iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 13h

When we moved to Seattle, we had one simple idea:

Photo of a scrap of paper in a wood tabletop, with the words "Domesticated wendigos" hand written on it.

2121

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Looks like procedural face generator's daydreaming again...

Ostranauts captain portrait for "De Peterson" on the left, which bears a passing resemblance to Adam Driver, pictured right.

2271

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

This is a legitimate test, I swear!

Screencap of an Ostranauts player log, which reads like a chat/SMS log:

Right-aligned:
"Welcome back, Captain."
"Danielle Bryant watches dramatic reruns on you."

Left aligned:
"Danielle stops watching you."

220

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Inject this shit straight into my veins.

A product specification sheet listing compatibility with various AI, app, mobile, and other "smart" features.

Every cell says "No"

0315

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Pick a Bond from photos you already have on your phone.

A wobbly drawing of Garfield with comic sans word art over him reading "gotta have me a good lasaga"

130

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Debugging why reactor rooms are so hot all of the sudden. Can *you* spot the culprit? #gamedev

Heatmap of a reactor room in Ostranauts, showing most background objects in black to purple color (room temperature and below).

A human stands near the reactor, colored red (warm).

Most of the reactor parts are in various shades of orange (hotter).

The two laser arrays are in a blistering white color (extremely hot).

2131

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

I'm just jealous *I* didn't build the first fully-enclosed docking bay in Ostranauts.

Screenshot of a massive Ostranauts ship with rows of Miura RCS intakes, reactor tanks, RCS thrusters, missile launchers, PDCs, and even hints of a galley and head with checkered floors.

In center frame, a large, enclosed docking bay, with an aero-shuttle ready to take crew planetside.

In the background, the striated clouds of Venus are framed by the black of space.

0153

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

"Hot smokers in your Solar System want to chat." #gamedev

Screenshot of dev channel, showing Ostranauts game logs, with two noted entries:

"So, running a new game, this is the tally of people, smokers, and ugly:"
"People: 248; Uglies 0; Smokers: 178"
"People: 259; Uglies 0; Smokers: 200"

1262

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

We need a "Stories from the Void" anthology based on player accounts. I heard one recently... here it is:

Old Man Wesley Castillo — 4/16/2026 10:27 AM

So I hired a pirate, and we developed romantically. But it was pretty hard to get her to do any useful amount of work, and eventually I had to fire her. I let her go with a set of tools, her EVA suit with a spare battery, a couple days of food and water, and left her on OKLG.

A few days later I get held up by a pirate and it's her, in a tiny little junk heap of a pod. We had a past so it was easy to talk her down, but I told her no, get off my ship. So she did, and we undocked.

...and then that pod started accelerating. Directly toward the Sun. Gently, but constantly. She was doing better than 5 km/sec when I lost track of her, and there is no way that pod had that much N2. So the spurned lover supernaturally flew off into the Sun.
Emokis: 7 Salutes, 2 red hearts, 2 fires
[in character] Sometimes, when I see the Mariner floating out there, I'm pretty sure it's really Cassidy. And I check my suit seals, because I'm pretty sure Space is angry with me.

1509

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Ostranauts: Teaching the intersection of physics and physiology since 2020.

Positive Steam review for Ostranauts:
"Won a ship off a guy in a poker game.
I get on the ship and notice it has like 50 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thrusters across all sides.
Take it for a test drive.
Everything is fine...
Notice there's a lever for the thrust and it's set all the way down.
Crank that ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to the max and let it rip.
Wake up on the floor next to the pilot seat with a concussion and internal bleeding."

"Today I learned the human body does not do well when exposed to 50-100G's and the blood is briefly pulled out of your brain like a human centrifuge."

07113

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Ayotimiwa-approved recording setup 😛

Photo of a brick-colored blanket draped off of an upright fridge, and spanning over to a lamppost by a nearby wall. A warm glow emanates from within the blanket booth, illuminating a sloped ceiling and wall behind.

152

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

Joshu's putting together an explainer video for what's new in Ostranauts's upcoming Fire in the Hold update. A ton of work going into just a few minutes! #gamedev

Photo of a notebook page with thick, marker handwriting. There is a 52-point checklist in blue, 2/3rds of which is checked off with red ink. The page is titled "Wednesday 15th April - Combat Explainer," and the list contains items like "Railgun firing on NAV" and "Zoom out asteroid miner."

A number of the checkboxes have green annotations with arrows connecting them, and there's a legend of highlighter colors and their meanings.

2110

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I guess, uh, someone forgot to tell AI Navy ships not to attack stations... #gamedev

Screen from the Ostranauts SENSORS module on a NAV station, showing the silhouette of a section of Ring Station.

The silhouette is a wide, rectangular shape with antennae and girders sticking out from it. But it is carved deep with railgun round channels and explosives damage on all sides.

0152

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

If this ship had an associated sound, it would be a dot matrix printer operating #gamedev

$NAV map in Ostranauts, showing a black field bisected by blue grid lines in each quarter. At the center of the screen is a series of stepped lines approximating a ship silhouette, but then the line suddenly veers way off to the right and starts tracing an anfractuosity of parallel lines in a tight square shape.$

2245

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

This absolute gem of a reply to the Fire in the Hold news

Reddit comment from maxmurder, "Don't you wanna know why we keep startin' fires?!"

010

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Fuck yeah going to the front lines with my Sega Menacer

PBS news image of a soldier in fatigues pointing his anti drone gun towards the sky. It kind of looks like if an mp5 had every surface extruded 150% and then had a soft plastic shell stretched over it.

140

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

There's a good chance we'll keep this mode in the long run as an option on the main menu. If nothing else, it's great for folks to practice flying and/or fighting with low risk to their saves. Like the combat simulator in Wing Commander :P

Screenshot of the bar interior from Wing Commander, with two pilots sitting at a table, and a barkeep behind the bar.

An arcade-like seated cabinet with cowl over the screen sits in the lower left-hand corner, where players could practice flying.

020

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

For those that missed it yesterday, you can now play a sneak peek of our upcoming ship combat in Ostranauts! Arena Mode lets you build spaceships out of working Lego-like parts, then field it against endless waves of hostile ships to see how far you get. #gamedev steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/...

Screenshot of Ostranauts's Arena Mode main menu. A charcoal gray frame, hosting 3 LCD-like panels with glowing orange text and full-color images. Like an old laptop.

The left panel includes a list of available ships, with a big CHOOSE below it.

The center panel includes the ARENA MODE title, a text description of the mode, and a big, orange LAUNCH button at the bottom.

The right panel is a detailed view of the currently selected ship. A top-down picture at the top, plus stats, and an orange EDIT SHIP button below.

1366

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

If anyone can get past Wave 9, I want to know!

An incident report printed in the style of a dot-matrix printer, showing how many waves the player survived.

The left side shows a topdown view of the whole ship when it started, and below that, how it looked when it ended. The lower image has entire chunks missing from the hindquarters of the ship, and the front is all chewed up rubble. A fire rages with billowing smoke just ourside the NAV room.

On the right, the reported final wave was 9, with a total score of 71,842 points.

There are buttons to RETIRE, EDIT, or CANCEL at the bottom.

091

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Looks like we bagged one, and gave the other a bloody nose!

Same NAV screen as before, but now the "Debatable Merit" is debatably in a better place, while the "Yellow Opera" has massive splash damage to its bow, visible in the lower left SENSORS readout of their ship.

150

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Killing two birds with... four missiles? #gamedev

Ostranauts NAV screen, a blue control panel with buttons, knobs, sliders, LEDs, and screen readouts.

In the center of the panel is a large black map with blue, dotted grid lines. Our ship, a blue triangle named "Terrible Tattoo" is firing 4 missiles at two, white triangle, enemy ships at the top of the map: the "Yellow Opera" and "Debatable Merit."

The missiles are creating a "V" pattern of red lines emanating from our ship toward them.

2344

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Testing out new "pincer" missile path. We were getting heavy traffic along the line of fire between two ships before, and it was making it a little too easy to snipe a while volley. #gamedev

Ostranauts NAV map screen: a field of black bisected by glowing blue, dotted lines. ZOOM RANGE at the top reads 50.70 km in bright glowing blue.

At the center, our ship is a blue triangle pointed downward. It has hourglass-like PDC firing arcs above and below it, and a longer railgun firing arc extending downward, off-screen.

A series of scalloped red lines emanate from the ship's left and right side, banking sharply towards the bottom of the screen after about 18 km distance from the ship. Like a giant pincer or caliper. 8 numbered projectile icons are at the head of these red lines.

These are the new missile path algorithm in action, firing straight out from the ship a few seconds before turning toward the target.

0141

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

We're experimenting with letting the user manual-fire weapons outside of auto-target range, for skill shots. #gamedev

Ostranauts NAV UI showing several modules with buttons, switches, and readouts.

Notably, there is a WEAPONS CONTROL module showing a white silhouette of our ship with a variety of railgun, PDC, and missle ammo counts in green boxes.

There is also a SENSORS module showing a white silhouette of our target, rotated to match their orientation in space. It has several readouts on it for the weapons, crew, thrusters, and sensors they have, and how well our sensors read them.

The main part of the screen shows the MAP module: a black field bisected by glowing blue lines. Our ship is centered, with firing arcs pointing both directly at, and away from a target ship bracketed in red.

A red line connects our ship to theirs, as well as a red projectile icon beyond them. This is the result of a twin railgun shot the player fired from 500 km away, one of which hit its mark, leaving red marks on the target's silhouette in SENSORS module.

3162

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Snuck onto a ship to crash the party #gamedev

Two-frame screenshot of Ostranauts door breaching via mining charge.

On the left, a silver canister with caution stripes and blinking red LED sits just outside a closed airlock, the other side of which is hosting what looks like a party for crew in orange EVA suits.

One, a Raphael Travis, is approaching the door, and a tooltip over them says "Planned: Drink." Another is sitting with their back to the door, and there's a progress bar beneath them saying "Can't relax."

The right panel shows the charge exploding in balls of bright orange gas. Floor tiles around it have ruptured, the blackness of space visible through the gaps, and scrap metal and debris scattered around.

Raphael's EVA has been blown clean off his body, and he lies limp in the now-damaged door with only a helmet and skivvies on. His pocket knife scattered northeast, and a combat knife lies on the floor at his feat. (I guess Raph likes his knives!)

The sitting EVA person is now standing up, and some more crew are now visible in that party room, further away from the door.

2202

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I think these gray lines are a bug (duplicated orbit lines), but they kinda look nice! #gamedev

Black screen with glowing lines rendered on it. A NAV screen from Ostranauts.

The screen is framed in a blue line, with dotted lines dissecting it into octants.

My ship (Silent Company), a tiny blue triangle with gray firing arcs emanating from it, sits in dead-center. An enemy ship (Kinetic Paramour), in red, sits in the upper right quadrant. About 2 o'clock.

The enemy has a tan circle drawn around it, encompassing my own ship. This is its estimated range to detect me, based on their sensors and my active equipment.

Slashing across the screen at a diagonal is a teal-colored line. And a series of faint, gray lines run almost parallel to it in diminishing spacing, making it look almost like one of those "high tech future" commercials from the 80s.

3202

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

The bigger they come, the harder they fall. #gamedev

Sensor panel in Ostranauts. A dull blue panel frames a black screen showing a ship silhouette rotated to 11 o'clock.

It is a white outline of several joined rectangles, filled with a gray color. Blood red swathes are carved out of the middle, as if something gouged clear through it from various angles.

Along the sides of the display are readouts about the sensors and capabilities of the target ship, printed in pixelated white font.

Along the bottom are tabs for LOCK, VIZ, HOSTILE, and SENSORS, with a hardware button just below each, MFD-style.

0183

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Uhhh... I guess the results of the test are in:

Top down view of a large Ostranauts ship. Dim sunlight from the top left casts long, stark shadows revealing the shredded hull of a once-proud Pequod Technical.

Entire swathes of the ship are missing, with jagged edges where the railguns chewed holes through it, and stars visible beyond.

170

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Testing the efficacy of railguns. FOR SCIENCE #gamedev

Ostranauts ship design, approximating the silhouette of a tophat, with 6 railguns mounted on the bow, flanked by 2 PDCs.

Sensor clusters project out from either side, along with 18 RCS thrusters symmetrically placed along sides. The docking ring is mounted on the aft.

Inside, the ship is spartan. Bare essentials for power, HVAC, RCS, and a NAV station buried near the core of the ship.

A dead body in skivvies floats outside the ship near the airlock. Leftovers from an earlier "repel boarders with a shotgun" test.

3353

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

A roving ship battle passing close by in the asteroid field. #gamedev

Screenshot of Ostranauts NAV map, a black screen with glowing blue lines slicing it into a grid.

The player's ship is a blue triangle in the top left, with gray, hourglass-like arcs of fired radiating out from it.

Lower, in center frame, 3 white triangles are drifting toward the lower left corner, their flight trails curving behind them. Two have the red hazard outline denoting recent weapon discharge. Further to the right, another, smaller white triangles arcs toward the group.

Brown circles dot the rest of the map, indicating nearby asteroids.

0192

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 31/12/2025

Stray fire from a nearby ship battle #gamedev

NAV screen from Ostranauts showing a black screen with glowing vector art plotted in it. A gray-blue frame surrounds it, with MAP printed at the top.

The screen shows the player ship, a small blue triangle labeled M-538, with a few gray firing arcs. The arcs are barely a tenth of the map's radius of 377 km.

From the bottom center of the screen, a dozen bright red lines streak across to the top, narrowly missing the player. Projectile trails tracked by the NAV from a nearby ship battle.

Elsewhere on the map, a scattered few dull brown asteroid circles, and one orange beacon marker.

1222

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

One of our playtesters testing the efficacy of ship armor. On the bottom hull surface, the new modular armor cladding. On the top, the signature red frames of Ogiso work safety posters, for comparison :) #gamedev

Modified Rouncy ship in Ostranauts. A tan-colored cabin area and gray engine room, all in warm, yellow light.

The bottom, exterior hull of the ship is lined with modular, gray, ribbed cladding. A bit like the armor plates one would see along the treads of a tank.

Along the top exterior hull are a similar line of red blocks, representing Ogiso work safety posters.

2192

Daniel Fedor @dcfedor.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

Working on the conversation logic for surrendering in a ship-to-ship battle. #gamedev

Screenshot of the COMMS panel in Ostranauts. A black screen with metallic blue borders on left and right.

The screen is cropped to a short exchange between two ships, printed in glowing blue fonts:
"Cease fire! I surrender!"
"You're more valuable to me dead."
"Here's $1M!"
<in green> "You know, I'm feeling nice today. Fine."

0181