Exogate Initiative News

Hey Gaters,

Quick bit of news here, but tomorrow morning (French time) we'll be launching our next update. This is the one that some of you may have opted-in on to beta test, but many still have not experienced it. We appreciate your patience as we put the finishing touches on it.

We don't have an exact time yet, but look for it in the morning if you're based in Europe like us, or before you wake up if you're in North America. (Unless you're a night Gater like members of our team, in which case please get a good night sleep, you've earned it.)

We'll see you all tomorrow!

Hey Gaters!

Short little update here, but due to a series of unfortunate, nasty bugs we have continued to push back our next major update. We had planned to put it out this week, but we need to confirm stability and fix an issue where the Sqarbs go into "steroid mode" when their path is blocked.. Unfortunately, our lead dev will be out of the office for a previously planned family engagement, and we just don't want to put out a patch when there won't be someone to fix any major issues for a few weeks.

What we are doing is opening up a dedicated preview branch for anyone who wants to experience the latest updates, though of course with the risk of being hit by bugs that may not be fixed until the end of the month. To access the patch players will have to switch to the "preview" branch on Steam by right-clicking Exogate Initiative in their Library, clicking "Properties," then navigating to the "Betas" tab.



We appreciate your patience as we sort through these issues, and allow our lead developer their planned family time. As always, we'll review bug reports and respond to any questions you may have on the forums and our Discord.

Thanks!



This post was edited as the original message mispoke a bit on the nature of the issue, so we wanted to make sure it was presented more clearly.

Hey all!

We're dropping a quick hotfix to fix a game-breaking bug. Turns out that the Exogate could become locked permanently sometimes when there was an incoming invasion. While tactically sound, it didn't make for fun gameplay, so please take this hotfix as we roll through the week.

Thanks!

The Xeno Bits team

Hi everyone! It's been a bit over a month since the launch of Exogate Initiative and we wanted to thank everyone who has purchased, wishlisted, or even discussed the game, as well as everyone who has joined our community here on Steam and on Discord. We also appreciate everyone's patience as we put together our second patch, which was largely planned and sculpted based on player feedback. Please keep it coming, as with you all we'll continue building the future of the Exogate Initiative!

Before we get to the notes, we wanted to let you know that our next patch will likely release sometime in July, as our team has been going continuously since before launch to get as many fixes and quality-of-life improvements in the game. Simply put, we need to slow down and rest a bit before we really get going with the next patch.

Speaking of the next patch, with it we plan to launch the mission editor, which will open the door for custom story arc creation. This is not 100% confirmed, but we're hopeful that we'll be able to. We'll talk more about this tool in detail once we're certain of when it will become available to players. This upcoming patch will continue our trend of bringing forward quality-of-life improvements and additional bug fixes.

Thank you,

The Xeno Bits team




[h3]New[/h3]

• Doors can now be locked
  
• Improved save windows, you can see the list of existing saves, delete them, and the last save name will be used by default.
  
• Sqarbs bodies will turn into bio samples after some time that can be collected and studied
  
• New Sqarbs visual variations
  
• It’s now possible to automatically sell materials above an amount that can be freely set.
  
• It’s now possible to disassemble exo suits and retrieve part of the materials
  
• There will be a notification when a gater is paid after not receiving his or her salary at the end of last period
  
• There is now a message to warn that the committee funding will stop. 3 months and 1 month before the end.
  
• Ore icon will still be displayed on disconnected sectors in starmap
  
• During missions you can see the full content of a truncated logline by hovering over it with the mouse cursor
  
• Tooltip for toggle gater preview button
  
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Team will now be able to regroup in front of the gate room once the previous team entered the room and not once they crossed the exogate, allowing faster consecutive launches.
  
• Team will regroup for a mission when all gaters are ready to go (previously team could regroup when one member was eating for example)
  
• Patents won’t expire anymore but their revenues will decrease over time
  
• Alien culture study desk status displays more information, such as when it needs to be cleaned, for example.
  
• It’s now possible to walk under foundry connectors
  
• Improved readability of ore count at the top of the screen
  
• Acid resistance will need both tech prerequisites and not only one of them
  
• Foundry sound was lowered
  
• Improved wording for first contact with aliens, it requires a scholar AND a soldier
  
• Collect and analyze ore sample objectives are now retroactive
  
• Gater will now remove their exosuit when entering ICU
  
• Medics will not return to their desk between each treatment
  
• Improved AI performances when some parts of the map were not reachable
  
• Engineers will now bring ore directly to the foundry if possible and if not, to storage first
  
• Increase a bit of mental heals
  
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Team could come back from a mission causing the mission to never end
  
• Team could be stuck on a mission and never come back
  
• Team could be stuck at an artifact destination
  
• Ambulance bot could grab unconscious gaters in mission
  
• Issue with selling or destroying unbuilt weapon lockers
  
• Ongoing invasion could never end
  
• Medic would sometime not diagnose a gater with mental health at their desk
  
• Soldiers were sometimes starving after the end of an invasion
  
• Gater could sometime be stuck at the gateroom entrance coming back from a mission
  
• Foundry will now properly animate after loading a game
  
• Rounding errors on ore amounts
  
• Improved position on some items dropped on the floor
  
• You could not unselect planned rooms after loading a game
  
• Foundry will now properly restart processing after selling compounds in storage
  
• Objective to send a team with Sqarbs patcher was not always validated
  
• Gaters would still move across the base when the game is paused
  
• Engineers would sometimes not drop a core sample in the analyzer
  
• A gater would die in a loop and spam the logs
  
• Gaters could be stuck and die near Intensive Care Units
  
• Gater in ICU will now look and work properly after selling the ICU
  
• The ICU description was fixed as it mentioned mental health healing which is not the case
  
• Scientists were able to do research with something in their hand
  
• Fixed a bug where gaters would all go to sleep and never wake up
  
• Pressing the hire button could create multiple bugged clones of the same gater
  
• Gater in underwear would not go to be diagnosed for mental health
  
• Displaying Steam overlay made the game UI flicker
  
• Displayed patent revenue range was not proper on patent list for patents being written
  
• Engineer would not process ore on the floor if it was not stored first.
  

Hello everyone and thank you for taking part in the Steam Early Access launch of Exogate Initiative!

This first week was a massive roller coaster for us! We were thrilled to see so many people playing and enjoying our game, only to realize that many of them felt frustrated at some point for legitimate reasons that we did not anticipate.

The game in its current state needs some heavy balancing work and we are committed to addressing those issues as fast as possible, so here is our short-term plan:

A first patch is now available (the complete changelog is below) it will improve the economy, the guard's AI, and solve some of the few remaining game-breaking bugs.

Our next plan is to take a bit more time to craft a beefier update that will address the following topics:

• Improvements to the economic balance throughout the game, including the patent revenue streams.
  
• Rework the starmap procedural generation to avoid players being stuck due to destinations with too high level of requirements.
  
• Adjust the difficulty of invasions to player performances.
  
• A LOT of bug fixing and improvements based on your feedback.
  

Now regarding that one feature that has been asked about a lot:

It will be possible at some point to revisit previously explored planets, we just don’t want to rush this feature yet as it was part of something we planned for later during Early Access. We just wanted you to know that we are aware this is something highly requested, but we also think that all the other things we plan to address first should reduce the need for it for now.

This is Early Access and the whole point is to involve you, the players so that you can help us to steer the game in the right direction. We are already extremely happy with all the feedback we have received on the Steam forums, discord, and through the game reporting tool. Though we are looking in the coming month to offer a dedicated platform for feedback, one that will allow you to easily submit and vote for features.

Finally, I just want to remind you that we are a very small team, and as you may have noticed this game has many, many things to offer, which means that we need to spend a long time testing it properly before releasing new updates. This is why we’d rather avoid releasing patches too often so that we can spend more time developing and bug fixing than testing that everything works as intended. With that being said, we are committed to keeping you updated on our progress.

Thank you,

Maxime Millet and the Xeno Bits team




[h3]New[/h3]

• You can now sell all types of materials (Asteril, Maglam, Exonium, Cobbium)
  
• Changelog visible in menu.
  

[h3]Changes[/h3]

• Improved guards AI, they will go to their post 3 days before invasions start and won’t leave anymore to eat or sleep.
  
• Mental conditions impact on mental health have been reducedreduced and it will be easier and faster to treat them.
  
• Asteril price was increased.
  
• Unusual destination XP bonus was increased.
  
• Invasions will be a little bit less frequent.
  
• Sqarbs will now be able to destroy walls in front of the gate room. 👀
  
• Gaters can use treadmills to increase their mental health, not only for training their body.
  
• Increased scientific loot frequency (both samples and specimens).
  
• Increased objectives rewards in initiation mode.
  
• Collected artifacts have dedicated icons on the Aliens and Artifacts screen.
  
• Recruitment campaign parameters will use rounded values.
  
• The objective that requires encountering a geological contact is now retroactive.
  

[h3]Fixes[/h3]

• Science points are now rounded to the lower integer value (if you have 399.8 points the game will display 399 instead of 400 previously).
  
• Fixed the tooltip in the tech tree for unlocked elements.
  
• Fixed a bug where the end of the financial period was triggered 2 times in the same month.
  
• Fixed a bug where a gater’s avatar was in underwear after loading.
  
• Fixed a bug where the trending class name was always Scientist.
  
• Fixed a bug where the committee granted funds for 11 months instead of 12.
  
• Fixed a bug where the game would be displayed over the main menu after some time.
  
• Reduced brightness on heavy armor helmet lights.
  
• Gater should not leave the shooting range with their rifle anymore.