In Nomad 0.6.0, you can now hit Space to freeze the simulation and plan your next moves.
What’s New
Tactical Pause
You can now toggle pause at any moment with [Space].
Inspired by games like They Are Billions and Dwarf Fortress, the new pause mechanic lets you freeze time while still being able to manage the factory. While paused, you can move the camera and inspect your base, lay down new blueprints, or queue deconstruction jobs. The second you unpause, all the orders are then worked on again.
Why & How it was built: I did not want this game to turn into a stressful kind of game where you need to maintain a high APM to win. The new pause mechanic encourages to take your time and think about your factory layout.
New Inserter and Belt Visuals
Up until now, the belts and inserters used a prototype mesh that I generated with Meshy. I created those back then when this project was called Nordustry hence the nordic, runic look. While this worked visually I did not like the fact that those are AI generated and I dont really have the artistic control over the details of the model. It also did not help that even though Meshy has a Low Poly setting, the old model still had 8783 polygons.
Now that i fully commited on the 80s synthwave factory style it was time to create a new belt model. This brought down the polygon count to 260! Belts now also have arrows scrolling along the belt, showing item flow direction and (later) line speed. This adds a lot of clarity to the factory so you can easily see the flow direction of the belts.
And I also switched out the Inserter model with a robot arm model from the Ultimate Low Poly Pack. I bought this back in 2021 and just noticed that it fits the art style very well. As a solo indie gamedev I take it of course :)
Here you can see everything it in action:
What’s Next
For the next milestone, expect to see more of the Nordustry artifacts being replaced with synthwave low poly meshes. The next main goal is to add a proper blueprint book system so you can easily copy and paste segments of your base. This should be especially helpful in the mid to end game when you jump sectors and need to quickly built up your base again.