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Below are some of the theories I've come up with regarding MC2's ancient aliens, merged into topics. (As far as I know, there's no concrete official lore for the aliens yet.)
Click to read about the Background of the Ancient Alien Civilization
Click to read about the Background of the Ancient Alien Civilization
Hundreds of millions of years before humans rose on Earth, a grand civilization had come and gone among the stars of the Milky Way. Its vestiges were only discovered recently, so "ancient alien" is the sole current designation researchers have arrived at a consensus for in terms of nomenclature. Archaeological geo-assays have revealed the staggeringly huge material extent of these aliens, with some form of their structural remains present on every single habitable planet discovered so far in our galaxy. Further analysis strongly supports that the aliens created a thriving, centralized, interplanetary society which even discovered techniques for small-scale teleportation and shared consciousness. The byproducts of alien civilization have held up remarkably well since the aliens' own disappearance approximately 300 million years ago and show incredible promise to expand our current understanding of the universe.
Click to read about Ancient Alien Society Ancient alien society appears to have been stratified on both personal and geographical levels, with planets being the principal unit of societal organization in terms of settlement. Alien structural remnants have been found across the entirety of planetary surfaces, suggesting that the aliens were either wealthy enough to build planetwide cities, or they had been growing or extracting resources from worlds on unprecedented scales. We are not currently able to distinguish the specific functions of most given alien structural remnants, but notably, all of them have featured objects classified as "Artifacts", either preserved in what appear to be specialized caches or incorporated into the architecture itself. Though no physical remains of the aliens themselves have been discovered to date, clothes, tools, and manuscripts partially translated using natural language interpolation have allowed us to make some fairly plausible deductions on what alien settlements and society actually looked like.
The aliens enjoyed an excellent quality of life with their advanced technological developments. In contrast to their material wealth, the aliens' architecture was angular and minimalist, reflecting growing ascetic or spiritual interests. As inferred through alien manuscripts, they did not need to perform any sort of hard labor within their settlements thanks to a very high degree of automation. However, certain things such as Artifacts, artwork, and code were still produced by hand. This arrangement led to the formation of settlement-wide vocational guilds, each of which functioned as an independent faction complete with political ambitions and esoteric rituals for its members. Despite guild affiliation causing some degree of friction within alien society, all aliens appear to have been united in the pursuit of knowledge in both science and philosophy. Many of their governmental buildings carried some sort of educational purpose. Though much of alien pleasure was intellectual, analogues of ballcourts, bars, theaters, and clubs have been uncovered in many alien settlements.
Click to read about the Realm of ThoughtThe aliens enjoyed an excellent quality of life with their advanced technological developments. In contrast to their material wealth, the aliens' architecture was angular and minimalist, reflecting growing ascetic or spiritual interests. As inferred through alien manuscripts, they did not need to perform any sort of hard labor within their settlements thanks to a very high degree of automation. However, certain things such as Artifacts, artwork, and code were still produced by hand. This arrangement led to the formation of settlement-wide vocational guilds, each of which functioned as an independent faction complete with political ambitions and esoteric rituals for its members. Despite guild affiliation causing some degree of friction within alien society, all aliens appear to have been united in the pursuit of knowledge in both science and philosophy. Many of their governmental buildings carried some sort of educational purpose. Though much of alien pleasure was intellectual, analogues of ballcourts, bars, theaters, and clubs have been uncovered in many alien settlements.
Since the early days of social organization, the ancient aliens venerated their ancestors, erecting statues and temples in their memory. When they eventually began to creat an artificial collective consciousness, they realized that this veneration had not gone to waste. Many individuals testing out the experimental neural interface system reported hearing the voices of their dead relatives whispering to them, and after the ensuing mass hysteria had been assuaged, the aliens correctly deduced that their ancestors' consciousnesses inhabited another plane of existence which intersected with their own in the junction of their minds. Intense research on the nature of this phenomenon, which was dubbed the "Realm of Thought," led to both the invention of Artifacts and an enduring racial memory.
Click to read about Alien Artifacts Soon after discovering the Realm of Thought, the aliens figured out how to more comprehensively interact with it. Alien artifacts, whose inner workings are yet unknown to human minds, functioned as conduits between the physical universe and the Realm of Thought, allowing the aliens to somehow project their minds across realities to communicate with their ancestors' spirits. The process of the artifacts' creation remains perhaps the most closely guarded secret of the alien civilization, known solely to small guilds of alien artisans who spent most of their time locked in high-security worklodges. Not even the ancestral beings in the Realm of Thought knew or were willing to disclose this knowledge with individuals outside of the guilds. However, the artifacts themselves were ubiquitous, and in a matter of time, the aliens found an arguably much more practical use for them.
It turned out that artifacts were not only able to transfer consciousnesses between dimensions, but energy as well! What's more, the beings in the Realm of Thought were able to transfer energy back into the real world. This energy appeared in a small area around its Artifact, capable of being concentrated into highly specific points to perform "miracles" such as the transmutation of elements. The aliens wasted no time in putting this newfound phenomenon to work, leading to the classic alien manufacturing design framework we are replicating today. The artifacts have one flaw, though: they heat up very readily and eventually overload without proper maintenance. We have yet to figure out an effective way to disperse heat from artifacts, thus higher-load operations such as mass steel production regularly burn out their Artifacts. Good thing we can find new ones everywhere.
Click to read about Alien Relics and AIIt turned out that artifacts were not only able to transfer consciousnesses between dimensions, but energy as well! What's more, the beings in the Realm of Thought were able to transfer energy back into the real world. This energy appeared in a small area around its Artifact, capable of being concentrated into highly specific points to perform "miracles" such as the transmutation of elements. The aliens wasted no time in putting this newfound phenomenon to work, leading to the classic alien manufacturing design framework we are replicating today. The artifacts have one flaw, though: they heat up very readily and eventually overload without proper maintenance. We have yet to figure out an effective way to disperse heat from artifacts, thus higher-load operations such as mass steel production regularly burn out their Artifacts. Good thing we can find new ones everywhere.
The ancient aliens took Artifacts one step further by endowing them with their own consciousnesses. This could be seen as a potentially disastrous choice, but the aliens had discovered that the magnitudes of the artifacts' capabilities were dependent on the willpower of their ancestors in the Realm of Thought, and understandably, they soon became annoyed with their descendants constantly asking them to psychically create microchips in the real world. Sealing Artifacts in bodies of metal with methods even more esoteric than those used to create Artifacts themselves, the aliens brought to life relics, machines of godlike power which could propagate effects of far greater magnitude in the real world than anybody in the Realm of Thought could ever achieve. Fortunately, these relics never turned on their creators, but instead plunged the alien civilization into a golden age of technological advancement, in which breakthroughs such as physical teleportation were made.
Nowadays, Centers for Artificial Learning are becoming rather similar to relics. CALs employ Artifacts as powerful capacitors for their neural networks, which means that the Artifacts burn out regularly. As the Artifacts are destroyed, fragments of psychic information which leak out from the Realm of Thought are somehow picked up by the neural networks and transcribed into readable diagrams. Though nearby organisms also pick up on these snippets of thought, they are completely incomprehensible to even human brains. Thus, AI has become a powerful tool for learning about the ancient aliens, albeit in a rather unexpected way.
Click to read about the Alien ExodusNowadays, Centers for Artificial Learning are becoming rather similar to relics. CALs employ Artifacts as powerful capacitors for their neural networks, which means that the Artifacts burn out regularly. As the Artifacts are destroyed, fragments of psychic information which leak out from the Realm of Thought are somehow picked up by the neural networks and transcribed into readable diagrams. Though nearby organisms also pick up on these snippets of thought, they are completely incomprehensible to even human brains. Thus, AI has become a powerful tool for learning about the ancient aliens, albeit in a rather unexpected way.
About 350 million years ago, the aliens figured out that chaining Artifacts together in a certain manner would lead to the opening of a wormhole. They scaled up arrays of Artifacts into galaxy-wide teleportation devices, and eventually even managed to open a wormhole to the Realm of Thought. They became immensely interested in the possibility of sending matter to the Realm of Thought, and eventually, they decided as a species to transport the entire galaxy into the Realm of Thought to free themselves from their current universe's laws of physics. Planet-sized wormhole beacons were constructed and deployed throughout the galaxy, but when activated, they collectively failed and melted every last alien into pink radioactive sludge we know today as Ether before their own spontaneous existence failure. Especially prevalent on so-called Abandoned Worlds, Ether and its derivatives are a good indicator of the extent of alien impact on a given world.
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!
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!
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!
Time of the Ancients
(Uncertain, estimated to be billions of years before Alpha Draconians)
👇Just click the text with dotted underline to see the entire section.
Time of the Ancients
Interbellum, Rise of Reptilians and Draconian Era
(4 million years ~ 2 million years before human history)
Rise of Reptilians
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
(Parallel to 19th~20th century of Human timeline)
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
The Old Earth Era
(Year -2051)
The Old Earth Era
The United Earth Era
(2051-Present)
The United Earth Era
Human Civil War
(2087-2089)
Human Civil War
New Galactic Era
(2089-Present)
New Galactic Era
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!
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!
WARNING - EXTREMELY LONG POST
This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
NOT ALL CONTENTS ARE CONSIDERED CANON
Not all details have been officially included canon or actually took place in any games related to My Colony Universe. The actual events may also vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, it's just for reference, I recommend reading it in a relaxing manner. :P
The unit of time measurement is based on Earth calendar.This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
NOT ALL CONTENTS ARE CONSIDERED CANON
Not all details have been officially included canon or actually took place in any games related to My Colony Universe. The actual events may also vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, it's just for reference, I recommend reading it in a relaxing manner. :P
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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’.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Right now, excavation is pretty much limited to a single tile of depth and the good ol’ excavator. I get the feeling that this is likely in part due to technical limitations, but if overcome, excavation could become a much fuller and more engaging part of MC2, possibly even introducing room for lore. In my visions for a new system of excavation, settlements could eventually dig holes a hundred tiles deep with the help of a new branch of excavation-related techs, structures, and vehicles. Scarce or “delicate” resources such as clay would be found in abundance at specific depths and many new structures would be specialized to tap into underground phenomena, for example, magma-powered electrical plants or supercharged water pumps. Terrain editing would also become available with vehicles called Landmovers, allowing you to form artificial mountains or reclaim islands on ocean worlds.
The major gist of this new excavation system would be the separation of the ground into many roughly-defined layers, each containing distinct resources and geological features, though different world types would have disparate layer compositions as well as their own unique features. Rich deposits of Crystalline could occur in heavily saturated caves on Frozen or Desert Worlds, rare heavy metals could be scattered beneath the surfaces of Lunar Worlds as a result of ancient meteorites, and naturally, oil deposits could be found beneath the ocean floors on Ocean Worlds. Alien ruins would also become more and more common at greater depths, eventually culminating in an ancient layer of all planet types housing the remnants of a staggeringly advanced Alien civilization.
The Alien layer would contain hundreds of unbuildable Ancient Alien buildings clustered into small outposts and larger cities in various states of disrepair, spaced relatively far apart from each other. These Alien buildings, operating beyond the knowledge of the current corpus of Ancient Instructions, could produce valuable resources such as artifacts to any settlement which harnessed them, but all Alien settlements would be guarded by extremely powerful automatic turrets, capable of vaporizing a Main Battle Tank from three chunks off. In fact, they'd deal extremely high, unmitigated area damage, so that low-level settlements would not be able to immediately tap into them. Many of the “true” alien buildings found in a conquered alien settlement would provide powerful and unique benefits to its conqueror, such as specialized Artifact production or efficiency boosts for certain utility providing buildings in other settlements. A new intermediate class of "inspired" alien buildings would also be exclusively unlocked by controlling alien settlements.
Possible research branches and associated mechanics
Possible significant excavation depths
Overall, this system might end up significantly changing the progression to Alien and subsequent tech, but I believe it will be a good thing for preventing Alien Artifacts from becoming just another individually nondescript resource as it did in My Colony. Bast took steps towards making Artifacts special with the initial introduction of the excavation system, and similarly with Spice and Spice Veins. MC2 was designed in 3D, so I think it may as well play into that topographically as well. Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think of this idea in the comments!
The major gist of this new excavation system would be the separation of the ground into many roughly-defined layers, each containing distinct resources and geological features, though different world types would have disparate layer compositions as well as their own unique features. Rich deposits of Crystalline could occur in heavily saturated caves on Frozen or Desert Worlds, rare heavy metals could be scattered beneath the surfaces of Lunar Worlds as a result of ancient meteorites, and naturally, oil deposits could be found beneath the ocean floors on Ocean Worlds. Alien ruins would also become more and more common at greater depths, eventually culminating in an ancient layer of all planet types housing the remnants of a staggeringly advanced Alien civilization.
The Alien layer would contain hundreds of unbuildable Ancient Alien buildings clustered into small outposts and larger cities in various states of disrepair, spaced relatively far apart from each other. These Alien buildings, operating beyond the knowledge of the current corpus of Ancient Instructions, could produce valuable resources such as artifacts to any settlement which harnessed them, but all Alien settlements would be guarded by extremely powerful automatic turrets, capable of vaporizing a Main Battle Tank from three chunks off. In fact, they'd deal extremely high, unmitigated area damage, so that low-level settlements would not be able to immediately tap into them. Many of the “true” alien buildings found in a conquered alien settlement would provide powerful and unique benefits to its conqueror, such as specialized Artifact production or efficiency boosts for certain utility providing buildings in other settlements. A new intermediate class of "inspired" alien buildings would also be exclusively unlocked by controlling alien settlements.
Possible research branches and associated mechanics
- Deep Excavation (existing tech, unlocks Excavators with 5-tile excavation range)
- Advanced Geochemistry (requires Deep Excavation, unlocks entry-level elevation-specific structures and Survey Probes, gateway tech to other excavation-related techs)
- Earthmoving Techniques (requires Advanced Geochemistry with a level 3 settlement, unlocks Landformers for filling in holes/creating mountains and Borers with 10-tile excavation range)
- Underground Infrastructure (requires Advanced Geochemistry and Ancient Alien Manufacturing with a level 4 settlement, unlocks more permanent elevation-specific structures and large Mobile Excavation Platforms with 20-tile excavation range)
- Ultra Deep Exploration (requires Underground Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence with a level 4 settlement, unlocks expensive Quantum Boring Platforms with 50-tile excavation range)
Possible significant excavation depths
- 3 tiles: Alien structures begin to appear occasionally
- 6-10 tiles: Planet-specific underground phenomena begin to appear
- 15-17 tiles: “Intrinsic” underground phenomena such as saturated rock begin to appear
- 20-23 tiles: Isolated alien structures begin to appear very rarely
- 37-40 tiles: Alien layer begins
Overall, this system might end up significantly changing the progression to Alien and subsequent tech, but I believe it will be a good thing for preventing Alien Artifacts from becoming just another individually nondescript resource as it did in My Colony. Bast took steps towards making Artifacts special with the initial introduction of the excavation system, and similarly with Spice and Spice Veins. MC2 was designed in 3D, so I think it may as well play into that topographically as well. Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think of this idea in the comments!
Welcome to the first ICG Event!
The ICG is a community driven event to bring the players together in one space to have fun with the game in various unique and interesting ways! The Intergalactic Colonial Games (or ICG) is our branding of the many events and activities that NOZ will be hosting! With a wide variety of events and prizes, we will be hosting ICG events every weekend!
For more information, including the rules to these events, please visit https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34539 before continuing.
The first event we will be hosting is... a race!
Now, what exactly is the race we have in mind you ask? Well, as the informational thread I linked above describes, a race means that participants will start an entirely new colony and race to a certain milestone to win the grand prize. The race for this event will be the collection of Civics!
Goals
There are three player groupings, with each being more challenging than the last to complete.- Group 1 is 0-250,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 250,000 civics by the end of the event period.
- Group 2 is 250,000-1,000,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 5,000,000 civics by the end of the event period.
- Group 3 is over 1,000,000 population on your largest colony. The Goal will be 50,000,000 civics by the end of the event period.
Prizes
These goals may seem daunting, but I assure you, they are all possible. As impossible as they may seem, there is an equally great reward! This event will not only be for fun, players may win unholy amounts of resources to the colony of their choosing by winning. So let's see some competitive spirit in here!As described in the informational thread, each tier can have up to and including 3 winners. First place will receive 3 packages of their choosing, second will receive 2, and 3rd place will receive 1 package of their choosing (each package is a large sum of one resource).
Group one may choose between the following prizes:
25,000,000
25,000,000 Ore
25,000,000 Regolith
25,000,000 Aluminum
25,000,000 Microchips
25,000,000 Gold
25,000,000 Steel
25,000,000 Alien Artifacts
25,000,000 Regolith
25,000,000 Aluminum
25,000,000 Microchips
25,000,000 Gold
25,000,000 Steel
25,000,000 Alien Artifacts
20,000,000
20,000,000 Wood
20,000,000 Charcoal
20,000,000 Oil
20,000,000 Helium
20,000,000 Ant Paste
20,000,000 Robots
20,000,000 Antanium
20,000,000 Pottery
20,000,000 Bricks
20,000,000 Uranium
20,000,000 Crystalline
20,000,000 Cloth
20,000,000 Toys
20,000,000 Clay
20,000,000 Sugar
20,000,000 Wool
20,000,000 Software
20,000,000 Diamond
20,000,000 Wheels
15,000,000
15,000,000 Alien Relic
15,000,000 Alien Instructions
15,000,000 Obsidian
5,000,000
5,000,000 Triantanium
5,000,000 Ether
Group two may choose between the following prizes:
200,000,000
200,000,000 Ore
200,000,000 Regolith
200,000,000 Aluminum
200,000,000 Microchips
200,000,000 Gold
200,000,000 Steel
200,000,000 Alien Artifacts
200,000,000 Regolith
200,000,000 Aluminum
200,000,000 Microchips
200,000,000 Gold
200,000,000 Steel
200,000,000 Alien Artifacts
150,000,000
150,000,000 Wood
150,000,000 Charcoal
150,000,000 Oil
150,000,000 Helium
150,000,000 Ant Paste
150,000,000 Robots
150,000,000 Antanium
150,000,000 Pottery
150,000,000 Bricks
150,000,000 Uranium
150,000,000 Crystalline
150,000,000 Cloth
150,000,000 Toys
150,000,000 Clay
150,000,000 Sugar
150,000,000 Wool
150,000,000 Software
150,000,000 Diamond
150,000,000 Wheels
100,000,000
100,000,000 Alien Relic
100,000,000 Alien Instructions
100,000,000 Obsidian
30,000,000
30,000,000 Triantanium
30,000,000 Ether
Group three may choose between the following prizes:
1,000,000,000
1,000,000,000 Ore
1,000,000,000 Regolith
1,000,000,000 Aluminum
1,000,000,000 Microchips
1,000,000,000 Gold
1,000,000,000 Steel
1,000,000,000 Alien Artifacts
1,000,000,000 Regolith
1,000,000,000 Aluminum
1,000,000,000 Microchips
1,000,000,000 Gold
1,000,000,000 Steel
1,000,000,000 Alien Artifacts
800,000,000
800,000,000 Wood
800,000,000 Charcoal
800,000,000 Oil
800,000,000 Helium
800,000,000 Ant Paste
800,000,000 Robots
800,000,000 Antanium
800,000,000 Pottery
800,000,000 Bricks
800,000,000 Uranium
800,000,000 Crystalline
800,000,000 Cloth
800,000,000 Toys
800,000,000 Clay
800,000,000 Sugar
800,000,000 Wool
800,000,000 Software
800,000,000 Diamond
800,000,000 Wheels
600,000,000
600,000,000 Alien Relic
600,000,000 Alien Instructions
600,000,000 Obsidian
300,000,000
300,000,000 Triantanium
300,000,000 Ether
As you can see, the prizes are well worth your time and are designed to be a great boost to anyone in the game. The top prizes are difficult to get, but they are possible.
How to enter?
It's simple! Just comment your name in game here and tell us you want to enter! You are also required to join our dedicated events commonwealth in order to enter. The charter code for the commonwealth will be revealed when the event starts. We need to know what your colony name you will be registering as will be in advance. You may put [ICG] in your colony name as, though this is not required, it will make our jobs easier when running the event.When we know the name of the participant, we can give you a small boost just to get started with to avoid the tedium of the early game. Players will receive all of the following:
5,000 Ore
4,000 Steel
3,000 Gold
2,000 Microchips
2,000 Wheels
This event will begin on the 16/11/2019 so we will accept applications to join until then! Once more, the event duration will be 1 week from the starting date.
Upon completion the event goal, comment that you have done so on this thread. We will then review your colony history before acknowledging you have completed the event.
Of course all rules and regulations must be followed by all participants. These may be found in the informational thread https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=34539Contact us!
Though not a requirement to participate in the events, I encourage everyone who is interested in the events to drop by the NOZ discord server for a great My Colony community. NOZ has a lot of very experienced players, whom are also very active in game. To learn more about us, please join us here at https://discord.gg/qqCswpFGood luck with the events, and may the odds be ever in your favour.
Hello guys!
May I proudly present my fan lore about the history of My Colony Universe!
The calendars and year used would be Earth ones.
Time of the Ancients (??? ~ 1.2 billion years before Alpha Draconians)
Once there was a thriving old civilization ruled over the Milky Way Galaxy, which now they are called the Ancients. Even for the Alpha Draconians, there are limited documents about their history. The following will state the events recorded and decoded so far.
Rise of Reptilians (~4.1 ~ 2.8 million years before human history)
The Disappearance of the Ancients gave rise to the Reptilian immigrants, though discovered a bit lately, they began expanding further into the empty Milky Way Galaxy. Later the Reptilian Empire of Alpha Draconians was formed on the foundations of the disappeared Empire.
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization (~20th century of Human timeline)
Insectoids were being enslaved by Alpha Draconians for millions of years. However, an uprising changed the fate of the Insectoids, which led to the revival of the long lost Insectoid civilization, in the form of the Zolarg Empire.
Old Earth Era (year --~2051)
The Old Earth Era is the time of human history before United Earth. The Old Earth Era is when humans begin exploring more parts of the galaxy, as well as beginning extensive colonization on new planets.
Rebirth of Humanity (2051-2061)
Right after the Grand Collapse which marked the end of the Old Earth Era, humanity on Earth was in massive chaos, while most colonies outside Earth were deserted and had to survive on their own. Until the United Earth reunited humanity.
Rise of Humanity (2061-2083)
The New Era referred to the early times of United Earth after the recovery from the Old Earth era disaster. It was another golden age in human history, human civilization beginning to rise quickly in the Milky Way Galaxy. Despite opportunities, there were also new unknown challenges.
Human Civil War (2083-2084)
This was one of the most impactful wars in the Galaxy. Yes, it's name is Human Civil War, however, things were not simple as most thought at that time - it eventually involved the 3 major civilizations of the Galaxy, and also gave birth to the fourth major civilization. The war also impacted the future patterns in the Milky Way Galaxy.
New Galactic Era of the Milky Way Galaxy (From 2084 on)
The Human Civil War and the Alpha Draconian Invasion during the war, had drawn the major civilizations closer. The New Galactic Era was the time things in the Milky Way began developing in galactic scale and perspectives.
Who knows what the future holds?
Hopefully the timeline looked decent and reasonable for My Colony Universe!
Thanks for reading!
Notes: not all events are 100% accurate.
May I proudly present my fan lore about the history of My Colony Universe!
WARNING - EXTREMELY LONG POST
This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
THIS IS NOT CANON
Not all details have been confirmed or included as canon by @bastecklein or happened in any games related to My Colony Universe yet. The actual events may vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, don't take that as 100% canon!
This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
THIS IS NOT CANON
Not all details have been confirmed or included as canon by @bastecklein or happened in any games related to My Colony Universe yet. The actual events may vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, don't take that as 100% canon!
The calendars and year used would be Earth ones.
Time of the Ancients (??? ~ 1.2 billion years before Alpha Draconians)
Once there was a thriving old civilization ruled over the Milky Way Galaxy, which now they are called the Ancients. Even for the Alpha Draconians, there are limited documents about their history. The following will state the events recorded and decoded so far.
- The Old Holy Galactic Empire (???).
That was the oldest trace of the Ancients found. - Galaxian-Titan War (???).
There were very old literature records about this war. The war between the Holy Empire and the warlike colossus Titan civilization. There are still some rare Titan relics found in the Milky Way, though some historians doubted the reliability of them.
The war was supposed to put the Titans to extinction. - The Old Dark Galactic Empire (???).
Somehow the old Empire turned to the dark side. From this time on, the documents about them are more difficult to find. - Reptilian Exodus to the Milky Way (~3 billion years ago before Alpha Draconians).
The first record of Reptilian immigrants into the Milky Way from another galaxy. Some documents from Alpha Draconians stated their ancestors were nomads with only mostly low tech equipment. - Galaxian-Reptilian Wars (~2.3 billion years ago before Alpha Draconians).
The continuous immigration of Reptilians caused conflicts between these new migrants and the master of the Galaxy. However, the Reptilians were not expelled from the Milky Way successfully, an armistice was signed after prolonged warfare. Reptilians stopped immigration in exchange for peace. - Disappearance of the Old Galactic Empire (~1.2 billion years before Alpha Draconians).
The largest mystery of galactic history - the disappearance of the Ancients. Most existence of the vast Empire vanished just in a… flash, leaving most parts of the Milky Way Galaxy abandoned. Some radioisotopic dating recorded most ether pollutants of abandoned Ancient cities appeared since the event.
Rise of Reptilians (~4.1 ~ 2.8 million years before human history)
The Disappearance of the Ancients gave rise to the Reptilian immigrants, though discovered a bit lately, they began expanding further into the empty Milky Way Galaxy. Later the Reptilian Empire of Alpha Draconians was formed on the foundations of the disappeared Empire.
- The Reptilian Kingdoms (~0.6 million years before Alpha Draconians).
The Reptilians recognized the disappearance of The Ancients as scout ships were sent after years losing contact with them. Seeing this as an opportunity to expand their borders without anybody to stop them, the nomadic Reptilians soon reorganized themselves as the Reptilian Kingdoms. - Great Reptilian Expeditions (~0.5 million years before Alpha Draconians ~ 0.3 million years before Alpha Draconians).
Hundreds of expeditions were conducted by various Lords during the Kingdoms era. They salvaged most remaining technologies of the Ancients, however unable to decode all the data at this moment as their limited knowledge of these high end technologies. Some new Reptilian major cities rose from these ruins. - The Warring Lords (~0.3 million years before Alpha Draconians ~ 10 years before Alpha Draconians).
The powerful artifacts of the Ancients impressed the Reptilians - those supposed to bring prosperity to the entire race, however, became the source of ambitions for the Reptilian Lords. Thousand years of wars, were only for scrambling for these powerful gadgets. - Reptilian Unification War (~10 years before Alpha Draconians).
Kingdom of Draconis was the weakest kingdom among the Reptilians, until the time of Lord Alphari - influence of Draconis rose to new heights, threatening the strongest Reptilian Lords. Lord Alphari defeated all the Reptilian Lords in a 10-year long war, successfully unifying the entire Reptilian race for the first time since the immigration. - Birth of the Reptilian Empire - Alpha Draconians (~3.5 million years before human history).
Lord Alphari established the new unified Empire of the Reptilians, named Alpha Draconians, with the national motto ‘Rising from the Harshest to be the Strongest’. Alphari was the first Overlord of the Empire. - Successful Decoding of the Ancient Artifacts (~3.5 million years before human history).
One of another most impactful achievements of Overlord Alphari was, he supported, and later personally participated in the research of Ancient language decoding. With more plentiful resource support than ever, most major elements of the Ancient language were decoded, which allowed the Alpha Draconians to reverse-engineer these technologies, turning the undeveloped Reptilian civilization into one of the most brutal Galactic superpower, inherited with the most powerful technologies. - Glorious Conquests (~2.8 million years before human history).
Another greatest conquest of Alpha Draconians took place under the rule of Overlord Ks'khip. This famous Overlord of Destruction put an end to and enslaved thousands of minor civilizations scattered in the Milky Way Galaxy, which one of the civilizations includes Insectoids, providing highly reproductive slaves. This conquest created the foundation of core Alpha Draconian territory.
Right after such a successful conquest which brought Alpha Draconians to the peak golden age, the Reptilians began referring to themselves as ‘the descendants of the Ancients’. - Secretive Galactic Domination Doctrine (~2.8 million years before human history).
This doctrine formulated by the Overlord Ks'krupp, the descendant of Ks'khip, advocated the secretive way ruling the vast territory of the Empire spreading and maintaining influence by utilizing covert agents to control regions with minimal signs, which helps shaping the image of Alpha Draconians as an unreachable deity. Such doctrine impacted the future development of Alpha Draconians.
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization (~20th century of Human timeline)
Insectoids were being enslaved by Alpha Draconians for millions of years. However, an uprising changed the fate of the Insectoids, which led to the revival of the long lost Insectoid civilization, in the form of the Zolarg Empire.
- The Uprising on Draconis 12 (~1920s of Human timeline).
It was a historical turning point for both Alpha Draconians and Insectoids. The uprising led by the Insectoid Zolarg successfully overwhelmed the colonial government, and purged all the Reptilian existence on the planet. Freed from slavery, these first group of freedom fighters formed Zolarg Empire right on this planet - which the planet was renamed Zolarg Prime, and the uprising leader Zolarg became the first Emperor of the revivaled Insectoid civilization. The uprising also first revealed the corrupted, weakened national strength of the seemingly invincible Alpha Draconians, who were still blinded by their national pride. - The Insectoid Uprising Movements (1920~1950s of Human timeline).
Encouraged and inspired by the success of Zolarg's uprising, Insectoid slaves over Alpha Draconians also followed the same path revolting against slavery. Though not all had been successful, the Insectoids successfully took over an unimaginable number of Alpha Draconian colonies and cities. Most of the Insectoids who earned their freedom joined the Zolarg Empire to fight against the enemy of their ancestors. - The Revival War (1950~1970s of Human timeline).
Despite the success overcoming the slavery forces of their slave camps, the Insectoids had something more overwhelming to handle - the formidable regular forces of Alpha Draconians, trying to regain control on their slaves. Yet under the united command under Emperor Zolarg, they managed to defeat Alpha Draconian regular forces in this 27 year long war, using the new subterranean guerilla tactics. The war recorded heavy casualties of both sides, however, Alpha Draconians stalled their operations against the Insectoids, which earned extra time for the Zolarg Empire to fortify themselves and settle down some basic administration matters. - ‘Groot Opwekkingsplan’ (1970~2010s of human timeline).
This period was also known as the ‘Great Revival Period’, the period when Emperor Zolarg formulated the policies for the early Zolarg Empire, to rebuild, strengthen and revive the Insectoid civilization, to restore the dignity of the Insectoid race. Under the common efforts of the Insectoids, with the help from both knowledge from the ancestors and some basic industrial knowledge from Alpha Draconians, the foundations of the Zolarg Empire were built up. The fast-rising Zolarg Empire became a supernova of galactic power at the end of the Revival Plan. - Declaration of Insectoid Liberation (~1990s of human timeline).
Emperor Zolarg made a declaration on behalf of his Empire to Alpha Draconians - the Zolarg Empire, will liberate the remaining brothers and sisters under slavery at all costs. The Declaration established the long term aim of the wars against Alpha Draconians.
Old Earth Era (year --~2051)
The Old Earth Era is the time of human history before United Earth. The Old Earth Era is when humans begin exploring more parts of the galaxy, as well as beginning extensive colonization on new planets.
- The Jameson Formulas (2027).
The genius scientist Professor ‘Einstein Jr.’ Lob Jameson published a paper about special formulas of space continuum mechanics. These formulas make a breakthrough on long range space traveling technologies. - First Practical Hyperdrive Engine (2030).
With the help of Jameson Formulas, the first practical hyperdrive engine in human history was created by the team of Project Next Sun. The innovation was named Jameson Engine. - Journey of USP Discovery (2031-2033).
The USP Discovery is a test object for the Jameson Engine. The probe was launched by NASA of the USA in the year 2035. It had successfully taken photos and data recording of stars and planets at locations about a lightyear away, and at last hyperjumped back to Earth after 3 years of missions, with excellent integrity conditions maintained. - Planetary Decay Theory (2031)
Ecologists and geologists discovered a strange phenomenon taking place on Earth, the important resources, from the minerals to the oil, began decaying into unrecyclable, unusable forms. It was suspected that this decaying was catalysed by climate change.
A theory was formulated predicting the depletion of vital resources within years and this must be stopped. However, most people did not believe this theory to be true, until the Global Resource Crisis. - The Space Colonization Race (2032-2047)
With long range space travelling became more possible at that time, a new space race was ignited globally - from the global powers to the most underdeveloped countries, from government bodies to independent organisations, they had their own aims. Some seek for wealth and resources, some seek for opportunities and a new start, some seek for knowledge and discovery. It was a milestone for humanity - first attempts for an extensive space colonization in history. - Global Resource Crisis (2038-2050)
The worries stated in the Planetary Decay Theory was proven a fact in 2038, beginning with the abnormal depletion of oil fields in Arabia - the black gold turned into black, harmful, indecomposable sludges.
For the coming years, more vital resources from iron ores to rare earth metals decayed into sand and dust, which greatly impacted the global economy at the foundations. Which eventually caused all space colonization programmes abandoned by Earth in the year 2047. - Miracle Formula (2050)
The Project SEED ecologists from colonies discovered the Miracle Formula, which included a method to reverse the process of planetary decay. It was sent to Earth in the year 2050. - Restoration of Earth (2051)
Terraforming devices derived from the Miracle Formula successfully restored Earth back to the conditions about 150 years ago within a year, which saved the entire humanity on the Earth. - The Grand Collapse (2051)
Although Earth had been saved from a catastrophe, however, the existing governments no longer had any capabilities maintaining the nations, after years hammered by the economic impacts from such a disaster. The world fell into the status of anarchy.
Rebirth of Humanity (2051-2061)
Right after the Grand Collapse which marked the end of the Old Earth Era, humanity on Earth was in massive chaos, while most colonies outside Earth were deserted and had to survive on their own. Until the United Earth reunited humanity.
- United Nations Dissolved (2051)
Without any valid members at all, and at risk of ‘bankruptcy’, the United Nations officially dissolved, with all its assets sold at the end of the year, to a group of plutocrats who had survived the crisis. - Formation of United Earth (2052)
The legacies of the United Nations were reused by these plutocrats, they rebranded the old international governmental body into a new organisation the United Earth, aimed to restore prosperity and order of the Old Earth. - Earth Reunification War (2054-2055)
After 2 years of preparation though gathering weapons and manpower from black markets and government fire sales, the global military campaign was launched by United Earth. In the 1.4 year long war, United Earth brought the major cities and regions under their control.
The rise of United Earth was inevitable to the rest of the world. It had pressured the remaining regions, no matter at war or not, surrendered and accepted annexation at the end of the war. - Official Establishment of United Earth (2056)
A month after the end of the Reunification War, the main official governmental structure of United Earth was established - The President taking the leader role of the government, with the General Assembly 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 veto power in the General Assembly, in addition to a series of exclusive powers. - Restarting of Colonization Programmes (2061)
With the Earth gradually stabilized and having the economy restored back to early 21th century standards, United Earth announced the recontinuation of space colonization projects abandoned by the Old Earth. This included re-establishing control on the remaining surviving Old Earth era colonies.
The restarting of colonization was regarded as the dawn of the United Earth era in human history - from that time on, human civilization began to develop and expand faster than ever.
Rise of Humanity (2061-2083)
The New Era referred to the early times of United Earth after the recovery from the Old Earth era disaster. It was another golden age in human history, human civilization beginning to rise quickly in the Milky Way Galaxy. Despite opportunities, there were also new unknown challenges.
- 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, as well as established a controversial high pressure security regulation called AEGIS Protocol. - Formation of Space Marines (2068)
In order to protect foreign colonies and Earth from potential Alien threats, United Earth Space Marines (UESM) was formed.
Space Marines gradually replaced Peacekeepers security forces of the United Earth as the official military. - First Official Contacts with Minor Alien Civilization (2069)
United Earth colonization fleets discovered an underdeveloped alien civilization on the planet Hakenduz-35. United Earth officially contacted the Hakenduzians, establishing the first diplomatic relations with an alien race. - Alien Membership System (2071)
With more and more minor alien civilizations discovered, United Earth saw that as an opportunity of wealth and influence. In order to convince them sharing their resources with United Earth, an Alien Membership System was established, allowing alien member states to enjoy a series of benefits including protection from Space Marines and preferential treatment on trades. In return, the alien member states had to pay yearly membership fees. - First Starship in Human History (2071)
The first starship of United Earth, UES Ark, finished construction in 2071, Martian Industries shipyard on Mars orbit. UES Ark was a prototype long range colony ship, built for exploration and colonization of the Icarus System. - 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 secret, rumored to be time travel to erase history of a parallel timeline. - 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 shortcut for expanding into further regions.
Human Civil War (2083-2084)
This was one of the most impactful wars in the Galaxy. Yes, it's name is Human Civil War, however, things were not simple as most thought at that time - it eventually involved the 3 major civilizations of the Galaxy, and also gave birth to the fourth major civilization. The war also impacted the future patterns in the Milky Way Galaxy.
- Secret Independence Society (~2068)
The Secret Independence Society (SIS) was the predecessor of the League of Independent States. It was established shortly after United Earth began using high pressure policies to tighten control on the colonies. The SIS worked in secret, cooperated with suppressed people and black markets. Their ultimate aim was to bring true freedom to humanity, freeing them from the internally corrupted ‘tyranny’ of United Earth. They are also one of the earliest groups of humans who made contact with another major civilization in the Galaxy (to be specific, Zolarg Empire) far before United Earth even acknowledged their existence.
Their existence remained very much not known by the United Earth until the outbreak of the Civil War. - The Alpha Draconian Conspiracy (around a few months before the outbreak of war)
It had been a tough time for Alpha Draconians since the Insectoid slave uprising events. To restore the national pride of Alpha Draconians and to find resources repairing the badly impacted economy, Overlord Betahan decided to prepare a secret invasion on humans, picking the timing humans were at the blink of civil war.
At the same time, another conspiracy took place internally - the rivalry between the Overlord and the Lords of Inner Circle. - Terra Nova Incident (2083)
The Incident was the fuse of this war. Everything started with Terra Nova boycotting the heavy taxation of United Earth. Unable to bring the situation under control through conventional routines, United Earth decided to take the most violent military action against Terra Nova (which such decision was partly due to Alpha Draconian covert agents secretly intervened the General Assembly, to accelerate the outbreak of war).
The incident provided an excellent excuse and opportunity for SIS to throw up a nationwide independence war. SIS militias ambushed the Space Marines in Terra Nova, liberated the colony, and officially declared war on United Earth.
From that time on SIS was officially renamed as the League of Independent States (LIS). - Zolarg Empire Entry into the War (2083)
Before the war, LIS secretly signed an alliance pact with the Zolarg Empire a few months ago (for different aims respectively, but both sides were seeking bilateral support).
LIS called for Zolarg reinforcements under strong countermeasures of the United Earth. The entry of the Zolarg Empire into the Human Civil War had successfully put the United Earth into a war of two fronts, however the overall situation had not improved very much, the war turned into a stalemate afterwards. - Barracuda Blues Events, and Alpha Draconian Invasion (2084)
United Earth discovered an Alpha Draconian secret stronghold with an army of war droids (built for invading humans) in the colony Barracuda Blues, mistaken as an abandoned military research facility. United Earth sent scientists to the site in order to obtain unknown technologies that could help them win the war against LIS.
The discovery at Barracuda Blues was the result of political rivalry in Alpha Draconians, the Inner Circle attempted to sabotage Overlord's invasion plans.
The true identity of the facility and the ‘mysterious machines’ was not known by humans, until similar Alpha Draconian war machines of similar models popped out from nowhere, attacking human colonies and cities - The beginning of Alpha Draconian Invasion, an unexpected event during the civil war. - Battles Against Alpha Draconians (2084)
At the beginning of the Invasion, Alpha Draconians had been successful that they had occupied over half of United Earth territory.
Under a common threat from afar, the United Earth, LIS and the Zolarg Empire agreed to put a pause on the civil war, and formed a temporary alliance to expel Alpha Draconian intruders. Their joint operations successfully recapture human territory one by one, slowly setting the intruders back.
Alpha Draconian Invasion ends after the decisive Battle of Barracuda Blues, the last main portal stronghold destroyed by the alliance, all the Alpha Draconian forces in human territory were shortly destroyed. - Continuation Human Civil War (2084)
The civil war was not over.
Despite victories repelling Alpha Draconian invasion, the forces of United Earth, LIS and Zolarg were almost exhausted in fierce battles with Alpha Draconians (especially after the Siege of Barracuda Blues), little resources they had to continue a large scale war.
While the Zolarg Empire quitted the war by signing a white peace with the United Earth, both LIS and United Earth sought an opportunity to conclude the war in a single battle.
The Battle of Kaisergrounds was the end point of the Human Civil War, the only but the last battle after the Invasion event. Kaisergrounds was a strategic stronghold which was the important gateway to the core economic regions of United Earth. The battle ended with the United Earth forces regained control of the planet, it had contributed United Earth a strategic victory.
New Galactic Era of the Milky Way Galaxy (From 2084 on)
The Human Civil War and the Alpha Draconian Invasion during the war, had drawn the major civilizations closer. The New Galactic Era was the time things in the Milky Way began developing in galactic scale and perspectives.
- Armistice of Hoxton (2084)
The Armistice of Hoxton officially ended the Human Civil War, despite it being just an armistice. The armistice defined the United Earth-LIS border in the future, which the border line was known as the Hoxton Line.
To conclude, nobody had won a total victory in the Human Civil War, however, each side won alternatively - United Earth won a strategic victory which LIS could no longer push deeply into the core territories, while LIS achieved their primary aim of gaining independence. - Official Establishment of League of Independent States (2084)
The League of the Independent States was officially established 3 months after the Armistice of Hoxton was in effect. The League promised fairness, autonomy and freedom to the member states as stated in the Declaration of Independence.
The League of the Independent States had no actual leader in power. Instead, each member state cooperates under the common principles, bearing the common responsibilities protecting 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 rogue states in their ethnic territory. - The Midnight Coup (~2084)
With the failure of invasion on humans, the core Reptilian society of Alpha Draconians lost all confidence in Overlord Betahan. Shortly after the end of invasion the Overlord was assassinated by Inner Circle covert agents.
However, it did not put an end on the political crisis in Alpha Draconians, the coup further made everything worse instead. Every Lord of Inner Circle schemed to reach the throne of ultimate power, however there could only be one supreme ruler in Alpha Draconians. In order to secure the thrones for selves, the Lords fell into a status of internal political war.
The absence of Overlord, and the internal political instability, catalysed the decay of Alpha Draconian influence in the Galaxy. - Emerging of New Galactic Empire (2086)
The decayed Alpha Draconian influence after the Midnight Coup were not able to maintain control on a number of puppet states and territories, they began to break away from the Alpha Draconians.
This had also given rise to the mysterious organization New Galactic Empire, who then annexed part of the states that broke away from Alpha Draconians. They called themselves the true descendants of the Old Galactic Empire, who carried the ‘inevitable destiny’ reviving the old Imperial glory.
Though the ambitious organisation lacked strength to compete with any of the galactic powers in the Milky Way at the moment, the powers actually worried the ‘New Empire’ could be a large threat to them in the future, given their capabilities spreading influence at an unprecedented rate. - Further Discoveries in Barracuda Blues (2086)
United Earth sent another research team investigating the remains of the Alpha Draconian stronghold and facilities. The team revealed a fact about Alpha Draconian technologies - they were derived from the Ancient technologies recorded on the ancient artifacts.
The discovery further fostered the research and decoding on the information on the artifacts of the Ancients in United Earth. - Bradley's Military Reform (2086-2093)
The new head of the United Earth Security Council, Marshal Bradley (which was the supreme commander throughout the Human Civil War), threw up a massive military reformation in order to suppress the military capabilities of LIS, including expanding the scale of Space Marines and especially the Starfleet (which the number of starships during the Civil War barely met demands on the battlefields), written a new professionalism military doctrine, and supported the development of new generation starships. - LIS Black Market Trade Union (2088)
The blockades and embargo on LIS by United Earth had cut down most of the methods for LIS to contact the outside world. In order to survive and maintain development under the difficult conditions, LIS officially established the LIS Black Market Trade Union which facilitates external and domestic trade of their member states. - Galactic Colonization Race (2102~???)
Seeking for further power in the Milky Way Galaxy for their own aims, the 4 civilizations of the Galaxy entered the galactic colonization race one by one. Alpha Draconians started the race, who were desperate to restore their ‘superiority’ in the Galaxy despite political instability.
From the centre of the Galaxy to the Outer Rims, they were all targets of colonization. - United Earth Ancient Archives (2109)
The Archives is a department of United Earth which is responsible for regulating research and usage related to Ancient alien technologies. Apart from regulations, they also take part in the research of the ancient technologies. Since the Archives existed United Earth had better progress extracting ancient knowledge with better organisation. - Chaos in Alpha Draconis and Restoration of Overlord (2112)
Oligarchists in Alpha Draconis had been dissatisfied with the absence of Overlord for a period of time. With the old culture of Reptilians being harmed, these angry nobles stirred up chaos in the capital city, urging the restoration of Overlord.
Without any other ways to suppress or pacify them, the Lords of the Inner Circle could only do as what these (lower) nobles asked them to (well, since their own plans were also disrupted due to the chaos).
The exiled younger brother of the previous Overlord Betahan, Deltahan, was put to the throne. Despite being an Overlord, most actual powers were still in the hands of the Inner Circle, Deltahan was just nothing more than a puppet. - Zolarg Scholars Journey to United Earth (2113)
A team of scholars from the Zolarg Empire, led by the Imperial High Scholar Abbe Amber, set off to United Earth for a study trip of human technologies.
Scholars and scientists of the United Earth and the Zolarg Empire exchanged each other's knowledge and culture. While Zolarg scholars earned a bunch of precious knowledge which could help the technological development of the Zolarg Empire, the trip had also fostered the understanding between the United Earth and the Zolarg Empire, easing the tension since the Human Civil War a bit. - 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, and enhancing advanced, direct communication and coordination of 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.
The technology contributed to turning the futuristic cyberonic transcendence reality among humans.
Who knows what the future holds?
Hopefully the timeline looked decent and reasonable for My Colony Universe!
Thanks for reading!
Notes: not all events are 100% accurate.
If you were wishing for back-to-back My Colony game updates this week then you are in luck, because right off of the heals of the MC1 update from the other day comes the v0.26.0 update for My Colony 2! What's new in this release? Let's find out!
This update brings some pretty large changes to the engine code, which means that new bugs could be showing up, so please let me know if you find things that are broken. I have added support for modifying the terrain heights that are generated by the world seed, which itself constituted a pretty large change to the base code. A new concept of "subterranean resources" has been implemented, where there are now resources present under ground as well as on the surface. Several new scripting flag types and scenarios have been added to the game, and the engine now supports techs that cannot be unlocked through research, but by some triggered game event. All of these engine features are available now in this update in various forms.
First we introduce a new resource for this update, Alien Artifacts, which we all know and love from MC1. Getting them though is a lot different (and possibly more difficult) than in the original My Colony. The first thing you need to do is unlock the new Deep Excavation tech, allowing you to construct the new Excavator unit (created by @spamdude ).
This is a large, slow 2x2 unit that can be used to flatten out hills on the terrain. Once a hill has been removed, there is a chance for new subterranean resources to be exposed, giving you access to more resources you can harvest. This is probably as close as I will come to adding the different Mines from MC1 to the game. Besides the usual resources, you may end up discovering some Ancient Alien Ruins under those hills. Discovering the ruins will trigger an engine flag, automatically unlocking the new Ancient Alien Language technology.
It is not possible to unlock Ancient Alien Language through traditional research. You must either discover ruins through excavation, or be gifted Artifacts from another player.
Once unlocked, you get access to a new Unit and a new Structure, the Artifact Extractor and the Giorgio Institute for Alien Research. The Artifact Extractor is built from the Robot Factory (so you need Robot abilities as well) and is a flying drone used to extract Alien Artifacts from ancient ruin sites. Alien Artifacts can be stored in small amounts in the current Warehouse building, but for additional storage, the Giorgio Institute provides a ton of space for Artifacts, and generates Research as well.
Once you have collected some Artifacts, you can then build the new Extraterrestrial Builder, which in turn is able to construct the new Aluminum Generator!
For those who want some more decorative items, the Single Family Home from MC1 is back, allowing you to build some lower density subdivisions for your colonists. I will probably add the other color variations of the house at some point too.
Finally, when you start getting to the point where it's hard to keep up with food production for your colonists' demands, the Vertical Warehouse Farm is back, providing large amounts of nutritious food to help feed a growing population.
There have also been a few tweaks here and there. I have extended the operating range of the Logistics Station (nearly 2x), since it seemed like setting up connected outposts had far too small of a range. I might end up extending it even more, you guys can let me know what you thing.
I have also turned CloudSync on by default for saved games, for users signed in with an Ape Apps Account. I haven't had many reports of issues with CloudSync lately, and it can really help save your colony in the event of a catastrophe.
I also changed the UI of the zoom buttons on the Radar a bit to make them easier to use on touch, and put the Radar Size button on the radar overlay as well, since on some smaller screen devices, switching the radar to large would hide the other button, never allowing you to switch back.
With this updates in hand, the next release will focus on ironing out whatever I broke in this update, as well as introducing new Alien techs. A lot of the bigger manufacturing structures are probably going to be needing their "Ancient Alien" upgrade, such as the Microchip Factory, the Refinery and so on. I am also debating on whether or not to add a Galactic Board of Trade to MC2, like in MC1. You can let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Other than that, that is all for this update! I hope you guys enjoy both of this weeks My Colony updates, keep the suggestions and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more!
