Scratching the Surface - Development Log #294

In this week's devlog Michi shares his progress and reasoning on re-implementing the planetary surface maps, Fabian has exciting news to share and Martin is working on the mobile UI.

Michi (molp)

Last week I wrote about how we want to present data on the universe map, either as a kind of bar graph or as rings. The team favored the ring visualization, but one vote was missing. Fabian had two days of and I wanted to hear his opinion on the topic before continuing.

So I started on converting the existing planet map (or rather surface map). The reason for having to redo the surface map is, I think I mentioned it in a past devlog as well, is that we are upgrading the library responsible for the 3d graphics (Three.js) and while being at it introducing a new framework that will make writing 3d code more declarative (react-three-fiber). Unfortunately that means that we cannot have a new universe map while keeping the old system and surface maps!

Here is a gif of the progress I've made so for on the surface map:

The basic functionality is done, but it still lacks ship orbits, stations and the ability to use it as a plot selector when setting up a new base.

Fabian (Counterpoint)

As mentioned previously, the pile of future game design concepts has been growing quite a bit recently. The more changes that are planned, the more speculation there is to designing around them. We've been discussing what to do about this and came to the conclusion that it would make a lot of sense for me to support Michi on the development side of things (without dropping the game design part completely of course). I have a computer science background, so I'm not unfamiliar with coding in general, but obviously it'll take some time to get used to the extensive code base of the game.

So after setting up the development environment with Michi's help, in good old learning-by-doing fashion, I started working on the first tiny community-requested features to familiarize myself with everything. In a future maintenance update you can expect building names to be mentioned in the demolishing confirmation, as well as a brand-new confirmation dialogue when relocating your company's headquarters. Baby steps obviously, but I'm liking it so far! :D

As always: we'd love to hear what you think: join us on Discord or the forums!

Happy trading!