I’ve spent today bouncing around between a number of tasks, so I figured I might as well do the daily update too! My main project has been sorting out a bug with text rendering that caused some labels to be incorrectly positioned, so I fixed that and have been making sure our label anchors act in sensible ways. I’ve also been helping Armagon as he goes through a HUGE list of existing light-emitting objects, cleaning them up and adding scripts to allow them to be toggled and wired.

As for the rest of the team, progress continues on the ship AI and early game tutorial quests, with new AI/quest functionality, quest icons, and a bunch of new quest text. Kyren is doing a major rework of the tile rendering system which should be a big boost to performance, particularly on the ‘neighbor-aware’ tile types such as the pipes used in the new outpost design. Omni is working on fixing bugs in versioned variant handling that were causing some improper data to be passed to and from the Lua API.

The coolest thing I’ve done today, however, is integrating some awesome new changes to the standing turrets made by healthire! In addition to being placeable on walls and ceilings, turrets now have an internal energy pool that replenishes over time, and an inventory slot that you can place any kind of gun in, which will determine the type and damage of the turret’s attack. This should keep them useful at higher tiers and also give you a reason to keep those extra guns you find!

Howdy folks! I’ve been up to a number of things the past few days, addressing a number of small problems that have been present for some time now.

As Metadept has continued to flesh out the wire system, bringing it ever closer to our original vision, it’s highlighted the need for some TLC with many of the objects. One such problem is that to this date, wire node positions would often end up sitting just off the object. This was fine in theory, up until you started putting a lot of wired objects together in a shared space. Having multiple nodes overlapping in one space caused a number of problems, and so I spent a bit of time addressing it. Now, all node positions are overlapping the object they are tied to.

All proximity sensor objects have also received a bit of attention and should now function more accurately. Some of you may have already noticed the addition of the new “scanner” type that shows up in the outpost. These are the first proximity sensors you can place up on a wall. They detect any players and NPCs in a small two block radius around them, making them ideal for automated doors. These will be craftable at the wire station once our progression changes are done.

Today, as part of our progression changes, I’ve made the starting ships even more broken than they already were. The teleporter, locker and door to your own bridge will be entirely uncooperative until you use your tech station and get your AI to reboot itself and the ships systems. Doing so will restore your ship’s basic amenities. For now on nightly, only newly minted characters will see this change.

I’m hoping to spend a bit of time on the weekend going through all our light objects and making them wirable, as it’s something I’ve wanted for the longest time. We’ll see how I go! See you next time!

GeorgeV here yet again and posting from the office.
Today I worked on finishing up another boss that you should eventually see in Starbound. It’s currently nameless but is an enemy that digs through the dirt and attacks you from it. Better dig it out so you can attack effectively!