Hey Folks!

We're preparing our next big feature update for Ostranauts (v.0.7.0.1), and it's a pretty big one. We're pretty happy with how it's turning out, but we could use a hand stress-testing it for bugs and balance. So we're opening it up as an opt-in beta branch, for those who want a sneak preview.

Note: Saves created in this version may break as we fix issues.

If you've been waiting for missions to fly, now is your chance! Introducing: Gig Nexus, your one stop shop for buying and selling contract gigs in the Ostranauts universe.



Gig Nexus is a procedural job generation system that sends intrepid spacers out on unique missions, from recon jobs to item delivery and even, if you're feeling flirty, <3 romantic entrapment <3. It's a way to make money in the game outside of scavenging and salvaging, and a good excuse to put that super sick ship you built (and maybe even your captain's skills) through their paces.

Before we go live with the feature, though, we'd like to widen our test group to test it for crashes and save errors.

The bugs we’re on the look out for are specifically Out of Memory crashes, and File Saving failures. Truthfully, we can’t seem to reproduce them on our machines here at BBG HQ, and we’re not sure we have enough data to know how common they are, and what could be causing them.

That's where you come in! If you'd like to give it a go, opt-into the "public_test" beta branch via Steam and start a new character and save file.

To opt in to the beta:

• Right-click Ostranauts in Steam
  
• Choose Properties…
  
• Click BETAS
  
• Choose public_test

Your client should download and update your build within minutes.

Once you're in, take some gigs and let us know how it goes! Either on the Steam forums, or over at our Discord.

If you run into a crash in-game, or the game fails to save, we'd be interested in any data you can provide about how it happened. And if possible, we ask that you upload your save and any crash files somewhere for us to take a look.

To get your game’s save data, go into OPTIONS, FILES, and SAVES:



Your character’s save data will be in either Save1, Save2, or Save3 depending on the slot.

We would like as many of the following files as are present:

• saveInfo.json
  
• PlayerName.json (This will be different depending on your character’s name)
  
• output_log.txt
  
• error.log
  
• crash.dmp

The log and crash files above may only appear if your game crashes, and Unity detects it. You'll be presented with a dialog box asking if you want these files. But the first two save files will exist for any character you successfully saved.

(Also, unless we follow up asking for backups, please do not send any .bak files as these will be large and likely contain duplicate info we don't need).

Please zip all your files up and upload them as one .zip or .7z folder if possible, then send us a link to the file.
This makes it easier for us to keep related files together, and will make the overall size smaller. You might be able to upload directly on Discord.

If you have any trouble locating/sending files ask in the bugs channel and one of the dev team or mods may be able to offer assistance/alternative methods of submitting files. Thank you!

Fixed an issue resulting in many users being unable to play properly.
The game interface is now displayed in normal scale on monitors of any size and resolution.

I'm very appreciative of the interest people have shown so far, and as such I feel I should give an update on how development is going!

Hordebreaker is nearing completion, though in reality my original planned release date was two weeks ago. Some of the end game content, specifically animations, are taking significantly longer than I originally thought. I hesitantly say that there are less than 10 animations left. Hesitantly being the operative word; the final boss is significantly harder to animate than I had originally thought he would be, with some of these animations taking 10-20 hours of work. I took a day to clear my head, and now I'm pushing through the final bit of development. Depending on how much time everything takes, the game could be ready anywhere from Thanksgiving to next month, but it's hard to say. The game is done when it's done, no sooner. I'll try my best to get a complete product out as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy Hordebreaker when it's done!

