Underspace News

Welcome starchasers! It's midnight and as a special treat we're rolling out our first major update: Gods & Corpses.



This is itself kind of a smaller prelude to some more major content-heavy updates coming down the line, and comes with a wonderful little sale to celebrate. It wasn't easy getting this update out mind you. A certain little furry brat kept unplugging our computers (he was mad that we had to go down in the basement following a tornado warning).



As you may have noticed, this is a big update. A lot of new files will have to get downloaded to make it all work, but thankfully future patches will go back to their relatively small size. Suck it up, take a cetirizine, and we'll all be okay. Now since this is a major update, before we get into the full patch notes, let's showcase the big highlights of this update, hmm?



This vast planet-spanning metropolis is the glistening undead capital of the Us Collective. It's rare that outsiders get to land, let alone have a chance to experience the secrets buried within its trenches. Lucky you! Gravecity is the second capital planet added to the game, and while originally dockable on release, it can now be properly explored alongside many NPCs, new graphics, new conversations, and more! Just watch your step.



To reach Gravecity, the players must first befriend the Us by doing missions or quests for them. They're not ones to trust lightly.



All those difficult-to-reach bosses have heard what you said about them, and they didn't like it. They've hit the gym and greatly enhanced their killing potential. Stock up on hull webbing, hug your friendbot, and prepare to learn the meaning of the phrase "regretting asking trainwiz to make these things harder".



The Librarian, BOB, and the Darkon Entity have all received a big facelift. If you've fought them before, fear not! We've added console commands that will let you reset which bosses you've faced.



VERY late in the game, players may encounter a new kind of item that will allow them to mark and travel to a preset location. Only one mark can be set at a time, but players can also perform powerful blind jumps to take them darn near anywhere on the standard galactic map.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



Stuck trying to find an item? Killing more your style over exploring? Stocked up on waaaaay too many Advanced Deep Scanners? You're in luck. We've added a ton of new options to help facilitate your wildest dreams. Start off with data acquisition. Destroyed enemies may sometimes drop data modules, which when looted can reveal trade and travel information for nearby areas. You can also pay Ijuni pricemen to find information on any nearby commodities, though be aware: It's not cheap.



This also comes with a host of many other quality of life improvements, including new UI elements, new confirmations, vastly improved memory usage, and more.



Oh and we've got new customization options! You'll find over 30 new dyes through gameplay.





We have over 30 Steam Achievements now. Impress your friends, woo your enemies, kill your gods! Something like that is probably possible now. Best of all, many of these are retroactive!



More of these will be coming in time, mostly as we add the content related to them.



This has nothing to do with anything she's just cute and I know some people get mad when I post my cats, so I am motivated all the more to post them.



And that's it! Without further ado, let's get into the full patch notes!

[h2]KNOWN ISSUES[/h2]

• Gravecity is currently unoptimized.
  
• Some bosses have effects that persist or re-enable when re-entering a system after defeating them.
  
• Equipment duplication can rarely happen on a reload.
  
• Some typos remain in dialogue.
  

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Data acquisition! NPCs will now drop data nodules that when looted can you give data to sell OR, more often, reveal a related station or jumphole somewhere on your local or galactic map.
  
• You can now pay Ijuni pricemen to try and locate stations that buy or sell a good you’re looking for, either locally or within the entire region. Be aware: Ijuni like to charge a lot for this service.
  
• Wreckage and salvage improvements: Wreckage now stacks and has its own dedicated category in the inventory. You can also sell wreckage to some equipment dealers on stations.
  
• About 30 or so new dyes have been added to the customization system, which can be found in vignettes, dungeons, etc, and give you far more customization options for your ship.
  
• During courier missions you can now ask for directions to the mission station.
  
• Bonuses such as Mister Maudlin’s booze can now be viewed under your stats in the character UI.
  
• Train travel information can now be viewed on station information.
  
• All quests now have full stage descriptions for every stage of their stages. Reading!
  
• All storm hazards can be scanned now, giving you both lucrative rewards and new information about the various hazards within a storm. In total, there are 40 new scannables to find and discover!
  
• You can now cancel crafting jobs. By default, highlighting a crafting job and pressing E will cancel this job.
  
