Space Haven News

[h3]Greetings, Spacefarer![/h3]

This is the second report on the progress of Alpha 9 - If you want to read the first report head on over to:https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2516898401240766529

Time flies when you have fun developing a game. Another few weeks have gone by and we have new things to show!

In addition to the Space Hazards for Alpha 9 there was something else we saw an opportunity for to fit in the same package. Interactions with factions and their spaceships have been quite limited, and while this part of the game will be an on going part of development, we thought Alpha 9 would be a good opportunity to add some new features related to this.

We've worked more on faction encounters and interactions, and we have new features we want to showcase.

[h3]Faction Interactions[/h3]



So far all the communication requests have come from the player, whether it is the want to trade or have a simple discussion otherwise. We've spent some time and implemented these interactions further, allowing other factions to contact you in case there's something they need or want.

These additions will give more life to your encounters with other faction spaceships, as they can now signal their want to communicate with you too. Currently other faction spaceships may contact you if you happen to have prisoners or refugees belonging to them, asking for the possibility to get them back. Sometimes they might need some resource and ask for it, or simply push their luck by asking for a gift.

[h3]Signaling[/h3]



A small problem with communicating is that it is tied to the operations console, and the player doesn't necessarily have someone there at all times. This could make it problematic to establish a communication channel, or for the player to know some faction ship wants to communicate.

We decided to implement signaling to help with this. Signaling can be seen as some form of Morse code signaling, which allows spaceships to communicate simple intents, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".

Other spaceships can signal back their intent to accept or decline this request, thus making both parties aware of communication intentions and to get a crew member to the operations console.

[h3]Distress state[/h3]

When a faction spaceship gets destroyed the crew members of that spaceship will look to evacuate and abandon their ship. If there's another spaceship belonging to their faction, they will flee to that spaceship and continue their journey with their faction.

However, if there's no other spaceship belonging to their faction present in the sector, they will look towards other faction spaceships with whom they are in a ally/neutral stance relationship wise. They will seek out to ask for help and become a refugee in hopes of being reunited with their faction one day. Since they activate their distress beacon other factions are allowed to enter their spaceship and help them.

[h3]Refugees[/h3]

There's a big hole in our ship, can we come with you?

We've created a new character status in addition to the prisoner status, we're introducing the refugee status. Refugees are crew members, who have lost their home spaceship in a battle or otherwise, and are now looking to be reunited with one of their other faction spaceships somewhere in the galaxy.

If a pirate is with you in a sector bombarding a civilian spaceship and that spaceship gets destroyed, the civilians will want to reach out to you and ask for help. You can then decide if you want to take them with you, offer them sanctuary and a chance to be reunited with another of their faction spaceships one day.

Refugees are willing to help in some way. However, they do not work as long hours as your main crew members do during a day, as they want to save their strength. They are willing to help by carrying out logistics jobs, but are currently limited to that since they do not want to interfere with your crew and their specialized tasks you have set for them. Their priorities and schedules cannot be changed to keep a good balance. They yearn to be reunited with their faction one day, and will grow restless with time if this doesn't happen.

[h3]Refugee Conditions, Mood and Satisfaction[/h3]



Keeping the refugees happy is important if you want to keep them working for you. Keep them satisfied by creating a nice area for the refugees to spend time and sleep in, keep them well fed to increase their mood.

Refugees of a faction will react to seeing another member of their faction be a prisoner instead of a refugee. This will have a negative effect on their mood and could lead to them refusing to work for you.

[h3]Lying, Suspicion and Scanning[/h3]



One of the most important things for a faction are their crew members, and once one is lost they usually want them back, unless it's that irritating Bob guy, whom nobody wants. (If your name is Bob please know we did not mean you but another Bob!)

When you encounter a faction spaceship they might contact you and ask if you've seen some of their lost crew members somewhere. If you have some on board as refugees or prisoners, you will have the options to tell the truth or lie.

Civilians scan some random areas of your ship and find out you have some of their faction crew members as refugees.

Lying is not nice. But hey, those refugees can be a good work force and you're not ready to give them up just yet. When you lie the other party might grow suspicious, or just want to check to be sure. If this happens they might do a scan of one of your ships.

They will randomly scan some parts of your ship revealing what's there, and if they happen to reveal a captive crew member belonging to them they will know you've lied. You can expect to get a hail request after this with someone quite angry on the other side.

[h3]Relationships with Factions[/h3]

These new additions will give some first opportunities for your relationship towards another faction changing over time. Your decisions to help or not to help will affect how the faction sees you, and if you disregard calls for help often enough your relationship with a faction will dwindle to hostility.

