1. Gaia Beyond
  2. News

Gaia Beyond News

Chapter 2: The Sphere

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


By the emperor, it's here!

Thanks for the wait, traveler - we know it's been long. But your patience will finally be rewarded with a fully unseen main story arc! Also, not to forget: CARRIER SHIPS. πŸš€

As it has taken some time, lots of other things have piled up too, so make sure you don't miss the details! Although we're confident that this will keep you entertained for a while (as we shift our focus back to general QoL improvements and more frequent updates again) we do have more in store - this is not the last storyline expansion by far, and we assure you that all of them will come in form of free updates!

Cheers,
the Warp Turtle crew






[h2]Story of the Sphere[/h2]

Continue the saga! A brand new story experience that comes with:

The initial concept was created so long ago, it was written on papyrus...


Turmoil is rising within the Sphere. Old ideals stand in conflict with major upheavals caused by the hands of time - feeding discontent under the surface of this highly evolved faction. Frontiers seem to be hardening to an irreversible extent and call for decisions. According to the Sphere's solidified traditions, there can only be one instance of power. A new, exceptionally young emperor sees himself confronted with the massive task to decide over the fate of the biggest high-tech civilization the solar system has ever seen - will you help him to pave the way for a stable future for the Sphere?


The big ceremony - a major turning point in the imperial bloodline.

The Loyalist fleet: Including a reworked Nancho, and of course the new carrier.

A mysterious incident reveals ships of unknown origin.


LANGUAGE NOTE:
As you'd expect, the new story is heavy on words. Therefore, the new arc translations - RU, CN, DE, ES - will not be complete from the start. We apologize for this (kind of sad to reset the localization info on the storepage back to "partial" with new content) - and promise we try to make progress asap, but for now we'll have to ask you for a bit more patience here.



[h2]Carrier Ships[/h2]
CARRIERS: CHECK!

We know you've been eagerly waiting for them - again, thanks for your patience - but there's no need to wait any longer, just go ride these whales (although you have to finish the arc first ;))!



  • [h3]Weapon Type[/h3] As previously introduced with the turret placement system, carriers use ships as weapons - just in form of equipable turrets called launch bays.
  • [h3]Behavior[/h3] With a set weapon target, employed bays will launch a fleet of autonomous ships right at the enemy, fighting until death (no matter whose) and redock if the target is destroyed.
  • [h3]Availability[/h3] Two carrier versions (Sphere, Loyalists) and their respective launch bays will be available at jiraiya, Jamey Tien and Hoshi after the end of the storyline.

[h2]Other available Ships[/h2]
Besides the two carrier versions, all the other ships seen above (whole Loyalist fleet, machine ships) are available in some way - either by purchasing them at a ship trader or by scanning and crafting.


[h2]Achievements[/h2]

The new main story comes with a bunch of new achievements for the modern completionist's profile!

[h2]Soundtrack[/h2]
Over 16 new songs!

  • The story expansion features songs from Miguel's new album "2184" (seen from the GB timeline: a true retro-classic ;)) and an even newer track "The Mission" became the new main menu theme!
  • In the meantime, our artist who had always been handling all our music, became a music producer himself and contributed tracks to the new arc soundtrack - Kouji's "Eyes of Fury" theme, Pai Pai's ceremonial song, some loops and the trailer score, as well as an unknown number of sound FX. :D
  • Aside from the arc soundtrack, there are also some additional ambient tracks and a default moon landable theme!

[h2]Locations[/h2]
New locations on the Sphere and Loyalist capitals: Imperial garden, Nancho throne and command bridge

[h2]Other New Stuff[/h2]
  • πŸ‡ͺπŸ‡Έ Spanish: partial translation - after an unknown hero named shadowman1 had been quietly working on the ES translation for years, we spent another while finishing the rest 100% (hola, viajero espacial ;)) - before the Sphere arc completion though, which means that it's currently in the state of Mai 2023 and missing major parts of the new arc!
  • Portraits: Beside 15 (!) new portraits in the context of the Sphere arc, there is now a female default pirate with 3 versions. Also, Kouji's portrait, as seen in the title artwork, was completely redesigned from scratch!
  • Wave weapon: a somewhat experimental thing. Let us know what you think!
  • Dai-Naoru, a repair laser with a super-long range!
  • FX: White Hole animations and audio design, map icon
  • Audio: new ship collision sound and a whole bunch of other new FX
  • Some new cargo icons
  • Music disks as readables: Start your music collection with Rhapsody in Deep Blue and Eyes of Fury - both come with unique cover art and can be played back at any time.






