Today I am very pleased to release the first iteration of Space Station Continuum's Career Mode.
This early version of Career Mode will see you take one small step towards building an independant orbital research Station.
You'll begin during the Apollo era, with limited resources and technologies available to you.
You'll need to keep your crew of Astronauts happy and healthy while they complete Research Contracts to earn money to expand your station.
This is the biggest update to Space Station Continuum since it released into Early Access in June, and it includes:
Career Mode!
New music inspired by the style of the 1990's.
The first phase of a major UI overhaul.
An updated tutorial including instructions for the new research system.
Many other fixes, tweaks, and improvements.
New items to use in Sandbox Mode, including:
Placeable asteroids
Inflatable Modules
An Animated Module Printer
As we end 2020 I want to extend a personal thank you to all of you who've played Space Station Continuum this year, and especially to the members of our Discord Community (join us and say hello!).
You all make working on Space Station Continuum a real joy, and I can't wait to deliver more new features in 2021.
And if you haven't played it yet there's never been a better time, as Space Station Continuum is 25% off for the duration of the Steam Winter Sale!
If you'd like to support the game even more and you haven't got it already, consider picking up a copy of the Space Station Continuum Soundtrack - now with even more great music!
And as always, if you spot any bugs (I'm sure there are many!) please let us know on Discord or in the bug report thread on the Steam forums.
Thanks!
- John
Career Mode Sneak Peek: UI Evolution
Greetings, Commanders!
Today I'd like to talk about one of the many things we're working on as part of the upcoming Career Mode update: UI Evolution.
Space Station Continuum takes place across a wide range of time periods. From the latter days of the Apollo program to the near future of commercial spaceflight.
As you progress through these different time periods many things will change. You'll unlock new spacecraft, new technologies, and new design styles for your station modules and everything within them.
But these changes won't be limited to just the objects that your Astronauts interact with. Why shouldn't the technology that you use change as well?
Each time you progress from one era of spaceflight to the next, Space Station Continuum's user interface will update to reflect the design styles and computer display technologies of the time. Slide rules, oscilloscopes, and LCDs are all things you can expect to see if you spend enough time in Career Mode.
There's a lot of design work going into creating the right style for each era, and today I want to share with you an early example of some Apollo era UI elements that are going into the first iteration of Career Mode.
What's a Space Shuttle doing in the Apollo era?? Oh, you must be in sandbox mode...
The various elements of the Apollo era UI are heavily inspired by NASA control rooms of the time.
We're working hard to create an accurate representation of historical design styles while making a usable UI that fits with the art style of the game. I'm very pleased with how the results are turning out so far.
What do you think? Are there any old, new, or futuristic designs and technologies you'd like to see incorporated into the UI of a particular time period?
Thanks!
- John
What's next? Career Mode.
It's been almost three months now since Space Station Continuum launched into Early Access.
Since then it's been played by hundreds and hundreds of people, and continues to build a strong community on Discord.
If you've already bought a copy of Space Station Continuum while it's in Early Access, then I want to say thank you so much for joining us in creating this game. Your support is making a huge difference to the development of Space Station Continuum, and is allowing us to create a lot more music and art to realise its original vision. More on both of these coming soon.
Since launch, there have been eight updates released here on Steam. Each bringing a variety of new features, improvements, and bug fixes. Many of which have come directly from your feedback in the Steam Community Forum or on Discord.
At this point in development we're changing things up a little. Rather than small, incremental updates every week or two, we're now working on a large new update that will bring a whole collection of new features together. The most important of these features is Career Mode.
Warning: Developer Assets!
Career Mode is where the core gameplay of Space Station Continuum will start to come together. You'll begin building your Space Station from a single Module, and evolve it over time into a spawling in-orbit research and manufacturing facility.
When the first version of Career Mode launches, you'll be able to earn money and research points to expand your station and unlock new modules and equipment. You'll need to keep your Astronauts happy and healthy, while balancing power generation, energy storage, and heat dissipation onboard your Station. The Career Mode update will include many UI improvements to help you make this possible.
Post-launch updates will add more and more equipment and progression milestones, until eventually you're able to manage your Space Station all the way through the past, present, and future of human spaceflight.
This is a much larger update than anything we've released so far, and will take longer to create than a normal release. Watch this space for regular updates, screenshots, and other sneak peeks on progress. And don't forget to join the community on Discord for behind the scenes discussions.
I'm very excited about this next update and I can't wait to share more with all of you over the coming weeks!
- John
v0.200831.1 Release Notes: Notifications
There's a lot going in under the hood in Space Station Continuum. Sometimes it can be difficult to know what exactly one of your Astronauts is doing, or why a system or a piece of equipment is behaving in a certain way.
v0.200831.1 begins the process of surfacing more information about the underlying simulation by introducing the Notifications Panel.
The Notifications Panel can be shown/hidden at any time by clicking on the tab at the bottom of the panel.
Important events such as Astronaut activities, supply shortages, or energy storage depletion will be highlighted here with a timestamped notification.
More and more notifications will be added in future updates to expose further information about your Station.
You'll also notice that the time display and control panel have received a bit of a makeover - adding a day readout to the display and moving the panel to the top-left corner to make room for the Notifications Panel.
As always, if you notice anything unusual with this update please report it in the Bug Report Thread.
Fixed Storage Compartments detaching from their parent module when struck by an Asteroid.
Fixed Astronauts getting stuck carrying Food Supplies forever if the Storage Compartment they were heading for became full before they got to it. If this happens they will now drop the item they're carrying in front of the Storage Compartment, to be picked up again next time some storage space becomes available.
Fixed a bug that prevented the Storage Management window from opening after loading a saved game.
Fixed many issues with various UI elements (particularly the Solar Array Info panel) overlapping each other.
Fixed camera movement when dragging UI windows to the edge of the screen in windowed display mode.
As always, if you notice anything unusual with this update please report it in the Bug Report Thread.
Thanks!
- John
Update Notes: v0.200809.1
Greetings, Commanders!
This week's update focuses on bug fixes related to the Supplies Storage & Consumption features that were released last week.
The major fixes include:
Astronauts will no longer pick up supplies from a Spacecraft when there's no storage space available. They will ignore any supplies waiting to be unloaded until more space becomes available in your Storage Compartments. Either by removing something from a Compartment or adding a new Compartment to your Station. This bug was causing Astronauts to get stuck carrying supplies forever with nowhere to put them!
Fixed several scenarios where the Storage Manager window wouldn't open when it should, or would open when it shouldn't.
Fixed a bug where the Spacecraft Manager window could sometimes open when closing the Storage Manager window.
Thank you for your detailed feedback and bug reports this week. Now that the Storage & Consumption system is working much better, the next updates will focus on applying it to more types of supplies and consumers.
As always, if you notice anything unusual with this update please report it in the Bug Report Thread.
Today's update brings a crucial new feature on the road to Career Mode:
Supplies Storage and Consumption
For a while now you've been able to add Supplies of various kinds to your Spacecraft Manifest before launching.
Adding supplies to the Spacecraft Manifest
But until now they haven't done anything other than look cool while your Astronauts move them from a Spacecraft to a Storage Compartment.
That changes today in Space Station Continuum v0.200802.1.
The first type of Supplies getting a consumption makeover is Food.
Before your Astronauts can eat at a Food Preparation Station they will now need to fill it with Food Supplies. Upon finding a Food Preparation Station that has no food, Astronauts will now seek out a Storage Compartment containing at least one unit of Food Supplies. If they find one, they will take the Food Supplies to the Food Preparation Station and place them inside before preparing their meal.
One unit of Food Supplies can serve three meals, so your Astronauts won't need to restock the Food Preparation Station until it's been used three times.
To help you manage your Supplies and decide when you'll need to launch your next resupply mission, you can now click on Storage Compartments and Food Preparation Stations to see what's stored inside.
The new Storage Manager window
The contents of your Storage Compartments and Food Preparation Stations are also now included when saving/loading your game.
So in summary, your now need the following before your Astronauts will be able to eat:
A Food Preparation Station
A Storage Compartment
At least one unit of Food Supplies in that Storage Compartment. Food Supplies can be added to a Spacecraft Manifest before launching.
Consumption of Food and other Supplies will play a very important part in managing your Station in the upcoming Career Mode, and this update makes for a fun new mechanic to experiment with in Sandbox Mode.
As always, if you notice anything unusual with this update please report it in the Bug Report Thread.
Several fixes to the process of releasing equipment when an Astronaut is told to return to Earth. This prevents beds, bathrooms, etc from being permanently blocked for other Astronauts.
Fixed a bug where Astronauts were sometimes stuck "Travelling to Spacecraft" forever, which prevented the Spacecraft from leaving.
Battery Packs and Astronauts now react correctly to Meteor and Asteroid strikes.
Fixed Manifest payload details getting transferred to different Spacecraft.
The Spacecraft Manager will no longer open if camera movement is released while the mouse is over a Spacecraft.
The Spacecraft Manager will no longer open when a Spacecraft is clicked from behind the Manifest Manager.
All of these improvements help to further refine the underlying simulation and gameplay systems upon which the upcoming Career Mode is being built.
If you notice anything unusual with this latest version please report it in the Bug Report Thread.
Today's update brings the first iteration of a much-requested feature: Spacecraft Management.
Click on a docked Spacecraft to open the Spacecraft Manager
The new Spacecraft Manager window allows you to view important information about each of the Spacecraft docked to your Station. Currently this information includes:
Time in Orbit
Status
Crew on Board
Expect more information about cargo and power consumption in the near future.
The most important of these is Crew on Board. This list shows you all of the Astronauts who are either ready in their seats to return to Earth, or on their way to the Spacecraft from somewhere on your Station.
Until now it hasn't been possible to see which Astronauts were heading towards a given Spacecraft, and sometimes Spacecraft would even undock and leave before all inbound Astronauts were ready! Now the Spacecraft's Status will display WAITING FOR CREW until all inbound crew members are safely on board and ready to depart.
I hope you find this to be a useful addition. Thank you to everyone who suggested something along these lines and helped to fine tune the design through discussion.
As always if you notice anything unusual with this new feature please report it in the Bug Report Thread or if you have suggestions about how it can be improved head into the Feature Suggestion Thread.
