Hello everyone,
Tis Friday once again and we have the week's progress to share with you all. There is no update to the build this week due to large changes being made to the code. But I will get to that in a little bit.
Tomorrow will be almost exactly a year since we released Fishery in Early Access and I think there is much to be said about the progress that has been made as well as the progress we hope to make in the next year. After the next build is uploaded (hopefully next week) we will write a about it. It might be a bit of a long post because it has been a busy year but it is important to reflect on such things and keep all of you informed about progress.
Back to this week's progress. First here is a little look at what some of those new pipe pieces can do.
Invalidly Positioned Pipes:
Here we have a situation where we want to overlap two pipes for whatever reason. Usually the reason is just that we are running out of space. This does not work as the pipes are intersecting through each other rather than neatly connecting at their connection points.
Mini S-Pipe:
So we created this small S shaped pipe that allows for players to overlap pipes without causing trouble. Very useful pipe piece indeed.
Tight U-Bend Pipe:
Here we have a situation where we have 3 pipes that are all not attempting to connect to one another but want to go their separate ways. This sort of thing will happen when the space is tight and the devices plugged into the pipes have irregular input and output pipe positions.
One of the more interesting aspects of the plumbing system is that is allows players to use their problem solving abilities in a creative way. The plumbing area is always going to be a little tight depending on the size of aquarium you have chosen and how complex you wish to make it's water chemistry. Hopefully this will encourage lots of experimentation.
Now that we are coming close to adding the functionality necessary for creating marine aquariums. Namely the ability to add salt but we must also take into account some of the more subtle changes that happen to water when it is heated and how this affects aquariums. The oxygen saturation limit of water becomes lower. Carbon Dioxide that is stored in the water is released. That is one reason why carbonated beverages are best served chilled.
In doing research over the past weeks and months into this subject I have gone done several rabbit holes in pursuit of information that can be ever so gently massaged into a form that can fit within our slightly odd aquarium game. Naturally we have had to modify how the water chemistry simulates and completely change how information is shown to players.
New Rollover UIs for Inspect Mode:
These are not entirely different to what they are like in the current build of the game but the aim is to show simple numbers and use standard measurement symbols where it makes sense.
You might notice in the UIs for Oxygen and CO2 that there are sections for "surface agitation rate". This is a new feature we are adding into the game which mimics a real life process. Surface Agitation refers to the process of the water's surface being disturbed in some way causing movement and breaking it's surface tension. This allows for whats known as "gas exchange" to occur. Oxygen from the atmosphere is absorbed into the water and causes the release of carbon dioxide from the water. We are not sure entirely how much the player should be able to increase or decrease surface agitation via the use of airstones and other devices but it is something that will be worked on and tested.
You might notice some standard units of measurement. Watts for power and degrees Celsius for temperature, we shall be adding degrees Fahrenheit for those whose want it, There will also be units of measurements for the size of aquariums and their water volumes. CM, Inches, Litres and US Gallons. We were a bit hesitant to add them into the game thus far because they don't make sense in the context of the code for reasons I wont go into here but if it helps players get a sense of scale and intuition about things then we are happy to add them now.
All the code that deals with water chemistry is being looked at and modified to accommodate new features and changes to existing ones.
Changes To Other UI:
Since we are making changes to UI we finally did some much needed modification to the shop/inventory ui. It took too many clicks before the desired items would display in the scroll list and now that has drastically been reduced. Sub-categories will be added when there are more items to choose from and they will be displayed as icons on the right hand side of this menu and correspond to the selected category on the left.
There are even more changes being made to the simulation system then will also feed into the fish ai and plant systems. Not to mention even more general UI changes but a lot more of that can be shown next week when hopefully we can release a new build. I shall be working on it for a good 6 hours on Saturday to squeeze in a bit more progress. I'll also try and find more time over the weekend to update the lists on the forums.
As usual we wish you all a good weekend
The Fishery Team