Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Super quick patch here to fix a serious issue identified in 0.6.9.6.

Turns out, every new nav station since 0.6.9.6 has issues clicking the map to target. And this was due to the paper note being disabled by accident by yours truly. Sorry!

Nothing else new this patch, just getting folks back on their feet for the long weekend.

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.9.6 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This patch fixes a pretty serious bug that affected players loading the game a second time (or more) from the main menu, as well as adds a button to the nav station to silence the tracking alarm.

Saves from 0.6.9.5 and earlier should be compatible, but if you were seeing bugs or other issues in the old save, they may continue and it may be necessary to start a new game.

• Fixed a bug that caused strange behavior when loading a save game for the second and subsequent times in the same game session.
  
• Added button to cancel tracking alarm on nav station.
  

Small update today, but it was a pretty serious issue worth patching asap.

Some players have noticed strange behavior in the game, like not being able to click things or control their character unless the game is paused. And this appears to be a bug that can happen when loading a game from the main menu more than once in a session, if that save file had police vessels approaching.

A milder symptom of this same bug is that police AI are not flying anymore in a loaded save game.

Patch 0.6.9.6 addresses these issues.

It also adds the ability to manually clear the tracking alarm you hear when a vessel is targeting you. You can find this button near the proximity alarm.

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 v0.6.9.5 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This patch fine-tunes some police AI issues and collisions, plus improves transit visibility on OKLG.

Saves from 0.6.9.4 and earlier may be compatible, but if you were seeing bugs or other issues in the old save, they may continue and it may be necessary to start a new game.

• Fixed a bug that caused ships to get stuck together after a collision.
  
• Changed police pilot AI to ignore ships that are close to docking/undocking with OKLG.
  
• Changed police pilot AI to loiter at greater distance if waiting for player to undock, to avoid excessive collisions.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented police and other NPCs from disembarking if player was using a different ship than starter pod.
  
• Fixed bug that caused police to fine you for missing Ogiso poster when poster was on wall.
  
• Added Boarding Tram message to transit UI to indicate button was pressed and it is loading a new map.
  
• Added new transit kiosk to OKLG transit areas, to improve visibility.
  

A lot of police (re)programming in this patch! Hopefully, you should find them a bit more well-behaved than before. Fewer collisions while they hover around you. Fewer cases of spawn camping or insta-docking you as you were approaching OKLG. Leaving your ship when appropriate. And not fining you for a missing poster when it's right there.

Also, for collisions, there was a bug that caused a lot of tangles and stuck collisions before, which should now be better.

Finally, I've changed the transit kiosks in OKLG to be a bit more in-your-face, since they were too subtle before, and many were missing them.

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 v0.6.9.4 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This patch addresses several of the more involved bugs discovered since patch 0.6.9.2.

Saves from 0.6.9.2 and earlier may be compatible, but if you were seeing bugs or other issues in the save, it may be necessary to start a new game.

• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused player ship to be inaccessible after using transit at OKLG.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused atmospheric fluctuations after using transit at OKLG.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused traders to lose their behaviors when restocking their inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused traders' buy/sell lists to pause updates while player is on a different ship.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused social moves to be littered on the ground after visiting a ship more than once.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused transit UI button to not register when clicked due to ship-loading cutting it off.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed characters to teleport through walls when using something from exactly diagonal angles.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause game to misbehave if player revisited a station where one NPC was talking to an NPC that no longer exists.
  

One of the big issues this addresses is the inability to access the player's ship at OKLG, and suddenly fluctuating atmosphere (also usually at OKLG). Both of these turned out to be the same bug, caused by social moves getting stuck on the floor, and causing OKLG to overlap the player ship.

If your save has these social moves littered around, it might be necessary to start a new game. I recommend at least trying to load the save, but be wary for any strange behavior, as this patch cannot fix the save, just the thing that causes the bug.

This patch also fixes an issue with traders. Two, in fact.

First, traders were not restocking their wares, or even updating their clocks, while the player was not present. They should once again be updating while you're away.

Traders were also wandering off from their job posts, and this should be fixed again. Saves where they have started wandering will continue to see them wander, but new games should be back to normal.

Finally, there was a pathfinding bug that allowed NPCs to teleport through walls in some rare cases, usually causing them to get trapped in the locked bartender's quarters in Mescaform Bar. The fix for this will affect all NPCs going forward, but trapped NPCs will remain trapped until you free them.

Also, it has some slight effects on which items can be reached for repairs or (un)installation. If you run into pathfinding issues uninstalling items, try moving your character manually next to the target. And let us know where you found it! We'll be trying to nail down these edge cases as we find them.

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 v0.6.9.2 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is another quick patch to address a few bugs and issues we were able to get to before the weekend. Plus, chairs!

Saves from 0.6.9.1 should be unaffected by this patch, but older saves may still contain issues that were present before.

• Added ability to install and uninstall chairs.
  
• Changed AI ships to not interfere with player maneuvers if player tries to fly it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused context menu to get stuck if item that launched it is destroyed or replaced. E.g. opening/closing doors
  
• Fixed missing audio on skin buttons in appearance UI.
  
• Fixed NaN in docking VCRS readout when docked.
  

Most of these are fairly minor, as we didn't want to make any waves right before leaving the office for the weekend.

However, the first three might be interesting to some.

First of all, it is now possible to uninstall (and reinstall) chairs! They're white. They are on the ground. You can sit in them. They're chairs! I have it on good authority there are some people (ahem, Naiba) that are very interested in these.

Also, I made a slight tweak to AI pilots so they don't maneuver a ship that you are piloting. This usually only comes up if the player attempts to steal an AI ship. And now, the ship will obey player maneuvers without interference. (There is, however, still an issue with the AI sitting in the player's lap while at nav station, interfering.)

A more serious bug involving a stuck context menu was fixed, as well. It typically happened with doors, if the player attempted to click a context button after the door changed state (e.g. auto-closing).

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