Updates and Fixes #25: Trade OutPost and Future Colony
In this new update, I added a new feature that I think is important for the game and can give a lot of future possibilities. Trade.
Currency:
I added the currency to the game in order to achieve the trade. In the inventory menu the player can see the amount of money who has.
Trade OutPost:
Two new buildings are available, one is the Trade OutPost, where the player can buy or sell objects in the chests, and the other is the Trade OutPost Liquids, where buy or sell different liquids.
Both buildings can be upgraded using the currency to get new chest or tanks with new objects or liquids.
Robotic Arm SMART Trade:
Also a new Robotic Arm SMART Trade has been added. The idea is that the Robotic Arm can buy automatically to the Trade OutPost, creating automatic production lines, the player can buy some supplies like ore and sell the final product like ingots or plates or gears for a profit.
List of new content:
- Fixed Problem with collision of the Long Transport Conduit.
- Improved collision with the Transport Conduit.
- Added 3d Model of Oxygen Bottle.
- Added Trade OutPost.
- Added Trade OutPost Liquids
- Added Robotic Arm SMART Trade.
What Next:
The Colony:
I'm working in the second part of the trade and research feature. The Colony.
When I was thinking about the research feature, I thought instead of add a new line of research machines why no create some kind of little colony where some researchers investigate the new tech.
With this idea the player can bring more life to the bases and planets. So in overall there will be a zone with machines like an industrial zone and other zone with the colonist places like a little town.
And after thinking a way to do it simple I thought that using the same idea of the conveyors belts, the colonists could walk for a corridor that are indicated by an arrow and enter in different buildings in order to satisfy their needs like food, sleep and happiness, so the player has to design the colony in a efficient way so the colonist can work, research and also live. There are bifurcations depending on the need so it is possible to reduce the paths or create a new ones.
In the game you can toggle the walls of the colony in order to have a better view of the colonists.
It is necessary to hire each colonist so the idea of earn money in the trade outpost is connected directly to the colony and the research tree.
I hope to release the colony soon, so the community can test it. If the community like the idea I can create more buildings or different needs for the colonist and increase the colony or add events.
Here you can see some colonists working in the Trade OutPost generating some extra income for the player.
It is important to say that there will not be micromanagement of the colonists, I mean it is not possible to give them specifics orders, they will try to survive in the colony that the player designed for them.
The Bed:
I tried the bed idea, increasing the game speed to reach the day, but it drops a lot the FPS and also appear new problems because there a lot of process that occurs at the same time quickly so sometimes it could crash the game. So I could add the bed idea but everything will be frozen until the players wake up. The idea is adding a personal or overseer building with a bedroom, so the player can add the buidling to the colony. There is a bedroom building with 4 beds however is for the colonists.
The Idea:
I think with this new two features the trade outpost and the colony the game will add a lot of more hours of gameplay.
Because now it is not only manage a factory to get resources, now will be manage a factory to get resources and also to sell/buy goods and at the same time manage the colony in order to earn money and research new techs.
If the game grows well and the community like the new features I'm thinking to add more final goals, like has an amount of credits, has a colony with a number of colonists and an average happiness of 75%, and also create different types of colonist like worker, researcher and biologist and the biologist has to find a cure of a plague like I talked time ago, so other goal could be send a cure to the earth using the singularity gate.
I think with the new features there is a new world of possibility, like create a passenger trains, or transport the colonists to other planets with the spaceship, or maybe create a little army in order to attack other planets and get resources.