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

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/465490/view/4187861330565972560

Progress update
I'm still here...
First the facts since I’ve seen a few comments:

• This game is not abandoned! It will never be abandoned.
• I’m running late with chapter 3 and all milestones I’ve set following that.
• The last patch was 2/9/24 – a hotfix. I generally do not post minor patch updates on the main Steam page.

You can always find the latest patch notes here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/0/343787283753661833/

I’ve struggled a bit with whether I should share this as I generally do not talk about my family. I do think it’s important to be transparent, so here it is.

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in January. I’m sure some of you know how this goes. Endless tests, MRI, PET scan, samples, and doctors office visits. She is half way through the first cycle of chemo and doing well. We were lucky that we found it early as the prognosis is excellent. My heart goes out to anyone who has or has had this disease and their loved ones – or any form of cancer for that matter. It’s terrifying!

My time has been very limited since February, and I have not been making the progress I expected. I am working on the game. However, my wife takes priority, and it’s been a bit difficult staying focused. Around the middle of April, I started working at nearly my normal pace. All of the locations, enemies, enemy ships, modeling and other assets for chapter 3 are complete now. I’ve finished about 1/3 of the dialog, and when that’s done I’ll start integrating everything.

Right now I’m considering just finishing everything on my list and releasing chapter 3 and all other planned content/features in one major patch as a full BETA, rather than mini-releases over the coming months. It will save time and I won’t need to pause for bug fixes between updates. As I do this work, I’ll try to post progress updates more often. I get it, if you don’t hear from me on a regular basis – some might assume I’ve abandoned my game. Not going to happen…

I'm not posting this looking for well wishes or sympathy. Really, I'm convinced she will be fine. It's a difficult treatment though, and I need to be present and supportive. I am asking you to be patient with me as I work through the rest of this content. It will get done - I'm on it.

Thanks as always for your support and have a great weekend!

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/465490/view/6122166977341866354

Progress update
Working towards BETA
Hi all! A quick update today. First, thank you all very much for the kind notes in my previous post. It means a lot to us. My wife is doing well. The first series of chemo is complete and surgery was successful. She will still be going through post operative radiation and chemotherapy over the coming months. She responded very well to the treatment up to this point.

Work is getting done on chapter 3 and a number of other things that I need to do to get ready for a full BETA. Here is a quick summary:

Chapter 3 – of course.

Crew missions
– These missions will let you send idle crew members on various tasks that reward general and skill experience for that crew member and rewards like credits, weapons, armor, ship equipment etc. The rewards depend on the type of mission the crew member is sent on. I’ll explain how this works in detail once the system is finished.

Updated crew portraits.

Player generated portraits
– I’ve finished work on loading player generated portraits. That means, you will be able to add any images you want (512x512 JPG’s) and they will load into the game for selection using the inventory or character information screen portrait/voice selection screen.

New icons for general inventory items.
The new icons are simplified and made so you can easily distinguish between various items like weapons, armor, mods and grenade types. I’m also looking at ways to generate icons for the rest of the content like component parts, trade items, ore, refined ore etc. There are lot of icons in the game so I may not be able to create unique icons for everything – though most icons in the game will get a treatment of some sort.

New enemies.

New enemy ships.

Updates to the economy.

Assigned stats will affect space skills.

New devices for your ship
– equipped to your hardware mount points. These will let you apply various de-buffs to enemy ships via the security bonuses and security perks in the electronics skill line.

Various bug fixes – as always.

Patrolling enemies are out – To be clear – patrolling enemies are terrible. I wasted almost a month trying to get this to work and really, when it comes down to it, it’s just an annoyance. There is already a chance that wandering into the line of sight of another enemy group could trigger “adds” to the current combat session. Add to this with patrolling enemies and it's just not sustainable. So, this is scrapped. I wish I could get my time back…but that’s the way game development works – you try something and it just doesn’t work.

I don’t have a release date for BETA at the moment as my schedule is still variable. However, I wanted to let you know that progress is being made.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

 

[MjKorz]

This game has been sitting in my Steam wishlist since forever since I usually don't buy unfinished games. Does it have enough content for something like a 60 hours playthrough?

 

[Abu Antar]

I have on GOG early access. I'd say wait some more.

 

[Cyberarmy]

This game has been sitting in my Steam wishlist since forever since I usually don't buy unfinished games. Does it have enough content for something like a 60 hours playthrough?

I played it last year and it become repetitive after 20 hours.

 

[n0wh3r3]

It's on sale. To get it or not to get it?