Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Simulator, Strategy, Indie
Starport Delta
v1.1 - it's here!
After lots of updates since launch from listening to what players want in the game, v1.1 is our biggest update yet! Our two-person Cloudfire studios team has packed this monolithic update with requests from our community, including new buildings, a research map, new camera options, upgraded lasers, copious amounts of balancing and more. Starport Delta is also 50% off as a part of the Steam Winter Sale!
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
Read the full details on what's new in our announcement.
With an update so big it keeps breaking character limits on Discord, the Cloudfire Studios team has been hard at work since the v1.0.18 update. Currently in beta and coming out later this week is our monolithic v1.1 update, packed with a lot of requests from our community, including new buildings, a research map, new camera options, upgraded lasers, copious amounts of balancing and more.
With community feedback being such a strong component of this update, we always welcome communication of all kinds from our players through the Starport Delta Discord, the discussion boards, support site or regular old email. You can also chat with our Cloudfire Studios Support user here on Steam. We read everything we can to help improve your experience of our game.
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
What's new
add new building: retail plaza
add new building: research lab
add new feature: research map (tech tree)
add new view: tactical mode (simplified top-down)
add new free-orbit camera (no snapping, full tilt control)
add additional building parts under the main building platform
add random rotation to constructing buildings
add ability for player to rotate buildings
add new upgrade for defense lasers
add history of notifications from characters
add visible radius for area affected by gardens
add sound on not being able to afford repairs
add new UI buttons for opening the research map & notification history, and switching between different camera modes
add new icon for the Port building
add new hex highlighting in build mode
add new tutorial
add new sound effects for ships and airlocks
adjust all game modes to go back to their submenu instead of the top menu when complete
adjust malfunctioning turrets to not be able to fire
adjust pirate ships to collide with buildings
adjust starting resources for normal difficulty sandbox
adjust building repossession - none on Zen/Easy (allow negative Space Bucks), no deconstruction on Normal
adjust mission 2 with different build options
optimize some building meshes
increase the size of the "ping" notification messages on the left
reduce maintenance for upgraded buildings
update tools/build/grid buttons UI
adjust default keybindings to match new button UI pattern
adjust background for main menu
adjust loading screen
adjust story-based building unlocks to also complete any relevant research
change custom game options to use research instead of building unlocks
change corridors to scaffolding
change Escape key to switch back to normal mode from free-flight mode
change default text for the trade agreement with Humans
adjust odds of being close to a planet to happen more often
change background nebulae to use environment seed
increase maximum materials
change tutorial notifications and videos to be skippable
update tutorial environment
update translations, including Romanian coming out of beta
upgrade Wwise
upgrade Unreal
fix tutorial 1 going to campaign menu instead of tutorial menu when complete
fix tutorial 1 auto-completing if replaying in the same play session
fix grid buttons not highlighting when using keyboard shortcuts
fix notifications not displaying correctly at increased game speeds
fix character rendering on notifications & mission complete summaries
fix not being able to adjust resolution and window mode settings
fix lighting not dimming for damaged upgraded buildings
fix double clicking on deconstructing buildings temporarily showing details window
fix missing sound effects on message box button
fix trade agreements not loading
fix multi-click not working when holding Ctrl
fix garden supply radius working for grid button but not on mouse hover
fix issue with broken settings files
fix red environment making the screen go yellow when looking at the sun
fix turrets very occasionally seeming to ignore pirates
fix Wwise corruption issues
fix Mission 4 being impossible to complete due to research locking
fix notification about resetting game settings appearing after finishing a mission
fix notifications sometimes not auto-hiding when their audio is complete
fix mouse hover sometimes being blocked on buildings
The Steam Summer Sale is over, but Starport Delta is still available on discount in the Humble Space Sale this week! We've also had some new & recent positive feedback for the game, and we're looking forward to the next steps for Starport Delta.
The big change in this update is two new second-tier upgrades for both Oxygen Plants and Food Farms - you can see a sneak peek of these in the image above! Following on from adding "Normal" and "Challenge" difficulty modes to the first four missions in v1.0.16 and v1.0.17, this update adds the same selectors to missions 5 & 6. We've also given you the ability to compliment your residents any time you want, some UI updates and more. Soon we'll have difficulty modes for the rest of the campaign, and we're looking forward to giving players more choices and more of what they want to see in the game.
This update also includes bug fixes and requests from our community, including adding any build cost shortfall to the information window so you don't have to do the math and work out what you need. We welcome feedback of all kinds through the Starport Delta Discord, the discussion boards, support site or regular old email. We've also added a new Cloudfire Studios Support user here on Steam as another avenue to connect with us. We read everything we can to help improve your experience of our game.
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
What's new
add 7-building upgrade for Oxygen Plant
add 7-building upgrade for Food Farm
add 'Normal' difficulty mode for missions 5 & 6 of the campaign
add option to compliment residents
add unlocking animation to mode and grid buttons
add the specifics of any build cost shortfall to information window
adjust default labels on rescue button
adjust resident ships to fly to more places on the station
update translations
update some Cyrillic characters in the title font
fix errors on ships when deconstructing buildings
fix upgraded building meshes not hiding properly in some cases
fix pirates, radiation clouds & electrical storms doing damage while game paused
What's next
more difficulty options for the last of the campaign missions
Following on from adding "Normal" and "Challenge" difficulty modes to the first two missions in v1.0.16, this update adds the same selectors to missions 3 & 4. With more security scans, menu updates and more, this update touches a lot of points around the game. We will continue to add more difficulty modes to the campaign - we want more players to experience the story and learn the mechanics without the pressure of the harder objectives. If there's a mission you're stuck on or feel is too challenging right now, please let us know!
This update also includes some bug fixes and balancing requests from our community, including building repossession being less random which has frustrated a few players when very particular buildings were randomly selected for repossession that became a challenge to recover from if they were unable to buy them back in time. The small resident ships flying from housing complexes to the port make stations feel more alive, and we're looking forward to updating these moving forward and adding more to make each station more vibrant.
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
What's new
add 'Normal' difficulty mode for missions 3 & 4 of the campaign
add 10 new security scans
add new descriptions to main menu and sandbox menu
add custom rescue labels to security scans
add visible rotation malfunction for malfunctioning defense laser turrets
add some resident ships flying around the station
increase repair depot base radius to 3 hexes
adjust building repossession to happen only to more recently built buildings
switch mission 3 objective from surviving individual meteor strikes to meteor showers
Japanese no longer in beta
update the descriptions for singular building built/exist mission objectives
add new security target icons
add resource caps of 1 billion to fix overflow errors
add score cap of 1 billion to fix negative score error
fix upgraded buildings still supplying the grid after being repossessed
fix upgraded buildings lights staying on when repossessed
What's next
more difficulty options for the rest of the campaign
Following on from our updates to the sandbox mode in v1.0.15, this update adds a new difficulty selector to the first two missions of the campaign. We'll be revisiting each mission and rebalancing each to provide a "Normal" and "Challenge" difficulty mode, under the assumption that the ones that don't have this selector are already in "Challenge" mode. If there's a mission you're stuck on or feel is too challenging right now, please let us know!
In addition to some bug fixes and continuing the balancing theme, we've also scaled the sandbox goals and tweak the resources, as well as making security scan targets the more distinctive green colour for all targets on the lower difficulty settings. Hard & Challenge modes will still have some targets in blue, so look carefully before you close that window!
We're actively seeking localization feedback from our non-English-speaking players! If you spot something we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
What's new
add 'Normal' difficulty mode for first two campaign missions
adjust balancing of previous difficulty of first two missions as a 'Challenge' mode
scale the sandbox objective goals by difficulty
change security scan targets to always be green on lower difficulty modes
adjust Discord invite to fix space overflow in Russian
minor plumbing adjustment to views of webpages on main menu
fix power plants still animating in the background when paused
fix port still animating in the background when paused
fix zen sandbox auto-completing some objectives on start
fix security scan not updating when target building is destroyed
fix corridors on mission 8 with blue health bars in the building details view
fix sandbox resetting its difficulty rating (breaks some scaling changes)
fix leaderboard contents being mixed when quickly changing tabs
fix leaderboard for challenge 4 loading incorrectly
What's next
more difficulty options for the rest of the campaign
This update focuses mainly on our sandbox mode, where players can design and build their stations in a more free-play environment. We've pushed the previous 'easy' sandbox up to being 'normal' and added a new 'easy' sandbox which is closer to an earlier version of the easy sandbox, with some additional tweaks. The new 'easy' mode only has space pirate attacks and meteor showers for the disasters. The starting resources have been scaled across all sandbox modes, and we've changed other parts of various events like damage from meteors to how fast a repair drone can repair a building. We've also added in some minor bug fixes pointed out by the Starport Delta Discord community. If you have any ideas, we want to hear them! We read every bit of feedback, everywhere we can (even if we have to rely on Google Translate a bit).
We're going to be looking at increasing the options in the game around difficulty to improve playability particularly for casual players. We'd like to see more players getting further along in the campaign, so if there's a mission you're stuck on, or you feel is too challenging, please let us know!
We're actively seeking localization feedback from our non-English-speaking players! If you spot something we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well.
Here are the details of the last couple of updates.
v1.0.15
add new easy sandbox mode (previous easy is now normal)
add new sandbox leaderboard
add income from evacuated population
scale repair rates by sandbox difficulty for drones
scale debris harvest rates by sandbox difficulty for drones
scale damage and target count rates by sandbox difficulty for space pirate attacks
scale damage by sandbox difficulty for meteor showers
scale size by sandbox difficulty for electrical storms
remove commas in screen resolutions
add some plumbing for differentiating campaign mission difficulty
fix Nodj AI being able to build multiple buildings on the same space
fix non-English mission titles overrunning the edge of the screen
v1.0.14
add icon to 'in progress' window when restarting level
add Unreal Engine logo to credits
fix security scan not appearing in tutorial 2
fix music not changing and Holo Assistant warning not appearing for some events
What's next
more difficulty options to expand playability, particularly for the campaign
This week we've focused on some balancing updates. We've been listening to feedback from the Starport Delta Discord community and game reviews, continuing to make adjustments so that everyone can enjoy as much of the game as possible. We've also added in some regular bug fixes from things that our players have communicated to us. If you have any ideas, we want to hear them! We read every bit of feedback, everywhere we can.
This week we've had additional requests from players to have Starport Delta in more languages, and it's great to get this kind of feedback. If you're interested in seeing Starport Delta in your language, make sure to let us know! We have a dedicated localization requests channel on the Starport Delta Discord and we're listening on all other channels as well. If you're interested in doing localization, we're also keen to hear from you. We're approaching each language on a case-by-case basis and we're interested in building up as many contacts as we can to support more languages in the future.
We're also still actively seeking feedback from our Japanese-speaking players! If you spot something we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
What's new
increase starting resources for mission 2, 6 and 8
adjust disaster rates of occurrence for mission 3, 5, 7 and 8
increase starting resources in zen/easy sandbox mode
remove pirates generating debris in easy sandbox mode
remove buildings generating debris in zen sandbox mode
adjust volume for one sound clip in tutorial 2 not respecting volume settings
adjust Escape key to go back to main menu from game type selection menu
adjust garden objective on mission 1 to only be visible when you can build gardens
fix deconstruct objective on tutorial 1 showing as incomplete in details window even though flag shows as complete
fix tutorial 2 having multiple security scan targets available (no longer has multiple ways of triggering next dialogue)
fix behaviour of Escape key not going back to previous menu from campaign/briefing menus
fix buildings not being destroyed when airlocking final non-resident population hex
Continuing our commitment to having Starport Delta in as many languages as we can manage, this week adds support for Japanese! There's also a some bugfixes and balancing updates, a mix of things we've noticed and discussions on our own Starport Delta Discord community. At the moment Japanese support is marked as beta while we get our players and translators to review and test the new localization. When everyone seems happy with it, we'll take the beta flag off - we're always keen to hear about how we can improve our translations and hope this will encourage players to let us know if they spot anything we can update!
