November 2020 – STELLAR INSURGENCY

In this post I will we describe the types of the solar systems that can be encountered within the game by the player.

The types of solar systems are currently implemented are the following:

Solar System with a common star at the center.
Nebula with energetic phenomena.
Black hole at the center.
White hole at the center.
Solar system with an active star at the center.
Solar system with asteroid field.

The most common type of solar system. Usually it contains a handful of planets and an asteroid field with resources that can be mined if the right component is present in one of your spaceships. Alternatively you can use your might to rob the harvester ships that are mining these resources for the benefit of the dominant faction of this solar system.

Some of the planets in this type of solar system are inhabited. If your relation with the faction that inhabits the planets is friendly or neutral you can put your fleet into orbit around these planets and make trade, receive missions or retrofit your fleet.

The planets and asteroids that are not inhabited can be explored if your fleet possesses a probe launcher and at least one exploration probe. Quite often in your journeys and if you have strong enough sensors you will find artifacts that can also be explored with an exploration probe as well.

This is an energetic nebula. Staying for too much time there can be fatal for your fleet but this place hides interesting surprises.

If your fleet has the black hole stabilizer component you can traverse the black hole and reappear at the center of another solar system that contains a white hole, in an unknown sector of the galaxy. You should be careful however while traveling because a hidden threat is lurking at the center of the galaxy ready to expand.

This type of solar system contains mainly dead planets due to energetic CMEs that happen quite often. The resources found there are abundant since very few are willing to risk their lives to harvest them.

Possibly the remnant of a supernova, this solar system contains several asteroids (containing mostly gold) many of them waiting to be mined but also here you will find some of the most notorious pirates of the galaxy. If they are not hostile towards you, you can trade with them, retrofit your fleet and receive missions.

Please visit the media section for high resolution images, thank you for reading.

Space combat between two spaceships, left is player and right AI

This video shows a space combat between two spaceships. The left one is controlled by the player and it is overpowered on purpose and the right one is controlled by the AI.

In Stellar Insurgency, there are three levels of defense prior to hull damage.
The first level which is passive (i.e. it doesn’t contribute directly to protection of the hull) is stealth (not show in the video) and the other two levels which are active (i.e. they actively protect the hull) are the force field and the armor.

Stealth field

If the spaceship has the stealth field component and this is active, the spaceship remains undetected when it is within the sensor range of an enemy spaceship and has the initiative when the space combat begins. Once the spaceship with the stealth field active starts attacking another spaceship it gets immediately detected and the stealth field disables automatically. When not in combat, the stealth field remains active for a maximum time that depends on this particular stealth field’s component stats or until the player deactivates it from the fleet manager screen. In addition the stealth field consumes energy for as long as it s active.

Force Field (or shields)

The force field protects the spaceship from energy weapons (beams, lasers) and similarly to the stealth field, it consumes energy but only when it recharges. When the shields are down, a minimum time that depends on this particular shield component stats is required before it starts recharging again. Similarly to the stealth field the force field can activated-deactivated from the fleet manager screen.

Armor

The armor component is not an energy component (i.e. it does not consume energy), however in contrast to shields it comprises of six parts:

Front Armor
Back armor
Left Armor
Right Armor
Top Armor
Bottom Armor

Which armor part is going to be damaged depends on which side the spaceship was hit by an enemy projectile or energy weapon. For example if the spaceship is being hit on the right side, the right armor side will absorb the damage. Once the armor of any particular side is compromised, the enemy projectiles will pass through it and the hull will start taking damage unless the spaceship turns towards another side where there is still some armor left. Once the hull points reach to zero the spaceship will be destroyed.

This particular tactic is showed in the video when the AI controlled spaceship turns sideways because its front armor is compromised. But since the player spaceship is overpowered once the hull damage increases above a certain threshold the enemy spaceship tries to retreat without any benefits whatsoever.

Thank you for reading.

Month: November 2020

Solar Systems

Intro to Space combat AI