When we shared our plans about new 3D graphics, people started worried about two things:
1. The game may lose its 2D charm.
2. System requirements will be increased so the game no longer will run on slow computers.

But we want assure you, there is nothing to worry about :)

At first, let's look at this:



We added new planets and asteroids, but as you can see, it looks pretty much like the familiar Celestial Command.
However, now we can rotate the camera! :)



To compare, let's take a look at 2D planets from previous version.



View of star system in 3D:





Let's take a closer look at new asteroids!
At first, let's look at previous version:



And new!





And one of new planets:



And what about performance, the new version will have even better performance than previously, why exactly, we will explain in further posts.

So what do you think? :)

When we shared our plans about new 3D graphics, people started worried about two things:
1. The game may lose its 2D charm.
2. System requirements will be increased so the game no longer will run on slow computers.

But we want assure you, there is nothing to worry about :)

At first, let's look at this:



We added new planets and asteroids, but as you can see, it looks pretty much like the familiar Celestial Command.
However, now we can rotate the camera! :)



To compare, let's take a look at 2D planets from previous version.



View of star system in 3D:





Let's take a closer look at new asteroids!
At first, let's look at previous version:



And new!





And one of new planets:



And what about performance, the new version will have even better performance than previously, why exactly, we will explain in further posts.

So what do you think? :)

Yesterday we told that we will keep you informed about development of 3D.
So, there it is!



It is only a beginning, just changed camera. But it is already looks so much better and so more serious! Also you may note how funny previous 2D things looks in 3D perspective.







Also we want to show you this small container in 3D. It is already in Unity Engine, not in 3D editor. Textures is little bit messed up during baking, but it will be fixed later.





We are very excited to work on this update and soon we will show you even more amazing stuff!

Yesterday we told that we will keep you informed about development of 3D.
So, there it is!

It is only a beginning, just changed camera. But it is already looks so much better and so more serious! Also you may note how funny previous 2D things looks in 3D perspective.







Also we want to show you this small container in 3D. It is already in Unity Engine, not in 3D editor. Textures is little bit messed up during baking, but it will be fixed later.





We are very excited to work on this update and soon we will show you even more amazing stuff!

Hello for everyone!

You had no news from us for a long time, but we have a reason for it, paperwork took some time, it is almost completed (we will inform you when it will be done). Also implementation of AI broke multiplayer and save\load, so we made a lot of efforts to resolve those features together.

Seems like this is slowest period during development of Celestial Command, but we always learn new things, achieved new experience and now the development should be even better! :)

Of course, many things in the game is far from perfection, but with the help of yours suggestions, bug reports and support we are seek to it! :)



Our plan was to make multiplayer completely finished, fully polished and stable, but this task turned out pretty complex. We managed to return the multiplayer functionality back, but it still have bugs, and lags may cause some inconvenience for connected players.

We will gradually improve multiplayer during the development progress, so it will be better and better. But the most important, we will keep it in working condition and we will not disable it again, when some new feature, will conflict with the multiplayer. Instead, we will adapt this feature for multiplayer from the beginning.

After long time you are probably waiting from us big updates, but unfortunately this update doesn't bring too many new things. Mainly the update fixes the multiplayer, AI for multiplayer and some improvements. And also experimental auto pilot!

We have a great desire to make you happy with this update by adding some amazing things, but you waited long time and we cannot no longer without update (it brings us enthusiasm), so we prepared for you this update.



But soon we will make a really big update!
From this point, we are starting working on 0.7, which will bring completely new 3D graphics.
Don't worry, the performance will be good and the gameplay will remains intact.

You may thinking that graphics is irrelevant, or the game may lose its 2D charm, but don't worry, we can assure you that you will be impressed.

Besides, during the development of new graphics we will showing you intermediate result and asking for your opinions.

Thanks for you patient!



Improvements

• Many various improvements and bug fixes which makes multiplayer work again (including AI and sandbox tools).
  
• Added experimental "Auto pilot" feature, it is available from sandbox menu.
  
• The window of the game can be resized to any custom resolution by mouse.
  
• Interface of options is slightly changed.

Fixes

• Shield saves its parameters between game sessions and working correct in multiplayer.
  
• Turrets is adapted for multiplayer. Rotation is synchronized between players and projectiles launched in correct direction.
  
• When game loaded, the camera focused on the ship by default.
  
• Deconstruction of module in sandbox mode now is working in multiplayer.
  
• NPC stations keeps his command "Keep circular orbit" even after game saved and loaded.
  
• Fixed ability to respawn in single in multiplier (however, in some rare cases the problem still exists, will be fixed later)
  
• All list of buttons in "sandbox tools" window is adapted for multiplayer (such as refuel, recharge, ship duplication, AI)
  
• Client no longer able to save game (only server can do it).
  
• Behavior of AI is adapted for multiplayer. Players can duplicate his ship, activate AI and it will follow the owner (or attack, if AI faction assigned to Enemy), even in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed "Status of trajectory" when the ship orbiting the star from "Escaping" to "Stable".

Hello for everyone!

You had no news from us for a long time, but we have a reason for it, paperwork took some time, it is almost completed (we will inform you when it will be done). Also implementation of AI broke multiplayer and save\load, so we made a lot of efforts to resolve those features together.

Seems like this is slowest period during development of Celestial Command, but we always learn new things, achieved new experience and now the development should be even better! :)

Of course, many things in the game is far from perfection, but with the help of yours suggestions, bug reports and support we are seek to it! :)



Our plan was to make multiplayer completely finished, fully polished and stable, but this task turned out pretty complex. We managed to return the multiplayer functionality back, but it still have bugs, and lags may cause some inconvenience for connected players.

We will gradually improve multiplayer during the development progress, so it will be better and better. But the most important, we will keep it in working condition and we will not disable it again, when some new feature, will conflict with the multiplayer. Instead, we will adapt this feature for multiplayer from the beginning.

After long time you are probably waiting from us big updates, but unfortunately this update doesn't bring too many new things. Mainly the update fixes the multiplayer, AI for multiplayer and some improvements. And also experimental auto pilot!

We have a great desire to make you happy with this update by adding some amazing things, but you waited long time and we cannot no longer without update (it brings us enthusiasm), so we prepared for you this update.



But soon we will make a really big update!
From this point, we are starting working on 0.7, which will bring completely new 3D graphics.
Don't worry, the performance will be good and the gameplay will remains intact.

You may thinking that graphics is irrelevant, or the game may lose its 2D charm, but don't worry, we can assure you that you will be impressed.

Besides, during the development of new graphics we will showing you intermediate result and asking for your opinions.

Thanks for you patient!



Improvements

• Many various improvements and bug fixes which makes multiplayer work again (including AI and sandbox tools).
  
• Added experimental "Auto pilot" feature, it is available from sandbox menu.
  
• The window of the game can be resized to any custom resolution by mouse.
  
• Interface of options is slightly changed.

Fixes

• Shield saves its parameters between game sessions and working correct in multiplayer.
  
• Turrets is adapted for multiplayer. Rotation is synchronized between players and projectiles launched in correct direction.
  
• When game loaded, the camera focused on the ship by default.
  
• Deconstruction of module in sandbox mode now is working in multiplayer.
  
• NPC stations keeps his command "Keep circular orbit" even after game saved and loaded.
  
• Fixed ability to respawn in single in multiplier (however, in some rare cases the problem still exists, will be fixed later)
  
• All list of buttons in "sandbox tools" window is adapted for multiplayer (such as refuel, recharge, ship duplication, AI)
  
• Client no longer able to save game (only server can do it).
  
• Behavior of AI is adapted for multiplayer. Players can duplicate his ship, activate AI and it will follow the owner (or attack, if AI faction assigned to Enemy), even in multiplayer.
  
• Fixed "Status of trajectory" when the ship orbiting the star from "Escaping" to "Stable".

It's been a year since we released Celestial Command in Steam Store, and we want to summarize this year.
Since this is our first project, it was easy to make a mistake with the timing, so our prediction to complete the game before summer 2015 turned out incorrect.

However, the game, which was started as "simple shooter on the mobile phone" turned into full scale, serious game with amazing community and we can proud with that.

Early screenshots of the first version of the game for Android devices:






But at some point we are realized that we can't develop just another one "submarines in space", so we had two options.
Actually develop the game about submarines, redesign modules, add some underwater effects.
Or make the space more realistic.

It was hard to design beautiful underwater world in 2d graphics, so we tried to implement orbital mechanics and the result turned out incredible!

Later we realized that thanks to the Steam Greenlight, the PC is not unreachable. And actually PC is much more serious than mobile platform, so we decided to move away from the casual game and start to develop Celestial Command.

Lets look at the deference from the earlier versions.

Menu

Old


New


Editor

Old


New


GUI

Old


New


As you see. A lot of thing was changed. A lot of things still will be changed in future, and the most amazing things still to come.

Thanks you for your suggestions, bug reports and support. Without that we would have lost the most important resource which is sometimes very lacking - enthusiasm.

Yay! :)

It's been a year since we released Celestial Command in Steam Store, and we want to summarize this year.
Since this is our first project, it was easy to make a mistake with the timing, so our prediction to complete the game before summer 2015 turned out incorrect.

However, the game, which was started as "simple shooter on the mobile phone" turned into full scale, serious game with amazing community and we can proud with that.

Early screenshots of the first version of the game for Android devices:






But at some point we are realized that we can't develop just another one "submarines in space", so we had two options.
Actually develop the game about submarines, redesign modules, add some underwater effects.
Or make the space more realistic.

It was hard to design beautiful underwater world in 2d graphics, so we tried to implement orbital mechanics and the result turned out incredible!

Later we realized that thanks to the Steam Greenlight, the PC is not unreachable. And actually PC is much more serious than mobile platform, so we decided to move away from the casual game and start to develop Celestial Command.

Lets look at the deference from the earlier versions.

Menu

Old


New


Editor

Old


New


GUI

Old


New


As you see. A lot of thing was changed. A lot of things still will be changed in future, and the most amazing things still to come.

Thanks you for your suggestions, bug reports and support. Without that we would have lost the most important resource which is sometimes very lacking - enthusiasm.

Yay! :)

Negative result - also a result.

As you know, development of the Celestial Command is not restricted to the solid plan. It is not only stable routine coding, but also experiments and researching of new methods and tools. And as in any research, sometimes turned out that wrong direction was chosen. But even negative result allow to make one step back and choose more correct direction.

We spent 3 week to learn and research a new network tools which was provided in Unity 5.1 supposed to be much better than the current one, but turned out that it is still not fully completed and have some important flaws which didn't allows us to use it for the game.

This 3 weeks was not completely useless, this experience will be helpful later, when we will use this system. However at this moment, unfortunately it didn't bring any new things in the Celestial Command.

We apologies for everyone who waited for multiplayer in 2 weeks (it was 3 weeks ago) but we need more time. We returned back to the previous backup version and will continue from here. We will continue to work on the current network system. And actually it is good, because turned out that recreation of the network code using new tools requires more efforts than completion of the current network code. Especially considering the fact that we already have quite large experience with the current network system.

Also we want to notify you that now we are in business trip related to our company so the next update will be after this week.

But In order to try to compensate this unpleasant pause in updates, we made little update which we managed to do before the trip. We have great to-do list for various improvements and everything is going well we just need a time to implement all these plans.

Thanks for your understanding and support! :)



Improvements

• Added auto save. Interval of the auto save can be adjusted in game options. Now it should helps in case of bug with physics. However it is still incomplete and makes only one auto save file (not several), we will improve it slightly later.

Fixes

• Prefix of H2 and O2 connectors of fuel generator changed from "input" to "output".
  
• Warp trajectory no longer displayed for detached warp drive.
  
• Now an interface of warp drive displayed with the correct width.

Negative result - also a result.

As you know, development of the Celestial Command is not restricted to the solid plan. It is not only stable routine coding, but also experiments and researching of new methods and tools. And as in any research, sometimes turned out that wrong direction was chosen. But even negative result allow to make one step back and choose more correct direction.

We spent 3 week to learn and research a new network tools which was provided in Unity 5.1 supposed to be much better than the current one, but turned out that it is still not fully completed and have some important flaws which didn't allows us to use it for the game.

This 3 weeks was not completely useless, this experience will be helpful later, when we will use this system. However at this moment, unfortunately it didn't bring any new things in the Celestial Command.

We apologies for everyone who waited for multiplayer in 2 weeks (it was 3 weeks ago) but we need more time. We returned back to the previous backup version and will continue from here. We will continue to work on the current network system. And actually it is good, because turned out that recreation of the network code using new tools requires more efforts than completion of the current network code. Especially considering the fact that we already have quite large experience with the current network system.

Also we want to notify you that now we are in business trip related to our company so the next update will be after this week.

But In order to try to compensate this unpleasant pause in updates, we made little update which we managed to do before the trip. We have great to-do list for various improvements and everything is going well we just need a time to implement all these plans.

Thanks for your understanding and support! :)



Improvements

• Added auto save. Interval of the auto save can be adjusted in game options. Now it should helps in case of bug with physics. However it is still incomplete and makes only one auto save file (not several), we will improve it slightly later.

Fixes

• Prefix of H2 and O2 connectors of fuel generator changed from "input" to "output".
  
• Warp trajectory no longer displayed for detached warp drive.
  
• Now an interface of warp drive displayed with the correct width.