Search - region introduction
This idea would change the method of colony organization by maps for region colonies. Default style colonies with just one map would continue to be shown on the map as normal. Note that this idea is solely for premium features and would not impact the free to play aspect of mc.
I imagine a map with planets, not one planet per colony, but one planet that houses many colonies.
ONLINE PLAYERS:
For online colonies, when a player starts a new colony, their choice of planet type will determine what planet they get added to. Each planet would have a square planetary map with procedurally generated oceans, land masses, mountains, and other terrain features that bast would like to add. The terrain features would be spread naturally across the planet. The planet would have a grid that would split the map into sections/regions that would house many colonies per planet. The player would be able to choose a region based on it's position to certain terrain features, and once they choose a region, a new region colony is formed. They will not be able to chose regions occupied by other colonies.
Yes, this means that multiple players would be able to make colonies on the same planet. All region colonies would contribute to the same atmosphere level, but their civics, power, research, antaura, money, and other resources would not be shared with other region colonies on the same planet.
This would pose a challenge for region colonies that would balance the game out and prevent paid gamers from having more of an advantage than free gamers, because they would need to work together in order to ensure that the planet is terraformed. So by working together, players will ensure that all players on a given planet are able to advance through the game. The advantages to this would be that each region colony would be able to set up trade routes with other colonies and regularly ship products to each other without the cost of civics, and would be able to communicate with each other without the communications array.
However, there is one setback that could happen with this idea. What if one of your fellow region colonies on the same planet doesn't play nice, refuses to contribute to the team, goes inactive indefinitely, or decides to isolate themselves from the rest of the regions. what do we do then? This is where the idea of exiling comes into play. All of the region colonies on a planet can vote together to remove a colony from their planet to free up a region for another colony to come in and take over.
However, exiling should take time to do, and the colony in jeopardy would have lot's of time to act and repent before they are exiled. I propose a merit system. Each colony will have a merit score that will go from -250 to 250. Everyone starts with a score of 0. Each day, that colony will be able to go through all of the other colonies on their planet and either add a +1 or a -1 to each colony's score. Since there would probably be about 36 region colonies to a planet, that means that the most that any one colony could ever be demerited in one day would be -35 points per day. That means that it would take a little over a week for that colony to be exiled.
The exiled colony would be moved to an orbiting moon of the same planet, and would still be able to trade freely with the region colonies on the planet, would still keep their terrain, and would still be categorized under tha planet in the galactic map, but would have to build up it's own atmosphere(albeit the amount of atmosphere needed would be decreased as the moon would be smaller.). Each planet can have infinite moons, and they wouldn't show up under the planetary map view, but would be hidden until a player wishes to search through them for an exiled player to trade with..
OFFLINE PLAYERS:
Now for offline players. I imagine a more campaign-like gameplay to keep things interesting for offline paid players.
Upon creating a colony, the player would need to pick a race. Once the race is picked, a solar system would be generated which would contain all of the planet types available to that race. The player must then choose where to establish their first colony in this new-found solar system. They would do this be selecting a planet, selecting a region of that planet to develop as the first colony based on the terrain features of each region, and then proceed to build up their first region. Once their first region is well established, they can proceed to colonize other regions and establish trade routes between each region of the same planet.
All regions of the same planet would share research, civics, and contribute to the planets atmosphere level. However, they will each have their own money and resource supplies, and the player would only be able to operate in one region at a time, and only in one map in that region at a time. So you can see how involved a player would need to be to make sure that their planet prospers.
Eventually, once the regions of the planet have been well established and have declared independence(civics requirement should be raised significantly to require the contribution of all regions on a planet). The player can proceed to colonize other planets. They will need lots of civics to organize the movement and research to develop new technologies, and they will need startships to be produced in order to send colonizers, and of course, with any good space endeavor, lots of money is involved.
Each planet would be able to set up trade routes with other planets, but with a regular cost of civics and money, and a very small but regular cost of starships. The resources of each planet would be able to be produced while on the solar system screen, albeit estimated and not real time. These would be based on the production rates of the entire planet right before the player last exited the planet. The downside to this would be that you wouldn't be able to tell if one of a planet's regions is starving just by looking at the solar system view. That is unless you add a small symbol that appears next to the planet name that would indicate that some parts of the planet are starving.
Through this feature, the player would be able to set up an empire that spans an entire solar system of planets. But if you wanted to take this even further, you could implement the use of multiple solar systems. This would be crazy in-depth. However, I doubt that any player would ever get to that level. It is a long process to develop a single region now, so an entire planet of regions would take ages, and a solar system of planets would take ages of ages to develop, so I wouldn't implement multiple solar systems unless you can come up with a way to let the player auto-generate cities on each map based on the player's needs, and then eventually autogenerating cities in every map of a region based on the player's needs, and then tying both of these to certain techs that would need to be researched. This would help the player to quickly be able to splash some resources at a region and completely develop it in a few minutes time, but only after they've spent lots of time developing their empire to be able to do that.
Just as a reminder, this would all be for premium players that play offline only.
I hope that this idea is understandable and helpful to the developing of my colony.
I imagine a map with planets, not one planet per colony, but one planet that houses many colonies.
ONLINE PLAYERS:
For online colonies, when a player starts a new colony, their choice of planet type will determine what planet they get added to. Each planet would have a square planetary map with procedurally generated oceans, land masses, mountains, and other terrain features that bast would like to add. The terrain features would be spread naturally across the planet. The planet would have a grid that would split the map into sections/regions that would house many colonies per planet. The player would be able to choose a region based on it's position to certain terrain features, and once they choose a region, a new region colony is formed. They will not be able to chose regions occupied by other colonies.
Yes, this means that multiple players would be able to make colonies on the same planet. All region colonies would contribute to the same atmosphere level, but their civics, power, research, antaura, money, and other resources would not be shared with other region colonies on the same planet.
This would pose a challenge for region colonies that would balance the game out and prevent paid gamers from having more of an advantage than free gamers, because they would need to work together in order to ensure that the planet is terraformed. So by working together, players will ensure that all players on a given planet are able to advance through the game. The advantages to this would be that each region colony would be able to set up trade routes with other colonies and regularly ship products to each other without the cost of civics, and would be able to communicate with each other without the communications array.
However, there is one setback that could happen with this idea. What if one of your fellow region colonies on the same planet doesn't play nice, refuses to contribute to the team, goes inactive indefinitely, or decides to isolate themselves from the rest of the regions. what do we do then? This is where the idea of exiling comes into play. All of the region colonies on a planet can vote together to remove a colony from their planet to free up a region for another colony to come in and take over.
However, exiling should take time to do, and the colony in jeopardy would have lot's of time to act and repent before they are exiled. I propose a merit system. Each colony will have a merit score that will go from -250 to 250. Everyone starts with a score of 0. Each day, that colony will be able to go through all of the other colonies on their planet and either add a +1 or a -1 to each colony's score. Since there would probably be about 36 region colonies to a planet, that means that the most that any one colony could ever be demerited in one day would be -35 points per day. That means that it would take a little over a week for that colony to be exiled.
The exiled colony would be moved to an orbiting moon of the same planet, and would still be able to trade freely with the region colonies on the planet, would still keep their terrain, and would still be categorized under tha planet in the galactic map, but would have to build up it's own atmosphere(albeit the amount of atmosphere needed would be decreased as the moon would be smaller.). Each planet can have infinite moons, and they wouldn't show up under the planetary map view, but would be hidden until a player wishes to search through them for an exiled player to trade with..
OFFLINE PLAYERS:
Now for offline players. I imagine a more campaign-like gameplay to keep things interesting for offline paid players.
Upon creating a colony, the player would need to pick a race. Once the race is picked, a solar system would be generated which would contain all of the planet types available to that race. The player must then choose where to establish their first colony in this new-found solar system. They would do this be selecting a planet, selecting a region of that planet to develop as the first colony based on the terrain features of each region, and then proceed to build up their first region. Once their first region is well established, they can proceed to colonize other regions and establish trade routes between each region of the same planet.
All regions of the same planet would share research, civics, and contribute to the planets atmosphere level. However, they will each have their own money and resource supplies, and the player would only be able to operate in one region at a time, and only in one map in that region at a time. So you can see how involved a player would need to be to make sure that their planet prospers.
Eventually, once the regions of the planet have been well established and have declared independence(civics requirement should be raised significantly to require the contribution of all regions on a planet). The player can proceed to colonize other planets. They will need lots of civics to organize the movement and research to develop new technologies, and they will need startships to be produced in order to send colonizers, and of course, with any good space endeavor, lots of money is involved.
Each planet would be able to set up trade routes with other planets, but with a regular cost of civics and money, and a very small but regular cost of starships. The resources of each planet would be able to be produced while on the solar system screen, albeit estimated and not real time. These would be based on the production rates of the entire planet right before the player last exited the planet. The downside to this would be that you wouldn't be able to tell if one of a planet's regions is starving just by looking at the solar system view. That is unless you add a small symbol that appears next to the planet name that would indicate that some parts of the planet are starving.
Through this feature, the player would be able to set up an empire that spans an entire solar system of planets. But if you wanted to take this even further, you could implement the use of multiple solar systems. This would be crazy in-depth. However, I doubt that any player would ever get to that level. It is a long process to develop a single region now, so an entire planet of regions would take ages, and a solar system of planets would take ages of ages to develop, so I wouldn't implement multiple solar systems unless you can come up with a way to let the player auto-generate cities on each map based on the player's needs, and then eventually autogenerating cities in every map of a region based on the player's needs, and then tying both of these to certain techs that would need to be researched. This would help the player to quickly be able to splash some resources at a region and completely develop it in a few minutes time, but only after they've spent lots of time developing their empire to be able to do that.
Just as a reminder, this would all be for premium players that play offline only.
I hope that this idea is understandable and helpful to the developing of my colony.
I am (re-)playing your game since a couple of days and I saw there is interesting updates. So, good work, I wish you good luck with the next updates. Howether, I am playing in region mode and I have problems with this mode again. I precise that I am playing on a mobile phone.
So I propose to do a group shot with all the technical concerns that I could find (and I allow myself a few suggestions at the same time).
1-Corrupted save and region management :
First of all, I got a corrupt save file again. But at the difference of the last time, it's not during the game, but when I created the region that the problem occurs. This is probably due to a manipulation problem on my part, because having placed the region in the wrong place, I had to press the cancel button to try to abandon my action. However, the problem remains the same. And not only is the (large) region still in the wrong place, but I can no longer access it (see the blue part in the picture).
Suggestion : First of all, I propose to add a validation screen, before creating a new region, which avoids errors, as I did, by choosing for example a large region. Second, I suggest adding the option to delete a region. This allows in particular to delete part of the map, if it is corrupted, but not the rest of the map.
By doing this, there is a problem with resources. Cause delete and recreate a map can lead to infinite resources. You can choose to ignore it (cause the resources in the region mode are almost unlimited). Or we can make it so that recreating a new region on a section that has already served will only allow us to create empty maps.
2-Display bug :
Now, it's just a glitch concerning residential complex. Maybe due to their format (2x1). I precise that I have these configs : check the rendering distance:true (so I guess it's not related to that), render fpc cap:medium, update frequency:rare.
3-Salary :
I don't know if it's a bug, but when I am on a region map, the salary requested is that of the region where we are. So with a region with two inhabitants and a region with 1000, if it only takes into account the salary of the first region, it makes a little difference.
Salary management (in political choices) also seems to be managed by region (instead of being global), since the data recorded for one region is not valid for another. This can be defended. Still, I find it strange ...
P.S.: I mixed the two image files in one, cause I had problems attaching two different images.
So I propose to do a group shot with all the technical concerns that I could find (and I allow myself a few suggestions at the same time).
1-Corrupted save and region management :
First of all, I got a corrupt save file again. But at the difference of the last time, it's not during the game, but when I created the region that the problem occurs. This is probably due to a manipulation problem on my part, because having placed the region in the wrong place, I had to press the cancel button to try to abandon my action. However, the problem remains the same. And not only is the (large) region still in the wrong place, but I can no longer access it (see the blue part in the picture).
Suggestion : First of all, I propose to add a validation screen, before creating a new region, which avoids errors, as I did, by choosing for example a large region. Second, I suggest adding the option to delete a region. This allows in particular to delete part of the map, if it is corrupted, but not the rest of the map.
By doing this, there is a problem with resources. Cause delete and recreate a map can lead to infinite resources. You can choose to ignore it (cause the resources in the region mode are almost unlimited). Or we can make it so that recreating a new region on a section that has already served will only allow us to create empty maps.
2-Display bug :
Now, it's just a glitch concerning residential complex. Maybe due to their format (2x1). I precise that I have these configs : check the rendering distance:true (so I guess it's not related to that), render fpc cap:medium, update frequency:rare.
3-Salary :
I don't know if it's a bug, but when I am on a region map, the salary requested is that of the region where we are. So with a region with two inhabitants and a region with 1000, if it only takes into account the salary of the first region, it makes a little difference.
Salary management (in political choices) also seems to be managed by region (instead of being global), since the data recorded for one region is not valid for another. This can be defended. Still, I find it strange ...
P.S.: I mixed the two image files in one, cause I had problems attaching two different images.
With the latest Podcast Bast has put out, he has brought up that he wants to create multiplayer regions. Personally, I think this is great. It has been suggested to have multiplayer in my colony for as long as I can remember.
I got excited when he finally announced that it would be coming to regions. However, the way it is I am not sure it really changes the gameplay much - and here is why:
1. Embassies and trading is already rather easy as it is. You find someone you want to trade gifts or embassies with and you trade with them through messages or embassies. The current difference Multiplayer regions have is that you can click on another person's city and trade embassies or gifts. While that is useful, it is something that is already easily done.
2. The resource pool is self contained on a per person basis, meaning each person on the multiplayer region will have their own individual resource pool - besides atmosphere which is shared. I do not really know about you guys, but when I think of multiplayer, I think of cooperative play or competitive play. Competitive play is not really the style of my colony, so things should be more cooperative. Yes, players in the region can very easily send resources to each other via gifts and trading, however how is that any different from a normal region? Why is the resource pool not shared?
3. Lastly, and arguably least important, is space. I realise that it is a region, and there is a lot of space on a region, however if there are a lot of people playing on a multiplayer region it will likely run out of space at some point. Both for the players who want many people on the same map and also the large scale players who can fill half a region on their own. Once this space is filled, there is not much else we can do about it.
If I am missing some fundamental piece of information about how these multiplayer regions will work please tell me, I am really interested in how this is going to develop after over a year or two of the idea of multiplayer thrown around.
Given that, here are some possible changes I would personally like to see in the multiplayer features:
A) I believe that shared resources would be a great addition to regions. It would give a better sense of working together instead of sharing resources - which is already possible and done across the community. I think the only reason shared resources was not the original idea is because after a certain point it becomes very easy to mass produce anything and multiple people on the same map doing that might break the game. Honestly, I do not really see that as a bad thing though, I already produce faster than I can consume and the game simply becomes expansion and collection. Multiple people contributing would progress faster and give an active sense of multiplayer.
Alternatively, this could be an opportunity to tie directly into trade routes that have been talked about for a while now. Players on a multiplayer region could set up automatic trade routes with other players. Eg trade x amount of plastic for y amount of antanium at z rates. This would cost a small amount of resources to run, later an upgraded version with increased rates could consume starships. With this method, one person could be a diamond supplier while another be a charcoal supplier and they complement each other with the auto shipments.
B) This multiplayer region applies to commonwealths and/or federations.
For commonwealths, each dependent will start on your multiplayer region map and grow next to your own. The easier method of establishing communication and gifts by clicking on another person's city from the region menu will streamline things a little more for newcomers who do not really understand how to contact people otherwise. Of course the commonwealth leader will need to be able to remove any dependent's cities in the case of a dependent becoming inactive or obnoxiously placing empty cities everywhere.
As for federations, it would work a little differently in the sense that there would be a separate region selection screen in the federation tab where each member is represented by a tile on the region. Here is where you could create trade routes to and from any given member (using the aforementioned trade route idea in the second paragraph of section A). This idea is not as developed as some others, but it is food for thought on how that may work.
C) Being able to annex more space on the region screen would solve the problem of space and allow for even more players to inhabit a single multiplayer region. As stated before, space would become more of a problem the more players are involved. Say, for instance, a federation wants to start a new multiplayer region with as many members as they could (something I actually want to try), they would rapidly run out of space then everyone would be stuck. If memory serves, when regions first came out I think it was said that if regions ever were to run out of space annexing would be made possible although I'm unsure how well it would work with a region saved online. I am not a developer so I can not really comment on if something can be done.
I think that is it for me. Longer than I expected this to be, but I got my first few thoughts of what multiplayer regions were described to be out. Do let me know what you guys think, how it could be modified, if I missed potentially vital information somewhere. I really want to see where this multiplayer feature can go 🙂
I got excited when he finally announced that it would be coming to regions. However, the way it is I am not sure it really changes the gameplay much - and here is why:
1. Embassies and trading is already rather easy as it is. You find someone you want to trade gifts or embassies with and you trade with them through messages or embassies. The current difference Multiplayer regions have is that you can click on another person's city and trade embassies or gifts. While that is useful, it is something that is already easily done.
2. The resource pool is self contained on a per person basis, meaning each person on the multiplayer region will have their own individual resource pool - besides atmosphere which is shared. I do not really know about you guys, but when I think of multiplayer, I think of cooperative play or competitive play. Competitive play is not really the style of my colony, so things should be more cooperative. Yes, players in the region can very easily send resources to each other via gifts and trading, however how is that any different from a normal region? Why is the resource pool not shared?
3. Lastly, and arguably least important, is space. I realise that it is a region, and there is a lot of space on a region, however if there are a lot of people playing on a multiplayer region it will likely run out of space at some point. Both for the players who want many people on the same map and also the large scale players who can fill half a region on their own. Once this space is filled, there is not much else we can do about it.
If I am missing some fundamental piece of information about how these multiplayer regions will work please tell me, I am really interested in how this is going to develop after over a year or two of the idea of multiplayer thrown around.
Given that, here are some possible changes I would personally like to see in the multiplayer features:
A) I believe that shared resources would be a great addition to regions. It would give a better sense of working together instead of sharing resources - which is already possible and done across the community. I think the only reason shared resources was not the original idea is because after a certain point it becomes very easy to mass produce anything and multiple people on the same map doing that might break the game. Honestly, I do not really see that as a bad thing though, I already produce faster than I can consume and the game simply becomes expansion and collection. Multiple people contributing would progress faster and give an active sense of multiplayer.
Alternatively, this could be an opportunity to tie directly into trade routes that have been talked about for a while now. Players on a multiplayer region could set up automatic trade routes with other players. Eg trade x amount of plastic for y amount of antanium at z rates. This would cost a small amount of resources to run, later an upgraded version with increased rates could consume starships. With this method, one person could be a diamond supplier while another be a charcoal supplier and they complement each other with the auto shipments.
B) This multiplayer region applies to commonwealths and/or federations.
For commonwealths, each dependent will start on your multiplayer region map and grow next to your own. The easier method of establishing communication and gifts by clicking on another person's city from the region menu will streamline things a little more for newcomers who do not really understand how to contact people otherwise. Of course the commonwealth leader will need to be able to remove any dependent's cities in the case of a dependent becoming inactive or obnoxiously placing empty cities everywhere.
As for federations, it would work a little differently in the sense that there would be a separate region selection screen in the federation tab where each member is represented by a tile on the region. Here is where you could create trade routes to and from any given member (using the aforementioned trade route idea in the second paragraph of section A). This idea is not as developed as some others, but it is food for thought on how that may work.
C) Being able to annex more space on the region screen would solve the problem of space and allow for even more players to inhabit a single multiplayer region. As stated before, space would become more of a problem the more players are involved. Say, for instance, a federation wants to start a new multiplayer region with as many members as they could (something I actually want to try), they would rapidly run out of space then everyone would be stuck. If memory serves, when regions first came out I think it was said that if regions ever were to run out of space annexing would be made possible although I'm unsure how well it would work with a region saved online. I am not a developer so I can not really comment on if something can be done.
I think that is it for me. Longer than I expected this to be, but I got my first few thoughts of what multiplayer regions were described to be out. Do let me know what you guys think, how it could be modified, if I missed potentially vital information somewhere. I really want to see where this multiplayer feature can go 🙂
As I'm sitting here putting the finishing touches on the My Colony v0.87.0 patch, I realize that there must be something seriously wrong with me, for this is the second update in a row where I have decided to just totally go in and rewrite or change large parts of the game engine. I have to apologize if I am making you all feel like guinea pigs, although I suspect that My Colony players are going to be used to that by now. So what all has changed in v0.87.0? Let's find out!
Firstly, I had introduced a ton of engine changes in the last update, and game error/crash reports started filling my inbox as soon as the release hit the app stores. Luckily the reports were quite helpful and I was able to fix a ton of problems in the code, some of which led me to long-standing issues that I didn't even know existed.
I also isolated several memory leaks in the game that were causing thousands and thousands of arrays to be created and never destroyed, causing the garbage collector to run like mad. I believe a lot of them have now been resolved, so I am hoping that this comes with performance improvements, particularly on lower-RAM devices like smartphones.
I also fixed an issue that had basically made tourists useless.
The City name size on the Regional view has been reduced a bit, and there is now a toggle button in the corner that you can press to turn the city name display off completely.
Of course, the above is all small peas compared to the main thing I added in this version. If you listened to the latest episode of the My Colony Podcast, you already knew what was coming in this release - Multiplayer Regions. While still in it's early state, I think that Multiplayer Regions has the potential to add a ton to the game. The feature works similarly to how regular regions work today, but there are a few key differences, which I will explain below.
Firstly, when you create a new Multiplayer Region, you are not the owner of the overall region, and the regional game file is not stored on your device. The region and all of it's interconnected statistics are stored on the server. In addition, all multiplayer region subcities require cloud sync to be turned on. You also cannot switch a multiplayer region subcity into offline mode. A Multiplayer Region gets its own charter code, which you can initially set to either public or private. Anybody who knows the regional charter code can join.
There are difference in the way the game plays also, beginning with when you first create a new subcity inside of a multiplayer region. When you create a new multiplayer region subcity, if it is your first city in that region, you will be asked to join the charter of another colony. You can pick whatever colony you want, and what race/civilization you are will depend on which mother colony you choose. As you might be able to guess, this means that multiple species can be in the same region.
On a regular region game, the entire region map shares resources and power. This is not the case on a multiplayer region. On multiplayer regions, the entire map shares only atmosphere. Beyond that, cities are grouped into a new organizational unit called Metropolitan Areas. A metro area is a group of cities owned by the same player that are built right next to each other. So if you start a second city on a multiplayer region and you build it right next to your first city, it is automatically added to the same metro area. Metro areas do share the same resources and power grid, so if you are building multiple cities on a multiplayer region map, it will be a good idea to put them next to each other.
On a regular region game, all of your cities continue to produce and consume resources while you are playing, regardless if you are in that region file or not. This is not currently the case on multiplayer regions, but it will probably be in the future. There are actually some general changes that are coming to this feature on all regions soon, and I was going to wait to implement it in multiplayer regions at the same time that I make the changes to single player regions.
Other than those changes, multiplayer regions are currently pretty similar to regular regions. I wanted to get them out there and running so that I can see what issues people have (if any) and see what kind of features players would like to see added, but off the top of my head, I want to make it so that multiple players can share the same metro area/power grid/resources. Also a sort of regional common trade area, perhaps regional governments. I think this can also be tied in with federations somehow.
This is a feature where I am open to all suggestions. Over the next few weeks I am going to be splitting my work between Colony Wars and updating the My Colony website to take advantage of a lot of the features I've added to the game. In the meantime I will be collecting diagnostics and feedback related to Multiplayer Regions (and everything else for that matter). The feature is still in it's infancy, but I think that it has the potential to add a lot to the game!
That's all for today. The update should be hitting all devices throughout the weekend, so be on the lookout, and let me know what issues you find. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more!
Firstly, I had introduced a ton of engine changes in the last update, and game error/crash reports started filling my inbox as soon as the release hit the app stores. Luckily the reports were quite helpful and I was able to fix a ton of problems in the code, some of which led me to long-standing issues that I didn't even know existed.
I also isolated several memory leaks in the game that were causing thousands and thousands of arrays to be created and never destroyed, causing the garbage collector to run like mad. I believe a lot of them have now been resolved, so I am hoping that this comes with performance improvements, particularly on lower-RAM devices like smartphones.
I also fixed an issue that had basically made tourists useless.
The City name size on the Regional view has been reduced a bit, and there is now a toggle button in the corner that you can press to turn the city name display off completely.
Of course, the above is all small peas compared to the main thing I added in this version. If you listened to the latest episode of the My Colony Podcast, you already knew what was coming in this release - Multiplayer Regions. While still in it's early state, I think that Multiplayer Regions has the potential to add a ton to the game. The feature works similarly to how regular regions work today, but there are a few key differences, which I will explain below.
Firstly, when you create a new Multiplayer Region, you are not the owner of the overall region, and the regional game file is not stored on your device. The region and all of it's interconnected statistics are stored on the server. In addition, all multiplayer region subcities require cloud sync to be turned on. You also cannot switch a multiplayer region subcity into offline mode. A Multiplayer Region gets its own charter code, which you can initially set to either public or private. Anybody who knows the regional charter code can join.
There are difference in the way the game plays also, beginning with when you first create a new subcity inside of a multiplayer region. When you create a new multiplayer region subcity, if it is your first city in that region, you will be asked to join the charter of another colony. You can pick whatever colony you want, and what race/civilization you are will depend on which mother colony you choose. As you might be able to guess, this means that multiple species can be in the same region.
On a regular region game, the entire region map shares resources and power. This is not the case on a multiplayer region. On multiplayer regions, the entire map shares only atmosphere. Beyond that, cities are grouped into a new organizational unit called Metropolitan Areas. A metro area is a group of cities owned by the same player that are built right next to each other. So if you start a second city on a multiplayer region and you build it right next to your first city, it is automatically added to the same metro area. Metro areas do share the same resources and power grid, so if you are building multiple cities on a multiplayer region map, it will be a good idea to put them next to each other.
On a regular region game, all of your cities continue to produce and consume resources while you are playing, regardless if you are in that region file or not. This is not currently the case on multiplayer regions, but it will probably be in the future. There are actually some general changes that are coming to this feature on all regions soon, and I was going to wait to implement it in multiplayer regions at the same time that I make the changes to single player regions.
Other than those changes, multiplayer regions are currently pretty similar to regular regions. I wanted to get them out there and running so that I can see what issues people have (if any) and see what kind of features players would like to see added, but off the top of my head, I want to make it so that multiple players can share the same metro area/power grid/resources. Also a sort of regional common trade area, perhaps regional governments. I think this can also be tied in with federations somehow.
This is a feature where I am open to all suggestions. Over the next few weeks I am going to be splitting my work between Colony Wars and updating the My Colony website to take advantage of a lot of the features I've added to the game. In the meantime I will be collecting diagnostics and feedback related to Multiplayer Regions (and everything else for that matter). The feature is still in it's infancy, but I think that it has the potential to add a lot to the game!
That's all for today. The update should be hitting all devices throughout the weekend, so be on the lookout, and let me know what issues you find. Enjoy, and stay tuned for more!
These are some ideas that I have for the regions feature. I have not played the game and experimented with regions, i just now saw the comments for updates 70-72 and I'm excited that this feature was added. I can't wait to get these ideas out so that maybe I could possibly help improve the feature. I'm assuming that all of the resources produced by every map pool together and can be used to improve any map, but I could be wrong and each map has it's own resources and you have to trade between maps to transer resources.
1.) Regional contribution to atmosphere level - This idea is obvious and would probably be implemented without me saying anything. Each region should be able to produce atmosphere that contributes to the atmosphere of the planet as a whole, just like how bast mentioned that each region would contribute to the same research and civics pool. However, if this feature is to be implemented, I recommend a nerf of all terraforming structures... or a raising of the total atmosphere needed for the planet to be earthlike. The point to terraforming is that it is supposed to be a lengthy process, and it would encourage the player to frequently switch between many maps in order to build them all up to contribute to the atmosphere level.
2.)biomes - This may be hard to implement, but wold give the map a varying texture to it, and would give some regions different strengths and weaknesses over other regions. You could base the biomes on each region, but that may look too rigid and blocky for you. Instead, you could use procedural generation to make more natural looking biomes on the global map that look much more appealing to the eyes and would transform in their own ways as the planet is terraformed. The different biomes would cross between regions using this method as well.
An example of multiple biomes would be like having different bodies of water criss-crossing the map, having snowy, dessert, and jungle areas in different parts. Crystalline could come naturally with snowy areas, trees with forest areas, and sugarcane and mutant trees with jungle areas. This also opens up the way for more resources to be added, like sand, glass, glassware, cacti, potted plants (cacti+pottery), snow, and snow globes(snow + glass). For planets with no atmosphere, ice bodies or dry lake-bed could be used to represent where water will form after a certain atmosphere level. The player could build structures on the ice/lake bed, but these buildings would be destroyed if they happen to be there when the atmosphere allows water to form in those areas.
3.) estimated production in non-active maps - this one might help with performance. Instead of having all maps producing and keeping track of all of the colonists and jobs and needs when you are in any map or on the display screen, I would use the following method:
Upon exiting a map, have the game take the most recent production and consumption rates. Then after the player creates cities in multiple maps, have the game add the production and consumption rates of all of the inactive maps together the make a total production and consumption rate for each resource. Add these rates onto the active colonies rates and you will have a grand total for the entire planet. Of course, this rate will change whenever you switch maps, but you are only dealing with one or two formulas per resource in order to keep production going instead of thousands of worker rounds in each map going on at the same time, and you are only dealing with one map producing and changing in real time instead of all of them being in realtime.
This method cuts out all of the updates regarding unemployment, individual colonist actions and stats, population changes, and possibly other functions that happen in an active map. The active map would be the only map keeping track of these stats among it's colonists. Yes, while the production and consumption rates of each inactive map will stay the same as long as they remain inactive, I think that the trade-off is worth it, even if it does represent a small compromise in keeping the game a non-idle game. This would also allow for more resources to be implemented into the game and individual maps could get more developed and densely populated without negatively impacting performance.
In fact, it doesn't have to be a compromise at all if you reduce the production of the inactive maps by a certain percentage. I would also pause the game altogether when viewing the global map, or players could just let it idle at the global map and collect resources without the risk of any of their maps starving to death. On that note, if you run out of food or water, you could have it take 1% off of the overall health of each inactive map's population(which should take off 1% of each individual colonist's health open opening that map) and cause individual health loss in real time in the active colony.
This method would also allow you to increase the size of global map grids exponentially, allowing for more regions/maps to be available to the player to build in. And overall it may even improve the android problem that you are having.
4. individual region naming - this will further help you to keep track of which region is which, even though you can tell which is which by looking at the map. I just think that each region should be able to have it's own name.
