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[Rogod]

Juicy post as always!

Hopefully it's a juicy game by now too :D

I keep finding things I forgot I added

[vdapps]

Hopefully it's a juicy game by now too :D

I keep finding things I forgot I added

Heh, I still can't wrap my head around how this game big is and how much content you are able add there. I feel like snail with my pace of development compared to Startron.

Don't you plan to release it commercially one day? I see Dwarf Fortress being successful, Cogmind, Warsim which are regularly updated here as well. Only problem I see, name "StarTron" is taken (at least on Steam).

[Rogod]

Only problem I see, name "StarTron" is taken (at least on Steam)

Interestingly, we are actually getting a Steam page ready, so we'll see how that turns out (so far it's not flagged as a name clash).

But it's never been my intention to monetize Startron (at least not the core game), so it'll be free on the Steam page as soon as we're done setting it up

[vdapps]

Interestingly, we are actually getting a Steam page ready, so we'll see how that turns out (so far it's not flagged as a name clash).

But it's never been my intention to monetize Startron (at least not the core game), so it'll be free on the Steam page as soon as we're done setting it up

Glad to hear that. I hope that Startron will do well on Steam.

[Rogod]

Update v0.102
Tweaks & updates:
  Interior minimap in the bottom left while walking around the ship/stations (also shows the cargo bay contents at a glance if you're over there)
 
  Cargo bay slots will now show a readout of what's in them if you walk up to them
  Crew quarters will also show a readout of who's in them if you walk up to them
  Added some additional pirate-port decor/debris to help the atmosphere (visible in the gif above)
  Added some avatars around space stations as shop keepers (the ones not in shops will do more in a future update, I just have a few plans for that sort of thing so want to tackle it all in one)

Just a little update this time, but some neat stuff I wanted to get in and working

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.103
Tweaks & updates:
  Cargo bay previews now show the quantity and icon
  Made workers look less like they're kept in stasis containers in the cargo bay
 
  Added some new work orders for the bar
  Added an occasional shooting star
  Star generation is now synced to saves so the positions of stars in the backdrop are the same each time you play (it seemed a little false to suggest the stars change each time you visit a cosmos)
  Gas giants now generate with larger abundance of gases (including pollution & plasnon)
  Pollution & plasnon are therefore now extractible
  Changed the appearance of poison to distinguish it from pollution (now when you use it against Tytopops, it's more like placing bottles of weedkiller down)
  Made explosions from destruction & mining more apparent & visually appealing (it was previously just whatever I threw together 4 years ago)
  Resources are now returned to you when deconstructing a tile (makes planning out automation a lot less stressful)
  Added fireworks (either purchased from Pirates or made from plasnon canisters & gomium)
 

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed cargo bay contents displaying when not looking directly at them
  Fixed Cattos showing for work orders if using Doggos
  Fixed bar conversations staying open between saves

Dev stuff:
  Tidied up interior rendering & some other sillies I'd left lying around from some of my recent major refactors

In other news, Startron has a trailer now

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.104

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fix pirate station debris going wrong after leaving the MazeBase arcade cabinet
  Fix the ship angle not updating while orbiting suns
  Fix the ship angle messing up while orbiting entities

Dev stuff:
  Automatically upload release zips to Neocities

Just a lil release to test out the new automatic build uploading that'd been on my TODO list for a looong time:

(neocities has a CLI, right? Might be able to automate the uploading process a bit with a little shell script)

https://neocities.org/cli

lol

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.105
Tweaks & updates:
  Improved guttelus encounters (now they can actually eat your ship, and husks are harder to get hold of)
  The starting planet now generates with more cities and no resources (motivation of the protagonist )
  Made minerals on player created planets more varied
  Made the ship reflection in lithrogen behave as though it's over a sphere, not a big piece of paper
  Added the ability to flag systems while panning
  Sanitised long system names when generating cosmoses so you don't get such silly and unpronounceable systems anymore
  Upped the screen refresh rate
  For some reason I had this down at a fairly reduced level, but looking back at versions of Startron Classic, I realised they were running so much smoother. I decided to up the refresh rate, and I've checked all 5 builds of Startron Auto on under-powered hardware and it seems to run perfectly fine, so I'll leave it as that unless somebody really screams about it some day.

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fix worker typo for guttelus & drengelus bridge messages
  Fix showing pan and flag controls while moving around the cosmos
  Fix shooting star getting stuck at the top of the main menu

Needed to get this update out for Steam store reasons (they're reviewing it ) and also have a bunch of more in-depth plans for v0.106 so needed a clean bench to work from

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.106
Tweaks & updates:
  Tidied up some areas of the menu (the delete-cosmos screen is much clearer now )
  Added a little cutscene for if your ship gets eaten by a guttelus
  Removed the obsolete inventory from entities (this hasn't done anything since Startron Classic & was just wasting space)
  Added some engine particles from ship exhaust on the intro (it always felt like since the ship poots out little exhaust squares in game that it should do so at launch as well)
  All entities now keep track of whether to clear things with oxorine or space (no explicit checks for planets anymore, and all old saves have been twiddled to work accordingly)
  Entity atmospheres now render in the system view & the entity view depending on oxorine level
  Terraformers now gradually create an atmosphere then begin seeding organics upon completion
 
  Terraformers now let you change the soil colour on other entities beyond just planets
  Made the build pattern for terraformers less strict so it's easier to build them on rocks & gas giants (not that terraforming them is going to be remotely possible most of the time but go for it if that's what you want to do )
  Gas giants can now generate in 1 of 5 different colours (not really sure why I had them locked to green for so long, this was not really difficult to implement )
 
  Added windows to stations so they're a bit more detailed (and thereby have more you'd want to steal if so inclined)

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed things spawning at the player's start position in MazeBase
  Fixed particles lingering between saves
  Fixed navigating (through a locked door) to the admin desk of a non-existent station if trying to pay a fine while not docked
  Fixed a rare crash at the edge of MazeBase maps

Dev stuff:
  Added 3 fairly widely used util methods to keep things neat
  Added the air layer to stations maps so they can behave the same way as all other entities (all this time I've had specific checks for whether it's processing/rendering a station on screen & this was stunting development)

Some more cool things planned soon!

Also here's just a gif of a black hole I thought looked neat:
 

Download

[Rogod]

Working on some next-gen zooming-in-and-out for Startron
 
been wanting to do this for a while

[Rogod]

Update v0.107
Tweaks & updates:
  Planet, moon & gas giant atmosphere & colour differences are now correctly represented on the bridge viewscreen
  MazeBase aliens, keys and doors are now slightly animated
  Added an inertial dampener control to the bridge actions (you can turn them off to swing around a black hole if you really want to )
  Added correct lighting to gutteluses
  Corrected a missing twiddle to set all old planets to have a clearTile of oxorine (was meant to be in v0.106, oops )
  Added optional zoom transitions between perspectives (you can switch between none, the closing/opening doors we've had up til now, and the new zoom effect in the options menu)
 
  Rocks now generate in little belts at the same distance from the system's centre so they're less randomly scattered around
  Destroying planets and moons now creates debris fields (analogous to rocks)

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed some toggles behaving inconsistently in the options menu
  Fixed the gas giant colours on the bridge viewscreen (they were all showing as green despite their appearance elsewher)
  Fixed showing flag entity control when there are no entities in a system
  Fixed crash on flagging nothing in an empty system

More big things to come soon, I just wanted to get this one out since the zooming transition affects quite a few areas of the game and I spotted some bugs I wanted cleaned up

Download

[Geoff Moore]

Holy heck, this is mind-boggling!! Love the trailer, the music fits really nicely too

[Rogod]

Update v0.108
Tweaks & updates:
  Improved the interface example on the options screen so you can see what you're changing better
  Tweaked some UI prompts in various places for a better experience
  Added a petroop indicator to the bridge action stations
  Added a few missing beeps from new interior interfaces
  Improved the usefulness of cosmos panning
  Generally neatened up the interior controls
  Changed the "plan" character to be a gold X on black (more visually distinct against the many other things it was the same colour as before)
  Allowed removing plans with 'P'
  Added stars to the Unity splash screen (looks less default now)
  Added support for typing commas in the Captain's log
  Increased the chance for oxorine planets to generate and increased the chance of seeding plants on planets
  Entities now show in the side-on backgrounds (wanted to add this ages ago, but needed to have the 3D engine in place first)
 
  Visible stars in the backgrounds now gradually diminish the further from the galactic centre you are
  Added rare tilted-axis gas giants (functionally identical, just fun to see)
  Rocks are now sometimes called asteroids (blame the locals)
 
  Added comets with elliptical orbits and tails
 
  Reduced ice and doubled the chance for minerals on asteroids
  Added elemental descriptions of non-elements like rocks, soil, ice, organics etc. to the cosmic database

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed showing the wormhole prompt while panning cosmos
  Fixed not getting resources back from occupied dwellings or toggled-off buildings
  Fixed not being able to beam workers back up after beaming them down
  Fixed light angle not working on space stations, rocks & gas giants properly
  Fixed 3 way toggles on the options menu being upside down

This concludes all the stuff I was trying to put in for v0.100. (You can see why I had to draw the line somewhere lol)

Download

Holy heck, this is mind-boggling!! Love the trailer, the music fits really nicely too

Thanks - Someone just popped up on these forums one day and basically said "I made some music for you, here you go, bai" lol
Never seen them again

EDIT: Coincidentally he just popped up and offered to make some more music for Startron, so that's a stroke of luck

[Rogod]

Update v0.109
Tweaks & updates:
  Comet names now begin with the first letter of the system name they're in
  Tidied up some ASCII in the Unity versions
  Made dwellings less common on rocks
  Increased the chance for harvesting seeds from fruiting plants
  Trees now downgrade to grass when beaming up (providing 2x the amount of organics in forests versus grasslands)
  Other ships now produce engine puffs while flying about
  Comets are now more common
  It is now possible to create a white hole, but I won't spoil how it's done
  Silird and calron can optionally be made in a factory to simplify automation in some cases
  The music for finding the Grog now changes immediately
  Orbiting a black hole with the ship's dampeners off should no longer result in an ever increasing velocity
  Hid the current system's background entities while playing MazeBase (I originally left this in because I thought it was neat, but changed my mind as it's kind breaking a 4th wall as far as the arcade cabinet goes)
  Improved city generation on homeworlds
  Made the fuel character distinct from the oracot character
  Allowed destroying roads and conduits while they're in use (previously you'd have to kinda spam delete because it'd be destroying the power or workers first)
  Increased the max petroop storage to 25

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed a rare softlock when zooming in or out (the main reason I wanted this update out)
  Fixed Cattos sending Grog-related transmissions when playing Doggos
  Fixed Grog music not looping
  Fixed the character for supports not resembling a support in any way (it used to, and I'm not sure how or when it got broken)
  Fixed the lithrogen canister colour
  Fixed aborting self-destruct causing the player to leave the interior view at the same time
  Fixed being able to fly the ship with self destruct on
  Fixed the ship no longer flying when switching to the interior view

Also we released the Startron demo on Steam:

Download

[Rogod]

Finally got the planets & moons looking like spheres in Startron
 
This has been on the bucket list for about 100 versions lol

[Rogod]

Update v0.110
Tweaks & updates:
  Improved the system connection lines slightly when zoomed all the way out
  Added a cloud layer to all entities (clouds are now part of the tile logic, rather than just an effect drawn over things)
  Clouds are now scaled correctly, rather than offset by a predetermined amount (makes for a nice 3D effect)
  Made gas giant lightning hit the ground under clouds with a thinner line so it's less distracting and more zappy
  Added 3D planet, moon & comet lighting (literally wanted to do this since June 2020 lol)
 
  Added birds that fly from tree to tree (they don't do anything yet, but maybe I'll include them in some mechanic later)
 
  Aligned the ship reflection in lithrogen with the cloud shadow parallax (it was a bit wonky before)
  Added signs so you can leave little notes for yourself around (these'll probably be used in some quests & storyline logic later)
 
  Added cargo bay item tracking (just a handy number tracker you can leave on the side of the screen while you're doing things in other perspectives)
  Added smoke from industries (serves the same function as clouds, but discourages you from having too much industry packed tightly together, as it'll get harder to see - pollution works as before in atmospheres otherwise)
 
  Added dreng fruit seeds from drengeluses (just a valuable fruit you can sell to pirates & can also be used in nurseries)
  Made comet names clearer
  Added random adverts on station walls (livens the place up a bit)
  Randomised the secret combination-X per cosmos (if you know, you know)
  Chits in your bank gain interest every year
  Re-balanced rock generation (I had tried to reduce the number of dwellings that spawned in v0.109 but was way off, so I sorted them out this time)

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed background entity distance check meaning big things become invisible (the accuracy in general is now better too)
  Fixed flickery workers when panning the camera
  Fixed background entities flickering about outside space station windows
  Fixed the ship direction in cosmos view

Dev stuff:
  Stubbed some unit tests just to see if I wanted to carry on that trend
  Re-jigged the safety check for completing sanctuary on other rocks (it was a bit hard-coded-ey)
  Removed an old variable from Startron Classic for tracking production deltas on entities
  Limited the number of in-game recurses that can be performed (should reduce the chance of a hard-crash if anything went wrong with the recursive floodfills going on with yards)

More fun stuff to come!

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.111
Tweaks & updates:
  Added an interface for the ship factory (will be expanded later to make installing addons easier)
  Added friend ships - ships can now be recruited to help out with automation between disparate colonies
 
  Ships now show separate from entities in a system (since they can hop in and out and behave independently)
  Ships now have species and types (pirates are actually a thing now)
  Converted all the old ship entities from old saves to the new ships system
  Added a fleet management interface to the bridge
 
  Removed hailing entities (it was basically only intended for ships so it now lives in fleet management)
  Pirates actually steal crayons now (the cosmic database has had a warning about this for so long I figured it would be funny if it was actually true)
  Updated the cosmic database on friend ships
  Made Tytopops & letin more obvious on grey worlds

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed the starting system not showing as visited at the start of a new cosmos
  Fixed receiving 2 blue orbs when grabbing a heart (I literally just had the line written twice like a derp )
  Fixed placing plans allowing creation of pollution
  Fixed a missing transmission for finding sanctuaries
  Fixed systems not marking as visited if using a wormhole in system view

The friend ships update was planned a long time ago, but all the 3D stuff came first. When playing through the other day I realised it'd be really handy if I could transport things from other planets to my colony, so I upped the priority of friend ships. Startron now finally feels like it's turning out how I wanted, with real automation and cool gameplay elements.

Also to go along with this release, I made a 3hr long-play to expose a bit more of what playing Startron is like:

Download

[Rogod]

Update v0.112
Tweaks & updates:
  Other ships now randomly navigate to neighbouring systems (meaning if you're low on ships & petroop and can't afford to commission one, they might swing by where you are) (also means more pirates may steal your crayons, so watch out)
  Ice can now be used to cool explosion chambers (making them a more viable power source in systems without light like nebulas and black holes)
  All resources gained from destroying buildings are now listed (making it far clearer what's going on)
  Resources are now returned from demolished superstructures
  Improved the ship management interface on bridge
  Added a proper interface for the ship factory so you can install addons without having to go to the cargo bay
 
  Improved the shop buy/sell prompt highlighting (every other prompt showed a red highlight for what key to press except backspace and space)
  Added the ability to search for a system while panning around the cosmos (should make tracking down meteor crashes a bit easier)
  Updated the bridge control panel texture
  Blue orbs now come from feeding Drengeluses a dreng fruit (killing them now fines the player like destroying Tytopop hives)
  Closed the admin door in pirate stations (that room didn't do anything there anyway)
  Rebalanced generated system types & planets (there were way too many wormholes for my liking)

Bugs fixed in this version:
  Fixed regained resources not showing counts properly
  Fixed the cosmos travel warning transmission (broke it fixing a bug in v0.111)
  Fixed info sticking to screen while navigation or walking away while inside the ship
  Fixed the graphics breaking on entering systems too near the starting system

Dev stuff:
  Cut down the duplication on text drawing method variations (now they all go via the same mechanism)

I had plans for other stuff in this update, but that last bug prompted me to get it out before beginning new things

Download

[vdapps]

I just check your YT vid. Brutal seeing it everything in movement in ASCII, quite psychedelic feelings.

[Rogod]

Brutal seeing it everything in movement in ASCII

I guess I've grown accustomed to seeing it after all this time, but yea when I take a step back, it is pretty awesome how it's all just text moving around.