A new patch has been released for Helium Rain, fixing more than 30 issues in the game. Among the fixes, the end-game war situation, shipyard production and manual docking have been addressed.

Rebuilding shipyards

Shipyards were a source of frustration for players, with seemingly endless production time. Resources were not provided by companies, and when the player was doing it, the resources were diverted to cheaper ships on the production lines. This has been addressed through a large rebuild of the shipyard system, and through improvements to trading.
The trading fixes will push the AI to be more aggressive about resources. They will be smarter about which sectors need resources, making the economy work better overall.

Persistent global war

Quite a few players complained about seeing the AI companies band together against them and drown them under a barrage of assaults until they died. This issue was derivative of an intended functionality - we don't want the AI to love monopoly situations - that went too far with the player. Reputation will now mostly be lost by failing contracts or attacking property. Attacking pirates, among other things, no longer results in lost reputation with other companies.

Manual docking

We've heard players complain about the manual docking gameplay. Mostly, it seemed the speed was difficult to control, and the docking computer was too optimistic about the status. This has been addressed too. Orbital engines are now offline while docking, making the maneuver much more precise. Capital ships are also much more interesting to dock, with fixes to the docking HUD and grab distance.

A word on price variation

We've seen players complain about mostly fixed pricing on resources. While Helium Rain simulates supply and demand and changes the prices, they do have a narrow variation range. This is intended for the beginning of the Early Access period, as a safety measure until the AI is more stable. The main risk with large variations would be a destabilization of the economy. We also need more data visualization tools for the player, to identify where money is gained or lost. We are making progress on this (the trade route menu gets improved again today), and will make the pricing ranges larger over time, once we're confident it won't break the game for some players. The full changelog for the patch is available here. Thank you for your feedback and patience with the game ! Every patch brings us closer to the high quality bar we are aiming for. Have fun !

[ 2017-08-27 15:27:58 CET ] [ Original post ]