For a few days we are prepared inventory \ production update for release and came up to an interesting conclusion.

Inventory \ production almost complete, but trading system is not working yet. We had a plan to release inventory \ production now, but trading system will be temporary removed, and after that, we will publish a new trading system in the next update.

However, we realized, if we will do so, there will be nothing to do in the game. Of course current trading system have a lot of flaws, but it least it works, so you can mine ore and sell it to the stations. If this feature will be removed (even temporarily, before the next update) the game will be almost completely empty in survival game mode.

So we have a 2 options:

1.
Release update without trading system and while it is not available, we should create a gameplay focused on combat.

2.
We will delay a current update, combine it with the trading system and release a bigger update a bit later, with both, inventory and trading system in the same update.

Seems like the second options is definitely better. Trading and economy aspect of the Celestial Command is much more interesting than combat aspect for now. And even if we will try to make combat aspect better, it may take even more time than new trading system.

So, update will be delayed and we starting to work on brand new trading system!

On a one side, we want to release updates as often as possible, but on the other side, update should be interesting to play, so it is definitely will be better.


The good thing, this update should be great! This will be the first update which really bring a sense into gameplay and the game now really will be interesting to play in survival mode!
So we are very excited about this upcoming update! This is going to be a gameplay about space trucker.

Remember when we are worked on a Galaxy update for a 6 months? Plus 1 months on a new inventory system. These system currently have not too much sense for the gameplay, but this trading update should make these features of the game really usable.

We are not sure how much time it will take, but we will keep you inform about progress.
Thanks you for your patience!

During development we encountered some bug with docking and decided that it is a good time to find solution for an fundamental issue of docking ports.

The problem with docking ports - it instantly teleports your ship on a short distance, as result, the ship can be moved at the position which is physically impossible. For example:



As you can see, these two ships can't be docked, there is an obstacles on the way.

However they can, and here is an unrealistic result which may damage modules or cause explosion, during and after docking.



So in order to fix it, we decreased angle and distance threshold for docking, and also, docking port no longer teleports your ship, instead of that, it is capable to rotate and extend a bit in order to connect with another docking port.


So it should no longer cause damage, explosion or any unrealistic result. Hooray!

This update turned out bigger than usual, but it is quite normal and expected.

Some time ago we published a plan of development, and new inventory and production systems - it is a first item in the list.
This is the most important items in the list, because everything else will be based on this new inventory. Mining, production, fuel and ammo consumption, etc. All of these aspects of the game was rewritten.

We want to test it carefully in order to be sure that system is more or less compatible with features which will be added in the future on top of it.

Overall architecture is done and mostly we are working on testing and various small improvements, so we need some more time. But don't worry, it will not take 6 months like it was with Galaxy update : )

And some new images. This is how production module looks.

Those who followed Celestial Command from the beginning, may remember something similar to it from the earlier version of the game, but now it works better than before and we added more parts.

We redesigned style of icons for basic elements, the new one looks nice. Also some parts lacks its own icons, we are working on it.

Hello!

We are continuing working on new inventory and production system which will be implemented in the next update.
Let's talk about what we are working on.

Currently new inventory already done. All storages remade. Some storages is able to store several types of resources at once.

Also, we found an interesting issue which we didn't saw in other games due lack of some realistic aspects which exist in CC.

Since we have the next features:
1. Possibility to salvage debris of destroyed module
2. Repairing of module requires specific resources of this module
3. Recipe of module consist from several different parts
4. Module can be disassembled in order to get resources back

In combination, turned out that if you have a damaged module, it is more profitable just to destroy the module and collect its debris, instead of repair it.

Let's take an example:

For example we have a module, it have maximum 100 HP and its recipe consist of 10 "Steel plates".
Now someone damaged a module and now it have 20\100 HP. Apparently, if we want to repair a module, we should spent 8 Steel plates from our inventory. But there is an issue, if we will just destroy this damaged module, it will generate some debris which will contain its recipe (10 steel plates). So we can salvage its debris, collect 10 steel plates and construct brand new module without spent any single additional steel plate.

Of course it could be solved if repairing will not require parts (just energy) but we like an idea when repairing requires parts, so this is not a good solution.

Also we could generate debris each time when module receive damage, but it will spawn a lot of additional objects which definitely will conflict with physics, especially if there is no free space around.

This issue existed in previous version of the game, and turned out that it will not be fixed in the new version of the game without some kind of solution



So we are came up to the realistic and interesting solution. There will be two type of parts, such as "Steel plates" and "Broken steel plates".

So, if our module damaged and it have 20\100 HP, it will contain inside 2 normal steel plates and 8 damaged steel plates. Which is quite realistic, imagine all of these ripped and bended hull elements.



If we want to repair this module, we need to extract damaged steel plates first, after that replace it with 8 new steel plates items from an inventory. After that, 8 damaged steel plates can be delivered to the refinery and turned into normal steel plates.

Issue with "it is cheaper to destroy a module" also fixed. If you will decide to destroy a module (not repair it), from the debris you will collect just 10 "broken steel plates" which is unusable for construction. So if you want to build a new module, you should spent 10 steel plates, but repairing will require just 8 steel plates. So repairing is better.
Besides that, repairing requires less energy than construction + energy and fuel for salvaging.

In our opinion, it is very interesting feature.
This new system will be implemented in the next update.

Thanks for your patience!

Hello!

This update will take a bit more time, but it will be great! We are working on new inventory and production system and it is 80% done.

While you are waiting for update, let's talk about resource connectors.

Since we are working on a new inventory and production system, it is a good time to do something with it.

Connectors was a big problem for a long time. Connector is non intuitive and confusing, and even if you will figure out how to use it - connectors just does not performs its purpose properly.

So we decided to completely replace resource connectors with something new. Instead, all resources will be distributed automatically, but also, you will be able to toggle usage of each container using a hotkey.

Don't mind about ammo in the fuel tanks, it is just a wrong icon : )


Sounds too simple, right? But surprisingly this system works much better that resource connectors and allows the same possibilities.



For example, you have 4 engineering modules which are going to construct something. Now, you no longer need to assign 40 connector lines. Now each engineering module will automatically find required parts across the ship and will use it for construction.

Yes, it looks kind of beautiful, but completely useless. Such setup no longer required.


Another example, you have a lot of engines and you want to balance fuel consumption in order to keep your center of mass intact. No longer need for complex resource chain setup (which will not work anyway), now all engines will consume fuel from all fuel tanks on your ship simultaneously, so center of mass will be intact.

Basically it is the only effective way to set up fuel flow. Just assign everything to single container. Very boring and still useless for CoM. Such setup no longer required.


Q: But hey, what if I have a cargo ship which transports fuel or constructions part and I don't want to use this cargo for needs of my ship?
A: No problem, you can select cargo container and press a checkbox "allow usage", and cargo inside this container will be intact.

Q: But what if I want to use fuel from specific group of containers first, and after that, from another group of containers. This can be useful during combat.
A: No problem, you can ignore usage for all containers except desired group, and after all fuel will be consumed, you can enable usage for a new group of containers using a custom hotkey.


As you can see, this simple approach completely replaces confusing connectors and performs its purposes much better.

Despite the game developed already more than 3 years - we are continue to add significant features to the core of the game which are significantly changes the gameplay. One of such changes was a galaxy map, but we have a plan to add more.

First, we want to completely develop core features of the game.
After that, we will start to add a lot of new content (modules, missions, events) on top of this core features, so we will be sure that new content will not be wasted next time when we will decide to redesign half of the game.

What exactly we want to implement in order to make core of the game complete? Here is a list:

1. New inventory and production system
2. Heat system
3. More complex combat system
4. Complex global economy in galaxy

Let's describe each from these items.



What exactly wrong with the current production system?

Currently, if your ship have mining laser and engineering module (note, it is quite small modules) - you can go to nearest belt of asteroids and you can build anything.
We think this is not very good.
This is not only very unrealistic, but also it makes gameplay less interesting.

We want to add more complexity in construction process by implementing resource chains.

For example:
You have a small mining ship, it have a small mining laser (you don't need a big ship in order to retrieve chunk of rock), but you will not be able to build anything from this raw ore.
This ore should be delivered to the refinery. Refinery is a very big construction, much bigger than mining ship, mostly due two factors:

1 Refinery module just very big and massive
2 Refinery module produce huge amount of heat, so this station should have huge radiators (look information about heat system below)

After ore refines, it can be used in order to produce "parts" - inventory items which is used to construct modules for space ships.

So resource chain will be:
Ore -> Refined ore -> Parts -> Modules

Not "Ore -> Modules" like now.

And since this approach will add much more types of resources, we need a brand new inventory system which can store many different types of resources in the same container.



Actually, in earlier version of the game we already had similar system, but we decided remove it because it was hard to maintain two different types of inventory (for parts and for ore). But now we decided that it was mistake, we deleted wrong inventory.

Now we will return such system but it will be better than before.

Such approach have a lot of advantages and zero disadvantages. For example:

1. Construction drones can be much smaller and usable, it is no longer necessary to have 10 containers on construction drone with all required resources
2. Recipes for various modules now can be much more logical and balanced
3. Ammo for weapons will have proper volume. Projectiles for light cannon and heavy torpedoes no longer have the same volume

And many more, you will see.
We already started to work on it and it is ready approximately on 50%. The new inventory system will be released in the next update.



