Deep Space Battle Simulator News

With this update, the game gets fully released after 20 months of Early Access, with over 45 major updates, over 12,000 unique players, and an awesome community with nearly a thousand members on discord the game now is in a state where it can be made available to a wider audience.

Over the last 3 years, Deep Space Battle Simulator got developed by me alone, aiming to provide a unique playing experience combining space combat with large and smaller ships, and fully explorable interiors, allowing teams of up to 8-16 players to fight against other players or the continuously developed enemy AI, or play alone, controlling the huge spacecraft with the help of the different AI robots, which is able to take over every part of managing and defending the own capital ship to assist players with commanding those giant vessels.

While this is an important goal, the development of DSBS does not stop here, with the usual improvement updates still coming in, as well as lots of cool new content updates on the horizon, with new ships, turret types, game mechanics, and much more!



Big thank you to everyone who helped me with their constant feedback, the game wouldn't have come this far without you! I am looking forward to meeting you in-game, and implementing your feedback in future updates! If you have any questions regarding the game, please let me know below!

With the game leaving Steam Early Access this Friday, this update aims to improve and polish the overall experience players, especially newer ones have in this game.

There are new UI elements added to smaller fighters, tracking enemy fighters and AI interceptors that are currently off-screen to make tracking them easier, and new improvements to the tutorial missions will make some objectives less confusing for newer players.

Another turret option was also added, the new "Homing Missile Launcher" turret will automatically fire a homing missile at nearby fighters or AI interceptors every 10 seconds, giving you another way to defend against those threats. Homing missiles in general received an update, now being a lot more reliable, having better and more consistent collision and damage calculations, flying a bit faster, and having a higher turn speed. Fighter pilots will now also get notified how many homing missiles are currently chasing them, instead of just getting alerted that something is inbound.

Players will also notice a new "Bonus Resource Point" upgrade, and a new ship layout save feature in the customization phase, allowing them to save their current turret, hangar and upgrade layout to quickly load it in future matches. The AI now also utilizes B2 droids for ship defense at higher difficulty levels, instead of only using the weaker B1 droids, making capital ship invades much harder against them.

There are also lots of other bugfixes and smaller improvements you can take a look at below, if you have any feedback please let me know! You can also join the games discord to find other players to play with!


Full changelog:

-ADDED: UI icons for smaller fighters and AI interceptors that are currently off-screen while flying smaller fighters
-ADDED: ship layout save/load system, allows players to save the current turret/hangar/upgrade configuration with a name, and load this configuration in future games
-ADDED: new "homing missile launcher" turret, automatically fires a homing missile at a nearby fighter every 10s, the turret has less HP than others
-ADDED: new "bonus resource point" upgrade, cost 50$ and grants every team member 20 resource points at the start of the round

-CHANGED: capital ship UI icons to be better distinguishable from fighter icons

-BUFFED: increased homing missile turn speed by 50% and homing missile forward speed by 50%
-NERFED: homing missile shield penetration reduced from 50% to 0%

-IMPROVED: minor fighter cockpit texture fixes
-IMPROVED: rotating while spectating is now smoother
-IMPROVED: sweepo spawning when purchasing a lot of sweepo robots in the selection phase
-IMPROVED: B2 Attack robot spawning when multiple B2 Attack pods hit a target at once
-IMPROVED: homing missile collision detection
-IMPROVED: the AI will now deploy defensive B2 robots on higher difficulty settings
-IMPROVED: some capital ship interior visual improvements
-IMPROVED: fighter cockpit now shows the number of incoming missiles
-IMPROVED: homing missile flight path, collision, and damage calculations to be much more reliable
-IMPROVED: mission 2 skybox
-IMPROVED: mission 2 now highlights the enemy communication modules, so they are easier to find for newer players

