Development on Chiron Gate continues. This month I’ve mostly been adding more planet traits and events.
New planet traits
I’ve added a couple of dozen new planet traits, including gasbag lifeforms that float in a planet’s atmosphere, and alien space stations that orbit high above.
I’ve rewritten the code for exploring planet traits to be more flexible. If exploring a visible trait reveals several secret traits then the game will put together a passage describing all of them, rather than showing you passages one after another.
I’ve also increased the number of traits the game uses to model alien civilisations’ technology. There’s now a set of traits representing a linear progression of ages (bronze, iron, etc.), and also a few traits representing technologies a civ of a certain age might or might not have (e.g. an Information age civ could have atomic energy or have achieved orbit, but not necessarily.)
New events
The new events include new interactions with alien civilisations. They will now sometimes initiate contact with you rather than passively waiting to be contacted:
Or they might shoot missiles at you as soon as you try to land:
There’s also a new set of events that trigger when you make a gateway journey. Many of these provide opportunities to gain Wormhole Physics data, which was otherwise a bit too rare:
Finally, there’s some new opportunity-with-risk planet events, including one that can lead to possibly the saddest event outcome in the game.
My focus for next month will be to continue adding new content, as well as making minor changes to game mechanics. (One thing I’m planning is to have certain traits marked as “orbital”, which means you can explore them without landing first.)
That’s all for this month. Thanks for your continued support, and I should have another dev blog for you just before Christmas.