Hello Navigators!
I'm back with another update for Stellar Navigator. This month the latest build including Workshop support, multiple asteroid belts, and trade lanes has been released to closed beta! And if you have sent in a request for access to the closed beta, you will be able to pull it down from Steam and begin playing with the latest new features.
So what has been worked on this month?
Beyond bug fixes and more battles with version control (it's now behaving properly), all of the latest features and fixes have been merged into the main branch for testing in closed beta. In addition, design is well underway on the next minor update and a new feature voted on by the community is getting ready with a design of its own to be included in the next update. For those following the changes on the public road map, you may have seen the introduction of Faction Maker. This will be coming online in minor update 3 along with additional data points for celestial bodies and additional placeables. Let's take a look.
Faction Maker
This has been a feature that has been desired since just about the beginning of the early access journey. Now it is finally time for the ability to create custom factions within Stellar Navigator. There has has already been the addition of colour coding star systems on the galaxy map to identify groups of them as parts of factions, in addition to the customizable trade lanes, but that hasn't fully given users the agency to define the nations of their galaxies.
As this feature is still in design, much will be decided in the coming weeks to months. However, here is an early look at what it could look like when it comes online.
Faction Index
Here you will add to the growing list of new factions available in your galaxy.
Faction Viewer/Editor
In this view, you will be able to add the details for an individual faction. It will include the relations, an icon, and a free form text area for the detailed information that makes the faction unique.
Additional Celestial Object Details
Originally, there was a thought to simply add more details based on what was typically found in science fiction. However, after diving into the design and taking a more thorough look at the feature, it seemed only right that users should be able to set their own details and values. Therefore, the design has changed so that users can add both a detail title, and the value for that title right into the datasheet. What's more, work has been done on custom gauge widgets to present information in a different format.
The goal behind this was never to add more information into the side panel that is currently used to define planets. While that is not going away, and users will still use the side panel to configure each planet, this new Object Information Control window will be a more detailed view of each object within a solar system.
