Space Haven Alpha 10 is now available to play in the experimental branch. As a reminder, the update process is as follows:

1. A new Update is first available in the Experimental Branch.
   
2. Players, who do not mind playing a more unstable version, will first want to test the new update.
   
3. Once the experimental game build looks solid and stable enough 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.

Please do not join the experimental branch if you don't want to risk breaking your save or have the game break on you in midst of play! If you want to play a more stable version please wait for the official release of the update.

Warning! Old saves from Alpha 9 are not supported. A lot of new things have been added to the game and unfortunately we cannot support older saves. Please keep this in mind and prepare for the official update accordingly =)

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.




Please give your feedback in the experimental branch forum. Link below:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/5/

Let us know what you think of the new features and if something should be altered or tweaked in your mind. Perhaps something makes the game too hard or something is too annoying, let us know so we can get a feel for how the new features feel! =)


You can read up on many of the new features in more detail in the previous post:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2892956582946329364

• Saved games are not supported from previous Alpha versions.
  
• A new modified starmap, with a new layer showing star system clusters as jump destinations.
  
• Space Stations added to the game - You can now visit various farming stations, repair stations, faction bases and more.
  
• Derelict stations have been added to the game - Enter the darkness with your crew and explore old abandoned derelict stations.
  
• A service tab has been added, which is now available at the repair station. The service tab can be used to purchase services (Like hull construction) with credits.
  
• You can recruit new crew members by visiting a leisure station and seeing if someone would be willing to join your crew, for a fee of course.
  
• Crew combat can now take place on asteroids - Seek out the pirate hideout base and engage in fierce crew combat, remember to bring your spacesuits.
  
• IRS Mary Shelley (The alien base) has been added to the game. This independent research ship ventured out into the galaxy to find alien life forms, but something bad happened and the ship was never heard from again...
  
• A Research Tree has been implemented along with a research lab facility - Build a Research Lab and start researching new technology.
  
• A New character skill has been added: Research.
  
• A New turret added to the research tree: Missile turret. The missile turret is capable of creating new holes for crew members to enter in derelict ships.
  
• Many of the facilities in the game have been moved to the research tree, while basic and critical facilities remain open from the beginning.
  
• Added research start technology settings to game customization - You can modify research modules to be open from the start if you want.
  
• New special technology: The Targeting Jammer - An electronic countermeasure that confuses all turret targeting systems within its range of effect. So long as the jammer is online, the ship can neither be targeted by hostiles, nor target them in turn.
  
• The Food System got an overhaul, crew members are now affected by what they eat and require a balanced diet for optimal performance in the long run.
  
• Added a new system for the Kitchen to allow players to create their own meal compositions of various raw ingredients.
  
• Modified the plant growth rates and outputs to balance the change with the Kitchen requiring less overall resources to create meals.
  
• Created an Algae farm facility for producing basic nutrient.
  
• Added a nausious condition, which can be caused by toxins accumulating in the body from foods. Concussions and other conditions might also cause nausea.
  
• New basic facilities: Hyperium Hyperdrive and Energium Power Generator - This basic hyperdrive and power generator can use raw resources mined from asteroids, but are less effective than their more advanced versions.
  
• New AI behavior: Another friendly faction can now help and rescue your cocooned crew members if their ship is in the same sector.
  
• Improved UI: Added a mechanism to see which sectors have been visited by the player in the starmap.
  
• Electronic fabricator and cell fuser facilities have been removed from the game. Electronic components can now be created with the metal refinery and energy cells with optronics fabricator.
  
• Rebalanced start scenarios.
  
• Modified scenario hints to support the new changes.
  
• Rebalanced resource trading values.
  
• Shotgun and SMG have been nerfed slightly.
  
• Hauler alien has received a slight buff to damage.
  
• Created new NPC ships for many of the factions you meet on your adventures.
  
• Modified also many of the old NPC ship designs.
  
• Created new resource crate graphics for a set of resources.
  
• Improved various graphics assets.
  
• Improved graphics indicators on some facilities.
  
• Fixed problem with some uppercase letters missing in some locales.
  
• Fixed bugs.

Please give your feedback in the experimental branch forum. Link below:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/5/

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

We will gather feedback for Alpha 10 in the experimental branch and tweak as needed. Once everything is looking solid enough we will publish the update to the main branch.

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

We've got some very exciting news to share! To celebrate the 10th big Alpha iteration for Space Haven we have decided to expand our plans with Alpha 10 and implement some modifications to the starmap, along with some new elements added to the mix, like space stations!




We wanted to venture out and try something new with the starmap, something that would give you more meaningful choices when planning your route.

The new starmap combines a set of star systems into clusters, and gives you some information of what type of cluster it is. This will give you an idea of what type of faction presence you will encounter in a specific cluster.

