Star Pilgrims
A game about leaving the planet for when you're tired of it.
Guide
- Click on dialog windows to speed it up, hover on button for explanation.
- Be sure not to run out of energy, matter, or credits.
- Manage your resources, carefully plan your expansion.
- The more resources you accumulate, the more you unlock buildings. At the beginning you have to accumulate 1 ton to unlock the first ones. Continue to accumulate more to advance.
- It's a science based game, there's a reason for some features. Don't be afraid to fail and start again. Life is hard, at least here we get a restart.
- There is a day-cycle, for this reason the peak power has to be quite greater than the average consumption power.
- Some buildings offer special game features.
- Discover all 3 endings, and all curiosities about space and physics.
- If the game gets stuck just like in pause and seems frozen, try the "resume" button in the menu. Let me know if you still have problems.
I'm a beginner developer and this is my first game. Please leave comment and share it to push me to deliver either continuations of this game, or entirely new games!
Repository
With source code, scientific sources and notes: AndreaIdini/StarPilgrims: Development of an idle game (github.com)
Please for any bug report or desired features you can make an issue.
Assets:
- Icons from https://game-icons.net/
- Music from https://www.zapsplat.com Among the Stars
- Graphics from DALL-E3
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- New Version Beta 0.2.1Feb 20, 2024
- Release of Open BetaFeb 18, 2024
- Release of final Alpha versionFeb 03, 2024
- Version alpha0.9Jan 31, 2024
- Version alpha0.2Jan 22, 2024
Comments
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somehow ended up with -100,000 credits, game now unplayable. oh well guess i'll go touch grass.
I'm really not a fan of the design choice of simply killing you and wasting literally all progress when the player relies on the description provided by the game. The game kills you, if you think you have enough power if your consumption is less than the production. The game kills you if you build something and power unexpectedly goes to zero. The game kills you if you fly to the asteroid belt and think that the "tons needed" is how much you need. I even saved up three times the material compared to "tons needed" and the game simply killed me as the "tons needed" was simply a gross lie.
Very disappointing. Such a waste of time.
I'm not gonna lie, the descriptions need finessing and I'm going to take the feedback to heart in the next version
I hope it was not a waste of time though.
Not sure how to proceed as the "Travel to Asteroid Belt" button does literally nothing.
Maybe the "It will take 4605.1 tons" is the issue as I have just 2912.63 tons, but when I add 100 tons, the requirement is simply increased by 100 tons, so I will never be able to reach it. Am I missing something?
When the station is very heavy, it becomes extremely difficult having enough mass to reach the desired velocity. This is the same reason why there's a total payload limit for rockets and given a technology there is a maximum theoretical limit of payload to orbit.
This is no different.
Unfortunately, once you build to many thrusters, they become too hungry, because now not only your objective is to reach the asteroid belt, but to reach it in 24 days. It should still be possible, but the solution at convergence might require A LOT of matter.
I should implement a way to reduce the thrust and change the parameters of the trip, but I'm not very good with UI.
So yeah, minimalism is the way...
25 solar, 15 battery, 1 drone bay, 4 thrusters, 1 human
hostage,3 drones, and about 120 tons.You can do with even less: 5 batteries, 4 engines, the 3 crewmen, full decked drone bay, and around 15 solar panels, ensuring 4 times the consumption (since it gets reduced to 25% on destination). The consumption of matter is 3x10 5 4 10 = 49. For 240 days of travel, it amounts to 12 tons. Assume 20 tons above the required for travel, which is around 30 tons, so a total of ~50 tons of matter.
Ok... On my second attempt, I almost reached the belt. Nailed on the third. Looked at the code a bit for clues and it's noted:
The matter required is only the one consumed by the thrusters, it doesn't take into account the normal consumption (and remember your drones aren't working during the travel).
Your energy signature will change from the sinusoidal form to peak flat. It also decreases to 25%, which, according to the traveled distance, of 1.2 AU, obeys the inverted square law.
Some suggestions:
A plan flight to the asteroid belt will usually involve an orbit transfer to lunar orbit and then using the gravitational assistance from Earth. This reduces the required costs (and time). Transfer orbit is very cost efficient.
You can then break the travel into 2:
1. Travel to the moon. The drones efficiency will drop (or be disabled). You can counter it with the drones mining the lunar surface or reducing matter launching costs (since Moon's gravity is lesser). Assume a polar orbit, and we'll have sun 100% of the time. It's still possible to save the crew, in case of a mishap.
