Due to conversion problems, the old data looks a bit ugly and not all headlines are added correct. A better visible version you can find in discord.
¶ 2020.01.03 Camera Movement
Today i got the entitysystem back to work and updated to the new entity-version of unity. Also tried out alot of stuff how to deal with it.
Today, new 4k Screens and Table mountings arrived. Everything ready to start the Development.
¶ 2020.01.05 Unitytest
Today was the Day of the Unity TestingFramework. It looks easy, but it was a lot of work, due to - They force to use Assemblies (separate DLLs for the Scripts), so needs to get that concept and migrated to it. It also should speed up recompiling. - Prefab Loading (f.e. to get the Meshes for the Tiles) was not easy possible. Could not be assigned directly - And the biggest part was, that the Scene and World was not cleaned. So when executing a 2. Test, all the GameObjects and Entities were still there and the isolation was broken. This wasn't easy to solve good and stable. - While doing, Unity showed a lot of strange errors. Wasted a lot of Time trying to figure out how it works. Solution: Restart Unity... So, whats the first Test doing: - It setups an clean environment - Adds a parent GameObject for the Game (planned to have multiple in parallel) - Adds a GridCreator below and set it up for 10x10 Tiles - Let the Systems run and checks if the Tiles are created, they got WorldRenderBounds, so they will be rendered, and are different to each other (so the movement-script is not broken). - It lets the same Test run twice, so its checked, that the clean is working well.
¶ 2020.01.06 UserInterface
Today was UI Day. There was the new UiElements from Unity announced, to be usable for Runtime. It started with alot of Problems: - There should be a UiElements Runtime Package, that was not there. Found in a Git-Repository a copy of version 0.3.0 preview, used in the Example in the Unite-Demo. - Button and Labels were not shown, due to a Font-Loading - The Ui-Editor shows broken Fonts (Restarting Unity helped again...) - Rest feels very like web-development :) The current Testing includes - Basic Layouting (absolute/relative) - Writing text and textColors to Labels - Reacting on a ButtonPress - Rounded corners - Created Buttons by Script
Again in higher Quality :)
https://youtu.be/MPAaxymhXUM
¶ 2020.01.09 More Cameras and easy blending
Today i improved the Cameras and the usage of it. - The Menu checks the current active Camera and hide itself now automatic. So is a non-user camera is active, no gamemenu will be visible, without more scripting work. - Added a Button for the Discord community with an invitation link, in preparation for the first UX-Test (Camera usage) - I migrated to Visual Studio 2019. Was very easy and now finally there is no need going back to unity to open sources from package-classes. - There are now 3 Buttons for the 3 Cameras for the User. They show the active State dynamicly. Some scripts were improved to work with the unity-editor, so its easy adjustable now. - The 3. Camera was added, the Outside camera. It will show the Infrastructure of the ship like tubes or the Transportation. - When a min/max of the cameras is reached, it will switch between the cameras automatically https://youtu.be/qvChHJ1gbgM
It turned out, that in the Build the Entities were not rendered. This takes 1 complete day to figure a way out to let them rendered. In the end, they were rendered, but without lightning. Moving the Light also to an entity was also not working. At the next day, i made alot of tests and tryouts with URP und HDRP (the 2 ScriptableRenderPipeleines) and found more and more bugs. Translations wrong, shadows wrong, alot broken in combination with entities.
The solution for now: We move back to the build-in renderpipeline. the Main Impact:
- less performance
- no shader-graph
- more complicated and not so powerful rendering effects
The migration and tryouts took part of the 2. day, but now it seems stable and i worked on the zooming look and feel. It was a bit messy to deal with the scrollwheel, and have smooth camera-switch effects (outside to inside view). Now added
- damping effect (to make it more smooth)
- input-delay after the new camera is activated (to wait a bit for the cinemachine transition
- increased the transition speed between the outside and inside camera (to make it look like the scroll)
- using the single scrollevents, independent from the value (due to framerate dependent scrollings)
In the end, it looked like that
https://youtu.be/_G_KYReaRWM
¶ 2020.01.12 Finalized Camera
Some first step final ajustments to the Cameras were done today. So it was added a - Movement speed relative to the zoom level - Free adjustable Zoom in all axis (further zooms will be 100% top-down view) - Zoom holding the buttons will continuously zoom - Snapping rotation when just tap the key (so snapping to 90° Angles) https://youtu.be/Yy4z5XFPIQ4
¶ 2020.01.15 GameMenu and Entity Architecture
After a bit sickness, i finished the first part of the UI. Its made with UIElements Runtime, so experimental and not very stabel in the builds. Unity needs to be restarted sometimes before building, to make it work... A lot of features added in the Menu to try abit around.
Also started with the ECS System, started with the Entity Architecture for the Buildings is started and tried to get rid of the GridCreator Monobehavior, that creates Entities with alot of data. A new GridEntityInitialiserSystem was created to do most of the common stuff, getting the Infos from a GameObject "Game" where the main setup will be.
¶ 2020.01.16 Begin of Grid-Selection
I tested a bit with the DrawMesh call of Unity, using ECS. I tested a bit the performance, so its a 100 Tiles circle times 500 rows. So 50.000 GridStructureTiles and all selected. We gain ~10 fps in the running system, what should be fine. After some optimizations, i could increase it to 35 FPS, by rendering less shapes and use sprite-renderer for the selection. Also the basic work for the selection is done, so the algorithm that detects the pointed grid from the camera-mouse-ray. This was harder than expected, and turns in the end to an iterative algorithm, till we hit the cylinder. The calculation takes around ~0.04ms without burst. Also added some tests for that algorithm, to improve it in the future. - 0.04 ms mainthread - 0.10 ms job without burst - 0.07 ms job with burst
¶ 2020.01.17 Selection and big refactoring
Selection in one direction of the cylinder is done. For the Demo, i disabled the clear on MouseUp, to show the features. The video shows the features: - Selection in the Circle (follows the rounding of the tiles) - Mouse works in all camera angles precise - Negative values possible ("endless" grid) - If moved with the Keyboard it also selects while moving https://youtu.be/7H7R-_muyco
¶ 2020.01.17 Finalized GridSelection
I improved the algorithm, added more tests and refactored, so it can - detect in close to unlimited range (~ 10^30 distance) in <100 fast iterations, to be 1cm precise - a Click (or very small bounds) selects a single tile - can select to the other direction close to overlapping In the final Build, we gain ~700 FPS (the system takes 0.15ms) with 1001 individual Buildings and hundertthousand selected tiles. Looks fine so far :) https://youtu.be/U6TdRz67_tQ
Ill splitted the selectionSystem into an MouseSelectionSystem and a visualizer. The first one just calculates the positions within a job in paralell, the second one runs later in the presentation and updates it. The FPS increased from 600 back to 800. It seems the SingleEntity concept for settings and userinputs meight work.
- Higher performance (calculation run in paralell)
- All Systems have access to the data without referencing the system
- It should be testable now, due to turning the inputsystem off and setup the entity in the test.
The second system, that uses the MouseSelection was added. It should take care of the selection of the Buildings. It was very smooth forward. I reuse the Mesh of the Building, to draw a bit larger selection sprite over it, when the mouseCursor is over that grid.
https://youtu.be/4vaZK1T17B8
I started to restructuring the project, created test-assemblies and thrown out Physics (was used in the old aproach for selecting). I guess, we will not need it, so it removes ~50% of the Systems.
Figures a good way out, to transport Settings to the Systems, like tilesInCircle, or selectionMeshes.
¶ 2020.01.18 Walkways
I started with the walkways and firstly created a System, that connects them together. All Walkways have now a reference to the 4 possible neighbours. Its the first bunch of them, and IntegrationTests are added. - Added WalkwayConnectorSystem, to find the neighbour entities - Added Models for each neighbourcount +1 for 2 neighbours (streight, curved) +4 due to the cylinder layout (90° rotating has a problem with the cylinder layout) - Added a System, that set the model relative to the neighbors - Make the GridPosition Component rotable in 1 axis
Afterwards, i started with the preparation for building stuff.
- Added a new BuildTarget EntityComponent, that markes just planned buildings
- Disabled the SelectionTools, when a BuildTarget is in the Scene
- Added a BuildSystem, that shows the to Build Building at the Cursor and disable the normal rendering of the just planned Entity.
https://youtu.be/oc0L9I0Vx7o
I worked a bit with the Jobs, to get more into the Programming and optimizing there. I improved the performance of the selectionSystem and others by 50%, and make it more parallisable. All in all it seems a nice api, and streight forward programming. Some findings:
- DrawMesh used 50% of the work in the selectionSystem (called 100 times ~ 0.2ms), but
- DrawMeshInstanciated wasn't working. In the FrameDebug, it shows correct, but nothing was visible.
- NativeHashMaps override the dispose, to add jobhandles, to schedule a dispose of them very easy and readable
After that, i tried to figure out, how i can prevent updating the Meshes of the walkways every time, due to this would not scale well. The main Problem was the big RenderMesh Component, what is a SharedComponent. Turns out dealing with them kills alot of aproaches. I tried to find a good Architecture aproach, and end up in adding a second componenttype, where i store the last added RenderMesh by the system. With that i can track updates now easy.
D E F O R M - Mesh-Generation
I found a interesting Library "Deform" where its possible, to deform with an easy API Meshes. It uses Jobs, to get alot of speed, they can already do it in runtime. First use i had in mind was the Meshes for the Buildings, so we can create buildings plane, without checking the grid, and than on runtime modify them to fit to the grid. The Library uses Monobehaviors very heavy, but i used the underlaying Core, to build up a plain "ConvertMesh" Utils. Its compatible with jobs, so no GameObject is required. It was alot of work, but i think, it worth it. Planned to integrate it tomorrow, and maybe make a Manager out of it, so its easy usable.
The new System have alot of advantages:
- Just 1 Model is enough for each rotation (one side needs to be angled
- Easy modelcreation on "Flat" ground
- All Buildings are "rounded" in the Circle automaticly (when they have enough verticies)
- We can ajust the tilesPerCircle afterwards (or with a startup option)
I tested it with an extreme case of 4 tiles per circle (so 90° angles). Here the Screenshot.
¶ 2020.01.20 Finilised GridDeformer and Testing API
I added the GridDeformer now to all Objects. I found out, that the importer has an "read/write access" checkbox that allowes the game to read the values also on runtime. Before i supported the models without that, so both is now working. I Added the generation of that to the Settings itself. I added a Manager, where the Scripts can get a Mesh (or JobHandle for a Mesh) by giving an original Mesh, the cylinderSettings, and the expected curving axis. It Stores that, so only one mesh for each setting is created, and it can be reused (and batched by unity). It fits perfect to each other, without efford in Blender
I changed all Models to support that, and make some screenshots with and without the GridDeformer applied:
Due to this is not so good visible, i reduced the tilesInCircle from 100 down to 20:
After that, i retested and found out, that the BuildingPreview is not showing up anymore. The Problem was here the "Sprint/Default" shader seems not working on the generated meshes. Couldn't find a reason, so i just switched to a Standard shader with emission.
https://youtu.be/Dx8kyWc_u_g
After that i started to improve the DropBuildings System, and created some Tests for it. I improved the TestAPI to make it easy readable.
- Convinient Methods for Entity (Component) and the Tests(EntityManager, CreateEntity,...)
- Added a TestCursor, that is connected to the MouseSelectEntity, that can also yieldReturn to do some actions
Today i wanted to start with writing tests. I came to the point, where i wanted to Assert the Graphics.DrawMesh calls for the Selection. I ended up in building a high-performance jobsystem for drawing meshes and changing RenderMeshes. The calls are available in Multithreaded Burst-Jobs. The API is similar than the EntityCommandBuffers, but also available with Boost. With that i reduced alot of complexity of all current Systems, and improved the performance and multithreading alot.
Before:
- Everyone, who wanted to change the Mesh, needed to do this on the Mainthread and block everyone else
- It was not possible in Jobs, so needed to use NativeArrays to tell the mainThread, where to change what.
- To improve the performance, they needed to be split up in 2 systems, 1 for the calculations, one for the changing, and attach them with some other systems in between.
- MeshDraws are similar to the RenderMesh changes
Now:
- 2 New systems: MeshDrawerSystem and RenderMeshSetterSystems
- They have a MeshDrawer and a RenderMeshSetter inside, that can be used in Bursted Jobs.
- One limitation: They can only use MeshReference and MaterialReference. This needs to be done on the MainTread before starting the Job and passing it into it.
