Ape Apps

bastecklein said:I don't know, between not only the My Colony code but all of the supporting scripts associated with it, we would be talking about a complete re-write of the game. We are talking about months of work. Might as well just make it 'My Colony 2' at that point.

That's right, but it might be a big improvement. I'm working as developer and sometimes I run into a problem that can only be solved by rewriting the code, which I just do.

Another option is the communication between JavaScript and Java (I assume you're using JavaScript when using a webview). Instead of using a webview, a Java rendering engine can be written for android (which is optimalized for the game), which communicates with the JavaScript game engine. This might also be a lot of work, but not as much as a complete rewrite. There already exist several interpreters for JavaScript, also one in Java.

A last option is using another built in webview in Android, but I won't recommend that. It will take the game slow and maybe it won't support everything that the google webview supports...

This script is a .vpp file loader for using 3d voxel models created with Voxel Paint in your three.js projects. This loader is used by projects such as My Empire and My Colony 2. The loader takes your vpp file and converts it into a mesh object that you can add to a threejs scene. In some instances if special features are used in your model, it may return a Group object instead of a single mesh. You can learn more about how to use threejs here: https://threejs.org/

You can download the javascript file below, and this thread will be kept up to date with the latest release of the loader.

Last Updated: 11/30/2023

Basic Usage Instructions:

In your HTML:

<script src="vpploader.js"></script>

In your Javascript, .vpp models can be loaded from either a URL or from a Javascript Object. Here are examples for both:

let options = {

    callback: onModelLoaded,

    path: "mymodel.vpp"

};



vppLoader.getMesh(options);



function onModelLoaded(mesh) {

    scene.add(mesh);

}

The options object requires at least the path or obj parameter and the callback parameter. The callback should be a function that accepts the completed three.js mesh as it's argument.


The vpploader script will automatically take care of reusing geometries for you when appropriate, in the event that you are adding multiple instances of the same object to your project.

If you have any questions or suggestions for the loader, feel free to leave them in this thread! I will be adding features and improvements as I add them to the .vpp file format, so if you are using this script, make sure you check back to ensure that you have the latest version of the loader.

Site owners are able to customize how their forum or website looks and behaves when accessed under Forum Fiend. This is an overview on the customization options available to site owners and developers.

Firstly, if absolutely no site owner action is taken at all, Forum Fiend will still attempt to derive your site's name, icon, and theme color from the meta data of your website. These items are taken from your site's title tag, it's favicon, and the theme-color meta tag.

High-Level Configuration

The easiest way to customize a site under Forum Fiend, one which requires no development experience whatsoever, is to upload a forumfiend.json file to the root directory of your site. Any site that is accessed by a fair number of users through Forum Fiend should take the time to include this simple file. The forumfiend.json file allows you to set high level parameters for your site, as well as branding logos and theme customizations. Creating the file should take no more than a couple of minutes, and you can see a complete guide in the following thread:

Complete forumfiend.json Reference

Access Methods

Forum Fiend can display a forum using either the Tapatalk API or through a custom WebView interface. Tapatalk access is based on the outdated open source version of the Tapatalk API and is no longer maintained. If your forum already uses Tapatalk, it may work just fine under Forum Fiend, and you are encouraged to test it out to be sure. Note that the Tapatalk interface has not been updated since 2014 and will not be receiving support or updates in the future, as newer versions of the API are no longer open source.

The Forum Fiend WebView

Forum developers or site owners with JavaScript experience can further customize their site under Forum Fiend using the custom WebView API interface methods. Site owners who have Tapatalk installed on their system but prefer to use the custom WebView under Forum Fiend can do so by setting the disable_api to "1" in their forumfiend.json file.

The Forum Fiend WebView has a user agent string of ForumViewerCore. Developers can check the user agent to determine if their site is being accessed under Forum Fiend. Some implementations may want to alter UI or Stylesheets based on the presence of Forum Fiend.

Forum Fiend will also add a global ForumViewerCoreInterface JavaScript object to your site for accessing WebView API methods. Thus, the presence of Forum Fiend can also be detected in JavaScript by checking for the existence of the window.ForumViewerCoreInterface object.

setProperty Interface

Forum Fiend will add a window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty(key,value) function to your website that will allow you to customize several aspects of the Forum Fiend interface. Below is a reference to things you can do with the setProperty function, as well as some code examples. All keys and values must be text strings.

User Account

To personalize your forum or site for your Forum Fiend users, you can display their logged account username and avatar on the main forum listing screen. Use the following two properties to set the user's details.

key	values
fvc-logged-username	username or "0" for not logged in
fvc-logged-avatar	full URL to avatar image file (png,jpg,gif supported) or "0" for no avatar

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-logged-username","little bobby");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-logged-avatar","https://mysite.com/avatar-bobby.png");

Pagination Bar

Forum Fiend can provide a pagination bar at the bottom of the screen with controls for first/last/next/previous page. The following table lists the pagination related properties, followed by a code example.

key	values
fvc-show-pagination	"true" or "false"
fvc-pagination-pagedisp	ex: "5 of 10"
fvc-pagination-first	url: "https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=1"
fvc-pagination-last	url: "https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=10"
fvc-pagination-next	url: "https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=6"
fvc-pagination-previous	url: "https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=4"

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-show-pagination","true");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-pagination-pagedisp","5 of 10");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-pagination-first","https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=1");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-pagination-last","https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=10");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-pagination-next","https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=6");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-pagination-previous","https://mysite.com/viewpage?p=1&pg=4");

Colors and Theme

There are several properties related to the appearance of the site under Forum Fiend.

key	values
fvc-theme	Title/Status Bar Colors, hex string
fvc-page-foreground	general foreground (text) color, hex string
fvc-page-background	general background color, hex string

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-theme","#2196F3");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-foreground","#212121");

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.setProperty("fvc-background","#CFD8DC");

Slide-Out Menu

The left-hand slide-out menu can be customized using the window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addMenuItem(name,icon,url,color) function. The following lists the parameter values expected for the function.

parameter	description
name	The name of the menu item. If set to "CLEARMENU" will reset all custom menu items.
icon	absolute url to a png icon for the menu item
url	absolute url to navigate to when the menu item is selected
color	optional hex color mask for the icon, or null

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addMenuItem("CLEARMENU",null,null,null);

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addMenuItem("Latest Posts","https://mysite.com/latest-icon.png","https://mysite.com/latest.php",null);

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addMenuItem("Exciting Section","https://mysite.com/exciting-icon.png","https://mysite.com/viewpage.php?p=50",null);

Application Toolbar

The top actionbar/toolbar of the Forum Fiend app can also be customized using the window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addToolbarItem(name,url,icon,secondary) function.

parameter	description
name	The name of the menu item. If set to "CLEARTOOLBAR" will reset all custom menu items.
url	absolute url to navigate to when the menu item is selected
icon	a named icon, reference below, ex "back" or "chat"
secondary	boolean value, if true will force the toolbar item into the drop down menu

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addToolbarItem("CLEARTOOLBAR",null,null,null);

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addToolbarItem("New Post","https://mysite.com/newpost.php","add",false);

window.ForumViewerCoreInterface.addToolbarItem("Sign Out","https://mysite.com/signout.php",null,true);

Named Icons

Here is a list of available named icons you can try out. These can be used for both Toolbar and Menu items, but toolbar items require a named icon (menu icons can be a URL).

selectall,stopwatch,sort,relationship,ruler,pdf,chat,build,search,feedback,merge,envelope,allapps,viewall,filter,threedotshoriz,calendar,system,yescheck,nocheck,font,record,location,nolocation,movie,notes,description,bookmark,notifications,gavel,home,person,unlock,directions,print,undo,rss,showresults,personalize,share,sponsor,fanmail,premium,achievements,scores,import,movetofolder,page,back,add,delete,export,new,save,open,send,clear,emoji2,play,rename,volume,info,contactinfo,important,library,zerobars,help,people,emoji,shop,money,audio,fourbars,sync,switch,like,refresh,list,calculator,map,savelocal,copy,camera,fullscreen,flag,highlight,color,preview,previewlink,settings,rotatecamera,crop,backtowindow,lock,skull,microphone,video

I am sorry to the people still having issues with the game. Crashes have been higher over the last 10 releases, particularly on Android, as the size of the game is now starting to outpace Android memory allocations on many devices. I have been doing work over the last few releases to try to trim memory consumption and speed things up. Here you can see the crash rate on Android over the last few versions:


Yes it is still too high, but it is getting better and I will continue working on it with each release.

