It's been another month of hard work, and I finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. I still can't tell how long it will take to bring this major update to a polished state, but everything is coming together smoothly, and I feel that the most difficult parts are already done.
There are still dozens of things left to address, but I'll do my best to get ready for the playtesting phase within a couple of months.
Allow me to present a few highlights from the past month of development.
Bot Docks
The Cleaning Bot previously had its own dedicated dock, causing other bots to feel excluded. Not anymore! A new docking device has been introduced that can be assigned to any bot, either manually or automatically.
Bots assigned to docks will idle in them instead of roaming aimlessly. This adds a new layer of strategy to both combat and everyday tasks.
While docks provide a small amount of electricity, they won't charge as quickly or efficiently as the dedicated Charge Station. However, the charge provided will be sufficient to maintain healthy battery levels.
Jet Suit
The Jet Suit is an upgraded version of the Space Suit with added capability to fly. This innovation elevates the effectiveness of your human [strike]meatbags[/strike] colonists to the next level.
Sanity and Mental Breakdowns
I didn't like that mood was the driving factor behind the mental breakdowns of your colonists. Nobody starts fires because of bad mood, they do it because they go insane.
Sanity is the cornerstone of this new system. When sanity falls below a certain threshold, random mental breakdowns can happen just like before. Sanity also ties in to the new AI and will provide some additional behavioral changes.
The UI used to display mood effects was pretty confusing, therefore it also received a small redesign.
Awakening from Stasis
The Stasis Array now offers a choice whenever a new colonist needs to be awakened. This not only provides greater control over who joins your crew but also ensures no new colonist is overlooked.
Free Select Tool Overhaul
The input and how it feels during gameplay are really important, so I decided to redo the Free Select tool. This tool handles everything you do with the mouse when you haven't picked a specific tool, like left clicking, right clicking, and dragging. It might seem simple, but here's what the tool does:
Originally, it was just "click to select something," but after four years of adding features, it turned into a huge, messy block of code – about 1600 lines of what's known as "technical debt." I took it apart and reorganized everything, making it easy to update or add new features, and the whole thing is now built with modding support. This was a big victory and it even made me reconsider how tooltips work when you hover over different items.
The entire refactoring process was documented in a series of videos on YouTube if you're interested in the technical specifics.
That's it for this update, see you next month!
- spajus
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