Welcome to the February Update!

A lot of progress has been made over the last few months. You may have seen the core engine upgrade and a lot of recent patches for stability based on that upgrade, enhancements and quality of life improvements. All of that is documented in the other update I just posted.
I really haven't talked about other things that have been going on in the background while all of the coding work has been going on. While I've been working on game systems, I've also been working on KZ-MR7. This includes collaborating with artists who have been developing armor sets and other content. I would not have been able to do this without those of you willing to take a chance on me as a developer and Stellar Tactics as a game. My most sincere thanks to every one of you who has taken a leap of faith to support me and the game. Your game dollars are going towards the development of the game. Stellar Tactics is getting better with almost every patch! A huge thank you to everyone providing feedback on the game. As always, I'm reading your comments and responding when I can.

Enemies and Armor sets: Enemies for KZ-MR7 have been in development now for several months. I'm showing a few below. There are a number of material variants that are not shown. The armor these enemies are wearing can be looted and worn by your team members. When fighting bosses in KZ-MR7 (and throughout the universe), occasional rare armor set pieces will drop. Combining all pieces of an armor set will unlock special bonuses. These sets come in both melee and ranged variants and, some augmented for skill based specialization. You will see at least one of these sets in KZ-MR7. Major factions in the game have their own armor types and specialize in different forms of combat. There is more, but I need to leave something for a surprise.

House Halamis - Know for ore production, refineries and the manufacture of mining equipment and automated surface mining drones, House Halamis holds a monopoly on mining production across the known universe. Halamis enforces it's hold with a military presence wherever it feels the need. Primarily focused on ranged tactical combat, Halamis Defenders are known for their exceptional training and discipline.

House Shikaru - An ancient society steeped in tradition and secrecy, House Shikaru Initiates are conscripted into service at a young age. Mercenaries for hire, House Shikaru is known for its martial prowess and is widely regarded as deadly and reliable. Throughout history The Shikaru have rarely inserted themselves in politics and wars, preferring to stay neutral, and available for hire. Adults are rarely ever admitted into their service and must prove themselves through a martial gauntlet.


Space Stations: The new space stations are ready to be put in the game. These were quite a bit of work and I'd like to thank Colin, an amazing 3D modeler, for putting these together for me. The stations are built from modular components and can be assembled in countless variations. I have future plans for these besides just populating the universe with diverse locations to explore, but I won't get into that now. Every single one of the stations in the Stellar Tactics universe can be landed on and explored. Some of these locations are mission/combat locations, others are trade stations. Eventually all of them will be driven economically and by faction. I'll populate Achmedius with these stations in the near future, likely with the KZ-MR7 update.


An update on KZ-MR7: The locations are moving along quickly. All locations have been modeled and I'm now working through each of them adding navigation mesh, doors, props and lighting. There is quite a bit of work left to do, and things are moving along quickly. I expect I'll be populating these locations with enemies in the next few weeks and then writing supporting code. KZ-MR7 will be a endless dungeon that allows players to progress to level 60 and the tier 3 perk lines.
Every time you enter KZ-MR7 the layout is randomly generated from a set of scenes. A rough calculation tells me that there are 144,000 variants of this level set alone, taking into account current enemy variants and positioning, level permutations and other random factors. This procedural "set" will be populated across the universe during Alpha. And this is just the first procedural level set! And the loot...oh the loot!
Every scene requires quite a bit of work - lighting, navigation mesh, doors, interactive objects, enemy placement, loot locations, entry and exit points...


There is more posted about KZ-MR7 on steam here:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/465490/announcements/detail/566719912011654863

And one last thing: These are very early rough portraits from a very talented illustrator I'm working with. There is quite a bit of detail work left to do on the color illustrations but I thought I would share them with you. This is just the beginning...


That's all I have for now. Thank you all for supporting Stellar Tactics!

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