It’s time for a monthly development update. Stardeus has had 19 updates since Nov 12, 2022. The stats:
- Bug fixes: 59
- Balance adjustments: 25
- UI / QoL improvements: 18
- Technical changes: 17
- Performance optimizations: 14
- New features: 8
- Graphics / rendering changes: 6
- Audio related changes: 2
There is an increase in the number of technical changes and performance optimizations - I was rewiring the internal plumbing and paving the way for the next big thing to come - derelict ships.
Performance Improvements
Some major performance improvements happened within last month. Those would be especially noticeable in large late game ships with thousands of devices and hundreds of colonists. The game runs faster at the highest 10x speed, animations are much smoother, and there are less frame drops.
I’m far from done with performance yet, there are dozens of optimizations that can be done, and I will be tackling them one by one over time.
Ship Generation Improvements
Stardeus uses procedural generation to create and destroy spaceships. This happens every time you start a new game. There was a new development iteration that overhauled the procedural generation algorithms to produce more interesting ship designs. Here’s a before and after screenshot for a Wrecked scenario generated from the same seed (13).
Before
After
In addition to more intricate design, some of the devices and items you can find in the wreckage will be different every run, making it more fun to replay it.
Here are a few more examples, this time from a “Random Ship” scenario with seed 42069:
Before:
After:
Update Frequency and Development Philosophy
I noticed some people misunderstanding the frequent small updates, so let me get this straight. I’m not releasing lots of small updates just to fix the bugs. There are invisible changes coming out in those updates, as I am “building the airplane in mid-air” using Continuous Delivery methodology.
I strive to always have a working game build, even while working on big changes, and have that build up and running on Steam for everyone to play. This means that I can deliver bug fixes, QoL, balance changes and small features every few days instead of once or twice a month, while still working on the big things. It also makes the feedback loop much tighter.
If you don’t like frequent updates, there is an “old_version” branch you can switch to in betas - that is not updated as frequently.
That’s it for now, time to put my head down and get back to work. Have wonderful holidays, and see you in the next update in 2023!
The full changelog: https://stardeusgame.com/changelog
Search for “v0.6.125 (2022.11.12)” and scroll up to read through what exactly was done since the last update.
Follow the Development
- Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
- Join Stardeus Discord
- /r/stardeus on Reddit
- @StardeusGame on Twitter
- @dev_spajus on Twitter
- dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
Add Stardeus to Wishlist
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/
