Hello!

I've seen Rodina on steam, and it really looks nice. However, most of the reviews I've read are not super useful as they boil down to 'oeee pretty, oeeeh you can land on planets'. 

Of course that's great and immersive, but I'm wondering about gameplay. Are there already things to do to keep you busy, or is it currently limited to flying around, some combat and seeing pretty planets.

I'm fully aware it's early access, and it already looks great, but I'm kind of wondering if there's already 'meat on the bones' or not 🙂

Thanks, and keep up the great work!

I'm fully aware it's early access, and it already looks great, but I'm kind of wondering if there's already 'meat on the bones' or not 🙂

Hey Waervyn - so, Rodina has SOME meat on the bones (there's space combat, fires in your ship, some interactive stuff, etc), but of course that's the biggest place where I need to expand.

I would say right now the reviews are so positive because when you play, it's really easy to just wander around and imagine what the game will be like once more stuff is added to it. It really get's the imagination going.

BTW- there's no need to wonder about this stuff. I have a free demo of the game for exactly this reason! Just download and see for yourself 🙂

Thanks for the reply!

Sorry to ask, what is the aim you have with the game in the future?

According to the description on your site it's mostly exploring and combat.

While I like exploring in a sense, exploring for the sake of exploring gets old quickly (oeeeh, this planet is blue, while the other one was red!). This is exactly the reason I think No Man's Sky is going to be terribly boring after the first 2 hours. 

In Rodina's case, what will keep exploring fresh? Furthermore, will there be things like in depth trading (stockmarkets etc.), planet colonization or other things, or is it mostly focused at combat and exploration?

Thanks again, and sorry for playing the difficult customer 😛

This game keeps looking better and better, and Morrowind was one of my all-time favorites!

I don't play Early Access games (I'm kind of an odd duck that way), but I'm eagerly awaiting Rodina's completion. 🙂

Sorry to ask, what is the aim you have with the game in the future?

......

Furthermore, will there be things like in depth trading (stockmarkets etc.), planet colonization or other things, or is it mostly focused at combat and exploration?

Yeah! So my ambition for the game is essentially infinite, haha 🙂 And since I'm just one man with limited capabilities, it's really hard to say with authority what the game will become for sure.

My goal is to make "Daggerfall in Space" - a seemless RPG type game with cities, factions, with mafia bosses and used spaceship salesmen.

Right now, though, the big short term goal is NPC combat- specifically boarding enemy ships and taking them over. It'll be a slow proces - I'm hoping to start with very simple NPC allies next, then incrementally add more and more features until you can blow an enemy airlock and run into their ship guns blazing. Once that's done, I can work on proper settlements, more RPG / gameworld simulation features. Who knows. Game development is an organic process, and features get thrown out / changed / added / repurposed. What I can promise to stand behind is the general vision - a gigantic, immersive, procedural, viscerally fun RPG in space!

New vote up for Rodina.

Think I will go for the robot babies one this time.

 

 

Think I will go for the robot babies one this time.

Why not moons?

Why not moons?

As Brenden say in the video the robot babies are the first step to introducing NPC and crew bots for the ship.

Moons are just bigger asteroids.

Results of the vote.

 

The votes are in, and the results aren’t surprising! Anyone who followed the poll on the Steam forums saw that there was one option that was the clear favorite:

Robot Babies!

The final results of the Bossypants voters was:

* Robot Babies: 95

* Multi-Story Interiors: 25

* Moons: 35

That’s the main vote so it determined the winner! However we also got a huge response via other venues. The total from the non-official poll was:

* Robot Babies: 66

* Multi-Story Interiors: 10

* Moons: 16

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who participated! We had an amazing turnout for this vote. I’m really really excite to get these little guys in the game. I really feel like, in a year or two, we’ll look back at this as an important moment for Rodina! Thanks guys!!

Be interesting to see where this goes.

New update on the blog about line of sight for the NPC. https://elliptic-games.com/?p=988

 

Work on the Robot Babies begins in earnest! Since the vote wrapped up, I’ve begun implementing basic NPC features, like Line of Sight. This is one of the game systems that figures out what the character is capable of seeing.

If you’d like to see progress, check out the dev branch on Steam and type “MakeRobot()” into the console to create a dummy robot character. Now every character (including the player) will get a white “vision cone” showing what you can see. The system will also show the lines of sight between the character’s eyes and the various objects in their room. Green means they can see it, red means that they can’t!

The system isn’t perfect by a long stretch, but I think it should be fine for what these babies are going to need to do!

Two blogs updates in a week, nice https://elliptic-games.com/?p=993 this ones about adding mods

 

I just updated the Dev branch with an experiment that I’ve been working on: better Mod support for Rodina!

