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Huge changes are coming to My Colony 2 and this update lays the groundwork for a bunch of them. So let's just dive right in and see what is new with My Colony 2 v0.39.0, available now!
Right off the bat, there is a glitch where if you have sky textures enabled, it's always "night time." So no need to report that one, lol.
Moving on, the first thing you are certain to notice is that the games title screen has been completely revamped.
So first off, thank you to @GeneralWadaling for all of the game world models. This change to the title screen goes pretty far beyond a mere fresh coat of paint though, and actually required pretty far reaching changes under the hood. In fact, I had to end up completely rewriting most of the games' networking/multiplayer code from scratch, which ended up consuming a majority of the time I had planned to spend working on this release. Let's get into why.
I mentioned at the beginning that big changes are coming soon to My Colony 2, and these changes center around a far tighter integration to the My Colony 2 online server. Starting with v0.39.0, players are now immediately signed into and communicating with the MC2 online servers as soon as the initial loading screen clears, and in effect you are actually behind-the-scenes in-game even when you are only on the title screen.
Why is this necessary? You have maybe seen the Player Mode icon in My Colony 2 in the past, but this feature is about to be expanded in a huge way. I have mentioned before adding the ability for Player Mode characters to travel between worlds via Star Gates, but I have decided to "dream bigger" and instead go all out on this feature.
Traveling between worlds I quickly realized was going to require a tighter integration with the MC2 servers. The way MC2 worked before was that your game reconnected to the global lobby every time you loaded or joined a server. Unfortunately, this model does not work too well if you need to instantly jump from one world to another. So, I started trying to tweak the current code in order to permit the things I wanted to do, and eventually one thing led to another, and I basically ended up rewriting most of the games networking code from scratch.
Moving back into the cloud and onto the MC2 server, we are now going to be assigning global coordinates to every world, sort of how is done in the original My Colony, and soon instead of building individual My Colony 2 worlds, we are going to be building out the entire My Colony Universe! Virtually, of course.
For anyone who has played My Starship, this is where things will soon be getting interesting. The title screen is going to be morphing basically into sort of a mix between the game My Starship, and the old Galaxy Map from MC1. Since the title screen is now rendered using another Scroll3d engine instance, you will eventually be seeing all of the MC2 online worlds in their actual global coordinates, right from the title screen. When you click on the next/previous buttons, it is going to "fly" the camera between your different worlds. Note that this does not happen right now, because nothing has coordinates yet. But it is coming soon.
How is that like My Starship? Well, when you click on the (+) button on the title screen, you will see an option to create a new Player Mode Character (not yet functional).
Unlike creating a local/offline character, this is going to let you choose one of your skins from My Tokens, and then choose your initial star ship! Luckily General Wadaling had previously provided a ton of star ship models so there should be several to choose from. You will then be able to fly your star ship around the online galaxy map, right from the title screen, and choose which world you want your player to land at.
There are a lot of possibilities here, and I will leave that open for another discussion. But who knows what kinds of things you can discover out in space, beyond just other players' planets.
This new online galactic map + player mode + star ships is the primary focus of the next update, so that is the next thing I am working on. Suggestions for that implementation are very welcome. Some plans off the top of my head involve allowing players to eventually build star ships that can be controlled on the global map and used to run trade routes, or even blockades of other planets. I think the space realm will need to be more a turn based nature VS realtime (for performance reasons) but we will see. I think of it as a giant global chess board.
Next let's take a look in-game. In the Statistics window, the Nations tab that has been sitting there doing nothing from the beginning of time has been renamed to just Nation, and now it does something.
Here you will see an overview of all of your colonies and settlements in the entire MC2 universe. The title of the page will read The Colonies of your username however there is also logic in the game to make it read The Nation of your username, however that is a discussion for another day. For now I will simply say that on the MC2 server, all colonies are now labeled as being sub-colonies of United Earth.
For MC2 online, I am considering all of a players' settlements to be "united" under a single governing structure, owned by you, the player. Eventually, diplomacy (alliances, trade agreements, and even war) is going to be handled on a global basis. So for example, if a user, we will use Poumm as an example, decides to declare war on you, they are then automatically declaring war on all of your settlements as well as any other players you have formed an alliance with. And this situation will carry over into the global "space" realm as well.
Let's talk a bit about Player Mode next, because it has had a total physics rewrite, in preparation for next update's online player mode overhaul. You can now walk across bridges and onto tiles occupied by structures, and even onto structures themselves if the change in elevation is not too high. In theory a structure could be designed with a stairway all the way to the top to allow players to climb up onto roofs. I plan to add jumping and mounting vehicles in the next update as well.
Next, if you look in the Game Editor, the discerning eye may notice four new properties for Structures related to Goods:
Goods are another new feature coming soon that will have a huge impact on gameplay. There is a new item on the title screen called the Goods Editor (which does not function yet). Basically, the concept here is that players will be able to build generic factories and stores to produce and sell goods of their choosing. Factories will have production "slots" determining how many different goods they can produce, and a rate, determining how fast they make said goods. Likewise, stores will be able to sell X number of different goods at a rate of X.
So what are these Goods and where do they come from? Well that is the cool part, that Goods editor will allow players to design the Goods themselves. Basically, players can provide a model (a 3d one using Voxel Paint, or a 2d one using Pixel Paint which will be auto-converted into 3d). You can choose what materials are needed to build the Good, and you will be able to assign different properties to the good (based on the input materials). These goods will be auto-sold in stores for profit, and player mode characters will also be able to visit stores on different planets and purchase these goods directly, equipping them and using them in-game.
If the whole thing sounds complicated, that's because it is, and that is why it doesn't work yet. But it is the next thing I am implementing after the Player Mode revamp.
Moving on to some minor changes, the Wooden Bridge has had the texture update to fill in the gaps in the wooden slats, because the new Player Mode physics were allowing the player to fall to his death otherwise. Also, @GeneralWadaling has provided updated models for the Outpost and Mobile Outpost.
The general theme for all of these changes is to make the entire universe around MC2 feel more connected and alive. The goal is to transform the game into something of a city building MMO with strategy, business management, and RPG elements all baked in. Seems pretty ambitious, but it's actually not very far off from being available. Small pieces of groundwork have been laid down for months now, and we are getting close to the point where it's going to happen. Once it's all done, then I think the game will be ready for the big Steam release.
So how can you help? One thing that will be need soon are generic shops and generic factories for the new Goods system. I know there are already a couple out there, but it would be nice to have different "tiers," small cheap ones that have limited production, and mass factories for later in the game. Mom and pop shops and mega marts. We will need it all.
Ideas on how to implement the player mode stuff would be good too. I am thinking maybe having a base no-frills shuttle craft that everyone starts with and gets for free, and then if players want better ships, they will have to be constructed by Ship Yards built in the colonies. Which means we will need a ship yard. I think in MC2, Star Ships should be vastly more expensive VS MC1, and instead of being a resource that you stockpile, it should be an actual unit that can be piloted, sold to players, and positioned on the galactic map in strategic formations.
So there is a lot to be excited about, and this fall is definitely going to the season of MC2 glory. So thanks to everyone who played, keep the suggestions coming, and stay tuned for more!
And yeah, I seriously changed a ton of code in this update, so please let me know everything I borked.
#mycolony2
Right off the bat, there is a glitch where if you have sky textures enabled, it's always "night time." So no need to report that one, lol.
Moving on, the first thing you are certain to notice is that the games title screen has been completely revamped.
So first off, thank you to @GeneralWadaling for all of the game world models. This change to the title screen goes pretty far beyond a mere fresh coat of paint though, and actually required pretty far reaching changes under the hood. In fact, I had to end up completely rewriting most of the games' networking/multiplayer code from scratch, which ended up consuming a majority of the time I had planned to spend working on this release. Let's get into why.
I mentioned at the beginning that big changes are coming soon to My Colony 2, and these changes center around a far tighter integration to the My Colony 2 online server. Starting with v0.39.0, players are now immediately signed into and communicating with the MC2 online servers as soon as the initial loading screen clears, and in effect you are actually behind-the-scenes in-game even when you are only on the title screen.
Why is this necessary? You have maybe seen the Player Mode icon in My Colony 2 in the past, but this feature is about to be expanded in a huge way. I have mentioned before adding the ability for Player Mode characters to travel between worlds via Star Gates, but I have decided to "dream bigger" and instead go all out on this feature.
Traveling between worlds I quickly realized was going to require a tighter integration with the MC2 servers. The way MC2 worked before was that your game reconnected to the global lobby every time you loaded or joined a server. Unfortunately, this model does not work too well if you need to instantly jump from one world to another. So, I started trying to tweak the current code in order to permit the things I wanted to do, and eventually one thing led to another, and I basically ended up rewriting most of the games networking code from scratch.
Moving back into the cloud and onto the MC2 server, we are now going to be assigning global coordinates to every world, sort of how is done in the original My Colony, and soon instead of building individual My Colony 2 worlds, we are going to be building out the entire My Colony Universe! Virtually, of course.
For anyone who has played My Starship, this is where things will soon be getting interesting. The title screen is going to be morphing basically into sort of a mix between the game My Starship, and the old Galaxy Map from MC1. Since the title screen is now rendered using another Scroll3d engine instance, you will eventually be seeing all of the MC2 online worlds in their actual global coordinates, right from the title screen. When you click on the next/previous buttons, it is going to "fly" the camera between your different worlds. Note that this does not happen right now, because nothing has coordinates yet. But it is coming soon.
How is that like My Starship? Well, when you click on the (+) button on the title screen, you will see an option to create a new Player Mode Character (not yet functional).
Unlike creating a local/offline character, this is going to let you choose one of your skins from My Tokens, and then choose your initial star ship! Luckily General Wadaling had previously provided a ton of star ship models so there should be several to choose from. You will then be able to fly your star ship around the online galaxy map, right from the title screen, and choose which world you want your player to land at.
There are a lot of possibilities here, and I will leave that open for another discussion. But who knows what kinds of things you can discover out in space, beyond just other players' planets.
This new online galactic map + player mode + star ships is the primary focus of the next update, so that is the next thing I am working on. Suggestions for that implementation are very welcome. Some plans off the top of my head involve allowing players to eventually build star ships that can be controlled on the global map and used to run trade routes, or even blockades of other planets. I think the space realm will need to be more a turn based nature VS realtime (for performance reasons) but we will see. I think of it as a giant global chess board.
Next let's take a look in-game. In the Statistics window, the Nations tab that has been sitting there doing nothing from the beginning of time has been renamed to just Nation, and now it does something.
Here you will see an overview of all of your colonies and settlements in the entire MC2 universe. The title of the page will read The Colonies of your username however there is also logic in the game to make it read The Nation of your username, however that is a discussion for another day. For now I will simply say that on the MC2 server, all colonies are now labeled as being sub-colonies of United Earth.
For MC2 online, I am considering all of a players' settlements to be "united" under a single governing structure, owned by you, the player. Eventually, diplomacy (alliances, trade agreements, and even war) is going to be handled on a global basis. So for example, if a user, we will use Poumm as an example, decides to declare war on you, they are then automatically declaring war on all of your settlements as well as any other players you have formed an alliance with. And this situation will carry over into the global "space" realm as well.
Let's talk a bit about Player Mode next, because it has had a total physics rewrite, in preparation for next update's online player mode overhaul. You can now walk across bridges and onto tiles occupied by structures, and even onto structures themselves if the change in elevation is not too high. In theory a structure could be designed with a stairway all the way to the top to allow players to climb up onto roofs. I plan to add jumping and mounting vehicles in the next update as well.
Next, if you look in the Game Editor, the discerning eye may notice four new properties for Structures related to Goods:
Goods are another new feature coming soon that will have a huge impact on gameplay. There is a new item on the title screen called the Goods Editor (which does not function yet). Basically, the concept here is that players will be able to build generic factories and stores to produce and sell goods of their choosing. Factories will have production "slots" determining how many different goods they can produce, and a rate, determining how fast they make said goods. Likewise, stores will be able to sell X number of different goods at a rate of X.
So what are these Goods and where do they come from? Well that is the cool part, that Goods editor will allow players to design the Goods themselves. Basically, players can provide a model (a 3d one using Voxel Paint, or a 2d one using Pixel Paint which will be auto-converted into 3d). You can choose what materials are needed to build the Good, and you will be able to assign different properties to the good (based on the input materials). These goods will be auto-sold in stores for profit, and player mode characters will also be able to visit stores on different planets and purchase these goods directly, equipping them and using them in-game.
If the whole thing sounds complicated, that's because it is, and that is why it doesn't work yet. But it is the next thing I am implementing after the Player Mode revamp.
Moving on to some minor changes, the Wooden Bridge has had the texture update to fill in the gaps in the wooden slats, because the new Player Mode physics were allowing the player to fall to his death otherwise. Also, @GeneralWadaling has provided updated models for the Outpost and Mobile Outpost.
The general theme for all of these changes is to make the entire universe around MC2 feel more connected and alive. The goal is to transform the game into something of a city building MMO with strategy, business management, and RPG elements all baked in. Seems pretty ambitious, but it's actually not very far off from being available. Small pieces of groundwork have been laid down for months now, and we are getting close to the point where it's going to happen. Once it's all done, then I think the game will be ready for the big Steam release.
So how can you help? One thing that will be need soon are generic shops and generic factories for the new Goods system. I know there are already a couple out there, but it would be nice to have different "tiers," small cheap ones that have limited production, and mass factories for later in the game. Mom and pop shops and mega marts. We will need it all.
Ideas on how to implement the player mode stuff would be good too. I am thinking maybe having a base no-frills shuttle craft that everyone starts with and gets for free, and then if players want better ships, they will have to be constructed by Ship Yards built in the colonies. Which means we will need a ship yard. I think in MC2, Star Ships should be vastly more expensive VS MC1, and instead of being a resource that you stockpile, it should be an actual unit that can be piloted, sold to players, and positioned on the galactic map in strategic formations.
So there is a lot to be excited about, and this fall is definitely going to the season of MC2 glory. So thanks to everyone who played, keep the suggestions coming, and stay tuned for more!
And yeah, I seriously changed a ton of code in this update, so please let me know everything I borked.
#mycolony2
My Colony v0.97.0
Premium purchased.
Platform: iPhone 7 Plus - OS 12.4.1
Render Colonists: OFF
Low Res Mode: ON
Multithreaded Pathfinding: Have tried on and off. No difference.
There are a few other syncing and saving options I've toggled on and off, but with no change in the issue described below.
Since I've had limited internet access this summer, I've been building offline regional colonies. I'm doing this post with information from memory as trying to get into the two bigger regions I've developed has become a nightmare, as described below.
Colony: Regional, with 8 regional cities (the other regional colony I think has 9). Approximately 52,000 colonists. The last time I was in the colony I tried to find a listing of how many buildings were across all the cities, but I could not find the statistics for such things.
The issue is getting INTO the colony.
When I start the game and choose this particular regional colony, it takes a long time for the region to load. When I say a long time, I mean 2 1/2 hours or more. It will remain in the loading and syncing data screens spinning and spinning.
If I go outside the app to answer a phone call, text, or check another app, then the app will crash and I have to start all over again. So, to start my region I have resorted to setting it to start loading before I go to bed, and if I'm lucky, it will have loaded by the time I wake up.
But then comes another issue:
Region finally loads and I'm in the regional overview. The moment I go into one of the regional cities there will be another app crash. If I'm lucky, the regional city will try to load, error out, and I will be thrown back to the regional overview. If I'm unlucky then the app crashes and I have to start the entire process all over again.
Once I get into a regional city I do not experience any game lag. I can then hop between regional cities just fine once I get past the loading cycles described above.
I can then play, build and increase populations just fine, until...
...once I get into the game and play, if I'm outside the game for around an hour the game reloads and then I'm into the loading cycle above, trying to get back into the region. When I'm at work it's impossible to log into the iPhone and go into the game to make sure it stays active and doesn't shut down at least once an hour (yes, I know this is a function of the iPhone to save resources, but just describes what a time-suck it is just to keep the game GOING even once I'm finally into a region).
Trying to get into a region and STAY in the region is a huge issue that has made me not play now in a month. I just don't have the time. Not to mention I don't want, need, or like the frustration.
The one good thing is that you seem to have fixed the regional city corruption problem I had before. So, none of these crashes have corrupted any cities or regions.
This issue has persisted for about 4 months (at least, that's how long I've had big region colonies). If I remember correctly, the huge loading time issue starts becoming a big problem once over around 4-5 regional cities. I do not recall if it related to population size on the two regional colonies. I'll try to keep that mind as I work on new colonies to see where the loading slowdown occurs.
I'm about to start a new colony (I'm thinking a medium regular colony and not a region. Although I LOVE regions because I can organize classifications of resources and buildings) because I enjoy the game, but it would really be nice to continue development on the region I've spent so much time developing.
Premium purchased.
Platform: iPhone 7 Plus - OS 12.4.1
Render Colonists: OFF
Low Res Mode: ON
Multithreaded Pathfinding: Have tried on and off. No difference.
There are a few other syncing and saving options I've toggled on and off, but with no change in the issue described below.
Since I've had limited internet access this summer, I've been building offline regional colonies. I'm doing this post with information from memory as trying to get into the two bigger regions I've developed has become a nightmare, as described below.
Colony: Regional, with 8 regional cities (the other regional colony I think has 9). Approximately 52,000 colonists. The last time I was in the colony I tried to find a listing of how many buildings were across all the cities, but I could not find the statistics for such things.
The issue is getting INTO the colony.
When I start the game and choose this particular regional colony, it takes a long time for the region to load. When I say a long time, I mean 2 1/2 hours or more. It will remain in the loading and syncing data screens spinning and spinning.
If I go outside the app to answer a phone call, text, or check another app, then the app will crash and I have to start all over again. So, to start my region I have resorted to setting it to start loading before I go to bed, and if I'm lucky, it will have loaded by the time I wake up.
But then comes another issue:
Region finally loads and I'm in the regional overview. The moment I go into one of the regional cities there will be another app crash. If I'm lucky, the regional city will try to load, error out, and I will be thrown back to the regional overview. If I'm unlucky then the app crashes and I have to start the entire process all over again.
Once I get into a regional city I do not experience any game lag. I can then hop between regional cities just fine once I get past the loading cycles described above.
I can then play, build and increase populations just fine, until...
...once I get into the game and play, if I'm outside the game for around an hour the game reloads and then I'm into the loading cycle above, trying to get back into the region. When I'm at work it's impossible to log into the iPhone and go into the game to make sure it stays active and doesn't shut down at least once an hour (yes, I know this is a function of the iPhone to save resources, but just describes what a time-suck it is just to keep the game GOING even once I'm finally into a region).
Trying to get into a region and STAY in the region is a huge issue that has made me not play now in a month. I just don't have the time. Not to mention I don't want, need, or like the frustration.
The one good thing is that you seem to have fixed the regional city corruption problem I had before. So, none of these crashes have corrupted any cities or regions.
This issue has persisted for about 4 months (at least, that's how long I've had big region colonies). If I remember correctly, the huge loading time issue starts becoming a big problem once over around 4-5 regional cities. I do not recall if it related to population size on the two regional colonies. I'll try to keep that mind as I work on new colonies to see where the loading slowdown occurs.
I'm about to start a new colony (I'm thinking a medium regular colony and not a region. Although I LOVE regions because I can organize classifications of resources and buildings) because I enjoy the game, but it would really be nice to continue development on the region I've spent so much time developing.
Version 0.57 on Android 6.0.1 on Samsung A5 2017.
So, many people probably know about the "Doing cleanup" bug which essentially makes the loading of a colony impossible. Here is my case:
I realised it has something to do with the fact that I just set my save to online mode because I wanted to see how the board of trade works. That did not work because of some other issue (it said that no contracts are available until the interface bugged completely) and after a restart of the app, I got the infinite loading. I could still use the left menu, which I used to snag a photo with the built-in photo tool:
You can already see how the issue is that the loading screen simply will not disappear, not letting the player see what is he doing. I used the left side menu to try to get into the statistics menu where I could disable online mode. The statistics menu was behind the loading screen as well, but I knew the exact location of the online mode button and I switched it. I restarted the game and it instantly worked properly.
So, many people probably know about the "Doing cleanup" bug which essentially makes the loading of a colony impossible. Here is my case:
I realised it has something to do with the fact that I just set my save to online mode because I wanted to see how the board of trade works. That did not work because of some other issue (it said that no contracts are available until the interface bugged completely) and after a restart of the app, I got the infinite loading. I could still use the left menu, which I used to snag a photo with the built-in photo tool:
You can already see how the issue is that the loading screen simply will not disappear, not letting the player see what is he doing. I used the left side menu to try to get into the statistics menu where I could disable online mode. The statistics menu was behind the loading screen as well, but I knew the exact location of the online mode button and I switched it. I restarted the game and it instantly worked properly.
If anybody was looking for a massive My Colony 2 update this month, I've got you covered! v0.34.0 is dropping now on the Web and the Ape Apps Launcher and is packed with goodies that you will not want to miss, so let's take a look at what is new!
The first change you might notice is that the title screen has been reworked, matching the layout from the title screen of Terra Nova 4X. This is a fairly minor change at the moment, but as MC2 had been using the generic Web App Core title screen, I was limited on what I could potentially add to it in the future, so now I will be able to make some changes and improvements going forward.
I also did quite a bit of work on Player Mode in this update, which had been completely borked until now. There is now a new HUD/UI for the mode, complete with health bar, radar, current location stats and more!
There remains a ton of work to be done on Player Mode. Right now there are still glitches and the controls are a bit wonky, but it is functional if you want to give it a test. My Colony 2 is eventually going to contain an entire sub-game based on Player Mode, but for now it's still fun to just walk around your colony and check things out.
There are new options on the Statistics screen for server operators in this release, and the first one is actually quite important.
You can now toggle your server's Private/Public status on the World statistics, which was a long requested feature. You can also toggle on/off the My Colony Online feature (which gives access to online trading through the GBT, among other things). However, and this is important, worlds created before MC2 v0.29.0 will all be in offline mode until activated on the World screen! This is because the MC Online flag in the save file was ignored until this update, and it defaulted to Offline before v0.29.0. Now that the flag is no longer ignored, worlds with the old default will be set to offline.
So the first time you load up your world in v0.34.0 (or higher), you must go into the Statistics screen and turn My Colony Online back on, if you want to use the GBT. You do not have to worry about losing resources or anything like switching between online/offline in the original My Colony. MC2 takes care of this by blocking all connections from modded games.
In addition to the above, server managers can now set the maximum number of online connections allowed in their game. You could previously set this using a chat text command, but now it's just a lot easier to do it from the UI.
Moving on, I have tried to make some interface changes to make My Colony 2 easier to play on mobile devices. The 3D nature of the game makes placing structures more difficult than it was on the original version of My Colony, but I think some changes in this update will help.
Firstly (as seen above), the ground grid lines are now turned on by default on touchscreen devices, allowing you to more easily see where you are placing structures. If you do not like this setting, it can be turned on/off in the Engine Settings menu under the Interface section, but on touch I think it makes a significant different in making the game more playable.
Next, I have tried to make it so that, no matter what orientation you have the camera rotated, placing a new structure will always originate from the top-left tile corner of the tiles to be occupied. On a touch screen there is no "hover" like with mouse input, so it's hard to tell where the building is going to be placed, and a lot of times with the camera rotated, you would have no idea where the building was going to show up once you tapped the screen, so now it should be fairly consistent no matter how you are rotated or zoomed. This was actually more difficult to implement then it might seem, since what tile constitutes the top-left corner is sort of subjective, especially depending on how far the camera is rotated in one way or another. At what angle is the cutoff where top-left becomes top-right, etc? Anyway, after hours of fiddling with the angle cutoffs, I think I have it to where it "feels" good, but you can play with it on mobile and let me know.
Moving right along, I have expanded the building stats that appear when you click on a structure's stats icon. You can now view the production/consumption ratings of Money, Civics and Research. There is still more expansion to be done on building stats, but this change alone makes a pretty big difference, IMO.
Now let's move on to new content, as there is a lot in this update. This release includes 22 new structures, two new techs to unlock, and one new unit. Among the new content in this release are 3D model contributions from @rahtdrgn @therealchromedino @GeneralWadaling and @spamdude so please be sure to show them appreciation for their great works!
Since there are so many new structures, I am just going to list them all out, and then comment on a few of them afterwards. A lot of the structures in this release are of the "Advanced" variety, needed upgrades to existing buildings.
Basically, the Star Gates are going to allow characters in Player Mode to seamlessly travel between worlds/servers. Ultimately, the area around your Star Gate will be the first thing a player sees when they enter your world from that perspective, so you may want to include things like informational signs about your world, and you may want to leave some space to build specific Player Mode related structures that will be available in the future. You may also wish to have at least one security turret nearby, as you never know what is going to be coming through the Star Gate. The Star Gates will also allow fast travel of players/colonists/units between distant settlements both on and off world.
The Star Gates are going to be a critical component of the Player Mode. I wanted to get them in the game sooner rather than later, because the My Colony Online database is keeping track of every star gate in the "universe," and I need to get that database built up before I can enable the fast travel and other features.
Moving along, an old favorite from the original My Colony has returned, as the Bank can now be upgraded to the Investment Bank!
You can start bringing in some pretty good money for your settlement with the Investment Bank, but it's not actually the best money maker in this release. That honor goes to the new Spice Den!
The Spice Den is a brick structure repurposed from an old food production model that GeneralWadaling had made a couple of years ago, and as long as you are able to keep it running with Spice, you will make some nice profits, as the rich and famous in your settlement will pay top dollar to get their Spice fix in a safe and discrete way. Obviously if you are not on the Spice World you will need to procure your Spice from the GBT, so you might want to stock up whenever it becomes available, as I suspect this is not the only Spice related structure we will be seeing added to non-Spice worlds.
Note that the Spice Den is the first structure in the game that actually has a negative Security rating, so you may need to offset that with an extra security headquarters.
Now, you have heard of the noble Extraterrestrial Builder, but what about his equally noble cousin, the Extraterrestrial Sea Rover?
The old offshore drill got a Quantum Offshore Drill upgrade in this release, so it needed a new boat to build it. Not only is this new version of the offshore drill faster, but it also brings up Alien Artifacts! This was badly needed I think, since artifacts are fairly rare on the desert world, and you just can't dig much at all on the water world, so these new Quantum Offshore Drills will come in handy.
Speaking of badly needed, you can now easily generate Helium 3 on any world with the new Advanced Helium 3 Extractor. You will need Regolith to operate it, but that shouldn't be a problem once you construct the new Advanced Regolith Synthesis Lab.
So what happens when you want to conduct big trades on the GBT but you don't want to build hundreds of Trading Depots? That's where the new Galactic Trade Authority Office comes into play!
This is another decent money making structure, but it also greatly increases your gift/trade capacity (I forgot the number, but it's big).
A lot of the buildings that needed upgrades got them in this release. We now have the Advanced Robotics Factory, the Advanced Microchip Factory, the Advanced Plastic Factory, Advanced Vocational Training Center, and the Underground Drop Room (upgrade to the Storage Yard), just to name a few.
