- Non-boss monster AI reworked. Should be much more dynamic. - They can crawl over more things. - They will now dodge attacks instead of running straight at the player - They will now no longer have health bars until taking damage - They will now patrol and no longer always be in the same spot - Scorpions now explode on death - Portuguese translation should be near complete. Please let us know if you see anything untranslated. - New Puzzles on Planet 2 - Significant performance improvements for those with CPU limitations - Reworked aiming so you'll no longer accidentally shoot at something behind you
Minor Features:
- Signs should be more readable - Many sounds have been improved or added. - Planet 3 has a cool new echo-like sound feature. - More ambience will be seen on planet 1 - Rocks on planets should be more detailed, even on low-end PCs - Asteroids should be more detailed, even on low-end PCs - Swapping weapons now has animations and sounds - Weapons now leave bullet holes and sounds based on the type of object it hits - SMG has had its damage increases, especially when upgraded - A ton of new underwater effects - Bats have a new death effect
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a problem with worm not properly changing back to invulnerable color - Fixed a hitch that could occur when bombing walls - Reduced (but not completely removed) hitch on loading planets - Smoke should no longer instantly disappear when exiting drop pod. - A bunch of names around the game have been standardized - Fixed a bug that could jam the shotgun and prevent it from firing until weapon swap - Shotgun trails no longer continue after hitting an object - You can no longer shoot the planet 3 boss while being out of range - Tin Ore is now purple on the inside too. - Fixed a problem in MP causing non-hosts being unable to use some features like teleporters
We've added about another half dozen puzzles and some of them are much more difficult. Additionally we've taken your feedback and really increased how dynamic planet 1 feels like. Please join us on Discord to let us know what you think. We hope you enjoy!
Major Features:
- New Intro comic better introducing the lore! Start a new game to view it. - Music Revamp - Ship music is now dynamic (greenhouse,cockpit,hangar,space) - Planet music blending should be more natural - About half a dozen new puzzles between planet 1 and 2 - Planet 1 now feels even more like an alien desert in visuals! - Planet 2 now feels even more ocean-like in movement and visuals! - Translation has started for Portugues-Brasil. Feel free to goto English only via settings.
Features Community Asked For!
- Player markers in multiplayer when in the same area (ship or planet) - Drop pod markers are now super reliable and don't disappear in multiplayer when someone takes the drop pod back - Hundreds of new Salli lines. She now repeats a lot less. - SMG is now a lot more powerful and should have a slot in your arsenal at mid range. - Shotgun reworked to give better spread and damage. - Armory now has a paint station so you have to run around the ship less. - You can now see the time left you have to explosion in seconds - There is now an icon when in mining ship showing where the Lodestar ship is
Features:
- Ship has continued to be improved. Armory now more visible. - Better footsteps on Planet 2 - Butterflies may appear on Planet 4 occasionally - Teleporter menu's look has been improved - Tin Ore changed to purple to make it more visible on planet 1 and match the theme - Spitball icon now drawn by an actual artist - "Simon Says" sound puzzles revamped for clarity
Bugs:
- Fixed a bug that could permanently prevent you from jumping - Fixed the drilling sound permanently playing when two asteroids overlapped - Dozens of holes filled on spaceship and planets - You should no longer lose your equipment after dying in the mining ship - Dialog should be more reliable on clients
Coming Soon:
- Localization is in progress for Portugues-Brasil - Even more puzzles across all planets! - AI updates and more dynamic combat - Planet 4 Gameplay Design Rework
Better Environments, Teleporters, Achievements, New Puzzles - 4.3.0 Patch
Hey all, we are here with another giant patch (4.3.0). You'll notice some significant graphical improvements that come with about a 10-20% drop in FPS. We think this is a good trade-off but please let us know if you have performance issues or graphical glitches and we'd love to get to the bottom of it.
