Gameplay¶

This is the current design for Noxward's Industrial Sandbox. These systems are planned, not finished gameplay features.

Survival comes first¶

At the beginning, players will need food, shelter, tools, and whatever they can salvage. Basic survival should become easier once a player or settlement has the infrastructure to support itself. The game shouldn't force people to repeat early chores forever.

Electricity is infrastructure¶

Early power comes from lightning collectors, so location and weather will matter. Later, players can build other kinds of generation as they recover the necessary technology.

Power needs somewhere to go. Cables, storage, and machines form connected networks, with limits on voltage and current. Poorly designed networks can waste energy or damage components. We're developing a separate simulation engine to handle this.

Machines need more than a crafting recipe¶

There will be smaller, single-block machines alongside larger structures assembled from multiple parts. The first planned multiblock machine is an industrial macerator for processing materials in batches.

Factories should be worth designing properly: supplying power and materials, handling output, and eventually automating repetitive work. A machine isn't intended to be an achievement by itself. What players can produce with it matters more.

The world has useful things to find¶

Exploration will involve abandoned infrastructure, dangerous areas, mineral deposits, and technology that surviving communities no longer know how to make. Some advances may require recovering physical blueprints and building the equipment to use them.

Resources won't be evenly distributed everywhere. That gives settlements reasons to trade, specialize, or fight over access.

Settlements are part of the sandbox¶

Players should be able to build communities around different strengths: farming, mining, manufacturing, logistics, and more. Cooperation and competition are both possible. Conflict systems are still being designed; this isn't meant to turn into mandatory PvP.

The world and art page covers the setting. For what's actually being worked on, see development status.