Lacuna Passage

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #84 - The Power System Rework Update

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v0.61 focuses on a complete update of the power management system for exterior habitat modules, but a bunch of bug fixes are included as well. Check the change log below.

Change Log

  • Fixed incorrect east hab map marker location.
  • Fixed datapad UI navigation issue that would discard inputs that were entered too quickly.
  • Fixed bug that prevented you from strafing while auto-walking.
  • Fixed bug that caused dust storm effects to be visible and charging with portable solar panel to be possible while inside east hab airlock.
  • Made change to WayStat discovery view colliders so that they hopefully trigger more reliably.
  • Made change to mouse sensitivity range (this may require you to adjust your sensitivity in the control options menu).
  • Fixed bug causing the minimum solar charge during a dust storm to go lower than intended.
  • Game performance should be slightly improved after doing a recent optimization pass of several game systems.
  • Reworked the entire power supply system for the habitat exterior modules. Read below for details.

If you want a TL;DR of the new power system: We have moved from power percentages to power units. As long as you maintain 100 power units worth of solar panels/RTGs connected to each exterior module you should see very little difference to how the system worked previously. If you want a more in-depth rundown of the new system then keep reading.

Here’s how the new power units are generated with RTGs and solar panels:

RTGs generate 50 units, day and night (used to be 100% power).
Large Solar Panels generate 50 units during the day (used to be 50% power).
Small Solar Panels generate 30 units during the day.
Portable Solar Panels generate 20 units during the day.

There are still only the 5 solar panel slots and one RTG slot for each module, but now they all contribute directly to the reserve battery so long as the electrical module is operational. However, now there is a maximum of 100 charge units from any set of module slots. That means the most you can generate during the day would be 400 units from all four modules.

Then, all the modules also incur a general cost that pulls from the reserve battery in order to operate.

Water Reclaimer

  • 50 unit cost to produce water.
  • 40 unit cost to keep water running if tanks are full.
  • If at least 50 units are being supplied by solar panels/RTG directly connected to this module then water production is more efficient.

Reoxygenator

  • 50 unit cost to produce oxygen.
  • 40 unit cost to keep running if tanks are full.
  • If at least 50 units are being supplied by solar panels/RTG directly connected to this module then oxygen production is more efficient.

Heater

  • 50 unit cost to heat up interior to normal temp.
  • 40 unit cost to keep running if at stable temp.
  • If at least 50 units are being supplied by solar panels/RTG directly connected to this module then temp will increase faster if below normal temp.

Electrical

  • 25 unit cost to keep all electrical systems running (lights, crafting, etc).

From the above requirements, the highest possible unit cost to keep all systems running would be 175 units, but if all oxygen and water tanks are full and the interior temp is stable then the cost would only be 145 units. This means that you should be banking between 225 and 255 units if you have the full 400 units of solar panels connected to your modules during the day. That banked amount should then be more than enough to cover the cost of all modules over the night and leave you with extra to transfer to your EVA suit when you go out to explore.

Because of this new system, all modules now produce at the same rate during the night as they do during the day. This is a change from before when the Reoxygenator and Water Reclaimer would produce at a drastically reduced rate at night. To balance for the increased amount being produced around the clock, both of these modules now produce at about 60% of their previous maximum production rate.

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum[lacunapassage.userecho.com]. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there. A special thanks to Mr. Fusion on the feedback forum for all his help and suggestions related to the power system rework.

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #83 - The Controller Support Update

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v0.6 focuses on making the control options much more flexible. This required a complete rework of the input system in the game to support most PC-compatible controllers and full key remapping options. This continues my current pattern of alternating major updates between gameplay system additions (like the previous pop tent and dust storm updates) and quality-of-life additions (like this one). Check out the full change log below.

Change Log

  • Controller support has been added for most dual joystick controller types.
  • Keyboard and controller button remapping is now available via the Controls option menu.
  • Increased frequency of dust devils.
  • Fixed bug that caused hab status panel to display information from a different hab.
  • Fixed production levels of oxygen and water modules relative to the impact that broken components should have.
  • Changed locomotion settings for moving up and down slopes and while jumping.
  • Fixed issue where reserve battery could be charged slightly over 100%.

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum[lacunapassage.userecho.com]. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there.

