Star Explorers News

Liquid surfaces on planets were getting strange lighting issues. I have modified the material I use, so this should not happen anymore. However, the liquids are now looking a bit darker than they should. I may still modify this a bit.

Mining stations will now appear closer to the center of the map. Previously, mining stations appeared right by the player's landing spot. However this was causing some weird issues with NPC disappearing. I've moved them to the center of the map to avoid this issue - rather than actually fixing the problem :)

Miner dialogue has been updated with new statements. They are no longer going to repeat the same info as NPCs on the mothership, but will offer their own unique perspective to the player.

Dialogue repeat issue - previously, NPCs could repeat themselves in the dialogue window. This has been resolved for new NPCs, but existing, reloaded NPCs may still have this issue.

The day/night cycle got another slight adjustment. Now the sun's position should be more consistent between visits to a planet. I also adjusted the sun's brightness a bit, it was getting too bright on certain planets.

A few other minor bugs and issues were also addressed. Nothing that effects gameplay.

I was able to track down a bug that I believe was responsible for a crash that happened occasionally when landing on planets - software crash, not spaceship crash. I have not experienced the crash since, so hopefully that was the cause.

[h3]Day/Night Cycle[/h3]
I also re-introduced the new day-night cycle feature. In this version of the game, when you land on a planet, it might be either day or night. Previously, planets always started in the day time, and you would have to stay on the surface for a long time to see night.

UPDATE: I just uploaded 0.6.4a which fixes one small problem and one potentially big problem.

After entering a cave the sun would go back to its original position when you returned to the surface. Now the position should be consistent upon entering and leaving caves.

Also, I replaced UFO textures with a new file type that requires less memory. It caused a crash, but that should hopefully no longer happen.

So yesterday's experiment worked (kind of) but also seemed to introduce some fresh bugs that I was not ready to deal with. It seems the other programmer's script, while fine in and of itself, was clashing in unpredictable ways with the existing Star Explorers script.

So I have rolled back the changes. But I learned quite a bit from this experience, and so I have updated the existing screen resolution script based on that new perspective.

I am hoping this new script is more robust and compatible with different computers and set ups.

[h3]Full Screen[/h3]
By default, the game should open in full screen mode, at the same resolution as your current desktop.

[h3]Video Options[/h3]
You will only be able to access the video options from the main menu. When you change video options, you will need to restart the game. This is a limitation that I realize is inconvenient, but once it is set up, you should not have to revisit these settings.

Here you should be able to switch to window mode, and also optionally add a border to the window. Note, the window and border should not exceed the desktop size. If you set it at or above the desktop size, screen resolution will not work, and should go to a 1280 x 720 window. This is the minimum size at which Star Explorers can and should be run.

If you have any trouble setting the window size, or if it does not default in full screen mode, please let me know.

This is a pretty major update, and I am expecting some issues to pop up. I have reached out to another programmer who made a resolution configuration script, and we integrated it with Star Explorers. It looks like it is working as designed (mostly) and it feels a lot more robust than the one I wrote.

When you run the game, the resolution options panel will pop up automatically. It should store whatever settings you use, so once it's set up, you'll just have to click "Play!" to go forward.

[h3]Note:[/h3]
You can still change the video settings in the Options Panel, but do not try to set resolution there, it will not work.

[h3]Issue: [/h3]
UPDATE: As of version 0.6.2a the window (fullscreen) seems to have been resolved. It should allow you to set the screen size to 1280 x 720 (which is still my recommended size for the game) and have it fill your whole screen without giving you really small menus and text, as can happen at higher resolutions.

There is a new mode called window (fullcreen) that allows you to play full screen, but it is somehow not really full screen. One of the options here is to choose a lower resolution like 1280 x 720, and have it fill your screen, so the game would be kind of zoomed in. This option is not working correctly right now. But normal window mode and normal full screen modes should be working. God Willing!

I would really love to hear your feedback on this one, as would the programmer I am working with.