fixed Bed Bug where crew would stop recharging after only one crew reached full health
- fix a few mission and item scripts
- tweak various mission and item content
- add checks to fix some of the issues reported on Unity's Cloud Diagnostics

* feel free to post any continued or new issues in the steam community forums

fix a few crash analytics issues
- fix ship upgrades not working for shields and recharge
- minor updates to various mission (fixes and improvements)
- support resolution up to 2560x1440

Known issues:
- if one crew gets out of bed all crew stop re-energizing
- other issues are being posted and discussed in forums

Star Commanders

We are excited to announce final release is upon us. This update is the final release candidate.

That's right Star Command is complete and we are running a final flight-systems check before full launch. So get out there Captain, and launch to explore the fully complete Star Command Galaxies.

Thank you for your years of support. Yes, this is a final release candidate out of the blue!

Leave us all of your thoughts on the discussion forums. All crashes will be reported to our cloud tracking automatically - just an fyi.

We are preparing for launch Star Commanders!

Please test this final release candidate v1.0.

Everything has been fundamentally and significantly overhauled, optimized, and polished.

Complete game is present with full features.

Please report feedback of all variety on the steam page discussion forums

Warballoon will receive meta-data reports of crashes - description of any reproducible scenarios will be appreciated as will qualitative feedback of all types!

Thank you for your contributions to making the final launch preparations before take-off.

-Warballoon

[previewyoutube=mBrGhbqx534;full][/previewyoutube]

IT... IS... ALIIIIIIIIVE!!!

And playable.

Star Commanders we are launching an all-new BETA and we can't wait to hear your passive aggressive dismissal of our progress!



But for the lucky few of you still alive (on our steam page) this isn't a giant hulk of dead video game - it is a living breathing undead zombie video game: play it now!

Update Features:
The FULL game from start to finish.
8 Tendrils to explore
Each tendril features independent missions and encounters
Full rebalance update
Full bug-squashing update

We are so excited to have you play it!

Give us your impressions - a more thorough update will replace this post shortly, but for now.... GO PLAY IT!

Thank you!

Warballoon.

FINAL BETA NOW.

[previewyoutube=zkvDuGu3-ZY;full][/previewyoutube]

Star Commanders,

We need your help for the FINAL BETA build! This build has the full game. Some parts may be a little unrefined, but it is all there, awaiting your feedback.

We can't do it without you - our loyal and fully expendable cadets.

What is there:

8 complete mission sets
Dozens of randomly generated encounters
All new weapons, enemies, ships, ship weapons... it's a LOT of new stuff
Initial balance, pacing, economy and difficulty

What we need:

Bug reports
Play impressions
Critiques and suggestions
Unflinching Heavenly Praise
Brutal honesty
Odd stuff
Wish lists
First born children
Kidneys
Gameplay impressions

What isn't there yet (on purpose)

100% Final dialog
Placeholder artwork, encounters,ships
Less redundant random encounters
final storyline... and a big twist!

Please post feedback in the discussion (steam forums) or even in the comment section of this post.

Where do we go from here?

We will take everything and anything we receive and do our best to improve and implement it before the final launch. This version of the game will help us test pacing, difficulty, overall impressions, balance and bugs.

Good luck captains!

Greeting Star Commanders,

We have been hard at work on getting the FINAL BETA but we need a small group of you - the chosen few reading this - to PRE-TEST to make sure there are no showstoppers.

We need you strong, able-bodied, young cadets to find any GAMEBREAKERS before the BIG GROUP gets into their easy-to-open FINAL BETA update.

SO please - help us see if there are any GAMEBREAKERS over the next few days to help prepare us for FINAL BETA launch.

If you are here to avoid such frustrations - we should be releasing the FINAL BETA shortly.

THANKS AGAIN - as always.

WARBALLOON

Leave comments & feedback & bugs & hatemail here or in forum.

TO PLAY GO TO:

Please go to your Library >> Star Command Galaxies >>> Right Click - 'Properties' >> BETAS >> betatesting - [down arrow] 'Beta Testing branch' AND THATS IT ... (no password needed)

Star Commanders,

The solar flares are flaring,
the Glorsnoofs are snarlinging,
and another BETA update has landed.

Star Command BETA v 9000.3 has arrived and it needs your beta testing!

Does it load?
Is it boring?
Who is your Daddy and what do they do?

Tell us! Help us! Love us?

HOW TO HELP:

Please go to your Library >> Star Command Galaxies >>> Right Click - 'Properties' >> BETAS >> betatesting - [down arrow] 'Beta Testing branch' AND THATS IT ... (no password needed)

Start the game... Play the game... Love or hate the game... Post your thoughts in this comment or in steam discussion board... Tell us about why it cheated on you with Volnar.

Psshh Volnar, what does it have that I don't... besides an armada and thousands of blood-oathed underlings at their every command.... damnit.

Here is a short list of the bugs we attempted to fix:

fixed big issue with enemy damage making objects unrepairable
fixed hull placement in buy menu
RMB = deselect character
fixed 'So Many Bugs' encounter
added verification to main menu popups
got rid of baddies prematurely triggering encounter steps (we hope)
Zombie Encounter should now work? I hope!
fixed tooltips so they work on way more objects
Had a big bad bug if you picked green nebulus ship
crew no longer auto leave posts
disabled quickjump whilst at station

The game is thoroughly tested until the Zombie Encounter.. then its kind of wild-west... still getting there.

Star Commanders,

After a few long orbits in the outer asteroid belt, we are happy to report we have a brand new BETA build up on the Beta-testing branch on Steam.

It is live right now, you simply need to enable it inside the game 'properties' in your Steam Library.

So what is new? Well we fixed a lot of the AI, and a lot of mission polish, balance and tightening of all things all around. It is simply in a much better state and should feel very good.

You can also theoretically beat the entire game now. The latter missions purposefully use repeated encounters to placehold - but if this all works we'll update those before final launch with new challenging content.

What we would LOVE is overall feedback about your time in the game - any consistent bugs? What annoyed you? What did you love? What do you want us to work on the most to improve? What do you miss from mobile? Any feedback is welcome and appreciated!!!

So, we are now entering final descent to landing and we are happy to have you aboard! Let's hope we don't crash and burn!

-Warballoon

Hello Star Commanders!

We would love to get your feedback on the latest beta we just put up on the beta branch.
We are excited to hear your thoughts!

So this is a 90% done version and should take about 2-5 hours to play from start to end.
We have turned off the second half of the game for now, as we think that we can tweak and balance it based on feedback we get from this beta.

So PLEASE let us know how the latest game plays, and we will be improving it based upon feedback as we make the final push!

Whats in there now:
4 adventures: Salvage, Rebel chase, Asteroid SOS, Orbital Decay.

What is done but we have disabled for now - waiting for YOUR feedback for balance and pacing:
5 More adventures: Rebel Wave, Tourist Trap, Grolbellion, Rebel Base, Ending

Those 9 adventures will be our launch title: there will also be other game modes of various sorts.
Thanks for your help! and thank you ahead of time for giving us your honest feedback.

Thanks!
Warballoon

PS to play the betas Beta - right click on Star Command Galaxies in your library, go to Properties and then Beta and you will see the Beta branch available in the dropdown menu.

Hey Star Commanders,

As we approach a more and more complete version of Star Command Galaxies we'd love to have your input if you are up for the task!

We are releasing the latest BETA build on the Beta Branch as of now.

The game is like 90% there but that last 10% will make the game sing - but until it does we need your help, in the comments/discussions with the following items:

- BUGS? If your game crashed our back-end will register these bugs - GREAT - most likely no discussion needed. Still though, we would like to hear the stories behind these incidents to make sure our findings match with your crashes.

- SOFT BUGS? Any weird oddities / game-enders / weird moments / stuck? / Not working?

- Concepts that took too long to understand? Is there something that seems awkward to understand or things about the game that made no sense for a while.

- Weapons or enemies feedback - overpowered/underpowered/too useless etc.

- Economy feedback - "too easy/hard to get gold, scrap or medicine"

- Your worst 2 things about the game

- Your top 2 favorite things about the game

What would you add if you had a week?

THANKS THANKS THANKS

Warballoon.

Greetings Captains!

Some of you might have seen our Facebook comments where we talked about October 2nd being the release date. Today, we are here to announce...

...

that we are still alive and working on the game, but today is not the release date.

We've been largely upgrading the game behind the scenes, fixing a lot of the bugs we've seen, ironing out some of the balance issues, but we are definitely not ready yet for a full release at this point. We still have assets to add, encounters to build for a bit more variety, and bugs to fix. So release is still a little ways out.



In the meantime, we agree with several of our posters that we haven't given a proper update on what we're doing with the game for too long. Today, we'd like to introduce you to one of the changes we've been making to Nav, one that some of you might have noticed when watching twitch streams of SC:G.

Nav in the live version is currently a bit of a chaotic mess. A call is sent out to you from somewhere in the galaxy, you select the node where the call is coming from, then you travel along a pre-selected path to reach that goal. This can lead to the galaxy feeling less like a specific choice and more like a chore. It can also lead to extremely different feeling play experiences when it takes 5 nodes to get to a mission in one game and 2 nodes to get to the same mission in the next game.

One issue with that system is we can't necessarily control what order you do those encounters in and, on a larger scale, we can't necessarily tell where you are in the macro-game. So to solve this chaotic and disordered delivery of content, we decided to make more of a choose-your-own-route to the endpoint which we call Tendril Galaxies.



With Tendril Galaxies, you get some novelty every time you replay, but the main story missions are delivered in order of the narrative. These are a lot smaller than the current galaxy, but they will have far more obvious paths to take. When you first enter a Tendril Galaxy, you are explicitly choosing where to go and what to do. Do you want to deal with two hard nodes and a vendor, or would you rather deal with 2 medium nodes and a hard node with a nebula on each one? These nodes will also have encounters largely designed to fit within that Tendril Galaxy (with some randomization still around, of course).



At the end of each mission, you will receive a request from your crew to return to your station where you will find new things that await. New vendors, a new mission, new NPCs, possibly even new hireable crew. These changes to your station will help prepare you for the fight ahead...but be warned, the fight ahead will be preparing for you as well.



We should have a new version of Galaxies up on the beta branch within the next few days so you can try out this new setup. We still have a lot of content gaps to fill, but we hope that the idea of where we are taking this comes across better with this new version.

As always, let us know what you think and what bugs you find.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We've just pushed out a hotfix to our beta branch for you to play with should you choose. Several aspects of the game have changed, so it may feel a bit different at first.

- Navigation is now divided up into Easy/Medium/Hard nodes which will determine the difficulty of encounters you run into.
- In-game traveling vendors have been added into the Nav Map as well.
- Encounters with choices will offer different rewards on Easy/Medium/Hard difficulties.
- Most kits have stronger equivalent kits that you can find and use.
- Walls being destroyed now can spawn a small particle that may damage your crew or enemies, and will start to explode more as a ship gets weaker.
- Certain ship walls will consistently stay in their raised state for an improved ship display.
- Many vendors have had their inventories updated, and a Droid Merchant has been added.
- Plenty of bug fixes

As we extend out the content for the next phase of the game and update our in-game balance, we'd like to get your feedback on several items:

- Do any weapons/kits feel super overpowered or underpowered?
- Do any parts of the game just feel weird or confusing?
- Is there any specific encounter you'd like to see improvement on?
- Are you noticing slowdowns in any particular areas?

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

Today, we have rolled out an update to the Beta branch for testing. There is still a good amount of content to add in before release and some places where things are unfinished (Nav, for instance), but we wanted to get our general structure down and finalized before finishing up the content.

First, let's start with the good stuff. What's new?

COVER COMBAT
For a while, we have felt that our combat has not had a lot of strategy to it. You stand in one spot, the enemy stands in another, and the battle comes down to who remains when the fight is done. To fix this, we have added in several objects to our maps (with more to come) that provide cover when fighting. When any character is hidden behind cover, they will take slightly-to-significantly less damage depending how strong the cover is.



CREW ENERGY
One of the main difference you will notice is that we have brought back energy, but in a different form. Energy now works as a constantly refilling resource which your crew will use for most of their abilities. Healing, Ship Repair, Weaponry, Cloaking...all of these now use energy as opposed to the previous ammo system we had for kits. This means that your pistols are only limited by your recharge rate in combat and can be used repeatedly.



NEW REBEL THREATS
The rebellion has been growing in the time it has taken us to release this game, so you can imagine just how strong it has gotten. They now fight all over, and you might just get a distress call from a Star Command vessel in need. Additionally, you will now see a constant Rebel Threat meter which will grow or decrease based upon your actions in-game. If it gets too high, they will come at all parts of the galaxy with full force. They are of course willing to work with you to grow their strength and might offer you various trades to not fight them in certain places, such as a battle droid or rare weaponry. If you take their deal, they will grow in strength. However, you can also call their bluff and make several encounters intentionally harder. If you win one of these harder encounters, you will take down their threat level a bit.



KIT & SYSTEM UPDATES
With the aforementioned new energy system, we decided to make improvements to two of our more problematic systems, healing and repair. These are still done with kits, but are now done via a pressed button cast rather than internal behavior settings. Those settings are still there, but they have instead been given to droids that will work with you as discovered. Additionally, we have also given most of our ship systems and kits three different levels of strength and rarity, so there will almost certainly be better stuff for you to track down as the game proceeds.



NEW REWARDS
Getting money and XP is nice and all, but it just isn't as exciting as being able to choose your own rewards. To this end, we have added and updated our rewards system to give plenty of objects at the end of various encounters & missions. Some, like scrap and money, are far more commonly found in the galaxy. Others, like new crew and droids, are far less common, but will occasionally come up.



We also do have plenty of smaller pieces that we have added in as well, including a "Select All Crew" keyboard shortcut (Y), purchasable inventories on some NPCs, and several bug fixes.

We do plan to continue working on this, including more encounters, weapons, maps, scenarios, missions, storyline, and more. We also need to do a few more balance passes, so things like the in-game economy and drop rates are still very WIP right now.

In any case, let us know what you think. Thank you for all of your support!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

Many of you have been asking questions about the Star Command Isometric Enhanced New Creation Editor, aka SCIENCE. For those that don't know about it, SCIENCE is our in-game modding tool. We have occasionally had the Maps portion of SCIENCE available in a test version on the beta branch, but it largely has not fully been discussed. Please keep in mind that some of the screenshots and assets we will be showing here are still works in progress.

Modding is one of those things which we have designed and redesigned in our efforts to get it right. We want players to be able to customize and build everything in the game, but we also want to keep the difficulty level & story as presented. We want creators to have the freedom to do whatever they want to do, but we also want to ensure that someone doesn't break the full game to the point of needing a redownload simply by making a mistake while learning our tools. Ideally, we want SCIENCE to be a tool set that is not incredibly difficult to understand and use for beginners, but has enough flexibility that experienced modders can really do a lot.

Maps



The main portion of SCIENCE right now is the Maps portion, where you can build or create a ship of various objects/weaponry/crew to fight or explore. You can pick a hull, draw out a floor map, add in walls/objects/treasures, and create a decent looking map. But a ship is far more than just a simple collection of floors and objects, and we want you to be able to make yours more than that as well. Within SCIENCE Maps, we have added several characters that you can bring in and place on your ship. We have also extended out our Captain Creator to allow for non-captains to be built and saved into SCIENCE, just on the off chance someone wants to write themselves into their own Star Command fanfic.



We have also added in things like Trigger Tiles and Cargo Areas that you will be able to use in your own encounters in the future.

Lights

Much like any good house/apartment/dumpster, your ship will also need some good lighting. While we can't bring the entirety of Unity's lighting engine into the game, we have been working on a custom tool to allow you to build and save your own lights onto a map. You can set their range, color, type, intensity, as well as update a lot of position/rotation aspects. They are saved in a list, so you can go back and change them as needed.



Quick Battle

Once you have built a ship with lights, you might be wondering how to test it out. For this, we have added a Quick Battle option. In Quick Battle mode, you choose a ship you have created and then choose how many extra characters you want to put on it. Once chosen, the ship spawns with your specifications and the battle begins! Can a generic player ship take down your custom ship? If so, you can always spawn another ship and continue the fight!



Steam Workshop

Once you have edited your ship to be crazy difficult, you may well want to show off your work and watch other people die to it on Twitch. Or just put it up on Steam Workshop. For that, we have added a Bundler as well as tools to upload to and browse from our Star Command Steam Workshop page. With the bundler, you can choose to put in any set of custom Maps, custom Characters, and custom lighting designs.



Once you have chosen all the items you want in this bundle, you can then upload it and watch the comments roll in.



Future Plans

While this is the start of what we have planned for SCIENCE, we have plenty more to come. Probably the next pieces after these will be custom Objects and Hulls, so you can fully customize all aspects of your ship. From there, we also want you to be able to write your own stories, so we have plans to add in areas for custom Dialog, Encounters, and Missions. Among the other options we have discussed for some point in the future are custom Races, custom Galaxies, and a place to build and move around the UI.

We hope to have this in your hands for testing and breaking the game fairly soon. We can't wait to see what feedback you have for us and what ships you create!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We hope you have been enjoying Beta 2.1 so far. Today, we will be pushing up an update to our Save system which may or may not cause some issues in the short term. With this change in place, the games you save from here forward should now load you properly back at the node you were on, within the encounter you were facing, and with everything left as you remember it. We expect that this will cause several bugs and look forward to fixing them as quickly as we can.

What We Tried/Why We Tried It
Saves can very much be a game breaker when they are available whenever and wherever. The galaxy tends to feel a lot less dangerous when you can simply save at every node, especially in games where you might wind up with easier fights or a less damaged ship simply by reloading.

In addition to being a game breaking feature, they can also actually break the game. Those of you who have been in the Alpha/Beta for a while have likely noticed that we have gone through several iterations of saves as well as save bugs. Many of you have lost Captains or Crew due to saving games when they were on other ships, never to be loaded again. Others of you have noticed saves that never seem to reload, instead leaving you hanging on a "Loading: Textures" display. Most people who sent their saves into us for fixing had errors within these two categories.

To fix both of these, we tried a setup for a while where you had to load at your station or at least at the nearest warp gate. This seemed like an optimal solution both for the bugs as well as the danger factor. What we found was that while this did help a lot for many broken saves, this instead led to a lot of confusion within the game. It feels weird in play to be fighting a pirate fleet, save your game, then come back later to that save at the station as if it was all a dream. Coming back to an old save and already feel weird enough without us changing it further.

Where We Landed
After hearing a lot of feedback about how our saves felt, we have come back around to making Saves available anywhere, loading you in hopefully the exact situation where you last left off. While this does still feel a bit game breaking in an overall sense, we feel that we can counteract this with proper balance. Even if we are unable to, the trade-off is worth it for a less confusing save system.

Unfortunately, that means that we may have some save bugs in the short term. So we are asking you all to try it out and let us know what you think. If you have a save bug, let us know. If you don't have a save bug, let us know.

As always, thanks for all of your support!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We are happy to rollout Beta 2.1 which introduces a lot of new features. This represents our goal of releasing much more regular content with a stable base to build on. We are getting closer and closer to launch and all the new stuff should get us closer to it.

So whats new?

SHIP PROGRESSION
Your ship will now start off as a starter ship should: a piece of junk that really can’t do a whole lot. As you complete missions you will collect Ship Upgrade points allowing you to increase shields, hull strength, battery recharge rate and energy capacity. This will continue to expand as we introduce new ship systems, new weapons and other surprises.



CREW SKILL TREE
On top of building your ship up, you will now be able to progress your crew by increasing many of their attributes. You can increase things like hp, speed, accuracy, repair rates and other elements of your crew as you explore the galaxy. We will continue to expand this system with future updates.



SINGLE CLICK INTERFACE
One of the bigger changes is our move towards a simplified interface. To this end, the mouse will now be single click for all actions. There are a few reasons for this: during our recent lay tests at Minecraft conventions it became very clear that our younger audiences were not adapting to a left and right click method for selection and action. People would also get lost when crew were selected and were not. But most importantly this moves us on a path for making the game mobile friendly for our original fans.

CREW VOICEOVER
We have introduced voice acting when you select and interact with crew member selection and movement. The voice tracks are placeholder and will be expanding them to very Star Command specific things (equipping weapons, working at stations, picking up kits) but this should give you a flavor of whats to come. The main reason for this is, again, clarity of interface. Selecting and sending your crew to places should be much clearer with the voice feedback.

NEW REWARDS FOR MISSIONS

We have added in some new classes for rewards and, like our economy are starting to balance out what you get for each mission.

ECONOMY BALANCING AND COIN DROPS
We are starting to balance our economy out which includes adjust weapons, crew values, XP values and more. To this end you will now be able to pick up loot from dead bodies including coins and XP.

WHAT’S NEXT?
We are going to continue to refine the economies and balance of game items, XP, ship upgrade costs, enemy skill levels and challenges. On top of that we will be introducing random encounters between our missions. Finally we will be introducing a ton of new items: new guns, new weapons, new kits, new armor and lot’s of other fun stuff as we expand on the base we have (finally) established.

We are super excited about the direction of the game and hope to keeping give updates every 2-3 weeks as we make progress and move towards release.

Looking forward to feedback!

Cheers,

Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

First, thank you so much for all of the feedback on Beta 2. We are still working to fix the bugs that you have been sending to us, such as saves. But we have also been looking ahead towards launch. With that in mind, we thought we'd spend some time today writing up a wall of text about where we plan to take Crew progression.

What We've Tried
Crew progression has always been a bit of a tricky subject, both in terms of classes and crew perks/quirks. In the past, we had a set up of 10 different classes you could choose between based upon a progression path. You could upgrade your cadet to a Tactician, then turn them into a Scout, then they could be a Soldier. Each class had it's own unique abilities...which was nice at first. But this started to feel weird really fast. A Doctor would become a Hacker which gave them the ability to hack enemy systems, but should they also keep the ability to heal? It's weird to have a Hacker heal you, but it's also weird for said Hacker to forget everything they knew about medical school at the click of a button.

We also found our perks and quirks to have their own weird flaws. Quirks as a whole we found mostly just annoyed people and seemed demotivating rather than fun. Take the IBS quirk, which made your crew member have a sudden need to use the toilet. It was funny the first time, but annoying the fifth time...and it caused a lot of weird behaviors. We would have pirates running across entire maps mid-combat simply on a toilet run. This made a lot of behaviors look and feel bugged as well. You'd tell a character to go to the shields, but their own inner nagging voice was telling them to go to bed.

Perks had some good factors, but overall the delivery system came out wrong. It was rewarding and nice to have a crew member who could use Nav better than anyone else, but trying to juggle individual crew loyalty to get a new perk felt weird. As this same juggling loyalty system was also tied into quirks, it made things that should have been optional like crew missions feel almost required. If you were in the middle of working through the Asteroid and your engineer demanded a TV in 12 in-game hours, you either had to leave the mission to find one or have a crew member with any one of a number of weird quirks.

The Plan for Launch
In the latest beta, we took out all classes above the Engineer/Scientist/Tactician level. Most of the classes above these have instead been rolled into Kits. This allows for the same Scientist to be capable of healing and hacking, but not necessarily at the same time. This we feel allows for a good amount of player choice as well as the ability to really control when things like Hackers might come into play.

With that in mind, an individual character's progression should not be limited to the first five minutes you have them. We want you to be able to upgrade each character throughout the time you have them, including your Captain. For this, we have added a tree of skills for all non-cadet crew members you have. Cadets will still need to be upgraded before they can do anything. The categories we are working with currently are HP, Speed, Ship Systems, Accuracy (for Tacticians), Repair (for Engineers), and Healing (for Scientists). Each point you purchase in these skills will enhance your crew in that area. Want to build up your Tactician's HP and make them a tank? Take the HP area first. Want that same Tactician to be a better shot instead? Take the Accuracy points first.

Into the future
While we have changed our kits to better encompass our old classes, we have not fully determined that they are gone for good. We have looked into some ideas for those, such as mixed max level classes (Hacker would be a mix of Engineer/Scientist). This would likely be along with a new chapter of the story where it best fits (e.g. a Diplomat within the Trilax story), but only if we can find an area where it feels like the new class adds new gameplay.

The nice part about our new skills system is that we can add and adjust it as needed. We can add more points to a specific area, or we can add in new areas as we find them useful. This allows us to make individual crew progression continue into future content, should we wish.

That's more or less what we think on crew progression currently. What are your thoughts on the new setup? Or is there perhaps another topic you would like to see us talk about in this wall of text style? Please let us know in the comments below.

As always, thanks for all of your support!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We are proud to roll out Beta 2 to the general Star Command public. This has been a long time coming and this gets us very close to release.

WHAT'S NEW?
Every part of Star Command Galaxies has received some attention. Our biggest features are below:

Simpler Gameplay
We have removed energy, food and loyalty in favor of simpler crew management. Many of our fans had issues with these features and after much deliberation we agreed. Other features including automated repair and healing have also been implemented.

New Missions
The game currently features all of our main missions. Some of the later missions still have some work but as a whole the core story is there. Our next focus will be on the random encounters that you can run into across the galaxy as you travel.

New Combat UI
We implemented new tracking so that is easier to see who is shooting at whom and from where. This should make battles much easier to track - especially as more and more ships are added.

New Enemy Types
Enemies will now have new types of ships to attack you with. They are more specialized (like ships that focus on draining shields or draining your batteries) and this should give much more diversity to combat. We will really be expanding on this for our next progression update.

Fleets
You now have the ability to call in other friendly ships when the odds are no longer in your favor. You can earn fleet cards by finishing missions for other ships.

Rewards & Augments
You can now choose your rewards after missions. This system will connect to the augments system which will allow you to upgrade your ship adding HP, Shields, Battery Capacity and Recharge. The current system is very much a work in progress but will be finalized for the next release.

Hundreds of bug fixes
Too many to list we have fixed everything we possibly could.

Save Game Fixes
Save games should be much more solid and resume much more consistently than in the past.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

• There is still a bug where people won’t use a console or item because it’s “occupied” by a character that isn’t there. If you see this bug 1) please report it and tell us what triggered it and 2) try just moving the object. This fixes it until we can find the source of this issue.
  
• Beta 2 is features only the main missions of the game. Random encounters will be coming with release.
  
• Some of our later missions are still a work in progress.
  
• Numbers/balance is rough. This will be our biggest focus for the next release.
  
• Last few missions are placeholder dialog - but the idea is there - we want to verify the missions are completable.
  
• Some ship maps are placeholder.
  
• Augments are still very much in beta and we will be finishing those up for launch.
  

• Much better progression for you ship and crew
  
• Random encounters around the galaxy
  
• New loot and other gear
  
• Polish polish polish
  
• S.C.I.E.N.C.E. - our ship and map maker so that you can mod the game to your hearts delight. It is our goal to have that integrated with Steam Workshop as well.
  

Greetings Captains!

After 6 months of development we are happy to announce Beta 2 is now beta-testing live on Beta Branch (now that's a lotta beta...).

There are some issues we are still working through, including saves but we would love to get any feedback you have.

HOW TO ACTIVATE 'BETA BRANCH' IN STEAM:
- Right Click 'Star Command Galaxies' in your Steam Library and go to 'Properties'
- Under the 'BETAS' tab, activate 'betatesting' branch
- Let the update finish
- Play Beta 2
- Leave quality, detailed, perhaps even angry feedback on the Discussion Forums

WHAT IS NEW?
With so much new we have too many features to list - the shortlist is:

- All New Missions (every mission is redone or brand spanking new)
- New Combat AI
- New Weapons
- New Bad Guys
- New Combat UI
- New Ship Augments Upgrades(very beta)
- Removed: food & energy, happiness, day timer, crew pay, and stores all to make a more streamlined game.
- Thousands of bug fixes and optimizations.
- Save game fixes (still beta)

THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND:.
- Beta 2 is features only the main missions of the game. Random encounters will be coming with release.
- Some of our later missions are still a work in progress.
- Numbers/balance is rough - help us balance!
- Last few missions are placeholder dialog - but the idea is there - we want to verify the missions are completable.
- Some maps are placeholder
- Augments are still very much in beta and we will be finishing those up for launch.

What we need from you are impressions, suggestions, bugs, feedback, and whatever else. We will be on the forums reading every post to make sure the final launch is as great a game as we can make it - WITH YOUR HELP!

WHAT IS NEXT?!

Launch! Our next release will be the formal launch of Star Command Galaxies. It will feature:
- Much better progression for you ship and crew
- Random encounters around the galaxy
- New loot and other gear
- Polish polish polish
- S.C.I.E.N.C.E. - our ship and map maker so that you can mod the game to your hearts delight. It is our goal to have that integrated with Steam Workshop as well.

Post-launch
We have 90% of the assets done for our first planned expansion the Midorians, and then it will be onto Antorians and Trilax after that as we add in new gameplay and continue to support Star Command.

AS ALWAYS THANKS FOR ALL OF YOUR SUPPORT!!!

Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We have released an update for Beta 1 addressing many of the bugs and issues that have come up since launch. The patch is live and should autoupdate.

Patch notes below:

• Removed Zombie Knockback
  
• Added a way to show where you can/can't teleport on another ship
  
• Lowered the intensity of the weapon range circles
  
• Purchasing a new ship should no longer cause you to lose the inventory of your old ship
  
• Rebalanced some encounters for difficulty and rewards
  
• Added a Ship Wave mode
  
• Fixed an issue where you could lose crew members after successfully completing a Takeover Encounter
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not move items next to the Kitchenette on the Nebulous Offender
  
• Enemies should no longer shoot at you post death
  
• Depressed and IBS have been removed as Personalities
  
• FOW has been adjusted slightly
  
• Sound has been somewhat altered to prevent sound effects from going above the set options level
  
• The options menu (as well as some others) has been adjusted to better fit for all resolutions
  
• Survival mode can now be restarted from the Game Over screen
  
• Save Games can now be deleted from the Save/Load Menu
  
• Tons of other small tweaks and fixes
  

Greetings Captains!

We have released an update for Beta 1 addressing many of the bugs and issues that have come up since launch. The patch is live and should autoupdate.

Patch notes below:

• Removed Zombie Knockback
  
• Added a way to show where you can/can't teleport on another ship
  
• Lowered the intensity of the weapon range circles
  
• Purchasing a new ship should no longer cause you to lose the inventory of your old ship
  
• Rebalanced some encounters for difficulty and rewards
  
• Added a Ship Wave mode
  
• Fixed an issue where you could lose crew members after successfully completing a Takeover Encounter
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not move items next to the Kitchenette on the Nebulous Offender
  
• Enemies should no longer shoot at you post death
  
• Depressed and IBS have been removed as Personalities
  
• FOW has been adjusted slightly
  
• Sound has been somewhat altered to prevent sound effects from going above the set options level
  
• The options menu (as well as some others) has been adjusted to better fit for all resolutions
  
• Survival mode can now be restarted from the Game Over screen
  
• Save Games can now be deleted from the Save/Load Menu
  
• Tons of other small tweaks and fixes
  

Greetings Captains!

Beta has gone very, very well for us. We won't even pretend that the game doesn't still have some significant things to improve upon but the stability bug reports are down at a staggering level compared to previous releases. This has given us the breathing room we have been craving for a long time. So what does that mean?


Well, first we have cleaned up a ton of bugs. We should be rolling out our final Beta 1 patch soon. We have been reading the bug forums daily while also addressing anything that comes in from our analytics. The game will continue to get more and more stable and predictable.


Second we are working on some exciting features and great content. To begin with, Beta 2 will shift the galaxy into "Sectors." Your station will be at the center of those sectors and you can travel into them in order to start a self-contained experience. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we can concisely release new content packs and it will be easy for you to locate the new "Midorain Sector" or "Antorian Civil War" sector. Second, our modders will have the ability to build their own sectors. Players that download those sectors form the Steam Workshop will be able to quickly find new, player-created sectors.

We are also starting the Rebel sector from scratch. Up until this point many of our missions and encounters were architypes meant to test a certain feature or concept. None of them really had the character, story or sense of adventure that we try to bring to life in the Star Command universe. We are currently working on brand new adventures starting with a Mining Colony invasion.

We are going to continue to work on content throughout the month some of which will involve making enemy ships more specialty based. It will be much clearer moving forward what a ship "does" - some will have battery draining cannons, others will have freeze rays or the ability to heal other ships.

More to come very soon!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

Beta has gone very, very well for us. We won't even pretend that the game doesn't still have some significant things to improve upon but the stability bug reports are down at a staggering level compared to previous releases. This has given us the breathing room we have been craving for a long time. So what does that mean?


Well, first we have cleaned up a ton of bugs. We should be rolling out our final Beta 1 patch soon. We have been reading the bug forums daily while also addressing anything that comes in from our analytics. The game will continue to get more and more stable and predictable.


Second we are working on some exciting features and great content. To begin with, Beta 2 will shift the galaxy into "Sectors." Your station will be at the center of those sectors and you can travel into them in order to start a self-contained experience. The reason for this is two-fold. First, we can concisely release new content packs and it will be easy for you to locate the new "Midorain Sector" or "Antorian Civil War" sector. Second, our modders will have the ability to build their own sectors. Players that download those sectors form the Steam Workshop will be able to quickly find new, player-created sectors.

We are also starting the Rebel sector from scratch. Up until this point many f our missions and encounters were architypes meant to test a certain feature or concept. None of them really had the character, story or sense of adventure that we try to bring to life in the Star Command universe. We are currently working on brand new adventures starting with a Mining Colony invasion.

We are going to continue to wrok on content throughout the month working next on making enemy ships more specialty based. It will be much clearer moving forward what a ship "does" - some will have battery draining cannons, others will have freeze rays or the ability to heal other ships.

More to come very soon!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We have been working this week on fixing up some of the quirks with hand-to-hand combat. We have added a few new features and fixed some behaviors that we think should make things much more solid going forward. The first big addition is range circles that will show you the radius of things that can be attacked, repaired or healed. We will continue to polish these but this should help make things a bit clearer. Second we got into the behavior of the crew and enemies and cleaned some things up. Crew should be much better at seeking out new targets and much less likely to just stand around and wait for someone to kill them.

The latest is live now on all branches. Pick it up and tell us if you see anything funky.

Next week we will be working on a brand new reward system that should really be fun! Enjoy your weekend!

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Range Circles showing the area your crew members can attack, repair and heal.
  
• Fundamental changes to crew and enemy attack behavior. This should be much more smooth and predictable now
  
• Crew will no longer chase dying/dead enemies
  
• New particle when you right click to attack an enemy
  
• Crew no longer default to auto repair/heal
  
• When crew teleport they will turn off auto repair/heal
  
• Enemies will no longer target kits and boxes
  
• Artwork is now useable
  
• Added in Navigation is Blocked for areas where you cannot use navigation
  
• Fixes to ReportCard, NewPerks and other menus for better support at lower resolutions
  
• Added in dialog for choosing resolution to fix the game getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Added in red hair for crew
  

Greetings Captains!

We have been working this week on fixing up some of the quirks with hand-to-hand combat. We have added a few new features and fixed some behaviors that we think should make things much more solid going forward. The first big addition is range circles that will show you the radius of things that can be attacked, repaired or healed. We will continue to polish these but this should help make things a bit clearer. Second we got into the behavior of the crew and enemies and cleaned some things up. Crew should be much better at seeking out new targets and much less likely to just stand around and wait for someone to kill them.

The latest is live now on all branches. Pick it up and tell us if you see anything funky.

Next week we will be working on a brand new reward system that should really be fun! Enjoy your weekend!

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Range Circles showing the area your crew members can attack, repair and heal.
  
• Fundamental changes to crew and enemy attack behavior. This should be much more smooth and predictable now
  
• Crew will no longer chase dying/dead enemies
  
• New particle when you right click to attack an enemy
  
• Crew no longer default to auto repair/heal
  
• When crew teleport they will turn off auto repair/heal
  
• Enemies will no longer target kits and boxes
  
• Artwork is now useable
  
• Added in “Navigation is Blocked” for areas where you cannot use navigation
  
• Fixes to ReportCard, NewPerks and other menus for better support at lower resolutions
  
• Added in dialog for choosing resolution to fix the game getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Added in red hair for crew
  

Greetings Captains!

Christmas has come and gone and we have been watching the game analytics and bug reports throughout the holidays. Unity allows us to track any errors or crashes that anyone playing the game comes across. We had some, and to be honest we never expect to have zero. But in previous launches we had dozens and dozens and many of those were full fledge crashes and major errors. This release has been very different. The game looks very solid and we feel like we have definitely moved into a polish and content phase, which is exactly where we wanted to be with our Beta.

So what does that mean? It means we can do what we have wanted to do for a very long time: create some awesome content and work with our community on fixing up the game.

Our focus for the next week or two will be combat and crew behavior. We are starting a new forum discussion and we are asking you to contribute any of your ideas, thoughts, complaints or bugs. We know that there is some wonkiness to their decision making and how much they commit to your user commands vs. automated elements. We also want to add in range circles for each crew member so you know where they can shoot/heal/repair.

To help with this we have introduced a mode to the game: ENDLESS MODE. In short, you will spawn in the station and battle it out with never ending waves of enemies until you die. As you progress new weapons and crew will spawn. This mode should allow you to quickly play through just the crew combat portions of the game against a variety of enemies and aid in giving feedback for what you think combat needs.

We hope in the coming weeks and months our fans will come back to the game and see that, given a solid base to work from, we can quickly create new content and quickly iterate new ideas and polish old ones.

We also have some new bug fixes since our release a week ago. The biggest one to note is the resolution reset. THIS WILL RESET YOUR GAME PREFERENCES. Why? Basically we have placed our resolution settings in the wrong place and the only way to fix it is to reset all save games. This will help fix resolutions getting stuck.

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Endless Mode
  
• Resolution reset - refactored where we store resolution settings so they can
• be more consistently overwritten (GAME PREFERENCES WILL BE RESET)
  
• Fix to options menu getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Fixed options menu to no longer display default
  
• Addressed low resolution (1366x768) menu problems
  

Greetings Captains!

Christmas has come and gone and we have been watching the game analytics and bug reports throughout the holidays. Unity allows us to track any errors or crashes that anyone playing the game comes across. We had some, and to be honest we never expect to have zero. But in previous launches we had dozens and dozens and many of those were full fledge crashes and major errors. This release has been very different. The game looks very solid and we feel like we have definitely moved into a polish and content phase, which is exactly where we wanted to be with our Beta.

So what does that mean? It means we can do what we have wanted to do for a very long time: create some awesome content and work with our community on fixing up the game.

Our focus for the next week or two will be combat and crew behavior. We are starting a new forum discussion and we are asking you to contribute any of your ideas, thoughts, complaints or bugs. We know that there is some wonkiness to their decision making and how much they commit to your user commands vs. automated elements. We also want to add in range circles for each crew member so you know where they can shoot/heal/repair.

To help with this we have introduced a mode to the game: ENDLESS MODE. In short, you will spawn in the station and battle it out with never ending waves of enemies until you die. As you progress new weapons and crew will spawn. This mode should allow you to quickly play through just the crew combat portions of the game against a variety of enemies and aid in giving feedback for what you think combat needs.

We hope in the coming weeks and months our fans will come back to the game and see that, given a solid base to work from, we can quickly create new content and quickly iterate new ideas and polish old ones.

We also have some new bug fixes since our release a week ago. The biggest one to note is the resolution reset. THIS WILL RESET YOUR GAME PREFERENCES. Why? Basically we have placed our resolution settings in the wrong place and the only way to fix it is to reset all save games. This will help fix resolutions getting stuck.

PATCH NOTES

• Added in Endless Mode
  
• Resolution reset - refactored where we store resolution settings so they can
• be more consistently overwritten (GAME PREFERENCES WILL BE RESET)
  
• Fix to options menu getting stuck in windowed mode
  
• Fixed options menu to no longer display “default”
  
• Addressed low resolution (1366x768) menu problems
  

Greetings Captains!

Happy holidays to everyone! We are super excited to announce the release of Star Command Galaxies Beta, just in time for a holiday break. We know this is a time of the year when you have a TON of new game options but we hope that you will download the latest update and check out the progress we have made with Galaxies.

So what does Beta mean? It means that all of our features are in the game and we feel that the game is highly stable. Does this mean bug free? Not yet, but close. We still have a ways to go on polish and balance – but we need your help and feedback for those! Please leave any and all forms of feedback on our Steam Discussions forum - we read them all and they can make a HUGE difference to the final game.

This is also only one ‘galaxy’ of gameplay. We plan on launching with two or three full galaxies of adventure, danger and intergalactic hangovers.

For those asking what have we been doing, the answer is simple: working hard on Galaxies. We hope that all that work will now start to show as you pick up the latest version of the game and go on your own adventures.

Galaxies was always conceived as a moddable, expandable, starship simulation platform that we could support for years to come. We finally have hit that point. We will no longer be chasing concepts and instead be working on new weapons, new ships, new maps, new missions and tons of surprises.

We have now transitioned into content-creation mode. We have literally been looking forward to this for 4 years and cannot wait to make some awesome adventures for you and your crew to go on.



So What’s New? Everything.

Below are some of the MAJOR areas of new features or drastic improvements.

• Completely rewritten support for low-resolution screens. The GUI overall should be much more predictable and stable.
  
• Added 9 new classes to the game: Engineer, Tactical, Science, Handyman, Scout, Doctor, Machinist, Soldier and Hacker.
  
• Brand new crew job menu for choosing your crew members career path.
  
• New perks menu for upgrading your crew members
  
• New crew desires. Your crew will continue to want to grow and acquire new things like beds, art and other unique items and experiences.
  
• Over 15 new missions.
  
• Over 15 new weapons, items and upgrades.
  
• New stores, new vendor missions, new stations.
  
• Star Command Report Card: receive bonuses based on your daily performance and pay your crew their daily paycheck (or don’t…)
  
• Completely revised happiness log and events. Crew should be much clearer on what they want and what you need to do to make it happen.
  
• New indicators for helping you decide what each crew member should be using.
  
• Healing and repair automation.
  
• Countless cosmetic improvements to every area of the UI.
  
• Brand new options menu brings the game to the 21st century.
  

Greetings Captains!

We know it’s been a VERY long time since we had an update. We have been working in the lab every single day on making Star Command an amazing experience and we are ready to start rolling out beta.

We just put the Beta on the (surprise) BETA branch for testing. We have done our own internal testing as well as some test with streamers to squash as much as we could. We are going to be using the beta branch to roll out more bug fixes, improvements and gameplay tweaks based on the feedback we are getting from our analytics and in the steam forums.

If you do download the beta please feel free to post your feedback in the beta forum that we have started here.

So whats new? Everything.

Below are some of the MAJOR areas of new features or drastic improvements.

• Completely rewritten support for low-resolution screens. The GUI overall should be much more predictable and stable.
  
• Added 9 new classes to the game: Engineer, Tactical, Science, Handyman, Scout, Doctor, Machinist, Soldier and Hacker.
  
• Brand new crew job menu for choosing your crew members career path.
  
• New perks menu for upgrading your crew members
  
• New crew desires. Your crew will continue to want to grow and acquire new things like beds, art and other unique items and experiences.
  
• Over 15 new missions.
  
• Over 15 new weapons, items and upgrades.
  
• New stores, new vendor missions, new stations.
  
• Star Command Report Card: receive bonuses based on your daily performance and pay your crew their daily paycheck (or don’t…)
  
• Completely revised happiness log and events. Crew should be much clearer on what they want and what you need to do to make it happen.
  
• New indicators for helping you decide what each crew member should be using.
  
• Healing and repair automation.
  
• Countless cosmetic improvements to every area of the UI.
  
• Brand new options menu brings the game to the 21st century.
  

Greetings Captains!

We are super excited to announce the release of Alpha 11 to the general public. This is not our largest release but it is our most solid. We have spent the last couple months polishing things up, fixing hundreds of bugs, adding some long overdue features and ironing out a lot of kinks.

At the most simple level Alpha 11 should feel like a solid, but short, game. We have built missions we feel very happy about, our station system feels solid, ship combat is in good shape and crew should be responsive and predictive. In other words you should no longer be “fighting” the game. Much of this laying the groundwork for our next release: Beta 1.

We are excited to announce that Alpha 11 will be our final alpha. Our next release will be Beta 1 and from there on out our focus will be on content, balance and polish.

High level release notes below:

• Mouseover info panel info added for objects in the game showing good match, bad match and other objects crew members should be using.
  
• All missions have been rewritten or reimagined to be in better alignment with the current state of the game
  
• Loyalty events are in the game and will be expanded in greatly for Beta 1
  
• Fog of War fixed!!!!!
  
• Adjusted the starting station to be more fun
  
• Revised store building so that it is simpler and more natural.
  
• Added in Pizzeria and Bar stores as well as ongoing missions from those stores.
  
• Mutiny, spread disloyalty, spread loyalty and other loyalty backing elements have been implemented and will be expanded on for Beta 1
  
• Tons of adjustments to animations, sprites, balance, etc.
  
• Removed a ton of old code for crew desires and loyalty that was creating lot of interesting problems
  
• Font sizes adjusted for all messages
  
• Adjustments to when phases can be changed
  
• Money, scrap and food now properly being added and subtracted.
  
• Backing pieces for new crew jobs for Beta 1
  
  

Greetings Captains!

Another quick update fixing some more bugs. Notes below!

• Fix to exploding pirate station not giving mission credit.
  
• Fix to occasional QuickTravel Null Issue.
  
• Slight adjustment to character selection and build mode.
  
• Potential fix to some Pathfinding issues that could occur over time and mess with object usage, particularly with multiple selected characters.
  
• Relinked the ShipCombatGrol mission to the end of DestroyPirateStation
  
• Hangover and other status effects should no longer cause someone's head to move and disappear.
  
• Crew desires now properly save and load.
  
• Hiding Class Change body swaps while we fix up the issue.
  
• Fix to box deletion on right click issue.
  

Greetings Captains!

Just a quick update based on some big bugs and errors we were seeing. These updates only apply to the beta branch! We should be looking at a community release early next week.

Changes below:

• Fix to FillSystem Error
  
• Minor adjustment to help with the GetTileColor() reports. This is likely not a 100% fix to it.
  
• Potential fix to ShowGUILine issue from Analytics.
  
• Fix to AimAndFireTeleportAt null reference from Analytics
  
• Potential fix to an issue where Random Empty Node missions can occasionally show up on nodes with stations.
  
• Removed Comm Hub room
  
• Fix to a GetFactionValues item that could occur on ship/station reload.
  
• The Player Station now starts out with an Arms Dealer and a Food/Scrap merchant if started without a tutorial.
  
• Fix to the Midorian Shopper having stealable supplies and teleporting their crew to attack you.
  
• Fix to EncounterVictory 190 issue.
  
• Removed start function issue.
  
• Added in new Cruise Ship hull.
  
  
  Cheers,
  Warballoon
  
  

Greetings Captains!

We are proud to begin our rollout of Alpha 11. We have just put the latest up on our beta branch and we are hoping some of you can switch over and test it out. There are bound to be some crappy bugs but we have tested it as throughly as our small team can. There are a ton of new features, over 100+ bug fixes, new missions and stability stuff.

But at the most simple level Alpha 11 should feel like a solid, but short, game. We have built missions we feel very happy about, our station system feels solid, ship combat is in good shape and crew should be responsive and predictive. In other words you should no longer be “fighting” the game. Much of this laying the groundwork for our next release: Beta 1.

Alpha 11 will be our final alpha. Our next release will be Beta 1 and from there on out our focus will be on content, balance and polish. To say that we are excited about this would be an understatement.

Some high level fixes below:

• Mouseover info panel info added for objects in the game showing good match, bad match and other objects crew members should be using.
  
• All missions have been rewritten or reimagined to be in better alignment with the current state of the game.
  
• Loyalty events are in the game and will be expanded in greatly for Alpha 12.
  
• Fog of War fixed!!!!!
  
• Adjusted the starting station to be more fun.
  
• Revised store building so that it is simpler and more natural.
  
• Added in Pizzeria and Bar stores as well as ongoing missions from those stores.
  
• Mutiny, spread disloyalty, spread loyalty and other loyalty backing elements have been implemented and will be expanded on for Alpha 12.
  
• Tons of adjustments to animations, sprites, balance, etc.
  
• Removed a ton of old code for crew desires and loyalty that was creating lot of interesting problems.
  
• Adjustments to when phases can be changed.
  
• Lots of new analytics for tracking bugs and errors as well as which missions are getting completed and when.
  
• Money, scrap and food now properly being added and subtracted.
  
• Backing pieces for new crew jobs for Alpha 12.
  

Greetings Captains!



We have pushed out a new update for addressing some of the issues we were seeing over the last week and some other tweaks we wanted to address while we continue to work on Alpha 11. Patch notes below!



• Fix to the Sprite3DObjectBase Null Ref
• Fix to Player Scrap Null Ref given when no Scrap Containers are found on the player's ship.
• Fix to food adding to player ship if no food currently exists on the player ship.
• Removing several old tutorial items that were somehow erroneously getting called and causing errors.
• Protection for null ShipSlots if inadvertently sent to ReleaseShipSlot
• Fix to IndexOutOfRange when boxing objects.
• Potential fix for IndexOutOfRange FOW exception.
• Potential Fix to FastPathfinder.Find OutOfRange.
• Potential fix to PickUpKits Null Refs
• Protection against Module/Store based null refs in Encounter Victory
• Fix to Phase name request post Phase dropping out. Will be fixed better in Alpha 11
• Potential fix to objects/mobs spawning in walls
• Shield Systems should once again work properly after being boxed and unboxed
• Teleporting out into the middle of nowhere should no longer have the propensity to crash the game
• Patch fix to potential Captain AI Shields issue
• Stations that save with the wrong hull type should no longer crash the game.
• Characters without a sprite should no longer try to move said sprite within the game world

Take her out for a spin!



Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Captains!

We have just released another fix that should be addressing some other issues that are coming in from our analytics. Notes below:

â

Greetings Captains!

We have just rolled out Alpha 10.4 with a bunch of bug fixes. We have our Unity analytics giving us some great info from your play sessions and, most importantly, any crashes you are running into. We have addressed a lot of issues many of you were running into. Notes below:

â

Greetings Captains!

We have released Alpha 10.3. These are smaller tweaks that focus on battle missions happening more frequently along with some new balance to all ship and crew weapons. The build is live now!

We are also hard at work on Alpha 11. Currently we are cranking away on a brand new mouseover system that should give a lot more context when your crew members interact with their environment. We have also brought back in the Midorian's and started work on their galaxy with new missions, starbases and adventures. We will push that to beta in the coming weeks for everyone to test.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We have just rolled out Alpha 10.2 onto the main branch. We have been hard at work fixing memory leaks and performance issues and we think this should be a huge improvement for most users. There are numerous tweaks and fixes to get us here but the big take fixes are listed below:

• Memory footprint from 8.4 gigs to 2.1 which will make the game more smooth overall.

• Compressed all the sprites in the game so spikes during garbage collection and loading should be much less dramatic which will help with the game crashing.

Load up the game and see what kind of results you are getting. If things look solid here we will be moving onto Alpha 11 addressing many of the gameplay issues that have been brought up through Alpha 10 and focusing on some new additions, improvements and some new content focused around your crew.

Please leave any feedback you have in the Bug Reporting area of the forums!



Cheers,

Warballoon

Hey Star Commanders!

Just a quick update today. We have addressed a major issue with memory leaks and performance. Scenes will now clean up much more cleanly when you warp to a new area so that the game doesn't get more and more memory intensive as you play.

The latest is live now. Tell us your feedback in the forums!

Happy Holidays,
Warballoon

The Seven month (Eleven lunar cycle) wait is over! We have been working diligently in our dingy work-capsule improving everything in Star Command Galaxies. Literally. Every single element in the game has received some love and attention. So, Let’s take you through some of the biggest improvements!



As you explore the sector in your newly-purchased Starship, new Encounters and Mission events will occur. Some are wonderful, while many more are exceedingly dangerous. Some may need ask for your assistance, while others require your crew's unique expertise. Completing these adventures will earn your crew Experience Points for new jobs, credits to buy new items or ship systems, or stranded castaways to add as your latest crewmembers.






Your crew can now be promoted to different job types, giving them the ability to unique kits and weapons. Melee weapons like brass-knuckles enable your crew to dish out the punishment, East-Jersey, Earth, a.d. 1978- style. Bada-boom!






Your new Station Manager Android D3RP is here to help! Assuming your request falls within his pre-defined working hours. Yes, we have literally added smelly, cold, dark and dank vessel that is your NEW Space Station! On this deluxe "home-base" you can build Stores and Modules to unlock new items, vendors, and ship systems.






The all new scenario in Alpha 10 begins with the discovery an evil Pirate Scout ship. With the location of your Space Station in peril you must find the enemy pirate station and destroy it! Engage multiple enemy ships with our completely redone ship combat and targeting system.






