Stellar Tactics will get a few updates:

Faster load times, Dark Space, fixes and updates.

A few updates and fixes in this build as I work towards completing Chapter 3

I'm posting a few fixes and updates in todays patch before I lock everything down and start integrating the chapter 3 content. I've completed all assets for the new content update and it's time to put everything together.

This update adds pre-caching for all space content. You will notice that resources are being loaded when the game launches. This means a longer load to the main menu of the game, however, load times to space while in the game with be much faster. I also did a bit of work on load times for transitions between ground locations and will continue to work on this.

You will also find a new "Dark Space" option on the video options screen. This will set a single high resolution sky throughout the game. I felt this was a good option for players who would prefer a more realistic experience when flying through space. If you enable this at the main menu, loading a save will apply the new setting. If already in the game and in space, you will need to save and reload to see the changes.

[...]

Chapter 2 for Stellar Tactics is now available:

Chapter 2 released!

The story continues with Chapter 2. Introducing Azimuth, new missions and more!
I'm pleased to release Chapter 2 today. It's been a long road and I do hope everyone enjoys the new content. As always, it is likely a few bugs will surface over the next few days so I will keep an eye on the forums for any issues. If you do find any issues, please post on the bug forums here. Any details and screenshots you can provide will help: https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/7/

Localization - The English and German versions of the game are in good shape at this time. French, Spanish and Russian translations will be very rough. If you are interested in translating any of these three languages, send a note to support@stellartactics.com and I'll get back to you.

CHAPTER 2 - Pick up where you left off after completing chapter 1 with a message when entering space. Note that there are some very tough battles in this chapter so, grenades, Azimuth (when you get it) and Psionics will really help.

AZIMUTH - The final ground combat system to be implemented. Azimuth is a reward received during the chapter 2 story. It provides you with a variety of powerful effects that can be mixed and matched to both benefit your crew during combat and to debuff enemies. Effects last through an entire combat area so they are best used either at the start of an area or when you have tough enemies to defeat. Azimuth uses energy gathered over time through combat, space travel and by charging Azimuth with Aznari Shards. Chapter 3 (the final chapter) will introduce Azimuth which can be used in space combat.

MISSION NPCs - Mission NPC's can now be found on stations. When pressing the highlight key (TAB by default), mission NPC's are highlighted in BLUE. These missions offer cash rewards, loot, faction tokens and general faction. All of these missions have several stages/locations that need to be visited with different objectives and pay out rewards based on the number of stages required to complete the mission for the NPC. This is the first pass at NPC missions. I expect that I will be expanding on and refining the NPC mission system over time.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

Splattercatgaming checked out Stellar Tactics:

Stellar Tactics - Open World Space Mercenary RPG

Maverick Games posted an update about Stellar Tactics:

Engine update, radar mini-map, career bonuses and starting ship selections

Engine update, radar mini-map, tutorials, more choices when creating a new character, and ship class bonuses.
Lots of changes today and a few bug fixes. Meanwhile, I am working on the Chapter 2 content which should be released late December or January. Notes below.

GAME ENGINE UPDATED:

Much smoother gameplay even with saves that have hundreds of hours played. In general, the updated core engine will provide better visual fidelity and smoother camera movement

Camera smoothing updated.

The game engine now requests the highest power GPU for laptops and systems that have both Intel and NVidia/ATI GPU's. In the past, this was a problem. In many cases the default settings on Laptops were trying to render the game on the Intel GPU which was much slower and in some cases did not fully support the shaders required to render game effects, causing crashes on these systems. The work around was to manually force high power rendering through the control panels.
NOTE: The new engine only supports 64bit OS. For 32bit OS, the game will fall back to the older renderer/engine.

[...]

Thanks Redglyph!

A big update for Stellar Tactics has arrived which introduces Psionics and new story content.

The first major story update since the game released is now available. Over the last few years I have been primarily focused on all the core game systems - ground and space combat, salvaging, crafting, trade, special attacks, perks, progression, the ship boarding system and more. It's been great to spend the last few months actually working on the story...finally. This is the first of three major story content updates what will bring the game closer to final release. I hope you all enjoy the new content!

KEY FEATURES

Chapter 1 of the Stellar Tactics story. New missions, new encounters.
To trigger the story content you must:
1) Unlock the FTL drive
2) Unlock smuggling. Speak with Forley Coresh on Achmedius trade station standing near the bar area of the station by the stairs and complete his mission. Everyone should be able to smuggle contraband...right? Doesn't mean you need to do it.

There are several places in the narrative where you will need to wait for a NPC to contact you. Just go about your business for a 1/2 hour or so, and eventually, when entering FTL space, you will receive a communication that moves the story forward. This includes the start of the new content where you will be contacted after a period of time.

You will be heading into deep space and there will be higher level ships in various areas you will travel through. Remember, you can always micro-warp to escape ship combat. So, not a big deal...really.

I highly recommend getting the best FTL drive you can afford. Slogging through FTL space with a low tier FTL drive is - well...slow. The piloting perk tree has ship speed perks and tiers that increase your speed.

Just my 2 credits - don't rush the content. Take time to place beacons, take missions if you can and build your crew.

Make sure to place beacons in the systems you will visit. You may need to return and translocating is the fastest way to get back when you need to.

PSIONICS

--Psionics are powered by a special device - the Psionic Amplifier - a reward granted when playing through the story. This device is equipped in the sidearm slot on any one crew member.
--There is only one Psionic Amplifier. There are no upgrades and they do not drop as loot.
--Instead of improved variants dropping, the player is given a lot of control over how the device works.
--The device cannot be sold or destroyed.
--The Psionic Amplifier requires at least 20 BASE INT to equip. That is a PURE 20 INT not modified by equipment bonuses. It does not have a skill type that levels like other weapons. It does not have perks or mod slots. Instead, the device has a rudimentary interface that lets you create and edit psionic amplifications - the Psionic Editor. The higher your INT/PER, the more power you have to overload and to add a secondary effect to amplifications.
--The power of psionic amplifications is governed by INT and partially by PER. Bonus INT and PER above your BASE INT does affect your amplifications.
--INT and PER are the key STATS for psionics. INT has the greatest effect and PER provides a lower bonus. So, respec to INT/PER and loot that +INT/+PER gear.
--The power of your amplifications related to INT/PER is expressed as available MIND. As your stats increase, the amount of available MIND increases. Through the use of the Psionic Editor, you will notice that INT/PER increase the power of amplifications and reduce the possibility of damaging your crew member.
--There is no limiting resource to Psionic amplifications. That is, you can use psionics indefinitely unless you are overloading and then Medkits are a resource you want available.
--Psionics cannot sprint. Instead, their specials for the sidearm slot are locked and used as reference and to access the Psionic Editor.
--For psionics, it's important to understand "Initiative" which is used to calculate turn order. Initiative is calculated primarily from DEX and AGI with a bonus from INT. So, you will likely want to pump some stat points into DEX or AGI depending on whether or not your primary weapon is ranged or melee. 

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The first chapter of Stellar Tactics is coming soon:

Progress update

Story content, Psionics and more...

Chapter 1 has been a long time coming. A lot of work went into this and I'm finally at a point where everything is in the game and I'm testing and cleaning things up.

The video below is work in progress so expect a few typos and issues. I'm still cleaning up some of the Psionic UI, dialogue and various text used.

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Lets talk about what you can expect.

First, new story content. The game story previously ended in Achmedius. The story now continues as things start to ramp up in the Universe. Old acquaintances, new friends and a continuation of the Phage and Jhemm story lines - among other things.

Psionics can be unlocked through the main story of The Coven. The Psionic Amplifier is a weapon of sorts that gets equipped in your sidearm slot. Holding the device allows a crew member with appropriate stats (minimum 20 INT) cast amplifications.

Beyond that, you can edit and create your own amplifications in the Psionic Editor. The device has several already loaded. Intelligence and Perception are the primary stats for the amplifier and as you apply points to these stats, you are able to overload the amplifier without damaging yourself. This gives you access to secondary effects like status effects and buffs that can be applied to crew members. Buffs remain on crew members until you transition to a new area. The editor also lets you arrange your effects on the toolbar.

Psionics include:
Single Target, Point Blank Area, Group - Note that the Group type effect will target all enemies, even enemies that are not in line of sight.

Effect:
Heal - Heals damage and can buff all stats (STR, AGI etc.)
Cleanse - Chance to remove negative status effects. Buffs various resistances.
Damage - Kinetic, electro, bleed, explosive, thermal and toxic. Applies various status effects.

You can overload any amplification, just be aware that doing this could harm your crewmember and even knock them out. That said, it may be useful to set up a few "Hail Mary" amplifications for those critical moments.

A few other things you can expect:
Aznari Ruins have been added to the Universe. These locations can be found as part of the main story where you receive a device that lets you pinpoint these ruins on planet surfaces. Eventually these will lead you to Aznari Hubs where the Jhemm are located. One thing that will not make it into this build is Azimuth system. That will come in the Chapter 2 update.

A simple re-spec has been added to the character information screen. I'll eventually add a side mission and a cost to re-specs. For now, I thought it was appropriate to add this so you can tinker with various builds.

Salvaging wrecks has been added. These are somewhat hard to find as you cannot scan for them, so look for them as you travel through Star Systems. If you do find one, you can mine the wreckage for high quality ore, rare earth minerals and bonus ship repair materials (used to repair boarded ships). Most systems will have wreckage floating around.

Many new enemies - specifically in the Aznari Ruins and caves.

The Coven have arrived and will show up in mission areas where Scavvers are found.

Some Phage are Psionic now. Beware...

Of course, there will be a myriad of fixes and updates to various systems in the game including the highly requested Arach screech fix, immediate movement on Micro-Warp and a few other things people have requested.

That's all I have for now. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Disable, board, capture and sell enemy ships

 

I'm releasing the boarding content patch today. Every ship in the game can be boarded and I'd like to hear your feedback on the new system. This is one of the last core systems that needed to be implemented. It will be important as I expand the current mission system adding more variety, branching missions, and of course for the game story where there will be a number of ships that need to be boarded for various reasons. If you find any issues, please post in the bug forums and I'll take a look. As with all updates, there are likely edge cases and bugs that will only show up when people start playing the new content. I'll keep an eye on the forums and patch out any issues.

As it is, boarding is a nice add-on for the game. Short scenarios that net good returns. You can choose the repair/salvage mechanic for better sale value when contacting Arkus, though it is entirely up to you if you want to take the extra time to do this. No matter what, you will at least need to identify all the broken systems on the ship. Repairing them will develop your repair skill which will be used in future content updates when I expand the mission system. Scrapping components will improve your salvaging skill. More on this below.

With the addition of boarding, sub-system targeting is now in the game. This adds a new tactical layer to space combat allowing you to disable enemy engines, weapons, and systems - giving you time to deal with other ships in multi-ship combat scenarios.

Some of you have expressed an interest in walking around on your own ships. I want to say that this is not off the table. I'll be looking into it and I have some ideas I think you will like.

Others have mentioned that they want to keep the ships. Again, not off the table. I'll be looking into ways to expand the boarding system so you can earn ships through Arkus over time.

So whats next?

• I'll be wrapping up the new perk system, rewarding perks earlier and more often. The next patch will complete all perks for the game including crafting, salvaging, and repair.
• I'll be adding the new special weapon attacks. These will be rewarded at various skill levels and include active skills that can be placed in the two empty combat bar slots. This will round out the ground combat system nicely.
• The weapon and armor repair system.
• Expanding the mission system. Now that all core requirements are in the game - I can start working on making missions more varied, adding missions with multiple objects, and more.

[...]

A video about the upcoming combat patch for Stellar Tactics:

Progress update - Combat patch

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A fairly long video covering some of the changes coming in the next patch. These mostly revolve around navigation, blocking, melee and ranged weapon balance and pace. I'm hoping to have part one of the combat changes released next week.

The latest patch for Stellar Tactics introduces crafting and salvaging.

Stellar Tactics - Stellar Tactics

 

Today’s patch adds the first pass at the crafting and salvaging system. The crafting system lets you craft almost every item that can be equipped in the game other than faction armor, ammo, grenades, and devices.

Crafting requires the disassembly of items you find in your travels. When salvaging, you learn about the items you are disassembling and eventually, you earn a schematic so you can craft that item.

Salvaging – process items found in your travels into component parts for crafting.

• You must mark items in your inventories (CTRL-Click - General/Stash/Cargo Hold).
• Once items are marked, you can access the salvage toolbox from the inventory menu via a new icon above the general inventory.
• Junk items generate finishing materials used in the crafting finish process.
• Weapons, armor and other items that can be equipped generate primary crafting components.
• Salvaged items are placed in a separate infinite inventory. This inventory feeds the crafting bench and parts are automatically placed on the crafting table.
• As you salvage items, you will earn experience towards unlocking a schematic for that item. At times you may even gain experience towards the next tier schematic.

Crafting - Once you unlock a schematic, you can craft the item. All schematics come in various quality tiers that need to be unlocked. Schematics are also a very rare drop from loot crates, cargo containers, enemy packs, and lockers.

Crafting requires a number of items:

• (Required) Base item components of the same quality tier salvaged from a similar item
• (Required – In cargo hold or station storage) Refined ore. You can mine ore and refine the ore, or purchase from the Trade-Net
• (Optional – In cargo hold or station storage) Rare earth minerals to clear conditions. You can mine ore or purchase from the Trade-Net
• (Optional – In cargo hold or station storage) Finishing items salvaged from junk and rewarded during salvaging of equipment

Rare earth minerals and finishing items are optional, however, they are very important and you could end up with a sub-par item if you do not have any on hand when crafting.

To craft an item:

1. Travel to any trade station and look for a crafting station. Crafting stations have a unique icon on the radar and map.
2. Select the crew member you want to craft and select the crafting station. The crafting table will be shown.
3. On the top left is a list of unlocked schematics (if any are unlocked). Choose one.
4. You may need to adjust a few initial values before you start crafting. For example, when crafting a weapon, make sure to set the correct weapon skill level before selecting the begin crafting button. When crafting an item for your ship, make sure the correct ship is selected.
5. All items except for weapons can be “re-rolled” That is, you can re-roll a number of base equipment stats.
6. When you are ready, select the processing button and start crafting.

Processing:

1. Each process step will expend AP
2. If successful, the quality of the item will improve.
3. At various stages, negative and positive “conditions” may arise. You can select a condition to expend a single unit of rare earth for that step to clear negative conditions and activate positive conditions.

Finishing:

1. Once all AP is expended, the item is ready for finishing.
2. Select your finishing options if any. The higher the quality, the more options.
3. Select the “Finish Crafting” button and the item will be placed in your inventory or cargo hold.

About progression:

• Primary crafting components cannot be purchased. They can only be gained by salvaging equipment.
• Occasionally you are rewarded crafting components for next tier items when salvaging as a bonus
• The higher your skill in salvaging, the more components you get when salvaging an item. In some cases, you may be able to salvage enough components to build several items of a similar type.
• The value of crafted items of high quality exceeds the value of any similar items you might loot.
• Occasionally you are rewarded experience towards the next tier schematic when salvaging a lower tier item
• Higher tier schematics require more disassembly than lower-tier schematics. Bonus experience offsets the number of items you need to disassemble to unlock that next tier.
• You can find schematics when looting ship containers and gear in ground missions. These are extremely rare.
• You are rewarded experience regardless of failures when salvaging.
• Schematic experience is rewarded for every component that is disassembled. It is best to use the third salvaging option initially that rewards additional schematic unlock EXP.

Grenades and ammo will have a separate utility device that will let you break down these objects and craft other ammo types. That will come in a future patch.

The patch includes entries in the in-game guide for salvaging and crafting for reference.

Armor visual types are random for now until I can get more sets in the game. I’ll also likely add an “appearance” slot in the future that lets you equip a visual appearance of your choice. The faction armor set appearances are reserved for faction armor.

Perks are not available for Salvaging and Crafting at this time. As usual, I’ll add those after I gather more feedback on the system.

Note: Salvaging has been moved to the general skill area. It is no longer a space specific skill.

There are a few other things I’d like to do with salvaging – salvaging enemy ship wreckage and various items found in ground exploration locations.

I hope you enjoy the crafting system. I’ll be reading feedback on the forums and will make adjustments over time.

So, what’s next? I’ll be updating the ground combat animations and adding weapon-specific special attacks. I’ve gathered a lot of feedback from the community and there will be a few new options for targeting enemies and displaying target information. In general, I’ll be taking a deep dive into the combat system and adding a new pass at polishing the ground combat system.

After that, boarding. I have everything I need for this now including all the ship interiors. I know many of you have been waiting for this and I’m eager to get started.

A Stellar Tactics progress update about crafting and ship interiors:

Progress update - Crafting and ship interiors

I’m posting a work in progress video today that shows the salvaging portion of the crafting system which is nearly complete. I still have a bit of work to do on the UI and balancing. The video also shows the first completed ship interior for the boarding system. More details below.

Crafting requires components and the salvaging system lets you mark items in your inventory, stash and cargo hold for disassembly. As you disassemble items, you will gather crafting components and the finishing items you will need to craft equipment for your ships and crew.

You can salvage items anywhere. That is, you do not need to travel to a salvaging station to break items into component parts. Initially, I was going to tie salvaging to a static salvaging station that would be on your ship and space stations. I felt it would be a lot more useful if you could do this at any time, clearing inventory of excess equipment and vendor junk items. Crafting material storage is infinite so you won’t need to worry about max inventory for these items.

Equipment – When disassembling equipment, you will gain salvaging experience, component parts, finishing items and progress towards learning a locked crafting schematic for that item type (based on the quality of the item).

Junk items – Junk items generate finishing materials. These will be used in the finishing stage of crafting to assign stats, weapon min/max damage values, and other bonuses to equipment. In general, crafting an item can result in a finished item with bonuses and stats that are better than any item you can buy or find in the game.

I’ll be starting on the crafting portion of the system next now that I can generate crafting components. This will take a while and I hope you all enjoy the system when it’s finished.

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Ship interiors are being worked on. These interiors will be used for a number of purposes:

• Boarding: Disable a ship and enter through the airlock. Various doors to be hacked, hostile enemies defending their ships and objects that need to be repaired – not to mention loot and the ability to sell these ships for profit.
• Missions: There will be a number of missions that may pop up as a communication from a disabled ship, rescues and a few other scenarios that will require entering other ships.
• Your home: Ships will serve as a place to store goods, interact with the crew and craft items.

That’s all I have for now. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

TurnBasedLovers interviewed the sole developer behind Stellar Tactics.

4th Turn) I know that Stellar Tactics can be played easily like a sandbox game, but I’ve also read that you can follow a main story. So, in this regard, my questions are: how long will be the main storyline? What will be its importance for the player? And, lastly, there will be also articulated secondary quests?

I can’t say exactly how long the main story will be. The story will be released in chapters, there will be meaningful engagements related to your main character (the character you create who comes out of stasis at the beginning of the game.) Right now the game has about 10 hours of story and that is just the prologue that brings players to the sandbox.

There will be side quests for various factions in the game, a few key character quests and some larger universe altering missions. And then, of course, there are unlimited bounty’s/missions you can take right now in the game. I’ll be expanding on that system during BETA to make it a more “personal” experience.

5th Turn) Looking at the screenshots, it’s almost impossible not to notice resemblance to some cornerstone of the past, like the X-Com series and Freelancer. Besides these, is there something else in particular that inspired you?

Sure, I’ve been a gamer and game developer (Sr. Producer) in the game industry for many years. A few of the old games inspire me the most. It’s one of the reasons Stellar Tactics has an old-school feel to it. I’m finding the number of these games dwindling and I’d like to keep them alive. As big publishers continue to look for big dollars, these games have fallen off their development roadmaps and been replaced with high production value experiences that in some cases (not all) tend to feel a bit threadbare.

–Elite, Sentinel Worlds, Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, Baldurs Gate, Eve Online and the list goes on. Many of these have been inspirations

[...]

A new update for Stellar Tactics introduces smuggling, objective tracking and faction warfare.

Patch day - Smuggling, objective tracker and faction warfare

2 Jun @ 1:21am - Stellar Tactics

Patch day - a few updates and fixes this week.


You can now unlock Smuggling. Speak with Forley Coresh on the Achmedius Trade Station to start your career. Smuggling is a fairly dangerous career and you will be harassed by Raiders and Scavvers if you have active contraband contracts. I recommend a starship with decent weapons, shields and balanced power systems. This is a great career for those of you who want to make money from trading smuggled goods and of course from all that loot you are going to find by eliminating the enemy ships that attack you. For now, you do not need to worry about The Authority (not in the game yet). I have a few interesting plans for the smuggling system including a few ship enhancements, timed smuggling missions and extended story content related to The Syndicate. If you read the dialog carefully, you might notice an intro to future story content and a long-standing mystery surrounding the loss of your crew, depending on the options you choose.

Smuggling requires a large Trade-Net to be effective - so place beacons in every system you find with orbiting stations. Contraband goods are traded all over the universe, but not as often as normal commodities.

Ships may attack each other now. You can join in and help or ignore these skirmishes. In some cases, if you do decide to help, you have a good chance of finding loot from dropped cargo containers. Rarely, regardless of whether you engage or not, cargo containers are dropped from these ships and you may find them floating in space. This is the start of the faction warfare system (just the start) and these engagements are generally between the various factions and Scavvers and Raiders entering and leaving systems.

I've added a mission and contract tracker to the HUD when traveling in space. You can now see active missions or trade contracts on this list. While in FTL space, you can select any destination and the Star System the mission or contract is located in will automatically be selected in the info panel so you can click the approach icon and fly to that system. If you are in Star System that has a mission or contract, selecting an item in the tracker will select the planet or station where the mission or contract is located so you can easily approach that location without needing to open the log to reference mission information. The tracker is also useful for translocating as it displays contract destinations and commodities in the list.

And one last thing - 35 new music tracks for space, ground exploration and combat greatly enhance the atmosphere of the game.

If you find any problems with this build, please post on the bug forums and I'll address the issues promptly.

[...]

The latest update for Stellar Tactics brings with it the Trade-net, Refining and Mining perks.

Here are the notes for the latest content patch. This patch introduces the Trade-Net, refining and mining perks. Hope you enjoy the changes. If you do find any bugs or issues, please post on the bug sub-forum and I’ll look into it.

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Added the Trade Net:

The Trade-Net is a marketplace where goods are sold by various orbiting stations across the universe. Trade Stations issue buy and sell contracts for goods required by the population of that system. These goods are transferred between orbiting stations and planetary colonies.

The Trade-Net is not available until you leave Achmedius and place at least one beacon near a Jump Point in another system. Once you place a beacon in another star system, Achmedius will be added along with any other star systems where beacons are placed. If you have already placed beacons in an existing save, the entire available Trade-Net will be visible when you load that save.

Trade contracts are delivered through the cargo storage terminal on stations. Cargo storage has been revised so it opens immediately without the need to purchase storage. If you want to buy cargo storage at a station, just open the cargo storage terminal and select the option to purchase storage. Delivering or retrieving purchased Trade-Net items is as simple as traveling to the station where the trade contract was placed and retrieving or placing the cargo in storage. The contract(s) are completed when closing the cargo storage menu. Cargo storage has a new area at the bottom of the UI that displays delivery contract information.

A few notes related to the addition of the trade-net.

