Exoplanet: First Contact News

BUILD 0.32

Hey, everyone! The new build is here, and we do hope you won’t be disappointed. Of course, there are a great deal of under-the-hood changes which are very important for the game and future updates but doesn’t make much difference now. Still, this build has a lot of improvements in level design and a new quest.

Also, we managed to make a lot of other changes, improvements and assets for future updates. And since a lot of players asked us on forums and via PM to share more about our plans, we won't keep silence until these updates are ready.

From now on we are going to make posts about our development, and progress, and future changes, share concept art and assets with you. I believe it will benefit both players and us, devs, because we will keep you posted about everything what's going on with the game, and you can share your ideas and give us useful feedback on our drafts.:dwYellowStar:

If you are wondering about the star in the end of previous paragraph, it’s not a simple decoration. We always believed that it is very important to listen to our players and correct our plans according to their expectations and vision. And through the times in Early Access we've already made a lot of changes based on your feedback and very grateful for your impact, your thorough reviews and interesting thoughts. That’s why we decided to highlight changes made with your help. From now on, :dwYellowStar: means community choice, alterations made with your feedback.

ROADMAP UPDATE

Exoplanet’s roadmap also got a huge update. At the moment we decided to put our efforts into making the game a true RPG while postponed a few other tasks. Thus, you will have a chance to see the very first version of our role-playing system when it’s ready. If you never heard about our roadmap before, you can learn more here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/531660/announcements/detail/1654384966961614188
A few tips for Trello. Take a look at #1 on the picture above. There are some icons on the card. Thumbs up shows how many people voted for the card, next icons say that the task has description, a number of comments, attached files and related tasks, and a checklist.

At #2 you can learn more about the roadmap and also track every activity on the board. Usually I attach a few screenshots or artworks to show the progress on the task and then place a comment on the top with short description of what we did.

#3 has orange label which was added recently. It means that we worked on the card before, there is some progress on the task but it was postponed for some time due to other priorities. That doesn’t mean you won’t see these tasks done for a few years. For example, WEAPON UPGRADES on the picture and another task below, NEW BUGS, will probably hit the update before the Summer Sale if we manage to do it in time.

Speaking of thumbs up icon, another big change is voting system.:dwYellowStar:

Players asked us about it, and from now on, you can vote for any task you like. Unfortunately, this option available for Trello users only but you can easily register with your Google account. With a Trello account you can vote and also watch cards you like. Also, keep in mind that a lot of other games using Trello for roadmaps.

Voting system will help us to get your feedback about which features you’d like to see as soon as possible, so please, take some time to vote for tasks you’re fond of. You can do that by clicking cards and using ‘Vote’ button on the right. You can also ‘Watch’ any card to get updates on your mail.

Also, if you want to learn what we are planning to do with the game in the near future (brand new area with tutorial and quests, more assets to significantly improve the existing starting area, main quest and more), you can check this long read:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/531660/announcements/detail/1690432065527447093
Thank you again for being with us, for all the testing and sharing, your patience and support. Your opinion is very important and we are always glad to discuss your ideas or answer your questions on forums, Discord and socials where we started to regularly post a lot of interesting things, join us:

CHANGELOG

WORLD

improved Scalphunters’ Camp
improved Smugglers’ Camp
improved Big Hat dwelling (Big Hat's Secret Room)
improved Scrap Master’s Workshop
improved the cave with bandits and poisonous mushrooms
improved the cave with poisonous antigravium
improved a number of other caves
improved a number of areas by adding oases (The Big River, Hunting Grounds, The Crossroads)
improved a number of other areas
added idols of Gods-in-Earth to Outcast Camp and Stonehenge
added sprouts and young version of palms and other trees
added arphant’s bones to a few places

ENVIRONMENT

improved eating corpses by crucases
bonfires go out within 12 hours
arphants near Hunter’s Rest are now vulnerable to attacks and will defend themselves :dwYellowStar:
some of the harvestable plants can only be harvested once

NPCs

added new Outcast guards model
added new shaman sectarian model
implemented a knockout state—key NPCs in the new quest Broken Crane can be knocked out
Msasi and Vorga doesn’t look the same anymore
Junior and Jorgen doesn’t look the same anymore

QUESTS

new quest Broken Crane

AI

As you may know, Exoplanet is developing on our own custom built engine and still has a few legacy issues from old demos. If you ever play the game, you know that our AI system was pretty basic and limited for complex sequential actions. For example, we had an issue when some players managed to get rid of most of the Scalphunters in the cave on their own during the quest, ignoring other interesting possibilities it offers, not to mention that our hero is pretty weak in the very beginning of the game while Scalphunters being described as very tough to eliminate.

The thing is, this AI system is very old and has a great deal of restrictions, that’s why some time ago we decided to create a new one and transfer every character to it. It wasn’t an easy task and it is surely took a lot of time. Transfer of the protagonist alone took two months due to the fact that some parts of old NPC’s AI system was used for controlling Jack’s action as well, and this spaghetti code had to be resolved. But I am glad to report that we finally managed to finish this. From now on, our protagonist as well as all other characters and animals are working with the new system.:dwYellowStar:

What does it mean? Now everyone has their own behavior tree which could be expanded as we like to create more immersive and complex things like daily schedules for NPCs, special attacks and different combat behavior for enemies and animals and much more. That’s another big task for us and we are going to release these updates gradually, over time.

Anyway, despite the fact that’s mostly a big under-the-hood alteration, it changes a few in-game things at the moment:

the protagonist behaves more stable visually, his movement became smoother, especially while falling and getting down the stairs
progress bars appear in rare cases now (when action can be aborted), interaction’s time depends on character’s animation
removed a bug with Jack’s animation, and now you can stop digging at any time

ENGINE

Another big change is migration from OpenAL/cAudio to Wwise. That's one of the very best state-of-the-art commercial sound engines which gives us many benefits and useful turnkey solutions. Wwise offers a lot of features for managing sound effects, music and character voices, processing and mixing, testing and optimizing platform resource usage during the gameplay as well.

Since Exoplanet is developing on our own engine we had to spend some time to set everything. We decided to restore old functions in the very first place: playback, positioning, the Doppler effect, and functioning of world editor's audio component. Also, we added cone attenuation which allows to set directions of sound sources, improved playback randomization algorithms, and expanded audio settings in the game menu.

There are a lot of plans for the game's audio like adding adaptive music instead of the existing static one but that's a story for another time.

IMPORTANT: The new build can lack some sounds or music compositions.

CONTROLS

NumPad support :dwYellowStar:
Left Ctrl and Right Ctrl support :dwYellowStar:

ITEMS new weapon: sledgehammer
added Electrical Tape, Cold booze, Sweet Joy and Circuit Breaker (quest item)
added health capsules, can be used without injector so far (it appears automatically when you use a capsule)

OTHER

more accurate protagonist’s animations for climbing and descending ladders
a great deal of minor changes, bug fixes and minor polishing

BUG / CRASH REPORTS

If you are experienced a crash or found a bug, let us know via special crash reporter tool. It shows up when the game crashes but you can also send a report in-game with F1 button.

Keep in mind, that crash reporter makes an in-game screenshot when you press F1 so you might want to be sure that the visual problem you’re referring to will be captured. Enter your email and a short description of a bug or describe last actions before the crash.

You can also let us know about your problem on technical support forum or via Discord channel.

KNOWN ISSUES / SOLUTIONS

If there's no sound after game's loading, try to alt-tab to Windows and then go back to the game.

If you're stuck / hero doesn't move, F5 (quick save) and F9 (quick load) can help you in such matters.

If you have a weak PC or a laptop (especially the ones with Intel integrated graphics), we highly recommend to launch Exoplanet from its folder, not via Steam.

Keep in mind that integrated graphic cards are not supported despite the fact we do our best to make it possible. At the moment, there's a chance you can run the game but your performance probably won't be good enough to enjoy Exoplanet.

If you have BitDefender antivirus and can't launch the game, please, unblock Exoplanet's .exe.

Follow our latest updates on social networks:

As usual, we recommend to start a new game.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/Exoplanet_First_Contact/

BUILD 0.27

Hey, space cowboys! The new build is already here, and it will be the last one this year, perhaps we will publish a hotfix though if needed. So we would like to wish you a lot of fun during holidays, Merry Christmas and New Year. And if you are new here and planning to dive into our yet flawed space western world (it's an Early Access title, after all), we are happy to announce that you can get Exoplanet with 25% OFF during Steam Winter Sale.