- To create the References, i added convinient World.Convert(mesh / material).
Afterwards, i worked more on the BuildSystem. New Things (done testdriven)
- Detection of Blocked Tiles (refactored the old WalkWayConnetionSystem to general NeighboursDetection with Accessable Data for other Systems)
- Hide the BuildTarget, when the ground is blocked
- Show a red tile below on the blocked gridelements
https://youtu.be/YJ2XbNe6fBI
I added more features to the BuildSystem. Its now possible to switch between single DropModes able to dragdrop the Buildings
- Single (normal buildings)
- Line (Walkways, supply)
- Area (GridStructure)
Afterwards, u used the Testdriven aproach to refactor several Entities.ForEach calls to Bursted Jobs and moved them to a JobComponent to increase paralellism and Performance.
It turns out, that the MeshSystem i created a few days ago is not working with multiple paralell Jobs.
- There is a safety system, protects using the same container.
- Changed, so each Job gets its own NativeContainer and run over all created nativeContainers.
With that, the BuildingSelectionSystem could be also migrated to bursted Jobs.
The video shows, that there is a problem, that the GridStructures not updating fast, so they flicker abit around, due to the wrong system-order. This feature is not implmented yet, and just worked a bit :)
https://youtu.be/NO1oKteDvEk
I learned a lot about the chunk and version system of the entities today. Main reason was, that the Neighbors-Calculation run every frame. To avoid this, i tried to figure out, when the necessery data changed. Also it can be updated by other Systems before or afterwards without too much troubles now.
I also figured out, that unities transformation phase is by default in the simulation group. After trying to move all to the SimulationGroup, if figured out, its much easier, to do the Matrix calculation by myself when setting the gridpositions. Now it seems smooth.
To make the dependency mess a bit better, i organised the systems in groups
Afterwards, i figured out, when preplanning thousands of buildings, the performance droppes (4k dragdrop causes ~300ms in the PlanningSystem). I used the MassCreateion Feature of ecs, and could push it up to 30ms, cloning the Prototype very often. When preplanning a huge amount of Fields via dragdrop, the Framerate is still smooth.
Now it looks much more finished :)
https://youtu.be/22mc_Jk2T0U
I searched for other expensive stuff and found out, that a lot of jobs that are quite expensive (0.01ms-0.05ms per job). They do basic stuff, like adding missing components, if so, or removing components. They will run very rare, but take in total in the editor 1-2ms. I improved them, so they just run, when they have something to do.
I tried to add support for bigger than 1x1 tiles. It turns out, that the simple NeighborSystem needed to be redone. I tried to use DynamicBuffers to setup the Tiles of a Entity and all of their neighbors. With that aproach, i don't need that big HashMap passing around, and the entity can calculate by itself everything whats needed.
Due to some bugs with the Buffers, the creation needs to run paralised singlethreaded for now :(
To make also a bit visible stuff today, i hab some problems mit my big testmodel. I added a debugging Tool for the TileSetup to visualize it in the SceneView. I found directly the wrong setup of the tileSetting of the Building. I also tried a Custom EditorWindow for the Reference-IDs in the World, to easier debug in the future.
To be faster in development and find bugs, i added the first Runtime-Debugger. Its a window, that can enable various of debugging Layers to the SceneView of unity. Curently it shows the TileSettings.
In the Video you can see the first Big Building. Its setuped with 4 tiles with different door setups(blue field in the sceneview). It shows, that the walkway is updated due to that.
https://youtu.be/QniZLLiR-YE
Not Bigger buildings can be dropped. I created a Prototype System, that can be managed in the SceneView. The Prototypes are automaticly added to the BuildMenu and can be created there.
https://youtu.be/Sa4JLEPC6IM
Today i planned some tasks the week, to not get into details like last week (f.g. GridDeformer) and concentrate on the important parts. The main planned part is to finish the first usable PlanningStage and enter the ConstructionStage of Buildings. Also the plan is to evaluate some Frameworks needed and add some architectorial basics for the following weeks.
First was to add the GameTime. The problem here is, that unity works with an float, but we want to have a 10.000years range in the gameTime possible. This would not work, so i implemented an own GameTime, holding years and seconds as int and the rest of the millis as a float. With that aproach, we can scale to millions of years and are still very precice in milliseconds. I added it to the UI (Watch at the upper right area):
https://youtu.be/aBLKaORjbXQ
I tried to create a dummyTaskSystem out of that.
- Updates until 10ms per frame is reached, to let enough time to let the rest run smooth
- If tasks were open, the time is not ajusted to the lastTask, not to the targettime.
For testing, i added 2 Taskservices with simple EntityQueries (like the real ones later). I randomly pick one of them per task. The TestPlan is 1Task/second. A task will be f.g. an Astroid hit, Factory finished one pack of resources, or similar.
After compiling, it can run smooth with 80fps and executing around 7000 tasks per second (updating 2h/s max).
I created a GridDeformSystem, that automaticly uses the Rotation and the set Mesh to update to to corresponding GridDeformed version of the Mesh.
I tried a bit around with Feedback systems. In the end, i added a simple FeedbackSystem that can be called from other Systems. Example now is a small shake, when trying to plan a building on a already used Tile.
I added a mouseCursor to see it in the Video :)
https://youtu.be/tIsh94kDaEM
I started with a Save/Load mechanism. Its done in a very generic Way for Entities. It will store all Entities in the EntityManager that have something to store. In the Screenshot u can see how simple the setup is and thats all. It will store it in json format compressed in a gzip. Till now, i just store entity GridPosition and GridRotation. For 1000 Entities it took around 50ms in the Build version. The savegame is ~7kb big (extracted ~70kb)
Afterwards, i started to plan a bit and worked in the jira Portfoliomanager and add alot of Tasks for the next Weeks. While fixing some bugs, i refactored the TestCursor to be easier to use and more realistic.
At the end of the day, i updated to the new Unity Version and updated plugins. I also added a MultiHighlighting feature in preparation for the Select Feature, can be seen in the Video. Was a bit a mess to make it work with the Cylinder.
https://youtu.be/0CxxZ4qZP3w
To finish Building-Planning today, it was needed to move the ConstructionMenu to the bottom. The Place is now available for Selections and buildplannings. So there is now space for a new Popup. It already searches the Entities for Planned ones and grabs details out of the configuration. The implementation of the "Construct" button was way simpler than expected. Add the real construction step is one of the next steps.
https://youtu.be/aFDsE0Dv7NU
After that, i started with the Select feature. It was a bit a mess dealing with the cylincer calculations for this kind of Grid for Contains. For example in a Grid of 10 tiles in the circle, the area 8 >> 3 contains 1. The dealing with the first tile was also harder than expected (starting at -0.5). At the end, it seems working well, due to alot of new tests of the various algorithms and integrationTests.
https://youtu.be/f3JgrJzjPAY
The End of the day i decided to deal with the CameraBounds. Its now restricted to the size of the ship. To calculate the ShipBounds as performant as possible (need to check all buildings and calculate the bounds out of it) i choose 2 Jobs. One Chunkbased job, to run on alot of threads, calculating the bounds of a small amount in paralell, ending with 1 big one to calculate the bounds of the calculated smaller bounds. That was implemented to just update, when something new is added. Finaly it updates the Camera-Bounds added before.
https://youtu.be/gGyjIM2Q2gU
In the morning, i fixed some selection Bugs and added Panels to show the Selected Entities. They have a Detailed view if just one is selected, and a multi-view if more are selected if u want to see the basic stats of multiple buildings.
https://youtu.be/hTLwRim1heA
After that, Andi joined the development and we setup his environments. We will work the next Month fulltime together to push it forward.
I worked a bit with cinemachine again to improve the smooth transitions between the cameras and fixed the shipbounds calculations.
https://youtu.be/9l3pYvettRY
We started with the infrastructure, BuildPipeline and so on. Dealing with Jenkins and Unity was a big mess, so we decided to cancel that task. Instead i build a Unity-Window with a "Task" board how to do a release. It end up in a half automated script, that is prepared to be automated easy for future releases. It includes
- Managing the Buildfolder
- Updating Versions of the Game
- Checking for uncommited changes
- Adding Tags and commits of the version updates
- Building the Game for different platforms (for now just windows and windows64, more if requested :))
- Easy launching the game to try it out
- Pack it together in zip files
- Uploads it to the new setuped custom webserver with secure logins
While doing that, we experimented with the REST-JSON API of unity, and added some versionCheckers, and started with the Feedback System. The API will grow in Future, to support more things like error-reporting or savegames sharing.
Also added the Tasksystem including a TaskQueue. It can process 36.000 Tasks. In the editor was a overhead of 0.004ms. Each task scheduled another one with a random timespan. As a first example, i added the ConstructionTask with 4 different stages, where later animations, resource-requests and workers will be added.
As you can see in the video, we also worked other Walkways and try to figure a out a workflow to bake game-ready textures for the Models.
https://youtu.be/wwP32jb8sWM
UiBinder update to 0.0.4 and fixed bug inside of the library to use the custom UIElements from a few days ago on Runtime.
I also give the UniversalRenderPipeline another try and it seems working now. All materials need to be GPU-Instanciable, otherwise in runtime they are not rendered.... Also the lights needs to be 10000 more bright to have an effect. Now it seems working so far, and its possible to use the shaderGraphs.
We searched a good way to animate with ECS, and got to a splitted solution. The normal unity way is not working for ecs for now, so we decided to
- start with moving Resources and Persons around. After ariving, they will be hided. This is a must have, to see whats happening.
- The next things are the more optional ones: Things inside of buildings that are moving, like elevators, doors, generator-tiles,... These will be done in seperate Entities that got pushed around.
- After that we can think about not hiding the persons and just move them in areas of the building and walkways around when they have freetime.
- The last part than is to try to add that baked animations to that. Maybe unity released a usable animations framework for ecs than.
We also added the first walkway with gameready materials. Not completely added yet, due to multiple materials will handled different in the ECS system, so i need to adapt the custom Systems tomorrow.
¶ 2020.02.05 Finished the first Models with Multi-Mesh support
Today i started to add support for the models. It was a bit strange to deal with unities client/parent/linkedGroups but in the end, it worked. We added the rest of the Walkway models. We seperated the doors, for now, they are not there, but will be added and maybe animated later. https://youtu.be/7doHfOn4_yE
I started with a bit of refactoring to keep the quality high. Consistent Naming, Tests,...
After that, i added support for ctrl key at the selection. It works as a toggle. So if its hitted with the modifier key, it will be toggled. Also at DragDrop, its an OR than.
https://youtu.be/KBl6549inc8
Rotate Buildings in the Planning-Mode is working now (r-key). The main problem was the Calculation of the Neighbors with Big buildings, and the in/outputs.
https://youtu.be/t60c4CiOuYM
The Sprint ends with the expected StoryPoints, got ~20SP per big working day/person.
The main tasks outside of the game:
- Setting up the Build Infrastructure
- Setting up an own server and communicate with it
- Building a Project Website
The main tasks in the game
- Creating the First Game-Ready Models for Walkway with Blender
- Dealing with Hierarchy Elements in Unity-ECS
- TaskManager that can manage and execute the tasks efficiently
- Polishing the camera
- Selection of Buildings
- Adding basics for a Tutorial System
I added the feature, that when you start the dragdrop of walkways at a walkway, its not blocking all other valid ones. This also works for other Buildings, so you can overpaint them and the blocked ones are just ignored.
https://youtu.be/HIC6IKz0RLc
After that, i added also a support for removing planned things. To get into that mode, you just need to have planned things and rightclick. It will not cancel the planning now, till another rightclick confirms it. Now a normal hover and left-click removes the plan.
https://youtu.be/eCWqro4YDPk
In the morning i started to fix some bugs, dealing with big buildings around the cylinder 0 position and rotated buildings. After that, i started with the Big topic Storages and Resources. I added alot of components and behaviors for testing and a basic functionality. Unattached resources will be assigned to an input storage, that can hold that type. I added a Task when start moving and a sample Animation as planned last sprint.
https://youtu.be/fRxEnBVN07Y
I added the UI for the General-Storage, so its showing the stored resources, max Storage and so on. It also shows the Resources in transit to the storage, including a small legend.
Due to Andi is back now, we also finished more Models and concepts for the Rails for the ResourceBoxes. Its a concept for a close to realistic way to deal with the boxes. Also they are visible direclty next to the walkways (when placed below), so moving stuff is visible for the Player. In the screenshot, you can see above the walkway, than the gridstructure, and below a 4 way RailWay where the boxes can move to all directions. Including to the Building above (the center part).
We also added it to Unity
I added the animation for the Boxes (and later Persons). They are calculated based on the simulation and fitting to the Rails. The first part is to move them from unknown to the start of the rail. Later this will be normaly the 0/0 value. At the endtile, they just move to the center for now. Later it will also go to the center. They follow the rails.
https://youtu.be/tYrxjAdyJuU
We also finished the first aproach of the Storage. They will stack the boxes in the holes.
I added the Z-Value for the GridPosition, so the Boxes can move up and down.
I also updated the Selection, so from the inside Circle, just the Buildinglayer is selectable, outside just the infrastructure layer. Problem was, that a click on a building also selected the grid and the railway at the same time. Using DragDrop still selects all layers, to get access to them.
Also the In-Storages are done, so the first time, they assign a GeneralStorage, and requesting Resources, till they are full form them.
We finished inflatable Walls, for the buildingtime.
Also the first aproach of a Icon-Creation Tool for the Models in Unity and do the first try of them. I added them to the UI.
Worked on the construction-animation, so the Building is not visible in the construction Phase. Instead there will be inflatable Walls around.
At the ConstructionStage, there are now In-Storages created to grab and wait for the required Resoruces.
I added a Architecture to deal with the UiElements for the Entities, Components and buffers, to have it easy extendable and reusable.
Andi also finished the first aproach for a Factory, gameready and with lights.
Today i added support for GridPositions and rotations ChildrenEntities, to do the inflatable walls. Andi improved it, so its now easy usable and extendable for a better animation. The Factory Model has also been improved.
I finished than the Resource attachment and did some Prefab improvements. At the end, the inflatable walls were added with a simple animation for now. Later its planned, to inflate them in a nicer way, but for the start we think its fine enough.
https://youtu.be/EX92IH_cXbU
Andi also finished the first part of the constructioncenter. It will be underground. It has 2 tasks:
- Sending RepairingCrew to maintain buildings
- Create the Infrastructure Buildings.
They will create it in their factory and than move it to the Targetposition.
I added that the Buildings needs different BuildingResources. If a building don't need resources, its directly dropped. (Till we have the ConstructionCenter for the Infrastructure done)
We finished the Sprint and released the new Version 0.2.0 on the Website.
We finished the out-logic of the storage's, than we started with the Factory and their production. Improved the TaskManager, so tasks can be canceled now, needed, when f.g. the persons in the factory are changing while its running, or the player stops it. Also we finalized the simulation concept.
For now, not so much is visible, so screenshots will follow the next days, when the UI Parts will be done. But we finalized the gameready Model for the ConstructionCenter
Today, i added the UI parts for the Factory. There is an on/off button, a currentEfficiency and a progressbar to show the state. Also the ConnectedStorages is now visible with the BuildingIcon covered by a colored state number, that shows the important stats. For In-Storages, it shows the amount of wanted resources of the other storage, as a Out-Storage, it shows the free space of the connected Storage.
https://youtu.be/kDojyApQJ3A
Afterwards i improved the selection of Buildings. Before, it was just scaled with 0.1% bigger. Due to the scaling just works from the 0/0/0, the 0 points were not moved and it was a big flickering. Also other parts were hidden. Now at the start of the game, all possible SelectionMeshes will be generated, by moving each pixel to the normal (the facing side). This causes a slightly larger mesh, and the renderer always draws the selectionMesh outside and not mixing it up.
Andi started with the starting satelite. The idea is, that the game starts with just that building. It has basic needs. Solar Panels (energy) small quarters for the start population, a resource Storage with the start resources and a slow constructionBuilding included.
In the morging, i improved the animations, so for start and end of the buildings can be different positions and animations. For the start the Storage has the Positions for the boxes with a simple animation.
Than we end the sprint and started a new one till end of the Week. The Topic is Polishing. Here the finished tasks of the last week.
The UI of the Input output storages has been changed, to make it more clear what happens. Its now like a equation with left the input, right the output. The connected Storages are at the top OR bottom, depending, if it goes in or out. So everything is moving from top to bottom. The connected storage nearest to the resources is used first, when grabbing or sending resources. We also work on nice arrow icons and want to add the amount of resources of the equation if its supported.
Also moved the SelectionMesh to the InflatableWalls, when in buildingstate.
I finished a new Debugging window. This time i used UiElements, that seems way better than the other one. I used the existing Methods to quickly add a FilterButton (to hide the Walkways and gridstructure) and added a mechanism to fire DebugEvents. I added it to the taskmanager and another important part. Due to we want to pass very much gametime per frame, i added the FrameNumber and the GameTime when the event was fired. In further tickets, maybe we add a highlighting in the sceneview and more debugging features for the Buildings, like all components, children view and so on.
Today, i added the main part of the SelectTarget and added it to the StorageConnection. First you can click on the slot. Than the possible Targets are shown. It respects the type of the Resource and the type of the other Storages. F.g. if a building has an IN-Glass, all buildings, that are OUT or GENERAL storage are shown, that can contain Glass. Buildings, that are already connected are not possible Targets. Maybe we can highlight them later also in some way.
The Buildings are highlighted. Later maybe the routes can be shown by hovering, if needed. If you click on the Highlighted Building, the connection will change to the new one. If you started with an empty one, it will just create a new one.
https://youtu.be/IHE8mTmHA_s
Today i moved the Logic for the Neighbour Calculation and the Storage-movements out of ECS-Systems. The main reason is, that the TaskManager will execute everything like Events to push through. Due to performance reasons, its not running one task per frame. So today no screenshot, due to just core changes under the hood 
I started the New Simulation Architecture. It will use more Job/Burst. Target is to run fully in one Job for the simulation, so we can execute way more Tasks than before. We have the full Entity representation in a highly optimised form with dirty flags. After the TaskBunch is done, the dirty ones will be synced back to the EntityManager.
Due to it will take a long time to convert all the current Tasks and the Logic of Building and Stores, i tested it with a simple changing a float value. It seems working very well. The Bottleneck now seems to be the FastPrioritiseQueue, due to its updating the internal tree alot. ~9ms are used to dequeue the first 1000 Items of the queue. It seems to be the right aproach, so i try to convert the current Tasks in the next day.
Today, just a bit progress on the new Simulation. Migrated the First Tasks and added needed Features to the Simulation Core like CurrentTime, Scheduling Jobs, Canceling Jobs and refactored to a hopefully final version for the architecture. The codebase grows very fast, due to working with the structs in c# seems to need alot of boilerblade code to make it nicely usable. Currently the new Simulation has
- 400 Lines TaskManagerSystem (the main System for scheduling, preparation, executing running in the MainThread. Also Convinient Methods and Time-Management.)
- 200 Lines the "Job TaskManager" (so the Scheduling, canceling, executing logic inside of the Job)
- 100 Lines the Basic SimulationData (including Creating the Data from the EntityManager)
- 270 Lines BuildingSimData
- 250 Lines StorageSimData
- 250 Lines ResourceSimData
So in total ~1500 Lines for the Basics. Most of the SimData parts are the boilerblade.
I changed a bit the tests, so there is now just 1 task, that reschedule itself 1s in the future. The real usage should be in the middel of the 2 mesurements. If its fast, alot will be executed after its started. For example when a factory finished a production, the resourceBox is started and will arive in the next 10mins or so. At a fast speed, it will happen in the same job execution.
Yesterday, i cleanup the old simulation and migrated the syncronize with the EntityManager to a job version. This should ensure a high performance, even with multiple changes. Today i readded the animations. It has a new api, so its easy to call from other jobs now. Its used in 2 places, once to just calculate the duration, the other time at the sync, realy adding the animation.
I added the Analytics and Debugging capabilities from the non-job system now also to the jobs, so the Tasks, scheduled inside of a job and directly executed are also logged.
After improving the internal Entity-Management API it seems working fine now.
https://youtu.be/-fsvMxKiJcs
I started to design the Mainmenu and the StartScreen when loading the game. It has multiple components, that were added in the future, like the SteamWorkshop, Options, Newsletter and more. I also started with the InGame MainMenu and did the transitions between the scenes.
I finished the Menus, scene changes and key-bindings today. Also updated to the newest dependency versions. There is also a loadingScreen with progress added, what is not visible in the video, due to close to too fast loading time. Also there are some hidden Panels added already for planned features like SteamWorkshop, Feedback and Newsletter.
https://youtu.be/z1IbVFYc6pk
I also added the new Buildings (without functionality yet) into the game and made Icons for it:
The ConstructionCenter: Main Building for the Workers. Builds the Infrastructure like GridStructure.
The StartStatelite: Shot to space at the beginning of the game. This is the Building, that is prebuild at start and contains all basic needs for the start.
For the GridDeformer that adaptes the Mesh to the Grid, i needed also a height. Due to as higher, as smaller the object needs to be for the cylinder. This is only needed for the InflatableWalls yet. Due to the ConstructionFactory and further builidngs are underground, they need a bigger inflatableWall, so this needed to be improved.
I added an algorihm to calculate the needed walls, out of the used Tiles of the Building, and creates the needed Meshes for it.
It also calculates what parts are not needed, so the performance can stay high.
Also added the dynamic created Meshes to the Selection support.
All in all, it looks now like this
https://youtu.be/34lLtRPSAmQ
I added the Doors for the Walkways. I build it general, so the doors for the Inflatable Walls can be done with the same system in the next Sprint.
Today the Sprint 11 ended. The main topic was "MainMenu". Side topics were the basics for the SaveGames and some Bugfixes. Also the inflatable Walls were improved and the Buildings for the StartingSatelite and the ConstructionCenter were added.
Due to at the last sprints, there were no overview, here the done parts from Sprint 8 to 11.
The estimations looks also fine. One big drop on Sprint 8, due to Andi got sick. The first Sprints (<10) are not exactly one week, but it end in around 15-20SP / day.
I worked since Friday on the serialization to JSON of all the entities. It took a bit effort, including
- Creating a Test Architecture, where its not saved on disk
- Several Tests for the Basics of serializsation including save on disk, packing, format, metadata,..
- fixing the Json Library, due to broken support for float values...
- Serializing the Tasks (with refactoring, so the type of the ids is now known)
- Adding a TestArchitecture for it and extended several existing Tests the SaveGames
- Adding a Serializer for all Components of the Entities
- Adding a generic Test for the Buildings and resources, to make sure further added ones don't break.
This afternoon i also added the basic UI for the Game save feature, and focused on the UX. For tomorrow the UI for the current SaveGame and the Loading-dialog, that is very similar to the save dialog is planned.
- So i added a list of the current saveGames,
- Double click on that directly saves it
- if the file exists, a generic popup was added and ask for the overwrite
- Single click changes the textbox for the name.
- Also have a default-name in the textfield, with the current gametime
- Also the metadata inside of the savegame are readed to show the details.
- Enter on the Textarea will also save.
In the morning, i improved the Save/Load UI. Also adding a increment number with the UserName as Default of new saveGames.
Also added a continue feature and a simple autosave without a timer, when leaving the game (to mainmenu or desktop).
https://youtu.be/nNY87SXRShg
Today fixed a lot of small bugs and added tests for several things, to stabilize the system, to be ready to start with the next Sprints big Topic: Persons.
I also added the Doors to the InflatableWalls with Tests.
Today, i redo the calculations of the position of the AnimationPath. It was based on directions, what limits the possible animations. Now its based on eulerAngles, so its now possible to animate the boxes e.g. inside of an storage way better. Also the boxes are rotating now correct and not just swapping to the other Positions. The size of the path is also reduced by improving the model.
After the last Bugfixes for that sprint, i make created the 0.5.0 Release and published it on the Website. Due to the new version of the Entity System, they deprecated most of my jobs, using IJobForEach and force people to convert to the other types.
In the afternoon, the sprintplanning was done. The Sprint went well, i removed some not so important tickets out, and prioritized the Bugtickets instead, so in total 90SP.
The last days i worked on the ConstructionCenter. Now, Workers are needed in a ConstructionCenter. The Building-Stage of the Construction is now attached to a connected ConstructionCenter, that builds it. For now, the persons not walking out and its just a time-schedule. The Persons are also not visible in UI or GamePlay yet, just in the Simulation and SaveGame, so no screenshots
¶ 2020.03.25 LivingPlace
I tried to make the Models of the Persons with Animation. I found some libraries, one of the unity guys looked the best. It bakes simple animations to textures and uses a LWRP Shader to apply them. Its also already ready for Systems and seems easy to use. I improved the library to support URP (by changing the shader) and removed the no more needed bone-entites to cleanup. After all that work, i tried it with several other models and animations, but it turns out, it needs a very specific type of Model and Animation, to work properly. Its just working with legacy models and legacy animations, so the default Humanoid walking wasn't working. Also the Mesh should be not splitted, and the bone graph needs to fit perfect on the animation, including the gameObject Names. In the end i created a simple Voxel-Person for the start and wait till Andi is healthy again, to take over. The livingPlace is added to the StartSatelite for now, due to the model is not ready yet. I changed the testScene to make use of it.
I finished the basic parts for Needs, including different change-values for different activities and stopping it. For example the Work will be stopped, when the sleep-value is low, than it goes to the idle mode (later go to living quarter and sleep). I added a debug Window, to be able to debug the Persons, like the Buildings.
I finished the basic part of the Person Animations. Also ending the weekly sprint with 70SP of planned 86SP. Due to the spend not all the planned time, the velocity is normal. In the Next sprint i also don't have much time, so i decided to add a Refactoring/Tooling sprint.
For debugging purpose, i added a Timewarp feature in the Editor. It was easy to do, due to a similar implementation was already done for Tests. I also changed to the new UIElements for that view, so its more performant and easier to change. I also changed the details, so its way more readable for the newer JobTasks.
Today, i improved the Debugging Window for Buildings. I added Persons to it and the Tasks, scheduled to that items, including the status. The done tasks disappear after some frames to cleanup, not wasting memory and overview. I also added the InGame View of the Building/Persons to the Editor, to be able to see it in the unit-Tests. The On/Off Button also works, so the Interactions, been done at the UI can be also done in editor, without more coding effort :)
It was also possible to update the Inspector with the selected Entity, so the raw-data can be shown now.
After that, i added a Photostudio, to have an easy way to create the Icons for the Buildings. It automatically loops through all Buildings and make screenshots with transparent background. Each Building can be setup a camera to do that in a good, full size picture. So if a model get updated, we can update the screenshot with a single click.
In the morning, i improved the Animation-Handling, to make it easier to setup and adapt to other wanted features.
Than, i added the UI for Workers and Residents. Due to the Model, it was needed to build other components for also showing the SimulationData, not just the entity components. For bidirectional relations (factory<->person) i use the more easier way for it. Here just assigning the person to a factory for the Entity-Component. In the simulation, there is already the worker list, so i just access this to show it.
I changed the selection, so the highest building in the selection is selected now. this makes it possible to easy select the Grid or the ConstructionCenter at the infrastructure level.
I created the basic UI Elements for the Persons including WorkingPlace, Livingplace, Needs and activity. For now, the Persons cannot be selected, so just a screenshot from the editor, that shows the same :)
Today, i added the possibility to select from outside of the Circle. Its selecting similar than from the inside circle, but starting from the lower levels to the upper ones. The Highlighting is still all Buildings there, maybe needs to be updated so only the thing that is selected on click should be highlighted, but for now, i will leave it like that.
https://youtu.be/vs6Vi-MkBEU
I found an easy way, to render things through walls. This is helpful when highlighting small things like Persons or Boxes inside of Buildings. I added it to all Selection and Highlight effects. Here an example.
At the end, i played a bit with the selection of the persons. Tomorrow i will smooth it a bit, and improve the highlighting to the end of the sprint. I will add a Video for it tomorrow, when this is also done.
I improved the Selection, Highlighting and the MultiSelectionList. With doubleclick the clicked entities are selected. If there are max 10 items of one type selected, they will be shown as separate items. When hovering over the list, also the buildings get highlighted. The Highlighting is now synced to the stuff that is selected.
https://youtu.be/Tp92Q4o7i20
I added assignbuttons for the Living and WorkingPlace. The ChoosingSystem was already good prepared, so it didn't need a change for that new feature. The button will be changed, as soon as we start building our own icons, when Andi has recovered.
https://youtu.be/9V9qkWYDzL0
The release 0.6.0 is released now, and the new Sprint has started with the Topic ConstructionCenter. The old sprint was a bit chaotic, due to i needed to replan it very early due to less time i could invest. In the middle, everything was done already, so i added more stuff. It ends up in way more SPs than expected
I also invest some time in finding a video editing software, to make better release videos. I choose OneShot as an open source, that seems look easy with all my needed features. Takes a bit of time to create the video. I'm trying to do that for each Sprint/Release to show the Details. Hope to get more views and the first Interested people :)
https://youtu.be/jf2tscUEON8
I'll Updated to new new Unity 2020.1 Beta. Finally there is a support for adding the Packages to the VisualStudio Sources, to make it usable :D
I checked a bit around for a I18N Framework for Unity with the following criteria:
- Easy to add more Data
- Uses Json files to store data
- can be updated without recompiling the game
- can switch the Language at runtime, to change between them while debugging, to see UI Problems in other languages fast
- Support for Plural-values and easy YesNo things
- Easy to edit/add different languages
- Early error detection
I didn't found a good one, so i created a small framework to got this.
Its just needed to define a static I18NText. The rest will be done by the framework. In the screenshot more features and explanations Next step will be moving the things step by step. I also added a auto-switcher to see fast, what is translated and what isn't. This will help in the end to figure out layouting problems for different Languages.
Next step will be moving the things step by step. I also added a auto-switcher to see fast, what is translated and what isn't. This will help in the end to figure out layouting problems for different Languages. 
I refactored the Work Tasks of Buildings. Before it was just build to support a single Work. Due to the constructioncenter needs multiple tasks (Construction of buildings in the inflatableWalls, create infrastructure in their building and maybe maintanaince it needed to be improved. For now, the Buildings will do all tasks like they were alone. Later it could be added, that they can prioritised or other featuers.
I also figured out a bug with Unity 2020 and the UiElements runtime library. The Lists are not clickable anymore. It seems, the Context is not set correct, so i added a workaround for now. The Ui Runtime was posponed to 2020.2...
I improved the constructin process by storing the progress in the building instead of the constructioncenter. I also added it to the UI, including the Building, that is currently working on the constructing of the buildinglot.
I will do parts of the final Release Video every few days, to reduce the amount of work at the release-day. Here the one till today.
https://youtu.be/tCGjK0qaVbE
The last days i had close to no time, so i just finished the basics for the infrastructure construction in the constructioncenter. The Infrastructure is assigned to a constructioncenter, if they have a way over gridstructures. Its already animated and move along the gridstructures without rotating. For the video, i need to polish tomorrow a bit to finalize the basics. I moved the details like, using resources and dealing with the rotations to the next sprint.
Sprint 15 ended with not so much velocity than normal. Also this week, i couldn't found so much time for the game 
But all in all, most of the important Tasks were done. The Construction of normal Buildings and Infrastructure has been improved alot. Also the Basics for the I18N were implemented, what goes on in the next sprint to support more dynamic text-items like enums and Constructions.
But all in all, most of the important Tasks were done. The Construction of normal Buildings and Infrastructure has been improved alot. Also the Basics for the I18N were implemented, what goes on in the next sprint to support more dynamic text-items like enums and Constructions. 
I also created the release video. To be faster in the future, i created some basics, i can reuse in future videos more easy.
https://youtu.be/LZxcHNzMCDk
I added an Animation Path Editor for the Buildings, so the different things buildings can get simple animations. Here an Example for the ConstructionCenter.
I also refactored most of the create animation code, to support this in an easy way, and also improve the Person animations. I added more debugging and some Scenes for the Animations to create them easier.
The last days, i refactored most of the coordinate systems to be used better. It was not alligned with the normal sin/cos calculations, what causes alot of workarounds in most of the code-parts. It was alot of work, due to close to all systems were effected and half of the tests, needed to be adapted, due to other rotations of Buildings and so on.
To see the animations working, i created a small video
https://youtu.be/QFeHOtyWNVw
The Loading screen has now a delete button to delete old savegames easier. I also add a simple NameGenerator, for now just for german names. It needs a text file with names. For german it was created out of websites of favourite names. Its splitted in male/female/family name files.
I also added a Translate Button for the I18N Window. It uses Google Translate to translate the englisch Text to the given Language.
I added a concept to translate the Enums and GameObjects in a static way.
The Infrastructure was not visible, during the construction. This was a bit confusing, so now they are a bit visible. Due to it can also be helpful to see whats inside of the InflatableWalls i show them now when being in construction-mode.
I improved the SimulationWindow, to see directly the state of the Buildings, including if they are assigned to a construction center.
I added a dynamic maxJobs per Job (Frame) to deal with different CPU speeds of the Player-PCs. If the max-jobs reached, and the time was >10ms, it will be reduced. If its lower than half (so <5ms) it will be increased, to speedup the simulation on a high speed setup. I'll end on my 8 year old CPU to around 700 Tasks/Frame. As a comparison, the fix value before was setup to ~500Tasks/Frame.
The Sprint 16 - Animations ended today, with ~85SP. This is the expected velocity from the last sprints. I created the release 0.8.0 and created a Video for that sprint. The next sprint will be a Polishing Sprint, doing more error-behaviors, UI and maybe some detailed Animation improvements. After that, i hope, there is enough basics done to have it stable and the focus will go to make it realy playable.
https://youtu.be/cM7iXSmlOdg
Here the other statistics like every week
I also calculated the velocity of all the sprints. At the beginning, i didn't work with sprints, so the start is not so reliable. The Velocity is normalized to a 40h WorkingWeek, what means, at 100SP, it was a 50SP sprint with 20h, or a 200SP Sprint with 80h. This number is also a 3Month average, to make it more clear to calculate the veolcity, i can calculate the Tickets in the next sprint.
Today, i added a error-popup when any unexpected Exceptions ocure. It has a placeholder for Reporting already in, and is fully translatable.
Other small things done today:
- I also fixed some bugs with the dynamic translations on startup and editor time
- Added the Missing Materials when loading Savegames.
- Added Multiline support for the Google Translation API using in the Editor
- Added I18n support for alot of elements
I also ordered new PC Components, due to the compiletime is raising up, and there is alot of waittime in the Development. Hope with replacing my ~8year old components i can increase the Development speed and reduce frustration
Due to the changes in the more flexible rotation for Animations, i was able to improve the Animations for the GeneralStorages now. They move not just to the center, first they move a bit in, and go down the rail. While moving to the center, they rotate to the targetposition. The movie follows at the release video.
I Added a Legend by mouseOver on the different Things, that needs a legend. Its full I18N and supports color and Icons (for now just colors used)
In the evening, i added a shortcuts area, so the Player can see what actions he can take. For now, its not turn off-able. I plan to add something in the options maybe with different levels or categories.
I added a delay to the Boxes, so when 3 boxes wants to go out at the same time, they wait for each other. For the GeneralStorages default Animation, they will wait, till one box touch the ground. This should prevent that the boxes are stacking so much. Video with that will be visible in the weekly ReleaseVideo.
I added a VersionChecker-Feature to the Version-Text. If there is a new version, it will show an upgrade Icon behind. Clicking on it, it will show a popup to download the newest Version of the Game.
Due to the new sprint, i created a new release and a release video with the features, due to there is something to show :)
The new Sprints Topic is Supplyship. Due to the current velocity and the early sprint start, there would be 135SP possible, but i decided to just get with 100SPs and 20 tickets. It also includes the "MakeItPlayable" Tasks, hope the progress keeps so fast, was it was the last 2 Sprints :)
https://youtu.be/vRYfzb86ZJ0
I also made it possible, to have different in/out storage users in the same building. Also a building can have a generalStorage, and its working assigning to itself. This makes the StartSatelite now possible. I changed the UI, so the Storages apears at the correct Work-Items, and added a scrollbar for the StartSatelite.
I started to implement the supplyship. Due to andi is still sick, i created a basic model for it. I also created the basic events and ui elements for it.
I also improved the Storage Layout for works with single Storages.
I added a basic Animation for the Supplyships, just flying from far away to the Start Satelites docking Position, in 3 streight lines with a bit of rotation. Looks completely not physical correct yet, but to do this, the AnimationSystem needs to be improved a lot, what is not realy needed yet. Video like the last sprint at the release video next friday :)
I added the function, that Persons can fly with the SupplyShip. Each day, one new Person will be available in the possible Persons. In the Supply Dialog you can add them to the next rocket. The Rocket will only start, if something is to be shipped.
In the morning, i added the ordering of resources. They are unlimited. For now, at arrival of the supplyship, the resources are transfered. If there is not enough space, the resources will be dropped. Resources don't cost money for now, just the sending was added to make it possible to build the ship. Later, the resources will cost money and you can just send limited amount of resources and persons.
I fixed some problems in serialization and finished this part so far.
I also added some UI Elements for showing the ship to the user, to show, when the next transfer is available, that a ship is started and so on. For now, it supports closable or not by player, infos with long text, Events, with a timeending and a progress (e.g. for achivements later)
In the morning, i make each work independent to the worker-needs and productionTime. So the Startingsatelite is slower than the constructioncenter to produce the infrastructure, and the workers there are not needed anymore for the EnergyProduction. I also improved the UI-Headlines for the DetailsPanel, by using CSS and the custom UiElements.
In the morning, i added a GameEnding screen, when all game-ending-achievements are done. I also added a small text with an idea i had. After victory, the player can upload the stats to the server to create a generated statistics page and share that. This can be a nice sharing feature for the players.
In the morning, I created the the real starting scene for the game, without the TestBuildings, and prepared for the release and new Sprint tomorrow. In the afternoon, i thaught about what resources i add first to the game. The Persons will stay as they are without resource needs, till the buildingProcess is polished. For the BuildingProcess, i will add the following:
- BuildingMaterial (Can be created by with Fe in a SteelMill, needed a lot at the start for the Grid to finish the circle)
- Fe (More cheep than the buildingMaterial to get from earth)
- Glass (Needed to build most of the Buildings)
- Power (Produced by the Satelite, later by SolarPanels and way later by other buildings)
- Water (Used to create BuildingMaterials. Drops dirty not usable water)
- GarbageWater (It can be converted back in the Purification Plant. This will be the first resoruce cycle)
In a second stage later after polishing, i will concentrate to the needs of the People, so the game gets more difficulty, but it first needs to be polished, so it is understandable as it is for now :)
I added the mentioned Resources, and adapted a few buildings for now. I also added some temporary ugly icons till Andi finish the final ones.
¶ 2020.05.01 Sprint End
The Sprint ends today and i created a new Release 0.10.0. Its going to the playable phase, due to that i added the supplyship and a lot of other things needed to make it playable. Also the new Domain was registered and the game is ready to download now on https://genship.scifanstudios.com Feel free to download and try a bit around with it and give some feedback here in the channel or on discord. The Velocity was as planned, and some Tickets goes to the buffer of the Sprint while trying to make it playable. The next sprints are prepared and follows also the target to make it playable. https://youtu.be/u2oA5-kSDiQ
I added the Timewarp feature for the Player, so he can jump to the Events. I added it for all Work Elements, the Construction building and EventElements like the Supplyship. To prevent jumps by misstake of the player, he need to press once to get the confirm-button to realy do the timewarp. At the end of the day, i just fixes some bugs and added tests for stuff found over the day.
Today, i did a lot of small stuff. Starting from a searchbar for the translations, over some problems with the Task-bar on high speed showing too much outdated things in one frame, adding TimeWarp for the Person-Activity (e.g. jump till end of the Work-Activity), Pausing the game at the StartGame-Animation and much more.
I also implemented the throw-out feature. So if by accident storages run full, the player can right click and confirm on a resource in a storage. They will be thrown out and are not usable anymore. I improved the Simulation to make not connected Resources possible, added the UI, improved the Animations, to just calculate the start animation for it and added tests.
The old Tutorial System was implemented a long time ago, and i learned alot of new techniques in that time. The old one was not dealing with I18n, not using easy UiElements, couldn't easy store the states and were not ready for the JOBs. I build it completely new to deal better with it. Its is similar to the AchievementSystem, and the UiSystem is changed to the new techniques, i am using now.
I also found a workaround for a bug, that happened when changing languages. The update of the text and the resulting new height is not calculated correctly, so the text was overlapping. In the Tutorial, this happened every time, without language changing. Its now added a space in the first frame when its added, and forces a recalculation by removing that space at the next frame... Due to i'm using an not-even-preview version of the UIElements Runtime, it is forgiven :)
I added the Steps that can do checks, with support of Jobs and Entities (e.g. for checking some states). It will be calculated all in paralell like the achievements, so they block as less as possible the normal game-loop. For now i implemented the camera with behavior-steps, checking a boolean field at the behaviors.
Finally, here some screenshots
This morning, i started to implement a Skip feature to the Tutorials. If the skipfeature is called 2 times, there will be a popup to ask the user if he wants to skipp all tutorials.
I also added a Highlights Feature, so the user can see more easy, where to click.
I planned the Tutorials for the Camera, Selection, Resupply and BuildProcess. In total i wrote 22 steps to setup, to have a first start in the Game. The Tutorials for Production, Persons will follow when that stuff is more gameReady and posished in the next 2-3 sprints.
¶ 2020.05.06 BuildProgress Tutorials
I added a non-step tutorial, what can be used to just explain something. It will show a continue button below to make the step done. I also added alot of other Highlights, Steps and statistic Values to make the tutorials as good as possible for the first steps. I finished the Tutorials in the screenshot.
¶ 2020.05.08 SprintPlanning
I thaught a bit about the planned Concept of modular Buildings. This was planned to make it more simple and the simulation faster. Due to the simulation runs very fast right now, this is not needed anymore. It also seems to make it more complex instead of simpler. Due to that, that concept is removed for now. Today was also the end of the Sprint 19 with the goal Tutorials. The sprint went as planned. The creation of the Tutorials took a bit longer, due to i readded also the tutorials for Camera, Time and Supplyship. Also the different kinds of Highlights and statistic values needed to be added. Here the new Release Video https://youtu.be/g5Mg6S33fwQ
¶ 2020.05.09 Show the Player Problems
To show the Player more of the Reasons, why something is not working/constructing, i created a concept for it and implemented it for the constructions. Currently its than shown in the DetailsWindow, but the Architecture allows it to add it also to other parts like Icons over the buildings or to the Taskbar. For now i will leave it in the detailsView. It will be added later also to StorageConnections and Work. I will also add a Helping Window for the User with some hints how to fix the problems, and later also icons for it.
¶ 2020.05.10 More Problem Reports
In the morning, i added the Problem-Reports for the 3 Work-Types i have now. It worth doing that, due to i found and fixed some bugs in the Simulation. We also need to update the WorkingStates more often, due to the correct Problem Reports. Creating the Tests is very easy with the Architecture i choose. I add the Problems directly in the Simulation to the Items they belongs to, so they are also in the Entities and SaveGames and can be used everywhere. I also added Highlights in the Legend, to make it easier to see the state of the hovered Item.
¶ 2020.05.11 Options
I started today to create the Options Popup. While doing that, i tried out some new Ways to deal with the UI and the Builder using custom Elements. I refactored a bit and finished the Graphics part with Quality setting, Fullscreen mode and Resolution. The rest is build, when it's needed.
I also started to do a more real sunsystem. I added the Astronomic Scripts from my early game and adapt them to work with the new Setup. I added also a simple Orbit script for the satelite. Now the earth orbits the sun, the sunlight pointing directly to the ship, the skymap is also corrected, and everything seems way more real and moving around, than before
¶ 2020.05.12 Astronomic
I improved by using the correct orbits and speed setups for the different things. Now its realy clear, when setting the speed faster, that its critical. It needs a bit lerping to the targetTime like in Kerbal, to make it look better (planned later). I also improved the earth, to use a more detailed model to be more round, lights of the cities on earth and the normals. You will see the setup and the orbits in the next release video :) I also started with the startingStory, i will add tomorrow. It needs a bit additional work that wasn't planned.
¶ 2020.05.13 Launch Animation
In the morning, i created a simple Rocketmodel for the Intro. I added animations to the Timeline, to split up and open the shields. I removed the solarPanels from the Mesh, to make them foldable and added it to the animation. I added all the story-elements into it and finished the main part of the Intro.
¶ 2020.05.14 Effects to intro
I added some effects with the new Unity Visual Effect Graph. Its just some basics, just used for the intro now, so i didn't polish a lot on it, it just looks fine so far for me. I also polished the interaction and the starting of the game afterwards and in loading scenes. Everything seems working now smooth. Instead of a Skip feature, i added a fast forward feature, that is active, when spacebar is pressed. If Pressed, the intro is done in 2 seconds instead of the original 2 minutes.
I also added a Helping Popup for the Problems.
¶ 2020.05.15 Release
The Sprintgoal was not done, due to in the Middle of the Sprint at the Intro and the Sunsystem Ticket i added a lot of additional not planned work. I added Tickets to do that and throw others out. Due to that i changed the SprintGoal to "Start of the Game". Due to that changes and unplanned stuff, the Velocity was not as high as normal. https://youtu.be/242v9FJCIy0
The original SprintGoal is moved for one sprint. Next one have the main Goal to add "Sound" to the game. It will be some Music and some basic sounds for the intro and maybe when selecting a building or plan/start Buildings.
The total Process of the Sprint Meetings, create and release the ReleaseVideo, Creating and releasing the Release itself and publishing cost in total around 1:30.
¶ 2020.05.18 More audio and Credits
I added the Background-Music also to the MainMenu, some Ambience sounds, when selecting buildings and some clicking and selecting sounds. I also added a Credits Screen. It gets the contained Music from the Music-array used in the GameObject, so no background-music is forgotten.
I also created the Options for the Sound. For that, i tried the Unity PlayerPrefs, but due to its stored in the registry, it seemed a bit ugly. So i added a small Settings Architecute, that stores the settings next to the savegames in json. I also moved the Options menu to the new way i create popups now without the UiBinder.
¶ 2020.05.19 Finished Sound Basics
Today, i finished the sound basics by adding the Current Played Song to the UI. It can be configured by the player if it should be visible or not. Its also configurable to add the license, to make sure its fine.
Due to i recognised a very high increase of the startup time of the game i researched a bit and found some audio-import settings to improve that. By default, unity loads all the audio assets uncompressed to the ram, that takes a long time with the 100mb compressed music...
I found another bug in the working-architecture. Due to prevent that earlier next time, i added a locking-mechanism in it to have a fail fast. I also scheduled some tasks, instead of calling it directly, to prevent similar problems.
I also added another Panel for some Details of Constructions. It shows a short description and the resources needed to build the building in the upper corner.
At the end of the day, i prepared a bit the questions for the userfeedback.
¶ 2020.05.20 Build Menu
Today, the i had a meeting day for my side-work, so i couldn't do so much. I just finished some UI Improvements for the construction. The Buildings are now splitted into categories, so more buildings will fit to it, and they are easier to find. I also added some descriptions and the needed BuildingResources in a panel above this area.
¶ 2020.05.22 General Storage Connections
I added the Connections of GeneralStorages to the UI. After that, to make it possible to connect the generalStorages between each other, i refactored the connections so the generalStorages can be connected just in one direction, e.g. to clear the general storages like the satellite.
Its friday, so its the end of the Sprint. The velocity was a bit lower than normal, due to the big Unknown "Sound" Ticket. I could also not spend the expected time, so not everything what was planned is finished. All in all, the Sprintgoal is finished, and Sound has been added :)
This sprint, i also created a short summary for the other platforms.
https://youtu.be/BBECsNXPdbk
¶ 2020.05.25 Throw away Infrastructure
In the game, it can happen, that the Infrastructure should be removed to build something else. For this, i make the double-confirm button from the TimeWarp more generic and added it for the ThrowAway of the infrastructure. I used the UI-Test mechanism from yesterday and it works easy enough. I also checked, that the work related to this connection is stopped when its thrown out. I also started with the dismantle of regular Buildings. As expected, it touches a lot of stuff and take a while.
Release 0.14.0 Sprint 22 - Demolish
Hello everyone, another week passed and the next release is out. The sprint was about demolishing and processed as planned.
Features:
- Dismantle Buildings and gaining resources back
- Canceling Constructions in progress
- Throw away Infrastructure, to build something else there
- Performance optimisations (x2 speedup due to better ui updates)
- Automated Tests can use the UI to test their stuff
https://youtu.be/AFR3W1xTNZo
¶ 2020.05.30 Basic Model
I worked a bit with blender and tried to figure out a good workflow to create the game ready models. It took a while, but not i think i have nice one. In the TestModel, i created a lowResModel and out of that a highresmodel. I have already a preview in Blender to check firstly the bakes. The bakes are streight forward and took not too long time with my cpu (on 2k x 2k res). I also used indirect lightning and bake 5 different textures (Albedo, Ambient Colusion, roughness, emissions and normals. Everything baked from the high res model with high res textures.
¶ 2020.05.31 Modeling Workflow done
I finished the modeling Workflow and how to use metarials and resusing meshes with blender, to save projectsize and keep organized. As a first test, i added a new model for the gridstructures.
I worked a lot to day in Blender and it seems getting easier. I tried some generating things for the different kind of railways and finished all of them. Maybe tomorrow i can start with the first real buildings.
¶ 2020.06.01 Box with carrier Model
Today, i tried to make a new model for the boxes, to get more training in blender for the buildings. I did a wooden box that can be filled with different kind of things, and a full aluminium carrier with some small details. I didn't finish yet completely, but so far it seems not too bad 
¶ 2020.06.02 Icons
I decided to do custom icons using blender for the modeling and unity for the pictures, as i did it for the other icons of the buildings. 1. 3d Model for the Icon done in Blender 2. Import in Unity 3. Add it to the PhotoScene 3. Via PhotoScene a Png is rendered 4. Import in Unity 5. Use it in the UI
and added more icons for the Person Activities
and improved the Buttons for dealing well with icons
¶ 2020.06.03 Added new Grid, Rail and Boxes to Game
I started to fix some bugs with the Rails. After a long search, trying other materials and checking 10 times for mesh problems, it turns out, that the material i used, used the normal-texture as a srgb, not as a non-color image...
¶ 2020.06.04 New Walkways
The new Walkways are finished today. They have a more reasonable size (the old ones had 1.6m height at the transitions, and not 2 people could walk next ot each other. Also lights are added and they got a new connector.
¶ 2020.06.06 New Workingmodel
Due to i will not have a plannable time in the next weeks, i decided to change the workingmodel from Sprint to a kind of kanban aproach. I will plan the Things to do in the next sprint, and will work on them, till all are finished, before i create the next release and a video. The next release will come, when i finish the modeling. Till then i just post the pictures. I also finished first try of the door. Its designed like a hatch, instead of a door, due to its used just for separate the space from the inside.
¶ 2020.06.07 New Storage
Today, i started to remake the General Storage. I fixed some design issues with realistic movement of the boxes and that there is no Walkway-Entrance. The Walkable area is just a short ending of a walkway with some glass to check the storage from the inside. There will be also some consoles added to the model. The rest is updated to the new height of the boxes. It has a elevator in the middle to move the boxes first up. The rest of the storage is done with railways and small steel parts. The boxes will not be covered by the storage like at the old one, they just hang on an end of an railway instead. Also a circle with small steel is added to the outside to make it look better (and maybe for stabilizing better).
¶ 2020.06.08 New General Storage
Today i finished the new general Storage
, including the updated animationPaths for the Boxes.
¶ 2020.06.09 LivingQuarter
Today, i designed the LivingQuarter. Its 1x1 tile big and is in the middle a bit larger as a walkway. This area should be the living area. Around there are 4 rooms a ~4m x 2.5m sleepingrooms for 2 crewmembers each. So in total, this Quarter can contain up to 8 persons and did not have a Bath or Kitchen inside. In future, there are more planned including these. This is the building for the beginning.
Also a bit interior design
¶ 2020.06.10 Smelting Model
Today, i created the new Smelting Model.
finished it and added it to the Game
¶ 2020.06.12 Blender Shader
I found a rendering problem, i used the roughness of the baked blender textures as the smoothness, its the inverted value, so metalic looks non-metalic and vice versa. I added a custom shader for dealing with the change and changed all materials to it. Now it loos way more as the original designed blender model.
¶ 2020.06.13 ConstructionCenter
I also finished the ConstructionCenter. I had a lighning problem there, turns out, also not shown lights of models are rendered, and this turns into very strange lightning problems. After that was fixed, the rest was easier. I still experimenting with the materials.
I created the prototype design for the new Starting Satellite.
¶ 2020.06.15 New Starting Satellite
Today i finished the new Satellite Model. It contains all necessary functions of the base, but its very limited.
¶ 2020.06.17 New Inflatable Walls
I finished the remake of the inflatable Walls. They are used to build the buildings without suits in the space. When starting a construction, they get inflated when starting and after the builders finished the work, they get deflated again. They inflate with the holes like the Building finished.
¶ 2020.06.18 Finished Remodeling
I finished with the last models of this iteration. All models are now selfmade. Due to the graphics improved to be more metalic, and the original material settings in blender works now i need to improve the lighning next iteration. Also a lot of new icons are planned for it, so i get more used to blender. I created the release 0.16.0, that is downloadable at genship.scifanstudios.com for free.
¶ 2020.06.19 Light settings and Icons
I played a bit around with the light settings. The combination of systems i use is not so feature complete in unity, so i needed to play alot around to get a usable setting. Let me know, if you have better ideas for the lightning.
I also added the state icons i did a few weeks ago to the UI, to show the current activity and if the person is moving to the destination.
Also new Icons are created and all old icons are now replaced by blender-unity-rendered icons.
¶ 2020.06.20 New overlay colors
I changed the overlay colors to match to the new material and light setup. I also worked a lot on the server, the setup is now way cleaner than before, and the request of the latest version did not take 30s, due to the complete 250mb release is bumped to the cache....
¶ 2020.06.21 Newsletter
I created the new release with the changed color settings and new icons. I also added a Newsletter function to the server and to the game. Feel free to subscribe :) https://genship.scifanstudios.com/#/newsletter I also planned the next Buildings. The target is now to make the people stuff like sanitary facilities, greenhouses and other needed things. For the next iteration, 6 more buildings are planned so far.
¶ 2020.06.22 Back and Forward button and CodeCoverage
Today, i finished the more detailed planning of the MVP Buildings and added the back and forward button of the mouse to the selection-navigation. It was a bit anoying when chinging to the Persons, that it was not easy possible to go back. Now with pressing the back button, the player can quickly navigate around. I also played around with the new TestCoverage Package from Unity. Working fine so far, important is to keep the burst compiler off. In total i have around 80k lines of code for now, with a test coverage of ~65%. I checked a bit what parts are not covered, most of it are libraries, deprecated methods, FailFastExceptions in the simulation and Editor stuff. I created a follow up ticket for creating different namespaces or assemblies to make this report more usable. For now it looks fine. I plan to do a report every release.
¶ 2020.06.24 Added problem Icons
today, i added the problem icons i created a few days ago to the game. I added full and empty symbols to the connectedStorages and if there is a Problem shown, the icon also.
¶ 2020.06.25 Error reporting
I worked on finding good info for error reporting. I figured out how to create a screenshot and access the log data. The popup was already added, and i added more info what is going to be send. I also worked a bit on the spring-boot server and the openapi go get a good api for that. Finally i created a small admin webpage to show the data. Was a bit messy with authentication CORS and a lot of other problems but in the end it worked.
¶ 2020.06.26 New Release Database
I created the release 0.18.0. Not so much changed for the gameplay, it was more server integration. Here a short recap: - Mouse Back and Forward button can now be used for selections - Fixed infrastructure connections of constructions - Added ErrorReporting (if Exceptions thrown) - Added Newsletter-Box I planned the next release with a mixture of Models, Simulation and Server. Planned are e.g. 2 new buildings for the water-resource cycle. I also started to do some small bugfixes and completely redo the release entities in the server, due to it was not usable for normal features otherwise. I also added a discord bot, that is posting when a new release is uploaded. Its posting in the general channel as "ScifanStudios.com". I also added all old releases to the new structure. the new structure is way faster and not lagged a single time when uploading. Releasing at the old one took a long time to upload, due to the server was under heavy load. Now it was close to no load.
¶ 2020.06.27 Sanitary Facilities Model
I created the model for the Sanitary Facilities. It has room for 6 toilets and 2 big shower rooms. It contains the pumps and heater, so it needs water and energy to work and produces Garbage Water. The Simulation parts coming in the next step.
I started with the new partial Resource usage system. First of all, i wanted to add the setup to the configuration and found it not so clearly readable, so i played a bit around with the unity-editor and implemented solutions for the resource-Selection (was string earlier) and how the arrayitems are shown.
¶ 2020.07.01 Partial Resource Usage
Today, i finished the partial usage of resources for the production. The ResourceConversion is now changed to the new setup and is converting in while producing. Its not related anymore to the Progress or Storage-Setup. The FillState is shown, when the resource is present and not 100%, to make it more clean.
¶ 2020.07.02 ProvideService Work
I finished the implementation of the showers in a generic way. On buildings is a new work added that provides a service for an Person Activity and the rest goes automatic. Hope its generic enough to do the other ActivityBuildings fast. The Persons are now finding a shower when the hygiene level is too low. I also added a lot of tickets for the next iteration, that should deal with this activities better. E.g. the persons idle around, when their hygiene is on 0 due to the shower was not ready. If its ready than, they should get informed, so they can use it. I also created the icons for the SpecialStorages like in a factory
¶ 2020.07.03 Changelog support
I added a connection from our Server to Jira, and get the changeLogs from Jira. Its available as a REST Service and i added it to the game page and to the games mainmenu. I also created a new release and started with the next one.
¶ 2020.07.05 Cleanup, Bugfixes and Editor-Improvements
I started updating unity and the packages and fixed some bugs with the editor and small other things in the game. I also speedup the tests, the tests needed with DeepProfiling around 6s to initialize the stuff. Most of it is the mesh-creation. I added a cache for the editor for it and could speed it up to ~1.3s. With burst, all tests run in 100s I also started with the Purification Plant Model, here the raw design.
¶ 2020.07.11 PurificationPlant
I started with the model of that Iteration: the Purification Plant, that can convert Garbage Water to Fresh water and BioGarbage for the Greenhouse by using energy. It has a small control-room for maintenance and big tubes outside of the building, to make it distinguishable.
¶ 2020.07.15 ConstructionCenter using Tools
I added that Tools are now needed for the construction of Buildings. It will be used in the ConstructionCenter for constructing and dismantle of buildings. I also started with the greenhouse, here the first raw design. The last week was not so much progress, due to i'm installing some aircons to our Apartment. Hope i get more time in the next weeks
¶ 2020.07.16 Greenhouse
Today, i finished the basics of the Greenhouse. I didn't add a lot details yet, due to i want to concentrate on the other Parts of the game right now. The Greenhouse has a big number of in/out resources. For now, it works like a normal factory, i added a task for the future, to change the behavior to a greenhouse like approach with health/size of the plants.
¶ 2020.07.22 WorkNames
I created the next Release 0.21.0 with the new Greenhouse and the big change of the Needs and prepared the next iteration. Target is the Photovoltaic Panels and other code and UI improvements for the Persons. I worked on some refactorings, to reduce the stack-size in the Simulation and added some tests for the services. I also added I18n WorkNames, so its easier to see, what the persons are doing. I also added Work-Icons to the headlines, so every work can have the specified icon and name now.
¶ 2020.07.23 Simulation Logs
I refactored the SimulationWindow, that was one Big thing, into separate small Windows with different purpose. E.g. the Tasks window now shows all tasks as before, but when an entity is selected, it just shows the tasks of the matching SimulationEntity. I also thought about how to log easier, due to it got a bit messy and hard to read in some tests. I use the normal Debug.Log in the Burst Jobs to log stuff. I added an interceptor, finding the references and showing it in a new context-sensitive log. Similar than the tasks, it shows all, and if something is selected, it shows just that.
¶ 2020.07.25 Photovoltaic Panels Design
I started with refactoring the Person Simulation and fixed a problem with the Satellites new FulfillAllNeeds Service. Before, it fulfilled just 1 need and stopped. Now if a building fulfills multiple needs, it waits, till all needs are fulfilled. I also did the Photovoltaic Panels, the 3D-Model of that iteration. Due to all big things of the Iteration are done, i decided to create the release 0.22.0 and start a new iteration. In the next Iteration, i will create the Air-Filters and try to add Problems to Persons and StorageConnections, so the Player can see, why the person e.g. is not working or what other needs are missing. I updated to the new Unity 2020.1 version and all the packages. I could remove my own NativeInstance to the new NativeReference of the newest Collections-Package 
¶ 2020.07.26 UI Improvements
I improved the old Pick icon with a new one and also fixed the ugly timewarp icon color. I also make the bar more visible when the resource is not filled, due to it was not distinguishable if the resource is at 100% or 0%. Not if its not 100%, there is a small border next to the bar.
