Star Explorers News

After playtesting version 2.6 quite a bit, I felt the game has a major flaw. Let me explain... When you upgrade your space suit, it allows you to visit a wider range of planets, giving the player motivation to explore.

Well, the problem is that most of the planets are either too far from their star to be warm enough to support life, or too close and too hot to support life. Since planets with life seem to be more interesting then those without, eventually all the new planets to discover will be dead worlds.

I already addressed this with hot planets by adding life to some of the vapor clouded worlds. However, many more planets are far from their stars, or orbit smaller colder stars, and this allows for a great many cold, dead worlds.

So I added a tougher kind of life that can survive in frozen worlds. These "Tundra" planets have grass, creatures, and stunted kinds of trees that are not found on other worlds.


A while back, I added crystal planets. These are a great place to find needed crystals for some blueprints. Well, I also added the possibility for these planets to be inhabited by crystal creatures.


Some planets have fungus like growths instead of trees and plants. Now, on some of these worlds the wildlife will also have fungus like growths instead of fur.


I had a problem with the grass, in that it would react to the player's flashlight in an unnatural way. The grass would glow too brightly for my taste. I have spent a long time tweaking the grass materials and the way they react to light. I think it looks much more natural now...

I had been testing the crystal planets, and had to turn off that option in the process. I forgot to turn it back on in the last build, so I just posted another update with that addressed.

I have been playing and testing version 2.6 extensively this week. So far it looks stable. I found a couple small issues and have just updated the game.

In the last update I changed the cave and enemy spaceship interiors slightly, but forgot to update the ancient ruin interior to work with the change. This has been fixed.

I also adjusted the number of gems the game generates in caves. It was way too low, and now it should feel a bit more balanced. Especially if you are trying to collect gems for a key blueprint.

I have reduced the number of space suits the game generates when exploring. Some caves would have 5 or more spacesuits at times. Considering they are the most expensive items you can find, I wanted to make them a bit more rare.