Well would you look at that, somehow another month has passed us by and so its time yet again for me to release the next update to Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy At War which in the case of this month is update 0.41.0.

What’s New?

As always the first new thing to talk about in this update is a new unit model though unlike before this new model isn’t entirely new. Instead the updated model for the Human Repair Ship is actually a copy of the new model used by the Human corvette with the main updated look of the unit coming from the new model used by the repair station subsystem, a comparison of which can be seen by looking in the image above. I based the new look of the subsystems on the canada arm which can be seen on the ISS. A design which I thought would be a fitting look for the repair station. In addition to giving the subsystem a new look I had also wanted to try and have the arm move in a similar manner to the real thing, but a mixture of my rather lackluster skills when it comes to rigging and the somewhat in limbo state of inverse kinematic support when it comes to Godot meant that I had to put this off until sometime in the future.

But you’re probably used to new unit models by now and are instead interested in one of the two headline features for this update. The first of which is the beginning of a new events system. This new system as the name implies is used to trigger and manage events on the campaign map. An event can be triggered for a number of different reasons, such as taking control of a location, recruiting a set number of units or if a set number of in-game days has passed along with a number of other conditions not mentioned here. Once an event has been triggered it can then result in a number of different outcomes. Including but not limited to displaying an in-game message, transferring ownership of a location or giving an amount of UC to the player faction.

The second system added alongside the above events systems is a new and improved objectives system which as its name implies is tasked with handling the tracking of in-game objectives. Unlike before this new system is much more dynamic with the ability to add and remove objectives at any time along with the ability to automatically check if an objective has been completed, a task which was previously done by the maps script file. At this time the objectives system can already handle a number of different objectives including the taking of a location, recruiting a new fleet or army and completing a specified research alongside a number of others not listed here. As with the above events system the list of supported conditions will only continue to grow over the next few updates as I find new things I want to track and as I begin to make better use of them.

Last but not least I should also mention that this update includes the usual slew of bug fixes with some of the highlights this time around being a fix for the space battle tutorials with meant they couldn’t be loaded without an error being thrown, a fix for the reinforcement GUI not correctly updating when the disable team restrictions debug option was checked; leading to a duplicate set of units. And the impact effect of weapon projectiles hitting shields introduced in the previous update not taking the shield’s rotation into account, resulting in the effect being displayed in the incorrect location on the shield mesh.

Update 0.42.0

With all that said I’ll now quickly go through some of the things you can expect to see in the next update, that being 0.42.0. The first and probably most expected at this point part of 0.42.0 will be a new unit model. In a somewhat special occasion though this new model should also mark the end of my remodelling for the Human factions space units as the Human Transport unit is the last one to not yet receive an updated look. Depending on the amount of time it takes to complete the new look for the model I may or may not also start looking at the next set of units to be updated, the first of which would be the Astel Starfighter. I won’t promise anything here but depending on how long it takes me to create the new look for the Human Transport the next update may also include a new look for them as well.

Other than updated models 0.42.0 will also mark the start of a more focused effort towards creating and polishing the paid content portion of Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy At War. Now that both the new events system and the remade objectives systems are in place I can actually start making proper use of them by way of adding the first couple of missions/chapters/objectives for at the very least the Human factions story campaign. The story campaigns will not be the only area to make use of the new events system however, as I’ll also be adding a whole bunch of smaller one off events for the freeplay campaign. These events will mainly be about adding some much needed flavour to the game, but at the same time they will also add incentives for capturing specific areas of the map or creating specific units or buildings for a set of bonus rewards.

Keeping with the events system I’d also like to make use of this new system to rewrite some of the tutorials. The current implementation for tutorials is very hard coded and so are much easier to break than I would like. Because of this I’d like to convert the current tutorials to be built around events and objectives using their respective systems rather than the strict code only approach they currently use. While doing this I’ll probably also take the time to extend the aforementioned systems to work not only on the campaign map but also on the battle maps. Both those in space and those on the ground as the current implementation of these systems only works on the campaign map.

Last but not least 0.42.0 will also hopefully include some of those additional shader updates I spoke about last time. While the shaders aren’t currently implemented in Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy At War I do have the basic implementation of them working in another project and so it should be as simple as transferring the code from that project into this one. But as I’m sure we all know nothing is ever that simple and so whether or not the full versions of these new shaders will be implemented in time remains to be seen. Rest assured though I will do my best to get them implemented for this update as I wasn’t able to for the previous one and a new look for the warp in and out animations for units could help to make the battles feel just a little bit more polished.

Closing Thoughts

A rather essential update this time around with both the new events and the new objectives systems. Key systems which I wouldn’t be able to build the story campaigns without and that were in my mind at least, the last major hurdle I needed to overcome. As such now that they are in I can finally get to work on actually building the campaigns I’ve had planned out for sometime now. Not to mention the ability to add more story elements to the freeplay campaign which should help to make the universe feel more like a universe teeming with life and a rich history, compared to the rather empty and sterile feeling it currently has.

Having said all that these new events are not going to write themselves and so I’ll end this devlog here and get to work on creating them. I’ve no idea how many I’ll be able to create before the time for releasing the update arrives but I’ll try to add a decent number of them to help build up the game's background at least. So as I do at the end of every devlog I’ll bid you all farewell for another month or so as I get to work on the 0.42.0 update, one which I hope starts to properly build up the amount of paid content alongside that of the free content as I prepare for an eventual paid release.

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 storing event information to be used by the event manager
• Added support for checking if an event has been seen before as a new event condition
• Added support for checking if an event has not been seen before as a new event condition
• Added support for checking if the player faction owns a location as a new event condition
• Added support for checking if the player faction does not own a location as a new event condition
• Added support for checking if the game is in dev mode as a new event condition
• Added support for checking how long since an event was last seen as a new event condition
• Added support for printing an engine message as an event outcome
• Added support for displaying an in game message as an event outcome
• Added support for checking if a key has been pressed as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a location has been taken as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a location has been lost as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a unit has been recruited as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a fleet has been recruited as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a army has been recruited as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a building has been built as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a module has been built as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a building has been upgraded as a new objective
• Added support for checking if a research has been completed as a new objective
• Added a event manager to handle the triggering of events on the campaign map
• Added a objective manager to handle the tracking of objectives on the campaign map
• Added a way to lock events from being triggered on the campaign map
• Added a set of map information for the space battle tutorial maps to the list of saved maps
• Added a tooltip to the map select button on the custom battle screen
• Updated the model used by the Human Repair Ship
• Updated the model used by the repair station subsystem
• Updated the image used by the Human Repair Ship to match the look of the new unit model
• Updated the Human Repair Ship to have 2 repair station subsystems instead of 1
• Updated the Human Repair Ship to have a small ion turret
• Updated the main menu tutorials button to instead be the guides and tutorials button
• Updated the space battle tutorial information to contain the map ID instead of the map path
• Updated the stored map information to include whether a map is used in a tutorial to limit whether it should be accessible in custom battles or not
• Updated the campaign map space station set tier function to make use of the building ID instead of the building name
• Updated the campaign map information to include an events ID to link a campaign map to a list of possible events
• Updated the campaign map message popup to support displaying a series of messages before it is closed
• Updated the campaign map confirmation message popup to support displaying a series of messages before an answer is required
• Updated the campaign map tutorials to support the new format for displaying messages
• Updated the space battle map tutorials to support the new format for displaying messages
• Updated the save system to include the list of seen events to prevent events from being triggered again on reload
• Updated the save system to include the list of current objectives so they can kept again on reload
• Updated the objectives GUI to work with the new objectives manager
• Updated the debug GUI to have a button for locking events from being triggered on the campaign map
• Fixed a bug where the exported free version was marked as the paid version despite not having the correct in game tag set
• Fixed a bug where the shield impact effect didn't take the rotation of the shield mesh into account when passing the impact location to the shader
• Fixed a bug where the damage shields debug option remained active even after the debug GUI had been closed
• Fixed a bug where the space battle tutorials couldn't be loaded
• Fixed a bug where the patrol path of a unit would be reset once the unit was deselected
• Fixed a bug where the team colour displayed by a transport unit deploying a ground unit didn't match the colour of the team it belonged to
• Fixed a bug where the reinforcement GUI wasn't correctly updated when spawning a unit while using the disable team restrictions debug option
• Fixed a bug where the select all units command could select units before they had finished spawning in
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash when attempting to move a fleet or army to a location not owned by a faction
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map would attempt to set the value of a buildings healthbar before the building had been fully loaded
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map tutorial 2 wouldn't register when the create new fleet button was pressed
• Fixed a bug where the campaign map tutorial 3 wouldn't register when the space station finished building