Welcome Prospectors to a, for a lack of a better word, cozy edition of Weekly Apart, our dev blog/newsletter series that keeps you up to date on all (small and big) things Dawn Apart. No worries though - our space colony and automation sim is not going to be cross over into the wholesome builder genre anytime soon. We're still striving to make a complex, hardcore sci-fi factory sim with lots of combat and gore. But today's post is all about the miniature versions of our machines and converters, and, well, how adorable they look.
But before we show off chibi versions of drills and smelters, a quick reminder, if you haven't done so yet, to join our Discord server, which is just short of 700 followers and offers all kind of shenanigans from dibs on playtests and demos, a look into our Glass Factory (dev updates in real time essentially), and exclusive artwork. Also please check out our TikTok channel and leave a follow - but be aware that we're still getting the hang of it and may have overdone it with green screen memes lately;)
Machine Mini-Mes
In the past week, in the process of redesigning our various assembling machines and tweaking our workbench mechanics, we discovered a glaring omission: We didn't have miniaturized voxel assets/symbol of machines for when they leave a workbench or assembler and are manually hauled by colonists or moved by conveyors. So we put our artist in residency/intern Leon to the task. And lo and behold he came up with these amazing miniature versions. Watch below for a sped-up video of his work-flow and see how he adds all those tiny details when scaling down the size of a machine (in this case the punch press):
Keep in mind that in order to colonize Aurora and mine massive amounts of Lucrum you'll eventually have to move hundreds of machines and resources into and out of your stockpiles and around your compound. Previously, when you crafted an item or built a machine we simply used boring-looking brown boxes as placeholders, which you couldn't tell apart from each other. But now we have tiny versions that nevertheless still have all the details so that you can identify each machine from afar.
Pro (Tool)Tips
Speaking of assembling and crafting - we also overhauled the tool tips of the workbench, which now handily displays the amount of machines that can be crafted based on the resources in your stockpile - or which resources are missing to do so. We also updated the Prospector modal that displays the skills, mental state and needs of each colonist as well as fine-tuned the priority window that documents how attuned each person is to the various tasks of running a successful colony.
Last but not least we began implementing a cool new definition for our redesigned solar panels. This actually includes a Solar Energy System which produces energy for all solar panels, determining the production level based on the current time of day. Solar energy, along with other sources of power, will eventually play a key role in Dawn Apart and we'll share more about the system soon (including of course the smooth automatic realignment of panels to the location of the sun).
What do you think of our "baby machines"? Let us know here in the comments or on Discord and see you soon!