Six Community Goals to Victory

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Dear Community,

You asked how you can help. Now the Outscape team needs your help urgently!

You probably know about our impending launch on Steam, if not you can read about it here. We need to ensure the Outscape launch is as successful as possible and the early weeks before and after launch are critical in deciding whether the game flops or takes off.

We’ve thought long and hard about how the community could help us into a position where we will launch successfully and narrowed it down to six highly impactful goals for you to drive. We think there are multiple ways of achieving these goals and we really need the community to get creative and drive these goals to make Outscape successful.

We will chart progress on these community goals and update those charts daily here. We will also do an additional weekly blog post with a bit of commentary on how things are going towards these goals too.

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Why we need to launch on Steam Early Access

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TL;DR
We are developing features too slowly and are constrained by our budget, yet we have an amazing community and the game is doing well so far. We need to launch Outscape on Steam Early Access to increase our feature development velocity and secure the future of the game we all want to play. We don’t want to be a ‘pay to win’ game, so a Steam launch is the only sensible option. More than ever, we need the community’s (i.e. your) help to increase our development velocity and also secure the future of Outscape. Please help us!

Dear Community,

Herein lies some super important information regarding the future of Outscape. This is a longform blogpost so grab a coffee and make yourself comfortable 🙂

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Release: Patch [v.0.99]

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Hi everyone,

We’ve just released patch 0.99. The one change you might notice is that the visual design of the galaxy has been restored/improved.

A couple of server issues were also fixed, including the cause of the server crash yesterday evening. We also added some metrics that will enable us to monitor game client performance such as FPS that will enable us to prioritize which areas of the game to optimize in the future.

Please note: while releasing this patch we generated a test galaxy that is listed from the Skirmish slot in the game lobby. It’s not possible to join it. If you try to join it a web page should open explaining that it’s a test galaxy. Apologies again to those of you still waiting to join a galaxy, we will update you on when one will be available as soon as we can, your patience is appreciated.

We’ll be back very soon with more news for you,

– The Outscape dev team

Discuss this patch on the forum
 

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.

Release: Patch [v.0.972]

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Hi everyone,

Patch 0.972 has just been released via Steam. It contains a couple of quick bug fixes we thought we’d push out rather than leave on our servers collecting dust 🙂

Bugs squashed

  • Players were seeing systems and planets coloured green when they shouldn’t have been (because there wasn’t a treaty with an active player)
  • Labels were missing and stars were blurred for some systems on the very outskirts of the galaxy

Thanks, see you again soon

– The Outscape dev team

Discuss this patch on the forum
 

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.

Release: Patch [v.0.971]

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Hi everyone,

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s treaties patch we’ve got another one for you. The devs fixed a few of the issues reported following that patch quite quickly so we thought we’d push them now rather than wait until more changes were ready:

Bugs squashed

  • Interceptions were failing (in yesterday’s patch we fixed one bug with interceptions but introduced another which this patch fixes)
  • The wrong player civilization icon was displayed for received treaty proposals (treaties already proposed will still use the wrong icon – recreating the treaty would update it to the correct icon)
  • The ODS recharge time could be bypassed to trigger it to fire more frequently than intended (by ordering it to be dismantled and then cancelling the dismantle)
  • ODS were sometimes firing at the fleet of a player they shouldn’t have because of a treaty
  • A planet’s suitability for the player’s civilization was sometimes displayed incorrectly (e.g. it was showing as too cold when it should have been ok, or it didn’t clarify that there wasn’t sufficient land/water mass)

Features and changes

  • City center beron and credit costs have been increased (the pricing is now similar to labs). The cost increase is intended to keep them relatively affordable, but reduce the feasible amount that could be constructed.
    • Beron cost increased to 5k for all levels (from 2k, 3k, 5k). Credit cost increased to 1k, 5k, 25 k (from 500, 2.5k, 12.5k)

Disconnected while playing or trying to login?

The game servers have gone down briefly a few times since the patch was released yesterday. If you were playing at any of those times you will have been disconnected but been able to rejoin the game shortly afterwards. This patch fixes the cause of those crashes so performance should be stable now.

However, if you are having issues logging in or connecting to the game after updating to this patch please let us know.

See you soon,

– The Outscape dev team

Discuss this patch on the forum
 

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.

Release: Patch [v.0.97]

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Hi everyone,

The latest patch has just dropped and contains new gameplay features many of you have been waiting a long time for…

Treaties

Yes – treaties are finally here!

The gameplay mechanics introduced with treaties have been one of the biggest asks from players recently, so we’re very excited to be able to deliver them in this patch.

Treaties aren’t alliances, but they are the first step towards alliances and we hope that players will find treaties a useful starting point.

We recommend checking out the treaties wiki page for an indepth look at how they work but here’s a summary:

  • Treaties are diplomatic agreements between two players
  • A treaty must be proposed by one player and accepted by the other to be agreed
  • Players can message each other from the private messages chat window once a treaty has been proposed/agreed
  • Non-aggression is the only treaty type available at the moment (there is no shared visibility)
  • When a non-aggression treaty has been agreed, both players will have safe passage from each other’s automated defenses:
  • Fleets in a planet’s orbit won’t automatically attack the other player’s fleets while they’re in orbit
  • Orbit defense systems won’t attack the other player’s fleets while they’re in orbit
  • Players can safely travel through each other’s minefields without being damaged
  • Players are not blocked from ordering their fleets to attack the other player’s fleets or planets! Attacking a player you have a treaty with does not automatically terminate a treaty – treaties can only be terminated manually (the effects of terminating a treaty are instant).

    • Treaties are managed from the diplomacy page which is opened from the main menu

    The treaties tab lists all of your agreed treaties (you can terminate any of them at any time)
    [Read more…]

    Pre-Beta galaxy closing to new players & other news

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    Hi everyone,

    We’re releasing a new patch next week – on Monday if everything goes to plan – and are excited to confirm it’ll include treaties!

    Pre-Beta galaxy closing to new players

    But the new patch will also close the Pre-Beta galaxy to new players. This galaxy will continue as normal after the patch is released, just no more players will be able to join it.

    The Pre-Beta galaxy filled up once already, was expanded, and is close to filling up again. We can’t expand it a second time, so we need to close it to new players with the next patch (there’s a chance it’ll fill up before then).

    If you have already been sent an email invite but not yet joined the galaxy, there may still be time for you to join. Apologies in advance to any of you that try to join and find it’s already been closed to new players!

    [Read more…]

    Share Your Gameplay + Streamer Mode

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    Hi everyone,

    We’re often asked if it’s ok for players to stream/upload video of their Outscape gameplay.

    We’re more than happy for players to stream or share gameplay and we actively encourage it!

    There aren’t a lot of Outscape gameplay videos out there at the moment so there’s a good chance anything you do publish will be found by searching players.

    Outscape has been added to Twitch and there’s a section on the forum where you can share gameplay videos/screenshots (negative feedback can be tough to hear, but if formed as constructive criticism we can use it to improve the game). If there’s anything else we can help with let us know.

    Outscape on Twitch
    Forum: Share gameplay video & screenshots

    Streamer mode

    [Read more…]

    Release: Patch [v.0.966]

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    Hi everyone,

    Patch 0.966 has just been released today via Steam to all players. It contains fixes for some of the bugs you’ve reported to us over the last couple of days:

    • Income from a colony was displayed wrong in the game client on colony’s with 100% happiness and city centers (see here for details – it was a display bug only and the correct income was being calculated on the server)
    • It was possible to trigger an error by entering too many characters for the blueprint name (blueprint names and fleet names are both limited to 20 characters now, we considered increasing it but it looked better to keep this max length)
    • Some of the descriptions for reinforced armor weren’t displayed
    • Joining the galaxy sometimes triggered a crash
    [Read more…]