Good to see you again, Atirans!
Of course this means we have to celebrate in a big way.
There will also be a Free-To-Play Weekend from September 17th to 21st, but more on that below.
New helmet for everyone who owns the game!
Auto-saves and Continue button for missions
Reworked Player Inventory
Multi-Tool changes
Challenge Rating / Threat Level Changes
Enemy Threat Variants
Other Changes (Stability Fixes)
Free Weekend
If you’ve ever experienced a crash or had to quit unexpectedly while playing solo/being the lobby host, you will know that all mission progress would disappear.
Starting back from the hangar. Which is not super fun when it wasn’t your fault…
So with this update, the game now auto-saves your mission progress at every ship jump to a new sector.
Should you quit the game in an unexpected way instead of Returning to Hangar willingly, you will get an option on the Main Menu screen to simply Continue your mission, loading you back into the sector you were last in. Simple as that.
Combined with the instant re-join from last update, now nothing will stop you and your group from finishing that long-haul mission!
After much player feedback, making item slots better was our next priority.
You want more slots for stuff, and we wanted to rework the Cargo Bag mechanic.
Now, you have 3 separate “tiers” of inventory, which in total gives you more slots than before. Scroll to the other image above to see the example.
Your first tier is for primary weapons, and there are 2 slots as of right now.
The second tier is for consumables and usable items. 2 slots here as well, but this is something we can expand with player perks (get more slots as you level up your character etc).
The third tier is your bag for storage. This replaces the external Cargo Bag mechanic we had before, and can hold up to 10 items. You can choose to put anything in here, but it’s mainly for lugging around loot or things you’ll maybe need later.
We know this will be a big change to get used to with new muscle memory to learn, but we’re confident this is a much better solution than what we had previously in terms of juggling items and guns you want to use. Try it out and tell us how easy to understand this new inventory is. We don’t want it to feel annoying, so please let us know your hands-on thoughts.
But speaking of inventory changes...
We have renamed the old Multi-Tool to Materia Gun, and it's now optional to use.
The Multi-Tool will not be necessary to open doors or repair, as you have a separate gadget that shoots the beam through just an animation interaction.
Materia guns will spawn as loot with different modules just like everything else, to give you the option of “smaller gun with infinite ammo”.
We’ve previously teased Materia Gun Variants, and that is still a thing that’s happening (soon).
Missions used to range from Challenge Rating 1-5, or Very Easy to Very Hard.
We are renaming this to Threat Level, and adding higher levels up to 8.
Widening the range between “Very Easy” missions and “Very Hard” missions lets us ramp up the difficulty more smoothly, as players slowly get better gear and components.
Difficulty balancing has been very tricky in the past when having just 5 stages of difficulty to work with, and this makes it a bit easier. There’s a ton of variables aside from chosen difficulty that decide what is an appropriate challenge as well.
But basically: More options for you = less frustrating difficulty spikes.
Threat Levels 1-3 will feel easier, but up at Level 7 and 8, things get nightmarish real fast. We want 8 especially to feel borderline impossible unless you’re locked in, play smart, have endgame-level gear and show great teamwork with your crew (if you’re in co-op).
We’ve heard that this is something the endgame players want and need, so let us know how Threat Level 8 feels.
To go along with these tough Threat Levels, we’re adding more tiers of enemies.
You will see enemies with different colors and titles like “Overclocked” and “Bruiser”.
These let you know if those enemies are a little extra spicy and tanky - or just plain weak.
Enemies can chase you onto your ship from the ground, but this will only happen if you are unfairly shooting ground enemies from your ship, where they cannot fight back otherwise. A little counter-cheesing strategy.
In all situations of the "Intruders onboard" emergency and enemies get into your ship, they can now also attack ship weak points directly to deal small damage to ship HP instead of always attacking players.
Players in the pilot seat, combat seat or scanner station are invisible to enemies and they will instead attack the ship weakpoints in other parts of the interior.
This way you won't get sneak attacked by enemies and swarmed on the ship bridge.
Let us know if this works smoothly!
We have made large stability fixes regarding memory usage and memory leaks. With this update, Xbox players and especially Series S owners will feel a big improvement in stability, meaning way fewer crashes. This also helps PC players, so better stability for everyone.
We again want to thank everyone for your patience if you've experienced memory crashes. This is another step towards a greatly optimized game and a problem-free playing experience for every single player.
