Space Impossible News

Hello. Hope everyone's summer off to a good start.
We're still making good progress on BETA 8.

[h2]Adding Some Backstory[/h2]

We're adding a bit of backstory to the game.

For over a hundred years, the ancient jumpgate network has been used by humans and aliens alike to move about the galaxy. No one knows who built the gates and no one is really sure how they work. Then one day a month ago, they stopped working. This effectively severs parts of the galaxy away from each other, throwing it into regional shock.

Now, some of the brighter scientists have discovered there is something stirring just beyond the gateways. Perhaps they are the cause of the disruption? Maybe they hold the key to re-establishing the network and resuming life as it was known?

This is going hand-in-hand with the universe changes and how the network of jumpgates can be activated and used. Each gate, in a new universe, will be offline and require some work to re-activated and linked to its partner in another star system.



Lurking just beyond the dimensional cusp are a never before encountered type of beings, a parasitical race whose exact intentions aren't clear. But what is quickly discovered is they can be lured into normal space, and they hold the keys to the gates. Defeating, or making a deal with these beings, will be the difference between success and failure for you and all beings of the local star system.

Don't worry though, each being will possess enough items to activate several gates so you need not do it for each gate (you can if you want), and the items will also be used in a number of distinct components. These encounters can be done alone or with friends present.

[h2]Other Changes[/h2]

Additionally, following some good indepth feedback and some long internal debates, we'll be changing the "Lab" component to be named "Fabricator". The reason for this is feedback has repeatedly shown confusion over what is expected of this component type, and the slowly changing nature of the component since Prototype made it clear it was time to pick a name more suitable to its purpose.



We've also been doing some balance related thinking along with feedback mulling over and after some experimenting we're implementing "recovery". Recovery is the process of removing components from mounts that are not owned by, or directly accessible by you. Recovery has a chance of breaking the component, so give it an extra moment to consider what you want to do with wrecks or fresh battle-strewn chunks before you loot! If you really want something, it might be safer to drag it to a shipyard rather than just ripping it out then and there.

Finally, we're still going over Manufacturing recipes (going hand-in-hand with the Fabricator change).

Still a few weeks(tm) to go, but BETA 8 should be a real big update, possibly even bigger than BETA 1 was. We'll announce it when the Experimental build is ready right before the Pre-Release, so stay tuned.

We are ready to reveal the largest and most significant BETA 8 change: Universe generation.



When starting a new universe you will be able to pick from a number of options, and this will affect how the universe is laid out. It looks cooler, and plays much better. Star systems will spawn in clusters, and be linked together via jumpgates.

This means you will have star systems to explore locally, but are no longer able to just travel aimlessly in one direction forever. Depending on some factors, you may be able to visit neighbor systems via the existing warp process, or you can find and use a jumpgate to move to the next cluster.

You will also be able to determine things like size, and while there's no exact numbers fixed to size, universes can range from a hundred or so systems and go all the way up to several thousand, more than the average player visits in months of play.

We will also be incorporating the new generation visualization into the in-game universe map. It should be much easier to visualize your journey and use to navigate, and above all, easy on the eyes.


On a similar note, we're looking at star system generation. Over the course of ALPHA and BETA we discovered that a multitude of similarity becomes tiresome quickly, and we're making systems a bit more specific and purpose driven. This should make economic elements more apparent for players wishing to make a career in trading, and just better gameplay overall.


The experimental branch is proving to be a success and we've already received some great feedback from players. The latest build added some improvements to how AI communicate with each other as well as remembering opinions of you even after you warp away. If you're adventurous but haven't checked it out yet you can find out how here.

Another week, another BETA 8 Dev Progress Post.

We're making progress, and the Experimental builds seem to be doing what we had hoped for. The next build is coming out along with this post with the recent changes, Manufacturing.

[h2]Manufacturing[/h2]
Manufacturing is seeing a few changes. First of all, time is going away. It was added back in ALPHA 5 as a way to promote base/intrastructure upgrading (want more stuff faster? have more stuff to make it). However that didn't really work out, and was off the mark. What we want is players to be able to make stuff, either to upgrade their ship(s) or to trade it, or to turn it in for a mission or objective.

Manufacturing will also use your current vessel's inventory for both source and destination, so no more having to mess around with the other vessel's inventory. The Manufacturing screen will also show you all nearby labs, and their status (whether free or paid or unavailable due to a restriction), so no more shifting around.



Now with insta manufacturing, that now means using other ships/stations Labs is easier than ever. Much like Construction, you'll now able to pay for access to those labs. Faction standing will ultimately determine how much you pay, and payment will be done on a per recipe basis.

[h2]Faction Changes[/h2]
We're also making some changes to the faction system. We're going to be switching to five standings (ally, friendly, neutral, disliked, hated) for simplification--after all, what really is the difference between disliked and untrusted? We will also be adding in some kind of visual indictator to the faction panel to better indicate exactly where you stand with each faction. Finally, we'll be introducing mini-faction standings, small little bumps that can help decrease/increase prices a little bit smoother.

Next Progress Post we'll hopefully go into the universe changes. It's one of the more complex changes we're making, and it's taken some time to get working, but we're confident it's going to really be a great change.

The first release is now available on the new Experimental Branch on Steam.

[h2]What is the Experimental Branch?[/h2]
The Experimental branch is a way for us to get playable builds out for new features and changes that may (or may not) end up in the final release.

Experimental releases will be much faster and looser than the Pre-Release & Release branches with minimal Developer testing and changes that will will be: in-flux, contain bugs and may potentially never make it into final release.

Unlike Pre-Release and Release builds we will not be posting news about updates on the Experimental Branch instead patch notes for Experimental will be posted to this Steam Forums Topic and in Discord

The main purpose of experimental is to gain valuable early player feedback so please let us know what you think.

[h2]How do I try out the Experimental Branch?[/h2]
You can find out how to access the Experimental branch here : https://steamcommunity.com/app/416240/discussions/25/3109143313953708415/

NOTE: WE RECOMMEND A SEPARATE UNIVERSE FOR EXPERIMENTAL AS WE CANNOT GUARANTEE CONTINUED UNIVERSE COMPATIBILITY BETWEEN RELEASE & EXPERIMENTAL

Happy February to everyone. We're a few weeks into BETA 8 development, and this one is shaping up to be a bit longer than BETA 6 and 7. We are going to share what's going on in a dev blog or two, and what to expect out of BETA 8 when it does arrive.


(note the construction drones are picking tiles up from space)

Construction is getting a good looking over. We've heard the complaints (and have the design related headaches to prove it) concerning inventory storage juggling while building, and have decided to modify how inventory sourcing (where items come from) will work while building your vessel. You will now be able to pick where your tiles/components come from or get stored while constructing. Possible options are: Your current controlled ship, Current target (if editing other vessel), Assembler's inventory (if cargo access is available) and best of all: Local Space. That's right, items can now sit in space around the vessel and be used for construction. You will be able to swap out the source on the fly, and this should be a great aid for all ship architects out there.

Universe and star system generation is getting an overhaul. It's been a while since we've looked at these, and we've come to the conclusion that bigger isn't always better. What's the point in thousands/tens of thousands of systems when most players visit about 20 on average, 100 at most. Even then, most of those visited are just taking up space, on the way to another destination. We want to make the areas you do visit better and make traveling more worthwhile so we're adding a better generation model that will produce better, higher quality layouts. Don't fret though, while it will be smaller on an absolute scale, there will still be hundreds of potential systems to visit and explore if you wish. Eventually you'll be able to pick a number of options, like size and shape at universe creation.

We are also simplifying levels to a 1-10 scale. Truth be told, there wasn't much difference between a level 51 and a 59 star system, and what there was, it was basically impossible to tell while playing an average game. So let's make each level matter more.

In addition to all that, we're going to be experimenting with a new Experimental testing branch. This branch will be less tested/less finished than Pre-Release, but should allow players who want to try the latest changes nearly immediately. It will be less consistently updated than Pre-Release, as it will probably see several builds over a short period, then none for weeks. We're going to try it out and see how it goes. First one will probably be early next week with the new construction changes.

That's it for now. We'll have another post coming in a week or two for some changes to faction, manufacturing and travel as we confirm the specific details.