eXoSpace Development: Experimental Branch

2025-10-15

Want to try out the upcoming changes to eXoSpace? An experimental branch is now available! This branch receives regular small updates, but as a consequence, things may break sometimes.

In the experimental branch, you can test the ongoing development for the upcoming Happy Hunting update. In this blog, I’ll give an overview of the current state of this update.

State of the Update

At the end of this post, you’ll find a full changelist of everything that has been implemented so far, along with instructions on how to run the experimental branch.

But first—if you look at the roadmap—I’m not as far along as I’d like to be. While a lot of polish and new content has been added to the bounty hunt game mode, I still need to improve the bosses, which is what I’m working on right now. I want to get this right and make the game mode as fun as it deserves to be. Let’s go through the biggest changes one by one.

More Rewarding Victories

A recurring piece of feedback was that actually taking out your target in an assignment didn’t feel rewarding. Suddenly your ship was gone, all your unlocked modules and gathered resources were gone, and you only got some GG as thanks. For me, this was the most pressing issue, and I had to find a way to fix it without breaking the balance or “roguelite” aspect of the game.

The first change to improve this is a complete overhaul of the victory screen. It is now split into four steps, with the first being the familiar contract completion. This time, you also get an animation showing your reputation gain:

In the next step, your victorious ship design is celebrated, and it’s made clear that it has been saved and is accessible in the sandbox. It can also be used during subsequent assignments if you have the necessary resources and unlocks (which is a big if).

You now have more influence over which unlocked blueprints are available—you can load earlier designs in the ship editor even if you don’t yet have all the required modules unlocked.

Next are the statistics and bounty. The resources you collect are now converted into Galactic Guilders (albeit at a low rate), so they’re finally of some use:

And finally, you can select a module blueprint—out of the ones unlocked during the assignment—to take back home. You can bring this blueprint with you on subsequent assignments for a small fee. This means you’ll never have to go without your favorite modules again:

More Options for New Assignments

When starting a new assignment, things look a bit different now, as you can see in the screenshot below. Hardcore mode is now even more challenging, and getting resources from mining asteroids is no longer possible at this difficulty level:

Choosing a starting “equipment set” is now a matter of selecting a starting ship, which comes with starting resources and the module blueprints needed to build it.

In this step, you can also choose additional module blueprints to take with you—ones you’ve unlocked during earlier assignments. This costs a small fee in GG, which is refunded if you abort the assignment or die in Hardcore mode, so feel free to experiment:

Pursuit (a.k.a. Dangerous Dilly-Dallying)

If you start a new assignment after updating, you may notice a strange new area on the star map with a number on it. This is a heavily fortified starbase (it’s actually invulnerable, so don’t attempt an attack), from which a pursuit will begin once the countdown (the number) reaches zero.

For the Master Thief assignment, this means that mercenaries will launch a massive search effort to find you. Each jump you make causes the search area to grow, leading to a frantic race to reach your target before you run out of time.

On easier difficulties, the delay before the pursuit begins is longer, and some encounters let you attempt to delay it further:

This new mechanic adds a lot of tension that was previously missing from the game.

What’s Next

Current development is focused on improving the boss fights and adding a brand-new assignment and boss—so stay tuned!

How to Run the Experimental Branch

Right-click on the game in your Steam Library, choose Properties → Betas, then select experimental from the Beta Participation dropdown.

Note: The experimental branch uses its own save data, so your existing saves will not be affected.

Full Changelist So Far

Changes:

• Added “pursuit,” forcing the player toward the target—or to accept the dangers of dilly-dallying.
• Victory screen now consists of 3 steps: selling resources, selecting a module blueprint to take, and providing more explanations.
• Players can now take home one module blueprint upon victory, and spend their bounty on additional blueprints for the next assignment.
• Armory screen now has 3 tabs: starting ships, modifiers (perks), and module blueprints.
• Added an additional starting ship so new players have some choice.
• Removed asteroid mining from Hardcore mode. Doubled Hardcore difficulty.
• Removed the in-game feedback button (thank you all for the feedback you’ve sent—it’s been invaluable!).
• Updated crash reporter to trigger when the game crashes, not upon restart.
• Added 2 particle accelerator “sniper” turret weapons.
• Added fixed-mount particle accelerator.
• Added 2 scrapper “shotgun” turrets.
• Replaced most scripted (Lua-based) AIs with a player-configurable built-in AI to improve performance and functionality.

Balancing:

• Removed drops from mine and suicide drones.
• Weapon accuracy debuffs (from modifiers/perks) no longer affect beam weapons.
• Fuel and modules are now slightly cheaper at traders.
• Pulse cannon damage and projectile velocity increased.
• Light spinal beam weapon damage increased.
• Spinal laser blaster burst increased.
• Light missile launcher range, explosive damage, and projectile hitpoints reduced.
• Torpedo launcher projectile velocity doubled; damage increased.
• Plasma thrower fire rate decreased; damage increased.
• Several modifiers (formerly perks) have been updated and expanded to be more interesting.
• Asteroids in asteroid storms are now much weaker (making shooting them viable) but deal more collision damage.

Quality of Life:

• Allow “Load Anyway” in the design library for ships that cannot currently be built during an assignment.
• Added “paint entire ship in this color” button in the editor.
• Improved ship info energy display: now shows a bar indicating energy surplus or shortage.
• Added sorting options for design overviews: cost, name, last change, and faction.
• Increased preview image size for ship designs uploaded via Steamworks.

Bug Fixes:

• Ships on the same side are now pushed away from each other to prevent invisible stacking, improving performance.
• Fixed numerous encounter issues with too many or too few ships spawning. Some now feature larger ships with fewer total spawns.
• Hitpoints shown in the editor for parts and ships were lower than they should be due to a missing multiplier.
• “Save & return to main menu” was possible after dying.
• Sad Biters would try to eat unreachable asteroids.
• Robotic entities chewing on wrecks now get random wreck feeds.
• Shields were immune to ramming damage while active.
• DPS and energy calculations were incorrect for salvo weapons.
• Unbound envoy escorts would not attack assassins.
• Salvo launcher made no sound when firing continuously.