There have been a lot of optimizations, and bug fixes, along with the addition of MacOS and Linux support. Here is what has changed in New Stars recently.
New Stars Supports Lower-End Systems
Playtesting on my dual-core laptop, I managed to get 20-30 FPS on the galaxy map, and 25-30 FPS in the star system simulation. This was not possible before. If you have a mid-end to high-end PC, you should not have a problem with performance.
MacOS + Linux support has been added.
You will also be able to play New Stars on MacOS or Linux.
What is to come...
The idea of New Stars is that each game is unique, re-playable, and each game takes no more than a few hours to complete. The pacing will be different to a lot of other sophisticated strategy games. Here are some changes that are currently being worked on.
1) Some techs will be removed, and the tech system will be simplified.
- 40 techs may not be necessary for games that only last a few hours.
2) Map sizes will be reduced in size, which will further increase performance and speed up games.
3) The ship builder will be simplified for a faster-paced gameplay.
- The ship builder offers a different layer of strategy in resource management and combat.
4) Tutorial tooltips will be added for new-time players.
- There have been complaints among some playtesters that there was no explicit tutorial system.
5) Combat will incorporate engagement range.
- Currently, ships of any type can shoot from the same distance in a battle.
- Each military ship type will have a different engagement range.
- Smaller ships will have to physically move towards larger ships to be effective in combat.
6) Hostile space entities?
- Space enemies that spawn in unclaimed regions of the map keep the player busy.
- A strong military is needed at all times to defend new territories.
The future gameplay will likely be inspired by fast-paced games such as Northgard, as opposed to Stellaris. Ideally these changes will help differentiate the game mechanics to 'similar games', provide a replayable experience, while offering a somewhat similar feel to galactic strategy.
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Stay tuned for more updates, or join the community Discord (linked below).
Join the Closed-Playtesting: discord.io/adamjr
Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/adamjr
Feel free to comment your suggestions below, or at discord.io/adamjr.
Wishlist New Stars to support development.
This page is subject to change in the future and is intended to be a development preview, which may not reflect the final state of the game.
Credits:
- Star satellites icon by Lorc under CC BY 3.0
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