Space Haven News

Spacefarer.

We've arrived at the end of the year and it's once again time to head out to take a little break and celebrate Christmas and New Year replenishing our strength for the coming year, 2020.

This year was special to us. It's hard to fathom that it has already been well over 7 years since we started on our journey to create games. A lot has happened in that time, a lot of hardships and disappointments, but also successes that kept us alive to fight another day. We're very grateful to still be alive as an indie studio to this day.

Being a game developer is wonderful because you get to bring fantasies to life, and create experiences and emotions for others playing your creation. If you were to ask what brings a game developer great joy it's usually seeing players talk and react to your game. In a positive way of course =) Seeing someone bash your creation can feel devastating and demoralizing, but the best way to react is to try to understand what's wrong and improve from there.

We never intended or planned for Space Haven to be such a long project, just some odd months more and we're at the 4 year mark. 4 years! A lot can happen in 4 years, like suddenly having to wear glasses to see. So what happened? Well, the usual thing happened. We envisioned a game, started creating it and as the years rolled by we realized we weren't building a house, we were building a very big castle. And castles take a lot of time to build!

If we've had spent less time on Space Haven then Space Haven would not be the game it is today, it would be an entirely different game. And very likely not as enjoyable. See, that's what happens when you work on a game. You realize it needs more, that it's not yet enough. So you keep working on it, crafting it day by day hoping one day it's something special. Like a big castle ready to house many people.

It's been amazing to see the power of a supporting community. Just when we thought our castle would remain unfinished as nothing but a solid foundation for something magnificent, you came to our aid with your wheel barrows and shovels! You gave us the means to continue crafting our castle that is Space Haven. One of our game developer dreams was to have a successful Kickstarter one day, one of those Kickstarters that make other game developers use it as an example of what's possible. It happened, and you made it possible =)

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making one of our game developer dreams come true. Thank you for supporting us and enabling us to continue crafting Space Haven, the big castle we want to share with you. 2020 is going to be yet another big year, hopefully you are with us then too!



Now for some more merry news. As mentioned previously we decided to participate in the Yogscast Jingle Jam with one of our previous games, Battlevoid: Harbinger.

In return, the Yogscast promised to give Space Haven a go in their Jingle Jam streams and show it to their community. (NOTE! Space Haven is not part of the bundle) It was so exciting watching them play, they seemed to love the game and have a lot of fun with it. If you missed it don't worry, you can watch the whole video of them playing below:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/523095593?t=0h21m9s

Our goal is to officially release Space Haven as a solid Early Access version next year (2020) (PC/Mac/Linux), once we feel we are ready and find a good time frame. We will of course notify you closer to release. Once in Early Access, we will continue hammering away on the game update by update.

If you want to do something in a merry Christmas spirit to help us you can simply share the Yogscast video with a friend, show them this Steam page for wishlisting or let your favorite streamer know that Space Haven is starting to become really solid and they should totally play it =)

You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:
http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven/

Discord: https://discord.gg/zx2AN4F
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2020 =)

- The Bugbyte Team

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Greetings, Spacefarers.

Christmas is closing in and so is the Yogscast Jingle Jam! We have decided to join the Jingle Jam Bundle this year, with one of our older games Battlevoid: Harbinger. All the proceeds of the bundle go to charity! We try to do something charitable every year, even if it something small. Part of the fun of having some success is the ability to give back! =)

Additionally, the Yogscast crew has promised to play Space Haven in their stream, and we're really excited to see that. This will be a great opportunity for you to see the current state of Space Haven, and do check out their Jingle Jam streams throughout the whole of December!

The Jingle Jam is already live. The Yogscast plan on covering Space Haven on the 14th sometime between 11am-2pm GMT, be sure to tune in and watch them play then!
We've been working on improving the user-interface the past month, to support you on your journey through space. Step-by-step the UI is improving, making everything more intuitive and valuable information more accessible.



Moving things around, improving and adding some stuff and sprinkling it with some new features. Above is a screenshot of how the UI looks now. We've rearranged things a bit to allow for the possibility to show more resources in the top bar with a customizable window. Crew members are also shown at the top and how many are shown can be customized. We've added a development progress bar to the main menu, giving a very rough estimate of when a next update could arrive.



Customizable resource window in the top bar of the user interface. You can play with your own desired setting. If you want to see a lot of resources on the screen at all times you can keep the resource window large. If you don't, just keep it small =)



Crew members are now shown at the top part of the user interface. You can also customize how many crew members you want to see at a time with a drop-down list. Various elements, such as mineable asteroids, derelict ships and spaceships belonging to other factions are shown in their own part of the UI.



Spaceships and stations now have roofs! And you can see them. This is the beginnings for being able to add cool stuff on the roof, like turrets, shields and solar panels.

Some other cool new UI features:

• Big notifications for important events.
  
• A much requested even faster game speed option.
  
• The game clock has also been refined.
  
• Bind objects to groups using ctrl+(0-9).
  

Furthermore, we added a log to the game, giving that nice little touch to creating a story. Want to know that Pete got the "shat pants" condition? No? Well, you will know anyway.



We have also started working on ship-to-ship combat, which is also why the UI needed some redesigning to be able to support and show valuable information related to ship-to-ship battles. Christmas is closing in fast, we're not sure if we can manage a beginnings of ship-to-ship combat update before it but we will try. We will see how it goes =)

You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:
http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven/

Discord: https://discord.gg/zx2AN4F
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Until next time. Thanks for reading! =)

Girl. You walked into the wrong ship. Now show our Captain Pedro some respect or you gun' get it!

Greetings, Spacefarers.

Time flies when you are working on something cool and we believe this is the most exciting update for Space Haven so far! This big mixed bag of goodies update has it all, the biggest feature updates include:

• A new alien and the alien behavior implemented further.
  
• Hailing and communicating with other factions, with faction relationships, settlements and more.
  
• Boarding with the ability to surrender, take prisoners and demand ransoms implemented.
  
• A tool to create your own prison areas aboard your ships and take prisoners of your own.
  
• AI behavior and user interface improvements.
  
• Medical beds now functional with doctors capable of tending to and patching up injured patients.
  
• Graphical additions and general improvements.
  
• A ton of bug fixes and many more smaller feature implementations and improvements.
  

This new alien is capable of charging and knocking down your crew members. It also transforms incapacitated crew members to cocoons and drags them to the alien lair.

We added a new alien to the game. This specimen is capable of charging forward like a squid in water, by using it's tentacles to create a forward motion force. This allows it to quickly cover a lot of distance and even ram a crew member or other target.

The alien does its thing on a incapacitated crew member.

Once a crew member has been incapacitated this alien is capable of transforming them to an alien cocoon. This locks the crew member into a paralyzed state, optimal for the alien to transport them.

Holy shit, those are some big eggs! They don't look like the kind you boil in the morning. We need to get the hell out of here.

The new alien will eventually drag the cocoon to the alien lair and plaster the poor captured crew member to a wall. It's up to you to decide if you want to try to rescue the poor souls.



You can now hail and communicate with other factions. Communication is currently done from the bridge module, and once both parties are ready to receive each others transmissions a communications window will pop up to allow you to interact with the other party.

We've also implemented faction relationships, discussion mood, power balance between fleets, the ability to surrender, agree to cease fire and pay settlements. This same interaction system works also for interactions with characters you meet or capture.



All factions are now capable of attacking not only you, but also each other. Pirates may attack you and take all your crew members captive, then demand a settlement for setting you free. You are able to do the same for any other faction group you meet. Pirates may also attack civilians or any other faction, and the factions can make their own settlements between each other.

A character may give up and surrender to the enemy in the heat of combat, the chance for this rises with every wound the character sustains. When a character has surrendered you can no longer draft or control them.



