Devlog 26: Last devlog

I’ve officially finished the game. It’s been an incredible journey, and I’m pretty happy with the end result.

excavator

The excavator is now fully functional. You can use it to create mines, which automatically convert into factories once placed.

a lot of small things

I have done a lot of small things to optimse the game and fix things i coudend test till now

Release

This is the last devlog I’ll be writing for this project. I want to thank you all for the support. I hope you enjoy playing the game.

Devlog 25: Planes and saving!

I’ve locked in over the last 2 days and finished the final 2 of the 3 major systems. I’ve completed the planes (which now spawn when you accept an order) and finished the saving system.

Planes/order system

I’ve finished the order system, when you accept an order, a plane now spawns a couple thousand pixels out. It flies to the airstrip, loads up at the end of the runway, turns around, and flies away. It doesn’t taxi all the way to the terminal because I just don’t have time for that, but it looks good enough for now.

Saving

You can now save 3 worlds in the game. Everything gets encrypted and saves all the world values. It was pretty difficult converting some of the arrays filled with instances into dictionaries and back again, but it works on both PC and on the web.

whats left:

The only things left are the excavator and some smaller things. I’m finishing that all tomorrow, and that will be the last devlog for my ship. The main gameplay loop should be finished by end of day tomorrow. If I can’t finish everything, so be it, I dont have time to work on it anymore if I also want to continu in third space, but I’m happy with how it works now and what I have learned along the way.

Devlog 24: Construction finished and start secunce made

I’ve finished the construction system and made the start sequence actually playable by adding a resource box containing 10 iron bars needed to build a terminal. It’s been 2 weeks since my last devlog school and commitments to Third Space have kept me busier, so I’m not 100% certain I’ve captured everything that’s changed.

Construction system

The construction system now generates building routes that you can assign vehicles to. Resources must be delivered to a building site before construction begins, making the resource system meaningful in actual gameplay.

Starting secunce

The starting secunce now has a couple of steps:

1. Place the resource box
2. Place a runway
3. Place a terminal
4. Conect the runway with the terminal with a taxiway
5. Place 4 base tiles for the vehicle to spawn on

What has to be done:

• Mine/excavator system ~3h
• Finish trade system ~3h
• Save system ~2h
• Documentation ~2h

Devlog 23: Vehicle pathfinding and construction

I have fixed the vehicle pathfinding (mostly) and I have made the construction system.

Vehicle pathfinding

I have fixed the vehicle pathfinding and it works now mostly. I say mostly because it breaks when a trailer is equipped, but that is a way smaller thing to fix.

Construction system

It’s almost done. The system makes it so the resources actually have a function and you now need to deliver resources to a building site before the factory can get built.

Still not done

I know I said it would be done this weekend and it still isn’t, but it’s almost there. What I still have to do:

• The mine/excavator ~5h
• Finishing a couple of systems (like the construction and trade system) ~5h
• Make a savegame system ~5h
• Small things ~2h
• Documentation ~2h

So 2 devlogs left, and otherwise I will just ship incomplete because I don’t have time anymore.

Devlog 22: Factory UI and Finished base building

I’ve finished base building and am now working on the factory UI.

Factory UI

I’m working on the factory UI, where you can see the factory’s storage and change its recipe. It’s almost finished.

Base building

Base building is finished you can now make taxiways and build a warehouse. I’ve also put these into a UI like the factory’s, so it only takes one button.

Vehicle physics/pathfinding

I’ve spent yet another hour on vehicle physics/pathfinding, and I’ve narrowed it down to a bug in the handoff to the prebaked paths of the factories.

Timeline

I’m pretty sure I am gooing tho finish it this weekend. What’s left:

• Vehicle physics ~3h
• Mines/excavators ~5h
• Building construction (will reuse most of the factory logic) ~2h
• Random bugs and small things ~5h

Devlog - 8

I have never been this frustrated to deploy a website. When I went to deploy the website, it kept giving me errors and errors. The main fault was that Vite 8 used a rolldown to bundle dependencies. It couldn’t bundle my satellite.js as it used js and WASM. Then I tried many times to make the code forcefully use the JS version but it just didn’t work. Then I searched up and saw that Vite 8 causes this and if I downgrade to Vite 7 then it will work then I did that and finally the deployment was turned from errors to success message and now the site is finally live. I will be shipping this project soon. Thank you for the support once again!

Devlog - 8

I have never been this frustrated to deploy a website. When I went to deploy the website, it kept giving me errors and errors. The main fault was that Vite 8 used a rolldown to bundle dependencies. It couldn’t bundle my satellite.js as it used js and WASM. Then I tried many times to make the code forcefully use the JS version but it just didn’t work. Then I searched up and saw that Vite 8 causes this and if I downgrade to Vite 7 then it will work then I did that and finally the deployment was turned from errors to success message and now the site is finally live. I will be shipping this project soon. Thank you for the support once again!

Devlog - 7

I am happy to announce that OrbitTrace is complete. My own 3D satellite tracker is complete. For the last 2 hours I have focused on features which are Ground Track & Replay. Let’s start with Ground Track. The satellite on the model let’s us know that where the satellite is and the projected paths are just circles you may say. But Ground Track let’s you know the satellite is traveling relative to Earth. Like it travels in weird patterns around the Earth. The replay as you may guess is the where you can time travel. You can go behind in time for about 90 minutes to see where the satellite was. It increments per minute so it doesn’t take full 90 minutes to replay. Thank you for all the support.

Goal

As I have mentioned earlier this is my last project before and my last hope for A1 Mini 3D printer as it is getting hard to manage school and coding at the same time but I will try my best to work on more projects. I need around 200 more stardust and I think this project has the potential to achieve that. Thank everyone once again!

Devlog - 7

I am happy to announce that OrbitTrace is complete. My own 3D satellite tracker is complete. For the last 2 hours I have focused on features which are Ground Track & Replay. Let’s start with Ground Track. The satellite on the model let’s us know that where the satellite is and the projected paths are just circles you may say. But Ground Track let’s you know the satellite is traveling relative to Earth. Like it travels in weird patterns around the Earth. The replay as you may guess is the where you can time travel. You can go behind in time for about 90 minutes to see where the satellite was. It increments per minute so it doesn’t take full 90 minutes to replay. Thank you for all the support.

Goal

As I have mentioned earlier this is my last project before and my last hope for A1 Mini 3D printer as it is getting hard to manage school and coding at the same time but I will try my best to work on more projects. I need around 200 more stardust and I think this project has the potential to achieve that. Thank everyone once again!

Devlog 21: Trading Finished, but I’m Stuck

I’ve finished the trading system!

Trading System

The trading system is done. Orders are generated, you can accept them, and accepted trades show up in the UI. The only thing left is adding the planes, but that depends on finishing the base-building system first.

Base Building

I’ve started working on base building. It’s pretty simple and mostly uses systems that already exist, so it should only take around an hour to fully implement.

Stuck

Development has been going way slower than I hoped because my codebase is currently a bunch of bandaids stacked on top of each other. I also need to ship this week since Thirdspace starts next week, which means I probably won’t have time to add much polish.So I need your opinion: is it worth delaying the game for another week? 😭 Or should I just ship it?
Do you think I’ll still be able to afford the Framework 13 if I release it now?
My current plan is to focus on getting the core systems working, fix any major bugs, and leave extra polish and construction vehicles for a post-launch update.

Devlog 20: UI and Trading

Got the backend for the trading system done and overhauled the UI to go with it.

Trading System

I made a trading system. It generates contracts with the recipient’s name, the resource being traded, and the price. Basically the foundation for the aircraft system.

UI

Redesigned the time and date display because it looked kinda rough. Also switched the economy back to money instead of the resource, makes way more sense for trading. Oh, and vehicles now actually speed up when you speed up time, which is pretty cool.

What’s Shipping vs Later

I’m not including construction vehicles in the initial release because that’s like 40+ more hours of work and I want to actually finish this before Thirdspace starts (I’m gonna compete too). So yeah, that’s going to a post-launch update.

Still gotta do:

• Get the excavators working (mines) ~5h
• Finish the trading system ~3h
• Fix vehicle physics again 😭~5h
• Random bugs and polish ~5h

Hope I can get that done this week. Tryna hit at least 14sd/h so I can hopfuly buy that Framework 13 lol

Devlog - 6

Ok guys, I think this was the hardest part of the project till now. I was trying to get the day/night version so it replicates the real earth. I this whole time figuring it out. Firstly I start up with math to actually figure out like astronomical values for the shader and to figure out where the Sun will be at what point of time but it didn’t work out but then I went to online libraries which let’s say also didn’t work as I could understand how to use it properly. I made so many changes through out this almost three hours but at the end I made a version where it sees users local time and adjusts the earth whether it will be day time or night time. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 6