Keep in mind that we are working hard on the completely new beginning of the game and improving Anomaly Area as well (which is known as the starting area at the time) because we're not satisfied with it at all and believe it gives wrong impression to new players. If you missed our latest long read about it and would like to learn what we are planning to do with Exoplanet, you can check the post to see our early drafts, screenshots and concept art:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/531660/announcements/detail/1690432065527447093

CHANGELOG

I would like to remind you that since the previous update we started to name it by build's version that's why it is BUILD 0.27 not UPDATE #12. Builds will be published more frequently that's why sometimes there will be no huge changes as in updates.

WORLD

added an area above Lemonade Wade dwelling
improved Big Hat hollow rock cave
improved smuggler's den
improved Outcast Camp

QUESTS

fixed a logical error in 'Find the Arphant' quest
improved texts and fixed misprints

OTHER

tuned crucases' spawn around Lemonade Wade cave
fixed hero's twitching on steep slopes (there are some other problems though which will be fixed later)
now inventory can't be opened during remote controlling a bug
fixed a bug when Mad Hermit doesn't attack you
a great deal of minor changes, other bugs fixes and minor polishing

IMPORTANT

If you have any other problem, please let us know via our Discord channel. You can also report about bugs on technical support forum, send us a mail to [email protected] with description of the problem and your PC specs or simply use our crash reporter to do that (Alt+F1).

You can find your .log file here: Documents\Alersteam\Exoplanet First Contact\system.log

As usual, we recommend to start a new game.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/Exoplanet_First_Contact/

UPDATE #11 [BUILD 0.26]

Hey, space cowboys! We decided to publish updates a bit more regular, that's why the new build is already here. Take into account that a lot of time was spent to prepare the game for future updates and also to improve some important components which can't be seen in-game.

As you may know, we are working hard on the beginning of the game and Anomaly Area but it is a matter of time. If you missed our latest long read about it and would like to learn what we are planning to do with Exoplanet, you can check the post to see our early drafts, screenshots and concept art:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/531660/announcements/detail/1690432065527447093

CHANGELOG

Since this update we are going to name every other update by build's version.

WORLD

reworked the Abandoned Fort

QUESTS

fixed a bug in To The Fort quest, now you can start it asking Vasily about it
fixed a rare bug in Abori Goes Home quest, now game correctly counts killing of the looters
fixed loss of control in the end of Small Prey — Big Gain quest in the terminal
another guild system revision (partly used in quest at the moment)
improved text in The Lost Arphant quest
fixed a bunch of triggers which didn't work properly

bandits AI was transferred to the new system (Behavior Tree)

ANIMATIONS

improved abori melee animation

OTHER

reworked stats system, it is also more stable now
fixed a bug when melee weapons stopped working after some time
firearms doesn't unload themselves when you unequip it
fixed a bug with loss of control of the hero if your bug dies far from Jack
cactus bat now works properly and adds poison damage
fixed unstable behavior of looters in the beginning of the game
minor changes in bug control mechanics
minor changes in sounds
minor UI improvements

IMPORTANT

A SNEAK PEEK AT FUTURE UPDATES

Hey everyone!

As you know, we published a new big update which added x64 binaries, 4K support, damage indicators, a quest, a miniboss and several new areas to explore. You can learn more about it here:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/531660/announcements/detail/2932299116266780599
I was also going to make a big section to tell you what we are up to and share some work in progress to give you an opportunity to sneak peek into future updates of Exoplanet and update our roadmap based on this. Unfortunately, two minutes before the new build went live it turned out that Steam almost completely ruined my drafts and also the whole Russian translation. That’s why I had to postpone the idea and publish the short version restored as quickly as possible because by the time I managed to do that the build was live for a few hours without a changelog.

Anyway, today I am going to tell you what I intended to. Here we go.

WHAT DO WE DO NOW

As you may know, we are really not satisfied with the starting area at the moment. Despite the fact we managed to significantly improve it since it was added, it is still requires a lot of work. Also, there’s no place for a decent tutorial but a small area to show some tips to a player before he dive into action. That’s why it is ought to be changed.

Also, since that’s the very start of the game, it is also necessary to show players what the game has to offer, our strong sides which we believe are:

open and alive world of space western with complex level design, many secrets and interesting places to explore
complex non-linear quests which can be solved in several ways
interesting mechanics (remote-controlled bugs, for example)
player’s decisions can affect the world and the story

Clearly, there’s a great deal to be done.

TUTORIAL

That’s an important part of the game but we don’t feel like to hold player’s hands. It also won’t be the same tutorial with a bunch of tips but a small story with quests on the new specially created small area—and we already made the very first prototype.

