[Game Update] - 485768

[JarrettM]

Hi everyone, 

Today’s patch to the Public Testing branch includes a collection of bug fixes, visual updates, and more radiation changes for Spaced Out! 

The Radbolt Generator’s automation port was changed to disable the building instead of preventing Radbolts from firing. This makes it function more like a generator. We are adding a new building, the Radbolt Chamber, to act as a battery for storing Radbolts. It requires less power than a Radbolt Generator and has a slower radbolt decay when unpowered.

We re-added Space Scanners which can now detect Interplanetary Payloads and rocket debris.

The base game’s Telescope is back too, it’s now called the “Enclosed Telescope” and offers some protection from radiation in addition to the normal comforts it usually provides. The standard Spaced Out! Telescope is still available.

You can read the full patch notes below. If you'd like to try the Public Testing branch you can follow the instructions listed here.
 

Features

• Spaced Out! only
  • Added Radbolt Chamber building.
  • Re-implemented the Space Scanner.
  • Re-implemented the Telescope from the base game, now called Enclosed Telescope.
  • Added Empty Storage button to the Payload Opener.

Changes and Improvements

• All versions.
  • Added world trait icons for all world traits.
• Spaced Out! Only.
  • Radiation.
    • Radbolt Generator automation port now simply turns the building on and off instead of preventing radbolts from firing.
    • Changed description of Radbolt Generator to better reflect how it functions.
    • Increased standard Duplicant radiation recovery from 60 to 100 rads/cycle.
    • Increased Radioactive contaminant radioactivity 10x.
    • Reduced base Shine bug radioactivity by 50%.
    • Increased Research Reactor standard and meltdown radiation output by 2x.
  • Worldgen
    • Starting asteroids in Spaced Out! clusters now experience 50% less cosmic radiation than other asteroids in the cluster (now approximately 125 rads/cycle). Moonlet Cluster Badlands, Flipped, and Radioactive Ocean are unchanged.
• Improved the look of the non overlay radiation visualization.
• Revised all Classic Style starting asteroid icons.
• Revised some Spaced Out Style starting asteroid icons.
• Renamed some clusters and starting asteroids.
• Added new Duplicant animation to the main menu.
• Added basic Database entries for rocket modules in Spaced Out!
• Added diagnostic for when rockets arrive at a world but aren't landing.
• Revised Mini-Pod activation animation.

Fixes

• All versions
  • Fixed issue causing research screen sidebar preset filter buttons to be ineffective in non English language translation settings.
  • Removed additional automation input port from the Smart Storage Bin.
• Spaced Out! Only
  • Fixed a performance issue introduced in the previous public testing build.
  • Fixed bug where some builds would show a "insufficient resources" status item, even though the world has more than enough resources to do the build.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when Rocket Platform is created and destroyed rapidly.
  • Fixed issue causing Radbolt Generators to overestimate their Radbolt production in their status items.
  • Rockets now remember their previously assigned Rocket Platform for a given world.
  • Fixed crash when abandoning a rocket.
     

 

View full update

[Primalflower]

6 minutes ago, JarrettM said:

Increased standard Duplicant radiation recovery from 60 to 100 rads/cycle.

much appreciated!

[Gurgel]

Sounds good, especially the Radbolt Chamber!

[DolphinWing]

39 minutes ago, JarrettM said:

We re-added Space Scanners which can now detect Interplanetary Payloads and rocket debris.

The base game’s Telescope is back too, it’s now called the “Enclosed Telescope” and offers some protection from radiation in addition to the normal comforts it usually provides. The standard Spaced Out! Telescope is still available.

• Spaced Out! only
  • Re-implemented the Space Scanner.
  • Re-implemented the Telescope from the base game, now called Enclosed Telescope.

Can it also detect meteor showers? Not have time to try this yet. But still glad to see them back. 

[EricKlei]

Quote

Increased Research Reactor standard and meltdown radiation output by 2x.

Patch notes were updated to clarify that standard radiation was also increased. Previously it only mentioned meltdown radiation.

[Primalflower]

2 hours ago, DolphinWing said:

Can it also detect meteor showers? Not have time to try this yet. But still glad to see them back. 

no clue if it actually works right, but the option is there

[Hokaeru]

Nice update ! Great additions. I am excited for release.

4 hours ago, JarrettM said:

It requires less power than a Radbolt Generator and has a slower radbolt decay when unpowered.

Is it me who does not understand or should it be "quicker radbolt decay when unpowered ?" 

Cheers

[NeoDeusMachina]

4 minutes ago, Hokaeru said:

Is it me who does not understand or should it be "quicker radbolt decay when unpowered ?" 

I read it as slower decay when unpowered compared to unpowered radbolt generator.

[sakura_sk]

3 minutes ago, Hokaeru said:

Is it me who does not understand or should it be "quicker radbolt decay when unpowered ?" 

I think the description is right. If it's a storage shouldn't it "store" radbolts for longer even if power goes out?  Generator loses its radbolts almost immediately.

Who's the ninja now @NeoDeusMachina?

[sakura_sk]

5 hours ago, JarrettM said:

Added world trait icons for all world traits.

[FoldableHuman]

Solid list, the buff to Research Reactors is especially great, since throughput has been a chokepoint.

The radbolt chamber + change to generator decay is an interesting compromise, but I like it, I think. I'm very, very excited to sort it out, either way.

I'm loving this patch so far, the radiation gameplay really feels a lot more engaging and present.
 

4 hours ago, JarrettM said:

• Increased Radioactive contaminant radioactivity 10x.

I'm still getting roughly 1000 rads/c per million contaminants, same as on live branch.

[pether]

15 hours ago, JarrettM said:

We are adding a new building, the Radbolt Chamber, to act as a battery for storing Radbolts. It requires less power than a Radbolt Generator and has a slower radbolt decay when unpowered.

I'm not sure if that building was really needed, but I guess many people requested something like that and I'm not forced to use it, so its fine I guess. One comment - it currently stores up to 100 radbolts and it feels more like a radbolt merger than a battery. If that's the design then its cool, if you wanted more battery-style then storage capacity of 1000 radbolts would feel better.

Oh, and I hate I cannot rotate the building or change radbolt direction...

 

15 hours ago, JarrettM said:

We re-added Space Scanners which can now detect Interplanetary Payloads and rocket debris.

The base game’s Telescope is back too, it’s now called the “Enclosed Telescope” and offers some protection from radiation in addition to the normal comforts it usually provides. The standard Spaced Out! Telescope is still available.

Coool! Sounds great, thanks guys!

Edited November 11, 2021 by pether

[NeoDeusMachina]

1 hour ago, pether said:

int currently stores up to 100 radbolts and it feels more like a radbolt merger than a battery. If that's the design then its cool, if you wanted more battery-style then storage capacity of 1000 radbolts would feel better.

Oh, and I hate I cannot rotate the building or change radbolt direction...

Yeah I agree with that. Now that the automation port was changed, the radbolt generators will always end up firing their radbolts. So you cannot even "store" 500 radbolts in them anymore (rip my 1,5M radbolts, will not build 15000 radbolt batteries xD). It would be nice to have a larger storage capacity for those. I think at the very least 1000 radbolts would be nice - would still need 5 batteries for a single radbolt engine (losses...). Apparently that's what it does already, see post below.

Now that shinebugs produce 50% less radiation, they are a much less viable option for the production of radbolts at high rates because of how they affect performance. If there was 1 thing I would had on my Christmas wish list, dear Santa Klei, it would be to implement the ionizing bugs variant that would hopefully produce more radiation that the other variants. I haven't been naughty this year, I swear. Edit1: I imagine they could produce significant levels of radiation, need-a-lead-suit-for-your-rancher levels of radiation, but no light at all. This would make them good for radbolt production but not for a shinebug reactor with solar panels (to balance it out and also not destroy in-game performance). Edit2 cause why not: Now that I think about it, they could have similar lifespan and reproduction stats as radiant bugs, i.e., they would starve to death if not fed or groomed before making an egg, forcing us to actually ranch them and pay the price to maintain the radbolt production. Or they could rapidly lose chances of producing ionizing nymph eggs unless fed uranium ore/refined uranium. Or both! Might be just dreaming here, but I think it would be nice.

I wonder if "mooteor showers" count as "meteor showers" with the space scanner? Other than that, great idea to include "dupe-made ballistics", which I assume are the interplanetary launcher payloads.