5. Being able to transfer rovers/workers from one region to another - you mentioned this one in update 70, so I know that you aim to implement this one. I'm just adding my twist to it. I don't think that rovers should have to smoothly pass from region to region. I think you should be able to select a region and have a listing of what rovers it has and how many of each type. Then, you should be able to specify an amount for each rover type to transfer and specify a destination region. I think it would be too overpowered for rovers/workers to be able to smoothly pass to another region to collect resources and then come back, and I think it would be detrimental to game performance. The player should have to deal with the resources that they have in the map during real time. If they run out of an important resource, such as regolith, they can just start on another region/map, harvest the regolith from there, and then return to the map they were working on, assuming that all of the resources from every map are pooled.
I don't think that colonists should be able to leave the map at will either. i think that at most, if at all, the player should be able to transfer unemployed or homeless colonists to another region to supply workers where needed, but I don't think that colonists should smoothly be able to walk between regions. I think if a colonist wants to leave the map, they could maybe be transerred automatically to the mother colony or to another region, but not by just walking across the border. I think that the player should have to provide adequate housing, entertainment, healthcare, and education in each map for the buildings in that map. I do like the idea of having a map solely for food production that provides all of the food needs for the entire planet, and a water map that does the same, so those resources could be poured into a global resource pool that any region can pull from.
But those are my ideas. let me know if you agree with me or not. Hopefully bast can use these to make a beter system for regions that uses even less performance than it does now. Sorry for the longest post in history.
1.) Regional contribution to atmosphere level - This idea is obvious and would probably be implemented without me saying anything. Each region should be able to produce atmosphere that contributes to the atmosphere of the planet as a whole, just like how bast mentioned that each region would contribute to the same research and civics pool. However, if this feature is to be implemented, I recommend a nerf of all terraforming structures... or a raising of the total atmosphere needed for the planet to be earthlike. The point to terraforming is that it is supposed to be a lengthy process, and it would encourage the player to frequently switch between many maps in order to build them all up to contribute to the atmosphere level.
2.)biomes - This may be hard to implement, but wold give the map a varying texture to it, and would give some regions different strengths and weaknesses over other regions. You could base the biomes on each region, but that may look too rigid and blocky for you. Instead, you could use procedural generation to make more natural looking biomes on the global map that look much more appealing to the eyes and would transform in their own ways as the planet is terraformed. The different biomes would cross between regions using this method as well.
An example of multiple biomes would be like having different bodies of water criss-crossing the map, having snowy, dessert, and jungle areas in different parts. Crystalline could come naturally with snowy areas, trees with forest areas, and sugarcane and mutant trees with jungle areas. This also opens up the way for more resources to be added, like sand, glass, glassware, cacti, potted plants (cacti+pottery), snow, and snow globes(snow + glass). For planets with no atmosphere, ice bodies or dry lake-bed could be used to represent where water will form after a certain atmosphere level. The player could build structures on the ice/lake bed, but these buildings would be destroyed if they happen to be there when the atmosphere allows water to form in those areas.
3.) estimated production in non-active maps - this one might help with performance. Instead of having all maps producing and keeping track of all of the colonists and jobs and needs when you are in any map or on the display screen, I would use the following method:
Upon exiting a map, have the game take the most recent production and consumption rates. Then after the player creates cities in multiple maps, have the game add the production and consumption rates of all of the inactive maps together the make a total production and consumption rate for each resource. Add these rates onto the active colonies rates and you will have a grand total for the entire planet. Of course, this rate will change whenever you switch maps, but you are only dealing with one or two formulas per resource in order to keep production going instead of thousands of worker rounds in each map going on at the same time, and you are only dealing with one map producing and changing in real time instead of all of them being in realtime.
This method cuts out all of the updates regarding unemployment, individual colonist actions and stats, population changes, and possibly other functions that happen in an active map. The active map would be the only map keeping track of these stats among it's colonists. Yes, while the production and consumption rates of each inactive map will stay the same as long as they remain inactive, I think that the trade-off is worth it, even if it does represent a small compromise in keeping the game a non-idle game. This would also allow for more resources to be implemented into the game and individual maps could get more developed and densely populated without negatively impacting performance.
In fact, it doesn't have to be a compromise at all if you reduce the production of the inactive maps by a certain percentage. I would also pause the game altogether when viewing the global map, or players could just let it idle at the global map and collect resources without the risk of any of their maps starving to death. On that note, if you run out of food or water, you could have it take 1% off of the overall health of each inactive map's population(which should take off 1% of each individual colonist's health open opening that map) and cause individual health loss in real time in the active colony.
This method would also allow you to increase the size of global map grids exponentially, allowing for more regions/maps to be available to the player to build in. And overall it may even improve the android problem that you are having.
4. individual region naming - this will further help you to keep track of which region is which, even though you can tell which is which by looking at the map. I just think that each region should be able to have it's own name.
5. Being able to transfer rovers/workers from one region to another - you mentioned this one in update 70, so I know that you aim to implement this one. I'm just adding my twist to it. I don't think that rovers should have to smoothly pass from region to region. I think you should be able to select a region and have a listing of what rovers it has and how many of each type. Then, you should be able to specify an amount for each rover type to transfer and specify a destination region. I think it would be too overpowered for rovers/workers to be able to smoothly pass to another region to collect resources and then come back, and I think it would be detrimental to game performance. The player should have to deal with the resources that they have in the map during real time. If they run out of an important resource, such as regolith, they can just start on another region/map, harvest the regolith from there, and then return to the map they were working on, assuming that all of the resources from every map are pooled.
I don't think that colonists should be able to leave the map at will either. i think that at most, if at all, the player should be able to transfer unemployed or homeless colonists to another region to supply workers where needed, but I don't think that colonists should smoothly be able to walk between regions. I think if a colonist wants to leave the map, they could maybe be transerred automatically to the mother colony or to another region, but not by just walking across the border. I think that the player should have to provide adequate housing, entertainment, healthcare, and education in each map for the buildings in that map. I do like the idea of having a map solely for food production that provides all of the food needs for the entire planet, and a water map that does the same, so those resources could be poured into a global resource pool that any region can pull from.
But those are my ideas. let me know if you agree with me or not. Hopefully bast can use these to make a beter system for regions that uses even less performance than it does now. Sorry for the longest post in history.
I hope everybody is having a good week! Today after several weeks of work, I am putting the finishing touches on My Colony v1.0.0 which will be heading out to all platforms over the coming days, just in time for the holidays! There is not a lot of new content in this update, and pretty much nothing that I had originally planned to add to it is here, but that is ok! What you get instead is almost a total re-write of the underlying simulation engine, which I think will improve performance on most devices, greatly reduce save-file sizes (and save corruption instances), and greatly expand the possibilities for new features in the coming updates. With all of that said, let's take a look at what has changed. This will probably be a longer write-up than most, so sit tight!
First of all, I really wish I had more time to work on this update, as I do not consider it to be complete by any stretch of the means. Sadly though, because of the time of year I had to push the update now, otherwise I would not be able to release until sometime in January. For one reason, I have a lot of family stuff coming up for the holidays. Also, the various app stores do not process submissions during this time of year (so that their employees can have some holiday time off), particularly iPhone, so I have to get the update in now before the release window closes. So I want to apologize to everybody for the lack of new content and incomplete nature of this update, given what I had promised previously. I hope you are not too mad at me, especially since it has been about a month since the last update! I did put a ton of hours into this one though, and I think (hope!) in the long run the game will end up being a lot better for it.
Since these patch notes are longer than normal, I will split them up into sections.
Game Data
First I want to talk about some game file changes. Since the format of the game has evolved a bit since the first release of My Colony in 2016, there have been a lot of properties and settings added over the months and years that are no longer applicable today. I have done a little bit of cleanup and reorganizing of the game data in this release, and if you have an older, larger colony, the first time you open it in v1.0.0 it might take a little longer to load as this cleanup procedure takes place on your game data, possible up to a minute or more. This is normal. Afterwards, the disk size of your game data should be a lot smaller, which should be great for all versions of the game, as save file corruptions are sometimes a problem on various platforms. It should also make cloud sync a whole lot faster and more reliable. I believe it will also help with issues where web browsers like Chrome delete My Colony saves to keep the game under the browser's storage quota. Just for an example, the save file for my main colony which has around 270k population is now only about 600kb, which is a massive reduction from before.
I am working on a way to export an entire region game (and all of it's sub colonies) into one single backup file. I had meant to have this feature ready to go for this update, but simply ran out of time. Be aware that it is coming soon though. The new file size reduction is one of the reasons why I am able to implement this feature properly!
Regions
There is a large change to how Regions are generated now, when playing on a map type that features a river terrain, such as Earthlike, Abandoned World, and Lava World. The River formations are now generated on a region-wide basis, instead of on a map-by-map basis, giving the entire region a more continuous look and feel. So now when you start a new region on one of these map types, it will have to generate the river template, which may take a minute on slower devices. It is a one-time thing though, so I think the time trade-off is worth it.
In addition to automatic region generation, you can now also include a template file that the game will use to create your region. The template parser works best when using a 250x250 black and white image, but it will accept any image file you have. For example, consider the following template file:
When applied to a Lava World region, will create the following regional map:
These new region generating and templating features can make for some very interesting regional maps!
Once you are inside of a region map, you will notice some additional changes. There is now a 1 tile green border surrounding regional cities. If you mouse-over this border, you will see the name of the adjacent city in the region and if you click on it, it will ask you if you want to switch over to that city, without having to back out to the overall regional map first.
In addition, you can now order a rover or other unit to drive onto that green border area, and the unit will be transferred to the adjacent city. Players have wanted this feature since regions first came out, and it basically works just as you would expect it to.
Simulation Changes
This is where the changes start getting big, but I have tried to implement them in a way that will hopefully be unnoticeable to most players. For v1.0.0, I have rewritten the core simulation engine from scratch, moving it from an individual colonist based simulation, to more of a macro simulation using buildings as the core point of focus for the game. This change was mainly done for performance and scale. When I had originally created the game, I did not really expect colonies with more than a few hundred colonists at most. My original inspiration for the colonist part of the game was a title I found on Steam called Spacebase DF-9, which sadly got abandoned by it's creators. But in that vain, each colonist had it's own stats, it's own bank account, it's own mood, name, health, happiness level, job, house etc. With a few hundred colonists, this works out pretty good. With 100,000 or even 1,000,000, this becomes a CPU and memory nightmare.
Over the years I have done various tweaks and hacks to try to get around this design issue, but it's never worked out perfectly. At the end of the day, there was no way to get around the fact that the way that the game was originally envisioned and designed was simply no longer compatible with the way that the game had eventually turned out. My Colony has become, at it's core, a city simulator game based in outer space. It does feature things that you will not find in a traditional city simulator game, but at the end of the day, this is what it has basically morphed in to. So I have made changes to the game to better reflect this reality.
The individual colonist, as he has existed in prior versions of the game, no longer exists. He has been replaced by statistics. The game now operates on a system based on the residential structure and it's proximity to available amenities, such as entertainment, medical, educational, and work. This is now reflected by clicking on a building and looking at it's stats screen.
Where a colonist decided to live is based on the overall value rating of the residential property. Where a colonist decides to work is based on the location of the job site in relation to occupied residential buildings. Therefore, maintaining full productive capacity requires balancing all of the desirability factors for your residential buildings and keeping your job sites in range to those buildings.
It may sound complicated, but it's really not. In general, a colony that was well designed and balanced before this update should still work without too many issues. I have tried to design this in a way that would be as minimally disruptive to existing colonies as possible.
The largest potential issue people will see is in regards to medical care. Simply put, before medical care was barely required, and now it is absolutely required. If your colony lacks medical facilities, people will die. If you start seeing people die every month for no reason, make sure that you have enough medical clinics!
This new simulation engine has changed the way approval rating is calculated. It is now a function of the overall value of every residential structure, weighted by the number of colonists living in that structure. Overall colony approval rating will impact production in this way: if overall approval falls below 30%, you will start to see riots, which will in turn decrease the number of people who go to work. To make the transition to v1.0.0 easier, I have disabled rioting for this release, to give players time to balance their colonies. It will be activated in v1.1.0 though, so you should not ignore it.
In a way, it is sad to make this change, as I've always liked having the ability to select a colonist and see where they live, how happy the are, give them money, etc. These options are now gone from the game, along with certain policy items that were related to individual colonists. That said, the change has reduced the memory consumption of the game significantly, and will also allow the game to grow in ways never before possible, so I think that overall it will be a good thing, and I hope people are not too disappointed by it!
Colonist Lifecycle
Colonists now age properly in this update, and they will also have babies. You now need to balance your colony in a way that can support children and elderly, who are unable to work. Before you could just have a 1:1 ratio of population to jobs, now you cannot. A new section has been added to the population stat screen that lets you see the current age distribution of your colonists.
Colonists will work between the ages of 16 and 70 and they will have kids between the ages of 16 and 40. After the age of 50, they have a chance to die of natural causes, and that chance is higher or lower based on the health rating of your colony.
This has been the hardest part of the game to balance in this update, and will probably take several updates to get it right. You do not want the birth rate to be too high at the beginning of the game, because it is hard to take care of babies when you are just starting out. However, you do not want it to be too low later on, because you need enough new workers to support the aging population.
As I said, this will probably take some time to get right. It will be a bit more difficult for large existing colonies, because before this update, almost all colonists were aged between 20-35 years old. If you have a large existing population, all of these people will probably be retiring around the same time. To ease these issues, I have added new deportation policies to the game, with the options to deport all elderly and children.
Random Changes and Improvements
The Stats screen now has two new sections, Utilities and Game Data, both of which were going to be a lot cooler than they are now, but I ran out of time. Keep an eye on these, because they will be getting better in the future.
On the main construction sidebar, you can now right-click on a building to quick-jump to the encyclopedia article for that structure. In addition, mouse-hovering over a building now shows a bit more information, such as the entertainment/medical/educational capacities of the structure.
For vehicle construction buildings like the Small Vehicle Factory, you can now mouse-over them when they have multiple units queues up to see exactly which types of units are currently in the queue.
On regional maps, the day/night cycle is now synchronized across the entire region. Before now, one city could be daytime, and the city right next to it could be night.
Tourism has been revamped, much in the way the rest of the simulation has. You will now probably make a lot more money on tourism than you had previously.
The Overview statistics window now displays the total number of real-life hours you have played the game (since v0.91.0, as it was not tracked before then), as well as the amount of game-time that your colony has been around.
There is now a new Medical build category.
When a colony under embargo starts paying taxes again, they now regain their "motherland relations" at a faster rate.
The Brood Training Center now provides some education.
Increased the number of students for the Transcendent Academy, Mound of Scholars, and Internet Relay Booth.
Increased medical capacity of the Bloodletting Station, Healing Pods, and First Aid Station.
Increased the guest capacity of the Large Park, Paste Treatment Spa, Torture Booth, Live Autopsy Slab, Suppertime Arena, and Internet Relay Booth.
Added slight Entertainment and Education boost to the Real News Station.
Added slight Education boost to the Live Autopsy Slab.
New Content
New Unit: Ether Rover
New Structures: Ether Storage, Integrated Medical Clinic, Small Hospital, University, Ant Paste Rejuvenation Clinic
What's Next?
There is still much to be done. I would have preferred to just work on this update for three months and add everything I want to it, but I did want to give everybody something to play over the holidays. My immediate plan for My Colony v1.1.0 is to add the #1 most requested feature since the game originally came out, Mass Transit. I already have the entire system mapped out in my head and I think it's going to work well, and will function within a single city and even across region. This means you will also be able to have houses in one region map where people work in the adjacent region map. So this is what will be coming in v1.1.0, unless there are major issues with this update, in which case it will be v1.2.0.
After that, I want to implement crime and security, which will be the focus of the next update. Crime is already factored into the land value rating of all buildings, so a lot of the work is already done. I just need to do the work to finish it off. If I had more time, Mass Transit and Crime would have been done in this release, since I have already started implementing both "under the hood."
Finally, I promised online competition and leaderboards for this update, and I just didn't get to them. I have not forgotten about it though, but I am pushing it out until after Mass Transit and Crime, as I have already sort of started on Mass Transit and Crime, and I think people will probably get more out of those two features anyway. So I am tentatively scheduling the online competition update for v1.3 or v1.4.
Beyond those, that is all I have planned in the near future for major gameplay changing updates. After that it will be back to the regular bug-fix and content update grinds. I do still need to flesh out the other civs a bit more. At some point I want to add AI controlled factions, as I want to add a new map type that is already inhabited by a primitive species and you will either have to coexist with them or exterminate them. But that is a little bit further down the line.
So that's all for v1.0.0. It should be hitting all devices over the coming days, so be on the lookout. Let me know in the forum what issues and requests you have. There are literally a ton of engine changes to this update and so I do expect problems, but with your help I will get them all ironed out over the coming updates.
This happens to be the 100th major update to My Colony, and I want to thank everybody who has been with me over the years, helping me create this amazing game that we all love! I never could have imagined when I first started on it in 2016 what it would have eventually morphed into. A lot of the greatness in the game comes directly from suggestions I have gotten from you guys, so thank you to everybody who has supported the game over the years, and stay tuned for a lot more to come in the future!
First of all, I really wish I had more time to work on this update, as I do not consider it to be complete by any stretch of the means. Sadly though, because of the time of year I had to push the update now, otherwise I would not be able to release until sometime in January. For one reason, I have a lot of family stuff coming up for the holidays. Also, the various app stores do not process submissions during this time of year (so that their employees can have some holiday time off), particularly iPhone, so I have to get the update in now before the release window closes. So I want to apologize to everybody for the lack of new content and incomplete nature of this update, given what I had promised previously. I hope you are not too mad at me, especially since it has been about a month since the last update! I did put a ton of hours into this one though, and I think (hope!) in the long run the game will end up being a lot better for it.
Since these patch notes are longer than normal, I will split them up into sections.
Game Data
First I want to talk about some game file changes. Since the format of the game has evolved a bit since the first release of My Colony in 2016, there have been a lot of properties and settings added over the months and years that are no longer applicable today. I have done a little bit of cleanup and reorganizing of the game data in this release, and if you have an older, larger colony, the first time you open it in v1.0.0 it might take a little longer to load as this cleanup procedure takes place on your game data, possible up to a minute or more. This is normal. Afterwards, the disk size of your game data should be a lot smaller, which should be great for all versions of the game, as save file corruptions are sometimes a problem on various platforms. It should also make cloud sync a whole lot faster and more reliable. I believe it will also help with issues where web browsers like Chrome delete My Colony saves to keep the game under the browser's storage quota. Just for an example, the save file for my main colony which has around 270k population is now only about 600kb, which is a massive reduction from before.
I am working on a way to export an entire region game (and all of it's sub colonies) into one single backup file. I had meant to have this feature ready to go for this update, but simply ran out of time. Be aware that it is coming soon though. The new file size reduction is one of the reasons why I am able to implement this feature properly!
Regions
There is a large change to how Regions are generated now, when playing on a map type that features a river terrain, such as Earthlike, Abandoned World, and Lava World. The River formations are now generated on a region-wide basis, instead of on a map-by-map basis, giving the entire region a more continuous look and feel. So now when you start a new region on one of these map types, it will have to generate the river template, which may take a minute on slower devices. It is a one-time thing though, so I think the time trade-off is worth it.
In addition to automatic region generation, you can now also include a template file that the game will use to create your region. The template parser works best when using a 250x250 black and white image, but it will accept any image file you have. For example, consider the following template file:
When applied to a Lava World region, will create the following regional map:
These new region generating and templating features can make for some very interesting regional maps!
Once you are inside of a region map, you will notice some additional changes. There is now a 1 tile green border surrounding regional cities. If you mouse-over this border, you will see the name of the adjacent city in the region and if you click on it, it will ask you if you want to switch over to that city, without having to back out to the overall regional map first.
In addition, you can now order a rover or other unit to drive onto that green border area, and the unit will be transferred to the adjacent city. Players have wanted this feature since regions first came out, and it basically works just as you would expect it to.
Simulation Changes
This is where the changes start getting big, but I have tried to implement them in a way that will hopefully be unnoticeable to most players. For v1.0.0, I have rewritten the core simulation engine from scratch, moving it from an individual colonist based simulation, to more of a macro simulation using buildings as the core point of focus for the game. This change was mainly done for performance and scale. When I had originally created the game, I did not really expect colonies with more than a few hundred colonists at most. My original inspiration for the colonist part of the game was a title I found on Steam called Spacebase DF-9, which sadly got abandoned by it's creators. But in that vain, each colonist had it's own stats, it's own bank account, it's own mood, name, health, happiness level, job, house etc. With a few hundred colonists, this works out pretty good. With 100,000 or even 1,000,000, this becomes a CPU and memory nightmare.
Over the years I have done various tweaks and hacks to try to get around this design issue, but it's never worked out perfectly. At the end of the day, there was no way to get around the fact that the way that the game was originally envisioned and designed was simply no longer compatible with the way that the game had eventually turned out. My Colony has become, at it's core, a city simulator game based in outer space. It does feature things that you will not find in a traditional city simulator game, but at the end of the day, this is what it has basically morphed in to. So I have made changes to the game to better reflect this reality.
The individual colonist, as he has existed in prior versions of the game, no longer exists. He has been replaced by statistics. The game now operates on a system based on the residential structure and it's proximity to available amenities, such as entertainment, medical, educational, and work. This is now reflected by clicking on a building and looking at it's stats screen.
Where a colonist decided to live is based on the overall value rating of the residential property. Where a colonist decides to work is based on the location of the job site in relation to occupied residential buildings. Therefore, maintaining full productive capacity requires balancing all of the desirability factors for your residential buildings and keeping your job sites in range to those buildings.
It may sound complicated, but it's really not. In general, a colony that was well designed and balanced before this update should still work without too many issues. I have tried to design this in a way that would be as minimally disruptive to existing colonies as possible.
The largest potential issue people will see is in regards to medical care. Simply put, before medical care was barely required, and now it is absolutely required. If your colony lacks medical facilities, people will die. If you start seeing people die every month for no reason, make sure that you have enough medical clinics!
This new simulation engine has changed the way approval rating is calculated. It is now a function of the overall value of every residential structure, weighted by the number of colonists living in that structure. Overall colony approval rating will impact production in this way: if overall approval falls below 30%, you will start to see riots, which will in turn decrease the number of people who go to work. To make the transition to v1.0.0 easier, I have disabled rioting for this release, to give players time to balance their colonies. It will be activated in v1.1.0 though, so you should not ignore it.
In a way, it is sad to make this change, as I've always liked having the ability to select a colonist and see where they live, how happy the are, give them money, etc. These options are now gone from the game, along with certain policy items that were related to individual colonists. That said, the change has reduced the memory consumption of the game significantly, and will also allow the game to grow in ways never before possible, so I think that overall it will be a good thing, and I hope people are not too disappointed by it!
Colonist Lifecycle
Colonists now age properly in this update, and they will also have babies. You now need to balance your colony in a way that can support children and elderly, who are unable to work. Before you could just have a 1:1 ratio of population to jobs, now you cannot. A new section has been added to the population stat screen that lets you see the current age distribution of your colonists.
Colonists will work between the ages of 16 and 70 and they will have kids between the ages of 16 and 40. After the age of 50, they have a chance to die of natural causes, and that chance is higher or lower based on the health rating of your colony.
This has been the hardest part of the game to balance in this update, and will probably take several updates to get it right. You do not want the birth rate to be too high at the beginning of the game, because it is hard to take care of babies when you are just starting out. However, you do not want it to be too low later on, because you need enough new workers to support the aging population.
As I said, this will probably take some time to get right. It will be a bit more difficult for large existing colonies, because before this update, almost all colonists were aged between 20-35 years old. If you have a large existing population, all of these people will probably be retiring around the same time. To ease these issues, I have added new deportation policies to the game, with the options to deport all elderly and children.
Random Changes and Improvements
The Stats screen now has two new sections, Utilities and Game Data, both of which were going to be a lot cooler than they are now, but I ran out of time. Keep an eye on these, because they will be getting better in the future.
On the main construction sidebar, you can now right-click on a building to quick-jump to the encyclopedia article for that structure. In addition, mouse-hovering over a building now shows a bit more information, such as the entertainment/medical/educational capacities of the structure.
For vehicle construction buildings like the Small Vehicle Factory, you can now mouse-over them when they have multiple units queues up to see exactly which types of units are currently in the queue.
On regional maps, the day/night cycle is now synchronized across the entire region. Before now, one city could be daytime, and the city right next to it could be night.
Tourism has been revamped, much in the way the rest of the simulation has. You will now probably make a lot more money on tourism than you had previously.
The Overview statistics window now displays the total number of real-life hours you have played the game (since v0.91.0, as it was not tracked before then), as well as the amount of game-time that your colony has been around.
There is now a new Medical build category.
When a colony under embargo starts paying taxes again, they now regain their "motherland relations" at a faster rate.
The Brood Training Center now provides some education.
Increased the number of students for the Transcendent Academy, Mound of Scholars, and Internet Relay Booth.
Increased medical capacity of the Bloodletting Station, Healing Pods, and First Aid Station.
Increased the guest capacity of the Large Park, Paste Treatment Spa, Torture Booth, Live Autopsy Slab, Suppertime Arena, and Internet Relay Booth.
Added slight Entertainment and Education boost to the Real News Station.
Added slight Education boost to the Live Autopsy Slab.
New Content
New Unit: Ether Rover
New Structures: Ether Storage, Integrated Medical Clinic, Small Hospital, University, Ant Paste Rejuvenation Clinic
What's Next?
There is still much to be done. I would have preferred to just work on this update for three months and add everything I want to it, but I did want to give everybody something to play over the holidays. My immediate plan for My Colony v1.1.0 is to add the #1 most requested feature since the game originally came out, Mass Transit. I already have the entire system mapped out in my head and I think it's going to work well, and will function within a single city and even across region. This means you will also be able to have houses in one region map where people work in the adjacent region map. So this is what will be coming in v1.1.0, unless there are major issues with this update, in which case it will be v1.2.0.
After that, I want to implement crime and security, which will be the focus of the next update. Crime is already factored into the land value rating of all buildings, so a lot of the work is already done. I just need to do the work to finish it off. If I had more time, Mass Transit and Crime would have been done in this release, since I have already started implementing both "under the hood."
Finally, I promised online competition and leaderboards for this update, and I just didn't get to them. I have not forgotten about it though, but I am pushing it out until after Mass Transit and Crime, as I have already sort of started on Mass Transit and Crime, and I think people will probably get more out of those two features anyway. So I am tentatively scheduling the online competition update for v1.3 or v1.4.
Beyond those, that is all I have planned in the near future for major gameplay changing updates. After that it will be back to the regular bug-fix and content update grinds. I do still need to flesh out the other civs a bit more. At some point I want to add AI controlled factions, as I want to add a new map type that is already inhabited by a primitive species and you will either have to coexist with them or exterminate them. But that is a little bit further down the line.
So that's all for v1.0.0. It should be hitting all devices over the coming days, so be on the lookout. Let me know in the forum what issues and requests you have. There are literally a ton of engine changes to this update and so I do expect problems, but with your help I will get them all ironed out over the coming updates.
This happens to be the 100th major update to My Colony, and I want to thank everybody who has been with me over the years, helping me create this amazing game that we all love! I never could have imagined when I first started on it in 2016 what it would have eventually morphed into. A lot of the greatness in the game comes directly from suggestions I have gotten from you guys, so thank you to everybody who has supported the game over the years, and stay tuned for a lot more to come in the future!
Today I am beginning to push out the v0.71.0 update to My Colony, and it should be coming to all available platforms over the next few days. This release further builds out and improves the Regions feature, and finally adds a Capitol building to the Reptilians.
First off, let's discuss the new Region updates. The first change you will notice is that now on the Region overview screen, there will be a faint dotted line showing the borders of your various region cities, allowing you to more easily discern the difference between maps. I had noticed that once you get several cities right next to each other, it was becoming difficult to tell them apart, especially when they are using different map sizes.
This change just makes it a bit easier to see what is going on in your region.
The next change is that road tiles now "link" between maps. Before you get excited, I do not mean that rovers and colonists are walking between maps (yet), but now when you have a map with a road tile built up to the edge of a map, that same road tile will appear on the edge of adjacent maps, if there is an open spot on the map for the tile. This right now is mainly to provide a bit of continuity on the region overview display between maps, as you can see in the example screenshot above. Right now it only works on roads, but I plan on doing something similar with rivers soon.
The next change to Regions, which is a big one, is that resource consumption and production for all region maps will now continue as long as any city in your region is currently active. Region cities continue to produce resources even on the region overview display. It wont take much playtime for you to realize that this is a major game changer for region-based games.
There are other small changes and improvements to the Region system, and you will notice these while you play, but they aren't major enough to describe each in detail. Basically, the entire Region system runs a lot better than it did one version ago, and the improvements will continue over the coming updates.
The next change I made was minor but will be helpful to some. The GBT now shows a little status display at the bottom, outlining your current max trade capacity, as well as the amount of each resource that you currently have available to trade.
This is helpful because often I would find myself making trades, but the GBT window covers up the resource output display, so you don't know how much you need to buy or sell. This should help make the GBT just a bit better. In addition to this, the trade frequency timer has been reduced, so you can now make trades faster than you could before.
Next up is the new Capitol building for the Reptilian race, the Chamber of Laws.
Now that Reptilians can have a capitol to call their own, the next update will be bringing Reptilian embassies into the game. I also need a new structure to produce Oil, for when the map runs dry.
Finally, some older structures have gained the ability to be flipped. All Microchip Factories, the Civic Center, and the reptilian Antanium Impactor.
I expect to maintain weekly updates to the game going forward, and the next few will continue to focus on Reptilians and Regions. There might be a slight lag before the next update, and I am going to be preparing Antiquitas for it's Steam release, but after that, it is back to My Colony updates.
Enjoy the changes, let me know of the issues, and stay tuned for a whole lot more!
First off, let's discuss the new Region updates. The first change you will notice is that now on the Region overview screen, there will be a faint dotted line showing the borders of your various region cities, allowing you to more easily discern the difference between maps. I had noticed that once you get several cities right next to each other, it was becoming difficult to tell them apart, especially when they are using different map sizes.
The next change is that road tiles now "link" between maps. Before you get excited, I do not mean that rovers and colonists are walking between maps (yet), but now when you have a map with a road tile built up to the edge of a map, that same road tile will appear on the edge of adjacent maps, if there is an open spot on the map for the tile. This right now is mainly to provide a bit of continuity on the region overview display between maps, as you can see in the example screenshot above. Right now it only works on roads, but I plan on doing something similar with rivers soon.
The next change to Regions, which is a big one, is that resource consumption and production for all region maps will now continue as long as any city in your region is currently active. Region cities continue to produce resources even on the region overview display. It wont take much playtime for you to realize that this is a major game changer for region-based games.
There are other small changes and improvements to the Region system, and you will notice these while you play, but they aren't major enough to describe each in detail. Basically, the entire Region system runs a lot better than it did one version ago, and the improvements will continue over the coming updates.
The next change I made was minor but will be helpful to some. The GBT now shows a little status display at the bottom, outlining your current max trade capacity, as well as the amount of each resource that you currently have available to trade.
Next up is the new Capitol building for the Reptilian race, the Chamber of Laws.
