Hey Folks! Dan Fedor here, happy to announce that the Fire in the Hold Update is out NOW! Watch the "out now" trailer and see some of the new features in action:
There’s something for everyone in this update! Seasoned spacers can experience ship combat by ferrying or flying to Ceres to participate in the war, or jumping in directly by opting-into the Arena Mode. Those who want a more peaceful experience can still find it around OKLG, or they can stay in the safer edges of the Ceres asteroid belt and mine for riches.
You will need to start a new save file (v0.15.0.0 and later) to access the new features. Beta saves should transfer over to the main branch normally. Players wishing to continue their 0.14.x.x saves can do so by opting into the Steam legacy_14 branch.
This update includes a large number of changes and new features, too long to list here completely. But highlights include:
Ship-to-ship Combat: Ship weapons and sensors can now be obtained near Ceres, where armed navies and pirates are fighting for control of the asteroids there.
Asteroid Mining: Fly out to the asteroid belt near Ceres and mine for precious resources. Use the ores you find there to improve standings with arms dealers, or sell them for cash. Or set up asteroid claim beacons for improved standings.
Fire and Smoke: Damage in ship combat? Want to light a trash can on fire? Indulge your inner pyromaniac.
Performance: Several improvements to framerate, hitching, and memory use.
New Items: Ship weapons and rifles, ammo, mining items, explosives, new hulls, decor
Steamdeck and Gamepad Support: Play Ostranauts on your SteamDeck, or with a gamepad from the comfort of your couch!
Steam Cloud Save Support: Saves are now synced wherever you login with Steam.
Multiple Docking Ports: Always wanted a ship's boat? Wished you could dock your torch ship in orbit and take an aeroship down to Venus? Now you can! Ships and stations now support more than one docking port.
Modular NAV Stations: Wish your NAV was more combat focused? Or want different station layouts for your pilot vs. gunner? Now you can customize your NAV with modules you find!
New Plot Content: A strange artifact found on a derelict leads to some unexpected conspiracies.
3 New Major Stations: Port Mojave, Zhonghuamen Terminal, and Atlantis Landing Zone now have custom maps, each with their own transit systems.
New Skill Effects: Piloting, Gunnery, Zero G, and Sensor skills now impart bonuses when flying a ship.
New "Pristine" Items: Items that have never been Damaged before have a "Pristine" status, making them more valuable and resilient.
Random Event Upgrades: Tired of your character being emotionally clobbered repeatedly by the memory of the dumbest thing they said? Now there is a wider variety, some with choices that can change your character traits!
Jump into ship-to-ship combat with a brand new video tutorial by Joshu! He shows how to engage in combat, navigating the console and how to use the different weapons and senors.
Watch here:
There’s also a text version of this guide available here.
If you’re completely new to the game, we also have a Starter Guide on Steam.
In honor of today’s update, we’re challenging you to build us your finest, combat ready ship. Use the ship editor, test out the build in Arena Mode and we might just pick your ship to be a permanent addition to the game! Full rules and details are here.
Players can now engage in ship-to-ship combat.
A proxy war is ongoing around Ceres, with two factions vying for control over the asteroids, and pirates in between.
Attacking naval ships and beacons around Ceres will affect faction standings with Ceres factions.
Ships now require passive and/or active sensors to see the area around them.
Ship weapons have arcs of fire, and will auto-fire if target is locked and in range.
Ship weapons can also manual fire outside of their auto-target range, using hotkeys.
Weapons control module in NAV can change which firing group each weapon belongs to.
Missile launchers can be installed to launch homing missiles at distant targets.
Point defense cannons can be installed to shoot incoming missiles, nearby ships, and sometimes even micrometeoroids.
Railguns and coilguns can be installed to punch holes in targets at medium range.
Decoy launchers can be installed to divert incoming missiles.
3 decoy missile types: ranging in effectiveness, cost, and acceleration rates.
Militarized hulls and armor cladding can be installed to protect ship systems and occupants.
Players can now demand surrender or be offered surrender from other ships, and negotiate for money, boarding, or arrests with rival factions.
Players can now offer surrender or agree to a demand for surrender, and the NPC can negotiate for payment to leave the player alone.
Destroying the reactor on a ship may cause a massive debris explosion now.
Some ship subsystems can now explode when hit (e.g. missiles, mining explosives)
Missiles have a chance of exploding into debris when intercepted.
Added a combat rifle, carbine, and shotgun to the game.
Fire can ignite from sparks, explosions, and weapons fire.
Fire can burn through equipment and injure nearby humans.
Fire will foul atmosphere with smoke and other contaminants.
Fire can be extinguished with fire extinguishers or old-school stomping.
Contaminant scrubber now works on smoke and CO.
Skill in piloting now uses less RCS and torch fuel.
Skill in gunnery allows longer range auto-targeting of railguns.
Crew with SkillOpsZeroG now have a 75% chance of avoiding knockdown in collisions and missile hits.
NPCs with piloting skill will attempt to dodge railgun shots.
NPCs with gunnery skill will shoot at player from further away.
NPCs now have a chance of being skilled pilots and/or gunners.
Navy NPCs will now attempt to board player ship if they dock in combat.
NPC ships will stop maneuvering if player docks to them and nobody is piloting at NAV.
New PDA order type: Reload Ship Weapons (uses Haul priority)
Automatic crew cycling (e.g. on KO) should be less frustrating now, and more intuitive.
Walking character footsteps now sound less harsh.
NPC maintenance techs now put out fires, among their other tasks.
Super FFWD now always gives full sleep benefits when characters are sleeping, regardless of shift.
Character sleep deficit should now be capped at a more reasonable value, and easier to restore.
Emotional clobber events now have more variety and interactivity, and some can lead to trait changes.
Game engine has been upgraded from Unity 5.6 to Unity 6.
Players should see fewer lag spikes and hitches now.
Players should see better overall framerate now.
Thread usage on CPUs should be spread out a bit more now.
Several memory leaks fixed.
Ship damage from maneuvering while docked is limited to fewer items per frame to prevent lag.
Painting large batches of install and other work orders is now more performant.
Using the highlight interactables toggle should now run faster.
NAV station performance should now be better.
Ships now have primary and auxiliary airlocks, and can support multi-docking.
Many stations now have multiple docking ports, allowing players to dock more than one ship.
Ships can now have more than one ship docked to them at a time. (E.g. landing craft, shuttles, etc.)
Ships can now moor/tether (i.e. park nearby) to other ships, if there are no available open docking ports.
Several new naval and pirate ship designs are now in-game.
New smoke alarm item.
New walls, floors, planters, and other construction/decor pieces.
Pirate and LEO should no longer target player ship through planets or from extreme ranges, or when player is on a station.
Having lots of cargo webbing should no longer cause a performance hit.
Loose items floating without floor beneath them will now gradually strip away during spacecraft maneuvers.
Asteroids now appear around Ceres, which can be mined for ores.
OKLG has a new asteroid cluster for players to try their hand at mining.
Ores can be sold for money, or for faction "scrip" and improved faction relations with Ceres factions.
Ceres factions sell weapons and military equipment at their respective stations, and available tiers require better faction standings.
New tools for mining include mining drills, and both small and large explosive charges.
Players can purchase beacons from Ceres factions and deploy them near asteroids to gain faction standings.
NAV stations now have modular layouts, which can be customized by players.
NAV station modules can be purchased at vendors, or salvaged from other ships.
It is now possible to cycle between multiple crew who are on NAV stations, without the UI closing.
New NAV modules for tethering, analyzing asteroids, weapons control, sensors, and target info.
NPCs can now reply in some new ways via COMMS.
Rotate ship hotkey now works outside of debug mode, so players can change triangle orientation in NAV.
NAV orbit lines no longer accumulate over time after rotational maneuvers.
Player ship silhouette works again in NAV when zoomed-in.
Ostranauts is now updated to work better with SteamDeck and gamepad!
New default control scheme added for SteamDeck.
SteamDeck and gamepad input now supports direct character movement.
Several UI changes made to improve legibility on SteamDeck.
Tooltips and input glyphs now correctly identify SteamDeck, gamepad, or mouse and keyboard.
New faction standings app in PDA.
Improvements to lighting, progress bars, and TV text.
Several typo, grammar, and other copyediting fixes.
Cycling between crew will now prefer crew on same ship vs. other ships, and awake crew vs. unconscious.
Players can now switch the physiological stat bars to emotional ones to see their character's mood status.
Damaged items now have a custom icon next to their name near the cursor.
Steam Cloud saves are now supported.
Save on Close now added to options menu.
BCRS, BCER, JATL, and JPTN now have full station maps with transit levels.
BCER and BCRS stations now offer visas and residence units for sale.
There should be fewer limbless NPC spawns now, which were causing social moves littering the floor.
Several nullref and index out-of-range errors fixed.
The PASS ferry service now has long range routes to other planets.
Loose 1x4 racks can now be placed like regular items.
It should now be possible to install/uninstall Caylon walls like other walls.
Wearing a space suit while standing over a superheated corpse should no longer intsta-kill you.
Space stations should now restore breathable atmosphere when player is away.
Planetary background scenes should no longer wrap at the edges.
New Plot Content: A strange artifact found on a derelict will take the player across the System in search of answers.
What is 79AU?
NPCs are now more selective whom they talk to, and for how long.
Items are now "pristine" if they've never been Damaged, which boosts their value and resistance to wear & tear over time.
Ammo and other items in stacks within containers are now exhausted one stack at a time, instead of a little from each.
Basic controls page updated to new controls and UI.
In-game manual now includes full-screen zoom option for each page.
Characters renamed during creation no longer have their faction changes ignored.
New fireproof blast doors are now available.
Left clicking a tile should no longer select the topmost item twice before drilling down.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the beta! As always, your feedback and testing helps make each release better.
And with that, dive in and have fun! Meet fellow spacers and chat about this update on the Blue Bottle Games Discord. If you have any bugs to report, feel free to do so on Discord or here on the Steam forums.
We hope you enjoy Fire in the Hold, and we’re looking forward to hearing the stories you create!
- Dan, the BBG team, and Kitfox