Dear Station Designers,
At the end of July, we published Space Station Designer version 00.06.50, which included improved visuals, new gameplay features, and general improvements. We continue making progress towards the release date on November 18th, and today we're happy to share Space Station Designer version 00.07.00 with all of you. As always, you can find the full release notes in our public document here.
Visuals
In the visuals department, we've made yet another pass across all scenes, which includes tweaks to the lighting, post-processing, camera positioning, animations, and materials. Please find some examples below that show these changes in the main space station screen, the Earth Facilities, and the Russian launch pad.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, we implemented a system that keeps track of a plethora of stats across various areas, including 'Finances', 'Astronauts', and the stations across all orbits. This screen will help you understand better where revenue is coming from, where money is going to, and help you spot trends. Note that these new stats aren't available in save game files prior to version 00.07.00.
We've also implemented a mechanism that applies a cost and mass factor to the space station modules according to the space station's orbit, which adds another layer of planning and cost management.
Quality of Life (QoL) improvements
When it comes to QoL improvements, some notable examples include the handling of the 'Escape' key across all screens (kudos to BiterJuice for pointing this out as part of his deep dive video), and the addition of a button in the space station screen that toggles the module indicators on and off, which helps declutter the screen.
Fixes and polishing
We always aim to fix all bugs, either because we come across them ourselves during playtesting, or because they are reported by the community. As part of 00.07.00, we fixed a bug that was causing the game to enter an invalid state if players pressed the 'Escape' key repeatedly in the Production Lines management screen, and another one that was causing the docking ports to be shown incorrectly (once again, kudos to BiterJuice for reporting these!).
We've also started making an optimization and consistency pass across the whole UI. As a result of this, we cut down memory usage for UI backgrounds in half, and fixed a few instances that were using the wrong icons.
Lastly, we've addressed some visual glitches in the 'Tourists Deluxe Quarters Large' and 'Nuclear Reactor Small' modules, and the 'Hydra' resupply spacecraft.
Closing thoughts
We hope you like all the changes brought by this new update. We're still running a closed beta, which you can apply to by signing up here. We're aiming to deliver the best version of Space Station Designer we can on release date. If you want to help us, please don't hesitate to give the game a go and let us know if you run into any issues.
The next update will be the last one before the 1.0 release. Throughout the next month, we'll be implementing a long list of minor QoL improvements, along with various modifications to the UI. As always, we keep an eye on our Discord server and forums, so don't hesitate to let us know if you have any feedback for us.
--Ignacio, Mauricio, and Nicolas (Polar Motion)
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