Here's a little easter present for all of you who still follow this game. I posted my original design document from before I actually started main development work online at http://solarwar.net/files/public/solarwar-designdoc.pdf This contains a peek at a few ideas that did not make it into the game, more details on some that did, as well as yet unpublished background on lore elements of the world. Mostly, I hope this might be helpful as a starting point for anyone who wants to build their own game, but it might also be of interest to anyone who just wants to look at how a game like this is made before programming comes into play. If there is enough interest in this kind of thing, I might also publish some balancing spreadsheets I used in the design stage.

Here's a little easter present for all of you who still follow this game. I posted my original design document from before I actually started main development work online at http://solarwar.net/files/public/solarwar-designdoc.pdf This contains a peek at a few ideas that did not make it into the game, more details on some that did, as well as yet unpublished background on lore elements of the world. Mostly, I hope this might be helpful as a starting point for anyone who wants to build their own game, but it might also be of interest to anyone who just wants to look at how a game like this is made before programming comes into play. If there is enough interest in this kind of thing, I might also publish some balancing spreadsheets I used in the design stage.

Just a tiny fix for a problem recently reported. Turns out the game wanted to look up keys in data that was not yet loaded at that time. Which is bad. I hope not too many of you actually ran into this. Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when hitting keys on the "Loading" startup screen

[ 2016-09-20 17:35:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just a tiny fix for a problem recently reported. Turns out the game wanted to look up keys in data that was not yet loaded at that time. Which is bad. I hope not too many of you actually ran into this. Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when hitting keys on the "Loading" startup screen

[ 2016-09-20 17:35:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed ships escaped from battle being unable to act on their next battle
• Added missing tech descriptions

Bugfixes

• Fixed ships escaped from battle being unable to act on their next battle
• Added missing tech descriptions

Enhancements

• Interface and battle sound effects
• Added partial resource recovery from destroyed ships (gated by tech)

• Display of resource gains for planets is now more precise

Enhancements

• Interface and battle sound effects
• Added partial resource recovery from destroyed ships (gated by tech)

• Display of resource gains for planets is now more precise

Bugfixes

• Fixed the problem where base commanders killed off in an attack remained available for the attacker until reload
• Fixed base commanders not being unassigned when you manually demolished a base
• Fixed the base commander button appearing when you only had fleets in orbit of a world

Bugfixes

• Fixed the problem where base commanders killed off in an attack remained available for the attacker until reload
• Fixed base commanders not being unassigned when you manually demolished a base
• Fixed the base commander button appearing when you only had fleets in orbit of a world

Enhancements

• Added base commander slots to colonies, providing various bonuses to that colony
• Officers assigned to any slot now have their free daily experience gain increased by 50%
• Ships spawned by a certain event chain now get proper names

• Skill gains from free experience now have a higher chance to go to the main skill for the current assignment (like already happened for combat experience)
• Added some missing tech descriptions

Enhancements

• Added base commander slots to colonies, providing various bonuses to that colony
• Officers assigned to any slot now have their free daily experience gain increased by 50%
• Ships spawned by a certain event chain now get proper names

• Skill gains from free experience now have a higher chance to go to the main skill for the current assignment (like already happened for combat experience)
• Added some missing tech descriptions

Version 1.12 is a quality of life update focused on saving you a bunch of clicks and fussing about when managing your fleet. Most importantly, your subordinates will now highlight ships in need of your attention to you, so you will no longer have to dig through so many dull ship status reports. Enhancements

• Added various ship status overviews to the navigator, defaulting to alert reports
• Fleet stats (warp capacity and fleet supply) are now shown in the navigator when a single unit is selected
• Module tech requirements are now listed in the Solarpedia

• Fixed crash on selecting "(no character)" in character swap mode

Version 1.12 is a quality of life update focused on saving you a bunch of clicks and fussing about when managing your fleet. Most importantly, your subordinates will now highlight ships in need of your attention to you, so you will no longer have to dig through so many dull ship status reports. Enhancements

• Added various ship status overviews to the navigator, defaulting to alert reports
• Fleet stats (warp capacity and fleet supply) are now shown in the navigator when a single unit is selected
• Module tech requirements are now listed in the Solarpedia

• Fixed crash on selecting "(no character)" in character swap mode

They may be a month late to the party, but the set of Steam Trading Cards for Solar War just went live. Go play and collect them to get at the shiny badges, profile backgrounds and emoticons.

They may be a month late to the party, but the set of Steam Trading Cards for Solar War just went live. Go play and collect them to get at the shiny badges, profile backgrounds and emoticons.

Enhancements

• Added Casual and Super Elite difficulty levels. Casual completely disables time limits on missions.
• Info on number of crew on shuttles added to various tooltips as well as the Solarpedia
• Solarpedia and diplomacy windows now have more info on how council scores are determined
• Added -resetsettings command line parameter to skip loading the settings file

• Disabled crash saves while in battle, those don't work and the start of battle is autosaved anyway
• Removed "not implemented" message from Combat AI screen
• Fixed launch options not working on Linux

Enhancements

• Added Casual and Super Elite difficulty levels. Casual completely disables time limits on missions.
• Info on number of crew on shuttles added to various tooltips as well as the Solarpedia
• Solarpedia and diplomacy windows now have more info on how council scores are determined
• Added -resetsettings command line parameter to skip loading the settings file

• Disabled crash saves while in battle, those don't work and the start of battle is autosaved anyway
• Removed "not implemented" message from Combat AI screen
• Fixed launch options not working on Linux

This is the first version of the game released on Steam. Another big Thank You to everyone who supported Solar War on Greenlight! Enhancements

• Steam achievement support added (Steam version only)
• The main officer list can now be sorted by promotion eligibility
• If the game crashes, it will now try to autosave before shutting down

• Fixed a crash when selecting locations that were collapsed in the navigator
• Fixed a crash when dragging from an empty table in the Combat AI popup
• Disabled tutorial popups while autoresolving a battle

This is the first version of the game released on Steam. Another big Thank You to everyone who supported Solar War on Greenlight! Enhancements

• Steam achievement support added (Steam version only)
• The main officer list can now be sorted by promotion eligibility
• If the game crashes, it will now try to autosave before shutting down

• Fixed a crash when selecting locations that were collapsed in the navigator
• Fixed a crash when dragging from an empty table in the Combat AI popup
• Disabled tutorial popups while autoresolving a battle