Why Early Access?

“This is a passion project of mine that I started because I wanted to see a Homeworld like game but with base building and ship customization. Supreme Commander is a huge inspiration too which you can tell by certain structures we have. Like overshields or the eco-booster-buildings that boost the income of nearby structures.

I have been working on this project for 4 years now. I have put put the game into Early Access rather than releasing it as a Full Game in order to collect feedback from the players. I am aware that there's a pretty big stigma on EA titles and its a topic of many discussions. For me personally however; its just a label. I want to be almost completely satisfied with the final product before I change that label from EA to fully released. I wouldn't do anything differently after releasing the game fully than what I am doing now. That's the gist of it at least.

By now we have collected A LOT of feedback. I say we, because Algor now helps on a regular basis and so does MrBonecrash. We have a few more things planned:

- Endless waves in wavedef mode
- Campaign saves during missions instead of only before and after
- New ships
- New weapons
- UI text scaling
- Language support
- X extra campaign missions
- Other things we will encounter along the way that we think need improvement (so this list is by no means final)

We are also looking for a publisher. Once we find a good one they will help decide if we release the game fully now or if its more sensible to take a different approach. We want to aim for whatever is best for the game.

Your feedback can help add features to the game, increase quality of life functions, and can help shape the game modes with tweaks that might make them even more enjoyable.

We already have a lot of feedback that we would like to work on, but I feel the amount of testers needs to be higher. That way we can more accurately see how the singleplayer and multiplayer game modes are experienced by the players.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“The current state is very playable and by a lot of indie standards the game is 'pretty much finished'. However perceptions on what that entails differ greatly between people. Some people will label games like Valheim as a Tech Demo, while at the same time considering a 2D sidescrolling indie platformer pixel game with 3 levels 'completed'. Obviously these are two extremes and there is a huge range of opinions in between those. So I'll just state my own opinion; the game is currently fully playable and should give you enough entertainment for at least 10 hours for gameplay, especially if you want to unlock everything. Some things can be better, like they always can, so until those are fully gone I'm going to continue tinkering away with regular updates. The main things I still want to add is some quality of life controls + localization, but those are the main things. All the shooting, health, upgrades and game modes are already fully usable.

How long the game will be in Early Access will depend on the amount of features we will still add to the game and the type and amount of feedback that we receive. I personally believe that the current state of the game is already good and it is by all means fully playable. With a lot more content in it than most indie games have for sure. We are currently looking for a publisher though, and they might have a different opinion on this. Since they'll be doing a bunch of marketing for the project their planning will be leading. I just want what's best for the game and the players.

Still, I do want to polish things more before I feel confident putting my 'im done!'-stamp on this game. I could do that today and press the button to do so right now. But I don't want to. There are some quality of life things I still want to add for instance along with some publisher related plans I want to work on.

That said the game is largely stable. At EA release there were a lot of disconnects for instance and some performance issues. Those have almost all been fixed. Some bugs will always remain however since there are literally millions of possible PC configurations and we have a grand total of 3 PC's to test on. We have also added a whole bunch of features and visual improvements since EA release.

I want to also stress that a game is never done. More things can always be added and more things can always be improved. We will continue updating Stellar Warfare and adding new things to it as often as we can and makes sense. By current estimates I believe that in roughly 6 months we should be able to put the 'done!' stamp on this game. But even then development will not stop and we will keep adding things based on either what we deem the highest priority, or simply fun-factor.
After that I hope that it will deliver the quality of a fully released indie game in the eyes of most people.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“The campaign is currently not complete. There are currently 8 campaign missions that take about 30 mins to 1 hour to complete. BUT they can be played with multiple loadouts and different types of ships. You can also find loot in the campaign. So the replayability is pretty high.

I have created all the missions but I would like to test them more, add voice overs, add features, implement ideas from the community and improve on it before I am satisfied with it. Although there is a time-reward ratio to consider as well, so how much changes the campaign will undergo will depend on the community as well.

It is important to note that the campaign is not the main focus of the game. It will tell the story of the events globally, so do not expect a 30 hour campaign. I will try to make it so that you can replay each campaign mission at will though. Which should be a different experience each time since you can customise your campaign fleet in between games. And of course if you like it enough you will easily pass the 30 hours eventually.

We also want to improve on the Skirmish AI to make fighting it more enjoyable for the players.

Apart from that the full version should include more quality of life improvements. Tweaked controls. Perhaps more ways for players to set the controls for themselves as well. There will likely be more ships, weapons and modules to be found in the full game as well. That being said there are over a million possible ship configurations allready.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“These elements already work and can be played, although the final product will likely be a more polished version of each:

• Singleplayer Wave Defense
  
• Coop Wave Defense (added during early access)
  
• Coop Wave Infinite Waves (will be released around march 25 2024 and will have mini bosses every 5 waves)
  
• Singleplayer Skirmish
  
• Singleplayer Base Assault (added during early access)
  
• Multiplayer Skirmish
  
• Multiplayer Battle Royale

We have done more than 300 test games with a select few supporters of the project and we feel the game is largely stable and decently optimized. We've also added things like space ballet, a natural projectiles toggle, direct control and literally hundreds of other additions and improvements since the start of the early access release. And we're not done yet!”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Yes. The price of the full game will be slightly higher than that of Early Access. The reason for that being is because those who wait until the full game will have campaign access, more quality of life features and will have a more polished product. Which makes sense, because it will have 12-24 months of extra development time in it.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“So far I have fixed over 100 pieces of community feedback.

The community can help improve the game and influence which features will still be added. This will be based on how often certain features are requested. The more we see feedback regarding a topic the more priority we will give working on that part. The less feedback we see regarding a topic the less time we will spend on it.

That being said there is a vision to the game, which is as follows:

• The game should feel like a classic RTS game.
  
• It should be quick to get into.
  
• It should not require hours of preparation before you can have a good looking battle going on. The first fight should already look cool.
  
• It should be easy to pick up for new players but offer enough depth to more experienced players to improve their economy, micromanagement and fleet.

This means that features mentioned by the community might not be implemented in the game. For instance a system that allows you to enter your own ships in First Person mode so that you can repair it manually does not fit the vision of the game. Which means it will never be added no matter how many people request it.
However if a lot of people want to have Carriers in the game or something along those lines then we will listen to that feedback and try to find a way to incorporate it into the game.”