we would like to shed more light on what has happened – and apologize.
Many of you are disappointed, because Cosmonautica lacks stability and shows several other unpolished aspects. We do understand your frustration and we are sincerely sorry for the flaws you experienced!
First off, we’d like to assure you, that our whole team did their best to put as much effort as possible into testing Cosmonautica in any regards, until launch - and afterwards. Despite the criticism we have received, we also get positive feedback from many players who are not experiencing any issues and are enjoying the game a lot.
We had huge ambitions for Cosmonautica. Looking back at how things turned out, we share the frustration of the disappointed part of our community. And we have learned a bitter yet valuable lesson about choosing the right technology. Our choice of the game engine and middleware for that project turned out to be an essential mistake. We missed to validate properly whether the engine will be able to hold up well enough for the future.
When we found out that it didn’t, we were too far in development and we didn’t anticipate the severe impacts on the game. It is impossible for us to fix the bigger issues and crashes now. The technology in its current state does not provide a solid base to reasonably develop Cosmonautica further on.
This should not be an excuse: It was our shortcoming of not taking the problems and future development of our technology seriously enough.
So, at a certain point we had to accept the bitter fact that we maneuvered ourselves into a dead end – as hard as that would be for you, our community. Since we are also passionate gamers and have supported many games ourselves, we totally understand your reactions to our decision. It is a very sad experience for us as a young studio, since we were cutting into our own flesh by that step.
In the end, it comes down to paying bills and wages. And while this might seem like a mere excuse or justification, for us this was and is reality on a daily basis. We need and want to survive because we have so many more ideas to bring to life. Nevertheless it is a very bad feeling to have disappointed many of you!
Again, we know that this is a bad outcome, and we have drawn our consequences from that. For our next projects we completely restructured our development process, including switching to another engine. This was a huge effort, but we are confident that such problems won’t happen again.
We still strongly believe in the concept and potential of Cosmonautica and see room for improvement. Thus, we think about how to get back to the game or to develop a remake. Although we can’t make any promises regarding future plans for Cosmonautica, we will be present in the forum to answer your questions and provide support as good as we can.
We sincerely hope, you can understand our situation. If there are any issues that require further clarification, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Even if things went that way, we want to thank you for your support and your honest feedback. All the best for 2017, for all of you and your loved ones.
Stay with us! Yours truly,
Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Josef, Markus & Patrick (the other one)
Cosmonautica Update 1.2.1 (What's up?)
Hello fellow Cosmonauticans,
we're back with a few small changes which should help regarding some crashes and other problems.
Right now we're working on a new project and therefore not full time on Cosmonautica. A bigger update would require a lot of evaluation and maybe re-designing of certain things. Time we really don't have right now, since we're a small team.
So for now we will make small changes here and there from time to time and then we'll see how we can improve more in the future.
Still, we're not turning our backs and just let this go as you can see. But we hope you can understand our side.
If you have any questions, feel free to write us an e-mail or here in the Cosmonautica Steam forums.
The problem with the 2nd and 3rd skill in the task assignment screen got fixed
Fixed the ‘Endangered Species’ mission, it can now be successfully finished
A small bug in the campaign, chapter ‘N1L’s origin’ is also fixed
Locked skills can no longer be previewed via the ?-buttons in the promotion popup
Removed the ‘Loot ammo’ button and ammunition sliders from the loot interface
Finishing a research in hyper travel no longer gives you the option to go to the research lab, which might be causing crashes on some machines
Have fun with the new update and please post us your feedback, we're still reading and checking up on you. Thank you very much for your support :)
Your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Cosmonautica Update 1.2.0 (game changer)
Hello fellow Cosmonauticans,
sorry that it took us longer than expected. This new update 1.2.0 brings you lots of meaningful changes and updates. We enhanced the game with some comfort features like quest markers, a passenger display and so on. Also we tweaked and re-balanced lots of stuff around the moral and need system.
What does that mean for the game? Well, some features will make more sense and it's more like the way these features were intended in the first place. But the game will get a bit harder with that, but only if you don't take care of your crew ;)
You will experience that your crew or some crew members are going to lose it, but you can handle every situation with the new and current features like the new bonus button, or by just removing all work shifts and so on.
