Greetings Pioneers!
This week, alongside several big planning meetings and fixes for memory leaks, we have started work on our next sprint and have been continuing work on exciting future features. These include Juggernaut mechanics and cleaning up the upcoming new map, in preparation for their initial releases!
Here is what we’ve been up to:
John – Lead Designer
Planning production for the next steps, new creatures, biomes, features and survival mechanics. There are a lot of things to come, but I’ve taken the time this week to take on board community input with the guys and re-focus our critical tasks for reaching Alpha (feature complete).
Matt – Art Director
Joe and I have teamed up this week to place a much higher density of rocks within the new level. Both destructible and indestructible. A few weeks of clean up on the biomes needs doing before we’ll be comfortable enough to release the first version of this 16 squared kilometer monstrosity. 
Lee – Technical Director
Getting back into my stride with A.I bug fixes after a week out of the studio. Also sorted out a blip with perforce by oiling the cogs on the wheels that power our in house machines.
Tristan – Senior Developer
This week I have been working heavily on design and production with the Grand Master and Co to try and get the next few sprints sorted features wise. I have also been helping out looking into memory leaks as well as some server performance profiling in the Pharus map.
Yves – Senior Developer
Trying to kill a few memory issues, one where multiple people building structures could cause rapid memory consumption due to the Garbage Collector not activating when clearly needed, so we are not reliant on the whims of the GC we now pool the offending objects. I’ve setup a dev server that will be tested over the weekend with these changes to see if at all helps with memory consumption.
Marcin – Designer
Long story, short: I’ve been working on Designs and the Juggernaut attacks. Short story, long: We have been hearing a lot controller support requests from the community recently. 
For a while now we were focusing on making sure we have all the relevant functionality in before we tie it in with the controllers (otherwise we’d have to constantly redesign as new things is added), but now with the fundamentals of inventory in place I was able to have a look at the controller. Have a peek at the initial design, but please bear in mind that anything can still change.
As for the juggernaut attacks, they are are coming along nicely, thanks for asking. :) Because of the size and nature of the creature, they are all pretty much Areas of Effect, which makes them slightly more challenging to do right, but at the same much more impressive. I have another sneak peek for you. So many peeks this week :D
Ricky – Developer
I’ve been sorting through the plans for the next phases of development, currently for myself that’s adding the first pass of gamepad support across the game and menus.
We’re still deciding between gamepad custom rebinding (similar to current Keyboard system) or specific layout rebinding (southpaw, legacy, tactical etc). Let us know if you have any thoughts.
Joe – Environment Artist
This week I took some time to sort out the number of collision issues you’ve all been having with rocks… namely materials falling through the floor (and occasionally the odd pioneer…) as well issues with mantling and walking on them. You should see a big improvement in our next update.
I then moved on to our new map, sorting out underwater biome AI, polishing rock and landscape placement – and adding the odd Easter Egg or two. It’s a long process but hoping to show you the results of our hard work soon! :)
Simone – Concept Artist
This week has been a mixed week of working on pretty pictures and rainbows! Really this week I have been working on bits and pieces that need updates/texture concepts. Also, I’m working on a water purifier to make sure that every sip of Pharus 7 crisp space water will not kill you… mostly! 
Tom – Character Artist
Working on a blockout for another larger enemy beast known as the Seiger!
Lauren – Animator
This week I have been animating the movement for the ‘Elephant’ a creature we should probably choose a real name for soon.
This creature will be of a similar scale to the Juggernaut but not as aggressive. However like elephants, you wouldn’t really want to annoy one of these powerful beasts!
Andy – Lead QA
This week consisted of recovery Monday (God bless bank holidays) and working with Yves to try and nail down a particularly annoying memory leak. I also got to have a little run around in our new map which is looking and feeling amazing.
See you in the fray!
-Team Flix
