Status Report: November 2018

November consisted of 4 weekly game updates. 7 new missions are extending the story, avatars made it to game, coming with a lot of UI changes and improvements such as seeing your opponent in combat now and new public profile pages. The Ruins got extended by 3 sub-areas, new credit logs help you to check recent balance changes and the CORETECHS sections got cleaned up. Furthermore, careers have been improved, also following requests to show the progress (XP). Read on to see even more details about what happened last month, plus the list of supported browsers.

7 New Missions in Barnard’s Star System

  • ‘A Minor Offense’ (level 12) on The Maid of Orléans.
  • ‘Honor Among Thieves’ (level 13) on The Maid of Orléans.
  • ‘Journey’s End’ (level 13) on Estación de Amazon (officially in).
  • ‘Ladybug and the Tramp’ (level 13) on Caen Stronghold.
  • ‘Riches to Rag-Tag’ (level 14) on Caen Stronghold.
  • ‘Send in the Clones’ (level 13) on Caen Stronghold.
  • ‘Stormbringer’ (level 13) on Estación de Amazon.

Avatars

The implementation of avatars in November started with a sneak peek, the first part of the new feature was implemented on 14th, followed by refinements on  while on the 22nd and additional UI usage of avatars on 30th. In some future updates and features, the usage will get extended further.

  • Selection – You’re now able to select how you look in your preferences.
  • Display – The information panel now shows your alter ego.
  • Profiles – Public profile pages have a new layout, showing the citizen’s (and later also NPC’s) avatar.
  • UI changes – The avatars are shown in various places of the game. Your opponent is shown in combat, internal member and application lists of syndicates also expose the pictures.

New Features & Important Changes

  • Areas (Ruins) – To better deal with new features and upcoming ones, we added new sub-areas to the Ruins, similar to the Inn or Market: ‘The Wrecks’, ‘Syndicate Districts’ (opening soon), and ‘The Wilds’.
  • Info Panel (Credit Logs) – Two short logs for quick checks have been added, listing the 5 most recent changes and non abbreviated balances.
  • PvP (Temp. Protection) – While doing a mission, side-job or discreet work, other citizens cannot attack you for a certain amount of time.
  • Stim Usage (Tiers) – You can no longer take stims of a higher tier than your own; thanks for bringing this topic up!
  • Syndicate (Foundation) – The minimum level required to start a syndicate has been reduced from level 16 to level 14.

Career Changes

  • Days in Rank – The proper duration is displayed even after a demotion.
  • Demotion – A major change avoids an unintended punishment. If you get demoted by failing tasks, you just need to catch-up on lost XP to immediately level back up again without further waiting.
  • Difficulty – The task difficulty is shown to citizens of all levels.
  • Illegality – The Trader career task ‘run the store for a day’ is no longer illegal.
  • Progress – The career experience progress (%) has been added to your character page.

Improvements & Changes

  • CORETECHS (Compact) – The list has been cleaned up. Shop and email have been removed as they can be accessed via icons. Rules can now be found in the footer, next to Acknowledgements.
  • People Tab (Visibility) – Everyone is now “visible” in the people tab of an area for 10 days instead of 1, unless you’re in the Sick Bay.
  • UI (Icons) – The icon bar for mails, events, etc. moved right next to your new avatar.
  • UI (Credits) – Balances of wallet and bank are displayed in one row and big numbers > 999.99 are now abbreviated. The precise amount is displayed in the new credit logs and at your character summary page.
  • UI (Preferences) – Updated layout including the option to select/change avatar.
  • UI (Toxins) – The display has been moved to the stats.

List of Supported Browsers

We reviewed the use of browser and therefore share a list of the browsers, supported by Tau Station. Please keep your’s updated, because our focus is on developing for the most recent versions:

  • Google Chrome (desktop & mobile)
  • Apple Safari  (desktop & mobile)
  • Mozilla Firefox (desktop)
  • Microsoft Edge (desktop)

Some Update Impressions

One aspect of many improvements for careers is the display of your progress to the next rank: Career Experience is now shown
The new sub-areas of the Ruins
The reworked information panel, showing your avatar, new icon bar position, a more compact view. plus the new credit logs.
Syndicate buildings are work in progress, but we can share a first W.I.P. status about how buildings might look.
A white woman with a petite nose and chin-length brown hair. She has striking pale yellow eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose. She wears a navy blue top with a v-neck and sleeves to her elbows.
One of the female avatars.
A well-muscled man with a dirty grey t-shirt and what appears to be engine oil splashed up his arms. He has short, curly black hair and high, well-defined cheekbones. The man has thin lips and pale brown eyes.
One of the male avatars

Changelogs

You can find a short, precise summary of every single update in the corresponding changelog, which we publish since we started the Closed Alpha Test. Here are all of the update details for November 2018:

About status reports

The status reports contain major aspects of the work done on Tau Station each month. As we’ve started to provide changelogs for every game update, you can find way more details, including all smaller changes, in these dedicated posts. Links to all updates/changelogs that happened this month are listed above.