#mycolony2
This update brings some pretty large changes to the engine code, which means that new bugs could be showing up, so please let me know if you find things that are broken. I have added support for modifying the terrain heights that are generated by the world seed, which itself constituted a pretty large change to the base code. A new concept of "subterranean resources" has been implemented, where there are now resources present under ground as well as on the surface. Several new scripting flag types and scenarios have been added to the game, and the engine now supports techs that cannot be unlocked through research, but by some triggered game event. All of these engine features are available now in this update in various forms.
First we introduce a new resource for this update, Alien Artifacts, which we all know and love from MC1. Getting them though is a lot different (and possibly more difficult) than in the original My Colony. The first thing you need to do is unlock the new Deep Excavation tech, allowing you to construct the new Excavator unit (created by @spamdude ).
This is a large, slow 2x2 unit that can be used to flatten out hills on the terrain. Once a hill has been removed, there is a chance for new subterranean resources to be exposed, giving you access to more resources you can harvest. This is probably as close as I will come to adding the different Mines from MC1 to the game. Besides the usual resources, you may end up discovering some Ancient Alien Ruins under those hills. Discovering the ruins will trigger an engine flag, automatically unlocking the new Ancient Alien Language technology.
It is not possible to unlock Ancient Alien Language through traditional research. You must either discover ruins through excavation, or be gifted Artifacts from another player.
Once unlocked, you get access to a new Unit and a new Structure, the Artifact Extractor and the Giorgio Institute for Alien Research. The Artifact Extractor is built from the Robot Factory (so you need Robot abilities as well) and is a flying drone used to extract Alien Artifacts from ancient ruin sites. Alien Artifacts can be stored in small amounts in the current Warehouse building, but for additional storage, the Giorgio Institute provides a ton of space for Artifacts, and generates Research as well.
Once you have collected some Artifacts, you can then build the new Extraterrestrial Builder, which in turn is able to construct the new Aluminum Generator!
For those who want some more decorative items, the Single Family Home from MC1 is back, allowing you to build some lower density subdivisions for your colonists. I will probably add the other color variations of the house at some point too.
Finally, when you start getting to the point where it's hard to keep up with food production for your colonists' demands, the Vertical Warehouse Farm is back, providing large amounts of nutritious food to help feed a growing population.
There have also been a few tweaks here and there. I have extended the operating range of the Logistics Station (nearly 2x), since it seemed like setting up connected outposts had far too small of a range. I might end up extending it even more, you guys can let me know what you thing.
I have also turned CloudSync on by default for saved games, for users signed in with an Ape Apps Account. I haven't had many reports of issues with CloudSync lately, and it can really help save your colony in the event of a catastrophe.
I also changed the UI of the zoom buttons on the Radar a bit to make them easier to use on touch, and put the Radar Size button on the radar overlay as well, since on some smaller screen devices, switching the radar to large would hide the other button, never allowing you to switch back.
With this updates in hand, the next release will focus on ironing out whatever I broke in this update, as well as introducing new Alien techs. A lot of the bigger manufacturing structures are probably going to be needing their "Ancient Alien" upgrade, such as the Microchip Factory, the Refinery and so on. I am also debating on whether or not to add a Galactic Board of Trade to MC2, like in MC1. You can let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Other than that, that is all for this update! I hope you guys enjoy both of this weeks My Colony updates, keep the suggestions and bug reports coming, and stay tuned for more!
#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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Hello! I have yet even more ancient alien stuffs! I was able to make the glow radius of the street light more than 200 due to a glitch (it is 8000 lol). Anyways, enough of my talking, and time for the buildings. (Please note: These are reskins of existing models. I thought that it would fit the theme of Alien Upgrades.)
First off: The Alien Uranium Enrichment Facility.
Next: The Quantum Software Studio.
The Alien Recycling Center.
The Quantum Warehouse.
The Alien Plastic Factory.
The Alien Ore Refinery.
The Quantum Nuclear Reactor.
The Quantum Oil Tank.
The Alien Light Post.
And finally, the Alien Street Light.
I might add to this list later lol.
First off: The Alien Uranium Enrichment Facility.
Next: The Quantum Software Studio.
The Alien Recycling Center.
The Quantum Warehouse.
The Alien Plastic Factory.
The Alien Ore Refinery.
The Quantum Nuclear Reactor.
The Quantum Oil Tank.
The Alien Light Post.
And finally, the Alien Street Light.
I might add to this list later lol.
This is the first version of my document for what I would like to see three months from now. I know that more can possibly be done, but I thought that this could be a good start to show.
Let me know if any of you have other ideas that you would like to see in the next three months.
Also, when new stuff comes up, I will edit or make a new post based on the changes necessary.
Document Text in case it doesn't download:
My Colony 2: Three Months From Now
Alien Decorations:
I believe we could have a pyramid monument dedicated to the Ancient Aliens
I would like to see some Alien Light Posts for my settlements
Personally, I would like to see Alien roads in this installment of My Colony, I was thinking an Alien Aluminum and Alien Brick variants can work for this
Alien Brick can also be used for a Wall as well, and the Artifacts could add a strength buff as well
The Alien Obelisk would be another Alien Decoration that could add some character
Player Mode:
A Regional Bussing Authority would make moving around in Player Mode a lot better
A Player House would be a good spawn location to base future mechanics of respawning on, but it can work for a home point to teleport to for the near future
A Player Bank Account will lay down the foundation for the uses of Money in Player Mode
Spice Themed Buildings:
A Spice Bar should be a way to convert Spice and Rum into Money to allow Spice Worlds to have a form of Entertainment and Money generation to match the theme
A Spice Clinic would be a good theme to keep in canon about what Spice is
Spice Dessert Shop would use Spice and Sugar to generate Money and provides a bit of Entertainment as well.
An Integrated Spice Drilling Operation could also be a new addition in order to keep up with increased demand for Spice
Resources:
Pottery would be a good start to future industries in My Colony 2, especially whenever it could get expanded into potential Commonware uses, but a single Pottery Works can be good for now
A better passive Crystalline maker should be on Ice Worlds because there isn't enough of a Just Be First advantage for Ice Worlds in my opinion
Spam's Fabrication Lodge to make Alien Relics would be something good for the future uses of Relics that will benefit our settlements as well
Let me know if any of you have other ideas that you would like to see in the next three months.
Also, when new stuff comes up, I will edit or make a new post based on the changes necessary.
Document Text in case it doesn't download:
My Colony 2: Three Months From Now
Alien Decorations:
I believe we could have a pyramid monument dedicated to the Ancient Aliens
I would like to see some Alien Light Posts for my settlements
Personally, I would like to see Alien roads in this installment of My Colony, I was thinking an Alien Aluminum and Alien Brick variants can work for this
Alien Brick can also be used for a Wall as well, and the Artifacts could add a strength buff as well
The Alien Obelisk would be another Alien Decoration that could add some character
Player Mode:
A Regional Bussing Authority would make moving around in Player Mode a lot better
A Player House would be a good spawn location to base future mechanics of respawning on, but it can work for a home point to teleport to for the near future
A Player Bank Account will lay down the foundation for the uses of Money in Player Mode
Spice Themed Buildings:
A Spice Bar should be a way to convert Spice and Rum into Money to allow Spice Worlds to have a form of Entertainment and Money generation to match the theme
A Spice Clinic would be a good theme to keep in canon about what Spice is
Spice Dessert Shop would use Spice and Sugar to generate Money and provides a bit of Entertainment as well.
An Integrated Spice Drilling Operation could also be a new addition in order to keep up with increased demand for Spice
Resources:
Pottery would be a good start to future industries in My Colony 2, especially whenever it could get expanded into potential Commonware uses, but a single Pottery Works can be good for now
A better passive Crystalline maker should be on Ice Worlds because there isn't enough of a Just Be First advantage for Ice Worlds in my opinion
Spam's Fabrication Lodge to make Alien Relics would be something good for the future uses of Relics that will benefit our settlements as well
None of the cost vers resource income has ever been very good ,
Heck even now the research gen brings in 70 UR (( 4 tiles space ))wile the alien UR plant brings in 72 UR at 20 tiles space . As for the cupcake factory one can run at most two of the research centers and eat instructions so fast so two aI buildings needed .
The converter is the only way to make al - UR - alien arts and relics that can keep up with demand .
Honestly bast did make the game into a buy your way trough early game is 5 times faster to just import al AND ur and Chips and even alien arts .
It really goes against game play the end tek should not be a money using research converter .
end tek = alien for most things ( for plastic and steel and gold its works )
But for UR its bad .
end game cup cake factory is and has always been useless Only solution before the converter was a sub bug world .
But that did solve the al and alien arts issues as the end game research center takes care of al and arts .
Conclusion is the alien UR plant could be 5 times as good to match the converter rates .
and the cup cake factory could be well 5 times as good but The converter would still out do it .
That would just mean you could run them and alest gain relics fast enough to build more research centers .
But to match the converter the cup cake factory would need a boost of 10 to 15 times better .
I really dont get Bast programming style one one hand a well designed base building game on the other income that is ether very small or very large with little balance in ether direction .
The game would have been up better if buildings could be upgraded ( lv 1 steel plant first one lv 2 steel plant 2nd lv 3 more income so less buildings needed all the way up to alien which could be say a lv 10 building .
Do this with all buildings that produce any resources EXCEPT money .
Then NIX the converter
Bast maybe a new my colony REMIX take what you learned from this game and make a upgraded version
My colony Universe - My colony Galaxy's
Heck watch every one rush to buy it lol
Heck even now the research gen brings in 70 UR (( 4 tiles space ))wile the alien UR plant brings in 72 UR at 20 tiles space . As for the cupcake factory one can run at most two of the research centers and eat instructions so fast so two aI buildings needed .
The converter is the only way to make al - UR - alien arts and relics that can keep up with demand .
Honestly bast did make the game into a buy your way trough early game is 5 times faster to just import al AND ur and Chips and even alien arts .
It really goes against game play the end tek should not be a money using research converter .
end tek = alien for most things ( for plastic and steel and gold its works )
But for UR its bad .
end game cup cake factory is and has always been useless Only solution before the converter was a sub bug world .
But that did solve the al and alien arts issues as the end game research center takes care of al and arts .
Conclusion is the alien UR plant could be 5 times as good to match the converter rates .
and the cup cake factory could be well 5 times as good but The converter would still out do it .
That would just mean you could run them and alest gain relics fast enough to build more research centers .
But to match the converter the cup cake factory would need a boost of 10 to 15 times better .
I really dont get Bast programming style one one hand a well designed base building game on the other income that is ether very small or very large with little balance in ether direction .
The game would have been up better if buildings could be upgraded ( lv 1 steel plant first one lv 2 steel plant 2nd lv 3 more income so less buildings needed all the way up to alien which could be say a lv 10 building .
Do this with all buildings that produce any resources EXCEPT money .
Then NIX the converter
Bast maybe a new my colony REMIX take what you learned from this game and make a upgraded version
My colony Universe - My colony Galaxy's
Heck watch every one rush to buy it lol
Hello, I am here to present two buildings. These are my own made-up suggestions. I hope you like it, especially @bastecklein!
- Alien Materials Factory (short Alien Mats Factory)
An factory with tired workers designed to create alien materials from Ancient Instructions, with the help of experts. Overuses power.
Requires:
200 IQ.
ET builder for construction.
80000 Ore.
75000 Steel.
75000 Gold.
95000 Microchips.
50000 Aluminum.
45000 Software.
30000 Robots.
5000 Alien Artifacts.
4000 Alien Relics.
2000 Triantanium.
150 Ancient Instructions.
10000 power.
1 Ancient Instructions (per round, 64000/22.8571428571 ticks; converted to output).
Provides:
1 Alien Artifact or 1 Alien Relic or 1 Triantanium (64000/22.8571428571(all workers) ticks).
Stores:
10000 of each produced.
Workers:
700 workers
Alright, that's it for now! I'll do the Nanite Silo next. Have a good day guys, and respond to the poll above this! Bye!
welcome! so today I have just finished some add ons for this model that I'm extremely happy with and proud that it has came out this well .We have a uplink station that unfortunately doesn't give enough to keep up with the newer buildings and future buildings at this amazing rate so lets get to the chase😄
This new alien style is a add on/changes to the original model with a repaint darkening the colours but then this is where the new alien part comes in that will be my new standards moving forwards. Alien stems wrapping and morphing with the model itself uncontrollably as you can see the alien stem is trying to make copies of parts of the model and thats what makes feel alien to me. if anyone wants to make alien models in this style I would happily help people adapt to it on discord!!
I would love this model to cost 20x with alien arts(maybe 10k) but i want this model to last and not need to be upgraded for 10updates at least .so please if this gets added make this a grind with a lot of bandwidth(I was thinking 12k-15k ) so its not worth more than rows of normal uplinks but instead gives you the choice to squeeze it down for extra cost
thank you for reading - Sparky
This new alien style is a add on/changes to the original model with a repaint darkening the colours but then this is where the new alien part comes in that will be my new standards moving forwards. Alien stems wrapping and morphing with the model itself uncontrollably as you can see the alien stem is trying to make copies of parts of the model and thats what makes feel alien to me. if anyone wants to make alien models in this style I would happily help people adapt to it on discord!!
I would love this model to cost 20x with alien arts(maybe 10k) but i want this model to last and not need to be upgraded for 10updates at least .so please if this gets added make this a grind with a lot of bandwidth(I was thinking 12k-15k ) so its not worth more than rows of normal uplinks but instead gives you the choice to squeeze it down for extra cost
thank you for reading - Sparky
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
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
I know that many players have been patiently waiting for the next My Colony 2 update, but now the way is finally over as MC2 has just been updated to v0.31.0, and along with the usual bug fixes, this update brings with it a massive new content dump! So what all is inside? Let's take a look!
If you look at the screenshot above and think that something seems a bit fishy, then you would be correct. This update adds fish as a new resource, and you will now see them swimming around in the oceans on the Water World map! Fish are technically a Terrain type object in the game engine much like Ore and Gold deposits, except this is the first terrain class that can be generated in the water. The object also rotates in a circle, to give the appearance that the fish are swimming. They will spread too, similar to synthetic crystalline (although at a slower rate). The oceans on Water World are so overflowing with fish, that I doubt anybody will ever run out.
To go along with the new fish resource are the also-new Fish Dropoff structure and the Trawler unit, which are available pretty early on in the game and made with models provided by @spamdude . The Fish Dropoff can store 2500 Fish and also converts some of it into food, but once you unlock Salt Water production, you can also build the shore based Refrigerated Fish Bins for additional Fish storage. In addition to the new content, the existing Fish Hatchery gains fish storage and slight generation.
Moving on, there was a massive dump of community submitted MC2 models on the Official Discord Server recently, with contributions coming in from @spamdude , @SPARKY0303 and @DoYouHaveAnyOats , so please take a moment to thank these three users for their contributions to the game! In the screenshot below, you can see many of the new structures.
New buildings provided by @SPARKY0303 are the Hospital, the Virtual Music Experience and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor. The Hospital was a much needed upgrade to the two infirmary structures which were increasingly unable to keep up with the medical demands of larger colonies. The Virtual Music Experience adds a new semi-early game entertainment structure for your colonists (which also generates some money) and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor is another much needed structure, providing a power boosting upgrade to the existing Small Nuclear Reactor.
In addition to the new Fish related content already mentioned, further contributions from @spamdude include the new Medium Software Studio, Advanced Drilling Platform, Integrated Warehouse, and Medium Security Station. The Medium Software Studio, Integrated Warehouse and Medium Security Station each represent new mid-game upgrades to some of the existing structures that badly needed upgrade options, with the new Integrated Warehouse in particular adding storage for many resources that the regular Warehouse did not cover.
The new Advanced Drilling Platform might just be everyone's new favorite structure. Currently the most expensive building in the game and requiring the new Ultra Deep Excavation tech, the Advanced Drilling Platform consumes Helium 3 (as well as a fair amount of Power, Water and Bandwidth) while producing Ore, Regolith, Gold, Aluminum, Oil, Salt Water, the new Clay resource, and even a few Alien Artifacts! Clearly you are going to need to get your hands on some Helium 3 in order to operate this thing, but you can either find it in the Galactic Board of Trade, or the new Integrated Nuclear Reactor also produces enough Helium 3 to operate one Advanced Drilling Platform. I have also added a new Helium 3 Tank to the game, since it is clear that more He3 storage will be needed going forward.
From @DoYouHaveAnyOats we have three new structures, the Elementary School, High School and the nonsense Fish 'R Us building.
The two school models to me looked like they required an Atmospheric environment, so they are only available on worlds which would have an atmosphere. They both sit below the current Vocational Training Center in terms of education output, but are good early game education structures. The Fish R Us is similar in mechanics to the existing Canteen, except it utilizes Fish instead of Rum. I'm not going to post a picture of it here, you just have to see it in-game.
There are a few other new structures to arrive in this update as well. The new Ancient Alien Quantum Physics tech unlocks two new Alien structures, the Alien Solar Tower and the Quantum Food Silo, which both represent much needed Alien upgrades to existing structures. Climate Science Theory tech has also been added to the game, and unlocking it will allow you to build the new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant, which I felt was needed particularly on the Lunar and Abandoned Worlds.
On top of all of the new content, some tweaks have been made to some of the existing items in the game. I have increased the charcoal output of the Charcoal Factory, slightly reduced the rum consumption of the Canteen, increased the spice and ether storage on the Lander, added a small amount of Helium 3 and Salt Water storage to the Lander, and added several new upgrade paths for existing structures to take advantage of the new content.
There are also some technical changes and fixes. Firstly, I corrected an issue where players who were not logged in to an Ape Apps Account were unable to play the game. I fixed a bug where MC2 was unable to load using the new Ape Apps Launcher. Structures can now be placed directly over Terrain objects, doing so will automatically bulldoze the terrains underneath. I corrected several technical issues with the Galactic Board of Trade. Fixed a bug where you could no longer properly build Palm Trees or Synthetic Crystalline deposits. There were also several minor fixes and UI tweaks made to the game.
All in all, this update includes 1 new Terrain object, 3 new Techs, 2 new Resources, 1 new Unit, and 16 new Structures. I want to thank everyone who contributed content to this release (as well as bug reports and suggestions), and I hope that you all take a moment to show them some gratitude as well! This update took a bit longer than normal, but I think you will find that it was worth the wait. It should be available to play right now on the Launcher and on the Web, and should be hitting Android and iPhone over the coming days, so let me know what you think, let me know what issues you find, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
If you look at the screenshot above and think that something seems a bit fishy, then you would be correct. This update adds fish as a new resource, and you will now see them swimming around in the oceans on the Water World map! Fish are technically a Terrain type object in the game engine much like Ore and Gold deposits, except this is the first terrain class that can be generated in the water. The object also rotates in a circle, to give the appearance that the fish are swimming. They will spread too, similar to synthetic crystalline (although at a slower rate). The oceans on Water World are so overflowing with fish, that I doubt anybody will ever run out.
To go along with the new fish resource are the also-new Fish Dropoff structure and the Trawler unit, which are available pretty early on in the game and made with models provided by @spamdude . The Fish Dropoff can store 2500 Fish and also converts some of it into food, but once you unlock Salt Water production, you can also build the shore based Refrigerated Fish Bins for additional Fish storage. In addition to the new content, the existing Fish Hatchery gains fish storage and slight generation.
Moving on, there was a massive dump of community submitted MC2 models on the Official Discord Server recently, with contributions coming in from @spamdude , @SPARKY0303 and @DoYouHaveAnyOats , so please take a moment to thank these three users for their contributions to the game! In the screenshot below, you can see many of the new structures.
New buildings provided by @SPARKY0303 are the Hospital, the Virtual Music Experience and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor. The Hospital was a much needed upgrade to the two infirmary structures which were increasingly unable to keep up with the medical demands of larger colonies. The Virtual Music Experience adds a new semi-early game entertainment structure for your colonists (which also generates some money) and the Integrated Nuclear Reactor is another much needed structure, providing a power boosting upgrade to the existing Small Nuclear Reactor.
In addition to the new Fish related content already mentioned, further contributions from @spamdude include the new Medium Software Studio, Advanced Drilling Platform, Integrated Warehouse, and Medium Security Station. The Medium Software Studio, Integrated Warehouse and Medium Security Station each represent new mid-game upgrades to some of the existing structures that badly needed upgrade options, with the new Integrated Warehouse in particular adding storage for many resources that the regular Warehouse did not cover.
The new Advanced Drilling Platform might just be everyone's new favorite structure. Currently the most expensive building in the game and requiring the new Ultra Deep Excavation tech, the Advanced Drilling Platform consumes Helium 3 (as well as a fair amount of Power, Water and Bandwidth) while producing Ore, Regolith, Gold, Aluminum, Oil, Salt Water, the new Clay resource, and even a few Alien Artifacts! Clearly you are going to need to get your hands on some Helium 3 in order to operate this thing, but you can either find it in the Galactic Board of Trade, or the new Integrated Nuclear Reactor also produces enough Helium 3 to operate one Advanced Drilling Platform. I have also added a new Helium 3 Tank to the game, since it is clear that more He3 storage will be needed going forward.
From @DoYouHaveAnyOats we have three new structures, the Elementary School, High School and the nonsense Fish 'R Us building.
The two school models to me looked like they required an Atmospheric environment, so they are only available on worlds which would have an atmosphere. They both sit below the current Vocational Training Center in terms of education output, but are good early game education structures. The Fish R Us is similar in mechanics to the existing Canteen, except it utilizes Fish instead of Rum. I'm not going to post a picture of it here, you just have to see it in-game.
There are a few other new structures to arrive in this update as well. The new Ancient Alien Quantum Physics tech unlocks two new Alien structures, the Alien Solar Tower and the Quantum Food Silo, which both represent much needed Alien upgrades to existing structures. Climate Science Theory tech has also been added to the game, and unlocking it will allow you to build the new Nuclear Water Synthesis Plant, which I felt was needed particularly on the Lunar and Abandoned Worlds.
On top of all of the new content, some tweaks have been made to some of the existing items in the game. I have increased the charcoal output of the Charcoal Factory, slightly reduced the rum consumption of the Canteen, increased the spice and ether storage on the Lander, added a small amount of Helium 3 and Salt Water storage to the Lander, and added several new upgrade paths for existing structures to take advantage of the new content.
There are also some technical changes and fixes. Firstly, I corrected an issue where players who were not logged in to an Ape Apps Account were unable to play the game. I fixed a bug where MC2 was unable to load using the new Ape Apps Launcher. Structures can now be placed directly over Terrain objects, doing so will automatically bulldoze the terrains underneath. I corrected several technical issues with the Galactic Board of Trade. Fixed a bug where you could no longer properly build Palm Trees or Synthetic Crystalline deposits. There were also several minor fixes and UI tweaks made to the game.
All in all, this update includes 1 new Terrain object, 3 new Techs, 2 new Resources, 1 new Unit, and 16 new Structures. I want to thank everyone who contributed content to this release (as well as bug reports and suggestions), and I hope that you all take a moment to show them some gratitude as well! This update took a bit longer than normal, but I think you will find that it was worth the wait. It should be available to play right now on the Launcher and on the Web, and should be hitting Android and iPhone over the coming days, so let me know what you think, let me know what issues you find, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
Greetings everyone, it's time for another shiny new version of My Colony, v0.45.0! This update is a lot smaller than I had planned, but there were numerous bug fixed that I wanted to get pushed out, so I rushed it. It's still solid gold though, do don't worry :-) Here is what's new:
My Colony v0.45.0 Changelog
New Stuff
If it seems like this update is rushed, it was. It's ok though. There were a lot of bug fixes made to pathfinding (again), and colonist/vehicle selection. I also found a bug that was making harvesting vehicles request a new path from the path finder almost non-stop, which is now fixed. This should increase performance and help with mobile battery consumption.
Beyond that, this was mostly a Zolarg update. You might notice they have a new alien artifact of their own, the Alien Relic. This comes from the same ancient alien race as the Alien Artifacts on human worlds, and will open up the Zolarg's own alien tech tree in the updates to come. Eventually there will be three classes of ancient alien resources in the game and combining them will allow each team to unlock the ultimate ancient power in the game! But that is a ways off.
Finally, for premium users, a casual Creative Mode has been added. All building options are unlocked and cost nothing to build, so you can make whatever kind of colony you want. Offline only, of course.
One final thing to note, the server that the web version of My Colony is hosted on is acting up right now. I think I am being throttled because I have used up all of my hosting bandwidth for the month. I expect it to be resolved by Oct 1, and it shouldn't impact the Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux versions of the game, only the browser-based version.
That's all for now, much more to come, and thanks for playing!
My Colony v0.45.0 Changelog
New Stuff
- New Structures: Unholy Pit of Stuff, Unholy Mound of Worship, Unholy Core Mine
- New Resource: Alien Relic
- New Premium Content: Creative Mode
- LIS Black Market Bazzar now randomly gives out a random resource in exchange for 1 coin. Goods are always flowing in through the black market.
- Unfinished changes to the 'New Game' flow
If it seems like this update is rushed, it was. It's ok though. There were a lot of bug fixes made to pathfinding (again), and colonist/vehicle selection. I also found a bug that was making harvesting vehicles request a new path from the path finder almost non-stop, which is now fixed. This should increase performance and help with mobile battery consumption.
Beyond that, this was mostly a Zolarg update. You might notice they have a new alien artifact of their own, the Alien Relic. This comes from the same ancient alien race as the Alien Artifacts on human worlds, and will open up the Zolarg's own alien tech tree in the updates to come. Eventually there will be three classes of ancient alien resources in the game and combining them will allow each team to unlock the ultimate ancient power in the game! But that is a ways off.
Finally, for premium users, a casual Creative Mode has been added. All building options are unlocked and cost nothing to build, so you can make whatever kind of colony you want. Offline only, of course.
One final thing to note, the server that the web version of My Colony is hosted on is acting up right now. I think I am being throttled because I have used up all of my hosting bandwidth for the month. I expect it to be resolved by Oct 1, and it shouldn't impact the Android/iOS/Windows/Mac/Linux versions of the game, only the browser-based version.
That's all for now, much more to come, and thanks for playing!
I hope everybody is having a good week! Today after several weeks of work, I am putting the finishing touches on My Colony v1.0.0 which will be heading out to all platforms over the coming days, just in time for the holidays! There is not a lot of new content in this update, and pretty much nothing that I had originally planned to add to it is here, but that is ok! What you get instead is almost a total re-write of the underlying simulation engine, which I think will improve performance on most devices, greatly reduce save-file sizes (and save corruption instances), and greatly expand the possibilities for new features in the coming updates. With all of that said, let's take a look at what has changed. This will probably be a longer write-up than most, so sit tight!
First of all, I really wish I had more time to work on this update, as I do not consider it to be complete by any stretch of the means. Sadly though, because of the time of year I had to push the update now, otherwise I would not be able to release until sometime in January. For one reason, I have a lot of family stuff coming up for the holidays. Also, the various app stores do not process submissions during this time of year (so that their employees can have some holiday time off), particularly iPhone, so I have to get the update in now before the release window closes. So I want to apologize to everybody for the lack of new content and incomplete nature of this update, given what I had promised previously. I hope you are not too mad at me, especially since it has been about a month since the last update! I did put a ton of hours into this one though, and I think (hope!) in the long run the game will end up being a lot better for it.
Since these patch notes are longer than normal, I will split them up into sections.
Game Data
First I want to talk about some game file changes. Since the format of the game has evolved a bit since the first release of My Colony in 2016, there have been a lot of properties and settings added over the months and years that are no longer applicable today. I have done a little bit of cleanup and reorganizing of the game data in this release, and if you have an older, larger colony, the first time you open it in v1.0.0 it might take a little longer to load as this cleanup procedure takes place on your game data, possible up to a minute or more. This is normal. Afterwards, the disk size of your game data should be a lot smaller, which should be great for all versions of the game, as save file corruptions are sometimes a problem on various platforms. It should also make cloud sync a whole lot faster and more reliable. I believe it will also help with issues where web browsers like Chrome delete My Colony saves to keep the game under the browser's storage quota. Just for an example, the save file for my main colony which has around 270k population is now only about 600kb, which is a massive reduction from before.
I am working on a way to export an entire region game (and all of it's sub colonies) into one single backup file. I had meant to have this feature ready to go for this update, but simply ran out of time. Be aware that it is coming soon though. The new file size reduction is one of the reasons why I am able to implement this feature properly!
Regions
There is a large change to how Regions are generated now, when playing on a map type that features a river terrain, such as Earthlike, Abandoned World, and Lava World. The River formations are now generated on a region-wide basis, instead of on a map-by-map basis, giving the entire region a more continuous look and feel. So now when you start a new region on one of these map types, it will have to generate the river template, which may take a minute on slower devices. It is a one-time thing though, so I think the time trade-off is worth it.
In addition to automatic region generation, you can now also include a template file that the game will use to create your region. The template parser works best when using a 250x250 black and white image, but it will accept any image file you have. For example, consider the following template file:
When applied to a Lava World region, will create the following regional map:
These new region generating and templating features can make for some very interesting regional maps!
Once you are inside of a region map, you will notice some additional changes. There is now a 1 tile green border surrounding regional cities. If you mouse-over this border, you will see the name of the adjacent city in the region and if you click on it, it will ask you if you want to switch over to that city, without having to back out to the overall regional map first.
In addition, you can now order a rover or other unit to drive onto that green border area, and the unit will be transferred to the adjacent city. Players have wanted this feature since regions first came out, and it basically works just as you would expect it to.
Simulation Changes
This is where the changes start getting big, but I have tried to implement them in a way that will hopefully be unnoticeable to most players. For v1.0.0, I have rewritten the core simulation engine from scratch, moving it from an individual colonist based simulation, to more of a macro simulation using buildings as the core point of focus for the game. This change was mainly done for performance and scale. When I had originally created the game, I did not really expect colonies with more than a few hundred colonists at most. My original inspiration for the colonist part of the game was a title I found on Steam called Spacebase DF-9, which sadly got abandoned by it's creators. But in that vain, each colonist had it's own stats, it's own bank account, it's own mood, name, health, happiness level, job, house etc. With a few hundred colonists, this works out pretty good. With 100,000 or even 1,000,000, this becomes a CPU and memory nightmare.
Over the years I have done various tweaks and hacks to try to get around this design issue, but it's never worked out perfectly. At the end of the day, there was no way to get around the fact that the way that the game was originally envisioned and designed was simply no longer compatible with the way that the game had eventually turned out. My Colony has become, at it's core, a city simulator game based in outer space. It does feature things that you will not find in a traditional city simulator game, but at the end of the day, this is what it has basically morphed in to. So I have made changes to the game to better reflect this reality.
The individual colonist, as he has existed in prior versions of the game, no longer exists. He has been replaced by statistics. The game now operates on a system based on the residential structure and it's proximity to available amenities, such as entertainment, medical, educational, and work. This is now reflected by clicking on a building and looking at it's stats screen.
Where a colonist decided to live is based on the overall value rating of the residential property. Where a colonist decides to work is based on the location of the job site in relation to occupied residential buildings. Therefore, maintaining full productive capacity requires balancing all of the desirability factors for your residential buildings and keeping your job sites in range to those buildings.
It may sound complicated, but it's really not. In general, a colony that was well designed and balanced before this update should still work without too many issues. I have tried to design this in a way that would be as minimally disruptive to existing colonies as possible.
The largest potential issue people will see is in regards to medical care. Simply put, before medical care was barely required, and now it is absolutely required. If your colony lacks medical facilities, people will die. If you start seeing people die every month for no reason, make sure that you have enough medical clinics!
This new simulation engine has changed the way approval rating is calculated. It is now a function of the overall value of every residential structure, weighted by the number of colonists living in that structure. Overall colony approval rating will impact production in this way: if overall approval falls below 30%, you will start to see riots, which will in turn decrease the number of people who go to work. To make the transition to v1.0.0 easier, I have disabled rioting for this release, to give players time to balance their colonies. It will be activated in v1.1.0 though, so you should not ignore it.
In a way, it is sad to make this change, as I've always liked having the ability to select a colonist and see where they live, how happy the are, give them money, etc. These options are now gone from the game, along with certain policy items that were related to individual colonists. That said, the change has reduced the memory consumption of the game significantly, and will also allow the game to grow in ways never before possible, so I think that overall it will be a good thing, and I hope people are not too disappointed by it!
Colonist Lifecycle
Colonists now age properly in this update, and they will also have babies. You now need to balance your colony in a way that can support children and elderly, who are unable to work. Before you could just have a 1:1 ratio of population to jobs, now you cannot. A new section has been added to the population stat screen that lets you see the current age distribution of your colonists.
Colonists will work between the ages of 16 and 70 and they will have kids between the ages of 16 and 40. After the age of 50, they have a chance to die of natural causes, and that chance is higher or lower based on the health rating of your colony.
This has been the hardest part of the game to balance in this update, and will probably take several updates to get it right. You do not want the birth rate to be too high at the beginning of the game, because it is hard to take care of babies when you are just starting out. However, you do not want it to be too low later on, because you need enough new workers to support the aging population.
As I said, this will probably take some time to get right. It will be a bit more difficult for large existing colonies, because before this update, almost all colonists were aged between 20-35 years old. If you have a large existing population, all of these people will probably be retiring around the same time. To ease these issues, I have added new deportation policies to the game, with the options to deport all elderly and children.
Random Changes and Improvements
The Stats screen now has two new sections, Utilities and Game Data, both of which were going to be a lot cooler than they are now, but I ran out of time. Keep an eye on these, because they will be getting better in the future.
On the main construction sidebar, you can now right-click on a building to quick-jump to the encyclopedia article for that structure. In addition, mouse-hovering over a building now shows a bit more information, such as the entertainment/medical/educational capacities of the structure.
For vehicle construction buildings like the Small Vehicle Factory, you can now mouse-over them when they have multiple units queues up to see exactly which types of units are currently in the queue.
On regional maps, the day/night cycle is now synchronized across the entire region. Before now, one city could be daytime, and the city right next to it could be night.
Tourism has been revamped, much in the way the rest of the simulation has. You will now probably make a lot more money on tourism than you had previously.
The Overview statistics window now displays the total number of real-life hours you have played the game (since v0.91.0, as it was not tracked before then), as well as the amount of game-time that your colony has been around.
There is now a new Medical build category.
When a colony under embargo starts paying taxes again, they now regain their "motherland relations" at a faster rate.
The Brood Training Center now provides some education.
Increased the number of students for the Transcendent Academy, Mound of Scholars, and Internet Relay Booth.
Increased medical capacity of the Bloodletting Station, Healing Pods, and First Aid Station.
Increased the guest capacity of the Large Park, Paste Treatment Spa, Torture Booth, Live Autopsy Slab, Suppertime Arena, and Internet Relay Booth.
Added slight Entertainment and Education boost to the Real News Station.
Added slight Education boost to the Live Autopsy Slab.
New Content
New Unit: Ether Rover
New Structures: Ether Storage, Integrated Medical Clinic, Small Hospital, University, Ant Paste Rejuvenation Clinic
What's Next?
There is still much to be done. I would have preferred to just work on this update for three months and add everything I want to it, but I did want to give everybody something to play over the holidays. My immediate plan for My Colony v1.1.0 is to add the #1 most requested feature since the game originally came out, Mass Transit. I already have the entire system mapped out in my head and I think it's going to work well, and will function within a single city and even across region. This means you will also be able to have houses in one region map where people work in the adjacent region map. So this is what will be coming in v1.1.0, unless there are major issues with this update, in which case it will be v1.2.0.
After that, I want to implement crime and security, which will be the focus of the next update. Crime is already factored into the land value rating of all buildings, so a lot of the work is already done. I just need to do the work to finish it off. If I had more time, Mass Transit and Crime would have been done in this release, since I have already started implementing both "under the hood."
Finally, I promised online competition and leaderboards for this update, and I just didn't get to them. I have not forgotten about it though, but I am pushing it out until after Mass Transit and Crime, as I have already sort of started on Mass Transit and Crime, and I think people will probably get more out of those two features anyway. So I am tentatively scheduling the online competition update for v1.3 or v1.4.
Beyond those, that is all I have planned in the near future for major gameplay changing updates. After that it will be back to the regular bug-fix and content update grinds. I do still need to flesh out the other civs a bit more. At some point I want to add AI controlled factions, as I want to add a new map type that is already inhabited by a primitive species and you will either have to coexist with them or exterminate them. But that is a little bit further down the line.
So that's all for v1.0.0. It should be hitting all devices over the coming days, so be on the lookout. Let me know in the forum what issues and requests you have. There are literally a ton of engine changes to this update and so I do expect problems, but with your help I will get them all ironed out over the coming updates.
This happens to be the 100th major update to My Colony, and I want to thank everybody who has been with me over the years, helping me create this amazing game that we all love! I never could have imagined when I first started on it in 2016 what it would have eventually morphed into. A lot of the greatness in the game comes directly from suggestions I have gotten from you guys, so thank you to everybody who has supported the game over the years, and stay tuned for a lot more to come in the future!
First of all, I really wish I had more time to work on this update, as I do not consider it to be complete by any stretch of the means. Sadly though, because of the time of year I had to push the update now, otherwise I would not be able to release until sometime in January. For one reason, I have a lot of family stuff coming up for the holidays. Also, the various app stores do not process submissions during this time of year (so that their employees can have some holiday time off), particularly iPhone, so I have to get the update in now before the release window closes. So I want to apologize to everybody for the lack of new content and incomplete nature of this update, given what I had promised previously. I hope you are not too mad at me, especially since it has been about a month since the last update! I did put a ton of hours into this one though, and I think (hope!) in the long run the game will end up being a lot better for it.
Since these patch notes are longer than normal, I will split them up into sections.
Game Data
First I want to talk about some game file changes. Since the format of the game has evolved a bit since the first release of My Colony in 2016, there have been a lot of properties and settings added over the months and years that are no longer applicable today. I have done a little bit of cleanup and reorganizing of the game data in this release, and if you have an older, larger colony, the first time you open it in v1.0.0 it might take a little longer to load as this cleanup procedure takes place on your game data, possible up to a minute or more. This is normal. Afterwards, the disk size of your game data should be a lot smaller, which should be great for all versions of the game, as save file corruptions are sometimes a problem on various platforms. It should also make cloud sync a whole lot faster and more reliable. I believe it will also help with issues where web browsers like Chrome delete My Colony saves to keep the game under the browser's storage quota. Just for an example, the save file for my main colony which has around 270k population is now only about 600kb, which is a massive reduction from before.
I am working on a way to export an entire region game (and all of it's sub colonies) into one single backup file. I had meant to have this feature ready to go for this update, but simply ran out of time. Be aware that it is coming soon though. The new file size reduction is one of the reasons why I am able to implement this feature properly!
Regions
There is a large change to how Regions are generated now, when playing on a map type that features a river terrain, such as Earthlike, Abandoned World, and Lava World. The River formations are now generated on a region-wide basis, instead of on a map-by-map basis, giving the entire region a more continuous look and feel. So now when you start a new region on one of these map types, it will have to generate the river template, which may take a minute on slower devices. It is a one-time thing though, so I think the time trade-off is worth it.
In addition to automatic region generation, you can now also include a template file that the game will use to create your region. The template parser works best when using a 250x250 black and white image, but it will accept any image file you have. For example, consider the following template file:
When applied to a Lava World region, will create the following regional map:
These new region generating and templating features can make for some very interesting regional maps!
Once you are inside of a region map, you will notice some additional changes. There is now a 1 tile green border surrounding regional cities. If you mouse-over this border, you will see the name of the adjacent city in the region and if you click on it, it will ask you if you want to switch over to that city, without having to back out to the overall regional map first.
In addition, you can now order a rover or other unit to drive onto that green border area, and the unit will be transferred to the adjacent city. Players have wanted this feature since regions first came out, and it basically works just as you would expect it to.
Simulation Changes
This is where the changes start getting big, but I have tried to implement them in a way that will hopefully be unnoticeable to most players. For v1.0.0, I have rewritten the core simulation engine from scratch, moving it from an individual colonist based simulation, to more of a macro simulation using buildings as the core point of focus for the game. This change was mainly done for performance and scale. When I had originally created the game, I did not really expect colonies with more than a few hundred colonists at most. My original inspiration for the colonist part of the game was a title I found on Steam called Spacebase DF-9, which sadly got abandoned by it's creators. But in that vain, each colonist had it's own stats, it's own bank account, it's own mood, name, health, happiness level, job, house etc. With a few hundred colonists, this works out pretty good. With 100,000 or even 1,000,000, this becomes a CPU and memory nightmare.
Over the years I have done various tweaks and hacks to try to get around this design issue, but it's never worked out perfectly. At the end of the day, there was no way to get around the fact that the way that the game was originally envisioned and designed was simply no longer compatible with the way that the game had eventually turned out. My Colony has become, at it's core, a city simulator game based in outer space. It does feature things that you will not find in a traditional city simulator game, but at the end of the day, this is what it has basically morphed in to. So I have made changes to the game to better reflect this reality.
The individual colonist, as he has existed in prior versions of the game, no longer exists. He has been replaced by statistics. The game now operates on a system based on the residential structure and it's proximity to available amenities, such as entertainment, medical, educational, and work. This is now reflected by clicking on a building and looking at it's stats screen.
Where a colonist decided to live is based on the overall value rating of the residential property. Where a colonist decides to work is based on the location of the job site in relation to occupied residential buildings. Therefore, maintaining full productive capacity requires balancing all of the desirability factors for your residential buildings and keeping your job sites in range to those buildings.
It may sound complicated, but it's really not. In general, a colony that was well designed and balanced before this update should still work without too many issues. I have tried to design this in a way that would be as minimally disruptive to existing colonies as possible.
The largest potential issue people will see is in regards to medical care. Simply put, before medical care was barely required, and now it is absolutely required. If your colony lacks medical facilities, people will die. If you start seeing people die every month for no reason, make sure that you have enough medical clinics!
This new simulation engine has changed the way approval rating is calculated. It is now a function of the overall value of every residential structure, weighted by the number of colonists living in that structure. Overall colony approval rating will impact production in this way: if overall approval falls below 30%, you will start to see riots, which will in turn decrease the number of people who go to work. To make the transition to v1.0.0 easier, I have disabled rioting for this release, to give players time to balance their colonies. It will be activated in v1.1.0 though, so you should not ignore it.
In a way, it is sad to make this change, as I've always liked having the ability to select a colonist and see where they live, how happy the are, give them money, etc. These options are now gone from the game, along with certain policy items that were related to individual colonists. That said, the change has reduced the memory consumption of the game significantly, and will also allow the game to grow in ways never before possible, so I think that overall it will be a good thing, and I hope people are not too disappointed by it!
Colonist Lifecycle
Colonists now age properly in this update, and they will also have babies. You now need to balance your colony in a way that can support children and elderly, who are unable to work. Before you could just have a 1:1 ratio of population to jobs, now you cannot. A new section has been added to the population stat screen that lets you see the current age distribution of your colonists.
Colonists will work between the ages of 16 and 70 and they will have kids between the ages of 16 and 40. After the age of 50, they have a chance to die of natural causes, and that chance is higher or lower based on the health rating of your colony.
This has been the hardest part of the game to balance in this update, and will probably take several updates to get it right. You do not want the birth rate to be too high at the beginning of the game, because it is hard to take care of babies when you are just starting out. However, you do not want it to be too low later on, because you need enough new workers to support the aging population.
As I said, this will probably take some time to get right. It will be a bit more difficult for large existing colonies, because before this update, almost all colonists were aged between 20-35 years old. If you have a large existing population, all of these people will probably be retiring around the same time. To ease these issues, I have added new deportation policies to the game, with the options to deport all elderly and children.
Random Changes and Improvements
The Stats screen now has two new sections, Utilities and Game Data, both of which were going to be a lot cooler than they are now, but I ran out of time. Keep an eye on these, because they will be getting better in the future.
On the main construction sidebar, you can now right-click on a building to quick-jump to the encyclopedia article for that structure. In addition, mouse-hovering over a building now shows a bit more information, such as the entertainment/medical/educational capacities of the structure.
For vehicle construction buildings like the Small Vehicle Factory, you can now mouse-over them when they have multiple units queues up to see exactly which types of units are currently in the queue.
On regional maps, the day/night cycle is now synchronized across the entire region. Before now, one city could be daytime, and the city right next to it could be night.
Tourism has been revamped, much in the way the rest of the simulation has. You will now probably make a lot more money on tourism than you had previously.
The Overview statistics window now displays the total number of real-life hours you have played the game (since v0.91.0, as it was not tracked before then), as well as the amount of game-time that your colony has been around.
There is now a new Medical build category.
When a colony under embargo starts paying taxes again, they now regain their "motherland relations" at a faster rate.
The Brood Training Center now provides some education.
Increased the number of students for the Transcendent Academy, Mound of Scholars, and Internet Relay Booth.
Increased medical capacity of the Bloodletting Station, Healing Pods, and First Aid Station.
Increased the guest capacity of the Large Park, Paste Treatment Spa, Torture Booth, Live Autopsy Slab, Suppertime Arena, and Internet Relay Booth.
Added slight Entertainment and Education boost to the Real News Station.
Added slight Education boost to the Live Autopsy Slab.
New Content
New Unit: Ether Rover
New Structures: Ether Storage, Integrated Medical Clinic, Small Hospital, University, Ant Paste Rejuvenation Clinic
What's Next?
There is still much to be done. I would have preferred to just work on this update for three months and add everything I want to it, but I did want to give everybody something to play over the holidays. My immediate plan for My Colony v1.1.0 is to add the #1 most requested feature since the game originally came out, Mass Transit. I already have the entire system mapped out in my head and I think it's going to work well, and will function within a single city and even across region. This means you will also be able to have houses in one region map where people work in the adjacent region map. So this is what will be coming in v1.1.0, unless there are major issues with this update, in which case it will be v1.2.0.
After that, I want to implement crime and security, which will be the focus of the next update. Crime is already factored into the land value rating of all buildings, so a lot of the work is already done. I just need to do the work to finish it off. If I had more time, Mass Transit and Crime would have been done in this release, since I have already started implementing both "under the hood."
Finally, I promised online competition and leaderboards for this update, and I just didn't get to them. I have not forgotten about it though, but I am pushing it out until after Mass Transit and Crime, as I have already sort of started on Mass Transit and Crime, and I think people will probably get more out of those two features anyway. So I am tentatively scheduling the online competition update for v1.3 or v1.4.
Beyond those, that is all I have planned in the near future for major gameplay changing updates. After that it will be back to the regular bug-fix and content update grinds. I do still need to flesh out the other civs a bit more. At some point I want to add AI controlled factions, as I want to add a new map type that is already inhabited by a primitive species and you will either have to coexist with them or exterminate them. But that is a little bit further down the line.
So that's all for v1.0.0. It should be hitting all devices over the coming days, so be on the lookout. Let me know in the forum what issues and requests you have. There are literally a ton of engine changes to this update and so I do expect problems, but with your help I will get them all ironed out over the coming updates.
This happens to be the 100th major update to My Colony, and I want to thank everybody who has been with me over the years, helping me create this amazing game that we all love! I never could have imagined when I first started on it in 2016 what it would have eventually morphed into. A lot of the greatness in the game comes directly from suggestions I have gotten from you guys, so thank you to everybody who has supported the game over the years, and stay tuned for a lot more to come in the future!
In time for the weekend, My Colony 2 has just been updated to v0.27.0 and should be hitting all platforms shortly! This update has a critical fix that might actually end up killing some existing colonies, so you are going to want to read on to find out what's new!
First for the big change. As I was implementing one of the new buildings for this update (the Ancient Alien Microchip Factory), I noticed that during it's production cycle, it was not consuming any Alien Artifacts. I tweaked with the building in the game editor a bit, and still no consumption. Upon further investigation, I noticed that no building was consuming any resources, and it's been like this all along!
How I missed such an obvious flaw is beyond me, although I don't know if anybody else really noticed it either. It's easy to overlook a bug that actually benefits you, I suppose. Looking back though, stockpiling resources did always seem a bit easier in MC2 as compared to MC1.
Anyway, I went ahead and fixed the issue, loaded up my main colony, and it immediately died. Stockpiles of Ore, Gold, Wood, Charcoal, Crystalline, Rum, Uranium, you name it, all quickly evaporated. My settlements had been running so long on a balance based on zero resource consumption, I never built up the necessary production and gathering capabilities to handle the industrial output. Needless to say, it pretty much brought my entire colony to a standstill. Not only that, but since I had several settlements connected to the same resource pool using trade depots, every single one was brought down to a grinding halt!
It actually took me several hours to recover my game from this calamity. In fact, the fix required me to alter the stats of several buildings, because it became plain once resource consumption was factored in that many buildings were either under producing or over consuming resources. Because of this, production and consumption stats have been altered in this update for the Sugar Extraction Lab, Tree Farm, Charcoal Factory, Uranium Enrichment Facility, Canteen, Gold Synthesis Lab, Ore Fracking Operation, and Rum Distillery. I think I have a reasonable balance going right now, but of course there are likely things that I have overlooked. If you find structures that need rebalanced because of this changed, either buffed or nerfed in some way, let me know in the comments to this post.
Now, while I was trying to figure out this new balance, it was actually quite difficult to do at the beginning, as My Colony 2 lacks detailed resource consumption/production stats like you would find in My Colony 1. At least it did lack those stats, as this update now adds a new Resources tab to the Statistics window!
As in My Colony 1, you can select each resource to see the breakdown on which buildings are providing/using a specific resource, which is a huge help when trying to work out and balance your settlement production levels.
Of course, the resource stats are not exactly, and cannot be exactly as they are in MC1, due to the nature of resource pools in MC2. Resources in this game are not kept per-player or even per settlement, but are rather stored in dynamic "pools" that can change as time goes on based on the existence of logistics stations, outposts and other such structures. This made putting together the stats collection and reporting a bit more difficult than it was in MC1, but it's mostly working here now. To view the stats of a resource pool, you have to move your camera/viewport to a settlement first, and you will be shown the stats for the resource pool that you are currently active in. At some point I will probably make it possible to view a list of all resource pools and which settlements they are connected to, I just have not gotten to it yet.
Moving along, this update brought a few big changes to roads, changes that I started working on a few updates ago and neglected to finish until now.
Firstly, roads with either production or consumption properties (such as the Solar Road) are now finally functional. Prior to this update, you could build a huge Solar Road network with 200 tiles, and it would only produce power based on the first tile placed. Now, they work as you would expect.
Next, Roads are now actually factored in to the path finder, and their "drive speed modification" stats now actually work! You may or may not have noticed, but before this update roads had basically no impact on what your Rovers did, other than providing an aesthetic look. Roads are now fully functional, and will work in basically the same manner as they do in MC1.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, you can no build roads (and some other structures) anywhere you want, no settlement required!
Wouldn't it be nice to build a big beautiful highway connecting all of your settlements together? You couldn't do it before, but you can now! Roads can now be built anywhere, as long as you have an appropriate Rover in range. The resources used to pay for the roads will come from your closest settlement to the road in question (the closes settlement owned by the player building the road). The only restriction is that you can not build a road in a chunk/settlement that is "owned" by another player.
The Game Editor now also allows you to specify other buildings, besides roads, that can be built out-of-settlement. The only one right now is the Commemorative Plaque, since I figured it would nice to be able to place signs along the side of your highways.
Moving along, I did a lot of focus and work on performance optimizations in this release. When a map had larger settlements, the game was starting to get so laggy (at least on my M1 Mac) that it was barely playable anymore, so something had to be done. Obviously there is always more performance work to be done, but here are some of the changes so far.
Firstly, I reduced the radius of chunks that are generated around the camera, and I lowered the time that it takes before the engine clears out chunks that are no longer active around the camera. This provides a pretty large reduction in memory usage when you are in a big settlement, as it can reduce the number of .vpp models loaded in memory significantly. At some point I will probably make this a setting in the Engine Settings window, so people with epic desktop computers and RTX video cards can turn their chunk render distance way up if they want to, but since most players right now are using a smart phone, I decided to lower the default setting.
Speaking of default settings, most of the "pretty" engine settings, such as Anti Aliasing, Depth of Field, Dynamic Shadows, Fancy Water, etc, are now turned off by default. These you can always just turn back on in the settings menu if your machine can handle them, but I wanted the default settings to be low so that a new player wont get in the game and immediately experience lag if they are using a lower end machine.
A lot of improvements have also been made to the server code, which runs on a separate thread from the renderer. There was a pretty big issue where the game server would lag down hard if you had a ton of rovers in your game, since every "tick" a rover checks to see if it should be building something or not. To address this, the server now keeps track of whether or not there are actually buildings under construction, and so Rovers will only check if they should be building when there is actually something to build. Makes sense, right?
Moving along, since the last update introduced the Excavator and digging, it basically became possible to turn the Desert World map into a little water world by digging out your own lakes and rivers. Because of this, it only made sense to allow all of the water based structures and units to be constructed on the desert map.
You are now free to terraform your Desert World map into the holiday paradise that your colonists have been yearning for.
Next up, this update adds the classic Crystalbot from MC1, and with it comes the ability to create and grow Synthetic Crystalline Deposits. Be careful though, because the Synthetic Crystalline is a cancer that is as aggressive as ever, so I would suggest not building it too close to your settlement...
My original inspiration for Crystalline (back in MC1) was the Tiberium from Command and Conquer, a substance that provides power but that also spreads and can become an environmental catastrophe. For this reason, you need to take extra precautions when dealing with the synthetic stuff, as it can easily get out of hand if you let it.
I think I mentioned earlier in this post that the Ancient Alien Microchip Factory has been added to the game. This along with the Crystalline stuff requires two new techs, Ancient Alien Manufacturing and Crystalline Synthesis. I also added the new Luxury Townhome, a decorative housing unit for Premium players.
Since I was on the topic of new Research, I will mention the final engine change to this update. Players who are either in a hurry or want to speed through a new game can now instant-unlock new research using Ape Coins. Like I mentioned in the last My Colony 1 release notes, I am going to be looking for better ways to monetize the My Colony games without resorting to heavy advertising, and this seemed like a reasonable way that is totally optional and does not fundamentally change the game for existing players.
So all in all, this was a pretty big update for My Colony 2. I would suggest that all players be careful when they first open their games after the update, and to comb over your settlements and their research stats, because there will probably be things you need to change, particularly if you have an older established colony.
Moving forward, my near-term plans are to continue expanding the Alien/Quantum tech trees. I am also going to be bringing a Galactic Board of Trade to My Colony 2 in some form (gotta work out the details on that one), and I will also probably be adding a Spice World (not related to the Spice Girls) to implement some of the Spice suggestions from @Architecture1134 and others. There is also a lot coming soon to the original My Colony and to Colony Wars, but more on those another day. All in all, a lot of excitement coming to the My Colony Universe of games, and I should probably put together another episode of the My Colony Podcast to discuss it all. But until then, check out the new update, enjoy, have a good weekend, let me know what issues you find or suggestions you have, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
First for the big change. As I was implementing one of the new buildings for this update (the Ancient Alien Microchip Factory), I noticed that during it's production cycle, it was not consuming any Alien Artifacts. I tweaked with the building in the game editor a bit, and still no consumption. Upon further investigation, I noticed that no building was consuming any resources, and it's been like this all along!
How I missed such an obvious flaw is beyond me, although I don't know if anybody else really noticed it either. It's easy to overlook a bug that actually benefits you, I suppose. Looking back though, stockpiling resources did always seem a bit easier in MC2 as compared to MC1.
Anyway, I went ahead and fixed the issue, loaded up my main colony, and it immediately died. Stockpiles of Ore, Gold, Wood, Charcoal, Crystalline, Rum, Uranium, you name it, all quickly evaporated. My settlements had been running so long on a balance based on zero resource consumption, I never built up the necessary production and gathering capabilities to handle the industrial output. Needless to say, it pretty much brought my entire colony to a standstill. Not only that, but since I had several settlements connected to the same resource pool using trade depots, every single one was brought down to a grinding halt!
It actually took me several hours to recover my game from this calamity. In fact, the fix required me to alter the stats of several buildings, because it became plain once resource consumption was factored in that many buildings were either under producing or over consuming resources. Because of this, production and consumption stats have been altered in this update for the Sugar Extraction Lab, Tree Farm, Charcoal Factory, Uranium Enrichment Facility, Canteen, Gold Synthesis Lab, Ore Fracking Operation, and Rum Distillery. I think I have a reasonable balance going right now, but of course there are likely things that I have overlooked. If you find structures that need rebalanced because of this changed, either buffed or nerfed in some way, let me know in the comments to this post.
Now, while I was trying to figure out this new balance, it was actually quite difficult to do at the beginning, as My Colony 2 lacks detailed resource consumption/production stats like you would find in My Colony 1. At least it did lack those stats, as this update now adds a new Resources tab to the Statistics window!
As in My Colony 1, you can select each resource to see the breakdown on which buildings are providing/using a specific resource, which is a huge help when trying to work out and balance your settlement production levels.
Of course, the resource stats are not exactly, and cannot be exactly as they are in MC1, due to the nature of resource pools in MC2. Resources in this game are not kept per-player or even per settlement, but are rather stored in dynamic "pools" that can change as time goes on based on the existence of logistics stations, outposts and other such structures. This made putting together the stats collection and reporting a bit more difficult than it was in MC1, but it's mostly working here now. To view the stats of a resource pool, you have to move your camera/viewport to a settlement first, and you will be shown the stats for the resource pool that you are currently active in. At some point I will probably make it possible to view a list of all resource pools and which settlements they are connected to, I just have not gotten to it yet.
Moving along, this update brought a few big changes to roads, changes that I started working on a few updates ago and neglected to finish until now.
Firstly, roads with either production or consumption properties (such as the Solar Road) are now finally functional. Prior to this update, you could build a huge Solar Road network with 200 tiles, and it would only produce power based on the first tile placed. Now, they work as you would expect.
Next, Roads are now actually factored in to the path finder, and their "drive speed modification" stats now actually work! You may or may not have noticed, but before this update roads had basically no impact on what your Rovers did, other than providing an aesthetic look. Roads are now fully functional, and will work in basically the same manner as they do in MC1.
Finally, and maybe most importantly, you can no build roads (and some other structures) anywhere you want, no settlement required!
Wouldn't it be nice to build a big beautiful highway connecting all of your settlements together? You couldn't do it before, but you can now! Roads can now be built anywhere, as long as you have an appropriate Rover in range. The resources used to pay for the roads will come from your closest settlement to the road in question (the closes settlement owned by the player building the road). The only restriction is that you can not build a road in a chunk/settlement that is "owned" by another player.
The Game Editor now also allows you to specify other buildings, besides roads, that can be built out-of-settlement. The only one right now is the Commemorative Plaque, since I figured it would nice to be able to place signs along the side of your highways.
Moving along, I did a lot of focus and work on performance optimizations in this release. When a map had larger settlements, the game was starting to get so laggy (at least on my M1 Mac) that it was barely playable anymore, so something had to be done. Obviously there is always more performance work to be done, but here are some of the changes so far.
Firstly, I reduced the radius of chunks that are generated around the camera, and I lowered the time that it takes before the engine clears out chunks that are no longer active around the camera. This provides a pretty large reduction in memory usage when you are in a big settlement, as it can reduce the number of .vpp models loaded in memory significantly. At some point I will probably make this a setting in the Engine Settings window, so people with epic desktop computers and RTX video cards can turn their chunk render distance way up if they want to, but since most players right now are using a smart phone, I decided to lower the default setting.
Speaking of default settings, most of the "pretty" engine settings, such as Anti Aliasing, Depth of Field, Dynamic Shadows, Fancy Water, etc, are now turned off by default. These you can always just turn back on in the settings menu if your machine can handle them, but I wanted the default settings to be low so that a new player wont get in the game and immediately experience lag if they are using a lower end machine.
A lot of improvements have also been made to the server code, which runs on a separate thread from the renderer. There was a pretty big issue where the game server would lag down hard if you had a ton of rovers in your game, since every "tick" a rover checks to see if it should be building something or not. To address this, the server now keeps track of whether or not there are actually buildings under construction, and so Rovers will only check if they should be building when there is actually something to build. Makes sense, right?
Moving along, since the last update introduced the Excavator and digging, it basically became possible to turn the Desert World map into a little water world by digging out your own lakes and rivers. Because of this, it only made sense to allow all of the water based structures and units to be constructed on the desert map.
You are now free to terraform your Desert World map into the holiday paradise that your colonists have been yearning for.
Next up, this update adds the classic Crystalbot from MC1, and with it comes the ability to create and grow Synthetic Crystalline Deposits. Be careful though, because the Synthetic Crystalline is a cancer that is as aggressive as ever, so I would suggest not building it too close to your settlement...
My original inspiration for Crystalline (back in MC1) was the Tiberium from Command and Conquer, a substance that provides power but that also spreads and can become an environmental catastrophe. For this reason, you need to take extra precautions when dealing with the synthetic stuff, as it can easily get out of hand if you let it.
I think I mentioned earlier in this post that the Ancient Alien Microchip Factory has been added to the game. This along with the Crystalline stuff requires two new techs, Ancient Alien Manufacturing and Crystalline Synthesis. I also added the new Luxury Townhome, a decorative housing unit for Premium players.
Since I was on the topic of new Research, I will mention the final engine change to this update. Players who are either in a hurry or want to speed through a new game can now instant-unlock new research using Ape Coins. Like I mentioned in the last My Colony 1 release notes, I am going to be looking for better ways to monetize the My Colony games without resorting to heavy advertising, and this seemed like a reasonable way that is totally optional and does not fundamentally change the game for existing players.
So all in all, this was a pretty big update for My Colony 2. I would suggest that all players be careful when they first open their games after the update, and to comb over your settlements and their research stats, because there will probably be things you need to change, particularly if you have an older established colony.
Moving forward, my near-term plans are to continue expanding the Alien/Quantum tech trees. I am also going to be bringing a Galactic Board of Trade to My Colony 2 in some form (gotta work out the details on that one), and I will also probably be adding a Spice World (not related to the Spice Girls) to implement some of the Spice suggestions from @Architecture1134 and others. There is also a lot coming soon to the original My Colony and to Colony Wars, but more on those another day. All in all, a lot of excitement coming to the My Colony Universe of games, and I should probably put together another episode of the My Colony Podcast to discuss it all. But until then, check out the new update, enjoy, have a good weekend, let me know what issues you find or suggestions you have, and stay tuned for more!
https://www.apewebapps.com/my-colony-2/
#mycolony2
3. I am not sure how you are getting such a low production number (i.e. 20-40 regolith / min from a Regolith Extraction Inc.). Are you sure it isn't maybe staffed on-duty by 1-2 person only at the time of observation?
In any case, I monitored all my production buildings from time to time and compared them with the values in the Reference Table, and so far my various production buildings are always higher by the same constant (about 30-40%) when compared to the values in the Table which assumes 20 ticks/second. This is as expected, meaning that my ticks/second on the computer I play on is also faster by the same ratio. In any case, sorry I am not sure what is causing the resource yield in your game to be much lower than theoretical 20 ticks/second if fully staffed.
Discussing specific buildings you mentioned :
- Vertical Warehouse Farm is not bugged. Mine shows 8000 Food/min when staffed by 24 people on-duty out of total 35 slots, so that is as expected (again, my computer tick is higher than the assumed 20 ticks/second used in the table).
- Ore Zapper vs Regolith Extraction Inc gives the correct number. Remember Ore Zapper is only 1x1 in size and doesn't require workers, wile REI takes 9x the space while only having a bit higher yield, so Ore Zapper has much higher yield/tile. In endgame when all resources are produced in humongous quantity per second, yield/tile is the most important parameter for a production building as space is of paramount commodity. So what is the use for REI? It provides a midgame way to automate regolith production for colonies in asteroid/abandoned/lunar base instead of having to build Regolith mines over and over manually. In those worlds, you can't get Ore directly unlike in Red planets. You have to convert it from Regolith instead.
- As I mentioned before, there are at least 3 mid- and end-game buildings which has discrepancy between Reference data and in-game actual production, them being : Alien Plastic which you noticed as well, Tech Office, and Obsidian Furnace. The actual in-game production of these 3 buildings are multiplied by the worker quantity just like any other buildings requiring workers. This makes Alien Plastic being much better than Advanced Plastic Factory as it should be, Tech Office being second best money production building after endgame Star Port, and Obsidian Furnace being higher than listed. This has been discussed by the awesome owner of the Coloniae Reference (and Coloniae itself) Sobe and the developer Bast, and so far there is no clear solution why the database the Table pulls from is different from the actual in-game stat. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor and there are much much more pressing bugs and issues to fix by the developer though. Unfortunately I have barely any knowledge about database and coding to try to analyze the issue, and Sobe has done a lot to make a new Reference which can automatically updates itself, after the old Reference had been abandoned by the previous contributor.
4. Just a tip, I personally don't think Arcology is a useful building to have, as 7000 of the colonists are tied in useless job slot which doesn't yield anything much. Fantasy Land Arcology is a different story though. If you have an abundance of resources to be used for testing and such, please feel free to proceed however, but not if you are still strapped on midgame resources.
5. In short yes, a colonist will have fixed workplace and residential place once it arrives and gets assigned a job. In reality, there are more complex dynamics involved which I don't fully understand especially when residential buildings are sold or destroyed, or the current workplace is sold or destroyed.
We are all thankful for Relic Studies, especially it is chilling to know that for the first year and more of the game, there was no Relic Studies and every endgame player was stuck on spamming UDDs and Alum generators till the end of the map.
About your balance concerns :
- Yes, Food Processing Sweatshop pretty much produces that much and will blow all other Food production buildings out of the water, because planets other than Sugar World have ways to produce Sugar as well.
- Maybe you have not seen the Research Converter, but it pretty much is the endgame production building you need to spam for 20 or so different resources.
- As for the Alien Enrichment Facility, it was a pretty decent upgrade when considering what players had for Alien Artifacts and Aluminum back then before the introduction of Relic Studies. It made Uranium much easier to get than the other 2. We wish all Alien Tech is such a big upgrade like it is for Steel, Gold, and Microchip, but alas it is not so. Now with powercreep, you have Research Converter which blows Alien Enrichment out of the water for Uranium and many other resources.
In any case, I monitored all my production buildings from time to time and compared them with the values in the Reference Table, and so far my various production buildings are always higher by the same constant (about 30-40%) when compared to the values in the Table which assumes 20 ticks/second. This is as expected, meaning that my ticks/second on the computer I play on is also faster by the same ratio. In any case, sorry I am not sure what is causing the resource yield in your game to be much lower than theoretical 20 ticks/second if fully staffed.
Discussing specific buildings you mentioned :
- Vertical Warehouse Farm is not bugged. Mine shows 8000 Food/min when staffed by 24 people on-duty out of total 35 slots, so that is as expected (again, my computer tick is higher than the assumed 20 ticks/second used in the table).
- Ore Zapper vs Regolith Extraction Inc gives the correct number. Remember Ore Zapper is only 1x1 in size and doesn't require workers, wile REI takes 9x the space while only having a bit higher yield, so Ore Zapper has much higher yield/tile. In endgame when all resources are produced in humongous quantity per second, yield/tile is the most important parameter for a production building as space is of paramount commodity. So what is the use for REI? It provides a midgame way to automate regolith production for colonies in asteroid/abandoned/lunar base instead of having to build Regolith mines over and over manually. In those worlds, you can't get Ore directly unlike in Red planets. You have to convert it from Regolith instead.
- As I mentioned before, there are at least 3 mid- and end-game buildings which has discrepancy between Reference data and in-game actual production, them being : Alien Plastic which you noticed as well, Tech Office, and Obsidian Furnace. The actual in-game production of these 3 buildings are multiplied by the worker quantity just like any other buildings requiring workers. This makes Alien Plastic being much better than Advanced Plastic Factory as it should be, Tech Office being second best money production building after endgame Star Port, and Obsidian Furnace being higher than listed. This has been discussed by the awesome owner of the Coloniae Reference (and Coloniae itself) Sobe and the developer Bast, and so far there is no clear solution why the database the Table pulls from is different from the actual in-game stat. In the grand scheme of things, this is very minor and there are much much more pressing bugs and issues to fix by the developer though. Unfortunately I have barely any knowledge about database and coding to try to analyze the issue, and Sobe has done a lot to make a new Reference which can automatically updates itself, after the old Reference had been abandoned by the previous contributor.
4. Just a tip, I personally don't think Arcology is a useful building to have, as 7000 of the colonists are tied in useless job slot which doesn't yield anything much. Fantasy Land Arcology is a different story though. If you have an abundance of resources to be used for testing and such, please feel free to proceed however, but not if you are still strapped on midgame resources.
5. In short yes, a colonist will have fixed workplace and residential place once it arrives and gets assigned a job. In reality, there are more complex dynamics involved which I don't fully understand especially when residential buildings are sold or destroyed, or the current workplace is sold or destroyed.
We are all thankful for Relic Studies, especially it is chilling to know that for the first year and more of the game, there was no Relic Studies and every endgame player was stuck on spamming UDDs and Alum generators till the end of the map.
About your balance concerns :
- Yes, Food Processing Sweatshop pretty much produces that much and will blow all other Food production buildings out of the water, because planets other than Sugar World have ways to produce Sugar as well.
- Maybe you have not seen the Research Converter, but it pretty much is the endgame production building you need to spam for 20 or so different resources.
- As for the Alien Enrichment Facility, it was a pretty decent upgrade when considering what players had for Alien Artifacts and Aluminum back then before the introduction of Relic Studies. It made Uranium much easier to get than the other 2. We wish all Alien Tech is such a big upgrade like it is for Steel, Gold, and Microchip, but alas it is not so. Now with powercreep, you have Research Converter which blows Alien Enrichment out of the water for Uranium and many other resources.
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| Forum | DillGuy9
Index > Forum > Games > My Colony > Game Ideas, Suggestions, and Feedback
New Reply
[Poll] New Alien Tech
DillGuy9 #1 2018-02-27 22:21:40
I've looked through the encyclopedia, and noticed that there is no Ancient Alien Atmosphere Generator, or even a direct upgrade to the Medium Atmosphere Generator.
New Tech- Advanced Terraforming
Once your Atmosphere Condensors begin to drain your atmosphere, or you need to get it up very quickly, look to the Ancients and advanced human ingenuity for solutions.
Large Atmosphere Generator-
Consumes 500 power and a constant stream of Helium 3 to create lots of atmosphere. 1 by 1 25000o, 25000g, 15000s, 5000mc, 2500al, 2500h3;
Ancient Alien Atmosphere Generator-
Unlock the terraforming secrets of the Ancients to create unholy amounts of atmosphere. Cosumes Helium 3, Alien Artifacts, robots, and water. 1000 power 1 by 1 25000o, 25000g, 15000s, 10000mc, 5000al, 100r, 25ar, 5000h3, 250u;
Ancient Alien Terraforming Facility-
An upgrade to the Bacteria Farm. A partially automated facility that takes atmosphere, Helium 3, Water, and Oil and combines them over a vat of uranium and Ancient Alien Artifacts to create unheard amounts of atmosphere. 25 workers and consumes robots, uranium, artifacts, helium 3, water, atmosphere, oil, and water. 2 by 3 100000o, 35000g, 25000mc, 50000s, 10000al, 250ar, 65000h3, 5000u, 1000r, 2500oi, and 25000w;
Thanks! More will be added. Keep adding!
| Forum | DillGuy9
Index > Forum > Games > My Colony > Game Ideas, Suggestions, and Feedback
New Reply
[Poll] New Alien Tech
DillGuy9 #1 2018-02-27 22:21:40
I've looked through the encyclopedia, and noticed that there is no Ancient Alien Atmosphere Generator, or even a direct upgrade to the Medium Atmosphere Generator.
New Tech- Advanced Terraforming
Once your Atmosphere Condensors begin to drain your atmosphere, or you need to get it up very quickly, look to the Ancients and advanced human ingenuity for solutions.
Large Atmosphere Generator-
Consumes 500 power and a constant stream of Helium 3 to create lots of atmosphere. 1 by 1 25000o, 25000g, 15000s, 5000mc, 2500al, 2500h3;
Ancient Alien Atmosphere Generator-
Unlock the terraforming secrets of the Ancients to create unholy amounts of atmosphere. Cosumes Helium 3, Alien Artifacts, robots, and water. 1000 power 1 by 1 25000o, 25000g, 15000s, 10000mc, 5000al, 100r, 25ar, 5000h3, 250u;
Ancient Alien Terraforming Facility-
An upgrade to the Bacteria Farm. A partially automated facility that takes atmosphere, Helium 3, Water, and Oil and combines them over a vat of uranium and Ancient Alien Artifacts to create unheard amounts of atmosphere. 25 workers and consumes robots, uranium, artifacts, helium 3, water, atmosphere, oil, and water. 2 by 3 100000o, 35000g, 25000mc, 50000s, 10000al, 250ar, 65000h3, 5000u, 1000r, 2500oi, and 25000w;
Thanks! More will be added. Keep adding!
Today I am releasing the total rewrite of Epic Adventure to all available platforms. Under the hood, Epic Adventure v3.0 is basically an entire different game. What I did was write a new game engine from scratch, designed to go hand in hand with Pixel Paint based graphics (the way My Colony 2 was designed around Voxel Paint), and then I remade Epic Adventure using the new engine. This is just the first step in an "epic" new chapter for Epic Adventure though, so let's get into it!
Putting the actual Epic Adventure game aside for just a second, my ultimate goal with this new engine (called simply the "Adventure Engine") was to create an easy to develop for pixel art based engine that can be primarily be used for both scripted and procedurally generated RPG type games. I designed it to be generic enough to where multiple types of games can be created on it. For instance, I plan to use it also for my next generation of Roguelike games (ie Gone Rogue/Hell and Back), and I also want to do a scripted RPG taking place in the My Colony Universe where you have a ship and travel to different worlds throughout the story (I am thinking of calling that Colony Quest or something similar, sort of like a 2d pixel art Starfield type game in the MC Universe).
All that is for another day though, today I want to talk about the changes to Epic Adventure in this new release, and what is coming soon to the game in the months ahead.
First for the bad news. Because the game is a complete rewrite, all existing save games are gone. Sadly there was no way around this, as the old game format is not even relevant anymore to the new engine. It had to be done though in order to move the game forward, and I think most people will agree that it was worth it as the game now progresses.
Epic Adventure is now the first game to utilize the new Tiny Pixel Token class of token character from the My Tokens app, which has been around for a while now but is now finally getting some utilization.
Game controls have been altered a bit from the previous releases, but I think most players should be able to adapt fairly quickly. On mobile, the game now utilizes two virtual thumbsticks for movement, with the left stick controlling player movement and the right controlling focus direction. The game now has full gamepad support as well. On a desktop device, the controls are a little more similar to how they used to be, except for now you can move your character with keyboard input, using either WASD keys, the regular arrow keys, or the num pad.
The game now has support for chests, allowing you to store a lot more inventory than you could before. The engine also supports finding hidden chests out in the environment that can contain loot, even things you can't craft yourself, but you will not find any until the next update (since I don't have any biomes programmed in that contain them yet).
Epic Adventure now also included enemies! Yes the game did have chickens before (and still does), but they did not really attack you or fight back. Now when you adventure into the caves, you will come across evil spiders who will attack you on sight. The spiders aren't all that powerful, but don't get too complacent because in the coming updates, there will be a lot more than just spiders to contend with...
The long requested feature of Water has arrived in this release, but stay tuned because it is going to be expanded on more later...
For this initial release of the new engine, my primary goal was to code in all of the features needed to bring in every item/terrain/biome/mechanic found in the original Epic Adventure game so that nothing was missing in the update, and I do think that I was able to get there (let me know if I forgot something). The next step though is to start going far beyond what was ever available in the original game, which I am going to talk about in just a moment here.
First though, one think I want to point out is that I forgot to implement the inventory filtering mechanic in this update. You will be able to see in the inventory window what you will eventually be able to do, I just do not have it working yet (but will soon).
The great thing about the new Epic Adventure engine is how easy it is to create content for, both in terms of code and graphics. Because of this, the game is going to now be expanding fairly rapidly, and of course I will always take player feedback and suggestions into account as I build out the game. I do have some of my own ideas though, so this is what I plan on adding to Epic Adventure in the next few releases:
Dungeons
This is probably the next thing on the list, because I have always wanted to have dungeons available to explore in Epic Adventure. These will of course be randomly generated by the game, so that no two dungeons are ever the same, and you will be able to find both loot and monsters in the dungeons that are not available anywhere else. Dungeons will also have the possibility of spawning a nice boss fight for you on the bottom floor.
Towns/NPCs
Along with Dungeons, a good adventure game needs to have towns, good save areas you can travel to in order to rest, pawn off your loot, and get quests. I will talk more about towns and NPCs later, but I will say that I am working on a system of "factions" where different NPCs are part of different factions, and how much they like you will be impacted by that. You will also be able to join different factions, which will impact how your game progresses. I am thinking along the lines of the guilds and whatnot in the Elder Scrolls games.
Travel/Mounts/Boats
There needs to be a way to get around faster in the game, especially as you need to start questing between towns. I am thinking of several mechanics to handle this. First, I think each town will have a sort of fast travel agency, where you can pay gold (which means gold is also on the way) to travel from town to town. I also want to add the ability to ride horses, or to build a boat so that I can introduce full ocean biomes that you can sail across.
Armor, Magic, Projectiles
To help players on their adventures, we are going to need to have better weapons, armor to wear, projectiles to shoot, and magic spells. I plan on adding all of that and more...
Massive Content Expansion
With every update from here on, there will be new content, biomes, items, terrains, mobs, etc. I am probably also going to start introducing some items that require Premium in order to craft, since the game is free with no ads in it, I do need to find some way to make a bit of money on it. But for real, the game is so easy to code content for, you can expect a lot to be coming very soon.
At the end of the day, this is a new beginning for Epic Adventure, and I think the game will now finally be able to reach a potential that it was not able to attain before. Since the engine is still in it's infancy, please let me know what bugs and issues you find, and how I can improve the interface and controls. Also let me know what new content you want to see added, as it will be coming on a fairly regular basis now.
Thank you to those who have played the game in it's original form though, and I am so sorry for nuking all of your save games. But I promise that I will make the game worth the changes in the weeks and months ahead!
https://epicadventure.ape-apps.com/
#epicadventure #pixelpaint #mytokens
Putting the actual Epic Adventure game aside for just a second, my ultimate goal with this new engine (called simply the "Adventure Engine") was to create an easy to develop for pixel art based engine that can be primarily be used for both scripted and procedurally generated RPG type games. I designed it to be generic enough to where multiple types of games can be created on it. For instance, I plan to use it also for my next generation of Roguelike games (ie Gone Rogue/Hell and Back), and I also want to do a scripted RPG taking place in the My Colony Universe where you have a ship and travel to different worlds throughout the story (I am thinking of calling that Colony Quest or something similar, sort of like a 2d pixel art Starfield type game in the MC Universe).
All that is for another day though, today I want to talk about the changes to Epic Adventure in this new release, and what is coming soon to the game in the months ahead.
First for the bad news. Because the game is a complete rewrite, all existing save games are gone. Sadly there was no way around this, as the old game format is not even relevant anymore to the new engine. It had to be done though in order to move the game forward, and I think most people will agree that it was worth it as the game now progresses.
Epic Adventure is now the first game to utilize the new Tiny Pixel Token class of token character from the My Tokens app, which has been around for a while now but is now finally getting some utilization.
Game controls have been altered a bit from the previous releases, but I think most players should be able to adapt fairly quickly. On mobile, the game now utilizes two virtual thumbsticks for movement, with the left stick controlling player movement and the right controlling focus direction. The game now has full gamepad support as well. On a desktop device, the controls are a little more similar to how they used to be, except for now you can move your character with keyboard input, using either WASD keys, the regular arrow keys, or the num pad.
The game now has support for chests, allowing you to store a lot more inventory than you could before. The engine also supports finding hidden chests out in the environment that can contain loot, even things you can't craft yourself, but you will not find any until the next update (since I don't have any biomes programmed in that contain them yet).
Epic Adventure now also included enemies! Yes the game did have chickens before (and still does), but they did not really attack you or fight back. Now when you adventure into the caves, you will come across evil spiders who will attack you on sight. The spiders aren't all that powerful, but don't get too complacent because in the coming updates, there will be a lot more than just spiders to contend with...
The long requested feature of Water has arrived in this release, but stay tuned because it is going to be expanded on more later...
For this initial release of the new engine, my primary goal was to code in all of the features needed to bring in every item/terrain/biome/mechanic found in the original Epic Adventure game so that nothing was missing in the update, and I do think that I was able to get there (let me know if I forgot something). The next step though is to start going far beyond what was ever available in the original game, which I am going to talk about in just a moment here.
First though, one think I want to point out is that I forgot to implement the inventory filtering mechanic in this update. You will be able to see in the inventory window what you will eventually be able to do, I just do not have it working yet (but will soon).
The great thing about the new Epic Adventure engine is how easy it is to create content for, both in terms of code and graphics. Because of this, the game is going to now be expanding fairly rapidly, and of course I will always take player feedback and suggestions into account as I build out the game. I do have some of my own ideas though, so this is what I plan on adding to Epic Adventure in the next few releases:
Dungeons
This is probably the next thing on the list, because I have always wanted to have dungeons available to explore in Epic Adventure. These will of course be randomly generated by the game, so that no two dungeons are ever the same, and you will be able to find both loot and monsters in the dungeons that are not available anywhere else. Dungeons will also have the possibility of spawning a nice boss fight for you on the bottom floor.
Towns/NPCs
Along with Dungeons, a good adventure game needs to have towns, good save areas you can travel to in order to rest, pawn off your loot, and get quests. I will talk more about towns and NPCs later, but I will say that I am working on a system of "factions" where different NPCs are part of different factions, and how much they like you will be impacted by that. You will also be able to join different factions, which will impact how your game progresses. I am thinking along the lines of the guilds and whatnot in the Elder Scrolls games.
Travel/Mounts/Boats
There needs to be a way to get around faster in the game, especially as you need to start questing between towns. I am thinking of several mechanics to handle this. First, I think each town will have a sort of fast travel agency, where you can pay gold (which means gold is also on the way) to travel from town to town. I also want to add the ability to ride horses, or to build a boat so that I can introduce full ocean biomes that you can sail across.
Armor, Magic, Projectiles
To help players on their adventures, we are going to need to have better weapons, armor to wear, projectiles to shoot, and magic spells. I plan on adding all of that and more...
Massive Content Expansion
With every update from here on, there will be new content, biomes, items, terrains, mobs, etc. I am probably also going to start introducing some items that require Premium in order to craft, since the game is free with no ads in it, I do need to find some way to make a bit of money on it. But for real, the game is so easy to code content for, you can expect a lot to be coming very soon.
At the end of the day, this is a new beginning for Epic Adventure, and I think the game will now finally be able to reach a potential that it was not able to attain before. Since the engine is still in it's infancy, please let me know what bugs and issues you find, and how I can improve the interface and controls. Also let me know what new content you want to see added, as it will be coming on a fairly regular basis now.
Thank you to those who have played the game in it's original form though, and I am so sorry for nuking all of your save games. But I promise that I will make the game worth the changes in the weeks and months ahead!
https://epicadventure.ape-apps.com/
#epicadventure #pixelpaint #mytokens
You nailed the color scheme, but personally I think the structures should be a bit more differentiation given that they're part of a very unique and important tech. So far, all of the alien stuff in game has an artifact motif; that along with more wires and machinery on the outside would improve the looks a lot. In My Colony, newer alien structures which have no previous derivatives also tend to be rather tall and follow simple geometric designs, and it would be awesome to see something like this in MC2. Finally, based on the existing Alien Microchip Factory, you might want to set your windows to ordinary blue, though the magenta would make for good detailing. Remember, don't just make it alien, make it ALIEN! :)
spamdude said:You nailed the color scheme, but personally I think the structures should be a bit more differentiation given that they're part of a very unique and important tech. So far, all of the alien stuff in game has an artifact motif; that along with more wires and machinery on the outside would improve the looks a lot. In My Colony, newer alien structures which have no previous derivatives also tend to be rather tall and follow simple geometric designs, and it would be awesome to see something like this in MC2. Finally, based on the existing Alien Microchip Factory, you might want to set your windows to ordinary blue, though the magenta would make for good detailing. Remember, don't just make it alien, make it ALIEN! :)
Thanks for the advice, I will get to work on that right now! I really appreciate the constructive criticism!
After the ancient alien gold synthesis lab was added I realised that most advanced versions of resource producing buildings now had an ancient alien version, making it easier for advanced players to get the tons of resources that they needed. But, after a certain point, your demand for plastic rises a lot because you need it for the triantanium refinery and since it isn't available on the stargate you will need to make a lot of advanced plastic factories that will fill up most of your space.
So, perhaps in the next update an ancient alien plastic factory could be added to help more advanced players get more plastic faster.
This version of the plastic factory could still use robots besides all the other materials needed (such as oil, uranium or alien artifacts).
It could also be as if not more expensive than the alien enritchment facility to not make it so overpowered.
Or simply make the plastic resource available on the stargate.
So, perhaps in the next update an ancient alien plastic factory could be added to help more advanced players get more plastic faster.
This version of the plastic factory could still use robots besides all the other materials needed (such as oil, uranium or alien artifacts).
It could also be as if not more expensive than the alien enritchment facility to not make it so overpowered.
Or simply make the plastic resource available on the stargate.
Hello! Recently @GeneralWadaling had posted some new models, including some for the Gold Synthesis Lab and a potential Advanced Gold Synthesis Lab. Seeing these models and loving them, I had decided to make an Alien Gold Synthesis Lab remake. No, @SPARKY0303 , this is not a truely alien building, but rather it is a Human adaptation of said technology. It follows a simple theme which I personally am quite fond of. Alien Models are naturally going to appear a bit lazy, as the traditional alien pathway from MC1 was a bit lazy. Consistency matters, therefore this model exists. I do plan on updating my Alien Uranium Enrichment Facility to match Wadaling's Uranium Enrichment Facility.
Since we have Alien Solar Towers, I thought it would be fitting to add in Alien Solar Roads as well. This will make some good use of any spare Alien Artifacts that we have lying around as well.
I see a lot of things missing for zolarg, although I'm still able to play the game to some extent. I feel like there are many resources that need alien or unholy versions. Below are some resources that I think need a better way to produce them:
Food: food is ridiculous, you need an entire small map full of the food fortification plants just to support 40-50k colonists over several maps. Humans can do much better as they have the tall farms that produce 500 food every couple of seconds, or the food processing factories that just spew out food.
water: just like food, you end up having to create an entire small map filled with these things in order to support your colony as it grows. Eventually, I'll end up needing another map full of them. This definitely needs to change. Humans can produce an overwhelming amount of water in end-game, even to the point of causing the atmosphere to plummet, why should zolarg be stuck with such an inferior water production
Ant paste: This one too, I have a map full of paste mixers and they still don't produce very much ant paste. Usually with basic resources like this you can usually get to the point where you produce more than you can use in just one small map, but these paste mixers are the devil in end-game.
Antanium: This one too depletes very fast even with a small map filled with them, but not nearly as fast an ant paste. Still, ant paste is for zolarg what steel is to humans, and we have a steel alien factory, so I think these should have an alien counterpart as well.
Aluminum: I think it would be nice if zolarg got their own unique alien aluminum gen that took antanium to generate aluminum. UCM's can churn out aluminum, if you build an entire medium map full of them that is. Who has time to build that many? And don't tell me that we can just build mines, because humans can generate everything automatically at end-game, and there's nothing they can't mass produce.
Wood: we're still stuck in the dark ages with wood, growing and cutting down mega trees like an idle champ I am. My idea in the "fleshing out zolarg" thread in the ideas forum mentions a building that can combine paste, cloth, and antaura to make wood. I personally don't care how much @basteklein makes this thing produce as wood isn't too high in demand, we just need a way to automate that resource so we don't have to keep resorting to mega-trees.
housing: I feel like better housing is in order. The worship mounds do the trick but you have to spam them.
Colonists: We need a better way to get colonists faster. Perhaps in bigger housing, colonists could be produced quicker.
Importing/exporting: zolarg need the third and fourth tier customs centers. I recoomend the fourth being some sort of mystic gate that acts just like the stargate and consumes antaura. But zolarg really need to be able to export more than 1k resources at a time, especially if you're trying to prepare for a medium-map sized project and need several million of each resource and you have the money to import those resources.
Starships: We have the tech, but we don't have the means. This is the end of the game currently, and I feel like it should be more like the halfway point.
triantanium: I could've swore that zolarg were the first to get triantanium, yet I can't find any buildings for zolarg that produce it. I'd say that we should be able to produce it at some point. After all, zolarg invented antanium.
Charcoal,plastic,steel, robots, toys, paintings, brick, pottery, microchips, and instructions are all missing from zolarg. I feel like zolarg could use a lot of these in their own ways, but I also think that they shouldn't have access to everything that humans do, or else playing them would be just the same as playing humans in end-game. still, at least some of these resources would be useful.
I also feel like some of the resources in the game are lacking in ways to use them, so I just sell those to make money as I get them or gift them to my other colonies.
That's all I have for now, but I'm pretty sure I can come up with more if i think further about it. Those were the major areas anyway. i realize that zolarg are still under construction, so I understand why these aren't in the game, but I feel like zolarg has been put off for too long, and it may be one of the things that is causing the lack of interest from people of late. I recommend finishing them before doing anything extensive on reptilians side as people that have zolarg colonies have been waiting much longer than reptilian colonies have.
Food: food is ridiculous, you need an entire small map full of the food fortification plants just to support 40-50k colonists over several maps. Humans can do much better as they have the tall farms that produce 500 food every couple of seconds, or the food processing factories that just spew out food.
water: just like food, you end up having to create an entire small map filled with these things in order to support your colony as it grows. Eventually, I'll end up needing another map full of them. This definitely needs to change. Humans can produce an overwhelming amount of water in end-game, even to the point of causing the atmosphere to plummet, why should zolarg be stuck with such an inferior water production
Ant paste: This one too, I have a map full of paste mixers and they still don't produce very much ant paste. Usually with basic resources like this you can usually get to the point where you produce more than you can use in just one small map, but these paste mixers are the devil in end-game.
Antanium: This one too depletes very fast even with a small map filled with them, but not nearly as fast an ant paste. Still, ant paste is for zolarg what steel is to humans, and we have a steel alien factory, so I think these should have an alien counterpart as well.
Aluminum: I think it would be nice if zolarg got their own unique alien aluminum gen that took antanium to generate aluminum. UCM's can churn out aluminum, if you build an entire medium map full of them that is. Who has time to build that many? And don't tell me that we can just build mines, because humans can generate everything automatically at end-game, and there's nothing they can't mass produce.
Wood: we're still stuck in the dark ages with wood, growing and cutting down mega trees like an idle champ I am. My idea in the "fleshing out zolarg" thread in the ideas forum mentions a building that can combine paste, cloth, and antaura to make wood. I personally don't care how much @basteklein makes this thing produce as wood isn't too high in demand, we just need a way to automate that resource so we don't have to keep resorting to mega-trees.
housing: I feel like better housing is in order. The worship mounds do the trick but you have to spam them.
Colonists: We need a better way to get colonists faster. Perhaps in bigger housing, colonists could be produced quicker.
Importing/exporting: zolarg need the third and fourth tier customs centers. I recoomend the fourth being some sort of mystic gate that acts just like the stargate and consumes antaura. But zolarg really need to be able to export more than 1k resources at a time, especially if you're trying to prepare for a medium-map sized project and need several million of each resource and you have the money to import those resources.
Starships: We have the tech, but we don't have the means. This is the end of the game currently, and I feel like it should be more like the halfway point.
triantanium: I could've swore that zolarg were the first to get triantanium, yet I can't find any buildings for zolarg that produce it. I'd say that we should be able to produce it at some point. After all, zolarg invented antanium.
Charcoal,plastic,steel, robots, toys, paintings, brick, pottery, microchips, and instructions are all missing from zolarg. I feel like zolarg could use a lot of these in their own ways, but I also think that they shouldn't have access to everything that humans do, or else playing them would be just the same as playing humans in end-game. still, at least some of these resources would be useful.
I also feel like some of the resources in the game are lacking in ways to use them, so I just sell those to make money as I get them or gift them to my other colonies.
That's all I have for now, but I'm pretty sure I can come up with more if i think further about it. Those were the major areas anyway. i realize that zolarg are still under construction, so I understand why these aren't in the game, but I feel like zolarg has been put off for too long, and it may be one of the things that is causing the lack of interest from people of late. I recommend finishing them before doing anything extensive on reptilians side as people that have zolarg colonies have been waiting much longer than reptilian colonies have.
My Colony 2 has just been updated to v0.33.0 on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher and should be hitting other platforms over the weekend. There are some changes and some goodies packed into this release, so let's take a look at what is new!
To start off, base defenses have now arrived in My Colony 2 with the addition of the Pillbox and the Security Wall Pillbox (Pillbox texture by @GeneralWadaling )! Over the last few weeks, a certain user on MC2 online (whose name shall go unmentioned) has been rampaging through several dedicated servers with unprovoked attacks on settlements whose users have been offline. This highlighted the need for some updates to the game that should help address this problem, and one of those changes are the new base defensive structures that you can now construct around your settlement.
In addition, there have been cost increases to the military units in the game (the Infantry, Main Battle Tank and Patrol Boat). All three military units now require Money to build. As money is slower to come by at the beginning of the game, it should put a halt on being able to join a server and just spam thousands of infantry units right off the bat. In addition though, Infantry units now each cost you 1 population to build, so every time you build an infantry unit, your settlement population will go down by one (since he was drafted into service). This should likewise put a cap to mass infantry spamming, as you now actually need both the economy and the population to back an army up.
Some additional server admin settings have been added to the Statistics window. Now server admins can set a user account blacklist, so that if there is a user out there known for greifing servers, you can pre-ban him or her before they have a chance to trash your server. You can also set a Message of the Day that players will see when they sign in to your server.
I have also expanded the game Credits section (found in the Encyclopedia). When you select a username in the credits, you will now see more detailed information on all of the items they have contributed to the game.
I have also added a new engine setting, which you can find under the Tweaks section. You can now toggle on and off a grid that will be drawn over the ground tiles, which may make placing structures easier on a touch screen device. It looks like this when activated:
New content has arrived in this update as well, starting with the Low Gravity Masonry tech, which brings with it the long await Brick Factory and the regular and Yellow Brick Roads (brick texture provided by @SPARKY0303 )!
The Brick Roads utilize a new feature which you will find in the game editor, allowing you to use a Pixel Paint file (*.ppp from https://pixelpaint.online/, the 2D cousin to Voxel Paint) as a road texture. For best results, use a 16x16 Pixel Paint file. I should mention that the game editor also now lets you export packaged Voxel Paint models (which you previously could not do).
@spamdude provided a model for a new Ether Sanitation Plant in this update, converting Ether into Water and Uranium. Thanks to @therealchromedino we get two new Alien tech structures too, the Alien Enrichment Facility and the Ancient Alien Ore Refinery!
There are also two new Sugar production plants available in this update, the Integrated Sugar Lab (model by @SPARKY0303 ) and the Sugar Factory (model by @therealchromedino ). The First is a simple upgrade to the existing Sugar Extraction Lab. The second is a large facility that makes large amounts of Sugar, and also produces a bit of Helium-3 as a production byproduct, since we always need more He3 production.
Finally for new content, some of you in the forums and on the Discord know that I have been talking about adding a Star Gate to MC2. I know some people disagree since I said that MC2 is more of a prequel to MC1, but to me that is all irrelevant, since in both games you start out with no tech and you do research to advance into further ages, so timeline in this type of game is largely irrelevant. But that is neither here nor there, because before I can add the Star Gate from MC1, I need the tech to back it up, so in this update, I have added two additional techs, Artificial Intelligence and Transcendence! The AI tech is pretty easily obtainable and allows you to build the new Center for Artificial Learning.
This is a building that I wanted to make about twice as tall as it is, but my Voxel Paint was lagging out while I was making it, so it is what it is. Maybe I will revisit the model later, but it is fine for the time being.
Transcendence is a super expensive tech in MC1, and the same applies in MC2. Right now nothing happens when you research it, but major props for the first player who gets it. It costs 750m research, and maybe one of the larger worlds already has that, but I added the tech in the game to prepare the way for things to come :-)
Finally, I added a Regolith Synthesis Lab to the game, since we already have labs for Gold and Ore, and you need Regolith to build Helium-3 storage tanks, so it made sense.
In addition to the new stuff though, I have also buffed the existing Gold Extractor and the Gold Synthesis Lab. In addition, I also fixed a bug where building upgrades were not working properly. There were some other bugs I fixed as well, but I forgot what they were. But at least they are fixed!
I think that is all for this update, maybe there is more that you will find in there as well! Over the next few weeks I will be finishing up a new My Colony Universe game called Terra Nova 4X but after that I will be back to more exciting My Colony 2 content, so thanks to all who are playing and contributing to the game, and stay tuned for more to come!
#mycolony2
To start off, base defenses have now arrived in My Colony 2 with the addition of the Pillbox and the Security Wall Pillbox (Pillbox texture by @GeneralWadaling )! Over the last few weeks, a certain user on MC2 online (whose name shall go unmentioned) has been rampaging through several dedicated servers with unprovoked attacks on settlements whose users have been offline. This highlighted the need for some updates to the game that should help address this problem, and one of those changes are the new base defensive structures that you can now construct around your settlement.
In addition, there have been cost increases to the military units in the game (the Infantry, Main Battle Tank and Patrol Boat). All three military units now require Money to build. As money is slower to come by at the beginning of the game, it should put a halt on being able to join a server and just spam thousands of infantry units right off the bat. In addition though, Infantry units now each cost you 1 population to build, so every time you build an infantry unit, your settlement population will go down by one (since he was drafted into service). This should likewise put a cap to mass infantry spamming, as you now actually need both the economy and the population to back an army up.
Some additional server admin settings have been added to the Statistics window. Now server admins can set a user account blacklist, so that if there is a user out there known for greifing servers, you can pre-ban him or her before they have a chance to trash your server. You can also set a Message of the Day that players will see when they sign in to your server.
I have also expanded the game Credits section (found in the Encyclopedia). When you select a username in the credits, you will now see more detailed information on all of the items they have contributed to the game.
I have also added a new engine setting, which you can find under the Tweaks section. You can now toggle on and off a grid that will be drawn over the ground tiles, which may make placing structures easier on a touch screen device. It looks like this when activated:
New content has arrived in this update as well, starting with the Low Gravity Masonry tech, which brings with it the long await Brick Factory and the regular and Yellow Brick Roads (brick texture provided by @SPARKY0303 )!
The Brick Roads utilize a new feature which you will find in the game editor, allowing you to use a Pixel Paint file (*.ppp from https://pixelpaint.online/, the 2D cousin to Voxel Paint) as a road texture. For best results, use a 16x16 Pixel Paint file. I should mention that the game editor also now lets you export packaged Voxel Paint models (which you previously could not do).
@spamdude provided a model for a new Ether Sanitation Plant in this update, converting Ether into Water and Uranium. Thanks to @therealchromedino we get two new Alien tech structures too, the Alien Enrichment Facility and the Ancient Alien Ore Refinery!
There are also two new Sugar production plants available in this update, the Integrated Sugar Lab (model by @SPARKY0303 ) and the Sugar Factory (model by @therealchromedino ). The First is a simple upgrade to the existing Sugar Extraction Lab. The second is a large facility that makes large amounts of Sugar, and also produces a bit of Helium-3 as a production byproduct, since we always need more He3 production.
Finally for new content, some of you in the forums and on the Discord know that I have been talking about adding a Star Gate to MC2. I know some people disagree since I said that MC2 is more of a prequel to MC1, but to me that is all irrelevant, since in both games you start out with no tech and you do research to advance into further ages, so timeline in this type of game is largely irrelevant. But that is neither here nor there, because before I can add the Star Gate from MC1, I need the tech to back it up, so in this update, I have added two additional techs, Artificial Intelligence and Transcendence! The AI tech is pretty easily obtainable and allows you to build the new Center for Artificial Learning.
This is a building that I wanted to make about twice as tall as it is, but my Voxel Paint was lagging out while I was making it, so it is what it is. Maybe I will revisit the model later, but it is fine for the time being.
Transcendence is a super expensive tech in MC1, and the same applies in MC2. Right now nothing happens when you research it, but major props for the first player who gets it. It costs 750m research, and maybe one of the larger worlds already has that, but I added the tech in the game to prepare the way for things to come :-)
Finally, I added a Regolith Synthesis Lab to the game, since we already have labs for Gold and Ore, and you need Regolith to build Helium-3 storage tanks, so it made sense.
In addition to the new stuff though, I have also buffed the existing Gold Extractor and the Gold Synthesis Lab. In addition, I also fixed a bug where building upgrades were not working properly. There were some other bugs I fixed as well, but I forgot what they were. But at least they are fixed!
I think that is all for this update, maybe there is more that you will find in there as well! Over the next few weeks I will be finishing up a new My Colony Universe game called Terra Nova 4X but after that I will be back to more exciting My Colony 2 content, so thanks to all who are playing and contributing to the game, and stay tuned for more to come!
#mycolony2
Thanks for the detailed reply!
1. Tick/s: I estimated the tick/s based on buildings that don't need workers and have a constant production rate. The game was slow at that point. I am on abandoned world and there was a huge expanding forest of sugarcane. I tried to contain them with roads. I did a Fire Drill as well. Whichever the reason, the game was improved. Based on my new Triantanium refinery, it's about 22tick/s (based on 0.65ta/min). It still goes down to below 0.4ta/min from time to time, but it's okay. I should do a smaller map on mobile next time. Anyway, I should have mentioned that I know it is slim chance I can find out the tick/s easily, as it is of no interest for normal gaming purpose.
2. So I presume the overview is the production rate *per minute* at the moment I open the menu?
3. For Regolith Extraction Inc., 0.8667 Re/tick equate to 1040re/min. Based on my observation it was closer to 20-40re/min. My vertical warehouse farming also gave a figure way lower than 7f/tick.
For vertical warehouse farming, I hope it's a bug, as the cost of it should justify 7f/tick. As for Regolith Extraction Inc., the current rate (20-40) seems right. Ore Zapper, being more advanced, gives 720re/min, so no way should the REI gives 1040re/min.
Also, for Alien Plastic Factory, while the code/reference say it does not require worker, the actual production rate is definitely boosted by the number of workers based on observation. Otherwise the plastic production rate is even lower than Plastic Factory!
(I'm confused though - since the game is run based on the code, how could it behave differently from the code? for clarity, I know very little about coding and I read js more as a database than code)
4. Cool. I could have fire people from hydrogen reactors if I need people working elsewhere, but as you predicted, they are obsoleted in my current game now (by alien power tower and diamond crystal reactor). I'll try it when I have arcology soon.
**
new question:
5. Are colonists' home and work place fixed once they got a job, or are they changing dynamically as new house/work are built? Should I be worried that creating houses and jobs at different ends of the colony at the same time would lead new colonists having a very long commute distance?
***
I got Center for Relics Studies! Now grind triantanium, looking forward to Star Gate. I was quite disappointed in UDD tbh, the boost from dig site is so small. The upgrade is more like for the automatic clay production.
I really like the game so far. I have been playing Kittens Game, and there is slightly (very slight) similarity in progression, in terms of solving one bottleneck lead to another bottleneck, and most building has its varying importance at different stages of game. Of course, Kittens Game is an incremental games with reset/prestige and this is a city building game, so the gameplay is very different.
I feel that the game need work on game balance on at least 2 buildings: (1) food processing sweatshop is crazy (385k food/min?!) (at least on Abandoned World where sugar is abundant) (2) Alien Enrichment Facility is disappointing (huge fuel increase but with only x5 production increase and space-saving). but these are minor to the overall gameplay and maybe it's just specific to the type of colony I'm playing in.
1. Tick/s: I estimated the tick/s based on buildings that don't need workers and have a constant production rate. The game was slow at that point. I am on abandoned world and there was a huge expanding forest of sugarcane. I tried to contain them with roads. I did a Fire Drill as well. Whichever the reason, the game was improved. Based on my new Triantanium refinery, it's about 22tick/s (based on 0.65ta/min). It still goes down to below 0.4ta/min from time to time, but it's okay. I should do a smaller map on mobile next time. Anyway, I should have mentioned that I know it is slim chance I can find out the tick/s easily, as it is of no interest for normal gaming purpose.
2. So I presume the overview is the production rate *per minute* at the moment I open the menu?
3. For Regolith Extraction Inc., 0.8667 Re/tick equate to 1040re/min. Based on my observation it was closer to 20-40re/min. My vertical warehouse farming also gave a figure way lower than 7f/tick.
For vertical warehouse farming, I hope it's a bug, as the cost of it should justify 7f/tick. As for Regolith Extraction Inc., the current rate (20-40) seems right. Ore Zapper, being more advanced, gives 720re/min, so no way should the REI gives 1040re/min.
Also, for Alien Plastic Factory, while the code/reference say it does not require worker, the actual production rate is definitely boosted by the number of workers based on observation. Otherwise the plastic production rate is even lower than Plastic Factory!
(I'm confused though - since the game is run based on the code, how could it behave differently from the code? for clarity, I know very little about coding and I read js more as a database than code)
4. Cool. I could have fire people from hydrogen reactors if I need people working elsewhere, but as you predicted, they are obsoleted in my current game now (by alien power tower and diamond crystal reactor). I'll try it when I have arcology soon.
**
new question:
5. Are colonists' home and work place fixed once they got a job, or are they changing dynamically as new house/work are built? Should I be worried that creating houses and jobs at different ends of the colony at the same time would lead new colonists having a very long commute distance?
***
I got Center for Relics Studies! Now grind triantanium, looking forward to Star Gate. I was quite disappointed in UDD tbh, the boost from dig site is so small. The upgrade is more like for the automatic clay production.
I really like the game so far. I have been playing Kittens Game, and there is slightly (very slight) similarity in progression, in terms of solving one bottleneck lead to another bottleneck, and most building has its varying importance at different stages of game. Of course, Kittens Game is an incremental games with reset/prestige and this is a city building game, so the gameplay is very different.
I feel that the game need work on game balance on at least 2 buildings: (1) food processing sweatshop is crazy (385k food/min?!) (at least on Abandoned World where sugar is abundant) (2) Alien Enrichment Facility is disappointing (huge fuel increase but with only x5 production increase and space-saving). but these are minor to the overall gameplay and maybe it's just specific to the type of colony I'm playing in.
The moment everyone has been waiting for has finally arrived, the release of My Colony v0.50.0 - the fighting 50!
50 is a nice round number, but is the update nice and round as well? Let's take a look at what is new and what has changed:
My Colony v0.50.0 Changelog
New Stuff
I had intended this update to be a big Zolarg content update, but instead was required to spend most of my time making changes to the GBT and it's associated API. As some will know, I've never really been thrilled about having the GBT in the game, and am even less thrilled in having to micromanage it. Ideally people would be able to conduct themselves as adults and treat the GBT system with respect, but I'm afraid that is not what has transpired. The actions of a few bad apples have thus forced my hand to really crack down on the Galactic Board of Trade, and several changes have now been implemented to that effect.
The first issue was involving the actual server API which the game contacts in order to do trade deals on the GBT. I threw the script together quickly to facilitate an in-game trading feature and didn't put any effort into security. This made it easy to exploit. Since the vast majority of players play in offline mode, I never gave it much thought, but over the last week, one of our players with a lot of free time on his hands really took it upon himself to hit the API hard and did a significant amount of damage to the online in-game economy. New security measures have been added, but they are not present in older versions of the game, and the server API cannot be fully patched without cutting off access for older versions of the game. For this reason, in one weeks time, access to online play from any version of My Colony older than v0.50.0 will be disabled. So if you play online, please update as soon as the release is available on your platform.
Here is also a first and only warning on this matter. Every call to the API is now logged and any user taking advantage of any exploit will be permanently banned from the service altogether. All of your colonies will be banned as will any device that you have been logged as having connecting to the service with. I do not care if you paid for premium or not, you can still play the game offline.
Other issues with the GBT involve using it for storage or using it as a means of transporting large amounts of goods from one colony or another. I don't consider this an exploit, but new measures have been put in place to block it from being used in this manner. The purpose of the GBT is to facilitate trades between colonies and nothing more. Using it for other purposes interferes with the pricing structure of the market and has an impact on the in-game economy for any player who plays the game online.
There is a new Galactic Trade Authority bot that monitors all trades on the GBT and logs trades which are considered grossly out of step with the current market realities. There is no auto-banning or "three strikes your out" feature associated with this. Everything is logged and will be reviewed by a human moderator (me). If it is decided that you are taking advantage of the system, your access to the GBT may be blocked.
There was also a new Galactic Emperor tax levied. This is the Emperor's highest tax ever, coming in at 95% of everything over $750m, and 100% of everything over $10b. This was imposed because of the API hacker who auto-purchased every contract on the market, leaving some players with an ungodly amount of money. If you got your money legitimately, then I am sorry, but this is the way it is. You can thank the abusers for the tax.
The good news is that as of this update, the resources of an individual colony can now be edited directly by the server if need be. For that reason, there probably will not have to be anymore global galactic emperor taxes levied. Because of this change though, all colonies in online mode are now required to have a constant internet connection. Really, this should have been a requirement from the start. If you cannot be constantly online, then consider playing the game in offline mode.
There have also been issues with users sending abusive messages through the in-game messaging system, including threats and other forms of harassment. To combat this I have added a new reporting feature which you can see in all new mail messages that arrive. Message reports will be reviewed by a human, and if you are conducting yourself in a manner which I do not feel is right for the game, then you will be banned from the service.
Anyway, like I said before, I really hate having to be a nanny here for the game. I'd much rather spend my time adding new content and features. If you don't like the new changes and don't want to see any more controls added in the future, then please encourage your fellow players to use their heads when playing the game. The API isn't there for my own benefit, I'd just as soon get rid of online play altogether, as it caused more headache than it is worth. The feature exists entirely for the benefit of those who want to play online, but if it can't be handled properly I have no problem taking it away. The vast majority of users play offline and wouldn't even notice if it was removed.
On to better things, you will notice some UI improvements that have been carried over from Antiquitas (which is now available and you should download (and 5 star) from here: http://apps.ape-apps.com/antiquitas/ ). Zolarg also received a few new things, with more coming in the next release. There is a new Ancientbug which is their version of the E.T. Builder, and their first alien structure is the Quantum Sugar Cloner which is a vast improvement over the Sugar Farm and takes up far less room. Insectoids will be getting a lot more alien content in the next few updates.
Also, there are only a couple of resources left now that do not require storage, and that will be soon changing. Keep that in mind and plan your colonies accordingly.
Between now and the end of the year, the updates are going to focus on Zolarg content. Once 2018 hits, the Reptilians will be making their way into My Colony, and the way they operate is going to be a bit different than the other races. They will make the difference between Humans and Zolarg seem insignificant. But until then, enjoy the update as there is still a lot more to come!
50 is a nice round number, but is the update nice and round as well? Let's take a look at what is new and what has changed:
My Colony v0.50.0 Changelog
New Stuff
- New Structures: Bloodletting Station, Spire of Knowledge, Quantum Sugar Cloner, Uranium Silo
- New Unit: Ancientbug
- New premium content: Orb of Radiance
- GBT: Added cooldown time between GBT trades, increased transaction civics costs, GBT contracts with lot sizes above your trading capacity no longer appear, You can no longer trade in lot sizes above your gifting capacity, The server can now limit the size and price of your trades.
- Storage Limits added: Aluminum, Uranium, Gold, and Clay now have storage requirements.
- Resource Decay: Resources left sitting outside of storage will now decay.
- Collect All: You can now collect all gifts at once with a single click.
- Message Reporting: There is a new in-game mechanism to report abusive PM's.
- Rebalancing: Antanium Synthesis Lab and Triantanium Refinery now offer a small amount of storage. Money generation from the Investment Bank and Clothing Sweatshop has been reduced.
- Tech Window: Each available tech now shows what new structures is contributes to.
- Online Colonies: Colonies played in online mode now require an internet connection to play.
- Right Click: Mouse users can now quickly move vehicles using the right click button.
- UI Changes: A bunch of small UI improvements carried over from Antiquitas v1.0.0 were added.
- Galactic Emperor Tax: Possibly the last tax the emperor will ever collect!
I had intended this update to be a big Zolarg content update, but instead was required to spend most of my time making changes to the GBT and it's associated API. As some will know, I've never really been thrilled about having the GBT in the game, and am even less thrilled in having to micromanage it. Ideally people would be able to conduct themselves as adults and treat the GBT system with respect, but I'm afraid that is not what has transpired. The actions of a few bad apples have thus forced my hand to really crack down on the Galactic Board of Trade, and several changes have now been implemented to that effect.
The first issue was involving the actual server API which the game contacts in order to do trade deals on the GBT. I threw the script together quickly to facilitate an in-game trading feature and didn't put any effort into security. This made it easy to exploit. Since the vast majority of players play in offline mode, I never gave it much thought, but over the last week, one of our players with a lot of free time on his hands really took it upon himself to hit the API hard and did a significant amount of damage to the online in-game economy. New security measures have been added, but they are not present in older versions of the game, and the server API cannot be fully patched without cutting off access for older versions of the game. For this reason, in one weeks time, access to online play from any version of My Colony older than v0.50.0 will be disabled. So if you play online, please update as soon as the release is available on your platform.
Here is also a first and only warning on this matter. Every call to the API is now logged and any user taking advantage of any exploit will be permanently banned from the service altogether. All of your colonies will be banned as will any device that you have been logged as having connecting to the service with. I do not care if you paid for premium or not, you can still play the game offline.
Other issues with the GBT involve using it for storage or using it as a means of transporting large amounts of goods from one colony or another. I don't consider this an exploit, but new measures have been put in place to block it from being used in this manner. The purpose of the GBT is to facilitate trades between colonies and nothing more. Using it for other purposes interferes with the pricing structure of the market and has an impact on the in-game economy for any player who plays the game online.
There is a new Galactic Trade Authority bot that monitors all trades on the GBT and logs trades which are considered grossly out of step with the current market realities. There is no auto-banning or "three strikes your out" feature associated with this. Everything is logged and will be reviewed by a human moderator (me). If it is decided that you are taking advantage of the system, your access to the GBT may be blocked.
There was also a new Galactic Emperor tax levied. This is the Emperor's highest tax ever, coming in at 95% of everything over $750m, and 100% of everything over $10b. This was imposed because of the API hacker who auto-purchased every contract on the market, leaving some players with an ungodly amount of money. If you got your money legitimately, then I am sorry, but this is the way it is. You can thank the abusers for the tax.
The good news is that as of this update, the resources of an individual colony can now be edited directly by the server if need be. For that reason, there probably will not have to be anymore global galactic emperor taxes levied. Because of this change though, all colonies in online mode are now required to have a constant internet connection. Really, this should have been a requirement from the start. If you cannot be constantly online, then consider playing the game in offline mode.
There have also been issues with users sending abusive messages through the in-game messaging system, including threats and other forms of harassment. To combat this I have added a new reporting feature which you can see in all new mail messages that arrive. Message reports will be reviewed by a human, and if you are conducting yourself in a manner which I do not feel is right for the game, then you will be banned from the service.
Anyway, like I said before, I really hate having to be a nanny here for the game. I'd much rather spend my time adding new content and features. If you don't like the new changes and don't want to see any more controls added in the future, then please encourage your fellow players to use their heads when playing the game. The API isn't there for my own benefit, I'd just as soon get rid of online play altogether, as it caused more headache than it is worth. The feature exists entirely for the benefit of those who want to play online, but if it can't be handled properly I have no problem taking it away. The vast majority of users play offline and wouldn't even notice if it was removed.
On to better things, you will notice some UI improvements that have been carried over from Antiquitas (which is now available and you should download (and 5 star) from here: http://apps.ape-apps.com/antiquitas/ ). Zolarg also received a few new things, with more coming in the next release. There is a new Ancientbug which is their version of the E.T. Builder, and their first alien structure is the Quantum Sugar Cloner which is a vast improvement over the Sugar Farm and takes up far less room. Insectoids will be getting a lot more alien content in the next few updates.
Also, there are only a couple of resources left now that do not require storage, and that will be soon changing. Keep that in mind and plan your colonies accordingly.
Between now and the end of the year, the updates are going to focus on Zolarg content. Once 2018 hits, the Reptilians will be making their way into My Colony, and the way they operate is going to be a bit different than the other races. They will make the difference between Humans and Zolarg seem insignificant. But until then, enjoy the update as there is still a lot more to come!
Today after spending a couple of weeks away from work vacationing for U.S. Independence Day, I am releasing My Colony v0.68.0, which should be rolling out shortly to all platforms.
The primary focus on this update is attempting to address the huge black hole of sorrow and despair that is My Colony for Android. Of all versions of the game, Android has the most technical issues in terms of stability and performance. In fact, My Colony on Android has a force-close rate of almost 7%, which is really very high. Unfortunately, the crash reports coming in look like this:
As you can see, not much to go by at all. Obviously the crashes are happening with the WebView, which is powered by whatever version of Google Chrome the user has installed on their device. Sadly, this is an issue that has been impacting many Android users since at least last June, with an ongoing issue submitted to Google here, which has yet to receive any meaningful resolution. Many think it's due to Google's own AdMob ads, but it is also occurring for Premium users with no ads, so it is hard to tell. It may also be related to memory constraints, since on many devices Android only allows 128mb of RAM per app, regardless of how much RAM the device actually has. Sadly due to the limited crash reports, it is very hard to tell exactly what the problem is.
Due to the high crash rate on Android, Google has essentially blacklisted My Colony on Google Play, reducing downloads from the 3,000 per day range down to the 200 per day range. Since a vast majority of the installs for My Colony come from Google Play, this has made the game financially nonviable, no longer even generating the funds necessary to maintain the server required to support online play.
Because of the gravity of the issue, if My Colony cannot be fixed on Android, I will have to lower it's priority and focus on other apps that can bring in more revenue so that I can actually eat and support my family. The task is made difficult by the lack of information available on what is causing the crashes.
I suspect the primary issue is the game hitting Android imposed RAM limitations. As there are now nearly 400 structures in the game, over 50 units, and many terrain elements, many graphical elements have to be loaded at run time. While the engine already delays loading graphics until they are used, large colonies that have essentially all types of buildings are a larger drain on RAM. Also, large map sizes exponentially require the about of RAM needed for path-finding operations while moving rovers around the map.
There is no good way to clean up these issues on Android without limiting choices available to the user. At some point though, reality needs to set in and a mobile game simply cannot have all of the full features available on a Desktop class game, which is how My Colony is designed. I believe some things on Android will need to be "nerfed" in order to fit in with the power and memory constraints imposed on the platform.
For the reasons mentioned above, the bulk of today's updates are aimed at reducing memory overhead on Android devices. Some of these changes are as follows:
I suspect the most controversial change will be the removal of the Extra Large and Mega map sizes. I do like to give users maximum choice, but the reality is that most users automatically pick the largest available map size every time, despite the in-game warning that performance may be impacted. This leads to slower performance, out-of-RAM crashes, and therefore bad reviews.
The removal of the emperor Video Ads and the Banner Ads on Android was done since there is strong evidence on the Google support group that Google's own ads are causing a lot of these crashes. This was tough to weigh, because the loss of revenue due to the removal of advertising will be significant, although it will probably be less than the loss of Premium Upgrade revenue due to the blacklisting from the crashes. I will just have to wait and see if it makes a difference and if it helps. I need to have some way to pay for the server and also make a profit on the game in order for it to be worth my time, but if the ads are killing the game then there is no point in having them. It is something of a lose-lose situation, since My Colony was designed with an extraordinary amount of free content, largely possible because of the advertising. If the ads are killing the game though, that mix might need to be reevaluated.
So as I said, I will monitor Android and see if I can get the crashes reduced and the game revived. Maybe the above changes will help, or maybe they will do nothing. As I showed, the crash logs really do not show anything meaningful. They also made a change recently where the feedback users can send to Google Play when the app force closes no longer makes it to the developer, so you can't see what people said about what they were doing before the game crashed. That is a little FYI to everyone on Android, don't waste your time adding comments when you submit a force-close report to Google Play, since the developer never sees them anymore.
So anyway, apart from the Android specific changes, Desktop users will see a new 'filter' option at the bottom of the build sidebar.
As you might imagine, this lets you type in the name of a building to do a search, instead of scrolling through everything to find the building you are looking for. And before you ask, know that similar functionality will be coming to mobile editions of the game in a future release.
In addition, Human players get a new alien-tech structure, the Alien Plastic Factory. I saw a suggestion for it in the suggestions forum, and decided to throw it in there real quick.
The Cloning Facility has been added to the Immigration build category. It isn't really an immigration building, but it adds people to the colony, so it was the best fit available.
Finally, several bugs have been patched in this release, including a bug associated with uploading a screenshot to your colony homepage and a gamepad control issue on Amazon Fire TV devices.
So anyway, that is it for today's update. I apologize to the Android users for the ongoing crashing issues. I have been trying to fix them for some time now, but the error reports are extremely unhelpful which has made the issues hard to pin down and correct. I suspect more changes will be coming to Android users over the coming updates, so stay tuned for that. And thanks to everybody for playing the game, hope you enjoy!
The primary focus on this update is attempting to address the huge black hole of sorrow and despair that is My Colony for Android. Of all versions of the game, Android has the most technical issues in terms of stability and performance. In fact, My Colony on Android has a force-close rate of almost 7%, which is really very high. Unfortunately, the crash reports coming in look like this:
Due to the high crash rate on Android, Google has essentially blacklisted My Colony on Google Play, reducing downloads from the 3,000 per day range down to the 200 per day range. Since a vast majority of the installs for My Colony come from Google Play, this has made the game financially nonviable, no longer even generating the funds necessary to maintain the server required to support online play.
Because of the gravity of the issue, if My Colony cannot be fixed on Android, I will have to lower it's priority and focus on other apps that can bring in more revenue so that I can actually eat and support my family. The task is made difficult by the lack of information available on what is causing the crashes.
I suspect the primary issue is the game hitting Android imposed RAM limitations. As there are now nearly 400 structures in the game, over 50 units, and many terrain elements, many graphical elements have to be loaded at run time. While the engine already delays loading graphics until they are used, large colonies that have essentially all types of buildings are a larger drain on RAM. Also, large map sizes exponentially require the about of RAM needed for path-finding operations while moving rovers around the map.
There is no good way to clean up these issues on Android without limiting choices available to the user. At some point though, reality needs to set in and a mobile game simply cannot have all of the full features available on a Desktop class game, which is how My Colony is designed. I believe some things on Android will need to be "nerfed" in order to fit in with the power and memory constraints imposed on the platform.
For the reasons mentioned above, the bulk of today's updates are aimed at reducing memory overhead on Android devices. Some of these changes are as follows:
- Video-ad gifts from the Galactic Emperor no longer appear on Android
- On new map creation, Extra Large and Mega maps are no longer available on Android
- If a previous force-close is detected, the game is automatically switched into lo-res mode on next launch, unless the user has previously set the graphics resolution manually.
- Banner ads no longer show up on Android
I suspect the most controversial change will be the removal of the Extra Large and Mega map sizes. I do like to give users maximum choice, but the reality is that most users automatically pick the largest available map size every time, despite the in-game warning that performance may be impacted. This leads to slower performance, out-of-RAM crashes, and therefore bad reviews.
The removal of the emperor Video Ads and the Banner Ads on Android was done since there is strong evidence on the Google support group that Google's own ads are causing a lot of these crashes. This was tough to weigh, because the loss of revenue due to the removal of advertising will be significant, although it will probably be less than the loss of Premium Upgrade revenue due to the blacklisting from the crashes. I will just have to wait and see if it makes a difference and if it helps. I need to have some way to pay for the server and also make a profit on the game in order for it to be worth my time, but if the ads are killing the game then there is no point in having them. It is something of a lose-lose situation, since My Colony was designed with an extraordinary amount of free content, largely possible because of the advertising. If the ads are killing the game though, that mix might need to be reevaluated.
So as I said, I will monitor Android and see if I can get the crashes reduced and the game revived. Maybe the above changes will help, or maybe they will do nothing. As I showed, the crash logs really do not show anything meaningful. They also made a change recently where the feedback users can send to Google Play when the app force closes no longer makes it to the developer, so you can't see what people said about what they were doing before the game crashed. That is a little FYI to everyone on Android, don't waste your time adding comments when you submit a force-close report to Google Play, since the developer never sees them anymore.
So anyway, apart from the Android specific changes, Desktop users will see a new 'filter' option at the bottom of the build sidebar.
In addition, Human players get a new alien-tech structure, the Alien Plastic Factory. I saw a suggestion for it in the suggestions forum, and decided to throw it in there real quick.
The Cloning Facility has been added to the Immigration build category. It isn't really an immigration building, but it adds people to the colony, so it was the best fit available.
Finally, several bugs have been patched in this release, including a bug associated with uploading a screenshot to your colony homepage and a gamepad control issue on Amazon Fire TV devices.
So anyway, that is it for today's update. I apologize to the Android users for the ongoing crashing issues. I have been trying to fix them for some time now, but the error reports are extremely unhelpful which has made the issues hard to pin down and correct. I suspect more changes will be coming to Android users over the coming updates, so stay tuned for that. And thanks to everybody for playing the game, hope you enjoy!
The list of complete changes coming to My Colony v1.0.0 just keeps growing. So far Regional map generation and Power/Bandwidth utility grids have been completely rewritten, and now I am adding another major change to the list. Currently in testing, the way the engine handles colonists is now also being completely rewritten, as it applies to their jobs, entertainment, housing, education, and medical. Basically, the entire colonist simulation engine is being rewritten, which, along with the other changes already mentioned, is making v1.0.0, at least under the hood, almost a completely different game....
Before discussing the new changes in detail, I should explain how/why the existing system came to be. Colonists were first introduced to the game in v0.3.0 (July 30, 2016) at a time when the biggest housing unit was the actual Lander that you started out in. The game was designed as the Colonist being one of the central features of the simulation. Each colonist had a name, a job, his own stats, and went about his life in the colony. He had an energy level, a happiness level, a day/night sleep cycle, and so on. The intention was for each colonist to be a unique entity with it's own relationships, feelings, etc, sort of like in the Sims.
As time went on and the game grew though, it started morphing into more of a city-builder type game VS an individual colonist simulator. So as more (and bigger) buildings and features got added to the game, the original system based on the individual colonist was simply expanded and adapted in order to keep pace. Eventually the game got to where colonies with populations in the hundreds of thousands and even millions were possible, but the core colonist simulation engine remained as it always had been.
Simulating that many individual colonists brought along major performance and memory issues, especially on mobile. I tried to work around it by implementing a "virtual avatar" system, whereby after a certain population, the game just extrapolated out statistics based on a virtual avatar, where by one "real" colonist would represent 5,000 or more "virtual" colonists. This worked OK for performance, but it always caused strange statistical problems for things like Entertainment, Schooling, Medical, and Work. For example, if one colonist would get sick or unhappy for some reason, all 5,000 of the "virtual" colonists he represented would also take on his sickness/anger, which would lead to situations where 500 virtual colonists are not working.
For the last few years, each update is a constant battle against the old colonist system, with performance issues and complaints about certain stats not lining up as expected. Game functions like Entertainment/Medical,Education barely work in a consistent manner. Moreover, the colonist day/night cycle, which I thought was somewhat neat/unique/realistic to the game, was often confusing for new players who couldn't understand why nobody was at work in their buildings.
Anyway, I think it's long been time for a change, so with v1.0.0 I am stripping out pretty much all colonist-level individuality and data, and moving to a pure statistical model, more in line with a traditional city-simulator type game. After this update, the colonists you see walking around are pretty much for show only, and will no longer have their own individual stats. You will not be able to click on a colonist to see his name, where he lives, what is job is, etc. You will not be able to assign a colonist to a specific job. The individual colonist no longer matters.
So that's the sad part. It's sort of sad because I liked all that stuff about the game, but the reality is that those kinds of things are for a different type of game that My Colony no longer represents, and keeping them in the game has only caused performance issues and forced strange workarounds in the code.
So let's discuss the new system that is currently being tested. Starting with My Colony v1.0.0, all colony stats, including productivity, health, happiness, IQ, etc, are based on (roughly) on the overall land value/approval rating of the specific areas of your colony. It sounds more confusing, but I will explain more.
Housing structures are now the basic unit responsible for generating statistics in the game, taking place of the individual colonist. Housing structures now have internal statistics based on the availability of Schools, Entertainment, and Medical facilities in their proximity. While not yet implemented, there are also internal stats for Crime, which I plan on adding (along with Police Stations/Prisons) in v1.0.1 or v1.0.2.
While these numbers might be tweaked before the final release, you basically need enough Medical to accommodate 5% of your population, enough Schools for 20% of the population, and enough Entertainment for 15% of the population. These facilities must also be within range of the housing units. Medical facilities need to be within a 50 tile radius, schools 35 tile, and entertainment 25 tile. So basically, on a small sized map, an entertainment facility in the center of the map can theoretically service the entire map.
For work, job sites have to be within a 50 tile range of available housing. Jobs are prioritized by distance to house, IQ requirements, and pay. IQ level is impacted by the School rating of the housing unit. Each housing unit keeps track of the average travel distance it's residents must take to get to work, which impacts it's land value/approval rating.
The approval/land value rating of a structure is based on how fully it's needs are met in those categories, with Crime soon to be added as well. When colonists look for new places to live, they will place priority on high value dwellings first, and only reluctantly fill in the slums if necessary. When crime is implemented, criminals will originate from slum areas of town, so the more low-value areas your colony has, the more crime will be generated. Crime in turn will further lower the value of the area.
With this new system, the colonist day/night cycle is gone. As long as approval/land value conditions are good, buildings will be operating at full capacity at all times, so there is no more sitting there waiting for workers to come back on duty.
Some people will not like this new system as the change is large and will probably render many existing city layouts ineffective. You now have to think about the macro-conditions of each area of your city, making sure that there is sufficient medical, education, and entertainment for all residential areas. Since these stats were largely underutilized before, most existing cities will probably have shortages right off the bat. I plan on introducing new education and medical facilities as I get further along on the v1.0.0 update, as they will probably be needed.
There are some positives that come along with this change. Firstly, save file size and memory usage is greatly reduced, as the game no longer keeps a reference table of all workers/buildings. The game no longer conducts the expensive job/medical/school/entertainment search routines for individual colonists, which involved expensive operations of sorting all in-game structures by distance from each colonist, and then weeding through destination candidates one by one.
I estimate that most colonies will see improved performance with this change, particularly on the high end. In addition, this new system will allow me to implement probably the most requested feature of the last 3 years - mass transit, which I tentatively plan on introducing in v1.0.3 with either a new subway or monorail system (depending on what I want to draw). Since the engine no longer has to figure out paths for each individual worker, it now only needs to make sure that a mass-transit system is fully connected to itself, and then figure out a building's distance to the overall transit network, making it's implementation much, much simpler and less performance intensive than trying to resolve mass transit paths for each individual colonist.
So I've written a book here, but the reason for the long write up is because this is probably absolutely the single largest engine change to the game since it first came out, and it represents a complete rewrite of one of the core mechanics of the game. I am trying to design it in a way that will not feel overly different to long-time players and will not be overly disruptive to existing games, but with a change on this scale, you know some people will be impacted.
If you have issues/observations with the new system, you can post them in this thread. I will be working on this particular part of the game for a few more days here. Be advised, that if you open a colony on v1.0.0 from this point on, the engine changes are sufficiently large that re-opening your game in a pre-v1.0.0 client may cause issues, as v1.0.0 deletes a lot of depreciated properties from in-game objects.
Before discussing the new changes in detail, I should explain how/why the existing system came to be. Colonists were first introduced to the game in v0.3.0 (July 30, 2016) at a time when the biggest housing unit was the actual Lander that you started out in. The game was designed as the Colonist being one of the central features of the simulation. Each colonist had a name, a job, his own stats, and went about his life in the colony. He had an energy level, a happiness level, a day/night sleep cycle, and so on. The intention was for each colonist to be a unique entity with it's own relationships, feelings, etc, sort of like in the Sims.
As time went on and the game grew though, it started morphing into more of a city-builder type game VS an individual colonist simulator. So as more (and bigger) buildings and features got added to the game, the original system based on the individual colonist was simply expanded and adapted in order to keep pace. Eventually the game got to where colonies with populations in the hundreds of thousands and even millions were possible, but the core colonist simulation engine remained as it always had been.
Simulating that many individual colonists brought along major performance and memory issues, especially on mobile. I tried to work around it by implementing a "virtual avatar" system, whereby after a certain population, the game just extrapolated out statistics based on a virtual avatar, where by one "real" colonist would represent 5,000 or more "virtual" colonists. This worked OK for performance, but it always caused strange statistical problems for things like Entertainment, Schooling, Medical, and Work. For example, if one colonist would get sick or unhappy for some reason, all 5,000 of the "virtual" colonists he represented would also take on his sickness/anger, which would lead to situations where 500 virtual colonists are not working.
For the last few years, each update is a constant battle against the old colonist system, with performance issues and complaints about certain stats not lining up as expected. Game functions like Entertainment/Medical,Education barely work in a consistent manner. Moreover, the colonist day/night cycle, which I thought was somewhat neat/unique/realistic to the game, was often confusing for new players who couldn't understand why nobody was at work in their buildings.
Anyway, I think it's long been time for a change, so with v1.0.0 I am stripping out pretty much all colonist-level individuality and data, and moving to a pure statistical model, more in line with a traditional city-simulator type game. After this update, the colonists you see walking around are pretty much for show only, and will no longer have their own individual stats. You will not be able to click on a colonist to see his name, where he lives, what is job is, etc. You will not be able to assign a colonist to a specific job. The individual colonist no longer matters.
So that's the sad part. It's sort of sad because I liked all that stuff about the game, but the reality is that those kinds of things are for a different type of game that My Colony no longer represents, and keeping them in the game has only caused performance issues and forced strange workarounds in the code.
So let's discuss the new system that is currently being tested. Starting with My Colony v1.0.0, all colony stats, including productivity, health, happiness, IQ, etc, are based on (roughly) on the overall land value/approval rating of the specific areas of your colony. It sounds more confusing, but I will explain more.
Housing structures are now the basic unit responsible for generating statistics in the game, taking place of the individual colonist. Housing structures now have internal statistics based on the availability of Schools, Entertainment, and Medical facilities in their proximity. While not yet implemented, there are also internal stats for Crime, which I plan on adding (along with Police Stations/Prisons) in v1.0.1 or v1.0.2.
While these numbers might be tweaked before the final release, you basically need enough Medical to accommodate 5% of your population, enough Schools for 20% of the population, and enough Entertainment for 15% of the population. These facilities must also be within range of the housing units. Medical facilities need to be within a 50 tile radius, schools 35 tile, and entertainment 25 tile. So basically, on a small sized map, an entertainment facility in the center of the map can theoretically service the entire map.
For work, job sites have to be within a 50 tile range of available housing. Jobs are prioritized by distance to house, IQ requirements, and pay. IQ level is impacted by the School rating of the housing unit. Each housing unit keeps track of the average travel distance it's residents must take to get to work, which impacts it's land value/approval rating.
The approval/land value rating of a structure is based on how fully it's needs are met in those categories, with Crime soon to be added as well. When colonists look for new places to live, they will place priority on high value dwellings first, and only reluctantly fill in the slums if necessary. When crime is implemented, criminals will originate from slum areas of town, so the more low-value areas your colony has, the more crime will be generated. Crime in turn will further lower the value of the area.
With this new system, the colonist day/night cycle is gone. As long as approval/land value conditions are good, buildings will be operating at full capacity at all times, so there is no more sitting there waiting for workers to come back on duty.
Some people will not like this new system as the change is large and will probably render many existing city layouts ineffective. You now have to think about the macro-conditions of each area of your city, making sure that there is sufficient medical, education, and entertainment for all residential areas. Since these stats were largely underutilized before, most existing cities will probably have shortages right off the bat. I plan on introducing new education and medical facilities as I get further along on the v1.0.0 update, as they will probably be needed.
There are some positives that come along with this change. Firstly, save file size and memory usage is greatly reduced, as the game no longer keeps a reference table of all workers/buildings. The game no longer conducts the expensive job/medical/school/entertainment search routines for individual colonists, which involved expensive operations of sorting all in-game structures by distance from each colonist, and then weeding through destination candidates one by one.
I estimate that most colonies will see improved performance with this change, particularly on the high end. In addition, this new system will allow me to implement probably the most requested feature of the last 3 years - mass transit, which I tentatively plan on introducing in v1.0.3 with either a new subway or monorail system (depending on what I want to draw). Since the engine no longer has to figure out paths for each individual worker, it now only needs to make sure that a mass-transit system is fully connected to itself, and then figure out a building's distance to the overall transit network, making it's implementation much, much simpler and less performance intensive than trying to resolve mass transit paths for each individual colonist.
So I've written a book here, but the reason for the long write up is because this is probably absolutely the single largest engine change to the game since it first came out, and it represents a complete rewrite of one of the core mechanics of the game. I am trying to design it in a way that will not feel overly different to long-time players and will not be overly disruptive to existing games, but with a change on this scale, you know some people will be impacted.
If you have issues/observations with the new system, you can post them in this thread. I will be working on this particular part of the game for a few more days here. Be advised, that if you open a colony on v1.0.0 from this point on, the engine changes are sufficiently large that re-opening your game in a pre-v1.0.0 client may cause issues, as v1.0.0 deletes a lot of depreciated properties from in-game objects.
Just pushed out a quick release to My Colony, v0.47.0! It's not a major update, but it's majorly awesome (as always). Here is what's new:
My Colony v0.47.0 Changelog
New Stuff
The next update is going to expand Zolarg alien tech, who now have access to both Relics and Artifacts. I added the ability to get artifacts so that Zolarg could start gaining access to some of the Human tech tree items, which all require artifacts in the later stages. Zolarg alien buildings will probably be purple similar to the human ones, and will start infusing tech into the Zolarg colonies.
I am also going to try to add full gamepad support to My Colony in the next update, and possibly try to release it on both Android/Fire TV and Xbox One. It already has partial gamepad support which you can test now by plugging an Xbox 360 USB controller into your PC, but there is a lot that needs cleaned up before it's ready for the TV.
One final note, I believe My Colony v0.47.0 and the current build of Antiquitas both have the following bug, which I am unable to pin down, where the Ice World has a partial shaded box covering the entire map. See the following thread for an example:
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=4438
If you have this issue please post in that thread with all relevant information so I can try to get it squashed before the next update.
That's all for now, the next update will probably be before next weekend, depending on how busy I get. Enjoy!
My Colony v0.47.0 Changelog
New Stuff
- New Structures: Diamond Solar Tower, Bureau of Bureaucracy, Cloth Farm, Relic Cauldron
- On Desktop/Tablet devices, there is a new toggle in the building construction popup window that lets you turn building "chaining" on or off.
- Insectoids gain the Alien Language tech that humans already have
- Ice world is now slightly less dark
- Giorgio Institute and Center for AI Learning now store Alien Relics
- Star Gate can now import/export Alien Relics
- Game will now auto-save when moved to the background
The next update is going to expand Zolarg alien tech, who now have access to both Relics and Artifacts. I added the ability to get artifacts so that Zolarg could start gaining access to some of the Human tech tree items, which all require artifacts in the later stages. Zolarg alien buildings will probably be purple similar to the human ones, and will start infusing tech into the Zolarg colonies.
I am also going to try to add full gamepad support to My Colony in the next update, and possibly try to release it on both Android/Fire TV and Xbox One. It already has partial gamepad support which you can test now by plugging an Xbox 360 USB controller into your PC, but there is a lot that needs cleaned up before it's ready for the TV.
One final note, I believe My Colony v0.47.0 and the current build of Antiquitas both have the following bug, which I am unable to pin down, where the Ice World has a partial shaded box covering the entire map. See the following thread for an example:
https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=4438
If you have this issue please post in that thread with all relevant information so I can try to get it squashed before the next update.
That's all for now, the next update will probably be before next weekend, depending on how busy I get. Enjoy!
Hello again guys and ladies of the Ape Apps community! I haven't posted in this forum in a long time (and nobody did), but I am here to create a suggestion of another race in the MC universe! WARNING: This is an in-game suggestion only and not meant for use outside of the MC universe. Viewer discretion advised.
I'm going to go present it now! Hope you like it!
The Story
Civilization Info
Alright, that's the end of the suggestion. I hope you like it! See you next time!
I'm going to go present it now! Hope you like it!
The Story
Storyteller said:
Once upon a time, in 5000 years before the United Earth was founded, Ancient Aliens founded the civilization of Caranothia. The civilization was advanced, with their own technology, an utopia with the eternal egos of the people, they made the alien age breakthrough at 4500 BUE. But when an galactic empire, the Sejinars, invaded and migrated to Caranothia in the 3800s BUE to 1273 BUE, the new civilization had discovered the secrets of the technology the Ancient Aliens made, and they were the first to do so.
Civilization Info
- Race: Ancient Aliens
- Narcotics: Alien Artifacts
- Starting:
- Building: Ancient Alien Cube (2*2)
- Technology: Ancient Alien Base, Caranothian Base
- Units: Ancient Alien Rover (or Forest Rover)
Alright, that's the end of the suggestion. I hope you like it! See you next time!
Today I am happy to announce the release of My Colony 2 v0.45.0! This update continues to clean up some of the fallout related to the conversion to a statistics based simulation model, and adds a couple of new things along the way. Let's take a look!
Let's discuss fixes first. I think that I have finally isolated and corrected the issue where settlement utilities would be completely messed up when loading up a game save, but it may require one load/save/quit/load cycle to fix. Please let me know if you are still having this issue though.
Moving on, buildings now require workers again in order to operate. For the last few updates, worker shortages were no problem at all, but now you will actually have enough people to man your factories and shops.
Also, settlement approval rating was not being properly calculated before this update. It should now be working again like it used to.
Moving right along, there was a bug where disabling player building colors was not having any impact on the game. This should be working again.
Now on to game changes. If you are playing in a larger sized viewport (bigger than 1280x720), the overall game UI has been changed slightly.
Game UI elements have been "detached" from the sides of the viewport and are now floating a bit, with a new black border around everything. I think it looks a bit nicer, but you can let me know if you disagree. I have also increased the padding around all popup windows, which I also think looks a bit nicer than before.
In addition, I have changed most of the icons in the popup windows from ionic icon set based .svg icons to the icon font used by most Ape Apps applications, which should load a bit faster than the old icons did. I am probably going to change all the icons on the title screen soon too.
In the encyclopedia, the Units section has been expanded a bit, and I have also started adding the Research section. Still a lot of work to do on the encyclopedia, but we are making some progress!
The video section in Engine Settings now has a new slider to adjust the game rendering video resolution.
I am hoping this can help performance a bit, especially on the mobile side of things. There are lower end smart phones and laptops out there that barely have a GPU, but include super high resolution displays. With this new slider, you should be able to scale the output resolution down considerably. If it ends up making a big impact, I might have the resolution lowered by default on some mobile devices.
Next up, Ape Chat comes to My Colony 2! The in-game chat in the original My Colony has long been powered by the Ape Chat system, and now My Colony 2 has been migrated over as well. If you are using the stand alone Ape Chat client, you can join the in-game My Colony 2 channel #mc2.
The channel does not have its own custom icon yet, but that will be coming soon (I actually need to do an Ape Chat client update first). One of the benefits of running the in-game chat off of the Ape Chat service, is that you can subscribe to the channel and get notifications when people are talking and playing in the game, allowing you to jump into the game when activity is going on. You can also help people with their questions without even having the game open.
I will be watching the #mc2 channel to make sure things don't get out of hand. There may come a point where moderators are needed for the chat room (I might also need some new mods for mc1 chat), so keep that in mind if you are interested in helping in that regard, and if/when the time comes for moderators, I will reach out to people who have expressed an interest in the position.
Continuing on. If you look in the settlement stats window, you will notice a couple of new things. First, unemployment rate now shows up, so you can keep track of how many of your people do not have work. Unemployment can be caused by not enough jobs, but is also impacted by health, education and other ratings, and will weigh down on your overall approval rating.
Next, there is a new placeholder status bar for Faith. In the building editor, there is also a stat for structure faith rating. This is a new mechanic that will be coming soon, but at the core of it, there will be an opportunity to add faith related structures to the game, statues, temples, shrines, churches, etc. This will be sort of another stat like entertainment, but I also want a mechanic to where players can create a religion. They can then send missionaries to other settlements, or even to other worlds via the star gate system. There will then be global stats on which religions are spreading and to which planets/settlements. I think it can be a cool mechanic, so if you are interested in helping design this new feature, post some ideas!
Let's turn to some new content next. There is a new planet type (pictured in the first screenshot to this post) called Dusk World provided by @therealchromedino and it's awesome! This world provides a new resource called Duskshrooms, as well as a new rover and the Small Thermal Plant and Duskshroom Market structures. If you were looking into starting a new world, now might be a great time!
For Lunar maps, @RekEm1999 has provided a new upgraded Diamond Drilling Operation for advanced diamond extraction.
For expanding out the Alien Tech line a bit, I have added the Alien Power Tower, the Quantum Warehouse, and the new Quantum Housing Pod, a (very) high density housing upgrade to the base Bunkbed Shelter.
There are a few other new structures curtesy of @therealchromedino in this release. The Small and Advanced Blood Banks are new medical structures, the Cartel Prison is a new security structure, and the Transcendent Solar Tower is an epic new solar tower for those with Transcendent tech that can best the output of the Small Nuclear Reactor.
So that is about it for this update. There are still a lot of things that need fixing, and a big one is the combat system, which may be the focus of next update. Until then though, thanks to all contributors, thank you all for playing the game, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com
#mycolony2
Let's discuss fixes first. I think that I have finally isolated and corrected the issue where settlement utilities would be completely messed up when loading up a game save, but it may require one load/save/quit/load cycle to fix. Please let me know if you are still having this issue though.
Moving on, buildings now require workers again in order to operate. For the last few updates, worker shortages were no problem at all, but now you will actually have enough people to man your factories and shops.
Also, settlement approval rating was not being properly calculated before this update. It should now be working again like it used to.
Moving right along, there was a bug where disabling player building colors was not having any impact on the game. This should be working again.
Now on to game changes. If you are playing in a larger sized viewport (bigger than 1280x720), the overall game UI has been changed slightly.
Game UI elements have been "detached" from the sides of the viewport and are now floating a bit, with a new black border around everything. I think it looks a bit nicer, but you can let me know if you disagree. I have also increased the padding around all popup windows, which I also think looks a bit nicer than before.
In addition, I have changed most of the icons in the popup windows from ionic icon set based .svg icons to the icon font used by most Ape Apps applications, which should load a bit faster than the old icons did. I am probably going to change all the icons on the title screen soon too.
In the encyclopedia, the Units section has been expanded a bit, and I have also started adding the Research section. Still a lot of work to do on the encyclopedia, but we are making some progress!
The video section in Engine Settings now has a new slider to adjust the game rendering video resolution.
I am hoping this can help performance a bit, especially on the mobile side of things. There are lower end smart phones and laptops out there that barely have a GPU, but include super high resolution displays. With this new slider, you should be able to scale the output resolution down considerably. If it ends up making a big impact, I might have the resolution lowered by default on some mobile devices.
The channel does not have its own custom icon yet, but that will be coming soon (I actually need to do an Ape Chat client update first). One of the benefits of running the in-game chat off of the Ape Chat service, is that you can subscribe to the channel and get notifications when people are talking and playing in the game, allowing you to jump into the game when activity is going on. You can also help people with their questions without even having the game open.
I will be watching the #mc2 channel to make sure things don't get out of hand. There may come a point where moderators are needed for the chat room (I might also need some new mods for mc1 chat), so keep that in mind if you are interested in helping in that regard, and if/when the time comes for moderators, I will reach out to people who have expressed an interest in the position.
Continuing on. If you look in the settlement stats window, you will notice a couple of new things. First, unemployment rate now shows up, so you can keep track of how many of your people do not have work. Unemployment can be caused by not enough jobs, but is also impacted by health, education and other ratings, and will weigh down on your overall approval rating.
Next, there is a new placeholder status bar for Faith. In the building editor, there is also a stat for structure faith rating. This is a new mechanic that will be coming soon, but at the core of it, there will be an opportunity to add faith related structures to the game, statues, temples, shrines, churches, etc. This will be sort of another stat like entertainment, but I also want a mechanic to where players can create a religion. They can then send missionaries to other settlements, or even to other worlds via the star gate system. There will then be global stats on which religions are spreading and to which planets/settlements. I think it can be a cool mechanic, so if you are interested in helping design this new feature, post some ideas!
Let's turn to some new content next. There is a new planet type (pictured in the first screenshot to this post) called Dusk World provided by @therealchromedino and it's awesome! This world provides a new resource called Duskshrooms, as well as a new rover and the Small Thermal Plant and Duskshroom Market structures. If you were looking into starting a new world, now might be a great time!
For Lunar maps, @RekEm1999 has provided a new upgraded Diamond Drilling Operation for advanced diamond extraction.
For expanding out the Alien Tech line a bit, I have added the Alien Power Tower, the Quantum Warehouse, and the new Quantum Housing Pod, a (very) high density housing upgrade to the base Bunkbed Shelter.
There are a few other new structures curtesy of @therealchromedino in this release. The Small and Advanced Blood Banks are new medical structures, the Cartel Prison is a new security structure, and the Transcendent Solar Tower is an epic new solar tower for those with Transcendent tech that can best the output of the Small Nuclear Reactor.
So that is about it for this update. There are still a lot of things that need fixing, and a big one is the combat system, which may be the focus of next update. Until then though, thanks to all contributors, thank you all for playing the game, and stay tuned for more!
https://mycolony2.com
#mycolony2