Question about development (Oct 2015)

[TartarusMkII]

Hello, I've quit the game for a few months, waiting for the situation to improve. I liked where things were going when I left, but one look at the dev blog fills me with total dread.

Last I heard, the new hired dev team was working on planets, and even animals to inhabit them, and all sorts of bigger projects.

Why is time being wasted on teleporters and racing gates? How do either of these things (more so the racing gates) contribute to actual Star-Made game play??

Is development dead now, or what?

This is not meant as a complaint, but I am genuinely asking what information people could offer me who are in-tune with what's what lately.

Thankyou!

 

[CyberTao]

Last I heard, the new hired dev team was working on planets, and even animals to inhabit them, and all sorts of bigger projects.

Working on Critters requires the working of a modeler, a teleporter does not. The dev team splits up the tasks and gives them to the members that are needed.

Planets have been optimized recently I'd thought? So that was technically worked on, creatures need to be worked on by Saber and probably Kupu (textures) before they are coded into the game, so what is wrong with Schema working on some other code in the meantime? If everyone stood around and waited on 1 guy all the time, things would be much slower.

 

[timethatswasted]

Race gates are just a fun add on to the much needed and lag reducing logic gate.

If you watch the DEV process and blogs carefully, the team rarly reveals the most exciting component to an update, they normally leave it a surprise.

Example: the warp inhibitor in the last update and the massive optimization to turrets.

 

[AtraUnam]

IMO race gates are a very clever way to allow player created content outside building which is great for all non-builders out there. It gives people an activity beyond building and fighting and hopefully will draw some more people to the game.

 

[StormWing0]

Try to keep in mind there are many different teams within the company working on different parts of the game, some program, some make art, some cook up new features, etc. So the team that made the teleporters isn't the same one that is making the creatures. :P

 

[TartarusMkII]

I understand all that you're saying; also thankyou for your replies; but are you guys saying that Schema has nothing more important to work on than racing gates? Not the crafting system, the items, the storage systems, etc etc???

 

[StormWing0]

They are working on it but only the team of them that is able to is working on that is the point I was making. Keep in mind they might not tell us all they are working on for a large number of reasons.

 

[jayman38]

All but one of the programmers are new to the project. (as in brought onto the development team this year) It will take time for them to learn the ecosystem well enough to jump into the deeper stuff. Simpler changes will lead to the experience needed to program deeper changes.

 

[ilec]

Also the race gates appear to piggyback on the new ring detector - it was possibly quick enough to be added in 'spare time' between larger, more significant features.

 

[Zackey_TNT]

Also the race gates appear to piggyback on the new ring detector - it was possibly quick enough to be added in 'spare time' between larger, more significant features.

Schema doesn't have anything to do while other devs handle forna so he's using his spare time to add stocking stuffer for christmas.

He isn't using time anyhows and if he is its because he wants to add the features..

When you make something at times you work on the little things because you can't be arsed to work on the big things. I don't blame em.

 

[kupu]

but are you guys saying that Schema has nothing more important to work on than racing gates? Not the crafting system, the items, the storage systems, etc etc???

We have a pretty transparent relationship with the community, more so than most Studios or Indie devs' i've seen. As such, suggestions or in-dev' projects are usually discussed quite openly here in the forums.

Unfortunately, because of this i get the feeling people assume we are capable of working on ONLY what we have mentioned.
As others have stated (and poor Bench has to keep reiterating), multiple projects are worked on concurrently by different departments.

Is development dead now, or what?

Absolutely not. If anything, things have got busier than ever.

 

[Criss]

I'd like to know if there was a particular aspect of the game that TartarusMkII was looking forward to. It has been well known that flora and fauna would eventually make it into the game, and flesh out some of the astronaut side of things. Additionally lot's of improvements to factions and the economy will be coming.

 

[therimmer96]

I'd just like to point out schema is a person. people need distraction from the boring stuff they work on day in and out.

Have you thought that race gates are something schema was wanting for quite some time, seeing the communities interest in it (Skid racing, crusades hypercoil races and various other events) decided to do it while he was working on a related bit. He got bored and expanded something he was already working on.

He can't spend all day every day working on the core gameplay. Sometimes little things need to be added to keep him sane.

 

[Bench]

^ Pretty much what therimmer96 said, sometimes core components get a bit tedious so Schema chooses to do something totally left-field for fun. And some really fun features have come out because of that.

Development is hardly dead. In the weeks that followed TwitchCon we concluded a rather long process of documenting and planning out the rest of the game in its entirety. There's a lot in it and a lot that needs development for it all to come together. Over the past few weeks our teams have been meeting together, discussing the finer points of what we're looking at implementing over the next few months, and planning out the timeline and order of what needs to go in first.

So you might see a few releases first-off that have slightly random features, like transporters, or bug fixes or performance stuff etc. But that's only because we're getting in components that we need to integrate with larger features. For example, it's better to work on NPC AI with transporters already in, rather than doing work on it now and then having to go back and re-visit once transporters went in later down the track. Another example is that it's better to have NPC optimizations in before looking at adding in missions, we don't want the very NPCs you get missions from glitching around or disappearing or something.

So there's an order we're working on things, and the different teams are engaged in different aspects of that, and if there's a time one team needs to wait for the other team to catch up, then there's some time to work on other stuff.

 

[Keptick]

^^^^^^^

I can attest that some of the stuff they're planing is fucking insane, development is FAR from dead.

 

[Andir]

I'm still anxiously waiting cargo solution(s) and economic changes... I want a reason to build a cargo ship, defend it from pirates, and build factories to produce more items. I sort of envision something akin to the X space faring games, but in a world where I can build my own stations, and ships and find ways to exploit the supply chains and defend them.

 

[AnthonyAnderson]

Hey sorry, gonna pop in here. I saw the Activation Gate mentioned and did remember reading some stuff, but one thing wasn't asked about (that I noticed, anyway), but will there be a way for these activation gates to be used on stations to create gravity'd pads for fighters?

i.e. a fighter enters the hangar via the gate and gets pulled onto the deck as if on a planet

 

[Megacrafter127]

Hey sorry, gonna pop in here. I saw the Activation Gate mentioned and did remember reading some stuff, but one thing wasn't asked about (that I noticed, anyway), but will there be a way for these activation gates to be used on stations to create gravity'd pads for fighters?

i.e. a fighter enters the hangar via the gate and gets pulled onto the deck as if on a planet

From what I know: most likely

 

[kiraen]

Sometimes little things need to be added to keep him sane.

What makes you think he is sane to begin with? It's much more fun the other way.

 

[Panpiper]

What makes you think he is sane to begin with? It's much more fun the other way.

Sanity is a relative term. There are none of us who are really, completely sane. Most of us try to be and come close to a semblance of it in our daily lives, but each of us harbors baseless beliefs and absurd delusions, and most of us are oblivious to just how irrational we truly are.