For all our Japanese players, if you spot something we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
Here are the specifics of the last couple of updates.
v1.0.12
add support for Japanese
update EULA and legal credits
update Chief Khumalo to not repair repossessed buildings in mission 7
reduce visual disparity between progress bar and building goal in mission 6
reduce rates of additional disasters in easy sandbox
update locations for cloud auto-save
add environment seed to pause menu
fix some sandbox modes not evacuating population correctly
fix endless end condition for custom game modes showing as complete
fix repossession not working correctly for upgraded buildings
v1.0.11
fix not being able to build anything on the first campaign mission
As the team settles in to work on our regular updates, we know that a lot of players use Discord! We've added support for their Rich Presence to show what mode you're playing in Starport Delta. There's also a variety of bugfixes and balancing updates, largely at the request of our own Starport Delta Discord community!
Also this week the official Starport Delta Soundtrack launched! We had hoped to launch at the same time as the game so the package was available, but we unfortunately made a mistake with the approval process timing. It is available now, as well as the package of Starport Delta + the soundtrack for a combined discount.
We're continuing to talk with our international community to help support and improve all of our translations. If you spot something you feel can be improved, we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
Here are the specifics of the last couple of updates.
v1.0.10
add Discord rich presence
add a side notification when Chief Khumalo repairs a building in mission 7
minor updates to Chinese translations
adjust upgrade images to not show when the scenario doesn't have them enabled
adjust leaderboard score submissions to only trigger from pause menu
adjust health of buildings in mission 7 to ensure enough starting resources
adjust behaviour of Escape key in the main menu to trigger the back button on all game mode sub-menus
fix custom game mode not loading
fix satellite destroying defense lasers at a distance
fix upgrade images showing up on locked buttons
fix upgrades on predesigned stations in missions not upgrading
fix information UI being squashed on screens with a 4:3 ratio
fix right-click deselection not working in tutorial 1
v1.0.9
fix mission objectives flag not showing up
fix security scan flag not showing security missions
That's the end of launch week! We managed to get 7 updates out during launch week to rapidly improve on player feedback as much as possible, and for a studio of two people, that was a lot of updates! We will keep on listening and keep improving.
A common request that we mentioned in previous news was the request to be able to make your own rules, to pick which environment you play in and how it's set up in a lot more detail. Today we launch our new Custom Game mode, which gives you over a dozen options to customize your experience. We're looking forward to seeing what players think and if there are other options we can add.
We've been working hard to help support our international community in their own languages, with updates to all translations and making sure we catch more gaps where things don't look quite right. As always, if you spot something you feel can be improved, we have a dedicated channel for translations feedback on the Starport Delta Discord, and we welcome feedback through the discussion boards, support site or regular old email.
Another big request we've had has been for Chinese localization support - we're proud to announce that we've now added both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese support to Starport Delta! We're looking forward to more contributions from our Chinese-speaking community.
Below you can find the specifics of everything we've added recently.
v1.0.8
add new custom game mode
add visual representation of upgrades to the pop-up information box
add & update translations for existing supported languages
add new delayed repossession mechanic to give players a chance to buy back repossessed buildings before deconstruction
add support for Simplified Chinese
add support for Traditional Chinese
adjust health and deconstruct settings for trade hubs and gardens
adjust maintenance warning graphic
adjust initial language selection to use text instead of flags
fix garden having repair slider
fix 'turn grid on' objective in tutorial 1 becoming incomplete if the grid is turned off
fix tax income not being immediately updated in the UI after supply ship drops off new population
fix some parts of the menu not localizing correctly when switching language
v1.0.7
add slider on repair depot to allow changes to drone auto-repair threshold
add & update translations
force the "stowaway" security scan in the tutorial
fix campaign description overflowing on campaign menu for mission 7
v1.0.6
add time controls to challenge modes
add & update translations
increase rate of evacuation
add upkeep cost to pop-up information
reduce maintenance for upgrade sets
fix time control tooltips
fix enabled/disabled dropdowns in the options menu
fix time controls not going back to correct setting after unpausing
