Stardeus News

Hey Space Travelers!

This development update took longer than usual to write, because I prioritized finishing the big changes first. Let’s take a quick look at all the major changes since the last update.

[h2]New Gameplay Trailer[/h2]

The old trailer was a little dated and didn’t reflect the current state of development, so I took the time to make a new one. I hope you like it!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Artwork Overhaul[/h2]

I spent a whole month focused on learning Blender and redoing all of the artwork. Here’s how the art looked before the overhaul:



And here’s after:



You can also zoom in closer than before, because of the increased level of detail, all artwork now contains 4x more pixels!



The new artwork is definitely not perfect, but I am slowly getting better, and the art will probably be reiterated again at some point. However I want to stress that for me mechanics will always be more important than art, and as always, most of my focus and effort will go into making the game fun to play, not good looking!

[h2]Suggestions System[/h2]

After the tutorial ends, playtesters would occasionally get lost and couldn’t figure out what they should do next. To tackle this, I have implemented a dynamic suggestions system that tracks your situation and triggers Ship Computer dialogue events that will guide you towards reasonable actions.

For example, if you aren’t running a research for long enough, it will suggest to start a research, if you haven’t enclosed the Stasis Array with walls, it will suggest you to do so, then suggest you to build a heater and an oxygen pump so that your colonists will not die, etc.

After you load the game, active suggestions will pop up to refresh your memory.



[h2]Ambient Light Setting[/h2]

Several people were saying that the game is too dark, while I often thought I wanted it to be even dimmer. Now it is going to be configurable, you will be able to choose from 4 different ambient light settings. “Immersive Dim” is my personal favorite.



[h2]New Devices and Behaviors[/h2]

• Loom weaves clothing and various fibers. Naked colonists will try to find and equip clothing that fits their body type.
  
• Grinder grinds certain materials into finer grained ones, like rock into soil.
  
• Auto Kitchen prints meals from raw ingredients. Drones will then haul those meals to the fridge.
  
• Cloning Pod will grow human colonists from protein and water. Water is purified in the recycler after Biowaste is processed.
  
• Repair Station will perform maintenance on robots and drones, fixing their damage and reducing wear, while also recharging their batteries.
  

[h2]New Colonist Traits[/h2]

Human colonists are getting more sophisticated and unique, with combinations of various new traits. To name a few:

• Insomniacs will go to sleep only when they are close to passing out, and will wake up while their sleep need is far from fulfilled.
  
• Ablutophobic colonists will avoid showering until their BO is so strong that even the robots can smell them. This will have interesting effects with interpersonal relationships, when time comes to implement that.
  
• Nudists will refuse to wear any clothing.
  
• Fast Metabolism will make colonists hungry faster.
  
• Slow Poopers will take 4 times longer to relieve themselves in a toilet.
  

Many traits have their opposites, like Fast Metabolism and Slow Metabolism.



There are more features, improvements, story events and polish I could talk about, but I will stop here, as this is getting too long already. Here is a full changelog for the curious ones.

v0.5.8 (2021.04.23)
- Add "Short Sleeper" being trait
- Add "Long Sleeper" being trait
- Add "Insomniac" being trait
- Add "Nudist" being trait
- Add "Showerer" being trait
- Add "Fast Metabolism" being trait
- Add "Slow Metabolism" being trait
- Add "Slow Pooper" being trait
- Add "Ablutophobic" being trait
- Add "Always Hungry" being trait
- Move keyboard shortcuts around


v0.5.7 (2021.04.22)
- Fix multiple people being able to use the same shower / toilet at the same time
- Mark last loaded save as latest for "continue"
- Make crafting devices more flexible and verbose about their state
- Improve pathfinding to make items stuck in walls or objects reachable from nearby
- Polish crafter and producer components (lots of devices based on these)
- Fix toilet and shower AI task loading issue
- Fix replacing an wall with a door or a vent would not create the construction task
- Show oxygen pump and heater radius when they are placed or selected
- Fix tutorial not waiting for a tile being selected underneath the ship computer
- Fix dead beings trying to get dressed
- Allow opening research view when Electricity research is not complete
- Fix beings sleeping in unconstructed bed


v0.5.6 (2021.04.20)
- Display suggestion dialogue as soon as the suggestion appears
- Repair tool will show damaged tiles as red
- Replace percentage displays with progress bars in construction and repairs
- Add progress bar displays where necessary
- Ensure correct worker facing after loading the game with task in progress
- Fix incorrectly displayed actual and peak output values in electricity grid details
- Add electricity grid, memory and storage bars to research view
- Block research view from opening if ship computer is not connected to a powered grid
- Turn Stasis Array into an electrical device
- Encourage the player to connect to Stasis Array early in game
- Build tool will show green tiles where current object can be placed
- Implement fridge as food storage unit
- Accumulate biowaste when Toilet is used
- Implement toilet cleaning
- Add Cloning Pods
- Heal injured humans when they are sleeping in a bed with satisfied hunger need
- Humans will seek and equip available clothing items
- Add Sleeping Pod
- Automatically haul unstored food items to the fridge
- Fix batteries not charging in bigger electricity grids


v0.5.5 (2021.04.14)
- Add maintenance need for robots and drones
- Add Repair Station to fix damaged robots and do their maintenance
- Add Haul to Storage tool
- Fix task management tool not working properly with non-tile based tasks
- Add Loom device
- Separate Thought Bubble and regular Icon to make them displayable at the same time
- Make it possible to haul dropped harvested wheat
- Fix harvesting task save / load issues
- Change cursor depending on the active tool
- Fix a rendering bug that would sometimes display damage overlay incorrectly
- Improve ship wreckage generation
- Fix broken generation of Empty and Random ships
- Make ship generation more resilient to missing object definitions
- Fix ambience sources autoplaying when they shouldn't
- Break down attachable space objects if adjacent floors get destroyed
- Generate brighter floor lights
- Add dev inspect tool
- Fix object rotation generation ending up with half cut sprites in random ship scenario
- Add health bars
- Add initial implementation of Crawler
- Allow building floors on top of material debris in open space


v0.5.4 (2021.04.09)
- Fix tutorial getting occasionally stuck at energy connection phase
- Fix some bugs with door passability and info icons not updating
- Make meteor shower multi directional
- Make meteor and asteroid impacts drop materials
- Disallow building tiles based objects on top of lose objects
- Make it possible to haul raw materials to storage
- Fix drones getting stuck in distant space after deconstructing something far away
- Add Heat Sink device for Ship Computer
- Make ambient light configurable in video settings
- Improve grouped events behavior
- Add new Story Event: "Dust Storm"
- Make multi tile objects look properly on fire
- Change how fire looks
- Make fresh fire linger for at least 5 minutes before dying out if there is no oxygen
- Fix a bunch of small bugs


v0.5.3 (2021.04.07)
- Upgrade Unity to 2021.1.1f
- Fix ship engines not being generated properly
- Fix some sounds not playing after 48 days of computer uptime
- Make game brighter
- Remove cursor light
- Fix floor lights not turning off when their energy node gets switched off
- Fix info icons occasionally not showing up on an object after an icon of a group was hidden
- Fix some electricity grid bugs related to devices taking damage
- Add new Story Event: "Matter Reactor malfunction"
- Add new Story Event: "Electrical device broke down"
- Add new Story Event: "Capsule Loot: Random Material"
- Add a way to disassemble opened storage capsules
- Rename Printer to Assembler
- Make game load resilient to missing object definitions


v0.5.2 (2021.04.06)
- Fix human graphics rotation when using a bed
- Realign eating graphic offsets after graphics overhaul
- Make all beings move faster
- Fix battery discharge story event stuck forever, preventing new events
- Balance and rearrange some tech in research tree
- Make Research Tree and Starmap widgets draggable with middle and left mouse buttons
- Add "Build a Storage" goal
- Fix a few minor goal and story event related bugs


v0.5.1 (2021.04.03)
- Fix workers possibly getting stuck inside big objects (like Storage) right after constructing them
- Fix ghost electricity icons appearing if wrecked ship needs regenerating
- Make starting conditions generation more reliable
- Fix new bugs related to enlarged object areas
- Increase ambient color brightness


v0.5.0 (2021.04.02)
- Replace all graphics
- Show full object with red overlay when placement is impossible
- Fix engines and solar panels placement validation
- Fix workspot rotation incorrect with larger objects
- Fix lighting not applied correctly on tall objects close to walls


v0.4.6 (2021.03.07)
- Fix pulsating light source pulse working incorrectly
- Fix video settings not showing current resolution properly
- Set "run in background" setting to false by default
- Fix electricity glitch where battery would show both production and consumption at the same time
- Fix suggestion to expand electricity grid failing to initialize


v0.4.5 (2021.03.07)
- Fix being graphics not properly restored after using a shower / toilet
- Fix unreachable charge station no longer usable after 1 failure to reach it
- Fix missing Carbon graphics
- Unlock Construction right from the start
- Make glass floor reflection more visible
- Fix trying connect a node to not constructed connector showing wrong error
- Make electricity grid overlay more understandable


[h2]Follow the Development[/h2]

• Join Kodo Linija Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
  
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
  
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
  
• dev_spajus on Twitch (streaming the development on most work days EU time)
  

[h2]Add Stardeus to Wishlist[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hey, Space Travelers!

