Lord of Rigel - Roundup #7 AND 15% off during the Steam Autumn Sale!
Hello Lords of Rigel,
The Steam Autumn Sale begins today, and Lord of Rigel is 15% off! If you've been waiting to build your fleet and explore the galaxy, today's a good day to begin your journey!
Earlier this week we released a substantial patch that included many fixes to key systems in the game such as ground combat, orbital bombardment, and economy. There are also many visual improvements in tactical that offer more special effects and collider code for weapon hits on ground units. Units should also be operating in a more randomized manner in terms of the damage done and how the units are visualized.
Moving into this week we will be focusing on...
Integrating the AI and player code for orbital bombardment, improving ship designer, updating the research system for additional optimization, and fixes for the uncreative species trait.
All of these should provide improvements in speed and consistency. Importantly, it will also assist us with continuing to figure out where the AI state is.
What we are noticing as we get feedback and bugs is that many functions were not generating correct data. For the player, this results in a bug fix report. For the AI, this results in poor or unexpected behavior despite the AI logic being sound. It goes back to the concept of “garbage in, garbage out.” With some of the recent updates to research we are seeing improved AI expansion habits. We know there are other issues being reported around diplomacy and this recent fix should help the AI to expand.
Please continue to reach out to us with odd experiences and be sure to have saved games for us to analyze, replicate, and test fixes with.
We really appreciate the continued feedback regarding what is working and not working in Lord of Rigel. As time and opportunity allow, we have been implementing additional convenience features as we are fixing various systems. We have not heard much feedback regarding these updates which is usually a good sign of a happy user. If something isn’t working for you or an update isn’t meeting your needs please let us know. We are seeing saved games sent to us from users hitting 300 to 400 turns which is great to see and happening with more frequency than in prior builds.
We are looking to getting out our next planned hotfix which should improve additional systems and we look forward to hearing more comments. Until next week!
And if you have any ideas for future devlogs, please share them with us in our Discord:
EA Build Hotfix #19
Ticket #1209 Autoresolve not taking player ships in calculations fix
Ticket #1252 Player purchases are deducted twice from treasury fix
Ticket #1132 and #1184 Housing behavior updates in build queue
Ticket #1170 Player retreat from pirate combat loss fix
Ticket #1236 Interplanetary Government tech bonus fix
Ticket #1237 AI research technology clearing fix
Ticket #1266 Building spawning optimizations and fixes
Ticket #1253 Dual Dyson sphere built on same turn fix
Ticket #1172 Fleet repair for orbital stations fix
Ticket #1270 Infinite loop on Warp Enhancement cutscenes fix
Ticket #1256 and #1272 Dyson Sphere construction rules fix
Ticket #1281 Fuel range calculation fix
Lord of Rigel - Roundup #6
Hello Lords of Rigel,
We lost a few days this week to some unexpected server work for our development repository, but we’re still at work on the next hotfix! This next hotfix will be a major rework of the ground and orbital combat systems for optimizations, feature completeness, and balance.
In addition, we’re also working to address a major request users have had since the demo release: a reworked sensor and fuel indicator system. The revised display keeps the 3D spheres that are accurate to current fuel and sensor ranges, but uses the depth buffer for intersection instead of overlap. Also, map modes are toggle-able for easier access.
Based on user feedback, the tutorial now has “off-ramps” at different stages that allows players to leave the tutorial and begin a new game if they are confident in the mechanics they’ve learned.
And finally, the combat log we showed last week has been implemented, along with an auto-targeting system that toggles on and off. Auto targeting is on by default.
Game saves from prior to this update will no longer work!
Since there is a large number of changes to underlying data structures this upcoming update will break old save games.
What’s in the immediate future?
