Underspace News

Hello starchasers! Welcome back to Saturday. We've had a good week, hopefully you have too. What's that? You want a cat? Well alright.


Now that the important stuff is out of the way, let's get into this week's patch!


Here's a new thing we'll do each patch: A brief looksee at every new thing or big change added to the game.

[h2]NPC Drones[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
You're not the only one able to make use of friendbot now. His love is great enough to accommodate the whole galaxy. You'll sometimes come across NPCs making use of robotic drones and such in your travels. They can harass you and repair nearby allies, but fortunately they're pretty fragile.

[h2]Ace Large Ships[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Legendary enemies, eximus, elite enemies, whatever you want to call them. Previously only starfighters and freighters could make use of these abilities, but now large transports and tankers and the like can also be ace enemies. They also come with several new abilities, such as being able to fabricate proximity mines, greatly overclock their weapon speeds, or even more esoteric dangers like being possessed by the spirit of all-consuming hunger, or have their innards infested with mimics. Beware!

[h2]New Stationside Stuff[/h2]

As we prepare for our upcoming big roadmap update you'll find new things and new locations being added across the map, like certain Junktech offices or new vending machines that happily buy up your unwanted wrecked weapons. What are we cooking up? I mean... I detailed it in the roadmap. You read that, right?




[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added new some rooms to Junktech World Headquarters. What’s going on there, hmm?
  
• Added wreckage vendors across the galaxy. These will let you sell your unwanted wrecked items.
  
• NPCs can now use friendbots! Those equipped with them can send out a support drone that either slowly repairs damage dealt to them, or fires back at you while orbiting you. Take them out before they can cause any real trouble. Luckily, your scanner is good at tracking them.
  
• Previously ace enemies could not be large ships, but now that’s changed. Ships such as transports, tankers, gunboats, space trains, etc, can now be ace enemies and have new abilities, such as being outfitted as drone carriers, missile boats, or have an all-consuming maw that devours nearby ships to empower themselves. Watch out, and get those long range scanners ready!
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Adjusted camera preview settings for Us freighters.
  
• Adjusted mission spawn points in Shipstar.
  
• The Loco Star now has an icon and can be fully customized in the ship customization menu! Also a few saving issues were fixed with it, and smoke will be less annoying when you’re flying it normally.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed issue where you could use weapon groups while in highengine.
  
• Fixed issue where cargo box hardpoints could cause UI issues in game.
  
• Added a storage terminal to the Master’s Ball.
  
• Took another crack and making sure the Overspace Transport in The Problem With Automation would properly follow its path.
  
• Fixed campaign softlock if you left Mission #2’s introduction early.
  
• Fixed issue where you couldn’t couldn’t comm the final signal node in Signal From Elsewhere.
  
• Fixed some internal targeting code that was making NPCs accidentally shoot themselves. Shhh. I won’t tell if you don’t.
  
• Fixed more duplication issues when loading a save.
  
• Fixed issue where player worth would be calculated incorrectly at points.
  

, Starchasers!

Yes, yes, you're here for the cats. I'm here for the cats. We're all here for the cats. Enjoy this cat.



hittin us with that ol razzle dazzle

I come bearing exciting news, Starchasers! You know how PC Gamer wrote this excellent article about us for their site?

Turns out they're also publishing an article on us in their August 2024 Issue (#398, UK Version)!

Not only that, we're listed on the front page!!1!



From what we can see it's a multi-page spread on Underspace, complete with our updated artwork (I swear it still has that new capsule art smell). I haven't seen any other print magazines on Underspace, but if they exist, let me know so I can make a big deal about those too.

Anyway, here's what they have to say for themselves:

"This month PC Gamer delivers world-exclusive access to Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, the incredibly desired new expansion to the award-winning action RPG. To do this, PC Gamer flies to Japan, visits FromSoftware's Tokyo studio, interviews Elden Ring's legendary creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, and goes hands-on with Shadow of the Erdtree for more than seven hours. It's a mega scoop, and your ultimate guide to all things Shadow of the Erdtree.

"This issue is loaded with quality previews and reviews, too, including going hands-on with the gore-filled new shooter, Killing Floor 3, dark co-op tactical survival game, The Forever Winter, innovative indie studio title, Screenbound, as well as Test Drive Unlimited: Solar Crown, Underspace, and Sonokuni. Meanwhile, over in this issue's reviews section, the PC Gamer team delivers authoritative verdicts on dramatic space opera RTS, Homeworld 3, as well as MotoGP 24, V Rising, Hellbade 2: Senua's Saga, Indika, and Men of War II, among other games. Enjoy the issue!"

Now, back to your regularly scheduled cat.



there's a malaphor here somewhere

Hello starchasers! It's Saturday and we're back on that sweet sweet patch train.
Many of these bugs were found by you, our community starchasers, and many of these features or changes were also requested by them. We like to do that. Just like how my orange cat loves to sleep in my chair, no matter who might already be in it.



There's some very requested stuff here now, such as weapon grouping, a more dangerous Veil nebula, and more.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• You can now assign weapon groups to your weapons! You can do this in your inventory menu for any weapon that appears on the active equipment menu. There are four weapon groups in all.
  
• Strange things have been detected out in the depths of the Veil. Beware traveling through it now, as there be dragons in the deepest depths of space.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Buffed mining railguns.
  
• NPCs will not perform talking animations on very short dialogue pieces, to prevent weirdness.
  
• Added a shipdealer to Kalgrite.
  
• Autoturrets now have a maximum range of 1k on their guns.
  
• Storm hazards are now weighted towards hazards and anomalies you haven’t seen before. Note that this doesn’t apply retroactively.
  
• The Veiler tollway will not charge you if you are hostile to it.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Added restrictions for where the Pin can be used and removed some unintended dungeon systems that could be jumped to with it.
  
• Wrecking Fields can now be docked with.
  
• Adjusted the coloring in Spreem’s nebulas.
  
• Optimized some distant points of interest in Spreem.
  
• Fixed issues where NPCs during “The Uprising” wouldn’t attack you.
  
• Fixed issue where some Steam achievements were unlocked early or not unlocked at all.
  
• FIxed issue where stations with train stations and shipyards would double up descriptions.
  
• Fixed various typos in tooltips.
  
• Fixed issue where rotating while docking would cause you to indefinitely rotate while on a station.
  
• Fixed issue with Nodeghost missions and similar big kill missions not completing.
  
• Fixed issue with Agricultural Guild elite missions not completing.
  
• Fixed issue where some patrolling battleships wouldn’t fight back.
  
• Fixed some broken tooltips in Pard-130.
  
• Smuggling circles can no longer fix your reputation with permanently hostile factions.
  
• Fixed issue during the end of the campaign where you could leave endgame areas early and objectives didn’t update.
  
• Fixed many floating geometries and furniture pieces in stations.
  
• Fixed issue where Off Track and other train travel events wouldn’t proc.
  
• Fixed some reputation issues for several Ballden factions that couldn’t have their reputations affected.
  

Starchasers! Welcome back. I'm taking my wife to a convention this Saturday and I'll be out all day, so, lucky duckies that you are, you get this week's patch early! It's a small one but there's some stuff there you'll like. I liked it. I like a lot of things. It's nice to like things. Like cats. I don't like my cats but I love them all the same.


Anyway, onto the patch!




[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added new commands to help find items via the developer console.
  
• Points of interest you've scanned and sold will now have a different color and marker indicating so.
  
• NPCs in on-station dialogue will now play talking animations when text is scrolling. Note that this kind of dialogue is something we never aim to voice, even when voices are implemented.
  
• You can now speak to the bartender on Gravecity.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Autoturrets now prioritize your current target.
  
• Removed blank dialogue history nodes from your dialogue history from occurring. Or something. Who am I?
  
• Godmode now lets you craft things without needing the items. You still need the recipe, however.
  
• You can no longer pause and load the game within loading screens. This was largely an oversight that could result in too many save issues doubling up.
  
• Fitt’s planets now have symbols on the navmap.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed issue where the Pin could take you to dungeon exclusive systems.
  
