Maia

Maia 0.61 is out now. Right now. This build brings many new useful features to the game and a significant amount of tweaks and fixes.

Here’s a video of me playing the latest release:

Interface

This update brings several new user interface and management tools to the game. Room options are now available and allow for managing the stockpiling of items, new security features and even tweaking the lighting of a room. Just click a room to see the available options. Carefully managing these fine grained controls can significantly improve the efficiency of a busy base.

When placing items the UI now presents more useful information about whether an object is reachable, and visible paths are shown to illustrate how the colonists would walk to the item.

Movement orders

You can now practice your interior design skills and rearrange items in your base using the new movement order. By click-dragging on an item you will create a new move order and your colonists will push the items to their new locations. Utility robots given movement orders will use them as waypoints and if they are not too busy, go directly to the locations.

The tutorial has been significantly reworked and with more guidance and information, and provides an easier and clearer first contact with the game. Even experienced players may find it useful to give it another go.

Planning

Build priority changes for better base flow and design. Colonists are now more aware of the flow of a base and will order door builds based on the need of that specific room. They will also no longer have complete emotional breakdowns when locked in a room with no doors, so will build one if it is placed. They will also share workbenches more efficiently and the amount of duplicated builds has been reduced.

Suit refill points are now critical to surface operations. You can no longer build items far away from your base and must build a supply chain to the item so your colonists can restock their suits and rest.

Resuscitation and first aid has been added, allowing colonists to save unconscious members of the team (if they like them enough). Just ensure you pick some colonists with medical skills as improperly given resuscitation can give patients other health complications.

Other notable changes:

Colonists with surface walking skills will now walk much faster in suits.
Atmosphere generator output increased a little.
Vent system tweaked to push less air than the atmosphere generator.
Medical emergencies are now mentioned by the base announcer.
Probe generation fixed. Every map now has several lost robotic probes to find.
Tutorial spelling mistakes fixed.
Migration event emails now lock onto specific creature.
Camera locks on to colonist who sent an email when it is opened.
Utility robot infotip fixed.
If an AI is destroyed in code they will now properly release any item they were using.
Tutorial can now be completed using the alt-rotate.
Text overlays for objects and rooms are no longer drawn when an email is open.
Mouseover text is hidden if the player opens the manifest.
Cursor animations for left and right clicking.
Cursor size options added to the menu.
Capsules should no longer land next to each other.
Holes in several environment models fixed.
Fix for pathfinding bug where colonists went to wrong interaction point, potentially getting stuck.
Interface options menu split off.
Lights brighten when mouse-overed.
Tracking sound fixed to only fire when clicking a living item.
Sounds for selecting colonists on the menu added.
Sounds for turning on and off heaters fixed.
Fixed several colonist animation bugs.
General game code improvements and optimisations.
Inter-gameobject messaging improved code quality and to reduce bugs.
Engine render calls made more efficient.
Lava lights fixed.
Lava optimisations.

As you may be aware, we are rapidly approaching beta, so do send us all your bugs and issues. Be sure to get yourself on the development branch to see all the latest changes.

That’s all for now. If you like these updates be sure to drop us feedback via Twitter and Steam reviews.

Alpha 0.60 is here! Lava can now rain down into your base, incinerating anything in its path. Here’s a video of me showing off the new features and changes to the game:

Lava

Lava, (perhaps more accurately, magma) is now in the game! Maps with high tectonic activity will run a huge risk of lava breaches, that will pour into your colony and destroy anything in its path. Watch as your equipment and colonists die gloriously in the all consuming fire. The system is a full 3d fluid smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulation so has realistically simulated viscosity, density and pressures all running in real time.

Memories.

All intelligences in the game now have a detailed long term memory, allowing them to to remember their actions, moods and feelings. In their emails, colonists will now comment on what they did in a day, why they did it, how they felt about it, how important it was and even details down to what the bases conditions were like at the time. Domestic and alien creatures will use their memory to make better choices in the future, such as returning to a place they found food or warmth.

Relationships

Colonists can now make friends, build relationships, fall in love and make enemies. The relationships will change their attitudes towards each other, their moods and their behaviour in the base. New interactions, such as arguments, following and shoving will come about as colonists get to know each other.

Interface improvements

The game’s zoom has been improved substantially to allow you to get in close to the action, and also to allow you to pull back for a wider overview of your colony.

Many small changes have been added to the user interface to improve object placement, such as wall-snapping auto-rotation of items and object-type rotation memory, to allow for consistent placement when placing several duplicate items. A small amount of latency has been reduced from the mouse movement which will also make things feel more responsive.

The new mission-day counter on the top right of the screen will give you a better feel for your base’s progress as you track the passage of time.

Other notable Changes:

Plants can now be harvested earlier if needed. Priority is given to plants that are fully matured.
Colonist food preparation priority increased.
Extra detail added to colonist emails regarding food and base planning.
Pressing escape from the options menu now takes you back to the game.
IMP digging cancel requests no longer pop up if there are no dig orders.
Colonists can now request to disable the alarms for a short period of time.
Game window buffer swap now performed before the frame end sleep, to improve responsiveness.
Tweak for world gen to prevent jungle worlds!
If water need is higher than food need, the colonists may now eat to fulfil it too.
Colonist water need only hijacks food need if need is greater than 50%
Eating now gives a bit more water.
Solar arrays now correctly advertising food need to the vox nocturna.
Geothermal generator now repairable by robots.
Twilight Zone mission ending and some text fixed.
Colonists will no longer go outside without suits to shoot or inspect downed aliens.
Fix and tweaks for medical room items build priority.
Chance of leg or arm fracture from earthquake reduced down to 2% for each.
When choice to torch medical beds is given and dismissed colonists will only have a 25% chance of getting gastric distress instead of 100%.
Fix for geothermal generators causing colonists to go outside without suits on.
Sitting on the floor was not giving colonists enough rest. Therefore if you did not build colonists beds before they got tired your base would become very unmanageable.
Entire world object placement generation code updated. Must faster now, and you will always have some creatures on the map.
Colonists have a little more water in their bodies now.
Sweating reduced when dehydrated.
Sweating reduced to two litres per hour equivalent. If a colonist has one litres of sweat on their body, sweating now stops.
Fix for announcer bugs.
Food prep priorities tweaked a little bit.
Object destruction order priorities tweaked on many objects. Fossils are rarer. So less likely to jam up your storage room in the early game.
Gaps removed from emails.
Multithreading improved for systems with four or more cores.

As you may be aware, we are rapidly approaching beta, so do send us all your bugs and issues. The estimated date for the 1.0 release of Maia is now the end of May.