Steam Community :: Drift: Space Survival

Preview: Crafting, Crafting, Crafting

27 Nov, 2024

In today's preview, I want to look closer at the improvements to crafting in the upcoming Space Exploration update. Crafting will be key to surviving the void of space and rebuilding your ship's system to escape the collapsing galaxy. Crafting is currently available at the three crafting stations, the Crafter, Smelter and Crusher.

As we expanded the technology and resources in the game, it felt natural to introduce new ways to process these materials. Well, one thing led to another and we are adding 10 new crafting machines in the Space Exploration update. I've grabbed some of my favorites to talk about today.

Crafting Table

The crafting table answers the age old question of "What came first, the crafter or the iron plates?"

Being the handy survivor you are, you can now hand craft components with a little bit of elbow grease. Even after getting your power system online and automated crafters working, you'll still want to have one around for the inevitable power trips.

Electrolyzer

Many of the advanced ship systems will require gaseous forms of hydrogen and oxygen. With unlimited amounts of water nearby, the electrolyzer can keep your ship moving and breathable.

Precision Crafter

As you progress the tech tree, key equipment can be upgraded to process new materials and increase the speed of crafting previous recipes. The Precision Crafter is the first upgrade to the Crafter.

You can use it to craft Graphene, Advanced Batteries and Microprocessors.

High Temperature Smelter

Similar to the Precision Crafter, the High Temperature Smelter is an upgrade to the current Smelter. It unlocks processing gold and titanium ore and adds the ability to refine steel. Previous materials are now processed faster as well.

Crystal Charger

This one comes straight from the roadmap and will be a welcome addition to your ship. It can use your ship's power systems to charge crystals without needing to travel back to the ruins of an alien refinery.

Space Loom

This one might be my favorite. The Space Loom allows you to process plant fiber and silk glands into usable fabric to create powerful suit upgrades.

Centrifuge

The centrifuge will allow you to process uranium into fuel for your late game power systems. Careful where you place it until all members of your crew are radiation hardened!

I hope you enjoyed seeing the new machines and I'll be back next time to talk more about the new resources you'll find in your journey! As a treat, here are some of the concepts for the machines we talked about today.

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Build 10.29.2024.1

26 Nov, 2024

This small update focuses on UI issues and small quality of life changes.

Fixes the inventory unable to grab focus on Steam Deck after opening it twice
Fix beacon icons missing from the configuration UI in some cases
Add a new UI to the Long Range Scanning console to delete old results
Add the world seed to the save game list
Fix the Controls setting page sometimes showing no controls for the current device

Thanks for playing!

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Preview: New World Gen and the Black Hole

9 Oct, 2024

As we continue to work toward a closed beta for the Space Exploration update, I'd like to dive a little deeper into the exploration changes coming in this new version.

Updated Visuals

With the addition of piloting both your large ship and the new smaller vehicles, we saw a great opportunity to reimagine how the galaxy looks and feels as you explore, mine, build, and craft. We experimented with various art styles, but naturally gravitated toward a more stylized approach—and I think it looks fantastic.

New Caves

The new caves are significantly larger than those in the current update, requiring you to utilize your large ship, small ships, and jetpack to uncover all their secrets. In addition to the familiar flora and crystals, you'll now find ore veins, areas filled with poison and radiation that demand special equipment to explore, and even small exploration puzzles that unlock resource-rich zones or rare alien artifacts. And caves are just one type of area you’ll get to explore.

Finite, but Infinite

In the current update, the asteroid field stretches on forever, procedurally generated with islands and caves that may appear. In the Space Exploration update, you’ll explore a more handcrafted world, while giving you greater control over what you discover. By using navigational computers, you can set your next warp point and see the resources you might find there. These regions are finite in size, but there's no limit to the number of regions you can explore.

The Black Hole in the Room

Upon arrival, you'll want to ensure you gather everything you need because returning won't be an option. As you navigate warp space, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy continues to expand, consuming everything in its path.

That's all for today—but we’ll be back soon to showcase the new crafting buildings, items, research, biomes, and more! Be sure to join our Discord to stay updated on closed betas and multiplayer tests.

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Preview: Getting around in the Space Exploration Update

2 Sep, 2024

It's time to check in on the highly anticipated Space Exploration update! In development since early January, this update is the largest ever for Drift. In many ways, it will make the game feel entirely new while retaining the same chill ship-building vibe that players have loved over the past year.