• Radial menus will now close when you open another menu.
  
• Fixed miscolorations on Us freighter engine charging.
  
• Fixed UI issues with the on-station UI.
  
• Fixed exploit where you could equip higher tier objects in the wrong slot.
  
• Fixed issue where mods could restrict campaign and mission progress.
  
• Fixed issue where large transport tier ships wouldn’t have their turrets appear unless you were stupidly close.
  
• Fixed issue where the Planet Carver would spawn weirdly.
  
• Fixed mistextured or floating objects on stations.
  
• Adjusted spawn distance of fishing ships to help prevent bigger ships from hitting em.
  
• Fixed some mislabeled lanelines.
  
• Fixed issue with elite Subsumer missions not working.
  
• Fixed issue where docked denial AI voices would override normal docking voices.
  
• Fixed issue with The Problem With Automation’s transport circling endlessly.
  
• Fixed dialogue issues if you lost a race in Chunidale’s racetrack.
  
• Fixed issue where Allco’s elite missions wouldn’t let you loot the salvage item.
  

See you next week!

Hey hey starchasers! How's your Saturday? Full of rain? That's thematically appropriate.
We're returning to our weekly patch schedule now that Gods & Corpses is out of the way. It'll be a bit before our next big update (which is a true doozy) is coming out, so for now you'll have to be content with these tiny crumb-sized updates, in the same way my cat is satisfied with sitting on dirty clothes whenever she gets the chance.


Again, this is a small patch but there's a lot of decent optimizations and fixes that I think you'll appreciate.




[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added a new option to control the size of the targeting reticule.
  
• The navmap will now display the owning region of a star system.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Games saved on stations will show the current station’s location.
  
• Legendary ships that spawn beam stuff will now properly target nearby hostiles, not just the player.
  
• Ticker relays will now have green triangles on the long range scanner once their relevant questline begins.
  
• Adjusted projectile trajectory code to feel a little more natural.
  
• Huge improvements on performance in crowd-heavy areas on stations, due to many NPCs having their models reduced to single drawcalls.
  
• Adjusted lighting settings on some stations.
  
• Adjusted Darkon Entity’s ambient attacks to be a little bit more thematically consistent and not hit the player incorrectly.
  
• Dialogue cameras for almost all talkable-to characters now are properly oriented and translated.
  
• Optimized performance with the Darkon entity slightly.
  
• Updated several visuals in Reach for the Stars.
  
• Rebalanced some trade routes in Union systems to be less broken.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed some weird geometry for the news board on the Remaining Eye.
  
• Fixed camera issues with the Loco Star.
  
• Fixed some rifts that spawned outside of nebulas.
  
• Fixed issue where acquired customization items wouldn’t… acquire. These will need to be reacquired but thankfully, that’s allowed.
  
• Fixed some asteroids spawning inside lanelines.
  
• Fixed issue where some duplicate ships could be seen within inventory menus on stations.
  
• Resized many ship icons in the inventory to be more visible.
  
• Fixed issue where some missions would spawn hostile ships as non-hostile.
  
• Fixed issue where many achievements wouldn’t display or were doubling up.
  
• Fixed issue where multiple joined chapters couldn’t be accessed in the information UI.
  
• Fixed issue where mouse mapping wouldn’t work for some inputs.
  
• Fixed flickering lights in Planet Vauldric’s shipdealer.
  
• Fixed issue where ambient crowd settings would disable NPCs that weren’t meant to be disabled.
  
• Solar loot boxes now display the proper distance in the targeting UI.
  
• Looting single objects will now play the tractor beam effect.
  
• Fixed some texture issues in various stations.
  
• Many of the redone bosses now properly cease to exist after their defeats.
  
• Fixed issue where waypoints on stations could cause the map to disappear.
  
• Fixed some mislabeled instructions during the Ordnance Tomb quest.
  
• Fixed some rendering issues in Clearhome.
  
• Fixed a huge amount of typos everywhere.
  
• Fixed issue where the pin wouldn’t work in some star systems.
  
• Fixed item duplication issues when switching between ships.
  
• 
  

And that's all for this week! See you next week.