KickStarter Stellar Tactics, a sandbox sci-fi RPG - now available on Early Access

[veevoir]

Is there an option for bigger fonts that I missed? In laptop resolutions and on 15' reading is teh hard.

 

[Doma]

 

[StellarTactics]

veevoir - I apologize for the delay responding - I only check in a few times a week. For now, only the one resolution. It may need to stay that way for a long time because of the complexity of changing the hud to accommodate multiple font resolutions and the change in the required text space associated with that. Doesn't mean I wont do it, just not in the near future. I'm focused on a few things as posted in the Steam forums and then on to finishing the sandbox and more content.

 

[veevoir]

Thanks! For sure it is a feature thats "nice to have" rather than critical.

 

[Doma]

 

[Doma]

 

[HoboForEternity]

wow this is a one man project? that is ultra impressive. usually one man endeavor are very limited like undertale and to the moon.

jeff vogel is actually the most ambitious one man game developer i've known. Mr. Don set the bar even higher. i am inclined to buy it just to support the guy. he has alot of experience under his belt too. i probably won't play it cos i don;t like playing EA games, but just give and show him a little support for such a promising game

 

[LESS T_T]

http://www.stellartactics.com/2064-2/

WHAT’S NEXT? – KZ-MR7

Long though lost, KZ-MR7, a Halamis research facility, was re-discovered several hundred years ago when Martin Varis crash landed on Achmedius VIII. Rumors and reports describe the facility as an advanced energy research station built on planetary ley-lines.

The facility, run by Professor Garrius Brons, developer of the FTL Drive, was funded through Halamis Corporation by House Shikaru shortly after the “Arrival”. Years of secretive research ended when rumors that a powerful energy rift was generated, destroying the facility and everyone in it. Subsequently, the planet was flagged as “Off-Limits”, however, illegal mining on the planet continues to this day.

Martin Varis explored the facility for years with a small team of mercenaries, scrapping parts and gathering information. He swore that every time he entered KZ-MR7, the very structure of the facility changed, as though he was stepping into a parallel universe. He told stories of horrible mutations, hellish creatures and squads of elite military personnel infesting the facilities permutations.

Several years later, Martin and his team re-entered KZ-MR7 one last time. They were never heard from again. A rescue party was assembled, however, the mysterious facility could not be found. It was as if KZ-MR7 disappeared off the face of the planet, leaving nothing behind…

DETAILS
First, I’d like to once again thank every one of you for buying Stellar Tactics and supporting the development of the game with feedback and commentary.

KZ-MR7 is the next major feature addition to Stellar Tactics. It is the next step towards the Alpha build and will give everyone a chance to progress further in the game and test the random mission and location generator.

When I release KZ-MR7, you will be able to accept missions from NPC’s on the Achmedius Trade Station. These NPCs will send you to the surface of Achmedius VIII to explore the facility. Missions will be randomly generated and the facility will change when a mission is provided. This includes enemy placement, loot, objectives and the global layout of the facility.

A few details related to KZ-MR7 when it’s released:

• I’ll be fixing any bugs that are found and making sure the system is 100% stable before moving on when the build is released.
• I will be tuning objectives and loot over time.
• I will be adding Perk tiers over time.
• Progression will be limited to a maximum level of 60.
• I’ll be performing a combat tuning pass.
• I’ll be gathering community feedback.

After that, I’ll be adding a few other systems as noted in the road-map posted in the forums. Once the random mission/location generator is complete and stable, I’ll move on to finish space combat and trading. Once those are done, the FTL gates will open…more on that later.

I’m not making any promises for dates at this time, but I will be working on finalizing KZ-MR7 and its supporting game systems exclusively going forward along with a few annoying non-critical bugs. When I’m happy with what I have, I’ll release it to the community, first on Public Test and then to everyone.

Thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!

 

[Aothan]

jeff vogel is actually the most ambitious one man game developer i've known. Mr. Don set the bar even higher. i am inclined to buy it just to support the guy. he has alot of experience under his belt too. i probably won't play it cos i don;t like playing EA games, but just give and show him a little support for such a promising game

I was waiting for the 'more than zombies' update, for instance what is mentioned at around 14:00 in the most recent video, but I see later from the same source there are spiders which could mean there is already more to the available game than I had realised. In any case the available material looks like a game with a good direction and the new update has a lot of promising features so I'll probably start sooner than later

 

[Severian Silk]

A suggestion if the game doesn't already have it:

It would be cool to have the main ship be a carrier, with smaller teammate piloted ships to act as escorts. The Star Wolves series was excellent in this regard.

Also, Homeworld series has the best controls scheme for a RTwP space game. I would definitely recommend that too.

 

[Infinitron]

RPS doesn't like Stellar Tactics: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/06/stellar-tactics-review-early-access/

Premature Evaluation: Stellar Tactics

Every week we wake Brendan from his cryo-slumber and present him with an early access game. This week, the sci-fi zombies and janky combat of Stellar Tactics[official site].

Everything about the premise of Stellar Tactics suggests a game that is so far up my street, it is practically in my house – a squad-based science fiction RPG with extensive character customisation, space travel and tactical turn-based combat. In other words, XCOM in a wider, explorable universe. So I should be disappointed when my last soldier, a frighteningly perceptive riflewoman called Shirley Not, dies at the clawed hands of the opening mission’s zombie bad dudes. But really, I am just relieved. It is the perfect excuse to stop playing.

Things start out promising. Four crew members wake up in the cryo chambers of the Dauntless – the last ark of humanity with a few hundred thousand sleeping refugees, fleeing an earth ravaged by a virus called the Phage. But something has gone wrong during the long journey and we are needed to kick some jerks in the bonce. You are the last special forces team, basically. So far, so tropey. But on the bright side, the game is letting me name my squad and give them specialties. Something I approve of very much.

Shirley Not is just one of the crack team. There’s also Gonads MacAllister, who has forgone a rifle in exchange for hand-to-hand combat expertise and a body made of rock (he has an ultra high endurance stat).

Unfriendly Joan is the intelligent one, and our resident hacker – she likes pistols.

Finally, there’s Cheekbones Gaston, charismatic pilot and professional bullet-sprayer with a submachine gun.

This is always the part of a character-driven game I like the most, before the niggles and quirks start to gnaw away at the potential. Usually that decay takes a few hours. Here, the warning signs began immediately, as I was affronted by the crowded help screen shown below. The on-going tutorial otherwise takes the form of people talking to you – a pair of opposing doctors locked on different parts of the ship – filling you in with walls of text about lore while interjecting with an occasional “out of character” advice and directions on how to hack keypads or move things around in your inventory. It’s a stumbling and inefficient way to teach new players the ropes.

Gonads and co carried on through the bowels of the spacecraft regardless, noting as they went how samey and repetitive the environments where, whole corridors and rooms repeating over and over again, huge spaces filled with nothing much to pick up and nothing to do, all navigated at the squad’s sluggish mouse-clicking pace. Sometimes the story sends you back the way you came, before demanding another return. It’s sacrilegious level design from the 1990s. And then you get into a fight.


The combat system, speaking plainly, is a mess. It usually goes like this: you enter a room or a corridor and freeze – the game has detected enemies. But you might not see them, perhaps your perception isn’t high enough or they are behind a corner. At this point, they’ve more or less ambushed you. The way to avoid this is to enter every unexplored space or room by pre-emptively entering “combat mode” thus turning the team’s slow pace into a glacial one. I decided I could live with being ambushed all the time.

Most of the enemies in the opening levels are your working class zombies. Some of the later ones shoot fire from their hands, for some reason. One of them has a giant hammer and can throw grenades, because he’s the captain. To fight back you click on a certain body part of your foe – torso, legs, arms, head – which fires your gun (or punches them) thus eating up some action points. Moving also costs AP, as does kneeling to get better aim, or simply turning to face another direction. Sometimes you can inflict an injury that affects the enemy’s behaviour, and you can also be affected this way. A crippled status increases the amount of action points needed to do anything, the stun status makes you miss turns until it goes away, poison leaches health from you over time, and so on.

Basically, it’s going for a old-style Fallout or XCOM system of fighting. It doesn’t really work. Firstly, the tight corridors mean that you can often block yourself in. And I found no way of switching between characters aside from straight-up ending the character’s turn, so re-aligning and re-grouping into a usable formation is often impossible. Turn order between both your squad and the enemies is based on some opaque initiative formula – sometimes only one of my characters would get to move or shoot, at other times all of them would get the chance. Sometimes enemies attacked once or simply chilled out, other times they hit my soldiers in the face generously and with great enthusiasm, four or five times.