Finally, some older structures have gained the ability to be flipped. All Microchip Factories, the Civic Center, and the reptilian Antanium Impactor.
I expect to maintain weekly updates to the game going forward, and the next few will continue to focus on Reptilians and Regions. There might be a slight lag before the next update, and I am going to be preparing Antiquitas for it's Steam release, but after that, it is back to My Colony updates.
Enjoy the changes, let me know of the issues, and stay tuned for a whole lot more!
The main new feature being added in My Colony v0.70.0 is for premium users, and is the new concept of Regions. Coming soon, when you create a new game (online or off), you will be asked if you want to start a single city, or a region.
If you have ever played Sim City 4, then you kind of know the idea behind regions. Basically how it works, when you start a new region, you get a blank map that looks like a regular map, but instead of placing buildings, you can either place a Small City or a Medium City. You then start a new map using that size of city. When you go back to the region, a tiny little picture of your map is sitting in the plot of land you selected.
The idea is that the entire region shares a common resource, electricity, atmosphere, and technology pool. Also, the region declares independence as a whole. The region is 50x50 in size, so in theory you could have 2,500 small sized maps in a single region, although that would be crazy.
Either way, the support is somewhat experimental right now. It's been on the web version for a couple of days, but I do not suggest starting a region yet until the official release of 0.70.0, as you will likely have to start all over again from scratch. Many things have yet to be implemented, and that will happen in the coming days. I just wanted to let everyone know what it was, so nobody starts a new region yet expecting it to work properly!
If the regions turn out to be popular, I might also add moons and asteroids that are part of the same region system, but don't necessarily share the same resources, at least not electricity and atmosphere.
Anyway, somebody suggested something similar in the forums the other day, and I always loved the region aspect of Sim City 4, so that is sort of my guide here in implementing this, although SC4 did not share money between cities, I think it would be need to do so here.
Either way, the support is somewhat experimental right now. It's been on the web version for a couple of days, but I do not suggest starting a region yet until the official release of 0.70.0, as you will likely have to start all over again from scratch. Many things have yet to be implemented, and that will happen in the coming days. I just wanted to let everyone know what it was, so nobody starts a new region yet expecting it to work properly!
If the regions turn out to be popular, I might also add moons and asteroids that are part of the same region system, but don't necessarily share the same resources, at least not electricity and atmosphere.
Anyway, somebody suggested something similar in the forums the other day, and I always loved the region aspect of Sim City 4, so that is sort of my guide here in implementing this, although SC4 did not share money between cities, I think it would be need to do so here.
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.
Was sitting there in Church today and during the sermon I was thinking of the code for My Colony, and I had an idea to add another gameplay mode of Multiplayer Regions. In my mind, it would be a slightly larger map than the current region file, and all of the high-level region data would be stored on the server, including the little thumbnail images that represent the individual city files. However, you could invite your friends to join your region, and they could pick a plot on the map and start building their own cities.
Instead of shared resources across the region like on current region maps, only atmosphere would be shared, although there would be a new regional warehouse type building where players can manually store resources that are shared across the region.
Also, instead of the whole region being one big city, it would be broken up into 'areas', like metropolitan areas, where each one of those would have a charter code/online presence as opposed to the region as a whole.
For example, if you start a city on the region at coordinate 20:20 (x:y), and you own no other cities touching that city, it would be chartered as a new colony on the server. If you then started another city right next to it as 20:21, it would be "linked" to the first city and they would become a metropolitan area with shared resources. However, if your friend started a new city in that region across the map at location 8:10 or something, then that would trigger the formation of a new "area" with a new charter code and its own resource pool.
My thought for this was that regions are so big anyway, the likelihood of a player filling one by himself is not very high. However a group of players could probably do it.
Anyway, that is kind of an idea I had, it's nothing solid right now, but I have (at least in theory) worked out a lot of the code needed and issues in my head, lol. I mainly wanted to throw this here and see if there is any feedback on it, to see if it is a feature anybody would actually be interested in, before spending time to implement it. I actually think that compared to a lot of things, it would be a pretty easy one to implement, since a lot of the work on Regions is already completed, it would be a similar experience except there are other parts on the map that are being filled out by other people. The only main difference to the player is the joint atmosphere, and the addition of the joint regional warehouse. You wouldn't really be able to load up other players' maps and play them, you would just see them on the main regional overview.
Let me know what you think of the concept, and if it is worth exploring further!
Instead of shared resources across the region like on current region maps, only atmosphere would be shared, although there would be a new regional warehouse type building where players can manually store resources that are shared across the region.
Also, instead of the whole region being one big city, it would be broken up into 'areas', like metropolitan areas, where each one of those would have a charter code/online presence as opposed to the region as a whole.
For example, if you start a city on the region at coordinate 20:20 (x:y), and you own no other cities touching that city, it would be chartered as a new colony on the server. If you then started another city right next to it as 20:21, it would be "linked" to the first city and they would become a metropolitan area with shared resources. However, if your friend started a new city in that region across the map at location 8:10 or something, then that would trigger the formation of a new "area" with a new charter code and its own resource pool.
My thought for this was that regions are so big anyway, the likelihood of a player filling one by himself is not very high. However a group of players could probably do it.
Anyway, that is kind of an idea I had, it's nothing solid right now, but I have (at least in theory) worked out a lot of the code needed and issues in my head, lol. I mainly wanted to throw this here and see if there is any feedback on it, to see if it is a feature anybody would actually be interested in, before spending time to implement it. I actually think that compared to a lot of things, it would be a pretty easy one to implement, since a lot of the work on Regions is already completed, it would be a similar experience except there are other parts on the map that are being filled out by other people. The only main difference to the player is the joint atmosphere, and the addition of the joint regional warehouse. You wouldn't really be able to load up other players' maps and play them, you would just see them on the main regional overview.
Let me know what you think of the concept, and if it is worth exploring further!
Do yall think we should have a thread for users to advertise their multiplayer regions and post ideas for the feature? I feel like we should.
Also, I noticed that you can't choose a blank map in multiplayer regions. I understand why this would be disabled, but I feel like we should be able to see what the terrain is for the map that are about to choose so we can strategize on which map to start building on. What if maps in a multiplayer region are procedurally generated so that their terrain fits together naturally just like pieces of a puzzel. Then you can see which maps in the region have the terrain features that you want. Would also be awesome to see the region map come to life with continents, oceans, and rivers. This means that not every map can have a river of it's own, but that's the fun part. There would be inland maps that have no water, ocean maps that have no land, and beach and river maps that have both. This makes it more of a challenge to build, but that's the point.
I think the easiest way to do this is to have it generate each map's terrain upon it's creation. It would take a while but the player would only need to wait once. The terrain is set and unchangeable for each map and will remain tied to a map upon deletion. This way, when a player goes to start a new map, the terrain features are already there, so it makes for less time spent creating new maps, and even if the player's map is deleted, someone else can take advantage of the same terrain features.
Overall, I think that the biggest advantage is that it would make each multiplayer regions map unique, dispite it's planet type. Even if you have only 100 earth-like planet regions to choose from, they would all take different shapes.
If you are going to go this route, I recommend including a picture of each region so that if a region is chosen from the list of advertised regions, the image will pop up along with the content warning, allowing you to look at the region and confirm your choice. Would also be nice if before creating a multiplayer region, we could choose the seed or upload a terrain file that has a custom-designed terrain map(for instance, what if you want your region to look like the map of earth?) We could also use a way to export a region's terrain to a file and share it.
This one may be far off, but I like the highlands and midlands that you made for colony wars. It would be quite the challenge if those were to be added to mc's terrain generation. And coupled with the regional terrain generation idea above, you could have mountain ranges and plateaus that span multiple colonies. This would make some maps super hard to build in, but not impossible.
Also, the option to sell your colony to another member of your region and offer to buy other people's maps would be a nice feature in my opinion
That's all I have for now, let me know what you think.
Also, I noticed that you can't choose a blank map in multiplayer regions. I understand why this would be disabled, but I feel like we should be able to see what the terrain is for the map that are about to choose so we can strategize on which map to start building on. What if maps in a multiplayer region are procedurally generated so that their terrain fits together naturally just like pieces of a puzzel. Then you can see which maps in the region have the terrain features that you want. Would also be awesome to see the region map come to life with continents, oceans, and rivers. This means that not every map can have a river of it's own, but that's the fun part. There would be inland maps that have no water, ocean maps that have no land, and beach and river maps that have both. This makes it more of a challenge to build, but that's the point.
I think the easiest way to do this is to have it generate each map's terrain upon it's creation. It would take a while but the player would only need to wait once. The terrain is set and unchangeable for each map and will remain tied to a map upon deletion. This way, when a player goes to start a new map, the terrain features are already there, so it makes for less time spent creating new maps, and even if the player's map is deleted, someone else can take advantage of the same terrain features.
Overall, I think that the biggest advantage is that it would make each multiplayer regions map unique, dispite it's planet type. Even if you have only 100 earth-like planet regions to choose from, they would all take different shapes.
If you are going to go this route, I recommend including a picture of each region so that if a region is chosen from the list of advertised regions, the image will pop up along with the content warning, allowing you to look at the region and confirm your choice. Would also be nice if before creating a multiplayer region, we could choose the seed or upload a terrain file that has a custom-designed terrain map(for instance, what if you want your region to look like the map of earth?) We could also use a way to export a region's terrain to a file and share it.
This one may be far off, but I like the highlands and midlands that you made for colony wars. It would be quite the challenge if those were to be added to mc's terrain generation. And coupled with the regional terrain generation idea above, you could have mountain ranges and plateaus that span multiple colonies. This would make some maps super hard to build in, but not impossible.
Also, the option to sell your colony to another member of your region and offer to buy other people's maps would be a nice feature in my opinion
That's all I have for now, let me know what you think.
Today I am putting the final touches on My Colony v1.5.0 which should be going out to all platforms soon. This release is more of a quality of life and engine improvement update, which are generally my least favorite to work on because they take forever to get done and at the end it doesn't look like you've really accomplished anything. This is as opposed to a content update where I just spend a day drawing 10 new buildings and then everybody thinks I made a huge update!
Still though, there was important work needing to be done to the My Colony engine, and it received quite a bit. I have been promising Mass Transit for a while now, and I started working on it for this release, although it ended up being just a little more complicated than it was when I was mapping it out in my head. I have implemented a small part of it in this update to see how it works in the wild, and if it doesn't screw everything up it will be greatly expanded in the updates ahead. Don't worry, if it does screw something up, from my testing, the screw up will be in the favor of the player, but I will talk about Mass Transit more a bit later. First let's take a look at what's been added since the last release!
First of all, @Sobeirannovaocc a while ago had provided me with an initial batch of Chinese language translations for the game that I have finally added in, which I believe were worked on by @GeneralWadaling and perhaps others (maybe one of them will elaborate in the comments who all provided the work), and I know a lot of people are going to be grateful to have these new translations in the game. So a big thank you to everybody who worked on the Chinese translations for this release!
If you play on a desktop class device using a mouse, the Display Mode popup has been replaced by a smaller context menu, which I felt was more appropriate on a desktop device.
Likewise, right-clicking on an option in the build sidebar now gives you a new "Bookmark" option, which allows you to add your favorite buildings to a new Bookmarks list, which will appear as an option in your build categories dropdown. This way you can create your own custom list of buildings that you like best. Bookmarks are saved on a per-city basis.
I know there is an issue , recently reiterated to me by @Electrogamer1943 , where iPhones can not bring up the long-press context menus in the game, due to their 3D Force Touch gesture. I put in a little code that might mitigate the issue, but at the time of this writing I did not have an iPhone on hand to test it out yet, so I give it a 50/50 chance of being fixed. If it's not, I will just have to switch to a double-tap style gesture for iPhones.
Moving right along. Ever since Regions were created, there has been an issue where people can not back up Region save files, since behind the scenes a Region is broken out into multiple save files, and the existing backup utility would only export the regional overview map, making it impossible to backup a region on most devices. This issue has now been addressed, and I have now added two new ways to backup your game files in this update.
The first new method is in the Game Statistics screen, down in the Game Data tab. You will see a new "Backup Copy" option at the bottom which will export a backup of your save file to your computer or device. If you are in a region, you must do this from the Region Overview map. Once you have your backup, you can re-import it into the game from the Game Data menu on the title screen.
Now if you are playing on a tablet or desktop, there is another new interface for managing your game data. When you click on Load Colony at the title screen, you will be presented with the new Load Colony window.
From this window, you can manage all of your saved files, see detailed information about each, conduct backups and delete old games. You also have hyperlink access to your colony's websites on both my-colony.com and on Coloniae. Keep in mind that the extended information for your save files will not show up until you have opened them at least once using v1.5.0 or newer.
Next up, the Auto Trade feature has been completely reworked in this release, and is no longer directly tied to the Galactic Board of Trade. Auto Trade now conducts resource Imports and Exports, at the prices you would normally get from buildings like the Galactic Freight or the Star Gate. While on the surface this does make it a worse deal as the Import/Export features come with massive fees and penalties, for many resources it will actually be better for the player, as a large percentage of the Auto Trade contracts on the GBT had previously gone unsold.
This will also go a long way towards cleaning up the GBT, since it has become so loaded with Auto Trade contracts set in unusual quantities, that it was difficult to find anything real.
Switching Auto Trade to the Import/Export facility did bring another change though, in the form of Global Resource Pools on the My Colony server. This facility is largely invisible to the player, but does have an impact on the overall resource price. Whenever a resource is exported in the game, the quantity is added to the Global Resource Pool on the server. Likewise, an import reduces the quantity of the global pool. The server watches the levels of these new global pools and uses that information to calculate the demand of various resources, and can make pricing adjustments accordingly. The server also has the ability to purchase contracts on the GBT if a resource pool is empty, although to prevent gaming of the system it will not purchase any contracts that are not priced in a range that the server sees as reasonable.
The new trading system might potentially have a large impact on the GBT and on pricing in general (hopefully a positive impact) so I will be monitoring it over the coming days/weeks to see what tweaks are needed. This new system can largely be tweaked from the server, so any fix should be able to be implemented without requiring a game update.
To go along with this change, the Import/Export feature has been added directly to the GBT, and as long as you have a GBT building you can now import and export resources at maximum quantity from one centralized location.
Now let's talk a bit more about Mass Transit. The ultimate goal is to have transit capabilities within a city and across a region. For this update, I have started with the Regional transit first, as it has the larger implication to the game engine and requires the most work.
For this first release of the feature, Human colonies get a new structure called the Regional Busing Authority, which is unlocked with the new Public Transportation technology. As of this update, you can build this structure on a non-region game, but it won't really do anything. On a region game though, each bus stop adds to your city's regional transit capacity (in this case, each stop adds 250). This capacity allows your citizens to travel between neighboring cities on the regional map for work. So if you have a transit capacity of 250 in your city, it means that 250 citizens can work in a different city, and also 250 citizens can work in your city from a neighboring city. Note that it is 250 both ways in separate pools, so the total citizens moving back and forth can be 500.
When the game decided what jobs are going to be filled, they all go to local residents first, the same as it has always worked. However, when jobs are left unfilled, for whatever reason, the game looks at which neighboring cities have unemployed workers available. If unemployed workers are available, the jobs will fill up from those available workers, up to the point that your transit capacity is used up, provided there are bus stops in range of your worksites. Likewise, if you have unemployed workers, they will look at the jobs available in neighboring cities and fill them up to the point that your outgoing transit capacity is used up, provided there are bus stops in range of their houses.
Right now the bus stop range is super high, so I think one bus stop pretty much covers any small or medium sized map, which is all you have in a region. I don't expect it to stay like that though, so bus stops should ideally be placed throughout the city.
The Economy tab on the Game Statistics window will give you some idea of what is going on with your mass transit. Under the number of total unemployed, you will now see a Remote Workers stat, which tells you how many of your people are working in neighboring cities. Likewise, in the pie graph below, the number of filled jobs is now broken down into Local Workers and Foreign Commuters, telling you how many of your jobs are being filled by workers from neighboring cities.
There is still a lot of work to be done on the Mass Transit, but it actually has pretty big implications for the way Region games are played, as it is now possible to separate out your housing from your industry. It still needs to be refined, and I need to add the ability for colonists to actually migrate from one city to the next, and that is coming soon.
To go along with Mass Transit, I have added the capability for buildings to add non-player Decorative Units to the game. You can see this when you build a bus stop, you will now see small bus rovers driving around your town.
These units do not actually do anything, they just serve to make your city look more alive. I plan on adding other kinds of decorative units soon, such as police cars and ambulances.
So that about wraps it up for this release. The next update will continue to build out the Mass Transit, bringing it to other races and making it work within a city itself. Beyond that, I also need to do a complete overhaul of Multiplayer Regions, which are barely functional at the moment. This is the next item on the list after I finish Mass Transit.
Thank you all for playing the game, keep the suggestions coming, and let me know what issues you find in this release!
Still though, there was important work needing to be done to the My Colony engine, and it received quite a bit. I have been promising Mass Transit for a while now, and I started working on it for this release, although it ended up being just a little more complicated than it was when I was mapping it out in my head. I have implemented a small part of it in this update to see how it works in the wild, and if it doesn't screw everything up it will be greatly expanded in the updates ahead. Don't worry, if it does screw something up, from my testing, the screw up will be in the favor of the player, but I will talk about Mass Transit more a bit later. First let's take a look at what's been added since the last release!
First of all, @Sobeirannovaocc a while ago had provided me with an initial batch of Chinese language translations for the game that I have finally added in, which I believe were worked on by @GeneralWadaling and perhaps others (maybe one of them will elaborate in the comments who all provided the work), and I know a lot of people are going to be grateful to have these new translations in the game. So a big thank you to everybody who worked on the Chinese translations for this release!
If you play on a desktop class device using a mouse, the Display Mode popup has been replaced by a smaller context menu, which I felt was more appropriate on a desktop device.
Likewise, right-clicking on an option in the build sidebar now gives you a new "Bookmark" option, which allows you to add your favorite buildings to a new Bookmarks list, which will appear as an option in your build categories dropdown. This way you can create your own custom list of buildings that you like best. Bookmarks are saved on a per-city basis.
I know there is an issue , recently reiterated to me by @Electrogamer1943 , where iPhones can not bring up the long-press context menus in the game, due to their 3D Force Touch gesture. I put in a little code that might mitigate the issue, but at the time of this writing I did not have an iPhone on hand to test it out yet, so I give it a 50/50 chance of being fixed. If it's not, I will just have to switch to a double-tap style gesture for iPhones.
Moving right along. Ever since Regions were created, there has been an issue where people can not back up Region save files, since behind the scenes a Region is broken out into multiple save files, and the existing backup utility would only export the regional overview map, making it impossible to backup a region on most devices. This issue has now been addressed, and I have now added two new ways to backup your game files in this update.
The first new method is in the Game Statistics screen, down in the Game Data tab. You will see a new "Backup Copy" option at the bottom which will export a backup of your save file to your computer or device. If you are in a region, you must do this from the Region Overview map. Once you have your backup, you can re-import it into the game from the Game Data menu on the title screen.
Now if you are playing on a tablet or desktop, there is another new interface for managing your game data. When you click on Load Colony at the title screen, you will be presented with the new Load Colony window.
From this window, you can manage all of your saved files, see detailed information about each, conduct backups and delete old games. You also have hyperlink access to your colony's websites on both my-colony.com and on Coloniae. Keep in mind that the extended information for your save files will not show up until you have opened them at least once using v1.5.0 or newer.
Next up, the Auto Trade feature has been completely reworked in this release, and is no longer directly tied to the Galactic Board of Trade. Auto Trade now conducts resource Imports and Exports, at the prices you would normally get from buildings like the Galactic Freight or the Star Gate. While on the surface this does make it a worse deal as the Import/Export features come with massive fees and penalties, for many resources it will actually be better for the player, as a large percentage of the Auto Trade contracts on the GBT had previously gone unsold.
This will also go a long way towards cleaning up the GBT, since it has become so loaded with Auto Trade contracts set in unusual quantities, that it was difficult to find anything real.
Switching Auto Trade to the Import/Export facility did bring another change though, in the form of Global Resource Pools on the My Colony server. This facility is largely invisible to the player, but does have an impact on the overall resource price. Whenever a resource is exported in the game, the quantity is added to the Global Resource Pool on the server. Likewise, an import reduces the quantity of the global pool. The server watches the levels of these new global pools and uses that information to calculate the demand of various resources, and can make pricing adjustments accordingly. The server also has the ability to purchase contracts on the GBT if a resource pool is empty, although to prevent gaming of the system it will not purchase any contracts that are not priced in a range that the server sees as reasonable.
The new trading system might potentially have a large impact on the GBT and on pricing in general (hopefully a positive impact) so I will be monitoring it over the coming days/weeks to see what tweaks are needed. This new system can largely be tweaked from the server, so any fix should be able to be implemented without requiring a game update.
To go along with this change, the Import/Export feature has been added directly to the GBT, and as long as you have a GBT building you can now import and export resources at maximum quantity from one centralized location.
Now let's talk a bit more about Mass Transit. The ultimate goal is to have transit capabilities within a city and across a region. For this update, I have started with the Regional transit first, as it has the larger implication to the game engine and requires the most work.
For this first release of the feature, Human colonies get a new structure called the Regional Busing Authority, which is unlocked with the new Public Transportation technology. As of this update, you can build this structure on a non-region game, but it won't really do anything. On a region game though, each bus stop adds to your city's regional transit capacity (in this case, each stop adds 250). This capacity allows your citizens to travel between neighboring cities on the regional map for work. So if you have a transit capacity of 250 in your city, it means that 250 citizens can work in a different city, and also 250 citizens can work in your city from a neighboring city. Note that it is 250 both ways in separate pools, so the total citizens moving back and forth can be 500.
When the game decided what jobs are going to be filled, they all go to local residents first, the same as it has always worked. However, when jobs are left unfilled, for whatever reason, the game looks at which neighboring cities have unemployed workers available. If unemployed workers are available, the jobs will fill up from those available workers, up to the point that your transit capacity is used up, provided there are bus stops in range of your worksites. Likewise, if you have unemployed workers, they will look at the jobs available in neighboring cities and fill them up to the point that your outgoing transit capacity is used up, provided there are bus stops in range of their houses.
Right now the bus stop range is super high, so I think one bus stop pretty much covers any small or medium sized map, which is all you have in a region. I don't expect it to stay like that though, so bus stops should ideally be placed throughout the city.
The Economy tab on the Game Statistics window will give you some idea of what is going on with your mass transit. Under the number of total unemployed, you will now see a Remote Workers stat, which tells you how many of your people are working in neighboring cities. Likewise, in the pie graph below, the number of filled jobs is now broken down into Local Workers and Foreign Commuters, telling you how many of your jobs are being filled by workers from neighboring cities.
There is still a lot of work to be done on the Mass Transit, but it actually has pretty big implications for the way Region games are played, as it is now possible to separate out your housing from your industry. It still needs to be refined, and I need to add the ability for colonists to actually migrate from one city to the next, and that is coming soon.
To go along with Mass Transit, I have added the capability for buildings to add non-player Decorative Units to the game. You can see this when you build a bus stop, you will now see small bus rovers driving around your town.
These units do not actually do anything, they just serve to make your city look more alive. I plan on adding other kinds of decorative units soon, such as police cars and ambulances.
So that about wraps it up for this release. The next update will continue to build out the Mass Transit, bringing it to other races and making it work within a city itself. Beyond that, I also need to do a complete overhaul of Multiplayer Regions, which are barely functional at the moment. This is the next item on the list after I finish Mass Transit.
Thank you all for playing the game, keep the suggestions coming, and let me know what issues you find in this release!
I have already said to Bast this game is even better then simcity 3000 and no other building app comes close .
Really the only better game at this point is simcity 4 AKA sim city rush hour - aka simcity deluxe
But Ill would have Bast to know one neat thing he (( DID NOT )) miss program which simcity 4 DID and if not for us modders would have never been fixed .
See one of the many things my colony has that up to simcity 4 - not even any simcity game had was a travel scale .
What this means is the distance my colonists must go to get to ware ever they are going .
Now I know simcity 4 travel scale And that was Its HUGE miss-program see simcity has to main views CITY view and region View thing was they are DIFFERENT scales and the city view went by region view scales .
My colony scale is apx 5 - 6 miles from one side to the other on a extra large map going by what would work out to real world distances . Take say 5 advanced refinery's side by side two deep to a real world block you get about how many walking feet and knowing map size you get apx how many walking miles .
Anyway from center out no walking distance is father then 3 miles apx about 25 mints if they power walk .
The neat thing is Bast scale is correct when factoring in how far ( lazy My conisist are to walk to work and not be pissed over it . )
Ps i never use the walking scale as by disabling the colonists view they no longer care about walking distance .
Now back to simcity 4 the region view scale = well for a normal game made region ooo 1000 miles
problem was city scale for a mid sized region was about 6 miles ( build a city see how many blocks you end up with thing . Did it a 1000 times lol .
problem with region view scale in city was it treated the city like it was 150 - 200 miles across so sims would not travel more then a block to work ( and they have cars lolololol )
Anyway Us modders fixed this issue by reprogramming the travel speed so cars -- trains - buses - subways all went faster . How fast ? lol well it works out to around 900 MPH . See we wanted the sims to be able to travel through a whole region and remember that is around 1000 miles .
The scale was still off but the sims no longer cared . And you know it accutly worked I put a job on one side of a region and had a sim drive to it from the other side of the region .
Lots of going into citys then leaving so each city knew the sims was coming through .
Anyway just a cool MY colony - simcity 4 fact - Bast did do better then even that game alest in one programming area .
Really the only better game at this point is simcity 4 AKA sim city rush hour - aka simcity deluxe
But Ill would have Bast to know one neat thing he (( DID NOT )) miss program which simcity 4 DID and if not for us modders would have never been fixed .
See one of the many things my colony has that up to simcity 4 - not even any simcity game had was a travel scale .
What this means is the distance my colonists must go to get to ware ever they are going .
Now I know simcity 4 travel scale And that was Its HUGE miss-program see simcity has to main views CITY view and region View thing was they are DIFFERENT scales and the city view went by region view scales .
My colony scale is apx 5 - 6 miles from one side to the other on a extra large map going by what would work out to real world distances . Take say 5 advanced refinery's side by side two deep to a real world block you get about how many walking feet and knowing map size you get apx how many walking miles .
Anyway from center out no walking distance is father then 3 miles apx about 25 mints if they power walk .
The neat thing is Bast scale is correct when factoring in how far ( lazy My conisist are to walk to work and not be pissed over it . )
Ps i never use the walking scale as by disabling the colonists view they no longer care about walking distance .
Now back to simcity 4 the region view scale = well for a normal game made region ooo 1000 miles
problem was city scale for a mid sized region was about 6 miles ( build a city see how many blocks you end up with thing . Did it a 1000 times lol .
problem with region view scale in city was it treated the city like it was 150 - 200 miles across so sims would not travel more then a block to work ( and they have cars lolololol )
Anyway Us modders fixed this issue by reprogramming the travel speed so cars -- trains - buses - subways all went faster . How fast ? lol well it works out to around 900 MPH . See we wanted the sims to be able to travel through a whole region and remember that is around 1000 miles .
The scale was still off but the sims no longer cared . And you know it accutly worked I put a job on one side of a region and had a sim drive to it from the other side of the region .
Lots of going into citys then leaving so each city knew the sims was coming through .
Anyway just a cool MY colony - simcity 4 fact - Bast did do better then even that game alest in one programming area .
So today I am pushing out My Colony v0.70.0 to all platforms, and it should be arriving soon to a device near you.
This release brings an experimental new feature to premium users called Regions, which are essentially collections of game files places together on a single large map. You can read more details about the feature in this thread, and although the feature is listed as experimental, it actually seems to be functioning pretty good, mostly.
A Region is basically a mega-colony that consists of many small colony files which share Technology, Resources, Power, and Atmosphere. Each colony is still a separate game file like how My Colony currently works, and they each have their own population and industry. However, they are all taxed the same by their home colony, and they all declare independence from their main colony as a single entity.
Regions are going to be the primary focus over the next two or three updates, so any suggestions you have on how to improve the feature would be great.
Some questions I have gotten before which I will answer here for all. People have asked if they can import an existing city into a region. Right now, that answer is no. It might be possible in the future, but probably only for offline games, and the size of the existing city would also have to conform to the grid of the main region map. For instance, if you have annexed land on an existing map, land is annexed in chunks that make its dimensions no longer able to fit on the main region grid.
You can currently build both Small and Medium sized maps on the Region screen. I might add Large on the next update, but probably not Extra Large or Mega. Most of the issues in My Colony stem from the large, extra large, and especially Mega maps, so one of the goals with Regions is to be able to build a giant colony without having to use one of the giant maps.
The Region area is very big. While it is only a 50x50 grid, that technically allows it to hold 2,500 separate city maps, if the small map size is chosen. I don't really expect anybody to ever fill up an entire region map, but you never know with you guys 🤔
So anyway, there will be a lot more about regions over the next several updates. This update lays the foundation for the feature, as quite a few engine changes were required to allow the sharing of utilities and resources between maps. Now that the foundations are laid, work can be done adding new features to Regions, and also fleshing out the Region overview UI, which is pretty basic right now.
Moving on from the Region stuff, I wanted to quickly touch on the ongoing issues with My Colony on Android. I have actually gotten the crash rate reduced from the nearly 10% range to the 5% range. Looking through the crash stats, the majority are coming from users running Android v8.1.0, leading me to believe something is happening specific to that particular release. For instance, the crash rate on that specific version of Android is over 11%, while it is much lower on other versions. Regardless, this update contains several bugs fixes from both the latest Antiquitas release, and other stuff I found while going over the code, so perhaps I can reduce the crash rate even further.
The good news is that the game is at least no longer tanking on Android and seems to have leveled off, albeit at a far lower level than it was before. Still, things are still going good on Windows and iOS, and the Android version of My Colony now accounts for less than 1/3 of the games revenues, so I am not going to cry about it too much.
While I do like Android, I have been sort of disillusioned by the large spike in non-reproducible errors with totally unhelpful reporting in the Google Play Error console. I am also somewhat suspect when Google claims upwards of 10% of all sessions are force-closing, yet there are almost no reports in the Play Store comments about the app force closing. Not to mention the fact that an almost identical binary of the game is on the Amazon App Store, yet these same crashes are almost nonexistent on that platform.
The whole experience though has convinced me that My Colony may have a better future on Steam than the Google Play Store, and over the coming updates I will be taking steps to put Antiquitas and My Colony on Steam. They will be available unlocked at the regular purchase price of the Premium Upgrade. Now, if you have already purchased a premium license, there is really no point in buying it on Steam, you can just use the Native Client or Ape Apps Launcher edition, which will essentially be the same thing.
If you do purchase it on Steam though and sign in using your Ape Apps Account, it will check steam to verify your purchase, and sync that to your account, unlocking Premium on all platforms.
There is really no way (that I am aware) of allowing current Premium users to unlock the Steam purchase. I don't know. Really though, if you already own Premium, there is little point of buying it again on Steam, unless you like the game and wish to support it!
