We've got another update for Alpha 8, newest version is now 0.8.21. For this update we've focused on finalizing the new changes for Alpha 8 and also added another new facility, the Composter. We worked on a new view mode, the water vapor view mode, allowing you to see where water vapor is distributed on your ship. We also added a way to eject stuff from a storage and tweaked some things, read all about it below.
Introducing the Composter facility and fertilizer as a resource. Grow Beds will now need fertilizer to enable crops to grow. The composter will allow you to decompose many type of resources to fertilizer, carbon and water.
While the Composter supports the food production loop the Chemical refinery is capable of producing fertilizer more efficiently. Use these two facilities to keep your food production up and running.
We added the much wanted water vapor view mode, which will allow you to be more strategic with where you place your water collectors on your ship. Use this view mode to see where water vapor is accumulating, and place a water collector to get the vapor turned back to liquid water again.
We modified the mining station to have two shuttles, and increased the default crew member amount at start to 6. This will help with the logistics work in the beginning, allowing things to run a little bit smoother as you build your ship to take to the stars.
A couple of other worthwhile mentions: We tweaked the random derelict ship generator a bit to increase the chance of finding hypersleep chambers aboard derelict ships. It seemed it was very rare to find one, the chance should be higher now.
We also added a way to eject items from a storage on a ship. This will become handy when stuff just keeps accumulating and you need some space for more important resources.
With every update our graphic artist uses some of his time to polish assets in the game. This time the power generator has gotten a tune up to its animation as well as the solar panel. Probably a lot of other stuff, he doesn't always tell us =)
Thoughts on Alpha 9
The updates seen to Alpha 8 so far have been smaller updates, still taking time but allowing for a near weekly new patch. A bigger update and a new Alpha version will require many weeks of development time, and we're ready to start working on it once we know these final versions of Alpha 8 are stable enough.
We will be able to state our ideas for Alpha 9 in a broad manner once we have started working on Alpha 9, but we will be able to show the final details of the update closer to the release of the update. We also plan to keep you updated weekly or bi-weekly depending on how progress is coming along. =)
Full Patch Notes:
[version] 0.8.21
New Facility: Composter.
New view mode: Water Vapor.
New resource: Fertilizer.
You can create fertilizer in the Chemical Refinery.
Fertilizer resource units added to old saves to allow for a smoother transition to this new version.
Plants in grow beds now need fertilizer.
Toilet now produces water and biomatter. Grow beds also produce biomatter.
Increased the chance to find a crew member in a hypersleep chamber aboard derelict ships.
Added oxygen indicators to airlocks.
Combined Hazardous gas and smoke to one view mode named Hazardous/Smoke.
Added a new welcome text as the first information when starting a new game.
Prisoners can now eat from nearby storages and items on floor if they have access and permission to those tiles.
Modified mining base start scenario to have two shuttles.
Modified mining base start scenario to have 6 crew as default instead of 5.
Modified building job not possible notification to not come as often.
Added a mechanism to eject items to space from a storage.
Fixed shat pants negative comfort remaining after condition was removed by going to the toilet.
Fixed a problem with trading.
Fixed problem with produce if < xx in grow beds.
Fixed many bugs.
Community highlights
EDL Cydonia by Droggarth
FTL inspired ship created by GoMunRah
Fleet by created by SpookySausage
Amazing Bugbyte ship by Gadwin!
If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)
We've got another update for you to Space Haven Alpha 8. Water has been one of the most discussed topics since the Early Access release of Space Haven. Many of you seemed unhappy of how it was working, wishing for more of a closed type of system. Indeed there was a lot of feedback pouring in regarding this.
Expanding on the systems already in the game is also something we would like to achieve with time. We're happy to introduce the Water Collector to you, along with a new gas called Water Vapor. Water is used to grow food in grow beds, as such it is stored in food, water vapor is released from both plants and crew members, which can be turned back to liquid water using the water collector.
The Water Collector - This Water Collector reclaims water vapor from the air and condenses it back to liquid water. Place it close to grow beds for maximum efficiency.
Water Vapor - Water vapor is the gaseous phase of water and can be condensed back to liquid water.
Auto System Readiness Manager
Another prevalent issue was the fact that that it was easy to miss the so called "Red Alert" levers in the systems menu. Many were wishing for this type of function not knowing it already exists. We decided to implement an auto manager for this, which would take care of setting the proper readiness levels based on the situation at hand. If an enemy jumps into the sector the weapons and shields readiness levels will be set to high alert automatically.
Manual control is still available, simply by turning the auto manager off and then using the levers yourself. In addition to the above we've implemented more smaller improvements and bug fixes. See the full list of patch notes below.
Full Patch Notes:
[version] 0.8.20
New facility: Water collector. Turns water vapor back to liquid water.
New Gas: Water vapor.
Game rebalance: Reduced water consumption for crops (-30%).
Crew members and crops now exhale water vapor.
New Feature: Automatic system readiness level manager.
Made some improvements to hull removing.
Turrets and scanners no longer fire into empty space on continous fire.
Oxygen generators will now warn if they cannot raise the oxygen level enough.
Fixed an issue with recruited prisoners having the ability to do jobs even with a zero skill level.
Fixed a problem when extra items are on a blueprint building area and they are then moved outside of the ship.
Fixed a problem with some repairs never being done.
Fixed a problem with trading.
Fixed aliens spawning even if none was selected in the game settings.
Fixed a problem with crew ending outside of the ship when loading a saved game.
Community Highlights
Very nice looking ship created by TibiEtIgni
This masterpiece was created by Gadwin
Althena's ship in hyperspace
Sweet looking fleet by Aieonae
Seems like someone found a lot to salvage! Screenshot by Hennako.
If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)
A week has passed since Space Haven was released into Early Access. It has been a nervous and stressful time for us, preparing for the release and hoping everything will work out smoothly.
We want to thank all of you for playing the game and sending us so much feedback, as well as reporting bugs for us to fix. And fixing is what we've been doing, and we have a patch out today once again!
Hopefully we did not introduce any new bad ones =) Just let us know and we will take care of it. We want to wish you a great weekend playing Space Haven, and we look forward to bringing you news of new content for the game.
Our method of developing is not really to design it out on paper and think this is it and let's move on. It's more in a way of filtering features to implement through long discussions between us, weighing the potential game play value they bring versus the implementation cost in man hours.
Then. After this is done we guesstimate some start values for the new features, and then we let it out for you to play. We gather your feedback and tweak/modify as needed. We value and want to incorporate the feedback you send us in our decisions. It's like a sandbox to us, and we let your feedback guide our way to a better game. =)
Community Highlights!
Ship created by mgthevenot
Ship created by Manuque
Ship created by Nak
Fleet created by ApexPrimaK
Margo and Luis share a moment. Screenshot taken by 弓矢八幡会
If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)
Default keybindings for rotation swapped between Q and E. Q is now CCW and E is CW. These seemed to be mirrored from what they should have been.
The game now pauses when an enemy ship enters the sector. (This is for you writing a review of falling asleep mid play and pirates getting you in the meantime =) )
Fixed a bug with seeing enemy outlines when docking a shuttle to a derelict after loading a save.
Fixed a bug with being able to place an In-floor Power Node overlapping other blueprints. (On top of each other)
Fixed a problem with crew members not working when energy was below a treshold. (Crew members will be more effective now!)
Fixed a problem with trades not starting.
Fixed a bug with binding a ship to a group.
Fixed a problem with a mining pod becoming stuck after relocating.
It has been very hectic for us here at Bugbyte, but we're really happy to be able to push out the new patch today! This patch addresses many bugs you've reported and also has some other smaller improvements.
We noticed it was easy to miss the UI box with the information on how to rotate a facility, and many wished they would be bound to Q and E on the keyboard by default. We improved the outlook of the rotation information box and made rotation keybinds be bound to Q and E by default.
We also heard you on the missing sounds and have started adding some more sounds to the game. We will aim to do this more and more with time.
We've also heard you on other issues and rest assured we are gathering all feedback and aim to improve the game! We just need a little time to figure out our bearings and make some implementations =)
We would also like to highlight this great tutorial video series by Rhadamant. If you have trouble getting into the game take a look! We advice anyone new to start with the Basic Platform scenario, but the video series above should help you on your space voyage.
One of the best things with being a developer is seeing players interact with your game. It has been awesome to see you create your own creations. There are so many we would like to show here but we can only pick a few. Here are some great ships made by you, our players!
Ship created by Rav2n
Ship created by Kushiel
Ship created by Kalus
Fleet of two created by Grogsnack the Vegetarian
If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)
We have been completely blown away by the Early Access release of Space Haven. Our small team of 3 has been scrambling to keep this spaceship together =) We welcome all new Spacefarers! May your journeys be eventful and prosperous.
We believe that you will see the love that has already gone into Space Haven, and the endless potential it has. However, we see plenty of room to expand on and improve the existing features to bring them up their full potential, which will be our main focus. We want to keep working on Space Haven until it is a true gem among indie games!
If you have any troubles with the game we are here for you at the Steam forums and our other channels ready to help! =) If there's anything going wrong rest assured we will be at the problem with the speed of a rocket!
Join the Experimental Starfarers Crew
We will start with our iterative updates to improve Space Haven step-by-step to that indie gem! The process will be as follows:
Push a new Update to the Experimental Branch - Where you can test new experimental patches before the game is officially updated.
Once the experimental game build looks solid and stable we will push it out officially to all players!
NOTE!Joining experimental is completely optional,and you should only do it if you are willing to risk that some new bugs are introduced, which could affect your game play and potentially break your save.
Here is how you join The Experimental Starfarer crew:
1. Open Steam Library 2. Right click Space Haven 3. Select Properties 4. Go to tab 'Betas' at the top. 5. Select 'Experimental' in the drop-down.
To see what has been added, check the in-game patch notes.
Need help? Join The Space Haven community. The best places to get help is here on Steam forums but also on Discord and Reddit.
Bzzt...bzt.. This is Bugbyte mission control. Houston, we don't have a problem, we have a date. Repeat, we have a date! We have a Steam Early Access release date! Bzzt...Bzt... Over and out. Space Haven will be released on Steam as Early Access on Thursday 21st of May. Let's make this rocket launch a successful one together!
Story time. We recently attended a small game dev gathering here in Turku, Finland. When asked to introduce ourselves we eagerly told our story, and how Space Haven was looking very promising to be our best game yet.
We continued on to say one of our game dev related dreams out loud, which would be to have the number one spot in the "global top sellers" list on Steam. One of the attendees burst out laughing, thinking it was a joke. Well, to be honest. We didn't mean that Space Haven would stay up there forever, even a minute would be a dream come true for us =) It's honestly a dream we have and they say it's good to have goals in life!
"I have a dream... That one day... For one minute... Space Haven would be the number one top seller on the "Global Top Sellers" - list on Steam"
It is once again time to rally up, Spacefarers! Let's make Space Haven soar through the skies and reach the number #1 on the Global Top Sellers list, even if just for a minute! =) This would be something to tell our grand kids about.
What can I do to help?
Start beating the Space Drums, tell your friends and family, yell it out in every Discord channel and forum you can and tell them to Wishlist Space Haven on Steam:https://store.steampowered.com/app/979110/Space_Haven/
Tell your favorite streamer to contact us at: support@bugbyte.fi - Let's invade YouTube and Twitch!
Be there with us on launch day Thursday May 21st, and help new players with their questions if you can! =)
This is how Space Haven looks now
These are exciting times! Come await the Early Access release together with us and other players, we're waiting for you in our channels below:
Alpha 8 comes as a smaller update focused on the Build Menu. We've spent a few weeks improving it and making it easier to use, easier to find facilities and utilizing different resolutions in a better way. It might take a little time to get accustomed to the new build menu, but once that happens you should notice it is great to use and allows for some quick building! =)
We've also worked hard on improving the translations, and we are starting to be confident they are shaping up very well. We will of course improve these with time as players spot issues and strings that are hard to understand.
STEAM/GOG Early Access Release
We are preparing for the official Early Access release. We do not have a date yet, as we need to sort out some tasks and find a good window for the release all things considered, it could be before summer but it might end up being after the summer in fall as well. Once we are certain of a date we will announce it, so stay tuned for news on that =)
Interview with the composer of Space Haven
Solid Content sat down and did an interview with the music composer for Space Haven, watch some neat game play, listen to some music and hear some cool things about making music for Space Haven!
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more news to come!
So, we find ourselves in midst of a pandemic. Never would we have believed that we and the world would find ourselves in such a situation as the Steam early access release of Space Haven closes in.
We truly hope you are safe out there. So far we have managed to continue on as before, our small 3 person indie team has not been infected. We've stayed healthy and focused our energy on Space Haven, and as a result there's lots of new features we want to show you. =)
Advanced Game Customization
Many knobs and levers to emphasize your beloved features in the game.
We have created difficulty levels for the game, and the possibility to customize your playthrough if you want to. It is a type of creative mode, where you get to specify what resources you start with, what kind of asteroids or derelict ships are found in the start sector and so on. This can be tweaked on a galaxy level too, meaning if you want a galaxy full of resources you can create that for yourself. For players wanting to forget the challenge and just build in peace we added a sandbox mode, which will enable you to spawn resources at your will.
New features:
Advanced Game Customization - Customize your playthrough with regards to resources, asteroids, derelict ships, alien presence and so on. Emphasize your beloved features.
