Tactical pause, Sunna super-ship, Shield Field generator and more

Stellar Warfare

Space RTS with base building and ship customization. Personal passion project. More than 200 available ships, weapons and modules to design your fleet with. Contains a small campaign, several single and multiplayer game modes and a coop game mode. Also contains Wave defense!

[h1]Quick summary[/h1] This major update brings tactical pause support to the game. Now you will have more time to decide whether you want to protect your base with a new shield dome defense structure, or attack your AI opponent with a new Sunna super ship, or do both. To help with your own fleet deck building we have added a new Ship Tester game mode. In addition to this we have added a Storage Affinity ability so that players can invent new economy strategies by either increasing their power or metal support. Another major thing added in this update is multiplayer support for mods and a mod menu allowing to load or disable your mods. [h1]Tactical pause[/h1] The ability to pause the single player game modes has been requested almost a dozen times. We finally managed to create some time to work on it and are happy to report that we have added it to the game. Any single player game mode now can be paused by pressing P or Pause key. Players will still be able to give any usual command to their units and interact with the GUI. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35421124/5f305767d11dbe898e81b2f880bb5fa7b3b44e7d.gif[/img] [h1]Shield generator[/h1] A new defensive building that generates a large energy shield that protects nearby structures and ships. It currently costs 500 metal, 500 power and requires no unlocks to be accessed. We might move this to the Utility tab in the near future though. [h1]Sunna super ship[/h1] Meet Sunna - and experimental destroyer armed with two particle beams best suited to melt lightly armored ships. It is armed with a belted Repressor and two improved Flaktrippler missile launchers to have a good AoE support. As the fastest and cheapest super ship - she is the best choice for protecting your heavy hitters from light and medium enemy swarms. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35421124/eddd1fd41f88fa9d42eb38eea61dcdb02137619a.gif[/img] [h1]Ship Tester game mode[/h1] A new game mode with the goal to ease the process of creating new fleet decks and testing them vs various foes. In this test mode you get nearly unlimited resources, the ability to spawn super ships multiple times and more. Additional QoL improvements for this mode will be added over time. [h1]Shield drainer[/h1] The Stinger, Lunaria, Torp, Starangel, Stareater ship frames have received the new Shield drainer built-in module. It will search for an enemy shield generator (on a ship or structure) and attempt to overload it by firing overload beams at it. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/35421124/cbf540ab81fcf33ce6738130f83eda52b94a7c5d.gif[/img] [h1]Zabu damage boost for defensive structures structures[/h1] Zabu Complexes, Mines and Plants now grant 50% damage boost to any armed defensive or artillery structure built close enough to them. This works in a fashion similar to that of Escalation buildings and is visualized with a red connector beam. [h1]Resource affinity upgrades[/h1] The unlock menu now has three new options: 1. Refit your storage facilities to hold more metal. This reduces the amount of power storage available. Costs 300 metal. 2. Refit your storage facilities to hold more power. This reduces the amount of metal storage available. Costs 300 metal. 3. Revert storage affinity back to balanced. The cost is dynamic. The button is visible only if an affinity is already active. We wanted to give our players more options for economical development of their bases and hope that this addition will help with achieving this goal. It should also enable people to go for power or metal heavy fleet setups. [h1]Weapon projectile speed display rework[/h1] Starting with this update all weapons will have their projectile speed values displayed relative to the same calculations we use for ship frames. That means that players now can compare them directly. [h1]Detailed patch notes *:[/h1] [i]* - some patch notes were omitted for the sake of the post size. For more details, please join our discord, we post our dev logs there regularly[/i] [b]Additions[/b] [list] [*] Added multiplayer mod support and a mod load/unload menu [*] Added a Ship Tester single player game mode. Go there and test your fleet vs enemy ships [*] A shield Drainer built-in module has been added to the Stinger, Lunaria, Torp, Starangel, Stareater ship frames [*] The zabu Plant, Zabu Mine and Zabu Complex now grant 50% damage boost to nearby defense structuresAdded 'tactical pause' that can be toggled by pressing P or Pause keys [*] Added the "Sunna" experimental Super Ship with Particle Beams that deal 'true' damage [*] The camera movement speed can now be multiplied by holding down the CTRL key [*] We added the ability to drag and drop ship slots in the fleet editor. This should make it easier to switch the order of your ship slots around. [*] Added a new shield generator defensive building [*] The unlock menu now has 3 new buttons to set Power, Metal or Neutral affinity [/list] [b]Tweaks & changes[/b] [list] [*] Lowered the engine SFX volume on harvesters [*] The default order for weapon options in the Fleet Editor is now Type -> Name instead of being ordered by name [*] Weapon type icons are now color coded according to the damage type they deal (in the ship editor weapon dropdowns) [*] The laser Shield now has 4 bursts with a 40 seconds cooldown [*] We increased the amount of loot re-rolls from 5 to 15 [*] We changed the base turn rate for medium ships from 6 to 5 [*] We changed the base turn rate for heavy ships from 4 to 3 [*] We changed the base speed for Medium ships from 75 to 80 [*] The unit veterancy experience requirement is now based on killing 2x its resource value (used to be 3x) [*] Weapons and Ships now use the same speed representations so that their values can now be compared directly [*] The 'Ratler' (medium weapon) has been renamed to the Rattler Cannon to avoid further confusion with the Rattler (heavy weapon). All players that had it unlocked will have it properly replaced [*] Hunter Seekers will now explode upon death, damaging everything around it [*] Hunter Seekers no longer ignore shields and will deal damage to the health of the ship based on Hunter Seeker damage minus the targets shield value. [*] The Eradicator's shields now no longer block projectiles, missiles and beams that miss them [*] Ship self repair now only works outside of combat (starts 10 seconds after last receiving damage) [*] Reduced the price for all self repair ships by 30 for light ships, 80 for medium ships and 300 for heavy ships [*] The resources texts are now color coded. Their icon colors in the top-right are now toggled based on which resource affinity is active [*] Torpedo weaponry now properly lead their targets [*] Added a GUI culling mask for strategic unit icons and health bars to prevent them from overlapping. The resource panel, build/unlock/ability menu buttons, control buttons, tooltip and selected units thumbs now properly cull healthbars and strategic unit icons. [*] Beams now fire through shields that have no hp [/list] [b]Fixes[/b] [list] [*] The camera now resets properly in the Wave Survival game mode [*] The camera now focuses properly on all players flagships in the Battle Royale game mode [*] You can no longer box select both buildings and ships at the same time [*] Fixed errors on creating 2nd/3rd game session without game restart [*] Fixed escalation boosting lines not showing for the opponent's refiner [*] Located and removed UFO (white glowing object at map's center that was accidentally added while developing) [*] Fixed the shipyard anti-building missile unlock bug [*] Fixed an error which prevented the 'last damaged by' marker on ships [*] If a ship has less than 0.5 health it will now display having 1 health rather than 0 [*] Fixed Super Ships thumbnail bug [*] Fixed ship thumbnail tooltips sometimes being stacked [*] Fixed fleet editor weapon description being too close to weapon stats [*] Fixed tooltip for the Sunna [*] Fixed shipyard anti building missile upgrade being disabled if a the player unlocked it in a previous game [*] Fixed a bug preventing beams from dealing damage in some situations [*] Hunter Seekers now work properly in multiplayer [*] Removed potential shield damage duplication. This ensures that damage against shields will be calculated relative to the owners armor type [*] Fixed the Reinforcement beacon, Nano distributor and Repair station working before being completed [*] Fixed turrets rotating like crazy when target out of range or dead [*] Fixed turrets missing their first shots due to the turret still in the process of rotating towards the target [*] Fixed the torpedo type weapon speeds being too slow [*] Fixed objects behind the UI rewriting the UI tooltips [*] Fixed the tooltip override bug (this occurred when a tooltip was shown for an object behind the hover target) [*] Fixed a bug preventing health bars being shown for buildings [*] Fixed unit strategic icons being visible even when the GUI was turned off [/list] [b]Performance[/b] [list] [*] Fixed a potential memory leak in the Fleet Editor [*] Removed some excessive unit list iterations [*] Replaced overcomplicated calculations for immobile targets (idle ships or structures) [/list]