We have completely reimagined the UI based on feedback from all of our previous Early Access releases. Everything should be much clearer, more concise and compartmentalized, but most importantly functioning! Your overall ship-status is now displayed in real-time. Ship Functions like Shields and Weapons have been streamlined to show which crew are assigned and if it is the optimal match-up.




Star Command Galaxies has a steep learning curve. There are a lot of new concepts, connections and responsibilities for the player and we felt that we were throwing far too much at the player too early. The new tutorial should gradually cover all the basics of the game while still leaving a lot of room for discovery by advanced players. We didn’t want to hold your hand but we did want to arm you with everything you would need to not die and feel like you had clear purpose.




The primary enemy of the Galaxy is now in the game - the Grol. In future release we will give you the ability to complete missions for other races and slowly build up resources to combat the invincible enemy that is the Grol. With future updates will we introduce other races like the Cortex, Avarians, Vocar and others.




We have fixed so many bugs that we literally can’t list them. Everything has received attention: crew behavior, pathfinding, targeting, mesh merging, animation routines, gameplay loops, mode switching, asset loading - you name it. We have done our best to optimize and cleanup so that we can take on a bend not break mentality. The game is far from bug free but we think that there are far more quirks than there are “what the hell is going on” type elements.




We will be back to a semi-regular release schedule now that Alpha 10 is out, shooting for a release every 30-45 days. Alpha 11 will be focused on crew missions, crew desires, crew personalities, crew leveling up and making things much clearer on what your crew is doing and why they are doing it. This will include much better mouseovers that will reveal whether a crew member should be using a station, equipping a kit, attacking an enemy or talking to that strange blob monster. After that we will expand into the unknown areas of space introducing the ability to build allies, visit alien ships and stations and begin to fight back against the Grol.




Cheers,
Warballoon

If you are on BETA branch we would highly recommend you switch back to the main branch for the new release, until "Alpha 11: Adventures in Midorian Babysitting" [working title] is ready for testing.

Greetings Star Commanders

Some last minute changes before we roll out Alpha 10. Take a look at the release notes below.

* Load time reduced SIGNIFICANTLY
* Fix to LUA errors for animations
* Added in new music to encounters
* Various tweaks to weapons, missions, and balance

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We watched a lot of twitch streams last week and tracked some new bugs but really focused on performance and refinement of the existing missions. We added in a god mode where you can pick up and move things around your ship to help with some of the inventory management issues people were having. Give a shot and tell us what you think!

Patch notes below:

* Added in hand-of-god movement mode to rearrange ship inventory
* Mesh merge issue should greatly improve performance over the long haul
* Made the object returning into a warning rather than a red error...isn't as gamebreaking as a red error makes it look.
Fix to new object particles
* Reduced dead body devolve time
* Fix to heal animations loops
* Crew promotion added into tutorial
* Kits picked up on your ship will auto-swap as long as they have the same function, no matter the kit.
* Kits picked up on other ships will automatically be sent to your ship if the character has a kit equipped with the same function.
* New security hats for females
* Removed nebulas (will reintroduce after some balance and polish)
* Pirate base is a bit easier
* Fixed a default character animation setting that no longer existed in game
* Fix to the CureState Missing Analyze Animation.
* Characters should no longer leave an Attack or Pathing state to deal with someone shooting at them.
* Fix to DialogChatManager and HealthBar Exceptions.
* New pirate encounter
* Fix to Machine Gun collision from ships.
* Added Mouseovers to Player Ship Panel
* Moved the Nav Orbit Panel mouseovers to the left side
* Fix to Mission Panels stacking on top of each other.
* Fix to PlacedObject Console Wrapper issue.
* Weapons no longer insta-fire upon targeting or retargeting.
* Final battle should be a bit more reasonable

Enjoy!
Warballoon

Greeting Star Commanders!

We’re almost there. We have fixed our biggest issue, Fog of War, added some new missions and addressed some more bugs. This is our second release candidate and we have turned off error reporting. Please try this version out! We are in the final testing area and want to see if there is anything we are missing. Release notes below:

* Fog of War getting stuck on fixed!!!!!
* Fixed a crew UI bug where occasionally personalities would not display correctly.
* Fix to the Space Bar SystemAlertPanel issue.
* Fix to the Improper Crew Body post Kit & Promotion issue.
* Fix to the Kit Mouseover sticking issue on unequipping kits.
* Added in pausing for one liners, as well as the ability to clear either with ESC or Space
* Lowered labels on store
* Added in new encounters
* Modified ship hulls for balance
* Fix to Rank issues on the Crew Panel UI and kit requirements setting improperly.
* Fixed female heads

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We have what looks to be our second to last patch before we push this from the beta branch to the general public. Some good fixes in store. Game should be very stable and very playable at this point. Love to get your thoughts and any bugs you are running into. Patch notes below!

* Potential fix to Fog of War
* Fixed certain enemies not being targetable
* Pirate station consoles are clearer
* Ship weapon targeting fixed
* Fixed looping animations with medic and engineer
* Heal is a bit faster
* Fix to flyouts not being under Top Bar
* Characters/objects blink when you interact with them
* Added in Xerxes and Falcion ship classes (medium ships)
* Ship walls should blink when damaged earlier
* Fix to money occasionally zeroing out and/or giving improper values on the resource bar
* Improved heal and repair particles
* Food consumption rates adjusted to make food a bit less plentiful
* Scrap rates adjusted to make scrap less abundant
* Modules now take money when used
* Camera pans to ship after you purchase it
* The Grol are out there…..

Happy Thanksgiving!
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

Just released another patch to the Alpha 10 beta. We are still working on the fog of war being stuck on certain areas of the map (its clearly a tricky one). Some other fixes below:

* Non-Civilian based stations should no longer check build mode erroneously.
* Fix to “Build a Supply Depot” mission not completing if you had already built it
* Small adjustment that should help kit purchases properly spawn on the Player Ship.
* Mouse GUI Caller should now double check itself to ensure that it is actually over a UI object before sending it's information.
* Fix to Targeting issues that could arise when using the target icon to reset the attack location.
* Adjustments to kit purchases
* Testing male crowbar animation sheet being carried around all the time to see if its worth doing this for all weapons
* Fix to Highlights null
* The Assign command should now come up each time at the beginning, rather than occasionally not showing up.
* Captains now properly go to their assigned station when called to do so.
* Slight extra improvement to ensure default commands are loaded for all characters on load and on promotion.
* Assign Bubbles should no longer disappear when a ship system is in use during the assign process.
* LUA improvements, increased weapon charges, increased weapon prices, reduced occurrence of kits significantly in loot.
* Reduced XP, and scrap a lot for all starting missions. ~5-10 xp now.
* Removed Midorian from shuttle repair, modified korsu invader - fixed a hole in the hull
* Weaker initial pirate weapon
* Characters in the middle of PathState will no longer drop what they are doing to fight evil. They will wait until they arrive to do so.
* Fix to Crew Hire taking out money before checking if there is enough XP.
* Missions are now pink
* The text on the Crew Hire screen will now properly turn green or red pending your XP and cash resources.
* Characters should no longer leave consoles to attack someone attacking them.
* Made on objective optional for temporary fix on Pirate Scout, changed wording on destroy pirate base
* New kitchen sound, better xp and money for tutorial

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

Just a quick patch attempting to address a couple issues that have been reported over the weekend.

• Potential fix to FoW appearing where it shouldn't
• Potential fix to enemies teleporting on your ship and not being able to target them with your crew
• Fix to store items disappearing after mass purchase
• Unpack command now the default action for boxes on player ship
• Some mission adjustments
• Added MG and Torpedo ammo to vendor inventory

Please tell us if you get any more FoW bugs appearing where it shouldn't.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

New patch out for the Alpha 10 Beta. Patch release notes below:

- Fixed mesh merge issue at stations
- Adjust PirateScout mission
- Wall building on new stores should be much faster
- Fix to store plots
- Fix to Build GUI turning off all other GUI elements
- Fix to medics not healing
- PirateStation much easier (still hard though)
- New kit Objects
- Kits now keep charge count when equipped or dropped
- Fix to cost panel missing during ship purchase
- Fix to merchants only having a limited expected inventory
- Adjust ship maps
- Adjusted store menus
- Scrolling notification text should no longer stack on itself
- Better descriptions of why ranks/jobs can’t equip a kit
- Pirate station should now self-destruct
- Animations should stop looping when opening and working on consoles
- Clones no longer appear when hiring crew
- Fix to notification text blocking clicks
- Crew now cost XP to hire
- Fix to starting XP
- Bunch of other stuff

Take a look! Love to get your thoughts.

Very close to releasing this to the general public!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Hey Star Commanders!



We have just released a patch to Alpha 10 beta. We have a ton of bug fixes to the issues that have been raised in the forums as well as the addition of a notification area for game events. We also took a new approach to our UI scaling that we think should be much more consistent for lower resolutions.

Release notes below:

- Implemented a new method for scaling resolutions (still a work in progress)
- Added in info bar underneath clock for notifications
- Catch for when the game tries to reserve crew data after the crew has already been saved and despaired
- Fixed D3RP chatter issue
- Fixed head crab crash
- Fix to crew not being able to be hired
- Fixed Player Ship Panel tab descriptions
- Top bar will now be on top of all menus
- Fixed ShaderBindings.gen issue
- Fixed a potential drag and select crash
- Grammer fixes
- Fixed money not being given during tutorial
- Fix to MouseGUI null ref if player ship isn’t present
- Escape Menu should no longer try to unload the Colony if one has not yet loaded
- Revised ship purchasing panel
- Various adjustments to all missions
- Potential fix to wall swap frame issue
- Removed floor of heavy human door
- Fixed new object particle
- Changed loading screen to show the game hasn’t locked up
- Fix to missing outlines
- Removed crew from shuttle to help starting tutorial
- Null ref adjustments for cursor manager
- Cleaned up lockers for simplicity
- Removing Antiquated Faction Distress call
- ESC menu now properly pauses the game
- Refined game tips
- Fixed motivations being full and crew not talking to each other
- Fix for missing ShipCaptain as QuestGiver
- Headcrabs animation fix
- Fix to Food/Energy hiding on the Crew Panel GUI when you select a captain, then another character.
- People who have a status effect will no longer enter Bored State until that effect is removed.
- TV’s added in!

Please post any new bugs to our forums. Can't wait to get your feedback!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We have been working on Star Command for a long time - more than five years to be exact. We love the game but more than that we love our fan base. They are a combination of hardcore Trekkers, gamers, artists, developers and tons of other walks of life. We have worked VERY hard to accumulate the 10,000 Facebook followers we have, the 6,000 twitter followers and all of the wonderful people who follow us here on Steam.

We just released Alpha 10 onto our beta branch and got a lot of great feedback. We had some major bugs that we fixed and now we are working through all the gameplay bugs, weird issues and other things that have been discovered before we release the build to the larger public.

We want to take a second to single out one of our community members, CornDog who, unsolicited, took a lot of his own personal time to compile a list of his playtest through Star Command Galaxies. He was kind enough to put up a google doc with screenshots for us to go through.

CornDog is not the only one doing this. There are a ton of you including Lemon Head, kornellbrown, Sworded5 and hundreds of others that do this every time we make a release.

We want to say thanks and convey how much we appreciate this element of our community. Anyone that is still invested in Star Command Galaxies after all this development time is truly our core audience and people we do not take for granted. We know you have literally thousands of choices when it comes to the games you play and that you have stuck with us as we have continue to iterate on Galaxies is a testament to you more than it is to us.

We have an awesome community and we will do our very best to make sure that Galaxies is everything you guys want.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

To get onto the beta branch, go to your library. Right click on “Star Command Galaxies” and go to properties. Go to the BETA tab and select “Public Beta.”

We are so excited to begin rolling out Alpha 10 through the public beta branch. This represents a ton of hard work over the last six months. Let us start by acknowledging the long wait between releases. We think that the numerous changes, fixes, upgrades and additions are worth the wait. We can’t wait to start re-engaging with the community as we move back to our regular update schedules with our stable release.

So what’s new?

EVERYTHING!

Basically the game is brand new.

• Brand new UI
  
• Completely reworked mouse and controls
  
• Over 300+ bug fixes. New ships
  
• New weapons
  
• New kits
  
• New missions
  
• New tutorial
  
• Melee combat
  
• Physics
  
• Revised lighting
  
• Balance across the board.
  

Greetings Star Commanders,

As some of you may know we have been running some private tests with our users trying out the latest Alpha. To be clear: we understand that as an Early Access supporter you have the right to try out the game early and help define the direction of the game. It's something we love about EA and really want to embrace.

For the short term, however, we have been doing very small tests to see how all of our numerous improvements, additions and changes have settled down. Over the last couple weeks we have taken a lot of learnings to improve the game.

Right now the final remaining items are resolution issues with monitors at 1280x720 or so. We are having trouble making sure text is readable and interface components are not hidden.

We also have seen in our playtests that we have been asking too much of early game players. We are rolling out fairly complex missions when early game captains really just want to collect supplies, crew, staff, weapons and kits. Everything else seems to be running very smoothly. Tutorial seems to get everyone to speed on all the games core concepts, building looks to be intuitive and smooth, combat is drastically improved and our interface appears to be communicating all the information we intended. In other words: we're close.

We will be changing the early game missions so that the are more reflective of building forces and making sure that some of the more confusing elements are really clear (promotions are a bit muddy right now). After that we will be rolling the game up on the beta branch to look for any game breaking bugs or quick fixes before we release the game on the Alpha branch to every one of our users.

