Stellar Warfare News

This week the two of us have worked quite hard again on improving the game. We have added some usability improvements and did a pretty big overhaul of unit health values to see how that influences the game meta.



We need your help
We are working as hard as we can right now and put a lot of time, effort and money into this project. Personally I put about 70 hours per week into this project so that we can release the game in less than 5 months. We could really use your assistence though by spreading awareness of the game wherever you can. The more people share this project and help us with the marketing side the more time we have for the actual development of the game. Oh yeah and supporting us on Patreon helps a bunch too and can get you some pretty cool rewards ^^

This is what we have done in week 11:

General

• Fixed asteroid sizes and harvester harvestdust location
  
• Added bigger shipyard death explosion
  
• Fixed Missile pods using turret models
  
• Checked if no additional modules were added to ships by the game systems since we reduced the amount of module slots
  
• Module slot 2 and 3 position in the ship editor were at eachothers positions. Corrected.
  
• Added 2 more default modules, bringing the starting modules to choose from 3 to 5
  
• Removed the new shipyard boost effect
  
• Extra cursor for recording purposes can now be set so that streamers always have a visible cursor if they want
  
• Decreased minimum build distance
  
• Played testgame with programmer
  
• Made health and shieldbars square again
  
• Added 13 new points to the todo list based on feedback & testing
  

Ships

• Created tables for each of the ship stats
  
• Calculated & wrote down justifications for why we think certain units should have certain stats
  
• Made it so that the ship stats can easily be modified as a whole (for example have all light ships have 20% more health)
  
• Updated all ship stats
  
• Fixed megalodon rotation
  
• Fixed megalodon engine
  
• Checked shield sizes for all ships
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaMdcn4v1m0
Usability and quality of life improvements

• Ship loadout info now visible in the build menu (weapons and modules)
  
• Fixed faulty weapon and module information was shown when not all weapons/modules were used
  
• Weapons and modules now show up in tooltips in SP and MP and the build menu. If you have two bulkheads it will show up as 2x bulkheads rather than seperated
  
• Added icons to the "Unlock Medium" en "Unlock heavy" ships
  
• Split up the "Abilities & unlocks" menu into "Abilities & Upgrades" and a "Unlock tech" menu.
  
• Changed inactive zabu colors
  
• Force non-transparant background for build menu backdrop items
  
• Renamed 'Select design slot' to 'Saved Designs' in the ship editor
  
• Numerical shield values for units are now only displayed if a shield generator is installed
  
• Asteroid height is now displayed when placing structures near them
  
• Neutral building height is now displayed when placing structures near them
  
• Surveyor height is now displayed when placing structures near them
  
• Updated icons in the ship frame selection dropdown of the ship editor
  
• Photoshopped new sky
  
• Added blue, greenblue, yellowgreen and green skybox
  
• Asteroids are now stored more efficiently in a global list that is refreshed every .5 seconds
  
• Zabu generators now change color correctly for the local player as well
  
• Made backgrounds of all menus more consistent
  
• Loading indicator now disapears after x seconds
  

Audio

• Added sounds to the shipyard upgrades
  
• Added sounds to tech unlocks
  
• Added sounds to the build boost
  
• Tweaked sound volumes
  

Backers & patreon

• uploaded new MP build for backers
  

Multiplayer

• Fixed the multiplayer disconnect bug
  
• Fixed ships sometimes getting stuck
  

Skirmish

• Improved on the AI
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnXHlM4cUaA


Wave defense game mode

• Added a boss for the wavedefense mode
  
• Wavedef boss now always moves towards the shipyard
  
• Removed time-based win for wavedef
  
• When boss dies you now win
  
• The boss no longer spawns right away in the wavedefense mode (oops)
  
• Changed the 'time until next wave' into 'Defeat their flagship!' for the last wave
  
• Reset enemy wave spawn times
  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urLPyzHMuzQ

Thats about all we did for this games production thats relevant to you guys. We've done some talking to publishers, advisors, contractual stuff and a bunch of overhead as well. But that's not something that should be put in this list.

Hopefully this will give you guys some insight into the time and effort we put into this. I'm going to play a 3FFA match tomorrow with some backers and will hopefully give you guys another really big update next week!

This week we've made more progress with the development of the AI. It plays more like you would expect from an AI, so in that regards it's already way better than the AI from last week. We're not done yet though, so next week will be even better!



This week we have done the following things:
- Instead of duplicate loot you now get damaged blueprints
- Increased loot drop chance by 20%
- Added mouse 'ASWD' camera pan
- Changed healthbar visuals
- Added health upgrade to all buildings
- Added shield upgrade to all buildings
- Added health regeneration upgrade to all buildings
- Added health regeneration upgrade to all buildings
- Set upgrade values and ratios
- Set max amount of upgrades per type per building
- Added click sounds to building upgrades
- Fixed formation buttons
- Fixed ship textures for new ships
- Photoshopped black textures for the new ships since we didnt have those yet
- Fixed defensive strcuture selection ping sound popping
- Reduced the amount of modules some ships have to make ships more diverse
- Decreased size of mouse ASWD camera movement trigger box

Weapon changes:
- Increased blaster lifetime by 3 seconds
- Replaced missile launcher and repeater sounds

New ships:
- Added The Aurora for one of our backers
- Added The Bongolongo for one of our backers
- Added the Velociraptor

Optimized ships (10x less polygons)
- Corvette
- Beacon ship
- Ant
- Raptor

Videos
I also recorded some videos for you guys to give you some more impressions of the current state of the game. Although the 1v1 I've played is in an outdated version.

1v1 match backer VS developer (with dev commentary)
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Ship editor dev commentary
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Developer feedback for programmer on the 2nd iteration of the AI
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That's it for this week. If you guys like the project please subscribe on youtube. I don't really care about subscribers there, but it has benefits/gets more exposure to the game if we can get more than 1000 subscribers there. See you next week!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This week we have mostly worked on AI and explored the potential adding of factions. The following is a list of things we have worked on:

Skirmish AI
A very basic skirmish is already operational. This week we worked on refining it. We have done the following:

• Ai enemy interception
  
• Fixed Skirmish Ai missile defense
  
• Fixed shield texture bug
  
• Fixed health networking
  

We aim to use several of the Skirmish functionalities for the Campaign as well, so right now this is one of our highest priorities.

Factions research
This week I've done a lot of research into factions. A solid plan began to form on how to add the factions, how to incorperate it into the ship editor and what bonuses each faction should have.

The general idea was to have two playable factions, The Explorators and The Purists. Purists use human-technology only, while Explorators aren't afraid of using alien technology as well. These differences in techniques would create variations in ship designs for each faction and generate faction-wide buffs. One faction would have 10% extra health for all ships for instance, while the other faction would have cheaper ships that move faster.

Because we are working on this project with just two people however we have to make choises and set priorities. Neither of us a 3D artist, but we attempted to overcome that by having existing ships incorperate different textures and materials next to the already existing materials. I was not satisfied with any of the results on any of the experiments we conducted. We would have to hire a new 3D artist in order to make the changes we wanted and since we can barely pay our rent as it is we are currently forced to scrap this idea.

Another things to consider is the amount of work adding factions would cost and how much extra value (fun!) it would add to the project. I've thought about this and while I do think that the more factions there are the more fun a game can be I also think that a poorly added faction is more detrimental to the games quality than having more than our current human factions. For now it is better to spend our time on the other cool things we have planned such as unit veterancy, bigger shield buildings, more weapons, sound and visual tweaks. New factions might still be added in the future though. A neutral pirate faction with a whole new shipset is another idea we had.

General bugfixes and things we have done

• Fixed resource networking
  
• Fixed menu navigation bug
  
• Talked to potential business partners about marketing the project to create a bigger playerbase
  
• Made a bunch of youtube videos
  
• Tweaked ingame bloom
  
• Added sound to building selection
  
• Added 3 new weapons
  
• Added a new ship
  

Summary and plans
That's about it for this week. I will try to put as much time as I can into this project again next week. It's sometimes hard to find enough time while also trying to make money in other ways in order to keep paying rent, but all in all I think we did some good things this week. You can help us with this by supporting us via the links underneath the youtube videos by the way.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

I'm not quite sure what we will work on exactly next week. But these are some of the things on our short term todo list;

• Update loot tooltips
  
• Mouse on edge of screen should behave like ASWD camera controls
  
• Perhaps revert healthbars back to rectangles
  
• Add options to the ingame menu to set the various control speeds
  
• Add health upgrades to all buildings
  
• Add shield upgrades to all buildings
  
• Add sounds to the unlocking of various tech
  
• Re-evaluate and tweak gameplay
  
• Continue fleshing out the current lore
  
• Add some ship designs as rewards for patrons who support the project
  

See you next week!

Ps. please subscribe to the youtube channel if you want to be kept in the loop more frequently; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvYClYMPAkPeHtjZyCwIi5g

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This week was pretty marketing-oriented. I've done almost 120 tasks this week and the programmer has worked on the Skirmish mode. That being said the following things have been done:

• Experiment with different types of planets
  
• Added the wave defense preparation time to the scorescreen
  
• Added the time in between waves to the scorescreen
  

• Tweaked the color palette of space
  
• Created a basic skirmish mode
  
• Tested said skrimish mode
  
• Added rudementary formation controls
  
• Adding building selection sounds
  
• Uploaded video of skirmish mode feedback to our YouTube
  
• Discussed todo list for skirmish with our new programmer
  
• Prioritized todo list
  
• Created an internal development build
  
• Created a pipeline system for creating cinematic videos for marketing purposes
  
• Had contact with a potential publisher
  
• Updated the steam store
  
• Updated all steam logos and capsules
  
• Created a new cinematic video
  
• Uploaded cinematic video to the store page
  
• Created an infinite-play map for video recording
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

That's about it for this week. We have also discussed things like unit veterancy, unit range, unit accuracy, new ships, new modules, new buildings, tweaks to the game audio and many more things.

First update
I haven't been posting updates here often. But I plan to do this more and more often. The main goal for this is to inform you guys of what is going on with the game and involve you guys a bit in the development process.

Audience and promotion
Another goal is to reach a bigger audience. The biggest thing we struggle with right now is exposure. Basically we need as many people as possible to know about the game. You can help with that by sharing game content with your friends and on social media. You could also contact streamers that you know would enjoy the game and if they are interested I'd be happy to send them a key of the game for them to try it out.

The discord channel can be found underneath each of our youtube videos and is a great place to get additional information.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Devlog and changes that we have made this week
This devlog will actually include some stuff from january as well since this is the first time I'm posting here. Here's what we did:

Ships
Added The Jaap battlecruiser frame in honour of my father who passed away from covid
Added The Towerer heavy frigate
Added The Bountiful ship frame
Decreased transport spawn rate (Backers on Patreon get their name on it & help me keep developing this game)
Fixed a texture bug causing ships to have weird textures
You can now cancel ship constructions
The Cruiser is now unlocked by default
Added Repressors to each default ship design because they look good
Tweaked default ship design loadouts


Buildings Added artillery buildings
Added defense buildings
Updated plasma fortress looks
Zabu generators now have different visuals for active and inactive states
Updated zabu gen locations
Added snap-to-grid functionality for building placement
Added height indicators for buildings that are being placed for easier placement
Added white lines to nearby buildings during building placement for easier placement
Added green lines towards the structures the booster buildings such as Synergisers generate
Added missile intercepting defensive structures
Added range indicators for repair buildings


Weapons, modules and miscellaneous
Added a cinematic camera
Toggling the cinematic camera now hides the GUI, healthbars and icons
Asteroids now have limited resources
Added 22 new weapon sounds and effects
Increased base income for players
There are now shield upgrades for buildings and ships
Added a ship module that increases shield strength
Added a ship module that increases shield regeneration
Added a ship module that increases shield strength and regeneration
Added a ship module that combines various shield effects
Reverted beam colors, optimized them, fixed damage
Rechecked weapon damage values
Added missile intercepting ship modules
Fixed skybox rotation
Fixed bug caused by Vsync
Increased base ship limit from 40 to 50. This can be set by the players themselves int he future
Fixed GUI text sizes
Limited screen resolution until all GUI elements are fully responsive
Fixed sound volumes not being stored correctly
Improved dodging behavior
Increased FPS
Removed empty healthbar shield texture
Decreased volume of impact explosions
Changed missile fire sounds
Added a collapsable GUI menu and made the Singleplayer and Multiplayer options in the main menu collapsible
Fixed the green cube bug
Added shield up & down sounds
Solved all json settings for audio, display, control and playername so that new players will have the correct default settings without errors.Also limited screen height to 1440 until we complete GUI scaling



Thats it for this week. We done a bunch of other stuff as well but I don't think the other things are too interesting for you guys. See you next week!