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The Astral Sea. A portion of space unlike no other. A grouping of star systems over a hundred parsecs in size, now filled with humanity's migration. Each system, unique in its makeup, both in its technological level and political system, hangs poised in the sea of space. Traders, Passenger Liners and Pirates roam the Sea, looked over by the ever present Police force that each planet funds (or not).

You are the Captain of one of these vessels. Put together your crew, fill your ship with trade goods or passengers, and venture out into the depths of the Sea. Profit awaits.

Formed from the ashes of the Programmeringstävling för Summersend comes Captain of the Astral Sea, a game that has you explore a procedurally generated galaxy of planets, looking after your crew as you carve your own path through the collection of star systems colloquially named the Astral Sea. The Alpha, which will contain the Main Menu and Character Creation, will drop in just over two weeks on the 1st May, and hopefully the Open Beta (my "Gold Release") will drop on 1st June.

Looking forward to sharing with you

Edit: Open Beta Release Page

That sounds really impressive! I'm getting FTL vibes from your introduction. Or maybe a NSFW game that takes place in outer space, lol. They both involve exploring places and bringing on/managing crew, which I enjoy, so I'm excited to see the game!

It's the 1st May! That means...

You Can Download The Alpha From Here

Now that the important link is out the way, I will say that it's only available for Windows or Mac as I currently don't have access to a Linux platform to build the game for Linux at present.

The Alpha has the Main Menu and Character Creation process in place. As stated on the page linked above, everything is subject to change, and feedback is welcome. There is music present, and you will find a way to change the volume on every page visible, so feel free to do so and even mute it if it's getting annoying.

The actual game is coming along rather splendidly, and does have a full Jukebox functionality with many tracks. I may do hot takes on features this month in preparation for the Open Beta, but I don't yet know if this will be on time (I'm aiming for 1st June, but we shall see).

Anyway, enjoy!

Awesome! I've already downloaded it, and plan on playing it tonight if I get a chance.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The character/game creator was a great experience, and made me excited to play the actual game when it comes out.  There are *a lot* of options for your character, your first mate, and your ship, and that makes me wonder what directions you can take in the actual game.

And I was amused that I could captain an Axolotl ship called The Love Boat. Set a course for adventure, your eyes on a new romance...

Spoiler

Looking forward to the beta!

Hey everyone! So I did say I might do hot takes on features as this month goes past. I have one planned for each Saturday/Sunday before 1st June. Feel free to ask questions about anything I post here and I'll do my best to answer!

Today I'd like to show you the galaxy.

Spoiler

The Galaxy is procedurally generated each time, so every time you start a new game it'll be completely different. Each dot on the picture above represents a world hanging in the Astral Sea, each completely different from each other.

The purple dot surrounded by a circle on the left of the map is where I have started. Worlds go purple when you visit them so you can see where you have been, and the circle around the planet shows the current range of my starship. Each ship has a different range, so finding the right ship for your playstyle is always important.

Spoiler

In this example, I started on a world called Lowry. You can see there are a number of stats which tell me about the world, and each stat makes the world unique, from the trade goods they want, to the passengers that will travel to/from the world, to the ships you might encounter when you visit.

In addition, each world can have a status. In this case there is nothing eventful happening, but other worlds might suffer from a pandemic and need medicine, or a drought and need water, or be at war and need firearms. This gives a boost to that particular trade good.

That's it for today. Tomorrow I'll go through travelling between these worlds.

I've always wanted a cute guy to show me the galaxy.

I can't help but notice that Lowry is at an industrial age level...I take it the Prime Directive doesn't apply to this universe?

In any case, this is awesome! As you know, I have a great feeling about this game...lookin forward to more updates.

There are two main ways of traveling around the Galaxy. The first, and cheapest, is your own ships propulsion. You can travel to any system within range, and must then buy fuel to travel onwards from there.

When you warp to a system like this, you may meet other ships along route. Police, pirates, traders and passenger liners all frequent various systems depending on the type of system it is. Most ships will ignore you, but pirates will attack you and police may sometimes inspect your cargo hold for illegal goods.

