Star Trucker News

[p]Greetings Star Truckers!

Work continues on the next update and while there's still lots to do, things are taking shape! The UI and UX has moved along considerably and we're hard at work on a variety of different job types.

For this update I thought it might be nice to provide a little extra info on how the new Business Ventures will work. Keep in mind some elements are subject to change but it should make for an OK overview.[/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Extra Shifts[/h2][p]After you’ve met requirements, you’ll receive a CB holler from a brand-new character. They’ll brief you on their venture and provide updates and chatter as you complete jobs for them.

These bite-sized tasks are perfect for filling gaps in your schedule or breaking up a long freight haul. With a bunch of new VO, they also help the galaxy feel more alive (especially in Freeplay mode).

Unlike freight or side jobs, you can accept a venture job at ANY TIME from a new option in the game menu. However, these job slots are limited and have a cooldown. This helps maintain their role as a supporting feature within the larger context of the game, while still providing plenty of short-term goals.
[/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]First Hand[/h2][p]The first business venture we plan to roll out lets you step into the role of a galactic handyman, helping “King Vinny” tackle a growing backlog of work - everything from updating billboards to repairing infrastructure.

For context, this is how we handle unlocking this venture… [/p]

• [p]Regular Mode - After you complete your first side job for either Red Eddie or Sour Candy[/p]
• [p]Freeplay Mode - From the start of your playthrough[/p]
• [p]Existing Save - Shortly after you load (If you’ve met requirements)
  [/p]

[p]Future ventures might require a specific rank or unlocking a specific zone but in general, you should be able to get stuck in fairly quickly if you’re a returning player.

[/p][hr][/hr][h2]
Speakin' Up[/h2][p]As previously mentioned, each venture features a new voiced NPC and for “King Vinny” we’re happy to have the talented Ray Fox join our expanding team of contributing voice actors…
[/p][h3]Ray Fox Mini-Bio

[/h3][p]Ray started his career working at Sacramento radio stations, learning the ins and outs of the broadcast industry before realizing that “rock stardom” was a far more stable career path than radio. He shifted his focus to music as the bassist - and occasional singer - for the band Sedona. The band appeared alongside dozens of high-profile acts, including Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, and Peter Frampton.

He also hosts a TikTok channel called Fox Rock Challenge, featuring classic rock brain teasers and trivia - but according to Ray, his expanding voice-over career has left him with little free time as animation and video game roles have proven an irresistible draw.[/p][p] [/p][p]
Vinny is just one of a bunch of new NPCs so be sure to keep an eye on future dev blogs for more info on new characters!

* Bonus trivia : Ray’s brother Jimi Fox toured with the Doobie Brothers during the ’90s as a percussionist - proving the Fox family has always rolled with good rhythm![/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][h2]
Road Cash[/h2][p]If you have a stash of cash to spend you should consider investing in “Boosts”.

These allow you to take on more jobs and earn bonus VXP. Well worth the investment if there’s a customization reward you want sooner than later or if you like to take on extra jobs while haulin’ freight.[/p][p]
[/p][hr][/hr][h2]
Bobble Tech[/h2][p]Speaking of rewards. We recently finished some all new bobble tech! This allows various items on your dash to sway, bounce and get knocked about when you turn, crash and poke them.

Obviously great for bobble heads but it also works on mag-float accessories such as our UFO spinner 🛸[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Truckin' Onwards[/h2][p]Hopefully this update proves insightful as to what’s going on here at Monster HQ and how the Business Ventures will work. As mentioned at the start of this post, there's still a lot of work and testing ahead of us but things are shaping up nicely!

We’ll swing by again soon with a progress update and screengrabs of various interior customization options. Until then we hope you’ll continue to follow our ramblings as we move closer to the release of this update.

10-10 and out![/p]

• [p]Dave & Dan ( aka Monster & Monster )[/p]

[p]Hello Star Truckers!

As you might have noticed we've been a little bit quiet lately, but for good reason! We've been hard at work on not one but TWO new features for Star Trucker. [/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]The What[/h2][p]These big new features are “BUSINESS VENTURES” and “INTERIOR CAB CUSTOMIZATION”.

There will be more to say about each in future Dev Blogs but for now we’ll provide a bit of an overview alongside some new screengrabs...
[/p][h3]Business Ventures[/h3][p]These gradually unlock as you meet specific requirements and provide an extra layer of metagame and progression. Each Venture will have its own unique set of job types, ranks and rewards.

Not only that but each venture has a new voiced NPC for you to interact with.
[/p][p]For example the initial venture “Galactic Handyman” unlocks after an early freight delivery and introduces you to King Vinny. He’s being stretched thin and could really do with an extra pair of hands to help with a long list of client jobs.

From switching out billboard ads to fixing up stations and infrastructure, they’ll be a steady stream of jobs for you to take. We hope these tasks provide a nice palette cleanser between freight hauls - or if planned carefully - something to do while en-route to your next drop zone.

[/p][h3]
Interior Cab Customization[/h3][p]We’ve always wanted to provide more options for players to make their cab feel unique to them. To that extent some of the cab had already been built with this in mind including a system that allows material switching and colorization.

There’s a lot of other ways you can customize your cab too, from lighting trims and maglock toppers to new bedding and space suits.
[/p][p][/p][p]Of course there’s also going to be a bunch of dashboard accessories for you to equip, all of which attach to little accessory holders to prevent them flying off in zero-g. Some will animate too, either from various truck states or player interactions…
[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]The When[/h2][p]Progress has been a little slower than we’d hoped but we’re getting there. Our initial set of interior customizations are complete and we have the basics of the venture system up and running. However there’s still quite a lot to do in terms of the extra jobs you’ll be able to take.

Once we factor in polish, balance tweaks and bug fixing it’s likely that the earliest this update will drop is April. This is a couple months later than we’d hoped but we’d rather get this update right and not burn ourselves out over the holidays. We hope you all understand.[/p][p]
[/p][hr][/hr][p] [/p][h2]The Why[/h2][p]Thanks to all the support from the community (and our publisher Raw Fury) we've had the rare privilege of being able to continue work on Star Trucker beyond the initial release. Cut features such as freeplay, photo mode and peripheral support all made it back in and with this next update we’ll finally have a way to provide new content, challenges and rewards.

Why are we doing this? In short because we want Star Trucker to be a better game. We’ve known for a while that players want more goals and job variety. Both during their early-mid game sessions but also after the side jobs have been completed (or when playing the freeplay mode).

It's been a big undertaking and taken a LOT of planning but we hope it will provide a lot of enjoyment for both new players and veterans alike!
[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]But that's not all...[/h2][p]Although these two features have been taking up the majority of our time, we've continued to chip away on various other tasks such as optimizing the job generation system and investigating weirdness around specific peripheral combinations.

We’ve also been working through some long standing issues including a potential fix for the elusive warp asteroid collision bug. We’ve been chasing this one for a loooooong time and are hopeful that QA will finally give the fix a thumbs up after some vigorous warp tests.

[/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Seasonal Sign-Off[/h2][p]And just like that we’ve reached the end of another dev blog. We know it sucks that the next update is still a little way off but hopefully this sneak peek leaves you intrigued, and hopefully a little bit excited, for what’s to come.

When we return from the festive break we’ll talk a bit more about these new features and give you the low-down on some of the fabulous people we’ve been working with to bring them to fruition.

Until then, happy holidays and we’ll see you all in 2026 for what should be a fantastic new year![/p]

• [p]Dave & Dan ( aka Monster & Monster )
  [/p]

[p][/p]

[p]December is once again upon us and it’s time to get into the festive spirit!

Now, before you call us out, there really IS a more in-depth dev blog on the way . So rest assured you’ll get that juicy new info very soon! (Hopefully next week - Dave)

Until then we wanted to deliver a little festive treat to you all…A brand new Christmas collaboration from some of the musicians who worked on the Star Trucker soundtrack. [/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]
Bah Humbug Ridin’ Shotgun is a fictional collaboration between Twin Star Collective and Duke Miles and has been added as a “Bonus Track” to the Star Trucker Soundtrack on Steam.

Being able to get “the gang back together” for a new track was a lot of fun and we really hope you like it.[/p][p][/p][p][dynamiclink][/dynamiclink]If you're interested in how this track was brought together I’ve pasted some notes from our long time collaborator Gavin Harrison and lyrical mastermind Randall Breneman below… [/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][h3]
Kickin’ Off[/h3][p]
Gavin - After an initial kick off discussion, we set about finding some suitable reference tracks to make sure we were all on the same page for the direction. The key focus really was something instantly recognisable as a Christmas track, which could only mean one thing - getting the sleigh bells out!

Dave - For those interested, the lead reference track we settled on was How the Truckers Saved Christmas by Bill Weaver. Although we were kinda surprised as to just how many truckin’ Christmas songs are out there in the wild!

Gavin - From here I contacted the rest of the band, including our guest vocalist Randall, who we knew would be best placed to nail the right style and bring his authentic American voice to the track. Given everyone’s locations and the time involved, we knew we’d all be working remotely which isn’t always ideal, but everyone put a lot of time and effort into producing the best track possible!
[/p][h3]Yule Rhymes[/h3][p]
Randall - I thought the lead reference song was a great concept and what I would consider classic country. Using that as a base we began working on our own idea about accidentally rear-ending Santa. This just seemed funny to me and provided lots of opportunities for holiday fun and mischievous lyrics.

Saying that, it’s hard to make anything in space relate to snow and elves BUT, after some back and forth with the Monsters I managed to adjust the lyrics to include some classic 'Star Trucker' tropes while still including plenty of Christmas staples.
[/p][p][/p][h3]Building Structure[/h3][p]
Gavin - Lorenzo is the multi-instrumentalist of the band and quickly brought together a very rough demo using drums, bass and guitar. From there we refined the structure and chord progressions until we had a demo track that was fully formed in terms of sections, if not sounds.

I then took this track and put it together for Randall to work with. He worked on a scratch (demo) vocal, and suggested some more edits to the track, both harmonically and structurally to allow his vocal melodies fit a bit better.

At this point I had to take Randall’s vocals and combine them into the main project, a bit tricky and a slight pitfall of different people working with different sequencers![/p][p][/p][p] [/p][h2]Festive Finesse[/h2][p]
Gavin - So now everything was recorded in at least a form and structure we knew we were sticking to, Lorenzo was able to replace all his demo recordings with the real thing. This included embellishing various parts as well as adding some extra guitar layers.

Next it was my turn to record, adding in some piano, organ and various bells and chimes - even a timpani and short choir part, it is Christmas after all!  Once these were in Lorenzo finished his work with an immense guitar solo and the finishing touches of a tambourine and sleigh bells.

For our final stage of recording, the finalised backing was sent to Randall who recorded the proper lead and backing vocals.
[/p][p][/p][p]Gavin - After each of the previous steps I sent the song across to our fantastic mixer Tom. There were a couple of revisions, mostly to make sure the vocals were sitting clearly in the mix, but once that had been done - we (almost) had our final track.

I say almost as the final stage was for the track to be mastered.  Thankfully Joe Caithness, who did a superb job with the original soundtrack, was available and extremely accommodating, mastering the final track at very short notice.

And there you have it. A fully finished festive track turned around in a little less than a month.[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][p]…and that’s a wrap for now! We’ll be back soon with that dev blog, but until then, we hope you enjoy plenty of winter treats and a smooth cruise toward Christmas![/p][p][/p][p]- Dan & Dave ( aka Monster and Monster )[/p]

[p]Star Trucker has been updated to v1.0.72.2. This hotfix update resolves an issue that was causing major performance issues for some players.[/p][p][/p][p]HOTFIX[/p]

• [p]Resolved an issue with fuel signage generating excessive error logs that lead to performance issues on some device setups.[/p]

[p][/p][p]NOTES[/p]

• [p]This issue should not have affected those playing in locales that use decimal points for fractional values (such as the US, UK and China).[/p]

[p][/p][p]We’d like to apologise to those affected by this issue and thank you for your patience while we resolved the issue. If you find any further issues or oddities please let us know via the Raw Fury Support Desk and be sure to check the Latest News page for information on future patches and developer updates.
[/p][p]- Dan & Dave ( aka Monster and Monster )[/p]

[p]Hello! Dave here with a short dev blog in which I give the low-down on recent shenanigans alongside what's going on with a mini Autumn update that should start rollin' out soon...[/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Biggin' Up[/h2][p]When we started developing Star Trucker we had no way of knowing the Steam Deck was imminent and that playing PC games on portable devices would become as big as it has today.

Now that we know a bunch of players enjoy taking the game “on the road” I decided to spend a bit of time poking our UI with the aim of improving the experience for handheld devices.[/p][p][/p][h3]Big HUD Mode[/h3][p]The meat of this mini-update is that the game now detects if it’s running on a selection of handheld devices, such as the Steam Deck, and if so enables what we’ve come to call Big HUD mode.

This mode boosts the scale of HUD elements, waypoint markers and pop-ups to be more readable. Of course, this might be a bit of a shock to some veteran truckers who already play on a handheld so we’ve also added an option to disable this if you’d prefer the OG look.

For those of you who might want a larger UI while playing on desktop we also allow the mode to be manually enabled via the Game Settings. Oh, and as we save game preferences per device, you shouldn’t need to change these settings when moving between your PC and handheld devices.
[/p][p]
It’s also worth noting that we made the waypoint visibility angle a bit tighter in Big HUD mode - this basically means you’ll see less waypoint labels grouped together, something we found works very nicely when playing on a small display.

In the future we’d love to revisit some of this tech and provide more scaling options for everyone but for now we hope it improves the experience for those on handheld devices or who found some of the key text a little hard on the eyes.
[/p][p][/p][h3]Improved Text Legibility[/h3][p]Alongside the Big HUD Mode I’ve also done a pass on the game text and where possible tried to improve legibility using a combination of the following…[/p]

• [p]Boosting the size of important text that we felt was a too small[/p]
• [p]Adding drop shadows to text (and icons) that we felt needed it[/p]
• [p]Tweaking kerning and line spacing to help with separation[/p]

[p]To be honest, I was a bit limited as to the extent I could improve things but I think the result is an overall improvement across the board. Just keep in mind a lot of these tweaks will be quite subtle as I didn’t want to rock the metaphorical boat.

Wrapping up this section of the dev blog, I’d also like to mention that I’ve learned a lot from revisiting the initial UI implementation and I’ll certainly strive to be a bit more aware of accessibility and scale issues on future projects.
[/p][p][/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Bit of Fixin'[/h2][p]This update should also solve a couple of progression issues and unblock a handful of players who managed to discover those edge cases. There’s also a couple of other little fixes alongside general engine maintenance.

With regards to other issues, we’re always looking to squash bugs and resolve edge cases with every update. As we’re such a small team this is easier said than done but please continue to report any issues you encounter to the Raw Fury Support Desk so we can prioritise important issues. In fact, the next big one to tackle will be the mysterious warp asteroids. We haven’t been able to reproduce this issue ourselves but we know it’s out there (we’ve seen the videos!) so we’ll continue to poke things until we work out the cause - and then we'll stomp it 🦶[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Peripherals[/h2][p]I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the players who have taken the time to get in touch about peripherals. It’s always hard to know how this kinda feature will pan out and overall I think it’s held up pretty well and it’s great to hear so many of you are enjoying playing via HOTAS and steering wheels.

Saying that we are aware of some specific device combinations that Star Trucker is struggling with. We are currently investigating what’s going on here and we’ll keep you updated when we have news on potential solutions.

In the meantime if you have an awesome configuration you’d like to share with us or want to report a specific peripheral problem, please use our Peripheral Support Form to tell us more.[/p][p] [/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Anniversary Artwork[/h2][p]In other news we recently had the opportunity to team up with our good friend Martin. For those who don’t know, Martin is the concept artist who took my original (and very shonky) white box truck and gave it life, oh so many moons ago…


This time round he managed to rattle through some fantastic concepts before moving onto a brand new piece of kinetic key art to celebrate our 1 Year Anniversary*

[/p][p]Follow the links below for higher res versions suitable for desktops and Steam Decks...

1280 x 720 1280 x 800 1920 x 1080 1920 x 1440 2560 x 1440 3840 x 2160

* Yeaaaaah, I know I’m posting this late but I’ve been really busy!?[/p][p][/p][hr][/hr][p][/p][h2]Heads Down[/h2][p]As I bring this dev blog to an end it’s worth noting that we currently have our heads down and are working hard towards our biggest Star Trucker update yet! Expect a nice chunky blog post next month as we delve into that side of development and a bunch of cool new stuff.

Until then, keep the sunny side up and the greasy side down![/p]

• [p]Dave ( aka the Art Monster )[/p]