Stellar Warfare News

This major update brings tactical pause support to the game. Now you will have more time to decide whether you want to protect your base with a new shield dome defense structure, or attack your AI opponent with a new Sunna super ship, or do both. To help with your own fleet deck building we have added a new Ship Tester game mode. In addition to this we have added a Storage Affinity ability so that players can invent new economy strategies by either increasing their power or metal support.

Another major thing added in this update is multiplayer support for mods and a mod menu allowing to load or disable your mods.



The ability to pause the single player game modes has been requested almost a dozen times. We finally managed to create some time to work on it and are happy to report that we have added it to the game. Any single player game mode now can be paused by pressing P or Pause key. Players will still be able to give any usual command to their units and interact with the GUI.





A new defensive building that generates a large energy shield that protects nearby structures and ships. It currently costs 500 metal, 500 power and requires no unlocks to be accessed. We might move this to the Utility tab in the near future though.



Meet Sunna - and experimental destroyer armed with two particle beams best suited to melt lightly armored ships. It is armed with a belted Repressor and two improved Flaktrippler missile launchers to have a good AoE support. As the fastest and cheapest super ship - she is the best choice for protecting your heavy hitters from light and medium enemy swarms.





A new game mode with the goal to ease the process of creating new fleet decks and testing them vs various foes. In this test mode you get nearly unlimited resources, the ability to spawn super ships multiple times and more. Additional QoL improvements for this mode will be added over time.



The Stinger, Lunaria, Torp, Starangel, Stareater ship frames have received the new Shield drainer built-in module. It will search for an enemy shield generator (on a ship or structure) and attempt to overload it by firing overload beams at it.





Zabu Complexes, Mines and Plants now grant 50% damage boost to any armed defensive or artillery structure built close enough to them. This works in a fashion similar to that of Escalation buildings and is visualized with a red connector beam.



The unlock menu now has three new options:
1. Refit your storage facilities to hold more metal. This reduces the amount of power storage available. Costs 300 metal.
2. Refit your storage facilities to hold more power. This reduces the amount of metal storage available. Costs 300 metal.
3. Revert storage affinity back to balanced. The cost is dynamic. The button is visible only if an affinity is already active.

We wanted to give our players more options for economical development of their bases and hope that this addition will help with achieving this goal. It should also enable people to go for power or metal heavy fleet setups.



Starting with this update all weapons will have their projectile speed values displayed relative to the same calculations we use for ship frames. That means that players now can compare them directly.



* - some patch notes were omitted for the sake of the post size. For more details, please join our discord, we post our dev logs there regularly

Additions

• Added multiplayer mod support and a mod load/unload menu
  
• Added a Ship Tester single player game mode. Go there and test your fleet vs enemy ships
  
• A shield Drainer built-in module has been added to the Stinger, Lunaria, Torp, Starangel, Stareater ship frames
  
• The zabu Plant, Zabu Mine and Zabu Complex now grant 50% damage boost to nearby defense structuresAdded 'tactical pause' that can be toggled by pressing P or Pause keys
  
• Added the "Sunna" experimental Super Ship with Particle Beams that deal 'true' damage
  
• The camera movement speed can now be multiplied by holding down the CTRL key
  
• We added the ability to drag and drop ship slots in the fleet editor. This should make it easier to switch the order of your ship slots around.
  
• Added a new shield generator defensive building
  
• The unlock menu now has 3 new buttons to set Power, Metal or Neutral affinity
  

Tweaks & changes

• Lowered the engine SFX volume on harvesters
  
• The default order for weapon options in the Fleet Editor is now Type -> Name instead of being ordered by name
  
• Weapon type icons are now color coded according to the damage type they deal (in the ship editor weapon dropdowns)
  
• The laser Shield now has 4 bursts with a 40 seconds cooldown
  
• We increased the amount of loot re-rolls from 5 to 15
  
• We changed the base turn rate for medium ships from 6 to 5
  
• We changed the base turn rate for heavy ships from 4 to 3
  
• We changed the base speed for Medium ships from 75 to 80
  
• The unit veterancy experience requirement is now based on killing 2x its resource value (used to be 3x)
  
• Weapons and Ships now use the same speed representations so that their values can now be compared directly
  
• The 'Ratler' (medium weapon) has been renamed to the Rattler Cannon to avoid further confusion with the Rattler (heavy weapon). All players that had it unlocked will have it properly replaced
  
• Hunter Seekers will now explode upon death, damaging everything around it
  
• Hunter Seekers no longer ignore shields and will deal damage to the health of the ship based on Hunter Seeker damage minus the targets shield value.
  
• The Eradicator's shields now no longer block projectiles, missiles and beams that miss them
  
• Ship self repair now only works outside of combat (starts 10 seconds after last receiving damage)
  
• Reduced the price for all self repair ships by 30 for light ships, 80 for medium ships and 300 for heavy ships
  
• The resources texts are now color coded. Their icon colors in the top-right are now toggled based on which resource affinity is active
  
• Torpedo weaponry now properly lead their targets
  
• Added a GUI culling mask for strategic unit icons and health bars to prevent them from overlapping. The resource panel, build/unlock/ability menu buttons, control buttons, tooltip and selected units thumbs now properly cull healthbars and strategic unit icons.
  
• Beams now fire through shields that have no hp
  

Fixes

• The camera now resets properly in the Wave Survival game mode
  
• The camera now focuses properly on all players flagships in the Battle Royale game mode
  
• You can no longer box select both buildings and ships at the same time
  
• Fixed errors on creating 2nd/3rd game session without game restart
  
• Fixed escalation boosting lines not showing for the opponent's refiner
  
• Located and removed UFO (white glowing object at map's center that was accidentally added while developing)
  
• Fixed the shipyard anti-building missile unlock bug
  
• Fixed an error which prevented the 'last damaged by' marker on ships
  
• If a ship has less than 0.5 health it will now display having 1 health rather than 0
  
• Fixed Super Ships thumbnail bug
  
• Fixed ship thumbnail tooltips sometimes being stacked
  
• Fixed fleet editor weapon description being too close to weapon stats
  
• Fixed tooltip for the Sunna
  
• Fixed shipyard anti building missile upgrade being disabled if a the player unlocked it in a previous game
  
• Fixed a bug preventing beams from dealing damage in some situations
  
• Hunter Seekers now work properly in multiplayer
  
• Removed potential shield damage duplication. This ensures that damage against shields will be calculated relative to the owners armor type
  
• Fixed the Reinforcement beacon, Nano distributor and Repair station working before being completed
  
• Fixed turrets rotating like crazy when target out of range or dead
  
• Fixed turrets missing their first shots due to the turret still in the process of rotating towards the target
  
• Fixed the torpedo type weapon speeds being too slow
  
• Fixed objects behind the UI rewriting the UI tooltips
  
• Fixed the tooltip override bug (this occurred when a tooltip was shown for an object behind the hover target)
  
• Fixed a bug preventing health bars being shown for buildings
  
• Fixed unit strategic icons being visible even when the GUI was turned off
  

Performance

• Fixed a potential memory leak in the Fleet Editor
  
• Removed some excessive unit list iterations
  
• Replaced overcomplicated calculations for immobile targets (idle ships or structures)
  

This week some new weaponry has been added. We're also planning a merge of a whole bunch of new features from our testserver.

• Reproduced an issue causing screen resolution settings not being saved at 4k resolution
  
• Identified a new issue with the resolution display value being incorrect. Making a trello ticket of it for @Admiral Atrixsanna to pick up
  
• Changed the shipyard autocannon upgrade to have a burst mode and I have changed its projectiles to have trails
  
• Added The tracker (medium triple burst weapon)
  
• Phiriton Anti Heavy weapon added
  
• Added Atrix his Sanitizer anti building weapon (http://patreon.com/tensegames reward)
  
• Double Barrel Xati added
  
• Decimator anti building weapon added
  
• Added two new default unlocked weapons. The others have to be found.
  
• Added the Sarkuth medium cannon
  

The Vsync issue is now probably resolved. This has been an issue for over 2 years now. At the time I stopped working on it since I was working on the project by myself. And I was already stuck on that issue for 1.5 months. So, instead of fixing it for those few computers in which it became an issue I decided to pick it up again and fix it later. That later is now.