Features:
- Planet 2: Rework continued -New and reworked puzzles. -Movement in general is faster and feels more like water -Should no longer be able to get out of the map - Landscapes now blend significantly better with the environment making the world feel more integrated. - Can now boost by zapping building with mining laser after finding upgrades on Planet 2. One available on first landing and another after getting later abilities. - New simple puzzle on planet 1 - Lava now looks less flat and more 3D on Planet 4 - Teleporters have been added to drop zones and at significant parts of the planets (ex: boss fight) and can be charged with lasers to use. These act as checkpoints and will allow us to create some more difficult areas in the future. - A small number of stats and achievements have been added
Features asked for by players! (via Discord/Steam Forums/Bug Reporter):
- Planet 1 has a bit more color and foliage. (continuing to improve this) - Health with now be set correctly on save and load! (Thanks Mr. Hill) - Markers will now be more apparent for drop zone and now show on players as well - Player will now have markers when you are in the same area as them (planet / ship / asteroid mining) - Health shrooms now explode and work correctly with save/load
Bug Fixes:
- Crash on killing a monster fixed - Increased performance on Planet 2 and 4 by fixing some shadow and NPC issues. - Infinite floating after grappling as a non-host should be fixed. Please let us know if you continue to see it. - Potentially fixed Equipment UI not showing correctly on non-hosts. Please let us know if you see this! - Boost sound no longer plays for clients that are far away - Lobby UI now clamped correctly for wide screen - Fixed a hitch caused by polling players who had large friends lists - Flying a personal ship into space stops playing armory music - New planet 1 foliage shouldn't block the camera - Fixed drop pod markers persisting in center of ship when changing planets - Fixed waypoint/player markers disappearing when at a height differential - Fixed player waypoint not appearing when dropping out of minimum distance instead of visibility first
Coming Soon:
- New Music System that should make it less repetitive - Localization
We've been hard at work leveling up the planet visuals to match the increased cohesion we added to the ship. Additionally we've made Planet 1 and 2 clearer in both navigation and boss fights. Please give us feedback on the new features so we can continue to improve.
Features
- All planets have been udpated to new visual style! (landscapes/fog/lighting/etc) - Boss 1 Revamped significantly to make it more clear how to beat it. - Asteroid Mining Ship has been reworked again in both controls and camera. Inside of asteroids should be more clear! - Planet 2 should be significantly easier to navigate with new map colors. Additionally a new puzzle type has been added.
Feedback Features
- Player Camera should be less jittery and collide with less objects. - Production Menu updated with your feedback and suggestions. - Health shrooms should be easier to distinguish from smaller foliage mushrooms and spawn blobs you must pickup. - Ore is embedded less into landscapes to make it easier to mine the whole thing. - Elevator is now 3x faster to make ship traversal quicker (we are evaluater switching to a teleporter system) - Bomb now always throws at max distance. This make it easier to predict. - Ship visuals have been further improved near engine and cockpit.
Bugs:
- Fixed a periodic hitch that could occur on players with a large friends list - Fixed a handful of crashes reported - Fixed some stretching happening on low-end machines for the spaceship - Small foliage rocks no longer have collision - Fixed a bug that could cause the planet 1 boss to become unresponsive and invincible - It should not longer be possible for a random asteroid to spawn inside the ship - Fixed a ton of holes and ways to get out the map that were reported via bug reporter
Hi all, we've been releasing regular hotfixes to the game and listing the changes in Discord. We're going to be pushing more of these announcements to Steam as well but this will cover all past hotfix patches. We've broken out what was in hotfixes for those of you who have been following on Discord.
This patch has over 80 changes! Including visual upgrades, bug fixes, performance, and player requested features/changes. We've fixed a lot of the pain points players have addressed in just two weeks. We'll continue listening to this feedback but you should also expect more content in terms of puzzles and upgrades as well in the next few weeks. Thank you for your early support of Lodestar and hope we can continue to meet and exceed your expectations!
Features:
- The main ship visuals have been overhauled. Would love to get feedback on this! - Production UI changed significantly to better help players understand how it works. - Mining ship controls have been reworked. Should control much better. - Sniper now has a zoom. - Lore spots have been adjusted to better reflect the lore. - Visuals of planet 1 have been changed significantly to give it more life and better shadows - Irradiated area on planet 2 now looks more dead and dangerous
Hotfix Features:
- Keymapping on nearly everything should now work. If yours are still broken please delete your file found at C:\Users\shaun\AppData\Local\Lodestar\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\Input.ini [replace shaun with your windows user] - New icons for all Plants and None Icon - Shotgun has been reworked. Now should work better at ultra close range. - Biotech UI reworked to make it more clear - Aim Mechanic: Shotgun and SMG can both be aimed (default right click). Aiming reduces bullet spread. We will expand this mechanic to additional weapons. - Bug Reporter: You can now report bugs to us directly in the game! Bug reporter will: - Gather your in-game location - Get your key bindings, configs and logs for Lodestar - Immediately autosave and attach that save to the report (if you are host).
NOTE: We will keep the Report-A-Bug channel open if you'd prefer to use it, but the in-game Bug Reporter will give us a lot more information up front to help understand, reproduce, and solve your issue and is the best way to let us know of problems moving forward. The in-game report also directly pings us in Discord! - The music on the ship has been updated! Each level of the ship has a slightly different flavor of the music to help keep things fresh.
Performance:
- The game should load significantly faster now - Performance on Planet 3 should be comparable to other planets now - Performance in the ship should be much higher - Performance when having many production buildings should be much higher - The game should no longer hitch on mining ores and asteroids. - Looking at the drop prod should not cause as much of an FPS drop.
Player Feedback Changes:
- The beginning of the game missions now require much less waiting! - Grappling hook locations have been added to planet 2 to help guide players to boss in a subtle way - Increased Autosave timer to 5 minutes to prevent all autosaves from being overwritten during a crash. - Waypoints on early missions around the ship will now help guide the player. - When the camera gets close to the player they will no turn slightly transparent. - Lots of small UI adjustments - Skipping the intro sequence now is a bit more clear, showing a progress bar filling up. - Some rocks on planet 4 are no longer ridicously shiny. - Buildings now materialize faster! (5s-1s) - Healshrooms that you can mine now appear on planet 1
Hotfix Player Feedback Changes:
- Added that the scanner for equipment upgrades is in cockpit to reduce player confusion with the mining ship scanner. - Bolt Rifle cost reduced 2000 to 500 zinc plate (10k ore -> 2.5k ore) - Blue crab health increased 300->400 - Cooker inventory reduced from 100 to 10 (to stop players from losing all their mushrooms unintentionally, use a storage crate to buff storage) - Production buildings now show two decimal places of precision if under 10 total is in its current inventory to better show production on slower buildings (like the cooker) - Power from forging levels reduced by 80% while I take time to rebalance it. - Dishes should have a bit more reasonable numbers. - Falling into the 4th boss will now kill you instantly rather than a slow death - Increased cost of some T3 upgrades to encourage players to move forward to earn more mining power. - Reduced strength of later level damage upgrades to prevent 1-shotting in more cases. - Reduced forging power on all upgrades to encourage building more production buildings - Reduced movement speed buff from 5% to 2% so upon unlocking all 20 you are no longer Sonic. - Fixed a pricing error on Tier 5 health regen. - Cookers will now play a "ding", stop spinning, and light up your cooked food once they run out of ingredients or fill up. - Production buildings that cannot fulfill their recipe cannot have the boost button pressed, making it more clear when you're out of ingredients or the building is full. (e.g. if you run out of ore in the Foundry) - Shotgun muzzle flash improved - For clarity, you can no longer click "Collect" on empty production buildings (button is disabled until some output is stored) - Waypoints for the planet 1 mission should help players better navigate the first planet.
BugFixes:
- Fixed bug on load that would cause you to have to reconfigure buildings to get correct figures. - Fixed bug on load that could cause buildings to not appear - Fixed bug on load that could cause equipment to not appear on the hud. - Fixed bug on joining that could cause joining players to lose their progress if game saved while they joined. - Inventory will no longer show tin ore when you have nothing - Fixed bugs around aiming and changing your equipment - Fixed a bug that could cause players to get stuck on Mushroom quest. - Health bars should no longer hang around after a boss dies - Fixed a crash on clients when falling into abysses - Shotgun shells should now look correct in multiplayer - Dead players and bats no longer fall through planet 3
Hotfix Bugs:
- Fixed Hole Near Grappling Range Upgrade - Several locations fixed on planet 1 where you could get outside the map - Several locations fixed on Planet 2 where you could get outside the map - Scanner should be more reliable on clients. - Negative numbers now display better - Players joining games should no longer freeze on load - Unstuck will now unfreeze you character if you get the bug on rejoining a game where you float and can't move. (you can also try loading the game with them in the lobby) Thanks everyone for reporting and helping us narrow down. - Unstuck will now remove infinite grapple hangtime - Fixed Infinite Grapple Hang Time (please report if you see it come back) - Crystalline Creeper renamed to Crystal Creeper - Fixed a bug that would cause some resources to push off the right side of the screen when collected. - Fixed crashes that could occur when two players fell in the same lava pit - Fixed bugs where client lava pit effects could apply to server and vice versa. - Fixed crash that would occur on phase 2 of the third boss when playing multiplayer - Fixed typos in missions - Planters and Production should now show correct resources on a loaded game - You can no longer lose focus and fail to close production menus. - Fixed a bunch of lighting artifacts on the ship which also increased performance - Fixed a bug where things previous discovered could appear as undiscovered on load - Production Particles should be more reliable - Buildings should now materialize properly on clients when returning to the ship. - Fixed collision on some coral on planet 2 that accidentally had it turned on instead of off - Foundries will now appropriately show production smoke when the game is loaded if they are producing something. - Foundries will now appropriately STOP showing production smoke/sparks when running out of ingredients or filling up. - You can now press "C" to collect while the production menu is open - Habitation rooms now have proper clipping and cannot be entered. If you built something in there, consider it part of a museum now! - Shotgun should be much more consistent for your buddies that connect to you with slow internet or from far away. - Buildings must produce at least once before being collected. Essentially, spamming "Collect" on buildings is no longer faster than normal building production speed. PROTIP: Building multiple buildings helps you produce way faster! - You can now properly rebind Z (better AZERTY keyboard support) - Fixed bug where opening the ESC or O menu while in a ship would prevent all game interaction, forcing you to restart the game. - Fixed edge case where widgets for production could still appear when out of range.
