Update Discount!
February 14th to February 23rd, grab Voxel Eras for 15% off!
I'll be continuing to keep Voxel Eras at its current price and discount price for the foreseeable future, and I'll announce in advance when and how that will change.
If you are waiting for the best deal, this is as good as it gets!
Thanks for supporting the game!
A Mini Dev Log
Hey everyone :)
It's been... 2 months since the last update. I keep aiming for 1 month but that never seems to quite turn out. Regardless of its tardiness, this update contains a bunch of fixes, improvements, and content additions!
Starting out is the UI rework, which had the main goal of compacting the UI, making them wider instead of taller, improving readability, and of course, doubling the inventory size, which should make your inventory feel much less cramped. Below is a carousel of some them:
Alongside the UI reworks, you'll also find 3 new machines! The Mixer and Sawmill help fill out the remainder of Clockwork crafters, while the Bellows adds a new twist to furnaces, allowing them to smelt twice as fast as well as converting them fully to Clockwork.
Nothing is easy though, so you'll also find a new intermediate part, Machine Frames. Each tier has its own requirements for its given material. This simplifies building, while also allowing me to torture you preparation of materials via automation.
There are many more changes done, but I'll let the patch notes do the talking.
Thank you for the continued support, and I hope you enjoy the update! Let me know your thoughts here on the Steam Forums, the Discord, and, if you enjoyed it, maybe even a review? ;)
New
Sawmill - A new machine to handle your wood cutting needs!
Mixer - Mix it up with this blend of a good time!
Bellows - The breaths of the Bellows barreling into blazing furnaces doubles their speed and converts them into Clockwork devices!
Machine Frames - A new part used in machines, replacing some of their previous costs, with different tiers having different requirements in Pig Iron, Wrought Iron, Bronze, and Carbon Steel variants.
Priority Pipes - Pipes now have the ability to set a priority input and output.
Recipe Complexity - Recipes now have an associated "complexity" determining how quickly they craft. Recipe duration is now displayed in crafters as well.
3D Item Renders - Items which have an associated construct now render that construct, including within pipes. (SPINNY FURNACES, YIPPEEEE-)
Voxel Audio - A new audio system allowing much larger amounts of audio sources at much lower costs. These are now used for machine "running" sounds, with some added flair.
Mouse Invert setting for those who do that.
Experimental "Explosive"
Changes
Player Inventory size is now 80, up from 40.
Large UI Rework - The Build Menu is the center point, where like mentioned above, the inventory size has been doubled, and the UI format is now horizontal instead of vertical. This change has been applied to all machines and configuration UIs. Neutral, primary, secondary, tertiary, and accent slots now indicate some level of "relatedness / hierarchy".
Craftable Constructs - The Crate, Crude Furnace, Mortar and Pestle, Anvil, Pipes, Fast Pipes, Trash Can, Oak Door, and Torch now need to be crafted before placement instead of using raw resources.
Tooltips for Constructs, Recipes, and Items are improved / now available in various UI locations.
Pipe Filters and UI - Alongside their UI rework, pipes now have 5 filters, up from 3, as well as a togglable inventory pane and control changes.
Furnaces and Alloy Furnaces no longer "burnout" their remaining fuel when there is no recipe, it now stops burning immediately keeping its fuel costs consistent.
Shortened tutorial, removing the "head look" section as this was error prone and annoying.
Pipe and Fast Pipe now have their rate listed as 2 items / second, and 4 items / second respectively.
After clearing your pipette, flip mode is disabled (more natural and less error prone).
Mouse sensitivity has been lowered from a base of 0.2 to 0.125 degrees per pixel.
Clicking a "New" Era Menu entry that is currently selected will no longer close it, making it feel more "intuitive". Clicking it with no "New" is unchanged and will toggle it.
Era Menu completion now displays the icon alongside the existing name.
Reworked the Era menu entries to better fit the new additions and changes, as well as expanding the lore of the game to be a bit more of a thorn in your side.
Balance
Break Speed Increased - Plants 10 -> 15, Fragile 2.4 -> 3.1, Component 2 -> 2.8, Soft 1.6 -> 2.1, Machine 1.1 -> 1.4, Hard 0.9 -> 1.2, Inventory 0.7 -> 0.8 and Ore 0.4 -> 0.5.
Assembler Output - Recipes no longer benefit from a 2x bonus, as things double too often.
Bender Output - The Bender now doubles it's output.
Machine Costs - Many costs have now changed to include Machine Frames and are roughly the same total cost, some slightly less. Listing them all here would take an entire extra page.
Oak Planks now burn for 200 ticks, up from 100.
Oak Logs now burn for 800 ticks, up from 400.
The Winder and Winder Extension now transfer 50 energy / transfer, up from 5 and 1 respectively.
Winder Extension now has a max energy of 200, up from 50.
Vacuum, Planter, and Chopper now have a max energy of 200, up from 25.
Assembler, Bender, Grinder, Hammer, and Lathe now have a max energy of 400, up from 25.
Alloy Furnaces now allow non burnables to be insert into the inputs from the bottom, alongside their existing fuel from the bottom.
Grass Blades now cost 1 instead of 2 trimmings, with both grass blade variants dropping 100% instead of 25% of their cost.
Fast Pipes can no longer be hand crafted, and must be crafted in an Assembler.
A Thorn In Your Side requires fewer resources to complete.
Fixes
Fixed multiplayer, whoops... Last minute update changes are bad.
Swapchain Recreation lag should be resolved, some software configs like to spam doing this (Wayland fullscreen).
Recipe "Raw Costs" now actually are the raw costs. Gaslight, gate keep, girl boss 💅
Graphics card names no longer make the settings menu WIIIIIIDDDDE, instead being truncat...
Assemblers now count towards craft statistics.
Intel Arc cards should no longer look "fuzzy" (terrible) for all pixel art.
Entering a Direct IP without a port will now "fix it for you" like adding a server listing.
Hot reloading now functions in more cases, including when messaged by another voxel.
Optimization
Lazy Machines - The major crafting machines have all moved to be "Lazy Machines". These only update when they have an event to do so, like finishing smelting, needing fuel, or having their inventory changed.
Pipe Rewrite - This was actually rewritten twice for this update, but pipes now act more similarly to Lazy Machines with some performance improvements alongside their new features.
MetaDataContainer read write performance has been improved.
Due to the above, the simulation runs 2x faster, networking bandwidth is now 1/6th previous (up to 1/12th if you're above 1x sim rate), with 10%+ higher frame rates. Best of luck!
Loading speed for some setups should increase, especially under VSync or poor frame rate by up to 10x, assuming you're not bottle necked on the actual loading.
Modding
MetaData Debug - When enabled and looking at a voxel, it will show you its MetaData. Very useful.
Building Debug - When enabled, break speed is increased and constructs can be placed for free.
Vulkan Debug - Will reload the game when next possible with Vulkan debug messages enabled.
Many metadata names have been updated, removing the prefix of "State:". As these are used within the context of their usage this shouldn't break anything, but it can.
New APIs lazy_machine_on_event, lazy_machine_progress, and lazy_machine_fuel for the Lazy Machines.
New APIs with_complexity and recipe_complexity for setting complexity and retrieving it from RecipeBuilder and Arc respectively.
New APIs enter_sound, loop_sound, exit_sound, audio_group, sound_volume, sound_distance available on VoxelBuilder for Voxel Audio.
New RecipeBuilder API which more easily handles common cases.
New APIs horizontal_centered, label_centered, recipe_tooltip, construct_tooltip, and inventory_slot alternative for more UI options.
WIP PBRMaterial API, will be used in future versions for graphical improvements.
Lazy and LazyPipe are now called on inserting and pulling from inventories for the voxel itself and its neighboring pipes respectively.
Clockwork Drills are now Lazy Machines, with recipes being added for "crafting" ores.
Modding documentation (generated by running the game with --docs) has had styling removed to increase readability.
The engine now supports 8192 textures, up from 2048.
Unlock command change - Using "all" will now unlock everything. You cheater.
Deprecated RecipeBuilder's "simple" variant, as its too simple, requiring massive builder chains. The log now contains a deprecation notice and it will be removed in the future (eventually).
Added COUNT_UP, SCRAMBLE, and CENSOR text interpretations usable in the Era Menu via ${TYPE='VALUE'}. Currently unused.
New API message_nearby_delayed for mass sending messages to adjacent voxels to complete later.
Removals
Removed Copper Gear, Ring, and Screw, as these serve no real purpose and likely will never.
Removed Tin Gear and Tin Screw, as while these may have a purpose, they have no planned use.
Anisotropic Filtering has been removed for pixel art, as Intel Arc cards misbehave. This will be readded in a software implementation later.
Known Issues
When pipes are at full throughput, only 2/3rds of a pipe will be sent to the priority output due to pipe update order (won't always happen). This can be worked around with 2 priority pipes in a row merged back together or using a faster pipe at the junction.
When initially loading up an existing save, machines will run at the same time, causing occasional lag spikes until your world "balances out" the lazy machines.