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Tuesday, August 1, 2023 - 16:11

There is now new version available for Open Realm of Stars 0.24.0Beta.

Originally my plan was add new game ending, but I got quite many good quality of live improvement suggestions, so I focused on those.

I also saw AI discussion on Reddit and based on that I also modified the most difficult AI.

 

First obvious new UI improvement is that there are two selectable UI schemes: classic and new space grey. Spacegrey is a bit more calmer hopefully clearer. Then there are improvements for fleet movements. There is small icon indicate if fleet has moves left, or has been routed or already moved. There is also a button for regular movements in starmap view. User can also switch planets/fleets by pressing tab and tab+shift keys. Esc key also moves one view back if that is possible.

There is also improvements for leader view. In same view there is a list of recruitable leaders, so no more getting random leader when user clicks recruit button. Also if two realms are in trade alliance it is possible to recruite leader from another, as long as your realm does not have xenophobia.

There is also improvement in planet view. There is secondary tab which shows uncolonized planets in a list. Best found planetary is on top of the list and it even tries to get new planet close to your old ones.

 

There is also background story for each realm. This is show for human player in the beginning of the game. It depends on your space race, goverment, starting planet and based on randomization. At end of the game you are able to see you full story depending on what events happened during the game. You can also view story for each realm.

 

Then about the AI. Previously all AI in Open Realm of Stars was giving a score for each building project. Then on dice roll was done, bigger the score bigger the chance for getting that project to be picked. But in Reddit discussion, it turn out it would be better to always pick the highest score. This required quite many changes for the scoring since, now there should not be equal score for projects. For example building factory and mine got same score. Now it depends how many production or metal planet is producing and that affects for scoring.

 

For this AI change I also modifed JUnits which actually run whole games by the AI. Previously each test had different output based on what was the purpose of that test. Now I changed that each test prints out everything. This actually helped a lot for debugging the AI and getting the improvements done.

 

There are also quite many bugs being fixed and added smaller new features like space anomaly which contains destroyed planet, or precius gems planetary event.

 

There is also new trailer for this release.

Open Realm of Stars is available in Github or Itchio:

 

Thursday, March 2, 2023 - 16:05

There is now new version of Open Realm of Stars(0.23.0Beta) available. Biggest change is that in order to get diplomatic victory one needs to get at least 50% or more galaxy to vote. So it means realms can now abstain voting for the ruler. Galactic secretary can now choose what to vote next, previously this was chosen randomly.

 

Another big change is that leader are selected from separate list. Each planet that can deliver leader is added then into list. Leaders are some amount of turns there and they get older while they are in the list. So this means that it is possible to select what kind of leader one is going to hire.

 

In diplomatic view it is possible to now see relation bonuses on tool tip. There is also open text search in game's tutorial/help feature. There are also quite many new texts added into tutorial.

Ancient Palace

Open Realm of Stars now contains new images to all random events and planetary events. These images has been created using stable diffusion. Some of those images I were able to create those with prompt but others required more work. For example deserted ship is done so that I first created fighter jet and stiched to look like two fuselages and engines just copying pieces of that generated jet fighter. Space background was created with separate prompt. Then img2img tool was to create stiched jet fighter to single alien ship.

 

In statistics view, planet view there is now added number of planets each realm has. This was clearly missing from the statistics, since if there are multiple realms it is possible that there are multiple realms with same amount of planets and line graph is not enough. 

 

This version has been finished quite, long but I have been also working with Let's play video where I play with Teuthidae Empire so that I try to focus on Cloaking devices and espionage modules. Link to let's play video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tzt2KRkhE

 

Open Realm of Stars is available in both Itchio and Github.

Saturday, August 13, 2022 - 15:14

New version of Open Realm of Stars is available. 0.22.0Beta is available in Github or Itch.io:

 

https://github.com/tuomount/Open-Realms-of-Stars

 

https://reemax.itch.io/open-realm-of-stars

 

This new version updates mostly user interface and AI. For user interface starmap can be scrolled by dragging it with mouse. Another big change in starmap is that with left clicking it is possible to plan regular move route a bit similar like FTL route. One must click at least two sectors farther from fleet to start planning the route. Clicking sector next to fleet it still moves the fleet. During combat there is possibility to shown weapon ranges for current ship.

 

For AI there is improved challenging exploration algorithm. AI also now can change target of colony planet if it notice that planet has been colonized. Previously this required that AI travelled next to planet. Now if planet has been visible earlier and it is colonized, cultural value of sector changes and this is visible even behind the fog of war. There has been also fixed a bug where AI always attacked against orbital no matter what the defense was. I have also fixed AI bug where gathering attack fleet could get jammed if planet where gathering was suppose to happen was actually occupied by another realm. Also if AI ship escapes from combat and it was defending on planet, it now returns to nearest safe home planet.

 

There are three new background music and one new combat music. Two new star images, previously there was just single star image. Humans now start from planet called Earth and also other planets have correct names and some even images. There is also possible to find Galactic News Broadcasting Company's station. From there you can find ancient artefact. Some space anomalies also contain ancient artefacts. Currently these can be research by leader and they give boost for scientific research. Artifacts can be also trade with other realms. Later versions idea is that these could be used for gaining a new type victory in game.

 

There is also Let's Play series in Youtube. I have also made video about Galaxy Settings and all the Space Races.

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 - 15:28

Esahubble has pictures all other planets except planet Earth. But then I found this from here OGA:

https://opengameart.org/content/earth

If one searches for ESA Image license you will encounter CC-BY-SA.3.0-IGO where IGO stands for Intergovermental Organization. Not sure how that differences from regular CC-BY-SA-3.0 but probably somehow, why it would have different license otherwise.

But anyway I think I found enough pictures with correct license to use in my game to make Sol there. So thanks MedicineStorm!

Tuesday, April 26, 2022 - 13:55

I thought I looked for ESA picture at somepoint and some of those were not under any open license. So in short it just depends by each picture. Those ESA pictures looks nice since I am just looking to find pictures of planets of our solar system which should be under some CC license. CC-BY-4.0 is perfect.

Sunday, April 10, 2022 - 14:45

Cool, thanks! I really appreciate this!

It is very challenging to get some visibility for your game!

Wednesday, April 6, 2022 - 12:48

New version of Open Realm of Stars is available. 0.21.0Beta is available in Github or Itch.io:

https://github.com/tuomount/Open-Realms-of-Stars

https://reemax.itch.io/open-realm-of-stars

Biggest changes are two new space races: Synthdroids and Alonians. Synthdroids are android which are bit like mix between humans and Mechions. Synthdroids need to be built like Mechions, but Synthdroids also need food to survive. They only need 50% of food than compared to other races. Synthdroids are using the old news reader image with legs added. Alonians are different compared to other races, they don't have starting planet at all. Instead they have more ships than others. (4 scouts and 2 colony ships). They also get extra research point for each colony ship with at least one colonist on board and not orbiting planet. Also space stations produce extra research point if they some research facilities.

Synthdroid

Game can now have up to 16 realms. There are total number of 16 different space race so each space race can be in same game. This 16 realms make winning of diplomatic, cultural, domination or by population victory quite challenging since you need to gain 50% of other realms to win. For example diplomatic victory you need to gain trust of over 50% total population of whole galaxy. Domination requires conquering of 50% of home planets. Cultural victory requires have at least cultural admires for almost half of the galaxy. And finally population victory requires to have 50% or more of whole galaxy population.

This version features space worms and space krakens as space monsters. These can be found from the space anomalies. I actually had quite interesting bug with these while playing test game. Earlier updates added tractor beam which can be used for stealing ships from other realms and I thought I had disabled that for space monsters. Turned out that I wasn't and I got text where it said ship has been captured. I fixed this that tractor beam can be used for disabled space monster for taming it. Now you can have your own pet space monsters.

Space monster

There are also features which should make game less for micro management. Regular movements can be set as route. This is very good for exploration fleets to move. Game will also notify if exploration fleet finds planets or space anomalies or deep space anchors. Planet governors can now automatically select next building project when previous project finishes. Governors can also suggest what building should be destroyed or recycled if planet is full. Governor can be give a guidance for example focusing on research or military. In ship design view it is possible to use AI to design ships for you. This uses same methods as AI realms use. Player need to select ship hull and possible variant for ship type and name the ship. After design player can still modify the ship as needed or wanted.

