Hi, Fragile Existence developer Lee Harris here! To mark being part of the Steam Festival celebrating strategy games (go check it out afterwards!), we figured it might be nice to give a throwback to the days when I actually got around to making regular video development diaries-- with a special edition featuring yours truly narrating his way through a slice of gameplay, highlighting what we've been working on since we last checked in. The video is linked below, but I've attached an abridged text update below that covers the main developments too, so take your pick :)
Watch on YouTube
Volumetric effects & the Warp Sequence
Straight off the bat, the revised main menu showcases the new system-wide lighting effects, which use the local star position to direct shafts of light around (space-based) objects in the foreground. It's a subtle touch, and not necessarily a very realistic one, but it's one of those atmosphere-building effects that's hard to let go of once you try it out. Practically, and like many things in game development, this one features a bit of cloak and daggers: rather than fill the entire solar system with a fog-like substance, we just populate a small region that follows the main camera around instead!
We also see its use applied to the warp corridor, where ships within the fleet are also buffeted and knocked around somewhat during the often perilous transfer. Pay particular attention and you might notice how ships have to cut power prior to emerging into normal space again, with power being restored in stages, which is chiefly shown by the window lights flickering off, then later coming back online post-transfer. Ships also can't be moved until power is restored, so you're always vulnerable for a short while after a warp sequence completes.
Planetary cloud layers
This one is little more experimental-- it uses a GPU-based raymarching algorithm to produce cloud formations on planets that need them (i.e. Earth-like), rotating around the planet's main axis. There were some considerable hurdles to getting this looking decent enough whilst not overwhelming everyone's hardware, as well as more subtle challenges like making sure clouds didn't show up as brightly on the dark side of planets and the like (the dark side is genuinely dark, btw, you need to use unit lights and such to navigate!). We're still playing with this one, especially since they need to be volumetric enough for the camera to pass through whilst following a selected target, and also adaptable enough to offer customisation in the planet editor window (because why shouldn't you be able to have towering green clouds if that's what you want?!). Weather isn't here yet, but we do want planets to feel like they can be enough of an adversary to your fleet even without more objective threats. Units can be stored inside buildings, and part of that was so that you could hide units away when a dust storm or the like settles in. So that's the ultimate goal there!
Sensor bubbles
So, perhaps controversially, Fragile Existence doesn't feature a 'fog of war' to limit what you as a player can observe. I didn't really fancy hiding planetary terrain behind a grey smudge, and when you're playing in both space and planet layers, it's harder to define how that fog of war would even really operate. Instead, what we've gone for is an active 3D scanner bubble that 'pings' objects inside its projected radius, flashing briefly to highlight the new contact. When targets move outside of a ship/units sensor range, they shortly thereafter become invisible again, since you no longer have knowledge of what that target is doing. Also, overlapping sensor bubbles results in an increased search bandwidth across that region, and the same system is used across both space and planetary layers for design consistency throughout. Mineable nodes on the surface are something that also needs to be 'pinged' before they become visible, though static objects like this don't require units to maintain the sensor lock (they can move away and located resources won't disappear). Note that everything in Fragile Existence requires power in order to work (yes, engines too!), so this is a system you could divert power away from (or lose power through damage), for example, and such units would then not be able to detect other units nearby. Gulp!
Constructing ground bases with orbital/fleet support
Whilst ground installations were previously placeholder objects to suggest how things were going to pan out, they are now very much fleshed-out parts of the game-- deployed engineer units must place foundations, before a helper drone levels the ground at the indicated plot (with planet terrain adjusting accordingly). Once this is complete, those same engineers can construct the buildings themselves, but not without having access to the required materials. With 8 surface resources, and ultimately dozens of materials made through combinations of these, you need to source building materials before things can move forward. When establishing a base on a new world for the first time, you're likely going to need to send down a Stockpile (it's a cargo container, basically) which has been filled with relevant items beforehand. Drop ships ferry these and units back and forth between the fleet in orbit and the ground layer itself, and once deployed everything smartly organises itself into groups that automatically work together. A ground base can then add a newly-deployed Stockpile to it's respective group, and item transfers can commence between nearby buildings or constructions through the use of Mover drones (Amazon finally did it guys, we have industrial delivery drones!).
Of course, base buildings all have a target function, from providing living space to producing power, and others that build units or fashion materials. The refinery, for example, produces Iron bars from iron and coal ore, or Steel bars from iron and oxygen (yes, you can also collect gases!), whilst the Ore Depot exemplifies the more traditional harvester-related building that sends out a collection vehicle to selected discovered ore deposits. The Starport is a warehouse that can store base productions as it grows beyond the limited flexibility of deployed Stockpiles.
Build in orbit too!
Yep, you can engineer constructions in orbit too. These will often be defensive platforms of some variety, but there are also several key orbital platforms that give you access to research and materials that can't be duplicated through ground-based installations. Handy, for example, for processing gas 'mined' from skimming gas giants.
It's all about the people..
We mentioned Living Space at some point above, and we shouldn't gloss over that one-- people are very much a dynamic resource across your fleet. You start with a certain population count, most of which will be (vaguely unskilled) civilians. From that pool you must train people to become engineers, scientists, doctors, pilots, marines or naval officers, then allocate relevant personnel to modules across the fleet, both in space and across your established ground bases. Modules provide utility to all of your capital ships, units and buildings, yet can do very little without personnel assigned (the efficiency of a module is proportional to the number of people assigned, with each having it's own cap). Moving people to ground bases through the use of drop ships is important because personnel can only be distributed across their current grouping (so, capital ships in the same group can share personnel locally). When a building or unit is destroyed, any personnel inside are also lost, so you've got to be sure to evacuate a particular hotspot if things start looking rough!
As I was saying on the Discord only the other day, you can think of personnel a little like a fluid talent point distribution. The more people you have, the more people you can assign to tasks across the fleet. As you lose people, you'll have to start making some difficult choices-- assigning people to only the most vital systems and the like.
So what's next..?
This update was actually recorded a little while ago, and I've been hard at work on several new systems since then. The primary focus at present is fleshing out the in-game visual scripting system, ultimately designed to allow players to create their own experiences and adventures (there's already a solar system and planet editor, and we want all of this to work really intuitively together)-- but this is also how the game's own campaign and scenarios are being constructed too, so we're killing two birds with one asteroid there. AI development is also a principle focus this year, and it often ties into the scripting system, so there's some considerable overlap there. Not very flashy stuff, but pretty crucial!
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So, thanks for taking the time to check in-- and hopefully these sort of updates will become more regular again at some point :)