Starfall Tactics - next-gen Space RTS powered by Unreal Engine

Today, as we promised, we are ready to give you more interesting infromation about upcoming changes in Starfall Tactics! Read about Mothership skills, modules and new ship: http://starfalltactics.com/news/wip-mothe…es-and-new-ship

Hey guys! Starfall Tactics development is going full speed ahead - there is a lot of stuff we need to prepare to fully implement Faction Wars, and we are pretty sure that you will like it.

Due to new features we are implementing, there will be important changes in the interface. But we couldn't imagine that our 2D artist, D.Van, would give a totally new look to it.

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It is still in progress and this could be not the final look.

And we are ready to present another three modules, which are going to help you develop new great tactics - just read it and imagine how much you can do only with that!

• Warp Interference is a 3x3 module. Generates space distortion on activation in a certain radius around itself, has an ulimited duration. If any ship tries to warp within this radius, it will warp to another random location instead.
• Stasis module is a 2х4 sized activatable special equipment. Temporarily puts enemy's ship into a stasis field - in this field a ship can't perform any actions, can't be attacked, won't take any damage, even if you ram it, and all ability cooldowns will freeze.
• Nebula Generator is a 2x2 module which creates a small nebula on activation. Nebula will stay where you created it for a few minutes and will work as a usual nebula - hides your ship once it gets inside, but reduces its vision.

This always happens to older characters and units - one day you understand that they are not as good as ones you've just created, not as detailed and just look too different to leave it as it is. So we've just given a new life to Advisor - Deprived Dreadnought which loves ramming your ships in survival mode.

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In case you haven't seen it before or just don't remember every detail of this huge dreadnought - here is a screenshot of an older model.

Hey, today we are going to tell you about Warp Points Income Changes, two new modules and the first Deprived cruiser - Abaris!

Warp Points Income Changes

In previous articles we told you about Control Points rebalance and some other changes in Quick Matches. But there is another important thing we should tell you about - changes in WP income. As you know, in the beginning of the battle you get 9000 WP - and it's quite a big amount you can spend to warp in even a couple battlecruisers and a dreadnought. And that's where you think: Yes, I warp in my strongest ships, capture several control points, warp the rest of my fleet and that's it!

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Current WP cost of your fleet can be seen on the top left of your screen. But it would be too boring - so, we changed some WP income rules: Each ship you summon not only spends a certain amount of WP, but also requires some resource for staying on the battlefield or, in other words, has a maintenance cost, which reduces your WP income and depends on the ship cost. And, if you spend all you WP on warping in ships, you will have a low income which allow your enemy (let's think he summoned only a couple defensive ships) to collect more points, summon more ships, and become a real problem for you. That's where you decide: will you go full in (rush) on the first minutes, or will warp only a few ships to capture points and collect more resource, or go full defense, or will do something else. In this case, scouting is a very important thing since it's very important to know what your opponent is going to do and counter his tactics.

New Modules

Each new module opens a new tactical opportunity for your fleet and also allows somebody to create a counter-tactic for existing strategy - for example, this Kinetic Wall is a perfect weapon versus ramming Advisors in PvE Survival mode, while Shield Overload allows a fleet which focuses on energy shields survive even physical damage and don't exchange their maneuverability to additional armor. And that's not the only way to use them - just read short descriptions and invent your own evil strategy!

• Shield Overload module overloads shield on activation, making it able to consume not only energy damage, but also damage dealt by physical projectiles. But in exchange it continuosly consumes shield hit points and every shot deals twice damage to it. When Shield Overload is activated, all shields become visible.
• Kinetic Wall module - 2х4 special equipment. Creates a kinetic wall, which doesn't let any physical objects, including projectiles and ships, pass through it. Energy weapons can still bypass this wall, but if a ship bumps into this wall, it takes a lot of damage like if he tried to ram an asteroid.

