Hey Settlers! My team took a nice rest, and we have been at work for the last month for our first Early Access update of "QoL & Scalability" Update. Which we aim to fix quality life life issues in game and improve the game performance for scalable and stable base builds.

Highlights

We made a lot of small changes in this update to a lot of things, so instead of giving you a patch notes this time, I prepared a highlight section to talk about different updates.

Performance:

With the performance upgrades we did, I'm very happy with the current state of the game, your base can be anything you imagine, and there is no technical barrier to stop you. No limits, the limit is your imagination.

Quality Of Life:

We appreciate you giving all the feedback about the usability of the UI and sticking with us. We have some nice features now like, search input in the research screen, filtering available pods in the bottom view, press space to stop the game, and more extended game controller support. We are still on the lookout for feedback to implement new QoL features, feel free to give us more ideas.

Planet Gameplay Variety:

We reworked the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th planets where they will require different approaches and gameplay styles for you to complete them. This was mostly requested and we decided to bundle this into the QoL update. Now every planet has its special quests, these quests are different on every planet. We believed on focusing on increasing the quality of the current content in the game instead of new content. And as promised new content is on the way.

New Settlers & Settler System Updates:

Now the settler arrival algorithm is changed and instead of fully random settlers coming in, it works as tiers of settlers, some settlers are more talented than the others, more talented ones now tend to come later in the game. Additionally, we added 20 new settlers from different tiers to make gameplay more replayable.

Experimental Full Controller Support

Happy to announce that Stellar Settlers now has full controller support. But it is still experimental. If you decide to play the game with a controller, let us know your ideas or bugs you faced in the Steam Community Forums.

Better Steam Cloud Save:

There were issues with our implementation where sometimes the game doesn't sync the player's progress. We reworked this system to make it very future-proof. You can play the game across your devices with one save and uninstall the game anytime and reinstall again later, and still keep your full progress, your EXP, current planet run, settlers etc.

More Achievements:

Not we have 20 achievements on Steam, players were asking for this, we had time for 20 in this version, but there is some nice ones you can grind for :) We will add more achievements in every major update during our Early Access and try to get to 100 on the full release.

New Planet Concepts:

We are already done with our additional 5 planets that we will release during Early Access, and decided to add these in the planet selection screen, tho they are locked and you will need to wait for other updates for us to implement and fine-tune their gameplay. We aim to release a new planet every month, with game modes and other updates in between. We will make sure you don't wait for them too long. Tho, for now, they are there to hopefully excite you.

Spaceship Building:

We made some changes to how the physics works for the spaceship building, this just makes it more stable and flexible to create spaceship builds. Now all parts of the spaceship needs to be connected to launch your ship and Spaceship parts now cost less, but launching a viable spaceship is harder with the higher gravity of planets. This should enable players to build more engineered spaceships for lower costs.


https://store.steampowered.com/app/2628570/Stellar_Settlers_Space_Base_Builder/

Full Patch Notes and Changes:

That's it from the highlights, here is the full changelog of this version. As said there is a lot of small balances, changes and bug fixes in this build. New Features:

• Added Life From feature.
• Added life form random rotation on start.
• Added `GetPlanetQuestList` function.
• Introduced new settler avatars.
• Implemented achievement-based level checking.
• Expanded achievement system with new achievements.
• Lifeform idle and walking animations.
• Welcome message system tailored to each planet.
• Introduced new lore list stubs.

Improvements and Changes:

• Builder station now has auto-rebuild functionality.
• Reduced AI Uprising timer from 5 minutes to 3 minutes.
• Adjusted spaceship malfunction settler bonus.
• Reduced spaceship explosion chance settler bonus.
• Warehouses can now rotate 90 degrees and feature auto-rotation for short tunnel tops.
• Updated Warehouse Prefab and Ghost visuals.
• Sync translations for new settler bonus texts.
• Added new achievement sprites.
• Updated quest controls for Planets 2-5, including reward adjustments.
• Disabled auto-scroll on the structure info panel when scrolling with a mouse.
• Enhanced structure info panel navigation for controller use.

Fixes:

• Corrected core drill pod connection issues.
• Resolved Robotics Lab collider detection problems.
• Tunnel placement now works properly.
• Fixed storage pod info panel name display.
• Addressed issues with raiser info panels.
• Late reconstruction cost calculation now accurate.
• Lifeform now stops if it can't move.
• Fixed exceptions with localized sync.
• Fixed issue with demolishing all solar panels in mission progression.
• Corrected quest instruction for Planet 1.
• Fixed recycling center placement and structure type issues.
• Adjusted life form collider rotation over time.

Controller Support:

• Enhanced camera rotation with input system.
• Building pod filtering fully functional.
• Implemented controller support for tunnel and structure panels.
• Enabled spaceship building and launching with controller.
• Improved spaceship panel navigation and gamepad use.
• Enhanced research panel navigation for controllers.

-- Stellar Settlers Early Access have our full attention, but new people in our team is working on other titles right now. Go check it out and give us a Wishlist on those games! https://store.steampowered.com/app/2693930/Dice__Fold/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2693940/NeoDuel_Backpack_Monsters/ Enjoy the new features and improvements, and as always, please continue to provide your invaluable feedback!