Stellar Tactics News

I’m posting a video first look at the crafting system today. There is still a good bit of cleanup, bugs to fix and balancing work to do. I’m hoping to have this patched into the game in a week or so.

https://youtu.be/f7ZLqCSHYLM

Crafting requires various components:

• Crafting components are broken down from items you find in the world using the salvaging skill
  
• Refined ore and rare earth minerals from mining or purchased from the Trade-Net
  
• Finishing items salvaged from junk you find in your travels
  

Crafting requires schematics that are unlocked as you salvage items and learn more about them. Schematics can also be very rare drops from various enemies and in ship crates. Over time you will gather a large number of schematics that can be used to craft gear for your crew and parts for your ships.

Assuming you have a schematic and the required resources (components and refined ore) you can begin crafting by selecting a crafting station found on trade stations across the universe. I’ll also be adding crafting stations to ship interiors when I patch the boarding system into the game at a later time.

Once you find a crafting station, you can select a schematic and the table is automatically filled with the resources you need to craft the item. Refined ore and rare earth minerals are pulled from your cargo hold and from the station's storage when crafting, so, you can stockpile these items on stations if you want to. Components and refined ore are required. However, it is very important to also have a good stock of rare earth minerals and finishing items.

Some crafted items have additional options you can select. For example, beam pistols and rifles have options to select various damage types. Ship equipment requires you to select a ship type. Your current ship is always selected by default.

You can re-roll the base stats for most items. Ground weapons are the exception as they scale on the weapon skill of the crew member. When crafting a weapon, you can select crew portraits to preview the weapons stats on that particular character.

Rare earth minerals – At various stages in crafting negative and positive “conditions” may develop. If you do not have the appropriate rare earth mineral, it could cost you finishing points, increase your chance for a crafting process failure and decrease the number of actions you have resulting in a lower quality item. Having the correct rare earth minerals will also let you trigger bonus effects for additional finishing points and extra action points.

Finishing items – The last stage of crafting is finishing. At that point, you should have the correct finishing items from salvaging to take advantage of allocating finishing touches to the item. These additional points increase the effectiveness of the item you are crafting.
In general, high quality crafted items will always be better than item drops or equipment found on vendors. The exception to this will be some of the new bosses that will be coming to the game and perhaps faction gear which will see a re-balance in the near future. When crafting weapons, especially higher quality weapons with mod slots, those slots are unlocked based on the quality of the crafted item. In addition, higher quality items unlock more finishing options so you will need to keep an eye on conditions when they pop up.

That’s all I have to show for now. I hope you enjoy the first look at the crafting system!

I’m posting a work in progress video today that shows the salvaging portion of the crafting system which is nearly complete. I still have a bit of work to do on the UI and balancing. The video also shows the first completed ship interior for the boarding system. More details below.

https://youtu.be/Dy3GbDkl2Vg
Crafting requires components and the salvaging system lets you mark items in your inventory, stash and cargo hold for disassembly. As you disassemble items, you will gather crafting components and the finishing items you will need to craft equipment for your ships and crew.

You can salvage items anywhere. That is, you do not need to travel to a salvaging station to break items into component parts. Initially, I was going to tie salvaging to a static salvaging station that would be on your ship and space stations. I felt it would be a lot more useful if you could do this at any time, clearing inventory of excess equipment and vendor junk items. Crafting material storage is infinite so you won’t need to worry about max inventory for these items.

Equipment – When disassembling equipment, you will gain salvaging experience, component parts, finishing items and progress towards learning a locked crafting schematic for that item type (based on the quality of the item).

Junk items – Junk items generate finishing materials. These will be used in the finishing stage of crafting to assign stats, weapon min/max damage values, and other bonuses to equipment. In general, crafting an item can result in a finished item with bonuses and stats that are better than any item you can buy or find in the game.

I’ll be starting on the crafting portion of the system next now that I can generate crafting components. This will take a while and I hope you all enjoy the system when it’s finished.


Ship interiors are being worked on. These interiors will be used for a number of purposes:

• Boarding: Disable a ship and enter through the airlock. Various doors to be hacked, hostile enemies defending their ships and objects that need to be repaired – not to mention loot and the ability to sell these ships for profit.
  
  
• Missions: There will be a number of missions that may pop up as a communication from a disabled ship, rescues and a few other scenarios that will require entering other ships.
  
  
• Your home: Ships will serve as a place to store goods, interact with the crew and craft items.
  

That’s all I have for now. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

A few fixes and QoL requests addressed today. The patch should be posted shortly. As always, if you find any bugs/issues, please post on the bug forums. I'll address any critical issues promptly.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/7/

Just a note about the crafting and salvaging system. The paper design is nearly complete. I should start implementing these systems next week starting with the base salvaging system related to inventory items (junk, weapons, armor, turrets, etc.). From there I'll start implementing the crafting system using those salvaged items. I'll provide more details in a post at some point as I get closer to finalizing the system. I don't want to make any promises until I have it fully working and have time to test and tweak things.

Crafting will not be just a matter of adding x + y + z to create a new finished item. There will be multiple stages of crafting similar to:

• Setup - Setup the crafting table with salvaged components, and resources of varying qualities
  
• Process - Process the components using various resources
  
• Finish - Finish the crafting session enhancing the item and adding stats, bonuses, slots etc with remaining CP (crafting points)
  

I'll keep everyone posted as I make progress.

FIXED: Completed eliminate missions now display the green "cleared" state on the mission objective map if an area is cleared after the primary "eliminate" mission objective is completed.
FIXED: Hacking tool no longer displays stats. All hacking bonuses were moved to perks a while ago.
FIXED: If you were queuing up attacks and ran out of ammo when using the combat queue - the game would lock up and you would need to reload a save to continue. Bad bug - thanks for reporting it!
FIXED: A very rare case where some system configurations could not load required DLL's at the start of the game causing a forced exit when clicking past the EA display screen.
FIXED: A bug that would display "NONE" in the dialog field instead of Dr. Emily Jensen while in the Ruins.
FIXED: A number of typos.
UPDATED: Key binds would not allow binding of the up and down arrow keys. All key binds have been reset and you will need to re-map your keys. I am looking into key binds for grenades and med-kits for a future patch.
UPDATED: When a weapon is equipped, mod slots are now clearly labeled in the weapon mod slots menu as "Mod slot not available". This should make it less confusing when players try to identify equipped weapons that actually have mod slots.
UPDATED: Added arrows to the portraits on the character information and inventory screens so you can scroll through active crew members with the mouse rather than using the F1-F4 keys. The F1-F4 keys still work if you prefer to use them.
UPDATED: Adjusted ship materials so they load faster resulting in less hitching when NPC ships are loaded in star systems and the FTL map.
ADDED: "Steering" mode for ships. Holding the left and right mouse buttons will now place the camera behind and slighting above the ship. You can move your mouse in any direction to steer the ship in this mode. Additionally, the left and right turn keys used while in steering mode will accelerate turns. Releasing the mouse buttons will return control to the normal state.

Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics and I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

I'm adding the ground exploration map today. This is likely the most requested feature from players since I first started gathering feedback. It includes fog of war, zoom, and scrolling. I hope you all enjoy the update.

I'm also including increased experience for space combat, first-aid and hacking skills. If you do find any issues with this patch, please post in the bug forums. Here are the patch notes:

ADDED: Added the map.
--The map includes fog of war so you can view where you have been.
--Zoom, scroll, center.
--You can see various icons like mission markers, vendors, faction agents, exits, mercenaries, etc. A "legend" for the various icons which match the radar is available on the map.
--Persistent data. Wherever you go in the universe, your tracked progress is saved.
--Your saved key binds have been replaced so I could remap "M" as the default key for the map. The crew manager has been moved to "J".
--The in-game help screen and guide have been updated to match the new default keys.

FIXED: When exploring ground locations with a single crew member, the game will no longer crash when manually entering or leaving combat.
FIXED: A bug that could generate ship equipment when turning in agent missions. This would place ship equipment in general inventory instead of the cargo bay - breaking rollover info and a few other things. NPC's now have a brief cooldown period before you can interact with them when an area loads. IMPORTANT - If you do find any ship equipment in your general inventory (not in your cargo bay), you should drag that item to the trash and delete it. These items cannot be sold or used.
FIXED: "Gadolinium" added to the commodities market. Trade contracts for this item will start to appear over time.
UPDATED: Reduced space skill experience requirements per level.
UPDATED: Mercenaries now display a bright yellow dot on the radar and map so they can be distinguished from other regular NPC's on stations around the universe.
UPDATED: Hacking and First aid skill progression will now continue even if you are at the level cap.
UPDATED: Reduced hacking and first-aid experience requirements per level.
UPDATED: Improved dynamic shadow resolution.


FIXED: The objective tracker now correctly targets the mission return location if an agent mission is completed.
FIXED: Agent mission return destinations in the objective tracker now correctly targets a planets surface or station depending on where the mission was originally accepted. This is not retroactive, so previous missions, if taken on a planet surface, will target stations.
FIXED: A error with default FTL drives that was calculating base FTL speed incorrectly. This fix is not retroactive so if you do have a "Stock" FTL drive that seems faster than other quality level FTL drives available for sale, you get to keep it. You will likely want to swap out that FTL drive eventually when sub-system damage goes in the game for a FTL drive with higher HP.
FIXED - Old autosaves are no longer displayed in the save game menu.
FIXED - When swapping crew members in and out of your active crew, it was possible that perks from the previous crew member would be assigned/enabled on a crew member that had not selected those perks.
FIXED - A bug that was not correctly displaying shield bonuses from the electronics station (perks etc.) unless the crew member was in the active ground crew.
FIXED - A bug related to recruiting NPC crew members gaining incorrect Hand2Hand skill for secondary weapon if that was their specialty.
FIXED - Closed out a number of bugs related to the Trade-Net displaying incorrect contract target system information. This rarely resulted in arriving in a system that was not the correct destination target.
ADDED - Added the old music into the music track list for space and ground exploration.
ADDED - you can now preview mercs before recruiting them. Mercs now cost an initial fee based on their level. High-level mercs can be very expensive, so fill out your crew early in the game.
UPDATED - An increase in the base number of trade goods vendors buy/sell.
UPDATED - The last audio track played in an area is saved and loaded the next time you load an area.
UPDATED - You can now place beacons on the FTL map. When you get close enough to a star system, the beacon icon will be displayed in the lower left of the screen. Target the system, open the beacon menu and you can place a beacon in the targeted system. You cannot destroy beacons or translocate using the beacon menu on the FTL map. This should help players quickly build a larger Trade-Net.
UPDATED - When in FTL space, star system labels now display a "*" next to their name if a beacon has already been placed in this system. It should make it easy to identify systems where you could place a beacon to expand your Trade-Net.

Patch day - a few updates and fixes this week.


You can now unlock Smuggling. Speak with Forley Coresh on the Achmedius Trade Station to start your career. Smuggling is a fairly dangerous career and you will be harassed by Raiders and Scavvers if you have active contraband contracts. I recommend a starship with decent weapons, shields and balanced power systems. This is a great career for those of you who want to make money from trading smuggled goods and of course from all that loot you are going to find by eliminating the enemy ships that attack you. For now, you do not need to worry about The Authority (not in the game yet). I have a few interesting plans for the smuggling system including a few ship enhancements, timed smuggling missions and extended story content related to The Syndicate. If you read the dialog carefully, you might notice an intro to future story content and a long-standing mystery surrounding the loss of your crew, depending on the options you choose.

