It’s been a long time since our last “formal” blog post. These posts take a long time to create.
We’ve been very busy working on Starmancer. It’s just the two of us, so for a post like this to be created, one of us has to stop working on Starmancer and instead do these sorts of things.
I’d really like to get back to writing these and we fully intend to.
(full patch notes here)
Here’s a video where I talk about mostly the same things covered in this post (and my daughter makes an appearance). Watch this if you think reading is for nerds.
If you haven’t been keeping up with Starmancer, here’s a quick list of some new things:
Draft Mode - Order colonists to do anything
Explorable asteroids and stations now spawn around the your base
Colonist automatically heal and explore
Many new objects, including a grill and supply station
By the way, you can buy Starmancer in early access on steam. Purchasing helps to support and fund development
The Wilderness
Our most recent update, The Wilderness added a “wilderness” around your base.
Monsters, resources, and treasures spawn outside the base.
Waste Dungeon, The Lucky Kernel, and The Medilab
This is a huge backend improvement, allowing us to place rare items, interesting objects, and new lifeforms around your base.
Previously, we had to spawn all monsters somewhere in your base. This can be okay sometimes, but it’s very difficult to spawn a “challenging monster” in a way that it doesn’t immediately one-shot all of your colonists.
Now, we can easily spawn monsters outside somewhere and you can more easily choose to engage or flee.
Victor also added caves and other structures around your base
Adding new objects is also much easier when we can spawn them in derelict stations, waiting for you to find them (rather than placing them in the tech tree)
The Ship (returns)
When The Wilderness launched, we disabled the ship and upgrade modules. These have both returned in patch 0.2.13.
The ship is great for providing renewable resources in every system: ice for your farms, goolerium for medicine, and silicon for completing contracts.
Collectively, the starmap, ship, and contracts make the game much more enjoyable.
They’re brothers
Contracts are the only source of upgrade modules. I think I like this. Let us know if they’re too rare.
If you played on the earlier_access testing branch, note that missions are now much faster. Let me know how it feels.
Explore and Autoheal
Colonists now explore as a job task. Explore defaults to the lowest priority, so colonists only explore once all their other tasks are finished.
After connecting your station to asteroids via walkways, your colonists will automatically explore.
Cave Base, nbd
Colonists get into trouble, so they’ll now automatically heal when they’re injured. Keep a steady supply of Small Medkits with the Supply Station and your colonists will always be at full health.
We also added Organ Healing Serum. Colonists automatically eat this when they have a damaged organ. Organ Healing Serum is crafted at the Medical Desk, so prioritize researching medicine if you run into organ trouble.
Remember: you can always find a Medical Desk at the Medilab and purchase it. (No tech tree run?)
Combat Improvements
Colonists now “run in terror” if they see a “scary” monster. Low health and low morale colonists are much more likely to run away. A “scary” monster is anything hostile (a monster that attacks colonists on sight).
Fleeing, when combined with autoheal, does a really good job at keeping the colonists alive unsupervised.
Monsters now have a basic “aggro” system. They’ll stop attacking if they haven’t hit their target in 60 seconds. They’ll also switch targets if a non-target hits them more than 2 times without the original target hitting them.
By the way, monsters have a “leash” system, where they’ll only wander within a few units of their leash floor. However, this “leash floor” position is changed whenever they engage in a non-wander state, such as combat. Their new “leash floor” is the floor that they abandoned combat on.
Hud Messages
Hud Messages (they flash across the center of the screen) have returned.
They provide a really good alarm when you don’t want to miss something important.
Ayden Orr confirmed bully
We added a few new ones, such as when colonists start fleeing. Combat messages now say, “Colonist is fighting Monster”, as in: “Dimple is fighting Space Zombie”.
Grill, Supply Station, and Makeshift Toilet
These three new objects are available right from the start:
Grill: Used to cook early game food: Slinker Meat, Biomass, and Human Meat
Supply Station: Craft Small Medkits, Fuel, Moonshine, and Purified Water immediately
Makeshift Toilet: +1 Morale. Available immediately. The “Standard Toilet” is now +2 morale
This makes it easier to get started early-game.
Core Customization
Core customization returned in patch 0.2.12 (the previous patch).
Your core name, eye, body, and colors can all be changed at any-time while playing.
Victor added many, many new cores to unlock. He added so many that I’m considering making cosmetic unlocks permanent across playthroughs.
Up Next
So that’s what’s in Starmancer currently. Here’s what’s coming up in the next few weeks
Conditional Crafting
This small change will have a huge impact on crafting. We’re adding a dropdown to the crafting machines that allows you to set:
Craft X Amount (default)
Craft if storing under X
Craft Endless
You could use this to always keep at least 20 medkits stocked, or to ensure that your generators always have fuel.
Alcohol Rework
Alcohol is great because it increases morale and is easy to create with starting supplies. Unfortunately, almost any colonist that drinks will eventually become an alcoholic–refusing to work without alcohol.
