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

[Takamori]

Think I'm gonna buy this game, the current EA offer hours of gameplay or its just a showcase for the game?

 

[Aemar]

You can easily invest 20-25 hours into the current version despite the lack of a complete storyline and active factions. Grinding mostly.

 

[Takamori]

So tested the game yesterday first impression:
This game has charm, but the tutorial mission is a clusterfuck. The scientist have bipolar disorder or the phage contaminated both who knows.
The level up system is weird, so you have the classic level up for main stats but at the same time you have to train your skills, I would rather haver level up with stats+ skill points. Probably can be easily modded implemented.
Itemization I really enjoyed, you can have fun with mods and crafting
Space travel, combat and interaction is pretty deep, scanning ship tactics and so on
The combat UI needs some work kinda clunky to change your fire mode, also it seems burst fire is not working in the current version


Autism aka stuff that I personally didn't like but don't affect the game overall
Body disappearing, god damn I get autistic with despawning bodies, tried to tinker with the config files no way to mess with this option or the decal timer.
The portrait from NPCs and your character, while your character have this art portrait the npcs that join you are the actual 3d models?
Not being able to customize your character appearence
The shopkeeper npcs are just generic human npcs without any presentation,lore or indication they sell weapons, armor and equipment of such


Overall this game have a lot to improve but its stuff that can be fixed it aint attached to the core idea of the game, gonna revisit in 6 months.

 

[Crispy]

As far as the refresh rate and smoothness of scrolling is concerned, for my system, what I found to work best is to uncap the framerate in the game's own options, but to use a framerate limiter externally, such as RivaTuner. Playing in G-Sync mode at 144Hz and capped at 90fps offers the smoothest, "jerk"-free gameplay I could manage.

Allowing the game to run at the full 144Hz/fps introduces its own scrolling hitches, although oddly the screen rotation remains liquid smooth.

 

[gurugeorge]

As far as the refresh rate and smoothness of scrolling is concerned, for my system, what I found to work best is to uncap the framerate in the game's own options, but to use a framerate limiter externally, such as RivaTuner. Playing in G-Sync mode at 144Hz and capped at 90fps offers the smoothest, "jerk"-free gameplay I could manage.

Allowing the game to run at the full 144Hz/fps introduces its own scrolling hitches, although oddly the screen rotation remains liquid smooth.

The uncap framerate option is gone, there's now a slider where you can have VSYNC OFF'/ON and then various stages of matching framerate (1/2, 1/4, all the way up to "uncapped", which would be the equivalent of the old tick box on the bottom left).

I had the slow anims/scrolling problem and I had to use the uncap box tick before, now with VSYNC ON the game is slick and animation/scrolling runs at normal speed, without the extra risk of crashing that uncapping brings in.

I'm enjoying the game a lot atm. One thing that really changed my sense of the game was realizing that if you scan the planets, at least one or two planets invariably have a base on them, usually friendly (or hostile in hostile systems). This changed by sense of the "universe" from, "Huh, boring, some dull planets and a few space-stations" to, "hmm, wonder what I'll find in this solar system?" Curiously, I've found so far that the hostile planet bases have a more straightforward layout than the mazes that you get from faction reps, which is nice for a change.

(There are also usually several mining nodes on planets that you can set drones onto. If you set the drones on automatic they'll give you passive income by selling what they dig up at the local stations until they deplete the nodes. But you can also set them on manual too, in which case they sit there with the stuff they've mined and you can pick up stuff from them yourself, which is handy for gathering the mats for crafting.)

I've also gotten into the space combat now, whereas before I was a bit iffy about it. It feels more arcadey, but it's actually very pleasant and engaging to play - and very lucrative. Going to try the boarding thing next.

I do feel that the difference in tone between the gritty realism of the art design in the ground combat and the arcadey feel of the solar systems (which basically feel abouit the size of large school halls with a few giant beachballs in them) is a bit jarring. One wishes the developer could have given more of a sense of the vastness of space (as in EVE) by using looming and acceleration/deceleration (e.g. like in EVE where as you approach a station, you don't see it for ages then it suddenly looms, with the planet in the background remaining massive and still - thus giving a sense of relative scale of the tiny space station and the massive planet). But I guess with the resources at his disposal he's doing the best compromise. The giant school hall is certainly easy to navigate manually, which I suppose is the point.

Another thing to note is that the grid numbering on the space map goes from left to right and bottom to top. So it's easy to visit and keep track of the 8 boxes around your starter box (pencil and paper! ) and the box the distant star you're sent to to get the contraband unlocked, and find all the solar systems with stations marked "trading port," set up beacons in those system (which you can do either by approaching FTL bouys in the solar system or being close to a star in FTL space - in either case, via a purple icon that appears bottom left). That gives you a nice healthy selection of trading planets to get your trade net started. I found that there's usually 1 system with a trading port per box, sometimes 2 or 3, sometimes none, so a set of 20 beacons should set you up. Judging by the amount of trading differentials I've noted so far, I think you'd have to do the same beacon setting-up for the 16 boxes around your initial 8 as well, to get a really healthy trade net, so probably about 50 or 60 systems in all.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

That's quite a jump in quality of character portraits.

 

[Crispy]

I had no idea this game had almost a Newtonian-correct, accurate-to-scale, gigantic space travel thing going for it. Flying past stars is beautiful, and especially fun knowing you're headed to some settlement for your next quest that's on a planet that's not even on-screen yet. I haven't even gotten into any ship-to-ship combat so far. And you can spend millions on new ships? Holy crap.

Absolute blast to play. This game has massive potential imo.

 

[Aemar]

The new update heads-up takes the whole thing to a new level. One of the best one-man projects ever. As I said before, this dude has already delivered more content than Chris Roberts and his hundreds of employees.

 

[gurugeorge]

New Horizons
With the addition of the combat special attacks and support skills, the majority of all the core game systems are now in the game. While 2020 was difficult for everyone with the pandemic, I was still able to get a large amount of work done on the game with 19 total updates to the game and several sizeable additions including the boarding system. I’d like to thank all of you for your continued support. Stellar Tactics would not be possible without your generosity and feedback.

So, what can you expect going forward? Well, I’m very excited about the next steps so I thought I would give everyone a glance into the future of the game. Until now I’ve been mostly focused on developing the core structure of the game. Things like combat, space exploration, the universe, inventory, crafting, salvaging, loot and all of the systems that make up the foundation of what Stellar Tactics will be. That is, the container – the universe.

Now it’s time to start filling the universe with meaningful content. Characters you will engage with in various ways. I’d like to expand on the lore of the universe, give you ways to define your place, build relationships with various factions, and expand on the core systems I’ve worked hard to implement.

Spoiler

What does that mean? First, I’ll be working on the story. With that, more of what is happening in the universe will become apparent. Who are the key players? Who were the Aznari? What are the Jhemm? What is this threat that is coming? Should you trust Jensen and Rhamus? And of course, what is your part in all of this? There are likely many questions after playing the Prologue and my goal going forward is to give the player places to go, things to see and do, and to expand on the core of the game with meaningful content and encounters.

I’ll be expanding on the mission system with branching missions that have multiple objectives. Missions may lead to new missions and I'll be looking into new and better completion rewards.

I’ll be expanding the storylines of characters you have already met – like Arkus, Rhamus, Phestus, Scarby, Rodger Crayson, and more. Some of these characters will introduce new mission types for mining, smuggling, salvaging, and ways to earn ships from Arkus through the boarding system.

I'll be adding new enemy types and epic bosses.

I'll be adding new armor sets and clothing for characters.

I’ll be adding Psionics. Psionics will use a new weapon type – the Psi Amp which is rewarded from a series of side encounters related to the Coven. I won’t spoil anything here, though I will say that Psi will be a very useful skill to have with the ability to buff, debuff, heal, and generate various other effects that enhance your team.

I'll be adding faction warfare and unique encounters in FTL space. These will be random locations with exploration, salvaging, and special faction warfare opportunities.

I’ve made an investment in new tools that will help me create unique and diverse characters for the story, new portraits, and in-game models. A few examples below.

Some of these characters you will love to hate.

Others you will learn to rely on.

And special crew members who have their own stories and backgrounds.

I’ll be revising and adding more variety to the universe with new high-resolution custom skyboxes made just for Stellar Tactics by Tim Barton – an amazing artist who specializes in space environments. You can check out Tim Bartons work at this link: Tim Barton on Artstation

I’ll also be knocking off some of the rough edges, improving the game visuals, and addressing QoL issues many of you have been asking for. I will be working on tuning, looking at all of the systems as a whole and how they work with each other, and making changes where they make sense.

I'm going to be patching out a number of small bugs and addressing a few other issues at the end of next week. From that point, I’ll be focusing exclusively on the content mentioned above. It will likely be the longest period of time you have had to wait for a content update and I’ll keep you all posted as I make progress.

OMG OMG OMG

 

[Crispy]

Personally I'd just like to see the story content greatly expanded, giving us hundreds of hours of things to do in addition to the rogue-like activity that's there for the grinding, but skip any of the high-tech graphical stuff because imo it's just going to look out-of-place.

There's something very charming about the way the game looks now, even with its very basic UI, that just seems well-balanced.

Give us more skills, more items, more ship upgrades, more environments. Those are clearly this game's strengths.

 

[Takamori]

Oh fuck thats huge leap in the character portrait, I was kinda expecting some commisioned portrait.

The graphics in the current I have no issue too, just missing some animations and tweaks like body not disappearing and decals remaining, but textures, shaders and art presentation overall was satisfied with.
The rest is pretty fun to engage with, just still undecided how I feel about the skill up system. I have an opinion where it would benefit from level up and skill points per level to make a more harmonious progression and help create a character identity for you and your crew, but at the same time understand that the game has some "grind" to engage with where you skill up whatever and offer freedom to build up your character in that way but the downside of end game where everyone can be everything kindas annoy me, but I could be wrong I don't have many hours in the game.

 

[gurugeorge]

Oh fuck thats huge leap in the character portrait, I was kinda expecting some commisioned portrait.

The graphics in the current I have no issue too, just missing some animations and tweaks like body not disappearing and decals remaining, but textures, shaders and art presentation overall was satisfied with.
The rest is pretty fun to engage with, just still undecided how I feel about the skill up system. I have an opinion where it would benefit from level up and skill points per level to make a more harmonious progression and help create a character identity for you and your crew, but at the same time understand that the game has some "grind" to engage with where you skill up whatever and offer freedom to build up your character in that way but the downside of end game where everyone can be everything kindas annoy me, but I could be wrong I don't have many hours in the game.

I think as usual with RPGs, on Normal difficulty you can mix and match as you like, but on Hard or Very Hard you definitely have to specialize and stick with two weapon types (closer and further range) to get real oomph out of them, and mixing melee and ranged is a definite no-no because of the attributes (as to be expected). You can also pump up a third skill on the side, as sort of ancillary (explosives is always handy, and grenades, like the stun+gas combo are quite powerful). The "5 skills per level up" works to prevent you from spreading yourself too thinly - you want those 5 skill-ups per level up to be meaningful, and not "wasted" on a 1 point skill-up in something you're not likely to use much.

One gripe I've got is that you can carry as many medpacks as you like. On Hard and up you don't have the automatic regeneration you have on normal, so you do have to use medpacks, and that's good, but being able to carry as many as you want sort of trivializes that. I wouldn't want to have the restriction really tight (because you're in space and you might not always be in a position to buy them at your convenience - for example if you're clearing out a large base in a system without trade ports - and not all stores carry the large, which is good), but something like 30/20/10 (light/med/large) would make their use a bit more meaningful.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

if you haven't bought this yet to support this one-man autistic endeavor then you should delete your account

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/0/3109141414226718597/

Patch incoming - 1/30/21
A number of fixes and QoL updates in this patch. Notes below:

UPDATED: If you have no weapons or a pugilist weapon in your sidearm slot, the secondary support skill has been changed to sprint. If the primary weapon slot is empty (fists) or a pugilist weapon is equipped, the support skill is taunt.

UPDATED: Updated the combat movement path marker to use a much faster system.

UPDATED: LOS lines are now displayed almost immediately when the combat movement cursor is moved to a position.

UPDATED: I did a lot of work on movement and pathing. Overhead objects, walls, and other objects no longer obstructed floor clicks. If you click the floor, your crew member should move to the location unless blocked. This includes how raycasts for movement interact with PC's, NPC's and the environment.

UPDATED: If a health kit is enabled, you can now click through overhead objects, etc to target crew members.

UPDATED: A few changes to the world map:

• You can now scroll the area map using the left mouse button and zoom in-out using the mouse wheel.
  
• World map uses a higher resolution map.
  
• You can now zoom in much further on the world map.
  
• World map now remembers your current zoom level and last position during the current game session. You can reset the map using the blue "+" icon on the map.

UPDATED: The star-map search feature loads much faster now. A few other new features:

• The star map now lets you search star systems where you have placed a beacon by entering only a few characters. So, for example, you can search for "Achmedius" by entering "a" and pressing enter in the search field and Achmedius will be displayed along with any other systems that start with an "A". For systems where you have not placed a beacon, you need to enter the entire system name and press search to center the map on that system.
  
• Entering "cargo" or "ship" in the search field and pressing enter will now display systems where you have cargo or ships.
  
• The search feature now includes the sector coordinates and sector level for systems where you have placed beacons.

UPDATED: The VSYNC option now enables VSYNC and the frame limiter for the 60FPS and 30FPS options. I'm still doing work on how various high refresh monitors interact with game events and area loading.

ADDED: Added new icons to the star map that show you if you have a drone, ship, or cargo storage in a system. If you have placed a beacon in a system, the system has a new icon overlay that shows you at a glance if a beacon is already deployed in the system.
ADDED: If a crew member is at the 5 point skill cap, a warning is displayed when entering the inventory or character info screens noting that the crew member will not receive weapon skill experience until they reach the next level.

FIXED: When clicking at a specific position in the game world, the navigation marker in combat was not being correctly set to the exact movement position.
FIXED: When first entering an area and engaging in combat, the LOS markers and cover icon was not being displayed until an enemy took a single turn.
FIXED: A bug in the display of various perk bonuses in the ship skill bonus area.
FIXED: Enemy AI equipped with grenades would occasionally throw two grenades during their combat round.
FIXED: A number of UI inconsistencies related to closing various menus with the ESC key (LOG - Search, Trade-Net, Faction window).
FIXED: A few perk tooltip errors.
FIXED: The game would lock up if a crew member dies at the same time as the last enemy in an encounter with a missile launcher, DOT, or grenade. Could also happen if you were in combat mode with no enemies around and you threw a grenade and killed yourself - oops.
FIXED: When selecting crew portraits, special attacks for that crew member are now updated correctly in the toolbar.
FIXED: A bug with melee movement introduced with the special attacks system that could cause melee crew members to stop before reaching their target causing a loss of AP.

 

[Drowed]

I totally forgot that this game existed. It's been in EA since, what... 2016? It's already 5 years, right? Are you trying to break the longest EA record or something?

Having said that, this version of the game really seems extremely superior to the game I remember playing years ago, it seems that some real progress happened in that period. The characters seem infinitely better, almost unbelievably so. That's nice. As I already own the game, I look forward to the full version in 2025.

 

[Nijar]

Is this game still going on to be alive, trying, being?

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Is this game still going on to be alive, trying, being?

read the thread man

 

[Nijar]

go away skull

 

[Galdred]

Wow, the game is definitely stronger than the sum of its parts.
I came back after 1 year or so, and the combat is much more enjoyable now. Space combat is also better, now that you have to choose between killing the enemy ship and disabling it for boarding (which requires gimping your ships, and taking more punishment as you need to disable the strongest weapons).
Faction missions used to take forever, but I'll have to test the new ones. Also, kudos for having compatible saves with all the improvements made and time passed.

if you haven't bought this yet to support this one-man autistic endeavor then you should delete your account

Indeed, the scope is super impressive, and the developer has been pushing updates relentlessly for years.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I bought it winter sale 2020 but probably only will play it after 1.0 however long it will take.

 

[Infinitron]

Nice:

A large patch should be coming in the next few days. It will improve space visuals (Skyboxes), materials for various planets, and includes a variety of other fixes.

 

[Aemar]

 

[Aemar]

Stellar Tactics [developer] 9 Jun @ 11:41pm

Autonomous Universe AI - this is in the game now and will be expanded on with the story content. Generally ships choose tasks, travel the universe autonomously and change behavior based on your faction standing. Story content will add to this.

The next major content patch is one of the most ambitious and intensive patches to date. It will take time and I am working on it - as well as looking into a random crash when transitioning and during space combat on some systems.

Stellar Tactics [developer] 10 Jul @ 4:24am

What can I say? I'm working on the game every day and making good progress on chapter one of the story. Throwing more people at the game won't help, it will only cause problems. Stopping development completely to generate tools for player made content would be a disaster.

I get it, some want it done now. If you were in my shoes, what would you say? I guess everyone just wants to know that I'm still here - working on the game. So, yes, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere and I think you will like the results - when its ready.

I really don't have much more to say about all of this other than - I'm here, I've been watching this thread with interest and sometimes it's just better to get things done than insert my thoughts into busy thread. Trust me - I consume every bit of feedback, negative or positive, every sane request that would make the game better and not break the design and I read everything on this forum.

The last year saw the addition of Disable, board and capture, revised perk progression, equipment wear, the repair system, weapon special attacks and support skills, and updated universe visuals and numerous bug fixes and adjustments - so progress is being made.

Bottom line - I'm busy and happy to be doing the work I enjoy most thanks to all of you!

 

[cpmartins]

Stellar Tactics [developer] 9 Jun @ 11:41pm

Autonomous Universe AI - this is in the game now and will be expanded on with the story content. Generally ships choose tasks, travel the universe autonomously and change behavior based on your faction standing. Story content will add to this.

The next major content patch is one of the most ambitious and intensive patches to date. It will take time and I am working on it - as well as looking into a random crash when transitioning and during space combat on some systems.

Stellar Tactics [developer] 10 Jul @ 4:24am

What can I say? I'm working on the game every day and making good progress on chapter one of the story. Throwing more people at the game won't help, it will only cause problems. Stopping development completely to generate tools for player made content would be a disaster.

I get it, some want it done now. If you were in my shoes, what would you say? I guess everyone just wants to know that I'm still here - working on the game. So, yes, I'm here, I'm not going anywhere and I think you will like the results - when its ready.

I really don't have much more to say about all of this other than - I'm here, I've been watching this thread with interest and sometimes it's just better to get things done than insert my thoughts into busy thread. Trust me - I consume every bit of feedback, negative or positive, every sane request that would make the game better and not break the design and I read everything on this forum.

The last year saw the addition of Disable, board and capture, revised perk progression, equipment wear, the repair system, weapon special attacks and support skills, and updated universe visuals and numerous bug fixes and adjustments - so progress is being made.

Bottom line - I'm busy and happy to be doing the work I enjoy most thanks to all of you!

Bought this a looong time ago. I treat it as a Starsector-level potential purchase: Just forget it exists and one day be pleasantly surprised at the results.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Lol. I just realized it was in my inventory as well.