Stationmaster 0.9: Exo Market and QoL

Sorry held back on making clothing because I didnt see your comment,will look for some insperation on the net and get a few too you shortly.

Mark Ford

I would describe the artistic style as "chrome clusterfuck," with some cyberpunk influences. Honestly, my reliance on asset store content has prevented me from picking up a consistent style for clothing, but the male clothes in game are in the style I would use if I could choose one. I think the most useful thing right now would be outfits for "civilian" women. Morph3D doesn't have any equivalent to the male clothes that are in game, and it would be nice to have women dress in something other than modern-day outfits. The problem with the sci-fi clothes for women in the store is that they mostly have a leotard, which, on top of being a bit impractical-looking, stops you from independently stripping pants/shirt.

StationmasterDev

Yeah, MCS is the second most broken Unity package I've worked with, after UMA. I was surprised too, because DAZ is a pretty reputable company. As for the outfits, Thanks! Go wild. As long as it isn't too thematically disjointed, I'd be happy for any new content. I'd be happy to include the slave dress you sent over as well (and, just like that, indirect mod support for clothing was implemented).

StationmasterDev

if you want to see a massive problem, try adjusting the morphs by draging a morph value up, I was doing this to test the clothing within a couple of minutes unity crashed, my music player crashed, firefox locked up and then windows black screened. considering this is supposed to be made by good people the whole thing is amateur to be honest. And let me know if you would like me to do some better outfits, I get bored programming my own project and often need a break.

Mark Ford

My suspicion is that MCS keeps part of the old mesh somewhere when you update blend shapes, but I was also leaking memory in my code by creating material instances and not disposing them correctly (fixed in my dev system). The first memory update I did bypassed morphs on the in-station characters, which decreased memory usage by a pretty significant amount. The next memory optimization will likely be to destroy and re-instantiate the selected character model each time it is switched.

StationmasterDev

Dont sweat it, FYI test skirts incomming later tonight. The memory leek in MCS is horrible though, I will also look at if that can be fixed for them, although its quite hard to leek memory in unity. Ever thought of using a pool system for people it isnt a fix but it may well get around it.

Mark Ford

Thanks! I have also had a generally unhappy time getting things to work in MCS. That's a good tip about the memory leak though. I think I'm going to experiment with deleting and recreating the high-res avatars at intervals. Unfortunately, the only other character engine I found that has proper Unity integration was UMA, which is substantially less stable and has a smaller library of available content.

StationmasterDev

Just an update on the clothes, I configured all the tools for mcs modeling and made several item. However you have too put them through mcs artist tools for mapping, weighting and morphing. Everything works fine in the tools, but when putting them into unity none of the morphs work. it all equips and animates fine, but without morphs there of no use. there is little documentation for mcs tools and the devs dont seem to have been on the forum in over a year. I will have a look again when I have free time but atm I am totaly stuck. Also you should know that, whilst useing the mcs stuff I noticed everytime it recalculate the bounds it leaks memory, enough during a 2 hour sesion to totaly stop my unity. I will update when I try again.

Mark Ford

Thank you! I've added it to the list for 0.10.

StationmasterDev

Bug alert! After usage of "Decrease age" button I have "Obedient" = 19.0000152587891 in slave list. Need to round value somewhere.

That's sort of what I'm going for in the "Mod Support" voting option. My intention with mods is to open it up to writers as much as possible, and contact mod authors to ask for permission to roll their work into the game (likely with some edits) on a case-by-case basis. I don't think I'm going to charge extra for the opportunity to help me out though; that seems backwards. I would love it if I could just give free subscriptions to people who help out with development, but Patreon doesn't have a system for that, so the plan is to maintain a separate "helpers" Discord channel where I would distribute beta links and the like.

StationmasterDev

Just had a quick idea that may help you and us. More events would be nice, why not open it to one of your higher tiers, so people could send you events they have written and once a month you would pick one or more you best feel fits the game, although you would loose a little creative control. Personaly I cant write anything half as good as you have already, but I know there are a lot of talented people out there.

Mark Ford

For now they're only in that marketplace. The 4x update adds them to the galaxy, and allows you to genocide your own planets and set up breeding colonies.

StationmasterDev

just a quick question, is the stuff from "Exo Market" on planets as well or can you only find them in that marketplace.

Mark Ford

That sounds fun. I think I'll add the porn stuff to the "club" voting option in the next round (it was looking a little light).

