The Black Beyond: 0.1.2

New features:

• Added a new slider next to the total count of worker drones. You can now control the percentage of drones assigned permanently to construction or mining. So long as there are projects available, drones will maintain this balance, allowing you to better control your economy.
• Buildings now show previews of connectors so it's more obvious how they connect as you are building. This will be improved more in future iterations!
• New hotkey added: tap "delete" to toggle deletion. Added a new cursor to show when the player is deleting.
• Updated possible connections on storage buildings

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed issue where drones would leave deconstruction projects immediately while progress continued
• Fixed deletion of structures not finishing properly; fixed miners not being released after alloy refinery deletion.
• Fixed issue with tutorial being stuck - I will soon revamp the entire "tutorial" system as it is rather ugly now
• Fixed issue with build menu not closing completely and sometimes preventing tooltips from showing after being closed
• Prevent player from deleting their home core
• Drones now orbit around asteroids as they mine

Misc:

• Added butler to command line build process to help automate updates
• Added a linux build

Thanks so much to everyone that's provided feedback so far! This update might not add a bunch of new stuff, but I hope to ramp up progress now that I've incorporated itch into my automated build process. Yay!

Mainly, this update improves the drone workforce by enabling you to prioritize building or mining. Access this by clicking on the small arrow next to the drone display.

This gives you a much better ability to control your economy -- move the slider over to "mining" and your drones will continue to supply as many refineries as possible no matter how many build projects. This allows you to avoid "stalls" by quickly recalling builders.

Next week...

There's still a whole lot of cleanup and bug fixes to do. Rotating buildings could be easier, and some auto-snapping might be helpful. I still need to revamp the save/load UI and functionality.

I will be adding new structures and mechanics in the coming updates. I am thinking about introducing farming and trade as important middle/late game elements.

It would be especially fun to watch worker drones harvest endless vats of space kelp. It would also give the player yet another reason to expand their drone fleet.

Over time, I think I will move the game more towards peaceful concepts like farming, creating more exotic goods, and trade. This means I may deemphasize or remove combat.

Any thoughts are appreciated, and thanks again for taking the time to play my game!