Hello Sector Commanders,

It’s been one week since we launched our Steam page, and we’d like to share some of the improvements we’ve been working on recently.

Until now, turret range and rotation were represented by a very basic visual. It was functional - but not precise enough. It was time to improve it.

https://youtu.be/RaHLnLvX09A

Now, when you select a ship, a transparent blue firing arc appears around each weapon. This “fan” clearly shows:

• The exact firing angle

• The maximum weapon range

• The area the turret can currently cover

• Range rings at 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% distance

  • Rings closer to the ship are more faded to reduce visual clutter

• Angle markers:

  • Small ticks every 15°

  • Larger ticks every 45° (like a clock face)

• A gold directional line with an arrow shows where the turret is currently aiming

Players can now press 1–5 to select a weapon group.
When selected:

• Only firing arcs from that group are visible

• All others are hidden

• The active group is highlighted in the bottom HUD panel with a brighter color and larger font

This makes tactical control much clearer during combat.

Next, we focused on ship movement, collision avoidance, thrust control, and issuing orders to multiple ships at once.

https://youtu.be/PcjaCarUDDE

No more flickering path arrows
When a ship approaches its destination, path arrows and lines now smoothly disappear.
Only the destination marker remains.
Previously, these elements would flicker and behave erratically.

Ships no longer need pixel-perfect positioning
Ships now stop when they reach the target area instead of trying to land on an exact point.

Formation-aware arrival system
When you send multiple ships to the same location:

• Each ship receives a separate nearby destination point

• Points are spaced far enough apart to prevent collisions

• Ships automatically select the closest available slot

This results in much smoother fleet behavior and eliminates chaotic stacking.

Ships now actively search for the best possible path to avoid collisions.

Instead of pushing into each other or stacking at choke points, they dynamically adjust their trajectories to move around nearby ships.

Fleet movement is now smoother, more readable, and far less chaotic.

Engine Upgrade

We’ve successfully migrated the project to Godot 4.6.1 (previously 4.5).

Thank you for following the development of NGC-404.