[h3]A Mention on the Space Hazards and Related Concerns[/h3]

The mention of space hazards in the first Alpha 9 progress report caused up quite some discussion among you, our spacefarers. Many of you were concerned this update would have a big impact on the more relaxed play style you've gotten accustomed to.

Fear not! While these features are on by default we included them in the game customization options, you will be able to tweak them individually. Their presence in the galaxy can be tweaked and even turned off completely if you so desire.

As such, if you are looking to continue your relaxed play style this feature will not affect it negatively if you choose so, just remember to tweak it in the game customization menu!

[h3]Nebulae[/h3]



The fourth space hazard is the nebula. An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields. The nebula itself is not very dangerous, but it can lead to interesting and dangerous situations if ship-to-ship battles take place in a sector with a nebula.

[h3]Alpha 9 Release[/h3]

We have a goal to finish these features we are working on and wrap up Alpha 9 in the upcoming weeks. We will first push the update to the experimental branch and once it has been tested enough we will push it to the main branch.

We have no exact dates but we will announce when we release the update into the experimental branch and also when we release into the main branch! Stay tuned for more news!

[h3]A note on save compatibility to Alpha 8[/h3]

As it looks now saves from Alpha 8 could work, although no space hazards will be present until you start a new game. We will find out more about the save compatibility when we release the update into the experimental branch and have players test it out.

[h3]Community Highlights[/h3]

This hilarious scene was posted by MtnDewGameFuel.

Really nice ship created by SubwaySurfer

Sweet ship by cromlowinhischair

If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

We've been working on the first new features for the upcoming Alpha 9 update, and it is time to show what we've been able to produce so far! We're introducing Space Hazards and since one of the hazards affect crew members directly we found a good opportunity to add some new implementations towards adding a bit more depth to characters as well.

Space Hazards we're currently working on:

• Solar Flares
  
• Micrometeoroids
  
• Siren Worlds
  

Space Hazards are represented with icons on top of sectors in the starmap. This will allow you to see what you are getting yourself in to =)

[h3]Solar Flares[/h3]
Holy crap! What's going on here.

Solar flares overload your power nodes, possibly damaging them and cutting your power transfer short to a part of your ship. Fires can also break out, which means it is important to have some crew members on board the ship at all times.

[h3]Micrometeoroids[/h3]
Watch your head, Charley!

Micrometeoroids rain down on your ship constantly while you're in a sector where they are present. Shields will mitigate their negative effects to a degree as long as they stay up. Mining pods can be struck by the meteoroids, causing a concussion condition for the crew member inside and possibly damaging the mining pod.

Micro breaches



We have also implemented so called micro breaches. Micro breaches are smaller hull breaches, not fully tearing the hull open but causing small cracks which cause depressurization. Micrometeoroids and certain turrets may cause these as they hit the ship hull. These micro hull breaches can be repaired by your crew members with their construction guns.

[h3]Siren Worlds[/h3]
Jet has lost his mind, or really hates his bed.

Siren Worlds are peculiar planets whose strange signals mess with the mind. These signals will periodically cause your crew members to act in a strange manner, ranging from aggressive behavior to staring at walls. Be alert when staying in these sectors, as your crew members might do something you don't want them to do.

The signals from the Siren World may result in crew members getting conditions like the urge for destruction, effectively making them a saboteur starting fires on board your ship. Other examples are insomnia and loss of appetite, causing tiredness and hunger among your crew members. Aggressive behavior might also occur and your crew members might start fighting each other.

[h3]Crew fights[/h3]



Crew members can now start fights among each other if they get irritated enough. The chance for a fight to occur is based on various factors, such as overall mood and food status. If the crew member has a low overall mood and is also hungry on top of that they are more prone to become really irritated at someone.

Fighting causes some health damage, but crew members do not aim to kill each other. However, this could happen in some very rare instances where one of the crew members just happens to have very low health to begin with when the fight starts. Once they've let out enough steam they stop and go about their business.

As you can see not only does the implementations for the Siren World effects result in some cool new events, they also enable us to add a bit more depth to the crew members.

[h3]A note on possible player irritation[/h3]

We're aware that when crew members start doing bad stuff on their own there is always a balance between interesting events and possible player irritation. Some things can get really annoying when they happen, depending on the event itself.

Right now these conditions appear mostly only in special sectors, the Siren Worlds sectors. We'll also listen to feedback to know if there's something that really causes more irritation than necessary, and will tweak as needed =)

However, these are really fun things to experiment with and will help a lot with adding more depth to characters and their behavior.

