Hi Everybody!

We’re happy to bring you a Summer Beta Update!
Update it as usual from Itch.io to get the latest version.

As you see from the change list there are quite a few new things in this patch. The two biggest of which are the top bar and the fast forward. These let you easily access key information at any time and speed the game up when needed, respectively.

Note: There is a known bug where some audio can get stuck playing continuously. If this happens to you, you can remedy it by simply exiting to the main menu and loading the save. If this happens we would appreciate a bug report on our discord server.

New Features

• Added the Top Bar, shows key information at all times in the top left of the screen.
  
• Added Game Speed Controls, you can now fast forward the game by pressing the icon in the top left
  
• corner of the game or by pressing your Space bar.
  
• Added Groovy Effects while fast forwarding.
  
• Added new Tooltips for crew/inspect nodes/books.
  
• Added new Overview Panel
  
• Added new H.I.N.T.S. Panel.
  
• Added Crew Numbering to help keep track of who’s who.
  
• More Music.
  
• More Sound Effects.

Improvements

• Slimmed down the Omnipad meshes.
  
• You can now skip splash screens by pressing Escape.
  
• Fixed Rolodex Interactions.
  
• Many Audio updates and fixes.
  
• Improvements to AstroFleet and away missions.
  
• Various balancing fixes.
  
• Improved how the game handles different aspect ratios.
  
• A ton of bugfixes and improvements!

Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at http://discord.gg/jellyfishgames

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our http://patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

We have now released the second (non-hotfix) beta update.

Also, this week we put out an upgrade path for Kickstarter backers who want to get to play the beta.
If that’s you, check the updates on Kickstarter!

Anyway, here’s the patch notes for Astrobase Command 0.4.3 Closed Beta:

— Can now pin desk objects closer to the camera.
— Font upgrade in progress.
— Smog should no longer build up as fast.
— Many bug fixes.

Astrobase Command is now feature complete. Or, in other words, it’s Beta time!
This means we are looking at bugfix and polish as we move forward.

We want to take this opportunity to thank you for playing the game in it’s alpha state and continuing to play it as we enter the next phase.

If you want to get in touch, come join the community on our Discord server.
Also, we’ve created a survey to get a better understanding of how you guys are liking the game, if you want to help guide us as we move forward to release, please fill it out.
You can find buttons to both our Discord server and the survey in the main menu (before getting ingame) and in the pause menu (when you are already ingame).

Looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Adam, Cam, Daniel, Dave, and Max

Station Features
— You can now Salvage modules on the station after building a Repair Shop.
— Modules now blow up better.

Engine
— Upgraded the game engine, this allows us to more easily deliver a higher quality game with a longer shelf-life.
— Reworked procedural textures to be compatible with the new engine version.

Audio
— Upgraded the sound engine to create a higher quality soundscape with more powerful tools.
— Entirely replaced all audio with much better and more well suited sounds.

Astrofleet Features
— Mission content has been greatly upgraded, with many more choices for characters to make, and the ability for players to interact with those choices.
— Find Cryosleepers to add to your station crew, or Killbot Probes to blow up by scanning planets.
— Cryopassengers on ships are now displayed.
— Having all of a spaceship’s crew die will now send the spaceship back to base.

Misc
— Crew will now change into spacesuits when going into a module without air
— Task Tracker entries can now be sorted
— Video resolutions can now be changed from settings menu
— Shadows can now be disabled from settings menu
— Many, many, bug fixes, balance tweaks, and polish items

Hot Fix
–UI Scale should never be 0.
–Playing with rolodex cards should no longer mess up desk interactions.
–Fixed bug with modules having some code run twice when it shouldn’t.

We have finally reached the Astrobase Command Beta phase!

It took a bit longer than we all wanted it to but we think it has been worth it. We think the game is in very good shape for an initial beta launch.

If you play it and think we have succeeded and this is a great beta or that we have failed and it is the worst beta we’d love to hear from you.

In fact we want to hear from you even if you played the game and have any opinion between the two extremes too.



To get this feedback to us you can find a button in the Main Menu and in the Pause Menu that says [SURVEY], as well as a button in each location that says Discord. Click these buttons to fill out our Beta Survey and to join our Discord Community respectively.

We want to take this opportunity to give an especially big thank you to our lovely Kickstarter Beta backers who have waited for so long since so patiently:

Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts! We couldn’t have made it without your support.


Depending on who you ask they will have different definitions of Alpha and Beta.

What we mean when we say it is this:
Alpha, a version of the game that runs but is missing major features and will change greatly through the alpha process.
Beta, a version of the game that has all the major features and needs bugfix, polish, and feedback from players.



Additionally our Alpha as well as our Beta are Closed, which is also a term that can mean different things.

So here is our definition of Closed and what it means for the Beta:
You are able to buy Beta Access if you didn’t catch the Kickstarter and play the game right now.
You can not share footage, images, etc of Astrobase Command outside of the designated Beta channel on our Discord.

However, if you are a creator and want to create content as we open up the gates, please get in touch with us at info@jellyfish.games

So with the Astrobase Command Beta phase you can buy (or access if you already backed us at a beta or higher tier) the game and play it right now. But you can’t make videos or other content off of it until we open things up.


You can buy a copy of the game at either our webpage or from our itch page.

If you just want the game you should get the Basic Beta Edition.

If you want more than just the base game (in-game trinkets, the soundtrack, your name in the game, etc) you should get the Beta Edition or the Super Beta Edition and you will receive them when they become available.


Yes, you can go to our Patreon and pledge some long term support to help us bring more projects spawned from creativity to life.




We have just sent out the keys to our Beta backers, to the email used on Kickstarter when backing the campaign.

If you backed us at Beta or higher and haven’t gotten your access, get in touch with us and we will sort things out.

The easiest way to get in touch is through our Discord.


First, we’re going to do the remaining things surrounding putting out the initial Beta.

After that we’re going to keep improving the game while gathering feedback to help guide our work.

Once we’re at a point where we’re happy with the game to be released we’ll put out the full release version.



Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at https://discord.gg/jellyfishgames

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our https://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

Welcome back aboard!

Hello to all! All crews have returned from offworld and all hands are back on deck.

Daniel – @Polygonatron

Hi Everybody!

This week I jumped straight into making another pass over the game to figure out if there are some things that need to make sounds that aren’t currently on our list of things that should make sounds. I found a whole bunch of things during this process, this should hearing what’s up in Astrobase Command a whole lot easier!

Dave – @Dave_Astrobase

Hey guys, this week I’ve been working on a procedural main storyline hooking in from the intro. So at first glance it will be an intro upgrade, and then the stories will go somewhere.

Cam

Hi guys,

This week I’ve been looking into upgrading the engine to gain access to new features and adding analytics to the game to help identify bottlenecks in play.

Max – @Max_Shields

Hello all,

I’ve been working on some test ads and other marketing stuff. Oh, and dealing with barfing kids. Lots and lots of barf. Soooooo much barf.

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Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us on Discord https://discord.gg/xWUJShH

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our Patreon https://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

Even astrobases have some sweet vacation spots.

We’re going to take a couple weeks to recharge our batteries while our pasty, troglodytic flesh can feel the breeze without having to wear an environmental suit to keep from freezing solid in an instant. Here’s a shiny screenshot and a short dev update to hold you over until we get back online!

Daniel – @Polygonatron

Hi Everybody!

This last week I’ve been working on the COMLINK Datapad App.

If it’s worth it to we might be able to use it to integrate interactive community features into the game with it as a base. However, that’s a lot of work as things are right now so no promises.

For now though, you can use it to find your way to our Discord Community!

Max – @Max_Shields

Hello, everyone!

I spent the last week continuing my marketing research and developing a concept video ad. I’ve got a few more concepts to put together in the coming days. Down the way, we may call on our Alpha backers to run some A-B testing on the adds to find the most effective message and format.

Patch Notes

We put out a new build last Tuesday. You can find more information on all the changes here.

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Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at https://discord.gg/xWUJShH

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

It’s pretty being green

Daniel – @Polygonatron

Hi Everybody!

This week I’ve been wrapping up the work on the new graphics for store fronts. If I do say so myself, it looks so much nicer now that all the graphical updates basically since the Kickstarter are shown off.

Happy Midsummer Everybody!

Max – @Max_Shields

Hi All!

After wrapping up work on terminal screens and getting them into the game with Daniel’s help, I’ve turned my attention to [REDACTED] in order to [REDACTED] so that we can [CLASSIFIED ASTRAL BLUE] . Did I mention that the terminals look nice now? Lookit the pretty lights!

In all seriousness, I’ve been researching how we can begin cranking up our presence on the interwebs and beyond, as it has been a long time since we’ve been noisy.

Dave – @Dave_Astrobase

Hey guys!

So much progress has been made. Mainly I’ve been focused on the early game, in a play->find things I hate->fix loop. There is also new functionality to the Crew App so you can see emotives and relationships so you can better see what’s going on and the game should be a lot more playable in general.

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Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at discord.gg/jellyfishgames

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

A lost Cryoship beckons.

Daniel – @Polygonatron

Hi Everybody!

This week I’ve continued work on the new store page graphics and added a dash of admin.

Also, this week was the National Day of Sweden! Happy Sweden peoples!

Cam

Hi Guys.

This week I have continued working on social areas for your crew. Also I have made a change to construction which should make it feel more sensible.

Max – @Max_Shields

Hi everyone,

I’ve almost wrapped up work on designing the terminal art. Next step will be implementing the screens so you can see them across the station.

Dave – @Dave_Astrobase

Hey guys,

This week I’ve been playing lots of the game and doing bugfix, balance, and polish as I run into things!

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Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at https://discord.gg/xWUJShH

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our https://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!

Sunshine of the eternal nebula.

Daniel – @Polygonatron

Hi Everybody!

This week I’ve been working mainly on getting new images and graphics to replace what we currently have on storefronts, webpages, etc. As well as playtesting the 0.3.8 Closed Alpha build we put out earlier.

Max – @Max_Shields

Hi everyone!

After wrapping up the 300+ emblem creator components, I’ve turned my attention to creating some terminal screens to replace the old asteroid shooter that is displayed on every screen in the station. These will provide a variety of colour and pattern variations to help diversify the station’s visual landscape.

Cam

Hi guys,

Recently I’ve been working on the new batteries and bug fixing. Currently I’m working towards making social areas for the crew.

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Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us at https://discord.gg/xWUJShH

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our https://www.patreon.com/jellyfishgames

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command if you haven’t already!

A selection of emblems made with the Astrobase emblem creator


We’ve had our noses to the grindstone working on a number of features, improvements to visualizing character behavior, and getting backer rewards up and working. It’s time for us to pop up for a breather to give you a well-deserved glimpse into one of the features we have been working on.

We’re always looking for ways to let you customize as much of the station and its crew as possible. One of those ways we’ve discussed in the past is to add personalized emblems to the station. Rather than giving you a set of fixed emblems to select from, we’ve created an emblem creator that will let you make the one you want.


The emblems will be visible in many places around your station

Using many of more than 300 different components, you’ll be able to scale, rotate, translate, colorize each to assemble a a glorious emblem with which to adorn your station.

You’ll have access to simple geometry, alphanumeric symbols, and more complex shapes to mix and match. As you can see from the examples we’ve included, your imagination is pretty much the limit. Each of these will be available for you to use in your stations. You’ll also be able to use these as templates to modify and personalize to your liking.


Novacakes: they're out of this world!


You’ll receive an early edition of the emblem maker with which you’ll be able to design your own emblem. We’ll then add it to the list or pre-generated emblems that all players will have access to.


We put out a Astrobase Command 0.3.7 Closed Alpha Patch on April 24th, but haven’t issued an official notice to date. Here are the Patch Notes:

Changes:

• Emblems have been added to the game,
  
• More planet missions added.
  
• Cancel options added to Module builder.
  
• New loading screen added.
  
• Crew will now look around the station.
  
• Game intro and tutorial has been changed.

Want to chat with us or other players about the game? Come join us on Discord.

Interested in supporting the work we’re doing on an ongoing basis? Check out our Patreon.

Remember to Wishlist Astrobase Command on Steam if you haven’t already!