Sandbox mode - A sandbox category has been added to the build menu, allowing you to spawn resources and possible other items at will.
Crew Selection Screen and Customization
You can now customize the colors of your crew outfits.
A crew selection menu has been added to the game!
Another new addition is the crew selection screen, where you will be able to decide who you will take with on your journey through space. Many want to leave Earth and hop on your crew, in hopes of finding a better place to live. You need to decide who you take with, and what kind of colors their shirt and pants have.
New features:
Crew selection menu - Choose who you take with as part of your starting crew as you venture out to find a new home among the stars.
Customize crew outfits - Choose the colors of your crew member outfits. Everyone can have a purple shirt, or yellow, or something completely different!
Starmap improvements
Starmap now has fog of war.
We've added a fog of war to the starmap, which reveals the next destinations but no further than that. This allows for some surprises with how the other faction spaceships move around in the starmap, it also adds to the feeling of exploration when traveling in the galaxy. We also had a little time to tweak some of the space backgrounds within sectors.
New features:
Starmap fog of war - Pirates might catch you by surprise now!
Polished backgrounds - At least some of the backgrounds will look a bit better =)
Special derelict ships, so called claimable derelicts, can now be claimed and added to your fleet.
Claimable derelict ships - These are special derelict ships which can be claimed and added to your fleet. Go explore them and once all creatures lurking in the shadows have been cleared out this special derelict ship can be captured and added to your fleet. However, it might require a substantial amount of repairs and resources to make it capable of hyperspace travel.
Additionally, all the factions in the game now have some new ships in their fleet, so you will meet more than just the little scale spaceships later on in the galaxy.
New features:
Claimable derelict ships - These special derelict spaceships can be claimed and added to your fleet.
New faction spaceships - Added some bigger ships for the various factions in the game.
Space Haven - Now available in 12 languages
We've spent a lot of time to make Space Haven available in other languages besides English. We hired a team of professional translators for the job, and they have just finished their initial translations of texts in the game.
Space Haven is localized to the following languages:
ENGLISH
GERMAN
FRENCH
CASTILIAN-SPANISH
ITALIAN
RUSSIAN
SIMPLIFIED-CHINESE
JAPANESE
KOREAN
CZECH
POLISH
PORTUGUESE-BRAZIL
These translations are the first iteration, and they will need work and polishing to iron out the biggest issues. We will be working on that in the upcoming weeks.
Steam Early Access
We're preparing for a Steam Early Access release, but we do not have a date yet. We want to release this year. However, times are very uncertain, and so many factors play into a successful official release. If one of us three becomes ill it could seriously affect any set release date we would have.
The game build needs to be ready, void of any game breaking bugs. The translations need to be checked and in good enough shape. Our current plan is to make a decision around a month before release, and once we have it clear to ourselves we will notify you =)
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It is the thunderous roar from a spaceship turret. Space Haven Alpha 6 is the biggest update to date and brings ship-to-ship battles with it, along with a bunch of smaller feature additions, improvements and bug fixes.
Developing support for ship-to-ship battles was challenging design wise, but we're really happy with how it turned out and how it further supports the core of the game. The new additions enables you to build a proper bridge for your spaceship consisting of many console modules.
Note! There's only one turret at the moment, but our focus was to implement the base and make ship-to-ship battles fully functional. We will be adding more with time.
The Spaceship Bridge
It's now possible to build a proper bridge for your spaceship, with 3 new console modules introduced making the total amount of console modules 4. Each console is specialized in controlling a certain aspect of the defense and attack systems. The consoles are:
The Operations Console
The operations console is used to hail other spaceships and communicate with their crew. It is also used to control scanner modules. Needs crew member to operate.
The Weapons Console
The weapons console is used to control the various turrets of the spaceship. One console is capable of controlling all turrets in the spaceship, as long as a crew member is stationed at the console.
The Shields Console
Shield modules form a continually regenerating protective energy shield around the ship, and use power to recharge. Shield generators are controlled by the shields console seen above.
The Navigations Console
This navigation console combined with a hyperdrive enables the spaceship to hyperjump between solar system areas. Needs a crew member to operate.
Ship-to-Ship Battle Mechanics
A ship's overall health is divided into hull stability and shield strength, which can be strengthened with hull stabilizers and shield modules respectively. Power will also play a part, as attack and defense systems will be more prone to consume larger amounts of power.
Various turrets will have their own specifications regarding hull stability damage and shield damage, in addition to these special properties can be added. Examples of special properties could be a turret with projectiles causing internal fires, another turret may act much like an EMP turret shutting down power within an area.
