Celestial Command News

As we said in previous posts, ship building is the most important aspect of the game and for the next update we are trying to add many new parts in order to make ship building more diverse and open now possibilities for creativity.

Some time ago, when we already prepared large parts for capital ships and started to thing how to add even more freedom and creativity to the ship building, we thought it carefully and came out to the simple conclusion:

2D physics has more restrictions and disadvantages than advantages.
Full 3D physics will add extreme amount of freedom and creativity for ship building process.

People often asked us for a various 3D features such as:
• Possibility to place turrets on top of the ship like on real life battleships
• Hangar bays with drones
• Solar panels which placed horizontal and not blocked with the ship itself
• More "vertical" ship design instead of flat ships

We even created items in the FAQ to explain why these features can't be implemented (due various restrictions related to 2D physics):
https://trello.com/c/CUsCP7ut
https://trello.com/c/WB6s9LZF

But if we will make the game full 3D, these issues related to 2D physics will be no longer relevant and features listed above will be possible!
So we decided to do that!

Important to mention that the main advantage of 2D physics it is simplicity of control and navigation. You can fly your ship using only WASDQE buttons and no need to worry about 3-rd dimension. This is actually pretty important because navigation in 3D space could be complex and confusing.

However there is a solution which allows to keep that advantage even in full 3D.
Most objects still will be located on horizontal plane, such as asteroids, stations and other ships so you still will be able to control your ship using only WASDQE buttons.

Even if the ship is drifted a bit on vertical axis - we added a new special stabilizer which will automatically keep ship in horizontal plane.
But if you wish to leave horizontal plane, you no longer bound to it and you can do that.

Here is some examples of new 3D ships with new modules and weapons
Possibilities for ship building now is really amazing!



Indicators of altitude relative to standard zero plane



What about orbital mechanics, orbits now can be not only equatorial but inclined too



Customizable point light sources which also may act as flashing lights

[Img]https://i.imgur.com/A1lPXnV.gif



Customizable spotlight sources



Changed the way how modules are placed, Now after placement it appears as transparent object which become active after engineering module will work on it for several seconds.
It should make construction process much more convenient.



If you lose part of your ship, blueprint for reconstruction will be automatically created so you can repair your ship easily on shipyard. This feature is extremely helpful for repairing after combat.



Also we want to say special thanks for everyone who supports us on Patreon! Without your help we would not have enough funds to develop such a large and long update.
Fortunately, with you help we can do it!

When it will be released? We are not sure yet, but after this blog post we will try to post progress reports more often.
Also, due large amount changes and possible bugs we will release it in experimental build first, but it will be available for everyone and no additional access will be required.
We will publish a news when it will be done.

Thanks!

Currently we are working on improvements for a combat aspect of gameplay.
Combat should be important part of the game, but at this moment large amount of flaws do not allows to play and enjoy it.

Here is a list of things which will be added in the next update in order to solve that:

• The starting ship now have a proper weapon right from the start. Some basic kinetic cannon and small rocket launcher as well as some amount of ammunition in storage.
  
  
• Activation of weapon is much more convenient now, just press 1 to enable weapon group, instead of complex Shift+1 combination. Also weapon range will be showed automatically and no longer requires to press Ctrl+1. Launching of rocket also much more easy now because hotkeys already designated from the start.
  
  
• AI of enemy ships now much better in terms of navigation. It will properly direct its ship on the target and will not cause FPS drop in the process.
  Also when it is unable to continue combat due lack of any weapon, it will try to retreat instead of sit and waiting while someone destroying its ship.
  
  
  
  
• Cannon's projectile can penetrate trough several objects if previous object has less HP than damage of this projectile and also damage to the next object will be reduced accordingly. This feature is important for game balance when large slow firing cannon shooting at a ship which consist of many small modules with low HP, so single module with 1 HP no longer able to stop a projectile which able to cause 100 damage
  
  
  
  
• Now you may encounter not only an enemy combat ships but allied ships too, which will fight each other.
  
  
  
  
• Currently, reconstruction of missing modules after combat is tedious, this will be fixed with the system which adds a blueprint module each time when some module on your ships is destroyed.
  These blueprints can be easily built on shipyard as it showed in previous post.
  

And also some reminder about possibility to get Celestial Command with -25% discount until January 2.

Happy New Year!

Hello!
We are preparing so much improvements for the next update, so we decided it will be a version alpha 0.9.

It will be a huge update where almost every aspect of the game will be greatly improved and we will fix most of the crucial issues which exist in the game for a long time.

For example, a ship constructor, it is the most important feature of the game, but currently it have an important issue which should be fixed.

For a long time we are thinking how to solve the problem that ship construction in sandbox mode is much more fun than in non-sandbox mode.

The good ship editor should allow to quickly place and remove parts in order to experiment with different designs and build a ship you want.

However, currently construction and deconstruction of modules it is a complex process, which requires a lot of time and resources, and result it is not possible to experiment with designs and unleash your creativity.



Currently the only way to build something specific, it is to launch the game in sandbox mode, build the ship there, make a screenshot, calculate required amount of resources in notepad and after that load non-sandbox game back and rebuild this ship using screenshot as an instruction.
This is super tedious and inconvenient. Definitely not the way how it should work.

Of course, instant construction \ deconstruction of modules could solve this issue, but we don't want to make it instant because we like a nice animation of robotic arms and its welding effects.

But for the next update we developed the solution - Isolated ship editor!

Now in non-sandbox game mode you can press the button any time and open a special editor screen where you can edit your ship using the same rules as in sandbox mode.
Modules are free and can be placed or removed instantly. Here you can unleash your creativity designing your ship, and after you finished, you can press the button and engineering modules in game world will automatically build a new ship for you!



Also this method will allows to load a blueprint which was saved in sandbox mode or a file from Workshop (which will be added later) and build it in non-sandbox game mode.

In addition, such approach will solve an important issue of orbital game mode where it is very inconvenient to design a ships due drifting of separated modules due tidal forces.
This no longer will be a problem because development of blueprints can be done in isolated environment.

Besides that, recipes of most modules will be simplified, because currently modules requires way too much different resources, in result gathering of resources for ship construction became tedious. We want to make ship construction more accessible for players.

Also take a look on a new energy shield effects:

There was no news from us quite a while, this is because we are working on some big improvements for the next update which requires to do some research about new methods and features, so we were not ready to show result before we will be sure that these new features will work as desired.

The upcoming improvements will be related to the most important aspect of the game - construction of ships.

Currently in the game most modules has the same size and most ships also has the same size, of course there is some a bit larger modules and also you can build a ships of any size you want, but even larger ships mostly looks like a large, flat construction made of small parts.

This is not intentional design choice. From the first day of development, Celestial Command supposed to be the game about ships of very various sizes, where smaller vessels will be able to fly inside a hangars of huge carriers and battleships.

Earlier we had more priority tasks related to core systems instead of a lot of new modules of various sizes, but now we decided to focus on this direction.

For the next update we started to use a new method which allows to create large amount of modules in reasonable time. Now some modules consist of two parts, superstructure above and standardized base structure below.

Besides that, some modules have optional variant with different vertical profiles, allowing to create a huge ships which does not looks flat.



Initially we thought that such method may create undesired "repetitive tiling" effect because base structure of different modules will looks the same, but turned out it is not a problem because most of the time you observe ships from above where superstructure overlaps most of its area, plus different vertical profiles creates very interesting shapes.

Here is some early examples of what is possible to build using new modules:













Besides that we will add huge hangar parts, a lot of new weapons and many various functional improvements, such as mirror tool, magnetic docking, more challenges and a lot more.

That is how research and development area of new modules in 3D editor:



When it will be released? We are not sure yet, we want to make it high quality because when people will start to design and save new ships we want to be sure that save files will not be wasted due some changes in the another update after.
Also we want to provide some kind of game goals to create a purpose for a newly designed ships.
We will keep you informed about update progression.

Thanks for the patience! : )

Currently mining lasers in the game has a very short range, and this is not too correct because if mining device suppose to be a short range it could be just a simple mining drill, but since we have lasers, we should have long range version.
So here it is, long range mining lasers!

Also now it can be mounted on turrets and automatically collect required ore within range! It acts like a great advanced tool for mining and should partially solve a situation with lack of fuel for large ships because mining is much easier now.

A bit later this issue will be completely solved with addition of large mining devices which can be placed on large asteroids in order to extract even more ore.



Large improvements

• Added long range mining laser which should be mounted on turret. Such turrets will automatically mine asteroids with desired resource within its range. Also added a possibility to select which resource you want to mine
  
• Damage and mining rate of all lasers no longer depends on distance to target (this feature didn't adds any interesting aspects to the gameplay, on the contrary it was confusing and non intuitive, also it turned lasers into some kind of "shotguns" which should be used from the minimal distance, that is not a desired game-style for combat lasers). Also visual effect of laser ray no longer falloff with the distance and in result it looks much better
  
• Lasers now activated and deactivated not instantly, but during a short time, as result its visual effect looks much better
  
• Lasers now will consume energy from internal power storage which will recharge over time, so now in cases when you have not enough energy, lasers will wait for full charge instead of attempt to emit thin and weak ray. Overall, combat and mining operations now looks much better in cases when ship has not enough energy
  

Small improvements

• Added possibility to setup hotkey for auto center of thrust calibration
  
• Text elements such as "+2 Iron ore" which appears over cargo containers now displayed only at close range
  
• Graphs of power monitor now hidden by default
  
• Xenon collector max radius in orbital mode increased from 5 to 30 (it should be much easier to use now)
  
• Added missing info on control panel of xenon collector
  
• Target of turret now visualized only on selection of module
  

Fixes

• Critical bug with impossibility to save \ load a game with error "Position is NaN" should be fixed (but we are not sure, so let us know if you will encounter this issue again)
  
• Ships with activated warp drive no longer able to move inside a warp field (solved an issue when you press W during warp flight and ship explodes due contact with warp sphere)
  
• Fixes impossibility to load a game which was saved during warp flight
  
• Fixes issue when options and save load windows still visible after menu reopened with Esc button
  
• Fixes internal error when galaxy map opened during warp flight
  
• Xenon collector works again in orbital mode
  
• Pause on Esc now correctly works after save load