Posted November 29, 2024 by Ryu1284
Well it’s been about a month and so for the last time this year(kind of…) I’ve returned with the next update for Stellar Odyssey: Galaxy At War, that being the 0.38.0 update.
As ever I’ll begin this devlog by going over some of the things you can expect to see should you choose to try the update out for yourself. To begin with and as you have probably already seen this update introduces a new model for use by the Human Missile Ship along with a new model for the missile turret subsystem itself. As a result of the similarities between this unit and the previous one I was able to put a bit more time towards the missile turret subsystem than I normally would and as a result unlike previous turret based subsystems this one also includes a couple of animations to open and close the turret doors both before and after firing the turret.
As a result of these new animations and wanting to be able to do something similar for the rest of the turrets in the future, I took the time this update to add more direct support for three different types of animation to the base turret class. As a result turrets can now support playing an animation prior to firing, while they are currently firing and after they have completed firing. To keep things more organized the animations for the laser beam turrets have also been moved over to this new system. A change which also resulted in me fixing a rather long standing bug where particles would continue to be emitted even after a turret order to fire had been cancelled.
Keeping with animation support, subsystems and more specifically their abilities now also support playing individual animations. In particular they now support playing an animation while they are active as well as when they are on cooldown to make it easier to see at a glance when a system can be used again. Beyond new animation support this update also brought with it some updates to the trade system including the amount earned now being calculated from faction wealth instead of faction income, the amount earned being recalculated at the end of each month to reflect the current state of both factions and the trade routes themselves now also affecting the intel level of any locations they pass through.
Last but not least I should probably also mention the changes to the save system which as you can probably tell from the title of this post now uses a different file format. There were a couple of reasons for this change but chief among them was that the new system is more generic, allowing me to reuse the system in other projects should I want to. Though beyond the new system being more generic it also has the advantage of being more secure through the use of file encryption as well as being more efficient, as save file images are no longer stored as a separate file but are instead embedded into the save file themselves. Meaning that should you want to move save files across to a different computer the image associated with the save will be moved with it.
Additionally I’ll also just quickly mention that like all of my updates this one also includes the regular slew of bug fixes. Some of the highlights include fixes for the animation played when an engine is destroyed not correctly hiding the mesh or engine effects. A fix for the camera not returning to the correct height on the campaign map after reloading a save game and the previously added engine shader not extending the length of the engine effect when a unit is moving on the battle map.
Normally at this point in the devlog I’d go over some of the things you can expect to see in the next update which in this case would be update 0.39.0 and while I will still do that I should probably also mention that this update will be a little different. For starters unlike the rest of the updates I do throughout the year this one will not be released in a month's time but will instead be released on the 18th as it marks the anniversary of the release of version 0.1.0. As a result of this it means that rather than focusing on a set number of things to include in an update like I normally would I will instead be working on preparing things for the next year of development. While I wont go into the specifics in this devlog you can expect there to be a section on my plans for the upcoming year in the next one and who knows, perhaps there may, just may be mention of that elusive 1.0 version I keep talking about…
Regardless of such plans though I do still expect to include some things in 0.39.0 despite the smaller amount of dev time. For starters there is of course the new unit model which has become a staple of my updates at this point. Though unlike before I don’t plan to include just one new unit model in 0.39.0 but instead 4 of them. Those being the Human Frigate, the Human Battleship, the Human Carrier and then Human Repair Ship. At the time of writing this the updated model for the human frigate has already completed and I have already started work on the new battleship model. Which is a good thing as other than the new unit models I’m also going to have to create a whole bunch of new subsystem models, around 8 of them if my calculations are correct.
I’m under no illusion that the above model updates will probably take up the majority of my time especially as I want to also try adding more turret and subsystem animations where I can now that I have the correct systems in place to make use of them. As such plans beyond just adding the new models are a little less concrete. I would like to see if I can’t make some further improvements to the campaign map with regards to the trade system and maybe look into expanding the traffic system added previously to also add some general background traffic so the campaign map doesn’t look so lifeless when there are no active trade routes.
Other than campaign map changes I also plan to take another look at the overall gameplay experience of both space and ground battles. I’ll freely admit that I haven’t played as much of the game myself as I probably should have done, choosing to instead dedicate that time to developing new features and so as a kind of reprieve from working on creating new models I’ll also be spending more time this update playing the game more and looking at the bigger picture to see what things work and what things don’t. As well as which systems or numbers need tweaking to make the gameplay experience more enjoyable than it currently is. What’s there works but I can’t help but feel there are some tweaks I need to make to make the gameplay experience more fun and fulfilling.
So in the end 0.38.0 turned out to be a rather substantial update, at least in terms of the systems I changed and updated. I’d spoken about making changes to the save system for sometime now and I’m glad I took the plunge to finally work on it. Especially as I think it’s in a better place now then it was originally, something I hope to also be able to achieve with the shield system when I choose to finally take a closer look at it in a future update.
Anyway while I’d normally have more to say at this point I think I should probably just get to work on the next update. No doubt the devlog for next time will turn out to be quite a bit larger than this one as I lay out my future plans for the coming year and so I want to get to working on that if I can. So for the penultimate time this year I’ll bid you all farewell as I get to work on the 0.39.0 update which should everything go as planned, will be released on the 18th of December.
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: