Greetings, Space Travelers!\n\nGet ready for the next level of immersion: the new Story and Drama (v0.14) major update has just dropped, and it will have as much if not more impact on gameplay as the massive Bioverse update did about a year ago!\n\nWe also have a couple of videos ready for this update. Here\'s one by RonEmpire, aimed more at new players:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvIZlYo7opg\nAnd a longer, more detailed one by Spajus:\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpx-vaFHps\n\nLets take a look at the most noteworthy changes. \n\n

New Story Generation System

\n\n\nThe original story generation system had remained mostly unchanged since it was first designed back in 2020. It had plenty of flaws and wasnt flexible enough to deliver the level of quality expected from Stardeus today. Because of this, it was redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up.\n\nThe new system is modular, highly flexible, and easy to tweak. It allows for the implementation of story events of any variety, and much of the new content in this update wouldnt have been possible without it.\n\nThe new story generator may still have some imbalances and flaws, but we will continue to improve and refine it to meet your expectations - were waiting for your feedback!\n\n

New Raid System and Raid Types

\n\nA new raid management system was built on top of the new story generator. Raids now have their own schedule, influenced by factors such as your colonys strength and recent deaths. Several new raid types have also been introduced.\n\n

New Colony Drama System and Social Relationships

\n\n\n\nWhile closely tied to the new story generator, the drama system handles social interactions between your colonists - anything from casual chats when two colonists pass by, to weddings between lovers who are head over heels for each other.\n\nThese social interactions drive interpersonal relationships. Colonists and pets will form friendships, fall in love, grow to hate each other, and all the drama that comes with it will follow.\n\n

New Hyperjump Mechanics

\n\n\n\nHyperspace travel has always been one of the most debated mechanics, so it received another major overhaul focused on making it feel smoother and more immersive.\n\nHere\'s what changed:\n\n1. You can now queue multiple jumps in advance.\n2. You can choose to either skip over waypoints or stop at each one.\n3. If the engines run out of charge mid-jump, the ship automatically exits hyperspace, recharges, and resumes jumping (you can also pause hyperjumping to stay in a sector longer).\n4. Hyperspace travel now takes real time - it\'s no longer instant.\n5. Entering and exiting hyperspace is now automatic.\n6. You can no longer linger in hyperspace indefinitely - if youre there, you\'re moving.\n\nTogether, these changes make hyperspace travel more seamless, believable, and alive.\n\n

Visible Eyes and Unique Faces

\n\n\n\nTo make colonists feel more individual, all humans now have unique faces shown in fairly high detail. Eyes received special treatment - they have colors and reflect the installed organ or lack thereof. Someone with Mini Optics and a Cat Eye will look the part.\n\nMost hairstyles were also redone to better fit the new faces.\n\n

Device Animations

\n\n\n\nMany devices now have proper animations, making your ship look and feel more alive than ever.\n\n

New Story Events

\n\nThe new systems wouldnt be worthwhile if we hadnt pushed them to their limits by adding a bunch of new events! Here are just a few:\n\n

Comet Shower

\n\n\n\nA mesmerizing comet shower unfolds in the distance. Colonists gain a positive sanity boost from witnessing it.\n\n

Stabbing

\n\n\n\nA colonist who really hates someone can snap and stab their nemesis with something sharp - hopefully avoiding major arteries and critical organs. Thats one way to ramp up the drama on otherwise idle days!\n\n

Mining Expedition Events

\n\n\n\nSending humans on a mining expedition can lead to various side activities and surprises, such as finding something valuable. As a bonus, these expeditions also help colonists build stronger interpersonal bonds.\n\n

Hullpiercer Raid

\n\n\n\nA vicious new type of breach capsule punches through your ships walls and ejects a couple of uninvited guests. This is just one of several new ways to get raided.\n\n\n\n

Ashes, Urns, and Mourning

\n\n\n\nPutting a dead body into a Nutrient Extractor wont just produce perfectly good protein, but also a pile of named ashes. You can either place the ashes into memorial urns or dishonor them by treating the ashes as a common resource.\n\nColonists and pets will mourn their lost loved ones. Theyll be sad if theres nothing to mourn, so stock up on those new urns!\n\n

Scars and Cause of Death

\n\n\n\nHealed wounds now leave scars with details about who inflicted them, what type of damage it was, and when it happened.\n\nLethal conditions and fatal wounds create cause of death records. Nothing will be forgotten!\n\n

Surgical Queue

\n\n\n\nYou can now queue multiple surgeries and manage all pending operations from the Health overlay.\n\n

Fire and Explosions

\n\n\n\nOngoing controversy around fire and explosions justified another major iteration of related mechanics and story events.\n\nFire spread is now controlled by surface type - it wont spread as much on steel floors.\n\nExplosions have been fine-tuned to reflect the device type and contents. A loaded Nuclear Reactor and a Cooking Station produce completely different levels of explosion.\n\nThe number of story-driven explosions has been significantly reduced. However, this doesnt apply to chain reactions or explosions caused by systematic mechanics, such as fire.\n\nDont build volatile devices like reactors and engines too close together. Alternatively, compartmentalize them with walls, and fire and explosions wont cause you problems.\n\n

UI Improvements

\n\n\n\nAnother round of UI improvements has been made. Its wider where appropriate, includes more tooltips, and displays more information at a glance rather than hiding it in submenus. Some unnecessary items were removed, and others were merged.\n\n\n\nUI improvements will continue and are likely to be more significant in a future major update.\n\n

More Content

\n\n\n\nThere are numerous other smaller additions, adjustments, and improvements. Check the changelog below for more details.\n\nStardeus is moving closer to the v1.0 release, which could happen sometime next year. Stay tuned for updates!\n \n\n

