1. Ostranauts
  2. News

Ostranauts News

Ostranauts Feature Patch (0.14.2.3) Is Live!

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.14.2.3 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix to our recently released "Across the System" update, adding improved battery readouts, UI helpers, and many other fixes.

Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

  • Batteries and other power storage items now have a new UI showing their current power load, recharging status, and time left until drained.
  • Alarm notifications and NAV screen errors should now remain on-screen longer, even if fast-forwarding.
  • Crew/NPCs that were following player should now correctly arrive with player after using transit options/teleport.
  • Several starter ships that were effectively newbie deathtraps are now only available during character creation for experienced players.
  • Whodunnit plot should once again be completable.
  • Whodunnit plot clues can now be obtained from questioning NPCs even if the victim's body is on another ship.
  • More UI elements now have tooltips explaining what they do (e.g. bottom HUD, PDA buttons, quick action buttons).
  • Holding L-alt key will now highlight hotkeys for some UI elements.
  • Dead and unconscious characters can no longer form relationships with others.
  • Characters should no longer show training stats for skills they already have.
  • NPCs arriving on the current station should be less likely to immediately die of asphyxiation.
  • Players who change their name after obtaining their first ship during character creation will be able to see their mortgage now.
  • Player's ship will no longer get deleted if it was stolen from a trader during character creation and that trader was traded with.
  • Clicking the crew portraits will no longer steal future hotkey input.
  • A bug which could cause entire ships to be missing in-game due to loading errors has been fixed.
  • The mortgage prepay button should no longer have missing text.
  • The log should now correctly say when the target receives an item as a result of an action, instead of saying the player received it.
  • Placeholders larger than 1x1 tiles should no longer move position between a save/load.
  • The orange gas canister's volume is now more inline with other canisters.
  • Optimization added to debug console when it is closed to improve performance.
  • Adds 3 new debug console commands: summon, plot, and skywalk.
  • Right-clicking an objective to dismiss it should no longer select the item behind it.
  • The "Save on Exit" setting in the Escape menu should now remember state from session to session.


This hotfix is sort of a grab-bag of fixes and enhancements, continuing our attempts to improve player quality of life.

One of the more exciting additions is a new battery UI, visible both in the Mega Tooltip (top right) and the battery's control panel. This UI will now show not only the overall percentage charge, but also the average power load over the last 10 seconds, and estimated time until drained. It will also indicate when it is being charged.

A number of players reported NAV screen alerts disappearing too fast to read while fast-forwarding, so that was also changed to work in real-time instead.

Issues with crew following the player when they used transit should now be resolved, as well as several issues that could cause ships to be deleted from the save (which made transit do nothing).

We pulled several starter ships from the character creation pool for players who are in the game for their first time. Examples include the cargo pod ship, which lacked any life support, the box sled, which had no atmo between airlock and cabin, and some others where access to components was hard.

We feel many of the bad first-game experiences may be due to players choosing one of these ships early on, and not realizing the danger until later, when it's too late. Players who successfully dock with a derelict will unlock those ships in subsequent new games.

The Whodunnit plot had some errors in it which could cause it to dead-end, and block future iterations. And that should work now.

We've started adding more tooltips to UI items, starting with the bottom HUD area and PDA buttons. Plus, Left alt key will now highlight hotkeys on UI items!

Plus, a range of other fixes and improvements in this patch.

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

Ostranauts Hotfix Patch (0.14.2.2) Is Live!

Hey Folks!

Just a quick hotfix here to resolve the bug that prevents the pause button from working if you use the Esc Menu's "Main Menu" button and then attempt to load a new save.

Nothing exciting, but hopefully that stops other folks from running into that annoying trap!

Best,
Dan

Ostranauts Feature Patch (0.14.2.1) Is Live!

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.14.2.1 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a feature update to our recently released "Across the System" update, continuing the HUD and UI rework, plus several bug fixes and improvements.

Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

  • Crew portrait/stat area can now toggle between stat bars for current character and multi-crew overview modes.
  • Crew portraits now have rank/shift icons for quick info.
  • Date/time now in the bottom right, and less glaring size/color.
  • Message log now in bottom center of HUD.
  • Escape menu total redesign including new options to quit to desktop, save on close toggle, and recent save indicator.
  • Escape menu now dims out game in background to be less distracting.
  • Ultrawide resolutions no longer block mouse clicks near the top right of screen.
  • Several other minor UI tweaks and fixes.


  • It is now possible to stop dragging an unconscious person if they wake up in your arms.
  • Ships that the player buys should not longer spawn inside nearby planets/asteroids, destroying them instantly.
  • Pirates should no longer swarm space stations upon player leaving that planetary region.
  • Combat tackle behavior improvements.
  • Clicking player portrait now centers camera on player automatically.
  • Vodka bottles and other miscellaneous containers can no longer contain an infinite amount of gas.
  • Additional police witnesses will no longer arrest the player again immediately after player finishes the arrest encounter with the first officer.
  • Critter plot more likely to be noticed now.
  • Changed the way REDACTED can spread to other tiles and ships.
  • Ships in NAV station that should not be visible should no longer flicker visibly.
  • Scavenger spawn rates should be more well-behaved now.
  • Pirates' transponders should remain off after a save/load.
  • Kiosk and trader restock rates should be more predictable now.
  • ATC should no longer be missing from the ATC comms channel.
  • Police ships should no longer run out of fuel when their maneuvering AI finishes too far away for their docking AI to take over.


This update continues our hardening and quality-of-life (QoL) improvements phase, addressing some more HUD and UI elements, plus working on gameplay and other issues reported by players.



We received quite a lot of feedback about the date UI being too large, central, and "in your face," so we are trying a new layout where it is more subtle, and in the lower corner. (Coincidentally, this is the same place that UI began its life years ago!)

This allowed us to move the message log more towards the middle, which is more in line with many traditional crpgs.

We also added a new toggle to the lower left corner where player stat bars are. When you first gain a crew member, or when you toggle the CREW button there, the stat bars will be replaced by a scrolling list of crew status cards. In each, you can see some high level info on that crew member, plus be able to click on them to jump directly to them. All crew portraits also now sport icons for the current crew rank and shift.

The escape menu also received quite a bit of rework. Buttons should now be laid out a little more in line with their priority. These include some new buttons to quit directly to desktop, a toggle to automatically save on close, and an indicator to tell the user if they have saved during this game session or not. There is also now a link to the official Steam guide to help new users who prefer a more guided tour of the game, instead of the manual or tutorial prompts.



On the game side, we fixed the bug which caused dragged unconscious people to be un-droppable if they woke up. Newly purchased ships will no longer spawn inside Ganymed 1036 when OKLG station is positioned "just right." And clicking the player portrait now auto-centers the camera on that character.

We saw a number of reports about swarms of pirates brawling on stations after a player left and returned to a region of the System. And it turned out this was due to the regional clean-up code moving NPCs back to the station. It shouldn't do that with pirates anymore, who now go to a "special place" where they won't interfere with the station folk. (Note, however, that if pirates have previously been "cleaned up" the old way in a save, they will remain there.)

We noticed a bug in the way AI chose combat moves, which over-used tackle as an option. So we did some fixing and tweaking there to make combat more variable. We also did a bit of tweaking on the tackle move itself, to make the UX smoother.

We also finally patched the vodka bottle infinite gas exploit, and are working to fix other cases of that exploit. A few plot-related fixes also feature in this build, including a fix to the way REDACTED jumps ships.

Plus a number of other 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

Ostranauts Feature Patch (0.14.1.3) Is Live!

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.14.1.3 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our recently released "Across the System" update, and makes some improvements to how the quick actions menu, tooltips, and Esc key work.

Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

  • MegaTooltip and Quick Action Buttons no longer close when inventory opens.
  • Tooltip no longer goes out of screen.
  • Quick Action Buttons no longer goes off screen when target does.
  • Esc key will now do actions in the following order: exit PDA, exit control panel, deselect item, close inventory, close Esc menu, close zones UI, then open Esc menu.
  • Middle mouse button dragging now pans the camera.
  • Quick Action Buttons now temporarily hides instead of closing while item is attached to inventory cursor.
  • Quick Action Buttons no longer opens on paperdoll wounds.
  • Dragging the Quick Action Buttons no longer clicks through, causing character to pathfind to clicked tile underneath.
  • REDACTED ship comms rumors no longer appear in Quick Action Buttons when player selects self.
  • Quick Action Buttons buttons are no longer illegible and dark if they had an unrecognized action type.


Most of the changes here address issues players ran into with the new floating Quick Action Buttons (QAB) and tooltips.

Previously, the QAB would close when the inventory opened, or snap to the inventory copy of the target if applicable. And both cases erased the pinned setting and location the user chose earlier. This patch should now honor that pinned location until the user changes it manually.

Furthermore, some targets would go off-screen with the QAB following, making it invisible/unusable. The QAB now stops at the edge of the screen when its target goes off-screen.

This goes for tooltips now, as well. They should remain on screen and legible even when the mouse is over an item near the top/bottom of the screen.

The Esc key also had a few changes made to it, so it can more reliably back out of open menus and UIs in sequence. It previously would sometimes close multiple UIs at once, but should now close them in a more logical order. Also not that the Esc key can now deselect the current object, closing the QAB and MegaTooltip. (The old way, left-clicking the selected object, still works.)

Since some users mentioned they expected the middle mouse button to allow camera panning, we decided to add that, since it was pretty simple to support!

And we included a few other fixes for bugs and edge cases.

Note that we have a few more HUD changes on the way, including a change to the date/time widget, and the current selected character portrait. So things are still going to move around a bit.

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

Ostranauts Hotfix Patch (0.14.1.2) Is Live!

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.14.1.2 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our recently released "Across the System" update, and fixes the buttons in the Ship Editor that were made inaccessible in our last patch, plus optimizes REDACTED.

Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.

  • Buttons in the Ship Editor bottom row should once again be clickable.
  • REDACTED should use less CPU now.


Just a quick hotfix here to restore lost functionality in the Ship Editor, plus try out an optimization to REDACTED.

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