Javascript performance has also taken a hit with the new mitigation from the Meltdown and Specter bugs, and I am trying to work around those as well. Again, I am sorry for the issues. TBH this is probably one of the bigger Javascript based simulation games out there, but I really am trying to get it resolved. I am not ignoring the issues!

One thing that helps, especially on Mobile, is to not open up the in-app encyclopedia, as this has to queue up all of the graphical assets in the game, and there are now so many buildings in My Colony that loading the graphics will crash most devices, even higher end ones. I need to totally rewrite the encyclopedia, it's just a matter of priorities.

bastecklein said:I am sorry to the people still having issues with the game. Crashes have been higher over the last 10 releases, particularly on Android, as the size of the game is now starting to outpace Android memory allocations on many devices. I have been doing work over the last few releases to try to trim memory consumption and speed things up. Here you can see the crash rate on Android over the last few versions:

Yes it is still too high, but it is getting better and I will continue working on it with each release.

Javascript performance has also taken a hit with the new mitigation from the Meltdown and Specter bugs, and I am trying to work around those as well. Again, I am sorry for the issues. TBH this is probably one of the bigger Javascript based simulation games out there, but I really am trying to get it resolved. I am not ignoring the issues!

One thing that helps, especially on Mobile, is to not open up the in-app encyclopedia, as this has to queue up all of the graphical assets in the game, and there are now so many buildings in My Colony that loading the graphics will crash most devices, even higher end ones. I need to totally rewrite the encyclopedia, it's just a matter of priorities.

You are honestly a brilliant designer, this is truly the best game I've played in years!! Thank you so much

I am unable to update to to version 0.6

I am getting an error in JavaScript Module electron.

Console log;
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ ./My\ Colony
A JavaScript error occurred in the main process
Uncaught Exception:
Error: Cannot find module 'electron-squirrel-startup'
at Module._resolveFilename (module.js:485:15)
at Function.Module._resolveFilename (/run/media/syther/Files/Linux-Files/Cloud/LinuxHomeFolder/syther/build/mycolony/my-colony-linux-x64-0.60.0/resources/electron.asar/common/reset-search-paths.js:35:12)
at Function.Module._load (module.js:437:25)
at Module.require (module.js:513:17)
at require (internal/module.js:11:18)
at Object.<anonymous> (/run/media/syther/Files/Linux-Files/Cloud/LinuxHomeFolder/syther/build/mycolony/my-colony-linux-x64-0.60.0/resources/app.asar/src/main.js:1:160)
at Object.<anonymous> (/run/media/syther/Files/Linux-Files/Cloud/LinuxHomeFolder/syther/build/mycolony/my-colony-linux-x64-0.60.0/resources/app.asar/src/main.js:270:3)
at Module._compile (module.js:569:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:580:10)
at Module.load (module.js:503:32)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Anyone else on linux come accross this error?
Every Other version has run on my PC just fine, I am still playing on version 0.59

Regards,
Syther

having an issue where i cant save a map type i have and getting javascript errors

I am trying to open an HTML webpage (programmed in javascript) with Network Browser on my Samsung tablet, but the page is not working correctly. It starts, but will not update correctly. If I close then re-open the webpage, the page is updated. This webpage opens and updates correctly on my computer with multiple browsers. Is there a way to use the default browser on the tablet with Network Browser? Thanks.

You should now be able to create/participate in polls on the forum. You might have to do a hard reload, since they utilize javascript.

any value that javascript converts into an exponential number like 2.951.703.516.611.689e+21 will not transmit properly. Trying to think of a good way to lower that without triggering the auto-banner. You can either splurge on the GBT or maybe select one of your colonists walking around, go to stats -> money -> give gift and then give that one guy a ton of money. That is better than spreading it around because it will not cause mass retirement. Then if that colonist happens to die or get virtualized by the engine, the problem will be solved. Don't execute him though, because you will get the money back.

if you are having the exact same issue on the web browser, can you open the developer tools and look in the JavaScript error console and see if any errors are being written to it ?

could be running out of memory during compression since it is a large colony, you can try turning off compression. If it's already off, are you using 32 bit chrome? could be reaching limit to amount of data that can passed through a javascript function. If you are using cloud sync, your game file might be so big that it is timing out saving to server.

It is tough to know, alot of these insane large colonies start pushing up against the limits of the engine and/or browser. consider a large colony with lots of buildings and millions of colonists is probably several hundred megabytes in size uncompressed just when saved as a file, and will be quite a bit larger once loaded into RAM.

You can try downloading the desktop client and see if that saves better. It saves into physical storage instead of the browser's virtual filesystem, which may be more reliable.

Doubtful. The issue was not related to inserting data into the database, but with javascript parsing the result into a JSON object.

More changes for v0.50.0

Just added some more interaction changes to v0.50.0 that are currently live in the web version. Will require a hard-reload to take effect, and (due to the nature of javascript) may not work in all browsers.

Firstly, now when you select a vehicle or building, the sidebar will update to show the building options for that particular unit or structure. For example, if you click on an Extraterrestrial Builder, the sidebar updates to show only the buildings that the Extraterrestrial Builder can produce. When you deselect the unit, it returns to normal.

In addition, now when you select a Unit, you can just right-click somewhere to order the unit to move to that location. It is the same as clicking on 'Move' from the little object options window, but removes one click from the process. This is a feature that will not work in all browsers, as some implementations do not allow you to manipulate right-click behavior. You will probably need to do a hard-reload to get this to work, since I had to change several scripts in order to enable it.

Expanding on the right-click functionality, I also plan on adding the ability to set a 'rally point' for vehicle construction buildings. For example, you will be able to select the Small Vehicle Factory, and then right-click somewhere. Then, all new rovers from that factory will automatically drive to the rally point you selected once built. This isn't in there yet, but it should be before v0.50.0 is released for all platforms.

Enjoy.

It feels like the chrome version runs faster than the win10 version. Is this due to a better javascript engine in Chrome. What does the win10 client use?

GrindThisGame said:It feels like the chrome version runs faster than the win10 version. Is this due to a better javascript engine in Chrome. What does the win10 client use?

win10 client uses Edge rendering engine. If you download it from Ape Market is uses Chromium engine:

https://market.ape-apps.com/antiquitas.html

Speed is improved on Windows 10 if you have the latest 'fall creators update', but chromium still seems a bit faster.

JavaScript I think

Yeah, I keep it easy as I don’t mind if offline players want to cheat or mod to their hearts content. The server does checks for colonies in online mode though and you can risk being banned and losing your entire commonwealth and perhaps access to the server entirely for repeat offenses.

And yes the game is primarily in JavaScript, although there is platform specific code in native languages on Android, iOS, and Windows.

@angryphil The reason the on-duty workers changes when you click on 'show workers' is because those workers do not actually exist until you click on that button. Once your population gets so high, everything runs off of statistics. When you click on 'show workers' the engine creates new worker objects out of thin air so that you have something to look at. The game will only simulate 2000 colonists at a time (at most, its lower on some devices), so when you create more workers by using the 'show workers' feature, that many workers are destroyed somewhere else. The only exception is when you click on a huge building like the arcology which temporarily allows more colonists to exist in the game than normal, but at a large memory expense.

The engine tries to keep roughly 1/3 of the 'population' working at a given time, less depending on happiness and other factors. Yes you can temporarily goose it higher by clicking on a building and creating new workers, but as soon as you do the same thing to another building, workers somewhere else in your colony will be destroyed.

The reality is that the game was originally designed to let you micro manage workers, but once people started making bigger and bigger colonies, changes had to be made to the engine to accommodate, and the trade-off is that after a certain colony size micromanagement is no longer possible. You are just building a city and it is running off of simulated stats.

I would love for the micro-management to still be the case, but there are limitations to javascript, particularly the amount of RAM a browser tab is allowed to use. Even if you have 128gb of RAM, the browser will still only allow a web app to use a specific amount. The truth is that more people would rather be able to build big colonies than to be able to tweak the game down to the individual worker and factory, so that is the direction I had to go with it.

Anyway I am not saying that there are no bugs with the system and I will keep trying to make it better. I am just saying that after a certain population, the worker list is for-show only.

That said, it generally does not suddenly fill with on-duty workers at this point, at least not in my experience. Certainly that was the case some time ago, but to me when you expand the workers list, it generally shows the same on duty/off duty ratio as the pop-up graph when you first select a building: At least in my own colonies, it has been quite a few updates now since I have had all workers just automatically switch to on-duty now. In fact I have not noticed the issue since switching to the new workers stat screen, even on a large simulated colony. If you say it is still happening though then that is something I can look into.

Well only the wrapper app needs to be converted to 32bit. My Colony itself is made in Javascript and just runs in an embedded WebView that has elevated permissions.

cry8wolf9 said:is it possible to make your own bug report system that records crashes?

I do log a majority of the crashes. The issue with the WebView in Android is that it is actually supplied by the Google Chrome app, and is essentially an embedded instance of Chrome within the My Colony app. If the actual Javascript code of My Colony crashes, I am able to log that just fine. But if the Chrome WebView crashes, which is largely what is happening, there is nothing I can capture.

Hello everyone, I have just finished up work on My Colony v0.69.0, and it will be going out to all devices shortly.

My Colony v0.69.0 is yet another engine stability and bug fix release. In the last changelog, I talked about how My Colony has been basically blacklisted on Google Play due to having a high number of crashes. To combat this, I made several changes to the Android version of the game, including limiting map sizes, removing ads, removing the Galactic Emperor rewards, etc.

Amazingly, these changes had absolutely zero impact on the crash rate of the game. So most of them have been reversed in this update. My Colony v0.69.0 also rolls up two Antiquitas updates worth of engine patches, including a new Engine setting which allows users to disable the multi-threaded path finding engine.

For those who have been playing a long time, way back in v0.40.0, I moved all path finding operations to a separate worker thread in order to improve performance, and at the time it made a pretty big improvement. The only downfall to this was that it cost more RAM usage in order to work, because the games collision map had to be cloned and copied over to the worker thread in order for the pathfinder to be able to use it, since a Javascript object can not be accessed across two different threads. On PCs with a lot of RAM or on smaller maps, this was not such a big deal. On Android though, which restricts RAM available to each app far more than other platforms, it is possibly problematic, particularly on larger maps.

With this change, multi-threaded path finding is now turned off by default on Android only. I am testing to see if this has any impact on the crash rate. The new engine setting option is found at the very bottom of the Engine Settings list if you want to test the difference between the two path finding methods on different platforms. I suspect this might also help the issues some people have when they order a bot to go build something, and it just sits there. I am thinking the path resolution instructions were somehow getting lost in the cross-thread communications. We will see.

In my testing, turning off the multi-threading does not significantly lower performance. Back when I initially implemented the multi-threaded feature, the game calculated every path for every rover and colonist on the map. I have since made changes to where all paths are simulated, unless the unit starting or ending position is within the players viewport, as there was no reason so show an accurate path of a colonist walking from his house to his job if the player is not even going to see it happening.

There were several more bug fixes added that were carried over from the two most recent Antiquitas updates, but the path finding change was the major one, and represented a somewhat significant change in the underlying code, allowing the game to now support either single or multi-threaded operation.

Hopefully some of these changes do something to help the crash rate. My Colony has a crash rate on Android of around 7%. Oddly, Antiquitas, which runs on the exact same code base, has a crash rate of under 1%. Even more strange is the fact that Antiquitas features background music and higher resolution graphics, leading to more RAM consumption over My Colony, yet there are almost no crashes. Also strange is how I get virtually no support emails or forum posts from actual people about My Colony just force closing on Android, yet it is apparently happening to nearly 10% of users.

Regardless, the ongoing issues on Google Play have basically killed My Colony from a business standpoint. The following snippet from My Colony's weekly usage chart shows the exact point Google blacklisted the game on the Play Store:

Ignore the huge drop at the end, as that represents this week which is only half way through. The game has basically leveled off because that is the usage on Web, Desktop, Windows 10, and iPhone. There are essentially no new downloads coming from Android devices at this point, which as you can tell by the chart, amounted to about half of the My Colony userbase.

Here you can see the last 6 months worth of downloads from Google Play:

So anyway, that is where My Colony currently stands on Android. I have not added any new content this time, as I am trying to focus my time on getting the crashes resolved, if there is indeed any way to resolve them. And even if they are resolved, there is no guarantee that Google would ever un-blacklist the game anyway, so there is that.

Regardless though, there is another small change I added to the game this release. It has always bothered me that the regular textile mill was animated, by the synthetic textile mill was not. So I added animation to it!

So that's all for today. Similar to the v0.68.x series of updates, My Colony on Android will probably receive several more updates than the other platforms. It saw a 0.68.1, 0.68.2, 0.68.3, and a 0.68.4 update, and the same may happen with the release. Just trying to get it fixed. Even if the game never returns to profitability, I at least can hopefully get the engine fixed up so that it works properly for the next game.

Thanks for playing, much more to come!

Well, I always try to optimize with each release. To be fair, I think you are taxing the game out to it's limits. A large map on it's own degrades path-finding performance, and the game itself warns you of this when you are creating a new city or annexing land. On top of that you are using 2-4 thousand bots. thousand! why? I mean, how necessary is it to have that many? If it is lagging your game down to nothing, then it can't be speeding up your builds significantly.

Now you can play however you want, that is fine with me. And I will keep trying to improve the game to be able to handle your extreme situation. I just find it odd when your post is like "when are you going to optimize the game" and "still not a more fluid game play" with no other information given, posted as a bug report, like the engine is broken or something. Then come to find out you are running thousands of bots + big map.

Anyway, I do appreciate the feedback and I will continue to try to make improvements. I'm just not sure this is a legit bug with the game. I think it has more to do with the limits of the system and javascript. Because really My Colony performs pretty good for a straight JS /2d Canvas game. Obviously there is always room for improvement, but I would hold it up against any other written in this language, especially considering it uses no third party frameworks or engines.

Good news everyone, tonight I will be pushing out the long awaited v0.77.0 release of My Colony! This is actually a pretty big update, and truth be told there is a lot more I wanted to get added in there, but I ran up against a time limit since the Apple App Store will not be accepting any new app submissions after tonight due to the holiday, so I had to push it out now. There is still a ton of new stuff and changes in this update though, so let's dive in.

First, want to mention some engine changes, since several key components of the game have been totally reworked. The code for the simulated or "virtual" colonists has been completely redone. Because of the change, some extra large colonies might experience intermittent delays every minute or so that will look like short freezes. After a few hours of play, this should sort out as things in your game file are rebalanced. Normal sized colonies should notice any impact.

The path finding has been totally overhauled, again. Because of a new map class which I will discuss in a bit, I needed to rewrite the pathfinding to work with different types of passable terrain. I do not see any serious bugs with the new system, but of course let me know if I am wrong.

Several changes and updates have been made to Regions. The main region map has been updated and will now group connected cities into "metropolitan areas." Hovering over a city will now show what it's top resource outputs are. Capitol cities will have a Star on them. And when you start a new Region game, you can either pick a normal resource distribution, or have a completely blank map. Now if you look at your Resource stats in the Statistics screen while on the Region overview map, you will get pie charts showing which cities are producing what share of the resources. And now when you are inside of a city, instead of seeing "Regional" as a resource input/output source, you will see "Regional (City Name)", so you know which city is providing or consuming the resources.

Next up, infrastructure repair costs have been dramatically lowered. The price also scales down with the size of a building, so you will not see a giant building like the Hall of Congress drain your entire treasury on repair costs. Large buildings also decay at a slower rate than before.

I had a list of about 40 or so hard crashes that were reported through the various app marketplaces which have been corrected, as well as all Javascript based crashes that were reported through the analytics console.

Alpha Draconians have gained access to the Abandoned World map. The stats on many buildings have been slightly tweaked to balance gameplay and also to allow each Civilization to use the new Water World map.

Which leads to the next new item, the brand new Water World map.

I have wanted to implement this map for a long time, but I knew it would require a rewrite of the pathfinding code and I was not looking forward to it. But now the work is done and we have Water World! I wanted Water World to be available to all civilizations, and making that happen required a handful of changes to existing building stats, as well as a bunch of new buildings to support the new map across different tech trees. Here is the new content added that is related directly to Water World:

• Resource: Fish
• Terrains: Salt Water, Palm Trees 1 & 2
• Units: Enslaved Worker Drone, Enslaved Fisherbug, Fisherbot, Fisherbug, Used Ore Miner
• Structures: Small Wooden Bridge, Steel Bridge, Aluminum Bridge, Gold Bridge, Electromagnetic Bridge, Gold Reducer, Sand Path, Fisherbot's Hut

The map should be fully playable across all civs and in both single and region play. The difficulty will depend on your Civ, with Humans being the easiest and Draconians being the hardest.

Next up, both Insectoids and Reptilians now have Starship building capabilities. I am going to be adding Trade Routes soon, and so I needed to get all civs up to Starships in order for it to work. Draconians also got a new Level 3 capitol which is probably the tallest building in the game by far, the Chamber of Kings:

Next on the list, the GBT will now let you know what the minimum and maximum accepted trades by the server are, that way you do not submit a high or low trade and get the "Strike" message from the server.

There was a complete rewrite of the in-game Encyclopedia and the printable Owners Manual. Both are now found inside of the main Statistics screen:

The Owners Manual is now a lot more complete and can be viewed in-game, exported as a file, or printed. The printout is about 200 pages long though. The Encyclopedia is way more detailed than before and everything is hyperlinked together. It is now actually a useful tool for beginners. The Video Tutorials are now watchable in-game. I removed the link to the reference Google Docs spreadsheet as it has not been updated in over a year and the encyclopedia basically renders it useless anyway.

There is probably more that I forgot to mention, but I need to hurry and post this so I can start getting the update pushed out to all platforms before tonight. Hope you enjoy, let me know what issues you find, and stay tuned for more!

Since first coming up with the idea and implementing the engine for Death 3d, I have learned a lot more about javascript graphics rendering, and as such I have decided to undertake the work to completely rewrite the Death 3d rendering engine from the current software canvas model, porting it over to WebGL. This change allows for better performance, higher resolutions, floor/ceiling textures, and dynamic lights, among other things. The work started earlier this week, and a lot of progress has already been made. For example, see below for the same scene, first rendered with the current Death 3d engine, and then below using the new WebGL engine.

Most of the work remaining is related to reworking some maps to be compatible with the new engine. For example, most of the current maps were not designed with lighting in mind, and so in many areas, the placement of ceiling lights either doesn't make sense or just does not exist, leaving rooms either too dark or looking strange. Also, since the old floor casting work was only experimental, most levels do not yet include floor and ceiling map layouts, and those will have to be added to each. There is also a whole new wave of visual improvements that I can add to the existing maps by taking advantage of new features that I have added to the new rendering engine.

While not many people play Death 3d (yet!), the performance gains made by porting to WebGL will allow me to bring the game to other platforms where it previously was not possible, such as iOS and Amazon Fire tablet and TV devices. And if nothing else, the work done on rewriting the engine has gone a long way towards increasing my knowledge of WebGL programming, and will be helpful to use on other projects in the future.

This is but the first of several changes I have in store for Death 3d. When the new engine is complete, I want to finish off the single player campaign, which is currently incomplete. Some of the existing maps will be reworked, as the new lighting effects allows for adding an element of suspense/fear to the game which was currently not possible. I also plan big updates to the multiplayer game, adding different game types, teams, capture the flag games, and more. I also plan on implementing an always on WebSocket based multiplayer server hosted by Ape Apps, so that even people on the web version of the game can play online multiplayer. There will also be a new game lobby making multiplayer matchmaking easier.

Even though Death 3d is not one of my more popular titles, it is still one of my favorite projects. I used to love making maps for Doom when I was a kid, and that was the main reason I had with making Death 3d (which is why the game has the map editor built-in). I plan to keep improving the engine and adding features until I think it matches or surpasses the old school Doom engine, at which point I may start porting the engine work over to different game genres that I have in mind.

#death3d

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.

Is your Javascript all up to date?

@bastecklein seems like its happening on all my maps now O_0

@cry8wolf9

I was looking at the map you sent me and wondering why it was 30mb+ in size compressed for such a simple map. After working through it, I saw that the game was retaining resource trend history stats forever, and I had previously thought it was only saving the last 500 "ticks" worth, as with other stats. I fixed the code to clear out the hundreds of thousands of old stat records, and your game save file for that same map on v1.0.0 is now only 200kb.

So 30mb to 200kb. That's insane and I can't believe I did not notice it before now. I am guessing this is going to reduce a lot of game file sizes out there, and also fix a lot of the saving/syncing problems.

idk if this is the reason for your issue, but after the change I was able to load/save your file multiple times without issue.

If you didn't see it, the error states "Object Has Been Destroyed"
You probably are missing a file or something. I'm not a big code person, but i hoped this helped you.

Ok so it looks like im waiting for the next version!

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!

Even with no API installed on their server at all, forum and website owners can utilize a forumfiend.json file to easily set up automatic configuration and customization parameters to control how their forum or website looks and behaves by default when run under Forum Fiend. Simply place file in the root of your website called forumfiend.json containing a valid formatted .json data object with any of the following parameters. All parameters are optional, and a complete example file is displayed at the bottom.

Field	Description
name	Overall name of the site or forum as it appears on the main Forum Fiend listing.
icon	An absolute URL to either a .png or .ico file that represents for forum or site.
banner	An absolute URL to a .png file that represents a sidebar banner image for the site, suggested resolution of 300x150.
color	A valid hex color (ex. #ff0000) representing the overall theme color of the forum or site.
ff_chat_id	Name of a chat channel on Ape Chat to be used by this forum or site. If specified, a chat slide-out will appear with the specified chat channel. Using chat requires an Ape Apps account.
g_analytics	A Google Analytics id for tracking views and impressions when your site is accessed using Forum Fiend.
start_url	An absolute URL that points to where Forum Fiend should open, could be the Forums section of your site.
disable_api	Either 1 or 0 (for yes/no). Default is 0. See details below.

Sample forumfiend.json file:

{

"name": "Epic Forums",

"icon": "https://epicforums.com/icon.ico",

"banner": "https://epicforums.com/banner.png",

"color": "#f44336",

"ff_chat_id": "epicforums",

"g_analytics": "UA-XXXXXXXX",

"start_url": "https://epicforums.com/forum/",

"disable_api": "0"

}

disable_api Field Info

Forum Fiend was originally built around the open source Tapatalk API and was thus able to interface with any site that had the Tapatalk API installed. Sometime around 2014/2015, Tapatalk got some of that sweet, sweet venture capital money and stopped publishing public information related to their API, and even had their lawyers send Ape Apps a cease and desist request over Forum Fiend.

Because of this, no further development has been made on the Tapatalk API interface for Forum Fiend, and the system is based around the last published open source edition of the API from around 2014. Therefore, the Tapatalk interface is no longer maintained or supported in Forum Fiend, and can not be guaranteed to work correctly on any install that is more recent than 2014.

Forum developers are encouraged to use the WebView interface (by setting disable_api to "1") and calling Forum Fiend's native features using the Javascript interface instead, which is documented elsewhere in this forum. If you still want your forum to use the Tapatalk interface, you can omit the disable_api field or set it to "0", but know that it has not been updated in a long time, is no longer receiving support or updates, and some features may not work properly. Please test your site in the app to verify.

Feel free to leave feedback/comments/suggestions on any features you would like to see added/improved/changed with the forumfiend.json interface.

Hey @SeanPl I will tinker with it and see, although I am not sure if chrome (or some other browser) will be able to access a site over smb, but I might be able to make it work. I will try at least lol

Thanks