Ostranauts - spaceship management sim set in NEO Scavenger universe - now available on Early Access

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

explain

There's a face which you would sent into outer space and then arrange orbit collapse so it woudn't come back.

 

[oscar]

I dunno if something's set in a liberal capitalist future where Western hyper-individualism has culturally triumphed then this kind of stuff is fairly plausible (hell it's here right now). I'd be annoyed too if it was shoved into Kingdom Come: Deliverance but here it's not so bad

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Eh, it's one of those things I can just ignore, especially in a game like this. I mean, you have spaceships, wrecks to loot, reactors to keep from blowing up, possibly some piracy to do - why would you pay attention to pronouns?

 

[gerey]

why would you pay attention to pronouns?

Because I need to know who goes out the airlock. Also, the degeneracy can be modded out hopefully.

But yeah, game looks pretty good, gives Space Station 13 vibes, and the UI is simple enough that a lot more depth can be added to it.

What I'm curious about is how combat, both ship-to-ship and person-to-person, will be handled. The developer already mentioned that the spaceship combat is going to be similar to submarine battles - which I disagree with, since there's no possibility of stealth from space, and if he means two ships sniping each other from thousands of kilometers away via missiles, then it's more apt to describe it as modern naval battles involving cruise missiles.

Will we be able to equip different types of weapons on the ships (kinetic, energy, different types of missiles)? How customizable are the ships going to be?

How will close quarters combat play out though? Are they going to be guns in the game? Will we be able to cause decompression if we puncture the hull? Can we sabotage the life support systems and have the crew asphyxiate? Can we assault space stations?

Also, I'm interested in how social interactions will be handled and what their effect on gameplay and quests will be. From the demo the game seems to place a pretty big emphasis on personalities and social interactions, to the point it almost looked like a Sims game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

, since there's no possibility of stealth from space

Dunno, you could probably take cover in an asteroid belt or a spehss ship graveyard.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

But if you make an asteroid obscure your enemy's line of sight to you to hide you, you're equally blind to them. How do you know where they are so you can spring your trap? And if you say relay satellites, then those need to be in line of sight, and they need to be either hotter than the background, or very expensively cooled. Hiding in a ship graveyard is very dramatic, but unless you can maintain your ship at same temp as rest of the wrecks, you'll literally glow on sensors.

Stealth in space is not same as in other environments. Though that's true for every medium - you make plane stealthy one way, and sub another way. Biggest problem in space is that it's cold, and pretty much anything that's doing something useful will need to be hot in comparison. There's a very lovely concept called Hydrogen Steamer on ToughSF: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-hydrogen-steamer-stealth-spaceship.html. Well worth a read.

All of that is of course moot in sensor-poor environments, like in Alistair Reynolds "Revenger" or that Harry Turtledove story with aliens that have FTL jump capability, but their ships are effectively pressurised boxes, no electricity, radar, etc. Forgot the name, sorry.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

But if you make an asteroid obscure your enemy's line of sight to you to hide you, you're equally blind to them. How do you know where they are so you can spring your trap? And if you say relay satellites, then those need to be in line of sight, and they need to be either hotter than the background, or very expensively cooled. Hiding in a ship graveyard is very dramatic, but unless you can maintain your ship at same temp

Agreed.

 

[Van-d-all]

explain

There's a face which you would sent into outer space and then arrange orbit collapse so it woudn't come back.

In outer space no one can hear you whine.

It's no Signalis, but at least the style reminds me of early PSX low poly shading. Kinda like Copper Dreams were supposed to look like.

 

[Mortmal]

Title is misleading, its certainly not in early access today.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Great, just after I finish work! Can't wait to try it!

 

[Infinitron]

Steam demo is out.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I've already managed to die of heat induced organ failure while salvaging the ship. Love it!

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Ok, everything going fine, until I get to fly the ship. I can't figure out the interface. Maybe just dumb after work. Anyway, looks good so far, though quite buggy - you can move when some busy animations are playing (removing door, click somewhere, move far away from the door, but uninstall animation still playing). Love the reactor interface, hope more stuff like this. This basically feels like what I wanted Objects In Space to be, except with crew.