The Changelog

\n\nv0.14.0 (2025.10.16)\n- [Major] Rewrite the Story Generation system\n- [Major] Add Colony Drama System\n- [Major] Human colonists will have unique visible faces\n- [Major] Colonists will form bonds and interpersonal relationships\n- [Major] Reimplement Hyperjump mechanics\n- [Feature] Add Hyperjump Queue\n- [Feature] Add support for queueing multiple surgical operations on the same being\n- [Feature] Remove several annoying story events\n- [Feature] Add Mindjar bot species (nonviolent brain in a jar)\n- [Feature] Add story event: Breach Capsule Stealth Raid\n- [Feature] Add story event and space effect: Comet Shower\n- [Feature] Add story event and space effect: Photon Storm\n- [Feature] Add story event and space effect: Magnetic Storm\n- [Feature] Add story event and space effect: Soft Surge Storm\n- [Feature] Add story event and space effect: Psychic Storm\n- [Feature] Add story event: Inspired colonist\n- [Feature] Add story event: Organ failure\n- [Feature] Add story event: Robot component failure\n- [Feature] Add story event: Wedding\n- [Feature] Add story event: Party\n- [Feature] Add story event: Date\n- [Feature] Add story event: Love Confession\n- [Feature] Add story event: Making Love\n- [Feature] Add story event: Mourn a dead loved one\n- [Feature] Add story event: Prank\n- [Feature] Add story event: Stabbing\n- [Feature] Add story event: Stalking\n- [Feature] Add story event: Save from falling\n- [Feature] Add story event: Mining bond\n- [Feature] Add story event: Mining loot\n- [Feature] Add story event: Expedition fight\n- [Feature] Add story event: Capsule shuttle ingredients\n- [Feature] Add story event: Capsule Crawler\n- [Feature] Add story event: Chase\n- [Feature] Add raid event: Map edge raid\n- [Feature] Add raid event: Hullpiercer raid (3 versions)\n- [Feature] Add raid event: Stealth Breach Capsule raid\n- [Feature] Add raid event: Storage Capsule raid (2 versions)\n- [Feature] Add body part: Lite Core\n- [Feature] Add body part: Dumb Core\n- [Feature] Add being ability: Hear\n- [Feature] Add being ability: Vocalize\n- [Feature] Add implant: Conversation module\n- [Feature] Implement casual chats between nearby colonists\n- [Feature] Implement social opportunity system for bringing colonists together for shared activities\n- [Feature] Track time colonists spent in proximity with others\n- [Feature] Add medical task: Feeding incapacitated / injured colonists in bed\n- [Feature] Generate some beings with modded bodies\n- [Feature] Generate some beings with wounds and scars\n- [Feature] Generate initial relationships between existing colonists on scenario start\n- [Feature] Add many new being backstories and traits\n- [Feature] Add collectible chess pieces that can be found on derelict ships\n- [Feature] Add black and white marble interior floors for chess board\n- [Feature] Add game setting: Skip Colonist Choice\n- [Feature] Add Ashes and Urns for immortalizing dead biological beings\n- [Feature] Ashes and Urns will show an obituary tooltip with more details about the dead being\n- [Feature] Wounds will display what caused the wound\n- [Feature] Remember and show cause of death\n- [Feature] Convert some wounds to scars after they heal\n- [Feature] Add more ways to utilize Stem Cells\n- [Feature] Enable relocation of all wall tiles, including Doors and Airlocks\n- [Feature] Make it possible to process being ashes into other materials\n- [Feature] Add game modifier: Disable Quest Rewards\n- [Feature] NPC ships in combat will send Hullpiercers in addition to Breach Capsules\n- [Feature] Tractor Beams will automatically reconfigure themselves when destroyed Tractor Beam Targets will be rebuilt\n- [Feature] When disposing of beings, Disassembler and Nutrient Extractor will preserve body parts with quality above configured threshold (default 50%)\n- [Feature] Fog of War is now a game modifier that can be turned on when starting a new game\n- [Feature] Xenodetectors will detect Artillery Fungus\n- [Feature] Add hat: Jester\'s Hat\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity debuffs for sleeping in rooms with industrial devices\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity debuffs for sleeping in shared dormatories\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity debuffs for sleeping in cramped rooms (size < 6)\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity debuffs for sleeping in overly large rooms (size > 100)\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity buffs for sleeping in personal quarters\n- [Feature] Humans will get sanity buffs for sleeping in cozy rooms (size: 6-30 + at least 1 admirable object)\n- [Feature] Hyperjump Relays will have tolls you\'ll pay to the owning faction\n- [Feature] Display relocation ghosts for non-tile objects and beings\n- [Feature] Quick Search will have a built-in calculator\n- [Misc] Remove feature: CPU limits the number of max connected devices\n- [Misc] Put Epic Race 2025 Leaderboard into Credits\n- [Balance] Body part quality will affect the stats that the body part provides\n- [Balance] Reorganize and compact some of the research tree nodes\n- [Balance] Raids in high difficulty regions will be more difficult (deadly in early game)\n- [Balance] Many undocumented small tweaks and changes according to player feedback\n- [Balance] Increase Organ Storage and Part Storage capacity from 100 to 500\n- [Balance] Incoming space object velocity will be scaled together with game map size\n- [Balance] Delay upcoming raids when friendly beings die\n- [Balance] Make Heavy Laser more powerful (much more damage and flux per shield hit)\n- [Balance] Reduce ship size requirements for most ships\n- [Balance] Point Defense turrets will be much more accurate against incoming space threats\n- [Balance] Adjust most being role skill rewards / penalties\n- [Balance] Reduce research disk cost for all items by ~1\n- [Balance] Adjust some sanity buffs / debuffs\n- [Balance] Friendly biological minds in robotic bodies will not guarantee 100% AI Alignment\n- [Balance] Beings will ignore dead bodies after doing certain kinds of work (e.g. surgery, euthanizing, combat)\n- [Balance] Colonists will wait much longer before trying to risk getting food in unsafe environment when hungry\n- [Balance] Adjust pacing and event difficulty in the new story generator based on selected game difficulty\n- [Balance] Most melee attacks will not be able to kill or damage internal organs\n- [Balance] Eliminate chance of getting attacked or extorted by pirates in easy sectors\n- [Balance] Particle Collector is now a rare device that you can\'t build, only find on derelict ships\n- [Balance] Friendly fights will be broken up if the fighters lose line of sight and get too far away from each other\n- [Balance] Make Pig Brain and Cat Brain able of dumb labor\n- [Balance] Restrict pets from getting certain traits and job types\n- [Balance] Reduce electricity consumption of Refrigerator and Freezer\n- [Balance] Do not deactivate Tractor Beam Targets that have objects such as Stasis Pod above them\n- [Balance] Allow having Tractor Beam Targets indoors (not recommended)\n- [Balance] Generate more powerful Law Enforcement Officer ships\n- [Balance] Delay first micrometeoroid strike a bit longer and increase delay between strikes\n- [Balance] Total CPU in your electricity grid will affect ML Booth learn speed\n- [Balance] Total CPU in your electricity grid will increase Beam Drill max depth\n- [Balance] Adjust natural (non MB Booth) skill level up rates\n- [Balance] Reduce Beam Drill initial max depth (2km -> 0.5km)\n- [Balance] Significantly increase trader stock for some traders / items\n- [Balance] Reduce trader price markups\n- [Balance] Reduce Online Shop price markup (500% -> 300%)\n- [Balance] Reduce price of Missiles and Interceptor Darts\n- [Balance] Reduce Interceptor Turret windup and charge times (25 -> 15 minutes)\n- [Balance] Building an AutoDoc will require regular Microchip instead of Improved one\n- [Balance] Increase prices of Leather, Wood, Log, Space Suits and Helmets\n- [Balance] Some traders will have better offerings in lower difficulty sectors\n- [Balance] Increase Online Shop stock\n- [Balance] MiniCores will not be craftable\n- [Balance] Beings with mental health and an Obey Chip will suffer a permanent sanity debuff\n- [Balance] Add more items to the Online Shop\n- [Balance] Reduce shuttle speed by 5x\n- [Balance] Block all NPC ship hail interactions that require a Trade Portal if one isn\'t available\n- [Balance] Make food cheaper\n- [Balance] Make Phasium and Fusion Cells cheaper\n- [Balance] Increase Rock price by 10x\n- [Balance] Allow ordering body part removal for body parts that have other parts attached\n- [Balance] Starcreds Mining Upgrade will no longer be craftable (could be bought / found in anomalies)\n- [Balance] Make Mini Turret a bit more expensive to build\n- [Balance] Adjust skill level up rate so that low level skills will level up much faster\n- [Balance] Interior doors will have even less insulation and airtightness when closed\n- [Balance] Each plant will have a different harvest work amount\n- [Balance] Non-outlaw ships will not retaliate for attacking an outlaw ship of the same faction\n- [UI/UX] Maneuvering controllers will now use visual ship positioning to move in local space\n- [UI/UX] Improve the Trade UI\n- [UI/UX] When possible, show operational errors in the middle of the screen\n- [UI/UX] Add mass action to forget selected being ashes with one click\n- [UI/UX] Merge Storage Settings and Storage UI elements into one block\n- [UI/UX] Auto resize UI left/right text to prevent overlaps\n- [UI/UX] Improve crafting order choice UI\n- [UI/UX] Redo being info panel top block to show large avatar and personal biography\n- [UI/UX] Add low memory warning when running out of RAM\n- [UI/UX] Polish selected beings info panel UI (more tooltips, etc)\n- [UI/UX] Ending drag operation above UI will no longer cancel it\n- [UI/UX] Improve scenario setup being choice UI\n- [UI/UX] Improve stasis wake-up choice UI\n- [UI/UX] Eliminate need for scrolling in several UI widgets on Steam Deck\n- [UI/UX] Improve main menu: auto select first item in the list of submenus\n- [UI/UX] Suggestion popups will not show up any UI is open\n- [UI/UX] Hide option to store beings who are loaded into assembly hubs / surgery hubs\n- [UI/UX] Auto size tool menu button text if it doesn\'t fit\n- [UI/UX] Improve Flammable block in Full Stats view of devices and objects\n- [UI/UX] Improve story event log UI\n- [UI/UX] Add hint about camera memory when relocating objects from a derelict ship\n- [UI/UX] Add visual notification about saving camera position to memory\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show scanning UI until a radar becomes available\n- [UI/UX] Improve body part slot UI\n- [UI/UX] Improve tooltips and codex entries of weapons and equipment to clarify the quality level at which stats are displayed\n- [UI/UX] Remove \"Force operator\" toggle from all devices except Bridge Controls, Communicator and Terraform Controls\n- [UI/UX] Order space object labels in the starmap so that more important labels are displayed above less important ones\n- [UI/UX] Show a warning notification when a storage unit is unreachable\n- [UI/UX] List all radars and their strength in radar strength warning popup\n- [UI/UX] Improve being body tooltip\n- [UI/UX] Group Left/Right body parts in Body UI\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show popups about beings failing to mourn the dead\n- [UI/UX] Set minimum allowed UI font scale to 80% (was 100%)\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show \"disables achievements\" warnings in sandbox game settings\n- [UI/UX] Show notification popups something important is found in a Storage Capsule\n- [UI/UX] Add Codex entry: Electricity > Computer Resources Bonus\n- [UI/UX] Add \"Industrial Equipment\" and \"Industrial Equipment (Noisy)\" labels to industrial device codex entries\n- [UI/UX] Improve room and section overlay (tooltips with links, section size)\n- [UI/UX] Show a hint about exiting hyperspace if the player remains in hyperspace for over 8 in-game hours\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show \"Accept Chance %\" in Space Station \"Trade\" hail action (Space Stations always trade)\n- [UI/UX] Show a tooltip with player\'s cash when hovering ship class license buy button\n- [UI/UX] Show a tooltip with disposable output when hovering a Dispose button\n- [UI/UX] \"Carry to disposer\" task fail reasons will contain more details\n- [UI/UX] \"Haul to storage\" task fail reason will contain more details\n- [UI/UX] Show \"Storage is full\" red warning label in full storage tooltips\n- [UI/UX] Display a fanfare message and log when a starving colonist attempts to grab food from unsafe area\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show wide screen padding settings for non-wide screens\n- [UI/UX] Wide screen padding slider will stop at 16:9 aspect ratio\n- [UI/UX] Add \"In Queue\" option to the Twitch UI viewer filter\n- [UI/UX] Highlight the most important UI element of the selected entity in the Info Panel\n- [UI/UX] Limit how far the mouse drag-release can flick the game map / starmap / research tree\n- [UI/UX] Make it possible to order installing an upgrade directly from the upgrade object UI\n- [UI/UX] Display a dialog when Asimov Override Upgrade gets installed\n- [UI/UX] Show event notification and add log line when someone levels up\n- [UI/UX] Improve rename being dialog\n- [UI/UX] Improve Particle Collector choice UI\n- [UI/UX] Don\'t show some hail actions when interacting with space stations at a distance\n- [UI/UX] Include contained raw materials into unbuild tile hover tooltip\n- [UI/UX] Update Demolition icon to look more intuitive\n- [UI/UX] Expose Lock/Unlock buttons on Doors directly in the Info Panel\n- [UI/UX] Hide Stasis Array stability warning after the array gets connected\n- [UI/UX] Add list of devices that contribute to ship\'s class points in Ship Combat Class Points tooltip\n- [UI/UX] Reorder Tutorials according to importance\n- [UI/UX] Improve Research and Space Travel tutorials to handle going off-script better\n- [UI/UX] Display both X and crutch icon in lists if a being is incapacitated with irreparable damage to its body parts\n- [UI/UX] Group game modifiers and organize the Current Game Settings panel\n- [UI/UX] Disallow launching mining expeditions if estimated mining rate is lower than minimum mining rate in mining orders\n- [UI/UX] Limit mass construct / relocate to 250 tiles per batch (tunable via JSON)\n- [UI/UX] Display map margins when mass relocating / building a copy\n- [UI/UX] Show more information about stat modifiers in stat tooltips\n- [UI/UX] Show warnings when mass selected tiles cannot have their copies built\n- [UI/UX] Show warning messages when trying to build or relocate devices at invalid locations\n- [AI] Improve combat AI behavior\n- [AI] Improve raider break-in mechanic to not target walls when it doesn\'t make sense\n- [AI] Improve \"Admire object\" behavior to choose closer objects and fail less often\n- [AI] Workers will not extinguish fires that are not worth extinguishing (fires in space, burning living enemies, etc)\n- [AI] When Nutrient Extractor / Disassembler queue is full, workers will try next available device instead of dropping the item on the floor\n- [AI] Improve self-unstucking logic for grounded beings\n- [Tech] Upgrade Unity to 6.2\n- [Tech] Improve texture atlas packing algorithm to produce more tightly packed graphics cache\n- [Tech] Add crash recovery dialog with suggestion to lower graphics quality if game crashed while building graphics cache\n- [Tech] Prompt sharing a crash report after loading a game post crash\n- [Tech] Automatically upload latest unshared crash report when submitting the feedback form\n- [Misc] Remove \"Pause on camera motion\" video setting\n- [Misc] Remove \"Experimental Features\" setting\n- [Misc] Add /space telescope_find console command to set telescope progress to 99.999%\n- [Misc] Change some English phrasing to sound more natural\n- [Performance] Improve performance when hauling thousands of steel plates from deconstructed derelict\n- [Performance] Significantly improve cached graphics load time on higher end GPUs\n- [Performance] Optimize performance in several hot code paths (should reduce mass-desconstruction stutter)\n- [Graphics] Rewrite the rendering system for icons and moving objects\n- [Graphics] Compress all textures in GPU memory\n- [Graphics] Optimize all sprites to take less space on disk\n- [Graphics] Ensure all dynamically created textures are destroyed to reduce GPU memory pressure\n- [Graphics] Add \"Settings > Video > Disable Device Animations\" setting\n- [Graphics] Change bot visuals and hover behaviors when different mobilizer body parts are installed\n- [Graphics] Make human heads face the camera in certain positions to make face more visible\n- [Graphics] Make interior walls thick to visually connect them with other wall types\n- [Graphics] Reduce dirt and dust storm texture sizes to improve performance\n- [Graphics] Reenable starfield nebula visual effect on Mac OSX\n- [Graphics] Reenable Terrain Generator visual effect on Mac OSX\n- [Graphics] Make Coffee and Water containers visually smaller\n- [Graphics] Add \"Settings > Video > Immersive Icons\" setting to make status icons react to environmental lighting\n- [Graphics] Make plant seeds and sprouts appear below beings\n- [Graphics] Beings lying on the floor will no longer be rendered below raw materials\n- [Graphics] Auto-disable cursor light when the ambient light setting is \"Fog of War\"\n- [Graphics] Auto-hide status icons that aren\'t supposed to be visible when \"Fog of War\" is enabled\n- [Graphics] Pitch Black ambient light setting will actually be pitch black\n- [Graphics] Make ambient light settings moddable via JSON files\n- [Graphics] Animate Beam Drill\n- [Graphics] Animate Oxygen Pumps\n- [Graphics] Animate Ship Computer\n- [Graphics] Animate Flux Capacitor\n- [Graphics] Animate Grinder and make it 2x2 instead of 3x3\n- [Graphics] Animate Breach Capsule drill bit\n- [Graphics] Animate Centrifuge and make it smaller (2x2 instead of 3x3)\n- [Graphics] Animate Radar and System Scanner\n- [Graphics] Animate Void Ripper\n- [Graphics] Animate Telescope\n- [Graphics] Animate Shield Emitter\n- [Graphics] Animate Crafting Station\n- [Graphics] Animate Cloning Pod\n- [Graphics] Animate Repair Station\n- [Graphics] Animate Quantum Data Harvester\n- [Graphics] Animate Assembler\n- [Graphics] Animate Particle Collector\n- [Graphics] Animate AutoDoc\n- [Graphics] Animate Treadmill\n- [Graphics] Animate OxyMatic Floor\n- [Graphics] Animate Loom and make it 1x1 instead of 2x2\n- [Graphics] Animate Nutrient Extractor and make it smaller (2x2 instead of 3x3)\n- [Graphics] Make System Scanner smaller (2x2 instead of 3x3)\n- [Graphics] Make Research Station Smaller (2x1 instead of 3x2)\n- [Graphics] Make pumpkins visually smaller\n- [Graphics] Add more frames to turret animations to make them smooth\n- [Graphics] Add \"Settings > Video > Disable All Visual Effects\"\n- [Graphics] Add --uncompressed-textures parameter to Stardeus executable to skip texture compression\n- [Graphics] Fix GPU memory leak in electricity grid visual effect upon returning back to Main Menu from the game session\n- [Graphics] Fix some particle systems (fire, smoke, etc) could become invisible due to unwanted culling\n- [Graphics] Interceptor Turret will appear below beings\n- [Audio] Make Mini Turrets more quiet when they\'re shooting\n- [Mods] Major updates will maintain separate mod lists\n- [Mods] Show a warning popup when a modded game system fails to initialized\n- [Mods] Appending _DISABLED to a mod folder name will skip loading it\n- [Mods] Have a separate field for mod description in game and on steam in ModInfo\n- [Mods] Don\'t log every mod class type that gets loaded\n- [Mods] Disallow registering console commands with space in the command name\n- [Mods] Show a warning popup when a mod fails to restore its part of the save data\n- [Mods] Add game version tag to all mods and ships uploaded to Steam Workshop\n- [Mods] Add DescriptionSteam string field in ModInfo to allow maintaining separate mod description for in game and on the Steam Workshop\n- [Mods] Add DoNotUpdateSteamDescription bool field in ModInfo\n- [Mods] Do not update Steam Workshop description for updated shared ships\n- [Mods] Show \"Update on Steam Workshop\" button for mods / ships that already exist on Steam\n- [Mods] Throw an exception when registering a console command with a duplicate name\n- [Mods] Add --force-png-atlas command line argument for visually debugging texture atlases\n- [Mods] Load the mod DLL files before loading everything else\n- [Mods] Replacing core mod textures no longer requires defining the Atlas in the overriding mod\n- [Mods] Overriding core mod atlases is no longer allowed (can add new atlases for new texture folders only)\n- [Bug] Fix faction attitude towards self wouldn\'t be 100%\n- [Bug] Fix stripping equipment off a sleeping being would change it\'s visual offset\n- [Bug] Fix Communicator operator would keep dropping the task if \"Operator Required\" was on\n- [Bug] Fix colonizing a planet would spawn a space port in empty space\n- [Bug] Fix changing game modifiers after selecting game difficulty / commitment would reset them to defaults\n- [Bug] Fix beings wouldn\'t try temporary sleeping spots if they can\'t reach their assigned beds\n- [Bug] Fix language button could get hidden behind news panel on Steam Deck\n- [Bug] Fix some tutorial tooltips could get broken due to non-english keyboard localization\n- [Bug] Fix some materials that were meant to be explosive wouldn\'t be\n- [Bug] Fix loading a material into storage would fail if the material was adjacent to the storage input port\n- [Bug] Fix crafting devices could show wrong \"lacking material\" type\n- [Bug] Fix ordering body part operations for beings who are already loaded into assembly hubs / surgery hubs would be allowed\n- [Bug] Fix deep scan would never be available in starting sector\n- [Bug] Fix impossible to answer a ship hail if the communicator was turned off or not built before hail started\n- [Bug] Fix selecting an object or opening object\'s details panel could show the newly opened panel below other panels\n- [Bug] Fix rescue goals would get created for hostile beings if they got stuck on a 1x1 tile in space\n- [Bug] Fix reenabling disabled melee / shooting jobs would not restore being\'s ability to fight until save / load\n- [Bug] Fix clicking around Codex UI would reset the scroll position of the left list\n- [Bug] Fix disabling Smooth Drag in input settings would also disable Starmap and Research Tree panning with WASD and gamepad stick\n- [Bug] Fix attempting to use maneuvering controllers on the edge of the map would keep opening Ship Controls overlay and zooming the camera out\n- [Bug] Fix click-dragging wouldn\'t be allowed if the click started above a background space object\n- [Bug] Fix loading a save file would not put sleeping beings into their beds until clock was resumed\n- [Bug] Fix Stasis Array particles would not update their position after local maneuvering / winching\n- [Bug] Fix changing trade panel search input wouldn\'t reset the scroll position\n- [Bug] Fix workers would go to the input/output port of an operatable device instead of going to the work spot\n- [Bug] Fix colonists with Obey Chip were able to join a Mutiny\n- [Bug] Fix resizing the game window could result in some UI elements looking broken\n- [Bug] Fix broken Main Menu > Mods pagination\n- [Bug] Fix UI wide screen padding would affect main menu backdrop and panel modal overlay\n- [Bug] Fix not discovered research nodes would show tooltips with their names when minified\n- [Bug] Fix moving a storage while workers were hauling materials to that storage would make hauled materials disappear\n- [Bug] Fix crawler facehugging a human without mental health would cause an internal error\n- [Bug] Automatically recover from inconsistency created by internal errors which prevents a being from relocation / disposal\n- [Bug] Fix material deficits wouldn\'t get cleared for \"completed\" crafting orders\n- [Bug] Fix some showers could get clogged but cleaning task would not get created\n- [Bug] Fix beings could get stuck in Surgery / Assembly Hubs if part designated for swap was destroyed\n- [Bug] Fix beings with Obey Chip would become hostile during mental breakdowns\n- [Bug] Fix choosing to \"Produce One\" on a crafting device would show the batch size from the last setting in the tooltip\n- [Bug] Fix an edge case where a ship combat device could get registered twice\n- [Bug] Fix beings getting stuck in a teleporter if the teleporter lost power\n- [Bug] Fix relocating a bed would unset the assignments\n- [Bug] Fix feedback form could be submitted before the feedback save file was fully created\n- [Bug] Fix feedback form would silently fail to create a feedback save file if autosave was running at the time\n- [Bug] Fix search input field wouldn\'t work in Codex Blueprints / Materials UI\n- [Bug] Fix electric grid producers tab would show devices from all grids\n- [Bug] Fix meteoroids could sometimes phase through a wall\n- [Bug] Fix renaming a being with former non-player faction could be disallowed until save / load\n- [Bug] Fix cancelling a refill task on a refillable device would never recreate it unless the device configuration was opened\n- [Bug] Fix refillable device configuration tooltip could get too big\n- [Bug] Fix having too many unhealthy beings would produce a group tooltip that is too big\n- [Bug] Fix removing helmets / space suits in hazardous environment would not trigger Asimov\'s Law violations\n- [Bug] Fix grounded beings would not build some larger devices attached to the ship\n- [Bug] Fix some objects could be visible through walls in unlit rooms when Fog of War was enabled\n- [Bug] Fix workers would often try to construct a wall while the floor wasn\'t yet built while performing bulk construction\n- [Bug] Fix research root card texts would be blurry if research tree was opened while zoomed out and then zoomed in\n- [Bug] Fix relocating a Tractor Beam would not transfer its configuration\n- [Bug] Fix Bot Docks would sometimes not stop charging / consuming electricity even if there was no bot docked\n- [Bug] Fix \"Attack Turret\" AI combat action could repeat without a cooldown if no turret was reachable\n- [Bug] Fix friendly robot mind in biological body would not force the AI Alignment to be 100%\n- [Bug] Fix rotating a section that had a hole in the center wouldn\'t do the rotation\n- [Bug] Fix swapping a beings brain would prevent sanity UI from updating correctly until save / load\n\n\n

Follow the Development

\n

\n
• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com \n
• Join Stardeus Discord \n
• /r/stardeus on Reddit\n
• @StardeusGame on Twitter\n
• @dev_spajus on Twitter\n
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)\n
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)\n

\n\n

Get Stardeus

\n\nhttps://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2025-10-16 15:54:34 CET ] [Original Post]

[u]Hello fellow travelers[/u]

\n\nToday is a monumental day. Today is the day we announce the winners of The Epic Race. \n\nIf you\'re not up to speed: The Epic Race was an event we held until last Friday, where the goal was to get to OlausMagnus sector in the Redqueen region the fastest in the save we provided.\n\n[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/38884233/c773f3b101f5ec4c0d3e873d46d0cfde00809506.png\"][/img]\n\nNow, Spajus did announce the winners already in a video here:\n\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WaB_zOMnAw\n\nI strongly recommend everyone to take a look if you sound even mildly interested as he goes through the entries & even shows off some honourable mentions.\n\nHowever, if you\'re too tired to watch the entire video, here\'s the results:\n\n[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/38884233/51b2d71a0aac08f1279f5f61eb3769da7770c7b5.jpg\"][/img]\n\nIf you\'re one of the top 3 contestants, make sure to reach out to me or Spajus on discord and we\'ll sort out your prices.\n\n1st place: name a robot, pet or planet\n2nd place: name a robot or a pet\n3rd place: name a pet\n\nHonorable mention to Steadfast (Sparky), who also submitted this little note with their submission.\n\n[img src=\"https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/38884233/b1bc224ad178b8943b6fb2c41148edf6ae7969f9.png\"][/img]\n\nWe loved the idea of letting the community having a go at fixing Sparkys\' save, so we uploaded it here, if you\'re interested.\n\nWe also decided that it only seems fair that Sparky gets to name a pet as well due to that amazing story. And at that point, we realised it\'d be unfair if AJAJAJ also didn\'t get to name a pet. So, we ultimately landed on that all participants who submitted a run would get a price in the form of at least naming a pet.\n\nSo, AJAJAJ and Sparky (Steadfast), make sure to contact us as well to receive your prize. Easiest would be on discord. Or, comment this post here and we\'ll get in touch.\n\nHope you found it fun if you participated, and if you didn\'t, let us know what other kinds of challenges you\'d want us to have in the future. For now, take it easy, and don\'t get lost in space.\n\n--Lizz The Community Manager

[ 2025-10-06 16:28:10 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2025-09-16 14:00:24 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2025-08-18 14:13:25 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2025-06-12 20:37:20 CET ] [Original Post]

Greetings, Space Travelers!

We are excited to announce the release of the Ship Combat major update! Let's take a look at the noteworthy changes it brings.

A day in the life

At last, the Stardeus Universe won't feel as lonely anymore. You will encounter NPC spaceships that are busy going about their own adventure. You will be able to interact the same way they interact with each other. As a player, you won't get any special treatment. While there will be some scripted story events involving NPC ships, most interactions will happen organically.

Live and Let die

Ship to ship combat was the most requested feature of all time, and it's [u]finally here[/u]! All ships (including space stations) can be attacked. Ships will also be able to attack each other and YOU! It's even possible to fight more than one opponent at once!


Ship combat is inspired by two legendary games - Starsector and FTL. If you've played those, the combat will feel familiar.

Several new ship devices were added to make combat possible:

• 5 types of weapons (Ballistic, Laser, Missile, Plasma, and Point Defense)
• Shield Emitters replace Quantum Barriers and protect the entire ship regardless of placement
• Flux Capacitors will [strike]charge your DeLorean[/strike] increase the amount of damage your shields can absorb before overloading
  

Please, take the Ship Combat tutorial to learn all the new mechanics and complete the new "Make Ship Combat Ready" quest to arm yourself acordingly.


Defeating a ship turns it into a [u]Derelict[/u] that you can approach and salvage. The destroyed ships surviving loadout may appear as loot.

Ship Interactions

Several [u]types of interactions[/u] can happen between ships - either between you and NPCs, or between NPCs themselves:

• Hail: Any ship can hail another to initiate a chat and trigger interactions
• Attack: A ship can attack another or join an ongoing battle
• Give Gift: A ship may offer gifts to improve faction relations
• Ask Fuel: A low-fuel ship can request fuel, affecting relationships
• Trade: Some ships are open to exchanging goods
• Extortion: Pirates may demand ransom under threat of combat
• Follow: A ship may tail another out of curiosity or with later intent
• Avoid: Threatened ships try to escape and hyperjump away
• Ignore: Ships may ignore you, which can be a relief when its pirates
• Surrender: Only in combat, and not guaranteed to work
• Insult: Throw insults and see what happens
  

Return Beacons

Found a resource rich sector you'd love to revisit? Drop a Return Beacon and make it one hyperjump away! This fast travel system is so good it should probably be illegal.

Warp Drives

Two new engine types make exploration easier. The Warp Drive lets you jump anywhere in your current region. The late-game Alien Warp Drive lets you warp to any region, regardless of distance. Forget hyperlane restrictions.

UI Enhancements

The UI continues to improve. v0.13 introduces locking tooltips and clickable text links to codex entries or object locations. If it's [u]underlined[/u], you can [u]click[/u] it.


As always, there's soo much more.

You can read the full changelog below.

And, until next time; be safe out there, space cowboy.

