Today was a heavy systems-focused day in Stellar Throne. I made major progress on gameplay infrastructure and galaxy simulation features — pushing forward across colonization, ship systems, economy, and even the early combat layer.
🌌 What Got Done
✅ Colonization System: Colonies can now be established and affect nearby territory.
✅ Improved Territory Borders: Adjacent colonies now merge and fill territory more realistically.
✅ Sensor System Overhaul: Colonies now reveal stars only; planets require ship presence to reveal.
✅ Planet Type Adjustments: Terran and Ocean worlds are less common, Gas Giants more common.
✅ Fleet Management: Added fleet splitting, merging, and renaming features.
✅ Ship Components & Retrofitting: Began component system and retrofitting support.
✅ Terraforming System: Initial hooks implemented.
✅ Building System: Basic framework begun (awaits research unlocks).
✅ Trade System: First pass implemented (currently lacks destinations).
✅ Victory System: Added tracking logic and display UI.
✅ Game Setup Screen: Customize game options before galaxy generation.
✅ Battle System: Implemented with an auto-resolver and simple battle visualization.
🧠 What I Noticed
The design philosophy of “build the framework early, even if features are placeholder” really paid off — systems like terraforming, building, and trade are all partially implemented and ready to expand once research and diplomacy come online.
Sensors now reveal different information depending on context (colony vs ship), which helps with fog-of-war and strategic decision-making.
Sprite generation is still a bottleneck, and I need better upscaling or native-resolution output.
🔧 Still in Progress
🚧 Ship Component Retrofitting – Lacks advanced components beyond starter parts.
🚧 Terraforming System – Blocked until the research system is available.
🚧 Building System – Also waiting on research and unlock logic.
🚧 Trade System – Has no destinations or diplomacy integration; currently functions magically.