Development Update 5

October 5, 2018.

Hello Everyone!

We are so excited to finally share the focus of our development efforts over the past few weeks: a large update focused on improving and extending planetary exocraft!

A brand new exocraft is now available to drive across the galaxies: the rugged, fast-moving Pilgrim.

The Geobay for the Pilgrim is available for purchase from the Blueprint Analyser.

The existing exocraft have also been tweaked. Multiplayer racing has been fixed, inventory sizes have been increased, and summoning has been made easier. Geobays now only need to be built once – after that, all owned exocraft can be summoned with unlimited range on any planet where you’ve constructed a new Exocraft Summoning Station.

New upgrades for the Pilgrim and all other exocraft can be purchased from the Exocraft Technician once their missions are complete. Exocraft handling can also be adjusted with a series of new technologies, allowing players to customise the grip or drift levels of their different vehicles.

Your exocraft fleet can also be customised, with a full range of colours, decals and boost flame effects available to choose from.

The full list of patch notes is available at the end of this post.

Community Research Update
Specialist Polo is dedicating this week to analysing the collected data before determining the next chapter of their research project. The galactic co-ordinates reported by their Explorer-Friends require thorough investigation, and the trace of another Traveller-Entity beyond this reality suggests the recent galactic changes may have wider-reaching impact than is yet understood…

Community Spotlight
For the past few months, the Galactic Construction Company community have been quietly working on something really special – building in-game bases for other players in return for donations to UK-based charity Alzheimer’s Society. They have now raised nearly £800 for the organisation, and are still accepting requests for bases on their Facebook page. We were really touched by this effort, and have matched the amount that had already been donated. It’s inspiring and unpredictable the way games can move people.

(“Pirate Bay” base by the GCC – screenshot by /u/BoidGaming)

Keep the fun and beautiful screenshots coming! Some that recently caught our eye:

(Credit to /u/Ruizbros, /u/impirepro06, /u/djsims10, and /u/Suspiria72)

We were also delighted to see some creative placements of the customisable tree rewards from last week’s community research mission.

(Credit to /u/GLITCHEDMATRIX and /u/MatadorNMS)

Development Update
Patch 1.63 is live on all platforms today, with the patch notes available below. The next update will see the continuation of Polo’s research missions, as well as high priority quality of life improvements throughout the game.

In the meantime, we are keeping up the pace here as we work towards another large update. Hopefully we’ll be able to share some previews of that ahead of time!

Thank you so much,
Sean

Patch 1.63

Added a new Exocraft, the Pilgrim. Purchase the blueprints for the Pilgrim Geobay from a Blueprint Analyser.
Added an Exocraft Summoning Station that once built on a planet, allowing all owned exocraft to be summoned from anywhere on that planet. Purchase the blueprints for the Exocraft Summoning Station from a Blueprint Analyser.
Increased the inventory size of all Exocraft.
Increased the base speed of the Colossus.
Added upgrade modules for the Exocraft, similar to the modules available for ships, Multi-Tools and the Exosuit. Upgrade Modules are purchasable for Nanites from the Exocraft Technician once their quest chain is complete. Modifiable stats include top speed, boost power, fuel efficiency, gun damage and more.
Expanded the Exocraft Quick Menu options to allow all owned and in-range Exocraft to be summoned, not just the current primary Exocraft.
Added the ability to customise your Exocraft with unique paint, decals and boost particle options.
Added specific technology to customise Exocraft handling, allowing drivers to spec their vehicles for grip or drift.
Added a speedometer display to the HUD while driving an Exocraft.
Fixed a number of issues with vehicle races, particularly in multiplayer.
Fixed an issue where Exocraft with laser upgrades could still not mine substances that required an Advanced Mining Laser.
Fixed an issue where Exocraft could not mine terrain resources.
Fixed an issue where the Race Initiator was not available at the Blueprint Analyser.

Improved the performance of terrain tessellation on PC (EXPERIMENTAL).
Improved the visuals when highlighting objects with the Analysis Visor.

Fixed an issue where players could not lose a 5-Star wanted level.
Fixed an issue that prevented the Blaze Javelin from firing while zoomed in with the Combat Scope.
Fixed an issue where players who were on the other side of a portal at the launch of NEXT would see their portal return marker in an invalid position.
Fixed an issue where NPCs could use the wrong audio.
Fixed an issue where frigate cargo would be lost if inventory space wasn’t available upon landing on the frigate.
Fixed an issue where expedition upgrades were not refunded when the expedition was cancelled.
Fixed an issue where players were unable to land on frigates owned by other people in multiplayer.
Added the ability to cycle between frigates when viewing the fleet.
Fixed an issue where freighters could not be purchased with other players on board.
Fleets can now be seen from the planet surface.

Fixed an issue where frigates would revert their colours to blue and white.
Added display of planetary coordinates to starship dashboard.
Fixed a number of issues with player position being saved incorrectly while on the other side of a portal in multiplayer.
Fixed an issue that caused players returning to a Base Computer via a teleporter to spawn inside the Base Computer mesh and be violently ejected.
Fixed an issue where players were being asked to build a beacon for the Base Scientist but didn’t know the blueprint.
Fixed an issue that could cause Delivery missions to require the wrong substance at the hand-in step.
Fixed an issue that could cause missions that involved bribery to request an invalid item as the bribe.
Fixed an issue that could cause the Atmosphere Harvester to collect an invalid substance on specific rare biomes.
Fixed an issue that could cause Atmosphere Harvesters (and other similar remote gathering technology) to run out of fuel and empty its collection hopper when the player left the system.
Fixed an issue that could cause Automated Mining Units to mine an incorrect substance from terrain resource deposits.
Fixed an issue that caused base building warning messages to be displayed immediately after correctly constructing a building.
Fixed an issue that caused the ‘Find nearest building’ signal booster option to find only buildings of the same type as the nearest building.
Starships will now be placed upon available landing pads when teleporting back to the player’s base.
Fixed a number of other issues affecting starship landing and collision.
Fixed an issue that could allow multiple starships to be docked on the same landing pad in multiplayer.
Non-primary player ships are returned to the freighter when the freighter is called in, preventing them becoming permanently lost or broken.
Further improved the system to remove irrelevant bases from the teleport list.
Fixed an issue that could cause starship engines to sound too loud.
Fixed an issue that could cause the camera to swing wildly when launching the starship.
Prevented Quick Menu hotkeys from taking effect while other UI panels are open (eg during text chat).
Fixed a crash related to the Quick Menu.
Fixed an Xbox One-specific crash in networking.
Fixed a crash in AI ship behaviour.
Fixed a crash in the terrain system when reloading an autosave.
Fixed an issue that could cause poor performance on the Discoveries menu.
Fixed an issue that could cause excess memory usage on some AMD systems.