Starcom: Unknown Space News

As posted on Wednesday, the default build was updated to Kepler 17311, which adds a number of QoL improvements and fixes.

I am currently focused on a number of tasks that are time consuming and important for the eventual 1.0 "graduation" but not directly tied in within development: editing an updated trailer, coordinating with Valve and GOG, communicating with the German translator, working with Hardy on new capsule art, etc.

I don't have an announcement for an official 1.0 graduation date yet, but here is rough outline of what to expect in the near future:

For the next month or so I will mostly be focused on launch-related activities, as well as taking a few days off here and there for some needed recharge. Expect at least one new build, but its primary purpose will be to patch any outstanding issues and test the first public "production" build . Maybe some minor new content and balance changes, but nothing risky.

Once the graduation candidate is frozen, I plan to start work on post 1.0 content. There are a few story ideas I have for additional side quests and possibly resolving one of the outstanding narrative threads, as well as some player feature suggestions. As always, players are encourage to share their thoughts on what they'd like to see in the discussion forums.

Since Kepler was promoted to default, I've updated the opt-in beta branch twice with a number of fixes and changes. Several dozen brave commanders have put enough time on these builds that I feel they're ready for the main branch.

Kepler 17311 Changes/Fixes:

• If a player fighter drone is too far from ship, will be instantly recalled, allowing player to use fast travel without waiting for fighters
  
• Text scaling in Options
  
• Option to change default map zoom behavior
  
• Map "highlight investigate" now also draws attention to any unscanned or unsurveyed planets (a somewhat common cause of players getting stuck is players failing to notice a planet that was detected but never scanned)
  
• Changes to gamepad controls
  
• Change to the behavior of the gravity gun
• If Lost Goryr is not found within a few minutes of spawning, location will be revealed by crew.
• Minor new anomalies, off-path content
  
• Minor mission fixes, adjustments
  
• Shields and battlestation charges persist across saves (but not Havok, yet)
  
• Reduced the crew repair effect for large crews
  
• UI tips in map view
  
• Fixed missing "The End" achievement
  
• Removed unused resource (Metallic He) from display lists
  
• Minor optimizations
  
• Fixed null reference error
  
• Various minor bugs, typo fixes
  

In addition to those changes, there's now a preliminary "difficulty" setting that doesn't have a UI yet.

To change difficulty, open up the developer console with F11. Then enter SetDifficult(x) where x is a positive or negative number. Negative numbers make the game easier than default, positive numbers make it harder. The scale is exponential, so start with small numbers (e.g., +/- 0.5 or 1.0).

Difficulty is application-wide, rather than per save.

Quick update as this past week I've mostly been working on tasks that are not directly connected to development, but are still important and necessary. E.g., working with translator, new Store assets, reaching out to GOG, etc.

As I mentioned last week there's an opt-in beta patch for Kepler. I posted another patch to the same branch this week which adds/fixes the following:

• If a player fighter drone is too far from ship, will be instantly recalled, allowing player to use fast travel without waiting for fighters
  
• If Lost Goryr is not found within a few minutes of spawning, location will be revealed by crew.
• Fixed missing "The End" achievement
  
• Removed unused resource (Metallic He) from display lists
  
• Fixed null reference error
  
• Several typos
  

Once this latest patch gets a bit more player testing I'll post it to the default branch. As a reminder, anyone can switch to opt-in beta branches and this one is compatible with current saves (Kepler):

Instructions for opt-in Betas, choose Unstable Kepler.

It's been over 3 weeks since Kepler was promoted to the default build. This is the first default build to have an ending to the main storyline (among many other changes and improvements since Icarus). While no game is ever perfect, I'm very happy with the current state of the game, and I think players are too. There are still a number of areas that I want to improve and a few missions that need fixing, but I am tentatively considering that some near-future update to Kepler will become the 1.0 release. What this means for players is that my goal is that future updates to the game will not be save breaking.

There are some kinds of content changes that are more difficult if I have to consider whether or not they could break an in-progress game, but at this point the overall main story feels solid enough that I don't expect to need to refactor major aspects of the story. I'm hopeful the outstanding areas of the game where players are having issues can be addressed via patches.

To anticipate a player question, I also plan to continue to update the game after 1.0. The content has a more modular structure and so adding side-content after the fact is much more feasible than it was with Starcom: Nexus. I'm also considering making some of the content authoring tools available for modders post-launch, so players can create their own anomalies-- maybe even their own missions and storylines?

Speaking of non-save breaking updates, there is an opt-in Kepler build available. You are welcome to switch over to it now, or wait until it has had enough testing that I'm confident in updating the default build. Details here:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1750770/discussions/0/4342113141663052686/


Changes/Fixes:

• Text scaling in Options
  
• Option to change default map zoom behavior
  
• Map "highlight investigate" now also draws attention to any unscanned or unsurveyed planets (a somewhat common cause of players getting stuck is players failing to notice a planet that was detected but never scanned)
  
• Changes to gamepad controls
  
• Change to the behavior of the gravity gun
• Minor new anomalies, off-path content
  
• Minor mission fixes, adjustments
  
• Shields and battlestation charges persist across saves (but not Havok, yet)
  
• Reduced the crew repair effect for large crews
  
• UI tips in map view
  
• Minor optimizations
  
• Various minor bugs, typo fixes
  

Until next week!

- Kevin

I'm currently working on an update to Kepler. This will initially be deployed on the Kepler opt-in branch. This means that it is intended to be save-compatible with existing Kepler games, but might be buggy so I don't want to deploy it straight to the default build. (Opt-in instructions here if you want your game to update as soon as its available, choose "Unstable Kepler").

This update will add:

• Text scaling in Options
  
• Option to change default map zoom behavior
  
• Map "highlight investigate" now also draws attention to any unscanned or unsurveyed planets (a somewhat common cause of players getting stuck is players failing to notice a planet that was detected but never scanned)
  
• Changes to gamepad controls
  
• Change to the behavior of the gravity gun
• Experimental difficulty settings
  
• Minor new anomalies, off-path content
  
• Shields and battlestation charges persist across saves
  
• Reduced the crew repair effect for large crews
  
• Tips in map view
  
• Minor optimizations
  
• Various minor bugs, typo fixes
  

There are a few more changes that it needs and some smoke testing, so I don't have an ETA, but unless something goes wrong, I expect to deploy it in the next week.

Until then,
- Kevin