I don’t really know where to start with this.

I discovered Space Station 13 almost 11 years ago. I was hooked, but always wanted a remake just as much as everybody else. People have always been upset at BYOND’s limitations, and that was just as true back then. The curse was already a meme at that point, but that never stopped people from taking their shot. And one of the projects that seemed to be making good progress at the time was called just “Space Station 13”. When I discovered SS13, I started following it, hoping it would one day be released. Of course, like so many other projects, it eventually died. Recreating SS13 is a massive undertaking, and the few developers working on it eventually got busy with their lives. Yet another victim of the curse, huh?

Thankfully, the devs eventually decided to release the project as open source[web.archive.org], hoping somebody else would keep it going. The entire SS13 community got together to continue it, under the name Space Station 14. That happened exactly 10 years ago. At the time, I barely knew how to program. I learned C# just to contribute to SS14! But again, that didn’t last. Within a year and a half, Space Station 14, too, was all but dead.

So what did everybody do? We went back to dealing with BYOND. And sooner or later, we get annoyed with BYOND again, so we try again. Personally I went through multiple pet projects to try to move SS13 into a new engine: Unity, Unreal, C++, Rust. I didn’t know what I was doing, none of them got anywhere, but hey, that’s fine.

Around the start of 2017, me and some friends decided it may be the most practical to just pick up Space Station 14 again, because as far as we were concerned, it was further along than anything else. So we asked the last person with ownership of the GitHub repository, set up a Discord, and got to work. And now almost 8 years later, here we are.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that we’ve broken the curse at this point. Space Station 14 is on Steam! We have thousands of concurrent players, beating Space Station 13 easily. There’s a ton of varied servers, and every update, new, amazing things get added to the game. Sure, we don’t have all the features of SS13 yet, but I think the game stands on its own regardless.

I would like to seriously thank the entire community for getting us here. Every coder, admin, and player that has been with us for the past many years. All of the people that chose to contribute to SS14, even when it was years away from being playable. We could never have done it without you.

Speaking personally, this has been a very long journey, and I’ve learned and improved a lot. It’ll always be kind of shocking to me that it’s been 8 years since I’ve started working on SS14 for real. Before that, I’d been spending most of my time playing and contributing to SS13. That only lasted about 2-3 years. It feels like it was longer than it is, but speaking objectively, it is definitely a blip at this point.

And, of course, we’re not done. Not me or the rest of the project. On the game side, every time I play, I can think of things to improve. On the project side, it has not been an easy ride having our project gradually scaled up to thousands of players and hundreds of contributors. We have a lot of work ahead of us, and in a way, it seems just as insurmountable as it did 10 years ago.

But there’s one big difference. 10 years ago, if you’d ask me “can we do this?”, I’d just say “eh? whatever”. Now, I can definitely say: “yes”, and we will.

The chameleon PDA is the newest piece of equipment in the Syndicate's roster. You can now almost go completely undercover as any member of any department (with exceptions to mindshielded ones). Syndicate agents will now also enjoy more discounted options to potentially choose from in their uplinks. There have been tweaks to various construction objects, like reinforced tables requiring a welder, and wooden walls no longer requiring steel. Moffs will now enjoy new cotton food options, and borgs may or may not enjoy their new ion law possibilities.

Two new stations have been introduced to the game; they are named “Loop” and “Gate.”. Loop is a medium population map focused around a centralized security and medical department, with wide open hallways and an easy-to-navigate layout. Gate is a very complex map focused around gateways and shuttles as the primary method to get between departments. Each department is segmented far away from each other in space, with thin arms connecting them all together. Holopads have been added, allowing for remote calls between departments or the AI to have a physical interaction and local chats wherever the holopads may be. Atmospheric network computers allow for atmos techs to check the entire pipe network on the station, making it even easier to monitor gases and potential sabotage and damage.

Melee executions allow for sharp-bladed weapons to ignore armor and inflict massive damage. Melee executions may be performed on yourself or targets that are incapacitated/cuffed. Custom burgers have been added, allowing for actual custom recipes that don't require something like a microwave. The thief beacon allows for thieves to steal items and not have to hoard them on their character all shift. This also allows for stealing animals and structures way more conveniently. DNA has been improved, as well as dozens of other great additions and fixes over the week.

This week brings some new reagents and reworked chloral hydrate. These new reagents include potassium iodide, which helps prevent radiation damage, and haloperidol, which removes stimulants and hallucinogens from your system. Drowsiness is also a new symptom and side effect where you may fall asleep at random; chloral hydrate also now makes you drowsy instead of knocking you out once you reach the unit threshold. The cutter machine allows for making more specific and decorated floor tiles. The PNG export tool allows taking direct "screenshots" of items and characters, which may be useful for content creation and other external uses.

This week brings major buffs to both syndicate and nuclear operative reinforcements. Nuclear operative reinforcements now are loaded up with a blood-red and a chest rig, just like a regular nukie. Syndicate reinforcements now have loadouts ranging from medical items to spy equipment. Atmos techs can now build pipes inside walls, giving them extra room for whatever projects they are working on. Dead space dragons will no longer despawn, meaning that anyone who got devoured won't disappear into the void. Botany also has new mutations that range from medicinal to lethal. As well as many bug fixes and other additions.

This week brings a powerful new suit of armor, available only to nuclear operatives. It is a well-rounded suit that is not space-faring, meaning it must be used with specific plans in mind. Throwing has been changed to allow for significantly more precision when throwing objects and weapons. Bartenders now have to shake or stir specific drinks, giving a bit more variety in their bartending methods.

This week introduces a bird-like species known as the Vox. The Vox must breathe pure nitrogen; otherwise, they will take hefty poison damage until they get pure nitrogen in their lungs. Salvage has received some new content in the form of "VGRoid." The VGRoid is a giant asteroid with hundreds of ore deposits and salvage expedition dungeons that generate on them. The aesteroids are filled with danger, but have more materials than you'd ever need to get through a shift. There were other balance changes and content additions during the week, such as several nerfs to nukies, some buffs to other antags and more.

The content freeze is over, and there were a number of notable PRs merged during the freeze and shortly after. Meteor swarms are now much more deadly and can breach through many layers of walls. Pipe stacking was removed, changing the way Atmos has to do pretty much everything. Many combat QoL additions were added, such as wielding autodropping items, shooting over stunned people, etc. Finally, there were a ton of QoL features and balance changes across various levels of content in the game.