Captain Forever Trilogy News

Hi,

It feels super weird to be writing this. Just one year ago I was sure that the Captain Forever series was finished. I'd done everything I thought there was to do and was busy working on other projects. The removal of Flash from browsers really bugged me though - it made it very difficult for anyone to play the old builds of Captain Jameson (aka The Dawn Star, aka Captain Forever Universe). And so, as a holiday treat for myself and the quiet little community on the Captain Forever discord, I wrapped up the buggy, incomplete pieces of that game into a standalone executable and snuck them into an unannounced beta branch of Captain Forever Trilogy. And then people played it. And some of them played it a lot.

That's all it took to convince me - I should finish up this nearly-complete project over the next month or two and send it out into the world. Soon two months became four, four months became more, and, well, now here we are. It's about a year since that first build snuck out, and after 18 releases, a name change, a graphical overhaul, some critical bugfixes, and multiple changes to the shape of the universe, it feels like Captain Forever Universe is really coming together.

So what's next?

Well, two things. The first is what I'm actively working on right now, and I expect the second will happen some time after that.

Right now I'm redesigning the universe topology. Again. The 15 series of builds are a lot of fun, and I love that the community are working together to explore and find all the kilo modules so they can build their behemoths. On the other hand, it seems almost nobody is actually doing that - we're mostly playing through the first sector (a meaty 5+ hour experience for most first time players) and calling it a day. My theory is that playing through more than one sector doesn't currently feel like progression within the same game. To use the original Legend of Zelda as an analogy, it doesn't feel like moving to the next screen, it feels like New Game+. I adore the first Zelda game and have finished it a bunch of times, but I've never bothered with New Game+, so I get it. If I want players to check out the game beyond the first sector (and I do! There's so much design space left to explore!) then that needs to feel like part of the same quest. My plan then is to turn the game into something like this:

A finite, maze-like grid of interconnected sectors with multiple quest locations and an endgame location locked away in the middle and called out from the start, There'll be some amount of narrative and motivation tying it all together, but for now all I'm sure about is the shape. By making the universe finite I can easily add interesting one-off occurrences and be sure that they will be found while also knowing they won't appear in a glut, both of which have been problems with the 15 series infinite universe builds. It also gives your progress through the universe substance and weight - it feels a lot more meaningful to complete 10 of 20 sectors than 10 of infinity. Finally, if there's interest in it, I'd like to add back in the idea of New Game+. Even though I'll decide what goes into a universe, I still want to use procedural generation to decide where it all fits, which leaves open the door for any players who complete the first universe to go visit another, and another, and another, if that's something they'd like to do.

The second thing, which I'm hoping won't be too unpopular, is at some point I'd like to draw a line under the Captain Forever Universe beta builds in Captain Forever Trilogy and start releasing them as a new game. All the builds released under Trilogy will remain there and can still be played by anyone who owns it, but ultimately in order for new players to find CFU it needs to become its own thing. I don't expect it will be expensive, and of course if supporters from the Captain Forever website days want to get in touch with me I'll find a way to get them their copies.

Please let me know if you have any questions - I'll check here occasionally and I read the Discord nearly every day. I'm genuinely excited about the future of Captain Forever and can't wait to explore this new universe together.

Farbs

Hi Pilots,

Captain Forever Universe updates 15.5 and 15.6 are live right now!

15.5 launched a little while ago but, uh, I forgot to write an update post. I guess this time I'll cover both!

The first thing you'll notice is the new backgrounds. I repaired the background mesh generator tool and ran ninety Hubble Space Telescope photographs through it, keeping the best 19 for the game. I've also darkened the backgrounds a little, so we shouldn't have any more problems with blindingly bright backgrounds in inferno sectors.

Speaking of graphics and hot rocks, I've made a lot of small graphical changes to the game, including making asteroids distort atmosphere bubbles. This should make it much harder for them to hide in the horizon, which was always surprising, sometimes funny, and occasionally fatal. For a more detailed list of graphical changes check the changelist at the bottom of the post.

Gameplay-wise, there are two new modules to discover. The first is the side laser, a side-mounted laser that'll occasionally show up on NPC wing caps. These are great for creating a close spread pattern as they hug a little closer to their mount point. The second is tilt boosters, which apply a force 60 degrees off the module facing, and a little stronger than a regular booster. These can create some really cool shapes, and if arranged well can be great for both propulsion and manoeuvrability.

One final big thing you might notice is a change in NPC behaviour. They have a lot more to say! I ported Cassandra Khaw's brilliant dialogue from Trilogy to Universe, and it's really great to hear everyone chattering away again.

This is probably the last build in the 15 series, so it's time for me to start planning v16. I expect it'll take a few weeks, but you might see changes in the Trello board as figure it out. If you have any suggestions (or otherwise want to chat or share nav data) come visit the Discord!

1. Open Steam and click Library
2. Right click on Captain Forever Trilogy and select Properties...
3. Select BETAS
4. Select captainforeveruniverse15 from the drop down list
   
5. Close the properties window
   
6. Captain Forever Trilogy will now update. This usually only takes a few seconds.
   
7. From your Steam library, select Captain Forever Trilogy and click PLAY
8. Select Play Captain Forever Universe Alpha 15
9. Enjoy!

[hr][/hr]

[h3]Breathe[/h3]
Without oxygen, your pilot will die. Replenish oxygen by entering atmosphere zones surrounding stations. You will need to renew oxygen licenses at oxy stations to expand your reach. Most importantly, every time you leave atmosphere, make a plan for where your next breath will come from, and if your meter hits 50% before you find more air then TURN BACK!

[h3]Dock[/h3]
Docking with stations to access their services. To dock, just follow a station's red and green lane lights and nudge the docking module. Try this at the nav station near where you first spawn, to add data to your onboard map.

[h3]VMEDS[/h3]
VMEDS is your Virtual Multifunction Electronic Display System - it's your interface through to all the things your ship can do other than flying, shooting, and building. You'll see it when you first start the game, and can interact with it using number keys, function keys, or your mouse. I find the mouse pretty cumbersome though and strongly recommend using keys.

Open VMEDS with the TAB key during flight to access your onboard map, ship settings, help files, and to save and exit the game.

[h3]Cruise Control[/h3]
If you have distance to cover and no threats along the way, hit the Left Shift button to toggle cruise control. This allows you to travel without holding the forwards key, and also causes time to pass at double the usual rate. It's great for distance travel, but can go catastrophically wrong if you fly into danger, so take care!

[h3]Goal[/h3]
Your goal is to discover wormholes to other sectors, and defeat the Border Force patrols preventing travel between them. To do this you'll need to rescue blockaded stations and build up your ship. As you explore you'll find occasional Juliet level factories, which you can use to gain Kilo level modules and build an unstoppable dreadnaught.

[h3]Share[/h3]
Every player's world is generated from the same seed, so if you find something cool you should let other pilots know! You can find us in the Steam community pages and on the Discord.

• Added tilt boosters
  
• Side lasers
  
• Ported Trilogy dialogue
  
• Added details to Universe export
  
• New Universe export formatting
  
• Refinery at Spelunk origin
  
• New help files
  
• Darker VMEDS background
  
• Physics, rendering optimisations
  

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

• New backgrounds, darker
  
• New shield visuals
  
• Asteroids distort atmo render
  
• Trilogy module destruction timing
  
• More faceted asteroid visuals
  
• Motes brighter in Cruise Control
  
• Made fast motes faster
  

[h3]Fixes & Tech[/h3]

• Updated SDK to 32.0.0.116
  
• Fixed un-jammable station groups
  
• Fixed backward side lasers
  

[h3]Tuning[/h3]

• Raised blurst mass another 2.5x
  
• Flippers use CW and CCW cap modules
  

[h3]Menus[/h3]

• Added Credits page
  
• Shinier splash screen buttons
  
• Simplified update notices
  
• Ctrl-A just goes DONK now
  

See you out there!

