https://steamcommunity.com/games/CelestialCommand/partnerevents/view/2082293429501557003 Actually we planned to publish that announcement at March 31, but a bit more time was required so we delayed it on the next day, but turned out that the next day is April 1, so we decided it would be interesting to publish announcement today : )
Of course it would be too cruel if such announcement was an April joke, so it is not. In the next update Celestial Command will be with full 3D physics and ship editor!
So, most systems already adapted for functionality in 3D but need to implement a few more systems before new version can be released in experimental build.
Also we are working on design of various modules and placement of mounting points to provide enough parts to create ships with various design.
Some modules remodeled and a bit redesigned because it should have proper dimensions on vertical axis too and also additional mounting points. For example new corridors has more symmetrical profile and can be stacked to each other with different angles.
Fun fact, after we switched to 3D, we need less variations of basic shapes to achieve various ship designs. Only a few basic shapes is enough because now each module can be rotated on any direction which creates much more possibilities for construction.
Situation with turrets also became simpler, now it is just a simple flat looking platform which can be placed on any surface with different angles, so weapons can be placed on top, bottom or side part of the ship.
All weapons is adapted for 3D and now can be pointed up or down.
Also wreckage in 3D space looks quite epic.
To make salvaging process more convenient we will extend functionality of tractor beam so it will attract debris closer to robotic arms or drones will help with that task (because drones is possible now, but it will be added a bit later)
The game will become full 3D!
As we said in previous posts, ship building is the most important aspect of the game and for the next update we are trying to add many new parts in order to make ship building more diverse and open now possibilities for creativity.
Some time ago, when we already prepared large parts for capital ships and started to thing how to add even more freedom and creativity to the ship building, we thought it carefully and came out to the simple conclusion:
2D physics has more restrictions and disadvantages than advantages. Full 3D physics will add extreme amount of freedom and creativity for ship building process.
People often asked us for a various 3D features such as: • Possibility to place turrets on top of the ship like on real life battleships • Hangar bays with drones • Solar panels which placed horizontal and not blocked with the ship itself • More "vertical" ship design instead of flat ships
We even created items in the FAQ to explain why these features can't be implemented (due various restrictions related to 2D physics): https://trello.com/c/CUsCP7ut https://trello.com/c/WB6s9LZF
But if we will make the game full 3D, these issues related to 2D physics will be no longer relevant and features listed above will be possible! So we decided to do that!
Important to mention that the main advantage of 2D physics it is simplicity of control and navigation. You can fly your ship using only WASDQE buttons and no need to worry about 3-rd dimension. This is actually pretty important because navigation in 3D space could be complex and confusing.
However there is a solution which allows to keep that advantage even in full 3D. Most objects still will be located on horizontal plane, such as asteroids, stations and other ships so you still will be able to control your ship using only WASDQE buttons.
Even if the ship is drifted a bit on vertical axis - we added a new special stabilizer which will automatically keep ship in horizontal plane. But if you wish to leave horizontal plane, you no longer bound to it and you can do that.
Here is some examples of new 3D ships with new modules and weapons Possibilities for ship building now is really amazing!
Indicators of altitude relative to standard zero plane
What about orbital mechanics, orbits now can be not only equatorial but inclined too
Customizable point light sources which also may act as flashing lights
[Img]https://i.imgur.com/A1lPXnV.gif
Customizable spotlight sources
Changed the way how modules are placed, Now after placement it appears as transparent object which become active after engineering module will work on it for several seconds. It should make construction process much more convenient.
If you lose part of your ship, blueprint for reconstruction will be automatically created so you can repair your ship easily on shipyard. This feature is extremely helpful for repairing after combat.
Also we want to say special thanks for everyone who supports us on Patreon! Without your help we would not have enough funds to develop such a large and long update. Fortunately, with you help we can do it!
When it will be released? We are not sure yet, but after this blog post we will try to post progress reports more often. Also, due large amount changes and possible bugs we will release it in experimental build first, but it will be available for everyone and no additional access will be required. We will publish a news when it will be done.
Thanks!
News about next update: Combat gameplay
Currently we are working on improvements for a combat aspect of gameplay. Combat should be important part of the game, but at this moment large amount of flaws do not allows to play and enjoy it.
Here is a list of things which will be added in the next update in order to solve that:
The starting ship now have a proper weapon right from the start. Some basic kinetic cannon and small rocket launcher as well as some amount of ammunition in storage.
Activation of weapon is much more convenient now, just press 1 to enable weapon group, instead of complex Shift+1 combination. Also weapon range will be showed automatically and no longer requires to press Ctrl+1. Launching of rocket also much more easy now because hotkeys already designated from the start.
AI of enemy ships now much better in terms of navigation. It will properly direct its ship on the target and will not cause FPS drop in the process. Also when it is unable to continue combat due lack of any weapon, it will try to retreat instead of sit and waiting while someone destroying its ship.
Cannon's projectile can penetrate trough several objects if previous object has less HP than damage of this projectile and also damage to the next object will be reduced accordingly. This feature is important for game balance when large slow firing cannon shooting at a ship which consist of many small modules with low HP, so single module with 1 HP no longer able to stop a projectile which able to cause 100 damage
Now you may encounter not only an enemy combat ships but allied ships too, which will fight each other.
Currently, reconstruction of missing modules after combat is tedious, this will be fixed with the system which adds a blueprint module each time when some module on your ships is destroyed. These blueprints can be easily built on shipyard as it showed in previous post.
And also some reminder about possibility to get Celestial Command with -25% discount until January 2.
Happy New Year!
What will be added in the next update - Isolated ship editor
Hello! We are preparing so much improvements for the next update, so we decided it will be a version alpha 0.9.
It will be a huge update where almost every aspect of the game will be greatly improved and we will fix most of the crucial issues which exist in the game for a long time.
For example, a ship constructor, it is the most important feature of the game, but currently it have an important issue which should be fixed.
For a long time we are thinking how to solve the problem that ship construction in sandbox mode is much more fun than in non-sandbox mode.
The good ship editor should allow to quickly place and remove parts in order to experiment with different designs and build a ship you want.
However, currently construction and deconstruction of modules it is a complex process, which requires a lot of time and resources, and result it is not possible to experiment with designs and unleash your creativity.
Currently the only way to build something specific, it is to launch the game in sandbox mode, build the ship there, make a screenshot, calculate required amount of resources in notepad and after that load non-sandbox game back and rebuild this ship using screenshot as an instruction. This is super tedious and inconvenient. Definitely not the way how it should work.
Of course, instant construction \ deconstruction of modules could solve this issue, but we don't want to make it instant because we like a nice animation of robotic arms and its welding effects.
But for the next update we developed the solution - Isolated ship editor!
Now in non-sandbox game mode you can press the button any time and open a special editor screen where you can edit your ship using the same rules as in sandbox mode. Modules are free and can be placed or removed instantly. Here you can unleash your creativity designing your ship, and after you finished, you can press the button and engineering modules in game world will automatically build a new ship for you!
Also this method will allows to load a blueprint which was saved in sandbox mode or a file from Workshop (which will be added later) and build it in non-sandbox game mode.
In addition, such approach will solve an important issue of orbital game mode where it is very inconvenient to design a ships due drifting of separated modules due tidal forces. This no longer will be a problem because development of blueprints can be done in isolated environment.
Besides that, recipes of most modules will be simplified, because currently modules requires way too much different resources, in result gathering of resources for ship construction became tedious. We want to make ship construction more accessible for players.
Also take a look on a new energy shield effects:
What will be added in the next update
There was no news from us quite a while, this is because we are working on some big improvements for the next update which requires to do some research about new methods and features, so we were not ready to show result before we will be sure that these new features will work as desired.
The upcoming improvements will be related to the most important aspect of the game - construction of ships.
Currently in the game most modules has the same size and most ships also has the same size, of course there is some a bit larger modules and also you can build a ships of any size you want, but even larger ships mostly looks like a large, flat construction made of small parts.
This is not intentional design choice. From the first day of development, Celestial Command supposed to be the game about ships of very various sizes, where smaller vessels will be able to fly inside a hangars of huge carriers and battleships.
Earlier we had more priority tasks related to core systems instead of a lot of new modules of various sizes, but now we decided to focus on this direction.
For the next update we started to use a new method which allows to create large amount of modules in reasonable time. Now some modules consist of two parts, superstructure above and standardized base structure below.
Besides that, some modules have optional variant with different vertical profiles, allowing to create a huge ships which does not looks flat.
Initially we thought that such method may create undesired "repetitive tiling" effect because base structure of different modules will looks the same, but turned out it is not a problem because most of the time you observe ships from above where superstructure overlaps most of its area, plus different vertical profiles creates very interesting shapes.
Here is some early examples of what is possible to build using new modules:
Besides that we will add huge hangar parts, a lot of new weapons and many various functional improvements, such as mirror tool, magnetic docking, more challenges and a lot more.
That is how research and development area of new modules in 3D editor:
When it will be released? We are not sure yet, we want to make it high quality because when people will start to design and save new ships we want to be sure that save files will not be wasted due some changes in the another update after. Also we want to provide some kind of game goals to create a purpose for a newly designed ships. We will keep you informed about update progression.
Thanks for the patience! : )
Update 0.8923 Alpha - Turret mounted long range mining lasers
Currently mining lasers in the game has a very short range, and this is not too correct because if mining device suppose to be a short range it could be just a simple mining drill, but since we have lasers, we should have long range version.
So here it is, long range mining lasers!
Also now it can be mounted on turrets and automatically collect required ore within range! It acts like a great advanced tool for mining and should partially solve a situation with lack of fuel for large ships because mining is much easier now.
A bit later this issue will be completely solved with addition of large mining devices which can be placed on large asteroids in order to extract even more ore.
CHANGE LOG
Large improvements
Added long range mining laser which should be mounted on turret. Such turrets will automatically mine asteroids with desired resource within its range. Also added a possibility to select which resource you want to mine
Damage and mining rate of all lasers no longer depends on distance to target (this feature didn't adds any interesting aspects to the gameplay, on the contrary it was confusing and non intuitive, also it turned lasers into some kind of "shotguns" which should be used from the minimal distance, that is not a desired game-style for combat lasers). Also visual effect of laser ray no longer falloff with the distance and in result it looks much better
Lasers now activated and deactivated not instantly, but during a short time, as result its visual effect looks much better
Lasers now will consume energy from internal power storage which will recharge over time, so now in cases when you have not enough energy, lasers will wait for full charge instead of attempt to emit thin and weak ray. Overall, combat and mining operations now looks much better in cases when ship has not enough energy
Small improvements
Added possibility to setup hotkey for auto center of thrust calibration
Text elements such as "+2 Iron ore" which appears over cargo containers now displayed only at close range
Graphs of power monitor now hidden by default
Xenon collector max radius in orbital mode increased from 5 to 30 (it should be much easier to use now)
Added missing info on control panel of xenon collector
Target of turret now visualized only on selection of module
Fixes
Critical bug with impossibility to save \ load a game with error "Position is NaN" should be fixed (but we are not sure, so let us know if you will encounter this issue again)
Ships with activated warp drive no longer able to move inside a warp field (solved an issue when you press W during warp flight and ship explodes due contact with warp sphere)
Fixes impossibility to load a game which was saved during warp flight
Fixes issue when options and save load windows still visible after menu reopened with Esc button
Fixes internal error when galaxy map opened during warp flight
Xenon collector works again in orbital mode
Pause on Esc now correctly works after save load
Update 0.8922 Alpha - Automatic calibration for center of thrust and important fixes
CHANGE LOG
Improvements
Added button which will automatically setup maximum thrust level for all main engines in order to align center of thrust with center of mass. Very useful for asymmetrical ships or for ships with unbalanced distribution of cargo.