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #82 - The Pop Tent Update - v0.59

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v0.59 now provides a new way for you to escape the elements of Mars. Emergency Pop Tents are now deployable items that you can enter to protect yourself for dust storms, eat while on EVA, and save your progress by sleeping.

The rest of this update is a little lighter on content than usual because I have had to spend a lot of time updating the game code to be compatible with the latest version of Unity. Unity required a security update and I figured it would be a good time to also just update everything to the latest version. I've gone from Unity 5.3.8 to Unity 2017.1. This required a ton of little fixes to ensure everything will work as it did before, and I'm still not entirely sure that everything will be functional. If you find something that seems out of place or inconsistent with how you remember the game working before, please let me know via the official bug reporting and feedback forum

Change Log

  • Updated engine to most recent version of Unity for performance and compatibility improvements.
  • Numerous bug fixes for issues related to Unity version update.
  • Loading of interior and exterior scenes should be faster.
  • Habitat interior lightmapping has been improved.
  • Terrain dynamic shadows have been improved.
  • Fog distance and blending with horizon have been improved.
  • Added deployable Emergency Pop Tents that allow you to take shelter from dust storms, eat consumables, and save your game while on an EVA.
  • Remote outposts with permanent pop tents are also useable now and they produce their own ambient oxygen so your suit reserves will not deplete while inside.
  • Added quick reference panels by interior airlock doors to see the status of your exterior life support modules at a glance while inside a habitat.
  • Equipped portable solar panels will no longer charge your suit battery while inside an airlock.
  • Dust storms now properly impact exterior module power production based on proximity to the storm’s epicenter.
  • Dust storm particle effect visibility due to proximity to storm epicenter has been adjusted.

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum[lacunapassage.userecho.com]. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there.

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #81 - The Dust Storms Update - v0.58

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v0.58 marks the major feature addition of randomized dust storms to Lacuna Passage. The best way to quickly experience the new dust storms is to start a new game with the Big Storm scenario detailed below. If you want a quick timelapse of what dust storms look like you can check out this video:

Change Log

  • Added randomized dust storms that can slowly move across the map and impact your visibility, mobility, and navigation functions.
  • Added a survival sandbox scenario select screen with three currently available options: No Dust Storms Mode, Standard Mode with occasionally spawning dust storms, and Big Storm Mode which will start with a large dust storm hitting Habitat Alpha within the first 3-7 Sols.
  • Added small blowing dust clouds over the entire map.
  • Added randomly spawning dust devils.
  • All habitat interiors now have an airlock exit sign to differentiate the two doors.
  • The screen no longer fades completely to black during exterior module repairs. You can now see time pass in your HUD and the cost to your oxygen and battery in accelerated time during the repair.
  • Fixed issue with exterior module resource generation when sleeping for long periods.
  • Fixed issue with RTGs not generating exterior module resources properly at night.
  • Fixed incorrect description of Multitool. Multitools now explicitly mention that they can be used as a Cutting Tool, Building Tool, and Engineering Tool.
  • The objective LAT and LONG is now updated while placing a custom objective in the Navigation app.
  • Fixed issue with some Drill Rover locations not being added to navigation.
  • Fixed incorrect randomization of exterior module component integrity values for the southeastern-most habitat location.
  • Scanner is now automatically disabled when entering a habitat to prevent unintended scanner highlights while indoors.
  • Fixed issue with incorrect habitat resource values being displayed when accessing the EVA suit management screen between two different habitats.
  • Fixed incorrect texture on water reclaimers.
  • Fixed incorrect exhaustion recovery value when consuming water.
  • Sleeping for 0 hours is now allowed as a way to save without sleeping. Was previously only accessible by cycling the time value in one direction.
  • Fixed issue with the starting landing pod changing positions after loading a saved game.
  • Fixed a floating rock at a solar panel discovery location.
  • Fixed issue where some exterior module components were unable to be removed.

Keep in mind that this now makes the weather monitoring functions of the Waypoint Stations worth maintaining since they can warn you of an incoming dust storm and you can track the visibility at each WayStat location with the function enabled via installed fuses.

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there.

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #80 - The Survival Stats Update - v0.57

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Today's update is an attempt to add some new player progression goals to the survival sandbox including achievements and leaderboards. Check the full change log below.

