Celestial Command News

Hello!

As we announced in previous post, in this update we prepared super huge amount of significant changes which improves almost every aspect of the game.

Overall we have worked on gameplay for survival game mode, because despite the fact that playing in sandbox is fun, survival game mode was extremely confusing due large amount of flaws, so we are polished many systems and moved the game to the shape how it should be. There are still some flaws, but this is a huge step forward to the truly polished game with enjoyable gameplay for many hours.

By the way, we have made a new trailer! That is great, because previous one was outdated long time ago and the game already much improved.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1790923976

Base building now is MUCH MORE convenient, because earlier it was extremely user unfriendly. The process of construction something in survival mode was terrible, but now it should be fixed!

Space bases are now much larger and way more epic than before. Tech tree was improved for quite a lot, overall game progression should feel much more enjoyable.

Extremely inconvenient trading system also was significantly improved and now it should be fun.

Also, the game visually now looks much better!

Note, in this blog post we are trying new format: Pictures now located inside "Change log" block under each item of change log.
Earlier a lot of information was duplicated in the main text and change log, which is not good, so we think that a new way of delivering update logs should be better. Also, some items in change log contains more information about why exactly it was done and what exactly it is. So, for more information read a full change log below.




large Improvements

• Completely new NPC space stations which are built from several highly detailed modules. Now it looks much larger and more significant, like cities in space. There are several variations of stations so not all stations look the same. Later more variations will be added. Also, all these modules available in sandbox mode.
  
  
  
  
• Player's own space base now looks much larger. Added new command module for own space station which acts like a core module for player base and should be built in first minutes of gameplay. Production modules also replaced with completely new models of much larger size. Earlier player's space base was too small, that was not correct, so now it is fixed.
  
  
  
  
• Visual effects: Changed color space from gamma to linear, which means more realistic lighting, also it allows to implement better glow effect, especially for weapons and engines.
  
• Visual effects: Improved effects for stars
  
  
  
  
• Visual effects: Improved effects for lasers, engines, shields, explosions
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Trading: Completely redesigned trading system, now it should be much more fun and intuitive to use. Now there is a list of special trading commodities for trading between stations. Previous confusing system with a lot of building parts and weird trading rules is gone. Now each station has easy to understand system of supply and demands and obvious trade routes. Trading GUI redesigned, now it more compact and easier to use. Buy \ Sell methods also improved and no longer so inconvenient to use in case if you have many cargo containers.
  
  
  
  
• Crew: Completely new crew system, with the new management of living modules, life support modules, working escape pods launchers, consumption of oxygen and crew requirements for various functional modules, such as engineering modules or mining lasers. Note: New skills system for officers is not completed yet and will be improved later.
  
  
  
  
• Crew: Added possibility to select portrait of captain, its name and name of spaceship before the game started. The spaceships seems alive now, not just a chunk of metal in space.
  
  
  
  
• Crew: Added functional escape pods, like in Sci-Fi movies!
  
  
  
  
• Crew: Added notification about lack of food which will not disappear until supply of food will be restored. The same works for oxygen and life support supply
  
  
• GUI: Added ship control panel with various control elements for main systems of ship. Earlier it was hard to monitor a status of your shields or control weapons or other systems of the ship. The game interface was like for strategy game, but this is not strategy game, usually you are in control of one ship and you should have a convenient tools to control it, so here it is, a control panel with most often used systems of a ship. We plan to add more control elements on this panel which are frequently used.
  
• GUI: Added weapons groups which allows to much more convenient control on many turrets on the ship. Some may remember that we had similar system earlier, but now it returned with more quality implementation and usability.
  
  
  
  
• Usability: Added a starting window with hints about main aspects of gameplay and instruction how to get started. Of course, interactive tutorial would be better, but it will take longer to implement, so it will be added later, but at this moment this window should be a good temporary solution.
  
  
  
  
• Production: Completely changed recipes and prices for all modules. Everything much cheaper and affordable. Building is no longer so complex and user unfriendly. We get rid of frames, generic components and plates, and replaced it with nice and convenient "Prefabs" - main building component of all modules.
  
