PAT14 World Reset

The newest update for the Stars Reach test servers is all about going back to actual testing. For a while, everything was about the Kickstarter, and during that time, the playtest was even officially referred to as a “preview”. The idea there clearly was, to allow as many people to actually try out the game before backing as possible. And according to the devs it did pay off: being able to try out the game beforehand, measurably increased people’s willingness to pledge.

Anti-Gravium meteor - yummy!

I wonder these can be tamed already?

But providing thousands upon thousands of players (I’ve heard whispers of well over 50,000 people having signed up to test) with a good preview of a single-shard online game, the servers of which can only deal with so many players at once, is a logistical challenge. The solution here was, to have many, many, relatively short test-windows, and with limited access for certain tester groups only. And with daily server wipes, so that the next set of tester groups can get a pristine playfield again.

Upgrading those camps

Asteroid mining

Short play sessions and constant wipes also meant, that most testers wouldn’t really be able to train up their skills, and gather XP to unlock and craft more tools, and gather materials for building, etc. Therefore during the Kickstarter phase of the tests, characters would start with several skills already unlocked, all currently existing tools in their inventory, and with access to a chest of inifinite building materials at each world portal. And that was on top of massively boosted skill gains and reduced material needs for crafting. To allow players to see more of the game in shorter play sessions, most of the progression was bypassed, and things got sped up a lot.

Still early in the test, but Tungsten already is hard to come by

The F1 help screen is your best friend

The Kickstarter campaign officially ended on the 26th of March (when the credit cards got charged), but is currently still open for late pledges while KS allows backers to fix potential card/payment problems, and runs a survey to collect the data to be handed over to the developers for reward fulfillment. All of that takes time, as for example 2 days into the survey, only less than half the backers had already filled it out. It’s probably gonna take weeks to get all the surveys answered. So yeah, it always should have been clear, that rewards couldn’t possibly get handed out within days of the 26th.

Space zoomies!

Turning sand into glass

The Kickstarter did extremely well, as 5,227 backers pledged $740,565 (and through late pledges, numbers are now up to 5,508 backers pledging $772,367) - but more importantly, the developers have already been contacted by interested investors. The campaign did successfully prove that there is not only genuine player interest for this game, but that people are also willing to pull out their wallets in support of it. For people who don’t feel comfortable gambling their money on Kickstarter, or who missed the campaign - there will be Early Access Passes and Founder’s Packages available later on. But the unique cosmetics strewn across the various reward tiers, those will stay backer exclusives.

Scanning some survey points for Ranger XP

It’s ‘no leaves’ season

With the Kickstarter madness behind us, tests can now revert to being actual tests, rather than previews. That means, no more regular wipes. Going forward, devs will only wipe the servers, if absoultely necessary. Because an update requires a fresh start, or players messed up the planets beyond all recognition, or bug related rollbacks. But other than that, character progression and homestead bildings will be carried over. And that change is already showing effect, as G.U.N.C. (a player guild) has started a large city project down in the ravines of Rodin IV. Not much to see yet, but already 21 homesteads placed down for upcoming build projects.

Getting salt in the cenote

Thursday test ends

That is the largest communal build project since PAT8 Homestead Building, back in December 2024. Back then, homesteads and buildings were first introduced to the game, and there was a long phase of many tests with no wipes over the holidays. Result was a bustling city, containing the homes of many players (and devs too!) - called Beanstalk City. Beanstalk City to this day is something that testers as well as developers remember fondly. And it is exactly this sort of shared history and shared memory, that acts as the social glue that bonds a community together.

Crafting more camps

One of the new outfits

Character progression is back as well. Once more you have to earn XP, unlock things, craft tools, harvest materials, and so on - in order to get access to all the gameplay mechanics and features which are so far present in the test. I heard a number of people commenting positively on this, during the tests. It gave them things to strive for, stuff to do, goals to achieve. And while having to got through exactly the same progression again and again every wipe did get tedious in the past - we are now looking at having fewer wipes, and getting more progression options added to the game.

Eroding shale into dirt

Smoothing the ground through melting

So, mostly things are back to where they were before “speed up” changes were made to facilitate the fast turnaround of the Kickstarter preview. There isn’t a lot of new stuff, but a few things have been added, like new consumables, new visual character appearances, a new XP system that distributes monster XP based on how much aggro each player generated (no grouping needed, no kill-steal possible), and the amounts of XP monsters give now scale with procedurally generated extras, like shields or special abilities. The makers introduced in last patch have seen some new variants added and on top of that, there’s a whole list of bug-fixes and small improvements all around.

Removing layers to get flat ground

Crafting a Fabricator

Future patches and updates are going to increasingly build on this re-added progression. Developers are currently working on a whole bunch of crafting skills, skill trees and recipes, as well as on a secure player-to-player trade window. This includes making the material attributes actually matter, and result in crafted items with different stats and qualities. This is going to be huge - not only is it a big step closer towards interdependency and a player-driven economy - it’s also going to be the biggest addition to the available gameplay options, ever since homesteads and building were added.

Building a pyramid

It looks too squat, needs steeper sides

Up until now, playing the Stars Reach tests did feel a bit like playing a survival game because every player was doing everything by themselves. Everyone had to learn all the skills, unlock and build all the tools, and trade was mostly non-existent except for a little bit of reciprocal gift giving. This is going to start to change now. Slowly of course. There’s no word of player vendors and contracts coming to the game yet, and the addition of a currency has not been explicitly mentioned either. Things will probably start off with only direct player-to-player barter as a first step. But nevertheless, this will get the ball rolling.

Changing the angle of the stairs

Walls are steeper now

Other big things currently being worked on, include (but are not limited to) making planet generation a push-button affair, reworking the UI, making consumables more useful in combat, improving the maker (creature-spawner) system introduced last patch, and first character customisation options (beyond the random looks we have no on every teleport). The farming system is still being worked on as well, as are various combat improvements, especially adding more client-side predictions. Then there are upcoming simulation improvements like for example the pressure system for gases. There is definitely a lot going on, and there will be new job opening soon, as the developers ramp up their numbers to build more stuff faster. Exciting times ahead!

Adding doors

Building the top