Developers often say how excited they are by their latest release or update but it couldn't be more true in this case. Main Update 6 brings both leaderboards and achievements and I can't wait to see you guys battling it out.

During development, Space Bob's design was built around a deep scoring mechanic and difficulty curve that extends way beyond what most players experienced in the past. With the addition of leaderboards this is all about to change. Players are going to need to develop totally new strategies, and explore every possibility, to have a chance of reaching and holding on to the #1 spot and new changes to the scoring system will only make this even more exciting.

Not only will the new leaderboards push players to find new strategies, but Space Bob now includes a new Score Multiplier System.
• For each objective completed, the multiplier will increase by 1.
  
• For every 100,000 points of salvage collected the multiplier will increase by 1.
• Defeating each Replicon Station is considered an objective.
  
• Collecting each Power Cube in Act 3 is considered an objective.

So that's a total of 7 objectives and an x8 multiplier to your score. Combine this by learning how to salvage the most valuable loot and you can push that well past an x10 multiplier for some truly huge scores.

How does it work?

• Complete objectives, collect power cubes, and salvage loot to increase the score multiplier.
  
• Reaching the jump-gate alive increases your 'Total Score' which is immediately uploaded to the leaderboards.
  
• 'Total Score' is then carried over into your next and all subsequent games, until you die. Total Score is reset to zero upon death and you'll need to start building it again.
  
• Reaching the jump-gate also RESETS YOUR MULTIPLIER. This encourages a risk vs. reward scoring mechanic. If you try to complete all objectives in a single game, without going to the jump-gate, your score multiplier will grow huge but you risk losing it ALL if you die. Do you play it safe and lock in your score on the leaderboards or do you go for glory and risk it all for a massive multiplier? It's up to you.

There are four different leaderboards to compete on.

• Invasion Mode - Total Score
  
• Invasion Mode - Single Game Score
  
• Exploration Mode - Total Score
  
• Exploration Mode - Single Game Score.
  
  A single game is considered any run from the start to the jump-gate. It doesn't matter which act you are in. It doesn't even matter if you've survived to the jump-gate multiple times in a row. As long as it's from a fresh start (no upgrades in a new system) through to the jump-gate it's classed as a 'Single Game Score'.
  
  'Total Score' is a combination of all scores achieved on a single life. You can potentially play forever, go through the jump-gate 100 times, and your total score will keep increasing until the moment you die. The moment you die it's reset to zero and you'll need to try again. Each time you go through the jump-gate your 'Total Score' will be uploaded if it beats your previous best score.
  
  You can find the leaderboards in the 'Score' panel in the escape menu. Many of you will also be pleased to know that you can filter the results to only see your friends allowing you to have your own personal leaderboard to fight over.

On your way to mastering the game and reaching that #1 leaderboard spot you can now take on the first wave of achievements that have been added. They'll challenge you to reach specific scores but also survive over multiple games. You'll be tasked with feats like collecting all the upgrades in a single game and ultimately beating the entire game in a single run before going to the jump-gate.

The achievement system is currently fully functional but does not yet have an in-game UI. The Steam achievement UI is more than up to the job for the next few days while the in-game UI is developed for added convenience. This will come as a patch to Main Update 6 hopefully before the end of the week.
EDIT: Work on the UI went smoothly so build 0.831 is already live with the new in-game achievements UI implemented. You access it from the Score panel - the same place as the new leaderboards.

• Steamworks Integration Added
  
• Steam leaderboards added
  
• Steam achievements added
  
• New score multiplier system added
  
• Save file system updated. Older save and data files are no longer valid.
  
• Dave's message panel is now hidden when entering the menus/options.
  
• Bonus salvage score added for inserting Power Cubes into the Mega Cube.
  
  • 40,000 for the first power cube.
    
  • 50,000 for the second power cube.
    
  • 60,000 for the third power cube.
    
  • 70,000 for the fourth power cube.
• Power cube icons now appear on the system map as soon as the mega cube is installed.
  
• Fixed a minor issue where Dave would inform Bob, at the start of the game, that a Replicon defense station had just arrived if the player loaded a game save where the defense station had already appeared.
  
