Medieval Engineers is back in action with a great new update! With the introduction of a highly detailed planet, a phenomenal world map that shows a symbolic depiction of the world, a fully updated rendering engine and many optimizations. Engineering in medieval times has never been this awesome. Not to mention all the other new additions to the game, like doors, new particles, a wardrobe, land ownership, and finally the ability to play as a female engineer!
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
Now it is possible to enjoy claiming territory, working together with allies to defend it from enemies, or siege and destroy other player’s castles! Go hunting for deer, fight off barbarian attacks, design your own banners, or simply enjoy the view of the world from atop your own castle. Most features of the game support modding and the Steam Workshop, which already has thousands of items available to use with the game.
Planets
Having a planet in Medieval Engineers creates a play area that is many times bigger than the flat worlds that we had before. The planet can have many plants, animals and barbarians with plenty of room for players.
We’ve designed areas of the terrain so that players can build fortifications to defend their territory. The planet and all of its settings can be modded and shared through the Steam Workshop.
For a behind-the-scenes look at how we've developed our default planet, check out our developer diaries episode 4 and episode 13.
Area ownership
Area ownership is a group of features that allows players to claim ownership of territory. The planet has been divided into many areas. We’ve made a new block that we call the claim block. It is a marker that allows the player to claim and control area.
Using the claim block, players can choose who to allow access to the area, rename the area, pay taxes, and several other administrative functions. The claim blocks can also be used as respawn points so that players always have access to areas under their control.
Contextual GUI
We’ve designed contextual menus for use in the game. These menus give the player a way to interact directly with the world, instead of a full-screen menu that takes players out of the game.
The contextual menus are small, simple to use and are uniform throughout the game. The icons quickly become familiar to players making the menus easy to navigate and use.
World Map and Fast travel
We’ve created a custom word map that is generated from the planet. This means the map will work for any planet and it gave us the opportunity to create some beautiful hand-drawn art. The world map allows you to see the planet by selecting one of 6 kingdoms and zooming in on a sector to see the areas. There are color coded icons for players, castles, owned areas, battles and other events.
By selecting the fast travel button, the player is shown the map with an overlay of accessible and inaccessible areas. Accessibility is based on terrain difficulty and area ownership. Clicking on an accessible area allows the player to travel there instantly. Fast travel cuts the tedium from the large distances that can be traveled on the planet. Fast travel has several options that can be configured in the advanced world settings such as cooldown time or disabling it completely.
For more information about the world map and fast travel see developer diary episode 15.
Banners
In Medieval Engineers we have customizable banners and flags. Using a banner workstation the player can customize a personal banner as well as a house banner. These banners can be placed as decoration in the world and they are also used throughout the game to identify players. The banner becomes the player’s identity in the world. We've made the banners modable so, if the built in patterns aren’t adequate, the player can download new ones from the Steam Workshop or create new ones via modding.
Check out developer diaries episode 14, episode 16 and episode 17 for more information about banners. For banner modding see the Banner Modding Guide.
Other new features in the coming update include:
- A decay system that will remove items and destroyed castles from the world to maintain performance.
- An improved building system that makes construction easier and more intuitive.
- An advanced world settings screen where many additional settings can changed.
- A compass that shows directions and navigational aids such as nearby castles.
- Doors that open and close and keep barbarians out of your castle.
- Many more small features and a long list of bug fixes.
See the change log for complete details at http://forums.keenswh.com/threads/7388367
Marek Rosa
CEO, Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, GoodAI
CEO, CTO, GoodAI
www.GoodAI.com
Space Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers
Space Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG
Medieval Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalEngineers
Medieval Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MedievalEng
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
Space Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaceEngineers
Space Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceEngineersG
Medieval Engineers on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MedievalEngineers
Medieval Engineers on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MedievalEng
I have very few hours in ME, but I think I will give this a go! Looks fun.
ReplyDeleteCould you make ready a tutorial or workflow walk through to output the map data for making custom worlds from world machine. I believe the grid output is full version only function.
ReplyDeleteWill the grid cuts of the first rendered map be made by the game?
Otherwise will it need to be created in WM as a grid output?
If so would you be able to make a plugin for WM that shortcuts the output of a grid map from a single large extent?
Also as a developer of terrains if you have created tools with WM for making these worlds, would you be willing to resell them to the WM plugins market for scripted tools?
A feature that I would very much love to see is an aiming mechanism for catapults/trebuchets. It would be calculated using the length of the arm and tension in the system.
ReplyDeleteI really think this would be an awesome addition to the game. I mean is it just me or are those things excessively hard to aim?
this is great i am a fan of medieval engineers nw as i hve playd space engineers as well. but if you could please fix the export ctrl+alt+e would be great.. kee up the great work keen!!
ReplyDeletewhat you should really add is a good ai that allows you to have single player battles, with both enemy and allied ias. The only funnier thing than building a castle is defending it!
ReplyDeletement was published.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. What do we need planets for??
ReplyDeleteBtw, still trying to find out, how to grow my own food. Silly me, constantly dying from starvation.