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Astrobase Command

3-axis space station builder with emotional AI characters and text adventures · By JellyfishGames

Is the game dead?

A topic by Erwin1984 created Aug 30, 2021 Views: 579 Replies: 10
Viewing posts 1 to 6

Is the game dead, Have not seen any updates. Even discord is pretty much dead.

Developer (3 edits)

Hello Erwin,

Thank you for the question! The studio is currently resolving some internal issues that are apparently blocking the release of the product and having nothing to do with the game itself.

In the meantime, I have not stopped active development since there is always more to improve! I'm personally committed to seeing this project to launch.

I'll give you two examples as a personal update on my work:

Personal Log
(done-ish)

I added a personal log, where characters now record various thoughts (reasons for in-game behavior) which you can read.

Some background on this feature is that whenever the character has a morale event, a piece of text gets written which explains the reason for the morale change. This has been implemented since the beginning, but it's never been visualized -- there was nowhere this text was actually displayed. So you would play the game, and see characters' morale stat go up and down, but have no idea when or why it was happening.

So, I first changed all the text to be written in the first person using the procedural textgen, and then packaged the feature to be a "personal log" from the character's perspective where you can see all the morale events and reasons. Allowing you to actually identify and fix the problem the character is having. Morale events (and corresponding personal log update) are triggered both on the station and off the station (on a mission, on the ship, etc).

This is done-ish, because it ended up exposing some bugs which weren't detected until the morale events were actually viewable. I'm still playtesting it.

Personality-Job Interaction
(in progress)

Personality always affected job performance, and how this worked was never visualized either. In short, characters use a fibonacci based points system on their skill level + personality modifier vs task size to come up with how long it takes to do the task. If you work in an office environment that does any sort of Agile/Scrum/Lean development, then this should sound extremely familiar. Gameplay wise the fibonacci scale means a level 1 skill character takes forever to do a task that a level 5 skill can do in a short amount of time, with personality modifying the skill from -2 to +2 depending on the job fit.

There are three TODOs here:

  1. Minor change to how the personality modifier is generated (just for consistency) -- done and in testing
  2. When a positive or negative personality number is generated (meaning the character loves or hates his job due to personality fit) it triggers a morale event and the character writes it to his personal log. So with this improvement, you can actually see that the task will be faster or slower than normal and also what aspect of the character's personality causes this. -- in progress
  3. Update to task tracker UI to show the task chart and expose the logic behind task times -- in design

Hope you are satisfied with this update, and I very much appreciate your patience.

Kind regards,

David

(1 edit)

Yay so glad y'all still working on it. That is really going to improve gameplay knowing why everyone is being angry or sad ect. ect. ect

Keep up the good work.


P.S. Do you know if we will be getting another update to the game before release?

Developer (1 edit)

Do you mean update as in, what we're working on, or update the game files?

update game files and maybe a little on what  you all are working on. Sorry have not responded just been working a lot, should be going back to normal hours here shortly.

Developer

done :)

I like the new interface but only gave a quick run thru. I did the hints part but unfortunately the runabout didnt have an experienced enough person to get anything from orbit. Also used combustions plant but no one was able to be assigned to it. I don't know if this was due to no crewmembers with enviromental skills was available. Also had damage in plantand was leaking, no repair personnel. The build feature is better, but crew was moping and taking awhile to get tasks done. Gave up for now, will tinker with it when have time. 

Developer (4 edits)

Hello Lochar, thank you for checking it out!!!

I did the hints part but unfortunately the runabout didnt have an experienced enough person to get anything from orbit.

He should have gained experience if you landed him on any planet (if he actually gets through the story). If not, you can always gain experience and go back scan the home planet later.

Also used combustions plant but no one was able to be assigned to it

It's surprising this wasn't working or clear... you select a crewmember and right-click the section and it assigns the person (to any section with beds or jobs). Pretty sure these steps are now written in multiple places in the GUI.  Does this not work for you?

Also had damage in plantand was leaking, no repair personnel.

You need to build a repair shop and assign someone to it. Was this not clear as well? Should be written down on an alert form.

Please let me know when you get a chance, because the game is perfectly playable for me --  getting 40 days in and have a lot of fun, and then the mid-game difficulty curve starts really ramping up and then it's just about efficiently managing time, people, and resources. But the issue here is that creators know how to play their own game, so really interested in what the disconnect is and why you aren't having the same experience!

Much appreciated you taking a look

-David

(1 edit)

I have played this it first came to itch since missed kickstarter.

It's surprising this wasn't working or clear... you select a crewmember and right-click the section and it assigns the person (to any section with beds or jobs). Pretty sure these steps are now written in multiple places in the GUI.  Does this not work for you?

What I am saying is that no crewmember was able to be assigned to the reactor. I right clicked but no one changed to job, also wasnt highlighting like runabout or storage. I dont know if this was due to none of them having any skill in that field what so ever or a bug.

You need to build a repair shop and assign someone to it. Was this not clear as well? Should be written down on an alert form.

Yes but at the beginning I can barely afford all the modules I need. For one if I don't do cantina they run thru food like crazy, Also if I don't build a custodial room some things don't get done as well, not to mention this takes half a modules.  Also needing repairs this early with gas leak probably means I need air scrubbers as well, which is another item that cant afford at beginning.

With the runabout as only way to get resources but skills are lacking it takes awhile to get any cargo.

The help/hint section just gives basic assign crew member to runabout but may want to make it clear a certain skillset if preferable because it acts like I was able to accomplish the objective when all options were greyed out for who I chose to fly it,

Developer (1 edit)

Thanks Lochar for the response

What I am saying is that no crewmember was able to be assigned to the reactor. I right clicked but no one changed to job, also wasnt highlighting like runabout or storage. I dont know if this was due to none of them having any skill in that field what so ever or a bug.

Let's tackle this first!

  1. Start a new game
  2. Construct & place a new module with a combustion plant
  3. Wait for the module to finish building (you'll get an alert form saying so)
  4. Left click a crewmember to select them
  5. Mouse over the built combustion plant
  6. Right click to assign the crew.

Just confirmed this worked on my end with the downloaded client. Do these steps not work for you? (character skill doesn't matter for assignment).

(1 edit)

Ok that was my lack of paying attention, apparently even tho it LOOKED built it wasnt finished because of? The module was built following tutorial with only sleeping quarters. I then added cantina and combustion plant. The plant seemed to be done but it technically wasnt until the cantina was finished, which I am not sure why except for they were on same build order.

So that makes me wonder how did it get damaged when technically not running.

Anyways I played some more, I didnt start a new game yet but found some roadblocks.

I did a transport order that was removing 5 resources in total from shuttle. Day 4 and still not completed. But now that I did that I am stuck not using shuttle. My crew is losing body so fast either between conversations or just doing 1 job.

From the 1st module I added that had the crew quarters, cantina and power plant, I was now losing O2. So I added an air supply as 4 sub module, and now I have smog. Not enough resources to build another module with purifier, plus now need custodial and repair shop.

I can start a new game, leave out quarters and build the air and power and food. I hate skipping a cantina right off due to food wastage that takes place. But after this I am down to the RNG system on whether I can find resources in the runabout to allow me to expand, and then the slow process of trying to get resources and transported in enough time to build another module for more needed items. 

Also I would like the ability to cancel jobs altogether, if it exists I could not find it, just pause or change priority or unassign. 

I have crew that have no body and showing exhausted, yet they wont rest, just wander. 

I think the crew lollygags more than work but could be just me being impatient.


I will tinker some more when have time but probably wont be for a few weeks. 

I spent a lil time today just using the runabout since I am stalled doing anything else til I get base metals. I basically scanned and tried to land on every planet I could, which was time consuming and boring even tho I like the runabout features. Its just this was all I could do so am watching timer go down constantly. If station was bigger , then might not be so bad as have other focuses.

Anyways after my system and 2 others with 1 planet each, I finally got enough experience to scan homeworld. After 60 second countdown, I get told I failed because have 0 storage experience, and lost experience.

This frustrating as no crew has that and yet now back to shuttle to try to find materials elsewhere and watching timer again. I will try after my vacation, but its frustrating to say the least.