Can someone tell me whats an "incest patch"? I've seen it in other VNs and I'm curious to what it does.
EvilLadyKitten covered the basic answer just fine. Here's a bit more detail...
Game platforms like Steam and Patreon do not allow incest as a topic in any game and automatically reject them for publication on their service. So... Dev's use a variety of different wording in their release version to avoid the appearance of incest to allow their AVN's and games to be published on those incest free platforms. I am not a fan of incest personally however I do use incest patches to restore original game content in many cases, particularly when the dev chooses the lame ass "landlady, tenant, roommate" character naming and has them addressed as such in game rather than by their actual name or mom, sister and so on in the original game content. So, I do use incest patches in those cases just so the dialogue makes sense; e.g. "That is my landlady! I shouldn't be having these sexual thoughts about her." becomes "That is my mother! I shouldn't be having these sexual thoughts about her." And now, after patching, the line actually makes sense. If I had a hot landlady that wanted my cock, there would be no second thoughts! I would have her balls deep! Mom, on the other hand... not so quick to make that decision and I would decline such a notion IRL. But, these are fantasy games and the women are always hot so when in Rome... Hahaha
Other devs use a naming and relationship convention at the beginning of the game to avoid needing a patch at all.
Now... I do not believe that Stellar Dream is actually intended to have incest at all. The incest patches for this game are fan based content, not directly made by Winterlook, our dear dev here. The patch needs to be updated for EVERY new update issued which has led to countless errors which I will no longer tolerate in my gameplay, especially considering that the updates always play just fine without need of any patch at all!!! There are five characters in total that are affected by the patch and only two of them are LI, the fifth is the MC himself... with the patch; the general becomes MC's father, the admiral becomes mother, the young man in med bay becomes brother and Lara from the shooting range becomes MC's sister. When you play without the patch, those characters are no longer family members: the general is addressed by rank, the med bay guy is Bob iirc, "Mom" is addressed as admiral in public and Cassandra in private and "Sister" is Lara, addressed by her name, also, MC is addressed by the name you chose at the beginning of the game for him instead of son or brother.
Note: If you add the patch to your current game play you do not need to restart however you may experience errors. If you wish to play without the patch after installing it, you will need a fresh copy of the game DL and restart... at least from a save before you added the patch. I just started over without the patch and have not experienced a single error since.
And that is the story of incest patches, my friend!
I hope that helps you.
Adventure ever on, Phat
Lara is a lot of fun