I do think that the My Colony/Antiquitas interface works a lot better as a Desktop game though (vs mobile), and so possibly Steam will be a good match for it. It is also very reasonably priced VS other Steam games, especially considering the vast amount of content/play time available in My Colony.
Speaking of interfaces though, My Colony is actually seeing a great surge in users on the Amazon Fire TV. This is great, although after playing it on my Fire TV for a bit, I realized that the TV interface could use some polish, so that will be coming in the next few updates.
Moving on, starting in v0.70.0, I have completely removed the auto-blacklist banner from the game. As resource checks and trade verification are now done by the server, this feature was no longer necessary, and was resulting in too many false-positives. It is much easier now to just ban bad actors on an account-wide level from the server, rather than trying to make the game monitor and looks for hacking on the individual colony files. A colony can still be banned into permanent offline mode, but there will now be actual human moderation before it is done.
Next, I have started the process of reorganizing the list of build-options in the construction sidebar, grouping like-structures together, instead of just putting all of the newest stuff on bottom. I will continue this over the coming updates.
Another small change, when a new colonist arrives, the "XXX Has Joined The Colony" popup message is now gone. I think the popup was more annoying than anything, especially on phones.
Another minor change, but one which might help ultra large colonies, is a further reduction in game file save sizes. I don't know if it will be noticeable to everyone, but it should help some files out.
Finally, there are two new structures available. Humans get the new Transcendent Triantanium Generator, which is far better than the current Triantanium factory. Additionally, Reptillians get a new Raw Materials Extractor, which is a significant improvement over the current (and horrid) Insectoid Mining Operation.
So that about rounds out today's update. The update frequency will probably increase going forward. I am pretty much giving up on trying to collect error diagnostics on the Google Play version of the game, and as such, I no longer need to keep one stable version number in the store for weeks at a time. Google has already blacklisted the game for "bad behavior", and I have reconfigured with the settings in every possible way I could think of on Android, and nothing made a significant difference. Considering there have never been any wide-scale complaints about crashes on Android, I do not think the users are suffering from the games "bad behavior" any. I am sort of just accepting the fact that Google Play is what it is, and focus on making the game as good as it can be, and not worry about trying to fix the crash stats on GPlay.
As I said before, the next few updates will add things to the new Regions feature, as well as new content to be added to all civilizations, but more especially the Reptilians. Thanks for playing the game, and enjoy the update!
This release brings an experimental new feature to premium users called Regions, which are essentially collections of game files places together on a single large map. You can read more details about the feature in this thread, and although the feature is listed as experimental, it actually seems to be functioning pretty good, mostly.
A Region is basically a mega-colony that consists of many small colony files which share Technology, Resources, Power, and Atmosphere. Each colony is still a separate game file like how My Colony currently works, and they each have their own population and industry. However, they are all taxed the same by their home colony, and they all declare independence from their main colony as a single entity.
Regions are going to be the primary focus over the next two or three updates, so any suggestions you have on how to improve the feature would be great.
Some questions I have gotten before which I will answer here for all. People have asked if they can import an existing city into a region. Right now, that answer is no. It might be possible in the future, but probably only for offline games, and the size of the existing city would also have to conform to the grid of the main region map. For instance, if you have annexed land on an existing map, land is annexed in chunks that make its dimensions no longer able to fit on the main region grid.
You can currently build both Small and Medium sized maps on the Region screen. I might add Large on the next update, but probably not Extra Large or Mega. Most of the issues in My Colony stem from the large, extra large, and especially Mega maps, so one of the goals with Regions is to be able to build a giant colony without having to use one of the giant maps.
The Region area is very big. While it is only a 50x50 grid, that technically allows it to hold 2,500 separate city maps, if the small map size is chosen. I don't really expect anybody to ever fill up an entire region map, but you never know with you guys 🤔
So anyway, there will be a lot more about regions over the next several updates. This update lays the foundation for the feature, as quite a few engine changes were required to allow the sharing of utilities and resources between maps. Now that the foundations are laid, work can be done adding new features to Regions, and also fleshing out the Region overview UI, which is pretty basic right now.
Moving on from the Region stuff, I wanted to quickly touch on the ongoing issues with My Colony on Android. I have actually gotten the crash rate reduced from the nearly 10% range to the 5% range. Looking through the crash stats, the majority are coming from users running Android v8.1.0, leading me to believe something is happening specific to that particular release. For instance, the crash rate on that specific version of Android is over 11%, while it is much lower on other versions. Regardless, this update contains several bugs fixes from both the latest Antiquitas release, and other stuff I found while going over the code, so perhaps I can reduce the crash rate even further.
The good news is that the game is at least no longer tanking on Android and seems to have leveled off, albeit at a far lower level than it was before. Still, things are still going good on Windows and iOS, and the Android version of My Colony now accounts for less than 1/3 of the games revenues, so I am not going to cry about it too much.
While I do like Android, I have been sort of disillusioned by the large spike in non-reproducible errors with totally unhelpful reporting in the Google Play Error console. I am also somewhat suspect when Google claims upwards of 10% of all sessions are force-closing, yet there are almost no reports in the Play Store comments about the app force closing. Not to mention the fact that an almost identical binary of the game is on the Amazon App Store, yet these same crashes are almost nonexistent on that platform.
The whole experience though has convinced me that My Colony may have a better future on Steam than the Google Play Store, and over the coming updates I will be taking steps to put Antiquitas and My Colony on Steam. They will be available unlocked at the regular purchase price of the Premium Upgrade. Now, if you have already purchased a premium license, there is really no point in buying it on Steam, you can just use the Native Client or Ape Apps Launcher edition, which will essentially be the same thing.
If you do purchase it on Steam though and sign in using your Ape Apps Account, it will check steam to verify your purchase, and sync that to your account, unlocking Premium on all platforms.
There is really no way (that I am aware) of allowing current Premium users to unlock the Steam purchase. I don't know. Really though, if you already own Premium, there is little point of buying it again on Steam, unless you like the game and wish to support it!
I do think that the My Colony/Antiquitas interface works a lot better as a Desktop game though (vs mobile), and so possibly Steam will be a good match for it. It is also very reasonably priced VS other Steam games, especially considering the vast amount of content/play time available in My Colony.
Speaking of interfaces though, My Colony is actually seeing a great surge in users on the Amazon Fire TV. This is great, although after playing it on my Fire TV for a bit, I realized that the TV interface could use some polish, so that will be coming in the next few updates.
Moving on, starting in v0.70.0, I have completely removed the auto-blacklist banner from the game. As resource checks and trade verification are now done by the server, this feature was no longer necessary, and was resulting in too many false-positives. It is much easier now to just ban bad actors on an account-wide level from the server, rather than trying to make the game monitor and looks for hacking on the individual colony files. A colony can still be banned into permanent offline mode, but there will now be actual human moderation before it is done.
Next, I have started the process of reorganizing the list of build-options in the construction sidebar, grouping like-structures together, instead of just putting all of the newest stuff on bottom. I will continue this over the coming updates.
Another small change, when a new colonist arrives, the "XXX Has Joined The Colony" popup message is now gone. I think the popup was more annoying than anything, especially on phones.
Another minor change, but one which might help ultra large colonies, is a further reduction in game file save sizes. I don't know if it will be noticeable to everyone, but it should help some files out.
Finally, there are two new structures available. Humans get the new Transcendent Triantanium Generator, which is far better than the current Triantanium factory. Additionally, Reptillians get a new Raw Materials Extractor, which is a significant improvement over the current (and horrid) Insectoid Mining Operation.
So that about rounds out today's update. The update frequency will probably increase going forward. I am pretty much giving up on trying to collect error diagnostics on the Google Play version of the game, and as such, I no longer need to keep one stable version number in the store for weeks at a time. Google has already blacklisted the game for "bad behavior", and I have reconfigured with the settings in every possible way I could think of on Android, and nothing made a significant difference. Considering there have never been any wide-scale complaints about crashes on Android, I do not think the users are suffering from the games "bad behavior" any. I am sort of just accepting the fact that Google Play is what it is, and focus on making the game as good as it can be, and not worry about trying to fix the crash stats on GPlay.
As I said before, the next few updates will add things to the new Regions feature, as well as new content to be added to all civilizations, but more especially the Reptilians. Thanks for playing the game, and enjoy the update!
Platform: Apple iPhone 7 Plus
My Colony Version: Build 0.73.0
Started a new offline colony with the new October 4th build to see if it was still an issue. And it is.
I've had this same problem over the last several versions. Basically, saves are hanging and then corrupting the game file. I've lost so many colonies to this, so many that the game isn't all that fun anymore.
NOTE: I've had this happen before with regular maps, but I didn't save any of the specific information from the splash screens. So, the below are details on what is happening with the new Regions feature in Offline Mode.
Steps:
Start new Regional colony. Have game engine save options set to "Rarely."
Start a new Region City on the Region map. Play in the new region city. Regularly manually save. Save works fine and does not hang.
The "Rarely" auto save comes. Save hangs and will not complete, no matter how long I allow My Colony to remain open.
Close My Colony manually by going to the iphone desktop, then 'sliding' it closed.
Try to open colony. Regional colony map showing all the regional cities opens fine.
Try to get back into the Region city that I was working in when the autosave hung up.
Splash page says:
Syncing Data (sometimes it sits at this stage for quite some time)
Decompressing Data
Restoring Data
And then it defaults back to the Regional map. I can do this over and over, and the region city will not open. I cannot get back into it, yet the game is showing the production of supplies coming from that city just fine.
Even worse, one by one the region cities on my map are succumbing to this. On the main colony I'm currently playing I have 2 regions I can't get into, including the area I've designated for a bunch of government buildings that took a lot of resources to build and upgrade. One Region Colony I just deleted in frustration because all the regions were falling like dominoes.
I also tried:
Setting engine settings to never save. However, I've found that the game still tries to save itself once in a while, and yes, the above corruption happens. I just had this happen with a Regional city of a brand new colony that was started just this morning. So, out of the 3 regional cities I started, one of them is already corrupted and I cannot get into.
Just for kicks I set the engine settings to save "often." it worked for a few hours, and then wham. Corrupted region cities.
This is beyond frustrating. Why play if the cities just become corrupted? It's literally a waste of time to play.
Please fix! I really enjoy this game.
My Colony Version: Build 0.73.0
Started a new offline colony with the new October 4th build to see if it was still an issue. And it is.
I've had this same problem over the last several versions. Basically, saves are hanging and then corrupting the game file. I've lost so many colonies to this, so many that the game isn't all that fun anymore.
NOTE: I've had this happen before with regular maps, but I didn't save any of the specific information from the splash screens. So, the below are details on what is happening with the new Regions feature in Offline Mode.
Steps:
Start new Regional colony. Have game engine save options set to "Rarely."
Start a new Region City on the Region map. Play in the new region city. Regularly manually save. Save works fine and does not hang.
The "Rarely" auto save comes. Save hangs and will not complete, no matter how long I allow My Colony to remain open.
Close My Colony manually by going to the iphone desktop, then 'sliding' it closed.
Try to open colony. Regional colony map showing all the regional cities opens fine.
Try to get back into the Region city that I was working in when the autosave hung up.
Splash page says:
Syncing Data (sometimes it sits at this stage for quite some time)
Decompressing Data
Restoring Data
And then it defaults back to the Regional map. I can do this over and over, and the region city will not open. I cannot get back into it, yet the game is showing the production of supplies coming from that city just fine.
Even worse, one by one the region cities on my map are succumbing to this. On the main colony I'm currently playing I have 2 regions I can't get into, including the area I've designated for a bunch of government buildings that took a lot of resources to build and upgrade. One Region Colony I just deleted in frustration because all the regions were falling like dominoes.
I also tried:
Setting engine settings to never save. However, I've found that the game still tries to save itself once in a while, and yes, the above corruption happens. I just had this happen with a Regional city of a brand new colony that was started just this morning. So, out of the 3 regional cities I started, one of them is already corrupted and I cannot get into.
Just for kicks I set the engine settings to save "often." it worked for a few hours, and then wham. Corrupted region cities.
This is beyond frustrating. Why play if the cities just become corrupted? It's literally a waste of time to play.
Please fix! I really enjoy this game.
Hey @Bastecklein
I think for the 100th update, something special to add could be uniform terrain generation across an entire region. Right now rivers generate randomly in each map created on a region. I'm thinking we should generate the rivers on each tile of the region as the region is being created and ensure that the terrain on each tile fits together to make natural land and water formations, so that the player can look at the whole region and decide which place would be best to build based on the bodies of water it's near.
Sure, this would break the option to have a blank map, but I'm thinking that even if a player chooses a blank map, they should still be forced to deal with the bodies of water or ether. To make up for this, you could implement a new resource called Land-Fillers that could be used to eventually remove the water and give the colony more room to grow. Also, rivers could be less abundant when generated throughout the region, so players could still get maps that are entirely on land. I also imagine some seas and beaches being a generated thing as well.
Also, in addition to those, would be awesome if the player could look at the region and it's terrain to see if it looks like something they can work with , and have the option to press a regenerate button to randomly regenerate a new map to decide on, before even creating the region. The game Factorio has a similar map "preview" feature if you need an example of what I'm talking about. It wouldn't have to show all the little resource nodes, just the land and water masses.
I think this should be a feature in a completed game, as the per-map terrain generation looks a bit janky and half-baked if you ask me. A whole-region generation would be like wax on a new car that's yet to be sold, it would make a gigantic difference and be very fitting for a 1.0 release.
I think for the 100th update, something special to add could be uniform terrain generation across an entire region. Right now rivers generate randomly in each map created on a region. I'm thinking we should generate the rivers on each tile of the region as the region is being created and ensure that the terrain on each tile fits together to make natural land and water formations, so that the player can look at the whole region and decide which place would be best to build based on the bodies of water it's near.
Sure, this would break the option to have a blank map, but I'm thinking that even if a player chooses a blank map, they should still be forced to deal with the bodies of water or ether. To make up for this, you could implement a new resource called Land-Fillers that could be used to eventually remove the water and give the colony more room to grow. Also, rivers could be less abundant when generated throughout the region, so players could still get maps that are entirely on land. I also imagine some seas and beaches being a generated thing as well.
Also, in addition to those, would be awesome if the player could look at the region and it's terrain to see if it looks like something they can work with , and have the option to press a regenerate button to randomly regenerate a new map to decide on, before even creating the region. The game Factorio has a similar map "preview" feature if you need an example of what I'm talking about. It wouldn't have to show all the little resource nodes, just the land and water masses.
I think this should be a feature in a completed game, as the per-map terrain generation looks a bit janky and half-baked if you ask me. A whole-region generation would be like wax on a new car that's yet to be sold, it would make a gigantic difference and be very fitting for a 1.0 release.
Ok so a lot of this will get fleshed out as I get feedback from people who have played regions. So the entire region joins a commonwealth if you play online as the name of the region as a whole. All of the cities are basically sub-districts of the region.
There is no technical reason why the main region map size could not be expanded. I will think of some functionality to do that at some point. Really with a potential of having over two thousand sub-districts on the map, I do not see one being filled any time soon.
You can currently add either the small map size (50x50 tiles), which shows up as a 1x1 space on the region map, or the medium map size (100x100 tiles), which shows up as 2x2. There is no technical reason that the other map sizes could not be added, although I wanted to keep it smaller as part of the purpose of regions is to break up a city into smaller, more performant pieces.
There are only limited parts of the non-active cities that still run while they are not open, mainly only things that are vital to the shared resource pool, such as electric generation. This is the main area that will need to be balanced out going forward after I can see better how everything works out. It would be very CPU and memory intensive to run everything in the background, so in some degree, most individual cities will need to provide some degree of self-sufficiency rather than just totally relying on the output of other cities. They should still be treated as individual colonies when you are building them out, just with the added benefit of the shared tech/atmosphere,resource pools.
There is no extra cost for adding more cities to your region. It is not necessarily an unfair advantage over old colonies which need to annex land, as the cities are still, for the most part, separate entities. So workers do not travel outside of their district to find jobs, so you can't really just have an all-housing district, or an all-trash district. On the other hand though, since resources and tech are shared, you COULD have some sort of suburban low-density housing district, with something like one Investment Bank serving a ton of small neighborhood housing units.
The vehicles are not shared, but if you already have a ton of resources built up from another city, it would be trivial to build one vehicle factory and a couple of turbo drones in a district, and get right to work. Although I am not opposed to adding a way to send vehicles or even people from one district to another.
There actually should be a district-district immigration method set up. If you think of the case where your parent colony puts your entire district under an immigration embargo, there is no reason people shouldn't be able to move from one city to the next. I will look into a way of doing that.
The individual cities can be renamed in the usual way, and I will add a way to remove them from the main Region map, probably just using the bulldozer tool.
I also at some point want to make the terrain features, such as rivers, connect from one city to the next, so that it all flows nice on the main map.
Anyway, the initial release of the Region function will be out pretty soon, so you can play with it and see what you think, see what needs changed. There are actually a lot of possibilities for it going forward. Once you start adding cities to the map, you see how huge it really is. Right now it is somewhat basic, but there are literally hundreds of new gameplay elements that can be added to it.
There is no technical reason why the main region map size could not be expanded. I will think of some functionality to do that at some point. Really with a potential of having over two thousand sub-districts on the map, I do not see one being filled any time soon.
You can currently add either the small map size (50x50 tiles), which shows up as a 1x1 space on the region map, or the medium map size (100x100 tiles), which shows up as 2x2. There is no technical reason that the other map sizes could not be added, although I wanted to keep it smaller as part of the purpose of regions is to break up a city into smaller, more performant pieces.
There are only limited parts of the non-active cities that still run while they are not open, mainly only things that are vital to the shared resource pool, such as electric generation. This is the main area that will need to be balanced out going forward after I can see better how everything works out. It would be very CPU and memory intensive to run everything in the background, so in some degree, most individual cities will need to provide some degree of self-sufficiency rather than just totally relying on the output of other cities. They should still be treated as individual colonies when you are building them out, just with the added benefit of the shared tech/atmosphere,resource pools.
There is no extra cost for adding more cities to your region. It is not necessarily an unfair advantage over old colonies which need to annex land, as the cities are still, for the most part, separate entities. So workers do not travel outside of their district to find jobs, so you can't really just have an all-housing district, or an all-trash district. On the other hand though, since resources and tech are shared, you COULD have some sort of suburban low-density housing district, with something like one Investment Bank serving a ton of small neighborhood housing units.
The vehicles are not shared, but if you already have a ton of resources built up from another city, it would be trivial to build one vehicle factory and a couple of turbo drones in a district, and get right to work. Although I am not opposed to adding a way to send vehicles or even people from one district to another.
There actually should be a district-district immigration method set up. If you think of the case where your parent colony puts your entire district under an immigration embargo, there is no reason people shouldn't be able to move from one city to the next. I will look into a way of doing that.
The individual cities can be renamed in the usual way, and I will add a way to remove them from the main Region map, probably just using the bulldozer tool.
I also at some point want to make the terrain features, such as rivers, connect from one city to the next, so that it all flows nice on the main map.
Anyway, the initial release of the Region function will be out pretty soon, so you can play with it and see what you think, see what needs changed. There are actually a lot of possibilities for it going forward. Once you start adding cities to the map, you see how huge it really is. Right now it is somewhat basic, but there are literally hundreds of new gameplay elements that can be added to it.
Where is your region saved?
Here is the issue, Regions are not a single file, but a collection or files, consisting of your main overall region, and then a file for each individual city. If CloudSync was disabled when the region was created, then all of the individual cities are only saved on the device they were started on. Which is probably why they will not open for you on the Web App.
To get them to sync, you need to have Cloud Sync on, and then open each individual region city on the device where they are saved.
The same goes for the backup. You can backup an entire region from the Load Colony window (the window does not show up on mobile, but does on a large screen device), but it only works if all of the region cities are available on the device you are trying to backup from.
Backup for Regions I am pretty sure is working on the PWA. I will check the Launcher, but I don't see why it would be different there. You select your region from the Load Colony window and click the blue Backup Colony button in the middle.
But again like I said, the entire problem is the fact that Regions are broken up into many files, and if they are not all located on the same device, then it's not going to work.
The entire Region system is something of a mess on MC1 for players who use multiple devices, which I realize, and was the reason why MC2 was designed in a completely different way. Regions were sort of shoehorned in long after the base game mechanics of MC1 were created. There is not exactly a "clean" way to fix it without a major overhaul or ruining a bunch of existing game saves.
Here is the issue, Regions are not a single file, but a collection or files, consisting of your main overall region, and then a file for each individual city. If CloudSync was disabled when the region was created, then all of the individual cities are only saved on the device they were started on. Which is probably why they will not open for you on the Web App.
To get them to sync, you need to have Cloud Sync on, and then open each individual region city on the device where they are saved.
The same goes for the backup. You can backup an entire region from the Load Colony window (the window does not show up on mobile, but does on a large screen device), but it only works if all of the region cities are available on the device you are trying to backup from.
Backup for Regions I am pretty sure is working on the PWA. I will check the Launcher, but I don't see why it would be different there. You select your region from the Load Colony window and click the blue Backup Colony button in the middle.
But again like I said, the entire problem is the fact that Regions are broken up into many files, and if they are not all located on the same device, then it's not going to work.
The entire Region system is something of a mess on MC1 for players who use multiple devices, which I realize, and was the reason why MC2 was designed in a completely different way. Regions were sort of shoehorned in long after the base game mechanics of MC1 were created. There is not exactly a "clean" way to fix it without a major overhaul or ruining a bunch of existing game saves.
[[1]]
I have a new map mode suggestion, apart from regular single city and region. In this mode, the map is infinite.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Core Functions:
There will be obviously render distance, similar to MC2. You can adjust this in the engine settings and variable can be 50x50, 100x100, 200x200, and 500x500 for those high end pcs. This settings is for ingame, buildable, interactable setting.
For when you do move (pan up, down, left, right), the game will decompile/compile to load those size-controlled chunks. This process will happen in the background, similar to when the game autosaves in the background, so that you can still move around and stuff, not be stuck waiting for chunks to load.
The way the resources will come in from other compiled chunks is that the game will calculate the buildings' resource production and add upon the resource stat. The time interval for each time the game adds the resource can be how it is collected when you are in region view, but I figured that it could be 8 times faster intervals ((theUsualRegionResourceStatTimer) / 8), or it can be 4 times fast intervals, or engine settings (2x, 4x, 8x, up to 16x). This though depends on performance reasoning, so if you decide just to stick with 4x faster than region collection timer, it's fine.
When you load the game save, have it so it's like region view so that you can easily go to that chunk instead of loading into the game right away and move to that spot while it decompiles/compiles. These chunks from region view can be a simple 100x100 chunk distance between each other, so not necessary engine settings. It's good for you to have region view so that you can practically 'teleport' to that part of this infinite map conveniently better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Reasoning For This:
The reason why I want this cool mode because I always thought and wished of having it and I thought it won't be a whole another long project, as it only requires a few extra functions. I always wanted to just build those ore refineries forever and ever in those lines lol, and ofcourse watching my steel go up, making the game really fun for the user. Also, it could be a potential premium feature or not, this is obviously up to you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions From U Guys And Developer Bast:
If there are any questions or problems as you think it might be hard to develop this feature, let me know so I can help and hopefully find a solution.
I hope this might be popular. :)
Last thing, I did see RekEm1999's post ( https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=44761 ), much later after this thought of this feature. I hope this could be a better solution, because it would be buggy if region maps' grid overlaps or something when switching cities, so that I want to point out, but overall idea, I'm with RekEm1999.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[2]] QOL Improvements:
Add upgrade for Potato Patch (Potato patch to Advanced Hydroponics),
Add upgrade for Charcoal compactor (Charcoal compactor to Charcoal converter),
Add upgrade for Charcoal pile (Charcoal pile to Subterranean Charcoal Cavern).
It will be cool to see when you are building, you can click on one corner and click on some other side (kind of Voxel Paint's fill option) and you can build mass amounts of buildings quickly and conveniently. I think it would be a great addition to the building category, as for some people in region cities would like to just easily build building blueprints using less time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[3]] Additive Content (Not majorly suggesting):
Add tiers for:
- Ore Refinery,
- Microchip Factory,
- Textile Mill,
- Ant Paste Synthesizer,
- Charcoal Converter,
- Gold Synthesis Lab,
- Cloning Facility,
- Shipyard,
- Helium Nanomine (if you not planing with Gold Synthesis Lab or other buildings, but recommended not
to do this buildings (Helium Nanomine) to find reason for other buildings individual uniqueness in
resource production),
- Any other building I missed that is tiered from a previous building, obviously not all buildings,
- Obviously not all buildings will get upgrades.
- Tech for these buildings will be in Simulated Fabrication (The 35B Research one).
Overall point is that this 'simulated colony' is fabricated virtual resources and is sending it to the real colony.
Building themes (colors, etc) can relate to Simulated buildings like Nanite Factory and Software Studio.
Some existing buildings might be adjusted (example: Brick Factory, being very vigorous in it's fast production) to balance out the game and have that feel of My Colony - ness.
Again, not wanting this 'upgrade tier' feature, but a potential.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a good day!
Notes: Important Targets for this suggestion: Only [[1]] and [[2]].
I have a new map mode suggestion, apart from regular single city and region. In this mode, the map is infinite.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Core Functions:
There will be obviously render distance, similar to MC2. You can adjust this in the engine settings and variable can be 50x50, 100x100, 200x200, and 500x500 for those high end pcs. This settings is for ingame, buildable, interactable setting.
For when you do move (pan up, down, left, right), the game will decompile/compile to load those size-controlled chunks. This process will happen in the background, similar to when the game autosaves in the background, so that you can still move around and stuff, not be stuck waiting for chunks to load.
The way the resources will come in from other compiled chunks is that the game will calculate the buildings' resource production and add upon the resource stat. The time interval for each time the game adds the resource can be how it is collected when you are in region view, but I figured that it could be 8 times faster intervals ((theUsualRegionResourceStatTimer) / 8), or it can be 4 times fast intervals, or engine settings (2x, 4x, 8x, up to 16x). This though depends on performance reasoning, so if you decide just to stick with 4x faster than region collection timer, it's fine.
When you load the game save, have it so it's like region view so that you can easily go to that chunk instead of loading into the game right away and move to that spot while it decompiles/compiles. These chunks from region view can be a simple 100x100 chunk distance between each other, so not necessary engine settings. It's good for you to have region view so that you can practically 'teleport' to that part of this infinite map conveniently better.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Reasoning For This:
The reason why I want this cool mode because I always thought and wished of having it and I thought it won't be a whole another long project, as it only requires a few extra functions. I always wanted to just build those ore refineries forever and ever in those lines lol, and ofcourse watching my steel go up, making the game really fun for the user. Also, it could be a potential premium feature or not, this is obviously up to you.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Questions From U Guys And Developer Bast:
If there are any questions or problems as you think it might be hard to develop this feature, let me know so I can help and hopefully find a solution.
I hope this might be popular. :)
Last thing, I did see RekEm1999's post ( https://www.ape-apps.com/viewpage.php?p=44761 ), much later after this thought of this feature. I hope this could be a better solution, because it would be buggy if region maps' grid overlaps or something when switching cities, so that I want to point out, but overall idea, I'm with RekEm1999.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[2]] QOL Improvements:
Add upgrade for Potato Patch (Potato patch to Advanced Hydroponics),
Add upgrade for Charcoal compactor (Charcoal compactor to Charcoal converter),
Add upgrade for Charcoal pile (Charcoal pile to Subterranean Charcoal Cavern).
It will be cool to see when you are building, you can click on one corner and click on some other side (kind of Voxel Paint's fill option) and you can build mass amounts of buildings quickly and conveniently. I think it would be a great addition to the building category, as for some people in region cities would like to just easily build building blueprints using less time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[3]] Additive Content (Not majorly suggesting):
Add tiers for:
- Ore Refinery,
- Microchip Factory,
- Textile Mill,
- Ant Paste Synthesizer,
- Charcoal Converter,
- Gold Synthesis Lab,
- Cloning Facility,
- Shipyard,
- Helium Nanomine (if you not planing with Gold Synthesis Lab or other buildings, but recommended not
to do this buildings (Helium Nanomine) to find reason for other buildings individual uniqueness in
resource production),
- Any other building I missed that is tiered from a previous building, obviously not all buildings,
- Obviously not all buildings will get upgrades.
- Tech for these buildings will be in Simulated Fabrication (The 35B Research one).
Overall point is that this 'simulated colony' is fabricated virtual resources and is sending it to the real colony.
Building themes (colors, etc) can relate to Simulated buildings like Nanite Factory and Software Studio.
Some existing buildings might be adjusted (example: Brick Factory, being very vigorous in it's fast production) to balance out the game and have that feel of My Colony - ness.
Again, not wanting this 'upgrade tier' feature, but a potential.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a good day!
Notes: Important Targets for this suggestion: Only [[1]] and [[2]].
Hello everyone!
Since bast is now focusing on My Colony 2, the development of MC1 has slowed down, which is very much understandable - all games eventually get a sequel or just fizzle out in popularity. I don't mean that bast ignores the community of MC1 - he is just focused on the development of the sequel, which is completely fine.
But, over the last year or so, I was thinking about several changes that would take a while to implement to MC1 but could benefit the longevity of the game (or even games like Antiquitas, because some of these changes will probably apply to the engine itself). This is by no means a final request or demand from me, I'd be happy if any of these changes were introduced, and I'll still support the game if no changes will be made, because it's still a damn fun game after all these years.
These ideas are big changes that will probably take quite a while to implement, but could be very beneficial to making the Scroll2D engine games live practically forever. Please treat this post as more of a crazy idea dump more than an actual solid suggestion, as some of these ideas will probably not make sense to implement on a development time basis.
I'd also love to see feedback and potential cues on how these ideas can be simplified.
Anyways, here be thou ideas.
1. Advanced modding support
My Colony 2 was revolutionary in the terms of modding. For the first time we as a community could add our own buildings and resources, and later even events and technologies, which is awesome and definitely contributes to the overall ingenuity of the game.
In My Colony 1, there are also modding options, however these are limited to maps and texture packs. It's still better than nothing at all, but could be greatly improved.
My idea extends the modding system in a way that allows players to add their own buildings, resources, technologies, units, worlds, and even things like civilizations and custom building GUIs. This will probably require a lot of changes to the engine but can be implemented at least partially, benefiting the overall replayability of the game. These mods will probably have issues with charters and online games, so these could be limited to offline only, but will still be a very fun addition to the game, allowing the players to create their own after-end-of-life DLCs and such.
2. Bigger cities
This is a very straight-forward idea that I've heard from a bunch of other players in the community. This idea regards the sizes of the cities in region worlds. These are currently Small 51x51 (1x1 region tile) cities and Medium 101x101 (2x2 region tile) cities. This is okay, but it could probably be easily expanded to Big 151x151 (3x3 region tile) cities and Huge (4x4 region tile) cities. One problem to consider would be cloud disk space, however I'd assume that 9 Small cities would take up the same if not more space than 1 Big city.