StationmasterDev

I have thought of a few ideas you might be interested in to add further entertainment for the tourists. A strip club with dance poles, bars, personal dance rooms and VIP area (for multiple slaves) Porn studio to create porn movies of various ratings. The movie could be rated using a star system, the higher the amount of stars the more the movie will earn you. For example +1 star for taking virginity. +1 star for being celebrity/VIP. Movie theatre for showing your movies to the tourists. Different seating options for lower class to higher class. International movie sales, to sell the porn to other planets for a set monthly fee, depending on the movies rating.

good point. I will have a bash tomorrow at a few bits and package them up with CC0 licence.

Mark Ford

I'd be an idiot to turn down free art. Thanks! I'd be happy to add any clothes you make into the game. My real problem is that I don't have a character art background at all, and I would have to get much better at that before the ability to adapt models for MCS would become relevant. As far as licensing goes, it would be best for me if you officially said they were licensed under Creative Commons 0. That stops me from having to reveal my name by signing a contract, and shields me from liability over using your IP (not that I don't trust you, but it's better safe than sorry when it comes to anything legal). If you have any objections to that, let me know.

StationmasterDev

NP. I've been working in game dev for around 30 years, I understand the problems. Regarding what you said earlier about clothes, I had a quick browse of mcs and it isnt that difficult to make things. Check this out if you want, you cant use it as it has no lods etc, and fitting is a little rough. But I would love some skirts in the game lol. Ill even make them for you, totaly free,no comitment etc I just want skirts. This is an adaption from makehuman, so its rough. took about 20 miins. <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17s_QqX2_6MtiruPn3KOyuAdK5mvwiFCZ/view?usp=sharing" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://drive.google.com/file/d/17s_QqX2_6MtiruPn3KOyuAdK5mvwiFCZ/view?usp=sharing</a>

Mark Ford

Thanks! You know what they say, move fast and break things. I'll check into the Ataran eye-tracking code. Odd that it would only happen to them, but I've seen stranger bugs. Dead zones have been the bane of my existence since the beginning of development. I'll check it, and I'm pretty sure I know what the problem is. I think I might lighten the dark skin a little in the next update. Will add a sell button to the "new slave" screen in the next patch. I've fixed the issue with the missing details in my dev environment, but it seemed minor enough that it can wait for the 4X beta/release. Thanks for reporting though.

StationmasterDev

If it does become more gentle, it will only affect slaves from certain markets (likely just Slaves, Inc, The Breeders' Show, and maybe an event to optionally change obedient to devoted). I agree that the game shouldn't get too friendly though

StationmasterDev

Just a couple of small bits for you, Ataran I think it was seems to have eye tracking problems. it started completly cross eyed, then i think they actualy reversed also eyes seem to set back in the skulls. Next might be just my problem, but i have a dead spot on the station map, Left and up a bit from the start position, 2 across by about 5 up, cant build anything in that spot ot left and up from it. Love the diffrent skins but the Dark skin is very hard to see on base map. Also regarding sales the sell all might be helpfull, but I like to see what I have caught, so for me at least a sell button on the individuals screen after the group one would work better. Also on that screen after you return from space the first person you look at has no details at all, only happened in this version. Otherwise just wanted to say "Hell your working fast"

Mark Ford

No need to make the game more gentle. There are many games out there that take the gentle approach, this is one of the main things that separates this game from others. I think the direction your heading with this game is perfect. Keep it up, looking forward to the next update.

seconded

Buckey

Enjioying this so far, though it's far too harsh for my taste I know it's early in development. Some things I'd like to see for my $1, not all realistically possible.... - different ways to earn income (I don't share, so would like to be able to send my girls to work somewhere other than a brothel; my game has endless restaurants, which seems enough to keep the tourists happy) - more clothing options (different outfits, different colours) - viable voluntary (non-force/rape) acquisition - surgery/hormone setting on acquisition - more information on what the different upgrades do - layout to matter (prob requires pathfinding) - more challenge on the station map (Dungeon keeper style assaults?)

Someone Else

As I replied to Sam, I can't replicate this at all. Could you please tell me what you were doing before the error? Also, what are your system specifications?

StationmasterDev

I can't replicate this on my machine at all. Could you please tell me what steps led to the error? I tried going back and forth to the galaxy map, and saving/loading the game. Did it start out that way? Also, what are your system specs? That might help me narrow it down.

StationmasterDev

Is that the latex? If so, I might tweak it a bit to make it more matte

StationmasterDev

the black clothes on the women is really black. its almost imposible to see anyting than black many times. well that is my tought off it

Interesting. I didn't see that on my machine. I'll check that out. Is it only after going to the Galaxy map?

StationmasterDev

i have red eyes on the charaters so yeah, same problem.

Is anyone else not able to see anyone's eyeballs? Looks like it might be a texture/shader issue?

RocketNowWow