In addition, the Spice World now has the new Spice Drilling Operation, which is basically an Ore Fracking Operation for Spice. There are also the new Advanced and Quantum Spice Silos for superior Spice storage.
There is also the Quantum Oil Tank upgrade, for storing larger amounts of Oil.
Finally, all of these new structures will require a great deal of power. That is where the brand new Ether Crystal Reactor comes into play!
You will need a continuous source of both Ether and Crystalline to run this thing, so you may need to watch the GBT for deals. If you can afford it though, the Ether Crystal Reactor will provide you with a 55,000 power rating, far eclipsing the current Integrated Nuclear Reactor.
At the end of the day, there was a ton of work put into this update, so I hope you all enjoy it! There is a lot more excitement for My Colony 2 on the horizon. My goal is to have, by the end of this year, full gamepad/tv support, full VR support, music, sounds, a Steam release, and to have enough content and features to overtake the playability of the original My Colony. So stay tuned for more large updates like this one, because this size of release is going to be the norm, not the exception!
Thank you again for playing My Colony 2 and remember, build up your parameter defenses, because @poumm is out there, lol!
Just kidding, poumm. You're ok!
#mycolony2
The first change you might notice is that the title screen has been reworked, matching the layout from the title screen of Terra Nova 4X. This is a fairly minor change at the moment, but as MC2 had been using the generic Web App Core title screen, I was limited on what I could potentially add to it in the future, so now I will be able to make some changes and improvements going forward.
I also did quite a bit of work on Player Mode in this update, which had been completely borked until now. There is now a new HUD/UI for the mode, complete with health bar, radar, current location stats and more!
There remains a ton of work to be done on Player Mode. Right now there are still glitches and the controls are a bit wonky, but it is functional if you want to give it a test. My Colony 2 is eventually going to contain an entire sub-game based on Player Mode, but for now it's still fun to just walk around your colony and check things out.
There are new options on the Statistics screen for server operators in this release, and the first one is actually quite important.
You can now toggle your server's Private/Public status on the World statistics, which was a long requested feature. You can also toggle on/off the My Colony Online feature (which gives access to online trading through the GBT, among other things). However, and this is important, worlds created before MC2 v0.29.0 will all be in offline mode until activated on the World screen! This is because the MC Online flag in the save file was ignored until this update, and it defaulted to Offline before v0.29.0. Now that the flag is no longer ignored, worlds with the old default will be set to offline.
So the first time you load up your world in v0.34.0 (or higher), you must go into the Statistics screen and turn My Colony Online back on, if you want to use the GBT. You do not have to worry about losing resources or anything like switching between online/offline in the original My Colony. MC2 takes care of this by blocking all connections from modded games.
In addition to the above, server managers can now set the maximum number of online connections allowed in their game. You could previously set this using a chat text command, but now it's just a lot easier to do it from the UI.
Moving on, I have tried to make some interface changes to make My Colony 2 easier to play on mobile devices. The 3D nature of the game makes placing structures more difficult than it was on the original version of My Colony, but I think some changes in this update will help.
Firstly (as seen above), the ground grid lines are now turned on by default on touchscreen devices, allowing you to more easily see where you are placing structures. If you do not like this setting, it can be turned on/off in the Engine Settings menu under the Interface section, but on touch I think it makes a significant different in making the game more playable.
Next, I have tried to make it so that, no matter what orientation you have the camera rotated, placing a new structure will always originate from the top-left tile corner of the tiles to be occupied. On a touch screen there is no "hover" like with mouse input, so it's hard to tell where the building is going to be placed, and a lot of times with the camera rotated, you would have no idea where the building was going to show up once you tapped the screen, so now it should be fairly consistent no matter how you are rotated or zoomed. This was actually more difficult to implement then it might seem, since what tile constitutes the top-left corner is sort of subjective, especially depending on how far the camera is rotated in one way or another. At what angle is the cutoff where top-left becomes top-right, etc? Anyway, after hours of fiddling with the angle cutoffs, I think I have it to where it "feels" good, but you can play with it on mobile and let me know.
Moving right along, I have expanded the building stats that appear when you click on a structure's stats icon. You can now view the production/consumption ratings of Money, Civics and Research. There is still more expansion to be done on building stats, but this change alone makes a pretty big difference, IMO.
Now let's move on to new content, as there is a lot in this update. This release includes 22 new structures, two new techs to unlock, and one new unit. Among the new content in this release are 3D model contributions from @rahtdrgn @therealchromedino @GeneralWadaling and @spamdude so please be sure to show them appreciation for their great works!
Since there are so many new structures, I am just going to list them all out, and then comment on a few of them afterwards. A lot of the structures in this release are of the "Advanced" variety, needed upgrades to existing buildings.
- Advanced Robotics Factory
- Ether Reactor (art by rahtdrgn)
- Ancient Alien Gold Synthesis Lab (art by therealchromedino)
- Star Gate
- Advanced Microchip Factory (art by GeneralWadaling)
- Advanced Plastic Factory
- Underground Drop Room (art by spamdude)
- Spice Drilling Operation (art by therealchromedino)
- Advanced Spice Silo (art by therealchromedino)
- Quantum Spice Silo (art by therealchromedino)
- Quantum Oil Tank (art by therealchromedino)
- Advanced Regolith Synthesis Lab (art by spamdude)
- Quantum Offshore Drill
- Advanced Vocational Training Center
- Spice Den
- Galactic Trade Authority Office
- Ether Crystal Reactor
- Plaza Mosaic Tile
- Investment Bank
- Advanced Helium 3 Extractor
- Black and White Checkered Pavement
- Street Sign
Basically, the Star Gates are going to allow characters in Player Mode to seamlessly travel between worlds/servers. Ultimately, the area around your Star Gate will be the first thing a player sees when they enter your world from that perspective, so you may want to include things like informational signs about your world, and you may want to leave some space to build specific Player Mode related structures that will be available in the future. You may also wish to have at least one security turret nearby, as you never know what is going to be coming through the Star Gate. The Star Gates will also allow fast travel of players/colonists/units between distant settlements both on and off world.
The Star Gates are going to be a critical component of the Player Mode. I wanted to get them in the game sooner rather than later, because the My Colony Online database is keeping track of every star gate in the "universe," and I need to get that database built up before I can enable the fast travel and other features.
Moving along, an old favorite from the original My Colony has returned, as the Bank can now be upgraded to the Investment Bank!
You can start bringing in some pretty good money for your settlement with the Investment Bank, but it's not actually the best money maker in this release. That honor goes to the new Spice Den!
The Spice Den is a brick structure repurposed from an old food production model that GeneralWadaling had made a couple of years ago, and as long as you are able to keep it running with Spice, you will make some nice profits, as the rich and famous in your settlement will pay top dollar to get their Spice fix in a safe and discrete way. Obviously if you are not on the Spice World you will need to procure your Spice from the GBT, so you might want to stock up whenever it becomes available, as I suspect this is not the only Spice related structure we will be seeing added to non-Spice worlds.
Note that the Spice Den is the first structure in the game that actually has a negative Security rating, so you may need to offset that with an extra security headquarters.
Now, you have heard of the noble Extraterrestrial Builder, but what about his equally noble cousin, the Extraterrestrial Sea Rover?
The old offshore drill got a Quantum Offshore Drill upgrade in this release, so it needed a new boat to build it. Not only is this new version of the offshore drill faster, but it also brings up Alien Artifacts! This was badly needed I think, since artifacts are fairly rare on the desert world, and you just can't dig much at all on the water world, so these new Quantum Offshore Drills will come in handy.
Speaking of badly needed, you can now easily generate Helium 3 on any world with the new Advanced Helium 3 Extractor. You will need Regolith to operate it, but that shouldn't be a problem once you construct the new Advanced Regolith Synthesis Lab.
So what happens when you want to conduct big trades on the GBT but you don't want to build hundreds of Trading Depots? That's where the new Galactic Trade Authority Office comes into play!
This is another decent money making structure, but it also greatly increases your gift/trade capacity (I forgot the number, but it's big).
A lot of the buildings that needed upgrades got them in this release. We now have the Advanced Robotics Factory, the Advanced Microchip Factory, the Advanced Plastic Factory, Advanced Vocational Training Center, and the Underground Drop Room (upgrade to the Storage Yard), just to name a few.
In addition, the Spice World now has the new Spice Drilling Operation, which is basically an Ore Fracking Operation for Spice. There are also the new Advanced and Quantum Spice Silos for superior Spice storage.
There is also the Quantum Oil Tank upgrade, for storing larger amounts of Oil.
Finally, all of these new structures will require a great deal of power. That is where the brand new Ether Crystal Reactor comes into play!
You will need a continuous source of both Ether and Crystalline to run this thing, so you may need to watch the GBT for deals. If you can afford it though, the Ether Crystal Reactor will provide you with a 55,000 power rating, far eclipsing the current Integrated Nuclear Reactor.
At the end of the day, there was a ton of work put into this update, so I hope you all enjoy it! There is a lot more excitement for My Colony 2 on the horizon. My goal is to have, by the end of this year, full gamepad/tv support, full VR support, music, sounds, a Steam release, and to have enough content and features to overtake the playability of the original My Colony. So stay tuned for more large updates like this one, because this size of release is going to be the norm, not the exception!
Thank you again for playing My Colony 2 and remember, build up your parameter defenses, because @poumm is out there, lol!
Just kidding, poumm. You're ok!
#mycolony2
version .0.53.0 chrome
main game page stuck on loading
Did hard reload stuck on loading ( deleted all browser stuff )
stuck on loading
when i first loaded the agme ( it did load as the new reptilians are in .
ps game has been loading very slow even in .52
same with antiquas loads but takes a wile ( 25 45 seconds
main game page stuck on loading
Did hard reload stuck on loading ( deleted all browser stuff )
stuck on loading
when i first loaded the agme ( it did load as the new reptilians are in .
ps game has been loading very slow even in .52
same with antiquas loads but takes a wile ( 25 45 seconds
Played the game normally for few weeks and all of a sudden I am stuck on loading screen.
I reinstalled the game, deleted all local folders multiple times and I can't get it past the loading screen. Any fix whatsoever ?
I reinstalled the game, deleted all local folders multiple times and I can't get it past the loading screen. Any fix whatsoever ?
Hello! I have been having an issue with my colony, it is stuck in the loading screen.
I downloaded it on the ape apps launcher and I am on windows 10. My computer is pretty good so I dont think its an issue for my pc hardware to not being able to load it.
Heres the image of the loading screen where my game gets stuck on, its the one that shows upo while launching the game
I downloaded it on the ape apps launcher and I am on windows 10. My computer is pretty good so I dont think its an issue for my pc hardware to not being able to load it.
Heres the image of the loading screen where my game gets stuck on, its the one that shows upo while launching the game
I just redownload my colony for the first time in months and had to get a software update just to do so. The first time I opened the app it opened fine then I closed it and opened it a few hours later and it was stuck on loading screen. I reset my phone twice but nothing worked so I deleted and redownloaded it. I lost all my worlds but it opened right away but as soon as I closed it and tried to reopen it a few hours later still stuck on loading screen. I am on ios iPhone 13 software update 16.5 and the newest update for my colony.
no offense, but the loading screen with the giant loading text is kinda freaky. i suggest making the loading bar smaller and centered on the screen and it says 'MyColony' not 'My Colony" which is weird. the text is also justified and you shold make it aligned to center, left, or right (criticism from me.) you do not have to do these things; its just that i would enjoy it more if you had these things done. even though i already like it!
Is this the very first loading screen, or the loading screen after you try to open your colony. Can you even get to the main menu?
Still doesn't make it to the title screen. Game launches and remains on the loading screen permanently. If I load up the website version of my colony I can get to the title screen in order to load a save file, the game saves within a reasonable time but cannot recall the save after returning to the title screen. Every other platform won't even launch
My Colony 2 v0.21.0 is now available on the Web, Windows and the Ape Apps Launcher and should be hitting Android and iOS over the coming days. This update fixes a couple of bugs introduced in the last release and makes some pretty big changes that could alter the course of how you play MC2 over the coming months, so let's jump in and take a look!
The first big change in this update is a new feature called Universe, which will allow you to "join" your game to other players' games to create a sort of peer-to-peer network of global My Colony 2 servers.
To join or create a Universe, you simply open the Statistics window on your colony, and enter a public and (optionally) a private key. Every online game using the same Public/Private key combination (and the same game version/mods) will be automatically joined into the same Universe network.
At this time, there is no default or "official" MC2 Universe, and the feature is 100% opt-in. If the community ends up creating/pushing/rallying behind a common Universe, that's great. It can also be used to set up a private Universe between you and your friends/family.
So what does a Universe get you? As of this release, it simply unlocks a global Chat similar to what is available on My Colony 1, but this is going to expand pretty quick once this update is released and I can see if the underlying connection is actually working right. Universe is going to enable interplanetary trade/governments/war, etc., so eventually having a large Universe community with a lot of players will be beneficial. So stay tuned and keep an eye on this feature, because it's going to get exciting over the next few updates!
Beyond the Universe feature, a big change is being made to game saving. Right now (prior to this update), all MC2 game data was saved to a single large library file that synced to the Ape Apps Cloud (for signed-in players). This was causing issues with both slow loading times, and data corruption when multiple instances of MC2 were open at once. This is being completely changed in this release. Starting now, game data is no longer saved to the overall player library file, and Cloud Sync is disabled by default for all colonies. It can be turned back on (if wanted) in the World section of the Statistics window.
The next big feature in v0.21.0 is the new Stat Reporting functionality. If you've used Coloniae with My Colony 1, then you know what the general idea is here. With My Colony 2 though, Stat Reporting is a bit more decentralized, and open to any developer who wishes to take advantage of it.
Stat Reporting can be accessed/enabled in the World tab of the Statistics window.
In order to use it, you simply input one or more (separated by commas) stat reporting endpoint URL's, and the game will take care of the rest. If you are a developer and would like to build your own Stat Reporting endpoint, you can see this thread which should contain all of the information you need to get started.
The final big change in v0.21.0 is engine support for separating .vpp model data out of the individual game data objects in order to (hopefully) allow for faster initial game loading times. Right now My Colony 2 is starting to take an awful long time to load on mobile devices, and if this new functionality works as I hope it should, then My Colony v0.22.0 (the next release) should see a drastic improvement in mobile load times. The new model loading scheme is currently being tested out on the Tree Farm, Galactic Stock Exchange, and the Uranium Enrichment Facility, so please keep an eye on those three structures, and let me know if you notice any issues/problems with how they are loaded and rendered. If everything is fine, then I will be moving all larger game data objects over to the new loading scheme in the next release.
So other than a few bug fixes that are not worth mentioning in the release notes, that is about it for v0.21.0. Please test out the new features and let me know what works, doesn't work, what needs improved, etc.! There's going to be a lot of exciting new features coming over the next few updates, so stay tuned for more, thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy the update!
#mycolony2
The first big change in this update is a new feature called Universe, which will allow you to "join" your game to other players' games to create a sort of peer-to-peer network of global My Colony 2 servers.
To join or create a Universe, you simply open the Statistics window on your colony, and enter a public and (optionally) a private key. Every online game using the same Public/Private key combination (and the same game version/mods) will be automatically joined into the same Universe network.
At this time, there is no default or "official" MC2 Universe, and the feature is 100% opt-in. If the community ends up creating/pushing/rallying behind a common Universe, that's great. It can also be used to set up a private Universe between you and your friends/family.
So what does a Universe get you? As of this release, it simply unlocks a global Chat similar to what is available on My Colony 1, but this is going to expand pretty quick once this update is released and I can see if the underlying connection is actually working right. Universe is going to enable interplanetary trade/governments/war, etc., so eventually having a large Universe community with a lot of players will be beneficial. So stay tuned and keep an eye on this feature, because it's going to get exciting over the next few updates!
Beyond the Universe feature, a big change is being made to game saving. Right now (prior to this update), all MC2 game data was saved to a single large library file that synced to the Ape Apps Cloud (for signed-in players). This was causing issues with both slow loading times, and data corruption when multiple instances of MC2 were open at once. This is being completely changed in this release. Starting now, game data is no longer saved to the overall player library file, and Cloud Sync is disabled by default for all colonies. It can be turned back on (if wanted) in the World section of the Statistics window.
The next big feature in v0.21.0 is the new Stat Reporting functionality. If you've used Coloniae with My Colony 1, then you know what the general idea is here. With My Colony 2 though, Stat Reporting is a bit more decentralized, and open to any developer who wishes to take advantage of it.
Stat Reporting can be accessed/enabled in the World tab of the Statistics window.
In order to use it, you simply input one or more (separated by commas) stat reporting endpoint URL's, and the game will take care of the rest. If you are a developer and would like to build your own Stat Reporting endpoint, you can see this thread which should contain all of the information you need to get started.
The final big change in v0.21.0 is engine support for separating .vpp model data out of the individual game data objects in order to (hopefully) allow for faster initial game loading times. Right now My Colony 2 is starting to take an awful long time to load on mobile devices, and if this new functionality works as I hope it should, then My Colony v0.22.0 (the next release) should see a drastic improvement in mobile load times. The new model loading scheme is currently being tested out on the Tree Farm, Galactic Stock Exchange, and the Uranium Enrichment Facility, so please keep an eye on those three structures, and let me know if you notice any issues/problems with how they are loaded and rendered. If everything is fine, then I will be moving all larger game data objects over to the new loading scheme in the next release.
So other than a few bug fixes that are not worth mentioning in the release notes, that is about it for v0.21.0. Please test out the new features and let me know what works, doesn't work, what needs improved, etc.! There's going to be a lot of exciting new features coming over the next few updates, so stay tuned for more, thanks for playing, and I hope you enjoy the update!
#mycolony2
My Colony 2 v0.14.0 has just been released and should be hitting all devices in a timely manner. I had originally planned to focus on the Water World for this update, but it ultimately ended up being completely different! That's fine though, because this release brings a lot of interface changes and some good new content to boot. Let's take a look at what's new!
I have added a new glow effect to units when you select them so that it is easier to tell which unit you have selected. Also, I have brought back the gesture from MC1 where you can click/tap on a unit twice to select all units of that same type (within a 40 tile radius).
This change solves two feature requests at once, so it's all good. I still need to bring back the drag/box select for Units, which will happen in due time.
I have started to expand the Encyclopedia with the new Structures section.
Right now it is only a glorified list of all structures in the game, but of course you will eventually be able to click on them to get all of the detailed information.
Speaking of expanded dialogs, the Engine Settings screen has a new Interface section. Here, you can adjust the size of the in-game chat text, and turn off the Camera Mode toolbar button, since players who use a mouse may never need to click on that button anyway.
And finally for dialogs, I have started to implement the Statistics screen, although it still has a ways to go.
The stats will be greatly expanded in the future. For now you can get some general information about the planet as a whole, a list of all settlements (as well as the ability to instant jump to each settlement location) and details on all players on the server. If you are the server owner (or a moderator), you can even conduct player moderation tasks on the Players screen.
In addition, you can also now finally change your player color on the Players screen by selecting your own name. These player moderation options are also available now in the Dedicated Server console.
Speaking of the Dedicated Server console, you can now easily switch your game between regular and dedicated server mode! On the game listings screen, click on the settings gear icon to launch your game in either mode. This allows you to play on your own server when you are at home, and then switch it over to dedicated mode when you are away.
And finally, you can now restore your game backups from the game listing screen by clicking on the new Restore Backup option that is at the bottom of your games listing.
I have updated the Chat Commands guide with new console commands that have been added to the game. Most of these also can be accessed by in-game UI, but those who prefer to type have the option as well. To go along with these, and as I lightly mentioned earlier, you can now assign a Moderator to your server to help watch over things when you are away. A moderator currently has the ability to kick a player for 5 minutes, as sort of a time out. The server admin can ban a player for however many days they deem necessary. Feel free to suggest more options for both Admins and Moderators.
Pictured below, you can see three new building options that have been added to the popup that appears when you select a building, which are Sell Confirmation, Upgrade, and Clone.
The little sell confirmation dialog will appear when you click on the sell button, so that you do not accidentally do something by mistake. The clone button works as in MC1, allowing you a quick way to "build another" of a certain type of building without searching through the build menu. And of course the upgrade button is there because we can now upgrade buildings, just like in MC1!
Moving on, you will now notice that Border Lines are drawn around your settlements!
This makes it easy to determine where you can and cannot place structures.
There are other little engine changes and improvements throughout, but let's move on to the new stuff next, starting with a new map, the Abandoned World!
The lovely pink radioactive waters are back, and along with them come the new resource Ether, and the associated Ether Tank and Ether Pump. The Ether will eventually be utilized for power generation and other industrial uses.
Speaking of power generation, you can now harvest Uranium using the new Uranium Miner, which is stored in the new Uranium Silo, and can be used to power the new Small Nuclear Reactor, giving you way more power than you had before!
Lastly, I have made several changes to the Ice World, making it more difficult than before. You can no longer construct solar panels (or solar anything) or water pumps or Ore Fracking operations. The world is also darker than before, to highlight its cold inhospitable nature.
In exchange, the Ice World gains the new Crystal Glowrod, a light source powered entirely by Crystalline, and the Tundra Molehole, which is essentially an Ore Fracking operation, but for Regolith.
As always, there are other things here in the new update, but you can have fun discovering them on your own. I will be submitting this build to the Windows Store in the form of a premium PWA, so look out for that if you want to purchase the game through your Microsoft Account. And next month, My Colony 2 will finally be hitting the iOS App Store, so look out for that too. Until then though, thank you all for playing and supporting the game, and leaving your suggestions and feedback. And of course, stay tuned for a whole lot more #mycolony2 !!
I have added a new glow effect to units when you select them so that it is easier to tell which unit you have selected. Also, I have brought back the gesture from MC1 where you can click/tap on a unit twice to select all units of that same type (within a 40 tile radius).
This change solves two feature requests at once, so it's all good. I still need to bring back the drag/box select for Units, which will happen in due time.
I have started to expand the Encyclopedia with the new Structures section.
Right now it is only a glorified list of all structures in the game, but of course you will eventually be able to click on them to get all of the detailed information.
Speaking of expanded dialogs, the Engine Settings screen has a new Interface section. Here, you can adjust the size of the in-game chat text, and turn off the Camera Mode toolbar button, since players who use a mouse may never need to click on that button anyway.
And finally for dialogs, I have started to implement the Statistics screen, although it still has a ways to go.
The stats will be greatly expanded in the future. For now you can get some general information about the planet as a whole, a list of all settlements (as well as the ability to instant jump to each settlement location) and details on all players on the server. If you are the server owner (or a moderator), you can even conduct player moderation tasks on the Players screen.
In addition, you can also now finally change your player color on the Players screen by selecting your own name. These player moderation options are also available now in the Dedicated Server console.
Speaking of the Dedicated Server console, you can now easily switch your game between regular and dedicated server mode! On the game listings screen, click on the settings gear icon to launch your game in either mode. This allows you to play on your own server when you are at home, and then switch it over to dedicated mode when you are away.
And finally, you can now restore your game backups from the game listing screen by clicking on the new Restore Backup option that is at the bottom of your games listing.
I have updated the Chat Commands guide with new console commands that have been added to the game. Most of these also can be accessed by in-game UI, but those who prefer to type have the option as well. To go along with these, and as I lightly mentioned earlier, you can now assign a Moderator to your server to help watch over things when you are away. A moderator currently has the ability to kick a player for 5 minutes, as sort of a time out. The server admin can ban a player for however many days they deem necessary. Feel free to suggest more options for both Admins and Moderators.
Pictured below, you can see three new building options that have been added to the popup that appears when you select a building, which are Sell Confirmation, Upgrade, and Clone.
The little sell confirmation dialog will appear when you click on the sell button, so that you do not accidentally do something by mistake. The clone button works as in MC1, allowing you a quick way to "build another" of a certain type of building without searching through the build menu. And of course the upgrade button is there because we can now upgrade buildings, just like in MC1!
Moving on, you will now notice that Border Lines are drawn around your settlements!
This makes it easy to determine where you can and cannot place structures.
There are other little engine changes and improvements throughout, but let's move on to the new stuff next, starting with a new map, the Abandoned World!
The lovely pink radioactive waters are back, and along with them come the new resource Ether, and the associated Ether Tank and Ether Pump. The Ether will eventually be utilized for power generation and other industrial uses.
Speaking of power generation, you can now harvest Uranium using the new Uranium Miner, which is stored in the new Uranium Silo, and can be used to power the new Small Nuclear Reactor, giving you way more power than you had before!
Lastly, I have made several changes to the Ice World, making it more difficult than before. You can no longer construct solar panels (or solar anything) or water pumps or Ore Fracking operations. The world is also darker than before, to highlight its cold inhospitable nature.
In exchange, the Ice World gains the new Crystal Glowrod, a light source powered entirely by Crystalline, and the Tundra Molehole, which is essentially an Ore Fracking operation, but for Regolith.
As always, there are other things here in the new update, but you can have fun discovering them on your own. I will be submitting this build to the Windows Store in the form of a premium PWA, so look out for that if you want to purchase the game through your Microsoft Account. And next month, My Colony 2 will finally be hitting the iOS App Store, so look out for that too. Until then though, thank you all for playing and supporting the game, and leaving your suggestions and feedback. And of course, stay tuned for a whole lot more #mycolony2 !!
The My Colony Universe Real Time Strategy (RTS) game Colony Wars has just been updated to v0.8.0, which is live now at it's new web domain and should be hitting Android over the coming days. This is the first real update to Colony Wars in about two years, so the game was long overdue. v0.8.0 contains a lot of updates "under the hood" and some quality of life improvements throughout, so let's take a look what is new!
The biggest change "structurally" to the game is one I mentioned in a thread earlier this week, which is that Colony Wars has been migrated off of the Web App Core framework and is now a stand-alone web app hosted at https://wars.my-colony.com/. If you previously had the Colony Wars progressive web app (PWA) installed to your device from the old Ape Web Apps location, you should uninstall it and reinstall the new one from the new URL.
The next change is the revamped title screen, which you can see in the screenshot above. The old title screen was also a component of Web App Core, so after migrating off of the library, I had to re-write the title from scratch. I sort of tried to copy off of the Red Alert 2 title screen (at least in terms of layout), since many of the game concepts are borrowed from RA2 anyway. Eventually, the background image on the title is going to cross fade between different battle scenes.
You will notice on the title screen that there is a new Quick Match button. This was added in response to Play Store feedback that setting up a new game could sometimes be too complicated on mobile devices. Now if you just want to quickly play a match, hop in the game and click on Quick Match. You will instantly be taken to a random map in Skirmish mode against how ever many AI opponents the map supports.
Improvements have been made to the New Game Lobby. You can now finally assign different teams to AI players, and change the color of the AI opponents as well. You can even assign AI players to be on your own team, if you wish. You might also notice a new map available called Crossroads. This was created by @GeneralWadaling , so if you enjoy the map please let him know!
Since we are on the subject of new maps, the Map Editor has also been improved. Namely, all of the functions on the map editor now work. Before, the abilities to import a map or open a saved map were not functioning, but now everything should be working properly (at least on the web app, Android might still have some bugs, but that will be sorted out in 0.9.0).
There was a lot of feedback on both the Play Store and through my email that the game was too difficult to control with touch screen, so several changes have been made to hopefully improve the situation:
This also works for units. If you have multiple units queued up, you can click on their number in the sidebar to cancel the build.
Another much-requested feature has been added. You can now see the health bar for a structure by clicking on it (or mouse-hovering it, if your device has a mouse). In addition, there is now an option to sell a building, or to quickly set a rally point for new units. You could previously do the rally point with a keyboard shortcut, but now you have access to the option on touch screen too.
Once in the game, you will notice a couple of additional changes. Firstly, all of the interface voice recordings ("construction complete," "low power," "harvester under attack," etc) have been re-recorded. My wife was kind enough to lend her voice for the recordings, so perhaps the sound will be more "soothing" now that it was before!
The AI's "brain" has been ratcheted up a bit in this release, especially as it relates to attacking your base. Previously, an AI would send some tanks into your base, destroy one building, and then just sit there like an idiot. Now the AI will actually go all-in and continue attacking your base until the job is done (or his attack force is destroyed).
Overall in-game performance should be better as well in this release, as the underlying Scroll2d engine has been updated to the latest iteration, which has about two years worth of improvements baked in over the previous release.
Finally, the multiplayer experience should be greatly improved in this release. As with Scroll2d, there are also two years of improvements brought over from my in-house multiplayer library, many of the code improvements coming thanks to the real-time multiplayer nature of My Colony 2. Multiplayer games now feature better performance, and much better handling of error states, such as player disconnects.
So the main focus of this release was to get Colony Wars migrated to its new home and bring about some of the most requested interface improvements. The next update is going to focus on adding new units and structures to the game. United Earth still needs a few things added before it's considered a complete faction, and if you have any suggestions on new structures and units for United Earth, now is the time.
Once the United Earth faction is done, I will focus on adding LIS to the game. Like in My Colony, LIS will have some similarities to United Earth, but with a few different specialized units and structures.
Once LIS is implemented, it will be time to add Zolarg into the game, and maybe the Alpha Draconians too for good measure, I haven't decided on that yet.
Finally, once all factions are done, the focus will switch to implementing the single player campaign, which will play through the story of the Human civil war, and the LIS's break-away from United Earth. I mentioned in a thread the other day that I want to have RA2 style cheesy cutscenes in the game. I might make them using Death 3D, but I also might get myself a greenscreen and an "Admiral Tots" costume. Haven't decided yet...
All the while adding the above mentioned items, I want to add other improvements as well. More options to the Multiplayer/Skirmish lobby, like setting your starting funds, game speed, AI difficulty, and tech level. The game needs Super Weapons too.
So that is it for this update. Expect more frequent Colony Wars updates, and let me know what you want to see added (as well as what issues you find with this release). Thanks for playing, and be sure to bookmark/install Colony Wars from it's new URL at my-colony.com:
https://wars.my-colony.com/
#colonywars
The biggest change "structurally" to the game is one I mentioned in a thread earlier this week, which is that Colony Wars has been migrated off of the Web App Core framework and is now a stand-alone web app hosted at https://wars.my-colony.com/. If you previously had the Colony Wars progressive web app (PWA) installed to your device from the old Ape Web Apps location, you should uninstall it and reinstall the new one from the new URL.
The next change is the revamped title screen, which you can see in the screenshot above. The old title screen was also a component of Web App Core, so after migrating off of the library, I had to re-write the title from scratch. I sort of tried to copy off of the Red Alert 2 title screen (at least in terms of layout), since many of the game concepts are borrowed from RA2 anyway. Eventually, the background image on the title is going to cross fade between different battle scenes.
You will notice on the title screen that there is a new Quick Match button. This was added in response to Play Store feedback that setting up a new game could sometimes be too complicated on mobile devices. Now if you just want to quickly play a match, hop in the game and click on Quick Match. You will instantly be taken to a random map in Skirmish mode against how ever many AI opponents the map supports.
Improvements have been made to the New Game Lobby. You can now finally assign different teams to AI players, and change the color of the AI opponents as well. You can even assign AI players to be on your own team, if you wish. You might also notice a new map available called Crossroads. This was created by @GeneralWadaling , so if you enjoy the map please let him know!
Since we are on the subject of new maps, the Map Editor has also been improved. Namely, all of the functions on the map editor now work. Before, the abilities to import a map or open a saved map were not functioning, but now everything should be working properly (at least on the web app, Android might still have some bugs, but that will be sorted out in 0.9.0).
There was a lot of feedback on both the Play Store and through my email that the game was too difficult to control with touch screen, so several changes have been made to hopefully improve the situation:
- Tapping on a unit twice will now select all units of the same kind in a 6 tile radius
- Units will now automatically attack all in-range defensive turret type structures (pillboxes, SAM sites, etc)
- When units are selected, you can simply tap on an enemy structure to order an attack, instead of having to click on the "move units" button first
This also works for units. If you have multiple units queued up, you can click on their number in the sidebar to cancel the build.
Another much-requested feature has been added. You can now see the health bar for a structure by clicking on it (or mouse-hovering it, if your device has a mouse). In addition, there is now an option to sell a building, or to quickly set a rally point for new units. You could previously do the rally point with a keyboard shortcut, but now you have access to the option on touch screen too.
Once in the game, you will notice a couple of additional changes. Firstly, all of the interface voice recordings ("construction complete," "low power," "harvester under attack," etc) have been re-recorded. My wife was kind enough to lend her voice for the recordings, so perhaps the sound will be more "soothing" now that it was before!
The AI's "brain" has been ratcheted up a bit in this release, especially as it relates to attacking your base. Previously, an AI would send some tanks into your base, destroy one building, and then just sit there like an idiot. Now the AI will actually go all-in and continue attacking your base until the job is done (or his attack force is destroyed).
Overall in-game performance should be better as well in this release, as the underlying Scroll2d engine has been updated to the latest iteration, which has about two years worth of improvements baked in over the previous release.
Finally, the multiplayer experience should be greatly improved in this release. As with Scroll2d, there are also two years of improvements brought over from my in-house multiplayer library, many of the code improvements coming thanks to the real-time multiplayer nature of My Colony 2. Multiplayer games now feature better performance, and much better handling of error states, such as player disconnects.
So the main focus of this release was to get Colony Wars migrated to its new home and bring about some of the most requested interface improvements. The next update is going to focus on adding new units and structures to the game. United Earth still needs a few things added before it's considered a complete faction, and if you have any suggestions on new structures and units for United Earth, now is the time.
Once the United Earth faction is done, I will focus on adding LIS to the game. Like in My Colony, LIS will have some similarities to United Earth, but with a few different specialized units and structures.
Once LIS is implemented, it will be time to add Zolarg into the game, and maybe the Alpha Draconians too for good measure, I haven't decided on that yet.
Finally, once all factions are done, the focus will switch to implementing the single player campaign, which will play through the story of the Human civil war, and the LIS's break-away from United Earth. I mentioned in a thread the other day that I want to have RA2 style cheesy cutscenes in the game. I might make them using Death 3D, but I also might get myself a greenscreen and an "Admiral Tots" costume. Haven't decided yet...
All the while adding the above mentioned items, I want to add other improvements as well. More options to the Multiplayer/Skirmish lobby, like setting your starting funds, game speed, AI difficulty, and tech level. The game needs Super Weapons too.
So that is it for this update. Expect more frequent Colony Wars updates, and let me know what you want to see added (as well as what issues you find with this release). Thanks for playing, and be sure to bookmark/install Colony Wars from it's new URL at my-colony.com:
https://wars.my-colony.com/
#colonywars
Hi,
I have problem with loading save from file using web browser (Chrome v63.0.3239.84 64-bit).
Game(v0.52.0) was saved using Chrome browser client( More options-> Game Data -> Backup Game File ).
When I'm trying to load save from attachment (More options-> Game Data -> Restore Game File), loading screen hangs on Restoring Data...
- Chrome dev console shows:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of null
at onFileOpened (script.js:3753)
at Worker.<anonymous> (script.js:3416)
(I've attached screenshot),
-Microsoft Edge shows similar error: SCRIPT5007: Unable to get property 'length' of undefined or null reference
script.js (3752,23)
The same save file is loaded properly using:
- standalone windows app (my-colony-win-x64-0.51.0.zip),
- windows 10 store app (v0.51.0),
- latest android google play store v0.51.0
I have tried saving game using standalone Windows app but still can't load it using any Web browser.
Save file: Error Screenshot:
I have problem with loading save from file using web browser (Chrome v63.0.3239.84 64-bit).
Game(v0.52.0) was saved using Chrome browser client( More options-> Game Data -> Backup Game File ).
When I'm trying to load save from attachment (More options-> Game Data -> Restore Game File), loading screen hangs on Restoring Data...
- Chrome dev console shows:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of null
at onFileOpened (script.js:3753)
at Worker.<anonymous> (script.js:3416)
(I've attached screenshot),
-Microsoft Edge shows similar error: SCRIPT5007: Unable to get property 'length' of undefined or null reference
script.js (3752,23)
The same save file is loaded properly using:
- standalone windows app (my-colony-win-x64-0.51.0.zip),
- windows 10 store app (v0.51.0),
- latest android google play store v0.51.0
I have tried saving game using standalone Windows app but still can't load it using any Web browser.
Save file: Error Screenshot:
I've been having this problem with loading two of my worlds (I go into more detail in a post above this one which is now locked but you can still acces it) ,but it's on my android (version 6.0.1) galaxy A5 phone, not on a computer.
Update: (idk if this is what solved it but...) after I deleted the backup file fore the insectoid world and then tried to log in the world it didn't get stuck in the loading screen.
As for the reptilians, I just entered the world and it worked (I didn't have to do anything to it's game files). So it might have been that I tried to enter enough times that it eventualy worked.
Update: (idk if this is what solved it but...) after I deleted the backup file fore the insectoid world and then tried to log in the world it didn't get stuck in the loading screen.
As for the reptilians, I just entered the world and it worked (I didn't have to do anything to it's game files). So it might have been that I tried to enter enough times that it eventualy worked.
A detailed description of your issue.
Whenever i try to create a new texture mod it just keeps on loading, on the orange splash screen and has been doing so since version 0.56, it let's me do everything else in the mod section just not that, also once it's clicked and goes into loading mode it then has to be stopped by closing the game down otherwise it would continue indefinitely.
I can load up the texture mod i have been creating and it works fine and i have tried creating a new texture with the vanilla version of MYC and my own and both do not seem to affect the problem so i'm guessing its a loading of the texture editor only or that's what it looks like to me.
Steps to replicate the issue you are having.
Just try to create a new texture mod using a windows 10 laptop and click create new texture mod .
game>> more options>> modding>> texture mods>> create texture mod.
The platform for your game
The windows 10 desktop version played on a Toshiba satellite, Win 10, 64bit, 4gb ram, intel core i3
Version of My Colony
0.58.0
If on mobile, list your mobile device (Google Pixel, HTC 10, etc)
Whenever i try to create a new texture mod it just keeps on loading, on the orange splash screen and has been doing so since version 0.56, it let's me do everything else in the mod section just not that, also once it's clicked and goes into loading mode it then has to be stopped by closing the game down otherwise it would continue indefinitely.
I can load up the texture mod i have been creating and it works fine and i have tried creating a new texture with the vanilla version of MYC and my own and both do not seem to affect the problem so i'm guessing its a loading of the texture editor only or that's what it looks like to me.
Steps to replicate the issue you are having.
Just try to create a new texture mod using a windows 10 laptop and click create new texture mod .
game>> more options>> modding>> texture mods>> create texture mod.
The platform for your game
The windows 10 desktop version played on a Toshiba satellite, Win 10, 64bit, 4gb ram, intel core i3
Version of My Colony
0.58.0
If on mobile, list your mobile device (Google Pixel, HTC 10, etc)
Hello,
To begin, here are some technical informations :
-I am playing at mycolony on my computer with WIN8 (v0.71);
-I have purchased premium version till some times ;
-I am playing on a BIGGAAA region map (about 7 regions are really inhabited, but I must have maybe something like 30 regions in all).
Now that is my problem : I was playing on the game and at a moment I decided to change of region. So I returned to the region map (below) and I clicked on the region I choosed. But instead of loading my map, it displayed me nothing at all, and if I well remembered i had an infinite loading text at the bottomright corner indicating "saving game.." infinitely but did nothing. The other regions function. But when I tried to load this one now, I have a "Sync data" screen who closes itself after a few seconds, without loading my map. I tried also to load a recovery file but it didn't function.
Does it mean that I seem to have lost this part of my map for ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever ?
My computer appeared to be overload at the moment of the problem. And I guess it is the cause of the corruption of the file...
EDIT : here are the files of the game, I 'm not sure it can help but I put them here nevertheless.
EDIT 2 : I have also lot's of .mcx files but I don't know if they can be of some use.
To begin, here are some technical informations :
-I am playing at mycolony on my computer with WIN8 (v0.71);
-I have purchased premium version till some times ;
-I am playing on a BIGGAAA region map (about 7 regions are really inhabited, but I must have maybe something like 30 regions in all).
Now that is my problem : I was playing on the game and at a moment I decided to change of region. So I returned to the region map (below) and I clicked on the region I choosed. But instead of loading my map, it displayed me nothing at all, and if I well remembered i had an infinite loading text at the bottomright corner indicating "saving game.." infinitely but did nothing. The other regions function. But when I tried to load this one now, I have a "Sync data" screen who closes itself after a few seconds, without loading my map. I tried also to load a recovery file but it didn't function.
Does it mean that I seem to have lost this part of my map for ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever and
ever ?
My computer appeared to be overload at the moment of the problem. And I guess it is the cause of the corruption of the file...
EDIT : here are the files of the game, I 'm not sure it can help but I put them here nevertheless.
EDIT 2 : I have also lot's of .mcx files but I don't know if they can be of some use.
For The Standalone My Colony zip file, I would have the infinite loading screen glitch, after finding the error file it for some reason wanted to put data into my XCOM2 file, why is that?
See Error Log Below:
v1.6.0 1590002661090 utils.js: 220 Uncaught Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'C:\Users\(My Name)/XCOM2'
I could fix the infinite loading by creating the xcom folder, just curious why it would need the folder of a game i uninstalled
See Error Log Below:
v1.6.0 1590002661090 utils.js: 220 Uncaught Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'C:\Users\(My Name)/XCOM2'
I could fix the infinite loading by creating the xcom folder, just curious why it would need the folder of a game i uninstalled
Windows 10
My Colony v0.6.7.0
Native Client/Website version
Yesterday I played the game for a a while in the morning, however when I opened the game later in the evening it got stuck at the Loading screen and I couldn't even make it to the title screen. I tried reinstalling it but it did not work. Luckily, I export my save files frequently and had a recent save file logged on my computer.
I tried the ape apps launcher, it also had the same problem as native client and did not work.
I tried to use the website version to see if it all worked. I loaded the website version fine, imported my save file, all looked good except for the fact that when I saved and exited to the title screen it failed to actually save it. I tried it again and still never came up on the list of saves to load, and whenever I clicked the button to load the previously loaded colony it simply says corrupted - even though I can still import the save correctly. I then tested to see if it could save any colony. I created a new colony, saved and exited to title and It worked perfectly fine.
I decided to take a break and come back to it the next day. Nothing I could do made the native client work, nor the Website version. Luckily, despite that it didn't work the previous day, the ape apps launcher works.
How did this problem occur, how can it be fixed. I prefer the native client version over the other versions, I will play with the ape apps launcher version for now but I just thought the developer should be made aware that these problems exists.
My Colony v0.6.7.0
Native Client/Website version
Yesterday I played the game for a a while in the morning, however when I opened the game later in the evening it got stuck at the Loading screen and I couldn't even make it to the title screen. I tried reinstalling it but it did not work. Luckily, I export my save files frequently and had a recent save file logged on my computer.
I tried the ape apps launcher, it also had the same problem as native client and did not work.
I tried to use the website version to see if it all worked. I loaded the website version fine, imported my save file, all looked good except for the fact that when I saved and exited to the title screen it failed to actually save it. I tried it again and still never came up on the list of saves to load, and whenever I clicked the button to load the previously loaded colony it simply says corrupted - even though I can still import the save correctly. I then tested to see if it could save any colony. I created a new colony, saved and exited to title and It worked perfectly fine.
I decided to take a break and come back to it the next day. Nothing I could do made the native client work, nor the Website version. Luckily, despite that it didn't work the previous day, the ape apps launcher works.
How did this problem occur, how can it be fixed. I prefer the native client version over the other versions, I will play with the ape apps launcher version for now but I just thought the developer should be made aware that these problems exists.
Bast can you please get back to me. I am trying every day to fix this issue, but I'm not that capable with computers to know what the problem is.
I have tried a clean installation of My Colony more than ten times now and I haven't been able to fix my problem. The screen is stuck at "Loading". I waited for hours to see if my PC is slow, but it won't go past the loading screen.
Please help me because I'm at my wit's end with this problem and I haven't played My Colony since v0.69
I have tried a clean installation of My Colony more than ten times now and I haven't been able to fix my problem. The screen is stuck at "Loading". I waited for hours to see if my PC is slow, but it won't go past the loading screen.
Please help me because I'm at my wit's end with this problem and I haven't played My Colony since v0.69
Every time I try to load my online colony, I get stuck on a loading screen that says
Syncing data....
Decompressing game....
Back and fourth.
I have tried reinstalling the game, and rebooting
I am on Android.
I like this game a lot, and am really enjoying the whole multiplayer concept, but Jesus, there are a lot of game breaking bugs making it hard to keep playing.
Syncing data....
Decompressing game....
Back and fourth.
I have tried reinstalling the game, and rebooting
I am on Android.
I like this game a lot, and am really enjoying the whole multiplayer concept, but Jesus, there are a lot of game breaking bugs making it hard to keep playing.
Today I am releasing the 0.40.0 update to My Colony 2. Let's get right into it!
I had a lot of technical issues with this update that I will not bore you with, but I will just say that I think going forward, my update ambitions need to be broken into smaller chunks so that I don't end up destroying the entire engine each release.
I have a goal for MC2 of merging the new (as of the previous update) title screen with the actual game play, sort of connecting everything together as one universe that you can sandbox your way through in Player mode. In order for this to work, I needed to merge the title screen rendering with the gameplay rendering into the same Scroll 3D graphics context. In my head this was going to be a small change, but it ended up being a nightmare, although I do believe I have woken up from it now.
The main reason this change was necessary is because I plan to have all modes of MC2 fully playable in VR mode, and you cannot switch from one graphics context to another in VR without leaving immersion mode, which sort of ruins the whole thing. As the engine worked before, walking your player through a star gate would have pushed the player out of VR mode and forced them to go back into it once the next planet loaded. Not acceptable.
So anyway, I got that fixed. It's one of those changes that takes a week to work on and that most people will not even notice that anything is different. Oh well!
Moving on, you may have noticed a different map type in the main post screenshot. I have added Forest World to the game. @therealchromedino had posted a model for a forest world planet, and I was thinking that, it's going to be fall here soon (at least in northern hemisphere), maybe it would be neat to have the forest world be sort of fall colors as well, so a lot of the trees are red/orange/yellow colors. I thought it would look better than it turned out, I am not 100% satisified with it, but you guys can let me know. Maybe we need a larger variety of tree species? If anyone wants to make some tree models, feel free!
I also thought it would be cool to have some sort of hostile AI "ewok" type species on the forest world, so I might add something of that nature as well.
The Forest World right now brings back the old Potato Patch as a unique world structure. I have not come up with a unique world resource yet, but I will in time.
Moving on, @GeneralWadaling posted a batch with a bunch of reskinned structures, and I have implemented 22 of them so far in this release. There are more that I will probably add soon as well, I was just getting tired of swapping out all of the models so I took a break from it for the time being. Look around though, as a lot of buildings got a graphical makeover in this release!
I have also added two new buildings, the City Hall and the Sports Stadium from @spamdude and @seabass13 respectively. The Sports Stadium now becomes the top entertainment structure, but you can only build it on worlds with an atmosphere. The City Hall is going to unlock city (settlement) management options in the stats window, just as soon as I figure out what those options should be. You can leave suggestions if you have ideas.
I have also added a 6th settlement level tier, since we are getting a lot of level 5 settlements already. I will add the 7th if people start unlocking tier 6. I am thinking that once your settlement level is high enough, you will be able to build some sort of Congress building (model suggestions welcome), and that building will allow you to start the independence process that will lead to the Nations feature. At least that is the rough outline of what I have in mind.
The engine should now support an option for structures that are only allowed one per settlement, or one per world. The City Hall is a one per settlement building. I also thought it would be cool to have "Wonders" or super buildings that can only be built one per world, so the first person to build it gets to have that landmark for the world. So again, if you have any ideas for Wonder/Landmark/Superstructures, let me know!
Finally, I spent a fair bit of time on performance optimizations in this update, both for rendering and for saving/loading. It should be better, but then again I always think it's better when I'm testing, so let me know how it runs "in the real world." In addition, local saves (games that are on the filesystem, not cloud sync or internal app storage) are no longer compressed, which should vastly speed up their saving and loading times.
That is it for this update, you should be able to try it basically now, or at least real soon. Let me know what issues you have, and stay tuned for more!
#mycolony2
I had a lot of technical issues with this update that I will not bore you with, but I will just say that I think going forward, my update ambitions need to be broken into smaller chunks so that I don't end up destroying the entire engine each release.
I have a goal for MC2 of merging the new (as of the previous update) title screen with the actual game play, sort of connecting everything together as one universe that you can sandbox your way through in Player mode. In order for this to work, I needed to merge the title screen rendering with the gameplay rendering into the same Scroll 3D graphics context. In my head this was going to be a small change, but it ended up being a nightmare, although I do believe I have woken up from it now.
The main reason this change was necessary is because I plan to have all modes of MC2 fully playable in VR mode, and you cannot switch from one graphics context to another in VR without leaving immersion mode, which sort of ruins the whole thing. As the engine worked before, walking your player through a star gate would have pushed the player out of VR mode and forced them to go back into it once the next planet loaded. Not acceptable.
So anyway, I got that fixed. It's one of those changes that takes a week to work on and that most people will not even notice that anything is different. Oh well!
Moving on, you may have noticed a different map type in the main post screenshot. I have added Forest World to the game. @therealchromedino had posted a model for a forest world planet, and I was thinking that, it's going to be fall here soon (at least in northern hemisphere), maybe it would be neat to have the forest world be sort of fall colors as well, so a lot of the trees are red/orange/yellow colors. I thought it would look better than it turned out, I am not 100% satisified with it, but you guys can let me know. Maybe we need a larger variety of tree species? If anyone wants to make some tree models, feel free!
I also thought it would be cool to have some sort of hostile AI "ewok" type species on the forest world, so I might add something of that nature as well.
The Forest World right now brings back the old Potato Patch as a unique world structure. I have not come up with a unique world resource yet, but I will in time.
Moving on, @GeneralWadaling posted a batch with a bunch of reskinned structures, and I have implemented 22 of them so far in this release. There are more that I will probably add soon as well, I was just getting tired of swapping out all of the models so I took a break from it for the time being. Look around though, as a lot of buildings got a graphical makeover in this release!
I have also added two new buildings, the City Hall and the Sports Stadium from @spamdude and @seabass13 respectively. The Sports Stadium now becomes the top entertainment structure, but you can only build it on worlds with an atmosphere. The City Hall is going to unlock city (settlement) management options in the stats window, just as soon as I figure out what those options should be. You can leave suggestions if you have ideas.
I have also added a 6th settlement level tier, since we are getting a lot of level 5 settlements already. I will add the 7th if people start unlocking tier 6. I am thinking that once your settlement level is high enough, you will be able to build some sort of Congress building (model suggestions welcome), and that building will allow you to start the independence process that will lead to the Nations feature. At least that is the rough outline of what I have in mind.
The engine should now support an option for structures that are only allowed one per settlement, or one per world. The City Hall is a one per settlement building. I also thought it would be cool to have "Wonders" or super buildings that can only be built one per world, so the first person to build it gets to have that landmark for the world. So again, if you have any ideas for Wonder/Landmark/Superstructures, let me know!
Finally, I spent a fair bit of time on performance optimizations in this update, both for rendering and for saving/loading. It should be better, but then again I always think it's better when I'm testing, so let me know how it runs "in the real world." In addition, local saves (games that are on the filesystem, not cloud sync or internal app storage) are no longer compressed, which should vastly speed up their saving and loading times.
That is it for this update, you should be able to try it basically now, or at least real soon. Let me know what issues you have, and stay tuned for more!
#mycolony2
Today I am updating the original My Colony to v1.30.0, bringing along some fixes, minor changes, and adding Seasons to the challenges system. Let's take a look!
Edit 2023-09-25: v1.31.0 has also been pushed out which is just a minor bug fix release, so there are no new notes for that update.
The largest change you will notice is that the Trophy leaderboards have been reset, and there is a new counter showing how many days are left in the current season. Trophy seasons will now last for 30 days, after which time the colony and the federation with the most trophies in the previous season will each get one Seasonal Trophy and everything else is reset to zero. This should hopefully give some other colonies a chance to appear on the leaderboards, since it was getting to be impossible to compete with some of the larger colonies out there.
There have been issues lately with players who are modifying their game data in order to get more resources for online play. I have started issuing 2 year bans for all colonies who are participating in this behavior, meaning that you and all of your colonies will be blocked from using MC online features for two years. In addition, there are new runtime checks in the engine that will reset all of a colony's resources to 0 if resource amount modifications are detected by the game. I really hate banning players for anything, but I can't just let abuse like this run unchecked.
For colonies with super large amounts of money and resources, there is a new Q abbreviation for numbers in the Quintillions and above.
I corrected an issue where the Ore Zapper and the House of Horrors were providing incorrect resource storage.
I also fixed an issue in this update where players were unable to restore backed up save files.
Finally, there has been an issue lately where certain ad blockers were blocking My Colony from download all of it's game data files, causing the game to hang forever on the loading screen. The game will now try to detect this scenario and give a warning message, so that the player actually knows what is happening instead of just seeing an endless loading screen.
That about wraps it up for this update. Let me know what issues you have with it, and thank you for playing!
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Edit 2023-09-25: v1.31.0 has also been pushed out which is just a minor bug fix release, so there are no new notes for that update.
The largest change you will notice is that the Trophy leaderboards have been reset, and there is a new counter showing how many days are left in the current season. Trophy seasons will now last for 30 days, after which time the colony and the federation with the most trophies in the previous season will each get one Seasonal Trophy and everything else is reset to zero. This should hopefully give some other colonies a chance to appear on the leaderboards, since it was getting to be impossible to compete with some of the larger colonies out there.
There have been issues lately with players who are modifying their game data in order to get more resources for online play. I have started issuing 2 year bans for all colonies who are participating in this behavior, meaning that you and all of your colonies will be blocked from using MC online features for two years. In addition, there are new runtime checks in the engine that will reset all of a colony's resources to 0 if resource amount modifications are detected by the game. I really hate banning players for anything, but I can't just let abuse like this run unchecked.
