Tag: strategy

DEV LOG 11:

Posted on by Thilaksha Ekanayake

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!

Posted on by Thilaksha Ekanayake

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

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

Posted on by Thilaksha Ekanayake

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