- Early Access Exit and 1.0 Release - 29 April 2024
Outpost On Syrinx is exiting Early Access, and is now officially released as a regular Steam game! The current build of the game is actually the same as released last year in May of 2023, which was a follow-up to the Caves Expansion update, which added Geothermal energy and related new missions and some other features. That release was a suitable candidate for 'final release', and was relatively bug-free and stable. At the time, there were a few minor features that were possibly going to be added before exiting Early Access, but to make a long story short, development on the game needed to be paused for a while. After much consideration, it's been decided that minor new features were not really needed to have a good exit from Early Access, and this build will be considered the 1.0 'full release'. Depending on a number of factors, development on the game may continue for some time, or be…
- Development Pause (July - November 2023) - 4 July 2023
As some folks might have noticed, it's been a while since the game had an update. Development has largely been paused since late February, due to family emergencies. Things are not over yet, and almost certainly development won't resume for a few months (except maybe for a little bit). When things settle down, I might get back to working on the game as before, but I might take some more time to rest and reflect on where I go from here in my life. The timing was a bit odd, since I was getting fairly close to having something I consider a good 1.0 version, and probably exiting from Early Access. I needed to choose between finishing up a smallish milestone and leaving EA, or putting things off until I return to development and devote a good amount of time and energy to doing a final release that involved a proper amount of marketing effort, or just stopping development. Since I had really…
- Update - May 5, 2023 - 5 May 2023
This update adds a new form of power generation and adds a feature that supports the 'uncover mysteries' aspect of the game. Geothermal power can now be researched and used, supplementing the existing wind and solar power generation. It can only be used where heat vents are located, so it's not for general use in all locations, but is very useful for certain areas in the Caves. Certain items in the game now have more vague and general descriptions, unless particular missions or other events have unlocked the 'main' names and descriptions of the items. Several missions have been added to the game that relate to this, so that the player can unlock some lore related scan information. For example, the player might deep scan an item of an alien faction that has not been encountered before. The initial name and description might be something like 'unknown device' and 'little is known about th…
- Update - January 12, 2023 - 12 January 2023
This update contains an large expansion of The Caves area, making the area several times larger than it's earlier size. To avoid spoilers, there isn't much more information to provide 🙂 Note- Don't expect to have access to any new area on the first game day, either in a new game or when loading an existing save
- Update - September 19, 2022 - 19 September 2022
This is a smallish update that follows up the Combat update from last month. It ties up a bunch of loose ends from that update. The main visible aspect of the update involves animations for the player hand. No longer is the player's arm/hand rather static most of the time. There are new animations for various held equipment items and some subtle animation when the player is just walking around with their hand raised while holding a piece of equipment. Combat has been re-balanced some, and a variety of bugs (combat and unrelated) have been fixed, to keep the amount of jankiness and 'buggy mess' in the game low. Also, a number of sound fx for the new alien species have been remade. Tool tips have been added for the equipped items bar at the lower edge of the UI.
- Update - August 15, 2022 - 15 August 2022
This update adds combat to the game (combat is mostly optional at this point, however). In keeping with the general theme of 'humans are mostly good' in the game, the player is limited to researching and building a stun blaster, which can drive off hostile aliens or knock them unconscious, but won't kill them. The blaster can not be used on harmless non-hostile creatures. The update also introduces several new alien species/factions, all of which can become a bit 'fighty' at times. Given the large amount of related systems work required to get combat working in the game, there are some loose ends and polish that still needs to be done. There will probably be a followup update soon that addresses these issues and fixes any bugs discovered in the near future (especially any combat-related bugs). This update is likely to be the last 'new systems' update for at least a while, with developme…
- Update - April 3, 2022 - 3 April 2022
This update adds some extra area to the starting 'Orange Zone', a new piece of equipment, and a fair amount of ongoing work on the Event system and the related Notifications UI. The Fluxer is a new equipment item for the player, and features a rather unstable 'wobbly beam' of energy. Currently it's used to repair damaged items (the possibility of items becoming damaged is another new feature of this update). Eventually, it's likely to have more abilities and could be a sort of 'misc utility' equipment item. Previously, the Event system supported quite simple events such as triggering NPC dialogs. With this update there is now a code framework to allow custom scripting for events. Events can track information and 'do stuff' over time (e.g. hourly, daily), and have custom logic for when they end. Notifications for events exist, so the player can know what's going on, and the notifications…
- Update - December 22, 2021 - 22 December 2021
This update adds some improvements to placing buildings and other large structures, along with a new UI feature for notifications to the player. Occasionally a building could be placed such that some of the terrain underneath the building stuck up above floor level, which of course looks unrealistic. To address this issue and to improve things a bit in other ways, a few features have been added. When initially placing buildings, the height of the building relative to the land beneath it can be adjusted, so a building can be raised up to make sure terrain does not poke thru the floor. Also, once a building has been placed, it's placement can be adjusted somewhat. It can be rotated, moved around a bit, and it's height raised or lowered. And finally, buildings can be dismantled entirely, with the player receiving a full refund of resources and credits that were used to originally purchase…
- Update - October 12, 2021 - 12 October 2021
This update grants the player the ability to create sites (small bases) for other human crew members from the Mothership. These Sites can then be used by NPCs on a daily basis. It also adds a number of new NPCs to the game, and adds more detail to how NPCs are defined. Human NPCs now have a number of semi-randomized preferences and desires, related to what sort of Sites they might want to use, either for working on their own research projects or spending some well-earned vacation time down on Syrinx. The Sites the player builds have related stats, which often correspond to NPC desires. Sites can also be used by the player. For example, they can spend the night at a Site, if it has a bed to sleep in, so that they don't have to go back to the Observation Tower that evening to rest. There are new UI screens for reviewing player creates Sites, and for viewing statistics of NPCs, such as the…
- Info about the next update... - 23 August 2021
The current batch of work for the next update is well underway, and I wanted to post about it, because it's taking a fair amount longer than most updates. This update will focus on the player building additional Sites (mini-bases) to be used by other human Mothership crew members (NPCs). It expands the amount of base-building in the game by a fair amount, and provides a source of credits and extra research points for players who choose to build one or more additional Sites. NPCs gain some extra features, and several other game systems require additional work to support Site functionality. This will all take a while to complete. The update will likely be released sometime between 1 and 2 months from now.