[h3]Final notes[/h3]

This is the stuff we've been working on for Alpha 9 so far. However, even if there's graphical representation of new features it doesn't always mean they are completely implemented and ready to go. Additionally, we still have some more features we want to include in Alpha 9 and will update you on the progress in a few weeks again!

Stay tuned for the next update and check out the community highlights below!

[h3]Community Highlights[/h3]

Mean looking ship by cameronsabin82

New Hope MK II by Dae

SSV Normandy SR-1 by LocoOne85

Fleet by Kreistor

Fan art by Becca. Neat looking mining pod!

You entered the wrong ship, Pirates! Fan art by Lulu Skorobogatov

If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

Greetings, Spacefarers!


We've got another update for Alpha 8, newest version is now 0.8.21. For this update we've focused on finalizing the new changes for Alpha 8 and also added another new facility, the Composter. We worked on a new view mode, the water vapor view mode, allowing you to see where water vapor is distributed on your ship. We also added a way to eject stuff from a storage and tweaked some things, read all about it below.



Introducing the Composter facility and fertilizer as a resource. Grow Beds will now need fertilizer to enable crops to grow. The composter will allow you to decompose many type of resources to fertilizer, carbon and water.

While the Composter supports the food production loop the Chemical refinery is capable of producing fertilizer more efficiently. Use these two facilities to keep your food production up and running.



We added the much wanted water vapor view mode, which will allow you to be more strategic with where you place your water collectors on your ship. Use this view mode to see where water vapor is accumulating, and place a water collector to get the vapor turned back to liquid water again.



We modified the mining station to have two shuttles, and increased the default crew member amount at start to 6. This will help with the logistics work in the beginning, allowing things to run a little bit smoother as you build your ship to take to the stars.

A couple of other worthwhile mentions: We tweaked the random derelict ship generator a bit to increase the chance of finding hypersleep chambers aboard derelict ships. It seemed it was very rare to find one, the chance should be higher now.



We also added a way to eject items from a storage on a ship. This will become handy when stuff just keeps accumulating and you need some space for more important resources.



With every update our graphic artist uses some of his time to polish assets in the game. This time the power generator has gotten a tune up to its animation as well as the solar panel. Probably a lot of other stuff, he doesn't always tell us =)

Thoughts on Alpha 9


The updates seen to Alpha 8 so far have been smaller updates, still taking time but allowing for a near weekly new patch. A bigger update and a new Alpha version will require many weeks of development time, and we're ready to start working on it once we know these final versions of Alpha 8 are stable enough.


We will be able to state our ideas for Alpha 9 in a broad manner once we have started working on Alpha 9, but we will be able to show the final details of the update closer to the release of the update. We also plan to keep you updated weekly or bi-weekly depending on how progress is coming along. =)


Full Patch Notes:


[version] 0.8.21

• New Facility: Composter.
  
• New view mode: Water Vapor.
  
• New resource: Fertilizer.
  
• You can create fertilizer in the Chemical Refinery.
  
• Fertilizer resource units added to old saves to allow for a smoother transition to this new version.
  
• Plants in grow beds now need fertilizer.
  
• Toilet now produces water and biomatter. Grow beds also produce biomatter.
  
• Increased the chance to find a crew member in a hypersleep chamber aboard derelict ships.
  
• Added oxygen indicators to airlocks.
  
• Combined Hazardous gas and smoke to one view mode named Hazardous/Smoke.
  
• Added a new welcome text as the first information when starting a new game.
  
• Prisoners can now eat from nearby storages and items on floor if they have access and permission to those tiles.
  
• Modified mining base start scenario to have two shuttles.
  
• Modified mining base start scenario to have 6 crew as default instead of 5.
  
• Modified building job not possible notification to not come as often.
  
• Added a mechanism to eject items to space from a storage.
  
• Fixed shat pants negative comfort remaining after condition was removed by going to the toilet.
  
• Fixed a problem with trading.
  
• Fixed problem with produce if < xx in grow beds.
  
• Fixed many bugs.
  

Community highlights

EDL Cydonia by Droggarth

FTL inspired ship created by GoMunRah

Fleet by created by SpookySausage

Amazing Bugbyte ship by Gadwin!


If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven


You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/


Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/

Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/

Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/

Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven

Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/


Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

Greetings, Spacefarers!


We've got another update for you to Space Haven Alpha 8. Water has been one of the most discussed topics since the Early Access release of Space Haven. Many of you seemed unhappy of how it was working, wishing for more of a closed type of system. Indeed there was a lot of feedback pouring in regarding this.



Expanding on the systems already in the game is also something we would like to achieve with time. We're happy to introduce the Water Collector to you, along with a new gas called Water Vapor. Water is used to grow food in grow beds, as such it is stored in food, water vapor is released from both plants and crew members, which can be turned back to liquid water using the water collector.

The Water Collector - This Water Collector reclaims water vapor from the air and condenses it back to liquid water. Place it close to grow beds for maximum efficiency.

Water Vapor - Water vapor is the gaseous phase of water and can be condensed back to liquid water.



Auto System Readiness Manager


Another prevalent issue was the fact that that it was easy to miss the so called "Red Alert" levers in the systems menu. Many were wishing for this type of function not knowing it already exists. We decided to implement an auto manager for this, which would take care of setting the proper readiness levels based on the situation at hand. If an enemy jumps into the sector the weapons and shields readiness levels will be set to high alert automatically.

Manual control is still available, simply by turning the auto manager off and then using the levers yourself. In addition to the above we've implemented more smaller improvements and bug fixes. See the full list of patch notes below.

Full Patch Notes:


[version] 0.8.20

• New facility: Water collector. Turns water vapor back to liquid water.
  
• New Gas: Water vapor.
  
• Game rebalance: Reduced water consumption for crops (-30%).
  
• Crew members and crops now exhale water vapor.
  
• New Feature: Automatic system readiness level manager.
  
• Made some improvements to hull removing.
  
• Turrets and scanners no longer fire into empty space on continous fire.
  
• Oxygen generators will now warn if they cannot raise the oxygen level enough.
  
• Fixed an issue with recruited prisoners having the ability to do jobs even with a zero skill level.
  
• Fixed a problem when extra items are on a blueprint building area and they are then moved outside of the ship.
  
• Fixed a problem with some repairs never being done.
  
• Fixed a problem with trading.
  
• Fixed aliens spawning even if none was selected in the game settings.
  
• Fixed a problem with crew ending outside of the ship when loading a saved game.
  

Community Highlights

Very nice looking ship created by TibiEtIgni

This masterpiece was created by Gadwin

Althena's ship in hyperspace

Sweet looking fleet by Aieonae

Seems like someone found a lot to salvage! Screenshot by Hennako.


If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)


Join Space Haven Discord:
http://discord.gg/spacehaven

You can also post them here on Steam:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/


Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/


Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

A week has passed since Space Haven was released into Early Access. It has been a nervous and stressful time for us, preparing for the release and hoping everything will work out smoothly.

We want to thank all of you for playing the game and sending us so much feedback, as well as reporting bugs for us to fix. And fixing is what we've been doing, and we have a patch out today once again!

Hopefully we did not introduce any new bad ones =) Just let us know and we will take care of it. We want to wish you a great weekend playing Space Haven, and we look forward to bringing you news of new content for the game.

If you want to read about our vision you can do so below:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/2/2246677986026419122/

Our method of developing is not really to design it out on paper and think this is it and let's move on. It's more in a way of filtering features to implement through long discussions between us, weighing the potential game play value they bring versus the implementation cost in man hours.

Then. After this is done we guesstimate some start values for the new features, and then we let it out for you to play. We gather your feedback and tweak/modify as needed. We value and want to incorporate the feedback you send us in our decisions. It's like a sandbox to us, and we let your feedback guide our way to a better game. =)

Community Highlights!

Ship created by mgthevenot

Ship created by Manuque

Ship created by Nak

Fleet created by ApexPrimaK

Margo and Luis share a moment. Screenshot taken by 弓矢八幡会

If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Full Patch Notes:

[version] 0.8.19

• Default keybindings for rotation swapped between Q and E. Q is now CCW and E is CW. These seemed to be mirrored from what they should have been.
  
• The game now pauses when an enemy ship enters the sector. (This is for you writing a review of falling asleep mid play and pirates getting you in the meantime =) )
  
• Fixed a bug with seeing enemy outlines when docking a shuttle to a derelict after loading a save.
  
• Fixed a bug with being able to place an In-floor Power Node overlapping other blueprints. (On top of each other)
  
• Fixed a problem with crew members not working when energy was below a treshold. (Crew members will be more effective now!)
  
• Fixed a problem with trades not starting.
  
• Fixed a bug with binding a ship to a group.
  
• Fixed a problem with a mining pod becoming stuck after relocating.
  
• Fixed a crash when loading a saved game.
  

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!