We'll be adjusting the menu UI to make reading planet and system names in the fleet combat, orbital combat, and ground combat menus more clear and easier. We'll also work on getting the AI to utilize the same revised ground combat and orbital bombardment code that the player users. Effects in orbital bombardment will also be revised to include unique bomb explosions for each bomb type. Ship Designer will also see a refactoring of its code, which should give us some more consistent calculations between various windows and some UI tweaks.
We’ll be focusing more on the AI over the coming weeks. As we mentioned last week, this update should help how the AI behaves, but we want to do additional adjustments to optimize turn times, AI behaviors, and to make sure it is behaving as intended. We want to improve this before expanding to add new features, such as the Elder Species.
Image 1- New Sensor Range Display
Image 2- New Fuel Range Display
Image 3- Autotargeting and combat log
Thank you, Lords of Rigel. As always, if you have any ideas for future devlogs, please fly into our Discord and share them with us.
EA Build Hotfix #18
Ticket #1238 Tactical autofire toggle
Ticket #1255 Tutorial Outpost and Colony objectives appear early fix
Ticket #918 Tutorial no contact with Katraxi but no tutorial victory fix
Ticket #1264 Close button greyed out on standard bombardment fix
Ticket #1223 Bombing a planet to 0 population does not remove colony ownership fix
Ticket #1263 Bomb validation checks during bombardment for multiple bomb types fix
EA Build Hotfix #17
Ticket #1234 Fixed empty player fleet in tutorial
Ticket #908 Diplomacy AI fixes in tutorial
Ticket #1242 Tutorial “offramps” added
Ticket #1247 New Game menu custom flag and color selection fix
Ticket #1244 Subterranean bonus after evolutionary mutation fix
Ticket #1231 Hyper Advanced Technology population fix
Ticket #1241 Special units category filter in build queue fix
Ticket #1246 Railgun and auto gauss mount type damage calculation fix
Ticket #1245 Purchased production BCs not removed from treasury during the same turn fix
Ticket #1221 Outpost construction diplomacy infinite loop fix
Ticket #1235 Unknown Fleet overlay in system with existing player fleet fix
Ticket #1240 Build Queue removed items not returning to buildable state fix
Ticket #1248 Infinite loop on AI breaking research treaty in tutorial fix
Tactical Combat Lowdown — Lord of Rigel Devlog
When starting on Lord of Rigel one of the main points was wanting to have an in depth tactical system. Some games that had released when we started thinking about the game had simple “card style” combat but not the more fleshed out combat we were wanting in a more modern space strategy game.
We wanted to make sure that ship customization mattered, upgrades weren’t all just linear bonuses, and that things such as positioning mattered. Strong planetary defenses was another point.
Tactical in LoR is real time with pause. Orders are issued with the right mouse button which involves issuing an attack order and a move order. Move orders set unit placement and use your selected formation. Attack orders set targets for ships. We based the controls off of how large units behave in modern RTS games like Company of Heroes to make it familiar with RTS genre players.
Ship health is also more involved than other space strategy games. Your ships have shields, armor, structure, and internals. Shields and armor have facings and if a ship is flanked it can take additional damage. Damage that penetrates armor has a chance of hitting a ship’s structure or internal systems. Internal damage is based on if a weapon passed through a subsystem’s area. However, there is always a random element too on which internal systems get hit.
Weapons come in a number of forms. Missiles which have limited ammo each battle and can be shot down by point defense, but can deal substantial damage. Beam weapons include energy and kinetic weapons. These don’t have ammunition (railguns and KEWs use physical projectiles but for the sake of gameplay ammo is abstracted) but tend to have lower accuracy. Torpedoes are like missiles but have no ammo limitations and can’t be shot down by point defense, but have a longer firing rate. Strikecraft act as small ships that hit and run targets but can be shot down by point defenses. Bombs don’t target ships but can be used on planets with defensive structures to quickly neutralize them. Finally, there are a wide range of special weapons with different unique abilities.
Tech tree decisions can also effect your gameplay. Railguns are excellent for long range engagements while fusion cannons are best for up-close combat. Later weapon types are also specialized for roles like disrupting shields or internal systems.
Knowing the ins and outs of the tactical system and building specialized ships can let you turn the tide personally in battles that you may not have an advantage in autoresolve. Maneuvers such as adjusting shield facings to take the brunt of missile volleys from a planet, or knowing when best to decloak to use close range weapons behind a ship for maximum damage can both change a battle.
From your feedback over these weeks we’ll be focusing on quality of life in tactical in the long run such as a chase camera. An event log and a toggle for unit auto targeting are features coming in the next patch, based on feedback and watching gameplay videos. We also want to work on some more forms of space terrain that would effect gameplay, beyond the current minefields and nebulas.
Some of these “dirty tricks” may be crucial for surviving encountering the Rigelans, Arcturans, and other threats coming later in Early Access.
Image 1. An Aranid starbase firing a volley of warheads
Image 2. A Human carrier and its fighter wing
Image 3. Tharrn fleet pummelled by torpedoes and spinal mount lasers
And that's all for this devlog! Hopefully it was enlightening, and if you have any ideas for future devlogs, feel free to share them with us.
Lord of Rigel - Roundup #5
While this past week has seen a multitude of releases, we are about to hit a lull due to some extended code refactoring which currently has the game in a state where ground combat and orbital bombardment are not functional. Once we have those systems refactored, we will work on a push and making some visual refreshes to those menus. I am sure you all have noticed that it has taken several weeks to update these systems. We want to provide to more information in this week’s update on what is taking so long with these systems and other work we already have completed and ready for release.
Orbital combat and ground combat have been undergoing very extensive “brain surgery” that will give players a more optimized, consistent, and fully feature implemented experience (universal antidote working with bio-bombs, etc). These changes have also led us to rethink how we are calculating data in the game overall. This is no small thing - LoR (and really any 4x game) at its core is a massive stat calculator with all species traits and technology being modifiers to those calculations. A lot of things were being calculating by code functions within widgets rather than a centralized system of functions. Often how something was calculated for the player and the AI were different as the AI does not need to deal with player input or additional information from the UI. We are now consolidating these player and AI functions, checking functionality, and optimizing code. The optimizing is what has taken additional time because we have also moved from dynamic calculations in some places to have some data be more static and centralized and then using it to be displayed or used for additional dynamic data generation.
In the midst of this process it became clear that the AI was not calculating research correctly in a number of games nor was it doing so very efficiently. While going through logs to troubleshoot ground combat stats for the AI, it became clear that the AI was sometimes not getting the research that it was selecting and the process it used to select research was not efficient. Some benign functions were causing over 10,000 pieces of information to be checked by the time the AI had made research selections for all species. This is now down to a couple hundred loops and the AI is getting the research it is completing. In the process we also developed some tools to help us get logs from the game to better understand what the AI is doing to troubleshoot when and why good or bad decisions are made.
All of this to say that it will be maybe a week before we can release another update that is in a state we feel comfortable releasing. That release will invalidate all previous saves – players will need to start new games because their old saves will not work. We will also be asking for players to send saved games to us for analysis when they are experiencing a weak AI opponent(s).
Lastly we have been working on some other fixes this week that we are excited to be releasing on the next update. This will include a tactical log (see below) for players to see specific data in tactical. We also will be working on a chase camera that should help with player management of ships and add some immersion to tactical in coming updates.
Again, we encourage all of you to report your experience with the game both good and bad as well as provide feedback on hotfixes and quality of life improvements. Please let us know if there are specific technologies or systems not working or unclear which can help us focus on systems to work on.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback and we continue our journey through EA!
Ship Shaders And Materials — Lord of Rigel Devlog
Lord of Rigel has twelve full fleets of ships and stations ranging from frigates to planet destroying behemoths. Each of these models involves building meshes, textures, materials and debris. The amount of effort that goes into each ship seen in tactical is staggering and our artist designed each ship at scale with thought on details such as the bridge, reactor, locations of each weapon type, and escape pod locations. These details were then used to help place the firing points for different weapon types and firing arcs used in the game.
For those interested in the “guts” of how models one in the game, one master pixel shader is used for the ships and solid body objects in LoR. Individual “material instances” get used for each object that can be adjusted on the fly in game for things such as ship speeds or engaging cloaking devices.
Ships in LoR use a few techniques such as detail maps for hull “Aztecing” a term coined by the details used on the Enterprise model for Star Trek the Motion Picture. Each species in LoR has its own aztec pattern. Parallax occlusion mapping is also used so individual hull places look raised. Engine glows are also dynamic and tied to ship speeds in tactical combat and engine pulsing varies depending on the species. Less technologically savvy species such as the Katraxi and Tharrn are larger more visible and varied engine pulses.
Image 1. Katraxi Destroyer in Editor
Image 2. Parallax occlusion and normal maps only
Image 3. Example of Starship Material
Image 4. Katraxi Destroyers in tactical firing missiles
Image 5. Katraxi Destroyer wireframe model.
Image 6. Katraxi Destroyer clean model.
Image 7. Katraxi Destroyer full model.
That's it from us! Let us know if there's anything you'd like to see a devlog on in the future.
Ticket #1227 Building event ticker includes next item queued
Ticket #892 Tutorial outpost fix
Ticket #1018 Tutorial build queue text clarification
Ticket #1052 Tutorial stuck on planet screen fix
Ticket #887 Tutorial Explore goal text clarification
Ticket #1232 Citadel data fix
Ticket #1079 Tutorial Information screen hotkey fix
Ticket #837 End turn key closing fleet combat if under AI attack fix
Ticket #1218 No first contact window fix
Ticket #1130 Hyperspace flux GNN trigger and duration fix
Ticket #1225 Fleet disappear on arrival fix
Ticket #1228 Research screen key panning implemented
Ticket #1220 Build queue deletion fix
Ticket #1224 Custom faction color for ship widgets fix
Ticket #1219 Build queue filters for Starbase, Battlestation and Citadel
Ticket #1222 Engage and autocombat with empty enemy fleets fix
Ticket #1217 Colony base filter fix
Known Issues: Tutorial has critical error that prevents completion.
Lord of Rigel - Roundup #4
Hello Lords of Rigel,
This has been a slow week for updates, but that is both good and bad. We released an update on Saturday and another on Sunday to address some immediate fixes that were needed. These changes should fix a number of issues players have been experiencing as well as making some incremental updates to the orbital bombardment system and ground combat stats. Players should be seeing changes in how stats are calculated – for instance ground combat bonus traits are no longer percentages, but positive/negative bonuses. This should make for an easier system to calculate consistently. Additionally, we added another quality-of-life request from players – the ability to move between owned systems from system view. Players should now see arrows at the top of their screen to move back and forth between different star systems.
While probably not noticeable to players, one change this week was a big change in code - moving our turn system towards being centralized in an Unreal Engine actor. This is the first step in a longer process of restructuring the turn system in the game and we believe this will provide fewer bugs, a better player experience through a centralized system to process all player UI interactions generated from a turn such as audience screens, research menu, etc. and we will be focusing on optimizing the code which should provide faster turns for players. Our goal is to get turn running as fast as we can. This will be especially important in larger and longer games where more data is running through turn.
This week we will continue to focus on bug fixes as they come in, quality of life improvements and an ongoing refactor of orbital combat/ground combat. We should be getting the defensive forces refactored and then transitioning that code to the invasion level for visuals to play through for the player.
Again, we encourage all of you to report your experience with the game both good and bad as well as provide feedback on hotfixes and quality of life improvements. Please let us know if there are specific technologies or systems not working or unclear which can help us focus on systems to work on.
Thank you for your continued support and feedback and we continue our journey through EA!
