Credits are the current currency in Avorion and are used to pay everything that can be paid for. They are acquired by selling resources, blocks, turrets, or entire spaceships. Furthermore, credits can be obtained by selling whole asteroids or completing missions.
Usage of credits[edit | edit source]
Gotta have the official soundtrack, so good. Just go to your game directory 'Avorion data music'. Why are you so anxious to spend money for something which you already have? Use VLC to play back the music files. I would have just guessed it was hard coded in or something, dont know how it all works, but THANK YOUUUU none the less!!! #Clockwork #Avorion #Soundtrack.
Credits are used for 2 things
Avorion - Soundtracks
- for building new blocks
- the purchase of new systems/turrets
- to maintain morale of a ships crew
Avorion - Soundtrack Movie
how to earn credits[edit | edit source]
Avorion Soundtrack
- is by killing ships/stations and getting credit drops from them
- is to found stations and mines that produce goods
- is to complete missions given by stations
- given as rewards for killing pirates
- claiming asteroids and selling them. There is a picture of one on the linked page
- selling of systems/turrets
How a small developer from Erlangen creates enthusiasm on Steam.
When a development studio is in Erlangen – i.e. only 15 km away from our location in Fürth – we usually get into our car and drive there. But in times of social distancing, you have to use the same communication tools with your neighbours that you use for partners overseas. But it’s worth it cause Boxelware has a real surprise hit on Steam with the space sandbox game Avorion. Initially funded by a kickstart campaign over 15,000 Euros in 2016, Avorion has been in Early Access since 2017 and was enthusiastically received there. Until October 2019 Boxelware sold over 250,000 copies on Steam. The full release followed on March 9 2020, and the 7-man team is celebrated for Avorion even more.
What kind of game is Avorion? Avorion is a procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks. You fight epic space battles, explore, mine, trade, wage wars and build your own empire to save your galaxy from being torn apart by an unknown enemy. What role you play in this is up to you. Players can become rich as merchants, conquer the universe as generals with a gigantic fleet, go on the rampage as pirates in the 7-world galaxies or discover the secrets of the universe as explorers. As players move freely in Avorion, they influence a complex economic and diplomatic system. The merchants have to consider supply and demand in the galaxies in order to sell their goods as profitably as possible. Whether or not they can enter a system safely at all depends on their status with the dominant faction.
You want to know more about Avorion and Boxelware? That’s good. Our cover story starts with an interview with founder and lead developer Konstantin Kronfeldner.
Players can explore the procedural galaxy in self-built spaceships.
Making Games: Please tell us briefly about your career in the gaming industry. And how it all started with Boxelware?
Konstantin Kronfeldner: Hi! I’m Konstantin, and I’m the CEO of Boxelware. I wanted to make video games since I was 12 years old when a friend of mine told me he had just started to learn to program. In school, I started to pick up coding and started making my first game prototypes. After that, I started my studies in computer science in Erlangen, which is when I had the idea for Avorion. At some point, I realized that I had an actual game on my hand, and thought to myself “why not try selling it?”. It made its way through Steam Greenlight (at the time), and after asking my friend Philipp for help, we got a first Kickstarter funded. We developed the game some more and were finally able to put it on Steam Early Access, where it continued to be a great success. That’s when the foundation of Boxelware was finally there.
How big is your team at the moment? Do you hire?
We’re currently a team of seven people. At the moment we only accept internships, we’re not hiring.
What do you think about Bavaria as a location for game developers?
It’s great! That is, from what I can tell. Disclaimer: I’m not as active in the general networking scene as I’d like to be. What I do know though, is that there are several great studios present in Bavaria, and it’s growing from what I’ve seen over the past years. We have cool meet-ups like the Indie Outposts with members from other, amazing studios like CipSoft, Mimimi Productions or the PixelManiacs.
Keyword Coronavirus: What effects does this have on your daily work at present and on your business?
All employees of Boxelware have switched to the home office for now. It definitely impacts the day-to-day processes, and we’re still getting used to it, but in the long run, it should work out just fine. I kind of miss the workflow that I had in the office, though.
What inspired you to develop Avorion?
I’m a big fan of space games and Minecraft. I always wanted to make a space game and back in the day I had to find a way to do it all on my own (since back then there was no real prospect of having a team, ever). My biggest problem was that I’m a programmer, not an artist. So I had to find a way to create all the assets of the game in my own way: Procedural generation. I took some inspiration from Minecraft (which I played more than I’d like to admit) and decided to make a space ship generator that’s based on dynamically scalable blocks. The “dynamically scalable” part was to break free from the standard voxel look that lots of games have. Plus, I always wanted a game like X3, but with multiplayer. So those games were my main inspiration to make Avorion.
2016 you started a Kickstarter campaign. How exciting was that back then, and what would you have done if Avorion had not been funded?
That was a very exciting time! It was Philipp Erhardt and me at that time. We had never done this before and quickly realized that it’s not as easy as “put it on Kickstarter and it’s going to work if it’s a great idea”. We had to do a lot of additional marketing to get the game noticed, but in the end, it worked out. What would we have done if it hadn’t? We would have kept going, but it wouldn’t have been as fast (or professional). The Kickstarter money wasn’t meant to pay us a salary, but to get us some money for marketing, music and development hardware. And it was meant to cover expenses that we already had, for example for the Avorion website or some other assets that we had to buy (SFX and music, for example). So that basically sped up the development process and gave us some financial security.
Avorion - Soundtrack Download
Resources are mined to build detailed ships in the extensive build mode.
Talking about the development process: What problems did you encounter in general and how did you deal with them?
We had several bigger problems, and some are lasting until today. The first one is that, over time, the project has grown organically. We regularly see old code where we think “Oh god, what were we thinking”. At some point, I had to do a refactoring that took me almost four months, during which the project didn’t even compile. That was a tough one, and I almost gave up on the project. The other is that we wrote our own engine, which has both its advantages and drawbacks. While it pays off a lot in tons of places, it’s a lot of extra work that has to be done regularly. The good news, in this case, is that the extra work is getting less and less over time and the benefits of our own engine are growing more and more!
Have you achieved all your goals with Avorion so far? What is coming in the next months?
Considering all our goals: That’s really hard to say. The most important goal that we achieved is that Avorion is now at the level that I imagined it years ago when I first had the idea for it. That’s the reason why now, it was time to go from Early Access into 1.0. For the next months, we have plans to release more free updates, as well as a few DLCs for the larger updates. We’re going to support Avorion for at least two years after 1.0 release. Depending on how things are going financially and with DLCs, longer, hopefully.
Avorion Soundtrack
How important is the story in Avorion for you? What is your claim and how close are you to it so far?
The story of Avorion is something that grew over time as well. We did have a basic roadmap of what setting we want for the game, but it was always important for us to keep Avorion a sandbox. So we don’t want to hold the player’s hand too much and give them the freedom of exploring the game and its features themselves. The story was meant as a red thread that leads the player through all the features that Avorion has to offer. It was also meant as a way to keep the players motivated who don’t want to experiment all day long and want a cohesive experience. We’re currently working on some more improvements on that front as well, to make the characters that you meet more distinct and give them more, you know, character.
Avorion - Soundtrack Torrent
A photo from the times before social distancing. Developer Philipp Erhardt (left) and Founder and Lead Developer Konstantin Kronfeldner.
Which feature are you particularly proud of?
The procedural generation algorithm, the building mode and the fact that ships break into pieces with a reasonable performance impact. The building mode gives people more freedom than any other game out there, which is really something that we’re proud of. The procedural generation algorithms create tons of distinct looking ships and stations, and it’s very easy for us to extend it (which is something we’re really, really looking forward to doing as well!). And finally, it always bugged me in other games, that when you shoot a big carrier’s engines, and the thing’s HP reaches 0, suddenly the whole ship explodes. I want things to break where I shoot them, and that’s something we achieved in Avorion.
What was the biggest disappointment so far, and what was the biggest positive surprise?
That’s a tough one. The biggest disappointment so far, I think, was that game development can be a lot harder than I initially anticipated. It’s a lot like other “normal” jobs in a lot of ways. Deadlines aren’t fun, missing them is even less fun, and having to explain that to people even less again. But on the other hand, those are day to day things that everyone has to face in their job. I don’t want to complain about that because at the end of the day I still get to make games for a living! But if I had to choose the biggest disappointment or “eye-opener” then it would be that.
The biggest positive surprise is that I never thought we would get so much positivity from our community. We have an incredibly engaged and supportive community, and that’s the best thing that could ever happen to us. I never saw that coming, to be honest. To all Avorion players who read this: You guys are awesome and thank you!
Some players build entire fleets, like this fleet of Steam player Black_Disciple.
How did you finance the development? How hard was/is it?
At first, we financed ourselves from the Kickstarter, and afterward from the money we made from Steam sales. We’re fortunate to find us in a position where we’re completely independent of external investors or publishers. Considering how hard/easy: I always planned somewhat pessimistically as if Avorion wasn’t going to be a success. To be completely honest, Philipp and I thought Avorion would stay a side project that would net us maybe a hundred euros per month. We’re happy we were wrong on that front :)
How do you feel about crunchtime? What experiences have you had with crunchtime in recent years?
We try to avoid crunch at Boxelware as much as possible. Frankly, towards the 1.0 release, we had to do some overtime, but I want to keep it to as little as possible. I also want all my employees to take time off that they accumulated. Now that the biggest release stress is over, we’re all going to take some time off and relax.
For me personally, I tend to work a lot on Avorion, but that’s mostly because it’s been my hobby project for a long time and to me, it doesn’t feel like work most of the time.
Players can buy equipment at various stations like this Equipment Dock.
How satisfied are you with the reviews, the feedback from the community and the sales so far?
We’re very happy with all of the aspects you mentioned. Right now Avorion has a review score of 93% (for the past 30 days) and 91% (overall) which is just amazing. Feedback from the community is also generally good, and people help each other. Sales and wishlists are also going well, and we’re overall very happy with the results!
Konstantin Kronfeldner
Founder and Creative Director
Konstantin Kronfeldner is the founder of Boxelware and the Creative Director of Avorion. Alongside his studies of Computer Science, he started building the game from the ground up. Now, as the company has grown, he has taken up many more responsibilities, but his passion remains with coding.