Starground News

This small hotfix introduces some more fixes to the game.

One issue that some people have been experiencing is severe lagspikes from the spider enemies and Spore in the second dungeon level. It's been tricky to debug, since behavior changes from editor to .zip, but hopefully these issues have finally been addressed.

If any of you still experience this issue, or any others, let me know on the discussion forums, or on Discord. Thanks!

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where the tooltips tutorial did not play for new saves
  
• Hopefully finally fixed an issue related to lagspikes caused by mini-diadematuses spawning in the second dungeon (the spider guys), and mushrooms spawned by Spore
  
• Fixed an issue where resource room nodes didn't appear for quite some time when generating
  

[h3]Hey everyone, bit of a different kind of post today. We've been hard at work coming up with plans for what major updates are next for Starground, and have put them all into a roadmap![/h3]



[h3]Dates are approximate, so some updates may come earlier or later. Alongside the major updates, a couple of smaller features ideally will be thrown in, including a space hub overhaul, april fools update, pollution, Steam workshop, and adding seasons into the game.

For a bit more of a detailed rundown:[/h3]

[h3]0.11 - "Brewconomics Cropdate" (Q1 2025)[/h3]
This update would be focused on a few main things, including farming, potions, and economy. Players will be able to farm new crops, and either feed those to domesticated animals, sell them on the market, or make potions out of them. This will make automation feel a bit more "fair" since you will be able to get coins without having to go dungeoning.

[h3]0.12 - "This Hex Update" (Q2 2025)[/h3]
This update will be focused on NPCs and interactions with them. With a karma system, players can talk to NPCs, and start to build up relationships with them. This will tie into a lot of systems in the game, like discounts at shops or other bonuses in the game. Once you build up enough karma, you can take on NPCs as your selected companion, who will follow and help you.

[h3]0.13 - "Finders Keepers" (Q3 2025)[/h3]
This update will be all about exploring and dungeoning, with a couple of new mechanics making their introduction. The first will be spaceships that you can pilot to the furthest reaches of the solar system. Questing will be added in full force, with main story questlines, and new dungeons to run through. It will also include story-focused exploration zones, which will be fun for all those people who enjoy story and narrative.

[h3]0.14 - "Quantumation Update" (Q4 2025)[/h3]
This update will focus on the top tier of automation technology. It will mark the introduction of quantum technology, solar system megastructures, and other high-tier gadgets and gizmos that will make life easier on automation planets.

[h3]1.0 - "Juan Pointo" (Q4 2025?)[/h3]
This will be the full release update! It will mainly focus on QOL, optimization, and polishing. However it'll also mark the introduction of the game's final boss, and the conclusion to the storyline.

[h3]This roadmap is a good summary of our plans, but isn't the end all for updates. We'll likely continue to flesh things out after release, or squeeze more content in-between these. Let us know if there's things on this you think are missing.

Thanks![/h3]

[h2]Follow Along[/h2]
Want to follow the development of Starground more closely? Please consider joining the official Discord, or tuning into regular devstreams held over on Twitch.




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This quick hotfix for Starground fixes some different bugs that were introduced from v0.10.1.

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where the skateboard would play a sound at infinite volume when swinging your weapon (kind of really funny, but also scary)
  
• Fixed an issue where collectors and oil rigs did not link to resources on game load
  
• Fixed an issue where the present had an edit name box and could crash the game
  
• Fixed depth sorting issues with area indicators on Tyria
  
• Fixed an issue where the water overlay did not disappear when changing the option
  
• Fixed an issue where resources spawned in pressurized zones on Tyria
  

[h3]Starground v0.10.1 is here! While this was originally intended to be a smaller update, it slowly progressed into having a bit more substance.[/h3]



[h2]Resource Generation[/h2]
One major change is how resources are created in the game. Before, resources were created, and eventually destroyed after their lifespan ran out. However constantly creating new ones could cause lag spikes. With the new system, resources are created once, and never again. This does a couple of things:

• Eliminates all lag spikes for any map size
  
• Removes the need to despawn resources
  
• Makes it easier for bees to mine smarter
  
• Reducing the number of multiplayer spawner and synchronizer packets
  
• Making it so resources no longer need to be saved and loaded like other buildings
  

While this can add on a few seconds to load times, it makes actually playing buttery smooth.

[h2]Christmas Decorations[/h2]

Christmas decorations are here just in time for the holidays! Decorate your base with some jolly buildings, or do some sick tricks with the skateboard.

[h2]New Research and Recipes[/h2]

Research has seen some minor changes. The resource processing research has been created, and takes some recipes and items from the new Tyria research. It also includes a new recipe for the foundry to convert wood into coal.




[h2]Additions[/h2]

• Added red backgrounds to item slots that either don't have a required item, or have an incorrect item
  
• Added info to items about where they are crafted
  
• Added the ability to hover over placeholder items and get their info
  
• Added the rubber ducky
  
• Added skateboards
  
• Added a parent class for bounceable objects
  
• Added a parent class for vehicles
  
• Added christmas trees
  
• Added cookies
  
• Added candy canes
  
• Added present decorations
  
• Added the Resource Processing research
  
• Added the wood refining research
  
• Added the snowman decoration
  
• Added the "Toys" research
  
• Added an option to change the top left health bar transparency
  

[h2]Changes[/h2]

• Changed the day indicator to include the word "Day" to avoid confusion
  
• Changed "Steam" in the multiplayer popup to "Steam™" to prevent the key from being translated
  
• Made it so boats on Tyria don't have water in the sprite or emit trails
  
• Made it so players automatically dismount their vehicle when using the starlauncher
  
• Made it so bees are smarter when mining (they will always target a different resource instead of one that's actively being mined)
  
• Changed and improved the loading sequence, so that buildings are created after the world generation
  
• Made it so that the joining game screen will always appear for both clients and hosts
  
• Increased the default resource cap from 256 to 384 (adjusted for map size still of course)
  
• Made it so beach balls float away when underwater
  
• Made it so that resources in dungeon resource rooms now respawn
  
• Changed Pinhoo's name in the credits
  
• Decreased the cost of 10 steel in solar panels to 5
  
• Moved the recipe for slag processing, depleted uranium, and nuclear waste reprocessing into the resource processing research
  
• Moved the beach ball into the toys research
  
• Made it so research buttons turn green when the research is complete
  
• Updated the translation sheet
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where electric furnaces did not consume power
  
• Fixed an issue where diadematuses spawn in the first dungeon
  
• Fixed an issue where all of the debug info was the same number
  
• Fixed an issue where fuel amount was not synced on multiplayer for recipe buildings
  
• Fixed an issue where ovens did not have a description
  
• Fixed an issue where players were on the minimap when in other regions
  
• Fixed improper calculations with minimap drawing, correcting multiple issues
  
• Fixed an issue where the maximum pressure pump size was actually 499 instead of 500
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not exit boats on Tyria
  
• Fixed depth issues with Tyria ruins
  
• Fixed an issue where traveling to another location while in a vehicle could crash the game
  
• Fixed an issue where Spore didn't have poison resistance and killed himself because of it
  
• Fixed an issue where extremely large navigation regions caused lag on the second dungeon level when Mini-Diadematuses spawned, or moonshrooms from Spore
  
• Fixed an issue where purifier buildings didn't have a description key
  
• Fixed an issue where you couldn't select the bottom-most recipe on controller (thanks juliobass87!)
  
• Fixed an issue where planets were unable to be selected properly on controller (thanks juliobass87!)
  
• Fixed an issue where underground conveyors could not directly add items into a splitter (thanks ghimki5!)
  
• Fixed an issue where movers would instantly transport items, and would visually appear to duplicate them (thanks Ryūjin!)
  
• Fixed a crash that can occur when loading a very old save with the old toolbar format
  
• Fixed an issue where terrain was sometimes incorrectly set back to water in the center of the map (thanks PhoenixRising!)
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Improved performance of autotiling on Tyria
  
• Reduced the game's file size by 40mb by converting the nature ambience to an .ogg
  
• Massively improved the performance of resource node spawning, eliminating lagspikes and improving various other parts of the game
  

[h2]Modding[/h2]

• Moved multiple functions and variables from Global into ModAPI for use in modding
  
• Created the Vehicle and Bounceable abstract classes
  

Changes made in this update could potentially cause some issues with older mods. If you are a mod developer and have mods that took advantage of the functions in Global, now would be a good time to update that.

This quick hotfix update for Starground addresses an issue where old saves would crash on load due to a minimap issue caused by world sizes that were not the default (128x128).

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Fixed an issue where old saves would cause crashes on load
  
• Fixed an issue where Diadematus enemies would cause large lagspikes
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Optimized the performance of players
  
• Optimized the performance of various objects
  
• Optimized the performance of Mini-Diadematuses