Star Explorers News

No not new alien bugs in the game, but bugs in the alien scripts!

Thanks to some super helpful user feedback I was able to eliminate two potentially game crashing bugs when encountering certain bipedal aliens, as well as aliens with "breath" attacks.

If your game crashed wile visiting a planet with bipedal aliens, they will no longer appear on that planet, but other alien types should continue to spawn. This is because bipedal aliens are each unique NPCs with their own names, quests and items to trade.



The good news is that since the bugs have been isolated, any new planets you land on should not cause the crash. Also, any planets you landed on previously with bipedal aliens, without crashing, should continue to load as before, with the aliens intact ... unless you killed them.

One of the things I enjoy about Star Explorers is giving it that retro look and feel. The posterizing shader option (on the video options menu) will now include a PS1 style dithering effect. When combined with the "Old-School Pixels" option, the game really begins to look like something from the early 90s.

For those of you who enjoy higher resolution and more colors, you can always disable these. But, honestly I don't think the game has ever looked better. To each their own.

Here are a few images with the latest shaders...

A simple error was causing robots to crash the game if you encountered and destroyed them in an alien ship.

I have fixed the issue and tested it to confirm it is working as intended, as demonstrated in the following screenshots:

I encountered this robot in the depths of the UFO...


I managed to destroy it, with no crash...


Along with this one...


And this one...


This is unrelated to the issue with bipedal aliens, which still might cause an error. However, as far as I am aware that error does not crash the game, but simply disables the alien, causing it to freeze and stop reacting to the player.

So a while ago someone asked for UI scaling in Star Explorers. I managed a kind of quick fix for this, which allowed you to maximize the game window, (thereby scaling the UI) but only when the window border was showing.

I have updated the game to allow for a kind of full screen maximization.

The old border option is still there, so if you prefer that you can still use it.

[h3]How to Activate Full Screen with UI Scaling[/h3]
However if you do not want to see the border, you can un-check "border" in the video options menu. Then, when you restart the game, it will be in a borderless window. Press F10 to maximize the window and get a full screen with UI scaling. F11 will reduce the window size back to it's original setting.

[h3]What is all This?[/h3]
For any of you who are already using the game's full screen mode, and don't understand all the fuss, it will make more sense if you have a very high resolution monitor. The normal full screen mode does not increase the size of menus and text, so they can become unreadable if you are using a 4K monitor.

With the method mentioned above, you will actually be setting the game's resolution to a lower value (like 1280 x 720 - the default minimum screen size for Star Explorers) and maximizing it, which will stretch out the pixels to fill the screen. So this method stretches out menus and text along with the pixels, giving you a lower resolution, but more readable game.

[h3]Ultra Wide Support[/h3]
This should also work for ultra-wide monitors, as long as you set the resolution to match the ratio of your ultra-wide monitor. For instance, if your monitor is 3840 x 1600, you can set the game's resolution to about half of that (1920 x 800) - make sure it is set to window mode with the border off before you hit restart - then press F10 to stretch that window out to full screen size.

[h3]Alien Interactions [/h3]
Aliens will now interact with each other. They might fight each other, they might run away from each other ... they might do stuff that makes little sense, but that's the point! The goal is to have more emergent gameplay. This, combined with other things like the more robust explosions added last week, will slowly build Star Explorers into a much more dynamic environment.

Here is a strange animal confronted by a star shaped floater



[h3]Additional Revisions since 5.2.5a[/h3]
I've made a few tweaks since the testing branch release a few days ago. Most notable are the increase in alien distance from one another, they used to spawn really close to one another, but now they will be spread out a bit. A couple of other minor issues were also addressed.

• I adjusted how flashing messages work. They flash on and off like before, but I extended the on period and shortened the off period, so they are more readable.
  
• The game now prevents the gun from firing when clicking on tutorial messages in the interactive guide.
  
• Non-lava planets can now have volcanoes.

[h3]Weapon Tiers[/h3]
I have updated the whole weapons system, now weapons have three tiers. Yellow weapons represent the lowest quality weapons. Blue are the middle quality, and red are rare, and highly powerful weapons. From a gameplay standpoint, these kinds of weapons, in terms of the increase in firepower, already existed in the game, but they were not color coded and all looked the same.

I think it adds a certain level of comprehension, so you can tell at a glance which weapons will be more useful. I also might actually update the models, so each tier has more interesting looking weapons, but for now color coding was a fast and easy way to get this system started.

Here, you can see two different color laser pistols (yellow and blue) among other things



[h3]Alien Weapons[/h3]
Bipedal aliens have been given an upgrade. Instead of just standard laser pistols, they can now have assault rifles and even rocket launchers! I have abstained from giving them access to sonic cannons because they would be likely to kill off their friends.

[h3]Weapon Costs[/h3]
Weapons now have a working system of differentiating the cost of the weapon from the cost of any ammo that has been loaded into the weapon. You can still buy and sell loaded weapons. But if you unload them, the price drops accordingly. Rocket launchers and sonic cannons are considerably more valuable when loaded.