Farbs

Hi Pilots,

Captain Forever Universe update 15.4 is live right now!

The last build added sensor modules, which are great for quickly uncovering the map, but you had to constantly open and close it to see what you'd discovered. So, this build, I've added a minimap - a very Captain Forever style of minimap. After finding a Map Vis module, attach it to your ship and click on it to open the module description display. You'll see a minimap right there in the description, with a scan line rolling through it as it updates each row, ten rows per second. Alpha and Bravo map vis might not be so helpful as they have a very small radius. Delta and Echo modules are great for slinking through asteroid fields and past other ships. India and Juliet are excellent for longer journeys.

The second big gameplay update in 15.4 is a change to initial NPC behaviours. In previous builds all other ships would spawn facing directly at you, and most would be aggressive. Now the spawn facing is more varied, and several types of ships might choose not to attack you, depending on their level. They'll still get grumpy if you attack or bump into them however, so be careful out there!

Finally, in the spirit of Halloween, I've added a little surprise. I don't think anyone has found it yet, but you'll recognise it when you do :)

Right now I'm planning 15.5 on the Trello board. If you have any suggestions (or otherwise want to chat or share nav data) come visit the Discord!

1. Open Steam and click Library
2. Right click on Captain Forever Trilogy and select Properties...
3. Select BETAS
4. Select captainforeveruniverse15 from the drop down list
   
5. Close the properties window
   
6. Captain Forever Trilogy will now update. This usually only takes a few seconds.
   
7. From your Steam library, select Captain Forever Trilogy and click PLAY
8. Select Play Captain Forever Universe Alpha 15
9. Enjoy!

[hr][/hr]

[h3]Breathe[/h3]
Without oxygen, your pilot will die. Replenish oxygen by entering atmosphere zones surrounding stations. You will need to renew oxygen licenses at oxy stations to expand your reach. Most importantly, every time you leave atmosphere, make a plan for where your next breath will come from, and if your meter hits 50% before you find more air then TURN BACK!

[h3]Dock[/h3]
Docking with stations to access their services. To dock, just follow a station's red and green lane lights and nudge the docking module. Try this at the nav station near where you first spawn, to add data to your onboard map.

[h3]VMEDS[/h3]
VMEDS is your Virtual Multifunction Electronic Display System - it's your interface through to all the things your ship can do other than flying, shooting, and building. You'll see it when you first start the game, and can interact with it using number keys, function keys, or your mouse. I find the mouse pretty cumbersome though and strongly recommend using keys.

Open VMEDS with the TAB key during flight to access your onboard map, ship settings, help files, and to save and exit the game.

[h3]Cruise Control[/h3]
If you have distance to cover and no threats along the way, hit the Left Shift button to toggle cruise control. This allows you to travel without holding the forwards key, and also causes time to pass at double the usual rate. It's great for distance travel, but can go catastrophically wrong if you fly into danger, so take care!

[h3]Goal[/h3]
Your goal is to discover wormholes to other sectors, and defeat the Border Force patrols preventing travel between them. To do this you'll need to rescue blockaded stations and build up your ship. As you explore you'll find occasional Juliet level factories, which you can use to gain Kilo level modules and build an unstoppable dreadnaught.

[h3]Share[/h3]
Every player's world is generated from the same seed, so if you find something cool you should let other pilots know! You can find us in the Steam community pages and on the Discord.

• Added map vis module
  
• Friendlier AI ship initial behaviour
  
• Added hitstop and hitslow effects
  
• Stronger voice synth glottals
  
• Twin thrusters fire one way at most
  
• Module desc anchors to start quadrant
  
• Mailbag upgrade fix
  
• Increased physics body limit
  
• Ctrl-A disposes render context and goes DONK, I thought it might fix the AAAAAA bug but it absolutely did not.
  
