Underspace News

Hello starchasers! Today's April Fools so normally I'd be announcing something silly like selling ships for real money or adding battleships. But I don't make jokes, ever. So to that end, I'm releasing patch 1.42.0 for Underspace. This has a few new features but mostly it's implementing a bunch of background technology in preparation for our next milestone update, which has stuff like being able to decorate these houses.


Will you be able to put a picture of my cat in this house? Yeah probably.


It'll also have additional detailing and stuff for stations (as it was originally part of last milestone's feature list), however some stations are getting detailed now, like UHC-1.


Onto the changelog!



[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added more loading screen tips.
  
• Added a 1% for your save icon to have something special happen to it.
  
• Added a new alternate rendering system for on-foot sections. This can sometimes improve framerates on certain computers, and I have literally no idea why. Game development! Using it requires you to reload a save or restart the game once enabled/disabled.
  
• Added more detailing to UHC-1, including the statue of Bellimar. Why does he get a statue? Well, you know.
  
• Bellimar will now show up on UHC-1 after completing his quest.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Buffed the Manyship’s health to make it more appropriate for a boss of that stage.
  
• Shrunk the quest objective menu and changed the graphics slightly.
  
• Shrunk the tutorial prompts slightly.
  
• Changed camera angles for the Rival’s Fighter.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed some mismatched pieces on stations.
  
• Fixed some floating and clipping party member placement nodes on stations.
  
• Fixed issue with some ships that were rotated incorrectly in trade menus.
  
• Fixed issue where the Haywire Hulk was disappearing.
  
• Fixed issue where icons on the map wouldn’t appear while on stations.
  
• Fixed various items on stations that had no colliders.
  
• Fixed issue where hull hit sounds weren’t affected by sound settings.
  
• Fixed issue where Ballden heavy fighters had more shield recharge than intended.
  
• Fixed issue where the Nova Runner was rotated the wrong way.
  
• Fixed issue where having more than 17 ships made you unable to scroll down all the way.
  
• Fixed skill display issues displaying some useless floating point nonsense.
  
• Fixed some issues with trains on planets not moving. This was unacceptable.
  
• Fixed rendering issues with flickering shadows.
  
• Fixed rendering issues with camera clipping.
  
• Fixed issue where some optimized areas deleted a bunch of meshes by accident.
  
• Fixed issue where some stations wouldn’t have the proper skybox cubemaps in the background.
  
• Fixed issue where Rival Reflection wouldn’t start.
  
• Fixed issue where the Manyship wouldn’t reflect being defeated.
  
• Fixed bad logic gate during assassination missions.
  
• Fixed bad logic gate during multi-stage missions.
  
• Fixed objects that were visible outside of nebulas that were not meant to be visible.
  
• Fixed issue where some rifts were visible in areas they weren’t meant to be.
  
• Fixed some rotated ship icons.
  

Welcome to March, starchasers! I hope you're having a better time of it than our cats did, seeing as they spent most of this month sneezing and being sick.

They're better now though. Back to being normal weird furry things that never stop screaming.


So! I've got good news and bad news.

I'll start with the bad news: This milestone update had to be divided into two parts. What? If Warframe gets away with it we can too! I've been working nigh nonstop on this update but even with as run-ragged as I've been, there's physically no way I can do everything on the original agenda and get things out before the deadline (which is today, obviously). So, we've now split it into two parts, with the second part (featuring things like player housing, player customization, a pet system, an absolute metric ton of new little detailings, NPCs to talk to, full cockpit customization including the ability to dye said cockpits, non-capital planets, and more).

The good news: Everything else is in and ready to be explored. Welcome to our first big update of the year: Intergalactic Architecture!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h2]New Ships[/h2]
First up on the block are something people are always asking for: New ship types to fly. We've added over 15 new ships across six new ship archetypes, several of which have unique abilities. Like before, they come with full cockpits, customization options, and more.


Starting players can rake in some serious stellar dough with the corporate line of starfighters, which have a native bonus to mission payouts, while those in a more culty mood can take advantage of the Washer assassin ships (which are excellent at dodging and dueling). More unique ships, such as the Rival's mysteriously familiar Firmament superfighter or the racetrack champ's custom racing buggy Nova Runner can be acquired through new quests, which expand upon both their lore and the background of the characters involved.