For colonies with super large amounts of money and resources, there is a new Q abbreviation for numbers in the Quintillions and above.
I corrected an issue where the Ore Zapper and the House of Horrors were providing incorrect resource storage.
I also fixed an issue in this update where players were unable to restore backed up save files.
Finally, there has been an issue lately where certain ad blockers were blocking My Colony from download all of it's game data files, causing the game to hang forever on the loading screen. The game will now try to detect this scenario and give a warning message, so that the player actually knows what is happening instead of just seeing an endless loading screen.
That about wraps it up for this update. Let me know what issues you have with it, and thank you for playing!
https://mycolony.online/
#mycolony
Similar behavior for me. Running on Windows 10 Pro. Upgraded from .41 to .43, opened the app, select my colony, and it shows my colony for about 10-15 seconds, then a white screen. I've tried minimizing, resizing and moving the application to a secondary monitor with no change in behavior.
Task Manager shows 3 active PIDs before it crashes and then only 1 that is consuming no CPU when the screen goes white.
I tried changing different engine settings like render cap (went from extreme where I normally have it set to none), disabled the side bar, and turned on the zoom buttons with no change in behavior. I thought it may have been something with zooming out (since the view starts zoomed pretty far in) because after I turned off the sidebar it seemed to give me more than 10 seconds before it went white, but it still went white. I then tried starting in a smaller screen, as I normally start full screen, and it let me move around the map for a good 30 seconds before it went white right after I zoomed out.
Now I'm in an update loop it seems. I've closed the app several times and now I'm getting an update notices that tries to download the 132.53MB upgrade, but before it gets to installing, the screen goes white. I haven't done a reboot yet, so I'm going to see if that has any effect on things.
Task Manager shows 3 active PIDs before it crashes and then only 1 that is consuming no CPU when the screen goes white.
I tried changing different engine settings like render cap (went from extreme where I normally have it set to none), disabled the side bar, and turned on the zoom buttons with no change in behavior. I thought it may have been something with zooming out (since the view starts zoomed pretty far in) because after I turned off the sidebar it seemed to give me more than 10 seconds before it went white, but it still went white. I then tried starting in a smaller screen, as I normally start full screen, and it let me move around the map for a good 30 seconds before it went white right after I zoomed out.
Now I'm in an update loop it seems. I've closed the app several times and now I'm getting an update notices that tries to download the 132.53MB upgrade, but before it gets to installing, the screen goes white. I haven't done a reboot yet, so I'm going to see if that has any effect on things.
http://apps.ape-apps.com/my-starship/
The game is currently in a very early beta state, and as of yet, there is still not much to do. The purpose of this thread is to take comments and suggestions of things to add to the game. I will also keep this post updated with my current plans/to-do/progress list. I want to say up front though, that there are no plans to tie My Starship in to the My Colony server. I have decided that this would be better off as a stand-alone game.
The purpose of this early beta is to get feedback and suggestions on where to take the game, and also to guage interest so I can know how much time to put into development. The beta will be available for testing on Web, Android, Desktop, and Windows 10 at first, with an iOS release coming once the game is further along.
Current Build: v0.15.0
Current To-Do List (in no particular order):
- Save game progress.
- Choose your own starting civilization and ship, captain name, ship color, etc.
- Interaction with other ships, including trade, missions, battle, piracy, capture, etc.
- Captain skills progression, stats, leveling up, etc.
- Planet stardocks with ship upgrades, buy/sell new ships, ship repairs, etc.
- Resource harvesting on empty planets.
- Distress call when ship out of fuel, or:
- Escape pod when ship out of fuel or loses a battle.
- Attack, bombard, or blockade a planet.
- Capture, take control of a planet and it's industrial output.
- Hire starship crew, manage crew relations, keep them happy, prevent mutiny.
- Factories on planets which produce additional resources. Planets AI automatically upgrade themselves, conduct their own trades with passing ships.
- Military ships controlled by the main factions which patrol their own space, protect their colonies, respond to distress calls.
- Gamepad + Android TV/Amazon Fire TV/Xbox One support
- Local (LAN/Wifi) Multiplayer
So anyway, this thread is the place for all things My Starship related, as of right now. I will be embedding a link to the thread from within the game, and will be keeping the top post updated as I make progress and updates to the game. If the idea gains any users or traction, I will upgrade it to it's own forum section, but it is really not necessary at the moment. I plan on working on the game every week or so, or whenever I have time. That will increase or decrease based on the reception (or lack thereof) of the concept. Enjoy!
Changelog
20210418 - v0.15.0
Added some Chinese translations
Updated menu icons to conform to ADL
Addressed "Cargo is Full" bug
Added Harvest Resources to the planet popup window on uninhabited planets
20200922 - v0.14.0
AI fuel tankers now have a chance to just get more fuel
Player is now warned if cargo is full while harvesting
Added Aluminum requirement to the Uranium Enrichment Facility
Started migrating ship stats screen format into a My Colony-like general stats window
New Resources Added:
- Spice
- Oil
- Plastic
Added Factory:
- Plastic Factory
20200508 - v0.13.0
You can no longer buy/steal goods above your cargo hold space
New Upgrades Added:
- Shield Module Mk2
- Torpedo Tubes
New Ships Added:
- Strut MkVI
- Torpedojager
- Draconian Destroyer
New Resource Added:
- Aluminum
20191118 - v0.12.0
Planets in comm range will show a fuel icon now if they have available fuel for sale
Added a 'Quick Refuel' option to planet options box
Expanded information on the Ship Stats screen
Ships can now travel at diagonal angles
20191010 - v0.11.0
Added Combat!
- You can attack anyship you come across
- Each attack turn you can Fight, try to Run, or attempt to Board
- Boarding let's you take their resources
Added Captain game object, each ship now represented by a Captain
Captains are pulled from roaming tokens from My Tokens
Player automatically assigned to their account default Token
Ships for sale at dock are now sorted by price
Docks now offer starship repair services
Planets now show civilization, contracts, and dock indicators
Civilization capitol now shows an indicator
When zoomed out, Map shows current ship marker and lines between civs
The Planet Stats popup now finally works
Added a pending contract display to the main hud
20190826 - v0.10.0
Planets with a Dock and enough money/parts will now construct new starships
Planets will commission new starships under their flag
You can now buy new starships from the Docks of a planet that has starship inventory
You can now only see other ships that are in your radar range
You can now harvest natural resources from uninhabited planets
- the AI ships will also do this
Ships out of fuel (including yours) will now send out a distress signal within their communications range
AI fuel tankers and government ships will now respond to distress calls
AI ships will now trade with each other
Added back button handling (for devices with a back button)
New ship classes:
- Galactic Freight Hauler
- Galactic Freight Heavy
- Space Jumper
New upgrade modules:
- Shield Module
- Laser Cannons
- Small Hangar Bay
- Guest Pod
- Improved Radar
- Transceiver Upgrade
Added Factories:
- Uranium Enrichment Facility
- Gold Synthesis Lab
- Ore Fraking Operation
20190301 - v0.9.0
Minor bug fix release
20180925 - v0.8.0
Planets will now build Ports when they have the resources
AI ships now conduct expanded business with planets
Fuel Tankers now purchase significantly more fuel from planets
Ships can now purchase upgrades from star ports
First upgrades are:
- Hyperdrive Upgrade
- Cargo Pods
- Hull Plating
20180825 - v0.7.0
Last saved game now appears on title screen
Added Factories, which planets will automatically construct when they meet certain conditions
First factories are:
- Ore Refinery
- Microchip Factory
- Rum Distillery
- Starship Parts Factory
Added Resource:
- Starship Parts
20180611 - v0.6.0
Games can now be saved/loaded
User now prompted to name ship at new game
Civilization governments now start with their own ship fleets
Changes to AI ship movement, destination selection
Government ships will not do quests, but will conduct trades between other government planets
Independent traders will now trade in other goods besides fuel, if the price is good
Added Ship Classes:
- Light Fighter
- Patrouilleschip
- Draconian Patrol
New Missions:
- Compromising Position
- No Laughing Matter
- Emergency Treatment
20180512 - v0.5.0
Implemented Gamepad control support
You can now interact with planets that are within 1 tile by clicking/tapping on them
Added new Ship Stats screen
You can now rename your ship
You can now change ship color
AI ships are now assigned a random ship color
Different ship classes can now start with specific resource overrides
Added Ship Classes:
- Klein Vrachtschip
- Draconian Cutter
- Uranium Tanker
New Missions:
- Conspiracy
- Proof of Loyalty
- Death Celebration
- Body Part Delivery
- Trojan Horse Attack
- Making Amends
20180507 - v0.4.0
Bug fixes
Engine now supports "Linked" missions
Contract timeout fails now work
Added 'Pending Contracts' option to main menu
Added Missions:
- Starvation
- Poisonous Revenge
- Wedding Delivery
Added Ship Classes:
- Delta Runner
20180503 - v0.3.0
Added Ship Contact screen when coming in contact with another ship
Can now conduct ship to ship trades
Global resource prices now slowly and randomly fluctuate over time
Raised the number of independent traders in the galaxy
Game ticks now keep happening when ship runs out of fuel
New planet type: Water World
20180430 - v0.2.0
Resource icon now shows up on trade menus
Changed the Fuel/Cargo readout bars on larger screens
Starting AI merchant ships are now picked from a random ship class
Added Settings button to the top UI bar
Added Resources:
- Ore
- Gold
- Steel
- Microchip
Added Ship Class:
- Draconian Sloop
- Ruimteschip
Added Mission:
- Rum Party
I am finally putting the finishing touches on the My Colony v0.86.0 patch, which should be hitting all devices within a few days. I had planned for this to be a huge exciting content update, but then once I started working on it, I began running into one problem after the other and it ended up taking way longer to complete than I had anticipated. As a result, there are a lot of engine changes in this update but no content additions, so from the outside it may look like I've spent the last two weeks doing nothing. Rest assured though, there are some improvements to the game in this release, so let's take a look!
The first major change, which actually inadvertently started a domino effect of changes to the engine, was a total rewrite of the way the game saves files. As most of you know, when My Colony first came out there was no such thing as Regions, and so the concept wasn't even considered during game saving. Once Regions came out, many of the engine mechanics had to change to accommodate having multiple game objects processing at the same time (the individual city you are playing, the region itself, and the minor updates to the surrounding region files).
With all of these changes happening to different game objects at the same time, the game saving function remained the same as before. I sort of duct taped a solution together which worked pretty good for the most part. For instance, I had never personally run into any major issues with saving a Regions game. However, there were always reports of problems with saving in Regions, particularly with Resources and Technology levels not saving. This is unique to Regions, as it shares a single Resource and Technology pool among many different game files.
In addition to Regions, the structure of the game itself has changed considerably over the last three years, and over time, layers upon layers of different ideas have been cobbled together in the code creating a mess of sorts. To resolve all of this, I decided to completely change the manner in which game data is saved to the system. The new method allows making saves to multiple game objects at a time, instead of just the currently active game object. For example, prior to this update, when you were playing a region, the overall Region file did not save until you chose "Exit to Region" from the game menu. With this new update, you no longer have to Exit to Region for all regional data to be saved.
This is all well and good, but I didn't anticipate, or rather appreciate, just how many parts of the code were tied into the previous game saving functions. This lack of preparation on my part led to a major issue in the pre-release code on Ape Web Apps where saving a regional city would cause all colonists to lose their jobs and become homeless. Which is not good. It was like doing a fire-drill with each save, except after the fire-drill, the colony would never recover. So that was fun, and working through that led me on a breadcrumb trail that resulted in little changes and fixes all throughout the engine.
As if that wasn't enough though, I also decided to make major changes to the way virtual colonists work. Virtual Colonists are the "colonists" in your colony when your population exceeds 2000. These colonists do not actually exist, but the game instead uses statistics to simulate their education, housing, entertainment, and industrial output. With today's changes, the accuracy of this simulation should be greatly increased, especially in regards to education, which was barely simulated before.
On top of those significant engine changes, I also decided to completely rewrite the way colonists find jobs! I know, too many big changes for one update. There were so many changes here that I could write a whole article about it, but to avoid putting you to sleep, I will give the general overview. With this latest update, the game now keeps track of a "now hiring" list, sort of like a classified advertisement page. Whenever a business has an open job, it adds a now hiring record containing the x:y location of the job, the IQ requirement, pay, etc. Whenever a colonist doesn't have a job, the game takes the now hiring list, and sorts it for that colonist based on location from their house, how it matches their IQ, how it pays, etc. They then start at the top of the list and apply for the jobs. If the job is within a certain range of their house (40 tiles I think) and they meet the requirements, they will take the job. If they don't find one, they will lower their standards a bit. If they still don't find one, they will enroll in school. If they don't find a school to enroll in, they will be mad and complain about lack of education.
This change actually works pretty good, but there is a computational penalty when sorting the job openings. When only a handful of colonists are looking for jobs, it's no big deal. But if you conduct a fire-drill and the entire colony looks for work at once, you might experience a lag in the game of several seconds or more. I will need to look into a fix for this at some point soon.
Ok, so that addresses the bulk of the engine changes I made. There are some other little things here and there that you might notice, as I actually changed so much that I can't remember it all. But since there were so many changes, I would expect to see bugs as a result. Please let me know in the forum what you find!
Let's move on to non-engine related changes. First off, on the main Region city selection screen, the game now shows the name of the city on the overall map.
I will probably add a toggle to turn this on/off, I just did not get to it this time. This is mainly for mobile/touch players, since they don't have a mouse and therefore do not see the mouse-hover popup box that Desktop players see on this screen, making it hard to tell which colony is which.
