The space colony building game set in the not-so-distant future.
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This updates focuses on deepening the gameplay experience with improvements to many core mechanics and user interface. We’ve worked using your feedback to fix all the small issues and to make the game much more accessible, engaging and Fun!
Smart Stockpiling
Colonists can now stockpile building materials on the shelves in the storage room. Allowing you to manually build up reserves for future expansion and also keep your base neat and tidy.
Food Preparation Station
No longer will colonists have to crouch on the storage room floor to consume their necessary nutrients. The preparation station allows hungry colonists to get their meals ready in a better, more sanitary environment. It also allows for fast automated processing and stockpiling of crops and meat, allowing for larger more efficient bases.
UI Changes
A new object cycler has been added to improve the object placement interface. Allowing you to quickly select the items you want to build. Interaction points on nearby items will also fade in and out to better illustrate the most efficient ways to place items in crowded rooms.
Email and notification information has been added as well as several new notification and GUI sounds. Text will appear at the top of the screen to let you know what type of message is being received.
Many new mouse over infotips have been added and several older ones improved for clarity and humour.
Change list:
Greater email complexity and feedback from colonists regarding rooms and base equipment.
Colonists can no longer gorge themselves repeatedly at the ration packs.
Object destruction needs balanced to take into account more than building materials.
Fossils are now taken to storage and are now destroyable by colonists.
The Spathiphyllum plant can now be found in the game. They have also been balanced for atmosphere generation and aesthetic properties.
Landers and Microwave towers can now be removed as intended.
Objects have improved visuals when being placed and cycled through.
Object destruction issues fixed. If an object is destroyed it’s parent object is too.
Parent objects now get marked for destruction by their children.
Fix for multipart objects not having shadows.
Fix for offset in pathfinding room physics mesh intersections, this should fix many bugs including walking through door frames.
Fix for “base” being said instead of the correct room in announcements.
Fix for inaccuracy in wall readouts in small rooms.
Wall heater tweaks, build priority now better linked to the temperature at the position of the heater.
Gameworld cleanup improved on loading.
Removed redundant shaders and optimised loading
Several Memory issues fixed.
Memory buffer fixes.
Support for variable refresh rates for Gsync and Freesync monitors.
Code base modernisation to C++11 and C++14 standards.
We’re looking forward to update 0.57 which we’re already working on.The update will focuses on sicknesses, diagnosis, treatment and first aid. To see live development head over to dev.maiagame.com.
We hope you enjoy this update, please let us know what you think over on the Maia forums or on Twitter.
This latest update introduces changes to saving, the settings menu, new items, new research perks, vast improvements to the object and room placement system as well as complex creature and ecosystem simulation changes.
Here’s Simon’s video of the latest build:
NEW OBJECTS AND EQUIPMENT
Portable Solar Panels
Quick to build, these additional new solar panels will provide less energy but are more convenient for a starting base. The existing solar arrays now require a full workshop to build and provide a higher output.
Flares
Flares will appear in the area a capsule will land. This helps the new colonists navigate their way to Maia and lets the player know that something will happen in that spot soon. Colonists will also be able to place them to distract animals.
New Decorative Items
New aesthetic items have been added. Cypress and Dracaena plants can be placed to make the base feel a lot more like home.
MULTIPLE SAVE FILES AND OPTIONS
Players can now save their game to several slots along with the existing f5 quicksave. Allowing for you to have multiple bases on the go with zero hassle.
Save and load buttons have also been placed on the pause menu and an option has been added for those wanting to quickly abort their missions and return to the main menu.
By going into the settings, players can create different key bindings which allow players to customise the controls to their liking and also enables people using alternate keyboard layouts, such as AZERTY, to play. The bindings are saved in human readable xml so can be modified by third party programs and shared between machines.
IMPROVEMENTS TO OBJECT PLACEMENT
When placing a blueprint of an object it may turn amber, to indicate a sub-optimal placement. This might make it more difficult to build or might indicate that the objects function will be impaired.
Colonists are now better at considering whether a complex chain of actions can be fully completed, leading to less time wasted by the colonists on jobs they give up on half way through.
Players are now also able to place priority orders for their colonists. Do this by double clicking a blueprint you have placed. These orders with be prioritised over most tasks, but will upset colonists by going against their own judgement and freewill.
