[2020] Space Haven Alpha 9 - Progress Report #02.

Greetings, Spacefarer!
This is the second report on the progress of Alpha 9 - If you want to read the first report head on over to:https://steamcommunity.com/games/979110/announcements/detail/2516898401240766529

Time flies when you have fun developing a game. Another few weeks have gone by and we have new things to show!

In addition to the Space Hazards for Alpha 9 there was something else we saw an opportunity for to fit in the same package. Interactions with factions and their spaceships have been quite limited, and while this part of the game will be an on going part of development, we thought Alpha 9 would be a good opportunity to add some new features related to this.

We've worked more on faction encounters and interactions, and we have new features we want to showcase.

Faction Interactions


So far all the communication requests have come from the player, whether it is the want to trade or have a simple discussion otherwise. We've spent some time and implemented these interactions further, allowing other factions to contact you in case there's something they need or want.

These additions will give more life to your encounters with other faction spaceships, as they can now signal their want to communicate with you too. Currently other faction spaceships may contact you if you happen to have prisoners or refugees belonging to them, asking for the possibility to get them back. Sometimes they might need some resource and ask for it, or simply push their luck by asking for a gift.

Signaling


A small problem with communicating is that it is tied to the operations console, and the player doesn't necessarily have someone there at all times. This could make it problematic to establish a communication channel, or for the player to know some faction ship wants to communicate.

We decided to implement signaling to help with this. Signaling can be seen as some form of Morse code signaling, which allows spaceships to communicate simple intents, like "we want to communicate", "we want to surrender", "we want to establish a cease fire and communicate".

Other spaceships can signal back their intent to accept or decline this request, thus making both parties aware of communication intentions and to get a crew member to the operations console.

Distress state
When a faction spaceship gets destroyed the crew members of that spaceship will look to evacuate and abandon their ship. If there's another spaceship belonging to their faction, they will flee to that spaceship and continue their journey with their faction.

However, if there's no other spaceship belonging to their faction present in the sector, they will look towards other faction spaceships with whom they are in a ally/neutral stance relationship wise. They will seek out to ask for help and become a refugee in hopes of being reunited with their faction one day. Since they activate their distress beacon other factions are allowed to enter their spaceship and help them.

Refugees

There's a big hole in our ship, can we come with you?

We've created a new character status in addition to the prisoner status, we're introducing the refugee status. Refugees are crew members, who have lost their home spaceship in a battle or otherwise, and are now looking to be reunited with one of their other faction spaceships somewhere in the galaxy.

If a pirate is with you in a sector bombarding a civilian spaceship and that spaceship gets destroyed, the civilians will want to reach out to you and ask for help. You can then decide if you want to take them with you, offer them sanctuary and a chance to be reunited with another of their faction spaceships one day.

Refugees are willing to help in some way. However, they do not work as long hours as your main crew members do during a day, as they want to save their strength. They are willing to help by carrying out logistics jobs, but are currently limited to that since they do not want to interfere with your crew and their specialized tasks you have set for them. Their priorities and schedules cannot be changed to keep a good balance. They yearn to be reunited with their faction one day, and will grow restless with time if this doesn't happen.

Refugee Conditions, Mood and Satisfaction


Keeping the refugees happy is important if you want to keep them working for you. Keep them satisfied by creating a nice area for the refugees to spend time and sleep in, keep them well fed to increase their mood.

Refugees of a faction will react to seeing another member of their faction be a prisoner instead of a refugee. This will have a negative effect on their mood and could lead to them refusing to work for you.

Lying, Suspicion and Scanning


One of the most important things for a faction are their crew members, and once one is lost they usually want them back, unless it's that irritating Bob guy, whom nobody wants. (If your name is Bob please know we did not mean you but another Bob!)

When you encounter a faction spaceship they might contact you and ask if you've seen some of their lost crew members somewhere. If you have some on board as refugees or prisoners, you will have the options to tell the truth or lie.


Civilians scan some random areas of your ship and find out you have some of their faction crew members as refugees.

Lying is not nice. But hey, those refugees can be a good work force and you're not ready to give them up just yet. When you lie the other party might grow suspicious, or just want to check to be sure. If this happens they might do a scan of one of your ships.

They will randomly scan some parts of your ship revealing what's there, and if they happen to reveal a captive crew member belonging to them they will know you've lied. You can expect to get a hail request after this with someone quite angry on the other side.

Relationships with Factions
These new additions will give some first opportunities for your relationship towards another faction changing over time. Your decisions to help or not to help will affect how the faction sees you, and if you disregard calls for help often enough your relationship with a faction will dwindle to hostility.

A Mention on the Space Hazards and Related Concerns
The mention of space hazards in the first Alpha 9 progress report caused up quite some discussion among you, our spacefarers. Many of you were concerned this update would have a big impact on the more relaxed play style you've gotten accustomed to.

Fear not! While these features are on by default we included them in the game customization options, you will be able to tweak them individually. Their presence in the galaxy can be tweaked and even turned off completely if you so desire.

As such, if you are looking to continue your relaxed play style this feature will not affect it negatively if you choose so, just remember to tweak it in the game customization menu!

Nebulae


The fourth space hazard is the nebula. An interstellar cloud of ionized gases, which has a draining effect on shields. The nebula itself is not very dangerous, but it can lead to interesting and dangerous situations if ship-to-ship battles take place in a sector with a nebula.

Alpha 9 Release
We have a goal to finish these features we are working on and wrap up Alpha 9 in the upcoming weeks. We will first push the update to the experimental branch and once it has been tested enough we will push it to the main branch.

We have no exact dates but we will announce when we release the update into the experimental branch and also when we release into the main branch! Stay tuned for more news!

A note on save compatibility to Alpha 8
As it looks now saves from Alpha 8 could work, although no space hazards will be present until you start a new game. We will find out more about the save compatibility when we release the update into the experimental branch and have players test it out.

Community Highlights

This hilarious scene was posted by MtnDewGameFuel.


Really nice ship created by SubwaySurfer


Sweet ship by cromlowinhischair

If you want a chance to get your own ship in the updates post them in our Discord server #screenshots-and-videos channel, or here on Steam! =)

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
You can also post them here on Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/screenshots/

Report bugs here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/4/
Discuss Space Haven here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/0/
Technical Support: https://steamcommunity.com/app/979110/discussions/1/
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

Thanks for reading and see you again in the next update!