Hello, Bastards!
Throughout Early Access, Ore Bastards will not only receive updates that improve and balance its existing systems. We also plan to add much larger systems that will gradually connect the game’s core mining, exploration, combat, and economic mechanics.
Our long-term goal is quite clear:
We want the journey that begins with the player piloting a small mining ship to eventually reach a point where they can build their own industrial and economic space empire.
The systems below represent some of the main development areas we are planning for Ore Bastards.
This is a development vision rather than a fixed schedule. The order, scope, and some design details of these features may change during development and in response to player feedback.
We are planning a fairly extensive Skill Tree system for Ore Bastards.
Our target is to add approximately 200 different skills to the game.
We do not want these skills to consist only of simple percentage-based stat increases. They will directly affect many of the systems already present in the game, including mining, combat, navigation, turrets, shields, cruise, exploration, trading, and ship management.
The goal is to allow players to gradually create distinctly different builds.
One player may develop into an extremely efficient industrial miner, while another may specialize in fast exploration and navigation. Someone else may turn a heavily armed mining ship into something that is almost a warship.
The Skill Tree will become one of the main progression systems in the later stages of the game, especially when it comes to specialization, build creation, and strategic planning.
Ore will not be the only thing hidden in space.
Some extremely rare asteroids will contain Artifacts.
Artifacts will provide different abilities and stat modifications to the player. Thanks to procedural generation, each artifact may contain a different combination of properties.
This means that the game world can theoretically contain a very large — and from a procedural point of view, nearly unlimited — number of different artifacts.
But finding them will not be easy.
Some missions may reward players with treasure maps or navigation data that point toward hidden locations.
Data recovered after raiding a pirate base may reveal the coordinates of unusual asteroid formations in a distant region.
Other artifacts may only be discovered by investigating strange signals or unusual asteroids encountered during exploration.
We want artifact hunting to become an important part of Ore Bastards' long-term exploration and loot loop.
The first step toward building a mining empire is creating your own production infrastructure.
Mining Camps will allow players to begin automated mining operations.
After discovering suitable resource-rich areas, players will be able to establish small facilities that automatically extract resources from those locations.
However, valuable resource regions will also attract pirates and other hostile forces.
Because of this, establishing a Mining Camp will not simply mean placing a few production structures.
Players will need to:
secure the area,
build defensive systems,
prevent or survive enemy attacks,
and personally defend the facility when necessary.
Finding a rich deposit is one thing. Keeping it is another.
The universe of Ore Bastards will gradually become a much more political place.
Different factions will control or influence different sectors and regions.
The player's relationship with these factions may affect:
trading conditions,
available missions,
access to certain regions,
security,
access to special equipment,
and the ability to establish future facilities.
Building a strong relationship with one faction may also have consequences for your relationship with another.
This means the player will no longer simply be an independent miner fighting pirates, but an active participant trying to protect their own economic and political interests in a universe shared by competing powers.
One of the largest long-term progression systems planned for Ore Bastards is Player Space Stations.
Players will eventually be able to continue their economic expansion by constructing their own space stations.
However, having enough credits will not be enough to build one.
Players will also need to:
unlock the required skills,
obtain rare resources,
reach sufficient economic strength,
and establish the necessary relationships with factions in the area.
Once a station has been constructed, an entirely new management layer will begin.
Player-owned stations may eventually be able to:
operate mining activities,
trade ore and materials,
repair ships,
manufacture spacecraft,
provide logistical services,
improve regional security,
operate defensive systems,
and generate income from economic activity in the surrounding area.
Trade activity and ship traffic passing through regions made safer by the player may also generate small amounts of income for the station.
Managing all of this will become a complex process with its own economic balance, requirements, defenses, and expansion decisions.
For players who want to build a true mining empire, Player Space Stations will become one of the most important long-term systems in the game.
In some of the more remote frontier regions, players will encounter areas where factions are actively at war.
These locations may contain:
massive military stations,
battle fleets,
security checkpoints,
and ongoing large-scale conflicts.
Players may participate directly in these wars, but they will also be able to contribute through logistics and industrial support.
For example, a faction may offer missions requesting supplies such as:
ore,
weapons,
turrets,
ammunition,
repair materials,
industrial resources.
This means war zones will provide opportunities not only for combat-focused players, but also for those specializing in mining and trade.
Drone Hangars will be added to the ship's internal systems.
Different classes of drones will perform different roles.
Some of the planned drone types include:
Mining Drones
Combat / Defense Drones
Repair Drones
However, not every ship will be able to operate the same number of drones or use them with the same efficiency.
Drone capacity and effectiveness will depend on:
ship class,
installed internal equipment,
and player skills.
This will make it possible to create ship builds that specialize heavily in drone usage.
We are planning to significantly expand enemy variety in Ore Bastards.
Players will encounter enemies that differ not only in weapons and statistics, but also in behavior.
For example, some pirate fleets may disguise themselves as ordinary miners.
They may approach.
They may appear to be mining.
And once they get close enough, their real intentions may become clear.
As the faction system develops, whether a ship is friendly or hostile will not always be fixed either.
If your relationship with a faction deteriorates, their:
patrol ships,
military fleets,
and stations
may also become threats.
Our goal is for combat encounters to become much more varied than simply having a few random pirate ships appear nearby.
Not every miner needs to be a combat pilot.
Players with sufficient economic resources will be able to hire Mercenary groups for temporary protection services.
These groups may become particularly useful when:
transporting valuable cargo,
entering high-risk regions,
conducting major mining operations,
protecting Mining Camps or other facilities.
High-quality protection will not be cheap.
This creates another economic decision for the player:
Do you accept the risk yourself, or invest in security?
This system has not yet been finalized.
One concept we are currently evaluating is allowing players, at certain progression milestones or under specific conditions, to choose one perk from three different options.
Similar to the fast-choice systems seen in survivor-style games, these perks could provide short- or medium-term additions to the player's current build.
However, because Ore Bastards will already contain long-term progression systems such as the Skill Tree, equipment, crew, and Artifacts, we want to carefully evaluate how a Perk system would interact with them.
We do not want to add a system simply because it works well in other games.
If it makes Ore Bastards deeper and more enjoyable, we will use it.
If it only adds another unnecessary progression layer, we will not.
Player feedback will be especially valuable here.
Would you like to see this kind of Perk system in Ore Bastards?
Or would you prefer progression to remain focused on the Skill Tree, equipment, crew, Artifacts, and ship upgrades?
These systems will not all arrive in a single update.
During Early Access, new systems will be developed gradually, tested, and improved based on player feedback.
Some features may be completed before others.
The scope of certain systems may change during development.
And naturally, new ideas that are not currently part of this roadmap may also emerge along the way.
However, our long-term progression vision for Ore Bastards is very clear:
Mining → Exploration → Specialization → Industry → Territory → Empire
We want a journey that begins with a small ship breaking asteroids to eventually reach a point where the player can manage:
their own operations,
mining facilities,
fleets,
trade relationships,
faction connections,
space stations,
and their own economic territory.
Our long-term goal is for Ore Bastards to grow from a space game where you mine asteroids into a space sandbox where you can build your own mining empire.
And this roadmap is only the beginning.