We know the best way to improve our reputation is to deliver a great product. We have a very large fanbase and we are thinking about them around the clock. The reason we haven't released anything is NOT because we want to alienate (pun intended) our fanbase - we just know that we are in a development season of polish and setbacks.

We were just at Steam Dev Days and got a lot of great advice from the creators of Don't Starve, Darkest Dungeon, Awesomenauts and other great EA indie titles. We just have to stay the course and keep making the game as great as possible then re-engage with our fanbase when we have something that is really great and we can build on.

We didn't get all of our followers by producing crappy games. But we understand the frustration. It's all warranted and we are pretty confident the new version of the game will help everyone feel like their investment was worth it.

We have always looked at Star Command Galaxies with the "games as a service" model - a platform for us to execute on for the foreseeable future (two years plus). We love this game and we want to keep expanding it, creating new races, new ships, new planets and use community feedback to make the ultimate ship simulator. But we have to have a great foundation to work from and that is the part that is taking the most work.

We would ask for more patience but we know that is in short supply. So the quality of the next release is what we must rely on.

Can’t wait for everyone to try it out.



Cheers,

Warballoon

Hey Star Commanders!

As we finish up Alpha 10 we are in need of some patient players who would be willing to play the game for us on livestream, either through Twitch or Steam.

This is playtesting, bug testing, etc. There are bound to be lots of problems but you will get a first look at the newest version of the game.

If you are intersted in playing the game for us please friend us (warballoongames) and tell us you are up for some live streaming. We will send you the login info for the private test.

Can't wait to watch!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

To begin with, if you are interested in our day-to-day bug list and things we are working on we have just made our Trello list public. You can literally see everything we are working on as we get ready for our next release. Check it out here:

https://trello.com/b/62lIsFwL/alpha-10-tutorial

So what's done?

We have physics, equippable kits, melee combat, store building, encounters, lighting and probably about 1000 other things all set.

We are currently still polishing the second half of the tutorial that introduces ship systems and power management and working through the intial encounters after you have built up your station and set off with your ship.

If you are curious about why things take a while feel free to take a look at our bug list. We play the game nightly and submit any game ending/null reference stuff in the moring to work on then continue on our path.

Polishing a tutorial has, by far, taken the most time. Everything works but not everything works great - and that's what we want. As an example: during the tutorial a shuttle comes in to drop off some new staff for you hire on your station. Right now the ship does not arrive - the guys just appear. This is probably ok for gameplay but it really kind of ruins the sense that you are in a living, breathing galaxy. These are the types of things that we want to zero in on and fix up before we push our next release.

The team is working extremely hard. After the next release we should be in such a better place to work with our community on bug fixes, new content and other fun stuff. We are confident you will enjoy the next release - the jump between the previous version is pretty astronomic.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We have wrapped up our UI transition as well as the adding in the ability to build stores on your station. This is huge for us - it has been in progress for quite a long time and the game is in a solid, playable state.

We have also added in physic effects for exposions, vacuums and other entities. What does that mean? Your guys will get knocked around and sucked into space when huge explosions occur. It's really fun and adds a ton to the game.

Our goal for this week is to get the tutorial portion of the game in (called Phase 0) and move into polishing our Phase 1 missions (intiial encounters dealing with pirates and other low level enemies). After those are in a solid state we will probably move towards pushing a new build.

Our goal is to get to the content phase as fast as humanly possible. We don't consider the tutorial or anything we are working to really be that - it requires too much custom content and special conditions to be considered template style missions that we can use across the game. But our ability to quickly generate content is very encouraging - it's something we have been chasing for over 3 years and we feel like the game is at the point were we can just make awesome things like new weapons, new ships, new missions, new kits, and lots of world building stuff rather than working on bugs, crashes, lighting, physics and UI.

We are hard at work and are really trying to get Alpha 9 into your hands by the end of the month.

Cheers!
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

It has been a long time - too long! We always want to keep our wonderful community in the mix and we have done a poor job of that recently. That said, the rumors of our demise have been GREATLY exaggerated.

So what have we been doing? Working. A ton. And we want to show you what we have been working on.

To begin with we have more than doubled our team size with the expansion of our funding. This means many more people working on Star Command Galaxies - and much more content being built.

We have been focused on moving towards Beta and finishing all features and focusing purely on content. The game is (relatively) bug free and we have undertaken to the final features. So let's take a look at what we have been doing!

Overhauled UI

Along with Stores, we have been focused on revising our UI based on user feedback and improvement based on lessons we have learned during the development of Galaxies.

We are implementing a brand new system that is cleaner, less cluttered and takes into account how people are reading the screen.

We placed everything that involves your ship and crew at the bottom of the screen. In our previous UI your eyes had to move to all three corners of the screen to make assertions about the status of your ship and crew. Now you should have to do a lot less searching to understand who needs to be healed, how much energy you have and what the abilities of a crew member are.


You will notice we have switched to bright pink for all energy sources. We found that many players were confused on what was using energy and where it was coming from. We have changed all in game assets that generate or store energy to reflect this as well so it is much easier to find an enemy generator or battery.


With the crew dock we really wanted to focus on who was using each ship system and what type of bonus they were receiving. This was always a little bit hazy and unclear in the old UI and we feel like the new system makes it very clear who is using what and what the status of that system is.


For the crew elements we really wanted to bring some elements forward and move some elements back in order of importance. Things like their equipment and any kind of status effects are much more clear now.


Mission information and goals should also be much clearer as we have revised that to be much more goal orientated. We felt that the drop downs on the lower right hand corner in the old UI were confusing and cumbersome.


When you mouse over objects that crew members can interact with you will get a lot more information about what exactly you are going to be using and what it will do for your character.

Right now the game does a poor job of showing you that this character will like that bed vs. hate a different type or what the results of using an item will be.


We are also revising things like Crew Details and just about every other menu in the game as we prepare for beta and release. We have learned many lessons about our own game and feel like this final UI will help players really understand what to click and why.


Even our dialog system will be getting an overhaul.

Stores

As we have developed new encounters and missions it became clear that we needed to close the gameplay loop. After you collect your resources and new crew members we want you to make progress in the game - and this is where stores come in.


At your space station you will now have the ability to upgrade stores. These add areas like general stores, security stations, embassies, ship hangars and a lot more. Within each of these stores are elements called modules: these are customized shops who offer exclusive equipment, characters or abilities. Each of these will require you to collect resources like money, scrap and extra crew to operate them. For example, if you build an embassy you will need to find a level 4 character of another race in order to operate them. If you find, or level up, a Midorian to the prerequisite you can now open a Midorian Embassy Module, giving you access to Midorian missions and other perks.

This really is the last major feature of the game. For us it closes the loop on exploring, collecting and upgrading your capabilities in order to fight off the enemies of the galaxy.

AI
We have fixed 85% of our issues in regards to AI. Characters are dying correctly, their target acquisition is smooth and consistent and right now we are working on more advanced concepts like race tactics and goals. This will likely be an area of focus all the way up to release but we feel that the game should be fair, challenging and, most of all, fun.

Grol

We have implemented the Grol, the big enemy of the first release of Galaxies. These will be the boogeymen of the galaxy, pressing the player to make allies and upgrade their ship and station to combat the threat. After we launch we plan to introduce other major enemies like the Cortex.

Missions and Encounters
We have finished our encounter system and have been lining up the final list of missions and encounters that we are going to produce for the release of the game. Right now we have a single test mission for each of the archetypes (explore, destroy, collect, etc) and as we finish all of our features and move into beta our primary focus will be on this content.

Other Tweaks
Some minor stuff we have been working on includes adding drinking to characters in the game, fixing up a lot of the animation inconsistencies like where weapons emit from and we are currently exploring getting destruction physics in the game for grenades, ship weapons and other explosions that will lead to characters being thrown in the air - and possibly sucked into space.

In conclusion, we have not stopped working one bit on Galaxies. We are in a transition point as we lock down our final features and finish off our UI. We are working on getting a release out as soon as our UI, stores and the final game flow are in. After that our only focus is on content, content, content.

As a rule, the quieter we are the more we are working. We are really very very focused on getting Galaxies in the most stable, fun and expansive point we can. We are confident the wait will be worth it.

We love our community and have worked VERY hard to build it and have a relationship with you. As we come up for air during beta we will be much more involved in the forums and gathering feedback for the full release of the game.

We hope that you are as excited as we are for the next update - should be the best yet.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We want to start by apologizing about our lack of communication over the last month or so. We have been extremely busy and wanted to catch you up on some great news and what we have been working in.

First and foremost we wanted to announce that we have secured funding for the launch of Star Command Galaxies! What this means is that all our cost-of-living and development expenses are now covered and Star Command Galaxies will be released. This is very much a product of your continued support for our game as the reviews and interest from the forums was a big part of us getting the last part of our funding.

So what does this mean? We will be developing towards a full release from this point on which means we are closing off features and getting the beta as quickly as humanly possible. We will do our best to have updates on Early Access but our goal is very much a solid, bug free fun as hell full release.

So what have we been doing? On top of the business end of things we have been working on lots of great new features:

Encounters
Running into adventures on random nodes in the galaxy that challenge you and your crew with situations like exploring a derelict ship, helping a ship of sick people, rescuing a prisoner from a pirate ship and more surprises. We will continue to add to our encounters during the summer so that we have tons of content by launch. These are very far along though and have improved the fun factor of the game immensely.

Base Building
You will now be able to build stores on your space station in order to buy equipment for your ship, recruit new crew, equip your crew and lots of other fun stuff.

Improved AI
We have done a ton of work improving our AI and you will see substantial improvements to your crew’s behavior as well as the enemy tactics. This is ongoing but the next version should show a ton of improvement.

The Grol
The ultimate enemy of the Star Command universe is now in the game. We are still polishing their AI, behavior and strategy but all assets have been implemented.

New UI
We are revising our UI to be clearer, easier to read and better for low and high resolution monitors.

So when is the next release? We should be rolling some stuff out on the beta branch sometime this month as we move to a testing phase and hopefully have a big update in June. Again, we are no longer looking at the 30 day cycle but focused on closing out features and getting the game released.

We are super excited about the future and want to thank all of our fans for their support. Lots of awesome stuff coming.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Encounters
Crew Combat
Reveal FOW on this ship map to 80%
Kill 10/All enemies
Kill specific character
Repair ship
Heal crew
Cure disease
Kill pests
Special store/trade (special store?)
Retrieve and Deliver Unobtanium Rod®
Impress us on your ship
Ship Combat
Survive X minutes against a ship (who then leaves)
Destroy ship
Make sure this ship survives for X minutes against a foe
Give me 500x or else I will kill you
Give me a crew or else I will kill you

Grol
Multiplying tactic
Can stop you from warping
Always pursue
Very powerful/auto rehealing


Base Building
Build general store (food, supplies, ships)
Build defenses
Build weapons depot
Build recruiting station
Build bar

New Zones
Quest Examples
Build JumpGate
Build Buoy
Destroy Space Station
Destroy X Ship

Allies
Mission Examples
Escort me to X
Deliver me X
Give me a new crew member

Kits Gear Levels

UI



Start game on space station with no ship and infestation. Slowly build your and take out a ship to collect some resources so you can build the shops.

Build out shops by collecting resources from encounters
Encounter, encounter, encounter

Build defenses to fend off pirates which are your first “clear this out” problem.

Introduce to neutral unity who you can befriend. Complete basic missions to do so.

Build a jumpgate mission



Greetings Star Commanders!

We want to start by apologizing about our lack of communication over the last month or so. We have been extremely busy and wanted to catch you up on some great news and what we have been working in.

First and foremost we wanted to announce that we have secured funding for the launch of Star Command Galaxies! What this means is that all our cost-of-living and development expenses are now covered and Star Command Galaxies will be released. This is very much a product of your continued support for our game as the reviews and interest from the forums was a big part of us getting the last part of our funding.

So what does this mean? We will be developing towards a full release from this point on which means we are closing off features and getting the beta as quickly as humanly possible. We will do our best to have updates on Early Access but our goal is very much a solid, bug free fun as hell full release.

So what have we been doing? On top of the business end of things we have been working on lots of great new features:

Encounters
Running into adventures on random nodes in the galaxy that challenge you and your crew with situations like exploring a derelict ship, helping a ship of sick people, rescuing a prisoner from a pirate ship and more surprises. We will continue to add to our encounters during the summer so that we have tons of content by launch. These are very far along though and have improved the fun factor of the game immensely.

Base Building
You will now be able to build stores on your space station in order to buy equipment for your ship, recruit new crew, equip your crew and lots of other fun stuff.

Improved AI
We have done a ton of work improving our AI and you will see substantial improvements to your crew’s behavior as well as the enemy tactics. This is ongoing but the next version should show a ton of improvement.

The Grol
The ultimate enemy of the Star Command universe is now in the game. We are still polishing their AI, behavior and strategy but all assets have been implemented.

New UI
We are revising our UI to be clearer, easier to read and better for low and high resolution monitors.

So when is the next release? We should be rolling some stuff out on the beta branch sometime this month as we move to a testing phase and hopefully have a big update in June. Again, we are no longer looking at the 30 day cycle but focused on closing out features and getting the game released.

We are super excited about the future and want to thank all of our fans for their support. Lots of awesome stuff coming.

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

We are full steam ahead (excuse the pun) on Alpha 9 and wanted to reach out and update you on our status and what we are working on.



So far we have added quite a few new and fun things. First we have made lots of different ships for you to choose when you start the game, each with their own strengths and weakenesses. We will continue to add new equipment into the game that will make these differences more profound and allow you to really customize your own ship

The next thing we have done is reworked our mouse cursor interface. We have had a lot of complaints about things not feel quite "solid" and a little bit muddy. We have added outlines and much more feedback for each item that you can interact with and things should feel much more solid.



We are also reworking our entire mission system from the ground up. We have added what we call "encounters" - these are ships and other surprises that appear on empty nodes. These mini adventures can range from strange dereliect vessels, ships in need of repairs and ships that have contracted a disease for you to cure with your doctors.

And speaking of disease - we have contracted a bunch! Crew can now get sick with Midorian Mumps, get a case of space flu or watch that zombie bite slowly grow and not have any idea what the outcome will be. Your doctors will have the ability to cure these diseases with some diseases requiring higher crew levels to treat.

We also have added crew missions. These are small missions you can complete in order to earn more loyalty with your crew. Each crew member will want things around the galaxy based on their race, class and personality type. Got an Antorian cadet? He's probably gonna want an Antorian bed.



We have also added in new cargo bays for each ship that spawn the correct cargo so that you don't always know what is going to be on each ship you run into based on the template.

Scanners have also been added and will reveal fog of war of other ships, allowing you to plan your strategies accordingly.



The other big thing we are focused on is the AI of your crew, civilians, shop owners and enemies. We are completely overhauling our system and here is why:



This is our current AI and, as you can see, it's a bit of a mess. This is the product of a lot of ideas that were abandoned, things that didn't work as originally concieved and over-engineering simple things like crew desires.

The bottom line is our current AI is totally unmanageable - and we are fixing it. This will be the biggest delay as to releasing Alpha 9. It's one of those features that just takes as long as it takes and really can't be done half way. We anticpate having everything ready to go around mid-April and there should be a ton of new stuff for you to try out with your crew on your adventures across the galaxy!

Can't wait to show more!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

Quick fix for the empty Space Station/Ghost Ships bugs many of you are having. 8.22 is live right now and should address those issues!

NOTES

• Fixed a bug where maps would save with an improper character, thus causing them to be unable to load.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Crew GUI would sometimes double load characters
  

Greetings Star Commanders,

Over the last week we have seen a GIANT influx of new players.

Thanks and Welcome

First, we wanted to first thank you for purchasing the game and supporting development. We know Early Access titles are a bit of a leap of faith and that they can be frustrating experiences at times. All we can say is that you have put your faith and money into a dedicated group here at Warballoon and we will do our best to make the game as great as we possibly can.

Second, we wanted to send our appreciation for the feedback and activity on the forums. We read every single comment, idea, bug report and review and do our best to address and react while staying on point with our design schedule and goals.

Third we wanted to outline the direction we are heading for Alpha 9!

Alpha 9

For Alpha 8 we were very focused on one thing: bugs. This meant a huge list of improvements but no real new content. That will change with the next update.

For Alpha 9, we are focused firstly on AI. Our AI has been tweaked, twirled and bended since our first Alpha with very few holistic updates. We wanted to keep the system flexible and able to test new features and, as a result, it has become a jumbled unpredictable mess. With Alpha 9 we intend to remedy this.

We will be totally gutting the current crew and enemy AI systems and replace it with something that is much more reflective of the current state of the game. A large portion of the bugs reported with Galaxies right now are AI related - enemies not attacking, crew not eating at regular times, things locking up, unclear objectives, enemy ships not returning fire or acting strange - these are all a result of a system that is desperate need of an update. To be frank you won't see a lot of new features, per se, but what you WILL see is exactly what you would expect to see: your crew behaving consistently, enemies making intelligent decisions, ships working in predictable ways and some surprises that should make sense logically but also challenge you and your crew.

Secondly, we will be completely gutting the current mission system and rewriting it. Similar with behavior, our mission system is a remnant of lots of different ideas from lots of different Alphas and is in need of a large re-write in order to better fit where the game is going. This will include 4 major areas:

1. Encounters
These will be one-time events occurring at nodes across the galaxy. An example would be a derelict ship floating in space. You can decide to destroy it with your ship weapons, beam a crew over to explore it for loot (or zombies...) or just leave it and move on. This should keep the game flowing much better with a lot more for you to do as Captain.

2. Crew Missions
Crew will now have some needs that they would like to see met, giving you the Captain the opportunity to earn loyalty. Basic tasks would be "I want a bed" or "We need a shower" and, as your crew got higher in level and rank, would get more complex like "I want a piece of Antorian Art" or "I want to visit an Trilax strip club." The goal here is to both connect you with your crew and give you smaller tasks to accomplish while bringing peace (or death) to the galaxy.

3. Mini-Missions
These are events with existing NPC ships. This would include things like "Our ship is damaged, please bring your engineers over to repair it" or "We have a disease, can your doctors please help cure us!" These will be opportunities to earn or lose loyalty with individual characters and factions while also putting your resources and crew in jeopardy.

4. Major Missions
These will be faction changing events that help forge your allies and your enemies. Things like building a Nav Buoy in Trilax Space for the Antorian Empire or Killing 5 Midorian Freighters. These will be clear decision points for you on how the galaxy should be shaped and who you want to support.

We will also be issuing patches and addressing as many bugs as we possibly can along the way. We always try and do both at the same time which is why we have picked the two systems most likely to cause bugs (AI and Missions) as our focus for new features.

We hope you are all enjoying the game and we highly encourage you to engage with us in the forums, on facebook and on Twitter - whatever your social media leaning is. We love getting feedback from our community and truly do take as much into account as possible.

So glad to have so many new Captains in our ranks! Lot's more to come!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Quick update Star Commanders!

We just released a hotfix that addresses some nasty bugs with ships getting stuck when you travel, merging ships etc.

The game should be very stable and ready to go!

Cheers,
Warballoon

Greetings Star Commanders!

Quick patch for you today. We are already starting on Alpha 9, gutting our character behavior tree and building it back up along with adding in new missions, ship systems and lot's of fun surprises.

We wanted to address some of the issues coming up with Alpha 8. Patch notes below:

Fixes

• Fixed duplicate crew when you save the game with your crew off of your ship
  
• Added more food and a starter shop to every space station
  
• Medics are now healing correctly
  
• Eating is much quieter
  
• Fixed medic particles getting stuck on
  
• Teleporter particles cleaned up
  
• Can now teleport crew properly after purchasing a new ship
  

Alpha 8 Is Finally Here!



Greetings Star Commanders!

We have released Star Command Galaxies Alpha 8 and it is by far our best release yet. So what’s new? What’s the focus? Bugs of course! This update has more bug fixes than all of our other releases combined. We spent all month just going through and fixing up crashes, save bugs, quirks and weird stuff that was happening in the game. TO BE CLEAR there are likely some bugs left and some new ones we made along the way but the game should be MUCH more stable and a lot more fun.

Our patch notes should give you an idea of the breadth of fixes we have addressed. We highly encourage you to try it out. It’s not perfect but it should be a much clearer vision of where we are going with the game.

Improvements

• LOYALTY: Rewrote all of loyalty so that the captains will react according to their proper loyalty level
  
• LOYALTY: Mouseover on loyalty for each character displays the reasons they do or do not like you
  
• ONELINERS: Added new feature where characters will update you about mission status and their intentions
  
• GAMETIPS: Added in Gametips for game concepts
  

• UNITY5: Switched game to Unity5
  
• CREWDOCK: Quick select numbers displayed next to crew members. You can press each corresponding key to select a crew member.
  
• MOUSE: Now shows teleport and steal icons when you are using those actions
  
• Station owners are now a part of the Hierarchy tree
  
• Made Hierarchy tree a vertical layout so your standing is clearer
  
• Compressed all species onto one page on Hierarchy tree
  
• Revised hierarchy menu to better display how races feel about each other
  
• DISTRESS MISSIONS: Only receive distress missions if you have high loyalty or more with ship
  
• WARP JUMP: Completely rewritten to be more stable and efficient
  
• WARP JUMP: New jump sequence implemented
  
• MISSION REWARDS: Improved mission rewards menu
  
• TELEPORTER: Esc/Right Click cancels teleport
  
• SHIP LEAVING: Crew automatically return to ship when ships are leaving
  
• SHIPCOMBAT/DISTRESS MISSIONS: Mission will fail if you leave the area
  
• FOG OF WAR: Completely revised - each ship now has its own fog of war map
  
• Mission targets should be at their displayed location
  
• Added Bounty missions
  
• Added in Crew Warnings where crew will tell you if there is an issue on your ship
  
• STEALING disabled for the time being - objects can now be scrapped
  
• Beds now give limited HP when crew rest
  
• Added in intruder alert
  
• Added mission hover bubble above the appropriate node
  
• Limited active missions to 3 + Distress
  
• Space station lights are improved
  
• Shortcut keys added to mouseovers
  

• FIXED: Saves are MUCH more solid and reliable but they will continue to get work
  
• FIXED: Ship not returning to 100% health after repairing all damage
  
• FIXED: Placing stolen items locking up the game
  
• FIXED: Black screen of death at Space Station arrival
  
• FIXED: Placing duplicate items removes the previously placed item
  
• FIXED: Could not switch out of Red/Yellow Alert
  
• FIXED: Options menu blocks clicks
  
• FIXED: Game saves crew HP
  
• FIXED: Mission target not being the correct one for ShipCombat
  
• FIXED: Multiple mission indicators on map for Trade
  
• COMBAT: Enemy invaders acquiring targets much better
  
• COMBAT: Crew reacting to enemies much more consistently
  
• FIXED: Repair particles staying stuck on objects being repaired
  
• FIXED: Heal particles not appearing
  
• FIXED: Engineers repair AoE much more solid and reliable
  
• FIXED: Placement tiles not appearing when placing an object
  
• PARTICLES: Sparks revised and much more efficient
  
• FOG OF WAR: Ship no longer fades to black during warp
  
• FIXED: Windows appearing in front of characters
  
• FIXED: Beam weapons not being blocked by shields
  
• CREWDOCK: Sorts correctly
  
• UI: Lifebar no longer reflecting opponent's HP in character orbit
  
• NAV UI: Game is now pausing in nav
  
• NAV UI: Time controls staying on/highlighted in each state
  
• UI: "Navigation" still no longer getting stuck on mouseover
  
• FIXED: Travel circle animation getting stuck
  
• GAME GUI: Damage rounded at first decimal
  
• FIXED: NPC’s dying on Antorian stations from radiation
  
• FIXED: Antorian space station missing a door
  
• FIXED: Crew phaser being spawned in space
  
• MAPS: Lights on the Falchion
  
• GENERAL GAMEPLAY: Asteroids no longer moving when game is paused
  
• NAV UI: Correct space station images on nav map
  
• LOYALTY: Ships will now correctly attack the proper ships
  
• FIXED: Characters getting stuck in space after buying new ship
  
• STATIONS: All ships can no longer enter red alert at stations
  
• STARTING NODE: Now safe (no other races/pirates will spawn there)
  
• PIRATES: Will avoid space stations (no more suicide runs)
  
• DISTRESS MISSIONS: Timer disappears when you arrive to distress missions
  
• WARP JUMP: Crew no longer disconnect from their station during jump
  
• WARP JUMP: Camera jumping fixed
  
• GUI: Stations use species frames
  
• MISSION INDICATOR: Changes when mission is complete or failed
  
• MISSION FAIL POPUP: When leaving an area to fail a mission a menu will popup informing player
  
• MISSION OPTIMIZATION: LUA sets up which missions each job profession works
  
• ASSETS: Potential fix to messed up sprites appearing on characters
  
• ASSETS: Fixed missing midorian sprite sheets
  
• AI: Enemies no longer stop moving when they teleport to your ship
  
• All objects and weapon LUA’s revised for game balances, errors and missing data
  
• NAVMAP: Ships are being displayed on the edges of the nodes correctly
  
• Music starting at 0 volume
  
• ShipPurchase not working correctly
  
• Carter notices not coming in at correct times
  
• Added in giver faction to mission indicator
  
• FIXED: Targeting allowed weapons to be fired before battery requirement
  
• FIXED: Distress missions not completing
  
• FIXED: Crew loyalty pulling from personal loyalty after mission complete
  
• FIXED: Freighters threatening the player
  
• FIXED: Crew shader
  
• FIXED: NPC’s and crew will try and avoid food and scrap instead of walking through them (unless trapped)
  
• FIXED: Crew walking through walls when they decide their own path
  
• FIXED: Enemies trigger animations
  
• FIXED: Enemies shooting after death
  
• FIXED: Garbled text on text popup
  
• FIXED: Crew details now displays proper information
  
• FIXED: Hover icons getting stuck behind crew members
  
• FIXED: Multiple purple icons on trade locations
  
• FIXED: Footsteps getting stuck on loop
  
• FIXED: Sounds are again in 3D
  
• FIXED: Clicking on GUI while teleporter is on no longer teleports your crew
  
• FIXED: Hid some loyalty items that shouldn’t have been showing
  
• FIXED: Shield status not getting saved
  
• FIXED: Shields not appearing
  
• FIXED: Shields on a ship when the first start even if they haven’t charged them
  
• FIXED: Mouseover on crew hire not giving the right info
  
• FIXED: Null reference after going to main menu and starting a new game
  
• FIXED: Null reference when station was unloading and trying to reveal FoW
  
• FIXED: Null reference when arriving at station and there was a conflict with stores
  
• FIXED: Loyalty adding hidden values to crew loyalty
  
• FIXED: Mission bubbles are now orange on nav map
  
• FIXED: Mission bubbles no longer animating
  
• FIXED: Rapid fire exploit
  

Greetings Star Commanders,

Quick update as we get ready for Alpha 8 release. Just some null reference fixes and some tweaks.

IMPORTANT: If you run into any errors while running the game PLEASE post the very first one that you get. Every other error after the first one is likely a cascading/domino effect and very difficult to diagnose and fix.. If you do receive an error, please take a screenshot, save the game and then load. From there take a screenshot of the first error you get after that. Again, subsequent errors are likely stemming from the first.

To get on the betatesting branch go to your library, right click on Star Command Galaxies, go to properties, click on the "Betas" tab and select the "betatesting" branch. The game will auto-update!

Patch notes below:

• FIXED: Flickering GUI issue with Unity 5.3.1 (damn you Unity!!!)
  
• FIXED: Null reference after going to main menu and starting a new game
  
• FIXED: Null reference when station was unloading and trying to reveal FoW
  
• FIXED: Null reference when arriving at station and there was a conflict with stores
  
• FIXED: Loyalty adding hidden values to crew loyalty
  
• FIXED: Mission bubbles are now orange on nav map
  
• FIXED: Mission bubbles no longer animating
  
• FIXED: Rapid fire exploit
  

• Enemy logic is going to be getting an entire rewrite and will be released post Alpha 8. It will be large and a patch for Alpha 8. After that enemies will be much more intelligent and not do odd things like beam aboard your ship and just stand still.
  
• Crew getting out of beds too early
  
• Objects becoming characters
  
• When packing/converting an object to scrap sometimes crew will get stuck
  
• Characters occupying the same tile
  
• Save corruptions (please post all first errors!)
  

Greetings Star Commanders!

We are wrapping up on Alpha 8 and have a new version for you. Some more bug fixes and a new bug submission area set up on the forums.

IMPORTANT: If you run into any errors while running the game PLEASE post the very first one that you get. Every other error after the first one is likely a cascading/domino effect and very difficult to diagnose and fix.. If you do receive an error, please take a screenshot, save the game and then load. From there take a screenshot of the first error you get after that. Again, subsequent errors are likely stemming from the first.

To get on the betatesting branch go to your library, right click on Star Command Galaxies, go to properties, click on the "Betas" tab and select the "betatesting" branch. The game will auto-update!

Patch notes below:

• FIXED: Enemies trigger animations
  
• FIXED: Enemies shooting after death
  
• FIXED: Garbled text on text popup
  
• FIXED: Crew details now displays proper information
  
• FIXED: Hover icons getting stuck behind crew members
  
• FIXED: Multiple purple icons on trade locations
  
• FIXED: Footsteps getting stuck on loop
  
• FIXED: Sounds are again in 3D
  
• FIXED: Clicking on GUI while teleporter is on no longer teleports your crew
  
• FIXED: Hid some loyalty items that shouldn’t have been showing
  
• FIXED: Shield status not getting saved
  
• FIXED: Shields not appearing
  
• FIXED: Shields on a ship when the first start even if they haven’t charged them
  
• FIXED: Mouseover on crew hire not giving the right info
  
• Beds now give limited HP when crew rest
  
• Revised hierarchy menu to better display how races feel about each other
  
• Added in intruder alert
  
• Added mission hover bubble above the appropriate node
  
• Limited active missions to 3 + Distress
  
• Tons of null reference error fixes
  

• Enemy logic is going to be getting an entire rewrite and will be released post Alpha 8. It will be large and a patch for Alpha 8. After that enemies will be much more intelligent and not do odd things like beam aboard your ship and just stand still.
  
• Save corruptions (please post all first errors!)
  
• Loyalty penalties not registering correctly on game load
  

Greetings Star Commanders!

For Alpha 9 we will be focused on continuing to polish the Star Command Galaxies experience and a big part of that will be new Missions and Events.

Missions will become much larger, story driven elements. Events, on the other hand, will be common things that appear in the galaxy, like derelict ships or zombie attacks.

To find out more about Missions and Events and to submit your own ideas click on the link below:

Missions and Event Idea Submission

Greetings Star Commanders,

New version for you, fresh out of the oven. Again, lots of fixes for some lingering issues. The big stuff has to do with addressing enemy behavior during combat and mission targets consistently being at their desired location. We are aware of a few bugs but give her a shot.

To get on the betatesting branch go to your library, right click on Star Command Galaxies, go to properties, click on the "Betas" tab and select the "betatesting" branch. The game will auto-update!

Patch notes below:

• Revised hand-to-hand combat so that enemy will fire, acquire targets, beam in intelligently and move through their decisions much better
  
• Mission targets should be at their displayed location
  
• Added Bounty missions
  
• Added in Crew Warnings where crew will tell you if there is an issue on your ship
  
• NAVMAP: Ships are being displayed on the edges of the nodes correctly
  
• STEALING disabled for the time being - objects can now be scrapped
  
• Music starting at 0 volume
  
• ShipPurchase not working correctly
  
• Carter notices not coming in at correct times
  
• Added in giver faction to mission indicator
  
• FIXED: Targeting allowed weapons to be fired before battery requirement
  
• FIXED: Distress missions not completing
  
• FIXED: Crew loyalty pulling from personal loyalty after mission complete
  
• FIXED: Freighters threatening the player
  
• FIXED: Crew shader
  
• FIXED: NPC’s and crew will try and avoid food and scrap instead of walking through them (unless trapped)
  
• FIXED: Crew walking through walls when they decide their own path
  
• A ton of other small fixes, tweaks and changes
  

• Enemies are not triggering shooting animation
  
• Enemies are shooting after they are dead until despawn
  
• If character popup dialogs trigger at the same time the text will all be displayed at once, ending up with garbled text
  
• Crew details not displaying the correct info
  
• Hover icon getting stuck behind crew members
  

Alpha 7.3 (BETA BRANCH)

Greetings Star Commanders,
Work is continuing on the path to Alpha 8. We have quite a few updates for you test over the weekend. We will continue to work on Alpha 8 through next week and release when everything is stable and as bug free as we can get it. Try out the new beta now!

To get on the betatesting branch go to your library, right click on Star Command Galaxies, go to properties, click on the "Betas" tab and select the "betatesting" branch. The game will auto-update!

Patch notes below:

• LOYALTY: Rewrote all of loyalty so that the captains will react according to their proper loyalty level
  
• LOYALTY: Mouseover on loyalty for each character displays the reasons they do or do not like you
  
• LOYALTY: Ships will now correctly attack the proper ships
  
• FIXED: Characters getting stuck in space after buying new ship
  
• STATIONS: All ships can no longer enter red alert at stations
  
• STARTING NODE: Now safe (no other races/pirates will spawn there)
  
• PIRATES: Will avoid space stations (no more suicide runs)
  
• DISTRESS MISSIONS: Only receive distress missions if you have high loyalty or more with ship
  
• DISTRESS MISSIONS: Timer disappears when you arrive to distress missions
  
• SHIPCOMBAT/DISTRESS MISSIONS: Mission will fail if you leave the area
  
• WARP JUMP: Completely rewritten to be more stable and efficient
  
• WARP JUMP: Crew no longer disconnect from their station during jump
  
• WARP JUMP: New jump sequence implemented
  
• WARP JUMP: Camera jumping fixed
  
• GUI: Stations use species frames
  
• ONELINERS: Added new feature where characters will update you about mission status and their intentions
  
• MISSION REWARDS: Redid mission rewards menu
  
• MISSION INDICATOR: Changes when mission is complete or failed
  
• TELEPORTER: Esc/Right Click cancels teleport
  
• SHIP LEAVING: Crew automatically return to ship when ships are leaving
  
• MISSION FAIL POPUP: When leaving an area to fail a mission a menu will popup informing player
  
• MISSION OPTIMIZATION: LUA sets up which missions each job profession works
  
• GAMETIPS: Added in ametips for game concepts
  
• ASSETS: Potential fix to messed up sprites appearing on characters
  
• ASSETS: Fixed missing midorian sprite sheets
  
• AI: Enemies no longer stop moving when they teleport to your ship
  
• All objects and weapon LUA’s revised for game balances, errors and missing data
  

• Targeting with machine gun giving error message
  
• Crew appearing in fog of war
  
• Ships hailing when they shouldn't
  
• Freighters are making threats
  
• Promotion bodies not appearing
  
• Getting too much loyalty from ShipCombat
  
• Distress missions not dismissing correctly after success/failure
  
• Shield HP not saving
  
• Food/Energy not saving for crew members
  
• Gametips being disabled not being saved
  
• Receiving new perk not being displayed
  
• Sorting for mission success/failure indicators is all kinds of messed up
  
• Crew loyalty on details not being displayed correctly
  
• Loyalty log not being displayed on crew detail
  
• Bunch of other stuff that we’re gonna do our best to address next week
  

Greetings Star Commanders!

We are wrapping up Alpha 8: Bugathon! and the game is getting much more solid and playable. In fact so much so that we are starting to consider what we want to do next. We have two distinct directions and we wanted to get some community feedback on what you would like to see next. There are two potential paths for Alpha 9:

Option 1 - More stuff!
We would focus on adding to the core of the game - more missions, more ship equipment like scanners and shield generators, new kits for medics and engineers, the ability for enemies to surrender and ask for surrender, reinforcements, escorts, hirable races, new personalities and crew automation. This would also include more polish on existing systems.

Option 2 - Spacestation Building
The starting space station would be a Star Command space station with the ability to build each store inside of it. You could build stores that focus on ship weapons, ship defenses, bars for recruiting mercenaries, recruiting stations for officers and so on. This allows you to set your own goals (ie: I want to build that level 2 bar) and makes your primary task collecting scrap and money and using Missions as a means to an end. This also leads directly into planets and colony building (colonies would supply space stations with resources and supplies).

Both are likely to get done but we wanted to see what our community thinks. Give us your thoughts below!

Greetings Star Commanders,

This is a patch moving towards Alpha 8 addressing our major bugs. We have also switched to Unity5 so we will be looking for any unexpected issues from that. This would include assets not popping up in the right place, white boxes and pink boxes where the asset path has changed. We have gone through the game multiple times but we may have missed some.

To get on the betatesting branch go to your library, right click on Star Command Galaxies, go to properties, click on the "Betas" tab and select the "betatesting" branch. The game will auto-update!

Patch notes below:

• UNITY5: Switched game to Unity5 - Please post ANY asset problems
  
• FIXED: Placing stolen items locking up the game
  
• FIXED: Black screen of death at Space Station arrival
  
• FIXED: Placing duplicate items removes the previously placed item
  
• FIXED: Could not switch out of Red/Yellow Alert
  
• COMBAT: Enemy invaders acquiring targets much better
  
• COMBAT: Crew reacting to enemies much more consistently
  
• FIXED: Repair particles staying stuck on objects being repaired
  
• FIXED: Heal particles not appearing
  
• FIXED: Engineers repair AoE much more solid and reliable
  
• FIXED: Placement tiles not appearing when placing an object
  
• PARTICLES: Sparks revised and much more efficient
  
• FOG OF WAR: Completely revised - each ship now has its own fog of war map
  
• FOG OF WAR: Ship no longer fades to black during warp
  
• FIXED: Windows appearing in front of characters
  
• FIXED: Beam weapons not being blocked by shields
  
• CREWDOCK: Quick select numbers displayed next to crew members
  
• CREWDOCK: Sorts correctly
  
• MOUSE: Now shows teleport and steal icons when you are using those actions
  
• UI: Lifebar no longer reflecting opponent's HP in character orbit
  
• NAV UI: Game is now pausing in nav
  
• NAV UI: Time controls staying on/highlighted in each state
  
• UI: "Navigation" still no longer getting stuck on mouseover
  
• NAV UI: Travel circle animation getting stuck
  
• GAME GUI: Damage rounded at first decimal
  
• FIXED: NPC’s dying on Antorian stations from radiation
  
• Station owners are now a part of the Hierarchy tree
  
• Made Hierarchy tree a vertical layout so your standing is clearer
  
• Compressed all species onto one page on Hierarchy tree
  
• FIXED: Antorian space station missing a door
  
• FIXED: Crew phaser being spawned in space
  
• MAPS: Lights on the Falchion
  
• GENERAL GAMEPLAY: Asteroids no longer moving when game is paused
  
• NAV UI: Correct space station images on nav map

Greetings Star Commanders,

With the release of Alpha 7 we are starting to plan on Alpha 8 and we wanted to get you all involved with our plan.

We read every comment, review and bug post for Galaxies and we hear you: the bugs suck. Our primary focus for Alpha 8 will be just that: bugs. There might be a couple new things like new kits for classes or some other things, but overall our goal for the next release will be nothing but bug fixes.

We will clearly start from the game ending crashes like the space station black space of death bug to the placing stolen items locking up the game. From there loyalty, combat and about a thousand other things will follow.

We have made our Trello board public so that you can see our current bug list, who is working on what and cast your own vote about bugs and features.

Star Command Galaxies Trello Board

Naturally this isn't the most exciting of news - no planets, new races, new ships or anything of that nature. But over the course of a month we think the game will be extremely stable and much better off as a whole.

Take a look at our board and feel free to leave us comments, suggestions or just leave little love notes for us to dream about during our coffee breaks.

Cheers,
Warballoon