Ape Apps

Oh boy! Today I am publishing the v0.19.0 patch for My Colony 2 which should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. This is by far the biggest update to My Colony 2 yet, featuring significant changes both under and... above(?) the hood. Given the scope of the changes, I would expect some issues to crop up, so please file those bug reports here in the forum. In the mean time, lets take a look at what's new in this release!


The first and biggest change to the game is the addition of the new Mod Shop, which you can access from the title screen if you are a Premium user and signed in using an Ape Apps Account. You can consider the Mod Shop to be very beta at this point, and there is still a lot of work to do. I do not yet have auto updating working for mods, and I still need to build out detailed Mod pages that let you leave feedback to the Mod developer. I also suspect that Total Conversion type mods might not work as planned from the Mod Shop yet, but the basic framework is now there and operational at least.


Mods can now be activated and deactivated from the Play Game menu. If you download a mod from the Mod Shop and want to add it to your game, click on the Settings gear icon next to your saved game, and select "Manage Mods" to add and remove mods to your file. If the Manage Mods option does not show up, then play your save, save it, and try again, because the option will not show for older saves that are not using the latest file format.


The next update is going to involve cleaning up, improving and fixing things wrong with the Mod Shop, so please let me know about all Mod Shop related issues that you discover, because I really think that the Mod Shop has the potential to be a great game changer for My Colony 2 going forward, unlocking access to way more content than could ever be added to the game by a single developer.

On the subject of mods, this update includes a complete and total rewrite to the way in which mods are saved and loaded, and there is a strong potential that Modded games created before v0.19.0 may now be broken, so if that is the case for you, then I apologize. Sadly, the massive changes were necessary though. I suspect that Total Conversion mods might currently be broken, although I have not verified that as of yet.

There is a big change that Mod authors need to be aware of in this update as well. If you mod makes changes to the Metadata object in the game, there is a new Game Identifier field. Saved game files are now associated to this identifier, and unless your mod is a Total Conversion mod, it's Meta object should have the same Game Identifier id as the base My Colony 2 game. Otherwise, save files using your Mod will no longer show up in the saved game list. So if you have a mod that makes changes to the Meta object, and it's not a Total Conversion, make sure it uses the same Game Identifier as the base game ( which is: a999fe76-ff1c-5935-e365-755089ba8982 ). Likewise, if you are making a Total Conversion mod, your mod should NOT use the base game identifier.

This update also introduces a significant rewrite to the way games are saved and loaded. It turns out, that if you were signed in using an Ape Apps Account, almost all of your saved games have been synced to the Ape Apps Cloud since the first release of My Colony 2. You may therefore see a bunch of old saves in your game listing the first time you load up v0.19.0 that you might not have known still existed. You should now be able to delete those old saves, and they will also be removed from the cloud. The game was actually loading all of this old saved data each time it opened, so if you delete old games that are no longer being used, your My Colony 2 startup times should be greatly improved.

Moving on, the internal game server has also undergone a massive overhaul, removing all web browser specific functions and logic from the code. This was done so that I could create a command line based dedicated server application, which had previously not been possible since some of the code in the game server itself could only be run in a web browser context. This change will not be very noticeable to the end user, but was a pretty big effort on my part, and will enable the creation of a separate dedicated server application, which will allow 24/7 cloud based My Colony 2 servers in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

Next up, units in the game can now be scaled. Modders will see the new scaling option in the Unit editor. This change also applies to colonists, which are now scaled to a more realistic size for the first time ever in My Colony history! And speaking of colonists, worlds that theoretically have a breathable atmosphere will now be able to use My Tokens characters as colonists models, which can now be seen on the Water World and the Desert World, giving a nice variety to the game.


And speaking of Colonists, you can now take control of them and walk around your settlement! Click on a colonist to enter the new Player mode, to get up close and personal to your base. There isn't much to this feature yet, but in my opinion it comes with huge potential, especially for modders to create totally different types of games on the back of the My Colony 2 engine. Try it out, let me know what you think, and throw out some suggestions of ways this cool new mode can be expanded!


You may notice that the graphics in My Colony 2 are a bit "cleaner" than they were prior to v0.19.0. I didn't even realize it until working on this update, but the anti-aliasing engine was completely broken in Scroll3d. Anyway, it works now and you should be able to notice a subtle difference in the visuals of the game.

I have started to add more detailed building-level statistics to the game. Now when you select a building, there is a stats button that you can click on to expand additional information about the structure, including items like workers and production levels. More will be coming to this expanded interface in the future.


Speaking of statistics, both the World and Settlement level statistics screen have been updated. And there are now settlement level penalties for not having enough Food, Medical, Entertainment, Security, and Education. Settlements now also have a separate "Overall Health" stat, not to be confused with the Medical stat. The Medical tells you what your settlement's medical coverage is, but the Overall Health also takes into effect things like food/water shortages, homelessness, etc. When the overall health gets to low, people will now start to die, so make sure to stay on top of that. You also now have an approval rating for each settlement, which is derived from all statistical factors.

Staying on the topic of statistics, the GDP calculation has now been fixed, as it was previously borked and often showing negative numbers. If you have an already existing colony, it will take a few cycles for your GDP to fix itself, as the game does not go back in time and fix the historical numbers that were calculated using the old, broken calculation.

Moving on, Gifting has now been added to the game! Gifting is done from settlement to settlement, and your gift capacity is determined by the number of Trading Depots you have in your settlement. To gift, make sure your camera is in a settlement that you want to gift from. Then open statistics, and choose the settlement you wish to gift to. After that, the process is fairly straightforward. This should be a big help to multiplayer games.


I have begun expanding the Encyclopedia to include information on Units and Game Contributors. There isn't much there on those sections yet, although I did add an in-game way to send a donation of Ape Coins to the various game contributors who have helped make My Colony 2 what it is today, if you wish to say "thank you" for their efforts.

Some of the existing structures have been modified in this release. The Greenhouse Park will now slowly generate trace amounts of Wood, making Wood available to all map types now. The Warehouse storage capacities have been expanded. The Expansion Barge can no longer be built at the Watercraft Station (there is a new larger water construction yard now for the barge). The Internet Relay Booth now generates a small amount of Research, giving a research head start before players are able to build the Small Research Lab. The output of the Ore Fraking Operation and the Gold Synthesis lab have been increased. The existing Landing Field has been replaced by the smaller Landing Pad, using updated models provided by @GeneralWadaling . I think there were more changes too, but I don't recall them all at the moment.

There are some new Ancient ruins to be found on the Abandoned World, which you will see if you scroll around the map, remnants of a time when the Ancients once controlled the galaxy. There are even some "H Blocks" inspired from the ruins of Pumapunku!


Let's move on to the new content added to the game. Model contributors for this release (besides myself, of course) I believe include @GeneralWadaling , @DoYouHaveAnyOats , and @spamdude . If there are others and I forgot to mention you, then I'm sorry! It's not personal! 😳

Firstly, the new technologies of Advanced Chemical Synthesis, Low Gravity Oil Production, and Advanced Charcoal Production have been added to the game. With these additions bring two new resources into the fold, which are Oil and Plastic (as you might have guessed).

Many of the new structures in this update directly benefit the Water World, although all planet types are benefited to some degree. The new Micro Nursery allows you to get more Trees early game, before you are able to move off of your initial island. That is complimented by the Gold Extractor, which is a slow but easy way to get Gold in the game early on, which was also traditionally difficult on the Water World. Once you advance, there is a new Tree Farm for producing trees at a faster rate, without needing to continually expand and harvest. The new Construction Quay is a larger off-shore ship yard for building larger sea craft, and the new Small Offshore Drill will allow you to extract different minerals, including Oil, from the bottom of the sea. On the Military side of things, there is a new Patrol Boat which is basically like a water based version of the current Infantry unit.


The Landing Field has been moved further down the tech tree, and is replaced by the smaller early game Landing Pad. There is a new Wood Grower for generating more wood, an Oil Tank for storing Oil, and a Synthetic Oil Lab for creating Oil out of Food. Once you have Oil, you can convert it into Plastic using the new Plastic Factory. You can also get a small amount of Plastic from the new Recycling Center.

I think that is all of the new content, although I might have missed something. Looking forward though, now that we have Oil and Plastic in the game, it might be time to introduce Robotics in to the mix, and start going down that branch of the tech tree, so stay tuned for all of that.

At the end of the day, there were so many under the hood changes to this update, that something is bound to be broken. Please be on the lookout and let me know what issues you find. I have been working on this update for the better part of two months, so it is entire possible that I started working on a mechanic weeks ago, and forgot to finish it up. All in all though, I think this is a fair update to the game, and I hope you guys like it!

My Colony 2 v0.19.0 is available now on the Web, Launcher, and Windows Store, and will hopefully be hitting Google Play and the App Store within the next few days, depending on app store review times (even Android requires review now too). So stay tuned for that, let me know what you think, and stay tuned for more in the weeks and months ahead!

https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony2

colbya said:What happen with the plans to incress modding ability's ?
Humans world frankly is full any thing you add now is just eye candy .
LIS is close
Adding bugs to be able to use resources they can harvest was is needed true enough .
But your talking about expanding modding could be the add in that keeps popalatiry higher ( my spelling sucks )
You add enough modding in and you get the group of people I hang with .
1000s of us btw Modders . I just dont do 2 d well lol .
And most of them are passionat about modding .
They will do half the work for you lol .
anyway still nice you added stuff But I believe your key to long term downloading if the game will revolve around the ability to mod .
Simcity 4 is over 12 years old now and still strong the main reason is Modders keep adding new stuff at this point probably a total of ten gigs worth .

PS adding modding makes it possible for modders to expand the game for you one or two buildings ?
More like redoing ( as you your self say ) the entire faction .
Ill link a site to your message box as adding a link here well not sure the mod would aprove lol

I think he likes mods and wants more mods for his mods.

Yo Dawg, I heard you like mods. So I got you some mods to mod onto your mods so you can mod your mods. Oh, he also wants more mods.

I am now putting the finishing touches on My Colony 2 v0.18.0 which should be hitting all platforms over the next couple of days. This update contains changes for modders, some new content, and a couple of QoL improvements that you might find helpful, so let's take a look at what's new!


To get started, let's first take a look at the new content in this release. The My Colony 2 engine now has support for fixed-size, non-infinite maps, which you can see demonstrated with the new My Colony Classic map. With My Colony Classic, you will start out on a flat 160x160 Red Planet map which contains resource levels similar to the Red Planet map in My Colony 1. This map probably is not suitable for multiplayer, but it is suitable for those who want to switch gameplay up a bit and try something a bit closer in style to the original My Colony.

Moving along, two new research techs have been added in this update, Galactic Commerce and Multimedia Infrastructure. In addition to the new techs, there are four new structures available, the Ore Synthesis Lab, the Galactic Stock Exchange, the Multimedia Studio, and the Security Wall.


Next up, a handful of interface updates have been introduced in this release. Returning from My Colony 1, you can now do a click/hold gesture to bring up the box select feature, allowing you select multiple units at once. New in MC2, you can also just ctrl+click using a keyboard do use the box select feature.

Before this update, giving a group of units a move order at the same time would place all of them on the exact same location. They will now be slightly spread out if you are moving multiple units at once.

The Park Unit feature is now available for all units. You can now assign a unit a parking space that they will return to whenever they are done working. This is a great feature given the infinite map sizes, as you can now keep builder units in specific areas, and you can also have dedicated bot areas spread throughout your map so that you always have a builder nearby.


The Encyclopedia and Settlement Stats have been expanded slightly, although there is still a ton of work to be done. Settlements in particular will now show GDP statistics, but keep in mind that the GDP data will be a bit inaccurate for the first hour or so of play time, until the engine has enough data collected to put together a more accurate assessment of your settlement's economy.

If you use the Ape Apps Launcher and you have joined a multiplayer MC2 server, you will now receive a desktop notification when a server you have joined comes online, even if you do not have My Colony 2 open. This is handy for players who join a non-dedicated server and want to be alerted as soon as their server comes online.


Several bugs have been fixed in this release. Some of the more important involve an issue where playing a modded game would not load properly after the first play. Also, the structure placement "chain mode" toggle button has been fixed now.

I have made changes to the data structure for Units and Structures that any user creating game mods should be aware of going forward. Previously, Unit and Structure data objects had to specify what units/structures they were able to build, respectively. This has now been reversed, and Units must now specify where they are built, and Structures must specify which units build them. You can read more about the reasoning for this change in this thread, but this should make modded content better overall in the long run. Right now, both the old data structure and new data structure will be recognized by the engine, but do use the new way on all modded content going forward, as the old way is now considered to be depreciated and will no longer be maintained going forward.

It is now much easier for modders to export content bundles containing several new objects. Now when you are in the game editor and choose Export Bundle -> Object Bundle, you will be presented with a new export window that lets you select which data objects you want to add to the bundle. Prior to this, if you wanted a bundle with only certain objects in it, you would have to manually remove all unwanted objects from the game before export, which was very tedious.


The game editor menu now also includes a Blank Slate option, which will remove all content from the editor and let you create a brand new game from scratch. Again, this is an extremely handy new feature, as you would previously have to manually remove all existing content if you were wanting to create a Total Conversion mod.

There are a handful of other little changes and updates you will find in this release, which I cannot remember off of the top of my head, but you can try them out right now on the Launcher or on Ape Web Apps, and they should be hitting the app stores over the coming days.

Looking ahead, over the next few weeks I am going to be putting together a Mod Shop website, where mod creators can upload their modded content, and in MC2 v0.19.0, the new Mod Shop will be browsable from within the game. Users will still be able to distribute their mods manually like they could before, but the benefits of the new Mod Shop will be:

1. Easy mod discoverability/install
2. Automatic updating of mod content
3. User feedback and reviews of mods

A mod author will be able to publish updates to their mod on the website, which will be automatically distributed to the users who have the mod installed. Authors can also include screenshots, a description, a website link, and a button that will let users donate to them to thank the author for their time and effort. They will also be able to check usage statistics for their mod, and read user reviews and feedback.

Speaking of mods as well, right now mods can only be installed on new game creation. I will soon be adding a Mod section to the Statistics screen which will allow you to install/remove/update mods for a game after it's been created. Obviously you can bork your game by doing this, so make sure to save a backup of your game before changing it's content. There will be in-game warnings posted to that effect as well.

So anyway, that is what's new with My Colony 2! I hope you enjoy the update, and stay tuned for a whole lot more in the future!

https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony2

I would rather have the complete game install, and then a mods folder at the root where you put everything you add/modify. If you take the example of Minecraft (again) they have a different folder for mods.

It would make it easier to manage installed mods (why not even a launcher option to choose which mods to load/unload) and keep the native install clean.

You only seemed to have talked about mods as building additions. Will we be able to modify other behaviours in a standardized manner? (I mean not by modifying the native js files). That would be great.
I don't know how modding works on other games, but callbacks to mod functions (thus in the mods folder) at the end of each task (like "building finished" or "trade bought" or "some panel displayed") could work. I would help test these out if needed.

I know it's been a long time since the last MC2 update, but the wait for v0.19.0 is almost over. This is a major update to the game, with tons of new content and changes under the hood, but one of the biggest changes is the complete overhaul to how Mods are handled. In addition to the new Mod Shop which will also be arriving soon, there is now a new interface to change the game data for your save files, either before you create a new game, or even after the game has already been created (meaning you can now add/change/update/remove mods to/from existing game saves).


The new interface couldn't be easier to use. In one column you have all of the game data that is active in your save, and in the other column you have all of the data that is available to be added, along with a button to import a c2d file into your game. You can even remove items from the base packaged game if you want, for example if you just hate the Advanced Ore Refinery for some reason, you can simply remove it from your game!

Total Conversion mods are now handled differently as well. You can still activate a mod from the title screen as before, but now if you have one or more Total Conversion mods installed to your game directory, you will be presented with a game selection screen when you launch My Colony 2, allowing you to choose which game you want to play. From there, only save files for your selected game will show up in your saved games listing, so as to keep everything more organized. This will be an extremely handy feature in the months to come, as a more diverse set of mods become available from the Mod Shop.

My Colony 2 v0.19.0 probably represents the most time in terms of hours I have put into a single update, and the changes behind the scenes are fairly large, so I hope it doesn't end up breaking a bunch of games :-/ I guess we will all find out soon enough though! I expect to finally be done with this update by early next week, probably Monday or Tuesday, so stay tuned for more!

Hello there, everyone! Today, I will be sharing an developer concept that should be added to My Colony 1, the Game Editor! This topic has not been posted to since 1 year, by @AlexisCruz. Do note that I am not a developer and I only make mods. The game editor will allow players and mod developers to create in-game mods for the game, similar to the one in MC2. This is so that players get to create their own mods in-game and to submit these mods if they are a community suggestion to the community. Mods will also allow for an broader experience of how to play the game. This will be an premium feature.

New release of My Colony has just been pushed out and should be heading out to all devices over the next couple of days. This is a minor update, as with the weather warming up I have been pretty busy with yard work and landscaping around the house over the last few weeks. Still though, there are some important changes, so let's take a look at what is new!

My Colony v0.64.0 Changelog

New Stuff

• Added a Delete All button to the building stats screen. Use with caution!
• New Research build category added
• Added new in-game texture mod downloader

Changes

• The in-game commonwealth chat now shows which colony each user represents
• Players on the Xbox One console can no longer play online 😕 (Microsoft requirement, nothing I can do about it)
• Added wheel storage to the Gravitational Compression Warehouse
• Increased Crystalling, Ore, Regolith, and Charcoal storage capacities for the Zolarg Mound
• LIS colonies can now build the Hall of Congress
• On Android and Windows 10, lighting effects are now turned Off by default, for performance reasons. Can be changed back in the Engine Settings screen
• Slightly improved Starship construction time
• Starships and Wheels have been added to the GBT
• Multiple texture mods can now be activated at once
• You can now upload your custom texture mods to the My Colony server in-game

Notes
As you can see, this update primarily focuses on cleaning up existing content and a complete rewrite of the texture modding system. If people utilize the new Texture Mod upload/download server, I will expand the feature allowing for in-app screenshots before downloading, and user ratings for the mods so you know what you are getting ahead of time.

I am thinking of implementing an entire in-game complete modding system, allowing the modder to start with a completely blank slate game file and build their own My Colony like game from scratch, defining their own civs, graphics, structures, and all related content. More information on that will be forthcoming.

Anyway, next update will probably be back to content again, unless something major comes up. Let me know if you have any issues with the new texture mod system, as I did rewrite the entire thing from scratch to allow for multiple mods to be activated at once.

That's all for today everyone. Much more to come - enjoy!

There are some new changes coming to the Texture Mod system in My Colony v0.64.0.

Texture mod authors will now be able to upload their mods to the My Colony server from within the game. Must be logged in with an Ape Apps Account to upload.

There will be a new in-game mod browser where users can browse through all of the uploaded texture mods.

And finally (and most importantly), you can now have multiple texture mods activated at once. This will allow texture creators to upload single-building mods and for users to only mod the buildings they want to.

It's all coming this week in My Colony v0.64.0. Enjoy!

There are a couple of changes coming to the Texture Modding engine over the next few updates.

The first one is the support for .svg texture overrides. When you override a graphic using an .svg file, you get another added benefit. Any element in your svg file using the fill color of ff00ff will automatically change to the players' colony color (as defined on the Statistics screen) at run-time.

Coming in a future update is going to be the ability to upload your mods to the My Colony server right from within the game. The game will include a new mod browser where users can download and activate mods without having to leave the game.

After those two features are done, mod-chaining will be added, whereby you can have as many texture mods activated as you like. You will be able to define a preference order, in the event that two mods override the same texture, the one with the higher preference will take precedence.

Anyway, the .svg support is coming in this update, and the other two will be coming over the next two updates. Enjoy!

The soon-to-be-released v0.18.0 update for My Colony 2 will be bringing a couple of fundamental changes that modders will need to be aware of, but ones that will make the modding situation for the game a bit better overall.

Previously and currently, both Structures and Units have properties saying what they can build. For instance, a Rover object says it can build a Solar Panel or a Greenhouse, while a Construction Yard says that it can build a Builder Bot or an Ore Miner. This is the way things have been set up since the original My Colony was released in 2016, but I am preparing to depreciate this relationship starting in v0.18.0 of MC2 and moving forward.

From here on, the new preferred way to specify what gets built and where is about the opposite of how it is currently handled. Now, Structures and Units themselves must specify where they are built. For instance, the Greenhouse object will now have to say that it is built by the Rover and the Builder Bot, and the Builder Bot must say that it is built by the Construction Yard.

This is how I should have done it from the beginning, but if you are wondering the reason for the change it is this. Prior, say you wanted to add a new unit to the game. You would have to create the unit object, and then modify the Construction Yard or other building to tell it that it can build the new unit. Furthermore, if the game is updated and the Construction Yard gets new features, the new revision of the Construction Yard will over ride the modded version with the lower version number. With the new system, the new unit itself specifies where it is built, and so you don't even have to mess with the Construction Yard in order to add it to the game.

Moving on, I am going to be making it easier to package mod files up. Right now you basically have to export the entire game data in order to make a mod that contains multiple items. Going forward, you will be able to select which items to package into a mod and export only those bundled items.

Finally, after I publish v0.18.0, I am going to but together an online Mod Shop website where you can easily upload mods, receive feedback, and publish updates. Then in v0.19.0, this online Mod Shop will be tied into the game itself, and so users will be able to easily find and download mods, rate and review them, and can receive automatic mod updates when the author posts a new release or update.

So anyway, those are some of the changes coming soon to MC2 modding. I think that between making the game easier to package mods and easier for users to find/download/auto update mods, the whole modding experience for MC2 should be improving considerably over the coming weeks and months!

Here is a collection on concepts that I am leaning towards for My Colony 2 as of today (20200624). This is all subject to change and I can be convinced by the community of anything, so keep the suggestions and feedback coming. This is going to be a super long post featuring all of my thoughts on MC2 thus far. Feel free to criticize anything and everything here. My feelings will not be hurt and nothing is set in stone. This is a starting point for community discussion to help make MC2 the best game it can be!

Relationship to My Colony 1
MC2 is an entire new game, not an upgrade to the original, or a version 2.0. It may use completely different concepts. It will not be tied in to the same server. Game files will not transfer over, as MC2 will probably have completely different buildings/tech tree, etc.

This does not mean that MC1 will be going away. I will continue to support the original and the server indefinitely. I realize that a lot of people like the style of game that MC1 is and do not want anything to change, so the original is staying where it is. It may continue to receive new content as well as bug fixes, but I do not plan on any further changes to the gameplay mechanics or core engine going forward.

That said, as long as MC1 remains popular and people keep playing it and paying for it, I will keep the game going.

Business Model/Monetizing
This is the least fun part of development, but a necessary one in order to make creating a game feasible. The business model for MC1 was tacked on as an afterthought, and reflecting back I do not like the concept of certain structures and units being premium.

None of this is set in stone, but here are my initial thoughts on the business model. My Colony 2 will be a straight paid app on all app stores, with everything unlocked at the base price, no in-app purchases. No advertising anywhere. The exception is on Ape Web Apps and the Ape Market, where it will be free, everything unlocked, but with no access to multiplayer or custom content. Maybe only one map type available.

Current My Colony 1 is basically already like this on Desktop, with the mobile client being free with additional IAP, so this change just makes the mobile version match up with what is already on desktop.

Now, I do anticipate the dissatisfaction of Android players not having the free version in the Play Store. However, Android support for Progressive Web Apps is sufficiently advanced now that you can just install the Web version to your homescreen like an app and it's hardly any different. Same with iOS. And MC1 will still be available for free like it always has been.

No free version on the mobile app stores will likely mean less players, and I understand this. But I like the idea of just buying a game and having the whole thing, not worrying about IAP's and not having any advertising.

Client/Server Structure
The biggest change to MC2 is it's design from the ground up as a multiplayer game. This does not mean that you cannot play single player, but it is being designed specifically for multiplayer.

MC1 has limited multiplayer, which basically consists of chat and trading/gifting resources. You can play together on a multiplayer region, but all you are really doing is sharing atmosphere and seeing thumbnails of other players' colonies. Not really very multiplayery (is that a word?). The MC1 multiplayer is also global and centralized, meaning everything has to go through the global My Colony server.

My Colony 2 multiplayer will be decentralized, meaning no global server that everybody plays on. Why am I doing this, because it seems like a downgrade? Look at every game out there with real global multiplayer, not just chat and trading. That takes massive infrastructure, and you pay for it with either a monthly subscription or endless IAP's. That's the only way it's really possible, and I don't think anybody wants that if you really stop and think it through.

The only realistic way to add real multiplayer to the game without investing in a massive infrastructure and charging big money for the game is to decentralize it. And since I am not Blizzard and do not want to spend my whole life maintaining MC2 servers, I am adopting a decentralized approach.

What does this mean? My Colony 2 will actually be designed as two separate applications in one, the client and the server.

The game client will be fairly light weight. It's job is to receive data from the server application and render it to the screen, and pass instructions as to what the player wants to do onto the server. That's pretty much it, and it should be fairly performant. Even though the game is moving to 3d, I still expect it to perform better than MC1, simply because 3d hardware rendering performs better than 2d software rendering.

The game server is much more interesting and is where all of the game mechanics take place, but since the server does not have to worry about handling the UI or making drawing calls, it actually has a bit more overhead to work with than on MC1. The two most expensive operations in MC1 are the rendering and the pathfinding. In MC2, the server is eliminating the rendering, and I also want to greatly reduce the pathfinding, leaving more headroom for actual fun stuff, like game mechanics simulation.

So in MC2, the game relationship is between client(s) and server. Whenever you create a new game in MC2, you are creating a new server, and then connecting to it with a client. The server is saved and retained between plays, where the client only exists while it is in use, and is not saved. So the point I just want to get across is that the client is really not that important, the server is.

The server and client code are both included in the My Colony 2 game. You will have the option of starting a regular game or creating a dedicated server. When you start a regular game, you are spinning up both a client and server and creating a 1-1 connection between the two right on your device. You can also make your game joinable by friends or others on your local network for multiplayer.

You can also create a dedicated server. When you create a MC2 dedicated server, you will be presented with a special server GUI that allows you to be in full control of the game. The server will continue to process game data as long as it is running, even if no players/clients are connected. A dedicated server will be able to establish custom game rules and parameters, and have mods installed that will be transferred to any client who connects. You will be able to make a dedicated server open to the public, or by invite only, or by specifying a list of accounts who are able to join. It's up to the server. A dedicated server will be able to moderate it's players however they want, the server can adjust resource levels, ban players for cheating, or anything. It's all up to the server owner.

The game data is saved only on the server, and the server owner will be responsible for making backups. I expect game files to be a lot bigger than MC1, so I am not going to be implementing Cloud Sync, which is known to cause corruption on larger files anyway. The ability to export and backup data will be built right into the game as usual.

Because of the way it's designed, even if you only want to play single player, it still may be desirable to set up a private dedicated server. For instance, you could run a private MC2 dedicated server on your powerful home PC that is always on/connected to the internet. Then you can connect to your server from your tablet/phone/laptop/another window on your computer, wherever you are, and your game is always there waiting for you, and all of the processing is being done on the more powerful computer.

The Game World/Game Files
In MC1, the game world is divided into cities and regions, and each city is a separate game file. In MC2, there are no cities and regions, there are planets.

This is something I am aping from Minecraft. A planet is like a regular city file in MC1, except is extends out in every direction to infinity, so you do not have to worry about running out of space for your city. A planet can have multiple cities and multiple players building cities at the same time.

Planets will be procedurally generated, and new areas will be generated in real-time as needed. Each planet type will have different biomes like in Minecraft, so that different environments and different resources are available in different parts on the planet.

This system means that you will have to build up trade networks with other cities or make additional settlement outposts across the planet in order to bring more resource types back to your colony. In MC1, practically every resource in the game is available with a square mile of your lander. This doesn't really make sense. In MC2 you will have to go out and find resources, and then build up a network for bringing them back into your city.

Technically, the MC2 world is still a big 2d grid like in MC1, but each tile does have an elevation, a z-index, for varied terrain elevations. Different resources might be found at different elevations and in different biomes. You will also be able to adjust the terrain in-game, like building up dirt to level out construction areas. There will be flat areas good for building, low canyons, and hilly or mountainous areas.

Also like in Minecraft, the terrain is generated on the fly and only transferred to the client in "chunks" as needed. So your client will only contain the data for the area that you are currently looking at, and the immediate surrounding areas. As you scroll around the map, areas you are no longer looking at will be disposed from memory as new areas are loaded from the server.

Construction / Resource Gathering and Rovers
I would really like to get rid of Rovers completely and simulate everything. It's not that I hate rovers, they are so helpful and adorable. The issue is with the pathfinding. Just driving rovers around the map takes up a huge percentage of the MC1 processing time, for what is essentially a visual effect.

Pathfinding is both CPU and memory intensive on anything larger than a medium sized MC1 map, and in MC2 the map sizes are being expanded infinitely larger. It's not just as simple as "only path finding around a certain area from the rover." Before you can even calculate pathfinding operations, you first have to generate a pathfinding map and load it into memory. The maps will be more expensive than in MC1 owing to the introduction of terrain elevation, as there will now be cliffs to work around. Each time a new structure is placed the pathfinding map needs to be recalculated. With the game being multiplayer, this will have to be taking place on a larger scale. It is one of the features holding MC1 back, due to all of the CPU time that must be dedicated to solving rover paths.

The issue of course, is that everybody likes rovers. Even I like rovers. Would the game be less fun without them? I don't know. If you could just turn off Rover Rendering in the engine settings and you didn't even see them, but everything continued to operate as normal, would it make a difference to the game, or would it matter? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't.

Everything a Rover does can be simulated for a fraction of the CPU and memory cost.

This is the largest part of MC2 that I don't have an answer to. I can't just remove rovers because that would be a blow to the fans of MC1. I also cringe thinking of all of the months wasted on optimizing path finding and the 1 star complaints about performance, all relating to a path finding feature in what is essentially a city building game.

There are options.

I could always just keep rovers in the game as they are and just keep working around the processing issues that come with it. In a single player game or a server with only a few active players at once, it probably wouldn't be a very big hit.

I have also considered just simulating rovers, sort of like colonists are just simulated in MC1. For example, you don't even have to build your own rovers. But when you place a new construction order, little rovers drive up onto the construction site and build your building anyway. These rovers do not exist on the server, but you see them building on the client. Same way for moving resources around. On the server it is just simulated, but on the client, you see a rover driving around doing all of the work. This would still require path finding, but each client would be doing their own path finding on the visual rover effect, and the player could turn it off if it became a performance issue.

If the client could just visually simulate things like rovers, colonists, police cars, busses, etc, they would all still be there visually making your city look alive, but the server wouldn't even have to worry about them.

Maybe there are other options too that I am not thinking of? All feedback on Rovers is welcome. I want the game to be performant, but I also don't want to go against the fans, so please let me know what you think either way.

Graphics
MC1 is a software rendered game using the HTML5 canvas element, arranging .png and .svg tile images onto a 2d isometric grid. Most of the graphics processing is done by the main CPU and not the graphics card, so graphics performance is largely defined by how good your processor is. This is why the game runs a lot better on desktop vs mobile, or even on iPhone vs android, and iPhone processors tend to be a bit better.

The problems is that the CPU also has to process the game, so trying to do everything at once gets expensive, especially on mobile devices.

My Colony 2 is moving to WebGL for graphics processing, which is a javascript based implementation of OpenGL that handles rendering on the GPU. This should lead to far better performance on most devices.

My original idea was to use Blender for all of the games building models. The graphics were going to be awesome. But when I dug into Blender and started working with it, I remembered how I am not actually a graphics designer, and it was going to take me forever to make all of the models for this game.

My other idea was to make blocky pixelated type graphics using my own Voxel Paint application (https://www.apewebapps.com/voxel-paint/). This means lower quality visuals but much higher output and probably better rendering performance as well. It's also so easy to use that anybody could make their own MC2 models, my wife even offering to help design structures for the game (she is a big Minecraft fan).

At the end of the day, My Colony 1 was never known for high quality graphics, but I thought that with MC2 I could really make it look great. After putzing around with Blender though, I have to acknowledge my own personal limitations. Basically, I can either spend months learning how to make great 3d models in Blender, or I can spend months working on the game code. I know which one I'd rather do. So I am probably going to go with the pixelated look, simply because it is something that I can actually do myself within a realistic timeframe, and it will also go well with the next point I'm about to explain, which is modding.

I know some people will not like a pixelated looking game. This is one of those areas where I have to say "tough," unless somebody is willing so supply me with hundreds of 3d models free of charge, which is what it is going to take in order to do this properly.

Modding
Customization is going to be huge in MC2 compared to the original. Given the global online multiplayer in MC1, custom content could not realistically be allowed in the game. The decentralized nature of MC2 changes everything though, and modding and customization, as well as all of the tools needed to make it happen, are going to be baked right into the client.

In MC2, the basic "unit" of the game is the building. Everything is going to be pretty much based on buildings, and their relationship to each other. This is basically how MC1 works as well, so this is nothing new. What is going to be knew is My Colony 2's build in Building Editor.

I am going to be creating MC2 using the games' bulit-in editor, and so the same editor I use to make the game is going to be available to all players.

Each building in the game is going to be stored as a building file, and the base game will ship with all of its standard building files, which will be loaded at runtime. This differs from MC1 where all building data is stored in a single JSON file that is shipped with the game, which cannot be easily edited.

A building file will contain three parts.

The first is the JSON formatted definition data, with information about the name of the building, what it does, what it generates, etc. All of the properties that a building can have will be stored in that data.

The second part is the model information, which will essentially be an embedded Voxel Paint file.

The third part is a small (maybe like 64x64 pixel) thumbnail or icon representing the building, which will show up on the construction sidebar and various places throughout the UI.

The three above parts are all packaged into a single file which can be added to the game client, posted online for easy sharing, or what have you. A dedicated server can include custom building files that will automatically be distributed to clients when they join the game. Each building file will have a unique UUID and version information, so if a client already has the same version of a building file that a server does, it will not need to re-transfer the data upon connection.

This system is actually a very powerful change over the original My Colony, and unlocks essentially limitless possibilities for the game. This also makes it a lot easier for the community to participate in development of the game. A creator who makes a great building idea can distribute it online where it is tested out and balanced by the community. If it works in practice and everyone likes it, the file can be included in the base game.

If you want to host a crazy dedicated server with a bunch of custom buildings that totally change the game, you can do so.

I have no idea what kind of buildings people will dream up, but including the content creation tools right into the base game will be huge, I hope. And I plan on making the process as easy as I possibly can, so that anybody can create a building. Using Voxel Paint, if you have an idea and the ability to build a house in Minecraft, you should be able to make it a reality. And being able to make something and then instantly import it into your game makes it simple to test out concepts and balance them right there on your own device.

It's possibly that nobody will care about modding or making buildings, but it still doesn't hurt to add the tools right into the game. If nothing else, it will still make it easier for me to create new content for updates, versus having to go through and edit JSON data manually.

However, it's also possible that everybody will be making custom content and the game takes off in crazy directions that we never even imagined!

It could even be possible to allow mod creators to somehow sell their mods in-game and get paid in real money, maybe through PayPal or something. That is a thought for another day though, and not a current actual plan.

Conclusion
These are my current thoughts on MC2 as of this day. Like I said, nothing is set in stone yet and everything is subject to change. I wanted to put everything out there so that the community knows what page I am on and where I am headed, and has time to stop me if I am about to drive over a cliff.

Remember that I am open to all feedback, so if you have ideas, please don't just be quite about it, or don't just complain about them in a Discord chat somewhere, because I probably will not see them. Part of being a game developer is getting hate e-mail on a regular basis on why my games suck, so believe me that your being critical of the above ideas will not hurt my feelings, and will be nothing new to me.

The whole purpose of doing all of this beforehand is to get real feedback from the community so that MC2 can go in a direction that we all like and we will all have fun playing. Once I start getting into the code, it gets harder and harder to make changes, so if there is something you don't like, now is the time to mention it. Think of all of the things I could not effectively implement in MC1 because they would require massive time-consuming changes to the entire engine. So getting ideas in right now is how we avoid that.

Like MC1, I'm trying to make something fun that I myself want to play, not a game that is going to just nickel and dime players with constant ads and IAPs so I can sit on a yacht somewhere. I think the new decentralized play model will allow the game to outlast the original. Basically, if I get in a wreck and die, the MC1 server will be forever down within a few weeks. With MC2, once players can make their own servers and create their own content right from within the game, what happens to me becomes more irrelevant, which is the way it should be.

Anyway, if you got this far, then thanks for reading my small novel. Please give some thoughts to where you want to see the game go, or discuss it with other players and really think about all of the concepts I laid out here. I want to start working on the game soon, maybe as early as mid-next month. I plan to start with the world-generating engine and the in-game building creation tools first, so people can start testing that out and seeing what it is like to make their own content.

So between now and then, if any of the above ideas are way off the mark, I need to know now. So think about it, let me know, and thanks for helping me create the follow-up to My Colony. I think it's going to be fun!

Now that the Mod Shop is available in all My Colony 2 game clients, I realized I haven't made an explicit post on how to submit your mods to the shop. It's actually fairly simple. The first thing you need to do is sign in to the mod shop portal with your Ape Apps Account:

https://modshop.my-colony.com/

Here you can manage your public modder profile (which people will eventually be able to view from within the game) and manage your mods. You can click on the + icon in the toolbar to start a new mod project.

