Posted May 04, 2021 by Imagined Reality
Stellar Sovereigns V0.8 update is live, bringing the new Empire trait and Political systems, streamlined combat automation options with weapon type restrictions, new station and shipyard models, a new damage & destruction VFXs system and a Cinematic Camera mode.
Cinematic Camera Mode in Action
This update introduces the player to the new Empire menu where you can distribute earned achievement points amongst 24 traits to improve various aspects of your empire. These traits ranging from Colonial, Research, Combat to Governmental, each improving the efficiency of a single aspect like growth, cost or value.
Traits can be levelled up 10 times each time costing one more points then before. Points allocated to a trait advances the empires political standing in the political direction associated with the trait, the associated political affiliations of a trait can either be Federalists, Capitalists, Liberalists or Socialists.
The sum of political affiliation from traits is plotted onto a political spectrum graph where the opposing axis like Capitalists and Socialists are cancelling each other out, advancing in the direction that has a greater sum from traits. Every point of the graph has a positive and a negative modifier per each axis with a greater emphasis on the most significant; for example in case of a Liberal-Capitalists empire, where liberalism is more prevalent research cost and tax income positively effected but research cost is twice as much than if capitalism would be more significant.
The empire's place on the graph also determines which governance type's it can choose from. Each governance type modifies the base properties of your empire putting more emphasis on some aspect then on others. Your choice matters and you may only change it after some time, due to the minimum term limit of each governance type. If the empire's political standing changes in the meantime, you will incur backlash from the people until a switch to a governance type that better aligns with the empire's current political standing can be made.
Traits are levelled up using empire points that gained from achieving various goals, a list of goals is provided and each one can be completed multiple times. These achievements can be as mundane as exploring a new system, or researching a new technology or more long term as growing the population of a colony to its new heights or as involved as liberating an occupied colony from the enemy.
Automation with Weapon Type Restriction Options
Regarding space combat the update streamlines the automation options removing some of them and enhancing the responsiveness of all, as well as extends it by the addition of a new Weapon Type Restriction option. The new option allowing the player to toggle the use of weapons per type by the weapon automation option.
The half coloured weapon icon indicates that some of the selected ships are allowed their use while others not, due to automation options can be set on a vessel by vessel bases.
To enhance the visual experience of space combat a damage decal and a model shuttering destruction VFX system had been implemented.
In the regards to other VFXs the Fusion and EMP warheads also been updated with new impact effects.
New Shipyard Model
The new models for station and shipyard is just the beginning for the next update, a line of other industrial, scientific and defensive constructs are coming. The upcoming update will finally place such object into the solar systems, where the player can interact with them, which will come handy for the new defensive weapon platforms, that the player will be able to construct, position and retrofit from the solar system view.
Simply put I plan to liven up the solar system view add new features, provide more interaction for the player such as exploration, defence, tactical positioning and what ever else comes to mind.
Additional Changes: