New Stars News

Patch for inevitable combat bugs that were created from the pathfinding rework star system rescaling.

[h2]Improved[/h2]

• Improve: Ship Builder -> Toggling should re-open Ubiquity if Ubiquity was open.
  
• Improve: Animated Combat -> Restore old burnout material that is less ugly.
  

[h2]Fixed[/h2]

• Fix: Interaction Manager -> Diplomacy Panel -> Clicking away does not close.
  
• Fix: Ubiquity -> Solace turret ambience is sometimes heard during battle.
  
• Fix: Animated Combat -> Explosion VFX not visible when ship is destroyed.
  

View changes from previous updates: newstarsgame.com/changelog.

Patch of crashing bug, and Ubiquity bug fixes.

[h2]Fixed[/h2]

• Fix: Starbase Panel -> Opening panel crashes game.
  
• Fix: Ubiquity -> Initial Load -> Ship colours are incorrect on initial load.
  
• Fix: Ubiquity -> Ship trails do not appear the first time a star system is being viewed.
  

View changes from previous updates: newstarsgame.com/changelog.

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Includes changes from v1.6.0:

AI is now mostly multithreaded.

[h2]Optimized[/h2]

• Optimize: AI -> Colony and military calculations now use parallel processing.
  

[h2]Tweaked[/h2]

• Tweak: Cooperative Militarist -> Join Wars -> Can invite to wars when the recipient has an open attitude with the enemy, instead of cautious.
  

View changes from previous updates: newstarsgame.com/changelog.

Bug fixes and optimizations.

[h2]Fixed[/h2]

• Fix: Resource Manager -> Occupation cost shows without occupying starbases.
  
• Fix: Battle -> Retreat -> Sometimes retreats to systems with enemies in, meaning the battle continues.
  
• Fix: Load Save -> Does not update resource count.
  
• Fix: Agendas -> Opinion modification does result in correct values.
  

[h2]Optimized[/h2]

• Optimize: AI agendas and AI opinion calculations now use parallel processing.
  

View changes from previous updates: newstarsgame.com/changelog.

Over 2 weeks in the making. Reduction in monthly lag spikes with parallel optimization for AI, and saving.

[h2]Optimized[/h2]

• Optimize: Saving System -> Parallel optimization for saving, eliminating lag spikes from saving/auto-saving.
  
• Optimize: AI -> Parallel optimization for AI starbase, and diplomacy handling.
  
  • Diplomacy handling was the laggiest part of the AI.
    
  • Foundation added for further AI optimization.
    
  • There should now be a noticeable reduction in monthly lag spikes.
    
• Optimize: Events -> Some non-critical events are no longer received, especially when the player is not involved, preventing lag.
  
  • Updates affected include: relations changed, colony orders, starbase orders, and fleet orders.
    

[h2]Improved[/h2]

• Improve: Tooltip -> Right-click to toggle pin tooltips in place.
  

[h2]Fixed[/h2]

• Fix: Animated Combat -> Ship movement was too slow when moving towards the target.
  
• Fix: Animated Combat -> Temporary workaround to allow random turrets to fire visually to fix turrets not appearing to fire when expected.
  
• Fix: Ubiquity -> Ships spawn out of bounds, on saves before `v1.3.0`.
  

[h2]Changed[/h2]

• Change: Colony -> Now uses ID of colony number, not parent system ID in saves.
  

[h2]Tweaked[/h2]

• Tweak: Galaxy -> Increase galaxy visuals scale for duel map size.
  
• Tweak: Camera -> Increase movement speed in ubiquity system by `1.5x`.
  
• Tweak: Main Menu -> Scroll sensitivity of create empire/map increased.
  

[h2]Balanced[/h2]

• Balance: Tech -> Repeatable starbase capacity techs now give `+2` instead of `+1` designation slots.
  
• Balance: Occupation Cost -> Reduced base cost of occupation from `1` to `.5` per occupied starbase.
  

[h2]Behind the Scenes[/h2]
Addition of e2e tests to improve stability.
[h2]Note[/h2]
Save files before v1.3.0 (12th January 2024) previously have loaded fleets out of bounds, due to star system rescaling, but are now repositioned within the boundary.

View changes from previous updates: newstarsgame.com/changelog.

This is a summary of development for New Stars in January. The 'Meta' update focuses on stabilizing and optimizing the game with long-term improvements, while also implementing some features based on player feedback.

Last January focused on reworking core calculations to support a client/server model, but this January focuses on reworking core calculations to use parallel processing for long-term performance improvements.

[h2]Improved Ship Pathfinding[/h2]
Ship movement and pathfinding has been redesigned and is now a lot more stable.

[h3]Before[/h3]
Previously ships often got stuck when moving around planets.



[h3]After[/h3]
Ships now curve around planets instead of following a polygon around the planet, resulting in smoother movement.



Ships also better avoid collisions with other ships in battle, or while in formation.

[h2]Multithreaded Optimizations[/h2]
New multithreaded optimizations are being introduced for heavy CPU calculations with a lot of potential to reduce lag spikes, implementing parallel processing.

[h3]Fleet Pathfinding Optimizations[/h3]
Fleet pathfinding now uses parallel processing and large lag spikes no longer occur when pathfinding across long distances.



[h3]Galaxy Size Changes[/h3]
Huge: Now spawns with 300 stars instead of 500.
Large: Now spawns with 250 stars instead of 400.
Medium: Now spawns with 200 stars instead of 300.
Small: Now spawns with 150 stars instead of 200.
Tiny: Now spawns with 100 stars instead of 150.

Galaxy sizes were way to large, and increments of 100 stars didn't make much sense for the size of the game.

[h4]Duel - New Galaxy Size[/h4]
In addition, a new 50 player map has been added, which is most suitable for 1v1 scenarios or quick games.



[h3]What's to come...[/h3]
There is significant potential with parallel optimization in terms of reducing lag, however it requires an extensive codebase redesign, but I believe it'll be worthwhile. Hence, updates during this period may be slower than they were before.

View all changes at newstarsgame.com/changelog.

New Stars continues to be in active development, so if you would like to inform future updates/improvements you can do so via this form.

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[h3]Stay tuned for more updates...[/h3]
Feel free to comment your suggestions below.

🪵 View the Changelog: newstarsgame.com/changelog.
🕹️ Playtest New Stars: adamjr.xyz.
⭐ Wishlist New Stars to support development.

This page is intended to be a development preview, which may not reflect the final state of the game.