For the release of v2.0 a new trailer has been created, illustrating a lot of the current features in the game. All footage in the trailer is assembled from actual gameplay and will be used as promotional material for submission to Steam Greenlight in the near future. Watch the new trailer below:

In this version, the water simulation has been reworked with a better algorithm and the simulation is now localized around the player position. This has increased the speed of the water simulation more than a factor of 10, and is now running close to real-time. Also, the bug with water disappearing over time has been fixed. Additionally, the rain implementation has been improved and the rain intensity is now changing over time, illustrated visually as a particle effect.

Some other visual changes include a lot of improved world textures, along with new models for the workbench, trading post and stone cutter. There is one new object, the plasma generator, which along with the solar panel generates thrust for spaceships. Objects providing thrust is now necessary on spaceships to allow them to move. As of this version, the collision shape and mass of the spaceship is calculated in real-time. The mounting of spaceships has also been improved.

 

Introduced in this version is also support for scripting objectives for scenarios, as well as rewards, such as enabling the construction of additional objects. As a demonstration of this, two sample scripted scenarios are included. One of these is a simple tutorial, where objects are unlocked after achieving specific goals. The other scenario is named Armageddon, in which players are given a limited time to construct defenses to survive a meteor swarm. A settlement is randomly generated from the buildings in the player database and the goal is to save as much as possible of the cultural value of the settlement.

As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below.

• Particle universe plugin implemented
• A lot of new and improved particle effects
• OgreAl replaced by OgreOggSound
• 3D positional sound is now functional
• A lot of new sound effects
• Scriptable objectives in scenarios
• New water simulation algorithm
• Local water simulation
• New object: Plasma generator
• New materials: Carpet Type III, Spaceship plating, Paving stone
• Objects increasing the thrust of spaceships may now be constructed
• Two sample scenarios with objectives: Tutorial and Armageddon
• Explosions are now affecting objects

Changes:

• Increased water simulation speed
• New textures: Graphene plating, Grass, Low grass, Sand, Stone bricks, Power distribution grid
• New models: Stone cutter, Workbench
• Spaceship collision shape and mass is now corrected and updated in real time
• Rain is now visible as a particle effect
• The lifetime of resource balls may now be restricted

Bug fixes:

• Fixed water disappearing over time
• Improved mounting of spaceships
• Fixed Antman taunt animation crash

A blueprint saving system is now in place, which allows building and spaceship designs to be saved using a simple in-game interface. Saved blueprints may be used to replicate objects for later use and may easily be shared with other players online. Also, database buildings may be used to populate random planets in scenario generator scripts.

New features:

• New main menu screen with planet preview
• Blueprint saving system
• Smart crosshairs
• Pregenerated quick loading scenarios
• New objects: Captains chair, Control panel, Deep space sensor
• Updated models: Photosynthesizer, Sawmill, Advanced materials maker, Mine cart
• Player settings are now saved
• HDD caching of inactive planets
• Culture system
• Trees reimplemented as individual objects
• Trees are now functional on spherical planets

Changes:

• Updated GUI design
• Improved LOD materials
• Material deposition times may now be set by scripting
• NPCs are now prevented from falling over
• Slightly faster digging rates
• Carrying/Activating/Selling may now be set on an individual objects
• New font supporting international characters
• Setting to enable/disable NPCs
• Changed to compressed .dds textures for most objects

Bug fixes:

• Fixed material deposition bug
• Fixed placement of objects on spherical planets
• Fixed NPC movement on spherical planets
• Game will no longer crash when a carried object is destroyed
• Improved spaceship mounting
• Fixed resource balls from sub voxel entities

On the earth-like planets, there are also familiar animal species, such as sheep, cows and pigs. Some of them may be used for production of different goods. For example, the wool of sheep may be used to produce carpets at the loom:

This version also includes a complete overhaul of the textures in the game. A lot of new materials have been added and others have been updated with higher quality textures. An overview of all material currently in the game is shown below:

Some of the objects in the game has also been updated with new and better models. Among them are the container, anvil and lamp post. Also, a 3D preview has been added to the construction screen and an object placement marker has been added:

Additionally, it is now possible to construct complete buildings and spaceships from a database of saved presets. This allows for rapid replication of existing constructions and allow players to share creations with each other. This will also allow for the population of planets with random buildings and space with player-created ships, as soon as the database is of a substantial size.

Finally, a LOD system has been implemented for the planets and the view distance may now be limited, which allows for much larger planet sizes. As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below.

Download the free version here:

To upgrade to the full version, download and install this unlocker. Please note that you need to apply this unlocker even if you have unlocked a previous version, as the unlockers are version specific.

New features:

• Loading of spaceships and buildings presets from database
• 3D preview added in construction menu
• New editor mode with free placement of blocks and objects
• New land mobs: Golem, Babya, Dragonbug, Small goblin, Goblin and Snake
• New flying mobs: Batdragon and Watcher
• New animals: Cow, Pig, Sheep, Snow wolf
• New object: Loom for fabricating carpets from wool
• New materials: Carpet1, Carpet2, Dry grass, Large wood boards, Sandstone bricks, Roof tiles, Wood roof tiles
• New resources: Wool, bacon and milk
• Settings for fog and view distance added
• LOD levels for planets implemented
• Settings for mouse sensitivity and invert mouse added
• Support for asymmetrical planet sizes
• Object placement marker

Changes:

• Updated textures for crystal, dirt, grass, glass, ice, indestructium, leaves, snow, steel, stone, stone bricks, wood and wood boards
• New models for anvil, container and lamppost
• Standard planet radius is now twice as large (8x4x8 instead of 4x4x4)
• Added 3x3x1 block placement mode for quick wall construction
• Multimachine split into stone cutter and sawmill

Bug fixes:

• Fixed memory leak in volume loading
• Cubic planet surface extraction is now working again
• Fixed a bug causing the player to fall through the spaceship floor in space

Additionally, the resolution of the world has been lowered, which increases the size of the planets. Instead, a high resolution is limited to buildings on construction platforms, as well as spaceships. It is also possible to set the surface extraction method individually for planets, buildings and spaceships, which allows for e.g. a smooth planet terrain with cubic buildings.

Four new mobs have been added. This includes friendly tortoises and two bird species, as well as one hostile alien species.

A lot of 3d models have been replaced with higher quality models. This includes new models for the bed, botanic assembler, furnace, workbench and the trading post.

The pumping system is now functional. Pumps may be used to transport water from one place to another using pipelines. Water is pumped from all open ends of the pipeline to the pump. Several pumps may be connected in parallel to increase the pumping capacity.

Finally, the spherical “resource balls” have been replaced with 3d models more closely resembling rocks.

To upgrade to the full version, download and install this unlocker. Please note that you need to apply this unlocker even if you have unlocked a previous version, as the unlockers are version specific.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SAVED GAMES:

This version partly critically breaks compatibility with save games from older versions. This is due to changes to the world scale and resolution. Old save games will still be possible to load, but the world scale will be wrong and both texture tiling problems and crashes may occur. It is very highly recommended that you start a new game in Masterspace v1.7. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below:

New features:

• New building system with seamless construction platforms
• Support for different resolutions and surface extractors for buildings, terrain and spaceships
• Support for animated objects and NPCs
• Non-spherical resource balls
• 4 new mobs: Tortoises, Antmen and 2 bird species
• Water pumps are now functional (only single player for now)
• New objects: Seat, power station (no function yet)

Changes:

• Resolution is now 75% for planets and 150% for buildings and spaceships
• Voxel region size changed from 40 to 48
• New model for bed, botanic assembler, furnace, workbench and trading post
• Maximum inventory size is now 1000
• Removed tutorial mission due to wrong world scale

Bug fixes:

• Fixed crash in random number generator

Other:

• Spherical planet generation reimplemented in script

A bunch of new objects and materials have also been added. Plants are now growing on the planets and it is possible to fabricate new plants in the “botanic assembler”. There are five different types of plants. Also, support for transparent materials have been added and it is now possible to fabricate glass from sand in the furnace.

The inventory system has been revised and is now limited to 8 slots, each capable of holding up to a maximum of 200 items. These limits may be customized for the scenario by scripting. This introduces the need for more storage containers, as well as introducing logistic problems. To solve storage problems early in the game, a new storage container, the urn, has been added. Urns are constructed from dirt and have 2 storage slots.

The scenario scripting has been greatly improved by the reimplementation of the planet generation functions in LUA script. This means that customized, random planets may be generated specifically for each scenario. A testing ground scenario has been added, demonstrating work-in-progress features, such as meteorites and rain. Also, multiplayer games have been simplified by automatic transfer of save games and scenarios.

Finally, the demo limitations have been changed and, as of this version, both saving and loading of save games and scenarios is enabled in the free version. Instead a demo reminder popup has been added, appearing every 5 minutes.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SAVED GAMES:

This version partly breaks compatibility with save games from older versions. This will (hopefully) not cause any crashes, but constructed items may disappear. Primarily, steel forges and stone cutters will not appear, as they have been renamed to furnaces and multimachines, respectively.

This may be solved by editing the save game file and manually replacing the old names with the new ones. Also, problems may arise from the introduced limitations in the inventory system, and any number of items above 200 in a slot will be removed.

As usual, some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below:

New features:

• New inventory and interface graphics
• Improved production screen
• Support for assignment of particle systems for idle, production, damaged and destruction
• Support for collision-less custom voxel types
• Five different bush types
• Planet generation reimplemented in script
• Support for custom planet generators for scenarios
• Automatic transfer of scenarios and save games in multiplayer
• Transparent materials
• New material: Glass, transparent material, made from sand
• New object: Botanic assembler, produces plants
• New object: Urn, 2 storage slots
• Meteorites
• Support for limited inventory size set by scenario
• Random planet name generator
• New bomb model

Bug fixes:

• Fixed water rendering crash
• Fixed placement of objects on spaceships and space stations
• Fixed crash when loading construction platforms on spaceships

Other:

• Loading saved games and scenarios is now enabled in the free version
• Demo reminder popup every 5 minutes added to the free version
• Improved liquid algorithm
• Reduced size of medium sized resource balls from 25 to 10
• Construction menu may now be opened with “B”
• Standard inventory is now 8 slots of 200 capacity each
• Reduced number of inventory slots in containers
• Setting to change port added
• New descriptions for most objects
• Objects are now slightly less expensive

As it is very difficult to construct buildings on a spherical planet by placing cubes, the concept of contruction platforms is introduced. Placement of construction platforms allows buildings that are not aligned to the cubic grid. They are essentially voxel volumes, that are placed inside another voxel volume. This makes it easy to construct rotated buildings, which is crucial to be able to build in any angle on spherical planets. Of course this will also be useful in constructing rotated buildings on planar planets, as illustrated in this screenshot.

Another new feature is the possibility to use custom voxel meshes, which allows for construction of e.g. pipelines. Pipes are constructed in the steel forge and may be placed like any other material. The plan is for pipelines to be able to pump liquids from one place to another, although this has not been implemented yet.

To upgrade to the full version (for paying customers), please download and run this unlocker (requires login). Please note that the unlocker is version specific and you need to run this after the v1.5 installation, regardless if you have installed another version of the unlocker previously.

As usual, a some bugs and crashes have also been fixed. For a complete changelog, please see below:

New features:

• Spherical planets
• Support for voxel subvolumes
• Support for custom voxel types
• Construction sites
• Pipelines

Bug fixes:

• Fixed some crash bugs related to digging and world generation

Other:

• New font for the interface

Download the version 1.41 patch for the free version here (requires that v1.4 is already installed)

The patch for the full version may be downloaded here (requires login)

This version also includes generated trees on the planets, which may be harvested to fabricate wood boards. Consequently, the functionality of the photosynthesizer has been reworked to be able to fabricate any organic matter, including grass, wood and leaves. New objects also include defensive turrets, trading posts and electronic components.

On the multiplayer side, it is now possible to assign teams to players and objects. This means that competitive play is now possible, with opposing teams starting on different planets, having ownership of their own constructed objects. Teams are also considered by the AI of e.g. the turrets, when deciding what to target. There are also hostile turrets occupying neutral planets, so prepare to meet some resistance when expanding your sphere of influence. A hint is to mount turrets on your spaceship before exploring the universe.

Please note that the unlocker is version specific and you need to run this after the v1.4 installation, regardless if you have installed another version of the unlocker previously.

Additionally, two new music pices are included and a a marker for deposition of materials has been implemented, which makes it easier to place blocks correctly. As usual, a lot of bugs and crashes has been fixed and the performance has been improved. For a complete changelog, please see below:

New features:

• Liquid simulation
• Trees and forest generator
• Terrain modification marker
• Support for teams
• Player damage by weapons
• Automated turrets
• Two new music pieces
• Improved death and respawn system
• New objects, materials and goods

Bug fixes:

• Lots of bug fixes and performance improvements

Other:

• Star system generation implemented by scripting
• Included Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package in the installer