-CHANGED: swapped ion beam and gauss cannon positions on the default turret layout
-CHANGED: homing missiles no longer damage friendly capital ships
-CHANGED: homing missile turrets no longer fire in the tutorials, to make it easier for newer players
-CHANGED: docked frigate turrets no longer fire automatically


-FIXED: pilots drone sound having infinite range
-FIXED: on-screen now displays smaller fighters as "landed" and not "destroyed" if they landed in a hangar or frigate
-FIXED: capital ship engine truster visuals not being shown when AI flies the capital ship
-FIXED: main menu music skipping not working correctly
-FIXED: droids being able to sit down in chairs already used by players, breaking things
-FIXED: "destroy generator" UI persisting after destroying it
-FIXED: Halloween pumpkins only getting destroyed for server host
-FIXED: chat overlapping in-game menu
-FIXED: frigate torpedo rack not being replenished when purchasing a new frigate
-FIXED: some mission 3 progress issues
-FIXED: mission 3 first enemy capital ship not exploding correctly
-FIXED: homing missile impact location calculation being wrong, resulting in capital ship hits always counting as bridge damage
-FIXED: homing missile maximum distance calculation not being enforced if homing missiles fly smaller circles around their target
-FIXED: being able to use homing missiles while cloaked
-FIXED: fighter cockpits always being red
-FIXED: deleted layout button not disappearing instantly
-FIXED: blue hangar 2 smaller fighter spawn issues

This update improves the visual appearance of the game, adds a new yearly Halloween event and the third mission in preparation for its full release from Early Access on November 5th!



The visual update consists of a new skybox with a more vibrant blue galaxy background, upgrades to the frigate, smaller fighter, and capital ship textures and particles, and making areas like bridge windows emit more light resulting in a brighter atmosphere. There are also big improvements to the frigate and capital ship UI, presenting important data like speed, distance to the enemy ship, or loaded torpedoes in a much cleaner way. The asteroid field also now is much bigger, with a slightly decreased density and new mineral asteroids that can be mined by shooting them with smaller fighters, resulting in bonus resource points for you and your whole team!



The third mission is now also available, completing the single-player trilogy allowing players to experience the game in a different environment and learning the basics of commanding a capital ship, flying smaller fighters, and controlling a frigate.

There are also the usual bug fixes and improvements regarding UI, frigate collision issues, and the AI along with new main menu music, as well as a pause and skip button for the different menu tracks! More experienced players will now also be rewarded with new black capital ship skins after reaching level 100 ingame and you can now also purchase a new frigate for 400 resource points at the space station, in case your original frigate got destroyed in battle!

Players will also now notice a new Halloween event running automatically every year from October 20th to October 31st, spawning 7 spooky pumpkins inside each capital ship and 2 in each frigate, and allowing players to destroy enemy pumpkins for a resource point bonus!



-ADDED: third mission
-ADDED: mineral asteroids to the asteroid field that can be shot to gain 20 resource points
-ADDED: frigate purchasing station to the space station, requires you to control the station and costs 300 resource points, will dock the new frigate below the station
-ADDED: new main menu music
-ADDED: main menu music skip/pause buttons
-ADDED: space dust effect to smaller fighters when flying at higher speeds

-CHANGED: skybox/galaxy background to be a bit more colorful
-CHANGED: planet and gas field locations
-CHANGED: sun now is a bit brighter and more white instead of yellow
-CHANGED: increased mineral asteroid spawn rate
-CHANGED: asteroid field is now much bigger, with a slight decrease in density
-CHANGED: now all players of a team gain resource points when their team mines a mineral asteroid
-CHANGED: slight changes to interior lighting, and the interior is now a lot darker when a generator is damaged and lights go out
-CHANGED: "Missions" main menu tab is now called "Tutorial" until the first mission was completed (so newer plays can find the tutorials more easily)

