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.

Demo Alpha1C

The public demo was released on 26 January 2023. This demo included only the New Game game mode and was paired with Playtest Alpha1C, containing Creative Mode. No official changelog was released.

Alpha1C

The seventh update to the playtest was released on 27 January 2023.

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 space suits 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, Spacesuits
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.