This past week I was doing some simple and unexciting coding task and fell down a rabbit hole that involved reparenting nearly every building in the game. While it took a while it really helped solidify what things were in the game and how the player used and interacted with them. I won’t go into great detail but know that things started making much more sense and it also helped me figure out what the role of vacuum tubes was to be in the later game (more on that in the future).
More importantly, I also figured out what I want to be the features list for version 0.2. The last major thing I want to add is a way to sort and direct items on conveyors. So that’s what I started working on this weekend. It's not much yet but the plan is to have sorting, splitter, and merger functionality all within the same building that can have up to 3 inputs or outputs
Version 0.2 is planned to be the first “major update” that will include all of the following features:
• Updated GUI
• Sounds effects
• Crane
• Item Sorter
• Lots of small changes and fixes
Most of these features are partly done and hopefully can be finished with relative ease. The plan is for the release of 0.2 by the end of February but that is, of course, subject to change. After 0.2 then comes 0.3 naturally and the plan is to do a large rewrite/rework of how building connectors function. Shaft are the only connectors currently in the game but there are plans for two more. The goal is to make them function a little better but more importantly make them look right and animate properly with gears on the ends.
Also if you cheat in a crane and check them out in this weeks build you will notice that the box that represents the hook no longer moves on its own directly to the destination. It is instead driven by the crane itself and moves radially. It looks very cool!