Well another month has passed and with it the work on the next update has been completed… Is what I would normally say if it weren’t for some rather unwelcome problems.

What’s New?

Typically in these devlogs I’d start by going over what’s new in this update and while I will do that I should first explain why this update is smaller in scope than normal. Unfortunately after completing the previous update and exporting a version to be uploaded to itch something somewhere in the export process went wrong. To be more specific both the exported version and my project files for version 0.30.0 managed to become corrupted with the exported version only partially working and Godot, the engine I’m using to build Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy at War being unable to load the project without locking up and crashing after a couple of minutes.

Thankfully for both me and the project I was prudent enough to make use of version control and while I wasn’t able to directly recover all the work I did for version 0.30.0 I was able to revert the project to a point in time where I had just finished work on version 0.29.0. From which I was then able to redo the work I originally did for version 0.30.0. In all I probably lost about a week and a half to remaking version 0.30.0, meaning this update only had a little under three weeks to be finished.

The moral of this little story then? USE VERSION CONTROL!

Now with that out of the way I’ll just quickly go over some of the small additions and changes I was able to fit in this update despite the above circumstances. For one placeholder maps have now been added for 2 v 2, 3 v 3, 4 v 4 and 5 v 5 player count ground battles, along with a set of basic textures to help make it easier to see the movement paths for units. Talking of movement, vehicles will now also leave behind tracks as they move about the map. A system I hope to refine more in the future and one I hope to expand to work with other types of units and perhaps even ammo impacts. In addition a generic reinforcement animation has also been added for ground units. This in turn means that ground units now take around 10 seconds to be called into the battle as the animation plays itself out. As a kind of counterpart to this new animation I also added a new debug option to disable reinforcement animations so testing time isn’t taken up waiting for the units to be called in.

Speaking of debugging and testing I also made some changes to the ground test map with the inclusion of test ground turrets where units can be damaged using a variety of different damage types. Beyond what I’ve already gone over this update also included a whole bunch of polishing to other areas I don’t normally make changes to, such as the battle setup screen which now draws the starting positions onto the map preview images as they are changed. The guide page which now has a coloured background which can be changed to make some units easier to see and the in-game minimap which now uses the map previews as a background to give you an idea of the map’s terrain at a glance.

Update 0.32.0

Now that I’ve gone over what you can expect in this update it’s time for me to go over what you can expect to see in the next one. As you could probably already guess 0.32.0 will first and foremost try and include everything I originally had planned for 0.31.0 but wasn’t able to implement in time. This means that I’ll hopefully have the basic terrain laid out for the 2 v 2, 3 v 3, 4 v 4 and 5 v 5 maps that I added in this update along with the props which I previously mentioned wanting to add some two updates ago. Including things like rocks, trees, bushes and fences.

In addition to the above 0.32.0 will also include a set of new squad units for each of the factions currently in the game, who as mentioned before will be built around dealing with vehicles and those units with armour. While adding these new units I’ll also be looking to redo how I handle weapons on ground based squad units so that they can be more interchangeable and aren’t treated in the same way as turrets like they currently are. It may be a method that works but it’s also rather limited in what it can do, so I’d like to try and change it out for a more bespoke system if I can.

Last but not least I’d also like to conduct some more work on existing parts of the game as I continue trying to raise its overall level of polish. To this end I plan to add in a more general purpose reinforcement animation which can be used by all space units, one which I don’t need to manually create for each unit and one which has a bit more flare to it. In addition to the reinforcement animation I’d also like to turn my attention back to the campaign map. As I have now got the basics of ground combat working it’s probably about time I added the ability for ground battles to be triggered from the campaign map, while also adding support for autoresolving ground battles that you don’t want to fight manually.

Closing Thoughts

So a somewhat busy month this time around and not for the kind of reasons I would have liked. Despite having lost a month’s worth of work I was still able to recover the game itself and truthly the game is in a much better state now than it was back when I originally tried to release 0.30.0.

Having said all that, there's still a lot of work for me to do with a long list of additions, changes and updates that I still want to do both for the next update and for those updates in the future. Speaking of which I should probably get to work on those updates and so I’ll end this devlog here and be back in around a month's time, hopefully without having managed to corrupt my project files once again.

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 decal system which is used to generate vehicle tracks on ground battle maps
• Added a new reinforcement animation which is played when a ground unit is called into the battle
• Added a new test ground turret building to the test ground map to allow units to be damaged for testing purposes
• Added a new debug option to the debug menu allowing you to disable unit spawning animations
• Added a new option to the guide page to change the background colour displayed behind units and buildings
• Added a new placeholder 2 v 2 ground battle map
• Added a new placeholder 3 v 3 ground battle map
• Added a new placeholder 4 v 4 ground battle map
• Added a new placeholder 5 v 5 ground battle map
• Updated the battle map preview images to have their starting positions drawn onto the images at runtime rather than for them to be part of the image
• Updated the minimap to use the map preview image as a background image when in a battle
• Updated the test battle maps to generate a second AI manager so buildings can both attack and be targeted correctly
• Updated the grass colour used by placeholder ground maps to make the unit movement lines more visible
• Updated the selection sprite for ground units to be decals instead of sprites
• Updated the movement sprites used in ground battles to be decals instead of sprites
• Updated the minimum required distance for squad based units to reach their destination
• Updated the debug GUI to have a vertical scrollbar
• Updated ground based units to support addon moves
• Updated ground based units to support having a final destination rotation
• Updated ground based units to support unit patrolling
• Removed the static starting positions from battle map preview images
• Fixed a bug where planetary outposts didn't have spawn points and so you couldn't directly spawn tiny sized units from them
• Fixed a bug where the position of a planetary outposts rally point couldn't be changed
• Fixed a bug where the debug GUI wouldn't update to match the current debug settings
• Fixed a bug where vehicle type units were placed at the incorrect height when first spawned in
• Fixed a bug where missile type ammo would target the centre of the map when trying to attack a squad based unit
• Fixed a bug where the healthbar on a units button for squad based units wouldn't update when they took damage
• Fixed a bug where the sprite used to show the mid point of squad based units would sometimes render below the terrain in ground battles
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash if you pressed a control group key with no units or buildings selected
• Fixed a bug where the camera would be moved when double tapping a control group key even if no units were in the control group
• Fixed a bug where squad based units would still display their unit sprite when they were shown on the guide page