Stars in Shadow News

Query: Shall we find something to kill to cheer ourselves up?

We have a few bug fixes in today's patch, and I have some information to share about the content of our first DLC, which is in the works. As always, your feedback and suggestions are important to us. Keep them coming!



Fixes

• Fix for an issue in some of the game's random number generators, which was causing some native races (such as Threshers and Tinkers) to be unusually rare on some map sizes. All native races should now spawn at the intended rates.
  
• Unresearchable techs should no longer appear in any of the tech tree panes. (In earlier builds, the presence of such techs could cause various bugs.)
  
• Morale reports for planets that have been lost should now be correctly removed from the notification list, rather than causing exceptions.
  
• The instant refit feature should now correctly trigger the "Harder Faster Better Stronger" achievement.
  

(Click here to view the complete development changelogs.)



We've started work on our first DLC expansion. We'll talk more about the features and schedule in the coming weeks, but for now I'll introduce you to a new playable faction in the expansion: the Tinkers.

The Tinkers are a race of cyborgs who toil at the command of Dzibix, a megamachine which has spread across the majority of their arid homeworld of the same name. It's not known to outsiders whether Dzibix is some kind of precursor relic, or just a machine god that the Tinkers invented. It's not all that clear whether the Tinkers know the truth themselves, but they take its prime directives very seriously: Augment! Toil! Expand! And to better serve their machine god, they have made themselves into a cybernetic civilization.

The Tinkers are not one of the Elder Races that took part in the Great War, but in their zeal to obey Dzibix's directive to expand, the Tinkers attempted to establish extrasolar colonies long before the restoration of the warp-lanes by attaching engines to asteroids and comets and converting them into slower-than-light colony vessels. Most of these outposts failed, and their remnants can be (rarely) encountered in the current game. The expansion will allow you to take control of the Tinkers homeworld of Dzibix itself.



Tinkers prefer arid environments that do not interfere with the machinery of their cities which sprawl across the landscape; water is an unwelcome obstacle to them. This intense industrialization ravages the environment of their colonies, but the Tinkers as cyborgs have reduced their need for food and the produce of nature. Having largely abandoned their natural life cycle, Tinkers reproduce slowly unless production is specifically allocated to this purpose. In harmony with their machine bodies and the orderly society it affords them, Tinkers do not know sadness or unrest; only duty.



As befits a cyborg society, the Tinkers are superb engineers. Although their ordered machine society does not always come up with the most creative new technologies, they excel at advanced production techniques, miniaturization and repair. Their vessels are ruggedly armored and equipped with mobile fabrication systems which allow for rapid repair of damage and replacement of expended ordnance. Accordingly, Tinker ships are typically armed with smart missiles and automated fighters -- which, to the Tinkers, are essentially the same thing.

That's all we have for now. Stay tuned!

Did you hear that, meatbag? I'LL BE BACK!

There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the Universe... with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man, who even now fight to survive, somewhere beyond the heavens…

Today's update is small and contains a few bug fixes. Things have been a little bit quiet over the last month as Sven and I both spent time on other projects, but our ongoing efforts to improve the game continue, and we should have an announcement next week on upcoming updates. As always, your feedback and suggestions are important to us. Keep them coming!



Fixes

• Fixed a bug that could cause Ashdar fighters to appear in place of the correct race-specific art in some cases.
  
• Fixed inaccuracies in the in-game text appearing under a transport's 'Start Trading' button.
  
• Selecting Primary Artillery in the tech tree should no longer cause a bug.
  
• The prerequisite links in the tech tree for 'Primary Artillery' and 'Stupendous Energy Physics' should now be properly visualized.
  
• The prereqisites for 'Stupendous Energy Physics' has been simplified to 'Heavy Ion Beams'.
  

(Click here to view the complete development changelogs, and here to view the development roadmap post.)

Fleeing from Cylon tyranny, the last Battlestar, Galactica, leads a rag-tag fugitive fleet on a lonely quest: a shining planet, known as Earth!

Attention interloper - heed this recorded message!
This world, Earth, may not be approached for any reason.

Today's Tech Tree Update adds a tree view and improved functionality for the Research screen. Our ongoing effort to improve the game continues, so your feedback and suggestions are important to us. Keep them coming!



For starters, the behavior of the "Set Research" and "Queue Research" buttons has changed. "Set Research" will now automatically queue any needed prerequisites to the selected tech. "Queue Research" can now be used to queue any number of techs in any order, regardless of prerequisites.

To enter the tree view, click on the tree icon at the top of the technology list in the Research Screen.



In addition to the familiar Queue Research and Set Research buttons, which work the same way as in the List View, the Tree View presents a scrollable pane displaying the technology tree. The tree view pane can be scrolled by using the scrollbars on bottom and right, or with the arrow or WASD keys, or by clicking and dragging within the pane. Left-clicking on a technology node will select it and activate the Info pane for that technology. Clicking "Set Research" or right-clicking on the node will begin research on that tech (or any required prerequisites, which will be automatically queued). You can manually queue techs by selecting a tech node and clicking "Queue Research", or by shift-left-clicking on a node.



Each technology node displays the name of the technology, an icon for the field of research (Physics, Construction, etc.), and icons representing any hulls, components, or special abilities unlocked by that technology. The number of turns to research the technology at current research rates is listed in blue. If the tech is locked (it has unresearched prerequisites), the title will be blue and there will be a lock icon at right. If the technology has additional prerequisites that are not represented by the visible lines, you will be able to see a small icon overlay at the upper left of the node. All elements can be investigated with a mouseover tooltip.

You can return to the List View at any time by clicking the list icon at the upper left, and you can close the Research Screen by clicking the X in the upper right, or the testube icon at the top bar. If you exit Research while still in the Tree View, you will still be in the Tree View whenever you return to the Research screen.



Changes and Additions

• The tree view of the research screen is now available and can be viewed by clicking on the tree view icon shown at the top of the technology list. You can return to the list view by clicking on the list icon at the top left of the tree view.
  
• Clicking "Set Research" in either view will now queue any necessary prerequisite techs.
  
• You can now queue techs in any order using either view by selecting techs and clicking "Queue Tech" (or shift-left-clicking in the tree view).
  
• The portion of the 'Primary Beams' prerequisite that included 'Turbolasers' now instead includes 'Advanced Turbolasers'.
  
• 'Hyperspace Cloud Computing' has been renamed to 'Hyperspace Cloud'.
  
• The Yoral Frigate hull is now unlocked by 'Interstellar Expeditions', rather than 'Titanium Construction'.
  

Fixes

• Opening the dropdown menu in the embark population dialog should no longer trigger an exception.
  

(Click here to view the complete development changelogs, and here to view the development roadmap post.)

This drone now leaves to inform the masters of your transgressions.
You are commanded to remain here and await the arrival of the masters.
Disobedience will be punished.

We come in peace. Mostly.

Today's update includes a few bug fixes, and some preparatory work for our next big feature, which is the technology tree view. As always, work continues to improve the game, so your feedback and suggestions are important to us. Keep them coming!



Changes and Additions

• The \Mods\ subdirectory can now be used to install and manage user-created mods. For instructions, please read the MakingMods.txt file in the \Mods\ directory.
  
• Unlocking 'Dreadnoughts' no longer requires 'Duranium Construction'.
  
• Removed the redundant 'Small Craft' prerequisite for 'Light Carrier'.
  
• Removed the redundant 'Graviton Physics' prerequisite for 'Star Gates'.
  
• Removed the redundant 'Fusion' prerequisite for 'Plasma Focusing'.
  
• Bombardment notifications now contain more information.
  
• Added on-hover tooltips for terraforming projects.
  
  

Fixes

• Fighters and bombers should now automatically upgrade to use the latest available munitions/weapons, without requiring that the mothership be refitted.
  
• Strike fighters should now correctly switch between attacking with energy weapons or missiles, depending on their target.
• Fix for a rare bug that could cause a crash when closing the ship designer pane.
  
• Applying an autodesign template to a planet defense design should no longer cause an exception.
  
• Fix for a rare bug that could cause fleets to disappear after issuing a movement command.
  
• Rejecting the results of a galactic council vote should no longer cause an error.
  
• Fix for a gunport animation glitch affecting several heavier Orthin hulls.
  
• The 'Ancient Guardians' faction should no longer appear in the faction list.
  
• Fix for a bug that could prevent raider units from embarking from low-population planets.
  
• Disabling 'advisor suggestions' should now suppress special resource notifications.
  
• You should now receive at most 1 special resource notification per resource per game.
  

(Click here to view the complete development changelogs, and here to view the development roadmap post.)



Probably the most requested feature (and the most bemoaned missing feature) is a tree view for the Research Screen, and it has been at the top of our list as well. Because our tech tree has a complex set of prerequisite inheritances, and because the tree is different for each faction, figuring out a consistent way to display it took some work. But we think we've got it figured out.

This view will be in addition to the current list view; the player will be able to toggle between the two views at will. The tree view will contain most of the functionality of the list view, including the same technology information pane in a pop-up form. It will also allow the player to queue research items in any order.

Here is a mockup of the new screen's graphical elements:



Here is a test layout of the logical tree structure (Yoral version):



The tree is dynamic in the sense that each faction can have a different tree layout, and nodes can be added to a tree during a game, which will allow the potential for a faction to unlock technologies through gameplay that would not normally be available for research to that faction.

That's all for now. Until next time.