Dear players,

Last april, I made my work on Galactic Crew II public and now you can test the current state of development! I will invite more players with promotional actions over the course of the next weeks and months, but right now the Closed Alpha is exclusive to all owners of Galactic Crew!

Important notice!

All game files of Galactic Crew II are stored in a separate folder. That means, that any save game files from Galactic Crew 1 on your computer won't be changed by using the Alpha version of Galactic Crew II, but the Alpha might overwrite your Cloud saves. So, if you have used Cloud saves for Galactic Crew 1, I recommend to start Galactic Crew 1 once to download all Cloud saves before starting the Alpha to make sure you have physical copies of your save games. If you want to make a backup of your save game files, you can find them here:

• Open your Windows Explorer
  
• Type in "%appdata%\Galactic Crew" (without quotation marks) and press Enter
  
• This folder contains all your Galactic Crew saves, levels, etc.

How to get access

Please open your Steam library and right-click on Galactic Crew. Select "Properties..." in the opened context menu.

Next, select the "BETAS" tab and click on the combo box at the top to see the available options. Select "development - Galactic Crew II Development".

Now, you just have to wait for the download to be completed. The game will now be listed as "Galactic Crew [development]" in your Steam library. When you start it, you will play the current development state of Galactic Crew II!

What to expect

This is a development version in an Alpha phase. This means, the game is not feature-complete, i.e. stuff is missing that will be there in the final release version. It also means that certain features from the original game are currently not available. This includes especially multiplayer gaming and tutorials. However, anything I wrote about in the past year is included!

Colonization of planets is currently very basic. You can build a lot of rooms, but the only two rooms that currently have a practical effect are the command center which is a requirement for most other rooms and the storage room. Having storage rooms enables you to transfer goods and items between your spaceship and your colony.

Since I re-wrote most of the code and invested a lot of effort into the game engine, it is to be expected to have bugs.

How can you contribute

Those of you who bought Galactic Crew early on know that I value the interaction with players. If you do not understand something, find a bug or have a feature request: start a Steam discussion or text me on Twitter @GalacticCrew.

As you know: Any owner of Galactic Crew 1 will get the new game for free once it is released. However, you can do me a huge favor by adding the game to your wishlist: Steam page. It helps me to promote the game.

What is next

There are two major tasks right now for me: Marketing and game improvements. It will take a couple of months before I start the Early Access phase of Galactic Crew II. Until then, I will invite more players to the Alpha, promote the upcoming game, pitch the game to digital platforms and do other fun business stuff ːsteamhappyː I am also working on a huge update of Galactic Crew II that should be available to you in early March. It will be labeled as "Economy" update featuring new rooms for your colonies, adding many features and mechanics to the existing colonies, adding a story line and much much more. Any update I will make from now on will immediately land on this development branch meaning you will get to play it long before the game becomes available to the public.

I am super excited and I hope you have a lot of fun. I am looking forward to your feedback and please let me know about any issue you find!

Dear players,

I do not have any exciting new features announce, because I spend the time since the last update only on playtesting and bug fixing. When I first started playing the game as a whole instead of testing single features, it was a brutal bug fest. However, with each new test & bug fix session, it gets better and better.

I have to take core of many things that are currently going on in my private life and my dayjob, but I hope to launch the Closed Alpha by the end of January or early February. This version will neither be perfect nor will everything work perfectly. This will be a version showing the current state of the game that will be available to every owner of Galactic Crew. You can test it and give me feedback and report bugs if you want, but I fully understand if you want to wait until the final release. It is a mere option to play even before the Early Access. Of course, there will be very regular updates to fix any bugs found by either you or me.

I not only fix bugs, but I also improved game balancing, resolved some performance issues, improved the game's main menu and improved the shadows in dungeons.

I am looking forward to share my work with you very soon! ːsteamhappyː

Dear players,

A couple of weeks have passed since my last update and it was a very fruitful time. Promotional art was created for Galactic Crew II as you can see below. As a result of that a Steam page has been created. I already got a positive review of it from Valve so I can make it public at any given time.

Free Galactic Crew II for everyone!

In my very first announcement of Galactic Crew II, I said that I will try my best to provide a free copy to every owner of the original Galactic Crew game. In the past weeks, I worked together with a Valve employee to figure out how we can achieve this. As a result, we will do it like this: Once I can start a Closed Alpha, I will create a second branch in Steam of the original Galactic Crew. That means, everyone who owns a copy of the game can, if he/she wants, download the development version of Galactic Crew II. You may know this method from other video games where you can have a stable Release branch and a Beta branch. This way, you can already test the development version of Galactic Crew II and give me feedback and report issues, if you want to. Once Galactic Crew II is published as Early Access game, an employee of Valve will send a free copy of Galactic Crew II to anyone who owns the first game. This way, you can test the development version of the game and get the full release version as a gift once it is available - and I kept my promise! ː2017stickydrinkː

Planets

Besides the project management work, I spent quite some time on planets and bug fixing. While playing the game, I found a large amount of bugs which is normal for this stage of game development. Needless to say, I immediately fixed all of them! ːsteamhappyː

I also invested some time in improving the level editor to expand its features regarding model groups. As you might have seen on my Twitter feed, I added options to configure model groups with scenario types and environment types. These information are used when creating procedural generated planets.

As I wrote in the last update, I re-wrote the entire way how paths for characters and NPCs are determined on planets. It's now way faster than before and it is fully dynamic - a requirement for procedural generated planets. Please note, the very first version you get to play will only have a small variety of planets, but it will constantly be improved until the game's release! Here are two screenshots from a pirate hideout and a research outpost.

What's left?

I need to complete the procedural generation of planets. This will require level design work and completing the algorithm and a couple of optimizations. This should be done fairly quickly.

I will need to create a trailer video, before I can ask Steam to review my game build. This will be also something I will do in the upcoming weeks.

Finally, I will create a full test plan and test every single feature carefully. As soon as I am done, I will give you another update here and explain how you can get the development version of the game. I was hoping to complete it until Christmas, but I think I will need until late January.

Dear players,

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that I worked on basically any feature of Galactic Crew II over the past few weeks.

Level Editor

I replaced the user interface design with the same design elements I use for the game itself, making the level edior visually more attractive.

I also added a new feature that let's you group models. You can then insert the model on any planet you are designing making new planets an easy and fast process.

Colonization

I completed the management code for planetary outposts and added the first user interface elements enabling you to transfer goods and items between your spaceship and your outpost.

I am currently waiting for an artist to complete my order of new models, but I wanted to share a preview of some buildings that will find their way into the game soon.

Game engine

I invested two weeks to improve the underlying game engine. My focus was to remove dependencies between components and the way highlighting is managed. It does not have an effect on the gaming experience itself, but it will improve stability and reduce memory and processor usage. I took the opportunity to make these large changes before I started testing the current state of the game.

Quests

I re-wrote the way quests are handled and I was finally able to include more than 50 brand new space events written by a professional writer!

Testing

I did a lot of testing. I found many issues that I could resolve quite easily. Since I re-wrote basically everything from scratch, it was expected to find bugs. I will continue testing the game every week to make sure I find all bugs, before I hand it out to you. I also found several features that needed some tweaking which I immediately optimized. I also used some time to resolve things that went wrong in the first game, like the collectable minerals that resulted in crew members picking up stuff from outside the rooms. Now, there are more resources to gather and they are gathered correctly.

What's left?

Before I can start a Closed Alpha with you, I need to do:

• Re-write pathfinding for characters and AI on planets
  
• Procedural content creation for planets
  
• Adding some planets to the game
  
• Resolving an issue with transparency
  
• Resolving an issue with fullscreen windows
  
• More testing

As you can see, the list is not that long any more and I hope to complete many open topics this month! I will soon reach out to Valve to check, if I can easily provide a key to Galactic Crew II to anyone who owns the first game.

Multiplayer and campaigns won't be part of the initial version of the Closed Alpha, but they will be added later. Multiplayer only needs a lot of testing and I will create new campaigns while you test play the Closed Alpha.

Dear players,

I primarily focused on adding the colonization feature I wrote about last time. I am not completely done, but I managed to implement the most vital parts of the feature. Whenever you are on a planet, your engineer can start building an outpost anywhere on the planet. The feature works similar to video game classics like Dungeon Keeper where you build your base by placing floors, walls, doors and build rooms.

Like starship rooms, each outpost room has a specific purpose and active or passive influence on the outpost. Solar arrays provide energy, while crew quarters provide living space and workshops enable you to craft a wide range of objects. There will be a limited range of features you can do with your outposts once I start the Closed Alpha, but more features will be added over time. I am working with two skilled 3D artists who are currently creating game assets for Galactic Crew II like walls, guard towers and special equipment required for certain rooms.

As always, the screenshot provided below shows the current state of development not the final version of the game. I want to include an auto-terraforming of the planet during base building so that it looks more consistent. The walls you see in the screenshot are only few of the new models. I also literally added more than two hundred new game assets to the game to provide a wide variety of planets.

I also did a lot of performance optimizations. For example, loading planets take no longer than ten seconds independent of the planet's complexity. I will spend the next weeks on further optimizations and carefully testing and improving the game. While the artists are creating more models and textures for the colonization feature, I also started working with a professional writer for exciting new events and missions. I am also currently looking for other artists to make more custom content for Galactic Crew II.

I hope to be able to provide a key for the new game for each owner of Galactic Crew 1 later this year. I will then create a development branch of Galactic Crew II where you can play the latest development version of the game long before it's release and have direct influence on the further development of the game. But before I open Galactic Crew 2 to you, I want to carefully test and improve it to make sure all basic features work as intended.

If you want smaller updates on a regular basis, feel free to follow me on Twitter.

Dear players,

As I wrote in the last update, I was mainly working on three different tasks in the past weeks.

Planets

First of all, I continued working on the new environment system I developed for planetary missions in Galactic Crew II. The terrain is now smoother and the water looks more natural.

The new environment system does not only look better than in Galactic Crew I, but is also faster, more efficient in terms of CPU and memory usage and it enables features that simply were not possible in Galactic Crew 1. One of which I will announce later with great enthusiasm. ːsteamhappyː

Spaceship shields

After finalizing the terrain shaders, I invested time in a new shield effect for spaceships. As you know, in Galactic Crew 1 you could equip your spaceship with shield generators, boost their efficiency with shield boosters and you were able to regenerate them with drones and engineers. However, they were not visualized. As I wrote in the very first announcement, I not only want to extend the content for Galactic Crew 2, but improve any existing content. Therefore, I wanted to make proper shield effects to increase the immersion when playing Galactic Crew 2.

I also updated all other shaders to create a more natural look of lighting and shadows.

More enemies (and decorations)

Finally, I invested money to buy a large variety of 3D models and characters for Galactic Crew 2 to offer a greater variety of enemies. Most of them are already implemented in the game. But for some of them, I face issues with the animations. But I will figure it out, eventually. Most of the models I bought are to improve the atmosphere on planets and to widen the range of available planet types. I will show you screenshots of new planets or dungeons with the next dev log updates. So, stay tuned for that.

Colonization!

When I announced Galactic Crew 2, I said I wanted to add more content and features. I already announced the option to salvage ship wrecks, more asteroid types to mine, deeper dungeons and much more, but there is one feature that I am most excited about: Colonization of planets! You will be able to build your own base with its own features and game mechanics on any planet you have visited. Are you in the middle of a mutant-infested jungle and like the atmosphere? Build a base! Did you become friends with the local stone age civilization? Build a base! Do you enjoy the company of the miners in their outpost? Build a base!

Over the course of the next weeks, I will start developing this feature. I am currently comissioning jobs to 3D artists to make the necessary 3D assets for me. Since I re-wrote most of the game code, there are currently a lot of bugs in it. I will also spend a lot of time polishing everything I have done so far and do a lot of playtesting. The plan is to create a proper Steam page within the next months and add a development branch to it so you can start playing the game in its current state. This way, you can playtest everything I announce long before the game's actual release. However, I want ensure the game's quality first. I have also started working with other artists like writers to write events, quests and missions and I am looking to further expand my team.

Social media

I write updates here every couple of weeks. If you are interested in daily updates, you can follow me on Twitter (see button below).

Dear players,

Over the past weeks, I focused on a new planet system to make developing planety expeditions faster, to make modding easier and improving performance and efficiency. I am not done, but I want to present you infos about the current state.

Before I started anything visual, I made a complete revamp of the way planets are stored and processed in my game engine. I created a few demo levels to test both the level editor and my data structures and even complex planet levels were less than 2 MB big. This means you can create many levels and share it with this community without wasting any hard drive space and you don't have to care about network bandwidth when using them in multiplayer games! I am still optimizing the loading time of planets, but I am already down to a few seconds. I plan on further improving the loading time for an even better gaming experience - no one likes to wait.

A key element to both fast content creation and easy modding is a good level editor. After I completed my work on the data structures, I threw the old level editor away and made a new one from scratch. The following image shows the current state. It most certainly will change or evolve until the game's release!

One thing you will immediately notice is the water! After spending a lot of work last year on my game engine, it now features a realistic fluid water simulation that will be part of Galactic Crew II. You might also see a dragon. It's one of many new enemies I am currently adding to the game. The level editor already has way more features than the old one in Galactic Crew 1, but there will still come a lot of new features. I want to make modding as easy as possible and include Steam's Workshop functions so that you can share you work with friends and other people.

