The June update is all about plants. We added new plants and improved current ones to expand the interaction players can have with plants in Rebots.
Note: the update is available on the rebotsplaytime beta branch or by requesting access for the New Steam Playtest from our store page.
New Features
Interacting with & Growing Plants
In order to change the environment, players need to harvest resources from various plants - this interaction has been at the core of Rebots for a long time. We wanted to expand this interaction, leveraging the new supervisors introduced in the April Update - the Sorter, the Dispatcher & the Combiner.
- Added plant health states - most plants can now get sick if certain conditions are met. When sick, plants produce rotten fruit/resources. Players can create fertilizer with the combiner to heal trees and return them to a healthy state.
- Added plant growth cycles - all plants can be grown from seed → sprout → sapling → fully-grown plant and cut down into a stump. Only fully-grown plants can become sick.
- Added new objective types to leverage plant health states and growth cycles for more varied jobs & objectives
New Plants & Deposits
Stick Tree & Stick
The stick tree is a new tree which produces sticks as a resource. Sticks can be found randomly on asteroids and be used to create worker tools.
Chili Vine & Chili
The chili vine is the first unique new plant that grows differently from other plants and blocks the path of workers & supervisors creating interesting challenges for players to navigate on asteroids. Produces chilis as a resource.
Thicket
The thicket is the third and final unique new plant added in this update. It works as an inverse vaporizer - it sucks in gases from the atmosphere and turns them into its resource form. Freshbreath will turn into mintnuts, Spores will turn into mushrooms and so on.
ScrapTrap
The scraptrap is the second unique plant. As the name implies, this plant captures unsuspecting workers as they pass in its vicinity and the player needs to go and help workers escape.
Draga, Clunk & Zappa deposits
Deposits are a new class of entities in Rebots - they can be mined for the resources (same name) they contain while also simultaneously producing stones. Stones can be found randomly on asteroids and be used to create worker tools.
Worker Tools
Introducing plant states and growth cycles immensely opens up the gameplay opportunities in Rebots - and we took it one step further. Worker tools are objects that players can create with the combiner from basic resources to be used for various purposes with the pickup & putdown supervisors. Let’s see what these are:
- A worker carrying the fork will either 1) create a furrow into the ground or 2) uproot a stump or sprout if there are any at the destination.
- Added a furrow - seeds need to be planted into furrows so they can grow into full plants.
- A worker carrying the pick will either 1) mine a rock or deposit for resources or 2) place the pick on the ground if there isn't anything minable at the destination.
- A worker carrying the axe will either 1) chop a fully-grown plant and turn it into a stump or 2) place the axe on the ground if there isn't anything choppable at the destination.
New Job & Asteroid Generation Arc
In order to accommodate all the new content we just introduced, we reworked our job and asteroid generation graphs into a new arc for better variety, pacing and challenges. Here are the major elements of the arc:
- Tutorial - 2 levels introducing the basic tools, interaction and supervisors and how to change temperature
- First Steps - Gas creation & delivery jobs
- Hauler Intro - Introducing the storage hauler
- Combiner Intro - Introducing the combiner and the codex for gas management/removal & combined delivery jobs
- Growing Community Intro - Introducing plant growth cycles & health as well as worker tools to interact for planting jobs
Codex Update - Entity Database View
We introduced the codex back in our March Update so players could handle more than 1 job in the Job Management View. In this update, we are adding the Entity Database View - an overview of the plants & resources currently in the game.
- Added information about rebots, fruits, plants, inorganics and processed entities - both old & new added in this update
- Added keybinds 1, 2 & Q, E to switch between the 2 different views of the codex
Alien Variations & Move-in Assets
Originally planned for the April Update, the two factions currently in Rebots now have a wide variety of variations. There are 3 base models for each and they are varied with different colors and props, as well as different names.
When the objectives of a job are completed, the player can call in the aliens at the landing zone. When the alien lands, they’ll spawn a set of move-in assets so that they feel cozy on their freshly climaformed asteroid. We plan to expand on the relationships the player has with these alien factions and their level of comfort on asteroids in an upcoming release.
Improvements & Fixes
- Added the state of plants to the scanner view
- Replaced the mintnut bush with a new model and added health and growth cycles
- Added a pop-up menu when pressing the New Game button to skip the tutorial
- Improved load times from asteroid selection onto generated planets to be significantly faster
- Removed the exclamation mark from already talked to aliens if they have nothing more to say
- Fixed bugs with the save & load system - players can exit the game and continue where they left off. Saving is triggered upon accepting and completing jobs as well as when purchasing items in the various shops such as ship upgrades, hiring supervisors, haulers, resources, etc.
- Fixed various bugs with the worker actions such as picking up, putting resources down on the ground or into supervisors
- Fixed various bugs with the workers delivering/taking out resources from the hauler
- Fixed a bug where the default Trevor variation would spawn together with the current job giver
- Fixed a bug where the codex wouldn’t close on press Tab
- Other misc. bug fixes
If you have feedback, let us know here on the Steam Forum or on our Discord Server.
Rebots Devs / @FlatPonies
