I am getting the beta 1 update now but my question is should I remain using the beta 1 or re-install the main game? TY

You don't need to change anything. They're both using the same build. I generally push the beta a few days or even weeks prior but was a little rushed this time. I would recommend jumping straight to the cave section since it's really the only thing that's changed.

TY IG

Good catch bmangamer. I'll fix it on the next update.

I note you've removed the ability to climb onto the skylift support braces. Probably just as well...

And I assume that the level 2 exit is irreversible on purpose. I don't like the falling water, it looks like needles even after it lands... and there doesn't seem to be any way for it to exit the pool at the bottom of that hole. The first is out of your control, I know; the second, perhaps you should actually have a stream bed down to the rehydration area.

I didn't dare try to head down into the chasm around the downward extension of the skylift cable... maybe next time. Does it bounce like the one at the surface? And I didn't look around the right side of the cable this time, the level 2 exit is on the left. Maybe next time for that also.

Silly question: how did that massive great cave for the skylift get excavated without the androids noticing the cave complex around it?

Comment about the WIP area is reserved for obvious reasons, but the pollination / rehydration area looks very much more like a natural cave than do the two passages leading to the skylift from the mines.

It doesn't keep first / third person settings when you load the mine level. That could be very disorienting for people using VR.

Revision: You can still climb the support struts, it's just trickier. And a heap easier to fall into the pit as you try to get to the lift anchor. (Up the left side of the entrance arch, jump across to the right side, jump to the half-arch that touches the one anchor strut, and then jump down to the strut and hope you don't miss it.)

Other revision: it is three chamber / passages from mine to anchor. I don't know why I keep messing that up. I can count gooder than anyone... but I also get confused with three and five...

It's odd to see stalactities on the ceiling of the lift anchor chamber without seeing stagmites on the floor below. On Earth, it's the same process that makes both.

I assume you'll be adding more footprints soon... something that indicates where the android went?

On the general water-running-downhill theme: should there be a stream bed running from the third chamber through the skylift chamber to the level 2 exit? Granted it may be a hidden stream, but water will tend to run downhill via the easiet available path...

As bmangamer pointed out, both the opening page ("it is intended") and the menu on the descending skylift say v1.6. I forgot to check the in-game menu.

I did not notice many changes except that the cave section is longer. Nothing from my nitpicking comments changed. Most importantly the shadows. And I noticed another one: the greenhouse is open. With -150 degrees at night and a near-vacuum atmosphere? Come on! How would you even keep the water fluid?

The menu idea is great and the spaceship looks impressive but what the hell is it doing so close to the skylift?? Planes do not fly next to skyscrapers either. Also judging from the size of the planet and the smoke we are pretty low already. The spaceship should be flying much faster.

Oh yes and I noticed during the intro monologue the subtitles are sometimes wrong. And the volume is weird like it's been said a few times here.

I was actually going to comment on the spaceship as well -- it goes so close to the skylift that it looks like you could step off the platform onto a nacelle. Impressive to look at but I sure wouldn't want to be that close to the skylift if I was the captain... and if the skylift is descending, shouldn't that also show in the relative motion?

This is definitely stuff I'll address in the monitor displays. Basically Mars is in a weird bloated state with its atmosphere. It is nothing like the current state and because of that the surface no longer has a red tint. The space ship travels close to the skylift because there are thousands of skylifts on Mars. There are essentially orbital lanes that ships can travel in.

It's a little deceptive and running up against the engine limits. We can't really load something the size of a real planet so the scale is always going to be a little weird. It might be possible to give the effect of you descending simply by raising the ship though.

One other thing -- the skylift main cable above ground is matte blue and has periodic joints. The skylift cable coming off the anchor is continuous reflective black. Unless you show the transition, they should both be the same... and that probably means matte blue with joints, because of the skylift sections scattered around in the desert. (Alas: black continuous reflective is much more likely for the actual material, if it's graphite nanotube based.)

Sorry for the late response. Jet lag is a monster.

Chazz, Yes going to the 2 level is irreversible and I plan and actually streaming in the lower level instead of having it all saved as a single level. I actually have been working on a system for flowing water and it actually looks half decent. Unfortunately it wont make it in until the Marsh update. I might actually be able to change the dripping water particles to be more round. the reason they looks the way they do is because they're scale in a way to make it look like a solid waterfall without blowing your GPU up. The rock that breaks up the two particle system actually worked better than I thought so what I might do is repeat that one more time to make the water look a little more realistic and still keeps the frame rate.

The Cave excavation is part of the story. Lol, I know i'm being vague about this but it's coming. Thanks for the heads up on the third/first person VR view. I think I might disable 3rd person view entirely for VR. It seems to just be incredibly nauseating.

I've been trying to make the ceiling stalagmites with the floor ones for exactly that reason. I'll go through again and fix some of that.

Yes, there will definitely be more footprints in the future. The water flowing down hill is obviously true but that implies it hasn't been altered.

You're right about the skylift. What is in place now is essentially a placeholder and I'll try to get it changed for the next update.

I presume that the fact that the monitor displays now count up when you click on them is placeholders for the back story?

Yes, that's correct. Each monitor has a specific set of displays it will cycle through. The one in the greenhouse will be about the bacteria. The one in the command room will be about the Terraforming status and so forth.

I recently tried to load the game onto my new computer, but for some reason, after it does the unreal and directx install, it continues to bring up the unreal engine install/uninstall application instead of the game itself. Is there an additional install step that I am missing?

Not as far as I'm aware; for me it just worked. Sometimes when this sort of thing happens, it's because of a false positive on an antivirus; what antivirus are you using? And what Windows version?