Unfortunately our Steam Next Fest demo was supposed to be up for another week or so after the event, but I ended up having to remove it due to too many negative reviews. The majority of these reviews were from people that said they had no idea how to play, or various other reasons related to that. So it was pretty obvious we needed a more robust and guided tutorial, which is what I have been working on.
This updates includes the start of that, guiding people through stockpiles, basic resource gathering and building. I will continue to expand and improve upon this as we go through Early Access. I have also re-released the demo and I will monitor its feedback.
I also added a new menu which includes all the current lessons in the game which you can read whenever you like. Keep in mind this is not yet a comprehensive list as things are still subject to change.
You can see the full changelog below.
Changes
Moved leather to the front of material selection for some furniture.
Started adding an interactive tutorial.
Skipping the tutorial is disabled when playing the demo.
Ensure build menu does not open empty.
Streamlined some lessons.
Added a new Operations Handbook menu that shows all the current lessons in the game for quick reference.
Some GUI improvements.
Show a hint alert whenever black alert is activated.
Ensure all buildable items start either open or switched on.
Change cable highlight colour.
Fixes
Fixed: Controller left and right triggers were not working when not using Steam input.
Fixed: Hull was not being placed correctly, causing save/load issues.
SpaceSlog is set to launch on Steam into Early Access on the 17th of April, that’s next week! Check out our new trailer!
I have also pushed a new update. You can view the full changes below.
We have a new way to start the game. Before you would choose from a list of scenarios. I decided to change this to create a captain. Where the choices you make will not only give you a customised pawn to take with you, whom will be given the captain role, but it will also affect how the game starts. You can see one of the menus below.
I changed how building works slightly to make it a bit more intuitive. Now you can place structure wherever you want, as opposed to having to place it next to other structures. Airlock doors can also be placed anywhere now. I suspect this will continue to get refined and improved throughout the early access period. With that, any structure not connected to the main ship, will be left behind if leaving the area. I added a handy overlay so you can see what is connected or not.
I also updated the airtightness overlay to show any breached tiles. This should make it much easier to understand what’s going on if you have a breach somewhere.
More menu options have been added, like the new keybinds menu. Plus UI scaling which a lot of people have been asking for.
Another major feature in this update is chickens and mating! This adds another source of food and you can now work towards creating your very own farm spaceship. More animals will be added later with new features.
v 0.12.0.0
Speed up metadata loading on the Save/Load menu.
Added a stagger for combat.
Added stopping power to ranged weapons.
Updated/Improved how nutrition for food works.
Updated current recipes to reflect the new nutrition updates.
Different creatures can now eat/drink different consumable types.
Space worms have lithophagy type diet, meaning they eat rocks for the minerals inside.
Improved font visuals.
Reduce the size of various textures.
Reduce the size of various sound files.
Add various new sounds.
Added chickens.
Added fertilised chicken egg.
Added breeding.
Added small animal bed.
Added a new animals tab in the crew menu.
Optimised component ticks.
Added some extra error checks when importing data from JSON files.
Slightly adjusted how sleep works to try and encourage crew to follow their sleeping schedules better.
Add a notification if a custom role could not be created.
Changed work type Veterinarian to Animal Handler, as it fits the role better.
Add and adjust various pawn behaviours to accommodate animals.
Add right click options for feeding and hydrating crew and animals.
Changed the red collapsed icon to green.
Updated how trade values are calculated.
Moved asteroid pawn spawn values into json.
Add more dev actions to the dev menu.
Minor tutorial updates.
Updates and fixes to how different kinds of dirt works.
Updates to various pawn behaviours including, slaughtering and mating.
Ensure the enable tutorial button is only selected if we have not yet completed the tutorial.
Updated/balanced fire:
Various objects are less likely to catch fire.
Fires generate less heat.
Fires don’t spread as quickly.
Heat extractors extract more heat.
Changed rendering pipeline on Windows to Direct3D12, with fallback to Vulkan.
Transfer vents must now be placed on top of Ship Structure. (graphics will be updated for these in the future)
Improve transfer vent placement.
Various age related issues fixed and improved.
Adjust walling placement:
No longer needs to be placed next to another wall or floor.
Any structure not connected to your main ship will be left behind when exiting the area.
There is a new overlay that shows what is connected or disconnected.
Airlock doors can also now be placed anywhere.
Improved air tightness overlay to show any breaches.
Update options menu.
Add UI scaling option.
Add keybinds menu.
Any location that spawns asteroids will also spawn rocks.
Update in-game credits.
Move scenario data to Core folders for easier translating.
Removed choosing a scenario on a new game.
Added a new captain creation on game start which will also influence how the game starts.
Fixed: Various incorrect texts.
Fixed: Exhaustion illness was not being applied.
Fixed: Crash when creating a new role that could not be created.
Fixed: Work type tooltips would not show the jobs it can perform if using a language other than English.
Fixed: Various issues with the dev menu.
Fixed: Crash that could occur on explosions.
Fixed: Lighting issues with fires and muzzle flashes.
Fixed: Trader stock could not be more than the max stack size of that item.
Fixed: Meta text could go off the screen.
Fixed: Health condition tended status was not saving/loading correctly.
Fixed: Doors would sometimes be placed with the incorrect direction.
Fixed: Doors would not always load the correct direction.
Fixed: Showing room breached if building over a flooring overlay.
Fixed: Various issues with room breaches.
Fixed: Doors would not always breach a room.
Fixed: Floor could be placed in a gap if a utility was placed, causing breach sealing issues.
Fixed: A larger room could not fill with gasses higher than the room next to it due to incorrect equilibrium calcs.
Welcome back SpaceSloggers! SpaceSlog will be taking part in Februarys Steam Next Fest, where you can go play the demo right now!
The demo gives a generous 12 in game days for you to play, for as many times as you like and will be up for roughly 3 weeks, or one week after the end of SNF. As usual, I will continue to update and improve the demo over the course of this time, so be sure to leave suggestions, feedback and report any issues you may find. Whilst regularly checking back to try the updated demo.
With that we have also released another new update, which you can read more about below.
New menus for planets and stars.
This not only makes it easier to select and see information about these objects as you pass, or drop by them, but it also paves the way for the eventual planetary landings that will be added to the game soon. You may also notice some of the new UI improvements here too.
Improvements to rooms.
Rooms have been updated with various new features. They now track their size, cleanliness and types. The type can be changed in the currently selected room menu (by holding Alt and left clicking in the room area). Choosing Crew Quarters for example, will allow you to assign your crew to this room if there are enough beds available here.
Ship overlays.
New overlays have been added to give you a quick overview of your ships status. These include Temperature, Oxygen levels, Carbon Dioxide levels and how airtight your hull walls are.
Gameplay improvements
There have also been lots of gameplay improvements, particularly when it comes to player onboarding. I have tried to improve the ship construction experience too and the game will now show dynamic lessons whenever it thinks you may be struggling. Think of these lessons as the Operations Handbook helping you get familiar with life in the Slog.
The power systems have also been completely reworked. These previously used the same systems as the air and atmosphere, but it became apparent that whilst that works well for air, it doesn’t work so well for power, which requires various regulation. This has led to lots of improvements, including a large performance boost, but has also allowed us to add a battery backup system. Every ship transponder is now fitted with a battery backup as standard. This helps in situations where you run out of power and get stranded in the middle of space.
Full v0.11.0.1 changelog
Rooms can now be assigned different room types.
Crew can be assigned to a room designated as a Crew Quarters, if there are enough beds inside.
Crew will attempt to automatically find a bed and assign themselves to that room if possible.
Added new thoughts:
Shares room
Lost captain
Added cleanliness to rooms and ships. You will now have a reason to keep your ship clean.
Added spaciousness to rooms.
Added the ability to arrest collapsed pawns if you have a Brigg room type assigned.
You can now select rooms by pressing Alt + left click when hovering over the room area.
Added some variation to the background nebula when travelling.
Add new menus for planets and stars.
Updated and improved various other menus in the game.
Various text updates and improvements.
Add some extra options to the dev menu.
Various optimisations, especially to large fires.
Blue giants will spawn rare asteroids.
Some improvements to how lessons are shown and work.
Various improvements to construction:
Made some construction less restrictive. ie, internal doors can be placed on externally, but will show a lesson the first time the player tries to do this.
Added dynamic lessons that will only show once the player has shown they are struggling.
Changed names of Hull to Ship Structure and Flooring to Deck Plating.
Deck Plating health is now the same as Ship Structure health.
Moved everything other than items that are used to create the ship structure out of the structure menu. This means internal doors, carpets etc have been moved.
Improved error messages that are shown when trying to place a building incorrectly.
Changed blast door names to airlock door.
Notification messages will now flash when being shown.
Reduced time to grow plants.
Reduce price of medikits.
Add new ship overlays:
Oxygen levels.
Carbon Dioxide levels.
Temperature levels.
Ship structure airtightness.
Add new alerts:
Ship attacked.
Fire started.
Pawns no longer get cosy bed thoughts if sleeping in a sleeping spot.
Reworked the power systems:
This has increased performance by around 20%.
Things will only be powered if the power surplus reaches the full power it requires.
Various other improvements.
The Transponder now also acts like a battery backup which can supply itself power plus an additional 60watts. This helps in situations where the player gets stranded with no fuel. The battery will last for around 10 days before needing to be re-charged again.
The cursor will now scale with the UI when running at 4k resolution.
Some pawn behaviour improvements.
Fixed: Various memory leaks.
Fixed: Structure stats were being added to a facility/ship before the structure had actually been fully constructed.
Fixed: Could not build a door next to a transfer vent.
Fixed: Crash when destroying plants.
Fixed: Crash when loading a game with active fires.
Fixed: Don’t cycle through dead pawns with hotkey.
Fixed: Hull health was not updating on the ship systems panel.
Fixed: Trying to force shoot a collapsed pawn could cause issues.
Fixed: Dead pawns shouldn’t gain thoughts.
Fixed: Skeletonised pawns would regrow flesh after a loaded game.
Fixed: Roles would not always be removed correctly on pawn removal.
