Version 1.6 overhauls every ship, weapon, and effect in the game! Ships are slightly larger and have a more established design pattern that will make it easier to create more ships in the future and enable new gameplay features such as ship upgrades and player-controlled fleets. Players can now customize their ship color in the Garage part of the Station menu.
All effects have been overhauled. Ship explosions are now larger and more interesting. Actual pieces of the ship break apart and explode separately.
Targeting controls have been overhauled. Aiming has multiple bug fixes and is more intuitive.
Factions now offer more weapon variety, more missions, and multiple UI issues have been fixed. A new "Simulation Service" now updates the prices and missions available each game day, which is currently 5 minutes long. This sets up deeper simulation options and more features in the future!
Note: your save file will be automatically backed up and upgraded when playing the new version. Since some ships and weapons don't have perfect one-to-one matches, your cash balance will be credited for the cash value of any ships or weapons that can't be converted!
QoL Features
Pressing shoulder buttons now changes tabs in the Station menu
Save menu now sorts by most recently-played save
Most recently-played save is now automatically selected
Game now sets a default deadzone that's greater than zero so UI isn't unusable on faulty controllers
Improved weapon comparison UI
Gameplay Features
Players can now change ship lights and exhaust color in the Garage menu
Created all new ships for both factions
Created new ship design data for both factions
Created mapping of old ships and weapons to new ships and weapons
Created save upgrade system that converts old ships and weapons to the nearest match
Added an internal ship designer tool that makes ship creation easier
Station defender turrets were removed from the game. These were technically treated as a ship, which was a mediocre solution, and will be revisited in a future update.
Created a simulation service that simulates the prices of all stations over time
Ships and weapons have better previews and details in UI
Weapons have more consistent sound based on their class
Stations now show ships and weapons that are beyond players' faction level so players can see future progression options
All effects in the game have been overhauled to be better and more performant. This includes weapon impact, ship explosions, engine effects, asteroid explosions, and warp effects.
Bugfixes
Fixed issues with text overflowing in ships, weapons, and outfitting panels
Fixed issue where you could equip a weapon to a ship that isn't selected
Fixed an issue where pressing Escape in the warp menu unpauses the game
Fixed multiple issues with aiming sensitivity
Fixed an issue where some ships and asteroids couldn't be targeted
Fixed an issue where your current mission card could disappear from UI
Fixed an issue where mission offerings don't update after faction level increase
Fixed issues with deadzones and stick sensitivity
As always, thanks for playing!
- Justin
Masteroid v1.5: Controller Support
Version 1.5 focuses on improving the Masteroid experience on Steam Deck and with controllers. This version adds twin-stick controller support (enable this in the Settings menu) and fixes several SteamDeck-specific issues with UI.
We also added some convenient gameplay features. You can now reset tutorials from the pause menu. The pause menu also now shows a mission reminder. The warp menu now has icons for your current sector and the sector your current mission is in.
Finally we fixed several bugs including an issue with uncapped framerates causing maximum GPU load and faster battery consumption!
v.1.4.0 Major Update!
I started working on Masteroid on April 24th, 2017. I set out to create a space game that was in the vein of 4x games that I loved, but focused on a bite-sized experience that supported short-session play. I also wanted it to be atmospheric and relaxing over challenging.
I built Masteroid to be data-driven so that I could create a large amount of weapons and ships despite it being a mostly-solo project. Some of my ideas were really good but others had problems I didn't expect and those problems significantly impacted how I could expand the game. Additionally when I started, the UI system available in the FlatRedBall game engine that Masteroid is built upon lacked many features. In the almost-six-years since I began the project the UI technology has improved to be best-in-class.
In November 2022 I was playing Masteroid on a SteamDeck and decided I wanted to improve how the UI looked on the smaller screen. As I dug into this problem, I realized I couldn't achieve my goals without fixing some of the core problems that plagued Masteroid since early in development. I spent the next four months overhauling these core systems to support future expansion:
Core simulation model: how game objects are represented and updated as data over the course of the game
UI system: how game data is bound to UI and presented to the player
UI Look & Feel: how the UI looks in terms of art style, color, and layout
UI scaling: how the UI adapts to smaller screens while retaining crisp text and images
Save files: how data is saved to disk, which had to be changed due to data model changes
This was such a major overhaul that it required careful attention to how old saves were converted and extensive testing to make sure nothing was broken (some things will definitely be broken).
This release of Masteroid marks a major update to the game's core system. While many of these changes are "under the hood" and don't have a significant impact, we hope you enjoy the new UI and look forward to more features in the future.
Game now has a public Trello roadmap: https://trello.com/b/ejULa3O3/masteroid-roadmap
Game no longer supports zoom, this was required to open the future path to different control mechanisms
Every piece of UI in the game has been redesigned
Weapons menu now has comparison card to see weapon requirements vs ship capabilities
Ships menu now has comparison cards to compare current ship with purchaseable ship
Missions menu can now offer more missions
Changing ships now has better messaging
Weapons menu now shows weapon preview
Ships menu now shows ship preview
HUD is now on the left and has clearer status bars
Better notifications when player levels up
Loading screen has been redesigned
Better messaging when player is too underleveled to buy ships, weapons, or take missions
Improved warp menu UI
Game now has capability for deeper systems simulation (no specific gameplay changes yet)
Game now backs up old saves before updating
Game now has a formal system to upgrade older saves
Game has major logging improvements - log file has more detail, logs more frequently, and saves logs for nger. This will help me fix your bugs!
Save data and logs folder is now linked from the main menu
Game now has a formal place to log bugs, linked from the main menu
Game now has a formal, open roadmap, linked from the main menu
Indicator now points to the nearest dock instead of the center of the station
Minor improvements to UI sounds
UI sounds no longer play when hovering list items
Fixed issue with sector-wide attack against player happens too often
Fixed issues with game hints being no longer accurate
Fixed bug with notifications when player levels up/down
Fixed bug with saving a ship that has empty turrets
Fixed a bug where resources on a ship may not be saved when warping to a different sector
Fixed a bug where cargo UI can be inaccurate
Fixed a bug where cargo may not be saved when exiting game
Fixed issues with camera default zoom
Fixed issues with sound/music volume sliders
Masteroid 1.3 Adds Achievements!
Dear Masteroid players,
I'm Justin, the creator of Masteroid. I built Masteroid primarily as a solo effort with some help from a few friends and contractors along the way. I started Masteroid because I wanted the atmospheric, zen feeling that games like Elite and the X series gave me, without the multi-hour session commitment and complex flight controls... a sort of bite-sized indie take on the big space games.
After working on Masteroid for 2 years, I released it in 2019. During development I relied on a lot of our fantastic community members to report bugs, give me feedback, and help release the game at an acceptable quality.
Once I released Masteroid, I moved on to work on other games. But I came back to it during the pandemic in 2020 and released quite a few new features and QoL improvements that the community seemed to like.
Even though Masteroid has been out for multiple years at this point, we still see players continuing to come back and play, and a few new players now and then. We'd like to believe that this is because Masteroid does satisfy that bite-sized space atmosphere in a way that few other games do. So, we just revisited Masteroid to fix a few key bugs that the community has reported, and add Steam Achievements with version 1.3 - which is now available.
We hope you enjoy these updates, here's the list of things we just added:
Fixed a major community-reported problem where the player can't dock because a station is too busy!
Fixed a variety of small bugs that were just the result of updating an older codebase
Fixed a bug where input stops working if a sector has no asteroids
Stations now usually start out with a few more components (bigger stations)
Game now pauses when steam overlay is activated
Game now includes 14 steam achievements!
Please let us know if you like these additions. We always have a choice to either work on new games or keep updating Masteroid. Your upvotes, reviews, and discussion threads directly influence that choice.
As always, thanks for playing.
Justin, Masteroid creator
Masteroid v1.2 Released
Hi Masteroid players,
Today I pushed v1.2 of Masteroid live - the third update since the game was released on Steam and the seventeenth release since I first shipped the game to alpha players. Read on to see all of the changes in this release!
Own Multiple Ships
Big ships are fun for destroying stuff but move slow. Small ships are agile and fast but can't take a lot of damage. Own them all and choose the right ship for the job: selling a ship no longer automatically trades in your existing ship. Instead, extra ships are stored in the station garage and can be swapped at any time. A ship must have an empty cargo hold and be undamaged to store. All weapons are automatically stripped from the ship when it is stored.
Warp Using Warp Gates
Previously, ships could warp out from anywhere. This made it easy to cheese combat by simply warping when you were in trouble. Additionally, ships could simply warp out and their destinations were unpredictable. Now warping happens through a warp gate in each sector. A new "trader" AI type flies back and forth between stations and warp gates - serving as prime targets for piracy-inclined players. Activity around warp gates is always exciting and opportunists may find a lot of free cargo!
Faction Aggression
Factions are now more aggressive towards each other (and by extension, the player). Enjoy more chaotic space battles and keep an eye on your reputation!
Faster Progression
Asteroids drop slightly more resources and bonus asteroids drop a lot more resources. Space station prices for both repairs and cargo change more frequently and can have higher min/max values. Paying attention to unit costs at stations is more important! Finally, sectors are busier in general. Exploit these opportunities to progress faster!
Sector Progression
New games start with fewer sectors but new faction sectors unlock faster when leveling up with a faction.
Quality of Life (QoL) and Other Improvements
Players can now overtake enemies more easily - previously it was really hard to catch up with ships of the same class.
The game now shows a grid when you are near a sector edge so it's easier to see where you will take radiation damage.
Total ship count for newly-generated sectors has increased (more targets, more activity, more opportunity).
Factions sometimes offer Level Zero missions (but you still can't take missions at negative reputation) so you can take on missions right away in a new game.
Bugfixes
Fixed bug where game can crash if you try to warp while dead.
Fixed some bad hint text
Improved performance (required for more sector ships)
Fixed rare game crash when generating transport missions
Fixed issues with NPC AI type balance
Fixed rare bug where fleet wingman AI crashed the game
As always, thank you for playing Masteroid. Your positive reviews really help little indies like me get some visibility and motivate me to keep adding features!
Thanks, Justin
Masteroid v1.1.1 Released
Happy Holidays, Masteroid players. I have just pushed the first content update for Masteroid, version 1.1.1, to Steam. Your game client should update automatically very soon.
I really appreciate everyone that has purchased the game and taken time to review it. Your feedback directly drove this first content update!
Here are the new things in v1.1.1:
You can now see your current status on the pause menu. This was the #1 most requested feature!
Stations now have "level 0" missions to improve the early game flow. You can take a mission at a station even if you haven't gained reputation with that faction. However, no missions are available for negative reputation.
Station prices now vary over time. Both repair costs and resource values will change periodically.
Gaining reputation with a faction may give you access to a new sector!
Camera zoom was too high. Warping to a new sector no longer resets to a really high zoom level and max zoom level has been decreased slightly
Right click moves, double right click cancels move orders only.
Left click targets, double left click cancels targeting orders only.
Station indicator is slightly smaller
Weapon balance has been slightly tweaked, however this will only affect new games started after this update*.
Thanks for playing. I'd love to see screenshots of your ships and sectors!
Sincerely, Justin
* This is because of some restrictions with how savegames work and ensuring compatibility across minor version updates.
Hotfix 1.0.2
In the few days since Masteroid has been live, it has been played on far more computers than I was able to test prior to launch. Several players have reported issues that I have worked to fix as quickly as possible. I have now deployed two hotfixes that address priority bugs reported by players:
v1.0.1
In rare cases it was possible for a weapon to disappear while equipping
It was possible to accept a completed mission and have negative goals
v1.0.2
Controls have changed! Some players had trouble accidentally targeting things they did not want to shoot. You now use right click to fly and left click to target!
Several players had issues with resolution options. The game now supports resolutions as low as 800x600. The UI will be scaled down so that it all fits on screen.
Several players reported major lag when docking and undocking. This was due to background processing blocking the main game thread. I think this is fixed but it is hard to be sure as it is an intermittent issue!
The camera can now be zoomed in further using the mouse wheel
If you are running the latest version, it should say "v1.0.2" in the upper right corner of the title screen.
I really appreciate everyone who has bought the game and those who have posted reviews! If you have issues or bugs, please post a discussion on the community hub and I will try to fix it.
