Hello starchasers! Been a hot minute, hasn't it? I was aiming to push this patch to the main branch earlier in the year, around the end of June, but there was SO much testing, fixing, and work that had to go into it on top of everything else in my life that it ended up getting pushed by pretty far. Perks of working on this by myself, I suppose. You're just here for cats though, I know.
I debated delaying this update until a proper 1.0 launch, but so much of this represents such a fundamental change for Underspace under the hood that I felt that getting it into the hands of you, the players, soon rather than later would only be a net benefit to society as a whole, so here we are.
Update Overview
Modding! The name of the game here is modding. Underspace previously had mod support for a variety of things like ships and equipment, but with this new update I've brought forth a lot of new modding features. So what can you mod in Underspace now?
Uh.
Well.
Pretty much everything! This includes writing new code, quests, random missions, support for modding star systems, stations, regions, universes, storms, etc, etc, etc. Damn nearly everything is now data driven to an extreme amount, but that's not all.
Let's say there was a game out there, another game, that was beloved and very similar to Underspace but handled all of its data through easily readable nonliable text files. What if Underspace's SDK now contained an importer that would read that data and recreate the data in that file to be accurate to Underspace's format?
Just saying, that's a thing now. Modders have to do some legwork if they want it working in full, but it'll do a vast amount of the basics for you. Just, you know, if you want to. And from what I've seen, people want to and are.
With the massive amount of content now available to be modded for players, we've switched away from one single modding pdf (which was a monster to maintain) to a much more viable modding wiki! I'm still in the process of writing the massive amounts of documentation for this (because again, I am a single person working on a 300 hour game and trying to document the hundreds of scripts and behaviors in this game is a nightmare even for an actual team, especially since all that source code can be accessed and new scripts can be written by the player), but so much is already there!
On top of that, multiplayer also has a ton of new things. Quests, world states, bosses, and all of that is now properly synchronized. Bosses have also gained new behavioral aspects to let them deal with multiple players, such as big snake monsters not just prioritizing the player.
With this in mind, multiplayer now sits in a near feature and content complete state. Some additional bits (such as a dedicated server mode, more admin commands, the multiplayer campaign, and of course tons of bug testing) still remain, but my original fever-vision of a game where you and your friends strike out into the starry unknown and get killed by a ghost starship are finally a reality!
Let's get into the actual changelog now.
Changelog is as follows:
NEW FEATURES
Restored dialogue for party members on many many major stations, with over 50 new conversations in total. Added the ability to quit to the main menu from dedicated server mode.
Bosses that move in multiplayer, including battleships, now have their locations properly synced between clients. Enjoy chasing that big throbbing snake out in the Veil together!
All bosses have had their data and events synced across multiplayer. Hunt those gods together, starchaser!
Synchronized the remaining anomalous things in the world, such as the Chonos wreck and Marrenfloh’s exploding ice fields.
Added support for GOG-Steam crossplay. You will have to forward ports and set several settings in the server’s settings for this to happen, sorry.
Mods can add keybinds that code can take advantage of that show up in your keybind options.
Mods can now create new star systems.
Mods can now create new space stations and planets.
Mods can now add new elements to space stations.
Mods can now add new elements to star systems.
Mods can now change existing elements in space stations.
Mods can now change existing elements in star systems.
Made several hardcoded mission variables (such as ace pilot spawn rates) able to be modified.
Mods can now add and change bounties.
Mods can now add and change starchaser chapters.
Mods can now add and change quests.
Mods can now add and change mission templates.
Mods can now add and change regions.
Mods can now add and change storms.
Mods can now add and change storm hazards.
Mods can now add and change ambient starchasers.
Mods can now add and change universes (top level regions).
Mods can now add and change quest events.
Mods can now add and change crafting recipes.
Mods can now add and change housing items.
Mods can now add and change vanity items (such as dyes, ship materials, decals, etc).
Mods can now add and change character customization parts (robes, Ballden shell colors, etc).
Mods can now add and change party members.
Added requirement fields to encounter objects, so modders can restrict entire spawning archetypes based on things like quests and such.
Added several extra fields for encounter classes and ship hardpoints, again for modders to take advantage of.
Added behavior to be able to rename hardpoints via mods.
Added model import support for .gltf format. This is not included with the mod SDK by default, but Underspace itself will still acknowledge these model formats.
Mods can now import .ini files from… elsewhere.
The savegame menu now indicates if a save you’re about to load is modded or not.
Enabled features to allow for GOG crossplay (as well as dedicated servers). Note that doing this requires you to forward ports.
You can now favorite servers and servers will indicate if they’ve been favorited and visited.
CHANGES AND REBALANCES
NPCs exiting stations will fly for longer before they attempt to turn.
Total refactor of NPC pathfinding in the hopes they’ll be better about avoiding objects. Hopefully. Please?
You can now delete entire characters on the main menu.
Better instanced various quest areas.
Pausing the game will unhide a HUD hidden by photomode, because players don’t pay attention to the keys they press.
The smuggler fighter during campaign mission 2 will no longer despawn and will happily wait for you to pick up on it now, because it felt sorry for you.
Added slightly more default features for Playstation controllers.
Added a very basic Nintendo Switch controller preset.
FIXES
Adjusted the spawnpoints of missions in the capital.
Fixed some UI elements that wouldn’t change with the contextual UI color.
Fixed issue with station cameras when switching between equipment items.
Fixed issue with NPCs not sitting in chairs.
Fixed issue where the player could use trains and travel on them for free.
Fixed issue in multiplayer where NPC formations were not synchronized.
Fixed issue in multiplayer where docking between clients, particularly on lanes and gates, wasn’t synchronized.
Fixed issue where players in a separate instance could see each other shoot. Weird stuff, huh?
Fixed issue where mods wouldn’t load.
Fixed issue where corporate freighters would push your character out of cutscenes when on stations.
Fixed issue where generic modding instantiators weren’t loading at runtime.
Fixed various graphical and collider issues on Planet Vauldric.
Fixed issue with manual docking kicking players in multiplayer.
Fixed global mismatch error during Hostile Delivery.
Fixed dialogue errors during the Onusian Arena.
Fixed issue where mission ships would spawn with the player’s name, confronting you with a vision of your own death.
Fixed wrong descriptions on Washer ships.
Fixed some remaining Barrely Borblies, who survived The Purge.
Fixed descriptions being wrong for weapons with ammunition.
Fixed issue where godmoded admins could be damaged in multiplayer. I mean chances are you probably deserved it, but still.
Fixed issue where missions in multiplayer would load a lot of settings incorrectly.
Fixed issue where some minor singleplayer only elements appeared or played in multiplayer.
Fixed some small issues with dialogue history regarding player responses.
Fixed issue where some unique ships could be hailed that shouldn’t be able to be hailed.
Added better logic for group missions to prevent waypoint mismatches.
Fixed issue where knowledge could be acquired about campaign only stations.
Fixed issue where campaign records would be shaved off.
Fixed small memory leak with offscreen indicators.
Fixed memory leak with custom radio systems.
Fixed minor issues related to obscure NPC spawning.
Fixed issues where Hausher ships wouldn’t spawn correctly.
Fixed issue where ships with cloaking devices would be ignored by ships, even if they weren’t cloaked.
Fixed issue where snake bosses would swirl around and around like lunatics and run into issues if they ate their targets early.
Fixed issue with buying and renaming house items.
Fixed some mislabeled key tutorials.
Public group numbers are more accurate on the current group size while in multiplayer.
Fixed character login issues related to accounts that are already logged in.
Fixed issue where the achievement “Lady Mimosa, My Beloved” was not working.
Fixed issues with several mission specific hitboxes.
Fixed issues with the Alablaster not jumping in or out in Mission 2.
Fixed issues where the pirate fighter cockpit’s monitors would be incorrect.
1.0 Development Update
We're barreling towards 1.0 now with this latest release; my task list being little more than "voice acting and the multiplayer campaign". Many voice actors, namely the ones I could more easily get ahold of, have recorded their bits and bobs over the past few weeks, and the multiplayer campaign is getting plenty of its content finalized and detailed. No spoilers, but have some screenshots of the new places you'll be visiting once 1.0 launches.
There's still no concrete release date for Underspace's 1.0 launch, sadly. Since a huge amount of that is contingent on sweeping through the gargantuan amount of content in game and making sure it works, it's hard to estimate a time for that, particularly with such a small team. I'll have more for you in the coming months, but barring bugfixes this patch (1.55.6) will most likely be the last major patch before 1.0's release.
Until next time, starchasers!
