Did you know that Star Control: Origins takes place in a living universe that's simulated many times per second? Learn more about it in this week's dev journal!

https://www.stardock.com/games/article/489725/

Star Control: Origins was showcased on Mixer at E3 in June! Stardock community manager Kristy Eason joins hosts Charleyy Rachael and Ethan Rothamel to talk about the highly anticipated adventure mode, fleet battles, customization options, and more.

Let us know what you're excited to see in Star Control: Origins when it releases on September 20, 2018.

https://youtu.be/XIQjXCJg_cE

Do you love to create your own worlds, races, adventures, and more? One of our designers for Star Control: Origins, Callum, discusses some of the modding tools that will be included in the game and how he uses them personally in order to help create a rich, diverse, and exciting experience.

https://www.stardock.com/games/article/489634/

Star Control at E3, music updates, chapter 1 beta, and so much more in this month's dev journal! Check it out here:

https://www.stardock.com/games/article/489538/

It’s here: the brand new trailer for Star Control: Origins just debuted during the PC Gaming Show at E3!

https://youtu.be/4-EnCjcxsJE
Star Control: Origins will release on September 20th, 2018, and we can’t wait! Pre-order today so that you’re ready to go when the game launches! When you order, you’ll get immediate access to our Fleet Battles beta, where you can face off against other players in epic space combat.

Pre-Order Star Control: Origins today

https://store.steampowered.com/app/271260/Star_Control_Origins/

We're going to E3 next week and we have some special announcements! Tune into the PC Gaming Show next week and check out our forum post for more details:

https://forums.starcontrol.com/489429

This is our LAST monthly update for Star Control: Origins! ...but that's because we're moving into updates that will be closer to weekly. Don't panic. ;)

In May's update, Brad talks about the story and how important it is to the game. He discusses the process behind how it's developed and how it's all coming together. Check it out!

https://www.stardock.com/games/article/489103/

Look no further - check out this preview video!

https://youtu.be/Soc5Oehmt_I

We may have primitive space ships, zero understanding of hyperspace, and
only know half the digits of pi, but we're ready to fight to protect the Earth!

Our friends the Tywom give us a look at some of the other alien species out in the universe! New Fleet Battles footage, glimpses of hyperspace travel, and planetary exploration highlight the video and will give you a brand new glimpse into the Star Control: Origins story.

What are you most excited about for in Star Control: Origins? Let us know in the comments!

Fleet Battles just received a massive update and we can't wait to see you online to try it out. We've added some new alien ships, a few devastating new weapons, and customization options for your matches. Buckle up - it’s time to fly!

For full details on the updates, view the changelog at the bottom of the post!




New Ships
Greegrox Swarm
They might look squishy, but these space jellyfish are not to be underestimated! Each ship within their swarm represents a single unit of crew that fires an individual microbolt. Did we mention that the swarm can heal itself, too? They must go through a lot of band-aids…

Mu’Kay Grasper
Don’t make them ink! It gets messy. This giant squid-ship can throw down ink blobs that both damages and sucks energy from their enemies. Unlike most other ships, the Mu'Kay don’t use any projectile weaponry - they rely on getting up close and crushing their opponent with their ship’s tentacles.

Lexite Interceptor
Be careful with these guys - they’re hardy! This fast-moving ship has “dual-shot” blasters and an extremely tough-to-penetrate shield. When the shields are engaged, the ship is pretty much invincible - but, it drains energy. You’ll have to time your attacks carefully in order to achieve victory against them.


New Weapon Components

• Heal: Restores lost crew. Does that make them zombies, or..?
  
• Death Ray: The name explains itself. You probably don’t want to get hit with this one.
  
• Dual Shot: Fires a fast double shot. Hey, two for the price of one!
  
• Ink Blob: Drops an inky blob that drains energy and crew. Clean-up on aisle three!
  
• Shield: Holding down a button makes you invincible... until you run out of energy. Suggestion? Don’t run out of energy.

Custom Matches
First things first: you can now use your own custom ships in multiplayer mode. Woo-hoo! You can also customize your battle experience with the following knobs and dials:

• Enable custom ships in multiplayer
  
• Create a private, password protected lobby for multiplayer
  
• Set the arena size
  
• Adjust the number of asteroids, wormholes, and ion storms
  
• Adjust the Fleet max size
  
• Choose from one of three different arena maps

Other Improvements
We’ve made a lot of other tweaks and adjustments to Fleet Battles in order to continue bringing you the best experience! Beta 2 includes things like:

• Pilot Graphics - Many ships now have custom animations for their pilots. More will be coming later!
  
• High-Resolution UI - Fonts and UI graphics now look better on high res displays.
  
• Balance Updates - Almost all of the ships and weapons have been updated for a superior experience.
  
• Improved Performance - Substantial improvements have been made to memory use and visual effect performance.

Haven’t gotten into Fleet Battles yet? Pre-order here to join the beta today!


Custom Matches

Choose "Custom matches" to enable the following customization options

• Enabled custom ships in multiplayer
  
• Create a private, password protected lobby for multiplayer
  
• Set the arena size
  
• Adjust the number of asteroids, wormholes, and ion storms
  
• Adjust the Fleet max size
  
• Choose from three different Arena maps.
  
• "Invite" friends to join your multiplayer matches

Gameplay

• New ships
  
  • Lexite Interceptor: Dual Shot, Shield
    
  • Mu'Kay Grasper: Harpoon, Ink Blob
    
  • Greegrox Swarm: Microbolt shot, Heal
• New weapon components
  
  • Heal -- restores crew
    
  • Death Ray. The name explains itself
    
  • Dual Shot -- fires a fast double shot
    
  • Ink Blob -- drops an inky blob that drains energy and crew.
    
  • Shield -- hold down to be invincible until you run out of energy
    
  • Note: Harpoon and Microbolt are not available for custom ships.
• Full balance pass on all of the ships and their components
  
• Custom hull sizes have been modified for better balance.
  
• Changed the planet in the "Super Melee" map (the original one) to be Mars.
  
• Updated names of many of the ships and their components.

Graphics / UI

• Many of the ships now have custom animations for their pilots. Animations for additional factions will be added over time. Pilot animations change based on the state of their ship.
  
• Improved font appearance, especially on higher resolution displays.
  
• Updated UI to work better at high scaling factor.
  
• Improved appearance and framing of custom ship thumbnails.
  
• Adds tooltips to mounts in ship editor.
  
• Players are now set to "Great" graphics quality settings by default.
  
• Increased the length of "Ship Design Description" text field.
  
• Better looking 'Flak Cannon' explosion
  
• Ship death explosion and Scryve Flak cannons VFX are now less likely to crush your frame rate.
  
• Significant reduction in memory usage.
  
• Updated credits with help from the community.
  
• Updating gradient swatches for Tywom-style ship parts so the parts don't look so dull.

Bugs

• Fix for rogue gravity fields persisting between matches which were causing the universe to collapse to a singularity.
  
• Fixed a race condition crash in the animation system.
  
• Fixed a random graphics crash. Die "swap-chain" crash die!! Good. It's dead now.
  
• Ships with invalid components are now disabled on the fleet picker or crafting screen.
  
• Killing another player in multiplayer with your secondary weapon no longer has a chance of crashing the game.
  
• Entering and exiting the ship designer more than 8 times no longer crashes.