You can acquire and find these ships throughout the galaxy, so keep an eye open.

[h2]Capital Stations, Planets and Homeworlds[/h2]
As the trailer and name of this update implies, the big big thing here is all kinds of new interiors you can explore now. From the vast underground pirate city of Zel, to the moonlit beaches of Clearhome, to the irradiated oceans of Zatedem, the lakes of Planet Ijunus, and everything in between. There's a lot to see here.


The crown jewel of the whole thing is, of course, the Axle. As the game's capital city of capital cities, it was important to give this thing a sprawling amount of space to explore, as well as its own unique exterior model.

As a side effect this means that entire star system also has much better performance,

The interior's no slouch either, with a lot of side areas and a whole shopping district. Currently, many aren't open. But I think canny players will have a clear idea of what they're going to sell in the future.


There's a lot to see and do here, and let me tell you I am sick to death of placing down bottles in bars. Let's get into the patch notes!



[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added the Corporate line of fighters and freighters.
  
• Added the Washer Missionary line of fighters.
  
• Elite Washers now fly Washer Missionary ships.
  
• Added the Rival’s fighter as a flyable ship.
  
• The Rival can now be encountered as a potential ally starchaser during storms, after his quest.
  
• Added the Champion’s fighter as a flyable ship.
  
• The Champion now flies his own custom fighter during his race.
  
• Added a new quest to acquire the Rival’s fighter.
  
• Added a new quest to acquire and repair the Champion’s fighter.
  
• Added full planetary detailing for Planet Zatedem.
  
• Added full planetary detailing for Planet Arran.
  
• Added full planetary detailing for Zel.
  
• Added full planetary detailing for Planet Ijunus.
  
• Added full planetary detailing for Planet Clearhome.
  
• Added full station detailing for Variom Station.
  
• Added full station detailing for Planet Demendrere.
  
• The Axle’s exterior has been redone completely, and now has a unique model, appropriate to being the capital city.
  
• Added full station detailing for the Axle.
  
• You can now ask the Largeboys questions.
  
• You can now ask the Washer priesthood questions.
  
• You can now talk to the Denmenvani.
  
• Added the ability to talk to the Parliament of Flesh.
  
• Added more on-station NPCs to talk to.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Rebalanced some aspects of deployable drones for NPCs, including damage rebalances and adding a cooldown to their attacks.
  
• Added more random names for Helioliches.
  
• Adjusted the volume of some room ambiences.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed issue with regional pricing for lobsteroids.
  
• Fixed issue where Ticker and Geode warp objects could be used in places they shouldn’t be able to be used.
  
• Fixed issue where some ships weren’t being sold by some stations that normally sell ships.
  
• Fixed various quest typos in dialogue, cutscenes, and descriptions.
  
• Fixed issue where the runaway train mission wouldn’t work, and improved it being nonhostile at the end.
  
• Fixed issue where mission ships had much larger leading pips than intended.
  
• Fixed some floating Zets.
  
• Fixed issue where Union lanelines in the capital could get disrupted, despite there being no pirates around.
  
• Changed some shadow rendering to prevent on-foot flickering stuff.
  

And that's all for this patch! We timed just in time for the Steam sale so it's also on sale now as well. If you want some more cats, take some. I got too many.


We'll see you soon for the next part of the milestone update. There's some neat stuff coming there.

Welcome back starchasers! It's been a hot minute since I dropped a hot steaming patch onto your laps, how you holding up? Doing okay? Want to go back to sleep under the covers?



That's fair. But let's talk patch stuff.

We're aiming for our next big milestone update: Intergalactic Architecture is still on its way. We're aiming for a mid-March drop for it, and most of the interior models are complete, they just need implementation and decorating. We've also got lots of new ships coming, along with cockpits and everything.



As for this current and latest patch, it's pretty small. Don't judge me too hard (my cats already do that), because it comes with a big new feature.



That feature? Multiple missions at once!



This was one of our most requested features that was actually implementable, and was originally meant to come with Faces in the Fog, but due to the sheer amount of work involved in making it happen (a lot of mission stuff was based around the assumption that only one mission happens for a player at a time) it took a while to get there. By default, you can take up to three missions at once (this may change in the future), and your previous saves won't load missions you're already on (but will still load correctly).

Are there going to be some crazy issues with this? Gee, I sure hope so, I was amazed it even worked to begin with. Anyway, onto the patch notes!



[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Jump collapses now have an hour long cooldown to prevent repeated trips into the abyss. This doesn’t apply to guaranteed void holes (such as Hardturn and black holes).
  
• You can now accept multiple missions at once! By default (and for the sake of balancing) you can take a maximum of three missions now.
  
• As part of this multi-mission overhaul you can now track individual missions, which makes them display update messages and waypoint to any objectives (if it’s a mission that does that).
  
• Battleships now drop a whole host of equipment upon exploding, which you can loot and use for whatever sick purposes your heart desires.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Mild optimizations done to AI ship logic.
  
• AI weapons now report their use and cooldown times instead of energy usage.
  
• Retooled aspects of the Choir’s elite mission to work better.
  
• Mission objective messages when launching to space now have a slight delay and wait for your ship to be oriented before displaying.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed issue with tutorials cutting into cutscenes. I’m stupid sometimes.
  
• Fixed issue where the Motherlode bounty couldn’t be completed.
  
• Fixed some issues with dungeon meshes.
  
• Fixed hazard reduction skill calculations, in order to make them work properly and more consistently.
  
• Fixed issue where Gammus could not be selected as a racetrack sponsor.
  
• Fixed some ships that were scaled wrong in hangars.
  
• Fixed issue where some campaign ships could be sold via the quickaction menu.
  
• Fixed issue where the engine customization UI section wouldn’t properly reflect the player’s engines.
  
• Fixed dialogue typos in various high level quests.
  
• Fixed some display issues when you couldn’t accept missions.
  
• Fixed issue where opening the radial menu wouldn’t close some on-station UIs.
  
• Fixed issue where some map elements wouldn’t clear when zooming in on a system.
  

Starchasers! Anarchs! Those weird guys in Peerless that keep fighting over explosive cubes! Come one, come all, it's 2025 and our first patch of the year is now live. Is it the big update you've been anticipating? No. I posted that recap like a week ago, I can't spurt out seventeen planets in that time, even if I didn't sleep. I don't sleep anyway, because of this orange asshole.



and this black dweeb.



Anyway, a few new things in this patch, but it's mostly a lot of fixing and fixing and fixing. And fixing. But there's some straaaaange things happening out in space. Stranger than usual, I mean.



Check out the notes below.




[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Scanner damage, autoturrets, and AoE explosions can now take down NPC drones.
  
• Screenshots are now saved into their own dedicated subfolders.
  
• Odd things are happening in the depths of the Veil…
  
• Added animations to nebula clearing walls.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Spaced out the time before an autosave, to prevent loads from loading you into trapped station areas.
  
• Redid some minor details on various stations.
  
• Reworked the Megaborble to behave closer to similar hazards.
  
• Did minor optimizations to minefields and asteroid generation.
  
• Did minor optimizations to ships and ship components.
  
• Lodestones now have a scanning icon that indicates you’ve already scanned and looted the lodestone in question.
  
• Optimized many space dungeons.
  
• Dungeon artifacts and crafting items now have unique cargoboxes.
  
• Changed the size of some special asteroids.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed issue where Voidscreamer Ds had lower shield damage than intended.
  
• Fixed issue where some intermediary campaign quests wouldn’t complete correctly if their dialogue was interrupted.
  
• Tried to fix Heist of the Year (again), hopefully it’s not screwy this time.
  
• Fixed some grammatical errors on the Marching Star.
  
• Fixed small softlock on Off-Track.
  
• Fixed issue where The White Fleet’s quest markers were all wiped out. I have no idea how the hell this happened.
  
• Fixed issue in some quest cutscenes where characters wouldn’t stop or start their talking animations.
  
• Fixed issue where the Megaborble wasn’t able to be encountered in storms. Have fun.
  
• Fixed issue with early activations of campaign mission 8.
  
• Fixed issue where engine lights when cruising would sometimes deactivate.
  
• You can now clear controller keybinds and they will properly reflect if they’re a hold, doubletap, etc. You know how it is.
  
• Fixed coloring issue with the Civilian Freighter’s engines.
  
• Fixed issue where storms could spawn in places that didn’t have nebulas. They can grow to there, but they won’t spawn there, normally.
  
• Fixed some sound issues with cloaking devices.
  
• Fixed issue where the quickmenu wouldn’t let you access things with just a cloaking device.
  
• NPC drones will no longer detect you while they’re cloaked. They’re like babies, they have no object permanence.
  

Welcome Starchasers! Happy New Year, hopefully things work out for you, those New Year Resolutions get resolved, you work off that eggnog hangover, etc, etc. I’d waste your time with this preamble, but you and both know you’re here for the real meat of this yearly recap so let’s get into it!


2024 was a huge year for Underspace. Mostly because, you know, it was actually our first official release, albeit in Early Access. We saw a huge boost in sales, engagement, community growth, and all those metrics that washed-up bald actors on social media sites talk about instead things like if they’re proud of the actual thing they made. We even got printed articles about the game, which is neat.



Following that big ole release and all the celebration and communal good vibes and cake, things moved onto to post EA-Launch support. We’ve had about 37 patches since the game first launched, featuring across the board improvements to optimization, gameplay, controller support (though why you want to use that I’ll still never figure out), and more, as well as tons of new features often submitted or based on feedback from you in the community.



2024 also saw the release of both our roadmap and the release of two of our planned Early Access roadmap updates. The first, Gods & Corpses, brought the undead world of Gravecity, alongside with a huge host of improvements to many late game bosses, new weapons, and more.



The second milestone update, Faces in the Fog, was our biggest update yet, and brought in a huge amount of new quests, full storylines for party members, a bounty hunting system, and a ton more things that I’m probably forgetting because I ran myself ragged getting that thing out in the first place.



Past that, we’ve had a few smaller updates and new goodies that have filtered in as this year chugs to a close, including full cockpits, summonable weapon platforms, and more.



But that’s just what’s been done. You’re here to know what’s going and what’s going to happen next.


As you may have noticed from the roadmap there was a bit of a schedule slip. After the launch of Faces in the Fog I realized that I was nearly destroying myself and falling apart at the bolts. I’m old now, my back hurts. I have things and living creatures that require that I still exist and breathe, so the name of the game for the later milestone updates was to take it slower.



Because, for one thing, they’re also massive MASSIVE updates. Wanna get into them? Yeah? Cool, glad we’re on the same page.

First off is Milestone #3, Intergalactic Architecture. This is one of the largest level updates to the entire game. Milestone #1’s centerpiece was a single planet. Milestone #3 aims to add around fifteen of those.



Being focused on planet and stationside content, it also will add new features such as whole shopping districts in major locations, increased character customization, tons of new dialogue and news stories on stations, and player housing with full interior decorating.

Intergalactic Architecture will also see the first new flyable ships added to the game (something players requested), this includes the new lines of Corporate and Washer Missionary fighters (with appropriate bonuses), but also unique ships such as the Champion’s racing scout and the Rival’s strange otherworldly craft.



We’ll be aiming to drop this update early 2025.

Our final milestone update, and the one that’ll mark the release of the game is Milestone #4: The Soulchaser Endeavor. This of course, brings forth probably the game’s most anticipated and requested feature: online multiplayer.

Of course what’s multiplayer without something to do in it? Not very good multiplayer, I’d say. The Soulchaser Endeavor features its own unique main quest, which serves as a separate story set after the events of the singleplayer main quest. This questline is centered around multiplayer activities, and features a lot of dungeon delving, worm avoiding, and boss crushing.



But fear not, for in multiplayer you’re not just one middle aged Vauldwin merchant out to reclaim his fortune, as you’re able to pick from multiple different races with full character customization for all of them.



If you have an internet connection/no friends/social anxiety, don’t worry. This last update also includes an offline version of multiplayer, which we call Freeplay. This lets you do the same amount of race customization, pursuing that questline, but is less multiplayery.

We’re aiming to drop this mid 2025, but an important thing to note is that a lot of this final update will be spent in beta testing, which means depending on how spectacularly broken it is things could take some time. We want to launch multiplayer in a state where things work, you know?

And between all these there’s also a smattering of other things, like increased mod support, pets, performance improvements, voice acting, and so on. No screenshots for these, so have some cats.



And that’s all for this recap! We’ll be aiming for a smaller patch this month to address various issues, plus add some new little goodies here and there.