There is now new version available for Open Realm of Stars 0.25.0.
These update focus mainly on starmap performance and behaviour. There is now new way how star map is being drawn and this significantly improves frames per second. This can be noticed by moving the mouse. Previously game draw full star map always on screen. In this version it will keep track which tiles needs to be redrawn and only draws them. I also tried out adding a separate thread which would do the drawing, since it was quite easy to do. Drawing itself was quite separate method. This actually worked with my desktop, but for unknown reason drawing got slower on my laptop. So after that I decided to draw only tiles which were changed.
Second big feature is zooming in and out. Simply using mouse wheel, player is able to zoom in and out. This caused that all tiles were redrawn in 64x64 pixel size and then scaled to 32x32 and 16x16 tiles. Also black hole is now just regular tiles. Previously it was mixing the background pixels but that cause issues with new drawing routine. But I think new black hole tiles are better looking than the old ones, it is also faster to drawn.
Then one where is zoomed out:
There are couple of new perks for leader, mostly for commanders. Commander can gain experience by finding new planets or doing explore missions on planets. If they have cartographer or trekker perk experience is doubled from these tasks.
Background story is also bit more improved and there is more variant in texts. When game ends there are more events which are shown in full story of the realm. There also smaller improvements and bug fixes and Java7 is no longer supported. Java11 is now the minimum Java version. This should not cause any issues since Java7 is really old version.
Open Realm of Stars is available in Github or Itchio.
Have you watch the gifs in lpc-walls you linked. Way I think of how to use walls is that think whole map filled with black, then you carve your walls into the map. So that is the wall topping, see gif:
Then each topping can have what every wall pattern you like, they are mostly 3 tiles tall. There are left and right 3 tiles and then center tiles which can be repeated. There can be a little bit of shadow next to wall in order to create contrast next to the walls. When I used LPC, my game engine did that automatically. See that also picture on below.
Then it depends on your game engine if you want that characters are able to walk "behind" the walls, or are the only able to walk tiles which are fully visible. Since walls are three tiles tall, there should be room to walk next to actual wall. Problem is just how to draw it. See bottom of the map in this picture:
There is now new version available for Open Realm of Stars 0.24.0Beta.
Originally my plan was add new game ending, but I got quite many good quality of live improvement suggestions, so I focused on those.
I also saw AI discussion on Reddit and based on that I also modified the most difficult AI.
First obvious new UI improvement is that there are two selectable UI schemes: classic and new space grey. Spacegrey is a bit more calmer hopefully clearer. Then there are improvements for fleet movements. There is small icon indicate if fleet has moves left, or has been routed or already moved. There is also a button for regular movements in starmap view. User can also switch planets/fleets by pressing tab and tab+shift keys. Esc key also moves one view back if that is possible.
There is also improvements for leader view. In same view there is a list of recruitable leaders, so no more getting random leader when user clicks recruit button. Also if two realms are in trade alliance it is possible to recruite leader from another, as long as your realm does not have xenophobia.
There is also improvement in planet view. There is secondary tab which shows uncolonized planets in a list. Best found planetary is on top of the list and it even tries to get new planet close to your old ones.
There is also background story for each realm. This is show for human player in the beginning of the game. It depends on your space race, goverment, starting planet and based on randomization. At end of the game you are able to see you full story depending on what events happened during the game. You can also view story for each realm.
Then about the AI. Previously all AI in Open Realm of Stars was giving a score for each building project. Then on dice roll was done, bigger the score bigger the chance for getting that project to be picked. But in Reddit discussion, it turn out it would be better to always pick the highest score. This required quite many changes for the scoring since, now there should not be equal score for projects. For example building factory and mine got same score. Now it depends how many production or metal planet is producing and that affects for scoring.
For this AI change I also modifed JUnits which actually run whole games by the AI. Previously each test had different output based on what was the purpose of that test. Now I changed that each test prints out everything. This actually helped a lot for debugging the AI and getting the improvements done.
There are also quite many bugs being fixed and added smaller new features like space anomaly which contains destroyed planet, or precius gems planetary event.
There is now new version of Open Realm of Stars(0.23.0Beta) available. Biggest change is that in order to get diplomatic victory one needs to get at least 50% or more galaxy to vote. So it means realms can now abstain voting for the ruler. Galactic secretary can now choose what to vote next, previously this was chosen randomly.
Another big change is that leader are selected from separate list. Each planet that can deliver leader is added then into list. Leaders are some amount of turns there and they get older while they are in the list. So this means that it is possible to select what kind of leader one is going to hire.
In diplomatic view it is possible to now see relation bonuses on tool tip. There is also open text search in game's tutorial/help feature. There are also quite many new texts added into tutorial.
Open Realm of Stars now contains new images to all random events and planetary events. These images has been created using stable diffusion. Some of those images I were able to create those with prompt but others required more work. For example deserted ship is done so that I first created fighter jet and stiched to look like two fuselages and engines just copying pieces of that generated jet fighter. Space background was created with separate prompt. Then img2img tool was to create stiched jet fighter to single alien ship.
