TAXINAUT V0.8.10 IS OUT!

IT HAS 2 YEARS OF CHANGES AND IT NOW COMES WITH A STEAM KEY.

HERE'S WHAT'S NEW

• Full "Birdie" storyline: Sort of like "the main quest". It will take you well over 20 hours to finish it. The storyline includes lots of new NPCs mobs and planets all with new artwork.
• New way of how the main game mechanics like dying and saving work. Dying is called cycling. When you cycle you revive at your home (or if you don't have one the nearest Nexus). You lose all VUDU and all material things you had on you. The main storyline is tied heavily into this cycling mechanic and it's not just a "meta" thing but part of the game world if you will. Game still saves automatically when you quit and in some special situations like after recovery at your home. But, now you can optionally save manually while landed at some sites like your home or motels.
• Your home is now more interesting and important: Not only is it where you revive but you can transfer VUDU between yourself and the Nexus (bank) there. You can also store items and buy items you have unlocked for purchase at home. So you can easily restock after for example reviving at home. Items at home cost 3 times less than the same item anywhere else. You can enter what's called "recovery" at your home which removes all injuries and damages. You also get food and rest for free while recovering at home.
• All abilities and equipment now work like consumable items: For each you buy you have one use of it. So for example warp-cores are now warp-jumps and each time you warp you use 1. This ties in with the ability to unlock items for cheap purchase at home which is basically the way you progress in TAXINAUT.
• The game is now very moddable (although there's very little documentation at the moment and no tools). It does come with a little mod example in the docs folder but you need to know or be willing to learn some Java.
• Dungeons and stations can now have multiple levels.
• Planets can now have traffic-lanes (they are basically like huge dungeons).
• The mini-map has been overhauled and now shows a directory of known sites next to it, among other things.
• The whole dialog system is much more flexible and easier to use. It doesn't use scripts anymore but instead uses plugins written in Java removing the dependency of TAXINAUT on a script-engine.
• There's automated testing and there are a lot of tests written for it: Common things like game-over, reviving, the tutorial etc. have automated tests. Nearly everything in the Birdie storyline has automated tests. To give you an idea of the amount of tests, running all test takes nearly 1.5 hours (and the tests run everything very fast). To be honest this is probably my favorite accomplishment in the new TAXINAUT. I don't think something like the Birdie storyline would've been possible for just a single dev without automated testing.
• Star systems are now 13 times as big to give a much more space-gamey feel. There's also now drink and drugs that can make time pass faster under certain conditions.
• Assisted departure, transporters and galactic liners are now cheaper and easier to use: For example: Transports now leave as soon as you board them (there's no more waiting for departure).
• The settings screen has much more in it now.
• The manual has been expanded and is now a webpage available online.
• There are filters for your item-panel so it only shows certain items.
• Many, many more things (The GIT change log since March 2020 is over 3000 lines).

WHAT'S PLANNED

I'll probably be updating TAXINAUT for a long time. The frequency will depend on whether I can get some kind of an income out of it. For now I'm planning to do a feature update about every 3 months. What each update entails will depend in part on what players want prioritized. For the first 3 months I'm anticipating mainly bug fixing and to make it easier to find weapons. After that I'll probably focus on the Player getting different ships. After that I'll start to try and make fares in general more interesting. Depending on the seriousness I will release small bug fix updates as they come up.

Now go get some fares!