Space Station Designer - Visuals, gameplay, and QoL update

Dear Station Designers,Back in late March we released Space Station Designer version 0.5.130, which featured dozens of improved gameplay mechanics, QoL additions, bug-fixes, and general improvements. After another three months of work, today we're unveiling Space Station Designer version 00.06.00. This update includes a combination of additions and improvements, including updated visuals, new gameplay mechanics, QoL additions, and bug-fixes. If you're interested in all the details, please take a look at the full release notes here.Also, in case you missed it, Space Station Designer was featured in the Slitherine: Next Checkpoint event back in early May. We talked at length about the game with Slitherine's Business Development Manager Alberto Casulini, including details about the main mechanics, what we're working on, sources of inspiration, and much more. You can still catch the recording here.

Gameplay

In terms of gameplay features, 00.06.00 brings some interesting new additions, including the option to set a difficulty level when starting a new Campaign or Sandbox session. The selected difficulty level impacts multiple areas of the gameplay experience, such as costs, rewards, and penalties. It even affects subtle elements, including the frequency when certain types of random events are shown.When it comes to balancing, we've made the following changes:

• Tweaked the factors that determine the Public Reputation points granted when leasing modules to Private Companies, and added functionality to cap the rewards/penalties so that it's set to (-100, 100). This helps address balancing issues in terms of large rewards and unforgiving penalties.
• Redesigned the formulas (recipes) for manufacturing Commercial Goods and made them more consistent.

We've also added the following rules:

• Casino modules now need to be within a maximum distance from a Space Tourism Quarters module, and Space Tourism Quarters modules need to be within a maximum distance from a Spaceport module. This encourages players to create neighborhoods or 'areas' across the station.
• When stations enter deficit (i.e., inadequate electricity, cooling, or supplies), all astronauts are now automatically unassigned from their tasks, and their 'Maintenance' capability is halved.

Lastly, we've also added a few more random events related to Astronauts and Earth Facilities, and changed the logic behind the 'Cautious' and 'Bold' resupply spacecraft launches so that they more closely mimic the flow of the 'Supervised' launches. This will ensure that you're getting more consistent results.

Visuals

In the Graphics & Visuals department, we've upgraded the Earth's and Moon's shaders, and improved the quality of the space station modules' materials.We've also revisited the lighting of the Earth Facilities scene.

We have even more visual improvements coming down the pipeline, so stay tuned for future updates!

Quality of Life (QoL) improvements

Space Station Designer is becoming larger than we originally envisioned, and this comes with the challenge of ensuring that the user interface is suitable for managing large complexity, including four crewed stations, dozens of active astronauts, a very large Research Tree, and multiple ongoing Contracts.

Some of the QoL improvements in 00.06.00 that will help tame this complexity include:

• A 'Yellow Exclamation Mark' type of indicator in the stats panel located on the left-hand side of the station screen, which draws attention to numbers that are close to becoming unhealthy.
• A new row in the Module Information card featuring the 'Module Indicator' icons affecting it (along with accompanying tooltips). This makes it easier to visualize and identify all the issues that require our attention.
• A visual indicator above the 'Research Tree' button, which shows the progress (as a percentage) of the technology currently under research.
• A new dialog, which can be accessed via the main Station screen, which shows all active modifiers (bonuses) granted by the Earth Facilities, Random Events, and others.
• A mechanism that displays the date when a Contract's Bonus has been accomplished.

Issues fixed

No update is complete without a series of bug-fixes. There were no major bugs affecting the game, but as part of our continuous playtesting we came across, and resolved, a few issues, including:

• Updating the icons template used for interspersing images with text, and added some extra padding, which prevents visual artefacts under certain conditions.
• Implemented a mechanism to prevent players from incorrectly installing the modules that belong to the Lunar Space Elevator Megaproject (e.g., the LASER Power Beaming Module, the Elevator Cabin, the Elevator Service Module, etc).
• Addressing an edge case affecting the 'End of the Month' report dialog, which was causing some Continuous Improvement Programs (CIPs) to be listed more than once.

What we're currently working on

We've already started working on the next update, which will include support for Steam Achievements and additional sound effects. We've also started prototyping a feature that will allow you to build a station in the Free Builder mode, and then turn the session into a Sandbox. We're still ironing out a few details, but it looks very promising so far!

Closing thoughts

We hope you 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 using the following link.For the next update, we'll be focussing on further gameplay additions, new content, and more 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)

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