Come check out this cool story about 4x games that PC Gamer has done. A meaty chat.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/25/interview-endless-space-and-stardrive-developers-talk-about-4x-design/

Come check out this cool story about 4x games that PC Gamer has done. A meaty chat.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/04/25/interview-endless-space-and-stardrive-developers-talk-about-4x-design/

Here is a video log update of our development progress on StarDrive 2!

http://youtu.be/xz0OI-K-Oak

Here is a video log update of our development progress on StarDrive 2!

http://youtu.be/xz0OI-K-Oak

Here is the changelog for the 1.15 patch. I think many players will appreciate both the fixes and the additions, and it also holds some good stuff for modders.

• Fixed an issue with the Fletchette cannon and other dual-purpose Anti-Ship/PD weapons not damaging ships as they should.
  
  
• Increased the 'time-out range' of all weapons by 25%.
  
  You may have noticed your missiles exploding prematurely and other projectiles disappearing before they reached their target, therefore resulting in misses. This was due to the 'time-out' range of projectiles in the engine being equal to the maximum firing range of that weapon, so your ships fire on inevitably moving enemies at a range that means the projectiles can't travel far enough to hit them. This change will result in more satisfying projectile behavior, as projectiles fired at a moving ship that is in range will no longer time out before the target is reached when fired at maximum engagement range unless the enemy ship performs successful evasive manoeuvres.
  
  
• The automated freighter system has been patched so that it will no longer assign freighter-class vessels with no cargo capacity to carry cargo.
  
  This means that vessels designed on freighter hulls but purposed for other uses (e.g. supply ships, repair ships, 'Q-ship' warships) will no longer have their user-assigned orders overridden by the auto-freight AI if enabled.
  
  
• Adjusted the AI's desired ratio of ships to ensure mixed fleets.
  
  This now results in the AI splitting its proportions roughly between: Capitals: 3, Cruisers: 5, Frigates: 7, Fighters: 7, Dedicated Bombers: 1. This means that, given 23 ships, the ratio would break down like that. This should result in some more mixed AI fleets, and fix the issue seen at present wherein the AI is only fielding the largest ship type available at once. Expect more dangerous enemies with mixed target types - bring some anti-fighter cannons!
  
  
• Flak Cannons are now proximity fused.
  
  They therefore do not require direct hits to detonate anymore, and instead detonate either in proximity to any enemy vessel, or at their maximum pre-determined range, so they can be used as area-suppression weapons against fighter swarms.
  
  
• Enabled the use of the "ProjectileRadius" tag in weapons files. This will work on any weapons that modders may want to add this functionality to.
  
  
  
• Removed the requirement that you need money to rush production.
  
  

  #Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

  You only need production now. I think this was causing a great deal of confusion about the economy, as players would see their income decreasing and have no feedback as why. What is happening is that your governors are spending your cash. Well, no more. Both the AI and the player will benefit from this change so it should be balance-neutral. In fact, I expect the AI will become more dangerous.

  
  
  
• Fixed an issue where Remnant kills weren't tracking properly through saved games which could result in you either missing the event or getting the event multiple times.
  
  
• Significant buff to the Disintegrator Cannon (ultimate beam weapon in vanilla SD) so that it is both superior to earlier beams, and also generally just deadly.
  
  
• Added a tag for Mod files < DisableDefaultRaces >true< /DisableDefaultRaces > if you want to remove the original StarDrive races from appearing while your mod is loaded.
  
  
• The sickbay should now appropriately heal injured troops that are stationed on board the craft
  
  
• Fixed the victory music not playing on the victory screen
  
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies between the displayed empire income and the calculated empire income. Somehow these could become desynced, but now they use the same function and should not desync.
  
  
• And finally..:
  
  
  Added a satisfying conclusion to the Remnant quest line. Be ready.

Here is the changelog for the 1.15 patch. I think many players will appreciate both the fixes and the additions, and it also holds some good stuff for modders.

• Fixed an issue with the Fletchette cannon and other dual-purpose Anti-Ship/PD weapons not damaging ships as they should.
  
  
• Increased the 'time-out range' of all weapons by 25%.
  
  You may have noticed your missiles exploding prematurely and other projectiles disappearing before they reached their target, therefore resulting in misses. This was due to the 'time-out' range of projectiles in the engine being equal to the maximum firing range of that weapon, so your ships fire on inevitably moving enemies at a range that means the projectiles can't travel far enough to hit them. This change will result in more satisfying projectile behavior, as projectiles fired at a moving ship that is in range will no longer time out before the target is reached when fired at maximum engagement range unless the enemy ship performs successful evasive manoeuvres.
  
  
• The automated freighter system has been patched so that it will no longer assign freighter-class vessels with no cargo capacity to carry cargo.
  
  This means that vessels designed on freighter hulls but purposed for other uses (e.g. supply ships, repair ships, 'Q-ship' warships) will no longer have their user-assigned orders overridden by the auto-freight AI if enabled.
  
  
• Adjusted the AI's desired ratio of ships to ensure mixed fleets.
  
  This now results in the AI splitting its proportions roughly between: Capitals: 3, Cruisers: 5, Frigates: 7, Fighters: 7, Dedicated Bombers: 1. This means that, given 23 ships, the ratio would break down like that. This should result in some more mixed AI fleets, and fix the issue seen at present wherein the AI is only fielding the largest ship type available at once. Expect more dangerous enemies with mixed target types - bring some anti-fighter cannons!
  
  
• Flak Cannons are now proximity fused.
  
  They therefore do not require direct hits to detonate anymore, and instead detonate either in proximity to any enemy vessel, or at their maximum pre-determined range, so they can be used as area-suppression weapons against fighter swarms.
  
  
• Enabled the use of the "ProjectileRadius" tag in weapons files. This will work on any weapons that modders may want to add this functionality to.
  
  
  
• Removed the requirement that you need money to rush production.
  
  

  #Discussions_QuoteBlock_Author

  You only need production now. I think this was causing a great deal of confusion about the economy, as players would see their income decreasing and have no feedback as why. What is happening is that your governors are spending your cash. Well, no more. Both the AI and the player will benefit from this change so it should be balance-neutral. In fact, I expect the AI will become more dangerous.

  
  
  
• Fixed an issue where Remnant kills weren't tracking properly through saved games which could result in you either missing the event or getting the event multiple times.
  
  
• Significant buff to the Disintegrator Cannon (ultimate beam weapon in vanilla SD) so that it is both superior to earlier beams, and also generally just deadly.
  
  
• Added a tag for Mod files < DisableDefaultRaces >true< /DisableDefaultRaces > if you want to remove the original StarDrive races from appearing while your mod is loaded.
  
  
• The sickbay should now appropriately heal injured troops that are stationed on board the craft
  
  
• Fixed the victory music not playing on the victory screen
  
  
• Fixed some inconsistencies between the displayed empire income and the calculated empire income. Somehow these could become desynced, but now they use the same function and should not desync.
  
  
• And finally..:
  
  
  Added a satisfying conclusion to the Remnant quest line. Be ready.

This latest patch does a lot of tinkering under the hood of StarDrive. You should see substantially better performance memory-wise and in the late game. You should also see much better play out of the AI due to economic tweaks. Their Core Strategic AI remains unchanged - it should be quite tricky as is. But now their Economic AI is much better, which means they will have more ships and better ships to fight you with. I took a long look at what type of things players were doing to get good economies and also at where the AI was making dumb economic choices. Let me know how your conquest goes!


Added fairly major memory optimizations. Possibly eliminated OOM errors. Please let me know your results
Added the Kulrathi Titan
Added Vulfar Titan
Changed the peace treaty notification icon to a dove icon
Double clicking a planet will no longer explore it automatically
Ships with ordnance fabricators will no longer be the target of resupply shuttles
EMP Torpedoes now actually do EMP Damage!
Added an indicator on the planet list screen for systems that have a known enemy presence
The cancel colonize order button on the planet list will properly abort the mission of a colony ship en route
Fixed an error where Cybernetic governors were not considering the effects of the tax rate in deciding how to set their production labor allocations, which could lead to poor results and starvation.
The Cybernetic AI will no longer colonize planets which have less than 1.0 richness
The Cybernetic governor will build biospheres on the best planets
Core World governors will now build biospheres automatically if they determine that it is beneficial to do so
Added new Core / Research world governor behavior which will adjust production and research percentages to try and make a profit when running at a deficit
Drastically changes the weight the AI gives to making capital ships (want them to build lots more)
Reduced the number of freighters and passenger transports the AI wants to build
The AI will be smarter about building up its fleet so as to keep its economy running smoothly
The AI will now be more aggressive about scouting
Governors will be more careful about building shipyards unless they can be properly supported financially
All governors will be more careful to only begin construction projects when they believe they can afford the maintenance
The AI will build projectors only if they can very comfortable afford them
Changed a Core World governor rule that would have them switch to research if their production stores get full. Won't do that anymore because it affects their taxes
Changed the way ship maintenance works. Maintenance is now a fixed amount depending on ship class.
Fixed an error where the Ship Scrapping logic would collide with the Auto Explore logic to have stuttery-looking AI scout ships
Fixed an error where expeditionary fleets could run out of ammo and fail to rearm

This latest patch does a lot of tinkering under the hood of StarDrive. You should see substantially better performance memory-wise and in the late game. You should also see much better play out of the AI due to economic tweaks. Their Core Strategic AI remains unchanged - it should be quite tricky as is. But now their Economic AI is much better, which means they will have more ships and better ships to fight you with. I took a long look at what type of things players were doing to get good economies and also at where the AI was making dumb economic choices. Let me know how your conquest goes!


Added fairly major memory optimizations. Possibly eliminated OOM errors. Please let me know your results
Added the Kulrathi Titan
Added Vulfar Titan
Changed the peace treaty notification icon to a dove icon
Double clicking a planet will no longer explore it automatically
Ships with ordnance fabricators will no longer be the target of resupply shuttles
EMP Torpedoes now actually do EMP Damage!
Added an indicator on the planet list screen for systems that have a known enemy presence
The cancel colonize order button on the planet list will properly abort the mission of a colony ship en route
Fixed an error where Cybernetic governors were not considering the effects of the tax rate in deciding how to set their production labor allocations, which could lead to poor results and starvation.
The Cybernetic AI will no longer colonize planets which have less than 1.0 richness
The Cybernetic governor will build biospheres on the best planets
Core World governors will now build biospheres automatically if they determine that it is beneficial to do so
Added new Core / Research world governor behavior which will adjust production and research percentages to try and make a profit when running at a deficit
Drastically changes the weight the AI gives to making capital ships (want them to build lots more)
Reduced the number of freighters and passenger transports the AI wants to build
The AI will be smarter about building up its fleet so as to keep its economy running smoothly
The AI will now be more aggressive about scouting
Governors will be more careful about building shipyards unless they can be properly supported financially
All governors will be more careful to only begin construction projects when they believe they can afford the maintenance
The AI will build projectors only if they can very comfortable afford them
Changed a Core World governor rule that would have them switch to research if their production stores get full. Won't do that anymore because it affects their taxes
Changed the way ship maintenance works. Maintenance is now a fixed amount depending on ship class.
Fixed an error where the Ship Scrapping logic would collide with the Auto Explore logic to have stuttery-looking AI scout ships
Fixed an error where expeditionary fleets could run out of ammo and fail to rearm

Greetings people of Earth.

We have seen some confusion floating around the internet about the state of StarDrive - rumors that StarDrive is a dead or abandoned game. To help clear that up, we wanted to make a post here to confirm that StarDrive is, in fact, a feature complete and comprehensive 4x game that receives regular updates.

If you want to follow our development progress, then you can join us over at the official stardrivegame.com forums. You can also view all of the patch notes for each version in the Patch Notes forum, found here:
http://stardrivegame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

Thanks for your continued support! Have fun conquering the galaxy.

Greetings people of Earth.

We have seen some confusion floating around the internet about the state of StarDrive - rumors that StarDrive is a dead or abandoned game. To help clear that up, we wanted to make a post here to confirm that StarDrive is, in fact, a feature complete and comprehensive 4x game that receives regular updates.

If you want to follow our development progress, then you can join us over at the official stardrivegame.com forums. You can also view all of the patch notes for each version in the Patch Notes forum, found here:
http://stardrivegame.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

Thanks for your continued support! Have fun conquering the galaxy.