Posted August 25, 2023 by Ryu1284
Another month, another update. Version 0.23.0 is now out and ready for testing or breaking, as tends to often be the case.
As I mentioned in the previous devlog one of the main focuses of this update was to get back to adding more content and 0.23.0 achieves this through the introduction of a new class of unit, currently called utility units. As a result of this, each of the current four factions now has a single additional unit, with the Human faction gaining a repair ship; which as the name suggests will repair damage to nearby friendly units. Our still unnamed Alien faction gets a shield boosting ship which increases the shield regen speed of nearby friendly units. The kessoni faction gets a resonator ship which boosts the damage of nearby friendly units, providing they use laser beam turrets and not regular laser turrets. While finally the Shin gained a unit called a cloud ship which is able to place down a cloud anywhere on the battle map, causing any units contained within said cloud to gain the cloaked status and by extension a chance to dodge incoming damage.
Beyond the new units I also mentioned that I wanted to make some improvements to the tactical camera view on both the battle and campaign maps. In the case of the battle map it is now possible to select and give move orders to units, while the campaign map now allows for the switching of views from the basic faction view. Showing which faction owns which location to the trade view showing all known trade routes, or the diplomacy view showing which factions you are currently at war with and which factions you are currently allied with.
Speaking of trading, as you may have guessed there is now a new trade system in the game. For any faction you are not currently at war with it is now possible to propose a trade agreement and provided there is a route between your capital planets with no hostile locations (to either you or the faction you are trying to trade with) in between then you will begin trading. A basic trade agreement will see you gaining 10% of their income as your own while the planets and locations along the trade route will gain the trade route modifier, boosting their income along with the income of any trade ports you may have built above them.
Last but not least this update also included a number of smaller changes and additions, including but not limited to. Improvements to the camera controller, an increase in size for the minimap, a slightly reworked research UI to make it clearer what each research option does and updates to the power bar on both the battle map and the campaign map with the split now being calculated out of 100 instead of the total power of all units combined like before.
Now then, normally at this point I’d go over what you can expect to see in the next update and this time is no different. Unlike before however I’ll keep it simple, 0.24.0 will see the introduction of a new pirate faction on the campaign map who unlike all the other factions will neither be playable nor available for diplomacy. As you can imagine adding a new faction with all its new units is going to be a rather large task and as such it’s currently my only concrete plan for the upcoming update.
Nevertheless though that is the main plan there are still a couple of smaller things I also have in mind for what I want to work on alongside the implementation of the above new faction. For one I said before that I wanted to overhaul the research tree in this update but in the end very little was changed, so for 0.24.0 I plan to do just that by way of expanding the tech tree with a number of new research options and for the research tree to be split into both economic and military research branches.
Additionally as I move closer and closer to having all the content I currently have planned implemented (though I still have a long way to go yet…) I think it’s time for me to take a proper look at what kind of small optimisations I could make. In particular, while battles are fine to begin with, as more and more units are added to the field there are some noticeable slowdowns, especially on some of the larger maps that I introduced recently. To go hand in hand with this I’m also planning to go over the AI for both the campaign map and the battle map, not only is it an area that I’ve neglected for sometime now; resulting in the AI making very little to no use at all of some of the newer systems and gameplay mechanics. It is also, from my limited amount of testing on the subject. Seemingly one of the main bottlenecks in keeping a smooth framerate and as such it's probably worth a look.
Despite all of the above changes 0.23.0 turned out to be a bit of a smaller update this time around. At Least it feels that way anyway. Even so, though it may be smaller it is no less important and it's still another concrete step on the long road towards an eventual 1.0 release. Truthly one of the main reasons behind this update being on the smaller size is because I spent some time working on one of my other projects, Rise. Though I haven't released an update for it for a couple of months now I would at least like to be in a position to release another one before the end of the year. Hence the increased amount of dev time I ended up putting towards it.
Nevertheless as 0.24.0 aims to introduce a new faction I’ll be sure that this time I instead dedicate more time to Stelestial Contact: Solar Storm rather than having it be the other way around. Now then, with that out of the way it’s yet again time for me to say my goodbyes and knuckle down on that aforementioned 0.24.0 update, so as ever I’ll see you in around a month's time for that.
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: