Hello Navigators, another month out of the way, a new build out to live, and work presses on.
New closed beta branch is imminent
Over the last month work has been done not only on prepping things for deploying the open beta branch to live but also on the development of Minor Update 2. Significant progress has been made on the features outlined in the last update (Customization of galaxy points, Binary+ star systems), and I’m happy to say that both features are working end to end albeit with a few minor non-blocking issues. This means Minor Update 2 (mU2) is getting closer to being available for testers!
What remains before making the push to the test group is the data conversion. As (mU2) introduces several changes to data structures in each star system, it is important that the work each of you have put into your galaxies is preserved as much as possible during the transition. Since the beginning of this early access phase, it has always been an important part of the development process to ensure that your hard work is not lost. While that may still happen, the conversion script is intended to reduce this risk. Which is why the phased approach is being taken so that by the time these updates hit the live build everyone may have the best experience with Stellar Navigator.
Speaking of experience, and data conversion. mU2 will be including a new progress tracker for the conversion process. Whether you’re moving from the earliest days of Stellar Navigator, or the most recent release, the system will continue to update your data to the latest structural form (with backups). However, it will now report on the progress of each task it is working on. You will no longer experience freezing after clicking the commit button; the system will provide real-time progress updates.
This will also help in the event an issue occurs as the current step will be visible to the user. Moreover, (and perhaps less glamorous) the data conversion process is now more robust and should handle re-runs, if necessary, due to failures.
Current development focus
The current focus for this month will be on the completion of the data conversion process along with pushing the resulting build out to the test group, and of course resolving issues discovered by this group of testers. In between issue resolution, investigation and planning the integration of Steam workshop into Stellar Navigator in earnest. More updates on that will be coming as it develops.
Looking forward
Recently there has been an influx of new and fantastic ideas being posted on our Discord server and many of you have already voted for the ones you would like to see incorporated into Stellar Navigator. I really appreciate the feedback and the community involvement with voting as it makes it easier for me to prioritize the features the community wants most! So, get in there and vote for your must-have features.
Finally, there are a few updates to the public roadmap, most notably the identification of selected user feedback to go along with Steam workshop support.