Road to Alpha 8: Development Update II news - Empyrion - Galactic Survival

Hi Galactic Survivalists!

We are a bit behind schedule with our blog post about the new Solar System Generator because we are currently reworking parts of it. Thus, we thought it does not make sense to reveal info which is already outdated in the very moment we post it.

However, don't worry - more info about the new tool for easily creating your very personal solar system will be published in the near future. For example on how to utilize the new "planet tilt" setting, which will allow for different day/night cycle length on the northern and southern hemisphere of a planet!

Instead of a walk-through of the "SSG" (Solar System Generator), we want to provide you with some quick info about our progress on some of the other, more gameplay-relevant features!

Let's roll :)

1. Game Start

• If you start a new default game, the new SSG system will randomly pick names from a database of around 600 playfield names. So if you start a new game with a different seed, your planets will have different names!
• You will be able to "sleep" in your escape pod to forward time and it will not despawn (SP only)
• You will have a very limited "Suit Constructor" at your disposal (slow, only the very basic items like a food item, bandages etc)
• We are planning to provide you with a much better survival experience as a game start. More details to come...

2. For Scenario Creators

• You can still use the system with a fixed sectors.yaml and fixed planet names!
• You will now have the possibility to place POIs and Ore Deposits BY BIOME!

• You will be able to preview the POI and resource distribution in the SSG

• The PDA system now offers repeatable missions!

3. For Builders

• You can now set Hotkeys for console commands. Having SI turned to off, godmode on, teleport and more can be activated at the same time with a simple hotkey click!
• Automated doors now have an override priority for Sensors: if you add a sensor/signal to a door, the door-integrated auto-opening will not be triggered.
• Devices with Sensor Input and Output fields can now send and receive signals. Before, SEND did not work as long as the device was set to listen/receive signals at the same time. Note: you cannot create blink-lights this way, because of an integrated Loop-Protection. But we will add a proper "blink lights" feature in the course of the 8.x development!

4. New Status Effects
The current status effects rarely rely on each other and do not develop into a more serious disease if not treated well or at the right time.

The new status effects system will focus on this a bit more, so not caring about an open wound, might you get to an infected wound and a serious Sepis right away.

See the current status-effects tree (Work in progress)



There are basically always 2 or 3 stages of where a "base disease" can evolve into.

The planned templates-rework for curing diseases will reflect this approach. While an easy-to-craft bandage or paste or even a hot beverage might be enough to remove the status effect in the Stage 1, the following stages might need Pills or even Injections, which will need more ingredients and time to craft.

So having the right medicine available will be much more important and we will put more focus on this in future iterations to convert the currently used "broadband heal-everything"-item approach to a more logical and specialized gameplay where certain medicals have their own purpose not shared with others. And - very important! - without making it a grind in terms of getting the ingredients needed!

Said that, to make sure you are not overwhelmed with having to search for rare ingredients on far away planets, we plan to change what and how plants and deco drops the needed stuff. This also will contribute to a changed food-template system.

We'll detail how this works in one of the next blogs - as soon as this is technically implemented and tested. ;)

Last but not least, here are some previews of the visuals improvements that will be waiting for you in Alpha 8 such as a brandnew terrain shader with amazing blending capabilities between textures, major update of decoration placement & quality & performance and much more...

Any questions? Do not hesitate and write us in the comments!

Have a great weekend!

Empyrion Dev Team

PS: Look who is back again and might play a role in the upcoming story missions ;)