Due some Sci-Fi movies many people may think that "space is cold", which is quite wrong. If you are doing something in space, especially if you have heavy industry, you should worry about heat, not about cold.

So we are going to implement a heat system, which is very useful not only for educational purposes, but also will make gameplay much interesting.

Most functional modules will generate heat. Industrial equipment will generate a lot of heat, especially refinery.

In order to do something with this heat there will be two options:

1 Radiators. Big things similar to solar panels which will disperse heat via infra-red emission
2 Emergency coolers based on the evaporation of water which can be used in order to quickly disperse large amount of heat. Useful during combat if your ship overheated due too much emission from lasers of energy shields, or if the ship was heated by enemy weapons. However it will require water as a resource.

As we said above, refineries will generate a lot of heat, so large radiators will make industrial ships \ stations even bigger and less agile, which is very good for gameplay and balance.



Currently combat is very simple, just place more guns and you will win.
We want to make combat much more tactical.

In order to do that, we want to implement different types of armor and different damage types.

Also kinetic weapon will have "armor-penetration" parameter, so light cannons will be unable to cause any damage to heavy armor. Like tanks in real world.

Energy shield also will be reworked, maybe it will have different protection from different side, we are not decided yet. Also maybe we will implement more types of rockets, since new inventory system allows to implement many new types of ammo.



Once everything above will be implemented, we will try to implement this.
Note, this is very complex technology, we will need to perform some experiments, maybe it will be impossible to implement, or maybe it will be very simplified, so do not imagine too much about this feature, because we don't want to disappoint you.

But the idea is, that the galaxy will be filled with many production space stations, each station consumes goods A and produces goods B. Also there will be many NPC traders which will trade between stations. Overall, the universe will be live and populated with many NPC and factions.

But note, this system is very complex even for simple games which are designed around this system.
But in CC we have fully customable ships which consists from many modules, in combination with such a complex trading systems it creates huge impact on performance, so direct simulation will be impossible.

If such trading system will bb implemented, it will be very simplified. For example trade ships will consist from single object (not from modules like other ships) and maybe they will not have collisions with other objects except projectiles, because collision avoidance algorithms is extremely complex and almost impossible to implement, especially in orbital mode.

But even with all of these simplifications, it is still could be very interesting feature.
But again, we are not sure how detailed it could be in order to keep reasonable performance on modern computers, so we will keep you informed when we will perform some research about this aspect.

Currently we are focused on inventory and production system which is important for others features which will be built on top of it.

Hello!
Some new improvements:

Projectiles now may bounce off, try to now hit an ally

Icons on map


And also, we implemented new, very convenient localization system based on Google Doc.
No more unintuitive GitHub workflow. Just open and start to edit!


Link on new localization guide
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1400316342




Improvements

• Added icons on galaxy and system map, now you can see which systems contains a warp gates or your ships
  
• Now projectiles may bounce off from the armor, the chance depends on angle of impact
  
• Implemented new localization system based on Google Docs which is much more convenient for people who wish to help us with localization

Fixes

• Fixed a bug with white circle which sometimes may appear around your ship
  
• Gas collectors now properly works in aero mode
  
• Small solar panels work again

Thank very much for everyone who proposed an ideas about ships classes according to this post
https://steamcommunity.com/games/CelestialCommand/announcements/detail/1649886530633914072
 
We didn't answer to everyone directly, because it will require large amount of time, but we are carefully read every suggestion, so we will make an conclusion and will answer to everyone at once using this post.
 
Overall, people against such a brute artificial limitation, and we are completely agreed with it.
 
Thanks to your ideas, we realized that such strict classifications of ship is a bad idea because it will ruin all the benefits from the "ship editor" feature of Celestial Command.
 
We are always preferred to not implement any ship classes in CC, but we started to think "maybe we are doing something wrong".
Turned out, no, we are doing everything right, so we will continue work in that direction.
 
So, don't worry, we will not implement ship classes with such a brute artificial limitation, we don't like such approach too. Our idea of classes which explained in previous post - was a mistake.
 
Instead of that, physics and realism should force users to build several ships (not an artificial limitations). And we better will add more complex simulations in the game (such as heat system and more complex armor system) which will improve this effect.
 
For example, in CC ships have a mass, and ships required fuel which have its price. So big ships are slaw and expensive due high consumption of fuel.
 
So, for example, if you will build a miner ship which will be heavily armed with various weapons and shields - such ship will be heavy and will requires more fuel, so it will provide you less profit than a miner ship which does not have shields and weapons.
 
Seems like this is exactly how "classes" should work, just due laws of physics, without artificial limitations, similar to how it works in real life.
 
