Hey everyone!
I’m collecting some data through a quick survey that will help me understand what people think about the game, how they heard about it, and their plans for it. It only takes about 2 minutes to fill out and it would help me tremendously if you took that very short time to let your voice be heard! Survey is here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/GRTST7Y
Thanks!
-Steve
Hey all,
I have been posting my changelogs on Twitter, but that may not be enough visibility. Going forward, I’ll also be posting them here as blog posts so that they are more accessible. Without further ado… a list of all changelogs since .7.0.0!
.7.0.0
Changes and fixes
- Completely updated UI – updated elements, fonts, and tooltips
- New font for clarity
- Increased size of many elements and fonts
- Universal color scheme
- Added economic summary window that shows among other things how close the empire is to insolvency and whether your House’s purse will make up any shortfall. If it can’t, and the Empire goes bankrupt, you will be forced out of office and exiled or killed – in other words, game over.
- Changed layout of planet mode – now summary panels are on the left, allowing more room to see planet graphics
- Added expanded information for trades, production, and build times on Economic Mode
- Added expanded information for active Projects including target of Project and ETA (given no issues!)
- Added new Demographic panel that shows several values of performance for each Pop class like unrest, happiness, etc.
- New art – new character models, replaced old models
- All planets are now 3D, several different models for variety and looks
- Added Planet Demographic panel with breakdown of Pops job, statuses, and happiness
- Added new House emblems and Civ emblems
- Added Audience window for upcoming Character requests to speak with you and/or tell you something personal
- Added many more choices for player House emblem, and it updates (along with House color) in the game
- Added new Icons for Relationships between Houses
- Added House tool tip for easier dynamic information about Houses when you are looking at Characters, etc.
- Changed the way initial Relationships between Houses are done – now no relationship can start below ‘Cold War’ and be better than ‘Friends’
- Added more Actions to facilitate working with Characters who would refuse to work with you any other way, including exiling them!
- Added first stages of Xyl mechanic – they are the alien invaders that drove humans from Earth 1,000 years ago. Currently the new UI elements shows how many turns until the Xyl’s final attack happens and the rough estimate of the power of the attack. There will be a check at the end of the last turn vis a vis your Empire’s power vs the Xyl, and may the best man – or alien – win! (This will be a much more fleshed out mechanic over the later versions)
- Added numerous House Actions that are only applicable to the House Leader to help influence the House relationships
- Added the concept of Emperor Reputation. Basically, you (the Emperor) has a separate Reputation with each House that helps determine whether a check is required to decrease the relationship type. All Projects and Actions affect this reputation, and they have knock-on effects (so that if you help a House that is in a war with other Houses or have poor relations, they will be unhappy and it will be reflected in your reputation) Reputation normalizes over time back to 0 if no actions are taken, faster for positive reputation than for negative.
- Expanded trade hub effect areas – this should make it easier to create contiguous trade zones
- Added many more conversations to the conversation engine so there should be more rich and varied responses from your Characters when you interact with them
- Added Economic Budget System
- You will have 5 ‘sliders’ that you can change at the start of each year for free, as well as change the Imperial Tax and the Holding Taxes.
- Development – increases the standard of living on planets and generally increases Happiness and lowers Unrest
- Military – will be used to build and maintain space and ground military forces, no effect in this build
- Intel – used to build and maintain Inquisitors and Intel networks
- Science – used to maintain Academies that you control
- Diplomacy – used as a ‘pool’ that can be used to bribe or gift Houses/Civilizations
- Added Tax Change slider – you can now change the Holding tax and the various Governor taxes once per year.
- Added House Diplomacy System
- House Diplomacy with the Empire is now governed by 7 diplomatic states: Peace/Neutral, Cold War, Limited War, Total War, Friends, Allies, and Subject Houses.
- House Attitudes are now: Friendly, Cooperative, Neutral, Mistrustful, and Hate. This should simplify the House states somewhat and create a delineation between how a House currently feels about the Empire and their actual diplomatic state, which may be different than how they feel.
- Removed Characters from selection screens who refuse to work with you (have the ‘no’ symbol on their picture)
- Added Strategic AI for Houses
- They can now use Projects, colonize, and build outposts, starbases, trade hubs, etc.
- They follow the same rules that your emperor does – they must use their own House resources, they need Administrators and contributors to their own projects, and they use their own financial resources (their own people do not pay, but they use their House treasuries to pay for Projects).
- So far Houses only have 3 ‘ultimate’ strategies – power, wealth and expansion, but more will be added over time.
- Ultimate Goal States are heavily influenced by House Leader traits and stats, their relative power in the Empire, and their House ‘DNA’ (historical actions and strengths)
- Specific Character AI will be added in future updates
- Tweaked Viceroy AI to better support high-level plans from Houses to more properly develop their Holdings per their House’s wishes/needs
- Added UI support to show what a House’s current top-level goal and current strategy is. Note that once the Intel system is implemented you will have to develop Intel to discover this information
- Added Riot check to planets that have unrest above 50% – will cause Pops to stop working, GPP to drop, and eventually facilities to be destroyed if the riots are not brought under control
- Added 2 new Actions related to Riots: Meet Rioter Demands (costs a lot of credits and basic materials, you will gain Love and lose Fear on that planet, people will generally be happy for a while and Break Rioters Will (basically executes several Pops that are responsible for Riots, will greatly increase Fear and drop Love throughout your Empire, and your Houses will ALL sustain a drop in relations (except for Spartan cultures; they’ll approve)
- Each Pop that can riot is checked – some may, some may not, but the check will not start until < 50% unrest takes hold (people feel there is enough background unrest and issues to start making their feelings felt violently)
- Added a few Projects, mainly for riot control, and took a few away that weren’t working properly
- Added exciting new Project – Initiate Orbital Kinetic Strike! Found in Military Projects in the Planet View:
- Will damage planet – will hit 2-3 random populated Regions and damage the Infrastructure, and reduce sectors as well as killing Pops in those Regions
- You will take a serious Reputation loss with the holding House, as well as any Houses allied to that House
- Your Fear will skyrocket
- Your Love will nosedive
- Any Riots on the planet will end VERY quickly
- Fear will increase in that system somewhat, and across the Empire less (think Death Star effect)
- When giving a Holding to another House, also removed existing Viceroy and replaced with a Character from the new owning House
- Changed algorithm to draw planets more consistently spaced and sized across multiple larger resolutions in System mode
- Fixed an issue where the system view star would draw across inner planets when zoomed in
- Increased zoom performance and increased speed in general
- Greatly decreased turn speed (average time between turns now 10-15 seconds)
- Fixed all existing Action conversation trees and now characters should respond appropriately
- Changed Action response algorithms and now characters should be much more likely to respond to Action requests in line with their current relationship with you, unless they have a very high Honor and that House hates you.