Change Log

  • Achievements have been added for a range of survival goals.
  • Leaderboards have been added for survival time and distance traveled in a single playthrough.
  • A stats screen will now be displayed upon dying which will tell you exactly what you died from along with comparisons to your previous best run.
  • Increased scanner detection range for standard containers (blue squares) to 300 meters (this distance is not increased by activating WayStats).
  • Crafting an oxygen filled canister now requires 50L of oxygen from your hab reoxygenator tanks.
  • Your EVA suit can now be equipped or removed while inside a hab via the EVA preparation screen (accessible from the habitat status consoles).
  • Your EVA suit will now only be removed automatically upon entering a hab if the reoxygenator has oxygen in the tanks.
  • If the hab reoxygenator is not producing oxygen then you will now more accurately consume oxygen from the reserve tanks while not wearing your EVA suit.
  • The accumulated radiation exposure will now be saved properly.
  • The photo app should function more reliably when deleting photos.
  • The heart rate (stamina indicator) will no longer disappear while jumping.
  • Non-electrical components will no longer throw sparks when being replaced in exterior modules.

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there. See if you can keep your spot on the new leaderboards and collect all the achievements!

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #79 - The Balance and Comfort Update - v0.56

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Today's update provides a number of user requested changes. The first of many such updates to come.

Change Log

  • There will now always be a Multitool found in Hab Beta.
  • There will now always be a Haz-Mat Kit found in Hab Gamma.
  • There will now always be a Printer Key found in Hab Gamma.
  • Survival stats like Oxygen, Battery, Calories, etc will now be depleted 20-30% slower, allowing for longer periods of exploration.
  • Habitat storage space has been expanded from a max of 60kg to 80kg.
  • Added menu option for Mouse Sensitivity.
  • Added menu options to disable Camera Bob and Sway.
  • Added menu options to control SFX and Music audio volumes.
  • Added keyboard shortcut to toggle auto-walking (~ key).

Many of these changes were prioritized based on feedback provided by players on our Feedback Forum. Help me determine future development priorities by posting your ideas, suggestions, and bug reports there. Try out these new balance and comfort updates and let me know what you think! Have fun exploring!

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Lacuna Passage is out now on Steam Early Access

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Lacuna Passage - the first-person, open world Mars exploration and survival game - launches for PC and Mac on Steam Early Access today. Check out the new Early Access launch trailer here: youtu.be/XbMXvPBOpFU

Having smashed its Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns with a superbly realized Martian setting, Lacuna Passage invites players to set foot on the Red Planet and experience what it will be like for those first adventurers. The game will release in two phases:

1. Survival Sandbox - Steam Early Access - Out Now
2. Story Mode - Full Steam Launch - In Development

Launching on Steam Early Access today, the Survival Sandbox mode of Lacuna Passage will challenge players’ technical smarts and problem-solving skills, as well as enabling early astronauts to test drive the core mechanics ahead of the arrival of Story Mode.

“I was hugely inspired by the 2012 landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars,” said Tyler Owen, founder and lead developer at Random Seed Games. “As I waited for the first images to beam back to Earth I realized that the closest I would ever get to walking the surface of the Red Planet and taking my own photos would be if I made a game where you could do just that. With Lacuna Passage we’re focused on creating a science-fiction interactive experience that will inspire others to get interested in space travel and science.”

What is Lacuna Passage?

Developed in Iowa, USA by Random Seed Games, Lacuna Passage is a Mars exploration and survival game based on real mission technology and Mars terrain from NASA satellite data. Here are some of the key features:

● Stunning first-person, open world of Martian exploration and survival.

● 25 square miles of explorable terrain generated from actual Mars satellite data.

● Survival mechanics based on real metrics like blood glucose, heart rate, caloric intake, and more.

● In-game photography that allows you to capture any moment and document your discoveries with higher quality than your PC or Mac can handle in real time.

● An immersive HUD that is accurate to potential future space exploration physical display technologies.

● A hauntingly beautiful dynamic soundtrack that responds to your actions.

● Survival Sandbox available now on Steam Early Access.

● A mysterious single-player story that encourages non-linear play (Story Mode) coming in a future update.