Next up, I have consolidated most of the Commonwealth management settings into the main Commonwealth section of the statistics screen, so you no longer have to dig through the Policy menu to find everything.
If you look closely at the above, you will probably also notice the next thing I added. That's right, you can now finally change your Commonwealth Tax Rate! This has been requested since Commonwealths first came out, and I apologize for not adding it sooner, but it's there now. I have also capped the Commonwealth Payroll Assistance at 500%, since some of the levels on the server were insane.
Moving on, I have added a new feature called Layout Templates. This is mainly for Regions, but you can now save a "Template" of your current map and export it to the file system to share with other players. When you activate a template on your map, you see a ghosted image of the template buildings overlayed on your colony (you can turn the image on/off) that you can use as a guide for building. This is mainly for players who have designed certain build layouts and want to share the layout with others. I imagine it would work best on an empty regional map with no resources. You can find the template options on the bottom of the General Statistics screen.
There is a new engine setting that allows you to turn Gamepad input on or off. It has always been turned on from the beginning, but there was a concern that if you were playing another game on your desktop while My Colony was open, My Colony would be processing the gamepad inputs from the other game. If you find yourself in this situation, you can now turn off gamepad input completely from the Engine Settings screen.
There have been some minor changes to Colonist processing. Entertainment facilities now increase energy and happiness at a faster rate. In addition, colonist happiness will also slightly increase when they are at home. I have also increased the starting colonist IQ range to make them a bit smarter by default (will not impact current colonists, only new arrivals). And finally, I have further increased the rate that colonists age, since I still think it's too slow.
And last but not least, there were a couple of changes to existing buildings. The Mass Driver trade capacity has lifted from 100 to 300, and the basic Greenhouse now has a slightly faster production rate and a higher storage capacity.
So anyway, for me this was one of those updates that was pretty large, but for the general players of the game, it should seem like a pretty small patch. Hopefully nothing major has been broken, but continue to let me know what bugs you find. I should note that on the Android and Windows clients, there is a new "Send Feedback" button on the My Colony sidebar that will allow you to send a message or bug report directly to my Inbox, and I will add this to the Desktop, Web, and iOS versions at some point too. A lot of times people leave bug reports in the app store comments, and those are easy for me to miss.
That's all for today;s update though, let me know what you find, stay tuned for more, and thanks for playing My Colony!
The first major change, which actually inadvertently started a domino effect of changes to the engine, was a total rewrite of the way the game saves files. As most of you know, when My Colony first came out there was no such thing as Regions, and so the concept wasn't even considered during game saving. Once Regions came out, many of the engine mechanics had to change to accommodate having multiple game objects processing at the same time (the individual city you are playing, the region itself, and the minor updates to the surrounding region files).
With all of these changes happening to different game objects at the same time, the game saving function remained the same as before. I sort of duct taped a solution together which worked pretty good for the most part. For instance, I had never personally run into any major issues with saving a Regions game. However, there were always reports of problems with saving in Regions, particularly with Resources and Technology levels not saving. This is unique to Regions, as it shares a single Resource and Technology pool among many different game files.
In addition to Regions, the structure of the game itself has changed considerably over the last three years, and over time, layers upon layers of different ideas have been cobbled together in the code creating a mess of sorts. To resolve all of this, I decided to completely change the manner in which game data is saved to the system. The new method allows making saves to multiple game objects at a time, instead of just the currently active game object. For example, prior to this update, when you were playing a region, the overall Region file did not save until you chose "Exit to Region" from the game menu. With this new update, you no longer have to Exit to Region for all regional data to be saved.
This is all well and good, but I didn't anticipate, or rather appreciate, just how many parts of the code were tied into the previous game saving functions. This lack of preparation on my part led to a major issue in the pre-release code on Ape Web Apps where saving a regional city would cause all colonists to lose their jobs and become homeless. Which is not good. It was like doing a fire-drill with each save, except after the fire-drill, the colony would never recover. So that was fun, and working through that led me on a breadcrumb trail that resulted in little changes and fixes all throughout the engine.
As if that wasn't enough though, I also decided to make major changes to the way virtual colonists work. Virtual Colonists are the "colonists" in your colony when your population exceeds 2000. These colonists do not actually exist, but the game instead uses statistics to simulate their education, housing, entertainment, and industrial output. With today's changes, the accuracy of this simulation should be greatly increased, especially in regards to education, which was barely simulated before.
On top of those significant engine changes, I also decided to completely rewrite the way colonists find jobs! I know, too many big changes for one update. There were so many changes here that I could write a whole article about it, but to avoid putting you to sleep, I will give the general overview. With this latest update, the game now keeps track of a "now hiring" list, sort of like a classified advertisement page. Whenever a business has an open job, it adds a now hiring record containing the x:y location of the job, the IQ requirement, pay, etc. Whenever a colonist doesn't have a job, the game takes the now hiring list, and sorts it for that colonist based on location from their house, how it matches their IQ, how it pays, etc. They then start at the top of the list and apply for the jobs. If the job is within a certain range of their house (40 tiles I think) and they meet the requirements, they will take the job. If they don't find one, they will lower their standards a bit. If they still don't find one, they will enroll in school. If they don't find a school to enroll in, they will be mad and complain about lack of education.
This change actually works pretty good, but there is a computational penalty when sorting the job openings. When only a handful of colonists are looking for jobs, it's no big deal. But if you conduct a fire-drill and the entire colony looks for work at once, you might experience a lag in the game of several seconds or more. I will need to look into a fix for this at some point soon.
Ok, so that addresses the bulk of the engine changes I made. There are some other little things here and there that you might notice, as I actually changed so much that I can't remember it all. But since there were so many changes, I would expect to see bugs as a result. Please let me know in the forum what you find!
Let's move on to non-engine related changes. First off, on the main Region city selection screen, the game now shows the name of the city on the overall map.
Next up, I have consolidated most of the Commonwealth management settings into the main Commonwealth section of the statistics screen, so you no longer have to dig through the Policy menu to find everything.
Moving on, I have added a new feature called Layout Templates. This is mainly for Regions, but you can now save a "Template" of your current map and export it to the file system to share with other players. When you activate a template on your map, you see a ghosted image of the template buildings overlayed on your colony (you can turn the image on/off) that you can use as a guide for building. This is mainly for players who have designed certain build layouts and want to share the layout with others. I imagine it would work best on an empty regional map with no resources. You can find the template options on the bottom of the General Statistics screen.
There have been some minor changes to Colonist processing. Entertainment facilities now increase energy and happiness at a faster rate. In addition, colonist happiness will also slightly increase when they are at home. I have also increased the starting colonist IQ range to make them a bit smarter by default (will not impact current colonists, only new arrivals). And finally, I have further increased the rate that colonists age, since I still think it's too slow.
And last but not least, there were a couple of changes to existing buildings. The Mass Driver trade capacity has lifted from 100 to 300, and the basic Greenhouse now has a slightly faster production rate and a higher storage capacity.
So anyway, for me this was one of those updates that was pretty large, but for the general players of the game, it should seem like a pretty small patch. Hopefully nothing major has been broken, but continue to let me know what bugs you find. I should note that on the Android and Windows clients, there is a new "Send Feedback" button on the My Colony sidebar that will allow you to send a message or bug report directly to my Inbox, and I will add this to the Desktop, Web, and iOS versions at some point too. A lot of times people leave bug reports in the app store comments, and those are easy for me to miss.
That's all for today;s update though, let me know what you find, stay tuned for more, and thanks for playing My Colony!
i suggest a optimise ressource loading systeme
all the building of a same type have the same loading for ressource i think it can optimise the game to have less crash ,bug and lag
all the building of a same type have the same loading for ressource i think it can optimise the game to have less crash ,bug and lag
Hi, just posted that my colony stopped loading - it's named Lunacy, chater code is: m5mWj4AH. Tried upgrading to premium membership but it still is not loading.. says Restore Data... and just sits on that message
I'm hoping someone know what to do or can run a database repair ont it or something.. I'df really like not to lose that colony I spent hours on it..
thanks in advance for any support
I'm hoping someone know what to do or can run a database repair ont it or something.. I'df really like not to lose that colony I spent hours on it..
thanks in advance for any support
never loads just loading and loading dont appear any message like an error or idk only loading and loding
It's no secret that My Colony 2 takes a while to start up on some Android and iOS devices. What is the deal?
The primary reason for the long load times is that My Colony 2 has to load all of the game data objects into memory, and as of v0.20.0 there are now over 200 of them. What makes it slow and take a long time is that each game data object has it's own *.vpp (voxel paint) file embedded in it.
This was not a big deal at first, but once I introduced precompiled .vpp files in order to speed up load times, the size of the data objects really exploded, and so did the loading times. It's now getting to a point where it is becoming difficult to add new content to the game, because the load times are already beyond what I would consider to be acceptable.
With the forthcoming v0.21.0 update, I am making an attempt to address this issue.
I have added support for removing the .vpp data from pre-packaged MC2 data files, and then lazy loading the .vpp models once they are actually needed during gameplay. This in theory should dramatically speed up the time it takes for My Colony 2 to initially start (if I go through and do it to all of the objects in the game), but there are some drawbacks.
Firstly, if I do this change to the entire game, the size of the Android .apk download will probably increase by 8x or more. This is because MC2 data files are compressed, whereas Voxel Paint files are not. You could just say "why not compress all of the voxel paint files," but that would defeat the entire purpose of this change, because now you will have the extra loading time of decompressing all of these individual files.
Now maybe this isn't a big deal? Do people care how big an .apk is when they are getting a new app? I don't know the answer to that, but it's an issue.
Secondly, it will probably introduce a slight delay in the time it takes for a structure to appear once built, since the model will not be already loaded into memory as it is now. Testing will need to be done on real-world devices to see how much of an issue this is.
Lastly, mods will not be able to take advantage of the separated system, as a modder obviously can't inject .vpp models into the core MC2 package.
So anyway, in the v0.21.0 update, I will be testing this change on the three largest data objects in the game, the Galactic Stock Exchange, the Tree Farm and the Uranium Enrichment Facility, and we will evaluate how it goes from there!
The primary reason for the long load times is that My Colony 2 has to load all of the game data objects into memory, and as of v0.20.0 there are now over 200 of them. What makes it slow and take a long time is that each game data object has it's own *.vpp (voxel paint) file embedded in it.
This was not a big deal at first, but once I introduced precompiled .vpp files in order to speed up load times, the size of the data objects really exploded, and so did the loading times. It's now getting to a point where it is becoming difficult to add new content to the game, because the load times are already beyond what I would consider to be acceptable.
With the forthcoming v0.21.0 update, I am making an attempt to address this issue.
I have added support for removing the .vpp data from pre-packaged MC2 data files, and then lazy loading the .vpp models once they are actually needed during gameplay. This in theory should dramatically speed up the time it takes for My Colony 2 to initially start (if I go through and do it to all of the objects in the game), but there are some drawbacks.
Firstly, if I do this change to the entire game, the size of the Android .apk download will probably increase by 8x or more. This is because MC2 data files are compressed, whereas Voxel Paint files are not. You could just say "why not compress all of the voxel paint files," but that would defeat the entire purpose of this change, because now you will have the extra loading time of decompressing all of these individual files.
Now maybe this isn't a big deal? Do people care how big an .apk is when they are getting a new app? I don't know the answer to that, but it's an issue.
Secondly, it will probably introduce a slight delay in the time it takes for a structure to appear once built, since the model will not be already loaded into memory as it is now. Testing will need to be done on real-world devices to see how much of an issue this is.
Lastly, mods will not be able to take advantage of the separated system, as a modder obviously can't inject .vpp models into the core MC2 package.
So anyway, in the v0.21.0 update, I will be testing this change on the three largest data objects in the game, the Galactic Stock Exchange, the Tree Farm and the Uranium Enrichment Facility, and we will evaluate how it goes from there!
I get stuck on this loading screen, but my colony opens behind the screen. I play on mobile and I'm not sure what to do. The last thing I did was turn on online mode, and then the game crashed. I can open up the statistics panel, but can't find the button to turn off online mode, because it's hidden behind the screen. I know the statistics panel is open, because the colony color picker option actually shows when I accidentally hit it.
It's the actual game itself, it opens in a loading screen and stays that way for a long time.. In fact, it takes a shorter amount of time to get from the title screen to my regions view of Marlboro than it does to actually tap on the app and get to the title screen.
Thanks for responding so quickly.
Thanks for responding so quickly.
Hi Bast & People there,
after regularly exiting the app on W10 desktop as I moved my laptop from a place to another, when I started Windows again and launched the app, this remains stuck on the "loading" screen. I tried to download and install it again but the problem is still there.
Any guess why? Is there something I can do?
after regularly exiting the app on W10 desktop as I moved my laptop from a place to another, when I started Windows again and launched the app, this remains stuck on the "loading" screen. I tried to download and install it again but the problem is still there.
Any guess why? Is there something I can do?
Hi guys, in order to give you some other info, this is what I tried afterwards.
I renamed both app folder and document folder containing games files in order to start a brand new installation (unless there are files somewhere else I'm not aware of), then I reinstalled the 0.43.2 version but it still freezes at "loading screen".
Then I deleted all new folders and tried with the 0.42.1 that I still had in my downloads, with the same results.
I thought that at least an older version should be working but I was disappointed it doesn't.
I'm waiting for your suggestions... thank you!
I renamed both app folder and document folder containing games files in order to start a brand new installation (unless there are files somewhere else I'm not aware of), then I reinstalled the 0.43.2 version but it still freezes at "loading screen".
Then I deleted all new folders and tried with the 0.42.1 that I still had in my downloads, with the same results.
I thought that at least an older version should be working but I was disappointed it doesn't.
I'm waiting for your suggestions... thank you!