What was the issue?
Some PC players who played CSGO and similar games override Nvidia settings for performance reasons. This includes disabling Vsync or the 'wait on new frame' part of it.
But that very same setting causes an issue in Unity which caused our units and weapons to move and fire faster when FPS was high, and slower when FPS was low. Especially in multiplayer this was unwanted behavior.

For that reason we could not lock vsync ingame, because nvidia overrode it if set to do so. The downside of that was that those with graphics cards or laptops sensitive to high fps had their hardware being strained more than usual. Fans spinning rapidly, stuff like that.

How was it resolved?
Honestly, I don't know. I could not reproduce the issue today using the same methods I've done so in the past. Which means that either unity changed something in an update, nvidia changed something with their drivers, or we accidentally fixed it with code somehow.

In either case, because this no longer seems to be an issue the new programmer, Algor, was able to lock the vsync properly and it now no longer gets overridden.

Additionally
In addition to these 'performance fixes', Atrixsanna also managed to do some programming wizardy and better cleanup of memory. Because of this the game now runs better in lategame as well, so big thanks to him for that!

For this update we are adding unity veterancy to the game. Killing enemy units and structures upgrades gives your units experience. This then results in them leveling up, causing them to get a lot of extra health and damage per level. So keeping your units alive is now more important than ever!



Additions

• Added Veterancy system for units. Now they can be promoted by killing hostiles.
  

Reworks

• Damara now uses bombers with magma projectiles damaging buildings most effectively
  
• Eradicator beam now uses flow animation
  
• MiniCannon defense: increased damage from 3 to 7
  
• Barreller defense: increased damage from 3 to 9
  
• Repeller defense: increased damage from 3 to 6
  
• Photon Launcher defense: reduced damage from 32 to 30
  
• Missile Platform defense:
  - Light missile damage increased from 2.5 to 10, cooldown increased from 5 to 10
  - Medium missile damage increased from 5 to 15
  

Fixes

• Fixed memory leak cause by some textures leading to performance drop in long sessions
  
• Fixed game attempting to read/modify destroyed objects in some cases
  
• Fixed wrong values in descriptions of the cost reducing utility modules
  
• Fixed scale and position of Lunaria's engine flames
  
• Fixed Agonizer's description missing information about her built-in Laser Shield
  

New features
- Added Behemoth and End Of Days super ships to the abilities menu
- Added Antibuilding missile launcher to the shipyard to the abilities menu
- Added Bloom Intensity and Radius sliders to main and in-game options (due to it often being requestd, not because the lead developer thinks it looks better)
- Added Minimap Size slider in the in-game options menu
- Hosts can now kick players from the multiplayer lobbies
- It is now possible to rotate ships in the fleet editor menu using all axis. Use LMB or MMB to rotate and/or reset ship rotation

Reworks
- Ship Direct Control mod now has new controls, new UI, dedicated page in the in-game options
- Players now can select targets to focus in the Direct Control by clicking on them
- Ships now has new navigation and movement logic that should fix all known issues with acceleration or/and rotation
- Minor updates to the selection circles and movement markers
- Updated values of price reducing utility modules
- Updated refinery description
- Plasma defense fortress price changed to 600/600
- Updated map descriptions and balanced enabled anomaly positions
- Floating text now has specific color for metal and energy gained
- Laserdef burstsize reduce from 4 to 3 Laserdef cooldown increased from 30 to 45. Both of these changes are made to make missiles slightly more effective in protracted battles.

Fixes
- Fixed bomber damage in Single Player game modes
- Fixed selecting allied units by double clicking on the allied buildings in the Multiplayer game modes
- Removed weapon chart bars showing on ship frames in the ship editor menu
- Fixed AI units 'freezing' in one place some times
- Fixed transport sound some times not playing correctly in BR
- Fixed players joining password protected lobbies via Find match
- Shipyard and anomaly extractors no longer can be escalated/boosted
- Fixed units stay in selected list after death.
- Fixed Matter Generator producing not enough metal
- Fixed escalation boosters not properly working on the refinery in some rare cases
- Heatsinks and Reload Cycler now has proper icon
- Fixed Stinger ship frame not able to change color
- Fixed enemy Eradicator and Hunter Seekers not having unit icons
- Fixed Megarepeater projectile color
- Fixed audio settings reader rare bug
- Fixed Mastodon turrets levitating over the frame