⚙️ Customizable block appearance and decorative variants
Added designable blocks — a customizable design system that replaces the old variants for stairs, fences, columns, and beams. Instead of several static variants there is now a single block with adjustable appearance. The number of variants and settings will gradually increase.
New decorative variants have been added for fences and stairs, as well as thin floor/ceiling with design customization — for neater and more detailed builds.
Finally, decorative covers for pipes and wires have been added so that utility networks can be beautifully integrated into architecture.
⚙️ Saves and migrations
We still support old saves (roughly from version 0.17). To simplify this, a save migration system has been created — you can see it working in the log after loading an old map. The migration runs in a temporary directory, so it cannot corrupt the original save. Steam Cloud saves are now supported.
⚙️ Weather system
A weather system has been added: rain, fog, clouds. The weather depends on the main biome the player is in. Currently weather does not affect block operation, but this may change in the future. The system continues to evolve and will be refined further.
⚙️ Conveyors and logic
Conveyor logic and animation have been reworked. Movement is now smooth and independent of conveyor placement order. Items on the conveyor move as a single unit rather than pushing each other while waiting for a free slot.
⚙️ LOD / sectors / meshes
The LOD system has been completely reworked. Rendering has been overhauled — the map is now rendered in full columns instead of sectors. This should provide a significant performance improvement at large render distances. The render distance limit has been significantly increased.
⚙️ World generation and biomes
The world generator has been updated. Ore areas are now more noticeable and larger. Surface tracing for grass and decoration placement has been updated — they should be placed more accurately on the surface and less often end up floating in the air. Materials for all ores have been reworked — they differ more from each other and look better. In addition, numerous smaller changes to the generator and decorations have been made.
⚙️ User experience
Text rendering on the map has been improved, and a compass along with custom markers have been added. The player inventory UI has been changed: the tool belt and equipment are now separated. Signs (Sign and Advanced Sign) now support item icons using the tag.
⚙️ Resources and balance
The deposit experiments in 0.20.0 were interesting, but in 0.21 we decided to try yet another approach. Currently all deposits use this mechanic. Yield is the total extraction rate from a deposit. The Drilling Rig no longer increases speed with tier — it always extracts at 100% speed. With higher tiers the Drilling Rig receives a larger productivity bonus instead.
Computer balance has been reworked: computers without a booster now provide research proportional to energy consumption, with no penalty for a higher tier.
The current focus is resource cost balancing: in this update the overall copper cost for chip production at all stages has been increased, as has the steel cost for the machines themselves.
⚙️ Networking and multiplayer
A network mode prototype is in development: LAN observer, host and client connections, synchronization of animations and basic logic. The main goal is to build a working framework and validate key directions without deploying full-fledged multiplayer functionality yet.
⚙️ Other changes
- Mod widgets: mods can now add their own UI elements
- Ticks-per-second (TPS) control API and built-in Tps Switch mod
- Fast sieving research
- Percentage probabilities in recipe tooltips
- Improved ore preview when placing a drilling rig
- New synthesized sounds: pyrolysis, drilling rig, engine, steam engine
- Total production indicator
- UI hide button for screenshots
- Sign settings copying
- Updated main menu with world preview
Hundreds of changes have been made to the game. It is quite hard to cover all of them in a single article — better to see them for yourself!
We also invite you to visit our official wiki.
https://wiki.evospace.tech/index.php/Quick_Start_Guide
Additionally, we would like to move to a shorter update cycle and publish more information here on Steam, which is what we will be doing in the near future.
Among the upcoming changes: work is currently underway on transport (drones, trains), tutorials, logic circuits (very good progress), other planet generation, and much, much more.
If there is something specific you would like to see first — please share in the comments.
If you want to report a bug, suggest a game change, or ask a question — join us on Discord
