Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.10.2.8 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix to our recently released "Taking Inventory" update that fixes several bugs and issues reported by players. In particular, the tutorials and captain and crew AI, but also several other changes.

Saves from v0.10.0.0 and later should work. If you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

• Added code to forbid NPCs/crew from initiating conversation with whomever the player is controlling, or anyone set to work/sleep right now.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to immediately walk to install tile if a placeholder install was added to a tile.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to pause for a moment when issuing direct order to install.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to pause for a moment after finishing a task.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to pause for a moment if direct order required fetching an item first.
  
• Removed idle crewmember notification icon from Roster PDA button, as it was mostly confusing new players.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented editing of some zones after they were created. (E.g. when zone owner was not ZonePlayer)
  
• Changed the zone UI to disable the zone owner column outside of ship editor, as it should always be set to ZonePlayer when player creates a zone.
  
• Fixed bug allowing non-awake people to make "Big Scare" barks.
  

• Changed objectives to remain on screen until either completed or dismissed by user.
  
• Changed objectives so clicking to dismiss them moves them to the PDA Goals screen.
  
• Changed objectives to start larger at the top of the screen, then move to the lower left, for reference.
  
• Changed the objective rollover to hide everything on the screen except the target, for easier spotting.
  
• Changed objectives to spawn over UI so they are not missed, and can be referred to while in ship control panels.
  
• Added code to print a message in the log when objective complete, and disable the animated complete objectives for now.
  
• Added the ability to see completed/abandoned objectives on the PDA Goals screen.
  
• Changed alarm objectives (proximity, pressure, etc.) to behave similar to the old system, but are shown separately and blink then disappear after a bit.
  
• Changed loose conduit to look more like installed conduit, to help with dorm tutorial legibility.
  
• Added code to show a hint arrow for the install conduit tutorial step.
  
• Added code to prevent using the zones UI before leaving the character creation dorm area the first time, since it confused new players.
  
• Added code to allow the user to override the zone UI warning in the dorm area when shift is held.
  
• Changed OKLG dorm locker from a 1x3 inventory grid to 3x1, so it's easier to see in UI.
  
• Changed OKLG dorm locker to spawn yellow shoes, instead of black, so they are easier to see.
  
• Changed OKLG dorm locker to spawn yellow coveralls, instead of random, so they are easier to see.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused shift+click on clothing to not finish clothing tutorial objective.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause tutorial objectives to spawning on stale/deleted objects.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause nav station tutorial to target uninstalled/damaged nav stations in cargo hold.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause null exception if an objective's target was null.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause the nav tutorial for derelict docking to not complete if user saved game and reloaded before completing it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tutorial to stop prematurely if player uninstalls door instead of installing conduit.
  
• Fixed a bug that made objectives with long descriptions illegible at 720p.
  
• Fixed two typos in objectives: PowerVis spelling, and Clamp Engage button name.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented objective highlighting from working on human targets.
  

• Changed paper doll UI backpack and drag slot contrast to be brighter, for better legibility.
  
• Added price info to OKLG license kiosk's option to buy a license.
  
• Changed vomiting duration from 4 hours to 6 minutes.
  
• Changed CO2 Scrubber so it keeps up with 6 crew members, instead of 2.
  
• Changed effectiveness of wipes and water to be double, for cleansing hygiene faster.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused inventory item to become a ghost if attached to cursor in UI, the original spot was not valid placement, and then UI was closed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused inventory item to become a ghost if it was attached to cursor in UI when swapped with a slotted item, and then UI was closed.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused debug respawn ship UI to show no ships.
  
• Fixed a null exception that would lock player out of most controls if they attempted to use transit while nav station tutorial was beginning.
  
• Fixed Halberd's Scrubber to always run without a CO2 sensor.
  
• Fixed missing button audio on character creation sink previous skin button.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some character creation sink arrows to remain after character creation when they shouldn't. (E.g. skin, eyes, facial features, etc.)
  
• Fixed typo causing purple jumpsuit gig not to spawn a purple jumpsuit in the gig locker
  
• Fixed several typos in gig text, dialogue options, and logging.
  
• Fixed bug allowing license purchase at infinite range from licensed kiosk
  
• Fixed atmo missing links to alarms on Bureaus, Mescaform, and Entrance
  
• Added missing cooler to Mescaform.
  
• Added enclosed dead ends behind doors on Mescaform.
  
• Added audio to some pants01 and T-shirts items that were missing it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused used permits to not be allowed in hand slots.
  

Despite the term "hotfix," this turned out to be a pretty big patch! Mostly addressing issues players have noticed since 0.10.2.6.

One of the biggest things we worked on in this patch is the new player onboarding experience. There were several pitfalls in the opening tutorials that caused players to lose momentum and give up.

Which is a shame, because it seems like those who manage to get through it, really enjoy the rest of the game! (At least, until they have gigantic ships and need crew to help, which is another area we tried to improve in this patch.)

For the tutorials, we changed the way they appear, and leave them on-screen for the user to dismiss. Several users reported issues with even noticing them, and these two changes should help significantly.

Users can also see finished objectives in the PDA, now, which was another issue reported by those who wanted to see old ones for reference.

Furthermore, the starting dorm area on OKLG had some visual problems that prevented players from finding various objectives and completing them. We changed the objects in there to have better contrast with the surroundings, added better visual aids when using objectives to focus on the target, and even added some visual aids directing the user where to act.

Finally, there were several steps in the tutorial chain where the user could go off-script, and it would break the rest of the tutorials. We tried to add more safety nets here to catch the more common cases and keep the tutorials coming.

On to the AI and crew, we heard several complaints of the NPC crew constantly badgering the player while they were trying to do other things. So instead, we've turned off their ability to initiate conversations with the player for now.

You may also notice that direct ordering your captain to do complex tasks is smoother and faster now. We found and fixed several built-in delays to the way AI processed commands, meaning they should jump to it immediately, and not stand around thinking a few seconds first.

Beyond that, there was a long list of fixes and changes to the game in general. All of which are aimed to fix bugs players encountered, enable content that was not appearing before, or improving usability.

One very significant fix involves another cause of the "ghost item" inventory bug. We found and fixed two causes of this which stemmed from closing the UI while an item was attached to the cursor.

As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.10.2.6 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a feature update to our recently released "Taking Inventory" update, and is a complete overhaul of the save system, tutorial system, and character creation process. It also improves piloting AI to avoid collisions better, among several other fixes.

Saves from v0.10.0.0 and later should work. If you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

• Changed AI pilots to cause fewer collisions with the player.
  

• Changed game to start with character customization UI up. (Sink/Career)
  
• Changed starting spawn location to a dorm room on OKLG station.
  
• Changed Live Fast button to say Seek Adventure, to be clearer what it does.
  
• Added a new Seek Adventure random event about a poker game.
  
• Added code to career kiosk to show tooltip info in sidebar when mouse is over Live Fast and other choice buttons.
  
• Added code to age character 1 year if Seek Ship offer is refused.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused placeholder text to appear in career kiosk first page title/header bar.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the player's mother to always appear on OKLG.
  

• Changed the save system to allow any number of concurrent characters, instead of just 3.
  
• Changed the save UI to let the user see all possible saves, name their saves, load or delete them, and see a snapshot of where that save was made.
  
• Changed the save system to zip save folders, reducing save file sizes by 80-90%.
  
• Added the ability to change autosave frequency and max amount in the Options->General page.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause a null exception when loading save files.
  

• Changed beginning tutorial to be more comprehensive, including basic UI controls, item installation, and piloting.
  
• Changed objective pop-ups to have a solid background, for better legibility.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused objective targets to remain highlighted after the objective was removed.
  
• Added code to keep objective on screen a bit longer, proportional to how long the text is.
  

• Added several new zone categories to organize items.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented AI from hauling items to designated zones.
  
• Fixed damage shader on cigarettes and boxes so they don't become transparent.
  
• Fixed OKLG cigarette butts to spawn on the floor rather than stack inside the spawned boxes.
  
• Changed Search for Food action to only apply in installed, undamaged fridges and when actually hungry
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause null exceptions when starting a new game or continuing a save after dying.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented container grid from appearing if user shift-clicked an item in inventory UI and it slotted.
  
• Changed zones to have an owner (creator) and group (target).
  
• Added the ability to trigger a zone if the zone's owner or target ranks walks into it.
  
• Added the ability for trigger zones to execute several types of events, like launching encounters or applying interactions.
  
• Added the ability for a zone to delete itself upon trigger.
  
• Added column headers to zones UI, and made it a bit taller to see more rows.
  
• Fixed a bug in ship editor so zones UI draws over the ship editor name/model/year fields.
  
• Added code to optionally cue music by tag in interactions.
  

One of the more common complaints we've seen from players is that AI crashes into them too often. This typically happens when the player is in the path an AI wants to fly through.

This update adds code to the AI pilots to check for a clear path, and steer around the player if need be. And overall, this should reduce the number of AI-involved crashes the player experiences.

We also saw a number of issues reported with new players learning how the game works. The old tutorials had several gaps in them, and the character creation room players started in was a confusing concept.

This patch rewrites that entire process, starting players immediately in a GUI where they customize their characters (similar to how most other RPGs work). And once done, spawns them in a more logical setting: the dorm room they slept in on OKLG up until this point.

From there, the tutorial system guides new players through several core gameplay and UI concepts, from pausing/unpausing, through equipping items and installing equipment, to finally getting in the ship and flying it to a derelict.

Yet another major change in this update is a complete overhaul of the save system. Gone are the limited 3 save slots, in favor of unlimited saved characters. Each save game can be manually named by the player, and managed through a new save UI, which includes the ability to overwrite or delete old saves, as well as a snapshot of both their captain and the place where they last saved.

Furthermore, save files are now zipped, for an 80-90% file size reduction. And autosave frequency and max count can be adjusted in the Options screen.

Finally, there was a large list of fixes in this patch. Crew should now be able to use haul zones, zones have more customization options, and for modders, zones have some new tricks they can do.

As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Happy Holidays, Folks!

