So that bit where I said I was going to try and not get distracted? Yeah, that didn’t exactly work out. Nevertheless it has been a month since the last update and so here I am with the next one.

What’s New?

As always I’ll start this devlog by going over some of the things you can expect to see in this new update and so to begin with. As was the case with the last update and what I had promised for this one in the previous devlog, there is now a new unit model for the human starbomber. The specifics of which can be seen in the comparison image displayed at the top of this post. Beyond just the new model for the unit itself there are also a couple of new models for the relevant subsystems which are used by the human starbomber unit. In particular there is a new model for both the fixed torpedo turret and the non fixed tiny laser turret.

In addition to just unit models this update also finally introduces a number of new shader effects to various parts of the game. The main area of benefit from this new found understanding of shaders on my part were the space battles as each of the different types of ammo now have a new unique shader effect. This includes not only the look of the ammo itself, but also the look of the impact animation which plays when said ammo impacts something. At the same time the animation which plays when a unit is called into the battle also has a new shader effect along with introduction of a small amount of volumetric fog to help add some much needed volume to the visual effect when looking at it from a side-on perspective.

While not a shader effect itself another area in which the look of some types of ammo have been improved is with the introduction of a 3D trail. I had tried to make use of the built in particle system to make a trail for both the missile and kinetic ammo types but as much as I tried to get it to work it never looked quite how I wanted it to. As a result of this I’ve implemented a new 3D trail system in this update which is much more visible than the particles I used previously while also allowing for more direct control in the overall width and length of the trail itself. Something which I struggled to fully grasp when it came to using the aforementioned particle system.

Last but not least this update also includes a couple of small bug fixes and less player direct updates. For one subsystems now have a more robust and dynamic system for changing out their mesh based on their system type, size and which faction they belong to. A change which should make adding different looks to existing subsystems a much more trivial task, allowing me to spend more time on creating said new looks instead of spending the time trying to manually implement them one by one. At the same time a couple of bugs relating to the laser beam ammo type were also finally resolved. Specifically a bug where the laser beam wouldn’t fully extend to the target if it impacted a friendly unit first and one where cancelling the laser beam turret before it had actually been able to fire would result in it no longer being able to fire for the rest of the battle.

Update 0.37.0

Now that I’ve gone over what to expect in this update, I’ll quickly mention a couple of things you can expect to see in the next one. First and foremost I want to make a promise to add in the trade route visualisation I said I’d be adding to this update but as you can probably tell by now I never got around to working on. I can think of a couple of different ways of implementing it and hopefully at least one of them works and doesn’t have much influence on the overall performance of the campaign map. Should things work out like I am planning them to, then you should be able to tell at a glance not only where a trade route is, but also how much trade is happening on the route as well as which factions are making use of it based on the types of spacecraft you can see.

Speaking of the campaign map I’ve made plenty of visual improvements to the battle map effects this time around and so I’d like to take the time to also make some visual improvements to the campaign map itself. In particular I want to add area tags for different parts of the map to help add some more in-game lore alongside maybe making use of some of my new found shader knowledge to create some more complex background effects for stars, nebulae and asteroid fields. Additionally if I'm going to be adding more general lore to the campaign map itself it would make sense to take the time to update at least some of the campaign map location and planet descriptions to include a small amount of said locations history. At Least enough to give you a better understanding of the universe I am trying to create and what kind of role each location has played in it so far.

Talking of descriptions I’ll also be looking to update the descriptions for some of if not all the units and buildings in the game. Like I plan to do with the campaign map locations and planets I want to not only add an explicit description of the unit or buildings function, but also a small amount of background lore to help build up the wider picture. Which in the case of the units belonging to the human faction should allow you to get an idea of how humanity's first contact with another sentient species went and what kind of technological and ideological changes it brought with it. Of course as much as I’d like to have detailed descriptions for all of the units and buildings there are some 70 different units and 21 individual buildings already in the game and so just like with the model updates I’ve been doing over the past couple of months this will be a slow iterative process with a few new descriptions included in each new release. The first of which you’ll be able to see in the 0.37.0 update.

