Greetings Pioneers!

The release of the experimental branch of multiplayer is imminent! Soon you will be able to play with your friends and host your own servers.

The plan for the next week is as follows;

Release of the Experimental branch via Steam – don’t worry, this will be accessible by everyone who currently has access to Eden Star and we will explain how to access this when launched

Eden Star will require a dedicated server in order to play in multiplayer and therefore we will immediately enable players to host their own dedicated servers with a complete, step by step guide on how to do so

Initially, whilst we test external servers, we do not intend to host our own community servers, but once we are happy with performance tests we can look into spinning up community servers for those of you without the capability of hosting their own

Initially, there will be a cap of 8 players per server but we will be looking to increase this in the future as we optimise the game further

Beyond multiplayer, the experimental branch will have no major new gameplay features added (yet!). There have been a huge amount of changes behind the scenes to optimise the game and get everything ready for a host of updates, including the new map (not yet released), and a host of new enemies that we have planned.

New features to expect beyond multiplayer;

There will be a new enemy spawn system that will help us balance the game specific to how large your base, vs. number of players, vs. number of hives etc. Any feedback on this would be great!

The HP of all buildings has been vastly improved ready for multiplayer

Please note: Saves from v0.0.13 and below will not work when v0.1.0 (Multiplayer) is uploaded to Steam!

These are some of the major features we will add as soon as possible for multiplayer:

Basic Character Customisation – At present all players will look exactly the same, besides the odd Splintermite shard if you’re unlucky 😉

Clans/Teams – In the first release we have angled the game towards co-op play. You will be able to snap-build to each other’s structures as well as sell other player’s structures. Friendly fire is however enabled and so currently players can kill each other and damage each other’s bases either accidentally or on purpose! We have already implemented a huge amount of the Colony system but have not yet activated it.

The Colony system will provide the ability to set up your own Colony with different ownership rules of buildings under an Eden Kit Shield. When it comes to built structures, we also have implemented the ability to assign roles to stop both outsiders and certain team members from being able to sell your structures. Anyone not in your Colony will also be targeted by your turrets as an enemy, currently Turrets will only target AI in the first release.

Multiplayer Smash – Only one player at a time will be able to hold an enemy, we are looking to change this in the future as well as add the ability to smash other players.

Trading – We intend to split out all Eden Kit inventories as well as adding further storage containers for players to stockpile and also trade with other players. Currently the player does not spawn an inventory to access, but this will soon be amended allowing players to loot corpses and other players inventories if you want your server set-up in a PvP manner.

Frontend Server Admin – This will be added to enable simple interaction with the server to issue boot commands and fully access any aspects of the server that you wish to change with ease, currently everything goes through a “black-box” interface, external to the game client.

Communication – To begin with there will be no in-game text chat or voice communication, players can use Steam Voice Chat (see this guide) or another external application of their choice to talk to their friends.

We are still working hard on expanding the player arsenal, with the modular weapon system, including Sniper Rifle, Kinetic Shotgun and various scope attachments etc. In addition to this we have the new 8km map (with mountains, rivers and lakes), and Juggernaut sized enemies that we want to implement as soon as possible in order to start to expand the current game content.

There are many more things planned for future updates; new enemies, new utilities, character customisation, upgrades, combo moves and a full progression system. All of which we hugely value your feedback on, so please check out our Public Trello Board.

Huge thank you to the growing community for all of your support!

See you in the fray!

-Team Flix