• Production: Completely changed distribution of resources in asteroids, now common resources can be found everywhere and rare resources specific to planets, which is have much rare chance to spawn. This makes process of seeking resources much more interesting like it should be in good survival game (like wood and stone everywhere, but iron is rare). Here iron and carbon is a basic materials which can be found everywhere, but advanced resources such as copper, silicon of lithium is much rare.
  
• Production: Generic components and steel plates removed from all recipes because it didn't added interest to the game, just makes crafting less convenient
  
• Production: Added salvage module which allows to recycle broken parts into resources
  
• Ship editor: Now you can place modules for construction and use move tool in much larger radius which now displayed with yellow circle. Previous attempts to place modules within a tiny radius of engineering modules was terribly inconvenient and now it is fixed!
  
• Ship editor: Now you can instantly remove placed modules which were not built yet (contains only 1 part), the part will be returned to inventory. Makes building process much more convenient in cases where you wish to quickly place and remove modules just to check overall shape of a spaceship.
  
• Ship editor: Improved visual model of scaffold frames around unbuild modules. Now it has proper 3D models with correct size.
  
  
  
  
• Ship editor: Added "Auto build" and "Auto salvage modules" modes for engineering modules. You no longer need to select engineering modules and manually click on targets, now you can automatically construct or salvage modules within a radius. Building and looting much more convenient now!
  
  
  
  
• Ship editor: Move Tool in sandbox mode now can be used anywhere (not only near space station). Super useful for creativity!
  
  
• Now you may find a random hostile drone which protects valuable resources or just located randomly in space. The important aspect of the game is combat, but earlier it was hard to find a proper enemy to test your combat capabilities, now it is fixed. Also, it creates additional challenge for the gameplay, like it should be in any good survival game.
  
  
  
  
• Audio: Now music is changing during combat. It should provide better experience during combat. Later we will add more variations of music and better transitions.
  
• Camera: Now by default right mouse button will pan the camera and middle button will rotate it (because pan is much more often used than rotation). It could be hard to get used to it if you already familiar with previous system, but we recommend trying, the control will be much more convenient. But you may change settings back if you wish.
  
• Camera: Now camera can be rotated by holding space bar + mouse movement
  
• Camera: Now "Rotate as target" mode (Z key) will smoothly follow a rotation of your ship (not instantly)
  
• Physics: Safe collision velocity increased from 5 m\s to 40 m\s, maneuvering and physics now is much more fun because modules no longer explodes even on easy touch, Collisions at high velocity still may cause a significant damage.
  
• Shields: Reworked energy shields. Now it can be activated much faster and overall more obvious and easier to use. It can shift its center position. And also, now it have restoration delay parameter (damage stops regeneration for a few seconds)
  
• Weapons: Weapons now have different damage to hull and shield. Mostly, energy weapons is more effective against shields, while kinetic weapons against hull. New values displayed when you hover cursor over its icon in build menu.
  
  
  
  
• Weapons: Combat lasers now fires with pauses between shoots. It looks better and more tactical for small laser weapons. Mining laser still capable to emit continuous ray. Later, large combat lasers also will be capable to emit continuous ray.
  
• Warp drive: Added small warp drive which is more affordable but does not have interstellar capabilities.
  
• Warp drive: Reworked and improved usability of warp drives. Now it have better interface, can shift its center of warp field and have instant power consumption. Overall now it should be much easier and more intuitive to use.
  
  
  
  
• Redesigned galaxy map, now it looks better and no longer cause FPS drop due better optimization
  
  
  
  
• Significantly redesigned tech tree. Now its unlocking should be more interesting and should provide new interesting capabilities with each research
  

Small improvements

• Now each station has a proper name instead of boring number
  
  
  
  
• Move tool now have hotkey (C button) very useful for quick construction
  
• System map now have "space background" instead of just a boring solid color
  
• Default QE control is inverted (now it is logically correct). It could be hard to get to it if you already familiar with inverted control, so you may just change it back in game settings if you wish.
  
• World: Improved method of placement of NPC stations in aero mode, now it located on proper distance between each other
  
• World: Asteroids now 50% larger (earlier it was too small and not epic enough)
  
• World: Depleted asteroids now splits into chunks only once (instead of 2 times as before) because earlier it was too tedious to gather 4 last chunks, especially in orbital game mode
  
• World: Starting location now can be located only around planets (not moons)
  
• World: Width of asteroid belt now 2 times larger, which makes space less empty
  
• Crafting: Asteroids no longer contains decimal amount of resources, as result, amount of crafting items in your inventory now will be mostly integer which makes it more comfortable to use
  
• Crafting: Now mined ore firstly will be loaded to containers where such ore already stored (to stack items), after that to containers for ore, after that to other containers. Now mining more convenient.
  
• Crafting: Ammo and Rocket fabricator modules removed from the game, now ammo can be produced in regular production modules. It didn't add too much interesting to the game and were just confusing. Standard production module performs its task very well.
  
• Weapon: Light cannons now have 1 second delay between burst fire (overall, burst fire weapons looks better than "constant damage flow" weapons and combat seem more tactical)
  
• Weapon: Energy projectiles no longer can ricochet which seems logical
  
• Weapon: New visual effects for small rockets, now it has proper engine, smoke effect and explosion size
  
• Weapon: Small rocket launcher now fire rockets from left and right barrels alternately, looks very nice
  
  
  
  
• New info when radar selected: Radius
  
• AI: Enemy ships no longer physically transparent, now you can ram into them! Or vice versa
  
• AI: Enemy now will start to attack you if you attacked them from outside of its detection range
  
• Usability: Radar markers now visible at closer range
  
• Usability: Asteroids now marked with colors on radar, now it is much easier to detect an asteroid with required ore, hovering a cursor on each asteroid no longer required!
  
• Usability: Radar range circle no longer hided at low camera angle, only at low zoom level
  
• Usability: Now "Hide GUI" button also will hide gravity and atmosphere circle around planet, better for nice screenshots
  
• Usability: Cargo movement slider no longer have decimal values (it was useless and just not convenient), a bit more comfortable now
  
• Usability: Now you can hover cursor on system map and see which specific resources you can find in this system
  
• Usability: Missing parts for module now can be auto ordered by right or middle mouse button (Ctrl and Alt no longer required)
  
• Usability: Camera movement on RMB no longer stops placement of weapon
  
• Camera: Now default camera angle not 90 degree but a bit inclined (70 degree) which looks better
  
• Added buttons which allows to reduce maximum thrust of all engines on the ship which is useful during docking or similar maneuvers which requires high accuracy
  
• Improved velocity indicator on ship control panel, now it has dynamic velocity bar
  
• Improved audio effect for combat lasers, now should seems more like a real weapon
  
• Radar markers no longer displayed for rockets (it looks better during combat)
  
• Enemies more durable, earlier it was too weak
  
• Black hole disk now looks a bit better (but have incorrect distortion, know issue, will be fixed later)
  
• Rebalanced hit points for mining lasers, engineering modules, engines
  
• Improved readability of on hover tooltips, it no longer transparent and have outline effect
  
• Added description for Food and Foodstuffs to make it clear that only a first one suitable for crew members
  
• Updated localization. Added Turkish, Catalan and Hungarian languages. Thanks for community!
  

Fixes

• Fixed a bug when respawned asteroids had much more radius than it should
  
• Fixed a critical bug which broke the game after several usage of move tool
  
• It is no longer possible to move asteroids and debris using move tool
  
• Fixed impossibility to move modules from one ship to another using move tool
  
• Fixed incorrect behavior of physics after you moved entire ship using move tool
  
• Movement of turret-based weapons using move tool no longer allowed (it is not required; you should move its turret module instead)
  
• Ships which have only one module now have proper moment of inertia (no longer so low, especially for large modules)
  
• Fixed issue with incorrect amount if mined ore in case if you have several cargo containers and one of them already almost full
  
• It no longer possible to insert negative multipliers for planet mass and space density which allowed to brake laws of physics and crash the game
  
• Changing of air density multiplier no longer changes collision damage multiplier as well
  
• Now researches require 100 science data instead of 101 (or similar)
  
• Fixed internal error if you your command module lost during weapon placement
  
• Fixed internal error if hover cursor over heavy cannon
  
• F11 "Hide GUI" button no longer shows main menu after reactivation
  
• Weapons no longer instantly built on turrets and should be finished as other modules
  
• Star in starting system will be always radiate constant energy
  
• Fixed solar panel, now produce much more energy
  
• Laser turn off, when storage full
  
• Explosion effect now have correct velocity in aero mode
  
• Now in asteroid field showing correct model
  
• Rockets now have correct damage against shields
  
• Small rockets no longer change its direction during flight
  
• "List of required resources" of production module now showed for correct ship
  
• Shift+1 hotkey no longer will be activated if "1" pressed without Shift, or vice versa
  
• Fixed incorrect preview of solar panels
  

Hello!

We planned to release an update at May 19, but after we tested a current result, we are not too happy with its quality.

In previous post we promised that in the next big update the quality of the game will be put on brand new level, and this is true, however at the current state there is still some significant game-design issues and bugs which may ruin an experience from gameplay.

So we need more time to be sure that the new update will be enjoyable. Not sure when it will be ready, maybe a week or a bit more, overall classic "When it will be ready", but we don't want to specify another date which we are not sure about.

Also note that we already updated the price to 20$ as said in previous post. This is because we changed a price 1 day before planned update (price changed not instantly) but on the next day decided to delay an update. So at this moment price already increased but update not released yet.
But if someone will buy the game now and will think that current version of the game is not worth 20$, he may just wait a bit for the next update, so it should not be a big issue. Otherwise, we are sorry for inconvenience. Anyway we guarantee that nearest updates will provide a high level of quality according to price of the game.

For now, you may take a look on one from the new NPC space station which will be available in the next update! (image above)

Thanks for your patience!

In the comments to our previous post, other posts, reviews, Discord chat and personal messages, many people suggested us to reconsider and increase a price for the game, and actually they are absolutely right.

We have carefully analyzed prices for many various games in Steam store and it turned out that 11$ is too low of a price to pay for the game like Celestial Command.

So we would like to inform you in advance that when the next big update will be released (It will be released approximately in a week or so), we are going to change the price to 20$.
The next update will be great so it should worth it! We hope that you would all agree with our decision : )

Also, on the image above you may see a window which will appear before the game start, where you would be able to set up your very own character! Exciting, isn't it? We have added some icons for the command officers, that should make the overall look of the space ships more alive.

(not a final version of crew interface)

As you probably noticed, crew system in the current version of the game is very raw and useless. Earlier we thought to implement a new crew system not in the next update (0.89), but in the update after (0.9), however, since we plan to make the next version very polished and enjoyable (we talked about that in previous post) - it would be good if we will implement a new crew system already in the next update, otherwise, current crew system could be very confusing for a new players.

• There will be two types of crew members, "regular crew" with no personality and "command officers", which have names, ranks, experience and skills.
  
  
• Most functional modules will require a specific number of regular crew member who should operate this module. Insufficient amount of crew members will reduce efficiency of modules.
  
  
• You may manually rearrange crew members between modules.
  
  
• There will be several types of regular crew members (engineers, scientists, gunners, soldiers). Each module have specific requirements for specific class of crew members.
  
  
• Crew living quarters, launchers of escape pods and medical bays will increase morale of a crew which affect efficiency of modules.
  
  
• Ships may have large amount of regular crew members (more than 100 on board) and just a few command officers.
  
  
• Life support module and supply of oxygen will be important for crew survival.
  
  
• Destroying of operated module or living quarters will not kill a crew members inside (they will escape to another section of ships). But destroying of command module will initiate a launch of escape pods, it amount of escape pods is not enough, the rest of the crew will be destroyed (yes, not too realistically, but good enough for gameplay)
  

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Overall, we want to make crew system pretty simple, without movement of crew members in interiors and without personality and complex physical simulation of each crew member.
Celestial Command it is a game about modular space ships, so crew system should not be overcomplicated, but simple and easy to use crew system should add an interesting feeling from the gameplay and make space ships more alive.

