Beta Version 3.0 (accessible via Star Explorers>Properties>Betas>Beta) has received another update. This time the following things have been fixed:
Game Save Issue
- Previously, if you started a new game, then exited prior to saving at a star system, the game would load correctly, but planets would not properly orbit their stars anymore.
- Now you should be able to save the game at any location in the galaxy - as long as you are at the helm of your spaceship, and reload the game with no problems.
- This means you may save at the mothership - which I had always intended for the game to allow.
- Note: You still cannot save during a warp or planet approach, but you can save while in orbit of a planet.
Terrain Glitch
- The game creates an endless planet surface by making a fake terrain just outside of the real terrain, so the player will not realise he is actually teleporting from one side of the map to another.
- This system was flawed, since you could see a glitch each time you teleported from one side of the terrain to another.
- I found a curious piece of code that was causing the grass to try and reposition itself manually, by tracing a new surface position each time this happened. This led to a massive framerate drop, but only for one frame, after which the game would run normally again.
- I fixed the code, so that the grass would not have to reposition itself manually, but simply jumps to the new position.
- This new approach makes the jump effect virtually seamless, and there is no framerate drop when passing over the edges of the map.
- If you can't tell, I'm very happy about this discovery :)
- I believe it also solved the problem of grass jumping to different positions with each of these transitions, but I was unable to actually reproduce that problem, so it may show up again.
Jumping
- Jumping has been normalized for all gravity levels. Low gravity planets were allowing the player to jump a bit too high, and high gravity planets were not allowing jumping at all in some cases.
- Player was getting stuck in cave ceilings - this has been fixed
- Player was jumping immedietly on loading a new planet or cave, now player should start at ground level
Other Stuff
- Crates/Caches now make the proper closing sound again.
- Some rocks and Speleotherms (Stalagmites and Stalagtites) are now destructable with the rocket launcher - this will be used to create some more interesting experiences, like clearing blocked passages or perhaps releasing hidden items like crystals or ores.