Survival Sandbox - Steam Early Access - Out Now

Waking in a landing pod, players must check their equipment and venture out onto the red Martian soil in search of a nearby habitat. With 25 square miles of the Red Planet to explore and survive, they must gather resources from randomized points-of- interest, supply caches and other habitats in order to continue their mission. Survival is more than just tracking status bars; maintaining life-support equipment is just as important as maintaining health. Players must carefully manage vital resources or they will find themselves stranded in the great red wasteland with no food, water, or oxygen. Chief among the available tools is the stunning photography feature, which allows the budding Martian adventurer to capture higher quality photos than their PC can handle in real time.

Story Mode - In Development

Jessica Rainer - the only survivor of the second manned mission to Mars - investigates the disappearance of the first. With several tools at her disposal, most importantly her skills of observation, Jessica needs to uncover mission logs, recorded audio files, and other physical clues left behind at critical mission locations in order to uncover the story. An interplanetary trail of breadcrumbs awaits. With 25 square miles of open terrain around the crash site to explore Jessica can’t explore blindly to find the missing crew of the Hermes. Will she simply try to survive and await rescue or will she put her own life on the line to discover the truth? In Lacuna Passage, time and the elements are your enemies...

Assets and info

● Steam Early Access page: store.steampowered.com/app/252090

● Early Access launch trailer: youtu.be/XbMXvPBOpFU

● Additional game info and press asset pack: lacunapassage.com/press

● Follow Lacuna Passage’s development on the devblog

● Check overall progress on the roadmap

Lacuna Passage is now available to purchase ($14.99, €14.99, £10.99) and download for PC and Mac in all countries on Steam Early Access.

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #78 - The Survival Sandbox Homestretch

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Kickstarter Backers

We are getting very close to a backer release for the testing of the Survival Sandbox mode. I'm going to get into my development progress since last month, but first I wanted to give a little more detail about how the rollout will work for the backer release.

First off, the release will be managed through the Humble Store download pages that you claimed with your Kickstarter email address. This will not be done through Steam just yet. I haven't gotten to Steam integration yet, so to start with all backers will need to download updated builds through the Humble Store download pages similar to how you downloaded the old demo for Lacuna Passage Prologue.

This rollout will happen in waves according to your Kickstarter Backer reward level, with Beta level backers and above getting access first. I'm only one developer, so I can't handle large numbers of bug reports and requests all at once. We will gradually rollout access until all backers are included. Then we will work on bug fixing, planned feature additions, and requested feature additions until I think we are ready to launch on Steam Early Access. I will then transition to Steam integration and all backers able to access build updates automatically through Steam. If some of you don't want to worry about encountering excessive bugs or having to manually update your build then I would suggest that you wait until I am able to add Steam integration before you try the game.

My development roadmap labels can help you determine what is and is not planned for the Early Access release. The Early Access release will be considered Survival Sandbox 1.0. However, not everything that is planned for Survival Sandbox 1.0 will be included in the initial backer release. So, what won't be in the backer release? Some things are practically finished but will not be included in the backer release because I want to get feedback on specific features and game mechanics before adding more features. Other features are just not ready yet. Here are a few notable things that will be absent from the initial backer release but will come in build updates prior to the Early Access Survival Sandbox 1.0:

  • Dust Storms/Dust Devils
    • These are practically complete, but since they are inherently random, I want to filter out any bugs that may be difficult to track down if they are bugs that sometimes occurring during random storms for some players and not for others.
  • Saving and loading game progress
    • This might seem like an odd omission, but I would like to focus early bug reports to the first 1-2 hours of gameplay. Early build updates might break game saves anyway so I want to avoid that at first.
  • Deployable Emergency Pop Tents
    • Since these provide a temporary shelter during storms and a place to save your game while on an EVA, there is no need to include them if those other features are not in place.
  • Some audio and music
    • Early backer builds may be noticeably absent of most audio and music. This is partly to save filesize for early build updates, but I also have just not had the development resources to focus on these aspects yet. They will be improved before the Early Access release.

Development Progress

One of my contract artists and long-time contributors to Lacuna Passage, Jeremy Brown, is nearly complete with what I hope will become one of our most iconic assets - the EVA suit.

So far only the high poly and low poly models are complete and already I think it looks great. It should look even better soon when the textures are finished.

Jeremy has also completed a wonderful new flag asset that I have applied cloth physics to, allowing it to react to our wind direction and intensity.

