DEV LOG 11:

I will try and keep it short and concise as possible, though a lot has happened since the last dev log. However before that a quick note for those who haven’t been here in a while and haven’t noticed the new trailer on the Steam store page. It contains most of the end result of the work mentioned in this log, so check it out here. Star Zeal 4x on Steam

Also an apology for the delay in posting on the website compared to other places, it comes with the territory of being a solo dev. Anyway lets get started with the log.

Colonies & planets:

-Colonies are ~90% ready for early access release.
-Planets now have separate sectors which are procedurally generated even on premade planets. These sectors can change over time and will have effects on whatever is on said sector. They are also part of my setup for introducing ground forces in a post release update.
-Refined the planet and colony UI, and adjusted it to accommodate the new additions/functionality.

Characters, Crews & RPG:

-Character and crew experience gain ready for testing and likely 95% of the way for there for release.
-Character and crew traits and their effects are ready for testing.
-Characters and crew are effected by the environment. They can even be fearful or terrified by it. As an example, crew can be unnerved by being far from home colony.
-Characters and crew now have equipment to boost their effectiveness. Equipment is a manufactured resource but not mandatory/required for crew to function as normal. This is also part of the build up to ground forces(which is planned for a major post release update).
-Diplomacy and character dialogue additions and further refinement.

Ships & Fleets:

-Ship combat and general physics have been even more refined and now ready for testing. About ~90% ready for early access release. Only ECM and point defense are left to finish up in this regard.
-Ships can now take critical damage and even internal components can be destroyed, disabling or reducing their function. For example ships can be stranded if engines or reactor are destroyed. Observable in footage of the new trailer.
-Also added a small targeting UI window and component targeting. This was not a planned one and very recently added. Tactical combat needed more options, not much else of a reason really. Added post video so it won’t be visible there.
-Ships are now affected by environment more obviously, example: Dust level effects the sensor strength and in effect also help with concealment.

(Note that tactical combat is only available for the fleet under the command of your main leader aka you the player).

Design, tech and research:

Exploration & environments:
-Design window and functionality ready for testing. The window itself has had a big do over. I made it feel more unique and suitable for the game.
-Tech generation and research window ready for testing. I set it up for future expansions post release though as it should be.
-Many additional, fixes and refinement of the techs and tech generation itself. They are too numerous to mention here.
-Planet and area scanning/surveying ready for testing.
-Anomaly generation is mostly ready for testing(needs a tiny bit more work). Anomalies are special objects/effects that can sometimes be extremely dangerous. Observable in the video.
-Improved some of the fuel and distance calculations, it is now closer to real scale than in previous iterations. Even solar systems are daunting in scale, averaging about 2-3 light years across.

Subspace Relays:
-A new critical tech called the sub space relay has been added. Distances like those between star systems and above will now have a severe effect on communication and detection. I will reveal more about it as development continues.

Other:
-Culture generation has been added. This functions using colonies and other details to generate cultures within a faction, which effect aspects like character generation and faction traits. It is designed to be fleshed out much more during early access.
-Cinematic camera added. This will be useable by the player but it is mostly for short procedural in game cut scenes.
-Many UI improvements have been made. Including to the main map.
-Many improvements and additions to sound effects and ship chatter.

From now on updates should be more frequent as the core is mostly complete. It did take a lot longer than I assumed, but that does seem to be par for the course in game development, especially for a complicated title such as this game.

The next step which is already underway is to get AI ready for the 3rd closed alpha build, which will be the first proper test of the game with combat and resource management. Then the final test build and versions with fixes before release.

Smaller and more frequent updates and info are available in the discord here: https://discord.gg/cgSAV277wM
Steam store page link: Star Zeal 4x on Steam
New Bluesky account: Akuu Digital Entertainment (@akuude.bsky.social) — Bluesky

Thank you for reading.

Star Zeal 4x is Still Alive!

First of all, apologies for the super long period in the dark without any updates. There are multiple reasons for this, though the main one is that I realized development was far off from where I thought it was. So I decided to go quiet(except for the discord) until I got enough done to at least be more confident the release is near and have the ability to update and market the game more easily. Between the second closed alpha release two years ago and this update, there has been a massive amount of work completed which you should be able to tell from the official Steam page trailer above.

Anyway, this is not a dev log(which will come shortly) it is rather a quick news post to let everyone know the game is absolutely alive and kicking. Also to coincide with the new trailer and all round refurbishment of the other website pages for the game.

I did have a personal tragedy happen midway through last year which delayed development but there is no need to get into that here. What matters is that I have not given up even in the slightest, I am now more motivated than I have ever been and willing to do whatever it takes to see this game released as intended. I will also be uploading a roadmap for the early access along with the dev log which is a few days away.

Thank you to those who stuck with me all this time. I appreciate it greatly.

If you want more details and want to see more frequent small updates please join the discord here: https://discord.gg/cgSAV277wM

Mid Closed Alpha Dev Log: Important Colony Change.

This is an unplanned dev log as there has been an important conceptual gameplay issue dealt with after closed alpha v2.0 was released, which is also what has delayed closed alpha v3.0. I have made some changes to colony functionality related to how players use/”exploit” them. It technically affects only a small section of the game that has to do with how the colony and planet management works but it does have a very large impact on gameplay, so I thought it best to write about it.

Colony Changes:

The colony management window has been essentially replaced with a new one. Colonies work in a more indirect and independent way now, while the player picks more general level options for whatever types of colony is possible on said location. The reason I made this change at such a late stage was due to realizing that having so much control over how colonies work creates a lot of busy work for the player. It had a “meta” or optimal way to play to achieve goals that involved tedious effort that was frankly boring and extremely unappealing to me. It was obvious that it will take a lot of enjoyment away from the role playing part of the game, particularly aspects like exploration and engagement with the AI.

Colony actions like for example mining or salvaging in orbit or areas within the same system are now fully automated. Previously you had to select ships, locations and even percentages of what should be mined. Now you don’t have to worry about any of that minutiae. Sentient beings on your colony and the governor will do their jobs and take care of that. You can however, order such operations halted or allowed(those are the smaller square buttons at the top of the related UI window above). Essentially, colonies will now develop and gain features in a more procedural and hands off way. More fitting of my original description of the game as in the summary itself here on Steam that I wrote more than a year ago.

Note: The player is still able to construct certain important buildings like shipyards, defensive structures build ships/units from the surface and so on. Also you are still able to direct a portion of industry for manufacturing specific resources.

Other regular developments:
Some minor improvements to the UI. I cut down on some of the outlines in the boxes and changes a few graphical assets to clean it up a bit. I did attempt a blur texture(to blur the background behind UI boxes) however that failed since it interfered with the cameras. Most of the other work are regular bug fixes and art related things, nothing to write much about. You will see some of it soon though.

So that deals with the last remaining major conceptual issue. This should also be the only log without an alpha build before public release. There will be two more major closed alpha releases and a couple of small fix builds(if warranted) in between that. The month of July will be a big month for Star Zeal 4x, so see you soon and thank you for reading.

Check out the discord link here, there are some better details about the closed alpha there: https://discord.gg/bm6wRYcZER 

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x/

Closed Alpha Phase 1 v2.0 (Exploration) Released & Testing Underway.

First off apologies for the late post on the site. I was focusing too much on Steam that I nearly forgot to post here. I will try avoid that in the future. Anyway, here is the latest update on closed alpha testing.
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The second build has been active for almost a week already. This one begins by opening up the game some more. Officially enabling the exploration and some of the logistics. Now the player(tester) can explore the starting star system as opposed to being stuck in orbit like in the first build.

Enabled/Unblocked Functionality:
-Ability for fleets to travel, IE: FTL.
-The starting system, including the possibility of going into the asteroid belt.
-Part of the start loadout window and ability to spend some starting points.
-Science survey scan orders from orbit of planets.

Newly Added:
-Logistics, ability to collect objects like crates and send into the cargo hold, which is unlike mining and salvaging.

Fixes and Improvements:
-Added ability to set ships to direct travel near to objects in full 3d view by mouse click instead of having to use the moving tool/pointer.
-Many fixes to fleet movement/order UI and input control. It is one of the most troublesome areas currently. It was downright unplayable before this build was ready.
-Fixes and some finalizing of the fuel and distance calculations. This is an important part of the game to deal with the more realistic scale used in the game.

Well that is likely the last build for the first phase. The next build Phase 2 v3.0 will be opening up the game proper with the main loop of gathering resources, design, construction and logistics including much of the colony functionality. I might include some form of weapons testing(combat) too. Also I believe this is the fastest update time from the previous log/news ever in development. Hopefully I can break the record in speed for the next build, see you then.

Other links:
Discord: https://discord.gg/bm6wRYcZER
Steam: https: //store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x
Support Page, incase anyone was wondering: https://starzeal4x.com/funding/


Closed Alpha, Phase 1 v1.0 Officially Released.

The first build of the closed alpha has been finally released and testing well underway. It was technically active since the start of March, but I waited until some initial private feedback came through from the first of the testers. I intended it to be a stealth release of sorts, which is why I had not made any updates for the last couple months.

About the first ever released build of Star Zeal 4x:
The initial feedback was quite short since most of the game was blocked off, however it was better than I expected and all the basics are seemingly in order. Essentially, what I wanted to test in this first build was whether or not the game runs as intended and I was not merely dreaming it after all these years working on it.

There will either be one or two more versions in phase one and then I will move on to phase two. Public release into early access will come at the end of phase four. The next build in Phase 1(build 2.0) will unlock and refine much more to play with, especially related to exploration and fix a few UI indicators plus add some important options like key rebinding. I will also open up the initial bits of the logistics system, which is the most volatile part of the code, so its best to carefully ease it in throughout the closed alpha. New closed alpha builds are planned to come out less than a week at a time, so it should not take long until going public.

So there it is folks, Star Zeal 4x is officially out of the house, finally, better late than never. On to the next build!

Check out the discord link here, there are some more details about the closed alpha there: https://discord.gg/bm6wRYcZER

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x/

Closed Alpha Roadmap + Minor Update.

First, an apology for the ongoing delay in releasing into closed alpha, which was meant to be out last month. There was simply more work to do than I expected, a common occurrence throughout development. However, and more importantly I am not cutting, nor reducing the scope in any way. So the extra time spent should be worth it.

A small update on development:
This is not an actual dev log because the work being done now is almost all repetitive. Mostly refining and standardizing the UI, art and some bug fixing. The previous log was stated as the last one until release after all. Either way, certain things have changed and I wanted to mention it before getting to the crux of the news.

Screenshot of a science order, in this case a survey scan on a planet from its orbit.
Screenshot of the within solar system view. The dimmed color of some of the planets, moons and the star is to show they have not been scanned at least once yet. The reddish area around the middle is a radiation zone. It can get quite dangerous for ones health when nearing stars.

The brightness and such of text will be adjusted further depending on the feedback in closed alpha.

Closed alpha road map:
This is the important part. I have separated the closed alpha release into four phases so that I can handle everything more efficiently. I will unlock functionality as each phase has run its course. Once all four phases are complete, the game will go into public early access. This decision will also help me deal with the business and marketing side of development.

Phase 1, Exploration:
Exploration is the most obvious to come out first due to it containing the basics of moving around, using the map and interacting with the environment. Also any bugs in the procedural generation of the map/area can be dealt with early on on.

Phase 2, Logistics and Resources:
This phase will deal with the all important logistics system. It is also my most feared phase since it has the trickiest code to deal with. I will unlock the colonizing of planets either in this phase or in phase three.

Phase 3, Research, Design and Construction:
Speaks for itself, but the devil will be in the detail. This is also where most of the colony management code will be refined and finalized.

Phase 4, War(with pirates and marauders) and Characters:
The final phase is where all the mechanics in the previous phases come together and complete the main rpg and 4x hybrid loop. In this case it will be a war against the pirates and marauders in the starting cluster.

Please note that these phases are not exhaustive of game mechanics already in game or planned for completion later on. Some important features like the diplomacy which has the base code functioning and in the game already, will only be opened up and completed in public early access after the closed alpha. I have some special plans for political mechanics. Same goes for ground/planet surface actions.

So, there is nothing much left to say, other than thank you for reading and also thank you to those who have been following the development. Remember to use the discord invite below if you are so inclined.

Links:
Discord: https://discord.gg/bm6wRYcZER
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x/
Also a reminder, incase anyone is wondering, you can support development via the support and funding page here: https://starzeal4x.com/funding/ Or the widget to your right.

Dev Log 10, Part 2: Finalizing Research and UI for closed alpha.

This log should really be the eleventh one since its a couple months after the previous update. However, I will stick to my rule this time and finish off the final dev log before closed alpha release, thus it is part two of dev log ten. There are other reasons for my choice, but that is irrelevant, no need to waffle on about in the intro. Lets get on with it.

1: Finalizing the core of procedural research:
A quick primer for those who don’t know: The research system is procedural and partially physicalized. This means techs are generate not predefined and the logistics system is involved with research projects, which exist within the game world. It also means you can lose research projects, even to enemy action.

Please note that empty/open spaces and blocks in the UI are there on purpose. It is for features temporarily disabled for closed alpha and for fancier functionality which will be added during early access. An example is the character/leader assign options and lead scientists for research. They will be enabled after a bit of initial testing and some more refining in closed alpha

There are multiple types of research points to spend which will be earned via different ways of course. An example would be doing scans/surveys on planets for “natural science” points or “military science” points via military action. However I will implement unconventional ways to attain the same points. In order to balance it for different play styles like pacifists. Previous versions had an additional research points cap but that was removed, due to it being much too annoying and redundant for the player to deal with and for me to code.

Research power(“sci” or “science” in the UI), involves lab capacity, scientists(population and lead scientist characters) plus other bonuses from the location the projects are based. On ships the scientists are in the crew, which are separated by type, so you don’t have worry about manually filling ships with scientists, it will deal with that via the supply/logistics system.

There are two research windows, main one(first screenshot) and a small(above). The main window is where the research “tree” or rather paths are and where you select what to research. The second smaller window is to view and control each project being researched at the location they are being researched in. Each path as you progress will generate related techs which you can apply to for example your ships. Base techs are those which apply globally to certain abilities throughout your civilization like colony sensors and bonus/RNG for other useful tech like miniaturization.

Bottom line in regard to research, the hard part of the code is completed. Research is now officially functional within the main gameplay loop, and fun(I hope). Believe me, it took some hefty elbow geese to get it to this point. As with everything in development it seems, it was tougher to deal with than it looked.

2: Finalizing the core of design:

This is where you apply much of the end results of your research. Currently it is only used for ships, but that limitation will only for the initial early access. Other types of designs especially for ground forces and special buildings are in the works. Ships have multiple parts that will contain bonuses and slots for weapons and add capacity to the ship for other components and cargo space. This even though ships have limited weapons slots by design its its more customizable than it looks. Other components do not require slots and only require open capacity. Also, research projects can be done on colonies and ships in space, if they have labs to do it. One project per lab. Labs are also a tech themselves which can be improved upon.

I made the design window in a way that should allow rapid setup of ships for production, with simple clicks instead of dragging buttons around especially for common equipment. Also, only weapons require slots, you only have to worry about space for other types of components. I will publish proper videos of this entire game loop after a bit more refining in closed alpha, it would have been a waste of time for this log. Overall the design window was a pain to deal with, even worse than the research window, but compared to the trouble with my previous coding endeavors in early development it was a cake walk.

3: General UI:
As you can tell by comparing older screenshots of the UI, it has been changing over time. Though not yet final, it is becoming easier to look at(for me at least). Much of this improvement is due to standardizing some UI art assets and windows especially the smaller ones. There is a certain style I am attempting to achieve of course, one based mostly on NOT looking like a user interface for a fancy online shop. I often feel like many modern game UI feel like you are browsing for kitchen appliances or something to that effect. There is still much room for improvement in the UI, and I guess it will never truly be finished, but I am finally happy enough with it to release.

Conclusion:
The past two to three months of development involved an arduous amount of work put into the research system and particularly the related user interface, the latter of which also happens to be my weakest element as a developer. It did however expose quite a numerous amount of tiny, but non negligible mistakes and issues, which have now been mostly dealt with. Sometimes one does not notice what is broken, until the numbers are on the screen in game.

Well that is that for part two of the final dev log before the initial release into closed alpha. I was considering doing a part three for the next bit of work but there is no need. I have placed a link below to the Star Zeal 4x discord channel. That is where the closed alpha development will be updated regularly.

Links:
Discord: https://discord.gg/pTekFg3h
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x/
If you wish to support development you can do so via paypal here: https://starzeal.wordpress.com/funding/ or use the paypal link to the right of this page.

You can also follow Star Zeal 4x on:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKCFIhlv7VuJpNfMKxeE7qw
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Akuu_D_E
IndieDB: https://www.indiedb.com/games/star-zeal-4x

Dev Log 10 Part 1. Finalizing For Closed Alpha.

Overview.

Its been more than a year since the last official dev log. So this is a big and important one, and the final one before closed alpha release. This will be a multi part log so you don’t have to read an essay.

I have decided to release in closed alpha first before the early access, for obvious reasons. The game is too complicated for public release right away even in its limited early access. Also, since this phase of coding was the last remaining major section that needed a lot of work, it should mean there will be no more long delays between updates/logs.


So I will begin with what took so long in part 1, the logistics system:

Logistics in action, salvaging, miners leaving area to mine a asteroid field, supplying new ships and of constructions in progress including a ship being built in stations shipyard. Please note the seeing lag at certain times in the gif is due the time skip in game (you can see me clicking on it) its not actual lag.

Due to hubris, I decided to add a logistics earlier on in development, and not a regular type of abstracted system you find in most 4x games but a physicalized one. IE: The ships and colonies transport and or hold the resources in a specific amount to do stuff with. What could go wrong, its only a bunch of numbers in some lists, no big deal right? Wrong! Even the tiniest of mistakes can cause massive problems for efficiency up to the point of completely freezing the computer if its not coded well. As another developer I talked to on discord recently said, logistics is like glitter, once you implement it, it gets on and in everything. Thus no sloppy code could be tolerated.

The area of the game that took most effort regarding the logistics is the full 3d level. This is the part which resembles the game Homeworld to many who see screenshots of it. Even more specific was the combination of the full 3d and the highly procedural nature of the base code which the logistics system has to be able to use correctly. As an example one cannot simply instantiate a freighter or ship to hold some goods to represent freight, it has to use the full ship system. IE: The freighters transporting things and doing the logistics have to be fully realized essentially the same way the regular ships are but with an added layer of independence and automation. Also one must not forget the saving and loading of the whole system, which was another pain in the neck. However this whole troublesome phase in development was eventually dealt with, or rather beaten into submission after a grueling fight.

Mining action which uses the logistics system, moves the metals and gases in the asteroid into the cargo holds. This is happening in an asteroid belt in the outskirts of a system, hence ambient light is low.

Summary of the current logistics system and its basic functionality for the player. (These are mostly complete, though there are some minor issues and missing bits here and there)
-Moving stuff around between ships and colonies. This can be manually done for specific resources as you wish.
-Mining asteroids and other natural objects.
-Salvaging artificial objects which will retrieve manufactured resources unlike ore mining.
-Construction of stations and ships will have the freight automatically moved there via freighters from nearby colonies or other fleets.
-Characters that are assigned to fleets and colonies will move to the location. They exist in the game within ships and colonies just like any other item would. (Needs a little more work to function correctly).
-Ships themselves can also be stored on colonies.(Hangars for holding ships within ships are in development too).

I will get into more details and the rest of what happened in the last year in next parts of the log, since it will take too long here and I need to finalize and sort out some more of the UI and related code.

Conclusion:

The method I used to do the logistics is supposed to be more efficient by avoid certain things and doing some behind the scenes trickery. It should avoid some of the usual performance problems 4x games have at late game. As a whole it was much more difficult to deal with than expected. It needed a lot of trickery and unconventional code to deal with. However, it did eventually get done, and its working for the most part. To be frank its a bit hard to believe even for me. Any how, see you in the next part of dev log 10 and then onto the closed alpha.


Don’t forget to follow and wishlist on the steam page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1791630/Star_Zeal_4x/

If you want to support Star Zeal, check out the support page here https://starzeal.wordpress.com/funding/ or use the paypal link to the right of this page.

You can also follow Star Zeal 4x on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKCFIhlv7VuJpNfMKxeE7qw

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Akuu_D_E

IndieDB: https://www.indiedb.com/games/star-zeal-4x

Dev log 9: tactical Control

Overview:

The tactical level is the “lowest” level of the game, ie: the hands on control of your main characters fleet, where your empire building and role playing comes to a head. Tactical is technically the first part of the game I got functioning about 3 years ago, in a sense I have come full circle in development.

This dev log has been a long time coming. Now on to the actual development update:

The first major change is that Star Zeal now uses Unity’s physics engine almost entirely to control ships in space, other than certain rotations(aiming). Previously it was done exclusively via code and ignored physics which was more precise but didn’t feel so good. Now however, the moments are more realistic and allows for more emergent results, especially during combat. The only draw back was that it required a lot of time to refine the ship control code to reach a playable state.

Ship Movement:

Ships use two types of researchable/upgradeable components for movement, thrusters(main engines) and vectoring(eg: inertia dampeners and vectoring engines).

Main engines dictate the forward speed, acceleration and top speed. This is calculated by multiplying the engine count and things like the mass and even weapon fire speed limits. I also added an uncapped speed for positioning at long distances, which can reach very high speed. It can take a while for ships to accelerate to the top speed, especially for ships with high mass to thrust ratio, same applies to slowing down.

The vectoring stat dictates ship maneuverability, IE: turning, aiming and avoiding speeds. Similar to main engines being modified by engine count, ship designs come with their own vectoring factor modifiers depending on the base ship design. Larger ships are generally more sluggish due to the mass calculation. However they can technically be as maneuverable as smaller ship classes depending on the tech used. Vectoring is also used for avoiding collisions which doesn’t always work out as intended for the captain.

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Weapons:

I have now added most of the major types of weapons, beams, missiles(includes torpedoes) and plasma based. Also weapons now use “free” power/energy left on the ship and or ammo that will require resupply when expended. There are more planned to be added but that will be during early access. Another added weapon feature is the aiming and missing system based on spread. Its not an random number roll for hitting but a roll for the spread when shooting.

Missiles have been around for a while, but now they have better movement and targeting code along with the ammo mechanic mentioned above. Missiles are also able to be launched in salvoes depending on the ship and or ship part used to contain them. Beam weapons on the other hand are a completely new addition. They do constant damage until needing to recharge or energy runs out. Beams can also hit anything that passes between the beam even if its not the intended target, ie: beams are actual beams. I made the base damage output of beams an order of magnitude lower than for other weapons because of the rate of damage, but with enough research investment they can be extremely potent.

Some more additions to ship functionality:
-Turrets and independent vs normal forward firing weapons. Now ships can fire independently at targets that cross the range of weapons.
-Implemented crew injuries and death during combat.
-Ship parts and components are able to be destroyed.
-Stance and attack modes have been added and improved. This needed a lot of refining due to the change to use mostly physics based movement.
-Added engagement range control. Min and max depends on weapons.
-Speed indicator, this works for non ships also. It is technically a velocity indicator.
-Ship and fleet ui improvements including real time info on specific components of ships in action.

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Tactical Map:

The tactical map and tactical orders control are now mostly complete. There should not be any more major changes to it from now on. Most of what I did was make it easier to control everything from the tactical map view. It was mostly UI related stuff, annoying to work on but very necessary. If you want to you can stay on the tactical map and give all necessary orders to your ships without ever having to go down to the full 3d view.

Important note: You are only able to give direct orders in the tactical level to ships in fleets that under your main character/leaders command, whomever that may be. There is an auto battle system in progress to deal with the other fleets outside of this level.

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So thats it for dev log 9. The steam page is coming up next along with finalizing, adding and refining everything needed for the early access release. Thanks for reading my latest log and don’t forget to leave a comment if you so wish. See you next time.

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If you want to support Star Zeal, check out the support page here https://starzeal.wordpress.com/funding/ or use the paypal link to the right of this page.

You can also follow Star Zeal 4x on:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKCFIhlv7VuJpNfMKxeE7qw

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Akuu_D_E

IndieDB: https://www.indiedb.com/games/star-zeal-4x