• A surprise!
  

See you out there!

Farbs

Hi Pilots,

Captain Forever Universe update 15.3 is now live!

The two standout features for this build are the new Sensor modules, which scan back and forth adding distant data to your sector map, and an oxygen grace period, adding 60 seconds extra flight time after your oxygen supply runs out.

Sensor modules are occasionally found on the wingtips of other craft, and can be mounted in any orientation. They only scan in the direction they're facing, and only at their fixed distance, so you might need to experiment with different placements to find what works best for you.

The oxygen grace period kicks off at 0L, and bleeps every 15 seconds as it tells you how much time you have left. I still strongly recommend turning back, or at least making a plan to find oxygen nearby, as soon as your tank hits 50%. The extra 60 seconds are a good buffer in case you get lost or held up on the way to safety, but I wouldn't want to rely on them! You'll also want to note that it's 60 seconds of game simulation time, so if you're using cruise control (which doubles the rate of game time to real-time), it'll pass in just 30 seconds.

Some other minor tweaks this build include bugfixes with visibility saving and ships saved right at the start of the game, Save & Exit now returning you to the title screen (handy for swapping pilots or farming spawn zones), and the doubling of blurst shield weight. Blurst shields were originally designed as an almost mythical, extremely rare part for Captain Forever, which is why they're strictly better than regular girders. Now that they're quite common they need a drawback, and mass seemed like a good way to provide that. I'm considering increasing their mass even further, however I figured it'd be best to roll the change out incrementally in case anyone has left a precious juggernaut ship parked out of atmosphere.

I've started a Trello board so you can see what I'm up to. If you have any suggestions (or otherwise want to chat or share nav data) come visit the Discord!

1. Open Steam and click Library
2. Right click on Captain Forever Trilogy and select Properties...
3. Select BETAS
4. Select captainforeveruniverse15 from the drop down list
   
5. Close the properties window
   
6. Captain Forever Trilogy will now update. This usually only takes a few seconds.
   
7. From your Steam library, select Captain Forever Trilogy and click PLAY
8. Select Play Captain Forever Universe Alpha 15
9. Enjoy!

[hr][/hr]

[h3]Breathe[/h3]
Without oxygen, your pilot will die. Replenish oxygen by entering atmosphere zones surrounding stations. You will need to renew oxygen licenses at oxy stations to expand your reach. Most importantly, every time you leave atmosphere, make a plan for where your next breath will come from, and if your meter hits 50% before you find more air then TURN BACK!

[h3]Dock[/h3]
Docking with stations to access their services. To dock, just follow a station's red and green lane lights and nudge the docking module. Try this at the nav station near where you first spawn, to add data to your onboard map.

[h3]VMEDS[/h3]
VMEDS is your Virtual Multifunction Electronic Display System - it's your interface through to all the things your ship can do other than flying, shooting, and building. You'll see it when you first start the game, and can interact with it using number keys, function keys, or your mouse. I find the mouse pretty cumbersome though and strongly recommend using keys.

Open VMEDS with the TAB key during flight to access your onboard map, ship settings, help files, and to save and exit the game.

[h3]Cruise Control[/h3]
If you have distance to cover and no threats along the way, hit the Left Shift button to toggle cruise control. This allows you to travel without holding the forwards key, and also causes time to pass at double the usual rate. It's great for distance travel, but can go catastrophically wrong if you fly into danger, so take care!

[h3]Goal[/h3]
Your goal is to discover wormholes to other sectors, and defeat the Border Force patrols preventing travel between them. To do this you'll need to rescue blockaded stations and build up your ship. As you explore you'll find occasional Juliet level factories, which you can use to gain Kilo level modules and build an unstoppable dreadnaught.

[h3]Share[/h3]
Every player's world is generated from the same seed, so if you find something cool you should let other pilots know! You can find us in the Steam community pages and on the Discord.

