Two weeks ago, the first large round of playtest invites were sent to random mailing list subscribers. There have only been about 40% as many testers as emails sent so far, which was expected: some emails end up flagged as spam (check your spam folder!), some players want to wait for the full release, people are busy, etc.
I’d like to thank everyone who has participated in the tests so far: your feedback has been incredibly valuable in identifying bugs and areas that need improvement. If you haven’t received an invite, there will be frequent rounds of testing before the game enters Early Access.
Speaking of which, the latest round of tests seem to confirm that the game is in good shape: players like what they see and there have been very few serious bugs.
A few weeks ago I opened up Starcom: Nexus as it existed four years ago at the start of its Early Access. It’s been so long, I’d forgotten how much has changed!
Feature-wise, the current game is close to where Starcom: Nexus was when it entered Early Access. There are some features missing, but there are also a number of improvements that weren’t in at this point. Quality-wise, I think it’s already ahead. And of course there are a lot of brand new features that never were added to Starcom: Nexus.
A frequently requested feature now in: Autopilot
In terms of content, Starcom: Unknown Space has around half the content as Starcom: Nexus did at the start of its Early Access, at least in number of planet anomalies, explorable sectors and alien races. While it’s not important that Starcom: Unknown Space match Starcom: Nexus‘s content point for point, I want Early Access players to feel like they are getting enough gameplay for their money. The good news is that a lot of Starcom: Nexus‘s content was added in the last few months before entering Early Access, but I don’t want to get too focused on matching quantity at the expense of quality.
So it’s still too soon to be able to announce an Early Access date, but I feel like progress is going very well.
Until next update!
Kevin