Status Report: October 2018

October 2018 was one of the most prolific months for our young game. A total of 8 new missions were added, we released our first trailer, cycle 200 was celebrated with gifts and a new mysterious mission. Following a Community suggestion, the Station News feature enriches game play, reporting to everyone what’s going on in our growing universe. The new consumable item ‘Termination Pellet’ allows new strategical re-spawns; your wish is our command. Military Stim packs have been updated with a batch of new 3D artwork, now indicating which stats get boosted. Many improvements have been added to the combat system. Read on to see all details about an exciting month in Tau Station!

Full Reveal Trailer

In October, we published our first game Trailer (see also dedicated blog):

8 New Missions in Barnard’s Star System

  • ‘A Difficult Anniversary’ (level 12) is part of the additional Cycle 200 update (see below). Now we reveal it: it starts on Maid of Orleans.
  • ‘Education’ (level 12) at Estación de Amazon.
  • ‘Enemy of the Gate’ (level 12) at Barnard’s Star Jump Gate.
  • ‘Hero’s Journey’ (level 12) on Estación de Amazon.
  • ‘In the Crossfire’ (level 11) at Hopkins’ Legacy.
  • ‘Keeping the Peace’ (level 10) at Barnard’s Star Jump Gate.
  • ‘The Lion’s Den’ (level 11) at Hopkin’s Legacy.
  • ‘The White Lady’ (level 11) at Hopkin’s Legacy

Cycle 200: Gifts and a new Mission

In order to celebrate 200 cycles of survival, the administration organized something special:

  • 4 Days VIP pack – Everyone active the week prior to cycle 200 received this event gift.
  • New Mission – ‘A Difficult Anniversary’ (level 12) has been unlocked at Cycle 200. The mysterious mission holds a special gift for you at the end, start your special item collection (see impressions). The mission’s availability is not time-limited, it’s here stay, and will also be available for all citizens joining Tau Station after Cycle 200.

On the right side, there is a big 4 Days VIP pack with a label stating "Happy 200 Cycles" A clock shows the Galactic Coordinated Time (GCT) of cycle 200, day 00, segment 00 and unit 000. Beneath the clock, a slogan "Happy New Cycle 200!"

New Features

  • Station News (Gov’t Center) – Following a Community suggestion, you can find daily news on the Gov’t Center page for a number of different stats. The news archive shows the most recent 10 days. More will be added later.
  • Military Stims (artwork) – A batch of new 3D images updates all stims of the military class, now indicating which stats get boosted via color code.
  • New item (consumable) – The “Termination Pellet” has been added to the game, following a prominent Community suggestion. This “suicide pill” triggers respawning, and it’s offered by vendors at Caen Stronghold.

Various Improvements & Changes

  • Combat (various) – A big batch of nearly 10 fixes and improvements has been added. Among other things, you cannot auto-flee into unwanted areas anymore like the Security which might end up in the brig nor can you run into unpublished, upcoming areas anymore like the Syndicate Market.
  • Forums (styles) – An improved layout now better indicates aspects like  links.
  • Navigation (areas) – The sidebar now lists the default names, not the local custom ones.
  • Public Market (selling) – A selection for the amount is now only shown for stacked items.
  • System Travelling (mobile) – Fixed a rare bug where mobile users could sometimes not travel between star systems.
  • Vendors (rations) – Rations can now be sold to NPC vendors for money.

Syndicates

  • Actions (buttons) – Former text links changed into buttons that they stand out.
  • Notes (hints) – There are now hints for min and max characters for several text fields.

Some Update Impressions

A UI snippet of the expanded station news view for day 1 in cycle 200. "Today in the news" shows the following Top 3 topics: Most dangerous stations for citizens, top University courses, most famous Markets, most favored gyms, most visited stations. One arrow is pointing at the upper right, the place where you can minimize the window again. Another arrow at the bottom points at "News archive" which contains the reports for the past 10 days.

A round metal coin, a golden frame and black surface. On top a golden text "celebrate 200" and a big golden "200" is shown in the middle. At the bottom A golden banner on the left side states "Unity", followed by a blue banner with "Togetherness".
Start your collection with the first mission pin.

An epic Military Stim injection device with a handgrip and a needle inside a protective cap. 5 color stripes on the handhold indicate the stats that get (partly) replenished by using the consumable: red stands for agility, yellow for intelligence, purple for social, blue for stamina and green for strength.

A Termination Pellet: A big red skull on the package indicates that it is serious business.

A room with many citizens, armed guards and security cameras. A huge time display shows the GCT time of cycle 199, day 93, segment 03 and unit 337. Below is a banner stating "6 months of Tau Station!", 18 Oct 2018.
In October, we also celebrated 6 months of Tau Station being open for everyone.

Next 3 Major Features

As mentioned in the last October changelog, the team has been working on infrastructure, internal tasks and preparing several new features. As usual, we will add new missions, detail improvements and fixes to the next versions. Bigger content updates might come step by step to reduce the waiting time for you. And these are the next three major upcoming features:

  • Avatars
  • Syndicate Campaigns (coop PvE)
  • Syndicate Buildings

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 October 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.