2. Travel to the asteroid belt. The usual, but the cost is greatly reduced. This allows for a bigger station.
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I would like a display of the drone matter harvesting and power consumption on the build info. This information IS necessary. Same with the power and matter consumption of the crew, including the credits they generate. Would also love to see the credit generation rate. There is space above the credit display.
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I don't have a direct account of my matter consumption. Try to mimic the power UI box. Something like first row for production, consumption on the second and the third row for available. This also has the advantage for when implementing a cargo bay in the future (if the game moves into that direction).
If the concern is the screen space, you can try reducing the font on the boxes one or two sizes. This kind of games are played on computers, and assuming a 1024 x 768 monitor display is perfectly acceptable, so you have more space to play with. Since itch.io right side buttons are invasive, we usually play on full screen anyways.
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What killed my third round was that module building does not take into account the available matter. 93 net positive matter production, still reached bellow zero while constructing a solar panel. Try to implement a fail safe, like pausing construction when matter is extremely low (.1 tons or something), or dynamically adjust the consumption.
So far, that's it.
i guess i never reach the belt because the space station is overload lmao
need 60kMW and 20k metter to moving to belt (station is about 4000 tons
So, the calculations for the trip to the belt are WAY OFF.
Had the matter, seemed to be doing semi okay for energy, and it killed everything...
Think you need about 60-80% more matter than it registers
**SPOILERS**
When you travel you cannot harvest matter, so depends on the matter consumption of your station how much matter you need.
The calculation only takes into account matter for the engines.
Furthermore, when you get away from Earth there is no shadow anymore, but the sun shines less bright if you go far away. One has to account for that as well...
Found a bug:
After energy ran out unexpectedly, and selling half my drones, for some reason the matter stat completely froze. I couldn't buy anything or launch anything, and nothing was decreasing.
it might be either a crash or a hangup to the pause.
If energy is not changing but button work it is probably because the game time has been paused and has to be resumed.
In the coming update I will make the resume button available and might solve these strange cases.
I tried to implement what you suggested and a HotFix for the freezing. Thanks and let me know!
the energy system sucks, why i need more than double production to not get without energy? i mean, if i produce 400, why i ran out at about 200 consumption?
It has no logic at all...
"
It's a science based game, there's a reason for some features. Don't be afraid to fail and start again. Life is hard, at least here we get a restart.
There is a day-cycle, for this reason the peak power has to be quite greater than the average consumption power
"
If you orbit against a body that casts a shadow, you will not be able to constantly produce at peak efficiency. Just like on Earth, but even more extreme.
seriously this game is just poorly designed and the developer refuses to listen to feed back
eheh but why are you insisting Idyaceina? I'm not forced to implement your feedback, and some people liked the system you don't. To each its own.
And by the times you're back you could have mastered this game! :P
It's a game with quite realistic physics and units. kWp has a specific definition.
I could put an average, but it's part of the essence of the game and challenge to ether resist to urges or to make a couple of calculations.
In space, physics rules and the wrong move can be very risky. It's not a mindless upgrade game.
If you don't like those games it's really fine.
so dont label this as an idle game
and dont throw a hissy fit when ppl criticize your game
oh and for some one obsessed with physics it has several things that actually dont line p with physics
but hey keep acting like a jackass who thinks they are smarter than every one else and its the players who are stupid
For funsies, I calculated the amount of power you need. Essentially, you should have consumption take less than 0.54 (~55%) of your peak, give or take. This means you need around ~1.85 more production than your consumption.
Please note, it does not seem like the consumption number doesn't account for build energy, consumed over the course of building similarly to matter. Perhaps you tried to build something that was a bit too expensive (or drones... drones take a lot of energy for upkeep).
When you're out in space, it seems like you can get away with consumption and production being equal.
Game not loading. FF.
still waiting on run dependencies: index.js:14050:18
dependency: wasm-instantiate index.js:14050:18
(end of list) index.js:14050:18
That is strange. Have you tried loading the page again? It works on my device!
Probably https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/86382
Hi Bogudan! I saw that you left a negative rating and a comment saying that my game did not load when you tried it. Could you please try playing it again? (Sorry if I'm posting the comment here, but Itch.io doesn't allow replying to someone who only leaves a rating).
