We've released a new version for Helium Rain. Every station currently in the game has been remade, and a number of issues were fixed - mostly to the AI and economy models in the game. Some rendering details were also improved.
New stations
Stations are now twice larger at least (solar power plants are especially large) and feature a billboard system to show off which company they belong to, or to show advertisement for other companies. The player stations will always proudly show off your might !
Adding this much content required balancing against performance - we drastically reduced the triangle count of many station components, usually by a factor of more than two. The game should actually perform slightly better now.
As a result of the new stations, we have to warn that ships flying close to a station and not docked at it when the patch is applied could be damaged. Ships docked to a station will be unharmed. We generally have a policy of never breaking game saves during and after Early Access; we hope that this exceptional disregard for safety will not harm you.
Economy fixes
While this update is mostly about stations, we also fixed around 20 issues. Most issues were tied to our extremely complex economy model. If you want to read up on how complex it really is, take a look at this economy primer by Niavok, our gameplay programmer. We know some issues are still outstanding - little variation on pricing, complicated end-game situations, expensive stations - and will be working on fixing that with future updates.
We've also made a decision on the topic of manual docking. This divisive feature had some players refund the game, and some others praise us for it. We had to make a compromise and decided to keep manual docking in the game, but to make the unlock of the auto-docking technology free as soon as the game starts. Players who elect not to use the auto-docking can get another technology for free instead.
State of Linux support
Finally, we are aware that many Linux users with AMD hardware are still suffering from issues with the game. This is a very serious problem for us, one we have little solutions for. We will release a beta version of the game in the upcoming days, built with an updated Unreal Engine 4. We hope that this will start resolving some of the issues.
The beta will also be available for Windows users who want to try an untested version that might bring more performance, at the cost of possible issues.
The full changelog is available here as usual, for those of you who want to know what we've really been up to. We thank all the players who offered their feedback. Please keep doing so, and have a great time with Helium Rain !
Helium Rain patch released
A new patch has been released for Helium Rain, fixing more than 30 issues in the game. Among the fixes, the end-game war situation, shipyard production and manual docking have been addressed.
Rebuilding shipyards
Shipyards were a source of frustration for players, with seemingly endless production time. Resources were not provided by companies, and when the player was doing it, the resources were diverted to cheaper ships on the production lines. This has been addressed through a large rebuild of the shipyard system, and through improvements to trading.
The trading fixes will push the AI to be more aggressive about resources. They will be smarter about which sectors need resources, making the economy work better overall.
Persistent global war
Quite a few players complained about seeing the AI companies band together against them and drown them under a barrage of assaults until they died. This issue was derivative of an intended functionality - we don't want the AI to love monopoly situations - that went too far with the player.
Reputation will now mostly be lost by failing contracts or attacking property. Attacking pirates, among other things, no longer results in lost reputation with other companies.
Manual docking
We've heard players complain about the manual docking gameplay. Mostly, it seemed the speed was difficult to control, and the docking computer was too optimistic about the status. This has been addressed too. Orbital engines are now offline while docking, making the maneuver much more precise. Capital ships are also much more interesting to dock, with fixes to the docking HUD and grab distance.
A word on price variation
We've seen players complain about mostly fixed pricing on resources. While Helium Rain simulates supply and demand and changes the prices, they do have a narrow variation range. This is intended for the beginning of the Early Access period, as a safety measure until the AI is more stable.
The main risk with large variations would be a destabilization of the economy. We also need more data visualization tools for the player, to identify where money is gained or lost. We are making progress on this (the trade route menu gets improved again today), and will make the pricing ranges larger over time, once we're confident it won't break the game for some players.
We've just released a bugfixing update for Helium Rain. We're aware the game has a number of issues right now and are working hard to remove them as fast as possible. In particular, the end-game balance suffers right now, with very large number of ships and stations.
Here is what has been fixed this week :
Fix water not in drop list in the trade route menu
Fix fleet selection in the sector menu
Fix joystick buttons unusable as bindings
Fix joystick bindings not saved
Fix horizontal hat of joystick ignored
Fix virtual scroll registering as a real key in settings menu
Fix docking guides disappearing
Fix spread between Solen and docks
Fix Orca cockpit cut at high FOV
Fix Atlas freighter having damaged cooling at full health
Fix French translation
Fix wrong tech for research stations in tutorial
Fix vertical artifacts in drop lists in the color panel
[tentative] Fix rare crash when selecting docking option
Additionally, we've made the sky slightly more interesting to look at, and added gamma and input sensitivity controls. You can read the full patch notes here.
Thank you for reporting these issues ! We're doing our best to make the game as good as it can be.
Helium Rain update : better UI & bugfixing
It's been only two days since the last patch, but we've been working around the clock for this. Here is our latest update.
What's new ?
Here are the main changes .
Special characteristics of stations are now shown in UI & HUD : shipyard, station in construction, contract objective, and so on.
The trade route menu has been remade and now features hints on where to buy or sell resources.
Gamepad users can now invert both sticks to turn with the left one. We've also changed the gamepad bindings, be sure to go to the settings menu to see how to use it.
Lots of bugs and crashes have been fixed.
This update was mostly about the user interface and features lots of small changes. Read the full changelog here.
What's next ?
It's been only two days since the previous patch and we've been hard at work. Updates will now be more spaced, so that we have the time to work on gameplay changes and long-term content.
We're going to be working on contracts, gameplay balance, end-game content and so on. We'll obviously keep fixing game-breaking bugs as fast as possible, maybe by releasing small bugfixing patches and larger content updates.
Thank you all for your enthusiasm, patience, and incredibly good feedback on on the game.
Helium Rain update : gamepad, 4K, bugfixing
Hello !
We've just released our first patch to Helium Rain, including community-requested features and fixes.
Seeing players enjoy the game, despite some rough edges, is really great - we're especially happy to see so many ideas and change requests on the discussions forum. Some of these are already in this update, more will come !
What's new ?
New features include...
Full support for gamepad & joystick
UI scaling at high resolutions
Field-of-view setting
Key bindings to cut speed, start a trade
We also fixed a number of issues with the game. You can read the full changelog here. While we fixed some troublesome issues, there are still instances of game crashes. Should this happen, please report the issue on our public bug tracker with the crash dump so that we can progress on this front.
What's next ?
The next update will probably keep squashing the bugs. The following updates should start adding new elements to the game. We'll keep implementing changes that require little work in the meantime.
Thanks again, and have fun !
What to expect during Early Access
Hello !
We're releasing Helium Rain in Early Access to garner feedback from the community, and decide which features are the ones most needed. Here is our plan :
Add joystick, gamepad navigation to the menus. Using only the mouse for navigation in menus is annoying for joystick users. Bug tracker entry
Make orbital engines affect the travel speed. Some orbital engines would offer a higher travel speed between sectors. The spaceflight gameplay would be unchanged. Bug tracker entry
Introduce fuel consumption. Using orbital engines would draw fuel from your spacecraft's tanks, needing periodic refueling. Bug tracker entry
Add modding suppport to the game. While we're not sure whether this will be available or when, this is something we are investigating right now. Bug tracker milestone
Main story quest. While Helium Rain is a sandbox game at its heart, we are adding story elements to it.
Please tell us if one feature is more important to you ! Don't hesitate to suggest other ideas in Discussions if you believe they would make the game better. This is what Early Access is for.