What we're working on now:
- Updating to Unreal Engine 5 - Localization (if you want to help feel free to reach out to us on Discord) - New puzzles! - Visual upgrading the planets to match the new fidelity of the ship. - Planet 5
Thank you again for all the feedback and reviews. A big shoutout to those using the bug reporter and helping provide feedback on Discord as well. We hope to see you there to help us continue to make the best game we can!
Early Access has Launched! v4.0.0
Welcome everyone to the Early Access launch of Lodestar!
There are too many additions and changes to cover in a single patch note so we'll cover what's there now and what's coming.
There Now
4 Planets
The rest of the game
Coming Soon
Additional planets. At least 2 "planets", could be a few more if you get your friends to buy the game.
Localization. If you want to help let us know on discord.
Features You Ask For On Discord. For real, we made dozens of features for Valgrave and Lodestar will be no different.
Bugfixes. We're sorry. We got all the ones we could find with our small team.
These are in no particular order and done by very different people so we'll work as hard and quickly as we can.
How You Can Help Make Lodestar Better
Reviews matter a lot. Positive or negative they teach us what we should do.
Telling Your Friends. We're a full independent game with no marketing budget. Hopefully the love and sweat we've dumped into it helps you become our marketer.
Get Involved on Discord. We're be responding a lot there. Get on in and fill up suggestions, feedback, and bug reports.
Disclaimer About Our Release Schedule
We launch fast and hard. That means we'll likely patch the game multiple times a week if not multiple times a day. Our patches are like X.X.X. The first X will let you know what planet is out. The second X increasing means a significant (probably requested) feature came out. The third X are the bug fixes.
We really appreciate you taking the time to try out Lodestar. It means the world to us. We're just a group of friends with other jobs who have put this game together with many countless late nights. <3 -Shaun "BlueFire" Randall
Upcoming Early Access Launch July 8th
Launch Information
We're happy to announce that we'll be launching to Early Access on July 8th immediately after the Steam Sale ends!
Some notes about Early Access
The demo will no longer be available and saves will be incompatible with the new version as much balancing has taken place.
The game will be initially priced at around 30 USD with a 10% launch discount.
A ton of new features and upgrades to existing features will be launched. Check out the new trailer to see a lot of the improvements to the game.
Planets 3 and 4 will be added to the game along with their respective resources, upgrades, equipment, and bosses.
Thank you!
Thank you all for the feedback and your time testing out the game. We hope you'll continue to join us through Early Access to make Lodestar the best game it can be.
Patch Notes 2.2.0
Overall we have been working on performance and polish of the game as we approach Early Access (tentatively Late June / Early July). Most features have been implemented, now we just need to beef up the amount of content for you all. Please let us know what you think!
Gameplay - New Unlocks added to Planet 2 - Planet 2 now has a lot more sharks - Planet 2 now has crabs - Revamp of all gun particles
- Scorpions can now be interrupted if shot mid attack - Scorpion attacks can now be dodged - New small scorpions introduced - Scorpions will now hear people running. Use shift to walk and sneak past.
- A TON more Salli dialogue - Now adjust sound volume based on the situation (ex: Reducing music when Salli talks) - Added a scanner to the game near the hologram. Will be doing more with this later.
- Upgraded the turn and movement animations of Player
UI - Nearly every part of the UI has been redone. Still a WIP. - Animations have been added to the UI in many places.
Ship Changes - Polished the ship's connecting parts and lighting - Redid the greenhouse at the top of the ship - Landing Ship recall button made more obvious - Buildings are now more appropriately sized to their blocked area.
Performance - Reduced memory from an average of 1800MB to about 800MB - Created new profiles for low and high end machines. Should make all machines look and perform better.
Bugs: - Fixed a crash of mining leftover shinies - Fixed a bug that could cause you to get stuck in the game after blowing up the hidden cave. - Fixed a bug that would cause a double equip issue - Fixed a bug that would cause the HUD to break on non-standard aspect ratios/resolutions - Fixed icons not appearing on taskbar - Fixed some sounds not attenuating - Fixed multiplayer door bugs - Fixed a bug that would show all players as playing Lodestar in lobby. - Fixed a bug that would cause light shafts on planet 2 to not appear - Fixed a bunch of collision issues - Fixed a bug that could cause multiplayer mining to not work - Closed a bunch of holes in the world - Fixed a bug with projectile multiplayer syncing (most noticeable on grappling hook)
Progress Report Toward Early Access: - Planet 3 completed (level, boss, monster) - Boss 2 completed - Planet 4 Started - Flying navigation implemented (new flying monsters)
Next Goals - Finish Planet 4 - Redo trailer - A lot of polish - Launch Early Access
Patch Notes 2.1.0
We spent the last month polishing what we've made as well as starting on planet 3 that will only be available EA and onward. Although we still have some UI improvements and bug fixes, the game is much closer to the quality level we expect to ship EA at.
Major Features: - You now have to get special pickups to get upgrades in the equipment station. Find them scattered throughout planet 1! - Movement animations have been rehauled to provide a better experience. - Mining rehauled. Now shiny spots will appear to allow you to mine faster. Mining is now more realistic - HUGE performance improvements. Most players will see anywhere from 2x FPS on high-end machines to 10x FPS on low-end machines. - Equipment now changes visuals significantly based on how many upgrades you have attained
Features from your Feedback: - Widescreen support for the UI - Fog now behaves a lot better on planets - Blood from monsters now a lot more realistic - UI now has more consistent behavior - Doors on the ship open much faster - Tons of sound changes and fixes
Bug Fixes: - You no longer sometimes shoot two grappling hooks on non-hosts - You can no longer infinitely mine resources by switching weapons while mining - Tons of further fixes and QoL to the save system - Collision and physics tweaks to dead sharks - Boss will no longer damage you after dying - Overlapping music should be fixed. - Character now holds the mining laser correctly
Known Bugs (we're working on them): - Sometimes non-hosts can shoot two grappling hooks - You can fly the ship down to the planet (this does nothing) - Saving while in the dropship/personalship will be a bad time - Non-host droppod can be laggy and have animation problems.
Project Progress (NOT IN DEMO): - Planet 3 almost done - New Flying navigation system for new AI - Lava added to the gameplay - Planet 4 started
Holy shit we've done it. We went from 1000 commits to 2300! So more than doubled whats in the game. There's a ton here so let's get into it.
Major Features: - Planet 2!!! - Planet 1 now has a boss monster - New character model and animations (Press P to change color, we'll make this better later) - Ship model that better matches the Lodestar aethestic - New Weapon Available - Abilities (Grapple and Bomb) are now seperate from the equipped weapon so you can use both at the same time - New missions available!
Features from your Feedback: - New revamped music! - Bomb does damage to enemies. - Sprint is default, shift is walking - A lot of foliage has collision turned on - Fixed all known areas where you can jump off the map - More grapple hook locations that are more meaningful - Hidden cave and destructible walls are now more clear - Biotech Station now no longer needs to be built and is next to equipment station (you can get HP regen here) - You can now grapple to players and enemies - UI improvements to icons and layouts - Proficiency now shows up as you gain it - Shotgun reworked to be more melee range based
Minor Features: - You can now see buffs and debuffs on your character - Zinc + Sapphire Added to the game - New upgrades to unlock - Lore readjusted to match gameplay better
Bug Fixes: - Some players unable to login should be able to login now - Getting into game should be much faster - Multiple on-start fatal errors have been resolved - Multiple on-start sequence play (and replay) errors have been resolved - Saving ship resources now works - Saving building resources now works - Resources will update in real time in inventory screen - You can no longer infinitely mining a node with the swap bug - You should no longer be able to shoot multiple weapons at once. (weapons are now mining,shotgun,sniper) - Dialogue should no longer fail to play on non-host players - Multiplayer lag should be significantly reduced - A handful of sound bugs have been corrected (plays in MP, reduced lag, hearing at infinite distance, etc) - A handful of animation bugs have been corrected - Music in special areas won't keep playing on death
Known Bugs (we're working on them): - Sometimes non-hosts can shoot two grappling hooks - You can fly the ship down to the planet (this does nothing) - Destructible rocks can cause significant lag on low-end machines (and some lag on high-end) - You can't resources that you are mining any longer - Loading old save games will likely be a bad time - Saving while in the dropship will be a bad time - Non-host droppod can be laggy and have animation problems.
