- Update 1.0.1 - 4 January 2022
Happy new year all. This update brings two new features: Wall-mounted lights The ability to dig a slightly larger area Wall-mounted lights These new lights unlock with the same research as required for the existing street lamps. They might be more suited for indoor areas, as you can attach them to walls (and ceilings). They require power (cable connections). They themselves can connect up to three cables, similar to the street lamps. Digging help When digging through terrain, if you hold shift, it will excavate a rectangular area around the direction you are facing instead of a single block (9 blocks). This should make tunneling a little easier. You can of course still use explosive charges as well.
- default branch updated to 1.0.0 - 15 June 2021
The update which was previously available on the experimental latest branch has been added to the default branch as well. You can read the changelogs here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1433470/view/4442219138636338968
- Latest branch - 1.0.0 - 11 June 2021
Note: these changes are available on the 'latest' (experimental) beta branch. To play it, you need to right click the game in steam, choose game properties -> betas -> 'latest' branch. This branch is experimental and not heavily tested yet. you can now use right-click to hide the build pattern dialog as well. small bug fix: while dragging resources, if you close the inventory the drag icon will no longer persist. rearranged the tutorial sequence a bit and updated some hints and tips entries machines now show how much power they consume when idle (if any) . you now have air control while jumping, under evaluation (updating movement controls can be tricky, if it feels off, too weak or too strong, let me know). molecular analyzer now also shows consumption and idle consumption. adjusting the layout of recipe tooltip a bit so we can expand the information more easily. Tooltips now also show…
- Early Access has arrived! - 8 June 2021
After working on it for nearly two years, Outpost Engineer is finally out in early access. This release is only the beginning of a long story. The game is perfectly playable as is, there is already a full gameplay loop available including an end goal. What will be added during early access is more content, refined recipes and research, some power balancing, UI improvements, more translations, and some new and exciting stuff I have yet to reveal (or even start on... ). Additionally, feedback from you, the player, will help shape the game further. We already had a small but intense closed beta with the discord community earlier, which proved community feedback is very valuable for sure. A lot of quality of life features were added because of it. Like a good wine, the game will become even better with age. Incidentally, it is also my birthday today. ːsteamhappyː Well, not really a coincide…
- 0.0.26 + 0.0.27 (early access update) - 7 June 2021
0.0.26: added 3 new wood patterns. added an explosive (recipe requires ammo mk2 and iron frame so somewhat later game). experimenting with mycelium growth using voxel raycast scans only, this should prevent mycelium growing passed walls. (Should still be able to grow around it if there is an opening). It will grow a bit more 'weirdly' - 'stalky' as well now. Satellite moves a bit slower and now has a moving sound. Small constructor now requires an initial research into automation (one datacube). Did some long overdue cleanup of rendering materials. Related to that, blocks (lumber, planks, dirt, etc) now have slightly rounded corners because they use the same rendering system as everything else (they look a little better in my opinion as well) Minor improvements to some descriptions. Added steel block patterns. 0.0.27: minor optimization: creep bulbs and spores only active at earliest a…
- Devlog #10 - 4 June 2021
The early access release is very very close (4 days left), so I'm mostly focusing on play testing and some final code cleanup. But I really can't help myself, I'm still sneaking in some extra goodies. Power poles on walls and ceilings The code changes of last week's explosive charge addition made it really easy to implement another feature identified by the discord community: Power poles that you can attach to walls or ceilings. We already had a small/ floor level power pole. All it took was to enable it to rotate to a surface in a similar way as explosive charges 'latch' to a surface. If you place them, they will now look at the surrounding 'terrain'. Firstly, if there is solid floor, they will place themselves on floor, else if there are solid walls, they will latch to those walls, and finally, if there is a solid ceiling instead, it will attach to the ceiling. Build patterns I also a…
- Devlog #9 - 28 May 2021
This weeks handles some explosive content! The game is less than two weeks away from early access. But that is not the only explosive content. We had a small but very engaging closed beta with the discord community, and one of the suggested features was to add more options to destroy terrain. Turns out clearing a large floor with a single pickaxe can be somewhat time consuming. The result is we now have a new option to destroy terrain: An 'explosive charge'. It is crafted in the assembler (or at the assembly table) by combining one Ammo MK2 with an iron frame. When you place it on terrain, it will automatically latch itself to the adjacent surface. After about 5 seconds (during which you can still undeploy the charge), it will destroy a region of 3 by 3 by 3 under it's attachment surface. It will not destroy machines, only terrain that can otherwise also be destroyed by pickaxe: The cod…
- 0.0.25 - 27 May 2021
Swapped cable station & pole colors. Green is now input. Fixed an iron block configuration issue. Steel now only requires one iron, but has a much longer crafting time. Gave the range dome a small animation and an info box to make it a little bit more clear. Tweaked the colliders on constructors and inserters a little. Previously, in the first minute of the game, if you tried to place blocks it could take a little time before the result was seen (due to world loading interfering). Should be immediate now. Refactored some code for machine update loops. Worked on a pipe/liquid system, work in progress. Added smaller version of a floor and wall pattern. Creep bulbs should no longer spawn on lava. Fixed combustion generator view. Mycelium and swamp should be less reflective.
