Before it does, there are three key elements of the game that are going to be overhauled, improved, and expanded upon. I'm going to write about each of them here so that you can get an idea of what to expect on release day.
Energy
Energy is an integral part of the simulation in Space Station Continuum. You need to generate and store electrical energy to run practically everything onboard your station, and you need to get rid of thermal energy to prevent everything (and everyone) from overheating.
Electricity
If you've played the demo, then you should be familiar with the way that electricity is generated using solar panels.
That won't change much before the Early Access release, though different methods for generating electricity will be coming in future updates.
What is changing is the way that electricity is stored. In the demo, battery storage is built into each of the station modules that you launch and attach to your stations. This means that if you need to store more electricity, you need to launch more modules. This is:
- Expensive
- Annoying
- And leads to large stations full of empty modules, added purely for their batteries
This is changing thanks to a new type of interior equipment: Batteries.
Beep Boop
Batteries can be added to your station just like any other interior component and will be launched either as part of a new module, or brought up to be installed by an astronaut during a crew or resupply launch. The capacity, power output, and efficiency of these batteries will be upgradable over time.
Like all equipment in the game the less efficient a battery is, the more of the electricity that passes through it will be converted into...
Heat
Heat is the troublesome byproduct of any process that is less than 100% efficient. All equipment in Space Station Continuum that consumes electricity will produce some amount of heat, based on its efficiency rating.
Heat is already simulated in the demo, but it may not be very obvious. You can enable a very basic thermal overlay view by pressing CTRL + T. Other than changing the colour of this overlay, heat doesn't have much of an effect on anything yet. That's going to change before Early Access, with improvements including:
- Simulating heat for every component in the game (not just station modules)
- Degraded performance, damage, and total failure for components that are too hot/cold
- Improvements to the Radiator system for getting rid of unwanted heat
- Changes to Astronaut behavior based on the temperature of the module they're in
All of these changes will make designing the energy generation, storage, and radiation systems on your station a much more challenging and interesting task!
Supplies
Moving some medical supplies into a storage locker. Click for a much larger version.
Humans need stuff. Machines need stuff too, and all that stuff has to come from somewhere. Initially that somewhere is Earth. Everything onboard your station will have to be shipped up into orbit and stored away until it's needed. Both standard and temperature-controlled storage lockers will be available, the latter of which will consume power.
Eventually you may find yourself needing to store things before shipping them back to Earth, rather than after shipping them up to your station...
Click for larger version
Progression
Developing all of this equipment and technology for your station will take time and resources. With the right balance of power, heat, supplies, and crew, you'll find yourself moving up through the technology tree and onwards through the eras of spaceflight.
An early preview of the Tech Tree
With each of these elements in place, the core mechanics and pregression loop will be well on their way to being complete. At that point the game will be ready to open up to Early Access and start actively involving the community in it's development.
Let the countdown begin!