• You can now use the Pin to fast travel! It comes with quite a few restrictions mind you, but that thing’s powerful. Obviously. Why do you think it was so hard to get?
  
• Steam Achievements have now been added! Most of these are retroactive too, while some are not as we don’t track the stats they’re asking for.
  
• Added more dialogue to the Keeper of Keys.
  
• Added a new graphical option that disables ambient crowd NPCs on stations. This can greatly improve performance on lower-end systems.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Gravecity now has its initial detailing pass and models implemented! Explore this vast undead trade city, listen in on new conversations, and find your way to the Tombwise Moon and its Amber Archives.
  
• A good chunk of late-game bosses have received an overhaul, making them much harder, much more engaging, and having tons more attacks and chaos.
  
• A huge amount of background technology that handled how we loaded game information has been completely redone. This means that memory is much more optimized! You’ll see most of your memory usage cut in half, as well as much faster initial load times.
  
• Cloaking has received an overhaul. In addition to it hiding you from ships mid-combat it can also be used to avoid being targeted by larger ships, hazards such as mines, and more. Cloaking devices are now divided into different tiers, with higher tiers hiding you from more and more things.
  
• Joysticks now auto-detect without needing to set them from the options menu.
  
• Adjusted the positions of some spawns during the Problem with Automation.
  
• Ghost Harvest now has proper quest markers.
  
• For modders: Player level caps are now a game constant, meaning they can be modded.
  
• Police checkpoints will scan you less now.
  
• Chapters are no longer exclusive with each other. Join as many as you’d like!
  
• Restored functionality that lets you view a map when your navmap is selected over a jumphole.
  
• Added a quick exit to the Rumeerin mountain dungeon.
  
• Added new console commands that affect world state permanence, mostly for testing.
  
• Acquiring already unlocked vanity items will now instead spawn some small other reward in its place.
  
• Retextured some small terminals in the campaign.
  
• Ships with other emissive materials such as children fighters can now have these be colored and customized. Emissive materials like these work off of your headlight color.
  
• The campaign will now warn you about certain points of no return.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed badly sized icons with Macrovari Freighters.
  
• Fixed issues with Reach for the Stars not progressing under certain circumstances.
  
• Fixed some overdraw issues in the pause menu.
  
• Fixed visual engine issues with Ijuni fighters.
  
• The Harvest’s Queen can now be scanned.
  
• Defeating Obscurus Galacti now properly refreshes waypoints.
  
• Peerless Casino’s launch warp now warps correctly and high risk and mid risk quexben tables now have proper costs.
  
• Fixed some dialogue issues where lines said by NPCs were meant to be said by the player.
  
• Fixed some ships in shipyards that were sitting outside of their yards.
  
• Fixed issue where some hazard UI elements would activate even if there were no hazards around.
  
• Planet Ijunus’ cargo trader no longer is a price checker.
  
• Cloaking devices and cargo expansions are both in the proper category now.
  
• Fixed some terminals on stations that had the wrong textures and activation type.
  
• Disabled or hidden jumpholes and stations no longer affect your abyssdrive.
  
• Some doors in Planet Vauldric no longer sling you beneath the map.
  
• Shadowspear can now be scanned, renders correctly at all angles, and has its vulnerability hitboxes increased.
  
• Fixed various typos in the main campaign.
  
• Fixed several misplaced mission nodes.
  
• Fixed issue where the Hellmouth Prince would respawn.
  
• Fixed some floating dishes in stations.
  
• Fixed issue where Gammus’ racetrack dialogue would repeat.
  
• Fixed issue where custom AI voice overrides wouldn’t acknowledge certain audio files.
  
• Fixed issue where you could kill mimics so hard every other mimic would die.
  
• There is now a confirmation menu when you go to sell a ship.
  
• Fixed some mistextured NPCs on stations.
  
• Fixed some particle systems on station NPCs playing when they shouldn’t.
  
• Fixed some missing descriptions on several campaign stations.
  
• Fixed issue when scanning certain campaign ships.
  
• Fixed issue where you could hail certain ships that aren’t meant to be hailed.
  
• Buoys on the navmap are now properly labeled and won’t show up as weird icons.
  
