- New economy world trial run - 22 September 2023
Over the past few months we've been working on a new economy world with a new map, new systems and different way of handling skills and progression. Vaguely set in the country lanes of 1930s England (except with ostriches), its the perfect place to give your tractor an outing this weekend. For the next couple of days we'll be running an open-trial of the world ; it would be great to see you there. Feedback, bug reports, suggestions or ideas would all be welcome.. or just come along and say Hi! :) The world, for some reason, is called 'Babylon nTing' and you can get there through the finite drive in the cockpit in space. (i.e. The Usual Method for travelling to 1930s England). More details of the world and economy design in the discussion thread. Full release later in the year.
- Bugfix & minor update notes for Spring 2023 - 26 August 2023
Here's an initial list of some of the minor fixes and updates that have been added to the game over the past few months.. New stuff Loads of World Editor improvements : New Screens: GamePlay -> Player Start controls and Global Weapons Settings, Vehicle Setup, Weapons Setup. New layout to make it easier and clearer when you're assigning and uploading models & textures to a world. Lots of work on the asset browser and asset upload screens, including the asset scale and orientation control which means you can adjust per-instance model sizes without having to change the model file - very useful!. Eraser options for removing walls, bg models etc (which now are reflected immediately on client), landscape editing - you can now paint terrain and have it uploaded to the server -, better drag and drop controls for buildings, etc, etc. The World Editor is getting really quite useful now. New Weapo…
- Update notes for June 2023 - 29 June 2023
To version 0.76.1.5 : Ship previews and stats on the station trade screen Improvements to the collision system and replication of remote players Options to increase shadow resolution Improvements to the gal radio and streaming audio support UI/UX improvements on building screens and world editor Many graphics bugfixes (Shaders, animations, particles, cutscenes, landscape textures, etc etc) Lots and lots more bugfixes Outside of the client and server releases there has also been lots of work done on Lovelace (economy balancing and bugfixing) and some new worlds that'll be opening in the coming months.
- Update notes for May 2023 - 23 May 2023
Apologies for the brief delay (ok, 3 years. Fine. Be like that then). A tractor v0.76.0 is now available. In this version: - A new universe - New worlds (mostly work-in-progress) ; Lovelace reset. - Too much other stuff to list. (Ask a patron). 'Season X' has now officially started with a reset of all galactic players. If we're lucky I wont need to officially start it again before the weekend :] . Many things still need finishing, space stuff is limited but hopefully you'll have a few things to explore. Lots more to come over the next few months.
- Introducing Season X and.. the podcast! - 22 March 2023
(I'm calling this next phase of the game's existence 'Season X' just to suggest that its a defined phase we'll be going through.. it won't stay like this indefinitely.. There will be a reset at the end of it.. And I suppose its X because its, experimental? - But really just because i've completely lost track of what phase we're in :] Anyway..) Season X - Coming Spring 2023 The main goal of this season is to support players to build your own worlds (and explore those created by other players). Secondarily, there will be space exploration & a galactic economy, but in a slightly different (and more limited) form than previous. We'll also be building some 'staff' worlds and trying out new (and old) ideas there. The 'season' should run at least 3 months, possibly longer. Anyone will be able to make worlds and make them publicly available in the galaxy if they wish. Everyone will start in spa…
- Aged developer not yet dead - 3 February 2023
Over 50 now though, which is like, proper old. Nothing much to announce here, sorry, but figured I ought to at least finish the steam group pages I was supposed to have set up 4 years ago. I believe there is now an 'official' Steam group to follow or something. ( https://steamcommunity.com/groups/games-for-may and https://store.steampowered.com/developer/GamesForMay/ ) I'm going to be having some time off work soon, mostly so i can make a few lil games in Unity... There's a fair chance that something I make will get posted here but it's unlikely to be anything decent or interesting, promise. I'm not yet sure about spending any significant time on the a-tractor-defibrilator as the code is all rather old and needs much more care and attention than I can afford, but I do have a vague notion of probably using a few hours to at least make it basically usable again. Probably. Offers of huge a…
- Server outage - 7 July 2020
The server machine the game has been running on failed yesterday and is now refusing to start up. Unfortunately due to work commitments I'm not going to be able to look into this much for the next few days, so the game will be offline for a lil while - I don't expect it to be back up before the weekend.
- 0.75.5 Update - 10 June 2020
A new game-client is now available on steam with a few fixes and improvements: - Fix for some of the items on the first world joined being incorrectly named and unusable - New 'large chat text' option on the in-games options menu - New 'World Builder' option on the frontend options to activate the world 'Create' section - Possible fixes for some login problems I've also fixed up the interfaces to support the basic 'Bank' building - bank accounts will be added to the main world in the near future.
- Server outage 6-Jun - Resolved - 7 June 2020
Apologies for the downtime; the game server has been offline for a short while but is available again now. Anyone who was online and outside when the server went offline will have had their health frozen.