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by NeoDeusMachina

[HugePinball]

37 minutes ago, pether said:

One comment - int currently stores up to 100 radbolts and it feels more like a radbolt merger than a battery. If that's the design then its cool, if you wanted more battery-style then storage capacity of 1000 radbolts would feel better.

 

 

It does store 1000 Radbolts - the 0-100 slider is the threshold to release radbolts, like the radbolt generator.

[pether]

15 minutes ago, HugePinball said:

It does store 1000 Radbolts - the 0-100 slider is the threshold to release radbolts, like the radbolt generator.

OOOOOOH, OK, thanks! That's much better, now I only need no rotate them

[SchlauFuchs]

Can we have a Radbolt chamber fail scenario when charged but unpowered? Thinking of something like when you shut down the containment chamber in Ghostbusters. Random discharges depending on how full it is. radbolts or something radioactive that has damaging effect on tiles, buildings, creatures.

[RonEmpire]

Only feedback I have about the world traits and regenerate refresh button at the screen setup is  please have it so we can get all the trait information to appear on one screen rather than scrolling up and down.       I'd like to be able to glance and see the traits and hit refresh in one go.      The fracture asteroid right now  I had to scroll up and down and refresh and it's not as convenient like it used to be.     Before I could just hit refresh and keep refreshing until I find a trait set I like. 

 

TLDR:   make it easier for us to hit the fresh button on world trait without having us to move the mouse away from the button.  Want to see all traits on same screen. 

Edited November 11, 2021 by RonEmpire

[RonEmpire]

Seeing the likes to my post. Glad I'm not alone in this request. 

[Nebbie]

Storing radbolts is very nice, but I still feel like everything's bottlenecked around generation, because the storage is only double, and radbolt generators are rather power-hungry and heat-producing while being very inefficient. Now that we're expected to also spend power to store radbolts, I think it'd be reasonable for the generators be tuned down to being 320W and 3kDTU/s.

Dupes shedding a whole 100 rads does feel a little more balanced with space, but I still think radiation is a little out of balance with space being 250 rads/cycle and common wheezes being even more. If both were 150 rads/cycle and radbolt generators were 50% efficient, I think things would be a touch more reasonable, both in dupe safety risks (with this you could even remove those ugly extra tiles from the top of spacefarer modules) and in Shine Bugs being a rad source.

[FoldableHuman]

On 11/12/2021 at 3:40 PM, Nebbie said:

Storing radbolts is very nice, but I still feel like everything's bottlenecked around generation

I feel like this is finally fixed with the reactor buff. If you fully utilize a research reactor, spend all the excess power on radbolt generation, you can run 15 generators and produce over 11k radbolts per cycle. It's a huge construction project, but once running it's vastly more than enough radbolts to sustain diamond production and space harvesting.

[ATM Reaper]

@EricKlei can you pls add a priority option to activating buildings. I recently had a case where I had to lock a dupe in the room with the materials exporter building for them to activate it, very frustrating

[zach123b]

4 hours ago, ATM Reaper said:

@EricKlei can you pls add a priority option to activating buildings. I recently had a case where I had to lock a dupe in the room with the materials exporter building for them to activate it, very frustrating

i usually set all dupes to have high priority in toggling (plus attacking and life support with tidying in the early game).  that way someone does it quickly.  it's not intuitive and i wish i could've used the yellow alert or '!!' priority to get it done but at least there's a work around

[JRup]

Priorities... Things from the days of yore:

• Missing priority: "Empty bottle"
• Buildings with priority leftover from game changes: Switch (power), Signal switch. (No longer dupe operated so no need for priority. Don't know how having a priority affects their to-do lists in this context.)

Building wish list:

A simple momentary push-button. (Signal switch is not momentary.)

[HugePinball]

2 minutes ago, JRup said:

Building wish list:

A simple momentary push-button. (Signal switch is not momentary.)

Recent mod for you: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2624509351

[RonEmpire]

6 hours ago, JRup said:

Priorities... Things from the days of yore:

• Missing priority: "Empty bottle"
• Buildings with priority leftover from game changes: Switch (power), Signal switch. (No longer dupe operated so no need for priority. Don't know how having a priority affects their to-do lists in this context.)

Building wish list:

A simple momentary push-button. (Signal switch is not momentary.)

Need also Priority for assigned clothes and suits.  Priority for demolish.  Priority for attack critter.   Priority for activate printer pod. 

Edited November 15, 2021 by RonEmpire