StarDrive 2
Small Patch Today
I've updated the game with a small patch today. First, I tracked down a bug that could still cause escort ships to drift away after losing their capital ship.
Second, I balanced out Corvettes and Frigates to have a minimum possible turning speed - Corvettes a bit faster than Frigates. This is a bonus to help them play the roles that I envisioned for them to be screening ships. I noticed that a lot of times these escort vessels could have a really hard time making the turns they needed to make to keep in escort range. So the end result is that you'll see the ships moving at the same speed they normally would, but regardless of how slow or fast they are, they'll have a minimum turning speed to keep them behaving properly.
This will patch into 1.2 on your end. I don't update the version number for small fixes like this anymore because updating the version number causes your AppData folder to be rebuilt, and that can cause headaches for some users who have restricted permissions on their systems. I'll only be updating the version number on your end when I need to add new content.
Update to Version 1.2 Live
I wanted to thank you for bearing with me as I track down lingering issues in the 1.2 Patch. It's been a big process upgrading to Unity 5 because not everything works the same in Unity 5 as it does in Unity 4, and StarDrive 2 is a huge game with a lot of places for things to go off the rails. So I am sincerely grateful for your patience and your feedback, and I'm working hard to knock out any issues as you report them.
I'm patching these fixes right into 1.2 today - the version number won't update on your end, but when you see SD2 download a little something something today, it's just patching these fixes in:
- Fixed an issue where beam weapon sounds weren't being mixed properly in 3d (so they were always a flat volume regardless of distance to the camera)
- Fixed an issue where the Draylok Battleship could be invincible
- Found some excellent performance enhancements for the combat map
- Fixed an issue where fighters that lost their mothership were not properly being removed from play after a while; this should fix any issue where you had a tough time mopping up after a battle
- Fixed an issue where combat in orbit of Toxic planets would not have the proper planet appearing in the background
- Pre 1.2 saved games should work now
- Swapped out the materials on a number of planets that would appear in the battle map. We'll have a number of prettier planets now.
- Fixed an issue where a fleet could engage a fleet that was far away from it if it was close to it relatively recently; the fleet was not updating its list of known nearby contacts.
- Fixed a rarer bug that could cause the game to become unresponsive - like you couldn't close a quest window or progress the turn
- Fixed an issue where subspace projectors were not properly applying speed bonuses
Hotfix to version 1.2
I am releasing a hotfix to address a couple of critical issues that popped up in version 1.2. Specifically, there were situations where you could encounter a blank invasion screen when trying to invade an enemy planet. Also there were still some lingering issues where AI escort vessels could become confused about their purpose in life after the capital ship they were guarding blew up.
These issues are now resolved and a hotfix is up. If you are experiencing these issues then just verify your steam files or restart steam to grab the patch.
I have also fixed an issue where the game could hang after defeating the final planet of an enemy. If you have a hang then this will fix that.
Patch Notes Version 1.2
a. Changes
- Upgraded the game engine to Unity 5 from Unity 4. This provides overall increased performance during combat and other sections of the game that are more demanding on your system.
- Refactored a lot of code to improve performance on the strategy map, allowing for a smoother experience when there’s a lot of stuff going on in a large galaxy and in the late game
- Added Planetary Governors to control your build queue and to manage your citizen labor allocations
- Tech Costs have been scaled up to slow down the pace of discovery in the mid-game
- Colonies with empty build queues will now automatically build trade goods when they have empty queues
- When you add something to a planetary build queue while you’re already building trade goods, the trade goods will now automatically be removed from the build queue.
- Changed the formula for calculating a ship’s accuracy to have a smoother curve as the ship levels up. Previously the early level-ups provided larger bonuses than later level-ups.
- Ships gain accuracy bonuses at very close ranges now.
- Fleet ETA and fuel UI indicators now appear next to the fleet icon rather than next to the destination point to keep things less cluttered
- Added UI indicators for situations when you have enough food to feed your empire but not enough freighters to transport it all where you need it
- Construction ships will no longer merge into orbiting fleets upon construction at a colony; likewise they can no longer be merged into combat fleets.