• Fixed issue where navmap detection boxes for suns and planets were too large.
  
• Fixed some cutscene issues in the main campaign.
  
• Fixed some dialogue playing on bosses that don’t actually have dialogues.
  
• Fixed issue where the Rumeerin mountain dungeon couldn’t be left.
  
• Fixed some placeholder text in the campaign.
  
• Fixed some texture issues on some remote pirate stations.
  
• The Last Portalmaker can now be scanned.
  
• Fixed issue where tutorials in station dialogue would cause menu softlocks.
  
• Fixed issue where bosses being killed wouldn’t trigger certain events.
  
• Fixed (again) issues where lodestones couldn’t be looted.
  
• Changed scripting in the Battle That Always Will Be to be more robust and capable of letting you complete the objectives in multiple orders.
  
• Fixed issue in campaign mission 9 that made you wake up in the wrong area.
  
• Fixed issue with some spawns in the campaign not respawning during a reload.
  
• Fixed issue where certain alarms would play incorrectly when loading saves.
  
• Fixed issue where some campaign NPCs couldn’t be spoken to.
  
• Fixed various typos in dialogue, descriptions, and more.
  
• Crystal Arrays can now fight back against you.
  

Hello starchasers! As you know last week we didn’t have a patch, mostly because I was in no position to be patching things, mostly because I was on the other side of the country, mostly because I was talking to people like Todd Howard.



He told me I was an inspiration for trains everywhere. Which is correct, seeing as people are already modding Underspace quite a lot. We even have a Nexus Mods page, of all things.

This is normally where I’d be talking about patch notes and all that stuff, sadly I’m going to disappoint you this week, we’re still delaying this patch until May 27th. Why? Because May 27th will be the launch of our first major update: Gods & Corpses.



I thought I’d talk a little bit about what you can expect with this upcoming update. The centerpiece of course is the secretive and sprawling Us homeworld of Gravecity and its moon: Tombwise.



It’s no easy feat to reach this undead metropolis, as the Us are rightfully distrusting of outsiders and people who aren’t colonies of corpse-mushrooms, but within are many secrets and more to discover. Gravecity already exists in game, but this update will come with a full suite of NPCs to talk to, news stories to discover, and of course updated graphics to the various characters and locations within it.

Second to our major update is a big redo of many of the highest level bosses, including that deranged mass of cubic malice that many players have affectionately dubbed “God”. I’ll keep most of this stuff under wraps, but players disappointed with many of these bosses being too easy will be in for a surprise. We’ll be providing some simple ways to refight these things in time, of course.



There’s lots of new gameplay features coming too. Players late in the game will be able to make use of… certain things with a few fast travel system. This lets you mark specific locations and jump to them, as well as perform blind jumps to random systems.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Cloaking devices have received an overhaul as well. Much like scanners, they now come in different levels of power. Each level can hide you from progressively more and more powerful enemies. Perhaps one day these cloaking devices can even hide your sins from God. Maybe.



Besides these, there are some big technical optimization bits here, which will see improved initial loading times and a MASSIVE reduction in RAM usage. This is because we’ve offloaded a lot of resources that were loaded at runtime (namely stations) to be loaded on a case-by-case basis. This was something we always planned for, but actually sitting down and implementing this for over 200 interiors was something that takes a while.



Acquiring and learning about the world around you has become much easier now too. Ships now have a chance to drop data packets, which when looted can randomly mark locations they’ve discovered within the region. You can also pay Ijuni pricemen to scan a star system or region for locations of a specific trade good that you want. And of course, you can now scan many hazards encountered in storms for money and that sweet, sweet nectar we call lore.



And there’s even more beyond that. There’s lots of new functionality for the UI, including the ability to use the navmap to view other systems via gates and jumpholes, the ability to view what ancient gates you’ve unlocked, more detailed UI elements, more confirmations when doing things like selling ships, the ability to ask for directions during courier missions, auto-detection of joysticks and controllers, the ability to sell wrecked items to certain junk traders, the ability to cancel crafting jobs, and more!



And that's all for this week. We'll see you on the 27th. Have some catpost to cap this post off.