- Devlog #8 - 21 May 2021
Up until now, supplying machines with resources has been done using one type of inserters, in two variants: Tier 1 copper based, and a tier 2 upgrade which requires iron but has double the speed. They work fine, but in some situations you have several belts to supply a machine, and you had to get a little creative, puzzle the environment a bit, to get all of them to connect to a machine especially for furnaces. The game now also contains a long handed inserter, both a standard version and an MK double speed version. These grab resources from one distance further than the regular inserter, effectively allowing you to run two belts in parallel and grab from both. Double the creativity for supplying, and you can still route resources however you want. While adding these inserters I also improved the basic pickup animation from the regular inserters a bit, I'm quite happy with the result. T…
- 0.0.24 - Latest branch - 17 May 2021
You can no longer speedwalk diagonally (sorry to spoil the fun :) ). Adjusted action bar count colors. Improved craft task background Improved conveyor belt upgrade logic (upgrade to mk2 sloped conveyors etc). inventory icons are now a little smaller, counts a little larger. The sound sliders are now taking into account the fact that volume values in unity decrease logarithmically Fixed missing models for tin and copper blocks. Tin blocks, when removed, now return the tin blocks themself, no longer ingots. Fixed a small issue that could happen in the molecular analyzer panel
- Devlog #7 - 14 May 2021
Welcome to another devlog! This week, I'll talk about the newly added tier2 belts. As discussed in a past devlog there are two main modes of transportation in the game right now. The basic transportation is by conveyor belts. Bulk cargo transportation, suited for longer distances, can be done with a cable claw system. Tier 2 Conveyors and splitters Last week, I have been adding the tier 2 upgrade to the conveyor belt system, which requires iron retrofitting, but doubles the transportation speed. The regular and sloped belts (up and down) now have iron based upgrades. The vertical and horizontal splitter also have iron based upgrades. Additionally, some quality of life features have been added for building: If you click a basic conveyor belt while holding the upgraded version, it automatically updates it in place. The same goes for upgrading splitters. Like with the basic belts, if you w…
- 0.0.22 & 0.0.23: Latest Branch - 10 May 2021
0.0.22 (07/05/2021): In this release I have added quite a few new recipes. See below. However, while functional, they still need to be play tested a bit to make sure no weird issues occur... They are still 'beta'. Craft queue cancelling (left click: cancel one, right click: cancel all targets) Adjusted cable linking logic in an attempt to resolve the 'too many lines' cable issue. Implemented conveyor and splitter MK2 variants (iron based upgrades of regular conveyors and splitters, double speed of the normal ones). You can now press 0 - 9 keys while hovering over inventory items to assign them to the actionbar slot. Lowered the pitch and volume of the small constructor sound a bit and added a new sound for manufacturers. Fixed an external library loading issue that only some users may experience. Increased particle cannon electricity consumption needs. Increased the charge time of the p…
- Devlog #6 - 7 May 2021
One month away from early access release! The last weeks I have been working hard on a lot of quality of life features (better mouse sensitivity settings, configurable field of view, user interface changes and additions). Also squashed a couple of minor bugs. Most of this came out of (very valuable) feedback from our discord community. We were holding a small scoped closed beta. But also sneaked in a game addition this week: Up until now we only had copper containers. These had 4 storage slots, which isn't a lot but convenient enough for many purposes. This week I'm also adding iron and steel containers. These unlock once you research iron and steel manufacturing, are made by up-crafting the more basic container versions. The iron container contains 8 output slots and is made at the assembly table using a copper container and an iron frame. The steel container contains 16 output slots a…
- 0.0.21 - latest branch - 3 May 2021
- Doubled the amount of output a cable station can store, meaning it will request cargo more frequently. - Made the field of view configurable. - Adding iron and steel containers. Currently made at the assembly table once iron or steel is unlocked. Like inserters, lower tiers can be upgraded to higher tiers by clicking while holding the appropriate resource. - I renamed the app title (was an old name '>MCubes'), unfortunately this means the save files location changed a little. I wrote a procedure to recover and copy the old save files, should it not work, you can also manually copy the files, they are in the same parent folder. If all goes well, you can safely delete the older MCubes folder... - Loading tips are more readable now - Fixed issue when trying to transport pickaxes or other tools - Bugfix: you now actually need a pickaxe in your inventory and not only in your actionbar befo…
