Hey Folks!
Ostranauts v0.14.2.1 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.
This is a feature update to our recently released "Across the System" update, continuing the HUD and UI rework, plus several bug fixes and improvements.
Saves from v0.14.0.0 and later should work. Note that if you were experiencing issues in the older save, this patch may fix some, but others may persist depending on the cause.
- Crew portrait/stat area can now toggle between stat bars for current character and multi-crew overview modes.
- Crew portraits now have rank/shift icons for quick info.
- Date/time now in the bottom right, and less glaring size/color.
- Message log now in bottom center of HUD.
- Escape menu total redesign including new options to quit to desktop, save on close toggle, and recent save indicator.
- Escape menu now dims out game in background to be less distracting.
- Ultrawide resolutions no longer block mouse clicks near the top right of screen.
- Several other minor UI tweaks and fixes.
- It is now possible to stop dragging an unconscious person if they wake up in your arms.
- Ships that the player buys should not longer spawn inside nearby planets/asteroids, destroying them instantly.
- Pirates should no longer swarm space stations upon player leaving that planetary region.
- Combat tackle behavior improvements.
- Clicking player portrait now centers camera on player automatically.
- Vodka bottles and other miscellaneous containers can no longer contain an infinite amount of gas.
- Additional police witnesses will no longer arrest the player again immediately after player finishes the arrest encounter with the first officer.
- Critter plot more likely to be noticed now.
- Changed the way REDACTED can spread to other tiles and ships.
- Ships in NAV station that should not be visible should no longer flicker visibly.
- Scavenger spawn rates should be more well-behaved now.
- Pirates' transponders should remain off after a save/load.
- Kiosk and trader restock rates should be more predictable now.
- ATC should no longer be missing from the ATC comms channel.
- Police ships should no longer run out of fuel when their maneuvering AI finishes too far away for their docking AI to take over.
This update continues our hardening and quality-of-life (QoL) improvements phase, addressing some more HUD and UI elements, plus working on gameplay and other issues reported by players.
We received quite a lot of feedback about the date UI being too large, central, and "in your face," so we are trying a new layout where it is more subtle, and in the lower corner. (Coincidentally, this is the same place that UI began its life years ago!)
This allowed us to move the message log more towards the middle, which is more in line with many traditional crpgs.
We also added a new toggle to the lower left corner where player stat bars are. When you first gain a crew member, or when you toggle the CREW button there, the stat bars will be replaced by a scrolling list of crew status cards. In each, you can see some high level info on that crew member, plus be able to click on them to jump directly to them. All crew portraits also now sport icons for the current crew rank and shift.
The escape menu also received quite a bit of rework. Buttons should now be laid out a little more in line with their priority. These include some new buttons to quit directly to desktop, a toggle to automatically save on close, and an indicator to tell the user if they have saved during this game session or not. There is also now a link to the official Steam guide to help new users who prefer a more guided tour of the game, instead of the manual or tutorial prompts.
On the game side, we fixed the bug which caused dragged unconscious people to be un-droppable if they woke up. Newly purchased ships will no longer spawn inside Ganymed 1036 when OKLG station is positioned "just right." And clicking the player portrait now auto-centers the camera on that character.
We saw a number of reports about swarms of pirates brawling on stations after a player left and returned to a region of the System. And it turned out this was due to the regional clean-up code moving NPCs back to the station. It shouldn't do that with pirates anymore, who now go to a "special place" where they won't interfere with the station folk. (Note, however, that if pirates have previously been "cleaned up" the old way in a save, they will remain there.)
We noticed a bug in the way AI chose combat moves, which over-used tackle as an option. So we did some fixing and tweaking there to make combat more variable. We also did a bit of tweaking on the tackle move itself, to make the UX smoother.
We also finally patched the vodka bottle infinite gas exploit, and are working to fix other cases of that exploit. A few plot-related fixes also feature in this build, including a fix to the way REDACTED jumps ships.
Plus a number of other fixes.
As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!
Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC