An update releasing during the weekend? Clearly I’ve gone mad.

A Look Back

To begin with I previously said that today marks the two year anniversary of the first release of Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm. As such I thought I’d take a moment to look back on that first early version to get an idea of how far the game has evolved and how much has changed since then.

Back in version 0.1.0 there was no concept of reinforcement units. Once a unit was built it was simply added to the battle map. You could neither control the game speed nor pause it outright and units moved strictly along their set paths with no real concept of motion. There were no mining outpost’s to capture and so no way of increasing the amount of UC you earned, just as there were defence points on the map either. In fact there was only one map to play on and no AI to play against. Not to mention that there was only one faction to play as and as a result only one set of units and a single type of space station.

Beyond the above mentioned gameplay differences there were also of course a massive amount of graphical differences and though Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm is nowhere near complete functionally or graphically I think it’s clear to see how much has changed just by looking at the two screenshots below:

Needless to say a lot has changed, as will continue to be the case in the future. I have big plans for the next year and beyond of development and as this is the two year anniversary, not to mention the end of the year I thought now would be a good time to talk about my plans for the future.

The Year Ahead

When it comes to what I have planned for Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm there are currently two big changes I have in mind. First is getting ground combat implemented, or at the very least a working version which I can then add to and refine more in future updates. As I did with the campaign map. The second big change is for me to finally port the game to Godot 4, the engine I’m currently using to build Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm. Godot 4 is a big step up from Godot 3 not only in the performance and graphics departments, but also with regards to new and interesting features. Many of which I want to make use of and can only do so by upgrading to the 4.x version.

Having said that, I'm fully aware of just how much has changed with the engine and how complex the Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm project has become. As a result it’s likely to take me some time to get it fully ported over and so I’m hoping that during this time I’ll move some of my focus onto one of two other games I currently have in the early stages of development.

The first of these games is set in the same universe as Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm and will see you following a recruit in a newly formed home system defence department responsible for dealing with derelict, unidentified and hostile spacecraft. In the game you will board the aforementioned ships to either regain control of the spacecraft, find out what happened to the crew or neutralise those on board. The current working title for this project is Stella Odyssey: Raid and as you probably already guessed it will be a first person action/adventure game.

It’s my hope that through this project I’ll be able to flesh out some of the finer details on how earth and humanity function within the Stella Odyssey universe, while also giving you the opportunity to have a more direct opportunity to explore some of the ships and buildings you see in Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm.

In addition to Raid, I also have another game which is still in the early stages of development. Rise is set in the fantasy city of Aderith and places you in the shoes of a young boy trying to survive in the slums of the city after the orphanage in which he was living in was destroyed. Rise will follow the boy's journey as he goes from the very bottom of society to its very top, his actions and choices along the way influencing both who he is as a person as well as the world around him.

Unlike my previous games Rise will be a 2D, primarily text based RPG with dungeon crawler elements. With it being a 2D game instead of 3D and the fact that much of it will be text based I should be able to add a lot of content for comparatively small amounts of work. Provided of course I have a solid base to work from first.

Finally I just want to make a quick note with regards to the name’s for my two new projects. As you were probably already aware I’m not exactly gifted in the art of creating interesting names and as such there’s a good chance that they along with Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm will get a name change before their final release. For now though their working titles will remain and I’ll think about the names a bit more once I’m closer to release.

What’s New?

Now that you have an idea of where I’d like to be next year it’s probably about time I brought the focus back to this update and what has been added, changed and fixed in Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm update 0.18.0.

To begin with, armies on the campaign map can now be moved from a planet's surface and up into space. Something you’ll need to do should you wish to transfer said army to another planet. As a result of this though it now means that armies can be caught in space battles and so a selection of new transport ships have been added for each of the current four factions. If a transport ship is destroyed on the battlemap then the corresponding ground unit is also destroyed on the campaign map.

In addition to the changes made to armies there is now also the beginnings of a diplomacy system and accompanying GUI from which you can declare war on a faction, make peace with one or create an alliance which will result in your fleets and/or armies fighting alongside one another when pulled into a battle.

To go along with this new diplomacy system there is also a new opinion system. This means that each faction now has a set opinion of every other faction, with their overall opinion being affected by modifiers such as being at war or being in an alliance. Though it has not yet been implemented, this system will eventually feed into the diplomacy system and possibly make it harder to gain peace or an alliance depending on said faction's opinion of you.

Of course as with all of my updates there were also a number of changes and fixes made ranging from updates to how the auto resolve system works to give a more even spread of damage, updates to unit buttons on both the campaign map and the battle map to include the amount of shielding the unit has left and fixes to the fleet and army manager causing different camera views to be toggled.

Update 0.19.0

With all that said it’s now the point in the devlog where I normally go over what I hope to have implemented for the next update and this time is no different. For one there are the changes and updates to the diplomacy system which still need to be made before I’ll be entirely happy with it. Such as adding more options and not having the AI say yes to everything. Then there are the changes to the intel system I wanted to add for this update but didn’t get around to implementing. Ideally intel would be a tiered system with each one giving you more information about a planet/fleet/army instead of the yes or no system currently in the game.

Additionally it has now been some time since I first implemented the research system and I’ve never been entirely happy with the limited number of options on offer so for the 0.19.0 update I’m hoping to increase the number to at least 10 if not more. In a similar vein the number of buildings on offer has also been rather limited for some time and though I probably won’t get around to implementing gameplay features for them I think it’s time I added a few more.

As with most of my ambitions I’ve no idea how much of the above I’ll be able to get implemented in time but as always I’ll try my best to get as much of it added as possible. Before that though I’m going to be releasing a 0.18.1 update. While everything I’ve spoken about previously is implemented and to my knowledge there aren’t any game breaking bugs. There are a few areas, such as auto resolving on the campaign map with an army which still need a little more work before I’m happy to move onto implementing more features.

Closing Thoughts

A rather long devlog this time around though not without reason. Hopefully it gave you a good idea of how far Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm has come as well as where both it and I hope to go in the future. For now though I’ll leave it there and get to work on the 0.19.0 update along with the other two projects I mentioned previously and return sometime in January, hopefully with the next update.

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 new diplomacy system where you can propose an alliance, break an alliance, declare war or propose peace with another faction
• Added a new opinion system where each faction has a set opinion of every other faction based on a number of different factors
• Added a new GUI for use with the new diplomacy system
• Added a new section to the diplomacy screen for seeing a factions opinion of the player
• Added a new human space unit to represent ground based units when they are in space
• Added a new Alien space unit to represent ground based units when they are in space
• Added a new Kessoni space unit to represent ground based units when they are in space
• Added a new Shin space unit to represent ground based units when they are in space
• Added a icon to the diplomacy button on the campaign map
• Added a new icon for when a faction is neutral towards the player
• Added a tooltip to the return button on the credits page
• Added a tooltip to the close button on the location information GUI
• Added a description to all current upgrade options
• Added a build image for use with the build turret upgrade option
• Added a build image for use with the build repair station upgrade option
• Added a build image for use with the build shield generator upgrade option
• Added a option to double click with the mouse anywhere on the battle map to move the camera to that position
• Added a button to the campaign map GUI for moving a selected army either to space or to a planets surface
• Updated the campaign map and battle map message box to only play an animation when needed
• Updated the campaign map GUI to show which faction a fleet or army belongs to
• Updated the campaign map GUI and the battle map GUI to fade in and out
• Updated the campaign map auto resolve option to take unit power into account when calculating damage
• Updated the campaign map auto resolve option to decide the winner using the percentage difference in fleet power
• Updated the campaign map location information GUI to display the no faction flag icon when a connection leads to a location not owned by a faction
• Updated the campaign map diplomacy GUI to include faction opinions
• Updated the campaign map to only allow armies to be moved to another planet if they are in space
• Updated the campaign map to allow ground based units in space battles
• Updated the modifiers section in the location information GUI to be hidden when the selected planet or location has no modifiers
• Updated the visual look of the pause menu
• Updated the pause menu to have a fade animation
• Updated fleets and armies on the campaign map to also be affected by the intel system
• Updated upgrade information to be stored in a file instead of being built at run time
• Updated unit button health bars on the battle map to also include the amount of shielding the unit has remaining
• Updated unit button health bars on the campaign map to also include the amount of shielding the unit has remaining
• Updated building button health bars on the campaign map to also include the amount of shielding the building has remaining
• Fixed a bug where the freecam view and the tactical view could be accessed while renaming a fleet
• Fixed a bug where a battle would be triggered when a fleet moved to a planet belonging to an allied or neutral faction
• Fixed a bug where the fleet and army manager could be used to edit neutral or allied fleets and armies
• Fixed a bug where it wasn't possible to press any of the connection buttons in the location information GUI
• Fixed a bug where the modifier information popup would remain visible even after the mouse had been moved off the modifier in the location information GUI
• Fixed a bug where the GUI fade in animation wouldn't play if the game was paused when the load screen was hidden
• Fixed a bug where unit buttons would still show a shield bar despite the unit having no shields