Star Cadre: Combat Class Enters Third Week of Beta Testing

Sunday, 7th July 2024

Today, the third beta test version of Star Cadre: Combat Class was sent to the beta test team. The team will continue to play the game, and try to break it. Last week was uneventful as far as changes were concerned, so I am hoping the game is close to its release. Changes for this version include:

1. An improved title screen and manual cover image, with help from Nina Kalinina. The dithering is improved, the pistol is bigger, and some details broken by the dithering process have been manually touched up.

2. Sometimes during the computer's turn, unconscious units are attacked by units that no (conscious) unit can see. That used to result in seeing attacks coming from apparently empty squares. This is fixed; now you see the hit on the unconscious unit, but not the flash of fire from an empty square.

3. Refinements have been made to the default menu option. No longer does it give away the location of unsees enemies by defaulting to "attack" when apparently empty squares are highlighted. The menu does now default to "attack" on non-adjacent unconscious enemies. For adjacent unconscious enemies the default is still "move" to easily step over them.

4. The manual made no reference to compatibility with Hercules graphics systems. Now it is made explicit that the game runs on Hercules monochrome.

There may or may not be further refinements to the title screen graphics. But this will not delay release. If no further bugs or oversights are pointed out in testing, the game should be ready for release on Sunday 14th July.