New Update: The Wilderness Available on Earlier Access!
The update is coming together great, and now we’re looking for your feedback to help push it across the finish line.
The Wilderness adds asteroids and abandoned stations around the player’s base, new enemies, new skills, new cosmetics, improved combat, numerous quality-of-life fixes, and more. We also fixed many many bugs and improved gameplay balance.
The new mechanics lay a new foundation for how you play the game, by venturing out directly onto asteroids to explore, fight monsters and scavenge for resources to bring back to the station.
This gives us more freedom to add new things, unique places to discover, and rare items to find. This a big step forward and you can try it right now!
How to Play
Accessing the new update is easy!
To play, simply open Steam, then right click Starmancer and select properties. Next, go to the Betas tab, and select “Earlier Access” from the dropdown menu. The newest update should automatically start downloading!
Playtesting
While playing, just have fun! But to get the most from your playthrough, try to think of these questions:
Am I having fun? What happened during your playthrough that you think you’ll remember for a long time?
Are there any moments where you were confused about what to do? Were you able to figure out what to do in-game? For example, maybe you couldn’t figure out how to assign a job to a colonist
Are there times when disaster (and other bad things) happened and you didn’t notice until it was too late? For example, maybe you ran out of food and everyone starved, but you didn’t notice until it was too late
To get even more from your play session, use cheats! Cheats are accessed by typing “cheater” directly in the build menu’s search bar. We also added more settings in the option menu, including an option for directly spawning items. This helps while testing, but also it’s fun to spawn C4 and blow stuff up like a madman.
Where to Report Feedback
Please direct feedback to one of three easy locations:
Directly in-game via the feedback menu (accessed in the Escape Menu). Your game will automatically be saved and sent to us. This is the best way to report weird in-game issues.
We stream Starmancer every Friday at 11:00 AM GMT-5 over at Twitch. This is the same timezone as New York City.
Check it out and share all your ideas and feedback!
Thanks Everyone!
Devblog: Upcoming Content! The Wilderness
Hey everyone, it’s been far too long since our last post!
We’re adding asteroids and stations around the player’s base! These asteroids have all the resources, monsters, entities, and random events that previously spawned on the station.
It might not look like much at the moment, but we're laying the foundation for adding a ton of content in the future. Different asteroid types, derelict ships, pirate bases, alien ruins, and so on.
We're excited because this allows us to do so much more with the game.
Save Wipe
Unfortunately the new changes means that all old saves will break. This is because the size of the core as well as many objects has changed, there's a new building limit, asteroid generation, new tutorial, no more missions, and more..
If you don't want to start completely from scratch you can always give yourself a headstart by typing 'cheater' into the build menu search field and set yourself up with crystals, DNA fragments, etc. There's even an insta-build cheat that can be toggled on and off.
- Fixed a bug where the game would crash when dead colonists formed relationships
(We're working on Asteroids, but we're still looking at all the incoming bugs and hotfixing the bad ones)
Patch 0.1.56 - The Unnamed Update
This patch is just fixing up the last of the worst bugs. We also rebalanced generators and solar panels.
We're currently working on adding asteroids around the player's base, which is pretty neat. You can see this and help shape the game on the weekly dev stream.
- Fixed a stack overflow when placing wall objects - Fixed various crashes - Fixed a bug where objects from a different save would sometimes show up in a new save - Generators will now turn on immediately when a battery is low, and they'll store any unused fuel. Every fuel creates 2000 power. Generators now produce 2 power per second. - Reduced amount of power generated by the solar panels from 3 per second to 1 per second - Fixed a bug where wall objects that go through walls, like thermal exchangers, could be placed on walls that already had objects. - Removed the "no power" upgrade from the cryptominer. I think you'll keep the upgrade if you've already upgraded it. Sorry :( - Fixed the "clean up slime" error message so that it says the required laborer level is 3 (previously it said "requires laborer level 1". This was a lie) - Organs no longer display "took damage" messages when they're dead - Slimes can now be manually fed food (or whatever) via context option - Fixed distribution booth's build menu search text - Dead colonists can no longer be upgraded/promoted - Fixed a bug where unassigned job task notifications were inconsistently displayed - Fixed access positions of the Therapist 9000 (this doesn't backport to already placed Therapist 9000's) - Dead colonists no longer make friends (or enemies) - Colonists will now eat food out of their inventory before eating food anywhere else on the station. So if a colonist was holding biomass, they would eat it before they ate any cake that wasn't in their inventory - Adjusted door line of sight colliders so that lights don't bleed through them - Fixed some issues with dragging and dropping job tasks - Objects now show their actual palette color when being repositioned
0.1.55 - The Uneventful Update
More bug fixes. Looking to start working on new content once all these bugs are handled.
Please keep using the in-game report tool. We do read them and it automatically uploads your save file, which makes fixing bugs much much easier for us.
Thanks! - Tyler
Patch Notes
- Colonists will now remove bugged out carried items (like when they all start carrying bread or fish). - Log messages will now always use 2 digits for time (displaying 06:02 instead of 6:2) - When colonists turn into zombies, the zombie is now given their head. - Fixed a bug where walls near airlocks would sometimes not be removeable - Colonists will now more reliably take their helmets off when walking through airlocks that have a wall/window in front of the exit floor (this fix is not retroactive, currently placed airlocks will still be broken) - More objects will now count their items towards objective completion (waste reycler and food brick factory) - Cannibals no longer eat biowaste - Fixed various null references - The UI state is no longer saved (autosaves while the escape menu is open would re-open the escape menu after loading, etc) - Colonist heads will no longer detach if you pick them up while they're sleeping - Fixed a bug where sometimes colonist corpses couldn't be walked to - Added a custom status when incubation tank is growing a colonist - Fixed a bug where you could "grow colonist" when there were no colonists to grow. - Possibly fixed a bug where colonist torsos would look weird when they died. - Colonists will no longer occasionally appear dead after being grown. - Fixed a bug where sometimes objects didn't get unclaimed. - Lights are more correctly refreshed when repositioned now (this was an issue with the distance to the light being cached by the floor) - Windows will now be lit correctly after loading - Added colonist status text for fighting fire (and a unique icon) - Added extra internal space to crop boxes, so that high level farmers don't abandon excess seeds/food - Fixed Big Fuel - Notifications will no longer slowly drift towards the black abyss of space - Fire is now removed if it's created on an inaccessible floor (like the core) - Save time is now included in game saves (previously it used the date the OS date that the file was created, which caused issues when redownloading saves from the cloud) - Tomatoes are no longer reharvestable - Fixed a bug where items weren't unreserved if an item transfer failed - Fixed a bug where item caches would be removed even when they still had some items - Item crates on floors will more consistently be removed now (looking at you, ice) - Removed the "no water" notification from the sink - The log now displays the total day count instead of the current day in the game-month - Fixed a bug where the core eye would disappear if you loaded a save from within a game - Fixed a bug where the same kat message would be shown twice after loading - Ship now requires an empty inventory before doing missions - Airlocks no longer give away free oxygen when placed - Internal floors now correctly replace external floors - Colonists now stop bleeding when their bodies are removed - Dead colonists no longer create "Dimple is unhappy" messages - Fixed a bug where colonist perks weren't restored after they were regrown - Possibly fixed a bug where colonists would randomly explode - Possibly fixed a bug where entities would wander to the same floors - Batteries are no longer usable as free-time objects - Slimes will now fight zombies - Adjusted how currency is formatted so that 4999 will display as 4.9k instead of 5k
Patch 0.1.54
More bug fixes. Some balance changes too. Added a context option for fighting fire
Here's some new critters that Victor is working on
Big List - Fixed a bug where colonists would sometimes have a weird skin color after loading - Fixed a bug where the crafting "bubble" would be blank after loading - Fixed a bug where external objects had a bad fallback color - The correct build error is shown when building a hold and drag object (floors, walls, pipes, etc) - Non-loved tasks can no longer be given a priority above a loved task - Changed the wreck description to be more understandable that the delete tool must be used. - Perks that cause job task love or hate will now provide the correct memory if that job is assigned - Fixed a bug where items weren't picked up from external floors, leading to infinite metal. - Items in a monster's inventory no longer create "item discovered" pop-up - Eating a colonist will now deposit their head into the inventory of the eater. - Increased sentry gun's default priority to higher than storage bin - Pressing Shift + a number will no longer change the game's timescale if you're typing in the save menu. - Fixed a bug where doors would remain open if a colonist died while using them. - Fixed a bug where the Oxygen Emitter would occasionally pump oxygen into a wall. - Colonists on missions will no longer get shambled, and get stuck in AI sleep forever (and other bad stuff too). - Removing/placing walls near lights will no longer turn them on before they're built. - Decreased spawn rate of power leeches. - Mission failure event is now invoked (so the fail message is now displayed). - Increased power requirement of Incinerator, because fire is hot - Object repositioning is now more consistently cancelled after confirming a new position (so that the object stops following the cursor) - Repositioning an object now requires a constructed floor (previously you could reposition it to a floor under construction) - Assigned correct reposition blueprint to many objects. - Satisfying all ego upgrades requirements will now make "level up immediately" free - Mining drone no longer displays fuel in its output hatch area thing (on the model, where the items are displayed). - Colonists will no longer add withdrawal (or addict) perks when their sleeve is removed. - Colonists should get stuck in walls less frequently now when building. - Temperature changes will now wake up floors for atmosphere flow. - Added a notification if no colonists are assigned "Object Maintenance" (and that task now defaults to assigned) - Added a random offset of +- .5f seconds when entities wander, so that collections of monsters don't wander in such an obvious synchronized manner. - Fixed some edge cases where saving would crash. - Fixed various null reference exceptions. - CO2 scrubber can now be connected with water pipes to water tanks. - Ice can now be used by the water recycler (you don't have to wait for it to thaw). It should be substitutable for dirty water in all situations, but maybe there's some edge cases that are missing. - Water recycler now displays correct status when all water tanks are full (previously it used the status message for fuel tanks being full). - Fixed more notifications becoming "stretched" after loading. - Fixed a bug where wrecks couldn't be removed. - Changed wreck size of treadmill so that it matches the size of the treadmill (4x2). - The skybox will no longer "bug out" when rotating the camera with Z (the skybox uses 2 cameras, sometimes rotating counterclockwise wouldn't reposition the out of bounds camera). - Removed the last tutorial objectives (the long term ones). - Vysnc is now turned on/off when the game launches (if the user sets it to on through the in-game menu, it will remember). - Airlocks will no longer be used before construction finishes. - Distribution booth will no longer be used before construction finishes. - Distribution booth no longer halts colonists if no items are set to distribute. - Object windows will no longer show notifications from the previous window. - Research cards now show progress in the tech tree. - Missions to locations with no resources are now cancelled. - Improved load performance when loading from in-game to another save. - Crops are now deposited directly into planter box, and require offload before new crops can be grown. - Significantly decreased spawn chance of an extra seed when harvesting crops (from 25% to 5%). - Crafting stations (workbench, refinery, etc) now deposit the created item into their inventory instead of giving it to the crafter. - The fridge will now be filled with any raw food (previously it would accept 10 of each type of raw food, which was weird) - Increased currency earned from the Dream Catcher. - Added flux coil recipe to workbench. It requires metal and a level 3 engineer. - Context ordering a colonist to pilot a ship will now also assign that job task. - Doubled the amount of oxygen created by the Oxygen recycler (so it uses less water). - Added game-time that save was created and game version and total days played to the save UI. - A save is now automatically uploaded when submitting user reports - Crop statuses now correctly mention seeds (if it can't find a seed) and also mentions a missing farmer. - Hint delays now use unscaled time (fixes some instances where messages appear before warping is finished) - Fixed an uncaught exception when trying to get the save folder in UWP (windows store) - Floors under windows/walls are no longer colored by atmosphere overlay - The correct item crate is now more consistently selected - Reduced big battery cost from 9k to 7.5k - Objectives are now more aggressively removed if tutorial is skipped - Added context options for using free-time objects. - Added context option for extinguishing fire.
Patch 0.1.53
Rip that last patch. The tutorial should work now, also colonists should stop freezing forever. Also did stuff with slimes.
I stream Starmancer every Friday, be cool and check it out. https://www.twitch.tv/starmancergame
Fixes / Minor - Fixed a bug where colonists would store relationship data for any visible object, like lockers - Changing the autosave duration while playing will now immediately update the time until the next autosave. - Enabling the autosave while playing will now work - Fixed a bug where colonists would get stuck in AI sleep (the colonists would be invulnerable, unselectable, etc) - Ship crates are no longer created if the ship returns with no items. - Fixed a bug where where crates would be placed in walls - Only active colonists are now displayed in the schedule UI (colonists that have bodies) - Saving while repositioning an object no longer permanently changes that object's material. - Fixed a bug where multiple load windows could be opened. - The unbreakable upgrade now prevents any object damage. - Fixed a bug where the no power notification was shown after selecting the "no power" upgrade. - Fixed a bug where colonist O2 bars were displayed when the colonists weren't wearing helmets - The escape menu is now hidden in user reports - Colonists will no longer attempt a food recipe if they don't have space for all required items - Reduced number of required items for the pizza recipe from 4 to 2. - Fixed a bug where colonists wouldn't unboard ships in the tutorial (oops) - Fixed a crash that could occur sometimes when harvesting colonists. - Fixed many issues with colonists not correctly delivering items (or taking items that they shouldn't) - Added 3 autosave slots, because bugs happen. It iterates through each slot, but it doesn't look up the save time of the last used autosave if you restart the game, so slot1 will always be used when you restart the game. - Trade pod now checks the "real" inventory count when creating the "trade pod full" notification. - Juicer now uses the "no chef assigned" notification (previously was using the "no chemist assigned" notification) - Fixed various null reference exceptions. - Colonists now stop hiding when they die. - Withdrawal perks will no longer be added while colonists are under the effects of the drug/alcohol. - Increased cooldown between monster spawns after Mayday quest. - Fixed a bug where colonists would drop off crafted items at item caches - No pilot notification is now displayed only if there's a queued mission - Ships can no longer be deleted while they have a colonist inside - Crops will no longer grow in a vaccuum. Also fixed a bug where crops would be harvested when they died. - Fixed a bug where items (and colonists), could get repositioned into walls sometimes.
Early Access Progress Report #2
What’s up, Starmancers? Can you believe we’ve almost reached the end of the year? It’s been a busy time for us with the launch of Starmancer into Early Access and the initial period of development.
We’ve tackled a lot of bugs, tweaked the balance of mechanics, and added in some fun new content. Starmancer has grown so much in such a short space of time and there’s plenty more to come in the new year.
10µg new content, stat!
The first major content update for Starmancer will be Doctors and Diseases - Surprise!
We’re working hard on this update and will share more specifics when we’re ready but you can get a preview of some of the content by enabling Experimental Features in the game’s settings. ⚠Please understand that experimental features can be buggy and potentially affect save files. We recommend enabling experimental features on a separate, new save file so you can try new content without affecting your precious stations.⚠
Expect deeper health mechanics combined with the signature chaos of Starmancer. What new equipment awaits? Is it possible to engineer viruses? Just what does a medkit taste like? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out!
A new patch update
This week saw the release of V.0.1.51 in Starmancer. Featuring a plethora of new stuff and fixes, we hope you take time this holiday season to jump in. Who needs family time?
A little of what you can expect: Monsters spawn with items which they drop on death Germs have more impact on gameplay Toilets can be connected to Waste Recyclers using liquid pipes Water Recyclers produce 2 water for every 1 dirty water Some festive Winter holiday cosmetics🎄
There’s A LOT more in the patch to get your teeth stuck into so be sure to check out the patch notes in game and on our Wiki for the full details.
As always, we’re working on bugs and looking through suggestions as they come in. While the frequency of patches may slow down as bugs decrease and we work on new content, we want to assure you that patches will continue to be released when ready. We appreciate your patience <3
Stream of consciousness
Starmancer’s programmer, Tyler, continues his weekly developer livestreams to share some behind the scenes insight of Early Access development. Be sure to join us on Fridays at 11:00 ET/08:00 PT (stream schedule may change during the holiday period so Tyler can spend time with his actual family and not the ones he’s reanimated in space).
Allow us to once again thank you for all your support for Starmancer. We’re excited to continue building on the game and taking on your feedback to bring you a fun and chaotic colony sim experience. To stay updated on Starmancer development follow us on Discord, Facebook and Twitter.
We wish you the happiest of holidays and an exciting new year. Until next time!
Patch 0.1.51 (14 December 2021)
New Stuff
- Every item in the game is now technically edible. And by that, I mean that your colonists can eat it and the item disappears--in exchange for liver damage. (and if you have preview off, colonist's don't even have livers). - Colonists can now drag and drop each other - Unconscious colonists are no longer context orderable - Added a context option for waking up a sleeping colonist (by shouting). - Jobs that should only be performed by 1 colonist now default to unassigned, such as Doctor, Pilot, and Engineer. This allows the player to more easily assign a single colonist to the job. - Monsters now spawn with items and drop them on death (so that you can click on a zombie to see if it has anything worth killing it for) - All types of seeds (except wheat) are now dropped by a specific monster: (other sources of seeds were unchanged) Tomato Seeds: Zombie Potato Seeds: Cuddler Carrot Seeds: Slime - When a colonist is eaten by a zombie, its head will now be stored in the inventory of the zombie, and it must be killed before the colonist can be regrown (because you have to get the head out of the belly) - This is also true for cannibals, but you can make them drop items. Unless their morale is too low, in which case you'll also have to kill them. - Colonist's germ count is now displayed in the health tab, with the atmosphere values - Added a message log, which replaces most messages that appear in the center of the screen - The mission ship now offloads "supply caches" when it lands, allowing the ships to travel - Added the incinerator, for disposing of dead bodies or any unwanted items. - Colonists can now hide in objects, like beds and incinerators, preventing monsters from seeing them. - Toilets can now be connected to the Waste Recyclers with liquid pipes to automatically transfer Biowaste - Added context option for equipping and removing helmets. - Added context option for eating dead body. - Pressing 'H' will now toggle the HUD on and off. - Colonists can now be picked up and placed somewhere else, Rollercoaster Tycoon style - Colonist heads must now be manually harvested and returned to the analyzer when they die. Harvesting the head awards doctor experience - After a head is harvested, a "headless remain" is placed. This must be taken to the incinerator. It can also be eaten. - Dead bodies now decay after 48 hours unless they're in a cold room. When the body decays it emits a massive amount of germ, leaving the head behind. Small chance to zombie. - Created a new starting station - Added some Winter holiday cosmetics
Fixes / Minor
- Water Recycler now produces 2 purified water for every 1 dirty water. - Oxygen Emitter now spawns with 1 water and each water can produce oxygen for 72 hours (previously was 24 hours) - Colonists can now be interacted with when sleeping in beds (previously their "access positions" were repositioned to be on top of the bed, and beds are unwalkable) - Improved look of context menu - Fixed some issues with the cuddler and zombie animations - Eating biowaste now has a chance to make colonists puke. - Starting item caches will no longer have multiple types of items in them. - The knockout command is now ended when the target is knocked out. Previously the knocker outer would flee from the unconscious target for a bit. - Pumpkin plushie now uses the correct sprite when being repositioned. - Blood now has a name and icon when selecting it via the context menu. - Fixed a bug where the final objective (deliver high tier resources to the core terminal) couldn't be finished. - Context menu actions now always display the name of option, and the text that indicates why the option is "invalid" is now shown next to the option name. - Fixed a bug where finishing an objective and then loading (without quitting the game or returning to main menu) would prevent the objective from advancing to the next message - Mountable objects (including the hauler) can no longer be repositioned while being used. This includes: Beds, Toilets, Ships, Chairs, Healing Booth (in preview). - Manually depositing an item to a fallback storage zone will no longer change the zone's filter (because it's fallback, so the item was already valid). - Fixed a bug where the whispers perk couldn't drain targets correctly - Fixed a bug where windows could be built instantly by placing them twice. - Dead slimes now become "slime puddles" and must be manually cleaned. - Temperature values are now more consistently handled when atmosphere pressure is low (in a vacuum, there's no temperature, because there's no air) - Objects (and colonists) when selecting them for the context menu will now display their mouse over status - Fixed a bug where objects wouldn't be correctly "stopped using" after loading
[Preview]
- Added Virus Maker. Choose symptoms and make viruses with Refined Goolerium. Scan corpses of infected colonists to unlock new symptoms. Slimes can also be infected and scanned - Viruses have a few attributes: Power: Colonists can be infected with one virus at a time. Viruses with a higher power level than the current virues will infect colonists when they're exposed Duration: How long the virus lasts Stability: Chance to mutate when infecting a colonist. When a virus mutates, it replaces one of its symptoms with a random symptom. Natural viruses always have 3 symptoms. Transmission: Chance to infect another colonist - Added many virus symptoms, such as: Bald, Undead, Tape Worm, Stinky Breath, Drunk, Ginger, and Diarrhea - Added a UI to show the colonist's current disease - Shamblers now deal radiation damage to colonists. Radiation doesn't affect HP and damages organs instead.
- Fixed a bug where colonists would be repositioned to 0,0,0 after warping (this was related to their heart being destroyed by warp radiation) - Added attributes to the item tooltip. Virus syringes use this to show their symptoms
Show Starmancer’s OST love in the Steam Awards! 🎶
You know it’s the end of the year when videogame awards season starts. And like clockwork, the Steam awards have returned!
For those of you who enjoyed Starmancer’s lonely, hauntingly hopeful and energetic soundtrack as you managed your chaotic stations, we’d be super honoured if you would channel that love into voting for Starmancer in the category for “Best Soundtrack”.
The art of Starmancer is what inspired Dirk Kluesing (Starmancer’s Composer), to develop these sweet, spacey tunes. “I wanted the soundtrack to convey the vast emptiness of space and loneliness but also a sense of hope. Since you are a sentient AI, I also wanted to limit the amount of “human” elements in the music.”
[previewyoutube="M1527y_sDOE;full"]
Starmancer continues to grow during Early Access and we’re grateful to you, our awesome community, for sharing your thoughts and developing Starmancer alongside us. We can’t wait to release more new content in the new year.
