Hello!
Yeah, you haven't heard from us for a long time and we are very ashamed of this. Basically, we found ourselves in a kind of moral trap. The update, or even a blog post was so inexcusable long time ago that it seemed that just posting a post would not be enough to justify the delay, and the longer there was no post, the more it seemed so.

Because of that, our plan was to not post anything about this update, and just release a good and high-quality update before the New Year. Probably it was a mistake and we are going to solve it.

But anyway, the problem is, that we can’t manage to complete it before the New Year, and it will be delayed again.

The reason for this is the war in Ukraine, namely, problems with the availability of electricity for Artaani who lives in Ukraine. Approximately half of the time electricity is not available in his house and since Artaani is responsible for many core systems of the game, availability of electricity in his house affects development speed directly. Not to mention how difficult it is to maintain normal morale in a country waging a defensive war. Romenics and Riya also has a lot of additional issues because they were forced to leave their home in Russia.

But anyway, we are currently in relatively secure places and despite such extreme conditions we will try to continue the development.

Currently, the main danger is mostly the threat of lack of money for basic needs. Therefore, we are glad that the game still has some sales, maybe small, but still, and we are very grateful to everyone who supports us on Patreon, despite the lack of updates and information from us.

We decided that from now on, we will try to publish info about development much more often.



Initially when we started developing of capital ships, we planned to spawn some “basic” capital ship and small ship right at the beginning of the game, because turned out that construction of your base from scratch is too complex and confusing task.

So, when you press “Start” button, you will see this



And this have a couple of problems:

1. It creates a lot of questions, everything is extremely confusing, a lot of individual modules, which for what? What is decoration and what is functional? All of these contraptions are way too complex for a new player who just launched the game. Also, it eliminates “feel of progression” because it seems like you already have everything on the start.
   
   
2. The game genre starts to feel more like RTS game when you have some “main building” and a worker which should gather resources, but that is not our goal.
   We want to keep game more like craft survival game when you start with bare minimum and gradually develop into something big.

So instead of giving capital ship right from the start, we focused on the task to make beginning of the game and construction of own capital ship more user friendly.

In result, all that you will have after start of the game is this



Yeah, that’s all. Storage, engines, and most importantly, engineering drones!

Of course, engineering robotic arms looks cool and we probably will use it somehow in the mid game, but its low range makes any kind of construction is extremely uncomfortable and tedious.

Drones, that is another matter, they can easily salvage debris from large radius around the ship and build anything in range, either own small ship or new capital ship.



Construction done, now back to salvaging



Landing pad



Yes, in earlier versions of the game, we already had similar drones, but now they are better than before. Earlier they were physically bound to the ship and was more like an animation effect, but now they acts like individual objects which may fly long away from its carrier ship, or could be destroyed, which is a good foundation for future combat drones.

Also, considering new 3D construction features, you can do something like this





Overall, we are happy with combinations of these 3D feature and drones on small starting ships, now it is easy and fun to extend starting ships into some interesting design just in a few clicks





New power generator, by the way



What about capital ship, earlier we had some problems with design some kind modules specially for large ships, with increased details and special visual design, but came out to the conclusion, that actually, it is not necessary, just a set of scaled up basic modules could work very well, and result could looks cool, especially considering 3D possibilities.



Possibility to place modules on different altitude or unusual rotation can be great tool to achieve interesting design, but player is not forced to do that, and even modules placed only on zero plane should looks well because such method of construction is very comfortable, especially for a new player.

Here is a preparation of all modules for capital size ships. Implementation of Tier 4 size still have some questions considering number of mounting points and game performance, but we will resolve it somehow.




Also, we are working on a lot of other aspects of the game, mostly it is countless usability improvements, but another main task it is overall game design, answer on questions “what to do in the game?” which is always was a problem but should be solved to make it a proper game, not just construction sandbox.



We also completely redesigned tutorial, now it is not a separated buttons in the main menu, but a quest-based system which starts at the beginning and guide you through the start of the game.

Such type of tutorials is the best tutorials, because they don’t force you to learn everything, quit, start the new game, and implement what you managed to remember. Instead, you can just start a normal game, slowly learn the game step by step and continue when tutorial will be completed.

Also during implementation of tutorial, we, as developers more clearly see where the game has usability and game design issues which should be solved with high priority.

We will try to post info about development more often and keep your informed.
Thanks.

Hello, everyone.

To tell the truth, I’ve never thought that I will post this on Steam. As you know, Russia has invaded Ukraine. Our team is located in both of these countries, and the events happening now are absolutely terrible. When this war started, we froze our work, and now our Ukrainian colleague must evacuate, leaving everything behind.

We really want to continue the work on our game, and we really hope that we will make our dream project, but for now, work is fully frozen for an unexpected time.
We know that it is disappointing, in fact, we worked on this update for such a long time, but we can't do anything. We are scared, we are against this war. All money from steam sales and patrons will go to our Ukrainian friend for survival and new equipment. We absolutely understand if you unsubscribe from our Patreon.
Thanks for your support.
NO WAR!

We told that update going to be released in January, but unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to do so we need more time and the update will be delayed, sorry for that.

Another question, when it will be done?

Of course, we may say "delayed for 1 month" again, but honestly, we don't know, and we don't want to announce a date only to delay it again for another month in the future.

Generally speaking, we think it is almost impossible to specify the release date of any game unless the developer made a lot of similar games before, or the game is almost ready and only minor aspects should be tweaked before release.
Both conditions are not true for this case, so the update was delayed for an unknown time.

However, we will try to avoid long periods without posts and will inform you about progress until release, so you will be able to keep track of it.


Also some news about development.


Since construction will be possible in 3D, we have more freedom in the placement of command modules. So command modules are redesigned and now they have the standardized size and mounting points, which allow creating more various combinations of decorative modules around.









Now there are decorative asteroids located below zero planes.
We thought about more dense and visually interesting asteroids fields a long time ago, but considering the top-down view of the game, it had an unexpected problem - it was unclear, "is asteroids is a real obstacle, or is it located much below the trajectory of the ship"?



But we solved it by simply making decorative asteroids darker. It looks a bit weird but seems fine, and overall looks much better than without it. Also, it performs another important task, it indicated the velocity of the ship due to its shifting on the background during movement.

Here is a list of some of the changes that will be done for the next update.


Imagine how battles of flagships look in various sci-fi movies. Until a certain point, projectiles do not cause any significant damage. When a ship takes enough damage, there are explosions in different places, causing it to fall apart.

In CC, it does not look nearly as epic. Currently, projectiles are literally digging their way through the ship, immediately destroying its modules. As a result, even if the ship survives the battle, it looks like a gnawed apple, devoid of its original shape.

Of course, shields can solve this problem. However, we would be forced to make them account for 90% of the ship's durability, which would reduce the visual variety of battleships. We would like the hull to also seem like strong armor, as it’s often portrayed in sci-fi movies.

In addition, different modules may have very different HP values. For example, if you want to place a lot of small decor on the surface of some large module, then all of it will be blown away by the explosion of the first rocket.

Now ships will have a single HP pool, calculated from their size. Any hit will reduce this pool. When the value reaches zero, the modules themselves will start receiving damage directly, just as it is currently implemented. However, modules will have much less HP of their own, so they can be destroyed very quickly. You can think of this new system as structural integrity of sorts.



Thus, the problem described above is solved. At the same time, we have maintained the effect of ships physically losing their modules during combat.

Additionally, repairing a ship after each battle will no longer be an annoyance. That is because the HP pool can be replenished at the shipyard. Also, keeping track of the current status of any ship will now be more straightforward.



At first, it seemed that individual storage in each container was a good idea. Over time, it turned out to be annoying, especially for a ship with many containers.

Of course, it would be an interesting concept for some kind of first-person survival game where you would walk between different chests and sort everything. But in a game like CC, it just does not work.

Now, each ship will have only one inventory window, the maximum size of which is determined by the number of containers on the craft.



Simple and convenient.



Currently, you can build something like this:



Such ships are very effective in combat, but they are cheesy, and so are the battles between them.

Remember the various ships from sci-fi movies. Usually, their weapons occupy only 10-20% of the hull.
In real battleships, it is similar. Below each turret, there is a large and complex system for servicing and controlling the weapon.

There are no simulations of internal logistics in CC, so we will achieve that more easily.
Now, each weapon will require a specific amount of "weapon points.” The larger the ship, the more will be available.



Such a system will encourage building sophisticated ships instead of "a cube with cannons on each side."

3D construction in 2D space

We will start a series of posts about core changes introduced in the next update.

One of those changes is 3D physics, which is more akin to 2.5D.

Earlier, we mentioned that we would turn the game physics from 2D into fully 3D. We've already released a preview version of that new system. 3D is fantastic and delivers some great new possibilities. However, it also brings some disadvantages.

• The possibility to rotate and place any module in 3D provides freedom in spaceship construction. In 3D, even a few modules make it possible to create a large number of various ship designs. Also, the ships no longer look flat, and large cannons stand out when placed at the top.

• Navigation could be challenging. In space, there are very few landmarks that allow you to understand your ship's position. Especially if we are talking about altitude in a top-down view.
  It turned out very hard to comprehend whether an object sits above or below the ship. Is it an obstacle or not? It theoretically can be solved with good navigation tools, plus putting all the asteroids on one plane, but that leads to another problem.
  
  
• Navigation would become less fun. If all asteroids are in one plane, you can fly above or below them. As a result, the space will become empty and boring.
  
  
• Implementation of AI navigation in 3D is excessively complex. It's a technical issue, but still.
  
  
• Manual control of weapons would become redundant. Most likely, the enemy ship will be at a different altitude, so all projectiles could miss the target when trying to aim from a top-down view. Of course, there is an auto-targeting mode, but manual control still can be fun.
  
  
• Placement of engines would become finicky. Several additional engines will be required on the top and bottom of the ship to stabilize its rotation. Having to place them will be more annoying than fun.

As you can see, there is only one advantage but numerous disadvantages. Even though all these shortcomings are solvable, careless implementation of some solutions could turn Celestial Command into a completely different game. Something like a flight sim with a first or third-person view. Such a game will have very little in common with the original concept and resemble hundreds of similar games on the market. A solution like this is undesirable.

Therefore, we've come to the 2.5D solution that keeps the benefits of 3D while avoiding all the problems.


The game will have a fully 3D construction system. All modules will be placeable on the top and bottom and rotatable. Turrets will rotate not only left and right, but also up and down.
However, all in-game objects will lie on a 2D plane. Ships won't have up and down controls. Only the yaw axis will be steerable.

Such a system will have some odd issues, but they are all easy to solve:

• If part of a ship falls off, it will be pulled slowly towards zero altitude.
  
  
  
  
• If a ship is tall and its center of mass shifts up or down, the craft will move vertically to keep its center of mass at zero altitude.
  
  
• A ship's pitch and roll axes can misalign due to external forces, but they will stabilize automatically.
  
  
• If docking ports are at different altitudes, ships will move up or down to align for docking.

Those plans may sound a bit weird, but the test outcomes were positive, both in orbital and planetary game modes.

In the end, we will have 3D ships with the pleasant simplicity of 2D navigation and control.

Hello!
Yes, we are know you expected an update at the end of the year, but amount of changes in the game core is so huge, so unfortunately the game is not ready for release, and we are forced to move release of update to the end of January. Sorry for that.

For now, here is some report about progress. This is not everything what will be added, because most improvements related to game-design which is better to show in the game itself, but here is the most visually noticeable changes.


We completely changed how galaxy map and regions works, so now playable regions is 5 times larger.
Here is comparison:





This is especially important for orbital game mode, because now there is much more space around the planet, tidal forces is weaker and even small burn of maneuvering engines does not changes trajectory so much as it was before, in result orbital mechanics feels more like it should be.




Added rapid fire missile defense system, and considering that rockets now may fly in 3D space, we are like how result is looks like. However it will require some more improvements for accuracy.




Rockets with nuclear warhead as advanced weapon




Several new Sci-Fi looking engines. With possibility of 3D building and free rotation, even a few new parts allows to build quite an interesting design.










Also we started to perform large changes in missions system, since it will be a core of a new game loop, and one from the new types of missions is "delivery mission" which will require a ship with specific amount of cargo holders to ferry cargo containers from one location to another, with possible ambush on the way.

With such cargo freighters this type of "space trucker" activity should be more enjoyable than standard cargo transportation inside a ship.






