The Great Space Station Redesign

I'm changing gears and getting back to work on graphics, which isn't my favorite thing in the world but it's going well (if slowly) and providing a refreshing change from input & UI work.

Input System Refinements Complete

The final push was more work than expected, but I think everything's working now. There are still a few things I'd like to add, but those can wait for a post full release update some time in the year 3003. The UI is nothing to write home about, but considering how bad I am at UI, I think it's more than passable.

A New Space Station in the Works

With the updated input system finished, it's time to move on to graphics. This update is turning out to be pretty slim in terms of new features and gameplay, and to make up for that I want to put a little extra effort into making the game look better. So, deep breath, I'm finally doing it: I'm redesigning the space stations.

I've been putting this off for a few reasons: first, I'm going to have to do it again eventually with the province updates. Second, it's always a huge pain changing anything that's been in the game for so long, forcing me to revisit old code and untangle my own spaghetti. And finally, because I hate fucking with graphics. But who knows how many years away those province updates are, and this is some pretty low-hanging fruit in terms of making the game look better, so I decided to take the plunge.

And you know what? I don't hate it this time! I'm starting with redesigning the exterior of the small platform stations and I'm actually pretty happy with how it's going.

This is a work in progress. There's still a lot of work to do, visually and otherwise. You can't actually dock with it yet, but I made the landing platform significantly smaller, requiring a much more precise landing and hopefully providing a little bit of a challenge.

Landing Platform Size Comparison

Coming Up Next

Once I finish this station, I'll be redoing the exterior design of the other two station sizes as well. I don't expect to get through more than that this month. I want to redesign the interiors as well, but before that I'll probably revisit the planet generator and get the rest of the planets and moons up to par. That'll all be a lot of work, but I want to be able to focus on gameplay & simulation in the next few updates so getting all of this out of the way will free me up to do that without the game looking like shit in the meantime.