We've created a new tool to enable you to create a prison of your own desire. Build a room or many rooms to be used as a prison with more or less comfort. Prisoners would probably appreciate a Kitchen and a toilet would be good too, but neither of these are requirements. It's up to you to decide how comfortable you want your prisoners to be, and if you want them to stay alive or not.

Medical beds are now functional and will help crew members heal from their wounds and Doctors can patch up more serious cases.

Inevitably, all this fighting causes wounds and injuries for your crew members. We've made medical beds functional and linked them to the Doctor skill. Medical beds use IV fluids to help patients heal and give the patient nutrients while resting, and Doctors will use medical supplies to operate on patients and patch up open wounds.

Laurie's open wound was patched up by a doctor. She's doing good but feeling a little lonely in the med bay all by herself.

The character conditions system allows us to create injuries, wounds and open wounds. An open wound might cause a crew member to bleed to death. It can heal by itself if the crew member is lucky, but bringing the individual to a medical bed and having a Doctor patch them up will close wound and thus prevent the character from bleeding to death.

Space Haven is steadily transforming into the game of our dreams, hopefully yours as well! It's been a pleasure bringing this update to you, we're once again one step closer to Steam Early Access launch.

You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:
http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven/

Discord: https://discord.gg/zx2AN4F
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Until next time. Thanks for reading! =)

Greetings, Spacefarers.

How has your summer been? Ours has been a nice mix of hot and rainy. We enjoyed our 3 weeks of vacation immensely, and it brought us a whole lot of new energy to work more on Space Haven. We've been quietly working more on this next Alpha update for more than a few weeks already, wanting to announce our vacation ending and giving you a nice surprise in form of a new Alpha update at the same time =)

What is new? You might ask. Well, what is not new! Let's jump into it all, shall we.

NOTE! Some of the new facilities are still lacking coloring and texturing.

New Facilities and Resources

We've added 7 new resource production facilities, and modified the functions of the existing ones a little bit. The purpose of this resource overhaul was to give us a better base to expand on, and make it easier to continue adding some more depth to the game in the future. The underlying resource tree will enable a wider array of various resources and both low and high tech facilities, as well as production chains that make sense.

• Water Purifier - Transforms ice into purified water, essential for many life forms.
  
• Chemical Refinery - Used to produce various chemicals. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Metal Refinery - Transforms carbon and basic metals to steel plates. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Energy Refinery - Transforms energy crystal to energy rods and hyperium to hyperfuel. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Scrapper - Transforms scrap materials into a variety of usable resources. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Assembler - The assembler produces basic construction components, including Soft block, Hull blocks and Infrablocks.
  
• Micro-Weaver - The Micro-Weaver creates fabrics from fibers.
  
• Cell Fuser - The Cell Fuser uses electronic components and energy rods to create energy cells.
  
• Electronic Fabricator - Transforms noble metal and raw chemical to electronic parts.
  
• Optronics Fabricator - The high-tech Optronics Fabricator is capable of producing optronics components.
  
• Advanced Assembler - The advanced assembler facility is capable of producing high-tech construction components, such as tech blocks and energy blocks.
  

In addition to these we also added a battery module to the game, essential for sudden bursts of power consumption or power grid failures.

Added resources and new icons.


A resource overhaul wouldn't be an overhaul without new resources and of course new fantastic looking icons! Our graphics designer has been crafting the new facilities and icons for a long time.

You are now able to customize which resources you want to see in the top bar, and in which way.

This brings us to the next improvement. Ship settings now have a section where you can customize which resources you deem important and want to keep an extra eye on. You'll be able to customize the importance (in which order they are shown), if they are shown at all when you don't currently have any of the type and if you want to be notified if a certain resource is starting to run low.

You can now butcher aliens for meat and make a meal. If you hate one of your crew members...

Speaking of running low on resources. Malakai uses his butcher skills to make some nice monster meat out of an alien body. Become a notorious alien hunter and feed your crew with some greens (It's good for you! Or is it?). If one of the crew members vanishes and the others are having a nice meal filled with meat recipes, you might want to be a bit worried.