It’s been a while since last update, but I’ve been busy implementing more core systems and polishing what is already there. A lot of new things can be seen in the mini trailer that condenses several hours of gameplay into 5 minutes. Let me introduce the most prominent changes.

Human Needs and Behaviors



From now on, all human colonists have a full set of biological needs and functions. They will want to eat, sleep, go to the bathroom and take a shower. This plays along with the mood system, as having a lack of the facilities is going to affect the mood in negative ways, while taking a shower will make anyone happy for a while.

Space Expeditions and Mining



Since we can fly around in space, there had to be a way to explore all the planets, and get something useful out of them. You can now build space shuttles and launch expeditions to nearby space objects. For now we can only explore the planet and mine ores (more on that later), but the system is fully integrated with AI storyteller, so there will be much more than just mining.



While technically it is possible to generate a map for the planet and switch to exploring it first hand, I decided to cut the scope and keep it simple - as the Ship Computer all you can do is give remote orders and wait for the expedition to return with the loot.



Processing Materials and Factory Automation

Most of the materials you will bring back from the expeditions are not going to be usable right away. You will have to set up a small space factory to process raw materials and ores into other materials.

The first piece of the factory, the Furnace that will blast the ores with heat and produce metal sheets, is already implemented.



I have big plans for the factory automation part, and while it’s not going to be on par with Factorio, this will add a lot of depth to the simulation.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this update! And here is the full list of changes.

v0.4.4 (2021.03.04)
- Get rid of long press buttons where possible
- Prevent clearing notifications while in tutorial
- Create dialogue queue instead of replacing dialogs
- Redo tutorial to work with new dialog queue mechanic
- Improve graphics at further zoom levels
- Fix some tooltips getting stuck when mouse moves over a dialog or UI element
- Generate various types of ore deposits in discovered planets
- Implement full space expedition cycle
- Implement first space expedition event: finding mineable ore
- Add new OST track


v0.4.3 (2021.03.02)
- Fix ship generation getting stuck in a loop if starting area failed to generate in first attempt
- Fix objects not being cleaned up in between ship regeneration attempts
- Fix objects destroyed during generation cleanup still showing info icons
- Fix Unity crash when error reporting was triggered not in main thread


v0.4.2 (2021.03.01)
- Change planet looks generation in Starmap
- Fix electricity deficit notification duplicating itself
- Fix electricity connector bug that prevented creating connections if an unfinished connection was released on a non energy tile
- Add new Materials
- Add Furnace for smelting ores into alloys
- Fix trying to open Starmap overlay messing up the tutorial
- Fix Engine sounds playing after load while engine is off
- Fix game being unplayable on Mac


v0.4.1 (2021.02.25)
- Dump contents of a storage when it is removed
- Anchor zoom to mouse cursor
- Fix Starmap view scales and offsets
- Improve Starmap looks
- Add Shuttle and initial implementation of space expeditions
- Normalize volume of all OST tracks
- Normalize volume of all sfx
- Change UI sound fx


v0.4.0 (2021.02.17)
- Stop and play ship engine ambience sound when engines are off / on
- Show current goal events after loading the game
- Fix reach stasis arrays goal not getting completed
- Fix charge station task being stuck if rejected by a worker, leading to workers failing to recharge
- Add more functionality to Tasks overlay menu
- Add confirmation for mass removal and repairs
- Implement being sleep
- Implement being toilet use
- Implement being shower use
- Refactor Needs to be loadable from JSON files through mods
- Refactor Materials to be loadable from JSON files through mods


v0.3.6 (2021.02.14)
- Leak oxygen/heat through damaged floors
- Show damage type in "being taking damage" notifications
- Fix generation placing stasis arrays differently for same seed
- Fix AI need drop rates to be more precise
- Add tooltips for all info icons and texts
- Fix hitting ESC while showing areas overlay with hovered icon not hiding area preview
- Fix enclosed areas and islands count not updating in area overlay
- Fix camera zoom not restored when loading
- Add "Build a Copy" button to constructable object details and context menu
- Add goal system that guides the player with suggestions of what should be done next
- Add a dozen of different early-game goals


v0.3.5 (2021.02.10)
- Add function to hold doors open and release them
- Add new event notification type that will contain an extra info button
- Fix Research Tree and Starmap widget WASD pan speed depending on in-game camera zoom
- Show less components on unreachable devices
- Expand electricity connection failure warning popups with more details on how to solve the problem
- Fix error in environment tab when section has become unavailable
- Make Heater's target temperature configurable
- Improve heat exchange simulation
- Reorder overlay icons
- Make storage haul priority configurable
- Switch to energy connect tool when dragging any energy node in free select
- Redo info icon system to support cycling multiple icons
- Make energy connect tool visual feedback easier to see and understand
- Improve Planter
- Improve Storage
- Fix Drone light source requiring energy
- Add refill priority to Matter Reactor
- Make Matter Reactor configuration mass-copyable
- Restrict copying component configuration for non-reachable devices
- Fix sparks not going away after cancelling an ongoing construction task
- Fix worker priorities being modified for each workers of same species at the same time
- Fix Starmap not loading saved destination properly


v0.3.4 (2021.02.06)
- Fix space travel ship taking forever to stop
- Change haul icon
- Add a way to mute all game sounds
- Retarget the entity link to next entity when clicking an icon on group event widget
- Split Labor component into Labor and Worker
- Add controllable and non controllable worker types
- Implement worker priority management

[h2]Follow the Development[/h2]

• Join Kodo Linija Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
  
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
  
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
  
• dev_spajus on Twitch (streaming the development on most work days EU time)
  

[h2]Add Stardeus to Wishlist[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Hey folks!

Time flies, and since the last couple of weeks, so does our spaceship, when it is properly equipped! Let’s take a quick look at what’s new.

[h2]Starmap Improvements and Universe navigation[/h2]



While Starmap is far from finished, we can now take a look at our surroundings. The Starmap is hierarchical, meaning that we can look at system level, galaxy level and whole universe level. Distance changes by orders of magnitude in each level, so if you engines can fly you from planet to planet, it doesn’t mean you can use them to go from system to system. And intergalactic travel between galaxies billions of lightyears away from each other will probably require some new means of transport. Wormholes? Curvature engines? FTL drives?

[h2]Basic Space Travel[/h2]



If you have the necessary tech researched, built and sufficiently powered, you can pick a destination in the Starmap, and your ship will take you there! You will see the space move, engines burn, and your avatar move in the Starmap.

Space travel implementation uses forces to push your ship in the game universe, so you will have to install at least one engine for each direction you will want to move in.

[h2]Easier Electricity Grid split detection[/h2]



Electricity grid is my secret passion, so I can't stop adding updates for it. This change will make it much easier to heal a "split brain" condition, where your grid is severed and needs to be reconnected. Parts of the grid that do not have link to your Ship Computer will show up in gray, and the lines will be dashed. Impossible to miss!



Electricity Connector tool now has a shortcut (G, as in Grid, rebindable). It has never been easier to jump in to connection mode and add a new link.



The newly dragged connection line will become solid once you drag it to a reachable and connectable device. This will result in less errors and less “busy work” trying to connect devices in the right way.

[h2]Research Tree improvements[/h2]



Like the Starmap, the Research Tree widget is now full screen. It also contains extra details about your ship computer’s memory and storage, which used to be inconvenient to find.

[h2]Copy Configuration tool[/h2]



After playing for a while, I felt that configuring some components was a little tedious. You will not want to click on 20 solar panels and change their auto cleaning settings one by one, right? Now you can paste a configuration from any copyable component to multiple others in matter of seconds. Here’s an example where I pick a plant and copy it to a dozen of other planters. Efficient!



[h2]Data Overlay improvements[/h2]



You will no longer have to guess if that’s your funky custom red light, or is the temperature going over the roof. All visual data overlays will disable game lights.



In addition, you won’t have to guess which shade of red is pleasantly warm, and which is scorching 600C, visual overlays will now display a tooltip beneath the cursor with the details of the hovered location.

[h2]Doors and Airlocks will use Electricity[/h2]



Doors and airlocks will now be grid enabled, and will require electricity to be operational. During the open/close cycle, electricity consumption is higher, so the door can get stuck if you don’t have enough energy to spare.

