Hey everybody! New alpha build is up! This week, we've got a bunch of improvements to scenery! Tell us what you think!

Here are the patch notes for version 0.2.13:

Improvements
  - Changed home star category distribution for improved variety
  - Improved star visuals
  - Improved gas planet visuals
  - Added terrestrial planet
  - Added planetary rings
  - Reduced scenery load time by 50+%
  - Updated species creation color scheme
  - Updated audio for Asteroid Shooter

Fixes
  - Fixed moon crater rendering
  - Fixed home star scaling according to star category

Played about 25 ingame days, seems like ran smoother this go round and was keeping up with reactor,maintenance and stocking fairly well.

Any word of when we are going to get a meat and potatoes build? The graphic updates are nice, but I think even with the save game added, it will get boring with just the existing modules in place. I hope more gets put in before this goes to Steam or probably going to have folks giving bad reviews even in EA for not much to do. 

Once you have power, place to eat, sleep, shower, work, their really is not much else to do. 

PS with the locate option in the crew cartridge, really dont see a reason for a rolodex anymore so hope plans to build upon that somewhat.

Hey Lochar!

It's great you made it as far as you did. Thank you for playing!

Absolutely a lot more is planned to go in before we go to Early Access.

To explain a bit, the game right now is a platform or foundation for content. For example: you recruit characters, give them task-driven jobs (which keep the station running); character lifecycles with eating, sleeping and using the toilet; stats, skills, skill growth, ranks, promotions, personalities, personality growth, relationships, conversations;  also resources. resource management, station building; datapad, desk gui, etc. It all adds up to a stable character life-sim base builder, which has the hooks for planned story content.

The next step is adding "stuff happening," which you might be calling the meat and potatoes. These are procedural stories which interact with the current simulation, and hook into existing character and station systems listed above. This work is a major focus of work from now until release.  Examples include: space weather (micrometeorites/asteroids, solar flares, gamma bursts), anomalies, viruses, combat with aliens, theft, riots, murders, trials, visitors. Not all of these will necessarily be in the launch version (the list is to give you an idea), and we're prioritizing based on time-to-make/fun-to-play. You can think of the current build as the platform or foundation for the story content.

Also if you have any interesting scenarios or story templates you'd like to see in game, now is the time for the community to help shape the direction of the game. For example, is it more fun to deal with character relationship problems, or viruses spreading, work accidents causing things to blow up, aliens invading, etc. In short, what direction/tone of the sci-fi episodes you would like to see for Astrobase Command. Let us know!

Thanks for the reply , I saw the procedural story blogs you guys were talking about, but am curious how, for example, to handle a virus when the medical module isnt in place or a doctor position. Same with alien invaders. I am not a programmer but I figured the basic blocks would be in before starting stories which cant be implemented until the means to combat them are in place.  If a module takes alot of damage and becomes dangerous, there are no E.V.A suits available.

Dont get me wrong, this is one of my most anticipated games in a long time for a space sim, but anything that triggers injuries I want to be able to fix, get attacked, to defend with. I think stories spice up any game world. Rimworld is a perfect example, but any of there stories would become a pain if could do nothing to prevent it. Unless you guys plan on releasing the means when you introduce the stories.

I would be happy to submit stories or situations anyways but figured the props would be there to see what had to work with.