The big concepts:

* Rodina now creates a “Mods” folder

* Players no longer need to manually copy, overwrite, or backup files to install a mod. Simply place the folder containing the mod in the “Mods” directory and run the game

* Each mod can have its own Data folder, Script folder (all matching the layout for the main game). The game will automatically load these assets and, in some cases use them rather than the original game assets.

I tested this with a handful of mods and some of them work perfectly as is. A few won’t work with the new system yet, but there’s nothing stopping you from installing a mod the old way.

Internally, this involves big changes to the way scripts load. I’m positive that these changes will cause bugs. That’s why they remain experimental and in the dev branch for now. I welcome feedback from modders, and also any bug reports about things suddenly not working!

You can find some of the mods for  the game here http://www.nexusmods.com/rodina/mods/categories/? about time some made a better ship model for the game.

Seems to having some site issues at the moment, check the blog. also posted this funny video by nerd3.

New update on the blog about the robots.

 

August 10, 2015

Hey folks! New Steam Dev Branch update to keep you up-to-date on what I’m working on!

* Wandering Robots: the robots, while still majorly in-progress, now have autonomous random movement. They can wander around your ship without getting stuck on walls or doors. Try them out with the “MakeRobot()” console command.

* Lots of major physics fixes related to the major refactoring from last time. Thanks to everyone for bug reports!

* Enemies ship groups should no longer respawn. You can clear planets now! (this was buggy before- let me know how it goes! Look for respawning, planets having way too many enemies, etc)

As usual, this update may be buggy and is only for info and testing purposes!

I know it may not look like it but I’m making great progress on the robots. After this I’m just working on fun robot stuff – animation, behaviors, sound FX, etc! Very exciting!

Couple of new updates.

First off one about the robots

 

The Robot Babies are going great! Getting closer to release on these guys. Basic NPC features are mostly done and now I’m moving onto “flavor” features. Current work: Eyes!

My goal is for the Bots to have expressive, varied eyes, so I decided to create them procedurally. Very excited to see them bring these little guys to life even more!

And the second one about a new Blender exporter.

 

Those of you who have used the Blender Exporter (from the Modding Resources page) know that it was kinda janky and needed some work. Thankfully, a volunteer stepped forward to improve it! The lovely Mark van Dijk worked with me to add some much-need features. Now you no longer need to edit the script file before installing, and you have the option to only export selected objects or to do the entire scene.

This new version is for Blender version 2.74 or above.

You can download the new exporter directly here. Thank you for your help Mark!!

We might start seeing more ships ect for the game.

Bots are now in the dev branch of the game.

 

Hey guys! I’m here with what I believe will be the last Dev update for this milestone. This time I have a ton of changes, many of which are behind the scenes. Some of it has to do with the Bots though:

* Randomized Bot parts – now when you call MakeRobot() from the console, the bots will be randomized! It’s not polished up yet but it’s fun to see a variety of robots pop out at once 🙂

* Robots animate slightly and look around as they wander.

* There are lots of optimizations related to robots as well as some with terrain generation. Performance should be better with lots of bots onscreen now, although their AI performance will degrade the more of them there are. I also added a new option, “Terrain Creation Rate”, which (when turned down) can result in smoother gameplay (with fewer hitches) at the cost of slower terrain updating. Let me know what values work best for you!

* Oh, the player ship shows up on the Scanner now too.

There are a ton of other changes in this update but I don’t think there’s anything else worth explaining. Don’t worry, I’ll post a full changelist when the update comes out!

As always, the Dev updates might have bugs! I don’t recommend playing on the Dev branch unless you want to be helping me test!

Don't they look cute, can't wait to blast them.

Wonder when this going to hit the main branch?.

At last the bots are here,apparently they are in the main game some where but I have not encountered them yet.

 

This is a major milestone for Rodina – our first NPCs! Continue the game’s storyline in order to create Baby Automaton Bots and bring your ship to life! Bots will wander around your ship and look at the various contraptions, saying their names in Robot-ese. They can follow you around. And each one has their own unique brightly colored, animated, and only slightly creepy eyes!

This update also comes with Mod Support. After playing the game once, a “Mods” folder will be created, into which you can drop new Mod directories. The files in the Mod folders will be loaded when the game starts, and can override game files in some cases. Now there’s no need to manually overwrite files to install mods!

Looks like he may doing an altitude meter next which the game's hud could sure use also I like to see some thing done with the bounces ship physics as I landed upside down yesterday.

At last https://elliptic-games.com/?p=1072 now all we need is for the ship stop bouncing around like a rubber ball when it touches down on the surface and some landing gear.

 

April 21, 2016

It's here! The update to Rodina that adds a Targeting system, so you can properly gauge how far away planets, ships, and terrain locations are! To target an entity, hover the reticle over it and press T (or X on the Gamepad).

This update also contains an Altimeter. Probably one of the most highly-requested features in the game. Rodina – now with much less smashing into mountains!