The Changelog

v0.13.0 (2025.05.07)
- [Major] Populate the universe with NPC ships of other factions
- [Major] Add Ship to Ship Combat
- [Major] Add various interactions between ships (NPC <-> Player and NPC <-> NPC)
- [Feature] Add tutorial: Ship Combat
- [Feature] Add Quest: Make Ship Combat Ready
- [Feature] Add Ship Weapon: Shredder Cannon (Ballistic type)
- [Feature] Add Ship Weapon: Heavy Laser (Laser type)
- [Feature] Add Ship Weapon: Rocket Pod (Missile type)
- [Feature] Add Ship Weapon: Gauss Striker (Plasma type)
- [Feature] Add Ship Weapon: Interceptor Turret (Point Defense type)
- [Feature] Add Shield Emitter device for ship shields
- [Feature] Add Flux Capacitor device that increases ship flux capacity
- [Feature] Make ship weapons attack meteoroids, asteroids and breach capsule
- [Feature] Make ship shields defend from micro meteoroids
- [Feature] Turn Space Stations into Ship type for them to have ship to ship interactions
- [Feature] Add Space Story Event: Pirate Ship Attack
- [Feature] Add space story event: Pirate Ship Extortion
- [Feature] Add Space Story Event: Law Enforcement Raid
- [Feature] Add Space Story Event: Ship Duel
- [Feature] Add Space Story Event: Ship asking for fuel
- [Feature] Deep Scan will run passively and automatically all the time when available
- [Feature] Communicator will require an operator for communicating with other ships
- [Feature] Add Winch Range Upgrade that allows reeling in derelicts from any distance
- [Feature] Add "Find Resource" suggestion that point out scanning research and functionality
- [Feature] Add Return Beacon device, research and Starmap UI for fast-travel to visited locations
- [Feature] Destroying a Void Ripper will warp the ship to a random location in the universe
- [Feature] Destroying a Void Ripper will spawn 3 Dark Matter
- [Feature] Change faction attitude for the victim against the attacker after victim is defeated
- [Feature] Change faction attitude for observer NPC ships when a ship is defeated
- [Feature] Add Warp Drive research (Tier 4)
- [Feature] Add Local Warp Drive that can jump to any sector within the region
- [Feature] Add Alien Warp Drive research (Tier 6)
- [Feature] Add Horizon Warp Drive that can jump to any distant region
- [Feature] Add Notes overlay with a scratchpad for taking in-game notes
- [Feature] Add two types of wooden floor tiles
- [Feature] Mining an owned resource deposit will make owner's ships in the sector attack the player
- [Feature] Space Port will spawn ships to attack the player if there is a need and no ships are around
- [Feature] Add Storage Capsule loot types: Mini Core, Obey Chip
- [Feature] Allow toggling Nanobots compatible job types in Job Matrix UI
- [Feature] Add Firewall Chip implant that prevents Hacking and adds Energy Resistance
- [Feature] Make Crawler Goo craftable
- [Feature] Trap Floors will automatically destroy Eggs when they are placed above them
- [Feature] Add "Crawler Combat Alert" toggle in Current Game Settings to ignore crawler combat when farming them
- [Balance] Going through a Black Hole will discharge only one Void Ripper
- [Balance] Going through a Black Hole will deal some structural damage to the Void Ripper
- [Balance] Limit max deep scans per location to 3
- [Balance] Move Extended Scanning to Tier 4 before Telescope
- [Balance] Make scanning strength increase linearly (used to be square root)
- [Balance] Limit maximum scanning strength to 10
- [Balance] Hyperjump drives will have to charge up before use when in ship to ship combat
- [Balance] Radar will not be required to reveal resource deposits when entering a sector
- [Balance] Gold and Platinum will be easier to find
- [Balance] Deep Scan will allow finding more rare materials in easier difficulty sectors
- [Balance] Deep Scan speed will depend on sector difficulty
- [Balance] Deep Scan will run much faster for subsequent scans (still limited to max 3)
- [Balance] Magnetic storm will increase dust accumulation and particle collector output by 2x
- [Balance] Connector Malfunction story event will only happen on Impossible difficulty
- [Balance] Increase electric devices per 1Thz CPU from 20 to 25 and make the value tunable
- [Balance] Most electronic components will be destroyed if a device containing them gets destroyed
- [Balance] Part Storage will be unlocked with Assembly Hub, not Disassembler
- [Balance] Reduce frequency of Cooking Incident and Cleaning Incident story events
- [Balance] Repairing a damaged device will never take less than 15 minutes of game time
- [Balance] Slow down meteoroids by 25-50% when they are part of a larger shower
- [Balance] Make meteoroids move 5x faster
- [Balance] Reduce Coffee Tree water consumption by 2x
- [Balance] Unlock Radar as part of basic tech
- [Balance] Refinery, Fabricator, Grinder, Flux Capacitor and Warp Drives will generate heat while operating
- [Balance] Destroying a Breach Capsule with ship weapons will spawn the wounded raiders
- [Balance] Allow deploying AutoDrill Rigs to deposits without depth
- [Balance] Reduce amount of Glass provided at the beginning of Wrecked and Leaving Earth scenarios
- [Balance] Resources found via Deep Scan in an owned sector will have 50% chance of being owned
- [Balance] Mining a deposit belonging to another faction will have more diverse consequences (breach capsules + ship attacks)
- [Balance] Adjust incoming breach capsule speeds
- [Balance] Reorganize Space Travel research tree
- [Balance] Selling ship sections will be more profitable
- [Balance] Biological beings with Obey Chip will be prone to Hacking
- [Balance] Don't spawn living grounded raiders when breach capsule is destroyed in space
- [Balance] Adjust outcomes of Hacked event
- [Balance] Battery Overload event won't happen for bots that are docked, charging or undergoing repairs
- [UI/UX] Suggest disabling crawler combat alerts when choosing to clone crawler or egg once per session
- [UI/UX] Add "Load Game" menu item to Pause Panel
- [UI/UX] Display a warning if no worker is capable of certain task type
- [UI/UX] Make research tree paths clickable in tooltips and UI
- [UI/UX] Warn if Trade Portal is not available when trying to trade with a hailed ship
- [UI/UX] Add link to Trade Portal codex entry in "Trade portal not available" messages
- [UI/UX] Add clickable links to space objects when tooltips or popup mention them
- [UI/UX] Display class points cost in codex entries of all ship devices
- [UI/UX] Shift-clicking devices while a connector is selected will ignore click-drags
- [UI/UX] Improve crafting device context menu popup behavior
- [UI/UX] Warn about building too many scanners
- [UI/UX] Show Scan Strength in Radar / System Scanner codex entries
- [UI/UX] Change order of scenario configuration screens to allow modifiers to get configured before space map
- [UI/UX] Show Black Hole information when hovering Regions and Sectors in the Starmap
- [UI/UX] Make some space object names in tooltips clickable (will focus on the object in the starmap)
- [UI/UX] Improve UI panel focus on click behavior
- [UI/UX] List incompatible Brains / Cores in Replicator / ML Booth
- [UI/UX] Show warning tooltip when trying to load incompatible item into Replicator / ML Booth
- [UI/UX] Add more details to Needs stat tooltips
- [UI/UX] Add links to entities in entity / being task tooltips
- [UI/UX] Mental health effects will track the location of the event
- [UI/UX] Show hand cursor when hovering clickable items
- [UI/UX] Remove text highlights when hovering clickable text links in favor of hand cursor
- [UI/UX] Improve storable being component UI
- [UI/UX] Improve disposable component UI
- [UI/UX] List sections that will be abandoned when doing a hyperjump
- [UI/UX] Display links to objects when hovering clickable texts anywhere in the UI
- [UI/UX] Improve camera auto move speed / smoothness when focusing on distant objects
- [UI/UX] Enhance Available Tasks UI with better tooltips
- [UI/UX] Split Structure category into Floors, Walls and Doors in Build Menu
- [UI/UX] Don't show more than 3 tasks in the tooltip when hovering a location with multiple tasks
- [UI/UX] Don't show more than 10 items in the tooltip when hovering a location with multiple objects
- [UI/UX] Improve Codex > Factions UI to show relationships between NPC factions
- [UI/UX] Add "Eject All" button to all storages
- [Tech] Upgrade Unity to 6000.0.48f1
- [Tech] Loud sounds (explosions, ship weapons) will affect music volume
- [Mods] Add more checks and diagnostics for validating mod upload issues
- [Mods] Add mod_debug prepare and mod_debug upload_prepared console commands
- [Mods] Fix race condition that would prevent mods from uploading on lower latency network connections
- [Misc] Remove Quantum Barrier device and related research
- [Misc] Remove Directional Turret device and related research
- [Misc] Remove Security Controls device and related research
- [Misc] Remove Security overlay
- [Bug] Fix workers would try hauling objects to storage when storage was full
- [Bug] Fix workers would try hauling dead bodies to surgery / assembly hub while hub was occupied
- [Bug] Fix beings would take deadly unsafe paths if the destination was safer (usually warmer) than the start
- [Bug] Fix unlocking last research item would not hide the "Research available" notification
- [Bug] Fix unloading research would visually corrupt the unloaded research UI element
- [Bug] Fix Mining Orders popup could change the orders of the wrong expedition when multiple expeditions were configured
- [Bug] Fix space effects would not reset state between different game sessions, causing bugs on save / load
- [Bug] Fix changing equipment would not immediately update DPS values in Combat Controls UI
- [Bug] Fix enemy combat units could get stuck in outer areas without entrance to the rest of the ship
- [Bug] Fix enemies would try to break in through doors that lead to nowhere interesting
- [Bug] Fix workers could get stuck for 2 in-game hours waiting for path evaluation when there was no path
- [Bug] Fix pressing R would not rotate a tile blueprint if the mouse was moving
- [Bug] Fix mass-ordering installing upgrades would not create an upgrade task for devices that had another task pending (e.g. reactor refill)
- [Bug] Fix Xenodetectors would be scanning even when switched off
- [Bug] Fix grounded beings with "Fight" combat reaction would keep dropping their work if there were unreachable enemy units

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2025-05-07 14:56:15 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey Space Travelers!

The Ship Combat (v0.13) major update is almost ready for public release! We are grateful to everyone who playtested it in the alpha branch. Your feedback and bug reports helped polish all the rough edges, as usual. Were always listening and taking your feedback into account, even if it might not seem so.

We know some of you didnt enjoy the Hyperspace update, as it introduced new restrictions to space travel and made survival more difficult. Weve listened to your feedback. The Ship Combat update will address many of these inconveniences:

• Return Beacons will allow you to fast travel to previously visited locations.
  
• Automated deep scanning will find (spawn) several new resource deposits in almost every location, making it easier to acquire resources.
  
• Two new types of Warp Drives will let you jump to sectors and regions without using hyperlanes.
  
• NPC ships traveling the universe will make it almost impossible to get stranded, as you can trade with them or even ask for fuel when youre in trouble.
  

Other than these inconvenience-fixes weve also stacked the update full of balancing changes, various UI fixes and of course, the whole Ship Combat thingy.


Were now going back to radio silence. (Unless youre in the discord, of course. Were active there as usual.)

Early next month everyone will be able to enjoy a new Stardeus universe full of life and adventure, with hundreds of NPC ships traveling about.

[i]See you soon!

// Spajus & Lizz The Community Manager[/i]

[ 2025-04-28 15:47:13 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2025-04-16 15:00:12 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey, Space Travelers!

Stardeus has received a major modding upgradeJSON patching.

This method allows modifications to core JSON files without overwriting them. Mods using this approach will be more reliable and compatible with future updates. Even better, multiple mods can patch the same core file, eliminating override issues.

The rest of this update post is a tutorial on how to create your own mods. If you're interested, keep reading! If not, just know that mods support will be even better going forward!

Stardeus Modding Guide

What is JSON

JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation, a human-readable plain text format. If you want to learn more about JSON, heres a good resource: https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_intro.asp

However, JSON is so simple that you can easily understand it just by looking at a few examples.

How Stardeus uses JSON files

In Stardeus, behaviors are defined in C# code, which you can also mod but it requires programming knowledge and significantly more effort.

Content and various parameters are defined in JSON files that the game loads at runtime. To illustrate this, lets examine a device.


This is a Charge Station. It has various properties and behaviors. The game recognizes the Charge Station because it loads a JSON file that defines it:


You can find this definition in the Core mod*:
Definitions/Objects/Devices/ChargeStation.json

* To open the contents of the Core mod, run Stardeus, then Main Menu > Mods > Core Game > Open Directory

This file specifies various properties of the Charge Station, such as the research required to unlock it and, most importantly, a list of Components.

Each Component block provides a specific function. Many of these components appear in other device definitions, but the ChargeStation component is what makes this device unique. Removing this component block would strip the Charge Station of its ability to recharge robots.

If you wanted the Charge Station to work twice as fast, you could change the ChargePerHour property from 25.0 to 50.0. However, modifying the Core mod directly means your changes would be overwritten when the game updates. In this guide, well learn how to create mods that edit JSON files without altering the Core mod itself.

Beyond object definitions, Stardeus includes many other JSON files for configuring different aspects of the game. Tunable parameters, story events, species configurations, body parts, inventory items, character traitseven UI colorsare all defined in JSON and fully moddable.

Creating a Mod

The easiest way to create a new mod is to grab a copy of the empty mod here:
https://github.com/kodolinija/stardeus-mod-empty


Download the project as a zip file, extract it in the user mods folder*, rename the extracted folder to match your mod name (I like using the kebab-case when naming folders).

[i]* User mods folder is located next to the Saves folder. You can open it from Stardeus:
Main Menu > Mods > About Mods > Open User Mods Directory[/i]

Then open the TODO.md file and go through the checklist:
[code]- [ ] Update ModInfo.json
- [ ] Create your own ModCover.jpg
- [ ] Delete unnecessary directories
[/code]

Run Stardeus and check if your empty mod appears in the Main Menu > Mods list. If it does, you're ready to start modding!

Changing Existing Behaviors and Parameters

Previously, modifying a JSON file required copying the entire file into your mod just to change a few lines. The game would then load the modded version instead of the original. The main problem with this method was that when the Core mod updated, the copied JSON file could become outdated or broken. This often caused older mods to stop working or, worse, silently break parts of the game.

