Dear explorers,

 

This month’s devlog will be a shorter one, but it’s definitely the most impactful to date.

 

While working on the Steam page, I took a hard look at our temporary planet sprite assets and the temporary flat maps and decided that they wouldn’t fit the bill. So I went on a quest to make procedurally generated, nice-looking 3D planets.

 

 

I had a proof of concept quickly, relying on classic processor-side algorithms. But the generation time just wasn’t acceptable. So I set myself to learn how to use graphics cards to execute this kind of calculation really fast with something called compute shaders. And boy, was that hard! But I’ve now got very respectable performance, and I’ve made it as flexible as possible so that it’s easy to fine-tune and create better-looking planets.

 

The planets are generated by first creating tectonic plates and then layering noise on top. This lets us have realistic mountain ranges and continent shapes, while still keeping the natural randomness you’d expect to see in diverse regions.

 

 

Still on my to-do list: generating regions and provinces with borders and cities to make the planets actually usable. Later on, I also want to generate proper biomes based on temperature, wind, and precipitation (right now, biomes are assigned using latitude with a bit of randomness). I’ll also need to find a way to add rivers, and incorporate more detailed geographic features. But that’s all non-essential for now.

 

On the art side of things, we’ll have to wait for next month to share actual results. Life made the process a bit longer than expected, but I’ll keep you informed as soon as possible.

 

 

The biggest thing I’ve worked on this month is an actual release strategy. To be succinct: my estimated development time for Uncharted Sectors is 4 years. Which is a very long time to work on a game without much support or financing. I’m determined and resourceful, but even taking that into account, it makes for a very hazardous project to jump head-first into. At the moment, I don’t have actual experience in releasing games, and it’s not the best market either, so chances are I cannot find a publisher.

 

So I scratched my head, again and again, and in the end found a way. Since grand strategy games are basically 4+ games on top of each other under a trench coat, I might be able to take those, make them work out on their own, and release them along the way. This approach offers several benefits: I can gain experience publishing actual products, generate funding by selling these standalone games, get feedback about core systems while polishing them, and build a community around the Uncharted Sectors universe.

 

Sure, if I’m to make good games out of these components, I’ll have to work on some specific features and content just for those smaller games, and the big one won’t directly benefit from it. But on the other hand, if I prove that I can make good games and actually release them, I might be able to find a publisher and hire a team to make the project faster and/or better. And most importantly, Uncharted Sectors will benefit greatly from all the work and feedback on the core systems 🙂

 

The plan is still to put up the Steam page for Uncharted Sectors as soon as possible, but my mid-term goal will be to use the economic system to make a “small” game about trading and logistics lines. A kind of higher-scale Transport Tycoon: Space Far West, if you will.

 

We already have a good part of that complex economic simulation done: pops working in buildings, buildings producing goods, and goods being sold and consumed in various markets. Adding independent traders was on the indispensable list of features, to allow your markets to get what they don’t produce without you fiddling with individual trade routes.

 

Well, in what I hope is less than a year, you will be able to play as one of those traders, shaping markets through deals and deliveries. People might flourish or starve thanks to your actions, factories could crush their competitors through mutually profitable deals signed with you, and entire worlds might be destabilized, with governments falling because of your economic influence. In a world of fragile economies, your trade empire could help worlds flourish, or spiral into chaos.

 

I’d be very interested in your thoughts about that plan. If you’re willing to share them, hit reply and let me know!

 

—

Luc Toupense
Developer of Uncharted Sectors