 

[Strange Fellow]

 

[agris]

dcfedor in terms of aphex twin albums prolonging inescapable descent into madness; why ambient works 2 over 85-92? I find 85-92 to be the right.. proof, distillation, pick your descriptor.

any love for early brian eno (music for airports) or any-period mogwai? Rock action by mogwai is a great EP if you’re unfamiliar.

 

[dcfedor]

Glad you folks are getting some time in the demo! And yeah, still quirks abound in that build. (Some of which still need squashing.)

Ok, everything going fine, until I get to fly the ship. I can't figure out the interface. Maybe just dumb after work. Anyway, looks good so far, though quite buggy - you can move when some busy animations are playing (removing door, click somewhere, move far away from the door, but uninstall animation still playing). Love the reactor interface, hope more stuff like this. This basically feels like what I wanted Objects In Space to be, except with crew.

It's not you! It's the game. That nav UI was in transition during PAX, so it's really flaky. Today's live stream (2pm Pacific here) will likely be of the latest build, and I can show a bit of how it has evolved. (Hopefully for the better.)

dcfedor in terms of aphex twin albums prolonging inescapable descent into madness; why ambient works 2 over 85-92? I find 85-92 to be the right.. proof, distillation, pick your descriptor.

any love for early brian eno (music for airports) or any-period mogwai? Rock action by mogwai is a great EP if you’re unfamiliar.

Wow! Asking the tough questions

Um, I think my love for SAWv2 is purely down to having it, and not having 85-92. I got into Analogue Bubblebath first, and I think SAWv2 was the only other album we found in our local record shop at the time. As a result, it basically conjures a whole (rose-tinted) phase of my life when I hear it.

But I shall have to spend some more time with 85-92!

I think I had some Eno on a various artist electronica CD set, which I liked. Not much experience with Mogwai, though!

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Not much experience with Mogwai, though!

Yeah they're cuddly but not worth the hassle when it does eventually get wet, which it will. Think a house packed with furballs is cute? Think again, that's a lot of cute poop you'll be cleaning off the carpets, honestly just get a cat.

 

[dcfedor]

Ha! Good point. Way too many gremlins on this project already!

 

[Mortmal]

The demo comfort me in the idea i will like the final product, the setting is very good , however.. The bugs ! so many of them already, getting stuck in deconstructing animation if you move out during the timer, then when done with that mission, end up in the station with no door, i dont think it's intended you have to deconstruct walls to reach them , then end up being unable to recruit any of the npc. So i relaunch the part hiring crew, then i find one npc who accept, immediately his ex come to chat and complain, then go away, it completely block any interaction. Show lot of promises but please do no even think to launch an early access like that.

 

[dcfedor]

That's a fair assessment! Part of the reason for the recent launch delay was exactly this: still too many rough spots (though hopefully less than what you saw in the PAX demo). The eventual EA launch should be smooth enough to play without getting stuck/requiring debug tools, and importantly, fun enough to bother.

The former is fairly straightforward, but the latter will always leave me worried until I actually see people having fun with my own eyes

Re: the specific bugs, the animations will eventually get tightened up, but I'll admit that's lower on my list. The door-less space station was something I hacked in there to make it look like the station was more alive, so it shouldn't be the case in the actual game.

Stuck conversations, though...that one's a failure in the code/data, and I need to figure out how to fix that. Basically, any convo started beyond 15 minutes of in-game time seems to be a non-starter, and even the ones that do start tend to degrade quickly. I want social contact to be a fairly core part of the experience, so that's higher on my list.

But yeah, message received! I want people to enjoy this when it's out, and feel excited to play more. So whatever I can do to get it there, I will!

 

[Mortmal]

Oh dont worry on the fun part, its definitely fun,like neo scavenger was, i cant wait to explore derelict ship hulks and salvage, let's hope there's some xenomorph sometime . Quite liked the generator small puzze to reignite it as well.

 

[Infinitron]

In this video, I live stream the same demo we showed at PAX East 2020, to a Steam audience for the Festival of Games. Over 50 minutes of me talking! (And, I guess, some Ostranauts gameplay.)

 

[urmom]

Is combat turn-based?

 

[dcfedor]

Not much for combat right now. But if you watch the bit about hiring crew, the social interaction is probably close to what combat will look like eventually.

I.e. sort of like NEO Scavenger combat, but with the characters on a grid in the middle, and real time with pause.