Another month, another update. The 0.16.0 update is out now and available for testing.

What’s New?

As ever I’ll start by going over some of the new additions and changes you can expect to see while playing the 0.16.0 update. As I promised previously the first major change comes in the form of an updated AI system on the campaign map. It is now possible not only for the AI to attack nearby hostile planets, but to also repair any units damaged while doing so. Additionally the AI is now also affected by a new game difficulty option which can be set at the start of a new campaign game. In practice this means that at higher difficulty levels you can expect the AI to be more proactive in building units and buildings while also attacking hostile planets and fleets more often.

Alongside the changes to the AI, I also promised some updates to the save system which I‘m pleased to say have been implemented. From this point forward all save files will now include the game version they were created in, allowing me to check for version compatibility and make the necessary conversions when needed. In addition save files now also keep track of unit and building damage, a system which has also been extended to cover squad based units.

Lastly I also promised that I would take a look at making a more dynamic debris system for when a unit or building has been destroyed and just like the above save system I’m pleased to say that this has been implemented. It is still very much in a working prototype state and as such can only be seen on the mining outpost in space battles. But even in its current state I think it’s a marked improvement over having static animations and one I hope to expand on more in the next update.

As a quick note I should also mention that this update came with some rather large changes which I hadn’t previously mentioned. For one the loading system has been rewritten meaning there should no longer be a long wait period between pressing the proceed button after loading has finished, and the load screen being removed to reveal the campaign or battle map. Additionally I added support for garrison units in space stations. As a result planets with no fleet still have some level of defence with which you can try and win the battle, providing of course you at least have a space station built beforehand. Finally I also added support for auto resolving battles on the campaign map, meaning you no longer need to fight every battle yourself and can instead leave it up to the AI to work out.

Update 0.17.0

With the 0.16.0 update behind me it’s once again time for me to look to the future and in this case to the 0.17.0 update. Much like with all the updates that came before I have a couple of ideas in mind for what I want to implement but as seems to always be the case you can expect to see a number of changes and additions on top of the plans I set out below.

Speaking of which, one of the first ideas I would like to try implementing in the 0.17.0 update is something of a diplomacy system. While such a system will probably not have much, if any use in the scripted story campaigns. A system where you’re not always at war with everyone on the campaign map I think would be a welcome addition to the freeplay campaign mode. Not to mention the possibilities it opens up from fighting alongside other AI fleets to perhaps a trade system like you see in other such games.

In addition to the new diplomacy features and perhaps more importantly, I also plan to merge fleets and armies into a single entity on the campaign and battle map. Doing this will not only allow me to bring ground based units into space battles more easily. But it should also help to cut down on development time. As rather than developing two independent systems for both fleets and armies. I can instead work on a single system for the combined fleets and armies.

Of course as with all my updates the above two additions will not be the only things included and you can expect to see a long list of other changes and additions alongside them by the time 0.17.0 is released.

Closing Thoughts

With all that said I should probably go ahead and get to work on the above mentioned features and to that end I’ll leave it here.

As always if you have any questions or queries then don’t hesitate to ask and similarly if you have any feedback for existing systems. Or indeed if you have any ideas, features or changes you would like to see implemented then also don’t hesitate to let me know.

As with all of my updates a full list of the changes made can be found in game, with the changes and additions pertaining to this update listed below:

• Added a map preview button to the pre battle GUI on the campaign map
• Added a campaign map label for all location types
• Added a symbol to campaign map location labels denoting hostile and allied locations
• Added a unit garrison for each tier of space station which is automatically spawned in at the start of a campaign map battle
• Added a notification for when a hostile fleet or army is moving to a player owned planet
• Added a label which displays the current research and the current progress of said research to the campaign map GUI
• Added a drop down GUI showing all currently in progress research to the campaign map GUI
• Added a option to change the campaign map difficulty from the campaign map setup screen
• Added a relative power bar to the pre battle GUI on the campaign map
• Added a fade animation to the load screen which plays when loading has started or finished
• Added a new debris system for battles where parts of destroyed units/buildings are now managed using the physics engine (for now this is only implemented on the mining outpost)
• Added a dissolve shader to the new debris system meaning parts of destroyed unit/buildings fade away instead of being removed instantly
• Added a health bar to reinforcement unit buttons which is visible when the unit is not at full health
• Added support for auto resolving battles on the campaign map, including simulating battles the player isn't involved in
• Added support for selecting more than one unit within a fleet or army on the campaign map
• Updated the buttons on the main menu to have tooltips explaining their functions
• Updated the load order of the campaign map and the battle map to ensure all setup is completed before the proceed button is pressed
• Updated the location GUI button on the campaign map to change its icon when a planet is selected
• Updated the location GUI on the campaign map to change its title when a planet is selected
• Updated the battle results screen to display images of lost units instead of just their names
• Updated the battle results screen to group units of the same type together
• Updated the pre battle GUI on the campaign map to group undamaged units of the same type together
• Updated the campaign map tactical view to outline hostile planets in red, allies in blue, neutral's in white and the player's in green
• Updated the campaign map tactical view to show information on a given campaign map location when the mouse is placed over it
• Updated the campaign map victory conditions GUI to mark captured planets in green rather than removing them from the list
• Updated the campaign map victory conditions to move the camera to a planets location when it is cliked on with the mouse
• Updated the campaign map information container to list the garrison units when the mouse is placed over a space station
• Updated the campaign map information container to include the units/buildings power
• Updated the campaign map AI to update faster or slower depending on the campaign map difficulty
• Updated the campaign map AI to attack any nearby hostile planets once a set of criteria has been met
• Updated the campaign map AI to have a grace period between attacks, with the length of time based on the campaign map difficulty
• Updated the campaign map AI to check for and repair units and buildings providing they have enough UC to do so
• Updated the campaign map pre battle GUI to simulate the battle when the auto resolve button is pressed
• Updated the campaign map location labels to include the total fleet and army power of all fleets and armies at the given location
• Updated the campaign map persistent damage to include support for squad based units
• Updated the campaign map location information GUI to update in real time
• Updated the campaign map unit action buttons to be part of the fleet and army GUI instead of its own popup
• Updated the guide page rotation button to display a locked icon when the rotation is locked
• Updated the guide page unit and building information panel to include the selected unit or buildings power level
• Updated save files to work with the new campaign node types (e.g asteroids and nebulas)
• Updated save files to work with the new persistent building and unit damage
• Updated save files to include the game version they were created in for save file compatibility checking
• Updated notifications on the campaign map to move the camera to the relevant location when clicked on with the mouse
• Updated units and buildings to have an associated power level
• Updated the power bar on the battle map to use a single progress bar instead of two
• Fixed a bug where the text for the location name on the campaign GUI wouldn't be centred when the text was shorter than the length of the label
• Fixed a bug where squad based units on the campaign map started with the incorrect amount of health
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash when trying to close the game from the guide page
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash as a result of missiles targets being removed from the map
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash when the mouse was placed over any of the labels on the credits page
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map pre battle GUI would show even if the player wasn't involved in the battle
• Fixed a bug where the game would stutter when a planet changed ownership
• Fixed a bug where fleets and armies on the campaign map are only locked while the first unit in the build queue is being built
• Fixed a bug where fleets and armies on the campaign map would be unlocked if a unit that was being built for them was cancelled despite there being other units in the build queue
• Fixed a bug where fleets and armies on the campaign map couldn't be selected if their movement had been locked
• Fixed a bug where destroyed units that were part of a squad were still counted when calculating the position for the squad label
• Fixed a bug where the recruitment GUI on the campaign map would close after a unit had been selected
• Fixed a bug where the turret count of space stations on the campaign map wouldn't be updated when they were upgraded
• Fixed a bug where the build progress of build queue items flickers when the first item in the queue has been completed
• Fixed a bug where the progress bar on the load screen wasn't always reset to 0 when loading a new scene
• Fixed a bug where the material used for the destroyed mesh on the mining outpost didn't match the material used for the regular mesh on the mining outpost
• Fixed a bug where the health of the mining outpost wasn't updated when the defence was boosted through upgrades
• Fixed a bug where the shield generator explodes a second time when the mining outpost respawns if it was the last subsystem to be destroyed