- Minor update - ultrawide aspect ratio support - 12 July 2021
Adds support for ultrawide monitor resolutions.
- Update - June 24, 2021 - 24 June 2021
Friends! This update introduces some NPCs in the form of fellow human crew members from the Mothership. There are some brief 'meet and greet' dialogs with some of the people who are living and working up in space while you set up things at the Outpost down on Syrinx, and there are also a couple of new missions you can do for them if you want help them out. Behind the scenes, the engine used for the game was updated to a version three years ahead of the old version. This opens up a bunch of shiny new technology that can be used in the game (including the new dialog system the NPC's use), but also involved having to rework some old stuff that broke as part of the upgrade. In particular, most of the graphic shaders in the game had to be redone, and because of this much of the game art may look a bit nicer now. In particular, a buggy-looking 'orange glow' around objects in the starting area…
- Update - May 21, 2021 - 21 May 2021
This update includes a new storage container to increase inventory capacity, and a collection of improvements related to the ability to purchase one or more additional Observation Towers. Storage Capsules can now be researched, greatly increasing how much stuff players can store. Additional Observation Towers should now function more intuitively, and are a valid option, mainly for players who want to set up their Outpost in the Blue Hills zone. The player's Spawn point can be set to any tower, so that player's will start each morning in the Observation Tower they choose. Players can also sleep for a night in any tower, without changing their semi-permanent spawn point. The Storage Locker in any new tower now functions as a separate inventory container, instead of containing the same items the Storage Locker in the first Observation Tower contains. And importantly, the cost of building a…
- Update - April 9, 2021 - 9 April 2021
This update is focused on improvements to the map view. Map Markers can now be placed by players. Each one can have a title and a longer description. Some locations have Map Markers that will automatically show up in the Map view once they are discovered. In particular, the portals/exits between areas have associated Map Markers and Icons. To enhance the feeling of exploration, the maps for areas in the game are now divided into sections, and each section will show up on the map once it has been explored a bit. Therefore, the player will not immediately know the extents and layout of each area as soon as they enter it. In addition to map improvements, players can now construct and place Beacons. These have holographic projects that enable them to be seen from far away in the game. They also have automatic Map Markers in the Map View, once placed.
- March 2, 2021 Update - 2 March 2021
Spring Cleaning! This update doesn't actually have any new features, and instead is all about bug fixes and polishing. The last update featured a new smelter, which had a few minor bugs, and frankly it worked too slowly for most players to appreciate it. Apart from smelter improvement, things were fixed and improved in lots of little ways, based on a list of minor bugs that had not be addressed yet, and a bunch of small improvements that could be made, based on recent player feedback and (indirectly) suggested by some recent videos that featured the game. Feel free to post bug reports and other feedback on the Steam community site or by using the in-game button on the pause menu to Send Feedback (via email). Thanks to everyone who has emailed with feedback and bug reports!
- Update February 16 2021 - 16 February 2021
Teleportation! Once researched, players can build a matching pair of teleportation devices...a teleport 'base' which requires power and presumably will be placed at the player's main base, and a teleport 'node', which can be moved freely by the player and has it's own energy cell for power. Having a place to quickly beam to can save lots of walking when you know you want to do a bunch of stuff in a particular area. Also, the game now has a proper Smelter device for turning ore into refined ingots, replacing the system of using the fabricator to craft ingots. This new sort of 'process batches of items over time' device will probably show up in additional devices in the game eventually.
- Update - December 22, 2020 - 22 December 2020
The core of this update is a research system. Research points are gained by various means, including Deep Scanning items (old saved games should retroactively grant you the points for items you have already Deep Scanned), turning in some items at the new Autolab building, and finding special research-related items in the world. There is a new research screen showing the start of the research/tech tree, which will include more research topics as development continues. One of the main fields of research relates to a major overhaul of how power works in the game. Previously there was a sort-of-placeholder system, which this system replaces. You can now build solar panels, wind turbines and batteries to form power networks for your Outpost. Any saved games with Solar Arrays already existing will have plenty of power, as the Solar Arrays are fairly advanced power generators. Cooking and crea…
- Info about the next update... - 26 November 2020
After the game's Early Access release, I had been releasing updates roughly every month. The current batch of work going on involves a few different related systems. I'm making a research mechanic/game system, and the start of a tech tree. Several of the initial research topics for it are part of system for how power (electrical) will work in the game, so I'm replacing my earlier sort-of-placeholder simple power system with something much nicer. This work on game systems, UI, new art assets etc is a bigger chunk of work than earlier milestones/updates, so it's taking a fair bit longer than a month to complete. I plan on releasing the update sometime in the next few weeks. After this next update, I might go back to having an update once a month again, although some milestones inherently involve a bunch of connected work, so some updates may take 2-3 months to complete.
- Update - October 2, 2020 - 2 October 2020
This update consists of some new content. To avoid spoilers, I won't go into details.
- Update - September 4 2020 - 4 September 2020
This update is mostly about improved User Interface elements. Much of the UI has been redone, and some minor UI/UX features have been added. In particular, some actions that the player probably doesn't want to accidentally do now require the shift key to be held down in addition to a mouse click. This includes destroying or recycling objects, and picking up up placed furniture and crafting stations.