The details are all explained and straight forward. Note that in order for your mod to show up in the store, you need to provide the mod file, and at least a mod icon or screenshot. The mod icon should be 1024x500px in size.

I still have work to do on the mod shop portal, eventually you will be able to see usage stats, download trends, and read feedback and reviews (as soon as I get the feedback and review functions added to the game).

The texture mods that have been submitted to the server in-game now appear on the my-colony.com website at this link:
https://www.my-colony.com/texmods

If you are a mod author, you can now add screenshots for your mods at that site to help give users an idea of what they are downloading.

there is a VERY hard to get around forum here for downloading texture mods but no info as to how to actually install them. i've found my colony's folders in the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps section but theirs nowhere that indicates thats where you put the mods or what im supposed to do with them.

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Adding the mods (pc only)
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1. First open the my colony game and choose more options from the main menu.

2. Then choose modding from the left side menu, then texture mods, then create texture mod.

3. Next find the item you want to swap out, i picked the lander for this thread, now click import override then file and locate the graphic you just made and click it.

4. It should now appear in a box under then original if so click options top left and then click save.
(if you get the warning pop up stating the dimensions are wrong then you need to resize your artboard to the same sie as the item you'e swapping in my case the lander which is 64x64 px)

5. Now click options again then pick export and save it with a good name that won't get mixed up with names already in the game, save the file with the extension .mct

6. Close the editor and return to the game main screen, choose more options again then modding then texture mods but then choose import texture mod and find the .mct file you just created and it should return you cabk to the main screen.

7. Open a save game and giggle with glee as you see your very own creation in the game.

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Hope you find this useful and if so please feel free to comment below with your questions or wasssaps and also don't forget to vote on this thread.

that looks like a major theam to be added I must admit you will keep life in this game with this kind of content .
The modding idea could be expanded on were a person can define resources a building produces and well frankly any in game basic thing along with buildings . NOT network modding though ) transport walk that much to complicated for most .
It took a special team doing ONLY that to have it come out right .
Me and many others who I hang with all enjoy stats ( aka resource )modding as much as adding new buildings wich we did not even consider modding .Now textures we did consider mods .
Building were player created content the rest was mods .

Ovesly this type modding would be offline only . Wich we also implanted as well ( accutly we had them as separate files so we could just drop them in downloads folder and take them out when ever we wanted .

But this only was workable for resource type mods removing a building caused a blank box to be on the tile .
Your game is a step ahead on that as removing a texture ( building mod it reverts back to original no problem .
anyway a few good points in wich your system is a improvement over most .

What is your stance on people making content mods?

I think I may have figured out, or part of how to do it (thanks to Notepad++ and some poking around with it) but I'd like to ask just in case anyways. Unsure if I'll do anything with this info, but someone may. I imagine the stance is "If it works, I'm fine with it" but I'd like to ask anyways

From what I can tell, the game is based on or made using Javascript (in that it uses .js files) and they can specifically be found in AppData\Roaming\Ape Apps Launcher\apps\My Colony\appdata\ .
The files in question, from what I can tell, are only script.js, and game.js.

Some parts seem to be unused if you look at the game while doing some looking at the text of either one.

However, I've got no idea of how one would go about loading content mods outside of just adding those parts to the end of game.js itself, and swapping versions of it. Perhaps one day there may be the ability to add a .js file's contents in the game itself, even allowing Steam Workshop support too.

Wondering what players or potential modders think about eventually setting up an in-game mod store where players can more easily download and install mods?

My thinking is that you would always be able to just distribute your mods any way you wish, but you could also upload them to the My Colony server where they will be downloadable in-game. I could also give the modders the chance to charge a price for their mod if they wanted to, and they would get a monthly lump-payment from their mod sales (minus various app store transaction fees and a small Ape Apps cut).

Anyway, it could be a way to generate a little more revenue for the game, plus allow mod creators an easy way to get paid for their mods if they wanted to. Again, it would all be optional, and a mod creator could still distribute their mod using any means they wanted to. I was just thinking that if a mod creator put in tons of time and made some giant total conversion of the game, they might want to make a few bucks on it.

These are just a few ideas that may be obvious things that bast has already decided he will implement, but hopefully some of these ideas may help. And Before you start blasting me about how bast won't ever put a pvp element into my colony, you should check the updates and announcements page under update 75, since bast includes the possibility of a pvp element with federations.

The ideas below represent an entire concept when applied together. This is how I would implement pvp between federations in my colony, but like all of my other concept ideas, it's mainly here to present new thoughts to the developer on how certain concepts could come together, and I don't expect him to just take this entire concept and put it in the game.

First off, I think that any pvp feature should be optional, just as bast said. But I do think that there should be some risk involved with enabling pvp and joining in federation wars/rivalries. I don't think that the risk should be catastrophic, but being attacked by someone else should come with some major disadvantages.

I think that in order for a rivalry/war between two federations to continue, a certain percentage of the federation should be regularly and actively involved. This way, people have to be actively participating in the rivalry in order for it to continue, so time and effort would need to be put in. While a rivalry is going on, all colonies in those federations are given buffs that increase income and production speeds of certain resources, so a rivalry would be good for business, as it also is in real life.

However, those that chose not to participate in a rivalry will not benefit at all from any benefits that come about by attacking enemy colonies, only active colonies do. This way there will be no freeloaders. I also think that there should be a cooldown timer that forces players to remain pvp active for a while after they've attacked another colony. This way colonies can't attack other colonies and then quickly disable pvp mode to avoid retaliation. However, if you accidentally enable pvp and haven't attacked anyone, you can immediately disable pvp. I also think that each colony should only be able to have one debuff affecting them at a time, but they could have multiple buffs in effect. Any further attempts to double-debuff an enemy would result in the attacker wasting a debuff chance and using resources that they could have used on another target.

Now, here comes a system of buffs and debuffs that I think would fit the pvp feature nicely. With these status effects, each colony could specialize in a certain kind of attack, or take on a certain support role in a rivalry, thus adding a bit of an rpg element to this system, but shouldn't need to get too in depth or complex with it. Below is a system of classes, point systems, and buffs and debuffs that a player can cast on other friendly or enemy colonies. Bear in mind that in order to receive a buff or debuff, you need to be in pvp mode. All buffs and debuffs require certain buildings in order to be unlocked and improved, and the best status effects require more complex buildings.

There would also be four different scores attributed to each colony that tell what kind of contribution that colony makes to the war effort and what their specialty/class is. Each class would be specified by a certain building, and only one of six of these buildings can be constructed at once in a colony. Whichever building is built determines the war class of the colony and what it specializes in. The buildings can be upgraded in tiers, giving more and more unique advantages for each tier, but also becoming more expensive. The classes are as follows:

A vanguard heads straight in and attacks the enemy headlong, splitting their focus between offense and defense. They can be capable attackers and defenders, but would more often than not pose as a distraction to the enemy, spreading their attacks and defenses onto multiple colonies at once with the splitter cast, and protecting themselves with the feedback loop cast. They focus on collecting offense and defense points.

Unique advantages: the vanguard's unique advantages focus on reducing the durations of all debuffs that they are targeted with, reducing buff/debuff cooldowns, increasing the amount of targets that a vanguarde can hit with the splitter cast, and on the highest tier, enabling the vanguard to attack an enemy and "taunt" them, thus forcing them to target the vanguard for their next attack. The taunt can also be used in combination with splitter to affect multiple enemies, forcing them all to wait on each other to take turns attacking the same vanguard before they can target another colony.

An empowerer is good at preparing their allies for an initial attack on an unsuspecting enemy. The buff their allies to strengthen them for the battle to come, and they join the ranks of vanguards in attacking and distracting the enemy. The Empowerer can counter some debuffs with buffs, but it proves to be a very inefficient counterer and can easily be picked out by an assassin if it causes too much bother in the heat of battle. It's best for this class to do all of it's buffs before battle and save the debuffs until the heat of battle. An empowerer will rack up offense and utility points, with relatively few defense points.

Unique advantages: The empowerer's unique abilities focus on buff potency, the amount of targets that splitter can reach, duration reduction to any debuffs that it experiences. And on the highest tier buildings, Empowerers gain a 1 in 5 chance to apply a buff to themselves automatically if they cast that same buff onto an ally without negating a debuff or being negated by a debuff. This allows the Empowerer to easily empower themselves while they are empowering other colonies in preparation for a battle, but doesn't help the empowerer during the heat of battle.

An assassin makes calculated strikes. Their attacks are very potent and can be made even more potent thanks to the charge cast. They are often supported by vanguards that strike before the assassins to get the initial attention from the enemies. They need not worry about protecting themselves in battle because of this. Even if they are attacked, they can retaliate quickly by using the dimensional reflection buff, thus giving their enemy a taste of their own medicine. An assassin can be good at countering buffs with debuffs, but not as effectively as they can attack an unprotected enemy. This class will have mostly offense points, with a little bit of silencer points as well.

Unique advantages: the Assassin's unique advantages focus on debuff potency and cooldown, dimensional mirror cooldown and cost reduction, increased potency and decreased cooldown on a buff affected by the charge cast, and on the highest tier, giving the assassin the ability to attack an enemy with an "evasive" attack, thus forcing the enemy to not be able to retaliate against the assassin for a certain amount of time. The enemy can target other colonies during that time though, just not that particular assassin.

The counterer focuses on offense and defense. They use their casts to negate a buff or debuff. They use the splitter and feedback loop buffs to cast negating buffs and debuffs onto themselves and other allies. The assassin might target a counterer with a potent attack at just the right time, during the counterer's cooldown time, if the counterer becomes a bother to it's enemies. So learning when to take action to help your allies and when let up for a while to lose attention from enemy colonies is a must for this class. The counterer gains equal amounts of defense and silencer points.

Unique advantages:The counterer's unique advantages focus on cooldown and resource cost reduction to all buffs and debuffs, increasing the amount of extra targets that splitter can give you, and on the highest tier, a counterer can "silence" an enemy, preventing them from attacking or defending any target for a duration, if they successfully negate that enemy's debuff or buff. The silence effect has a 1 in 5 chance of happening for each successful counter.

The healer is solely a supporter and defender, defending colonists by negating debuffs with their buffs and using buffs on allies just as utilities to boost their performance. The healer gives potent buffs and defenses to other players and is the pillar that holds up the federation in the war. They can use the charge cast to further increase the potency of a buff, which they would use to further strengthen allies. Assassins will target these the most to slow them down so the enemy will be without support, and counterers can also silence Healers by negating their buffs with debuffs. But healers are really good at empowering all of the other classes, which in turn will retaliate if one of their healers is attacked. The healer focuses on collecting defense and utility points.

Unique advantages: The healer's advantages focus on buff potency and cooldown, increased potency and decreased cooldown effects of the charge buff on all buffs, and on the highest tier, if they successfully counter a debuff with a buff, that buff's cooldown is reduced by 75%, allowing them to deal large amounts of counters in rapid succession as long as their buffs aren't re-countered/negated by an enemy.

The Commando is like an empowerer in that it buffs allies in preparation for battle, but instead of joining in the frontline assault like empowerers, commandos hide under cover of distraction and take out enemy defenses with tactical casts. They are extremely efficient with countering buffs with debuffs, yet they can't defend allies against debuffs. The commando is the hardest class to play as their position on the battlefield is an awkward one. And while they are really good at ripping enemy defenses away and preparing allies for battle, they themselves can't directly attack or defend anyone. Only choose this class if you're experienced with the pvp feature and your federation needs people of this class, otherwise you'll find yourself having a really bad experience with the pvp element.

Unique advantages: The commando looses the ability to buff people that are already affected with a debuff and the ability to debuff an enemy that's not protected by a buff, and debuff potency and duration is set to 0 so that if a commando successfully negates a buff, the debuff doesn't affect the enemy as an attack like it regularly would. This forces the commando into it's role turns debuffs solely into a means of breaking defenses instead of attacking directly. The commando also gets cooldown reduction to all debuffs, buff potency, increased splitter targets, and on the highest tier structure, the commando has a 1 in 5 chance of completely removing a buff or debuff's cooldown after casting it successfully. This means that the commando can hit many more targets than any other class in a period of time, allowing it to somewhat carpet-bomb enemy defenses or empower massive amounts of allies before the battle.

Major Benefits in participating in PVP: As factions war against each other, the colonies contributing to the war effect will share in the spoils of war. In order for Federations to start a war, both Federations must fromt a certain amount of money, and then each week after that start of the war, that same amount of money must be paid by each federation. Each week, a tally would be taken of how many successful attacks and counters were dealt by each federation. Both numbers are added together to get the Federation's battle score, and the federation with the highest score wins all of the money from all participating federations for that week. This can be used in a free-for-all war that includes multple federations as well as just a regular rivalry between two federations, and the war can continue as long as the federations want it to continue, provided they have enough money to put forward. The winning federation is required to split the winnings among it's participating colonies, but how much a percentage of the win that it keeps to itself is optional. Just bear in mind that nobody will participate if there is not a big enough reward.

Debuffs:

Benefits of debuffing enemies: When you debuff an enemy that doesn't currently have any status effects without being negated, you permanently gain a small amount of potency towards the debuff you casted and you get offense points that go to your offense score, which can be seen by other members of your federation. If you successfully negate a buffed enemy with a debuff, you gain silencer points towards your silencer score that other members can see and you permanenty gain a very small percentage chance of not being negated each time you cast a debuff or buff, even if your buff or debuff was countered correctly by a defending enemy(this also applies to buffs/debuffs casted with feedback loop). Finally, if you successfully negated a buff or debuff that negated your original buff/debuff on the same enemy, you will gain 2x silencer points and you get 2x more percentage added to your negation-block chance.

Brownout: Forcefully syphon energy from your enemy to temporarily add to your power capacity. Is negated by the Syphon buff but can negate the repair nanites buff. Casting this debuff successfully without having it negated will permanently add a 2% increase to the caster's power capacity that scales with their power capacity.
Category: Techno-warfare

EMP Blast: Blast your enemy with EMP waves that temporarily damage power producing buildings, causing a complete power blackout. the effects of the emp blast are shorter in duration than the brownout, but cannot be countered by simply increasing power production like brownout could. Negates the Syphon Buff but is negated by the repair nanites buff. Successfully casting this debuff without negation would award the caster with a permanent 2% faster build speed on all power producing buildings.

Plague: Inflict an enemy with a nasty plague that lowers the health of it's colonists over time. By treating the population of that colony like guinea pigs, you gain a boost towards research production. A plague will never kill a colonist directly, the lowest that a plague would bring a colonist would be 5%. This is avoid any colony from dying out because of warfare. Negated by the healing nanites buff but negates the probiotic bursts buff. Successfully casting this buff without negation will grant the caster a 2% increase in build speed of hospitals and scientific structures.

Famine: Target your enemy's food supply and reduce the amount of food they produce for a time. Negated by the probiotic bursts buff but negates the healing nanites buff since people can't heal without eating food. Successfully casting this buff without negation will grant the caster a permanent 2% increase in food storage.

World eater: You release a rare silicon-based life form that eats stone and metal into your enemy's colony. The creature quickly reproduces and infests all of the enemy's ore mines, viciously attacking the miners.. The enemy suffers a substantial reduction in production rates from any structure that relies on holes in the ground, including excavation sites, core mines, regolith extraction co.s, fracking plants, etc. The world eaters are trained to build storehouses for the ore they collect and share it with their masters. Successfully casting this debuff without having it negated will permanent multiply the attacker's total storage capacity for raw resources by 1.02, thus adding an extra 2% capacity in relation to the capacity they already have. This scales with resource capacity and applies to all resources that come from the ground, including alien arts, ore, gold, ura, alu, rego,
Category: Geo-warfare

Tectonic disruption: Pummel your enemy with earthquakes that make working in tall buildings extremely hard. The target suffers reduced work productivity depending on how potent your attack is and can't build or destroy any buildings during the duration of the debuff. Successfully casting this buff without negation will grant the caster 2% faster construction of any structure that classifies as a tall building.
Category: Geo-warfare

Splitter: A very costly and high tech buff that allows you to direct your buffs and debuffs toward two targets at once. In order to successfully target two allies/enemies with a particular status effect, you need to cast splitter on both targets in rapid succession(casts are no more than 5 minutes apart), otherwise the splitter buff/debuff would be wasted on only one target and the caster would have to wait the long cooldown in order to cast it again.
Category: Offensive Warfare

Malicious Sanctioning campaign: you target an enemy with a campaign to invite it's population to immigrate to your colony, thus leaching population away from them. Requires tons of civics to cast and a colony would have to be well established in order to have access to this attack and would need to have tons of space for new colonists. Negated by the repopulate buff but negates the Friendly sanctioning buff. Once a caster's housing space is filled up, the campaign will be ended, thus avoiding any homeless people. Successfully casting this debuff without running out of housing space or being negated will grant the caster a 2% increase in build speeds on all housing structures.
Category: Political Warfare

Purge: Purge your colony of any overly complacent colonists, forcing them to immigrate to your enemy. These colonists will immigrate to the enemy regardless of whether they have housing room or not. If the enemy doesn't have housing room, the immigrants because homeless and detract from their happiness score. This buff requires a lot of civics and would have a huge cooldown. Successfully casting this debuff would grant the caster a 2% increase in build speeds for all tourism structures.
Category: Political warfare

Blockade: Block and enemy's trade via gbt and all import/export/immigration buildings other than the Stargate. is negated by the subspace detour buff but negates the hyperspace transport buff. Requires starships to cast. During the blockade, the prices of all of the import/export stuctures besides your highest tier import/export building(stargate for humans) are reduced by 20% and the rewards gain from the exports are increased by 20%
Category: Economic Warfare

Subspace disruption: Disruption your enemy's Stargate connection, rendering their most advanced immigration and trade building useless. Negates the subspace detour buff but is negated by the hyperspace transport buff. During a disruption, your highest tier import/export building gains a 20% import price reduction and a 20% export reward increase.
Category: Economic Warfare

Buffs:

Benefits of buffing allies: There are good benefits to turning your colony unto a support colony that buffs it's allies. When you successfully negate a debuff, you permanently gain a small amount of resistance to the debuff that you negated, and you get defense points that go to your overall defense score that other members can see. When you cast a buff onto an ally while they aren't affected by any status affects, then you gain points towards your utility score, which other members can see as well, and you gain a potency increase to that buff.

Syphon: You temporarily sacrifice a portion of your power to add to an ally colony's power levels. Designed to negate the brownout debuff as long as the caster has enough extra power to successfully supplement that colony's needs as well as the extra demand for power that the brownout debuff adds. Unfortunately, the emp burst debuff negates this buff.
Category: Techno-warfare

Repair nanites: sends a swarm of nanites to repair any damage in an ally's technology caused by an EMP blast, immidiately negating the debuff. The brownout debuff destroys these nanites as the high electric demand causes electronics to overheat, vaporizing the nanites as they try to fix the damage. One side effect of getting hit with this buff is that they repair damage caused by other means, thereby repairing building infrastructure by a significant percentage.
Category: techno-warfare

Healing nanites: you send a swarm of healing nanites to an ally colony to heal it's occupants. Completely negates the plague debuff, but is negated by the dyson sphere debuff. Hospitals also heal sick colonists faster depending on buff potency.
Category: Bio-warfare

Probiotic bursts: gives an ally colony rapid food production for some time. This buff requires a large amount of food and water to charge, but when casted onto an ally colony, it releases massive clouds of genetically modified probiotics in the atmosphere, which help crops grow fast. negates the dyson sphere debuff, but is negated by the plague debuff.
Category: Bio-warfare

Ultrasonic resonance: Blast your ally with ultrasonic waves that purify the earth of any world eaters. Obviously this counters the world eater debuff. The resonance shakes ores and minerals loose from the rocks for easier collection. This adds a significant boost to production in all buildings that rely on holes in the ground. However, this buff does nothing against the tectonic disruption debuff.
Category: Geo-warfare

Cryonic infusion: calm an ally's planet down with the freezing power of cryo-science. Negates tectonic disruption, but world eaters are impervious to the extreme cold. The severe cold causes blue crystalline to grow on the surface of the planet, no matter what planet it is, and there is a percentage chance for each lava tile on a lava map to instantly turn into obsidian. Both of these benefits depend on buff potency.
Category: Geo-warfare

Repopulate: you sacrifice a portion of your population to save an ally from dying off by repopulating their colony. No resource or tech requirements. Not designed to negate any debuff, but designed to prevent any colony from dying off. This is a very low tier buff, and would be the first buff to be unlocked, so it really shouldn't be possible to kill off an enemy colony to where they can't recover, since they could always get reinforcements from allies. In fact, I could see some colonies specializing in this buff by increasing their population size way beyond their population requirements. Negates the sanctioning campaign debuff but people won't want to move to that colony if it been afflicted by a purge from another colony.
Category: Political Warfare

Friendly Sanctioning campaign: Help your ally by welcoming all of their homeless into your colony. The buff only stops when either the caster runs out of housing or the target runs out of homeless. negates the Purge debuff but is negated by the Malicious sanctioning debuff.
Category: Political Warfare

Subspace detour: Allow your ally to connect to your gbt via their stargate, thus allowing them to make trades. This negates a blockade debuff, but is negated by the subspace disruption debuff. Side effects from this buff include a reduced cost in civics for each gbt transaction and the reduction of cost and increase of reward from importing/exporting from the stargate or highest tier import/export building, depending on buff potency.

Wormhole: You create a wormhole above your planet that links to a wormhole above your allie's planet. Because of this, allies can travel more effectively without the need of a stargate. Negates subspace disruption but is negated by blockade. Has the same effect on gbt as subspace detour, but applies the cost and benefit modifiers to every tier other than the top tier import/export building.

SOS: This buff can only be applied to the colony casting it. It's basically a cry for help. Other allies can see a list of SOS reports for their federation and see the colony being attacked and identify the attacker. Afterward they can proceed to buff their ally in danger, or retaliate against the attacker with a debilitating debuff. There is no requirement or cost to cast this buff, you just have to have a communications device, consulate, or capital.
Category: Defensive Warfare

Feedback loop: Can only be applied to the caster, casting requires large amounts of power and the tech required with be pretty high to unlock this buff. Once this buff is casted, the caster can target themselves once with any buff, essentially being able to defend themselves instead of having to rely on another colony for counters. The feedback loop would come with a large cooldown, so the caster would have to choose wisely on.
Category: Defensive Warfare

Dimensional reflection: Reflect a buff or debuff back onto an enemy or ally, thus negating any effect on the caster completely and immediately. A high tech and a lot of resources required to cast this buff and comes with a long cooldown. This buff doesn't prevent an attack, you have to cast this buff during when you are experiencing a buff or debuff.
Category: Defensive Warfare

Charge: cast this buff before casting another buff or debuff to multiply the potency by 5. This also increases the cooldown of the buff being affected by 5. The most expensive buff in the game and comes with the highest cooldown.

-------------------------------

Now with all of that out of the way, I want to remind everyone that I'm not expecting this whole beast of a concept to be plopped into the game. I hope that bast at least takes a consideration of the concept and uses pieces and parts from it, but I mainly just want to see the game grow to become more popular and hopefully some of my ideas play a part in making that happen. I will be making changes to this post to constantly refine it based on what I learn about what is feasible to do and what bast's plans are, so stay tuned.

this is the Subforum for mods. all mods are posted here

How to import .mct files

1. Find an .mct file in the mod section of this forum, download and save.

2. Open the game in a pc then follow this route > more options> modding> texture mods> import texture mod> choose .mct file, you should then return to the main screen and ready to play.

The .mct files are user created and as such may or may not be suitable for all ages if found outside of the ape apps forum, the ,mct mods in here will have been vetted first and are continually moderated so will be 100% safe
(they may not be sane 😃😀 but deffo safe)

I haven't worked out exactly how the modding will be set up yet @Sobeirannovaocc so I can't answer everything for certain.

My intention is that I don't want to have to fiddle around with a bunch of .JSON data every time I make an update. And it's not that JSON is difficult or anything, but in MC1, there are so many records in the file now, that if I want to add an additional property to a building, it takes all day of going back through the file and adding the new property to all existing buildings. Not fun.

So to me, the more the game can be created by using it's own built-in tools, the better.

Now, your ideas about having mods in their own folder or using a launcher are good, but here is the problem. Well, three problems: they are called Android, iOS, and Windows 10 (via the Store). Sorry, four problems: Web Browser. All of the big platforms require all applications to run in a sandboxed environment and severely restrict your access to the filesystem. The Web does not have real filesystem access at all, although this is theoretically changing by the end of the year, at least for Chrome and Edge (the chromium version). But I doubt it will be changing at all for Firefox anytime soon. Apple iOS is actually becoming a bit more open in terms of filesystem, but Android is going in the opposite direction and becoming even more locked down with every release.

So the biggest issue for modding like that is application sandboxing. But just because the customized files are stored within the application's sandboxed storage, does not mean they have to dirty the clean install of the game. Maybe modded content is only loaded on a per-game/server basis? So that when you start a new game, you can select which extensions you want to activate. And maybe also have an in-game mod panel where you can activate new mods or update existing ones after the game is already running. And maybe have a container file that groups a bunch of mods into one package, so that you can easily install an entire collection of things bundled into one mod package. I am just thinking of ideas here.

So anyway, hope that answers some things. I don't know if it will be just buildings until I kind of see the direction of the engine. I know that buildings will be the most important unit in MC2. To the extent that I have Rovers, I don't think they are going to have the same importance as they do in MC1. I suppose resources and map types can also be customized. We'll see!

Welcome everyone! Today I am releasing My Colony v0.52.0, the Christmas 2017 update! What makes it a Christmas update? Why, all of the goodies inside of it (of course). Here are the changes:

My Colony v0.52.0 Changelog

New Stuff

• New Structure: Crystal Vaporizer
• New Maps: Earthlike (human), Lava World (Zolarg
• New Units: Extremeobug, Obsidiobug, Rover Transport, Queen and Airborne Lander (sort of new)
• New Resource: Obsidian
• New Modding Option: Map Editor

Changes

• Water (and the new Lava) tiles now have a slight 'shore' texture around them instead of hard-ending at the edge of a tile. The shore pieces connect when multiple waters are placed next to each other.
• The U.E. Lander can now launch and turn into the Airborne Lander, which can be moved to a new location.
• Likewise, the Zolarg Mound can now transform into the Queen and move to a new location.
• Slight gameplay change, Zolarg Mounds can no longer be built, you must build the new Queen unit first and then turn the Queen into a Mound.
• Removed Power and resource consumption requirements from Creative Mode
• Increased storage of the Charcoal Pile

Notes
The biggest change here is the addition of the new Lava World, which has a few new features not seen before in the game, including moving terrain elements and natural disasters. I won't go too much into it, you can read more about the Lava World in the Lava World thread I made the other day: https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=11358

The other big change is the addition of an engine feature allowing buildings to "pack-up" into units (and vice versa) so that they can be moved to a new location. I will probably expand this for other structures in the future.

The other big change for Premium users is the new Map Editor, found in the Mod Tools section. This lets you start with a blank map and add in any terrain feature found in the game. If the feature proves popular, I will expand on it, adding more terrain elements and features. Once Accounts are integrated into the game, I am also going to add the ability to upload both custom maps and texture mods to the My Colony server right from within the game, and add a section where users can download mods without having to leave the game.

Now then, this will be the last My Colony update for a few weeks. Besides for holiday travels I have coming up, there are a lot of other things I want to get caught up on over the next few weeks, including getting my servers ready for finally ditching Facebook and adding Ape Apps accounts into the game. There are also big improvements and changes to the Forum, the Chat, and the general Ape Apps Account experience coming very soon. Also, the My Colony website is going to get basically a complete overhaul.

I will return to My Colony development in mid-January with the long awaited introduction of the evil Reptilians. Just for a background, the Reptilians are the alien race that had previously enslaved the Insectoids. The Insectoids were under brutal Reptilian rule until one brave insectoid named Zolarg overthrew the Reptilians and founded the Zolarg Empire. Many Insectoid worlds are now under the protection of the Zolarg Empire, but there are also many insectoid worlds that are still enslaved by the Reptilians. This will come into play with the new Reptilian worlds, which (on the galactic map) are going to be pretty close to the Zolarg worlds. You will see when the Reptilians come out that they employ poor insectoids as slave labor throughout their colonies. Reptilians are also playing a hand in United Earth/LIS politics, but this will not be a factor in My Colony (only in the upcoming Colony Wars). The Reptilians are also more technologically advanced than both the Insectoid and the Humans, and the are going to have cool new features not found in the other colonies. So stay tuned, much more to come!

Just in time for the weekend (if you are using the PWA at least), the My Colony 2 v0.23.0 update is now available, bringing a lot of goodies that I hope think you are going to love. So what's new in this release? Let's take a look!


To begin with, continuing work from the last two releases of My Colony 2, more structure voxel models have been separated from the data files, further reducing initial game load times, particularly on mobile devices. This should especially help on lower memory devices, as some were crashing from the sheer size of the overall MC2 data file during initial load.

Next up, as I mentioned in another thread, all My Colony 2 game statistics are now being automatically logged to the Coloniae service that @Sobeirannovaocc is maintaining. The My Colony 2 implementation of Coloniae is still in development, but you can find it at the following URL to track it's progression. Check it out, see if you can find your own world statistics, and be sure to give Sobe your feedback!

https://dev.coloniae.space/

In addition, all new colonies in MC2 are now being automatically added to the mc2global Universe, as outlined in this thread. This will be the default global universe for all new MC2 games, and if you want to join it with your existing colony, simply click on the thread I just posted for instructions.

Next up, commenters in the various app stores have long been requesting that MC2 contain some sort of hints or tutorials such as those found in the original My Colony. So I have started to add helpful dialogs to the game at various points.


More exciting than the tutorials though, are the manner in which they have been implemented. Some time ago, there was a request for some scripting capabilities to be added to MC2 that creators could use for different types of mods. I started implementing it by adding some flag properties to units, structures, worlds, and civs, but then forgot about it, until @Luker124 recently reminded me that they would be helpful for a mod he is planning. As a result, you will now see a new Scripting section in the Game Editor.


I will make a more detailed post on scripting at some point, but it basically works like this. Certain entities (units, structures mainly, but also civs and worlds) can set either a Player Flag or a Global Flag when they are built/come into the game. A Player Flag pertains to the player who triggered the event, and a Global Flag pertains to the entire server. When a flag is triggered, the engine looks through all of the available scripts, and then will run any script that is triggered by the trigger flag.

The engine remembers which players have used which flag, so they can only be triggered once, unless a script gives a "clear flag" command. You can see the currently available script actions in the screenshot above. A script may contain one or more actions, and can call subsequent scripts by setting flags itself.

I plan to use this new flag/script feature to implement something suggested by @GeneralWadaling some months ago, whereby you could discover interesting terrains which would then unlock things. My thinking is that you could discover alien artifacts/tech that would then unlock certain structures that were not available otherwise through the tech tree.

The possibilities are vast though, so it will be interesting to see what modders come up with. The scripting framework is still in its infancy, so try it out and let me know what additions or improvements you would like to see. I foresee eventually being able to make a wide variety of different types of mods with this feature, not even limited to colony builder games.

Next up we come to a new addition that everybody has been asking for since MC2 was first made public, and I am talking about the return of the Bulldozer!


There is now a new toolbar above the build options sidebar. Currently it only has a bulldozer, but that will probably be expanded at some point. As in MC1, the bulldozer mode will turn your interface red so that you do not forget you are in a destructive mode. Unlike MC1, bulldozing a structure will now actually sell it instead of just destroy, so that it is actually more like a quick-sell option than anything else.

Besides just structures, Roads can now finally be removed too, using the bulldozer. This has been one of the top requests for a long time, and now it is a reality. This actually required a pretty substantial rewrite to how roads work, which I outlined in another thread a few weeks ago. But the work is done and the feature is here now. In the coming updates, I plan on also allowing roads to be built pretty much anywhere, not just within the confines of your own settlement, allowing vast highways to be buily across your world!

Moving on, the engine will now enforce structures that have a Settlement Level requirement (currently, only a handful of structures do). You will see this when viewing structure costs on the sidebar. Settlements are leveled up using Civics, and you can level up your settlement by selecting it from the Statistics window.

Now on to new content, as three new Techs have been added in this update: Low Atmospheric Zoology, Advanced Security and Advanced Robotics! Along with the techs, we have two additional resources added to the mix, Cloth and Robots.

Of course, there are new structures here too. The Fish Hatchery is back from MC1, allowing you to breed fish for food. The Outhouse is here, which I think was something of a gag model that GeneralWadaling sent me, but I turned it into an early game sanitation (medical) facility that you can build early on, before you can afford an infirmary. Next we have the Synthetic Textile Lab for creating cloth, and the Robotics Factory for making robots. There is a decorative United Earth Flag that takes on the color of your settlement, and the Storage Yard is a new upgrade to the Raw Materials Depot, allowing you to store way more raw materials than you previously could. Finally, the new War Factory will allow you to build this updates' new military unit, the Main Battle Tank!


All in all, there is a lot here in this update, and I hope you guys like it! So check it out, as it should be hitting all platforms over the coming days, and if you don't want to wait, fire up the web app now at the following URL. Until then, thanks for playing, and have a good weekend!

https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/

#mycolony2

I have just put the finishing touches on the v0.75.0 update to My Colony, and will begin pushing it out to all platforms tomorrow (Thursday) morning, possibly even tonight if I get time. This is a huge update in terms of "under the hood" changes, and so there is a lot to cover here. It also marks the beginning of a series of "online" focused updates which will be taking place between now and the end of the year.

Now that My Colony has arrived on Steam (which you can find here), I have decided to shift focus a bit more away from the mobile side of things, towards the Desktop and online side of things. My Colony has always played better on the Desktop, but since the majority of users were on mobile, a lot of the design of the game had to be made with that reality in mind. As some of you already know, a few months ago, Google Play blacklisted My Colony from their store search results, cratering the mobile downloads of the game by over 90%. As a result, the My Colony user base has transformed from over 90% mobile users, to now almost 50/50 with Desktop users, spread out between my website, the Ape Apps Launcher, Windows 10, Chrome OS, Facebook Games, and now Steam. And even though the crash ratings on Google Play are back down under 2% and the downloads have picked back up slightly, it is still nowhere near where it once was. On top of that, the experience did open my eyes as to how Google Play operates, and demonstrated the risk involved with being tied so heavily to one platform. On Desktop, things are spread fairly evenly between the distribution networks (too early to tell on Steam yet), so there is a little bit of safety that comes with that situation. Plus, as I said, the game is just 10 times better on Desktop anyway.

So, just to be clear, I am not abandoning Android and iOS, and those platforms will continue to receive all of the latest updates. I am just not going to be focused on mobile first, and some features may not work on mobile platforms, as you will soon see below.

But enough of the intro, you are here to see what is new in this version, and there is quite a bit. So let's take a look!

First I want to go through some of the bugs that were addressed in this release, as one of them has a pretty large impact on later-stage Human colonies. So during this update, I discovered a mistake in the code that was majorly"nerfing" building consumption and production when the building had a very low "tick" phase. The two prime examples where the Ancient Alien Condenser and the Atmosphere Scrubber, but it would also impact buildings with tons of employees, like the Investment Bank.

Essentially, if the production/consumption tick phase was lower than that of the overall simulation's building tick phase, a bunch of update cycles for that building would get skipped, causing it to produce or consume resources at a far slower rate than it was supposed to. As far as I can tell, this issue has been baked into the game for ages, and when adding new content, I have just set the stats in a way to compensate for it, not even realizing it was there. As soon as I fixed the glitch though, the impact on Atmosphere was immediately apparent.

Ancient Alien Condensers and the Atmosphere Scrubber immediately went into "beast mode", chewing through millions of atmosphere in a matter of minutes. This brought my Atmosphere down to zero, causing all of the condensers in the colony to shut down, since they were out of "fuel". This led to an immediate water shortage which was difficult to get on top of, since I could not generate new atmosphere fast enough to keep up with the consumption of the condensers. I eventually just had to import a ton of water from the Star Gate.

Anyway, to address this, I slightly nerfed the stats on the Condenser, and introduced a new upgraded Large Atmosphere Generator to assist in rebuilding Atmosphere. I kept the Scrubbers running in beast mode though, I figured at their new consumption level, one Atmosphere Scrubber can take care of a pretty good sized colony.

So be aware of this new change, and modify your colony accordingly. I already know the bug reports section will be full of "I updated and now all of my Water is gone" reports, so just be aware of what is happening. It is not exactly a bug, but the result of the fix of a bug.

The next fix is related to Creative Mode in Region games. Basically, it didn't work before, and now it should.

Speaking of Regions, there was a glitch where Resource decay would be greatly amplified on Region maps. This has been corrected. I have also implemented several changes which I hope address the issue people have on Regions where tech/resources are lost. I cannot reproduce this issue on my own, so I hope the fix works. I know you will make me aware if it doesn't though!

Next, a lot of changes were made to the server this update. I am getting ready to add in-game moderators to My Colony, which I had hoped to have ready by now, but the server needed so many changes to accommodate for it, that I just didn't get to it. Just know that it is coming soon though.

The first big change comes with authenticated API calls. Aside from the public API's, you basically need to be logged in to your Ape Apps account to do anything on the server now. This requirement seems like a no brainer, but you have to realize that the My Colony server predates the Ape Apps Account server, and there were originally no account requirements at all.

Due to this change, the tie between your Ape Apps Account, your online colony, and the website is now pretty solid. If you happen to get banned from Ape Apps for some unrelated reason, your colony is pretty much inaccessible too, and you will need to send me an email convincing me why you should be able to get back in.

All colony resources are now stored on the server as well. They have actually been stored on the server for some time, but the server would never override the resources saved to your game file. Now it will. The server now keeps a timestamp and checksum synchronized to your online game saves, so that it can detect if you have decided to go back and restore a backup game file. This is to help detect different forms of cheating that are out there, and while restoring a backup does not flag you as a cheater, it is logged and will be available for review by the soon-to-be-announced in-game moderators.

Next up, in-game private messaging has been moved from the my-colony.com servers to the main ape-apps.com servers. As a result, you can now view and reply to your in-game private messages from right here on ape-apps.com. They will also soon be available on my-colony.com. Currently, they don't render very well on the website, but I will be making it all look pretty shortly. In-game it doesn't look much different from before, but in theory the message size limit is gone, although the game still doesn't let you write more characters. The website does though. In the coming updates though, the entire in-game messaging interface will be rewritten to take advantage of the new features available by using ape-apps.com messaging.

The next big change in the game, which I have mentioned already in another thread and some may not be pleased with, is the complete rewrite of how colonial GDP is calculated. In short, it is now an actual GDP calculation, instead of just the sum of all of your resources. So now instead of measuring just how rich you are, which anybody can attain by simply getting a big gift from another colony or from the Galactic Emperor, it is now a measure of the current productive output of all of your buildings, tax collections, and resource collections. In this way, your GDP only grows if your industrial output is growing. If you are maxed out with full storage, then your GDP will be stagnant. I might adjust it next update to have GBT profits figured into the calculation as well, since it is technically a sale of goods. I haven't decided yet.

The game tracks your GDP over time, and will give you both quarterly and annual prints. It takes about two hours of game time to collect enough data to get a full GDP reading, so be aware of that. In your stats, the large GDP number is your current quarterly rate, and the smaller number is the annual rate. One game "year" is roughly equivalent to one real life hour. The quarterly and annual growth percentages also factor GBT price inflation into their calculations, so that large fluctuations in GBT prices do not throw the GDP growth values way off. In addition, the game ai now has "economic analysts" who will try to guess what your GDP growth rate should be every quarter, based on the trends of the last year, and will let you know each quarter if you were on target or below estimates. It's sort of like watching CNBC.

I might start adding other fun little news items to the GBT price ticker on the bottom of the screen too.

Next, there is a new feature that I hope people are able to have some fun with. I have added the ability in-game to stream a live feed of your game play onto your colony website at my-colony.com. On supported platforms, there will now be a "Streaming" button in the bottom right corner of the screen. When you click on it, it will start up your live feed and turn Red, letting you know that it is on.

It also uses your microphone (if available and you give it permission) so that people watching your stream can hear your amazing voice-over commentary. Also when you turn on streaming, the in-game chat channel and the chat channel on your my-colony.com colony site are synchronized, so that you can text-chat directly with those viewing your feed. You will also get a notification in-game when somebody starts watching your live feed.

The in-game streaming works if you are playing on Chrome, Android, Native Client/Steam. It does not currently work on iOS or Windows 10 (Store) edition of the game. I am not sure about Facebook Game Center, as I did not test it.

Moving on, I have decided to merge the in-game popup Commonwealth and Diplomacy windows into the main Statistics window, so that everything is in one place. In-game private messaging will also be moving to this window soon, and eventually, a revamped in-game encyclopedia will be in there as well. I just think it's better to have all of the options in one tidy place.

You may have also noticed a new "Federation" option at the bottom. Federations are headed in-game to My Colony. I have been promising them for a year and a half now, and since I decided to focus on online play for the next couple of months, Federations went ahead and made the cut.

Creating or joining a Federation requires "government level 7", which is game-engine speak for "you need to build the Hall of Congress." This is pretty much the most expensive building in the game, and before now it hasn't really done anything for you. Now it unlocks Federations. Because of this requirement, only United Earth and LIS can make or join Federations, but Reptilians and Zolarg will be getting their own equivalent buildings in 0.76.0.

The only thing you can do with Federations right now is either make one, or join one. Making one is expensive, and joining one is free. However, when you choose to join a Federation, current federation members receive a ballot in their Federation screen and must vote to approve your membership.

Balloting works like this. When a new measure is put up, it will expire in three days. At the end of three days, the yays and nays are counted, and the winner is determined. However, if a measure receives yays (or nays) from over 50% of current Federation members before the three days are up, the vote is also ended.

The balloting system only works for admitting members right now, but it is going to be greatly expanded. Unlike Commonwealths, Federations are an "alliance of equals", with each independent member state getting 1 vote. One colony will be the president, voted on by the other members. The President will be able to put new initiatives up to a vote, and only the president can put a new initiative up, unless that initiative is a vote of no-confidence in the President, which could be needed if the current president goes inactive.

Federations are going to be able to do things that regular colonies cannot do and, for those who wish to enable it, there is going to be an optional PVP element coming for Federations making use of Star Ships. I am not talking about attacking peoples bases or anything, but you might be able to send your fleet to blockade a planet, disrupt communications, etc. I am welcome to ideas on it, but this element will be 100% optional, and you can only do the PVP mode with Federation members who have enabled it. I want people to still be able to play a 100% peaceful mode if they wish.

The Federations are in the early stages, but there will be new Federation stuff with each update, so feel free to start one up and start accepting members, so you are ready for when the fun stuff goes live.

So those are the primary new things in this update, I am sure there are others, but I don't remember off the top of my head. Now I just want to give a quick update on what is coming next.

As I mentioned, Federations are going to be fleshed out over the next few updates. In addition, both Federations and non-federation planets will be able to establish Trade Routes using their Star Ships, and the Colonial Map from the my-colony.com website is going to be accessible in-game soon to aid in this. There are also new interactions coming for Embassies, some of which will only be available to PVP Federations. To support this, both Zolarg and Reptilians are getting new giant 'Hall of Congress' type building soon, as well as Star Ship production.

There are also going to be further changes made to the My Colony website to accommodate all of the new stuff. Federations will each have their own page, and unlike Commonwealths, there will be a few customization options for a Federation page. If you haven't looked at the My Colony website recently, check it out, I've been adding things here and there over the last few weeks: https://www.my-colony.com/

Finally, in-game moderators are on the way. I have several applications, and will be contacting people with offers as soon as the server is ready for them. There is still a bit of server work I need to do to accommodate what I want to do with moderation, but I think when it's all implemented, it will make the online experience a lot better for everybody.

So that is all for this update. This one took me longer than normal to put together, and I have to spend the next few days catching up on other projects, but I should start v0.76.0 mid next-week. Until then, enjoy the update, and it should be hitting all platforms within the coming days!

My Colony 2 v0.20.0 is out now on Web, Windows, and the Ape Apps Launcher, and should be hitting Android and iOS sometime later this week. I don't have any new structures in this release, and instead focused on cleaning up some of the issues from v0.19.0, and started laying the groundwork for future greatness! So what's new? Let's take a look!

To start off, many of the video settings in the Engine Settings menu no longer require an app restart in order to take effect. Realtime Shadows, Antialiasing, and DOF effect can now all be toggled on/off while in-game. I am working on making it so that all engine settings can be toggled on and off while the game is running, so stay tuned for that.

I started adding initial gamepad support to the game. Right now the gamepad only controls the camera and the Player Mode controls, but eventually I intend to have the game 100% playable with the controller. This will allow be to publish the game to Android/Fire TV devices, as well as the new Steam Deck device for when I finally port the game over to Steam.

The top-right toolbar has been expanded, and I might have to start adding UI toggle switches to let players turn more items on/off as they see fit.


The new buttons (starting at the left) are the Player Mode toggle, and the VR Mode toggle, both of which I will expand on in a bit. The VR Mode button will only appear on the Windows 10 or the Web version of the game, and will only be there if you have supporting hardware (like Google Cardboard viewer on an Android phone, or Windows Mixed Reality headset, or if you are playing the game on an Oculus stand-alone device).

You will also notice on the bottom-right mini toolbar next to the Clear Chat button is a new microphone button:


My Colony 2 now comes with built-in voice chat support. This is not a global voice chat, just a group chat for the people online in the current world. This was added as a way to communicate in the new VR Mode, but also works in all modes of play for players who just want to talk to each-other instead of type. The icon will turn green if your microphone is active, and red if your microphone is muted. Click on the microphone icon to mute/unmute. You will also see an indication that tells you which player is talking while they are speaking.

In v0.19.0, I added a rudimentary "Player Mode" that allowed you to click on a colonist and walk around the city from their point of view. This feature has been expanded in this release, and will continue to be expanded as time goes on. In v0.20.0, you no longer have to try clicking on a tiny colonist, there is a new Player Mode icon on the top toolbar. The first time you click on the Player Mode toggle, you will be asked to place your token. Now instead of assuming the body of an existing colonist, you actually join the world as yourself. You can pick any starting location you want, but after your token is places, you will have to physically walk to wherever you want to go.

Right now your token just looks like a standard colonists, except whose space suit is matched to your player color in-server. I plan to allow players to also customize their guy buy picking one of their Tokens from the My Tokens app.

Your Player Mode player location and movements are now synced to the server, and all players can see each other's guys walking around the world. In the coming updates, each player will have a personal inventory attached to their Player Mode character, as well as stats, equipment, etc, and Player Mode characters will be able to interact with each other, and maybe even do joint quests, depending on how far I take this. I also think it will be cool to let Player Mode characters enter vehicles, whether land, sea or air vehicles, and travel around the world in that manner.

Eventually there can be a whole Player Mode game within a game associated to MC2, but I also want the modding tools to have the ability to create a game that is 100% based on the Player Mode, so there is going to be a lot more coming to this feature in the coming updates. As always, suggestions are welcome!

Somewhat related to Player Mode, a new Virtual Reality Mode has been added to the game! This one is an even earlier and more experimental state than Player Mode, but players with supporting hardware can test it out today and leave feedback.


Eventually, the entire My Colony 2 game, both regular build mode and Player Mode, will be 100% playable from both the Gamepad and the VR interface. Right now it's basically a tech demo, although Player Mode in VR is pretty much equivalent to the non-VR player mode at this time.

To test out VR Mode today, you will need some hardware. The cheapest way to get into it is to get a Google Cardboard viewer, or one of the many Android VR headsets that are cheaply available on Amazon (you would need the Google Cardboard app installed as well). You will also have to use the PWA version of My Colony 2 (https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/) as it does not work on the installed .apk. Playing on Android will also require you to have a bluetooth gamepad paired to your phone.

You can also try it from a stand alone VR Headset like the Oculus (meta) Quest 2. Just fire up the headset browser and navigate to the My Colony 2 web app. You will not need an extra controller on the Oculus, as the devices controllers work just fine.

There is nothing you can do in the standard build mode while in VR except scroll around, so you are best off switching your game into Player Mode before activating VR (as you can't do it while in VR yet). Once in VR Player Mode though, you can walk around the entire world as your Player Mode character. Even though you can't do anything yet, it's a pretty cool experience. With multiple players in a game with VR Player Mode and microphones activated, it can be a cool VR social experience. Especially in the future, if you can group up and go on a quest.

Keep in mind that more computing horsepower is required for VR Mode. On the Quest 2, I had to turn all engine settings down before starting up the game, as the Water World map in VR completely lagged my headset out, which was kind of disorienting. So if you are going to try VR Mode, please turn down graphics settings before entering the game!

If you have a VR Headset or Cardboard type viewer, give it a try and let me know! I think there is a lot of future potential for VR Mode in MC2.

Moving on, there are a few quality of life improvements in this update. Now when you click on the scrolling resources counter, it will switch to a static, non-scrolling list like in MC1.


I have also implemented one of the most long-standing feature requests to the game (besides pavement bulldozing), building progress bars!


Progress Bars were actually a lot harder than they seem like they should be, since MC2 is rendered in 3D unlike MC1, each resource bar has to be an object in the 3D world. To save performance, there is only 1 resource bar object that gets reused as you mouse around the world, and a new texture is redrawn with every tick update.

There are some modding improvements too. Mod Shop downloads are now checked for updates automatically on game launch and are automatically kept updated in the background. Also, support for Total Conversion mods has been unbroken, and these types of mods should be working again, both through manual import and from the Mod Shop.

So these are the major changes in this update. There is also a laundry list of bug fixes that I will not bore you with.

The next update will have to focus on content again since I did a non-content update this time. Moving ahead, I am going to expand Gamepad support to cover the full game, and get full building mode working in the VR mode. I also want to add new play experiences to the Player Mode, so if you have suggestions, feel free to let me know. Other than that, thank you for playing the game, let me know what you want to see next, and stay tuned for more!

#mycolony2

Today I am putting the finishing touches on My Colony 2 v0.17.0, which should be hitting all platforms over the coming days. In some ways, v0.17.0 on the outside is a minor update, but in other ways it begins to completely change everything for the My Colony series, as several new concepts are coming online. So let's take a look at what has changed and what is new with My Colony 2 v0.17.0 - The Phara Update!


The My Colony 2 engine is starting to gain support for AI controlled civilizations, and the first work has been started in this regard with the introduction of the Phara, a new Desert World native species conceptualized by @GeneralWadaling nearly a year ago. Desert World players will start to notice the new faction and their settlements crop up around their maps.

There is still a ton of work to be done with the AI, and some bugs to work out. At present, the AI doesn't do much except for generate new settlements, so don't expect any interactions or diplomacy quite yet. The AI routines are going to be fleshed out over the next several updates, and the initial AI processing is going to be largely based on the AI code from Colony Wars, but more on that later.

I have wanted AI controlled civilizations in My Colony since the first release of MC1, but have never gotten around to it. You may or may not know that My Colony 1 was initially envisioned as a futuristic version of Sid Meiers's Colonization, and was to have native species to deal with and you would also have to fight against the "king" for independence (in My Colony's case, United Earth). The game never turned out like that, and My Colony 2 will not have fighting for independence either, although the engine might in fact support that scenario soon, but we will get to that later too.

I next want to move on to a new concept I have added to the game, which is progression through both Player and Settlement leveling up.


Settlements now have a Level, which you can increase by using Civics. Behind the scenes, Players also have a level which can be increased using Money, but that part is not yet implemented.

Right now there isn't a huge point in leveling up, although eventually some government type structures and policy options will require either a specific player or settlement level to unlock. This adds extra goals and an additional player progression aspect to the game. Various forms of this have been suggested throughout the years for My Colony 1, so keep an eye on these features as they are fleshed out over the coming updates.

Next, I want to touch on what has been by far the #1 requested My Colony feature since the game first came out - Military and Combat, both of which are now making their way into My Colony 2!


This is another concept in it's initial phases and some of it still doesn't work right, but let's go through it. There is a new early-game tech called Colonial Security which is now needed for the Security Station and also unlocks the new Barracks. From the Barracks, you can now construct the first military unit, which is the Infantry unit. The Infantry is able to either attack or defend. It will automatically attack enemy units if in range, and will attack an enemy structure on command. A lot of the initial combat code has been taken from Colony Wars.

So what constitutes an enemy? The engine now accounts for diplomatic relations between each player behind the scenes. Players can either be Neutral (the default status), Enemies, or Allies. To become an enemy, you open the Players tab in the Statistics window, click on a player, and choose to declare war on them. They will instantly be notified of your treachery.


Now, here are the limitations. The 'Propose Alliance' and 'Sue for Peace' options currently are not functional, so if you do decide to declare war, there is no getting out of it. So keep that in mind.

There is a lot more to say on AI's and the new Combat features, but there have also been some other tweaks to the game that I wanted to touch on before getting too deep into the woods.

Firstly, when you go to build a new unit, it will now appear at the Construction Yard that is the closest to where your current camera position is location. In other words, if you are actively looking at a construction yard and you build a new unit, it will pop out of the construction yard you are looking at. This comes in handy as settlements begin to spread out and grow.

Another big change is that new players who join your public game will no longer start out at chunk 0:0. I know that it could be annoying to have all Landers start the game at the exact same spot, so the new Landers will now be randomly placed, somewhat in the area of the currently settled world, but away from all other players.

Now some kind of bad news. You may know that I recently updated Voxel Paint with some cool new features, such as metallic voxels, transparent voxels, etc. Well, I went to implement those features into the My Colony 2 engine, and it completely kills performance. I don't know why yet, but just having one structure with a metallic texture destroys the game, and that is on a high end PC with a good video card. So until I can get the performance situation worked out, the cool new features from Voxel Paint will have to wait. 🙁

Now I want to dive a bit deeper into some of the new features, and how they tie to what I have planned for My Colony 2 going forward.

Some of you may have heard during some of my Podcast episodes or from various release notes here on the forum that I had long wanted to make a game called 'New World' that involved showing up on a new continent in ships like the Spanish did, and trying to get rich on a land inhabited by natives. Well, Amazon recently beat me to the New World game, but the idea still remains in my mind. A lot of this updates recent changes, including AI civs and combat, go directly towards making that game concept a reality.

Additionally, there has recently been discussion with GeneralWadaling about migrating Colony Wars to the Scroll3D engine. I think that my new strategy instead is going to be to have the My Colony 2 engine be sophisticated and customizable enough to be able to be morphed into a Colony Wars type Real Time Strategy game. This would be great for multiple reasons. Firstly, less game engines to maintain is always a good thing for me. Secondly, it will greatly increase the capabilities that modders have to make different types of games for the My Colony 2 engine. A win for everybody!

So with the above two points in mind, here are some things I need to work out before I can make everything a reality, which should give you an idea of some of the features that will be coming soon to My Colony 2.

Firstly, there needs to be more World options then the current infinite maps. You need to be able to create maps of a specific size, and also maps that have a predefined layout, which means some type of map editor. To get started on this work, the next World type I am adding to the game is going to be the My Colony Classic world, which will be roughly equivalent to an MC1 large sized Red Planet map (probably not suitable for multiplayer). It should be a fun challenge for some players, but will also bring important new features to the engine.

Next of course, the AI needs to be expanded and improved. The first order of business is to get the AI's capabilities to be roughly in line with those in Colony Wars, which will allow basic war and RTS support. In addition though, the AI needs to be able to conduct peaceful diplomacy and trades. And for that matter, players need to be able to trade with each other as well.

Modders need to be able to customize various UI aspects. The game UI needs to be able to basically look like the Colony Wars UI, which means options need to be added to show/hide elements and to more the position of different elements. The new/join game screen also needs to be customizable.

And of course, the game content needs to be expanded as well, and that will happen over time for sure.

So there is a ton of work to do, and absolutely all feedback is appreciated. In the meantime though, check out the v0.17.0 update to My Colony 2, and stay tuned for a whole lot more to come!

#mycolony2 #colonywars #voxelpaint

After taking a month off for summer travels (and sickness 🤢), I am pleased to announce that the finishing touches are being put on My Colony v0.90.0, which should be hitting all platforms within the coming days! This is a larger update in terms of scale and scope, and contains content, bug fixes, and features. So, what's new? Let's find out!

First, as always, all of the bugs that had been reported through the various app store reporting consoles have been addressed. This mainly encompass hard crashes or syntax errors, which are the types of bugs that get reported to the app stores. So if you were experiencing force close issues, they might be better with this update (although, force closures have been a bit more rare lately).

Next up, I hadn't realized that the Texture Mod feature has been broken for a few updates, since I don't use texture mods myself. Even though there was a thread in the forum prominently saying that the feature was broken 😳. Regardless, texture mods are now working again!

While fixing the texture mod code, I realized that the in-game texture mod browser is in dire need of a UI upgrade, so this has been added to the to-do list. Ideally, I want the in-game texture mod browser to have screenshots, a better description of the mod, and probably ratings and comments.

The next feature I added is available only to Desktop (Win/Mac/Linux) and Windows 10 (store) users, and allows you to change the location that My Colony uses to save data. This new setting is found at the bottom of the Game Data menu.

As the screenshot indicates, this does not move your current saved games, it only changes the game data folder. If you are on the desktop client (or the Ape Apps Launcher), you can move your old saves manually (they are found in your user Documents folder), but on Windows 10 Store installs, this is not possible due to the sandboxed nature of Windows Store apps. If you have cloud sync turned on, you shouldn't have to move anything manually. Unless you know what you are doing, then I do not suggest using this feature, but it is there for those who want it.

For this release, the sort order of the build categories in the sidebar has been changed. They now appear in alphabetical order.

It was always sort of annoying trying to find a specific category, so now that they are sorted properly, it should be easier to find what you are looking for.

I have also added two new keyboard shortcuts to the game with this update, Show Resources Screen (r) and Search Resources (ctrl+r), both of which can be customized in the Engine Settings menu. The Show Resources shortcut brings up the standard Resources statistics screen., whereas the Search Resources shortcut brings up a new popup search bar that lets you type in the name of a resource in an auto-completing form and load the stats window for that resource directly.

The Search Resource function is only moderately helpful at the moment, but to go along with it, I plan a revamp of the resource stat window in the not-too-distant future, where you will be able to launch functions right from the resource stat window, such as trading and gifting.

I made some minor balance adjustments with this update for existing structures. The Zolarg Unholy Core Mine no longer requires the Mysticism tech to build, since Mysticism requires independence, and the Unholy Core Mine is the only way Zolarg can currently get several resources. The Ancient Alien Microchip Factory now requires Gold as an input (a previous oversight). The two tall Residential Towers can now be flipped.

And now for the new content, this update adds 1 new Utility, 1 new Tech, 1 new Resource, and 17 new structures! The majority of the content additions come from the IT Industries Suggestion by @Wadaling , and represent Part 1 of the IT Content Updates.

When I first started coding My Colony in 2016, I actually built it with the ability to have multiple utilities, but I had never tested the functionality out, so I had no idea if it actually worked. When I saw the IT Industries suggestion in the forum, I figured it would be a good time to just see how much work would be required to add a second utility to the game, so I went ahead and added Bandwidth as a new utility alongside Power. Turns out that the old utility code from several years ago handled the new utility flawlessly (so far as I can tell), and virtually no coding changes were required in order to add Bandwidth to the game. Success!

The Bandwidth utility refers to data/network bandwidth, and is generated by the Small Server Building for Humans, the Slab of Processing for Zolarg, and the High Frequency Node for Alpha Draconians.

To go along with the new utility, there are new IT related structures (and a new Information Technology build category) for each race, although most are early/mid-game Human structures at the moment. The next updates will build out the tree for the other races and add later game content as well. All told, here is a color coded list of the new structures, with Black representing Human content, Red for LIS only content, Orange for Zolarg content, and Purple for Alpha Draconian content.

• Small Server Building
• Cybercoin Mine
• Small Server Farm Operation
• Galactic Stock Exchange
• Data Interceptor
• Small Software Studio
• NetSchool
• Advanced Small Research Lab
• Tech Office Building
• Arcade Center
• Colonimulation Hub
• Integrated Civic Center
• High Frequency Node
• Deep Space Interceptor
• Slab of Processing
• Circuit Foundry
• Interstellar Pad of Thought

I am not going to go over what everything does since that will take forever and you can just try the content out for yourself, but I do want to highlight a few things here.

Obviously, the new Small Software Studio is used for generating the new Software resource, which will be hitting the GBT in the next update to the game (v0.91.0). Most of the new structures require Software in one way or another as well.

One of the more important structures for the Zolarg is the Interstellar Pad of Thought, which now allows the Zolarg to generate a bit of Antaura without having independence. There were previously a ton of structures for Zolarg that were only available for independent colonies, and I want to start allowing subcolonies to have these structures too, to encourage being a part of a commonwealth. And with the new Circuit Foundry, Zolarg can now build Microchips also.

The Advanced Small Research Lab and the Integrated Civic Center offer modest upgrades to the existing Small Research Lab and Civic Center, two structures which have long had requests for upgrades. Most of the other new buildings generate large amounts of cash in exchange for Software and Bandwidth.

I think there is a lot of opportunity here to go back and add Bandwidth and Software requirements to existing buildings, ones that are clearly tech related. Over the next few updates, I plan on making these changes, but it will have to be done slowly, with a few buildings at a time. I don't want somebody to log in and have their entire colony go down because they are out of Bandwidth! So be sure to start building up your networking infrastructure!

There is probably more I can say about v0.90.0, but I grow tired of typing, lol. The v0.9x series of My Colony updates is going to feature heavy on new content, and most if it is going to be coming from the Game Ideas, Suggestions, and Feedback forum, since there is currently a lot of good stuff in there. The next update will be Part 2 of the IT update, and will probably be mostly Zolarg and Alpha Draconian. Then there will probably be a Part 3 to top it off. I will also make engine improvements and feature additions with each release, but I am not going to do any major rewrite of a core game component as I was frequently doing with the v0.8x series. I am in a content adding mood.

After v0.99.0 is done, I am going to increment the game to v1.0.0 instead of to v0.100.0. This doesn't really change anything in the way I will work on the game, it just seems stupid to have so many releases of the game without actually calling it v1.0.

So that's all for this update! It should be live on the Web and on the Ape Apps Launcher right now, and will be hitting the other platforms as soon as it is approved by the various app stores. So thanks for playing, thanks for the feedback and support, and stay tuned for more!

As I prepare to begin work on the next release of My Colony 2, one of the biggest new additions by far is going to be the in-game Mod Shop, where players can now finally easily download, manage, and activate mod content right from within the game. The Mod Shop will also handle automatically keeping players' mods up to date, and provide easy discoverability and feedback for mod creators.

Of course, a Mod Shop is nothing if it doesn't contain any mods, so prior to the release of the next My Colony 2 update, I am announcing the availability of the (beta) version of the new Mod Shop Creators Portal!

https://modshop.my-colony.com/

The URL is easy enough to get to. Once at the Mod Shop portal, sign in with your Ape Apps Account and create a new project on the server. You can set up your creator profile as well. In order to be featured in the Mod Shop, a mod will need, at a minimum, a My Colony 2 data file (of course), and at least 1 screenshot. You can also include a stylized icon/logo to give your mod more appeal in the mod shop listing. The Mod Shop will also contain ways in-game that users can donate money to you to support your efforts, or to transfer Ape Coins to your Ape Apps Account in exchange for a mod download (they can also be totally free).

The new Mod Shop is only one of the exciting changes that will be arriving in the next My Colony 2 update, which should be the largest update since the game's initial release, so stay tuned for more as I highlight some of the other upcoming additions and changes over the next couple of weeks (it's gonna take me a bit longer than usual on this one, due to the scope).

Enjoy, and let me know what issues you have submitting your content to the Mod Shop.

#mycolony2 #mycolony2modshop

https://mc1.my-colony.com/api.php?pf=2&g=1&c=0hZgBkjn
(replace 0hZgBkjn with desired charter code)

Returns JSON formatted data on specified colony, as well as mother colony and list of child colonies.

{

    "charter":"EfbgdYs6",

    "name":"EMERALD CITY",

    "civilization":"United Earth",

    "race":"Human",

    "maptype":"Red Planet",

    "founded":"December 16, 2016",

    "independence":"December 18, 2016",

    "population":24718,

    "gdp":1484542777812088300,

    "unemployment":0,

    "mapstage":4,

    "playson":"web",

    "lastactive":"2017-04-28 09:42:03",

    "theme":"#2867ed",

    "screenshot":"https://www.my-colony.com/screenshots/ss-146399.jpg",

    "website":"https://www.my-colony.com/colonies/EfbgdYs6/",

    "sector":"0,1",

    "location":"-90,-442",

    "rrr":72,

    "mothercolony": {

        "name":"United Earth",

        "charter":"earth",

        "website":"https://www.my-colony.com/colonies/earth/",

        "relations":100,

        "sector":"0,0",

        "location":"0,0"

    },

    "childcolonies": [

        {

            "name":"TouristsDieHere",

            "charter":"GE7RmoX0",

            "population":76189,

            "website":"https://www.my-colony.com/colonies/GE7RmoX0/",

            "relations":92,

            "sector":"0,0",

            "location":"0,0"

        }

    ]

}

• charter: charter code
• name: colony name
• civilization: what civ they are playing as, like United Earth or Zolarg Empire (so far)
• race: what species they are.  so far there are human and zolarg.  eventually there may be more than one civilization per race
• maptype: what map they are playing, like Red Planet, Lunar, etc
• founded: when the colony was founded
• independence: when they gained independence, or "0" if they are not independent
• population: their population
• gdp: their total gdp
• unemployment: unemployment rate, times 100, ie  5% would be 5 and not .05
• mapstage: what their atmosphere level based stage is
• playson: what platform they last used, like web, android, ios, windows, desktop 
• lastactive: timestamp of when they last played
• theme: the theme color they chose in their colony website options
• screenshot: if they uploaded a screenshot, the url will be here
• website: the url to their colony website
• sector: the x,y coordinate of what sector their colony is located in
• location: the x,y coordinate of where they are located within the above sector
• rrr: the RRR index of the colony ( http://forum.ape-apps.com/showthread.php?tid=1994 )
• mothercolony.name: name of their mothercolony
• mothercolony.charter: charter for their mothercolony
• mothercolony.population: the population of their mothercolony
• mothercolony.website: mothercolony website
• mothercolony.relations: the relation percentage the colony has with their motherland, times 100, ie 95% = 95, not .95
• mothercolony.sector: the x,y coordinate of the sector their mother colony is in
• mothercolony.location: the x,y coordinate the mother colony is in within their sector
• mothercolony.rrr: the RRR index of the colony ( http://forum.ape-apps.com/showthread.php?tid=1994 )
• childcolonies (array, from largest to smallest):
• childcolonies[x].name: name of child colony
• childcolonies[x].charter: child colony charter code
• childcolonies[x].population: child colony population
• childcolonies[x].website: website for the child colony
• childcolonies[x].relations: percent relation that the child colony has with parent, times 100, ie 95% = 95, not .95
• childcolonies[x].sector: x,y coordinate of the sector child colony is in
• childcolonies[x].location: x,y coordinate of the child colony location within their sector

1. Security Certification. Get it. No reason not to IMO. But I dunno what that takes also.
2. Line between posts is a bit too faint.
3. Account Settings, Avatars, Signatures, Profile Info.
4. Forum links at the TOP of the front page, and on the page period for ALL pages, including the Account Settings page which currently only has a link to the front of the page.
5. Shoutbox like the last site. If I have a really situational, temporary problem I need fixed NOW, I gotta have a place to post where I don't have to worry about making a clone thread of a thread that's already a thing, but I can't find it because the search function isn't that good.
6. If possible, Tags on forum threads. To be added by any mods if they weren't added already. IF also possible, auto-complete categories for specific tags, said categories, instead of being established by the users, established at first by the mods, then by request maybe.
7. Search functionality on the forum to interface with forum thread tags so searching for your problem is WAY easier.
8. If no signatures are a thing, then a place to put u to 4 links, and a place to list our Bases in the various games by Ape Apps that can HINGE on player cooperation, or player cooperation is massively valuable, like My Colony for example.
9. Darker grey boxes and lighter grey boxes to help differentiate posts from the background itself. This is really more for appearances sake. Seeing the posts look like they're attached to the backgronud, while it's good in theory, in practice people usually don't do it well, and IMHO it's not in this instance. Looks sort of hastily done. Works well when doing a Minimalist approach to webpage design.
10. Separation visually of the forum/text bodies on any page from the Header of the web page. This is usually done because it makes a site look ALOT better than when it's not there.
11. Forum thread auto-locking to prevent people from crying about thread Necroing, gate it at maybe half a year. After a year of no activity, a thread automatically locks itself, or something like that. Or, even better, said thread deletes itself.
Either that, or as far as forum rules go, Necroing doesn't exist.

IMHO, the site's a bit too young and incomplete to announce a migration to it and have people probly go for it, because the last forum just looks 500% better and doesn't have feature gaps. Ofcourse this is purely temporary and it's probly a WIP, but these are just my truthful opinions, ofcourse given because I love My Colony and by extension, I love Ape Apps and the forums themselves.

This thread is to document commands that can be entered into the My Colony 2 chat, primarily for server admins and mods, but some for regular users as well. I will keep this thread updated as more are added.

To use a command, you simply open chat, and type the / symbol, followed by the command (with no space). Example: /setmaxplayers 8 to set server max players to 8.

Below is a table of all commands. If a command user-level is blank, it means anybody can use it. If the user-level is M, only mods (and admins) can use it. If the level is A, only admins can use it.

Command	Description	Lvl
/setmaxplayers X	Set the maximum allowed server connections to X	A
/setmotd X	Set 'message of the day' to X that will be shown to all users when they log in.	A
/modup U	Promote player U to moderator	A
/moddown U	Remove player U as moderator	A
/kick U	Kick player U from game for 5 minutes	M
/kick U X	Kick player U from game for X days	A
/unkick U	Unkick player U	A
/settlements	List data on all settlements on the map
/setcolor X	Change player color to X, must be valid hex code beginning with #

You can use this thread to ask questions about commands or suggest commands that need to be added to the game.

There are some changes coming soon to the My Colony website that will impact individual colonial/regional websites as well as the public My Colony API. Beginning with the release of My Colony v1.9.0, all API calls are being migrated to a new subdomain, and the current My Colony website is moving as well.

The change is as follows:

Current Location: https://www.my-colony.com
New Location: https://mc1.my-colony.com

Essentially, all URLs should remain the same, except for the www is changing to mc1. The current My Colony public api will remain at the current location for a few weeks, but will then be going offline, so all API calls should be moved to the mc1 subdomain.

The current primary www domain is going to be reworked as a portal to all My Colony Universe games, including Colony Wars, Colonial Tycoon, Death 3d, My Starship, Deimos, End of the Earth, High Noon, Sarge, and the upcoming My Colony 2. This will include not only information on all of the above titles, but also extensive backstory/lore information on the entire universe and all of the characters, presented in a Wiki style format. The new mc1 subdomain is primarily going to be used to hold colony websites and texture mods for MC1.

Greetings!

Around 2 years ago I've created this post which is about the unofficial timeline for the world in My Colony.

Since then, our favorite dev @bastecklein had referenced a lot of things in that post when expanding the actual lore of My Colony, eventually My Colony Universe is officially born which connected various My Colony spin-off games together.

Now I've reviewed my long and old post which isn't really something refined (and somehow grammatically terrible), I've decided to create an revised version of it. While refining and altering some context and contents, there will also be few new major events as new additions.
Another major change is about events during the Old Earth era and the time transitioning to United Earth, which I would like to make them slightly more reasonable, though the progress would still be relatively accelerated compared to reality.

Enjoy!

The unit of time measurement is based on Earth calendar.

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Time of the Ancients
(Uncertain, estimated to be billions of years before Alpha Draconians)

Once upon a time there was an thriving civilization ruled over the Milky Way Galaxy, which now they are called The Ancients. Even in the Royal Libraries of Alpha Draconians, not much documentations of their unimaginably long history has been recovered, but many of them become legends and folklore among various old and elder civilizations across the Milky Way. The following events are what known to the present-day Milky Way.

👇Just click the text with dotted underline to see the entire section.
Time of the Ancients

The Old Holy Galactic Empire
The oldest trace of The Ancients that can be found in present-day.

Some artifacts from this period reflected worship of pure energy entities, which its sophisticated pantheon have shown distant relationship and influence to cultural and religious beliefs of some races of Milky Way.

Titan War
Perhaps the most well-known conflict in the Ancients' period, it took place around the late Holy Galactic Empire period - A legend of two dominant galactic powers battle for their total domination of Milky Way.
The Titanis was the sole opponent of the Old Galactic Empire at that time, it is a collective of races under the rule of Titans, a race of colossal entities. However, unable to surpass Empire in terms of the ability to manipulate raw energy and matter, the Titans end up defeated and extinct after the war.

Various wartime relics form both Empire and Titanis are discovered. However the reliability of several Titan relics (particularly some Titan remains) are doubted by modern historians and scientists (and even some New Galactic Empire scholars) and the debates still goes on today.

Grand Division of Pharan Empire
Phara was the largest ally of Old Galactic Empire and strongest of the minor powers during the Titan War. However, after a chain of internal political events, the Pharan Empire split into divided Dynasties ruled by their respective Grand Houses.

Most ancient Pharan documentations were permanently lost during the event.

Dark Galactic Empire
The period after the Old Galactic Empire crushed their sole rival of the galaxy and achieved galactic dominance.

For some reason, the Old Galactic Empire abandoned their belief of energy entities, instead, near-fanatical dedication exploring ultimate possibilities of dark matter becomes the major feature of this period.

Despite it is the period after the Holy Empire, unfortunately, information of this period is relatively more scarce - The multidimensional complexity of their relics keeps information in them highly difficult to be discovered and extracted.

Reptilian Exodus to the Milky Way
The first records of Reptilian immigrants into the Milky Way from another galaxy was during the Dark Galactic Empire period. From some documents of Alpha Draconians, Reptilian ancestors started as nomads with only mostly low tech equipment when their "primitive" intergalactic transport landed on the Outer Rim Region.

Empire-Reptilian Conflict
While Reptilians tried to make themselves a new home at Outer Rim Region, Old Galactic Empire was unwelcoming towards the continuous immigration of the Reptilians. As a result several conflicts broke out, but none never end up into a major war.

After several head-on confrontations and negotiations, Reptilians signed permanent truce with the Old Galactic Empire and earned their space of survival, however, the Empire barricaded all the remaining immigrants from entering Milky Way, which the fates of these immigrants remained unknown.

Second Pharan Empire
After millenniums of internal conflicts, Pharans barely reunited themselves, the Second Pharan Empire was established and maintained relative cohesion and peace between Grand Houses for the long period afterwards.

Vanishing of The Ancients
One of the largest mysteries in Milky Way history, which the entire population and objects of the Old Galactic Empire, vanished.
There had been many hypothesizes trying to explain the event, the most popular one being The Ancients successfully achieved certain breakthroughs in science and transcended into higher beings unrestricted by physical plane.

Radioisotopic raw ether are discovered at planets that were once Imperial settlements, which seemed to be remains of physical biomass of Ancients, or a by-product of the process causing the entire vanishing.

---

Interbellum, Rise of Reptilians and Draconian Era
(4 million years ~ 2 million years before human history)

After the vanishing of the Ancients, over 80% of the Milky Way became unoccupied and abandoned. This is the period many young races rose to reshape the galactic balance of power, but only the Reptilians became the most successful - From the foundations and physical legacies left by the Ancients, Reptilians thrived as the new superpower of the Galaxy, the Alpha Draconians.

Rise of Reptilians

Early Atlanians and Kingdom of Aqua
Atlanians was an aquatic race that managed to civilize themselves during the Interbellum, and evolved into amphibious creatures that has strong adaptive ability to both dry land and aquatic environments.
Kingdom of Aqua was the first period of Atlanian history they begin space exploration and primitive extraterrestrial colonization.

Reptilian Kingdoms
As the scout ships returned bizarre news that the Ancients had ceased to exist, the Reptilians saw their long waited opportunity expanding towards the Central Vortex. Deeply inspired by the Old Galactic Empire, many Reptilians dreamed of building their own powerful interstellar regime. As a result numerous Reptilian Kingdoms with relatively primitive organization were established, completely replacing their original nomadic society within few decades.

Great Reptilian Expedition
After years of preparation, various Kingdoms launched their expedition to the deeper regions of the Galaxy, returning with generous amount of salvaged bounties from ancient ruins and locations of the abandoned Ancient cities.

Later, Reptilians colonized the Ancient cities as their new settlements.

Bowuland Insectoid Hive Tribes
The earliest form of Bowuland Insectoid (Later Zolarg Insectoids) civilization known. Before the period of Zolarg Empire, Bowuland Insectoid breeds were relatively mild and much less invasive, and achieved developing a society with great self sufficiency and sustainability of food, with knowledge of primitive metallurgy.

With no ideas and ambitions beyond their home Gaia World planet, Insectoids of the period had never entered process of industrialization and space exploration.

Unity Movement of the Atlanians
According to an Atlanian legend, conflicts between Atlanian colony Kingdoms were very common, until inspired by the idea of balance and peaceful coexistence started an peaceful unification movement which led to founding of the present-day Confederation of Atlanian Kingdoms.

Age of the Warring Lords
Reptilians had shown great interest upon the relics and artifacts they salvaged form Ancient sites, and discovered the unimaginable potency they hold. Impressed by the power of ancient technology, it gave rise to Reptilian ambitions of interstellar conquest.
Seek to destroy other potential internal rivals, Reptilians entered a long period of most merciless infighting, just to control the Ancient artifacts they have yet to understand how to use them.

Reptilian Unification War and founding of Alpha Draconians
Kingdom of Draconis had long been one of the weakest kingdom among the Reptilians, until the time of the genius leader Lord Alphari - Draconis strength and influence rose to new heights, on par with the strongest Reptilian Lords. Lord Alphari defeated all other Reptilian Lords just in 10 years, successfully achieved true unification of the entire Reptilian race for the first time in Milky Way Reptilian history since the immigration.
As the unification had completed, Alphari crowned himself as the first Overlord, establishing the Reptilian empire of Alpha Draconians which marked the beginning of Reptilian golden age.
National motto of Alpha Draconians, "Rising from the Harshest to be the Strongest", was also given by Alphari himself, as an reflection to his early life struggles and success.

First Successful Decoding of the Ancient Artifacts
The Ancient Alien research was one of another most impactful achievements and legacies of Overlord Alphari during his reign, for he had greater insight over the usage of alien artifacts. Alpha Draconians was also among the first ones establishing an dedicated and successful institute studying Ancient artifacts and relics, which Overlord Alphari also personally participated in it in addition to providing material and political support.
From the further understanding over these ancient gadgets, Alpha Draconians effectively reverse-engineered Ancient advancements for their own purpose. The absolute technological supremacy of Alpha Draconians gained from Ancient knowledge effectively turned the Reptilian empire into the sole and most brutal galactic superpower of the time.

Reptilian Galactic Conquest
The next and the largest conquest of Reptilians took place during the reign of fourth Overlord Ks'khip, the infamous Scourge of the Galaxy who led the Draconian legions spread destruction across half of the Milky Way galaxy.
Many of the territories conquered by Overlord Ks'khip formed the foundations of core Alpha Draconian regions in Milky Way Galaxy. In addition, the subjugation of various alien races including Bowuland Insectoids which provided Alpha Draconians productive slave laborers for millenniums.

The conquest was an important point of history which Reptilian power and influence reached its peaks, the time when Reptilians began call themselves ‘the descendants of the Ancients’.

Mystic Galactic Domination Doctrine
While Overlord Ks'khip ruled by brutally asserting direct Draconian dominance over half of the Milky Way, his successor Ka'kropp had a completely different idea, advocating a complete different doctrine of ruling the Reptilian empire.
In a more secretive and unsuspecting approach, Alpha Draconians maintain control over conquered territories with minimal public personnel and have most of the actual administration and enforcement done covertly. Through asserting the ideas that Alpha Draconians were unreachable and all-powerful deity beyond their intellect, subjugated objects and vassals would never dare to resist and defect.

Disassembly of Second Pharan Empire
While the Second Pharan Empire remained relatively unchanged and peaceful since its establishment, many aspects of the Empire itself declines day by day. Eventually, the Pharan Empire officially dissolved themselves.

Pharans are permanently divided into hundreds of independent tribes and scattered across the stars, rapidly degenerating into theocratic medieval civilization technologically and culturally.

Reptilian-Atlanian Conflicts
Years since the Great Conquest, Reptilians had several attempts throwing invasion on the aquatic homelands of Atlanian Kingdoms, however heavy local resistance of Atlanians turned most of the attempts thwarted and to no anvil.
At the end of this series of conflicts over the millennium, Alpha Draconians withdrawn their forces from Atlanian territory and never mentioned invading Atlanian planets since after.

---

The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
(Parallel to 19th~20th century of Human timeline)

Ever since the Alpha Draconians subjugated the Bowuland Insectoids, the history of being enslaved for millions of years was the darkest history of Insectoids. However, from countless of torture and survival struggles, Bowland Insectoids had evolved into highly expansive and adaptive breeds of wide variety. Meanwhile, years without significant challenges or greater ambitions had also turned Alpha Draconians internally corrupt and indolent.
Parallel to the 19th to 20th century of mankind, an slave uprising in Alpha Draconains marked another major turning point of Milky Way history.

The Revival of Insectoid Civilization

Draconis-12 Uprising
In the distant slave farm colony of wetland planet Draconis-12, to no Reptilians' expectation, the Alpha Draconian colony was overthrown by a planetary-scale Insectoid slave uprising led by an enlightened Insectoid named Zolarg, all Draconian personnel either purged or missing.

The first group of freed Insectoids renamed the planet to Zolarg Prime after their leader, which became the new home world of the Insectoid civilization. At the same time, the uprising leader Zolarg himself was crowned emperor for life of the people of Zolarg Prime, and Zolarg Empire is established.

Insectoid Uprising Movements
While Alpha Draconians attempted to cover up the incident, words of Draconis-12 uprising spread quickly among the Insectoids of other Draconian slave colonies.
Encouraged and inspired by the Zolarg's success, other Insectoids followed similar path. Though not all had been successful, the series of uprising movements successfully took over large numbers of Alpha Draconian colonies and cities. Most of the Insectoids who earned their freedom joined the Zolarg Empire's cause in the sacred war toppling their ancestral enemy.

Insectoid Revival War
Soon Alpha Draconians took retaliatory actions against the uprising movements, attempting regain control of the slaves by sheer might of regular military forces. In this 27 year long war of attrition, both sides took heavy losses, however, despite technologically superior, Draconian forces never managed to outmatch Zolarg forces in numbers and replenishment rate. Eventually, Draconian forces were forced to withdraw from Zolarg-controlled territory to regroup after local war reserves had been depleted.
The War ended with Zolarg victory. Zolarg Empire earned their needed time and space to redevelop their civilization, while the internal declining of Alpha Draconians were exposed to the galaxy.

‘Groot Opwekkingsplan’
This period was also known as the ‘Great Revival Period’, the period when Emperor Zolarg formulated the policies and plans for early Zolarg Empire focusing on reconstruction, redevelopment and expansion of the Insectoid civilization, with the ultimate goal acquiring capability to confront Alpha Draconians head-on.
Combining sheer workforce volume of Insectoids, rediscovered ancestral knowledge and industrial knowledge acquired form Alpha Draconian machines, Zolarg Empire quickly established their industrial and technological foundations and rose as a supernova of galactic power.

Declaration of Insectoid Liberation
After the ‘Groot Opwekkingsplan closed with stunning success, Emperor Zolarg made a declaration on behalf of Insectoids to Alpha Draconians - the Zolarg Empire, will liberate the remaining brothers and sisters under the unrightful Draconian slavery at all costs.
The Declaration officially established the ultimate objective of the wars against Alpha Draconians.

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The Old Earth Era
(Year -2051)

The Old Earth Era is defined as the period before United Earth in human history. The late Old Earth Era is the time when humans begin exploring the deeper space and other stars, as well as beginning extensive colonization beyond Earth.

The Old Earth Era

Jameson Theories (2027)
The quantum physics scientist Professor Lob E. Jameson published a paper about theories associated with space continuum mechanics which provided basis for future development of long range space travel between systems.

First Practical Fusion Propulsion Engine (2031)
As the first commercial-use fusion reactors achieved success in the late 2020s, it provided valuable experience for developing further uses of nuclear fusion power, including the innovative idea to use it for propulsion. First practical fusion propulsion engine for spacecrafts was built in 2031.

First Probe exiting Solar System (2033)
USP Discovery was the first successful probe that traveled beyond boundaries of Solar System and reached another star system (Alpha Centauri). It's launched from Earth at 2033, returning valuable data of planets of Alpha Centauri system starting from 2037.

Space Colonization Race of Solar System (2032-2047)
With long range space travelling became more possible at the time, it kickstarted a space race at larger scale. It was one historical milestone for humanity - first attempts of an extensive space colonization in history.
Both directly and indirectly, at least 65% nations of the world participated in it. Among the governmental bodies and independent organizations in the race, some seek for wealth and influence, some seek for opportunities and a new start, some seek for knowledge and discovery.
At the peak period of the space race, colony activities could be found around and on mainly Moon and Mars, and to certain extent, Venus and Jupiter.
However, the space race came to complete halt around late 2040s, hampered by instability on Earth caused by Earth Resource Crisis.

Earth Resource Crisis (2039-2057)
Catalyzed by political and commercial rivalries on Earth, the space race had escalated to higher levels within a decade. Various parties increased their bets and investments into their colonization projects, leading to resource consumption increasing to unprecedented levels for the following years. Worries regarding depletion of known resource reserves on Earth arises starting from mid 2039, and became actual problems in the 2040s.
In the meantime, uncontrolled industrial activities of the space race had also accelerated climate change which catastrophically turned Earth much less habitable. The climate impacts were strongly associated to occurrence of famine and abnormal morality in major countries starting from 2043.
At 2047, by the severe shortage of various resources, social instability on Earth reached critical levels.
The crisis seen no sign of alleviation until 2057.

The Grand Collapse (2051)
Severely affected by the Earth Resource Crisis, major governmental bodies on Earth lost their economic and political capability to maintain basic functions on an nation, end up either overthrown by displeased mobs of starving people, or disband themselves under pressure. In a chain reaction, similar events happened to nations all across the globe, which all turned into lands of anarchy and chaos.
This event is often referred as the end point of Old Earth era.

---

The United Earth Era
(2051-Present)

Right after the Grand Collapse, on Earth was the absolute chaos of no law and order where civilization degenerates and anarchy scourges the world. In the meantime, colonies outside Earth were left stranded without contact and support, struggling survive on their own.
However, the end of an old era is also the beginning of an new greater era - This is the era when United Earth rises to power and reunify humanity, and elevating human civilization to the greater levels, to beyond Solar System, to the distant stars.

The United Earth Era

Dissolution of United Nations and Formation of United Earth Movement (UEM) (2051-2052)
Without any existing members at all, and at the edge of ‘bankruptcy’, the United Nations officially dissolved, with most of the assets sold and transferred to a group of political aristocrats and plutocrats. The group absorbed the functions and assets of United Nations, and ambitiously rebranded it into United Earth Movement (UEM) during early 2052, which aimed to unify the entire humanity, and restore prosperity and order of the Old Earth era.

Earth Reunification War (2054-2055)
During the 2 years of preparation, UEM rallied manpower and resources from around the globe through black markets and government fire sales, while gaining stable bases of operations by assisting reestablishment of government on mainly Western Europe and Eastern half of North America.
At mid 2054, UEM officially initiated their military campaign with superior (but still rather limited) reserve of resources, rapidly brought major cities under control in the early months, then the cities were used as staging grounds to drive resistance of warlord and anarchists out of the region, ultimately encircling and destroying them.
Near the end of the 1.4 year long war, UEM controlled over 74% of the world. With no hope to topple a rising power, remaining resistances surrendered to UEM one by one, and generally accepted annexation in the post-war negotiations.

Official Establishment of United Earth (2056)
Few months after the Earth Reunification War, United Earth and its official governmental structure was established. United Earth took the form of a presidential republic, which the governmental body and the executive body is lead by President of United Earth, General Assembly responsible for legislation and directly responsible to the President.
The General Assembly is the decision-making centre of the United Earth, composed of representatives from different administrative regions to show a certain extent of democracy. However, the President still has absolute power to intervene or even alter the decisions of the General Assembly, in addition to a series of exclusive powers.

Earth Recovery Program (2056-2060)
While Earth became relatively stable in political conditions, as Earth Resource Crisis was still an existent and urgent issue, economic, industrial and environmental recovery became absolute priority of newly-established United Earth. In late 2056, United Earth initiated the Earth Recovery Program which involved habitat reclamation, industrial and economic reforms, prospecting new sources of resources, and reestablishing contact and activities with colonies outside Earth (to integrate external resources to assist recovery of Earth).
Under the effective and efficient coordination of resources of United Earth, only one year later, basic recovery had successfully been achieved, effectively alleviating and roughly neutralizing the impacts of Resource Crisis with no excess burden to space colonies and people on Earth.
At 2060, the economy of Earth had achieved recovery and development to beyond mid-21st century standards, the Program concluded in success.
The successful example of Earth Recovery Program also provided early basis of future terraforming research.

Reinitialization of Space Colonization Programmes (2061)
United Earth reinitialized most of the colonization projects from the Old Earth Era starting from 2061, with changed made to enhance efficiency, facilitate administration from United Earth government, and change of objectives.
The Old Earth Era plans were generally rebranded and integrated into "Earth-Sphere Development Programme (ESDP)", aimed to construct a larger socio-economic body in Solar System centering Earth. Under ESDP, Moon was developed into logistics center composed of shipyards and spaceports, while Mars became the new major industrial center. Large space stations were also built to support distant colonies on Venus and moon colonies around Jupiter.
With breakthroughs in interstellar communications technology, United Earth also set their ambitions to colonize stars beyond Solar System. Newer generation of long range space probes were also sent to other distant stars in search for new unhabited planets for colonization and exploit undiscovered resources

First Reformation of Security Council (2063-2065)
The national security agency of the United Earth, Security Council, went under a series of reformation from 2063 to 2065, improving and fostering the efficiency of peacekeeping missions on Earth and foreign colonies.
The reform included controversial establishment of military police force CLEI (Colonial Law Enforcement Initiative, nicknamed "clay") and associated high pressure security regulations over colonies.

Colonization of Alpha Centauri (2064)
The long-range colony carrier UES Ark-3 was launched from Moon shipyard at 2062, reaching Alpha Centauri and established colonies at year 2064, it was the first time in history mankind send people beyond Solar System.

Establishment of Space Marines (2068)
In order to protect foreign colonies and Earth from potential Alien threats, United Earth Space Marines (UESM) was established.
Space Marines gradually replaced Peacekeepers of the United Earth as part of the official military and security forces.

Autonomous Movements of Frontier Region (2068)
For years, colonies of frontier regions presented their concern and discontent towards the heavily bureaucratic system and excessively strict security policies of United Earth, but were never taken notice by authorities on Earth.
The situation turned into several prolonged region-wide protests demanding exclusion from the oppressive policies, after the 7th time Secretary of General Assembly refused to include the issue into agenda of next General Assembly meeting.
Refused to give up interests, United Earth attempted to pacify the discontent colonies by simple tax exemption and reassigning new colony governors, and never tried to lift the policies the colonies asked to remove.
Further angered by the "disrespectful" attitude of United Earth authorities, protests turned into anti-UE movements advocating decentralization of power form Earth. Eventually, United Earth was forced to grant few colonies status of autonomous territory to put the political crisis to end and made promises of reforming administrative and security polices on colonies.
While the movement seemed to achieve the objective to free from oppressive policies, some anti-UE movements foresee United Earth will eventually go back on their policies and unreliable promises, believing only liberation through true independence would free colonies from oppression of Earth supremacists - Which lead to founding of several underground radical anti-UE organizations.

First Official Contacts with Minor Alien Civilization (2069)
An newly established United Earth colony discovered an underdeveloped alien civilization on the planet Haken-35. United Earth officially contacted the Hakenduzians, establishing the first diplomatic relations with an alien race.

Alien Membership System (2071)
Upon discovery of more minor alien civilizations, there were opinions of establishing a proper system to handle alien diplomacy in smooth manner, while United Earth also saw an opportunity of wealth and influence. In order to convince them sharing their resources with United Earth, the Alien Membership System was established, allowing alien member states to enjoy a series of benefits including protection provided by Space Marines and preferential treatment on trades. In return, the alien member states had to pay yearly membership fees to sustain the privilege.

First Shuttlepod MK-I Entered Service (2071)
Martian Industries (MarsCorps) completed the first commercial-use model of the legendary multipurpose line of starships capable of fast long range trips, atmospheric take-off and re-entry - the Shuttlepod, which entered service in 2071.
The various innovative designs of Shuttlepod became standards of next generation starships of the following years.

Deimos Events (2072)
It was a legend of the legendary Space Marines elite squad led by Sarge, a story to save Earth from an evil artificial intelligence - though, with some confidential details which United Earth decided to keep it highly classified, rumored to be time travel to erase history of a parallel timeline.

Discovery of Terra Nova and Terra Nova Colony Rush (2074-2080)
Year 2077, a space probe discovered a planet having more than three times surface area of Earth, which its characteristics are also surprisingly extremely similar to that of Earth. Later the planet was named as Terra Nova to commemorate the remarkable discovery, it was the first earthlike planet discovered in human history.
The value and promising prospects of colonizing this planet were soon taken notice by United Earth authorities and other parties in United Earth. Soon as United Earth had officially begun the preparations for colonizing Terra Nova, largest corporations and major non-governmental entities presented their petition to participate in the project for a of major share of the planet's resources and interests.
As the United Earth authority was unable to balance the interests and requests of various parties, United Earth decided to turn this colonization project into an open competition (which United Earth end up as one of the competitors), which the shares of Terra Nova would only be granted to those who create groundbreaking achievements or shown excellent competitiveness.

Wormhole Navigation Technology (2075)
A set of technological advancements in space navigation technology allowed safe traveling of wormholes, which the wormholes act as a great shortcuts and highways of space travelling.

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Human Civil War
(2087-2089)

Despite most part of the war were centered on conflict of two forces of humanity, United Earth and League of Independent States, the war had seen involvement of other major civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy, Zolarg Empire and Alpha Draconians. Having great impacts on the history and future political situation of Milky Way Galaxy, it was considered one of the important historical events that contributed to the beginning of New Galactic Era.

Human Civil War

Independent Terra (2068)
Independent Terra is the foundational ideology adopted by League of Independent States (and its predeceasing entities).
In the years since the Autonomous Movements broke out, explicit forms of independentist ideas were given rise in the frontier regions, some branches were eventually developed into radical ideologies adopted by anti-UE entities, including the most well-known ideology of "Independent Terra", which advocates independence revolution against centralists and Earth supremacists, ultimately liberating mankind by overthrowing United Earth and re-establish a new true liberal government on Earth that respects human rights and treat individual colonies as equals.
As colonists were often considered to be the far lower echelons of society than native residents of Earth, the ideas of Independent Terra were even openly welcomed by some colonies beyond frontier regions that were also dissatisfied with authorities on Earth.
Discovery of Terra Nova, the first earthlike planet discovered by humanity in outer space, in 2074 applied an significant impact on the core ideas of Independent Terra ideology, which led to an ideological split within - Pro-revolutionist which continued the original idea of uproot ruling class on Earth, and Second-Terra-ist (SeT-ist) that suggests rivaling Earth influence by establishing liberal government on Terra Nova.

Independence Coalition (2072)
The potential instability associated to the spread of independentist ideologies during the Autonomous Movement were not left unnoticed by United Earth government. Immediately identifying such ideologies as dangers to governmental and political interests, the Security Council increased CLEI presence in frontier regions and colony sectors with high risk of ideological infiltration, to completely outlaw anti-UE entities.
Soon the anti-UE organizations and Independent Terra supporters found operating campaigns became increasingly difficult under the close watch of CLEI secret police.
In 2072, representatives of anti-UE entities of mainly from the frontier region secretly gathered at Terra Nova, forming the Independence Coalition - the predecessor of League of Independent States, establishing cooperation of running campaigns against UE under the nose of United Earth.

First Contact between humanity and Zolarg Empire (2077)
While the first official contact between United Earth and Zolarg Empire took place at 2080, the actual initial contact took place 3 years earlier (2077), during an encounter in uncharted regions between a black market convoy and a Zolarg prospection ship.
The rumors of the encounter spread quickly in black markets, eventually the piece of intel reached the Independence Coalition. Intrigued, the Coalition concluded with an risky decision - sending a secret diplomatic dispatchment to the Zolarg Ship via the black market vessel, in attempt to establish early relations which could help obtaining crucial support for future military campaign against United Earth.
In 2079, the dispatchment returned with cooperation agreements and an unofficial-and-non-disclosed diplomatic and military cooperation pact from Zolarg Empire, which the Coalition offers human technologies to Zolarg scholars in exchange for material and possible military support of Zolarg expeditionary forces.

The Alpha Draconian Conspiracy and Invasion Plan (~2085)
Since the Insectoid uprising events, Alpha Draconians had been in a difficult situation. The economy over-reliant on expansive and expendable insectoid slave labor had been severely hampered, while the reptilians began questioning the faith and pride of their "all-time invincible" empire.
Taking the Insectoid uprising events as the greatest shame to Alpha Draconians, on Alpha Draconis the dissatisfied reptilian lords and nobles urged Overlord Betah'an taking the responsibility to address the crisis.
To the Lords of Inner Circle (who power, ambitions, cunning and brutality were second to only the Overlord), it was a sign of weakened Overlord. Seeing that as an opportunity to seize the Overlord's power rightfully, the Lords of Inner Circle schemed to remove Overlord Betah'an form the throne.
To Overlord Betah'an, the most effective way silencing his political opponents form the Inner Circle and regaining support from nobles while addressing the crisis at the same time, was to start another conquest. The Overloard carefully selected the most suitable target of conquest - United Earth, which was industrially and economically developed but militarily inferior, non-aware of Alpha Draconians' existance, and possible sowing of internal conflict which allows minimal military efforts to eradicate further resistances.

Terra Nova Incident and Battle of Terra Nova (2087)
Burdened by outrageous taxation set by United Earth over the colonies outside Solar-Sphere region since 2079, Terra Nova was the first colony openly boycotting the tax policies of United Earth, refused to deliver tax payments to General Assembly. General Assembly responded the boycotting by enforcing embargo over Terra Nova, followed by immigration interdiction and military blockade, however all failed with little effect on this almost self-efficient colony.
The Independence Coalition, after years of covered military preparation, saw the incident on Terra Nova provided a narrow but the best opportunity to start what they had planned long ago - a revolutionary war to liberate colonies from tyranny of United Earth. Before the military blockade was enforced, the Coalition sneaked additional military personnel to their branch in Terra Nova.
Heat of the debates over follow-up actions against rebellious acts of Terra Nova lasted for months in General Assembly, politicians arguing the effectiveness of measures used to force Terra Nova giving in, while anti-UE organizations on Terra Nova kept provoking United Earth by rallying local people protesting around governmental administrative facilities. Eventually in 2087, with support of politicians who worried Terra Nova incident would evolve into a copy of of Autonomous Movement in 2068, along with manipulation by Alpha Draconian covert agents - By reason of "open revolt against United Earth", President Ronald Tracy issued order to mobilize Space Marines 35th Regiment for military occupation of and martial law enforcement on Terra Nova, marking the outbreak of Human Civil War.
Main forces of Space Marines occupied the capital city of Terra Nova and dispersed protesters with minimal resistance within 2 hours of operation. However, few minutes after the complete occupation, the main forces were ambushed and encircled by local militia forces led by commander Beuford P. Tots in the city. By element of surprise and home turf advantage of militia forces, the well-equipped Space Marines in the capital city took a heavy casualty rate of 63% and were forced to retreat by escaping to troop ship in planetary orbit.
Other militia forces on Terra Nova driven Space Marine and UE garrisons of military facilities into defeat in the subsequent skirmishes over the week. Gaining control over majority of surface-to-orbit defense weapons on the planet, Terra Nova militias forced complete withdrawal of Space Marines 35th Regiment and blockade fleet from Terra Nova at the end of Battle of Terra Nova.
After the battle, the colonial congress replaced the original colonial government. The congress officially sent an formal declaration of independence to Earth, which declared Terra Nova is no longer a chartered colony of United Earth, the once "second earth" was then renamed "Independent State".

Founding of the League of Independent States (2087)
Following the stunning success in Battle of Terra Nova, Terra Nova became the common symbol of freedom and liberty. The rest member organizations and entities of Independence Coalition, along with colonies of neighboring colony sectors inspired by the incident, followed by overthrowing local colonial government and sever ties with United Earth.
The independent colonies and members of Independence Coalition then officially founded the League of Independent States on Terra Nova.

Terra-to-Earth Campaign (2087-2088)
With support of Beaconburg Fleet and arms supplier BSA from Independent State of Beaconburg (previously Autonomous Colony of Beaconburg), mercenaries recruited from black markets and volunteers from liberated colonies, the newly founded League quickly launched the first military campaign against United Earth - the "Terra-to-Earth Campaign" (In United Earth perspective, "The Defense of Solar System"), targeting core territories of United Earth around Solar System.
Despite United Earth ordered nationwide general mobilization against LIS offensive, the mobilization progresses at sluggish pace. This had left LIS gaining most of the strategic initiative and speed advantage in the early to mid stage of the campaign, the scattered and underprepared United Earth forces were being wiped out by LIS with relative ease.

Zolarg Entry into War (2088)
In late 2087, United Earth completed the strategic defense planning, finished preparations of constructing solid defenses by concentrating majority of military assets in sectors near Solar System.
LIS forces launched the Ragnarok Offensive in early 2088 spearheaded by veteran units form the earlier stages of Terra-to-Earth Campaign, in hope to break the defense lines. However, outmatched by United Earth in terms of superior quantity of troops and supplies, the warfare of attrition eventually blunt the LIS offensive, which LIS forces took significant losses.
Knowing crippled forces stood little chance against possible full strategic counterattack of United Earth, LIS urgently needed to delay United Earth from taking initiative. Shortly after the setback, LIS decided to play their trump card - their secret ally, Zolarg Empire.
Using the missile base (deployed with newly built IWSM which its strike range can reach and cover the entire Solar System) established by LIS and (unexpected) assassination of United Earth President Ronald Tracy as distraction, Zolarg Empire responded to LIS call, sent a full battegroup of Expeditionary Force attacking the other side of United Earth territory, forcing United Earth to fight a war of two fronts.
Despite the two-front strategy did divert pressure from LIS, however, as neither side held major advantage over another, the war turned into a stalemate.

Barracuda Blues Event and Preludes to Alpha Draconian Invasion (2088)
In the heat of Human Civil War, Alpha Draconians sneaked groups of pioneer probes into human territory, constructed portal gates in the unnoticed corners where strongholds were set up for preparations of Overlord's surprise invasion plans.
Lords of Inner Circle had been trying to foil the Overlord's plan from the beginning. By a margin of rare opportunity, one covert operative affiliated to Lords of Inner Circle managed to sabotage the cloak device in secret base on planet Barracuda Blues, exposing the dormant portal and droid battlegroup at the site to United Earth and LIS military.
Upon the discovery of the unknown alien facility on Barracuda Blues, both United Earth and LIS dispatched their own task force trying to seize the alien technology that could change the tide of battle. Violent skirmishes broke out between two sides, contesting control of the facility.
As the news on Barracuda Blues were delivered to Zolarg Expeditionary Force. Familiar with Alpha Draconian cunning strategies, the Insectoids immediately identified the alien facility an Alpha Draconian invasion base. The Zolarg Expeditionary Force then sent their urgent message to LIS ally, warned that such discovery was a curse rather than blessing, and presented worries of this war involved orchestrations of Alpha Draconians, the greater evil they were yet to know.
Already at the edge of dishonoring the reptilian ancestors, the sabotage in invasion base on Barracuda Blues and earlier unexpected entry of Zolarg Empire into the war had left Overlord Betah'an with no choice other than launching a premature invasion.

Battle Against Alpha Draconians (2088-2089)
Caught off guard by surprise, near half of the human forces were obliterated by superior war machines of Alpha Draconians during the initial stage of Alpha Draconian invasion.
With a common enemy, military and political representatives of United Earth, LIS and Zolarg Expeditionary Force met on Earth. Shortly, ceasefire agreements were reached, and an temporary alliance against Alpha Draconian invasion was formed.
The alliance organized several joint operations to strategically delay Alpha Draconian invaders with varying outcome, buying time for LIS and United Earth to replenish losses and regroup respective fighting forces.
In mid 2089, United Earth finished reconstruction of the space armadas, later achieved decisive victories in several space battles against Alpha Draconian warfleets, regaining the space superiority and the tables turned to alliance's favor.
With support from United Earth fleets and exploiting the weakness of long replenishment cycle and inferior quantity of Alpha Draconian forces, alliance forces successfully overwhelmed Alpha Draconian forces, storming major invasion bases. The destruction of the largest but last portal gate stronghold during Battle of Barracuda Blues marked the decisive defeat of Alpha Draconian invaders.

Continuation of Human Civil War (2089)
As Alpha Draconians called their fleets back to home territory and aborted control of droid armies following the defeat at Barracuda Blues, the temporary alliance finished its purpose and was then dismissed, both sides returned to status of conflict.
However, exhausted and tired of war, it was impossible to continue the war at the original massive, interstellar scale, both sides came up with conclusion that the war must be ended by an decisive battle as soon as possible.
Zolarg Empire then exited war by signing a white peace with United Earth weeks after the alliance had been dismissed.
At last, remaining main forces of United Earth and LIS coincidentally met near the strategically important wormhole highway node, over the planet of Kaiserground. After a week of fierce back-and-forth battle on the planet and in the orbit, United Earth gained complete control of the planet, setting LIS forces on a full retreat, concluding the final major battle in Human Civil War.

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New Galactic Era
(2089-Present)

Following the end Human Civil War, marked a major shift in geopolitical patterns of the Milky Way Galaxy - Division of human civilization, decline of Alpha Draconian dominance, rise of the mysterious New Galactic Empire, various smaller civilizations began playing important roles in maintaining galactic balance......
Increasing importance of galactic-scale affairs in this era had reshaped the Milky Way Galaxy, which once again after billions of millenniums, the Milky Way Galaxy thrives under the interaction between civilizations.

New Galactic Era

Armistice of Hoxton (2089)
The Armistice of Hoxton officially ended the Human Civil War, despite an armistice in nature.
The armistice defined the United Earth-LIS border in the future, which the border line was known as the Hoxton Line.
To conclude, nobody achieved total victory in the Human Civil War, however, each side had their objectives completed respectively - United Earth won a tactical victory which LIS could no longer threaten United Earth territory, while LIS achieved their primary aim of independence and establishing a liberal, decentralized government.

Official establishment of League of Independent States (2089)
The main body of the League of the Independent States, the League Council, was officially established 3 months after the Armistice of Hoxton was in effect. By the Joint Declaration of Independent States based on the core ideas of Independent Terra, The League promised fairness, respect, autonomy and freedom to member states.
The League of the Independent States had no actual leader in power. Instead, each member state cooperates under the common principles and shared pacts, bearing the common responsibilities protecting the free people of the League.
Though the establishment of LIS was officially recognized by their ally Zolarg Empire, the United Earth General Assembly declared they would never accept any form of human regime other than itself, the League being an unlawful existence that would threaten the unity and prosperity of mankind.

The Midnight Coup (2089)
With the total defeat of invasion campaign, the core Reptilian society of Alpha Draconians lost all confidence in Overlord Betah'an. Shortly after the end of invasion the Overlord was assassinated by Inner Circle covert agents.
Following the death of the Overlord, the seat of supreme power of Alpha Draconians was then empty. Yet as every Lords of the Inner Circle wished to claim the ultimate trophy of power, political crises escalated to uncontrolled levels by the internal conflicts of the Inner Circle, which later spread all across the administrative body of Alpha Draconians, rendering all but basic administrations of the reptilian empire non-functional.
Catalyzed by the the absence of Overlord and internal political instability, order in Alpha Draconian society was barely maintained, leading to high crime rates and decreased domestic productivity in the following decades.
As a result, dominance of Alpha Draconians began to decline.

Emergence of New Galactic Empire (2089)
Several weeks after the Midnight Coup which had thrown Alpha Draconians into the tarpit of neverending political infighting, control and dominance over the foreign territories of Alpha Draconians were loosened which allowed several vassals and colony broke away with no immediate consequence.
However, majority of these territories were then annexed by another power, which emerged from the Central Vortex region of the Milky Way Galaxy - The New Galactic Empire.
Calling themselves the true descendants of the Ancients, they claimed themselves bearing the destiny to bring the entire galaxy under their grace, a mission of revival to bring the once lost glory of Old Galactic Empire back to life.
Despite lacking the dominating power to contest other major civilizations, the New Galactic Empire had actively been expanding their sphere of influence, and rumored to have unprecedented capacity harnessing the powers of the universe beyond the Ancient technologies.

Bradley's Military Reform (2089-2094)
The new head of the United Earth Security Council, Bradley the Grand Marshal (which was the supreme commander throughout the Human Civil War), threw up a massive military reformation aimed to maintain superiority over the military capabilities of LIS, including expansion and reorganization of Space Marines, modernization of United Earth space fleets, introducing newer professionalism elements in military while maintaining the traditional expansive nature of United Earth military, and incorporation of newer doctrines derived from recent experiences in Civil War.

League Guild of Black Markets (2090)
As United Earth denied LIS from formal foreign trade outside the League territory by blockades along LIS border, LIS had to resort to black markets to maintain crucial supplies of high-end materials and economic activities, given different post-war difficulties suffered member states.
In 2090, the League Guild of Black Markets was established under the League Trade Authority to coordinate external trade beyond United Earth blockade, and management of domestic black market networks.

Restoration of Overlord (2110)
Tired of political turmoils and displeased with absence of powerful supreme ruler, traditionalist nobles on Alpha Draconis collectively put pressure on the Inner Circle for restoration of Overlord, or risk denounced and outlawed by defiling the ancestors.
Fearing the wrath of ancestors, the Inner Circle reluctantly brought Delta'an the exiled brother of Betah'an back to Alpha Draconis, crowning Delta'an the next Overlord.
Despite an Overlord, Delta'an was merely a puppet of the Inner Circle, however, did brought relative stability to disorganized Alpha Draconian society at the time.

Zolarg Scholars Journey to United Earth (2113)
A team of scholars from the Zolarg Empire, led by the Imperial High Scholar Abbamber, set off to United Earth for friendly diplomatic and scientific mission.
Scholars and scientists of the United Earth and the Zolarg Empire exchanged each other's technological advances and cultural knowledge. While Zolarg scholars earned precious knowledge which could help the technological development of the Zolarg Empire, the trip had also ceased the tensions since the Human Civil War between Zolarg and United Earth.

Insectoid Mind Network Technology (2116)
A breakthrough in neuroscience research in the Zolarg Empire had led to an innovation - the Insectoid Mind Network, designed to foster understanding of consciousness and thinking mechanisms, and enhancing advanced, direct communication and coordination within Insectoid society.

Cyberonic Transcendence (2119)
A private United Earth research institute Transcendent Technology successfully prototyped Neuro-microchips (NMC), which were compatible with human neuro systems, small in size, but ten times more efficient than average human brains.
Such inventions initiated a new technological revolution in human civilization in artificial augmentations, impacting all aspects of life.

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Who knows what the future holds?





Note that these are just my own interpretations over the events, it is not official reference, but hopefully enhance your understanding over the My Colony Universe, and had fun reading it.

Thank you for reading!

Here you can download any texture overhaule you like and use as you please be sure to mention me if you use them in your own mods. Please drop likes and any comments as i do read them and will try to reply where i can.

I hope you all will like the more realistic look of the buildings as i will slowly bring them out as I remodel them. They have also been realined to fit the in game grid better aswell.

Textures png files

Gold Mint


Gold Refinery


Small Shelter


First Aid


Factory


Refinery


Greenhouse


Greenhouse Working


Advanced Hydro