In statistics view, planet view there is now added number of planets each realm has. This was clearly missing from the statistics, since if there are multiple realms it is possible that there are multiple realms with same amount of planets and line graph is not enough.
This version has been finished quite, long but I have been also working with Let's play video where I play with Teuthidae Empire so that I try to focus on Cloaking devices and espionage modules. Link to let's play video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tzt2KRkhE
Open Realm of Stars is available in both Itchio and Github.
To me this does not look like AI generated image. I cannot spot anything weird stuff going on. All plant signs seem to be in reasonable positions. Also reverse image search reveals that this place is in Italy, The Brera Botanic Garden.
This new version updates mostly user interface and AI. For user interface starmap can be scrolled by dragging it with mouse. Another big change in starmap is that with left clicking it is possible to plan regular move route a bit similar like FTL route. One must click at least two sectors farther from fleet to start planning the route. Clicking sector next to fleet it still moves the fleet. During combat there is possibility to shown weapon ranges for current ship.
For AI there is improved challenging exploration algorithm. AI also now can change target of colony planet if it notice that planet has been colonized. Previously this required that AI travelled next to planet. Now if planet has been visible earlier and it is colonized, cultural value of sector changes and this is visible even behind the fog of war. There has been also fixed a bug where AI always attacked against orbital no matter what the defense was. I have also fixed AI bug where gathering attack fleet could get jammed if planet where gathering was suppose to happen was actually occupied by another realm. Also if AI ship escapes from combat and it was defending on planet, it now returns to nearest safe home planet.
There are three new background music and one new combat music. Two new star images, previously there was just single star image. Humans now start from planet called Earth and also other planets have correct names and some even images. There is also possible to find Galactic News Broadcasting Company's station. From there you can find ancient artefact. Some space anomalies also contain ancient artefacts. Currently these can be research by leader and they give boost for scientific research. Artifacts can be also trade with other realms. Later versions idea is that these could be used for gaining a new type victory in game.
There is now new version available for Open Realm of Stars 0.25.0.
These update focus mainly on starmap performance and behaviour. There is now new way how star map is being drawn and this significantly improves frames per second. This can be noticed by moving the mouse. Previously game draw full star map always on screen. In this version it will keep track which tiles needs to be redrawn and only draws them. I also tried out adding a separate thread which would do the drawing, since it was quite easy to do. Drawing itself was quite separate method. This actually worked with my desktop, but for unknown reason drawing got slower on my laptop. So after that I decided to draw only tiles which were changed.
Second big feature is zooming in and out. Simply using mouse wheel, player is able to zoom in and out. This caused that all tiles were redrawn in 64x64 pixel size and then scaled to 32x32 and 16x16 tiles. Also black hole is now just regular tiles. Previously it was mixing the background pixels but that cause issues with new drawing routine. But I think new black hole tiles are better looking than the old ones, it is also faster to drawn.
Then one where is zoomed out:
There are couple of new perks for leader, mostly for commanders. Commander can gain experience by finding new planets or doing explore missions on planets. If they have cartographer or trekker perk experience is doubled from these tasks.
Background story is also bit more improved and there is more variant in texts. When game ends there are more events which are shown in full story of the realm. There also smaller improvements and bug fixes and Java7 is no longer supported. Java11 is now the minimum Java version. This should not cause any issues since Java7 is really old version.
Open Realm of Stars is available in Github or Itchio.
Have you watch the gifs in lpc-walls you linked. Way I think of how to use walls is that think whole map filled with black, then you carve your walls into the map. So that is the wall topping, see gif:
Then each topping can have what every wall pattern you like, they are mostly 3 tiles tall. There are left and right 3 tiles and then center tiles which can be repeated. There can be a little bit of shadow next to wall in order to create contrast next to the walls. When I used LPC, my game engine did that automatically. See that also picture on below.
Then it depends on your game engine if you want that characters are able to walk "behind" the walls, or are the only able to walk tiles which are fully visible. Since walls are three tiles tall, there should be room to walk next to actual wall. Problem is just how to draw it. See bottom of the map in this picture:
What has happened for colors? Some look bit overcolored and some like colors were washed out.
There is now new version available for Open Realm of Stars 0.24.0Beta.
Originally my plan was add new game ending, but I got quite many good quality of live improvement suggestions, so I focused on those.
I also saw AI discussion on Reddit and based on that I also modified the most difficult AI.
First obvious new UI improvement is that there are two selectable UI schemes: classic and new space grey. Spacegrey is a bit more calmer hopefully clearer. Then there are improvements for fleet movements. There is small icon indicate if fleet has moves left, or has been routed or already moved. There is also a button for regular movements in starmap view. User can also switch planets/fleets by pressing tab and tab+shift keys. Esc key also moves one view back if that is possible.
There is also improvements for leader view. In same view there is a list of recruitable leaders, so no more getting random leader when user clicks recruit button. Also if two realms are in trade alliance it is possible to recruite leader from another, as long as your realm does not have xenophobia.
