[2022] Space Haven Alpha 15 - Progress Report.

Greetings, Spacefarer!
The upcoming Alpha 15 update is focused on characters and relationships. The intended goal is to make things matter more, and have more visible effects. The game revolves around managing crew members, and whether one is successful or not should reflect from their mood.

Alpha 15 will make crew members feel less robotic and more human. At the same time, the elements affecting the mood of the crew members will guide the player to build their ships in certain ways and allow for small goals to strive for.

The joy of building a great and comfortable ship to live on will be amplified by seeing crew members enjoying their life on the ship. We are also working on adding new crew combat content, as well as various decoratives and beverage to the game, what would space be without a good space beer!

Crew Combat Content
New Inventory
Reece equipped with an Assault Rifle and Armor.

The inventory is getting a new look, with some different sections to allow for showing the inventory, the loadout and the upcoming augmentations of crew members. We're not sure if augmentations will be possible to be included in this upcoming update, but we have plans to implement them at some point.

The Loadout
Crew members can now pick-up and refill their gear on their own.

The loadout section of the crew member inventory allows you to easily manage the gear that the crew member should have. It allows for choosing the primary and secondary weapons from lists, as well as other gear like armor.

The crew member will fetch the items themselves, making it easier to equip and potentially have crew members refill items. The old manual "pick-up" system is still in place, so both ways can now be used to equip crew members.

New Gear

We're working on new gear for crew members, new weapons as well as armor. Armor will give some protection for crew members while the new weapons add some new firepower. This is all under heavy construction at the moment so let's see what kind of stuff we end up with. There might be more than these mentioned coming. =)

Deep Characterization
Many new conditions have been created to make crew members be less robotic and feel more human.

Overall, we've worked to make crew members react more visibly to their surroundings. Things like sleep, leisure time and work conditions will be very important to be on a good enough level for crew members to operate and ultimately stay sane.

Unique Characteristics and Likes
Traits and backstories now have an effect on the likes and dislikes of a crew member. These are things like the want/need to talk, play games, listen to music, go on the toilet, eat nice food and so on.

Streamlined Character Status
While our original idea was to have many subcategories, each with their own information on the character well-being, we noticed it makes it harder to glance through a main list and see what can be improved.

We've decided to streamline it all, removing a few subcategories (The effects are still there) and list as much as possible in the main overall mood category. This will allow the player to simply look at this list and immediately see how the well-being of the character can be improved.

Base Mood Linked to Difficulty Level

The base mood of a crew member is linked to the difficulty level. Easier difficulty levels will mean crew members can tolerate more before risking a mental break. The base mood of a crew member can be customized with the game customization tool (Same menu where difficulty is chosen). The scale is in the format of easy-normal-hard.

Sleep Environment
There is now a reason to make own rooms for crew members.

The sleep comfort of the area where the bed is will determine how comfortable it is to sleep in that space. It will either give a negative or positive mood effect depending on the comfort levels.

Privacy also plays a part, and will now give a reason to make own rooms for crew members. While it is not strictly needed, it will give more peaceful uninterrupted sleep for the crew member.

Leisure Time Comfort
Leisure time space is more important than before.

If the best leisure space is a bad one the crew members will become negatively impacted, while a great leisure time space will have many benefits.

Leisure time is important also in terms of the general comfort level of the ship, we've multiplied the effect on leisure time since there's usually only a few hours of leisure time during a cycle. This means a good leisure time space will have a big impact on overall mood.

Food
Food is an important part of keeping crew members happy. In addition to the previous nutrition deficiencies we have added a positive mood bonus for providing crew members with great food.
A great meal is a meal from the Kitchen with at least three ingredients of the following: fruits, root vegetables, artificial meat, nuts and seeds.

Overall Ship Comfort
You will know if your ship is comfortable enough as a whole by looking at the crew status comfort bar.

The comfort status bar has been modified and it now tracks the long-term overall comfort levels of the crew member, covering all areas and schedules. This is different from before, which tracked the short-term effects. The change will allow you to know if the balance between negative comfort areas and positive comfort areas is on a good enough level.

This comfort status bar will indicate if the ship is generally comfortable enough to not have negative impacts on the crew. The way to secure this is to have a good enough sleep and leisure time environment, which will balance off the work environment.

Mental Breaks
Melissa has had enough.

Mental breaks have previously been mostly in a placeholder state, we have worked more on this feature. Many small things can accumulate and affect the overall mood of the crew member. Once the mood is low enough for a long enough period, the risk for a mental break will rise.

The first most likely mental break will be a minor one, giving the player a chance to realize something is very wrong and giving a chance to react and fix the conditions.

There are three different categories of mental breaks:

• Minor mental break: Things like refusing to work or getting into a fight with someone. Also drinking and gaming binges.
  
• Major mental break: Things like destroying stuff, setting facilities on fire on outright mental shutdown and becoming unconscious.
  
• Extreme mental break: The most severe group, things like wanting to take down the whole ship with them or attempting to take their own life.

Happiness
Keeping crew members comfortable and happy will give bonuses to their effectivity, they will work a little bit faster and be a bit less likely to surrender.

Discussions

Crew members will now often talk about something bothering them, or something they are happy about, when engaged in discussions with other crew members. If something is bothering them the other party in the discussion can offer comfort, giving temporary mood buffs.

Following the emojis when crew members discuss will give hints to the player about things they dislike or like at the moment, all of which can be seen more in detail in the status tab.

Relationships
We can be friends now... And enemies!

Up until now relationships have only been a number, without any real effect. In Alpha 15 this will change. Crew member relationships have been developed further and they can now become friends, lovers or enemies, all with various impacts in different situations.

The way friendships are formed is based on a compatibility value, as well as the average overall mood over a period of time. There are different relationship stages. Crew members can become enemies, acquaintances, friends, good friends, best friends and lovers. A crew member can only have one best friend and one lover, while there can be more of the other stages.

Enemies

Crew members will try to avoid sitting down at the same table with an enemy when eating, if there are other tables close enough. If the enemy dies or goes missing, the crew member will secretly be happy about it.

Crew members can sometimes also get in a fight with an enemy even if mood is otherwise on a good level.

Acquaintances

Neutral relationship, which has no special effects.

Friends and Good Friends

Crew members can get mood buffs from having great conversations with friends, allowing them to connect and share their feelings. If the friend goes missing or dies, the crew member will be sad for a longer time as they try to move on with their life.

Best Friends

A crew member can only have one best friend, and they are a special person to the crew member. Discussions with this crew member can give a great mood bonus, and losing them will make them feel very sad for a long time.

Lovers

Crew members can become lovers, if their compatibility and attraction to each other are on a high enough level. Lovers will get a mood buff from sleeping together in the same room, close enough to each other. Losing a lover will be devastating.

Beverage & Decoratives
Beverage Machine
We be drinkin'.

Behold, beer! Watch crew members drink beer and have a fun time. Alcohol beverages will lift up the mood, while slightly raising their accident rate and reducing accuracy. The crew member might also get hungover, but it will all eventually end well enough!

Potted Plants
Potted plants, one of the most requested features after windows.

Potted plants can be placed for a small leisure comfort benefit. They also break up the clinical visuals of a ship and give a nice look to rooms and hallways!

Nightstand
A bed needs a nightstand to be complete.

Having a nightstand beside the bed will increase the sleep comfort for crew members.

Wall Decoration
Something to make walls look prettier.

Wall decorations perk up the room! A nice memory of a landscape once taken for granted.

New Roof Elements
More and more facilities are now showing also on the roof in one way or another.

The shuttle and mining pod hangars now also add some graphics to the ship/station roof. Storages also add their own graphic element to the roof. This gives some more life to the ship/station roof and makes them less flat.

Faction Leaders&Captains and Messaging

Faction spaceships/stations now have a Leader/Captain, which add some depth to the ships and stations you meet. The leaders will occasionally interact through messaging, short messages shown in the log of the game.

To make this possible we've created a new messaging system, which allows NPC ships/stations to communicate with short messages something about themselves or their intentions in the sector.

New NPC Ships
The Merchant Federation have added a new 2x3 large ship to their fleet. Without trade, we aren't human.


The Military Alliance is ready to protect with this new beast of a ship. Service, Stability and Sacrifice.


The Slavers Guild will roam the universe with this new large ship. Captain “Tricky” Wolfe is pleased to invite you to an auction aboard her starship, the “Mad Magic.”


The Cult of New Haven gets an addition to their fleet. If you stumble into the Garden of Eden, burn it! We are not meant to live there: We are meant to live among the stars.

When Will This Update Be Released?

This new Update will coincide with our second anniversary in Early Access, what better way to celebrate than to have a major update for the game!

Our goal is June, with the new build hitting the experimental branch in late May/Early June if all goes to plan. This will be a very big update with a lot of new content that we want to add to the game.

Join Space Haven Discord: http://discord.gg/spacehaven
Space Haven subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceHaven/

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/

Stay tuned, Spacefarer!