Starfall Tactics | Outfit your spaceship flotilla. Watch it explode

Greetings, fellow Earthlings
While space games have seen a resurgence recently, with big titles like Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen, there is still a lack of good old RTS’s and thoughtful space games in general.

This is what our team plans to fix with Starfall Tactics - a real-time wargame that mixes tactical combat with in-depth spaceship customization.

Description
In a decaying, war-torn galaxy dominated by three rival factions, assemble your own spaceship flotilla and lead it into battle. Adapt to new challenges by customizing and decking out your ships. Evolve your tactics by unlocking new parts and finding rare ship modules. Dominate the battlefield and create a name for yourself among the stars.

Latest Video

Features

Tactical combat
Fight your battles using a variety of ships - from subtle frigates, to deadly cruisers and heavy dreadnoughts. However, a reliable fleet isn’t the only ingredient for success.

Effective commanders will have to rely on their ability to properly assess the situation, taking into account many factors, such as the equipment of enemy ships, the surrounding environment and the available technology.

In-depth customization
Everything in Starfall Tactics, from the hull of your ship down to the individual engines, is created using blueprints (not the UE4 kind :P). Players can easily customize and outfit ships, adapting their tactics for a variety of situations. Every choice matters - the diverse range of tools directly influences your strategy against opponents and allows you to create truly unique fleets.

Galaxy Conquest [WIP]
After familiarizing themselves with Starfall Tactics, players gain access to the Galactic Map, a persistent section of the game world where they can freely travel and explore the confines of known space.

There is a variety of activities to undertake, from fending off pirates to carrying out missions given out by your faction, as well as fighting other players for territory.

Screenshots

Team
We are Snowforged Entertainment - a team of hardcore gamers and developers from Siberia. Run by a tight crew of brown bears and one human, we strive to create games that combine hardcore, nostalgia-fueled gameplay with contemporary game design principles and appealing aesthetics.

Follow us
Visit the official site: http://www.starfalltactics.com/
Like us on Facebook: Facebook
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/starfalltactics

Looks excellent! always liked space RTS (massive Homeworld fan), some of the effects could use a little smoothing out like the engine trials and some weapon effects but I’m sold anyway :smiley:

Hi Ghiest,

Thanks for the positive response! We definitely agree with your feedback about the effects. Please keep in mind that the game is still in its early stages of development and that the video shown above is based on our current prototype.

As development progresses further, we hope to improve the visuals, as well as the specific effects (trails, etc.) that you’ve mentioned here.

Looks really awesome! I’ll be following this project :slight_smile:

Hi,

Since this thread is all about Work-In-Progress projects, I thought I’d shed some light on the stage of development Starfall Tactics is currently at and how we go here.

Start of the project
We started working on Starfall Tactics in August of 2014. Back then, only one thing was certain - the game is going to feature tactical space combat and will likely belong to the wargame genre.

Originally, we wanted to create a turn-based combat system, similar to the traditional (board) wargames. Think Warhammer 40K.

However, once we actually started development, it soon became clear that it was better in the long run to implement a real time combat system. Some of the reasoning behind this decision can be gleaned from the following video.

Choosing the right engine
When deciding on the engine for Starfall Tactics, our options were quickly narrowed down to two potential solutions - Unreal Engine 4 and Unity. Mainly because our programmers had previous experience working with these particular engines.

After a fairly swift discussion, we decided to go with Unreal Engine 4 since it proved to be more suitable to the task at hand. So, we paid for the subscription and enthusiastically began studying the documentation.

Prototype - the early stages
After studying a few demo projects based on UE4, the team felt confident enough to move forward. We had a rough draft of the design document already created, so we focused our attention on the game prototype.


The first algorithm for spaceship movement. Not the most optimal trajectory :slight_smile:


Yay, the spaceships can finally fly, shoot and even explode! We are almost done (not really) :slight_smile:


The first version of the ship editor. Players could choose what weapon to install in their vessel, as well as the type of engine used.


The second version of the ship editor.


Our first wallpaper created in the game engine :slight_smile:

Play tests
Two months after we started developing the prototype, we had a working build that was used for conducting our first ever play test. The main goal of this test was to find out whether the core game and associated gameplay could be enjoyed by regular gamers and not just by our small team. We also wanted to gather initial feedback on how some of the game mechanics affected the overall experience.

The results of the test and player reaction exceeded our expectations. Despite a number of small bugs, as well as unoptimized UI and controls, the vast majority of players felt really positive about Starfall Tactics. I must say that the very fact of somebody else liking your work can really motivate you and help you move further.

As part of the experiment, our team decided to fix some of the most obvious flaws and rework a few rudimentary UI elements. It took us about two weeks and it took another week to add a new game mode.

After that, we held another play test. The players responded positively to these changes and our team felt quite good about the direction that Starfall Tactics was heading in. The play tests had somewhat eliminated our doubts that the core game was not interesting or attractive enough for other people. The unique gameplay and features of Starfall Tactics managed to come through, despite the very obvious flaws in the early prototype version.

Choosing a name for the game
Ah, a frequent problem faced by many developers. When at first our team couldn’t come up with a good potential name for the game, we decided to create a diary in our internal Wiki where every day members would post their suggestions. Two months later, we had more than 150 options! None of them were approved :slight_smile:

Finally, the game’s name was chosen via the following process. Each member of the team proposed up to 5 potential names, which were then compiled in a spreadsheet. Then came the voting period where every member of the team could cross out up to 4 titles in total. Because our team consisted of 6 people, we had 6 potential titles remaining by the end of it all. After some additional voting, “Starfall” was chosen as a title that almost everyone felt happy about. Later on, we extended the name to include “Starfall Tactics”.

Website launch
It took a lot of effort to get working on a promo website for Starfall Tactics. After a few changes and feature cuts, it was unleashed on unsuspecting masses around the end of February. In roughly the same time period, we’ve also recorded and released a few videos showing in-game footage.

Starfall Tactics today
We’ve recently launched official forums for the game and we’ll soon expand the website to include more information about Starfall Tactics. Our programmers are currently focusing on the alpha version, which adds new features and also takes into account our experience with the prototype.

A Kickstarter for Starfall Tactics should be coming this May. There’s a lot of work to be done before that, on all fronts - from actual development, to marketing, to art production and even legal stuff. We have a month to pour all of our efforts and energy into this beast, with the hopes of it taking off. Hopefully, we can share some of the experiences with you!

If Starfall Tactics has piqued your interest, check out the website and subscribe to our newsletter for future updates.

Hey guys! If you ever wondered how to design a spaceship from scratch, then check out the latest video from our artist D.van. It starts off with a rough sketch and ends up with a more or less fleshed out artwork that our 3D artist used as a reference.

Any ideas or suggestions about the chosen style/aesthetic?

EPIC published our article that explores some of the issues we encountered during development.

2f5dfb39f38ff39c505753d15ba828f516d9665c.jpeg
And we are LIVE on Kickstarter!

Really cool! I love these types of games, and I seriously hope to be able to play this asap! I wish you the best of success in your Kickstarter!

Sad to hear that your Kickstarter was unsuccessful, but I’m excited to see your closed alpha starts soon!

Thanks all for the support! :slight_smile:

We’re back here to continue telling you about Starfall Tactics’ development progress.
There’ve been a lot of changes since our last update here - first of all, Starfall Tactics has been Greenlit! Given Steam’s popularity among gamers, it’s a very important fact for us.

We also celebrated our first anniversary, created factions trailer and lots of spaceships - here is the most popular among Sketchfab users:

[sketchfab]4440992f41354d57b6cfcd9842e704cb[/sketchfab]
Other models

There were tones of changes and additions in UI, effects, mechanics and other important elements and here are just a couple of most actual screenshots from our WIP articles:

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/pve1res.jpg http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/decemberres.jpg
Yes, it’s Starfall Tactics. Really.

At the same time we started creating the MMO-part of the game which contains a big galaxy map for you to discover (yay!). So, let’s look at some stuff for it:

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/planet3.gif

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/planetsres.jpg [sketchfab]a3665eb258a54de6b8ca6e145d9c69e8[/sketchfab]

And last, but not least important thing: we’ve just started accepting Closed Alpha applications here.
Going to post another updates soon, don’t miss it :slight_smile:

It’s finally time to lift the curtain on one of the core gameplay mechanics of Starfall Tactics! Apart from creating a truly deep and immersive real-time wargame experience, we plan on delivering you a complex spaceship romancing simulation driven by narrative and in-game events.
Here are two early screenshots:

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/april_1.jpg

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/april_2.jpg

Learn more

The time has come to present you another couple of ships, created with love and patience. And no, you won’t be able to date them as our previous news was a great april fools joke… maybe…

[sketchfab]3921564b956048f59d88e080520044e9[/sketchfab] [sketchfab]07447de4443745f58643429d2024147d[/sketchfab]

We also created a fuel system, which means that travelling across the Galaxy will need a certain amount of fuel, which costs some in-game currency. You will need to pay attention to the fuel level, otherwise, left without fuel and almost immobilized, you run the risk of becoming an easy prey for pirates and every single enemy fleet which is able to destroy you to get all your goods and chattels.

[sketchfab]158ae19a7d2343578ecb9594ca6ac630[/sketchfab]

Full article can be found here.

The time is running fast and so we keep adding new interesting features and improving Starfall Tactics’ Galaxy with every day. In fact, we moved so far that you might not recognise the game now if you watched our early trailers and screenshots - and we are sure that those changes are only for the good.

So, in our latest WIP article we showed Ichaival - Red Vanguard battleship with a taste of retrofuturistic design and a strange hole in the middle. We will keep adding more ships to give players more space for imagination and creating unique tactics.

http://starfalltactics.com/sites/default/files/ichaivalres.jpg

Every vessel in Starfall Tactics can be equipped with a module that grants a certain skill or utility - and we keep adding these special modules to give players more tactical opportunities. Scouting and getting tactical data about your opponent is a very important part of a gameplay in Starfall Tactics and that makes us think about adding more special equipment for scouting - we’ve just created Long Range Scanner and Spy Drone.

  • Long Range Scanner reveals target area of your choice on the map and lets you see all what’s going on there for 10 seconds.
  • Another tactical module for your fleet, spy drone almost insendibly attaches to enemy ships and follows them; it also has a very useful option of giving you the vision of this ship wherever it is.

And that’s not all. We’ll be sure to tell about other special modules soon :slight_smile:

The game looks great!

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Looking better everyday !!! So good to see this work Keep it up

wow nice work guys looking forward to buying it or trying it out if u have an close beta or alpha at some point as well great to see new teams coming from countries like Siberia gos to show every one their is tatent in every country which doing a nice job

Thank you guys, we’ll do our best :slight_smile:
Atomicfire, you can apply for the Closed Alpha test here.

In our latest WIP article we told about threee another special modules: Point Defense, Antiradar system and decoy module which will confuse your enemies’ minds, giving a burn to new evil tactics.

Point Defense module - a system which helps to defend your fleet. This module is an active skill which destroys 25 projectiles (including bullets and missiles), within a certain range on activation, not depending on their size and speed. It’s very effective if enemy shoots you with heavy rockects which have a long cooldown and heavy damage - eliminating even four or five of these projectiles prevents a ship loss. At the same time, you must avoid weapons with high fire rate, launching dozens of bullets and rockets - it shuts down Point Defense in seconds.

http://starfalltactics.ru/sites/default/files/it_wont_hit_me.gif

**Antiradar system - **By adding this module to the engineering bay you guarantee that enemies won’t see this unit on the minimap, missing some of your tactical movements and getting confused with what’s going on everywhere. However, Antiradar system is a very special tool which can’t fit into every fleet - so think through your great strategy when taking it!

**Decoy module **Decoy module is another great tool to fool your enemies. This module produces a holographic copy of the ship where it is installed - it can’t be destroyed, does not deal any damage and all projectiles always fly through it. It’s not so easy to use, but you will understand the true value of it as soon as enemy fleet will try to focus on it instead of your precious battleships and dreadnoughts.

http://starfalltactics.ru/sites/default/files/hey-hey-there-is-two-me.gif