Players may also notice that when placing a room the blueprint appears as a grid, this visual improvement makes it easier to understand how objects are placed.
CREATURE UPDATES
There has been various updates to the creatures on Maia including improvements to animation and AI. Also, some creatures are now able to breed.
Voxnocturnus
The Voxnocturnus that travels Maia’s plains at night will now find and create burrows to sleep in during the day.
Proto Birds
The unknown proto birds food sources have changed. This will encourage when to invade bases more and to eat other dead creatures.
Megacephalalgia
Megacephalalgia will now have migration patterns which means new packs will appear on the map. They also have new reactions to each other and idle actions.
EMAILS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS!
The emails have been updated to relate to colonist skills. Your inhabitants will complain for even more reasons such as lack of robots, need for equipment and give unsolicited feedback on the base you have created.
The emails will have a lot more personality so you can get to know your doomed colonists. In addition to this, the announcer will now alert you on even more issues and events.
RESEARCH CHANGES
Overall the researching in Maia is more balanced, new perks will be unlocked at different times dependent on what kind of research is being collected.
Several interesting new research perks have been added to the game that provide the player with more options and choices on how to run their base. Colonists will discover new ways to create stable energy, how to capture animals and treat infections faster. Research advancements in computer technology and social compliance are also possible. The full list of research perks can be found on maiawiki.com
Also, probes can be found outside on the planet’s surface. These can be selected and used to gain research.
The research perks are also now tiered so players will not be able to unlock certain research perks until they have done the related one before.
OTHER CHANGES
When walking or running or waiting with no idle animation, colonists turn their heads to look at what is interesting them.
Outdoor wind directions on smoke and other effects balanced and corrected.
Drift added to many effects such as snow, dust, ash and embers to cause the particles to float about naturally.
Bum scooting animations for megacephalalgias are now more satisfying.
Better hypothermia emails
Repair bot works faster, smarter.
Trees grow in group to create forests.
Plants grow more naturally, maxing out at over fifty thousand individual entities.
IMP can now destroy plants in first person mode.
Less poetry emails.
UI sounds added for several interactions.
Sound balancing on many items.
Necropsy table visibility fixed.
Meteorites are now easier to select.
Build priorities and needs tweaked.
Fix for ambient occlusion pass not being used.
Colour bleeding added to the SSAO effect and increased.
The Bloom system reduced in scale to save memory.
Lights are now individually scaled for different rooms.
Internal reflection threshold increased. To give more interesting lens flares.
Graphics update and optimisations.
SSAO is now working with AA and without it
Spinning turret bug fixed
Fix for corrupted files.
Typos fixed in several descriptions. New descriptions added.
Colonist’s now think about base design
Colonists now think about alarms
Keybinding saved to XML
More consistent code for warnings and problem status on all sub objects.
Tree sample priority has been raised.
Workshop table no longer missing on Linux builds.
Save file changes
Room updating optimised
Several loading issues fixed
Various code cleanups
Particle FX now on less threads, and updated more optimally.
Linux graphics fixes for Intel and ATI machines. Game now build against up to date libraries and tested on Ubuntu 16.04
Cave-ins will now spawn at the centre of the screen when using debug cavein command.
We’re looking forward to update 0.56 which we’re already hard at work on. To see live development head over to dev.maiagame.com.
Simon has been live streaming development every Friday over on Twitch. Make sure to follow him to be notified when he goes live.
We hope you enjoy this update, please let us know what you think over on the Maia forums or on Twitter.
This new release introduces increased feedback for players including wall monitors, an improved room placement system, measured temperatures and colour pickers.
Maia will be 44% off on Steam until Saturday 6pm UTC
Here's Simon showing off some of the latest changes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG1IjN3vuXE
Temperature Simulation
Thermal energy is now fully simulated in the game. Every element of gameplay is now affected by temperature and it’s a critical factor in keeping your colonists alive and well. Hypothermia and hyperthermia can affect your colonists with lethal consequences.
The caves of Maia are cold and dark, players can create heat by placing the new wall mounted space heaters as well as the existing atmosphere generators. Various other items create heat too, for example smelters, computers, human bodies, chickens and lights.
Be careful not to make the rooms too hot as colonists will burn up, quite literally.
Colonists will also show signs that they are cold, you’ll notice their breath starts to show in cold areas of the base and them shivering as hypothermia takes its grip.
Base Customisation
Several items can now be customised using the new colour picker. Choosing either warm or cool colours can affect the moods of your colonists.
Wall mounted screens have been added to give more feedback to the players. These monitors show atmosphere status, temperature status and aesthetic images to improve your colonists moods.
Another placeable wall item is the Circuit Breaker, you’ll be able to turn these off and on to control the power in rooms. This is useful if you need to conserve energy or to stop the colonists from using certain rooms.
Stratospheric Sulphates
Begin the geoengineering of Maia with the mining of sulphur in the shadow of an active volcano.
The latest standalone mission to be added Maia, Stratospheric Sulphates introduces several new challenges for experienced players. Rush to build a self sustaining base as hot volcanic ash and embers rain down on your demoralised colonists
User Interface Improvements.
We’ve worked to improve the overall feel of the game and provide the player with more feedback.
The room placement interface has been dramatically improved. It’s now easier to use and allows the player more creative control and feedback. You’re also able to flood fill areas by double clicking whilst in the room placement mode and delete whole rooms by double right clicking them.
Rotation for objects has also been added to make it easier to place objects.
Emails And Announcements
Several new warning emails have been added. These include meteorite warnings, earthquake warnings, Weather warnings and new death alerts.
New announcements have been added to alert the players many new events including base power state problems, temperature changes, research alerts and the state of rations.
Development
You can now follow Simon’s code changes for upcoming updates in real time at
dev.maiagame.com.
Change Log:
Colonist Changes
Automatic Smelting. When colonists need building materials they will turn the smelters on automatically, however this comes with a risk. Colonists that are unskilled in smelting may cause fires and could fatally hurt themselves.
Colonists medical need balanced.
Fix for colonists breathing through their suits.
Suit will no longer be stuck venting after the colonist has died.
Perspiration, skin temperature, ventilation and heart BPM are now saved.
Colonists no longer get stuck on external objects when repairing them.
The first task on load for colonists is no longer to be social.
The base roof no longer appears when trying to process colonists inside.
IMP Changes
IMP Digging AI changes including removing the digging marker when the rock wall has been removed.
IMP will place minerals further away from food or water barrels.
IMPs are more able to pick up body bags in weird places.
Game no longer crashes if the player is possessing an object and it gets crushed in a cave in.
IMP’s animation for pulling plants has been corrected.
Object Changes
Maximum fuel in many objects has been reduced to shorten burn time.
Toilet multiplication on load has been fixed.
Doors can not be placed on top of each other any more.
Issues when moving broccoli fixed.
Balanced the creation of atmosphere.
Use R and T to rotate objects
Fixes for non-buildable items. Desk and medical scanners.
Necropsy table keeps giblets after saving.
Fix for radiation containment research lock.
Creature Changes
Dead creatures have stopped walking around after they have died.
Chickens should no longer cause a memory leak.
Chickens should no longer walk off into the unknown.
Molerats will now only consider eating plants and equipment that are less than 100m away from it.
Room/World Changes
Missing Roof tiles have been fixed.
Living area and livestock room tones fixed.
Invalid L shaped rooms are now marked red.
Broken rock walls roof graphics have been corrected
Deleting rooms no longer deletes rock walls.
Reduced the “absurd” resolution of the rain textures.
Mission Changes
Several fixes and alterations to the tutorial.
Crew selection added to custom missions.
Initial trigger for missions not working has been fixed.
3x3 room objective in tutorial now completes correctly.
Settings Changes
Text effect option issues have been fixed
Changing textures no longer breaks visuals.
Other
Edge scrolling has been reduced. This means hovering over the save button doesn’t scroll the screen.
Capitalisation errors that were causing issues with Linux have been corrected.
Starting a new game after sandbox failure no longer causes black screen issues.
Research cheats have been moved to the console. Type “r” or “research” in the console to complete all research.
Refractor of the game.
Fix for black screen when calling down a lander.
Several memory leak issues fixed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55lw9vfVpNY
Simon has been live streaming development every Friday over on
Twitch
We hope you enjoy Maia’s Update, give us your feedback on the Steam Forum, or by mentioning @Maia on twitter.
Time for something new!
After each update we'll give you a theme. Your challenge is to create a base to go along with that theme.
Submissions can range from save games, screenshots, short stories written about your colonists or all three!
Submit these in the Save Game section on forum.maiagame.com or on reddit.com/r/maia.