- Devlog #5 - 16 April 2021
We are now less than two months away before Outpost Engineer releases as early access on Steam. A large part of my time is currently dedicated to polishing the codebase, doing some test play-throughs, and just making sure everything works. However, seeing that does not make a very interesting devlog, I figured I talk a bit about the current threat mechanic that is present on the volcanic island. Spoiler Warning: this is a bit of a spoiler so skip the text if you want to play without pre-existing knowledge (but on the other hand it is no secret either). Pollution Currently, most machines generate pollution, some more than others. The world threat comes in the form of an aggressively growing fungal organism that consumes pollution to grow. The game world is divided into segments called 'chunks' which are 16x16x16 voxels big. The pollution slowly accumulates at the chunk level, until it re…
- 0.0.16 - Latest Branch (29/03/2021) - 29 March 2021
additional in-game loading thread. added the option to scan/ping for surface ores if you have trouble finding them (press 'C'). Color coded visualization to be refined later. a little more diversity in terrain type for hills. Revisited conveyor logic: some conveyor fixes (a recent regression, happened mostly when removing existing belts).
- Devlog #4 - 26 February 2021
Most machines in outpost engineer require power in the form of electricity to operate. This post highlights the currently implemented ways to generate electricity. The Combustion generator The first option you unlock to generate electricity is the combustion generator. It burns coal. Once you setup automation for it, your first generator will get you good enough power generation for the early game. Solar panels Late game, once you unlocked silica and circuit boards, you'll unlock solar panels. Solar panels require no input, but are only active during daytime. During daytime, they follow the inclination of the sun. To expand your electrical storage/capacity, you can also add some accumulators (batteries) to store excess energy. How much you consume or produce can be consulted by accessing power poles and other electrical systems. The game tracks the last 30 seconds of consumption and pro…
- Devlog #3 - 11 January 2021
Outpost Engineer is a crafting and logistics game. As such one fundamental piece of the puzzle is how to get your resources from a to b. In this post I delve into the current modes of transportation. Mind that the game is still in closed alpha, and more options will likely be added later on. Belts and Inserters As in many other automation games, the most basic way of getting a resource from point A to B is by conveyor belt. To load items on and off conveyor belts 'inserters' can be used. These grab resources from containers, machines, or other belts and place them into containers, machines or belts at the opposing side. Outpost Engineer is a 3D game, so we need to be able to move resources up and down as well. One way is to use sloped conveyors, which can be crafted whenever you have regular conveyor belts in your inventory. Once you unlock iron, you will be able to upgrade your inserte…
- Devlog #2 - 9 November 2020
Hello All, A progress report. I've been mostly working on integrating some mid game products and resources: Iron Iron ore patches can only be found in the sandstone biome, which is a biome consisting of arches and hills, every island has one. Once unlocked, iron ore can be processed into iron rods iron frames. And later in the game, also steel beams. Silica Silica shards are created by smelting sand in a furnace. They will be used to create lamp posts and, later in the game, electronic circuits. Large products such as these lamp posts are transported as crates. It would be very impractical to try and transport them on belts when they are fully assembled. Lithium electrolyzer Another advanced resource is lithium, which will primarily be used to build batteries. I wanted a bit more variety in extraction mechanisms. In the real world, lithium is often extracted from seawater. Seeing in gam…
- DevLog #1 - 17 October 2020
Hi This is my first devlog about Outpost Engineer. As such I'd like to introduce myself. About me I am the solo developer of Outpost Engineer. I've been a gamer for a long time. I'm also a software developer. I've dabbled with many smaller projects in the past, and started to create this game because I wanted to create something I enjoy playing, and wanted to finally combine my skills as a developer with something I love doing. I am heavily inspired by other great factory automation games and base building games such as factorio, satisfactory, fortresscraft evolved, oxygen not included and more. Current Status I've been working on Outpost Engineer for a while now, and as such, the foundations of the game are already there. Gameplay As for gameplay, I have currently implemented what you could call the first tier of processing and factory automation: Smelting tin, copper and bronze. Creat…