And last but not least as I just mentioned 0.37.0 will also continue the trend of having one newly updated unit model which in this case will be the human corvette. With this being a larger class of unit the new model will also be accompanied by a number of different subsystem models to help complete the look. This will include a larger variant of the human engine, a larger variant of the human laser turret, a human class shield generator and finally a model for the human class engine booster. In fact speaking of shields I may or may not also include a new look for them as I think I have some better ideas of how I want them implemented to be both more visually appealing and more general use to the point where I don’t need to recreate a unit specific mesh when I want to add a shield to a new unit.

Closing Thoughts

For now though it is once again time for me to leave. Taking a look back at what I was able to achieve in this update it seems that while I didn’t manage to get everything I wanted implemented nor did I manage to get everything I spoke about in my previous devlog implemented either. I was still able to make a good number of improvements and changes, not to mention finally at long last managing to somewhat get my head around shaders and how they work, at least enough to make a couple of reasonably good looking effects by way of the new ammo, impact and warp shaders. A trend I hope I’m able to keep going as I no doubt now try and apply shaders to every element of the game I can. Despite that realistically not being the best idea…

Nevertheless I can almost guarantee the next update will include a new set of shaders along with most of the changes and updates I outlined above. But as you could probably tell by now these changes and updates are not going to implement themselves and so I’ll once again end this devlog here and get to working on them. As is tradition at this point, assuming everything goes to plan you’ll be able to see and experience them for yourself in around a month's time.

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 support for setting the faction and size of a subsystem to allow the subsystem model to be dynamically changed
• Added a new tiny non fixed variant of the tiny laser turret
• Added a new space engine exhaust shader
• Added a new trail shader for use by the missile ammo type
• Added a new trail shader for use by the kinetic ammo type
• Added a new laser shader to the laser ammo type
• Added a new laser shader to the laser beam ammo type
• Added a new energy shader to the energy torpedo ammo type
• Added a new ground mesh for use in ground battles to help bridge the gap between the ground and the sky in ground battles
• Added a new fog effect to the warp in animation used by space units as they warp into the map
• Added a new energy torpedo turret
• Added a new energy torpedo ammo type
• Added a new impact animation for the energy torpedo ammo type
• Added a new impact animation for the laser ammo type
• Added a new impact animation for the ion laser ammo type
• Added a layer of fog which generates at the edge of the cameras view distance in ground battles to mask objects dropping out of view range
• Updated the code to support the necessary changes for Godot 4.3
• Updated the model used by the Human Starbomber
• Updated the model used by the Human torpedo turret
• Updated the image used by the Human Starbomber to match the look of the new unit model
• Updated the map information file to use the built in location types instead of using a number for setting a locations type
• Updated the campaign map setup screen to display the owners faction flag when the mouse is placed over a location
• Updated the campaign map setup screen to change the location icon based on if a location is a planet or not
• Updated the campaign map notification settings to be stored in the user preferences file so they are kept between game sessions
• Updated the notifications centre GUI to have a rest button to restore notification settings to their default values
• Updated the way subsystems accessed their mesh to be uniform across all subsystem types
• Updated the laser beam ammo type to only use a single mesh instead of multiple to build the laser beam
• Updated the look of the shader used by space units as they warp into the map
• Updated the unit icon for the human fighter squadron to match the new human starfighter model
• Updated the ammo manager to support the new energy torpedo ammo type
• Fixed a bug where the campaign setup GUI displayed the campaign map locations before they were placed in the correct positions
• Fixed a bug where the laser beam ammo type wouldn't extend to the correct length after a hit if it hit a friendly unit first
• Fixed a bug where the laser beam turret would no longer fire if a previous attempt to fire had been cancelled
• Fixed a bug where the dynamic subsystem mesh system sometimes didn't display a mesh
• Fixed a bug where the human starbomber squadron unit button would display 0 health despite the unit being at full health