“Open Sesame!” Interstellar Rift Development Update 008

As you may have guessed from the title of this week’s update, we’re introducing functional doors!

That means: every single door in your ships will now require power if you want to pass through them. As with many of the features we’ve added these past few weeks, this represents another big step in adding engine functionality to the game. This time it’s the animation system that we’ve implemented, as with many of these engine features it is still in the early stages. Which means it will be expanded upon in the future, but for now, it will make sure doors open and close.

The second major update is the re-designed ship construction editor. While most of the editor still works as it used to, from now on, In Interior mode, you will only see the room which you currently have active. if you want to change active rooms simply move your mouse over to another room and press spacebar. With this new viewmode we hope to give you guys a better overview of what you’ve built, while also increasing editor performance.

A similar view will also be available for the power connection tool, when you activate the power connection mode you will now see your entire ship in blue ghost mode regardless of which buildplane you had active, with only the devices that generate and require power highlighted, including exterior solar panels. This will enable all you shipwrights to connect the devices more easily across your entire ship.

As always we would greatly appreciate any critique, comments and feedback you guys are willing to provide. and we hope you enjoy this latest patch

“Care for a snack?” – Interstellar Rift Development Update 007

Ladies and gentlemen! Come one, come all and have a taste of Higgs and Boson’s fine pastries’ latest creation! With great pride, we introduce the mass infusing Higgs Doughnut! Available now at your nearest “Hurles Co Vending Division” food dispenser.

This week is a rather light update as we introduce a few new props and interior decorations. Chief among them, the Hurles co. vending machine, and the new maneuvering thrusters. These thrusters can be placed on your hull and will eventually help steer your ship. Do pay attention to the direction they are facing, though. For it will affect their function once the ship flight update goes live.

Aside from the new props were are enabling power requirements for several systems. Most important among them, the teleporter. This means you will have to connect the teleporter or any of these other devices to a power generator. If they are not connected they simply will not function. That means you will be able to teleport to your ship but if it is not connected you won’t be able to teleport back.

The power connection tool has also gone through a few changes as we integrated it with our network systems. This has been partially based on your feedback and our own internal testing. This meant that we have had to change how the connection tool works. Rather than connecting everything to an input and output as before, you will now just have to click between the generator and the device you want to power.

Since you are not yet able to gather fuel, all fuel tanks are filled to infinity and you will not have to worry about running out of juice. That said, we are also reworking the values that these devices require and put out. So for the time being you can connect as many devices to a single generator as you wish. This will change soon however as we finish the design for this system.

We hope you enjoy this week’s update, and as always, any feedback you are willing to provide is much appreciated.

 

Interstellar Rift can be downloaded here.

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