#aster ghost update

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🌟💥💻CaelOS Ukagaka Update 💻💥🌟

Also possibly a final one. Working on the ukagaka has taught me a lot, but it's probably time to give a shot at making desktop toys that aren't dependent on SSP. My eternal thanks to Ukagaka Dream Team for their help with developing them and patience with my antics🩵.

Life circumstances have been taking up most of my time, but now there's some time to relax and dedicate myself to other parts of the craft I'll need for future works.

For Assistant Software, Terror Star, and Boredom Sim:

Shells have been updated to reflect the label on Aster having changed to a star across both Rigel, Vega, and Aldebaran.

Terror Star specific:

Certain heavier glitch effects got significantly funnier;

Fade in/out effect code replaced, might not work on older versions of SSP.

Note on Boredom Sim:

As of writing the wallpaper doesn't render correctly in the current SSP version (2.8.22), and the Aster animations are missing. Downgrade SSP if you're encountering this.

The updates are available in the respective ghosts' original .NAR packaging and via Network Update.

[ 💻What is Aster Boredom Simulator? 💻 ]

[ 💥What is Aster™ Terror Star? 💥]

[🌟 What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟 ]

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I Tried the Big Names. Here's Why I Stayed.

I gave the popular options a fair shot, candy.ai and ourdream.ai included. They're decent. But for actually creating a companion who felt like mine, SweetDream went further and felt more polished doing it.

The deciding factors were quality and depth: richer character creation, chat that stays in character and remembers, gorgeous photos and videos, and calls that sound human. If you're comparing AI girlfriend platforms, build one on sweetdream.ai before you decide.

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Aster™ Assistant Software update (05.09.2025)

[ Video demonstrating the Side Panel (used by Vega) shows up next to Aster (Rigel fronting) even after being moved ]

Long story short: overhaul of how the side panel follows Aster around.

Also be mindful as the update may shift the position of speech balloons! You can reset balloon positions with Ctrl+Shift+F10 or via utilities in right click menu.

A minor change for the users, but a pretty massive change on the internal side of things. I have some things to say about it, there's a tech ramble under cut.

The update is currently available in the initial .nar pack download and via Network Update in the right click menu!

Thank you for downloading Aster™ Assistant Software!

[ 🌟 What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟]

[ 💥 Check out Aster™ Terror Star! 💥 ]

The need to make sure side panel stays at Aster's side has been haunting me since their initial development, but with help of the community and my own accumulated knowledge of ukagaka development, I can finally say that it's been put to bed.

Before this change, the windows were basically glued together and if you wanted to reposition the panel, you'd use the according option in the menu. The option was introduced later after release.

This has since been broken by an SSP update, so it was time to end it once and for all. On my set of displays in particular this also resulted in the two getting constantly stuck together. Thanks Windows 11!

While there's ways to bypass this, i think the previous solution was a bit janky to begin with. Instead, now the side panel changes position whenever it needs to show up, while keeping primary screen boundaries in mind, just like SSP changes directions of the speech balloons.

Instead of calling up the panel to move it, you can just disable or reenable this.

Lastly, as I'm slowly getting back into ukagaka development again and remembering how things work, I want to mention that this change was also necessary, as I will need it in the next CaelOS ukagaka project.

It will be more of an idle visual novel than a companion on your desktop, but I hope if/when it comes out people still enjoy it. I've only so far made up a prototype ghost to test the kinds of animations i want it to use.

as before i'll probably be posting progress on this as it happens. but i can safely call it a start!

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Aster™ Assistant Software update (11.03.2025)

Quality of life update! Birthday selection got entirely overhauled to be selectable with mouse instead of keyboard input.

This should make the selection a lot simpler. You don't really feel it going through it once, but for me having to go through that sequence time and time again the difference is pretty evident.

Besides that, this update changes the following:

Special case for birthday falling on Feb 29th, birthday message will fall on Feb 28th if it's not a leap year. Also has extra dialogue for selecting and birthday message occurring for that day. (Following screenshot isn't all of it)

Fixed a bug where selecting current day as your birthday breaks user setup.

Some obsoleted variables and commented out code removed.

Selections for user setup process are colored in either red or blue depending on the character (was just red).

When inputting neopronouns, you're now told you have to use the keyboard/manual input. Vega also gives examples of pronoun cases like Rigel does.

Fixed a condition for showing the New ticker for Ask Something in Stage 1.

Update is available via Network Update and .NAR package!

⚠️Warning: Please be aware that the previous major update removes the Legacy shell! Make sure you're on current SSP version before updating, there was a case of it going off the rails after update.

[ 🌟 What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟 ]

[ 💥Check out the sister ghost, Aster™️Terror Star 💥]

[ 👻 Check out my other Ukagaka related creations 👻]

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Aster Assistant Software Update - Legacy Shell Deprecation (06.27.2025)

This is something i've been planning to do for a while, and by sheer coincidence I finally did it one day off new shell's release's anniversary.

The old shell, which isn't that different but contains extremely obvious traces of past inspiration for Aster, was left in for the sake of people who genuinely preferred the old design over the new one, but I believe it has served its purpose by now. i would very strongly like to move on from it, and i hope you guys understand.

Update Summary:

The old shell is no longer accessible from the ghost's menu. For folk more savvy with SSP, selecting it in Ghost Explorer will also automatically revert back to the current shell.

If you were on the Legacy shell before the update, the ghost will force you out of it, regardless of your update method, either after the network update is done or when your ghost is reloaded.

The shell itself has been extremely trimmed down to contain only the bare essentials just in case it somehow is switched to anyway. The folder wasn't fully deleted on recommendation that SSP may not like that, but you seriously shouldn't be using it.

(No files will be actually deleted, but most legacy shell's surfaces were removed from the .NAR package, and the relevant ones replaced)

Update is available via Network Update and .NAR package! Of course you don't have to, but the update will still be applied if any further updates happen!

[ 🌟 What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟 ]

[ 💥Check out the sister ghost, Aster™️Terror Star 💥]

[ 👻 Check out my other Ukagaka related creations 👻]

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Aster™ Assistant Software Shell Update (26.06.2024)

EDIT: As of June 2025 the legacy appearance has been deprecated and you can no longer switch to it! While there are ways to try and bypass this, the shell is intentionally made unusable so it's highly unrecommended.

It's finally time! As a very belated one year of CaelOS project, the shell of Aster Assistant Software has been redone, for the most part.

Aster themselves was completely redrawn with some new additions (cough tail movement), and some other parts of the shell were just given a new shine. The old shell will still be available to use, should you so prefer, and you can swap to it through the options menu. The current design is the canon one, however.

Fair warning! The switch may take a few moments! Do not panic if legacy shell Aster doesn't appear immediately at first.

You can update through the network or via installing the .nar package!

Important note about network updating!

Due to the nature of this update, there are 473 files SSP has to download (and re-download, it basically downloads the entire legacy shell again on top of the new one). Even though the files are light (.nar file is 5MB), letting the update run normally makes the update process extremely slow. It'll still download fine, but it'll take 10-20 minutes!

To avoid this, you can either update through downloading the new .nar pack and letting SSP overwrite the files, or you can hold your skip key (CTRL by default) during Aster's pre-download dialogue. Immediately after clicking on Network Update basically. You can let go once the download starts.

Thank you for choosing Aster™ Assistant Software!

[ 🌟What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟]

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Aster™ Assistant Software update (05.01.2025)

Happy holidays! A few quality of life fixes that have accumulated:

Rigel's internal dialogue in intro stage now shows symbol by symbol, instead of in chunks of phrases at a time (Requires SSP 2.6.87 and up)

Poking dialogue changed to reflect Aster's overhauled shell better. Should still make sense with legacy shell!

Menu displays hotkeys hints for random dialogue. While they were always programmed in there, it felt odd not to have them pointed out.

Like one (1) grammar edit in the intro speech.

Update available both within the .nar package and through Network Update. Thank you for downloading and playing with Aster Assistant Software!

[ 🌟What is Aster™ Assistant Software? 🌟]

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Aster Assistant Software Update (18.10.2023)

Fully switched from checking for running programs using window titles (window_info.dll) to using processes in the system itself (process.dll). Aster should be able to respond to slightly more software now!

Mail checking now shows the last (up to) five letters you've received. Just to make it feel a little more complete.

Skipping intro by petting no longer works until you've read the lore talked to Aster about the topics he has to offer.

A slight overhaul of dialogue pool picking. Just means some things will be talked about more often and some less.

Dragging most files will now offer to show you some basic properties of the file. Folders work too, but it shows less stuff than a file.

Available to update by network!

(More info about Aster Assistant Software Here)

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Aster Assistant Software Mini-update (10.06.2024)

Crisis averted, hopefully! this is more of a short-term fix, i'd like to change some more things internally when i have the time.

You have to update your SSP to the current version (as of writing 2.6.75), as the update accommodates to a change of an SSP feature that is involved in Aster's switching function. (it's possible that last update made the fix unnecessary but i'm not about to find out, it works it's fine)

it's highly likely that on older SSP versions (2.6.72 and older) the switch will also break now! You can check for updates through Right click -> Other Utilities -> Check SSP Updates.

This update also has other fixes that were pointed out to me since last update.

Bandaid on Aster's switch mechanic as described above;

Correction in reset after being too bothered;

Correction to fake error message behavior so that the click sound doesn't go off when you've already closed it;

Removed some stray tags that were preventing some more chained dialogue (i.e. dialogue that goes sequentially following the same topic, while idling) from continuing.*

Some Other Things added that aren't relevant right now!

Update is available through Network Update and in the original .nar package

(*So this update *technically* has new dialogue? I meant to remove them all last time but i missed a bunch!! Sorry!)

[ About Aster Assistant Software ]