A new fuel harvesting gameplay mechanic has been added.
Gas clouds will spawn close to the sun and are harvestable by the player for refuel.
To do do link (with pipes of course) a Fuel Scoop to a tank and fly inside the gas cloud.
Gas Cloud Feature:
- You need to get close to the sun to find them.
- Expand or retract depending on a much fuel is stored inside the cloud.
- Built using the latest particle system technology.
- Will be visible far away through a LOD system.
- Largest cloud can be selected as tracking target, so you can check how much fuel is left.
Fuel Scoop:
- Can be set to harvest or Expel in case you need to dump fuel.
- In case of expel a new gas cloud will be created if necessary.
- Can be toggled On or Off.
- It has three signal events for all your logic needs : [Is harvesting], [Is Expelling] and [Is Inside Gas Cloud]
- Has a harvest and expel particle effect.
- All built using DOTS technology, so it should be super fast!
Other features:
- HUD Fuel fuel widget has been improved.
WIP:
- Fuel rate will likely require more tuning as it might be too slow.
- The gas clouds pops-in a bit abruptly. This will be fixed once the size of the world will be reduced (that will be necessary for other reasons too).
Community Feedback:
I want to conclude this post by asking you some feedback!
I am considering implementing multi-fuel.
The basic fuel will always be available at every star and compatible with both engine and reactor, but higher tier fuel would be more rare and would provide power / range bonus for either engine or reactor, requiring more complex design to be exploited fully.
A tank could only store one type of fuel at a time.
This could be interesting and add depth for advanced players, but I fear it might be too cumbersome.
Thanks a lot for playing!
Francois