Another month, another update. Version 0.23.0 is now out and ready for testing or breaking, as tends to often be the case.

What’s New?

As I mentioned in the previous devlog one of the main focuses of this update was to get back to adding more content and 0.23.0 achieves this through the introduction of a new class of unit, currently called utility units. As a result of this, each of the current four factions now has a single additional unit, with the Human faction gaining a repair ship; which as the name suggests will repair damage to nearby friendly units. Our still unnamed Alien faction gets a shield boosting ship which increases the shield regen speed of nearby friendly units. The kessoni faction gets a resonator ship which boosts the damage of nearby friendly units, providing they use laser beam turrets and not regular laser turrets. While finally the Shin gained a unit called a cloud ship which is able to place down a cloud anywhere on the battle map, causing any units contained within said cloud to gain the cloaked status and by extension a chance to dodge incoming damage.

Beyond the new units I also mentioned that I wanted to make some improvements to the tactical camera view on both the battle and campaign maps. In the case of the battle map it is now possible to select and give move orders to units, while the campaign map now allows for the switching of views from the basic faction view. Showing which faction owns which location to the trade view showing all known trade routes, or the diplomacy view showing which factions you are currently at war with and which factions you are currently allied with.

Speaking of trading, as you may have guessed there is now a new trade system in the game. For any faction you are not currently at war with it is now possible to propose a trade agreement and provided there is a route between your capital planets with no hostile locations (to either you or the faction you are trying to trade with) in between then you will begin trading. A basic trade agreement will see you gaining 10% of their income as your own while the planets and locations along the trade route will gain the trade route modifier, boosting their income along with the income of any trade ports you may have built above them.

Last but not least this update also included a number of smaller changes and additions, including but not limited to. Improvements to the camera controller, an increase in size for the minimap, a slightly reworked research UI to make it clearer what each research option does and updates to the power bar on both the battle map and the campaign map with the split now being calculated out of 100 instead of the total power of all units combined like before.

Update 0.24.0

Now then, normally at this point I’d go over what you can expect to see in the next update and this time is no different. Unlike before however I’ll keep it simple, 0.24.0 will see the introduction of a new pirate faction on the campaign map who unlike all the other factions will neither be playable nor available for diplomacy. As you can imagine adding a new faction with all its new units is going to be a rather large task and as such it’s currently my only concrete plan for the upcoming update.

Nevertheless though that is the main plan there are still a couple of smaller things I also have in mind for what I want to work on alongside the implementation of the above new faction. For one I said before that I wanted to overhaul the research tree in this update but in the end very little was changed, so for 0.24.0 I plan to do just that by way of expanding the tech tree with a number of new research options and for the research tree to be split into both economic and military research branches.

Additionally as I move closer and closer to having all the content I currently have planned implemented (though I still have a long way to go yet…) I think it’s time for me to take a proper look at what kind of small optimisations I could make. In particular, while battles are fine to begin with, as more and more units are added to the field there are some noticeable slowdowns, especially on some of the larger maps that I introduced recently. To go hand in hand with this I’m also planning to go over the AI for both the campaign map and the battle map, not only is it an area that I’ve neglected for sometime now; resulting in the AI making very little to no use at all of some of the newer systems and gameplay mechanics. It is also, from my limited amount of testing on the subject. Seemingly one of the main bottlenecks in keeping a smooth framerate and as such it's probably worth a look.

Closing Thoughts

Despite all of the above changes 0.23.0 turned out to be a bit of a smaller update this time around. At Least it feels that way anyway. Even so, though it may be smaller it is no less important and it's still another concrete step on the long road towards an eventual 1.0 release. Truthly one of the main reasons behind this update being on the smaller size is because I spent some time working on one of my other projects, Rise. Though I haven't released an update for it for a couple of months now I would at least like to be in a position to release another one before the end of the year. Hence the increased amount of dev time I ended up putting towards it.

Nevertheless as 0.24.0 aims to introduce a new faction I’ll be sure that this time I instead dedicate more time to Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm rather than having it be the other way around. Now then, with that out of the way it’s yet again time for me to say my goodbyes and knuckle down on that aforementioned 0.24.0 update, so as ever I’ll see you in around a month's time for that.

