Star Command Galaxies News

Greetings Captains!

Beta has gone very, very well for us. We won't even pretend that the game doesn't still have some significant things to improve upon but the stability bug reports are down at a staggering level compared to previous releases. This has given us the breathing room we have been craving for a long time. So what does that mean?


Well, first we have cleaned up a ton of bugs. We should be rolling out our final Beta 1 patch soon. We have been reading the bug forums daily while also addressing anything that comes in from our analytics. The game will continue to get more and more stable and predictable.


Second we are working on some exciting features and great content. To begin with, Beta 2 will shift the galaxy into "Sectors." Your station will be at the center of those sectors and you can travel into them in order to start a self-contained experience. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we can concisely release new content packs and it will be easy for you to locate the new "Midorain Sector" or "Antorian Civil War" sector. Second, our modders will have the ability to build their own sectors. Players that download those sectors form the Steam Workshop will be able to quickly find new, player-created sectors.

We are also starting the Rebel sector from scratch. Up until this point many of our missions and encounters were architypes meant to test a certain feature or concept. None of them really had the character, story or sense of adventure that we try to bring to life in the Star Command universe. We are currently working on brand new adventures starting with a Mining Colony invasion.

We are going to continue to work on content throughout the month some of which will involve making enemy ships more specialty based. It will be much clearer moving forward what a ship "does" - some will have battery draining cannons, others will have freeze rays or the ability to heal other ships.

More to come very soon!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

Beta has gone very, very well for us. We won't even pretend that the game doesn't still have some significant things to improve upon but the stability bug reports are down at a staggering level compared to previous releases. This has given us the breathing room we have been craving for a long time. So what does that mean?


Well, first we have cleaned up a ton of bugs. We should be rolling out our final Beta 1 patch soon. We have been reading the bug forums daily while also addressing anything that comes in from our analytics. The game will continue to get more and more stable and predictable.


Second we are working on some exciting features and great content. To begin with, Beta 2 will shift the galaxy into "Sectors." Your station will be at the center of those sectors and you can travel into them in order to start a self-contained experience. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we can concisely release new content packs and it will be easy for you to locate the new "Midorain Sector" or "Antorian Civil War" sector. Second, our modders will have the ability to build their own sectors. Players that download those sectors form the Steam Workshop will be able to quickly find new, player-created sectors.

We are also starting the Rebel sector from scratch. Up until this point many of our missions and encounters were architypes meant to test a certain feature or concept. None of them really had the character, story or sense of adventure that we try to bring to life in the Star Command universe. We are currently working on brand new adventures starting with a Mining Colony invasion.

We are going to continue to work on content throughout the month some of which will involve making enemy ships more specialty based. It will be much clearer moving forward what a ship "does" - some will have battery draining cannons, others will have freeze rays or the ability to heal other ships.

More to come very soon!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We have been working this week on fixing up some of the quirks with hand-to-hand combat. We have added a few new features and fixed some behaviors that we think should make things much more solid going forward. The first big addition is range circles that will show you the radius of things that can be attacked, repaired or healed. We will continue to polish these but this should help make things a bit clearer. Second we got into the behavior of the crew and enemies and cleaned some things up. Crew should be much better at seeking out new targets and much less likely to just stand around and wait for someone to kill them.

The latest is live now on all branches. Pick it up and tell us if you see anything funky.

Next week we will be working on a brand new reward system that should really be fun! Enjoy your weekend!

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Range Circles showing the area your crew members can attack, repair and heal.
  
• Fundamental changes to crew and enemy attack behavior. This should be much more smooth and predictable now
  
• Crew will no longer chase dying/dead enemies
  
• New particle when you right click to attack an enemy
  
• Crew no longer default to auto repair/heal
  
• When crew teleport they will turn off auto repair/heal
  
• Enemies will no longer target kits and boxes
  
• Artwork is now useable
  
• Added in “Navigation is Blocked” for areas where you cannot use navigation
  
• Fixes to ReportCard, NewPerks and other menus for better support at lower resolutions
  
• Added in dialog for choosing resolution to fix the game getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Added in red hair for crew
  

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We have been working this week on fixing up some of the quirks with hand-to-hand combat. We have added a few new features and fixed some behaviors that we think should make things much more solid going forward. The first big addition is range circles that will show you the radius of things that can be attacked, repaired or healed. We will continue to polish these but this should help make things a bit clearer. Second we got into the behavior of the crew and enemies and cleaned some things up. Crew should be much better at seeking out new targets and much less likely to just stand around and wait for someone to kill them.

The latest is live now on all branches. Pick it up and tell us if you see anything funky.

Next week we will be working on a brand new reward system that should really be fun! Enjoy your weekend!

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Range Circles showing the area your crew members can attack, repair and heal.
  
• Fundamental changes to crew and enemy attack behavior. This should be much more smooth and predictable now
  
• Crew will no longer chase dying/dead enemies
  
• New particle when you right click to attack an enemy
  
• Crew no longer default to auto repair/heal
  
• When crew teleport they will turn off auto repair/heal
  
• Enemies will no longer target kits and boxes
  
• Artwork is now useable
  
• Added in “Navigation is Blocked” for areas where you cannot use navigation
  
• Fixes to ReportCard, NewPerks and other menus for better support at lower resolutions
  
• Added in dialog for choosing resolution to fix the game getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Added in red hair for crew
  

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

Christmas has come and gone and we have been watching the game analytics and bug reports throughout the holidays. Unity allows us to track any errors or crashes that anyone playing the game comes across. We had some, and to be honest we never expect to have zero. But in previous launches we had dozens and dozens and many of those were full fledge crashes and major errors. This release has been very different. The game looks very solid and we feel like we have definitely moved into a polish and content phase, which is exactly where we wanted to be with our Beta.

So what does that mean? It means we can do what we have wanted to do for a very long time: create some awesome content and work with our community on fixing up the game.

Our focus for the next week or two will be combat and crew behavior. We are starting a new forum discussion and we are asking you to contribute any of your ideas, thoughts, complaints or bugs. We know that there is some wonkiness to their decision making and how much they commit to your user commands vs. automated elements. We also want to add in range circles for each crew member so you know where they can shoot/heal/repair.

To help with this we have introduced a mode to the game: ENDLESS MODE. In short, you will spawn in the station and battle it out with never ending waves of enemies until you die. As you progress new weapons and crew will spawn. This mode should allow you to quickly play through just the crew combat portions of the game against a variety of enemies and aid in giving feedback for what you think combat needs.

We hope in the coming weeks and months our fans will come back to the game and see that, given a solid base to work from, we can quickly create new content and quickly iterate new ideas and polish old ones.

We also have some new bug fixes since our release a week ago. The biggest one to note is the resolution reset. THIS WILL RESET YOUR GAME PREFERENCES. Why? Basically we have placed our resolution settings in the wrong place and the only way to fix it is to reset all save games. This will help fix resolutions getting stuck.

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Endless Mode
  
• Resolution reset - refactored where we store resolution settings so they can
• be more consistently overwritten (GAME PREFERENCES WILL BE RESET)
  
• Fix to options menu getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Fixed options menu to no longer display “default”
  
• Addressed low resolution (1366x768) menu problems
  

Looking forward to getting your thoughts!

Cheers,
Warballoon