[h2]Build Menu with split categories[/h2]



The build menu was split into multiple categories, it will be easier to quickly find the device you want to build. Oh, and you can press B (rebindable) to activate the build menu without moving your mouse.

[h2]New OST Track[/h2]

Oh, and there is this new chilly OST track that I quite like.

There could be more noteworthy items, but I’ll just leave the full list of changes here and sign off.

[h2]Full list of changes since 2021-01-23[/h2]

v0.3.3 (2021.02.04)
- Don't show non existent shortcuts when controller is in use
- Improve gameplay with controller
- Improve random ship generation algorithms
- Show more details in rooms and section overlays
- Show oxygen, temperature, insulation and airtightness levels under mouse cursor when these overlays are activated
- Make environment tab more consistent with overlay buttons
- Toggle overlays by clicking environment tab icons


v0.3.2 (2021.02.03)
- Restore the ability to connect electricity node to multiple connectors at once for grid redundancy
- Make repeated press of the shortcut toggle tool on / off
- Automatically refresh electricity grid UI elements
- Put Doors on electricity grid
- Fix electricity grid not active right after loading the game
- Fix mouse wheel scrolling game camera beneath some scrollable widgets
- Disable in-game lights when showing a color overlay
- Remove electricity node switch from connectors
- Refactor the UI creation code


v0.3.1 (2021.02.02)
- Fix WIP Starmap component on Ship Computer drawing -20kW
- Don't play dialog sounds multiple times if text changed too quickly (i.e. when loading a tutorial)
- Fix a few small issues with tutorial
- Fix broken feedback form text area widget
- Improve research tree / starmap widget navigation
- Reorder save menu items
- Add shortcut for build menu (b)
- Reorganize build menu
- Don't show zero production on some producer components (i.e. battery)
- Make space background show actual ship motion vector in the universe
- Begin initial implementation of space travel
- Change main menu space background
- Fix battery energy production / consumption value ranges being zero in energy node UI
- Start work on Ship system
- Implement engine autopilot
- Organize energy connections in better way
- Switch research and starmap widgets to full screen
- Show cooldown prompt when clicking the overheating event icon
- Fix energy connector failing to disconnect components outside CPU grid in sandbox mode
- Fix load game panel incorrectly resizing itself after showing a save without image
- Fix drone pathfinding failing to reach tightly packed solar panels for cleaning
- Fix loading saved game would not correctly restore some worker tasks
- Make default lights dimmer
- Add shortcut for energy connect tool (G, as in Grid)
- Add shortcut for repair and remove tools (F and V)
- Add shortcut for task priority tool (J, as in jobs)
- Add copy paste configuration tool (P shortcut)
- Change overlay colors to be less aggressive
- Improve tool shortcut behavior
- Change how removal tool works
- Prevent silent energy connector backlink failures that resulted in ghost energy grids
- Fix some events showing incorrect start time
- Make electricity grids without ship computer show up in a different way
- Don't show energy consumption in energy overlay for grids that are disconnected from the ship computer
- Improve energy connect tool visual feedback
- Fix energy connection tool visual problems
- Automatically enable electricity overlay when switching into grid connect tool
- Add a full discharge robot / drone recharge lockdown mechanic
- Fix energy grid split brain situation in certain connector configurations
- Add more restrictions to energy node connectivity
- Show tool shortcuts where possible


[h2]Follow the Development[/h2]

• Join Kodo Linija Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
  
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
  
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
  
• dev_spajus on Twitch (streaming the development on most work days EU time)
  

[h2]Add Stardeus to Wishlist[/h2]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

Hey everyone!

I've had multiple requests for a Stardeus gameplay video, and I finally took the time to make one. I didn't get too far into the game, you won't see a working space ship or space flight, or a thriving colony, as there is more content that can be revealed in a couple of hours of play, even with the fact that research is sped up for playtesting purposes. Nonetheless, this is a good look at what the actual gameplay will feel like when the game is released.

Gameplay video is available in two flavors, a shorter 30min version with less interesting parts cut out, and a full length, uncut 1h 20min one.

If you're in a hurry, here's the 30 min cut version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPsq4d2Zg9Q

And if you want to see uncut, uninterrupted playthrough with all the gory details, including some bugs and my rambling about some implementation details, you'll want to watch this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDqaiQx78DA

If you have any comments or suggestions, please share them here in comments, or jump in to the Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/89amEwP

Cheers!
spajus