• Added sensor module
  
• Added oxygen grace period
  
• Oxygen feedback tweaks
  
• Made blurst shields heavier
  
• Fixed map visibility save bug
  
• Fixed empty ship save bug
  
• "Save and Exit" now returns to title
  

See you out there!

Farbs

Hi Pilots,

Captain Forever Universe update 15.2 is now live!

The first thing you'll notice is the new dust mote effect, which give you a sense of speed and motion as you jet about the universe. I've also added a dust filter option in the settings menu, which you can use to change the number of motes around you. The number of motes varies inversely with the filter voltage, ranging from 1 mote at 1,000V, to a ridiculous 10,000 motes if you turn the filter off entirely. It's fun to muck about with but I don't recommend playing it that way :)

The motes are fun, but the less obvious changes are also the most useful. The first is a new automapping feature. Now as you travel through unexplored areas of a sector they are revealed on your nav map, saving you the effort of remembering where you found unmapped stations or paths around asteroids.

The final feature for 15.2 is another new system setting: Branch Detach. By default this is enabled, allowing you to remove multiple modules from your ship with one gesture by dragging any piece with other modules attached to it. If, however, you're piloting or building a very large ship, accidentally dragging the wrong module can be catastrophic as it flings dozens of your modules into space, and can take minutes to repair. By setting Branch Detach to Disabled, only leaf module - ie parts with no child modules attached - can be removed, limiting how much you can change your ship with a single gesture and preventing this sort of mishap.

So... what should I add next? Got any ideas? Please let me (and other pilots) know by chatting with us in the Discord.

1. Open Steam and click Library
2. Right click on Captain Forever Trilogy and select Properties...
3. Select BETAS
4. Select captainforeveruniverse15 from the drop down list
   
5. Close the properties window
   
6. Captain Forever Trilogy will now update. This usually only takes a few seconds.
   
7. From your Steam library, select Captain Forever Trilogy and click PLAY
8. Select Play Captain Forever Universe Alpha 15
9. Enjoy!

[hr][/hr]

[h3]Breathe[/h3]
Without oxygen, your pilot will die. Replenish oxygen by entering atmosphere zones surrounding stations. You will need to renew oxygen licenses at oxy stations to expand your reach. Most importantly, every time you leave atmosphere, make a plan for where your next breath will come from, and if your meter hits 50% before you find more air then TURN BACK!

[h3]Dock[/h3]
Docking with stations to access their services. To dock, just follow a station's red and green lane lights and nudge the docking module. Try this at the nav station near where you first spawn, to add data to your onboard map.

[h3]VMEDS[/h3]
VMEDS is your Virtual Multifunction Electronic Display System - it's your interface through to all the things your ship can do other than flying, shooting, and building. You'll see it when you first start the game, and can interact with it using number keys, function keys, or your mouse. I find the mouse pretty cumbersome though and strongly recommend using keys.

Open VMEDS with the TAB key during flight to access your onboard map, ship settings, help files, and to save and exit the game.

[h3]Cruise Control[/h3]
If you have distance to cover and no threats along the way, hit the Left Shift button to toggle cruise control. This allows you to travel without holding the forwards key, and also causes time to pass at double the usual rate. It's great for distance travel, but can go catastrophically wrong if you fly into danger, so take care!

[h3]Goal[/h3]
Your goal is to discover wormholes to other sectors, and defeat the Border Force patrols preventing travel between them. To do this you'll need to rescue blockaded stations and build up your ship. As you explore you'll find occasional Juliet level factories, which you can use to gain Kilo level modules and build an unstoppable dreadnaught.

[h3]Share[/h3]
Every player's world is generated from the same seed, so if you find something cool you should let other pilots know! You can find us in the Steam community pages and on the Discord.

• Added automapping
  
• Added dust motes
  
• Added mote density settings
  
• Added branch detach prevention setting
  

See you out there!

Farbs