Helium Rain has been updated ! Today we're bringing the long-awaited company log feature. Here is all you need to know about it.

How it works

All new transactions in your company will now be logged and saved to be displayed in two new menus : log, and accounting. The first menu, featured above, is a direct log view with a few filters. We expect it to be helpful to diagnose money-losing situations, for example. The second menu, which we call the accounting menu, is a year-per-year overview of your company. It features a number of transaction types that are in the game and tells you where your company is profiting or not. Some of them will probably surprise you, as Helium Rain features a very complex simulation, but we've tried to keep it clear.

About existing saves

We have a policy of never breaking saves, and we've kept to it since the initial Early Access release. However, as suggested above, no transaction previous to the update will be logged. Logging will start as soon as he game is updated.

About development progress

We regularly see players wondering about the speed of upgrades. After all, we only planned for a 6-months Early Access period, and we'll be hitting the one-year mark this summer. Part of why is that we added many feature requests from the community, like modular stations or the company log feature, but sometimes we also simply work on stuff that doesn't get released. For the past few months, we've had an ongoing effort to recreate the economy model with different rules. We want to make prices much more dynamic and realistic, and fix some issues with resources contracts. This is however a huge undertaking, and the more we work on it, the less likely to work in the game it looks - which is one case of us working for something players can't see yet.
This is how many of these these work-in-progress branches we've had for the game ! "new" and "refactor" are all about re-creating a part of the game in a better way, and these happen a lot...

Odds & ends

Completed or ignored tutorials are now separated from regular contracts in the contract menu. We've also fixed a few issues with the game, including a blocking UI problem on some Linux devices, a trade route editing crash, and collision issues in the Farm. That's it for today. See you soon for another update !

[ 2018-05-26 07:36:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Helium Rain is a single-player space simulation that places you at the helm of a spacefaring company. Exploration, trading, station-building, piracy are all options. You will need to master both real-time action and long-term strategy: destroying a freighter has a direct impact on the economy, while declaring war will make your spaceflight environment slightly more hostile...

• 12 playable ships with weapon and engine upgrades
  Play fighters, bombers, cargos, corvettes or capital ships.
  
• Realistic economy model
  Take advantage of an accurate simulation of space trade to be the most competitive company. If diplomacy fails, blockades are in order.
  
• Fast-paced combat with a Newtonian flight model
  There is no speed limit in Helium Rain. You can fly at half a mile a second while aiming backwards !
  
• Localized damage model for spacecrafts
  Aim for critical systems in order to disable ships, kill their crew or capture targets.
  
• Procedural contracts, world exploration, technology upgrades
  Pick contracts and build your empire.