Don’t you just hate it when you’re going about your work at the office and you stumble across a mouldering corpse? It’s so distracting, drives my productivity way down. Maia, the space colony management game, had a similar issue but the latest update adds bodybags, letting you cover up those smelly, festering corpses and get on with your day.
There’s a lot more in the 0.46 update besides. You can now 3D print robots, for instance.
0.46 adds a suite of items and research tech to support botany. You can now send your colonists and IMP droids out into the world to collect samples of local plants. These can then be tested in the lab. Future updates will see this developed so you can extract drugs from the plants which can be given to your colonists.
The 3D printer is another big addition in 0.46. The printer lets you create new IMP droids to support your colony. The process is resource intensive but well worth it as for every colonist in your camp you’re allowed one IMP, doubling your workforce.
The past month has seen more than 50 bugs identified by the community and squashed by the team, leading to a much more stable game. Unfortunately, one of those bugs was the one “ where half full barrels in the solar still drove the colonists insane.” which sounds brilliant.
Project lead Simon Roth has released a video that demonstrates the changes and improvements:
And here’s the full list of changes:
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Many IMP bugs fixed. No more random wandering off or freak outs.
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IMPs can now use teamwork, digging is much more efficient.
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Find your IMPs with the robots button. (bottom left)
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Rest facilities are now their own need. Colonists will build beds at a much higher priority.
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4k resolution crashes and performance issues fixed.
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Massive optimisations on the CPU. Threading is improved, as is cache coherency. Running on an Intel i5 you will be able to keep CPU usage under 50% at 60fps.
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Pathfinding is improved, so less performance spikes.
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Decent GPU improvements, shader fixes.
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Loading directly from the menu.
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Loading speeds are greatly increased as is saving.
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Groundwater levels are now shown, watch puddles form and evaporate.
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More music tracks.
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More sounds for common base items to impart more game information via audio.
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Bodybags! No more treading on rotten corpses.
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Creature burrows on the surface.
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Colonist energy usage tweaked. Food values recalculated.
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Many colonist AI bugs squished. Including the one where half full barrels in the solar still drove the colonists insane.
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Placeable airlocks.
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Tutorial updates to point out UI changes.
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AI delegation is now weighted towards being more needs based. A colonist with a greater need will go for the action first.
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Lighting is redone for better effect. Less glitches.
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A few save state bugs fixed.
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Yosemite support added.
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Intel GPU shaders optimised for below minimum spec machines.