Stellar Warfare News

I've been quite busy since release. Some of you had some feedback that I have already managed to look into. I will try give you guys a seperate list of what I have worked on based on your feedback and a list of things that I would have done anyway (regular update). I had also worked on a coop wave defense mode.



The following things have been done exclusively as a result of player feedback:

• Made scrollbar brighter in the ship editor (players couldnt find it)
  
• Made loot drop tooltip button and multiplayer start game visible on screens with less than 1080 height (players with widescreens couldnt press start)
  
• Made the back button in the lobby list higher for those with a screen with 768 height
  
• Moved ship designer elements to make them less confusing
  
• In the next patch I have increased the laser shield cooldown from 15 seconds to 30 and decreased the range from 150 to 100. The latter I wanted to do myself to make it so that they cover a less large area and thus seem more like 'personal defenses'. This is after feedback of missile shields feeling OP to some.
  
• Made a seperate host Skirmish, Host Coop wavedef and Host battle royale button (some players seemed to think the game only had 1 or 2 game modes)
  
• Added bot with roles to the discord (players wanted to more easily find opponents)
  
• Made burst artillery 5x more accurate (players found artillery too inaccurate)
  
• Made Storage, Habitat Stations and some similar buildings less expensive
  
• Buildings now derive their costs from the actual game objects rather than manual input. This fixes the "Plasma artillery laser cannon costs incorrect" bug @Feathy reported
  
• I have unlocked campaign mission 2. I actually wanted to wait until I could have added the voice overs, but I also want to give as much content as possible to people trying the game(got feedback about that). I also promised to unlock one campaign mission roughly 3 weeks and I want to make sure I stay on schedule with that too.
  
• Shipyard explosion is now bigger
  

Regular update / council changes. The coop related ones are indirectly also done as a result of players wanting PVE game mode options. Here's the list:

• Magma Cannon: increased damage to 24
  
• Magma Repeater: increased damage to 16
  
• Duo Cannon: increased damage to 32
  
• Cutters: reduced range to 200
  
• Fixed bug of players start a multiplayer lobby getting the wrong team
  
• Fixed movement command destination too high/low
  
• Added a button for guides and the discord to the main menu
  
• Allied surveyors now shouldnt draw lines towards the building the player is trying to place
  
• Player projectiles and missiles now actually hit enemy ships in multiplayer coop
  
• Players can now hit transports again
  
• AI units in coop wavedefense should now always be red again
  
• Zabu generators in coop should now change to the allies color if captured
  
• Allied smartlasers in coop wave defense should no longer shoot down friendly missiles
  
• Fixed AI healthbars not visible in multiplayer coop
  
• Fixed projectilee colors wrong + sometimes 2 projectile visuals attached to 1 object
  
• Coop wavedefense scorescreeen should now display everything properly
  
• Added coop difficulty sliders to the network lobby
  
• Client now reads difficulty sliders in the network lobby
  
• Players are now forced to be the same team in coop wavedefense
  
• Client team dropdown now disabled if game mode is wave defense
  
• Team dropdown is now visible again when switching back from wave defense game mode to skirmish or battle royale
  
• Custom values can now be saved per lobby for its settings
  
• Added a check to see if we still need to check if we can hit enemies or not. If we can already hit them then stop doing more checks; they are redundant
  
• Made it so that the client cant touch the wavedef settings
  
• New accuracy for artillery
  
• Made flak artillery 5x more accurate
  
• Made plasma artillery twice as accurate
  
• Made the repressor turret 100% accurate instead of 'largely accurate'
  
• Made the missiledef cannon 3x more accurate
  
• Made plasma fortress 33% more accurate
  
• Fixed player projectiles not hitting AI in singleplayer
  
• Magma cannon is unlocked by default again
  
• Added the Challenger Warship
  
• Fixed bug of some menu buttons not working after doing the tutorial
  
• Removed 'Exit Game' button from the multiplayer menu
  
• Guides and Discord button now dissapears when you go to multiplayer or singleplayer selection
  
• The Raider medium ship is now unlocked by default. This gives new players access to 3 light, 3 medium and 3 heavy units by default
  
• Added the Gautling cannon
  
• Fixed issue with enemy surveyor tooltip bugging due to not being able to retrieve weapon and module slot data
  
• Made storage more expensive again, fixed an AI surveyor tooltip issue
  
• Coop wavedef enemy units should no longer spawn at the centre of the map
  
• Enemy ship colors in coop wavedef should now be red instead of the player color
  
• Transports no longer spawn in wave defense
  
• AI ships no longer have the host name in the tooltip in coop wavedef
  
• Reset wave defense difficulty on going back to the main menu to prevent wave difficulty desyncs in coop
  
• @LaOch made it so that there is no change in unit health under difficulty 10
  
• Made it so that singleplayer and multiplayer coop enemy units health are the same
  
• Each difficulty vs AI above 10 (the default) will now increase the health AND damage. This means that on 10 difficulty ships will have 100% health and 100% damage. But on 50% difficulty they will have 500% health and 500% damage. This is in addition to the extra amount of ships that will spawn
  
• Health sync test check for difficulty 1: done
  
• Fixed colors for real now in the coop wavedef
  
• Fixed coop wavedefense allied smartlasers shooting down friendly missiles
  
• Fixed coop wavedefense double tooltips
  

Draft roadmap:
There currently is no set roadmap. That being said some features have been requested already so those have a very good chance to be added to the game in the near future. Here are some of those requested features:

- Coop vs AI (wave defense will already be in the next patch)
- Construction circles for buildings
- Fix sometimes shipyards spawning in eachother
- Allow players to set popcap in SP and MP
- Carriers
- Different languages
- Bugfixes
- Height indicators when moving ships in 3D space

Thats about it for now. Thank you guys for supporting the project so far and I hope you guys are having fun!

PS: If you want to help out please share the link to the steam page or the patreon wherever you can. That really helps keep the project growing!

- Fixed movement command destination too high/low
- Made loot drop tooltip button and multiplayer start game visible on screens with less than 1080 height (after community feedback)
- Added a button for guides and the discord to the main menu

- Added more information to the campaign mission selection screen
- Showed buttons of campaign missions that are already done (but require voice overs before I unlock them)
- Tweaked building placement functionality
- Made GUI tab buttons bigger after community feedback
- Increased loot drop chance by 25%

[h2]Release in 4 days![/h2]
This week I have done what I could to prepare for the EA launch next Wednesday. Excited (and slightly anxious) to see how it goes, since I've spent about 3000 hours on this project. That being said I am satisfied with the current state of the project. It is close to what I envisioned when I started it off. That being said I will keep adding to it of course and make it even better.

One of the things I've worked on this week was changing the way game modes currently work. With these new changes it will be easier for me to add new game modes in the future. One of the things I want to add in that regard is coop wave defense for instance.

If you want to know what else I did this week you can read it here in the devlog.

[h2]Your help is needed[/h2]
I need your help mostly with spreading the word that the game is going to be released in 4 days. So if you guys could share the link to the steam page on your social media, discord groups and any other places where you think people might want to see it that would really help.

I planned to spend the entire week spreading the word and playtesting. Instead I had to do some more work on the game itself. So I feel like I am 6 days behind on 'marketing', and marketing is a big part of what can make a game a success or not. Since I am self publishing there is 0 marketing budget, so I am relying mostly on those who want this project to become a success to help spread the word.

Regardless I myself have done the following this week:

• Shared news that the game will be released in 4 days in a bunch of discords with a steam link
  
• Shared news that the game will be released in 4 days in a bunch of facebook groups with a steam link
  
• Shared news that the game will be released in 4 days on reddit with a steam link
  
• Shared news that the game will be released in 4 days on twitter with a steam link
  
• Contacted the few streamers that I do know
  

I am just one man and my time is divided between actually working on the game, spreading the word and all the other stuff related to game development. Thats why I could really use your help spreading the word. If only a few of you guys do that then I'd already be super happy ^^.



[h2]Plans after release[/h2]
My plan during early access is to interact with you guys. Fix game breaking bugs. Listen to what you guys might want to see added to the game, and add those things that are requested the most. As long as they fit the vision for the game of course.

The currently most requested features are:

• Coop wave defense
  
• Carriers
  
• Modding
  
• Linux, mac, console ports
  

I will address these in order of ability and a time spent to gain ratio. My main concern during all this is to keep the game balanced, working well and stable. Excess time I have left and that I can afford I will keep working on those requested features. Eventually I hope to have most of you guys requests added.

Feel free to join the discord if you want to ask me questions directly as well. See you guys at launch!

Its been a very busy week. So much so that for this week I am not going to edit this post too much, instead it will just be a list of the things I've done this week. In diary form. Sort of. Here we go:

1. increased droprate in singleplayer matches compared to multiplayer matches in order to promote SP more
   
2. removed C key being used for some attack move type thing
   
3. You now always get only The Sunfish in the tutorial as a blueprint.
   
4. I added the following to the tutorial tooltip for the sunfish: ". There are dozens of ships and weapons to unlock in this game. Kill ships to find more blueprints!"
   
5. Hopefully this will make it extra clear to new players that there is more stuff to unlock, since i've gotten feedback that people dont know about it
   
6. all ships now have thumbnails
   
7. added descriptions to all ships (descriptions provided or inspired by Laoch)
   
8. disabled surveyor and harvester in BR
   
9. spaced out Sunfish description more in the tutorial
   
10. updated minimap visuals again
    
11. restyled main menu a bit
    
12. made yellow letters in the main menu more white to make it more homogeneous
    
13. harvester build button is now hidden until a refinery is made
    
14. surveyor build button is now hidden in battle royale
    
15. Renamed the description of the brachio from battlecruiser to warship
    
16. Removed some MP3's, changed brachio's description, changed main menu styling
    
17. You can now no longer see buttons for upgrade shipyard beam, flak or missile in battle royale (since there is no shipyard)
    
18. Ship button data is now retrieved on game start, then hidden and the economy tab is opened (unless its in BR, then the ship menu stays open). This fixes the ship build list flickering on game start
    
19. 4k tooltips need serious work, working on it
    
20. replaced wave survival setup background
    
21. font size of tooltip now scales to 4k
    
22. tooltips are now readable in 4k
    
23. refined minimap and tooltip style
    
24. enemy tooltips now no longer have the red border but have a red title text instead
    
25. Healthbars now scale to 4k
    
26. building upgrade buttons text and icons now scale to 4k
    
27. Ship button data is now retrieved on game start, then hidden and the economy tab is opened (unless its in BR, then the ship menu stays open). This fixes the ship build list flickering on game start
    
28. fixed shield bar and text sizes
    
29. added a border around ship build buttons that i might add to all other buttons as well
    
30. restyled ingame menu and tabs and added the health, icons and fleet toggles
    
31. tweaked menu tab icons and positioning
    
32. copied old toggle buttons functionity to the new GUI
    
33. Spent 3 hours arguing with unity over something that should just work. It works now with an less than elegant solution. So I'm one step closer to the tooltip hovers working again on menu items
    
34. Added re-selection of units upon clicks of GUI buttons
    
35. Added sound effect for jump button click and for escape menu open
    
36. ship tooltips now work on hover in the new menu
    
37. tooltips now work for ships and buildings in the new menu
    
38. added tooltips for constructionboost, jumpbutton, mediumbutton, heavybutton, flakbutton, beambutton, missilebutton, artillerybutton, supportbutton, escalationbutton
    
39. Added tooltip for icons, health, tight and loose fleet toggle. Refind harvester and surveyor tooltips.
    
40. wrote descriptions for all ability buttons
    
41. moved region button in main menu more to the right
    
42. toggle icons are now actually hidden when you open cinematic cam or hide GUI
    
43. updated speed module tooltips (thanks @algor)
    
44. made minimap scaling more dynamic and reduced minimap size
    
45. fixed adma, bongolongo, tuberat and typec thumbnails
    
46. removed 1200 lines of code from one of our most messy scripts
    
47. building upgrades work again and now scale properly to 4k
    
48. objective box of tutorial is now wider
    
49. top textbox is now centered correctly
    
50. using cinematic camera is now a tutorial objective
    
51. tooltip title is now no longer red after first hovering over an enemy and then over a menu button
    
52. tooltip title is now no longer red after first hovering over an enemy and then hovering over a zabu repair, mine, plant, beacon or asteroid
    
53. Thomas(StellarWarfare) — 20-07-2021
    
54. added a check that when placing building it checks if the objects it will display a Height of are actually in view of the camera. if the camera can't see it then it will no longer show those 'height' indicators. This prevents the 'floating height values' bug.
    
55. Fixed the 'building height indicator' font size and styling in 4K and the background of it in HD
    
56. restyled the leave confirmation menu
    
57. unit icons now scale for 4k as well as HD
    
58. made leave confirmation text yellow to stand out more
    
59. Not sure if it was ever reported, but when you go to the tutorial and then go to skirmish or wave defense you will still get tutorial voice overs and objectives. I have now disabled it by forcing the game variant to be gamevariant.regular whenever going to skirmish, wave defense or multiplayer matches. It can then be overridden later if required, but it prevents the issue
    
60. Added the Engager and Cleaver ships. Made thumbnails for them.
    
61. restyled all menu buttons
    
62. moved control buttons to the top
    
63. moved build menu to the bottom
    
64. removed power and metal costs for buttons and added them to the tooltips instead
    
65. changed the display order of buildings
    
66. added an effect to all ship and building buttons
    
67. changed border styling for all ship and building buttons
    
68. replaced the minimap again
    
69. basically restyled entire GUI today
    
70. made new styling for the tabs
    
71. changed the colors of a lot of buttons to be roughly the same shade of blue
    
72. added the Railcannon (medium, half railgun damage, half railgun cooldown)
    
73. resized all ship and building thumbnails from 256x256 to 75x75 and move the menu back to the top right. styled icon and health toggles. reduced size of build menu tabs so that they fit in line with the rest of the buttons. made ship button texts smaller. changed ship and building buttons overlay for better readability. changed tooltips for ships so that they display the ship frame name first and then the players custom name for the ship (I.e. Corvette - Titankiller)
    
74. power and metal icons and values are now visible for all ship, building, ability and upgrade buttons that have costs associated with them
    
75. Disabled the local firing script when we are networking. This fixes the 'cooldown twice as fast' bug
    
76. cut lens dirt effect in half
    
77. powerplant cost is now displayed properly
    
78. added debug info to each of the victory conditions
    
79. added the Raider medium tank
    
80. removed old health/stealth canvas from each ship since it might increase performance more
    
81. removed all old stealth indicator and health bars from buildings
    
82. added a second sunfish blueprint to make sure people find them.
    
83. made and set thumb for the Hunter
    
84. removed surveyor and harvester stealth icon
    
85. if you find ship frames in the loot it now uses a 256x256px image rather than the 75x75 px used for buttons
    
86. check if all ships and module loot and button images work (they do)
    
87. now using 256x256 image for buttons again because the quality is just more crisp. So reverted all ship and building icons. Double checked blueprint images for modules, ships and weapons as well
    
88. set default images for each
    
89. hovering over the economy tooltip will now show how much power and metal you have gained in the previous minute
    
90. units dying is now more gradual
    
91. new players now get a popup to set their name
    
92. cleaned up todo list
    
93. changed some tooltip texts
    
94. disabled some debug texts
    
95. added a check to make sure a player set name field not having reference to the popup would not cause errors
    
96. in battle royale only the ships and ability menu should be visible now
    
97. fixed transport still having stealth icon
    
98. fixed a bug algor pointed out about the default ship weapons reverting to Auto Howitzers. Fixed now with his help
    
99. beam weapon Battle royale bug is fixed @Brackman
    
100. neutral structures in BR are now twice as big for better visibility
     
101. added icons to neutral structures
     
102. removed icons from neutral structures because it looked ugly
     
103. increased amount of transports that spawn in Battle Royale from 3 to 6
     
104. made sparks on the nano repari stations less big
     

That's it. Hopefully I can clear the rest of the todo list early next week so that I still have some spare time for marketing. The GUI rework set me back 9 days instead of the expected 3, so I'm fairly short on time. I will keep you guys up to date though!