P0-B14

I have added quite a few more traits and skills to the game, as well as tested and improved the skill gui menu and adjusted the exp requirements for the different skill levels.

I have also added a stamina bar, which prevents the player from sprinting continuously.

I have cleaned up the console prints on the client and server, and removed some unneeded debugging statements.

I have created a clean build of the game, and tested it, there don’t seem to be any major issues.

Pressing F12 now automatically saves a screen shot to the build directory.

Finally, I have added a simple admin script to allow me to save the server state, send messages to all connected players, kick/ban, etc.

The Early Access release is basically done now, I just need to prepare the master server for launch, and do some final testing. Once I upload the build to steam, I may do a limited pre-EA release using steam keys to grant access.

I have made many improvements to the game, and fixed many bugs.

The game balancing during combat has been improved, and I have made improvements to the physics code, and movement. I have improved the control system layout, and added basic joystick support.

The campaign story triggers have been tested and further improved, and I have added visible navigation paths to complex interiors to aid in navigation (Activating the in-game radar also displays any nav paths that are available). This makes it much easier for the player to navigate within interiors.

I also fixed a complex longstanding bug that was causing some items to rotate incorrectly when placed far from the player, as well as another bug with rotating the jetpack at certain angles.

I have also wired up several of the games unlockable abilities/traits/skills. Not all will be done in Early Access, but I am going to add as many as I can. The skills system in the game has also been tested and improved.

Finally, I have improved the weapon reload system so that weapons now reload automatically, even if ammunition is not equipped in the item slots. This makes combat and gameplay easier.

I have tested and improved the random quest system in the game. This is very simple at the moment, and needs to be improved, but it is functional.

I have also improved the GUI’s in the startup menu to make them simpler and easier to understand, and made some minor improvements to the main in-game guis.

The games documentation has been improved, with quite a lot of new detail added. It is available HERE. I have also added buttons and menus to more quickly access the in-game help documentation.

The campaigns (Especially the multiplayer campaigns) have had safety checks added to prevent some abilities and features from being available when they shouldn’t be.

The multiplayer/master server now has a user limit of 20 concurrent users. This is quite low, but the server has not been stress tested extensively, so I want to keep the concurrent users as low as possible until it has been properly tested under real world conditions.

The biggest improvement that I have made is with the game balancing for the third campaign. I have made several improvements here, and I am in the process of testing them. So far the game feels much more balanced than it was previously.

I have also fixed some small issues that I discovered while testing.

Finally, I had added a GUI to the capital ship in campaign 3 to allow the player to view a description and statistics for all of their ships weapons.

I am hopeful that I will finally be able to get Spiritus Astrum into Early Access at some point this year.

All that is left for the EA release is testing, debugging, and some tutorial menus and in-game hints.

The game is mostly single player at the moment, with three single player campaigns and a single player survival scenario.

I have also added a multiplayer survival scenario as well, although this is in beta.

I have added tracer rounds to both the players weapons and all enemy weapons. This makes it much easier to see where fire is coming from, as well as making combat sequence much more dynamic.

I have also improved the muzzle flash effects, slightly, and fixed some more minor bugs with the AI combat system.

I have also made some improvements to the AI companion system, and the crafting system. If a crafting dummy is removed before the crafting is completed, the player will now have any items that they combined with the crafting dummy returned to their inventory, instead of being lost.

I also slightly updated the graphics for the game on steam.

I am working on what I hope is the final phase of the project before the Early Access release.

In addition to bug fixes, there are still some improvements and features that I need to add, etc.

In particular, a lot of the character customisation options (Such as traits, etc), do not yet have a tangible effect on the game.

I have fixed two long standing bugs with the character system in the game. These bugs were causing visible distortion on the character meshes under certain circumstances. The issue was visual only, but it was noticeable enough to be a problem.

I also fixed some issues regarding spawning at random locations in the multiplayer survival scenario, and I made some improvements to the groundcover/grass exclusion system on ringworld.

In addition, I fixed a number of bugs with the inventory and item systems, as well as the enemy AI combat and spawning systems. One bug with the animation system took a particularly long time to find. It was causing the enemy AI to face in the wrong direction every time the fire animation was played. This turned out to be an issue with rotation baked into the animation itself that was causing the character to rotate.

Finally, I am in the process of adding tracer rounds to most weapons in the game. This allows both the players and enemies projectiles to be visible from a distance, which makes it easier to see where enemies are, as well as letting the player know when they are under attack. This is very important in a game with such long view distances as Spiritus Astrum. The effect also looks very good.

The next goal is to finish adding the projectile tracers, and fix some more bugs with the enemy NPC’s. This should take a few days. I then want to do some more testing, as well as add helper menus, tooltips, etc, to the game to reduce the learning curve a little.

This week, I have added two new campaigns to the game: A single and a multiplayer survival campaign.

The campaigns are very simple: The player lands on an Earthlike world and must simply survive for as long as they can.

The single player campaign has the player landing on random worlds, however the multiplayer campaign has players landing in the same region of the same planet, so that they can interact and survive together.

The multiplayer campaign should be considered in early beta however, the server has not been properly stress-tested.

Most of the work I did this week was on both of these campaigns. They seem to be quite stable now, although some more testing is needed, especially with the multiplayer campaign.

I also fixed an issue with the grass exclusion system which was preventing it from working properly on ringworlds. The solution is not 100% perfect, but it is much better than it was.

Several other minor bugs were also fixed, including some GUI bugs, some issues with the crafting system, etc.

I could be closer to an Early Access release than I planned!

This week was spent on more testing, improvements, and debugging.

I have completed multiple full retests of the first campaign, in the editor and in the build.

Most of the issues that I found were minor cosmetic issues and simple improvements, but there were some slightly larger bugs that appear to be intermittent (Mostly related to placing campaign items persistently in the world).

The main improvemets were to the AI system. There were some long standing issues here (Mostly related to navigation and pathfinding while the capital ship the AI was on was rotating) that were difficult to pin down, but the system seems to be much more reliable now.

I also spent some time testing and improving the AI when exploring planets, and added some new abilities.

I modified the campaign a little bit, to make the objectives flow better and make more sense with the story, and made some improvements to playability (There is a toggle option for sprint, as well as a hold-down, which makes sprinting long distances easier).

There is still quite a bit of testing and debugging to be done, but I am making progress.

I have fixed quite a few bugs within the project, including some long-term bugs. I have mostly been working with the AI system. This is one of the most complex systems in the project, since the AI has to be able to navigate and move on rotating ships, at any angle, etc. There are still some issues to fix here, but I am making progress.

I have improved the navmesh that the AI uses to navigate around the ship, removing some problem areas where the AI was getting stuck.

I have completed two more retests of the first campaign, and fixed almost all of the issues discovered in each one. There should be very few major issues left now, hopefully.

I should be able to finish the next step of the project this month.