[h2]UI Rework[/h2]
  • Message and portrait box: complete overhaul (borderless design, portrait scanlines added)
  • Tooltip improvements: layout rework (including stats resorting and new credits and weight icons), tbc!
  • Reworked assets: radar HUD, checkbox graphic to toggle, menu cursor, close button, new game char selector, tab bar changes, loading screen icon, some divider lines and other details


[h2]World[/h2]
  • Support view sharing with npc ships
  • Location polishing: Hokucho gate, Supreme Court, The Zone, Hokucho Imperial City quick-polishing


[h2]Portrait polishing[/h2]
  • Sphere judge, Jack Sperrholz, Sphere / Loyalist military, Sphere male 1 (x7), CoC male 1 (x8)


[h2]FX[/h2]
  • Default planet atmosphere visual upgrade
  • Advanced cam zooms, improved fireworks, spotlight FX polishing
  • "3 frame animation" emitters (Machine Ship)
  • Audio: Separate cheering crowd from firework
  • Audio: Functionality for playing SFX without background music








  • Pluto stays locked if Noob Henderson was destroyed during the journey to Caduceus.
  • Mission progress and Finish Mission didn't trigger correctly during 'Revealing Xentron'
  • Mouse input and cursor loss on resolution change when a landable window is open
  • Defending ships with an existing valid weapon target should regain the attack behavior
  • Unintentional Delga and Nobunaga death dialog pop-up
  • Multiple places have the wrong leading person
  • Readable music is not always playing/stopped
  • Landable talk to person triggers 2 sounds if person is mission target
  • UI: Portrait box seams on full HD (message, origin, character selection)
  • UI: Controller icons LB scaling bigger than RB
  • UI: Word-wrap missing on mission instructions / dialog question
  • Javelot dropped an Aries blueprint
  • "Additional Armor" device: price correction (III had same price as II)
  • Pirate Fortress fight auto pause keeps triggering
  • Multiple missing translation string
  • NPC ships do not activate the thrusters sometimes
  • Reduce the ship attack approach angle if the target is way bigger than us
  • UI: Analysis render window should not switch the cursor when hovered
  • Crash when loading cargo with a ship type with an invalid name









Let's have a chat on Discord:



Learn more & stay tuned!

Pre-Update Discount

Hey space travelers,

Great news! As you may have noticed, we've been avoiding the term "coming soon" lately, as it was starting to wear out a little... But now we're finally in the safe zone:

[h3]It's coming next week! πŸ™ŒπŸŽ‰[/h3]

All content is ready and we're setting everything up to bring it to your screens next week!

So let's have a little pre-party with this last discount before the Sphere update as we prepare the final steps for release!








Let's have a chat on Discord:



Learn more & stay tuned!

Halloween

Hey space travelers,

  1. πŸŽƒ πŸ‘» πŸš€ It's Space Halloween - We just enabled the annual event this weekend: Wicked Gates and pumpkins are all over the place, as well as a skeleton boss ship with a blueprint! Talk to Count Ixua ("Spectre" ghost ship next to Pluto) to learn how to permanently unlock spooky gimmicks!

  2. Update preparations for the new main story arc are running high at the moment (sounding familiar? We hope you still believe us!) - most of the major events are currently in their polishing phase. Sorry for still not being able to give a schedule, but the finish line is coming into view, and by now it's safe to say it will be good. πŸ™‚

    Check out the #⁠work-in-progress channel on our Discord for some latest previews!

Safe travels!





Let's have a chat on Discord:



Learn more & stay tuned!

Sphere Transmission


Heya space travelers,

It's the longest gap between two updates ever, so we felt it's time for an official transmission to let you know what's going on. We've been silent for quite a while now - apologies for that, but all questions are still being answered - and we wanted to assure you that stuff is still moving forward. Just slower (for the reasons below), but our plans for the future are still big, and this is not going to be our last story expansion.



[h3]WHY IT TAKES SO LONG[/h3]

Our original plan was to release the new story update at the end of last year - what happened? Simple answer: the cycle of life! A newborn baby is spicing things up, old cats have been demanding a lot of care (RIP Lola and safe travels!) and side jobs need some attention too. So we are trying to juggle it all and still push the game forward, but some things just need extra work - and at this point, predictions are hard to make as to when the last things will be fixed and tested. The important thing is that we're still here and doing our best for Gaia Beyond!


[h3]WHERE WE ARE[/h3]

Here! Although the first Chapter 2 / Sphere Arc announcement was made a while ago and a lot of sweat has gone into it, development is not yet complete. The writing has been done for a while, but after introducing the alternative route of Chapter 1, we had to add some new scenes and changes. The current status would be: everything is fully scripted except for the last three missions, but there are still some bugs and polishing issues remaining in missions 5 to 7. Missions 1 through 4 are fully tested, polished and playable. The work that is left is actually not too much, but because of the things mentioned above, it just takes longer than anticipated.

On the other hand, the waiting loops on the main front allowed us to check off some things that had been on hold for a while and waiting for a longer period like this one, such as:

  • UI rework: A bunch of small individual tasks have turned into a real rework - let's see where it goes until the release!

  • Portrait overhaul: To shine in the second chapter, old side characters that play a bigger role in it have been polished up and some have been completely replaced with new portraits.

  • Spanish localization

  • CARRIERS - they exist. We actually finished them a year ago and they are a blast! Sad to have them locked in our garage, and in honor of your patience, here is a piece of evidence! Preparing for your command:

[click for high quality]



[h3]PERSPECTIVE[/h3]

Since in the current situation any scheduling could most likely go wrong, and we don't want to make false promises, we ask for your understanding for our imprecision: in the best case, with optimal conditions, it could be a matter of weeks - but the tediousness of the last months shows us that it will probably take longer.

The next step after the Sphere update will be to reach our self-imposed goals for an overall "2.0" status, also taking into account your feedback on the new content.

As mentioned at the beginning, your messages in the forum will always be read and usually answered quickly. If you have any questions, concerns, or just want to tell us something, we're always happy to hear from you!


Thank you for your understanding, for your patience - and of course: for playing!


Cheers from the Warp Turtle team!
(living up to its name more than ever)

πŸ’πŸŒ€πŸš€







Let's have a chat on Discord:



Learn more & stay tuned!

Update 1.10

Hey space travelers,

Another year of space exploration is coming to an end. We hope you had a great Christmas and we want to thank everyone for their support and feedback, and for joining us on this awesome journey.

Speaking of which, two brave space pilots wanted to play this game so badly (or were just fed up with waiting ;)) that they translated the whole 10K+ lines of text themselves! See more below...

As you can see, this is still not the Sphere update, but its development is on the home stretch and we don't plan to release any other update before it - it's in sight! Thanks for your patience, you will have a lot of new content soon, and many of your questions from the first storyline will be answered!

Have a good transit between the years, we'll see you on the other side!

Warp Turtle πŸ’πŸš€






[h2]Localization[/h2]
Two long-awaited languages are finally here! We are very happy to present the complete translations into Russian and German!



  • [h3]πŸ‡·πŸ‡Ί Thanks to SeGAD and Asecs[/h3]
    ...for rocking the RU localization in such a short time - you guys are amazing and will make many people happy. To emphasize how much you are a part of this game, we've added you as in-game merchant characters! :D We also added a new, more sci-fi-stylized font (Jura) to the RU version.

  • [h3]πŸ‡©πŸ‡ͺ German Scripts[/h3]
    In addition to the existing UI translation, we have finally finished 100% of the scripts, making the German version complete! It's a first version with room for improvement here and there - so feedback is always welcome, otherwise: Kein Problem, wir regeln das. :)

  • [h3]πŸ“‘ Feedback Channels[/h3]
    To keep everything up to date as the game continues to grow, and to improve what already exists, we've opened new feedback channels here and on Discord - everything from typos to newly translated parts is absolutely welcome here, and best coordinated directly with each translation team itself!




[h2]UI[/h2]
  • A shortcut to hide tooltips
  • Trade stats display cleanup We realized that the way the credits and cargo calculation was displayed in the trade window was actually a mess - sorry for that! :D
  • Trade window: New icons shown for credits and cargo
  • Controller hint expansion, cleanup and improvements
  • Default button rework
  • General image corrections and resolution improvements
  • Improved some UI animations


[h2]Ships[/h2]
  • BG5000 is now a lot faster and has a better shield with asteroid dmg resistance


[h2]World[/h2]
  • Added more medium shields to the game
  • Improved the distribution of positive and negative affinity during some fight scenes, so that target selection will be more intuitive during those scenes
  • Improved some of the bounty hunter targets script handling


  • A missing dialog bypass, which stopped some players from getting the "Kalypso is surviving" event during "Diversionary Tactic", if Lt. Devi was saved
  • Bobby cliff attacks pirates
  • Some missing translation strings
  • Euphoria Broken" mission progress set to same value at some point
  • Brute-Force Counter-Attack" mission progress set to same value at some point
  • Profit!" mission progress set to same value at some point
  • "By Spring it could be all of us" mission progress set to same value at some point
  • Pharma Sentry stats correction: Max homing reduced from 60 to 20
  • Some unused persons removed





Let's have a chat on Discord:



Learn more & stay tuned!