Devlog #3

Not too many visible things this week, but lots of refactoring and cleaning up code regarding, for example, the energy system and ship specs data.

The biggest gameplay change was related to the player crashing the ship or running out of fuel. Previously, this resulted in loading the last save, but this kind of broke up the flow and enabled save scumming. Being that a single run goes on for a limited amount of game days, I felt it's a better idea to let the run continue with a small penalty in credits and the time lost in the run. Now, the game flows better and there's a stronger incentive to be a bit more cautious.

Another visible update is the net worth calculation seen in the picture. This forms the final score from a single run.

The hard part here was to decide how to evaluate remaining resource holdings. The resource prices are volatile, so I thought about lessening the impact of current prices in the final score. To that end, I first thought about using some kind of standard price for each asset, but this would result in an even bigger problem, because there would be an incentive to fire sell (or buy) on the last day before the run ends, depending on where the current price stands compared to the standard price.

I ended up just valuating at current market prices. The downside is that the the market can get sour towards the end, but otoh it's up to the player to decide whether to risk it or not, which is kind of fun. And, more importantly, there won't be quick arbitrage opportunities on the last day.

J