One of the most requested features from our community has been the ability to fly your ship. With the upcoming update, we're making that dream a reality! You'll have more ways than ever to explore, giving you complete control over your journey through the stars.

Sublight Engines

Upon arriving in a new region, you might find that you're not in the perfect spot. With the addition of new sublight engines, you can maneuver your base to a more central location to gather resources more efficiently. And when you're ready, you'll need to move far enough from any gravity wells to make your next jump.

Small Vehicles

As we previewed in our last update, the Space Exploration update introduces new smaller vehicles designed for maneuvering around regions. The video below showcases the first vehicle you'll unlock—a nimble one-seater perfect for squeezing in and out of caves and other tight spots.

Where To?

In addition to the "how," let's talk about the "where." The new environments introduced in the Space Exploration update are diverse, with vast distances between them. Using the Navigational Computer on the bridge, you can now explore new regions, identify important resources, and start charging the warp engines to jump to your next destination.

Once you've gathered all the resources from a region, fueled up your ship, and locked in your next destination, it's time to leave the gravity well and launch into hyperspace. It's wise to stay on board your ship—unless you want to risk a horrific fate!

Development Update

We're excited to share that all the new game systems planned for this update are now in place. We're currently focusing on completing the new art and sound assets. Once we reach the content-complete stage, we'll shift our attention to polishing the game and expanding beta testing to more players. Stay tuned for more details!

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Mini Community Update: New Building Pieces and Bug Fixes

30 Aug, 2024

This update brings a few new building pieces requested by the community and fixes a handful of bugs and crashes.

In addition, I back-ported a number of quality of life changes from the upcoming Space Exploration Update as we continue to work on wrapping that up. More to come on that in the next few days.

Added a new pyramid capstone family of pieces to use in your Ha'tak builds
Added an inverted version of all the Triangle Wall pieces
Added beacons for all other players in the game beyond 50m
Beacons of all type now snap to the edge of the screen when not in view
Fixed losing mouse focus after using Alt+Tab!
Fixed some VFX particles disappearing
Will now only show Steam lobbies from games running the same version
Fixed massive lag spike in some cases using the drill
Improve game startup time
Added a separate color for large asteroid pings to help avoid grappling
Updated build system logic to make triangle floors snap somewhat smarter (still not perfect though)
Fixed Asteroid Wrangler achievements not working across saves
Fixed Tractor Targets not increasing acceleration in some (read: all) cases
Fixed various crashes in game code and an updated engine build

Thanks for playing and for your continued support!

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First Look at the Space Exploration update

27 May, 2024

Thanks to the support by this community, I've been able to put my head down and work on the largest update to Drift yet. The Space Exploration update will improve every aspect of the game and open new ways to explore.

Today, I'll take a look at two exciting new features coming with this update. In future posts, I'll go into the new gameplay systems, progression and more.

Improved Environment Art

New modes of transport created the opportunity to re-visit some of the environments you can visit, specifically moving the art style closer to the concept art - and the early texturing tests have looked fantastic.

Small Ships

Flying the big ship is a huge improvement, but I like to build big and commonly got myself into trouble. Enter the small ship (name TBD: send suggestions in the comments!). This two-seater is great for moving from your base to a nearby dense asteroid field to strip mine for resources or pick up a stranded friend.

And flying this is a blast. Full six degrees of movement and an afterburner - great for crossing the distance and squeezing into caves.

What's next?

There's still a lot of work to be done before this update is in your hands. But there will be some opportunities to help us get there.

Small Ship Network Stress Test - Making fun, flying spaceships work with up to 7 friends all over the world is hard. And even harder as a tiny dev team. In early June, we'll put together a playtest where you can fly around with us so we can fix any issues. Join the Discord to be the first to hear.
Closed Beta - Later this summer, we'll do a closed beta focusing on a the new gameplay systems, research and further netcode testing.

Thank you so much for helping craft Drift into the game it is today and I'm excited to get this update out to you soon!

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Early Access Roadmap: Ships go ZOOOOM

13 Mar, 2024

In what will be the biggest update yet, I've recently started sharing details about what I'm calling the Space Exploration update on the Drift Discord. There are still a lot of unknowns as this update will have cascade effects on the entire game - but I'm excited to say the ship will FLYYYYYY.

Join us in Discord or follow Drift on Steam to hear about future playtests for this update.

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Build 2.22.2024.1 - Hotfix

22 Feb, 2024

This update addresses a few minor issues with the latest Community Update.

