Posted January 27, 2023 by Ryu1284
Update 0.19.0
In keeping with tradition another month has passed and thus I’m back with yet another update, this time in the form of version 0.19.0.
As always I’ll start by going over some of the big new features and changes you can expect to find in this version. In a previous devlog I’d mentioned that I wanted to make some changes to the intel system and I’m happy to say the first of these changes has now been implemented. In prior versions a campaign map location's intel level was either marked as full intel or no intel. Now there are four intel levels. These being no intel, low intel, high intel and full intel. Which as you may have guessed result in more and more of the locations building slots being revealed as the intel level increases.
To go along with this change fleets and armies are now able to provide a boost to the intel level of the location they are stationed over while also providing a higher level of intel for locations next to the one they are currently at. A change which is only possible thanks to the new military access diplomacy option which as the name suggests allows you to send your fleets and armies to locations owned by other factions without having to declare war on them.
In addition to the changes to the intel system I also took the time to make some updates to both the diplomacy system and the faction opinion system. In addition to the previously mentioned military access diplomacy option each option now has a threshold for success partially based on the target faction's opinion of you. As this makes faction opinions far more important than before, timed faction opinion modifiers are now also supported. Unlike normal modifiers these are removed after a set amount of time has elapsed, removing their positive or negative influence as a result. Currently there are four different timed modifiers. These range from previously being at war, previously breaking an alliance, previously removing military access and previously being at war with a faction's ally or enemy.
The final big feature I’ll bring your attention to is support for what I’m calling building modules. Modules allow you to add new functions and features to buildings separate from their normal upgrade path. As is normally the case with new features the current implementation consists of a small number of options, namely a sensor station which boosts the intel level of nearby locations from high to full and a trade port which boosts the wealth of the planet it is built over. As ever the plan is to add more options in future updates alongside some faction specific ones.
Now with that out of the way the next question is what can you expect to see in update 0.20.0?
For starters there are all the features I wanted to implement in this update but didn’t get around to finishing in time. Namely expanding the intel system further to hide location specific information at different levels as well as hiding fleet and army units based on their own intel level. Additionally there’s also the overhaul for the research system consisting of more options and a cleaner interface as the current one can be a bit cumbersome to use.
Alongside this I also want to spend a bit of time going back over space battles. In particular I’m thinking of making some changes to the overall scale of both the battlemaps and the units themselves. Needless to say, such a change would be quite daunting on its own, as I’d have to make tweaks to all the models. But I can’t say I have ever really been all that happy with either the scale of the maps or the scale of the units so hopefully this’ll be the update where I finally fix that.
Having said all that there is also one last thing I hope to achieve with the 0.20.0 update, that being porting the game from Godot 3.5 to Godot 4.0. I’ve talked about 4.0 in my devlogs a few times before and though at the time of writing it has yet to reach a full stable release I believe it’s at least stable enough for me to begin the porting process and start gaining the benefits of all the new features and performance improvements. Though I’d like to keep up with my once a month release schedule I don’t realistically think that will be possible and so, though I don’t like it. You can probably expect to see 0.20.0 sometime in mid to late March.
So now that you have a good idea for what’s in this update as well as an idea of when and what you can expect to see in the next one I guess it’s time for me to leave and actually get to work on the aforementioned update. As I said before I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to port the game over. With that in mind I’m planning on releasing a smaller patch, 0.19.1 next week, with another one to follow the week after depending on how many outstanding issues there are in the current version.
I’ll also just make a quick mention that depending on my time constraints and how much work I’m able to get done. I may or may not release a small demo version for one of the other games I mentioned in my previous devlog next month as a way to keep monthly content releases happening while I tackle the porting process.
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: