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[Flux_oortstar]

What is Oort Star?

Announced in January 2013, Oort Star is a browser based MMORPG set in a sci-fi Universe. When creating your character you will be asked to choose one of six specialisms:

Explorer, Fighter, Hauler, Miner, Salvager or Transit agent

Players are then let free in Satora and put in control of their own destiny.


Key game features include:

• Building outposts
• Crafting
• Mech arena's
• Managing fleets
• PvP
• Simulations (dungeons)
• Full list of game features here

Screenshots

Ship equipment screen


Your starting ship comes with a small amount of options, each slot can hold multiple items symbolised by the red/green squares in the bottom left corner. Larger ships will allow you to equip far more items.

Mining interface (with most basic settings)


As with many of our game interfaces, the mining screen will become more detailed as you journey through the game. Upgrading your ship and equipment will introduce a variety of new options to the display.

Weapons and missions	Two ships

Status

Oort Star is currently in active development, our team is working flat out and hope for beta to start in the not too distant future. We are aiming for a launch during the middle of 2013, but no dates are set yet.


The goal

Our goal is to create a fun, unique and expansive game which will keep you playing for years.

We are putting a lot of effort into our community driven features and hope to provide regular updates for our fans. We aim to keep very down to earth and *reachable* by every player who wishes to interact with us.

Personally I have packed in my full time job to work on Oort Star and plan on this being my first major (game) release.


What's next?

We're working on completing the combat and skill systems so our Alpha testing can truly begin. At present all testing has been void of combat which, whilst possible in the end product, is not the full experience of the game.


Beta testing



We hope for beta to begin within the next 2 months, as such we have opened up our beta sign up page.


Thanks for your time

Thanks for taking the time to read this first devlog. In the future I will be updating this thread with development news, talking about our progress, answering questions and explaining our *next step*.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks again,

- Flux

Oort Star website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | IndieDB




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Updates - Quick links

Devlog 1: January update

[Hipshot]

Seems like a big project, how big's the crew?

[Flux_oortstar]

Seems like a big project, how big's the crew?

Hi there Hipshot and thank you for the question.

The crew consists of 2 core people, Jarvis and myself, but I would like to take a few minutes to give a longer answer.

---

Oort Star is a large project, in fact a sensible person may well doubt the fact that we will get everything done, but we will.

Jarvis has the primary task of adding content, he's writing the story line, missions, planning the universe and writing nearly every word of text you will read within the game. We want to create a game with depth, side stories, a meaning but also it needs to have structure and Jarvis is making that happen.

Flux (myself), well I'm tasked with developing the game, I have been a programmer my whole career (and life) and whilst Oort Star is a mighty challenge, I'm not afraid to take on the beast. I'm also developing the website, UI and *pretty bits*.

The two of us have been collecting resources independently for around 8 years now and have 10'000's of assets. We also have an artist who works for us producing some of the amazing items and object you will see throughout the game.

And finally we have a great (small but growing) community who help control day to day moderation, testing and bring life to the Universe.


---

I know the journey will be tough, I'm also confident that a lot of people will be worried about us achieving our goal. But we plan on spending every available minute building this great game and making the scepticism a thing of the past.


- Flux

[Flux_oortstar]

January update

It has been a few weeks so I thought it would be good to provide an update, it has been a very busy month with Oort Star. We are in the middle of developing the combat system, the final large chunk of functionality before we can start heavily populating the starting areas.


Skill system



The skill system has now been completed and is being actively tested by a team of alpha testers. Skills allow you to equip new items and participate in additional areas of the game, the training of a skill takes real time.

There is a selection of different skill trees, each allowing you to further enhance your abilities within that area. This means you can choose to only train into the combat tree or you could spread your time around. For example, learning crafting, mining, drone control and hauling.

For full details please read our blog article: Let’s talk skills.


Adding depth

The Oort Star Universe isn't just an interface to game features, it's a living environment filled with on-going stories and regular events. As we continue to code new functionality Jarvis is working full time on creating story lines and populating the game with information.

Everything in Oort Star has a purpose and a history, demonstrated below with some planet Biographies.



Combat scanning

Blowing up other ships can be one of the most fun parts of any game, in Oort Star it will be no different. We have designed a Universe populated by hundreds of different enemies, and by different we don’t just mean we changed their name.

These differences include both the equipment the enemy can use and how it will behave, from trying to escape to being overly aggressive. Some enemies will have a single gun and small shield, others will have a variety of weapons, missiles, drones and repair tools.




You will need to learn ship classifications or prepare for anything when you engage in battle. To aid you on this we have provided access to countless combat scanners, offering a combination of more ships or more details.

Being able to customise your own experience is something we value and will provide where ever we can. If you simply want to find more ships then just increase your range, if you want to know about their armoury or combat strategy then that’s your choice and an available option.

For full details please read our blog article: Let’s talk combat scanning.


Thanks for your time

Thanks for taking the time to read this devlog. It has been a great month and the game is coming along nicely, we are keeping up with our goals and will be back to update you again soon.

If you are interested in Oort Star then why not apply for beta.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

Thanks again,

- Flux

Oort Star website | Facebook | Twitter | Google+ | IndieDB