05-19-2016, 08:07 AM
This one is taking a long time! But, we're making steady progress.
![[Image: SlBS44C.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/SlBS44C.jpg)
This release is going to introduce emergencies & disaster response. But that means we need a way to calculate (and for you to see) what areas are most susceptible to fire or crime, and while we're at it, we're calculating land values too (since those are all interrelated). So we've developed heat-map style overlays you can turn on and off via the Statistics palette Econ tab, as shown above.
When an emergency does happen, you'll get a notification that includes an event marker. When the emergency location is on screen, the marker points right at it; otherwise, it points in the direction of the event so you can quickly find it. Then you can dispatch fire-fighters, police, or engineers to the scene (the dispatch call is represented by a big flashing beacon, which is that lamppost-looking thing in the screen shot below).
![[Image: UZVvWQU.png]](http://i.imgur.com/UZVvWQU.png)
The police beacon shown here actually causes the nearest police cruiser to come investigate.
So, great progress! But there is still a lot to do: the police investigation doesn't actually help in any way (no comments about that being realistic, please!); crimes don't actually happen yet unless you trigger them with a console command; and there are no fire or impact disasters yet. Fire should be especially interesting because we will want to render flames and smoke on the affected building, and have it spread to nearby structures if you don't contain it quickly enough.
Fortunately, summer vacation's almost here, which means my workforce will increase a bit! We're going to work really hard on polishing up High Frontier over the next few months.
Please keep playing, and let us know what features or improvements you most want to see!
This release is going to introduce emergencies & disaster response. But that means we need a way to calculate (and for you to see) what areas are most susceptible to fire or crime, and while we're at it, we're calculating land values too (since those are all interrelated). So we've developed heat-map style overlays you can turn on and off via the Statistics palette Econ tab, as shown above.
When an emergency does happen, you'll get a notification that includes an event marker. When the emergency location is on screen, the marker points right at it; otherwise, it points in the direction of the event so you can quickly find it. Then you can dispatch fire-fighters, police, or engineers to the scene (the dispatch call is represented by a big flashing beacon, which is that lamppost-looking thing in the screen shot below).
The police beacon shown here actually causes the nearest police cruiser to come investigate.
So, great progress! But there is still a lot to do: the police investigation doesn't actually help in any way (no comments about that being realistic, please!); crimes don't actually happen yet unless you trigger them with a console command; and there are no fire or impact disasters yet. Fire should be especially interesting because we will want to render flames and smoke on the affected building, and have it spread to nearby structures if you don't contain it quickly enough.
Fortunately, summer vacation's almost here, which means my workforce will increase a bit! We're going to work really hard on polishing up High Frontier over the next few months.
Please keep playing, and let us know what features or improvements you most want to see!
Joe Strout
Lead Developer, High Frontier