Hi everyone,

Want to play alongside a friend? With this new patch – you can! A friend can join the same galaxy as you by spawning on to one of your planets. You just need to give them that planet’s unique spawn code. We’ve also got auto-mining of asteroid fields in this patch. Read on for full details and to find out what else is included.

Steam Winter Sale Now On

Before we begin, a quick reminder that the Steam Winter Sale kicked off yesterday. Get 25% off Outscape until January 2nd. If you or a friend is yet to buy a copy, now is a great time to do so! You can play alongside each other with the new Play with Friends feature.

Get Outscape on Steam

Play with Friends

Players have wanted to play alongside their friends since the early days of Outscape. But until now, the only way to spawn near a friend was to join the galaxy at around the same time as each other (because of how the spawning algo works).

For players that were able to organize it to join the galaxy at the same time, this worked fairly effectively. But if a player wanted to join days or weeks after a friend, it was likely they would be far apart in the galaxy.

The new Play with Friends feature included in this patch bridges that gap, and gives players that can’t join the galaxy at the same time as each other the same opportunity to play alongside each other, despite joining the galaxy at different times.

How it works

Generating a spawn code

1. Go to planet management for the planet you want to allocate and open the spawn code panel

2. Click ‘Generate Code’ to generate a unique spawn code for that planet

3. Click the ‘Copy’ button to copy the spawn code and instructions url to your clipboard, ready to paste to your friend

The planet is reset as a suitable home planet for the civilization the player chose: temperature, land mass, unmined resources (surface resources are left as they are), with infrastructure and fleets in orbit (the size remains the same for now). The previous player’s infrastructure and population are removed:

Resources relative to the removed infrastructure are given to the new colony



If there was a second native population on the planet it isn’t removed

A treaty is automatically formed between you and your friend after they spawn onto the planet you allocated for them

The planet will remain under your control until the spawn code is used (you can change or delete the spawn code)

You can also generate additional spawn codes for other planets and other friends

Spawn codes can’t be generated/redeemed for your only planet or planets under invasion

Using a spawn code

1. After launching Outscape click on a game slot or ‘Redeem Spawn Code’ button from the game lobby

2. Enter your spawn code and click the ‘Validate’ button

3. Choose your civilization and start playing

After choosing your civilization you’ll spawn into the game

Your home planet will be the planet allocated to you by your friend

Your fleets are colored a whiteish blue and you’ll have a handful in orbit of your home planet

A treaty between you and your friend will have been created automatically

You and your friend can invite other friends to join you in the game

Wiki: Spawn Codes

Auto-mining Asteroid Fields

We’re hearing from players that automated fleet behaviours are one of the top priorities. So in this patch we’re pleased to include auto-mining of asteroid fields.

More fleet automation is planned to follow: auto-exploration of the planets in a star system (rather than having to move the fleet manually from planet to planet), and auto-freighting of resources.

Let’s take a quick look at how auto-mining of asteroids works. If you’re new to the game and not familiar with asteroid mining, check out the wiki for more details.

How it works

The ‘Auto-mine asteroids’ option is available for asteroid mining fleets in orbit of a planet

A fleet with asteroid mining capabilities (at least one asteroid mining module and cargo space) must be in orbit of one of your colonized planets to enable automated asteroid mining Select the fleet and then click on the asteroid field From the context menu select ‘Auto-mine asteroids’ The fleet will then automatically travel to the asteroid field and begin mining it Once the fleet’s cargo is full, or the asteroid field is empty, the fleet will return to the planet where the original order was given and transfer the resources it mined to the colony If the asteroid field has more resources available, steps 4 and 5 above are repeated, otherwise, the fleet will remain idle in orbit of the planet

Between systems

An asteroid mining fleet can be ordered to mine an asteroid field in a different system to the planet it’s in orbit of:

Select the fleet from the star map (click the system where the fleet is to select it from the menu) With the fleet selected, click the system where the asteroid field you want to mine is and select the ‘Auto-mine asteroids’ menu option for the asteroid field you want to mine

The process will work the same as it would if the asteroid field was in the same system e.g. travel to the asteroid field, mine it, return to the planet and transfer resources, repeat until the asteroid field is empty or the fleet is interrupted.

However, if boosted warp is enabled but the fleet then runs out of olzine, it will resume travel between the systems using the fleet’s free warp speed (it will not automatically transfer available olzine to itself from a planet).

Wiki: Asteroid Mining

Auto-hauling Resources from Wreckage + Jettison Pods

A fleet with cargo capacity can be ordered to fetch all the resources from a wreckage or jettison pod and bring them back to a planet. If the fleet can’t fetch all of the resources in one go, it will go back and forth until no more resources are left (the fleet must be in orbit of a colonized planet to be able to give this order). It works in a similar way to auto-mining an asteroid field (without having to wait for/mine the resources).

The next stage of this feature will involve being able to move resources to a jettison pod (this would enable basic automated freight transfer between planets, one fleet taking resources from a planet and putting into a jettison pod, another fleet collecting them and taking them back to another planet).

Other Changes

Setting to enable/disable boosted warp by default

In the v103 patch we made a change that enabled boosted warp by default for fleets that had olzine. In this patch, we’ve added a setting that enables/disables this behaviour (disabling boosted warp by default effectively reverts the change made in the v103 patch).

Wreckages from battle are removed when empty

When the last resources are taken from a wreckage it’s now removed. You no longer have to wait for its timer to expire.

Unexplored planet labels

When exploring a star system it’s not easy to remember which planets are still unexplored. We’ve added a text label ‘unexplored’ above unexplored planets to make it easier to see (we may remove the text and do it via styling of the label instead).

Bug fixes

The very annoying bug where you’re warned that transferring away population will cause a labour shortage – when it won’t/doesn’t – has finally been fixed. A couple of other less prevalent bugs have also been fixed. Check out the full release notes at the end of this post for details.

We’ll be back again soon with another update. If you have any feedback on this patch, please let us know on the forum.

– The Outscape dev team

Full patch notes

Features and changes

Play with friends: players can allocate one of their planets for a friend to join them in the same game. When the friend joins the game using the unique spawn code for that planet, it becomes their home planet.

A fleet with asteroid mining capabilities can be ordered to mine resources from an asteroid field automatically (the fleet must be in orbit of one of your colonized planets to give the order). The fleet will travel to the asteroid field, mine it, and then return to the planet where it will transfer the resources it mined. It will continue to do so until the asteroid field is empty, or the fleet itself is interrupted e.g. attacked, ordered to move.

A fleet with cargo capacity can be ordered to fetch all the resources from a wreckage or jettison pod and bring them back to a planet. If the fleet can’t fetch all of the resources in one go, it will go back and forth until no more resources are left (the fleet must be in orbit of a colonized planet to be able to give this order).

The recent change which enabled boosted warp by default if the fleet has olzine can now be disabled/enabled via the settings

While in a system you can see which planets haven’t been explored yet from their label (‘Unexplored’ has been added in small text above it)

Menus have been changed so they aren’t dismissed as soon as the cursor leaves the edge of the menu (there is a small zone around the menu now and it will only be dismissed when the cursor leaves that zone – it stops the issue where you try to scroll to the bottom of a menu to select a fleet and the menu disappears before you can get to the one you want to select)

Wreckages from battle are removed after they’ve been emptied

Bugs fixed

The warning dialog about causing a labor shortage when transferring population away from a planet was appearing when it shouldn’t (transferring the population wouldn’t cause a labor shortage)

When a Snithereal planet was abandoned the Bloodthirst rate remained set (if the planet was then colonized by a non-Snithereal player they had no way to control it)

Exploration history: the last known status of a planet wasn’t correctly remembered e.g. in orbit it would say ‘Planet is not colonized’ but after leaving orbit it would say ‘Status unknown’

Small asteroid mining modules weren’t compatible with small general slots if the slot was compatible with assault troop carriers

Updating the game client: the game should be automatically updated via Steam. Please check here if the download doesn’t automatically start when you launch Steam.