Many of you have been asking questions about the Star Command Isometric Enhanced New Creation Editor, aka SCIENCE. For those that don't know about it, SCIENCE is our in-game modding tool. We have occasionally had the Maps portion of SCIENCE available in a test version on the beta branch, but it largely has not fully been discussed. Please keep in mind that some of the screenshots and assets we will be showing here are still works in progress.
Modding is one of those things which we have designed and redesigned in our efforts to get it right. We want players to be able to customize and build everything in the game, but we also want to keep the difficulty level & story as presented. We want creators to have the freedom to do whatever they want to do, but we also want to ensure that someone doesn't break the full game to the point of needing a redownload simply by making a mistake while learning our tools. Ideally, we want SCIENCE to be a tool set that is not incredibly difficult to understand and use for beginners, but has enough flexibility that experienced modders can really do a lot.
Maps
The main portion of SCIENCE right now is the Maps portion, where you can build or create a ship of various objects/weaponry/crew to fight or explore. You can pick a hull, draw out a floor map, add in walls/objects/treasures, and create a decent looking map. But a ship is far more than just a simple collection of floors and objects, and we want you to be able to make yours more than that as well. Within SCIENCE Maps, we have added several characters that you can bring in and place on your ship. We have also extended out our Captain Creator to allow for non-captains to be built and saved into SCIENCE, just on the off chance someone wants to write themselves into their own Star Command fanfic.
We have also added in things like Trigger Tiles and Cargo Areas that you will be able to use in your own encounters in the future.
Lights
Much like any good house/apartment/dumpster, your ship will also need some good lighting. While we can't bring the entirety of Unity's lighting engine into the game, we have been working on a custom tool to allow you to build and save your own lights onto a map. You can set their range, color, type, intensity, as well as update a lot of position/rotation aspects. They are saved in a list, so you can go back and change them as needed.
Quick Battle
Once you have built a ship with lights, you might be wondering how to test it out. For this, we have added a Quick Battle option. In Quick Battle mode, you choose a ship you have created and then choose how many extra characters you want to put on it. Once chosen, the ship spawns with your specifications and the battle begins! Can a generic player ship take down your custom ship? If so, you can always spawn another ship and continue the fight!
Steam Workshop
Once you have edited your ship to be crazy difficult, you may well want to show off your work and watch other people die to it on Twitch. Or just put it up on Steam Workshop. For that, we have added a Bundler as well as tools to upload to and browse from our Star Command Steam Workshop page. With the bundler, you can choose to put in any set of custom Maps, custom Characters, and custom lighting designs.
Once you have chosen all the items you want in this bundle, you can then upload it and watch the comments roll in.
Future Plans
While this is the start of what we have planned for SCIENCE, we have plenty more to come. Probably the next pieces after these will be custom Objects and Hulls, so you can fully customize all aspects of your ship. From there, we also want you to be able to write your own stories, so we have plans to add in areas for custom Dialog, Encounters, and Missions. Among the other options we have discussed for some point in the future are custom Races, custom Galaxies, and a place to build and move around the UI.
We hope to have this in your hands for testing and breaking the game fairly soon. We can't wait to see what feedback you have for us and what ships you create!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Beta 2.1 Update - Testing Save Fixes
Greetings Captains!
We hope you have been enjoying Beta 2.1 so far. Today, we will be pushing up an update to our Save system which may or may not cause some issues in the short term. With this change in place, the games you save from here forward should now load you properly back at the node you were on, within the encounter you were facing, and with everything left as you remember it. We expect that this will cause several bugs and look forward to fixing them as quickly as we can.
What We Tried/Why We Tried It
Saves can very much be a game breaker when they are available whenever and wherever. The galaxy tends to feel a lot less dangerous when you can simply save at every node, especially in games where you might wind up with easier fights or a less damaged ship simply by reloading.
In addition to being a game breaking feature, they can also actually break the game. Those of you who have been in the Alpha/Beta for a while have likely noticed that we have gone through several iterations of saves as well as save bugs. Many of you have lost Captains or Crew due to saving games when they were on other ships, never to be loaded again. Others of you have noticed saves that never seem to reload, instead leaving you hanging on a "Loading: Textures" display. Most people who sent their saves into us for fixing had errors within these two categories.
To fix both of these, we tried a setup for a while where you had to load at your station or at least at the nearest warp gate. This seemed like an optimal solution both for the bugs as well as the danger factor. What we found was that while this did help a lot for many broken saves, this instead led to a lot of confusion within the game. It feels weird in play to be fighting a pirate fleet, save your game, then come back later to that save at the station as if it was all a dream. Coming back to an old save and already feel weird enough without us changing it further.
Where We Landed
After hearing a lot of feedback about how our saves felt, we have come back around to making Saves available anywhere, loading you in hopefully the exact situation where you last left off. While this does still feel a bit game breaking in an overall sense, we feel that we can counteract this with proper balance. Even if we are unable to, the trade-off is worth it for a less confusing save system.
Unfortunately, that means that we may have some save bugs in the short term. So we are asking you all to try it out and let us know what you think. If you have a save bug, let us know. If you don't have a save bug, let us know.
As always, thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Beta 2.1 - Single Click, Ship Progression, Skill Trees and more!
Greetings Captains!
We are happy to rollout Beta 2.1 which introduces a lot of new features. This represents our goal of releasing much more regular content with a stable base to build on. We are getting closer and closer to launch and all the new stuff should get us closer to it.
So whats new?
SHIP PROGRESSION
Your ship will now start off as a starter ship should: a piece of junk that really can’t do a whole lot. As you complete missions you will collect Ship Upgrade points allowing you to increase shields, hull strength, battery recharge rate and energy capacity. This will continue to expand as we introduce new ship systems, new weapons and other surprises.
CREW SKILL TREE
On top of building your ship up, you will now be able to progress your crew by increasing many of their attributes. You can increase things like hp, speed, accuracy, repair rates and other elements of your crew as you explore the galaxy. We will continue to expand this system with future updates.
SINGLE CLICK INTERFACE
One of the bigger changes is our move towards a simplified interface. To this end, the mouse will now be single click for all actions. There are a few reasons for this: during our recent lay tests at Minecraft conventions it became very clear that our younger audiences were not adapting to a left and right click method for selection and action. People would also get lost when crew were selected and were not. But most importantly this moves us on a path for making the game mobile friendly for our original fans.
CREW VOICEOVER
We have introduced voice acting when you select and interact with crew member selection and movement. The voice tracks are placeholder and will be expanding them to very Star Command specific things (equipping weapons, working at stations, picking up kits) but this should give you a flavor of whats to come. The main reason for this is, again, clarity of interface. Selecting and sending your crew to places should be much clearer with the voice feedback.
NEW REWARDS FOR MISSIONS
We have added in some new classes for rewards and, like our economy are starting to balance out what you get for each mission.
ECONOMY BALANCING AND COIN DROPS
We are starting to balance our economy out which includes adjust weapons, crew values, XP values and more. To this end you will now be able to pick up loot from dead bodies including coins and XP.
WHAT’S NEXT?
We are going to continue to refine the economies and balance of game items, XP, ship upgrade costs, enemy skill levels and challenges. On top of that we will be introducing random encounters between our missions. Finally we will be introducing a ton of new items: new guns, new weapons, new kits, new armor and lot’s of other fun stuff as we expand on the base we have (finally) established.
We are super excited about the direction of the game and hope to keeping give updates every 2-3 weeks as we make progress and move towards release.
Looking forward to feedback!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Dev Chat: Crew Progression
Greetings Captains!
First, thank you so much for all of the feedback on Beta 2. We are still working to fix the bugs that you have been sending to us, such as saves. But we have also been looking ahead towards launch. With that in mind, we thought we'd spend some time today writing up a wall of text about where we plan to take Crew progression.
What We've Tried
Crew progression has always been a bit of a tricky subject, both in terms of classes and crew perks/quirks. In the past, we had a set up of 10 different classes you could choose between based upon a progression path. You could upgrade your cadet to a Tactician, then turn them into a Scout, then they could be a Soldier. Each class had it's own unique abilities...which was nice at first. But this started to feel weird really fast. A Doctor would become a Hacker which gave them the ability to hack enemy systems, but should they also keep the ability to heal? It's weird to have a Hacker heal you, but it's also weird for said Hacker to forget everything they knew about medical school at the click of a button.
We also found our perks and quirks to have their own weird flaws. Quirks as a whole we found mostly just annoyed people and seemed demotivating rather than fun. Take the IBS quirk, which made your crew member have a sudden need to use the toilet. It was funny the first time, but annoying the fifth time...and it caused a lot of weird behaviors. We would have pirates running across entire maps mid-combat simply on a toilet run. This made a lot of behaviors look and feel bugged as well. You'd tell a character to go to the shields, but their own inner nagging voice was telling them to go to bed.
Perks had some good factors, but overall the delivery system came out wrong. It was rewarding and nice to have a crew member who could use Nav better than anyone else, but trying to juggle individual crew loyalty to get a new perk felt weird. As this same juggling loyalty system was also tied into quirks, it made things that should have been optional like crew missions feel almost required. If you were in the middle of working through the Asteroid and your engineer demanded a TV in 12 in-game hours, you either had to leave the mission to find one or have a crew member with any one of a number of weird quirks.
The Plan for Launch
In the latest beta, we took out all classes above the Engineer/Scientist/Tactician level. Most of the classes above these have instead been rolled into Kits. This allows for the same Scientist to be capable of healing and hacking, but not necessarily at the same time. This we feel allows for a good amount of player choice as well as the ability to really control when things like Hackers might come into play.
With that in mind, an individual character's progression should not be limited to the first five minutes you have them. We want you to be able to upgrade each character throughout the time you have them, including your Captain. For this, we have added a tree of skills for all non-cadet crew members you have. Cadets will still need to be upgraded before they can do anything. The categories we are working with currently are HP, Speed, Ship Systems, Accuracy (for Tacticians), Repair (for Engineers), and Healing (for Scientists). Each point you purchase in these skills will enhance your crew in that area. Want to build up your Tactician's HP and make them a tank? Take the HP area first. Want that same Tactician to be a better shot instead? Take the Accuracy points first.
Into the future
While we have changed our kits to better encompass our old classes, we have not fully determined that they are gone for good. We have looked into some ideas for those, such as mixed max level classes (Hacker would be a mix of Engineer/Scientist). This would likely be along with a new chapter of the story where it best fits (e.g. a Diplomat within the Trilax story), but only if we can find an area where it feels like the new class adds new gameplay.
The nice part about our new skills system is that we can add and adjust it as needed. We can add more points to a specific area, or we can add in new areas as we find them useful. This allows us to make individual crew progression continue into future content, should we wish.
That's more or less what we think on crew progression currently. What are your thoughts on the new setup? Or is there perhaps another topic you would like to see us talk about in this wall of text style? Please let us know in the comments below.
As always, thanks for all of your support!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Star Command Galaxies Beta 2 is Live!
Greetings Captains!
We are proud to roll out Beta 2 to the general Star Command public. This has been a long time coming and this gets us very close to release.
WHAT'S NEW?
Every part of Star Command Galaxies has received some attention. Our biggest features are below:
Simpler Gameplay
We have removed energy, food and loyalty in favor of simpler crew management. Many of our fans had issues with these features and after much deliberation we agreed. Other features including automated repair and healing have also been implemented.
New Missions
The game currently features all of our main missions. Some of the later missions still have some work but as a whole the core story is there. Our next focus will be on the random encounters that you can run into across the galaxy as you travel.
New Combat UI
We implemented new tracking so that is easier to see who is shooting at whom and from where. This should make battles much easier to track - especially as more and more ships are added.
New Enemy Types
Enemies will now have new types of ships to attack you with. They are more specialized (like ships that focus on draining shields or draining your batteries) and this should give much more diversity to combat. We will really be expanding on this for our next progression update.
Fleets
You now have the ability to call in other friendly ships when the odds are no longer in your favor. You can earn fleet cards by finishing missions for other ships.
Rewards & Augments
You can now choose your rewards after missions. This system will connect to the augments system which will allow you to upgrade your ship adding HP, Shields, Battery Capacity and Recharge. The current system is very much a work in progress but will be finalized for the next release.
Hundreds of bug fixes
Too many to list we have fixed everything we possibly could.
Save Game Fixes
Save games should be much more solid and resume much more consistently than in the past.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
There is still a bug where people won’t use a console or item because it’s “occupied” by a character that isn’t there. If you see this bug 1) please report it and tell us what triggered it and 2) try just moving the object. This fixes it until we can find the source of this issue.
Beta 2 is features only the main missions of the game. Random encounters will be coming with release.
Some of our later missions are still a work in progress.
Numbers/balance is rough. This will be our biggest focus for the next release.
Last few missions are placeholder dialog - but the idea is there - we want to verify the missions are completable.
Some ship maps are placeholder.
Augments are still very much in beta and we will be finishing those up for launch.
What we need from you are impressions, suggestions, bugs, feedback, and whatever else. We will be on the forums reading every post to make sure the final launch is as great a game as we can make it - WITH YOUR HELP!
WHAT'S NEXT?!
Launch! Our next release will be the formal launch of Star Command Galaxies. It will feature:
Much better progression for you ship and crew
Random encounters around the galaxy
New loot and other gear
Polish polish polish
S.C.I.E.N.C.E. - our ship and map maker so that you can mod the game to your hearts delight. It is our goal to have that integrated with Steam Workshop as well.
Post-launch
We have 90% of the assets done for our first planned expansion the Midorians, and then it will be onto Antorians and Trilax after that as we add in new gameplay and continue to support Star Command.
AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Star Command Galaxies Beta 2 Live on BETA BRANCH
Greetings Captains!
After 6 months of development we are happy to announce Beta 2 is now beta-testing live on Beta Branch (now that's a lotta beta...).
There are some issues we are still working through, including saves but we would love to get any feedback you have.
HOW TO ACTIVATE 'BETA BRANCH' IN STEAM:
- Right Click 'Star Command Galaxies' in your Steam Library and go to 'Properties'
- Under the 'BETAS' tab, activate 'betatesting' branch
- Let the update finish
- Play Beta 2
- Leave quality, detailed, perhaps even angry feedback on the Discussion Forums
WHAT IS NEW?
With so much new we have too many features to list - the shortlist is:
- All New Missions (every mission is redone or brand spanking new)
- New Combat AI
- New Weapons
- New Bad Guys
- New Combat UI
- New Ship Augments Upgrades(very beta)
- Removed: food & energy, happiness, day timer, crew pay, and stores all to make a more streamlined game.
- Thousands of bug fixes and optimizations.
- Save game fixes (still beta)
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:.
- Beta 2 is features only the main missions of the game. Random encounters will be coming with release.
- Some of our later missions are still a work in progress.
- Numbers/balance is rough - help us balance!
- Last few missions are placeholder dialog - but the idea is there - we want to verify the missions are completable.
- Some maps are placeholder
- Augments are still very much in beta and we will be finishing those up for launch.
What we need from you are impressions, suggestions, bugs, feedback, and whatever else. We will be on the forums reading every post to make sure the final launch is as great a game as we can make it - WITH YOUR HELP!
WHAT IS NEXT?!
Launch! Our next release will be the formal launch of Star Command Galaxies. It will feature:
- Much better progression for you ship and crew
- Random encounters around the galaxy
- New loot and other gear
- Polish polish polish
- S.C.I.E.N.C.E. - our ship and map maker so that you can mod the game to your hearts delight. It is our goal to have that integrated with Steam Workshop as well.
Post-launch
We have 90% of the assets done for our first planned expansion the Midorians, and then it will be onto Antorians and Trilax after that as we add in new gameplay and continue to support Star Command.
AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!
Warballoon
UPDATE: Beta 1, Patch 4.2 Released!
Greetings Captains!
We have released an update for Beta 1 addressing many of the bugs and issues that have come up since launch. The patch is live and should autoupdate.
Patch notes below:
Removed Zombie Knockback
Added a way to show where you can/can't teleport on another ship
Lowered the intensity of the weapon range circles
Purchasing a new ship should no longer cause you to lose the inventory of your old ship
Rebalanced some encounters for difficulty and rewards
Added a Ship Wave mode
Fixed an issue where you could lose crew members after successfully completing a Takeover Encounter
Fixed an issue where you could not move items next to the Kitchenette on the Nebulous Offender
Enemies should no longer shoot at you post death
Depressed and IBS have been removed as Personalities
FOW has been adjusted slightly
Sound has been somewhat altered to prevent sound effects from going above the set options level
The options menu (as well as some others) has been adjusted to better fit for all resolutions
Survival mode can now be restarted from the Game Over screen
Save Games can now be deleted from the Save/Load Menu
Tons of other small tweaks and fixes
We are hard at work on Beta 2 with a ton of new content, new ship battles and new reward system.
Love to get your feedback!
Cheers,
Warballoon
Beta 2 Progress Report: Bugs, Isolated Stations and Mining Colonies
Greetings Captains!
Beta has gone very, very well for us. We won't even pretend that the game doesn't still have some significant things to improve upon but the stability bug reports are down at a staggering level compared to previous releases. This has given us the breathing room we have been craving for a long time. So what does that mean?
Well, first we have cleaned up a ton of bugs. We should be rolling out our final Beta 1 patch soon. We have been reading the bug forums daily while also addressing anything that comes in from our analytics. The game will continue to get more and more stable and predictable.
Second we are working on some exciting features and great content. To begin with, Beta 2 will shift the galaxy into "Sectors." Your station will be at the center of those sectors and you can travel into them in order to start a self-contained experience. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we can concisely release new content packs and it will be easy for you to locate the new "Midorain Sector" or "Antorian Civil War" sector. Second, our modders will have the ability to build their own sectors. Players that download those sectors form the Steam Workshop will be able to quickly find new, player-created sectors.
We are also starting the Rebel sector from scratch. Up until this point many of our missions and encounters were architypes meant to test a certain feature or concept. None of them really had the character, story or sense of adventure that we try to bring to life in the Star Command universe. We are currently working on brand new adventures starting with a Mining Colony invasion.
We are going to continue to work on content throughout the month some of which will involve making enemy ships more specialty based. It will be much clearer moving forward what a ship "does" - some will have battery draining cannons, others will have freeze rays or the ability to heal other ships.
More to come very soon!
Cheers,
Warballoon
UPDATE: Range Circles and Better Combat
Greetings Captains!
We have been working this week on fixing up some of the quirks with hand-to-hand combat. We have added a few new features and fixed some behaviors that we think should make things much more solid going forward. The first big addition is range circles that will show you the radius of things that can be attacked, repaired or healed. We will continue to polish these but this should help make things a bit clearer. Second we got into the behavior of the crew and enemies and cleaned some things up. Crew should be much better at seeking out new targets and much less likely to just stand around and wait for someone to kill them.
The latest is live now on all branches. Pick it up and tell us if you see anything funky.
Next week we will be working on a brand new reward system that should really be fun! Enjoy your weekend!
PATCH NOTES
Added in Range Circles showing the area your crew members can attack, repair and heal.
Fundamental changes to crew and enemy attack behavior. This should be much more smooth and predictable now
Crew will no longer chase dying/dead enemies
New particle when you right click to attack an enemy
Crew no longer default to auto repair/heal
When crew teleport they will turn off auto repair/heal
Enemies will no longer target kits and boxes
Artwork is now useable
Added in “Navigation is Blocked” for areas where you cannot use navigation
Fixes to ReportCard, NewPerks and other menus for better support at lower resolutions
Added in dialog for choosing resolution to fix the game getting stuck in windowed mode
Added in red hair for crew
Cheers,
Warballoon
UPDATE: Endless Mode Added and Combat Feedback
Greetings Captains!
Christmas has come and gone and we have been watching the game analytics and bug reports throughout the holidays. Unity allows us to track any errors or crashes that anyone playing the game comes across. We had some, and to be honest we never expect to have zero. But in previous launches we had dozens and dozens and many of those were full fledge crashes and major errors. This release has been very different. The game looks very solid and we feel like we have definitely moved into a polish and content phase, which is exactly where we wanted to be with our Beta.
So what does that mean? It means we can do what we have wanted to do for a very long time: create some awesome content and work with our community on fixing up the game.
To help with this we have introduced a mode to the game: ENDLESS MODE. In short, you will spawn in the station and battle it out with never ending waves of enemies until you die. As you progress new weapons and crew will spawn. This mode should allow you to quickly play through just the crew combat portions of the game against a variety of enemies and aid in giving feedback for what you think combat needs.
We hope in the coming weeks and months our fans will come back to the game and see that, given a solid base to work from, we can quickly create new content and quickly iterate new ideas and polish old ones.
We also have some new bug fixes since our release a week ago. The biggest one to note is the resolution reset. THIS WILL RESET YOUR GAME PREFERENCES. Why? Basically we have placed our resolution settings in the wrong place and the only way to fix it is to reset all save games. This will help fix resolutions getting stuck.
PATCH NOTES
Added in Endless Mode
Resolution reset - refactored where we store resolution settings so they can
be more consistently overwritten (GAME PREFERENCES WILL BE RESET)
Fix to options menu getting stuck in windowed mode