- Traveling through wormholes is now instantaneous; previously ships would be shown to quickly move across the galaxy, but this could cause some problems if a manual combat occurred elsewhere while a ship was in transit; this change eliminates any bugs associated with this scenario
- Ship performance bonuses for Noxium and Helium 3 are now properly reflected in the shipyard
- Changed several user interface Sound FX that were jarring when wearing headphones
- Changed the stellar backdrop on the strategy map to be more vivid, and to have some variations possible between games; i.e. you might get a red galaxy or a blue-ish or green-ish one. Purely visual.
- If an AI fleet is equipped with bombs, then it will now use all of its bombs to soften up ground defenses before landing its troops
- . The AI won’t be so quick to pull forces back from a freshly captured colony to prepare a new invasion force. They’ll hang out for a while now to re-arm and repair while guarding against a counter-attack
- . The AI won’t strictly insist upon forming an invasion force in a guaranteed safe spot; they’ll now be willing to form up in enemy territory as long as it thinks it is safe enough
- The AI will now reconsider its final attack plan before committing to a planetary assault; if it can see a better target then it will potentially alter its plan to take advantage of the weakness
b. Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug that could cause some AI ships that ran out of ammo to drift off of the screen in manual combat, preventing the player from being able to finish the combat. Ships that are truly out of ammo will now retreat.
- Fixed a bug that could cause a long hang at the end of a planetary combat session
- Fixed a bug that would cause incorrect auto-calculation results to occur in every auto combat subsequent to the the first auto combat performed in a session
- Fixed a bug in the auto-combat algorithm that would sometimes cause ordnance-based weaponry to not contribute its DPS to the simulation
- Fixed a bug where a Creative race that completed a technology by sacrificing a citizen would not gain every tech at the tech level
- Fixed a bug where the Pollop hero’s unique ship was not properly spawning to the strategy map
- Fixed a bug where leaders that cannot participate in ground combat could trigger a quest event that should require ground troops to be present
- Fixed a bug where Helium-3 was not providing its exploitation bonus to beam weapon damage
- Fixed an issue where the clickable area of a planet’s name on the strategy map could exceed the size of the actual name, leading to unintentionally accessing the planet interface
- . Fixed a similar issue where the clickable area for the item you are currently researching could exceed the size of the text
c. Misc:
- The Upgrade to Unity 5 may mess with some mods in unforeseen ways. In the coming weeks I will re-release the mod tools with Unity 5 support
'Sector Zero' DLC Announced and Half Year Anniversary Discount
The DLC will bolster the epic turn-based 4x space strategy title with the following additional content and features:
· Sectors mechanic. An entirely new way to visualize and conquer the galaxy. The concept of sectors reinvigorates the 4x’s of StarDrive 2. In the early-game exploration phase, Sectors provide short-term goals as the targets of your exploration. As you enter a sector for the first time, its secrets are revealed. You might find one of Sector Zero's new quest lines or events. You may find subspace anomalies, the wreckage from ancient battles, and many more new and exciting terrain features.
· Deep Space Construction mechanics. These allow you to claim sectors for your empire and to exploit the resources found there. Build a Star Fortress at the edge of a wormhole to control the passage, or a mining base in a deep space field of precious metals. Every space station can be upgraded with multiple improvements to secure your territory.
· Expanded Galaxy size, allowing galaxies up to 4 times larger than those available in the base StarDrive 2 game.
· Dozens of new quests and events to continue to bring the lore of the StarDrive universe to life.
· New technologies to research.
· New Racial traits to further customize your experience.
· Two new Victory Conditions: the scientific victory, and a story-based victory.
Also to coincide with the half year anniversary of the launch of StarDrive 2 (which was on April 9th 2015), publisher Iceberg Interactive will be offering a 50% discount on the title for 7 days from today October 9th, with the original StarDrive game also discounted to 75% off.