This is just one from examples. Here Lemodile write a great text with detailed explanation on many aspects and we are totally agree with his ideas.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/330460/discussions/0/1694922526918695182
 
Another good article here from Nemo
https://steamcommunity.com/app/330460/discussions/0/1694922980034122688/
 
And another post of Nemo here
https://steamcommunity.com/app/330460/discussions/0/1694922980034150988/
 
Also similar ideas was explained in comments section here and in our Discord chat.
 
Overall, we are agreed with most items listed in articles above and we will start to work on such improvements.

Hello
 
We want to discuss new feature with community
 
We want to implement a different "ship classes", seems like this feature is capable to make gameplay much more interesting.
 
Currently you can build single ultra super multifunctional ship with all available modules on board and it will be effective in all situations. Of course, such approach have its own benefits, we are also like to play with single multifunctional ship, however, if the game will require to use several different ships in various situations, it should be much more interesting.
 
For example, currently there is almost no difference between cargo freighter and battleship. Both ships have large size and a lot of cargo space. Will be better if it will be two different ships.
 
Also, many popular space games based on idea that user wants to gain reputation and credits to obtain new, bigger ships with better characteristics and new design.
Without such aspect, in CC you may just attach a bunch of modules to your ship and the game will became boring quite soon, so the idea of ship classes should be very good.
 
However, there is a question, how to combine concept of classes with the concept of fully customizable ships which built from modules?
 
Turned out that freedom of ship editor of CC is not very suitable for concept of ship classes and "I want to earn enough credits in order to buy this huge battleship!"
 
But we have an idea:
 
Each command module will have its class.
And each command module as special limit, so far let's call it "module units"
For example, we have a command module of class "miner mk1", it has 200 module units.
 
Each module has its price of "module units", and also each module has its type, such as:
Storage for ore
Mining equipment
Engines
Weapons
etc.
 
For example, small storage for ore costs 10 units
Weapons 20 units
Mining laser 20 units
etc.
 
Each command module can attach to himself only limited amount of modules (sum of its units should be less than 200), after that, ship will be unable to attach any additional module.
 
Also, each class of command module will have different multiplayers for various types of modules. For example, miner mk1 is capable to attach weapon, however price multiplayer for weapon will be x5, it means that he should pay 100 units for weapon, instead of 20.
However multiplayer for mining lasers and storages for ore is x1, so price for mining lasers will be much lower.
 
Besides that, some modules will be unique for some classes, for example mining lasers only for miner classes. Or miners will have bonuses for effectivity of mining lasers, while other classes will be able to use mining lasers only at 10% of its full effectivity.
 
As result we will have a different ship classes, but you are still have a space for creativity, so you can decide "Should I attach weapon to my mining ship or will be better to attach additional containers instead? Or more engines? Or additional mining lasers? Or only 1 laser and a lot of counters?", also you may decide which exactly cargo containers you want and where exactly you want to place them on the ship.
 
So, we have a complex situation. On the one side, we don’t want to remove a creativity of ship editor.
On the other side, we want to make game and “feel of progression” more interesting.
 
Of course, there will be command modules for ship classes “mothership”, “freighter” etc, for a big ships, but they should have some other limitations, such as weaker weapons.
Also, of course will be possible to add late-game super command module with very high limits or without limits at all.
 
What do you think about it? And feel free to express any ideas about classes and how to implement it better.

You may talk here or directly in Discord chat

 
Improvements

• Implemented network interpolation, synchronization of position of objects now should be significantly smoother
  
• Added safety system for a warp gates, now warp gate will not be activated if something located on the edge of its warp field
  
• Now if something going through warp gates, it will be ejected out of second gate with some velocity, which will guarantee that object will fly out of gate before the next object will arrive from the same gate
  
• Cooldown of warp gates increased from 5 to 10 seconds for better immersion and safety

 
Fixes

• Warp gates now invulnerable
  
• Map now have configurable hotkey
  
• Physics no longer will be broken when you are trying to grab a warp gate with a grabber (we disabled this possibility, maybe later it will be solved and returned) If you will try to grab a warp gate you will receive a message that it is not allowed
  
• Map no longer opens when you press M in the chat or another text input field
  
• Solar panels now work in the location with the star
  
• Gas collectors now properly rotated in aerodynamic mode
  
• Fixed an error about wrong background when your ship in a warp flight
  
• Connected users now can use warp gates
  
• Space station hub no longer have useless "setup power chain" button
  
• Asteroids in aerodynamic mode now have proper non-zero friction
  
• Warp gates no longer invisible when you switch control over your ship which recently arrived to the new location
  
• Pirates and cargo containers for quests no longer will be spawned outside radius of location or inside planet