Sine Fine 0.2: new gameplay features

I am pleased to present you the latest updates in terms of gameplay features in Sine Fine! You can see a showcase of the new gameplay systems in the video below, or directly on YouTube in 4k.

What’s new?

In this version, I have been busy with integrating various systems in the main game. You can now design ships by connecting together some components (not representative of final art), in a Kerbal-like experience. You can save these designs to disk and build them via the in-game Assemble command. You will see a list of “shipyards” you have built all across the Solar System, and from there you can add building orders to the build queue. Ships built will actually display in the Solar System screen and you can command them around.

Core gameplay loop

You can also get a glimpse of what will be the core gameplay loop of the game. Through the Scan screen you will see a list of explored and unexplored star systems. You will need to direct your search efforts towards those that are more likely to have conditions suitable for human life. In the future, how far you will be able to scan, how long it will take, and the quality and clarity of the information you receive will depend on in-game factors such as your technology level, the infrastructure you have built, etc.

Once a system has been “scanned”, you can inspect it by accessing it from the galaxy map (see the video). The game will procedurally generate a set of planets, using the procedure described in an earlier post. Currently you will see every planet that is generated. In the game, this will again depend on your technology level. Smaller planets will be harder to detect. You will also get false positives and some planets might be missing. The only way to know is to send an actual interstellar probe towards it.

Once you will have “eyes” on the Star System, even if the planet you thought might be in the habitable zone is revealed to not be suitable for human habitation, it will still be worth to build a foothold on an extrasolar system, by building an outpost. Think more like a real-world base in Antarctica rather than a bona fide “colony” planet like in other 4x games. Right now, the game features some “observation points” in the Solar System where you can actually go to the surface. In the future, this will be used to display the base-building aspect of the game, with the unique interpretation of Sine Fine: as the game will take into account the time-delay, this implies a more hands off approach. I wrote about it earlier.

What is coming next?

There are some exciting developments coming soon! Next on the horizon is the development of the “lore” of the game. We ultimately want to tell a hard sci-fi story, not just build an “Excel in space”. We will focus on the factions that you will be able to play as and get a taste of the story: Who built the Sine Fine supercomputer? What happened to humanity? Are we all alone in the galaxy? Find the answer in Sine Fine!