Added notification if you try to buy goods to container of not suitable type or if it has not enough free space
Fixes
Possibility to buy goods on trading stations now works again (it was accidentally broken when cargo types were reworked)
Game speed no longer affects on functionality of double click
Fixed possibility to load a game from existed game (no longer infinite loading screen)
Fixed internal error when cursor hovered on item in global inventory window during sell mode
Station size fuel tank now may contain only 1 type of resource instead of 2 (earlier it caused various issues with fuel production and consumption)
Auto saves now works properly (now each file has correct data such as date, time, version etc.)
Fixed an issue when sometimes salvaging module consumed resources but did not unloaded a product
Added missing on hover info about characteristics for modules: Life support, crew quarters, escape pods
Added missing on selection info about characteristics for modules: Engineering module, escape pods
Added localization for characteristics of some modules
Update 0.8921 Alpha - Reworked energy generator and important fixes
CHANGE LOG
Improvements
Power generator now automatically adjusts its production level according to current power consumption and availability of power storages. Fuel and energy no longer wasted and power generator now should be much easier to use. Also added some additional information to its control interface.
Now when you press Esc to open game menu, the game will be put on pause (only in single-player game)
Fixes
Now titanium can be found in asteroids
Recycling module now works properly
Ore refinery no longer consumes energy while waiting for a free cargo space and also now it properly displays warning message about lack of free space
Fixed a bug when some planetary systems was not revealed after warp jump even if it located within range of warp drive
Mining skill now has correct description
Removed outdated "reaction wheel power multiplier" from world settings
Parameter "Max players" for multi-player game now works correctly
Update 0.892 Alpha - Reworked cargo types, better inventory windows and important fixes
Hello!
Another medium size update. Inventory system now should be much easier and more intuitive to use and also, we fixed many frequently occurred and critical bugs.
Also we want to express a huge gratitude to everyone who support us on Patreon! We just achieved a first Patreon goal, such support is really helpful and allows us to resolve financial things. Thanks you very much!
Currently we are working on a huge content and gameplay update which should be released approximately within the next month, before that we plan to release a smaller updates from time to time, similar to this one, with important fixes and core improvements.
CHANGE LOG
Large improvements
Cargo containers now divided on 2 types instead of 3 (for solid cargo and for liquid\gas cargo), type "for raw ore" is removed (all existed ore containers now may store any solid cargo). Solid container no longer can store liquids or gas. Some containers still may hold only 1 resource, but more effective which should be an interesting feature. Previous the system with containers was too non intuitive, now it should be much easier to use.
Global inventory window now opens for all docked ships (also a window appears above command module, not in random position)
Added possibility to drag resource icon from one global inventory window to another (also now it is possible to hold shift to specify transfer amount)
Changed names and descriptions for all crew skills
Small improvements
Prices of all modules recalculated and now equal to sum of prices of its crafting components
Crew now may survive without life support modules much longer (solved a situation when entire crew died within seconds after life support module was removed)
Reaction wheel removed from the game (because it does not suit a concept and ideology of the game, we want to use engines for ship rotation, engines have nice visual \ audio effects and can be destroyed in combat, engines it is realistic and important aspect of the game, while reaction wheel was a boring method of magical rotation which does not have any effects and can't be destroyed in combat since located inside the ship. Also, hardcore fuel economy should not be a main aspect of the game even in orbital mechanics game mode)
Debris scanner removed from the game (because science data now collected from salvaging of command module debris from defeated enemies)
Gas collector now shows correct warning in aero mode in case if it is located too far from the planet
Module placement radius increased from 15 to 30 and now equal to move tool radius (solved issue with impossibility to place modules inside shipyard which located too far from the command module)
Simplified recipe for Warp Drive 1
Specific resources in other regions no longer includes basic resources (Iron, Carbon, Ice, it presents anyway) and no longer repeats
Now it is guaranteed that adjacent locations via warp gate will contain silver and niobium which required for warp drive
Fixes
Fixed most bugs related to skills of command officers
Fixed impossibility to activate move tool near NPC station after save load
Fixed a bug when turrets in manual control mode was directed at some random point instead of cursor
Middle mouse button click on module in build menu now works as intended
Max range of large warp drive increased from 7000 to 15000 (earlier, in some cases it was unable to jump anywhere)
Large warp drive now has proper collider on its ring
No longer possible to move crew members from ship to the same ship
No longer possible to move command officers and cargo via global inventory window from ship to another ship which are not docked together
Engineering modules no longer will auto salvage turrets with weapons attached on it, now it will salvage weapon first
Fixed incorrect list of required resources when you selected fuel generator after selection of production module
Multiplayer: Fixed impossibility to take control over spawned ship for connected players
Bug with duplication of every object after loading of game from existed world should be fixed (but not sure)
When loading menu opened from in-game menu, the previous menu will we properly hidden
New asteroids which spawned in replacement of destroyed one now have a proper spawn position (random altitude)
Build menu with modules now properly rescaled and now usable on displays with 1366 resolution or lower.
Update 0.891 Alpha - Planets, crew skills, inventory window, other improvements and fixes
Another medium size update with some nice and important improvements!
Also we set 25% discount due 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon!
CHANGE LOG
Improvements
Planets in aerodynamic mode now located below 0 plane, added stations at the center above planet, added gas giants with its rings.
We decided that possibility to crash into planet in aerodynamic mode does not have too much sense. We have an orbital mode for that, but in aero mode such planet just caused some issues for solar panels and also planets which located below zero plane looks much better from top-down view.
Added passive skills for command officers in command module which improves various systems of a ship
Redesigned window with info about command officer, added icons for skills
Added "Total Cargo Window" which shows all cargo stored in entire ship with possibility to drag and drop all resource from one ship to another
Added oxygen monitor (like food monitor) which displays time for how long oxygen is enough
Solar panels no longer blocked with distant asteroids which located somewhere far away (now it blocked only by obstacles within some distance)
Fuel generator and recycle module no longer have internal inventory, now it will unload produced resources in containers somewhere on the ship
Now you may buy, sell and repair modules on any NPC station (earlier it was illogical that a huge space station can't provide a shipyard services for you)
Small improvements
Added possibility to hire command officers on NPC stations. Interface a bit redesigned.
Starting location now may have only terrestrial or desert type planet (no longer weird lava, oceanic, etc)
Planets of thunderstorm type no longer have unrealistic surface ripple effect
Various rebalance for recipes of modules, overall, cargo containers and structural modules now more affordable
Warp drive 1 in-system warp speed reduced from 0.1 to 0.05 a.u. per second (warp flights were too short)
Star of staring system now have constant (not random) irradiance level
Starting planet now can be only on 2, 3 or 4-rd position from the star (no longer starting on some outer planet with very low star irradiance)
Added info that window with starting hints can be reopened with F1 button
Added info that multiplayer game in non-sandbox mode still in development and could be unstable
Fuel generator crafting speed changed from 0.33 to 0.2
Maximum level of music volume reduced to 30% (it was too loud at 100%)
Fixes
Radar icons of debris no longer displayed on map
Multiplayer: Settings of energy shield now properly synced
Engineering modules in auto mode no longer will try to salvage or repair asteroids
Offset value of energy shield now properly save loaded
When the game on pause, exit to main menu no longer freeze the game
Unavailable gunpowder no longer required for rocket ammunition
Distance to target of selected warp drive now displayed correctly
Warp flight to star no longer teleports a ships right inside the star
Fixed issue with incorrect portrait of character after game loading
