Hey Folks!
Ostranauts v0.14.1.1 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, and involves a fairly significant HUD change, several quality of life changes, and 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.
- Quick Action Button menu is now a floating context menu near where user clicked. Can be moved and pinned in place.
- Mega Tooltip now has an item value field to show the player approximate (or precise, with Admin skill) item value.
- Mega Tooltip now has a hide/show toggle to expand or collapse list of conditions.
- Added ability to edit a zone after making it, and they can be non-rectangular now.
- PDA frame graphic now hidden when PDA is closed.
- Adds link to official Steam Ostranauts Guide to Esc menu.
- Trade UI expand/collapse keeps scroll position.
- Trade UI Expand/Collapse All button.
- Added ability to disable screen shake in Options menu.
- PDA colored light icons now show correctly.
- Objectives updated to look, animate, and stack more cleanly, and hide less of the UI.
- Objectives can now be dismissed via r-click.
- Alarm/alert objectives once again pulse red.
- Mega Tooltip no longer switches to wrong temperature units after a while.
- Clicking the console toggle button no longer causes character to walk to that point.
- Game Credits now stop scrolling when the window is closed.
- Added missing zone categories for metals.
- Holding L-Alt key will briefly show hotkeys mapped to some on-screen buttons. (Work in progress as we add more.)
- Autopilot will now correctly assign FLOW/CYCLE for damaged reactors, to better avoid flame-outs.
- Autopilot will now warn user when cryo is missing or reactor components are unable to handle CYCLE setting.
- Autopilot will now cancel the route if the reactor's laser/pellet FLOW rate has changed significantly, altering route parameters.
- Autopilot will no longer replot new path and continue flying when reaching autopilot destination.
- Ships should no longer lose room atmosphere when saving and loading after a change to its overall footprint.
- Reactant tank prices now include contents.
- Repairing doors via PDA order no longer factory resets them (causing crimes).
- $0 gigs now correctly report the (under $1>) cost to take them.
- Ships purchased from ship broker now collide correctly.
- Battery input arrows removed, and all batteries now charge/discharge through same arrow.
- Reactors will now recharge all connected batteries, and not just those connected to its input node.
- PDA Widget XZ-798/stuck tasks fixed.
- Tracking alarm should turn off more reliably now when remote ship no longer tracking player.
- Ships should no longer jitter and suddenly explode while docked or undocking.
- AIs shouldn't get stuck picking up random junk over and over as often anymore.
- NAV Match Velocity mode will correctly honor thrust throttle user has set.
- Characters can now attempt to use arcade machines regardless of their mood (though not always succeed).
- New paperdoll sprites for drill, angle grinder, and soldering iron.
- Some items which previously disappeared when dropped in a container now appear normally.
- Several causes of null exceptions have been fixed.
This patch is representative of our current "Hardening" phase of development, where we attempt to address bugs, instability, performance, and quality of life (QoL) for our users. It's an important phase we hope to complete before beginning work on new features in our next 0.15 milestone, Fire in the Hold.
A large part of this update is a rework of the HUD and UI to improve quality of life for users.
One of the most noticeable changes is the consolidation of all top and bottom HUD info to live at the bottom of the screen (4), so users don't have to look at opposite sides of the screen to see all the current game state info.
We also moved the Quick Action Button (QAB) panel out (3) from the bottom to be closer to where the user clicks, like a regular context menu would work. It will follow the clicked item around the screen by default, but you can also pin it in place or move it around to where you want it.
The QAB will also now only show filter buttons for action types that are available, instead of all categories all the time. Plus, the window should expand/contract a bit to better fit the list inside.
The Mega Tooltip (MTT) for the selected item now has two new features. First, it will display the monetary value of the item (1) as either a rough approximation, or a better estimate if the current character has the Admin skill.
Second, the MTT now has a Show More/Less toggle (2) to hide all that info if you find it too much clutter.
The objectives also received some love (5), so they look and animate more consistently. They'll only cover a small portion of the page now (which is scrollable), and you can now right-click them to dismiss them, instead of using the tiny corner icon.
Finally, the PDA frame graphic disappears now when the PDA is closed (6), allowing users to see more of the game field. The frame will still appear when the PDA is opened.
Another new QoL feature we added is the ability to edit your zones! Finally, players are able to make non-rectangular zones, and to update them to meet their changing ship's shape. Simply click the pencil icon next to the zone you want to edit, and start selecting tiles to add them (or hold C while selecting to remove).
Our Options menu has a few new features, as well. First, you can now disable screen shake in the Video options. And you'll also now notice the Esc menu has a link to our official Beginner's Guide. Corey's been hard at work writing a guide that should help new players walk through their first 30-60 minutes of Ostranauts.
Also, we were finally able to fix the auto-scrolling in the trade UI. Now, when you expand or collapse containers, the window will remain at the scroll point it was before. The trade UI also now has an Expand All/Collapse All toggle for convenience.
Apart from the UI and HUD, we also made a series of important gameplay fixes and changes.
Autopilot should now be able to handle reactors with damaged components, and adjust the FLOW/CYCLE accordingly so the ship won't flame-out while underway. As part of this, it will also warn the user about situations where it cannot adequately balance those values, and it will cancel itself if the reactor is damaged or repaired in such a way that the route has become obsolete.
Speaking of reactors, they should now recharge any connected battery. And we reworked the batteries to only have one input/output point, since the old separate points were both confusing and broken.
We also found and fixed two more causes of the lost atmosphere in rooms bug. This was being caused by the ship changing overall footprint due to an added/removed item near the edge, and if the user then attempted to save the game, the room data would be lost. The fix should prevent this loss going forward, though it cannot restore lost data in saves where it already happened. (In those cases, the gas is lost forever, but users should be able to refill the rooms and have them work normally from now on.)
Plus, a range of other fixes and improvements!
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
