Lightyear Frontier News

Winners of the Home Sweet Homestead event! 🏆

We want to send a big thank you to all participants in the modular building event! 👏 The HomeSweetHome beta is now officially closed.🔒

You have really shown off your skills in creating homesteads that any person could dream of living in! Kitchens, bunkbeds, beautiful homes and gardens - you name it!

It’s been amazing seeing all of your creations, and we’re excited to announce the winners of this event:

🏆Winners

A traditional farm and barn just hits the spot. The inside of the barn is decorated just like how a home should feel, homey!

The feeling of visiting another country washes over us, and somehow these buildings give off the vibe of a temple with a calming garden from the East…

A carpet was created out of no cloth, but something mysterious that many are scratching their head over. This handy work was made by a smart exofarmer!

This building offers whatever you could wish for. It surely does remind us of how some retail companies used to be on Earth before we became exofarmers…

Big isn’t everything! A unique build that got it all: Your homestead, a garage for your Mech, and your farm. Why waste resources when something small can give you everything you need?

Congratulations - All of you will receive a Pioneer’s Bundle Steam Key!

🥇 Receiving your prize

If you are one of the winners, comment below, and our community manager will reach out to you through PM here on Steam.

Be wary of scammers! Do not click on any links or anything of that sort!

Upon response, we will provide you with your prize for you to enjoy 👏

Until next time Exofarmers! 🌱🏠
The Frame Break team

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Got questions? Join our Discord!
Got some feedback to share? Put ‘em in here!
Encountered a bug? Report it here!

➡️ Join our communities:
Discord X/Twitter TikTok Instagram Facebook

Homestead beta building event + teasers

🏠 HOME SWEET HOMESTEAD🪑

[h3]MODULAR BUILDING EVENT
[/h3]
Explore the freedom and show off your creativity by building the most beautiful, cozy, or unique house - inside and out!

[h2]📅 Event Duration[/h2]
April 30th – May 7th

[h2]✨ How to Participate[/h2]
To access your “Home Sweet Homestead” Beta, follow these steps:

Open Steam.
Go to Library.
Find Lightyear Frontier.
Right-click Lightyear Frontier, click on “Properties…”.
In the popup window, choose “Betas” in the menu.
At the top you will find “Beta Participation”. Click on the dropdown button to the right. Choose “homesweethomestead”.
Done! Now the “homesweethomestead” beta will appear in your library, ready to try out!

[h2]📸 Submission Guidelines
[/h2]

You can only win once!
You can build by yourself or with your friends. If you win as a team, you will all get a prize!
Upload your screenshots to the “Screenshot” subsection on Steam. If you need help with how, follow this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=181142704
Include the hashtag #HomeSweetHomestead in your screenshot caption.
If you’re building with your friends, include their Steam names in the caption or image.
Optional: Tell us your design inspiration in one sentence!

[h2]🏆 Prizes
[/h2]A total of 7 winners will be selected, with one Pioneer’s Bundle Steam Key awarded to each!

[h2]✅ Tips
[/h2]

Use items in creative ways!
All styles of your homestead project are welcome! Fantasy, modern, rustic, your IRL home… The sky is the limit!

[h3]Winners will be announced on Steam!
[/h3]

Keep your eyes sharp

Small teasers for what's to come can be found in the beta… 👀🔍

Happy building, Exofarmers! 🌱🏠

See you soon,
The FrameBreak Team

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Got questions? Join our Discord!
Got some feedback to share? Put ‘em in here!
Did you encounter a bug? Let us know here!

➡️ Join our communities:

Lightyear Frontier is 1 years old! 🎉 + QnA Video

[h2]Happy anniversary Exofarmers! 🎉[/h2]
Today it’s 1 year since we launched Lightyear Frontier in Early Access. It’s been a long road up to this point but we’re so happy to have met all of you, our amazing players, and we’re very excited to continue shaping the game together with you all. In order to celebrate this day we have some things to share with you.

[h3]Giveaway[/h3]
We are hosting a giveaway of Steam Keys to Lightyear Frontier and to the Pioneer’s bundle over on our Discord - Hop into the server to celebrate with us and have the chance of winning a free key!

➡️➡️➡️ Join the server here! ⬅️⬅️⬅️

[h3]QnA[/h3]
In our last post, we asked you to give us questions about the upcoming update coming this summer. Wilmer, our creative director, took some time in front of a camera to give you some answers to both exciting new things coming, and some more serious topics. Give it a watch and let us know if you have even more questions or if you have something you’d like us to talk more about in our next post.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Thank you all so much for this past year. For sharing your feedback with us, for sharing your amazing suggestions, for taking beautiful screenshots, and first and foremost, for playing Lightyear Frontier. We got exciting plans for you this upcoming year and cannot wait to share more of them with you.

Until next time—happy farming, Exofarmers! 🚀🌱

See you soon,
The FrameBreak Team

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Got questions? Join our Discord!
Got some feedback to share? Put ‘em in here!
Encountered a bug? Report it here!

➡️ Join our communities:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677110/Lightyear_Frontier/

The journey forward 🚗

[h2]State of Dev[/h2]

Hey Exofarmers!
We know you are all eagerly awaiting the next update for Lightyear Frontier, and we greatly appreciate your patience. Let’s talk a bit about what’s happening now and what to expect:

Since release, we’ve noticed that the game feels a bit static, and many of our players and wishlisters are waiting for that special something to be added to the Frontier.

After further exploration of this matter, we realized the game’s direction so far is not quite what we—or you—have hoped for. Over fall and winter, we found an adjustment to the direction that we believe will level up the game to bring it that something we, and you, have been looking for.

The road ahead will address your feedback with a focus on giving you more power, freedom, and creativity on the Frontier:

[h3]A bigger world to explore[/h3]

You let us know that the Frontier felt a bit cramped, and we agreed - so now we’re making it a LOT bigger, with possibilities for more diverse traversal and exploration!

[h3]More strategy and power to the mech[/h3]

We’ve received the feedback that the mech can sometimes give the feeling of not being as strong as it looks, we’re working on changing that - you should feel powerful in your mech! We’re also looking at increasing strategic thinking in how you progress and upgrade your mech, to be stronger than ever before!

[h3]Making your homestead more homey[/h3]

You told us you wanted to be able to go inside and decorate your house, we want to give you that, but more - that’s why we’re working on a modular building system. This will allow your creativity to go wild!

[h3]Bigger and better farming![/h3]

We know you’ve been craving water automation and like to build big farming fields - we’re working on making that possible!

[h2]When is the next update coming?[/h2]
A lot of positive and exciting things will happen as we walk down this new path, but a change of direction like this, at this stage of the game, comes with some notable trade-offs. The most noticeable is a delay in updates for Lightyear Frontier.

We are aiming for our next big update to be in early summer if development goes as smoothly as we’re hoping. This is because we want to give you an experience in Lightyear Frontier that both you and we can be proud of.

Another trade-off we already know will happen is the removal of our current house constructs, they will be replaced by the new modular building system we mentioned earlier.

In conclusion, the wait for the next update will be a bit longer than usual but, it is for a great cause and exciting things are coming! Now, we imagine that you have a BUNCH of questions…

To bring more clarity, we’d love to answer your questions—whether about past updates, current work, or the future of the Frontier.

Drop your questions in the Steam post’s discussion thread! In about a week, we’ll go through them and share some answers. Stay tuned!

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Thank you for your continuous support and attention Exofarmers!

See you again soon,
The Frame Break team

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Got questions? Join our Discord!
Got some feedback to share? Put ‘em in here!
Encountered a bug? Report it here!

➡️ Join our communities:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677110/Lightyear_Frontier/

Lightyear Frontier is Steam Deck Verified! + Devlog

Hello Exofarmers!

Some amazing news just landed - Lightyear Frontier is Steam Deck Verified!

This has been a long process and we’re so happy to share this news with you all. There is a small update that’s coming along with this just to make sure the resolution works and that crossplay is still enabled for all platforms + some various bugfixes!

Don’t miss out on a devlog below! ⬇️

[h2]Patch Notes - V. 0.4.1282[/h2]

Fixed an issue where the Steam Deck would default to an incorrect and distorted resolution after a recent SteamOS update
Fixed interactions with Compost Box causing severe performance issues during rapid changes in player inventory
- Most noticeable when harvesting lots of plants or shooting lots of seeds
Fixed a few rare crashes
Fixed Pioneer Bundle not having an image
Fixed Sprout Cannon being able to plant some sprouts in plots
Fixed P.I.C.K.-Axe occasionally getting a purple afterglow in multiplayer

Devlog - Taking a look back at past updates

Today we’ll be giving you some behind-the-scenes beans on our past updates - neighbors & Animals and Trailblazer. We’re taking a final look back at where we’ve been, before looking ahead to our new experimental updates, which are waiting just around the corner. Let’s start off with:

[h2]Neighbors and Animals[/h2]

[h3]Neighbors [/h3]

Moving to a new planet with friends can be exciting, but if you’re doing it solo it can get quite lonely. This is something we believed could be the case early on but weren't too sure how to prioritise. Once we released Lightyear Frontier and started getting feedback, we could see that you all wanted some company to feel more connected to the new world, and that’s when we knew that neighbors needed to set their coordinates for your new planet!