Zero is travelling at the mo, but we will be supplying some more graphic info on the upcoming DLC next week.
Patch Notes 1.1e
[List="1"]
<*>Added a slider to the galaxy creation menu to let you affect how many wormholes will spawn in your galaxy
<*>Added two new difficulty levels: Brutalx2 and Brutalx4. These provide large bonuses to the AI and also increase the danger level of external threats
<*>Ships will now remember their deployment position and preferred firing ranges after a battle. In planetary defenses ships will still order themselves in a defensive line; in offense engagements ships will use their last deployment position.
<*>Ships will now heal all of their ship modules to a minimum of 1hp after battle. This will guarantee that your ship will at least have all systems functional if it gets into another battle, although those ship systems will of course be very fragile until real repairs can be made
<*>You can now pan the camera using the Arrow keys in addition to WASD
<*>Bugs involving the import/export of .5 food are resolved (mostly this was caused by citizens with Photosynthesis)
<*>Fixed an issue where an AI fleet that took battle damage from another AI fleet would have that damage become permanent after surviving a battle with a player fleet
<*>Subspace Projectors have been upgraded. They now provide a circular area of effect rather than a directional area of effet, and that area of effect has been substantially increased in size.
<*>Mass Drivers have been retooled. They now do not lose any effectiveness over long ranges, but they do substantially less damage. I still think they'll be a good choice for your stand-off ships but it's not an insta-win weapon any more.
<*>Rambowl's ship got some upgrades to make it not useless
[/List]
Patch Notes - Version 1.1b
This patch is now live with the following patch notes:
- Polish language implemented
- I've added some sanity checks to the code to try and eliminate the Mirror Fleet bug. I have not been able to reproduce this issue on my end, but when you get enough people playing the game, it'll pop up. I hope this fix will eliminate the bug. After this patch, please let me know.
- Fighters will now take damage over time if their mothership is destroyed; this should eliminate situations where a pair of ace dogfighters take nearly forever to finish off their battle. They'll have about 45 seconds of life left after their mothership dies.
- (Experimental) I am eliminating the Garrison mechanic, which reduced the command point cost of ships that were in orbit - as an experiment in controlling fleet sizes
- (Also Experimental) - the base CP for a battleship is increased from 4 to 5; Titans from 5 to 7. I want titans to be a much larger investment, and encourage some more mixed use of forces
- (Experimental too) - You may now build a number of free frigates equal to half your Command Point Cap (rounded up, if the number is odd)
- Changed the way "free CP" ships are represented in the fleet UI. previously they would contribute to the "on paper" CP cost of the fleet, and you'd have to figure out whether a ship was free or not; now I specifically assign a ship to be free or not, which will result in an accurate CP readout on the GUI.
- Defensive Station hitpoints are increased by about 300%
- Attempted fix in place for scenario where AI ships will maneuver off the combat map; I have not been able to reproduce this bug but my hypothesis is that it is an error in the target selection code; I have done some work here to do a little sanity checking and ensure that AI ships refresh their targets a bit more frequently
- Rebalanced all of the combat audio to avoid corrupt, crackling sounds when too many weapons are firing off at once; you should also observe a nice performance increase as a result
- Fixed a bug where weapons that deal Damage over time were not properly applying their Dots, although the damage text would appear
- I've changed the AI's fleet building logic to prioritize making its biggest ships first, and then it will backfill with free corvettes and frigates
Patch Notes 1.1a
- Improved turn processing speed in the late game - the game's decision-making algorithm for picking a ship to build has to iterate through a lot of designs and that was slowing things down.
- The AI will be better about building battleships and titan designs now.
- Fixed a scenario where the AI would declare war on you without contacting you; they shouldn't be declaring war at all in this situation
- The AI is no longer going to try and make a territorial claim on your homeworld. They will respect that it's yours and at the very least won't go crazy trying to get you to trade it to them to end a war of their aggression
- The AI now has the limited ability to modify ship designs in response to not having a replace-able technology. Currently if they want to build a ship that requires Fusion Engines but they do not possess this technology, then they know how to swap out the fusion engines for Basic Engines.