Also about amount of crew members, we want to make it less realistic and more like in most Sci-Fi movies, where hundreds of crew members working on board of huge battleships. Of course, in real life, spaceships can be automated, but for the game, it would be epic to have large amount of crew members on board like in Sci-Fi movies of space opera genre.

What do you think? Feel free to express your thought and suggestions.

Hello!

Usually we are trying to release updates as often us possible, following by logic "As soon as we have a new feature - we should release it", but for the next update we want to use a different approach.

In the comments to our previous post, people suggested us to focus on the big update, instead of a sequence of smaller updates which are not so noticeable - and that is a great idea!
This will be very good for popularity of the game, and more important, for quality of gameplay.

Some people also thought that since the game already 4 years in development and still not very popular - it will not be popular any time soon.
This seems logical, but actually this is not true.

Currently we are working on the various game design tasks and made a conclusion that the game already have large amount of interesting and complex features, however most features just not accessible due wrong game-design solutions, wrong balance of various values or low usability of interface.

So, we are going to solve most of these issues in the next, big update, which should put quality of the game on completely new level.

Overall, the development focused on 3 main directions:
- Construction
- Combat
- Trading




Building of space ships and stations it is the most important feature of the game, it is very fun to create various ships in sandbox mode, however, surprisingly we realized that creation of ships in non-sandbox game mode is completely not fun. Usability is so much worse due various reasons and we are not happy with how it works in survival game mode, so it should be solved.

In sandbox mode your creativity is not restricted and this is great, but in survival mode, the game just does not allows to do any mistakes.

Everything is too slow, too expensive and seems like the only way to build something in survival mode is to design a ship in sandbox, make a screenshot and use a screenshot as a plan to build that ship in survival mode.

But this is not a way of gameplay which we want.
You should be able to unleash you creativity even in non-sandbox game mode.

In order to do that, we will make just a couple of simple, but very important things:

1.
Move tool will be much more accessible. It can be used not only within area of shipyard, but also in large circle around it, so it will allow to construct not only a ship inside shipyard, but also a space station itself.
Also modules for construction can be placed in much larger radius than radius of engineering module.

Large yellow circle shows a radius where you can easily place or remove modules (but modules still should be finished with engineering module which have smaller radius.



And here large yellow circle shows a radius where you can use "move tool" to quickly design or redesign your ships and space station (like on GIF animation above).




2.
Most modules will be much more cheaper, especially structural and decoration modules. It is not normal that you are forced to mine huge amount of resources just to build a few decoration elements around your space ship or station. Recipes for crafting should create an interest, it should not restrict a creativity.

This seems simple, but turned out it makes construction so much better and more fun.

New scaffold frames around unbuilt modules






Fighting against other space ships it is the second, very important feature of the game. The problem is - it is basically non existed in sandbox game mode.

Technically the game is capable to provide an amazing space battles between huge ships, but it is almost impossible to encounter during non-sandbox gameplay.

And this is another critical flaw of the game which should be fixed in the next update.
Encounters with enemy ships will be much more often and ships will be much more balanced, as well as access to weapons, ammunition and tools for more convenient repairs between combat encounters.

These changes also will have a dramatically impact of overall quality of the game.




Trading between space stations it is an interesting way to earn more credits, but we received a lot of feedback from community about trading and how inconvenient it is - and this is completely true, currently it is a way too overcomplicated, both in terms of functionality and user interface.

So, in the next update the trading will be completely redesigned.
A functionality of trading now should be much more obvious and easier to use.
Also we implemented a special type of commodities which is suitable specially for trading between space stations.

Previous version of trading window (so unintuitive)



And this is how new trading window will look (not a final version but close to it)



Besides that, a lot of smaller improvements also will be implemented, each improvements separately seems non significant, but in complex it makes the game so much better. The result should be amazing!

When it will be released?
We are not sure yet. We planning to release the next update within this month, but we want to make it very polished so maybe it will take a bit more time. Anyway, we will keep you informed about development progress.

Also we want to say thanks for everyone who support us on Patreon! You provided a huge help for us in this month, which helps us to develop this big update.

Thanks! ; )