-REWORKED: frigate/capital ship flight info UI

-IMPROVED: smaller fighter cockpit crosshair
-IMPROVED: smaller fighter interior textures now emit more light in certain areas
-IMPROVED: hitmaker now is a bit smaller, slimmer, and more bright
-IMPROVED: capital ship and frigate default textures, now brighter on sections that emit light like the bridge
-IMPROVED: thruster FX to have no more random cutouts, and made them brighter overall
-IMPROVED: frigate cockpit UI visibility
-IMPROVED: minor Mission 1 tweaks to explain the class abilities

-FIXED: frigate energy distribution UI issues
-FIXED: not getting the tutorial achievement after finishing the new tutorial (Mission 1)
-FIXED: hacked hangar doors not closing again after 60 seconds, instead staying open until manually closed
-FIXED: hangar hack UI issues preventing players from hacking hangar doors again after they were hacked in this round already
-FIXED: purchased frigates dock lever not being set as docked to the station, preventing players from undocking from the station
-FIXED: mineral asteroids sometimes giving their resource point bonus multiple times per destroyed asteroid
-FIXED: asteroids not colliding with frigates
-FIXED: main menu music not starting a new song when the old one finished
-FIXED: main menu keybindings UI issues
-FIXED: being able to purchase a frigate while already having one
-FIXED: frigate purchasing fixes

-REMOVED: random energy distribution chair in the spawn room that didn't belong there

This update adds the second mission, allowing players to play as a fighter pilot, fight in a huge battle and infiltrate an enemy ship and take control over a frigate. This adds some offline content for more experienced players and mainly aims to introduce newer players to the core mechanics of the game. The third mission will be released soon!

The game now has been in Steam Early Access for around 18 months and has seen lots of updates bringing new features and improvements. The core mechanics are now completely functional and with the new missions completely added, the new player experience got improved greatly as well. The game is now in a state where it can be made available to a broader audience, which should increase the player base as well, allowing for more huge multiplayer battles while continuing to upgrade the game with new features and improvements. Due to this, the game will leave Early Access and will be fully released on the 5th of November.

If there are any improvements you think would benefit the game before leaving Early Access, please let me know below!

There are also some reports of players having trouble starting the game, especially users with Intel graphics cards. If you experience any issues regarding this, please locate the games log files (C:\Users\YourWindowsName\AppData\Local\DeepSpace\Saved\Logs) and crash files (C:\Users\YourWindowsName\AppData\Local\DeepSpace\Saved\Crashes) and send this info as well as your system specs to [email protected].

This update introduces the first of three new missions to the game, that will serve as some single-player content as well as a learning experience for newer players. This first one is called "First Steps" and replaces the old (and outdated) tutorial and guides the player through some basic aspects of the game in small steps combined with some action sequences.



Two additional missions will be released soon, complementing the single-player content with more difficult missions where the player has more freedom than in the tutorial while keeping them in a scripted story, offering some variety to the normal game modes.

There are also a few other improvements and bug fixes you can take a look at in the full changelog below, most notably the smaller fighter cockpit models got reverted to an earlier version to due popular demand.

If you have any feedback or issues, especially with the new tutorial, let me know!


Full changelog:
-REMOVED: old tutorial
-ADDED: new mission tab to the main menu, with 3 singleplayer missions (Mission 2 and 3 will be added later)
-ADDED: first singleplayer mission "First Steps" that replaces the tutorial and guides the player to the basic things inside their capital ship and shows them basic fighter control
-REVERTED: back to the older small fighter cockpit model with the old joystick animations
-FIXED: mouse cursor not dissapearing correctly when closing the ingame menu while in a bridge station
-FIXED: security stations bugs related to forcing the AI robots to specific locations
-FIXED: mission successfull text clipping issues
-FIXED: blue capital ship turrets not firing in the "First Steps" mission
-FIXED: "First Steps" mission not correctly progressing when adding a patrol target to a droid
-CHANGED: temporarily renamed "Missions" tab in the main menu to "Tutorial", will be reverted when more mission get added and players already completed the "First Steps" tutorial mission