KickStarter Stellar Tactics, a sandbox sci-fi RPG - now available on Early Access

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/465490/announcements/detail/1649881910397240980

Patch 0.129 - Radar, mod update and fixes
6 APRIL - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi everyone - here is the latest patch with a number of improvements and fixes. Hope you all enjoy the update.

Added a new top down radar system for ground exploration. The radar system is designed to be expanded on and tied to your electronics skill. As you gain more skill in electronics, perks will be available for exposing other object types on the map like loot, mission objects and at a very high skill, enemy positions (assuming they are not using stealth). I'll be adding perks for this skill soon.

For now, the radar displays default information - vendors, NPC's and enemies if in line of site.

--Exits are shown as door icons on the radar. You can click door icons to move the camera to that location. This is handy for moving your team to the exit.
--In mission areas that display the progression map, rolling over exit icons on the radar will highlight the room the exit leads to on the mission map.
--NPC's are displayed as orange dots
--Vendors are displayed as green dots
--Enemies are displayed as red dots - enemies are only displayed if they are in line of sight during combat. When perks for electronics go in the game, you will be able to select a perk that reveals all enemies in a certain radius regardless of LOS based on your skill in electronics.
--Team members are displayed as white dots.
--The radar is centered on the currently selected team member.
--There are two FOV indicators on the radar. The large FOV indicator displays the direction your camera is facing. The smaller indicator displays the direction your selected team member is facing.
--I'll be expanding on the system in the future.

Weapon mods - You can swap/upgrade mods now anytime/anywhere. The currently equipped mod gets moved to your inventory. Mods are never destroyed even when overwriting an existing mod in a weapon slot. You can only have a single mod of any one type equipped in any weapon

--Drag mods from your shared inventory to any mod slot. The dragged mod will be equipped in a free mod slot or replace any similar mod. If the mod is replaced, the old mod will be moved to your inventory.
--Shift-click any equipped mod to un-equip the mod to your inventory, clearing the mod slot.

IMPORTANT: If you have weapons that have more than one of any type of mod (e.g. Two scope mods) it will be important for you to un-equip the extra mod from your weapon. Mods were never meant to be stacked on any one weapon.

ADDED - Added a target indicator for currently selected targets in space.
ADDED - When you near planets, moons and stations, a new gravity well indicator is displayed that shows the general radius of the gravity well. This should make it easier to navigate around gravity wells when traveling in star systems.
ADDED - A new set of tutorial videos are now displayed when you first enter space. If you have already recieved your starter ship, you can review the video tutorials from the help menu by selecting the tutorial button.

UPDATED - Gravity wells no longer bring your ship to a full stop.
UPDATED - Updated the character creation screen so the instruction text and steps needed to create your character are clear.
UPDATED - When changing resolution a message is displayed confirming that the resolution change took place.
UPDATED - You can now enter hacking codes with the numeric keypad.
UPDATED: Ship capacitor recharge when out of combat is now faster.

FIXED - Default heavy weapons merc's mini-gun now reloads correctly
FIXED - A bug that allows players to equip more than one mod type per weapon
FIXED - Unarmed team members could not throw grenades
FIXED - Adjusted grenade damage for all grenade types
FIXED - A bug where throwing a grenade could reset a SMG (and other weapon types) to single fire mode even if that weapon only had burst and full auto enabled.
FIXED - Fine aiming was not working as intended. You now correctly receive up to a 7% bonus
FIXED - A number of typo's in the log entries and tutorials and item descriptions
FIXED - A bug that would require you to press the Enter key when generating your characters name during character creation
FIXED - On certain systems with very fast CPU/GPU when launching to space you could rarely enter a state that would require you to restart the game
FIXED - A bug that could break the ragdoll physics causing characters that were KO'd to stand up "broken" after the very first combat scenario on the bridge of the Dauntless
FIXED - An area in the Vats that could not be clicked for movement
FIXED - A few rollover objects that had incorrect border highlights
FIXED - Cargo and stash now allow mouse wheel scrolling without clicking first
FIXED - Fixed a few errors with the rollover info at the top of the screen when rolling over characters
FIXED - Occasionally, it was possible to click at a location in combat and use more AP than the preview indicated

Note that I've been working on a second pass on some of the minor UI's - they are not final and are work in progress.

Whats next? I'll be finalizing the crew manager. I hope to have that patch out in a few weeks.

As always, if you find any issues/bugs, please report them in the "Submit bugs" sub-forum. Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/0/2561864094346329263/

Progress update - 5/11/18
Hi all - just a quick progress update to let you know what's going on with the game. No screenshots or videos this time. I'll be sure to record a video and post it as soon as I get a little farther in this update.

Many of you who have been following the game know by now how I work - content and feature updates and then bug fixes and stability.

I'm currently working on the next content update - opening the FTL gates. I don't have an ETA, though I am finally focusing 100% of my time/effort on getting everything ready.

This means I'm wrapping up a lot of content for the procedural mission system and I'm about 3/4 of the way through the mission sets - so that's great news. Following that I'll be moving them into the game and propagating them into the mission system and out into the universe.

All the various stations (agricultural, industrial, trade, outpost, shipyard, refinery, solar collector and research) have all been modeled and waiting for me for months. I finally have them all rigged and ready to go.

For the FTL update, I'l be wrapping up the Crew Manager which will allow you to recruit up to 20 mercs that you can bring with you on missions. Part of this is making sure new crew members are available for you on stations as you explore the universe. I'll be adding a number of unique crew members that you can find that have back stories and missions, though that won't come until Alpha. I have other plans for crew members and I'll explain more about that once I get a bit further along in the design.

Another part of this work will be implementing commodities trading and the ability for you to mark trade routes on the map and track commodity prices across the universe using Data Buoy's to collect information on price changes in systems you've visited. Right now ore/minerals are in the game and can be mined, bought and sold. I'll also be adding a whole slew of other commodities and goods that can be traded. After all, you are going to need something to fill your cargo holds with besides raw ore and loot. I'll also be working on some QoL features everyone has been asking for related to marking junk items for bulk sale and sorting.

I'm also going to bring the mission system to the next phase so you can mark missions and select them in the log. Selected missions will be placed on the screen in a mission tracker and you will be able to set missions as your destination. Selected missions will be highlighted on the star map and provide visual queues on the screen so you can easily navigate to systems on the FTL map (something you haven't seen in the game yet) and in systems to the actual planet or station where they are located.

In addition to the above, I'll be working on some of the items in the "What's next" pinned post - updated character animations, repair system, new tutorials for space combat and mining and more. I may roll out a few features from this list before the FTL Content update as they become ready.

So, the goal of the next major content update is to get everyone out into the sandbox so you can explore, trade and take missions.

That's all I have for this update. Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

StellarTactics

1) you didn't post the most recent update under 'news' on Steam so it looks like there hasn't been an update for almost 2 months

2) are there going to be more companion NPCs with actual backstories like the ones you have in the prologue?

 

[sstacks]

More updates would be stellar

 

[StellarTactics]

rusty_shackleford - Yes, I need to get an update out soon. I've been buried the last month or two completing the mission level sets and station interiors needed to open up the FTL gates so there is a content out in the universe. I'll try to get a post out the end of this week or next with a progress update. The next content patch will be a big one and it's going to take a while to get everything in the game, tested and balanced.

Regarding companion NPC's - yes, that work is planned for the chapter based story content updates that will take place during Alpha.

 

[StellarTactics]

Shane - agreed. I usually post more often - the work I've been doing lately has been consuming me Hope all is well with you.

 

[sstacks]

Shane - agreed. I usually post more often - the work I've been doing lately has been consuming me Hope all is well with you.

I was just making a lazy pun

 

[Micormic]

Looks interesting, would def give it a try when it's released. Very few interesting games for me nowdays.

 

[Infinitron]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/465490/announcements/detail/3076403595415562727

Progress Update 6/15/18
15 JUNE - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi all - It's time for another progress update. I've included a video that shows some of the work I've been doing. Details below.

The last few months have been pretty crazy around here. Since the last major patch, I've been focused on opening the FTL gates and there is still a lot of work to do. Most of this time has been spent wrapping up all the procedural mission sets needed to make sure the universe is populated with locations to explore. This has been thousands of hours of work over the last year between me and a talented modeler/ level designer I work with. I'm happy to say that work is now done - I'm finished with the level sets for the next content patch.

Another large block of work that is finished is generating the interiors for the various stations found in the universe. That means the interiors are in the game, loading based on where you are in the universe, vendors are placed and faction mission contacts are available. You can now dock at trade stations across the universe in the development build - if you have the proper level of faction needed. In a future patch you will be able to hack station security remotely and board the stations of hostile factions. Doing that will place a station on alert and you will need to fight your way through the station to disable various systems like external station turrets and interior defense systems. Should be interesting.

All the space stations that were completed some time ago have been added to the universe. Later I'll be adding external turret systems to the stations for faction warfare.

The incursion system is now working in all systems that have stations or a faction presence. I'll expand on this in the future with faction warfare and more.

I've also added volumetric effects to all systems as well as LUT Color Grading. They add a lot to the visual appearance and diversity of star systems.

For the last week I've been focused on performance on the Star Map. The game processes tens of thousands of independent AI vessels. The Star Map uses LOD algorithms to display ships and systems that are nearby and places them into a secondary processing queue when they are out of range. Every ship has a task or set of tasks and when they are out of visual range, they switch to a secondary process that uses universe time to determine arrival, task completion and assign new tasks. It's a fairly complex system and seems to be running well. I'm going to give myself another week with this to make sure everything is performing and running as expected.

And finally, the revised animations are finished, including special attacks for all weapon types. You might notice that "stealth" will be going in the game. I'll add these animations into the game when I get through a longer list of tasks I'm working on right now.

So, what's next?

Performance on the Star Map, tying the mission generator into the rest of the universe, finishing the crew manager, adding commodities and refining the trade system and a good number of other things that need to be done like data buoy's, the mission tracker and more. These should move along pretty fast. It does take time though, so I hope you will all be patient. It's going to be a huge update when it's finished and I need to make sure everything is in and working well.

I'd like to thank all of you for supporting the game and hope you all have a great weekend!

 

[Edija]

How is the current/planned mod support on this one?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/games/465490/announcements/detail/1714068264254152730

Progress Update 7/29/18
Stellar Tactics - Stellar Tactics

Hi everyone. No video this time, but I wanted to post a quick update to let you know what I've been up to.

Lots of work completed over the last month and a half since the last progress update. Star map performance is finished, the mission generator is placing explore missions on planets, faction agents are issuing faction missions to other systems in the area and rewarding tokens and rewards. I've also completed mission indicators so you know where to go when a mission is assigned and I've extended the system so I can add other mission types at a later time. I've spent a lot of time testing and making sure that when you arrive at mission destinations, the missions play through, complete and send you back to the originator for your reward. So, that was a big part of the work that needed to be done out of the way.

Faction was another big task. I've added two more armor sets to the faction merchants. Shikaru and Varadyn. The sets can be purchased with mission tokens. They come in three color variants.

There are many different types of locations you can discover in Stellar Tactics. Many different stations types, ground based facilities and cave systems. When exploring you may come across planets that have ground locations that need help. Some may be invaded by Phage, Scavvers, Raiders, hostile factions, mutants etc. By clearing one of these locations you end up with rewards from the dominant faction of that system. Regardless of the current faction in that system, you will get a generous faction reward. Landing at sites like this is a great way to adjust your standing with the various organizations in the universe.

Normally when you enter a system, if your faction is "Wary" or better, you can dock and land at stations and ground based locations to buy supplies, trade and repair. However, if a faction is hostile and you enter the entire station becomes a combat zone. Right now in the development build you can dock at any station. That's going to change in the next few weeks when I add station turret buoys. If you approach within a certain range, hostile stations will start firing on your ship. You will need to destroy the turrets before you can dock at a hostile station. In the future I'll add ways to bypass security, override these turrets and dock. I'll also be setting stations up so they launch ships that will hunt you down unless you FTL out of the system.

Speaking of the FTL system, after playing the current development build, I've set up the FTL drives so you can warp from anywhere. That means you can leave a station and immediately FTL. I've increased movement speed with the micro-warp drives and speed in FTL space. I spent a few days making sure travel times are significantly reduced. Jump points will still be used for translocating. To translocate you will need to place a data buoy in another system. Once that's done you end up with a translocation bookmark. As long as you are in a certain range of a jump point you can instantly teleport between systems, bypassing the FTL space completely.

I've also added a few things for combat that I think you will appreciate. The first is line of sight indicators. When in combat, if you hover your cursor over a movement destination, line indicators will be displayed showing you if that position has direct line of sight to an enemy. Ideal for finding cover and deciding where to move your team member. They are also useful for letting you know when a team member is in the way so you don't shoot them in the back.

Second, I want to talk about the random number generator. This seems to come up fairly often, not just in Stellar Tactics but in most any game that uses RNG in combat. Here is the deal, and I agree - it's just not fun to have a shot lined up with a 90% chance to hit and you "whiff" - nothing. So, I've changed the system so "YOU ALWAYS HIT" if above 75% chance to hit. Your damage will scale down if you're initial roll fails and you will only graze your enemies, but you will still hit. Below 50% CTH you will still get a second roll that may do limited damage. You will only apply status modifiers (poison, stun, bleed etc) if your initial roll succeeds. Let's give that a try for a while and see if everyone likes the new system in the next patch.

Another thing that I've finished was adjusting the way looting works. You can now choose to auto-loot objects as a setting in options. The nearest team member now interacts with loot, characters and objects in the scene. These changes were much needed and I'm glad I was able to get them in.

And finally, a few screenshots of the new UI (work in progress). These look a little empty until I get them finished and in the game. I thought I'd share them anyway.

Lots of work to do yet, though I am well past the half way point for the next patch. Thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The rng changes are kinda decline.

 

[Alienman]

People not understanding chance that are complaining? If true, it seems to go with every new turn-based game out there.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

People not understanding chance that are complaining? If true, it seems to go with every new turn-based game out there.

Yeah, that happens.
Developer of Warbanners ended up adding 3 different systems when trying to appease "can't-emotionally-handle-dice" -crowd.

 

[Citizen]

Yeah, that happens.
Developer of Warbanners ended up adding 3 different systems when trying to appease "can't-emotionally-handle-dice" -crowd.

I tried to warn him

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Didn't we all. Didn't we all.

 

[Latro]

can the stellar tactics dev make it optional? RNG is half the fun.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

That new UI looks much more polished compared to earlier iterations.

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Sold i can't believe i missed this little gem!

 

[StellarTactics]

As far as the RNG - I'll gather feedback once the changes go live for everyone to try. The changes aren't as major as they seem. The key here is that if you are standing 2 feet away from an enemy with a shotgun, have 90%+ chance to hit and miss completely two or three times, it feels a bit awkward for some players. Lets see how it goes. I'm always making adjustments to the game when they make sense.

Part of the problem is that the game is not exposing some of the information it should yet, like enemy evasion etc. Most of these complaints are coming from encounters with enemies with very high evasion, like Arachs - specifically when they die a few times to the Brood Mother. I'll try to get that information in for the next update or shortly after.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes and make any needed adjustments. I'm used to misses when rolling - doesn't bother me at all. For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high CTH.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high

Frankly this only affects such people who think 90% means 9 outta 10 as opposed to, you know, 90%.

 

[cpmartins]

For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high

Frankly this only affects such people who think 90% means 9 outta 10 as opposed to, you know, 90%.

But it means 9 out of 10. You can get a 10 three times in a row.

 

[Galdred]

As far as the RNG - I'll gather feedback once the changes go live for everyone to try. The changes aren't as major as they seem. The key here is that if you are standing 2 feet away from an enemy with a shotgun, have 90%+ chance to hit and miss completely two or three times, it feels a bit awkward for some players. Lets see how it goes. I'm always making adjustments to the game when they make sense.

Part of the problem is that the game is not exposing some of the information it should yet, like enemy evasion etc. Most of these complaints are coming from encounters with enemies with very high evasion, like Arachs - specifically when they die a few times to the Brood Mother. I'll try to get that information in for the next update or shortly after.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes and make any needed adjustments. I'm used to misses when rolling - doesn't bother me at all. For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high CTH.

Actually, that would make more sense for a shotgun special ability than for a general rule.

People complain about RNG, but RNG heavy games seem to be utterly destroying games without it when it comes to turn based RPG, so I would encourage you not to pay too much attention to the whiners.

I think that XCOM RNG would have got much less flak if there had been a dodge animation.

Actually, I would rather have melee add to evasion at point blank range, as the target should be wrestling for the gun.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

As far as the RNG - I'll gather feedback once the changes go live for everyone to try. The changes aren't as major as they seem. The key here is that if you are standing 2 feet away from an enemy with a shotgun, have 90%+ chance to hit and miss completely two or three times, it feels a bit awkward for some players. Lets see how it goes. I'm always making adjustments to the game when they make sense.

Part of the problem is that the game is not exposing some of the information it should yet, like enemy evasion etc. Most of these complaints are coming from encounters with enemies with very high evasion, like Arachs - specifically when they die a few times to the Brood Mother. I'll try to get that information in for the next update or shortly after.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes and make any needed adjustments. I'm used to misses when rolling - doesn't bother me at all. For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high CTH.

Actually, that would make more sense for a shotgun special ability than for a general rule.

People complain about RNG, but RNG heavy games seem to be utterly destroying games without it when it comes to turn based RPG, so I would encourage you not to pay too much attention to the whiners.

I think that XCOM RNG would have got much less flak if there had been a dodge animation.

Actually, I would rather have melee add to evasion at point blank range, as the target should be wrestling for the gun.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is one of the best selling RPGs in recent memory and it specifically moved away from the heavy RNG its predecessor had.

To be fair, it wasn't really RNG after you were a few hours in because you just had (near? its been a while) 100% immunity to everything and it broke the game.

 

[Galdred]

As far as the RNG - I'll gather feedback once the changes go live for everyone to try. The changes aren't as major as they seem. The key here is that if you are standing 2 feet away from an enemy with a shotgun, have 90%+ chance to hit and miss completely two or three times, it feels a bit awkward for some players. Lets see how it goes. I'm always making adjustments to the game when they make sense.

Part of the problem is that the game is not exposing some of the information it should yet, like enemy evasion etc. Most of these complaints are coming from encounters with enemies with very high evasion, like Arachs - specifically when they die a few times to the Brood Mother. I'll try to get that information in for the next update or shortly after.

Anyway, I'll see how it goes and make any needed adjustments. I'm used to misses when rolling - doesn't bother me at all. For others it's just inconceivable that they would miss with a high CTH.

Actually, that would make more sense for a shotgun special ability than for a general rule.

People complain about RNG, but RNG heavy games seem to be utterly destroying games without it when it comes to turn based RPG, so I would encourage you not to pay too much attention to the whiners.

I think that XCOM RNG would have got much less flak if there had been a dodge animation.

Actually, I would rather have melee add to evasion at point blank range, as the target should be wrestling for the gun.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is one of the best selling RPGs in recent memory and it specifically moved away from the heavy RNG its predecessor had.

To be fair, it wasn't really RNG after you were a few hours in because you just had (near? its been a while) 100% immunity to everything and it broke the game.

One reason it sold well was because the 1 was great, which allowed them to build a lot of hype, and get players to blind purchase the sequel.

Actually, removing the RNG was one of the reason we ended up with this armor that blocks everything abortion.

Granted, it was not as bad as the change to the initiative system, but I don't think it is a good exemple of a game that improved by removing RNG elements.