Somehow another month has passed me by and as such it is time yet again for me to release the next update for Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy at War which in this case is the 0.46.0 update.

What’s New?

As always I’ll start by quickly going over some of the things that are new in this update. For anyone who has been keeping up with my past updates then the first new thing in this update shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, that being a new mesh for the Astel battleship along with its accompanying subsystems. A comparison of the unit from before and after the update can be seen in the image above. In addition to the unit itself and as I mentioned before this update also includes a number of new meshes for the subsystems used by the Astel battleship. These are a new mesh for the large Astel engine, the large Astel laser turret, the large Astel ion laser turret and the special Astel laser turret which also has a unique pre and post fire animation.

In addition to the new models for various different subsystems and the Astel battleship this update also includes a couple of new models for the capital planets of each of the different factions in game. The planets in question being Earth, Arven, Kellos, Renn and Dask. To be able to make use of the new planet models I also had to rework how the planets themselves work behind the scenes so that each planet now extends a base planet scene which handles all of the shared logic. Unique planets can then extend this scene at which point they can add their own planet model along with any additional logic should they need it. As a result I also had to manually replace all of the existing planets on both the freeplay campaign map and the Human faction story campaign map which took longer than expected and in truth put me somewhat behind schedule.

Moving on from talk of new models though this update also brings with it a number of much needed changes to the debug GUI. Many of which were done to better help me debug and develop the story campaigns, with these new features I no longer need to play through the entire campaign each time I add something new and so can quickly test and implement new events and locations at a much more rapid pace. As to the specifics of these changes the debug GUI itself is now a floating window like all other popups on the campaign map, allowing it to be moved around the screen. Additionally the debug GUI now also supports being expanded to a greater size while also having the option of locking its position and/or size so it remains the same when it is closed and reopened. Furthermore and with regards to helping develop the story campaigns the debug GUI now also supports manually triggering events as well as an option for setting all the current objectives to complete. Allowing me to bypass large sections of the story campaign to get to the parts I’m currently working on.

Finally I should also mention some of the smaller but still important changes that were made in this update along with the couple of new bug fixes that made it into this release. For one, all of the buttons on the main menu now have a unique icon so their function can be seen at a glance without having to read the text. Each of the buttons in the pause menu now have a tooltip to explain what they do in more detail and the campaign map objectives GUI now supports clicking on the name of the campaign map location listed in said objective to show where the location is on the map. As for bug fixes a couple of issues relating to campaign map locations not being selectable after being made no longer disabled and locations not being correctly hidden when using a custom mesh were fixed. While a bug where campaign map build slots would remain locked even after the corresponding building had been complete was also fixed.

Update 0.47.0

Now, with what you can expect to see in this update explained I’ll just go over some of the things you can expect to see in the next one; that being the 0.47.0 update. As always the first thing you can expect to see in the upcoming update is a new unit model which in this case will be for the Astel carrier. Alongside the new unit model itself there will also be any required new models for subsystems used by the Astel carrier which off the top of my head I think just includes the hanger subsystem. Considering I never made a model for the Human variant of said subsystem I may or may not also take the time to create a model for them as well.

Beyond just a new unit model 0.47.0 will also include another type of new and updated model, that being new models for each faction's trade ships which can be seen on the campaign map when a trade route has been set up. I had hoped to have the new models done in time for 0.46.0 but as always plans never go how you want them to and so the new trade ship models will now be added in 0.47.0 instead. Alongside the new trade ship models I also want to take the time to look into adding the generic trade traffic that I spoke about a couple of updates ago. Something which I think should be relatively easy to implement and something which should hopefully help to add a little more life to the campaign map.

Talking of the campaign map I also want to take the time to do some more general background work which I’ve been putting off more and more but which I think should help me in developing the story campaigns more efficiently. To be more specific the first thing I want to do is add a helper function to generate the connections between campaign map locations for me instead of having to set them up manually. I already have a list of all the connections between locations so I just need to have a function read them, generate the connections and ensure the connections are listed correctly on each of the locations. In addition to the helper function I also want to see if I can’t finally split up the main event file like I spoke about before so that each campaign map uses its own file. Not only will this help to reduce the overall size of the events files but it should also help me better organise which events belong to which maps.

