So once again another month has passed, meaning it’s that time yet again. Time for me to release the next update for Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy at War which in this case is update 0.45.0.

What’s New?

As for what’s new in this update then as you probably come to expect by now there is a new model for one of the in game units. Which in the case of this update is the Astel frigate. A quick snapshot of the new look for the unit can be seen in the image above and the specifics of which are that this update to the Astel frigate includes not only a new mesh for the unit itself, but also for the medium Astel engine, the medium Astel laser turret and a set of new models for both the small and medium variants of the Astel ion laser turret. Talking of model variants, this update also included support for dynamically switching the mesh for any turret type subsystem based on the size, ammo type and the owning faction of said turret. This was already supported for other types of subsystems but it has now been expanded to work with all types of turrets in the game.

In addition to new models for units and their subsystems this update also includes a selection of new events for the freeplay campaign map with a unique event being triggered whenever the player faction loses their home planet. A faction's home planet should hold a certain amount of value, both to the faction that loses it and to the faction that captures it; something these events aim to better showcase. In addition to these events and in keeping with the events and objectives systems I also added support for a couple of new objectives. These being having a fleet reach a certain level of fleet power and having an army reach a certain level of army power. Both of which are now easier to see as the GUI has now been updated for when a fleet or army is selected to display said fleet or armies power without you having to look at the left side information panel.

While a good amount of the changes and updates made in this version will be freely available to you this was also the first update to include a substantial amount of content and updates for the paid portion of the game. This means that as I stated in the title for this devlog, what I’m calling the first draft for the Human story campaign is now complete. While simple in nature the basic outline of the campaign and the story itself are now in place and in doing so I now have something which I can begin building upon further in both the next and future updates. In addition to the campaign itself I should also mention that I took the time to write some basic outlines for each of the different campaigns along with redoing each of the flags for the individual factions. The new flags are quite a bit more detailed than their old counterparts and despite what I said about changes for the paid portion of the game the new flags will be visible throughout all areas of the game.

Last but not least this update also includes the usual selection of more miscellaneous changes and bug fixes. With some of the highlights this time around being a fix for the UC labels on both the campaign map GUI and the battle map GUI where the visible text was getting cut off after a certain amount. A fix where a campaign map could not be loaded if one was not previously manually selected and newly added support for setting the currently selected location to have no owner on the campaign map through the use of the Debug GUI. Not very useful to the average player but as I have discovered, pretty useful when you are trying to test if newly implemented events work which are meant to trigger when a campaign map location has been captured.

Update 0.46.0

So with that out of the way my thoughts now turn to what you can expect from the next update, that being 0.46.0. First of all there will be as ever the new unit model which in this case will be for the Astel battleship and as always it won’t just be a new model for the unit itself but also for its various subsystems. Such as the large Astel engine, the large Astel laser turret, the large Astel ion laser turret, an Astel missile turret and a large Astel laser beam turret. Depending on the amount of time I have I may or may not also start looking at working on the next unit, the Astel carrier. It will most likely use the same basic shell as the battleship and it has no need for any additional subsystem models, so in theory it shouldn’t take too long to finish up.

In addition to the new unit and subsystem models 0.46.0 will also be expanding support for the objectives system when it comes to what types of objectives are supported in battles. In particular, to be able to finish creating the story campaigns that I have in mind then I am going to need to have support for capturing parts of the battle map using a specific unit or groups of units. This may or may not also then link back to the events system where I could maybe add or remove units or buildings from the map during the battle, as well as having support for adding or removing obstacles on the map to allow an area to remain closed off until a certain number or type of objectives have been completed.

Moving back to visuals for a moment I’m also going to take the time this update to create those custom plants models I spoke about last time. The creation of custom flags for each of the factions has shown me how such a simple thing can have a much larger impact and so I’m hoping that the creation of custom home planets for each of the factions will have a similar kind of impact. But if I am going to be doing custom planet models for the home planets to reflect the different factions then I should probably also create a set of custom trade ships for each of the factions. As not only should this be relatively simple, but it should also have the same kind of impactful outcome that I’m hoping the new home planet models do.

Last but not least 0.46.0 will also include the usual collection of more miscellaneous changes and of course bug fixes. One of these will include adding support for animation playback to the events system, something I had planned to do before but never got around to doing. Adding some more detailed unit descriptions, probably to the Human factions units as they already all have new models and finally as a more general plan; I’ll be taking some time to actually play the game and see if there’s any major bugs that need fixing alongside making sure what’s there feels at least somewhat balanced. It’s been more than a little while since I last did a wider pass of the game and as such, there’s probably more than a few pretty major bugs that I missed and that need fixing.

Closing Thoughts

Well as always I didn’t quite manage to get everything done that I wanted to, but then again do I ever? Regardless, this update still had some important things in it, not least of which was the 1st draft of the Human faction story campaign. It still needs a lot of work done before I can call it anywhere close to being finished but now I’ve got somewhere to work from it should make things a little easier. Provided things go to plan it should be looking closer to completion over the next couple of updates depending on how I split my time between working on it versus working on the next story campaign, that being for the Astel faction.

Of course this update didn’t just include new content but also polishing up some of what was already there, such as redoing the faction flags for each of the in-game factions. It was a small change in the grand scheme of things but for some reason even just giving each of the factions a unique looking flag seems to have added some much needed character to them. Hopefully I’ll get a similar feeling when I finally get around to adding those custom plant models I spoke about last time or when I finally get around to writing up some more unit descriptions, something I’ve mentioned doing more than once previously in the past but somehow never manage to get around to actually doing.

But just as before these updates and changes won't create themselves and so I’ll end this devlog here. I’ve got a lot of things I want done for the 0.46.0 update and If I have any hope of getting even a fraction of them done in time for its release in around a month's time then I should probably stop writing about them and get back to actually creating them.

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 8 new planets to the Human faction story campaign map for use in the second chapter
• Added 8 new planets to the Human faction story campaign map for use in the third chapter
• Added 2 new planets to the Human faction story campaign map for use in the fourth chapter
• Added 3 new research options to the Human faction story campaign map for use in the fourth chapter
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 1
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 2 stage 1
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 2
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 3 stage 1
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 3 stage 2
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 3
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 1
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 2
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 3
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 4
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 5
• Added a new event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 6
• Updated the starter event for the Human faction story campaign to also disable the 8 new planets added in this update for chapter 2
• Updated the starter event for the Human faction story campaign to also disable the 8 new planets added in this update for chapter 3
• Updated the Human faction story campaign map to support the Astel faction
• Updated the Human faction story campaign map to support the Kessoni faction
• Updated the Human faction story campaign map to support the Pirate faction
• Updated the Human faction story campaign map so Earth has a starter fleet, army and buildings
• Added support for having an fleet of a given combined fleet power as a new objective
• Added support for having an army of a given combined army power as a new objective
• Added support for setting if a research option is disabled as a new event outcome
• Added support for setting a research option to disabled which removes it from the list of research options in game
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you lose your home planet for the first time as the Human faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you lose your home planet for the first time as the Astel faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you lose your home planet for the first time as the Kessoni faction
• Added a new event to the freeplay campaign map for when you lose your home planet for the first time as the Shin faction
• Added a new mesh to represent the small Astel ion laser turret
• Added a new mesh to represent the medium Astel engine subsystem
• Added a new mesh to represent the medium Astel laser turret
• Added a new mesh to represent the medium Astel ion laser turret
• Updated the model used by the Astel Frigate
• Updated the image used by the Astel Frigate to match the look of the new unit model
• Updated the campaign map GUI to display your UC balance in red if it is a negative value
• Updated the campaign map GUI to display the current fleet, army or building power of the currently selected fleet, army or building
• Updated the debug GUI to display the faction icon next to the faction option when selecting a team
• Updated the debug GUI to support setting the team of the currently selected location on the campaign map to empty
• Updated the faction flag for the Human faction to better match the factions characteristics
• Updated the faction flag for the Astel faction to better match the factions characteristics
• Updated the faction flag for the Kessoni faction to better match the faction characteristics
• Updated the faction flag for the Shin faction to better match the faction characteristics
• Updated the faction flag for the Pirate faction to better match the faction characteristics
• Updated the faction flag for when a location or unit doesn't have a faction set
• Updated the user interface to support the new faction flag designs as they are now larger than the previous versions
• Updated the ion laser turret subsystem to support dynamically changing the mesh based on which faction the turret belongs to
• Updated the existing units and buildings to work with the new dynamic ion laser turrets
• Fixed a bug where the player UC amount label on the campaign map GUI would be cut off if you had over 10,000 UC
• Fixed a bug where the player UC amount label on the battle map would push the GUI to the right if it was over 1000 UC
• Fixed a bug where the story campaign maps could not be loaded if one of the available campaigns was not selected before pressing the start button