It's been an incredible journey, and we've reached a milestone worth celebrating! Stellar Warfare has been my passion project for the past four years, and the dedication and love poured into it have been nothing short of amazing.
For those who haven't joined the adventure yet, Stellar Warfare is an epic space strategy game that has evolved and grown over the years. It's not just a game; it's a universe that we've built together.
Our Journey: I've poured my heart and soul into Stellar Warfare, overcoming challenges and making sacrifices to bring you a game that continues to evolve. With bi-weekly updates, we've transformed Stellar Warfare into something truly special. The commitment to this project for four years is a testament to the passion and dedication of our community.
What's New in Stellar Warfare? Check out some of the exciting features we've added over the years:
Over 200 available ships, weapons, and modules to design your fleet.
Various game modes like Skirmish, Wave Defense, Battle Royale, and Co-op.
Full 3D movement, resource collection, and millions of ship configurations.
Stellar Warfare isn't just a game; it's my personal passion project.
Adding Your Touch to Stellar Warfare:
One of the coolest features is the ability to easily add your own 3D ship models to Stellar Warfare! Download models from your favorite franchises and see them come to life in the game.
The Labor of Love Award: Now, Stellar Warfare is eligible for the "Labor of Love" award during the Steam Autumn Sale! This award is special because it recognizes the ongoing commitment and support from our amazing community.
How You Can Help: I invite you to vote for Stellar Warfare in the "Labor of Love" category and show your love for the game that has grown and thrived over these four incredible years.
Your support means the world to me, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for Stellar Warfare. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
Fly high, Thomas
Major update: 3D fleet maneuvers, superweapon, modding
Space maneuvers
Big update time! There have been a few cases in which I've had the feedback that the current battles look a bit static. The effects are nice, but the ships weren't really moving during combat. This update will address that issue.
Your ships will now enter space acrobatics and will dance around the enemy ships in an attempt to avoid projectiles. At the same time the majority of their guns will remain trained upon their victims!
You can toggle this behavior on or off in the bottom right of your screen. All selected ships will then adjust their behavior accordingly.
Superweapon
In addition to that we now also have The Unmaker! A superweapon that shoots a weaponized sun towards the enemy. Technology has come a long way in the future and they've managed to keep the sun stable enough to launch it towards whatever enemy target you wish. It will lose cohesion upon impact though, and will deal catastrophic damage to nearby targets.
Modding
All players are now able to use the Workshop and create new mods. Instructions can be found in the workshop.
Right now modding is limited to being able to uploading 3D models from your favorite franchise. Or models you've made yourself of course. This way you can replace all the ships you want and modify things to suit your own taste.
Ship engine trails
I'm also experimenting with ship engine trails. Right now I have enabled those for the following ships:
Ant
Corvette
Frigate
Destroyer
Should people like it I will also enable them for all other ships. Or perhaps make it a toggle so that people can choose for themselves!
Other changes
Features
Added The Superweapon "The Unmaker"
Ships now have an a space maneuvers mode. This is on by default and can be turned off in the bottom right of the screen.
Some default ship frames now has visible trails (WiP)
Added a new medium ship "Crawler"
Added a new medium ship "Flint"
Changes
Pirate ships can now be toggled on/off in MP and SP game modes
Titankiller: got Plasma Barreller turret instead of Ion Cannon
Beamship: got Plasma Barreller and Azaury Mk2 instead of Ion Cannon + Queller
Polished the scorescreen a bit
Fixes
Removed Self Repair from the pirate ships
Fixed Shipyard missing some of its colliders
Fixed bug causing new players unable to build anything in the match if they do not visit Fleet editor prior
Fixed incorrect slide numbers for a guide slides
Fixed "Mods" and "Progression" labels overlapping guide slides
Fixed Circi having extensive box colliders with negative bounds
Fixed drag and drop feature in the Fleet Editor
Agonizer's laser shield was functioning, but had a weird origin bug. Hopefully my fix will change that
Fixed "Base Assault" button in the fleet editor not working
Fixed Transport ship kills being counted towards Pirate ships in achievements
That's it for this time folks! Some other cool stuff are in the making as well, but I'll keep that a secret for now. Have fun and see you in the spacewar!
Campaign select and Deathdealer
All current missions are now visible in campaign selection, even if you can't play them yet
Missions you haven't unlocked yet by completing the previous mission are now greyed out
Changed 'Work in progress' to 'More to come' in campaign select since I do plan on adding at least 3 more missions
Added the Deathdealer to the game (new weapon)
Added the Tarkar heavy ship
Fleet loadouts beta and small fixes
This small update features the beta version of the highly requested Fleet Loadout feature, minor bug fixes, and a new ship chassis.
Fleet loadout save/load
I've got help from Kial, a developer enthusiast who was able to write a system allowing players to save, rename, and load different fleet loadouts in the Fleet editor menu. It may be rough around the edges at this moment, but it works.
Please feel free to share your feedback in discussions.
Fixes and Changes
Added a quick fix for the main menu BG scaling on non-16:9 monitors..
Rebalanced difficulty in campaign mission 2 to make it easier for new players.
Fixed pirate ships not giving rewards to non-host players in multiplayer game modes.
Fixed some modules having errors in descriptions and missing icons.
Fixed End of Days having a too slow turn rate.
Storage facilities are now slightly cheaper.
Updated various projectile visuals.
Improved the natural projectiles.
What we are working on right now
Now, allow me to share what is currently in active development. No promises on when these might be added since some changes are quite heavy and we will need to test them thoroughly.
Additional modding features and Steam Workshop integration are already being tested in the playtest game version. Project backers and active community members are the ones who have access to it.
The Fleet loadout selector will be polished for better user experience, tested with Linux-based systems, and potentially accessible in some places outside the Fleet Editor, such as match lobby menus.
The scenario difficulty selector will allow players to choose how challenging campaign missions will be for them. We are discussing the best way to implement this feature.
The save/load system for single-player game modes has been in development for a long time. Hopefully we can add this to a build soon. For now it requires further testing.
Fixed stretched menu
The new main menu didn't scale well with ultrawide monitors. This made the entire main menu look stretched. This now has a fix for it, but this also isn't ideal just yet. We're looking into various options to fix this. It should work well on all other screen sizes though :)
Next patch will also have a new ship in it that I have been designing. I will keep you guys posted!
Pirate neutral ships. Balance and bug fixes
Quick summary
This major update brings new armed neutral ships to the game, tweaks to some resource rewards achievement related bug fixes and minor rework to both ship and projectile velocities.
Pirates!
Pirates, like transport ships, will grant killing reward to a players who dealt a last damaging hit to them. Unlike transports heavy armored and armed pirate ships will fight back and may easily destroy minor fleets. Both transports and pirates will now receive a reward boost that will depend on how time passed since the match started. Floating text displaying amount of resources granted to player now also works for neutral ships.
Slowing down
In order to improve on how different ships and weapons 'feels' in the game we decided to globally reduce speed of every ship and projectile in the game by 10-50%. Maps now feel slightly bigger, heavy ships and weapons heavier and light ships less annoying ;)
Detailed patch notes *:
* - some patch notes may be omitted for the sake of the post size. For more details, please join our discord, we post our dev logs there regularly
Additions
Pirate ships now will be randomly spawned in most of SP and MP game modes
Floating text now displays for transport and pirate ships rewards
Cumulative pirate hunting achievements now available
Tweaks & changes
Killing reward for transports and pirate ships now gets a bonus based on amount of time passed since the match started. 120 per 10 minutes for Transport ships and 300 per 10 minutes for Pirate ships.
All ships and weapons slowed down by ~10-50%
All projectiles 'lifetime' increased according to speed reduction they received
Arteus enhancer module speed bonus reduced to 10% from 15%
Engine booster module speed bonus reduced to 6 from 12
Altered visuals on some projectiles
Altered spawn logic for campaign mission 6 "Alone, together"
Reduced amount of heavy ships spawned in campaign mission 6 "Alone, together" to balance out heavy ships being previously buffed
Fixes
Applied additional logic that should prevent issue with weapons not switching a target when clicked target has a not optimal armor type
Fixed some PvP and building achievements that previously were unobtainable
Fixed Deep Space map not selectable in multiplayer lobbies
Based on user feedback I've made one of the campaign missions a bit easier. I've also increaesed the natural projectiles sizes.
Natural Projectiles!
Since the earliest days of this game some players didn't like the colorful projectiles. While there have been many changes and tweaks over time I can now finally announce that people can disable them. Just press the button in the bottom of the screen to toggle between colored and natural projectiles.
I have also worked on the following:
The toggle buttons in the bottom of the screen now give feedback which of them are active
Tried several variations of natural projectiles
Added pirate ships (currently disabled until a bug is fixed)
Disabled the halloween mod completely since it would sometimes turn on by itself
Added a blue sun and black sun superweapon structure (currently disabled, coming soon)
Added the Tari medium weapon
Added FireDemon to the captain name list since he became a supporter of the project on Patreon.com/tensegames
A whole bunch of other things are happening on the backend of things. Hopefully I can give you guys an update on those things soon. I am also working out which things I still want to add before an official V1 release. There's a lot of feedback to go through, so I'm trying to be smart/wise in deciding what to add, in what order, and what priority each item gets. I will keep you guys posted!
Battle Royale hyperspace jump fixed
Hyperspace Jump Fixed hyperspace jump in Battle Royale. Should be uploaded with the next patch. Checking if this broke jumping in SP or not. Confirmed fixed in both BR and Sp game modes. Will now check in an actual build to see if the cooldowntimer still works properly as well. Confirmed cooldown working in SP. Confirmed cooldown working in BR.Noticed cooldown is not resetting in between games. Jump cooldown is now reset in between games. Noticed jump icon messing up in BR for some reason. Fixed missing icon.
Patreon rewards Added @FireDemon to the captain name list for transports as a patreon.com/tensegames reward. Transports will now occasionally show his name in the tooltip. Added ThomasMarc to the captain name list for transports as a patreon.com/tensegames reward. Transports will now occasionally show his name in the tooltip.
New weapons Added the Tari medium weapon to the game Added the Raquor medium cannon Added the Rail Artillery weapon to the game
Assume direct control
Over the last couple of months a lot of new features have been added to Stellar Warfare. Think of Unit Veterancy, Superships and Overshields to name a few.
Bugs have been fixed and more quality of life features have been added. But best of all: you can now also fly and fire your spaceships!
Inspiration Games like Men of War and Dungeon Keeper have gone a step beyond and made it so that you could also fire units in these alternative camera modes. Perhaps that gave me the idea to also add direct fire to the bridgecam and give players a more direct control over their spaceships.
This does not make the game unbalanced however. Its a fun gimmick for fun-factor purposes most of all. You must remember that while directly controlling a ship you can't build economy structures (unless already queued) or give orders to the rest of your fleet. So even with the extra firepower and the benefits this might have it is not a game-breaking or overpowered feature.
How does it work? Select a ship and press B to enter the bridge camera. Move the mouse to look around. Use ASWD to move the ship. Hold left mouse button to fire your ships forward guns.
Harvesters and Surveyors have been excluded from this functionality. All other ships have new weapons added based on their armor types.
Light ships fire anti-medium rounds from the forward guns. Medium ships fire anti-heavy rounds and Heavy ships now fire anti-building rounds.
The fire rate depends on the type of ship as well. The lighter the ship, the higher the firerate (but the less damage as well). Your regular weapons still fire automatically if they have an angle which means you'll become a true force to reckon with!
Kamikaze! Ships in direct control mode can now also serve as kamikaze pilots! Brace for impact!
Doing so will deal damage equal to the health of your ship to your target, and vice versa. So lets say your ship has 50 health of its 100 health left, and your opponent has 100 of its 100 health left. Then after colliding into eachother your ship will be dead while your opponent his ship will have 50 hp left.
I have also updated our youtube trailer. You can find the updated version here.
In addition to the above we have also: - Tweaked escalation structures - Implemented and tweaked Steam Achievements - Updated visuals - Added a third GUI menu - Fixed a victory on gameleave bug - Improved Zabu resource generation (about 30% extra resources) - Decreased Escalation Building effectiveness (from 50% boost per escalation structure to 33%) - Hitting asteroids in direct control mode now kills the ship - Asteroids now block projectiles - Added new circular ships - Added new superships - Rearanged menu buttons - Updated the GUI - Added a wave number indicator - A number of things covered in previous updates - Much, much more
Dear Stellar Warfare Community,
