I’m going to talk about the process of writing the False Idols mission in the latest version of Starsector, 0.98, though we’ll stray pretty far afield into a bit about the Luddic Church faction missions and the character of Jethro Bornanew in particular. We’ll start with inspiration then move on to implementation, though more from a perspective of designing the narrative than scripting.
Don’t read this post if you haven’t done the False Idols mission. (Or “quest”, fine.) There will be spoilers.
Alright, so we’re all good? Blessings of Ludd are upon you? Great, let’s proceed.
An early, in-progress version of the basic Luddic shrine art
Update (04/18/25): hotfix for shield AI issue, a number of other bugs, and a few balance adjustments. Full list of changes here; please re-download the game using the links below.
Update (04/02/25): hotfix for a number of assorted issues, and a few balance adjustments.
Starsector version 0.98a is now out! This release has the following major features:
Several new endgame-level enemies to fight in the Abyss
New ships, weapons, and hullmods
Codex UI revamp
Autosave, revamped save/load UI
Intel map markers and little notes
Revamped combat simulator with many options and opponents
Planet search UI revamp
New story (not “main” story) missions
New music
New portraits and illustrations
In addition, the game has been updated to use Java 17, which should substantially improve performance. As always, there are also many smaller changes and additions, including balance adjustments, polish, ship AI improvements, bugfixes, and modability improvements!
The full patch notes, and the comment thread, are here.
You can download the new version here:
(Alternate download links, please try the above first: WindowsMacLinux)
