Hey everyone!
Welcome to the "Bioverse" update. This patch is the most comprehensive update we've made to Stardeus in Early Access yet. It's a collection of core system rewrites + content, mechanics and balance updates. It was meant to be named "New Beings" (beings as in humans, robots, animals), however, this update ended up much larger than expected, impacting far more than just beings. This is the biggest major update that Stardeus ever had since launch to Early Access in 2022.
The following sections will explain the most noteworthy changes. Many of them are mechanics changes and system rewrites that bring the overall simulation depth to the level like never before.
New AI System based on GOAP
Before this update, AI wasn’t great. It had plenty of bugs and colonists would behave in dull and boring ways. The rewrite completely uprooted the old AI system and replaced it with a new, much more refined and flexible one.
The new AI system is based on GOAP (Goal Oriented Action Planning), an award winning technique first pioneered by F.E.A.R and later used in high profile games such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.
To achieve this rewrite, every single AI behavior was redesigned and reimplemented, mostly from scratch. A bunch of new behaviors were introduced as well.
The new AI solves a large majority of bugs the old AI had, and adds much more flexibility and emergent behaviors that are essential for a complex colony simulator like Stardeus.
New Body Parts System
One of the biggest and most anticipated changes is the new body parts system. It brings Stardeus closer to games like RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress. For example, a cat now has 28 body parts - eyes, ears, jaw, a set of internal organs, legs, paws, a tail, etc. Robots are also fully modular, with replaceable parts that you can mix and match to create different combinations.
Each body part can provide the owner with some stats and abilities. For example, legs give the ability to move. If legs are amputated or damaged in combat, the colonist will not be able to perform any activities that involves moving around, and additionally, if any wounds are left unattended, a colonist can bleed out to death. If that happens, the healthy organs and body parts could be amputated and sold, or reused for someone else.
This system brings new levels of gameplay depth and immersion. It is tightly integrated with the new AI and other systems such as Combat, Health, Stats and Conditions.
It is now possible to conduct various experiments, such as replacing a robot’s tracks with a jet removed from a drone, resulting in previously grounded robots gaining an ability to fly. Equipment items can also provide such abilities - a jet suit will allow a human colonist to fly.
Internal organs from biological beings are also interchangeable across different species, so for example, you can harvest kidneys from a pig and put them into a human who had them damaged during combat. Or do the opposite.
New Combat System
The old combat system was even worse than the old AI system. It was using its own separate AI implementation for combat situations and in result the colony and combat behaviors were very separate and that would often cause problems and bugs.
The new combat system is driven by the new GOAP AI, it is much more flexible and tightly integrated into the whole colony behavior. Fighters now act in much more interesting ways. For example, here’s a video of a raider with highly overpowered armor who has a pacifist trait and therefore refuses to fight. The raider won’t attack anyone due to being a pacifist, and decides to go take a nap while everyone else is trying to land a hit through the overpowered armor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggaB2gxIu2w
While the overpowered armor was indeed a balance issue, the rest of the behavior was completely emergent and amusing enough to justify allowing raiders to have the pacifist trait in future.
The new combat system uses a new damage model based on damage to individual body parts rather than a simple “health goes to zero = death” system that we had before. Damaged body parts can be fixed / healed / replaced / amputated / regrown in cloning pods.
A multi-directional cover system was added as well, fighters will actively seek positions with cover during combat, opening up a possibility for creating more strategic ship layouts.
New Stats System
While this is more of a technical change, it is worth mentioning because of how much depth it adds to the simulation. Each being (robot, human, animal) has a large collection of stats that affect various abilities and states.
There are currently over 50 different stats, such as move speed, sight, dexterity, hunger, lung capacity, intestines contents, comfortable temperature range, sanity, etc. The system is very modular, new stats can be added easily as needed.
These stats can affect each other, for example, losing Sight will automatically reduce the Move Speed.
The stats also have "Sources" - that are either body parts or equipment. For example, lungs provide lung capacity, legs provide move speed, eyes provide sight. Damaging the body parts that provide these stats will reduce the stat value.
Stats can also have multiple "Modifiers". A colonist who is running away from fire will have a temporary Move Speed +100% modifier. Someone who is roaming around bored will have -50% Move Speed. Permanent stat modifiers can also be provided by body parts and equipment.
Many other systems such as AI, Combat, Needs, Health and Conditions use these stats to drive various behaviors.
This stat system also applies for inventory items such as weapons and armor. All weapons will have stats like DPS, Range, Accuracy, Cooldown Time, etc. Additionally, some body parts such as a dog's jaw or human’s hand, provide attack methods (bite, punch, etc) that will have such stats too.
New Health and Conditions Systems
Tightly integrated with the Body Parts system, these new systems govern wounds, diseases, mental health issues and death.
A colonist that stays in an poorly oxygenated environment for prolonged periods of time will develop Hypoxia, that will become more severe over time, and will eventually damage internal organs and cause a violent death.
Some conditions are not related to body parts directly. For example, a colonist can develop Depression, which is a mental condition that affects their behavior and stats through the new AI system.
Here’s another example of how this plays with the body parts system to create an interesting emergent simulation with more depth. There are “Crawlers” - spider-like creatures that can attach to a colonist's face. When that happens, they lay eggs inside Stomach and Intestines body parts of their prey. That creates a hidden “Infected with crawlers” condition which after some time will result in new crawlers bursting out of the belly of the infected colonist, destroying their internal organs and adding exit wounds on the body. If the stomach and intestines are replaced in time, the infected condition goes away and the colonist will be saved.
These new systems make it easy to add new complex health conditions, diseases, addictions and mental issues that previously would be extremely difficult and time consuming to implement. New content utilizing these systems will be added over time.
New Needs System
Built upon the new Stats, Body Parts and Conditions systems, the Needs system now has much more depth than before. The best example is the hunger logic, which is probably explained best with a diagram.
In this case, someone who has a wounded jaw would lose the ability to eat, which would make consuming food impossible, that will over time develop a “Starvation” condition, that would damage internal organs and eventually kill the colonist.
Most other needs are much simpler, but they all tightly integrate with the new AI, stats, body parts, health and conditions systems to create an immersive, deep simulation full of emergent behaviors.
Mind Transfers
The new body parts system allows transferring minds between any living creature, be it a robot, human or even a cat. Transplant brains, overwrite robot cores with colonist minds, or vice versa.
Human colonists trapped in robot bodies will keep their skills, traits and mental health.
New Trade System and Space Stations
Merchants were quite overpowered in the older versions of Stardeus. You could hail them at will, they would fly over to your ship to trade with you. That discouraged exploration and made it too easy to acquire certain resources. For this reason, the “call-in” traders are no longer available, instead the player will find many space stations scattered around the universe.
Item Pricing and inventory of the space stations will be determined by the contents of the underlying star system. Each star system will have a unique set of items that are “scarce” or “abundant”, and merchant’s prices will reflect that. A star system that has a lot of Iron, but no Uranium will be trading their Iron under the market price, and Uranium will cost a hefty premium. This opens up opportunities for speculation and trade routes.
However, it doesn’t end here. Each merchant will keep track of what the player buys and sells, and that will drive the local demand and prices up and down. If you’re buying all the copper you can find, its price will surely go up.
But there’s even more. Stardeus has an intricate Stock Market simulation that drives the price changes behind all commodities and in this new update it even allows you to trade company stocks, such as “Bytecoin”, “GameStart”, “Megahard” and “Netpix”. Stocks will be much more volatile than commodities, making it easy to make (or lose) a lot of money very quickly. Additionally, players' transactions will now have a small impact on global market prices of commodities. Which means that your trading with space stations can directly affect your trading on the stock market.
And of course, there is a Black Market that you can unlock to sell all the kidneys you’ll harvest from the raiders.
New Scenario Configuration Screen
Previously you would jump right into the game when starting a new scenario. You would start with whatever you got. Now you can randomize your starting crew, change their names, see how they look, what skills, abilities and traits they have. This will give the player an option for a more custom experience with immediate personal investment into the game.
A colonist choice will also appear when someone wakes up from stasis. This will allow you to have some control over how your colony evolves.
Twitch Integration
Starting with v0.11, Stardeus introduces built-in Twitch integration, allowing your viewers to immerse themselves in your ship and either help or sabotage your efforts.
This feature includes a name queue, multiple roles, a reputation system, and dozens of chat commands, with more to be added over time.
It is highly configurable, giving you control over how much influence your viewers have. Be cautious, as the chat might have a tendency to burn your ship down.
Here is an example of how a play session with viewers can go:
https://youtu.be/IvUR_QT8VWs
If you want to try it yourself, the instructions are here.
