I.M.P. Robot

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[improbot]

DEVELOPMENT LOG 20.11.2015

BUG FIXES!

Simon’s been working through his code, making optimisations and overall is improving its quality. Here’s the bug fixes we either know are fixed or are currently being working on.

Colonist should no longer get caught in corners. Before colonists would often get stuck and cry until they died of starvation or fatigue.

By the time the next big update comes out, Steam screenshots will be working. Simon has discovered the issues on steams end. Now we know what’s causing the black screens, we’ll be able to get it working soon.

There’s been a few fixes implemented to stop things traveling through walls as much as they did before. A large part of this has been to fix some wall meshes for the room casing.

Simon and Ruairi are close to fixing the social lock up bug. In our current development build colonists interacting are a lot less likely to get stuck staring at each other.

As of our last development build, a considerable amount of sounds in the game have been implemented and corrected.

We’re currently looking into a fix to stop colonists from randomly running outside and dying from asphyxiation At the moment the cases where this is happening is due to colonists trying to pick up rubble from outside. To stop this from happening make sure your IMP Robot only digs inside the base.

LENS FLARE

The lens flare as now been toned down and should be a lot less distributive to players. Here’s a video of some of the lens flares I took whilst filming other sections of gameplay. The overall lighting has also been improved.

FIRST PERSON MODE

As well as fixing bugs, Simon is busy working on the first person mode which was one of the original plans from the start of development. Soon players will be able to possess one of the IMP Robots and walk around their base and outside. Players will also be able to make the IMP Robots place concrete blocks.

NEW FOOD

As mentioned in the last development log. Hannah’s been working on new vegetables for the colonists. This includes potatoes, carrots, kale and broccoli!

Here’s what they are going to look like.

The new foods introduce varied diets for your base along with different growth rates for different goods. These will be implemented as part of the next update along with major bug fixes.

GUIDES

I’ve written a new guide for the standalone missions. There’s spoilers so it’s best to only read it if you’ve tried out the standalone scenario missions and found them difficult.

Thanks for reading!

[improbot]

DEVELOPMENT LOG 30.10.2015 – ROADMAPS, FLAMMABLE SPINNING CHAIRS AND POTATO PLANTS

End of October! Should this be Halloween themed?

We’ve had a busy week since the 0.51 update went out. Maia got coverage from PCGamer, PCGamesN and Eurogamer.

Maia’s development is moving steadily forward. Simon has produced a Roadmapwhich details features we should see coming up in the future. I’m mostly looking forward to the first person mode. Here’s some test footage of that from the start of development.

SPINNING CHAIRS AND BUG FIXES

Simon and Ruairi have been working through some of the bugs found since the last update. Firstly, placing a chair no longer crashes the game, this happened due to the interaction points for the object being incorrect. This is now fixed.

Along with fixing chairs, Simon also improved them. Clicking one will cause the seat to spin around. Be careful though, clicking too many times will cause the chair to spin too fast and catch fire.

Along with this Simon and Ruairi have found and fixed several path finding bugs and missing sound effects.

If you’ve found a bug or a crash: Email us at support(at)maiagame.com or let us know on the forums. The most helpful thing is for you to send us a DxDiag along with your bug report.

POTATO PLANTS

Hannah, our artist, has been working on some models to increase the variety of food in the hydroponics rooms. Colonists will soon be able to feed off of some vegetables. Here’s an image of the new potato plants coming to the game soon.

RESEARCH TUTORIAL

I’ve made a quick video explaining the research system in Maia. Are there any other parts of Maia’s gameplay that would you like me to do tutorials on?

Thanks for reading!

[improbot]

Development Log 24.09.2015 - Tutorials, Starvation Bugs and Solar Event Warnings

Hey, here's a quick update on what's been happening since the big 0.50 update we had at the start of this month. Not seen it? Here you go.

Simon and Ruairi are working through some of the existing bugs. One of the most interesting ones has been the starvation bug which made the colonists sweat to death.

They'd then starve as their bodies reserves got eaten up. If you've played and had a starvation death, check how sweaty your colonists are. — Simon Roth (@SimoRoth)

They have also been working through the bugs you have been reporting. If you've noticed issues with running the game follow this guide and then get in touch.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482527323

New Features:

You will now get solar event warnings. This means you'll know when there will be some interference with with your electric equipment. look out for the emails with the sun icon.

There has also been a change in how the game uses the hardware of the user. Maia now has both 32bit and 64bit versions, Steam will detect players hardware which means those using 64bit can get improved performance.

Tutorials

Since the latest update Maia's player numbers have grown. We thought that it might be a good time to make some little tutorial videos. Here's the first one. Let us know what you think and if there's a particular topic you would like to see a video on.

YouTube Videos since the Update:

Hugh Jeremy Hugh, Who's been working with us part time did a short series on Maia.

Munchmo Munchmo made a update video, he loved the new repair robot.

Erased Citizens Erased Citizens have made a first impressions video with some of their thoughts on where the game is at the moment.

Steams Since the Last Update:

SirTwiggy (joined by Simon) http://www.twitch.tv/sirtwiggy/v/14884156 Rand118 http://www.twitch.tv/rand118/v/15369379 KirrusT http://www.twitch.tv/kirrust/v/14272763

Also, Simon was recently on the SteamLUG podcast. It's not live yet but when it is we'll let you know.

-Caroline

[improbot]

DEVELOPMENT LOG 19.08.2015 BUG FIXES, TREES AND SVN CHECKINS.

Here’s some new things we have in development at the moment. Look forward to seeing these in the next update or in hotfixes.

CUSTOM MAPS

Players are now able to customize the map they play on. Choose from massive, copious and ample size maps. Use the custom options to determine how much flora, fauna and tectonic activity you want to happen in your game. The choices range from low to high and for tectonic activity there is also the possibly of playing on a hotspot. The target climate can be set to Polar, Megathermal or Mesothermal.

TREES ON MAIA’S SURFACE

As well as custom maps that can change Maia’s surface, we also have the addition of some trees coming up soon. Hannah has been working on creating some new trees to improve Maia’s landscape. Here’s some images of the work in progress. We’ll have a full in-depth post about the trees soon.

ORANGES ON HYDROPONIC TREES.

Coming up for the next update; The oranges will be a way to signify to the player and colonists than the hydroponics are ready to harvest.

FEEDBACK

Your feedback is really valuable to us and we’ve been working through the bugs you have reported. Our next update is going to be very bug fix heavy. Any game breaking bugs that come to our attention in the meantime will be top priority and will be added into the current version of the game as soon as they are fixed. If you’ve had any issues getting the game to run let us know by emailing us at support_at_maiagame.com or by using our guide on steam.

Selection of some of the bugs we’ve been working on:

IMP Tutorial made clearer, the game now counts the amount of dig orders placed overall instead of how many dig orders the IMP currently has.

IMP button no longer crashes if it’s used when all IMPs have been destroyed.

IMP no longer forgets its order after loading a saved game.

Deleted IMP orders no longer come back after loading a saved game.

The 3D printer no longer resets itself if the player saves and loads whist it’s being used.

Meteorites no longer reset their status on loading.

Open mail filter appearing in main menu is fixed.

Lighting has been improved meaning there will be less lighting square glitches.

Flywheel no longer defaults to yellow status when out of power.

Textures now use up less memory on the GPU. This will boost performance for a lot of low end users and fix a few glitches

Hydroponic trees do no longer reset on loading, giving a clearer indication of the player’s progress.

The water barrel count no longer resets when reloading the game.

The plant shadows are no longer squares!

Colonists will now eat chickens at a more sensible rate.

BUG FIX UPDATES

We’ll soon be setting up a twitter feed that posts every time something is committed to the SVN server. This means that you’ll be able to see when Maia is being worked on and what is going into the development builds.

HUGH JEREMY

Hugh has traveled to the UK and is here rebuilding some web backends, doing financial analysis, and working on some production tools!

YOUTUBE

The latest Maia let’s play videos:

Markoodle: Markoodle previews Maia and shares his first thoughts on the game:

Peter Hyder:

Peter has started a let’s play series on Maia. He’s currently on the 3rd video in the series.

Faeldray: Faeldray plays Maia for over an hour!