There is also a new basic weapon: multicannon. Some of the space race will have access for multicannon instead of railgun. Multicannons have very short range and bad accurarcy(Only with first generation, this will get better instead of range like other weapon types) but good thing with multicannons is that they do not require energy. This allows new ship designs like small ship with armor, nuclear engines and multicannons. This basically allows to have one single "extra" component in ships since no energy is required for weapons.

Finally let's show picture of Smaurigian space ship bridge(This space ship bridge image was also added in this version):

Smaurigian Bridge

I would be really interested to hear if you have tried out the game and your thoughts about it.

Tuesday, March 22, 2022 - 16:39

I am using this as a diplomacy music in my 4X game. This is being played when player is having diplomacy with Alonians.

Tuesday, February 8, 2022 - 09:25

Interesting game and quite addictive. I played until I got out of memory error.  I think I was able to get level 8 and got score 128. That's what is visible in screen after crash. My guess is that out of memory occurs when there are multiple big ships and bullets bounce from those. I was able to get few bullets between three ships and then which were bouncing back and then shooting more bullets so those kept bouncy on screen.

Wednesday, January 5, 2022 - 15:47

@buttons:

There're like...no such games?

There are but I think they are all Elderscrolls. Each Elderscroll has their pros and cons. Skyrim is probably best looking and music is excellent there. It also has those epic dragon fights. Well they are epic until you get your hero superhero that can handle those easily. I think that's also another issue with Skyrim, that for example you join to Mage Guild with character who hasn't never cast a spell before doing the initial test. If I rememeber correctly those can be pass with starting magic spells. After one day doing quests for the Guild you find yourself as a Archmage, which feels so wrong.

For Oblivion it is pretty much same as Skyrim expect it does not look that good as vanilla. But it has pretty much same issues as Skyrim.

Morrowind main map is same big area, which allows spellcasters cast flying or leviate spells and fly over city walls and so on. I think Morrowind had some restrictions that not all characters could join all the guilds and some guilds had probably restrictions that if you are member of another you are not allowed to join. Morrowind as an area is very unique and some might not like the look of envinroment.

Then there is the Daggerfall. I think with this Bethesda really tried to make fantasy simulator. It has features that other Elderscrolls lack: For instance gold pieces are heavy in your pocket, you go to bank and change that for letter of credit. You can take loan for bank. You can even travel to far away land and take big loan there and run back to your home territory and never pay back your loan. You can buy a ship or house if you want to. Map is huge and travelling there really requires fast travel(How ever you can still walk or ride horse or cart to next town if you want to. It just takes a lot of time). It has skills like climbing. I really miss that this hasn't been in newer Elderscrolls. Daggerfall also has swimming skill and swimming in plate armor is almost certain for drowing and only way to get up is drop the something heavy. This Elderscroll is challenging. Surviving even from the first dungeon in really challence(Maybe even too much). But there are still some problems: Dungeons this is were Daggerfall went to so wrong. Developpers thought that players do like exploring maze like dungeons, but it gets very tiring to doing this like over and over just to get quests done. Quests are pretty much fetch something, kill something and so one there are couple of variants and some of them have few choices to make. Some quest are bad specially like fetch some mummy wrapping from Harpies nest and mummy wrapping from Alchemist Store is not suitable for doing the quest.

Since world is almost complete procedurally generated, quests are also random(not including the main quest) people in those towns are just random NPCs. But going for example City of Daggerfall where there are multiple shops, inns and thousands of people is still awesome and amazing. There is also Daggerfall Unity which is Daggerfall remake to Unity engine which fixes quite much of problems, like it allows to have smaller dungeons. Daggerfall Unity for example upgrades climbing and player can move sideways while climbing and swinging over the ledges.

Those dungeons have two sides. For example there can be a pit in dungeon. Player could find lever somewhere in dungeon(Finding this would probably require lots of fighting) which would lover the bridge over cap. Good character might be able jump or climp over the pit or use levitate or featherfall. I kind like that it really allows you play your character. But when you do this multiple times it gets tiresome.

 

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