A Hull Stabilizer reinforces the spaceship's frame, strengthening it and generally improving structural integrity. Multiple Stabilizers can work in unison to bolster the hull far beyond its normal limits.
A ship's hull is not generally penetrated until the hull stability is lost, at which point the hull stabilizers will be overloaded and explode, along with other hull integrated elements like turrets, shield modules, hangars and more inevitably causing the whole ship to explode to a good degree. It's still possible to save the crew and the ship after this, but generally a scenario like this is devastating. Roof elements, like turrets shields and scanners, can be targeted and destroyed individually.
All so called system modules reserve system points when built, if you want to build a ship with more hull stability you will have to sacrifice on some other front, like fire power or shield strength. Larger ships will have more system points to spend on system modules. There will not be a wide selection of turrets in the beginning, but with time more turrets will be added to the game.
Scanning
Feeling curious and want to see what's going on in other faction spaceships currently in the sector? Build a scanner and you're able to peek in. The scanner will come in handy when trying to determine whether this is a crew you want to mess with, or where to direct your more powerful special turrets.
"Seems Jemima and Lisette are playing Fatman Returns in co-operative mode. Others are probably sleeping. This is our chance to do a sneak attack and steal their space food."
New Music
We've kept Paul very busy and had him produce 4 new music tracks for the game for this update. The soundtrack has come a long way, now with 12 in-game main tracks plus some additional tracks for things like exploring derelict ships and crew combat. That's well over 30 minutes of excellent music!
Space Haven Official Wiki
We've been working on a wiki/guide for Space Haven, filling it up with information and tips. We hope it will be of help for new players to get answers if something is unclear. We will keep adding information with time as we find out which things are hard to understand. You can check out the wiki below:
We've arrived at the end of the year and it's once again time to head out to take a little break and celebrate Christmas and New Year replenishing our strength for the coming year, 2020.
This year was special to us. It's hard to fathom that it has already been well over 7 years since we started on our journey to create games. A lot has happened in that time, a lot of hardships and disappointments, but also successes that kept us alive to fight another day. We're very grateful to still be alive as an indie studio to this day.
Being a game developer is wonderful because you get to bring fantasies to life, and create experiences and emotions for others playing your creation. If you were to ask what brings a game developer great joy it's usually seeing players talk and react to your game. In a positive way of course =) Seeing someone bash your creation can feel devastating and demoralizing, but the best way to react is to try to understand what's wrong and improve from there.
We never intended or planned for Space Haven to be such a long project, just some odd months more and we're at the 4 year mark. 4 years! A lot can happen in 4 years, like suddenly having to wear glasses to see. So what happened? Well, the usual thing happened. We envisioned a game, started creating it and as the years rolled by we realized we weren't building a house, we were building a very big castle. And castles take a lot of time to build!
If we've had spent less time on Space Haven then Space Haven would not be the game it is today, it would be an entirely different game. And very likely not as enjoyable. See, that's what happens when you work on a game. You realize it needs more, that it's not yet enough. So you keep working on it, crafting it day by day hoping one day it's something special. Like a big castle ready to house many people.
It's been amazing to see the power of a supporting community. Just when we thought our castle would remain unfinished as nothing but a solid foundation for something magnificent, you came to our aid with your wheel barrows and shovels! You gave us the means to continue crafting our castle that is Space Haven. One of our game developer dreams was to have a successful Kickstarter one day, one of those Kickstarters that make other game developers use it as an example of what's possible. It happened, and you made it possible =)
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making one of our game developer dreams come true. Thank you for supporting us and enabling us to continue crafting Space Haven, the big castle we want to share with you. 2020 is going to be yet another big year, hopefully you are with us then too!
Now for some more merry news. As mentioned previously we decided to participate in the Yogscast Jingle Jam with one of our previous games, Battlevoid: Harbinger.
In return, the Yogscast promised to give Space Haven a go in their Jingle Jam streams and show it to their community. (NOTE! Space Haven is not part of the bundle) It was so exciting watching them play, they seemed to love the game and have a lot of fun with it. If you missed it don't worry, you can watch the whole video of them playing below:
Our goal is to officially release Space Haven as a solid Early Access version next year (2020) (PC/Mac/Linux), once we feel we are ready and find a good time frame. We will of course notify you closer to release. Once in Early Access, we will continue hammering away on the game update by update.
If you want to do something in a merry Christmas spirit to help us you can simply share the Yogscast video with a friend, show them this Steam page for wishlisting or let your favorite streamer know that Space Haven is starting to become really solid and they should totally play it =)