ZF Alpha Update #13

 

Zenith Frontier v0.2.6.0 has just gone live on Steam. This update is significant, although the extent won’t be obvious for a couple more weekly updates. The focus this time has been on the planetary generation and evolution process.

 

Planetary atmospheres are here. The composition of a planet’s atmosphere is is procedurally generated from the orbital and physical characteristics of the planet and its host star. Gas stability is calculated so that gases such as hydrogen and helium will be retained in the atmospheres of larger and more distant planets such as gas/ice giants but will leak from the atmospheres of closer, smaller, hotter planets. This will later be extended to produce interesting conditions that affect the habitability, such as clouds of sulphuric acid, metallic hydrogen, colouration, tearing winds, etc., that exist on real exoplanets. The gases that can currently exist within a planets atmosphere are: hydrogen, helium, methane, ammonia, water vapour, neon, carbon monoxide, nitric oxide, oxygen, hydrogen sulfide, argon, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, nitrous dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, sulfur trioxide, krypton, and xenon. More gases will be added later that produce interesting gameplay effects.

Bug fixes released today cover attempting to view another planet before the camera has finished returning to the galaxy view; assorted user interface bugs (not including the tooltip bug); and some input errors whilst navigating the launch and main menu screens.

 

We will soon be opening more places on the alpha test team, so if you’re interested then please apply below. No need to apply again if you have previously, we’re just waiting for a space in your assigned testing group.

 
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