¶ 2020.07.27 Person Work Problems and Priorities
I added the Problems why a person is not working to the simulation and the UI. It reuses everything what was created earlier for Construction Work and Storages. I also added a "notConnected" Problem to the connectedStorage icon. Till now, the first possible building was used for UsingServices of the Persons. This lead to bad choices, e.g. the slow Satellite is used to sleep and not the way faster sleeping quarters. I added an easy metric, using the need value (lower needs should be fulfilled first) the distance to the service-buildings and the speed of the buildings, to make a better choice.
¶ 2020.07.28 AirFilter and ShipDetails
I did the simple AirFilter Model in Blender. Due to it will effect global ship-details for now, it needs another kind of work.
I also taught about how to implement the AirQuality. I added a new SimulationData Type Ship, that is similar implemented than the Buildings. This has an AirQuality value and takes care about it. At the moment, i just calculate for each person an decrease of 10% per day. Later it will be added, that the health state of the Person is influenced, and maybe other values at too low values.
¶ 2020.07.30 AirFilter Work
I finished the work on the AirFilters, so the buildings adjust their filter rate to the needed value, so its they just filter whats really in the air. I started with a refactoring of the works architecture again, to fulfill more the needs of the works. I also created new Icons for the Shortcuts (Mouse, Keyboard,...) within blender like the other ones. At the end, i did a new release 0.23.0 with the new AirFilter and the new logic.
¶ 2020.07.31 ThrowAway Restrictions
The next iteration started with a lot of small improvements and the last new Building for the MVP, the canteen, to feed the persons. I started with some Restrictions, that its not possible to throw away stuff, when the lower layers blocking it. Its also not possible anymore to throw away a gridstructure, that is needed to hold a building. I improved a bit the code, and searched for bottlenecks for the Tests. I could reduce the time for the Tests from ~180s to 99, by adding a simple cache for a hash-function used by the editor-mode only, so the following tests run way faster.
¶ 2020.08.02 GridStructure Requirement
I added the requirement to be attached at a GridStructure for Buildings. For now, the Building can just be planned, when there is a GridStructure finished. Maybe i add a planning feature later, so they can be planned, before the GridStructure is finished.
I also let the ResourceBoxes highlight, when hovering over the stored resource box, to see, where it is. This should be useful, when checking where the resources are at the rails, when they are in transit.
¶ 2020.08.03 Canteen Model
I added a canteen where the people can get food. It needs Workers to cook in the kitchen area to provide that service. It also needs Raw-Food from the Greenhouse, fresh Water and electricity. Besides the building reduces the hunger of persons, it produces Brown Water and BioGarbage for the Greenhouse to recycle.
¶ 2020.08.06 Company Logo
I improved a bit the shortcuts view, and fixed some small things. I also created a simple Company Logo and added the old Genship Logo to the Starting of the Game screen. http://youtube.com/watch?v=WXTFk_fumlA
¶ 2020.08.07 Planned MVP Tickets finished
Today, i finished the last Tickets, that were planned for the MVP scope. Now i'm testing and trying it out and check, what else is needed and try to start balancing. The new Release 0.24.0 is available for download.
¶ 2020.08.09 ResourceDetails on Hover
I redesigned a bit the Legend, to add it directly next to the Details Panel. Above i added another Details Panel for the hovered Resource, due to it was not so clear for new players what the resources are. Now there is the name and other details visible. I also fixed some bugs and improved other UI parts.
¶ 2020.08.11 WaitForGrid State
Due to it was a bit annoying, to just drop Buildings, when the gridstructure is fully build, i added another construction state called "Wait for Grid", so its now droppable, but the real build process just starts, when the grid is arrived. To make it easier to plan the buildings, the required gridstructure elements will be also added to the plan automatically. I also added some SkipTime buttons to the UI, to make it easier to wait for a certain time. This seemed needed, due to you can just wait till the end of an event with the warp buttons, but sometimes, you want to wait till something is finished, even if its not started yet. The UI looks a bit ugly, maybe i find a better ui somewhen.
¶ 2020.08.12 Balancing Editor
I started with an Balancing Editor. First part is to show the details of the Buildings, so i can get an overview about the current values.
So far, i am done with the next MVP Tickets and created a release and tried it again. In the next Iteration, i will concentrate to improve the UI and the tutorials more and try to balance a bit.
I also improved a bit the Ui and fixed some small bugs i found. I structured the Buildings in more reasonable groups and other small things.
¶ 2020.08.13 PersonOverview and Time-Animation
I added an Overview Panel for the Persons, to see how many persons doing something. Maybe i will add some click-actions to it, to select the persons in that state, or opening the planned person-window for it.
I also added shortcuts, for changing the gamespeed. Due to keypad plus and minus is used for zoom i use the kerbal like "," and "." key to change it.
I also added an Animation to the Time-Moving things, so when increasing the speed of the game, it slowly increases it to the target and shows it (similar than in kerbal). At higher levels, the increasing will take longer, to give the player a chanche to move it back again.
I also added a animation for the timewarp buttons, so its now way nicer and clearer, what happens.
I also added the spacebar key to stop all time-movements and warps, so its possible to break wrong clicks fast.
¶ 2020.08.14 StorageTypeIcons, NeedIcons and Polishing
Due to a Building has several Storages for different resources, it was not visible what kind of storage it was. I added the resourceType icon to the Image to show that.
While fulfilling the needs, the Player can now send the person back to their work, without unassign and reassign the workingplace, so he gets more control about the persons.
I fixed many bugs in the simulation, found with the new animations and added for all TimeWarp buttons the option for warping without the animation when holding ctrl key while pressing the mouse.
The needs of Persons were also redone in a more modern way, with big icons, due to they were not good visible.
¶ 2020.08.15 Tutorial improvement
Today, i started to improve the tutorials. I added some for the Persons, Problems and time elapsis and also added the TargetTime of the Warp to the speed-ui. Its now also possible to press the +1 time buttons multiple time to e.g. jump 3 days to the future, by clicking it +1d 3 times. I created a new release, to test, what else is missing and find new things to improve. The iteration is now over and i plan to improve the GameMechanic of the Resupply in the next sprint.
¶ 2020.08.17 Transfer resources
I fixed several bugs and added the work of the storage to the connection icon, to make more clear, what connectio it is. If the player dont know the icons, he can just hover over the icon and a details popup is shown up. Maybe i add more details later, like the stored amounts of interesting resources. I also make it possible to transfer directly resources to other storages. This is e.g. useful, when you dont need your input-Resources anymore for that building. The only way was to dimantle the building, to get them out. Now, you can rightclick on the resource and than select the target. The old throw out feature is still possible, by left clicking than to the empty space.
¶ 2020.08.20 Send Person to use Service
Today, i made it possible for the player, to send a person directly to use a service in a building. It just highlights again the buildings, that are possible, means the person should be able to start the service there, due to needs, working-status of the ServiceBuilidng and other factors. Maybe its needed to show the player why the other buildings are not possible.
¶ 2020.08.21 Add Railways automaticly
When building, it was not very clear, where the further entrance is. A lot of times, i wondered, why its not building, due to i forgot the railway. Now, the railway for the building is added at a correct place. I also created a new release, with a lot of bugfixes and UI improvements and updated to the new unity version and new unity packages afterwards. They added some functions, i implemented by myself and some convenient methods, i adapted to. And it seems, they enabled the dark mode in the newest update, due to my windows dark theme ¶ 2020.08.22 Editor
I started to improve the Editor, adding the GridPositions to the SceneView to see faster how to setup or adapt tests. I also migrated the EditorWindows to the new UiElement and adapted a bit to the new Dark-Mode. I also added some easy camera settings for the Sceneview, to prevent using too much time, scrolling around. I also made sure, that the instant tasks are all done, ignoring the fps, due to it can cause bugs and let tests randomly fail. This are tasks, executed with delay=0, like user interactions with the SimulationJob, assigning Workplace, or moving resources around.
¶ 2020.08.23 AutoRotation to Walkway
Today, i started adding a feature, to make the planning more convenient. I planned that ticket very early in the development and now after testing, it was a bit annoying, that the player needs to rotate the buildings always to the correct place. The rotation of the user is preferred, but if no walkway is there, the plan is rotating them self to the walkway. I hope this makes the planning easier.
I also improved the way, now the next construction is choosen. It was just the first dropped one first. Now the builders choose the closest Building first. Its also possible to priorities constructions, to make sure, they are started next before the other buildings.
¶ 2020.08.24 Canteen Food
I spitted up the canteen work into. Problem was, that there was a person needed to serve food. This person couldn't eat by himself, due to when he stops work, no one is there to serve him the food. I changed him to a "cook" creating "CookedFood" that goes directly to the Service-Work. To make this more convenient, the auto Connection of these kind of buildings directly connect the in/out storages when they are in the same building, and not connect to the general Storage, like it would be by default.
¶ 2020.08.25 Better Greenhouse Work
I splittet the work for the greenhouse, so the worker now prepare a new resourcetype "Prepared earth", so the greenhouse grows the plants also without workers in it. I also changed the layout of the General-Storage resources. Due to the Storage can hold hundred icons, and they are shown as oldest first, it was not so easy to use. So i splittet the resources to separate lines and added a counter. Maybe i will add a "throw out all of a type" feature to it later.
¶ 2020.08.26 Person Problems overview
I added more summary icons for persons to the header, to make it easy visible, what problems you should solve. The first one is when a person don't have a working place. If some needs are below 10%, they will be also shown as red need icons there. As the other icons, you can click on them to select the persons with that problem. The activity icons will stay always visible, the problem icons just shown up, when there is at least one person with that problem.
¶ 2020.08.27 Building details
It was not visible, what the buildings are doing, before dropping them. Also the amount of resources they need and needs, they fulfill. So i added these details to the construction preview, including some text to the work. I tried to make everything in one line, and clear visible, to not use too much space.
I also added it to the details to the SelectedBuilding UI, so players can see it easier, how much resources the building can use.
¶ 2020.08.28 Fixes and Balance
Today, i tried the game again and fixed some issues and added more tests and production-checks to prevent bad situations. I also changed more at the balance. I also tried around with c# pointers, to improve the performance, due to unity crashes alot, due to unknown stack overflows In the end i gave up and tried something else to prevent that problems. It seems its just happening in the editor, not in the production-code... ¶ 2020.08.30 Improved simulation
Because if found out, that the simulationData with the references to the data already has ~5kb size, i could reduce it to ~4kb and use reference all over the code with it, similar than the Instance. I hoped, i can remove the stackoverflow in unity, but its still crashing In the afternoon, by accident, i saw the stacktrace of the StackOverflow and could fix it. I found, that in c# there are alot of possibilities with ref parameters and ref return values, so i changed alot of the SimulationData to ref, due to this is like a singleton in a game.
I tested the game again, and end it in 4 game months, focusing on the target. Target for the player would be end of the year, so seems fine. It looks like it gets to a well playable state for the next release for now.
For the next iteration, i plan to do more balancing, and try to add a MaximumTime for some Resources. The idea is, that some Resources like cooked food, cannot be preserved forever, so they need to be created close to the usage time. I also want to add some concequences for bad air, so persons should be able to die, if the air is too bad. Another big topic is to update the UI Framework to the unity version, that was released a few weeks ago. ¶ 2020.08.31 Choose Connection Popup
I added some more runtime-checks, to see problematic situations for the simulation earlier, and also fixed some bugs. In a playtest, i figured out, that i now had a building, that uses energy in 2 of its works. Due to just the first possible storage was chosen, it was not possible to connect a special Storage to the second storage. I improved that part and added a popup, if there is more than one connectin possible. Due to the new popup, its now also easier possible to connect from a generalStorage to a special storage.
¶ 2020.09.01 Unity UI
I tried to update to the official Unity-UI preview-7, but it failed completely, due to strange mouse-events. The TopMenu always received for each mouse-move mouseEnter + mouseMove + mouseLeave + pointerleave, without being on the element. Also the scrollpanel just worked for the first 2/3 of the width. I debugged a bit, but it seemed to be very deep in the UI system. The rest, they changed a bit the API from PanelRenderer to UIDocument Component, the mouse-wheel is wrong setup, so scrolling up is scrolling down (apple style), so not using the OS settings anymore, but this could be fixed easy. There was also a compiling issue with the code, but could also be overwritten easy. So i wait further releases :( I added the current resource-Deltas to the UI, shown as red and green colored filling-bars at the icons, and a detailed text to the hover-details for the resources, so the player can see better whats happening.
¶ 2020.09.03 Transfer Unfinished Resources
I did another play test and fixed most of the findings. I also improved the problem-view for connected storages, hope its better now, would be happy for feedback after the next release for it I also fixed some of the issues i found.
I added the feature, that also unfinished resources can be moved around by the player, so e.g. something needs CO², the player can move it also to the target building without being 100% full. I also added a similar popup, than in the connect Storage feature, so if multiple targets are possible, it pops up a choice window. 
¶ 2020.09.05 Sorting of Storage Connections
To change the sorting, it was necessary to remove the connections, what was a bit annoying, so i added a sorting button, to make it easy to sort them. The first ones have priority, when a new resource is arriving. The further storage are just served, when the first ones are full. Maybe more options for the storage will come later, like cycle, but for now, the FirstHasPriority-Strategy should be enough.
¶ 2020.09.07 Need Balancing Tool
I added a balancing tool for the needs to make the balancing easier. I found, that the satellite using way to less food, compared to the canteen. I also balanced the resource-usages, so they can be circled without need of earth support. I also calculated, now much worktime it needs (in the complete circle) to fulfill the needs of a person. It seems its around 5h/day workingtime. Estimating a 8h working day, it seems fine so far.
¶ 2020.09.08 Planning Next Steps
I added the Sorting feature for Connections also to the specialStorages and added a periodic update to all choose-actions, so the possible Targets are always up to date. This happend e.g. when you wait to connect a building, that is just finished and deflating the walls. After deflating, before the improvement it was needed to start the choosing action again. I also splitted the GeneralStorage Connection feature to 2 buttons (one in in, one at the out storage) and added filters for it, so its easier to understand.
I also added different kinds of resource-Box Models, so its now visible, what kind of resources are moving around.
¶ 2020.09.10 Scheduler bug
It was not clear visible, what work needs workers, so i moved the workers-panel to the work areas.
I also found and fixed a deeper TaskScheduling bug, that causes some strange errors in the Simulation. A task was executed 2 times, and another one was not executed. It happened just random on high speed in the editor, that persons get stuck, or storages got not updated will (i added a consistency check for that some weeks ago).
The final MVP is close to be finished. After fixing the last known issues, i quickly created a short video, showing some features. In the last 2 months i started with the 3d modeling and make the system stable and polished the UI a lot. I will try a last few tests, before building and publishing it.
¶ 2020.09.11 MVP Release
Today, i finished the MVP Stage of the game: - All basic things are done to manage the ship - Persons have 3 basic needs - Resource and StorageManagement are done Would be nice, if you try it out and give some feedback to me :) https://youtu.be/QMBXoR_Brbc
¶ 2020.09.13 Docking Storage
To make it possible, to let the supplyship unload the content better, i added a separate storage for the satellite that represents the storage of the supplyship. It acts as a general storage, with just out connections. It can be connected from anywhere, but is not autoconnected like the generalStorages. If that storage gets empty, the supplyship will start directly again. It destroys also all resources from that representation storage, when starting back to earth.
I also prepare for a separate Docking Building, so i changed the logic of the supplyships. Before, they had a fix time schedule, so they were launched every week once. Now, they are move flexible for the users. The player has 1 supplyship for each building, that can be launched whenever the player wants. If its landed back on earth, the ship needs 1 week preparation and repair, before it can be started again.
From the UI, its now moved to the new Docking Area of the Dockable Buildings. The TaskItems were removed. The Button in the menu below just do something, if a ship is ready to be launched. It than just selects the first possible one. Maybe i improve that button in later iterations.
¶ 2020.09.14 Improve Earth supply
I added some costs for the Resources, Persons and general Supply. I also added weight, to limit the amount of resources, that can be send. I improved the LaunchRocket Popup where the player can set it up, so its showing the new values. The credits are for later balancing, its just calculated for now, but not used. I also add the possibility to add more than just 1 resource per click. When holding ctrl, its adding 10, but maximum till the rocket is full.
¶ 2020.09.19 New Building: Dock
The docks are landing platforms for supply ships. They are equipped with 4 ropes, to bring the supply ship to the docking, even when the ship is rotating for the artificial gravity. I added a new Building called "Dock". Its for landing supply ships from earth. In the next iteration, rotation will be added, so its hard for the ships to land, when the ship is rotating. Due to that, i plan, that the rotation needs to slow down, when a ship wants to dock. The new Dock Building has 4 towers, to shoot ropes to the dock or undocking rocket to bring them to the landing position, even if the ship is rotating, so it maybe needs to slow down a bit, and the artificial gravity can keep on.
¶ 2020.09.24 Problem Overlay
To see problems of Buildings earlier, i added an overlay, showing the workIcon that has the problem, including the small problem icon whats the problem. I do this with 2 colors, yellow and red. Yellow is used e.g. if the workers are not working right now. Due to this is a problem, happens at a normal day, its yellow. If its something else like the out-storage is full, its shown in red. For now, i will just show problems at work, but maybe i add problems with constructions, and full generalStorages soon. I added some buttons to turn that feature on/off with the UI next to the camera buttons, more buttons are planned in the future.
¶ 2020.09.30 Docker Server Setup
The last days i worked on migrating to an docker environment for all the server services. Its my first docker setup, so it take a while till i get used to it, and setup jira, confluence, bitbucket and so on with containers. Also an automated https setup with nginx and letsencrypt is working already very smooth. I stuck a bit at the v-server max threads, seems this basic setup already takes the 1100 max threads at our v-server at strato still fighting a bit with it and trying to make it work.
Bitbucket takes at an empty installation alone around 200 threads, jira and confluence also takes ~150 each... ¶ 2020.10.01 Finalising Docker Server setup
I searched a bit for alternatives for bitbucket, not using 300 threads. Gitlab needs even more, but i found gitea, that is very lightweight, fast and seems to have similar features. Worked directly without big setup including lfs over https. Everything with just 20 threads including the database. Awesome :) After fixing some issues with http2 and chrome, i end up with the V-Server with 888 processes running and finished the setup so far and can finally get back to the game development 
¶ 2020.10.02 Artificial Gravity
I started with the ship spinning, and made a good progress. I found a calculation for the gravity and added it to the system. I calculate it out of the rotations/second, that can be influenced later with spinning-engines. The video shows the gravity of 0.3G, that i define as optimum. Some papers define as comfortable for long stay. This is equal to 40s per complete spin of the ship. The spin and side-forces are also in comfortable range. I fixed some bugs with the animation and improved it, so the ship is also spinning for the user. Due to the gravity is normally calculated with the center of rotation, its needed to have separate calculations, i planned for the next iteration. https://youtu.be/pfQUGPYTU_A
¶ 2020.10.03 Spinning Engine
I did a simple Spinning Engine Building, with 2 thrusters. The Building can just be rotated 180°, so the spinning engines always points towards the circle. As all Buildings, it has an maintanaince entrance. Due to nothing should be in the way of the thrusters, i restricted the area left and right of the building (2 tiles for now). Next steps are the animation, that gets a bit tricky, due to its the first time using entities with the animations. Maybe some related gameobjects are needed to stay in the scene for that.
¶ 2020.10.04 Spinning Work
I added the work for the Spinning Engine. Its reusing the resource-conversion and i added a listener to the Ship for it. Its calculated at one place to make the further calculations in the next iteration easier. For now its just calculating the amount of spinning engines and sum them up. It tries to go to the target-spin and setup the spin engines on max, if its not reached.
¶ 2020.10.05 Working Effects
I tried to make effects and audio start and stop, when a building starts or stops working. I was a bit afraid, that i need to create some gameobjects for the entities and manage them by myself. Turns out, unity supports that kind of objects in an easy way, so it was done very quick. https://youtu.be/EdfdDD87Imw
I also added, that the speed of the persons depends on the gravity. With 0 gravity, they have 10% of the maxspeed they can have.
Afterwards, i worked on the gridstructure and railway model, to get them better visible for the player.
¶ 2020.10.06 Gravity Effects for Work
Today, i added the effect of gravity to work. A work, that needs workers doing something, the gravity affects the workingspeed. It depends on what the worker needs to do, so its different for each work of each building. Due to i want to keep the performance and keep it easy, i schedule an update for the buildings every 0.05g for now (max is 0.3g)
¶ 2020.10.07 Show reserved Tiles
I added a rendering for the Tiles without Meshes (like the space next to the spinning Engines, so its visible for the player
¶ 2020.10.08 Supplyship landing
I improved the supplyship landing, with the new gravity and spinning mechanisms. When the supplyship wants to land, it has a maximum allowed spinning and before docking it tries to turn the speed down with the spinning-engines. The landing itself is now unattached from the ship, going in position, waiting for the building at the correct position and than dock. https://youtu.be/ZncpjwgaZKY
¶ 2020.10.10 More detail Overlay setup
I separated Warnings and Error-Overlays, so the "normal" "No Building to build" or "no worker is working" warning is not anoying when the player don't want it. I also added a target-Gravity value to the UI, so the player can see more whats happening.
¶ 2020.10.12 New Resource Icons
I improved the overlay colors, so the reason is better visible.
I also added new ResourceIcons, generated out of the Model, used from the boxes.
¶ 2020.10.13 Docking restriction
I added the restriction, that the supplyship cannot dock, when the spinning is too fast. It also shows a notification at the side (click goes to the building). For that, i refactored a bit the Panel at the side, so its easier usable. This is also a game-ending scenario, when the player did not have enough fuel to slow the ship down, no supplyships can land anymore.
I also added a setting for the different dock-buildings (StartSatelite and dockingport), so the dockingport can handle a faster spinning, means less fuel is needed to slow it down and speed it up again for each docking.
¶ 2020.10.15 Tooltips
Due to unities Tooltips are not working for runtime, i added my own small library for it. Due to my update functions, it was faster than expected. The tooltips apears after a configurable time, at a defined location like BottomLeft of the Element or attached to the cursor. I added tooltips for the TimeWarp, to show the targettime. Also a popup for the calculation of the Efficiency has been added, to show more transparent, how to increase it.
¶ 2020.10.16 Center of mass
I added to all Buildings weights of their buildingResources and added a calculation for the centerOfMass. This is needed for a real calculation of the spinning, gravity and later the big thrusters. It should also force the player to split up all the buildings over the circle. The persons and resourceboxes are also in the calculation. The plan is, to add an overlay to the overview-camera-view where the whole ship is visible, to visualize this values to the player.
I did some visual tests with the new center of mass. The supplyship cannot land with that amount of "wobble", the ship will do. So i searched a bit and had an idea for a new building, to move that center of mass around. The idea is a building, that has a long rope to the outside, to move mass further away from the ship. If controlled correct, these buildings can move their center of mass to adjust a perfect fit of the center of mass. It can act as a storage for Liquids like Water and can hold a lot of it to be able to adjust a lot. As more water is in, as more the building can adjust.
¶ 2020.10.19 Mass Balancer
I finished the MassBalancer Model. The Building is a pump connected to two big barrels. One at the circles ground level and one far away. It can store a lot of water and can pump it between the 2 barrels. The purpose is to regulate the center of mass of the ship, to have a stable spinning-movement for the artificial gravity.
¶ 2020.10.20 Center of Mass Area
While starting implementing, it seems too complex and not needed to do the real pumping. Instead, i decided to just make a "possible Area" where the MassBalancers can move the CenterOfMass. If the center of the circle is inside of that polygon, the spinning will be perfect centered. The screenshot is ingame, so the calculations and visualizations are already working, just needs to be polished a bit.
¶ 2020.10.24 CenterOfMass Overview
I calculated the distance to the possible CenterOfMass-Area and added the icons to the top overview panel, including icons and a distance to the area.
I added a toggle button to the overlay, improved a bit the colors and fixed some bugs with it.
¶ 2020.10.27 Reduced ship size
The last days, i optimized the performance of the Calculation of the CenterOfMass, added caching and other stuff. I also worked on the general performance, due to my testscene with several hunderts of buildings took too many seconds to boot up. I also added a visualization for just 1 Balancer (small triangle in the direction)
After some tests i found out, that the ship seems way too big, and the Balancers needs to have very long arms (300m with full storage and an empty ship). I played a bit with the spinning and radius values and end up at just 50 circle tiles instead of 100. the radius of the ship is than 80m, and the 100m long arms of the mass Balancers have a bigger effect. Due to the generic implementation, it was more or less just working, including the needed changes of the model (other bending radius).
