Star Explorers News

Okay, I have updated the testing version of Star Explorers. I want to make a small clarification. If you have been using the "testing" version, you should switch over to the "beta" version. That is still currently on version 3.5. Originally, I made the testing version for my own use, so I could test it before updating the beta.

Recently, I got lazy, and just updated the testing version, ignoring the beta version.

Testing is supposed to be for me to make sure everything is working before I update the beta. It's just an extra level of protection for players. But if you feel like you are on the cutting edge of Star Exploring ... feel free to continue to use the testing version.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I refactored the code and fixed a bunch of potential missing pointer problems.

Also, I believe I was able to isolate the crash some players experienced while using the star chart in full screen mode. I was able to get the game to crash, just to see if I could reproduce the problem. I made some adjustments, and now it does not crash in the Star Chart in full screen mode.

The game will still crash if you load a saved game, after going back to the main menu while in-game. The saved game will load fine, but then it will crash when you try to land on a planet.

The good news is that I was able to reproduce this problem too, so that is always the first step in fixing a bug. I expect to be able to address this in the next update.

Nothing too exciting to report, however, I have spent this past week refactoring a lot of code in Star Explorers. I encountered quite a few pointers that were not properly conditioned, so they could have been resulting in random crashes. I fixed these, and also removed a bunch of pointers that were not being used.


The glamorous excitement of refactoring code, in all it's glorious splendor!

For anyone who does not know, pointers are references to game objects, that allow one game object to modify or effect another. However, if a script references a pointer, and that pointer has not yet been assigned, or has somehow been removed, then the game will crash.

By adding a line like this: "if (pointer exists)" before referencing it, I am able to make the script more stable. Most of my pointers already had these conditions set, but I guess there were a few that I did not write as carefully as I should have.

Now for some testing to make sure I didn't break anything along the way! I expect to release a new testing version of the game in the next few days.

If you've been following the devlog I started on www.schmidtworkshops.com you will already know what's been updated.

The following issues have been addressed:

• Switching or Reloading a weapon now prevents it from being fired
  
• The speed of the mouse is now factored into camera movement
  
• Item generation is now optimized to generate a wider variety of items
  
• Alien generation is also optimized similarly
  
• UFO damage will be more noticeable
  
• UFOs should now have a glowing effect, and should be more visible
  
• Camera tilt has been increased to 90 degrees (used to be 60 degrees)
  

Do let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

I will continue to post here when I actually upload an update to the game. However, between actual updates I plan to write up a daily summary of my activities on my website. Here is the most recent one...

https://schmidt-workshops.weebly.com/dev-blog/item-variety

I hope you will visit my website, please feel free to add your thoughts to the conversation! I hope to have a new update for the "testing" version of Star Explorers some time this week.

Version 3.4 is now available for testing. If you are interested in the testing version of Star Explorers, go to "Star Explorers > Properties > Betas" and choose "testing" from the drop down menu.


I have just fixed a few small issues, and one kind of major one.

Caves - I had been testing something with cave formations, and had changed a few properties in the cave generation map. However, when I was done testing, I forgot to switch things back to normal, so certain cave tiles had the wrong "passable" setting. This allowed the character to pass through certain walls, or, if they got deep enough into a cave, it would prevent the gravity script from working, and the character would no longer move downwards. This problem would only have effected players the first time they entered a particular cave, but caves that had been reloaded would have worked fine. Definitely let me know if you see this problem recurring, because that would mean there was another cause in addition to the altered level file.

Posterize Effect - So a few people had contacted me to ask why the new version of Star Explorers looked weird. Well, it was a posterizing effect that I thought would make the game look neat and edgy ... I guess it was not to people's liking. Anyway, it is no longer going to be the default look for this and future versions of the game. If you did like it, the option to turn it back on is in the "Video Options" menu.

Mothership Bug - due to a scripting error, it had become possible to drop a beacon on more than one planet in a given sector, causing the mothership to also move around within that sector. This was never intended, and so has been corrected.

UFO Visibility - UFOs should now appear bright and glowing, where they were occasionally very dark and hard to spot.


I have been writing down a number of issues to work on, this is just the first of many upcoming updates. Feel free to report any issues you encounter either here on the forum, or on the Schmidt Workshops discord. https://discord.gg/7QhKvGH

Some players have had issues installing and running the game. It seems a computer reboot might be necessary at times.

Also, some players have mentioned errors or crashes when viewing the star chart, specifically when pressing the "target sector" button, or clicking on empty areas of the map. So far I have been unable to reproduce these errors, but will keep trying. If you had this problem, or have found a way to reproduce it consistently, please let me know.