Starmancer
Interview with Starmancer’s Composer, Dirk Kluesing
Dirk has been working as a Composer and Sound Designer since 2015, creating music from fantasy orchestral to deep space synth and more. Dirk’s music has been featured in retailers, indie games and short films.
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Find a comfy seat, treat yourself to some Starshine and join us as we explore Dirk’s musically creative mind.
[Chucklefish] – Hey Dirk, thanks for taking the time to chat with me. I’m loving the Starmancer OST and already find myself humming along while playing it. I’m curious, how did you join the Starmancer project?
[Dirk] – I first found out about Starmancer when they launched their Kickstarter campaign. I was immediately drawn to Victor’s art and when I discovered that one of the stretch goals was to hire a composer and sound designer I started working on some music demos right away. I guess they really liked the demos, and after a few more emails and a sound design test we started working on a contract. Maybe it helped that me and Tyler were both from Michigan. I think maybe his brother and I even went to the same college (Michigan Technological University). Small world.
[Chucklefish] – Small world indeed! What influences, from music and beyond, did you tap into for the Starmancer OST? I imagine Victor’s art did more than draw you in.
[Dirk] – Around the same time I discovered Starmancer, Surviving Mars had just been released and that game had a phenomenal soundtrack. I don’t think it influenced me much when creating the Starmancer OST, but it definitely got me motivated to make some sweet sci-fi, spacey tunes. The art of Starmancer was really the biggest influence to me when creating the soundtrack.
[Chucklefish] – Identifying those influences seems to be a key part of the process. What part of the music-making process do you enjoy the most?
[Dirk] – Starting a new song is always my favorite part of writing. Testing different sounds, messing around with synths, finding the perfect melody… all that stuff is super exciting to me.
[Chucklefish] – And what presents the biggest challenge?
[Dirk] – I’ve found that each new song provides a different challenge. Maybe the most frequent one that I run into is deciding when to just call it finished. If I work too long on a song I can start to hear problems that might not really be there, and in fixing those problems, I create new, actual problems. At the very least if you’re stuck on a song for a while, taking a break for a few days or weeks can make the world of difference when you come back to it.
[Chucklefish] – As a writer, I totally understand the balance of being a perfectionist and knowing when to stop. Looking at the tracklist, which track in the Starmancer OST holds a special place for you and why?
[Dirk] – ‘Deep Space’ and ‘Space Station 14’ are what became of the original 2 demos that I sent to Ominux Games, so those will always be special to me. Other than those, though, I have fond memories of working on ‘Daydreams of a Colonist’. I don’t know why I remember that one specifically. And I really like the middle part of ‘Zenith’, the flute-sounding synth and interplay of melodies is probably one of my favorite things about the Starmancer soundtrack.
[Chucklefish] – ‘Daydreams of a Colonist’ has great energy to it! Music has a big impact on the player’s feelings. What did you want the player to feel through the music when playing the game?
[Dirk] – In Starmancer, you are humanity’s last chance of survival among the stars. 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. The soundtrack is almost entirely composed of synthesizers with no ‘real’ instruments to be heard. I made a choice early on to not add any percussion elements either; ‘Star Dancer’ and ‘Breach’ are the only exceptions.
[Chucklefish] – I definitely feel the lonely vacuum of space that you’re talking about. You captured it well. Now for a little curveball. If you had the opportunity to have your consciousness uploaded onto a computer and implanted into living or synthetic bodies, would you do it?
[Dirk] – I hope I never have to make that choice….
But probably, yea.
[Chucklefish] – Let’s get existential for this last one. Do you believe there’s life out there beyond Earth?
[Dirk] – I think the universe is too big for there to be no other life out there. I suspect there is more life out there than I can possibly even fathom.
[Chucklefish] – Maybe we’ll find out in the future. Thanks so much for your time Dirk. I enjoyed picking your brain and getting insight into Starmancer’s music from you. Where can our community find you to keep up with your future work?
[Dirk] – You can keep up to date with all of my work by following me on Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify. Here are all of my links: https://linktr.ee/Dirkkluesing
We hope you’ve enjoyed bopping along to the futuristic sounds of Starmancer and hearing about the process from Dirk. Bring the future of space travel to your life with the Starmancer OST, available now on Steam and Bandcamp.
Patch 0.1.50
New Stuff
- Added Halloween Starmancer Core.
- Added a pumpkin plushie and a spooky painting.
- Perks now display their duration in the UI.
- Added morale-affecting perks to the morale UI, like intoxicated
- Added a context option for knocking out other colonists.
- Added a context option for feeding knocked out colonists.
- Slimes can now be fed via the context menu.
Fixes
- Removed text references of drones caring about beauty.
- Added visual effect for things that are instantly consumed, like med kits and mental stabilizers.
- Perks now show their duration when moused over.
- Fixed a crash that would occur when colonists tried to walk to an object that was unwalkable due to a blocked path, and they would keep generating a route to it endlessly.
- The amount slider is no longer shown when context eating items.
- Fixed a bug where colonists would attack slimes without being angry.
- Fixed many instances where objects would show the wrong blueprint when being repositioned
- Dead colonists will no longer become upset occasionally.
- Reduced tech tree research duration for many objects.
[Preview]
- Added therapist 9000, must be stocked with mental stabilizers.
- Fixed issues with healing booth and slime grower statuses.
Patch 0.1.49
New Stuff
- Morale modifiers are now shown on objects in both the build menu and the attribute area (bottom of the object window)
- The ship can now be repositioned
- Wall objects are now repositionable (sinks, oxygen creators, wall vents, posters, etc)
- Added a cheat for instantly building. Type "cheater" in the build menu to access it. Objects must be placed after enabling the cheat. Click it again to turn off autobuild
- Added memories for many decorations when colonists see them (posters, paintings, flower pots, holo display, and monument)
- Autonomous colonists now have a -5 morale modifier and supreme colonists have a -10 morale modifier. This replaces the system where high ego (free-will) levels used to receive a multiplier on penalties
- Hated tasks now have the lowest priority and the priority can't be changed by the player
- Loved tasks now have the highest priority and the priority can't be changed the player
- Wires, pipes, and airducts are now instantly buildable/removeable (colonists don't have to build them)
Fixes
- Fixed a bug where bunk beds and sofas were usable before being constructed
- Fixed a bug where colonists wouldn't talk
- Colonists now have a cooldown of 15 seconds before they can use generic free-time objects again. This forces colonists to stop staring at the same poster for 4 hours straight
- Added new material for window selection (mouse over, marked for deletion, etc)
Preview
- Added a new starting station. Content preview must be enabled before you start a new game. If you enable content preview after starting a new game, you can play on the old starting station
- Added sterile window
- Added spooky painting
- Added pumpkin plushie
- Fixed a bug where colonists wouldn't get organs after loading the game if they were already grown
Patch 0.1.47
- Colonists no longer heal in beds automatically (you have to make them)
- Medkits and Mental Stabilizers are now used instantly (colonists will no longer take them to tables to eat them)
- Revamped the negative morale system. Colonists now get an "upset" perk when morale is low. After 24 hours, this becomes one of the low morale perks (permanently).
- Mental stabilizers now remove all negative morale modifiers, which also makes it handy for curing the upset perk
- Simplified morale into Good Memories and Bed Memories. Memories no longer stack. Food, toilets, beds, and free-time objects now contribute positively to morale. Most bad memories can be "removed" by providing something good to the colonist. An example: Sleeping in a bed will provide a morale buff and also remove the penalty from sleeping on the floor.
- Increased colonist walking speed
- Colonists now eat Biowaste at 25 hunger. Previously they would only eat Biowaste when hunger was 0, but this was also when they would start snacking on other colonists
- There is now "preview" content available by going to the options menu and enabling "Enable Preview Content". Please test out new content for bugs, balance, and fun. Once it's stable, we'll move preview content to live. Preview content is subject to many changes before going live.
Fixes
- Floors are no longer used for rec room free-time. This fixed a bug where the rec room setting seemed to do nothing. It also improves the fallback free-time state where colonists wander to a random floor
- Colonists no longer display the hour-glass wait when they passout
- Beauty no longer negatively affects morale, but it still positively affects morale
- Slimes now default to fully fed, so they start friendly
- Adjusted item ordering so that order count is decremented when production starts and incremented if production fails. This fixes an issue where the player will order 1 item and colonists will drop off additional required items when production starts
- Fixed a bug where the wrong number of items were unrequested when cancelling a production order
- Fixed selection material issues with wrecks
- Rug wrecks (from fire) are now removed instantly when queued for deletion, because rugs can be deleted instantly (and there's a good chance that the player placed them in an inaccessible location)
- Target dummy no longer requires power
- Fixed a bug where walls would have the wrong rotation after moving an object from 1 adjacent side to another, if the object removed walls (like airlocks)
- The O2 bar is now hidden when colonists are away on missions
- Autosaving will no longer occur during the load screen. This would happen if you loaded a save while the autosave timer was almost finished. It could also happen if loading took too long
- Fixed a bug where some objects could be used before they were constructed (this might not have fixed every occurrence).
- The first crafting option in the context menu will no longer be grayed out if production can't start (the recipes that you select in the second part will still be grayed out)
- Fixed a bug where the distribution booth didn't work
- Hated job tasks now default to unassigned
- Fixed a bug where colonists would become uninterruptible after using airlocks
- Health can no longer become negative
- Morale is now displayed in the attribute window (bottom of the colonist window)
- The early access pop-up will no longer be shown on subsequent game launches
- Moved free-time objects to a new build menu category, "Free-Time"
- External floor is no longer used for eating
- Fixed a visual issue with the standard window
- Fixed a bug where planter boxes had the wrong material during construction
- Zone tool is now easier to find with an icon that stands out more
- Fixed a bug where colonists could walk through locked doors
- Removed limp as a starting perk
- Removed ego level from the attribute window (bottom of colonist window)
- Eating animation is now the same duration as eating
- Colonists now travel through airlocks much faster
- Fixed a pathfinding bug that would cause an infinite loop (and would often crash the game or result in colonists appearing "frozen"). This occurred frequently if you sped up the game, because the bug was caused from high delta times
[Preview]
- Added internal organ system. An internal organ is damaged anytime a colonist is damaged below 5 health.
Lung: Periodic damage when damaged. Colonist can't breathe when destroyed
Stomach: Chance to cause incontinence when damaged. Colonist can't eat when destroyed
Liver: Required to process alcohol and space rock. Sometimes damaged from eating alcohol or space rock. Consuming alcohol or space rock while the liver is destroyed will cause poison damage
Heart: Small chance to be damaged from any damage source. Chance to cause bleeding when damaged. Instant death if destroyed
Brain: Damage can add various mental perks, such as maniac, depressed, and incompetent. Instant death if destroyed
- Added Organ UI to the health tab
- Added medical desk, with recipes to create medkits and mental stabilizers from Goolerium
- Added Healing Booth. Must be stocked with medkits. Restores health, heals internal organs, and removes zombie, cuddler, and slime infections. Also removes bleeding
- Added Slime Grower. Creates slimes from Goolerium
- [Experimental] Disabled terrain generation. Terrain will make a return as a "net" type mechanic when mining
Early Access Progress Report #1
We knew this initial period of development would prioritise bug fixing and stability improvements before we could start working on the fun content ideas we have (as seen below)
Over two months later and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made in improving the player experience, working with our community to listen to their concerns and addressing them where possible. There’s never been a better time to get back into Starmancer to develop your chaotic station.
So, what’s changed?
- Based on player feedback, morale penalties have undergone several balance changes to reduce frustration when colonists become unhappy
- Several UI changes to improve user experience and fluidity of gameplay
- Colonists’ eating habits were altered to no longer require a strict variety of food. This would previously lead them to eat biowaste, ore etc.
- Several fixes for airlocks which would lead to suffocation or game crashes
- Several save game fixes to greatly reduce file corruption
- Adjusted the number of enemy spawns - no more nightmare Walking Dead scenes on your station
- Improved colonist pathfinding to address colonists getting stuck in random queues
If you love poring over substantial patch notes, you can find more information on the above by visiting our Wiki.
What’s next?
We’ve only just started and can’t wait to show you what’s coming next! After a community poll in our Discord, it became clear that the community loves science. Doctors and Diseases, For Science! and Robot Lords were the top three most popular updates. This could factor into upcoming updates and content development if the screenshot above is anything to go by 👀
Love for our community <3
Since launch, members of our awesome community have shared their incredible builds and creative fan art. We wanted to showcase some here:
By @John_Ernest_
From @LupisSicarius
By @Kass32403324
From Herozen13 on Discord
In the meantime, we’ll continue working hard to resolve your queries and developing Starmancer into the best space colony sim we can. Keep updated on Starmancer development by catching weekly Developer livestreams with Tyler on Fridays 11.00 ET / 08.00 PT. You can also follow us on Discord, Facebook and Twitter.
Until next time <3
Sleeping Hotfix
(I changed the namespace for a very specific class that stored colonist Use Reasons, and I forgot to rebuild the agent library. I'm just a patsy)
Patch 0.1.46
- Disabled animators on pipes, wires, and ducts, because they were killing performance when you placed too many (the visuals are now changed manually, so the effect is the exact same for the player)
- Removed dev category from the build menu. You can still access it by typing "dev" into the build menu search bar
- Moved the action buttons (turn offline, move, order colonist, etc) to inside the object window
Fixes
- Fixed a bug where an old save using the window wall paint wouldn't load correctly (this wouldn't affect new saves, only old saves)
- Fixed a crash when colonists didn't save the recipient of an item delivery correctly
- Fixed a bug where colonists would walk through airlocks to build floors if the colonist generated a route to the floor within 1 second of the floor being placed
- Removed arbitrary wait when colonists remove an object
- Fixed a bug where colonists would sometimes have no pathfinding floor. I'm not sure of the cause, but the band-aid fix for now is to manually find a pathfinding floor whenever they don't have one
- Fixed a bug where queued colonist commands wouldn't be performed if they were queued while the colonist couldn't be interrupted, like when using an airlock
- Contracts will no longer require more than 1 item. This makes them easier and also fixes issues where contracts would require 2 of the same item, and it could never be finished
- References to components that are null will no longer cause crashes during loading
- Memory icons are now smaller and easier to understand
- Fixed a bug where cuddlers would spawn at 0,0,0
- The wander state will now use a random, nearby floor, instead of finding a valid floor for UseReason.Sit (this is a performance improvement and also a gameplay improvement)
- The objective window will now close more consistently when you skip the tutorial
- Fixed a bug where trying to claim an object that required being able to claim another object would result in the colonist using the wrong object
- Fixed an issue with the sanitizer animation
Patch 0.1.45-090921
- Added an oxygen bar when colonists are wearing helmets (helmets have a finite amount of oxygen in them, so if colonists wear them for long enough, they'll suffocate, but this wasn't indicated anywhere in the UI)
- Added an hourglass above colonists that are doing anything that takes time (building, using the bathroom, repairing objects, etc)(there might be some cases where they display this at weird times)
- Item caches now default to locked, and added alcohol to supply caches, for an early game morale boost.
- Fire and blood are now automatically removed after a certain amount of time. Fire is removed after 12 hours and blood is removed after 3 days
- Improved pathfinding performance
- Slimes will now eat dead bodies then biowaste and then regular food
- The internal overlay will no longer turn off if you build wires
- Fixed a bug where some asteroids weren't removed after mining all resources
- Fixed a bug where in-world interfaces weren't populated correctly after load. This affected the storage bin
- Colonists now drop harvested crop items at their feet, so that someone else can worry about delivery to the correct place. This solves issues where farmers store seeds in fridges (this is a temporary fix, but might last a while)
- Fixed a bug where internal floors could be built on external floors (this was caused from the terrain system changes)
- Using shift to control time is now only enabled if "experimental" features are enabled. It's really just a developer tool for quickly speeding up time, but nice to have for everyone
- Fixed a bug where repositioning the target dummy would turn it into an arcade machine
- Fixed a bug where the overclocked upgrade didn't work. (this was a regression when I moved the duration value of production to a new query type, for performance)
- Fixed a bug where chefs would cause a crash if they were using a recipe object while loading
- Fixed various save issues
- Colonists now need even lower morale to fight, and increased aggression required to fight
- Colonists will now get negative morale perks at -95, previously it was -50 (this is to reflect that things should be going very bad and not just a little bad)
- Removed arbitrary wait times before and after construction. Colonists had to wait a second before starting construction and then 2 seconds after finishing
- Fixed a bug where colonists wouldn't put on helmets after repositioning an airlock (this is not back-ported, you'll have to delete any broken airlocks)
- Fixed a bug where the local star wouldn't load correctly if you loaded a save from within a save
- Fixed a bug where using the window paint type would cause walls to remove wall sides. This is because walls remove windows, and the window paint was tagging wall sides with the "window" key, which is the same key that windows use to identify themselves
- Colonists will no longer require a different food after a few days of eating the same thing. This was disabled because colonists would eat the same thing even if lots of variety was available, until they started eating biowaste
- Fixed a bug where colonists didn't always correctly stop using objects. This would cause the jukebox icon to never disappear, and many other backend issues
Patch Notes: 0.1.44-260821
- Metal pots will no longer be returned by the rec probe (this was because previously metal pots were used to craft space rock)
- Objects offscreen are no longer colored by overlays or the order button (there's a tolerance of 50% off screen, and it's updated every second, so should cover most situations, unless you're moving fast)
- Tomatoes no longer have a reharvest stage, because they were making lots of babies
- Only internal floors will be used for overlays now (not external)
- Fixed a bug where temperature emission didn't work for some objects
- Fixed a bug where item reservations were never cleared. Also added a 12 hour timeout to all reservations, to catch anything missed. (Items are reserved so that multiple colonists don't try to take the same item. It's a "dibs" system). This especially fixes issues with seeds, but should fix most occurrences of colonists not transporting items
- Fixed a load crash
- Fixed a bug where colonists would sometimes walk through walls (this was caused from colonists generating bad routes to floors, and thinking they were already at the target floor)
- Fixed a bug where colonists would walk through airlocks (and this time I mean it?)
- Colonists will no longer pathfind timeout while waiting for an airlock (this was also a source of colonists walking through airlocks)
- Colonists will no longer "arrive" at the next pathfinding node when they start walking on a route. It would cause colonists to walk through doors occasionally. This was a huge oversight, and I blame Victor
- Added a max pathfinding distance, for performance, because colonists can travel much further now
- Improved pathfinding performance (inb4 it breaks something)
- Added an option in the options menu to enable experimental features, enable it before starting a new game
Increase morale with the Starmancer OST
What’s an ambitious A.I. to do? You work hard, managing your space station, babysitting mindless meatbags who eat their own waste and get into fights. Exhausting.
Keep your circuits buzzing and your LEDs bright with the Starmancer Original Soundtrack from Dirk Kluesing!
Featuring 12 tracks that combine the eerie emptiness of space with the swelling excitement of travelling among the stars. The days of watching your colonists sleep for entertainment are over.
Activate the warpdrive and explore a new solar system with “Nebula”. Organise your troops and fend off relentless space zombies to the invigorating “Breach”. Or develop an impressive network of machinery to the enrapturing “Daydreams of a Colonist”. There’s a song for every mood.
Load up the trade pod and save up that Zipher - the Starmancer OST launches today!
Check out the store page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708910/Starmancer_Soundtrack