It’s been ages since I wrote a proper dev update, and as we enter into 2023 I think it’s a good time to take stock of the past year and have a look at what we’ve managed to achieve over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of game updates, we pushed 24 release builds to Steam, in addition to 252 development builds. If you average it out that’s actually 2 release builds per month, which is a pretty decent release cadence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We also opened up our first fully public playtest, which was downloaded by over 3,500 people and garnered “Overwhelmingly Positive” reviews on Steam. This perhaps helped with our other big achievement, which was coming third place in IndieDB’s “Best Upcoming Indie 2022”!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Content-wise the game has evolved a lot in 12 months. By far the biggest addition was the new galaxy system, which enabled truly game-changing features such as;<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A true 1:1 scale galaxy, based on real astrophysics and featuring real galactic regions. We also made the galaxy a more interesting place to explore;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 All new planetary surface shaders with upgraded details and more variety. The interior of the ship also saw a lot of new additions;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 All new Bridge design As well as the player character, which was sorely in need of an update;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Switched to Character Creator 4 and made all new male and female models. And then finally a few other miscellaneous items that are worthy of mention;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Migrated the project to Unreal Engine 5.0. This definitely wasn’t everything I wanted to achieve for the game in 2022, but looking back I think we made solid progress towards something resembling a viable Early Access release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we now look forward to the next 12 months, my new year’s resolution is to make an effort to produce more social media content to help generate more buzz around the game. It’s been literally a year since I made a YouTube video, so that will be the first on my list. I will also try to incorporate proper live streams into my schedule, and also write more regular dev diaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy New Year everyone!<\/p>\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″ background_color=”RGBA(0,0,0,0)” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px|true|true” custom_padding=”0px||0px|0px|true|false” border_color_all=”#000000″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_color=”RGBA(0,0,0,0)” width=”100%” custom_margin=”0px|0px|0px|0px|true|true” custom_padding=”0px|0px|0px|0px|true|true” border_color_all=”#FFFFFF”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.27.4″ text_text_color=”#FFFFFF” text_font_size=”16px” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″] It’s been ages since I wrote a proper dev update, and as we enter into 2023 I think it’s a good time to take stock of the past year and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n It's been ages since I wrote a proper dev update, and as we enter into 2023 I think it's a good time to take stock of the past year and have a look at what we've managed to achieve over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In terms of game updates, we pushed 24 release builds to Steam, in addition to 252 development builds. If you average it out that's actually 2 release builds per month, which is a pretty decent release cadence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also opened up our first fully public playtest, which was downloaded by over 3,500 people and garnered \"Overwhelmingly Positive\" reviews on Steam. This perhaps helped with our other big achievement, which was coming third place in IndieDB's \"Best Upcoming Indie 2022\"!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Content-wise the game has evolved a lot in 12 months. By far the biggest addition was the new galaxy system, which enabled truly game-changing features such as;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 A true 1:1 scale galaxy, based on real astrophysics and featuring real galactic regions. We also made the galaxy a more interesting place to explore;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 All new planetary surface shaders with upgraded details and more variety. The interior of the ship also saw a lot of new additions;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 All new Bridge design As well as the player character, which was sorely in need of an update;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Switched to Character Creator 4 and made all new male and female models. And then finally a few other miscellaneous items that are worthy of mention;<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Migrated the project to Unreal Engine 5.0. This definitely wasn't everything I wanted to achieve for the game in 2022, but looking back I think we made solid progress towards something resembling a viable Early Access release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As we now look forward to the next 12 months, my new year's resolution is to make an effort to produce more social media content to help generate more buzz around the game. It's been literally a year since I made a YouTube video, so that will be the first on my list. I will also try to incorporate proper live streams into my schedule, and also write more regular dev diaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Happy New Year everyone!<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1197\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipsimulator.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2022 A galactic navigation and coordinate system.
\u2022 Seamless real-time travel around the whole galaxy with no loading screens or transitions.
\u2022 Stars moving in real time outside of the ship.
\u2022 Real-time labels for stars and planets in 3D space.
\u2022 The addition of our first batch of real-world stars from the Hipparcos catalogue.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A new system for planetary rings, with textured surfaces and dynamic planet shadows.
\u2022 New VFX for stars, including active coronas and mass ejections.
\u2022 Added multi-lightyear scale volumetric nebulae.
\u2022 Added procedural black holes.
\u2022 Added Sagittarius A* at the centre of the galaxy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 New Helm console with support for keyboard flight controls.
\u2022 New 3D Orrery Map which tracks the ship’s location in real time.
\u2022 All new A Deck interiors.
\u2022 New VIP Lounge
\u2022 Interactive Door Panel Controls, including a lock system and various operation modes.
\u2022 Interactive Window Controls, supporting polarization and projected nature scenes.
\u2022 Interactive Room Lighting Controls, supporting brightness and colour temperature.
\u2022 Added a detailed Ship Customisation system.
\u2022 Added ability to sit in chairs, some of which can be wheeled around.
\u2022 Added a new prop system that supports thousands of props at once.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Designed new crew uniforms, including dynamic name tags, country flags, and a mission patch.
\u2022 Added a new character customisation system.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Implemented significant lighting optimisations.
\u2022 Built a whole new front-end and menu system for the game.
\u2022 Built a new website for the game.
\u2022 Added a multiplayer chat system.
\u2022 Updated all major systems to work properly in multiplayer.
\u2022 Added an automated save game system.
\u2022 Fixed hundreds of bugs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A galactic navigation and coordinate system.
\u2022 Seamless real-time travel around the whole galaxy with no loading screens or transitions.
\u2022 Stars moving in real time outside of the ship.
\u2022 Real-time labels for stars and planets in 3D space.
\u2022 The addition of our first batch of real-world stars from the Hipparcos catalogue.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 A new system for planetary rings, with textured surfaces and dynamic planet shadows.
\u2022 New VFX for stars, including active coronas and mass ejections.
\u2022 Added multi-lightyear scale volumetric nebulae.
\u2022 Added procedural black holes.
\u2022 Added Sagittarius A* at the centre of the galaxy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 New Helm console with support for keyboard flight controls.
\u2022 New 3D Orrery Map which tracks the ship's location in real time.
\u2022 All new A Deck interiors.
\u2022 New VIP Lounge
\u2022 Interactive Door Panel Controls, including a lock system and various operation modes.
\u2022 Interactive Window Controls, supporting polarization and projected nature scenes.
\u2022 Interactive Room Lighting Controls, supporting brightness and colour temperature.
\u2022 Added a detailed Ship Customisation system.
\u2022 Added ability to sit in chairs, some of which can be wheeled around.
\u2022 Added a new prop system that supports thousands of props at once.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Designed new crew uniforms, including dynamic name tags, country flags, and a mission patch.
\u2022 Added a new character customisation system.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Implemented significant lighting optimisations.
\u2022 Built a whole new front-end and menu system for the game.
\u2022 Built a new website for the game.
\u2022 Added a multiplayer chat system.
\u2022 Updated all major systems to work properly in multiplayer.
\u2022 Added an automated save game system.
\u2022 Fixed hundreds of bugs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n