So we would advise that you start this with a fresh game and a fresh mindset :) and if there are any questions, just let us know in the forums.
Now check out what's going on in this update:
NEW
Death ceremony for passed away crew members
3 new interstellar quests
3 new random events
“Morale Info” in the clipboard
Clipboard bonus button - gives crew members a moral boost for a limited time
Quest markers in galaxy view
Kitchen and Medibay robot-upgrade does not replace cooks and doctors in your crew anymore and their assisting output when working alone is reduced.
FIXES/CHANGES
Several crashes connected to achievements, job agency and crew needs
Switched crew member needs fitness and entertainment
Pirates do not attack anymore if you are close to your destination planet
Crew members will not leave workstations during fights if the player does not order them to.
Crew members stay longer on their stations during flight even with urgent needs.
Fixed permanent shield exploit
Fixed issues with hacking during fights and we improved the hacking AI
Passenger seats are displayed alongside the cargo stock info
Tooltips Merchant (Import/Export Traits)
Sell goods to a merchant when his stock is already full is now possible
Neutral goods are now getting slowly consumed by stations, too
Correct display of crew level via N.O.D.E.
Color coded “Morale Tooltip/Morale Info”
“Research Finished” tooltips show unlocked technologies and we improved filtering of the room research
Removed the customs cop from the Cataport
Visuals of crew states (sick, on fire and on strike) are retriggered after loading the game.
Fixed some problems with the tutorial popups
Socializing is automatically aborted when a space fight starts
Correct highlighting of preferences in in N.O.D.E crew tab
UI Icon of Administrative Systems is now the correct one
BALANCING
Smuggling mechanic
Science effort for galaxy research reduced and increased science effort for technology
Sickness probability and duration
Balanced moral and needs
Reduced max. number of specials per crew member to 4
Dirt and damage done by crew and passengers
Cleaning and repair done by crewmembers and robots
Crew member relationships
Have fun with this update and please post us your feedback in the forums. Thank you very much :)
Your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Cosmonautica Update 1.1.9 (fixing and preparing)
Hey fellow Cosmonauticans,
this update should fix some campaign related crashes and some issues with passengers.
Alongside this patch we're also preparing and planning the next big update 1.2. which will be ready in a few weeks.
We're trying to integrate as much feedback and suggestions as possible into the next update.
And better late than never: Cosmonautica is 15% off for the next 7 days (since the launch discount wasn't triggered).
FIXES:
Fixed crashes during travelling to campaign-related solar systems (eg. Yike System, Bloom C)
Fixed final fight: Mission descriptions now specifically advises to prepare for combat. Save games being stuck right before the unresolvable fight will be set back one step. Both final enemies are better balanced and now won’t flee anymore.
Fixed problem that the campaign mission won’t be removed from the N.O.D.E. after completion, which caused N1L’s messages to continue and prevented the Campaign achievement from being triggered.
Fixed issue that caused the game to crash upon arrival on planet Suprafoam in campaign chapter V.
Fixed invisible passengers
Fixed passengers doing no damage and dirt to their cabin.
Fixed crash when passenger cabin breaks
Passengers will warn you and leave your ship, if there is too much dirt or damage and if they do not get enough food.
Improved hacking efficiency of the navigation systems.
Enjoy the game and as always post us your feedback in the forums. Thanks a lot :)
Your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Cosmonautica Update 1.1.8 (the late one - aka we're still here)
Hi fellow Cosmonauticans,
first of all you may rest assured that we're still here and updating and enhancing the game. We always said that we're not going to abandon our game, it just took us some time to get working on it again in a proper way after gamescom and some needed vacation time.
So we put lots of effort into fixing crashes and optimize the game here and there. We also added new missions and we're planning a new update as you read these lines.
CHANGES in Cosmonautica:
23 new missions have been added
After starting a travel, the view remains on the solar map
Rhys Fenrize and Commodore Punkkore now fly individual ships in combat
Added touch-scroll for lists
Optimized data exchange UI<>Code to improve performance
FIXES:
Enemies offering money via diplomacy in space fights too quickly or not suiting the situation
Crew tooltips in the Russian localization only showed white squares
Outdated enemy ships in the campaign didn’t get removed properly, thus stopping progress
Bugs in several old missions
Bighead achievement didn’t trigger
Captain’s portraits on the solar map didn’t match the portraits in the diplomacy window
Continue interception route of Ship after player got intercepted by another ship
Invincible enemies or no diplomacy possible during space fights
A bunch of small text revisions in the German localization
Toilet and party room animation bugs for selected upgrades
You can now easily escape the first encounter with Rhys Fenrize (campaign)
Reordering of crewportraits now working on high resolutions
Info panel glitch with planets that have a secret society trait
Display of 2nd room upgrade now works correctly in the research tab
Sticking of tasks, while dragging and pressing the right mouse button
Jobscout search options will be resetted to default values when arriving on a different planet
Mousewheel sensitivity tweaked in the merchant UI
Various small UI tweaks
Research time was showing infinite when player had a scientist but did not put him in a shift
Crash connected to transporting passengers
Crash when a pirate was selected in UI and was removed by trade system logic
Crash connected to upgrading from older savegames
Crashes connected to the job board, hiring and using the job scout
Game freeze at the beginning of the campaign
Several fixes of the campaign scripts preventing the storyline from progressing
Optimization of campaign scripts to prevent crashes
Fixes on several missions
BALANCING:
Adjustments of rewards, penalties and deadlines for several missions (ongoing)
Adjustments of the evasive maneuver effect for all ships in space fights
A basic party room now satisfies additional to entertainment needs, fitness needs (while crew members are dancing) and food needs (while crew members are sitting)
Have fun playing, enjoy your weekend and leave us a message if you have any problems :)
And please share your love & awesomeness and leave us a review.
Your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Cosmonautica Update 1.1.6 - Out of Early Access
Hello fellow space captains,
today is an cosmonawesome day! After over two years of development, our small team has finally breached the final frontier - Cosmonautica has left Early Access. Over the course of the past months, we brain-stormed, created, improved, overhauled, fixed, discussed, cut, risked and strived hard to follow our vision of a space trading simulation of its own kind.
Needless to say, that without you as a community, Cosmonautica would not be the game it is now. We know, however, that there's still room to improve. Not only stability-wise, but also regarding future contents, we won't stop working on our little baby, so we can give you the best possible experience for your adventures in space.
That said, we appreciate your feedback very much, be it questions, ideas or any bugs you find. So feel free to get in touch, and let us know what you think.
By the way, we'll be at the Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, next week. Should you happen to be there, come and visit us in Hall 10.1, Booth A050 - B051, at the Indie Arena Booth. We're looking forward to meeting you.
Thank you for your great support and have fun playing Cosmonautica!
Your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Please note: unfortunately, the launch discount has not been activated as of yet. We already contacted the Steam team about this issue, and we hope to resolve it as soon as possible.
Update 1.0.22 (balancing and polishing)
Hi fellow Cosmonauticans,
we're constantly improving the game and fixing lots of stuff. Right now our main focus is to deliver a great overall performance without huge bugs, but that doesn't mean we're leaving the game behind after we're out of Early Access. Thanks to you, our fellow space captains, we have gatherd lots of valuable and great ideas and merged them with our list for possible future content. Of course we'll have to see how things work out in general, but we see that there's a demand for things like mod support and so on.
Right now we're also preparing for our gamescom 2015 appearance and maybe we'll see some of you in Cologne :)
The final "out of Early Access" release for Cosmonautica will be July 31st and we hope you had lots of fun so far and also enjoyed the soundtrack.
So here's the list of what has been done during the last days:
CHANGES in Cosmonautica:
New Intro/Startup screen
GUI optimisations for 4:3 screen resolutions
Achievement images
Improved german translation
Popups for research tasks
Reworked good icons
New crewmember specials: Fumbler, Clutterer, Ascetic, Landsman
Spacefight AI can use torpedos now, beware!
Various bugfixes and balancing tweaks
FIXES:
Spaceflight related crashes when the enemy AI was in weapon reloading state at the end of your last fight
Reduced planet rotation speed around the sun. No more angular travel trajectories. This fix works only for new Games.
Length of translated texts
N.O.D.E is closing when you get caught by a space cop
Double clicking on a crew member won't change camera in hyper travel
Smuggle UI localized
The achievement “A True Cosmonaut” will now only be triggered at the end of the campaign.
BALANCING:
Reseach times
Ship prices
Ship repair prices
Spacebattles in campaign
Check it out and if you find some weird stuff, drop us a line ;)
Thanks and have fun playing,
your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
we have lots of stuff for you, but not everything is directly in-game. Some of you already noticed the new trading cards and with this update you will find the Cosmonautica soundtrack in your game folder.
*Drum Roll*
Now the localized languages are integrated and you can change the language via the main menu options. You can choose between, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. There are still some minor issues with how the interface displays different languages, but we're on it :)
The final "out of Early Access" release for Cosmonautica will be July 31st.
New / changed in Cosmonautica:
Localisation for DE, ES, FR, RU
Cross-Save functionality
Fixed: Space fight maneuvers
Space fight UI polishing
Balancing (good prices, ship prices)
More stable flight trajectory
Reworked solar traits (less universal systems)
New missions and random events
This is ongoing stuff we’re also working on and that will come with future updates:
Balancing
Polishing
Have fun playing and leave us a message if you have any problems :)
Thanks and have a great day,
your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Update 1.0.20 (story time)
Hi fellow Cosmonauticans,
this time we keep it short. It's story time and now you can enjoy the campaign.
The space fight is still a bit wonky, but we're on it :)
Also many of you asked for the localized languages and for now these will be the additional languages for the final release:
French, German, Russian, Spanish
The final release for Cosmonautica will be mid July. The exact date will come with the next update.
CHANGES in Cosmonautica:
Campaign (Alpha State)
More sounds and music
New planet textures and shaders
Reworked “Out of Order” asset
GUI is ready for localized texts
More colorful alien skins
FIXES:
Reordered mainmenu, fixed transitions
N.O.D.E taskmanager: swap tasks is working again
Layout of popup window now more consistent
Fixed room positions in Lucefloat (Cruiser II)
New color scheme for ship icons
More consistent colors throughout the UI
Problems during smuggling
Crashes after looting enemies
Problems when using two shields during battle
Crashes connected to socialising and upgrading Kitchen and Medibay
Lightning effect after getting hit by EMP
Missing tooltips
This is ongoing stuff we’re also working on and that will come with future updates:
Balancing
Localisation
New missions and random events
Improving the game for different screen resolutions
Spacefight maneuvers fixing
Enjoy playing the campaign and please keep your feedback and bug reports coming. Also there's a pinned post for campaign related stuff and issues.
Thanks and kind regards,
your Chasing Carrots
Dominik, Patrick, Daniel, Patrick, Markus and Josef
Update 1.0.19 (socialize)
Hi fellow Cosmonauticans,
it's time to improve the social needs of your crew. Therefore we've implemented the socializing feature which is usable in the following rooms: Kitchen, TV Room and the Party Room during flight. Also make sure to check the crew tab.
Other than that we have implemented a new alien, achievements (with more unique images coming) and the customs check is now animated.
In case you encounter bugs and other problems and want to send us a save game, they are now located in your \Steam\userdata\ folder.
For example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\64851922\320340\remote"
The easiest way is to search for "playerprofile" in your \Steam\userdata\ folder.
CHANGES in Cosmonautica:
Crew socializing feature
Steam Achievements (Beta)
New alien race
Animated Copper
New cozy two seated passenger cabin
Improved interplanetary travelling algorithm (no more spiderwebs in space!)
Updates for kitchen and medibay: automation through robot
Ingame Options menu
The Pirate ship is now only purchasable in a few selected solar systems
FIXES:
Crewmember Bubbles were missing
Leaving the game during Hypertravel won't break it anymore
Fixed crashes connected to very small solar systems and the change from shift IV to I
Fixed crashes connected to the galaxy map
Glow and AA is working again
Disappearing Jobmarket window bug fixed
Fixed Shipyard stats display
This is ongoing stuff we’re also working on and that will come with future updates:
Balancing
Localisation
New missions and random events
Improving the game for different screen resolutions
Spacefight maneuvers fixing
Shield and other Weapon effects do not end properly and double Shield problems
Campaign implementation and testing
Implementing unique crewmembers into the campaign
Implementing character visuals for the campaign
Have fun playing and socializing with this latest build and please keep your feedback and bug reports coming.
