Stellar Tactics News

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! I thought I would share a quick progress update. The last few weeks I've spent most of my time getting the first set of 10 new ship models in the game. I'll release these with the next patch.

https://youtu.be/jyjRrjWqXuI

Meanwhile, the second set of ships model replacements are in development and I'll get those in the game when they are ready. A few screenshots below - work in progress.


And finally, I've been working on the cargo transfer feature. When this is finished, you will be able to purchase cargo storage space on trade stations. Once you own cargo storage, you will be able to move items from your ship cargo hold to storage, swap ships and move those items to your currently equipped starship from storage. I know a lot of you have wanted a way to store all that shiny legendary gear and move it to another ship. This is also a requirement for future work on trading and crafting so needs to be done now. As you can see, you will be able to sort both your current ships cargo and the contents of the station cargo storage.

Cargo storage is only for ship equipment, ore and commodities.

When buying new ships, the current cargo transfer feature will still work - so, you will need to make sure the contents of your current ship cargo bay will fit in the new ship you are purchasing.


That's all I have for now. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. I'm hoping to get the updated ships, cargo transfer and a number of bug fixes out in a patch next Friday. As always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

First, I'd like to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday Season and thank you for a great year! This is the second patch as promised that provides additional bonuses to end mission loot, a new device that lets you scan for lifeforms in mission areas, a cleanup pass on the movement/interaction system and more. This is the last patch this year, and it has been a very busy year indeed. I have big plans for 2019 and I hope you enjoy the content and updates to come.

Here are the patch notes:

UPDATED: At the end of missions and when you clear hostile facilities and explore locations, you are now awarded better bonus equipment. Originally this was going to be a crate. I'm going to reserve that for major bosses that will reward epic items, and now grant these reward items as described below.
All granted items are now useful - no more health kits or junk items.
All granted items are of exceptional quality or higher.
You now get three guaranteed items at the end of missions.
Other rewards remain the same - Faction, cash rewards, and ammo are still granted depending on whether the location is a faction mission or a explore location.
--Short missions and explore locations - A chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Medium missions and explore locations - A high chance for a legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)
--Long missions and explore locations - A guaranteed legendary - a total of three granted equipment items (weapon, armor, shield or mod)

UPDATED: A cleanup pass to the movement and interaction system. Overall this brings a few things in line with where they should be as far as object interaction and movement is concerned. Still more work to do on this.
--When moving to a location, if you click a chest, object or NPC, the closest team member will branch off and interact with that item instead of ignoring the object and continuing to move to the destination.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, other team members will stop and wait.
--If a PC is moving towards an object to interact, another click to move will interrupt the interaction and clear the interaction queue.

UPDATED: The help screen while in space has been updated.
UPDATED: When rolling over grenades and health kits popups, descriptions are now displayed on the screen so you can see what kind of grenade or health kit you are selecting.
UPDATED: The high-resolution space option now also displays higher resolution materials for planets.
UPDATED: In higher level encounters, enemy groups are less likely to be generated with multiple missile launchers. Sure, that was fun, but it can also be overwhelming.
UPDATED: New color coding icons for equipment tiers in all menus.
UPDATED: You can now translocate directly to your ship from anywhere on a trade station if you have the Halamis Translocator equipped.

ADDED: A new device exclusive to the Shikaru faction. Shikaru faction vendors now sell the Lifesign Tracker. This device exposes all lifeforms in the current mission area on the radar for 10 seconds. Enemies out of range of the scanner are displayed at the edge of the radar display. You can use this in any mission area to help you track down those elusive enemies hiding in small rooms or in the larger mission areas like caverns and stations. The device has a 2-minute cooldown. The device cannot be used to reveal ethereal creatures. The device uses a global cooldown so other team members that also have the device equipped will need to wait until the cooldown expires. The cooldown persists between saves. There will be many more useful devices coming to the game - cloaking devices, resource node scanners for salvaging, drones for scouting areas and destroying upcoming turret placements in missions etc.

ADDED: Bloom filter setting in the video options screen.

FIXED: A bug that would display the wrong number of available faction tokens when purchasing an item from a faction vendor.
FIXED: When purchasing an item from a faction vendor, the text sent to the log now correctly indicates that you used tokens to purchase the item.
FIXED: The beacon icon now disappears if active when you FTL out of a star system.
FIXED: Blending issues with nebula effects. Overall, nebula effects now better match the star system sky and are more subtle.
FIXED: Removed duplicate log entry when turning in faction missions.
FIXED: A floating container in one of the mission areas and a number of other visual glitches in various mission areas.
FIXED: A mission enemy that was linked to a group on the other side of the mission map in one of the mission areas.


A little of what you can expect for the NEXT content patch:



The first set of final models for some of the ships (10 total)
Victory FT-2 - Light Fighter
Arrow FT-1 - Light Fighter
Triumph ITC-4 - Interceptor
Rovah MK-1 - Explorer
Talon ATKR-2 - Medium Fighter
Khaal ATKR-4 - Heavy Fighter
Tarsus MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Severin MRCH-2 - Light Merchant
Heron MRCH-3 - Light Merchant
Exetor ATKR-7 - Heavy Fighter

Cargo transfer on stations
Ground mining drone system
Commodities and trading tied to the beacon system currently in the game
Updated animations
Improvements to the pace of combat (tied to the new animations)
Faction Agents will buy scan data

That's not all of course and I'll be working my way through the "What's Next" and "Roadmap" posts on the forums as I move towards Alpha.

As promised, here are a few of the items I mentioned I would get in before X-Mas. This patch adds new options for sorting and marking inventory items. Stellar Tactics has tons of loot and inventory management was a hassle. You can now mark items for sale, sort items in the vendor UI's and bulk sell marked items and vendor trash. You should also see a large increase in the cash rewards from incursions and a large increase in the credits earned from selling loot to friendly factions. Hope you enjoy the update:

UPDATED: You can now mark items for sale in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold. Just Alt-Click items to mark them for sale.
--A check mark will appear over the item in your shared inventory.
--A check mark will appear next to the item in the cargo and stash lists.
--Alt-Click again to remove the marked state.
--You cannot mark stacked items for sale (health packs, grenades etc.)
--You can also mark ore - however, see below - I've added a special "SELL ALL ORE" button to the vendor inventory.


UPDATED: Vendors now have new options that let you sell all marked items from your inventories and all junk items in your inventories. Make sure you really want all of these items sold before you select these options. Of course, you can always buy them back if you made a mistake.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all marked items from your shared inventory, stash and cargo bay with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log.
--When selling to a vendor, you can sell all junk items with one click. Each item sold will be displayed in the game log and a total for the transaction will be displayed in your log. Selling all junk sells all vendor trash items in both your shared inventory and stash.
--If you have your cargo bay selected, a special option to sell all ore with one click replaces the "SELL ALL JUNK" option. Again, items sold and total credits earned will be displayed in the log.

UPDATED: You can now easily see the quality of items in your shared inventory, stash and cargo hold:
--In your shared inventory, items now have a color-coded border that displays if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.
--In your stash and cargo hold, there are new icons in the lists that are displayed if the items are exceptional, rare, legendary or epic.

UPDATED: The vendor UI now displays the quality of items with new color-coded icons in both the player's list area on the right of the screen and the vendor's area on the left. This should help you quickly identify items that are of value when trading. This also applies to ship equipment vendors. Marked items are also displayed when trading with vendors. You cannot mark items for sale in the vendor UI.



UPDATED: You now have sorting options in the vendor menu for all item types on both the vendor and the player sides of the vendor UI.
--Ground-based sorting options are white icons.
--Ship equipment and ore sorting options are blue icons.
--One icon is for consumables - the white health kit icon displays both health kits and ammo. This also applies to ammo and data beacons in the ship equipment vendor UI.

UPDATED: Other than ore, all prices at vendors are now modified by your faction. Ore prices will be worked on when I get the trading system in the game. These bonuses and penalties also apply to the price of ships and ship equipment and the trade in value of your current ship. These bonuses and penalties are applied after your CHA bonus is applied to the cost of items.
--FRIENDLY: +15% bonus to the value of all items sold/ -15% to the price of items purchased
--NEUTRAL: Prices for items bought and sold are the same as they have always been
--WARY: -15% applied to the value of all items sold / +15% to the price of items purchased
--HOSTILE: You are KOS and cannot buy and sell to hostile merchants

UPDATED - Mods equipped on weapons now display mod adjustment values instead of the mod name in the rollover info.

UPDATED - The number of beacons you have in inventory is now displayed in the ammunition area of the ship UI.

UPDATED - Cash rewards for space combat incursions increased significantly.

FIXED: Ore is now listed in alphabetical order on ore traders
FIXED: Removed duplicate ore vendor entry for "Silica"

Patch day! - All perks for combat skills are now in the game to level 100. FIRST AID and HACKING perks have also been added to level 100. Space-specific skill perk lines for PILOTING, WEAPONRY, ELECTRONICS and TARGETING perks are all in the game for an additional 60 perks. I'll be adjusting all perks over time as other game systems are implemented.

The middle perk line in ELECTRONICS is related to security and will be used at a later time. For now, selecting perks in this line will have no effect.

Mining perks can be selected, however, they are not fully implemented for now. I'll be adding these when I get the ground mining drone system in the game. You do get bonuses from the WEAPONRY skill perks from reload speed and energy efficiency when mining so you should see a boost from those perks.

Perks are useful in a number of ways. For ground combat, they can give you bonuses towards applying various status effects and mitigating different damages types. They are most useful for customizing your team for offensive, balanced or defensive roles. They apply secondary bonuses for applying additional damage, bleeding, hobbled, stunned, crippled, poison and shield strike-through effects. The defensive line provides additional AC and bonus mitigation against status effects.

Healing perks provide additional healing effects and the ability to remove status effects when applying med-kits. At higher levels they can remove stun, poison, bleeding, hobbled and crippled states.

Hacking perks provide bonuses to the length of time you have to select a key when hacking a chest or locker, bonus loot quality, and even auto-completing hacking.

Space perks affect all crew station bonuses displayed on the ship screen [K] - Ship speed, turn rate and evasion - Damage bonuses, reload speed and energy efficiency - scan range, security (not active yet) and shield bonuses - turret lock speed, chance to hit and shield bypass.

Perks can be changed at any time - an unusual design decision. I did not want to lock players into any specific perk decisions. In Stellar Tactics perks are situational and as development continues that will be much more important at higher levels.

As I roll out crafting, repair, salvaging and adjustments to mining, I'll also add perks for those skills. They are all interrelated and each of those skills will need to be worked on at the same time.

The total number of perks currently in the game:
Combat - 135
General - 30
Space - 60
Total - 225 perks

A few additional fixes and updates for this patch:

ADDED - Combat, first aid and hacking perks to level 100.
ADDED - Space combat perks for all space skills to level 100.
UPDATED - You can now rotate the camera with the mouse (right mouse button) while panning with the keyboard (WASD) during ground exploration.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, some ships would enter combat but not fire at you.
FIXED - If an incursion spawned at your exact location, tab targeting could crash the game in some cases.
FIXED - A message - "Press [P] to pause space combat at any time!" would continuously display even after docking or landing at a ground location.
FIXED - Ship shield strike through bonuses are now working correctly.
FIXED - A damage display error in the character info screen.
FIXED - A rare lockup when accepting missions from faction agents.
FIXED - Missile launchers now respect the friendly fire player settings.
FIXED - A bug that caused the action bar background to disappear when characters died, were KO'd or when the last enemy died of bleeding or poison damage.
FIXED: A bug that could place you at an incorrect initial entry point for missions.

Hi all - new patch today that fixes a number of issues.

I'm nearly finished with the perks for ground combat, space and several of the general skills. There will be an additional 66 perks to complete the combat, first-aid and hacking perk lines. I'm also adding all the space combat perks for an additional 60. That's a total of 126 new perks added to the game and a grand total of 225 perks! I hope to have these tested and ready to release soon. I'll be adding the additional perks for salvaging, repair and crafting as those systems get released. Mining perks are dependent on the drone mining system, so those will go in when I release that feature.

There is quite a bit of other work going on. This includes the drone mining system, updated animations including the new special weapon attacks, and more. Here are the notes:

FIXED: Duplicate display of team position in some missions. There was a display error in the mission completion map next to the radar that would display your location in mission areas more than once in some cases.
FIXED - Removed duplicate eliminate mission targets from mission areas.
FIXED - A bug related to applying armor strike through at high levels of melee skill. This changes things for melee at higher levels both for enemies and team members. Overall higher damage output from melee.
FIXED - Delayed damage and visual effects when using flamethrowers.
FIXED - A display error related to mods applied to weapons with critical chance modifiers.
FIXED - A game lockup when using the toggle combat toolbar icon or other toolbar icons while transitioning in and out of combat.
FIXED - Enemies and the player no longer scan the environment for each other while transitioning in and out of combat. In some cases, this could result in a game lockup.
FIXED - A number of data issues with some of the mission sets.
FIXED - Line of sight lines now disappear immediately when an enemy dies. Previously, the could remain visible until the enemy disappeared.
FIXED - When completing a mission, the entire message is now displayed on the screen. Previously, the text was being cut off.
FIXED - A number of general stability fixes.
UPDATED - If you have a healthkit enabled, you can now click character portraits to heal in and out of combat.
UPDATED - All ships drop at least one loot crate, even in systems that are -10 levels of your average space combat skills.
UPDATED - Your ship will tractor dropped enemy ship crates from a much larger distance now. Should help in cases where an enemy ship is too close to a planet when destroyed.
UPDATED - Improved load speeds by a few seconds
UPDATED - Reduced the amount of information sent to the log. In some cases, when playing very long sessions, this may lead to problems.
UPDATED - Voice comments adjusted:
--Team members now comment on critical hits less often.
--Team members will only comment on loot if the item looted is armor or a weapon and of rare quality and above.