Hey Folks!

Ostranauts v0.6.9.2 is now available on Steam, and your clients should be updating shortly.

This is another quick patch to address a few bugs and issues we were able to get to before the weekend. Plus, chairs!

Saves from 0.6.9.1 should be unaffected by this patch, but older saves may still contain issues that were present before.

• Added ability to install and uninstall chairs.
  
• Changed AI ships to not interfere with player maneuvers if player tries to fly it.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused context menu to get stuck if item that launched it is destroyed or replaced. E.g. opening/closing doors
  
• Fixed missing audio on skin buttons in appearance UI.
  
• Fixed NaN in docking VCRS readout when docked.

Most of these are fairly minor, as we didn't want to make any waves right before leaving the office for the weekend.

However, the first three might be interesting to some.

First of all, it is now possible to uninstall (and reinstall) chairs! They're white. They are on the ground. You can sit in them. They're chairs! I have it on good authority there are some people (ahem, Naiba) that are very interested in these.

Also, I made a slight tweak to AI pilots so they don't maneuver a ship that you are piloting. This usually only comes up if the player attempts to steal an AI ship. And now, the ship will obey player maneuvers without interference. (There is, however, still an issue with the AI sitting in the player's lap while at nav station, interfering.)

A more serious bug involving a stuck context menu was fixed, as well. It typically happened with doors, if the player attempted to click a context button after the door changed state (e.g. auto-closing).

As always, there's plenty more for us to fix, change, and add! And we'll be continuing in roughly that order. In the meantime, let us know if this patch helps you out, as well as if it reveals new problems!

Best,
Daniel Fedor
Founder, Blue Bottle Games, LLC

Hey everyone. Figured it was time to let everyone in on how we'll be approaching the New Player Experience update, and what we've got in progress so far.

New Player Experience is a pretty expansive topic that can cover anything from a player's immediate attachment to their character and the world, to the boots-on-the-ground combat experience in their first session. The overarching goal is to do whatever we can to ensure new players stick around for longer than they do currently.

For this particular update, we'll be revamping a few main areas while addressing smaller odds and ends along the way.



We'll be introducing a more modern version of the character create screen that better describes the motivations of each faction, showcases their technology, and emphasizes each faction's aesthetic. Character select will also be getting some love, and UI audio will be getting a pass to make things a bit more satisfying there as well. The goal is immersion of the player, connection to the world and their character. We initially aimed to have an animatic or brief world introduction just before the character create process, but that won't end up in this initial release. It's a larger-than-you'd-expect undertaking, and will need more time and attention to deliver something worthy of being there.






One of the most difficult parts of creating a new tutorial is trying to figure out how to package all of the things you'd want a player to learn without the tutorial running on for way too long, but we've hit a lot of the big beats with our new one. We currently teach the player about shooting, redeploying, using the map, identifying fights, placing waypoints, capturing bases, repairing terminals, deploying Sunderers, and even dealing with MAX units, all in a way that's tactile to the player, and not just a bunch of text on screen. We also use this tutorial as a bridge to the feeling of the main game, by having mock combat scenes taking place, and watching allies run toward the objective. No banshee mosquitos farming you from spawn, but maybe some day.


NPCs exchanging fire in the new tutorial.



After leaving the tutorial, the player will arrive on Sanctuary in a new Embassy area, and be directed to try their skills in the "real world." New players will receive a mission that will hand hold them for a bit longer, and ensure they can transition from Sanctuary to continent, and then into a warzone in a way that feels natural yet directed. The original idea here was to have a mini-campaign for the player to participate in, and we may end up going that direction in the end, but each iteration we've come up with thus far had some concerns over pacing and how well it would mesh with the chaotic sandbox of Live.


A work in progress picture of the reception hall leading to the individual embassies.



Along with this update, we'll be adding a new graphics setting that will allow players to choose from various colorblind options. Many of our players (and a couple team members!) are colorblind, and it felt like a good time to pursue some of these changes. We're currently working toward filters that adjust for Protanopia, Deuteranopia, Tritanopia, Achromatopsia, Protanomaly, Deuteranomaly, Tritanomaly, and Achromatomaly. At this time, the UI and HUD elements don't receive adjustments to color (only 3d space like terrain, enemies, the sky, etc,) but we're investigating our options there.



Examples of Protonopia and Tritanopia filters on Amerish.



A new player's default equipment is being revised, and some balance adjustments are being made to coincide. Gauss SAW is being replaced with the GD-22S, dumbfire launchers are being swapped for G2A lock-on launchers as a base, and VS/TR sniper rifles are getting swapped to bolt-actions right out the gate. The Lightning's C-75 Viper is being swapped for the Python HEAT, and the HEAT has received some additional alpha damage to make it a stronger overall choice, while still retaining the flexibility of a faster reloading weapon. Resist type 4 (heavy machine gun,) resistances are receiving reductions for many vehicles, which will put Basilisks, among others, in a more competitive position from the start. Vehicles are also receiving default utility and defensive slot options, and infantry suit slots have received a quick pass as well. (Nanoweave is being nerfed, not removed.)


The Lightning, refitted with the HEAT as a default.



Similar to the gameplay adjustments, we're making small changes as we can to help improve the overall experience. Infantry loadouts will have a "cover sheet" that teaches the roles of each class and what special equipment they have access to. Mission Boards, Warpgate Terminals, and Equipment Terminals in Sanctuary, for example, are now labeled as such in a visible way. Waypoints are getting better 3d visuals, and have rays extending further into the sky, allowing them to be more visible from the air or when placed behind tall buildings or cliffs. Quick Deploy will now ask you to head back to the map screen to select a spawn when your last spawn location dies, instead of just giving you a new nearby (sometimes hundreds of meters away) spawn location. Shield bars will be displayed above spotted target health bars, and more.


Terminals on Sanctuary now with signage above them.



Going into this update, the what we could do was insane. There are so many ideas and options and ways to improve the experience, but simply not enough time to get it all done in a single update. In order to ensure we hit our updates toward the end of the year (Winter season in particular is going to be amazing,) we needed to make sure the scope fell within reason. That hasn't stopped us from prepping design documents for ideas we'd like to tackle later, however, and we can continue moving down this route if we feel like the return on time spent is worthwhile. An example of some things we'd like to address BUT ARE TOTALLY NOT COMMITTED TO BY ANY MEANS, are a revision of the Mentor System that focuses on commending players for positive actions, recommended unlock paths that make it easier to spend certs with confidence, temporary "garrison squads" that auto-group nearby players who are fighting over the same area, modular "advanced" tutorial areas, a battlefield "director" that more strongly suggests plans of attack, a pass on currency types, and far too much more to list.



I'll be sharing more information as we get closer, including when the update will be coming to open testing, and talk about the non-NPE updates that will fall into this release as well. Look forward to plenty more.

Thanks folks.

-Wrel, Lead Designer

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Drop us a reply and let us know what you think about this update!

This week's update adds a new encounter at outposts across the archipelago. Small minefields will appear above outposts to harry visitors. Remember to check for and disarm mines before approaching an outpost to avoid an extra trip to the ship factory.



Join us on Discord for public playtests Friday at 12pm ET, Saturday at 3pm ET, and Monday at 7pm ET.

1.21.2

• Added minefields that randomly appear above outposts.

• Added the guides menu to the splash menu.

• Fixed Bunker I and III damage stats being balanced around the wrong fire rate. Increase the damage of Bunker I from 145 to 240. Increased the damage of Bunker III from 105 to 190.
  
• Fixed the front rudder lacking a build collider that the base.
  
• Fixed mustaches being improperly positioned in-game.

Next week will see the release of the BoneTown Workshop, and the beginning of user-generated content in BoneTown: The Second Coming Edition.

What sort of user generated-content? Well, to start off with, we are opening up every texture file (.jpg, .png, and .tif) and all of our audio files (.ogg, and .wav) to being changed. This means new character skins, clothing, facial hair, pubic hair, tattoos, and lingerie. It also means new weapons, GUI, drugs, voices, music--and probably a lot of other things, once we get this Workshop into our fans' sweaty hands.

On release day, we'll have two mods ready to go, one that will remove all the tattoos from the girls, and another that will remove all of the pubic hair from the girls.

And this is only the beginning of BoneTown Workshop. We plan on working with the community to add more features and allow the modding of even more within the game. The debauchery of BoneTown continues, this time with the players pushing it forward. We'll see you next week.

NOTE
As a result of changes in this patch, the following leaderboards have been reset:

Madness

- Increased the width of the cage on Madness so you cannot Tether Shear combo through it.
- Fixed the Jump buffer to no longer allow for multiple jumps from a single keypress.
- Added kill floors underneath the outdoor levels in World 5.

- The lighting on Entrapment is messed up, and the whole inside of the level is dark.
- The game doesn't run as smoothly as it should at high framerates.

Patch Notes 1.2.1 (Bug Fix Patch Notes)
August 20, 2021

General Gameplay:
✦ Fix for a crash that can occur with the Vivox plugin
✦ Updates for the kill indicator sound cues (noticeable on multi-kills/kill streaks)
✦ Fixed suicides contributing to Killstreak and Multi-Kill scoring events
✦ Fixed weapon skins not being applied correctly in Training and the lobby
✦ Manual Reload: Made the distances for inserting mags and grabbing charge handles more lenient
✦ Manual Reload: Repositioned reload mags on the body
✦ Fixed bug in Training and lobby where abilities would no longer work after grappling with a weapon in hand
✦ Fixed bug in Training where dead bot players were not fading out
✦ Fix for high latency quick skill activation incorrectly deactivating skills
✦ Improved matchmaking for parties/lobbies

Maps:
✦ Updated collision in Relay surrounding the central tower to prevent players from getting inside of the geometry
✦ Fixed some collision in Blight to prevent player from being killed by environment
✦ Fixed visual bug with overlapping geometry in Hazard Pay

Specialists:
✦ Updated ragdoll physics for ARC-L6, Bosun, Calima, VOD, Salters
✦ Fixed hitching when Bosun activates armor
✦ Updates to ARC-L6’s Plasma grenade: Added ally vs enemy visual variation, Doubled number of pulses, halved time period between pulses, halved damage dealt per pulse
✦ Fixed bug with ARC-L6’s Plasma grenade VFX ending before the gameplay effects did
✦ Fixed bug with VOD’s Grasp targeting allies
✦ VOD sound updates - Grasp target loop is a shorter radius, VOD footsteps are a larger radius and louder
✦ Improvement to VOD’s punching replication to reduce the invisible punches that were occurring
✦ Fixed VOD’s Grasp effects (visual and audio) persisting on the remote player when the VOD is killed while aiming the Grasp ability

I describe how spaceport construction works in this new devlog. By the way, these will be monthly rather than biweekly as even short videos like this take me too long to make.

Grand Stampede, the summit international online tournament event for Them's Fightin' Herds, will take place on Aug 28, starting at 11am PDT.

Registration is free and open until Wednesdat, Aug 25. Add your name to the bracket on smash.gg here.

Everyone within an eligible region (see smash.gg for details) may register. There is no entry fee and no participant cap.

Grand Stampede is NOT an invitational! Circuit Points are being used to determine seeding, by total number, in ranking order, according to the number of points each player has.

We'll be streaming the whole thing on Twitch. Hope to see you there! We'll have raffles! Get ready to see some of the best TFH this year!

Earnings from the Matcherino prize pool will be distributed to top 8 at this ratio:

• 50% for 1st
  
• 20% for 2nd
  
• 10% for 3rd
  
• 8% for 4th
  
• 4% for 5th (x2)
  
• 2% for 7th (x2)

Top 8 will each receive a physical Stampede Tournament Circuit medal denoting the player's place in Grand Stampede.

Top 3 will each receive a unique in-game trophy to wear in the Pixel Lobby according to their place: bronze for 3rd, silver for 2nd, and gold for 1st. They will be distributed in an award ceremony after the grand final.

The grand champion will work with Mane6 to develop a custom palette (for the character of their choice) to be added to the game, credited to them.

The grand champion will receive a custom art Hit Box from one of the following options.

Contribute $5 or more to the Matcherino for a chance to win one! No region restrictions. The winner will be selected Monday after the tournament.

Developer, Dave Evans, will be chatting and playing the all audio game "The Vale: Shadow of the Crown." Feel free to open the chat to ask questions.

YouTube
https://www.twitch.tv/shmillsyy
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