Abaris cruiser

Deprived faction gets the first cruiser-class (400m) ship - Abaris. This is a light ship with a good turn speed and side weapons in several modifications - a good scouting ship with ability to trick and shoot frigates. At the same time, ramming on this ship or fighting with other cruisers can be no easy task, except of some specific modifications, perhaps.

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If you haven't visited our Facebook and Twitter pages last week, we ensure to do it now - there are also some new screenshots and information there!

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Another week of Starfall Tactics development is over - and we are one step closer to getting the game ready for the next test! Colonies, wars for faction territories, new ships and modules, reputation, progression and many other things we might even haven't announced yet - all in progress and waiting for its moment of glory. So read fresh news and get ready for something great

Aaand the first Eclipse cruiser is ready! Arco is a small Eclipse hammer, which will crash enemy frigates by ramming them and killing with its deadly weaponry.

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Let us introduce new system we created for making your journey through open space more interesting - well, at least without meeting a fleet of 20 super heavy dreadnoughts - Detachment system!

Now, to enter Galaxy map (discovery mode, MMO part of the game) your fleet will have to send a detachment to a mission. Each detachment has a certain use and, depending on it, it can contain different number of ships of each class. For example, player could be able to choose 2 different ship sets by ship class: 1) 2 battlecruisers, 3 cruisers and 3 light frigates. 2) 1 heavy dreadnought, 1 battleship, 3 battlecruisers and 2 light frigates. Players fill these entire slots with ships he has in the fleet, and they will be available during Discovery session. Note that while smaller slots can't be filled with bigger ships, huge slots can have frigates and other smaller ships inside: this helps you keep all slots filled even if you don't have heavy ships in your fleet at all.

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Note: this could be not the final look of detachment menu. WIP.

From the very start you will have some basic detachments you can use. As a reward for gaining reputation levels with chosen faction.

We've just created ping commands which you can use by holding the Alt button and clicking on the map! This option is frequently used in MOBA games, where you don't have time to stop and say something. In Starfall Tactics you have to control several units at a time, so you might have even less time.

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Giant dreadnought, faction planets, ability to name a ship and get some other rewards for progression - this week is filled with epic things - and here are some of them:

New Eclipse dreadnought, giant brutal ship - Nomad!

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Deprived, Vanguard and Eclipse factions - all of them have their homelands. And if you are curious enough, you could notice planet concepts while reading faction descriptions on our website. Earth, Ancora and Odysseus - they are so different, but each is a home for billions of humans. And here are two of them in all their evil beauty:

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Earth, home for the Deprived, and a shameful past for the rest of humanity. That's what can happen to a single planet if you don't take care of it - ruins, radioactive wasteland, unbreathable air. But even abandoned by everybody, destined to die, smaller groups of people who were left there managed to survive and overcome it all. This disastrous world changed their appearance and lifestyle drastically, while the Black Blizzard only made some finishing touches.

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Ancora became a new home for those who achieved moving from Earth. This planet was the nearest one, suitable for terraforming and, obviously, was set as a place where people hoped to start a new life for all of the humanity. While not everybody agreed with the will of Vanguard to establish a Far Left regime, there were not so many problems until Eclipse Inc. eventually separated from them.

Each ship, and even each copy of that ship, regardless of the modules you insert into it, will have a separate progression. And it's obvious, that for leveling up you will need to get a certain amount of XP, received for different actions on the battlefield: capturing points, dealing damage, taking damage, etc.

For unloсking new levels you will receive the following rewards:

• Ability to paint your ship
• Master skin for your ship
• Ability to name your ship
• Ship Tech level increase (Ship Tech level defines modules you can equip onto this ship. You can equip modules only of the same or lower Tech level).
• Achievements (Once achievement system will be implemented).

We have some good news for you: starting now you will be able to add capacity to your ship, quickly get information about surroundings in Discovery mode and, as many of you asked, create custom key bindings!

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Now you will be able to change key bindings the way you like it through the settings menu - for both quick matches and Discovery mode. To do it - simply click on the second column, press a key you want to assign and it's done!

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To let you get around and understand surroundings better, we added an ability to see information about objects in hexes. By left-clicking on a hex in space you will get a small window with a picture and a short description of all objects inside of it.

Sometimes you don't have enough capacity to fit it the way you like. And this module will help you in resolving this issue - although it's huge enough (3x3), it still can work for you as a life-saving feature adding some capacity to your favourite ship.

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At the moment this module is available only through fleet progression in a single copy.

September is almost over and who knows, what is coming in October? Stay tuned and never miss important information about Starfall Tactics development!

This time we are ready to show not only a new cool module and great faction planets, but also some new stuff for our MMO part of the game, which can be interesting for those who are excited about upcoming content and Faction Wars

We've already shown you two faction planets in previous articles - Earth and Ancora. But there is another one left, belonging to the Eclipse faction - and it's finally here:

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Odysseus Pirates, stations, depots, warpgates, colonized planets, Motherships, black markets, huge enemy fleets - and, most likely, this is not the full list of things you will be able to encounter while furrowing the vast of Starfall Tactics universe.

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So, here are new structures you couldn't see during previous tests - Outpost and Supply Station.

• Supply Station - This is a basic structure you can build for capturing a system. This Station collects resources from all planets in its' system and provides it with necessary supplies e.g. food.
• Outpost - Upgraded Supply Station. Provides better supplies distribution, launches NPC guarding fleets into the system and gives vision in this system for all faction members (doesn't depend on whether you explored it or not). Outposts have better protection and it's harder to destroy them.
• Mothership - Structure of the highest grade, the most protected one. Does all things listed above in a better way and has other important functions: allows warping between Motherships, refueling and repairing all fleets, finishing Discovery session, taking all blueprints and modules to your account inventory and selling loot.

Cluster Missile is another useful thing to help you destroy swarms of smaller ships. As you could understand from its name, it's a missile which splits into several pieces and can do some area damage with smaller missiles.

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At the moment it is presented in the game as a special module, but there is a huge chance that it eventually will become a weapon.

More

Today we continue telling you about Faction Wars mechanics and, as we promised, showing some new cool weapons - hope you are ready to test it all and will invent some great strategies once you acquire these modules

As we already said, you can conquer faction systems by building Supply Stations there. Of course, system which belongs to your faction and where you can freely spend your time is a cool thing, but we definitely need something else to make the game more interesting, right? So, we added and will add many other things - we already have some in our roadmap, and this time we are telling you about planet colonization.

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At first, let's say a couple words about Сolonization. In Starfall Tactics you are able to establish a colony on each planet, spending a special item which you can acquire from your Mothership in exchange to reputation. There are two types of colonies:

• Supply Factory: provides resources like food and other necessary stuff, which spends on maintaining life in colonies. If there are not enough supplies, people on a planet start dying and colonies become less effective. If there are a lot of resources, population increases and colonies work better.
• Mining Complex: mines valuable resources like ore which can be spent on building Supply Stations and upgrading it to Outposts and Motherships.
• But since each planet has it's own parameters like Temperature, Atmosphere, Life probability and resource availability - some of them produce better, some - worse, and some can't have colonies of certain type at all. It still can be changed if you acquire a special item which terraforms chosen planet, making conditions better within reasonable limits.

Structures like Supply Stations, Outposts and Motherships help you distribute resources from colonies: if there is one on a system, from time to time planets send a certain amount of produced resources to the structure and it distributes to planets which have a need in it or to a building structure. If a planet in need is in other system, structure sends a caravan to it, but it must be connected through other structures, like a chain - otherwise it won't be able to deliver resources. And these caravans can be attacked and robbed, but take care - while players of other faction benefit from it in all ways, players of the same faction will lose reputation. You also can deliver resources manually, receiving reward in IGC and reputation.

Last time we said that there are some new weapons in development - and today we are ready to present you three of them. And since there are not so much missile weapons in Starfall Tactics, two of them are launchers which differ not only with size and damage, but also with some smaller mechanical nuances.

• Protonic Torpedo Launcher - Launches torpedoes with a great AOE effect.
• Melted Avalanche - Assault Rocket Launcher, launching a big amount of rockets at once. Deals sufficient damage, but has a relatively long cooldown.
• CQC Laser - Assault laser with average range, deals maximum damage only in near distances.

Aside from new weapons, we decided to create another module which refers to special equipment - and it will be a great addition into a number of already existing mines.

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Neutron mine is very effective against crew. While having a 2000m explosion radius and an average damage, it allows you to destroy more crew on enemy ships then usual damage does.

Wars for territories, planet colonization, faction houses (guilds), intense battles in quick matches and the whole Universe to conquer - all of this and even more is waiting for players in Starfall Tactics! We are running pre-Alpha Faction Wars test from 10th November 18:00 CET to 13th November 23:55 CET and everybody who signs up for the test receives a key.

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During upcoming Faction Wars pre-Alpha test participants will be able to try the following features in their basic version:

• Wars for Faction territories - participate in galaxy conquest!
• Faction Guilds - create your own House and lead it into battle!
• Station building - build Supply Stations, Outposts and Motherships to protect faction territories.
• Planet Colonization - colonize planets to help your faction grow and upgrade structures to powerful defensive buildings!
• Freighters - Resource Distribution System, which helps you maintain all colonies and stuctures. Yes, you can rob "caravans" - some Russians will get the joke

Quick matches are also available to play with all changes we mentioned in previous articles. Full Patch Notes and infromation about Houses will be published later on our website.

Sign up for the test here and you will recive an access to the upcoming event

Faction Wars is a very interesting and complex system and sometimes it takes more time than we expect for our small team to implement features we'd love to present here. That's why we have to take an extra week - Pre-Alpha Faction Wars test postponed until 17th November 18:00 CET! We apologize for the inconvenience it might cause to everybody who is looking forward to play Starfall Tactics here. We also published some infirmation about attacking and capturing enemy systems which is available here.

Here are a couple of related screenshots with short info - first one shows station attack, while second one - captured regions:

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To start attack on enemy systems players in Starfall Tactics need to go to the system, fly close to enemy structure and push the "Attack" button - it starts an event for capturing a system. This event is visible for both involved factions, and announced for all faction members - you definitely won't miss it. The third faction can not participate and influence it directly - they only can set ambushes near gates to the place of conflict which is also a very painful thing for both factions. [Blocked Image: http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/fw2res.jpg] To successfully destroy enemy structure you need to get enough military intel (represented by Warp Points) from Key Positions (special instances) around the structure. To destroy a Supply Station you should capture 5 Positions, for an Outpost - 10, for a Mothership - 20. Key Positions count as captured once the attacking faction collects 100.000 WP in this instance (hex).

And Vanguard Supply Station, Outpost and Mothership - important structures for faction wars:

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We've just started 2nd pre-Alpha Faction Wars test and you can try Starfall Tactics now! During this test player will be able to capture territories, establish Houses (faction guilds), colonize planets, fight against NPC pirate faction, and check new solo PvE Survival - there are a lot of exciting things to do and test. Ther are still an ability to name planets and stars as some left without names

Don't forget to join one of existing Houses or create your own and reach the top of the leaderboard by helping your faction conquer the confines of known space! This time you have to fight not only against two other factions - pirates are also going to cause some troubles and establish their bases nearby.

This test lasts only until 18th December inclusive.

This week we're having two events at a time: Starfall Tactics Winter Cup and a one-week pre-Alpha test!

First ever Starfall Tactics' test tournament is starting tomorrow on 27th January 20:00 CET for a Group Stage and continues on 28th January starting 20:00 CET for Play-offs. You can watch live streams with dev comments on our official Twitch channel - 16 chosen players will fight for the title of the best Commander!

And, to mark this important, event we decided to open servers until 29th January 23:59 CET! Players can try New Ranked Mode which, only during this week, allows to check out for free almost every module in the game, including progression equipment! Discovery (MMO) mode and usual unranked PvP Conquest & PvE Survival quick matches are also available during this test.

To participate in this test simply send an application for the alpha here - and we will grant you an access once we see your request

Oh, and here is a new dreadnought for Deprived faction:

Another stage in Starfall Tactics' development has just begun - so, it's time to add some awesome stuff: Carriers, gravity weapons and new stations for discovery. And that's only the beginning - we are about to implement other great features.

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• Research Station is an extremely helpful feature for the House (guild): it allows to generate research points which players can spend on some useful stuff, making them protect bases with more diligence.
• Carriers are giant ships which can carry other small vessels - squads of bombers, fighters and other special ships. Too fast and small to be even targeted by large spaceship weapons, they can be a real problem, and that's without telling the Carrier itself is a huge well-protected construction.

Gravity stuff appeared to be not a very easy thing to add due to our in-game physics: one wrong impulse and it can become an ultimate weapon, crushing enemy ships in a second. So, we started it from one basic module, pushing enemy ships to the center of area of impact.

Starfall Tactics development is going full speed ahead, and we are another step closer to the "it's more than awesome" state. This week we were busy with inner parts of the game and really great stuff which deserves a huge separate news post later - so, this time we continue showing Carriers.

Here is Carrier itself in 2D and 3D sketch along with additional important info:

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Almace, the mighty red giant, is on it's way to Starfall Tactics. This ship is really huge: twice wider than, for example, Mjolnir, and 1200m in length, which is 200m more than any dreadnought in the game! Other Carriers will continue this trend, as they need a lot of space to carry a lot of smaller ships inside.

Of course, each Carrier has either platforms or hatchways to be able to launch squads of fighters and other small ships into space - that's where we would love to add some cool animations, but since it takes some time, we will concentrate on it someday later.

Let's come back to fighters, one of the smallest ship types you are able to have on-board of your Carrier. Fighters are a common strike squad, designed to perform quick assaults by dealing continuous damage to enemy ships, and we've just finished programming the core mechanincs for them - so that's what they look like in action:

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Fighters can't be targeted with normal weapons due to their size and speed, but can be taken away by AOE damage, just like other squads of smaller ships you will be able to see and use later. Make sure you check next WIP post - there might be more info about Carriers & ship squads they use

Faction portraits - That's the first thing you see once you enter the game, marking one of the most momentous steps in Starfall Tactics - choosing your first faction and starting fleet. That means that all the info and visuals you can see in the faction menu are really important as many of you stay with this choice, going with it through hell and high water.

So, recently we worked on new representations for faction portraits, which might replace existing ones or become a new acquaintance somewhere on your way through the Starfall Tactics Universe - we are currently on our way to decide where exactly we should place them. So check it out!

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This week was as great as usual and here are some stuff we've recently done - hope you'll like it

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Almace, Vanguard Carrier - the first Carrier to appear in Starfall Tactics - it is the biggest ship in the game so far - 1200 long and twice wider than normal dreadnought.

[Blocked Image: http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/boom_1.gif] Active Module Hack - special module, which activates all modules of the target ship simultaneously and chooses random targets and areas for them.

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Centenary, Eclipse Carrier. It still has to pass a long way before at least being added to the gallery of 3D ship models - but you can already see it's great form on 2D and 3D sketches made by our artists.

For the past year we held five open tests, and each gave us new important information about different aspects of the game - sometimes disappointing, but more often - surprising. The Team can not wait to launch Starfall Tactics, but we have postponed this moment for a while, understanding that there are not enough content, some technical issues to be solved, some mechanics to be tweaked, and there are many more ideas that we want to check and possibly add to the game. Starfall Tactics was at the Pre-Alpha stage precisely because we were primarily engaged in research and checked various mechanics. And today we are happy to inform that most researches are completed, we see the form in which the game should be launched well and we have already started developing the Alpha version of Starfall Tactics! It's time to tell about all upcoming changes:

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• MMO and Ranked Mode - For a long time now our game has been trying to combine two completely different, interesting, but poorly compatible parts: an MMO, where progression and exploring are very important, and a rating session-based game, where players must compete in 100% equal conditions. After the last test and the tournament we have held, we came to the decision to split the game into two general modes.

• Characters - As in many MMO games, now you will be able to create a character, customize it, give it a name and, of course, choose a faction.

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• Shipyard - a place, where you can create and store your ships: as we are adding Commanders with a strictly defined faction, there is no need to create several fleets any more - customization menu will change significantly, including visual part (sure, it's going to be beautiful!)

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Shipyard (sketch)

Blueprints - There is a lot of new content incoming for the MMO part of Starfall Tactics: there are some plans for the questing system, new NPC factions, stations, House features, a variety of opportunities for exploring the Galaxy and the already mentioned crafting system, along with resource extraction. And in order to provide you with more familiar MMO experience, especially by getting new equipment from challenging battles against bosses, rare merchants on the borders of the Galaxy, we decided to abandon the blueprint concept. Now, instead of 3 blueprints, each booster pack contains 10-15 pieces of various equipment with a total cost exceeding the IGC cost of the booster. In general, there is a large number of ways to get modules now, and you have even more chances to get the exact module you need for your fleet.

Crafting - Due to many innovations in the MMO part of the game, which include crafting system and the ability to extract resources (we will be telling more about it in next articles), most technologies in Starfall Tactics can now be crafted - first of all - ships. For example, to build a ship, you will need to get a ship project (can be found on the vasts of the Galaxy, in shops, loot or in booster packs with ships) and spend certain amount of resources like ore (it used to be available during previous tests). It's not so difficult if you have a couple of faithful comrades and your own House. Low tech level ships can still be built by simply spending a small amount of IGC (in-game currency). Some ships are available through faction progression, for gaining ranks.

Ranked mode - You still can get into Ranked Mode simply by pushing one button - find it in the menu at the top of your screen. By pushing it, you change all the information and menus into Ranked Mode. Push it again, to switch back to MMO mode. Just reminding: the main feature of this mode is that all Ranked players get completely identical module and ship sets. Rating Currency - By winning ranked battles, you climb the ladder and now can get a special rating currency, which you can spend on visual ship customization.

Duels - main mode with 1vs1 battles. CoOp duels - 2x2 battles. It's always more fun with friends Brawls - a set of less serious modes, for example: - One ship - here you have only one ship. - Plasma Web madness - there are no weapons except for Plasma Web Module. - Only frigates - only frigate class ships are available.

Character Progression - Ship Progression - Detachment Progression New economy and planet colonization Houses, progression and management Changes in combat mechanics New NPC factions Tutorials and Challanges and more.

Pirate Bands - ship design

Three new bands - Screechers, Nebulords and P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. - are mostly going to use usual faction ships from frigates to dreadnoughts, as pirates did before, with only a few additions like Cerera, Pilgrim and other ships we might add later. So, in order to let you recognize Bands from the first sight, we designed a new look for each of them - it also visually reflects their essence.

Screechers, as we mentioned before, are real madmen, and generally look like typical pirate band which attacks every moving object to get any sort of profit - resources, IGC, ship parts, modules or just anything else valuable enough. These guys deserve a brutal skin with spikes, dark colors and red lights, while Nebulords with their "own code of honor" prefer showing off their excellence by painting ships with appropriate colors. P.Y.R.A.M.I.D., a band of ideological descendants of scientists whose researches were declared inhumane, tend to hide their technologies inside ship hulls - still, some technologies they use put off their mark on the appearance of ships P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. uses.

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Screechers, Nebulords and P.Y.R.A.M.I.D. ships. Eclipse Carrier - Centenary

Centenary, the first Eclipse carrier, is finally ready and will soon join faction fleets to take an active part in intense battles! This carrier is incredibly detailed and is a real fruit of painstaking work of Eclipse engineers (*our artists) - so make sure you pay it enough attention and add to your list of the most favorite & grandiose creations.

