Battles!

Enough about the Context Menus! I made some actual content this time - there's a new type of encounter where two fleets from different factions are already fighting. They won't target you initially as they're busy fighting each other.

I also added back in asteroids, although they're not quite up to par just yet. Definitely need a few new variations on their shape at the very least. I've also added the occasional Dyson Sphere around a star. In the future, certain stars will have environmental hazards, especially if you're very close to them - red giants should never be "safe".

I've also added a few abilities to the Warp Core and the Hull subsystems - a Tractor Beam and an Instant Repair system respectively.

They don't do much yet but they sure look pretty.

The Warp Core's ability is a handy tractor beam.

Context Menus

It really was time to make a context menu - there really is no other way to manage different controls based on different targets. The amount of time this saves in linking scripts and objects together is amazing too.

This way I can reduce clutter on the main screen too.

As for the flashier stuff - see those five subsystems at the bottom right? They're your 5 essential subsystems - Engine Core, Life Support, Warp Core, Targeting Computer and Hull. Other subsystems are optional and usually provide a special ability. Why not have an ability for the basic subsystems then?

• The Engine Core allows you to do a short instant warp to your target. Useful in clearing distances slow ships have problems with - nobody likes slowly crawling to a Warp Gate or shop with your cruiser.
• Life Support now has the "Board Ship" ability. So now any ship can send boarding craft.
• Warp Core I'm not sure yet what it'll have.
• Targeting Computer will probably allow you to instantly reload all your turrets.
• Hull allows you to boost your defenses for a few seconds.

The cooldown on these is pretty long, since they're very strong abilities.

I put the Fleet in Warfleet

Now the game actually lives up to the name - you can control a fleet of ships.

Ok so it's nothing fancy yet, but at least it's not called Warfleet for nothing.

Ships you capture will follow you around, try to position themselves correctly next to your ship, warp along with you and soon enough I'll have some decent AI for them.

How to capture a ship :

• Reduce its crew - by destroying life support systems or special weapons
• Cripple its engines - so your boarding craft can reach it
• Destroy its targeting computer - so your boarding craft doesn't get shot down
• Send enough boarding craft to pilot the ship - this splits your crew. As usual you need enough crew to use your ship AND the target ship.

Expertise or How to Unlock Items

By default, I had a rigorous inventory system where to place a turret you needed to spend an instance of that turret. While that's all realistic, and could have allowed some deeper management of inventory space, ultimately it got in the way of making the ship you want as quickly as possible and added a lot of farming just to find enough of one turret. The truth is, it's a lot more fun to just build 20 small missile turrets and watch your volley being fired than hunting 20 of those parts and hoping to find them.

The solution is an expertise system. You gain expertise with an item (turret, subsystem, etc...) by interacting with it - either by being damaged by it, killing a ship that has it equipped, dealing damage with it or purchasing a blueprint. In turn that item levels up with your expertise. Turrets do more damage, have more range, are more accurate, etc... while subsystems perform better, have more health, lower their cooldown, etc... Every item has a minimum expertise before you can build it yourself.

Now, how do you balance this? What's to stop a player from making a small frigate but adding 256 small missile launchers? Well, each turret has a few minimum requirements:

• Building a turret isn't free and is included in the total cost of your ship
• Each turret requires one or more crewmen to use it - it increases the mininum crew needed to use the ship
• Large weapons have massive recoil that can shift your ship and reduce accuracy of your volleys
• (Maybe, maybe not) turrets require a certain ship class before you can equip them. This feels arbitrary so it may not be present.

Not much has changed with the editor, so no build for this update - in fact, I probably won't have a release build until the actual game part of the game is polished and complete enough. This isn't just a game about making spaceships after all!

Star Map - An Introduction

The map has been relatively complete for a while now, but I haven't had the opportunity to show it off.

Already implemented:

• Warping to other sectors
• Warping to other solar systems
• Map Controls and Map View
• Dynamic description of the sector before warping to it

Left : viewing a solar system
Right : viewing the galaxy






What I actually implemented in the last few days is adding shipyards, shops and recruitment hubs to sectors. So now, when roaming the map, you might encounter an enemy fleet. Destroying them nets you some space bucks that you can then spend to hire more crewmembers, strengthen your ship or buy blueprints to unlock ship parts (like turrets or subsystems).

Hey, this is more than some kickstarted games have to offer, so it's pretty great. Technically this is "playable", we now have the basics for exploration and growth.

Shipyards always look the same - you want to be able to notice one and also fit your ship in it. Shops and recruitment stations however, are based on user-made ships - in fact, if you don't add engines to your ship, it will automatically be loaded as a station. In the future this would allow the player to place their own stations in sectors, maybe to mine gas or minerals and have a steady income.

I don't have a build for you this update, the world exploration mode needs to be much closer to completion before I feel like I can release it. That said, it's not as far off as it seems.

PS: It turns out the bug in the last version only happens if you use Anti-Aliasing with only Ambient Occlusion turned on. Unity's implementation of AO is nowhere near the quality I want in the final version, so this bug will definitely be fixed, most likely by buying another AO asset or just making my own.