GIF Roundup

I’ve been working on a lot of content recently – some hand-crafted missions, new weapons (and ships), some endgame material, and so on. While that’s all terribly exciting, it unfortunately doesn’t leave me with a whole lot I can talk about without spoiling things. There is another feature I’m working up to – somewhere at the intersection of “mechanics” and “content”, a bit more the latter – that I’ll be able to talk about (at least, if it pans out), but that’s still a little ways off.

In the meantime, I thought I’d revisit some of the gifs I posted on twitter while working on a new set of weapons. (There are also ships that go with these weapons, but those are not to be talked about, I’m afraid. Hegemony COMSEC was quite clear on the subject.) I’ll also talk a bit more about the effects, so even if you’ve seen these already, there’ll be something new – and there may be one or two you might have missed, even if you’ve been following along!

First, a picture of the glorious mess these can produce when employed against a hapless Paragon. This is a bit over the top; I wouldn’t imagine things would look quite this extreme very often.

(Lest you think I hate Paragons, since they seem to be commonly used for target practice: it’s only because they’re the only thing sturdy enough, I swear.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Starsector 0.7a Release

Update: a hotfix for an occasional after-battle crash is now up. For detailed notes clickhere.
You can use the download links below to get the hotfix.

Starsector version 0.7a is now out! We’ve also got a shiny trailer for you to watch while the new version is downloading.

 

New features in this version:

  • Expanded battles – come to the aid of beleaguered allies, or be swarmed by enemies
  • Campaign terrain – nebulas, stellar coronas, hyperspace storms, and more
  • Sensors – play cat and mouse games with enemy fleets or patrols seeking to ruin your smuggling run
  • Abilities – “go dark” to hide in a ring system, or use “emergency burn” to chase down a pirate
  • Combat officers – hire and level up officers to power up the ships you assign them to
  • Campaign missions to take on for profit
  • Faction and reputation-specific music
  • Six new star systems, five new ships, and three new weapons

There are a lot more changes – the full patch notes, and the comment thread, are here. You can download the new version here:

(Alternate download links: Windows Mac Linux)

As always, thank you for your support!

 

Faction Music

The addition of faction music in the upcoming 0.7a is probably my favorite audio feature in Starsector. Here’s a small video breaking down some of the music for the Hegemony faction, along with an explanation on how reputation affects the soundtrack.

Comment thread here.

Combat sound effects in 0.6a

I’ve been working on overhauling most of Starsector’s combat sound effects for the next release and am here to present a short video of some of the new weapon sounds. From 0.6a onwards nearly all weapons will have unique sound assets and players will be able to hear which weapons are being fired just by keeping their ears open!

The video below contains some of the more distinct sounds of the update, like the Gauss Cannon, which, if you can’t spot it being fired from long range, is now easily recognized for the howling sound it makes when fired.

Among other weapons the video also shows how shield and armor impacts have changed – shields now feel more like hard shells around ships, and low-damage fire from conventional weapons on armor or hulls no longer produces bullet ricochet sounds.



Read the rest of this entry »

New Trailer

That’s right, Starsector has a new trailer – produced by Mr. Stian Stark. Without further ado, here it is:

Comment thread here.

Forum Blog Media FAQ Features Digg it! Del.icio.us! Share this on Facebook Reddit Stumbleupon it! Technorati Tweet it! Download Starsector for Linux Download Starsector for Mac Download Starsector for Windows Preorder