I really enjoy alcohol (in Starmancer), but it’s currently too punishing. It’s not even worth opening that can of worms on your colony.
Soon, alcohol will be less addicting and as long as you provide your crew with a steady supply, the negative consequences will be low.
However, if your alcohol runs out, you’ll have a problem
Jetpack
Colonists will soon have jetpacks to fly between your base and asteroids, no walkways required.
Walkways leave a mess after warping, making it impossible to have an “entrance” to your station. Soon, colonists will fly around and you can enforce whatever chokepoint entrances suit you best.
Walkways are used to connect your base to Asteroids
Some enemies will be able to fly too. I’m hoping for Jetpack Zombies and Pirates.
Jetpacks also make it much easier to build and remove rooms on the edge of your base.
Should the jetpack require fuel or should each colonist be able to fly forever? It’s fun if colonists get stranded outside sometimes, but maybe it’s too annoying to require fuel? Let us know what you think
Trophy Case
A “Trophy Case” is in the pipeline. Place treasure in it to greatly increase the comfort value of a room. (You could also place Biowaste or Heads, In Jar)
Not a huge object, but it’s fun and will provide better use for the rare items you find.
(Work-in-progress)
We’re considering applying a global, station-wide morale buff for every unique treasure displayed in a trophy case, but we’re not sure. Let us know what you think!
Galaxy Map and Trade Ships
Currently, the “galaxy map” is a window that displays 3 pre-selected “cards”. This is fine as a placeholder, but something more permanent is needed.
The galaxy map will introduce trade ships, for buying almost anything. You’ll also be able to purchase Control Chips, Expansion Permits, Core Cosmetics, and other rare finds. This will speed up the pace of the game (if your economy is good).
We’re also creating many new derelict stations to explore. If you have any ideas for dungeons or stations, tell us on Discord or on stream!
Randomized Starts
Your station should feel like it’s unique to you and only you. (replayability is also important)
To that end, we’re adding 3 big changes that will make every game feel a bit different.
Choose starting supplies (bring extra food or medicine). The more supplies you bring, the less money you’ll start with.
Choose crew “archetype”. Your available crew will be chosen from this archetype
Randomly generated starting station. So that literally every starting station is different
Crew Archetypes
The crew “archetype” you select determines the types of humans that you left Earth with.
Here are some planned archetypes:
Default (this is what you currently use)
Pacifists (all colonists are pacifists)
Prisoners (colonists have perks such as Brawler and Space Rock Addict)
Scientists (colonists start with higher skills and tend to have Big Brain and frail perks)
Let us know which archetypes you want to see.
Randomized Starting Station
You’ll have 3 choices for your starting station:
Empty (one room with your Core)
Furnished (several rooms, with beds and other necessary objects already placed)
Random (a base will be generated for you)
Empty is great when you just want to do everything yourself. Furnished is good for when you’re new and just want to get started playing quickly.
Random, though, is the most exciting. Your station will look totally different every playthrough, with enemies, treasures, and secrets to discover. Imagine a zombie trapped behind rubble or a birthday cake left behind in the crew quarters.
(The randomized starting stations will feel similar to the randomized derelict stations)
Future Content
Here’s what’s coming up more long term.
In-Game Story / Tutorial
Right now, pressing play drops you into the game, with almost no direction or assistance.
Soon, we’ll add a basic tutorial to help you figure out how to play and how you’re supposed to play
Gear
Weapons for blasting enemies. Hats (and other cosmetics) for your colonists.
Gear will be a very very fun update.
We’ll likely add many new enemies and lifeforms at this time too.
Modding
Add anything you want to the game, with Steam workshop support.
The most challenging part of modding is creating documentation that is understandable. Starmancer is already completely moddable, but without supporting docs you’d really be shooting in the dark trying to make something.
I’ll also have to fix any issues that pop-up while we get modding 100% working.
Z Floors
We still have plans to add multi-floor stations, by the way. It will take some time.
Digging underground in multi-floor asteroids would be really fun.
Exploring generated stations with spooky basements will also be fun.
That’s It
That just about covers it. Thanks!
Reviews
If you like Starmancer, please leave a review! It only takes a few minutes, and it’s really helpful. Do your part for the ratio
She’s doing her part. Are you?
Stream
We stream Starmancer every Friday at 11:00 (gmt -4). This is the same time zone as New York City.
Get involved in Starmancer’s development. Come hang out and share your ideas! (some of our best improvements came from stream suggestions)
Goodbye
Thanks for reading everyone!
Expect to see Conditional Crafting in a week or two. We’re also thinking about adding a Biomass Mushroom crop that’s growable right from the start.
The next patch will mostly be bug fixes and balancing changes. Check it out on steam’s earlier_access branch (this is our testing branch)
- Tyler
