Starbase Progress Notes: Week 18 (2021)

[ElluFB]

Starbase Progress Notes: Week 18 (2021)
May 3rd - 7th

Hello everyone, here are the progress notes of the week 18 of 2021!

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.

Design

Features

• Large Generator functionality for Capital Ships has been designed and tasked
• Easy Build Mode has been tested and usability design improved

User Interface

• Shared company credits backend implementation has been worked on
• Progress on Company bank feature has been made
• New tutorial phases and rewards have been worked on
• Company Tag system has been tested and interface design improved
• Improved visual design for transponder names and player names in HUD has been made
• Interface design for Capital Ship screens is in progress

Ship Shops

• Changes in Rando 3 ship shop:
  • Added: Sherwood, AA Freedom, MLS-8-252 "Truzhenik" (previously removed)
• Changes in OKI 2 ship shop:
  • Added Mercury
• A ship mixup in Dynastar ship shop has been fixed: "Antares" Twin Frame Freighter replaced with Antares-Class

Code

Gameplay

• Support for Company owned ships and Company ship access rights have been worked on
• Work with factory halls continues: hall area detection has been worked on
• Improvements for tripod animation lock functionality have been worked on

User Interface

• Crafting UI has been worked on, tooltip info has been added to crafting tab
• Work on Easy Build Mode continues, issues with picking up and dropping modules have been worked on
• Company Ships UI has been worked on: "Add Access" side panel, "Add Operator" side panel's context menu and list sorting have been worked on
• UI implementation for ignored player list has started
• Company tag system has been worked on

Audio

• Device music ending and looping has been implemented

In-game Designers

• First version of station device assembly configuration and detection has been finished
• Issues with buying ships from some Ship Design terminals resulting in overlapping with previous ships have been worked on

Art

Animations and Emotes

• Spaceship registration tool has been rigged and 1st person animations have been worked on
• Socket creator tool has been rigged and 1st person animations have been worked on

Stations and Cities

• Hangar area module assets have been made
• Interior has been added to the dark variant of Skyscraper Roof 01
• Landing area holograms have been added to Vintage, Quasar, Dynastar and Epic Shipyards
• Skyscraper entrance and stem LODs have been updated
• LOD for Canal Bridge city slot has been created
• Direction indicators for station corner slots have been added
• Various LODs in station and city scenes have been updated to match the structures

Other

• Thruster converter snapping has been fixed, so that no illegal placement of converters should be possible
• Blueprint filler on and off icons have been created
• A hologram circle for waypoints has been created
• An issue with Laser Cutter Hit VFX not attaching to moving objects has been fixed
• Capital and large machinery assets now have distinctive textures

Gallery



As always, feel free to ask any questions regarding these progress notes!
And if you haven't yet, go add Starbase to your Steam wishlist!

 

[Kenetor]

yes! new large items getting finished and more factory stuff!

 

[Honvik]

nice update!

 

[Mr. Extinct]

Holy shit that are alot of images

 

[Keggles]

yes!

Is it bad I'm more interested to see how quickly Kenetor comments than the actual progress notes?

 

[Cavilier210]

You foxed a mix up huh? 😉

 

[Mr. Extinct]

A ship mixup in Dynastar ship shop has been foxed: "Antares" Twin Frame Freighter replaced with Antares-Class

Ah yes
Foxed

 

[Zaff]

Glad to see work done on company ship access and company banking. It might not be a very flashy feature, but still a critical one for everyone who want to play in groups at the start of Early Access.

 

[hawksfield]

any progress on fixing the graphic problem and getting alpha invites started back up? there has not been any invites in a month now!

 

[NivlaNET]

Niiice stuff!

 

[Orlover]

I really hope the next events have capital ship to starbase boarding action to test for us.

 

[Kenetor]

any progress on fixing the graphic problem and getting alpha invites started back up? there has not been any invites in a month now!

invites are being held up by NVidia taking so long to fix their broken drivers

 

[Orlover]

invites are being held up by NVidia taking so long to fix their broken drivers

Regardless of blame the lack of invites has held up not just the play/test time of those who would have gotten in to the game as new players but the time that some of us in groups like mine would have been willing to play to play with our org members who we were waiting to play with coming in from games like DU. Most of us in our group are not playing other than poking around the ssc a few hours a week or events because our friends (a WHOLE LOT of them) have not joined us and we were expecting to show them around the game, we were desperately eager for it in fact. We had plans to spend weeks showing them the ropes.
It never happened.
And frankly a lot of us have given up that it is going to happen before the 17th of June. We know there are circumstances beyond devs control (like nvidia being nvidia) but it has still be incredibly detrimental for our org cohesion and other peoples as well.

It is less about the blame and more about the lost possibilities of play time with friends.

 

[runzik]

Really sweet update can't wait to get my hands

 

[Zaff]

Really sweet update can't wait to get my hands

Yes, it'd be difficult to play without them.

 

[Mutleyx]

Very cool. Looking forward to seeing the crafting UI. I really hope you guys haven't gone with the real-time approach like Eve and DU did. Click button, wait 2 minutes... That style of crafting makes baby gamers cry!

 

[XenoCow]

Any hints about how the two different styles of factory area designs will work? Are they just cosmetic or is there a function difference?

 

[Kenetor]

Regardless of blame the lack of invites has held up not just the play/test time of those who would have gotten in to the game as new players but the time that some of us in groups like mine would have been willing to play to play with our org members who we were waiting to play with coming in from games like DU. Most of us in our group are not playing other than poking around the ssc a few hours a week or events because our friends (a WHOLE LOT of them) have not joined us and we were expecting to show them around the game, we were desperately eager for it in fact. We had plans to spend weeks showing them the ropes.
It never happened.
And frankly a lot of us have given up that it is going to happen before the 17th of June. We know there are circumstances beyond devs control (like nvidia being nvidia) but it has still be incredibly detrimental for our org cohesion and other peoples as well.

It is less about the blame and more about the lost possibilities of play time with friends.

well stuff happens, yeah it sucks, but being detrimental to your cohesion says more about your company stability and patients than anything about lost time. remember alpha is here for testing purpose not for you to get a leg up on the game or hold your company together, we have had other bugs or player actions nearly shut down the game the game for a weekend before. just gotta roll with it because that's what we signed up for. if a slight delay has scared off your players then they were not very reliable in the first place.
Hell a whole bunch of my company cant play either cos of this bug, and were not falling apart so neither should you, just take a sec to really think about it, is it REALLY that bad?

 

[Orlover]

is it REALLY that bad?

Of course not, I have moved on. Just without friends to play with.


At all.

 

[hawksfield]

well stuff happens, yeah it sucks, but being detrimental to your cohesion says more about your company stability and patients than anything about lost time. remember alpha is here for testing purpose not for you to get a leg up on the game or hold your company together, we have had other bugs or player actions nearly shut down the game the game for a weekend before. just gotta roll with it because that's what we signed up for. if a slight delay has scared off your players then they were not very reliable in the first place.
Hell a whole bunch of my company cant play either cos of this bug, and were not falling apart so neither should you, just take a sec to really think about it, is it REALLY that bad?

well its not about getting a leg up, or holding company together. its about faith in this company to do a job. yea they have a good looking game, but we have been hit with delay after delay on things and this Nvidia problem is not a problem from the point of view that loading an older driver will solve the crashing problem for the short term till Nvidia gets around to fixing the driver. simple fix work around for players to over come a short term problem is affecting the testing of this game and the image of the dev teams ability in not wasting time over simple workaround.

looking at Nvidia drivers, they only come out with a driver around the middle (14-16) of a month, and last 2 days of the month.