It is a small open world with some places to explore. The story is connected with main quest and also the Anomaly Area’s conflict—this area known as the starting location at the moment. I will tell you more about the story below.

Quests on the tutorial area will use different mechanics to show player basics and possibilities of the game from digging and gathering to crafting and cooking. Moreover, some quests here also could be solved in different ways based on your choices or how well you explored the area. You will also learn some useful lore about plants, animals and antigravium.

We are working on new assets which will allow us to make the start of the game more alien-looking and interesting to explore. It’d take time to get the result we would like to see but it is worth it.

ANOMALY AREA

What is going to change here? At the moment this area lacks proper goals for a player, a strong motivation for the hero, the story is barely present and quests are not involved with it. That’s ought to be fixed.

Let’s start with the story.

As you may know, Anomaly Area is a very harsh place. Its soil is almost infertile, water sources are very limited, it is hard to grow anything edible here. Still, this place is a home for Outcast aborigines. Despised by almost everyone, humans and other abori tribes, they built up a camp on this remote patch of land and trying to survive for many years. Basically, Outcasts exchange scrap they get from wrecks and anomalies for supplies brought by rare merchants.

There are other aborigines in this area called Scalphunters. They don’t get along with Outcasts and are hostile to them and our protagonist. This abori are brutal and prefer to use their victims’ remains as trophies and decorations. They are also blocking the only way out of this area, that’s why poor Outcasts can’t sell scrap for food anymore.

There’s even more backstory to learn but the clash is imminent. And player can affect its result. His actions will define what happened to Outcasts and Scalphunters and will change the appearance of the area.

As for our hero, I’d like to avoid spoilers, so I just mention that he has his own motivation to be involved in the conflict. His main quest has its goals in the area. Also, it is hard to leave the area with all the Scalphunters swarming around.

ASSETS

As I said before, we are working hard to make the starting area more alien-looking. But we also lack some simple assets like different types of grass for each biome (most of the ones we use are pretty old), that’s one of the reasons why Anomaly Area looks pretty naked. Grass, especially the small one is very important in several ways. With its help, you can make roads more notable. Also, it tells a lot about the area, creates its atmosphere. Thus, Anomaly Area should be paved with dry and faded grass able to grow on this wasteland.

When it is done, we are going to make a stress-test for the game to look how well it is going to perform with a lot of vegetation. Once Exoplanet pass the test, we will be able to completely change the appearance of different areas.

As for alien-looking appearance, we are working on a few special plants as well. Some of them are inspired by lithops which are also known as pebble plants or living stones and were designed to be arphant food.

Other plants can be useful for different purposes. There will be new poison stick, for example, which you can craft from two different plants (at the moment, you can simply get it from a cactus plant). This Meat Cage below is just a concept so far but it could be used to push your enemies onto its thorns—yes, we’re so in love with kicking mechanic from Dark Messiah of Might & Magic that actually thinking to do that.

Well, enough talking about flora, let’s save something for future updates. But what about fauna?

I already shared new bitebugs concept with you some time ago in a post about Exoplanet’s roadmap. We decided to make different species with unique behavior (it was actually designed from the start) instead of the old one.

Bugs models are finally ready though they could use a few cosmetic changes. At the moment we are creating animations for them from the scratch. We are also still working on AI, transferring existing NPCs to the new system which allows to create more complex behaviors.

There are other assets which requires some attention. We are working on new barrels instead of the ones we have in the game at the moment.

As you can see, some barrels bares marks of what inside of them, fuel and wastes. Players will be able to explode the red ones to get advantage in a fight or perhaps use the empty ones as a hiding spot when we add stealth mechanic.

What about the rest?

Despite the fact that the beginning of the game is the first priority now, we are also going to create new content for the existing areas. For example, The Scarecrow quest, added in the recent update, will be greatly expanded. It was initially designed as a complex quest with several endings but we need some time to finish it. Anyway, upcoming updates will tell you more about it.

That’s it for today, folks.

Roadmap is updated, so if you want to check our progress, just click here.

If you have any questions, just ask them here in comments or our Discord. And if you enjoyed the reading, don’t forget to click on a ‘thumb up’ button—it will tell us that you care. Thanks.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/531660/Exoplanet_First_Contact

UPDATE #10

Hey, space cowboys! The new update is finally here and we hope you will enjoy it. There are few very important features, a new quest and areas to explore and even a miniboss.