As 2022 comes to a close, the Ostranauts team is getting ready for a much needed break. And we wish you and yours the best for the holidays.

Also, it's a time for us to look back over the year, and see how far we've come! Joshu put together this excellent retrospective to show what we've been up to:



Red lines represent roadmap milestones we released, like the Wear & Tear system, or new Inventory and Wounding system. These represent significant gameplay and/or content changes to the game, and take the longest to produce.

Orange lines are "feature" patches, which usually represent a significant new game system or feature added between major milestones. E.g. the 0.10.1.0 launch, which included 64-bit support, or 0.9.3.2, which added Autosave.

The yellow lines represent "hotfix" patches, which are typically bug fixes or smaller quality-of-life additions.

As you can see, it was a pretty busy year! 3 roadmap milestones, 6 feature patches, and 14 hotfix patches (15 including this week's). On average, about one update every other week!

Our ideal goal was more like a milestone each 2-3 months, but as you can see, the 0.10 milestone took a lot longer. It turns out that fundamentally changing the inventory system was pretty tricky! It changed a lot of adjacent systems, and also required a fairly significant batch of content to use those new features.

But apart from that, we actually managed a pretty good rhythm of roadmap milestones. If you include the 0.7 milestone launched in December 2021, they're otherwise coming about once per 3 months, which isn't far from what we expected.

With hard work, and some luck, hopefully 2023 is even better. We wish you and yours a healthy and prosperous new year!

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.10.1.2 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix to our recently released "Taking Inventory" update that fixes several bugs and issues reported by players.

Saves from v0.10.0.0 and later should work. If you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

• Fixed a bug that could cause AI-hauled items to become missing or stuck/inaccessible in the world.
  
• Fixed a bug where going through airlock causes void atmo effect
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause void/exterior areas to accumulate gases from pumps invisibly, and make their mass/temperature increase.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause newly created rooms in a void to suddenly start with atmo in them.
  
• Fixed a bug causing the Objective window to suggest using the Gig Nexus to define skills
  
• Fixed bug causing Port Authority to spawn naked
  
• Fixed NPC Scavs so if they start with an EVA suit, it has battery/bottle/filter.
  
• Removed Build menu options for non-existent 04 bins (1x1, 3x1, and 1x1Floor)
  
• Fixed sinks on Pequod ship showing wrong UI.
  
• Fixed storage bins changing color to white when (un)installed.
  

Several gas/atmo fixes are included in this patch, addressing issues with void rooms getting gases that they shouldn't, and new rooms starting with gas they shouldn't. It also fixes a blip of "void" status when crossing over ship airlocks.

There's also a fix for items getting lost or stuck when AI attempts to move them via a hauling job. Plus better loadouts for AIs, particularly those that had EVA suits, which should help them survive longer.

And finally, a handful of fixes to the storage bins, to prevent unavailable options from appearing in the PDA, and changing styles when the item updated in-world.

As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.10.1.1 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix to our recently released "Taking Inventory" update that fixes several bugs and issues reported by players.

Saves from v0.10.0.0 and later should work. If you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

• Fixed a bug where captain dies when you save while controlling a crew member on a different map.
  
• Fixed a bug that would consume a whole stack when installing from hands/drag slot.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented stack count from being visible in slotted items.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented stacks from being slotted in some cases.
  
• Fixed a bug that failed to drop an entire stack from a slot via context menu.
  
• Fixed a null exception when dropping a stack from a slot onto a partial stack in the grid.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause ghost items if a stack was added to a partial stack in a slot without enough room.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ghost inventory item in grid if it was placed into a stack with no remainder.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ghost items if context-dropping an item from a hand slot.
  
• Added a loading progress indicator to Ship Editor when using Crewsim button.
  
• Fixed a bug where Barter Zones tried to load CO with missing save data.
  
• Fixed a bug in Trader UI where using Toggle All on liquid container makes sale fail, but then adds 1 water to the container
  
• Fixed a bug in kiosks showing incorrect prices in "Other Items" player isn't holding.
  
• Changed tote bags and backpacks so they can no longer fit toolboxes inside them.
  
• Fixed a bug where buying back a barter zone item can turn it invisible.
  
• Fixed a bug where bought items were sometimes not showing up in zones.
  
• Fixed a bug causing items to disappear/reappear after multiple purchases from multiple vendors on multiple maps before coming back to the player ship.
  

Several of the bugs fixed in this patch involve captain and crew being on different maps. One bug caused the captain to die instantly and/or ship to decompress if the game was saved while controlling crew. Others caused items in zones to appear or disappear after various purchasing and selling actions.

Another batch of bug fixes involved items in stacks. Everything from the basics, like slotting items in stacks failing, to edge cases, like dropping a full stack from a slot into a partial stack on the floor throwing errors, were fixed. Plus, stacked items in hand slots will no longer all disappear when one is used to build something.

Finally, a range of changes fixed sundry bugs and other issues. The ship editor now shows a loading bar when testing a ship via CrewSim. Toggle All no longer causes weird liquid duplication bugs. Toolboxes cannot nest inside backpacks and totes anymore. And other such fixes.

As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC