Ostranauts News

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.2.5 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

While a few game-stopping bugs are fixed here, a lot of these are more subtle, or take a while to end the game. Plus, some quality of life changes.

Specifically:

• Fixed a bug that could cause conditions to increment on save/load due to side effects accumulating each load.
  
• Added ability to uninstall unpowered and damaged nav stations.
  
• Added button to clear proximity alarm.
  
• Fixed bug that caused AI to quit repairing after delivering supplies to target.
  
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused player ship to appear inside Ganymed 1036 after loading a save.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused derelicts to drift far away from K-Leg after docking and undocking with them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused inventory items to become diagonal.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause social combat to be stuck with no choices if NPC failed to choose reply.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause social combat to be stuck with no choices if NPC died.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed social moves involving dead people.
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause inventory tooltip to remain stuck after item under it was removed.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed player to glitch through closed doors.
  
• Removed nav station course correction check task for now.
  

One of the big ones this patch is also the most subtle: side-effects were being reapplied each save/load cycle, which could cause all sorts of symptoms on characters as games got older. One of the most obvious cases was overheating being stuck on the captain, despite normal atmo temperature. Hopefully, with that fixed, we'll see fewer late-game deaths and other weirdness.

Also, you can now clear the proximity alarm! And uninstall nav stations and RCS thrusters while they're off!

AI will resume repairs after delivering items. Socializing should cause fewer soft-locks. And several other issues addressed.

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 v0.6.2.4 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly. Hopefully, this addresses most (if not all) of the strange atmospheric stats we've been seeing.

Specifically:

• Fixed a bug that could cause NaN gas stats.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause wild atmo pressure fluctuations.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused game to crash on quit/death.
  
• Added ability to rotate inventory items while dragging them via R key.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused instant death when undocking from OKLG while facing sunward.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused objects on a ship to stop updating after re-docking with it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused stations and ships to suddenly overheat/overpressure after returning from a long absence.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ship's gravity to be calculated incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause an error when spawning inventory items.
  
• Changed patrol ship AI to crash with player less often.
  
• Added log message when character changes work shifts, to alert player.
  

Is this the end of wild/NaN gas issues? Too soon to tell. But testing so far hasn't shown it in the usual places, so I'm hopeful.

Also, with the undocking and AI patrol changes, we should be seeing fewer deaths by events beyond player control.

And of course, fewer crashes on quit, and some other cases.

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 v0.6.2.3 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly. We might have finally found and fixed the "walking in place" bug! It was a bit of a bear to find and fix, but with any luck, incidents of it will be reduced.

As a result, fewer other fixes this patch. But we'll keep at it for the next one.

Specifically:

• Fixed a bug that caused player to walk in place and ignore most commands.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused loaded crew to gain extra copies of stat timers.
  
• Changed NPCs to not use killing player as a social coping mechanism.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltips to go off screen in supply kiosk.
  
• Fixed two incorrect RCS thruster orientations on Edelweiss ship.
  
• Changed Zones and Social buttons to be disabled for now. (To avoid bugs.)
  
• Added log message when character changes work shifts.
  

Still working on a fix for the NaN/giant pressure numbers, a more accurate ground inventory grid, and trying to get the AI to remember jobs after they are abandoned.

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!

Still working on patch 0.6.2.3 here, which has a few deeper fixes taking longer than usual.

However, in the meantime, I've had several questions about where the game is going next. So I put this video together to help explain both the long term plans for the game, and what some of the earlier next steps might look like.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I'll let the video do the talking, and get back to coding. Talk to you all soon!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.2.2 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly. This patch addresses several construction bugs, adds save backups, plus some quality of life changes.

Specifically:

• Added code to backup previous save file as captain_name.bak before generating a new save file.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused canceled install jobs to leave items on ground that cannot be clicked.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented installs, uninstalls, and other actions from failing due to large target footprint.
  
• Fixed bug that interrupted installs of RCS distro and cluster objects.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented installing coolers, and other large objects.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused AI to stand around when it should be hauling parts to a repair/install job.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused item to become inaccessible if user attempted to pick it up without room in inventory.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused HVAC sensor connection to crash ship editor.
  
• Changed door power usage to be more in-line with other appliances.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused inventory grids for nearby items to close prematurely. Now should close only when walking away.
  
• Changed top right outliner text to put more permanent items near top of list.
  
• Added note to nav station cheat sheet mentioning auto-rotation-stabilize on Q/E keys.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused reactors to use reactant canisters from other ships.
  

Now the game will attempt to backup your save file before creating a new one, which should help in the (hopefully dwindling) cases where the app crashes during save, which previously deleted the old save data.

Several of the fixes address construction jobs and AI, and gets us really close to removing the major blockers to building and repairing. (Still a couple left that I am aware of, though.)

And finally, several smaller fixes and improvements added to smooth out gameplay where we could.

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