- Further improved turn speed; some work was being done over and over again that only needed to be done once
Version 1.1 - Imperial Might!
New Content:
- Added more than 1500 bad-♥♥♥ ship designs to the AI's arsenal.
- The AI routines responsible for building fleets have been upgraded to provide a more substantial challenge heading into the late game. Experienced players may very well find themselves out-gunned!
- New Race Customization Options! These are "Game-Changers" to provide some more unique challenges for you.
- Titan Quest: You begin the game with Titan Construction technology but can ONLY build Titan class military vessels
- Total War: You cannot build colony ships. This should be a fun challenge.
- Newcomer: Your empire was late to the StarDrive party. Other empires start with two additional colonies in nearby systems - Added a number of new technologies and ship modules that will be available through a new in-game event
- New Galaxy Shape Added: Ring
- Added Broadside Weapon Mounts for the following weapons
- Heavy Torpedo
- Plasma Torpedo
- Anti-Matter Torpedo
- EMP Torpedo
- Photon Torpedo
- Quantum Torpdo
Tweaks & Balance
- Changed some of the Strategic AI behaviors to research technologies that you may not have seen the AI research before
- The Tactical AI now has a new play in its playbook to try and bring down those destroyers lurking on the edge of combat
- The AI will now engage in some limited technology trading between themselves. I had previously decided as a matter of design to restrict this behavior to prevent the AI from appearing to have an overwhelming advantage, but there are some techs that are just too important for the AI to go without. Therefore the AI will now trade with Known races to acquire certain techs that are important to it
- The Shipyard Checklist will now produce a red "Ammo" error if you attempt to build a ship with a weapon equipped while not having the energy or ordnance storage necessary to fire the weapon; previously this would have only produced a yellow "Ammo" warning. This will prevent players from being able to create a design with a weapon mount that is unable to fire
- The cost of future tech research increases the further down the tree that you go. This should prevent you from ever running out of future tech, which can break the game if you get that far, and it will slow down tech progression in the late game
- The 2x5 mass driver has its range reduced to 800, with a large damage fall-off occuring past 600.
- If your approval level ever hits 0, then your people will simply refuse to work or perform research because literally no one likes you enough to do anything for you.
- The AI will only demand tribute if it believes that its fleet is stronger than yours
- My mouse wheel broke and so I realized that for people without good mouse scroll wheels, the +/- buttons on the minimap needed some more fine-grained control. So that's in there now.
- Added support for Corvette-only weapons to compliment the new technologies available
- The game's initial load up time is reduced by a fair margin
- Future Tech can no longer be assimilated or stolen by spies, which kills a few wonky birds with one stone
- The maximum population of a planet is now determined by the citizens living on the planet - not the owner of a planet. For instance, if you conquer an aquatic world, the aquatic species that lives there will be able to continue to breed and grow into their planetary population cap. You will not be able to place more non-aquatic citizens there than your own cap would ever allow. If the Population cap of a planet is increased relative to your own species' cap due to a trait like aquatic or subterranean, then the population readout will reflect this in parenthesis: i.e. a world might read as 7/5 (14). Meaning 7 citizens live there - your cap is 5, but due to the bonuses of the citizens, the real cap is 14.
Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug with the AI sometimes colonizing in your space still; added some extra safety nets for scenarios where space BECOMES your core space when the AI colony ship is already en route
- Capturing a blockaded planet in ground combat will no longer cause the planet to be blockaded for the immediate turn thereafter; this bug may have been the cause of some very edge case scenarios where you might find a mirror of your own blockading fleet invading your colony. I'm not declaring that issue fully resolved but I'm still working towards isolating the cause and I suspect that this now-dead bug may be the culprit
- Fixed a few achivements that were not unlocking properly
- Fixed an issue where the AI could still potentially colonize in Player space; this was caused by the AI aborting its attempt to colonize a valid planet due to a hostile presence in the vicinity, and picking a second choice without the same territorial considerations it usually employs to choose a colonization target
- Fixed an issue with the new Approval penalty that is incurred when exceeding tolerance when also having a leader that improves your tolerance levels
- The Gauss cannon should no longer punch through shields
- Fixed a bug (it was a typo) that was causing the expansionism penalty to diplomatic relations to remain constant, when the desired effect was to have it diminish over time
- The Hire Hero window will no longer be overridden by pop-ups from quests or diplomatic interactions
Diplomacy Update - Patch Notes v. 1.0h
I've also made the "tolerance" mechanic a Soft-Cap for the player. As space emperor, you may indeed make any deal you want with other races, even if it exceeds your peoples' tolerance for such a deal. They may not be very happy about it though...
This is the first in a series of patches that will continue to respond to the feedback that players want more diplomatic options in the game. I have more plans to add new treaties such as alliances and shared victory conditions. But first, let's make sure that these changes we've made here are going to work out as intended. Please stop by the forums to offer your feedback!
There are additional balance tweaks and bug fixes as well. Full notes below.
- You can no longer order your fleets to intercept your own Civilian transports or merchant fleets. Previously you could merge a combat fleet with a civilian fleet and this could cause a game hang or potentially a crash
- Improved the terran ground combat map as it was a bit sparse on details
- The "Stormwracked" planet attribute will now be removed when you complete the special project to do so; previously if the planet was currently undergoing a storm when you fixed the special, then it would remain storming indefinitely. This fix will apply retroactively to your saved games
- AIs that prefer to use carriers are getting some new ship loadout options for their battleships
- Fixed a bug that could cause a hang on load in the late game
- Upon reconsidering the issue, I've decided to nerf 3x3 cruise missile damage. They are extremely reliable right now due to their speed and hitpoints, and I'm unhappy with how quickly a focused barrage can take out even a battleship in short order. The focus for missiles is reliable damage at mid-long range, but they can be stuffed with Jammers and point defense.
- Increased the number of screenships that the AI will try to use for its Capital ships, and I've made them want to be tighter in on their wards to try and be there for missile barrage intercepts
- 2 direct hits from a flak cannon is now sufficient to kill a cruise missile. Point defense lasers will remain largely ineffective; I am looking into adding some higher tech point defense
- Continuing to expand your empire despite being warned by an AI will no longer result in an AI automatically declaring war on you
- The expansionism penalty to diplomatic relations will subside over time
- The expansionism penalty to relations will not be applied if you are colonizing inside a system where you already own a colony, and you are the only empire occupying the system
- Fixed a scenario where the AI wants a trade treaty and creates an offer that exceeds your tolerance levels
- Colonizing within the Core space of an AI will require a declaration of war before you can proceed
- Added an Open Borders Treaty to diplomacy. This allows you to re-arm, repair, and refuel inside the other's territory. It also extends your fuel range through their territory. This treaty takes the place of the Non-Aggression Pact for purposes of defraying the relations hit that comes from moving through the core space of another empire.
- Updated the English dialog texts and AI behavior to offer an Open Borders treaty instead of a Non-Aggression Pact upon a core-space incursion by player fleets (if they like you enough).
- You can now, as an emergency measure, exceed your normal tolerance levels in diplomacy at the expense of pissing off your people. An appropriate pop-up warning has been added when attempting to do this. Cybernetics continue to be immune to being pissed off about anything, which is a point to consider for balance purposes as we go through with the changes to this system. The AI will remain inflexible with its tolerance levels
- Heavy fighters will now be equipped with a 1x1 Rocket launcher instead of the Flak or Cluster Cannon. This should both increase their effective DPS and also increase YOUR effective FPS, because the cluster cannon could bog your framerates when used en masse
- If you declare war upon a race with whom you have an open borders treaty, you will receive an "Untrustworthy" penalty to relations with all other races. You also get this penalty if you had a non-aggression pact
- The "untrustworthy" penalty is now increased to a base of -20 points from -10.
- Artillery given a steep damage falloff past 600 range