Star Dynasties MAJOR Update: New Expedition Mechanic & Modding Upgrades!

We're very excited to tell you all about our second major update for Star Dynasties! We'll go into some detail about the new additions below. If you want to skip straight to the change log, you can find that at the bottom!

The centerpiece of this update is the all-new Expeditions mechanic.

The remnants of humanity live within the ruins of a civilization that was at the cusp of a golden era of space colonization. We live inside structures which we cannot build, and travel inside machines whose workings are unfathomable. This is why many noble houses begin expeditions; ventures into the unknown to retrieve long lost technology. These expeditions usually, but not always, come with powerful rewards.

The Expeditions bar fills up every turn, and once it reaches its threshold, an Expedition Event will trigger, granting you a piece of pre-Collapse knowledge. Your house's Technology score determines how quickly your Expedition bar will fill up.

We obviously won't spill the beans on all the possible outcomes of these Expeditions, but here's an example of how they can impact your game. After a successful expedition, your house has found a pre-Collapse neural implant that enhances one's tactical and strategic mind!

Of course, messing with technology not fully understood will have its side-effects. Would you sacrifice your family member's mind to turn them into a better commander?

This is just one of the many Expedition events you can encounter. Our goal with Expeditions was to bring the sci-fi setting of the game to life; from the relics of a previous age of exploration, to the mysteries of the here and now.

We've also made significant improvements to the modding tool. Most notably, you're now able to create custom actions! This means that you'll have much more creative freedom when bringing your mod ideas to life. Though somewhat limited, we've also introduced the ability to create your own assignments for house members through the modding tool.

Of course, you can now also use the modding tool to create new Expeditions events!

• Expeditions

• Your house now accrues Expedition Points each turn, based on your tech score (shown above the End Turn)

• When your house hits a threshold of Expedition Points, an Expedition Event triggers

• Expedition Events are story events that bring the sci-fi setting of the game to life

  Balancing

• Increased the strength of your starting faction

• The game will no longer start with your house having mostly children members

• Reduced incidents where an archon gives away a system or faction needlessly

• Reduced slightly how quickly your league will unravel from rebellions

  General Improvements

• Added new event artwork

• You no longer need to click "OK" between each round in combat

• The effects of gaining a trait / flag are now shown when hovering over a choice

• The strongest skill of a character is now colorized

• Changed the colors associated with each skill / house area

• The Members panel now (optionally) shows the strongest skill of each character

• When a league submits to you, you now keep the name of your own faction

• If you are aware of either the legal ruler or the acting ruler of a colony, you will now also be aware of the other

• Added a "Continue" button to the main menu, to quickly load your last save

• Added a button to the quickbar to quickly flip between focused and contrasted characters

• The quickbar textbox now identifies the character of whom opinion is being shown

• Removed some irritating events

• Minor cleanup of UI and tooltips text

• Tweaks to audio

  Map Notifications

• Map notifications can now be individually cleared

• Map notifications now indicate when they generated an honor / status effect

• Fixed bug where update notifications window was resetting Highest/Lowest volume to High/Low

  General Fixes

• Fixed bug where vassals were unhappy instead of pleased when you quelled unrest on their system

• Fixed bug where a character could be both Dull and Charming

• Fixed bug where characters where sometimes shown with the wrong kin icon in the history panel

• Fixed visibility bug where you were not made aware of a faction that has been resurrected in your vicinity

• Fixed issue where a character could not be assigned to the council after joining your house

• Fixed rare bug where the game started without a nearby faction's leader being visible

  Modding - Custom Player Actions, Assignments, and Suggestions

• Added "Story Event as Player Action" creatable

• Added "Story Event as Player Action on Character" creatable

• Added "Story Event as Player Action on House" creatable

• Added "Story Event as Player Action on Star System" creatable

• Added "Limited Custom Assignment" creatable

• Added "Limited Custom Assignment on System" creatable

• Added "Is Reference Type" filter for custom assignments

• Added "Modify Assignment Duration" for non-ongoing assignments

• Added "Player Suggestion" creatable

  Modding - Creator Tool Improvements

• Can copy/paste (with some limitations) a specific node in Creator

• Extended "Clone" functionality to additional components

• You can now save a mod if it has no changes but it was last saved on an older version of the game (to update it's version)

• Extended list matchers with "Max Count" and "Min Count"

• Added "Hide" effect, hides text generated in updates / choice tooltips for enclosed effects

• Removed some legacy elements from Creator

  Modding - New Flag Effects

• Added "Vassal Limit Bonus On House" flag effect

• Added "Opinion - Of Another Character" flag effect

• Added "Infrastructure Bonus" flag effect

• Added "Cannot Travel For Assignments" flag effect

• Added "Attacker Surprise Modifier Global" flag effect

  Modding - New Text Functions

• Added "firstName" text function

• Added "lastName" text function

• Added "showVar" text function, to display the value of custom variable counters in text

• Added "genRel" text function which verbalizes the genetic relationship between two characters (if any), e.g. "father" but not "father-in-law"

  Modding - New Components

• Added "Can Change House" filter

• Added "Do Change House" effect

• Added "Secret Prerequisite Inverted" prerequisite for decision choices

• Added "Accessible Systems Of" source

• Added "Is Accessible To" filter

• Added "Systems Of Domain Of Character" source

• Added "Systems Of Domain Of House" source

• Added "Is In Domain Of Character" filter

• Added "Is In Domain Of House" filter

• Added "Is Importance Level" character filter

• Added "Importance" character property

• Added "Can Host Gathering" filter

• Added "Do Gathering" effect

• Added "Is House Type" filter

• Added "Modify Military Strength By Vessel Type" effect

• Added dev console debug action to show variables on object

  Modding - Fixes

• "Is In Secret Relationship With" now allows you to not specify a target character

• The "Do Divorce" effect can now apply the standard emotion and moral effects of divorce

• Fixed bug where "Trigger Only Once" was not being handled correctly for custom character triggers

• Fixed bug in "Do Discover Secret By Reference" effect

• The "Secret Is Not" filter now works correctly

That's the list! A lot of work went into this major update, to make Expeditions a fun and balanced new mechanic. Give them a try, and let us know what you think on the forums, or on Discord.

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