Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.3.6 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This patch makes several changes and fixes to the save system, among other things.

Specifically:

• Added option to escape menu to exit game without saving.
  
• Changed player status bars to be clearer.
  
• Changed save system to leave last known good save in place if there is a problem making a new save.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused game to crash if attempting to load a save file from wrong slot.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused game to crash if AI ships loaded from save could not be found.
  
• Fixed a bug that stranded player inside control panel if they opened another UI or context menu while connecting sensors.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented the big red error message from appearing when starting a new game after errors.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused pause button to show wrong pause status when connecting sensors to appliances.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused save slot UI to show info for deleted saves.
  

The main attraction in this patch is the save system. You can now quit the game without saving! Also, the save process will now wait until finished before renaming your previous save to a backup version. This should prevent slots from appearing empty after a corrupt save, letting you restore from the last known good save.

Furthermore, the game should be more tolerant of loading save files placed in a different slot than they came from (which resulted in several "Label 99" crash reports). As well as less likely to crash in a few cases where data was missing.

And speaking of "Label 99," the player status bars have received an overhaul! Hopefully, changes to labels and graphics should make things clearer now when you are okay vs. in trouble.

Finally, a few other bugs were fixed, including getting trapped in connection mode when wiring an appliance.

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!

Starting today, you're going to see a new face around the various BBG's channels. Let's say a warm "hello" to Charis, our new Community Manager!

Charis was previously working with Cinder Cone (check out their upcoming Skeleton Crew!), helping their social channels and community to stay vibrant and welcoming. And with BBG's sprawling community spread across many sites, I'm looking forward to having a similar helping hand!

Charis is going to be helping in several key ways going forward, but the main goals are to make the community better, and make me (Dan) more efficient.



[h2]Making Me More Efficient[/h2]

I've been spending roughly 30-40% of my time on community involvement and PR, and that cuts into development time. Having a dedicated person to spend that time for me means I can do more of what fans want most: make Ostranauts better.

Also, rather than relying on me to hopefully notice a review, forum post, or comment, Charis can help make sure feedback doesn't slip through the cracks, and can make sure I'm participating in conversations where I'm needed.

[h2]Making the BBG Community Better[/h2]

When it comes to community management, I'm kind of a dinosaur. I just manually poke around and reply to things, manually copy and paste announcements to different feeds, remain oblivious to useful tools like Discord bots, etc. (For example, I only just discovered my Discord was eligible for official status by accident last week!)

Charis has new tricks to bring to bear, and that means a community with more utility to players.

This also means more communication and updates. With someone dedicated to managing the community, there's more time for messaging new features and events to community members across the different sites. Steam, Discord, Twitter, BBG's Official Site...all of these can get more consistent attention.

Overall, I'm pretty excited to have Charis joining us. I think it's going to be an exciting new phase of faster progress and more transparency.

So welcome aboard, Charis! Good to have you with us.

Best,
Daniel Fedor,
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.3.5 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

Most control panels have audio effects now. You can install parts outside original ship bounds. And several other bug fixes.

Specifically:

• Fixed a bug that prevented building outside of ship's current boundary.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused containers to lose items inside when they switched modes.
  
• Added sound effects to several control panels and UIs.
  
• Added scrollbar to traits kiosk.
  
• Fixed bug that left ATC clearance granted after docking.
  
• Fixed a bug in the finance UI that would cause null exception recipient was not a person.
  
• Fixed a bug in the finance UI that would cause incorrect funds error message when paying only some line items.
  
• Fixed a bug in the finance UI that double accounted for income already paid.
  
• Fixed a bug in the finance UI that hid the insufficient funds error in some cases.
  
• Fixed a bug in refuel kiosk that did not charge for resupply rows.
  

The big change here is control panel and UI audio. At launch, we actually had a lot of this audio done, but not hooked-up. I finally took a few days to wrangle all the assets and assign them to UIs, and it feels a lot more tangible now. Clicks, ticks, beeps, and clunks abound!

I also fixed a bug that prevented installing items at the edge of the ship, as well as containers that destroyed their contents when uninstalled/reinstalled.

And while adding audio to UIs, I found and fixed several UI-related bugs I ran into along the way.

Also, Feature Voting is still open!



The in-game voting booth/PDA button is still active, and will be for one more week. If you want to see something specific worked on sooner than the others, fire-up the game and choose your feature!

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 v0.6.3.4 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This patch lets you rename your ship, shows particle effects where gas is leaking, and fixes a number of bugs in the game.

Specifically:

• Added visual effects for gas leaks.
  
• Added ability to rename ship's via nav station's Link PDA menu.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to substitute their EVA bottles when installing an O2 canister.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused heaters and coolers to affect humans that got too close.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused game to gradually lag more with each newly-docked ship.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused game to start in wrong ship after using ship editor.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused heaters to always run if set to auto and no sensor wired to it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused void squares to exist inside an open exterior airlock when pressurized.
  
• Removed nausea from list of conditions that causes pained facial expression.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused incorrect wording when uninstalling and installing floors with wrong tools.
  
• Removed code that would kill social combat partner or cause null exception when user hit G key.
  

You can now rename your ship! It's still fairly basic, and laughably low-sec (beware mischievous crew members!), but linking your PDA to the nav station:



Opens up a PDA control screen, which searches for nearby Nav Stations. Once your ship is detected, you can see some stats on it, and edit the name:



You'll also start seeing puffs of escaping gas wherever gas is leaking through doors and damaged walls/floors. I wasn't able to get this to work on empty floor and wall tiles, but at least you can see at-a-glance which way gases are flowing. Hopefully, this makes it easier to patch all the holes!

We also fixed several medium gameplay bugs, including sudden hypoxia when standing too close to a cooler, and O2 bottles being stolen when installing O2 canisters. Some new changes to cause less game lag as you dock with more and more new ships. Plus more!

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

Your voice matters! Voting season is upon us, and the best way to see the changes you want most is to make your voice heard.

That goes for Ostranauts, as well!

With the current game features finally in a place where we can play longer sessions, folks are turning their attention to what's next. And while we have some ideas of where we could go next, we thought it would be a good idea to see what our spaceship captains thought.

That's why in today's patch, there is a very special new feature: Feature Voting!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Starting with today's build, and for the next two weeks, you'll find a voting kiosk in the game's starting area. And for players already finished with character generation, there's also a PDA button labeled "Vote" on the screen's left side.

Using either option will open this UI:



where you can preview each of the features we are considering next by rolling over them. When you've decided on which one appeals to you most, simply click it, and your vote will be logged!

Vote as many times as you like, and we'll simply count the last vote you cast.

Voting will remain open for two weeks, and we'll send a reminder around before we close the polling to catch anyone who missed it.

So get on out there and vote! Make the world a better place!

And while you're at it, vote on an Ostranauts feature, too :)

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC