Perihelion Update - Out Now

Hello world! The latest update for Stable Orbit is live! It's called Perihelion, and includes a whole bunch of new gameplay features - Like Research Contracts, New Modules, Station Upgrades and Waste Management. As well as the usual optimisations and fixes one would expect from an update, one particular piece of weirdness has been fixed - Module Intersection Detection. What's that, you ask? Well, read on!

Update Notes

Research Contracts

The biggest change is the addition of research contracts. Up to now, making money in Stable Orbit was easy! All you had to do was build a lab, make sure it has power and there is enough crew to man the lab (preferably on rotating shifts) and presto: oodles of money soon come flowing your way. Those days, my friends, are over! Now, you will earn rewards by completing research contracts offered to you. Some contracts will offer a quick buck - such performing Bone Destiny Research to measure the effect of space travel on humans. While others may offer big wins, such as all new unlocks for your station – but you'll need to accept it before the contract expires! Some contracts will require that you install specific upgrades in your laboratories, or reach a higher science level, before you can accept them.

Module Unlocks and Upgrades

Now you have the ability to unlock new, larger modules, as well as upgrades that can be installed on (some) modules.
Upgrades come in two forms: “standard” upgrades, which can be installed at will and “special” upgrades, of which only one can be installed per module. Standard upgrades include things like capacity boosters for your storage modules. Special upgrades allow you to do things like specialize your laboratories for research in one particular area – say physical science. This sets the basis on how your station will be upgraded, and more will be included in future updates.

Waste Management

Looking after your station is a delicate balance of resources for you to manage and balance against the other needs of the station. In this update, another resource has been introduced - Waste.
If you let too much waste pile up, living conditions in the station will deteriorate and give your crew a reason to abandon you. On the other hand, waste is a resource not to be wasted, as the new Waste Recycling module will allow you to extract water, partially closing the loop on that resource.

Module Intersection Detection

Up to now, you could place modules on any free CBM, even if placing a module there would cause it to intersect with other parts of the station.
Fixing that has been on the to-do list pretty much since the very beginning, but so far it has always lost out to doing things that have had a bigger impact on the overall game play. Also, most of you were avoiding intersections while building your space station, even without the detection in place. You are good people! From Perihelion onward, the game will make sure that everybody behaves (when it comes to placement of space station modules, that is!).

What's Next

There – Now you know what is brand new to Stable Orbit. Hope you are all as excited about these new features as we are! As is by now tradition for these blogs about new features (assuming you can call something you’ve done twice already a tradition), we'll close out by looking ahead what else is in store for Stable Orbit.
The update after Perihelion will be called Blackout. This will be include the Orbital Management and Disasters & Events features from the roadmap. ETA - June(-ish). Following that will be Umbilical, adding the Advanced Truss Structures and Pressurized Mechanics features and then – finally – the big one: Zenith, which will round up all the features promised in the roadmap to become the official “1.0” release of Stable Orbit! Yaaay! Let us know what you think of the latest update over in the Discussions board. See you there!

[ 2017-04-28 16:02:58 CET ] [ Original post ]