I'm looking forward to your feedback on my prototype game!
https://caprog.itch.io/two-mins-incremental
Thank you!
Nope, still not loading.
Loved the game. I would like to make the travel requirements to the asteroid belt adjustable. I mean, when I noticed the travel button, I was over 7000 tons in mass, making the 20 days travel virtually impossible.
How about making the travel time dynamic. In real world, you accelerate for up to half the distance, then turn the ship 180 degrees and decelerate for the same period to a stop.
For that, you use the quadratic equation:
X = accel*(time**2)/2
where X is half the distance from Earth to the asteroid belt
extracting time (replacing X for D/2):
time = sqrt(D / accel)
where D is distance to asteroid belt.
The accel will be in function of the amount of ionic engines by the thrust they give:
accel = amountThrusters * thrustPerEngine
then your requirement for the travel is the amount of energy and mass per second for the thrust.
EnergyRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * energyPerEnginePerSecond
MassRequiredPerSecond = amountThrusters * massPerEnginePerSecond
Then, we won't require to have ALL the energy and mass at the beginning of the travel. If I have to travel for 10 years in-game, so be it.
You can suggest the total amount required for the travel, however. Hope this helps.
On another note, I can't progress if i don't travel to the belt (stopped playing here). How about using the data center to do some research, like improving the efficiency of the components, or providing better tech (like nuclear and antimatter). They could provide with bits per second, as a currency. Make the cost non-linear. Additionally, since we can now improve the components, add a way to recycle them.
Oh, and add a way to create a building queue or something similar (allowing, for example, to build 1000 battery stacks). Clicking in the thousands is hella exhausting. Since humans assemble the components, make the time to build dependant on their numbers (within reason, maybe add a cap). A 3 man station would build slower than a crew of 50. And it would be reasonable for a large station to build in batches (using the queue, for example).
Dear Minerva, you truly are wise. Thank you very much for the toughtful comment.
Your travel idea is very similar to how it works, it is slightly more complicated because it takes into account the Rocket equation with an hypothetical nozzle velocity and the orbital requirements to reach escape velocity (which are not 100% adjustable).
Right now is the amount of engines that decides, so it might land in the situation that too big a station it starts to be near impossible to move, and too many engines might be too hungry.
The idea of having all matter at hand is because you cannot harvest matter en route, there is no debris to scavenge before reaching the asteroid belt! The energy it is consumed en route, you don't need it all at one time. You might notice the requirement is in MWh and not MW ;)
It could be cool to have a slider to decide how much push the engines, because one should be able to decrease power, but I need a bit of help with the UI maybe. The same for the building queue, would be excellent and might try to work on it but I'm a bit afraid to clutter the space.
Humans already help, the building time is divided by log_2(#humans 1). Didn't want a linear advantage, I don't want to make come true the project manager dream of 9 women making a baby in 1 month :P
The research mechanics in my mind would be expanded later on, but the game stops before. Right now the cost advantage is given by the 0G nanofactories, that also divide the cost logarithmically (log_4)
Thanks again for the feedback. If you find time for another playthrough, having a leaner station and not overbuild engines helps.
this game is way to hard and way to slow
and it barely counts as an idle game do to how much you have to babysit it
It's hard? Well yes, not for everybody! :)
maybe actually listen to the criticisms your getting from ppl
uhhh i cant even get 1 human to the station i start with 1000 credits which is how much i need to launch matter but then i dont have enough to send a human
send 900 credits of matter instead ;)
game's key is to try things and do not fear failure. :P
Way too slow, and the fluctuating power demands are unpredictable. You can be doing perfectly fine, get one more thing, and crash out and game over before you can do anything to compensate.
Hi Deudanann, thanks for the comment!
As written down, "There is a day-cycle, for this reason the peak power has to be quite greater than the average consumption power."
It is not unpredictable (it's a shifted sinus function ;P) you just have to test its limits and be careful in the expansion. It's a game after all! ;)
On future updates, I'd recommend making that shifted sinus function be seen in-game, or the mod variable embedded in solar_power(). That way, people won't get blindsided by a sudden power outage.
I thought about it, but it varies quite rapidly...
Thanks for the suggestion. Do you already have an idea on how to best show it in the UI?
Hello Star Pilgrims, please leave a message for future generations