Streaming today from norkdorf

- Thanks for the participation to the survey. Until now, there were more than 3500 players who filled out the survey. The two next bigger updates are already set in stone (a new tab: pet village and dark/light dungeons), but next year I will do some updates depending on what people wrote in the survey.
Most people seem to want either a new tab with new things or new challenges. So next year I will add more new challenges than this year and at least one new tab (other than pet village). At average, people also seem to like ~1 day rebirths most (42.6% of players like rebirths shorter than 1 day and 57.4% of players like rebirths of at least one day), so I will aim for a way that the new tabs I add in the future are good for 1 day rebirths and I will think of a few challenges you can do with 1 day rebirths.
Some people like better descriptions and quite a few players disliked things about micro managing things which can be automized or things they don't understand like dungeons and pets. So I guess that also needs better explanations. I will try to improve that a bit, but doing that is always a bit hard, either to fit in the UI or to write it so people can understand it and also find it. If anyone has good ideas about how to explain things better, feel free to write me in discord or an email to support@shugasu.com.
- Fixed some Sloth issues, various small issues, OC cap and display bugs.

I have added multiple different things to this update for you.

1. New character model
   
2. Weapon switching animations
   
3. The time nexus is now implemented
   
4. New sound effects added
   
5. New Walk/Idle animations added
   
6. Weapon equipping now works without bugs
   
7. Weapons are now stored on the back of the character and no longer invisible
   
8. Destructible envrionments have been added
   
9. AI will only spawn around the players location
   
10. Police AI have been improved to allow for more intelligent behavior
    
11. 2 new police enemy types (shotgun and RPG)
    
12. Invasion system is now implented, the police will attack all living things in sight
    
13. New particles for explosions
    
14. Frame rate optimizations have been made
    
15. Stim packs are now implemented for health regeneration
    
16. The flamethrower now uses "fuel" to be used by the player and will stop if it runs out
    
17. Fuel is now a resource you can purchase in the ammo section of the armoury in the time nexus
    
18. New props have been added to the mall(benches, rotating car displays, modernized plant displays)
    
19. pedestrian Ai now interacts with benches and tables in the mall
    
20. New environment has been added(the food court)
    
21. The Player will now speak dialogue quips when killing AI

Please report any bugs you encounter and any feedback in the appropriate discord channels, Thank you for helping me test Mall of Mayhem before launch!

Hunters,

We will be bringing down the PC Live servers Tuesday, Nov 23rd @ 9:00 AM CET to deploy Hotfix 1.7.0.1

If you are playing at this time, please make sure to extract to save your Hunter and match progression.

Estimated Downtime: ~2 Hours

We'll post a reply once the servers are back online.

Thanks
~The Hunt Team

Hello everyone!

This update finishes what was started in last weeks update with the language support. Now labels will match the system language, though not all languages are currently supported. For now, the labels will work with Spanish and Portuguese. Around 2-3 languages will be added every update, with a focus on the languages of those who have bought the game.

Expect more features such as Libraries to load and save collections of books, and new types of lists to be added in the coming weeks!

Removed mipmapping artifacts from the bomb texture

Hello there! I want to give a bit of context for what Early Access represents for DreamCycle.

You may notice when you open the map that there is a button for ‘World Map’. Pressing this zooms you out to show that the adventures in Early Access only represent one single Zone (Enchanted Forest) in a grid of 100 potential zones.

If we use Mario games as an analogy, you can think of the Enchanted Forest as the equivalent of the starting forest levels. It’s all one art theme, and it shares a set of enemies. It is basically one level ‘type.’

We say Dream Cycle is a portal into infinite adventures because we intend to keep opening these zones up over time, adding 10,000 new adventures with each new Zone. Each additional Zone will come with new architectural styles, new enemy factions, new abilities/upgrades for Morgan and new story content. The Deserts of Hatheg Kla, the Perfumed Jungles of Kled, Ulthar... that sort of thing. The game is designed to deliver up to a million adventures with dramatic differences between each Zone.

We opted to go into Early Access because we want feedback while tuning this first set of levels so that they become a template for the future Zones. What is the right amount of content per Zone? How much in-Zone variation is needed to make the Adventures feel differentiated enough to always be fun and rewarding to play?

We don’t imagine anyone will play all 10,000 squares in a Zone. We expect people to find 20+ hours of fun in a Zone and then be able to move on to another, but to always have those earlier Zones to come back to, as there are always more adventures to be had.

I hope that helps clarify what we are trying to accomplish with your help. I think it’s really exciting and I hope you do too. Thanks for joining us on this journey!

Toby