Underspace News

Hello Starchasers! Does it feel like time is speeding up for everyone else, or am I just feeling the effects of gravitational time dilation? No? Just me? Right.

Don't believe I'm in space right now? Here's proof:



First images from the James Webb telescope. Haters will say they're fake.

Obligatory cat open aside, some exciting news: Underspace has a new demo 69 days after the last one. Nice.



The game's gone through some significant internal changes, particularly how input and flying is handled. To those more familiar with... classic games, your muscle memory might start to fail you a bit. We recommend for returning players to reset their keybinds in the options menu and do the in-game tutorial again. That should help with most things. As always, note the known issues too before making any bug reports.


[h2]NEW CONTENT & FEATURES[/h2]

• New arcane effects for highengines, drives, and more.
  
• Mining beams: Low range high power beams that specialize in breaking down rock and stone. You can find a few available for purchase aboard Bravenstar Spire.
  
• Full cockpit textures for all flyable ships.
  
• New graphics and effects on space stations.
  
• New deaddrop missions available from Kaisus Circle.
  
• Totally redone character controller, which now has momentum, crouching, and headbobbing options.
  
• Ships and equipment can grant special abilities or skill points.
  
• New quick equipment menu as part of our total input refactor (see below).
  

[h2]CHANGES & BUGFIXES[/h2]

• Total refactor of all in-game inputs. Returning players are recommended to reset their keybinds to default to benefit from this. Benefits include less keys to memorize, new UI elements to make it clearer how to fly, and more.
  
• Docking is now done manually by default, and lanelines, jumpgates, and jumpholes do not require a docking request anymore. Simply fly through.
  
• New contextual based targeting UI. Selecting a target ship, solar, etc, brings up a simple list of interactions the player can perform, greatly reducing bloated inputs.
  
• Inventory, navmap, reputation, questlog, and generally all menus now have quick action keys in addition to normal menu driven interactions.
  
• Flight controls reworked slightly. Highengines are now, by default, double-tapping w.
  
• Internal refactor of the game’s skill system and readouts on items to show what affects what skills.
  
• Introduction tutorial now rewritten to accommodate for the changed controls.
  
• Camera controls are now a single universal key that toggles you between cockpit, backwards, and orbital views.
  
• Pause menu graphics redone to move away from… certain inspirations.
  
• Greatly reduced file sizes and loading times, as well as frequency of loading interactions.
  
• Added indicators to show if a tradable commodity was currently affected by the dynamic economy in some way.
  
• Fixed issues where some stats were calculated incorrectly.
  
• Fixed issues where missions wouldn’t complete correctly.
  
• Fixed errors relating to NPC flight.
  
• Fixed some black screens and softlocks relating to loaded games.
  
• Fixed some mesh errors on ships.
  

[h2]KNOWN ISSUES[/h2]

• Voice acting is currently unimplemented, unbalanced, or placeholder for several quests and dialogue lines.
  
• Interior detailing on a majority of stations are not in.
  
• Joystick and controller support vestigial and more or less not implemented and having a controller plugged in can introduce weirdness.
  
• Trading in ships may have a UI mismatch between ammunition counts on a ship and the actual ammunition.
  

Please take a look at the demo and give your feedback on it -- join the Underspace Discord if you feel so inclined to tell me about stuff in real time. Or talk to other Starchasers about the game and such. Or post cat photos. The possibilities are endless.

As for what else I've been up to this week, I redid tutorial aspects to better fit new input system and hooked up new options to the options menu. I also finished up the cockpit textures (something that was being implemented last Friday).





I've also added the basics of party member recruitment and personal quests. I've also scripted many new quests for party members and recruiting them. More progress on this will be made in the coming week.



Lanelines also got a pretty sizeable makeover. Indicators to laneline routes have been added, some laneline effects have been sped up, and new lanelines for the multiplayer main quest.







On that note, I worked on finishing the multiplayer main quest.

Next week's focus is going to be on finalizing the multiplayer campaign, finishing up all interiors, and getting party member recruitment implemented.

If you want to stay updated more immediately with Underspace's ongoing work, please give the Underspace socials a follow. The engagement helps offset the feeling of shouting into the void (the big void, not the cat void. The cat void gets love, not shouts).

💥💥💥 UNDERSPACE 💥💥💥
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And, because obviously:

🚂🚂🚂 TRAINWIZ 🚂🚂🚂
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YouTube

Thanks for checking out this week's devlog -- stay tuned for some exciting stuff next week!

Is it the middle of September already? Time flies when you're developing an open world lovecraftian spacefigter RPG! Hope you're enjoying these smaller devlogs, they're definitely more digestible than the big monthly chunks. Let me know what you think!

As mentioned in last week's devlog, we have some exciting news coming up soon, but that won't be announced until later this month. The cats are excited, clearly.



Mimi used her one orange brain cell to enact a rare rear leg cuddle. It's super effective!

First up, we have a new demo in the works (like, actively being worked on in this very moment) that should be coming out in the next few days. You're of course still welcome to try the current demo if you don't want to wait, and, as always, feel free to check out the Underspace Discord for more immediate updates.

Anyway, onto progress!

One of last week's biggest tasks was an overhaul of the interiors. As mentioned previously, this is an ongoing task but their implementation is now at a stage where it's just a few missing ones here and there (as well as some quest location interiors which is part of quest implementation).



Some missing space tilesets were implemented as well.





Additionally, on-foot doors were implemented and animated, which meant that some issues that popped up were also fixed. You can see a video of them in action on Twitter / X. If you've ever been curious about why doors can be a massive headache in video games, feel free to give this a read.

Another "pretty" task has been adding more elements to the spaceship cockpits, as well as the ability for cockpits to have visual radar and other readouts. These implementations will be available in the upcoming demo, and I want to get them textured before sending out this new demo. The textures aren't in just yet. But soon. Like, SOON soon. You'll see.







Some issues with the character controller were also fixed.

Drafts of party member recruitment and personal quests have been finished. For multiplayer campaign and party member quests, the dialogue has been implemented; getting the scripting hooked up will be one of next week's bigger tasks.

If you want to stay updated more immediately with Underspace's ongoing work, please give the Underspace socials a follow. Doing so also helps boost Underspace's visibility to others!

💥💥💥 UNDERSPACE 💥💥💥
Twitter TikTok Instagram Facebook Reddit YouTube Discord

And, because obviously:

🚂🚂🚂 TRAINWIZ 🚂🚂🚂
Twitter
YouTube

That's it for this week -- stay tuned for next week's devlog!

Happy September, Starchasers! This week has absolutely zoomed by but progress on Underspace is steady. There's some really exciting news coming up soon but that'll be dropped in the second half of this month. Until then, enjoy this cat photo.

when you stare into the void and the void stares back

As you might have surmised from the title, devlogs are now going to be a weekly event instead of monthly. They are also going to be posted here on Steam instead of Kickstarter. Don't worry if they look smaller than their monthly counterparts, as there will be more of them throughout the month (because, you know, weekly basis). Guess you can say the devlogs have been... refactored.

Anyway, onto progress! As always, check out the latest Underspace demo and be sure to join our Discord for more immediate updates!

One of the "prettiest" tasks as of late has been an overhaul of the interiors. This is an ongoing task -- and they're still pending detail, mind you -- but here are some screenshots of the progress thus far:









How the game loads maps has been totally refactored. Loading times have been greatly reduced between star systems and entirely when viewing different maps. Video showing the new load times on Twitter (errmmm... X).

In fact, did a total refactor of the game’s loading system. Shaders will now no longer load upfront on the start screen, which should address the black screen issue some players were experiencing and just dramatically decrease loading times all around.

And speaking of maps, various other issues with the game’s map system have been fixed.

Cargo affected by the dynamic economy now displays as such (check out the little symbol that's been added -- now you'll know when the best times are to buy or sell).



Opening tutorials have been completely redone with a focus on the amount of controls thrown at new players upfront. It should be less overwhelming now.

Camera controls are now assigned to a single key that cycles between modes rather than dedicated keys for each. This reduces the amount of keys you have to remember for camera controls -- now it's just one.

Various quests on stations have been fixed; also, added more piecemeal scripting stuff for campaign scripting.





Finally, factions can now define items that make them instantly hostile, and new console commands for manipulating timescales have been added.



Note: update does not allow demon cats to define items that make them instantly hostile.

On a separate front, Underspace now has its own social media presence (at least, in a more "official" capacity). Please give the accounts a follow if you can, it helps boost Underspace's visibility to others!

💥💥💥 **UNDERSPACE** 💥💥💥
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Also, because of course:

🚂🚂🚂 **TRAINWIZ** 🚂🚂🚂
Twitter
YouTube

As for next week, the focus is on quests -- particularly party member quests and multiplayer quests -- as is the ongoing interiors rework effort.

That’s all for this week. Check back next week for more!

Hello Starchasers! Did you know I hate ISPs? I really really do. So much. You don’t even know. This devlog’s gonna be a kind of hectic, last-minute thing. Mostly because it is. We just finished a move to a new place which has taken up the past week or so with sheer idiocy in what’s happened. The good news is the cats appreciate the space.



Still, I’ve got some good news: Demo 2.25 is now out! This is mostly a smaller patch that fixes a few softlocks, black screens, control lockups, etc. But there’s some new features there too! Currently the PC version is available, with Mac and Linux versions to follow sometime today. Check it out!




Anyway, let’s get onto progress! As always, check out the latest demo and be sure to join our Discord for more immediate updates!


I promised last month focused on content testing, namely quests. About half (30/60) of quests are now absolutely playable to completion. Sometimes this was a small fix, other times this took a LOT of work to get them functional.


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There’s a few small improvements done to quests here and there, mostly to make them flow better or to fix some non-breaking graphical issues.

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This isn’t the full pass on these quests, after all of them are confirmed playable, there will be a second draft for things like cutscenes, better bosses, etc. But this month will be focused on making the other half of them playable to completion.


What kind of space RPG would we be without space dungeons? As they are often involved in quests, dungeons this month got all their enemies, loot, and quest elements added in. These can be simple stuff like beam attackers and having to blow up fans to pass through, to complicated background effects.


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Raids also were added in. These are similar to dungeons but are more open areas. They still involve enemies, traps, as well as complicated background effects.

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For example, what if you destroy a huge battleship only to discover it was maintaining a massive illusion across an entire star system? I think some of you will understand what I’m talking about.

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A few of these things need tweaking of damage values and similar, but for the most part they’re in and done.


As part of this month’s fixing pass, I went through a lot of things that weren’t working or half-implemented and made them fully implemented. For starters our in-game manual had a massive amount of improvements: There is full text and full video for every subject now.

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The in-game resolution options, as well as options for different resolution modes, FXAA, and many other graphical options were re-enabled and fixed. Yay.

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Weapons platforms weren’t able to die and had some issues with their loadouts. No longer the case, so blast away at sentries with total impunity, if you please.

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Shadows now work! We’ve improved the draw distance on them, as well as several flickering issues.

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Finally, remember Minimine? Probably not but pets are getting re-animated and re-added to the game. Some games have cats, dogs, maybe a cool bug as a pet. Here we’ve got sentient naval mines. Don’t worry, they can explode safely. Safely for them, that is.

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Lots of little gameplay fixes and improvements this month! Starting off, distant objects in storms are now fully animated. This was always planned but have you ever rigged and animated tentacles? It’s kind of a pain in the ass.

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I added loadout and AI randomization to every normal faction in the game. This means that NPCs have a bit more in what they can be carrying and their AI can be tweaked to better utilize that. Sometimes they'll have better shields (or worse shields), use missiles in situations where they wouldn't normally have them, maybe some extra laser guns, etc. This just covers the basic loadout randomization, I'll be getting to special cases (where NPCs can have additional loadouts and AI changes based on things like quests you've completed or whatever) later when I go back over quests for their next drafts.

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Going closer to jumpholes causes your screen to distort, since being that close to a giant hole in reality probably isn’t healthy for you, or anyone really.

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Text in conversations can either be a scrambled mess of eldritch nonsense, or display in alien fonts. Both of these can be translated, if you have the right equipment or the right amount of time. Also ancient gates can have their text translated to give you hints about how to open them!

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A few requested features were put in, including lock times on laneline travel, and, if you kill an enemy, it will automatically target the next nearest one for you.

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Headlights now illuminate a wider area around you. Physically accurate? Heck if I know but it’s much more useful now.

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I refactored door logic a bit. You can define additional things to open them, mostly in cases where there are space dungeons where there are other ships flying through these dungeons. It could also be used for some cool stuff like you having to physically bait some sort of organic bit towards a monster door to open it in a fleshy organic dungeon.

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Things other than ships can have levels now. Mostly bosses use this because I like to freak people out by showing them facing off against something that say it’s like, level 1500 or something.



Finally, stations are getting some lighting and texture presets tweaked, along with some new interior parts getting added in. With this latest demo, feel free to visit the Vauldric trading center.




And that’s all for this month. We’ll have more stuff next month. You know we do. We always do.

Summer’s upon us starchasers! Welcome to June, this feels like a big spacey month and I’m not quite sure why. Must be something in the wind and the cornfields.

We’ll be having a major announcement in the coming months. I’m not sure of the ETA on that, we’re working things out on our end, but when it comes in, you’ll be like “Yeah that’s a pretty major announcement”. No spoilers though. Not yet. In time, you’ll see.

Anyway, onto progress! As always, you can check out our demo and our Discord for the latest updates!



The big focus this month was bugtesting and making sure things are playable to completion. This is different from the final polishing pass content gets, it’s about making sure that the baseline gameplay and scripting works. And hooo boy was the main campaign broken. Thankfully nothing that really required any programming work or internal engine changes, but after a LOT of effort I can confirm the main campaign is playable to completion!

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It’s still got another pass of course, needing things like mid-mission saves, ambient NPCs, more cutscenes, better failure states, etc. In total though, if you were rushing through the game to ONLY do the main campaign, it’d take you about 11 hours in total. A good length, I feel.

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Bosses are also getting a pass too. A few had some pretty serious bugs that needed rectification, a few others needed their health, attack, etc, just so every slightly adjusted.

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I also am not a fan of beating something only to die from some errant stupidity while the thing is dying. Defeating bosses can also disable their ambient attacks as their thrash and scream and explode. You know, typical boss stuff.

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This month will also be about focusing on more fixes, in this case it’s about going over sidequests and making sure those are all playable.



Working off feedback from players regarding various things, and my own experiences, I made the hard decision and spent a weekend improving highengines (players of… other games might call these “cruise engines”). For starters, there’s now some improved animations when entering highengines, including a delay, effects, and better pullback and camera animations.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


But moreover, players have been asking for an increased cruising speed. There’s a lot of issues with balance, timing, etc, that just increasing the base speed would bring. So instead, we added a SECOND level of highengines, wherein you activate a sort of powerful hyperdrive that causes you to move three times faster.

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Using this has some downsides and is dangerous though! You can’t use it too close to large solar bodies (so stations, planets, etc) or asteroid fields. And hitting something at such a speed without the protection of a laneline can do serious damage to your ship. Still, engine tuning kits can be used to improve and reduce these penalties.

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Our next demo will have this, and it’s perfect for cruising over long empty distances.


Feedback like feedback from the game, not player feedback. There’s elements in the game that, to an observant player, I’d like to be available in terms of visuals or audios. So, there were a lot of smaller UI changes done.

Starting off, after certain quests or events, some factions can become permanently friendly, or permanently hostile towards you. And this is now reflected in the UI.

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You can also now see at a glance if you can craft an item recipe, and how much time is left on that item.

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Scanning a legendary enemy will also now create a little icon next to it to indicate what kind of enemy it is, allowing you to plan your battles a little bit more tactically. We’ve also overhauled how legendary enemies spawn, separating out nonhostile NPCs and NPCs into their own spawning rules.

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Equipment now has more in-depth descriptions as well. Heavy weapons will give you a full list of their abilities and damage, and chaff will display how effective it is against incoming ordnance.



Finally, you can access the bank menu from any cargo trader, which saves you having to locate a storage panel on a station.





We’ve added way more musical stings to the game. Little jingles that play when you do an action. In addition to having music when you level up or complete a mission, there’s now tunes for defeating bosses, reaching the max level, completing a campaign mission, or killing a storm.

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Loot! Who doesn’t like a big box of whatever? Space dungeons have lots of loot now, from components that can be crafted into unique weapons, to artifacts that can help with leveling up (or just be sold for tons of money).

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Piggybacking off the aforementioned legendary spawns, I’ve also recoded how NPCs spawn, using a new rules system. This means you’ll get much greater variety in the NPCs you see in encounter zones, as well as avoid things like multiple police checkpoints spawning over one another.

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I’ve also been optimizing various star systems to run better, with some places seeing almost 20 more FPS, even in heavy traffic areas. Lighting in customization hangars has also been improved.

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We've added eye adaption as a graphics option, for those who want some additional clarity in their game.



Finally, ships! Some previously ships that were only able to be flown by NPCs can now be flown by players, such as this zombie mushroom freighter.

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And some NPC only ships that had no textures now have them. Will they ever be flyable by players? Maybe one day. Maybe one day…




And that’s all for this month! Next month we hope to have a few more ship thruster effects to match that new hyperdrive! Check back then!