Starbase News

Starbase has a new Early Access release date target: Q1 2021.

Right now Starbase is in Closed Alpha, with roughly 1,200 members of the community having access to the game in addition to developers. Aiming for Q1 2021 will allow us enough time to better prepare the game for Early Access, and add a few more important gameplay loops. For example we have recently added Fast Travel gates and the beginnings of a player-based economy, and in the coming weeks we will be doing fixes and improvements to those. In addition, we will be adding other important gameplay features such as the tutorials, player stations and gravity. Once these are added, we expect to start inviting Alpha testers in larger numbers!

Here are some ways to keep up with our development progress and latest news:

• Join our official Discord
• Sign up to the mailing list
• Watch the forums

We hope to bring you the best possible experience when Early Access becomes available, so we thank you for your patience and support!

[h2]Progress Notes Week 44[/h2]
[h3](October 26th - 30th)[/h3]

Hello everyone! Here are the progress notes of week 44 - hope you enjoy!

Please note that the "Progress Notes" are different from the Starbase Alpha "Patch Notes". Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

[h3]Design[/h3] Features

• Bolt Tool autobolt-feature has been designed and first version tested
  
• Ore distribution design continues, new material sets have been worked on for areas around the safe zone
  
• Spaceship Designer virtual mass-feature has been tested, it's now possible to test ore crates with extra mass and how it affects ship's durability and behavior
  
• Minor tweak and test has been made to Spaceship Designer autobolt, there's no more fixed limit on how many bolts are placed
  
• Fast travel gate locations and other related features have been fixed
  
• New player-made ships were added to the economy
  
• Auction House terminal was removed from marketplace and added only to the Origin station
  

Other

• Auction House UI design updates have been worked on based on community suggestions
  
• Device connection issue where the cradles purchased from the shops did not work should now be fixed
  

[h3]Code[/h3] Gameplay

• First working version of station blueprint caster was implemented for testing
  
• A fix was made for grabbing devices with jointed objects, such as turrets, breaking jointed objects' device connectivity
  
• A fix was made for holograms auto-built from the station/player inventory not having their proper visuals when built, instead appearing blank
  
• An old utility box that allows transferring resources (such as power) from station storage to containers located on lots was reimplemented
  

User Interface

• A fix was made for not being able to pick up some tools/weapons with interaction pickup
  
• Auction House terminal where Auction House UI can be opened has been added
  
• Auction House UI closing when moving far enough away from Auction House terminal
  
• A fix was made for Auction House not opening with "F" when weapon is raised
  
• Station creator specific selection types were added to the Designer selection menu
  
• Basic layout for Ship Ownership UI has been made
  
• Auto-bolt single object feature has been worked on
  
  • Auto-bolting when pressing down left mouse button was added
    
  • Progress bar was added
    
  • Auto-removing bolts when pressing down right mouse button was added
    

Spaceship Designer

• Removed the Insurance Transfer button from the Spaceship Designer Esc menu
  
• Virtual mass debug tool was made for the Spaceship Designer
  
• Material costs were added to the blueprint buy -dialogue
  

[h3]Art[/h3] Animations and Emotes

• Work on 1st person sprint animations and general polish continues
  

Weapons

• Mounted AutoCannon muzzle effects were updated to be more 'focused' and less 'explosive' from the barrel itself
  
• Most weapons have reticles now, some are still incomplete but will be refined soon
  

Other

• Assets for blueprint chips and blueprint slots were added
  
• Asset for 3D printer now added and being finalized
  
• Decorational holograms being tested and approved for cities and megastations
  
• First wall sections for skyscrapers have been created and skyscraper entrance modules are also being detailed
  

[h3]Gallery[/h3]

Don't forget to check our official Starbase forums and our blog for more pictures and videos of the weekly development.

Until next time! 🪐

[h2]Progress Notes Week 43[/h2]
[h3](October 19th - 23rd)[/h3]

Hello everyone! Here are the progress notes of week 43 - hope you enjoy!

Please note that the "Progress Notes" are different from the Starbase Alpha "Patch Notes". Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

[h3]Design[/h3] Features

• Right-click context menu has been tested: transferring large amounts of ore between ore crates in ship and station storages is now possible
  
• Safe zone ore distribution has been re-designed and configured (18 areas that each use their own material sets)
  
• Design of symmetrical angled beams has been finished (15, 30 and 45 degrees), matching plates will follow later
  
• Resource bridge maximum tether length has been increased to 100m (50m in jobs)
  
• Design for Bolt Tool improvements has started
  
• Economy and inflation/deflation related design plans have been worked on
  

User Interface

• Tutorial transitions between jobs have been improved with better hints and triggers
  
• Ship Ownership UI design has been worked on
  

Stations

• The Dragonfly, Chemosh Ark, Chemosh Badger and Vigo has been added to Rando 3
  
• Heptifili and Sinthgut have been added to the DURΛTΞCH shop
  
• Okim Industries spaceship shops' layouts have been updated:
  
  • Widukind, Eurypterid, Spiker and Shale have been added or relocated
    
• Halloween themed spaceship shop has been added and contains the following ships:
  
  • Skull, Mr 'Umpkin and Bat
    

[h3]Code[/h3] Gameplay

• First functional iteration of fast travel gate has been implemented
  
• Multiplayer stability improvements related to interlinked objects have been made
  
• Item purchases and sales now list localized names in the CV bank statement page
  
• The game should now remember the last zoom mode and used tab in Universal tool after quitting the game
  
• Being able to vacuum mining job nuggets to player ships was fixed
  
• A fix was made for not being able to pickup material cubes to ore crates
  

User Interface

• Auction House UI has been worked on
  
  • Single listing UI has been added to sell tab
    
  • Context menu has been added to Auction House and Storage
    

Spaceship Designer

• Placement and transformation preview no longer check for overlaps due to performance issues, overlap checking can be re-enabled from the settings
  
• YOLOL script editor will now save changes when the text field becomes unfocused
  
• Cables, sockets, bolts, weld bolts and autobolter attachment plates will now automatically attach themselves to the nearest station module in the interior designer
  

[h3]Art[/h3] Animations and Emotes

• Work on 1st person animation polish & sprint animations continues
  
• Rummage animations have been polished
  

Weapons

• A new explosion effect has been created for the upcoming Remote Explosive Tool
  
• The exploding ammo effects have been updated to be a lot more explosive
  
• Reticle/crosshair effects have been added to all the weapons
  

Other

• Preliminary tests for rich (mineral) rocks on asteroid surfaces are underway
  
• Assets for the different new modular cargo crate sizes have been added
  

[h3]Gallery[/h3]

[h3]Videos[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Don't forget to check our official Starbase forums and our blog for more pictures and videos of the weekly development.

Until next time! 🪐

[h2]Progress Notes Week 42[/h2]
[h3](October 12th - 16th)[/h3]

Hello everyone! Here are the progress notes of week 42 - hope you enjoy!

Please note that the "Progress Notes" are different from the Starbase Alpha "Patch Notes". Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

[h3]Design[/h3] Features

• Building Tool UX improvements have been tested
  
• Ore distribution design in safe zone and nearby areas continues
  
• Keybinds and usability improvements have been worked on
  
• Ship to ship propellant and power transfer configurations done and are ready for testing
  
• Auction House Buy Order design and feature planning has been worked on
  
• Electricity and power related design has been worked on
  

Stations

• 12 new player spaceships added to spaceship shops:
  
  • Beli, Fornbogi, Herfjotur, Momento, Merchantman, Nusa light shuttle, Micro, Mammoth, Eurypterid, Tabletka, Chemosh Ark I, Marlin
    

Other

• Decorative Short Interior Girder and Decorative Girder 144 cm are no longer considered as beams
  
• Ramp 72x144x144 cm is now Plate Triangle 72x144x144 cm and moved from Decorative plates to Plates/Triangle folder in asset browser
  
• Plate Triangle 72x144x144 cm default material is now Bastium
  
• Plate Triangle 72x144x144 cm Base color also changed to match with other plates
  
• Decorative column A,B,C and D are no longer available in Spaceship Designer
  
• Snap point fixes: Turret Cradle Side Armor should now snap with both Mounted Weapon Bodies (Fixed Weapon Mount 1 combination), Turret Cradle Side Armor also should now snap with Fixed Weapon Mount 2
  

[h3]Code[/h3] Gameplay

• Work on station building continues
  
• The implementation of ship-to-ship resource transfer via resource bridge was finished
  
• A fix was made for coordinate issues in ship towing that made possible to tow ships from almost everywhere
  
• Initial implementation of printer device is done
  
• The first version of repair job tutorial has been implemented
  

Spaceship/Station Designer

• A tooltip for the test flight mode in Spaceship Designer has been implemented
  

Spaceship Designer

• Lag spikes from placing cable and sockets on large ships have been fixed
  
• Entering the test mode while editing a YOLOL chip now saves the changes instead of discarding them
  
• Added localized user error messages to mega station designer if the user tries to save a station blueprint with too many parts or parts exceeding the station building area
  
• Mega station designer's rotation tools rotating around the scene origin rather than selection origin has been fixed
  
• Autosaves in Spaceship Designer were changed to show in the correct order from newest to oldest and to include dates in their names
  

[h3]Art[/h3] Animations and Emotes

• Work on 1st person animation polish and sprint animations continues
  
• Point, Yes and No emotes (1st person) are in the making
  
• Pistol stand ADS aim poses polished
  

Armor

• Praetorian textures and Adamant paintjob polishing is in progress
  

Other

• Surface objects (rocks) were reduced to a reasonable amount on largest asteroid
  
• A fix was made for a flickering issue with the surface objects in most situations
  

[h3]Gallery of the Week[/h3]

Don't forget to check our official Starbase forums and our blog for more pictures and videos of the weekly development.

Until next time! 🪐

[h2]Progress Notes Week 41[/h2]
[h3](October 5th - 9th)[/h3]

Hello everyone! Here are the progress notes of week 40 - hope you enjoy!

Please note that the "Progress Notes" are different from the Starbase Alpha "Patch Notes". Progress Notes are snippets from the development team and what has been worked on during the previous week, and many of the features might not be present in the current or upcoming builds of the Closed Alpha. Some features, especially in the design portion, can be subject to change as the development continues.

[h3]Design[/h3] Features

• Building Tool UX improvements have been designed
  
• New Mining Job has been tested and configured
  
• Durability Tool modes can now be toggled from Blueprint tab in Universal Tool
  
• Autonaming of the thruster device fields has been tested in Spaceship Designer
  
• Design for a new armor system has been worked on, new system is more streamlined and simpler than before
  
• Economy design regarding credit generation to the world and starter jobs has been worked on
  
• New player health system is being designed (Along with features such as healing/repairing, missing limbs, their effects and attaching them)
  
• Sprinting has been implemented and going under testing by QA
  
• Design for how to establish your own station in the space and begin the building process is under works
  

Other

• Design adjustments to the Ship Permissions UI and Ship menu UI have been made
  New five-part control table set has been added ( Devices/controls )
  

[h3]Code[/h3] Gameplay

• Work on station building and Auction House continues
  
• Modifications were made to projectile damage calculations to make them more simplified
  
• Towing ships was allowed within safe zones
  
• Frame integrity was config-tweaked to compensate for last week's calculation changes
  
• A number of optimizations were implemented for the station server
  
• Station visibility range was increased from 50 km to 250 km
  

Spaceship/Station Designer

• A fix was made to a bug that caused the Spaceship Designer to freeze when bolting, unbolting, removing objects and undoing in a certain order.
  

[h3]Art[/h3] Animations and Emotes

• Work on 1st person animation polish continues
  
• 1st person rummage animations were worked on
  

Stations

• All legacy assets should now be removed from station scenes.
  
• A new version of the blueprint projector was created for player station building
  

Weapons & Armor

• Adamant armor set texture quality was polished
  
• Praetorian armor set texturing is in progress
  
• The scale and the distance the Mining Laser FX travels were reduced to be more balanced
  

Other

• Ice rock placement tests on large asteroids are underway
  
• Testing and fixing was done on rock flickering and fading issues on asteroids
  
• An asset for transponder unit was added
  
• A new unique effect with a 'measurement pulse' for the Rangefinder was created so it is now more distinguishable from other similar beam effects
  

[h3]Gallery[/h3]

Don't forget to check our official Starbase forums and our blog for more pictures and videos of the weekly development.

Until next time! 🪐