Star Explorers News

Your inventory panel will now show all the accessories you have acquired in the game. These are not new items, but things that already existed in the game.

The Star Chart Upgrade, the Backpack and Storage Expansions, and several other items, when used, would take an effect on your game, but in some cases there was no visual indication that you had used the item. Rather, the item would simply disappear and the effect would take place from that point forward.



Now you have a simple, visual representation of which effects you have acquired. In the image above, you can see icons for the Star Char Upgrade, as well as the Storage Wormhole.

Currently this feature simply shows the icons. It does not let you click on them or learn what they do, once they have been used. I am thinking of adding this functionality though. I am also considering the idea of removing, or replacing these accessories. Right now the game only has a total of 10 possible accessories, so there is no need for removing or replacing them. But if I come up with some interesting accessory ideas, we may see this idea implemented.

[h3]Price Change[/h3]
Regarding the upcoming price change, I am trying to coordinate it between a few different online stores. It may take a couple more days to get done.

Fruits are now edible. You can pick them up, and they will appear in your inventory. You can also sell them (though I have not actually tested this yet).

Eating them may have an effect, and it may not. The effect may be good, or it may be bad. Fruit is a gamble...

The color and shapes of fruit should provide a consistent effect, so once you have eaten a round, orange fruit, you will know what all round, orange fruits do.

Most fruit should be static, behaving like fruit on earth. Fruit that interacts with you or other creatures should be rare. Static fruits will have the same effects as their moving counterparts, as long as the color and shape are the same.

For version 6.0 there will be a new price for Star Explorers!

The game will transition from the current price of $4.99 to $9.99.

This will be happening on Friday night, allowing for Valve's approval. So if you've been thinking about getting Star Explorers, now would be a good time!

[h3]Fruit[/h3]
This update introduces "Fruit," a new type of life form on some planets.

Currently you will see fruit anywhere there are trees or tree-like organisms. I plan to update this to make their appearance more varied.

Each fruit type will be a bit different from others. Most of them will behave like fruit here on earth behave ... they won't really do much at all, but may drop from their trees.

However some fruits may have behaviors. These differ from other life forms as they will also react to each other, instead of just to other life forms. Another difference is that their behavior with respect to other fruits will be different than their behavior towards non fruits. Some fruits, when they stray too far away from their tree, will race back to her.



Currently, fruits will not harm the player nor can they be harmed by the player or by other aliens. They may trigger a floater to explode though. This may also change in the next update, and some fruits may be dangerous ... not quite sure yet.

[h3]Picking Fruit[/h3]
Another thing that makes fruit unique is that you will be able to pick them up and add them to your inventory. Currently, each fruit will take up a full inventory slot. I think I will keep it this way as each one will have slightly different parameters.

[h3]Eating Fruit[/h3]
This is not implemented yet. Your character will be able to eat the fruit, and receive some kind of effect. It may be beneficial, or harmful, or something in between the two. This should be ready in the next update.

[h3]Dropping Fruit[/h3]
Dropping fruit on a planet surface, or in a cave (not tested yet) will allow the fruit to resume its normal fruit-like behavior. But instead of being tied to its tree, the fruit will think of you as its mommy.

[h3]Why Fruit?[/h3]
I'm not sure what I'm doing here. Players have asked me to add something that allows more to be done on planet surfaces. Having plants, it seemed logical to include some kind of fruits on some of them. I don't really know if or how they will effect the gameplay. I am hoping they players will discover some cool things to do with them.

The Version 6.0 Beta just got an update.

I am tweaking the way life can form on planets.

[h3]Vapor Worlds[/h3]
Previously, planets with a vaporized atmosphere, i.e. no surface liquid, could randomly have life on them. This is mostly still the case, but it is not quite as random. These planets will only have a chance for life if the temperature is not much higher than the boiling point of the surface liquid.

[h3]Floaters[/h3]
Floaters were originally going to be life forms that were completely independent of normal factors like having an atmosphere, temperature etc... This is still the case. However, floaters will now always appear on planets with other life.

[h3]Smoke Beasts[/h3]
Not to be confused with floaters(!). Smoke beasts look a bit like floating clouds, but they tend to behave more like the animal style alien creatures. Well, these guys just got a bunch of new, random attributes. These don't contribute a whole lot in terms of gameplay, but they will appear in a much wider variety of colors and forms. I am excited to see your screenshots as you encounter some of these, as I am not sure I can predict all the various possibilities.

The Version 6.0 testing branch has a new update.

There was a bug where, when approaching the mothership, if you cancelled the docking procedure, the UI would become unresponsive and you could no longer click on stars or the mothership itself.

I believe this is fixed now.

I was also able to fix the issue where the docking sound would play even if you had the volume all the way down (sorry for scaring any of you).