Smuggling requires a large Trade-Net to be effective - so place beacons in every system you find with orbiting stations. Contraband goods are traded all over the universe, but not as often as normal commodities.

Ships may attack each other now. You can join in and help or ignore these skirmishes. In some cases, if you do decide to help, you have a good chance of finding loot from dropped cargo containers. Rarely, regardless of whether you engage or not, cargo containers are dropped from these ships and you may find them floating in space. This is the start of the faction warfare system (just the start) and these engagements are generally between the various factions and Scavvers and Raiders entering and leaving systems.

I've added a mission and contract tracker to the HUD when traveling in space. You can now see active missions or trade contracts on this list. While in FTL space, you can select any destination and the Star System the mission or contract is located in will automatically be selected in the info panel so you can click the approach icon and fly to that system. If you are in Star System that has a mission or contract, selecting an item in the tracker will select the planet or station where the mission or contract is located so you can easily approach that location without needing to open the log to reference mission information. The tracker is also useful for translocating as it displays contract destinations and commodities in the list.

And one last thing - 35 new music tracks for space, ground exploration and combat greatly enhance the atmosphere of the game.

If you find any problems with this build, please post on the bug forums and I'll address the issues promptly.

Patch notes:
ADDED: A short mission that unlocks Smuggling. Speak with Forley Coresh on the Achmedius Trade Station. He will help you start your new career.
ADDED: The Objective Tracker. All missions and Trade-Net contracts (buy/sell) are now displayed in the objective tracker while in space. The tracker can be opened/closed using an icon on the right center of the space exploration UI. Selecting a tracker mission or contract entry will display the targeted star system, planet or station in the info panels so you can easily navigate to the destination. Selecting an item in the tracker will:
1) Target the destination planet or station if you are in the same Star System where the mission/contract is located
2) Target the destination Star System if you are in FTL space

UPDATED: Increased the min/max base margin values for the Trade-Net across the board. This means there will be lower sale prices and higher buy prices available depending on the size of your network. These adjustments will become available over time as trade contracts are refreshed.
UPDATED: When translocating using Jump Points, ship fusion cells are now used instead of ground weapon fusion cells. The cost is still the same - 5 fusion cells per jump.
UPDATED: Incursions now only provide a positive faction bonus for the faction that initiated the incursion.
UPDATED: Faction rewards in space combat adjusted:
--Incursions generate higher individual faction bonuses for the faction that assigned the incursion. Additional factions (factions other than the assigning faction ) no longer generate faction bonuses. It was too easy to gain alignment with other main powers in the Universe while doing work for a specific faction.
--Destroyed ships from non-incursion attacks in hostile systems will only generate negative faction based on that system.
--Destroying ships that are not part of an incursion and not direct attacks in hostile systems will generate single digit faction bonuses for all non-aligned factions and normal negative faction based on the ship destroyed
UPDATED: Trade in values when buying a new ship increased. Note that CHA applies to all ship purchases decreasing the price of buying a ship and increasing the value of your trade-in. This has always been the case.
UPDATED: You now have a much lower chance of being attacked when you have an active delivery contract if that contract is not contraband. A higher chance of being attacked by Raiders and Scavvers if you have an active contraband delivery contract.

FIXED: A lockup when docking at stations, planets and translocating if under enemy ship fire.
FIXED: A rare crash related to enemy ship beam weapons.
FIXED: Incursions will now reward faction for the system where the incursion is taking place, regardless of whether the system is a main or sub-faction.
FIXED: A very rare persistent yellow particle effect left in the scene after space combat.
FIXED: Old auto-saves - that is auto-saves created before the new auto-save system (rotating between 4 dedicated save files) are no longer displayed in the load/save menu. This will clean up save lists for players with games that were created all the way back to the start of Early Access.

Thank you all for supporting the development of Stellar Tactics. Have a great weekend!