Ok, space is dark, no doubt, but it would be nice if Rodina provides a nice infrared view for the dark planetside, instead of a primitive torch... I think the game would be even more immersive. (Or is this feature already in the game?)

XenonS

Ok, space is dark, no doubt, but it would be nice if Rodina provides a nice infrared view for the dark planetside, instead of a primitive torch... I think the game would be even more immersive. (Or is this feature already in the game?)

 

XenonS

Nice idea, it could be a piece of equipment that could be bought or made, I suggested ages ago that the ship should have lights on it for when you are on the darkside of the planet.

New update to the game http://steamcommunity.com/games/314230/announcements/detail/797520146030763908

 

It’s here! Rodina 1.2.2 has arrived and with it, new locations: the broken, dilapidated ruins of the Vanguard Ship, floating in space. These empty husks have long since been stripped of their valuables, leaving… what, exactly? Find and explore them to find out…

This update shows off the initial “Procedural Interiors” system. As I expand upon it in future updates, it will be used to create Ships and Planetary Bases to board, fight your way through, and take over.

I also added Guns to this update because shooting stuff is fun! Make sure your ship has a few scattered around (like the Fire Extinguishers). You can always bring up your gun with the R (“switch weapon”) button!

 

Full Changelist:

* New Feature: Procedural Interiors

* New Feature: Vanguard Chunk locations

* New Feature: Blaster weapon

* Improvement: Added VSync option

* Improvement: Demo is now 90 minutes long and you can load savegames

* Improvement: Limit pregnancy queue before player has their first Bot

* Improvement: Bots never stop following you when outside

* Improvement: Bots are quieter

* Improvement: Made player faster inside, slower outside

* Improvement: Better Steam API error message so users know to update Steam

* Improvement: "About this Update" button added to main menu

* Bugfix: Don't run physics while in the ship editor

Update about the last update. http://steamcommunity.com/games/314230/announcements/detail/797520748491579498

 

Ok, so most of you already know this by now, but… I lied! Rodina 1.2.2 wasn’t just about Vanguard Ruins. It was also about… First Person Combat!

That’s right, for the first time ever, when players opened the doors to the Vanguard Debris, they found themselves staring face to face with Xeno Scum! The combat in the game is fast-paced and inspired by DOOM, so the rule is: keep moving!

Now remember, this is just a first pass on the combat. I actually squeezed it into this update as a surprise and as a challenge to myself, so it and Procedural Interiors are both sort of half done. Next we will hold a Community Vote to determine which of these features to expand and improve first. If you choose Procedural Interiors, then I will add better room shapes, hallways, diverse room types, and entity placement. If you choose Combat, then I will add more weapons, more Xeno enemy types, health and powerup pickups. I will also have a couple other options.

Of course, all of this is building to the https://elliptic-games.com/?page_id=73 8">big mid-term goal: Ship Boarding![elliptic-games.com] I think this is a HUGE step in the right direction, and I’m very proud to be finally crossing this threshold with you all. This is a major milestone that I’ve been putting off until the right time. The time is now!

I’m very excited for Rodina to evolve over the coming months. It’s an exciting time – things are heating up! Purge Xeno!

Boy I can vouch for this especially the first time when I open the door on a piece of the Vanguard Debris and come face to face with them, even which the FPS setting set to zero I still get killed before I can get the aliens.

Much as I like Rodina the game is still a long way from being anywhere near finished and it's still lacking some basic functions like stopping the ship from bouncing around like a rubber ball when landing, I often end up upside down and it really does need some sort of scanner on both the space and foot sections of the game.

update to the dev branch http://steamcommunity.com/games/314230/announcements/detail/811035995468312592

 

Updated the Dev build with more in-progress work on the Combat Update.

This time I added Health Pickups (and by extension: dynamic physics objects) for the first time! I also rebalanced combat a bit to make it harder, so each encounter will do more damage.

Next up is an important behind the scenes improvement that will optimize FPS during combat, along with powerups and maybe a new weapon! (I'm not yet sure how I'm going to handle multiple weapons - in the long run I want to add weapon choosing to the HUD but it might be too soon for that.)

But I'm REALLY excited the thing coming after that - it's a big secret!

Harder you got be kidding it's nearly impossible as it is.

For the moment Rodina suits perfectly for a coffee-break game as for the content now included and considering the pace at which it is growing this is a promise for the future 😎

Too bad that my low-spec computer has a hard time running this game, it runs but it's too intensive even at low resolutions and low grafics, so I cannot afford to run it for longer time.

I miss one feature which should not be difficult to implement: The world overall is too dark, the contrast on the dark planet-side too low. A gamma feature in the options would be fine, but a change in the grafic engine in this regard would be much better of course.

XenonS

It is a bit dark but I think it gives the game a bit of atmosphere.