I was doing the rocket training mission, but there seems to be a problem displaying Russian text. Do I need to install a font? I'm not sure if this is a problem on my end or with the game.

Patents Nerf
Patents have been removed entirely. I didn't like them. Found them to be a nuisance more than anything, especially in a solo game where time sinks aren't needed.

The flow of the game is much nicer now. The only roadblocks tend to be the availability of materials.

Starmap XML Export
Starmap XML export was restored. It was removed because the information could reveal the location of new players in the game, which was heavily exploited.

This could be somewhat useful if shared between players. Currently every solo game generates the same exact universe.

Avatar Land Nerf
The concept of avatar lands was removed entirely. This was a mechanism for managing resources on the server, not needed in solo play.

Warp and Wormhole FTL Drive Modules
Warp FTL drive modules no longer come in 9 warp factors. There is only one warp FTL drive module. Capacitor size determines maximum warp factor.

Similarly, there is now only one wormhole drive module. Polarity when engaged does not change the amount of energy consumed so all polarities are available to all wormhole drives.

Solar System Decay
Solar system decay is used to remove unwanted data. This garbage collection mechanic was changed significantly for the solo game. Here is how it works.
- There is no longer a one week delay before a system decays.
- A system containing any units will not decay. Units are buildings, spacecraft, npcs, vehicles, avatars and animals.
- A system that has been named will not decay.
- Systems with a ringworld have never decayed.

Sector Decay
Sectors also decay to remove unwanted data. This garbage collection mechanic changed slightly for the solo game. Here is how it works.
- A sector that has been named will not decay.
- A sector can decay when every solar system in the sector has decayed.

Noncombatant Nerf
The concept of noncombatant empires was removed entirely. This mechanism was introduced to protect players from destruction while they were not on line. It is not relevant to the solo game.

Rewards Nerf
Empire rewards were removed entirely. This mechanism never worked for its intended purpose and only provided a way for emperors to self-reward themselves for doing stuff.

Help Nerf
Help button and help comm channel were removed. Nobody will ever answer in the solo game.

World Indigenous Race
I made a slight change to the determination of indigenous race when you first encounter a world.
15% will be your DNA
35% will be DNA of one of the pirate empires that operates in that galaxy.
5% will be random DNA equivalent to pushing the dice button on the alien avatar creator page. It does not check for validity so any combination is valid. This could produce odd results, like giant indigenous that can't possibly fit in their tents.

Home System Near Ringworld
The Relic story requires a ringworld. In the online game, people have searched fruitlessly to find a sector containing a ringworld so the story can continue.

When a new avatar is created, a homeworld is located according to the location setting selected. Now that algorithm insures that a new homeworld is in or adjacent to a sector that contains a ringworld. When you start, at least one of the 27 sectors in your 3x3x3 region contains a ringworld.

This does not apply when the Remote location option is selected. No search for a ringworld in the supersector is performed. The location is just random.

Before the release, I will adjust the story to tell which sector to expect to find the ringworld.

Pirates Scuttle
Pirates whose ship has not moved for a long period of time will scuttle their ship. This garbage collection was happening when the solo game was loaded after being off for a long period of time. Pirates would immediately scuttle their ships.

This was fixed. Pirates inactivity timer is reset when the game loads.

As an alternative to an asteroid that destroys your entire home planet if the game is lagging when it shows up, gatekeep new players with pirates that teach new players the basics of combat without setting any strict deadline.

-When you start, pirates are blockading your wormholes, so you can't leave until you destroy the pirate ships. Gatekeep warp behind destroying the blockade somehow. Either set home systems guaranteed to not have antiflux, or just block construction of warp ships until it's destroyed. This will let new players learn the basics of ship vs ship combat. Maybe someone on the planet assigns a mission to get rid of the blockade, and this person tells the player that their options include destroying the ships and capturing them.

-After you destroy the blockade, a nearby (3-5 wormhole jumps) pirate city starts regularly sending raids on your home city. Instead of conquering the city if you can't defend it, they just plunder goods/money or kidnap citizens. This will teach players how to build effective planetary defenses, without forcing them to start over when they inevitably fail the first attempt.

-To permanently stop the raids, you must capture or destroy the pirate city. This will teach new players how to siege and capture enemy cities.

Edit: Gate warp behind capturing the enemy city instead. Maybe say the pirates stole the warp blueprint or something.

An auto-save feature would be fantastic.  Especially coming from the paradigm of MMORPG to single player.  I lost a few hours of work from a crash, which was frustrating, but I did find the save button, so I know better now.  

I will likely remove patents entirely.

Can anyone make a case for keeping them?

After exiting the design studio in Hazeron Starship, processes seem to stop running or rather they never finish, they stay indefinately at 0:00 seconds, even removing the process and readding it doesn't change it.

After saving and then exiting and restaring the game, it works fine again, meaning I have to exit the game every time when I enter the designer. Perhaps it would be nice to be able to load designs into the game through the menu and be able to return to the menu at any time aswell.

Edit: It seems to happen when I leave the atmosphere and then re-enter, aswell. I can talk to citzens and move and drive/fly around, but processes seem stuck. Maybe the game is stuck when trying to load those after re-entering the planetside scene?

Edit 3: it also happens when switching characters (between different systems)

Edit 2: After destroying the buildings and the constructing new ones it works again without restarting the game, if that helps.

A new Hazeron Starship beta has finally been posted to Steam. New keys were sent by email to everyone who requested them.

Here are some noteworthy changes.

World build limits were raised a lot.

Spacecraft and building design size limits were raised.

Diplomacy window now updates properly when you make changes.

Sentient species on habitable worlds was changed. It used to be that almost every habitable world you visited had a sentient species that exactly matched your own. About 5% of worlds got a different sentient species. All habitable worlds had a sentient species.

Now about 15% of the habitable worlds you visit will have a sentient species that matches your own. About 35% of habitable worlds will have a sentient species drawn from the pirate empires. About 50% of habitable worlds will have no sentient species at all, at first. People who depart your city to live in the wilderness will establish the sentient species of worlds that do not have one.

Spacecraft and building blueprint exchanges were simplified. Features that were only relevant to the online game were removed or hidden.

Game startup was simplified and revamped. There is no longer a sense of new vs old DNA. Instead the choice is between human and alien DNA. Comments about unfinished DNA features were removed.

A weird bug was fixed that caused entry into the designer to often put you on a planet somewhere instead, not in a designer.

I am now working on integrating with Steam Workshop, for the sharing of blueprints.

I may also integrate the Steam Achievements features.

At that point I will likely release Hazeron Starship to the public.

Scope: Decay/Abandonment


Issue: A change was made by Haxus to Hazeron Starship previously to remove the penalties of decay/Abandonment. It seems to function but it's not 100% effective. For example, same solar system with multiple planets and cities, some will suffer abandonment/decay while others will not. See picture below for more details. 


Current remedy: None


Steps to reproduce:
1. Don't play for a period of time.
2. Load game
3. Check cities overview and observe



Pictures

Hi everyone. Wow what happened? It's December?

I got my little computer center all set up in town at the beginning of the year with plans to work like crazy on the game. Life overwhelmed me like a tide and Hazeron was gone like so much flotsam. For the past few months my office has been completely inaccessible, filled with furniture from other parts of the house due to renovations. I only regained access to it last week.

Luckily the servers did pretty well during that time. I mostly ignored them. There were a few problems that required restarts but all in all they ran well enough all summer. I missed the uninterrupted power of the computer center. It seemed like every time a big thunder storm blew through town the servers lost power briefly, enough to reboot them.

When I set up the servers in town I paid all of the expenses for the first year. That year is nearing its end. It has become too expensive to operate them. I am going to shut down the servers, likely in January 2023. The rent on the office space is trivial so the servers will remain there, with only the web/email server powered on.

The game servers will be down indefinitely. If the Steam version brings in any significant amount of money I might consider reviving them, just for fun.

My efforts will now focus entirely on making a good complete Hazeron Starship game to release on Steam. The software is about 99% ready for that. I also want to add a little more story content and design more building and ship models. Those things take time. 

I considered adding LAN play capability. It would not be difficult. It will take time to get it right and it isn't needed for the solo game. I decided to save that for a future update.

Some people already have access to Hazeron Starship on Steam. The about box will show Software Engineering, Inc. as the owner. That version will no longer receive any updates due to the change of owner to Hazeron Freehold LLC.

If you would like to continue getting updates to Hazeron Starship, or if you would like to become a beta tester, send email with your Shores of Hazeron account name. If you do not have a Shores of Hazeron account you are not eligible to be a beta tester.

Have a Merry Christmas.

Haxus