Short little update here, but due to a series of unfortunate, nasty bugs we have continued to push back our next major update. We had planned to put it out this week, but we need to confirm stability and fix an issue where the Sqarbs go into "steroid mode" when their path is blocked.. Unfortunately, our lead dev will be out of the office for a previously planned family engagement, and we just don't want to put out a patch when there won't be someone to fix any major issues for a few weeks.
What we are doing is opening up a dedicated preview branch for anyone who wants to experience the latest updates, though of course with the risk of being hit by bugs that may not be fixed until the end of the month. To access the patch players will have to switch to the "preview" branch on Steam by right-clicking Exogate Initiative in their Library, clicking "Properties," then navigating to the "Betas" tab.
We appreciate your patience as we sort through these issues, and allow our lead developer their planned family time. As always, we'll review bug reports and respond to any questions you may have on the forums and our Discord.
Thanks!
This post was edited as the original message mispoke a bit on the nature of the issue, so we wanted to make sure it was presented more clearly.
0.8.3 Hotfix - Exogate Lockout
Hey all!
We're dropping a quick hotfix to fix a game-breaking bug. Turns out that the Exogate could become locked permanently sometimes when there was an incoming invasion. While tactically sound, it didn't make for fun gameplay, so please take this hotfix as we roll through the week.
Thanks!
The Xeno Bits team
Patch Time! - 0.8.2 Changelog and Patch Notes
Hi everyone! It's been a bit over a month since the launch of Exogate Initiative and we wanted to thank everyone who has purchased, wishlisted, or even discussed the game, as well as everyone who has joined our community here on Steam and on Discord. We also appreciate everyone's patience as we put together our second patch, which was largely planned and sculpted based on player feedback. Please keep it coming, as with you all we'll continue building the future of the Exogate Initiative!
Before we get to the notes, we wanted to let you know that our next patch will likely release sometime in July, as our team has been going continuously since before launch to get as many fixes and quality-of-life improvements in the game. Simply put, we need to slow down and rest a bit before we really get going with the next patch.
Speaking of the next patch, with it we plan to launch the mission editor, which will open the door for custom story arc creation. This is not 100% confirmed, but we're hopeful that we'll be able to. We'll talk more about this tool in detail once we're certain of when it will become available to players. This upcoming patch will continue our trend of bringing forward quality-of-life improvements and additional bug fixes.
Thank you,
The Xeno Bits team
0.8.2- change log
New
Doors can now be locked
Improved save windows, you can see the list of existing saves, delete them, and the last save name will be used by default.
Sqarbs bodies will turn into bio samples after some time that can be collected and studied
New Sqarbs visual variations
It’s now possible to automatically sell materials above an amount that can be freely set.
It’s now possible to disassemble exo suits and retrieve part of the materials
There will be a notification when a gater is paid after not receiving his or her salary at the end of last period
There is now a message to warn that the committee funding will stop. 3 months and 1 month before the end.
Ore icon will still be displayed on disconnected sectors in starmap
During missions you can see the full content of a truncated logline by hovering over it with the mouse cursor
Tooltip for toggle gater preview button
Changes
Team will now be able to regroup in front of the gate room once the previous team entered the room and not once they crossed the exogate, allowing faster consecutive launches.
Team will regroup for a mission when all gaters are ready to go (previously team could regroup when one member was eating for example)
Patents won’t expire anymore but their revenues will decrease over time
Alien culture study desk status displays more information, such as when it needs to be cleaned, for example.
It’s now possible to walk under foundry connectors
Improved readability of ore count at the top of the screen
Acid resistance will need both tech prerequisites and not only one of them
Foundry sound was lowered
Improved wording for first contact with aliens, it requires a scholar AND a soldier
Collect and analyze ore sample objectives are now retroactive
Gater will now remove their exosuit when entering ICU
Medics will not return to their desk between each treatment
Improved AI performances when some parts of the map were not reachable
Engineers will now bring ore directly to the foundry if possible and if not, to storage first
Increase a bit of mental heals
Fixes
Team could come back from a mission causing the mission to never end
Team could be stuck on a mission and never come back
Team could be stuck at an artifact destination
Ambulance bot could grab unconscious gaters in mission
Issue with selling or destroying unbuilt weapon lockers
Ongoing invasion could never end
Medic would sometime not diagnose a gater with mental health at their desk
Soldiers were sometimes starving after the end of an invasion
Gater could sometime be stuck at the gateroom entrance coming back from a mission
Foundry will now properly animate after loading a game
Rounding errors on ore amounts
Improved position on some items dropped on the floor
You could not unselect planned rooms after loading a game
Foundry will now properly restart processing after selling compounds in storage
Objective to send a team with Sqarbs patcher was not always validated
Gaters would still move across the base when the game is paused
Engineers would sometimes not drop a core sample in the analyzer
A gater would die in a loop and spam the logs
Gaters could be stuck and die near Intensive Care Units
Gater in ICU will now look and work properly after selling the ICU
The ICU description was fixed as it mentioned mental health healing which is not the case
Scientists were able to do research with something in their hand
Fixed a bug where gaters would all go to sleep and never wake up
Pressing the hire button could create multiple bugged clones of the same gater
Gater in underwear would not go to be diagnosed for mental health
Displaying Steam overlay made the game UI flicker
Displayed patent revenue range was not proper on patent list for patents being written
Engineer would not process ore on the floor if it was not stored first.
First Patch - 0.81 Changelog and Patch Notes
Hello everyone and thank you for taking part in the Steam Early Access launch of Exogate Initiative!
This first week was a massive roller coaster for us! We were thrilled to see so many people playing and enjoying our game, only to realize that many of them felt frustrated at some point for legitimate reasons that we did not anticipate.
The game in its current state needs some heavy balancing work and we are committed to addressing those issues as fast as possible, so here is our short-term plan:
A first patch is now available (the complete changelog is below) it will improve the economy, the guard's AI, and solve some of the few remaining game-breaking bugs.
Our next plan is to take a bit more time to craft a beefier update that will address the following topics:
Improvements to the economic balance throughout the game, including the patent revenue streams.
Rework the starmap procedural generation to avoid players being stuck due to destinations with too high level of requirements.
Adjust the difficulty of invasions to player performances.
A LOT of bug fixing and improvements based on your feedback.
Now regarding that one feature that has been asked about a lot:
It will be possible at some point to revisit previously explored planets, we just don’t want to rush this feature yet as it was part of something we planned for later during Early Access. We just wanted you to know that we are aware this is something highly requested, but we also think that all the other things we plan to address first should reduce the need for it for now.
This is Early Access and the whole point is to involve you, the players so that you can help us to steer the game in the right direction. We are already extremely happy with all the feedback we have received on the Steam forums, discord, and through the game reporting tool. Though we are looking in the coming month to offer a dedicated platform for feedback, one that will allow you to easily submit and vote for features.
Finally, I just want to remind you that we are a very small team, and as you may have noticed this game has many, many things to offer, which means that we need to spend a long time testing it properly before releasing new updates. This is why we’d rather avoid releasing patches too often so that we can spend more time developing and bug fixing than testing that everything works as intended. With that being said, we are committed to keeping you updated on our progress.
Thank you,
Maxime Millet and the Xeno Bits team
0.8.1- change log
New
You can now sell all types of materials (Asteril, Maglam, Exonium, Cobbium)
Changelog visible in menu.
Changes
Improved guards AI, they will go to their post 3 days before invasions start and won’t leave anymore to eat or sleep.
Mental conditions impact on mental health have been reducedreduced and it will be easier and faster to treat them.
Asteril price was increased.
Unusual destination XP bonus was increased.
Invasions will be a little bit less frequent.
Sqarbs will now be able to destroy walls in front of the gate room. 👀
Gaters can use treadmills to increase their mental health, not only for training their body.
Increased scientific loot frequency (both samples and specimens).
Increased objectives rewards in initiation mode.
Collected artifacts have dedicated icons on the Aliens and Artifacts screen.
Recruitment campaign parameters will use rounded values.
The objective that requires encountering a geological contact is now retroactive.
Fixes
Science points are now rounded to the lower integer value (if you have 399.8 points the game will display 399 instead of 400 previously).
Fixed the tooltip in the tech tree for unlocked elements.
Fixed a bug where the end of the financial period was triggered 2 times in the same month.
Fixed a bug where a gater’s avatar was in underwear after loading.
Fixed a bug where the trending class name was always Scientist.
Fixed a bug where the committee granted funds for 11 months instead of 12.
Fixed a bug where the game would be displayed over the main menu after some time.
Reduced brightness on heavy armor helmet lights.
Gater should not leave the shooting range with their rifle anymore.
Here is the Exogate Initiative Early Access Roadmap!
What an hour it has been (feels longer)! Thank you to everyone who took a step through the Exogate today, those who will continue to over the coming weeks, as well as to all of you who wishlisted as you wait to see how development goes—trust us, we understand.
That being said, you may be wondering what is in store for Exogate Initiative over the coming months, which is where our handy little graphic below comes in. Give it a read and then stick around for some more details, as we'll do our best to explain every point.
Currently In-Game
With our launch today there came plenty of features, including:
A fully playable experience with 20+ hours of gameplay
Base Invasions - The long-awaited and and oft-requested feature from throughout our beta tests and demo feedback, your base now runs the risk of invasion by an alien force. Be careful where you explore, because you never know what you may find.
Our initial five classes are in-game, including the Scientist, Soldier, Medic, Engineer, and Scholar.
There are 166 microstories to find while you're out exploring the galaxy. Let us know if you experience them all! (Seriously, we'd be really curious to see if someone sees every microstory from launch.)
Exogate Initiative is available in English, French, and German at this time.
In Progress
This list is our features that are currently in active development, with plans to release them within the next few months. To be clear, that is the plan, but due to the nature of development we can't confirm exact dates for anything, so this list may shift and change.
Ongoing performance and bug fixes - We know that Exogate Initiative still needs some work and optimizing and we plan to put out bug fixes as often as we're able to, while polishing components based on internal and external feedback.
The Mission Editor - Yes, we can confirm that a mission editor is coming, allowing you to create your own microstories and put them out on the Steam Workshop. We can't wait to have this finished and to see what everyone creates. (Just remember that O'Neill has two "L's". 👀
World Threat Contacts - It wouldn't be a proper extraplanetary exploration mission if it didn't raise the likelihood of Earth getting destroyed, now would it?
Upgraded Room Mechanics and Customization - As we receive feedback and based on our own designs we'll be putting out upgrades for some of our existing rooms to improve functionality.
Future Plan
As the title says, these items are for the future. While we are working on them in some capacity, they're simply too far away to discuss in full.
Alien Gaters and Contacts - Are you interested in recruiting an alien to your team, or communicating directly with them during stories?
Expansive Aliens and 4X Gameplay -🤫
Diplomat Gater Class - Our sixth class of Gater is in development, which will open the door to diplomacy with the wider galaxy.
Increased Gater Customization - You all have asked to be able to tweak and customize your teams more and we're listening. Look for more details on this as we're able to discuss it.
New Invaders - Every base needs some new monsters of the week, and we'll have more to share on this in time.
And there you have it, our planned roadmap for Exogate Initiative. Now, this isn't everything we're working on or planning, but we wanted to give our community as much of a taste as possible and to offer some of the excitement on the horizon.
What do we think of this current plan? And we're serious, please let us know, as we plan to shape the future of Exogate Initiative with you all. Comment on this post, ask us on the Steam Forums, or pop into our Discord and chat with us.
The Xeno Bits team
Early Access Launch Announcement 🌌🚪
Hey Gaters!
The time is now! The Exogate Initiative is officially online and it's time for you to build your base, ready your team, and step through into a galaxy of exploration.
For the next week, we'll be offering a 10% discount to celebrate the launch, so now is the best time for you to join the Initiative!
Thank you to everyone who has followed us, supported us, taken part in a beta test, played and provided feedback on our demo, or in any way cheered on our team over the last few years.
This has been a long process, and we're not anywhere near done yet! Later today we'll be sharing our current roadmap, showing what our plans are over the coming months of development.
As this will be a continued Early Access experience, we understand that not everyone will want to join us quite yet. For those that do, please note that you'll be contributing to Exogate Initiative and helping us to polish and build the best base builder simulation our team can hope for.
If you've read this far, please join our Discord community and provide feedback, or chat with others experiencing Exogate Initiative for the first—or dozenth time.
We'll see you on the other side of the Exogate soon!
The Xeno Bits team
Exogate Initiative is Coming to Steam Early Access April 18!
Hey Gaters!
We're very excited and happy to announce that Exogate Initiative has a release date! We're going to be launching on Steam Early Access on Tuesday, April 18th. On that day you'll have the chance to open the Exogate to a whole new world(s), a universe full of exploration. Thank you everyone for joining us over the last long years of development, and know that Early Access is only the beginning!
Closer to launch we'll be sharing our roadmap, detailing most of what we have planned on the horizon. And as always, we'll be in the Steam forums and on our Discord to answer any questions you may have.
Oh, and if you haven't wishlisted yet, now is a GREAT time!
We'll see you on the other side of the Exogate soon!
The Xeno Bits team
Exogate Initiative: Developer Livestream 2
Hello Gaters!
In case you’re worried you’ll miss our first streaming option, check out the next opportunity to experience our pre-recorded let’s play. We’ll be showing off the first 90 minutes of Exogate Initative, as well as stuff you won’t see quite yet in our newly updated Steam NEXT Fest demo. Set a reminder so you don’t miss out!
Thanks, and all the best, The Xenobits Team
Exogate Initiative: Developer Livestream
Hello Gaters!
We here at Xenobits are exited to let you know that we’re taking part in the next Steam NEXT Fest, starting on Monday, February 6! We’ve also just launched our brand new demo, showcasing the first hour of Exogate Initiative which you can check out for yourself.
During the event we’ll be running a pre-recorded let’s play from our community manager as they take you through the first 90 or so minutes of a recent build, showing off the base-building experience, as well as some pieces not yet available in the demo.
If this date doesn’t work for you, we have other options to watch as well.
Thanks, and all the best, The Xenobits Team
December Devlog #8 | Steam Next Fest
Salut! It’s been a bit over a month since we last talked, but we’re here to share with you the latest on Exogate Initiative. First off, there are now seven active people on the team, which includes our core team of full-time developers, our animator, writer, producer, and our new community manager (that’s me!).
Since our devlog there’s been a few key items to share, so let’s dive in:
What’s New
First off, there’s a brand new, state of the art demo for Exogate Initiative available right now on Steam as part of the “Steam Next Fest February 2023 Edition” that you can dive into. As you may remember, our previous demo launched in August of 2022, and since then we’ve been reading all of your feedback reports and working both on our Steam Early Access launch and a revised demo experience, including:
THE VENDING MACHINE IN THE MESS HALL NO LONGER REQUIRES MANUAL FILLING! --Easily our most requested quality of life change, and you all were right. Now, once your vending machine reports as empty it will send a fresh delivery into your base where a Builder Bot will pick it up and re-fill the machine.
Gaters are now properly animated thanks to the efforts of our animator, Rémy Caballé.
New narrated missions, more content, more objectives, and an improved patent system and new revenue gameplay.
Oh, and how about a complete rework of the med bay? --We mentioned this one during the last update, but it’s now implemented in the demo.
Please also note that the demo offers a different experience than what you’ll play when the game launches. This includes the order of missions and maybe a surprise at the end. You won’t experience the Exogate exactly the same way anywhere else!
On the other side of development—which we’re a small team, so they’re all technically the same side overlapping like a tired mobius sphere—we have our Closed Beta. In mid-January we invited our community on Discord, Reddit, and Twitter to try out a then latest build of the game, offering feedback on their experiences and reporting any bugs they found. Originally we had planned for and expected about twenty to fifty responses, but by the time we closed our applications we’d gone well over two-hundred applicants, ultimately letting about half of them into the beta.
The support, feedback, and just genuine reactions to Exogate Initiative have been amazing to see, so thank you to everyone who has helped and taken part in this process.
Next Steps
After the end of the Steam Next Fest our sights are firmly set on our Early Access launch. While we can’t get into the specifics of timing, that horizon is approaching fairly quickly. As for what the team is working on, obviously bug fixes and optimization are priorities, but there are plenty of other things being worked on and prepped.
Tim White, our Game Writer and Narrative Designer has been hard at work on missions related to “intelligent beings,” the geological surveys, and a new more epic first mission, which Tim said “might be the coolest thing I've worked on, actually.”
Cursed Bug of the Month
Over the last few updates we’ve included our “favorite” cursed bugs to show you what development looks like, and to maybe make you laugh. As we near Early Access, however, we’ve noticed that the bugs have gotten far less cursed and if we’re being honest, fairly mundane. So, please join us below for some of our favorite cursed bugs of the last couple of months, and then pop over to our Discord and let us know what you think is happening here. 🤔
Well, that’s all from us for now. We hope your 2023 has been bright so far and we look forward to showing you more of Exogate Initiative. If you haven’t yet, go check out our new demo and then stop by our Discord and let us know what you think, or just hang out and discuss some awesome science fiction universes.
We’ll see you on the other side of the Exogate, Gaters!