• Over time, the number of trade goods in any available contract on the trade-net are reduced as AI merchants accept orders.
• Trade goods and refined ore cannot be bought from or sold to vendors, only traded via the trade net. These items will not be displayed in the vendor interface.
• Mining and mining drones now have a slightly lower chance of collecting rare earth minerals and rare ore to offset market pricing.
• The amount of ore retrieved while mining, especially at higher levels has been adjusted.
• Mining drones sell ore at a reduced price now that the Trade-Net is in the game to balance the economy. Retrieving ore, refining it and then selling it is the most profitable path - however, automated drones still generate significant income.
• Commodity merchants and ore vendors have been removed from trade stations now that the Trade-Net is implemented. They may come back as something new when crafting goes in the game. Ore can still be sold to vendors, though using the trade net to find the best price is likely more profitable.
• The ore vendor on Hurzog Mining is now a general merchant. Scarby's dialog has been revised to reflect that.
• If a beacon is placed in a hostile system, trade data is not streamed to the Trade-Net for that system. You cannot trade with hostile factions.
• You gain a small amount of mining experience for refining.
• Gas nodes on planets have been removed and replaced with mineral nodes. I may look at gas mining again at some point in the future.

Added Refining:

You can purchase and equip a refinery on your ship. Refineries let you convert raw ore to refined ore – a more valuable commodity. Refined ore is used for crafting items and across the universe for building stations, colonies, and goods. You can purchase and equip a refinery at any ship equipment vendor. Like all ship equipment, refineries are ship specific so you cannot swap them between ships. Refineries equip to your ships “hardware mount point”.

You can refine anywhere - in mission areas, in space, it doesn't matter - as long as you have ore in your cargo hold. So, you could have a ship with a large cargo hold full of ore and go complete a ground mission while all that ore is being refined.

Mining perks:

Mining perks have been added to the game. There are three lines - Drones, Refining and Mining. Each gives you bonuses to various functions of each of these utilities. For example, selecting drone perks will give you bonuses to drone mining speed and the quality of ore mined by drones. If you already have high enough skill levels in mining, you can assign perks to the skill line as usual in the character information screen. Just select mining from the list on the right and the perk choices will be available.

An important note, mining queues off the crew member assigned to the weaponry station. So, bonuses are derived from this crew member and the perks assigned to them.

Also, bonuses to the speed of your mining turrets are derived from both the level of mining skill and the perks assigned to the crew member in the weaponry station. Those bonuses are applied to your turrets reload speed. A high mining skill and selections from the mining perk line will produce ore at very high rates at high skill levels.

Smuggling deserves more than just a simple on/off switch. I'll be adding a bit of storyline very soon that will allow you to unlock smuggling. Contraband items are in the game now for the trade-net, however, they are hidden until I do a bit more work on this system.

There is now a very small chance that you will be attacked by hostile ships when entering a star system. You will be warned if this is the case and have a few seconds to put your shields up or micro-warp away from that area. The chance of this happening is slightly higher if you have active delivery contracts.

Guide entries have been added to the in-game guide for the Trade-Net and Refining. You can find the guide by pressing “H” and selecting the “Guide” button at the top of that screen.

[...]

A new video for Stellar Tactics introduces the next major feature; which is the Trade Net.

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A quick progress updating covering the trade net, the next major feature for Stellar Tactics

The trade net uses a network of placed beacons. Beacons have been in the game for a while now and many of you may have fairly large networks of these devices. The larger the network, the more options you have to find the best deals.

Initially, these could only be used for fast travel between systems. You likely use them to travel back and forth between mission locations or to your favorite home system where you store goods and ships. With the trade-net update, these beacons will start sending data to the trade-net so you find the best places to buy and sell trade goods, ore, and refined ore. A ship with a good-sized cargo hold can make excellent money traveling between systems trading all kinds of goods.

For those of you interested in smuggling, there will be an option to have your Trade-Net "hacked" so it will show contraband items (like the Kchor Brandy shown above). Traveling with these items in your cargo hold is risky. Raiders may spawn and scan your cargo, trade stations may force you to pay a fine if you have these goods in your cargo hold and will seize the items. A high electronics skill can help avoid detection. There may also be a few ship upgrades just for smugglers.

I'll keep you posted as I make progress. I'm hoping to get this out for everyone sometime in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, here is a list of the latest patch notes since the last announcement. Thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

[...]

The Stellar Tactics patch 0.180 comes with a new drone mining system and 10 ships:

Patch 0.180

The new drone mining system is in the game. Here is how it works.
You can now purchase mining drones at any ship equipment vendor. The total maximum number of drones you can have active and on your ship is 20. Drones on your ship are transferred to any ship you are actively flying so, if you transfer to another ship, any drones aboard your current ship get transferred along with your cargo. Drones are fairly expensive, however, they pay for themselves in a few runs and are a great way to make money while exploring the universe.

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Drones have a maximum capacity of 1000 units. When they are deployed, the drones fly to the targeted planetary resource node and mine until full. You can use the drone manager to manage your drones, check their status and set their AI (more on the drone manager below).

[...]

Ten more ships updated!

• Aries LATK-2
• Vagabond EX-4
• Wanderer EX-2
• Arden LM-2
• Revenant ATK-5
• Corsair HATK-2
• Ashaton MATK-3
• Kraken HATK-7
• Traveler EXP-2
• Trident MATK-7

A new progress update for Stellar Tactics introduces some new spaceships.

Hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! I thought I would share a quick progress update. The last few weeks I've spent most of my time getting the first set of 10 new ship models in the game. I'll release these with the next patch.

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Meanwhile, the second set of ships model replacements are in development and I'll get those in the game when they are ready. A few screenshots below - work in progress.


And finally, I've been working on the cargo transfer feature. When this is finished, you will be able to purchase cargo storage space on trade stations. Once you own cargo storage, you will be able to move items from your ship cargo hold to storage, swap ships and move those items to your currently equipped starship from storage. I know a lot of you have wanted a way to store all that shiny legendary gear and move it to another ship. This is also a requirement for future work on trading and crafting so needs to be done now. As you can see, you will be able to sort both your current ships cargo and the contents of the station cargo storage.

Cargo storage is only for ship equipment, ore and commodities.

When buying new ships, the current cargo transfer feature will still work - so, you will need to make sure the contents of your current ship cargo bay will fit in the new ship you are purchasing.


That's all I have for now. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. I'm hoping to get the updated ships, cargo transfer and a number of bug fixes out in patch next Friday. As always, thank you for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Some new videos for Stellar Tactics.

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A Sci-Fi role-playing game featuring turn-based ground combat, space exploration, deep character customization and a massive living universe with over 160,000 star systems. Equip your ships with the best equipment you can find, gather a powerful crew of mercenaries and set out into the void!

A new patch for Stellar Tactics adds perks, new devices, a repair system, weapon additions and more.

Patch 0.151 cumulative and whats next!

20 OCTOBER - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi everyone. First, I'd like to thank all of you who reported bugs big and small over the last few weeks. I'm posting a new build and cumulative patch notes since the release of the last major content update September 21st when I opened the universe.

It's been a very busy time since the release of the patch and we've had a lot of new additions to the Stellar Tactics community providing a ship load of great feedback and suggestions. I read everything I can posted on the forums and many of you know that I'm actively engaged in the conversations there. Please do continue to post and comment. Your feedback is much appreciated!

Here is what I'll be working on next, in no particular order. I'll start rolling out these features one at a time for the most part.

In no particular order:

• Perks to level 100
• A few additional devices that can be used in combat.
• Repair system for both space and ground. The space repair system will allow you to assign crew members to ship repairs. You will of course still be able to pay for repairs on stations.
• Addition of weapons for pugilism along with some adjustments. Currently there are no weapon types for this combat skill. I've compensated by making this skill more powerful, however, it's time to get these weapons in with mod slots etc.
• Implement new animations - these are done and have been waiting until I had time to get them in the game
• Space trading and the Trade-Net
• Cargo transfer on stations
• Special weapon attacks
• Ground mining drone system
• Sneaking, traps and environment security systems (including turrets)
• Sorting for vendors, inventory, stash and cargo
• Space station turret defense systems
• Crafting
• Patrolling enemies and NPC's
• Faction Agents will buy scan data
• Implement the updated ship models you saw in the last announcement

[...]

A large content update patch for Stellar Tactics introduces the open world universe.

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The Universe IS Yours!

I'm very happy to announce that the Stellar Tactics universe is now open - from one system to 160,000+ systems. I'm very happy with the progress and this is a major milestone for the game. I hope you enjoy it.

Prepare for a wall of text...

I want to set some expectations. This is the first pass of the universe sandbox. There are likely to be bugs, though we've done some heavy testing over the last three weeks and things seem stable. That doesn't mean there won't be edge cases that cause problems. If you do find any bugs, please post them on the bug forums and I'll address them as soon as I can. https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/7/

So, what is this patch?
--This is the first pass at the sandbox universe. Over time I'll be adding a lot of content including discovery missions from logs, distress transmissions and much, much more. Think of this as the beginning of something much larger.

--There is no new story content, just missions everywhere, places to explore, mine, engage in exploration discovery encounters on planets and stations against various factions. Plenty to do and explore.

--What will I be doing after the patch releases - a lot. The goal is to get to Alpha as soon as possible. to get there I need to finish a few more of the games core systems. I'll list all of that in the "What's next" and "Roadmap" posts on the forums.

--Tuning - the game needs to be tuned, both for ground and space combat. First, perks need to be in place, special attacks need to be finished and itemization and the economy needs to be addressed.

It's important that I point out that I do have plans to add (soon) a way for you to right click enemies and choose the target body part, review enemy information (resists and possibly more information) based on your perception stat. One thing I've never liked about the current system is that it does not give you an alternative method for targeting enemies - this will be addressed.

[...]

Thanks Couchpotato!

A new progress update from Stellar Tactics.

Progress Update 7/29/18

30 JULY - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi everyone. No video this time, but I wanted to post a quick update to let you know what I've been up to.

Lots of work completed over the last month and a half since the last progress update. Star map performance is finished, the mission generator is placing explore missions on planets, faction agents are issuing faction missions to other systems in the area and rewarding tokens and rewards. I've also completed mission indicators so you know where to go when a mission is assigned and I've extended the system so I can add other mission types at a later time. I've spent a lot of time testing and making sure that when you arrive at mission destinations, the missions play through, complete and send you back to the originator for your reward. So, that was a big part of the work that needed to be done out of the way.

Faction was another big task. I've added two more armor sets to the faction merchants. Shikaru and Varadyn. The sets can be purchased with mission tokens. They come in three color variants.

[...]
There are many different types of locations you can discover in Stellar Tactics. Many different stations types, ground based facilities and cave systems. When exploring you may come across planets that have ground locations that need help. Some may be invaded by Phage, Scavvers, Raiders, hostile factions, mutants etc. By clearing one of these locations you end up with rewards from the dominant faction of that system. Regardless of the current faction in that system, you will get a generous faction reward. Landing at sites like this is a great way to adjust your standing with the various organizations in the universe.

Normally when you enter a system, if your faction is "Wary" or better, you can dock and land at stations and ground based locations to buy supplies, trade and repair. However, if a faction is hostile and you enter the entire station becomes a combat zone. Right now in the development build you can dock at any station. That's going to change in the next few weeks when I add station turret buoys. If you approach within a certain range, hostile stations will start firing on your ship. You will need to destroy the turrets before you can dock at a hostile station. In the future I'll add ways to bypass security, override these turrets and dock. I'll also be setting stations up so they launch ships that will hunt you down unless you FTL out of the system.

Speaking of the FTL system, after playing the current development build, I've set up the FTL drives so you can warp from anywhere. That means you can leave a station and immediately FTL. I've increased movement speed with the micro-warp drives and speed in FTL space. I spent a few days making sure travel times are significantly reduced. Jump points will still be used for translocating. To translocate you will need to place a data buoy in another system. Once that's done you end up with a translocation bookmark. As long as you are in a certain range of a jump point you can instantly teleport between systems, bypassing the FTL space completely.

I've also added a few things for combat that I think you will appreciate. The first is line of sight indicators. When in combat, if you hover your cursor over a movement destination, line indicators will be displayed showing you if that position has direct line of sight to an enemy. Ideal for finding cover and deciding where to move your team member. They are also useful for letting you know when a team member is in the way so you don't shoot them in the back.

Second, I want to talk about the random number generator. This seems to come up fairly often, not just in Stellar Tactics but in most any game that uses RNG in combat. Here is the deal, and I agree - it's just not fun to have a shot lined up with a 90% chance to hit and you "whiff" - nothing. So, I've changed the system so "YOU ALWAYS HIT" if above 75% chance to hit. Your damage will scale down if you're initial roll fails and you will only graze your enemies, but you will still hit. Below 50% CTH you will still get a second roll that may do limited damage. You will only apply status modifiers (poison, stun, bleed etc) if your initial roll succeeds. Let's give that a try for a while and see if everyone likes the new system in the next patch.

Another thing that I've finished was adjusting the way looting works. You can now choose to auto-loot objects as a setting in options. The nearest team member now interacts with loot, characters and objects in the scene. These changes were much needed and I'm glad I was able to get them in.

And finally, a few screenshots of the new UI (work in progress). These look a little empty until I get them finished and in the game. I thought I'd share them anyway.

[...]

Lots of work to do yet, though I am well past the half way point for the next patch. Thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!

Stellar Tactics has a new update.

Progress Update 6/15/18
16 JUNE - STELLAR TACTICS

Hi all - It's time for another progress update. I've included a video that shows some of the work I've been doing. Details below.

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The last few months have been pretty crazy around here. Since the last major patch, I've been focused on opening the FTL gates and there is still a lot of work to do. Most of this time has been spent wrapping up all the procedural mission sets needed to make sure the universe is populated with locations to explore. This has been thousands of hours of work over the last year between me and a talented modeler/ level designer I work with. I'm happy to say that work is now done - I'm finished with the level sets for the next content patch.

Another large block of work that is finished is generating the interiors for the various stations found in the universe. That means the interiors are in the game, loading based on where you are in the universe, vendors are placed and faction mission contacts are available. You can now dock at trade stations across the universe in the development build - if you have the proper level of faction needed. In a future patch you will be able to hack station security remotely and board the stations of hostile factions. Doing that will place a station on alert and you will need to fight your way through the station to disable various systems like external station turrets and interior defense systems. Should be interesting.

All the space stations that were completed some time ago have been added to the universe. Later I'll be adding external turret systems to the stations for faction warfare.

The incursion system is now working in all systems that have stations or a faction presence. I'll expand on this in the future with faction warfare and more.

I've also added volumetric effects to all systems as well as LUT Color Grading. They add a lot to the visual appearance and diversity of star systems.

For the last week I've been focused on performance on the Star Map. The game processes tens of thousands of independent AI vessels. The Star Map uses LOD algorithms to display ships and systems that are nearby and places them into a secondary processing queue when they are out of range. Every ship has a task or set of tasks and when they are out of visual range, they switch to a secondary process that uses universe time to determine arrival, task completion and assign new tasks. It's a fairly complex system and seems to be running well. I'm going to give myself another week with this to make sure everything is performing and running as expected.

And finally, the revised animations are finished, including special attacks for all weapon types. You might notice that "stealth" will be going in the game. I'll add these animations into the game when I get through a longer list of tasks I'm working on right now.

So, what's next?

Performance on the Star Map, tying the mission generator into the rest of the universe, finishing the crew manager, adding commodities and refining the trade system and a good number of other things that need to be done like data buoy's, the mission tracker and more. These should move along pretty fast. It does take time though, so I hope you will all be patient. It's going to be a huge update when it's finished and I need to make sure everything is in and working well.

I'd like to thank all of you for supporting the game and hope you all have a great weekend!

Progress update - 5/11/18

Hi all - just a quick progress update to let you know what's going on with the game. No screenshots or videos this time. I'll be sure to record a video and post it as soon as I get a little farther in this update.

Many of you who have been following the game know by now how I work - content and feature updates and then bug fixes and stability.

I'm currently working on the next content update - opening the FTL gates. I don't have an ETA, though I am finally focusing 100% of my time/effort on getting everything ready.

This means I'm wrapping up a lot of content for the procedural mission system and I'm about 3/4 of the way through the mission sets - so that's great news. Following that I'll be moving them into the game and propagating them into the mission system and out into the universe.

All the various stations (agricultural, industrial, trade, outpost, shipyard, refinery, solar collector and research) have all been modeled and waiting for me for months. I finally have them all rigged and ready to go.

For the FTL update, I'l be wrapping up the Crew Manager which will allow you to recruit up to 20 mercs that you can bring with you on missions. Part of this is making sure new crew members are available for you on stations as you explore the universe. I'll be adding a number of unique crew members that you can find that have back stories and missions, though that won't come until Alpha. I have other plans for crew members and I'll explain more about that once I get a bit further along in the design.

Another part of this work will be implementing commodities trading and the ability for you to mark trade routes on the map and track commodity prices across the universe using Data Buoy's to collect information on price changes in systems you've visited. Right now ore/minerals are in the game and can be mined, bought and sold. I'll also be adding a whole slew of other commodities and goods that can be traded. After all, you are going to need something to fill your cargo holds with besides raw ore and loot. I'll also be working on some QoL features everyone has been asking for related to marking junk items for bulk sale and sorting.

I'm also going to bring the mission system to the next phase so you can mark missions and select them in the log. Selected missions will be placed on the screen in a mission tracker and you will be able to set missions as your destination. Selected missions will be highlighted on the star map and provide visual queues on the screen so you can easily navigate to systems on the FTL map (something you haven't seen in the game yet) and in systems to the actual planet or station where they are located.

In addition to the above, I'll be working on some of the items in the "What's next" pinned post - updated character animations, repair system, new tutorials for space combat and mining and more. I may roll out a few features from this list before the FTL Content update as they become ready.

So, the goal of the next major content update is to get everyone out into the sandbox so you can explore, trade and take missions.

That's all I have for this update. Hope you all have a great weekend and thanks again for supporting Stellar Tactics!

A new gameplay trailer for Stellar Tactics.

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Enter a stunning Sci-Fi universe filled with meaningful choices and intrigue. A space exploration RPG that features classless character progression, squad-based tactical ground combat and a living universe where your actions have consequences. Gather your team, equip your ship and explore.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/465490/Stellar_Tactics/

Stellar Tactics has received a combat update.

Hi all - Lots of changes in this patch - see the video for highlights and details below:

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COMBAT CHANGES:

ADDED: End turn options. When ending your turn you will have several new options to choose from. This options menu is only displayed if you have 2 or more AP left over when ending your turn. If queuing attacks, your turn will end as usual if no AP is left over. You can cancel out of the end turn menu by pressing the escape key.

• WAIT - Wait requires a full bar of AP and allows you to skip your turn, adjusting your position in the turn order. This is handy for cases where your team member may be blocked. When selecting this option, your position in the turn order is adjusted after the last team member in the turn order.
• DEFEND - Defend requires 2 AP and has a small chance of avoiding a single attack while waiting for your next turn or mitigating a portion of the next attacks damage. The cost of 2AP is a choice balanced against reloading your weapon or setting your team members in a defensive posture while in combat. Defend is applied after armor, shields and any other damage mitigation. You can see which team members and enemy combatants are defending by rolling over them with your mouse. The status bar at the top of the screen will show a defend icon in cases where combatants are in defend mode.
• END TURN - Ends your turn with no ap cost or further action. Any remainig AP up to 2 points will be rolled over into your next turn as it has been in the past.

ADDED: Attacks of opportunity:

• Only combatants with a melee weapon equipped and selected can execute an attack of opportunity.
• If a combatant is in range of a melee opponent and they move, the enemy will get a free attack.
• Combatants get a single chance during any round of having an attack of opportunity applied.
• Combatants get a single attack of opportunity per round of combat.
• If the enemy misses you, you will continue to your selected destination.
• If the enemy does damage, your move will be interrupted. You can choose to heal, attack or move as usual after the attack.
• Combatants can only be attacked once in any round. That includes instances where the closest enemy combatant has already dealt an attack of opportunity.
• Status effects have a chance to apply any status effects as normal.
• Stunned combatants cannot make attacks of opportunity. However, they do remove the moving combatants chance to receive an attack of opportunity for that round.

Combat navigation and blocking has been overhauled. The goal was to improve the way blocking works so it is fair for both the player and the AI. Characters now have descreet blocking areas that work much better than they did previously. You should notice that AI can no longer move through characters when retreating or if blocked in areas by your team members. Enemies also do a much better job of keeping their distance from other characters with this update. You also now have the option to "Wait" in cases where your team members are blocked so you can make adjustments to positioning. I'll be continuing to improve on this system over time.

GENERAL FIXES IN THIS PATCH:
FIXED: Adding and removing armor with stats (+STR - +END) now correctly update the display of HP in the character info and inventory screens.
FIXED: Bleed resist display in character info screen
FIXED: A number of rounding errors for weapon damage in rollover info, character information and inventory areas.
FIXED: Projectile impacts and damage display are now timed based on range to target
FIXED: Grenade throw animations from crouched position.
FIXED: When swapping weapons, border highlights now updated correctly.
FIXED: When mercs were recruited, they were given 4 less intial stat points than they were supposed to recieve. You are now credited 4 stat points the next time you attack in combat.
FIXED: An error in the trade in value for ships based on charisma.
FIXED: An error in the display of values displayed in trade menus when items had a value of 100,000 credits or more.

UPDATED: You can no longer select team members other than the selected active combatant with the F1-F4 keys and by clicking them while in combat. This was confusing players because they were unable to end their turns if they inadvertantly selected another team member.

UPDATED: Missile launcher damage toned down a bit.

UPDATED: Adjusted mini-gun damage up a bit.

UPDATED: Damage modifiers to burst and full auto - you should see a significant damage boost to both of these fire modes bringing them somewhat in line with the use of ammo and AP expenditure. Burst and full-auto do have a damage penalty to reflect accuracy when firing with these modes. You will deal and receive more peak damage now and will need to mitigate this with healing, especially at higher levels. Time to start using those med-kits. This will be balanced a bit more with the introduction of First-Aid related powers/devices. "Medic!"

UPDATED: Heavy weapon damage increased - should give you a reason to use heavy weapons a little more often now. You are going to want to focus fire on heavy weapon enemies and get them out of the way as a priority. A critical with a heavy weapon is devastating!

UPDATED: Reduced the amount of ammo used for full-auto attacks for rifles, smg's and pistols from 12 to 8. Damage for this fire mode was just too high with the changes above and ammo use was excessive.

UPDATED: Removed level based attack bonuses which were skewing damage. Note that rollover info for weapons is just an estimate based on your currently equipped base weapon damage, equipped mods and a bunch of other factors. Breaking out a calculator is not likely to result in exact damage values. There is a lot of voodoo going on in the background of damage calculations including ranged falloff calculations, stat modifiers and more.

UPDATED: Floating fonts for combat and comments.

UPDATED: Melee received a boost in damage. With the addition of attacks of opportunity, melee team members also gain an additional boost to damage in cases where combatants try to leave the area of influence (see above).

The latest patch for Stellar Tactics addresses load time improvements and fixes a number of issues.

Patch 0.113 - Load time improvements and bug fixes

8 JANUARY - STELLAR TACTICS

Well, I'm back at it after the holidays. Hope you have all had a great start to your New Year.

First - load times between levels have improved in all areas - about double what they were before on average. Areas like the trade station have improved but need more work. Load times are of course dependent on your system specs. I still have work to do in this area including loading from saves and a few other optimizations.

I've added new border highlights throughout the game for objects in the world environment.

I've consolidated a lot of the game data so patch sizes can be much smaller going forward.

Here are the notes:

FIXED - You can no longer equip a heavy turret to a light turret slot. If you currently have a heavy turret equipped to a light turret slot, you will only be able to equip a light turret to that slot going forward.
FIXED: Typo on new game creation screen.
FIXED: A crash when creating a new game - caused when clicking or dragging the mouse while the starting in-game cinematic was loading.
FIXED: Universe generation random seed can no longer exceed 8 digits in the entry field.
FIXED: When exiting video tutorials from the help menu, the game is no longer left in a paused state.
FIXED: Heavy turrets and missiles can no longer be placed in light turret slots. If you have a ship where you have equipped a heavy turret in a light turret mount point, it will still be there, however, you will only be able to equip a light turret there going forward.
FIXED: Hacking exploit fixed.
FIXED: Speak to Scarby mission now completes and is removed when speaking with Scarby.
FIXED: Travel to Achmedius Trade Port mission now completes. Just head towards the Cantina area on the trade port to auto-complete the mission.
FIXED: Capped afterburner speed while in combat so ships equipped with high quality warp drives cannot exceed the speed of combat projectiles.
FIXED: If a team member is blocked when walking towards or trying to use a object, they will no longer stop and then perform the action on next move or action.
FIXED: When entering a gravity well from micro-warp, occasionally you would lose keyboard control for thrust and rotatation - you would need to click in space to restore keyboard control of your ship.
UPDATED: The Pharris Mace AK-7 is now available on the ship merchant.
UPDATED: Updated the way characters interact with objects in the environment so animations do not delay interaction and block clicks.
UPDATED: Ship missile speed increased
UPDATED: The game now uses border highlights for interactive objects in world exploration mode. Old highlighting methods have been removed.
UPDATED: Ranged weapons (Pistols, SMG's and Rifles) that drop from enemies or purchased from vendors have had their maximum ammo capacity increased. This change is not retroactive and does not affect equipment you currently have in your inventory.
UPDATED: Nano's can now be equipped to all weapon types. There are a total of three ranged and three melee specific mods. Nano's are now global.
UPDATED: Tutorial videos are now higher resolution - some will be revised in future updates.

A note about sidearm range. The average range of sidarms was doubled in the last patch (Space Combat Patch). This bonus is applied when starting a new game to all starter weapons and to any new weapons you find. The change is not retroactive - so sidearms looted before the space combat patch still have the lower range - I won't be modifying them. Any loot drops or weapons found on merchants going forward will have the new range adjustments applied to them.

This patch adjusts maximum ammo up for rifles and sidearms. This can of course be adjusted by applying mods to higher quality items.

In Stellar Tactics, your ranged weapons have a falloff factor to chance to hit (accuracy) and bonuses applied based on your skill, stats and other factors with that weapon class. Here is how CTH and range penalties are calculated:

1) Your base CTH is calculated based on the weapons maximum range and the range to your target - a range penalty
2) A crouch bonus is calculated if you are crouched
3) A weapon skill bonus is calculated and applied. The higher your skill the more accuracy bonus is applied to the weapon. When you start the game, you have only a few points of skill in whatever your weapon choice was when you created your character. As you increase in skill, you will noticed that your CTH goes up - at higher levels you will rarely miss.
4) A STAT bonus is calculated (PER, DEX etc)
5) A weapon tier bonus is calculated ( Basic, Exceptional, Rare etc)
6) A weapon wear panalty is calculated (this is disabled for now until crafting and repair go in the game)
7) Your adjusted BASE CTH is calculated based on the information above.
8) A penalty for Burst and Full-Auto fire modes are applied if applicable (these will be adjusted when I work on the ground combat system)
9) A body target penalty is applied to the CTH calculation - smaller body parts are harder to hit - like a head shots.
10) And finally an equipped mod bonus is applied to the calculation if applicable
11) Some weapons recieve a CTH bonus factored by range applied to the final calculation.

As I mentioned, sidearms have seen a bit of attention doubling their range. I am listening to the feedback your are posting and I'll start working on a good number of changes and additions to the combat system starting next week. These include the addition of a few new options in combat, adjustments to the movement and blocking system, burst and full-auto damage and effects and the removal of a number of general gameplay annoyances that are on my list to fix. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress on this.

Thank you all for the feedback.

Stellar Tactics now has space combat.

Space Combat Patch Released!

23 DECEMBER - STELLAR TACTICS

I'm happy to announce the release of the Space Combat patch.

First, I just want to say - "I'm not finished with space combat!"

That's right. The goal here was to get all the base systems in. The turrets, effects, ships, ship and equipment vendors, stats and skills, loot and all the rest of the core systems that make up space combat in Stellar Tactics. What do I have planned for the future?

• Point defense systems
• Equipment that will give you a quick shield or capacitor charge when you need it.
• Warp Drive inhibitors
• Sub-system targeting
• Branching missions that take you to other systems, then take you to planetary locations, stations, anomalies and space wreckage.
• Missions for miners so they can gather rewards for surviving in dangerous systems or for finding rare minerals
• Escort missions
• More AI ships on various tasks in the systems of the universe.
• Perks for space combat. I'm holding off on these until I have more feedback on the core systems from the community
• And more...

Before you get started, please review the Space Combat Guide. At least the first section as it gives you a few very important survival tips.

Official Space Combat Guide
A Guide for Stellar Tactics
By: Stellar Tactics
The basics of space combat. Covers buying ships and equipment, basic combat tactics and ship combat systems.

With the release of space combat, the game should hold over 200 hours of content to max your crew in the best equipment and to acquire the best ships and gear available. I hope you all enjoy the update and I'm looking forward to all of your feedback on the forums.

I'd like to thank rebelwolf75, nottrusted, nobrien, Roberto and others for testing Stellar Tactics over the last few weeks. They spent a lot of time in the game and made a lot of helpful suggestions and found a good number of bugs that are now fixed.

I've also crushed a good number of bugs unrelated to space combat and made a few enhancements to the game. See the patch notes below.

What's next? I'll be taking another pass at ground combat to remove a few annoyances, perfect the blocking system and tighten things up. I'll likely take a few passes at ground combat before the game is finished.

Following that I have a bunch of content that's been developed in parallel with the space combat patch that I need to get in the game - content that needs to go in so I can open up the FTL gates.

Here are the patch notes:

ADDED - You can now eject stacks of items from your cargo hold while in space. Anything you eject is automatically destroyed and cannot be retrieved. Should make mining runs a bit more profitable.
ADDED - a reminder message will be displayed that micro-warp is disabled in gravity wells and enabled when leaving gravity wells.
UPDATED - If inside the gravity well of any sun, you will start taking damage. First to your shields and when those are depleted, you will take damage to your hull armor. If you stay in the vicinity of the sun your ship will eventually be destroyed.
UPDATED: Weapon impacts, explosions and projectile effects updated for all ranged weapons in ground combat.
UPDATED: On skill-up, messages are now queued and displayed both on the screen and in the log.
UPDATED: Collisions with asteroids are now active.
UPDATED: Cargo can now be sorted by all items, ore/gas, commodities and equipment. Commodities are not in the game yet.
UPDATED: Afterburner speed greatly increased. Capacitor cost decreased.
UPDATED: Ship speed is now based on piloting skill and the equipped warp drive.
UPDATED: Micro-Warp speed increased and is now based on piloting skill and equipped warp drive.
UPDATED: Interactions with chests, objects and npc's are much faster now.
UPDATED: Area exits are now much more obvious. Small panels for area transitions have been removed and replaced with panels that cover doors on rollover and when holding down the highlight key = TAB by default.
UPDATED: Base weapon damage now scales per the level requirement of the weapon every few levels. So, you get bonus base damage depending on the level requirement of the weapon and of course bonus damage based on your skills/perks. Enemies get the same base damage scaling. This change is not retroactive so weapons in your inventory use the old range modifiers.
UPDATED: Pistols, rifles and heavy weapons have had their range increased. This change is not retroactive so weapons in your inventory use the old range stats
UPDATED: You can now mine any asteroid, not just asteroids in asteroid fields.
UPDATED: When purchasing ammo (ship and ground combat), the HUD now displays the maximum amount of ammo you can purchase in the pop-up window and the slider is set to only allow you to buy the maximum purchasable amount for that ammo type.
UPDATED: Second round of visual polish for the Dauntless - Added addition effects, lighting and grime.
UPDATED: Removed the siren effect on all decks except for the VATs - it was annoying while engaging the last part of the Dauntless experience.
UPDATED: All areas of random mission maps are now displayed on the mini-map. As you explore, areas that have been explored turn grey. Areas that have had mission objectives cleared turn green. the area you are currently exploring is black with a small compass indicator. Should help better undestand the scale of the area to be explored for missions.
UPDATED: Removed the option to generated a full party of team members. When you leave the Dauntless, you can choose only one team member and this was confusing and some felt that it was a waste of their time if they did not read the universe creation screen carefully. The loss of crew members after the Dauntless is a key story element for future story content.
UPDATED: Dialog with Dr. Rhamus in ruins revised to add additional dialog options.
UPDATED: Addition of a new mission when receiving your starter ship. You are now sent to the Trade Station to gather your team of mercenaries.
UPDATED: Loot rewards for the Halamis Facility are now more consistent. Reward tokens and faction are less random so you can better gauge the level of reward for a mission type.
Fixed - Can now use F1-F4 in inventory and character info screens to switch team member info when in space.
Fixed - System messages are now queued so all messages are displayed to the screen in order.
Fixed - When approaching the sun, you will now make an emergency stop.
Fixed - A major physics error that could send your ship careening into the sun or elsewhere when you collide with stations and other space objects.
Fixed - A display bugs when dragging team members between ship station slots.
Fixed - A bug in space when selecting objects that could cause objects in the foreground or another object from being selected.
Fixed - You can now re-scan object like planets and ships
Fixed - When leaving the Dauntless, in some cases, the selected final team member's equipment was unequipped and placed in the stash leaving them standing there in their underwear once they arrived in the ruins.
Fixed - Material error on the trade station - too shiny!
FIXED: Ambient audio slider renamed to Music Volume - main menu music volume is not set to your current settings.
FIXED: Combat movement when healing will no longer result in negative AP
FIXED: Movement cursors will no longer be left on the ground in some rare cases
FIXED: When moving, you can no longer loot items. Previously it would appear as if you could loot items from long distances.
FIXED: A bug where landing on a planet could take you to another planet landing location
FIXED: A long standing bug that could cause extra AP to be used in combat when healing targets that you walk to.
FIXED: A long standing bug that could cause your entire AP bar to drain while walking towards an enemy target for attack when wielding a melee weapon or fists.
FIXED: A bug introduced by the new navigation icons could cause the player to arrive at target and then rotate in an arbitrary direction when attacking with melee weapons by clicking on an enemy from a distance.
REMOVED - Motion blur micro-warp effect - replaced with a new effect.
PERFORMANCE: General optimizations for AI in all locations.

Stellar Tactics will have space combat by the 22nd December.

The video says it all. Thanks for being patient everyone!

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The latest update for Stellar Tactics features a change to how space combat works.

You asked for it!

Well, some of you did.

Many of you have asked that I remove the constraint of flying only on a 2D plane in space. For a long time I didn't want commit to this until I had combat in and started play testing the system. I'm happy to say I woke up this morning at 5 AM with an idea that fixed a few problems I had with vector math related to space combat and decided to implement it. The combat patch will include full 3D flight for space exploration and combat.

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Thank you all for your feedback. As always, I'm listening!

The latest update for Stellar Tactics focuses on ship AI.

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This week ship obstacle avoidance, faction system connected to ship AI and pursuit and attack mode. You can see the full update including descriptions of various factions in the game here: http://steamcommunity.com/games/46549...

The latest update for Stellar Tactics.

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This weeks progress update. Directional shields, chaff, planetary material updates and targeting micro-menu. Please excuse the framerate - video was captured in the debugger. See the full article here -

Stellar Tactics latest update focuses on ship vendors.

Progress update - 11/3/17

This week was all about ship vendors. Still have a little work to do on swapping ships and a bit of cleanup work on the UI. See the video below for details. Please excuse my monotone - I need to catch up on some sleep - coffee and Red Bull's aren't doing it anymore...

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Ship vendors can be found throughout the universe and they all carry fixed sets of ships that they sell. Purchasing a new ship requires that you either store your current ship or trade in your current ship for a cash credit towards the price of your new ship.

One issue is that your equipment, because it is ship specific, cannot be swapped between different ships. To make things easier, the merchant gives you credit for each item currently equipped on your ship during the trade in. The value generated is the current market value of your equipment + the current trade in value of your ship which is credited towards your purchase. Your charisma affects the trade in value of all items.

