Designer Save/Restore Location
Design Environment Menu item to save/restore my current location/orientation.

Your location can now be stored using the View|Save My Position menu. Your location, facing, body pose and head tilt are stored.

Your location can be restored using the View|Restore My Position menu. There are also options to position yourself at the drawing origin and at the grid origin.

Position information is stored with the blueprint.

Designer Rename Lift Stop
Rename lift stop command needed.

Right-click menu on turbo lift in parts tree now has an option to rename a lift stop. Any lift door with the same name is also renamed at the same time.

Designer Remote Cameras
What about remote camera locations on the hull that you can switch to from the command chair?

Cameras can now be placed in a blueprint. While sitting in a command chair, you can switch cameras on or off. Then you can move forward/backward through the sequence, ordered by part id. When the camera is switched on, it resumes at the last selected camera.

Default key command station key bindings are Home=Camera on/off, Page Up/Page Down to move through the sequence.

The camera part only provides a location. Its orientation and size do not affect anything.

You can also position yourself to the location of a camera in the designer. Right-click on the camera (or any part) in the parts list to move to its location.

Designer Remote Doors
Door should have a property of whether it opens when M is pressed.

Doors now have properties to control if they are opened by the remote door switches in vehicles and in spacecraft. These properties apply to all doors, not just hull doors.

In existing blueprints, hull doors are set to respond to vehicle and spacecraft remotes. All other doors are set to respond to neither.

Designer Door Properties
Door properties do not show the properties of the selected part when displayed.

Door properties window now shows current properties of selected doors.

Showing properties of existing parts is very useful, just a bit more work than I was prepared for the first time around. I will transition all of the properties windows to do this as time permits. New properties windows will get this behavior right away.

Designer Colored Lights
Add a color to blinking lights.

Strobes and rotating beacons now have a light color property.

Designer Align Turbo Lift
It seems odd that turbo stops, which are treated as states of the turbo lift object, do not behave the same as other similar items. the turrets moved fine, the gun states moved with the base states. but yet the turbo stops don't move with the design.

Turbo lifts now act like all other parts when dragged or moved. Transformations apply to all states of the turbo lift equally.

The Parts|Align Turbo Lift command was added to align a turbo lift stop. It moves only the current stop. It is the ONLY way to move a turbo lift stop without affecting the other stops.

While it seemed clever to allow movement of the turbo lift to affect only the current stop, that behavior was not compatible with other behavior expected by users, such as when copying/pasting a drawing, or rotating a design that was drawn in the wrong direction.

I will remake the relevant video when time permits.

Designer Blueprint vs Design
The Design menu should probably be renamed Blueprint, to be consistent with other usage of the term.

Design menu change to Blueprint menu.

Designer People in Preview
Crew in preview to test pathing.

People can now be created in the design preview, using the Blueprint|Preview People command. There is a button for this on the tool bar. The button will not create people if any have already been created in the preview. They disappear when the preview is canceled.

People can be selected by clicking on them and you can click on the floor to tell them where to go. The unit orders window is not shown but its key commands for issuing unit orders are functional; Ctrl+H for "Come Here" and Ctrl+F for "Follow Me" are handy. Livestock does not respond to unit orders.

In spacecraft designs, all berths and livestock posts are filled. People appear at their berths; then they go to their stations. Livestock appears at their posts.

In building designs, all citizen posts, guard posts, and livestock posts are filled. They all appear at their posts.

Designer Berth Assignee Name
Make a decal that shows the occupant's name of a particular berth.

A berth occupant name decal was added. It must be associated to a berth to appear in the finalized drawing. The decal displays the name of the person assigned to the berth, or Unassigned.

Designer Site Properties
Ability to edit site properties - as far as I can tell the only way to change a site after placing it is to delete it. Not the biggest deal, but sometimes I forget that I was using conrete instead of grass or something.

Site properties can now be edited.

This properties window shows the current properties of the selected parts when the window appears.

Designer Effect Intensity
It would be nice if the intensity of the effect texture layer could be controlled.

A Faces|Finish|Effect Intensity command was added to configure effect intensity. Intensity is configured on selected vertices of the selected faces.

Designer Save/Restore Grid
Save/restore grid positions.

Helpers|Save Grid Position and Helpers|Restore Grid Position menus were added. There is also an option to restore the grid to the origin.