- Client update 0.75.4 - 9 April 2020
Good morning :). There's a new client update active now (0.75.4) - In addition to a some minor fixes and extra info to help track down the problems with post-processing, this version includes a few extra features and changes for people working on creating new worlds. Full release notes can be found here. In other news, big congratulations to Swarthington who has managed to confound all expectations by surviving to over 100 on Lovelace. I've also upped the Lovelace skill limit to 4 to help the tiny population currently struggling to stay alive there :]
- December 2019 - Extended Downtime - 7 December 2019
As many will be aware, this game is basically a one-man effort and due to a range of circumstances I'm currently unable to support the game. This will result in the game and servers being unavailable for some time - I expect the basic service to be restored early in the new year. More broadly, the game is not being actively developed at the moment and unfortunately remains largely abandoned. My sincere apologies to everyone who has invested time in the game and particularly to those who purchased items during early access. The game has always cost more to run than I've ever earned from it, and I will be modifying the steam setup so that purchasable items are removed from sale. I do hope at some point I will be able to commit time to continuing development of the game and restoring the space travel and world creation elements, and it is my intention in the long-term to provide some form…
- Development update - 6 January 2019
Hi, Just a lil note regarding progress on development of the game over the past few months. As you may know, I'm the only person writing the game right now and I've recently started a new full-time job. Christmas was also busy this year (Merry christmas and Happy New Year to you all, btw! :] ), with various trips around the country to visit the family, so not much coding has been done recently. Apologies for the lack of updates, therefore. The world still continues on and the goal of constructing the first spacecraft of the new round is still open, should anyone be dedicated enough to persevere :) I will be building up some new bits in the next few months, primarily with regard to the next phase of the game, post-development of space travel. Cheers Mit
- Large ranch production rate bug - 25 November 2018
Please note that the current production rate of cows at the 'Large Ranch' building is incorrect and will be modified within the next couple of days so that it is more in line with the other livestock farms.
- Auto logging and mining - 18 November 2018
To make the startup process a little less painful, the initial logging and mining sites both allow you to gain resources automatically until your inventory is full - just leave your tractor stationary once you've started the process. Recent updates have also fixed some intermittent problems with the school buildings and reduced the negative effects of building damage.
- Latest fixes and additions - 9 November 2018
In updates over the past couple of days : - New 'Help Guide' (button next to your engine and lights) - Improvements to networth calculations - Fix for prices set when a building is put for sale after a player dies - Fix for fishing counts getting reset when resizing screen (etc) - Fix for 'engine off' display disappearing when tasking - Stopped auto-eating from consuming fish from inventory
- Building decay and death change - 8 November 2018
By the weekend all buildings (except special government-owned ones) will begin to decay over time, reducing their productivity and eventually disappearing from the world. Normal decay is very small and it'll take around 160 game-years for a building to completely decay, however the rate will increase significantly (10x) if it is not being used (i.e. Owner does not have the required skill to make the building function) and even more so (100x) if the building has no owner. (i.e When a player dies, any buildings they owned will disappear from the world after 3 or 4 real-time days if they are not purchased by someone else). You can pay to repair damaged buildings, the cost being proportional to the amount of decay to repair and the original cost of the building. Separately, there will be a change to the rules concerning death and stocks : When someone dies, all building stores and investmen…
- New worlds are tough - 5 November 2018
And this one is particularly hard going, what with the hunger and the thirst and the lack of anywhere to buy any decent food or drink. Poor uncivilized people are dropping like flies. For that reason a charitable organisation has provided a small, one-off survival pack which can be claimed from the government offices, and if that doesn't work they may well be organising a live concert event in the near future, featuring U2 and a life-like replica of Sting if you're very unlucky.
- New world starts tonight - 3 November 2018
For those of you joining us on Lovelace, just a reminder that the new world is very much alpha-style 'Early Access'. I've had very little chance to test things (or indeed, to finish writing them :] ) and there's a fair chance that something will go terribly wrong in the first few hours or days. Its not unlikely that something breaks such that the world has to be restarted again not long after. You'll also probably find life quite slow and difficult at the beginning (you are, after all, rebuilding civilization from scratch, and that's never an easy task), but with any luck not everyone will immediately die of starvation :]. If you find any bugs, exploits or unbalanced production lines (etc etc), please drop a note on the discussion boards and I'll do my best to get it addressed as soon as I can. I will try to make sure any significant adjustments that might affect your business plans are…
- Nutritional value and other changes - 2 November 2018
A few highlights from recent code updates : (Most notably) - New nutritional value system means that if you consume (eat or drink) the same item repeatedly its nutritional value goes down (down to half its maximum value) - e.g If you drink nothing but Tea all the time, you'll only be getting 50% thirst reduction from the Tea. So basically, its better for you to have a varied diet. 'Disposable RC' item replaced with a separate button Holding shift now steps up in sheckles on various controls that previously didnt support that. (e.g. set sell price) Fix for the 'Leave screen' not showing the benefit of food/drink items that are in inventory Fix for player reverting to vehicle 1 instead of default vehicle if they sell the vehicle they're in Under construction building plots can now be sold Fix for camera speed sometimes snapping up to a faster speed when rotating
- Replacement of Resident's Permit - 1 November 2018
In conjunction with the start of the new world, I will be making some changes to the benefits of in-game purchases. For now the game will remain free to play and the restrictions for players who have not purchased items will be significantly reduced. Please remember that purchasing store items helps fund the development of the game, which is written and maintained by a single developer with the help of volunteers. The Resident's Permit will be replaced by a seasonal membership. Those of you who have purchased a Resident's Permit therefore receive the membership benefits for the next year. All trailers will be unified into a single item that provides 2x vehicle storage. Basic fishing equipment will be available for game currency (90d at the Fish Market). The purchasable, real-money 'Fishing Equipment' provides the extra benefit of an automated catch system. The specific benefits of havin…