3. Annexable regions
This is another idea I've seen other players talk about. While it is true that there is a lot of space on the region worlds already, some people are making absolutely huge bases and slowly outgrowing the region size.
Annexing regions would add the possibility to have several additional similarly sized regions under your command.
This could be implemented in several ways - either by adding several layers of regions, with a map of regions, and regions full of cities, or adding a submenu simply listing owned regions, and perhaps regions having green outlines that allows you to switch the one you're currently viewing, similar to region cities.
An obvious issue would be cloud disk space since now My Colony worlds would be essentially infinite, but there could be a limit of regions set or even a premium system where an Ape Apps Gold user has an increased limit of regions.
4. Multi-species colonies
The concept of multi-species colonies has always been very interesting to me and I've been pretty confused why it's not in the game. This would allow colonies to have several kinds of colonists - humans could live alongside bugs and aliens. This would also allow creating buildings previously exclusive to another race. I don't know if this conflicts with bast's vision for the game, but this could be locked behind an end-game technology to make the game way more interesting.
5. Expeditions
This would be a simple way of extracting resources that is an expansion of the WMD system (but this time more peaceful). This would include a special upgradeable building that would be an expedition agency, which would send colonists on a type of planet that the player can choose and establish a settlement to extract resources.
Now this settlement can either be completely simulated with resources just flowing in or essentially be a second temporary colony that the player can actually use just like their primary. Of course the latter would need a lot more coding to be done and is actually possible to a degree already with the use of charters. But one way that could be done more efficiently is to limit the number of colonial colonies to something like 3 at a time and limiting the map size to for example 50x50. However, this would be treated as an independent map, so the resources would be able to respawn.
So that's it. As I said, these would probably take some time to implement but they could really expand the game and make it way more replayable. Unless bast wants us all to migrate to MC2. I'll hold a grudge in that case. Cheers!
Since bast is now focusing on My Colony 2, the development of MC1 has slowed down, which is very much understandable - all games eventually get a sequel or just fizzle out in popularity. I don't mean that bast ignores the community of MC1 - he is just focused on the development of the sequel, which is completely fine.
But, over the last year or so, I was thinking about several changes that would take a while to implement to MC1 but could benefit the longevity of the game (or even games like Antiquitas, because some of these changes will probably apply to the engine itself). This is by no means a final request or demand from me, I'd be happy if any of these changes were introduced, and I'll still support the game if no changes will be made, because it's still a damn fun game after all these years.
These ideas are big changes that will probably take quite a while to implement, but could be very beneficial to making the Scroll2D engine games live practically forever. Please treat this post as more of a crazy idea dump more than an actual solid suggestion, as some of these ideas will probably not make sense to implement on a development time basis.
I'd also love to see feedback and potential cues on how these ideas can be simplified.
Anyways, here be thou ideas.
1. Advanced modding support
My Colony 2 was revolutionary in the terms of modding. For the first time we as a community could add our own buildings and resources, and later even events and technologies, which is awesome and definitely contributes to the overall ingenuity of the game.
In My Colony 1, there are also modding options, however these are limited to maps and texture packs. It's still better than nothing at all, but could be greatly improved.
My idea extends the modding system in a way that allows players to add their own buildings, resources, technologies, units, worlds, and even things like civilizations and custom building GUIs. This will probably require a lot of changes to the engine but can be implemented at least partially, benefiting the overall replayability of the game. These mods will probably have issues with charters and online games, so these could be limited to offline only, but will still be a very fun addition to the game, allowing the players to create their own after-end-of-life DLCs and such.
2. Bigger cities
This is a very straight-forward idea that I've heard from a bunch of other players in the community. This idea regards the sizes of the cities in region worlds. These are currently Small 51x51 (1x1 region tile) cities and Medium 101x101 (2x2 region tile) cities. This is okay, but it could probably be easily expanded to Big 151x151 (3x3 region tile) cities and Huge (4x4 region tile) cities. One problem to consider would be cloud disk space, however I'd assume that 9 Small cities would take up the same if not more space than 1 Big city.
3. Annexable regions
This is another idea I've seen other players talk about. While it is true that there is a lot of space on the region worlds already, some people are making absolutely huge bases and slowly outgrowing the region size.
Annexing regions would add the possibility to have several additional similarly sized regions under your command.
This could be implemented in several ways - either by adding several layers of regions, with a map of regions, and regions full of cities, or adding a submenu simply listing owned regions, and perhaps regions having green outlines that allows you to switch the one you're currently viewing, similar to region cities.
An obvious issue would be cloud disk space since now My Colony worlds would be essentially infinite, but there could be a limit of regions set or even a premium system where an Ape Apps Gold user has an increased limit of regions.
4. Multi-species colonies
The concept of multi-species colonies has always been very interesting to me and I've been pretty confused why it's not in the game. This would allow colonies to have several kinds of colonists - humans could live alongside bugs and aliens. This would also allow creating buildings previously exclusive to another race. I don't know if this conflicts with bast's vision for the game, but this could be locked behind an end-game technology to make the game way more interesting.
5. Expeditions
This would be a simple way of extracting resources that is an expansion of the WMD system (but this time more peaceful). This would include a special upgradeable building that would be an expedition agency, which would send colonists on a type of planet that the player can choose and establish a settlement to extract resources.
Now this settlement can either be completely simulated with resources just flowing in or essentially be a second temporary colony that the player can actually use just like their primary. Of course the latter would need a lot more coding to be done and is actually possible to a degree already with the use of charters. But one way that could be done more efficiently is to limit the number of colonial colonies to something like 3 at a time and limiting the map size to for example 50x50. However, this would be treated as an independent map, so the resources would be able to respawn.
So that's it. As I said, these would probably take some time to implement but they could really expand the game and make it way more replayable. Unless bast wants us all to migrate to MC2. I'll hold a grudge in that case. Cheers!
Greetings!
Around 2 years ago I've created this post which is about the unofficial timeline for the world in My Colony.
Since then, our favorite dev @bastecklein had referenced a lot of things in that post when expanding the actual lore of My Colony, eventually My Colony Universe is officially born which connected various My Colony spin-off games together.
Now I've reviewed my long and old post which isn't really something refined (and somehow grammatically terrible), I've decided to create an revised version of it. While refining and altering some context and contents, there will also be few new major events as new additions.
Another major change is about events during the Old Earth era and the time transitioning to United Earth, which I would like to make them slightly more reasonable, though the progress would still be relatively accelerated compared to reality.
Enjoy!
Time of the Ancients
(Uncertain, estimated to be billions of years before Alpha Draconians)
👇Just click the text with dotted underline to see the entire section.
Time of the Ancients
Interbellum, Rise of Reptilians and Draconian Era
(4 million years ~ 2 million years before human history)
Rise of Reptilians
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
(Parallel to 19th~20th century of Human timeline)
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
The Old Earth Era
(Year -2051)
The Old Earth Era
The United Earth Era
(2051-Present)
The United Earth Era
Human Civil War
(2087-2089)
Human Civil War
New Galactic Era
(2089-Present)
New Galactic Era
Who knows what the future holds?
Note that these are just my own interpretations over the events, it is not official reference, but hopefully enhance your understanding over the My Colony Universe, and had fun reading it.
Thank you for reading!
Around 2 years ago I've created this post which is about the unofficial timeline for the world in My Colony.
Since then, our favorite dev @bastecklein had referenced a lot of things in that post when expanding the actual lore of My Colony, eventually My Colony Universe is officially born which connected various My Colony spin-off games together.
Now I've reviewed my long and old post which isn't really something refined (and somehow grammatically terrible), I've decided to create an revised version of it. While refining and altering some context and contents, there will also be few new major events as new additions.
Another major change is about events during the Old Earth era and the time transitioning to United Earth, which I would like to make them slightly more reasonable, though the progress would still be relatively accelerated compared to reality.
Enjoy!
WARNING - EXTREMELY LONG POST
This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
NOT ALL CONTENTS ARE CONSIDERED CANON
Not all details have been officially included canon or actually took place in any games related to My Colony Universe. The actual events may also vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, it's just for reference, I recommend reading it in a relaxing manner. :P
The unit of time measurement is based on Earth calendar.This post is very long - it will take some time to read.
NOT ALL CONTENTS ARE CONSIDERED CANON
Not all details have been officially included canon or actually took place in any games related to My Colony Universe. The actual events may also vary with those mentioned in this post.
Anyways, it's just for reference, I recommend reading it in a relaxing manner. :P
Time of the Ancients
(Uncertain, estimated to be billions of years before Alpha Draconians)
Once upon a time there was an thriving civilization ruled over the Milky Way Galaxy, which now they are called The Ancients. Even in the Royal Libraries of Alpha Draconians, not much documentations of their unimaginably long history has been recovered, but many of them become legends and folklore among various old and elder civilizations across the Milky Way. The following events are what known to the present-day Milky Way.
👇Just click the text with dotted underline to see the entire section.
Time of the Ancients
The Old Holy Galactic Empire
The oldest trace of The Ancients that can be found in present-day.
Some artifacts from this period reflected worship of pure energy entities, which its sophisticated pantheon have shown distant relationship and influence to cultural and religious beliefs of some races of Milky Way.
The oldest trace of The Ancients that can be found in present-day.
Some artifacts from this period reflected worship of pure energy entities, which its sophisticated pantheon have shown distant relationship and influence to cultural and religious beliefs of some races of Milky Way.
Titan War
Perhaps the most well-known conflict in the Ancients' period, it took place around the late Holy Galactic Empire period - A legend of two dominant galactic powers battle for their total domination of Milky Way.
The Titanis was the sole opponent of the Old Galactic Empire at that time, it is a collective of races under the rule of Titans, a race of colossal entities. However, unable to surpass Empire in terms of the ability to manipulate raw energy and matter, the Titans end up defeated and extinct after the war.
Various wartime relics form both Empire and Titanis are discovered. However the reliability of several Titan relics (particularly some Titan remains) are doubted by modern historians and scientists (and even some New Galactic Empire scholars) and the debates still goes on today.
Perhaps the most well-known conflict in the Ancients' period, it took place around the late Holy Galactic Empire period - A legend of two dominant galactic powers battle for their total domination of Milky Way.
The Titanis was the sole opponent of the Old Galactic Empire at that time, it is a collective of races under the rule of Titans, a race of colossal entities. However, unable to surpass Empire in terms of the ability to manipulate raw energy and matter, the Titans end up defeated and extinct after the war.
Various wartime relics form both Empire and Titanis are discovered. However the reliability of several Titan relics (particularly some Titan remains) are doubted by modern historians and scientists (and even some New Galactic Empire scholars) and the debates still goes on today.
Grand Division of Pharan Empire
Phara was the largest ally of Old Galactic Empire and strongest of the minor powers during the Titan War. However, after a chain of internal political events, the Pharan Empire split into divided Dynasties ruled by their respective Grand Houses.
Most ancient Pharan documentations were permanently lost during the event.
Phara was the largest ally of Old Galactic Empire and strongest of the minor powers during the Titan War. However, after a chain of internal political events, the Pharan Empire split into divided Dynasties ruled by their respective Grand Houses.
Most ancient Pharan documentations were permanently lost during the event.
Dark Galactic Empire
The period after the Old Galactic Empire crushed their sole rival of the galaxy and achieved galactic dominance.
For some reason, the Old Galactic Empire abandoned their belief of energy entities, instead, near-fanatical dedication exploring ultimate possibilities of dark matter becomes the major feature of this period.
Despite it is the period after the Holy Empire, unfortunately, information of this period is relatively more scarce - The multidimensional complexity of their relics keeps information in them highly difficult to be discovered and extracted.
The period after the Old Galactic Empire crushed their sole rival of the galaxy and achieved galactic dominance.
For some reason, the Old Galactic Empire abandoned their belief of energy entities, instead, near-fanatical dedication exploring ultimate possibilities of dark matter becomes the major feature of this period.
Despite it is the period after the Holy Empire, unfortunately, information of this period is relatively more scarce - The multidimensional complexity of their relics keeps information in them highly difficult to be discovered and extracted.
Reptilian Exodus to the Milky Way
The first records of Reptilian immigrants into the Milky Way from another galaxy was during the Dark Galactic Empire period. From some documents of Alpha Draconians, Reptilian ancestors started as nomads with only mostly low tech equipment when their "primitive" intergalactic transport landed on the Outer Rim Region.
The first records of Reptilian immigrants into the Milky Way from another galaxy was during the Dark Galactic Empire period. From some documents of Alpha Draconians, Reptilian ancestors started as nomads with only mostly low tech equipment when their "primitive" intergalactic transport landed on the Outer Rim Region.
Empire-Reptilian Conflict
While Reptilians tried to make themselves a new home at Outer Rim Region, Old Galactic Empire was unwelcoming towards the continuous immigration of the Reptilians. As a result several conflicts broke out, but none never end up into a major war.
After several head-on confrontations and negotiations, Reptilians signed permanent truce with the Old Galactic Empire and earned their space of survival, however, the Empire barricaded all the remaining immigrants from entering Milky Way, which the fates of these immigrants remained unknown.
While Reptilians tried to make themselves a new home at Outer Rim Region, Old Galactic Empire was unwelcoming towards the continuous immigration of the Reptilians. As a result several conflicts broke out, but none never end up into a major war.
After several head-on confrontations and negotiations, Reptilians signed permanent truce with the Old Galactic Empire and earned their space of survival, however, the Empire barricaded all the remaining immigrants from entering Milky Way, which the fates of these immigrants remained unknown.
Second Pharan Empire
After millenniums of internal conflicts, Pharans barely reunited themselves, the Second Pharan Empire was established and maintained relative cohesion and peace between Grand Houses for the long period afterwards.
After millenniums of internal conflicts, Pharans barely reunited themselves, the Second Pharan Empire was established and maintained relative cohesion and peace between Grand Houses for the long period afterwards.
Vanishing of The Ancients
One of the largest mysteries in Milky Way history, which the entire population and objects of the Old Galactic Empire, vanished.
There had been many hypothesizes trying to explain the event, the most popular one being The Ancients successfully achieved certain breakthroughs in science and transcended into higher beings unrestricted by physical plane.
Radioisotopic raw ether are discovered at planets that were once Imperial settlements, which seemed to be remains of physical biomass of Ancients, or a by-product of the process causing the entire vanishing.
One of the largest mysteries in Milky Way history, which the entire population and objects of the Old Galactic Empire, vanished.
There had been many hypothesizes trying to explain the event, the most popular one being The Ancients successfully achieved certain breakthroughs in science and transcended into higher beings unrestricted by physical plane.
Radioisotopic raw ether are discovered at planets that were once Imperial settlements, which seemed to be remains of physical biomass of Ancients, or a by-product of the process causing the entire vanishing.
Interbellum, Rise of Reptilians and Draconian Era
(4 million years ~ 2 million years before human history)
After the vanishing of the Ancients, over 80% of the Milky Way became unoccupied and abandoned. This is the period many young races rose to reshape the galactic balance of power, but only the Reptilians became the most successful - From the foundations and physical legacies left by the Ancients, Reptilians thrived as the new superpower of the Galaxy, the Alpha Draconians.
Rise of Reptilians
Early Atlanians and Kingdom of Aqua
Atlanians was an aquatic race that managed to civilize themselves during the Interbellum, and evolved into amphibious creatures that has strong adaptive ability to both dry land and aquatic environments.
Kingdom of Aqua was the first period of Atlanian history they begin space exploration and primitive extraterrestrial colonization.
Atlanians was an aquatic race that managed to civilize themselves during the Interbellum, and evolved into amphibious creatures that has strong adaptive ability to both dry land and aquatic environments.
Kingdom of Aqua was the first period of Atlanian history they begin space exploration and primitive extraterrestrial colonization.
Reptilian Kingdoms
As the scout ships returned bizarre news that the Ancients had ceased to exist, the Reptilians saw their long waited opportunity expanding towards the Central Vortex. Deeply inspired by the Old Galactic Empire, many Reptilians dreamed of building their own powerful interstellar regime. As a result numerous Reptilian Kingdoms with relatively primitive organization were established, completely replacing their original nomadic society within few decades.
As the scout ships returned bizarre news that the Ancients had ceased to exist, the Reptilians saw their long waited opportunity expanding towards the Central Vortex. Deeply inspired by the Old Galactic Empire, many Reptilians dreamed of building their own powerful interstellar regime. As a result numerous Reptilian Kingdoms with relatively primitive organization were established, completely replacing their original nomadic society within few decades.
Great Reptilian Expedition
After years of preparation, various Kingdoms launched their expedition to the deeper regions of the Galaxy, returning with generous amount of salvaged bounties from ancient ruins and locations of the abandoned Ancient cities.
Later, Reptilians colonized the Ancient cities as their new settlements.
After years of preparation, various Kingdoms launched their expedition to the deeper regions of the Galaxy, returning with generous amount of salvaged bounties from ancient ruins and locations of the abandoned Ancient cities.
Later, Reptilians colonized the Ancient cities as their new settlements.
Bowuland Insectoid Hive Tribes
The earliest form of Bowuland Insectoid (Later Zolarg Insectoids) civilization known. Before the period of Zolarg Empire, Bowuland Insectoid breeds were relatively mild and much less invasive, and achieved developing a society with great self sufficiency and sustainability of food, with knowledge of primitive metallurgy.
With no ideas and ambitions beyond their home Gaia World planet, Insectoids of the period had never entered process of industrialization and space exploration.
The earliest form of Bowuland Insectoid (Later Zolarg Insectoids) civilization known. Before the period of Zolarg Empire, Bowuland Insectoid breeds were relatively mild and much less invasive, and achieved developing a society with great self sufficiency and sustainability of food, with knowledge of primitive metallurgy.
With no ideas and ambitions beyond their home Gaia World planet, Insectoids of the period had never entered process of industrialization and space exploration.
Unity Movement of the Atlanians
According to an Atlanian legend, conflicts between Atlanian colony Kingdoms were very common, until inspired by the idea of balance and peaceful coexistence started an peaceful unification movement which led to founding of the present-day Confederation of Atlanian Kingdoms.
According to an Atlanian legend, conflicts between Atlanian colony Kingdoms were very common, until inspired by the idea of balance and peaceful coexistence started an peaceful unification movement which led to founding of the present-day Confederation of Atlanian Kingdoms.
Age of the Warring Lords
Reptilians had shown great interest upon the relics and artifacts they salvaged form Ancient sites, and discovered the unimaginable potency they hold. Impressed by the power of ancient technology, it gave rise to Reptilian ambitions of interstellar conquest.
Seek to destroy other potential internal rivals, Reptilians entered a long period of most merciless infighting, just to control the Ancient artifacts they have yet to understand how to use them.
Reptilians had shown great interest upon the relics and artifacts they salvaged form Ancient sites, and discovered the unimaginable potency they hold. Impressed by the power of ancient technology, it gave rise to Reptilian ambitions of interstellar conquest.
Seek to destroy other potential internal rivals, Reptilians entered a long period of most merciless infighting, just to control the Ancient artifacts they have yet to understand how to use them.
Reptilian Unification War and founding of Alpha Draconians
Kingdom of Draconis had long been one of the weakest kingdom among the Reptilians, until the time of the genius leader Lord Alphari - Draconis strength and influence rose to new heights, on par with the strongest Reptilian Lords. Lord Alphari defeated all other Reptilian Lords just in 10 years, successfully achieved true unification of the entire Reptilian race for the first time in Milky Way Reptilian history since the immigration.
As the unification had completed, Alphari crowned himself as the first Overlord, establishing the Reptilian empire of Alpha Draconians which marked the beginning of Reptilian golden age.
National motto of Alpha Draconians, "Rising from the Harshest to be the Strongest", was also given by Alphari himself, as an reflection to his early life struggles and success.
Kingdom of Draconis had long been one of the weakest kingdom among the Reptilians, until the time of the genius leader Lord Alphari - Draconis strength and influence rose to new heights, on par with the strongest Reptilian Lords. Lord Alphari defeated all other Reptilian Lords just in 10 years, successfully achieved true unification of the entire Reptilian race for the first time in Milky Way Reptilian history since the immigration.
As the unification had completed, Alphari crowned himself as the first Overlord, establishing the Reptilian empire of Alpha Draconians which marked the beginning of Reptilian golden age.
National motto of Alpha Draconians, "Rising from the Harshest to be the Strongest", was also given by Alphari himself, as an reflection to his early life struggles and success.
First Successful Decoding of the Ancient Artifacts
The Ancient Alien research was one of another most impactful achievements and legacies of Overlord Alphari during his reign, for he had greater insight over the usage of alien artifacts. Alpha Draconians was also among the first ones establishing an dedicated and successful institute studying Ancient artifacts and relics, which Overlord Alphari also personally participated in it in addition to providing material and political support.
From the further understanding over these ancient gadgets, Alpha Draconians effectively reverse-engineered Ancient advancements for their own purpose. The absolute technological supremacy of Alpha Draconians gained from Ancient knowledge effectively turned the Reptilian empire into the sole and most brutal galactic superpower of the time.
The Ancient Alien research was one of another most impactful achievements and legacies of Overlord Alphari during his reign, for he had greater insight over the usage of alien artifacts. Alpha Draconians was also among the first ones establishing an dedicated and successful institute studying Ancient artifacts and relics, which Overlord Alphari also personally participated in it in addition to providing material and political support.
From the further understanding over these ancient gadgets, Alpha Draconians effectively reverse-engineered Ancient advancements for their own purpose. The absolute technological supremacy of Alpha Draconians gained from Ancient knowledge effectively turned the Reptilian empire into the sole and most brutal galactic superpower of the time.
Reptilian Galactic Conquest
The next and the largest conquest of Reptilians took place during the reign of fourth Overlord Ks'khip, the infamous Scourge of the Galaxy who led the Draconian legions spread destruction across half of the Milky Way galaxy.
Many of the territories conquered by Overlord Ks'khip formed the foundations of core Alpha Draconian regions in Milky Way Galaxy. In addition, the subjugation of various alien races including Bowuland Insectoids which provided Alpha Draconians productive slave laborers for millenniums.
The conquest was an important point of history which Reptilian power and influence reached its peaks, the time when Reptilians began call themselves ‘the descendants of the Ancients’.
The next and the largest conquest of Reptilians took place during the reign of fourth Overlord Ks'khip, the infamous Scourge of the Galaxy who led the Draconian legions spread destruction across half of the Milky Way galaxy.
Many of the territories conquered by Overlord Ks'khip formed the foundations of core Alpha Draconian regions in Milky Way Galaxy. In addition, the subjugation of various alien races including Bowuland Insectoids which provided Alpha Draconians productive slave laborers for millenniums.
The conquest was an important point of history which Reptilian power and influence reached its peaks, the time when Reptilians began call themselves ‘the descendants of the Ancients’.
Mystic Galactic Domination Doctrine
While Overlord Ks'khip ruled by brutally asserting direct Draconian dominance over half of the Milky Way, his successor Ka'kropp had a completely different idea, advocating a complete different doctrine of ruling the Reptilian empire.
In a more secretive and unsuspecting approach, Alpha Draconians maintain control over conquered territories with minimal public personnel and have most of the actual administration and enforcement done covertly. Through asserting the ideas that Alpha Draconians were unreachable and all-powerful deity beyond their intellect, subjugated objects and vassals would never dare to resist and defect.
While Overlord Ks'khip ruled by brutally asserting direct Draconian dominance over half of the Milky Way, his successor Ka'kropp had a completely different idea, advocating a complete different doctrine of ruling the Reptilian empire.
In a more secretive and unsuspecting approach, Alpha Draconians maintain control over conquered territories with minimal public personnel and have most of the actual administration and enforcement done covertly. Through asserting the ideas that Alpha Draconians were unreachable and all-powerful deity beyond their intellect, subjugated objects and vassals would never dare to resist and defect.
Disassembly of Second Pharan Empire
While the Second Pharan Empire remained relatively unchanged and peaceful since its establishment, many aspects of the Empire itself declines day by day. Eventually, the Pharan Empire officially dissolved themselves.
Pharans are permanently divided into hundreds of independent tribes and scattered across the stars, rapidly degenerating into theocratic medieval civilization technologically and culturally.
While the Second Pharan Empire remained relatively unchanged and peaceful since its establishment, many aspects of the Empire itself declines day by day. Eventually, the Pharan Empire officially dissolved themselves.
Pharans are permanently divided into hundreds of independent tribes and scattered across the stars, rapidly degenerating into theocratic medieval civilization technologically and culturally.
Reptilian-Atlanian Conflicts
Years since the Great Conquest, Reptilians had several attempts throwing invasion on the aquatic homelands of Atlanian Kingdoms, however heavy local resistance of Atlanians turned most of the attempts thwarted and to no anvil.
At the end of this series of conflicts over the millennium, Alpha Draconians withdrawn their forces from Atlanian territory and never mentioned invading Atlanian planets since after.
Years since the Great Conquest, Reptilians had several attempts throwing invasion on the aquatic homelands of Atlanian Kingdoms, however heavy local resistance of Atlanians turned most of the attempts thwarted and to no anvil.
At the end of this series of conflicts over the millennium, Alpha Draconians withdrawn their forces from Atlanian territory and never mentioned invading Atlanian planets since after.
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
(Parallel to 19th~20th century of Human timeline)
Ever since the Alpha Draconians subjugated the Bowuland Insectoids, the history of being enslaved for millions of years was the darkest history of Insectoids. However, from countless of torture and survival struggles, Bowland Insectoids had evolved into highly expansive and adaptive breeds of wide variety. Meanwhile, years without significant challenges or greater ambitions had also turned Alpha Draconians internally corrupt and indolent.
Parallel to the 19th to 20th century of mankind, an slave uprising in Alpha Draconains marked another major turning point of Milky Way history.
The Revival of Insectoid Civilization
Draconis-12 Uprising
In the distant slave farm colony of wetland planet Draconis-12, to no Reptilians' expectation, the Alpha Draconian colony was overthrown by a planetary-scale Insectoid slave uprising led by an enlightened Insectoid named Zolarg, all Draconian personnel either purged or missing.
The first group of freed Insectoids renamed the planet to Zolarg Prime after their leader, which became the new home world of the Insectoid civilization. At the same time, the uprising leader Zolarg himself was crowned emperor for life of the people of Zolarg Prime, and Zolarg Empire is established.
In the distant slave farm colony of wetland planet Draconis-12, to no Reptilians' expectation, the Alpha Draconian colony was overthrown by a planetary-scale Insectoid slave uprising led by an enlightened Insectoid named Zolarg, all Draconian personnel either purged or missing.
The first group of freed Insectoids renamed the planet to Zolarg Prime after their leader, which became the new home world of the Insectoid civilization. At the same time, the uprising leader Zolarg himself was crowned emperor for life of the people of Zolarg Prime, and Zolarg Empire is established.
Insectoid Uprising Movements
While Alpha Draconians attempted to cover up the incident, words of Draconis-12 uprising spread quickly among the Insectoids of other Draconian slave colonies.
Encouraged and inspired by the Zolarg's success, other Insectoids followed similar path. Though not all had been successful, the series of uprising movements successfully took over large numbers of Alpha Draconian colonies and cities. Most of the Insectoids who earned their freedom joined the Zolarg Empire's cause in the sacred war toppling their ancestral enemy.
While Alpha Draconians attempted to cover up the incident, words of Draconis-12 uprising spread quickly among the Insectoids of other Draconian slave colonies.
Encouraged and inspired by the Zolarg's success, other Insectoids followed similar path. Though not all had been successful, the series of uprising movements successfully took over large numbers of Alpha Draconian colonies and cities. Most of the Insectoids who earned their freedom joined the Zolarg Empire's cause in the sacred war toppling their ancestral enemy.
Insectoid Revival War
Soon Alpha Draconians took retaliatory actions against the uprising movements, attempting regain control of the slaves by sheer might of regular military forces. In this 27 year long war of attrition, both sides took heavy losses, however, despite technologically superior, Draconian forces never managed to outmatch Zolarg forces in numbers and replenishment rate. Eventually, Draconian forces were forced to withdraw from Zolarg-controlled territory to regroup after local war reserves had been depleted.
The War ended with Zolarg victory. Zolarg Empire earned their needed time and space to redevelop their civilization, while the internal declining of Alpha Draconians were exposed to the galaxy.
Soon Alpha Draconians took retaliatory actions against the uprising movements, attempting regain control of the slaves by sheer might of regular military forces. In this 27 year long war of attrition, both sides took heavy losses, however, despite technologically superior, Draconian forces never managed to outmatch Zolarg forces in numbers and replenishment rate. Eventually, Draconian forces were forced to withdraw from Zolarg-controlled territory to regroup after local war reserves had been depleted.
The War ended with Zolarg victory. Zolarg Empire earned their needed time and space to redevelop their civilization, while the internal declining of Alpha Draconians were exposed to the galaxy.
‘Groot Opwekkingsplan’
This period was also known as the ‘Great Revival Period’, the period when Emperor Zolarg formulated the policies and plans for early Zolarg Empire focusing on reconstruction, redevelopment and expansion of the Insectoid civilization, with the ultimate goal acquiring capability to confront Alpha Draconians head-on.
Combining sheer workforce volume of Insectoids, rediscovered ancestral knowledge and industrial knowledge acquired form Alpha Draconian machines, Zolarg Empire quickly established their industrial and technological foundations and rose as a supernova of galactic power.
This period was also known as the ‘Great Revival Period’, the period when Emperor Zolarg formulated the policies and plans for early Zolarg Empire focusing on reconstruction, redevelopment and expansion of the Insectoid civilization, with the ultimate goal acquiring capability to confront Alpha Draconians head-on.
Combining sheer workforce volume of Insectoids, rediscovered ancestral knowledge and industrial knowledge acquired form Alpha Draconian machines, Zolarg Empire quickly established their industrial and technological foundations and rose as a supernova of galactic power.
Declaration of Insectoid Liberation
After the ‘Groot Opwekkingsplan closed with stunning success, Emperor Zolarg made a declaration on behalf of Insectoids to Alpha Draconians - the Zolarg Empire, will liberate the remaining brothers and sisters under the unrightful Draconian slavery at all costs.
The Declaration officially established the ultimate objective of the wars against Alpha Draconians.
After the ‘Groot Opwekkingsplan closed with stunning success, Emperor Zolarg made a declaration on behalf of Insectoids to Alpha Draconians - the Zolarg Empire, will liberate the remaining brothers and sisters under the unrightful Draconian slavery at all costs.
The Declaration officially established the ultimate objective of the wars against Alpha Draconians.
The Old Earth Era
(Year -2051)
The Old Earth Era is defined as the period before United Earth in human history. The late Old Earth Era is the time when humans begin exploring the deeper space and other stars, as well as beginning extensive colonization beyond Earth.
The Old Earth Era
Jameson Theories (2027)
The quantum physics scientist Professor Lob E. Jameson published a paper about theories associated with space continuum mechanics which provided basis for future development of long range space travel between systems.
The quantum physics scientist Professor Lob E. Jameson published a paper about theories associated with space continuum mechanics which provided basis for future development of long range space travel between systems.
First Practical Fusion Propulsion Engine (2031)
As the first commercial-use fusion reactors achieved success in the late 2020s, it provided valuable experience for developing further uses of nuclear fusion power, including the innovative idea to use it for propulsion. First practical fusion propulsion engine for spacecrafts was built in 2031.
As the first commercial-use fusion reactors achieved success in the late 2020s, it provided valuable experience for developing further uses of nuclear fusion power, including the innovative idea to use it for propulsion. First practical fusion propulsion engine for spacecrafts was built in 2031.
First Probe exiting Solar System (2033)
USP Discovery was the first successful probe that traveled beyond boundaries of Solar System and reached another star system (Alpha Centauri). It's launched from Earth at 2033, returning valuable data of planets of Alpha Centauri system starting from 2037.
USP Discovery was the first successful probe that traveled beyond boundaries of Solar System and reached another star system (Alpha Centauri). It's launched from Earth at 2033, returning valuable data of planets of Alpha Centauri system starting from 2037.
Space Colonization Race of Solar System (2032-2047)
With long range space travelling became more possible at the time, it kickstarted a space race at larger scale. It was one historical milestone for humanity - first attempts of an extensive space colonization in history.
Both directly and indirectly, at least 65% nations of the world participated in it. Among the governmental bodies and independent organizations in the race, some seek for wealth and influence, some seek for opportunities and a new start, some seek for knowledge and discovery.
At the peak period of the space race, colony activities could be found around and on mainly Moon and Mars, and to certain extent, Venus and Jupiter.
However, the space race came to complete halt around late 2040s, hampered by instability on Earth caused by Earth Resource Crisis.
With long range space travelling became more possible at the time, it kickstarted a space race at larger scale. It was one historical milestone for humanity - first attempts of an extensive space colonization in history.
Both directly and indirectly, at least 65% nations of the world participated in it. Among the governmental bodies and independent organizations in the race, some seek for wealth and influence, some seek for opportunities and a new start, some seek for knowledge and discovery.
At the peak period of the space race, colony activities could be found around and on mainly Moon and Mars, and to certain extent, Venus and Jupiter.
However, the space race came to complete halt around late 2040s, hampered by instability on Earth caused by Earth Resource Crisis.
Earth Resource Crisis (2039-2057)
Catalyzed by political and commercial rivalries on Earth, the space race had escalated to higher levels within a decade. Various parties increased their bets and investments into their colonization projects, leading to resource consumption increasing to unprecedented levels for the following years. Worries regarding depletion of known resource reserves on Earth arises starting from mid 2039, and became actual problems in the 2040s.
In the meantime, uncontrolled industrial activities of the space race had also accelerated climate change which catastrophically turned Earth much less habitable. The climate impacts were strongly associated to occurrence of famine and abnormal morality in major countries starting from 2043.
At 2047, by the severe shortage of various resources, social instability on Earth reached critical levels.
The crisis seen no sign of alleviation until 2057.
Catalyzed by political and commercial rivalries on Earth, the space race had escalated to higher levels within a decade. Various parties increased their bets and investments into their colonization projects, leading to resource consumption increasing to unprecedented levels for the following years. Worries regarding depletion of known resource reserves on Earth arises starting from mid 2039, and became actual problems in the 2040s.
In the meantime, uncontrolled industrial activities of the space race had also accelerated climate change which catastrophically turned Earth much less habitable. The climate impacts were strongly associated to occurrence of famine and abnormal morality in major countries starting from 2043.
At 2047, by the severe shortage of various resources, social instability on Earth reached critical levels.
The crisis seen no sign of alleviation until 2057.
The Grand Collapse (2051)
Severely affected by the Earth Resource Crisis, major governmental bodies on Earth lost their economic and political capability to maintain basic functions on an nation, end up either overthrown by displeased mobs of starving people, or disband themselves under pressure. In a chain reaction, similar events happened to nations all across the globe, which all turned into lands of anarchy and chaos.
This event is often referred as the end point of Old Earth era.
Severely affected by the Earth Resource Crisis, major governmental bodies on Earth lost their economic and political capability to maintain basic functions on an nation, end up either overthrown by displeased mobs of starving people, or disband themselves under pressure. In a chain reaction, similar events happened to nations all across the globe, which all turned into lands of anarchy and chaos.
This event is often referred as the end point of Old Earth era.
The United Earth Era
(2051-Present)
Right after the Grand Collapse, on Earth was the absolute chaos of no law and order where civilization degenerates and anarchy scourges the world. In the meantime, colonies outside Earth were left stranded without contact and support, struggling survive on their own.
However, the end of an old era is also the beginning of an new greater era - This is the era when United Earth rises to power and reunify humanity, and elevating human civilization to the greater levels, to beyond Solar System, to the distant stars.
The United Earth Era
Dissolution of United Nations and Formation of United Earth Movement (UEM) (2051-2052)
Without any existing members at all, and at the edge of ‘bankruptcy’, the United Nations officially dissolved, with most of the assets sold and transferred to a group of political aristocrats and plutocrats. The group absorbed the functions and assets of United Nations, and ambitiously rebranded it into United Earth Movement (UEM) during early 2052, which aimed to unify the entire humanity, and restore prosperity and order of the Old Earth era.
Without any existing members at all, and at the edge of ‘bankruptcy’, the United Nations officially dissolved, with most of the assets sold and transferred to a group of political aristocrats and plutocrats. The group absorbed the functions and assets of United Nations, and ambitiously rebranded it into United Earth Movement (UEM) during early 2052, which aimed to unify the entire humanity, and restore prosperity and order of the Old Earth era.
Earth Reunification War (2054-2055)
During the 2 years of preparation, UEM rallied manpower and resources from around the globe through black markets and government fire sales, while gaining stable bases of operations by assisting reestablishment of government on mainly Western Europe and Eastern half of North America.
At mid 2054, UEM officially initiated their military campaign with superior (but still rather limited) reserve of resources, rapidly brought major cities under control in the early months, then the cities were used as staging grounds to drive resistance of warlord and anarchists out of the region, ultimately encircling and destroying them.
Near the end of the 1.4 year long war, UEM controlled over 74% of the world. With no hope to topple a rising power, remaining resistances surrendered to UEM one by one, and generally accepted annexation in the post-war negotiations.
During the 2 years of preparation, UEM rallied manpower and resources from around the globe through black markets and government fire sales, while gaining stable bases of operations by assisting reestablishment of government on mainly Western Europe and Eastern half of North America.
At mid 2054, UEM officially initiated their military campaign with superior (but still rather limited) reserve of resources, rapidly brought major cities under control in the early months, then the cities were used as staging grounds to drive resistance of warlord and anarchists out of the region, ultimately encircling and destroying them.
Near the end of the 1.4 year long war, UEM controlled over 74% of the world. With no hope to topple a rising power, remaining resistances surrendered to UEM one by one, and generally accepted annexation in the post-war negotiations.
Official Establishment of United Earth (2056)
Few months after the Earth Reunification War, United Earth and its official governmental structure was established. United Earth took the form of a presidential republic, which the governmental body and the executive body is lead by President of United Earth, General Assembly responsible for legislation and directly responsible to the President.
The General Assembly is the decision-making centre of the United Earth, composed of representatives from different administrative regions to show a certain extent of democracy. However, the President still has absolute power to intervene or even alter the decisions of the General Assembly, in addition to a series of exclusive powers.
Few months after the Earth Reunification War, United Earth and its official governmental structure was established. United Earth took the form of a presidential republic, which the governmental body and the executive body is lead by President of United Earth, General Assembly responsible for legislation and directly responsible to the President.
The General Assembly is the decision-making centre of the United Earth, composed of representatives from different administrative regions to show a certain extent of democracy. However, the President still has absolute power to intervene or even alter the decisions of the General Assembly, in addition to a series of exclusive powers.
Earth Recovery Program (2056-2060)
While Earth became relatively stable in political conditions, as Earth Resource Crisis was still an existent and urgent issue, economic, industrial and environmental recovery became absolute priority of newly-established United Earth. In late 2056, United Earth initiated the Earth Recovery Program which involved habitat reclamation, industrial and economic reforms, prospecting new sources of resources, and reestablishing contact and activities with colonies outside Earth (to integrate external resources to assist recovery of Earth).
Under the effective and efficient coordination of resources of United Earth, only one year later, basic recovery had successfully been achieved, effectively alleviating and roughly neutralizing the impacts of Resource Crisis with no excess burden to space colonies and people on Earth.
At 2060, the economy of Earth had achieved recovery and development to beyond mid-21st century standards, the Program concluded in success.
The successful example of Earth Recovery Program also provided early basis of future terraforming research.
While Earth became relatively stable in political conditions, as Earth Resource Crisis was still an existent and urgent issue, economic, industrial and environmental recovery became absolute priority of newly-established United Earth. In late 2056, United Earth initiated the Earth Recovery Program which involved habitat reclamation, industrial and economic reforms, prospecting new sources of resources, and reestablishing contact and activities with colonies outside Earth (to integrate external resources to assist recovery of Earth).
Under the effective and efficient coordination of resources of United Earth, only one year later, basic recovery had successfully been achieved, effectively alleviating and roughly neutralizing the impacts of Resource Crisis with no excess burden to space colonies and people on Earth.
At 2060, the economy of Earth had achieved recovery and development to beyond mid-21st century standards, the Program concluded in success.
The successful example of Earth Recovery Program also provided early basis of future terraforming research.
Reinitialization of Space Colonization Programmes (2061)
United Earth reinitialized most of the colonization projects from the Old Earth Era starting from 2061, with changed made to enhance efficiency, facilitate administration from United Earth government, and change of objectives.
The Old Earth Era plans were generally rebranded and integrated into "Earth-Sphere Development Programme (ESDP)", aimed to construct a larger socio-economic body in Solar System centering Earth. Under ESDP, Moon was developed into logistics center composed of shipyards and spaceports, while Mars became the new major industrial center. Large space stations were also built to support distant colonies on Venus and moon colonies around Jupiter.
With breakthroughs in interstellar communications technology, United Earth also set their ambitions to colonize stars beyond Solar System. Newer generation of long range space probes were also sent to other distant stars in search for new unhabited planets for colonization and exploit undiscovered resources
United Earth reinitialized most of the colonization projects from the Old Earth Era starting from 2061, with changed made to enhance efficiency, facilitate administration from United Earth government, and change of objectives.
The Old Earth Era plans were generally rebranded and integrated into "Earth-Sphere Development Programme (ESDP)", aimed to construct a larger socio-economic body in Solar System centering Earth. Under ESDP, Moon was developed into logistics center composed of shipyards and spaceports, while Mars became the new major industrial center. Large space stations were also built to support distant colonies on Venus and moon colonies around Jupiter.
With breakthroughs in interstellar communications technology, United Earth also set their ambitions to colonize stars beyond Solar System. Newer generation of long range space probes were also sent to other distant stars in search for new unhabited planets for colonization and exploit undiscovered resources
First Reformation of Security Council (2063-2065)
The national security agency of the United Earth, Security Council, went under a series of reformation from 2063 to 2065, improving and fostering the efficiency of peacekeeping missions on Earth and foreign colonies.
The reform included controversial establishment of military police force CLEI (Colonial Law Enforcement Initiative, nicknamed "clay") and associated high pressure security regulations over colonies.
The national security agency of the United Earth, Security Council, went under a series of reformation from 2063 to 2065, improving and fostering the efficiency of peacekeeping missions on Earth and foreign colonies.
The reform included controversial establishment of military police force CLEI (Colonial Law Enforcement Initiative, nicknamed "clay") and associated high pressure security regulations over colonies.
Colonization of Alpha Centauri (2064)
The long-range colony carrier UES Ark-3 was launched from Moon shipyard at 2062, reaching Alpha Centauri and established colonies at year 2064, it was the first time in history mankind send people beyond Solar System.
The long-range colony carrier UES Ark-3 was launched from Moon shipyard at 2062, reaching Alpha Centauri and established colonies at year 2064, it was the first time in history mankind send people beyond Solar System.
Establishment of Space Marines (2068)
In order to protect foreign colonies and Earth from potential Alien threats, United Earth Space Marines (UESM) was established.
Space Marines gradually replaced Peacekeepers of the United Earth as part of the official military and security forces.
In order to protect foreign colonies and Earth from potential Alien threats, United Earth Space Marines (UESM) was established.
Space Marines gradually replaced Peacekeepers of the United Earth as part of the official military and security forces.
Autonomous Movements of Frontier Region (2068)
For years, colonies of frontier regions presented their concern and discontent towards the heavily bureaucratic system and excessively strict security policies of United Earth, but were never taken notice by authorities on Earth.
The situation turned into several prolonged region-wide protests demanding exclusion from the oppressive policies, after the 7th time Secretary of General Assembly refused to include the issue into agenda of next General Assembly meeting.
Refused to give up interests, United Earth attempted to pacify the discontent colonies by simple tax exemption and reassigning new colony governors, and never tried to lift the policies the colonies asked to remove.
Further angered by the "disrespectful" attitude of United Earth authorities, protests turned into anti-UE movements advocating decentralization of power form Earth. Eventually, United Earth was forced to grant few colonies status of autonomous territory to put the political crisis to end and made promises of reforming administrative and security polices on colonies.
While the movement seemed to achieve the objective to free from oppressive policies, some anti-UE movements foresee United Earth will eventually go back on their policies and unreliable promises, believing only liberation through true independence would free colonies from oppression of Earth supremacists - Which lead to founding of several underground radical anti-UE organizations.
For years, colonies of frontier regions presented their concern and discontent towards the heavily bureaucratic system and excessively strict security policies of United Earth, but were never taken notice by authorities on Earth.
The situation turned into several prolonged region-wide protests demanding exclusion from the oppressive policies, after the 7th time Secretary of General Assembly refused to include the issue into agenda of next General Assembly meeting.
Refused to give up interests, United Earth attempted to pacify the discontent colonies by simple tax exemption and reassigning new colony governors, and never tried to lift the policies the colonies asked to remove.
Further angered by the "disrespectful" attitude of United Earth authorities, protests turned into anti-UE movements advocating decentralization of power form Earth. Eventually, United Earth was forced to grant few colonies status of autonomous territory to put the political crisis to end and made promises of reforming administrative and security polices on colonies.
While the movement seemed to achieve the objective to free from oppressive policies, some anti-UE movements foresee United Earth will eventually go back on their policies and unreliable promises, believing only liberation through true independence would free colonies from oppression of Earth supremacists - Which lead to founding of several underground radical anti-UE organizations.
First Official Contacts with Minor Alien Civilization (2069)
An newly established United Earth colony discovered an underdeveloped alien civilization on the planet Haken-35. United Earth officially contacted the Hakenduzians, establishing the first diplomatic relations with an alien race.
An newly established United Earth colony discovered an underdeveloped alien civilization on the planet Haken-35. United Earth officially contacted the Hakenduzians, establishing the first diplomatic relations with an alien race.
Alien Membership System (2071)
Upon discovery of more minor alien civilizations, there were opinions of establishing a proper system to handle alien diplomacy in smooth manner, while United Earth also saw an opportunity of wealth and influence. In order to convince them sharing their resources with United Earth, the Alien Membership System was established, allowing alien member states to enjoy a series of benefits including protection provided by Space Marines and preferential treatment on trades. In return, the alien member states had to pay yearly membership fees to sustain the privilege.
Upon discovery of more minor alien civilizations, there were opinions of establishing a proper system to handle alien diplomacy in smooth manner, while United Earth also saw an opportunity of wealth and influence. In order to convince them sharing their resources with United Earth, the Alien Membership System was established, allowing alien member states to enjoy a series of benefits including protection provided by Space Marines and preferential treatment on trades. In return, the alien member states had to pay yearly membership fees to sustain the privilege.
First Shuttlepod MK-I Entered Service (2071)
Martian Industries (MarsCorps) completed the first commercial-use model of the legendary multipurpose line of starships capable of fast long range trips, atmospheric take-off and re-entry - the Shuttlepod, which entered service in 2071.
The various innovative designs of Shuttlepod became standards of next generation starships of the following years.
Martian Industries (MarsCorps) completed the first commercial-use model of the legendary multipurpose line of starships capable of fast long range trips, atmospheric take-off and re-entry - the Shuttlepod, which entered service in 2071.
The various innovative designs of Shuttlepod became standards of next generation starships of the following years.
Deimos Events (2072)
It was a legend of the legendary Space Marines elite squad led by Sarge, a story to save Earth from an evil artificial intelligence - though, with some confidential details which United Earth decided to keep it highly classified, rumored to be time travel to erase history of a parallel timeline.
It was a legend of the legendary Space Marines elite squad led by Sarge, a story to save Earth from an evil artificial intelligence - though, with some confidential details which United Earth decided to keep it highly classified, rumored to be time travel to erase history of a parallel timeline.
Discovery of Terra Nova and Terra Nova Colony Rush (2074-2080)
Year 2077, a space probe discovered a planet having more than three times surface area of Earth, which its characteristics are also surprisingly extremely similar to that of Earth. Later the planet was named as Terra Nova to commemorate the remarkable discovery, it was the first earthlike planet discovered in human history.
The value and promising prospects of colonizing this planet were soon taken notice by United Earth authorities and other parties in United Earth. Soon as United Earth had officially begun the preparations for colonizing Terra Nova, largest corporations and major non-governmental entities presented their petition to participate in the project for a of major share of the planet's resources and interests.
As the United Earth authority was unable to balance the interests and requests of various parties, United Earth decided to turn this colonization project into an open competition (which United Earth end up as one of the competitors), which the shares of Terra Nova would only be granted to those who create groundbreaking achievements or shown excellent competitiveness.
Year 2077, a space probe discovered a planet having more than three times surface area of Earth, which its characteristics are also surprisingly extremely similar to that of Earth. Later the planet was named as Terra Nova to commemorate the remarkable discovery, it was the first earthlike planet discovered in human history.
The value and promising prospects of colonizing this planet were soon taken notice by United Earth authorities and other parties in United Earth. Soon as United Earth had officially begun the preparations for colonizing Terra Nova, largest corporations and major non-governmental entities presented their petition to participate in the project for a of major share of the planet's resources and interests.
As the United Earth authority was unable to balance the interests and requests of various parties, United Earth decided to turn this colonization project into an open competition (which United Earth end up as one of the competitors), which the shares of Terra Nova would only be granted to those who create groundbreaking achievements or shown excellent competitiveness.
Wormhole Navigation Technology (2075)
A set of technological advancements in space navigation technology allowed safe traveling of wormholes, which the wormholes act as a great shortcuts and highways of space travelling.
A set of technological advancements in space navigation technology allowed safe traveling of wormholes, which the wormholes act as a great shortcuts and highways of space travelling.
Human Civil War
(2087-2089)
Despite most part of the war were centered on conflict of two forces of humanity, United Earth and League of Independent States, the war had seen involvement of other major civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy, Zolarg Empire and Alpha Draconians. Having great impacts on the history and future political situation of Milky Way Galaxy, it was considered one of the important historical events that contributed to the beginning of New Galactic Era.
Human Civil War
Independent Terra (2068)
Independent Terra is the foundational ideology adopted by League of Independent States (and its predeceasing entities).
In the years since the Autonomous Movements broke out, explicit forms of independentist ideas were given rise in the frontier regions, some branches were eventually developed into radical ideologies adopted by anti-UE entities, including the most well-known ideology of "Independent Terra", which advocates independence revolution against centralists and Earth supremacists, ultimately liberating mankind by overthrowing United Earth and re-establish a new true liberal government on Earth that respects human rights and treat individual colonies as equals.
As colonists were often considered to be the far lower echelons of society than native residents of Earth, the ideas of Independent Terra were even openly welcomed by some colonies beyond frontier regions that were also dissatisfied with authorities on Earth.
Discovery of Terra Nova, the first earthlike planet discovered by humanity in outer space, in 2074 applied an significant impact on the core ideas of Independent Terra ideology, which led to an ideological split within - Pro-revolutionist which continued the original idea of uproot ruling class on Earth, and Second-Terra-ist (SeT-ist) that suggests rivaling Earth influence by establishing liberal government on Terra Nova.
Independent Terra is the foundational ideology adopted by League of Independent States (and its predeceasing entities).
In the years since the Autonomous Movements broke out, explicit forms of independentist ideas were given rise in the frontier regions, some branches were eventually developed into radical ideologies adopted by anti-UE entities, including the most well-known ideology of "Independent Terra", which advocates independence revolution against centralists and Earth supremacists, ultimately liberating mankind by overthrowing United Earth and re-establish a new true liberal government on Earth that respects human rights and treat individual colonies as equals.
As colonists were often considered to be the far lower echelons of society than native residents of Earth, the ideas of Independent Terra were even openly welcomed by some colonies beyond frontier regions that were also dissatisfied with authorities on Earth.
Discovery of Terra Nova, the first earthlike planet discovered by humanity in outer space, in 2074 applied an significant impact on the core ideas of Independent Terra ideology, which led to an ideological split within - Pro-revolutionist which continued the original idea of uproot ruling class on Earth, and Second-Terra-ist (SeT-ist) that suggests rivaling Earth influence by establishing liberal government on Terra Nova.
Independence Coalition (2072)
The potential instability associated to the spread of independentist ideologies during the Autonomous Movement were not left unnoticed by United Earth government. Immediately identifying such ideologies as dangers to governmental and political interests, the Security Council increased CLEI presence in frontier regions and colony sectors with high risk of ideological infiltration, to completely outlaw anti-UE entities.
Soon the anti-UE organizations and Independent Terra supporters found operating campaigns became increasingly difficult under the close watch of CLEI secret police.
In 2072, representatives of anti-UE entities of mainly from the frontier region secretly gathered at Terra Nova, forming the Independence Coalition - the predecessor of League of Independent States, establishing cooperation of running campaigns against UE under the nose of United Earth.
The potential instability associated to the spread of independentist ideologies during the Autonomous Movement were not left unnoticed by United Earth government. Immediately identifying such ideologies as dangers to governmental and political interests, the Security Council increased CLEI presence in frontier regions and colony sectors with high risk of ideological infiltration, to completely outlaw anti-UE entities.
Soon the anti-UE organizations and Independent Terra supporters found operating campaigns became increasingly difficult under the close watch of CLEI secret police.
In 2072, representatives of anti-UE entities of mainly from the frontier region secretly gathered at Terra Nova, forming the Independence Coalition - the predecessor of League of Independent States, establishing cooperation of running campaigns against UE under the nose of United Earth.
First Contact between humanity and Zolarg Empire (2077)
While the first official contact between United Earth and Zolarg Empire took place at 2080, the actual initial contact took place 3 years earlier (2077), during an encounter in uncharted regions between a black market convoy and a Zolarg prospection ship.
The rumors of the encounter spread quickly in black markets, eventually the piece of intel reached the Independence Coalition. Intrigued, the Coalition concluded with an risky decision - sending a secret diplomatic dispatchment to the Zolarg Ship via the black market vessel, in attempt to establish early relations which could help obtaining crucial support for future military campaign against United Earth.
In 2079, the dispatchment returned with cooperation agreements and an unofficial-and-non-disclosed diplomatic and military cooperation pact from Zolarg Empire, which the Coalition offers human technologies to Zolarg scholars in exchange for material and possible military support of Zolarg expeditionary forces.
While the first official contact between United Earth and Zolarg Empire took place at 2080, the actual initial contact took place 3 years earlier (2077), during an encounter in uncharted regions between a black market convoy and a Zolarg prospection ship.
The rumors of the encounter spread quickly in black markets, eventually the piece of intel reached the Independence Coalition. Intrigued, the Coalition concluded with an risky decision - sending a secret diplomatic dispatchment to the Zolarg Ship via the black market vessel, in attempt to establish early relations which could help obtaining crucial support for future military campaign against United Earth.
In 2079, the dispatchment returned with cooperation agreements and an unofficial-and-non-disclosed diplomatic and military cooperation pact from Zolarg Empire, which the Coalition offers human technologies to Zolarg scholars in exchange for material and possible military support of Zolarg expeditionary forces.
The Alpha Draconian Conspiracy and Invasion Plan (~2085)
Since the Insectoid uprising events, Alpha Draconians had been in a difficult situation. The economy over-reliant on expansive and expendable insectoid slave labor had been severely hampered, while the reptilians began questioning the faith and pride of their "all-time invincible" empire.
Taking the Insectoid uprising events as the greatest shame to Alpha Draconians, on Alpha Draconis the dissatisfied reptilian lords and nobles urged Overlord Betah'an taking the responsibility to address the crisis.
To the Lords of Inner Circle (who power, ambitions, cunning and brutality were second to only the Overlord), it was a sign of weakened Overlord. Seeing that as an opportunity to seize the Overlord's power rightfully, the Lords of Inner Circle schemed to remove Overlord Betah'an form the throne.
To Overlord Betah'an, the most effective way silencing his political opponents form the Inner Circle and regaining support from nobles while addressing the crisis at the same time, was to start another conquest. The Overloard carefully selected the most suitable target of conquest - United Earth, which was industrially and economically developed but militarily inferior, non-aware of Alpha Draconians' existance, and possible sowing of internal conflict which allows minimal military efforts to eradicate further resistances.
Since the Insectoid uprising events, Alpha Draconians had been in a difficult situation. The economy over-reliant on expansive and expendable insectoid slave labor had been severely hampered, while the reptilians began questioning the faith and pride of their "all-time invincible" empire.
Taking the Insectoid uprising events as the greatest shame to Alpha Draconians, on Alpha Draconis the dissatisfied reptilian lords and nobles urged Overlord Betah'an taking the responsibility to address the crisis.
To the Lords of Inner Circle (who power, ambitions, cunning and brutality were second to only the Overlord), it was a sign of weakened Overlord. Seeing that as an opportunity to seize the Overlord's power rightfully, the Lords of Inner Circle schemed to remove Overlord Betah'an form the throne.
To Overlord Betah'an, the most effective way silencing his political opponents form the Inner Circle and regaining support from nobles while addressing the crisis at the same time, was to start another conquest. The Overloard carefully selected the most suitable target of conquest - United Earth, which was industrially and economically developed but militarily inferior, non-aware of Alpha Draconians' existance, and possible sowing of internal conflict which allows minimal military efforts to eradicate further resistances.
Terra Nova Incident and Battle of Terra Nova (2087)
Burdened by outrageous taxation set by United Earth over the colonies outside Solar-Sphere region since 2079, Terra Nova was the first colony openly boycotting the tax policies of United Earth, refused to deliver tax payments to General Assembly. General Assembly responded the boycotting by enforcing embargo over Terra Nova, followed by immigration interdiction and military blockade, however all failed with little effect on this almost self-efficient colony.
The Independence Coalition, after years of covered military preparation, saw the incident on Terra Nova provided a narrow but the best opportunity to start what they had planned long ago - a revolutionary war to liberate colonies from tyranny of United Earth. Before the military blockade was enforced, the Coalition sneaked additional military personnel to their branch in Terra Nova.
Heat of the debates over follow-up actions against rebellious acts of Terra Nova lasted for months in General Assembly, politicians arguing the effectiveness of measures used to force Terra Nova giving in, while anti-UE organizations on Terra Nova kept provoking United Earth by rallying local people protesting around governmental administrative facilities. Eventually in 2087, with support of politicians who worried Terra Nova incident would evolve into a copy of of Autonomous Movement in 2068, along with manipulation by Alpha Draconian covert agents - By reason of "open revolt against United Earth", President Ronald Tracy issued order to mobilize Space Marines 35th Regiment for military occupation of and martial law enforcement on Terra Nova, marking the outbreak of Human Civil War.
Main forces of Space Marines occupied the capital city of Terra Nova and dispersed protesters with minimal resistance within 2 hours of operation. However, few minutes after the complete occupation, the main forces were ambushed and encircled by local militia forces led by commander Beuford P. Tots in the city. By element of surprise and home turf advantage of militia forces, the well-equipped Space Marines in the capital city took a heavy casualty rate of 63% and were forced to retreat by escaping to troop ship in planetary orbit.
Other militia forces on Terra Nova driven Space Marine and UE garrisons of military facilities into defeat in the subsequent skirmishes over the week. Gaining control over majority of surface-to-orbit defense weapons on the planet, Terra Nova militias forced complete withdrawal of Space Marines 35th Regiment and blockade fleet from Terra Nova at the end of Battle of Terra Nova.
After the battle, the colonial congress replaced the original colonial government. The congress officially sent an formal declaration of independence to Earth, which declared Terra Nova is no longer a chartered colony of United Earth, the once "second earth" was then renamed "Independent State".
Burdened by outrageous taxation set by United Earth over the colonies outside Solar-Sphere region since 2079, Terra Nova was the first colony openly boycotting the tax policies of United Earth, refused to deliver tax payments to General Assembly. General Assembly responded the boycotting by enforcing embargo over Terra Nova, followed by immigration interdiction and military blockade, however all failed with little effect on this almost self-efficient colony.
The Independence Coalition, after years of covered military preparation, saw the incident on Terra Nova provided a narrow but the best opportunity to start what they had planned long ago - a revolutionary war to liberate colonies from tyranny of United Earth. Before the military blockade was enforced, the Coalition sneaked additional military personnel to their branch in Terra Nova.
Heat of the debates over follow-up actions against rebellious acts of Terra Nova lasted for months in General Assembly, politicians arguing the effectiveness of measures used to force Terra Nova giving in, while anti-UE organizations on Terra Nova kept provoking United Earth by rallying local people protesting around governmental administrative facilities. Eventually in 2087, with support of politicians who worried Terra Nova incident would evolve into a copy of of Autonomous Movement in 2068, along with manipulation by Alpha Draconian covert agents - By reason of "open revolt against United Earth", President Ronald Tracy issued order to mobilize Space Marines 35th Regiment for military occupation of and martial law enforcement on Terra Nova, marking the outbreak of Human Civil War.
Main forces of Space Marines occupied the capital city of Terra Nova and dispersed protesters with minimal resistance within 2 hours of operation. However, few minutes after the complete occupation, the main forces were ambushed and encircled by local militia forces led by commander Beuford P. Tots in the city. By element of surprise and home turf advantage of militia forces, the well-equipped Space Marines in the capital city took a heavy casualty rate of 63% and were forced to retreat by escaping to troop ship in planetary orbit.
Other militia forces on Terra Nova driven Space Marine and UE garrisons of military facilities into defeat in the subsequent skirmishes over the week. Gaining control over majority of surface-to-orbit defense weapons on the planet, Terra Nova militias forced complete withdrawal of Space Marines 35th Regiment and blockade fleet from Terra Nova at the end of Battle of Terra Nova.
After the battle, the colonial congress replaced the original colonial government. The congress officially sent an formal declaration of independence to Earth, which declared Terra Nova is no longer a chartered colony of United Earth, the once "second earth" was then renamed "Independent State".
Founding of the League of Independent States (2087)
Following the stunning success in Battle of Terra Nova, Terra Nova became the common symbol of freedom and liberty. The rest member organizations and entities of Independence Coalition, along with colonies of neighboring colony sectors inspired by the incident, followed by overthrowing local colonial government and sever ties with United Earth.
The independent colonies and members of Independence Coalition then officially founded the League of Independent States on Terra Nova.