Grid positions are stored with the blueprint.

Designer Landing Orientation
Could we have an option when designing ships to set thier "landed" angle?

Spacecraft properties now specify if the ship is to land on its belly or on its tail.

Spacecraft will observe this property when orienting to terrain or other surfaces.

Crew will observe this property when landing and taking off.

World Map
World map not visible unless inside the building.

World map texture is now updated when you are at the building site. Inside the building is no longer required.

Click Mount Destination Bug
Click floor to order mount to a location, a crewman in this case, and the green spot is above the floor.

Fixed destination plane calculation to use the floor below the mount.

Automatic Manual Doors
Manual doors open automatically.

Finished manual vs automatic door code. Manual doors will not open or close automatically.

Atlantis Update
The Atlantis spacecraft model (Atlantis.SoH) that is distributed in the Blueprints folder with the SoH client now has a second transporter room, plus some additions to the Capt Cabin. I will update the exchange after the servers awaken.

I'm not sure if this is an issue solely with my designs, or more widespread. I'd say about 3 or 4 months ago turbo lifts worked "alright" (as in it might take a few tries but they generally moved me around). However since then they simply do not operate. The ship has respawned due to destruction twice, and the lifts remain inoperable. I have tried sending them to different decks multiple times, even waited 24 hours after a request (left it logged on) and it never traveled. They will come when called to the floor, I have not attempted having another person call it while I am in it. This occurs for two ships I have of the same model (the only ships I have with turbo lifts). Once I have a shipyard up I will manufacture another ship of the same model and see if it's turbo lifts work, although I wouldn't be surprised if they do as these two ships worked fine initially. It just seems as though over time they stopped. Let me know if you'd like to check them out, I can give you their info.

This might sound silly, but I think this is a very unhelpful message. I am not sure if the ship will report "Transporter is unavailable" for other reasons beyond being inoperable, but it sounds to me like a "I should keep trying" rather than a "It's broke captain." I propose the message is changed to something more clear, like "Transporter is unavailable due to damage." or maybe "Transporters are inoperable" (see, that last one hints that trying again later won't help!) It's a little thing, but I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out why my transporter wasn't working before I thought to check if it was destroyed.

I played this game a lot like 6 years ago (my old screenshots span from April 2012 to April 2014), I have a lot of nostalgia for it. The number one feature I was hoping for coming back was for the female gender option to actually do something useful, that's too bad.

I'm finding the new building system fairly confusing - I'm still at tribe level but the only two logging camp designs are massive complexes with 32+ jobs, that don't fit on my tiny starter island. I also noticed that the wiki doesn't explain how to rotate the buildings. Should I be designing all the buildings myself, like how I used to make my own layered cake spaceships? Haven't even tried the new designer yet.


I recognize a few usernames of people on the forum but I don't know if anyone else would recognize me. I was active in the galactic channel, but that was about it.

Like many other people, I'm producing a set of buildings - ideally more or less unified in style - for other people to use. I'll collect images and descriptions here, since the in-game exchange images are limited. You can find these in-game by Richeldis of La Gorgue, prefaced with "RDSG Starter Kit". I will aim to provide buildings roughly suitable for a 1000 person city as standard, so that they exceed the capacities of the old-style without being prohibitively expensive for new players.

Plot size for RDSG Starter Kit buildings will be 48mx48m. Roads and walls will come in sections 40m long and roads are 8m wide. Joining pieces 16m long (straight joins, turns, T-junctions, crossroads) and finishing pieces 4m long will be provided. This allows you to join plots together into a seamless grid city and surround it with walls. Some smaller individual buildings will also be provided which can be fitted together into a standard 48m plot; for example so that you can fit multiple functional buildings within a small walking distance of the town centre.


TOWN HALL

A smallish town hall in muted Gothic style, with a public square in front and a small garden at the back. Citizen posts allow people to sit on the bench and the garden gate at the back opens. The square can be easily removed to fit in an existing town plan; if retained, vehicles should be able to drive and land on it. No interior yet - likely to gain a single upper hall and a corridor from front to back door when I have time. Will replace these with daytime pictures.









Known bugs:
- Rear path is overgrown with grass.

Transport to Transporter
Beam across ship to other transporter is broken.

