Greetings from the closed Alpha

It’s been almost two months since we sent out the Alpha keys, so we thought it’s time to share some news about what’s happened since. First, thank you for every minute spent playing the test version! The testing corps has kept us busy with issue reports and requests, and with their help we’ve been able to push out six patches full of fixes and additions.

The test keys continue to work and the game will continue to be in development, now and even after we release it into Early Access, but we’ve already been able to make some big improvements. It would be a little boring to just list every discovery, though, so we decided to pick some highlights instead to show what we’ve learned and enjoyed most. (And as the changelog in full can be found on our GitHub anyway.)

Barotrauma Alpha test in a nutshell

Issue reports and feature requests so far: 350 (GitHub) + 77 (contact form)

Issues resolved so far: 170

The buggiest part of the game has been the multiplayer campaign, and networking related bugs in general have been common. Getting the networking features working smoothly in a procedural, physics-driven game with a million moving parts hasn’t been easy, and we’re still not quite at the finish line. But thanks to all of the help from the testers, we’re getting close!

The Most Prolific Report Writer prize goes to…NilanthAnimosus!

AbominationBanisher & rico6822 also get a special mention for GitHub activity, and another special thank you to everyone who has coordinated and participated in multiplayer testing events – here’s a brief video by one of our Alpha testers of one such community playtest session (disclaimer: explicit language):

From the black box

At the time of writing, Alpha testers have played 769 hours in total. The most popular sub was the Typhon II, followed by the Humpback and the Orca.

Barotrauma Extended never goes out of fashion and already had around ⅔ of the sessions that the Vanilla content package had. Besides BTE, there is already a bunch of custom subs and other cool things in Baro’s Steam Workshop courtesy of our Alpha testers.

Most deaths occurred on March 18, and on the same day there were also the most traitors on board.

In total, we have registered 13,250 deaths (including monsters); the total count of human deaths is 3508 (of which 2222 were AI characters, 1286 players). Following are the most common causes of death (in humans):

1. Barotrauma (519)

2. Internal damage (209)

3. Suffocation (155)

4. Burns (83)

5. Bloodloss (82)

6. Bitewound (40) (not in vanilla game, BTE addition?)

7. Radiation sickness (15)

Curiosities: one husk died of liver failure, a crawler died of hypothermia, an AI crewmember died of tryposlugs(???).

The steering vector from a navigation terminal converted into an angle for the turret.
One our Alpha testers decided to build a circuit that converts the steering vector from a navigation terminal into an angle for the turret. Absolute madman. Maybe we should consider adding some trigonometry components…

Just reading some of the GitHub reports has been extremely entertaining for us, even when they concerned serious issues in the game. Some of our favorites include the thicc hat, the very unfortunate Watchman and the unexpected lethality of having AI man the guns. These are among the many things we’ve fixed, along with fentanyl – a common medical item – inadvertently being one of the most lethal chemicals in the game due to a bug that caused the patient to suffocate almost immediately after injection…

In addition to bug reports, we’ve also got tons of development suggestions, like taking off the players’ undergarments (which we haven’t done yet, but who knows), and concerning gravity on Europa (which we were kind of hoping no one would ever notice). Luckily, some players have already come up with an entirely plausible explanation for the latter: the mass of all the sunken submarines has increased Europa’s mass so that the gravitational acceleration is about the same as on Earth. We also have some ideas of our own on how to give it an explanation that ties in with the story and the goal of the campaign, when we get that far 🙂

That’s all this time – next time you hear from us, we hope to be able to announce our release date!

Comments

  • March 29, 2019
    reply
    corndoglover

    duuuuuude

  • April 14, 2019
    reply
    Méroulkas

    can I test the alpha now ? me and my friend really want try to test this game ?

    • April 16, 2019
      reply
      Dynamoon

      Hi, we’ve given out all the alpha keys we can at this time, so unfortunately we cannot take on board any more testers. Thanks for being in touch though!

  • April 15, 2019
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    Rabbit

    I can’t wait for it to release!!!

  • April 20, 2019
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    Janfer Andersen

    Hello
    If there is an extra key by any chance, then I would gladly help and test to approve the development of this game. I am basically a Barotrauma veteran, played it for free last year 😀

    Best Regards
    – Janfer

    • May 28, 2019
      reply
      Dynamoon

      Hello, and sorry about the late reply – we only had a fixed number of keys for testing, and the public sign-up for the alpha was held a while ago. So unfortunately there haven’t been any more keys available lately.

  • April 26, 2019
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    MysteryMan21333

    Must say im excited for when it releases this spring! Been playing barotruama for quite some time before you added the alpha keys and I must say its been a very unique gaming experience with some pretty funny moments and bugs. The best part about it personally was the multiplayer there was always something going on be it standard dicking around to traitors blowing the ship up dressed in a clown costume there was always something unique with each round packed full with drama and chaos! Hope you and your are doing well. ~ Signed, The Mystery Man

  • May 4, 2019
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    OOFMan

    So is there a way to get access to the game now? I remember there’s been few free downloads for the game but can’ t find em anymore.

    • May 6, 2019
      reply
      Dynamoon

      We’re unfortunately not taking on any more testers, so the current version cannot be downloaded before we release on Steam. The legacy version, which hasn’t received major updates in over a year and as such is quite different from the upcoming release version, can be found on the Undertow Games website: http://undertowgames.com/games/barolegacy/

  • May 27, 2019
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    Michael Gerson

    Sucks I missed out, I was one of the OG who played oldschool BT

    • May 27, 2019
      reply
      your wrong

      yeah, that was 90% of the testers

  • June 4, 2019
    reply

    Will it be free

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