Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Update v0.14.3.8 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" update, including some improvements to AI food and water use, ship orbit plotting, and 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.

• Ships now orbit more accurately when in freefall (i.e. while not maneuvering).
  
• NAV station now plots current orbit (if applicable) when not maneuvering.
  
• Moon orbital tracks are visible once again.
  
• Minor performance optimization to the NAV station by ignoring hidden, helper celestial objects.
  
• Improved AI eating and drinking to behave more appropriately to their needs and personalities.
  
• Added the ability to drink blood and chunky blood.
  
• The Load button on the in-game Escape menu now works.
  
• Changed AI to prioritize family and meaning needs lower, so they are more in line with other social needs.
  
• Changed clothing to use higher-resolution artwork in the MegaTooltip.
  
• PASS shuttles will now attempt to ferry people from overpopulated stations to underpopulated stations.
  
• Several causes of excessive NPC spawns have been fixed, including NPC haulers that had impossible destinations.
  
• NPC ships will no longer prevent the player from using super FFWD after being ordered to 'come here.'
  
• Trying to use the trade UI with no ship docked no longer causes errors.
  
• Trade UI no longer allows delivery to barter zones if no valid zones exist.
  
• Torch ships no longer drift apart while towing and both torch drives active.
  
• Plots no longer begin with the player's crew as a protagonist.
  
• Crew no longer spawn outside the unmarked gas tanker ship.
  
• LA Residential map now has a working down transit station.
  
• Fixed several typos game text.
  

One of the main areas of improvement in this patch is to the way ships orbit celestial bodies. The path the ship follows now more closely matches that of satellites and moons, so it should be easier to hold position relative to those now.

The NAV station now also plots this orbital track as a gray ellipse, to show more long-term projection info. And we fixed the missing orbital tracks for moons, as well.

AI eating and drinking also got a lot of attention in this build. Their consumption should now be more appropriate to their needs and personalities, and should prioritize use of drinks like water for survival, vs. alcohol for more social or pain needs. (We also noticed that blood was the only liquid one couldn't drink, so we "fixed" that.)

We also looked into some player-provided saves that were experiencing performance issues, and discovered a number of them had overpopulation issues. This turned out to be partially due to NPCs choosing impossible destinations, resulting in some stations gaining NPCs but never losing them.

We've added a few more population shaping rules to the game, enforcing max pops where applicable. PASS ships will now ferry excess population to underpopulated stations. And extreme cases of overpopulation will run the "prune" operation on NPCs that can be safely removed.

The escape menu's Load button is now working! So it is now possible to load a save directly from in-game, instead of quitting to the main menu first.

Several bugs were fixed involving the trade UI and barter zones, as well as ships towing other ships, and plots initiating on NPCs instead of the player.

Plus, a few other fixes and new sprite art.

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!

Update v0.14.3.6 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" update, including some improvements to performance, ship AI, and 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.

• Some more performance optimizations are included in this build.
  
• The game will now warn the user more clearly if the save folder/drive is running low on space.
  
• The Options UI now shows Saves and Settings folders separately.
  
• The Options UI will no longer show duplicate Core mods.
  
• Reselecting an object should no longer duplicate it after an install or repair was finished.
  
• Hauler AI pilots should now fly at more reasonable top speeds that take their cargo into account.
  
• AI pilots should be better at evading collisions if you get in their way.
  
• Super fast ship designs should be less likely to go ballistic when AI is avoiding a collision.
  
• Maneuvering a ship that is being towed should no longer have "sticky" controls.
  
• Hauler spawning should be more tightly controlled now, resulting in fewer wasteful Haulers.
  
• Orange gas canisters will no longer change volume and explode when uninstalled.
  
• Players standing over loose canisters should no longer heat the canister gas up.
  
• Player-controlled crew can now also use airlocks without permission if they are suffocating.
  
• Crew can no longer haul items across the ship after they have been installed.
  
• Police Vector Mk III, Light Tug, and Ostrich ship designs had some improvements made.
  