Our current idea is to present a choice between paths that are riskier but which could result in more bountiful treasures and paths that are safer but already scavenged by other factions to some degree. The starmap still keeps evolving as we keep implementing more. We're eager to have you try it out once we get to the experimental stage!


No longer will you only encounter space ships on your space voyage in search of Eden, various specialized space stations will be scattered throughout the galaxy awaiting you.

The stations can be general outposts or specialized in some way. Some examples:

• Farming stations - Stations specialized in farming and guaranteed to have a good amount of various foods for trade.
  
• Repair stations - Stations specialized in repairs, giving you the opportunity to purchase a hull expansion service (Expanding the hull with drones) with credits.
  
• Faction bases - Fight your way through the pirates and destroy their hideout base to deal a killing blow to the pirate presence in a part of the galaxy.
  
• Mining stations - Stations specialized in mining and offering a good variety of various ore for trade.
  
• Trading outposts - Stations specialized in general trade, offering a wide variety of resources for trade.
  
• And more!

A pirate hideout base buried deep within the cluster of pirate systems.


A station specialized in farming built on top of an asteroid somewhere in the galaxy.


A station specialized in repairs, capable of helping you on your travels!




We have worked on research and the research tree and implemented the needed tech for it to allow us to create new in-game tech items in the future. A Research skill as well as a research lab facility has been added to the mix and crew members can research new tech by spending some time sitting at the research lab.



We decided to go with a visual presentation seen in the screenshot, a research tree from left to right with various branches taking their own paths in the tree. The modules currently require certain amounts of research points, classed into three different tiers. These research point tiers represent how hard it is to unlock a research item, and these will be tied to a character research skill.


While working on the research tree and thinking about modules related to botany we found a good opportunity to dive deeper into the food system and make some further implementations to take nutrients into account and have consequences related to them.




The Kitchen has received an overhaul to enable more freedom for you to create your own specialized meals for your crew members. The kitchen now allows you to mix various boxes of food together, and even specifying the amount of some ingredient box to use.

Now you can spice up your fruit and root vegetable mix with some monster meat, just enough so that your crew members won't notice any really bad side effects. How about some monster meat and human meat with peanuts on the side? No problem! Coming right up. Put all of that food into good use.


Up until now your crew members have not cared much about what they eat, or more specifically what kind of nutrients they are actually putting in their system.

The crew members are now affected by what kind of nutrients they consume on a long-term basis. Proteins, Carbs, Fat and vitamins are all important. A fifth are toxins, which have a negative effect if consumed too much too fast.

A balanced diet with enough proteins, carbs, fat and vitamins keep your crew members working at an optimal level. Deficiencies can result in a lower recovery rate, learning rate, health, mood and so on.


Your crew members can now get nausea from consuming too many toxins, this in turn will lead to them throwing up and losing their stomach contents on the spaceship floor. There goes my lunch, what a bummer!

Throwing up essentially means the nutrients from the stomach are lost, so be careful with giving too much monster meat to crew members all at once.




Nobody likes eating algae, but it's marginally better than starving to death. It keeps the crew alive but can affect their health and mood due to an unpleasant texture and sub-optimal nutrient levels.

We are introducing a new facility called the algae farm. This facility is intended to be a basic food source, using bio matter and water to grow algae, which are then scooped for some delicious (Or not) green porridge type of food. It will keep your crew alive but if this is the only food eaten it will cause nutrient deficiencies and even nausea.



The hyperium hyperdrive is less efficient than more advanced hyperdrives but can use hyperium as fuel directly without having to refine it.


The energium power generator is less efficient than more advanced power generators but can use energium as an energy source directly without having to refine it.

We have added these two new facilities to help power up your ship and jump to hyperspace. These facilities will be basic technology facilities, with the ability to use raw resources directly as an energy resource and fuel.

As these facilities use raw resources instead of refined resources they are not quite as efficient, but on the other hand it is a bit easier to supply them as they can use raw resources mined directly from asteroids.



This new civilian ship will join the civilian fleet and meet you on your adventures!


Military Alliance receives a new addition to their fleet, you'll meet this ship in your future adventures in space.


Cult of New Haven gets a new ship added to their fleet, you'll meet this ship on your future adventures.


Androids also receive a new ship to their fleet. You will meet this ship on your space adventures.

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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Big update in the works, Spacefarers! Do join some of our channels above and come chat with us. Thanks for reading and see you in the next update! =)

Greetings, Spacefarers!

How are you all doing? Darkness falls upon Finland, it's raining every other day and it's getting colder and colder. It's starting to resemble space over here. This means it's great to sit inside and develop Space Haven further and implement new features! August was our month off, and we spent it recharging our batteries. It was much needed after a very hectic time.



You are all probably very eager to hear what we've decided to implement for Alpha 10. We have started planning and implementing a research tree, something we want to expand on with time. Last week was spent planning the research tree, it's structure and visual presentation. We also started implementing the first version of the research tree.

We have created a research facility, which you can build to start unlocking that sweet new technology. You can see a couple of research facilities in the gif above. Put your best researchers on the job and see technology get unlocked faster.



Above is a work-in-progress small part of the research tree. We decided to go with a visual presentation seen in the screenshot, a research tree from left to right with various branches taking their own paths in the tree. The modules currently require certain amounts of research points, classed into three different tiers. These research point tiers represent how hard it is to unlock a research item, and these will be tied to a character research skill.



Above is a work-in-progress research item information window, which will show you information when you select a specific research item. The research modules have been implemented in a way where it is possible to insert more than one facility, item or other improvement in the same research package. This will allow for creating research modules with many items in them, unlocking all at the same time once research has been completed.

The research tree will be the main new feature in Alpha 10, it will require quite a bit of time and resources to implement but we hope to be able to add some additional things into Alpha 10 as well. We will report more on the research tree and other possible new stuff in the coming weeks! Stay tuned =)



Small and dangerous by OT4E.


Ship by Skharr


HSS Atlas by KittenTech

A huge shout out also to PsioniCM, who created a Captain's log 95 pages long with screenshots and log text of his adventures in Space Haven. Give it a read below!

"And, there it is, a blue planet, hidden from the sensors by meteors and asteroids, with green forests, and white clouds. A place we can call home, if we want to land there"

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GmAzAWHOZBVjGFcLkaTtHS1hsfONbAlk/view?usp=sharing

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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

It is good to be back, spacefarers! Do join some of our channels above and come chat with us. Thanks for reading and see you in the next update! =)

Bugbyte and Space Haven are taking part in the first ever Tiny Teams Indie Festival, shining a spotlight on games from indie micro-studios, one to three-person indie development teams. The Yogscast Tiny Teams Festival runs from August 9th to August 15th and will be broadcast live here on Steam and twitch.tv/yogscast.

As you may or may not know we here at Bugbyte are three developers strong, making us a micro-studio of indie devs! We've taken upon us a great challenge with a game like Space Haven, but we've come very far and we're determined to go all the way and keep building upon what we have currently. There's much more to come =)

We're excited to take part in this Tiny Teams Indie Festival and help shine a light on other indie games from other micro-studios. To celebrate this occasion we've decided to discount Space Haven at 10% off, along with higher discounts for our previously released games.

Check out the Tiny Teams Festival here on Steam through the link below:

{LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/TinyTeams20

We hope you are having a great summer and find some time to play games from micro-studios. Enjoy the show! =)

Alpha 9 is now Released! Below is a recap of the new main features included in Alpha 9, along with a full list of patch notes. Enjoy this new update and let us know if you stumble upon any big problems!




So far all the communication requests have come from the player, whether it is the want to trade or have a simple discussion otherwise. We've spent some time and implemented these interactions further, allowing other factions to contact you in case there's something they need or want.

These additions will give more life to your encounters with other faction spaceships, as they can now signal their want to communicate with you too. Currently other faction spaceships may contact you if you happen to have prisoners or refugees belonging to them, asking for the possibility to get them back. Sometimes they might need some resource and ask for it, or simply push their luck by asking for a gift.




A small problem with communicating is that it is tied to the operations console, and the player doesn't necessarily have someone there at all times. This could make it problematic to establish a communication channel, or for the player to know some faction ship wants to communicate.

We decided to implement signaling to help with this. Signaling can be seen as some form of Morse code signaling, which allows spaceships to communicate simple intents, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".

Other spaceships can signal back their intent to accept or decline this request, thus making both parties aware of communication intentions and to get a crew member to the operations console.


When a faction spaceship gets destroyed the crew members of that spaceship will look to evacuate and abandon their ship. If there's another spaceship belonging to their faction, they will flee to that spaceship and continue their journey with their faction.

However, if there's no other spaceship belonging to their faction present in the sector, they will look towards other faction spaceships with whom they are in a ally/neutral stance relationship wise. They will seek out to ask for help and become a refugee in hopes of being reunited with their faction one day. Since they activate their distress beacon other factions are allowed to enter their spaceship and help them.



There's a big hole in our ship, can we come with you?

We've created a new character status in addition to the prisoner status, we're introducing the refugee status. Refugees are crew members, who have lost their home spaceship in a battle or otherwise, and are now looking to be reunited with one of their other faction spaceships somewhere in the galaxy.

If a pirate is with you in a sector bombarding a civilian spaceship and that spaceship gets destroyed, the civilians will want to reach out to you and ask for help. You can then decide if you want to take them with you, offer them sanctuary and a chance to be reunited with another of their faction spaceships one day.

Refugees are willing to help in some way. However, they do not work as long hours as your main crew members do during a day, as they want to save their strength. They are willing to help by carrying out logistics jobs, but are currently limited to that since they do not want to interfere with your crew and their specialized tasks you have set for them. Their priorities and schedules cannot be changed to keep a good balance. They yearn to be reunited with their faction one day, and will grow restless with time if this doesn't happen.




Keeping the refugees happy is important if you want to keep them working for you. Keep them satisfied by creating a nice area for the refugees to spend time and sleep in, keep them well fed to increase their mood.

Refugees of a faction will react to seeing another member of their faction be a prisoner instead of a refugee. This will have a negative effect on their mood and could lead to them refusing to work for you.




One of the most important things for a faction are their crew members, and once one is lost they usually want them back, unless it's that irritating Bob guy, whom nobody wants. (If your name is Bob please know we did not mean you but another Bob!)

When you encounter a faction spaceship they might contact you and ask if you've seen some of their lost crew members somewhere. If you have some on board as refugees or prisoners, you will have the options to tell the truth or lie.


Civilians scan some random areas of your ship and find out you have some of their faction crew members as refugees.

Lying is not nice. But hey, those refugees can be a good work force and you're not ready to give them up just yet. When you lie the other party might grow suspicious, or just want to check to be sure. If this happens they might do a scan of one of your ships.

They will randomly scan some parts of your ship revealing what's there, and if they happen to reveal a captive crew member belonging to them they will know you've lied. You can expect to get a hail request after this with someone quite angry on the other side.


These new additions will give some first opportunities for your relationship towards another faction changing over time. Your decisions to help or not to help will affect how the faction sees you, and if you disregard calls for help often enough your relationship with a faction will dwindle to hostility.

• Solar Flares
  
• Micrometeoroids
  
• Siren Worlds
  
• Nebulae

Space Hazards are represented with icons on top of sectors in the starmap. This will allow you to see what you are getting yourself in to =)


Holy crap! What's going on here.

Solar flares overload your power nodes, possibly damaging them and cutting your power transfer short to a part of your ship. Fires can also break out, which means it is important to have some crew members on board the ship at all times.


Watch your head, Charley!

Micrometeoroids rain down on your ship constantly while you're in a sector where they are present. Shields will mitigate their negative effects to a degree as long as they stay up. Mining pods can be struck by the meteoroids, causing a concussion condition for the crew member inside and possibly damaging the mining pod.

Micro breaches



We have also implemented so called micro breaches. Micro breaches are smaller hull breaches, not fully tearing the hull open but causing small cracks which cause depressurization. Micrometeoroids and certain turrets may cause these as they hit the ship hull. These micro hull breaches can be repaired by your crew members with their construction guns.



Jet has lost his mind, or really hates his bed.

Siren Worlds are peculiar planets whose strange signals mess with the mind. These signals will periodically cause your crew members to act in a strange manner, ranging from aggressive behavior to staring at walls. Be alert when staying in these sectors, as your crew members might do something you don't want them to do.

The signals from the Siren World may result in crew members getting conditions like the urge for destruction, effectively making them a saboteur starting fires on board your ship. Other examples are insomnia and loss of appetite, causing tiredness and hunger among your crew members. Aggressive behavior might also occur and your crew members might start fighting each other.




The fourth space hazard is the nebula. An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields. The nebula itself is not very dangerous, but it can lead to interesting and dangerous situations if ship-to-ship battles take place in a sector with a nebula.


The presence and frequency of the Space Hazards in the galaxy can be tweaked at will in the game customization menu, even individually. This comes handy if these hazards are something that you don't find a desirable feature. Furthermore, at the moment there's nothing forcing the player to enter theses systems unless a pirate happens to be in the same system interrupting the player fleet.

Some of you our players have voiced concerns that the aim of the hazards is just to punish players. That's not the aim at all =) The aim of the hazards is to create more variation to the stories emerging from the features in the game, more strategy to the starmap as one ponders the risk and the rewards of a sector, and interesting situations emerging within a sector with hazards impacting both your crew and the crew of other faction spaceships.

We've gotten feedback praising the new hazards, stating they add a ton to the game, but we've also gotten feedback that some of you might not enjoy these challenges, which is why we made sure to allow for disabling the hazards individually simply by clicking a toggle in the game customization menu. Alpha 9 contains other new features beyond the hazards, and this update is just one update among many to come. =)




Crew members can now start fights among each other if they get irritated enough. The chance for a fight to occur is based on various factors, such as overall mood and food status. If the crew member has a low overall mood and is also hungry on top of that they are more prone to become really irritated at someone.

Fighting causes some health damage, but crew members do not aim to kill each other. However, this could happen in some very rare instances where one of the crew members just happens to have very low health to begin with when the fight starts. Once they've let out enough steam they stop and go about their business.




Summer is short in Finland and the three of us need a break after what has been a very stressful year. We'll be taking some weeks off as a summer vacation and recharge our batteries for the upcoming Alpha 10 update.

Don't worry, we'll stick around to ensure there are no game breaking bugs with Alpha 9! =) After Alpha 9 looks stable we'll take that much needed break. We will return after the vacation and immediately start on Alpha 10, and we will post news of what's next with Alpha 10, once we have something to show!

• Environment hazards Implemented - Solar flares, Micrometeoroids, Nebulae and Siren Worlds.
  
• New Faction Interactions Implemented - Signaling, NPC Hailing, Distress State and Refugees.
  
• Signaling - Allows spaceships to communicate simple intents directly, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".
  
• Distress state - Allows a spaceship and its crew to turn on a distress beacon and call for help.
  
• Refugees - A new character status in addition to the prisoner status, saved crew members from destroyed spaceships who are looking to be reunited with their faction.
  
• Suspicion - A new faction status, whereby another faction can be suspicious towards you that you are hiding something from them.
  
• Implemented a lot of new communication dialogue related to the new faction interaction implementations.
  
• NPC spaceships now signal and hail the player at times, asking if the player has seen their crew members who sent out a distress call.
  
• The player can now try to lie in certain dialogue scenarios.
  
• NPC factions can now help each other in distress situations as well.
  
• Solar flares - Overload your power nodes and may cause fires aboard your ships.
  
• Micrometeoroids - Rain down on your ships and strike your mining pods. Shields mitigate to a degree.
  
• Microbreaches - Small cracks which cause depressurization.
  
• Siren Worlds - Peculiar planets whose strange signals mess with the mind.
  
• Nebulae - An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields.
  
• Added Space Hazards individually to the game customization screen - Tweak their presence and make them non-existent if you so desire.
  
• Ability to set the resource amounts for derelicts added to the game customization screen.
  
• Harsh game difficulty is now rebalanced to be harder.
  
• Shuttles and miners can now become broken if hit by micrometeoroid.
  
• Broken crafts can't work and leak oxygen.
  
• Many Siren World character conditions added: Disorientation, Psychotic, Schizophrenia, Lost Appetite, Insomnia, Aggressivity, Urge to Destroy.
  
• New Character conditions and behavior possibilities: Committing suicide, poisoning, seeing a captive crew member.
  
• Implemented an improved way to override crew member schedules for a set amount of hours, for situations needing quick action.
  
• Crew member schedule overriding can be done by selecting a crew member and from the crew management screen.
  
• Tweaked Character conditions.
  
• Tweaked energium to energy rod ratio lower.
  
• Rebalanced trading prices of resources.
  
• Made the game log more selective of which conditions and events are listed.
  
• Hangars can be paused/unpaused to prevent craft from doing work.
  
• Crew members can fight each other if they get irritated enough.
  
• Added additional information for grow beds, to easily see if conditions are optimal for plant growth.
  
• Graphic assets Improvements and Polish: Toilet, Hypersleep chamber, Operations console, Power capacitor, Airlock, Assembler.
  
• Fixed in-floor power node restrictions to a degree.
  
• Tweaked the surrender trigger from bullet hits to function in a better way.
  
• Added a scaling system to the presence of space hazards within star systems, giving the player a bit more time to build up a ship with necessary systems ready. Space Hazards can still be encountered early on, but it is much less likely than in later systems.
  
• Added auto-toggling repair for micro-breaches, making crew members react to them more quickly. If auto-maintenance is toggled on (As it is by default) crew members will prioritize
  micro-breaches even during their free time and sleep.
  
• Tweaked the solar flare event occurrence interval range to be a bit longer within a sector with a solar flare, this gives the player a bit more time to repair their ship before another
  solar flare hits.
  
• Adjusted crew members with the Suicidal trait to not get a mental break so easily.
  
• Fixed bugs.

Power of the sun by Invisieman


Small and effective, by kerolefou


Nice ship by TibiEtlgni


A familiar looking ship by Ungai

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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update! We'll return after our summer break and will give information on Alpha 10 =)

This report is a continuation to the previous reports, which you can read below:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/4093160907703783176

Watching Solid Content play the new patch was interesting, seeing how space hazards can create emergent situations, whereby a part of the ship has been cut off of power and a power node needs to be repaired in order for power to be restored. These types of situations can create interesting problems to solve, and also brings a new dimension to designing and building ships.

However, finding a good balance between having emergent situations like these arise and how much micro-management is needed is tricky though. Based on the feedback we received we decided to implement the following tweaks:

• Added a scaling system to the presence of space hazards within star systems, giving the player more time to build up a ship with necessary systems ready. Space Hazards can still be encountered early on, but it is much less likely than in later systems.
  
• Added auto-toggling repair for micro-breaches, making crew members react to them more quickly. If auto-maintenance is toggled on (As it is by default) crew members will prioritize
  micro-breaches even during their free time and sleep.
  
• Tweaked the solar flare event occurrence interval range to be a bit longer within a sector with a solar flare, this gives the player a bit more time to repair their ship before another solar flare hits.
  
• Crew members with the "Suicidal" trait were getting mental breaks too easily, sometimes instantly. We adjusted crew members with the Suicidal trait to not get a mental break so easily.

The presence and frequency of the Space Hazards in the galaxy can be tweaked at will in the game customization menu, even individually. This comes handy if these hazards are something that you don't find a desirable feature. Furthermore, at the moment there's nothing forcing the player to enter theses systems unless a pirate happens to be in the same system interrupting the player fleet.

Some of you our players have voiced concerns that the aim of the hazards is just to punish players. That's not the aim at all =) The aim of the hazards is to create more variation to the stories emerging from the features in the game, more strategy to the starmap as one ponders the risk and the rewards of a sector, and interesting situations emerging within a sector with hazards impacting both your crew and the crew of other faction spaceships.

We've gotten feedback praising the new hazards, stating they add a ton to the game, but we've also gotten feedback that some of you might not enjoy these challenges, which is why we made sure to allow for disabling the hazards individually simply by clicking a toggle in the game customization menu. Alpha 9 contains other new features beyond the hazards, and this update is just one update among many to come. =)

As a game developer these scenarios are not always easy to navigate, but we feel the game customization menu is key here to allow you to customize a playthrough according to your own liking.



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.

Please do not join the experimental branch if you don't want to risk breaking your save or have the game break on you in midst of play! If you want to play a more stable version please wait for the official release of the update.

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.




Please give your feedback in the experimental branch forum. Link below:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/5/


We're going to keep the build in the experimental branch and gather some more feedback on this patch to Alpha 9, and will look into releasing the update to the main branch in the near future!

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

We've been hammering away on Alpha 9 and we're ready to gather some feedback from the new update. This is the first draft of the Alpha 9 update. We want to test it in the experimental branch first before releasing it officially. Once the experimental game build looks solid and stable we will push it out officially to all players!

To know what we've been working on for Alpha 9 check the previous progress reports:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2590083346809312103
https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2516898401240766529



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.

Please do not join the experimental branch if you don't want to risk breaking your save or have the game break on you in midst of play! If you want to play a more stable version please wait for the official release of the update.

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.




Please give your feedback in the experimental branch forum. Link below:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/5/

Let us know what you think of the new features and if something should be altered or tweaked in your mind. Perhaps something makes the game too hard or something is too annoying, let us know so we can get a feel for how the new features feel! =)

• Environment hazards Implemented - Solar flares, Micrometeoroids, Nebulae and Siren Worlds.
  
• New Faction Interactions Implemented - Signaling, NPC Hailing, Distress State and Refugees.
  
• Signaling - Allows spaceships to communicate simple intents directly, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".
  
• Distress state - Allows a spaceship and its crew to turn on a distress beacon and call for help.
  
• Refugees - A new character status in addition to the prisoner status, saved crew members from destroyed spaceships who are looking to be reunited with their faction.
  
• Suspicion - A new faction status, whereby another faction can be suspicious towards you that you are hiding something from them.
  
• Implemented a lot of new communication dialogue related to the new faction interaction implementations.
  
• NPC spaceships now signal and hail the player at times, asking if the player has seen their crew members who sent out a distress call.
  
• The player can now try to lie in certain dialogue scenarios.
  
• NPC factions can now help each other in distress situations as well.
  
• Solar flares - Overload your power nodes and may cause fires aboard your ships.
  
• Micrometeoroids - Rain down on your ships and strike your mining pods. Shields mitigate to a degree.
  
• Microbreaches - Small cracks which cause depressurization.
  
• Siren Worlds - Peculiar planets whose strange signals mess with the mind.
  
• Nebulae - An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields.
  
• Added Space Hazards individually to the game customization screen - Tweak their presence and make them non-existent if you so desire.
  
• Ability to set the resource amounts for derelicts added to the game customization screen.
  
• Harsh game difficulty is now rebalanced to be harder.
  
• Shuttles and miners can now become broken if hit by micrometeoroid.
  
• Broken crafts can't work and leak oxygen.
  
• Many Siren World character conditions added: Disorientation, Psychotic, Schizophrenia, Lost Appetite, Insomnia, Aggressivity, Urge to Destroy.
  
• New Character conditions and behavior possibilities: Committing suicide, poisoning, seeing a captive crew member.
  
• Implemented an improved way to override crew member schedules for a set amount of hours, for situations needing quick action.
  
• Crew member schedule overriding can be done by selecting a crew member and from the crew management screen.
  
• Tweaked Character conditions.
  
• Tweaked energium to energy rod ratio lower.
  
• Rebalanced trading prices of resources.
  
• Made the game log more selective of which conditions and events are listed.
  
• Hangars can be paused/unpaused to prevent craft from doing work.
  
• Crew members can fight each other if they get irritated enough.
  
• Added additional information for grow beds, to easily see if conditions are optimal for plant growth.
  
• Graphic assets Improvements and Polish: Toilet, Hypersleep chamber, Operations console, Power capacitor, Airlock, Assembler.
  
• Fixed in-floor power node restrictions to a degree.
  
• Tweaked the surrender trigger from bullet hits to function in a better way.

Please give your feedback in the experimental branch forum. Link below:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/5/

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

This is the second report on the progress of Alpha 9 - If you want to read the first report head on over to:https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2516898401240766529

Time flies when you have fun developing a game. Another few weeks have gone by and we have new things to show!

In addition to the Space Hazards for Alpha 9 there was something else we saw an opportunity for to fit in the same package. Interactions with factions and their spaceships have been quite limited, and while this part of the game will be an on going part of development, we thought Alpha 9 would be a good opportunity to add some new features related to this.

We've worked more on faction encounters and interactions, and we have new features we want to showcase.




So far all the communication requests have come from the player, whether it is the want to trade or have a simple discussion otherwise. We've spent some time and implemented these interactions further, allowing other factions to contact you in case there's something they need or want.

These additions will give more life to your encounters with other faction spaceships, as they can now signal their want to communicate with you too. Currently other faction spaceships may contact you if you happen to have prisoners or refugees belonging to them, asking for the possibility to get them back. Sometimes they might need some resource and ask for it, or simply push their luck by asking for a gift.




A small problem with communicating is that it is tied to the operations console, and the player doesn't necessarily have someone there at all times. This could make it problematic to establish a communication channel, or for the player to know some faction ship wants to communicate.

We decided to implement signaling to help with this. Signaling can be seen as some form of Morse code signaling, which allows spaceships to communicate simple intents, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".

Other spaceships can signal back their intent to accept or decline this request, thus making both parties aware of communication intentions and to get a crew member to the operations console.


When a faction spaceship gets destroyed the crew members of that spaceship will look to evacuate and abandon their ship. If there's another spaceship belonging to their faction, they will flee to that spaceship and continue their journey with their faction.

However, if there's no other spaceship belonging to their faction present in the sector, they will look towards other faction spaceships with whom they are in a ally/neutral stance relationship wise. They will seek out to ask for help and become a refugee in hopes of being reunited with their faction one day. Since they activate their distress beacon other factions are allowed to enter their spaceship and help them.



There's a big hole in our ship, can we come with you?

We've created a new character status in addition to the prisoner status, we're introducing the refugee status. Refugees are crew members, who have lost their home spaceship in a battle or otherwise, and are now looking to be reunited with one of their other faction spaceships somewhere in the galaxy.

If a pirate is with you in a sector bombarding a civilian spaceship and that spaceship gets destroyed, the civilians will want to reach out to you and ask for help. You can then decide if you want to take them with you, offer them sanctuary and a chance to be reunited with another of their faction spaceships one day.

Refugees are willing to help in some way. However, they do not work as long hours as your main crew members do during a day, as they want to save their strength. They are willing to help by carrying out logistics jobs, but are currently limited to that since they do not want to interfere with your crew and their specialized tasks you have set for them. Their priorities and schedules cannot be changed to keep a good balance. They yearn to be reunited with their faction one day, and will grow restless with time if this doesn't happen.




Keeping the refugees happy is important if you want to keep them working for you. Keep them satisfied by creating a nice area for the refugees to spend time and sleep in, keep them well fed to increase their mood.

Refugees of a faction will react to seeing another member of their faction be a prisoner instead of a refugee. This will have a negative effect on their mood and could lead to them refusing to work for you.




One of the most important things for a faction are their crew members, and once one is lost they usually want them back, unless it's that irritating Bob guy, whom nobody wants. (If your name is Bob please know we did not mean you but another Bob!)

When you encounter a faction spaceship they might contact you and ask if you've seen some of their lost crew members somewhere. If you have some on board as refugees or prisoners, you will have the options to tell the truth or lie.


Civilians scan some random areas of your ship and find out you have some of their faction crew members as refugees.

Lying is not nice. But hey, those refugees can be a good work force and you're not ready to give them up just yet. When you lie the other party might grow suspicious, or just want to check to be sure. If this happens they might do a scan of one of your ships.

They will randomly scan some parts of your ship revealing what's there, and if they happen to reveal a captive crew member belonging to them they will know you've lied. You can expect to get a hail request after this with someone quite angry on the other side.


These new additions will give some first opportunities for your relationship towards another faction changing over time. Your decisions to help or not to help will affect how the faction sees you, and if you disregard calls for help often enough your relationship with a faction will dwindle to hostility.


The mention of space hazards in the first Alpha 9 progress report caused up quite some discussion among you, our spacefarers. Many of you were concerned this update would have a big impact on the more relaxed play style you've gotten accustomed to.

Fear not! While these features are on by default we included them in the game customization options, you will be able to tweak them individually. Their presence in the galaxy can be tweaked and even turned off completely if you so desire.

As such, if you are looking to continue your relaxed play style this feature will not affect it negatively if you choose so, just remember to tweak it in the game customization menu!




The fourth space hazard is the nebula. An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields. The nebula itself is not very dangerous, but it can lead to interesting and dangerous situations if ship-to-ship battles take place in a sector with a nebula.


We have a goal to finish these features we are working on and wrap up Alpha 9 in the upcoming weeks. We will first push the update to the experimental branch and once it has been tested enough we will push it to the main branch.

We have no exact dates but we will announce when we release the update into the experimental branch and also when we release into the main branch! Stay tuned for more news!


As it looks now saves from Alpha 8 could work, although no space hazards will be present until you start a new game. We will find out more about the save compatibility when we release the update into the experimental branch and have players test it out.



This hilarious scene was posted by MtnDewGameFuel.


Really nice ship created by SubwaySurfer


Sweet ship by cromlowinhischair

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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

We've been working on the first new features for the upcoming Alpha 9 update, and it is time to show what we've been able to produce so far! We're introducing Space Hazards and since one of the hazards affect crew members directly we found a good opportunity to add some new implementations towards adding a bit more depth to characters as well.

Space Hazards we're currently working on:

• Solar Flares
  
• Micrometeoroids
  
• Siren Worlds

Space Hazards are represented with icons on top of sectors in the starmap. This will allow you to see what you are getting yourself in to =)


Holy crap! What's going on here.

Solar flares overload your power nodes, possibly damaging them and cutting your power transfer short to a part of your ship. Fires can also break out, which means it is important to have some crew members on board the ship at all times.


Watch your head, Charley!

Micrometeoroids rain down on your ship constantly while you're in a sector where they are present. Shields will mitigate their negative effects to a degree as long as they stay up. Mining pods can be struck by the meteoroids, causing a concussion condition for the crew member inside and possibly damaging the mining pod.

Micro breaches



We have also implemented so called micro breaches. Micro breaches are smaller hull breaches, not fully tearing the hull open but causing small cracks which cause depressurization. Micrometeoroids and certain turrets may cause these as they hit the ship hull. These micro hull breaches can be repaired by your crew members with their construction guns.


Jet has lost his mind, or really hates his bed.

Siren Worlds are peculiar planets whose strange signals mess with the mind. These signals will periodically cause your crew members to act in a strange manner, ranging from aggressive behavior to staring at walls. Be alert when staying in these sectors, as your crew members might do something you don't want them to do.

The signals from the Siren World may result in crew members getting conditions like the urge for destruction, effectively making them a saboteur starting fires on board your ship. Other examples are insomnia and loss of appetite, causing tiredness and hunger among your crew members. Aggressive behavior might also occur and your crew members might start fighting each other.




Crew members can now start fights among each other if they get irritated enough. The chance for a fight to occur is based on various factors, such as overall mood and food status. If the crew member has a low overall mood and is also hungry on top of that they are more prone to become really irritated at someone.

Fighting causes some health damage, but crew members do not aim to kill each other. However, this could happen in some very rare instances where one of the crew members just happens to have very low health to begin with when the fight starts. Once they've let out enough steam they stop and go about their business.

As you can see not only does the implementations for the Siren World effects result in some cool new events, they also enable us to add a bit more depth to the crew members.


We're aware that when crew members start doing bad stuff on their own there is always a balance between interesting events and possible player irritation. Some things can get really annoying when they happen, depending on the event itself.

Right now these conditions appear mostly only in special sectors, the Siren Worlds sectors. We'll also listen to feedback to know if there's something that really causes more irritation than necessary, and will tweak as needed =)

However, these are really fun things to experiment with and will help a lot with adding more depth to characters and their behavior.


This is the stuff we've been working on for Alpha 9 so far. However, even if there's graphical representation of new features it doesn't always mean they are completely implemented and ready to go. Additionally, we still have some more features we want to include in Alpha 9 and will update you on the progress in a few weeks again!

Stay tuned for the next update and check out the community highlights below!



Mean looking ship by cameronsabin82


New Hope MK II by Dae


SSV Normandy SR-1 by LocoOne85


Fleet by Kreistor


Fan art by Becca. Neat looking mining pod!


You entered the wrong ship, Pirates! Fan art by Lulu Skorobogatov

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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!

Greetings, Spacefarers!


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! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven


You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/


Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/

Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/

Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/

Join Discord and chat with others playing Space Haven: http://discord.gg/spacehaven

Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/


Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!