Public Test Universe and the current state of the playerbase
Hello everyone, and welcome to another Starbase news article!
First, we'd like to address a concern that plenty of Steam community members have voiced time and again in the past months. As many of you know from actively following Starbase's player statistics on Steam, player numbers have steadily dropped since Early Access launch. While the drop is big, it's not anything we didn't expect considering the state of the game and how Early Access titles tend to perform, and we are not worried about the numbers. We are financially in a good place to continue the development of Starbase as planned and keep the servers running, and we know that many players will return to the game once we've added more gameplay content.
So, what does the immediate future hold for Starbase? There are new updates, features, and small fixes coming once they're ready, most of which will drop in the Public Test Universe (PTU) server first to ensure a smooth launch on the live server. We won't speculate with any schedules or release estimates - we have already proven that clairvoyance is a difficult artform and one that we haven't been successful at so far - but when they're coming, you'll be the first to know.
Meanwhile, we are regularly arranging events on the PTU server to provide gameplay content and testing opportunities, especially for station destruction and sieges.
What is the Public Test Universe?
PTU (or Public Test Universe) is a beta branch of Starbase, separate from the live server, that is available to all Steam players as a testing environment for new features and fixes before they're pushed out on the live server. The PTU enables us to release potential fixes to bugs and other issues and test them in a secure environment with real players, ensuring an additional layer of security. In other words, we first release things on the PTU and let players test them before they're released officially. This helps us iron out bugs, locate issues that might not have come up in internal tests, and make sure new features work as smoothly as possible.
Luckily, this is Starbase and not Vegas, and what happens on the PTU does not stay only on the PTU. Capital Ships, moon mining, and other features are very much on track to make an entrance on the live server soon. In the meantime, you (yes, you!) can join the testing troops at any point and take a first peek at what's to come in person.
You can opt in to the PTU on Steam like this:
- Open your Steam client and go to your Steam Library
- Right click Starbase in your library
- Go to Properties -> Betas
- Click the dropdown menu and select "public_test_universe - Public Test Universe"
- Close the Properties window
- Steam should start downloading an update to Starbase
After the download has installed, launch Starbase normally. Note: the update is a patch-sized download, not a full re-download.
As the PTU is its own server, it doesn't share any character or inventory data with the live server, and you need to create a new profile the first time you enter the world. All players on the PTU get credits automatically as testing funds to speed things up, so you don't have to start your testing career completely from scratch.
We will also start releasing the PTU build patch notes on Steam to make our development process more transparent and easier to follow. So far PTU notes have only been released on the official Starbase forums, but we feel they should be more easily accessible from now on, right from the Starbase news feed in your Steam client. You can check past PTU notes here: https://forum.starbasegame.com/forums/public-test-universe.49/
[h2]New Features and Major Updates[/h2]