Once again another month has passed along with all the time I have to dedicate to the current update and as a result, it’s time for me to stop working on it and release it to all of you for testing and feedback.

What’s New?

As with all my updates at this point the first thing you can expect to see in 0.44.0 is a new unit model, which in this case is a new look for the Astel corvette. The results of which can be seen in the comparison image above. Beyond just making a new model for the unit itself I also took the time to make a new model for both the small Astel laser turret and the Astel shield generator. Both of which work alongside the scaled up variant of the tiny Astel engine which now comes in a small size variant.

But of course this update doesn’t just include a new look for a unit and its accompanying subsystems, as it also includes a whole host of new events for the freeplay campaign map. I said before that I wanted to start making better use of the events system now that it has been fully implemented and I am happy to say that that is now the case. This first set of new events revolves around taking control of the capital planets of other factions and being given an amount of UC as a reward for doing so. While these events are rather short in nature they add some much needed flavour to the world (through the use of text) and also help to give a small amount of background on both the faction doing the capturing and the faction whose planet is being captured.

To go along with these new events this update also brings with it a bunch of new event conditions and outcomes. Including support for checking if the player factions of a given type, setting whether a campaign map location is disabled to prevent it from being selected or allowing units to be moved to it and setting a research to be complete as a result of triggering an event. Speaking of events I also updated what happens when you complete the freeplay campaign which is to say that this now also uses the events system rather than manually checking after each location has been captured and manually triggering the end game GUI. Additionally I also updated the look of the aforementioned end screen pop up as not only was the GUI that was on display still using the old UI theme, but the box itself couldn’t be moved around the screen. Something which felt odd as all other campaign map pop ups could be manually moved.

Last but not least this update also includes the usual selection of more miscellaneous changes along with a few bug fixes. Some of the highlights this time around include expanded support for the campaign map debug GUI to allow manually setting the owner of a location or manually setting if that location is disabled, updates to the campaign map AI and the campaign map minimap to ignore disabled locations, an update to the Human faction shield generator mesh to have the same highlights as the newly added Astel one and a couple of fixes for information being displayed when it shouldn’t have been on the campaign map when selecting a location which you had no intel for.

Update 0.45.0

So then with that out of the way it is time now to instead turn our attention to the next update, that being 0.45.0 and what kind of things you can expect to see in it. First and foremost there will of course be the traditional new unit model, which in this case will be for the Astel frigate. Along with the new unit model itself I’m also going to be creating new models for the small Astel ion laser turret, the medium Astel engine and the medium Astel laser and ion laser turrets. Depending on time constraints and how long it takes me I may or may not also look at creating some unique models for some of the other subsystem models which have yet to receive an overhaul. These being the weapon, engine and shield boosters.

Other than a new unit model 0.45.0 will also continue the trend of expanding my use of the events system with new events for both the freeplay campaign as well as the Human story campaign as I continue to also work on the paid content portion of the game. To this end this update will hopefully include some more random events which don’t trigger when you do something directly but instead trigger based on some hidden variables to help add some more replayability to the campaign map. Things such as spawning a random fleet, giving you an amount of UC or removing an amount of UC and increasing or decreasing the population numbers of a given planet based on an event that may have happened on said planet to cause such a result.

In addition to the above for 0.45.0 I also want to look at adding some more polish to existing areas once again. It has been some time since I looked over some of the older things in the game and so it’s probably about time I took another look at them to see what can be improved upon. One area I’m thinking of improving has to do with both faction flags and faction planets. Now that I’ve started work in earnest on the story campaigns for each of the different factions I’ve got a better understanding of what’s going to make each of the factions feel and play differently, as a result it would probably be nice to reflect these differences by giving each of the factions a more unique looking flag. Conversely I’ve also thought about how I want each of the capital planets of the different factions to look and feel like, so if I can I’d like to add a set of unique models to the campaign map which reflect these differences.

Finally 0.45.0 will also have the usual selection of more miscellaneous updates and changes which this time around will include things such as splitting the events data to be located in its own file for each of the different campaign maps, preventing the main events file from becoming too long. Creating that unique looking trade ship which I spoke about last time but didn’t get to complete in time for this update and taking some time to add more descriptions for some of the locations, buildings and units currently in the game. Something which again I’d hoped to get to in the 0.44.0 update but didn’t, meaning that this work will now instead hopefully be included in the 0.45.0 update.

Closing Thoughts

So looking at the changelog this time around I have to say I’m quite pleased with it. I said that I wanted to actually start making use of the events system now that it has been implemented and I’m happy to say that as you can see, I have begun doing so. There’s still a lot of events I want to add and also a lot more things I want to do with events in general but for now what’s there is a good start and a foundation to build off of.

Something else I’m equally pleased with is with regards to my progress on the story campaigns, in particular with the Human faction one. Like most other things in the game there's still a lot of work for me to do both before I move on to working on the next one (that being for the Astel faction) and before I can even think about releasing it as a paid option. But what I have now is a start and one that I can continue to build from over the next couple of updates as the first draft of humanities story gets more and more refined both in terms of the story itself as well as with regards to both the gameplay and the overall production value. If I'm going to ask for money to let you access the story campaigns then they should be more than worth the asking price.

So in hopes of achieving the required quality for said asking price I’ll end this devlog here and get back to work. The 0.45.0 update won’t make itself and if I want to get everything I spoke about above implemented in time for its release in around a month's time, I should probably start sooner rather than later.

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 description to the Human faction story campaign on the campaign setup screen
• Added a new description to the Astel faction story campaign on the campaign setup screen
• Added a new description to the Kessoni faction story campaign on the campaign setup screen
• Added a new description to the Shin faction story campaign on the campaign setup screen
• Added 8 new planets to the Human faction story campaign map for use in the first chapter
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when the campaign is first started
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete the prologue
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 1 stage 1
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 1 stage 2
• Added support for checking if the campaign has been completed as a new event condition
• Added support for checking if the player faction is of a given type as a new event condition
• Added support for setting the camera position as a new event outcome
• Added support for setting if a location is disabled as a new event outcome
• Added support for setting the owner of a location as a new event outcome
• Added support for setting a research as complete as a new event outcome
• Added support for displaying the campaign map end screen as a new event outcome
• Added support for giving the player faction an amount of UC as a new event outcome
• Added support for removing an amount of UC from the player faction as a new event outcome
• Added support for disabling a location on the campaign map to prevent interaction with it
• Added support for disabling a location connection on the campaign map to prevent interaction with it
• Added support for dynamically switching the mesh used by the shield generator subsystem
• Added a new mesh to represent the small Astel engine subsystem
• Added a new mesh to represent the small Astel laser turret subsystem
• Added a new mesh to represent the Astel shield generator subsystem
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when the campaign has been completed
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you start the campaign as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you start the campaign as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you start the campaign as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you start the campaign as the Shin faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Astel homeworld for the first time as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Kessoni homeworld for the first time as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Shin homeworld for the first time as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Pirate homeworld for the first time as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Human homeworld for the first time as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Kessoni homeworld for the first time as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Shin homeworld for the first time as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Pirate homeworld for the first time as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Human homeworld for the first time as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Astel homeworld for the first time as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Shin homeworld for the first time as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Pirate homeworld for the first time as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Human homeworld for the first time as the Shin faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Astel homeworld for the first time as the Shin faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Kessoni homeworld for the first time as the Shin faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you take control of the Pirate homeworld for the first time as the Shin faction
• Updated the model used by the Astel Corvette
• Updated the image used by the Astel Corvette to match the look of the new unit model
• Updated the campaign setup GUI to have a gap at the bottom of the screen to match the rest of the in game user interfaces
• Updated the campaign map AI to support ignoring campaign map locations which are disabled 
• Updated the campaign map and the battle map to perform an event check after the map has finished loading to ensure starting events are triggered while the game is still paused
• Updated the campaign map minimap to hide locations and location connections if they are currently set to disabled
• Updated the campaign map location information GUI to hide a locations connections if they are currently set to disabled
• Updated the campaign map end screen GUI to match the look of the rest of the in game user interfaces
• Updated the campaign map end screen GUI to display the faction flag for the winning or losing faction
• Updated the subsystems to handle their own setup prior to their unit being called into the map instead of the unit manager doing the setup for them
• Updated the debug GUI to support setting the owner of the currently selected location on the campaign map
• Updated the debug GUI to support setting the disabled status of the currently selected location on the campaign map
• Updated the debug GUI to support setting the owner of all locations at once to the players team on the campaign map
• Updated the debug GUI to support disabling team restrictions to allow non player locations and planets to be interacted with on the campaign map
• Updated the Human faction shield generator mesh to have the same highlights as the Astel faction shield generator mesh
• Updated the objective manager to perform a check on the current set of objectives when a campaign map location changes ownership
• Removed the manual event triggers from each of the tutorial map scrips as they are now triggered automatically
• Fixed a bug where the battle map camera was in the incorrect start position during the ground battle tutorial
• Fixed a bug where the message box wouldn't display the linked image when displaying a message
• Fixed a bug where the game would crash if a location that wasn't owned by a faction was selected
• Fixed a bug where the game would throw an error when a location was no longer set to disabled and it tried to rebuild the a star map
• Fixed a bug where the game would not automatically remove objectives after they had been completed even if they were set to auto remove on completion
• Fixed a bug where the buildings, fleets and armies of a selected planet would still be displayed even if you had no intel for the selected planet
• Fixed a bug where the buildings, fleets and armies recruitment and build buttons for a selected planet were not locked when the selected planet had no player intel
• Fixed a bug where the campaign setup GUI was resized incorrectly as a result of resizing the bottom container
• Fixed a bug where a selected fleet or army could be moved on the campaign map even if it wasn't player owned