Having seen the simple, clean and efficient turn order systems and shooting mechanics of the game’s obvious inspirations, the newer XCOMs, the combat here feels clunky, buggy and at times downright unknowable. For example, you can move your troops but they will always face the last direction they were running in – not the enemy – and it costs AP just to turn them back around, making retreat or reorganisation of your troops an unpleasant, time-consuming and systematically “expensive” mish mash. They will not always move where you want them to either, and it isn’t clear what spaces can be occupied and which are deemed unusable.

For a game with “tactics” in the title, the only really viable tactic is to “shoot the baddies before they hit you”. There’s no useful cover, no discernible bonus to flanking, and (for this whole section) no other weapons aside from the default pistol and assault rifle. Some stun grenades show up later, offering the valuable chance to stop your enemies in their tracks. But it’s not clear how many turns this effect lasts and even figuring out how to throw the grenades is a mission, thanks to a confusing and underexplained user interface (you have to equip them as a secondary weapon, switch to them, click on their icon again, aim the arc and left click to throw).

All this might have been forgiveable if there was something interesting going on elsewhere – a story with some humour maybe, or new equipment that changed the way you approached a fight. But each new story NPC you meet is a damp cluster of bore-lore and cliché, and each of the infrequent chests of goodies contain nothing but cogs, magnifying glasses, springs, lighters, twine, canes, USB sticks, hip flasks – all of which are labelled the same way, as junk you will some day be able to sell. I have never understood this practice. Give me something of significance, or just give me money. If loot is just money in the form of junk with an identical description, what is the point?

The whole misadventure culminated in Gonads and the gang jogging onto the bridge and meeting the doctor whose dangerous experiments (oh no!) started this whole zombie disaster. Thinking that the game might be about to display some of the RPG parts of an RPG, I selected the charismatic Cheekbones Gaston to talk to the doctor. Perhaps we can convince him to relieve command of the bridge with reason and words and a sexily sculpted face. No such luck. He demanded all the lifeboats for himself, called in six of his zombie pals on either side of the squad, then whipped out a powerful SMG and started spitting bullets into Gonads MacAllister’s arms.

Meanwhile, each of my squad had less than a dozen bullets left in their gun, and a single underpowered frag grenade. Unfriendly Joan got it in the neck from a zombie, Gonads fell to Crazy Doctor’s bullets, and Cheekbones did his best to lure the zombies away but died unheroically after running out of bullets. It was only Shirley Not left, running down corridors pursued by baddies. Every time she ran, she used up all her AP, since to use some to turn and kneel (never mind taking a shot) would mean the zombies would close the gap and instantly kill her. After a few more pointless runs, I turned and took a few half-hearted shots before the zombies closed in and finished her off. It was my second ‘game over’ screen. Shirley did not even bother to do a death animation for it.

I enjoy a game that’s tough. XCOM is tough. But you can fail a mission and then just keep on going, a little worse off, perhaps critically, but it isn’t game over until it’s Game Over. Here, you die and you have to do all that again, the same fiddly combat, the same slow-paced and expensive movement, the same attempts at careful repositioning ruined by the same spammy enemies. Earlier in the game, for my first game over, I marched back in, determined to see if there was anything to redeem Stellar Tactics from how I now felt about it. After defeating the hammer-wielding captain and his fire-chucking lackeys the second time we fought, I was rewarded with a rusty whistle.

On the second game over, I didn’t bother going back.

Stellar Tactics is on Steam for £14.99/$19.99. These impressions are based on build 1490843.

 

[Hobo Elf]

 

[Infinitron]

Many of you have wondered what is beyond the locked FTL Jump points. In this video, I engaged my FTL drive and explore a little.

 

[StellarTactics]

Thanks for posting info here!

I was a bit surprised that RPS would review a pre-alpha. There are so many released indie games out there. Sure, there is a lot of work to do, yes, it's not perfect. I am working on it and the game has improved quite a bit over the last few months and will continue to improve for a long time to come.

Regarding portraits, I'll be adding the ability for people to add custom portraits in the future. There are a few ugly ones as it stands, where others are better. When creating characters, there are around 1600 portrait variants to choose from.

Yes, much more than zombies. The game has quite a few enemy variants in it now, in the prologue. More to come.

 

[nil]

Spoiler

 

[Drowed]

One of the things that bothered me is the size of some patches - some time ago, I'm pretty sure that the game received several patches in a row, with at least two of them having more than 1 gig. C'mon, my poor bandwidth!

Regarding portraits, I'll be adding the ability for people to add custom portraits in the future.

Dear god, please do.

 

[StellarTactics]

I did quite a bit of work to reduce the size of patches going forward. Doesn't mean there won't be big patches in the future. Here is a list of user suggested changes that I've made which are posted in the steam forums under "You asked for it, you got it!"

And yes, custom portraits, the GUI and other improvements will be made - good god! - People love their Avatars...and yes, she looks pretty bad "nil",

1. Auto-Saves
   
2. Log and mission description text more legible
   
3. Weapon ammo prices reduced
   
4. Weapons purchased with full ammo now have minimal ammo (was an exploit)
   
5. Maximum ammo adjustments
   
6. Typos
   
7. Default mouse and keyboard camera control adjustments
   
8. Keyboard camera rotation added (Q and E keys)
   
9. Enemies with low HP that are fleeing now have 1/2 the AP (traveling half the distance per turn)
   
10. Default weapon vendor added to trade station for those who want to skill up a different weapon
    
11. Combat cursor performance
    
12. Combat path indicator rollover delay reduced
    
13. Combat cursor text font size increased
    
14. Cursor fine aiming for bonus %-to-hit is now optional (hold alt key for fine aiming)
    
15. High resolution space backgrounds
    
16. Reduced patch sizes (still in progress - expect more large patches occasionally)
    
17. Added FPS meter and performance optimization suggestion system
    
18. Speed up of looting delay - looting objects is now 100% faster
    
19. Better CTRL highlights on objects
    
20. Ability to disable auto-saves
    
21. 8-Direction scrolling
    
22. Projectile speed increased
    
23. Team member recovery feature
    
24. KZ-MR7 - You wanted a way to progress, I wanted a way to get to Alpha - we compromised - I'm working on it!

 

[anus_pounder]

If I have one doubt about this game, it's this bit of blurb on the steam page.

" With 10,000 sectors, tens of thousands of solar systems and millions of planets to discover"

This just reminds of Borderlands and the claim that it had millions of varieties of guns when ultimately the 'millions' of guns just had minor differences and were almost always complete shit. I can't shake the feeling that a few systems with handcrafted content would be better, especially since this is a one-man project?

 

[StaticSpine]

This just reminds of Borderlands and the claim that it had millions of varieties of guns when ultimately the 'millions' of guns just had minor differences and were almost always complete shit.

And what about No Man's Sky?

 

[ArchAngel]

This just reminds of Borderlands and the claim that it had millions of varieties of guns when ultimately the 'millions' of guns just had minor differences and were almost always complete shit.

And what about No Man's Sky?

No Man's Sky - inspired by Stellar Tactics :D

 

[LESS T_T]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/465490/announcements/detail/499170989421604737

Engine Upgrade!

This build is only available on the "Publictest" depot for now - see instructions below to opt in.

I have good news and bad news!

The bad news first!

There is no good way to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Better now than later.

THE ENGINE UPGRADE WILL WIPE YOUR SAVE GAMES (sort of)

In order to prepare the game for Steam Cloud Saves, I had to move the save game folders and data. I don't expect that I'll need to do this again, however, I cannot guarantee that there won't be save game wipes in the future while in EA. I'll always provide a way for you to recover you're old saves if possible (see below). NOTE: Cloud saves will go live when this build is ready to be released. There will be no cloud saves while testing on the "Public test branch".

This engine upgrade was crucial for KZ-MR7 and moving forward towards alpha.

I am providing a way for you to manually recover your save's if you must. See the section below.

The good news!

I am posting a major engine upgrade to the "Publictest" depot! Instructions for accessing the updated version are noted below for anyone willing to test the new build. Please read below, opt-in and give me feedback on the new engine. I'll be providing a pinned thread in the general forums for feedback.

Post feedback here!

Features

There are too many fixes/changes to list here. I'm just going to list the major updates for you.

• Reworked Load/Save folders for accessibility and future Steam Cloud Saves
  
• 64 Bit support - steam will automatically choose between 32bit and 64bit depending on your systems capabilities
  
• Better support for Windows screen resolutions and tabbing
  
• 4k support (Experimental)
  
• Better performance overall
  
• Stability fixes
  
• Better support for zoomed state in Windows 10
  
• Faster execution of scripts
  
• Lower memory overhead
  
• Better support for lower end video cards (Yeah Intel - that's you, though I still cannot officially support you!)
  
• Updated Steam Libraries
  
• Load/Save games are now much faster
  
• By default, space graphics are set to low resolution (for those with limited VRAM]. For those of you with 2GB or more VRAM, just open the options menu and under video select "HiRes Space" and apply settings. The next time you enter space, you will be using the high resolution graphics

Opting into Public Test

To access the public test build:

1. In steam navigate to your Library
   
2. Right click Stellar Tactics
   
3. Select properties
   
4. Select the "Betas" tab
   
5. From the drop down list, select "publictest - Public Testing Branch"
   
6. No code is required. Click the "Check code" button
   
7. Close the properties window, exit Steam and log back in. The updated build should start downloading.

For now, when you launch the public test build, you must launch the game from within Steam - do not use your desktop icon. A popup window will appear - select either the default or 64bit versions. When this build goes to the default depot, Steam will choose the appropriate version for you. If for any reason you have a problem with the 64bit version, please report a bug in the forums and then choose the default version (32bit version) of the game.

Fixes etc. released with this build

• UPDATED: FPS cap raised from 30fps to 60fps - nice and smooth on fast systems.
  
• UPDATED: Physics now automatically scales to your systems performance.
  
• FIXED: Major fix for enemies skipping their turns
  
• FIXED: Fix for missed movement clicks. Much more responsive overall.
  
• FIXED: Healing icon no longer appears when rolling over KO'd team members when a med kit is equipped.
  
• ADJUSTED: Enemies that do not have weapons equipped no longer gain a large H2H melee bonus.
  
• ADJUSTED: Spiders are a little less likely to poison
  
• ADJUSTED: Better loot from bosses on Dauntless.
  
• ADJUSTED: Weapon and armor wear is now 1/2 of what it was before until crafting and repair go in.

MANUALLY RECOVERING YOUR OLD SAVE GAMES

NOTE: Do not attempt this if you do not feel technically competent with the Windows file system!

This update will NOT delete your old save games. If you must have them, you can manually move them to the new save folder. I recommend starting again from scratch, but if you absolutely must have your old saves, then you will need to take these steps.

1. First, backup your savdat.xml - In Steam, under Library, right click Stellar tactics and select "Properties" -> Select the "Local files" tab - > Click "Browse local files". Now, copy the "savdat.xml" file somewhere safe.
   
2. Now, open "savdat.xml" file in "Notepad" and then "File->Save As" and overwrite "sav_dat.xml" file in the Steam installation folder (note that this file is named slightly different with a "_" between "sav" and "dat"). Leave the "savdat.xml" file in the folder in case you want to go back to the public build. - Ok that's the first part, now to get your save files.
   
3. Access "Users\"YourUserName"\AppData\Local\Abyss" - in this folder search for "Saves" (hint: it should be in one of the subfolders. (see below if you are having problems seeing the AppData folder).
   
4. Copy everything in the saves folder - all the ".sts" files. Make sure to leave the "Saves" folder and its contents in case you want to go back to the public build.
   
5. Go back to your Steam install folder (instructions above) and paste all of your save games (".sts" files) into the "Save" folder
   
6. That's it, you should now be able to access your old saves in the new engine.

Missing your AppData folder? It may be hidden - Here is an article if you need more info:
How to access your AppData folder[www.techwalla.com]

 

[kris]

RPS doesn't like Stellar Tactics: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/06/stellar-tactics-review-early-access/

You are the last special forces team, basically. So far, so tropey. But on the bright side, the game is letting me name my squad and give them specialties. Something I approve of very much.

You shouldn't make the characters "Special forces" when they can barerly use a weapon and lack almost every skill.

 

[veevoir]

"I have a long list of usefull skills. And 0 in each of them"

 

[Galdred]

Mr RPS has a point, though: having lots of junk items adds nothing to the game. Maybe you should just replace them with money or give them some useful properties.

 

[StellarTactics]

The junk items will soon be useful for crafting ammo and other items. Basic crafting can take place anywhere and requires components scrapped from "junk items". The game is not finished and some game systems are missing. If anything is looted in the game, it will be useful.