Rewrite Devlog #14

Is that spring I smell? It is, which means it's time for March's devlog about the rewrite - the planned new version of Alien Horizon that's rewritten from scratch, currently scheduled for sometime in the summer. Today we're gonna take a look at changes to objectives and research.

Objectives

Steam post imageHere's the objectives screen. As you can see, not all objectives are revealed right from the start. When objectives are achieved, new ones pop up, which were dependent on the previous objectives. For example "Interim concrete production" objective is dependent on "Geosurvey capability", because it's not possible to achieve it without first building a survey office and surveying at least one deposit, so it's not going to show up until "Geosurvey capability" is achieved. The dependencies are never arbitrary, but rather arise from what the objective actually needs in order to be achievable.

This should make the objectives screen less overwhelming for new players, but also show which objectives are actually possible to achieve at this moment and what the player should focus on.

Just like in the alpha, all objectives can be pinned, but now you can also decide whether you want hope to be pinned whenever you have it. While hope works the way it did in the alpha, low expectations bonus is gone now. Its purpose was to give colonists more morale in the early stages of the colony when it's difficult to meet their needs, but taper off later in the game. This has been replaced by a determination system - each colonist has a determination stat that improves their outlook and thus makes their needs easier to fulfill (more about outlook in Devlog #7). Determination is set in stone and doesn't change during the colonist's life, but their children always get one less determination, making younger generations more needy (after all, they didn't sign up for this mission), until ultimately, few generations down the line, the determination bonus is completely gone.

On the left you can switch between objective categories - short-term (I), medium-term (II), long-term (III) and bonus (+) objectives. Not all are gonna be populated in the initial version of the rewrite, but I do have some grand plans for them in the future.

The last tab is the cargo ship list.

Cargo ships

Steam post imageIt functions the same way it does in the alpha - it shows you which cargo ships you have discovered and what their payload is - except now each cargo ship has a symbol that represents it. You can thank Denis Moskowitz for coming up with symbols for the solar system's dwarf planets and moons that didn't have them and releasing them into public domain.

Steam post imageThe symbol is also present on the ship itself.

I've heard many complaints that either the colony ship or the cargo ships are landed the wrong way depending on how they had come down. My response has always been that the colony ship is engines first, because it was slowing down by thrusting during landing and the cargo ships are nose first because they glided, but I decided to put an end to this confusion by flipping the cargo ships. Now they've also committed a powered landing. Their entrances also needed to be moved up in order to prevent flooding.

Research

There's a lot more to talk about when it comes to research. Let's first take a look at research labs: Just like in the alpha, research labs produce a certain amount of research points per hour. However, they also produce a research multiplier - this is a percentage bonus to all research points produced in the next season (It resets every season). As was mentioned in Devlog #8, research labs aren't the only source of research points - workplaces with creativity focus are another one - and both of these are affected by the multiplier. Research labs are no longer limited to just two shifts, you can configure them however you want, and while research points are produced the same every working hour, the multiplier suffers from diminishing returns as can be seen in the bar's coloring. For example, the lab produces 8% multiplier during the first shift, another 4% during second shift and only 2% during third shift, so building more labs instead of cramming all scientists into one building is still beneficial.

Research centers are further differentiated from research labs by producing less research points per scientists, but higher multiplier. Building labs may still have a purpose even when you have access to research centers.

So, what exactly is the point introducing of the multiplier, you ask? The point is to reward larger colonies. The multiplier basically causes research production to grow somewhat exponentially instead of linearly. Let's use some fake numbers to get the point across:

Let's say you have 100 scientists in one research center making 100 research points per season with an extra 100% multiplier, for a total of 200% (100% is the baseline). This results in 200 research points per season.

Let's double it up - 200 scientists in two research centers would produce 200 points per season with a 200% multiplier, for a total of 300%. This would result in 600 research points per season - triple the amount with only double the scientists.

Because technology costs will be balanced with this mechanic in mind, by keeping your population low, you may have a problem researching technologies you need to produce certain resources before you run out of cargo ship stocks. This forces the player to expand the colony's population fast and punishes slow waiting strategies.

Another change to the research labs is that when their schooling is enabled and there are students to teach, it doesn't just lower the research point production, but completely shuts it down - it can either be a lab or a school. However, schooling can now be enabled on a shift by shift basis, so a research lab can, for example, produce research points during the day and educate students during the night.

Steam post imageThe research UI is similar to the objectives. Each research field has its own tab (even medicine, which may finally get some technologies in the rewrite) with current amount of research points and this season's multiplier.

Revealed technologies can be seen in the middle, showing how many conditions are achieved in order to unlock it and whether you have enough research points of each category to research it. Unlike the alpha, you don't need to achieve all conditions for a technology to be revealed, but just one of them, so you can finally see in advance what you need to do in order to unlock a technology. You still need all of them to research it, though.

When you have enough research points, researching itself is instantaneous, just like in the alpha.

Last month, I got a lot of wishes to get well and I thank you all for that. It seems like it worked, because my hearing has improved even more since then, now to the point that I even don't notice any difference between my ears some the time and my spatial hearing is good enough that I can rely on it once again. It looks like I got lucky, since my doctor was very surprised by such improvement.

And that concludes today's devlog. You can look forward to another one in April, or hop on the official Discord server to see extra teasers. I hope you've enjoyed this devlog and see you in a month.