Well, it's finally that time. After lots of testing, late nights, early mornings and over six years of obsessive attention to detail, Stellar Tactics is ready for Early Access. Stellar Tactics is a complicated game with many of the core role playing systems you would expect in a classic RPG. It's more though. It combines traditional space exploration, trading, space ships and progression with deep party based RPG mechanics.
Many of you supported me earlier this year by Greenlighting Stellar Tactics. Since then I've been working hard to make certain the story, combat and core game play elements were as polished as they could be. That doesn't meant there aren't a few rough edges, because there are. I am at a point, however, where I need to gather feedback. Being a small developer (just me) your feedback is going to be critical for the success of the game.
I'm excited to hear what you think. Please, post your suggestions and comments in the forums. I read every post if I can and I usually respond if I have time. I'm looking for your thoughts on combat, interface, progression, balance, weapons, armor, loot, itemization...generally everything. I won't promise that I'll take immediate action on every suggestion, but I will be listening. If I see a good idea or suggestion, I'll consider it and let the community know if I'm planning to move forward with a change. If you find a crash bug, exploit or something that is generally making the game unplayable for you, please, post a note in the bug forums. I'll be working quickly to fix any game stopping bugs and annoyances.
What's next? I expect I'll be fixing bugs for the next few weeks. I'll be fixing things that I missed and issues that different play styles bring to the surface. After that it's all about Alpha. I'll be working hard to finalize space combat, generating content for exploration missions and following the road-map posted on the forums.
I'd like to thank each and everyone one of you for your interest in Stellar Tactics. I know you have many games to choose from. I'm going to work hard to make this game the best it can be.
If you want to help support Stellar Tactics, tell, your friends, family and people you don't even know.
-Don Wilkins
Known issues:
- Alt-Tabbing can occasionally lock the icon to your task bar. This put's the game in a state where you cannot click the icon or press Alt-Tab to get back to the game. Workaround - You can highlight the icon and press Alt-Enter to re-enter the game.
- Pressing the space bar can rarely skip a characters turn in combat. This does not apply to initializing the combat queue, which functions as expected. Workaround - use the "gear" icon on the GUI instead of the space key.
Tips:
- Press "H" - really, just do it, please...
- Reload your weapons after combat so you are ready for the next ambush!
- Your starting weapons are determined by the choices you make in character creation. The only weapons not awarded are heavy weapons, explosives, SMG's and well, fists...
- In combat, the "Tab" key will always return you to the currently selected team member
- When exploring, the tab key will always return you to the currently selected team member and lock the camera on that character, following them. This is handy for long walks through the various environments of Stellar Tactics.
- Cover controls enemy position.
- You can roll-over 2 AP between rounds - save it or reload your weapon if it's low on ammo.
- Explore everywhere, you never know what you will find.
- Blunt weapons have a chance to stun.
- Edged weapons have a chance to bleed.
- Some weapons have a chance to avoid armor or strike through shields.
- There are five tiers of weaponry, from basic to epic. Higher quality weapons provide bonuses and upgrade slots.
- Targeting arms can cripple, incurring a AP action penalty.
- Targeting legs can hobble, incurring a AP movement penalty.
- There is no AP penalty for opening your inventory and switching weapons, so, load that BFG or rocket launcher before hand and swap to it when you want to unleash hell on your enemies.
- Position does matter as does range - not so much size...
- Draw them out - Enemies will try to lure you, and you can pull them into a crossfire, through a choke point or manipulate them with cover.
- Always have a team member with a high ranged skill to take down runners.
- Crouching increases your chance to hit with ranged weapons.
- You can rotate your characters facing direction using the rotate icon on the combat hot bar.
- The three empty slots on the combat bar are for devices. Devices serve a number of purposes. In the Prologue, the only available device is the hacking tool.
- Healing kits need to be equipped in your secondary slot to be used. You can heal yourself and other team members in combat.
- Weapons can be augmented if they have open slots. You will see the slots under "Weapon Attachments" in the equipment GUI. Just drag the augment to the attachment slot. You can loot or purchase augments.
- Armor provides resistances to six different damage types.
- In combat, selected characters with green rotating orbs are currently selected, yellow = inactive team members and red = enemies
- Skills at levels 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 unlock perk bonuses. These are generally offensive, balanced or defensive choices. The prologue only supports level 20 combat perks. More coming soon!
Whats next:
- General bug fixes - any issues found over the course of the next few weeks that are blockers, crashes or nuisances
- GUI updates
- Combat cursor code re-write - It's not bad, just not perfect!
- Animation fixes
- From there, I'll be moving to Alpha content and things listed in the "road-map"
- Combat speed increases (queuing enemy attacks)
Thanks
A huge shout out to my family that supported me along the way!
Thanks to Joe P. for the wonderful illustrations.
Thanks to Costi at SolCommand who donated 3D models a very long time ago!
And of course, thank you for your interest and support!