Hey guys!
Pretty decent sized update coming at you this weekend. First things first, there's been a bunch of new sprites added for borgs, as well as some more tools added to certain borg types to enable them to do their jobs better. There's also been some minor updates to Paranoia, so you can expect some more testing of that in the coming weeks. Additionally, the maploader has been heavily optimized, and spacebattle will no longer lag the server to shit on roundstart! Besides that, there's also been the usual slew of bugfixes and map fixes, along with some minor features and some new clothing.
The big thing of this update though is related to the map, and I'll use bolded font to get just how big it is across:
The Planet UpdateYes, the planet update, part one. Gone is the asteroid, and in its place it has been replaced with a jungle outpost. The surface is dotted with trees, bushes and rivers, and the mining outposts have elevators that go deep underground to the new mining area. The planet surface has a number of things for miners and xeno botanists, as there are strange plants that you can find and experiment on. Additionally, the trees can be cut down with the right tools, and turned into usable wood. To go along with that, the uses of wood have been greatly expanded, and wood is now an accepted material in the autolathe. There's also machines to make paper, wrapping paper and cardboard out of the wood, allowing for alternate sources of these. You can also grow crops on the planet surface if you have a shovel, build bridges across the dangerous rivers, or even build cozy wooden cottages as seen in the picture below. Because of this change, the miner's title has been changed to "Resource Technician", reflecting their expanded role. However, they've been given a number of alternate titles, so you can still have your job title as Shaft Miner, but now you can also have it as Lumberjack.
I orginally intended to add Hunter as an alternate job title for the miners, and include hunting and trapping of animals for hides and leather and so on, and to add some threat to the surface of the planet. However, I've delayed that until next weekend or so because of some issues with the animals. So enjoy the safety of the planet surface while it lasts!
Mappers!Here comes the call for mappers! The planet now features a system for spawning in minimaps at roundstart, to allow for some diversity and randomness between rounds when it comes to the landscape. The problem is that we need some minimaps, both for the surface of the jungle and for underground. So, if you are a mapper and are interested in creating some fun little minimaps, download the source and start mapping! The maps can be maximum 30x30 for the planet surface and 40x40 for underground. There are some examples of surface maps included, so check them out and get some inspirations, but we're looking for some interesting little areas that could be anything from a crashed shuttle, to an abandoned outpost to a clearing in the forest that hosts an alter to a dark god! Use your imagination and I'm sure you'll make something cool. If you finish any, either set up a Pull Request, or upload the files to dropbox or somesuch and give me the link.
Another fun thing about this system is that it can be applied to space as well! This will go a long way towards making the world outside the station more interesting, and break up space a bit more. So, if you want to map some asteroids, ruined shuttles or abandoned satellites, we'll accept those too! Same size restrictions of 40x40 apply to space maps.
That's all for now, hope all of you are doing well.
Cheers!