Starmancer
Week 2 Patch 0.1.43-190821
- Fixed some door issues, like colonists walking through closed doors
- Moving manual doors to a wall will no longer create an atmosphere leak
- Added a cheat to spawn a zombie and a cuddler, this is for testing purposes, but you can do whatever you want with it
- Zombies will now eat dead bodies
- Added a cap of 30 monsters (cuddlers, zombies, slimes, power leeches). Technically it won't try to spawn a monster if there's 30, so groups of zombies could cause a higher count, but the highest zombie group is 3
- Fixed a bug where items were sometimes very big
- Walls can now be used with the context order system (so constructing and deconstructing)
- Improved performance of lights. This fix will significantly increase performance when floors are affected by multiple light sources
- Fixed search text values for many objects (the search bar in the build menu)
- Fixed a bug where template components (from recipes and other things) were NOT ignored and were being added to entities (like the chem table). This was potentially quite bad and was causing lots of weird behavior. Possibly introduced in the newest Unity version?
- Fixed a bug where wall vent connections didn't persist through loading (this probably affected other similar types of objects too)
- Fixed a bug where items were never removed from planets after warping. This was causing memory leaks (but probably not very big ones)
- Adjusted space rock crafting recipe so that only an oven and ore is required
- Contracts are now removed when their system body is removed. This fixes a bug where loading will cause many asteroids to have quests (because those quests were never removed, so they're floating around, looking for a location)
- Kat notification will now correctly appear after loading (there might be some instances where a message that you previously read is created again, depending on when you made the save)
- Colonist upgrade choices are now saved
- Programming terminal will no longer request biomass
- Increased priority of storage bins so that they'll always be stocked first (the priority is 99)
- Items in storage bins will no longer be sold at trade pods
- Added sounds to a few UI buttons that were lacking them
- Colonists now display "dead" as their status if they're dead
- Colonists and items will no longer be repositioned into doors or airlocks and items abandoned in airlocks will be repositioned
- Fixed a bug where queueing a command while a colonist isn't interruptible (inside an airlock) would cause the command to never be invoked
This is a patch
- Reduced frequency that visitors spawn
- Removed noise morale penalties, because they're weird (why is the player punished for doing things in the correct way?)
- Fixed a load issue with child agents not being found
- Fixed a load crash that would occur if you saved on the same frame that a window requested a UI refresh
- Fixed a bug where sometimes contracts would lose the reference to their location after loading.
- Fixed a bug where wall sides weren't loaded correctly, which could cause crashes and other naughty behavior
- Biowaste in toilets and waste recyclers will no longer create germs
- Fixed a bug where colonists wouldn't correctly remove themselves from airlocks, which would block future colonists from using the airlock until the original user went back through eventually (which couldn't happen, because they'd wait in line)
- Fixed a bug where placing objects on top of items would cause an infinite loop. This would happen when a floor's count of "incoming items" became negative (this is now fixed), which caused the code to think that the floor had space, when it didn't, and then it would keep trying to deposit it to the same floor forever
- The loading bar on UWP (windows store) will no longer ping pong around like a maniac
- Floors with objects on them will no longer turn red when ordering a colonist (they turn red to indicate the floor isn't pathfindable)
- Items will no longer be placed under walls
- Doors no longer create a light source when opened (this was a leftover from the old system where lighting was room based)
- Mental stabilizers will now cure alcoholism, space rock addiction, and all of the negative morale perks
- Rotten food can now be stored on shelves and sold
- Improved lighting performance
Balance Changes
- Seeing a dead body will only affect social, and reduced the amount of morale lost when seeing a dead body (if colonists see the dead body multiple times you'll still get additional penalties)
- Powered doors can now be opened when they have no power, but it's very slow
- Removed free-will level requirements from the tech tree
- Starmancer core now produces less oxygen
- Reduced chance of fire from crafting failure from 15% to 1%
- Reduced the frequency of object maintenance from every day to every 7 days. Reduced the break chance of objects
- Colonists now have a 25% chance to become a maniac when morale is very low (previously it was 100%)
- Colonists now display their lowest morale on the HUD (previously it was an average of all 3 morale values)
To Early Access and Beyond!
We’re genuinely thankful to all our players, especially our backers for the continued feedback and support as we spend Early Access developing Starmancer with your input and thoughts. You’d better be playing the heck out of the game now 🤪
We’ve included a Starmancer Early Access Starmap below. As expected, things may change during development and based on input from the community (which we’re already compiling and working on) but initially we’re focusing on quality-of-life improvements and bug fixing. To reiterate, we’re a 2-man team so please be patient as we work on addressing your feedback.
Once again, thanks for being awesome and blasting off with us into Early Access 🚀 Like the fires that break out in your space stations, you’re the oxygen we use to blaze on 🔥
If you haven’t already, be sure to follow us on Discord, Facebook and Twitter so you can stay up-to-date with Starmancer Early Access.
Toodles 👨🏽🚀
Loading Hotfix
- Fixed a save crash from saving while a door is open
- Fixed a crash in window population (this could occur while playing)
Window tabs are now always enabled when you open a window
Hotfix for menu crash
- Also squeezed in a fix to a loading bug from saving the game while any menu was open (like in an autosave)
Starmancer launches in one week!
Where can I buy Starmancer and for how much?
Starmancer will launch on August 5th here on Steam at £16.99/€19.99/$19.99 or your regional equivalent.
Will Starmancer be localised in ?
For Early Access, we’re sticking with English for quicker and more flexible build updates. We’re keen to offer more language options so please let us know what languages you’d like to see Starmancer in and we can re-evaluate closer to 1.0.
Where can I submit feedback and bug reports for Starmancer?
While developing Starmancer during Early Access, we encourage feedback from the community, including any bug reports. Players can report a bug in-game by selecting the “Give Feedback” option (this is the preferred option as it includes meta data and logs). Players can also submit bug reports through our Official Discord and Steam forums.
Will Starmancer be coming to ?
We’re currently focusing on developing and improving the game further for PC, Linux and Mac. We’ll keep an eye on community feedback for any potential future platform considerations.
What will be added during Early Access?
We’ve got plenty of ideas of what to add during Early Access. Initially, we’ll be focusing on quality-of-life improvements for a better overall experience, with content following shortly after. This gives the community time to get deeper into the game and share suggestions/ideas.
Will the game support mods?
Yes! We look forward to seeing what our talented community comes up with. We’re also looking into Steamworks integration - stay tuned.
Can I stream Starmancer?
For sure! We’re excited to see how our community tackles the challenges of running their own space station.
CORSAIR iCUE Integration
We’re excited to announce a partnership with CORSAIR where Starmancer will feature iCUE dynamic RGB lighting integration for CORSAIR hardware to enhance your immersion while exploring deep space in Starmancer. Keep an eye out on CORSAIR’s and Chucklefish’s social media for game keys and hardware giveaways. Here's a sneak preview:
[previewyoutube="v60qAOHY1Ow;full"]
Content Creators
If you’re a content creator that’s interested in covering Starmancer, complete this form to request a key.
We hope this helps clear up some of the more common questions out there but for further queries, reach out to us on our social media. You can find us on Discord, Facebook and Twitter.
Until next time 👋🏽
Starmancer Early Access Release Date!
Here’s the announcement trailer that was just shown during the Future Games Show E3 2021 showcase:
[previewyoutube="mRcb_ypY1Uw;full"]
You can still pre-order for a discounted price, to get a Steam (or GoG) key automatically on release day.
If you like the look of our game and want to hear more, wishlist on Steam and join our Discord community. Wishlisting also boosts our visibility and gives us better metrics for which languages to look into translating in the future!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1062000/Starmancer/
Early Access
So, why Early Access? Our plan has always been to release Starmancer and continue adding new, free content for a long time (until way after it's responsible).
We have high level plans for post launch (e.g. weapons, livestock, bots, genetic augmentation), but our most important goal is to be as flexible as possible and address the least fun areas of the game.
The element of fun adds a constant, unknowable cost. It's not easy to play your own game and figure out what's fun and what’s not, especially as a 2 person dev-team. That’s why we need your help. We want you to show us what you like about Starmancer (we'll add more of it), but also tell us what you don't like. If another game does something better, we want to know about it! Maybe they solved the same problem we’re having—good—everyone benefits from a great solution.
On a more personal note: we want to make something that's fun. There's a person out there having a bad day, and we want to make something that makes their day slightly less bad. We're not trying to make a game with a profound message, or to prove how "creative" we are.
It's a game. Games should be fun.
There's extra info, and a more in-depth report on what we've recently added to Starmancer on our website) and we’ll be posting an update back here soon.
Starmancer is releasing into Early Access on August 5th, and I hope to see you there!
(Don't forget to tell your friends)
-Tyler
Discord: discord.gg/starmancer
Twitter: @StarmancerGame
Reddit: r/playstarmancer
YouTube: Ominux Games
Beta Coming March 31st!
Once Beta launches, we’ll be removing it from the pre-order store, so if you want Beta access, you’ll have to buy it before then. Please don’t view this as a “fear-of-missing-out” tactic. If you want to wait until release, that’s totally fine.
Here is a link to the pre-order page.
On Wednesday, you’ll receive an email with a Steam code. It will be sent to the email you provided during the Kickstarter or through pre-order. If you need to change the email, contact us right away. You can send a Discord private message or email us at ominuxgames@gmail.com
If you want to upgrade your pre-order to Beta, contact us
Video
Here's me talking about the Beta (the content is about the same as this post), and also 90 minutes of raw gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6Yp8kBOppY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38WxyoppuBQ
Beta Purpose
Beta will last from now until release, so if you have Beta it’s sort of like the game is releasing, but in a less fun state.
During Beta we’re going to fix bugs, add features and do a lot of balance changes over time. Things like: how frequently fire spawns, sell price of ice, morale penalties, hunger drain rate, etc.
We might add some new content, but primarily we want to take what already exists, and make it more fun—improving the sandbox. Quality of life is also very important to us at this stage.
Please keep in mind that we’re a 2-person team, so it can be difficult to do QA, playtesting, community management, and add new stuff at the same time.
Discord
Here is a link to our Discord server. @Tyler with whatever you want, and I’ll go into unnecessary detail about the atmosphere system and colonist limbs.
In-Game Feedback
You can submit feedback directly in-game, by opening the escape menu.
You can also write feedback directly on the Discord.
It all gets read, so do whatever is easier for you.
If your game crashes, it will automatically be sent to us, so no further action required on your part (except for uninstalling)!
New Stuff
That’s the meat of Beta. Now here’s some new stuff that we’ve added since the Steam demo, in no particular order.
You may already know some of it.
I’m skipping minor things, bug fixes, quality of life, etc.
New UI
We completely overhauled the UI in Starmancer. The new UI is a bit less obtrusive and allows for way more information to be displayed in a cleaner way.
Build Menu
The Build Menu now looks like this:
Categories that haven’t been unlocked are now hidden (health is a category, for example, and includes the Incubation Tank).
You can right click objects to view aesthetic variations, this removes a tremendous amount of redundant entries.
Object Windows
Object windows are now docked to the lower left corner of the screen, with hidetable tabs.
This means you can only select 1 thing at a time, but playtesters almost never deliberately selected multiple things—the old UI was a pop-up nightmare!
The previously selected tab is remembered for the next time you open a window for the same object. So if the health tab is selected, it will be the default tab for all colonists (until you select something else).
You can also rename colonists and rooms now.
Flavor Stats
We added some fun things to the hud, like a death tracker and day counter.
Production Order UI
The production order UI was improved. The amount of information displayed was reduced, and you can now view all assigned colonists, and their respective success chances.
You can assign and unassign colonists directly from this menu. Clicking a colonist will open their object window.
Moving Objects
Objects can now be moved after they’re built (I talked about this in more depth in a previous post).
Movement is free and instant, and could definitely be cheesed to trap colonists. Do what you will with this information.
Tech Tree
We completely removed the old unlock system and added a Tech Tree as most people didn’t like the arbitrary nature of the previous system. In this new tech tree, you can focus on whatever you want in whatever order you want
Research has no requirements, except for Colonist Ego level (explained below) and Colonists perform research as a job task, at the Research Station.
Colonist Changes
Colonists received many changes - to the point that they’re hardly even the same thing that that they used to be.
Ego Level
Colonists now have an ego level—basically their overall “intelligence”. This can be upgraded by spending DNA Fragments. I’ve covered this before, but the system has now been simplified into:
- Drones
- Autonomous
- Supreme
Drones receive almost no morale penalties, but they never socialize, have low competence, are incapable of most free-time activities, and their skills are capped at level 3. Drones will eat the same food every day and never complain, but it might take them a few tries to do basic tasks.
Autonomous colonists can be thought of as “normal” humans. They’re neither good or bad at anything, but they get upset if they eat Biowaste. They’re also creeped out by Drones, because Drones are creepy. Autonomous colonists can socialize and form friendships and enemies.
Supreme colonists are the best. They have a boost to both research time and skill experience gained. Their success chance at everything is much higher. But they will not stand for any sub-standard station conditions. They also despise all lower Egos and will never positively interact with anyone beneath them.
Buying Colonists (and selling)
Colonists can now be directly bought. The player can buy as many as they want, but the active colonist count is limited based on Player Level. At the start, the player can have 3 active colonists.
Every colonist has a unique cost, based on their perks and task preferences.
You can reroll the colonists as many times as you like, but you only get 1 free roll per day. After that, the cost is 10 DNA Fragments. All rerolls are free before you buy your first 3 colonists.
Colonists can be sold at any time for a 100% refund. You’ll receive extra DNA Fragments and Credits if the colonist has earned any skills.
Job Tasks (and preferences)
The old job system is gone. Colonists are now assigned tasks. Each task can be prioritized for every colonist.
Certain colonists love, hate, or outright refuse specific tasks
We decided to do this style instead of the grid layout that many similar games use (where all workers have numbers for priorities and you can see all of them at the same time). I always get super overwhelmed by that style.
You lose the ability to get a broad overview of all task priorities, though
Job Schedule
You can now create custom job schedules and assign colonists to whatever shift you want.
Internally, this removes some burden from us. If your colonists aren’t spending enough time eating or if they need more free time, it’s now more of your fault (although still mostly our fault).
Go To Floor (and return to source)
Once colonists are Autonomous, you can order them to walk to any floor. Use this to keep colonists away from fire or to force them to fight a monster. It’s also very useful for the times that your colonists get stuck doing something, because you can rescue them (technically you could always rescue them by venting atmosphere and regrowing them).
This is not a “draft” mode (but we’re not opposed to adding draft mode).
We also added a “Return to Source” button, which is handy for when you want to grow a different colonist.
Colonists must have positive morale for both orders to work.
Uniforms
You can now change the uniform color of colonists.
Use whatever color convention you want. Maybe you change uniform based on assigned tasks, ego level, or how much you like each colonist.
New Perks
Since the player can now buy colonists, they consent to whatever weird traits everyone has. This gives us way more perk freedom (previously, it wasn’t fun if your random colonists had really bad perks).
Here are some of the new perks:
- Average Joe — This is their only perk
- Blue Skin — Skin is blue
- Faint Hearted — Extra morale penalties from seeing blood
- Germaphobe — Extra morale penalties from Biowaste. Refuses to sleep on floor
- Incontinent — Randomly poops, even in space
- Potty Mouth — Randomly swears
- Multiple Personality — Acquires a random perk each day
- Nyctophobia — Sleeps with the lights on
New Systems
There are a few new “systems” in the game. We think of Starmancer (and games like it) as more of “sandboxes in which interesting things happen” and less as games. The sandbox should have enough interesting systems in it that the player can do whatever weird things they want to do.
Hygiene
Biowaste now creates germs. Colonists track germs around the station. The sanitizer removes germs, but must be stocked with Cleaning Solution, created at the Chemistry Table.
If colonists are on a dirty floor they can get sick. The current diseases are:
- The Runs — It’s gonna get messy
- Fever — Colonist is very hot, and must be put into a cold room
- The Chills — Colonist is very cold, and must be put into a warm room
Food will decay faster in the presence of germs. Rotten food also creates germs.
Colonists have a chance to get sick if they eat either rotten food or Biowaste.
Germs won’t spread in cold rooms, and they’ll be completely destroyed if you heat up a room.
Noise
Machines now emit noise while production is occurring. Colonists have reduced morale in noisy rooms.
Sleep is also less effective in noisy areas.
Noise doesn’t spread to separate rooms (unless they share the same atmosphere), so place machinery away from bedrooms and common areas.
If colonists are in a loud room for too long, they’ll go deaf.
Beauty
Objects now have a beauty rating. Some are ugly, like Bedrolls and Fungus Collectors. Others, like posters and toilets are pretty.
Colonist morale and competence is affected by area beauty. Decorate your station to keep everyone happy.
Most cosmetics have the same rating, so place whatever you like best.
Floor Storage
Items are now stored on floors, and item filters are room-wide. So once you set the items that are stored in a room, all shelves and floors placed in that room will automatically store whatever you specify.
New Objects
We added a bunch of new objects too
- Gun Range — Free-Time object right now
- Target Dummy — Reduces aggression
- Jukebox — Free-Time
- Arcade Machine — Free-Time
- Casino Table — Free-Time
- TV — Free-Time
- Cryptominer — Passively generates credits
- Sanitizer — Removes germs
- Water Purifier — Converts Dirty Water into Clean Water
Here’s the movie that plays on the TV, because it’s pretty neat:
Visitors
The world felt a bit empty, so we added some visitors. We’re still finishing up the art for some of them (so enjoy the placeholder art during Beta).
Most visitors drop DNA Fragments, Upgrade Modules, or Recipe Caches if you kill them. Most visitors can be farmed for items.
- Zombie — Infects colonists. Eats dead colonists. Will die in high heat
- Power Moth (this name is tentative) — Seeks an active wire. Drains a lot of power. Once the drain is finished, it drops loots and vanishes
- Cuddler — Infects colonists. A mysterious egg erupts from their chest, killing them. Repeat. Mysterious eggs now have a chance to randomly hatch. Warm rooms greatly increase the hatch chance
- Malfunctioning Robot — Overheating. Moves to any room that’s cold. Is harmless if in a cold room. Otherwise very hostile. Will fight zombies. Drops silicon randomly while alive. Drops moonshine on death
- Slime — Aggressive while hungry. If fed anything it will be passive until it gets hungry again. Drops Goolerium randomly (this is a new item that is used at the Chemistry Table. Also added a Goolerium asteroid)
- Shambler — Colonists turn into this if they’re outside during a system warp. It’s some sort of aggressive monster.
Visitors spawn on external floors, and prefer floors near Trade Pods (to prevent cheesing)
Right now the spawns are completely random. A visitor spawns every 5 to 10 days.
We’re looking for ways to make this less random, but it’s not super easy, because there’s no terrain/floor around the outside of the station. The player also shouldn’t have to do something to make visitors spawn. The gameplay intent is something like, “Oh no, there are zombies at the front door. I better keep everyone inside or send out some colonists to fight the monsters”. So in that sense it should be randomish, and definitely not an “opt-in” system.
We’re fine with the player increasing spawn chance by placing lots of raw meat outside or something.
Rules of Engagement
We added a Rules of Engagement (RoE) UI. Use it to set creatures to either kill-on-sight or ignore.
Monster combat follows the same rules as colonist combat. Pacifists will never fight monsters. Upset colonists will attack creatures regardless of RoE settings.
We also implemented the turret. It requires bullets crafted at the workbench. Turrets have low accuracy, and have a chance of damaging anything in the vicinity of the target—machines or colonists.
Contracts
We made a first pass at a “Quest” system, called “Contracts”.
Every system has a random amount of contracts. Contracts award Upgrade Modules, Money, DNA Fragements, Recipe Caches, and Player Experience (as you level up you can have more colonists active at the same time)
The required item is totally random, but it’s gated based on highest skill level of your colonists. So if you have a high level chemist, you’ll start to see high level chemistry items. The intent is to provide variety, and to occasionally encourage the player to try something new.
If you don’t like the contracts, just go to a new system
Warp Drive
We simplified the warp system into a “pick 1 of 3” systems, with no going back.
There’s really no reason for the player to ever return to a system and there’s a performance hit from never despawning systems. Right now everything is saved into 1 big folder, and then loaded indiscriminately. Fixing it would take time, but we only have 1 programmer (me).
Systems have random conditions, like cold and radioactive.
They also have a “dominant faction”. The dominant faction increases the sell price of certain items. Eventually this might influence visitor spawn rates or something.
If we have time, we want to convert this into an FTL style selection, where you get a simple map and can see 1 or 2 choices into the future
Thanks for all the fish
Everything has an opportunity cost. Do we delay release, cut this content, or cut some other content. There’s no end to what we want to add to the game. The hard part is prioritizing and working on whatever makes the game the most fun. It’s not easy. We don’t always choose correctly. Sometimes you try something and it’s just not fun.
But we always try. I don’t know what other devs do. We’re human, doing our best. We don’t delay for insidious reasons or marketing reasons (we’re 2 people, it barely needs to sell for us to keep working).
Thanks for sticking through with us. We don’t always communicate but we’ve never stopped working.
Beta starts next week, which is March 31st, and will continue forever (you won’t lose access before or after release). So if you have Beta it’s sort of like the game is releasing, but in a less fun state.
Thanks!