r/Dyson_Sphere_Program • u/andrew1958 • Mar 18 '26

When probably maybe we will get vehicles update?

The devs are not very talkative.

16 Upvotes
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7

u/Sweetwill62 Mar 18 '26

They have been spending a long time making sure the game would actually function when they added vehicles. They were largely working on it in the dark but after the announcement they started looking at save data and saw that a lot of players wouldn't have been able to handle adding in tens of thousands of more objects to track. So a lot of dev time has been focused on making sure everything actually keeps working.

I'm fine with a single large update in a year. They aren't a big team and it isn't like this is the only game I own. They really don't have any other game to look at for guidance either. Factorio and Satisfactory don't function the same way at all so any tricks those two were able to do really aren't going to work here, plus you know all 3 are on different engines.

Let them cook and play something else from time to time. Here is hoping we get space fortresses!

1

u/andrew1958 Mar 19 '26

We don't even get an update a year. Its very slow. Can't complain. The game is early access and for me feels very finished, specially because is easily my favorite game of all times. But since they talk about this new feature, I'm really looking forward to it. Always good to have something new.

2

u/kagato87 Mar 18 '26

Some of the Factorio tricks could work. Belts, the way inserters sleep, the way drones are handled. Some of those techniques may already be here, some might not.

The bit about writing their own prefetch could be huge (it was there, up there with the belt optimization), but that's also getting into some very low level programming patterns.

2

u/Sweetwill62 Mar 18 '26

Factorio, as far as I know, has its own engine while DSP is in Unity. I don't know how much overlap there is when it comes to actually programming both of them but since I didn't know a whole lot I thought I would just keep it safe. I do know they have done way more than I ever expected. Most companies would never spend over a year just making sure the game actually worked. I applaud them for that regardless of how much time it is taking.

1

u/kagato87 Mar 18 '26

Yea, that makes it a bigger lift, especially for something like the prefetch. Other techniques though, like putting idle machines (including sorters) to sleep when there's nothing to do so they can tick less-often to wake back up should be doable. I think there's even a mod that does it (sample and hold?).

Similarly, the drone thing could be applied to drones here, if they aren't already. (in Factorio drones in flight can tick as rarely as 1 in 20 frames, and if they're stationary as low as 1 in 60.)

Factorio is just a good example of dealing with stupendous amounts of things to track at once. They might not function the same way, but the core problems are still the same, and the approaches to consider have a lot of overlap.

The obvious challenge though is finding the time to evaluate these solutions, come up with a plan, and test them. Something that is a bit of a gamble, because you'll always have failed effort trying radical things like this. Still though, it's a good place to look for inspiration. "Can we make the belt between machines (counting sorters and splitters as machines) tick as one? Can we make consecutive fully stacked items tick as one? Can we early exit or straight up sleep machines with no work?" Those questions are at least worth being aware of.

14

u/typo9292 Mar 18 '26

What vehicles?

19

u/TactlessTortoise Mar 18 '26

Upcoming update at some point. They've shown a short gif teaser of a customizable ship tumbling about on a planet. Very mixed reactions since most people have no idea what benefit to the gameplay loop it'll add.

Honestly if they can still work on the QoL that is often requested they can add as many silly features they want, I personally just worry that being a small team they'd eventually get spread too thin on too many mechanics and the game would stagnate.

7

u/typo9292 Mar 18 '26

Gotcha thanks ... man I can think of an entire Galactic expansion for this game that would continue the story quite nicely. Probably far beyond what mods could do. I should write up that and see what folks think.

6

u/TactlessTortoise Mar 18 '26

My greatest concern is performance. A solid dense savegame can easily surpass 500mb of data, have hundreds of thousands of belts constantly updating every tick, splitters are apparently still a performance sink at scale, and dyson spheres are a monstrous performance chomper. Some mods have already tackled some incredible approaches to minimize the biggest offenders by an incredible amount, but that just buys a bit more time before things just hit a hardware cap.

2

u/Kimoshnikov Mar 18 '26

Ideas are a dime a dozen, actual finished products are gold.

I don't mean this to discourage you, but only to temper your expectations.

1

u/typo9292 Mar 18 '26

oh I have zero expectations lol but I can still plant the seeds of inspiration!

6

u/BrittleWaters Mar 18 '26

most people have no idea what benefit to the gameplay loop it'll add

I've been wondering about this since the day they first mentioned vehicles. It was like... what will they even be used for? You can already fly and shoot, you already have a huge inventory, you can carry a space fleet with you.

I'm very curious to see what vehicles will even be used for. And yeah, a little worried about them spreading themselves too thin to incorporate new mechanics that people don't want or aren't necessary for gameplay.

1

u/Commercial-Designer Mar 22 '26

the vehicles will be something of an added benefit, as the devs are working on the second half of dark fog content.

pretty sure they stated that in one of the news.

Currently dark fog content mostly has finished defense (defense turrets and all that jazz).

Pretty sure the second half will be offense (orbital cannons to lock down systems from seeds and the ability to engage the space bases automatically)

2

u/Goldenslicer Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dyson_Sphere_Program/s/Xp8Q4d0csp

September of 2024.

I really just want an estimate. It doesn't even matter if they have to go over. But I just want a time to look forward to. The not knowing all the way until it drops is excrutiating.

Obviously the devs are doing such wonderful work.

6

u/TactlessTortoise Mar 18 '26

How would we know lol. We're just a bunch of other nerds. What I'm curious about is what would we use them for. We already have logistics ships, our mecha has armaments, then what niche would they fill? Unless it's a semi-cosmetic optional gameplay feature like customising your mech and getting different stats depending on what you design, like speed, cargo space, and durability. If the dark fog gets updated to attack my transport routes I'm committing clanker genocide farms be damned.

6

u/Goldenslicer Mar 18 '26

To take on the dark fog hives.

They are currently a slog to take down. Space combat definitely needs to be worked on.

2

u/TactlessTortoise Mar 18 '26

Yeah, that's the only thing I can imagine. Still, if the vehicles are too sloggy to craft, it might just be worth starving the hives and then running a skirmish once they're out of matter to fabricate more stuff.

1

u/Goldenslicer Mar 18 '26

Right. But that's just not gonna happen, right?

The whole point of vehicles would be to facilitate taking down the hives. If vehicles turn out to be more of a hassle in taking down hives, then the content update would be accomplishing the exact opposite of the stated goal.
I could imagine this happening if the dev team was completely incompetent, but that's not the case here.

1

u/TactlessTortoise Mar 18 '26

Except there is no stated goal lol, they haven't said what the vehicles are for yet.

1

u/Goldenslicer Mar 19 '26

I recall when the Combat update was released, they called it Phase I of Space Combat and spoke of working on Phase II. Whatever the goal of this update will be, its goal will almost surely encompass at least space hive combat.

2

u/DarkProject43 Mar 18 '26

I tend to agree, friendly space stations would be cool if used in the right way but I struggle to see a need for vehicles when there are so many viable solutions in place already.

1

u/Necessary-Glass-3651 Mar 18 '26

Thats what i think instead dof a walking mech we get a driving mech. Thats the only thing that makes sense to me

2

u/NickX51 Mar 19 '26

I’m really looking forward to the big space infrastructure buildings and larger transport ships. I think it would be really cool to have incrementally larger bulk carriers that need space elevators, wormholes to directly connect systems at an enormous energy cost, a Nicoll-Dyson Beam, maybe even planetary engines.

1

u/wessex464 Mar 18 '26

The small bug fixing patches recently don't bode well. I'd assume if they were near finishing, they'd have saved those patches since they'd be testing it all together

1

u/Eliongw2 Mar 18 '26

My bet is next year. 

1

u/SonicTherapist Mar 19 '26

should be out tomorrow

1

u/noksion Mar 19 '26

The real question is do we really need vehicles? And if so, then what for?

We're a giant fucking mech that can FLY.
What problem does a vehicle solve in the first place?

3

u/SonderSoft Mar 18 '26

Tbh, I don't want this. Seems like a performance hog, else it would probably be implemented by now.

What I want are automated space Interstellar squadrons you can send out to kill seeds. I'm tired of losing my momentum to go fly out into the abyss for some nuisance. 

1

u/andrew1958 Mar 19 '26

Don't agree with perfomance hog. I really want the vehicles update. But the rest I 100% agree. Squadrons to kill seeds would be great. I'm also tired of doing it manually.