There was never an unambiguous way of transporting to a specific transporter room aboard a ship. This used to sort of work if you called for a beam up while standing in a transporter room of a spacecraft with more than one transporter room. If the ship had more than two transporter rooms, the result was unpredictable.

The transporter destinations window now lists individual transporters aboard your ship and other ships.

Transporter Select Bug
Transporter station. Ship to ship. Can't select target visible on the screen.

Fixed transporter screen selection bug.

Transport to Ship Broken
Beam to other ship by selecting it on the transporter station broken. After selecting the target ship on the transporter screen, the transporter will not energize.

Fixed bug collecting information about the target of the transporter beam.

System Map Update Bug
The system map does not update when you survey the current system. It still shows as unsurveyed.

Fixed system map update bug.

HUD Hold Indicator
Aircraft HUD does not show holding indicator.

Holding indicator added to HUD.

Throttle Kill Hold
Once the helicopter is locked in hover mode, you can kill the throttle and remain in the air.

Changes to the throttle control now cause the helicopter hover to be disabled.

Helicopter Climb/Descend Controls
Helicopter climb/descend controls were handy. Put them back.

Helicopter controls now include climb and descend controls. These act to temporarily push the throttle to its maximum or minimum, returning to its previous position when released. The default binding on the keyboard is up/down arrows; on the joystick it is the hat control on top of the stick.

Buy/Sell Percentage Bars
Moving the 'buy percentage slider' no longer updates the actual percentage on a spaceship mission order.

Fixed several of the slider bars to update the associated label with the new current percentage.

Officer Status Error
"Empire Roostaria Starship RSS Core Explorer reports as ordered. Our overall system health is 2%; the biggest problem is at 0%."

Fixed formatting of officer status messages.

Officer Reply Bug
Are ships beyond sector range supposed to reply on the hail channel and not open a direct channel to you, only to have to open one yourself and not have all the commands work?

Found/fixed a couple of officer replies that would have failed beyond solar system range.

Building View Distance Bug
Building view distance broken at far distance. Set it to a large number and all buildings disappear.

Fixed 32 bit integer truncation error.

Jobs Do Not Get Done
Citizens need to change jobs periodically or some jobs never get done.

Citizens will now decide at random intervals to quit their current job to find a different job. This causes a brief delay in the execution of their current job, as the job waits until the next cycle to attempt to replace the worker. When morale is lower than zero, people quit their jobs more often.

Gas Giant Extraction Processes
Extract myrathane and flomentum processes not shown at gas giant.

Fixed an error when deciding which processes are available in the current environment.

Harvest Q Bug
Harvester should harvest the Q of resources on the scan report. Cryozine's station is not harvesting hydrogen Q of world atmo.

Spacecraft harvesters are now consistent with buildings, collecting the Q of the resources as shown on the scan report. When a patent is required, the patent Q acts as an upper limit to the Q of the harvested commodity.

Motor Bike Lift
Lift controls never show while on a motor bike.

Fixed error that prevented lift controls from being accessible while on a vehicle.

Access Panel System Number
Look at access panel should say which system number when it matters.

The name of access panels now indicates its system number when it matters, i.e. FTL drive panel, weapon panel.

Hazard Lighting
One thing i really miss, is that ominous red glow cities had in hazardous environments before you had electricity.

Building lighting in hazardous environments is now bright red when there is power but no air. Lighting is dim red when there is no power. (I have not tested this yet.)

Gas Pumps
It is difficult to make a small gas station due to the size requirements for a retail store.

Vehicle can now be refueled at sheds and storage tanks. Those buildings do not have a large minimum size requirement.

Ringworld Dense Atmosphere
The atmospheres of ringworlds are often dense, usually exceeding 70%.

The atmosphere density calculation was corrected for ringworlds.

Existing ringworlds will not change. A system scan report will probably show the new density instead of the old density. Existing ringworlds would change if their sector was ever regenerated, which is unlikely.

Sensor Noise
Sensor station does not emit sensor noise. It does in the old style space ships.

Sensor station is now a sound source for sensor noise. On an integrated station, the sound emits from the center of the screen. On a swivel chair/desk console, the sound emits from the base of the chair.

Separate Laser Sounds
Separate sounds for laser rifle and spacecraft laser cannon? I changed sound for pulse shot and its funny to hear heavy railgun shot from laser rifle..

Weapon bays were using the incorrect sound table entry. They will sound different now, using a laser fire sound that nothing else was using due to the bug. Names were changed for the laser sounds on the sound settings window, to be clear about their usage.

Manufacture Selection Wheel
So you have a mine near a few resources, it locks onto one and you can't really change it. but now you could use scroll wheel and switch between the ore, minerals, etc

The mouse wheel now selects manufacturing processes when placing a building.

Placement functions for old style buildings were not changed. For them, the mouse wheel continues to select the number of stories for the building.

System Scan Report Window Position
System scan report window position not stored.

Position of the system scan report window is now stored.

Solar System Map Wormhole Names
Wormhole names missing from solar system map. They just have an Explored column that says yes or no.

Explored column was replaced with Explorer.

• Unexplored - No spacecraft is known to have traversed the wormhole.
  
• Avatar Number - 'Avatar' was the first avatar to traverse the wormhole. The number increments each time they traverse an unexplored wormhole, so 5 would mean it was the 5th unexplored wormhole traversed by the avatar.
  
• Insufficient Data - Wormhole is explored but the name of the explorer is unavailable. Names are only available in the 3x3x3 box of sectors centered at your current sector. Beyond that distance, information must be provided by the starmap, which does not store wormhole names due to the volume of data.
  

Say you put down construction sites for a lot of buildings. Then you put down a capitol and add your own efforts to the labour.

It's difficult to tell, from a list of 20 mines, which ones you need to build first (stone, then metal, then maybe coal etc.) in order to make your city self sufficient and gain the resources you need for the next stage of building and production. You have to either guess the distance or check the coordinates manually.

A little display to tell you which default process you chose when you laid down the site would help remind you which thing you're actually trying to build. Then you won't accidentally spend 5 minutes adding labour to a useless gem or coal mine when you really need metal to get started.

Hello all! I was thinking of returning to the game after many years, and was wondering if someone had the code to try it out for 15 days. For reference (because I can't remember what year exactly) I left the game back when pests, plagues, and other such catastrophic things were added, and quit about 1 month into an incurable t32 virus sweeping all my systems, t32 Norwegian space rats crowding my ships eating my crews, and other such insurmountable problems for an empire half a galaxy away from every other one barely scraping together something like t20 ships. All that I know has changed since then is the removal of tech-based progression (not sure how much of an endgame can exist without it) and the addition of FTL drives making things like that arc ship someone launched to the opposite side of the galaxy far less impressive. So, come on down and even if you don't have a code to share, share some tales with me of interesting things that have happened since plagues, pests, and AI Captains seeking out the caramel centers of suns (please tell me this is gone, I lost far too many ships and resources to the AI's curiosity with up-close fusion observation)!

Edit: Just found the designer, gonna take a lot of caffeine and practice to get a grip on it, but it definitely looks like a system I can bring some of my old dreams to life with. I will miss the simplicity of the old designer, especially since it seems like lots of people make ships now that look worse than before. Custom buildings no longer on a grid system will also mean I can make a nice future-viking town eventually, if I can figure out how to design a longhouse.

I have no idea how this happened, but somehow one of my ships, the PLN Stakhanov, got teleported outside of the galaxy while it was on a typical harvesting mission.
It's around 680 hours out at lightspeed. Could I get it teleported back to my capital?

This one specific idea has had enough thought put into it that I think it deserves its own posting. Contents will be copied from my thread of half-baked ideas.

Quote:An artificial world would take lots of work to build, and would basically allow you to put a habitable world in a system that did not originally have one. When building one, whatever player 'places' it should be able to set the planet's diameter (with limits), and would require use of a Genesis Device to populate the world with plants and animals. 

It should be able to produce renewable resources, like food, plant fiber, logs etc. at a comparable Q to that of the average used in construction of the planet. Other resources like Ore, Oil, Natural Gas, etc. should not be available on the planet unless it was generated by the game (like a ringworld) instead of created by a player, as a pre-existing artificial planet could have been around long enough for these materials to become apparent.

Artificial planets would also be easily identifiable from certain characteristics. A few ideas would be perhaps a soccer-ball like shape (a 'sphere' made from connected hexagonal plates), potentially meaning the artificial planet is hollow (Maybe with a stargate inside?), or perhaps just massive metal cones periodically spaced around the planet.