I've also begun the final lightmapping process on the habitat interiors. I've completed Habitat Alpha which you can see below.

I have two more habitat arrangements to complete, but all that consists of is essentially just rearranging the modular interior wall segments and rendering new lightmaps. This will help to distinguish the three discoverable habitats from each other while exploring the interiors.

I can also report that all 92 randomized discoverable locations on the map have been placed and the container contents of each location are being randomized on each new playthrough.

On top of all that I have punched out dozens of tiny bugs and added many quality-of-life improvements. None of which would be super exciting to describe here, but I've personally been testing the game lately and it's honestly starting to feel like a very compelling gameplay loop.

All-in-all, things are going great. Development progress has continued at a steady pace despite my wife and I working hard to prepare for our first child, and hopefully I can get our backers access to build downloads without much more delay. Hang in there!

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #77 - Progress towards Backer access

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We are getting very close to giving Kickstarter Backers access to our pre-Early Access version of the Lacuna Passage Survival Sandbox. I was desperately trying to get it ready before the end of 2016, but alas, life got in the way. I don't think I've mentioned anything about it here before now, but my wife and I are expecting our first child this coming March. So between spending time with family over the holidays and dealing with all the newness of preparing to be first-time parents, I was unable to hit my goal.

But the good news is that it won't be delayed very long. I'm still hard at work and I've made some great progress that I can share this month.

We now have temporary inventory icons for every item in the game. This was very important for testing so that every item has some unique identifier in your inventory, but obviously we will still be adding color to these sketched versions before the full release on Steam. If you are a backer then you will probably see many of these still in their black & white placeholder versions, but they will be updated over time. You can see how the final versions will look in our previous devlog.

Another thing I've accomplished this month is a simple death animation. I didn't have a chance to capture an example before this post, but it's nothing special really. Just a necessary element for a survival game as the final feedback on your failed performance.

While we are talking about things I can't easily show you, I'll also mention that we have our first deployable item - the portable solar panel. Portable solar panels can be used to power exterior modules just like small and large standard panels, but portable solar panels can also be "deployed" while you are out and about exploring. This will allow you to supplement your battery during the day time.

Some things I can show however are a bunch of new container types that you can discover while searching the terrain for remote supply caches.

As you might be able to predict, the different colors will help you identify what kinds of contents you might expect to find inside.

Another deployable item that I'm working on is the emergency pop tent. The deployable mechanics are still being worked on, but the model and textures are mostly complete. Below you can see the inflatable temporary habitat as it will appear in the environment.

Alright, so... things are going great and I feel like I'm in the home stretch. Stay tuned and I will have details for backers about how to get access to the Early Access beta test in the near future. Thanks everyone and happy new year!

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Lacuna Passage - Devlog #76 - Menus and other boring stuff

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This month is just a quick update to show signs of life. I'm hard at work on a release version of the Survival Sandbox for Kickstarter backers, which will help me to test it before our upcoming Early Access launch.

More so than almost any other month the stuff I've been working on lately has been "under the hood", so I don't have much to show. I have been adding more discoverable locations and rock formations, but I want most of those to be something you see for the first time yourself while playing. Mostly I've been working on tweaks and quality-of-life improvements for the management and operation of your habitats and inventory.

One thing I can show is the newly added main menu screen. 90% of the "menus" in the game take place within your datapad because they are in-game representations of player interactions (like eating or picking up items). But some things - like changing the graphics quality and resolution, or loading a saved game - should be accessible from a main menu. This main menu can't rely on the datapad since if you aren't even playing the game yet then you don't technically have a datapad to view, so this main menu is more traditional. It's still very much a work in progress (the boring brown background will hopefully be improved), but you can see below some of the simple options that will be available in our backer release.

Some options may be added or removed before release, but we definitely hope to add more customization options over the course of development.

The last image above is how the menu will appear when overlaid on the game while paused. This was actually a bit more complicated than I thought it would be, because I had not yet actually implemented a pause mode in the game. The next step will be to include the menu hooks for saving and loading and ensuring that our save file system is reliable.

There are still lots of other little things to worry about and finish (deciding what "dying" looks like, ensuring randomized supply variability and reliable distribution, audio additions, tutorial elements, etc, etc [check our development roadmap to see more]), but we are getting so close to something playable. I hope you can all bear with me a little while longer!