DevBlog #20 - Characters filled with character! And some other cool stuff.

Space and asteroid stations should be a great addition to the game, but I am wondering how will they (and our ships) be powered?

Will there be some sort of crystals that you can harvest during travels or maybe we will use more conventional fuel stored in tanks?

Will powering the ship engines be different from powering the ship rooms? (for example crystals for power core and fuel for engines)
Maybe there will be possibility of refining power source (be it fuel or crystals) to be more effective?

Great questions! Ships and stations are currently powered with energy crystals, which can be mined from asteroids and then turned into energy sticks, which in turn are fed to the core module. The core module then produces electricity. We have also thought about adding solar panels at some point.

Ship engines are powered by fuel crystals right now. The resource tree is still a bit open though, it can change quite a bit still.

I think, the solar energy is more realistic (than crystal energy), so it would be the basic energy source. Don't you think also?

So it's possible to have nuclear reactor and power-generating-stationary-bike-which-is-easily-found-in-gyms?

Nuclear reactor is a good idea, and for its usage the player must search and mine plutonium in the asteroids (instead of crystal)
I think, the stationary bike would produce too few to power an entire spaceship

Heh, yes it would be possible to create gym bikes to produce a little electricity! It would be more of a fun little feature though, as the produced energy wouldn't be much.

Or make energy from vegetables or organic dust (e.g. pooh) like in "Back to the future"

I say have lots of ways to make power/fuel engines,
Start with a nuclear-based power plant (decent power output and long-lasting fuel) but it requires you to find or salvage refined fuel rods or refine plutonium/uranium your self (time-consuming and requires machinery )
The power crystal core could generate large amounts of power but expends its fuel rods fast but is easy to mine and refine into something usable.

Solar and RTG's could fill the low power-power gen roll, Solar is cheap to make but low powered and reliant on external factors as well as fragile due to being mounted outside,
RTG's require nuclear materials to make but provide small amounts of power in all environments and can be placed inside while lasting forever (forever as in the scope of the game as they work on radioactive decay they will lose power as the radioactive material decays into a less energetic form)

Biodiesel and alcohol generators should also be possible but have the drawback of producing CO2 that needs to be dealt with in exchange for a mid/low mid power generation and a fairly easy to refine fuel

The power bite idea as mentioned by AdmiralGeezer, lowest power gen but your doods will be really fit for all those salvage missions you send them on
Im also assuming we will have various batteries to store generated power in, A small portable generator should also be in the game to aid on salvage missions

For engines, a Basic rocket fuel design but uses fuel that is common but requires machinery to refine, Better bring a hose a mint and a fuel can with you on salvage runs)
A nuclear rocket that has the same fuel issue as the nuke reactor and requires EVA to replace the spent fuel balanced out by its high fuel efficacy.
An electric based engine High electric drain for low powered fuelless thrust.

I wondering about laser turret, will it have a fixed energy requirement or adjustable one? If yes then it is possible to make it fire continuous?

We haven't made a laser turret. Perhaps we will Right now we only have 1 turret, basically a simple projectile turret. We're still trying to figure out how big of a part ship to ship combat will have in the game. We will see where the game goes after we get some first feedback from players! It all depends on what players perceive is fun in the game. Right now we're working on making trading with other groups possible.

Is it possible to scam them or get scammed by them? And how do you meet other groups? Does this mean the game have a diplomatic system?