Tons of New Content
All the new systems required a ton of new content, along with removal of a few obsolete items and mechanics. The amount of new things heavily overwhelms the number of what was removed. Here are a some examples of what was added in v0.11:
- New Scenario: Cargo Ship. A mid-game jump start that has a lot of research tree pre-unlocked and gives the player plenty of Datoids to unlock some more tech of their choice right away. It also includes a fully operational space ship and a bunch of raw materials for quick expansion. This scenario skips a lot of starting content and quests, and is recommended for experienced players only!
- Nearly a hundred body parts that can be cloned, crafted, bought, sold, harvested.
- Several new devices for performing surgeries, body part replacements for robots, and for storing the new body parts.
- New raw materials that can be found on space expeditions, such as Ice, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
- New materials acquired by crafting or processing raw materials, such as Silicon Wafer, Silver, Gold and Platinum Ingots, Gold Wire, Improved and Advanced versions of Microchip, etc.
- New body types, hairstyles and clothing items for human colonists. Additionally, all clothing items fit all possible body types. If you have it, anyone can wear it.
- New species: Pig. Pigs can be treated either as pets, or as a food source with harvestable internal organs.
- New cosmetics such as an inflatable Rubber Duck that your colonists can admire.
Improved Balance and Pacing
Balance has also received a major overhaul, with emphasis on reducing wait times and grind. Everything will happen much faster at normal clock speed and crafting will involve significantly less waiting.
The story generator will produce events more frequently as well, but if you prefer to take it slow, you still can, because a couple of modifiers were added to control story pacing and stasis wake-up rates.
The new content will definitely have some balance issues, but nothing is set in stone while Stardeus is still in Early Access, and all your feedback will be reviewed and applied in daily updates.
Changelog
- [Major] Rewrite the AI system from scratch to use GOAP
- [Major] Rewrite the Combat system from scratch
- [Major] Add body parts system with replaceable and harvestable organs and body parts
- [Major] Add new Health system based on body parts and stats
- [Major] Rewrite the Needs system to use the new AI, stats, body parts, conditions and abilities
- [Major] Add new Stats system with base stats and modifiers to drive the being behaviors
- [Major] Add Abilities system that enables beings to perform tasks based on abilities provided by body parts
- [Major] Add new Conditions system that drives various health and mental conditions of beings
- [Major] Add Cover system integrated with Pathfinding and Combat systems
- [Major] Add new Jobs system with more intuitive skill levels and priority management
- [Major] Rewrite the Traits system to use the Stats system to modify being stats through traits
- [Major] Add new Experience system that generates backstories and job skills for crew members
- [Major] Replace the Mood system with Sanity system that controls mental breakdowns
- [Major] Add new Trade system that will govern merchant inventories and prices
- [Major] Add new scenario: Cargo Ship
- [Major] Add scenario configuration screen and a possibility to change the starting crew
- [Major] Complete re-balancing with adjustments to Story pacing, stasis wake-ups, costs, durations, speeds, etc.
- [Major] Add official Twitch integration
- [Feature] Add nearly a hundred various body parts for robots, humans and animals
- [Feature] Add nearly a hundred backstory items for the Experience system
- [Feature] Require producing or acquiring all body parts in order to assemble a working robot
- [Feature] Add new devices for performing body parts replacement, removal and storage
- [Feature] Player will have to choose one of three colonists when someone wakes up from stasis
- [Feature] Add dozens of various stats that each being will have
- [Feature] Add AI Alignment stat that gives ability to control humans on their own will
- [Feature] Detach timing of mental breakdowns and Crawler hatching from the Story Generator
- [Feature] Add several new ores and materials (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Ingots, etc)
- [Feature] Weapons will have more stats (DPS, Charge time, Cooldown, Accuracy, Range, etc)
- [Feature] Reimplement Energy Rifle to be more railgun-like
- [Feature] Water will be required for growing plants, producing oxygen and cooking food
- [Feature] Allow building the ship to some extent while in mid-flight
- [Feature] Add Pig species
- [Feature] Add Replicator device and Mind Transfers feature
- [Feature] Add Karaoke Machine device
- [Feature] Add Rubber Duck and Wooden Rocket Sculpture cosmetics
- [Feature] Add ability for beings to admire nice things
- [Feature] Add Ice resource
- [Feature] Add new lower tier weapons: Knife and Handgun
- [Feature] Rewrite the Free Select tool to make it more modular
- [Feature] Improve object hover tooltips to add more information
- [Feature] Make weapons and explosives storable in Weapons Locker
- [Feature] Tune the Stock Market implementation to produce more realistic movements
- [Feature] Add Stock Market Prediction research that exposes internal workings of the price movements in the UI
- [Feature] Pre-simulate the Stock Market when starting a new game to get different starting prices in every run
- [Feature] Add Black Market research that opens up organ trading
- [Feature] Add Equity instruments (company stocks) to the Stock Market
- [Feature] Add Space Stations with traders all over the universe
- [Feature] Terraforming the planet will have visual transformation effects on the planet itself
- [Feature] Colonizing a planet will establish a Space Port and a Space Station belonging to your faction
- [Feature] Player trades will have effect on the merchant's future prices
- [Feature] Player trades with merchants will have an effect on the global stock market
- [Feature] Introduce resource abundance / scarcity adjustments across star systems
- [Feature] Resource abundance / scarcity will affect local trader prices
- [Feature] Add multiple new body types, hairstyles and clothing items
- [Feature] Light will affect sight, move speed and mental health of most biological beings
- [Feature] All clothing items will fit multiple body types
- [Feature] Add Jet Suit that will give the wearer the ability to fly
- [Feature] Change the mechanics of Nutrient Extractor and Disassembler to work with the body parts system
- [Feature] Add nutrition amounts to food options
- [Feature] Add assignable Bot Docks
- [Feature] Beds will now be assignable to colonists
- [Feature] Add Stem Cells material that will be required for cloning / growing body parts
- [Feature] Add Silicon Wafer material to be used instead of Silicon directly
- [Feature] Crawlers will infect Stomach and Intestines with eggs
- [Feature] Crawlers can detach themselves from a prey without dying
- [Feature] Improve ship generation algorithms to produce more detailed ship designs
- [Feature] Add Fog of War mode that makes unlit objects completely invisible (check Settings > Video > Ambient Light)
- [Feature] Radiators built near the Ship Computer will also act as Heat Sinks
- [Feature] Add Morgue and Mechuary devices for storing dead bodies and bots
- [Feature] Add Story Pace and Stasis Wake Up Rate modifiers
- [Feature] Auto pilot upgrade can now be installed on Shuttles to allow unmanned mining expeditions
- [Feature] Allow buying resource deposits that belong to another faction
- [Feature] Add mental breakdown: cleaning spree
- [Balance] Adjust durations and speeds of many aspects of the simulation to significantly reduce wait times and grind
- [Balance] Adjust story pacing to significantly increase the density of story events
- [Balance] Review and adjust all prices and market groups in the Stock Market
- [Balance] Review and adjust all construction costs
- [Balance] Review and adjust all crafting costs
- [Balance] Make space travel much faster
- [Balance] Change how Defragmentation mechanic works (allow speed up, disable pause)
- [Balance] Canceling trade will no longer impact the faction standing
- [Balance] Remove Construction Speed research
- [Balance] Remove Bot Cap research and bot limits
- [Balance] Remove limit of active tasks that used to require Memory
- [Balance] Remove internal storages from all crafting devices
- [Balance] Remove Beta Waves Transceiver device
- [Balance] Remove the ability to hail a merchant through the Communicator
- [Balance] Remove the ability to buy or sell beings
- [Balance] Remove skill level requirements from construction tasks
- [Balance] Remove Device Wear mechanic
- [Balance] Remove Aesthetics system
- [Balance] Remove carbon buildup from matter reactors
- [Balance] Remove Oxygen / Heat production capabilities from the Stasis Array
- [UI/UX] Make input and controls more in line with the leaders of genre
- [UI/UX] Polish / improve many UI screens and elements
- [UI/UX] Icons displaying beings will show their actual looks
- [UI/UX] Disabling screen shake will also disable ship rotation tilt
- [UI/UX] Trying to haul objects without compatible storage will list compatible storages in the popup
- [Tech] Rewrite multiple core systems for increased performance and stability
- [Tech] Increase default texture quality to High on most GPUs
- [Tech] Improve rendering of moving objects to reduce GPU load
- [Tech] Add Harmony (v2.2) modding support
- [Tech] Add multiple game version support for mods
- [Tech] Add // comments support to Stardeus JSON files
- [Bug] Fix hundreds of bugs that existed in v0.10
- [Bug] Unintentionally introduce hundreds of new bugs. Please use the in-game Feedback form to report them
Follow the Development
- Official Website: https://stardeusgame.com
- Join Stardeus Discord
- /r/stardeus on Reddit
- @StardeusGame on Twitter
- @dev_spajus on Twitter
- @KodoLinija on YouTube (devlogs)
- dev_spajus on Twitch (live development streams)
Get Stardeus
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1380910/Stardeus/