If you choose to store your current ship, it will remain on the station until with all of it's current equipment until you come back for it. I'll make sure there is an easy way to see where all your current ships are stored. The ship storage menu in the video is still a work in progress. There will be more information available that is visible anywhere, anytime. For example, the ship list will provide two lists - the first is a list of all ships and their locations in the universe and a second list displaying the ships currently on the station you are visiting.

Regarding cargo - if you have more cargo in your cargo hold than the new ship will fit, you will need to sell your cargo before purchasing the new ship. The hamsters in the cargo bays will go on strike and the ship vendor will reject the purchase. The rule is that the cargo in the cargo bay of your current ship needs to be less than or equal to the maximum available cargo on your new ship.

As you explore, you will loot ship specific equipment. If you plan in advance, you can horde items for that future ship upgrade and after purchasing your new ship, slot those items into your ship.

One last note: On the ship info screen you can see an area for "MISSILE MANAGEMENT". This will eventually bring up a menu that lets you fit various payloads on your missiles and tweak their subsystems for range, avoidance and a few other things. Missiles come in one main variant and you can adjust them for various purposes and damage types.

That's it for this week. Thanks everyone!

Big Boss Batlle has previewed the space RPG Stellar Tactics and found it to be extremely fun and intriguing.

While I will continually have to be extremely careful to not spoil anything, once you deal with the complexities and problems on your initial ship, the action moves to an entirely different place for your squad-based, multiple-area combat. Hint: it is very much like a dungeon crawler. Yes, in a space game. Yes, the way it has been done, it fits into the lore and narrative absolutely perfectly.

By look and feel, comparisons will naturally be made to the original first two Fallouts as well as Jagged Alliance. This is an old-school, party-based, leveling-up, weapon-swapping RPG – just like the good ole days. What Stellar Tactics is going to accomplish though, will dwarf those three games in scope and scale. All of the old, cool, established components are there as well: needing initiative for combat; specific combat order; kneeling and standing; limited action points; use of cover; weapon experience gained through usage; both single and group movement abilities; etc. Especially interesting is the fact that you (and your enemies) can fine tune your aim to specific body parts. It is certainly an odd feeling playing a brand new, rather early in development game – while feeling nostalgic at the same time.

Stellar Tactics continues making progress on developing its ship systems.

Progress update - 10/6/17

Hi everyone. Here is the update for this week. Hope you all have a great weekend.

Added experience system for piloting, weaponry, electronics and targeting skills. You gain experience at the end of combat for each skill assuming you have a team member assigned to the appropriate station on your ship.

Completed key bindings for turrets - Keys 1-6 - press for individual targeting - hold and release to toggle turrets on/off.

Mining lasers moved to turret system. Can individually target each mining laser to multiple asteroids.
--Combat while mining possible. Mining is a bit less peaceful now as it is possible to be attacked by hostile ships while mining.
--Mining turrets come in light and heavy variants.
--Mining turrets will come in various quality tiers similar to combat turrets and can be purchased or found as loot drops. Higher quality mining lasers will generate bonuses to the yield of rare minerals.
--Mining lasers draw energy from your capacitor and have no ammunition requirements
--Mining turrets use the same energy management system as combat turrets. You can balance energy to engines and shields against your capacitor charge. You need to power up your turrets to mine asteroids.
--You can mine while in combat with enemy ships. Larger ships have more turret mount points and you can balance mining with defensive turrets
--Heavy mining turrets generate twice the yield and consume twice the capacitor charge of light turrets. Yield is modified by your skill in mining. When perks for mining go in you will be able to fine tune mining in a number of ways based on your selections.
--Mining turrets can be brought on and offline for energy management as needed
--Mining can be quite profitable and you're going to need the money to purchase new ships and equipment - ships are expensive. As an example the Pharris Crate MRCH-4 has six turrets total, 3 laser turrets and 3 missile turrets for defense. Filling the cargo bay (1700 cubic meters without a cargo expansion ) and not being picky about the mineral yield can net you around 34,000 Credits per trip. Imagine what you could do with a Behemoth CRG-2 which has 4 heavy turrets that will fit heavy mining lasers and 180,000 cubic meters of cargo space!
--I'll be adding asteroid and asteroid field scanning during alpha so you can evaluate the quality of the mineral yields for various asteroid fields. Rich asteroid fields will be guarded and you may need to purchase mining rights from the local faction authority or face resistance.
--I'll be adding the ability to eject cargo for the space combat update.

Moved all new effects (impacts, beams and explosions) to ground combat.

That's it for this week - back to work...

The Stellar Tactics combat system progress update.

Combat system progress update

Space combat is moving along at a good pace. I thought I would share a quick video to show how the basic systems work.

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The combat system is turret based. All ships have a limited number of turret mount points and beam, projectile or missile turrets can be looted or purchased. Turrets come in light and heavy variants and each of the 40 ships have specific mount specifications. Heavy weapon mount points can take light turrets if you choose to equip them.

In combat you will be managing range, power, shields and your current ship speed as well as turret targeting.

Power is critical in combat. Your turrets, shields and systems take a base amount of power to spool up and maintain. Available power feeds your ship capacitor and weapons draw from the capacitor so if your capacitor is depleted your turrets will fail to charge and fire and will wait for an available charge. Each turret draws a certain amount of power from the capacitor every time it fires with beam weapons depleting the capacitor at the highest rate. If your energy balance is off, your capacitor will not maintain its charge.

Energy balance is maintained by the number of active turrets, power to your shields, number of activated devices and power to your engines. You can balance the power to these systems by deactivating turrets and devices during combat and setting the active power charge to your engines and shields. Reducing power used by your shields, systems, turrets and engines diverts that power to your capacitor.

Each turret has a range meter - keeping your active turrets range meter green is important because turrets have range accuracy falloffs. If you're outside a turrets optimal range, your weapons may not connect. The same goes for enemy ships. Smaller faster vessels with missiles and beam weapons can go up against much larger ships that have weapons with shorter range and less maneuverability by staying outside the range of the larger ship. You will want to optimize your equipment for maximum charge rate, range, strategy and damage.

Turrets target independently so you can have a unique target for each turret. This allows strategies like utilizing certain turret types that do more damage to shields, then switching those turrets to the next ship once the current targets shields are down. An example would be using your ion turrets on enemy shields to deplete them and then kinetic, plasma or explosive weapons once that targets shields are down.

Ship loot drops will be similar to the ground based loot drops with various quality tiers and different stats to choose from. Ships also drop cargo so if you want to be a pirate, or are not aligned with a certain faction, you can harass them as much as you want. There will be missions like the mission system in KZ-MR7 with various objectives that can be taken on stations, from other ships in space or from faction agents. Space combat can be profitable and dangerous. Scanning targets will be important because it may not be immediately obvious just how dangerous a ship or group of ships are.

I'm still working on things - elements of the UI may change and I'm balancing systems so what you see here is work in progress.

If you have any questions about combat or what you see in the video, please do post here or on the forums. I'll be happy to answer them. No ETA on the release of space combat at this time though you can see it's fairly far along. I'll be working on loot, vendors and ship merchants next week which need to be in place before the space combat release. I'm also considering adding a first pass mission system for the release of space combat so you have tasks to complete in Achmedius.

Stellar Tactics has a new story trailer.

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Bringing back the nostalgia, excitement and wonder of classic RPG's, Stellar Tactics will thrill you with a compelling narrative, deep strategic squad-based ground combat and rewarding open world space exploration. To survive, you will need to build your team's skills and equip your party and ships with the best weapons, armor and equipment you can find. With 10,000 sectors, tens of thousands of solar systems and millions of planets to discover, you can spend countless hours exploring, fighting, trading and building a party of seasoned veterans that can dominate the challenges of deep space. Stellar Tactics is available on Steam Early Access - http://store.steampowered.com/app/465...

A new gameplay trailer has been made available for Stellar Tactics showing many of the new additions and changes to the game.

Stellar Tactics got a new movement system:

Updated movement system - Patch 0.094

Another update - this time the game movement system has been completely revised. The old system was written a long time ago and I've never been happy with it. I've been tinkering with this new system for a while now and decided to release it.

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The old system had quite a few problems:

• The team did not move as a squad and this caused problems when entering combat. Specifically you had to burn a lot of AP to get into position
• Squad facing was not available. You had to use additional AP to rotate them into position after arriving at your destination.
• In single movement mode you could not select another team member and move them while the last character was moving to a position.
• Single movement did not allow you to set a destination facing.

The new system:

• You can now move as a squad and arrive at your destination in formation.
• Team members no longer lag behind
• You can set the direction your squad will face when they reach their destination by dragging the mouse while the right mouse button is held down.
• In combat you can now set a facing when moving team members. When they arrive at their destination, they will rotate to face the selected direction set by the movement cursor.
• Team members can move independently when out of combat in single movement mode. You can select a destination for a team member and then select another team member and move them simultaneously.
• Single/Group mode can be toggled using the [SPACE BAR] when out of combat. In combat, the [SPACE BAR] ends the selected team members turn as it always has.
• Movement speed has been improved
• You can zoom out a bit further now

I think overall, this is a much better system and gives you flexibility, alleviating wasted AP when entering combat. I have future plans for additional quality of life improvements like box selection and formations.

A few additional bug fixes:
FIXED: A long standing bug where some armor would not display on your team members. Remove the armor and re-equip it to display the correct armor graphic.
FIXED: Phestus could end up in a state where he would not load his inventory when trading with him.
FIXED: Animation transitions into combat and from idle to attack.

I hope you will give the new system a try and post feedback on the forums. Thanks as always for supporting Stellar Tactics!

The Early Access game Stellar Tactics got a new patch:

First Aid and Hacking skills to level 60 - 0.091

A new content patch today with skill perks for First Aid and Hacking to level 60. Included are a few fixes for the game, updates to damage mitigation closely tied to the perk lines and proofread text for the logs. Hope you enjoy the patch.

As always, if you find any issues, please post them on the bug forums: https://steamcommunity.com/app/465490/discussions/7/

ADDED - Perks to level 60 for the First Aid skill line. You can select various perks at any time that give you bonuses to heal. All perks provide a chance to remove effects from yourself and team members. You have a chance to remove bleeding, poison, hobbled, crippled and stun.

ADDED - Perks to level 60 for the Hacking skill line. You can select various perks at any time that give bonuses to the amount of time you get to decode digits, bonuses to the number of looted items and loot quality of the hacked chest or locker, and bonuses for critical bypass of hacking.

ADDED - Added a new ship reset feature in space. If your ship is stuck for some reason, you can now press and hold the F1 key for six seconds to reset your ship to the nearest FTL point. I'll remove this when the FTL points open up in the future. This is a fairly rare occurrence, however, I thought I should add a way to recover if it happens.

UPDATED - Mitigation for status effects for all weapon perk lines adjusted to resist based on cumulative perk selections. In general:
--First, damage is mitigated by your shields for specific damage types as long as your shields are charged and the attack type does not bypass shields. Damage is reduced.
--Second, armor mitigates the remaining damage including additional AC from perks as long as the attack type does not bypass your armor. Damage is reduced.
--Finally weapon perks that provide effect resists stack and provide a chance to bypass secondary effects like stun, hobble, cripple, toxins and bleeding. These resists do not modify damage, so the damage after shields and armor are calculated and still applied. Grenade damage cannot be resisted at this time. The newly added First Aid skill perks allow you to remove secondary effects.