Make sure you include [MCBC] in the title.
Winners will receive either a Maia key to share with a friend or an exclusive Maia wristband that we usually only give out at shows.
The first theme is: Lost Colonists
Info:
Where is my save game?
In your Maia folder you will find a file called savegame.bin, that's your saved game.
Where will we post wristbands to?
Anywhere!
When does this update challenge end?
6th of March
Where and when will the winner be announced?
We'll be showcasing a few of the best submissions on our twitter during the challenge. The winner will be featured in next months theme announcement.
The first update of 2016 is now live! Welcome to the future!
This build has fixed all critical game play issues and also introduces colonist selection, mineral smelting, the manifest screen, as well as a selection of new items and small features.
Here's Simon showing off some of the latest changes:
Colonist Picker
When starting a game you will now get a detailed colonist selection screen. You'll be able to pick 4 out of the 6 people displayed. The Colonists have over 60 different expertise possibilities along with a psychological profile and fitness information. Using these attributes you'll be able to pick your perfect team. Each skill will have a subtle effect on game play. Choose wisely.
Manifest
You'll be able to keep track of several things going on in your base through the addition of the manifest screen. Hover over the [?] button to receive a report of your colonists and robots as well as your minerals, materials and supplies.
Ventilation Systems
Along with improvements in the simulation of atmosphere you can now place ventilation systems to pull air in or out of a room. This allows you to control the atmosphere's flow through your base. Create backup airflows, reroute air away from fires or leaks or turn your hydroponics room into a massive atmosphere generator.
Smelting
In order to create objects colonists need to refine minerals for building materials using a smelting and extraction system. Minerals from the rock walls will be placed in the machine where they will be transformed in to building materials on your command. Colonists will then collect the finished materials for use in future construction.
Aesthetic items
Light up your colonist's world with new furniture items.
Placing aesthetic objects will improve the look of your base and make your colonists so much happier. Use their motion detection setting to conserve precious energy.
Lost Colonists
Colonists stuck far away from your base will now express their confusion and wander around until they get to the closest part of your base. This will help you find out why they are stuck and let you clear a away for them with your IMPs or explosives.
New and Improved Tutorial
The tutorial has now been moved over to be part of the missions.
Additional Changes:
Atmosphere simulation has been refined, bugs fixed.
Utility bots no longer fix burning items.
Sound for Utility bot is shorter to avoid sounds getting caught.
Utility bot less likely to get stuck outside.
Colonists needs rebalanced. Decreasing potential for starvation.
Fix for cave in breaking camera.
Fossil and fossil holder fixes.
Plants no longer reduce atmosphere when respiring.
Fixes for several rare interaction based crash bugs.
Fixed several bugs that came from new features.
It's not longer possible to possess a utility bot before it's been built.
Turrets no longer spin uncontrollably after shooting a creature.
Chicken fire sounds no longer loop on load.
Several missing sounds added.
Colonists will not run outside without a suit on to drink water.
The colonist death stare has been eradicated. The humans will not stare at each other until they die anymore.
Social needs for IMPs balanced.
Accessibility of planters improved.
Alerts during missions will now appear separately to avoid confusion from missing certain emails.
No longer will chair blueprints grow plants if you delete the seats.
Annoying continuous beeping after a colonist dies has been limited to one beep per death.
The hand will now not disappear when pressing a key during the menu
Tape Storage Drives now keep their angle after saving and loading.
First person camera jumps and glitches fixed.
Room placement code more efficient.
Path finding CPU optimisations.
GUI and other sounds improved.
Anti-Aliasing and lighting optimisations.
Font data will not be reloaded for every piece of text.
Menu crash bug fixed on OSX
Linux crash bugs fixed.
All known crash bugs fixed.
Extended scripting of missions added! Get modding!
Maia 0.52 is now out. The main focus of this build has been bug eradication, AI improvements, and the long awaited first person "possession" modes.
Here's Simon showing off some of the latest changes:
First Person Imp Robot
Experience Maia through the eyes of the IMP Robot, walk around your base doing the tasks the IMPs usually do, explore outside, mine the rock walls for minerals and build Nanofibre Blocks. First person mode introduces a whole new way to observe and interact with the planet Maia. To enter this mode, click/track the object you want to possess and click the new icon that appears at the bottom of the screen.
First Person Utility Robot
In addition to the first person IMP Robots you can also view the world of Maia through Utility Robots. Using it's repair arm you will be able to repair objects and "accidentally" set colonists on fire.
Turret View
Keep watch of your base by possessing the turrets. The turret view adds a unique way to view Maia.
Colonist Suit Head Cams
Cameras have also been mounted in colonist suits so you can see what they colonists see when they are outside.
First Person Door Control
Take control of the doors around your base. Open and close to allow colonists, pets and robots entry to rooms. This is really great for annoying colonists.
Hydroponic Agriculture
Feed your colonists a varied diet with the addition of potatoes, carrots, kale and broccoli. Each of these plants take a different amount of time to grow, and produce different amounts of energy and micro-nutrients, allowing you to manage your colonies supplies more effectively.
Rendering And Performance Improvements
Lens flares and reflections and general rendering have been improved and game performance has been enhanced by code clean ups and alterations.
Change log:
Construction planning tweaked. Colonists are more aware of complex needs. For instance won't build more beds than people, prioritize atmosphere generation in rooms more likely to run out of air, and not build more beds than there are people.
Colonist can now die from dehydration.
IV drips now work to medicate colonists who are dehydrated or starving.
A sparkle has been added to the cave system to create the feel of dust.
A whole host of new sound work have been added to the game and UI such as footsteps, robot movements and other ambient noises.
When a colonist claims ownership of a blueprint, it will brighten the hologram to show it.
IMPs are now smarter about picking up minerals. Can carry two at once.
Most IMP lockups fixed.
Colonists no longer get enamoured with Voxnocturnus when they are set to interact with them.
Gaps in some of the info tips on items have been fixed.
Colonists should no longer risk running outside with their suits off to get minerals.
Several colonist needs balanced. Socialising will take up less time, colonists are more likely to avoid it if they have an important task.
Socialising colonists do a lot less spinning around to look at the person they are interacting with.
Colonists will no longer stare each other to death.
Balanced base spawning for sandbox missions.
Screenshots are now working in Steam.
Colonists path finding to research trees has been improved.
Colonists empty barrels of water at the correct time.
A lot of sounds have been added or corrected. This includes email and UI sound effects.
Flags can now be deleted if you're not feeling very patriotic.
Hydroponics priorities have been reduced to stop colonists becoming obsessed with them.
Turret blueprints can now be removed fully.
Animation system fixes to stop stuttering and repetition of actions.
Fix to stop dead colonist's brains using up processing power.
Various memory leaks fixed, specifically when repeatedly f9 quickloading.
Sun no longer rises in The Twilight Zone.
Plant growth is balanced and more realistic.
Path finding overhaul, colonists less likely to attempt to build things that are potentially inaccessible.
Code clean up and optimisation of several subsystems.
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.
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?
Maia 0.51 is live! Here’s Simon playing the latest build:
64 BIT OPTIMISATION FOR WINDOWS
Good news 64bit users! There’s been a change in how the game uses hardware. Maia now has both 32bit and 64bit versions on Windows, Steam will automatically detect players hardware which means those using 64bit can get improved performance and make better use of their systems RAM. Don’t worry, we’re still supporting and testing on 32bit and will be for the foreseeable future.
NEW SCENARIO MISSIONS!
In addition to the existing sandbox, Maia now has three standalone scenario missions with directed gameplay. Fleshing out Maia’s hard science fiction narrative and lore, players now have several hours worth of missions with many more hours to be added in the upcoming months.
The current missions included in update 0.51:
CASSIOPEIA
An orbital habitation module has taken a direct hit from a cloud of micrometeroids. Build a sustainable colony to house the influx of survivors.
THE TWILIGHT ZONE
Survive the arctic winter’s polar twilight in this remote research station. Battle with the cold and darkness to keep your colonists sane and alive.
SN1572
Study the complex local ecosystem of a rapidly encroaching equatorial jungle.
IMPROVED CHICKENS
Along with the addition of Avian Feeders, Uberhuhns are now a lot more intelligent. Now with their own wants and needs, chickens will feed, socialise and lay Microuberhuhns to repopulate. Slight changes have also been made to how colonists choose which chickens to eat. The avian feeders slowly supply food to the chickens as well was attracting them to certain parts of your livestock containment room with warm lighting.
SUIT REFILL POINTS
Aid your colonists expeditions across Maia’s surface with refill points. Colonists can replenish their vital needs at these stations so they can travel further out into the unknown landscape.
SOLAR EVENTS
Solar events can cause your equipment to not work as intended. Players will now receive warning emails to alert them when a solar event is occurring.
EMAILS
Death, failure and mission emails now pop up as soon as you receive them to ensure players don’t miss important gameplay points.
UI CHANGES TO PLACING BLUEPRINTS
To simplify item creation, when the player right clicks in object building mode it will revert the mode to selection mode. Right clicking will also delete blueprints or set build objects for destruction.
Left clicking on a blueprint in selection mode will “grab” the blueprint reattaching it to the cursor and put the player back in to object build mode.
When placing objects, some items information will now show power requirements as well as current grid demand.
Info tips have now been fixed for many items including fossils, bulkhead doors, beds and plant pots.
COLONIST ANIMATION
More colonists animations to show emotional states and needs! Hungry Colonists will now grasp their stomachs to let the player know they are hungry.
BALANCED PRIORITIES
The order in which colonists will want to build atmosphere generators and doors has been changed to work smoother in emergencies, such as atmosphere loss. Research has also been broken up into over a dozen separate needs to allow the colonists to better prioritise data entry, collection and computation in the four research areas.
UTILITY ROBOTS
The robots will now delegate tasks if they come across other robots. Lights have also been added to help you find them in the dark.
SUPPORT FOR EL CAPITAN
We are now building and testing our OSX version of the game against El Capitan. We recommend Mac users make the free update to El Capitan for an optimum experience.
OTHER CHANGES:
Fix for missing research.
Back buttons now go to menus a level above instead of the top level menu.
New technology research perks added.
All found start up and crash bugs fixed.
Blocked interaction points will no longer be advertised to the AI. (Less getting stuck in walls)
Small optimisations on world data, loading time.
Optimisation of pathfinding to save memory.
64 and 32 bit save interopability.
Tree research bugs fixed.
IV drip now provides food and water to colonists.
VO bug fixed. When stating the atmosphere is low, it’s now a lot more likely to say the room name rather than just “base”.
Seems the colonists if you worked them hard enough would get incredibly hot. They’d then start sweating so hard that they’d get drenched and rapidly cool to a dangerously low temperature. Their bodies would then burn all their energy reserves thermoregulating back up to a better temperature. They’d then starve to death. This is now fixed.
CPU optimisation for the colonists.
Building materials/minerals pick up bug fixed.
Fix to speed up AA a bit.
Code cleanup reducing memory footprint.
Cache optimisations.
Texture loading fixed.
Bugs removed from the email system.
Important emails now pop up.
Mission success and failure in sandbox.
Wind variation reduced and balanced.
Power usage and balancing tweaks.
Bugs due to new missions fixed.
We hope you enjoyed Maia’s Update, give us your feedback on the Steam Forum, on the Maia Forum or by mentioning #MaiaGame on twitter.
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.
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.
We've hit 0.50! Maia's latest update brings stability and some serious bug fixes! We've been working hard to eradicate as many issues as possible. We've also managed to squeeze in new features that improve gameplay such as custom maps, expanded research and a brand new robot.
New Features
Climate Change
The option to change the climate of your map has been added. Players can choose from Megathermal, Mesothermal and Polar as well as choosing map sizes, flora and fauna population sizes, and whether the map is on an earthquake hotspot. With these new climates, come the introduction of new trees.
Mesothermal
Megathermal
Polar
Aye, Robot
The utility robot has been added! At the moment this robot is equipped with a repair arm. This arm allows the robot to travel around the base repairing items. This frees up colonists to get on with other tasks like staying alive.
Necropsy
The Necropsy Table in the Research Lab can now be used to gain research data. Once the colonists have killed the Megacephalalgia creatures then can study a sample they collect from them.
New Research Upgrades
Once researched, players can now add lithium to the colonist’s water if they choose to. This stabilizes colonist's moods, however, it may cause unwanted side effects. There is also the ability to research the new trees.
Email System Scroll
Mail can now be scrolled through using arrows that appear after you receive 6 emails. This means players can control which emails they keep.
The Only Good Bug Is A Dead Bug
The largest part of this update is the amount of bugs that have been fixed. Here's an extensive list of fixes and changes we have made to existing features in Maia.
IMP Robot Bug Fixes
IMP Robots now remember their correct orders when the game has been saved and loaded.