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Not only ships trouble our minds these days, but also, there are a lot of work on the interface, effects, other content and hidden parts of the game which make it all work. We are very excited to show you the result of this intensive development and play Starfall Tactics with you once it all comes to the test stage - so, don't forget to check out news section and your inbox from time to time!

Another week has come to bring great news: we are moving forward swiftly and soon you will be able to check out several features we announced before by playing Starfall Tactics. And right now we are ready to tell about very important changes in battle mechanics, new feature for the MMO part of the game and show a new freighter model:

Shields rework

Shields have always been a cause of disputes and many minor changes, while we tried to make them a really valuable layer of defense. After a long discussion we decided to try a completely new way of using shields to make this layer of defense really valuable and worthy of your attention. And here is a short list of changes:

• Shields now consume all types of damage (except for damage caused by ramming), including damage received from kinetic weapons.
• Shields require more capacity, while shield regenerators - less.
• Shield cells now have default regeneration. Average shield regeneration a usual ships can have has grown.
• Shields can't regenerate during active battle. They start regenerating 5 seconds after they stop receiving damage.

So, now all ships have less shield hit points in total (not more than 1000-2000 for bigger ships), better regeneration and better defense in general. This gives Commanders a chance for a mistake, ability to retreat and come back quickly: for example, you can reposition ships with low shield hit points to hide them behind other units with a high shield level, and then swap them back, or temporarily remove a couple of ships from the battle and come back with another 1000 hit points you've just regenerated.

You can hardly imagine a space game like Starfall Tactics without any ability to mine resources, and we couldn't miss this opportunity to add it. Basically, mining mechanics is something we planned to add long ago as it's closely connected with crafting systems by allowing you to get necessary resources. In Starfall Tactics, to start mining you don't need any special "qualifications" or skills - just do the following:

• Get designated equipment for the task
• Find a place full of desired resources (usually - certain types of asteroid fields)
• Get into special instance, fly closer to the asteroid with you ship which has mining equipment and start mining.

Freighter is a common spaceship for transporting goods - slow, poorly protected, but with a really huge cargo bay, which allows them to carry impressive amounts of resources. The first universal freighter, Charon, was previously used by all three factions to provide a good level of resource distribution. Now we are adding separate freighters for each faction and the first one is a Vanguard Freighter:

Hope you love how Starfall Tactics changes with time - see you soon

Starfall Tactics test starts 24th April 14:00 CET and lasts until 1st May 23:59 CET. To play the game during this period, simply [email=''][email protected][/email]!

See you in Starfall Tactics!

Aaand we are back after the test with some updates on Starfall Tactics development, new content and features.

- First of all, we designed special missions which are more fun than simple tutorials players are usually bored to complete (although we already have and will add some fast tutorials for game basics). It's especially helpfull in our case because of many different and deep mechanics you will normally miss and won't understand from the first try. So, here come Challenges - a special set of missions with rewards which depends on the medal you earned for completing it. It helps players master the game and explains many things deeper than usual, along with being a very fun experience: for example, there is a stealth mission, or a mission where you have to defend against enemies using only mines, or a mission where you have to defeat hige ships by fooling them with small maneuverable vessels and etc.

- After detailed analysis and discussion, our Team decided to go with a more traditional way for unit progression: skill tree with various passive bonuses. Still, we found a way to make it exciting: each and every ship has its' own talent tree with bonuses not only to simple characteristics, but to special modules, certain weapons or types of damage which logically can fit it, engines and even things like cargo. And all together it gives so much variety in building each ship, and a lot of lovely hours to our game designer who is currently busy making 180 skill trees.

- We also designed a couple of new modules: Plasma Engines (increses maximum ship speeed) and a three shield modules which allow to drain, transfer and distribute shield.

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- We also added two models for pirate bases: