Hi Miners!
A few of you might have noticed that the Early Access info box on the Steam Store page got a stealth edit: We’ve changed the release for 1.0 from “during 2019” to “second quarter of 2020”.
Many of you might say that the game is already done and could be released any day. In some sense, you are right. With the big Endgame updates, we implemented the last piece of the plan towards a release, and now we just need to wrap things up. But years of experience tells us that “wrapping up” a game takes time, so we’ll allow ourselves a good, long runway for taking off instead of just rushing it out the door. So, we will ask for a bit of patience on your side while we finish it all up. And don’t worry - we’ll keep updating the game, just with a different focus.
Update 27 - December
Before we dive into the details of what wrapping up for 1.0 actually means, we have some juicy things for you in Update 27. This Update will be a mid-December release.
First of all, we are adding the missing Machine Event where you fight a Modular Defense Tower. It was teased in the Update 25 Status video but needed some more love before we could ship it.
In Update 27, we are finally adding a much-requested feature: Weapon Loadouts! With all the different Mods and Overclocks, it has become quite a hassle to shift your favorite setups around and we hope this will lead to even more experimentation on your part.
Additionally, Update 27 will introduce some smaller features like adding large roots to the Fungus Biome, a new weapon mesh-skin, a handful of new context-triggered animations, and unique beer mugs, so each beer type gets its own mug.
The Road towards 1.0
The general focus is making the game feel polished both from a new player and a veteran player’s perspective. When you are developing a live game that is frequently updated, you often leave some things behind - unfinished business. We feel that we’ve been diligent at cleaning up as we went along, but still, there are a lot of smaller and bigger things that we would like to get done before we call it 1.0.
One of the features we have left behind is the Perk system. We are going to give it an overhaul and are already now implementing the first steps, though, it will not be ready until Update 28. With the updated Perk system, we will introduce new Active Perks (meaning Perks that you have to activate) and change some of the existing Passive Perks into Active Perks (Iron Will is one of these and will undergo some much-needed changes).
To improve the experience for new players, we plan to do several things, including lots of tweaks to the existing tutorial and hint system. And both the Space Rig overhaul and the introduction of a Miner’s Manual feed into giving Greenbeards an easier time, and will, hopefully, also be appreciated by the veterans.
On top of this, we’ll do as many Quality of Life features that we can fit in. We’ve plowed through all your feedback on Steam, Discord, Reddit and other channels and compiled a huge list of things to do. We won’t do everything - and we don’t agree with every suggestion - but we should be able to get a lot of small things implemented that will make playing the game a better experience. If you have more suggestions for Quality of Life features or things that could use a bit of polish, this is the time to speak up.
After the release of 1.0, we will continue the support of the game. This will include free content updates and top priority is creating more Mission Types.
Rock and Stone!
Ghost Ship Games