Our earliest idea of neighbors evolved and changed during development, a lot thanks to your feedback and thoughts. You help us shape new features but also when we add them!

The neighbors we have so far have personalities and qualities that contrast with each other and we’d like for potential new neighbors to be just as unique as well. What kind of neighbors would you like to see in the future? Share your ideas with us!

[h3]Ulf [/h3]
We knew all along that we wanted to have a neighbor connected to nature and plants on the Frontier. With this in mind, we started leaning towards adding a botanist/ scientist to the game. Our artists started to concept the neighbor and with continuous iteration and collaboration within the team, we ended up with the first version of Ulf. We knew we did not want the stereotypical image of a scientist in a white robe and that’s why we went in another direction with Ulf and how he got his stunning look and majestic beard.

Ulf grew very organically, in different directions, first some narrative design, then some art, then some game design, and then he blossomed into the character he is today, just like a plant.

However, when we were almost finished working on Diane and the animals, we realized Ulf’s sprout feature felt a bit shallow and not very science-like. That’s when we went back to Ulf and added mutated crops and created the Seed Splicer.

We think this feature can help us make a lot of interesting things with a flavor of science. It’s a door we’re excited to have opened and to revisit again in the future. It’s not our current focus but if you have ideas or wishes regarding sprouts and plant mutations - let us know!

[h3]Diane [/h3]
As we started working on Diane, we knew we wanted a character that stood in contrast to Ulf. Diane is very direct and hands-on, whilst Ulf is a bit more shy and reserved. In testing and also after release, we could tell opinions on her were very split. Some think she’s sweet and some may think she can be a bit rude at times, there’s many sides to Diane.

Most things with Diane went smooth sailing, but not her hat. That darn thing gave us a big headache as it was a nightmare to animate, but it was essential to her character and all worth it in the end!

Diane’s Animal Sanctuary was just like Ulf’s Seed Splicer, a solution to an issue we predicted our players might face when we’d start introducing animals and animal care on the farm. We wanted to make sure that players could move their farm animals out of the way when doing a remodel of their farmstead for example. At the same time, we wanted players to be able to do this and still keep a close connection with the animals, which is why they are not just stored in a computer for example but instead at Diane’s Sanctuary.

Something we think would be interesting to explore further is Diane’s mission on your planet - finding out how animals breed. Is this a mystery you’d be interested in exploring further?

[h2]Animals[/h2]
Just like with neighbors, we wanted to add more animals and animal care to create a sense of community and togetherness in the game, adding something alive to care for other than your plants and farm.

Early Stalktail Concepts.

A risk we saw with adding animals to the farm was that they could feel too much like cattle, we wanted players to be able to build a closer connection with the animals. But not too close, so not like a housepet, but somewhere in between.

Early Mox concepts.

In the future we’d of course like to expand more on animals, adding more variations or using their materials for more things. We’d like to give them some more importance on your farm, whilst not making them too overwhelming - let us know if you have ideas on what direction you’d like to see us go!

[h2]Trailblazer[/h2]
[h3]Trailblazer mode[/h3]
Trailblazer was an update we worked hard and fast on, similar to the Trailblazer mode itself. You said to us that you didn’t have the time to do everything you needed in just one day. This is why we added speedier traversal like the Trailblazer mode, the return home feature, and moving faster on paths!

Early Trailblazer concepts.

Exploring more modes and upgrades to the mech is something we’d love to do in the future. We already have a few different ways you can use the mech to traverse around the world - what other modes or upgrades would you like to see?

[h3]Exofarmer Customization[/h3]
Exofarmer Customization has been a highly wished-for feature from our community but also a passion within the dev team. It’s been a rewarding experience to allow players to finally be able to add some more personality and uniqueness to their Exofarmer. This also makes it easier for players to distinguish from each other when playing together!

Early Exofarmer helmet concepts.

We wanted this to be different from how you customize your mech. The mech is more of an investment in both time and resources, like adding upgrades to your car for example, whilst the Exofarmer customization should feel as easy as picking a t-shirt in the morning, it should be easy to represent yourself the way you’d like!

Some lovely placeholder helms we used while waiting for the finished helmets.

We have a BUNCH of ideas on how to continue building on this and are so excited to work more on this down the road. What would you like to see from Exofarmer Customization?

[h2]Future Updates [/h2]
We’ve already shared some of our plans for the future in a post back in December but are now almost ready to start sharing even more with you, thank you for staying patient with us!

We hope y’all are as excited as us for what’s to come, see you again soon Exofarmers!

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Got questions? Join our Discord!
Got some feedback to share? Put ‘em in here!
Encountered a bug? Report it here!

➡️ Join our communities:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1677110/Lightyear_Frontier/