Hello there!
First of all, I'm no longer alone, lately, I've got support from guys & gals from PlayWay with redoing graphics, preparing localization, bug hunting, overall help, and bringing the game to a wider public, this also means You my dear Reader,
so cheers to them!
For the past few months we've stayed silent, working toward a version worthy of being deemed Full Release (to be out soon), this involves several major improvements to the game, so it's time to discuss them now :)
1. Pirates
Don't overdo your earnings, or someone might come asking for a donation ;)
Pirates were added as a means to spice up endgame content, now whenever earning cash there is a chance someone might force you to choose: fight for your hard-earned cash or give most of it away to protect space hamsters (I don't believe I even know how they look like).
2. New Graphics
There is a new guy on the team, Sebastian did a phenomenal job redoing all the in-game assets, just take a look at this example (work is still in progress):
Doesn't it look better?
3. Localization
The game got long-awaited localizations into 12 additional languages, with a previously existing English version it comes to the following languages being supported now:
- Chinese (Simplified)
- Chinese (Traditional)
- English
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish
- Turkish
4. Options
Game option settings were extended, now you can tweak not only audio but also graphic settings.
5. Key Mapping
Lastly for those of you that want to tweak every last thing to your liking, I've worked hard to implement a way to remap all of the in-game controls.
I am thinking about adding the ability to map multiple keys to a single action, but that has to wait on an ever-increasing ToDo list of mine :)
Speaking about ToDo, there are things I'm working on, but not sure when they will be out:
Future Changes
Temperature
One of the systems that is currently too easy is controlling station temperature, for now, all you have to do is to plop an additional Passive Cooler from time to time. I'd call that boring if anyone asks me, so what can we do with it?
Well, my idea is to redo the station temperature and make it grid-based, where each cell can have its own temperature, equalizing with those of nearby cells as time passes. The device will rely only on the temperature of the cell it's built on, leading to a situation where a power-hungry device will quickly ramp up underlying cell temperature, and as a result, it will easily overheat. Similarly with a cluster of mid-power-hungry devices, not having where to output temperature
Station heat grid, with 2 heat-producing devices circled
To combat this, the player would need to track where temperature hotspots occur and plop passive coolers nearby the place. I'm also thinking about extending it with cooling lines - that increase the tempo of equalizing cells temperature, which are being built under the devices (like how pipelines are laid).
Enclosed Spaces & Walking Over Stuff
Currently, the game doesn't support enclosed spaces, like having another room with its own Airlock, that's not connected to the main room. You can build it fine, but Crewmates won't be able to travel between them (like going out of the airlock, to the airlock of another room and getting inside). I'm planning to change that, but it will require me to redo pathfinding,
And as I'll be touching pathfinding I've thought that it's a good opportunity to teach crewmates to avoid going over stuff - currently, they don't care if they go over a working Furnace or on an empty floor, and for a long time I was choosing it this way, but as I see it now it makes the station a mess of clustered devices. In future versions, I'd like them to go over stuff way slower, and plan to find the most optimal path - avoiding going over any devices unless necessary, forcing players to leave corridors in places they plan crewmates to be, and clustering places where automation is achieved.
So, this would be my update to You :)
I hope to have the full version out soon, and hope that You'll like it,
See you soon,
Albert :)