- Changed algorithm for ‘will not serve’ to greatly decrease the likelihood that they will not serve if they are friends (should be virtually 0 unless their House hates you and they have a very high Honor) and allies should be similar
- Fixed an issue where Projects that were ‘sent’ to other planets (probes, colonizing fleets, etc.) were being treated as though the administrator was actually traveling to that planet. Made 2 important changes:
- For fleet/probe based actions where the administrator would not physically ‘be there’ they no longer have a travel time
- Instead, a ‘fleet arrival time’ is used. Fleets move much faster than civilian transports, about 3 times faster, so Projects that are interstellar/fleet-based should be treated much more sensibly now
- Changed ‘groveling’ Action response algorithms to virtually always accept unless the character is much more powerful than you AND they are at Vendetta with you
- Ensured that all Houses would have at least one Holding
- Removed Common Houses – they added nothing to the gameplay but overhead
- Fixed trade algorithm to allow planets to trade at a negative GPP to fulfill needs (but obviously that means that other planets will have to be profitable to keep the Empire in the green)
- Lowered prices across the board and reduced fuel costs to allow for more trades
- Activated ‘culture and idea’ migration – now Pops will take a planet’s dominant culture into account depending on the strength of their Ideas
- Activated ‘Authoritarianism’ Idea – Pops and Cultures who score high in this Idea are more drawn to and like Viceroys/Governors with high Administration skill and have issues with weak leaders. More Idea effects will be added as the game progresses
- Balanced economic model to take higher ADL into account – there is now more incentive to build planets with higher levels of Pops (academics, fluxmen, administrators, merchants)
- Fixed issue where some Character screens loaded incorrectly (primarily House Leaders)
- Fixed several issues with the Trade algorithm – trades should happen more often (and take less time to process)
Fixed lots and lots and lots of other smaller bugs
AotSS Changelog .7.0.1
Additions
- News screen added on main menu, showing game news, updates, and hyperlinks to various help utilities
- Added main menu screen in-game – currently functional: new game, quit game, return to game – new game code now in place for future load game system
- Added player House Icon in place of generic House Info button
Changes/balance
- Decreased turn generation pre-game to 3 turns
- Increased size of small and medium quadrants to assist in ensuring a stable empire is generated
- Increased popular support maluses to make the starting Popular Support trend slightly negative initially in most cases so that the player will have something to focus on right away
- Increased starting material stockpiles for player House so that more can be accomplished early in game
Bug fixes
7.0.3 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- (Finally) added save and load capability! You can save a game (hot save only) in the options menu in-game and load a game from either that same menu or from the main screen.
- Added button disablers to prevent attempting to load a nonexistent game. Once you have a save game, the load buttons will be active.
- Known issues with load:
- Trade hubs will not always generate – they will generate next turn
- The physical ships will not load – they are representative anyway but will require a rewrite of the trade generation system to have initialize in a load game. I will do that but not this round
- Save games are very large (~170 MB). While not an issue per se I would like to make them smaller to help with portability and load times.
- No known issues with save at this time – the game will look like it’s frozen up but it’s working – I’m working on more graphic feedback on this process for next update
- Grand Vizier Screen – this is sort of a monthly update/winning screen that will do the following monthly:
- Give you some broad advice depending on your situation
- Show you progress towards winning/losing conditions
- Give you a set of goals to pursue based on your situation (always optional, but helpful for some direction)
- Give you some potential issues in your empire
- Accessible from the button bar on the top left, with the Grand Vizier picture button
- Added remaining functionality for economic screen
- Sliders to set your budget at the start of the year are now active. The button will ‘lock in’ your selections and be active if it is time to change your budget, otherwise it will show remaining months until you can change
- You can now change your Holding tax. This can be changed whenever you like but it will cost you 20 Power to do so. This represents the percentage of GPP that Houses give you from their Holdings that count towards the yearly GPP projection.
- Massively increased frame rate by optimizing graphics on galaxy map
- Increase is 20-40 FPS in some cases, large quadrants might still be a little slow but should still be 40+ FPS on a good computer
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Added a few more portraits
- Added number of available fleets on the planetary trade box
- Tweaked balance on setup. All Small quadrants have 80 stars, all Medium quadrants have 120 stars, and all Large quadrants have 160 stars. Also adjusted minimum distance between constellations, this should help allow more exploratory gameplay
- Changed scale of UI windows to make them slightly smaller (should fit better on smaller monitors)
BUG FIXES
7.0.4 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Change: Revamped Character Info screen in preparation for Intel/Secrets/Plot system
- Added: Character Relationship Matrix (click on second button on side button tab to access)
- Will allow you to see all relationships with all other characters in the game (for now; soon this will be tied into overall intel level – the more you know, the more relationships will be revealed)
- Can filter by Rank – all or none. Soon add by House
- Can now click directly onto a Character Card and it will open the Character Info screen for that character
- Updated fonts and size to make things easier to read
- Added Character Skills on Customer Info Screen
- Added Intel required to see Character Skills – you will now need at least some intel to reveal character skills, one at a time, and Max Intel will always reveal all skills
- Added: Budget Slider Effects
- Adding to Military Budget will increase the chance that a given Pop will decrease their Unrest each month, at a cost of Emperor Fear (they are being oppressed)
- Adding to Domestic Budget will increase the chance that a given Pop will decrease their Unrest each month and increase their Planet Happiness, and their Emperor Love will increase
- Military Unrest Suppression is 4X more effective than Domestic
- Intel Budget will increase the chance that a given Character will have their Intel level increased each month by 1
- Savings will add that percentage of the year-end GPP budget to your House treasury for use as needed
- No effect yet for Reform
- Added: Change Holding Taxes
- Costs 50 Power to do this, but you can do it anytime
- If tax > 30%, Houses will start to accrue negative Emperor reputation; if tax < 20% Houses will accrue Positive
- Affects what percentage of ‘tribute’ Houses give you from their Holdings, and contributes directly to the GEP.
- Added: Reputation/Rank effects to Relationship changes
- Whenever you take an Action against a character, the effect that that Action has on your relationship with other characters is now modified by the Power and Rank of that character. In other words, people will be far less bothered with how you treat a Courtier than a System Governor, and the Action effects will be relative
- Added: House Relation Changes – now hooked up. Once your Emperor Reputation goes below -500, there is an increasing chance that a House will lower their relationship with your House by one level. When that happens, the Emperor Reputation will reset to 0.
- Added: 6 new Alerts – House Relations in Danger, House Relations Dropped, House Relations Improved, New Intel on Character, Population Suppressed, and Population Inspired.
- Added: 2 new Grand Vizier Goals, 2 new opportunities
- Added: Grand Vizier advice past the first month – it was somewhat of a bug where it wouldn’t advance past the opening month advice. Took time to add additional advice to the system.
- Added: Project: Relocate Province Hub – this Project will allow you to relocate an existing Hub for less than it would cost to build a new one. Will upset the former owners, but make the current ones happy.
- Added: Finance Prime info to Economic Screen – Shows portrait(which is clickable) and the overall economic effect the FP is having on your GEP. This is not actually installed (yet) but is planned for next build. You will have the ability to replace your Primes in the next build.
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
- Tweaked balance where needed, now it generally is harder for Pops to maintain a high Love rating
- Upped costs on several Projects
- Made it clear on Outpost Project Help that the system where the Outpost is must be assigned to a Province (the province hub is where it sends its goods)
- Changed balance with reputation changes with Actions – now should not be so quick to change, also in line with new Rank/Power mechanic above
BUG FIXES
7.1.0 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Added: Comprehensive Help System
- Added 200+ tooltips that explain virtually every panel and concept in AotSS. Many of the tooltips have ‘expanded’ information that explain not just what the item/concept is, but how to change/adjust it, produce it, etc. Many more values are explained in AotSS now.
- Added 15+ help screens on each panel and window (except for game setup; adding separate help for that next update) that explain what the panel does and how each control works – to activate the help, simply roll your mouse over the ‘i’ icon in the upper-left or upper-right corner of a window or panel
- Added internal functionality for Grand Vizier advice on each screen – next few builds will add advice on concepts. As opposed to the ‘this is how to do something’, the GV will explain ‘this is why you should do something’. These will be accessed with a bubble chat icon on each window/panel.
- Rewrote and expanded many existing tooltips as well to fit in with this system
- Standardized tooltip orientation – all tooltips should more or less activate and show from the same corner
- Added: Viceroy Time In Position Modifier
- It is unrealistic to think that you can just plop down a new leader and immediately you can triple a planet’s GPP. This new system will immediately cut the efficiency of the viceroy’s skills by a percentage – in the first few months it may be as low as 15-20%! It will gradually raise to 100% based on government skill and intelligence, and you can see this modifier on the planet screen in the viceroy window
- Affects GPP and production currently.
- Added: UI Changes/Updates
- Color coded several numbers to make them more readable and to understand what is ‘good’ in the game. Also, several layout changes to improve readability, including larger fonts in several areas and a revamp of the Project Screen to be clearer and cleaner
- Added Project: Remove Excess Infrastructure
- This Project will allow you or a House to remove 50% of unused infrastructure from each Region of a planet. This is huge when you have a planet that has been losing Pops but is still paying a large infrastructure upkeep in materials and money.
- Added: End Turn Next Step functionality
- The End Turn button will be red and will explain what you need to do to move to the next turn. Currently, it will tell you when you need to approve the yearly budget. Once you do what you need to do, the button will turn blue and you will be able to proceed.
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
- Balance: Reduced APs at start of game, but no less than 2 per turn (so you can at least do 2 Actions or 1 Project). This creates more interesting choices early.
- Balance: Raised costs of many Projects and lowered others. For example, the Scout System Project cost more than the Survey System Project, even though you get more info with the Survey. Also lowered scout costs across the board to help the AI scout more effectively.
- Balance: Reduced the effect of Actions across the board and made it overall more difficult to change relationships with a single Action, unless it is a very powerful Action like a challenge, removal, or exile
- Balance: Rebalanced the planet generation values so that more ‘exotic’ planets like lava and toxic have very high values in materials or energy so there is some thought to putting outposts there, despite the bio. Also: super earths are now really super!
- Balance: Removed the ability to colonize and outpost gas/ice giants. This will be an ability that you can research later in the development of .7 with the Reform/Science system. Also removed the possibility of these being colonized at the start of the game (more of a bug than a feature)
- UI: Added available fleets to Trade Panel in Economic Command Mode.
- UI: Renamed ‘Average Development Level’ to ‘Planetary Development Level’. Makes more sense based on what it is.
- Intel: Changed the algorithm to make more checks for revealed skills based on the new level – higher levels get more checks. This should result in more revealed skills at higher levels
- Graphics: All planets should now rotate about their axis. Just a graphical thing, but it adds some life to the planets!
- Change: Changed the way the Planetary Development Level (formerly ADL) is calculated – now it uses staffed levels of development instead of total levels, representing pops that would be generating income (since they’re employed!)
- Change: New Emperors on their first turn will always have a one-time $500bc budget to use, regardless of their empire’s situation. This fixes issues where there is no budget at the start of the year, or too little to really make a difference, and fits the narrative that a new Emperor would have some sort of ability to influence things waiting for them.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed the non-working exit button at the main menu
- Fixed a long-running bug where you could have more employed Pops than total Pops, causing issues with production
- Fixed a bug where the end turn button didn’t work after the first year
- Fixed a bug where the budget was never available after the first year
- Fixed an issue where the province hub would not show on the map if the civ hub was also in that system
- Fixed a character generation issue where the House would be assigned prior to skill generation, so Intelligence would not factor into skills like it should.
- Fixed an issue where very few characters would show up in the character selection screen when you tried to replace or fire a character
- Fixed an issue where Neo-Sirius’s trade panel never showed up, as though it did not have a trade port in the system
- Fixed some wonkiness with GPP generation
- Fixed an issue where characters would react to an Action completely not what you would expect
- Fixed an issue where the planet claim procedure would claim terrible planets like gas and ice giants that had great traits that artificially brought the bio up to a minimum level, but were still terrible planets
- Fixed a rare but annoying bug that hung the game during galaxy generation – having to do with character relationships
- Fixed some misspellings in tooltips and cleaned up some wording to align with some new concepts
- Fixed most tooltip issues that result in ‘hanging tooltips’ where they don’t disappear no matter what – this results from a null data error. Working on a disposal routine to check for these whenever the graphics are refreshed and will be added to the next update
- Small performance increases
7.1.1 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Added: Expanded Option Button
- Now you can adjust sound settings, or mute either the UI, music, or both
- Added hooks to add graphic options in next update
- Added: Player House Tradition Selection
- Added the ability to change your House’s tradition levels in 7 categories (Military Tradition is not yet used) This will allow you to more customize your House by setting specific strengths and weaknesses
- 200 points can be allocated across 7 tradition categories in increments of 5 from a low of 5 to a high of 90
- Added: Alert Bar Severity Filter
- 4 buttons can be toggled on/off to filter out levels of alert: Low, Medium, High, and Critical
- Added hooks to add scope filter buttons in next update (Character, Planet, System, Province, Empire)
- Added: Additional Help Screens/Tooltips
- Finished all side screens and most panels
- Added tooltips to setup screens
- Added: Admin Ratio
- This ratio determines a large part of the planet’s unrest level. A 100% ratio is one EMPLOYED average Government Pop at 50 skill for every 10 Pops. Below that, unrest increases. Above that, unrest decreases
- Added the value on the Demographic Screen to track
- Changed: Claim System Project Functionality
- The Claim System Project now is REQUIRED in order to build a colony in a system. You can’t just set up a colony in a far-flung world, you have to put in the political foundation to make sure that your claim and your properly is recognized.
- Once you Claim a system, you can create a Colony Project there.
- There can be any number of Houses that have a Claim on a system, but only certain Houses may build in a system. One House has the Primary Claim on a star system, and they control the system capital and the revenue cut that goes to the System Governor (typically 15% of a system’s revenues).
- The Primary Claim House can (not yet, but soon) give a Colony Claim to a House that basically acts as a letter that allows that House to create one Colony in the system. This will be a major diplomatic boon that you can give to a House to help with diplomacy.
- You can try to Claim a populated System, but know that this will usually drop your relationship level. If you are successful, you will have the Primary Claim on the system and you will own the system capital as a Holding. If you are not successful, you will have a loss of Power and a very pissed off House(s) to answer to. Only try to claim a System politically if you have a massive Holding imbalance, as a large part of the formula is the Planet Value sum of both Houses. Having 2 or 3 high-value Planets with significant development is worth more than 5 lumps of rock.
- Changed: Planet Value System
- Planets now have an overall Value, that is used to calculate House Power, Claim Challenges, and Migration targets, among other things. You can now see this value in the Planet View in any Command Mode. It takes into account not only the planet size and type, but the development, Pops, skill level, and economy. Uninhabited planets still have a value but it will be much lower since it will be based on potential, not development.
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
- UI: Cleaned up setup screens so that they flow better
- UI: Will not let you proceed in setup until you have entered all needed information
BUG FIXES
- Fixed (for reals) bug where you could not access budget in following year
- Fixed issue where you could not click on planet with a planet with rings next to it
- Fixed planets with rings rotating weirdly
- Fixed text error with next turn button
- Fixed issue where you could not select New Colony without the star being part of a province. You need that for an outpost, but not for a new colony (the colony will create a new province if it’s in a new constellation)
- Fixed some scaling issues with the Project Screen
- Fixed an insidious bug with Project Button generation that could occur if any House had a duplicate Project that they were trying to do – it would not always let you.
7.1.2 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Added: UI: Supply Network System View
- This view is the default currently on the Economic Command Mode in Galaxy View. It will show at a glance the status of your supply network to move goods to your civ capital.
- Works like a hub/spoke system – lines go from system trade hubs to province trade hubs to the civ trade hub. Wider lines are higher-level connections
- 4 colors determine status of connection:
- Green – good – trade hub is actively sending goods to their higher trade hub
- Yellow – Viceroy is cautious – there are goods to send but the Viceroy on the planet has determined that they need the goods more on the planet
- Orange – No goods to send – There are no goods to send through the trade network at this time
- Red – Will not send – The system governor has interdicted all planets in this system from sending goods through the supply network
- No line means there is no connection to the main supply network (e.g. not connected to a trade hub, no trade hub in the system)
- Added: Region Detailed Info Panel
- Comes up as a popup panel on the Planet View in Overview Command Mode when you mouseover a given region
- Shows a lot of information about the region under the tooltip, including the region mineral and bio values, the current/max population, unemployment, happiness, pop census, generated goods, and goods per pop.
- Informational only; I used it to validate a lot of changes I made to the world generation process but you can use it to see in more detail what’s happening on your planets!
- Changed: Planet Initialization process
- Rewrote the code to factor in each region’s strengths and weaknesses when adding facilities. For example, now in a mountain region, it will look to add mines much more than farms and admin (if any) while on plains and grasslands, farms will be much more common. This has the effect of better utilizing the planet and ensuring that facilities are put in the places where they would be the most effective
- Pops will be better generated to take advantage of the existing infrastructure, so there should be a better ratio of Pops to relevant facilities
- Lowered habitability across the board to reduce the number of Pops in the game, but your civ capital will still have almost 1 billion people (by design)
- Changed: Skill Adjustments for Characters in existing positions, especially Primes
- In the previous build, Characters were selected randomly and assigned roles with no regard for skills. This was intentional to simulate a decadent Empire where cronyism has run rampant. In talking to some players, however, some of the characters border on inept which can severely cripple your Empire early in the game. I have mitigated this by giving some relevant bonuses to positioned Characters when they are assigned (for example, Finance Primes now have a 30-60 point bonus to Economic Skill, plus a small boost in Intelligence). This has resulted in better balance without creating elite ruling councils.
- Viceroys and Governors also receive Intelligence boosts, which will improve their overall Skills
- Higher chance for an additional Admin point (Admin skill is super important for skills because it represents the character’s ability to not only delegate their knowledge but propagate it through skillful government.
- Added: UI: House Claim Panel
- Supporting last week’s changes to the Claim system, this panel is below the system information and shows all Houses who have a Claim on the system. The Primary Claim holder will still be on the right of the panel, but will also show in the Claim Panel.
- Changed: Relationship Generation
- Changed system to now consider House relationship. Before, it would just take into account Culture, whether you were in the same House or at least the same Culture Ring, and certain matching Traits. This should result in less ‘island allies’ in Houses that you have a poor relationship with
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
- UI: Added a few more tooltips, mainly for new additions in the last 2 versions
- Balance: Some reworking of Region values for Habitability and Minerals
- Balance: Reworked the production values for minerals and food – now more should generally be produced
- Balance: Lowered the mineral/energy values required for Projects across the board to allow the Houses to do more
- Balance: Increased speed of Supply Fleets and Trade Fleets slightly
- Balance: Mineral stockpiles on Planets are now adjusted to more accurately reflect the new facility placement system – in other words, Planets with more Mines will have more Materials, while Planets with more Farms will have more Food to start with and this will be more pronounced
BUG FIXES
7.2.0 Changelog Notes – WIP
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
- Added: Comm System
- This is the start of what will eventually be the Intel System.
- You will have comms from Characters that periodically appear in the Alert Bar (they are critical alerts) and you will have 3 turns to answer them before they disappear.
- It costs 1 AP to answer (testing) and once you open a comm you can back out, but you can’t end the turn until you answer the Character! The comm button will turn red to remind you and the turn button will show red as well with the message (comm waiting)
- If you have no APs, the button greys out to remind you that you have run out of time!
- Currently, only House Leaders and Governors will generate comm requests – this will expand as the system grows
- There are 2 types of comms: Requests and Demands. Requests are generally from friends and allies, while Demands are from Characters who have a poor opinion of you.
- Demands will give a larger hit on the opposing character’s Trust and Grudge level, but giving in to a Demand will lower your Power.
- Requests will only have a small hit if you can not do what they ask.
- If the character is a House Leader, your Emperor Reputation will also suffer/benefit depending on your response
- Added: Reworked Designation Panel
- Reworked the panel to be more clear and in line with the rest of the UI
- Changed: Star Sizes
- Normalized the star sizes so that there wouldn’t be ‘tiny stars’ that were almost impossible to click on. There will still be star size variance but it has been normalized to be less extreme.
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
- Added more tooltips
- Tweaked unrest so that it is easier to fix – currently it is difficult to come back from high unrest unless the people leave – this is sometimes hard to do on very nice planets where Pops otherwise have issues.
- Changed algorithm of House Claims to claim better systems
- Removed the Constellation scaling function. It was causing more issues than it was worth. Now all constellations are the same general size, but all stars are where they should be, as well as saved games will have consistency with star placement.
- UI: Made system panels smaller to be easier to see the bottom on smaller screens
- UI: Added alert to Project Screen when there is no ADM allocated – you will not be able to start the Project until you add at least 1 ADM. Previously, you could start a Project with no ADM, with bad consequences
- Sound: Removed the ‘static’ sound effect when you open the Character screen. Some people thought it was a bug.
- Performance: Greatly increased Planet View Economic Command Mode performance. Should see frame rates now in line with other modes
- UI: Increased the size of the Alerts so they are easier to read
- UI: Removed the dead space on the Project Bar where the Choose Project button was. Now active projects move up to fill the space
- UI: Updated the main screen – expanded the news panel to allow more room for news and re-centered the logo
BUG FIXES
- Fixed numerous issues with Project ADM. Several inconsistencies with not using the right travel type (Fleet or Administrator), not properly adding the travel time, not calculating the administrator effect properly, and causing projects to be much shorter in time than otherwise should be. There should now be consistency with the estimated time and what the time actually is in the Project Bar
- Fixed long-standing issue with Projects taking essentially infinity to complete, caused by ADM being calculated incorrectly on the Project Screen
- Fixed bug where you could not level up Starbases and Logistical Stations
- Fixed bug where you could assign a system to a Province when it was already assigned
- Fixed several draw logic issues that led to much faster frame rate at the planet level
- Fixed refresh issues that sometimes didn’t refresh the system and planet information panel on the bottom-center of the screen when changing to a new planet/system
- Fixed multiple bugs with comm system during test builds
- Removed a few obsolete Projects that no longer use current game mechanics, but were still available to select
- Fixed (hopefully!) rare hang bug where a turn never finishes fully generating, even though you can move around and do things
- Other small UI fixes
7.3.0 Changelog Notes – WIP
5.6.19
MAJOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES
MINOR ADDITIONS/CHANGES/BALANCE
BUG FIXES
Other small fixes
Hello everyone! Steve here, with a new dev diary. I know, it’s been a little while, but I’ve been busy with putting out some quality of life updates and bug fixes. It’s almost time to start a whole new system… and I’m super excited!
For the next several weeks, I’m going to be talking about the next major system to be installed in AotSS – the intel system! Some of the initial parts have already been completed, such as rolling intel on character’s traits and skills, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Plots, Rumors, and Secrets are about to come in a big way!
Let’s talk about Plots first. Despite the nefarious-sounding name, Plots are not necessarily always about killing the Emperor. (Though they certainly can be!) Think of it like something that a Character wants to accomplish within the game. It can be as simple as acquiring a title, all the way to knocking off a House Leader or even you!
A Plot has 4 parts: Target (what they want to accomplish/get/achieve), Help (who they can get to assist them with it), Method (what strategy(ies) they are willing to use to accomplish it) and Time (how long they are willing to take to accomplish the Plot). Plots generate Secrets (intel that can be gained to uncover a Plot) and Rumors (intel that can lead to discover who is involved, but are not as reliable as Secrets).
Let’s see how this system works with a real-world example. Say a Character wakes up one fine morning and they decide they want to get a new job that pays better than their own job. That’s their Target. Their Help would be possibly their friends, their LinkedIn contacts, their former bosses, their family, etc. They need to get a new job within a month, and will stop looking if they don’t find a better job after that time. That’s Time. Depending on what kind of person they are and the skills they have, they might go on a spate of interviews, carefully target one company that they really want to work for, or even start a rumor that gets someone fired from the job that they want, and then they arrive to save the day! That’s Method.
Now, during all this, if their best friend who is actively helping them get in the door tells someone about their job search, that’s a Secret. They have first-hand information about the Plot (since they’re part of it) and thus anyone investigating what they’re doing can plug in that information to better understand what’s happening. If, however, my coworker heard from their coworker who heard from their best friend that they were looking for a job, that’s a Rumor. It might be true, or it might not. Think of it as potentially flawed information.
So, if I’m an Emperor trying to figure out what this Character is doing (since they are hostile to me, for example, and have a high Power) I would begin by possibly sending an Inquisitor Squad to their planet to investigate. They will then pick up Rumors and Secrets, and slowly they will begin to fill in any Plots that they might be hatching. There are 4 levels of intel to Plots:
So, returning to our above example, let’s say that I was suspicious about this Character, and I thought he was trying to start a Plot to kill me or someone close to me. So, I set an Inquisitor Squad to the planet where he currently is, with orders to ‘Investigate a Possible Plot’. This is the default order when you have no knowledge of a Plot. After 2-3 turns, they might uncover a Secret or a Rumor. That info gets added to the Plot Log and would look something like this:
“Viceroy Biggs is trying to get a new job that is better than the old one. We have heard that System Governor Blossom may be included in this Plot.”
So there can be up to 4 ‘pieces’ of intel per Plot. Green means that it is a Secret (high confidence) while Yellow means that the intel is a Rumor (low confidence) This would be a Moderate Plot Intel because while you know that a Plot exists, you have a Target, and Help, even if it’s not confident.
Once you believe you have at least a Moderate Intel Plot, you can act by either doing nothing, attempting to blackmail the parties involved, or if the plot is Illegal, having them openly arrested. At that point, an Inquiry is held, led by the Grand Inquisitor. If the Character is found guilty, they are executed or imprisoned depending on the Severity of the Plot. If the Character is found innocent, they are freed, you lose an amount of Power consummate with the Characters that you set to Inquiry, and they will have a huge grudge against you, as well as a nice Power boost representing public anger at your high-handed tactics.
So in the above example, since it is a Moderate Intel Plot, you are free to act on it, but if you’re wrong and you send an Inquisitor Squad to arrest the people ‘involved’ and it turns out after an Inquiry that you were wrong… sometimes the risk is too great even compared to doing nothing. But if you wait too long for further evidence, you risk the Plot developing and completing, doing what it’s supposed to do… even if the Target is you.
Another way to gain Secrets and Rumors is by talking to Characters who you think may be connected to the Plot. When you “Get to Know Character”, depending on their skills, they may just tell you something that adds to a Plot Intel – maybe one you didn’t even know was brewing!
The more you devote towards Intel, the more Inquisitor Squads you can train and maintain, as well as having a stronger low-level intel net. You will get Alerts about new Plot info, and a Critical Alert when a Plot moves to Max Intel or Moderate Intel.
So that’s the basic system about Plots – more to come soon! Enjoy!
-Steve
Hey everyone!
Steve here, to talk about what will be by far the primary feature in this weeks’ update: a complete revamp of the help system, starting with this update. I wanted to talk a little bit about what it will look like, what’s coming, and why it took so long to add!
First, a look into help in general in games, and where I stand on it. As a developer, I think I suffer from ‘game immersion’ where you play a game literally for years – you know every nook, cranny, and line of code. You know exactly how to do everything in the game, what everything does, and you can visualize what’s happening ‘under the hood’ – so you know why something did or didn’t happen, even if there’s no feedback with that info.
Here’s the obvious issue; your players don’t have that same feedback and insight. So what you know to be gameplay working correctly might come across to a player as a broken feature, a bug, or something that just doesn’t do anything. If that happens enough, they will most likely quit out of frustration, and will have a negative impression of your game! Fairly enough. This issue multiplies when you’re trying to do something ‘different’ whose game mechanics are not common.
As an example: If I’m playing Dominus Galaxia, a great MOO1 update currently in development, as a 4X gamer I already know many of the concepts I’m working with. Research, colonization, economy, build queues, combat, diplomacy, etc. Even though I haven’t read a manual of the game, I can still get around and use and play it with very little help because I have a grounding in the basic concepts. Maybe I need help with specific UI conventions, or some new twists on features, but generally I can pick up the game and play with little help.
A game like AotSS, on the other hand, has several unique concepts that are not common to other 4X/strategy games (Projects, Actions, trade system, production system, etc). While the ‘back of the box’ feature list would lead one to believe that these games are similar (Colonize! Expand! Explore! Exploit!), in truth the systems are different enough that it’s much harder, if not impossible, to ‘pick up and play’ AotSS as it currently stands.
When developing a game, it’s a lot more fun to add features and AI than it is to document it, and I think almost any game developer would agree with that. So help and documentation often get kicked to the back burner, but with the growth and sales of AotSS, I have enough feedback to see that the game can’t grow and gain an audience without stopping to plan and implement a real, thorough, in-game help system. So at last, players can wrap their arms around this huge game.
So what will the help system look like? It will be made up of 6 key components, 2 of which will be implemented this week and 1 which is already in:
Hopefully, this will be enough to get players up and running. With AotSS poised for growth and on the verge of being known to a wider audience, the last thing I want is some influencer trying to play the game and not having a clue about what to do. Plus, the game has evolved enough that customers need and deserve a comprehensive help system.
So here it is. I would love your feedback as it evolves!
Steve
Hey everyone!
Well, I have some exciting news – AotSS version .6, aka Archimedes, will be released Tuesday, January 9, 2018!!
The cost will be $7.99 for the initial entry. This means that you will get Archimedes and every other build going forward, including patches and content additions after 1.0. Why so long, Steve? Good question!
As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of projects that promise much and deliver much less. If anything, this version of AotSS will include more than the original plan called for, including some basic House AI and more Actions and Projects (and corresponding UI) then called for originally. I want to make sure that I deliver a product that I’m proud of, and given my irregular work schedule, this is what it will take to not only deliver the build, but update the web site, add secure ecommerce, and do some basic cleanup of my sites and consolidate everything under the wordpress site under the http://www.allianceofthesacredsuns.com domain, since there are several sites floating around.
I have also released a new video that you should see if you want to get an idea of development – its here: https://youtu.be/0DLUH1JX6cI There is a slight echo but it is workable. I will release a new video every week until first alpha release with additional feature spotlights.
Later today, I’ll be writing another blog talking about a very good point that a commenter had in the video – who are you competing against, anyway? It’s a multi-layered questions and one that I feel deserves a larger answer, so I’ll talk about that later today!
Until soon… Excelsior!!
-Steve
Hello everyone! Well, it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted anything, and I’m sorry. Let me get that out of the way up front. I’ll be apologizing a lot so buckle up, folks.
Anyway, I could give you a lot of reasons why there hasn’t been a lot of activity on AotSS for the last 4 months or so, but in the end it comes down to burnout. As you may now, I have a new now 9 month old who is very healthy, energetic, and BUSY! I also have a full-time job that takes 50-55 hours a week depending on what’s happening, and I’ve been battling through some personal issues. So with all that going on, I’ve been working on Imperia/AotSS for almost 4 years in some form or another. Most of it is very low-level work on a hobby, but obviously the last year has been more focus on providing a product from our studio, KatHawk Studios.
So, as a human, when you have a lot going on around you and you have something that you’ve been hammering on for years, sometimes you just need to step back and take a break. And that’s what I did. Where I failed is to not keep those of you interested in the game in the loop. That was selfish of me and I deeply apologize for that.
So with that being said, I’ll start with the bad news first: Oliver has left the project. Completely understandably, since there hasn’t been anything moving on it for quite a while and you reach a point where you need to see some progress. I apologize to him for the lack of progress and I wish him nothing but the best and I certainly hope circumstances change in the future and he comes back at some point. Because..
The good news is that I’m restarting development of AotSS semi-full time. I have obtained additional funding sufficient to complete the entire game to 1.0 without ‘needing’ sales to fund development. Even though Oliver has left, we have an essentially complete GDD so I will be able to finish what is essentially our vision. There is a tremendous amount that was part of the game design, and while we will include about 70% of it in the initial release, some will have to wait for a future time. When you have a huge project, you must get to ‘what makes this game ‘this game’? and ‘if I cut this, will it change the core ‘feel’ of the game? With that in mind, I will be breaking down the new release schedule shortly, including pricing and the thinking behind it.
With the restart, some other things will be happening. We will be updating our web site by next month. We will be adding our forum, the blog, a news feed, and our eCommerce system for digital download of early release versions of AotSS. We will also increase activity on our forums, our Twitter, and our FB pages. Our KHG channel will have updates weekly, some a ‘developer’ update, some ‘game play’ and some LP, but you will get some sort of content weekly. To keep myself honest, I will be posting an update schedule shortly here on what channels will have what updates. But I vow not to leave anybody else in the dark on this project going forward. I am also always accessible on my email at steve@imperia5x.com or the twitter channel of @KatHawkGames.
So what about that early release schedule? We’re going to release our first version publicly around September 7-10th. It will be priced at $7.99. Why so cheap, Steve? Glad you asked! I’m not a fan (at all) of doing the ‘make early adopters pay through the nose to get in early’ model. Since this is a new property, and bluntly, I haven’t been consistent with my timetables, I want to give people the chance to come in on the ground floor at a very low price so that the risk is as low as I can make it. You will have a full game, but a lot of features will not be there. I feel that this is a good compromise between ‘release it for the people who want it early’ and ‘stay true to my promise of quality and not screw over your fans’. I got excited all over again when I get comments asking how the game is coming along, and we were mentioned on a lot of ‘strategy/4X games looking forward to for 2017’ lists – including 2nd on eXplorminate’s poll of ‘which indie game are you most excited about in 2017’? That’s pretty cool.
So I’m excited again, and you should be too. Let’s do this together.
So without further ado, the release roadmap!
(.5) Currently in Testing – No Public Release (beta testing active)
(.6) ‘Archimedes’ Release – $7.99 – Release in early September through our web site
Will have all main screens, trade/economy/Pops/migration/unrest/popular support/planetary development systems, character Power system, alert bar, AP system, Focuses on planets (agriculture, mines, military, government, etc), about 30% of all Projects, core Houses/Cultures, economic screen, about 50% 3D planets, some sounds, about 15% of all Character Actions, ability to remove/fire Viceroys and Governors, love/fear systems for characters, basic win and lose conditions (win when Popular Support > 80% throughout your Empire; lose when Popular Support < 20% and depose/assassinate check fails), full turn engine cycle.
IMPORTANT!
No Character Decision/Goal AI (economic and role AI will be present, such as intelligently managing planets/systems)
No Music (or maybe 1-2 temporary tracks)
No Save System
Balance will be an issue
(.7) ‘Newton’ Release – $14.99 – Release in early December through our web site
Will have all of Archimedes, and:
– Music (a few tracks)
– More sounds
– Basic character decision AI (2 ‘ultimate’ goals: Survival and Status) out of 9
– 60% of Projects (approx. 50 in final release)
– 40% of Character Actions (approx. 100 in final release)
– Some mid-tier cultures, all inner cultures and Houses
– Science system implementation begin (about 50%)
– Continued polish on UI and UI for science system implemented
No Save System. It will be present in this version but not activated until .8.
(.8) ‘Hubble’ Release – $19.99 – Release in March 2018 through our web site
Will have all of Newton, and:
– Save System implemented
– All cultures implemented
– Emperor screen (diary) partially implemented
– Science system completed
– Intel system start implementation (Inquisitors, secrets, plots)
– Expanded character decision AI (added 2 more ‘ultimate’ goals: Generic (‘normal’) and Wealth)
– All 3D planets and nebulas implemented
– Most sounds
– More music (4-5 tracks)
– Very basic Xyl plot starters
– 80% of Projects
– 50-60% of Character Actions
– Continued balancing
– Bug fixes
(.9) ‘Sagan’ Release – $24.99 – Release in June 2018 (Steam Early Release Candidate)
Will have all of Hubble, and:
– Combat system partially implemented
– Religious system partially implemented
– Emperor screen fully implemented
– Intel system fully implemented
– All cultures and Houses implemented
– Expanded character decision AI (added 2 more ‘ultimate’ goals: Human Needs and Power)
– All sounds added
– All UI elements added
– More music (7-9 tracks)
– Intro/win/loss videos
– Xyl ‘ending play setup’ partially implemented
– 80% of Character Actions completed
– All Projects added
– Continued balance and bug fixes
(1.0) ‘Copernicus’ Release – $29.99 – Release in August-September 2018 (Steam Release)
Will have all of Sagan, all Xyl plot, and all remaining systems/music/sounds/’puff’ – the ‘basic full game’ as described in our GDD.
So that’s the plan. I’ll write a follow-up blog in a few days with more detail and possibly some new UI screens. Until then… stay safe out there, it’s a big universe!
-Steve
Hey everyone!
With the release of our milestone schedule, we’re making great progress towards releasing .3. As such, we now have active builds that need testing. We are looking for 4-5 testers that will take the job seriously. Although the job is not paid, we’re not looking for more than 2-3 hours a week, most likely, depending on how diligent you are. You will however, get all the latest builds of Imperia (good and bad) and… you will get 2 free retail copies/downloads of Imperia as well. There may also be additional goodies as well… (i.e. SWAG)
To apply, please send me an application via Email at steve@imperia5x.com with your name, country, best contact E-mail, and system specs, as well as why you want to be a tester (~100-200 words. Include relevant experience). If you are selected, we will send you further information about the process of reporting bugs/version events.
If you are interested, please have your application sent by 4/24/16. We will close off tester applications at that time. If you were previously a tester, please send a new application to let me know you’re still interested, but if you were in good standing you will be automatically added (outside the additional 4-5 new)
The game is progressing daily, and we are releasing a new build every Sunday night. Major builds will be released every 30-45 days. If you have a question about the timetable, please email me or Oliver (oliver@imperia5x.com)!
Can’t wait to get your feedback!
-Steve
Hey everyone!
We’ve seen quite a bit of activity since we’ve started active development again, and we’d like to invite you to our forums if you want more ‘real-time’ updates and involvement! Our forums are located at www.imperia5x.com and will be more active with our development schedule.
We’d love to hear your voices – you don’t have to register to read the forums, but part of what makes Imperia unique is we truly do listen to the players and that’s one reason we’ve been so open with the development! Plus, it’s a great way to get information in your hand more quickly if you don’t subscribe to this blog (another great idea, BTW!)
We also have a Facebook page and a Twitter handle @kathawkgames. We’re quite active on these platforms so any way you want, you can check out what we’re up to!
See you around!
-Steve
Hey all!!
Been a busy week at my other (paying) job so haven’t had as much time to work on the game as I wanted. I do want to add the military stances system before I film the LP since I spent so much time getting the foundations into the game to begin with – wouldn’t it be nice if they actually did something? Shouldn’t be too long – in the meantime Pavlos and I have been adding even more graphics – now empire icons are in the game so that you finally have a symbol for your vast Empire!! Also some more tweaks to the UI, all which will be seen very soon. Maybe tomorrow? We’ll see. Thanks for reading!
And while we’re on the subject, I’d love to get your thoughts about what information you want to hear about Imperia. I don’t write sometimes because honestly I have no idea about what people want to know. People are visiting the site, but what do you want to know? Let me know in a comment – I’d appreciate the feedback!
-Steve