• Fixed a similar issue where Dave would inform Bob of Replicon drop ships arriving immediately after re-starting a saved game.
  
• Changes made to the High Score panel on the Score Screen.
  
  The old High Score panel recorded your highest 'Total Score' ever achieved, the most times you had ever escaped without dying, and the longest you had ever survived without dying.
  However, the new leaderboards are all based on score. Your leaderboard highscore will show how long you survived in that specific game, and how many times you used the jump gate in that specific game. To keep things intuitive, the normal score screen high score panel now conforms to this new system and shows the number of escapes and time for the specific game that the highscore was achieved in.
• Fixed a bug with the in-game estimated total score UI while playing exploration mode. It was previously adding the currently saved total score from invasion mode rather than exploration mode.
  
• Changed the key bind tips panel wording during the tutorial to show (HOLD) after the open/close hatch controls to avoid any possible confusion for how these controls work.
  
• Increased the dead zones slightly on analog controls to help prevent unwanted ghost input from attached but not currently used controllers.
  
• Fixed a save game bug that could cause a single planet to appear in multiple places in the map instead of creating a new instance for each planet. It's normal to see the same planet design more than once on the map but the bug was causing those similar planets to be literally the same planet. It's now fixed. This did not occur unless loading from a save.

Hi all. I hope you are all doing well and enjoying Main Update 5 released last week.

You may or may not have noticed that Space Bob requires a large update. The reason for this is that a new 64bit version of the game has been uploaded. This is what you are downloading. The previous version was 32bit only, but we now have two versions of the game - one for each OS.

The reason for this is that Facepunch Studios Steamworks is currently being implemented into Space Bob so that we can have leaderboards, achievements, and maybe some other steamworks goodies. One of the first issues while setting this up was the discovery that leaderboards are not currently supported on 32bit systems. This may or not be a permanent issue but thankfully only a tiny percentage of Steam users are still running 32bit Windows. The game will continue to run on 32bit systems but without the upcoming leaderboards.

Steam will automatically re-download and update you to the new 64bit version of Space Bob as long as you haven't disabled automatic updates. There are no noticeable changes in this build other than the version number will now read 0.8201 on the main menu screen.

However, behind the scenes there's some new code that will be talking to Steam to help test the new Steamwork integration.


This 64bit update includes some new code that will send a random high-score to the new Space Bob leaderboards on Steam whenever you launch the game.

You don't need to do anything other than launch the game and wait a few seconds for this process to happen. This will confirm that your game is successfully communicating scores to the leaderboards but will also help to facilitate the development of the new in-game leaderboard UI over the next couple of weeks, so please do quick launch of the game whenever you have the time to help out.


There are two big jobs to implement before Update 6 will go live. There's the full implementation of leaderboards but also a big rework to the current scoring system and it's UI. The new system is going to have a score multiplier that increases as each of the game's main objectives are completed. (Eg, Defeating replicon stations and collecting power cubes.) The more objectives you complete before going through the jump gate the higher the score multiplier will grow.

This will encourage Bob to do as much as possible before going to the jump-gate to increase his Total Score. Only then will his Total Score be updated to the leaderboards. If you take too many risks and die before you get there then your total score will be reset to zero (as it does already). However, after reaching the jump-gate, and updating your leaderboard score, you can continue with that game to increase your score further but your multiplier will be reset. This is how the game's Total Score system already works but after the next update the score multiplier system is going to allow for scores ten times higher than can be achieved currently in the same time frame.

Don't worry, you will still be able to save your game at any time, and build up your Total score over multiple game sessions. As long as Bob doesn't die, his Total Score will be sent to the leaderboards upon going through the jump-gate no matter how many times you save, reload, or use the jump-gate.



The game doesn't actually have any servers but the equivalent of a server wipe is going to happen. Your previous high scores, game saves, and entire game progress is going to be reset. This is an unfortunate necessity. Many of the game's data files are going to be updated to help prevent cheating and thus they will no longer be compatible after the next update.


Don't worry too much about losing your high-scores though; you are going to be able to get much much higher scores after the update. However, if you are currently deep into the game you may want to try and finish your playthrough over the next week or so to prevent losing that progress.


I can't wait to get the new scoring system and leaderboards implemented. I think they are going to add so much replayability and challenge to the game. Being able to compete against other players is going to be great but the new score mulitiplier system is also going to encourage totally new ways to play the game where huge risks convert to huge scores but with the chance of losing it all if you die.

If you want to prove you're the best Bob out there, it's time to practice. The very highest scores will be from players who do everything in a single game : defeat the first replicon station, then the second, then collect all the power cubes, and finally defeat the mothership all before going to through the jump gate for the first time to upload their score to the leaderboards. Sure, you can play it safe by going to the jump-gate whenever you want but that will reset your score multiplier. You'll need to risk it all if you want to be #1.

I don't want to guarantee a release date for this update but I'm aiming for the end of next week. Only time will tell if everything works out that way. I'll be sure to update this announcement if that looks like it won't happen.

Edit: In hindsight, it's makes sense to also implement achievements before releasing Update 6 so a release next week is probably a little optimistic.

Edit 2(Thu, 14th June):
A quick update. The new score multiplier system, Steam leaderboards, and the new UI to support them is now all done. Work on implementing achievements is next so Main Update 6 will likely go live early next week if things go as expected.

Thanks as always for your continued support and don't forget to launch the game at least once to upload a random score to the leaderboards to help out with testing.

New content is great, we all love new content in our games but polish and refinement is equally important and that is what this update is all about. 'Game feel' almost always comes from this type of development work and I'm sure you will love the changes.

Previous builds of the game were packed with semi-secrets that only a small percentage of players ever discovered. For example, it's possible to salvage live Replicons but there were no clues to suggest that this was possible. Players who didn't experiment and make these discoveries would be missing out on so much of the game.

The following changes have been made to make the game more accessible to new players, reduce confusion in certain places, and remove some of the barriers hiding the game's true depth.

• Salvage Data
  
  • The grappling gun laser now shows salvage data for ALL salvageable objects. A large number of objects previously had this information flagged as hidden by default for the reasons described above.
    This change also solves the previous problem of players having no idea what some of those 'secret' salvageable objects actually salvaged into.
    
  • This also opens up new gameplay challenges for even the most experienced players as some salvageable objects were so sneaky that it's unlikely that anyone ever even tried to salvage them before. See the image below for a couple of examples.
    
    
  
  
• New proximity tips and message system added
  
  • Dave now expresses his thoughts, ideas, and tips when Bob encounters many objects for the first time or for the first few times.
    
  • This will help new players to understand some of the more obscure deeper mechanics in the game and offers clues that many objects have effects and uses that even experienced players probably had no idea about.
    
  • Dave also now comments on some things that otherwise confused players like the locked arena doors that become accessible only in Act 3, and things like taking radioactive damage for the first time.

• New 'unflattened' graphic design for Bob and all of his equipment.
  
  • Bob, all of his armor sets, all of his guns, his lander, and his main refinery ship have all been graphically improved.
    
  • Reasoning: Over the course of development, the graphical design began to evolve to include highlights and shading on many objects, especially important objects in the foreground. However, Bob and all of his equipment still had the very flat early design look. They have now all been updated to the newer more visually appealing design.
    
  • Click on the image above to expand it and get a better look at these changes.
  
  
• Weather Effects Overhaul:
  
  • Rain has been significantly improved to look more like rain and splashes when it hits the ground. (see gif at the top of this announcement)
    
  • Snow now flutters in the air as it falls.
    
  • Hail created and added to a number of planets. (See gif below)
  
  
• New collision effects system added.
  
  • Collisions can now create a visual effect.
    
  • This system was added primarily for use with planet surfaces to allow for the inclusion of things like grass, snow, or gravel kicking up when collisions occur. The size of the effect is based on the force and angle of the collision.
    
  • Many different effects were created for the various planet surface types and the size of the effect is based on the force of the collision.
    
  • The system was extended to allow Bob's footsteps and bullet impacts to also trigger these collision effects.
    
  • Reasoning: Other than simply looking nice it helps to ground objects into the game world, adds atmosphere, and makes planet surfaces feel less rigid and lifeless.
  
  
• Start Screen updated.
  
  • The previous patch introduced Exploration mode which caused a situation where the game world was no longer being generated until after the player chose a game type. This meant that the planet at the start screen could no longer spawn it's environment. It would be barren and not even water would spawn. This has now been resolved and the start screen planet is once again fully featured.
    
  • The following additions have also been added to the start screen planet for the first time:
    
    • The planet now rotates.
      
    • Replicon drop ships now appear and spawn replicons on the start screen planet.
      
    • Some of the newer planets have been added to the possible planets that can appear at the start screen.
  • Reasoning: First impressions count and this is a small part of the planned additional polish being applied to the game as we close in on the 1.0 release later this year.

• Surface Physics Added
  
  • Surfaces now have varying levels of friction.
    
  • Bob will now slide a lot on ice/snow, a little less on sand, similar to before on grass, and less on rocky/hard surfaces.
    
  • Reasoning:Adding this extra layer to the physics simulation adds additional gameplay variety to each planet and should create new gameplay challenges especially when trying to remove resources from icy caves for example. It's worth noting that things actually become a little easier on rocky planets where Bob will be able to stand still on slopes that he would previously slide down.
  
  
• Jetpack affecting hazard tweak
  
  • The recovery rate for Bob's jetpack has been reduced when encountering hazards that interfere with it's power.
    
  • Reasoning: When encountering the plant spores that reduced the power of Bob's jetpack,it would previously recover so quickly that the effect rarely caused Bob any problems. Extending the time it takes for the jetpack to recover makes these hazard types more dangerous and forces Bob to treat them with more respect especially when other hazards, like Replicons, are close by.
  
  
• Explosion force tweak
  
  • The force falloff radius for all explosions has been doubled.
    
  • The damage radius remains the same but objects close to explosions will now experience knockback at up to double the previous range.
    
  • This does not create a dramatic difference as the knockback beyond the previous max range is small.
    
  • Reasoning: Previously, the radius for damage and knock-back force were equal. Knocking Bob and objects around at a greater distance is visually more appealing and helps to create more emergent moments where Bob can be knocked into other hazards.
  
  
• Shut up Dave!
  
  • Dave will no longer talk to Bob while he is inside his lander.
    
  • Reasoning: Flying the lander almost always requires the player's full attention so Dave conversation while flying would usually be ignored. Dave will often share essential tips and suggestions with Bob on how to progress and it's important that the player has the opportunity to read them.
    
  • Exception:There are a few exceptions to this rule. For example, Dave can still warn Bob that his lander is low on shields.
  
  
• Collision damage increase.
  
  • Collision damage for Bob has been increased slightly.
    
  • Scrape damage has not been changed.
    
  • Reasoning: A few patches ago, collision damage for Bob was reduced by 50% after feedback suggested it was too high. After further playtesting that change felt a little too heavy handed. This retweak is the equivalent of previously reducing damage by 35% rather than 50%.
  
  
• Salvage material tweaks:
  
  • Carbon obtained from salvaging cacti lowered.
    
  • Triangle key salvage tweaked to include energy and electronics.
    
  • Main Ship Upgrade keys salvage tweaked to include energy, electronics and sometimes quartz.
  
  
• Max crystal spawn counts on most asteroids reduced by 25%.
  
  
• Weapon recoil force added:
  
  • Bob will now experience a slight recoil knock back when firing his gun.
    
  • This increases based on the power of the gun.
    
  • Reasoning:This was added to make the weapons feel more tactile and powerful but to also add some epic fail moments. Bob will now need to think twice before firing his gun while balancing on a precarious edge as the knock back could push him off. It can also be used to create backwards momentum if flying and aiming in the opposite direction to movement.
  
  
• Replicon wasps have evolved. (not really)
  
  • 20% of wasps will now fly away from, rather than move towards, the player when their health is low.
    
  • Reasoning:This was added to allow new and fun ways to manipulate and move objects around. Think out of the box. Scared wasps can be very useful.
  
  
• System map fog-of-war added (See image below)
  
  • The System Map now hides distant planet icons.
    
  • Planet icons now only appear when Bob's ship is within maximum jump range of a planet, otherwise the planet icon with be shown as a question mark - '?'. Bob's ship can detect the existence and size of a planet, and will scale the new '?' icon to match the size of the planet, but can't resolve enough detail to show the full planet icon until Bob get's closer.
    
  • The save system has also been updated to record and reveal all previously visible planet icons.
    
  • Reasoning: The recently updated planet icons made it easy to recognize planets, from any range, and removed some of the reason to go exploring.

Various audio tweaks, improvements, and additions.

• New and improved air/wind sounds effects
  
• Wind sound effect on planets reworked. This varies in intensity for each planet. Wind volume also matches cloud movement speed. Wind is louder when on the top of mountains than it is in valleys.
  
• Air rushing sound added as the camera moves. Most noticeable with high speed movement like when swapping between Bob and his lander. Also noticeable when transitioning from the main menu into the actual gameplay or using scan mode.
  
• Tweaked the sound of air rushing past Bob or his Lander when they move quickly. Most noticeable while falling at speed.
  
  
• Added, tweaked or replaced many of the main menu and options panel UI sound effects.
  
• Key configuration button highlighting audio added
  
• Weather: the new rain and hail effects now have atmospheric audio.
  
• Grapple Shrink/Extend audio tweaked.

• Fixed a couple of Dave message typos.
  
• Re-positioned a floating tree on one of the recently added Savannah planets.
  
• Fixed missing atmosphere height settings for the tutorial planet
  
• Fixed a depth based issue that prevented weather effects from being visible on some of the newer planets and even a couple of the older ones.
  
  _______________
  
  That's a lot of changes!
  
  There may not be any new content in this update, but the number of gameplay tweaks and visual changes make a big difference to the feel of the game and even the most experienced players are going to find new challenges to mess around with. (Salvage a cactus!)
  
  As always, thanks for all of your support so far, and be sure to share any thoughts you may have. ❤
  

So many of you asked for something like this and there's no better way to know whether something is fun or not than being able to play it. So I'm excited to announce Exploration Mode:

• No Replicons, No Story, No Pressure
  
  This mode will suit anyone who wished for more time before being overwhelmed by Replicons. Those who aren't big on combat will also prefer this mode and it's a great place to test out ideas or simply practice before taking on the normal, far more challenging, game mode.
  
  In this new mode the Replicon invasion never happens. Everything else is the same, but that's a big change. Replicons are dangerous, but without their loot to salvage, it's going to take much longer to gather the resources for some upgrades. This will make for a very different challenge for anyone trying to fully upgrade their equipment in Exploration Mode, even if you've beaten the game in regular mode.

• Teleporter Added to Exploration Mode.
  
  Moments before death Dave will now teleport Bob back to the safety of his main refinery ship. This only happens if Bob has 1000 energy in storage. If he doesn't, it's game over, he will die as normal. So permadeath is still active in Exploration Mode but with the new teleporter you can't die as long as you always have 1000 back up energy.

• Exploration Mode Added.
  
• Default previous game mode renamed to Invasion Mode
  
• New Teleporter enabling auto 'respawns' added to Exploration Mode.
  
  • 1000 energy required to function
    
  • Permadeath still active if there isn't enough energy to power the teleporter.
    
  • The teleporter automatically restores 30% of Bob's suit shields when used.
• Bob starts with 1000 extra energy in Exploration Mode.
  
• Many new Dave dialogs added exclusively to Exploration Mode.
  
• New game mode selection UI added.
  
  • Click 'Play Now' to access this new mode selection. See image above.
    
  • The Invasion Mode start button now shows the currently active story Act.
    
  • The Exploration Mode start button shows the current Day.
• Independent save system for Exploration Mode
  
  • System and planet data saved separately.
    
  • Upgrades installed saved separately.
    
  • Permanent bonus upgrade data saved separately.
    
  • High scores saved separately.
    
  • Various event related flags saved separately.
    
    
  • Essentially there are now two separate saves for everything but a few things like whether Dave will offer tips to Bob when he first sees certain things.
  
  
• The main menu now shows the High Score and Current Score data for the last played game mode.
  
  • As always, Current Score only shows the 'Total Score' for the last played game mode if Bob survived.
• The score panel now shows the score and high score for the current game mode, or last played game mode, by default.
  
  • Holding a key shows the total and high-scores for the other game mode.
• Fixed a couple of typos in Dave messages in Act 3.
  
• Electronics and Micro Electronics have been added to various salvageable items.
  
  • Previously these were only available from salvaging Replicon body parts or machines. This allows all upgrades to be crafted in Exploration Mode.

Thanks as always to everyone for supporting the game by buying it on Steam. Keep your ideas and feedback coming. Together we'll make Space Bob the best it can be before final release and be sure to let me know if you run into any problems with this update.

<3 Paul @ Intravenous Software

• New Savannah biome added
  
  • New plants
    
  • New lifeform - Savannah Spitters
    
  • New hazard type
• 4 x New Planets added

• Visually updated to better suit the new planet icons added in the last update
  
• New zoom functionality added.
  
  • Use the regular zoom hotkeys to zoom in and out on the currently selected planet.
• Jump lines to planets that have previously been visited now appear green

• Each biome now has it's own unique new plant type that salvages into carbon.
  
  • These spawn in low numbers on most planets and encourage exploration to find enough for upgrades.
    
  • Stalegmite salvage materials altered in many ways and are no longer a source of carbon.

• Sand Worms can now spawn loot under semi-secret conditions.
  
• Visual improvement to Sand Worms as they launch out of the ground.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused two planets added in the previous update to not spawn resources.
  
• Fixed a bug in the cloud system of one of the asteroids added in the last update.
  
• Salvage materials for Spider Drop Pods altered.
  
• Changes to Replicon loot salvage materials.

As always, thanks so much to everyone for your support, feedback, bug reports, suggestions and ideas since the last update. <3

More stuff coming very soon.

Now go save Bob.....and Dave.....and Steve!

Surprises are good right? Enjoy a weekend surprise update that includes:

• 8 x New Planets
  
• New Desert Biome (+ New plants, new life form)
  
• All New System Map Icons (for better planet recognition)

Next up, things. Soon.

NOTE: This update has been pushed live to both the main branch and the public test branch so there is no need to swap no matter which one you were on before.

Have fun. Save Bob!

Surprises are good right? Enjoy a weekend surprise update that includes:

• 8 x New Planets
  
• New Desert Biome (+ New plants, new life form)
  
• All New System Map Icons (for better planet recognition)

Next up, things. Soon.

NOTE: This update has been pushed live to both the main branch and the public test branch so there is no need to swap no matter which one you were on before.

Have fun. Save Bob!

First, thanks so much to everyone who wrote reviews and offered feedback over the first few weeks of release. Your help in highlighting what needed tweaking was invaluable and much appreciated. It resulted in improvements and changes across the entire game that can be found in this first main update.

There were four things that popped up frequently in feedback.

• Many players wanted a way to save at any time during the game.
  
• Bob's lander was too difficult to control for many players.
  
• Bob took too much damage from bumping into things.
  
• Replicons expanded too quickly over the system.

I'm pleased to say that a full game-state save system is now implemented allowing you to save at any point during play. It utilizes the traditional rogue-lite save mechanic where your game is saved when quitting to desktop. This was a big job and took up the majority of development time but it's now fully functional.

Bob's lander physics were also significantly reworked and all players who had trouble controlling it should find it far more manageable now. Bob's suit also takes 50% less damage when bumping into things and Replicon expansion speeds over the system have been reduced.

Since release there have been 19, often daily, incremental updates leading up to this Main Update. The patch notes below show all of those changes.

• You can now save your game at any time by choosing 'Quit To Desktop'
  
• Scrape damage for Bob's suit has been reduced by 30%
  
• Velocity based damage for Bob's suit has been reduced by 50%
  
• Bob's lander physics have been significantly altered to make it much easier to fly with a much lower tendency to roll during flight.
  
• Replicon expansion slowed by 30-50%
  
• Recipe for Carbon Armor tweaked
  
• Advanced Thruster recipe changed to only require 6 materials. This prevents a bug where the 7th material would not show up in the required materials panel UI.

• Removed the few instances of bad language from Dave. The game is now family friendly.
  
• The trigger box that automatically detaches loot grappled to Bob's lander, when landing at the refinery ship, has been increased in size slightly.
  
• The final tutorial message has been tweaked to stress that Bob has less than an hour before being overwhelmed by Replicons.
  
• Reduced the minimum delay between Dave conversation messages. He'll talk a little more often overall.
  
• High and Ultra Liquid Quality settings removed. They offered little visual improvement but high performance impact.
  
• System map 'Fuel Required' UI tweaked to be more intuitive.
  
• Wisp movement slowed to be less erratic.
  
• Your Potential Total Score is now shown under your Current Game Score during play if you escaped alive in your previous game.
  
• Score for manually destroying the mothership weapon increased to 175,000
  
• The mothership replicon spawning system has been redesigned.
  
• The 'Quit' tab is now disabled while viewing Options before starting a game.
  
• A new warning sound effect will play if Bob's lander is taking damage while the player is controlling Bob, and vice versa.
  
• Direct selection hotkeys added for Bob's gun and grapple gun.
  
• 'Release Lander Grapples' is now a default hotkey and allows you to manually detach all grapples attached to the lander. It has been added to the tutorial. (You may need to bind this manually on existing installs)
  
• Doors can no longer be grappled. It could cause physics glitches and other unnecessary instabilities.
  
• Spider drop ship mass reduced by 25%

• Fixed a bug that randomly caused unresponsive grapple nodes and invisible grapples.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the HUD to disappear during the tutorial if entering the menus.
  
• Fixed a typo in the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a grappling bug that could occur when salvaging Replicons if they were grappled together.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the end node of grappling lines to become smaller than normal.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Quit Game button to be disabled during the tutorial
  
• Fixed a z-depth issue that caused some parts of Rasks (the spinny jumpy replicons) to seemingly disappear when they were inside Bob's refinery ship.
  
• Fixed a number of grappling related bugs that could be caused by continuously holding down the 'Shrink Grapple' hotkey while performing other grapple related operations such as selecting other grapple lines and firing new grapples.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the log file to be spammed with warning messages.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause Bob to fall out of his lander occasionally when alt-tabbing.
  
• Rocket Pistol bug fixed that prevented it from damaging some shields.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused jerking of some objects as grapple connections were created between them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused jerking of some objects as grapple connections were removed between them.
  
• Fixed a formatting typo in the Rocket Pistol description.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the mouse wheel up/down to be incorrectly rebound.

I'm happy to say that the release was a success and big content updates are already in the works. Expect plenty of new planets and exploration based content as we work towards final release.

If you are enjoying the game then please let others know about it. Any time spent on building awareness for the game can not be spent on development so any help you can give to bring in new players will allow more of my time to focus on adding new content and features.

Thanks again to everyone who offered feedback and don't forget you will be able to try out upcoming new content early by keeping an eye on the discussion area for updates on the test branch.

Have fun with this first update,

Paul

First, thanks so much to everyone who wrote reviews and offered feedback over the first few weeks of release. Your help in highlighting what needed tweaking was invaluable and much appreciated. It resulted in improvements and changes across the entire game that can be found in this first main update.

There were four things that popped up frequently in feedback.

• Many players wanted a way to save at any time during the game.
  
• Bob's lander was too difficult to control for many players.
  
• Bob took too much damage from bumping into things.
  
• Replicons expanded too quickly over the system.

I'm pleased to say that a full game-state save system is now implemented allowing you to save at any point during play. It utilizes the traditional rogue-lite save mechanic where your game is saved when quitting to desktop. This was a big job and took up the majority of development time but it's now fully functional.

Bob's lander physics were also significantly reworked and all players who had trouble controlling it should find it far more manageable now. Bob's suit also takes 50% less damage when bumping into things and Replicon expansion speeds over the system have been reduced.

Since release there have been 19, often daily, incremental updates leading up to this Main Update. The patch notes below show all of those changes.

• You can now save your game at any time by choosing 'Quit To Desktop'
  
• Scrape damage for Bob's suit has been reduced by 30%
  
• Velocity based damage for Bob's suit has been reduced by 50%
  
• Bob's lander physics have been significantly altered to make it much easier to fly with a much lower tendency to roll during flight.
  
• Replicon expansion slowed by 30-50%
  
• Recipe for Carbon Armor tweaked
  
• Advanced Thruster recipe changed to only require 6 materials. This prevents a bug where the 7th material would not show up in the required materials panel UI.

• Removed the few instances of bad language from Dave. The game is now family friendly.
  
• The trigger box that automatically detaches loot grappled to Bob's lander, when landing at the refinery ship, has been increased in size slightly.
  
• The final tutorial message has been tweaked to stress that Bob has less than an hour before being overwhelmed by Replicons.
  
• Reduced the minimum delay between Dave conversation messages. He'll talk a little more often overall.
  
• High and Ultra Liquid Quality settings removed. They offered little visual improvement but high performance impact.
  
• System map 'Fuel Required' UI tweaked to be more intuitive.
  
• Wisp movement slowed to be less erratic.
  
• Your Potential Total Score is now shown under your Current Game Score during play if you escaped alive in your previous game.
  
• Score for manually destroying the mothership weapon increased to 175,000
  
• The mothership replicon spawning system has been redesigned.
  
• The 'Quit' tab is now disabled while viewing Options before starting a game.
  
• A new warning sound effect will play if Bob's lander is taking damage while the player is controlling Bob, and vice versa.
  
• Direct selection hotkeys added for Bob's gun and grapple gun.
  
• 'Release Lander Grapples' is now a default hotkey and allows you to manually detach all grapples attached to the lander. It has been added to the tutorial. (You may need to bind this manually on existing installs)
  
• Doors can no longer be grappled. It could cause physics glitches and other unnecessary instabilities.
  
• Spider drop ship mass reduced by 25%

• Fixed a bug that randomly caused unresponsive grapple nodes and invisible grapples.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the HUD to disappear during the tutorial if entering the menus.
  
• Fixed a typo in the tutorial.
  
• Fixed a grappling bug that could occur when salvaging Replicons if they were grappled together.
  
• Fixed an issue that could cause the end node of grappling lines to become smaller than normal.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Quit Game button to be disabled during the tutorial
  
• Fixed a z-depth issue that caused some parts of Rasks (the spinny jumpy replicons) to seemingly disappear when they were inside Bob's refinery ship.
  
• Fixed a number of grappling related bugs that could be caused by continuously holding down the 'Shrink Grapple' hotkey while performing other grapple related operations such as selecting other grapple lines and firing new grapples.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the log file to be spammed with warning messages.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause Bob to fall out of his lander occasionally when alt-tabbing.
  
• Rocket Pistol bug fixed that prevented it from damaging some shields.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused jerking of some objects as grapple connections were created between them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused jerking of some objects as grapple connections were removed between them.
  
• Fixed a formatting typo in the Rocket Pistol description.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed the mouse wheel up/down to be incorrectly rebound.

I'm happy to say that the release was a success and big content updates are already in the works. Expect plenty of new planets and exploration based content as we work towards final release.

If you are enjoying the game then please let others know about it. Any time spent on building awareness for the game can not be spent on development so any help you can give to bring in new players will allow more of my time to focus on adding new content and features.

Thanks again to everyone who offered feedback and don't forget you will be able to try out upcoming new content early by keeping an eye on the discussion area for updates on the test branch.

Have fun with this first update,

Paul

• A complete game-state save system.
  
• Updated lander physics for easier control.
  
• Reduced Replicon expansion speed.
  
• A default hotkey to release all lander grapples.
  
• Many other tweaks, fixes, and changes.

For more details on what has changed and to find out how to try Main Update 1 early, click HERE.

Main Update 1 is planned to release as the default game version next week.