
• Support for selecting alternate building materials for spaceship parts has been worked on
• Designs for Universal Tool’s Station Blueprint tab have been made
• Work on Station Management UI design has started
• Layout redesign for the player CV has been worked on

Stations and Cities

• 10 min despawn areas have been added around Ore Storage Towers, Command Centers, Work Hub and Ship Design Workshops
• Descriptions have been added for Station Designer modules
• City landing and take-off section is being worked on
• Safe zones for player made stations have been designed

Code

Gameplay

• A fix has been made for resource network connection issues on lots and dropped items
• 3D Printer device field feedback and control has been improved
• Safe zones have been added for player stations.
• Ellipsoid shape type has been added for safe zones and build restricted areas
• A test flight button has been added to Spaceship Shop terminals

User Interface

• A fix has been made for being able to buy large items to backpack even when there’s no space for it and the item vanishing when buying to mining backpack

Art

Animations and Emotes

• Work on tripod animations continues
• Cable and pipe tools now have 3rd person animations
• Welding and Bolt Tool 3rd person reload animations have been updated so they match new idle
• Rummage animations (1st person) have been added to Plasma Rifle, Tactical Shotgun, Bolter, Long Rifle, Rail Rifle, and Whiplash

Stations and Cities

• Interior level art has been added to various skyscraper floor modules.
• Misaligned art panels fixed in Lot Designer modules

Weapons and Armor

• Optimized the spawn rates and effect scaling over distance for the Mounted Plasma Hit, Fuel Rod and Propellants Explosions (along with their related afterburn effects)

Other

• Railing corner 45 (T-shaped) snap points have been updated so that the bottom of it snaps correctly to other railing pieces
• The material of every asteroid surface rock has been updated to match better with the new asteroid textures
• Warp Travel VFX has been updated
  • Charge/buildup effects and retimed current effects have been added to allow for the new warp buildup
  • The actual buildup time before fast travel has been slightly adjusted to help match back to the effects

Gallery of the week

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See you next week!