Starcom: Unknown Space News

In the last update I mentioned that I couldn't autodetect whether the game was running on the Steam Deck, something I wanted to do so that the new text-scaling feature could automatically be applied.

Two years ago when I was starting integration with Steamworks, I evaluated two possible C# libraries for Valve's API. One was "Steamworks .net," an unofficial straight 1:1 port of the API to C#, the other was "Facepunch," made by the maker's of the popular sandbox game, Garry's Mod. I ended up going with Facepunch because a) it's more of a proper C# implementation of the Steamworks API and b) the author of Steamworks .net himself recommended people use it instead. It works very well, but hasn't kept up with Valve's changes to Steamworks.

So last weekend I started migrating the workshop integration to Steamworks .net. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of documentation on the correct way to handle workshop calls. The examples I found felt brittle, and I ran into an issue that caused the Editor to freeze, which was both unsettling and time-consuming to troubleshoot.

After spending two and a half days attempting the migration, I decided it was turning out to be too time consuming (and too risky) for too little reward. The only feature I really wanted to do the migration for wasn't even connected to the Workshop, just find out if the game was on the Deck. So I ended up writing a two-line method based on the GPU (the deck uses a custom AMD GPU called "VANGOGH"). It's a hack that works, but not ideal-- for example it may not detect the next iteration of the Deck.

Game dev is fundamentally a process of exploration, and it's inevitable that some time will be lost investigating paths that lead nowhere, but still frustrating to abandon days of work.

I did make some progress in the past week:

• Worked on some missing controls for gamepads
  
• Fix for battlestation and shield "charge" not persisting across saves (not Havok, though)
  
• Changes to a late game player "weapon" that make it a bit easier to use for its intended purpose and more fun
  

As always, changes discussed in these posts are works in progress and will not be immediately available to players until a build is deployed.

Until next week!
- Kevin

The big news for the past week was Kepler being promoted to the default build, as announced here.

So far, players have reported few significant bugs. I think at this point the biggest question mark is how many "stuck points" will first time players encounter. I.e., points where, due to unanticipated player behavior, the game provides insufficient guidance as to how to proceed. There were a lot of these in Ganymede, and some in Icarus. While Kepler addressed most of the outstanding ones, it also adds new content so there are probably still at least some.

Besides monitoring player feedback, I've started work on improving the game's Steam Deck support, particularly adding the option to scale text up. This seemed like a relatively minor task, but has turned out to be larger than anticipated for a few reasons:

First, there are a lot of individual textual objects in the game, and the "correct" way to scale them depends on multiple factors. For example, with the ship status HUD in the lower right, the correct behavior it seems is to scale the entire transform up, including the bars and icons, so that it takes up a greater percentage of the total screen space. While with something like an anomaly dialogue, which already takes up most of the screen, that wouldn't work. So there the font is scaled up but the dialogue container remains the same size.

Second, it makes sense for this to happen by default on the Deck, since the scale that looks good on a PC monitor is too small. But the third party API wrapper I use for Steam is out of date and doesn't have the IsSteamRunningOnSteamDeck() method.

Finally, there's the added friction that development on the PC is quite fast because in Unity I can test most changes within seconds in the Editor, where to test a change on the deck I need to build the game, deploy it to Steam, then update the game on the deck and run it.

Incidentally, if you are playing on the deck, there's a "secret" opt-in beta with the super secret password of "111111111111" (that's twelve ones). This build enables a text scaling option. It's "secret" because I'm deploying untested changes to it unannounced, and do not plan on maintaining it long term.

Until next week!
- Kevin

The "Kepler" build has now been promoted to default build for Starcom: Unknown Space. Since the previous default build was "Icarus", this is a significant update, incorporating the changes from both Jupiter and Kepler.

The biggest change is that the main storyline now has a proper ending, but there are lots of other updates of various magnitude, including a number of new side quests, factions, and more "off-path" regions.

Since both Jupiter and Kepler were made available for opt-in testing and dozens of players have reached the end, I feel confident that Kepler is at least pretty solid: there have been some issues reported, but few serious bugs as of the latest build.

Saves are not compatible between named builds, but if you were in the middle of a game, don't worry: you can always switch back to Icarus to finish your current game. See here for instructions and select "Icarus Rollback".



Here is a minimal-spoiler list of changes since Icarus:

• Ending to main story line
  
• Prologue opening transition
  
• 46 new planet anomalies
  
• Anomaly "environment soundscapes"
  
• New stories, side quests, factions, Easter Eggs
  
• Improved guidance/fixes for missions where players commonly found themselves stuck
  
• Numerous new character dialogues, crew prompts
  
• New ship modules and technologies
  
• New weapons, variants
  
• Numerous balance changes
  
• New enemy attacks, AI
  
• NPCs now automatically aggro'd by attacks to their allies (unless also allied with aggressor)
  
• Changes to fixed guns
  
• New music tracks
  
• New achievements
  
• Mission "priority" indicator for main story critical missions
  
• Newly unlocked techs highlighted
  
• Ability to toggle mission goal tracking
  
• Difficulty / skill roll modifiers now in 5% increments
  
• Changed autosave timing
  
• Fix for vsync not being saved
  
• Engine turbo sound fades out
  
• Improvements to game controller support
  
• Fix for anomaly image change not reflected in log
  
• Fix for projectiles, effects persisting after save game load
  
• Various QoL improvements
  
• Additional analytics
  
• Performance optimizations
  

[h3]Early Access Content Progress[/h3]

As with previous named builds, for comparison purposes, here are some metrics to give a rough sense as to how much content has been added to the game since it first entered Early Access almost 16 months ago:

Betelgeuse (Dec 2022, first Early Access version):
75 anomalies
1264 mission logic elements
25,000 words

Draconis (Jan 2023):
91 anomalies
1516 mission logic elements
29,000 words

Europa (Mar 2023):
111 possible anomalies
1839 mission logic elements
36,000 words

Fornax (May 2023):
120 possible anomalies
1990 mission logic elements
40,000 words

Ganymede (June 2023):
145 anomalies
2390 mission logic elements
48,000 words

Icarus (October 2023):
179 anomalies
3340 mission logic elements
64,000 words

Jupiter (January 2024):
197 possible anomalies
4329 mission logic elements
82,182 words

Kepler (current Default):
225 possible anomalies
4848 mission logic elements
90,400 words



For comparison, Starcom: Nexus had roughly ~195 anomalies and 65,000 words of text. It used a different mission system, so there's no clear comparison, but Starcom: Unknown Space definitely has significantly more mission logic and text.

There are still a number of features, fixes and content I'd like to add, but at this point I am starting to think about a 1.0 release, possibly later this summer. Although as I have said since the start of Early Access, the key determinant is how players feel about the state of the game.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for playing Starcom: Unknown Space!

Since last week's update at least two dozen players have made it to the end of Kepler's content and there have been no major new bugs reported. I've also deployed several patches to Kepler, but these are fairly minor. Assuming no major issues appear, I plan to promote Kepler to be the new default build in the next week.

If you're about to start a new game, you may want to switch to Kepler, as it has the most content/improvements, but is not save compatible with previous named builds (Opt-in instructions here).

Also, I recorded another brief dev video last weekend. This one is about my favorite bug.

Here are the changes relative to Jupiter (the last opt-in beta):

Non-spoiler changes in Kepler:

• New side-quests
  
• 27 new anomalies
  
• Additional void regions
  
• Changes to existing missions
  
• Difficulty / skill roll modifiers now in 5% increments
  
• New alien
  
• Several changes to late game
  
• Player drones
  
• Ability to toggle mission goal tracking
  
• New music tracks
  
• Three new achievements
  
• New analytics tracking for various progress metrics, localization
  
• If anomaly image changes during anomaly, the last image will appear in the log
  
• New enemy weapon
  
• New ship modules
  
• New technologies
  
• New achievements
  
• Numerous balance changes
  
• Changes to fighter sounds, trails
  
• Changes to enemy AI
  
• NPCs now automatically aggro'd by attacks to their allies (unless also allied with aggressor)
  
• Refactor fighter drone logic
  
• Various performance optimizations
  
• Various UI fixes
  
• FPS limit option
  
• Priority mission identification
  
• Fixed transient objects, screen shake persisting after game load
  
• Added discovery sounds/tier labels
  
• Block players from interacting with cloaked ships
• Fix several minor anomaly bugs reported by players
  
• Fix for potential soft-lock in late game
  
• Fix for null reference exception
  
• Added some missing gamepad UI indicators, controls
  

Known Issues:

• Loading a game during a transition (such as a wormhole) can break the game camera
  
• Player drone behavior/balance needs some work
  

Until next week!

- Kevin

As promised last week, the first Kepler build was made available as an opt-in beta last Sunday. There have been two patches since then to fix potentially significant bugs, but at least some players have made it to the game's end.

Here are the changes relative to Jupiter (the last opt-in beta):

Non-spoiler changes in Kepler:

• New side-quests
  
• 27 new anomalies
  
• Additional void regions
  
• Changes to existing missions
  
• Difficulty / skill roll modifiers now in 5% increments
  
• New alien
  
• Several changes to late game
  
• Player drones
  
• Ability to toggle mission goal tracking
  
• New music tracks
  
• Three new achievements
  
• New analytics tracking for various progress metrics, localization
  
• If anomaly image changes during anomaly, the last image will appear in the log
  
• New enemy weapon
  
• New ship modules
  
• New technologies
  
• New achievements
  
• Numerous balance changes
  
• Changes to fighter sounds, trails
  
• Changes to enemy AI
  
• NPCs now automatically aggro'd by attacks to their allies (unless also allied with aggressor)
  
• Refactor fighter drone logic
  
• Various performance optimizations
  
• Various UI fixes
  
• FPS limit option
  
• Priority mission identification
  
• Fixed transient objects, screen shake persisting after game load
  
• Added discovery sounds/tier labels
  
• Block players from interacting with cloaked ships
• Fix several minor anomaly bugs reported by players
  
• Fix for potential soft-lock in late game
  
• Fix for null reference exception
  
• Added some missing gamepad UI indicators, controls
  

Known Issues:

• Loading a game during a transition (such as a wormhole) can break the game camera
  
• Plasma range extender doesn't unlock
  
• Player drone behavior/balance needs some work
  

Since Jupiter was never promoted to default, unless some critical bug appears, I hope to make Kepler the default build once enough players have finished it that I'm confident in the stability.

If you're about to start a playthrough, you may want to switch to Kepler, as it has the most content/improvements, although there may still be some undiscovered bugs. (Opt-in instructions here).

Until next week!

- Kevin