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 debug option to the campaign map to disable the research time
• Added a new debug option to the battle map to deal damage to shields
• Added a new unit to the Human faction, the repair ship which repairs friendly units within range
• Added a new unit to the Alien faction, the shield ship which can boost the regen speed of shields on nearby friendly units
• Added a new unit to the Kessoni faction, the resonator ship which can boost the damage of laser beam turrets on nearby friendly units
• Added a new unit to the Shin faction, the cloud ship which can make units act like they are cloaked by deploying a cloud of gas
• Added a new unit ability which allows a cloud to be deployed on the map, which causes units within it to act as if they are cloaked
• Added a new subsystem which boosts the regen speed of shields for nearby friendly units
• Added a new subsystem which boosts the damage of laser beams for nearby friendly units
• Added a new diplomacy option allowing you to establish a trade route with a non hostile faction providing there is a safe route between your and their capital planets
• Added a new faction opinion modifier for when a faction makes or breaks a trade agreement with another faction
• Added a new location modifier, trade route which is given to locations along a trade route and provides a boost to that locations income
• Added a new research option, advanced combat roles which unlocks recruitment of the new utility units on the campaign map
• Added support for required research to units on the campaign map
• Added camera movement, zoom, tilt and rotation speed controls to the settings menu
• Updated the settings GUI to make use of scroll containers to ensure buttons can still be accessed at smaller window sizes
• Updated the research GUI to display research information to the right side of the research tree instead of as an overlay
• Updated the diplomacy GUI to support displaying more than one diplomatic state
• Updated the faction information GUI to include a list of current trade agreements as well as the route they currently follow
• Updated the tactical view GUI to make use of the new GUI theme
• Updated the tactical view on the battle map to allow units to be selected by clicking on their position rectangles
• Updated the tactical view on the battle map to allow units to be ordered around the map
• Updated the tactical view on the campaign map to show information on locations when the mouse is placed over their position rectangles
• Updated the tactical view on the campaign map to have a trade view which shows all current trade routes
• Updated the tactical view on the campaign map to have a diplomacy view which shows your current diplomatic status with the owner of each campaign map location
• Updated the campaign map post battle GUI to also display the faction flags of the corresponding teams
• Updated the battle map GUI power bar to give the percentage split out of 100
• Updated the battle map destroy subsystem debug option to instead damage the subsystem
• Updated the battle map debug menu to include the shield regen speed of the current unit or building
• Updated the battle map debug menu to include the damage dealt by each weapon of the turret currently under the mouse
• Updated the battle map battle over popup to display the winning faction name rather than the winning team number
• Updated the mesh used for the repair station subsystem
• Updated the campaign units to support tiny sized units like those used on the battle map
• Updated the campaign map planets added in 0.22.0 to have textures
• Updated the campaign map space station trade port module to give additional income if it is built on a trade route
• Updated the campaign map location labels to appear below the location they are linked to and for them to be visible from further away
• Updated the rotation point of the camera to change its distance based on the current height of the camera
• Updated the tilt point of the camera to be relative to the position of the camera instead of relative to the position of the camera rotation point
• Updated the minimap to be 2x as big and for it to sit within its own container in the battle and campaign GUI's
• Updated the minimap to no longer display units which are currently cloaked
• Updated the save system to include trade agreements between factions
• Updated the pause menu quit button to display retreat instead of quit when in a battle triggered on the campaign map
• Updated battle maps to support using volumetric fog
• Fixed a bug where the mouse over UI for unit abilities on the battle map still used the old GUI theme
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map battle map had the incorrect map bounds
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map debug GUI would show the incorrect options after exiting a battle
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map research options would sometimes be locked when they shouldn't be
• Fixed a bug where the full screen button no longer worked
• Fixed a bug where the upgrade space station button on the campaign map no longer worked
• Fixed a bug where the repair particles were the incorrect size and affected by lighting
• Fixed a bug where the guide page would sometimes not remove the current unit when a new one was selected
• Fixed a bug where the shield regeneration rate of units and buildings wasn't linear meaning the rate at which a shield regenerated would slow as it reached its maximum amount
• Fixed a bug where the camera zoom would be off centre if the starting rotation of the camera wasn't on the centre line such as on maps with more than two starting positions
• Fixed a bug where the pull tab for the bottom container on the battle map GUI would be pulled upwards whenever something was in the build queue
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash if a unit was destroyed while the camera was in the tatical view
• Fixed a bug where the edge scrolling option would also result in the mouse being locked within the game window
• Fixed a bug where the module slot buttons for space station modules on the campaign map were not animated