Following the stunning success in Battle of Terra Nova, Terra Nova became the common symbol of freedom and liberty. The rest member organizations and entities of Independence Coalition, along with colonies of neighboring colony sectors inspired by the incident, followed by overthrowing local colonial government and sever ties with United Earth.
The independent colonies and members of Independence Coalition then officially founded the League of Independent States on Terra Nova.
Terra-to-Earth Campaign (2087-2088)
With support of Beaconburg Fleet and arms supplier BSA from Independent State of Beaconburg (previously Autonomous Colony of Beaconburg), mercenaries recruited from black markets and volunteers from liberated colonies, the newly founded League quickly launched the first military campaign against United Earth - the "Terra-to-Earth Campaign" (In United Earth perspective, "The Defense of Solar System"), targeting core territories of United Earth around Solar System.
Despite United Earth ordered nationwide general mobilization against LIS offensive, the mobilization progresses at sluggish pace. This had left LIS gaining most of the strategic initiative and speed advantage in the early to mid stage of the campaign, the scattered and underprepared United Earth forces were being wiped out by LIS with relative ease.
With support of Beaconburg Fleet and arms supplier BSA from Independent State of Beaconburg (previously Autonomous Colony of Beaconburg), mercenaries recruited from black markets and volunteers from liberated colonies, the newly founded League quickly launched the first military campaign against United Earth - the "Terra-to-Earth Campaign" (In United Earth perspective, "The Defense of Solar System"), targeting core territories of United Earth around Solar System.
Despite United Earth ordered nationwide general mobilization against LIS offensive, the mobilization progresses at sluggish pace. This had left LIS gaining most of the strategic initiative and speed advantage in the early to mid stage of the campaign, the scattered and underprepared United Earth forces were being wiped out by LIS with relative ease.
Zolarg Entry into War (2088)
In late 2087, United Earth completed the strategic defense planning, finished preparations of constructing solid defenses by concentrating majority of military assets in sectors near Solar System.
LIS forces launched the Ragnarok Offensive in early 2088 spearheaded by veteran units form the earlier stages of Terra-to-Earth Campaign, in hope to break the defense lines. However, outmatched by United Earth in terms of superior quantity of troops and supplies, the warfare of attrition eventually blunt the LIS offensive, which LIS forces took significant losses.
Knowing crippled forces stood little chance against possible full strategic counterattack of United Earth, LIS urgently needed to delay United Earth from taking initiative. Shortly after the setback, LIS decided to play their trump card - their secret ally, Zolarg Empire.
Using the missile base (deployed with newly built IWSM which its strike range can reach and cover the entire Solar System) established by LIS and (unexpected) assassination of United Earth President Ronald Tracy as distraction, Zolarg Empire responded to LIS call, sent a full battegroup of Expeditionary Force attacking the other side of United Earth territory, forcing United Earth to fight a war of two fronts.
Despite the two-front strategy did divert pressure from LIS, however, as neither side held major advantage over another, the war turned into a stalemate.
In late 2087, United Earth completed the strategic defense planning, finished preparations of constructing solid defenses by concentrating majority of military assets in sectors near Solar System.
LIS forces launched the Ragnarok Offensive in early 2088 spearheaded by veteran units form the earlier stages of Terra-to-Earth Campaign, in hope to break the defense lines. However, outmatched by United Earth in terms of superior quantity of troops and supplies, the warfare of attrition eventually blunt the LIS offensive, which LIS forces took significant losses.
Knowing crippled forces stood little chance against possible full strategic counterattack of United Earth, LIS urgently needed to delay United Earth from taking initiative. Shortly after the setback, LIS decided to play their trump card - their secret ally, Zolarg Empire.
Using the missile base (deployed with newly built IWSM which its strike range can reach and cover the entire Solar System) established by LIS and (unexpected) assassination of United Earth President Ronald Tracy as distraction, Zolarg Empire responded to LIS call, sent a full battegroup of Expeditionary Force attacking the other side of United Earth territory, forcing United Earth to fight a war of two fronts.
Despite the two-front strategy did divert pressure from LIS, however, as neither side held major advantage over another, the war turned into a stalemate.
Barracuda Blues Event and Preludes to Alpha Draconian Invasion (2088)
In the heat of Human Civil War, Alpha Draconians sneaked groups of pioneer probes into human territory, constructed portal gates in the unnoticed corners where strongholds were set up for preparations of Overlord's surprise invasion plans.
Lords of Inner Circle had been trying to foil the Overlord's plan from the beginning. By a margin of rare opportunity, one covert operative affiliated to Lords of Inner Circle managed to sabotage the cloak device in secret base on planet Barracuda Blues, exposing the dormant portal and droid battlegroup at the site to United Earth and LIS military.
Upon the discovery of the unknown alien facility on Barracuda Blues, both United Earth and LIS dispatched their own task force trying to seize the alien technology that could change the tide of battle. Violent skirmishes broke out between two sides, contesting control of the facility.
As the news on Barracuda Blues were delivered to Zolarg Expeditionary Force. Familiar with Alpha Draconian cunning strategies, the Insectoids immediately identified the alien facility an Alpha Draconian invasion base. The Zolarg Expeditionary Force then sent their urgent message to LIS ally, warned that such discovery was a curse rather than blessing, and presented worries of this war involved orchestrations of Alpha Draconians, the greater evil they were yet to know.
Already at the edge of dishonoring the reptilian ancestors, the sabotage in invasion base on Barracuda Blues and earlier unexpected entry of Zolarg Empire into the war had left Overlord Betah'an with no choice other than launching a premature invasion.
In the heat of Human Civil War, Alpha Draconians sneaked groups of pioneer probes into human territory, constructed portal gates in the unnoticed corners where strongholds were set up for preparations of Overlord's surprise invasion plans.
Lords of Inner Circle had been trying to foil the Overlord's plan from the beginning. By a margin of rare opportunity, one covert operative affiliated to Lords of Inner Circle managed to sabotage the cloak device in secret base on planet Barracuda Blues, exposing the dormant portal and droid battlegroup at the site to United Earth and LIS military.
Upon the discovery of the unknown alien facility on Barracuda Blues, both United Earth and LIS dispatched their own task force trying to seize the alien technology that could change the tide of battle. Violent skirmishes broke out between two sides, contesting control of the facility.
As the news on Barracuda Blues were delivered to Zolarg Expeditionary Force. Familiar with Alpha Draconian cunning strategies, the Insectoids immediately identified the alien facility an Alpha Draconian invasion base. The Zolarg Expeditionary Force then sent their urgent message to LIS ally, warned that such discovery was a curse rather than blessing, and presented worries of this war involved orchestrations of Alpha Draconians, the greater evil they were yet to know.
Already at the edge of dishonoring the reptilian ancestors, the sabotage in invasion base on Barracuda Blues and earlier unexpected entry of Zolarg Empire into the war had left Overlord Betah'an with no choice other than launching a premature invasion.
Battle Against Alpha Draconians (2088-2089)
Caught off guard by surprise, near half of the human forces were obliterated by superior war machines of Alpha Draconians during the initial stage of Alpha Draconian invasion.
With a common enemy, military and political representatives of United Earth, LIS and Zolarg Expeditionary Force met on Earth. Shortly, ceasefire agreements were reached, and an temporary alliance against Alpha Draconian invasion was formed.
The alliance organized several joint operations to strategically delay Alpha Draconian invaders with varying outcome, buying time for LIS and United Earth to replenish losses and regroup respective fighting forces.
In mid 2089, United Earth finished reconstruction of the space armadas, later achieved decisive victories in several space battles against Alpha Draconian warfleets, regaining the space superiority and the tables turned to alliance's favor.
With support from United Earth fleets and exploiting the weakness of long replenishment cycle and inferior quantity of Alpha Draconian forces, alliance forces successfully overwhelmed Alpha Draconian forces, storming major invasion bases. The destruction of the largest but last portal gate stronghold during Battle of Barracuda Blues marked the decisive defeat of Alpha Draconian invaders.
Caught off guard by surprise, near half of the human forces were obliterated by superior war machines of Alpha Draconians during the initial stage of Alpha Draconian invasion.
With a common enemy, military and political representatives of United Earth, LIS and Zolarg Expeditionary Force met on Earth. Shortly, ceasefire agreements were reached, and an temporary alliance against Alpha Draconian invasion was formed.
The alliance organized several joint operations to strategically delay Alpha Draconian invaders with varying outcome, buying time for LIS and United Earth to replenish losses and regroup respective fighting forces.
In mid 2089, United Earth finished reconstruction of the space armadas, later achieved decisive victories in several space battles against Alpha Draconian warfleets, regaining the space superiority and the tables turned to alliance's favor.
With support from United Earth fleets and exploiting the weakness of long replenishment cycle and inferior quantity of Alpha Draconian forces, alliance forces successfully overwhelmed Alpha Draconian forces, storming major invasion bases. The destruction of the largest but last portal gate stronghold during Battle of Barracuda Blues marked the decisive defeat of Alpha Draconian invaders.
Continuation of Human Civil War (2089)
As Alpha Draconians called their fleets back to home territory and aborted control of droid armies following the defeat at Barracuda Blues, the temporary alliance finished its purpose and was then dismissed, both sides returned to status of conflict.
However, exhausted and tired of war, it was impossible to continue the war at the original massive, interstellar scale, both sides came up with conclusion that the war must be ended by an decisive battle as soon as possible.
Zolarg Empire then exited war by signing a white peace with United Earth weeks after the alliance had been dismissed.
At last, remaining main forces of United Earth and LIS coincidentally met near the strategically important wormhole highway node, over the planet of Kaiserground. After a week of fierce back-and-forth battle on the planet and in the orbit, United Earth gained complete control of the planet, setting LIS forces on a full retreat, concluding the final major battle in Human Civil War.
As Alpha Draconians called their fleets back to home territory and aborted control of droid armies following the defeat at Barracuda Blues, the temporary alliance finished its purpose and was then dismissed, both sides returned to status of conflict.
However, exhausted and tired of war, it was impossible to continue the war at the original massive, interstellar scale, both sides came up with conclusion that the war must be ended by an decisive battle as soon as possible.
Zolarg Empire then exited war by signing a white peace with United Earth weeks after the alliance had been dismissed.
At last, remaining main forces of United Earth and LIS coincidentally met near the strategically important wormhole highway node, over the planet of Kaiserground. After a week of fierce back-and-forth battle on the planet and in the orbit, United Earth gained complete control of the planet, setting LIS forces on a full retreat, concluding the final major battle in Human Civil War.
New Galactic Era
(2089-Present)
Following the end Human Civil War, marked a major shift in geopolitical patterns of the Milky Way Galaxy - Division of human civilization, decline of Alpha Draconian dominance, rise of the mysterious New Galactic Empire, various smaller civilizations began playing important roles in maintaining galactic balance......
Increasing importance of galactic-scale affairs in this era had reshaped the Milky Way Galaxy, which once again after billions of millenniums, the Milky Way Galaxy thrives under the interaction between civilizations.
New Galactic Era
Armistice of Hoxton (2089)
The Armistice of Hoxton officially ended the Human Civil War, despite an armistice in nature.
The armistice defined the United Earth-LIS border in the future, which the border line was known as the Hoxton Line.
To conclude, nobody achieved total victory in the Human Civil War, however, each side had their objectives completed respectively - United Earth won a tactical victory which LIS could no longer threaten United Earth territory, while LIS achieved their primary aim of independence and establishing a liberal, decentralized government.
The Armistice of Hoxton officially ended the Human Civil War, despite an armistice in nature.
The armistice defined the United Earth-LIS border in the future, which the border line was known as the Hoxton Line.
To conclude, nobody achieved total victory in the Human Civil War, however, each side had their objectives completed respectively - United Earth won a tactical victory which LIS could no longer threaten United Earth territory, while LIS achieved their primary aim of independence and establishing a liberal, decentralized government.
Official establishment of League of Independent States (2089)
The main body of the League of the Independent States, the League Council, was officially established 3 months after the Armistice of Hoxton was in effect. By the Joint Declaration of Independent States based on the core ideas of Independent Terra, The League promised fairness, respect, autonomy and freedom to member states.
The League of the Independent States had no actual leader in power. Instead, each member state cooperates under the common principles and shared pacts, bearing the common responsibilities protecting the free people of the League.
Though the establishment of LIS was officially recognized by their ally Zolarg Empire, the United Earth General Assembly declared they would never accept any form of human regime other than itself, the League being an unlawful existence that would threaten the unity and prosperity of mankind.
The main body of the League of the Independent States, the League Council, was officially established 3 months after the Armistice of Hoxton was in effect. By the Joint Declaration of Independent States based on the core ideas of Independent Terra, The League promised fairness, respect, autonomy and freedom to member states.
The League of the Independent States had no actual leader in power. Instead, each member state cooperates under the common principles and shared pacts, bearing the common responsibilities protecting the free people of the League.
Though the establishment of LIS was officially recognized by their ally Zolarg Empire, the United Earth General Assembly declared they would never accept any form of human regime other than itself, the League being an unlawful existence that would threaten the unity and prosperity of mankind.
The Midnight Coup (2089)
With the total defeat of invasion campaign, the core Reptilian society of Alpha Draconians lost all confidence in Overlord Betah'an. Shortly after the end of invasion the Overlord was assassinated by Inner Circle covert agents.
Following the death of the Overlord, the seat of supreme power of Alpha Draconians was then empty. Yet as every Lords of the Inner Circle wished to claim the ultimate trophy of power, political crises escalated to uncontrolled levels by the internal conflicts of the Inner Circle, which later spread all across the administrative body of Alpha Draconians, rendering all but basic administrations of the reptilian empire non-functional.
Catalyzed by the the absence of Overlord and internal political instability, order in Alpha Draconian society was barely maintained, leading to high crime rates and decreased domestic productivity in the following decades.
As a result, dominance of Alpha Draconians began to decline.
With the total defeat of invasion campaign, the core Reptilian society of Alpha Draconians lost all confidence in Overlord Betah'an. Shortly after the end of invasion the Overlord was assassinated by Inner Circle covert agents.
Following the death of the Overlord, the seat of supreme power of Alpha Draconians was then empty. Yet as every Lords of the Inner Circle wished to claim the ultimate trophy of power, political crises escalated to uncontrolled levels by the internal conflicts of the Inner Circle, which later spread all across the administrative body of Alpha Draconians, rendering all but basic administrations of the reptilian empire non-functional.
Catalyzed by the the absence of Overlord and internal political instability, order in Alpha Draconian society was barely maintained, leading to high crime rates and decreased domestic productivity in the following decades.
As a result, dominance of Alpha Draconians began to decline.
Emergence of New Galactic Empire (2089)
Several weeks after the Midnight Coup which had thrown Alpha Draconians into the tarpit of neverending political infighting, control and dominance over the foreign territories of Alpha Draconians were loosened which allowed several vassals and colony broke away with no immediate consequence.
However, majority of these territories were then annexed by another power, which emerged from the Central Vortex region of the Milky Way Galaxy - The New Galactic Empire.
Calling themselves the true descendants of the Ancients, they claimed themselves bearing the destiny to bring the entire galaxy under their grace, a mission of revival to bring the once lost glory of Old Galactic Empire back to life.
Despite lacking the dominating power to contest other major civilizations, the New Galactic Empire had actively been expanding their sphere of influence, and rumored to have unprecedented capacity harnessing the powers of the universe beyond the Ancient technologies.
Several weeks after the Midnight Coup which had thrown Alpha Draconians into the tarpit of neverending political infighting, control and dominance over the foreign territories of Alpha Draconians were loosened which allowed several vassals and colony broke away with no immediate consequence.
However, majority of these territories were then annexed by another power, which emerged from the Central Vortex region of the Milky Way Galaxy - The New Galactic Empire.
Calling themselves the true descendants of the Ancients, they claimed themselves bearing the destiny to bring the entire galaxy under their grace, a mission of revival to bring the once lost glory of Old Galactic Empire back to life.
Despite lacking the dominating power to contest other major civilizations, the New Galactic Empire had actively been expanding their sphere of influence, and rumored to have unprecedented capacity harnessing the powers of the universe beyond the Ancient technologies.
Bradley's Military Reform (2089-2094)
The new head of the United Earth Security Council, Bradley the Grand Marshal (which was the supreme commander throughout the Human Civil War), threw up a massive military reformation aimed to maintain superiority over the military capabilities of LIS, including expansion and reorganization of Space Marines, modernization of United Earth space fleets, introducing newer professionalism elements in military while maintaining the traditional expansive nature of United Earth military, and incorporation of newer doctrines derived from recent experiences in Civil War.
The new head of the United Earth Security Council, Bradley the Grand Marshal (which was the supreme commander throughout the Human Civil War), threw up a massive military reformation aimed to maintain superiority over the military capabilities of LIS, including expansion and reorganization of Space Marines, modernization of United Earth space fleets, introducing newer professionalism elements in military while maintaining the traditional expansive nature of United Earth military, and incorporation of newer doctrines derived from recent experiences in Civil War.
League Guild of Black Markets (2090)
As United Earth denied LIS from formal foreign trade outside the League territory by blockades along LIS border, LIS had to resort to black markets to maintain crucial supplies of high-end materials and economic activities, given different post-war difficulties suffered member states.
In 2090, the League Guild of Black Markets was established under the League Trade Authority to coordinate external trade beyond United Earth blockade, and management of domestic black market networks.
As United Earth denied LIS from formal foreign trade outside the League territory by blockades along LIS border, LIS had to resort to black markets to maintain crucial supplies of high-end materials and economic activities, given different post-war difficulties suffered member states.
In 2090, the League Guild of Black Markets was established under the League Trade Authority to coordinate external trade beyond United Earth blockade, and management of domestic black market networks.
Restoration of Overlord (2110)
Tired of political turmoils and displeased with absence of powerful supreme ruler, traditionalist nobles on Alpha Draconis collectively put pressure on the Inner Circle for restoration of Overlord, or risk denounced and outlawed by defiling the ancestors.
Fearing the wrath of ancestors, the Inner Circle reluctantly brought Delta'an the exiled brother of Betah'an back to Alpha Draconis, crowning Delta'an the next Overlord.
Despite an Overlord, Delta'an was merely a puppet of the Inner Circle, however, did brought relative stability to disorganized Alpha Draconian society at the time.
Tired of political turmoils and displeased with absence of powerful supreme ruler, traditionalist nobles on Alpha Draconis collectively put pressure on the Inner Circle for restoration of Overlord, or risk denounced and outlawed by defiling the ancestors.
Fearing the wrath of ancestors, the Inner Circle reluctantly brought Delta'an the exiled brother of Betah'an back to Alpha Draconis, crowning Delta'an the next Overlord.
Despite an Overlord, Delta'an was merely a puppet of the Inner Circle, however, did brought relative stability to disorganized Alpha Draconian society at the time.
Zolarg Scholars Journey to United Earth (2113)
A team of scholars from the Zolarg Empire, led by the Imperial High Scholar Abbamber, set off to United Earth for friendly diplomatic and scientific mission.
Scholars and scientists of the United Earth and the Zolarg Empire exchanged each other's technological advances and cultural knowledge. While Zolarg scholars earned precious knowledge which could help the technological development of the Zolarg Empire, the trip had also ceased the tensions since the Human Civil War between Zolarg and United Earth.
A team of scholars from the Zolarg Empire, led by the Imperial High Scholar Abbamber, set off to United Earth for friendly diplomatic and scientific mission.
Scholars and scientists of the United Earth and the Zolarg Empire exchanged each other's technological advances and cultural knowledge. While Zolarg scholars earned precious knowledge which could help the technological development of the Zolarg Empire, the trip had also ceased the tensions since the Human Civil War between Zolarg and United Earth.
Insectoid Mind Network Technology (2116)
A breakthrough in neuroscience research in the Zolarg Empire had led to an innovation - the Insectoid Mind Network, designed to foster understanding of consciousness and thinking mechanisms, and enhancing advanced, direct communication and coordination within Insectoid society.
A breakthrough in neuroscience research in the Zolarg Empire had led to an innovation - the Insectoid Mind Network, designed to foster understanding of consciousness and thinking mechanisms, and enhancing advanced, direct communication and coordination within Insectoid society.
Cyberonic Transcendence (2119)
A private United Earth research institute Transcendent Technology successfully prototyped Neuro-microchips (NMC), which were compatible with human neuro systems, small in size, but ten times more efficient than average human brains.
Such inventions initiated a new technological revolution in human civilization in artificial augmentations, impacting all aspects of life.
A private United Earth research institute Transcendent Technology successfully prototyped Neuro-microchips (NMC), which were compatible with human neuro systems, small in size, but ten times more efficient than average human brains.
Such inventions initiated a new technological revolution in human civilization in artificial augmentations, impacting all aspects of life.
Who knows what the future holds?
Note that these are just my own interpretations over the events, it is not official reference, but hopefully enhance your understanding over the My Colony Universe, and had fun reading it.
Thank you for reading!
I personally think that the ability to trade territories between players would be a great feature. I would say that in order for a territory to be sold from one colony to another, the buying colony needs to own territory adjacent to the territory being bought so that they can link up after the trade is made. The territory being bought would keep everything pertaining to it's individual map, except any capitals/consulates would represent their new owner.
Also, what if a colony could sacrifice one or more of it's maps/territories to invite another player into the region. The player would proceed to take over the territory(s) and it would become a colony all by itself. This could be useful if all space is taken up in a region, but one colony still wants to invite a friend. The map(s) would keep all of the data pertaining to themselves, structures, people, etc, and the new occupant could continue to buy more territories/maps from the other pre-existing occupants. Players should also be able to lend their colony out to other colonies in the same region, which could be useful if a player needs to go away for a while and needs someone to look after their colony. The lendee would be rewarded in some way for taking care of the colony, and then the lender could return at any time and cancel the lone. If you want i can make a thread for that idea in suggestions, since I have a lot of ideas for that potential feature.
Trade routes between two colonies on the same regions map could cost significantly less civics and could never require starships. I recall posting an entire thread devoted to this topic in the suggestions forum. Was a while ago though.
This last idea could be another benefit/risk of occupying the same region as other colonies. What if the entire region become loaded while just one of it's occupants is online? This would mean that all of the other colonies in the region would generate and consume resources even if only one colony is online. If everyone is offline, then the region unloads and no colonies produce or consume anything. This could be a blessing or a curse depending on a colony's situation.
Also, what if a colony could sacrifice one or more of it's maps/territories to invite another player into the region. The player would proceed to take over the territory(s) and it would become a colony all by itself. This could be useful if all space is taken up in a region, but one colony still wants to invite a friend. The map(s) would keep all of the data pertaining to themselves, structures, people, etc, and the new occupant could continue to buy more territories/maps from the other pre-existing occupants. Players should also be able to lend their colony out to other colonies in the same region, which could be useful if a player needs to go away for a while and needs someone to look after their colony. The lendee would be rewarded in some way for taking care of the colony, and then the lender could return at any time and cancel the lone. If you want i can make a thread for that idea in suggestions, since I have a lot of ideas for that potential feature.
Trade routes between two colonies on the same regions map could cost significantly less civics and could never require starships. I recall posting an entire thread devoted to this topic in the suggestions forum. Was a while ago though.
This last idea could be another benefit/risk of occupying the same region as other colonies. What if the entire region become loaded while just one of it's occupants is online? This would mean that all of the other colonies in the region would generate and consume resources even if only one colony is online. If everyone is offline, then the region unloads and no colonies produce or consume anything. This could be a blessing or a curse depending on a colony's situation.
This topic isn't meant to be a complaint, it's just my ideas of what could be done to improve on the existing planets' designs. I realize that bast isn't working very much on new content and I support that, since what he is doing now is better for the game than making new content. I just figured that I would cover all of the planets for my planet-hub topic. That way people can get my opinion of all the planets.
earthlike Planet specific ideas:
earthlike planet summary: I think that this planet is fine as it is. It's supposed to be a training planet that gives the user the perfect conditions to build a colony, so I think it should be left alone. There are some ideas that I have regarding all planets that also apply to this planet, but I don't have any ideas regarding this specific planet. I do believe that every race should have this planet type so the player can learn to play this race under the best conditions, with the exception of zolarg because they already have a world with the best conditions to grow, their just a harder species to manage overall. reptilians and LIS get the abandoned world, which is earthlike but doesn't have any ore.
Waterworld specific ideas:
Waterworld summary: This planet is really fun to play because you have to be carful how you design your colony layout. I wouldn't chancge anything about this planet and I'm not going to suggest anything because all of the ideas that I have bast is already going to implement soon. There are other ideas that pertain to all planets that apply here, but no specific ideas come to mind when thinking about this planet.
red planet specific ideas:
Red Planet Summary: I really like the simplicity of the map, and I like the laid-back feel that you get when playing it. I also like how quickly it allows you to grow your colony. There is not much more that I would like to see added to this planet aside from the general ideas that I have below that don't apply to any planet. This planet is very well-designed.
red badlands decorations: I think that the red planet map should generate decorations that resemble badlands structures, or weird rock structures that form because wind wears it down into awkward shapes. This should make the map aesthetically pleasing.
generated lake-bed rivers: per the dry lakebed tile idea below, i think that rivers of those tiles should be generated on red planet maps. This allows the red planet to become just like an earthlike planet once terraformed, with rivers that produce infinite amounts of water. It gives the map a more dynamic feel.
Dust storms: These planetwide storms can last for months and would make it more difficult to see your colony. Solar panels would stop working, but you could implement a windmil to take advantage of the storms and it would produce more during these storms than normally. You already have added the ability to block out light by subtracting alpha from an overlaying object to simulate night time. You could create another overlay object for storms and give it a reddish-tan hue. Then just add moving particle affects and wind sounds and your done. These should disappear once the planet is terraformed. There shouldn't be a damage factor to these storms as the dust is too fine to really wear anything down.
Dynamic Terraformation: I think that this planet type specifically could benefit from dynamic terraforming and should be the first to receive such a feature if added since it's one of the most played maps.
Lunar specific ideas:
Lunar Summary: Lunar world is my favorite map because you can jumpstart your colony before you even get your first immigrant. I like the fact that it's terraformable and the regolith challenge is fun as well. There are a few features that could be added to make this world more immersive though.
Jagged rock decos: Since a lunar planet has no atmosphere, it has no wind on it's surface to smooth and erode rocks, so you should see some really jagged rock formations. I think this would add some aesthetics.
craters: I think that large circular patches of darker terrain tiles should exist on the map. These terrain tiles would act the same as lakebed tiles in that they will become water tiles as atmosphere increases. Craters should be random sizes and distances between. I would even have them generate partially off of the map and across region maps to give a very appealing region view. This may might that craters could envelop most or all of some maps, and some maps might get no crater tiles at all, but that's the beauty of it. the player should also have the option to fill in a crater tile or water tile using regolith where they would otherwise use ore on other planets. The player should be able to turn regular tiles into crater tiles as well with the cost of money.
meteor showers: these showers would pummel structures below periodically. Any that land on empty tiles could generate regolith nodes and could have the chance to generate mini-craters that would fill with water upon terraforming, this is why I think we should have the ability to turn crater tiles to regular tiles, and vise versa. The damage from these meteors shouldn't be catastrophic, but it should cause some damage depending on the structure. These meteors should stop once atmosphere is above 1 mil.
Atmosphere leach: Since most planets like the moon aren't big enough to keep an atmosphere forever(there are exceptions), there should be a significant drain on atmosphere that must be compensated for. It could also be a benefit if a colony's atmosphere is too high though. A drain of 5k per minute would be a challenge at first, and you would have to beat that mark in order for condensors to operate.
Forest Planet ideas:
Forest Summary: I don't have much to say about this world, it's pretty straightforward albiet annoying at the start. Not really a big benefit to this world aside from the fact that you don't have to mess with the atmosphere at first until you get bigger. I'd honestly play abandoned before forest any day. Here are some ideas I have in mind though:
Rivers: this should be an addition. Any forest world requires lots of water in order for trees to grow.
mega trees: i think that mega-trees should generate on the map at first and begin to spread. Players could try to preserve these so that they'll have a huge supply later on. Once they they're gone, they're gone.
Asteroid planet ideas:
Asteroid summary:
I like the asteroid world. It's just like lunar, but harder since you don't have alu nodes. I used to play this world back before we had ways to get infinite diamonds. Might take a crack at it again to see how far I get. I have a few ideas regarding this world.
craters: the same concept as the lunar planet.
meteor showers: the same concept as lunar planet
Extreme atmosphere leech: asteroids are definately not large enough to keep an atmosphere for long. Because of this, they are drained by 50k per minute. 100 minutes is all it takes for an earthlike atmosphere level to drop to 0. Major benefit later in the game though when atmosphere is increased rapidly by pollution.
Awkward rotation: An asteroid has a very randomized shape in real life. it can be elongated, flat, and even spherical. Because of this, days and nights on this planet last for random times. Short nights lower colonist energy. Short days reduce happiness. long nights can increase colonist energy and long days can raise happiness. This amount increased or decreased would only apply if the length of a night or day goes past the minimum or maximum limits. if a limit is exceeded, the same amount of energy or hapiness is taken away or given, no matter how far past the limit a day or night is.
Abandoned World Ideas:
Abandoned Summary: I really like the abandoned world map, but my idea for a twilight themed abandoned world would add a mystic and ancient feel to the map. I'd like to see a much darker themed map than the light and cheery theme that it has now.
Rivers: aside form the twilight idea I would love to see rivers on this map.
Ice planet ideas:
Ice summary: I like the ice planet because it's a challenge to get through the crystalline bottleneck. I do have some ideas though:
glacial/ crystal decos: a slew of icy/crystalline decorations would look good for this planet.
unstable melting: When you heat up an ice planet, there's no telling where the oceans and rivers will form and where the actual land will be. Ice melts very unpredictably, so there should be no indication as to whether each tile is a lakebed or regular tile, but they should both still be there and have the same texture. It should be set up to where rivers will form as if randomly and instantly. This would be part of the real-life challenges of terraforming an ice planet, so would make sense here. Sometimes your colony gets destroyed just like in lava world, sometimes you get lucky.
Underwater crystal farm: This new building would need to straddle water and land and would be four-way rotatable so it can be placed in any orientation as long as the front 4 tiles are on water and the back 2 squares are on land. It is a 3x2 structure, and it consumes moderate amounts of water, crystalline, and alcohol to constantly produce large amounts of crystalline. The concept behind it is that some crystals grow faster in a water solution with the nutrients it needs to grow. Water also allows the crystals to grow much larger because gravity is much weaker in water as we all know. The fact that the structure would have to straddle land and water means that the planet will need to terraformed before a player can place on of these and get rid of their green crystals.
desert world:
desert summary: I don't have much to say about this map, haven't played reptilians that much. I do think that it could use some aesthetics though, just one flat plane of land is nothing to get all excited about. But here are some of the ideas that I have:
Yellow badlands decos: weird yellow rock forms, crackly ground, rough patches, and some shrubbery and cacti. These should randomly dot the landscape and would really up the aesthetics on this map.
