This week I have been working on the procedural part of the galaxy IE: The play area of the game.
At the highest level is the galaxy view, then below that are the sectors within a quadrant, then clusters within a sector, then solar systems within the cluster. I had to be quite careful while working on the procedural galaxy. In order to depict massive distances there had to be a lot of trickery and illusion, while taking a lot of care to keep memory usage in check. Efficiency is very important while working on procedural generation, as it can especially become an issue in the late game in space 4xs.
As of now the core system is complete for generation and saving/loading of clusters of stars, sectors and what is inside them along with colonies, fleets and so on. There are also procedural factions based off some of the pre-made ones like the many pirate factions based off the Solarians.
In Star Zeal 4x, exploration is important and the feeling of massive scale and mystery is conveyed through this procedural system with huge distances for fleets to cover, get lost in etc. Who knows what you will find out there, or who/what you will meet. This also allows for escaping enemies even if all your colonies are lost.
Essentially there was a lot of toiling with the code and bug fixing this past week.
STAR ZEAL 4X 
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