UPDATED: Shaved a few seconds off loading times.
UPDATED: When rolling over portraits in the turn-order bar during combat, the info bar is now displayed at the top center of the screen. This will give you access to combatant status and detrimental effects without needing to rollover combatants.
UPDATED: All log entries proofread.
FIXED - Fixed a typo in tips related to single/crouched which should have been single/grouped.
FIXED - Fixed signs on crew deck which should have been "Cryo" not "Crio"
FIXED - Gas grenades now reset the DOT timer if combatants are in the area of effect. If you have been cured of toxins, or the DOT effect timer runs out and a combatant is still in the area of effect, your timer will be reset and you will continue to take damage.
FIXED - Grenade explosion material blending.
FIXED - Duplicate combatant selection cursors.
FIXED - Saved shadow settings are now set correctly when loading a game.
REMOVED - Removed screen lock for dual monitors. It was causing problems in cases where multiple monitors were running different resolutions. I'll look into a permanent solution in the future. For now, there are third party applications (some free) that you can download that solve the problem.

Stellar Tactics has received a large update that has brought the Dauntless area up to date with the rest of the game.

Dauntless Remastered update

I'm happy to release the Dauntless Remastered update. The Dauntless has been revised significantly. The story remains the same.

• The entire start of the game uses new level art.
• The Captains Quarters has been merged into the Crew Deck.
• The distance you need to travel for various missions has been reduced.
• The last boss fight is a bit easier.
• Mission objects in the game environment have been scaled up in size so they are easily seen and interacted with.
• The Dauntless is brighter overall. If it's still too dark for you, however, there is a new Gamma slider in the options menu that will allow you set the games brightness to your liking.
• All dialog, mission text and log's have been professionally proofread for errors.
• Several of the longer conversations now have shorter dialog options available.
• Better direction has been provided in the log for several of the missions.
• Many screens have been increased in size so their font's are more visible making reading easier on the eyes. I'll be addressing the space UI's when I work on space combat.

Overall the Dauntless is now in line with the rest of the game. These changes were all inspired by feedback from the community. I felt it was important to make the experience of the first hour or so as fun, intuitive and trouble free as possible.

IMPORTANT: If you have a save on the old Dauntless, that save game is no longer valid. If you are currently playing on the Dauntless, you must start a new game. Game's saved on the old Dauntless will now appear on the load screen as "SAVE INVALID - OLD DAUNTLESS!" and you will not be able to load the save game. You can delete these saves. Saves after the Dauntless are unaffected.

I'm hoping you will all give the new Dauntless a try and post feedback on the forums. I'm eager to hear what you think. Lots of content, bug fixes and community suggested enhancements have been added since the game released on Early Access.
[...]

A new patch for Stellar Tactics has been made available. next to bug fixes this patch also adds a Halamis faction merchant.

This update adds the Halamis faction merchant and the underlying code and systems for faction merchants in general. You can find the merchant near Zabin Morbain in the Halamis Facility Staging area. Faction merchants offer faction equipment and unique armor sets for tokens earned by completing missions throughout the universe. Faction armor is high quality armor and as such requires a good deal of effort to generate enough tokens to outfit your entire team. The Abandoned Research Facility is a great place to run missions and gain faction and tokens to outfit your crew. I'll be adding more equipment and faction armor to the faction merchants across the universe during Alpha. As the story evolves, you may or may not want to be seen wearing the armor of certain factions around the known universe.

Stellar Tactics has received a large content patch which adds the abandoned facility KZ-MR7.

Unlimited procedural missions, equipment stash, streamlined game start, mercenaries, new enemies, tons of gear to loot, updated space stations, new character portraits, turn order bar, grenades and med-kits moved out of the secondary weapon slot and much more...this is a big patch!

I'd like to thank everyone one of you for supporting the development of Stellar Tactics and for your patience. There has been an enormous amount of work put into the game over the last few months. I don't want to overhype this build, though I do think you are going to like what you find (I hope). The game just took a very big leap forward towards Alpha.

[...]

With that, here is what you will find in 0.051!

Procedural missions have been added to the game. The abandoned Halamis Research Station has re-appeared on the surface of Achmedius VIII. You will find a new NPC near the entrance of the Trade Station in Achmedius who will recruit you. A few things about the procedural mission system.

• The level cap is set to 60 - this applies to global team member levels and skills
• There are three mission categories right now; eliminate boss, clear facility and gather. More are coming (destroy, activate and rescue).
• Missions are offered in short, medium and long variants - long missions take quite a while. The longer the mission, the better the rewards and tokens. You can reject a mission and another will be generated.
• You can abandon a procedural mission. Story missions cannot be abandoned. You must leave the facility to abandon missions. A button is displayed in the mission log area with red text that says "ABANDON" and is only displayed if you are not located in the mission area. Clicking the button will remove the mission from your active missions list. No rewards will be granted for the abandoned mission. You can only take one mission at a time from the Halamis agent, so, this frees you up to take further missions if you are having difficulty completing your currently assigned task.
• Tokens are granted for missions - more tokens for longer missions. Faction tokens can be spent at faction merchants for unique armor, devices and other goods. Faction merchants are not in the game yet. They will be going in very soon, so save those tokens! Besides a new armor set, there is at least one device that will be going on this vendor that every one of you is going to want - believe me!
• Every time you enter the facility the layout is randomly generated. That is, locations are assembled to create a unique facility layout. Enemy placement, enemy types, loot and the placement of objectives changes every time a mission is generated.
• Other than the basic background story of the facility, there is no story content in this update. This is the first pass at procedural mission content that will be persisted throughout the universe. Other "mission sets" and enemies will be developed in the future for variants on the system. Story content is different and non-procedural. I do plan to add flavor logs and other interesting mission variants in the future.
• The slice mines have been moved to another planet.

New portraits replaced the old portrait system. There are a total of 20 to choose from. If you load an existing game, I assign a portrait to your team members automatically (other than Rhamus and Jensen - NPC portraits are not changed).

• Auto-assignment of portraits may display duplicates.
• To change portraits, enter the character information screen ("C"), select the portrait from the portrait GUI in the upper left of the screen. Once the character you want to change is selected, left click the larger single portrait on the character information screen. A new window will pop up that lets you assign a new portrait, voice and name.
• You can change any team members portrait, name and voice at any time.

When starting a new game, you can now choose to skip the Dauntless. After the universe data is generated, you will create a single character, starting the game without a full team. You will be able to add new team members on the Trade station, where you will find several mercenaries willing to join you in your travels.
The mission information UI on the log screen now allows sorting by active and completed missions. Active missions are displayed by default.

NPC's can now join your team. There are several on the Achmedius Trade Station.

• The doctors will leave your team the next time you enter the trade station. If you are already on the trade station, walk near the entry and they will leave your team. This leaves you room to add three new and permanent team members by recruiting them on the station.
• Save before your recruit your merc's in case you want to make changes. The Mercenary manger is not yet in the game. It will go in at a later time allow you to add and remove merc's from your active party.
• Mercenaries have assigned combat skills. They will tell you which skills they are proficient with.
• Mercenaries set their level to your existing team's average level.
• Even though the mercenaries skills may not exactly match what you are looking for, you can still progress that team member and customize them by equipping the appropriate weapon types of your choosing.
• Once a new NPC joins your team, you will be able to change their appearance, voice and name.
• The NPC's physical model appearance will change to match the selected portrait the next time you change locations or save and reload the game. I'll be doing some work in the future so the models match the portraits better!
• The new team member will have a number of stat points to assign depending on what level you are when you ask the mercenary to join your team.
  [...]

Stellar Tactics latest patch include some updated character portraits and news on beta progress.

Updated character portraits

26 FEBRUARY - STELLAR TACTICS
I thought I would share these with you since there has been quite a bit of progress. The new portraits will replace the existing portraits when the next content update goes live. When creating a new game, you will be able to select from any of these portraits during character creation.

If you have an existing game, your current portraits will be replaced automatically. I will be adding a way for you to go into the character screen and select from any of the available portraits and replace them with your own choices. The old portraits will go away completely and will no longer be available in the game.

In the future I'll also add a way for you to replace any portrait in the game with your own - likely during beta.

The next content addition is coming along nicely. I am actually playing through the random mission scenarios now. There is still quite a bit of work with the mission generator and random enemy spawner which is working nicely now but needs work on placement and mission variety. I need to be happy with everything before I release the update. So, no ETA, but every day I get closer.

That's all I have for now. Back to work...

Stellar Tactics February Update adds new enemies, space stations and armor sets.

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.

[...]

Stellar Tactics is undergoing an engine upgrade but is only on the public test depot for now.

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

The latest update for Stellar Tactics demonstrates how FTL travel works.

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.

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Beyond Achmedius

I thought I would record a video that demonstrated how FTL travel works. I didn't take time to edit out loading screens or anything else. Kind of just a straight run through travel, docking, combat etc. Hope you like it.

I should say there is still no ETA on alpha. KZ-MR7 will come first and we are making good progress.

A few things I didn't mention in the video.

• The entire ST universe is available in FTL space - you can fly from one side to the other and star systems, ships, events and objects stream into view dynamically. Loading is only when transitioning from FTL space to systems and from systems to ground exploration areas (stations, bases, ruins, cave systems etc).
• Different areas of space look different. Visual differences are based on the area of space, the type of star, nebula's and a few other factors. I just happened to choose a system with a similar sun in the same area of space.
• New space stations are being build. The stations are modular and should be much better than the stations currently in the game.
• While exploring you will encounter events. They may be distress signals from aligned factions, stations and ground locations.
• You will be able to mark trade routes on your map for future reference. Systems are classified by Industrial, Agricultural, Mining and Consumer goods. Pricing and commodity values will be based on availability and demand.
• Disabling and boarding is a long term goal. It will go in, but not initially. There are over 40 ship types that need interiors modeled.
• Missions can be granted while in space via communication from other ships, remotely as mentioned above via Distress Signals and when on stations - usually in Cantina's and Bars. Most stations also have faction contacts that can send you on missions that award faction rewards and experience.
• Most locations can be explored. However, some stations and locations may be locked. If you are denied docking you will know that a location is reserved for missions or other story content.
• Scanning data can be sold. It has a value. So, while exploring, scan every planetary body in the systems. You get a bonus for complete system scans. You can turn in you scanned data to an agent on most stations.
• Enemy ships that have targeted you will generate a warning. You can choose to outrun your enemies or confront them. If you are flying a slower ship (a trade vessel), it's likely you will be intercepted. Make sure you are armed. The same goes for enemies. If you scan and then target them, they will take that as a hostile action and act accordingly.

Stellar Tactics has outlined the next major feature addition called 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...

[...]

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.

ShanePlays interviewed Don Wilkins about Stellar Tactics. The interview covered his game development history and the current state of Stellar Tactics. The interview is available as a podcast or audio only youtube.

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You can now try the Space RPG Stellar Tactics:

Stellar Tactics

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Stellar Tactics - Bringing back the nostalgia, excitement and wonder of classic RPG's, Stellar Tactics will thrill you with a compelling narrative, deep strategic turn based ground combat system and rewarding open world space exploration. Build your team, equip your ship, explore the universe!

It's about that time!

Well, it's finally that time. After lots of testing, late nights, early mornings and over six years of obsessive attention to detail, Stellar Tactics is ready for Early Access. Stellar Tactics is a complicated game with many of the core role playing systems you would expect in a classic RPG. It's more though. It combines traditional space exploration, trading, space ships and progression with deep party based RPG mechanics.

Many of you supported me earlier this year by Greenlighting Stellar Tactics. Since then I've been working hard to make certain the story, combat and core game play elements were as polished as they could be. That doesn't meant there aren't a few rough edges, because there are. I am at a point, however, where I need to gather feedback. Being a small developer (just me) your feedback is going to be critical for the success of the game.

I'm excited to hear what you think. Please, post your suggestions and comments in the forums. I read every post if I can and I usually respond if I have time. I'm looking for your thoughts on combat, interface, progression, balance, weapons, armor, loot, itemization...generally everything. I won't promise that I'll take immediate action on every suggestion, but I will be listening. If I see a good idea or suggestion, I'll consider it and let the community know if I'm planning to move forward with a change. If you find a crash bug, exploit or something that is generally making the game unplayable for you, please, post a note in the bug forums. I'll be working quickly to fix any game stopping bugs and annoyances.

What's next? I expect I'll be fixing bugs for the next few weeks. I'll be fixing things that I missed and issues that different play styles bring to the surface. After that it's all about Alpha. I'll be working hard to finalize space combat, generating content for exploration missions and following the road-map posted on the forums.

I'd like to thank each and everyone one of you for your interest in Stellar Tactics. I know you have many games to choose from. I'm going to work hard to make this game the best it can be.

If you want to help support Stellar Tactics, tell, your friends, family and people you don't even know.

-Don Wilkins

You can learn more about the perks and status effects of Stellar Tactics in the

DEVELOPERS LOG #4 – Perks and Status effects

The perk system in Stellar Tactics is different from most other games in number of ways. I’m going to describe the system in this Developers Log and explain how it works. Though this system is ready for the Early Access, there will likely be a number of passes to tweak the damage, defense and status effect bonuses.

Perks are granted at various level tiers; levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100. You get your first perk choice in any skill at level 20 in that skill.

Perks are granted for every skill in the game for a total of 95 assigned perks and a total of 285 perk selections for each team member. That is, for every skill you will have a total of 5 selected perks at level 100 if you choose to select them.

Perks come in three general categories for combat skills; Offensive, Balanced and Defensive. Each perk applies two effects:

• Offensive – Damage, critical or chance to hit bonus and a status effect bonus such as bleed, poison, hobble, cripple etc.
• Balanced – Bonus to both Damage and AC
• Defensive – Bonus to AC and Resistance

Perks Stack – If you decide you want a defensive front line melee character, select all defensive perks for a particular weapon skill and you can gain a major AC bonus and resistance to that skill’s status effect affinity.

Perk choices are never permanent. You can change your perk selections at any time, even during combat. Is a boss spamming a toxic AE effect that is wiping your team? Chose perks (and of course shields) that provide protection from the effects. Notice that a certain enemy has a weakness to certain types of damage? Adjust your perks to take advantage of that weakness, all in real time during combat. Perks are a tool that allow you to further customize your characters.

Perks  are a major part of the customization you can apply to your team members. These includes shield upgrades, weapon upgrades, weapon mods, armor selection and of course the application of stats to your team members that support their weapon choices.

A note about status effects. Status effects are applied in a number of ways. For now, the following status affects are applied in combat:

• Hobbled: Reduces movement by 50% – there is an innate chance to be hobbled if you or your enemies legs are damaged.
• Crippled: Increases action cost by 50% – there is an innate chance to be crippled if you or your enemies arms are damaged.
• Stunned: Some weapons have a chance to stun your enemies for up to three turns
• Bleeding: Some weapons have a chance to apply bleeding, a damage over time effect that can last up to three turns
• Poisoned: Some weapons apply poison, a damage over time effect that can last up to 3 turns

Several  weapons have the ability to avoid armor or personal shields to various degrees ( "The slow blade penetrates the shield" – Dune )

At some point Psionics will be introduced into the game. Psionics will be a completely separate skill progression with its own set of perks. Psionics will utilize Psionic Projectors, a form of weapon unlike any other.

That’s it for now. Back to testing the game for the September 22nd Early Access release.

The Early Access version of the Sci-fi RPG Stellar Tactics is available on September 22:

Story Trailer:

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Combat Trailer:

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We learn a lot about dungeons and missions in this Stellar Tactics development update:

DEVELOPERS LOG #3- Dungeons (Oh my!)

I’m using the word loosely, but I think it best defines the numerous mission locations found throughout the Stellar Tactics universe. As you travel through the universe, you will be presented with numerous opportunities to engage in ground exploration missions. You will usually be offered missions on Trade Stations in their bar’s and cantina’s where lively and quirky residents of the Stellar Tactics universe converge for rest and relaxation.

There are two mission engines in Stellar Tactics. The first generates missions dynamically based on your faction, recent events in the vicinity and a number of other factors. People everywhere need your help and you will be sent to planetary cave systems, abandoned research facilities, hidden bases, ancient ruins, derelict ships and more on a variety of missions that are generally dangerous. Some missions are fairly straight forward, others are actually dynamically generated mission chains that will have you traveling across the universe completing a number of tasks. In general, you will be entering dangerous dungeons, some large, some small. The large dungeon locations can take several hours to clear. Smaller dungeons may take from 15-40 minutes to complete. There is usually a boss at the end of these locations that will drop higher tier equipment.
The second mission engine is used for the main story narrative and is fully scripted. The dungeon locations for static missions are all hand crafted and tuned for difficulty and itemization. These locations drive the main narrative.

One dungeon type in particular is related to Ascension and the “Azimuth” system. Azimuth are skills granted by the ancient Aznari, a race of intelligent aliens that have abandoned this area of space. As you explore, you will encounter many of these ruins. Some of them have locked chambers that will grant you unique skills. Examples are AE heals, AE damage, AE buff’s and other temporary team based benefits that are useful in combat. These skills are very powerful.
Azimuth are used by collecting a charge during combat. Once fully charged, you can select a skill and unleash that skill on your friends or foes. Once you are granted Azimuth, you can use them at any time in combat, assuming you have a full Azimuth guage. Azimuth charges persist and can be saved for when they are needed.
ascension screenshot

Dungeons are filled with loot, from valuable baubles to powerful named weapons. They are a large part of Stellar Tactics and important for character progression. Of course, you could just focus on trading, mining and space combat, but then you would be missing out on all the fun of party based tactical combat.

The Developers Log #2 answers some questions about character creation:

Some have asked about character creation. So, a few answers and a video for everyone:

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[Q] Can I create my own character?
[A] Yes (see the video below). At the start of the game you will create a team of four combat specialists, genetically modified remnants of past wars hidden in a chamber on the Dauntless, one of four ships heading into the deep of space seeking a new home for the human race.

You can customize your characters appearance and that avatar will not only have a custom visual portrait, it’s appearance is actually reflected in the characters 3D model in the game. There are around 1700 visual combinations based on gender, face, hair, hair color and complexion. Beyond that you can assign unique voices to each of your team members.

[Q] Can I customize my characters. 
[A] Yes, Stellar Tactics is a full-featured party based RPG with classless character progression. Every member of your team can be customized in countless ways. Skills improve through use, so, equip a weapon of a certain type and use it and you will gain skill in that weapon. Use First Aid and you will improve in that skill. At various “Tiers” of skill, you will unlock perks that allow you to further customize your character. As each character levels up, they are giving bonus stat points that can be allocated to Strength, Agility and other base statistics.

In addition to the base stat’s and skill customizations, you will be able to customize each your character’s further through your equipment. There are literally millions of possible equipment permutations. Equipment comes in five Tiers of quality, each providing stat bonuses, adjustments to accuracy, critical modifiers and more. In addition, there are “Mod’s” of many kinds that allow you to upgrade your weapons through slotting mod’s to change their fire-mode packages, expand their clip size, provide stat bonuses and more. Mod’s affect both ranged weapons and melee weapons.

[Q] Is Stellar Tactics a RPG Lite game 
[A] No, Stellar Tactics is a Classic Full-Featured RPG. It’s similar in many ways to games that I enjoy like Baldurs Gate, Fallout 1 and 2 and games I have worked on like Wizardry and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. It breaks the mold of traditional fantasy RPG’s and moves the setting to space, gives you a ship and a team of space faring mercenaries and set’s you loose in a sandbox universe where you make your own choices and live or die by your own decisions.

What I’ve been working on: 

• The Prologue is now content complete!
• Polishing and tweaking game assets
• Testing and tweaking the prologue story and missions
• Refining dialog
• More asteroid mining
• Ship inventory management and hud
• Fixing minor bugs
• Adding flavor text and log entries

-> Steam page

In the Stellar Tactics developers log #1 we get some info about the Dauntless:

DEVELOPERS LOG #1 – Dauntless

The Dauntless is one of four massive ships that carry the remnants of humanity into the far reaches of deep space in search of a new home. You start the game on the Dauntless, woken from your cryo-chambers by an emergency protocol initiated by Dr. Rhamus, a scientist and caretaker. The events that transpire will change the future forever, and challenge you and your team of genetically modified warriors to their fullest!

Hello, and welcome to the first Developers Log. I’ll be updating regularly as progress is made towards the release of the Early Access Build, or “Prologue”. The prologue will be the initial release of Stellar Tactics, giving folks willing to play Early Access over ten hours of story based game play that takes you through the initial events leading up to your arrival in Achmedius, the launching point of your space-faring career. The Prologue will help me by providing further testing on a large number of the core systems that make up the game mechanics for Stellar Tactics.

What I’ve been working on:

• Scripting final narrative content for the prologue
• Refining space travel mechanics
• Asteroid mining
• Speeding up ground combat
• Coding/optimizing transitions from ground exploration locations to space and back
• Integrating Steam library requirements
• Validating load/save data
• Initializing the “Autonomous Universe AI” (AUAI)

That’s a lot and there is quite a bit more to do before the games is ready. I’ll be working on finalizing features and polishing the existing Prologue content over the next few weeks.

More updates to come…

Capt. Huggy Face spotted that the Kickstarter for Stellar Tactics has been cancelled:

Thank you!

I've received a lot of great feedback in the last 24 hours along with a ton of support from folks who are looking forward to the game. I'd like to reassure everyone that we are not abandoning the game. I'll keep everyone posted on our progress.

There are many great games on Kickstarter. I'd like to mention a few that I like in particular. Of course, I hope everyone is successful.

Arcadian Atlas - This looks to be a fantastic game and takes me back to one of my favorite games of all time, Final Fantasy Tactics. Check it out!

[...]

As mentioned last week, Stellar Tactics is now live on Kickstarter.

Stellar Tactics is a nostalgic, party-based RPG with an open world, classless progression system and an immersive narrative, the game is a tribute to classic isometric RPG's that we all know and love.

Explore a vast corner of deep space filled with numerous factions all vying for power in a universe torn by war and corruption. Equip one of 40 flyable ships with weapons, shields and the best equipment you can afford and explore hundreds of thousands of star systems, each filled with opportunities for adventure. Stellar Tactics is nonlinear and allows for almost unlimited free-form exploration. Return to the main story arc any time you like and fulfill your destiny.

Step off your ship and explore planetary cave systems, abandoned space stations, derelict ships and more with your team of mercenaries, each of which you've customized from scratch using a classless progression system with hundreds of perks. Engage in tactical combat with melee and ranged weapons, grenades, psionic powers and the unique Azimuth system that unleashes devastating team effects. Take advantage of cover and positioning, develop your skills and survive.

They also made a new combat video available.

The Sci-Fi sandbox game Stellar Tactics has been Greelit and will be starting a Kickstarter campaign next week Monday.

Sci-Fi Sandbox RPG 'Stellar Tactics' Passes Greenlight With Ease And Readies Itself For Some Deep Space Crowdfunding
The Perfect Fusion Of Sci-Fi & Fantasy!

Monument, Colorado, April 19^th 2016: Recently announced Stellar Tactics by industry veteran Don Wilkins only took 11 days to reach its first milestone by getting Greenlit via STEAM^TM with the generous help and support of the community at large. Next stop for the massively popular Sci-Fi RPG is crowdfunding via KickStarter^TM slated for kickoff this coming Monday, April 25. Stellar Tactics is an ambitious tribute to classic RPGs and challenges you to control an elite team of soldiers to explore a vast and dangerous sandbox universe and to boldly venture into the far reaches of space.

Stellar Tactics offers out-of-this-world gameplay and it shows the game has been in development for the past six years. It looks sleek, polished and impressive, even at its current state of Alpha. A masterful tribute to the RPG genre, the game promises to impress with its immersive narrative, deep strategic turn-based combat and rewarding open world space exploration. Your objective is to control an elite team of soldiers genetically modified and bred for warfare, where your deeds will change the destiny of those you protect, and your actions will reflect in the events that unfold as you reach your destination and you are unleashed into the void.

Stellar Tactics includes finely crafted lore specifically designed to mesh with an open-ended sandbox RPG. Destined to entertain for years to come with episodic content spanning thousands of star systems with story and immersion, the game currently features 200,000+ solar systems and millions of planets to discover.

Story Trailer:

Steam Trailer: