March is over and we’re continuing our mission to opening the game registration for everyone soon (a precise date will be announced once we know it). Two major features were added to Tau Station recently. Read on for more details about how the game improved last month and what is planned for April.
About status reports
The status reports contain major aspects of the work done on Tau Station during the according month. As we’ve started to provide changelogs for every game update, you can find way more details, including also all smaller changes, in these dedicated posts. Links to all updates/changelogs that happened this month are listed up at the bottom of this article.
The structure of our status reports has been changed from a technical view to more of a focus on what you as a player experience. This way we avoid duplication, especially as many features are a combination of several teams’ work (e.g. forum features are a result of back-end, front-end, and UI team efforts, often based on Community team requests).
New Features
- Clone updates – Level-ups lead to an auto-update of your “default clone.”
- Game Start – Character creation & tutorial implemented for new players.
- Items – Individual item pages have been styled (example).
- Public Market – You can now trade items with other survivors.
- Ruins – The first part of PvE (player to NPC encounters) has been implemented.
- Shipyards – You can enter this area now (ship acquisition comes soon).
New Missions
- 1 new Mission in the Sol System:
- “Ruins to Riches” (level 1), beginner tutorial on Tau Station.
- 4 new Missions in the Alpha Centauri system:
- “Beyond the Seal” (level 7, has preconditions) on Moissan Station.
- “Namesake” (level 8) on Ghost of Mali.
- “The Chemist” (level 7) on Alpha Centauri Jump Gate.
- “The Warning” (level 10, has preconditions) on Bordeaux.
Changes in Missions & System
- Engine – Event support improved.
- Feedback – Better support of your decisions
(e.g. warning when cancelling a mission that cannot be retaken). - Resuming – Returning to a mission is easier now; most recent actions are shown.
- Rewards – Several rewards have been increased and additional ones, such as items, have been added here and there, depending on the path you choose.
- Text – Several grammatical improvements made; typos eliminated (thanks for your input!).
Communication
- Counters – Forums now indicate total posts and new posts since your last activity.
- Pinning – Admins can now pin important topics to the top of the forums.
- Read Only – Closed topics are now indicated by an icon (e.g. announcements).
- Sorting – Latest posts are now shown on top; easier to spot active topics.
Various Improvements & Changes
- Balancing – Several balancing changes (reduced bond prices, but also reduced item drop rate in the Ruins to add value to the new public market and the prices you can ask for).
- Launch – Various preparations for live launch (soon), e.g. landing page & infrastructure.
- Many detail improvements and fixes, based on your feedback. Thank you!
Planned for April 2018
- Grand Opening – Opening the game for everyone (planned).
- Sewers – New challenging PvE campaigns.
- Ships – Preparing everything that you can own private ships soon.
- Stats – Showing “time to refill” countdowns on your stats.
- Items – Adding new items (and according pictures) to the game.
- Rewards – New UI that shows all your rewards at the end of missions.
- Narrative – As usual, we will add new missions.
- Respawn – A solution for you to pick up your gear later in case of death.
- Market – Implementing special Vendor logos.
- Duration – Showing the duration of benefits like the personal trainer before you take it.
- Notifications – Optional browser notifications if mentioned in chat.
Changelogs
You can find a short detailed summary of every single update in the according changelog, which we have been publishing on an a regular basis since we started the Closed Alpha Test. Here are all changelogs of March 2018: