Playtest

On 11 July 2022, Introversion Software first released The Last Starship to an initial set of playtesters who signed up on the Steam store page. Playtesters played the game and provided bug reports, suggestions, and general feedback via the Steam discussion forums. The playtest ended on 15 February 2023 with the start of the public Early Access release of Alpha1D. The release of Early Access made the playtest builds inaccessible. The demo was removed sometime around 20 February 2023. This changelog is provided for historical purposes.

Alpha1C

The public demo was released on 26 January 2023. This demo included only the New Game game mode. No official changelog was released.

The seventh update to the playtest was released on 27 January 2023. This disabled New Game mode and introduced a new ship editor and Creative Mode.

We have updated the Playtest build to include the latest ship editor and Creative Mode. We have disabled the other parts of the game for now - we'd appreciate it if you could help us test the editor and creative mode, and provide feedback for those. Thanks!

Creative Mode

Unlimited budget to create whatever ship you can think of

Instant spawn equipment & resources, with no constraints

BUT you cannot leave the system

New menu option 'Import Hostile', for combat testing against your ship library

Ship Editor (Continued))

• Ship Editor now supports dragging a box shape to fill large areas, as well as drawing freehand
• Ship Editor now shows Mass, Toughness, Crew Capacity, and $Value at the top of the screen
• New 'Spawn' button when in Creative Mode, which permits instant spawn of any Equipment, Resource or Item

New Alert System

This replaces the previous fullscreen alert system

Onscreen alerts for dangerous events -

Hostiles, meteors, critical resource shortages, hull breaches, reactor shut downs, low batteries etc

With helpful tooltips to guide new players<

Hull breaches are located with a line from the alert

SMALL CHANGES

• Auto-save after FTL jump now captures thumbnail like manual save.
• "Create Storage Hint" now displayed when a Drone Bay becomes clogged with items

which do not have a storage place set on the ship.

• Loading a ship in the editor will no longer send a cargo shuttle with 5 new crew
• New graphics for crew and passenger bodies in space
• Enemy ships will always spawn dead bodies after destruction

BUG FIXES

• The docking port is now available for sale at shipyards and stations
• Pressing J no longer draws boxes around the toolbar at the bottom.

Alpha1A

The sixth update to the playtest was released on 10 January 2023. An updated Windows build was released the same day.

NEW CONTENT

Ship Editor

An entirely new in-game ship editor that allows you to change your fleet ships, or desgn and build new ones.

You must be at a shipyard to commit any changes, but you can make design changes at any time.

You can load any ship directly into the ship editor from the Main Menu.

Any ships you create with a value of less than $1M will be usable as New Game start ships

Ships can be exported locally, or uploaded to Steam Workshop.

New Ship Library

• We now have a library of ship designs, including many sourced from our talented Playtest community.
• When you visit a shipyard, you will find many ships for sale, including those designed by the community.
• Some ships for sale will be just the empty hull. Others will be pre-equipped and ready to fly, if you can afford them.
• Any ships you subscribe to from the Steam Workshop will be automatically included for consideration
• Any ships in the library with a value of less than $1M will now be available to start in the New Game menu.
• Ships you create are added to the ship library and will be available for purchase in game, at shipyards.

Steam Workshop integration

You can now share any ship you create from the main menu, by clicking the "Upload To Steam" button

You can subscribe to any ship on the Steam Workshop, and it will be included in your game world via the Ship Library

You may encounter that ship as an enemy vessel, or as a ship for sale.

Combat encounters improved

Combat encounters now use the Ship Library to create suitable enemy forces.

You will now encounter a much larger variety of enemy vessels.

The enemy forces will scale in difficulty based on the capability of your fleet, and your combat rank.

Sometimes you will face just one or two very powerful enemy vessels. Other times you will face a large fleet of much smaller ships.

Enemy ships have been given a rudimentary pilot AI, but this will improve in future

• The old boring combat mission has been removed
• It has been replaced with a sector-wide objective to eradicate all hostiles, which resets after each sector.
• You can earn big money by cleaning up each sector this way.

Evasion chance

During combat your ships now have a chance to evade incoming weapons fire

• This is based on the incidence angle between the ordnance and your ship

(head on into fire gives no evasion chance. Side on (travelling fast and close to the enemy turrets) gives max evasion chance

• The faster you are travelling, the greater your evasion chance
• The faster you are turning, the greater your evasion chance
• Small ships gain the most from this. Large, slow heavily armoured beasts gain the least.

On-screen award system

Completing any mission or objective will now show an on-screen award

The award shows your money earned, as well as any XP points gained, ranks increased etc

Compass widget / detach camera control

There is a new compass widget at the top of the screen, that shows the direction the camera is facing.

You can click it to toggle if the camera is attached to the current ship, or moving freely.

This is very useful during heavy combat where you can detach the camera from any one ship

Settings menu (Main Menu)

• Controls for UI Scale
• Controls for Sound Volume

(More to come)

Lots of new artwork

Lots of new audio

Equipment resizing

Lots of placeholder artwork has been replaced with final art, and some equipment has changed size.

