Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.14.2.5 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 autopilot, ship logs, flashing screen accessibility options, and more.

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.

• Options menu now has ability to adjust/disable sparks, flickering lights, and spinning parallax backgrounds.
  
• Autopilot shouldn't cause reactor explosions/flame-outs as often anymore with certain reactor designs.
  
• Autopilot will now show an alert objective on-screen when it disengages.
  
• Ship logs have been overhauled to show more useful info.
  
• PowerViz now shows animated lines where power is flowing, instead of yellow sprites in each tile.
  
• New paperdoll sprites for laser torch, welder, screwdriver, and hacksaw.
  
• Undocking from a ship no longer triggers the proximity alarm for that ship.
  
• The docking ring of the other ship is visible for longer after undocking now.
  
• The REDACTED #1 and REDACTED #2 plots are now possible to complete if both have been started simultaneously.
  
• Quests to retrieve special parts from LA aerostat now have better payouts and more reasonable requirements.
  

Some players have requested relief for the excessive flashing of damaged lights, sparks, and the dizzying parallax background on spinning ships. So we added new preferences in the Options menu for controlling these effects.

Autopilot got a bit more love this update, too. We fixed a few more situations where the autopilot would incorrectly balance FLOW/CYCLE, which should hopefully reduce the cases where it flames-out (or worse, explodes). Furthermore, when autopilot *does* disengage, we've added an objective alert, similar to proximity alarms, to let the user know.

While doing that, we also decided it was finally time to start logging these events on the ship's NAV. So the NAV logs got an overhaul that will now track significant ship events. You can view these logs on the NAV's "Ship Logs" button.

PowerViz also got a bit of attention, and we finally switched it over to use the same pulsing line animation that alarm signal connections use.

Undocking will no longer immediately create proximity alarms and show "NO DOCKING CLEARANCE." Instead, it will now show the receding other ship's docking ring for a little while. We felt this was probably nicer, especially for new users who might think they did something wrong right after undocking.

Finally, several quests have had fixes and balancing done.

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,

We'd like to introduce the first of many devlogs from the Ostranauts team! There's been several major quality of life updates that have recently been implemented and this video will outline what's been done. You can watch the video here or on Youtube:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

In the video, Dan explains several hardening phases the team is going through; bugfixes and quality of life updates to address a lot of the community feedback before moving on to the next major content update. We hope to do many more of these devlogs in the future to help show off all the work the team is putting into the game. What kind of topics would you like to see in future devlogs?

[h2]New to the game? Check out the Steam Starting Guide![/h2]

The team has been working on a beginners guide for Ostranauts on Steam. It takes you through about the first 30 minutes of gameplay as is a great place to start if you're new to the game!



As a reminder, you can subscribe to receive these updates via email by subscribing to the Kitfox Games newsletter. You can also join the Blue Bottle Games Discord or the Kitfox Games Discord to chat with fellow Spacers about Ostranauts!

-Alexandra from Kitfox Games

Hey Folks!

Just a quick patch here for a crash-to-desktop issue some players are encountering in yesterday's update. It appears training EVA Suit Ops to 100% causes an infinite loop, crashing the game.

This patch removes the cause of that loop. Sorry for the scare!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

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

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