No Reset for Skirmish or Main Galaxies yet – but Pre-beta Galaxy Ends Feb 5th

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Hi everyone,

We’ve been asked if we’re going to reset the Skirmish and Main galaxies because of the exploits that were introduced with Play with Friends. After analysing the data we’ve concluded it’s better to keep Skirmish and Main running and don’t plan to reset them at this time.

Across the playerbase the exploit was used to a relatively low degree, whereas a reset would affect everyone and likely cause much more frustration. Of the players that did use the exploit only a handful used it to a significant degree while others used it only once or twice. We do appreciate that if you are next to one of these players it will be dissapointing and we apologize to you for this. But for most of you it should have little to no affect on your game.

At some point we may well add a new game slot but that won’t happen before more new features are added – in particular those that make sense to be introduced with a new galaxy – or when a new game type is ready…

More Play with Friends Fixes on the Way

In the last patch we added some fixes to address how Play with Friends can be exploited. In the next patch we’re adding a couple more:

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Play with Friends: the Next Steps

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Hi everyone,

First off, we want to apologize again for the issues that most of you experienced after the v104 patch was released. Usually when there’s an issue with a patch, the devs are able to quickly push out a hotfix. But in this instance, the nature of the issue went much deeper and as such we were unable to ready a fix quickly enough. In the future we’ll exercise greater caution with the timing of a patch release and limit the number of risky features in a single patch.

Patch v104 Bugs

On Friday we applied a hotfix to the servers which appears to have fixed the issues with teleporting and invisible fleets. There is one side-effect though: fleets will probably remain affected by the issue until they are moved and the client is then restarted. So we recommend moving all of your fleets a bit and then restarting the client. If you have done this and still have problems with teleporting or invisible fleets, please let us know on the forum.

We are working right now on a followup patch that will address other bugs and changes to the Play with Friends which we’ll go over now.

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Sales & Community Goals Update

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Hi everyone, we’ve been super busy supporting all the new players which have come to Outscape over the past two and a half weeks (we launched on Steam Early Access on October 22nd). Thanks for all of your help onboarding those new players!

One thing we did not anticipate was scoring a ‘Very Positive’ on Steam so early. It actually feels like ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ (the highest possible score) is within reach. At least 500 reviews are needed plus at least somewhere between 90% and 95% positive reviews. We are incredibly thankful to all the community members that purchased Outscape and also left kind and useful reviews for other players. At the time of writing, there are 98 reviews and 90% are positive. In fact, around half of the negative reviews came from China where connectivity is challenging. We’ve made some changes which seems to have helped this problem.

Here is our sales chart. As you can see we launched with a pop, but then things slowed.

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Get Outscape on Steam Early Access Now

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Hi everyone,

We’re very excited to announce that Outscape is now available to buy on Early Access on Steam! Get your copy now and take advantage of the 10% launch discount (this discount expires in a few days).

By purchasing the Early Access version of Outscape, you’ll be helping us to accelerate our development velocity and deliver more features to you faster! See our post Why we need to launch on Steam Early Access to find out more.

Get Outscape on Steam Early Access

New galaxies launched

As part of the Early Access release, two new galaxies have just been launched and are ready for you to join right now: Skirmish 1 and Main 1.

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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.0.97]

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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!

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    Pre-Beta Galaxy Open Again to Players + Patch 0.965 Released

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    Hi everyone,

    The new Pre-Beta galaxy was launched on Sunday and demand from players was much higher than we expected! Quite frankly, we were overwhelmed by the number of players that tried to join.

    Players trying to join the galaxy since Monday night found it was already full and we’re very sorry for any frustration this caused.

    Pre-Beta galaxy open again to new players

    However, the Pre-Beta galaxy has just been expanded and is open again – ready for new players to join!

    If you tried joining before while the Pre-Beta galaxy was full – or haven’t tried yet – we recommend that you join as soon as you can before it fills up again.

    [Read more…]

    Pre-Beta Galaxy Launched!

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    Hi everyone,

    The new Pre-Beta galaxy is now OPEN and ready for you to play!

    If you previously signed up to play but haven’t had an invite email yet – check your inbox… Because everyone that signed up and was still waiting on an invite should now have been sent one (keep reading if you didn’t get yours).

    [Read more…]