Tar(oil) pits: instead of water flowing through the map, tar pits would give it a more desert feel, as you find these pits naturally in deserts. just like rivers on the earthlike planet yield infinite water, these pits should yield infinite oil. The major downfall with this benefit is that you need workers to collect the oil, and that can be pretty tedious and may slow down performance.
raise the atmosphere: Since deserts are supposed to be hot, we should raise the atmosphere to above earthlike. This also corrosponds to my thermal idea below. In addition to this, I would recommend adding a fully terraformed stage where atmosphere is reduce to between 5 mil and 15 mil. I'm not saying that deserts don't exist when atmosphere is at perfect levels because the saharrah wouldn't exist if that were true. It's just that since bast still hasn't added any thermal or moisture level factors to terraforming, I thought that lowering the atmosphere was good enough to simulate raising the moisture level and lowering thermal levels to make the planet cooler and wetter.
dry-lakebed tiles: I think that the dry lakebed tile idea would particularly help this planet as once it is terraformed from dessert to earthlike, you'll have rivers flowing through the landscape.
Sandstorms: Not to be confused with dust storms, the storms are much shorter, yet can be devastating to colonists and buildings. These storms should cause colonist sickness, slow down movement, and accelerate the decay of structures by a certain amount for the duration of the storm. Depending on the direction of the storm, walls placed on the map will block the storm from getting into your cities. It's best to surround your cities with walls so that you get as little exposure to the storms as possible, just an extra challenge. These storms should cease once atmosphere is reduced to earthlike and life is brought back to the planet.
Lava planet ideas:
lava summary: I liked this planet at one point, but I think it's rather pointless to play being that it doesn't have an end-goal and you're colony is never safe no matter how far down the atmosphere goes. My list of lava ideas on my planet hub topic should cover all of the ideas that I have for this planet, and they all still stand.
Fissure vents: These gigantic cracks in the planet spew forth ash and toxic gas into the atmosphere. Because of this, atmosphere is increased by 2 thousand atmosphere a minute, even if the atmosphere is reduced to between 5 and 15 mil, atmosphere will still pile up, requiring you to build more buildings that use up atmosphere to balance it out. The only thing that would need to be added is a passive loop that continuously counts down 60 seconds and then adds 2k to the atmosphere number value. Good luck terraforming this planet.
ideas for all existing planets:
Dry Lakebed Tiles: I've suggested this a few times, but basically dry lakebed tiles should replace water tiles in low and high atmosphere planets. These tiles can be built on, but watch out, because when atmosphere goes over 250k or falls under 30 million, these tiles will turn to water and any buildings on them will be destroyed. There should be an apparent difference in color shade or texture between regular tiles and the dry lakebed tiles. remaning Ice deposits should also turn into water deposits at the same atmosphere level.
Dynamic terraforming: I've mentioned this a couple of times too. It's simple, if atmosphere goes too low, the terraformed planet becomes barren, just as if it were a red or lunar planet; if atmosphere goes too high, then the planet becomes hotter, becoming first a dessert and then eventually a lava planet, with all the eruptions and lava spreading we know and love. . I also think that atmosphere requirements for all atmosphere stages for region games should be multiplied by the number of tiles on a region. This gives the player a longer playthrough and also encourages them to develop cities on every tile. I think that downside is worth it and it would be a fun challenge to work towards. I think that aside from the tiles changing texture, trees should generate across the map on empty space once atmosphere either rises past 5 mil or falls past 15 mil. I also think they should disappear while outside of those ranges.
Thermal factor: I feel like there should be some sort of challenge regarding keeping your colonists at a good temperature. Perhaps you could add a meter in statistics that indicates thermal level of the entire colony. Too hot or cold and your colonists will become sick and loose energy and hapiness. An earthlike planet, or any planet that's been terraformed to between 5 mil and 15 mil, will not affect the meter at least, but too much atmosphere and the meter will start to go up and too little atmosphere will start to subtract heat from the meter. You should be able to build coolers or heaters to supplement the loss or gain of temperature. Currently most planets start out at no atmosphere, which means that they will start out cold. Lava is the only planet that would add the the thermal meter at this time but I think that the desert type planet should have high atmosphere so it can add to the meter.
Regions acting as mc campaigns: Now, some people would disagree with me on this, but I think it's totally fair to call region mode and sort of "campaign mode." This is because with regions, you get a longer playthrough and it takes longer for you to develop the space given to you. I also think it's fair that region mode requires premium, as most well-developed apps offer a free trial(single map mode) and full version with campaign mode(region mode). Some of yall might disagree. but here are the main ideas that I have in mind:
- design random mandatory goals to have a chance to pop up for each tile a map occupies that grant the player money, research. civics, happiness, or other resources, kind of like quests. But these would be more like story-line quests. a medium map would contain four of these quests. These should take a decent amount of time to complete and should make the game progress slower.
- design smaller optional side-quests that pop up randomly occasionally and grant smaller bonuses.
- each tech should require a certain number of complete story-line quests before being unlocked, even if you have enough research. There would be only one quest per tile so this would encourage players to develop all the tiles to complete all of the available story quests.
-Make individual map progression depend on the completion of story quests. For instance, you can add a population cap that unlocks after the quest is complete, and for medium maps with four quests, you could increase the cap in increments to allow the player to develop further after each quest, but not indefinitely until all quests are complete.
Overall I think that these ideas for campaign mode should add a very interesting element to regions mode and would make it more worthwhile and entertaining to play and a player might be entertained for a very long time before becoming bored.
But anyway, those are my ideas. I wanted to go over each planet so that everything was covered in my planethub topic. I'll paste this link so yall can access it easily. Let me know what you think and which ideas you like/dislike.
earthlike Planet specific ideas:
earthlike planet summary: I think that this planet is fine as it is. It's supposed to be a training planet that gives the user the perfect conditions to build a colony, so I think it should be left alone. There are some ideas that I have regarding all planets that also apply to this planet, but I don't have any ideas regarding this specific planet. I do believe that every race should have this planet type so the player can learn to play this race under the best conditions, with the exception of zolarg because they already have a world with the best conditions to grow, their just a harder species to manage overall. reptilians and LIS get the abandoned world, which is earthlike but doesn't have any ore.
Waterworld specific ideas:
Waterworld summary: This planet is really fun to play because you have to be carful how you design your colony layout. I wouldn't chancge anything about this planet and I'm not going to suggest anything because all of the ideas that I have bast is already going to implement soon. There are other ideas that pertain to all planets that apply here, but no specific ideas come to mind when thinking about this planet.
red planet specific ideas:
Red Planet Summary: I really like the simplicity of the map, and I like the laid-back feel that you get when playing it. I also like how quickly it allows you to grow your colony. There is not much more that I would like to see added to this planet aside from the general ideas that I have below that don't apply to any planet. This planet is very well-designed.
red badlands decorations: I think that the red planet map should generate decorations that resemble badlands structures, or weird rock structures that form because wind wears it down into awkward shapes. This should make the map aesthetically pleasing.
generated lake-bed rivers: per the dry lakebed tile idea below, i think that rivers of those tiles should be generated on red planet maps. This allows the red planet to become just like an earthlike planet once terraformed, with rivers that produce infinite amounts of water. It gives the map a more dynamic feel.
Dust storms: These planetwide storms can last for months and would make it more difficult to see your colony. Solar panels would stop working, but you could implement a windmil to take advantage of the storms and it would produce more during these storms than normally. You already have added the ability to block out light by subtracting alpha from an overlaying object to simulate night time. You could create another overlay object for storms and give it a reddish-tan hue. Then just add moving particle affects and wind sounds and your done. These should disappear once the planet is terraformed. There shouldn't be a damage factor to these storms as the dust is too fine to really wear anything down.
Dynamic Terraformation: I think that this planet type specifically could benefit from dynamic terraforming and should be the first to receive such a feature if added since it's one of the most played maps.
Lunar specific ideas:
Lunar Summary: Lunar world is my favorite map because you can jumpstart your colony before you even get your first immigrant. I like the fact that it's terraformable and the regolith challenge is fun as well. There are a few features that could be added to make this world more immersive though.
Jagged rock decos: Since a lunar planet has no atmosphere, it has no wind on it's surface to smooth and erode rocks, so you should see some really jagged rock formations. I think this would add some aesthetics.
craters: I think that large circular patches of darker terrain tiles should exist on the map. These terrain tiles would act the same as lakebed tiles in that they will become water tiles as atmosphere increases. Craters should be random sizes and distances between. I would even have them generate partially off of the map and across region maps to give a very appealing region view. This may might that craters could envelop most or all of some maps, and some maps might get no crater tiles at all, but that's the beauty of it. the player should also have the option to fill in a crater tile or water tile using regolith where they would otherwise use ore on other planets. The player should be able to turn regular tiles into crater tiles as well with the cost of money.
meteor showers: these showers would pummel structures below periodically. Any that land on empty tiles could generate regolith nodes and could have the chance to generate mini-craters that would fill with water upon terraforming, this is why I think we should have the ability to turn crater tiles to regular tiles, and vise versa. The damage from these meteors shouldn't be catastrophic, but it should cause some damage depending on the structure. These meteors should stop once atmosphere is above 1 mil.
Atmosphere leach: Since most planets like the moon aren't big enough to keep an atmosphere forever(there are exceptions), there should be a significant drain on atmosphere that must be compensated for. It could also be a benefit if a colony's atmosphere is too high though. A drain of 5k per minute would be a challenge at first, and you would have to beat that mark in order for condensors to operate.
Forest Planet ideas:
Forest Summary: I don't have much to say about this world, it's pretty straightforward albiet annoying at the start. Not really a big benefit to this world aside from the fact that you don't have to mess with the atmosphere at first until you get bigger. I'd honestly play abandoned before forest any day. Here are some ideas I have in mind though:
Rivers: this should be an addition. Any forest world requires lots of water in order for trees to grow.
mega trees: i think that mega-trees should generate on the map at first and begin to spread. Players could try to preserve these so that they'll have a huge supply later on. Once they they're gone, they're gone.
Asteroid planet ideas:
Asteroid summary:
I like the asteroid world. It's just like lunar, but harder since you don't have alu nodes. I used to play this world back before we had ways to get infinite diamonds. Might take a crack at it again to see how far I get. I have a few ideas regarding this world.
craters: the same concept as the lunar planet.
meteor showers: the same concept as lunar planet
Extreme atmosphere leech: asteroids are definately not large enough to keep an atmosphere for long. Because of this, they are drained by 50k per minute. 100 minutes is all it takes for an earthlike atmosphere level to drop to 0. Major benefit later in the game though when atmosphere is increased rapidly by pollution.
Awkward rotation: An asteroid has a very randomized shape in real life. it can be elongated, flat, and even spherical. Because of this, days and nights on this planet last for random times. Short nights lower colonist energy. Short days reduce happiness. long nights can increase colonist energy and long days can raise happiness. This amount increased or decreased would only apply if the length of a night or day goes past the minimum or maximum limits. if a limit is exceeded, the same amount of energy or hapiness is taken away or given, no matter how far past the limit a day or night is.
Abandoned World Ideas:
Abandoned Summary: I really like the abandoned world map, but my idea for a twilight themed abandoned world would add a mystic and ancient feel to the map. I'd like to see a much darker themed map than the light and cheery theme that it has now.
Rivers: aside form the twilight idea I would love to see rivers on this map.
Ice planet ideas:
Ice summary: I like the ice planet because it's a challenge to get through the crystalline bottleneck. I do have some ideas though:
glacial/ crystal decos: a slew of icy/crystalline decorations would look good for this planet.
unstable melting: When you heat up an ice planet, there's no telling where the oceans and rivers will form and where the actual land will be. Ice melts very unpredictably, so there should be no indication as to whether each tile is a lakebed or regular tile, but they should both still be there and have the same texture. It should be set up to where rivers will form as if randomly and instantly. This would be part of the real-life challenges of terraforming an ice planet, so would make sense here. Sometimes your colony gets destroyed just like in lava world, sometimes you get lucky.
Underwater crystal farm: This new building would need to straddle water and land and would be four-way rotatable so it can be placed in any orientation as long as the front 4 tiles are on water and the back 2 squares are on land. It is a 3x2 structure, and it consumes moderate amounts of water, crystalline, and alcohol to constantly produce large amounts of crystalline. The concept behind it is that some crystals grow faster in a water solution with the nutrients it needs to grow. Water also allows the crystals to grow much larger because gravity is much weaker in water as we all know. The fact that the structure would have to straddle land and water means that the planet will need to terraformed before a player can place on of these and get rid of their green crystals.
desert world:
desert summary: I don't have much to say about this map, haven't played reptilians that much. I do think that it could use some aesthetics though, just one flat plane of land is nothing to get all excited about. But here are some of the ideas that I have:
Yellow badlands decos: weird yellow rock forms, crackly ground, rough patches, and some shrubbery and cacti. These should randomly dot the landscape and would really up the aesthetics on this map.
Tar(oil) pits: instead of water flowing through the map, tar pits would give it a more desert feel, as you find these pits naturally in deserts. just like rivers on the earthlike planet yield infinite water, these pits should yield infinite oil. The major downfall with this benefit is that you need workers to collect the oil, and that can be pretty tedious and may slow down performance.
raise the atmosphere: Since deserts are supposed to be hot, we should raise the atmosphere to above earthlike. This also corrosponds to my thermal idea below. In addition to this, I would recommend adding a fully terraformed stage where atmosphere is reduce to between 5 mil and 15 mil. I'm not saying that deserts don't exist when atmosphere is at perfect levels because the saharrah wouldn't exist if that were true. It's just that since bast still hasn't added any thermal or moisture level factors to terraforming, I thought that lowering the atmosphere was good enough to simulate raising the moisture level and lowering thermal levels to make the planet cooler and wetter.
dry-lakebed tiles: I think that the dry lakebed tile idea would particularly help this planet as once it is terraformed from dessert to earthlike, you'll have rivers flowing through the landscape.
Sandstorms: Not to be confused with dust storms, the storms are much shorter, yet can be devastating to colonists and buildings. These storms should cause colonist sickness, slow down movement, and accelerate the decay of structures by a certain amount for the duration of the storm. Depending on the direction of the storm, walls placed on the map will block the storm from getting into your cities. It's best to surround your cities with walls so that you get as little exposure to the storms as possible, just an extra challenge. These storms should cease once atmosphere is reduced to earthlike and life is brought back to the planet.
Lava planet ideas:
lava summary: I liked this planet at one point, but I think it's rather pointless to play being that it doesn't have an end-goal and you're colony is never safe no matter how far down the atmosphere goes. My list of lava ideas on my planet hub topic should cover all of the ideas that I have for this planet, and they all still stand.
Fissure vents: These gigantic cracks in the planet spew forth ash and toxic gas into the atmosphere. Because of this, atmosphere is increased by 2 thousand atmosphere a minute, even if the atmosphere is reduced to between 5 and 15 mil, atmosphere will still pile up, requiring you to build more buildings that use up atmosphere to balance it out. The only thing that would need to be added is a passive loop that continuously counts down 60 seconds and then adds 2k to the atmosphere number value. Good luck terraforming this planet.
ideas for all existing planets:
Dry Lakebed Tiles: I've suggested this a few times, but basically dry lakebed tiles should replace water tiles in low and high atmosphere planets. These tiles can be built on, but watch out, because when atmosphere goes over 250k or falls under 30 million, these tiles will turn to water and any buildings on them will be destroyed. There should be an apparent difference in color shade or texture between regular tiles and the dry lakebed tiles. remaning Ice deposits should also turn into water deposits at the same atmosphere level.
Dynamic terraforming: I've mentioned this a couple of times too. It's simple, if atmosphere goes too low, the terraformed planet becomes barren, just as if it were a red or lunar planet; if atmosphere goes too high, then the planet becomes hotter, becoming first a dessert and then eventually a lava planet, with all the eruptions and lava spreading we know and love. . I also think that atmosphere requirements for all atmosphere stages for region games should be multiplied by the number of tiles on a region. This gives the player a longer playthrough and also encourages them to develop cities on every tile. I think that downside is worth it and it would be a fun challenge to work towards. I think that aside from the tiles changing texture, trees should generate across the map on empty space once atmosphere either rises past 5 mil or falls past 15 mil. I also think they should disappear while outside of those ranges.
Thermal factor: I feel like there should be some sort of challenge regarding keeping your colonists at a good temperature. Perhaps you could add a meter in statistics that indicates thermal level of the entire colony. Too hot or cold and your colonists will become sick and loose energy and hapiness. An earthlike planet, or any planet that's been terraformed to between 5 mil and 15 mil, will not affect the meter at least, but too much atmosphere and the meter will start to go up and too little atmosphere will start to subtract heat from the meter. You should be able to build coolers or heaters to supplement the loss or gain of temperature. Currently most planets start out at no atmosphere, which means that they will start out cold. Lava is the only planet that would add the the thermal meter at this time but I think that the desert type planet should have high atmosphere so it can add to the meter.
Regions acting as mc campaigns: Now, some people would disagree with me on this, but I think it's totally fair to call region mode and sort of "campaign mode." This is because with regions, you get a longer playthrough and it takes longer for you to develop the space given to you. I also think it's fair that region mode requires premium, as most well-developed apps offer a free trial(single map mode) and full version with campaign mode(region mode). Some of yall might disagree. but here are the main ideas that I have in mind:
- design random mandatory goals to have a chance to pop up for each tile a map occupies that grant the player money, research. civics, happiness, or other resources, kind of like quests. But these would be more like story-line quests. a medium map would contain four of these quests. These should take a decent amount of time to complete and should make the game progress slower.
- design smaller optional side-quests that pop up randomly occasionally and grant smaller bonuses.
- each tech should require a certain number of complete story-line quests before being unlocked, even if you have enough research. There would be only one quest per tile so this would encourage players to develop all the tiles to complete all of the available story quests.
-Make individual map progression depend on the completion of story quests. For instance, you can add a population cap that unlocks after the quest is complete, and for medium maps with four quests, you could increase the cap in increments to allow the player to develop further after each quest, but not indefinitely until all quests are complete.
Overall I think that these ideas for campaign mode should add a very interesting element to regions mode and would make it more worthwhile and entertaining to play and a player might be entertained for a very long time before becoming bored.
But anyway, those are my ideas. I wanted to go over each planet so that everything was covered in my planethub topic. I'll paste this link so yall can access it easily. Let me know what you think and which ideas you like/dislike.
its not a matter of what i want in this case this is one of 3 ways that causes the issue of the failed to save city bug ,
((((( A city you can no longer enter .))))
The biggest problem is having two saves happing at the same time one your in city and exit starts saving . two you are now in region view and it starts saving as well . If the region save Finishes Before the city save does the city CAN NOT finish its save so you can no longer enter it .
so 3 different things can cause the failed to save city bug that is one
the second is a city set to compress OR set to NON compress and the region being set oppsite city compress region not - region compress city not .
and 3 city auto saving wile you exit and region saving at the same time .
In order to fix this issue bast will need to have region save wate 5 seconds Before it even starts its save as a FILLED city can take 5 - 7 seconds to save and Regions takes at most 3 seconds no matter how many citys it has .
and have it so what every setting regions is on each city starts in .
And in order for people to NOT mess up there own game as even 5 seconds is forever to them he could add a HUGE saving game WATE splashed accross the screen ,
anyway the biggest most common reason for a failed to save city is regions finishing ITS save FIRST and exiting a built up city can easly cause that issue .
((((( A city you can no longer enter .))))
The biggest problem is having two saves happing at the same time one your in city and exit starts saving . two you are now in region view and it starts saving as well . If the region save Finishes Before the city save does the city CAN NOT finish its save so you can no longer enter it .
so 3 different things can cause the failed to save city bug that is one
the second is a city set to compress OR set to NON compress and the region being set oppsite city compress region not - region compress city not .
and 3 city auto saving wile you exit and region saving at the same time .
In order to fix this issue bast will need to have region save wate 5 seconds Before it even starts its save as a FILLED city can take 5 - 7 seconds to save and Regions takes at most 3 seconds no matter how many citys it has .
and have it so what every setting regions is on each city starts in .
And in order for people to NOT mess up there own game as even 5 seconds is forever to them he could add a HUGE saving game WATE splashed accross the screen ,
anyway the biggest most common reason for a failed to save city is regions finishing ITS save FIRST and exiting a built up city can easly cause that issue .
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!
Recently I’ve experienced some issues with my multiplayer region and my commonwealth
Before I start here is some info :
I’m playing on my iPhone 7+
The region is called United Earth(idk why it let me name it like that)
The commonwealth is called Constantinopla
When I started the multiplayer region nothing seemed off but once I got my independence from my starting charter and created my own I look at the galactic map and noticed my region wasn’t registering my commonwealth and all that appeared was “Commonwealth of” this seemed pretty off but I didn’t make much about it but recently Aussie Uprising [NOZ] joined my commonwealth and alerted me that you couldn’t find my colony nor my region in Coloniae and that is weird cause I have the sync on and so I told Aussie about other issues I’ve been having and Aussie told me that they aren’t normal and I should write a forum report. The other issues I’ve faced are:
1 I can’t change the name of my region, when I click on the stats nothing happens like absolutely nothing
2 I accidentally opened my metro and I didn’t want to do that so when I clicked it again it wouldn’t let me it just stayed open it wouldn’t let me close it, so far nobody has leached on and stolen all my resources but it would be pretty inconvenient if it does happen
Before I start here is some info :
I’m playing on my iPhone 7+
The region is called United Earth(idk why it let me name it like that)
The commonwealth is called Constantinopla
When I started the multiplayer region nothing seemed off but once I got my independence from my starting charter and created my own I look at the galactic map and noticed my region wasn’t registering my commonwealth and all that appeared was “Commonwealth of” this seemed pretty off but I didn’t make much about it but recently Aussie Uprising [NOZ] joined my commonwealth and alerted me that you couldn’t find my colony nor my region in Coloniae and that is weird cause I have the sync on and so I told Aussie about other issues I’ve been having and Aussie told me that they aren’t normal and I should write a forum report. The other issues I’ve faced are:
1 I can’t change the name of my region, when I click on the stats nothing happens like absolutely nothing
2 I accidentally opened my metro and I didn’t want to do that so when I clicked it again it wouldn’t let me it just stayed open it wouldn’t let me close it, so far nobody has leached on and stolen all my resources but it would be pretty inconvenient if it does happen
@bastecklein
At this time (0.97), Region map have some little problem:
Now, from what i can see, when we build a city, at some point (not sure if append when we build, or save, or we return to region), the game make a list, a table contain all the resources processed, consumed and produced, with population and storage, but not population statistics, approval rating, ecc
After all this bla bla bla, i have some suggestion, just to temporarily fix the problem, without totally rework the region filesystem (i hope.. :D ):
At this time (0.97), Region map have some little problem:
- Production update: same situation with production, atm i produce oil only in few converter map, not sure why (i miss around 800k for min).. same thing with Painting.
- Phantom building: sometime (to often), when we delete building (i got report to even phantom city), the region system will continue to pretend that it still exists.
- Harvest random: In my draconian colony for ether, the harvest is.. strange, the real production change randomly, pretty strange.
- And the last little problem: when we close a city before the worker have the time to settle (can be need it even some hours.. 2-3h should be ok).
Now, from what i can see, when we build a city, at some point (not sure if append when we build, or save, or we return to region), the game make a list, a table contain all the resources processed, consumed and produced, with population and storage, but not population statistics, approval rating, ecc
After all this bla bla bla, i have some suggestion, just to temporarily fix the problem, without totally rework the region filesystem (i hope.. :D ):
- Hard recheck city function:
When used, will delete the old table and make a new one, forcing the check to every city, one by one. Every city actually located in the region map, will be open (not graphic, just textually), everything inside listed.
Will need some time, but should fix most of the problem, like the phantom building/city. - Soft recheck city function:
Unlike the first hard rechek, this option just try to update the table, not make a new one, could be fix the storage update, and other "easy" problem. - Stabilize time
A building with worker need some time to settle, this time should be reduced a lot. Is a nice thing in normal map, but in region map, can be a problem, because people see all building full with worker, thinking everything is ok, but it is not...
Hello,
Haven't play since a year, first bad new half of my local save are gone, I tried to open my region map, but nothing worked.
Only save .mcz ( of 2mo) work, I save it to a .mcr ( of 7mo) and in the cloud. (Save .mcr in server cloud is 11mo but can't download it).
Region opened but I have a message for each Map in region: '' region still loading ".
all my map in my region:
server cloud have only that :
my first wish, get back all my map if possible, if not, only the big one, it's my capitol worked many hours to made it. It's the most fabulous of my creation.
At least, if nothing is possible, send all my rss to a new region map ...
But commonwealth charter change every time !! Can't create a new map, the game never save it successfully
Please help me
Haven't play since a year, first bad new half of my local save are gone, I tried to open my region map, but nothing worked.
Only save .mcz ( of 2mo) work, I save it to a .mcr ( of 7mo) and in the cloud. (Save .mcr in server cloud is 11mo but can't download it).
Region opened but I have a message for each Map in region: '' region still loading ".
all my map in my region:
server cloud have only that :
my first wish, get back all my map if possible, if not, only the big one, it's my capitol worked many hours to made it. It's the most fabulous of my creation.
At least, if nothing is possible, send all my rss to a new region map ...
But commonwealth charter change every time !! Can't create a new map, the game never save it successfully
Please help me
Start with a small city to start out then after getting base level of stuff setup what not. Then could pay to build more cities in the region area.
Also add in tech for region area for site we do not get to go into but could hold storage for things. Give a linking building to be built in the city mode so it can feed over load to the region and also pull from region.
There is a large number of things I could see in the region area that would need resources from the cities to build.
Also add in tech for region area for site we do not get to go into but could hold storage for things. Give a linking building to be built in the city mode so it can feed over load to the region and also pull from region.
There is a large number of things I could see in the region area that would need resources from the cities to build.
Would be nice if we could. Wouldn't take much programming to make that happen I wouldn't think. It's just the same as transcribing the details from you single-map colony onto one of the maps of a region. A large colony should take up 9 squares(3x3) while a mega map should take up 16(4x4) squares. I know that on regions maps you currently only have an option for small and medium maps, but there should be a compromise here to allow player's who have have mega maps to add theirs to a region game. At least that would be the only map in the entire region of that size, and the mega map would possibly be the least used since the player is probably looking to spread out.
In the future, when bast adds terrain features that crisscross through all of the maps of a region, if we ever get the ability to upgrade a single map to a region, the terrain seed in that single map should be applied to the entire region, thus making the terrain features look natural and uniform. I know there may not be a seed for generation of terrain now, but there should be, in order for people to control how terrain generates if they need to.
In the future, when bast adds terrain features that crisscross through all of the maps of a region, if we ever get the ability to upgrade a single map to a region, the terrain seed in that single map should be applied to the entire region, thus making the terrain features look natural and uniform. I know there may not be a seed for generation of terrain now, but there should be, in order for people to control how terrain generates if they need to.
i would really love the feature. but one main concern to think on would be, what if one of the players gets inactive? i really love the concept but if a region gets filled with dead cities, it wont be as much fun. maybe, you can annex the other cities created by the friends, might cost civics, rather than free creation of cities on region. and again. if its a group of players, a single region might not be enough :P
later on, if region can as well be expanded, it would be cool but thats too far fetched rn.
also, as you are working on trade routes, and you have mentioned that starships will finally have some use, maybe inter-region trade routes can be done without them, for they are in same region and you don't need a starship to transport good.
later on, if region can as well be expanded, it would be cool but thats too far fetched rn.
also, as you are working on trade routes, and you have mentioned that starships will finally have some use, maybe inter-region trade routes can be done without them, for they are in same region and you don't need a starship to transport good.
Was playing earlier and went to use my stargate to order up several hundred thousand units of wood.
Shifted over to build a bunch of things in another section of the region and decided I needed more wood.
Went back to my section of the region with the stargate and when i clicked on the import icon, nothing... tried it with the black market bazaar... nothing.
Saved and closed the game.
Logged back into the game and now if I click on that region with the stargate, it won't enter it. It goes through the loading screen then dumps me back to the main region.
I can select every other section of my region but the central one that i started in with the stargate.
Windows 10.
Current version 0.81.0
Shifted over to build a bunch of things in another section of the region and decided I needed more wood.
Went back to my section of the region with the stargate and when i clicked on the import icon, nothing... tried it with the black market bazaar... nothing.
Saved and closed the game.
Logged back into the game and now if I click on that region with the stargate, it won't enter it. It goes through the loading screen then dumps me back to the main region.
I can select every other section of my region but the central one that i started in with the stargate.
Windows 10.
Current version 0.81.0
I downloaded an update tonight and now I can’t play a region map. It lets me start the first city within the region, however when I open the city the screen goes black and the whole game freezes. I am having the same problem in My Colony. My only option in either game is to play a single city map. It happened after the multiplayer region update in My Colony. In Antiquitas it happened with the most recent update. I love these games!! I can’t imagine that I’m the only one on iOS having this problem, but I haven’t found anyone else. I desperately want to play a region map again! Any suggestions or comments from people having the same problem would be welcome. I haven’t been able to play a region map in My Colony for at least a month. I’m feeling a little desperate and frustrated.
Jenna
Jenna
Is that in multiplayer region, or single regular region?
If single player normal region, seems to be a bug, so can you post the screenshots of Stat page here?
In multiplayer region, resources are only shared between adjacent cities.
There also seems to be various issues with multiplayer region in general due to being experimental.
If single player normal region, seems to be a bug, so can you post the screenshots of Stat page here?
In multiplayer region, resources are only shared between adjacent cities.
There also seems to be various issues with multiplayer region in general due to being experimental.
From your post how it's way more detailed in the city view when you go into your individual cities. Take that menu and bring it out. When I'm in the region view I'd really like to see the totals like you do in city views. That way I know if my region as a whole is producing more or consuming more of this.
Hopefully that makes sense? Not sure if I scrambled that up.
Basically want the detailed numbers in the city view bring it out to regions.
Give us a total so we know if all of our owned cities in a region are producing/consuming.
So you're in Region 1.
You have cities A, B, & C.
Regional resource view of ONLY your owned cities not others in the Region 1:
City A- -1000 aluminum, -500 food
city B +2000 aluminum, -500 food
City C +1000 gold, +1500 food
Regional total-
+1k aluminum
+1k gold
+500 food
Instead of having to to click into each city keeping mental note of what their consuming for food then going over to my Farm city and making sure I'm producing ample supply.
I would just look at my regional chart and see much more quickly, ah okay my regional is +500 food so obviously all my cities are good on food.
Hopefully that makes sense? Not sure if I scrambled that up.
Basically want the detailed numbers in the city view bring it out to regions.
Give us a total so we know if all of our owned cities in a region are producing/consuming.
So you're in Region 1.
You have cities A, B, & C.
Regional resource view of ONLY your owned cities not others in the Region 1:
City A- -1000 aluminum, -500 food
city B +2000 aluminum, -500 food
City C +1000 gold, +1500 food
Regional total-
+1k aluminum
+1k gold
+500 food
Instead of having to to click into each city keeping mental note of what their consuming for food then going over to my Farm city and making sure I'm producing ample supply.
I would just look at my regional chart and see much more quickly, ah okay my regional is +500 food so obviously all my cities are good on food.