Hey Starblazers! Thanks for being patient, but I have a great new patch for you! I had to travel internationally for a month for my full time job. However, I got back to work on developing Starblazer as soon as I came home. I think you'll be pleased with the progress.
First off, we're bringing in a new map for the game - Incomplex. This map is an indoor, close-quarters map that is pretty challenging even in its simplistic design.
Next, the biggest priority for me right now is addressing some of the performance issues that users are having. I made a ton of optimizations that should speed things up for you all (please give feedback on our Discord if so!):
- Cut down on ship debris to use less high resolution textures crowding the RAM.
- Modified the Medic and Spectre search functions to only update every tenth of a second, instead of every frame.
- Modified the self defense functions and targeting systems of all ships to update every tenth of a second, instead of every frame (no impact to usability).
- Reconfigured all of the code internally to make more calls to dedicated ship variables, as opposed to calling CPU intensive find component functions.
Then, I made a huge UX change that I think you'll love. We got a lot of feedback that the pairing system didn't make a lot of sense to users and wasn't intuitive. To address, I changed pairing to only work with Medics and Spectres. This means that offensive ships will only target enemy ships, but defensive ships can target and snap to offensive ships. This ended up being very smooth, easy to follow experience. And select the wrong ship? Easy, a simple selection of the defensive ship can re-assign it. Select the lead offensive ship? The defensive ships will follow. Let us know if you find it as intuitive as we do!
Finally, we're always making tiny adjusts and changes. We added controller instructions to make it easier for first time users, as well as balanced ship speeds, and music transitions.
Please, please, please give us your feedback! Join us on Discord. We're all ears :) Starblazer can be great with your help!
Discord:
discord/https://discord.gg/jDKWnmX