Fix a startup crash on macOS
Fix some menu navigation using a controller
Fix triangle walls not snapping correctly to other ship pieces
Fix drills causing a crash when fully destroying an asteroid

Thanks for playing and keep an eye on Discord for a sneak peak of the next update!

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Creative Mode, Controller Support and more!

1 Feb, 2024

Community Update 2 is here! In addition to working on the next major update to Drift, I've been collecting quality of life updates, bug fixes, new ship pieces and a new visual style into a new massive update.

I'm excited to finally have it in your hands and look forward to your feedback!

Creative Mode

When starting a new game or loading an existing save, a new game option can be selected to disable resource costs, enable infinite survival and other options which allow a build focused game session.

Angled Pieces

In the spirit of building, I decided to bring forward an exciting feature from the upcoming Content Update - angled ship pieces! In my limited testing, it's created so much more interesting builds and I'm excited to see what you build with it. Some limitations apply with the current sets of pieces but I'll continue to expand this for the next update.

Build From Storage

When not in Creative Mode, working on a large build started to become tedious. Now, with the Build Range Extender equipped, building (and research) will pull from your inventory first, and nearby containers second.

Visual Updates

What started as a one night experiment of "what-if", I began exploring some visual updates, specifically adding outlines to the models. I've found it really adds a better sense of depth to the game and am excited to hear your feedback.

Decreased Bot Friendliness

I've had a long talk with our robot friend and asked him to give people more personal space.

Crafting Quick Buttons

Managing inventory and splitting stacks is great, but should not be the main action of the game. Crafting machines now have three new actions: Clear Inputs, Add One and Add Five which can give you easy methods to load up machines with the right materials. And with the Build Range Extender equipped, it will pull from nearby containers. In creative mode, they appear by space-magic.

Inventory Sorting

In the spirit of reducing tedium, I've added two new inventory actions. Sorting and Quick Insert. Sorting works as expected and Quick Insert will attempt to transfer any items in your inventory that currently exist in the container.

Controller Support

This update will also contain controller support for Drift. There are likely still areas which may require a keyboard (naming beacons) but everything else should work. Please let me know where it may fall short!

Misc Changes

Updated Engine which should fix more unexplained crashes
Increased the light output from your flashlight in both low and high power mode
Turn off the "add a crazy amount of lag" option of the build smoke
Fix lots of little bugs

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Community Update 2 Preview

21 Dec, 2023

Since the release of the Sand Update, I've been working on the next Community Update. Like most updates, I've let it get away from me and I've grabbed a few line items from future updates in addition to adding a few unplanned ones. But I'm excited to share with you what you can expect in the next update, which should be ready first thing in 2024.

Creative Mode

Starting in this new update, when starting a new game or loading an existing save, advanced game options can be selected to disable resource costs, enable infinite survival and other options which allow a build focused game session.

Angled Pieces

In the spirit of building, I decided to bring forward an exciting feature from the upcoming Content Update - angled ship pieces! In my limited testing, it's created so much more interesting builds and I'm excited to see what you build with it. Some limitations apply with the current sets of pieces but I'll continue to expand this for the next update.

Build From Storage

When not in Creative Mode, working on a large build started to become tedious. Now, with the Build Range Extender equipped, building (and research) will pull from your inventory first, and nearby containers second.

Visual Updates

What started as a one night experiment of "what-if", I began exploring some visual updates, specifically adding outlines to the models. I've found it really adds a better sense of depth to the game and am excited to hear your feedback.

Decreased Bot Friendliness

I've had a long talk with our robot friend and asked him to give people more personal space.

Crafting Quick Buttons

Managing inventory and splitting stacks is great, but should not be the main action of the game. Crafting machines now have three new actions: Clear Inputs, Add One and Add Five which can give you easy methods to load up machines with the right materials. And with the Build Range Extender equipped, it will pull from nearby containers.

Inventory Sorting

In the spirit of reducing tedium, I've added two new inventory actions. Sorting and Quick Insert. Sorting works as expected and Quick Insert will attempt to transfer any items in your inventory that currently exist in the container.

Basic Controller Support

This update will also contain basic controller support for Drift. I plan on playing Drift exclusively on a Steam Deck over the holidays to iron out any kinks before this update drops.

Misc Changes

Updated Engine which should fix more unexplained crashes
Increased the light output from your flashlight in both low and high power mode
Turn off the "add a crazy amount of lag" option of the build smoke
Fix lots of little bugs

I look forward to your feedback when Community Update 2 releases early next year. If you're interested in testing builds sooner, reach out on Discord!

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