Terrans development plan has been derailed as you may be aware. The team have been progressing with planned updates that have at this point come to a complete stop. We will not waste your time with excuses and reasoning why that is the case, only to say that we have taken this opportunity to step back, assess and plan a way forward. With that said Heathen Engineering have not shut down and will not abandon the game nor the players that have supported it. We are not yet in a position to announce our future plans for Terran but want to let you know that we are here, and we are working away. We will not be communicating on the state of Terran again until we have some news for you, and we will be available on the forums - happy to answer any other questions we can. In the meantime, please be safe, wash your hands and we hope to see you again soon.

[ 2020-05-14 08:12:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1102 is available for PC, Mac and Linux with a host of system and gameplay improvements with more to come. Terran may be released but that doesnt mean we have stopped listening. Many of the adjustments youll find in this patch were inspired by your feedback. Want to see what's coming next? check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello

Patch 1102 Key Updates:

• Research requirements have been adjusted giving you access to Dust and Rock worlds from the start as well as the Battlecruiser.
• Station mechanics have been changed and will no longer force an attack. Stations now slow and damage hostile fleet elements over time giving defenders more time to react.
• Sight has been changed such that you now require line of sight to see enemy fleet elements and system detail.
• Warships now have a missile barrage (used in combat), missiles apply area damage and are most effective against clustered formations.

Additional Notes:

• General performance improvements have been applied to several sub-systems involved with the galaxy map. This should notably improve performance in late game.
• Added a notification when it has been 5min since with no active research task. This is to help remind players they arent currently researching anything.
• Dust, Rock and Battlecruiser technologies no longer require initial research. These technologies will be available for use and upgrade from the start. This change is retroactive and will apply to existing saves.
• Added links and UI elements directing players to the Terran Walkthrough play list from the tutorial screen and menu
• You can no longer build space stations if you have insufficient credits and resources to do so.
• Corrected issues with the in-game tutorial not accurately highlighting areas of interest in the system panel
• The minimal ship count for the Fleet Editor window will now update based on the number of ship types you have added to the fleet
• Star systems can no longer be colonized unless you have direct line of sight from a ship, station or star system.
• Issues with Music and UI sound effects have been corrected.
• Warship damage output has been increased with the addition of missile barrages. Missiles apply an area of effect damage type on impact and are most effective against tightly clustered ships.
• Gar ships have new attack patterns in combat
• Adjusted the frequency of damage effects on structures and Gar when in combat
• Adjust the base armour and shield strength of Gar
• The intro window displayed at the start of a new session has been updated to explicitly state the object, Conquest and to describe the objective.
• Station mechanics have been changed and now apply a snare and damage over time effect to hostile ships within its range. This change also applies to citadel systems
• Enemy fleets and system information now requires direct line of sight, enemy influence area is still available without direct line of sight.

[ 2019-03-28 17:47:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineerings Terran to include post-release content updates.

18 March 2019 Heathen Engineerings Terran which releases from early access on 21-March-2019 will have post-release content updates with the first update scheduled for Q3 2019, free for owners of the game. Watch the release trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThNwaG7Inp4 Heathen Engineerings Terran releases from early access on 21-March-2019 but that doesnt mean the Heathen Team will be taking a break. The post-release plan for Terran calls for continued development with the first content update to be made available free for all Terran gamers. The content patch will feature additions to ship combat, new warships and ship technologies to research with additional details to be announced closer to release. The planned release date for the upcoming content patch is late Q3 2019. Heathen Engineerings Terran has been in early access since 21-March-2016 and has evolved greatly over its 3-year early access period driven largely by gamer feedback. The community driven approach will continue post-release with the work-in-progress being made available ahead of the official update via Steam beta functionality. Players can find the Terran Roadmap on Trello with up to date information on upcoming content, known issues and future plans. Read the original article at YouAreTerran.com Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, join the conversation on Heathen Engineering's Discord and visit us on Indie DB

[ 2019-03-18 16:06:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineerings Terran will be released on March 21st 2019!

Terran is nearing the end of Early Access but not the end of development. Over the course of Early Access Terran has evolved greatly, driven in part by you the communitys feedback and we will continue to iterate on Terran improving existing features and adding new content. Post release will include both free content patches and paid expansions. The first free content patch coming post release will introduce a host of new warships, technologies and combat features and is planned for Q3 2019. You can keep up to date with Terrans ongoing development via the Terran Roadmap and here on Steam via Community HUB.

[ 2019-03-10 13:35:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1076 is live for PC, Mac and Linux!
Patch 1076 brings support for Steam Workshop, Multi-language and another pass of bug fixes and optimizations. For patch notes please see the 'Patch 1076 iteration' card in the Terran Roadmap.

Steam Workshop

A new Translation Tool is available on the Title screen via the Menu in the upper right corner of the screen. This tool enables players to create and update translations and publish them to the Steam Workshop for others to use. Our goal is to expand on the in-game Workshop tools exposing as much as possible to community content creators.

Multi-language Support

We have applied a new multi-language tool integrated with Steam Workshop items. You can install new translations from the Workshop or create your own translations via the in-game Translation Tool. At current English is the only built in language though we are in the process of authoring translations for languages native to our team and will implement them as built in languages in upcoming patches.

[ 2019-03-02 14:53:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1066 is live for PC, Mac and Linux!
Patch 1066 updates the underlying engine and addresses a number of bugs and general improvements. For patch notes please see the 'Patch 1066 iteration' card in the Terran Roadmap. Summary of changes follows:

• Engine update applied, an additional update will be required to bring the engine to the target version and is expected to be available around the end of Q1
• Corrected an issue when attacking a station where it would not be possible to auto resolve the battle.
• Corrected an issue with the technology panel which would case the 'read panel' to display the wrong technologies information
• Corrected an issue with Gar elements that have fled a battle that would cause them to immediately return to the site of the previous battle.
• Updated various UI elements to generally improve quality and performance.

[ 2019-02-24 10:47:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1034 is live for PC, Mac and Linux!
Patch 1034 addresses a critical bug identified with the previous patch (#1024) where in with the system panel while viewing an unclaimed system. The bug could cause build buttons to be disabled when they should be active thus preventing players from claiming the world. A hot fix has been built, internally tested and released to both Beta and Default targets. We will continue to iterate with frequent small patches over the coming weeks with Steam Announcements reserved for hot fixes and major patches. For the latest view of whats being worked on head over the Terran Roadmap on Trello ... find it here.

[ 2019-01-18 14:26:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 1024 is live for PC, Mac and Linux!
Patch 1024 brings with it a host of new features as well as polish to existing mechanics. In this patch we are introducing Gar capital ships, powerful, ornate symbols of your empires might. We are starting with 3 Gar to choose from and plan to introduce more options as we round out Phase 3. Each Gar has a unique visual style, stats and bonuses and 5 unique abilities. Coupled with the new Gar capital ships is a revamped progression system, adjustments to economy balance, AI behaviour and more. Below you will find a list of the major changes and additions with this patch.

• Economy Report A new metrics display detailing your economy can be found in the trade view. This view shows a breakdown of credits, resources and influence generated by population, trade hubs, industry hubs, research hubs, fleets, star systems, stations, citadels and the effect any exchange settings you may have.
• Technologies The Progression Grid system has been replaced by a Technology Research system. Clicking the Research icon in the lower left of the screen or accessing it from menu you will be presented with the technologies available to be researched. You can research any available technology and if unavailable view the technologies required to unlock it. Technologies can be further upgraded via additional research. Each addition / upgrade pass on a technology may have multiple options for example when researching upgrades for Molten worlds you may choose to improve colony, trade, industry or research output.
• Gar Gar have been re-introduced to the game in a new incarnation. Gar are massive ornate ships that represent your organization as a whole, serving like a capital. Each Gar has a set of unique abilities which may be passive effects, active abilities or special start conditions. Passive effects and active abilities have associated technologies and can be upgraded in the new Technologies system. Gar are now tied to the main victory condition that is you must defeat an organizations Gar to completely destroy them and similarly if you lose your Gar you are defeated.
• Combat Improvements The combat sections of the game have been improved with new UI updates, normalized control schemes and new input functions such as the elevation control when issuing a move order.
• Exploration Awareness is now calculated for all elements on the strategy map. In general, you will always have good awareness of map elements that are near a populated station or system or near one of your fleet elements. This change now means that you must have awareness of a system before you can claim it such as by calming a nearby system or by sending a fleet. The intent is to add new features to the game that will require this mechanic more on that to come.
• General Balance Improvements With the new research system, and related changes we have re-worked most of the maths involved with the game. Organizations will in general start slower needing to research and develop before they begin major expansion. Ships will need to be researched and upgraded before you start on a military conquest push, etc. The outputs of worlds, growths of populations and stats of ships have all been adjusted accordingly. This is expected to take several iterations to balance but will offer more diverse paths to victory.
• Ship Unlock Organizations now start with a single ship technology and must research new designs and related upgrades in order to unlock additional ships. The strength of any given ship class is now dictated by the upgrade path you choose to invest in. The intent to is to expand on the roster of available ship technologies over the life of the game.
• Major Engine Update The underlying engine has been upgraded from Unity 2017 to Unity 2018 (latest stable version). This upgrade should further improve performance and help insure the tech side of the game is in a good position for future efforts e.g. gives the game a longer viable life.

[ 2019-01-17 15:05:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 747 is live for PC, Mac and Linux! 747 adds notifications, tutorial tips, improvements to AI organizations, progression and a lot more.

Notification System

A new notification system has been implemented with patch 747. Notifications appear at the top of your screen and alert you to key events in the galaxy. Tutorial Tips leverage the same system and provide advice based on the current conditions of your organization and the galaxy at large. Both the Notification and Tutorial messages are in an early state and will be further refined and expanded on as phase 3 of early access progresses.

AI Update

A host of improvements to the strategic AI have been implemented with patch 747. AI organizations should be more diverse and generally more aggressive with this patch. There are still aspects of the strategy game mechanics to be completed as a result the AI will not be in its best form but can now play the game to completion. Over the following several patches we will be focused on completing the remaining strategy mechanics and in so doing completing the strategic AI. Configuration options are in the works that will enable players to modify aspects of the AI at the start of a new game. An initial AI Organizations count has been exposed, more will follow over the next several patches.

General Improvements

• Recon, Tactical and Heavy ship unlocks have been tied into overall progression. Government and Corporation organizations will unlock these at 5, 15 and 25 progression points respectively. Armada organizations will start with Recon unlocked and will earn Tactical and Heavy at 10 and 20 respectively.
• Defeating fleet elements, stations and citadels will now award the victor credits, resources and boost influence progression slightly. In addition, the loss of fleet, station or citadel will have a similar but greater adverse effect.
• Construction and maintenance costs have been adjusted to smooth the high end of the progression curve. Maintaining large numbers of heavy fleets should be more manageable now.
• Systems linked to stations or citadels receive a production bonus. For the time being this is a fixed bonus (same for all) the intent is to tie the strength of this bonus to organization progression e.g. more established organizations benefit more.
• When a station is destroyed all systems that were linked to it will receive a major influence boost in favour of the organization that destroyed the station. This will accelerate the rate at which such systems convert.
• Fleets that idle near un-linked (no station link) systems will periodically apply a major influence boost in favour of their organization. This will decrease the time for conversion to begin as well as decrease the time to reverse a conversion when defending such a system with a fleet.

Known Issues

• AI Organizations are not managing their stations and citadels effectively, this makes it easy to blitz them in the early game as they are not building adequate defences. This will be corrected in later patches.
• A few conditions have been noted in testing where stations are not changing ownership correctly when an organization is defeated e.g. remain owned by a now dead organization. This makes it impossible to claim these systems but doesn’t affect victory conditions.
• Log events may occur referencing stations that have recently been destroyed. These log events do not adversely impact the game but are in error and will be corrected in a later patch.
• Trade Administration for Resources / Credits fails to calculate the correct exchange rate if the organization has a negative resource production. Generally, this won’t adversely impact the game assuming you boost your base resource production before running out of resources completely e.g. build more industry improvements. We will correct this issue in upcoming patches.
• While it is now possible win or lose the game, there is no fan fare for either condition e.g. we have not yet implemented the ‘Victory’ or ‘Defeat’ screens; Achievements will award on your first corp, gov and armada victory.

[ 2018-04-15 13:35:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 743 is live for PC, Mac and Linux! 743 adds 3 new ships to the game in addition to bug fixes and optimizations.

New Ships

This completes the standard ships set of Terran. Ship sets are groupings of themed ships and the standard set is simply the set available at start of game. All the ships of the standard set feature well balanced builds e.g. stats are distributed evenly across offence, defence and mobility features. Additional ship sets will be introduced in later patches and each set will feature its own theme both in terms of build stats and in visual style. Corvette The smallest and fastest ship category available; corvettes are ideal for closing range quickly and engaging non-structure targets. In Terran and well most things; the best defence is simply to not get shot. Corvettes being very small and very fast excel at this. These fast ships can break up enemy formations and draw attention from hard hitting but slower fragile ships like carriers giving them time to get in position. Dreadnought The heavy support category, dreadnoughts have excellent armour, good speed and a health mix of turrets enabling them to engage a range of targets effectively. Dreadnoughts the ideal escort when assaulting hard targets such as stations and citadels having enough armour to survive the approach and enough firepower to make a difference when in range. Fortress The heaviest ship category in game. The fortress is virtually a small mobile station platform featuring a higher turret count than any other ship and heavier shielding and armour to boot. The fortress slow speed limits its use in highly mobile scenarios but a small wing of fortress ships insures dominance if only in that area. Bug fixes and misc improvements

• Corrected tooltip errors on the Skirmish configuration screen
• Heavy and recon ships should now correctly be locked until the related progression node is unlocked
• Achievements should be now be awarded correctly. Note that the conquest victory related achievements cant be earned yet as a result its not possible to earn the completionist achievement.
• General optimizations There is an on-going process to optimize every system of the game, these changes should have no player visible impact aside of course from the game running better.

Known issues

• We are aware of long load times when transitioning away from the galaxy map such as when loading a battle from the map or when returning to the menu from the map. This is due to the time it takes to unload the galaxy; something we do to insure better performance in battle for example. We are working to improve this with each successive patch.
• AI is not brilliant The NPC organizations are using a simplified AI for the time being, an improved AI process is under development and will be introduced in later patches. This is part of the reason the conquest victory achievements cant be earned. Put simply the AI isnt in it to win it yet and is simply growing and org for you to play against.
• Need for a tutorial We are aware of the need for an in-game tutorial and improvements to the game guide. These are tasks we are working on and will introduce in upcoming patches. In the mean time you can access the quick start guide by pressing F1 in game or on the web at https://www.youareterran.com/gettingstarted

[ 2018-04-05 09:47:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 743 is live for PC, Mac and Linux! 743 adds 3 new ships to the game in addition to bug fixes and optimizations.

New Ships

This completes the ‘standard’ ships set of Terran. Ship sets are groupings of themed ships and the standard set is simply the set available at start of game. All the ships of the standard set feature well balanced builds e.g. stats are distributed evenly across offence, defence and mobility features. Additional ship sets will be introduced in later patches and each set will feature its own theme both in terms of build stats and in visual style. Corvette The smallest and fastest ship category available; corvettes are ideal for closing range quickly and engaging non-structure targets. In Terran and well most things; the best defence is simply to not get shot. Corvettes being very small and very fast excel at this. These fast ships can break up enemy formations and draw attention from hard hitting but slower fragile ships like carriers giving them time to get in position. Dreadnought The heavy support category, dreadnoughts have excellent armour, good speed and a health mix of turrets enabling them to engage a range of targets effectively. Dreadnoughts the ideal escort when assaulting hard targets such as stations and citadels having enough armour to survive the approach and enough firepower to make a difference when in range. Fortress The heaviest ship category in game. The fortress is virtually a small mobile station platform featuring a higher turret count than any other ship and heavier shielding and armour to boot. The fortress slow speed limits its use in highly mobile scenarios but a small wing of fortress ships insures dominance if only in that area. Bug fixes and misc improvements

• Corrected tooltip errors on the Skirmish configuration screen
• Heavy and recon ships should now correctly be locked until the related progression node is unlocked
• Achievements should be now be awarded correctly. Note that the conquest victory related achievements cant be earned yet as a result its not possible to earn the completionist achievement.
• General optimizations There is an on-going process to optimize every system of the game, these changes should have no player visible impact aside of course from the game running better.

Known issues

• We are aware of long load times when transitioning away from the galaxy map such as when loading a battle from the map or when returning to the menu from the map. This is due to the time it takes to unload the galaxy; something we do to insure better performance in battle for example. We are working to improve this with each successive patch.
• AI is not brilliant The NPC organizations are using a simplified AI for the time being, an improved AI process is under development and will be introduced in later patches. This is part of the reason the conquest victory achievements can’t be earned. Put simply the AI isn’t in it to win it yet and is simply growing and org for you to play against.
• Need for a tutorial We are aware of the need for an in-game tutorial and improvements to the game guide. These are tasks we are working on and will introduce in upcoming patches. In the mean time you can access the quick start guide by pressing F1 in game or on the web at https://www.youareterran.com/gettingstarted

[ 2018-04-05 09:47:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineerings Terran enters phase 3 of its planned Early Access cycle. Patch 738 is available on the beta and main builds for PC, Mac and Linux now.
Dont know how to access beta? Read this. You can find more news, dev notes, images and videos on the Terran home page or the Terran Roadmap on Trello.

Patch Summary

Patch 738 transitions Terran into its 3rd and final phase of early access. This patch includes substantial improvements, changes and additions on the technical and gameplay side including a major engine update and removal of much of the debug hooks used in previous phases.

New Game Mode

A new game mode Skirmish has been added to the game. As the name suggests this mode is combat only and allows the player to configure the two sides of a fight. The configuration tools for Skirmish will be expanded in later patches and is intended to include environment and scenario options. At current players can configure the ships for each side, include stations or citadels and can manual set the difficulty of the opponent.

Organization Influence

Several subsystems of the previous versions strategy mechanics have been streamlined and unified into the concept of Organization Influence. Influence describes your organizations impact on the galaxy at large. Having influence over a star system means having control over that system. Your influence is physically represented in the galaxy as radiating out from your systems and fleets and can sway the loyalties of nearby star systems. Organization influence is enhanced by developing your population, economy, industry, science and military. The influence system impacts nearly every other aspect of the game, see the notes below for more details.

Space Stations

Stations are independent of star systems and can be built anywhere in space assuming they are in range of two or more star systems and are not blocked by an opponents structures. Stations provide area defence, insure the loyalty of linked systems (systems in range) and host defence fleet. The defence fleet of space stations will automatically engage enemy hostiles in range but cannot be moved from the station. The ships that comprise the stations defence fleet do contribute to your maintenance costs but do not consume ship capacity. When engaged in combat the stations will appear in battle as large structure laden with powerful turrets and large numbers of strike craft in addition to their defence fleet.

Citadels

Citadels replace the concept of a capital star system and are special star bound space stations. Organizations can have multiple citadels though there is a build cap similar what is applied to ships. Like other space stations citadels host a defence fleet and impart a very strong influence effect on nearby systems. When defeated in battle citadels are not destroyed but do transfer ownership to the victor. Keep an eye on your citadel count as having too many can quickly overburden your resources.

Combat Improvements

Combat now supports two modes of player control: Command mode which is the mode you will start battles in, works similar to an RTS interface. In command mode you can select groups of ships and issue move and attack orders. Clicking a specific ship and switching to Pilot mode will allow you to take direct control of that ship. Pilot mode can be switched to at anytime after the start of a battle. In pilot mode you have direct control of a single ship in 3rd person space short style. The other ships in the same battlegroup as the ship you are piloting will adjust their planning based on your actions e.g. they will attack your target and will avoid getting too far separated from you.

Battle Groups

A new battlegroup system has been applied to the start up sequence of space battles. Players can now choose a battle grouping pattern effecting how the individual ships in your fleet will be distributed. The best pattern to use depends on your play style, fleet structure and the opponent your facing at the time. When in command mode it is the selected battlegroup that you are issuing orders to and in pilot mode it is your battlegroup that is taking its lead from your actions. At the start of each battle you will select the group pattern you want to use, this cannot be changed after the battle starts. Group Options

• Balanced: this option attempts to distribute the various types of ships that make up your fleet across multiple groups no less than 5 but not more than 10 if possible. For players that want a lot of command control this is a good option as it gives you the greatest number of battlegroups to issue orders to.
• Class: this option groups ships by class e.g. light, mid and heavy. If movement/attack control is your focus this could be a good option for you. This option results in no more than 3 groups.
• Role: this option groups ships by combat role e.g. recon, support and tactical. Each combat role excels at a specific style for example tactical ships have heavy armour and weapons and are good in a head on fight where recon ships are fast and agile good for hit and run and for drawing out fleets away from structures. This option results in no more than 3 groups
• Category: this option groups by Class + Role combination as described above and results in no more than 9 groups.
• Swarm: As the name suggests this simply lumps all ships into a single group, this greatly limits your command options, but it also simplifies control for players that prefer to spend more time in pilot mode than they do in command mode.

Progression Grid

The progression grid takes the place of the previous progression system which was based on reputation gain through contacts. The new progression grid is similar to a talent grid system, each organization type has a unique starting place on the grid and regardless of your origin type it is possible to activate every node on the grid. Progression points are used to activate the nodes of the grid and are earned by growing your influence as an organization. Influence is grown through the development of population, economy, industry, science and military. The nodes of the grid enhance various aspects of your organization improving administration and maintenance costs, increasing ship, citadel and planet population capacities as well as unlocking special abilities such as terraforming, heavy ships and recon ships.

Other Additions and Improvements

• Engine update
• Vulkan API removed due to stability issues
• Heathen Systems update (foundation code of the game)
• UI update
• Streamlined GUI
• Improved key bindings and key mapping systems
• Improved visual effects across the board
• Improved audio (systems)
• And new sound FX and music with more to come
• New ships
• Carriers! & their strike craft
• Better turrets (visuals)
• Bigger galaxy (more star systems)
• Support for much larger space battles

Known issues and gaps

NPC Organizations This is the first iteration of NPC Org AI and its incomplete. The AI for this build can only grow and manage its organization with limited military planning.

Carriers are available even if you havent unlocked heavy ships yet

More ships are coming, only 6 are playable in this build

Ship Editor We have disabled this feature as it needs an overhaul to be inline with other improvements to the game. More on this later.

Economy balance There are aspects of the economy balance that are simply wrong, this will be iterated on throughout Phase 3

Placeholder models We are in the process of removing and replacing placeholder content though there is still a ways to go. You may notice out of place models in particular with Citadels this will be iterated on throughout phase 3. This should not adversely impact gameplay however. To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2018-03-31 23:11:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineering’s Terran enters phase 3 of its planned Early Access cycle. Patch 738 is available on the beta and main builds for PC, Mac and Linux now.
Don’t know how to access beta? Read this. You can find more news, dev notes, images and videos on the Terran home page or the Terran Roadmap on Trello.

Patch Summary

Patch 738 transitions Terran into its 3rd and final phase of early access. This patch includes substantial improvements, changes and additions on the technical and gameplay side including a major engine update and removal of much of the ‘debug hooks’ used in previous phases.

New Game Mode

A new game mode ‘Skirmish’ has been added to the game. As the name suggests this mode is combat only and allows the player to configure the two sides of a fight. The configuration tools for Skirmish will be expanded in later patches and is intended to include environment and scenario options. At current players can configure the ships for each side, include stations or citadels and can manual set the difficulty of the opponent.

Organization Influence

Several subsystems of the previous version’s strategy mechanics have been streamlined and unified into the concept of Organization Influence. Influence describes your organizations impact on the galaxy at large. Having influence over a star system means having control over that system. Your influence is physically represented in the galaxy as radiating out from your systems and fleets and can sway the loyalties of nearby star systems. Organization influence is enhanced by developing your population, economy, industry, science and military. The influence system impacts nearly every other aspect of the game, see the notes below for more details.

Space Stations

Stations are independent of star systems and can be built anywhere in space assuming they are in range of two or more star systems and are not blocked by an opponents structures. Stations provide area defence, insure the loyalty of linked systems (systems in range) and host defence fleet. The defence fleet of space stations will automatically engage enemy hostiles in range but cannot be moved from the station. The ships that comprise the stations defence fleet do contribute to your maintenance costs but do not consume ship capacity. When engaged in combat the stations will appear in battle as large structure laden with powerful turrets and large numbers of strike craft in addition to their defence fleet.

Citadels

Citadels replace the concept of a ‘capital star system’ and are special star bound space stations. Organizations can have multiple citadels though there is a build cap similar what is applied to ships. Like other space stations citadels host a defence fleet and impart a very strong influence effect on nearby systems. When defeated in battle citadels are not destroyed but do transfer ownership to the victor. Keep an eye on your citadel count as having too many can quickly overburden your resources.

Combat Improvements

Combat now supports two modes of player control: Command mode which is the mode you will start battles in, works similar to an RTS interface. In command mode you can select groups of ships and issue move and attack orders. Clicking a specific ship and switching to Pilot mode will allow you to take direct control of that ship. Pilot mode can be switched to at anytime after the start of a battle. In pilot mode you have direct control of a single ship in 3rd person space short style. The other ships in the same battlegroup as the ship you are piloting will adjust their planning based on your actions e.g. they will attack your target and will avoid getting too far separated from you.

Battle Groups

A new battlegroup system has been applied to the start up sequence of space battles. Players can now choose a battle grouping pattern effecting how the individual ships in your fleet will be distributed. The best pattern to use depends on your play style, fleet structure and the opponent your facing at the time. When in command mode it is the selected battlegroup that you are issuing orders to and in pilot mode it is your battlegroup that is taking its lead from your actions. At the start of each battle you will select the group pattern you want to use, this cannot be changed after the battle starts. Group Options

• Balanced: this option attempts to distribute the various types of ships that make up your fleet across multiple groups no less than 5 but not more than 10 if possible. For players that want a lot of command control this is a good option as it gives you the greatest number of battlegroups to issue orders to.
• Class: this option groups ships by class … e.g. light, mid and heavy. If movement/attack control is your focus this could be a good option for you. This option results in no more than 3 groups.
• Role: this option groups ships by combat role … e.g. recon, support and tactical. Each combat role excels at a specific style for example tactical ships have heavy armour and weapons and are good in a head on fight where recon ships are fast and agile good for hit and run and for drawing out fleets away from structures. This option results in no more than 3 groups
• Category: this option groups by Class + Role combination as described above and results in no more than 9 groups.
• Swarm: As the name suggests this simply lumps all ships into a single group, this greatly limits your command options, but it also simplifies control for players that prefer to spend more time in pilot mode than they do in command mode.

Progression Grid

The progression grid takes the place of the previous progression system which was based on reputation gain through contacts. The new progression grid is similar to a ‘talent grid’ system, each organization type has a unique starting place on the grid and regardless of your origin type it is possible to activate every node on the grid. Progression points are used to activate the nodes of the grid and are earned by growing your influence as an organization. Influence is grown through the development of population, economy, industry, science and military. The nodes of the grid enhance various aspects of your organization improving administration and maintenance costs, increasing ship, citadel and planet population capacities as well as unlocking special abilities such as terraforming, heavy ships and recon ships.

Other Additions and Improvements

• Engine update
• Vulkan API removed due to stability issues
• Heathen Systems update (foundation code of the game)
• UI update
• Streamlined GUI
• Improved key bindings and key mapping systems
• Improved visual effects across the board
• Improved audio (systems)
• And new sound FX and music with more to come
• New ships
• Carriers! … & their strike craft
• Better turrets (visuals)
• Bigger galaxy (more star systems)
• Support for much larger space battles

Known issues and gaps

NPC Organizations This is the first iteration of NPC Org AI and its incomplete. The AI for this build can only grow and manage its organization with limited military planning.

Carriers are available even if you haven’t unlocked heavy ships yet

More ships are coming, only 6 are playable in this build

Ship Editor We have disabled this feature as it needs an overhaul to be inline with other improvements to the game. More on this later.

Economy balance There are aspects of the economy balance that are simply wrong, this will be iterated on throughout Phase 3

Placeholder models We are in the process of removing and replacing placeholder content though there is still a ways to go. You may notice out of place models in particular with Citadels this will be iterated on throughout phase 3. This should not adversely impact gameplay however. To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2018-03-31 23:11:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Phase 3 patch of Heathen Engineerings Terran is prepping for beta release in the coming weeks. This patch as its name might have suggested starts the 3rd and final phase of Terrans planned early access. During this phase the development effort will be on content and polish as well as player feedback and bug squashing thats a given. Updates to web, social and store fronts are also in the works as we work to improve player information and lines of communication with the team. Terran Web Site Terran Roadmap The full details of the patch will be published on release day to be determined. While you wait here are a few of new features you can expect to see. Carriers The first of 3 heavy class warship categories we will be introducing during Phase 3. The support craft a carrier hosts give it a much greater strike range than any other ship category, but these massive ships have relatively low armour and few turrets so use with caution.
From massive citadel stations to small defence platforms combat structures can host a large array of fast firing long range turrets and long-range support craft. Citadels Citadels replace the concept of a capital star system and can be built on any star system currently under your control. With a citadel present the system becomes immune to outside influence and its own influence radius is greatly increased. Capturing a citadel system requires combat and the citadel station is a match for most any single fleet. Influence The concept of star system control has evolved into the influence system. Influence is increased by developing your economy, industry science and military power. Each system you control contributes to your galactic influence and effects all systems within its influence range. This game play system means it is now possible to take control over other organization's systems without a single shot fired.
Warship fleets, citadels and other structures have a very strong influence on the systems around them and can be used to insure your influence is the dominant influence in a region but also encourage attack from your competition. Progression Grid The influence system is tied into organization progression. Put simply the more influence you generate the more nodes on the progression grid you can unlock. Progression grid nodes can unlock new abilities like Terraforming, improve your efficiencies such as decreasing maintenance cost or increasing population limits of your colonies as well as expanding your capacities such as ship count and citadel count.
Where you start on the progression grid depends on what type of organization you choose to start the game with. Governments start with a bonus to population and expansion in an area with similarly themed nodes for example. New Combat Features The combat UI has been simplified and split into two modes that players can easily toggle between while in combat.
Command Mode, this is the starting mode and plays a lot like an RTS where you issue move and attack orders to your battlegroups. Thoughtful command and battlegroup structuring is key to victory in most battles, simply throwing a death stack of big ships at a target is a good way to lose a lot of expensive ships.
Pilot Mode, this is the traditional Terran combat view where you have direct control of a warship in 3rd person space shooter action style. New with this patch you can now take control over any ship in your fleet at any time and can freely toggle between modes (command and pilot). When the player is directly controlling a ship (pilot mode) all other ships in that battlegroup will take lead from your actions e.g. will target your target and so forth. And Lots More!

• New ships
• Improved Turrets
• Expanded galaxy
• New Organization Type: Armada

[ 2018-03-21 23:29:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Phase 3 patch of Heathen Engineering’s Terran is prepping for beta release in the coming weeks. This patch as its name might have suggested starts the 3rd and final phase of Terran’s planned early access. During this phase the development effort will be on content and polish as well as player feedback and bug squashing … that’s a given. Updates to web, social and store fronts are also in the works as we work to improve player information and lines of communication with the team. Terran Web Site Terran Roadmap The full details of the patch will be published on release day … to be determined. While you wait here are a few of new features you can expect to see. Carriers The first of 3 heavy class warship categories we will be introducing during Phase 3. The support craft a carrier hosts give it a much greater strike range than any other ship category, but these massive ships have relatively low armour and few turrets so use with caution.
From massive citadel stations to small defence platforms combat structures can host a large array of fast firing long range turrets and long-range support craft. Citadels Citadels replace the concept of a ‘capital star system’ and can be built on any star system currently under your control. With a citadel present the system becomes immune to outside influence and its own influence radius is greatly increased. Capturing a citadel system requires combat and the citadel station is a match for most any single fleet. Influence The concept of star system control has evolved into the influence system. Influence is increased by developing your economy, industry science and military power. Each system you control contributes to your galactic influence and effects all systems within its influence range. This game play system means it is now possible to take control over other organization's systems without a single shot fired.
Warship fleets, citadels and other structures have a very strong influence on the systems around them and can be used to insure your influence is the dominant influence in a region but also encourage attack from your competition. Progression Grid The influence system is tied into organization progression. Put simply the more influence you generate the more nodes on the progression grid you can unlock. Progression grid nodes can unlock new abilities like Terraforming, improve your efficiencies such as decreasing maintenance cost or increasing population limits of your colonies as well as expanding your capacities such as ship count and citadel count.
Where you start on the progression grid depends on what type of organization you choose to start the game with. Governments start with a bonus to population and expansion in an area with similarly themed nodes for example. New Combat Features The combat UI has been simplified and split into two modes that players can easily toggle between while in combat.
Command Mode, this is the starting mode and plays a lot like an RTS where you issue move and attack orders to your battlegroups. Thoughtful command and battlegroup structuring is key to victory in most battles, simply throwing a death stack of big ships at a target is a good way to lose a lot of expensive ships.
Pilot Mode, this is the traditional Terran combat view where you have direct control of a warship in 3rd person space shooter action style. New with this patch you can now take control over any ship in your fleet at any time and can freely toggle between modes (command and pilot). When the player is directly controlling a ship (pilot mode) all other ships in that battlegroup will take lead from your actions e.g. will target your target and so forth. And Lots More!

• New ships
• Improved Turrets
• Expanded galaxy
• New Organization Type: Armada

[ 2018-03-21 23:29:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 637 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Dont know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details on patch 637 check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Summary

Patch 637 introduces a host of new functionality to the Galaxy map. Many of these new features are in an initial state dev-speak for rough around the edges and we are looking for the communitys feedback as we work to stabilize the strategy (on map) and action (in space flight) gameplay.

UI Overview

We have consolidated the menus and brought a lot of functionality directly to the galaxy map which serves as the UIs new Home view. Its no longer necessary to drill into system level views in order to claim worlds this can now be done directly from map. The process of claiming a world has been both simplified and expanded. You can still colonize worlds as before assigning budgets to affect the outputs of the world or you can establish outposts which only fill a single specific output but cost less and yield their focused output faster.
Most functions of the fleet manager have been moved to the Home view as well. You can now place new ship build orders, manage existing flotillas and change your personal ships configuration from the Home view.

Empire Management

Corporate and Government progression and expansion have received notable updates with patch 637. With the introduction of outposts not every controlled world or even system has a permanent population. Trade ships have been introduced which shuttle people, supplies and goods between your outposts, colonies and the free trade ports. Your trade ships return to the capital system distributes the profits back into your empire. With patch 637 we have introduced the framework for pirates, raiders and other non-organized factions in the galaxy. At current, pirates will only wander the stars waiting for you to attack, in the upcoming patches however you will need to manage their threat or risk the loss of your trade ships and a sizable portion of your income. Influence has also been updated. As your empire grows so to does your influence and with greater influence comes the ability to expand further. Your influence is determined by your economic, industrial, scientific and military output and is further influenced by your standing fleet and amassed wealth. Colonies and outposts will cost influence in addition to credits and resources to maintain should your influence fall below required limits your accounts will drain followed by the population of your worlds until you stabilize or collapse.

Ships and Fleets

Nine new ship designs have been added and both ship and flotilla structures have been adjusted to leverage new capabilities of the game. The Ship Editor has been partially converted to work with the new ship structures and will be further updated in next few patches. New ship skins, decor, parts, weapons and abilities will be introduced as prepare to transition to Early Access Phase 3. With patch 637 you can now distribute your ships across multiple flotilla, each flotilla can have up to 50 warships assigned with no limit on the number of flotilla you can field. Flotilla are your primary method to interact with the galaxy at large. For patch 637 you can attack pirates or face off against a copy of your flotilla in the Broken Mirror. In later patches you will use flotilla to complete contact missions, explore the galaxy and more.
The Broken Mirror has been added for Early Access; located near the Alpha One station. Broken Mirror is simply a mirror battle where your opponents flotilla is a ship for ship copy of the flotilla you engaged it with. For patch 637 you will be required to personally lead every engagement however an Auto Resolve function is planned for later patches.

Known Issues

For more details please see the Terran Roadmap on Trello

• Some dialogs and panels do not block mouse movements as desired e.g. dragging or scrolling the ship list in the Fleet Menu causes the camera to move or zoom in the map view. This will be corrected in an upcoming patch.
• Fleet maintenance costs are not deducted from income at current, this is deliberately disabled as we balance initial and maintenance costs of ships and fleets and how that will grow as fleets increase in power and size.
• Ship Editor decals do not display as expected, this is due to changes in rendering and in general ship structure and will be corrected in upcoming patches.
• Additional debug hooks are still active in fleet structures which can cause notable slowdowns during the initial shots fired during a battle and at key events such as merging flotilla together on the map. These will be removed as the system is proven stable.
• Vulcan rendering API is proving fragile and is very sensitive driver updates. Overlays such as Nvidia Experience screen capture and similar have been observed to cause renderer resets (flash to black on-screen aka a hiccup). We are considering possible solutions to stabilize these conditions and have a launch option configured in Steam for Windows platforms that will allow the player to force the game to run in Direct X.
• Contact missions have not yet been assigned map coordinates but can be accessed via the Logs view. As a result, you will be flying these missions solo (with out flotilla support). We will be updating the contact missions in the next few patches to include a presence in the galaxy requiring you to navigate a flotilla to target before engaging and thus allowing you to auto resolve or fly the mission with the support of the flotilla you engaged with.
• Scanner range / visible range indicators (bubble outline around your systems and fleet elements on the map) do not initialize correctly in all cases. We have identified several cases where the display of the scanner range simply doesnt render though is applied and tested, these will typically self-correct as you transition from local space (combat, stations, etc.) back to the home view or load and reload a profile (Main Menu to Home view).
• Pirates do not grow in power or attack, this is deliberate as we test other systems. We will be enabling pirate AI in later patches where in pirates will become an aggressive threat and will grow/develop over time. For patch 637 they are simply a target you can engage infinitely from the map.
• Results of battles do not affect either party, e.g. ships lost are not removed from either you or the enemy. This will be corrected in up coming patches, ships damaged or lost in battle will be damaged or lost in the fleet element. Ships will automatically repair over time a process that can be speed up by being near colonies or military outposts.
• There are known balance issues with some weapon combinations that can result in grossly overpowered ships and ship combinations. These will continuously be balanced of the course of the Early Access as we add additional abilities, weapons and ships to tune the space combat experience.

To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-12-19 10:59:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 637 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details on patch 637 check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Summary

Patch 637 introduces a host of new functionality to the Galaxy map. Many of these new features are in an ‘initial’ state … ‘dev-speak’ for rough around the edges … and we are looking for the community’s feedback as we work to stabilize the strategy (on map) and action (in space flight) gameplay.

UI Overview

We have consolidated the menus and brought a lot of functionality directly to the galaxy map which serves as the UI’s new ‘Home’ view. Its no longer necessary to drill into system level views in order to claim worlds this can now be done directly from map. The process of claiming a world has been both simplified and expanded. You can still colonize worlds as before assigning budgets to affect the outputs of the world or you can establish outposts which only fill a single specific output but cost less and yield their focused output faster.
Most functions of the fleet manager have been moved to the Home view as well. You can now place new ship build orders, manage existing flotillas and change your personal ships configuration from the Home view.

Empire Management

Corporate and Government progression and expansion have received notable updates with patch 637. With the introduction of outposts not every controlled world or even system has a permanent population. Trade ships have been introduced which shuttle people, supplies and goods between your outposts, colonies and the free trade ports. Your trade ships return to the capital system distributes the profits back into your empire. With patch 637 we have introduced the framework for pirates, raiders and other non-organized factions in the galaxy. At current, pirates will only wander the stars waiting for you to attack, in the upcoming patches however you will need to manage their threat or risk the loss of your trade ships and a sizable portion of your income. Influence has also been updated. As your empire grows so to does your influence and with greater influence comes the ability to expand further. Your influence is determined by your economic, industrial, scientific and military output and is further influenced by your standing fleet and amassed wealth. Colonies and outposts will cost influence in addition to credits and resources to maintain should your influence fall below required limits your accounts will drain followed by the population of your worlds until you stabilize or collapse.

Ships and Fleets

Nine new ship designs have been added and both ship and flotilla structures have been adjusted to leverage new capabilities of the game. The Ship Editor has been partially converted to work with the new ship structures and will be further updated in next few patches. New ship skins, decor, parts, weapons and abilities will be introduced as prepare to transition to Early Access Phase 3. With patch 637 you can now distribute your ships across multiple flotilla, each flotilla can have up to 50 warships assigned with no limit on the number of flotilla you can field. Flotilla are your primary method to interact with the galaxy at large. For patch 637 you can attack pirates or face off against a copy of your flotilla in the Broken Mirror. In later patches you will use flotilla to complete contact missions, explore the galaxy and more.
The Broken Mirror has been added for Early Access; located near the Alpha One station. Broken Mirror is simply a mirror battle where your opponent’s flotilla is a ship for ship copy of the flotilla you engaged it with. For patch 637 you will be required to personally lead every engagement however an ‘Auto Resolve’ function is planned for later patches.

Known Issues

For more details please see the Terran Roadmap on Trello

• Some dialogs and panels do not block mouse movements as desired e.g. dragging or scrolling the ship list in the Fleet Menu causes the camera to move or zoom in the map view. This will be corrected in an upcoming patch.
• Fleet maintenance costs are not deducted from income at current, this is deliberately disabled as we balance initial and maintenance costs of ships and fleets and how that will grow as fleets increase in power and size.
• Ship Editor decals do not display as expected, this is due to changes in rendering and in general ship structure and will be corrected in upcoming patches.
• Additional debug hooks are still active in fleet structures which can cause notable slowdowns during the initial shots fired during a battle and at key events such as merging flotilla together on the map. These will be removed as the system is proven stable.
• Vulcan rendering API is proving fragile and is very sensitive driver updates. Overlays such as Nvidia Experience screen capture and similar have been observed to cause renderer resets (flash to black on-screen aka a hiccup). We are considering possible solutions to stabilize these conditions and have a launch option configured in Steam for Windows platforms that will allow the player to force the game to run in Direct X.
• Contact missions have not yet been assigned map coordinates but can be accessed via the Logs view. As a result, you will be flying these missions solo (with out flotilla support). We will be updating the contact missions in the next few patches to include a presence in the galaxy requiring you to navigate a flotilla to target before engaging and thus allowing you to auto resolve or fly the mission with the support of the flotilla you engaged with.
• Scanner range / visible range indicators (bubble outline around your systems and fleet elements on the map) do not initialize correctly in all cases. We have identified several cases where the display of the scanner range simply doesn’t render though is applied and tested, these will typically self-correct as you transition from local space (combat, stations, etc.) back to the home view or load and reload a profile (Main Menu to Home view).
• Pirates do not grow in power or attack, this is deliberate as we test other systems. We will be enabling pirate AI in later patches where in pirates will become an aggressive threat and will grow/develop over time. For patch 637 they are simply a target you can engage infinitely from the map.
• Results of battles do not affect either party, e.g. ships lost are not removed from either you or the enemy. This will be corrected in up coming patches, ships damaged or lost in battle will be damaged or lost in the fleet element. Ships will automatically repair over time a process that can be speed up by being near colonies or military outposts.
• There are known balance issues with some weapon combinations that can result in grossly overpowered ships and ship combinations. These will continuously be balanced of the course of the Early Access as we add additional abilities, weapons and ships to tune the space combat experience.

To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-12-19 10:59:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 602 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Dont know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details on patch 602 check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Patch Summary

Patch 602 includes a host of improvements and bug fixes including correction of a hang/crash bug found in patch 591. A full list can be found in the Latest Release Patch 602 list on the Roadmap. In addition to fixes and improvements the first iteration of captains yachts and a preview of the Alpha One restructuring are included in this build. Yachts will be used when you enter civil / non-combat areas and offer greater speed and agility than your warships. The preview of Alpha One has its major structures in place and demonstrates the direction going forward for civil areas such as Hedonia and the 3 sisters stations which will be introduced in the start of Phase 3.
New this build the players location in space will be represented on the galaxy map as a fleet element. Fleet elements represent flotilla and can consist of up to 4 divisions approximately 200 warships total. The UI for managing the content of your elements and creating additional flotilla is under construction and should be made full functional in the next few patches. Proximity of the players fleet element or command flotilla with stations and systems is now a requirement for warping to local space around these areas. This means you will now need to travel to Alpha One before you can warp into local space and fly around Alpha One. This proximity requirement will be carried over to contact missions, events and other local space activities in the upcoming set of patches.
To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-11-14 11:22:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 602 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details on patch 602 check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Patch Summary

Patch 602 includes a host of improvements and bug fixes including correction of a hang/crash bug found in patch 591. A full list can be found in the Latest Release Patch 602 list on the Roadmap. In addition to fixes and improvements the first iteration of captain’s yachts and a preview of the Alpha One restructuring are included in this build. Yachts will be used when you enter civil / non-combat areas and offer greater speed and agility than your warships. The preview of Alpha One has its major structures in place and demonstrates the direction going forward for civil areas such as Hedonia and the 3 sisters stations which will be introduced in the start of Phase 3.
New this build the player’s location in space will be represented on the galaxy map as a fleet element. Fleet elements represent flotilla and can consist of up to 4 divisions approximately 200 warships total. The UI for managing the content of your elements and creating additional flotilla is under construction and should be made full functional in the next few patches. Proximity of the player’s fleet element or ‘command flotilla’ with stations and systems is now a requirement for warping to local space around these areas. This means you will now need to travel to Alpha One before you can warp into local space and fly around Alpha One. This proximity requirement will be carried over to contact missions, events and other ‘local space’ activities in the upcoming set of patches.
To learn more about the latest changes and whats coming next be sure to watch the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-11-14 11:22:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 591 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Dont know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Patch Summary

Patch 591 gives players a new level of control over the game with the new Game Settings. Game Settings can be configured on creation of a new profile and allow players to adjust the size and content of the galaxy, enable and disable features and more.
The galaxy itself has been updated and new games from patch 591 forward can generate systems across the whole galaxy. Improved galaxy navigation tools and optimizations to the interface are being rolled out starting with patch 591 in preparation for trade, politics and of course war at the galactic scale. In addition to galaxy improvements we have updated the data model and data management systems of the game and continue to debug and optimize existing components and expand upon features that have been partially implemented.

Roadmap Update

The Trello roadmap for Terran has been updated with a number of new lists meant to provide better transparency in a simpler format. New lists have been created for the in progress, pending and recently released items, these are in addition to existing information already available on the roadmap. You can find more detail on this and upcoming patches on the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-11-08 11:42:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 591 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
For more details check out the Terran Roadmap on Trello where we have added additional detail outlining the tasks currently in progress, items pending release, the latest release items and much more.

Patch Summary

Patch 591 gives players a new level of control over the game with the new Game Settings. Game Settings can be configured on creation of a new profile and allow players to adjust the size and content of the galaxy, enable and disable features and more.
The galaxy itself has been updated and new games from patch 591 forward can generate systems across the whole galaxy. Improved galaxy navigation tools and optimizations to the interface are being rolled out starting with patch 591 in preparation for trade, politics and of course war at the galactic scale. In addition to galaxy improvements we have updated the data model and data management systems of the game and continue to debug and optimize existing components and expand upon features that have been partially implemented.

Roadmap Update

The Trello roadmap for Terran has been updated with a number of new lists meant to provide better transparency in a simpler format. New lists have been created for the in progress, pending and recently released items, these are in addition to existing information already available on the roadmap. You can find more detail on this and upcoming patches on the Terran Roadmap here.

[ 2017-11-08 11:42:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 581 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
Organization Policies With patch 581 we have introduced the policy system. The policy system is meant give players more control over their organizations allowing you to personalize the stats, capabilities and ideology of your organization to your style. Policies will affect your organization as a whole and can increase growth rates, improve population density, grant new abilities or mitigate adverse effect such as from rebellion. The policies you have applied may also have political impacts aligning you with or against other organizations in the galaxy. The initial set of policies introduced are basic and work primarily to adjust progression rates for your organization. Each organization type has its own set of available policies specific to the nature of Governments, Corporations, Syndicates or Private organizations respectively. As Early Access continues we will be introducing policies with more substantial effects coupled with greater consequences. Galaxy Update New systems, improved galaxy generation and the return of costing. With patch 581 two new regions have been enabled and will populate with star systems. The new Western Fields and Eastern Cradle regions have been enabled and configured to support up to 340 systems combined. Generation of the galaxy its self has received an update for improved procedural placement and population of star systems. As the generation system is tested and stabilized it will allow players to control the starting state of the galaxy on creation of a new game. With the galaxy update we reenabled the claim cost for systems and worlds and have introduced an ‘imminent domain’ feature of the population system which will cause worlds in systems you control to populate over time rather or not they have been directly colonized. This new feature helps accelerate the early growth of new corporations and governments. Each scanned world in a system you control will slowly populate decreasing its colonization costs and contributing a small amount to influence, if left alone long enough the world will eventually colonize effectively for free. The rate this occurs and the contribution to influence will be affected by the policies and abilities of your organization.

Notes

For more details on patch 581 and the upcoming updates be sure to check out the Terran Roadmap. Clean up of test and debug logic across several sub systems. This is an ongoing effort but should have little or no visible impact to players aside from size on disk and load times of the game. Corrected maths errors with economy calculations and costing calculations. Added a base 0.2 influence impact for each colonized world. At current the impact effects all worlds and world types equally. Added a Data Manager feature to the Early Access screen. Data Manager allows the player to view all game files as stored on Steam Cloud Data and is useful for cleaning up corrupted or orphaned save files. The Data Manager will test the integrity of each file and offers guidance regarding the files validity. Adjusted organization save data in preparation for NPC organizations, this change will invalidate existing organizations. Corrected an issue which prevented the game from identifying the last played profile. Players should now see a ‘Resume’ option when returning to the game after their first play post patch 581.

Known Issues

Government and Corporation Saves from builds prior to 581 cannot be loaded. We are looking into a migration process to update old saves to the new structures though this is a lower priority than other items. It is possible to exploit the first free world offered to new Governments and Corporations allowing you to claim any number of worlds for free. We will correct the bug in a later patch. Galaxy Events have been disable temporarily. Galaxy events depend on the same placement logic used by star systems, this system has recently been updated and is being tested in Early Access Beta. Galaxy Events will return in an upcoming patch.

[ 2017-10-23 22:37:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 570 is available in beta for PC, Mac and Linux now.
Patch 570 is focused on organization development, we have updated the planet management screen with a focus on budget distribution replacing the ‘Asset Improvement’ modules and are introducing station upgrades allowing corp and gov leaders to upgrade the planetary stations that orbit each controlled world. Over the next several beta patches we will be introducing Organization Policies and Principles which apply organization wide effects as well as new status conditions such as rebellion, invasion and cleansing which can be applied to populated worlds. For more details on patch 570 and the upcoming updates be sure to check out the Terran Roadmap.

Notes

Maths rollup logic has been updated and reported metrics simplified to: Credits; this is your organizations available funds. Resources; the store of materials your organization has available. Economy; expresses your organization’s economic influence Industry; expresses your organization’s industrial influence Science; expresses your organization’s scientific influence Military; [under development] will express your organization’s military influence The Home > Profile view’s report panel has disable and hidden pending updates to Organization Policies and Principles. The improved view will make a return as the Policies and Principles patch moves to beta. For patch 570 claiming a world and upgrading stations has no cost. This is a temporary state for the ‘beta’ build. As the build is completed and stabilised for ‘main’; upgrading stations and claiming new worlds will incur an immediate cost and a recurring administrative cost.

Known Issues

Rena Borsch’s mission tasks will loop on the 4th mission. It is also known that the wording of missions may have errors and are generally lacking, these are placeholders and will be replaced in upcoming patches with final content. Population value on the planet management view can overlap the credit and resource amounts in some cases. This will be corrected in an upcoming patch.

[ 2017-10-14 15:47:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 555 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now.
Patch 555 expands Rena Borsch tasks and includes a host of bug fixes and general improvements to rendering, gameplay, AI and UI as well as an update to the underlying engine. The Roadmap has been expanded to include additional detail on recent changes and current development efforts.

Notes

Additional tasks are available for Rena Borsch. At current the task will loop resetting on completion of mission #4, this is a temporary solution while additional content is being prepared. Patch 555 replaces patch 465 on the main build promoting the new ship editor, refined dashboard, contacts improvements, new combat missions, new ships and new ship parts to the main build. Changes to the settings and save files should automatically upgrade from build 465 without issue though custom ship designs may need to be adjusted to account for new parts and stats. Pilot AI which handles both friendly and hostile ship flight and combat engagement has been adjusted on results from prior patches. Ships should fly in more natural feeling patterns and better maintain formations. Additional messages are provided during combat to guide the player. The dialog system has been enhanced too, to effect camera controls and mission events. These new features are being rolled out on all new tasks and quests; existing tasks and quests will be updated to better leverage the new capabilities over the coming patches.

Known Issues

Rena Borsch’s mission tasks will loop on the 4th mission. This is deliberate for patch 555. It is also known that the wording of missions may have errors and are generally lacking, these are placeholders and will be replaced in upcoming patches with final content. Claiming worlds from the profile view does not correctly cost the players money. The worlds will still be claimed, but they simply will be claimed for free. This will be corrected in an upcoming patch. Some elements of the profile view’s organization report do not sum/total correctly. This is due to some aspects of the report with pending dev work and will be corrected over the coming patches.

[ 2017-10-02 17:15:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 545 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.
Patch 545 introduces a number of changes and improvements to NPCs, contacts and the tasks and missions they offer. Rena Borsch has been updated and will offer players a series of repeating tasks which reset on the 3rd ‘Investigation’ task. Over the next few patches we will be introducing additional tasks and two new contacts Saige Marie and 12CE881.

Notes

Underlying systems driving the NPCs and their related tasks have been update in preparation for upcoming content. The structure of save data has been updated as a result of these changes, existing save files should automatically convert to the new model. Rena Borsch has 3 place holder tasks that will loop as you play through them. Over the next couple of patches we will be introducing two new contacts ‘Saige Marie’ and ‘12CE881’ who together with Rena Borsch will offer a series of interlinked tasks tailored to the players origin choice. Update to AI logic for wings and solo ships correcting conditions where the AI would hold onto older decisions longer than intended. This should result in a more responsive AI during combat. Update to the Contact UI in support of new functionality, this update also completes updates to task missions to account for the previous round of changes to asset load sequence. This should correct issues players had with completing Rena’s tasks. Ongoing work is progressing to complete the strategy systems which drive organization management and organization AI. At current players can claim worlds, manage their own worlds improvements and profit from accumulated resource. Station upgrades, trade facilities and political arrangements are not currently available. For the time being we have disabled player death, that is you cannot die in space missions. Shield and armour values can drop to 0 however your ship will not explode and the enemy will still treat you as a viable target allowing you to continue play. This is of course temporary as we continue to test and balance ship strength, AI and mission design.

Known Issues

Rena Borsch’s mission tasks will loop on the 3rd mission ‘Investigation’. This is deliberate for patch 545. It is also known that the wording of missions may have errors and are generally lacking, these are placeholders and will be replaced in upcoming patches with final content. Claiming worlds from the profile view does not correctly cost the players accounts. The worlds will still be claimed they simply will be claimed for free. This will be corrected in an upcoming patch. Switching to profile and from profile switching back to map via one of the ‘Find’/’zoom’ buttons of the profile does not always animate through the galaxy correctly. The conditions for this error have been isolated and will be corrected in an upcoming patch. Some elements of the profile view’s organization report do not sum/total correctly. This is due to some aspects of the report with pending dev work and will be corrected over the coming patches.

[ 2017-09-19 16:20:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 535 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Manufacturing

Build process and design save process bugs have been corrected, new designs should appear in your Fleet > Engineering ship list and built ships should appear in your Home > Ships list. Note building of a ship does take time and the UI elements for displaying the current processing builds is not yet available. Typically, a ship will build within 1.5 months; the UI will be extended in an upcoming patch to include display of currently active builds and the ability to cancel pending builds.

Ship Parts

Adjustments have been made to the origin point of several parts to improve placement and surface snapping. These changes will affect existing designs but will not cause errors or designs to be lost.

New Game Experience

Government players will be shown a list of up to 10 available home worlds on creation of a new game. This is an early step in the process of improving the new game experience and similar subtle features will be applied to Private, Syndicate and Corporate on creation of new profiles. Each origin option will have a unique flow through the first few steps of the game to help players make those early decisions such as ‘What home world to choose’, ‘what ship to fly’, ‘who to fly with’. Keep an eye on the Steam announcements for more information.

General Improvements

Quite a few minor bugs and gaps have been resolved between the 525 and 535 builds. The majority of these are maths corrections and sequencing fixes. Organization Reports, Asset Reports and ship stats have been greatly improved but are not yet complete. Cultural impact, Fleet maintenance and Trade calculations are still being ignored by the rollup calculations as these aspects are under construction. Organization influence and population calculations should be now be working as intended.

Known Issues

Rena Borsch tasks cannot be completed, Rena’s mission controllers are still in the process of being updated for recent changes and should be completed over the next couple of patches. Saige Marie and 12CE881 contacts are undergoing similar conversions and will update along with the Rena Borsch fixes. Updates to the contacts missions are being held until corrections to the organization rollup calculations are complete. Ship build pricing is deliberately being calculated lower than intended, this to insure its easy for players to build and test new ship designs, ship maintenance costs are not yet being figured into organization experiences. The build order UI under Fleet > Engineering only allows you to build a single ship at a time and forces that ship to your private inventory. Fleet management is currently under construction and when complete the build order UI be unlocked to allow construction of fleet ships in bulk.

[ 2017-09-09 14:59:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 525 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Manufacturing Preview

A base implementation of Fleet Engineering’s manufacturing option is available in patch 525. You can now build your ship designs allowing them to be selected as your active ship.
At current the Build Order process is locked to building a single ship and registering it as personal. For patch 525 build costs have been greatly reduced. Over the next few patches the Build Order process and Fleet Administration features will be fleshed out allowing players to build sizable fleets, amass a diverse collection of private ships and build reserves of ships in preparation for major conflicts.

New Ship Parts

Patch 525 includes 3 new hull parts and introduces the first examples of ship décor and ship decals available in the design function under Fleet Engineering. Décor and decal parts have no impact on your ships basic stats aside from its build and maintenance costs. Only a few example décor and decal options are available in Patch 525, more options will be made available throughout Early Access with plans to introduce unique and rare options you will be able to discover through gameplay and achievements.

Display Settings and Optimizations

Profile settings have been updated to include Field of View, Saturation and Exposure controls. Work is underway to expose more of games configuration settings through the Main Settings menu. During Early Access a launcher option is available that allows users to adjust target display monitor, resolution and other common settings. As Early Access progresses the launcher will be disabled by default in favour of in-game settings but will remain available as a launch option. Additional support for 21:9 aspect ratio and optimizations for super sampling and 4k resolutions in 16:9, 16:10 and 21:9 aspect ratios resolutions have been applied with patch 525. This will be an ongoing process throughout Early Access. Terran’s UI is now able adjust its UI scale and distribution and should offer a clean UI experience for 16:10 and wider aspect ratios including 3 monitor configurations.

Known Issues

Foil décor parts need there pivot points adjusted and the applied part name adjusted for easier editing. New saved designs do not immediately appear in the design list of Fleet Engineering, this can be worked around by returning to main menu then going back to Fleet Engineering (e.g. reloading your profile), this will be corrected in an upcoming hot fix. The Profile view has several known maths errors and elements which are not yet fully functional such as the Sector and System records showing 5k more population than they should. These issues are noted and will be addressed in upcoming patches. When a player uses the ‘View’ button on an asset or system in the Home > Profile > System Assets list and then quickly switches to the Galaxy map before the view animation is complete it can cause the UI to load improperly. This can be resolved in game by clicking back over to Home and then back into Galaxy map. This issue will be properly resolved in an upcoming patch. Rena Borsch tasks cannot be completed, Rena’s mission controllers are still in the process of being updated for recent changes and should be completed over the next couple of patches. Saige Marie and 12CE881 contacts are undergoing similar conversions and will update along with the Rena Borsch fixes.

[ 2017-08-30 09:14:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 517 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Interface

Patch 517 includes several changes to the general UI. The main menu area has been simplified with the Home option being the new default. A new ‘Ships’ option has been added under the Home menu where players can select there currently active ship and the new ‘Events’ option presents the player with a list of all active events in the galaxy.

Ship Editor

The Ship Editor has received a lot of attention with patch 517 and features a fully refreshed UI. Ship Transform and Rigging functions have been simplified and a new material and decor system implemented. Players can now save and load ship designs through the Fleet Engineering menu for this patch Manufacturing is still disabled however this will be enabled in an upcoming patch.
Patch 517 only includes a small number of ship parts, in the next few patches we will be completing the conversion of parts, assemblies and décor greatly expanding the list of available components players can build with as well as adding new materials, abilities and prefabricated ships. At this stage, the ship editor is nearly feature complete with assemblies, decor and abilities being the last remaining functions to be implemented during the Sector K72 patch cycle. We will of course continue to debug and refine the Ship Editor along with the rest of the game throughout development and into full release.

Weapon Systems

Weapon systems have received a notable update and new weapons have been made available. Weapons are now selected by type and are finalized when the ship is built. Weapon damage is calculated based on the ships available stats while each weapon type has a unique firing pattern, projectile flight speed and damage distribution. Weapons are no longer divided by size, category or role but are organized by ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ weapon systems. Primary weapons have a higher rate of fire, typically lower damage per round and typically shorter effective range while Secondary weapons have a faster overheat rate and fewer total slots available per ship. Note that weapons systems will automatically be disabled in certain areas such as at free trade ports.

Ship to Ship Combat

Patch 517 introduces a number of changes and refinements to ship combat including a host of new weapon systems, AI tactics and formations. For the next several patches combat focused Hot Spots will spawn more frequently to ensure the player always has a fight to get into. In upcoming patches fleet and command & control systems will be introduced starting with a focus on ship to ship combat. Patch 517 event placeholders are a simplified preview of things to come. Watch the announcement section for news on the upcoming Ship Abilities feature, the introduction of drones and carriers and of course new event types.

Known Issues

The Profile view has several known maths errors and elements which are not yet fully functional such as the Sector and System records showing 5k more population than they should. These issues are noted and will be addressed in upcoming patches. When a player uses the ‘View’ button on an asset or system in the Home > Profile > System Assets list and then quickly switches to the Galaxy map before the view animation is complete it can cause the UI to load improperly. This can be resolved in game by clicking back over to Home and then back into Galaxy map. This issue will be properly resolved in an upcoming patch. Rena Borsch tasks cannot be completed, Rena’s mission controllers are still in the process of being updated for recent changes and should be completed over the next couple of patches. Saige Marie and 12CE881 contacts are undergoing similar conversions and will update along with the Rena Borsch fixes. Older save files missing from the profile list, over the past several patches several changes to the games data model have implemented some older save files may not be able to convert and so won’t appear in your profile list. We do work to limit the occurrence of this but it will always be a risk while under Early Access. Invalidated save files are not destroyed and should not adversely impact the loading of your game they are simply no longer compatible with the current state of the game. Enemy ships die very fast in the placeholder events; this is as designed due to it being a placeholder. Patch 517 is testing the event spawn, load and AI handling. For this patch, the player’s ship cannot be destroyed though your health can be lowered to 0. Enemy ships are soft and can be killed easily the enemy formation should reorganize with each ship loss to maintain its selected formation and behaviour. Note that enemy kills will accrue 2 Early Access Leader points per-kill though we have not added this entry to the Early Access Message splash screen.

[ 2017-08-21 01:57:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 481 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

Patch 481 updates the base engine, Steam integration and GameSparks integration, expect a larger than usual patch download size. Updates to the save file structure have also been made in preparation from the next patch.

Game

Costing has been added to asset claiming e.g. it will now cost you eCredits to claim new worlds. Your first or ‘home’ world is still free to claim. Claim costs calculations include Admin; based on the number of controlled worlds plus additional cost if this is the first claimed world in a system. Labour; based on admin costs and further impacted by conflict status Material; based on distance to available resources and impacted by conflict status. Later updates will see the inclusion of pilot enhancements and other mechanisms to reduce the cost of claiming worlds, at current the cost is a default calculation. New Steam Avatars have been made available on the Official game group, you can access these here or in game by clicking your profile image in the Dashboard or Early Access Challenge area. If opened in game this will trigger the Steam Overlay and navigate it to the group’s avatar page. Leader board icons will now open the Steam overlay to the selected users profile page. If you click your own icon it will open the official game group avatar page where you can select from one of Terran’s Steam Avatars to set as your own.

Technical

Game Engine Update to v2017.1; Terran will continue to update along with significant updates to the base engine until we approach the end of Early Access to insure the best possible compatibility, performance and quality possible. Steam integration update; the integration with the steam overlay has been updated we will be adding additional functionality to leader boards and friends so more can be done in game or triggered through the Steam Overlay. GameSparks update; corrected several bugs dealing with the awarding of Early Access Points and its leader boards. This will be expanded on further in upcoming patches. New shadowing approach for direct lights (the Sun for example) this should greatly improve lighting and general game performance in scenes with larger structures such as the Alpha One station. Updated the metadata save file structure for upcoming features around NPC organizations. These changes will be driving the gameplay changes of the next patch and brings NPC organizations to the game along with trade, politics and more. Note initialization of older organizations will report an error in the log file however the game will rebuild the meta-data as needed, this should only occur once on the first touch of an organization after the update is applied.

[ 2017-07-19 09:02:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 471 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

Patch 471 includes an engine update and the return of the Vulkan rendering API. Be sure to update your video drivers to the latest. For systems where Vulkan is not support the game will select the next best API e.g. DirectX (12, 11, 10 or 9) or OpenGL as the case may be. Please note that the Vulkan and DirectX 12 integrations are in an early state, please report any rendering issues through the community hub or through Heathen’s support channel.

Community Features

With patch 471 we have introduced the first of a battery of upcoming community features. The Early Access Message has been replaced with the Early Access Challenge. The initial Early Access Challenge feature set is a simple leader board scoring the ‘Early Access Points’ earned by each player. A set of initial challenges have been issued for patch 471 each rewarding a set number of points per completion. As Terran progresses new features and challenges will be added to the Early Access Challenge area.

Technical

The Unity 3D engine has been updated to 5.6.2 correcting a number of rendering and physics issues including issues with the Vulkan rendering API. Load order of assets have been adjusted to bring players to main menu faster. Core assets will not be loaded until a new game or existing profile is loaded. The ‘Continue’ button may not appear on load as it has previously however existing profiles can still be loaded via the Load Game option on the main menu. The ‘Continue’ functionality will be restored in a later patch. Camera and flight logic have been updated to correct for gimble lock … rapid spin when looking straight up or down. It is now possible to do a full loop; this should be the final adjustment to the flight camera and flight logic pending player feedback of course. GameSparks has been implemented as of patch 471 to handle backend services such as the Early Access Challenges and leader boards. Terran will expand on the new capabilities as build 471+ stabilizes through the Early Access process. Work is on going regarding UI updates in particular updating text labels. These updates are to improve rendering of fonts and offer better support across a wider range of display resolutions.

[ 2017-07-06 21:37:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 463 is available for PC, Mac and Linux now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

Patch 463 introduces the start of the Gentle Giants story arc to the Alpha One station and opens more of the galaxy for exploration with the addition of the K72 Ice Fields and the ability to warp into orbit around any planet from the galaxy map. Patch 463 also brings a new type of ship, many bug fixes and more refinements to the UI. Player feedback is as important as ever as Terran approaches its feature complete stage later this cycle.

Ship Types

With the 463 patch we have introduced a new type of ship referred to as ‘Vanguard ships’. As with modular ship parts players will be able to unlock additional Vanguard ships through gameplay. Players can choose to fly a Vanguard type ship themselves or design and build their own modular ships to fit their unique needs and preferences. Unlike modular ships which can only be piloted by a Terran Pilot the standardized Vanguard ships can be flown by any capable crew and fill out the bulk of most fleets. Over the upcoming builds additional ship parts and Vanguard ships will be introduced as well as the ability to hire, employ or recruit both Terran and non-Terran pilots and crews to your fleet.

Space Flight and Exploration

New exploration options are being added to the game, the first of which is the ability to warp to any know point on the galaxy map. For planets or ‘assets’ as a Terran would call them a new ‘Warp To’ button can be found in the upper left of the asset view in your map. In later builds players will be able to interact with the command towers of populated worlds to access services, meet new contacts and pick up new quests and tasks.
Heathen will be expanding on the space flight and exploration aspects of the game over the next few builds in preparation for the next patch cycle titled Vanguard. As always you can watch the Terran Roadmap for all the latest developments or of course the Terran Community of Steam for the latest news.

Technical

Shaders have been updated to improve performance across all APIs (DirectX, OpenGL, etc.), The Vulcan API is still disabled and will fall back to the next best available. Heathen has started the process of finalizing key systems of the game removing tracing and debugging code. This process should have no notable effect on the game as seen by players but may make for larger patch updates as more files will be changed than usual. This of course will be an ongoing process until final release. Camera and flight logic have been updated to correct several minor bugs and improve responsiveness and steep angles. Looking straight up or down will still cause the camera to spin quickly, a solution for this is prepped and will be implemented in a later build but should be a fringe case. Task log has been updated to correct a number of minor issues including display of unselected tasks, mouse lock to centre of screen and the close button not responding to click events. The warp in and out sequence has been marked for update, there is currently an issue where the players ship will be shown before the camera calculates its starting position. This effect self corrects within the first second or so of play and will be properly corrected in later patches. Organization view and its reports are in an incomplete stage at the moment. The view should not cause issue with other aspects of the game but the report will not display correct values. Note the Organization view has not yet been updated for the Private and Syndicate organization types and is a work in progress for Government and Corporation organization types. Organization AI is on temporary hold pending updates to the asset improvement system and fleet management systems. These systems are areas of focus for the team with Heathen’s goal being to get Org AI available in gameplay as soon as possible.

Game

Space flight updates including refinements of Alpha One, addition of K72 Ice Fields and the ability to warp to planet orbit from the galaxy map have all been added in this patch. Alpha One’s Gentle Giant project and its related story arc are under development with the first task in the story arc available in its early form now. Story arcs are as described a collection of related quests / tasks with a ‘grand reward’ on completion. The Gentle Giant arc is among the smallest and simplest of the planed arcs and will be used to field test the underlying systems in preparation for the next phase of Early Access. Work is underway around ships both modular and Vanguard. The Fleet manager and its ship editor will be updated to reflect these changes over the next few builds and cannot currently be used to build new ships. Player’s will automatically have the default or ‘starter’ ship when applied.

[ 2017-06-30 20:09:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 441 is available for PC and Mac now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

The Linux build of patch 441 will be updated later this week. Patch 441 includes updates to most major areas of the game. The team is gearing up to complete the Sector K72 patch cycle from a technical point of view and we expect the next few patches to introduce more content and fewer changes / additions as we bring the build ready for promotion to the main branch. A new Origin Options menu, galaxy regions and an updated Organization view round out the major visual changes of patch 441. Updates to asset management and improvement as well as changes to Contacts and the introduction of Free Trade Ports are in progress with examples available in patch 441 now.

Organization Types

Organizations are a concept unique to Terran, they effect how you interact with the galaxy and how it interacts with you. When you start a new game, you will select one of four origin options each will pre-configure your profile to a given organization type. The progression and development a player will experience will be unique to the players organization type. In later patches players will be able to convert from one type to another through various in game mechanisms. A summary of each type can be found in the Origin Options menu and more details will be available soon on Terran’s web site. Note that gameplay mechanics of each organization are a work in progress and subject to change as development continues. The following are respective to the current build however NPC organizations are not yet available limiting the Private and Syndicate options. Private Organization Type Private indicates a private individual or team. Direct reputation is the key factor for this type where in players build positive or negative reputation with local populations and the organizations that lead them as they play. As a private entity, you can rent facilities on stations and worlds granting access to research, manufacturing and other services such as expanding the capacity of your fleet via docks. The facilities made available to you will depend on the asset in question and your reputation with them, and their leadership. Private entities cannot own stellar assets and have no direct influence in the political or corporate landscape however they can join government or corporate fleets, undertake sectioned missions from other organizations and other activities that the leader of a government or corporation would be restricted form undertaking. Syndicate Organization Type Syndicates can establish headquarters (HQs) on any populated asset and can do so without any special permission. HQs enable the syndicate to grow and develop influence through special opportunities and tasks. Influence can be spent to access facilities and services or to effect the local population or the organization that leads them. As the leader of a syndicate you are largely perceived as a private individual by the rest of the galaxy. You may be viewed as a criminal and actively hunted or as a valued supporter that is given a say in important political and commercial matters depending on your syndicate’s reputation and influence. Corporation Organization Type As the owner of a registered corporation you will not be able join government fleets but your own fleet will be recognized as a military power. Corporations can own stellar assets, participate in many political relationships including war and have access to a wide array of trade and commercial options. Corporate populations are composed of paid employees and incur a cost on the corporation but are immune to unrest and cultural influences. Employees can be hired and released at any time with immediate effect allowing very tight management of your corporate empire. Government Organization Type The leader of a declared government cannot join the fleets of other organizations but of course can claim stellar assets as its own and build a population of loyal citizens by providing the appropriate conditions. Governments have fewer trade options than corporations but more political measures at there disposal. Government populations are composed of citizens which naturally grow and shrink based on the conditions of the local asset of overall organization. Citizens pay taxes to the government and larger populations produce more influence, strengthening political positions and expanding fleet capacity.

Technical

An engine error has been identified with the Vulken API and for patch 441 it has been disabled. This should have no major impact on players as the game will simply fall back the next best available API such as DirectX or OpenGL depending on your platform. A rendering error with the galaxy view has been identified on Mac and Linux platforms. Changes have been applied to resolve but may still present on some systems. This is typically seen as the stars of the galaxy appearing bright pink. Existing save files should adjust for recent changes however it is strongly recommended to create a new profile given changes to the galaxy structure and organization structure of the game.

Game

Welcome screen replaced with Origin Option menu From this menu you can select from four options which will adjust the initial configuration of your profile and the galaxy to suit. Galaxy map divided into regions for easier navigation, the regions are named for aspects of Terran’s back lore, additional in game information on the lore behind the names will be made available in later patches 70 Systems added to the Eastern Fields region of the galaxy. These systems will be available to the player from the start. As the technology that drives the generation of the systems is vetted it will be applied to the galaxy on mass. The final implementation is intended to see some systems as ‘common’ or known from the start and others as hidden requiring exploration or other events to unlock. AlphaOne relocated to Eastern Fields and made accessible from the map. AlphaOne will grow in importance as we approach the end of Phase 2’s patch cycle. AlphaOne and other Free Trade Ports serve as hubs where the player can meet new contacts, pick up special tasks and more. We will cover the Free Trade Port feature in more detail in a later announcement. Work is underway on the Ship Editor; several UI elements have been rearranged and several bugs with the TreeView and other UI elements have been resolved. This will be an ongoing process through the Phase 2 patch cycle. Organization View has been updated for Government and Corporation organization types. This is a work in progress and will be matured over the coming patches. Syndicate and Private organization types will receive a similar implementation geared to their unique play styles. Asset View and Asset Details have been updated, the asset improvements section is now divided into the major areas that can be improved. Additional work will be carried out on the Asset Improvement UI over the coming patches introducing Station upgrades and additional improvement options. Contacts View has been updated to filter contacts by type e.g. Personal, Facility and Organization contacts. In addition, changes to Rena and Saige tasks are underway with new tasks to be introduced over the coming patches.

[ 2017-06-06 01:57:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 412 is available now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

This week the dev team has been focused on the stellar assets (planets in this case) and the foundation of population growth and development. We are working on information updates for the Terran home page with more details on the topic world, types, resource and improvement.

Getting to know stellar assets.

The first step in securing your first world is to find an available ‘asset’, for the Sector K72 patch have a look at the J40 system. Next you need to ‘scan’ the asset, this process will identify the world and its general make up including any special traits it may have such as unique flora or fauna, primitive inhabitants and so on. Finally you will ‘claim’ the asset, this process will deploy a command tower station in orbit and enables you to manage the assets development. Over the next few patches the development team will be focused on balancing population growth and resource consumption rates. The nature of assets has been adjusted to ignore improvement capacity and the populations are not calculating cultural factors e.g. its free build mode. This will change as growth patterns are settled. The final form will see each planet type present a given capacity for improvement further modified by the planets size. Non-planet assets are similarly effected though by different factors. Cultural influence will be introduce along with political mechanics as we near the end of Sector K72’s beta cycle.

Technical

We shuffled around a number of the internal variables between the main profile save file and meta data save file to improve flexibility and decrease disk IO. The change should notably improve save and load times as well as resolve several serialization related bugs. Additional work refining the rendering of text was done in this weeks patch; this will be an on-going item. NAN errors; several conditions were found where in SIM Vectors (culture) and other such structures would deserialize to NAN causing subsequent math operations to fail. These have been corrected and safety checks put in place to recover existing data in the event an element is effected by the problem. Changes have been made to the underlying data model for assets and improvements introducing new functionality and simplifying the resources structure. These changes will invalidate previous saves but offer a cleaner solution than attempting to maintain backward compatibility. Of course post release we will not make deliberate changes that invalidate save files however as this is beta cleaner is preferable to backward compatibility.

Game

Time Control; updated the colouring and layout of the time control UI (upper right corner of Dashboard), the new pattern should be more intuitive. Time Control; enabled the control and adjusted the min and max step count e.g. how slow and how fast time can be made to progress while in the Dashboard. Footer Controls; Updated the ‘footer’ of the Dashboard to correct several layout issues caused by the length of strings changing, these would not have been apparent in the previous build as the time control was disabled. The controls have also been rearranged to a more intuitive order. System View; Enabled Scan and Claim functionality. At current these functions only test to see if the player is an organization leader, the do not currently have any associated resource cost. Adjusted the natural base of the following world types. Note that ‘natural base’ refers to the raw values of the world relative to its size before modifiers e.g. x5 indicates a base value of (5*size) before traits, improvements, organization stats and population conditions are accounted for.

• Terrestrial: x5 to residential space x1 to common matter x0.25 to uncommon matter x0.0125 to rare matter x5 to commodity production x5 to leisure value x5 to storage capacity
• Dust: x2 to residential space x1 to common matter x0.5 to uncommon matter x0.0175 to rare matter x15 to storage capacity
• Rocky: x3 to residential space x1.5 to common matter x0.125 to uncommon matter x0.0025 to rare matter x20 to storage capacity
• Ocean: x4 to residential space x0.5 to common matter x0.35 to uncommon matter x0.02 to rare matter x5 to commodity production x2 to leisure value x1 to storage capacity
• Ice: x1 to residential space x0.75 to common matter x0.3 to uncommon matter x0.015 to rare matter x10 to storage capacity

Expanded the rollup of asset data to include estimates on population growth and storage contribution for assets, systems, sectors and organizations. These changes are most apparent when simulating vary large galaxies (lots of populated planets) Expanded organizations such that production automation can be improved via enhancements and other conditions and unlockables. By default, a minimal automation rate of 0.00025 will be applied and capped at 1.0. Automation is an organization wide ability to produce goods and materials without a population. Production calculations have been adjusted to account for this new variable value. Organization wide storage limits have been adjusted along with base values for asset improvements to decrease the initial growth time of new empires. Balancing of initial growth curve will be of attention over the coming patches. 7 Asset Improvements have been added giving player a full set of basic improvements with 8 upgrades per. The Improvement UI controls have also been re-worked to support both ‘tech rank’ and ‘funding amount’ greatly improving players control over an asset development. Note that more work is being done in this area and the UI is not quite complete. Quite a few bugs have been sorted in the patch, check the Trello Roadmap for full details on these and as always if you have any questions just let us know in the Steam Community forums or via Heathen’s support portal.

[ 2017-05-07 21:12:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Patch 396 is available now on the beta branch. Don’t know how to access beta? Read this.

Patch Notes

This patch addresses several general issues with the 387 build providing better guidance for players regarding incomplete elements and features. The Ship Editor portion of Fleet Manager has received a number of updates to improve the handling of the camera and selection processes based on player feedback. Updates to the Rena Borsch task line are underway and will be available in upcoming patches.

Technical

Vulkan graphics API support has been added to the Windows and Linux builds; and DirectX 12 graphics API support has been added for the Windows build. The current build automatically selects the desired API based on the system’s capabilities. The following order is used during the selection process. Vulkan first else (DX 12 > DX 11 > DX 9) or (OpenGL Core) for Mac Metal is favoured with OpenGL Core as a fallback. We are reviewing options to allow gamers to dictate which rendering API will be used before launch. Font rendering has been improved for many of the text fields where font pt is less than or equal to 14pts. This will be rolled out to other areas of the UI in later patches. New key bindings added for ‘Open Tasks’ (default T), ‘Open Inventory’ (default I) and ‘Overclock’ (default Tab).

Game

Ships; Corrected an issue where weapon parts could become orphaned from their parent hulls causing the Weapon counts to appear doubled from the actual ship design. Ships; corrected an issue preventing ships with 4 or more parent > child layers from initializing correctly. Alpha One Station; Several structure colliders where not registering correctly allowing the player to fly through some buildings. Some have been corrected, remaining collision issues will be resolved in upcoming patches. Alpha One Station; A placeholder way point has been added to the currier task to reduce confusion for players. This repeatable task will be updated in coming patches with its intended set of contacts, way points and task branches. Combat HUD; Overclock previously referred to as Command Mode (slow time and access mouse cursor) has been reenabled. By default this is mapped to the Tab key and can be rebound in the settings view. For this build time adjustment is hardcoded, this will be updated in later patchs to slow time by an amount relative to the pilots concentration level as dictated by installed pilot enhancements. Combat HUD; Task lists, and task givers. Previously players where required to fly within a given proximity of a task giver in order to access that givers tasks, now ‘public’ tasks can be accessed from the Combat HUD’s ‘Tasks’ view (default key T) from anywhere within local space. Note Special tasks still require the player to interact with a contact point or fulfil other conditions before showing in the tasks view. Intractable objects in space can still be used to open the task panel. Fleet Manager > Edit; Updated the behaviour of Add Parts and rearranged controls to improve workflow. Fleet Manager > Edit; added scene gizmo allowing the player to transition the camera to any axis e.g. look down X, Y, Z (positive or negative). This control also allows the players to toggle between Orthographic and traditional perspective views and will persist through Edit, Rig and Transform modes. Fleet Manager > Edit; Camera has been updated to orbit the last focused element on rotation. This behaviour will be further refined based on feedback. Fleet Manager > Edit; Local & Global transform and Position and Rotation transform mode buttons have been rearranged around the Position and Rotation input fields. Fleet Manager > Edit; Part selection ‘in-view’ e.g. clicking on part in the work space. The system will now first deselect currently selected parts emulating the same behaviour as the Tree View selection process. Note you can select multiple parts by holding ‘Ctrl’ while selecting this is true for both the Tree View and the ‘in-view’ part selection processes. Fleet Manager > Edit; Tree view drag and drop operation for reparenting parts has been updated to correct duplication issues. The tree view still has known issues during the ‘add part’ operation however these are display only and should not affect the actual ship design. Typically, incorrect rendering such as node duplication can be corrected by collapsing and re-expanding a node. Further fixes will be made in upcoming patches to correct the remaining issues with the Tree View control.

[ 2017-04-22 23:06:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Sector K72 preview build is available on the Beta Opt-In now!
March proved to be a challenging month for the Heathen Engineering team with a force majeure event impacting the tech side of the team and consequently delaying the planned launch of the Sector K72 patch. As part of the process of getting our feet back under the tech team we are releasing a preview build of the Sector K72 patch to the Beta branch accessible to all gamers that own the game by simply opting in to Beta through your Steam client. Frequent small updates will occur to the preview build with little fan-fair till the Sector K72 patch is complete and ready for the main branch.

Whats in the preview?

With Sector K72 we made major changes across the board. With the first instalment of the preview, you’ll notice an all new look and feel to the UI. Several elements of the UI are ‘work in progress’ with secondary functions such as the media player not currently having a UI representation, have no fear it’s all still there and will be getting UI controls directly. Quite a few new gameplay features are coming with Sector K72, the following is a quick summary of key additions you can preview now.

Galaxy Map

A preview of the galaxy Map is available allowing you to browse parts of Faction space and the J40 system of Sector K72. Over the next few updates to the preview build on Beta, additional functionality will be enabled allowing players who have formed an organization to scan and claim worlds, build new improvements and develop a population. Coming soon you will be able to upgrade the planetary station of your controlled worlds and expand your worlds capabilities via ‘Asset Improvements’. The cultural mix of each world is unique influenced by your organization, allies and enemies as well as by the types of improvements you choose to deploy. The demographics of your controlled worlds will have a notable impact on a planets output, your own political influence and of course population stability.

Organizations

A preview of the organization view is available allowing you to form a corporation or government organization. Once you have created an organization you will be presented with the organization management view which is still under construction. Over the next few updates the ability to organize your controlled worlds into sectors, install leaders to handle the day to day tasks, assign fleet groups to facilitate security and defence and controls for your organization’s ‘official’ culture will all be added. As the build progresses we will enable the ability to search and join NPC controlled organizations along with the tools you’ll need to rise in the ranks and make your mark. Additional organization types are also coming later in this phase of Early Access.

Pilot Enhancements

A preview of pilot enhancements is available now via the Profile view and will be fully enabled in subsequent updates. Once enabled you will be able to ‘install’ pilot enhancements by spending research. Pilot enhancements improve your core stats such as concentration but can also unlock additional ship parts, ship abilities and asset improvements. Later in this phase we will be introducing companions, these are NPC Terran pilots who you will have formed a relationship with. Companions like your self can install enhancements and will be managed from the profile view.

Contacts

Contacts are an important concept particularly when starting out. Rena Borsch has been made available in an early preview state and will be quickly expanded over next few patches to serve as an introduction to the galaxy and its many opportunities. As development progresses new contacts will be added including contacts for all NPC organizations. By working with a contact and building your reputation you may be introduced to new contacts and gain access to more challenging and rewarding tasks.

Alpha One Station preview

You can access Alpha One by talking with Rena Borsch. The Alpha One station is still early in its implementation and will be quickly expanded with local tasks, new NPCs to meet and opportunities to learn more about the galaxy and the history of the Terran.

Fleet Management

The Ship Editor has received a lot of attention regarding its interface meant to simplify its use without reducing its functionality. In addition, Ship Editor has been expanded and rebranded as the Fleet Management tool, we will be introducing all new functionality such as assigning and organizing your fleet into flotilla, divisions and wings in later updates.

How frequently will new patches come?

While Sector K72 is in the beta branch it will be updated weekly with the latest stable build. The Windows build is first in build order though we expect the Mac and Linux builds to also follow this weekly update pattern until the intended functionality of Sector K72 is complete.

When will Sector K72 be ‘complete’?

The dev team is still working to get its feet back under it and can’t make an accurate prediction at this time. The rate of progress since the force majeure impact has been exceptionally fast, though we still have plenty of ground to cover to bring the project back on schedule. We are also working to catch the roadmap, web site and social outlets up with the current state. The roadmap in particular, is the best view of what we know at any given time.

What comes after Sector K72?

Sector K72 marks the formal start of Early Access Phase 2. In this phase, Heathen Engineering will be implementing the remaining gameplay features of the game and expanded the content such as available ship parts, pilot enhancements, contacts and so forth until the game is ‘feature complete’ and nearly ‘content complete’. The end of Phase 2 does not mark the end of Early Access in that we will be holding back in particular the narrative aspects of the game for the last phase of Early Access (Phase 3), Phase 3 is planned to be the shortest phase and more akin to a traditional beta just prior to a full release serving the function of final testing and polish.

Need to know more?

Phase 1 was deliberately running quitter than some might expect for an Early Access game. Terran was not launched into Early Access to ‘pay the bills’ rather we launched early access to build a better game. Phase 1 was focused on a minimal set of core functionality being ships e.g. the ship editor, flight control and combat. Similarly marketing efforts where understated, perhaps too much so, with Sector K72 we are looking to improve our community management, marketing and general information sharing efforts.

[ 2017-04-14 21:52:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen is happy to announce Terran’s Sector K72 patch is scheduled to release to beta build in the last week of March. While we still have plenty of work to be done the massive undertaking that kicked off in November of 2016 is to a point where we need your feedback to insure the best possible results.
If your not sure how to ‘opt-in’ to the beta build check this link from Steam out, no password needed of course. Beta is available to everyone who owns the game. Sector K72 is a massive change from the current live build and includes a change of engine, serialization (how we read and write stuff to disk), asset loading (how we sort stuff in memory) as well as a slew of new gameplay features; its basically a whole new kit and with a lot more to offer.

Terran Tester

Early Access has always been about getting your feedback and growing the game to be more than it could be if done behind closed doors. The Roadmap, store notes and forums will all be updated along with the Sector K72 release. As always the Heathen team will be there to answer questions, hear your feedback and to make sure that has a meaningful impact of continued development effort. The Terran Roadmap hosted on Trello is your best view of what the developers are actively working on have their sights on. The roadmap is updated by developers directly and is a candid view, spelling/grammar errors and all. Steam Community is Terran’s official community source, where members of Heathen can be easily identified. This is the place to voice all your likes and dislikes, concerns and hopes. All of Heathen’s dev team has access to and can engage on the forums. Heathen is here to help, while the public forums are an ideal place to discuss yes even bugs, never the less sometimes you need some one on one and Heathen Support is here for you. Heathen Support is staffed by the same devs that build the game and chat on the forums so you get the same level of quality. You can reach out to us via e-mail or through the Heathen Support portal and track your query through our help centre.

So What’s New!

It’s all new, with Sector K72 the first thing you will notice is the new boot and load sequence. While not exactly ground breaking, it is new to Terran which previously used an in-game settings options approach. With the new loading screen, you can do everything you might expect, create a new ‘profile’ aka a new save file, load existing ones, adjust your basic system settings and of course exit out of the game.

Map

Prior builds keep you limited to the Ship Editor and Dashboard, the new build integrates the Dashboard into your view of the Galaxy its self. The new interface and the new features of the galaxy are key areas interest for the Sector K72 patch. You can now browse the galaxy zooming in and out of systems and managing your assets (aka planets) as well as viewing other known systems.
Once you have formed an organization you will be able to scan and claim planets enabling you to establish and cultivate a population. The map view when zoomed into the planet level provides the tools to manage your populations and ‘improve’ them via ‘Asset Improvements’ expanding your capability and increasing your output.

But wait there’s more!

Fleet

Fleet Manager is the new face of ‘Ship Editor’ as it appeared in previous builds and will be further extended providing you the tools to form and structure your fleet’s flotillas, divisions and wings as well as assign them to missions and tasks such as system or sector defence.

Exploration

Coming soon the exploration view will provide you the tools to probe and scan the galaxy for new points of interest providing another route to expand your knowledge of the galaxy and uncover its mysteries.

Contacts

The contacts view makes it easy to engage the people and organizations you have meet. Each contact has its own opinion of you and a network of contacts of its own. By accepting and completing tasks for a contact you can raise your reputation with them and their related contacts expanding your network and opening new opportunities.

Organization

With the launch of Sector K72 you will be able to form an organization right at the start though in the full game you will need to build toward that goal. The organization view is where you can browse known organizations, apply to join them or create your own. For the first cycle of Phase 2 you will not be able to join NPC organizations and will be able to create your own government or corporation right at the start, this is to help focus initial testing on the empire building aspects new to this phase of Early Access.

The Profile

Profile is a view of your character and is where you can ‘improve’ your character’s attributes by ‘installing’ Pilot Enhancements. Pilot Enhancements will modify your character’s basic stats and may also unlock new designs and parts for use in the ship editor as well as new asset improvements. As you grow, explore and expand you will uncover new and more powerful pilot enhancements. You can change your set of installed enhancements at any time though the number and complexity of enhancements you can have installed at any given time is limited. A new announcement will be posted when the patch hits the beta build later this month and will includ more details on the list of additions, fixes and changes.

[ 2017-03-02 22:35:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

It’s time for another update on the long-awaited Sector K72 patch. Heathen Engineering’s development team has been focusing on ‘Asset’ management gameplay and has made some significant progress. The following is a sneak peek at where the team is headed with this feature. The current state is nearly there but still subject to change of course as it has not yet passed internal testing.
In Terran you can form or join organizations such as governments and corporations (more to come). As a government or corporation, you can claim ‘Assets’ such as planets, stations, asteroid fields and other stellar bodies as your own.
Many of these assets can and need to be developed in various ways to yield a benefit for your organization. Populations need to be managed for stability, optimal growth and to insure they are providing the benefits you want. So, what kind of benefits do assets provide? Assets usually increase your influence regardless of what organization type you are. As a government, the focus lies on size and prosperity of your population, access to resources and of course the strength of your fleet. As a corporation, the focus needs to be more on your research and industrial capability as well as the security provided by your fleet.
What can you do with an asset you ask? Assets at their core provide a place for your population to live and work. You can implement various improvements to your asset to promote the growth of its population and the development of its various capabilities. The population its self is divided into 8 major demographics each sensitive to cultural factors in different ways. Your asset improvements, your actions as an organization and the galaxy at large all impact the local culture of your asset and thus impact your population and through it the benefit you realize from that asset. Assets also offer an exploration opportunity. An asset may have various special traits including primitive species, exotic flora and fauna, unique environmental conditions and or historical artefacts. These traits can be researched and in some cases exploited for special benefits on the asset or across the organization. Follows are a few examples of how traits can impact your asset and organization.

Primitive Species

Not every race in the galaxy is space faring and occasionally you find a primitive home world. You can still claim and even colonize these worlds though this will have an impact politically, culturally and of course on the planets outputs its self. When a primitive species exists on the planet you will have several special ‘improvements’ that can be applied and effect how your colony deals with the natives. The options available depend on the population type and population density of the primitive species which can range from Proto being a very early example of an intelligent species to Young being a race nearly ready to reach for the stars on their own. You can always ‘liquidate’ the natives e.g. convert them to material profit and of course you have the option to leave them in peace. Depending on the state of the species you may be able to integrate them with your colony boosting your population or exploit them for other gains.

Exotic flora and fauna

As it turns out life is not all that rare or unique or at least most life isn’t however you do occasionally discover a world with a unique native variety of plant or species of animal that can offer the people and industries of that asset some unique benefit. When you discover such species, special improvements will come available on that asset to exploit the opportunity.

Environmental conditions

Some planets have unique environmental conditions which will naturally impact its population. Planets with such traits don’t get any special improvement options but will experience the effects of the conditions as a base line.

Artefacts

In rare cases, you may discover an artefact of an ancient advanced race, researching these artefacts will often uncover advanced technologies in the form of ship parts and design, asset improvements, pilot enhancements and can lead to the discovery of new unexplored regions of space. Artefacts help you unlock the mysteries of the galaxy’s ancient past and can provide a special improvement opportunity on the planet it was discovered on.

More to come

As we continue to prepare the Sector K72 update we will release additional information on asset management, organization administration, leadership, fleet command, contacts and this list just keeps going. We are not yet establishing a firm launch date for the Sector K72 patch and are scrutinizing every little detail of the new systems before we release the build to the Beta opt-in but we will be making frequent announcements highlighting progress thus far and as always, our Terran Roadmap provides an up-to-date view from our dev team. We still have a bit of testing and polishing before the patch is ready for release and really can’t wait to see what you make of it. Our team keeps a constant eye on the Steam Community forums and we would love to hear your comments.

[ 2017-01-28 15:59:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineering is hard at work and making good progress on the Phase 2 transition patch. As we mentioned in our last announcement we hit a snag in patch testing on Sector K72 which untimely resulted in us taking on a heap of additional work. That work is progressing along nicely and we expect to have release dates for the patch in the coming weeks.
You can follow along with the progress of the patch via the Terran Roadmap on Trello, our lead developer updates Trello as he works e.g. it is a candid view from our developers. Heathen will continue to bring you updates and announcements as we progress and as always, we are available through the Steam Community Hub.

So, What’s Coming?

The Sector K72 patch includes a lot of ‘under the hood’ work. Technical changes include an engine update, revamped serialization and asset management systems and a lot of other nuts and bolts that will equate to a faster, more stable and easier to use experience for the gamer. The real stars of the patch though are in the gameplay and content.

Organizations

You can now form your own corporation or government and set about building an empire. Each type of organization has its own unique style of growth and development. Initially we are introducing the Corporation and Government type organization and we have plans to introduce 2 more types in later patches. A player doesn’t have to form an organization or even join one to play the game and experience the galaxy though organization gameplay will be a key area of focus for the Phase 2 iteration of Early Access. Corporations and Governments can both ‘claim’ assets … that is they can own planets, stations and other populated elements in the galaxy e.g. empire building. Corporations and governments typically have a lot more resource than private individuals but they also have a lot more expense and draw a lot more attention. Additional organization types will offer players a path that differs from typical empire building. To help test this system during Early Access, players will receive a special notification from Allfar Terraforming when they first register an organization. Allfar will grant new organizations everything they need to get started and will conveniently provide a selection of ideal terrestrial planets to choose from. This is a facility of Early Access meant to focus attention on a key area and will differ significantly in the full release.

Contacts

Simply put contacts are NPCs with something for the player to do. Each contact is unique and has its own affiliations and relationships with other elements in the galaxy. The contact system will play an important role for every pilot. In addition to private contacts each organization you meet will have 1 or more contacts and how you interact with them will impact your standing with their affiliated organizations. Initially we will be introducing a set of private contacts, these are NPCs with no organization affiliation who can help you find your way. Contacts have tasks for you to take on and completing these tasks will improve your relationship with the contact and usually earn you cash and basic supplies in the process. Contacts you have developed a relationship with are more likely to offer you better tasks and possibly even introduce you to their own contacts helping you grow your network.

Character Development

Who you are didn’t really matter in Phase 1 which was focused heavily on ships and related systems. With Phase 2 who you are and what you can do is keenly important. Over the course of Phase 2 we will be introducing a number of facets to character development starting with the introduction of ‘Pilot Enhancements’. Enhancements can be installed to you and your companions augmenting skills and granting additional abilities, parts, asset improvements and more. As you adventure through the galaxy you will discover, steal and otherwise acquire new enhancements. You have a limited capacity for enhancement but can uninstall and reinstall enhancements at will. In future patches, we will be expanding upon the enhancement system and introducing companions and relationships, which we will talk more about later.

Exploration

The galaxy is a big place and with the Sector K72 patch we will be introducing you to a small slice of it. Sector K72 is a relatively typical sector of the Free Space region of the galaxy. A few systems are charted and there are a few minor populations on record. The new Map tools will allow you to browse the sector and probe for new systems, contacts and more. Initially gameplay will be restricted to within the K72 sector of the Free Space region. This limitation is a function of this phase of Early Access, in later phases and of course in the full game the whole of the galaxy will be available to you.

Changes and Fixes

The official patch announcement will include a more complete list, below are a few notable areas of change coming with the Sector K72 patch. You can always track what we are currently doing via the Roadmap on Trello.

Engine Update

The underlying engine has been updated as well as the custom systems which drive the game itself. These changes are not compatible with previous save settings or ship templates. Additional changes to the underlying systems which would affect save data are not anticipated however as Terran is under development it is possible.

Main Menu

A main menu has been added to help ease players into Terran. This menu simply provides the typical save file management, settings and exit functionality common to most games. Terran previously supported this functionality through its main UI. The Dashboard has been updated to support the new gameplay elements introduced with Phase 2. The ‘power button’ which previously closed the game now simply returns the player to the Main Menu, the Main Menu has an ‘Exit’ button which will close the game.

Dashboard Update

The Dashboard has been updated to support new functionality introduced by Phase 2 and further refined for ease of use. The main Dashboard focuses on notifications and character profile with additional functionality available from the menu in the upper left of the screen.

Ship Manager

The Ship Manager replaces the Ship Editor and provides all the same functionality. The UI layout of the manager has been simplified and streamlined from the prior Ship Editor layout. The Ship Manager has additional functionality regarding the management of the player’s fleet and manufacturing of new ships. These functions will be further expanded in future updates.

[ 2016-12-24 23:45:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

It might be just the time of year, but there's a definite excitement in the air. We at Heathen Engineering like to think it's because of our upcoming Early Access Phase 2!

As in Phase 1, Heathen will be rolling out a series of updates and patches; however in Phase 2 these updates are heavy on the gameplay. Sector K72, our first playable region, will be released with this update (which bears the same name); and we will be introducing companions, contacts, character development, basic economy, and empire building... And that's just the start of Phase 2!
Sector K72 started its testing cycle as planned, and was scheduled to hit the beta build this week. However, our testing process broke it real good! Fear not though, the team has a solution and we're working hard to get an update our there. While there is a delay in getting Sector K72 to beta, the solution we're using will also bring a raft of improvements to the game. The update will introduce a ton of new gameplay features, along with the content to support them, and in addition to all this new content we are also taking the opportunity to do some early Spring (or Winter) cleaning, as well as doing an engine upgrade to boot! The release date for all this isn’t locked in just yet, though we expect to push the Sector K72 patch into the beta branch later this month. The Phase 2 transition work continues in the background with all systems "go", and we really do mean all systems here. Phase 2 is looking bigger and better than ever, and even though the timelines have been adjusted this delay is only a short-term one; over the long term it's not expected to be a setback the project.

Want to know more about what we're up to?

While our lead techie James makes everything work again, our lead designer Olav has been checking all our content to make sure that Terran is on track to deliver the gaming experience we intend. It's not just the code-base which is getting some needed love and attention, Olav is working with the team to make sure we take full advantage of the opportunity this delay affords. Our writers and community team are working closely with the other Heathens to improve how we communicate with you, our gamers, and to make sure that the systems will make sense when you get them in hand. They'll also be busy giving the Contacts and other characters some interesting things to say, and bringing together some of the Terrans' history which we'll be making available within the game over time. The good news is that this will bring even more content in the first patch of Phase 2. We had originally planned to introduce a few key gameplay systems in this month's patch around empire management and character development. Due to the delay, we'll be expanding the planned feature list to include Manufacturing and production systems with import and export capabilities enabling budding overlords and overladies to ship goods around their empires. We'll also be adding the Contact and Companion systems, so players will be able to build a network of contacts and recruit, manage and upgrade a band of followers to share their journey with.

Want to hear about what we broke?

Short answer: the game itself. More specifically, we hit a build error and, as our techy James dug into it, it became clear that we needed to update the base engine and re-organize some key elements in order to properly sort it. The engine update was planned to happen anyway, although we would have rather waited until after Sector K72 released to do that. Since we had a notable delay on our hands anyway, we decided to go for the full tune-up and so we've added quite a few of the ‘nice to have’ things we had been putting off. We assure you that we're working hard to get the update ready. While we're aiming for a December release of Sector K72; we can't set a date until quality control says so. We will keep you up-to-date as the effort progresses, sharing more information on all the new features coming in Sector K72.

[ 2016-12-05 15:27:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 1.0.20160901.52

General Updates

This build includes many low-level updates, including an update to the underlying game engine which has had a significant beneficial impact to many areas of the game. Visually the game is significantly different than the previous build; although previous version profiles, ship templates and global settings should be fully compatible. The beta build will be receiving a number of smaller ‘partial’ updates from this build onward. Some additional, previously disabled ‘game rules’ will be activated in these updates, such as: energy requirements, complexity costs, and other ‘limiters’ with regard to ship design. These new rules may affect the stats and performance of existing ship templates, and we'd greatly appreciate feedback on how your designs are affected.

Key Updates this patch

The following are a few highlights from this build. For details on specific changes and updates please refer to the Heathen Engineering’s Terran road map.

Redefined UI

Terran’s UI has been redesigned based on feedback from the early access gamers. The new interface provides all the same functionality, but in a simpler cleaner presentation. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160831180308_1_S1.jpg] The new dashboard puts more focus on events, which have themselves been expanded to provide you with quick access to relevant information and features. Two pinned events have been added to help guide you through new features and known issues.

Introducing CAM

CAM is the improved version of the ‘Co-pilot’ module and drives the tooltips, tutorials, quick help and archives. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160831180502_1.jpg] CAM itself is represented by a disk in the top centre of your screen and is always available. The CAM window can be opened anywhere in game by simply clicking CAM. From the CAM window you can search topics, access key web resources and configure the CAM system. The new ‘Quick Help’ can be accessed at any time in game by simply pressing and holding F1. This will pause combat if needed. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/DashboardQuickHelp.jpg] The quick help display will change depending on where you are in game and what you are doing, attempting to show you the most relevant information for the conditions at hand. CAM will also drive the archives feature of the game which will be introduced in upcoming builds.

New Training Area

The ‘Training Area’ editor simulation is being introduced in a preview state with this build. The Training Area replaces the build specific simulation missions and will mature into the final production form of the Ship Editor’s simulation mission. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160831180011_1_S3.jpg] Training Area is a Ship Editor simulation mission—that is, within the simulation certain normal game rules do not apply; for example, no loot received will persist and no consequences of your actions will persist. Changes made to the simulation space will also not persist across sessions, and missions can be repeated infinitely. Simulation missions are meant to provide a means to test yourself and your ship designs, so the objectives are generally exaggerated to focus on specific requirements. The Training Area takes the form of a large city-sized space station and includes guided instruction and hands on activities for everything from basic flight control to advanced combat techniques. Later updates will also introduce an ‘arena’ function where various combat scenarios can be configured and played.

Currently available in the Training Area:

Blue Quadrant This area teaches of course the basics of flying your ship, but also more complex functions such as jump gates, hidden secrets and local quests. The movement and interaction portion of the Training Area takes place in the blue quadrant of the station, an open area roughly 25% of the 30Km diameter space station. This area is still under construction in particular the local quests and salvaging portions are incomplete. Blue Quadrant will be the focus of the next patch with regards to the Training Area updates.

Coming in the next few updates:

Red Quadrant This area teaches the basics of combat such as target, control points and group movement and includes a simplified combat scenario requiring the organization of two combat wings. As with Blue Quadrant, information panels are scattered throughout along with a ‘hands on’ example of the topic. Arena Coming soon the remaining half of the Training Area’s station will be a battle scared area divided into 2 quadrants representing allied and enemy territories. The core or centre area of the station will include a special 'control console' structure where various combat scenarios can be configured and started.

[ 2016-09-08 16:48:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 1.0.20160612.3

As we enter our third month of early access, and look forward to Phase 2, there has been quite a bit happening behind the scenes in the Terran galaxy, both in and out of the game. We want to again thank all of you providing your feedback in phase 1 – this has lead to some great new game functionality and a better experience for all players. Keep your suggestions coming! This is expected to be the last major patch of the Phase 1 cycle with the next patch; aside from general maintenance; introducing Phase 2 content and shifting the focus into new areas of the game. We will be continuing to add new ship parts and simulation missions as we lead into Phase 2 and well beyond and of course continuing to polish the Ship Editor and its related functions. You can read more on the Early Access Phase approach on YouAreTerran.com. Be sure to follow Heathen Engineering’s Terran on Facebook and @HeathenEngineer on Twitter where the developers will be posting screen shots, videos and more as we continue to build a great game with the help of the gaming community. Engine Update We are in the process of updating the underlying engine and this patch includes a number of changes - in particular to rendering settings, which will ultimately improve performance and visual quality across the supported platforms. Players with saved settings from previous builds may notice visual errors. These errors tend to occur where the anisotropic textures setting is ‘Forced Enabled’. This can be corrected in game by sliding the graphics quality slider to ‘Good’ and returning it to the desired setting after. You may also notice the game is brighter and the bloom effects are stronger. You can adjust the strength of the bloom or ‘flare’ effect in the settings area of the game by turning up the ‘Glare Reduction’ setting. Introducing Programmable Parts Ship hull components can now be programmed to execute configuration changes on triggered events. Configurations adjust the position and rotation of a component and all the child components that are attached to it. This may change the silhouette of your ship, and can change the line of the sight of its turrets. Coupled with the new part parenting features you can trigger configuration changes to occur with the movement of your ship or on specific events such as stance change and locking or unlocking targets. You can also configure these changes to always loop for a simple bit of visual style. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160612225503_1.jpg][/img] New general use Hull parts A new line of general use hull parts has been introduced, including new ‘cores’ which help shift your ships ‘core’ statistic in the desired direction. They are available in Armour, Shield, Structure, Thrust and Torque augmenting cores. ‘Core’ hull components function as standard hulls with average contributions across all ship features and an additional bonus to the cores specific function such as Armour. These parts are generally small low profile elements making for useful pivot points with the new programmable part functions. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160622011023_1.jpg][/img] Hunter Missile Manufactory The Hunter missile weapon component has been added to the weapons parts list. This is a M mount seeking missile weapon turret with moderate complexity. Missile or ‘launched’ weapons have a substantially higher yield (damage per second) than cannon or beam weapons, however they are less effective against shields and have a notably slower fire rate and flight time. The "area of effect" nature of launched weapons coupled with target seeking functions means these weapons rarely miss, however they can be shot down in flight. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/RemovedUI.jpg][/img] The History of Terran (Lore and Back story) Wondering how the Terran came to be? Heathen Course Technologies has begun to unveil the mystery of this formidable species and invites you to read up on its history to add to your gaming experience. Story parts will be added frequently and we encourage you to check back regularly for new updates to the story. YouAreTerran.com Story [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/LorePage.JPG][/img]

Patch Notes

Part parenting, programmable parts and ship stances have all been added with this patch along with a long list of bug fixes and general improvements to gameplay, rendering, physics and UI. For a full list of changes, bug fixes and all of the new features added please see the Terran Roadmap On Going Development list. Linux Platform The previous build presented several issues with the Linux 32 and Linux 64 builds which have since been corrected. Please note we are still working on performance issues and are aware of rendering errors on the Linux builds. These outstanding issues are an area of focus for the development team and will be addressed in future patches. Changes and Additions

• Notable engine update; this update is to a ‘beta’ build of the target engine in preparation for the target ‘live’ version of the engine reaching ‘stable’ build. Some stability issues are expected.
• Changes to screen effects in this patch are the first of wave of ongoing improvements to rendering performance and quality changes. Completion of this process is dependent on the stable release of Unity 3D 5.4.x or later.
• New feature: ‘Part Parenting’ or the ability to ‘link’ parts such that the movement of the parent translates to the movement of all children accordingly.
• New Feature: ‘Programmable Parts’ or the ability to define behaviours and the steps of the behaviours for parts to execute on triggered events. At current only ‘hull’ type parts can be ‘programmed’ to trigger a single behaviour ‘always’, on movement (speed, turn, etc.) or on a defined value for shield, armour or structure or with weapon groups or on ‘stance’ change (offensive, defensive, balanced).
• New Feature: ‘Stances’ – three defined cases ‘Balanced’, ‘Offensive’ and ‘Defensive’ have been defined and can be switched by pressing the default keys of ‘Z’ = Defensive, ‘X’ = Balanced and ‘C’ = Offensive. Defensive stance improves shield recharge rates and will augment defensive instrumentation once implemented at the cost of firepower. Offensive stance improves firepower notably but suspends inherent shield recharge rates and degrades the performance of defensive instruments (once implemented) Balanced stance is the default stance and offers no noted advantages or disadvantages. Note that the transition of each stance is a ‘trigger able’ event e.g. programmable parts can respond to the change of each stance.
• New Weapon: Hunter Missile Manufactory M mount class missile type weapon with moderate complexity requirements. Missiles are more effective against armour and structure than against shields.
• New Components: 11 new hull components added
  • T frame type A, B and C general hull component added
  • Shield, Armour and Structure core hull component added
  • TC1 and TC2 thrust and torque core hull components added

Known Issues

• With no parts in the ship editor you cannot save a template nor can you change the category of the template.
• Copying a part that has child parts incorrectly copies the child parts such that they are visible in editor but not included in the resulting ship template.
• Parenting parts does not update in the Undo/Redo history - subsequent ‘undo’ after a parenting operation can result in unexpected part placement.
• Some transitions out of programming mode back to editing mode can cause program steps to become orphaned.
• Latest engine update and shader updates have changed the lighting effect in some areas; more work is required to complete the transition to the new models.
• Part parenting options for the "At Speed", "At Turn" and "With Weapon Group" value options have an known issue with saving the trigger value.
• The pause menu ‘Return’ button does not return the player to menu.
• New fields are missing tooltips and multi-language support; this will be updated in the patches to follow.
• On player death the game may stutter as it returns to the previous menu.
• Initial load sequence and mission load sequence can stutter on some machines.

Upcoming Changes In addition to general bug fixes and solutions for known issues:

• Additional general use ship components are in design and testing now along with new Light, Mid and Heavy hull components. These will be released in smaller patches over the following weeks. These will be introduced to the ‘beta’ opt-in depot on Steam available to all players prior to release to the live game.
• Additional ‘launched’ weapons similar to the new Hunter Missile Manufactory and new dual cannon turrets are in testing and will be released in smaller patches over the following weeks. These will be introduced to the ‘beta’ opt-in depot on Steam available to all players prior to release to the live game.
• Ship Editor ‘Free Flight’ training mission simulation is being redesigned to help teach new pilots the basics of flight and combat. The new mission simulation will feature repeatable scored challenges focusing on manoeuvring, targeting and basic ship functions such as stance. The simulation will also include a central ‘gauntlet’ area offering a scored session of endless enemy waves to test yourself and your ship against. The initial changes to the ‘Free Flight’ simulation will be released to the beta branch with the next minor patch update and be further refined according to player feedback. Be sure to watch the announcements for all the latest information.

[ 2016-06-23 09:25:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Build 1.0.20160330.23

Heathen’s Terran is 1 month old and player feedback has lead to some great improvements - a new ITS UI layout, new Ship Editor Tools and features and an improved combat HUD, not to mention the slew of bug fixes. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/20160411222930_1.jpg] The patch also introduces a re-balance of the ship parts and category calculations and introduces a new weapon type; ‘beam’ weapons. [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/T1_20160417180848_1.jpg] The MSB M1 is an entry level beam weapon with a fast tracking rate as well as a pulsing fire mode. This beam weapon brings instant damage to the set of Core components that will be available to new pilots in the final game. Beam weapons project a beam of energy from the weapon to the target, applying damage for the duration of fire. Since there are no projectiles involved, there is no flight time. While the damage output is lower per pulse than the damage achieved by similar level cannon, the constant damage applied helps to ensure that shield recharge (as well as other healing functions your target may have) are ineffective. This is the first of 3 new weapon types we intend to introduce during the Phase 1 Early Access cycle. Keep a close eye out for the upcoming Launched (missile, torpedo, etc.), Deployed (mines, bombs, etc.) and Drone base weapon systems coming in later patches this phase. But wait - there’s more! Heathen Engineering has been hard at work on the web and community pages as well - the all new www.YouAreTerran.com is Terran’s new dedicated home on the web. Read up on the Early Access Phase cycles, game features and the Heathens who are building it all! [img=http://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/22/21496/Web.JPG] You Are Terran will continue to grow with a dev blog and story section under construction now! We want you the gamers to let us know what you think, what you want to see more of and yes, even what you hate!

Patch Notes

V1.0.20160330.23 This build introduces a number of UI changes in particular with regards to the Ship Editor and its related functions. Changes and Additions

Changes and Additions

• A new transform tool has been introduced to simplify and speed up part positioning and rotation.
• The ‘Components’ menu has been re-worked as a tab page more in-line with other UI elements.
• The new Parts tab organizes your parts into Hull, Weapon and Misc categories and further groups each list by relevant factors such as Class.
• The new Templates tab allows you to quickly view your saved design templates as well as standard templates. The Template tab group has also adopted the Save template button formerly located in the left hand panel.
• Placeholders have been put in place for upcoming features - these should be clearly marked with ‘Coming Soon’ where applicable.
• A new Beam type weapon has been added and can be found under the M Mount group in the Weapons tab of the Parts group.
• Ship part attributes and category calculations have been adjusted and re-balanced to produce more predictable results as well as to resolve a number of bugs such as over powered torque, excessive mount point counts and over powered shield recharge rates. More details will be revealed regarding the calculations as the system matures. You will find this detailed on the the Gameplay section of the You Are Terran web page along with other important aspects of Terran as they are finalized.

Known Issues

• Linux 32-bit builds are presenting memory use issues - this build target is not an advertised feature of the game and may be postponed if there is insufficient game demand for the feature. This will not adversely impact the Linux 64-bit build target cycle.
• Linux 64 bit builds are presenting a graphics device initialization issue as noted in the previous patch. Heathen has added additional Linux resources to the team’s available resource pool to speed resolution of this issue.
• Loading hang occurs on some machines - some users will experience a temporary hang as the game loads, this is most common on the first run since reboot or after updating from a patch. The cause of the issue is the load sequence of the asset bundles and will be addressed in later patches.
• Recent UI changes have affected the layout for VR presentation modes - some headsets may clip the combat HUD edges (horizontally). As UI changes are finalized the system responsible for UI adjustments for the VR presentation mode will also be updated to correct these issues.

[ 2016-04-22 01:10:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Beta build for Heathen Engineering’s Terran can be accessed from your Steam library. To learn how, take a look at this entry on the Steam Community Product Betas. This patch brings a load of fixes and changes around ship handling and mechanics (the stats, category mappings, etc.). In particular, the maths applied to ship stats have received a lot of attention with fixes for thrust and torque over-calculations (flies like a bathtub problem) and category balance issues. Changes to the stat and category calculations will be most apparent with regards to thrust and torque as well as max weapon mounts. Ship stat ‘capacity’ values have been re-enabled for power, cargo, complexity and drone storage and bandwidth in preparation for additions due later in this build cycle. Along with the patch the Terran web site is getting a major update. While the site is still under construction, there is a great deal of useful information for players and spectators alike. Below you will find the current fixes, changes and additions available in the 20160330.X patch on Beta. Be sure to join the community on Steam and let your voice be heard! Available as of build 20160330.6 You can see the current build in game on the Dashboard in the Notification tab!

Fixes:

• Corrected S, M and L mount point counts that were resolving higher than they should be on ships with large numbers of parts. This change will likely lower the available mount points on your saved ship templates. Weapons above the available mount point count will simply be disabled when in space.
• Corrected torque & throttle calculation on ships with large numbers of parts. This was causing ships to hit the maximum allowable throttle and torque values quite easily and is responsible for the ‘flies like a bathtub’ point noted by the community.
• Corrected LH2 hull component default material; this was incorrectly using the LH3 material

Changes:

• Part category bonus has been changed to a penalty. When applying parts to a ship in a category not supported by the part, the parts contribution will be reduced by 20%. This is effectively the same result as the previous model however it allows parts to ‘support’ categories in a more flexible manner. Previously support was a category ‘range’ as in (from X to Y); now ship parts can ‘support’ any combination of categories.
• All category values have been adjusted, the same distribution pattern is in effect, however the maths have changed resulting in new values. Ship ‘health’ should be generally lower for Tech level 1 and lower ships and the relative difference between the light, mid and heavy classes has been increased. More work is underway in this area along with additional details on the main site and updates to the Ship Editor to better express ship stats and the effect of category selection.
• Several low level systems responsible for spawning, destroying and managing ships in space have been updated to improve performance and reduce processing. Changes should be transparent in game. These changes will be highlighted later in the Early Access as the game approaches a stage involving the TSDK (modding kit).

[ 2016-04-06 12:53:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update v1.0.20160319.13 This is the first patch for Heathen Engineering’s Terran and is strongly driven by community feedback. The typical process would see this patch on the ‘Beta’ release for a longer period of time before being applied to main or default however we feel these changes are reasonably stable and yet substantial enough to warrant an accelerated push to main. Among the major update we have also passed the initial tests of the Mac build however the Linux build is still being worked on by the development team. In-game guidance, improved tooltips, tutorials and other usability concerns are an on-going area of attention for the development team. As always we encourage gamers and spectators alike to be as vocal as possible about what works and doesn’t work for you as a gamer.

Tips:

• Most fields have tooltips, hover your mouse over a field 1.25 seconds. Configurable values for tooltip delay are on the list ;)
• You can scroll panels by clicking and dragging them e.g. similar to touch controls.
• Your ship will face the direction of the camera by default … tap V or the middle mouse button to disable this. You can also use WASD for turning and pitch as well as Q and E for left right and R and F for up and down. The best pilots make use of all of the above. Try counter turning (turn in the opposite direction) when making a hard turn for faster breaking as your ship lines up.
• Full speed is not the only speed. Turrets must track their targets and at closer ranges high speed movement can make this difficult, slow down when attacking near targets for more accurate shots.
• You can set your launch option to “-show-screen-selector” (without the quotes) to force the launcher to display. The launcher lets you set the resolution and window mode and if applicable which monitor it will render to.

Fixes:

• Mac build should be available and running now. Testing is not quite complete however the initial tests (load and basic play) have passed.
• Corrected an issue where in cannon shot sounds would not play
• Corrected an issue where combat sounds would not respond to Combat SFX audio group e.g. turning down the SFX volume wasn’t correctly affecting all SFX sounds.
• Corrected scroll window response. Multiple causes at play we believe we have them pinned down and corrected however will be monitoring.
• Language select has been re-enabled. NOTE: English functions as the fall back language for fields still pending translation.
  • Danish: Human completed, new fields pending
  • English: Base language
  • Japanese: Human completed, new fields pending
  • Portuguese: Human completed, new fields pending
  • Spanish: Human completed, new fields pending
  • Swedish: Mechanical, pending human translation
• Pause during space flight will now correctly release the mouse, a new pause screen has also been added; see the changes section for more information.
• Corrected an issue with UI colour updates causing excessive stress on the UI and thus much slower load most noticeable when loading a ship template with a large number of parts.
• Handled several conditions that could cause UI behaviours to fail to initialize in the correct sequence yielding various odd results such as the ship in the Ship Editor moving with the camera, parts to appear to remain in the Ship Editor even after being removed, etc.
• Corrected Item Detail Panels (right side list of items in Ship Editor) mouse over test which could cause the panels to respond as if moused over even when they were not in view.

Changes:

• ITS UI layout such that the side panels are fixed to the edges of the screen allowing the removal of the Camera-Mouse tracking when in the ITS view.
  • Changes to available workspace area required additional changes to the side panel layouts and widget layouts … see below for more details.
• Media player widget has now been completely merged with the Co-pilot as a result it is available in its full form in all programs.
• Ship Widget has been merged with the detail panel (right side panel) and forced to its open state. As a result, the active ship is always visible (in ITS) and access to the ship management panel is always available.
• Archives program has been merged with Dashboard as a Tab with workspace window. Access this under the Co-pilot when on the Dashboard.
• Profiles and Settings has been merged with Dashboard as a Tab with workspace view. Profiles may only be accessed when not currently on mission (e.g. it won’t respond while paused)
  • Input mapping button has been changed to a normal button and renders on the Settings tab of the Dashboard under Profiles.
• Ship Editor Control Group and Capacity glyphs have been moved to the side panel, functionality of these controls is available on the Templates Tab. Additional text has been placed above the control group controls to help with confusion. Additional attention will be paid to this area over coming updates.
• Materials section has been hidden as these are not fully implemented and were only adding to UI confusion for the gamer. These will be re-enabled in an upcoming build.
• Saved templates have been moved to render below the Ship Widget when in the Ship Editor program.
• ‘Test Flight’ button has been moved to a dedicated panel labelled ‘Simulation Settings’ to help indicate its use. This button starts a ‘simulated’ mission e.g. a place to test your design.
• Update several controllers to better manage asynchronous tasks in particular regarding the initialization of ships and loading of ship templates.

Additions:

• Pause now renders the ITS Dashboard which slightly adjusted behaviour. Note the full array of settings are available in the pause view however some settings may not take effect until the start of the next mission.
  • The available programs will be replaced with pause specific functions such as ‘Return’ which forces a return to the ITS and exit from mission space.
  • Profiles will not respond when selected from the Settings Tab
• New Archive entry for the ITS Dashboard and Pilot Settings This is the first of many entries to come which provide details on the UI layout, specifics on individual fields and more.
• Tutorials! The tutorial button has been re-enabled with new tutorial steps for the UI changes. No audio is available for this build however the Dashboard and Ship Editor should have the high level tutorials complete for the English language with other languages forthcoming.
  • Additional Tutorials will be added for specific areas of the game and its UI over time.
• New Ship Editor tools The Symmetry and Centre buttons have been implemented!
  • Symmetry: Only applicable when adding new parts, you can now automatically apply parts symmetrically on X, Y and or Z … yes symmetry on all 3 axes is supported.
  • Centre: the parts … or the ship on any or all axes. Parts can be centred as a group or individually making it much easier to bring multiple parts in line with each other. TIP: Tap the Centre tool button after opening its panel and the Ship will snap to the centre view area.

Key Known Issues:

• Linux build is experiencing issues with initialization. The development team is working hard on these issues and will resolve ASAP.
• Thrust and Torque values are calculating higher than expected resulting in ships with overpowered steering … e.g. handles like a bathtub. The calculations responsible for this are being looked into.
• Rendering performance is unusually poor inside the mining complex of the Solo Combat simulation. The development team is aware and reviewing solutions.
• Control Group settings are not being saved to the Ship Templates, this is a bug and the development team is looking into it.
• Not all fields are translated & some translation values cause text to overlap. Translations are an on-going work in progress and will be improved with each build. Expect new or recently added or changed fields to have incorrect or missing translations.

[ 2016-03-28 21:28:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineering’s Terran is available now on Steam Early Access! Today, March 21st, marks the start of early access Phase 1; and we at Heathen Engineering want to make certain you understand what this means. Early Access Phase 1 is not a complete Terran; the focus of this stage of early access is the ship editor, flight mechanics and other aspects dealing with the ships and related components. This is an opportunity for gamers to jump in early and help the development team build a better Terran.

Not sure if the game is ready for you?

No problem! Heathen Engineering has the Terran Roadmap posted publicly so you can see what the development team is doing and when. You can jump in on the discussion with the Steam Community Hub or join us on Twitter, Facebook and IndieDB or on Heathen’s main site. We want to encourage gamers to get involved with the community but to hold off on jumping into the game until you and Terran are ready for each other. Terran’s Early Access is all about building a better Terran. Heathen Engineering will not be offering special Early Access pricing so there is nothing to lose by waiting till the game is at a state you are ready to get involved in. You can chat with the developers through the Steam Community Hub, check out all the latest news on the social sites and Terran will be here waiting for you when you’re ready.

Want to play now?

Head on over to the Store page members of the development team are watching the discussion threads. If you have any questions and should you run into any issues you can contact Heathen Support through Heathen’s Help Centre or by e-mail at Support@HeathenEngineering.com . We couldn’t be more excited to have you help us shape the galaxy and make Terran all it can be! We strongly encourage everyone to head over to the Terran Roadmap and have a look at the current state, the past work and check out the latest release notes. We are always looking for ways to improve the transparency of the development efforts and your feedback is key to that effort.

[ 2016-03-21 10:52:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Early Access to start on March 21st 2016! Heathen Engineering’s approach to Early Access is an iterative or phased approach with each phase building upon the last, and having its own distinct areas of focus. This approach is not uncommon in development but may be new for some Early Access gamers. The first phase of Terran’s Early Access is not played as a rough but full example of the game, instead it will present a modified rule set with attention to the current area of focus. The initial phase of Heathen Engineering’s Terran is focused on the Ship Editor function of the game and its related elements such as ship components, category types and “ship mechanics” - the handling and utility of ships in different scenarios.
During Phase 1 most of the “ITS apps”; the in game equivalent to functions or modes, are disabled. This includes those within the ship editor application. All rules have been adjusted to account for the disabled parts. Initially, aspects such as energy use and even type restrictions will be ignored while the focus is solely on the ship building tools themselves. According to Heathen’s Development team, the early access player will be able to build any kind of ship they desire, regardless of how expensive or how complex the ship is. Under normal game rules, a player’s skill concentration, resources, materials, or in game cash limit dictates just how complex and elaborate a ship they can build. Players in Phase 1 early access will also have all parts available at their disposal. During normal game play, advanced parts and exotics must be discovered, researched and built by the player or scavenged or purchased from the galactic market - all aspects of the game not in play for Phase 1. So what does Phase 1 bring us? Phase 1 will provide the creative gamer a free ship building editor where they can design anything they dream of. The Ship Editor test mission function has also been adjusted to give the player a tailor made set of test missions based on the current phase objectives.
So when will the rest of the game be implemented? We will be implementing each piece of the game in phases, each with its own focus area. Phase 2 for example is listed as introducing population management, manufacturing and similar game features. The Roadmap is meant to give players a real time look at progress. The development team is working under a rapid deployment model with two updates or more per week at this time. So how long is a ‘Phase’? Officially phases don’t have deadlines – therefore there is no published date for phase completion. However, the development team has stated that it does not expect phases to run for extended periods of time. Depending on the nature of the phase, some will run longer than others. How many phases are there? At the moment 2 phases are shown on the roadmap along with the ‘Dev Work’ list. Phase 1 and 2 do not comprise the full game however and additional phases are expected. The Press Kit page for the game currently lists a purposed three-phase approach with Phase 1 (March 21^st) focused on base game functionality, Phase 2 introducing the lion’s share of the game’s features and Phase 3 to round things out. Per the development team, this is not to say there will not be additional phases if needed; this approach really looks to engage the player base not just as testers who paid for the pleasure but as contributors to the games implementation.
What is the cost of Heathen Engineering’s Terran Early Access Phase 1? Early Access Phase 1 is priced the same as the full release. The cost *will not* be increasing throughout each phase. According to Heathen Engineering, the reasoning for this approach is that Early Access for their team is neither about marketing nor funding the game’s development; it’s all about building a better game by inviting those already excited about Terran to get involved and help finish the build out. So when will the full release be? A full release date hasn’t been announced yet and would likely be moving based on the progress of the Early Access Phases. Heathen has stated that Early Access isn’t meant to run long; and they are expecting a rapid iteration up to full feature set. In short - we will have to wait and see how the Early Access progresses.
Be sure to check out the Roadmap and you can follow @HeathenEngineer on Twitter and Like the project over on Facebook and visit the main site for even more Terran information.

[ 2016-03-04 13:02:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Heathen Engineering has updated the Terran Press Kit page with new images, facts, links and more. On the kit page you will find all the information needed to write articles, blog, build fan sites and more. Looking for more information? ... need a different format? ... You'll find contact details for Heathen's press group on the page along with a discussion form where you can leave your feedback on the kit. Not a member of press? ... You'll find lots of useful information on the press kit page not just about the game but also the development team. Heathen Engineering's Terran is still under development and some information will change as the game progresses. The Press Kit page will be keep up-to-date with the latest information, media and links. Be sure to check back often or better still sign up for the Heathen Engineering shout out e-mail.

[ 2016-02-01 01:17:44 CET ] [ Original post ]