We are really sorry that updated turned out so extremely delayed, but will try to complete it as soon as possible, and from this point we will try to report you about a progress more often.

And happy New Year! : )

Hello!
Despite the fact that there is no news from us for a really long time, the game actually is not abandoned as it may seems and in a very active development.

This may will be a biggest update in the history of game development, but since it not finished we are really sorry that we are forcing you to wait for so long.

We realized that there is huge amount of issues in the game which makes it unplayable at some point and we want to resolve all of these issues at once in order to provide really good gameplay experience for you.

We realize that such a long update cycle is not good, and we will return back to "update each 1-2 month" cycle after this huge update.
For now we just can't release it because many systems is completely reworked and currently in half disassembled state.
What about planned release date, unfortunately we don't know yet because there is still a lot of work.

Also the reason why there is not too many posts from us, is because there is so many changes in the game so it became hard to describe in words, while also we want to keep most info about most improvements hidden before release in order to achieve better "feeling of new content" for you after it will be released.

Still, we will show something about upcoming improvements:


Main user interface much more clean and no longer cluttered with useless elements which only distracts you, now it will display only information which can be useful right now.


User interface of editor screen is improved the same way. Also overall usability of editor screen is greatly improved because ship constructor is a key feature of the game and players will spent significant amount of time here so it should be intuitive and comfortable.


Inventory window and its usability improved too. Usage of inventory no longer fill the screen with a bunch of icons which is hard to read and use. It should be much more comfortable now.


Currently color dots above asteroids performs its purpose (display contained resource) not very well, so we made a new indicators which visible only when any asteroids selected and does not distracts when you don't need this information.


We like the idea that cargo transfer requires a docking, but docking process itself could be very uncomfortable and overall it much harder than expected, so now all docking ports have convenient and reliable "magnetic docking" feature.


Same thing happens with shipyard. Requirement of shipyard is nice feature but proper positioning of ship inside shipyard can be frustrating, so now the ship will be positioned in the center of shipyard automatically.

Hello! Sorry for no news from us for a long time. The game is not abandoned but in active development, as usual. We just reconsidering a lot of core features, game design elements and going to solve all of these issues which should be solved long time ago.

The biggest changes will be related to base building aspect and attempts to make learning curve much smoother.

We like base building, especially if base is moveable, because mobile base is cool.
So when we started development of Celestial Command we planned that at some point of gameplay, the player will be able to build huge ship which will act like mobile base, but this feature still not implemented and we are going to solve that with the next update.



Previously we had the next plan:

1. You start with simple small ships
   
2. You should build own space station within first hours of the gameplay
   
3. Somewhere after 10 hours of gameplay you will be able to build a capital ship and continue journey using it as a mobile base.

But turned out that such approach has a few problems:

1.
Construction of space station it is a complex task, it is not just a bunch of walls and door like in classic survival games. It is a large amount of different modules which should be built in specific combination and even positions.
When player starts the game first time he almost immediately encounter with such a complex task which is extremely unfriendly and should be changed. Also it just does not have sense because initial station always looks almost the same.

2.
Transition from station to moveable base is very unobvious. It is hard to understand when exactly it is possible or necessary and how gameplay will be changed. Also it means that previous station will be leaved behind or reconstructed? That sounds not too pleasant considering that station was a home for a long time.



So in order to solve these issues we decided to do the next thing:

• It will be unnecessary to build starting base manually, you will receive the base almost instantly within first hour of the game, and later you can upgrade or rebuild it as you wish.
  
• This will be not a station, but flagship, huge mobile base with its own role, so "build static space station phase" will be completely skipped and mobile base will be achieved much earlier, so new player will dive immediately into combat and mission tasks instead of complex attempts to build a station.

Let's think about, what is a "base" in survival game?

1. This is a place where you can store various items, so flagship will have large and cheap cargo storage
   
2. This is a place where located most "workbenches", so flagship will be the only place where production modules can be placed and used
   
3. This is just a protected place where you can go inside, close the "door" behind and be protected against dangerous environment outside, so we decided that flagship should be large enough to fit smaller ships inside its hangar bays. Another benefit from such approach - if you have several various ships of different design and colors, flagship itself will looks beautiful from outside view, since colorful small ships will be hidden inside its hangars.
   
4. Also the base is not a weapon itself, it should be protected. So it will be impossible to place weapons on the flagship at the beginning. However, at late game flagship can be upgraded and act not only like a carrier, but a battleship.

Also, since it will be not just a base, but mobile base, we want to implement another purpose for flagship - it will be the only way to travel on large distance, simply saying, warp drive can be installed only on flagship and it will move only a things which located inside its hangar bays.



Here is a simple analogy, flagship can be considered as large sail ship, locations in space - islands, smaller ships - individual characters. So characters is unable to move between islands without a sail ship.



All of these things should make an interesting difference between large flagship which acts like a mobile base and smaller frigates which purposes to perform combat, gathering and logistic operations.
We want to improve base building aspect long time ago and seems like this is exactly want we want to achieve.





Another aspect which will be heavy redesigned it is a crew system. Currently the system is quite overcomplicated, unobvious and sometimes tedious.

Micromanagement of different types of regular crew between different modules turned out an unnecessary feature, so instead, there will be only 1 type of regular crew, and it will be automatically distributed across entire ship.

The only purpose of crew system is to make ships "alive", and single type of regular crew will be enough to achieve that.



Instead of micromanagement of regular crew we want to focus on improvements in ships to ships combat aspect which is much more interesting and visually enjoyable.

Officers also will be redesigned. Currently there is an option to assign several officers to the same command module, but there is no point to assign "not a full stack of officers", so instead we decided to allow only one officer (captain) per ship, instead its skill tree will be much larger, so different captain may have different skills and specializations.

Each ship will be considered as single character, with its own portrait, name and specialization. Such approach should be especially good for co-op multiplayer.



We noticed an interesting thing - usually it is more fun to fight against enemies who are not similar to you. Who looks different and uses different tactics. That could be especially noticeable in various zombie games or similar games where you need to fight not against humans, but against some kind of creatures.

So, additionally to standard modular enemy ships, you also sometimes will encounter something very unusual.



But more details about that will be revealed later.



Since flagship with its warp drive will become the main method to travel between planets and systems, the role of warp gates will be changed.

Warp gates no longer provides a route trough entire galaxy, instead, it will provide transportation within the same system, it also will be a part of some missions where frigates (smaller ships) should perform some tasks in location where flagship can't arrive (because it can't fit inside a warp gate)




We plan to do that somewhere at January but not sure when exactly. We will keep you informed about progress and try to avoid such a long delays between news.

And also, Happy New Year! : )

Planets
• Added two locations on planet surface! At this moment it is available in sandbox and battle game modes
  
• Random weather effects
  
  
  Control
• Improved control keys for engines, now you can use Space \ C buttons to move your ship Up \ Down which is very comfortable. Shift + WASD or arrow keys can be used for pitch \ yaw \ roll if needed, but in most cases it is not necessary and the ship can be controlled only with (WASD \ QE \ Space \ C) buttons, nice and simple like in 2D, but now in 3D!
  
  
  
  
• Auto stabilize center of thrust with center of mass" button is greatly improved and now works properly in 3D, for engines in all 6 directions with any possible configuration! Now the ship can be almost perfectly balanced and it will move exactly in desired direction while it still fully physical and realistic! This feature also perfect for a ships with asymmetrical design.
  
  
  
  
• Now when you activate altitude stabilizer, it will set its current altitude as a target altitude
  
• Added anti gravitational drive which build in command modules and allows to keep ships in air, also it creates dust cloud when hovering above ground at low altitude
  
  
  
  
• If "roll and pitch stabilizer (RPS)" enabled, "torque stabilizer" will stabilize ship only along vertical axis and it no longer interrupts functionality of RPS
  
• Added new lines in control settings, less hotkeys is "hard coded" and now available to change in settings
  
  
  Battle mode
• In battle mode visibility no longer limited by range of radars
  
• Rockets no longer detonate if hit another rocket of the same faction
  
• Explosion of rockets no longer cause damage to ships of the same faction (simple way to avoid friendly fire)
  
  
  World
• Added possibility to create a world with custom planet size, maximum possible size is 20 times bigger than current planets. This feature designed only for sandbox mode, "for fun with physics" and not suitable for stable gameplay
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Size and mass of all planets now is the same which makes orbital physics more consistent and understandable
  
