Hello! It's me again! Been a while, I know. Thought I'd write up a little update on what I've been up to.
As you can read in the title, Untethered Pre-alpha 11 is complete. This is a major development milestone, which marks the final major pre-alpha update. So, let’s talk about what I did in that time.
The tech tree now has tiers, which restricts things a little more and gives me some more control over the broader pacing of the game. In the early game, you progress through these tiers with clearance levels, which forces you to explore. And as you transition to the later game, you’ll have to complete freight contracts, which require you to load various bulk commodities onto freighters and ship them off.
The whole “freight contract” system was something that I had planned for a very long time to exist much later in the game in a slightly different form that I would introduce in Early Access, but for various reasons I’ve decided to try bringing it much earlier.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but I’ve made some big steps towards completing some environments. Things are looking better, but there are still a few places that need to be redone. I also made a little video showing off some of these new environments, so give it a watch if you're intrigued!
To fix some progression issues, I've added the ability to dock to certain wrecks, and extract the fuel stored in them.
Asteroids have received another major upgrade, with improvements to procedural generation, terraforming, surface shaders, and performance. However, there are still several known issues (largely related to performance) that will be addressed in the coming months. Once I've resolved these major performance issues, I'll be able to add some larger asteroids into the game.
Also, the way you find asteroids has been changed. The Radar Module added in pre-alpha 10 has since been cut, and asteroid orbits are now sourced from data files you can find in wreckage.
The game has of course seen many, many other small improvements, including various new models, performance improvements, refactoring, bug fixes, UI/UX improvements, and some major rebalancing.
We also celebrated the completion of the third year of development on Untethered in October, with a picnic in the park.
While I wasn't exhibiting this year, I decided to make an Untethered themed costume to walk around the Expo Hall in. Had a great time catching up with the Australian game devs, with a whole bunch of new and old faces!
Up until this point, I've been in the pre-alpha phase of development. My process has been to complete big development cycles, where I conduct a playtest, take a bunch of notes, then tear apart and rebuild many of the game's systems over the course of several months. This approach allows me to take an experimental approach to development and lets me explore some of the other paths I can take to "find" Untethered.
My notes for pre-alpha 10 were 5 pages long. For pre-alpha 11? Just over a single page.
I'm taking this as a sign that I've found the game. Or at least I'm in the ballpark. So, the next milestone will be alpha.
Alpha is the next step for Untethered. To get there, I'm going to need to conduct one more "teardown" cycle, during which I need to fix some major technical issues regarding modules, which may require a complete rewrite of module construction.
I'll also implement a few other final touches that require system overhauls:
Shared module inventories and crafting from storage
Solar array rebalancing
Death system overhaul
Thermal control system upgrade
Docking system improvements and station collisions
Suit upgrades interface overhaul
Minor health & farming expansion
At some point along this journey, I’ll do a couple more one on one tests to check things, and once I feel comfortable that someone could safely play through the entirety of Untethered without softlocking themselves, we can go to alpha.
Once in alpha, there will be no more tearing things apart, unless it's absolutely necessary. My goal will be to solidify the foundation from which I can launch into Early Access. This means bug fixes, readability fixes, localisation, and gathering loads of data on the pacing of the whole experience.
See the roadmap for how this all sits in my release timeline.
And finally, I feel like I disappear for too long between updates, so I plan to make monthly Steam devlog posts from now on just to take the opportunity to show off what I’ve been working on that month. They won't be as in-depth as this one of course, but it's probably a good idea to send out a regular pulse so you know I haven't given up!
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As always, thank you so much for all your support as I chip away at this enormous project. I read all your words of encouragement and feedback in the reviews, the Steam community, YouTube comments, and the Discord server. It means a lot, and I particularly appreciate your patience.
Thanks for reading,
Luna <3