Hello...BEST FRIENDS!

We are currently working on version 1.4 of Star Control: Origins. It's mostly a combination of performance improvements and some quality of life enhancements. We are targeting this month to get it out.

Meanwhile, part 2 of the Earth Rising expansion is coming along. Part 2 focuses on the Lexites which is a mystery that many players have wanted to learn more about.

Now, with the expansion, you don't need to have already finished the main story line. Each part of the expansion integrates new adventures throughout the game. If you're just starting out, you'll simply see new side-quests and new places to visit. If you've already finished, you'll see those same things now visible.

Star Control is a non-linear RPG so the order in which you accomplish things doesn't matter.

One of the bits of feedback we've gotten is that people really like expanding Earth's influence in the universe. This trend continues in Earth Rising and we hope to do even more of that in the future but we'd love to hear what things you'd like. It's an element of the game that we were pleasantly surprised to see so well received.

As has been mentioned on the forums, we have a Linux version running. We are, however, working through a lot of performance related challenges so the first step of this will be to release a Vulkan version of the game for Windows first just so we have a good base-line.

Stay tuned!

The story of Star Control: Origins continues today with Earth Rising, a 4-part season pass continuation, Aftermath is available to play today, while the other 3 parts will release over the next 6 months.

Check out the trailer, here.

In Aftermath, Star Control has ordered the construction of a new Star Control base in Epsilon Trireme. Not every alien is happy about the prospect of an expanding human empire, however, and already the efforts there have run into trouble.

Meanwhile, a group of suspiciously helpful aliens have informed you of a potential new ally: the Gloosh, who are, quite possibly, the laziest aliens in the universe. On top of it all, a new enemy appears in the shadows, one who seems to have their own long history with humanity...

Get Earth Rising for 10% off for a limited time, and play Aftermath right away!

Steam Midweek Madness: Get Star Control: Origins for 25% off

New Quests
Aftermath includes six new major quests, including several large, multi-stage quest chains, that chronicle the beginning of humanity’s first steps onto the galactic stage. Some of these quests are available during the main campaign, while some others take place after the main adventure is completed, so there’s something for everyone whether you’re just starting out or have already beaten the game.




New Alien Faction
Located in a previously undiscovered region of space, the Gloosh are almost unbelievably slow moving, lazy aliens. It’s honestly astounding that they’ve managed to survive in such a harsh region of the galaxy. But, the Observers - shifty as they are - seem to think that they’d make good allies for your cause, so surely there’s more to them than meets the eye...




New Ships
The Gloosh, Lexite, and Kzanti factions have all had new ships added, some of which can even be recruited for the player’s fleet. The Kzanti have also somehow managed to obtain themselves a massive new Factory Ship, which, as is so often the case, is probably going to need to be destroyed during a long and dramatic battle.




New Precursor Mysteries
Throughout the main campaign, events will cause Precursor Starbases to restore power to their multi-manifold sensor systems. These systems have revealed the location of a number of new items of interest throughout the galaxy, including ancient (and recent!) relics.




More is on the way!
Following Aftermath, three more parts will release. Purchasing the Earth Rising season pass will
give access to each part as they become available.

Part 1: Aftermath (Now Available)
Part 2: The Lexites (Winter 2019)
Part 3: The Syndicate (Spring 2019)
Part 4: Earth Rises (Summer 2019)

Send in the Reinforcements!
Stardock has released a new FREE DLC and v1.3 update for its space adventure game, Star Control: Origins. The DLC, Reinforcements, adds a dozen new ships to pilot in Star Control's combat mini-game, Fleet Battles.

Challenge your friends, annihilate your enemies (and your friends for that matter, you do you!), and climb in the ranks of online competitive play with diverse and exciting new ships.

Prepare for battle! Everyone will find something that suits their playstyle in this free DLC that almost doubles the amount of playable ships in the Fleet Battles mode for Star Control: Origins.

From the lithe Harmony Fighter and its long beam turrets all the way to the Vulzon Galley with its rows of powerful missiles, you’ll enjoy devising a wide range of new strategies for commanding and battling against these ships.

All of the new vessels have been carefully balanced and are available both in single and multiplayer matches of Fleet Battles. Challenge your friends online and see who can master these new ships and claim victory!

Download Reinforcements for FREE and jump into some Fleet Battles right away. See you online!



Pilot the Norast’s finest attack vessel! Equipped with a highly damaging dual laser, this ship has a huge range and high DPS. Be careful to watch how much energy you consume, though.



Actions speak louder than words, usually in the form of an explosion. Created by aliens of action, the Inamorata Strike is one of the more mysterious ships in the new collection. These actions seem to come in the form of tracking Destiny Missiles and a devastating rear-shot.



In space, no one can hear you scream… but that doesn’t change the fact that you can still make some money! Barrage your enemy with deadly dumbfire missiles and canister mines and turn your foes into Swiss cheese. Very, very lucrative Swiss cheese...



Just...hold...still! The perfect drone vessel for drive-by ship destroying, this Fighter can drop immobilizing mines to stun the enemy long enough to release an onslaught of laser spurts with its Flank Blasters.



Nothing says 'harmony' like zipping around dropping flame turrets to scorch your enemies from wing to wing. We’re not sure who exactly it’s harmony for, but we’re pretty sure it's not your enemies! Aim your vessel carefully, then unleash your Eradication Ray. While you’re zooming across the map, plop down some of those ship destroying turrets to ensure your victory.



This angel will bring a beautiful light - beautiful, murderous light, that is. Burst open enemy ships with a bubble of light and then get away quickly to recuperate before your next attack.



Come just a little closer! Pull your enemies in close using your deadly tractor beam, then tear their ships to bits. Though the Scavenger is simple, it’s robust, and holds its own well in a fight.



Hole-y yikes, this thing is dangerous! A stylish new vessel loaded with Xraki tech, this machine shoots triple lasers. Bolt Casters are also ready to slow down some unwary foes.



Aiming is optional with this vessel! This little scout ship shoots three bolts at once and has a pretty good chance of hitting any enemy that flies too close. A fine example of Trandal tech, the Overwhelmer is also equipped with a destructive phasor.



Old doesn’t always mean outdated! Although this vessel is a little old-fashioned, this floaty, heavy ship still packs quite a punch. The Vulzon Galley shoots a line of missiles from either side of it - though, it’s up to the pilot to remember which button shoots which missiles where. Good luck.



Looks can be deceiving! This ship may look a little strange, but it shoots plasma bolts that track over quite an impressive distance, so your enemies should beware.



Surprise! Looming in the shadows, this ship will attack you with deadly black hole mines. But beware, it’s fairly small so it doesn’t have much crew or shields, which renders it fairly unprotected. So if you’re going in for an attack, you better sink that ship, or else...




Accompanying the free DLC, v1.3 adds a few fun features to entice more exploration during the main game.

Highlights

• Uncover the rumors of a Scyve super weapon that can destroy planets, and seek it out before they can use it against you
  
• Evasive manuevers! Improved controls on the Vindicator make it feel more responsive to your inputs
  
• Investigate alien ruins and crashed spaceships to discover powerful new weapons for your ship
  
• Preapre to fire! Several new weapons have been added to the Crafting Menu, including the Frag Missile, Rapid Laser, Flame Thrower, and the Heavy Gatling Laser

Changelog Details

• Added option to disable AI fleet coordinator for fleet battles before a battle starts. You only get to pick once as after that things are all setup and there is no UI again.
  
• Added a "replay battle" option when you lose a campaign battle thus allowing you to continue the game without doing a reload. Also works if you surrender.
  
• Increased the deceleration of the Vindicator, making it more responsive and less drag.
  
• Increased the rotation speed of vindicator by 25% in Solar System/Hyperspace.
  
• Increased rotation speed of Vindicator (in combat) and the free pickup ships to make them feel more responsive.
  
• Added new weapons that can be found by investigating alien ruins and crashed spaceships throughout the galaxy
  
• Added new weapons to the Crafting Menu including the Frag Missile, Rapid Laser, Flame Thrower, the Heavy Gatling Laser, and more.
  
• Fix for a broken/crashed Jeff.
  
• Fix for a scripting bug with the Free Trandals where you could leave their initial conversation
  
• Added additional inventory popups when you get a Pink Lorris Egg.
  
• Adding a popup to notify the player their crew is replenished when they visit human colonies.
  
• Correcting typos
  
• Added more detailed Captain's Logs for new human colonies.
  
• Fixing a minor Objective bug for a Free Trandal quest.
  
• Reduced collision box of Harmony ship.
  
• Added hints of a Scryve super weapon that can shatter planets.

The story of Star Control: Origins continues next week with Earth Rising, a 4-part season pass that covers humanity's expansion into the galaxy.

The first part, Aftermath, will release on December 11, 2018. Earth Rising will add dozens of missions, new alien races, and a variety of ships.

As Captain of Earth's first interstellar starship, your primary mission is to ensure the safety of Earth from hostile alien forces through a combination of diplomacy and combat skill, while acquiring the materials and technologies Earth needs to begin growing beyond its home solar system.

In the first part, Aftermath, players discover that not every alien is happy about the prospect of an expanding human empire. There are unknown enemies lurking in the shadows seeking to undermine Earth's ambitions, while others begin to react to the recent successes of the Earth captain and his primitive ship.

While the expansion adds a great deal of content for those who have already completed the major events of Star Control: Origins, much of the new content greatly expands the richness of the Star Control universe for first-time players, including many new side-quests, new alien species, and new ships to recruit.

Star Control: Origins - Earth Rising is $19.99 with Part 1, Aftermath, available on December 11. Part 2 will be released this winter, Part 3 this spring and Part 4 this summer.

To learn more, visit https://www.starcontrol.com

Stardock will release a new FREE DLC for its new space adventure game, Star Control: Origins. The DLC, Reinforcements, adds a dozen new ships to pilot in Star Control: Origins' combat mini-game, Fleet Battles.

Star Control: Origins puts the player in command of Earth's first interstellar ship on a mission to save the earth from impending destruction at the hands of a hostile alien empire. During the course of the game, players will encounter dozens of alien civilizations, explore hundreds of planets and attempt to find a way to prevent the malevolent Scryve Empire from finding and destroying Earth.

Star Control: Origins also includes a combat mini-game called Fleet Battles in which players assemble fleets of ships and take them into combat either against the computer or against other players online. The free Reinforcements DLC nearly doubles the number of ships available to choose from by default.

Check out our mod feature trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqqEuBeCUd4

Adventure Studio, the ship builder, and building editor are allowing fans to experiment and create some pretty imaginative things! We’ve seen some pretty fantastic mods since Star Control: Origins released in September, and we wanted to share our favorites with you.

Mods that alter the story can contain unique characters, plots, objectives, and more, giving you even more  reasons to explore the furthest corners of the galaxy. Some questlines can also be a great source of extra RU if you’d like to do less gathering on planets. Check out some of our top story mods:

Bounty Hunter
by Kael
A Criminal Archive has been added to the Epsilon Garanulus system. The Measured use it to track the universe’s most dangerous criminals. Go there to accept bounties, but beware that bounty hunters might be searching for you as well.


Galactic Zoo
by Kael
The Tywom are building a Galactic Zoo space station in the Eta Repeculae solar system. They need you to help gather creatures from around the galaxy to fill it.



Mods that alter the gameplay can take away elements you don't like bothering with, such as fuel consumption or resource gathering, leaving you time to focus on the mechanics you do enjoy. Below are some of our top choices for gameplay modding:

Enhanced Fleet Battles
by Thima
Time to start revising your strategies - this mod unlocks all ships from the main game and makes them playable in Fleet Battles! In addition, it enables additional ship components for building custom ships, giving you even more possibilities with your designs.



Free Landers
by SetecX
Crash onto planets with reckless abandon! With this mod, landers cost nothing at starbases, and your flagship can carry 14 at a time, making trips back for replenishing far less frequent.


No Fuel Consumption
by SetecX
Tired of having to wait for the Tywom to send a rescue vessel when you run out of gas? Apply this mod to get rid of the need to consume fuel while you fly around the galaxy, making pit stops a thing of the past! You’ll never have to listen to the Tywom’s fan-fiction again, which they think is an awfully big shame…



Mods that add brand new ships built using the Star Control: Origins ship designing tools add exciting new opportunities for new challenges in Fleet Battles. You can use these ships in a single or multiplayer battle and trounce a few enemies with them. Below are some of our favorites:

Dark Shadow
by Talonbrush
This sleek ship is fast-moving and strong, with a viciously long-range carver beam as its primary weapon. It can also shoot black holes and features a tight turn rate, giving it the flexibility necessary for out-maneuvering its enemies.


Probe Bot*
by Lazy Elf
This little and quick-moving ship might be watching you*, but it’s hard to say. It uses the de-energizer bolt to stop its enemies dead in their tracks, gets in nice and close, and then… KA-BOOM! We don’t recommend using the ‘self-destruct’ feature when the Probe Bot is your last remaining ship...


Escaped Pinthi Experiment
by Mobius
Frrrrriiieeennnddd… No one really knows what happened to this thing, but it was probably pretty awful. The Escaped Pinthi Experiment fires ink blobs at an astonishingly quick rate while it summons its Pinthi brethren in droves to finish off its opponents. This is a good ‘gun and run’ type of ship for players who enjoy that strategy and don’t mind looking at this poor, twisted organic vessel...

The v1.2 update addresses player feedback about the collecting and selling of resources, adds upgrades and special rewards to the Terran Colonization quests, and more. For a full list of v1.2 details, view the changelog at the bottom of the post.

Using Adventure Studio, create your own star systems, quests, characters, and much more in Star Control: Origins. You can upload and use other mods as well with the Multiverse option to engage with infinite new stories and experiences created by you and other players!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVHlNua9Xqk


Adventure Studio
Use this standalone editor to create your own characters, quests, and dialogues

Try out all the easy-to-use tools of Adventure Studio in v1.2! Easy and straightforward, players will be able to access the editor from the main menu and begin using it right away. Modding is important to us here at Stardock, so these tools are simple to use for everyone.

Browse (and upload your own!) the player-created mods on the Steam Workshop through the Multiverse option on the Star Control: Origins main menu. If you're looking to get started with crafting your own quests, dialogues, and characters, check out the modding guide here!





Interface Improvements
Never accidentally sell your important resources again

Accidentally selling entire chunks of important resources is a thing of the past! Now, if you get a quest to collect a resource, the quest automatically locks that resource to prevent it from being sold. You can manually unlock it, just don't blame us! By default, non-conventional resources (in other words, the good stuff) are locked as well. We have been listening to your feedback, and now you can sell resources one at a time and get detailed information on planets by mousing over them.





Terran Colony Upgrades
Refuel your ships, recruit additional crew, and add new ships to your fleet

Completing the Terran Colonization quests now comes with some handsome rewards! Not only can you refuel and re-crew your vessels, but as the colonies develop, they also provide individual rewards, such as specialized weapons, ships, and lander components. See the changelog below for additional details on colony rewards!




Ready to check out v1.2 and wow the Star Control community with your own adventures? Check out our modding guide here to get started!





For the official v1.2 changelog, go here.

We're releasing a couple of quiet updates this week that continue to improve modding support along with some tweaks to quests that communicate what players need to do to solve them more clear.

The modding support update mostly focuses on making more mods that allow players to upload mods that can change the balance. We'll be uploading a series of sample mods to help get the ball rolling.

We're also working on some mods that will add additional aliens to the game so that players can see how new characters can be easily added to help flesh out the game universe as you see fit.

As always, the mods will be directly available via the Multiverse feature.

We have also been continuing to update the Russian and Chinese and other languages as we get feedback from players and as more translation files get in. Every culture has their own star names which means you can't really do a traditional translation.

We are also pretty close to announcing the first expansion to Star Control: Origins. Rather than releasing a series of individual DLCs, the expansion will be released as a season pass and broken up into 4 parts. You won't need to have finished the main adventure to benefit from it.

If you've already finished the origins mission, you'll simply have a bunch of new things available to continue on the larger mission of helping protect and build up Earth.

On the other hand, if you are new to the game or go and replay, you'll find much of the new content intertwined into the existing story which generally fleshes out the universe.

The important thing about the expansions is that they will allow us to expand on the story and also add new game features requested by players without forcing game-play changes on those who enjoy the current game play.

For example, many of the new features we've been introducing are provided as ship module upgrades that you can find. So if you don't want a gameplay change, you don't have to equip that ship module.



We are also focusing on finding ways to get more of the extensive lore that we have constructed for Star Control into the game itself but in ways that aren't just "lore dumps" which you'll begin to see as you play the expansion.

The Tywom, Scryve, Mu'Kay and the rest of the gang have their own fascinating histories filled with deeds that will better explain how they came to be the way they are.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post below.

The Star Control universe is yours to shape and control with the free Multiverse DLC! Adventure Studio and the World Editor are now open to you so that you can add your own star systems, quests, characters, and much more in Star Control: Origins. You can upload and use other mods as well. Engage with infinite new stories and experiences created by you and other players!

The v1.1 update that accompanies the free DLC adds a new quest, some new character voices, and improves graphics and gameplay. For a full list of v1.1 details, view the changelog at the bottom of the post.

https://youtu.be/MZ4roRNp8WY


Multiverse
Play mods you've created, view downloaded mods, and browse the Steam Workshop to download or upload more

The Multiverse DLC not only allows you to create new content, but also lets you share it with other people. After you've crafted your new quest, worlds, adventure, etc., upload it to Steam Workshop to share with the rest of the world.

You can also browse Steam Workshop to see what other cool and interesting content other people have created. As the library of Star Control Multiverse content continues to grow, you'll be able to download and experience infinite new stories and experiences.

In addition to the DLC, we're releasing two Stardock-crafted mods. The Bounty Hunter mod adds a new Criminal Archive starbase where the Measured track down the galaxy's most dangerous criminals. You can accept bounties for these criminals, but beware: other bounty hunters may try to collect bounties on you! The Galactic Zoo mod tasks you with capturing various critters around the galaxy for you Tywom clients. You can find both mods in the Steam Workshop!





Adventure Studio & World Editor
Create your own quests, stories, and adventures with custom characters, dialogue, and more

Want to change the universal gravitational constant to increase the lander's jump? Create an epic quest that spans the galaxy? How about modeling your own planets and star systems? You can make it happen!

Use the Ship and Building Crafting screens to add new visuals to your experience. Create crazy and powerful new weapons and aliens for players to encounter. Adventure studio will let you write entirely new stories and quests, while World Editor will provide you with the tools to craft your own planets that you can fit right into your custom adventures.

From game balance all the way to writing new stories, there is very little you can't do with the crafting system.





Ready to wow the Star Control community with your own adventures?
Check out our modding guide here to get started!

Haven't gotten into Star Control: Origins yet? Click here to go on an epic adventure and start crafting incredible worlds, ships, and stories today!
Or, add us to your Steam wishlist.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/271260?snr=2_9_100006__apphubheader

Official v1.1 changelog

Hello...BEST FRIENDS!

We are currently working on version 1.1 of Star Control: Origins and the first free DLC called the Multiverse.  We expect to have a beta version of v1.1 out this week for those who want to try it out. 

Multiverse

The Multiverse DLC will open up Steam Workshop to modders who want to create their own stories, maps, custom settings, aliens, etc. for people to play with.  This DLC will obviously evolve over time and get more features as we learn what kinds of things players like to share.

The Expansion

We will be announcing the first expansion in a few weeks which will be released as a single season pass so that we can release it as a series of micro-expansions.  It will introduce lots of new aliens, new places to visit, new quests and will benefit both players who have finished the main storyline as well as new players.

As always, let us know if there's anything you'd like to see.

Cheers!