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Monthly Updates - May

June already ːsteamfacepalmː

Time flies when you're having fun!

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.20 

New / Changes

  • You can now refuel the ship from the bridge! We don't have volumetric gas giants yet, so for now, you simply need to be within 1.25-1.75 of a gas giant's radius to be in effective fuel scooping range. Ice giants are the best fuel sources, with effectiveness falling off on classes I through V.

  • Added a temporary /refuel command to the chat box to save anyone who forgets to watch the fuel tanks. It'll set the tanks to 10%.

  • Added a temporary (ish) flashing light above the Engineering console if any tank drops below 10% fuel.

  • The F1 bug reporting tool has been updated, and now also lists all open bug tickets in-game. More functionality on that will be coming.

Fixes

  • The Caravella is now loadable for Admiral+ backers with portal accounts. Right now, it's stuck in place, but you can poke around it.

  • Fixed bug #02613 Bug report form too short

  • Fixed bug #02742 Floors aren't being cleaned

  • Fixed bug #01881 Feedback - Add audio in background when alt+tabbed

Starship Simulator Portal

  • We've now replaced Mantis with our own proprietary bug tracker, built into the portal and the game.

  • You can now upvote bug tickets that you think should be a priority fix.

  • Anyone with an account can comment on bug tickets.

Backer Notes

  • The new bug tracker uses your Starsim account, so if you are logged in when you report a bug, it will link that ticket to your account properly. You'll then be able to see any tickets you've raised on your dashboard, and it will glow yellow if any of your tickets have been updated.

  • The NPC Captain doesn't know about fuel scooping yet, so don't leave them unattended, or you'll end up stuck without fuel. For now, I'll add a temporary /refuel command to the chat box to save anyone who gets stranded.

Internal Development Build 0.227.0.21 

New / Changes

  • Added some very simple reactor controls to the Engineering station on the Magellan's bridge.

  • The Caravella Class is now completely flyable, and has functional NPCs on the bridge.

  • Upgraded Unreal Engine to version 5.7.4.

  • Started building the A Deck bathroom on the Magellan Class.

Not Yet Implemented

  • Created a more stable version of the sublight flight model with a fixed centre of mass.

  • Created a modular thruster component that simply takes in Max Newtons * Throttle as an input.

Optimisations

  • Created a new optimised light component and converted the temp lights around the ship to use it (the round ones).

  • Enabled stereo and foveated rendering for VR.

Fixes

  • Fixed the Caravella Class not loading.

  • Fixed bug #02752 - Open/Close Refill Valve buttons on the new bridge engineering screen have a typo

  • Fixed bug #02788 - Flying Camera shadows

  • Fixed bug #02753 - Chat Spamming

  • Fixed bug #02787 - Engineering Bridge NPCs are mislabelled

  • Fixed bug #02757 - Power

Starship Simulator Portal

  • Renamed the Bug Ticket Severity fields so that they're more reflective of actual game issues.

  • Added the ability for players to set the Severity field directly when raising a bug ticket (we'll refine as-needed).

  • Added automated screenshot capture/upload when raising a bug ticket (you can opt out).

Backer Notes

  • Upgrading engine versions always brings with it the potential for unexpected side effects, so please let me know if anything is behaving strangely.

  • VR is working much better now, but enabling stereo rendering has caused some side effects. Not least of which, if you have Bloom enabled, it will cause the right eye to have glitchy black areas all over it. Also, right now there are no in-game menus in VR, so once you are in-game, you will need to hit Alt+F4 to exit.

  • I've been testing both Wired and Air Link on my Quest 3, and they both seem to work fine. Typically, I'm seeing ~60fps on my 4090 on Medium settings.

  • Unreal Engine 5.7 forces us to use the AgX Tonemapper over ACES, because the OpenColorIO plugin is required by MetaHumans. Ultimately, this is a good thing; it gives us more accurate colour and better visuals, but until I tweak the post process, it's going to look a little flat.

We've been working the past two weeks on redoing the code logic systems, so there's nothing to show for that right now, unfortunately, but on stream, we've started creating the shuttle. This info will be added to the updates in time!

May's YouTube Development Streams.

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See you in July!