Greetings!

Here begins my slightly more regular devlog series. Really just changing the format of my news posts so I can make them a little more frequent. So let's talk about what I've worked on over the past couple of months!

To begin, I started by doing a bunch of refactoring and tidying up the codebase around module construction, before I got stuck into module rotation. Previously, there was no way to change the orientation of a module when you build it. This meant that a lot of stations ended up looking fairly similar.

To solve this, you can now click R to rotate a module by 90 degrees before building it. You can also use the scroll wheel to cycle through available berths on a new module. Combining these two new features allows the player to construct module in any configuration they might like, allowing for all sorts of unusual arrangements.

After I got the module rotation system working, I tackled a problem I had been dreading for a long time: loopable station layouts. The inability to make loops was another limitation of the old construction system that I felt stifled player creativity, but it's a feature that I always thought would be difficult. Turns out, it's not so bad!

In the backend, I didn't really need to change much. In essence, the modules now check with nearby modules to see if they have any berths that align perfectly. If they do, they attach, and opening the hatch is permitted.

One aspect that I thought would be difficult would be reworking the check for whether deconstructing a module should be allowed. Previously, I just needed to check how many attachments a targeted module had. If it was berthed to more than one other module, the player can't be allowed to deconstruct it. But as you can imagine, a module which is part of a larger loop needs to be allowed to be deconstructed, otherwise a loop of modules becomes indestructible once built.

However, after thinking about it for five minutes, I wrote a recursive method in ten minutes, which worked the first try. Needless to say, that felt pretty good!

Managing storage can be a pain. Now, storage racks share inventory throughout a module. You can also enable additional stowage zones specific to the module you're in. Also, with the flip of a switch, a workbench gains access to the entire module's inventory. No need to go hunting for specific items, just keep them all in the one module, and you're good to go!

I think this interface has been through the most upgrades by far. I'm just never happy with it, as there's always some level of confusion as to how it's meant to be used. Hopefully this is one of the last times!

I've improved the farm growbed models, and made it much easier to use. In doing this, manually extracting/depositing fluids from any kind of tank is a much more pleasant experience now as well.

I've also started a major refactor - essentially rewriting/restructuring everything to do with station system simulation. I'll speak more about this when I finish it next month!

In other news, I've been doing a load of admin work behind the scenes to organise my finances for what will (hopefully) be the final year of development without actual cashflow. This involved shuffling around the website to make room for a job listing page, and also officially registering True Anomaly Entertainment Pty Ltd as an Australian Company. I'm now almost ready to start looking for an employee...

Thanks for bearing with me! As always, for more regular updates, join the Discord, where you can view my daily changelog and get much quicker response times from me. Until next time!

Luna

Hello! It's me again! Been a while, I know. Thought I'd write up a little update on what I've been up to.

As you can read in the title, Untethered Pre-alpha 11 is complete. This is a major development milestone, which marks the final major pre-alpha update. So, let’s talk about what I did in that time.

The tech tree now has tiers, which restricts things a little more and gives me some more control over the broader pacing of the game. In the early game, you progress through these tiers with clearance levels, which forces you to explore. And as you transition to the later game, you’ll have to complete freight contracts, which require you to load various bulk commodities onto freighters and ship them off. 

The whole “freight contract” system was something that I had planned for a very long time to exist much later in the game in a slightly different form that I would introduce in Early Access, but for various reasons I’ve decided to try bringing it much earlier. 

I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ve made some big steps towards completing some environments. Things are looking better, but there are still a few places that need to be redone. I also made a little video showing off some of these new environments, so give it a watch if you're intrigued!

To fix some progression issues, I've added the ability to dock to certain wrecks, and extract the fuel stored in them.

Asteroids have received another major upgrade, with improvements to procedural generation, terraforming, surface shaders, and performance. However, there are still several known issues (largely related to performance) that will be addressed in the coming months. Once I've resolved these major performance issues, I'll be able to add some larger asteroids into the game.

Also, the way you find asteroids has been changed. The Radar Module added in pre-alpha 10 has since been cut, and asteroid orbits are now sourced from data files you can find in wreckage.

The game has of course seen many, many other small improvements, including various new models, performance improvements, refactoring, bug fixes, UI/UX improvements, and some major rebalancing.

We also celebrated the completion of the third year of development on Untethered in October, with a picnic in the park.

While I wasn't exhibiting this year, I decided to make an Untethered themed costume to walk around the Expo Hall in. Had a great time catching up with the Australian game devs, with a whole bunch of new and old faces!

Up until this point, I've been in the pre-alpha phase of development. My process has been to complete big development cycles, where I conduct a playtest, take a bunch of notes, then tear apart and rebuild many of the game's systems over the course of several months. This approach allows me to take an experimental approach to development and lets me explore some of the other paths I can take to "find" Untethered.

My notes for pre-alpha 10 were 5 pages long. For pre-alpha 11? Just over a single page.

I'm taking this as a sign that I've found the game. Or at least I'm in the ballpark. So, the next milestone will be alpha.

Alpha is the next step for Untethered. To get there, I'm going to need to conduct one more "teardown" cycle, during which I need to fix some major technical issues regarding modules, which may require a complete rewrite of module construction.

I'll also implement a few other final touches that require system overhauls:

• Shared module inventories and crafting from storage

• Solar array rebalancing

• Death system overhaul

• Thermal control system upgrade

• Docking system improvements and station collisions

• Suit upgrades interface overhaul

• Minor health & farming expansion

At some point along this journey, I’ll do a couple more one on one tests to check things, and once I feel comfortable that someone could safely play through the entirety of Untethered without softlocking themselves, we can go to alpha.

Once in alpha, there will be no more tearing things apart, unless it's absolutely necessary. My goal will be to solidify the foundation from which I can launch into Early Access. This means bug fixes, readability fixes, localisation, and gathering loads of data on the pacing of the whole experience. 

See the roadmap[untetheredgame.info] for how this all sits in my release timeline.

And finally, I feel like I disappear for too long between updates, so I plan to make monthly Steam devlog posts from now on just to take the opportunity to show off what I’ve been working on that month. They won't be as in-depth as this one of course, but it's probably a good idea to send out a regular pulse so you know I haven't given up!

~~~

As always, thank you so much for all your support as I chip away at this enormous project. I read all your words of encouragement and feedback in the reviews, the Steam community, YouTube comments, and the Discord server. It means a lot, and I particularly appreciate your patience.

Thanks for reading,

Luna <3