There is also improvement in planet view. There is secondary tab which shows uncolonized planets in a list. Best found planetary is on top of the list and it even tries to get new planet close to your old ones.
There is also background story for each realm. This is show for human player in the beginning of the game. It depends on your space race, goverment, starting planet and based on randomization. At end of the game you are able to see you full story depending on what events happened during the game. You can also view story for each realm.
Then about the AI. Previously all AI in Open Realm of Stars was giving a score for each building project. Then on dice roll was done, bigger the score bigger the chance for getting that project to be picked. But in Reddit discussion, it turn out it would be better to always pick the highest score. This required quite many changes for the scoring since, now there should not be equal score for projects. For example building factory and mine got same score. Now it depends how many production or metal planet is producing and that affects for scoring.
For this AI change I also modifed JUnits which actually run whole games by the AI. Previously each test had different output based on what was the purpose of that test. Now I changed that each test prints out everything. This actually helped a lot for debugging the AI and getting the improvements done.
There are also quite many bugs being fixed and added smaller new features like space anomaly which contains destroyed planet, or precius gems planetary event.
There is also new trailer for this release.
Open Realm of Stars is available in Github or Itchio:
There is now new version of Open Realm of Stars(0.23.0Beta) available. Biggest change is that in order to get diplomatic victory one needs to get at least 50% or more galaxy to vote. So it means realms can now abstain voting for the ruler. Galactic secretary can now choose what to vote next, previously this was chosen randomly.
Another big change is that leader are selected from separate list. Each planet that can deliver leader is added then into list. Leaders are some amount of turns there and they get older while they are in the list. So this means that it is possible to select what kind of leader one is going to hire.
In diplomatic view it is possible to now see relation bonuses on tool tip. There is also open text search in game's tutorial/help feature. There are also quite many new texts added into tutorial.
Open Realm of Stars now contains new images to all random events and planetary events. These images has been created using stable diffusion. Some of those images I were able to create those with prompt but others required more work. For example deserted ship is done so that I first created fighter jet and stiched to look like two fuselages and engines just copying pieces of that generated jet fighter. Space background was created with separate prompt. Then img2img tool was to create stiched jet fighter to single alien ship.
In statistics view, planet view there is now added number of planets each realm has. This was clearly missing from the statistics, since if there are multiple realms it is possible that there are multiple realms with same amount of planets and line graph is not enough.
This version has been finished quite, long but I have been also working with Let's play video where I play with Teuthidae Empire so that I try to focus on Cloaking devices and espionage modules. Link to let's play video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2tzt2KRkhE
Open Realm of Stars is available in both Itchio and Github.
Looks nice. Have you tried mirror images when they are facing not towards players? I think it might make sense in this case?
Interesting music. I get some ambient space feelings too. Is there a story behind the name? It is in Finnish and means church park.
To me this does not look like AI generated image. I cannot spot anything weird stuff going on. All plant signs seem to be in reasonable positions. Also reverse image search reveals that this place is in Italy, The Brera Botanic Garden.
https://www.gruppouna.it/en/magazine/hidden-gems-the-secret-gardens-behind-the-doors-of-milan-s-historical-palazzi
There is same blueish round building and same bigger building with 3 AC units on next to wall.
New version of Open Realm of Stars is available. 0.22.0Beta is available in Github or Itch.io:
https://github.com/tuomount/Open-Realms-of-Stars
https://reemax.itch.io/open-realm-of-stars
This new version updates mostly user interface and AI. For user interface starmap can be scrolled by dragging it with mouse. Another big change in starmap is that with left clicking it is possible to plan regular move route a bit similar like FTL route. One must click at least two sectors farther from fleet to start planning the route. Clicking sector next to fleet it still moves the fleet. During combat there is possibility to shown weapon ranges for current ship.
For AI there is improved challenging exploration algorithm. AI also now can change target of colony planet if it notice that planet has been colonized. Previously this required that AI travelled next to planet. Now if planet has been visible earlier and it is colonized, cultural value of sector changes and this is visible even behind the fog of war. There has been also fixed a bug where AI always attacked against orbital no matter what the defense was. I have also fixed AI bug where gathering attack fleet could get jammed if planet where gathering was suppose to happen was actually occupied by another realm. Also if AI ship escapes from combat and it was defending on planet, it now returns to nearest safe home planet.
There are three new background music and one new combat music. Two new star images, previously there was just single star image. Humans now start from planet called Earth and also other planets have correct names and some even images. There is also possible to find Galactic News Broadcasting Company's station. From there you can find ancient artefact. Some space anomalies also contain ancient artefacts. Currently these can be research by leader and they give boost for scientific research. Artifacts can be also trade with other realms. Later versions idea is that these could be used for gaining a new type victory in game.
There is also Let's Play series in Youtube. I have also made video about Galaxy Settings and all the Space Races.
Epic song like always! Amazing head banger!
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