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Friends, we're approaching the end of the year again. 2015 where have you gone! It's been quite a year, as every year is. We kicked the year off with a brand new GUI followed by several optimizations, performance updates, and balancing updates. We saw our team here at Schine expand, added in the new rails and docking system, the start of boarding mechanics, and overhauled how explosions work. Soon after on-ship spawning, flash lights, jump inhibitors, shipyards, transports, and more. The center-of-mass for ships changed, so to did the HP and Armor systems, new chat controls, magnetic docking, not to mention more recently slabs, thrust mechanics and cargo. This year we also got our first time exhibiting at a convention with Schine showcasing StarMade at TwitchCon. The council had its first term that went for most of the year as we ironed out the procedures and methods of discussion. We had Q&As, Live streams and more.
Overall a grand year. Behind the scenes stuff got a lot more organised. We documented the rest of the plans for the game, organised all our planned features and determined the best direction forward to get them in as quick and practically as possible. Across a dozen or so documents over 32,000 words described the plans for StarMade, detailing features some of which have since made it into the game, many others you'll see in the new year. Already we have planned out the next 6 months worth of work continuing on that direction towards the StarMade we all want to see and enjoy.
It's an exciting time for StarMade.
Council New Term
The council Term 1 has wrapped up and applications are open for Term 2. You can find all the details in this news post here. Applications will close at the conclusion of 2015.
Some more teases of some Trading Guild ships + stations
Criss' Thread has a lot of updates on recent builds that have been happening as part of our in-game assets updates. Here's a couple images otherwise head on over and check out the thread.
Holiday Break
Like anyone we here at Schine have families, and jobs, and during this time most businesses have a bit of a break over the festive season. At Schine we think it's important to keep our team refreshed ready for a crazy year ahead, so in our development schedule the next two weeks are an optional holiday break for our dev team.
For the community that means that there won't be a release happening between the 27th December 2015 and the 10th January 2016.
2016 Plans
You might have recalled earlier I mentioned we had the next 6-months of development already planned. No doubt some of you were already planning on jumping to the comments section to demand to know what happens next. Needless to say I'll save you the trouble, and give our reply here.
The plans haven't really changed. The past few months we've been in our RP season. Our main goal at the moment is one some players keep assuming isn't our main goal: to add in stuff for you to actually do, in the universe of StarMade. We've thought out of the box, and have plans that will help make it all dynamic and organic. They might sound like buzz words, but for us it means making a game that's gameplay can adapt as your universe changes. Missions will become available as the context for them occurs. Decisions could alter anything from the prices at the nearby shop to the balance of a war between two factions. Overall the direction we're going will make for a better gameplay experience. It will allow us to add more in as we go without it being jarring, and will allow your choices to influence the universe around you.
It all sounds great, but to actually implement it there's a lot of pieces. So like giving birth to a baby there's going to be some labor pains. There's a lot of new mechanics to go in to support plans, of which you would have heard about some in our development direction news post. We have a number of awesome teams that are working on different aspects of upcoming updates, and we've structured it all in a way to deliver you an enriching gameplay experience as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
Speaking of immersion, a big thing players have constantly asked for is an audio overhaul. Thanks to all those who submitted folios for consideration earlier in the year. From that we've been able to put together a well equipped team that we believe will produce an incredible audio experience for StarMade. So stay tuned and you'll hear more from them as we head into the new year.
That's really it from our end. Thanks for sticking with us throughout the year and welcome again to those who only joined our community this year. We look forward to what 2016 has in store for StarMade. I can guarantee that writing this dev blog next year I'll be amazed at just what StarMade will have become.
See you then.
- Bench & The Schine Team
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