CRASH REPORTS

As you may know, we added a huge and useful tool in previous update—crash reporter. And we would like to thank everyone who sent their reports. We found and managed to fix numerous bugs with your help.

For those who missed the previous update, crash reporter allows you to send us the report with the information that will help us analyze and fix the crash. It shows up when the game has crashed. And it is up to you to choose whether you wish to send the report or which files go into it—you can easily delete the ones you don't want to send, just click on What does this report contain? to open a new window with error report details.

It also allows you to enter your email and/or a short description of your last actions before the crash—click Provide additional info about the problem (recommended). That’s very important because we might contact you to tell you that the crash is fixed or if we might need some additional info. Also, it is much easier to find your report among the others.

In this update we also added another useful thing to the feature. From now on, you can send us reports right from the game. Just press Alt+F1 combination to send it. Unfortunately, the window still says ExoplanetFC has stopped working which is not true, don’t be confused, we will improve the tool later.

A quest bug, a glitch or a bad looking texture—you can let us know in a few seconds. Also, keep in mind, that crash reporter making an in-game screenshot when you press Alt+F1 so you might want to be sure that the visual problem you’re referring to will be captured.

x64 BINARIES

As you may know, Exoplanet is developing on our own custom build engine called Sahara but it is still in development as well and could use a lot of improvements so far. And we would like to announce a really big one today.

From now on, Exoplanet has x64 executable. What does it mean? That means that the game finally can use more than 4Gb of your RAM which is really good due to the fact that optimization ain’t flawless yet. We really hope that you’ll find that Exoplanet runs smoother than usual and has more stable FPS numbers. Please, let us know about the game’s performance on your rig.

If you have any troubles with the client, please, do not hesitate to send us crash reports. We will do our best to fix everything as soon as possible. And, of course, we will do our best to improve optimization of the game.

2K / 4K & LOW RESOLUTION SUPPORT

Due to the really old UI which will be completely reworked from the scratch later, some players complained about small fonts on 2K / 4K displays which make it almost impossible to read.

We are glad to inform you that we managed to adjust our UI and it should feel much better now if you have resolution more than 1920x1080. Please, let us know if it works fine.

Also, we made few tweaks for 720p as well. I hope it will please the ones with old laptops and proud owners of 4:3 displays.

DAMAGE INDICATOR

Another important feature is damage indicator. Since Exoplanet has gunplay mechanics, we believe it is necessary for players to know where bullets come from. Probably, that's not final, so let us know what do you think.

CHANGELOG

WORLD

new area: Abandoned Fort is now open for exploration
new area: The Scarecrow's lair
new area: Lemonade Wade's Stronghold
improved design of the Outcast Camp
added Pale's Platform to the Outcast Camp
added five Pale's followers with new dialogues
added Pale's Altar to the remote area at the edge of the map in preparation for future quest
added more generic NPCs with new clothing styles and default dialogues to Outcast Camp

a big rock blocking the road on the west from the Fort has been removed
removed unnecessary boxes in Barnabas' room
removed possibilities to get stuck when controlling a bitebug in Barnabas' room
added more details to Scalphunters' cave entrance and Cutthroat pass arch
improved roads throughout the location

VISUALS

new bandits with unique appearance: Lemonade Wade and his cronies
added new assets of human skeletons and remains
old nanogrease barrels replaced with new ones redesigned from scratch
new skin textures for Scalphunters
crucases now can detect corpses to eat

QUESTS

new bounty quest: The Scarecrow
new miniboss: Lemonade Wade

AI

Various bandits' AI enhancements:

bandits play turning animations now
added recoil for guns
bandits can play shotgun cocking animations
bandits can point gun up/down if the target is above or below
bandits use actual weapon's delay between shots
fixed bandits losing their targets when crowded
added patrolling bandits
snipers now have higher range where they can see Jack and shoot him

ANIMATIONS

pray animations for Pale's Followers
animate shooting and turning NPCs with ranged weapons
better striking animations for aboris and humans

AUDIO

added ambient music for Scarecrow Lair
added new sounds for force fields
improved sound of security turret

UI adjusted to be readable in 4K as well as 720p
added UI damage indicators
allowed mapping of extra mouse buttons
added different loading screen images
random tips displays during loading screen
fonts are more readable now
added confirmation on loading / overwriting save game
fixed journal buggy word wrapping
improved tutorial messages

OTHER

from now on, Exoplanet works fine with Unicode symbols if you have any on the path to game's folder

IMPORTANT