10-44 Star Truckers! By the time you’re reading this the latest update should be available to download! I’d like to start this post by saying a massive thank you to the community for their patience on this one as it’s been in development for quite some time. If you want to see the full list of changes please read the recent patch notes: 
For the usual ramblings, read onwards where I’ll recap the contents of this update and talk about some new, unannounced things…
Job Rewards
After reading community comments and looking through some telemetry it was clear that job rewards were little low. Cash seemed to be a bottleneck early in the game while XP payouts made late game rank-ups a slog. To account for this we’ve increased the base payout of all jobs by +$200, fixed some issues around multi-hop and multi-trailer jobs while significantly boosting XP payouts for those with higher certification tiers unlocked. When combined with some other balance tweaks, this should improve the experience for both new and veteran players alike. Rest assured we’ll continue to monitor these changes and if needed are prepared to take further action in future updates.
Universal Control Circuits
As you progress through the game you’ll also notice that we’ve added a new UCC variant to shops (and the salvage generator). The Heavy Duty UCC has increased hitpoints and robustness. It’s pricier than a standard UCC but installing them will allow your systems to last much, much longer. We also made some adjustments to the standard UCCs to make them a little less fragile as part of our overall balance tweaking.
Damage
This was recently discussed in our previous blog post, so be sure to check that out for more details, but in essence we’ve made some fairly substantial changes to how damage is calculated while also fixing some long standing issues around collisions. Overall collision damage should feel more consistent and fair but as with the reward tweaks we’ll be monitoring how players feel about these changes.
Resting Up
Another feature we recently discussed is the Rest Up mechanic. This allows you to use the cab bunk to skip time forwards and is handy for Just-in-Time jobs (e.g. turning up too early for a delivery). There’s also lots of potential for this feature to be used in future mechanics and roleplaying.
Docked Perks
I’d also like to remind players that we’ve updated stations so that they now provide free oxygen, gravity and power, thus preventing any drain on your truck systems. Docking should now provide the perfect opportunity to replace truck components and perform pre-trip checks before your next haul.
Photo Mode
Also rolling out in this update is a swish new photo mode. It works much the same as the feature in many other games and provides a bunch of options to tinker with in the pursuit of finding the perfect shot. We’ve written a handy Photo Mode Guide that goes into the specifics and includes some handy tips on how to take different types of screenshot. Please check it out if you’re interested. Oh, and be sure to share your best shots with us! We’ll be sharing our favorites in a Community Round-up post alongside some of the other neat things people have been sharing with us.
License Plates
You can read more details about the custom plates feature in this blog post. The ability to equip plates and enter your own label rounds off our exterior customization features for the foreseeable future but we’re looking forward to seeing your trucker handles proudly on show! We’ve also teamed up with some of our Raw Fury friends for a set of exclusive themed plates…
Post Trauma
We met Red Soul Games founder Roberto in 2022 shortly after announcing Star Trucker and had the pleasure of hanging out with him on multiple occasions while we all toiled away towards our respective release dates. If you’re a fan of classic console era horror and freaky vibes be sure to cast your eyes towards the Post Trauma Steam page.
Kingdom
A long running classic. The team at Fury Studios continue to iterate on one of our favourite games in their catalogue. It also led to us attending a talk by Raw Fury co-founder Jonas waaaaay back in 2015 that made us realise they were a publisher we’d be keen to work with… …but I digress! The Kingdom games are great and so is the latest add-on Call of Olympus that's well worth checking out if, like me, you’re a sucker for Greek Mythology themed content.
Dome Keeper
A game that kept us entertained while we were stranded in Germany after our first Gamescom some years back! It has a fantastic gameplay loop and has had some excellent updates since launch. If it snuck past your radar previously we recommend you check it out. We’re also eagerly awaiting Bippinbits new project PVKK - Just look at all those wonderful levers and dials!?
Free Play Mode
We’ve always strived to allow players the ability to customize their game sessions and this update seemed like the perfect time to introduce this feature. Free Play replaces Hardcore on the New Game screen and lets you start with all zones unlocked and truck features enabled. We’ve also disabled tutorials and the convoy missions. This is a great way to revisit the game without the need to play through the narrative to unlock everything. Please keep in mind you will not be able to unlock various convoy and zone achievements in this mode.
New Options
Maybe not as fun as some of the other features but we continue to try and provide players more choices in how they play the game both in terms of difficulty and accessibility.
Game Options
When you accelerate and brake the camera drifts to give a sense of momentum. Some players noted that this made them feel a little nauseous or simply didn’t like this effect. In this update we have introduced new options so that players can adjust the intensity of this feature to their own personal preference. Setting the value to 0% will disable camera drift / momentum completely. Seated Camera Drift
Adjusts how much camera drift is applied when turning / braking in cab view Ext. Camera Drift
Adjusts how much momentum the camera has when using the exterior camera
Control Bindings
We’ve also done a bunch of work around custom control bindings. PC players can now assign shortcuts to pretty much all dashboard features.
Please keep in mind some of these interactions were not designed with shortcuts in mind and could slightly alter how the game plays or looks (e.g. you might see some of our sneaky dev tricks that were previously hidden) but it felt like a small price to pay for greater accessibility and control customization. At the request of a few players we also added a new shortcut binding for recentering the cab camera. This makes it a lot easier to bring back your default driving view.
Quick Look
Although full peripheral support isn’t quite ready for the prime-time we didn’t want to hold back the quick look feature for PC. Once you’ve assigned custom bindings for quick look you can tap this shortcut to switch view OR tap and hold to glance - this means that releasing the shortcut will let the camera return to the default view.
Control Settings
We’ve also rolled out some extra control options that some players might find useful… Auto Recenter Cab View
Enable this and the cab camera will automatically recenter after the chosen amount of time Quick Look Recenter
This allows you to set a specific behavior for the Quick Look feature. By default “Auto” allows both switch view (tap) and glancing (tap and hold). Brake Cutoff
Disabling this option to smoothly transition from brake to reverse without stopping. CB Mic Auto Hold
Enable this and the CB Mic button will be automatically pressed during dialogue responses (if the mic itself is being held) allowing you to respond without holding down multiple buttons or keys.
Custom Game
Following up on giving players more choice in how they play the game, we’ve introduced some new options to the custom game settings screen. Free Play
Enable this to start the game with zones and truck features unlocked Power Consumption Rate
You can now choose “off” to prevent systems draining truck power Consumable Usage Rate
You can now choose “off” to prevent components degrading Shock Shield Efficiency
You can now choose “perfect” to prevent electrical storms from affecting your truck
Record Recon
Before wrapping up we also have a small update for those who ordered the physical soundtrack. Production is officially underway! We’ve also had a sneak peak of the special edition test pressing…
We’re still not sure when production will finish and shipping will start but we’ll let you know as soon as we receive any new information. Oh and a massive thank you to everyone who purchased a limited edition vinyl. We’ve officially sold out! For those who’d still like to grab a copy of the soundtrack on vinyl we still have some regular variants available on the Laced store.
Eyes on the Road
As mentioned at the start of this post, please take a look at the patch notes for a full list of detailed changes as there’s plenty of extra details and a list of fixes. Rollin’ onwards we’re looking to deliver some smaller quality of life updates as we work towards a much larger update for the end of the year. We’ll also be monitoring feedback on the various changes and keeping an eye out for the best screenshots taken with the new Photo Mode. Lastly, and I know we say this a lot, I want to thank all the Star Trucker players out there for their continued support and feedback. You rock and are the reason we get to keep working on this (not so) little indie game ❤️ - Dan & Dave ( aka Monster and Monster )