Before we get into it, thanks to everyone who’s playing The Wilderness! We’ve been going through all the suggestions, feedback, and bug reports!
The new update is available on Steam, GoG, and the Windows Store
Don’t forget to leave a review! It helps out so much.
Patch 0.2.10
There’s a new patch out on our testing branch. We added an “explorer” job task and way more moonshine (as an early game morale boosting item)
The patch is currently on our testing branch, to access it, you must opt into the “earlier_access” branch on steam. To do this, right click Starmancer in your steam library, then go to properties, and then Betas. Once there, select “earlier_access” from the dropdown
The Cure for Sadness
The following changes improve the morale flow of the game:
Colonists can now be context ordered as long as their morale is greater than -10. This allows you to command an upset colonist to go eat some cake and cheer up
Colonists no longer drink alcohol automatically during their “find juice” state
Moonshine has replaced mental stabilizers from all sources. You now start the game with 10 moonshine. Moonshine spawns in item caches on asteroids now too. The Medilab is now the only source of mental stabilizers.
Mental stabilizers now deal organ damage when eaten. Use them sparingly
Moonshine’s competence reduction increased from -15% to -25% (competence affects melee hit chance and crafting success chance)
When put together, these changes give you an early game morale boosting item (moonshine) that you can use to keep your colonists happy until you find better solutions.
Remember that alcohol can cause hangovers, but don’t worry, hangovers in Starmancer are cured with more alcohol. Too much alcohol and your colonist becomes an alcoholic. Alcoholics craft moonshine using raw food and a toilet (science)
Alcoholism is cured if the colonist doesn’t drink for 5 days. During this time, the colonist will randomly suffer from alcohol withdrawal. (space rock has the same steps)
Yes, it’s totally safe out there, Dave
Eventually, almost everything in Starmancer will be automated, but the first step is getting it working manually. Draft mode is a huge help with debugging, playtesting, and taking screenshots (you can hide the HUD by pressing ‘H’, as in “hide hud”)
A few steps toward automation are:
Colonists automatically heal from their inventory.
There’s a new “explore” job task. Colonists assigned this task will automatically explore undiscovered areas during work time. Your explorer should have high health, strength, and an inventory full of food. Otherwise they’ll probably fall victim to a Purple Slime Monster.
With these 2 features, you can mostly lean back and watch while your colonists T.C.O.B. (take care of business).
It’s hard to record exploring, but he’s exploring!
In The Gear Update, I’d like to add a feature where you can set colonist loadouts, and they’ll automatically store/equip whatever you designate. For example, you’ll be able to order the colonist to always have X stacks of ammo for their rifles, and X medkits for healing.
The Ship, It’s Gone
Our goal with The Wilderness update was to improve a fundamental gameplay loop—Resource Acquisition.
In the old system, you would select an asteroid or planet, and then your crew would automatically board a ship and harvest resources. This was a fun loop, but there was no good way to introduce rare items or objects, because there was no sense of discovery.
Things that are exciting to find:
Rare Resources
Enemies of various difficulty
Specialized objects, such as “pirates chem table”
Quest givers, and other NPC’s (such as traders)
It was also very very easy to accidentally acquire too many resources and grind your station to a halt (while your colonists try to offload everything). Unintentionally overwhelming your station is frustrating, and we try to balance Starmancer so that you can play however you want.
By the way, we’re working on a “Galaxy Map”, but we’re not sure exactly what it will look like yet. This map will replace the current “cards” that are used when warping around. We’ll have more to share on this later!
Machines in Vacuums
I really like that you can place machines anywhere you want. It’s convenient and allows you to place your crafting stations right next to your Trading Pods.
But when you place machines in the vacuum of space, you remove any possibility of fire. You also remove all of the “this machine heats up your station” gameplay.
I’d like to find a solution where you’re either forced or heavily encouraged to place machines in rooms with a liveable atmosphere.
Some quick ideas:
Machines in a liveable atmosphere are much faster than machines placed outside (they produce items faster). My concern with this is that even if machines are slower outside, the risk of fire is still worth keeping them outside always.
Machines will overheat quickly if placed in a vacuum (maybe they explode, using the same explosion mechanics as C4?). This is interesting, but it’s also a bit harsh. Then again, it’s really cool too. A difficult thing about this solution is that all machines will need to somehow provide feedback to you that they’re overheating, before it’s too late. It would be so cool if a machine exploded and destroyed a station wall, though.
Machines are completely inoperable unless placed in an room with oxygen. This is a very strict rule, and strict rules tend to not be fun. On the other hand, it’s reasonable that whatever chemical process is occurring (engine’s burning fuel, etc) would require oxygen.
If you have any ideas, please let us know
Stream
Don’t forget to check out our weekly developer stream.
Every Friday at 11:00 gmt-5 (this is the same time zone as New York City)
https://www.twitch.tv/starmancergame
The stream is really really good for suggesting Quality-of-life fixes. Tell us what you wish was in the game, or which feature would make your playstyle more enjoyable.
Patch Notes
Patch 0.2.10
Added "explore" job task. Colonists with this task will walk to the nearest fog-of-war floor until all floors have been explored
Increased seed drop chance from farming to 1%
Increased cooldown before alcoholics drink again
Added/increased moonshine drop rate in first two dungeons
Moonshine now spawns in item caches (and DNA frags no longer spawn in item caches)
Moonshine now spawns in the starting station and mental stabilizers no longer spawn in the starting station
Mental stabilizers now deal 2 organ damage (cuz they were so good)
Space rock damage increased from 1 to 2
Addict perks (alcoholic and space rock addict) now cause a bit more aggression
Colonists can now be context ordered until morale is -10 or less (but they can only be drafted until -5)
Decreased lung HP from 9 to 6
Zombie nest is now context interactable
So Long
That’s it! It’s been good to finally release this update! Thanks to everyone who’s been following along all these years.
Don’t forget to leave a review!
Thanks!
- Tyler