  
  Collisions
• Increased velocity threshold for collision damage from 40 to 100 (earlier even small collisions was too devastating)
  
• Now collision effects will be created even for collisions which does not cause damage
  
• Improved audio effect on collisions
  
  
  Miscellaneous
• Improved localization system which should be much more comfortable for translators
  
  
  Modules
• Starting ship a bit redesigned
  
• New engines now has proper visual effect
  
  
  
  
• New decorative module for starting ship design
  
• Regular engine now available in 3 different sizes
  
  

Control
• Fixed an issue when engines control keys didn't reacted if clicked quickly
  
• If left shift \ ctrl \ alt is used somewhere - its right variant can be used as well
  
• Removed useless hotkeys options from engines
  
• Grabber no longer has "2" hotkey by default which is not allowed for module hotkeys
  
• Engines now works properly on thrust less than 10% so torque stabilizer now works properly in orbital mode and "reduce thrust to 10%" button now works properly too
  
  
  Miscellaneous
• Flame effect of engines no longer casts shadow
  
• Fixed typo in main menu "Survival"
  
• Preview of solar panels no longer push a ship while moved
  
• Removed sound of engines at low thrust (when stabilizer enabled and activated an engines at 1% thrust)
  
• Custom interface scale no longer cause incorrect scale and position of window with info about modules
  
• Solar panels no longer works in the shadow of planet
  
• Large engines now has proper thrust value

Actually idea of that feature was quite unexpected even for us : )

We didn't thought about planet because it was impossible in 2D, but since the game going to be full 3D, we just thought "Hey, we want to add planets now! That is not too hard, but add so many new possibilities and makes visual so much better!"

And indeed, new possibilities is great!



So here is some frequently asked and potential questions about upcoming features and what we are planing to do with planets:


Not a seamless transition, it will be similar with jump to another system. The ships approach a planet and appears above planet surface in different location.

Yes, full day \ night cycle

Yes, including rain and snow

Yes

No, it is not possible. Each surface location it is quite small area on the planet with boundaries, similar with such areas in space.

Yes, there will be several more different landscapes and biomes

No, we want to design it as barren landscapes which looks more Sci-Fi place and also good for optimization. Also, it emphasize that planets is not suitable for camping with camp fire and such "Nature" stuff.

Each landscape is handmade but using a tool for procedural generation. It is technically possible to generate it procedurally but this process is too long for real time, but faster methods provides not the best result.


Yes, on teaser trailer you can see that ships falls on the ground during combat

At this moment, anti-gravitation drive which built-in command module. Everything not attached to command module will fall on the ground.
That is not a bad solution, because this is quite common concept in many Sci-Fi movies and games where huge ships keeps itself in the air without any visible engines below it.
However, most likely later we will add AI which will keep ship in air using 4 engines on the sides.

We will solve it with simple solution, there will be a special engines which consume much less fuel (maybe only energy) but works only on planets.

Yes, with proper animation.

We would like to implement wheels but turned out it is technically complex task, so no wheels at this moment, but probably we will implement that as soon as we will figure out how to do that.
However, most likely we will implement hover drive and mech legs, but not sure yet, additional research is required.

Requires some additional research but most likely yes. Probably even with submarines.

No, we don't want to implement that in Celestial Command, it is quite hard to implement properly and small size of region will restrict a freedom, also we just want to focus on large spaceships such as frigates cruisers, carriers which supposed to be massive, slow and epic, mostly located horizontally with possibility to change its altitude up and down. Wings for such ships just does not suit its concept.
However downward pointed engines will allow to build VTOL vehicles such as helicopters.
Also, when drones will be implemented, there will be "drones" which actually pre-made planes with wings which will be fast and agile, but its physics will be very simplified so basically no, there will not be aerodynamic flight model based on realistic wings.

No, the game should be only about building and control of vehicles. But layer it will be possible to deploy small ground vehicles from the landed ships in order to explore areas which is not accessible for large spaceship.

Yes, the same constructions as ships or stations can be located on the ground and it can be considered as a ground base. It should be physically stable, if not, we will implement a possibility to "lock" it on the ground.

Yes, but only limited amount from rare specific points to prevent balance issue and avoid "source of infinite resources"



First version of planets with some features planned to be released in “Preview” build within 1-2 weeks.