• Thrusters are now 3x1 and sit entirely within a wall
• Engines now resized to 7x4 to better fit their sprite footprint
• Docking Ports are now 6x2, to better fit their sprite, and to give more delivery space

SMALL CHANGES

• The visualisation when placing equipment is now different, and is based on the normal view rather than the schematic view
• The basic Praxis starting ship now has a Small tank and a Medium tank onboard
• You can now repair structural damage from the SHIPYARD menu (when at a shipyard)
• FTL Charges now come in a stack of 1 (previously 100)
• FTL Travel has been sped up
• FTL drive now draws 80MW of energy when charging, instead of 100. (So as not to shut everything else down)
• Void Collapse slowed down and made to start further away in each sector, so you have longer before it arrives
• 'Weapons Free' and 'Exterior Work' are now enabled at the start of a game by default
• Passengers will now sometimes stay on deck during transport
• Travelling in hyperspace 'through' the void now causes structural damage. Be careful!
• NPC miners will now leave after mining a small amount
• Ice Comets are now shown in the sector map

BUG FIXES

• You can no longer 'turn in' the flight ready mission
• You can no longer turn in an industry/mining mission unless you have enough ore
• The Void Collapse predicted size is now accurate when in Home Sector
• Drones will no longer continue repairing a ship that has been destroyed
• Drones will now properly deactivate when their home ship is destroyed
• You will no longer receive CO2 warnings from enemy/neutral ships
• NASTY BUG: You will no longer lose tons of money sometimes after completing a mission (happens when revisiting previously visited star systems straight after)

DEMO3A

The fifth update to the playtest was released on 7 November 2022.

NEW CONTENT

Revamped Trade Screen

The trade screen now groups all items into categories such as Power, Resources, Weapons etc.

Click to buy 1 of any item, or hold shift and click to buy 5. Use the right-mouse to cancel orders.

Selling now has its own dedicated tab where all of your sellable resources and equipment are listed

Your trade-in-progress is shown at the bottom of the screen

Clear Proximity Mines (contract)

There is now an incredibly low risk combat mission available early in the game, to clear proximity mines

Designed to allow players to practice combat with virtually zero risk

(Requires a weapon system of some kind)

Loaders reconsidered

We have noticed many players getting stuck when trying to figure out Loaders for the first time.

You now start the game with a 'Fuel Loader' and an 'Oxygen Loader'. These operate identically to the old Loader, but only for their resource.

The original loader is still available and can supply any resource as before.

SMALL CHANGES

• The HUD will now choose a sensible scale value when you first run the game, taking into account your screen resolution. Use + and - to change.
• Logistics drones will no longer collect dead bodies, or spacesuits containing bodies
• New graphics for Railgun, Cannon, Mining Laser, Loaders
• Some equipment sizes have changed: Railgun, Cannon, Mining Laser

BUG FIXES

• If a drone collected a dead body, it would jam up the drone bay forever
• The Shipyward window will no longer remain open when you jump to hyperspace

DEMO2B

The fourth update to the playtest was released on 19 October 2022.

SMALL CHANGES

• The Flight Ready mission now requires a jump to the nearest COLONISED system (so players find the contracts board)
• Removed the ‘Nomad’ and ‘Evacuation’ missions from the demo, as they are longer term objectives
• The first two starting ships are now available in the demo
• The starting ship now has 25 cabins (to permit early Passenger missions)
• Guarantee a Delivery mission will always be available in the first sector
• Guarantee a Passenger mission will always be available in the first sector
• The science mission now has a ‘Research Institute’ that will phone you to inform you of rewards given
• New UI sound effects

TIDDLET IMPROVEMENTS

• The tiddlet mission is now guaranteed to start at the entry system to the sector
• Guarantee there will be no hostiles in that system
• Guarantee there will be no hostiles in the destination system either
• The player now receives a call at the start of the tiddlet mission, to encourage them to find the job
• The Tiddlet mission now shows up at the top of the list with the other special missions
• Added character portrait for the tiddlet breeder

BUG FIXES

• The special Hyperspace Sensor (LR) is now correctly categorised as Logistics in the Power Usage screen

Playtest sector limit increased to 5

DEMO1

The third update to the playtest was released on 11 October 2022. An updated Mac build was released on 12 October 2022, which fixed a typo in the game's text. Any other changes are unknown.

NEW CONTENT

DEMO (Playtest)

• Brand new story episode (experimental) in second sector : 'The trouble with Tiddlets'. Treat them well!
• New music for new games and for the first hyperspace jump etc
• New tutorial / help elements at the start of a new game to aid new players, based on EGX feedback
• Made the 'Flight Ready' mission more intuitive and informative, based on EGX feedback
• All new game scenarios locked on start, except the simple PRAXIS one
• Spacesuit O2 level is now much more forgiving in the very first system - so players have a chance to find their feet

New Main Menu treatment

• All saved games and ship exports now have thumbnails (after saving)
• The game now pauses when the Main Menu is open

Shipyard reconsidered

• The [shipyard] no longer permits ad-hoc modification of the hull or interior of a ship
• You can still install armour or expand habitation, and construct scaffold

External work

• Your crew can now install some equipment on scaffold, entirely outside the ship. Eg mining lasers.
• Crew can also repair and dismantle external equipment
• New ORDERS option - "Exterior Work", which permits or forbids your crew to do work outside in spacesuits.

New 'Exterior view' graphics for all ships (work in progress)

Other ships in the world

You will now encounter more ships in your travels, performing jobs such as mining and scavenging, and coming and going from trade posts

• Mining vessels in asteroid belts
• Scavengers near derilicts
• Trade ships near colonies and shipyards
• Evacuation ships near colonies in danger

SMALL CHANGES

• New gfx for Spacesuits / Crew / Civilians, lots of equipment
• Tooltips added to all 'Processing' machines to show recipe
• Drones will now find a new Drone Bay if their home drone bay is destroyed or dismantled
• Lots of new sound effects for UI and equipment, and Music added to early game
• If the docking port delivery zone becomes blocked, a message is shown to encourage creation of storage zones
• If a player has far too many jobs and far too few crew, the game will give them a warning "Crew shortage"

BUG FIXES

• Fixed : You can no longer accept missions and accidentally assign them to ships you don't own (eg if you have another ship selected)
• Fixed : Bug that stopped the science mission sensors from being delivered
• Fixed : Neutral and hostile drones no longer count towards your 'Drones Deployed' value in the FTL window
• Fixed : Hyperspace effects did not scale correctly when fully zoomed out
• Fixed : Mining missions can be accepted when all your drones are deployed

Update2.rc3

The second update to the playtest was released on 29 July 2022, only a few hours after Update 2.rc1. The build is dated 29 July 2022. It is unclear what was changed in this build as the only file changed was the game executable.

Update2.rc1

The first update to the playtest was released on 29 July 2022 following the Update 2 video. The build is dated 28 July 2022. This update is the first available to Mac OS X players.

NEW CONTENT

Ice Comets / Ice Grinder

Ice comets occur randomly and travel through a system. Mine them for Ice.

The Ice Grinder is a new piece of equipment to grind and melt ice into dirty water.

Spacesuit Pod

Replenishes the oxygen on any Spacesuit.

Ratings - Combat / Industry / Humanitarian / Logistics

You will gain XP as you perform these activities and your rating will slowly increase.

Many missions now require a minimum rating to be accepted.

Parallel pipes

Pipes can now be constructed next to other pipes without automatic (unwanted) connection

Tooltips

Plus a whole raft of usability improvements to help new players

Including text descriptions of almost all equipment

Star system save persistence

You can now revisit star systems and they will reload as you left them

Tweet my Starship

Click this from the Main Menu. A picture of your starship is copied to the clipboard.

Paste it into your tweet to show the world your brilliance!

Playtest sector limit increased to 5

PERFORMANCE

• Render performance improved

SMALL CHANGES

• It now costs money to hire crew
• Crew will no longer disembark the delivery shuttle if there is no atmosphere, and a warning message is shown
• Smelters can now refine Tilium into Refined Tilium (which you can sell)
• The initial ship-readiness mission is automatically accepted at the start of a new game
• All starting ships now have some cabin space
• You can now press the HOME key to re-center the view on the current ship
• There will always be at least one shipyard in the starting sector
• CO2 scrubbers are now twice as fast at extracting CO2 from the atmosphere
• Scientists have determined the void is now expanding slower than before
• Pipe and port graphics have been changed to give better hints when things are wrong
• Hostile ships will no longer randomly camp the sector exit system (permitting a peaceful playthrough if desired)
• Updated graphics for CO2 Scrubber, Small Tank, Docking Port, Box, Smelter, Spacesuit
• You can now click on a Smelter to cycle its recipe setting
• ESC now closes any currently open window, before it will open the main menu
• Hull Damage is now shown in the top status bar
• The Contracts list will now highlight any contract that occurs in a system you are already due to visit with a blue diamond

BUG FIXES

• Mission descriptions now correctly show the ship name they are assigned to, instead of the layer number
• Broken floor tiles are now straightened after Drone or Ship Yard repair.
• The game world will no longer receive keyboard and mouse input when the Main Menu is open
• Objects that extend off the gridmap can now be placed.
• Properly restore the view on game load.
• You can now sell materials even when your stacks aren't 100% full
• Docking Port sound effects would play continuously after loading a save game sometimes
• Crew can now install/dismantle/repair equipment that is entirely inside a wall, so long as they can access a neighbouring square
• Fixed navigation bugs that meant crew and passengers would sometimes get stuck on corners
• Crew would sometimes put suits on before attempting jobs in a wall

Update1.rc2

The initial build was released to playtesters on 11 July 2022 following the Update 1 video. The build is dated 8 July 2022.