Robots will not become fixated on tasks that can not be completed.
Dig orders that were removed will no longer revert on loading.
Removing the last IMP Robot and using the IMP search button will no longer cause a crash.
Removed IMP Robot's ghosts no longer count towards the robot safety limit.
IMP Robots will now take body bags to storage meaning a less cluttered base.
Thankfully, IMP Robots no longer deposit dead colonists (or building materials) in the rubble hopper.
IMP Robots now have an idle wander behaviour, They will not wait around to get encased in walls.
IMP Robots will store water barrels in more sensible positions.
IMP Robot turn speed has been slightly increased to speed up their productivity.
IMP Robot self awareness added.
Although quite rare, colonists and IMP robots may have conversations.
Power Bug Fixes
Flywheel and Super conductors now accurately display the amount of energy stored instead of defaulting to yellow.
Power capacity is also now tracked and sent in power report emails.
It will no longer be possible for underpowered objects to burst into flames. Items will also turn off if they are on fire.
Explosive Bug Fixes
Bounding Mines have been added and rebalanced for better effectiveness against large creatures.
The distance effected by a bounding mine has been tweaked.
When building a mine, there will no longer be an unwanted explosive mark decal.
Explosives exterior tile bug fixed.
Loading Game Bug Fixes
Maia had a few bugs caused by saving and loading the game. A lot of these bugs have been solved. These include:
Meteorites are now loading correctly and maintain their fossil type.
3D Nanoprinters now remember that they are printing on loading.
Hydroponic trees now maintain how much they have grown rather than resetting to their mid point.
Water Barrel's now maintain their count on loading.
Locked doors save on load and doors will no longer appear inside the walls.
Fossils retain type on load and will be placed in stands correctly.
Plant sample containers now save the transferred KB.
Turrets save number of rounds remaining.
Colonists Bug fixes and AI improvement.
Limping colonists will not get stuck in a looping animation when they are dead. (No more zombies.)
Food energy intake has been rebalanced due to the colonists often starving to death.
Colonists are no longer standing inside each other.
If there are less than 3 available living people in the base, colonists will not wait in the airlock for a guard.
Colonists will now take care not to let the chickens go extinct.
More death reports have been added to inform the player of death from cave ins and explosives.
The hygiene need has been turned on and colonists will use toilets. Toilets animations have been synced up.
Colonists can now destroy unwanted glow sticks.
Medical beds are now much more effective at healing colonists.
Other AI Bugs
AI will now go towards the nearest interaction point on an object rather than a random one.
Creatures no longer stand in the same place as others.
Pets and Uberhuhns will no longer go outside into the dangerous atmosphere.
Dogs
Players will now randomly get one of two different dogs when starting a new game.
Flora Bugs Fixes
The shadows from the flora around Maia have been refined to look more realistic.
Fauna Bugs and Changes
Megacephalalgia creatures may now trash your wind turbines out of spite!
Megacephalalgia will now destroy seismic stations.
Molerat and Megacephalalgia destruction will now leave debris both large and small when destroying things.
More interaction points have been added to the creatures for their destruction.
Creatures no longer spawn on edges of maps. Beforehand this would increase frame rate, especially in “Ample” size custom maps.
Megacephalalgia's grooming themselves no longer make inside tiles outside tiles.
Molerat tunnels have stopped effecting colonist build lists.
Door Bug Fixes
Bulkhead door physics have been tweaked for loading and saving.
Colonists will no longer experience doorway syndrome and forget what they were doing when walking through. Bulkhead doors will no longer strip away big chunks of the colonist's paths.
The Reinforced bulkhead door physics mesh has been redone.
Door locking information has been fixed.
Workshop table Bugs Fixed
Nukes can no longer be built out of crate paper and PVA, Colonists will have to use the workbench to create superconductors, fission reactors and fusion reactors.
Outside items will not be listed as Airlock when colonists create them on the workbench.
UI Bug Fixes
The bug that causes Maia's UI to become warped and disappear has been worked on.
The lander and save buttons should now appear for all players.
Buttons no longer flash when they are not meant to.
Mail Bug Fixes
Screen effect for open mail has been corrected.
Players will now receive the correct failure message when all their colonists are dead.
Players should no longer receive mail spam for building materials.
Read emails now show a different icon to make it clearer for players.
New email system! Scroll buttons will appear after 6 emails making it easier for players to open and keep important emails.
Research Changes
The research terminal has been improved.
The flicker bug has been reduced. The flicker bug was caused by not having enough storage or raw data.
Research rebalanced and improved, research raw data is now better distributed (64mb per job) and is used up by researching.
Two new needs for research equipment for better prioritisation.
There is now different levels of research equipment.
Necropsy table now has name text when placing the object in object building mode.
All research interaction points have been corrected.
Lander placement
Improvements have been made to stop the lander from falling on top of or too close to another one.
World Events
World events are now generated for 8 hours for all types of events. This was between 2-8 and some events had become too infrequent.
Light Rendering Improved
The engine's screen light tiles can now render up to 32 lights. This will reduce visual glitches and improve performance.
Light distance tweaked to fix hard edges.
GPU Usage
Many texture assets in Maia have been optimised, which as lead to a large reduction of GPU memory usage.
Tutorial Changes
Tutorial seed has changed. The way the Imp orders are counted has changed.
Other Bug Fixes.
All known crash bugs fixed.
Fix for rubble bug
Scrolling around screen when players have used Alt Tab has been stopped.
Black world tiles fixed.
Full balance pass.
Here’s some gameplay from Simon:
We hope you enjoy the 0.5 Maia update Stardystopia, let us know what you think on our forum, over on the Steam forum or by mentioning #MaiaGame us on twitter.
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.
This update introduces a host of new features including guns, colonist emotions, social interactions, and console commands. There's also been an overhaul of balance and the colonists priorities which will improve game play dramatically.
Emotions and Sanity
Colonists now experience emotions. Emotions will develop as they perform tasks, communicate with other colonists, and encounter the environment. You'll notice that colonists exhibit emotional outbursts such as breaking down in tears and cheering. Head over to the Maia wiki to see the ways in which you can influence their moods.
Social
Colonists now crave social interaction. These interactions may involve hugging, chatting, waving... or worse. Sometimes, anger can build up in the colonists and they may start to show some threatening behaviour towards each other.
Guns
Teamwork is essential to the construction of a successful base. Colonists that have strong social bonds will want to protect each other When colonists go for expeditions outside, they will group up. One colonist will do the job that needs to be done whilst the other brings a gun and watches out for danger.
Colonist Reactions
We've added new ways in which the colonists can interact with their environment. Firstly, if a creature approaches a colonist outside the base they will play dead to protect themselves. Colonists also flinch and steady themselves if there is an earthquake.
Console Input
Using the new in-game console, players can now execute a variety of development commands and cheats. For example, the console may be used to spawn objects, trigger earthquakes and instantly build objects. The Maia wiki lists the ways the console can be used.
Power Alerts
Power reports are now available through the email system. These reports represent the power supply, usage and need at the time the email was sent.
Balancing, Bugs & Stability
An in-depth simulation like Maia needs a lot of balancing to feel right. Since the last update we have iterated on a variety of balance variables.. We have adjusted the balance of object maintenance, building priorities, object degradation and the new colonist emotions. In addition, a multitude of bugs have been fixed, and several crashes eliminated. Here is a detailed list:
Black squares on ATI/AMD machines have been removed.
Mines cause damage instead of just destroying objects.
Vox's no longer delete tiles inside bases.
Fixed crash caused by removing object a colonist is working on.
Limping bug fixed.
Fix for colonists getting stuck doing an animation.
Crash fix for missing animation.
Other animation bugs fixed.
Solar Still destruction bug fixed.
Pressing Esc no longer locks up opening mail.
Fixed bugs in tutorial.
UI no longer becomes invisible when pressing Esc.
Fixed glitching fire.
Death hug fixed.
IMP stops collecting Material bug fixed.
Lander Animation occurring on external objects bugs fixed.
Doors opening/closing sound no longer loops.
No longer able to break the IMP robot in the tutorial.
No longer breaks when IMP robot is asked to dig inaccessible walls.
Colonists no longer get stuck inside objects.
Colonists have stopped going outside without suits to fix geothermal generators.
Bum Support texture no longer glitched.
Creature AI improved
IMP printer issues fixed.
We hope you enjoy the “Use of Weapons:” Update. Please give us your feedback! You can tell us what you think on the Maia forums, Steam forums, and by mentioning Maia on Twitter. Now available on Steam!
