Introducing Update 1.1
Welcome to the Foundation Update. It adds the foundations of base building, and is a foundation for things to come. This is the first of many free updates.
Game Modes
- Explorers can now decide to play with different rule sets, across three game modes:
- Normal mode is the original chilled exploration experience
- Creative mode allows players to explore the universe without limits, and build a huge base
- Survival mode really changes the game, creating a much more challenging endurance experience
Death quotes: prepare to see these a lot in survival mode.
Base Building
- Claim your home planet by finding an uninhabited base and creating your own, fully bespoke outpost.
- Construct your homestead for shelter, using modular structures and decorations, replicated from resources gathered while exploring
- Recruit alien lifeforms to help research new technology. Farming, engineer, weapons and science specialists are hirable from Space Stations
- Use Terminus Teleporters in Space Stations to teleport to and from your base at will
- Expand your base with storage containers to stockpile precious resources and rare products
- Find an even more beautiful location and you can simply dismantle your previous homestead to refund all of the spent resources
Farming
Cultivate biome dependent crops outdoors, or inside your base or Freighter using Hydroponic Labs
Plants grow over time and offer a steady supply of resources to be harvested
Hire a farming specialist to research and grow ten new plant types, and discover new resource elements
Making Camp
Players can now build essential equipment in the field on-planet
Place save points anywhere in the world, crucial for Survival mode
Automated Harvesters gather resources from mineral deposits in your absence
Waypoints can be placed and colour-coded to allow explorers to return to discoveries
Communications Terminals allow explorers to leave sub-space messages for others to find
Discover nearby mineral deposits, uninhabited bases or suit upgrades with the use of a Signal Scanner
New Resources & Technology
- Discover new biome and star specific resource types as you explore the universe
- Craft the new Advanced Mining Laser and Hazmat gauntlets through base building and use them to gather rare resources
- Research and discover dozens of new products, building components and technologies
User Interface
The user interface has been improved to accommodate the stress of Survival Mode where a small inconvenience can be the difference between life and death.
The intelligent Quick Access Menu streamlines Inventory access.
Products can be stacked up to five times per inventory slot, resulting in increased starship, base container and freighter storage capacity
New arrow indicators have been added to emphasise shield and life support changes more clearly, to aid decision making
Scanned Primary resource elements have been given specific symbols to allow for easier differentiation
View your current objective at any time quickly by pressing left on the D-Pad, or H on your keyboard
The UI has been visually improved by removing colour tint and other artifacts
Early warning indicators have been added to starship cockpits to notify explorers of inbound Pirate activity
Red cockpit warnings indicate more clearly when Pulse Drive is unavailable
TAA & Motion blur
Motion blur has been added to accentuate the feeling of speed, particularly when in-flight. This can be switched on or off via the Options menu
Temporal Anti Aliasing (TAA) removes jagged edges effectively and has been added as an option to improve visuals clarity
Texture streaming can be enabled, allowing minimum spec PCs to run the game more smoothly (accessible from settings xml)
Terrain generation and colourisation algorithms have been revised to produce more aesthetically interesting planets