OutpostHD v0.7.6 Preview #3

[leeor_net]

Wanted to give a heads up to those who are following.

I'm about a week late in pushing out a new version of OPHD. This was originally slated to be an interim release with only some minor feature roundup relating to robot command and the warehouse interface but I started to get annoyed with how easy it was for mines and smelters to overproduce on one resource and not the others... so I did some shuffling of issues and decided to make the Mine Operations Window the big feature for this update.

This is the in-game representation of the wireframe from Issue #17 over on GitHub.

It's starting to shape up though doesn't do anything yet. The real changes atm are under the hood -- Mine's are no longer inexhaustible. They now have a finite amount of resources and once depleted are useless. You're best off bulldozing the shaft and reclaiming whatever resources you can (this is still debatable, not sure if I want to have the facility and shafts remain in place pretty much forever as a sort of marker). Anyway, mine yields determine how many resources are available per 'level' or 'vein' of the mine shaft. You're only able to access the full amount of resources as you dig your mine deeper. Extending the shaft (at the moment) will take 10 turns so you'll need to think really carefully about how you handle your resources if you only have one mine available because it won't be producing anything during the time the new shaft is being dug. The time it takes is completely up for debate, I chose 10 arbitrarily as an 'expensive' action.

Aside from the changes to the mines and mining interface, I've also uncovered a myriad of bugs and defects. It's amazing how many things come out of the woodwork when you start executing code paths you never thought to do.

So yeah, lots has been going on and development continues. I'm eager to push out this release, I think there's a lot of neat little things that really make a difference in how the game feels in terms of completeness.


TL;DR

Lots of stuff under the hood changed, lots of bugs fixed, I'm a bit delayed because it's too easy to distract myself but work is progressing.

Oh yeah, and I made the game even harder than it already was. You're welcome.

[JetMech1999]

I like the window for the mine.  As for upping the difficulty level, gee thanks, Leeor
Seriously, though, things are looking great.  Get the updates out when you can, but don't rush them just to get them out.  I really like how you've done the pre-version 1.0 releases to get input from users.  It shows you care about putting out something good, versus something enh (like Sierra did with the original).

I loved playing the Sierra version, when it was the only thing like it out there, but looking back you really can see how they rushed to push a product onto the market.  If they'd just taken a little more time, they'd have had something truly memorable.

[leeor_net]

They did take a little more time... It resulted in v1.5 which sucked almost as hard as the original release. Shame too because the idea was sound.

But then, that's the point of OutpostHD. To build a fully realized implementation of the original idea... But actually done well. Or at least half way competently.

Aside from research I think this new version of OPHD will make the game almost completely playable.

[lordpalandus]

Isn't that mine image from OGame?

After a brief google search, it is indeed the icon for the Crystal Mine in OGame.

[leeor_net]

That's why there's a big PLACEHOLDER text laid overtop of it. There are several images like that -- they're there to give a sort of idea of what I want to have in there but aren't by any means the final product.

[leeor_net]

Further followup -- basically finished mine operations window:

Need to add a bit of button logic to the "Dig New Level" button and do some basic cleanup in the warehouse code and this release is ready to go.