Ok guys, I think this was the hardest part of the project till now. I was trying to get the day/night version so it replicates the real earth. I this whole time figuring it out. Firstly I start up with math to actually figure out like astronomical values for the shader and to figure out where the Sun will be at what point of time but it didn’t work out but then I went to online libraries which let’s say also didn’t work as I could understand how to use it properly. I made so many changes through out this almost three hours but at the end I made a version where it sees users local time and adjusts the earth whether it will be day time or night time. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 5

Finally Finally. I have overcome the problem of syncing the latitude and longitude of the Earth and the satellites. So the main problem was, I used a tutorial to build the earth in 3D so what happened the Earth’s longitude at zero was -90 so because of that the calculations were being correct but the marker was being placed at a wrong latitude. Before I didn’t knew about that so I tried changing the math but that was correct and then when I figured out that is was at a wrong longitude, it was a simple fix as I just added +90. Then I encountered another problem which was after a search the zoom controls and the drag controls for the earth became sketchy. That was because I was using a normal zoom function before but for zooming in on a satellite after the search it switched to x, y, z coordinate system and after just for normal zoom it tried to switch back to normal but couldn’t and that is why it became sketchy but I fixed that as well. Then I started to add features in. I have added satellite’s porjected path and completed path in now. You can see that in the video below. This was just like debugging. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 5

Finally Finally. I have overcome the problem of syncing the latitude and longitude of the Earth and the satellites. So the main problem was, I used a tutorial to build the earth in 3D so what happened the Earth’s longitude at zero was -90 so because of that the calculations were being correct but the marker was being placed at a wrong latitude. Before I didn’t knew about that so I tried changing the math but that was correct and then when I figured out that is was at a wrong longitude, it was a simple fix as I just added +90. Then I encountered another problem which was after a search the zoom controls and the drag controls for the earth became sketchy. That was because I was using a normal zoom function before but for zooming in on a satellite after the search it switched to x, y, z coordinate system and after just for normal zoom it tried to switch back to normal but couldn’t and that is why it became sketchy but I fixed that as well. Then I started to add features in. I have added satellite’s porjected path and completed path in now. You can see that in the video below. This was just like debugging. Thank you and stay tuned!

Devlog - 4

Right now it is being a bit too much of a trial and error debugging for me. I did manage to get all the satellites being added on the earth textured globe. There are around 16,000 satellites. I have separate code which asks the API for the data and then that data gets parsed and then it converts it to TLE and which is then used in the main code to make those markers. Then I added search feature and while making that search feature I noticed that still the syncing of the latitude & longitude of the textured earth and the satellites is still a big problem. I can’t get it too sync with each other. I will be continuing to debug and lets see what happens. Thank you & stay tuned!

Devlog - 4

Right now it is being a bit too much of a trial and error debugging for me. I did manage to get all the satellites being added on the earth textured globe. There are around 16,000 satellites. I have separate code which asks the API for the data and then that data gets parsed and then it converts it to TLE and which is then used in the main code to make those markers. Then I added search feature and while making that search feature I noticed that still the syncing of the latitude & longitude of the textured earth and the satellites is still a big problem. I can’t get it too sync with each other. I will be continuing to debug and lets see what happens. Thank you & stay tuned!

Devlog - 3

In 2 hours I have worked on quite a few different things. Starting it off with a problem mentioned in the last devlog which was having the latitude and longitude of satellites matching that with the earth’s lat and lon. I have fixed that problem and it was quite a silly one because It the API which had me blocked for a temporary basis because I have requested a lot in a few amount of time. So, it was just no responding to the request and that is why the satellites where not appearing and stayed in the middle. Second I added a sliding panel for the satellite information in which I encountered a problem where I was using Raycaster and it detected every click rather than a specific satellite click so then I again did like trial and error process and got it to work at the end. Also created a new data folder so that the data for satellites stays separated from the main code. Next up I will be loading more of the satellites into the project. Thank you and stay tuned.

Devlog - 3

In 2 hours I have worked on quite a few different things. Starting it off with a problem mentioned in the last devlog which was having the latitude and longitude of satellites matching that with the earth’s lat and lon. I have fixed that problem and it was quite a silly one because It the API which had me blocked for a temporary basis because I have requested a lot in a few amount of time. So, it was just no responding to the request and that is why the satellites where not appearing and stayed in the middle. Second I added a sliding panel for the satellite information in which I encountered a problem where I was using Raycaster and it detected every click rather than a specific satellite click so then I again did like trial and error process and got it to work at the end. Also created a new data folder so that the data for satellites stays separated from the main code. Next up I will be loading more of the satellites into the project. Thank you and stay tuned.