We use cookies to help give you the best possible experience on our site. Strictly necessary and functional cookies support login and shopping cart features, they cannot be disabled. Performance cookies support site performance analysis. These are optional and will be disabled if you click on Reject.
By clicking Accept you agree to our use of Performance cookies as detailed in our Privacy Policy.
Dear Station Designers,
Last month we unveiled Space Station Designer version 00.06.00, which included new gameplay features, improved visuals, and various QoL improvements. We made some good progress this past month across various areas, and today we're pleased to share Space Station Designer version 00.06.50 with all of you. If you're interested in the full list of changes and additions, please take a look at the release notes here.
Visuals
In terms of visuals, we've replaced all the existing astronauts' portraits with a fresh new set of nearly 250 images. We are confident that this is a significant improvement that should make all astronaut management tasks more engaging.
We've also improved the quality of the space station modules' and resupply spacecraft's materials, which combine nicely with the improved Earth material that we released in our previous update.
Gameplay
One of the coolest features of this new update is that 'Free Builder' sessions can now be converted into 'Sandbox' ones by clicking a button in the top left area of the screen.
The game will then assign enough astronauts to cover the required Maintenance needs, and then behave as a regular 'Sandbox' session, with Contracts, modules purchases, astronaut management, and all the various mechanics available.
We've also added support in code to detect the completion conditions of 50 unique Steam Achievements. Note that, for now, only a handful of them are available and enabled. We'll be uploading more to the Steam backend in the upcoming weeks.
Polishing
As part of this update, we revised and tweaked the 2D animations in the launch sequences of the various resupply spacecraft available throughout the game.
We've also added new SFX to the Earth Facilities screen and the Module Repair screen.
We also made a few tweaks to the layout of the main space station screen, such as putting the 'Remove Modules' button closer to the modules slots in the lower area of the screen, which should improve the ergonomics.
Modding
As part of this update, we resolved a few incompatibility issues with our official mods. All of them have been replaced with updated versions, and we've also used this opportunity to update our official documentation.
Closing thoughts
We sincerely hope that you will enjoy all the improvements brought by this new update. We're currently running a closed beta, so if you want to give it a go, please consider applying by visiting the following link.
For the next update, we'll be focussing on adding a 'Statistics' screen, implementing a mechanism that will let you define the initial conditions of a 'Sandbox' session, along with the usual batch of QoL improvements. We continue monitoring our Discord server and the forums, so don't hesitate to let us know if you have any feedback or comments.
--Ignacio, Mauricio, and Nicolas (Polar Motion)
