Starside Weekly – 12.05.2025

Your weekly update on Stars Reach

HIDDEN FOG UPDATE

The mists parted yesterday and a new update came into view. You can patch your Stars Reach Playtest app in your Steam library as you read this newsletter.

Day and night visuals were improved. Volumetric fog and improved terrain tiling were added. The overall effect of these changes can be dramatic and not all of the lighting values and tuning have been completed so more will improve over time. The volumetric fog does impact performance so we have set it as a preference in the escape menu – defaulted to off. (Hence the “hidden fog” reference.) Turn it on and experience it, watch it adapt to terrain height, then decide for yourself.

Expect caves and crevices to be darker (and benefit immensely from your light sources) as we have improved our global illumination model. Ambient occlusion is now computed more dynamically.

Our custom-made reflections implementation also takes ambient occlusion into account and now results in much better colors of metals, custom reflections on flora, and better performance. More details can be found here:

FIRESIDE CHAT SATURDAY

Our next Fireside Chat will be Saturday, December 6, 2025, at 9:00 AM Pacific. Dave Georgeson will join us to describe the new update and answer questions about our design choices, what we are working on next, and our roadmap in general.

You can watch the Fireside Chat live on Twitch.TV/PlayStarsReach.

CONTROLLED CHAOS INTERVIEWS DAVE GEORGESON

After carefully pouring over the public roadmap, Controlled Chaos had a list of questions for Game Director Dave Georgeson.

Dave’s first answer immediately made us laugh. He explains his vision for the roadmap and how we use it.

PLAYTEST SCHEDULE

As the Fireside chat ends on Saturday, the playtest begins for Hidden Fog Update. Come join us for the briefing and the playtest which will run through to Tuesday morning USTZ as usual.

We will take advantage of a short downtime on December 9th & 10th for back end maintenance and improvements before resuming on December 11th.

LOGO MERCH AVAILABLE

We currently have three sets of logo merchandise in stock:

• The Transplanetary League set
• The Stars Reach logo set
• The Infinite Worlds set

You can visit the store here: 

HOW YOU CAN HELP 

If there is one thing you can do to help us, you can wishlist us on Steam. This makes a difference for the algorithm and also helps on the day we eventually launch on Steam. Thank you for this support.