The new approachJSON patchingsolves this issue. Heres how it works:

• Mods define patches.
• Patches target specific core JSON files.
• A patch contains a list of operations to modify the targeted JSON.
• Operations can add, remove, or replace parts of the original JSON.
  

This method is based on the RFC 6902 standard, with custom extensions for advanced querying. Its simpler than it soundsyoull see examples soon.

JSON patching support was added in v0.12.17 and I believe this will be a game-changer for modding.

Lets say we want to mod the Charge Station to double its charging speed. We need to create a patch file inside the Patches directory of the mod. Well name it ChargeStation_2xSpeed.json to reflect its purpose.

The patch file looks like this:
[code]{
"target" : "Definitions/Objects/Devices/ChargeStation.json",
"operations" : [
{
"op" : "replace",
"path" : "/Components[Component=ChargeStation]/Properties[Key=ChargePerHour]/Float",
"value" : 50.0
}
]
}
[/code]

Lets break it down:

- target: The path to the JSON file inside the Core mod directory that we want to patch.
- operations: An array containing one or more operation blocks.
- op: The type of operation. In this case, replace. Valid types are add, replace, and remove.
- path: A query specifying which element of the original JSON file to modify. It may look complex, but its straightforward once broken down.
- value: The new value replacing the existing one. Here, were changing ChargePerHour from 25.0 to 50.0 to double the charging speed.

Now, lets analyze the path step by step:

- /Components Refers to the "Components" key in the original JSON, which contains a list of component blocks.
- /Components[Component=ChargeStation] Filters this list to find the block where "Component" is set to "ChargeStation".
- /Properties Refers to the "Properties" key within that block, which contains a list of component properties.
- /Properties[Key=ChargePerHour] Filters the "Properties" list to find the block where "Key" is "ChargePerHour".
- /Float Refers to the "Float" key inside that block, which holds the value we want to change.

Since Float is the key that contains the charging speed, this is the final part of the path.


OK, I admit it still looks a bit scary here. But the good news is that its the most complex path example I could come up with. If you understand this one, youre going to be unstoppable!

Now, what happens when the game loads your mod with this patch? Next to the user Mods directory, a Patched directory will be created. If you look inside, you should find the patched ChargeStation.json file that looks something like this:


More examples of how to write various JSON patches can be found here:
https://github.com/kodolinija/stardeus-mod-template/tree/master/Patches

Adding New Content via JSON Files

To add new content, youll need to create new JSON files rather than patches. Place these files in the corresponding directories of your mod inside Definitions or Config. Check the Core mod for examples.

When creating new definitions, you can mix and match existing components and add new graphics for your devices. Explore the mod template project and check out these YouTube video tutorials for examples:

https://github.com/kodolinija/stardeus-mod-template
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvm1mLYInibc8n0Q5_caRql5nEUiBwvTC

Reference Source Code

If you want to write your own C# mods or understand how certain components work, you can explore the Reference Source Code that comes with the Core mod.

Its not the complete source code, but it contains about 80% of the games codebase. Everything relevant to modding should be there. Unlike decompiled code, it includes comments, and constants are not replaced with literal values, making it much easier to read.

For the remaining 20%, you can decompile and explore the game DLL files using dnSpy or similar tools.

Join the Modding Community

Join the Stardeus Discord Server and visit #stardeus-modding channel to discuss with other modders and get help.

And I will be happy to personally answer any modding related questions there, or here on Steam Forums.

Happy modding!
- spajus

[ 2025-02-18 18:35:33 CET ] [Original Post]

Greetings, Space Travelers!

Welcome to the Stardeus "Hyperspace" (v0.12) update! This update brings a massive package of new mechanics, content, and balance improvements. It's the perfect time to start a new run!

This update has been available as a public beta since early December and has been thoroughly tested and polished. Many suggestions and changes from early adopters have been implemented - thank you to everyone who participated in the beta test! If you would like to join in on giving feedback on future updates make sure to join the discord in the links below!

Now, let's take a look at some of the most noteworthy parts of this major update.

New Space Travel Mechanics

The biggest change is how the Stardeus universe is structured. It now has three layers:

• Universe layer: Contains a cluster of regions.
• Region layer: Contains a cluster of sectors. Each sector has something worth exploring.
• Sector layer: Contains the objects within the sector (planets, asteroids, etc.).
  

Regions and sectors have difficulty levels. You'll want to start your run in an easy region and work your way up to explore the more challenging ones as you progress.


The difficulty level of your current location affects a variety of factors, including the resources you can find and the random events that may occur.


Most regions are interconnected with Hyperjump Relays. However, some of the more difficult regions lack these relays and will only be accessible once you obtain FTL drives.

Space Events overhaul

A major change in the new space system addresses a key point of player feedback: nobody liked being hit by asteroids or meteoroids out of nowhere. From now on these events only occur during travel.

However, there will still be dangerous sectors where threats like meteoroids are persistent but in most parts of space you can rest easy. Once you get your force fields up and running, you can start explore the dangerous areas on your own terms with minimal risk.

Smaller Ships

Starting scenarios will now produce smaller ships. The game has been reengineered and rebalanced to encourage keeping your ship compact and sleek. You can still go big by setting ship size up to 3x in the new game modifiers, but I wouldn't recommend doing so on your first run of v0.12.

Order Queue Support for All Crafting Devices

This has been one of the most requested features since day one, and now it's finally here - and its fantastic! If you're unsure what this means - you can now queue crafting orders on devices, so you don't have to go back and forth and change what's needed from a single device! Although we both can agree it should have been implemented sooner... better late than never! This feature pairs perfectly with smaller ships and should also be a great quality of life for bigger ships too!

Nanobots and Auto-Repair

Build Nanobot hives and the swarm will perform simple tasks, such as repairs, construction or device clearing anywhere within their reach. Your robots can finally chill out like they deserve. Except for the cleaning Bot, even Nanobots won't touch those disgusting grimy floors. Sorry.

That also comes with a new Auto-Repair feature. Unlock a tech and anything that gets damaged will automatically create a Repair task for the nanobots.

Start a New Game with an Existing Ship

You can now start a new game using any existing ship! This means you can design an amazing ship in Sandbox Mode or download one created by someone else and start a new game with it.


There are plenty of options for managing existing resources, crew, money, the universe, and more. You can choose to keep, remove, or regenerate each individual aspect. You can even break your ship into pieces to recreate the classic "Wrecked" scenario.

Share and Download Ships in Steam Workshop

Since you can start a new game with any ship, why not share your creations with the community? In v0.12, you can! A few ships uploaded by our playtesters are already available. Just subscribe to them in the Steam Workshop, and you'll find them in the Ships section of the Main Menu the next time you start the game.

Here's a video explaining how to share ships and start a new game with an existing ship:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sByIJkEj9Mk

Diseases and Immunity

In other words, Space Diarrhea is back, baby!and now it's properly transferable. But dont worry, your colonists can gain immunity and recover with some bed rest... unless they get food poisoning.

On a more serious note, the diseases and immunity system is a great addition for more variety in gameplay. Younger beings gain immunity faster than older ones, so relying on a 99-year-old guru with brand-new body parts from a raider donor might not be the flawless strategy you hoped for.

10 New Quests

These new quests will assist you on your journey to colonize the planet. Theres even a post-endgame quest for those who want to keep exploring!

Basic Technology Pre-unlocked

You will no longer need to unlock basic survival tech through research in the early gameunless you choose to. A new "Basic Tech" game modifier has been added, which defaults to "Unlocked" but can be changed to "Locked" or "Randomized."

New Scenario: No Robots

This scenario isnt for the faint of heart. Manage a fully functional small spaceship operated by only a handful of fragile humans. With no relentless robotic workers to carry out your orders, how long can you survive the chaos?

New Tutorials

Stardeus now features nearly a dozen tutorials. We highly recommend going through them, even if you're a veteran player. For example, did you know you can connect devices without dragging the mouse by using Shift + click? Or that you can select any floor tile with Ctrl + click? You would if you completed the Advanced Controls tutorial!

Enhancements to Combat AI

The Combat AI has been fine-tuned, resulting in noticeably improved fighting behavior in this update. Dont forget to check out the new Combat tutorial as well!

Mini Turrets

Perfect for when you want a simple but effective way to deal with a swarm of raiders without getting overly creative.

Prevent Fire and Explosions with Fuse Upgrades

Devices equipped with Fuse upgrades will blow the fuse instead of catching fire or exploding if they malfunction. Take that, RNGesus!

Codex Overhaul

The Codex has been refreshed, along with many in-game descriptions that were outdated due to changes in mechanics over the past couple of years of Early Access.

Tons of New Content and Balance Changes

Theres so much more! Check out the full changelog below for an extensive list. However, with so many small changes and enhancements, not everything made it into the changelog. Youll have to play the game to discover them all!