Spoiler

How you interact with each encounter is up to you, and is part of the way you define your place in the Astral Sea.

The second way to travel is through Portalling. This is a service provided by the Hi Tech worlds that enable you, for a price, to jump across the Galaxy. This price is dependent on both the size of your ship and the distance you have to travel, but is a great way to jump around if you ever get stuck or you desire to be elsewhere.

When you arrive at your destination, you are presented with the services that the Dock offers. Here you can refuel, repair your hull strength, and restock on food for your crew to eat. Crew who aren't your Captain or First Mate will require payment upon docking and will slowly grow unhappy if you choose to not pay them.

Spoiler

The Docks also offer banking services for loans and a hospital (that may differ in quality and cost depending on the planet you land at) in case you require medical help your doctor can't provide.

I can't help but notice that Lowry is at an industrial age level...I take it the Prime Directive doesn't apply to this universe?

Correct! Think Firefly more than Star Trek; hi tech planets mixed with lower tech colonies or worlds that have decided to do things differently. Everyone is aware and welcoming of space travel, but the worlds themselves are at differing levels of development.

Next week I'll go through Trading.

@Wuufu: But don't you remember that one primitive society that came to worship Captain Picard as a god?

Can you get such societies to worship you as a god here?

It's fun to read how well thought out everything is here...it already sounds like there's so many ways you can make your mark in the galaxy, and everything has an integrated feel to it.

@Wuufu: But don't you remember that one primitive society that came to worship Captain Picard as a god?

Can you get such societies to worship you as a god here?

I do And unfortunately not. Though there may be quests in future that have some kind of similarities.

@Wuufu: I first saw this on Discord.

Random events and situations would be awesome in a game like this! Imagine some ancient society sees your technology and comes to believe that you're their god. Do you?

1) Disappear - The planet is harmed in some way through religious wars, but eventually the events pass into myth.
2) Tell them the truth - The planet is elevated to the next age and are somewhat more friendly towards you.
3) Pose as their God - Get resources and people as sacrifices.

That makes me think, will there be a sort of planetary reputation system?

@Wintermoot same! Discord brought me here Though I should be in bed haha

That does sound cool! I hope to add random events and stuff into the game in the future, and there are already multiple places this can occur depending on the type of event. And yes, since one of the government types is a Theocracy, one of their gods could be that of the space pilots that visit them, and you could end up with a quest line that focuses on this.

The game as it is now is definitely the foundations of what could be a pretty in-depth experience, and adding the quests and random events on top of this should add a lot to it.

As for you whether there will be a planetary reputation system, I am not sure this will become a thing. There are two current "reputations", your Police Record and your Reputation as a combatant. I might add a third related to quests when I implement the quest engine so this will likely be the closest to your proposed planetary rep system.

@Wuufu: My thinking is that situations might pop up where planets might get in conflicts with each other, and you could support one at the cost of offending the other. If your reputation was bad enough with a certain planet, they might refuse to trade with you or even be hostile toward you. I don't know...maybe that's your plan with one of the other reputations though.

That's kind of the thing with space games...you can do so much with them.

Something else I've kinda wondered if you're going down the route of Firefly...will there be slavery in the Astral Sea?

Ah I currently have no plans for interplanetary disputes, but that doesn't mean that can't be added in future.

As for slavery... there are illegal "goods" that you can trade and slaves are one of them. In future, you will also be able to raid passenger liners and convert who you find into slaves, and that would both be seriously profitable and seriously damaging to your police rep.

And I'm guessing the pirates can do the same...not good for me and the Axolotl Love Boat that I created.

There's a quest in Fallout 2 where there's a Slaver's Guild in one of the early towns you go to, and you can either choose to join the guild or destroy it. The consequences of what you decide there impact your reputation for the rest of the game, since most decent folk won't want to associate with somebody known as a slaver. But that was one of the good things about the early Fallout games...you could play through the game and complete it playing as either a good or a bad person.