Missions on-station now properly show the path to them:
(in upcoming patch Alpha 1.0)
December should be fun - we’ve got the patreon backer ebook of the month ready to go, a new chapter of Odatria all ready to go, and I’m nearly done with the incredibly large set of changes for Alpha 1.0
Which, to be brutally honest, was a lot more work than I was expecting.
The motto for Alpha 1 is “we do these things not because they are hard, but because we thought they would be easy”
The mission system alone is vastly flexible by design, which required so much more testing and bug hunting than I was expecting
Many times while preparing for Alpha 1.0 I thought it was ready, and then something broke that I wasn’t expecting
Patreon backer ebook of the month:
New chapter of Odatria to follow shortly, along with the big Alpha 1 patch
Chapter 6 of the Smugglers of Cygnus book Odatria is now up for all backers
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ALPHA 1 Patch 0:
The major milestone you’ve all been waiting a very long time for.
The first 2 missions involving “Bad Luck” Bart are now included. The long awaited and unexpectedly complex mission system is now in place.
Alpha 1 marks a major milestone - and at this point the ‘core gameplay loop’ is complete. The core gameplay loop for Smugglers of Cygnus is:
Customize your ship
Find and complete jobs
Engage with NPCs and the environment to find and complete missions
Earn money and faction by completing missions and jobs
Explore the environment in 1st and 3rd person
This obviously is not to say the game is done, or even that these are in a fully finished implementation (far from it) - just that the core gameplay loop is complete for the first time. Now that Alpha 1 has landed on Itch and Steam, we’ll be switching to feature enhancement and content creation mode.
That means a LOT more missions, jobs, NPCs, etc. More customization options. In-game customization using credits, faction, collectibles, etc. Character creation. More voice work, etc. Heck, we haven’t even finished the Alpha System yet, let alone added the ability to travel between systems. A complete redo of the flight control/handling system. Joystick support.
So, THANK YOU to everyone who’s been a part of this game, regardless of if you were a backer or just a retweeter. Thank you for your help, your questions, your frustrations, your suggestions.
We’re getting there, and this feels huge even though it’s still just the first big step towards the release candidate. We’re now at Waypoint 0, and it took 3 years and so much work with your support to get here.
Fixes and improvements in this patch :
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Missions! Voice acting!
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Still working on balance for the view draw to make sure the cockpit doesn’t clip but the station doesn’t flicker. Still some flickering and depth issues to resolve, but we’ll get there.
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Esc/back now exits menus if they’re open before exiting the level.
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Distance figures now make more sense. Scale still needs tweaking.
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Part of the landing shaft for the full scene is now visible. Landing zone changed from yellow to green.
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Improved the UI screens.
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Added collapsing to the current tasks menu.
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Asteroids! Some you can run into… and some have secrets. No destructibles yet.
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You can land at the green sphere on the station module and it will put you inside, then run down the hallway to the Hangar Bay and it will put you back in the ship. It’s a start, anyhow - this is not the final process. Same as last patch, this is just a reminder.
Known Bugs:
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For some reason if you click the green check as soon as the ship builder starts instead of going through to paint , it might crash. Still working on that one. This one is hard to reproduce, but the ship chooser is due a re-factor soon.
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Still some flickering on planet texture in some cockpits. Being tuned.
As always feedback on the forum is appreciated, you can go here: https://forum.longplay.games/t/alpha-1-feedback-thread/265?u=miguelb and drop bugs, opinions, screenshots and feedback. We really appreciate it!
Coming Next: More of everything. Improved handling and controls. Missions and more interaction. Poll to follow on forum.
tl;dr:
Alpha 1 feedback thread:
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Quick patch pushed, the control window was left turned off by accident. It should again display when you change areas.
Patreon Priority Poll time!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/smugglers-alpha-95558576
Backers, go weigh in with your development priorities by 1/15.
Patch video: https://www.youtube.com/live/HNOr29-YE3g?feature=shared
ALPHA 1 Patch 1:
Fixes and improvements in this patch :
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Fixed bug with job scale causing instant completion of most jobs.
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The ‘menu’ keyboard key no longer causes the game to hang.
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No more infinite mission endings if you talk to “Bad Luck” Bart before exiting.
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Control info now displays correctly on level change.
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Added our first localization support! The control info is now localized into French, Spanish and Bokmål.
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Still working on balance for the view draw to make sure the cockpit doesn’t clip but the station doesn’t flicker. Still some flickering and depth issues to resolve, but we’ll get there.
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You can land at the green sphere on the station module and it will put you inside, then run down the hallway to the Hangar Bay and it will put you back in the ship. It’s a start, anyhow - this is not the final process. Same as last patch, this is just a reminder.
Huge thanks to Serge LE TYRANT for the French translation. He maintains the awesome linux gaming resource http://www.lebottindesjeuxlinux.tuxfamily.org/en/online/lights-on/ where you can find info on tons of linux-friendly apps and games.
Huge thanks to Sten for the Bokmål translation. He’s also our QA guy and a talented chiptune composer.
Known Bugs:
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For some reason if you click the green check as soon as the ship builder starts instead of going through to paint , it might crash. Still working on that one. This one is hard to reproduce, but the ship chooser is due a re-factor soon.
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Still some flickering on planet texture in some cockpits. Being tuned.
As always feedback on the forum is appreciated, you can go here: Alpha 1 Feedback Thread
and drop bugs, opinions, screenshots and feedback. We really appreciate it!
Right now there is a poll for Patreon backers ($1 a month+) to vote on the next major focus - at the moment, ship handling is in the lead.
Coming Next: More of everything. Improved handling and controls. Missions and more interaction. Poll to follow on forum.
Chapter 8 of Odatria is up!
Chapter 9 of Odatria is out on Patreon for all backers! https://www.patreon.com/posts/smugglers-of-9-99805766
ALPHA 1 Patch 3:
Fixes and improvements in this patch :
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Huge handling update.
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Job mass check now works.
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Ship shopper cargo capacity/engines now work.
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Ship shopper can now reset winglet engines by changing body type.
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Can no longer fly out of bounds.
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Still working on balance for the view draw to make sure the cockpit doesn’t clip but the station doesn’t flicker. Still some flickering and depth issues to resolve, but we’ll get there.
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Re-tuned job sizes to make sure they are distributed better.
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You can land at the green sphere on the station module and it will put you inside, then run down the hallway to the Hangar Bay and it will put you back in the ship. It’s a start, anyhow - this is not the final process. Same as last patch, this is just a reminder.
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The ship shopper should be working now if you just hit the check box right off.
Known Bugs:
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Still some flickering on planet texture in some cockpits. Being tuned.
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Some jitter when faaaaar out to the edges - that should be fixed soon.
Final Lap Chapter 10 audiobook is now up!
New wallpapers up, and in the newly voted sizes
https://www.patreon.com/posts/march-wallpaper-101184844 New wallpapers up!
Chapter 10 of Odatria is now up for all patrons
The next patch is coming, but there is a HUGE pile of work on my plate before I can deliver it, so I’ll be dark for a little while.
I need to:
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Upgrade to the latest Godot (4.2)Completed 5/01 -
Recompile the engine for high precision physics (to support the vast map size)
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Move from a single executable to exec plus pak file (to make updates smaller and easier)
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Clean up and finish the flight deck
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Finish the academy
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Write and record dialog and animations for those characters and zones
After that’s done, the next patch will be out. We’re not dead, just VERY busy!
In the interim, go check out the latest wallpapers to see what these two new areas look like.