It’s been a while since we sent an update, but with good reason. We’ve been working hard on revamping many of the core mechanics from last year’s PAX prototype, and work is going well. We intend to reveal all soon, but for now here’s a taster:
NEW OPENING
We decided to strip back the original opening sequence of the game. In the previous version you would have started on the Moon with the basics of a base already built (a hub, a landing pad and a road connecting them). But we realized in testing that this meant players often didn’t feel like they were truly building the base.
So we took the timeline back a bit and started with the first landing. In the new version, you start from the point of the 1st lander descending to the surface of Shackleton Crater and deploying your very first rover. That rover proceeds to do beginner-level tasks like scanning areas for further development, allowing your second rover to start clearing and preparing the area.
The purpose behind these steps is to help you understand how aspects of the game like ordering and control work more clearly, and to give you more of a sense of beginning. After your first lander comes a second, this time with new rovers and new functions: Now you can print, now you can build. Now you can start to see your base take shape.
This leads to a first major task: building a landing pad. Most lunar engineering experts consider this a highly important step in the construction of any base because it is the gateway that allows more complicated and fragile spacecraft to land and be deployed. So too with your first pad, which allows, after all the landers, for the first rocket in history to land on the moon.
From there you are on your way to colonization and industrialization. You can set up your base, create structures for energy, habitation, mining and development and start to expand your footprint!