Hey everyone! We're happy to report that Pre-Alpha 10 is almost finished, with only further internal testing to be done before we make it available for everyone who pre-ordered. Since this new build is mostly done, we thought it would be nice to put up a list of the upcoming features (and it's a lot of stuff). So, here it is! As for when Pre-Alpha 10 will be available, that will depend on how many bugs and other issues may come up. Our tentative ETA is end of January, early February. NEW New and Improved Graphics! Completely new ship 3D models for all races. New effects for each of the beam and kinetic weapons. Completely new graphics for all the races. Ground combat system added! New techs and corresponding buildings: Planetary defense shield, Planetary deflector shield, Planetary barrier shield, Marine garrison, Imperial garrison, Planetary garrison, Airspace support facility, Airspace combat telemetry, Airspace defense nexus. New techs that boost ground combat: Personal shield, Power suit, Gauss rifle, Phasor rifle and Plasma rifle. New ship type: Assault Ship (unlocked by Marine garrison). Bombardment system added! New tech: Bomb rack (allows bombing). Techs now operational: Antimatter-catalysed bombs, Neutronium bombs. New concept: Bomb fallout pollution. Siege and Blockade features added! Crew experience feature added! - Your ships' crew now gains experience for increased combat bonuses. New building (empire improvement): Imperial space academy (boosts ships' crew XP) Orbital stations added! - Star bases, Battle stations and Star fortresses. Use them to defend your most vital colonies and upgrade them with new unlocked modules to boost your economy! An orbital station is required to build ships bigger than destroyers. New techs (orbital station modules): Civilian quarters, Customs dock, Orbital research labs, Freighter port and Alien habitat module. Ship refit feature added! - Now possible to refit ships in colonies with an orbital station. Refitting a ship allows it to keep the ship crew XP intact! Warp Interdictor added! - slows down incoming ships to a speed of 1 parsec when at 2 parsecs range from the colony. Different scanner technology now allows to know more about rival fleets starting by just being able to see the fleets (with Gravitational scanners) but without knowing fleet composition or direction; Neutrino scanners allow to see fleet composition (ship types); Quantum scanners reveal the fleets destinations while Ultrawave scanners allow to see ship equipment. New building (empire improvement): Cultural capital (doubles culture where it's built) New beam weapons (and techs): Fusion beam, Neutron beam, Phasor, Disruptor beam, Chaos chain (derelict unique super tech) and Ion discharger (another derelict unique super tech). New kinetic weapons (and techs): Particle accelerator, Railgun, Flak cannon, Doom cannon, Matter streamer (derelict unique super tech). New missiles and torpedos (and techs): Polaris missile, Nightmare missile, Plasma torpedo, Positron torpedo (derelict unique super tech). New special system (and techs): Bomb rack. List of special systems available: Fighter bays, Bomber bays and Bomb rack. The other special systems are currently under development. BALANCE Moltar race now has a +10% morale bonus (was +0% before). Tolerable/Hostile worlds pop cap, pop growth and morale penalties changed from -80%/-40% to -50%/-25%. Robotic factory bonus from asteroid belts increased from +5/+10/+15 to +10/+20/+30 per active production exploitation. Fusion power plants bonus halved - now give +0.5 prod per POP instead of +1. Antimatter power plants bonus halved - now give +1 prod per POP instead of +2. Neutronium rejuvenation bonus halved - from +5% morale in colony per source to +1% per source. Frontier Spirit space culture perk bonus changed from +3% per parsec distance to capital to +1%. Rich and Ultra Rich bonuses to production reduced from +8 and +16 to +6 and +8, respectively. Frequency of planet specials slightly reduced. All planetary engineering infrastructure perks now boost support ship's planetary engineering bonuses. Unlocking third-level planetary engineering infra perk grants +25% PE production on every colony. Picking all civil infra perks on colony now grants +100 building construction in empire instead of previous +20. Picking all aerospace infra perks now grants +100 ship construction in empire instead of previous +20. Volatiles exploitations bonuses changed from +25/50/75% to +50/100/150%. GAMEPLAY Infrastructure no longer tied to biome type and habitability towards the owner race. The concept was simplified. Infra now capped by planet size. Therefore, infra levels don't change upon invading a hostile enemy colony. Now there is a pop cap in non-Ideal worlds (i.e. Tolerable or Hostile worlds) Assigning a leader now has a 5-turn cooldown unless the leader is already present at the location, which if so is assigned immediately. Friendly natives planet special now also provides a flat +25 production to the colony. Tech trading offers by the AI are now less frequent. At least one star in range is now guaranteed at game start for all players. Wan Ironshard leader now has the Commando skill. Morale now also affects space culture generation in colonies, like it already did for research and money generation. Infrastructure bonus from construction tech level now implemented. UI New togglable starmap layers: "Strategic resources" and "Systems with colonizable planets". Now possible to set production allocation to 100% directly from the colony overview panel without needing to go to the colony. New notifications for when war declarations and peace treaties are signed, and by whom. Fleet icon now glows when clicked and fleet panel is open. No construction is lost. Colonies automatically switch to trade goods if nothing is being produced when production is being allocated to construction. Now it's possible to add multiple constructions to the queue for buildings that allow multiple instances in the same colony (e.g. micro grav generator and domes) Sorts by "ship class size" and "ships with leaders" added to the ships overview panel. Star systems descriptions revised for all types of systems (text seen in window when star system is unexplored). New notification for when a survey ship arrives to a system with ruins that can be explored. Population amount in each planet added to system view. Ruins and planet special presence info also added to system view. Last sector to be explored remotely and remote exploration finished icons now have a different color to help make that more clear. When colonizing a planet, we now go directly to the colony. Hotkeys A, D, left arrow, right arrow can now be used to navigate between colonies when inside the colony screen. Now possible to sort planets in overview panel by the amount of times their ancient ruins were explored. Richness, new pop ETA, ruins and planet special presence info added to colony info in the overview panel. Confirmation screens added to vital functions during phase execution, like planetary invasion decisions and space combat opportunities. Tooltips could sometimes jump from a previous position to the new position (the jumping/ghost tooltip issue). This is now fixed. Infra cap info added to colony screen. Leader ship assignment list now bigger and ships sorted by class. Description of civilian ships added to ship tooltip in the fleet panel. Ships now ordered by hull size in colony screen. Hiring a leader removes any present notification about the leader leaving. Buildings tooltips now show "-1 building slot in colony" to make clear buildings consume building slots. Planet special now shown in the colony screen. Idle construction notifications now disappear after adding something to the queue. The ship’s tooltip in the colony screen now shows the ship design details/component info. Added little "crown" icon to the homeworld/capital system in the starmap Colony notifications now highlights corresponding colony in the overview panel. Unknown richness and ecology tooltips now inform that more scanning is required to reveal the information. Leader uncreative trait description improved. Centering production now refreshes empire info, and tooltip added to "center icon". AUDIO New window opening sound. Window closing sound removed. New tech tree tech click sound added. New main menu music. BUGS Fixed a bug that was allowing an enemy fleet to be seen without sensor range just because we did remote scanning there. Fixed an issue where two opening sounds were being heard when clicking on "New Game". Fixed a bug in the ruins search where when two ruins locations where found, only one location was being presented. Fixed an issue where the morale values were not rounded in the colony overview panel. Fixed a bug where sometimes the last laser shot before ship destruction was badly directioned. Fixed an issue where the available constructions filter was reseting when navigating to other colonies. Fixed a bug where it was not possible to enter the research screen because there were too many techs in the weapons third field.
Thanks SolCommand! Yes, things are starting to come together. Most features are already in. Then it's time to add a few more things, improve and polish all the way. It's going to be a very busy year! Looking forward to hear what the community thinks of the game at Pre-Alpha 10.
Oh thank you so much! So many things I wished them to come true are taken care of and make me looking forward to get this new Alpha into my hands I can wait though and thank you for the info. This sounds like so much and goood work. I could pick out some really nice things you realized, but hey, all of this is sounding so polished and good, like always, I am sure this will bring us players a huge and intense February with many adventures in the stellar space. And with intense combats and an even better overview over our space faring nation Hurray!!
And many of the things added that will help with the polish and with having a better overview over your empire, as you say, were in response to your feedback and of others. So, thank you a lot for that!
Liebe Entwickler von Interstellar Space Genesis die neue Ankündigung der Alpha 10 gibt mir einen Anlass Euch zu schreiben. Aus der gezeigten Grafik entnehme ich mal das Artwork für die zukünftigen Rennen und Raumschiffe – sie gefallen mir sehr gut ( ich mag gut gestaltete Sachen). Sehr dankbar wäre ich Euch auch wenn es später einmal ohne große Programmierkenntnisse die Möglichkeit gibt eigene Helden per Bild zu Importieren (sorry ich bin ein Perry Rhodan Fan). Da wir einmal bei Rennen sind im Spiel gibt es so genannte freundliche Natives, wenn das Tiere und Pflanzen mit niedrigen Intellekt sind geht der Produktionsbonus flach in Ordnung. Was aber wenn es sich um eine empfindungsfähige Spezies handelt,dann hätte ich für zu künftige DlC`s einige Vorschläge. Stellt Euch einmal eine außerirdische Fraktion landet in Amerika, würdet ihr gleich hurra schreien und 25% Eures Nationaleinkommens anbieten? Im besten Fall verhaltet ihr Euch neutral. Mit guten Aktionen verdient man sich dann langsam das Vertrauen der Bevölkerung. ( zum Beispiel Gebäude die den Kulturaustausch fördern. Rücksicht auf die Umwelt..) Ein guter Weg wäre wenn der Anführer dieser Kultur ( erfordert vielleicht ein Gesicht der Zivilisation)sich mit einem wichtigen Anliegen an den Spieler wendet, wird dieser positiv beschieden;-es passiert erst einmal nichts aber nach mehreren Anfragen erhöht sich vielleicht die Produktion oder es wird bei den Aliens ein Spezialgebäude errichtet ,welches den Aliens und dem Spieler Vorteile bringt zum Beispiel Spezialplanetenschild oder einmalige Forschungsfähigkeit im Universum. Natürlich geht auch das Gegenteil: Wir terraformieren einen Planeten ohne Rücksicht oder breiten uns ohne Rücksicht über den ganzen Planeten aus. Die Reaktionen der Gegenseite könnten dann sein Technologiediebstal, Revolution(Krieg mit einer eigene Armee und Bauwerken auf der Planetenoberfäche), Verrat öffnen eines Planetenschildes während einer Invasion... Das bringt mich zu einer anderen Sache. Ich bin zwar nicht der große Kämpfer aber werde mein Imperium gegen Angreifer verteidigen . In diesem Zusammenhang möchte ich den Beitrag des Kollegen Konstantin würdigen,- die vorgeschlagen Elemente in der Grafik machen Sinn, mir gefallen die Einschränkungen im Asteroidenfeld am meisten. Ein großes Alleinstellungsmerkmal dieses Spiels ist das meine Helden mit mir reden,- wirklich super !! Allerdings nicht jeder Charakter ist ein guter Verlierer wenn er einen angestrebten Posten nicht bekommt, vielleicht könnte er die Fraktion dann auch verlassen? Ich freue mich schon auf die neuen Orbitalstationen mit Zolldock, Frachterhafen .. Damit schließe ich für heute – weiterhin gutes Gelingen .
Hey Wanderer, I 'm glad you're liking the new graphics. Importing your favorite heroes (i.e. modding the leader portraits) is an interesting idea and something that we can consider for the modding phase. Your idea for minor races, ones that are sentient but not a fully fledged race in the game is something we will be considering at some point in time. Maybe not for the release, but most probably for a DLC or expansion. Your suggestions for the implications of terraforming are sound, and in line with our own thoughts. We'll explore the leader desires feature to make terraforming more interesting, perhaps the leader askes a favor of you, you return and then you get some bonus from the leader and/or the entire population under the leader. If you say no, there could also be consequences. We'll also explore the implications of terraforming from the standpoint of the other races. Some will not be happy about it, of seeing you terraform their ideal environments to ones that are hostile to them. Your preference in having more tactical elements in battle (e.g. asteroid fields) is noted. We'll see. Fun comes first of all, of course. But we'll explore the possibility of adding more tactical elements if that is found to be adding to the fun, and experience. So, perhaps not immediately, but we may revisit this at some point, during the development of the first release, or beyond. Correct. If we refuse the leader's wishes there will be consequences, which may include them leaving the empire. We'll be focusing on all leader matters, including creating new desires, traits and the leader desertion/rebellion mechanics for Pre-Alpha 11. Yes, orbital stations will be available now, which you can exploit commercially. They can also help defend a more vital colony. Soon, you'll be able to play with that. Thanks Wanderer. Talk to you soon.
Hey BigDC, welcome to the forums! We're doing some more testing to make sure the new build is as stable as possible. We expect to be releasing it in the next couple of weeks.
A quick update on the new build. The plan was to release Pre-Alpha 10 today. Things were looking good, but this is a big one, so we decided to postpone the release just a little while longer so we can do a bit more testing and make sure you have the smoothest experience possible, with the minimal amount of bugs or glitches. We should be good to go next week. We'll keep you informed. Thanks for your patience. Adam & MalRey
Pre-Alpha 10 is out! https://www.interstellarspacegame.com/forums/index.php?threads/pre-alpha-10-released.650/ Have fun, and please let us know what you think.
Whatever you did, my Geforce GTX 770 ist working on 100% and the dedicated memory is full (1,9GB). In version 9 it was not that intense. Now I have to say that it happens on the highest graphical settings. now i chose the lowest, and while i can not see much difference, the GPU load goes down to 20-50%. It depends what graphic is open. colony view is now at 25% GPU load, star view with the sun animation it goes up to 50%.
Can you tell which parts of the game you feel were more intense for your card? Could you also be playing in a higher quality setting than before (quality is set at game launch)? I've checked and the framerate is capped as expected (60FPS at Normal graphical quality and 120FPS at High and Very High). The only part that has unlimited FPS at the moment, and that can strain the graphics card, is is at game start, because we haven't control over that part of the program, yet. Let us know.
The settings are 1920x1080 Quality Settings: Very Low Full Screen Now I took the time to Start the game and watch the Load with Process Explorer from Mark Russinovich. I marked the changes in game and the starting of the game with irfanview with arrows in the screenshot. I wrote down the time before switching to another view by alt-tabbing to the desktop and checked with the mouse in the gpu load diagram. I figured the load stays the same. This is normal for a game in this state and sure will not be in the final. I am sure you know of that. Now i deliver the two pictures. One is the screenshot with the comments, the other is the system view to make sure you know what I am talking about. So, I write it down in short: 1. Starting the game, waiting at load screen. 2. Loading a game 3. staying at galaxy screen for ~30seconds 4. staying in system screen ~30 seconds 5. staying in colony screen ~30 seconds. 6 exiting the game via exit game to desktop
