lots of fixes & enhancements

[JoeStrout]

It's been a busy week!  Here are some issues we have resolved since 0.21:

#179: People don't appear in a new colony until it is reloaded
#181: "HEO Settler" awarded for building in LEO
#182: Tone down some of the city part sounds (and fix initial load)
#183: Crazy export revenue
#184: Pink flash when planting trees
#185: Water icons not appearing
#187: Change sounds when things go bad

Great stuff.  We're not ready to release 0.22 quite yet, as we still have some other items on our to-do list, and will probably find a few more in QA while testing the changes above.  But, soon!  We can probably get these improvements to you next week.

Cheers,
- Joe

[DerekM]

Hi Joe. Here are some idea's and thoughts. While playing I noticed that once you place an orbital you can't add anything to it anymore. In real life, once you were able to one would want to make modifications to a structure. Fuel tanks, space junk and meteor defense, new energy source, etc. Also, I found myself wondering, where are the water storage tanks or rather storage tanks period. You have to have a someplace to store clean water for the population and someplace to store fuel to refuel ships as well as thrusters used to maintain position in orbit or even change orbit to avoid a hazard such as space junk, etc. For instance tanks for He3, Hydrogen isotopes, ionic fuels. etc. Should also be able to have an industrial ring or something for industry that population can't be exposed to but you must have.

[JoeStrout]

Those are some good ideas, thank you!

Making any major changes to a habitat once it's built and inhabited would be difficult. But I do agree that you could at least bolt some new things on to the non-rotating parts. But that would affect the center of gravity and could have cascading effects on the positioning of your thrusters, etc... it's a pretty big deal. Plus, we're trying to limit scope creep. So, that's why we haven't done anything about modifying the structure of a colony after it's built.

And you're right, storage tanks and some other such infrastructure are not shown, though you can build things like water treatment plants. It is presumed that there is a network of pipes in the ground/floor which carries water from place to place, and also sufficient storage for holding whatever's not currently in circulation, but that storage is not actually shown or simulated.

We'll discuss those ideas... please keep 'em coming!