Last but not least 0.47.0 will also have the usual selection of smaller updates and bug fixes including such things as adding animation playback on both the campaign map and the battle map as a result of an event trigger like I said I would do last time. Continuing my work with regards to writing expanded unit and/or building descriptions which I’m now rather behind on and perhaps taking a look at some sort of fog of war system which I keep speaking about in these devlogs but never get around to actually implementing. These are just some of the things I have planned and depending on how much I’m able to get done on the main parts of the update all of them or none of them could make it into the final release.

Closing Thoughts

So as you could probably tell from the size of the changelog this wasn’t exactly my most productive month. A mixture of a mini heatwave and getting stuck trying to make new models of an acceptable standard meant I didn’t get to do as much as I wanted to. But with 0.46.0 behind me now I’m hoping that 0.47.0 turns out to be a much more successful update, in particular I’m looking forward to getting back to working more directly on the story campaigns. Considering they will be the main selling point of Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy at War I’ll feel a lot better once they are in a more complete state.

Having said all that, the story campaigns are never going to reach a finished state unless I actually get around to doing more work on them and so I’ll end this devlog here. Should everything go to plan (heh, like it ever does…) then I should be back in around a month's time with the next one, which will go over the new features and content you can expect to see in the 0.47.0 update.

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 event to the Human faction story campaign map for when you complete chapter 4 stage 7
• Added a new space building for use in the Human faction story campaign
• Updated the Human faction in the Human faction story campaign to support building the newly added building
• Updated the Human faction story campaign objectives related to location capture to support the new mouse clicking support added for the objectives GUI
• Updated the Human faction story campaign map planets without a unique mesh to use a generic planet scene with a generic mesh instead of the base planet scene which has no mesh
• Fixed a bug where some of the event conditions were set incorrectly for events on the Human faction story campaign map
• Added support for checking if a research has been completed previously as a new event condition
• Added support for a list of required technology to campaign map buildings before they can be built
• Added a new button icon fro the resume button on the pause GUI
• Added a new button icon for the settings button on the pause GUI
• Added a new button icon for the quit button on the pause GUI
• Added a new button icon for the guides and tutorials button on the main menu
• Added a new button icon for the credits button on the main menu
• Added a new button icon for the changelog button on the main menu
• Added a new button icon for the bug report button on the main menu
• Added a new mesh to represent the planet, Earth
• Added a new mesh to represent the planet, Arven
• Added a new mesh to represent the planet, Kellos
• Added a new mesh to represent the planet, Renn
• Added a new mesh to represent the planet, Dask
• Added a new mesh to represent the large Astel engine subsystem
• Added a new mesh to represent the large Astel laser turret
• Added a new mesh to represent the large Astel ion laser turret
• Added a new mesh to represent the Astel special laser beam turret
• Updated the model used by the Astel Battleship
• Updated the image used by the Astel Battleship to match the look of the new unit model
• Updated the description for the Human corvette
• Updated the campaign map GUI to hide buildings from the list of build options if the required technologies have not been researched
• Updated the campaign map objectives GUI to support clicking on the name of the objective target with the mouse to move the camera to the objectives location
• Updated the campaign map base planet scene to have no mesh so that it can be switched out in inherited scenes
• Updated the campaign map planets without a unique mesh to use a generic planet scene with a generic mesh instead of the base planet scene which has no mesh
• Updated the debug GUI to be a floating GUI instead of a static one so it can be moved around the screen
• Updated the debug GUI to expand its contents when the debug GUI is resized
• Updated the debug GUI to have the option to lock its position and/or size from being reset when it is closed and reopened
• Updated the debug GUI to have a close button to close the GUI without having to use the hotkey
• Updated the debug GUI to support manually triggering an event
• Updated the debug GUI to support setting all current objectives to complete
• Updated the resume button on the pause GUI to have a tooltip
• Updated the save and load button on the pause GUI to have a tooltip
• Updated the settings button on the pause GUI to have a tooltip
• Updated the buttons on the main menu to have button icons
• Fixed a bug where the building slots on the campaign map GUI would remain disabled even after the corresponding building had been completed
• Fixed a bug where the intel level for campaign map locations were still updated for locations that were disabled
• Fixed a bug where the location disabled button was visible in the debug GUI when on the battle map
• Fixed a bug where the freecam view could not be entered on the campaign map
• Fixed a bug where the faction flags on the campaign map tactical view were no longer correctly centred on locations
• Fixed a bug where not all objectives were removed when an event called for them to all be removed
• Fixed a bug where campaign map locations that were no longer disabled could not be clicked on until the game was unpaused
• Fixed a bug where campaign map locations were not correctly hidden if they were using a custom mesh