• Backpacks now have nicer sprite art in the MegaTooltip.
  

This patch includes another batch of performance optimizations, targeting more places where the game did unnecessary calculations or generated excess memory garbage. Test players have said there were noticeable changes, so hopefully this patch has things running a bit smoother for you!

We had a couple players report a strange "Error 112" when attempting to save their game, and we were able to trace this to a hard drive out-of-space error. The game now handles this exception in order to tell the user what happened more clearly, plus it will warn the user on the save game page if the save drive is nearly full.

As part of this change, we also added a separate line in the Options UI to show Saves folder vs. Settings folder, and fixed the bug that showed two Core mods.

We managed to find and fix what was causing items to duplicate when right-clicking them after certain install and/or repair processes. This turned out to be a null exception when attempting to display the item's info in the MegaTooltip, causing it to try again and duplicate the item in the process.

AI ships had a few more improvements made, making them better at avoiding collisions and flying at reasonable speeds. Haulers should spawn more sparingly now, to avoid overcrowding. And the controls should be less "sticky" when towing ships.

We fixed a couple gas canister issues players reported. One was a mismatch in orange canister volume between installed and loose versions, causing them to explode suddenly when uninstalled. The other was a Heater code error, causing the human's body heat to pump into canisters in the same tile.

Crew AI also had a couple fixes. AI was previously acting on haul orders even after the item was installed, causing them to move to new install points. And there was an issue whereby the player-controlled crew couldn't open an airlock while suffocating without airlock permissions, even though automatically-controlled AI could.

Plus, a few other fixes and new sprite art.

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 Spacers,

Dan is back with another devlog, this time showing off the recent changes to character creation, AI fixes and visual upgrades to the game. You can watch the video here or on the Kitfox Youtube:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In the video you can see the hairstyles and beards from Terry’s MopTops mod, which has now been fully integrated into the game. Ships also no longer behaving badly and no longer fly at incredible speeds. Dan also talks about updates to the tutorial and other UI and visual upgrades. Next up, the hardening phase continues as the team focuses on these quality of life updates before Fire in the Hold.

Thank you everyone for such a positive response to the first devlog, we really enjoy making these! We’re really interesting in hearing more about what you’d like us to show off in future videos! If you wanna meet your fellow spacers and chat about these updates and all things Ostranauts, check out the Blue Bottle Discord or the Kitfox Games Discord.

See you in the next one!

-Alexandra

Hey Folks!

Update v0.14.3.4 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" update, which addresses some AI airlock behaviors, pathfinding limitations, and right-click selection.

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.

• Right clicking world items will no longer always select top-most item or hands while paperdoll UI is open.
  
• AI should now be able to walk through open airlocks even if there is a pressure difference.
  
• Better logging when AI failed a path due to airlock permissions.
  
• Pathfinders can now search more than 1511 tiles before they give up.
  

Yesterday's patch introduced a bug where right clicking world items would always re-select the top item in the stack. And holding the right mouse button would show a random body part in the MegaToolTip. This should now be fixed.

Also, a player noticed that lack of "Open Airlock" permissions would stop their character from walking across thresholds with a pressure difference, even though that airlock was already open. This would most often occur right after an airlock opened, or in cases where air was constantly flowing through a doorway.

Now, if the door is open, AI will walk through it regardless of "Open Airlocks" permissions.

And since it could sometimes be unclear why AI refuse to open an airlock, we changed the logging a bit to be clearer.

Lastly, we are trying an experiment where we give AIs more searching power when they are looking for a valid path. Previously, they had to quit after searching 1511 tiles. And this could frequently stall them on larger ships (especially when docked).

Our new limit is about double that, at 3332. And in testing so far, it doesn't appear to hamper performance much. In fact, the lower limit may have been worse if the AI tried and failed many such paths in a row.

This change should hopefully result in more AIs getting where they need to go, without cryptic errors, or no feedback at all.

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!

Update v0.14.3.3 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is a hotfix update to our "Across the System" update, which is beginning to tackle some of the performance issues we've had, plus suicidal AI pilots, and 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.

