Greetings, Spacefarers.

How has your summer been? Ours has been a nice mix of hot and rainy. We enjoyed our 3 weeks of vacation immensely, and it brought us a whole lot of new energy to work more on Space Haven. We've been quietly working more on this next Alpha update for more than a few weeks already, wanting to announce our vacation ending and giving you a nice surprise in form of a new Alpha update at the same time =)

What is new? You might ask. Well, what is not new! Let's jump into it all, shall we.


NOTE! Some of the new facilities are still lacking coloring and texturing.

New Facilities and Resources

We've added 7 new resource production facilities, and modified the functions of the existing ones a little bit. The purpose of this resource overhaul was to give us a better base to expand on, and make it easier to continue adding some more depth to the game in the future. The underlying resource tree will enable a wider array of various resources and both low and high tech facilities, as well as production chains that make sense.

• Water Purifier - Transforms ice into purified water, essential for many life forms.
  
• Chemical Refinery - Used to produce various chemicals. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Metal Refinery - Transforms carbon and basic metals to steel plates. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Energy Refinery - Transforms energy crystal to energy rods and hyperium to hyperfuel. Releases hazardous gas and is noisy.
  
• Scrapper - Transforms scrap materials into a variety of usable resources. Releases heat and is noisy.
  
• Assembler - The assembler produces basic construction components, including Soft block, Hull blocks and Infrablocks.
  
• Micro-Weaver - The Micro-Weaver creates fabrics from fibers.
  
• Cell Fuser - The Cell Fuser uses electronic components and energy rods to create energy cells.
  
• Electronic Fabricator - Transforms noble metal and raw chemical to electronic parts.
  
• Optronics Fabricator - The high-tech Optronics Fabricator is capable of producing optronics components.
  
• Advanced Assembler - The advanced assembler facility is capable of producing high-tech construction components, such as tech blocks and energy blocks.

In addition to these we also added a battery module to the game, essential for sudden bursts of power consumption or power grid failures.


Added resources and new icons.

A resource overhaul wouldn't be an overhaul without new resources and of course new fantastic looking icons! Our graphics designer has been crafting the new facilities and icons for a long time.


You are now able to customize which resources you want to see in the top bar, and in which way.

This brings us to the next improvement. Ship settings now have a section where you can customize which resources you deem important and want to keep an extra eye on. You'll be able to customize the importance (in which order they are shown), if they are shown at all when you don't currently have any of the type and if you want to be notified if a certain resource is starting to run low.


You can now butcher aliens for meat and make a meal. If you hate one of your crew members...

Speaking of running low on resources. Malakai uses his butcher skills to make some nice monster meat out of an alien body. Become a notorious alien hunter and feed your crew with some greens (It's good for you! Or is it?). If one of the crew members vanishes and the others are having a nice meal filled with meat recipes, you might want to be a bit worried.



Sandbox Scenario

Some type of sandbox mode has been asked for a lot, so we decided to create a start scenario where resources are abundant! And you start with a crew of 8. This scenario will let you focus more on building your fleet without worrying about running out of resources, great for when you want to see how a ship design you have in mind works when brought alive in the game.


'Mobile Platform' built by Kenji

We are once again one step closer to Steam Early Access! =) You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

We love to hear from you guys so don't hesitate to come have a chat with us =) You can connect with us from through the channels below:

Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/

We also have our mailing list which is great for keeping up to date with important news: http://bugbyte.fi/register

Until next time. Thanks for reading! =)

Build a fleet of spaceships

Space Haven now allows you to build multiple ships and form a fleet of spaceships. We've had to redesign and implement some new features to enable this.

The current implementation allows for a max of 2 very large 2x2 ship grid tile sized ships (Seen in scenario 2) or 8 small 1x1 ship grid tile sized ships. You can of course make a combination of these, and create various other sized spaceships such as 1x2 for example.



You can see the user interface to create a new spaceship above. You will be able to select where you want to start building a new spaceship and also the new spaceship grid size. Once the position is chosen you will be able to start building the new spaceship hull.



You can now select the placement of each ship in a sector when jumping out of hyperspace. The same grid system is used to allow you to be able to select where in a sector each spaceship of your fleet goes as you drop out of hyperspace. Setting positions is done with a drag&drop mechanism.



The prepare for hyperspace jump user interface has been redesigned to support multiple ships in form of a list. You'll be able to control preparations from this menu, and give orders to your ships individually. Really happy with the result.



Sketching

You've given us a lot of feedback and some suggestions. Sketching was mentioned by many of you, so we decided to carry out your wish! Space Haven now features a spaceship sketch mechanism, which you can use to sketch out spaceships right from the start and build up the spaceship little by little. The sketch tools are:

• Sketch: Sketch out your ship - Sketches will not be build until you activate them.
  
• Activate sketch: Activates an area of a sketch into an actual plan for hull to be built.
  
• Erase sketch: Removes sketch plans.

We have seen that one of the most beloved features of Space Haven has been the building part of the game. We're super happy about this, because we thought long and hard of where to steer our focus when it came to core features and decided to focus a lot on the actual building part of the game.



Salvage

We have redesigned how salvage works. You can now salvage almost everything from any spaceship, which has been cleared out of it's crew/enemies and is now derelict. The current implementation has three different scrap recources; Metal scrap, advanced metal scrap and electronic scrap. These might change with time as the game develops.

When you send out your crew to salvage, you won't know exactly how much will be received from each facility on the ship. This is slightly random, and could later on be tied to a skill, such as construction skill for example. You will, however, be able to choose what kind of scrap resources you want the crew to try to salvage from the derelict ship.

The scrap resources can be brought to the Scrapper facility, which is able to refine them back to usable resources.


Work-in-progress image of the Scrapper from our graphic artist screen.


Scrapper completed.

The Scrapper

A new facility has been introduced to the game. The scrapper is tightly related to salvaging. Salvaging ships will generate various scrap resources, which can be brought to this scrapper facility. Strip a spaceship clean of almost everything and bring it all here to be transformed to usable resources once again!

One of our Alpha players wrote a store about their journey, you can read it below. We would like to see more of these screenshots/video + story combinations. They are really fun to read! =)



Captain Deacon:

"Thanks for coming everyone, I know you're all very busy doing... stuff; I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for your efforts in getting us here to the end of the galaxy. Your hard work has been very much appreciated and you've done whatever I've asked without any fuss or complaining (except that time you ran around the derelict crying like a little baby, Mariah, not your best moment).

We've built an amazing vessel together, which is a small miracle when you think about it, considering how much you all hate each other and me, in particular. But that's not all that surprising really when you see the kind of things you get up to: watching people in their sleep, following others into toilets, crapping yourselves whenever you like (looking at you Wiley) and generally being bitchy (no names mentioned, Jessa) - Sometimes I wonder, I really do.

Anyway, we've drained the galaxy of all it's resources, mined everything and bought all the water. What we have now is all that's left. In a few days or weeks the power and the water will run out, which means the plants won't grow and we'll run out of food and then the heating will go off and we'll slowly starve and freeze to death. Don't worry though, long before then we'll run out of oxygen and suffocate. A much nicer way to go I'm told. So, once again, thanks for everything; over the time we've been together I've come to regard you all as... people... I.... met... good luck, I think we're going to need it."

The screenshot and hilarious story above was sent to us by one of our Alpha backers, Hrochnick.



Thank you for reading =) You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha at:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

Direct Newsletter sign-up to be notified of official Steam release:
http://bugbyte.fi/register

Discord server, come chat with us:
https://discord.gg/zx2AN4F

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/

This is the first development blog update after our Kickstarter ended. Prior to this we have already done 25 of them during the development of Space Haven! If you want to read and see older posts of how Space Haven came to be you can do so at our own forums. It can be quite interesting to see the very first screenshots and footage of the game =) The posts aren't in perfect order there, so be sure to check the number (#) when navigating.


Screenshot posted by Stuka on Discord.

One of the things we wanted to achieve with Space Haven was to have complete freedom to let you shape a spaceship of your own desire. We have been looking at your awesome looking spaceship creations and want to sprinkle our development blog update with screenshots of them! The screenshots you will see below are all created by you, our Alpha players.


Screenshot posted by Darklordiablo on Discord.

It was exciting times for us when mid April arrived and it was time to let you hop in on the Alpha journey! It's always a bit nerve wracking to put out a game in any state, as a game developer you're always a bit afraid that the game will not be enough.

We are only in Alpha phase right now, but we still wanted it to be enough for a solid beginning! It has been a real joy watching you play and post screenshots, discuss different strategies and report bugs. There's been quite a lot of bugs reported. We want to give our thanks to all of you! =) Remember that you can press F11 when playing for an easy way to send us bug reports. Please be considerate when using this feature as it could easily lead to a flood of reports. Check the already known bugs in the same menu to avoid sending duplicate reports.


Millenium Falcon posted by Onebit on Reddit.

We are also very positively surprised by how supporting and understanding you have been. Some of you went out of your way to write us positive encouraging feedback, both through our social media channels and through in-game surveys. We have seen them, and it means a lot to us! Thank you!


Screenshot posted by Rob Dee on Discord.

We've been sorting and fixing reported bugs these past weeks, and made some small implementations along the way. Hoping we can focus more on implementing improvements and new features soon! If you are currently playing the Alpha of Space Haven and finding it hard to understand something, join our Discord and chat with others playing the game too! You will be able to find a lot of help for your own journey.


Screenshot by SirTiller on Discord. He calls his ship the "Fat Frog".

You have also sent us a lot of suggestions and ideas! Keep em coming! The best place to submit them is the in-game survey system, which you can find in the main menu cloud section. This allows for the easiest way for us to scroll through various suggestions. You can see the most recent patch notes in the main menu under "patch notes". Be sure to check the news section too, to see if there's an update available.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH_WcBIfgX0

Many of you have praised the music in Space Haven, and rightly so! When we started thinking about music for Space Haven we announced it on Reddit and let composers submit their samples for our early alpha demo. Paul saw it, and messaged us. With some back and forth messaging we found a tune that worked, a tune that would later become Nebula Signals. It was a match made in Haven! (Pun intended).

We will be keeping Paul busy, and looking forward to let you hear all the new tracks in the near future! If you want to chat with Paul you can do so on our Discord channel, where he keeps his very own Pauls Music Devlog.



Here's a little teaser for you of what's to come in the near future! Some type of Minimap perhaps? Maybe! Perhaps not only that, perhaps something more comes with it. The more the merrier they say =)



You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha below:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

We are working hard to improve on the game and looking forward to post another update in the near future, stay tuned! =)

Direct Newsletter sign-up to be notified of official Steam release:
http://bugbyte.fi/register

Discord server, come chat with us:
https://discord.gg/zx2AN4F

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceHavenGame
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spacehavengame/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BugbyteGames/

A magical number of 7777 backers and $260k raised on Kickstarter!

We've arrived at the finish line! This past month has been amazing and your support has been incredibly validating. We have been crafting Space Haven with love for almost three years now, and we are extremely grateful that we get to continue developing it further. You have made it possible, thank you!



What happens now?

We will continue developing Space Haven, and give access to the early Alpha build to Alpha Crew Member backers and all higher tiers in about two weeks time.

Our plan is to develop the game further for a Steam Early Access release. Estimated Feb 2020. We will aim to have monthly updates here and on Kickstarter to keep all of you in the loop as the game progresses!

Alpha Access - When will it start and how will we get access?

Alpha Access will start around mid April, when Kickstarter has given us the final list of backers. Kickstarter needs about 2 weeks after campaign end to sort this out.

Once we have the information we will immediately send out access to the Alpha build to backers who have chosen Alpha Crew Member or higher. We will send instructions via e-mail around mid April, stay tuned!



You can find more information on Space Haven and the Alpha below:

http://bugbyte.fi/spacehaven

Thanks for being part of our community and we look forward to post more updates!

Only 6 days left of Kickstarter! Pledge for your copy today and get early access to the Alpha as soon as mid April! The alpha will be distributed through our own website, and you will get to give us feedback as we develop the game further towards Steam Early Access!

Join the Kickstarter here: Join Space Haven Kickstarter



To you who have already supported us. We have accomplished so much together, one-by-one stretch goals have been reached. We cannot thank you enough. We're excited to be able to implement more features to the game with your help!




ONLY THE LAST STRETCH GOAL REMAINS, the big $200k! Choose to play as the Android Collective, Pirates Coalition, Slaver's Guild or Military Alliance among other possible factions. Learn their motivations and watch how their stories unfold.



We're running out of days but we can make it. We call upon you our Steam followers to help break the big $200k.

This really is our dream game and we want to make it something special. Go grab some wicked rewards for yourself! You'll be able to play an alpha build of Space Haven in mid April if you join the Kickstarter as an alpha backer.

Join the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bugbyte-ludibooster/space-haven

Give the above link to your friends and anyone you might think could be interested. Your help is greatly appreciated!

We are LIVE! Kickstarter campaign has been launched. Let's ignite the rockets and make Space Haven something great together.

Check out the Kickstarter page here: http://kck.st/2EfK6M7

Thank you all so much for being here to support us, this really is our dream game and we want to make it something special. Go grab some wicked rewards for yourself! You'll be able to play an alpha build of Space Haven in April if you join the Kickstarter as an alpha backer.

Give the above link to your friends and anyone you might think could be interested. Your help is greatly appreciated!