Hello starchasers! How are you- Cat pictures? Oh alright, fine. I keep waking up with 30 pounds worth of meowmeat on top of me so here you go. These Things.



Now I'll be out of town next week which means there will be no patch next week. This is fine as we're ramping things up for our first big EA milestone release: Gods & Corpses, which will bring lots of new little bits of content and a lot of background optimization stuff to the game as well. Until then, here's a smaller patch to tide you over.



Onto the changelog!

[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• Added a setting that lets you set what your mouse wheel or throttle on a joystick controls, so you can use it for your whatsit, your engines now instead of the quickmenu (which now also has keybinds for that).
  
• The frienddrive interface is now radial and has some small improvements to readability. On the subject of frienddrive improvements, NPCs now also jump in much faster.
  
• The navmap now displays if a station sells ships.
  
• Added new effects to campaign mission 9 to better communicate just how screwed you are.
  
• While disrupted, lanelines will have a persistent effect showing that they’re offline.
  
• The Peerless Casino is now open for business! There’s been some small changes to some of the gaming stations, but more relevantly it now has its full interior with some initial detailing. More detailing will come later, of course.
  
• Peerless Casino’s quexben tables now have different risk levels.
  
• Hat, Creon, Tyrono, and even Candrial can all be spoken too when off-mission, and have extensive dialogue trees!
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Completing the campaign won’t reset your reputation with certain special factions.
  
• Expanded and changed what factions the Absolutionists don’t like (hint: a lot).
  
• More stations sell station plating now.
  
• Adjusted the hitboxes of some of the Cannonfiend’s attacks.
  
• Adjusted the triggerzone of the space mirror.
  
• Made the items that let you craft unique dungeon weaponry stackable.
  
• All buyable ships now have icons.
  
• Added more lodestones in more locations. You still need the same amount to complete the quest, this just gives you more opportunities.
  
• The Loco Star now has its proper gameplay stats and is worthy of being the endgame spacetrain it was always meant to be.
  
• Removed more quest systems that could be reached via unstable jumps unintentionally.
  
• Gravecity’s quests now have a reputation requirement attached.
  
• Autopilot when manual docking is enabled will no longer disable manual docking. In order to take advantage of autopilot’s auto docking feature, you will have to turn off manual docking. Goto still works normally, of course.
  
• Hostile Delivery now has appropriate icons for characters in dialogue and some events have been shored up to work even if you missed them the first time.
  
• Some improved support for HOTAS and joystick. This is still very vestigial (remember: mouse and keyboard will always be what we HEAVILY recommend) but it will try to automatically identify valid axises for controls based on what you have plugged in.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed some typos in dialogue.
  
• Fixed issue where reversing into a station would cause docking weirdness later on.
  
• Fixed issue where the Suncracker would respawn.
  
• Fixed various lighting issues on stations.
  
• Fixed some closing issues with the new radial menu.
  
• Fixed some button rebinding issues, including overdisplay and some buttons not allowing for rebinds.
  
• Fixed issues where some records in the codex file would disappear.
  
• Fixed some misnamed ships in game.
  
• Fixed several more issues with big-kill-based missions.
  
• Fixed issue where courier missions wouldn’t tell you the name of the area you need to courier to.
  
• Fixed mission issues with several mission items that couldn’t be sold.
  
• Fixed issues where wave-based missions would spawn too few enemies.
  
• Fixed issue where some secret systems could be reached with unstable jumpholes. This will eventually be a thing, for sure, but not THESE particular star systems.
  
• Fixed issue where the player would randomly become a ten foot tall robot woman for no reason.
  
• Fixed issue where some ancient gates could be randomly unstable.
  
• Refactored how longrange scans work to be more reliable.
  
• Fixed further issues with the creatures inhabiting the great egg in Pard-12.
  
• Adjusted some issues with several questmarkers in Black Borm’s Treasure.
  
• Crafting menu now displays value and valid hardpoints (if any) of the crafted item.
  
• Fixed issues with loading quicksaves via the quickload option.
  
• Randomization Console Commands now also properly updates your UI.
  
• Fixed issue where some lodestones couldn’t be looted.
  
• Fixed graphical errors where several systems would have skyboxes that were too low resolution.
  
• Fixed issue where avoidance code wouldn’t work when autopilot was trying to dock with something.
  
• Your ship’s onboard AI narrator will now correctly announce things for minefields, explosive gases, dock denials, and docking.
  
• Fixed issues with Hostile Delivery where players friendly with the Washers could have their reputation reset.
  
• Fixed some lonely startrawlers that had been blown off course.
  
• Fixed some drift when using joysticks or controllers.
  
• Fixed some inventory UI where old data would still be displayed.
  

[h2]Linux Build[/h2]
We're working on trying to get out a native Linux build, right now this is sort of in testing and it'll take a while seeing as a 10gb upload on my 1970s internet isn't the easiest thing. Ideally, this Linux build will also make it easier to use with Steam Deck.

Anyway, one more closing cat.

Attention, Starchasers!



Thank you for your attention.

It hasn't even been a month since Underspace's Early Access release but the community's response has been overwhelming -- so much so that we feel it's time to let this amazing community in on our plans for the rest of the year (and some change).



Here's the rundown in case the image doesn't load:

Update: GODS & CORPSES (May)

• New Planet: Gravecity
  Late Game Boss Overhauls
  New codex and scanner options
  Knowledge acquisition system
  New ship customization options

Update: [REDACTED] (Summer)

• Bounty hunting questline
  15+ new quests
  More NPC interactions
  New special equipment

Update: [REDACTED] (Fall)

• All missing planet models
  Station interior overhauls
  Character customization overhaul
  Station detailing overhaul
  Cockpit elements and customization

Update: [REDACTED] (Winter to early 2025)

• Multiplayer
  Main storyline continuation
  Freeplay mode
  Additional mod support

IMPORTANT: this is not the list of ALL the updates you can expect on the following months; rather the biggest ones we will be focusing on.

We will obviously be improving all features of Underspace's base game and, as always, we will continue to fix bugs and listen to suggestions from starchasers inside the Steam Discussions and the Underspace Discord server.

Once again, we'd like to thank you so much for your continued support of Underspace. It's indescribable to see so many people appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears this team has put into this wonderfully weird game and love it as much as we do. For that, you all get a bonus cat pic.



You're welcome.

See you in Underspace, starchasers!

Welcome to next week starchasers! Another seven unfortunate days have passed through our shadowy midst, and another seven days of hardcore patching have came and went. Don't burn yourself out you say? Buddy I was at the farmer's market all day today. Did you know you can whip honey into something called honey cream? It's as divine as the gods you've been killing. Where was I? Cat pictures, right. The little brats love the new tower you guy funded into existence.



Anyway, serendipity (that fickle mistress that determines whether or not I can fix a bug) has smiled her mascot-horror-level smile upon us this week, and a bunch of annoying longstanding issues were able to be reproduced and fixed. Plus, we have a ton of new UI quality of life stuff, some new effects and music, and best of all: Some stuff.



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]NEW FEATURES[/h2]

• You can now see how much space you have in your ship as a numeric value.
  
• You can now sell your scanned data to stormtracker ships!
  
• You can now view scanned data in your information UI.
  
• Control inverts are now separated out into station controls and ship controls respectively.
  
• Added an option to control the speed of campaign cutscenes when on stations.
  
• Added a dialogue history component to the pause menu.
  
• Viewing the information of any local lucrative fields will now tell you if those fields offer any resources.
  
• Added a small indicator to let you see if any nearby asteroids are mineable.
  
• Added new music to the game.
  
• Added a new quick-access menu to go to your various actual menus.
  
• New effects for tractoring in items: Including trails, different sounds based on whether or not you CAN tractor things in, and more.
  
• Added new accessibility options for motion sickness. These will be gradually updated as we identify places that cause it.
  

[h2]CHANGES AND REBALANCES[/h2]

• Imbo’s guns now no longer require reputation to buy. Why would they? All you need is Imbo.
  
• Defense Drones and Autoturrets have been rebalanced to be much more viable. Defense drones now do much more damage, while autoturrets now do more damage and take comparatively less energy.
  
• Buffed mining: Many more mineable asteroids will spawn, and asteroids have much higher yields and chances. Minable asteroids also now move slower and are slightly easier to shoot.
  
