Steam 'Early Access' players will receive this update September 6th, 2018.
Update 0.10.1 contains a complete overhaul to the crafting and progression systems, including new resources, minerals, recipes, modules, and a new shuttle! Watch the trailer here:
https://youtu.be/q8C__gNr15Q
New Crafting Progression
In order to prepare for new items that will be added in 1.0 as well as creating a progression that encourages exploration, we have overhauled the progression of crafting. There are now new resources in the world to gather, completely new craftable resources, and a new resource type, Atmospheric! Now, in order to craft everything in the game, Astroneers must travel to different planets. Progression now happens in a few stages:
Stage 1: Gathering resources with your terrain tool. In addition to the existing in-game resources, there are several new mineral deposits found throughout the world, and different densities of those resources on different planets.
Stage 2: Smelting and Refining resources. Like the current version of Astroneer, step two requires smelting and refining materials. There are new smeltable resources, be sure to check their UI card for more details!
- Smelter has been renamed “Smelting Furnace”
- More resources can be smelted
Stage 3: Extracting resources from soil. This system has gotten a complete overhaul. Rather than just extracting all resources, the newly dubbed Soil Centrifuge's role is now to help Astroneers extract common resources without all of the manual labor. This should allow players to focus on finding rare resources and automate the process of gathering items like compound and resin.
- Mineral Extractor has been refactored into the “Soil Centrifuge”
- Centrifuge provides easy access to common and uncommon resources but no longer can create all resources.
Stage 4: Compositing two resources together. Stage 4 now requires some science! In order to create rare composite resources, Astroneers must use the "Chemisty Lab" to combine resources from the above steps. Rare resources will now sometimes require a specific atmospheric gas to create.
- Hydrazine Catalyzer has been refactored into a “Chemistry Lab”
- Brand new resources can be crafted by combining multiple resources together
- Some high-level resources require an Atmospheric resource as a type of fuel
Stage 5: Collecting Atmospheric Resources. As mentioned above, Atmospheric Resources are a new resource, and the new Atmospheric Condenser is the way to gather them. Not all atmospheres have every gas, and some have higher concentrations of gases than others, so make sure to visit new planets in order to collect all gases for crafting!
- Fuel Condenser has been refactored into the “Atmospheric Condenser”, and visuals for the module have been completely replaced
- Allows you to collect different resources from the planet’s local atmosphere
- Different planets have different resource availabilities!
New Resources and Recipes
A new ore has been added - Sphalerite. Sphalerite can be smelted into Zinc, and is found above ground and below ground on most planets.
New types of resource deposits have been added - Quartz, Clay, and Graphite.
- Quartz can be smelted into Glass
- Clay can be smelted into Ceramic
- Organic can now be smelted into Carbon. Coal deposits have been removed from the game and any existing Coal nuggets have been migrated to Carbon nuggets.
- The Medium Generator now uses Carbon!
The following new crafted resources can be created at the Chemistry Lab:
- Rubber
- Plastic
- Aluminum Alloy
- Tungsten Carbide
- Graphene
- Diamond
- Hydrazine
- Silicone
- Explosive Powder
- Steel
- Titanium Alloy
- Nanocarbon Alloy
The following new atmospheric resources can be gathered using the Atmospheric Condenser:
- Hydrogen
- Argon
- Methane
- Nitrogen
- Helium
- Sulfur
To enable early game exploration of new planets, two new items have been added: the Solid-Fuel Thruster and the Small Shuttle.
- The Solid-Fuel Thruster is unlocked in the Catalog for 500 Bytes and is printed from the Small Printer for 1 Aluminum and 1 Ammonium. This disposable thruster will enable you to take a one-way trip to another planet so you can collect the resources you need to complete your crafting progression. For your convenience, it prints to a small package that fits in your backpack, so be sure to take spares with you if you want to make round trips!
- The Small Shuttle is unlocked in the Catalog for 1500 Bytes and is printed from the Vehicle Bay for 2 Aluminum. The Small Shuttle works with both the Hydrazine Thruster and the Solid-Fuel Thruster.
Recipes for many of the objects in game have changed! The goal of these changes is to give each item a clearer place in the crafting and gameplay progression. We hope players will now have a much more gratifying sense of progression as they unlock and craft new technology!
Because this is such a big change for the game, we’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the forums.
General Changes
The Catalog has received a visual redesign! We heard your feedback loud and clear on this, and with all the new recipes, we decided to overhaul the catalog and the information provided within. We hope that players will now make better informed decisions when spending bytes and planning out progression!
- The Catalog display now shows the required resources to help you decide how to spend your hard-earned bytes
- To further streamline Research and Printing, researchable items have been arranged by the printer type they come from (Backpack, Small Printer,
- Medium Printer, Vehicle Bay) instead of their gameplay role.
- All Fabricators have been renamed to Printers.
Collectible power nuggets and oxygen nuggets have been removed from the game!
- To mitigate oxygen “rescue” moments, oxygen filters are unlocked by default and resin deposits are more common.
- To mitigate power collection, the collectible nuggets surrounding hazards will collect as organic for small power generators.
Miscellaneous
Hovering over the required Resource holograms on printers now displays information about obtaining that Resource in their Tooltip. There are tons of new things, so this should help players find the resources they need!
EXO Wrecks and fallen Astroneer backpacks now have a chance to grant the newly added resources. See you in the stars fallen friends.
Byte values of researchable items have been adjusted
Byte costs of purchasable items have been adjusted
Bugfixes
The following live issues have been fixed as of version 0.10.1.0:
- [AS-2487] - Fixed a bug where the Smelter sound loop would persist for Client players in Multiplayer games after smelting has finished
- [AS-2676] - Fixed a bug where the Client player in Multiplayer games was unable to hear the Smelter when it was active
- [AS-3330] - Fixed a bug where the Client player in Multiplayer games was not able to see the preview holograms while printing Medium and Large Rovers
- [AS-3341] - Fixed a bug where Vehicle Bay will pop to center of the Shelter once it has been unpacked
- [AS-3362] - Fixed a minor issue with the Medium Solar hologram which appeared too bright in the Catalog
- [AS-3363] - Fixed a minor issue with the Terrain Analyzer image clipping through the background of the Catalog
- [AS-3419] - Control + Click shortcut should once again work on the Landing Zone control panel
- [AS-3426] - Fixed a bug with the item pads of small objects becoming separated from the object under certain conditions
- [AS-3461] - Fixed an issue where Fireworks explosion became visually offset with the rocket
- [AS-3465] - Smelter will no longer drop items to the ground when queuing up resources
- [AS-3509] - Items will no longer fall out of world when packages are unpacked upside down
- [AS-3522] - Fixed a bug where the green light on the side of certain module packages did not light up
- [AS-3523] - Fixed a bug where Printers were not prevented from printing when items were placed in the center of the preview hologram
- [AS-3541] - Fixed a long term usability issue where Smelter slots did not have priority over platform slots for placing ores for processing.
- [AS-3571] - FIxed a visual issue where the Medium Storage became unskinned for a brief moment when unpacking
- [AS-3602] - Fixed a number of localization issues in the Quick Help menu screens
- [AS-3608] - Fixed a number of objects whose holograms appeared too large in the Catalog and caused readability issues with localized text
- [AS-3647] - Fixed a bug where the Small Fabricator could finish its current printing process while being stowed in the backpack
- [AS-3665] - Resources found in the white resource caches now show UI information cards
- [AS-3669] - Exit key is no longer present in the shuttle UI when in orbit
- [AS-3739] - Fixed an issue that occured when the player died with the research catalog open which caused previously unlocked items to show as locked and unpurchasable after respawn.
Thanks for reading! This is a big change for the game, and we would love your feedback. Use this thread to give us your thoughts!
-jt