Hello everyone!
The big update 2.0 is nearly done and we are working on the last few open points! We’d like to use this week’s announcement to update our development roadmap and show you the progress that we’ve made:
DONE:
- Better UI visuals
- New progression system based on knowledge for different materials
- Scenario: "Classic Avorion" without the new progression
- Improvements to Independent Targeting
- Removal of the 50% damage penalty
- Amount of independently firing turrets can be increased with various existing and new upgrades
- Less micro-intensive commanding of ships
- 10 new or updated commands (ie. go fly a trade route, go salvage, go explore)
- Captains with classes & perks
- Improved performance for remotely operating ships
- Bounties on Bulletin Boards
- More civilian ships for improved flair
- Improved visuals for busy sectors
- Tons of QoL
- More diverse faction areas on the galaxy map
- Central vs. outer regions where different rules apply
- Player Profile w/ Milestones
- Crew Improvements
- QoL; Sergeant, Lieutenant, etc. will be ranks within professions and no longer separate professions
- Hyperspace Jump Improvements
- QoL; Improvements to game flow, jumps, reduction of waiting times
- Fighter Improvements
- QoL; Fighters will be remote-controlled, will support boosting, will be cheaper to build but require stricter preconditions to have them on the ship
- Autopilots
- Scenario: "Free Play" that can be configured to your individual liking
- Torpedo loot drops
- Improvements to the tutorial
- Listing of build mode features & "tricks" in the encyclopedia
IN WORK:
- A Secret Boss
- Various community-requested & QoL features
- Updates to the Encyclopedia
- Polishing, Bugfixing
STILL TO DO:
- Nothing - we don’t have any other big topics that we’re not already working on! :)
Release Roadmap
So by now, you’ve probably realized that Update 2.0 won’t release in Q2. The good news is that the big topics are done (hooray!) and we’re currently still working out some last kinks and bugs. As we’ve stated in another announcement a few weeks ago, game development is highly iterative (compared to “regular” software development) and we don’t want to burn our 5-person dev team out. That wouldn’t help anybody. We don’t want to ruin the 2.0 update hype with a buggy and rushed release. Also, we’re currently deciding which community-suggested features we’ll be adding to the game, so go vote on our forum, if you haven’t already!
So what’s coming next? One thing we can promise: It won’t be too much longer! Right now we're doing stress-testing, PR stuff like a trailer and informing influencers and media, etc. Over the coming weeks, we’ll get some closed beta-testing started (if we decide to include some community members, you will definitely hear from us), followed by the update being made available on the beta branch, just like any other regular release. After it performs well on beta, it’ll be released to the default branch.
See you next week!