Earendel

Space Elevator Testing

The space elevator is in closed testing (on discord) at the moment. I've been avoiding making too much noise about that because while the bugs are easy to find it doesn't help having lots of people testing, it just takes longer to read through all the same feedback. The problems and process is quite interesting though, so is worth talking about.

So how does it work?

The elevator links a planet or moon to the corresponding orbit. There is part of the elevator on ea...

Space Elevator Progress

The space elevator is big, really big. It's about 26 tiles wide, which means a lot of pixels to fill. It is also highly detailed, and detail work takes a long time. 

A task like this, working at the highest quality, could take a long time even working full time, so there's no way I can do that. What I can do is shift some of the work from 3D to 2D by just painting on some details, and that is most of what I'm doing now. Even so it is taking a while because I can't work on this full...

Space Elevator WIP

The space elevator has been quite difficult to design. This is the progress so far. There are still things that I'm not quite happy with yet, but the things I want to try will be faster to do in 3d than 2d. 

There are some more structural parts to add, then electronics boxes, lots of pipes, and then a whole load of detail work before the model is done. After that it's the usual texturing, animating, rendering pipeline. It might not be obvious from the screenshot, but the structure ...

I'm a Factorio developer now!

So as mentioned in the latest FFF, I'm Wube's new concept artist: https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-365

So what does this mean for my mods and other works?

Two main things have changed.

First. 

Over the last (5 years?) of developing mods, the major Factorio updates have caused some really big problems for mod development. The biggest standout was whichever version chan...

Chests to Warehouses

I've resisted adding new larger containers for a while because there are some standalone mods that already provide these tools to you. The problem is that I find they don't match the style of the rest of the game.

I'm not really sure why, but a little while ago I just felt inspired to make a set of larger containers that are based directly on the game's own containers and other assets. 

The examples here are the logistic storage set: 

Storage Chest (1x1)

Stor...

Unnamed Ship Nose Variations

For a long time I've intended to add some "flying craft" to the list of vehicles I've made.  

I'm avoiding saying aircraft because it's essentially an atmospheric capable thrustercraft / spaceship, and I'm avoiding saying spaceship because if you don't have Space Exploration installed it would be limited to flying in the air. 

Regardless of the classification, this thing is based on the crashed ship at the start of Factorio freeplay. I've blocked ou...

"I got my missile launcher right here."

Some times it is hard to focus on what I'm supposed to be doing so I start working on some side content early, just because I feel like doing that sort of activity.

This is a half-done missile turret.

You may notice that this post does not have the "Space Exploration" tag, and that is no accident. The missile turret will fit into the SE tech tree, but it won't be part of SE directly. Initially it may be part of AAI Industry, however the long-term plan is to split AAI Industry in...

Manglefly

Space Exploration 0.3.+ on the mod portal!

I started working on bits for the resource update about a year ago. I knew from the start it would need to be kept separate from the other continuous Space Exploration updates because of the way it would change the universe resource balance.  I was expecting it would take about 6 months, but it ended up taking a year. 

So why did it take so long?

Resource distribution system and recipe balance are the main reasons. 

The single biggest delay was the universe co...

A bit of audio work

Audio work is one of those things that I only seem to do once a year, maybe less.  I usually end up forgetting how to use whatever program I used the last time and have to learn as I go each time. Fortunately I've always managed to make what I want relatively quickly because the program I use most (Audacity) is quite intuitive for what I'm doing.

I'm usually making sound effects, and it is the same in this case. I'm not going to say exactly what it is for, but it is Space Explorati...

3D Modelling Milestone

This is a control interface addon for a secret part of the Space Exploration end game content. It may not look like much right now but it is quite significant. If everything goes to plan then this untextured model represents the last of the 3D modelling required for the end-game puzzle content.   There's still a lot to do obviously, but it's a good place to be, because from this point onward there's a lot less uncertainty in the timeframe. 

I find that the programming sid...

Geometric structure detected

Another update for the surface exploration part of Space Exploration.

Space Exploration Resources

Here are the planned resources for the Space Exploration resource update. 

Vulcanite: Mainly found on volcanic planets, used in advanced material refining, alternate rocket fuel, and improved incendiaries. 

Cryonite: Mainly found on ice planets, can be used for cheap thermofluid, cold-based weapons, and some more advanced technology.

Naquium: Only found in deep space, required for deep space science and ultra-late game tech,

<...

Glyph Cartouche Design

The exploration and investigation side of the Space Exploration mod calls for two types of cartouche.  Each will encapsulate a set of glyphs with special meaning. There will be many pairs of these scattered across planets and moons, some will need to be explored, investigated and understood as part of a grand puzzle to unlock the final secrets.

These 3D models are the current designs for the cartouche  templates. There are no textures or materials yet (and the left template ha...

Mysterious object in space

A top secret teaser image for what will be the Space Exploration end game. This is a test render for the ring (WIP), but it probably won't be in this state when you find it.  

Grappling Gun

In Factorio you can't jump. Most of what you'd want to jump over is quite large like a building, or a water crossing. Jumping that far wouldn't be that realistic anyway, but what if you had a grappling gun? 

Jump over buildings, cross short sections of water, catch yourself if you fall off a space station, and more. 

Coming soon. 

Space Exploration closed testing begins

Closed testing of my new mod Space Exploration starts this weekend. Apply in my discord channel: https://discord.gg/ymjUVMv

There are a limited number of testing slots available, priority goes to Patreon supporters. 

Recycling Facility

Another machine for the Space Exploration Mod.

Design for the Thruster Suit

Paths update for AAI Programmable Vehicles

I just released the Paths & Waypoints update that I've been working on for the last few months.

Check it out here:

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/aai-programmable-vehicles

Earendel's DISCORD is now live

Come and say Hi! 

https://discord.gg/ymjUVMv

Some old artwork

I needed something for the Patreon background and this was around the right size. So if anyone is wondering what it is, it's a robot dinosaur in the shape of a Spinosaurus. It was created as part of a creature creations challenge on CGHub (when it existed) where we had to create some kind of robotic dinosaurs.