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 ]