• We’ve refactored the background lightning effects you see in storms. They should no longer introduce shader errors and have higher resolution textures and glows.
  
• Weapon platforms are no longer considered space stations, which means missiles will now target and track them much better and they are no longer considered taxable income.
  
• True Struggles of a Modern Artist now has updated dialogue and entries, making it easier to find the things you need.
  
• Adjusted base LOD distances for rendering to improve performance.
  
• Optimized large ship rendering to increase performance in areas with a lot of those fat bastards.
  
• Optimized ship rendering a bit, you should see some performance increases in heavy traffic areas.
  
• The Great Spacetrain Robbery can now let you properly loot the cargo cars it has.
  
• Terminals, such as repair things, mission boards, news boards, etc, now have proper screen textures for the vast majority of them. No more black monitors filled with the inky uncaring abyss.
  
• You can now use abyssdrives in storms so long as there are no active hazards.
  
• Quest waypoints prioritize jumpgates over jumpholes for pathing now.
  
• Target closest hostile now can target a wider variety of things (such as battleships, weapon platforms, and fish) and the button for that on your UI now works.
  
• The Moonshiner now contacts you more easily and you can comm his train in order to get what you so deeply desire.
  
• Higher level scanner upgrades can now show you the health of mines.
  
• Reworked sudden suns in storms to surge better, do their damage more consistently, last much less, and have new sounds and effects.
  
• The Hellmouth Prince now has a custom talky speaky icon for talking, to better communicate that he’s not some random dude but a giant mass of living fire piloting a battleship (though not very well).
  
• Hellmouth Prince is now invincible until the fight starts. He’s always invincible mind you, just so very stupid.
  
• You can now quickload during combat.
  

[h2]FIXES[/h2]

• Fixed some mislabeled lanelines.
  
• Moved the location of some rifts in Yasta and Redemeliat.
  
• Fixed some quest markers not leading you to proper locations.
  
• Refactored some shaders in the game to hopefully prevent THE VOID from consuming one’s screen. At least as frequently…
  
• Speaking of which we’ve done a passthrough on shaders to hopefully clamp down on THE VOID once and for all. The VOID is our enemy. It is yours too.
  
• Fixed hair rendering issues in places.
  
• Fixed some cloak and buff rendering issues that caused overdraw.
  
• Fixed issues in the Amber Forest in Turnways where nodes would just go flying off. Weeee.
  
• The Vauldwin taxi service will now appear more consistently.
  
• Fixed issues with black screens persisting due to pausing or alt-tabbing.
  
• Kaon Shapebinder now activates better and has his invincibility mechanics reimplemented.
  
• Kaon Shapebinder will also now actively follow his persistence node. Maybe he does come back to life sometimes, but not this time. Dude’s fricking dead.
  
• Chapters that require mining items or acquiring items to rank now work properly. Go Trash Pandas!
  
• Exhibition and challenger matches will now work for arena champions.
  
• Fixed some softlocks that occurred rarely via random missions taken in lower population systems such as Bastic.
  
• Fixed issue with the Research Retrieval random mission.
  
• Fixed issues with patrolling cruisers flying through planets.
  
• Fixed issues with world persistence saves not working.
  
• Fixed issues with wrecks spawning inside asteroids.
  
• Fixed quest issues where you could use the Ticker Shunter to leave the relevant boss fight.
  
• Fixed many mission issues relating to wave killing missions, including better clamping on potentially endless fights there.
  
• Fixed issue where many of the rocky cliffs in the Ijuni regions had no colliders.
  
• Fixed some floating geometry on some stations.
  
• Baton Broken will now progress properly if the player leaves the initial quest elements and comes back later.
  
• Creon! and the White Fleet chapters will now work properly for ranking up. Both chapters now have a wider range of enemies that count for their chapters now too.
  
• Fixed issue where the space egg’s inhabitants could be viewed from a distance.
  

We'll have another patch coming next week of course. I'm aiming to make these weekly except under special circumstances, with larger updates coming each quarter. Speaking of those larger updates, we'll be showing off our Early Access Roadmap this coming Wednesday, May 1st. Be there, or be a square. One more cat picture, but you'll have to make it last.