Road to Alpha: Development Update #4 news

Dear Survivalists,

Today we would like to shed some light on the new Admin and Gamemaster tools, followed by a short video tour of some of the new ambient sounds and a description of our new creature spawning system.

Disclaimer: If you are an admin or want to play a survival game in a more “creative” matter with more tools at your hand even in survival mode, then read on! If you are not interested in those little helpers at all, scroll down and enjoy the new ambient sounds, as the new console commands are not active by default! (More gameplay updates will follow soon!)

New Console Commands

This is not only an update for server owners and those who manage them – this is a partial rework of the games approach towards “creative mode with survival aspects”! Said that, all of the features mentioned in this blog are available for dedicated server admins (and their crew) as well as for any solo survivor, wanting to play a Singleplayer game the creative way!

A special note for Singleplayer: Please keep in mind that some of the features might dramatically influence your gameplay experience, as they will allow you to use shortcuts and workarounds and may be considered as “allowed cheats”. They are not active by default and need to be activated manually! So if you want to have the pure and immersive gameplay experience…it is your choice to just not use them ;-)

First Things first: Unlike in Singleplayer mode (Creative and Survival), the console commands mentioned below are not available for EVERYONE on a server, but only for Admins (all of the features), Moderators (some of the features) and Gamemasters (a subset of the features).
As the permission roles are not yet set in stone, we are open to your feedback which of the following permission we should add to what role!

That’s what you will be able to do, when playing as an Admin with all console commands activated:
- Standard stuff like kick and ban (and unban of course)
- Speed up or slow down time
- Teleport on the planetary map
- Teleport from planet to space and vice versa
- Teleport between the sectors without having to use a warpdrive
- Instant-Spawn NPCs and other enemies (very early approach)
- Add Vessels, bases and players to any faction (even if you are not the owner)
- Destroy any vessel or base
- Activate an ID Overlay to identify the ID of a vessel or base (needed for the destroy command)
- Activate the Creative-Item Menu (All blocks are available and do not cost any resources)
- Godmode (Permanent-Fly, No Health/Food/O2 drain, Clip through solid ground and structures)
- Raise your personal player level
- Make a player admin, Gamemaster or moderator via console

Please remember: the list of console commands is the current internal state of possibilities for an admin, NOT for players on a server!

About teleporting: If you are sitting in a vessel, the whole vessel will be teleported with you! If you are in a base, the base will of course not be teleported!

Important Info about Factions

For the Alpha, we have now added the possibility for any faction owner to change vessels or bases back to private or make them public without using a console command. You do not need to have admin permissions on a server to manage your faction that way! The console command for factions is just a helper for Admins and Gamemasters, helping other faction players.

More Info about Structures for Server Owners

If you are a Server Owner or you have access to the folders of your server savegame, you might be interested in the following: we are planning to add an “info file” to each and every folder of vessels and bases, showing who owns it, which faction it belongs and other details that might be useful.
This way you will be able to identify lost, broken or accidentally removed structures with ease and – if needed – you will be able to resurrect them via another console command!
Enough of the tech stuff!

New Ambient Sounds and Creature Spawning

We are now able to divide a planet into different biomes which allows us to play different ambient sounds according to the biome you are currently in (e.g. lake shore, forest, open plains, mountains etc).

Check out the first set of new ambient sounds:



But this is not all. We are now also able to control the appearance of creatures according to the biome. For example, these new creatures will only appear in dense forests:



While the dinosaurs will only be found in open areas:



On desert planets, these arachnids will appear mostly around large rocks:



And on alien planets, different creatures will populate forests



and open plains:



Last but not least, we want to present you our old friends who played a role in the Announcement Trailer from Sept 2014. They will be back in the Alpha:



These are only the first steps in creating planets with diverse biomes.

We are looking forward to your feedback

Yours
Empyrion Dev Team