• Framerate hitches caused by stuck interplanetary haulers should be less common now.
  
• Framerate hitches caused by AI ships nearly out of fuel should be less common now.
  
• AI Ships will now use the correct local ATC to request help, instead of calling a hauler out from across the System.
  
• AI ships should no longer get stuck accelerators, causing them to fly at hypersonic speeds.
  
• Lag spikes caused by opening the COMMS UI should be reduced now.
  
• Refueling kiosk should now be able to recharge ships with damaged batteries.
  
• It should now be possible to choose plot-specific actions again, if they were previously hidden after completing an unrelated plot.
  
• Docking ships should not quantum tunnel into each other as often anymore.
  
• Damaged battery charge now decreases to match its decreased max charge.
  
• Using stackable items inside containers should no longer cause lost stacks or blocked grid squares.
  
• More items and tools now have higher resolution art in the paper doll and MegaTooltip UIs.
  
• The paperdoll UI should have more accurate click detection when the item sticks out from a slot.
  
• Tooltips should now use correct names instead of [us].
  
• The MegaTooltip item icons should now correctly change appearance when the item changes modes.
  
• Docked ships should no longer slowly drift apart over time.
  
• Haulers should no longer completely deplete the derelicts in the boneyard.
  
• Scavengers should stop spawning when there aren't enough ships in the boneyard.
  
• Taking the PASS ferry to OKLG_SEC outpost should no longer lock the player inside a jail cell.
  
• Crew spawn locations on stations and ships should be more reliable now, resulting in fewer crew stuck outside.
  
• The paper cheat sheet on the NAV screen should no longer stubbornly refuse to move out of the way.
  
• Exercising Strength/Cardio condition should now correctly expire after finishing using equipment.
  
• Using super fast-forward should now expire more conditions when finished.
  
• Leaving a region will no longer cause errors due to crew being docked with an already deleted station.
  
• AI ships around VORB should stop spawning without any means of thrust.
  
• Incessant targeting alarms should be fixed now, since every spawned hauler won't start out targeting the player.
  
• AI flying through atmosphere should now correctly switch to rotor usage, if available.
  
• Added more lore snippets to the loading screen, and removed non-lore snippets.
  
• Several text fixes and edits to game content.
  

One of our current priorities is to address performance issues, and this patch includes a few early steps towards that goal.

A number of framerate hitches were the result of AI ships getting stuck in various situations, causing them to try, fail, and retry the same things over and over. This could lead to chained problems of haulers being sent out unnecessarily, and those haulers getting stranded, repeating the cycle.

We were able to find and fix several of those causes, plus a few bugs in the way AI ships are spawned. And the result, at least in some save files, should be fewer hitches and unnecessary new ship spawns. And fewer over or underpopulations of ships, haulers, and derelicts.

We also found a cause of AI pilots flying at 5 km/s, 10 km/s, or sometimes faster in the area around OKLG. This appeared to be a bad variable passed to the AI right before they got into a holding pattern, causing their accelerator to be stuck "on." So they would accelerate at full thrust.

Combine that with a separate bug that got them stuck in a holding pattern, and you get ships traveling at subluminal speeds without any regard for the ships (or asteroids) in their path. Both issues should be fixed now.

We found and fixed a number of smaller bugs that could lead to big problems. One involved stacks of items getting accounting errors and stale references, which could result in lost stacks of items, or grid squares that were blocked.

A separate issue involved items failing to load when a ship was docking, aborting the entire process mid-dock, and causing the ships to overlap completely. If you ever attempted to dock, and the other ship appeared inside your own, this bug's for you. (And this fix should allow us to say good riddance to that bug!)

We also added a new batch of sprite artwork for items. And a few fixes to the paperdoll UI to make clicks more accurate with these new images. The same images are also now used in the MegaTooltip, so when you select an item to learn more, you can see the nicer artwork.

Plus many other fixes, ranging from UI glitches, to non-expiring conditions, or even crew spawning in the wrong places.

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