NOTE: All saves will be reset in ISN 0.08.0 per prior information on the Discord and devnotes on the Phoenix Aura website.
So, work on Idle Space Navy 0.08.0 is continuing apace – or was, until out of the blue, I ended up with the coronavirus! Annoyingly, I tested negative on the three days I actually had symptoms, and then tested positive on a test at work after I felt better. Despite being otherwise symptom free now, the one thing I’ve had to deal with over the past few days is fatigue – and a work from home schedule, which I’m also not used to.
I’ve been taking a look at what’s left in 0.08.0 to develop, and while a lot of good progress has been made up to now, there’s still quite a bit of work to do – and given the amount of feature improvements, bug fixes and the like that people are counting on to keep or make ISN enjoyable, I can’t justify delaying the release of ISN 0.08.0 much further beyond my mid-late October target. As such, I’ve decided I’m going to set a hard release target for ISN 0.08.0 of Monday, 23 October 2023 – and any features I don’t have complete and at least roughly play-tested by the night before will not be included in the release. So, here’s the look at what may be on the chopping block.
The Neutronium/Daily Rewards rework. This is almost certainly going to be the first thing that gets cut if time doesn’t allow me to finish everything I had planned in 0.08.0. It’s a much larger rework than I originally planned, particularly when it comes to being able to purchase Neutron Stars (and therefore Neutronium) on Steam. If it doesn’t happen in 0.08.0, that feature will be added to 0.09’s feature list.
Sector bosses. The core game loop is well-balanced right now, and while Sector Bosses would add an additional element of variety, if time becomes a factor, Sector Bosses can be postponed to 0.09 without taking much away from 0.08.
New ships. It should be entirely possible to reach the Artifact System with the ships existing in game. While it’d be valuable to include, if time becomes a factor, the bug fixes and new UI and other features are much more important to get out in a timely fashion.
New weapons. While laser-type weapons are easy to add (they’re fast-firing, lower-damage weapons with top projectile speed) as are the upgraded Kinetic weapons for the Terran portion of the Artifact system, they’re also not as much of a priority as the last two items on this list.
Art rework. While I am definitely wanting to get beyond the very simple and rather tacky-looking Paint.NET star shape for the enemies, I’m not entirely confident in my art style for the friendly ships yet, either. I’m considering making some better-designed symbols (the idea of ISN’s map was that you were looking at a map on a console) or commissioning some actual art/symbol designs for ISN, but I’m still up in the air. I may put something temporary out that’s at least better than the star shape for enemies, but that would be about the only art change made in 0.08.0 – less if I run out of time.
Cloud saves. This is the least likely feature to be dropped from the 0.08.0 release, as it’s actually turning out to be relatively easy for me to be able to implement without changing the code of the game. I just need to make sure I’m setting the save file locations correctly for both Windows and Mac (and eventually Linux, which should have
a dedicated release within the week after 0.08.0’s general release).
There will be more about what’s coming in 0.08.0 as we get closer to the release date, and even though some or all of these things may be trimmed in the 0.08.0 release, there’s still a lot to look forward to on 23 October – and these features aren’t going away permanently, just being moved back a version or two! Stay tuned!
