The Last Month: Development Update
2025-01-10
High time for a development update! Over the past month, I’ve been iterating heavily on the metagame, refocusing the experience on shipbuilding and combat. Along the way, I overhauled the ship editor, implemented a new GUI, added a host of new modules, and made numerous smaller fixes and improvements.
Ship Editor Overhaul
- New GUI: The ship editor interface has been replaced with a more compact and intuitive GUI. It offers new features such as:
- Module filtering by category (e.g., armor, weapons, etc.).
- Assigning controls to modules.
- Painting modules in any color.
- Configurable Controls: Weapon and joint module controls can now be customized directly in the ship editor. Assign actions (mapped to controls) and modes (normal, reversed, toggle) to modules as needed. While the default settings usually work fine, advanced configurations allow for greater precision in ship control.
- Free Painting: You can now paint any module in any color instead of being limited to faction-specific palettes. This change offers much more creative freedom.
- Core Repositioning: Moving or replacing the ship core is now possible. This feature is especially useful when upgrading to a larger core to increase your ship's maximum size.
- Quick Module Sizing: You can now switch between module sizes (e.g., different-sized rectangular armor) using hotkeys.
I experimented with adding a "strategic layer" atop the shipbuilding and combat mechanics (as I blogged about before), but it didn’t integrate well. While technically functional, the two gameplay layers (ship design/combat vs. fleet building/strategy) felt disconnected. Returning to the drawing board, I took inspiration from the excellent game FTL.
In eXoSpace, you play as a bounty hunter sent deep into eXoSpace to eliminate a dangerous criminal. As a combat engineer, you can continually upgrade your ship to face increasing dangers.
All gameplay now occurs within the combat screen, with the star map serving only to choose your next destination. Each hyperjump leads to a new encounter, which could be a e.g. battle between rival fleet, a trade base visit, surviving a meteor storm, rescuing (or abandoning) a civilian ship under pirate attack:
The core gameplay loop is now streamlined into three steps:
- Edit your ship (optional).
- Open the star map and jump to your next destination.
- Survive an encounter (one of many varieties).
Progressing deeper into eXoSpace requires careful management of these resources:
- Metals: Used to build/repair your ship and as currency with traders.
- Tritium Fuel: Required for hyperjumps. Running out forces you to send a distress signal—with unpredictable consequences.
- Antimatter Canisters: Fuel for advanced modules like the most powerful weapons.
- Module Blueprints: Unlocks new module types for construction.
- Unique Modules: Rare, powerful modules with one-time placement. They’re lost if destroyed.
Each encounter presents unique challenges and outcomes. Success depends on your decisions, shipbuilding expertise, and combat prowess.
Modules Added and Changed
I have removed faction-specific shape restrictions (e.g., only triangles or rectangles), offering greater creative flexibility. Additionally, new modules were added, and existing ones were updated:
- Ship Cores: Available in sizes for drone, corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship, and dreadnaught classes. The core you choose now determines the maximum size of the spaceship.
- Pulse Cannons: Light, medium, and heavy variants.
- New Armor Shapes:
- Triangular armor: 1x3 and 1x4 (light and heavy variants).
- Rectangular armor: 1x3 and 1x4 (light and heavy variants).
- Octagonal armor.
- Armor caps: Sizes 3 and 4.
- New Modules: Huge generator and huge thruster.
- Railgun Overhaul: Now more powerful but fixed in direction.
Other Changes
- Refactored and simplified code to streamline future updates.
- Improved sprites for most projectiles.
- Ensured turrets always render above other modules.
- Tuned joint (moving) modules for easier handling.
- Implemented an input mapping framework (mapping screen still in progress).
- Addressed numerous bugs and quality-of-life issues.
What’s Next?
I’m working toward releasing an alpha test build in the coming weeks—stay tuned!