You will see that the Hangar has changed its layout. Take a look around as the Firing Range is now in a new spot behind Bozze!
Loot from destroyed ships now spawn as a singular crate that you can teleport inside your ship right from the pilot view, making looting those items less tedious.
Animations when exiting eject tubes have been polished and jetpacking in zero-G now has a new camera angle, so don’t be surprised when it feels a little different.
We wanted to mention that we have addressed the bug of enemy ships clipping through rocks and geometry. It’s not absolutely 100% fixed yet, but it should be much rarer to see now, thanks to new enemy pathing. We will keep working on this.
Due to issues, the player Flashlight has been disabled until further notice.
We’re dropping the Anniversary Update with the free helmet today, but between
September 17th until 21st, everyone can play Jump Space for FREE during that weekend!
We’ve made serious progress since Early Access began, and we want to give everyone who’s on the fence a good chance to test the game out. This is also a great chance for you who own the game to convince your friends to play, at no financial cost. Everybody loves free, right?
Reminder: Free Weekend means you can play the full game during that limited time. After the 21st, you need to buy the game if you want to keep playing.
That’s it for now!
We encourage y'all to jump back into the game this week and take advantage of that Free Weekend with your friends.
We will be back with the usual developer update around the start of October to let you know what the plan is for the next update; the one slated for around December.
We hope to make that one as big and exciting as the Weapons Update.
Also, depending on how well this Free Weekend goes and if we get a little boost in sales and attention, we might have some more great news to share. We shall see…
Fly safe!
- The Keepsake Crew
Below are the full release notes changes not mentioned above.
Overview video explaining the new content in video form:
[dynamiclink href="https://youtu.be/C01dERLcj34"][/dynamiclink]
Auto-saving mission progress and Continue button from Main Menu.
Renamed Challenge Rating to Threat Level and added Threat Level 6-8.
Reworked Player Inventory, reworked the Cargo Bag mechanic into player inventory. This features a movement penalty/encumbrance if you are carrying a ton of larger items.
Multi-Tool/Materia Gun is now a normal, lootable weapon and not required.
Different Enemy Variants with different colors that are stronger or weaker depending on Threat Level.
Ground enemies can fly up to/teleport onto your ship if you are using ship weapons to kill them from above, giving them a chance to fight back. Enemies onboard can choose to attack the ship itself to deal hull damage instead of always hunting down players.
Large stability fixes regarding memory usage and memory leaks. Xbox players should see significant improvement in stability, but this also affects PC players.
Added Larger Text accessibility option. This is on by default for Steam Deck, but can be toggled for any player on any platform.
Buddy-Bot can now control 2 Special Weapons at the same time (Only on Hammerhead ship)
Buddy-Bot can now perform repairs and other tasks while in the combat seat (Performing two tasks simultanously)
Camera angles when flying in zero-g and launching out of an eject tube has been updated.
Loot from destroyed ships spawn as crates that Pilots can teleport into the cargo area of the ship.
Hangar hub has a new layout.
Enemy difficulty has been adjusted across Threat Level 1-8. The easier missions feel easier, and the higher ones are harder than ever. If you are used to playing on Threat Level 5, difficulty may feel like it has changed, so try out the other Threat Levels accordingly.
Overhaul of player weapon and ship component balancing, expect tweaked stats and numbers to everything. Don't hesitate to reach out to us for specifics for a particular item.
The Chain ship weapon module was previously extremely strong and trivialized harder difficulties or was required for success. Chain now has more aggressive damage fall-off when bouncing between enemies, bringing it more in line with other modules and encouraging using others. It was just too strong for the game's balancing.
Changes to the Tutorial Prologue to accomodate the change to the Multi-Tool/Materia Gun
Ground enemies can now jump forward during combat.
Core Lives can no longer be found as loot or purchased from vendors while we evaluate how Core Lives should be distributed as rewards. They are powerful and make missions very swingy in difficulty.
Various fixes across the entire game. If you still encounter an old bug, make a post on Steam Discussions or in our Discord and we will fix it ASAP.
Fixed the bug where players would be endlessly afflicted by a status effect and keep dying.
Updated ship pathing to help prevent enemy ships flying through geometry and rocks. This can still occur but will be much more rare.
Many artifacts and weapon modules that previously did not apply correctly now work as intended.