The Changelog

v0.12.0 (2025.01.23)
- [Major] Add support for Diseases and Immunity
- [Major] Change the structure of the Universe to use a graph of Space Regions and Sectors
- [Major] Change the space flight mechanics to use fuel and hyperjumps to travel between locations
- [Major] Some space Sectors will have permanent Space Effects (Dust Storm, Asteroids, etc)
- [Major] Add nanobots that can perform simple tasks like construction, demolition, repairs
- [Major] Allow creating multiple orders for most production devices
- [Major] Add Steam Workshop integration for sharing space ships
- [Major] Allow starting a new game with a ship from any save file
- [Feature] Add consumable Fuse upgrade to prevent device malfunction side effects like fire or explosions
- [Feature] Add support for separate Work Spot, Input Port and Output Port for all devices
- [Feature] Allow rotating ship sections an derelicts clockwise / counterclockwise with help of Maneuvering Controllers
- [Feature] Add Mini Turret device
- [Feature] Add Auto Repair research node
- [Feature] Replace large Stasis Arrays with several smaller ones
- [Feature] Add Online Shop to allow ordering delivery of basic materials in any location
- [Feature] Allow building / relocating objects above debris and dead bodies (auto-move them away)
- [Feature] Add 10 new quests
- [Feature] Add new scan target: Space Station
- [Feature] Add "Deep Scan" that can detect new resources in sectors with planets and asteroid fields
- [Feature] Add story event: Cooking Accident
- [Feature] Add story event: Fight
- [Feature] Add story event: Hacked
- [Feature] Add story event: Hyperdrive Failure
- [Feature] Add space event: Artillery Fungus
- [Feature] Add disease: Space Diarrhea
- [Feature] Add food poisoning mechanics
- [Feature] Add new scenario: No Robots (difficult!)
- [Feature] Add Tutorial: Space Travel
- [Feature] Add Tutorial: Body Parts
- [Feature] Add Tutorial: Combat Tactics
- [Feature] Add ability to install Speed Upgrade into Repair Station
- [Feature] Add smaller storage unit (2x2)
- [Feature] Add new materials: Phasium, Edenium, Aerolith, Hydronium, Terranite
- [Feature] Add new craftables: Fusion Cell, Heavy Fusion Cell
- [Feature] Add a mysterious Dark Portal
- [Feature] Colonists will be able to enjoy the view through glass floors
- [Feature] Attempt to restore device connections after repairing / rebuilding a connector or a device
- [Feature] Add dedicated Trade Portal
- [Feature] Add "Mining Output" modifier (new game + in-game)
- [Feature] Add Extended Scanning research (Tier 5)
- [Feature] Obey Chip can now be found in Anomaly locations (after day 120)
- [Feature] Add "Recenter Ship" button to Ship Controls
- [Feature] Automatically recenter the ship when attempting to do a hyperjump or fly when ship is in no-fly zone
- [Feature] Add Remote Mining research node (Tier 3)
- [Feature] Add Beam Drill device that can mine resource deposits from your ship
- [Feature] Add Chaos story generator
- [Feature] Add "Basic Tech" new game modifier that allows locking / randomizing basic tech
- [Balance] Space events (Asteroids, Raids, Capsules etc) will only happen when entering specific sectors
- [Balance] Add multiple big enhancements to Combat AI
- [Balance] Adjust severity and frequency of many story events
- [Balance] Remove ship computer neural network fragmentation / defragmentation mechanic
- [Balance] Start with less colonists in Stasis Arrays
- [Balance] Accessing the Starmap will not require functional Bridge Controls
- [Balance] Reduce storage capacity for many storages (materials will not be as abundant)
- [Balance] Adjust starting resource amounts
- [Balance] Starting ships will not generate with high tier reinforced floors / walls
- [Balance] Generate smaller starting ships
- [Balance] Ship engines will not heat up empty vacuum
- [Balance] Move Teleporter to higher tier
- [Balance] Crafting a Handgun will no longer require Platinum Ingot
- [Balance] Fire will self-extinguish 3x faster without oxygen
- [Balance] Explosions will have less chemical fuel to feed the fire
- [Balance] Construction failure in unoxygenated environment will not cause fire (except through explosion)
- [Balance] Reduce trader stock amounts to encourage mining and production on ship
- [Balance] Move Memory Modules into higher research tiers
- [Balance] Change trading supply / demand impact on player's trades to prevent money exploits
- [Balance] Damaged floor collapse will only affect current area (unless the floor supports a wall)
- [Balance] Increase Elysium electricity production from 5kW to 25kW per colonist
- [Balance] Dark Matter will now be a rare mineable resource
- [Balance] Ice deposits will no longer have depth and won't get exhausted
- [Balance] Remove Probes
- [Balance] Pre-unlock most of Tier 1 tech in all scenarios, including Wrecked
- [Balance] Increase Ship Computer built-in disk storage from 32 to 64 Exabytes
- [Balance] Increase Quantum Ship Computer built-in disk storage from 64 to 96 Exabytes
- [Balance] Add new game modifier: "Research Cost"
- [Balance] Losing one essential organ / body part when there is a backup will not incapacitate the being
- [Balance] Increase output of plates when smelting most raw ores
- [Balance] Make ambush / extortion signals and expedition events less frequent
- [Balance] Make extortion ransom less expensive
- [Balance] Make Random story generator less random / brutal
- [Balance] Increase combat stats for Orbotron
- [Balance] Crawlers won't burst from infected colonists upon their death in Peaceful difficulty level
- [Balance] Inflicting moderate or greater wounds on body parts will reduce their quality
- [Balance] Inner doors will have low oxygen / heat exchange resistance even when closed
- [Balance] Inner walls will have low heat exchange resistance
- [Balance] Large planter will have 4 makeshift toilet slots instead of 1
- [Balance] When Wrecked scenario is started without robots, ensure one full space suit spawns near humans
- [Balance] Colonists without a space suit will not attempt to equip a space helmet unless ordered
- [Balance] Adjust starting resources in all scenarios
- [Balance] Reduce electricity cost for enabling Advanced Life Support in Stasis Arrays
- [Balance] Increase delay between possibility of repeating "Construction Disaster" event by 2x
- [Balance] Increase Biowaste to Water output from 1:1 to 1:2
- [Balance] Small Solar Panel and many other lower tier devices will not require Plastic
- [Balance] Increase Petroleum output from Crude Oil from 1 to 2
- [Balance] Removing infected organs from biological beings will drop their quality 0%
- [Balance] Allow increasing Heater output up to 70 degrees Celsius, 200 degrees with Asimov's Override
- [UI/UX] Add information about landing zone size expectations
- [UI/UX] Overhaul Codex UI and contents
- [UI/UX] Add images to some Codex > Operations Manual entries
- [UI/UX] Warn about micro meteoroids before the first strike hits
- [UI/UX] Warn about unstable stasis arrays
- [UI/UX] Make device, being, object names clickable in Log and Fanfare messages
- [UI/UX] Make [123:234] coordinates clickable in Log and in Fanfare messages
- [UI/UX] Flash new event notifications
- [UI/UX] Don't show new quest dialog popups until quest is accepted through notification or quests UI
- [UI/UX] Show more data about a fire when hovering a burning object
- [UI/UX] Update multiple outdated descriptions and codex entries
- [UI/UX] Show external link icon next to all buttons that open a browser page when clicked
- [UI/UX] Organize load game panel to reduce clutter
- [UI/UX] Add shortcut to toggle Direct Control for selected beings (G)
- [UI/UX] Make space object icons behind the ship in game view interactive
- [UI/UX] ESC will close dialogs without choice
- [UI/UX] Add compatibility information to body part tooltips
- [UI/UX] Clicking a Datoid in Research node cost will focus on the node that unlocks that Datoid
- [UI/UX] Make Fanfare messages easier to read
- [UI/UX] Improve tutorial guidelines readability by showing non-actionable guidelines as grey
- [UI/UX] Split Basic Controls tutorial into 3 smaller ones
- [UI/UX] Improve scrollable UI behavior
- [UI/UX] Improve expedition crew choice view
- [UI/UX] Copy configuration will now work with heaters / coolers
- [UI/UX] Add list of all research items to the Research Tree
- [UI/UX] When a device explodes after taking damage, log the device name and location
- [UI/UX] Display object cover values in codex entries
- [UI/UX] Always show Cover values in the Environment (Alt) tooltip
- [UI/UX] Sort body parts by Quality instead of Condition * Quality
- [UI/UX] Warn about abandoning derelict ship upon flight
- [UI/UX] Improve scroll speed in dropdown menus
- [UI/UX] Automatically resize dropdown menus to utilize available space
- [UI/UX] Mark infected organs with green skull
- [UI/UX] Add infected label to tooltips of infected organs
- [Tech] Improve auto save logic
- [Tech] Make being animations smoother at displays with > 100FPS (with option)
- [Tech] Improve small ship (especially derelict) generation algorithm
- [Tech] Add way to change in-game and global settings via "settings" console command
- [Tech] Add hidden global setting to allow loading incompatible saves: "settings set_global allow.old.saves true"
- [Performance] Reduce max allowed map size for new games from 640x640 to 448x448
- [Performance] Eliminate stutter caused by tasks in unreachable areas
- [Performance] Optimize AI performance
- [Graphics] Make planets look more detailed
- [Graphics] Add gentle vignette effect
- [Bug] Fix multiple AI (both regular and combat) behavior bugs
- [Bug] Fix relocating a storage on top of itself or in sandbox mode would eject all contents
- [Bug] Fix destroying a locked door or a door with custom permissions would apply door effects for an auto-rebuild ghost
- [Bug] Fix cloned body parts would show incorrect quality until stored or used
- [Bug] Fix electricity deficit would be applied to all devices instead of only ones that failed to draw power
- [Bug] Fix Stasis Pod landing could result in graphics glitches
- [Bug] Fix active teleporter could teleport into a switched off teleporter
- [Bug] Fix ship generation could end up failing to ensure presence of important objects (Shuttle, Particle Collector, etc.)

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2025-01-23 14:56:52 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2024-12-04 16:57:55 CET ] [Original Post]

[u]Greetings, Space Travelers![/u]

It's that time of year when the void between stars gets just a little spookier! Our latest update brings you the most essential research in intergalactic history: Halloween Decorations. Outfit your colony with ghastly and or spoopy (not poopy) things that might stir up your fellow colonists to a scare! Oh, and don't forget our stylish new coffins! Nothing says home like a final resting place <3

For our botanically inclined captains, we've added pumpkins to your planters and a new culinary delight: Pumpkin Soup! Serve it to your crew to keep their bones warm while they wander through your ghostly halls... (bOooOoo...)

TLDR: Seasonal halloween update with some cosmetics & pumpkin stew! We're working on a big "normal" update too, and are thankful for your patience in the meanwhile!

Changelog:

v0.11.23 (2024.10.23)
- [Content] Add Research: Halloween Decorations
- [Content] Add item: Jack-o'-lantern (4 versions)
- [Content] Add item: Decorative Skull (3 versions)
- [Content] Add item: Ghost Statue
- [Content] Add item: Decorative Coffin (2 versions)
- [Content] Add item: Tomb Stone (3 versions)
- [Content] Add plant: Pumpkin
- [Content] Add meal: Pumpkin Soup
- [Feature] Give small sanity debuff for sleeping in an uncomfortable temporary spot (e.g sofa)
- [Tech] Increase max lights from 10240 to 20480 in larger maps
- [Bug] Fix beings could try to use a temporary sleeping spot that was already in use
- [Bug] Fix being information panel could display negative age
- [Bug] Fix maneuvering controllers may not work when they are adjacent to angular floors
- [Bug] [strike]Removed herobrine[/strike]

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

[ 2024-10-30 17:10:11 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey Space Travelers,

There's been a bit of radio silence, so its time to lift the curtain and show what's coming in the next major update.


The focus of the update will be space travel and space-related story events. The current space travel mechanics are undergoing a significant rewrite. Here are some of the changes:

• Space will be divided into Regions and Sectors with varying difficulty and content.
• Space travel will happen through instant hyperspace jumps between linked locations.
• Fuel will be required to perform these hyperjumps.
• Space-related story events, such as Asteroids, Meteoroid Showers, Dust Storms, etc., will be tied to specific locations rather than appearing randomly. Youll be able to prepare, manage risk, and encounter these events on your own terms.
  

These changes will have a large ripple effect on overall gameplay and will require significant rebalancing and thorough playtesting. As always, your ideas and suggestions are welcome!

I'll be asking for the help of brave adventurers willing to try this update before everyone else. The update is halfway there - stay tuned for more news!

- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-10-02 13:48:59 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2024-08-21 14:38:09 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey, everyone!

It's been a little over a week since we released the Bioverse update, and we hope you've been enjoying it! As you can imagine, we've kept busy since the release, and thought a brief overview of what's happened since would be neat to share!

New Features

Twitch Integration: In addition to tools allowing the streamer to handle the queue from an in-game menu, additional commands were added for viewers!
Job Matrix: This long-requested feature (pictured below) was added just yesterday! Now it's much easier to see at a glance what skills are available amongst all the beings on your ship!

Balancing Updates

Numerous adjustments for balance have been implemented in the last week and a half, including:

• Animals being able to open doors that aren't connected to the grid, as well as being able to sleep more soundly in noisier environments
• Giving the player a warning that an egg has appeared on the ship when at or below certain difficulty levels
• Economic adjustments, such as increasing the odds of certain items appearing in traders' inventories
• Enabling additional violations of Asimov's Laws of Robotics when certain conditions are met
  

UI/UX (User Interface and Experience) Improvements

Many improvements and updates to the game's UI have also been made, including the removal of redundant interface elements, improved in-game notifications for the Twitch integration feature, and improved scrollbars in menus and lists.

Bug Fixes

Thanks to reports from players, numerous bugs have been found, logged and fixed, with even more fixes on the way! If you find anything that seems odd or broken, make sure to submit a bug report so we can look into it!

And more!

If you'd like to see a full list of the changes made since the update, and hang out with fellow players, please come join our community Discord !

[ 2024-08-02 19:30:22 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

Welcome to the "Bioverse" update. This patch is the most comprehensive update we've made to Stardeus in Early Access yet. It's a collection of core system rewrites + content, mechanics and balance updates. It was meant to be named "New Beings" (beings as in humans, robots, animals), however, this update ended up much larger than expected, impacting far more than just beings. This is the biggest major update that Stardeus ever had since launch to Early Access in 2022.

The following sections will explain the most noteworthy changes. Many of them are mechanics changes and system rewrites that bring the overall simulation depth to the level like never before.

New AI System based on GOAP

Before this update, AI wasnt great. It had plenty of bugs and colonists would behave in dull and boring ways. The rewrite completely uprooted the old AI system and replaced it with a new, much more refined and flexible one.

The new AI system is based on GOAP (Goal Oriented Action Planning), an award winning technique first pioneered by F.E.A.R and later used in high profile games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.

To achieve this rewrite, every single AI behavior was redesigned and reimplemented, mostly from scratch. A bunch of new behaviors were introduced as well.

The new AI solves a large majority of bugs the old AI had, and adds much more flexibility and emergent behaviors that are essential for a complex colony simulator like Stardeus.

New Body Parts System

One of the biggest and most anticipated changes is the new body parts system. It brings Stardeus closer to games like RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress. For example, a cat now has 28 body parts - eyes, ears, jaw, a set of internal organs, legs, paws, a tail, etc. Robots are also fully modular, with replaceable parts that you can mix and match to create different combinations.

Each body part can provide the owner with some stats and abilities. For example, legs give the ability to move. If legs are amputated or damaged in combat, the colonist will not be able to perform any activities that involves moving around, and additionally, if any wounds are left unattended, a colonist can bleed out to death. If that happens, the healthy organs and body parts could be amputated and sold, or reused for someone else.

This system brings new levels of gameplay depth and immersion. It is tightly integrated with the new AI and other systems such as Combat, Health, Stats and Conditions.

It is now possible to conduct various experiments, such as replacing a robots tracks with a jet removed from a drone, resulting in previously grounded robots gaining an ability to fly. Equipment items can also provide such abilities - a jet suit will allow a human colonist to fly.

Internal organs from biological beings are also interchangeable across different species, so for example, you can harvest kidneys from a pig and put them into a human who had them damaged during combat. Or do the opposite.

New Combat System

The old combat system was even worse than the old AI system. It was using its own separate AI implementation for combat situations and in result the colony and combat behaviors were very separate and that would often cause problems and bugs.

The new combat system is driven by the new GOAP AI, it is much more flexible and tightly integrated into the whole colony behavior. Fighters now act in much more interesting ways. For example, heres a video of a raider with highly overpowered armor who has a pacifist trait and therefore refuses to fight. The raider wont attack anyone due to being a pacifist, and decides to go take a nap while everyone else is trying to land a hit through the overpowered armor:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggaB2gxIu2w

While the overpowered armor was indeed a balance issue, the rest of the behavior was completely emergent and amusing enough to justify allowing raiders to have the pacifist trait in future.

The new combat system uses a new damage model based on damage to individual body parts rather than a simple health goes to zero = death system that we had before. Damaged body parts can be fixed / healed / replaced / amputated / regrown in cloning pods.

A multi-directional cover system was added as well, fighters will actively seek positions with cover during combat, opening up a possibility for creating more strategic ship layouts.

New Stats System

While this is more of a technical change, it is worth mentioning because of how much depth it adds to the simulation. Each being (robot, human, animal) has a large collection of stats that affect various abilities and states.

There are currently over 50 different stats, such as move speed, sight, dexterity, hunger, lung capacity, intestines contents, comfortable temperature range, sanity, etc. The system is very modular, new stats can be added easily as needed.

These stats can affect each other, for example, losing Sight will automatically reduce the Move Speed.

The stats also have "Sources" - that are either body parts or equipment. For example, lungs provide lung capacity, legs provide move speed, eyes provide sight. Damaging the body parts that provide these stats will reduce the stat value.

Stats can also have multiple "Modifiers". A colonist who is running away from fire will have a temporary Move Speed +100% modifier. Someone who is roaming around bored will have -50% Move Speed. Permanent stat modifiers can also be provided by body parts and equipment.

Many other systems such as AI, Combat, Needs, Health and Conditions use these stats to drive various behaviors.

This stat system also applies for inventory items such as weapons and armor. All weapons will have stats like DPS, Range, Accuracy, Cooldown Time, etc. Additionally, some body parts such as a dog's jaw or humans hand, provide attack methods (bite, punch, etc) that will have such stats too.

New Health and Conditions Systems

Tightly integrated with the Body Parts system, these new systems govern wounds, diseases, mental health issues and death.

A colonist that stays in an poorly oxygenated environment for prolonged periods of time will develop Hypoxia, that will become more severe over time, and will eventually damage internal organs and cause a violent death.

Some conditions are not related to body parts directly. For example, a colonist can develop Depression, which is a mental condition that affects their behavior and stats through the new AI system.

Heres another example of how this plays with the body parts system to create an interesting emergent simulation with more depth. There are Crawlers - spider-like creatures that can attach to a colonist's face. When that happens, they lay eggs inside Stomach and Intestines body parts of their prey. That creates a hidden Infected with crawlers condition which after some time will result in new crawlers bursting out of the belly of the infected colonist, destroying their internal organs and adding exit wounds on the body. If the stomach and intestines are replaced in time, the infected condition goes away and the colonist will be saved.

These new systems make it easy to add new complex health conditions, diseases, addictions and mental issues that previously would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement. New content utilizing these systems will be added over time.

New Needs System

Built upon the new Stats, Body Parts and Conditions systems, the Needs system now has much more depth than before. The best example is the hunger logic, which is probably explained best with a diagram.


In this case, someone who has a wounded jaw would lose the ability to eat, which would make consuming food impossible, that will over time develop a Starvation condition, that would damage internal organs and eventually kill the colonist.

Most other needs are much simpler, but they all tightly integrate with the new AI, stats, body parts, health and conditions systems to create an immersive, deep simulation full of emergent behaviors.

Mind Transfers

The new body parts system allows transferring minds between any living creature, be it a robot, human or even a cat. Transplant brains, overwrite robot cores with colonist minds, or vice versa.

Human colonists trapped in robot bodies will keep their skills, traits and mental health.

New Trade System and Space Stations

Merchants were quite overpowered in the older versions of Stardeus. You could hail them at will, they would fly over to your ship to trade with you. That discouraged exploration and made it too easy to acquire certain resources. For this reason, the call-in traders are no longer available, instead the player will find many space stations scattered around the universe.

Item Pricing and inventory of the space stations will be determined by the contents of the underlying star system. Each star system will have a unique set of items that are scarce or abundant, and merchants prices will reflect that. A star system that has a lot of Iron, but no Uranium will be trading their Iron under the market price, and Uranium will cost a hefty premium. This opens up opportunities for speculation and trade routes.

However, it doesnt end here. Each merchant will keep track of what the player buys and sells, and that will drive the local demand and prices up and down. If youre buying all the copper you can find, its price will surely go up.

But theres even more. Stardeus has an intricate Stock Market simulation that drives the price changes behind all commodities and in this new update it even allows you to trade company stocks, such as Bytecoin, GameStart, Megahard and Netpix. Stocks will be much more volatile than commodities, making it easy to make (or lose) a lot of money very quickly. Additionally, players' transactions will now have a small impact on global market prices of commodities. Which means that your trading with space stations can directly affect your trading on the stock market.

And of course, there is a Black Market that you can unlock to sell all the kidneys youll harvest from the raiders.

New Scenario Configuration Screen

Previously you would jump right into the game when starting a new scenario. You would start with whatever you got. Now you can randomize your starting crew, change their names, see how they look, what skills, abilities and traits they have. This will give the player an option for a more custom experience with immediate personal investment into the game.

A colonist choice will also appear when someone wakes up from stasis. This will allow you to have some control over how your colony evolves.

Twitch Integration

Starting with v0.11, Stardeus introduces built-in Twitch integration, allowing your viewers to immerse themselves in your ship and either help or sabotage your efforts.

This feature includes a name queue, multiple roles, a reputation system, and dozens of chat commands, with more to be added over time.

It is highly configurable, giving you control over how much influence your viewers have. Be cautious, as the chat might have a tendency to burn your ship down.

Here is an example of how a play session with viewers can go:

https://youtu.be/IvUR_QT8VWs

If you want to try it yourself, the instructions are here .

Tons of New Content

All the new systems required a ton of new content, along with removal of a few obsolete items and mechanics. The amount of new things heavily overwhelms the number of what was removed. Here are a some examples of what was added in v0.11:

• New Scenario: Cargo Ship. A mid-game jump start that has a lot of research tree pre-unlocked and gives the player plenty of Datoids to unlock some more tech of their choice right away. It also includes a fully operational space ship and a bunch of raw materials for quick expansion. This scenario skips a lot of starting content and quests, and is recommended for experienced players only!
• Nearly a hundred body parts that can be cloned, crafted, bought, sold, harvested.
• Several new devices for performing surgeries, body part replacements for robots, and for storing the new body parts.
• New raw materials that can be found on space expeditions, such as Ice, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
• New materials acquired by crafting or processing raw materials, such as Silicon Wafer, Silver, Gold and Platinum Ingots, Gold Wire, Improved and Advanced versions of Microchip, etc.
• New body types, hairstyles and clothing items for human colonists. Additionally, all clothing items fit all possible body types. If you have it, anyone can wear it.
• New species: Pig. Pigs can be treated either as pets, or as a food source with harvestable internal organs.
• New cosmetics such as an inflatable Rubber Duck that your colonists can admire.
  

Improved Balance and Pacing

Balance has also received a major overhaul, with emphasis on reducing wait times and grind. Everything will happen much faster at normal clock speed and crafting will involve significantly less waiting.

The story generator will produce events more frequently as well, but if you prefer to take it slow, you still can, because a couple of modifiers were added to control story pacing and stasis wake-up rates.

The new content will definitely have some balance issues, but nothing is set in stone while Stardeus is still in Early Access, and all your feedback will be reviewed and applied in daily updates.

Changelog

- [Major] Rewrite the AI system from scratch to use GOAP
- [Major] Rewrite the Combat system from scratch
- [Major] Add body parts system with replaceable and harvestable organs and body parts
- [Major] Add new Health system based on body parts and stats
- [Major] Rewrite the Needs system to use the new AI, stats, body parts, conditions and abilities
- [Major] Add new Stats system with base stats and modifiers to drive the being behaviors
- [Major] Add Abilities system that enables beings to perform tasks based on abilities provided by body parts
- [Major] Add new Conditions system that drives various health and mental conditions of beings
- [Major] Add Cover system integrated with Pathfinding and Combat systems
- [Major] Add new Jobs system with more intuitive skill levels and priority management
- [Major] Rewrite the Traits system to use the Stats system to modify being stats through traits
- [Major] Add new Experience system that generates backstories and job skills for crew members
- [Major] Replace the Mood system with Sanity system that controls mental breakdowns
- [Major] Add new Trade system that will govern merchant inventories and prices
- [Major] Add new scenario: Cargo Ship
- [Major] Add scenario configuration screen and a possibility to change the starting crew
- [Major] Complete re-balancing with adjustments to Story pacing, stasis wake-ups, costs, durations, speeds, etc.
- [Major] Add official Twitch integration
- [Feature] Add nearly a hundred various body parts for robots, humans and animals
- [Feature] Add nearly a hundred backstory items for the Experience system
- [Feature] Require producing or acquiring all body parts in order to assemble a working robot
- [Feature] Add new devices for performing body parts replacement, removal and storage
- [Feature] Player will have to choose one of three colonists when someone wakes up from stasis
- [Feature] Add dozens of various stats that each being will have
- [Feature] Add AI Alignment stat that gives ability to control humans on their own will
- [Feature] Detach timing of mental breakdowns and Crawler hatching from the Story Generator
- [Feature] Add several new ores and materials (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Ingots, etc)
- [Feature] Weapons will have more stats (DPS, Charge time, Cooldown, Accuracy, Range, etc)
- [Feature] Reimplement Energy Rifle to be more railgun-like
- [Feature] Water will be required for growing plants, producing oxygen and cooking food
- [Feature] Allow building the ship to some extent while in mid-flight
- [Feature] Add Pig species
- [Feature] Add Replicator device and Mind Transfers feature
- [Feature] Add Karaoke Machine device
- [Feature] Add Rubber Duck and Wooden Rocket Sculpture cosmetics
- [Feature] Add ability for beings to admire nice things
- [Feature] Add Ice resource
- [Feature] Add new lower tier weapons: Knife and Handgun
- [Feature] Rewrite the Free Select tool to make it more modular
- [Feature] Improve object hover tooltips to add more information
- [Feature] Make weapons and explosives storable in Weapons Locker
- [Feature] Tune the Stock Market implementation to produce more realistic movements
- [Feature] Add Stock Market Prediction research that exposes internal workings of the price movements in the UI
- [Feature] Pre-simulate the Stock Market when starting a new game to get different starting prices in every run
- [Feature] Add Black Market research that opens up organ trading
- [Feature] Add Equity instruments (company stocks) to the Stock Market
- [Feature] Add Space Stations with traders all over the universe
- [Feature] Terraforming the planet will have visual transformation effects on the planet itself
- [Feature] Colonizing a planet will establish a Space Port and a Space Station belonging to your faction
- [Feature] Player trades will have effect on the merchant's future prices
- [Feature] Player trades with merchants will have an effect on the global stock market
- [Feature] Introduce resource abundance / scarcity adjustments across star systems
- [Feature] Resource abundance / scarcity will affect local trader prices
- [Feature] Add multiple new body types, hairstyles and clothing items
- [Feature] Light will affect sight, move speed and mental health of most biological beings
- [Feature] All clothing items will fit multiple body types
- [Feature] Add Jet Suit that will give the wearer the ability to fly
- [Feature] Change the mechanics of Nutrient Extractor and Disassembler to work with the body parts system
- [Feature] Add nutrition amounts to food options
- [Feature] Add assignable Bot Docks
- [Feature] Beds will now be assignable to colonists
- [Feature] Add Stem Cells material that will be required for cloning / growing body parts
- [Feature] Add Silicon Wafer material to be used instead of Silicon directly
- [Feature] Crawlers will infect Stomach and Intestines with eggs
- [Feature] Crawlers can detach themselves from a prey without dying
- [Feature] Improve ship generation algorithms to produce more detailed ship designs
- [Feature] Add Fog of War mode that makes unlit objects completely invisible (check Settings > Video > Ambient Light)
- [Feature] Radiators built near the Ship Computer will also act as Heat Sinks
- [Feature] Add Morgue and Mechuary devices for storing dead bodies and bots
- [Feature] Add Story Pace and Stasis Wake Up Rate modifiers
- [Feature] Auto pilot upgrade can now be installed on Shuttles to allow unmanned mining expeditions
- [Feature] Allow buying resource deposits that belong to another faction
- [Feature] Add mental breakdown: cleaning spree
- [Balance] Adjust durations and speeds of many aspects of the simulation to significantly reduce wait times and grind
- [Balance] Adjust story pacing to significantly increase the density of story events
- [Balance] Review and adjust all prices and market groups in the Stock Market
- [Balance] Review and adjust all construction costs
- [Balance] Review and adjust all crafting costs
- [Balance] Make space travel much faster
- [Balance] Change how Defragmentation mechanic works (allow speed up, disable pause)
- [Balance] Canceling trade will no longer impact the faction standing
- [Balance] Remove Construction Speed research
- [Balance] Remove Bot Cap research and bot limits
- [Balance] Remove limit of active tasks that used to require Memory
- [Balance] Remove internal storages from all crafting devices
- [Balance] Remove Beta Waves Transceiver device
- [Balance] Remove the ability to hail a merchant through the Communicator
- [Balance] Remove the ability to buy or sell beings
- [Balance] Remove skill level requirements from construction tasks
- [Balance] Remove Device Wear mechanic
- [Balance] Remove Aesthetics system
- [Balance] Remove carbon buildup from matter reactors
- [Balance] Remove Oxygen / Heat production capabilities from the Stasis Array
- [UI/UX] Make input and controls more in line with the leaders of genre
- [UI/UX] Polish / improve many UI screens and elements
- [UI/UX] Icons displaying beings will show their actual looks
- [UI/UX] Disabling screen shake will also disable ship rotation tilt
- [UI/UX] Trying to haul objects without compatible storage will list compatible storages in the popup
- [Tech] Rewrite multiple core systems for increased performance and stability
- [Tech] Increase default texture quality to High on most GPUs
- [Tech] Improve rendering of moving objects to reduce GPU load
- [Tech] Add Harmony (v2.2) modding support
- [Tech] Add multiple game version support for mods
- [Tech] Add // comments support to Stardeus JSON files
- [Bug] Fix hundreds of bugs that existed in v0.10
- [Bug] Unintentionally introduce hundreds of new bugs. Please use the in-game Feedback form to report them

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-07-23 10:58:58 CET ] [Original Post]

Once just a colonist on your way to terraform and settle a new planet, you have been selected to have your consciousness uploaded to the ship's computer to take over as the new shipboard AIand in the wake of near-total disaster, you'll have a lot of work ahead of you to see the rest of your fellows to your destination... wherever that might be! There are many things to be done on your journey, from managing the resources necessary to keep life support and other critical systems functioning to meeting the needs of those colonists also woken from their sleep by the damaged stasis array.

Recycle, Reuse, Rebuild

The wreckage of your ship offers a large starting supply of raw materials for your use. Whether as fuel for the matter reactors powering your ship's systems, spare parts to restore your ship to its original splendor, or even to trade with other ships you might encounter on your journey is up to you. But eventually those supplies will run out, and you'll need to find morewill you scout more wrecks to salvage? Find planets whose natural resources you can exploit? It's up to you!

Overseer or Overlord?

Both robotic drones and your human colonists will be able to help you help thembut as you can imagine, each is suited to different sorts of labor and tasks. Drones are hardy and more than capable of braving the rigors of space, but lack the innately human aspects certain specialized tasks might require. Those surviving humansas well as any who find themselves unceremoniously ejected from their stasismight be ideal engaged in research or preparing food or managing crops, but they'll need extra attention and support should you need them to venture outside.

Care for Your Crew

Understandably, drones and humans both have needs that must be met for their health and their happiness. Humans will of course need to be fed, and not only require facilities to sleep and bathe, but also need things to do and keep themselves occupied! Your drones, on the other hand, require no food or sleep, but they will need places to recharge their batteries as well as sufficient bandwidth to maintain a connection to the ship's computerthat's you!

Research and Develop

As the shipboard AI, you'll be able to decide how best to prioritize researching new technologies to aid your goal. A deep, expansive research tree awaits your perusal. Do you want to focus on creature comforts first? Or would you rather arm your colonists to the teeth to be prepared for any possible threats? What about improved and more efficient power generation to ease the strain on your supplies? The choice is yours!

Assuming Direct Control

Coming in our next updatetitled Bioverseare improvements to how players will interact with beings on the ship when they wish to give them specific orders. They should be quite familiar for players of similar titles such as Rimworldbut more on that in a later post!

In space, your friends can make you scream

Space is lonely, but it doesn't always have to be. Stardeus now also has Twitch integration that allows your community to get involved in your journey... for better or for worse! Let them become members of your crew, help with tasks... or even become mutinous and set critical ship systems aflame! We'll be providing more details on how to get this set up in a future posting!

The Stars Are the Limit

You're in command of the ship now; while this is merely a sampling of the different aspects of the game, you'll find the rabbit hole goes much, much deeper. Power management, production lines, combat with pirates and the occasional stowaway... all these and more await you on your journey to find a new world to call home!

[ 2024-07-19 19:30:40 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2024-07-18 17:00:10 CET ] [Original Post]

[ 2024-07-12 19:30:39 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

A quick update on the state of v0.11. For the past month it has been rigorously playtested in the alpha branch by dozens of people - big thanks to everyone who contributed feedback and submitted bug reports! I am playtesting it every day myself as well to make sure there aren't any loose ends or unpolished corners.

The update is in great shape, however, for you to get a flawless, perfectly polished experience, it will be another month until v0.11 hits the public branch. Quality cannot be rushed.

Thank you for your patience!

- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-06-12 16:58:05 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

Stardeus v0.11 major update is now open for public testing. If you would like to try it and provide early feedback, follow these steps to activate it:
[olist]

Right-click Stardeus in your Steam library.

Choose "Properties."

Select the "Betas" tab.

Choose "v0_11_alpha" from the dropdown.
[/olist]

Beware, this version still contains some bugs and rough edges, so participate only if you're feeling adventurous. Bug reports and feedback are greatly appreciated.

Discuss the update on Discord in the #stardeus-v_11 channel.

The v0.11 update will launch for everyone in about a month. See you then!

- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-05-05 16:02:24 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

You probably noticed that the updates in the current v0.10 branch are getting far and few in between. This is because I'm in the final stretch of development for the new major update, and as I get closer to getting v0.11 ready for testing, I am becoming more reluctant to take the development time away from v0.11, even for as little as a couple of hours a week.

Therefore, today marks the final update of the v0.10 branch. While the major update is almost ready for public testing, there are still several large loose ends and rough edges I'd like to finish before opening access.

Meanwhile, you can take a sneak peek at some of the changes that are coming in v0.11:

See you soon!
- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-04-07 04:14:19 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

It's been another month of hard work, and I finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. I still can't tell how long it will take to bring this major update to a polished state, but everything is coming together smoothly, and I feel that the most difficult parts are already done.

There are still dozens of things left to address, but I'll do my best to get ready for the playtesting phase within a couple of months.

Allow me to present a few highlights from the past month of development.

Bot Docks

The Cleaning Bot previously had its own dedicated dock, causing other bots to feel excluded. Not anymore! A new docking device has been introduced that can be assigned to any bot, either manually or automatically.

Bots assigned to docks will idle in them instead of roaming aimlessly. This adds a new layer of strategy to both combat and everyday tasks.

While docks provide a small amount of electricity, they won't charge as quickly or efficiently as the dedicated Charge Station. However, the charge provided will be sufficient to maintain healthy battery levels.

Jet Suit

The Jet Suit is an upgraded version of the Space Suit with added capability to fly. This innovation elevates the effectiveness of your human [strike]meatbags[/strike] colonists to the next level.

Sanity and Mental Breakdowns

I didn't like that mood was the driving factor behind the mental breakdowns of your colonists. Nobody starts fires because of bad mood, they do it because they go insane.

Sanity is the cornerstone of this new system. When sanity falls below a certain threshold, random mental breakdowns can happen just like before. Sanity also ties in to the new AI and will provide some additional behavioral changes.

The UI used to display mood effects was pretty confusing, therefore it also received a small redesign.

Awakening from Stasis

The Stasis Array now offers a choice whenever a new colonist needs to be awakened. This not only provides greater control over who joins your crew but also ensures no new colonist is overlooked.

Free Select Tool Overhaul

The input and how it feels during gameplay are really important, so I decided to redo the Free Select tool. This tool handles everything you do with the mouse when you haven't picked a specific tool, like left clicking, right clicking, and dragging. It might seem simple, but here's what the tool does:


Originally, it was just "click to select something," but after four years of adding features, it turned into a huge, messy block of code about 1600 lines of what's known as "technical debt." I took it apart and reorganized everything, making it easy to update or add new features, and the whole thing is now built with modding support. This was a big victory and it even made me reconsider how tooltips work when you hover over different items.

The entire refactoring process was documented in a series of videos on YouTube if you're interested in the technical specifics.

That's it for this update, see you next month!
- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-03-14 17:38:20 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!

It's been about three months since I started working on the upcoming major update, and while I'm still far from done, there's a lot of progress.

I have reimplemented most of the basic needs like Hunger, Sleep, Eating, Hygiene, Fun, Electricity (for bots) and a better half of the AI behaviors for tasks like Construction, Hauling, Refilling, Repairing, Demolition, Moving, etc. And the most important feature of the game - cats riding cleaning bots - is already there!

https://twitter.com/dev_spajus/status/1754883175384252852


To get a feel for the scope of this rewrite, here's how much the code has changed:

[code]git diff --ignore-all-space --shortstat master -- "*.cs" "*.json"
2344 files changed, 51605 insertions(+), 62392 deletions(-)
[/code]

For perspective, this is how big the whole project is:

[code]-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language files blank comment code------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C# 2066 27122 18418 272135
JSON 1950 701 0 64152------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SUM: 4016 27823 18418 336287------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [/code]

The impact of this update will be far greater than just AI and beings. Since I'm touching so many parts, I am taking a critical look at every mechanic I touch, and I'm axing things that are confusing and aren't fun. For example, the controversial "Device Wear" is completely removed.

On the technical side of things, I had a chance to rewrite some core parts of the framework that runs the whole simulation. This yielded significant performance boost at high clock speeds, the simulation is now able to run at a mind blowing rate that was never possible before. 10x speed will be truly 10x for everyone, and in my tests I can simulate a day of game time in just a couple of seconds.

Talking about tests, I'm rewriting them all too. Hundreds of tests were obsolete due to the changes, so I took the liberty to rethink the test architecture completely, focusing on their stability and speed. If you're interested to learn more about how automated tests work in Stardeus, I have a video about it here: https://youtu.be/043EY6H5424

The current focus of development is on body parts and their installation / removal / harvesting, also damage, wounds, healing and various conditions. That involves adding new devices, tons of various body parts, defining the abilities and status effects those parts provide, and figuring out how to tie it all together.

While there's certainly some complexity involved, I love how flexible things are getting due to the new mechanics. Here's an example:

https://twitter.com/dev_spajus/status/1755632007177003049


There's a bit of bad news too. I won't be able to keep my promise of old saves always working for this update. The game has changed too drastically, and trying to make the code backwards compatible with old saves would complicate the development and delay the release of this update by a few months, so I made a choice to break the save file compatibility. This also allows me to clean up some hairy parts of the old code that I had to keep just for ancient save files to work.

There will be a transition period for testing the new update, which should give some time for mods to catch up, and you will have plenty of time to finish your current run.

As of when the new update will be ready, I can't predict that yet, all I can say is that the development pace is increasing, as I'm learning how to use the new AI efficiently, and more and more parts are coming together. I'm doing my best to get it done as soon as I can!

That's it for now, see you next month!
- spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-02-13 17:54:24 CET ] [Original Post]

Hey everyone!


Time for a progress update. It was a busy month, and while Stardeus' codebase currently looks like this fully disassembled car, I have something new to show you.

New Game Setup Screen

Stardeus will have a new game setup screen. You will be able to randomize your starting crew, customize their names, and see their skills.

Each crew member, including robots and even pets, will have a Backstory and Traits that can modify the skills or add other perks. The age of a crew member determines how much experience they have. There are four phases of a lifetime - childhood, young adulthood, mid-life and retirement. A role will be assigned for each phase, which will make younger crew members slightly less skilled than older ones.

Human Body Types, Hair Styles and Portraits

Humans will become much more unique and distinguishable from each other. They will have four different body types - feminine, masculine, thin and large. There will be dozens of new hair styles, and new clothing items.

All clothing items will fit all body types. Once you have a space suit, anyone can wear it.

The UI will also show accurate human portraits rather than an icon of a bald naked dude that you see right now.

Development Timeline

I cant yet accurately predict how long it will take to finish this major update, as it literally requires rewriting almost half of the game. Instead of wasting my time on vague estimates, Ill put my head down and get back to work. I will start adding estimates in the monthly updates as soon as I can tell something other than "at least 6 more months".

If youre curious to see the development process, catch me live on Twitch, or browse the archive of the development sessions on YouTube.

See you next time!
-spajus

Follow the Development

• Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
• Join Stardeus Discord
• /r/stardeus on Reddit
• @StardeusGame on Twitter
• @dev_spajus on Twitter
• @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
• dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
  

Get Stardeus

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/

[ 2024-01-15 04:28:23 CET ] [Original Post]