What's next
As you can see, the terrain is still bumpy. I will spend the new few weeks on improvements to the way terrain is rendered to make it smoother and more realistic.

I will also continue integrating new enemies to the game which results in a lot of side-work, because I have to expand the model importer and other components.

I also want to further improve the visual effects of the game and add completely new visual effects. I most probably will spend most of the time until the next dev log on creating a shield effect for ships! Shields were already featured in the first game, but they were not visible. For Galactic Crew II, I will render the shields and its effects to create a better immersion into space combat. I also want to add more visual effects, but I do not know if I have enough time for them unil the next update!

Dear players,

I wanted to give you an update last week, but because of a surgery, I was not able to do so. However, I was able to complete multiple milestones in the past weeks.

Asteroid mining

In Galactic Crew 1, you had the possibility to mine asteroids in space to obtain iron with a chance to collect energy crystals and rare loot like diamonds. For Galactic Crew 2, this mechanic remains, but there are also other types of asteroids in one belt. For example, you can harvest silicon to craft building materials. Asteroids will also be fully animated to create a more dynamic feeling.

New equipment & UI is completed

I finally completed the work on the user interface and made some further improvements to it. For example, the view below shows the current state of the crew overview. It is similar to the one used in Galactic Crew 1, but is more cleaned up and all features of all pieces of equipment are listed.

This is also important, because there are new wearable armors! The hazmat suit was just merchandise in Galactic Crew 1, but you will be able to equip them in Galactic Crew 2 to walk safely through hazardous terrain. The artist who made the hazmat suit models are created more armors including a sci-fi flak armor and a marine armor that might be featured in a later update. All new armors also come with new special abilities.

These new armors won't be the only new pieces of equipment for Galactic Crew, but they are the ones which were fully integrated into the game since the last update.

Endless space!

Galactic Crew 1 had a random map generated when creating a new game with an average of 117 planets or systems. Galactic Crew 2 will feature endless space! You start on a map of the same size as Galactic Crew 1, but you can scroll it in all four directions. All newly found systems are also randomly generated depending on the features you activated during the game creation setup.

The Galactic Map also features more details when moving the mouse cursor over a system. For example, it lists the remaining resources in an asteroid field.

Quality of life

I want to expand and improve almost all features of Galactic Crew 1 as I mentioned in the very first update. One of the minor improvements I made in the past weeks are new indicators for selected crew members and I added indicators for all enemies. They feature the creatures' orientations and indicate where they will most likely spot you.

What's next?

I made improvements on various topics in the past months. I will take two weeks off to fully recover from my surgery and go back to development after that. The next big task is a complete overhaul of planets. I will change basically code everything new from scratch with the knowledge I gained from creating the first game. Like dungeons, the new planets will feature way more variety in flora, fauna and game mechanics. This development will take some time, but I will give you updates on the progress every few weeks. You can expect the first update on it mid August.

As I mentioned in the very first update log: When I am coming close to an Closed Alpha version, I will try to find a way to provide a free key to Galactic Crew 2 to everything who owns a copy of Galactic Crew 1. Because I did not do any research so far, I can't say how it will work, but be assured I will try everything I can to make it happen!

Dear captains,

In past three weeks, I worked on several topics. I am still working on the re-design of the user interface, but I am almost done with all controls, which is a great development milestone.

Salvaging

One of the features I completed in the last three weeks is salvaging. As I mentioned in an earlier Dev Log, all resources and goods will be important in Galactic Crew II. Therefore, you will need to have ways to obtain, collect or harvest them. A new way to acquire resources is using salvage drones.

Salvage drones can be equipped at any space station like other drone types and they use the same slots as combat, shield and mining drones. Engineers got the new active skill to dispatch salvage drones to shipwrecks and space junk you find during your journeys. The quantity of salvage cycles for each drone depends on the skill level of the engineer dispatching the drones.

Although the resources salvaged by drones are fewer than the ones mined from asteroids, they are way more valuable.

What's next

While completing the user interface re-design, I have also two artists working on new armors for your crew. If the artists can complete their work in the next two weeks, I can show you the result with the next update. I am also working on an improved asteroid mining and a bigger Galactic Map with QOL enhancements. I should be able to complete this within the next three weeks and I am looking forward to present you the results once I am done.

After that, I will start working on planets. There will be major changes and I can't wait to present them to you once I was able to realize them!

Kind regards, Benjamin