Sandbox Scenario


Some type of sandbox mode has been asked for a lot, so we decided to create a start scenario where resources are abundant! And you start with a crew of 8. This scenario will let you focus more on building your fleet without worrying about running out of resources, great for when you want to see how a ship design you have in mind works when brought alive in the game.

'Mobile Platform' built by Kenji

We are once again one step closer to Steam Early Access! =) You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

We love to hear from you guys so don't hesitate to come have a chat with us =) You can connect with us from through the channels below:

Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Until next time. Thanks for reading! =)

Greetings, Spacefarers.

How has your summer been? Ours has been a nice mix of hot and rainy. We enjoyed our 3 weeks of vacation immensely, and it brought us a whole lot of new energy to work more on Space Haven. We've been quietly working more on this next Alpha update for more than a few weeks already, wanting to announce our vacation ending and giving you a nice surprise in form of a new Alpha update at the same time =)

What is new? You might ask. Well, what is not new! Let's jump into it all, shall we.

NOTE! Some of the new facilities are still lacking coloring and texturing.

New Facilities and Resources

We've added 7 new resource production facilities, and modified the functions of the existing ones a little bit. The purpose of this resource overhaul was to give us a better base to expand on, and make it easier to continue adding some more depth to the game in the future. The underlying resource tree will enable a wider array of various resources and both low and high tech facilities, as well as production chains that make sense.

• Water Purifier - Transforms ice into purified water, essential for many life forms.
  
• Chemical Refinery - Used to produce various chemicals. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Metal Refinery - Transforms carbon and basic metals to steel plates. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Energy Refinery - Transforms energy crystal to energy rods and hyperium to hyperfuel. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Scrapper - Transforms scrap materials into a variety of usable resources. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Assembler - The assembler produces basic construction components, including Soft block, Hull blocks and Infrablocks.
  
• Micro-Weaver - The Micro-Weaver creates fabrics from fibers.
  
• Cell Fuser - The Cell Fuser uses electronic components and energy rods to create energy cells.
  
• Electronic Fabricator - Transforms noble metal and raw chemical to electronic parts.
  
• Optronics Fabricator - The high-tech Optronics Fabricator is capable of producing optronics components.
  
• Advanced Assembler - The advanced assembler facility is capable of producing high-tech construction components, such as tech blocks and energy blocks.
  

In addition to these we also added a battery module to the game, essential for sudden bursts of power consumption or power grid failures.

Added resources and new icons.


A resource overhaul wouldn't be an overhaul without new resources and of course new fantastic looking icons! Our graphics designer has been crafting the new facilities and icons for a long time.

You are now able to customize which resources you want to see in the top bar, and in which way.

This brings us to the next improvement. Ship settings now have a section where you can customize which resources you deem important and want to keep an extra eye on. You'll be able to customize the importance (in which order they are shown), if they are shown at all when you don't currently have any of the type and if you want to be notified if a certain resource is starting to run low.

You can now butcher aliens for meat and make a meal. If you hate one of your crew members...

Speaking of running low on resources. Malakai uses his butcher skills to make some nice monster meat out of an alien body. Become a notorious alien hunter and feed your crew with some greens (It's good for you! Or is it?). If one of the crew members vanishes and the others are having a nice meal filled with meat recipes, you might want to be a bit worried.



Sandbox Scenario


Some type of sandbox mode has been asked for a lot, so we decided to create a start scenario where resources are abundant! And you start with a crew of 8. This scenario will let you focus more on building your fleet without worrying about running out of resources, great for when you want to see how a ship design you have in mind works when brought alive in the game.

'Mobile Platform' built by Kenji

We are once again one step closer to Steam Early Access! =) You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

We love to hear from you guys so don't hesitate to come have a chat with us =) You can connect with us from through the channels below:

• Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
  
• Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
  
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
  
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/
  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/
  

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Until next time. Thanks for reading! =)