Starship Crafter - Prologue · published · build 24735803
Hello everyone!
We're back with a major update. This one brings a complete overhaul of the drone raid system, along with a long list of fixes and polish.
Drone raids have been completely reworked. Drones are much smarter now. They coordinate as a swarm based on their roles and actively try to avoid your line of fire instead of flying straight at you.
They also have distinct roles:
Scout — Arrives ahead of a raid to scan the area, then returns to the swarm to report. Take it down before it makes it back and the raid is called off entirely.
Leader — Taking the leader down makes every remaining drone flee.
Guardian — Deploys a shield and positions itself between you and the leader, protecting it.
Fighter — The main attacking force.
Destroyed drones can also be salvaged for raw resources.
Finding out where something is made is much easier now. Item codex pages show which workstation an item is crafted at alongside its recipe, and the market buy/sell confirmation panel shows the same information right when you're deciding what to buy.
It works both ways. Select a workstation and you'll see everything it can craft, and modules now show which workstation they will be installed on.
Every crafting sequence has been rebuilt with custom-made models and animations. Watching an item come together at a workstation should feel a lot more satisfying now.
You can check one example below.
This was actually caused by a bug with the Marshalling Wand. The wand is supposed to increase a starship's landing speed significantly, but since it wasn't working properly, ships kept landing at a crawl.
This is now fixed, and using the wand cuts landing time dramatically, roughly 10 times faster!
We've seen your feedback about day length, and we're working on it. Our plan is to let players choose the day length they prefer, and we're aiming to have it ready for the full release.
For now, we've increased the total day duration from 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
We want to thank everyone for their support. We're now shifting our focus fully to the full release, so updates to the Prologue will become less frequent, and this will be the last one for a while.
That doesn't mean we'll stop reading your feedback. We'll still be checking the Steam discussions and our Discord server, so feel free to share your thoughts.
If you enjoyed the Prologue, please consider adding the main game to your wishlist.
Drone Raids
Completely reworked the drone raid system.
Drones now coordinate as a swarm and attempt to stay out of the player's line of fire.
Added drone roles: Scout, Fighter, Guardian and Leader, each with distinct behavior.
Scouts now scan the area before a raid and return to report. Destroying a scout before it returns prevents the raid entirely.
Killing the leader now causes all remaining drones to flee.
Guardian drones now deploy shields and position themselves between the player and the leader.
Destroyed drones now fall to the ground and can be salvaged for Tier 1 raw resources.
Gameplay
Increased total day duration from 15 minutes to 20 minutes.
Overhauled the collision audio system. Impact sound volume now scales with collision speed.
Starship internal parts can now also fall from the sky and be salvaged.
Stamina cost is now hidden in the order section, since orders are handled by the Crafting Droids assigned to the workstation.
Made the exit door interactable, allowing players to return to the main menu directly.
Fixed the marshalling wand not increasing the speed at which starships land.
Crafting Information
Item codex pages now show which workstation each item is crafted at.
The market buy/sell confirmation panel now shows crafting information:
Items: which workstation they are crafted at
Workstations: which items can be crafted at them
Modules: which workstation they will be installed on
UI & Menus
The Repair button in the Crafting UI is now yellow, matching the color code for repairable items.
The on-screen crosshair now spreads while firing the laser pistol, giving clearer shooting feedback.
Polished the error message design in the Crafting panel.
Overall UI polish for the Notifications Panel, including opaque backgrounds so notifications are easier to read.
Repositioned and updated the Basketball UI panel. It now plays animations and SFX during play and when a game ends.
Added the game end reason to the Prologue end UI where applicable, such as bankruptcy, workshop destroyed, or being taken out by drones.
Added a keybind for opening and closing the Detailed Guide.
Salvaged items on the left side of the panel are now dimmed once the process is complete, and no longer show hover info.
Fixed overlapping item count text in the salvage machine UI.
Fixed storage panel sub-buttons not working correctly in the Operations menu.
Fixed blueprint content in the Operations menu disappearing after the selection animation played.
Fixed errors on the first day transition when ESC is spammed.
Fixed the cursor disappearing on the Prologue end UI.
Settings
Changing the display/monitor is now detected as an unsaved change.
Fixed the unsaved changes marker (*) appearing on its own when nothing had been changed.
Fixed the Revert button also saving changes made on other pages. It now only restores defaults for the page you are on, and nothing is saved until you press Apply.
Fixed the discard option when leaving Settings not undoing every change. Tutorial popups, Invert Y and keybinds were being left as they were.
Fixed a keybind conflict where discarding your changes could leave two actions bound to the same key.
Fixed the game window switching between two different sizes each time Apply was pressed in windowed mode, even when the resolution hadn't been changed.
Visuals
Updated all crafting sequence animations and models with newly created custom models.
Updated the welding mask animation to give a wider field of vision.
Repositioned the power switch indicator light so it now sits on the switch itself.
Updated the power box panel texts and centered its icon.
Minor text updates to the power state explanation panel.
Fixed hangar direction decals being unreadable from the elevator, and repositioned them to line up better with it.