Making progress on Project Tree

[JoeStrout]

That's right, "Project Tree."  We're not calling it a tech tree because many of the nodes in it do not represent new technologies, but rather projects that must be done in order to open up capability.

For example, right now in the year 2015 we have the technology to put a station at L1, or even on the Moon... we just haven't done it yet.  That would be a project.

So anyway, we have created a new mod format for adding projects to the game, and we use this internally for all the standard mods.  It's a simple text file containing stuff like this:

Code:

{    shortName: FuelDepot
    displayName: Fuel Depot
}

{    shortName: NEARetrieval
    displayName: NEA Retrieval
    benefit: LowerCost
}

{    shortName: NukePower
    displayName: Nuclear Power
    benefit: NewPart
}

{    shortName: L1Station
    displayName: L1 Station
    benefit: NewOrbit
    prereqs: { FuelDepot }
}

All this data gets read by the game, and assembled into a project tree, which is then laid out in the UI.  Currently it looks like this:



And soon you'll be able to click any node, read more detail about it, see what its dependencies are, and (if you have enough experience points, or XP) decide to do it.

I think this next version (0.20) is going to be one of our biggest updates ever... we're really excited about it!

[JoeStrout]

More progress...

[Specialist290]

Awesome I'll be looking forward to seeing it in the next release.